The probes pinpointed him immediately. They began firing in random sequences, hoping to hit their moving target.
Jonas hurried through the room and dodged out into the hallway. He lay on the floor staring at his father’s blaster. The teen knew that he would meet his parent’s fate unless he wiped out these killer machines.
He rolled along the wall trying to gain access to the weapon.
Whack!
An explosion ripped from his parent’s room.
Jonas turned to face his attacker. There it was—the biggest probe yet. Unlike the others, it bore a team of five mechanical eyes. Its outer shell was armed with two huge blasters. On its top, the machine had a rotating turret blaster. The blaster’s sights trained directly on Jonas.
The blaster was only an arms reach away. The probe was waiting for his next move. Jonas flipped over to the other side of the wall.
Bam!
The wall Jonas was previously leaning against had been blown to rubble. The top turret refocused its guns on his new location within seconds.
This time, Jonas had more of an advantage. When he escaped to the far wall, he managed to pick up his father’s blaster. He kept it secretly tucked at his side. He aimed its barrel in the direction of the probe, then he squeezed the trigger.
Smash!
The blaster tore a hole in the right side of the probe. The mechanical monster was hit but not defeated. It spun around wildly trying to regain control.
Jonas took advantage of the machine’s mayhem and ran back down the hallway. He peeked in his parents’ room to discover the two probes at a standstill. He raised the blaster and pointed it at the probe furthest away. Dad had always said, shoot the enemy the farthest, first. Squeeze. Fire.
Direct hit. The probe blew in twenty tiny directions. The closest probe turned its lens towards the action. It made itself an easier target by keeping its back to the teen.
Jonas fired upon it.
Direct hit! That probe had been turned into flying particles.
Wham!
Jonas was suddenly tossed into the room by a huge blast. Lying on the floor, he turned to find the entire doorway was a skeletal hole. The empty space quickly filled with the monster probe—all three guns trained in his direction.
The monster’s electronic eye dilated slowly on its target.
Jonas slowly lifted his blaster. He raised it a little higher with each click of the probes lens. The probe was tracking his every move as if it were playing a mirror game.
Suddenly, Jonas’s forehead had gained the probe’s red beam. Feeling the faint heat on his skin, Jonas raised his eyes, noticing he was again a target. It was now or never. He applied pressure to his weapon’s trigger. The moisture from two fingers caused a slight slip.
“Come on.” Jonas locked his fingers into place.
The probe’s side blasters cocked in unison.
Wham! The probe slammed into the wall.
Jonas stared at his steel adversary. He could not believe the machine was still in one piece, less the top turret.
Plop! A silver sphere, the size of a golf ball, was released from the probe. It slowly rolled down towards Jonas.
Jonas did not waste time figuring out what it could be. “Oh, no.” He hopped to his feet and jumped out the window. He found himself face to face with his mother’s corpse. Jonas grabbed hold of her and tried to lift her. A ticking sound grew from inside the room. He let her down and kissed his mother on her cheek. He wiped his eyes. A steady tone hummed from the room.
Jonas sprang quickly across the sand. At the border of their property stood a sandstone wall. Just as he got over the stone wall, the dwelling sparked in a huge explosion. Parts of the fiery home sailed through the air. The enormous power of the blast lifted him and took Jonas on a horror ride into a nearby field.
*
Three
Morning light revealed the extent of the damage. Smoke billowed from pockets of the wrecked dwelling. Pieces of a beautiful home were scattered about the yard. Charred memories of a family that was. The long stone wall had large chunks removed from the force of the explosion.
The field was decorated with all kinds of exotic plants. Large rodents with fanged teeth kept scurrying in and out of the newly cut holes in the wall. Next to a solitary piece of sandstone lay Jonas.
He was covered in silt. The back of his shirt was tattered to shreds and soaked with dried blood. His sandy brown hair was scorched in the back. His eyes were sealed shut from the massive swelling of his cheekbones.
“Over here. Mother? Over here,” a familiar voice called from the rubble.
“Oh dear. It’s Jonas.” A woman in her early forties made her way to the beaten teen.
“Is he alive?” Carlen hurried to join the woman.
She knelt down next to Jonas. She began to gently stroke his hair. “Jonas? Honey? Jonas?”
“Mother … I think he’s dead.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Carlen. Can’t you see that he’s breathing?”
Jonas started to respond to his Aunt Cleonia’s motherly touch. He was calling for his own mother, which sounded like senseless words dribbling from his lips.
“Ooh. Ooh. He’s saying something. He’s saying something.” Carlen pointed at Jonas’s mouth. “What’s he saying, Mother?”
“Quiet Carlen. I can’t hear him.” She rubbed his shoulder a bit.
“Ma … Mommy.” Jonas squinted at his aunt and could not help but mistake her for his own mother. After all, being sisters, they both had auburn hair, though Cleonia’s was a tighter fit around her head. Their light complexion and full, oval-shaped blue eyes could have easily allowed Cleonia to pass for a double, while in his dream.
“Mommy? That’s so babyish.” Carlen let out a laugh.
“Shut up, you idiot! Don’t you take anything seriously? I raised a fool.” Aunt Cleonia gently squeezed Jonas’s cold hand.
“Mom? No. No. Mom!” Jonas sprung from his deep sleep. The image of his mother rolling over to her death replayed in his mind.
“It’s okay, honey. Auntie’s here.” She grabbed both of his hands.
Jonas sat up slowly, his gaze fixated on the destruction. His eyes were like swollen, dark blue puffballs with slits. Why did this happen? Where’s my mother? He tried to speak but his words were scrambled. He couldn’t think straight. His entire world had been crushed. Of all the people to come to his rescue, he was unlucky enough to get his aunt and Carlen.
“Jonas, what happened?” Carlen sat down next to him.
Jonas just gave him a stoic stare. Carlen looked a bit better through battered eyes. He was able to think of words but not yet capable of putting them in order. His motor skills were slowly returning.
“What happened here?” Carlen thought Jonas had the eyes of a stegolizard but he wasn’t about to tell him.
“I don’t know, Carlen … someone wanted us dead though.” Jonas sucked some air in through his nostrils. “Whoever it was did a good job. Both my parents are dead.” Jonas started making odd facial gestures as if he was beginning to cry. “They’re both dead.”
Aunt Cleonia pulled Jonas in closer to comfort him. “Jonas.”
“Get away from me…” Jonas pushed his aunt away forcefully. The last person he wanted to get a hug from was Cleonia. She must be loving this.
“Hey!” Carlen put his hand on Jonas’s chest. “Watch it.”
Jonas pushed off his cousin’s hand. “Don’t piss me off, Carlen.”
“Carlen, go somewhere,” Aunt Cleonia ordered.
“Where, Mother, would you suggest I go?”
“How about to a craft merchant?” Cleonia was clearly still angry about the vehicle. She turned and smiled at her nephew. “Sweetheart … I know you’re upset.”
“Where are my parents?”
Aunt Cleonia again attempted to soften Jonas by placing her hand on his knee. “We have to stick together now—”
“Where are their bodies?” Jonas wanted to see his folks
one last time.
“We had them moved to the medi-center.” She wiped her wet eyes as she tried to remain strong and in charge. “We couldn’t find you … Now we did. Thank the Gods you are alive.”
Jonas studied his aunt closely. He realized how hurt she was, too. Maybe she wasn’t all that horrible.
“It’s bad enough I lost my sister … I don’t know what I might have done if I’d lost my favorite nephew, too.”
Favorite nephew? Where did that come from? Jonas wondered. Usually she only puts me down.
“I know I may be overstepping my bounds, but I would like to ask you to stay with us. At least until the Academy begins. What do you say?”
Jonas just stared at her through his swollen slits. Even though he’d come to the realization that she was not all that bad, he still preferred to live in the pile of rubble where his dwelling once stood.
Cleonia read her nephew’s mind. “It’s only for a season?”
Jonas turned his attention toward the property where he’d grown up and spent so much of his life. He reached into his pocket searching for his new stone. It had vanished. He fiddled through his other pocket but the stone was gone. Then he shifted his attention on his aunt. “I don’t want to go to the Academy.”
“Now stop talking silly, dear … this was everything your father dreamed of.”
Jonas used all his strength to lift himself up off the ground. He gripped the large sandstone rock and gained his balance.
“Where are you going, honey?”
“I’ve got to see something.” Jonas took a wobbly step toward his yard. He had to find that stone. It was all he had left of his world.
“I think you should stay right here until the ambucare arrives.”
“I am not going to any medi-center. I’m fine.” Jonas waved her off as he slowly walked over to the rubble.
His aunt continued to call him, but he ignored her. He knew he should take her advice, but he would never admit to it.
When he came to the smoldering area that used to be his room, he looked for any surviving moon rocks. He absolutely needed to find that stone.
“Jonas, what are you doing?”
“Nothing.” He didn’t feel like telling Carlen what he was looking for.
“Hey, Jonas, what are these?” Carlen was pointing to a pile of small rocks.
“My rocks.” Jonas kept his eyes aimlessly on the ground. He kept searching for the only one that mattered.
“What’s this one?” Carlen held up the glowing rock from Venus’s moon.
“It’s nothing. A rock from the mother land.” Jonas was so focused that he didn’t realize the medics had arrived.
They were standing next to Aunt Cleonia with their gear in hand. “That the boy?”
“Yes, sir. He’s still in shock, so please forgive him if he seems testy.”
Jonas finally strolled over to his aunt. He broke from his concentration on the ground. He was astonished to see that he’d never heard the medics arrive.
“Hello, son.”
“I’m not your son. I’m also not going to the medi-center. I’m fine.” Jonas was intent on finding his memento.
“No need to get upset. We’ll give you a quick look over and together we will make a decision.” The medic smiled. “Fair enough?”
Jonas scanned one more portion of the ground, and there it was, lying where his bed had been. He swiped the stone from the ground and stuffed it deep into his pocket. “Fine.” Jonas sat on the portable stool the medics popped open.
“Do you know who his father is?” Aunt Cleonia chimed in.
“Was,” Jonas quickly corrected her.
Cleonia wiped her left eye, apparently upset by his comment.
“Actually, I served the same time as your dad … During the early years of the Enforcement.”
“Enforcement?” Carlen stepped into the conversation. “What’s that?”
The medic looked sternly at Carlen. “Not something I choose to talk about.”
“Don’t worry about him. Carlen is to be a second year learner at the Academy,” Cleonia bragged. “He made the Master’s List this year.”
“Then he should already know about the Enforcement,” the medic said sarcastically.
Jonas released a tiny grin. This guy was cool. He loved watching anything that made Carlen look foolish. Even with the entire trauma that had just entered into his life, Carlen’s stupidity made everything better—for the moment.
“Okay, son, this won’t hurt a bit.” The medic injected a needle through Jonas’s arm.
“What’s that?” Carlen asked.
“Can’t you shut up?” Jonas shot his cousin a dead stare.
“Lay off me, Jonas.”
Aunt Cleonia chimed in, “Now, boys—”
“We need to get you to the center, now.” The medic was reading the levels on the needle.
“Why? He wants to come home with me. Right, Jonas?”
Jonas looked at Carlen walking around them. “On second thought … I will go to the center.”
Evening swooped down upon the Earth as the moons lit up the sky. They were especially bright. The entire grounds of the medi-center were so well illuminated that every shrub was easily visible from the window of Jonas’s room.
Jonas lay in his bed that evening staring at Jenco, the second moon. Jenco was the largest of the three satellites that orbited Earth. It would probably have been the first settlement of the Sapians when they migrated. However, its weak atmosphere was only able to accommodate a small population.
Jonas rubbed the itchy wound on his left arm. He was thinking about the trip he and his father had gone on three rotations ago. It was a special vacation, one that his parents argued over for months afterward. Captain Troupe felt that Jonas should go along on a mission as a present for his thirteenth birthday. His mother tried to protect him from what the second moon had become. As usual, Dad won the fight.
“Jonas?”
“Coming Dad.”
“Stay close to me. Even though the Enforcers control this giant rock, there are still dangers around.” Captain Troupe grabbed his son by the arm as they walked past three stocky men.
Jonas noticed their foreheads were larger than any he had ever seen. He placed his hand on his own forehead just to make sure his was still normal.
“Come on, son … Let’s get inside.”
“Why are those people different, Dad?”
“What do you mean?”
Jonas tapped his forehead again. “Are they from a different planet?”
“No, son. They are the Crows.”
“The what?”
Ignoring his son’s question, he said, “Come on … I’ll take you to see the Enforcement’s newest space weapon.”
Jonas got out of his hospital bed and walked over to the window. He wondered if the all-powerful weapon was still being housed on Jenco.
The whole moon was maintained by the imprisoned Crows and supervised by the Enforcement. Dad said they weren’t really slaves. He said they had a choice. They were conflict criminals and had been captured. Their choice was between life on the holding moon, Luna, or repaying a life debt on Jenco.
Jonas knew that no one with any brains would want to be dropped on Luna. The rock was the simplest of the three. No atmosphere. The prisoners were given oxygen bags and lead shoes. However, they either fried or froze to death. Food and shelter did not exist. Being dropped off on Luna was a politically correct way of giving someone the death chamber.
He remembered that trip as if it happened yesterday. He enjoyed being with his father and the other Enforcers. No other boy his age had been to the crater mines or had ever seen moon camps. The moon camps were places where hundreds of Crows slept in the evening. Jonas recalled how horrible the camps smelled. Granted, it was not a vacation like the type his other friends used to go on, but it was still two rounds off from daily schooling.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” A soft voice interrupted his memory.
“Hello.”
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” The girl started flipping through a folder. “Mister…?”
“Jonas.” He volunteered his name in order to halt her paper search. He was captivated by her presence.
“Mr. Troupe.” The girl closed her folder and smiled at Jonas.
Jonas could not take his gaze off her. Then he remembered how he looked. He felt embarrassed and quickly turned his head.
“Mr. Troupe? You need to stay in bed.”
“Fine.” Jonas strolled over to his bunk with his battered face hidden. Once he was under the cover of the deep shadow that sheltered his bunk, Jonas felt more secure. He sat down and placed his hands on his lap. “So now that you know my name, what’s yours?”
“My name is Nurse’s Assistant.” The girl tilted her head and flashed a stern smile.
“Oh … I get it.” Jonas realized this was to remain a business thing.
“Now the medical officer will be in to see you first thing during sun up. So please get a good night’s sleep.”
“When do I get out of here?”
“Considering the only major injuries you suffered were mostly abrasions, I would hope in two suns’ time.”
“Great.”
The girl had a bewildered look on her face.
“With my aunt, I could easily do a couple of rounds in here.” Jonas let out a sarcastic laugh.
The girl responded with a chuckle, tucked her folder under her arm and left the room.
Jonas thought she was the hottest girl he had ever seen. Too bad, she seemed uninterested. However, she did laugh at his joke. He lay down and pulled the sheets up to his waist. The trip to Jenco was still heavy in his memory. Then he remembered what both his parents mentioned before they died. His father talked about a secret and a place called ‘Str’ and his mother said something about a storm. What was that all about?
Center Moon: The Stone of Cordova Page 3