"I am here," he said. "What is happening?"
"We have the MSA control center. They didn’t even put up a fight. Hannah’s speech is already under way, telling Mars of what the MSA has done."
"The Alliance had finally won?"
"Well, the new government from Castor and Pollux has won," she said. "I think this time, we’ll have a better start. They’ll obey the Principles of Man. They founded their entire colony on the teachings from it."
"And if they don’t?"
"We’ll have to battle another government again."
Parker shook his head. "It doesn’t matter to me now. The politics of Mars have passed me. I’m retired."
"I understand, but I think the new government will want to use you as a figurehead," she said.
"Somehow, you are probably right."
She laughed. "Where are you? We’ll come pick you up."
"The Majestic Tower’s main landing pad. All the way at the top."
"Did Chloe stop Seth?"
"She stopped him."
"And what of Gwen Arwell?"
"Gwen had a change of heart. She’ll help Hannah stop the rest of the MSA members."
"And what about…"
"Samantha Burns is dead," Parker said.
"You killed her?"
"No, she fell from the top of the Majestic Tower in an attempt to kill Gwen."
"So there won’t be much of her to mount on my wall," Shannon replied. "A shame, really."
"The shame of the fall is that she took Chloe with her."
"I’m sorry," Shannon said. "I wouldn’t have made jest if I’d have known."
"Don’t apologize. Samantha’s death is a good thing. And so is Chloe’s in a way. She left her life on her own terms. She knew she was going to die this day, and she did it trying to show Seth the error of his way." He looked down at Seth. "And I think he is learning what that error is."
"Gwen is your prisoner?"
"There are no prisoners between the crew of the Protector. Chloe wouldn’t have it. You’ll have to come take her for yourself," he said, looking at a crestfallen Gwen Arwell. "But I don’t see that as much of a problem."
"I understand."
"Is Seth there with you?"
Parker looked down as Seth’s face washed over with a joyful glee. His eyes were blank, and Parker doubted he was seeing anything but what Chloe was showing him. Parker smiled for his friend of long ago.
He held up the CommUn to his mouth. "For the moment, he is in paradise."
Epilogue
Parker McCloud stared at the doorway of apartment 2-G, still unable to muster up enough nerve to knock on it. It had been two years since Chloe’s death. A long two years, filled with new journeys and new adventures for his family.
He moved away from the door and turned to his left to face the bay window overlooking the Earth. The gray cloud masked the surface as it had for over two hundred years.
He eyed it more carefully than he would have done four years ago. It was under his watch now. With the Protector reborn under his command, his crew was entrusted to shield the Earth against any threats. An assignment he was honored to take when Hannah Rohen, the speaker of Mars, asked him which assignment he wished to have. He made the choice without hesitation.
Granted, his assignment lacked the excitement it had held for Ty or Eamonn. The meteor cluster had stopped—coinciding with Chloe’s death. Parker knew this wasn’t a coincidence. He would never understand why the cluster and she were related. Simply, he knew it was fact. Just as he knew the sun would rise on Mars.
These—and other facts of an unknown nature—are what she had left with him. The facts were out of his realm of understanding, but Chloe understood them completely, and she left him the knowledge that they were true. Her word was validation enough.
Mars hadn’t believed his statement that the cluster had stopped, and that is why Lunara was still valuable. They needed the meteor stones to rebuild the planet; making metalor even more valuable.
So, he sat and waited for the cluster’s return.
He didn’t mind the wait. Lunara was slow, peaceful, and quiet. He liked the quiet now. The adventures were over for him. Mars may not have wanted to hear the knowledge that Chloe left him, but he did. He wanted to run Lunara for Eamonn and Ty and provide a safe place to raise his children. For Chloe, he wanted to be close to the Earth. Chloe had told him how important it was going to be. So he took it upon himself to lay the groundwork for the next step in humanity, a return to Earth.
Mars didn’t see it that way. They relied on the atmospheric data from the Earth satellites, which told them the methane levels were too high for safe human travel into the lower atmosphere.
They were blind. It was the Martian people’s excuse to look back to Mars again. He had once believed as they had. Mars should be the primary concern. Chloe told him otherwise. She said there was life beneath the clouds, hidden where the sensors could not penetrate. He believed her. He had submitted a report to Hannah Rohen asking to send a landing party down to the Earth to search for any remnants of the past, and secretly, he wanted to know why Chloe had found Earth so interesting. In this delicate time, Mars wanted Earth in the shadows, but he got the impression that his report had been stored in Hannah Rohen’s personal file cabinet. Perhaps she would pull it out one day and reconsider.
Until then, the speaker entrusted him with one other assignment, which had brought him to the door of apartment 2-G once again. His assignment was to watch a man feared throughout the solar system for the abilities he once displayed. Under the Principles of Man, Mars couldn’t execute him. Therefore, Mars banished him to Lunara, never to return to Mars.
A punishment that Parker argued wasn’t punishment for him. This man hated Mars.
For two years, he had watched this man passively, through the eyes of his daughter. Even now, Shannon told Parker not to come to the door of apartment 2-G, but he felt the need. It had been two years since he had spoken to him. Even with the limited personnel assigned to Lunara, Parker had avoided him as if he was a plague.
Suddenly, on the second anniversary of her death, he had to know if Chloe’s death had changed him. Finding enough courage, biting against his lower lip, he turned back toward the door and knocked.
Seconds later, the doorway slid open. "Parker, is something wrong with Alexandria?"
"No, she is well," he said. "I came to see you."
"Come in," Seth said, moving away so Parker could enter.
Parker moved in and closed the door. "Alexandria is doing exceptionally well in school. She is getting better grades than Harry or Emily. I think she is beating Adol as well."
"She has a lot of her mother in her," he said, sitting down on the couch. "Why have you come?"
"I want to tell you that I didn’t take Chloe from you. She had her own will that I could never change."
Seth shook his head. "She explained it in her death. I was wrong to hate you. I did hate you, but I was a fool."
"You wanted a perfect life for Chloe. That is not unreasonable."
"Perhaps," he said. "I’m not sure if a fool’s hatred is truly hatred or just plain ignorance."
They sat in silence for a long time. Parker thought about Chloe and her bright picture of the day. Without her by his side, Seth seemed lost, and Parker found it hard to speak with him, to find common ground.
"Your abilities have diminished?" Parker said finally.
"They’re gone. I can sustain no more careless injuries or no more leaps over fire," he said, turning his head toward the bedroom doorway to his left. "Gwen was right. Chloe was shielding me with her abilities. I catch myself doubting it, but she was the only special person of the two of us. Ironically, she was doing for me what I struggled my whole life to do for her."
"So your desire to make her safe was actually a reflection of her desire to make you safe."
Seth nodded.
Parker’s face lit up. "Therefore, you were rebelling against us becaus
e of her influence."
"Perhaps," he said again. "But her other fears did not manifest within me. I wasn’t afraid of heights."
"Because of your ability to heal."
Seth wasn’t buying it. "Her fear of heights was a premonition of her own death. She knew a fall would be the end of her, but it wasn’t clear enough for her to avoid it or know when it would happen."
"She knew she was going to die that day. And I think she knew she was going to die on that day for quite some time." Parker took a seat across from Seth. "Her fear of heights became clear the closer she approached her death. She knew it was to come."
"She killed herself. So her fear could also have been self-determination," Seth said. There was bitterness to his tone—clearly, he had been stewing Victory Day in his mind for a long time.
Better than Seth, Parker understood why she had sacrificed herself. She stopped Seth’s power, and she knew her death would make him normal again. Even to this day, he didn’t understand the grip his power and his obsession had over him. But with a lifetime of reflection ahead of him on Lunara and his daughter to remind him of his family, Parker was confident Seth would recognize and grieve over the evil course his life had taken. He needed time.
Silence descended on the room again.
Parker fidgeted in his seat a couple of times before speaking: "There is a squash game on the holotube tomorrow night. You should come over to watch it. Alexandria and Harry are looking forward to it. They have a wager."
"Wager?" Seth said. "She knows better than to gamble."
Parker smiled. "She does have some of her father in her. And it is only for a ration chip. She picked Gertman. It was a safe bet."
Seth forced a chuckle. "She does well with odds in her math class."
"And math isn’t Harry’s best subject." Parker stood and walked toward the window, staring at the Earth.
He knew his friend would never return to him. He knew what Chloe had done to him, and he didn’t blame Seth—totally—for his actions. Along with the positives, much of what Chloe had done affected him negatively. Chloe wanted Parker to reach out to this new Seth. "How has Gwen been?"
Seth jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. "Gwen is the same as she has been for two years: a vegetable confined to her bed. They made her a piece of furniture."
"They couldn’t have her alive to corrupt Mars again. The Principles of Man is clear about capital punishment. Across Mars, Martian Supremacy Authority is a horrible nightmare. Even sensitive to utter."
"They could have put a restrictor chip within her. I can’t go more than one kilometer from Lunara without exploding. She could have received the same as me," he said, sitting up in the couch.
"You were at the Assembly’s ruling. Her mouth had to be stopped, despite the fact that she renounced her loyalties. The princess had become a queen, and she still cared an aura about her."
"Cut her tongue out then," Seth replied. "She is in a waking nightmare. I would rather face death, and by the Assembly’s ruling, I can’t kill her…else they take Alexandria away from me."
"This argument is made to crewmate’s ears. I wouldn’t harm Gwen in this way. But it is what it is, and I can’t change that."
"Nor can I. I don’t know why I argue for her," he said, letting out a long breath. There was a long pause. "Chloe told me once, ‘Sometimes you have to live with how it is.’"
"Remembering the good times and forgetting the bad."
Seth stood, moved beside Parker, and looked out of the window. "I am sorry I said it was an insult to be labeled a member of the crew of the Protector. I said it in anger, but that ship has given me the only good memories of my life."
"I miss the Protector, too: the ship, the people, and the good times. We can’t lament over what was said between us, or it will splinter us further apart."
For a long time, they stared into the abyss of space—each contemplating what had happened, what was now, what was to come.
The scars between them ran deep, but for eternity, Chloe linked their friendship. They were the last remaining members the Protector, a simple ship to the rest of Mars, but to them, it was a link, forever forged into their hearts. Circumstance tested their bond, clouded by deception, smeared by contempt, but as they stood beside each other in the colony Mars called Lunara—that they called home, the bond endured, and their friendship was kindled again by the sacrifice of a woman they would both cherish until they died.
Seth pointed toward a flickering Venus.
"Remember that time Chloe wanted to go to Venus on Lover’s Day?"
"The time you tried to set me up with Susan Healy?" Parker laughed. "I swear, if Chloe didn’t throw up all over her on the entry into the Venus’s atmosphere. I think Susan would have made an early man out of me. She was insatiable."
"Hah, you complain about it now. But on the way back, you wouldn’t let us into the rear compartment."
"Nothing happened. Honest!"
"Yeah, right. The recycler was back there, and Chloe was sick as a dog in a space suit," Seth replied, laughing. "I would give anything to get back those days. They were the best."
Parker smirked and patted his friend on the shoulder. "I would meet you there in a heartbeat."
THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES…
Bonus Short Story
Lunara
Parker McCloud
At North Tharsis
Parker McCloud at North Tharsis
Parker McCloud stepped onto the rocky mountainside surface of North Tharsis colony and was struck immediately with a slap on his back from his friend, Harvey Wells.
"Well done," Harvey announced. "I can’t believe you fixed the skimmer using only the tech manual."
Parker adjusted his breathing mask a little tighter and secured his rifle’s strap tight against his long, muscular torso. "We were stranded for two days."
Harvey’s small but stout frame stood in front of him. "Could have been two hundred days if you didn’t fix it. No radio, no transponder, and way off course because of a wild pilot and brutal winds."
"I guess I have a knack for it." Parker smiled, feeling the unseasonably warm air coming from the southern valley. His blonde hair fluttered in front of his face, and he pulled it back slowly. To him, there was nothing like the feeling of a warm Martian breeze. The cold, barren planet gave little in the way of comfort, and Mars giving you anything was a welcome change.
"Knack? No training at all—"
"I did have a day of basic maintenance at the academy, so I knew what the engine looked like."
"It’s a story I’ll tell my children about." Harvey waved his hand into the air, as if he were pointing to a sign. "Title…the great Parker McCloud saves his unit from certain death in the open expanses of Mars…"
"With luck and a manual at his side," Parker replied with a blush. "Your kids will be impressed."
Harvey pushed his fingers through his short, brown hair. "You can tell your kids, too."
"So now I have kids. Your fantasies are delusional and fantastic."
"You and Jenny could have had a family by now."
"Jenny Freeman?"
"Yeah! Miss ‘I like tall, handsome, blonde men.’ I think those were her words."
"I didn’t steal her from you at the bar. I can’t help it if she is particular, and I was her type."
Harvey’s brown eyes flashed. "I’m over it…mostly. It wasn’t you. It was her pickiness I can’t get over."
"We aren't together anymore. Our career paths didn't allow it. She is away looking for stories for her holofeed, and I won't be in Aethpis much anymore. We’re through."
"Somehow I think you’ll be calling her before long."
Parker shook his head. Jenny was a great friend to him. They had dated for more than nine months, but mostly as friends with a respect for one another and they enjoyed each other’s company. They had split without emotion or regret. He would always consider her a friend. He let out a long breath. "Where do you think we’ll find Commander
Riggens?"
Harvey stretched out his arm. "Up there."
Parker turned with mouth agape, and his blue eyes flared.
North Tharsis was built on two levels, each pressed into the hill and on each was a giant wall with two gates. The colony’s walls were pointed toward the northeast, circling around half to the northwest and half to the east. The southern side was the mountain side, and the buildings were built into the cliff’s edge, where a huge opening swallowed machinery and digested it into the mines below.
The walls towered high, and after years of pounding by the harsh Martian sandstorms, the outside was beaded. Defined smaller walls broke the colony into many sections, and Parker read on the debriefing that they were marked into sectors from A to M. The workers and settlers were concentrated between the first and second wall. The inside wall housed the military and mining equipment. Parker planned to go there first. It was the most likely place for Riggens to be.
"Let’s go, then," Parker said, thinking about a castle and the feeble villagers around it, looking for some sort of protection from the savages of the wastelands encircling it. The raiders of Mars were gone now, but he couldn’t help but feel that the impact lingered in this colony.
They arrived at the door of Commander Sean Riggens, and Parker paused before knocking. There was a steady, booming voice yelling from within.
Harvey shot a quick glance at Parker.
Parker recognized Harvey’s glance with a slight tilt up. It meant trouble.
The yelling was intense, though muffled enough that he couldn’t make out the words. Nobody yelled like that at the academy or the guard stations around the main colonies. He wondered if the commander had overgrown his position and considered himself a dictator in this far-off colony. The military had a number of mining colonies in this region, but like everything on Mars, it was isolated from the next colony by miles of barren land, and that gave these commander types an intoxicating lust for power.
The yelling stopped for a moment and the door popped open. A hulk of a man stood in front of them. His muscular build was denser than Parker’s, and his face was as rugged as the Martian surface. This man had been in the outer colonies a long time. Parker knew that look.
Lunara: The Original Trilogy Page 104