"I can handle myself. Come on Sam, it is Gwen. Remember when we used to get in all kinds of trouble together, we always had each other’s back. Tell me what is happening and how I can help." Gwen grabbed Samantha’s hand and squeezed.
The softening of Samantha’s eyes told Gwen that she was pulling at her heart and her duties. The MSA gave Samantha so much. The wall would be hard to break. She had more power and fortune than she would ever need, but it hadn’t always been like that for Samantha. The councilors had taken her from the street and forced her into a school that she hated. Gwen had showed her friendship and compassion. Now, Gwen had to exploit this weakness in Samantha to get her to open up.
"Tell me what you are doing," Gwen said.
"Your father wants to take humanity to a new evolutionary level. He wants humans to control the stars, to be one with them. He has shown me how we can do it. The meteor stones were sent to us as a gift, by accident or on purpose, by someone else, something else. Nonetheless, they are the key to humanity’s future. We spent years researching the technology. Hans Bauer and your father discovered a trait in the stones about fifteen years ago and have been searching exhaustively for a way to incorporate the power into humans.
"Our chance arrived in your friends, Seth and Chloe. They are the answer to our hopes and wishes. They will unlock the next stage for us. No more disease, no more crime, no more weakness; humanity has endless possibilities in the stars. We can strike a perfect balance between individual rights and strengthening the human collective.
"You see, Chloe has this ability already, but only a small portion of her true potential. We’ll help her discover her destiny. Seth will show us how we can make people stronger. Your mother wouldn’t have died from her fatal disease if we had found Seth sooner. She would be alive. Your father’s ambition throughout the conspiracy has been to save others from her fate. We need control of the stones so we can bring humanity to its rightful place in the universe."
"You think all this was necessary? I mean, so many died in the last few days." Gwen fingered at her jacket’s buttons, feigning conflict within her mind. She had to eliminate the doubts her father and the MSA were having regarding her strong beliefs in the Principles of Man. Perhaps they had discovered her presence in the lab. They had to have.
Some hours ago, in the middle of a quad stretch, she had figured out that that was the reason she had been sheltered from the MSA. Most important to the MSA was that she was an advocate for the Principles of Man, something they found an inconvenience. She was their enemy. Somehow, she had to make them believe that she supported their ideas.
She kept looking Samantha in the eye, resisting the urge to look away because of her lie. "I miss my mother, and if the MSA could cure her, and others like her, maybe it is worth the violence. Someone needs to take control of this so we don’t waste our resources."
"Exactly what your father said. I have followed his guidance and his teachings for the last two years. Since you left for Lunara, he has been more a father than my real father ever was."
Gwen grimaced in her mind, thinking of her expulsion to Lunara and the apparent replacement of her in her father’s life by Samantha.
"Where are Seth and Chloe really located then?" She pushed the words through, disregarding her emotions. "Shouldn’t we poke them with needles and instruments to find out how they work?"
"The debriefing is a lie." Samantha looked up for the first time since Gwen had started talking to her. "As I said, they are located in the security center, underneath, in the secret medical facility. They are scheduled for their first primary test this afternoon."
"Sounds interesting," Gwen said. "Can you pour me some more champagne?"
Samantha reached over to retrieve the bottle. She grabbed it and started to pour, but with a lunge, Gwen slid her hand down to Samantha’s side and grabbed Samantha’s electrostick. She pushed it into her friend.
Samantha convulsed and dropped the bottle, which hit the floor with a thud. She lay motionless.
Gwen crouched over her, checking her pulse with her left hand. She was still alive.
"Sorry about that, old friend, but you gave me all the information I needed. How could you let my father manipulate you like that? At least I have an excuse. I am his daughter." Gwen slipped the electrostick behind her back and snatched Samantha’s CommUn from her belt. She moved her hands under Samantha’s arms, pulling her up to the couch. With a quick flip, she spilled a little champagne on Samantha’s shirt and placed the glass on the floor.
The main door clicked.
Gwen twisted round, brought her arms up, and began to wave. "Guards, guards! Come in here quickly."
The door opened and the guards scanned the room. Their faces showed concern when Samantha groaned from the couch. "What happened, Miss Arwell?"
"She is having a bad reaction to the champagne. Come over and see if she is all right. I don’t know any first aid." She pointed and pushed them toward Samantha.
Both guards bustled toward the couch, bent over, and checked her pulse, as Gwen had done.
Gwen slipped her hand behind her back and retrieved the electrostick. She snapped it on and pressed the flickering edge against the tall guard’s back.
He fell down instantly, hitting the arm of the couch and falling to the floor, unconscious.
The heavier guard tried to pull his stick but Gwen was too fast for him. His arm was caught between the couch and his body.
Gwen jabbed the electrostick into his neck and he reacted with thrashing convulsions. He fell toward Gwen and toppled onto her legs, making her crash toward the floor.
She flexed her elbow, which hit the floor first, taking her weight. She extended it to test the joint. It wasn’t broken or dislocated as she could move it, but a pain like hot pokers shot up the arm. She pushed herself up with her other arm and managed to free her legs from under the guard’s bulky body. She dashed to the open door and closed it.
Next, she went to work on the bodies. She dragged the heavier man into her hall closet first and then the taller man. Using one of the two pairs of cuffs she found on the guards’ belts, she cuffed the heavier guard’s hand to the other guard’s foot. She picked up Samantha and put her in between the guards, sitting up in the closet. She cuffed Samantha’s hand to the chain of the other cuffs and closed the closet door.
"Well, Gwen, you are in deep now," she whispered. She wiped her hands together and went into the bedroom.
She reached under her bed and pulled out a knapsack full of gadgets and equipment she had prepared. After changing her leisure jacket for a utility vest and a long-sleeved thermo shirt, she took a deep breath and headed straight out of the apartment.
Before reaching the stairwell, she pushed down the trigger to Samantha’s CommUn and spoke into the microphone: "Black Bear, this is Gopher, are you there? I’m coming to Old Zephyria, as we planned."
Chapter 35
Aboard the Protector, Eamonn Dalton ordered the Alliance fleet to break toward Lunara. Amid the pale light of the sun, ship after ship converged in formation, and the MSA fleet readied in the shadows of the distant Earth. Soon enough, both fleets would combine into a giant throng and tremendous roar.
With each passing meter, uneasiness crept into Eamonn. Doubts about his plan troubled his thoughts. He rechecked his screens, readjusted plasma-shielding levels, and requested a status check from his fleet.
The distance between the two fleets continued to close.
Suddenly, loneliness played with him. No one from his original crew was aboard. In the pilot chair sat Shannon Buckley, a young hotshot who had yet to convince him that she could navigate the ship safely through a war zone. So far, she had managed to give the crew space sickness with what she called "engine tests." He would have felt safer with Jan at the controls and Parker in the engine room, but the fleet needed them elsewhere. Ripley, however, gave Shannon his nod of approval, and Eamonn began to wonder if the old man was going senile.
The Protector
rocked back and forth. Eamonn grabbed his chair supports and steadied himself. The lunar gravity had caught them. "Fenor, did Lunara send a communication yet?"
"Not yet, I’m continually scanning the bands," Fenor said. He turned dials, flipped switches, and adjusted his viewscreen. He shook his head again toward Eamonn.
Eamonn pursed his lips. "They need to confirm or this plan is all for not."
"Hold on," Fenor said. "I’m reading something. It is short, but it meets the encryption and frequency requirements." Fenor flipped from private listening mode to public. The bridge’s speaker crackled, and static murmurs filled the air.
"Clean it up," Eamonn ordered.
"Let me run it through a homemade filter I brought with me. Your communications equipment needs an upgrade, I will note."
"Noted, apply the filter already."
The static disappeared. Faintly, Eamonn heard a voice in the speaker: "This is Grove. We are waiting in corridor W4. Whiskey 4. I repeat, corridor Whiskey 4."
The transmission ended and repeated.
"What is W4?" Shannon Buckley asked.
"It is a corridor within Lunara. West Sector, Corridor 4," Ripley replied.
"Sorry, sir," Buckley said. "I didn’t have time to study the interior of the complex."
"Ripley is correct, and the location isn’t my first choice," Eamonn said. "W4 is close to the control tower, and most likely, guarded heavily."
Lunara’s towers were visible over the horizon.
"Fenor," Eamonn said, "put Parker McCloud in the transport ship on the line, encoded."
"Got them now, sir."
"Transport One," Eamonn said. "I have some good news for you."
"Go ahead, Eamonn," Parker’s voice crackled over the speaker.
"Parker, I just got word from Grove. They are waiting in W4. The spot is tough to enter. You should go in at W2 and work your troops to them."
"I read you. We’ll adjust our arrival coordinates. Transport One out."
An eerie silence fell over the bridge after the communications ended. Eamonn gazed out the viewscreen looking toward Jan, remembering what she said about Madelyn’s courage in trying to stand up to the chancellor. Maybe that had been foolish in the eyes of the crowd, but he was proud of her, standing up and challenging the chancellor when she knew he was wrong and unjust.
"Breaking point in one minute," Buckley said.
"Execute our entrance plan," Eamonn said. "The time for battle is upon us."
The Protector surged forward ahead of the fleet and opened fire toward the awaiting MSA cruisers in the distance. Several Asterfighters to his port side followed closely behind.
In the distance, over Lunara, small sparks glistened off the plasma shielding of the MSA cruisers when the shots arrived on target. The MSA cruiser returned useless fire; the Protector was too small and agile from this distance.
Behind the Protector, the fleet reached the breaking point at the scheduled time. The Aethpisian light cruisers broke formation and bolted toward the MSA cruisers, increasing their speed to dangerous levels. The Unity paired off with the Sheriff and concentrated all fire on the closest MSA cruiser, drawing fire in return.
Aethpisian Asterfighters were released from the Unity and began to deploy the radar scramblers into the battle zone. With each of their successive passes, the radar increasingly jammed.
Eamonn smirked; the MSA was probably in panic mode.
A flash of light streaked from Lunara; glistening beams could be seen in the sky around the Protector.
Shannon Buckley banked hard to her right with the Alliance Asterfighters trailing close behind. Some didn’t make the turn in time. The sonic bullets nicked four of the six on the rear side, spinning them out of control, before a secondary firing salvo finished them off in a brilliant blaze.
Eamonn swore under his breath.
The Protector cried out in anger: alarms hooted, alerts flashed, and temperature gauges spiked. Eamonn did his best to quiet them with power dumps into the shielding and hull containment. Buckley yanked back on the control stick in a last-minute effort to escape a volley of missiles from Lunara’s closest tower.
Jan’s starwing, closing trailing, broke to the surface of the moon, and performed a barrel-rolling turn, angling away from the turret fire and in the process drawing fire to her location.
Missiles hissed out of a passing cruiser and exploded as the timed charge reached critical. The Protector rattled in the shockwave, and Jan’s starwing flipped multiple times before straightening out into a controlled turn away from the unforgiving lunar surface.
Abruptly, Eamonn’s anticipation for battle turned to dread. The battle for Lunara had begun.
Chapter 36
Seth screamed. Not since he was last on Mars had pain and agony cut so deep within him. Hans Bauer had strapped him to an examination table without any padding other than a thin pillow for his head. His arms and legs were immobilized with thick nylon straps, similar to seat belts. A series of electrodes ran from various spots on his body to a large computer device. An intravenous, jammed into his arm, injected chemicals; each pulse of liquid provided a different sensation of agonizing pain, and the next was always more severe than the last one. He heaved with all his might against the straps, but his attempts to break the bonds were useless.
Sitting at his control terminal, Bauer watched the readings feed into this database after each injection. He had a smirk on his face as the results poured across his screen, and Seth thought perhaps Bauer enjoyed his suffering.
"You are performing well, Seth," Bauer said, almost as if he was proud of him.
"What are you doing to me?"
"I’m not doing anything," Bauer said. "You are doing it all to yourself. You see, with each traumatic event you experience, your body is protecting itself."
"Protecting?"
"Your body is building stronger and better healing defenses against my chemical concoctions. They are targeting specific nerves and organs in your body."
"And the pain?"
"The pain is part of the process. It seems your mind controls when and where to strengthen you. Though I fail to understand why the telepathic part of your mind is running in overdrive. Are you communicating with the woman?"
"You mean Chloe. No." Seth wondered if Bauer thought that he would reveal he could or was talking to Chloe. He wasn’t. For whatever reason, he couldn’t find her, though he guessed she was in as much pain as he was. She always leaned on him when she was frightened. Yet now, she didn’t seek him out.
"Are you sure?"
"I know when she enters my mind. She isn’t. You probably weakened her too much. She isn’t as strong as I am. Just leave her alone."
Bauer smirked. "I’ll judge what she can or can’t take."
The next injection entered, and he braced for the pain, but nothing came. His body relaxed, and the tunneling pain in the base of his neck subsided. He struggled to open his weary eyes. Hans Bauer and his nurses huddled around the command terminal.
He put his head back and closed his eyes, trying to think about happier places. He fell into a deep sleep.
Seth awoke with someone rubbing his hand with a soft touch. He opened his eyes and squinted into the light. After a few moments, he adjusted to the brightness. Chloe was beside him, but looking away. He couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or observing the happenings of the laboratory. He went to touch her shoulder, but the straps pulled against him.
"Chloe," he whispered.
She turned. Her face was white and thin, and her long hair had been cut short, dropping only just below her ears. Wires and electrodes protruded from the back of her head.
A surge of nausea squeezed at his stomach. What did they do to you? "Are you all right?"
"I lost all my hair," she whispered. She squeezed his hand.
He gritted his teeth. Hans Bauer and his cronies had gone too far.
"I haven’t been in pain," she said. "Not like you. We could hear you screaming from
my laboratory. I was worried."
"I wasn’t in much pain." He lied to her.
Her thin face attempted to form a smile.
He had to convince himself it was really her.
"Dakota Lars did the testing on me." She licked her cracked lips. "She was gentle, and concerned for my comfort. A few times she warned me about pain."
"We’ll be out of here soon."
"You are just saying that. We can do nothing about it; we need our crew members to rescue us." She lowered her eyes. "I have some bad news. I’m unsure if it is true, but I don’t think Dakota would lie."
"What?"
"Roche is dead. She told me he died when he broke into here."
"Why should we believe her?" Seth said it to try to counter her thoughts about Roche’s death. But she didn’t waver in her grief for someone she had known. He could feel at least that much from her.
"Roche was coming here. How would she know that? She has a good heart, at least part of her."
"I believe you," he said. "And the rest of them?"
"She didn’t say, but I assumed they were captured." Her face had turned so ashen, unlike its usual rosy glow, and she wore a frown that tore at his heart. She always had an optimism and happiness, even in the worst times.
"I am sure they are all right," he said, trying to lift her spirits. "Look at me."
She refused and shook her head.
"Chloe Jones, look at me," he said.
She looked up at him.
He felt hope from her. "Keep thinking about our return to Lunara; I promise to marry you."
She smirked, which made him smile in return.
He squeezed her hand.
They were interrupted by Dakota, who walked up to the tables. "I’m sorry," she said. "You two need to be prepped for the next phase. You can hold each other until Hans returns. He will ask you to separate, though."
"Thank you." Chloe grasped his hand even harder.
"Can you get her some water?" Seth pleaded. "She is severely dehydrated."
"Nurse," Dakota called out. "Bring a bottle of water."
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