"Or are you taking the policies from the MSA?" Seth added.
"Don’t you ever say such a thing again, or I will put you on your butt." Ty glared into Seth’s eyes. "I don’t care what special gifts you have. I will do it. Do you understand me?"
"Do you understand that we need to do something to help the people of Mars? We aren’t afraid," Chloe said. "Sarah wants us to find the cache of metalor."
Ty rolled his eyes. "She wants you as bait."
"No, I can find it."
"How can you do it better than anyone else?"
"Jan," Chloe said. "I told you I could sense the metalor when I touched it."
"Yes," Jan said. "You mentioned it to me."
Ty rubbed his chin. "Gwen said something about that when we were in the new hangar. She said touching the metalor gave her odd experiences."
"Right, I had a similar experience but I have been practicing. I can read what has been done to it. It is trying to talk to me. It sounds insane, but you have to believe me."
"I believe you," Ty said. "But for your own safety, I can’t let either of you off Lunara until this war is settled."
"Stop protecting me!" she shouted. "I’m sick of it. First, Seth. Now you. What about me screams weakness?"
"You are special and a target," Ty said. "It is imperative that we try to protect you."
"I’m going to Mars."
"Don’t make me write up a military control order for the two of you. Leave now." Ty eyes flared, and a strong wave of anger flashed in Chloe’s mind.
Chloe had never felt that from him before. She turned to see the guard standing at the doorway. As he stepped closer, an immense irritation rippled through her. She realized she had gone from being a prisoner of the MSA to being a prisoner on Lunara. She looked to Seth, but apparently he had given up arguing. He was already three paces to the door.
She pursed her lips. She wasn’t finished. She spun on her heels and left.
Down the corridor and out of earshot of Ty’s office, Seth cut the silence. "I guess we are stuck here."
"What are you talking about?" Chloe snapped her tongue toward him. "Ty is letting his emotions blind his logic."
"His logic is sound. We don’t even know if this will work."
She stopped short, turned around toward him, and thrust her finger into his face. "I said it will work. Are you getting cold feet? You wanted us to find a way out of here."
"What can we do? I thought we could convince Ty, but we didn’t. I don’t like going against him."
"The chief isn’t our guardian anymore. No one can force us to do anything," she said, turning down the corridor. "Especially us. If you will move your legs faster, we can catch the next maintenance tub."
"Oh jinx," he said. His world was about to become even more complicated than a millihedron puzzle, but hopefully less complicated than his last trip to Mars.
"So what is your plan?" Seth said, leaning against the corridor wall, fifteen paces from the main doorway to the maintenance hangar. "We’ve been standing here for twenty minutes."
"Shut it," Chloe said, paying more attention to the crew walking in and out of the doorway than to him. "Come on, let’s get going."
With a single dash, he found himself following her into the hangar.
This particular hangar consisted of three levels, each stepping farther out than the last. The levels were a combination of gangways, platforms, and elevators, all made of metal; an eerie clunk echoed with every hurried footstep of the maintenance workers.
He took a purposeful glance toward the access ports running along the outer wall. Unlike the plasma-shielded hangar for the Protector, this hangar used ports for shuffling supplies in and out of the tub, and if one unsecured moment should happen, the docking clamps and pressurization mounts could buckle and sweep everything—including himself—into the coldness of space. He trusted a plasma shield and its three backup power supplies any day over an outdated access port.
The focal point of the room was the open expanse in the center featuring the robotic crane, which was hissing and buzzing its way laterally and lengthwise at an alarming speed as it couriered supplies to the tub ships docked against the hangar.
Under the gangway for level two, Seth followed behind Chloe, moving toward the elevator leading to the upper levels. The hangar was too wide open to offer anything in the way of cover. By this time, the deck crew had removed a sufficient number of the cargo crates. So hiding was out of the question. It also signaled an even more pressing need to get up and into a maintenance tub before it was too late to sneak away.
Ahead, along his path, the control terminals between them and the elevator didn’t encourage him. Several controllers manned the terminals, and he wondered how they were going to slip past. But they seemed oblivious to his presence, and he expected the security to be light, considering Ty was still securing areas that were more sensitive. What twisted at his stomach was the fact that security should have noticed them, and security should have stopped them. Chloe was making no effort to hide.
As they walked up to the terminals, he learned hiding was a moot point. Chloe pinpointed one of the controllers along the row and tapped on his shoulder.
Hi, here we are, he thought. What is she doing?
"What do you want?" the controller said, keeping his concentration on the invoice numbers scrolling across the screen.
"I need to know which of those tubs is going to the Unity Hybrid."
"Classified information," the man said. "You’ll have to speak with the deck officer. I can page him."
"No," she said. "We’ll find him."
Seth followed her yet again toward the elevator and wondered what her motivation was for talking with the controller. She was practically dropping breadcrumbs for security to follow.
After a short walk, she stopped in front of the elevator, punched the button, and finally slowed down enough for him to speak with her. He couldn’t contain himself any longer. "Why did you talk with him? You blew our cover."
"Obviously, the question wasn’t clear enough for you. I wanted to find out which tub it was."
"He didn’t give it to you. Are you going to guess now?"
"I waited in the corridor because I was scouting for the weakest mind I could find and took the information. His mind recalled the tub instantly with my questioning," she said. "Please tell me how wrong I was."
"Obviously," he said, mimicking her sarcastic tone. "You already know you were wrong. Stealing someone thoughts is…" He paused, letting his words rest on his tongue for a moment.
"Is what? I would love to hear what the morally righteous Seth Smith thinks about my methods of helping our friends." Her face hardened to match her determination to get to Mars. Clearly unable to control the raging beast caught in her gut, she spoke again. "I pick up random thoughts every day. I can use it to my advantage now."
Before he could reply, the elevator arrived. Two officers stepped off and moved past them. He and Chloe stepped onto the platform. She punched the button marked Level Three, and the safety cage closed in front of them.
For a moment, he listened to the hum of the elevator’s motor push them upward. Then he tilted his head toward Chloe. "You realize when someone catches you reading their mind, it will be the start of our alienation from the population."
"They don’t seem to mind when you do something extraordinary."
"Think about it. A person’s mind is their only real freedom. If you can take their freedom, they will react negatively."
"I don’t see their freedom suppressed any more than Ty suppressed ours by holding us on Lunara with a military control order. Or any more than the restrictive nature of the Principles of Man or MSA rule."
"Everyone has an equal opportunity in the physical world," he said. "Not everyone can read emotions or thoughts."
"Take that up with Hans Bauer," she said. "I didn’t ask him to enhance my abilities."
"You said nothing changed."
"It has,
and I can hear every weak-minded fool around me now."
"Why are you so angry?"
"Because I can do something now. And everyone is trying to baby-sit me. You. Ty. Jan. Parker."
The elevator stopped, and the cage opened to reveal the third level. At the first moment Chloe could, she stepped out to the gangway.
Click-clack, click-clack thundered in his ears as their footsteps reverberated off the metal gangway. His nerves tingled as he scanned for any sign of security in the area, but nothing obvious alerted him. If security smelled trouble, they were notorious for their loud and obnoxious entrance. Apparently, nothing was alerting them yet. Either that or the Lunaran security personnel didn’t see Chloe and him as a threat. If it were Aethpisians, he had no doubt that they would have been imprisoned.
Simultaneously with his scans of the area, his mind kept referring back to what Chloe had said on the elevator. If she had changed, maybe she wanted to return to Mars to fix her mind or to develop it further. She was delirious with determination to get back, and he figured the protectiveness of Ty and Jan were just an excuse to motivate her. Triggered by a repeated conversation with Ty about helping the Alliance, she wanted to do something on Mars, and he had no choice but to follow her and find out why. Her stubbornness wouldn’t allow her to deviate from her newborn obsession—even a control order from Ty or especially further warnings from him.
She stopped two paces short of the tub’s entrance tunnel. Seth was behind her as she leaned on her knee, extending her neck down the tunnel, looking—sensing—for any sign of movement. "Come on, it’s clear. I sense no one—"
"Stop!" a familiar voice from behind them called.
He cringed. "I guess your abilities don’t work out of the back of your head," he muttered.
Chloe ignored him, stood erect, and moved a step toward the voice. "Jan," she said. "We need to go to Mars."
"What is so damn important on Mars that you risk your honor with Ty?"
"Gwen, the war, the Alliance," she said. "How about them for starters?"
"In case you haven’t noticed," Jan said, moving up to them, "you are the main reason for the chancellor’s eugenics plans."
"All the more reason to get to Mars and stop it. And besides, so what if they want us. The last time we were captured, the worst thing that happened was Hans increased our abilities."
"So you want to join the MSA now. I taught you better than to believe in a higher order of people."
"We aren’t leaving to join the Martian Supremacy Authority. That is stupid," Chloe said. "Don’t you realize the power metalor has over everyone? This is only the beginning. Already, it dominates every aspect of our lives; it fortifies our defenses, molds our buildings, and controls our economy. They use it to make weapons. I need to go to Mars so the Alliance can regain control. I’m the advantage the Alliance is missing because I know where the metalor is. I’m useless on Lunara."
"What makes you so sure you can find the metalor? I don’t know if I believe you can track it."
"It isn’t something I can explain to you. I just know I can," she said. "Look, we are adults now. You can’t protect us forever. I have been running away from Mars for far too long, and it is time I take control of my destiny. Seth wants to protect me, but he can’t. Not anymore. This is bigger than he can handle."
Seth’s stomach dropped as he realized she might be right. Did he have enough power to stop all threats against Chloe? Could he stop an entire fleet?
Jan fretted, a visible dropping of her guarded stance. "I’m coming with you," she said, pointing for them to board the maintenance hub.
Chloe let out a long breath. "The more people in this escape attempt, the more likely we are to be caught."
"You are already caught," Jan said, stepping into the tub. "They already cleared the tub for liftoff. Get aboard before the hatch closes."
"Wait," Seth said. "Are you the reason no one cared we walked through a secured area?"
"I cleared your biometrics as soon as you left Ty’s office."
"So that’s why security didn’t flip. We are in the system. How did you know we would be here?"
"I figured you would head here or to the fueling vessels. I can’t read minds, but I have been your guardian long enough to see determination in Chloe’s eyes."
"Great." Seth begrudgingly followed them aboard. His trepidation about this entire escape plan seemed to amplify twofold seeing Jan’s spirited leap into the tub. He had little doubt she was going against Ty’s wishes, but at the forefront of his mind, he realized Ty would blame him for taking the girls to Mars.
Chapter 17
"I’m back with the stuff you wanted," Shannon said. In her hand she held an assortment of newspads. "I don’t know why you couldn’t have retrieved them from the news system."
Eamonn shook his head. "I told you we can’t use these IDs unless it is necessary."
"Why is this taking so long?" she muttered as she threw herself down on the bed.
"Why are you so crabby? You agreed to help me."
"Because I realize now that this was a crusade to vindicate Madelyn’s death. It makes me feel…unwanted. I don’t need that from you. The Alliance has plenty of missions that need good pilots."
"And you are the best pilot in the solar system. But we have this mission to accomplish, and this is what you signed up for," he said sternly.
She scoffed at him.
He continued, "If the chancellor is holed up in Zephyria for days on end, it will take time." He reached into his pocket and flipped Shannon a token. "You can take a shower. I called the bellhop and he brought up tokens."
"I thought you were keeping a low profile."
"Just take a shower so I can go over these newspads."
"Fine, and I don’t want you peeking." She turned, disrobed, and pulled the shower door shut.
As he smelled her bath soaps, he couldn’t help but glance at her silhouette behind the shower door. Her beautiful sleek body danced around as she bathed.
He forced himself to concentrate. He scanned the newspads for information about upcoming events concerning the chancellor. Nothing but the typical propaganda filled the pages.
Then, scanning over an article on the second page, he sat upright. The newspad held the answer. He cross-referenced it with the layout of Trivium Port.
Perfect.
The shower stopped, and Shannon reached her hand out of the stall, grabbed her towel, and started to dry herself. Eamonn stared at her with a smile on his face.
"I told you no peeking and wipe that grin off your face," she said.
"I’m not smiling about that," he replied. "I haven’t been a teenager in a number of years. I have figured out a plan."
"By reading the newspads?" she said. No longer concerned with her appearance, she moved over toward him. "What is it?"
"The chancellor is reopening the Trivium Port market tomorrow at noon."
"We already knew he authorized the reopening of trading. Yesterday’s newspad stated it. How does that help us?"
"He will be attending it on the trading floor. We will have numerous locations to view him from."
Shannon dropped her towel. "You mean this all could be over by tomorrow. What do you need me to do?"
Chapter 18
Parker rubbed his wife’s shoulders and looked at the clock on the nightstand: 24:28. It was midnight Martian time aboard the Sheriff. He and Sarah had retired to their bedroom for a night of hard, fast sleep. They both had their wake-up signals set for 5:00.
Parker had spent the last few days paranoid about Sarah’s protection, but in the end, it was futile. Only a couple of alarms were triggered, and they were fire alarms in the engineering deck. Captain Terry assured him it was standard operations. He checked them out nonetheless and agreed with Terry’s assessment.
Atalo Grove was on the bridge now, manning the security station. Atalo had pulled two eighteen-hour days in a row at the terminal, while Parker made up the extra six and a hal
f hours. Neither man was going to trust anyone else.
"So what do you expect the reaction to be when we come into orbit over Mars?" Parker said.
"I’m not sure," she replied. "We have a safe window into the space above Aethpis. So we won’t face any opposition right away."
"Can we be sure of that?"
"As sure as we can be. My intelligence is reliable. Kisgel has led an effective rebellion against the MSA forces. We are assured of clear skies over our space. No mines. No hidden ships."
"Kisgel doesn’t have any space forces to speak of. How can we be sure?"
"Because—"
Parker’s mind raced. "How can you be so sure of Kisgel’s allegiances?"
"How can I be sure of anyone’s allegiances? I don’t have Chloe Jones’s mind-reading abilities."
"He might betray you."
"If he betrays me, we have no hope on Mars. Your paranoia is getting the better of you. What happened to the calm and logical man I found two weeks ago?"
"I wasn’t so worried about other people. At least not ones I loved as a wife."
"You shifted your worry to me."
Parker cut his words short. "Wasn’t I supposed to? You said I couldn’t have it both ways, between the Alliance and the crew, so I have been dedicated to your safety."
"Is that bothering you?"
"Why wouldn’t it bother me? I have to choose between the crew and the Alliance."
"I didn’t want it to eat at you."
"The problem is…you were right. I need to pick between the Alliance and my…old crew. I guess I’ll decide when the pivot point comes."
"Pivot point?"
"The moment that the crew and Alliance loyalties conflict one another. So far, the crew and the Alliance have shared goals."
"What about Gwen Arwell? She stayed with the MSA. Can you confront her?"
Parker stood and moved to look out of the porthole toward the trailing fleet of ships. "Seth said she is working to bring her father out of the MSA. To turn his mind around. I have no evidence that she is doing anything but that."
"Her father has a great influence on her."
Lunara: The Original Trilogy Page 45