Jan tapped over the control panel. "I can’t. They disconnected it at the source. The cameraman is probably dead."
Sarah spoke in a hollow voice. "It has begun."
"Get her out of here," the chancellor barked to his troops from the front of the auditorium. He pointed at Gwen.
The guards grabbed her by the arms and began to escort her out of the room.
Feeling the iron grips around her biceps, Gwen squirmed and flailed in protest. Her mind raced with confusion, anger, and concern, all mixed with a million questions. "Father, what happened?" She couldn’t think of anything more pertinent to say.
He turned toward her briefly before shifting his gaze to a nearby guardsman.
In that glimpse, looking at his eyes, she saw the coldness that drained all emotion from his face. It frightened her. "I want to be here," she said.
Her father ignored her pleas. Two guards squeezed her arms hard and yanked her toward the exit.
But before she was out of the room, Samantha walked past. "Sam, don’t let them take me!" she pleaded. "I know you can stop this."
Samantha glared at her with a coldness that matched that of Gwen’s father. "You will understand later why you were taken away."
"You can’t let them hurt Seth," she pleaded. "Can I still trust you?"
Samantha moved over and stood in front of her. The guards held her firmly.
"I can’t guarantee anything," Samantha said. "Seth and Chloe are vital to our cause. Your father will explain everything to you, but later. Please go with the guards." With a flick of her wrist, she signaled the guards to take Gwen out of the building.
Inside Gwen, every thought and emotion turned into wrath as she watched Samantha waving to the guards. Samantha Burns did not command her. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. Using the guard’s firm grip to brace her arms, she kicked her feet with all her strength at Samantha and caught her in the midsection.
Samantha doubled over, winded. She sank to one knee and wheezed several labored breaths.
Immediately, the guards yanked Gwen out of the auditorium and into a waiting hovercar.
After a series of twists and turns of her torso, she realized—as she heard the hum of the hovercar speeding away—it was useless to continue to struggle, and she relaxed her tense muscles. She was alone in the back of the car. They had sent her to Lunara, hidden this from her, betrayed her, and she could do nothing about it.
For now.
Chloe stared in horror as Samantha Burns walked along the back of the auditorium. The hate that emanated from the woman created an aura around her that Chloe had a hard time ignoring.
The room was utter chaos. Women were screaming, men were pleading for release, and troops were barking orders at them. The perimeter troops controlled all the exits. The Aethpis and Zephyrian guards used the threat of their electrostick to secure the delegates. The minister, his wife, and Kyle Cortez were on their knees at the front table. Seth was also on his knees, unable to do anything.
Chloe’s mind raced with anger. The chancellor had successfully tricked them into pinning this entire ordeal on Minister Cortez. She wanted to crawl into the largest hole on Mars and never be found.
Samantha came around the far side of the room and stared at Seth for a long moment. She smiled and moved toward them, continuing to watch Seth.
Chloe tried to probe her mind, but Samantha’s anger was too great. Approaching them, Samantha’s thoughts became clearer; she was thinking of Gwen with regret and anger.
From behind, the guards cuffed them.
"I see they put you on your knees," Samantha said with smugness. "That should safely repress any of your acrophobia episodes."
"Everything all right with Gwen?" Chloe replied.
Samantha bit her lip and tightened the muscles in her arm. A stream of wrath knifed from her mind.
Chloe smirked, knowing she had hit a sore spot.
Samantha didn’t stalk toward her for revenge. Instead, she moved to Seth, knelt beside him, and then cupped his chin with her right hand and held the back of his head with her left. He struggled, but she held his head in place and glowered directly at Chloe just before she kissed his resisting lips.
"Stop that!" Chloe hissed but immediately regretted it, realizing that Samantha had successfully goaded her into a desperate reply.
"I don’t know. I would let Gwen take him after we were done, but I should keep him for myself. He is a sturdy man. He can provide me with a strong child." She moved her hand down between his legs.
Seth twisted his body to avoid her gesture. "Never. You would be better off mating with a horse."
Chloe shuffled on her knees, kicked her foot toward Samantha but missed by a long stretch and tumbled to the ground. Without hesitation, the guard knelt beside her, pressing his rifle against her neck. She groaned.
Samantha let out a whimper of a warning to the guard, but Seth was too fast for him and kicked his foot out, slamming it hard into the guard’s exposed ankle and returning to his original position before anyone could react.
The guard squealed in pain and dropped to the ground.
Samantha moved several paces back from Seth.
"Guardsmen!" she called out to a trio of soldiers lined up along the wall. They hustled over to the group. "The fun is over. Take this officer to the medical ward," she said, indicating the injured soldier. Then she gestured to Seth and Chloe. "Pull her up beside him again and watch them. Don’t injure them. Just keep them in line. If they give you trouble, find me."
Created by fear and panic, the smell of sweat filled the auditorium, forcing Seth to cringe his nose.
Dismay soaked through him as the Zephyrian forces took control. The room split into two sections. The first section was the crowd of guests who had been dining on the main floor area. A circle of troops held them in check. The soldiers scurried to empty the head table, and everyone, from the unimportant people to the chancellor, moved to the floor.
At the table, Thomas Cross set up a command station and read data from some sort of tracking system. Seth tried, but he couldn’t determine what he was looking at on the screen.
Seth was situated in the second section. Minister Cortez, his wife, Erebria Cortez, and his son Kyle Cortez were to his left, positioned directly in front. Chloe was close to him to the right side. A number of guards were close by, some of whom aimed their sonic rifles toward him. Not surprising, after what he had done to the soldier only minutes before.
Immediately behind him, too far away, the chancellor—with his personal platoon of troops between him and any danger—talked inaudibly with Samantha. Even though Seth couldn’t hear him, a quick appraisal of the look on his face made it clear that he was pleased.
Twenty or so minutes had passed since the uproar began, and the crowd had settled down to a dull roar from their hysteria. The troops ordered them to take their seats and keep quiet, using electrosticks to coerce the crowd into compliance. The cameraman who had been filming the event lay in the corner of the room with a large welt on his neck. Seth wondered if a stun that close to the neck would cause permanent damage.
Seth fretted. The plan had worked to perfection for the Zephyrians. No, not the Zephyrians—he couldn’t believe that the Zephyrian colony would stand for this blatant act of terror. The chancellor had acted on this own accord using people from both colonies. Thomas Cross’s involvement proved Aethpis had sympathizers. How had they deceived me so easily? thought Seth. What could I have seen differently?
He shook his head. Chloe had been right. He should have paused for only a moment and rationally thought over the evidence. The chancellor had railroaded him and played him for a fool.
He was a fool. Even with the brutal treatment of the people in the crowd, the way Samantha had mocked Chloe, and the chancellor’s conspiracy, Seth was most angry with himself. He had let them manipulate him into saying those lies on the holotube. Chloe warned him, but he had been too impatient gathering the truth. The lies suited his des
ire for personal assurances.
"It wasn’t your fault. We were both fooled," Chloe whispered to him. "I should have seen his intentions when we talked earlier with Samantha. My fears blinded me."
"Your abilities aren’t as reliable as simple logic. I was the fool. I let the entire planet down, and I disgraced Lunara."
"We will atone for it," she reassured him. The guards nudged them with the tips of their rifles, signaling them to remain silent.
"May we have your attention?" Samantha said over the public address system.
The room fell silent, eerily silent considering the hundreds of people in the giant auditorium. The chancellor moved toward the center in front of where the Cortez family was being held. As Thomas Cross walked toward the chancellor, carrying a single datapad, Seth’s heartbeat synchronized with the booming echo of Cross’s boots as they thumped against the floor. The agonizing twenty steps pulled on his chest.
After the chancellor took the datapad from Cross, he flipped it open, stared at it for a few moments, and lifted his head toward the crowd.
"The following people will take their place beside the minister and his family when I call out your names." He paused. "Consul Peter Reilly."
A man in the crowd stood; his face was ashen. The man kissed his wife and moved up to the front.
"Consul Marcus Black." Another man stood, looking as distressed as the first. A few bystanders consoled the man’s wife. The chancellor called up three more men and one woman. As each was called, they would all try to put on a proud face in the hope that the crowd would settle and relax. It was false heroics, but Seth envied their attempts to be brave in a dire situation.
Judging by the titles of all the people called, they were obvious threats to the chancellor’s power. All but one were consuls from Aethpis Colony; the lone Zephyrian called to the front was a mayor of one of the domed communities.
"Diplomatic Aide Sarah Cortez."
The room went silent.
The chancellor called a number of times more, but no one moved or attempted to point out her location.
Seth had forgotten that name. He had talked to Parker about her after their meeting aboard the Protector, and he had a hunch that Parker liked her. She was the final member of the Cortez family. Seth smirked; finally, the chancellor had hit a bump in the road.
"What is the matter, Chancellor? Can’t find someone on your list?" After his voice echoed through the auditorium, Seth wished that he had remained silent.
"Quiet!" the chancellor yelled from the center of the room. "Samantha, would you show him what I do with insubordination."
Samantha moved over toward Chloe and grabbed her hair, pulling her head back to expose her neck. Samantha slid out an electrostick from her side. She fingered the control settings. "This is the lowest setting." The tip lit up with a blue streak.
"You won’t hurt her, you need us," Seth said, trying to bait him.
"We need her alive. A little pain will not deter us or lower her usefulness. We know your weakness! Her."
He lowered his eyes.
The electrostick moved in toward her neck, and Chloe tried to track it. Then her eyes darted to him. He could do nothing for her. The blue streak leaped out.
She squealed, a horrific terrible squeal, and with one swift twitch she fell to the floor.
He pulled his fists into tight balls, and with a short quick breath he used every ounce of control to hold back and not lash out at the soldiers within a five-meter radius of him. If he acted out again, Chloe would suffer.
The guards picked her up, and he looked into her glassy eyes. Her shock and pain was reflected in them. For the next little while, she wouldn’t be entirely at the gala.
"Now, I hope that is a lesson for you," the chancellor barked.
Samantha pushed Chloe toward Seth and took her place back behind him.
"Stop this!" The minister spoke for the first time. "Sarah did not attend the gala this evening. You are wasting your time trying to find her. She is probably in the deepest hole on Mars figuring out a way to pay you back. And she will succeed."
"Be silent," the chancellor ordered. "She is of minor concern. She doesn’t need to be here for my plan to be complete." He paced back and forth, giving the impression of being deep in thought.
Seth could tell he was being dramatic, flaunting his superior position of the moment.
"You must be wondering why I have gone to this extreme," the chancellor said. "I love Mars, and I love the people of Mars. Over the last several years, Aethpis Colony has been using its resources inappropriately. Mr. Smith pointed out these anomalies as evidence.
"When people left Earth because of the Great Impact, we struggled for two hundred years to make Mars our new home. We built glorious colonies, both Aethpis and Zephyria. We are in the process of terraforming Mars into a more terrene environment, and ironically, we mine the meteor fragments from the same meteor cluster that destroyed Earth’s civilization.
"Unbeknownst to everyone, those meteors turned out to be more special than any of you realize. Seth and Chloe," he pointed toward them, "are the first and presently the only two people to evolve into a greater human than we could have ever thought possible. Seth is strong and immune to all known diseases. Chloe can sense emotions and thoughts. I believe they owe both of those traits to the meteor stones. As of now, they are only harnessing a small percentage of their total abilities. With the help of Hans Bauer, we will find out what makes these two special and create a civilization that can survive all tests of our abilities. It is our right to run this solar system and not allow it to bully us. We will survive, and we will reign far into the future."
The chancellor pressed his thumb and forefinger together to emphasize each point.
Eugenics. Seth grit his teeth together, holding in his anger and his tongue from saying anything. After all the speculation and arguing with the crew, it turned out the invasion force was after them. Mars Medical lied . . . Mars lied again. He narrowed his eyes, trying to reach out to the chancellor in some way.
"My new government will put an emphasis on researching the meteor stones to find the reason why it made them special. We need to find out its secrets to survive the next incursion by meteors, comets, and everything the galaxy can throw at us. Earth’s greatest disaster will be man’s greatest evolutionary step."
Most of the crowd was in disbelief as they tried to process the speech, but one woman stood up and began to move to the front. Seth watched her carefully, but the guards ignored her as they quelled an unsettled group of consuls.
As the woman slipped past the guards, she screamed, "Aethpis and Zephyria colonies have worked too hard for you to destroy it all with such foolishness."
With a final step to the chancellor, she raised her hand and slapped him across the face. Blood dotted the floor as his left cheek displayed a gash.
The chancellor patted at his face. The blood painting his fingers grew an odd fire in his eyes. He glared at the woman’s open hand.
She showed him what she had done—how she had inverted her ring.
The surge of retribution delighted Seth, until he saw what happened next. The chancellor curled his lip and glared at Thomas Cross. Even if Seth could have helped, he had no time. Cross pulled out a pistol and pointed it toward the woman.
BANG!
The woman didn’t even see who had shot her. Blood sprayed over guests behind her, and they shrieked. She clutched her abdomen with both of her hands and staggered in Seth’s direction. She groaned when her body hit the floor.
The pool of blood oozed out from under her. If nobody did anything, she would die, but no one moved to help her. They were all scared.
Chloe stirred, and Seth whispered to her, "I have to go over to that woman. I can’t watch her die."
"They might hurt you this time," she mumbled. "We can’t risk it."
"No one should be alone when they die." Seth crawled the few meters toward the woman.
Chloe followed on her
knees, her cuffed hands moving together across the floor.
"Hey," yelled the guard. "Back to your spot."
"I will not watch her die," Seth snapped back. You can shoot me,"
The guard looked toward the chancellor.
"Let them be," the chancellor replied. "She will serve as a warning."
Seth moved the woman’s head onto his lap. Her face was white and cold to the touch, the blood draining from her skin.
Chloe held her hand with her cuffed hands.
"What is your name?" Chloe asked.
"Mad . . . Madelyn White," the woman replied then coughed up blood. Seth wiped the blood from her chin with his fingers.
"My name is Chloe, and this is Seth. We will be here with you until help comes."
"Help isn’t coming." She coughed again. "I am getting cold. I don’t want to die." She struggled to keep her eyes open.
"I’m here." Chloe squeezed her hand.
Seth wanted the chancellor and Thomas Cross to show some sign of remorse. Their faces were blank. They moved away from Madelyn, callously preparing for the next phase of the plan.
"Are you the two from the Protector?" Madelyn said, coughing once again.
Seth wiped the blood from her chin, but too much of it flowed out for him to clear away. Blood covered his fingers, his nails, and the palms of his hands.
"Yes, we are crew members," Chloe replied. "Did you see us on the news?"
"I did," Madelyn murmured. "Please, tell Eamonn that I came, that I used the ticket he gave me. He’ll know what I mean." She went limp.
"She is fading." Chloe sighed with an urgent panic in the back of her throat. "I can hardly feel her now."
"A medical crew could have saved her," Seth said. "They could have closed this wound and stopped the bleeding." He brushed Madelyn’s hair from her eyes, which were still battling to stay open. "Madelyn, are you still there?"
Madelyn attempted to open her eyes, but they were only narrow slits. She coughed violently.
Seth tried his best to clear the blood away from her mouth. Madelyn tried to say something, but he couldn’t hear her faint words. He leaned in toward her mouth.
Lunara: The Original Trilogy Page 29