“Nothing is easy, Ozzy. Nothing.” She blinked several more times. “Unscrambled.”
This is weird, thought Ozzy. “Okay, what you got?” Ozzy was having a hard time getting used to Jozi’s new personality.
“It appears that Jonas has a passage way to his compound. It’s outside Tagus Valles city. He uses it to import and export illegal items.”
“A smuggler’s tunnel.”
“Yes.” She paused and closed her eyes. She opened them. “It’s to smuggle weapons and ships as well. It’s large.”
Ozzy’s mouth hung open. “We can take Relic through it?”
“Affirmative.”
Ozzy wrung his hands together. This was going to be a snap. In and out, the way forbidden archaeology used to be. “Where is the entrance?”
“Northeast of Tagus Valles at the base of Small Mount Tagus. It’s not giving me the exact location to the entrance, just that it’s somewhere there.”
The holodisplay split again. The radar now took up half the screen. Two blips were following him and coming in hot.
No trace of weapons.
Were those Jonas’s ships?
Ozzy pulled up the rear cams. He zoomed in and let out a grunt, and an exasperated breath. He leaned back, throwing his feet up on the flight console, and put his hands behind his neck.
Those weren’t Jonas’s ships.
He grinned. “Looks like we have visitors.” He then froze and stood, his eyes widening. “Who the hell is looking after Lily?”
14
Nearing Tagus Valles, Mars
“Open the back ramp,” ordered Ozzy, his arms folded, his breath shallow. They still had their EVA’s on, so the oxygen drain wouldn’t affect them, but what was effecting him was the thought that Lily was all alone back at the Martian base.
Jozi sat forward, and pressed a holographic button on the control panel. “Rear ramp opening.”
A clank, and then a second clank echoed in the storage bays.
“The bodies are safe and secure.” Jozi pressed the button again. “Closing ramp.”
The bodies? “Take over the controls.” He touched Jozi’s shoulder. “And you can call them by name. The Bodies won’t fly with me.” Ozzy stood and walked out of the cockpit to a railing overlooking the storage bay. He knocked on the metal railing, his nostrils flaring. “Look who decided to join us.”
Quad and Gragas stood in the storage bay with their shiny metallic wings extended. They both tapped their chests and the wings folded in and sucked into their battlesuits.
“We were bored,” said Quad.
“Do you like the upgrades to Relic, Ozzy?” asked Gragas.
“Where is Lily?”
Gragas stepped forward, leaning back to look up at Ozzy. “Kat is with her.”
“When did Kat return?”
“Not too long before we left. I’m glad she survived and is well. She’s a mystery even to us, but is kindhearted.” Gragas walked toward the ladder. “And what’s interesting to me in regards to Kat is that she refused to show herself. I have yet to see her without a battlesuit on.”
“And she’s watching over Lily?” asked Ozzy.
“Yes, and your Lily was having a good time with Kat, I assure you,” replied Gragas.
“Good.” Ozzy pointed to the corner at the new Mars buggy. “And getting back to your original question, do you want to know if I like the new improvements?” He snorted. “Sure. That was real nice of you.” His sarcasm wasn’t lost on Gragas.
Gragas laughed. “You haven’t seen the rest of the improvements, then. We have installed backup boosters, and plasma charged batteries in the engine core room. We also placed photon cannons in the front and back of the craft.” Gragas rubbed his hands together. “What that means is that you won’t need an Eagle. You can go wherever your heart takes you, whether that be Earth, Europa, or Kyra.”
Kyra? Ozzy had never heard of the place, but regardless, how had he not noticed the upgrades? Ozzy grin. “You’re shittin’ me, right?” If what Gragas said was true, he’d be able to take Lily off this planet to another moon or planet whenever the hell he desired.
Gragas shook his head. “I don’t understand. No, I have not shit on you. And it wouldn’t have crossed my mind to do so.”
Ozzy threw a dismissive hand. “It’s just an expression.”
“Mars, I hope so.”
Quad walked to the ladder. “We’re also here to help you with the Gaia Stones.” He began climbing.
Ozzy pushed off the railing and took a long stride backward. “How would you know about the Gaia Stones?”
“Kat,” responded Gragas, moving over to the ladder as well. “She let us in on it, and said you needed our help. And, so, here we are.”
“Plus, we were bored,” reminded Quad.
“Wait, Kat?” This wasn’t making sense. Kat hadn’t been anywhere near Ozzy since she went missing before rescuing Lily, so how could she know about the Gaia Stones?
“Ozzy,” said Jozi from the cockpit. “I’ve set the new coordinates to Small Mount Tagus. We’ll be there in twenty-eight seconds.”
“Alright.” Ozzy swung around the corner and into the cockpit. He plopped in his favorite chair. “Lower the skids, but did you let Kat know about our talk with Lyra No Tail?”
Jozi shook her head, keeping her eyes on the controls.
“How would Kat know?”
Gragas stood behind Ozzy’s chair. “I assumed you told her.”
They approached a small mountain. It’s top was chopped in half from an ancient explosion.
Jozi lowered the skids and the craft vibrated when the skids touched the ground.
“Whoa,” said Ozzy. “A little rough there, Jozi.”
Jozi nodded. “I’m sorry, Ozzy. I’m still getting used to my new body.”
Ozzy let it slide. “Pull up scanners. Let’s find a way inside and to the smuggling tunnel.”
Jozi pressed a button. Nothing happened. She swiped her hand across the holoscreen, and pulled up the scanner instrumentation report. “It’s malfunctioned. I’ll have to work on it.” She began swiping across more screens and pressed several holographic buttons.
Ozzy moaned. He didn’t want to have to wait for Jozi to figure it out. He turned, facing Gragas. “Now, this Kat thing has me stumped. I didn’t tell her anything about the Gaia Stones.”
“Kat has a way of getting information that stumps us all, but she never lets the cat out of the bag, no pun intended.” Gragas tilted his head, staring out the cockpit window. “Why are we at a mountain?”
“Explain it to them, Jozi. I’ll go search for the entrance.” Ozzy jumped out of his seat and hurried out of the cockpit. There, leaning against the wall, was Quad.
He gave Ozzy a nod, and thumbed over his shoulder. “I am too large for in there. You need my help with anything?”
Ozzy shook his head. “Nah. It’ll just take me a second.” A ship sized entrance shouldn’t be too hard for a famous archaeologist like himself to locate.
He slid down the ladder and rushed to the ramp door. He slapped the button, and the ramp clanked and descended to the ground.
Ozzy rushed outside, the sand thick and deep at the base of the mountain, which was odd. Usually the base of mountains had sand, but it was never deep, and his boots always met slate rock with every step.
Yet, every step on this mountain buried half of his boot in red dust.
He marched onward and up a slight grade, heading toward a tall and wide rock face. He glanced over his shoulder, eyeing the dirt around Relic. Its sleds were half buried, just like his boots.
Was Relic sinking?
He shook his head, facing the rock. He turned on his helmet lights and lit up the area, examining the rock for anything that would open a door into the mountain.
Ozzy let out a exasperated breath. “Nothing here.” He activated his com line. “Jozi, I thought this was an opening, but it’s just a wall. Are Relic’s laser scanners working yet? I want to see if there is indeed an op
ening behind this. If so, there has to be a lever somewhere to press and open it up.”
“I’m almost there,” responded Jozi.
Ozzy surveyed the area. He ran his hands along the rock to find anything that might be a button or a lever.
“Ozzy?” came Jozi.
“I’m here.”
“It’s rock all the way through. That’s not an entrance.”
“Alright. Keep scanning the mountain and everything around it, and I’ll keep searching for something.”
He walked down the grade and gasped, lurching back. “What the hell?”
Relic was sinking deeper into the sand and the landing skids were completely covered.
“Jozi, get Relic into a hover, and now.”
He rushed forward.
A pause.
“I don’t see any reason why.”
“Relic is sinking.”
“What?”
Ozzy moved faster. Jozi wasn’t doing as told and right now, that was a big problem. “Just put it in a hover. No more questions.”
Another pause and Relic sank more. There wasn’t any quicksand on this planet, so what in Mars’s butt crack was going on?
Relic dipped into the sand even deeper. Its wings now covered.
“Oh boy, Jozi. Do as I said and put it in a hover.”
“It’s not working. The ionic boosters aren’t activating. They’re not able to push the sand away, and the emergency system detects the problem, and won’t allow the engines to overheat. It’s stalling Relic.”
His craft sunk even more, the cockpit disappearing under the thick, red dust.
“Shit.”
He raced to his craft, craft and jumped on the roof—all that was left uncovered.
“How am I going to get inside?” he panicked. “Jozi, are—”
Relic jerked and dropped, slowly lowering to through the red sand. Ozzy lost his balance and fell on his side.
Ozzy flipped onto his back as sand fell on him like a gushing waterfall. He gasped. He was submerging with Relic, and moving under the sand quickly, and too quickly.
15
Small Tagus Mountain, Mars
The sand fell on Ozzy in buckets, and his vision went black. He went to move, but couldn’t. He was trapped.
“Jozi, can you hear me?” he screamed.
His com line crackled, and Jozi replied in garbled words. He went to hit his helmet, but his arms were pinned by his sides by the heavy sand.
“Dammit. Jozi, do you hear me?”
Nothing.
The ship jostled, and came to a standstill. The weight of the sand lightened.
Ozzy lifted his arm, and punched through the sand, only to feel a sucking sensation pull his hand and arm to the side.
The sand was thinning, and the dense heaviness of it was fading.
Was it being sucked off of him?
He lifted his head, and it rose through the sand as well. Something forced his head to the left.
He looked toward the source. The sand was shooting off of him, being sucked into a large metallic device—a vacuum of some type.
“Crap,” he said, desperately searching for one of the many hand holds on Relic’s roof. “A sand vacuum?”
He was in a tunnel of some type, the butterscotch sky shining through an opening in the ceiling he had just entered through. But how?
He slid toward the vaccuum, following the sand, his legs lifting off of the roof. He twisted onto his stomach, and threw his hands out, trying to hold onto whatever he could find.
If he was sucked into that thing, then no telling what would happen to him.
“Jozi, I need your help.”
Jozi came over the com line, but again, he couldn’t understand her mumbled, garbled words.
Sand flew past him, slapping his solar visor, and pelting his body.
He reached for his belt, needing to activate his magnetic boots.
“Oh, shit.”
The vacuum’s pull strengthened, and pulled him off of Relic.
He flung his arm toward the roof in one last fleeting attempt. His fingers touched a hand hold. He curled them, grabbing onto a metallic bar tightly, hanging for deal life.
“Jozi? Anyone?”
No reply.
“Mars dammit,” he cursed.
With his free arm, he touched his belt, pressing on the magnetic boot button. His boots pulsated, activating, clamping against the metallic roof.
“Thank Mars,” he uttered softly.
“Ozzy, do you hear me?” came Gragas.
Ozzy let out a loud breath. “Yes, I’m in a bind. Get me out of here.”
“The sand is no longer interrupting our communications,” said Jozi.
The vacuum turned off and lights in the tunnel flickered on. The ship lurched forward, and Ozzy’s stomach and torso fell like a ton of bricks, smacking onto the roof.
Ozzy covered his eyes with his forearm, squinting against the bright light, and glanced around. “This is huge.” The tunnel could fit ten Relic’s across and ten Relic’s high, and the length of it went on for miles and miles.
Apparently, it led under Jonas Moon’s compound. When did he have this puppy built? It would have taken a year, and maybe longer.
Ozzy stepped off the roof, and magnetized his boots to the side of the craft, helping him down to the dirt laden ground.
Relic’s ramp was open and he walked up it, slapping the ramp button. The door closed and Ozzy plopped on the grated floor, laying on his back, breathing heavily. “I need a vacation.”
His brother came to mind and he bolted up. No vacationing until he saved his family.
“Jozi,” he said through the com line. “Use Lyra’s instruction and take us to Jonas’s house.”
“On it,” she replied.
Ozzy stepped up the ladder, and onto to the upperdeck platform. Quad was still leaning against the wall leading to the cockpit. Ozzy put his hand up for Quad to give him a high five.
Quad held his hand up.
“It’s called a five, Quad.” He slapped his hand on Quad’s. “I just survived the vacuum of death.”
Quad cocked his head to the side, and if Ozzy could see Quad’s face through the battlesuit mask, he imagined Quad with an odd expression. “I’ve never heard of a vacuum of death, but with you humans, anything is possible.”
Ozzy dropped his hand by his side. “You’re right, but you forgot to say everything is possible,” he said, walking into the cockpit.
Gragas was sitting in Ozzy’s seat, and viewing the holodisplay before him. “It’s up ahead.” He pointed.
“You have the codes to open up whatever door leads to his compound?” asked Ozzy.
Jozi nodded. “I do. It’ll be like you said. In and out.”
“Do you have any reservations, Jozi?” She usually did, telling him how many things could go wrong this south of Sunday.
She shook her head.
He drooped in his posture. He liked the Jozi of old.
Ozzy put his hand up and waived it in a circle. “Alright, let’s land and get up top.”
He turned to leave the cockpit when Jozi grabbed his arm. “Ozzy, wait. This is Jonas’s compound. There is a slight chance that Lou and Venessa are up there.”
Ozzy shook his head. “Jonas isn’t that stupid. Why would he keep them in a place where he lives? It’s not like I don’t know Jonas’s address.”
Ozzy slid down the ladder and hurried to the ramp and out of the ship.
The rest followed.
He eyed the tunnel’s walls and the ceiling. Everything was wide and high, and dirt black.
“Like I said, Ozzy, we need to be careful.” Jozi’s gaze flit across the area, never resting on anything or anyone. She was looking for something out of the ordinary. “If it comes to it, I’m taking the shots. I’m a crackshot. You get the items and get out.”
Ozzy nodded. “That’s the Jozi I remember.” He winked and glanced at a large elevator in a wall across from him.
&nbs
p; He checked his EVA’s status gauge on his wrist. He pursed his lips. “It says oxygen levels are optimal in here.”
That was good for him. He didn’t like working in a restrictive EVA, so he shed it off of his body, and dropped it on the ground. He put his helmet next to it. Jozi did the same.
Quad stepped forward. “Going up?” He pressed the elevator button. It dinged and opened.
They stepped inside and Jozi pressed on the button to the second floor. “According to the instructions, this leads to Jonas’s basement where the Gaia Stones are located, along with illegal auric wallets, forbidden artifacts, and stolen weapons.” She touched several more buttons. “I’ve just entered the code.” She stepped to the side, placing her hands behind her back.
The elevator rocked and lifted upward. Relaxing music played, and Ozzy leaned against the wall.
Jozi unholstered her weapon and Gragas held his double barrel rifle outward, inspecting it, and Quad rubbed the photon cannon he shouldered as if it was his pet.
“Do I just walk in and the stones are right in front of me?” asked Ozzy.
Jozi blinked a few times. “Yes. Just walk in, and walk out. We’ll keep you cover if you need be.”
Easy enough.
The elevator beeped, and stopped.
The door opened.
Ozzy threw his hand to his chest, gasping loudly. “No.” He ran forward, and his eyes beginning to well with tears. “No, no, no.”
16
Tagus Valles, Mars
Ozzy slid next to his ex-wife, Venessa, and put his hands on her upper chest. Blood was covering her lips, and dripping down her cheek to the ground. Her eyes were open and lifeless.
“No,” yelled Ozzy, not caring who heard him. “Venessa.”
He shook her back and forth, and then eyed his friends, who were cautiously walking inside and fanning out in the area.
“What did they do?” shouted Ozzy.
Gragas came to Ozzy’s side, and placed his hand on Venessa’s stomach. “I’m sorry, Ozzy.”
Ozzy stood and stepped away. He covered his hand over his mouth. How was Lily going to react to this? What was she going to do without a mother, her rock, her everything?
Mars Colony Chronicles (Books 1 - 5): A Space Opera Box Set Adventure Page 85