Chapter Twenty Four
It had been two days since Simone and Marco’s departure from Earth, and the situation was full of tension and great uncertainty. Never in their wildest dreams, did they imagine that they would be arriving on Mars weeks ahead of the new colonists, with Winston Severov as their guide, along with an armed squadron of his loyal foot soldiers. For months, they had been under the impression that they would be amongst the 2,000 people selected to be stuffed into one of the ten MARC rockets, and rendered indefinitely unconscious by a toxic gas, upon entering their cryo-tubes, for the two week journey.
Marco had informed Simone of a tactic revealed to him by Severov years earlier, involving a drug released into the life support systems of the passengers’ life pods. On past missions to Mars, unsuspecting colonists would be placed in cryo- tubes for the duration of the trip, and never wake up. Instead, upon arrival at Mars, the colonists were transferred from their ships directly to the Shadow Colony; where they would become part of an ongoing gruesome experiment that even Gropovski did not have reliable intelligence about.
The Drellic era recon ship was far more advanced than the MARC rockets. Although they had been retrofitted with new and advanced propulsion systems, the MARCs wouldn’t arrive on Mars for another 13 days, while Simone, Marco and Winston were scheduled to arrive within the hour. Simone contemplated the possibility of Winston knowing the true identities of “Timothy and Tara Burrows”. She and Marco had thought about nothing else since, leaving Moscow. But she kept reassuring herself, by entertaining the notion that if Winston had known who they were, he would’ve most likely killed them by then.
Instead, Winston’s mood on board the recon ship reflected quite the opposite. He was very polite and inquisitive about Timothy and Tara’s colorful backgrounds, forcing them to think on their feet, while playing to Winston’s interests. Luckily for Simone, Marco Gropovski had spent years under Winston’s command and had prepped Simone months in advance, on how to keep Winston’s interests peaked, thus clouding his needs for suspicion.
Another challenge on the trip, was keeping Winston convinced that they were not only former Drellic operatives, but Drellic sympathizers. By the time the Red Planet was in visual range from the ship’s front windows, they felt they had done a superb job in getting Winston to believe that they also viewed Drellic’s arrival as a blessing and not a curse.
It seemed that the more like-minded they made themselves appear to Winston, the more they found Winston hinting at something of a job offer on the Shadow Colony. Given their cramped quarters, Simone and Marco had no time to themselves on the trek, but had conditioned themselves to read each other so well that even the slightest tone of voice change or body signal, could be interpreted properly.
Simone felt that if Winston had been planning to kill or torture them, he was doing too good of a job hiding it. Winston repeatedly spoke of being thankful for their presence, and how he had been waiting for the right scientific minds, with the right perspective on the world, to help him achieve his goals. He was never specific as to what his endgame in all of this was, but Marco had already given Simone a good idea, months earlier.
Winston was not the righteous and fair advocate for democracy that he presented himself to be. Marco knew that once Winston had what he needed from “Shadow”, he would do everything in his power to reshape the world into what he truly wanted it to be. That was all Simone ever needed to hear. She was ready to die, to prevent anything resembling the Drellic Era from happening again.
A few minutes later, Simone felt the familiar turbulence from diving through the Martian atmosphere. Minutes after that, the ship came to hover over Aeolis Mons, a mountain very close to where Callum had disposed of Drellic’s remains. Winston smiled, as he looked over the shoulder of his pilot, and spotted a circular opening at the top of the mountain. He then rushed back to the cabin and sat beside Marco and Simone. He placed one hand on Simone’s knee, and his other hand on Marco’s shoulder.
“This is the part I was telling you about,” he boasted. “This is the part that is going to change your lives.” “So we really aren’t the first people to ever set foot here? Are we?” Simone asked; nervously, hoping Winston wouldn’t detect the dishonesty in her question. “No. No, we are not, my dear Dr. Burrows!” Winston exclaimed.
Winston then rose to his feet, as the ship made a smooth, level descent inside the mountain. The cabin became dark, as solid walls of rock, filled the windows. “They have control,” the pilot called back to Winston. “Who has control?” Marco asked.
Winston grinned and replied, “My friends, if you truly believe in doing what is necessary to ensure the survival and prosperity of our species, as you say you do, then you are about to experience the most magical and inspiring days of your lives!”
The ship had just finished its descent through a tunnel carved into the top of the mountain, and was hovering mere inches from a massive rectangular concrete platform, on the floor of a large open cavern. Severov anxiously watched through the front windows, as the thin stream of light shining down on them, suddenly vanished. The hole at the top of the mountain had been sealed, causing the inside of the cavern to turn pitch black for just an instant, before a giant circular crystal, embedded in the rock wall in front of them, glowed brightly, illuminating the area.
Winston turned back to his passengers and said, “That means it’s safe to come out now.” He quickly walked over to the side hatch. Marco and Simone both had an uneasy feeling, and it was Simone who was the first to speak up. “What are you doing?” she asked Winston. “Don’t open that! You’ll kill us!” Winston just smiled and playfully replied, “Like I said. The crystal shines upon us, and so it is safe to come out.”
Without a second thought, he popped open the side hatch and hopped down to the concrete platform. There was no violent change in cabin pressure. Meaning that the pressure outside was equivalent to the pressure in the ship. The air coming in from the cavern smelled and tasted stale, but it was breathable. Simone and Marco remained seated on the metal bench along the cabin wall. Winston popped his head through the hatchway and said, “I assure you. It’s perfectly safe. Now, come out here! There are some people I want you to meet!”
Simone and Marco reluctantly removed their safety harnesses and exited the ship. To their surprise, the gravity inside the mysterious chamber was equal to that of Earth’s. “What is this?” Marco asked Winston. “How is all this possible?” Marco had to quickly stop himself from using his normal tone of voice, before speaking. He wasn’t acting anymore; neither was Simone.
Seeing the fully pressurized Earth-like conditions within the Martian mountain, reminded her of Drellic’s cocoon-like life chamber, inside Charon. Then as if it were fate, she turned around to see a familiar black and gray symbol, painted on the rock wall behind her.
“You recognize it. Don’t you?” Winston asked her, eagerly. “Of course I do,” Simone said with a shiver. It was the same symbol of unity, proudly displayed by the Sirenese and Tyrranese, eons earlier.
Simone turned to Winston. For the first time since their departure from Earth, her emotions were sincere. She was frightened and confused, but awe inspired at the same time. “Who exactly are we meeting here, Mr. Severov?” she stuttered. Winston grinned again, but before he could answer, a loud crumbling sound came from behind him, beneath the large shining crystal. It reminded Marco and Simone of the sound of an avalanche, but the walls around them seemed perfectly stable. Finally, it became clear that there was a hidden doorway beneath the crystal. Two slabs of rock were automatically parting ways, revealing a dimly lit, gray corridor with glowing green circular lights that lined the walls on both sides, and stretched down as far as the eye could see.
A moment later, they could hear approaching footsteps from the shadows of the corridor. Marco and Simone looked on in terror, while Winston watched with excitement, as three tall, thin human-like creatures, stepped out from the shadows and into the light
of the crystal. They had dull gray skin, solid black eyes and no visible hair, but aside from that, they resembled poorly nourished, adult human males. They staggered slightly when they walked, and had a peculiar habit of smelling the air around them, with their pale, slender noses, as if searching for food, the way a dog might.
What intrigued Simone and Marco the most about them, was their attire. They were dressed in formal black uniforms, identical to Drellic’s. They even displayed the same unity symbol upon their shoulders. Winston quickly approached the tallest of the three creatures and extended his hand. The creature shook Severov’s hand as a human would, as if it had done it hundreds of times. It then looked over to Simone and Marco and asked Winston, “Are these the loyalists, you mentioned?” in a raspy, low pitched voice.
The creature’s English was very impressive, despite its slow and hesitant speech patterns. Winston proudly responded, “Yes! This is Dr. Timothy Burrows and his lovely wife, Dr. Tara Burrows. They will be helping us to achieve our goal!”
“Good,” said the creature. “Then they are familiar with our methods?”
“Not entirely,” Winston answered dutifully. It was obvious to Simone and Marco that Winston did not have the same superiority complex on Mars that he did on Earth. “But they are loyalists, as I said,” Winston continued. “They will understand. We are like-minded, to say the least.”
“Good,” the creature replied, as its two companions stepped behind Simone and Marco, as if to nudge them into the corridor. The tallest of the creatures, who was introduced as “Phaetos”, gave Simone and Marco an awkward and inexperienced smile, revealing both a top and bottom row of off-white, human-like teeth. It then motioned for them to follow behind it and Severov into the corridor. “Please join us,” the creature rasped. “There is much for you to both see and understand, before we can proceed with your training.”
Simone and Marco nervously followed them into the uncertain dark, as the two other creatures followed closely behind them. The two slabs of rock automatically joined together after they passed by, sealing off the entrance. After a few hundred feet, they came to a brightly lit chamber, at the end of the corridor.
Together, the group stepped out onto a steel balcony, overlooking a massive factory floor. Simone and Marco gripped the rusty metal railing at the end of the balcony, and gazed upon thousands of creatures, identical to those in their company. They all appeared to be running some kind of an assembly line, with a vast network of conveyor belts. It seemed as though the final product of which, was stored in a walled off compartment, in the far left corner of the factory floor. It was filled with dozens of large, wide cylindrical water tanks, with a series of electronic control pads surrounding them.
Winston turned to Simone and Marco and said, “These are the descendants of a once vast, powerful and incredibly advanced civilization. My friends, I give you, the forgotten children of Tyrran.”
The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three Page 47