Curious Sols (The Sol Principle Book 1)

by Myron Smith III

  “Ashley please,” he cried out. “Take mercy on me! You know the demons I battle.” Dominic raised a wavering hand as though to shield himself.

  Ashley dropped to a knee beside him, fist poised above him to strike.

  “I let you live and you'll come back. You'll come back and take something or someone I care about. Why should I let you do that?” Ashley raised her fist higher as though preparing to finish him.

  In that moment, inexplicably to her, the guards in the room suddenly turned on each other. They shouted commands to stand down, put down weapons, and surrender. One by one they opened fire on one another. Within the minute, all of them were unconscious on the floor seemingly from their own doing.

  Ashley couldn't help but pause for this event. She moved her knee to Dominic's throat mentally pinning him while trying to understand what had occurred. A concealed door opened from the side of the room. Emerging from the opening were Stephanie and … Elizabeth.

  The two of them approached Dominic, clearly confused with the circumstances. Ashley pushed her thoughts allowing Stephanie to see her projection.

  As though having the lights turned on, Stephanie suddenly could see her step-mother restraining Dominic on the floor. She alerted Elizabeth who was trying to grasp the situation.

  “Mom has him pinned down!” she called to Elizabeth, rushing over to Ashley's side.

  “We were just coming down the tunnel when we heard the shouting,” Stephanie relayed.

  Stephanie's words caught Ashley completely off-guard as her use of “Mom” was powerful enough to sap her fury. She was no longer possessed by one overriding thought.

  With her free arm, Ashley gave Stephanie a small hug. Though the embrace was ethereal, its significance was very real.

  That slight opening was all Dominic needed to reverse his fortune. Recognizing that he was outmatched by Ashley, he turned his will to her Achilles' heel. With a desperate force of will he thrust a stunning mental blast upon Stephanie. Ashley’s knee was lifted from his throat as she instinctually tried to catch her daughter. Stephanie fell prone to the floor grasping her head in pain.

  “I admit that was well played,” Dominic related to Ashley. “But you have too many pawns on the board you care about to best me.” Standing up Dominic moved to Stephanie’s side.

  “So how many IQ points will you cost your daughter?” Dominic threatened Ashley indirectly. “It’s only a matter of reaching in and twisting that beautiful cortex of hers.”

  Ashley’s eyes opened wide at his threat. Knowing he had already plotted their death once, she didn’t try for an appeal of mercy.

  “If you hurt her Dom, you’ll never have me. Do you understand? Never,” Ashley hoped there was still some fragment of twisted affection in his heart.

  Dominic laughed heartily. “After the embarrassment you’ve caused me, you think I still have feelings for you. After risking my station over and over, only to be crushed by you, you think that I still care?”

  Caught in the intensity of the moment, neither one of them noticed Elizabeth slowly circling behind them.

  “Why couldn’t you find someone else Dom?” Ashley tried desperately to give herself time to think.

  Rushing next to her Dominic spit his remarks. “Because it was only you! Just you! How could you not know?”

  Having made her way behind Dominic, Liz reached up and in one well timed motion grasped the neuroband off his head.

  Dominic spun around, looking at Liz in shock as his headband rested in her hand.

  “Here’s something I know,” Liz said as she delivered a driving knee straight to his groin. “Never come between a mother and her daughter!” Falling to the ground in excruciating pain, Dominic had nothing else to say. Elizabeth rolled over one of the guards and grabbed the pistol from him, just in case.

  Ashley brought Elizabeth into her circle of thought.

  “Well I guess we found something else in common,” Ashley smiled at Liz.

  Elizabeth agreed. “More than a boy scout and a delusional psychopath you mean?”

  Both exchanged a laugh of truce.

  Turning to Stephanie, Ashley said impatiently. “Now if we could just get your father to take out the trash. It would be nice if I didn’t have to do everything around here. I don't suppose you've seen him?”

  “He's supposed to be meeting us here,” Stephanie replied. “I'm not entirely sure how he's going to reach us.”

  Almost on cue, the main doors to the room came under the assault of several plasma bursts. They buckled under the intense fire, collapsing into the room. Charging into the opening was Jonathon Quinn and his hoard of mining friends.

  “So glad you could join us now that we have everything taken care of,” Elizabeth motioned to Dominic.

  “Everything?” John replied raising an eyebrow. “Such as engaging an entire city of people? Some who were quite bent on the idea of shooting at us until we convinced them otherwise?”

  “Minor details,” Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders in her own brand of humor.

  John was about to continue the banter when he noticed Stephanie and Ashley beside an unconscious Dominic. He left Elizabeth standing in the open and walked over to them, taking stock of the situation.

  “Hi there,” John greeted them. “I should have known all that training would pay off in the end. Consider yourselves promoted to black belts in mental-jitsu.”

  “I thought it was called brain-fu?” Stephanie questioned him.

  “Oh, that's an entirely different branch of training,” John replied. “Very advanced…you're not ready for that yet.”

  As John continued to speak with them, Ashley developed a puzzled look on her face.

  “John,” she addressed him, “how exactly do you know I'm here? I haven't included you in my circle of thought, my experiment circle, from back in the lab.”

  John raised a different eyebrow this time, responding. “Um…see that's a good example of brain-fu. A master never teaches his students all his secrets.”

  Stephanie and Ashley looked at each other, rolling their eyes simultaneously.

  Ashley could feel a tug on her leg. It was somehow familiar, but no one was there. It dawned on her that she wasn't really there, but there was girl back at the mining camp that had been an expert leg tugger.

  "I have to get back," Ashley told them. "Try not to get into any more trouble, at least for a few hours."

  As she faded, John smiled and blew her a kiss. Ashley felt it on her cheek.

  Elizabeth strode over to the remaining pair by Dominic.

  “If you're done with your fu fu, we need to have a serious discussion here,” Elizabeth stated.

  John's lightheartedness left with her words. He recalled the serious issues he had come to discuss.

  “A wise insight indeed, O-Sophia,” John agreed while motioning toward the numerous miners in the room. “There’re some major concerns that we need to discuss with my new friends here. You're going to love whom they've elected their union leader."

  Chapter 48 Through the Double Doors

  The communications room had been cleared of everyone except for John and Elizabeth. Stephanie and Shu Han were tasked with coordinating the guard to restore peace in the city. Dominic was taken under custody by members of Elizabeth's restored guard and moved into the next room. He was placed in a protective suit to prevent any “accidents” before his trial.

  “I can't believe I'm agreeing to this,” Elizabeth said throwing her hands up in the air.

  John pointed to the vidcomms in the room displaying the crowds that had gathered citywide.

  “Look at them,” John replied. “They deserve this. We may not be able to fix the problems back on Earth or even on the rest of Mars, but we can at least give them a chance to fix their own city.”

  Elizabeth stopped and turned back toward John.

  “Do you know why your father wanted you to stay?” Elizabeth started to ask. “Why the great senator would even think of compromising
his principles to that end?”

  John was clearly caught off-guard at her line of questioning, standing silent.

  “Because he saw his father in you,” she answered her own question. “That unyielding sense of hope and optimism you run around with. I've no doubt he saw you as the caretaker of his father's dreams, a future president.”

  “I tried to protect my grandfather's dream, but in my own way,” John answered the unspoken charge. “I worked to bring his dream to life, to follow it through, and to see it succeed.”

  The fire inside him grew as he pointed toward the vidcomms in the room.

  “I'm not finished with that task,” John stated firmly. “In fact, I think our work...their work has just begun.”

  Elizabeth walked up to John and gave him a surprise kiss on the cheek.

  “That's a truth I can live with,” she said. The two of them shook with both hands.

  The crowd noise from outside nearly masked the page coming in from John's Ksync. Catching the flashing light, John removed the device from his belt and answered, “Hello there. Are you making your way to the city yet?”

  “Not yet,” Ashley replied. “I had to tie in the feed to New China. It's set to go.”

  “How's Jessica?” John asked.

  “Just thank god ten-year-olds are fast healers in many ways,” she answered. “I think Wispy and her are on their way to being buddies again.”

  John seemed heartened by the news concerning his daughter. The volume from the crowd chants made conversation difficult. John signed off in typical fashion. “Ashley, I'd better go. You know the people love me.”

  Ashley blew him a kiss across the vidcomm and ended with. “Go, give them their hope back.”

  John and Elizabeth stepped through the opening in what remained of the double doors. Outside, a balcony area overlooked the entire center of the city as it sprawled down each level. At the bottom of the circular decent rested a massive park. Staircases swept down each side of the balcony, stopping off at each level before continuing their descent to the park below.

  All the cities vidcomms displayed an image of John and Liz standing on the balcony. Their waives and smiles brought out cheers across the city, echoing from every corner. Among many of the shops and buildings, cries of “O- Sophia” stuck out from the mass of cheers.

  Unbeknownst to the crowd, John's final swooping wave was a signal to the comm center. The vidcomms across the city went dark. When they came back on, the feed was not of John and Elizabeth, but of Dominic. He was sitting at a workstation inside the communication room they had emerged from. Behind him were the vidcomms that watched over every corner of the city. A guard walked behind him in the distance. The sound was soft, but able to be heard.

  “You are like roaches,” Dominic said. “No matter how hard I stomp, you keep coming back. I can hear your laughs from here, but you won't be laughing much longer.”

  The picture then switched to the cargo area of a ship. Only a few people recognized it as hold of The Compromise. The video’s perspective lifted as if hovering slightly in the air and then moved toward the cockpit of the vehicle. Sitting in pilot's chair was a man dressed in a modified MARC uniform and a small girl. They were clearly both cheering about something.

  The video went on to play the exchange of words between Dominic and Tyler. At one part, however, the video switched back to Dominic. “It’s a shame your sense of wit escaped orbit,” Dominic insulted him. “Maybe I can take care of that oversight now.”

  Various gasps and moans were collectively heard as the crowds watched Tyler being shocked into unconsciousness and Jessica running off screaming. The video feed then went blank, returning once again with a view of John and Elizabeth. The city held its collective breath in silence as Elizabeth moved forward to speak.

  “When I arrived in New China, I found a broken city full of a broken people,” Elizabeth began. “Somehow, the basic rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness had all but disappeared. It can be argued they were taken away or given away, but the reality was they were lost.”

  “All that was left was a need. A starvation in the bellies of people, worse than their pangs of hunger,” Elizabeth continued. “We were able to feed that hunger. With your help, The Order emerged to provide the basic needs for every citizen of New China.”

  “I'm so proud of the changes we made,” she elaborated. “People counted again. From freeing the small children forced to work the mines to assisting the shop owners working twenty hour days, we restored the lives of people. For those crimes, I blamed the governments of Earth.”

  Pointing up toward the dome’s ceiling Elizabeth's voice rose. “Someone up there, back on Earth took your freedom and traded it for their gain… or at least that’s the easy way to see things. It was the singular perspective I held... until I was forced by my circumstances to reach beyond what I was firmly convinced and see more.”

  Placing her hand upon John's shoulder, she looked at him and smiled.

  “Can you imagine how remarkable it was to me, to have my eyes opened by a person who embodied the very government I despised?” remarked O-Sophia.

  She finished. “As I’ve been gifted this new perspective, so shall you. I give you Jonathon Quinn, Commander of the MARC Sentinels, and grandson of the great architect himself President Joseph Quinn.”

  Murmurs of confusion throughout the city were the only greetings John received.

  John looked out across the tiers of the dome. The sheer mass of people before him was daunting in itself, let alone the task of finding the right words for this moment. He smiled and waved, thinking back to the days when he had watched his grandfather give speeches. His poise, coupled with a comforting voice, were important attributes John retrieved from his memory. He drew upon these traits as he started to speak:

  Months ago, I set out with my family for Mars. My intent was to settle in a new land and provide my family with a future of possibilities. That course was changed when the colonists that I sailed with were attacked by the efforts of a saboteur, the man you just saw, Dr. Dominic Andreou.

  The murmurs of the crowd were replaced in part with jeers for the leader.

  It was through his actions that O-Sophia, discovered firsthand a folly of her government. The folly was found even in a government having the best of intentions for its people. You see, the wisdom of the counsel was great, but it rested in the hands of too few. So few in fact, that the will of one man quickly subdued the will of the entire counsel. A masquerade was carried out by this dictator in disguise. Hiding behind an illegitimate title this man retained his power through bribery, deceit, and betrayal. With the freedoms that were traded for food and coin, the people of this great city squandered their ability to see the truth.

  Now that the curtain has been lifted on this charade, the people of this city must retake a singular democratic truth. The rights of the people must rest firmly in your hands, not ours. If you choose to entrust the safety of your rights to others, then it becomes your duty to watch and consider their actions with vigilance. You cannot drift off in a haze of apathy or live a life of luxury while others feed you a daily meal of half-truths.

  For the first time since John began, voices of support, and cheers were heard in the crowd. “Ultimately, the responsibility is yours.” John wound his speech to a close. “Do you give full trust and confidence to what is said through the filter of these vidcomms? Or do you make discovery of truth part of your daily duty as a protector and citizen of freedom?”

  John walked to the furthest edge of the balcony as he finished. “Lincoln said that, ‘…a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from Earth.’ I say let us carry the torch of freedom from Earth to Mars. The light of freedom will shine brighter between two worlds than one world alone. You shall have another chance to craft your future New China. May you forge one stronger than the last, mindful of your democratic heritage and vigilant of your children’s future.”

&n
bsp; The crowd’s enthusiasm had peaked with his last statements. John and Elizabeth waved to the happy crowds. As they walked down the steps to the central park they were followed by footsteps once again echoing the sounds of freedom.

  Epilogue

  The crew of The Compromise gathered around an old fashioned campfire outside the mining complex. The weather was cooperating for the evening meal. It consisted of barbeque ribs and chicken, cooked up by the resident expert Chef John. A large bag of what was supposed to be marshmallows had been procured from the city and was awaiting a chocolate and graham cracker fate. Captain Sterling and her wingman Lieutenant Summers had found a strip to land their planes and were staying over for the feast. The rest of the crew was spread out all around the campfire, laughing and talking. Wispy and Jessica were up to their old game of hide and seek around the duck…even Stephanie decided to give in and play. Ashley was pulled up close to the fire in a make-shift lounge chair drinking a beverage. Tyler and Kyle seemed to be taking turns entertaining Glennay with alternating stories of misadventure.

  Holding down the campfire proper were John and Anita.

  “So John,” Anita asked, as she nibbled on a wing, “you plan on becoming a gentleman farmer now?”

  Turning a long stick of meat that was propped near the fire, he replied. “I remember a show my grandfather used to watch called Bonanza. I can’t really remember the names of the characters or really too much at all about the show except for the feeling that I had watching it. The ranchers were nice people. They seemed well off with a big ranch and lots of money, but that didn’t stop them for pitching in and helping others out in need. There’s something to that idea about caring for others you don’t even know, caring just because it’s the right thing to do. That idea always stuck with me. I think it’s why Grandpa Joe liked it too.”

  John paused for a second, as though something was coming back to him and continued, “That’s right! Little Joe and Grandpa Joe. I think he had one of those brown vests with a tin badge on it, a Sheriff’s badge maybe.”