Jozi straightened and glanced down. “You killed it.” She twisted and punched him. “Asshole.”
He rubbed his shoulder. “Sorry, but I’m not going back to jail. You try to turn me in again and I’ll have no choice but to drop you off outside. And we all know how well you do in the Martian desert.”
The last two times he and Jozi had been walking across the desert in their EVA suits, she nearly froze to death. If it weren’t for Ozzy, she would have.
She let out a long exhale, rubbing her forehead. “I’ve got a migraine, you bastard.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“I’m going to be in trouble when I get back. There ain’t no doubt about it.” She glanced at the wreckage of Dawes. “Why are we here?”
Ozzy shrugged. “For memory’s sake.” He touched the picture on the flight console. “For Lily.”
“You visit here much?”
Ozzy shook his head. “No, but it’s on the way to Olympus Mons.”
Jozi wiggled in her seat. “I have to tell you something. I don’t want to, but it’s eating at me, and I think you’re the only one who would understand.” She blinked her eyes several times and continued to rub her head.
Ozzy pressed the throttle forward, moving Relic away from the city. “What is it?”
“Remember I told you about when my parents died?”
It was the crash of flight 2779. An S-45 Prancer. An experimental Mars transport craft that her parents were piloting. They killed more than three hundred people on that flight from Gale Crater City to Knobel.
“I remember.”
“Well, there is something else,” Jozi said. “I was digging in the Ministry files after we found the cure, and it turns out that there was a faulty ionic engine valve that caused the fire in the engine during their flight and the resulting crash.”
“Yeah, that happens.” He grimaced, thinking if he wasn’t a good mechanic or didn’t pay attention to his safety checks and engine diagnostics, he may also have issues like that.
“That’s right. It does happen, but the Ministry blamed the pilots—my parents. Yet, the Ministry gave the Prancer an all clear even though the Ministry found out about the faulty component on the previous test flight and simply forgot to fix it.”
Ozzy shrugged. “As I said, human error can happen.”
“Yes, human error can happen, but the Ministry covered it up by orders of Robert Baldwin, the High Judge. It was his first year as the High Judge, and he didn’t want anything or anyone in his administration to look bad, plus he’d have a hefty bill to pay out to the families who lost their loved ones. It would be a big black mark on his first term in office. Instead, he shrugged it off and covered it up.”
“So?” It was probably one of the million terrible things that the prick, Robert Baldwin, did in his long-tenured High Judge career where he somehow continued to win election after election even though no one liked him.
“Well, there is more. I found your father’s file too. While he was the mayor of Gale Crater City, he sent a complaint to the Ministry. A complaint that was all but ignored. He stated that he had a suspicion and evidence that Robert Baldwin manipulated the vote count and stole the election.”
Ozzy paused. Did he hear that right? He tilted his head. “No.” That was silly. “My dad would have turned him in, not just written a note.”
Jozi nodded, most likely understanding his disbelief. “I wanted to continue my investigation on it, but then I received the assignment to locate you, to see if you’d bite with another illegal dig and if so, to arrest you.”
“Why in Mars’s plumber’s crack would my dad hold off on that kind of information?”
Jozi shrugged. “My thought was that he was trying to keep you and your family safe. Maybe he made some attempt but was threatened, much like you were?” Jozi relaxed and sat straighter, her tone changing. “The High Judge may have done some bad things, but keep in mind, he’s keeping Mars together. He’s not as bad as some make him out, especially you.”
She had too much faith in her High Judge. Heck, he was somewhat like a father to her, being in the Ministry and semi-hands-on with her from childhood to adulthood, so she was more than biased in her opinions on the bastard.
Ozzy leaned away from Jozi like he wanted to lean away from a thought that came to mind. “Or, this could be why Robert has a thing for me and my family. My dad probably pissed him off beyond repair, much like my dad did with me. My father had a way with words, and a way to make you feel like an insignificant piece of Mars dung.” Ozzy could speculate all he wanted, but he would never know what went on between his father and Robert. If anything, he imagined his dad was threatened and constantly gave the High Judge nothing but problems in the form of words and his voting record against Robert.
Jozi let out a sigh. “He wouldn’t do that to your dad. Don’t be ridiculous. The Ministry may have put a scare in him, but Robert wouldn’t stoop to that level.”
Does she really think that? “He did with me.”
Jozi seethed, her eyes narrowing. “You know why he set you up, Ozzy? Because he probably realized who you truly were when you were a professor. He saw that deep down you were a criminal. Robert can see past the eyes and into the soul. Trust me. You’re lucky he didn’t turn you in during those years.”
Ozzy moaned. “You truly are brainwashed. We’ll just chalk up those artifacts I sold on the black market for him as a way to satisfy his ego that I am the one who was the criminal.” Ozzy rolled his eyes. “Did you see all the holovids, holodocs, and holoimages I had you retrieve and use to turn in the High Judge after we found the cure for the Martian Plague? The guy has done so much illegal activity that he needs to be in prison.”
“I didn’t. I did you a favor and told Robert I had some information you recorded on him. That’s all. I then pleaded for you to be set free, and as a good person, he did just that, because it was the right thing since you found the cure and all.”
Ozzy leaned back in his seat and set Relic on autopilot, programming it for Olympus Mons. He checked the flight time, which blinked seven hours.
He sighed. “So you didn’t look at the documents and vids I have on Robert? Nothing?”
Jozi fidgeted with her pendant. “A little.”
“So you are, in a way, covering for your boss.”
“I was doing what was best for Mars. He is the one keeping us together. Don’t take it personally, Ozzy.”
“Really?” Ozzy shook his head. He squinted his eyes, looking at her face. “You know what? You kind of look like him. Has anyone ever told you that? A pretty woman version of him, but there is some slight—” He threw a dismissive hand. Maybe they were secretly related, and that’s why she was covering for him. He almost laughed at his own thoughts and eyed the holoscreen in front of him as this conversation was going nowhere.
He unzipped the satchel around his waist and pulled out his HOLO-AR unit. He flicked it with his finger, and it flew in the air and hovered in front of them. “Well, we have to find something for Jonas, regardless if you’re doing everything in your power to keep a criminal High Judge out of prison. You game?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so, but you’re coming along.”
She looked down at her broken com link and knew she didn’t have a choice, so she kept her mouth shut.
“Moonshinka Rock,” Ozzy said to the hovering device. “Pictographs.”
A holographic image shot from the HOLO-AR, highlighting the cockpit in colors.
“You see that rock under the willow tree?” asked Ozzy.
“Yes. Was that the willow tree in the underground capsule?”
Ozzy nodded. “Now, do you see the Ancient Coptic writing inscribed on the rock?”
“I do,” Jozi said, her voice cold from the previous discussion.
“It says that a war had taken place on Mars a long time ago and—”
The capsule in his lap clicked. Ozzy glanced down. The top and bottom opened up by
themselves, exposing a violet light in the middle.
An image shot upward from the light, and Ozzy jerked away. It was a picture of Mars.
Ozzy narrowed his eyes. “What the hell? Did the HOLO-AR’s holoimage turn the capsule on?”
Ozzy had seen the capsule turn on before, showing a map and route to the Ark of the Concordant, but it had never revealed anything more than that.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Ozzy grabbed the hovering HOLO-AR and turned it off. The capsule clicked off as well. He threw the HOLO-AR back into the air, and it hovered and blinked on.
“Moonshinka Rock; pictographs,” said Ozzy.
The same Coptic glyphs appeared. The capsule opened up and turned on, projecting a picture of Mars.
“Holy asteroid,” Ozzy mumbled.
“The hieroglyphs are definitely turning that capsule on,” Jozi said, her mouth gaping open.
Ozzy nodded. He put his finger on the image of Mars and pulled back. The picture changed from a still to an actual holovid where it spun on its axis.
The holovid spoke, though in words he couldn’t understand. Yes, he could read the glyphs, but the accent and dialect were foreign. It had to be Martian.
He tapped on Relic’s communication line, switching to translate mode. He picked up two headphones from his control panel rack and tossed one to Jozi.
Ozzy put his headset on and restarted the capsule’s holovid. He folded his arms over his chest.
“Transmission one. We are in distress. We are in a battle against Maldek, a planet that sits between Mars and Jupiter. There is no victory in sight for either race, yet our leaders will not stop, and our military will not back down. If any of you are out there and bearing witness to this devastation, please, we need your help. End transmission.”
The holovid of Mars zoomed out. Now, two planets, both beautiful and lush—blue and green like Earth—were in view. The one closest to Jupiter, which had to be Maldek, was larger than Mars but not by much.
The vid zoomed in and to an area in the cosmos directly between Mars and Maldek. Explosions, blinking lights, and what looked like space-to-space missiles and energy beams lit up a battle between two warring cultures. Ozzy watched in surprise.
Large ships, some twice the size of any star carrier the Ministry had ever created, were blasting the living hell out of each other.
The vid changed to a spinning Mars again. “Transmission two. There is no hope. We, the wise of the Ancients, are preparing to leave. We will spread out among the stars and repopulate our kind in other solar systems. End transmission.”
The vid warped and moved around the space battles taking place between both worlds then zoomed to Maldek and panned to a scene on the planet.
A man, wearing an outfit like the old Romans of Earth’s past, stood pointing toward the sky and yelling something inaudible. Missiles fired from all around him, his large almond-shaped eyes gazed unblinkingly toward the bright lights twinkling in the sky. He had dark skin, more tan than brown, and a black beard that covered more of the cheek than any human. His face was wide, and his chin jutted out farther than his face.
He was a giant, much like the Ancient Martians, though the Ancient Martians looked more human than this Maldekean.
The vid changed yet again, and Mars spun before Ozzy. “Transmission three. Only a few of us escaped in time. No one came to help us. No one. We know there are many races out there, and in a time of need, you abandoned us. We will not forget this. We will expand.”
The view morphed from Maldek to Mars. A man, wearing gold armor, stood with an army behind him. A large treasure chest overlaid in gold with two angel wings on either side sat on the ground beside him. He pounded a staff into the ground. The chest’s cover opened and folded over the top. Immediately, the world behind him gathered up in a storm. A whirling tornado blew dirt and brush in a winding circle, a hail storm thrust down upon the surface, and Mars quaked. A light flashed out of the chest, blinding everything in view.
The vid zoomed out, displaying both worlds. The light from the chest beamed through Mars’s atmosphere and across the battling ships, disintegrating them in seconds, and rushed toward Maldek.
Maldek took the light in like a sponge. A brilliant rainbow glow lit up its magnetosphere. The world transformed from blue and green to red and orange.
Maldek was on fire.
A second later, it grayed like a Mars coffin, and all energy sucked into the middle of the planet.
Maldek expanded twice its size, and another bright flash tortured Ozzy’s eyes.
He squinted and held his breath when the planet blew apart into millions of chunks, littering space with rock, shoving hundreds of its own debris in the direction of Mars.
The vid changed again. “Transmission four. We watched the destruction of our home. Less than twenty-five hundred of our souls escaped. To some of us, Earth is our new home, and we are among the small humanoids that already live there. To others, Panthonea, Belza, and Sentak have become their homes. May they live on and flourish, and may we on Earth do the same.”
Men and women on Mars glared to the heavens, watching the hailstorm turn into a meteor shower heading right for them.
Asteroid after asteroid broke through the exosphere, darkening the sky and burning holes in the atmosphere.
One by one they hit Mars, some in the oceans, creating tsunamis the breadth and height Mars had probably never seen. Men and women ran for their lives, screaming and knowing their time was going to be short. More asteroids fell, and then the largest one headed toward a continent.
A mushroom cloud filled the sky.
The atmosphere evaporated in one quick stroke.
The dead lay on the ground, not a single soul on the surface alive.
“We are the Ancients. We will not forget. End transmission.”
7
Nearing Pollack Mine, Mars
The hologram sucked into the capsule, and the capsule closed.
Ozzy raised his eyebrows. “The Martians destroyed an entire planet and in the process, blew their own atmosphere away.” He shot Jozi an ominous look. “They said some went to Earth.”
He imagined they were one of the races of giants of Earth’s mythological past, which he figured was more truth than not.
The Earth giants had died eons ago, probably from Earth’s floods and the giants’ warlike nature—live by the sword, die by the sword.
Jozi blinked several times, obviously in disbelief. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Ozzy could tell she was talking about the holovid.
Ozzy tapped the side wall in the cockpit a couple of times. A compartment extended. He plopped the capsule into the compartment and shoved it closed. “That’s what happened to the Ancients.”
“Was that the Ark of the Concordant that blew the living hell out of Maldek?”
Ozzy nodded, watching a large mine—Pollack Mine—appear in the distance. It was a small graviton dome and surrounded by spires of rocks thrusting toward the sky.
He’d been here before, but it’d be better if he just flew on by now.
Jozi leaned forward, scratching her temple. “And we’re heading to get that Ark this very moment?”
“Yes.”
“Turn back.”
“Give me twelve and a half million auric, and I’ll turn around.”
Jozi snorted. “You know I don’t have that.”
“Then I keep going.”
Jozi’s eyes widened. “You’re joking, right?”
“No.”
“You saw what that thing could do.” She shook her head and eyed him with a stare that would kill the vilest of creatures—High Judge Robert Baldwin being one of them.
“You understand it will kill everything on Mars when it’s used, right?”
“They won’t be able to get it to work, so no sweat off my back.”
“You are heading to dig up something that will kill the whole lot of us,” Jozi growled.
> “As I said, Jonas will not be able to use it.”
“You believe that, Ozzy? And what if he does and everyone on Mars is destroyed as we saw in that holovid?”
It didn’t matter, he’d be off Mars and looking for a new home. “Look, Jonas said he has access to the bloodline. According to the Ancient Coptic records, the Ark of the Concordant can only be used correctly with someone who is of the bloo—” Ozzy interrupted himself. “Wait a minute.”
A ship popped on Ozzy’s radar.
Krjjjwhaboom!
Relic shuddered, and Ozzy grabbed onto the control stick and switched off autopilot.
Jozi looked behind her as if she could see what had hit them. “What was that?”
“Pulling up rear cams.” He swiped his finger over his holodisplay. A small, weaponized craft was behind them. It was a Marine ship, painted all-black—Mort Wildly’s signature. “It’s an S-14 Zinger. A starfighter that is fast and deadly.”
“How did they find you?” Jozi asked. “Did you turn Indigo on?”
Ozzy pushed down on his control stick, putting them into a dive. “It’s got to be Zeld. She probably followed us from Tagus Valles.”
Toph Bailey was hired by Lyra No Tail for this find as well, but Toph was a nice guy. He wouldn’t harm a fly—if those bugs existed on Mars. This Zeld character was the opposite. She wanted Ozzy’s blood.
The cockpit beeped. “Incoming.” His entire body went rigid. “AGSR-14 Niners, heading in fast.”
Jozi went to get up, but Ozzy put his hand on her shoulder.
“Strap back in,” he ordered, pulling back on the control stick.
“I’m heading to the weapons room.”
Ozzy shook his head. “I don’t have graviton shields.”
“What?”
“I switched them out for more weapon power and faster ionic engines. Didn’t think I’d need them with Indigo and all.”
Jozi’s entire face drooped. “You stupid son of a—”
He banked hard right. The missiles sidewinded by him, sending a trail of smoke past the left side of his cockpit window and crashing into the red dust-covered ground below, which sent a splash of sand into the air.
Mars Colony Chronicles (Books 1 - 5): A Space Opera Box Set Adventure Page 26