Martian Plague
Page 22
Ozzy leaned back in his cockpit chair, which folded out like the La-Z-Boy seats of Old Earth. After a month and a half fixing Relic, he finally set out to his favorite place—Ketler Asteroid—where he could live and watch Mars from afar and not participate in…anything.
He stared into the blackness of space. “Why do I live here?” He didn’t want to say he didn’t have a dime to his name, so he had no place to really go other than to squat on some asteroid. He didn’t want to say he wanted to be as far away from people as he possibly could. So he went with his other truth. “It’s a place that I can be with you, by myself, for a couple of days a week, thanks to your mother.”
“Can we stay another day?” She was soaking up every ounce of time she could get with Ozzy.
And he loved it.
Ozzy shook his head. “I gotta get you back to your mom’s house by morning, and then you’ll be back up here in a couple of days.”
“Oh, okay.” She soured for a moment, then brightened up. “Can you tell me another Earth history lesson?”
Ozzy pushed out his lower lip. “Hmmm. . .I suppose so.” He eyed the levers and buttons on the cockpit ceiling. “Have you ever heard of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table?”
Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened in excitement. “No, what’s that?”
His com line buzzed. The caller ID said Jonas Moon.
Ozzy blinked several times. He thought the guy was dead.
He scrunched his eyebrows closer together. He leaned up and put his arms around Lily’s hips. He lifted her off of his lap and set her on the grated floor. “Lily, Daddy has an important call. Go downstairs and play with your toys, okay?”
She lowered her eyes, disappointment washing over her.
“Don’t worry. After this call, I’ll be down to tell you all about King Arthur.”
She put her arms in the air. “Yay!” She scurried out of the cockpit and down the ladder.
Ozzy answered the call. “Well, long time no talk, Jonas. What can I do for you?”
“I have a job for—”
Ozzy put up his finger. “No more jobs.”
Jonas rubbed his hands together. “You know the Dunrakee are coming back, don’t you?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re still hell-bent on getting you and your daughter over to a make-believe secret colony on Europa, correct?”
“It’s not make believe.”
Jonas spit out a laugh. “Yeah, right.”
Ozzy sighed. “Look, it doesn’t matter. If I get caught doing another dig, then I’m gone forever. I can’t do that to Lily.”
Jonas pulled up his holopad, and a holovid jumped up from it. Several ships were leaving Earth’s exosphere. “That’s not just a terrorist group. That’s an armada.”
It wasn’t an armada but a dozen ships, mostly small cruisers and a large star carrier, which wasn’t something to dismiss. “Those can’t sneak past our defenses, Jonas. Not like the small Dunrakee terrorists who came and destroyed Dawes.”
“That’s not all I wanted you to see.” He pulled up another ship. It was a colony ship. “They are looking to start a colony, and their trajectory is Mars.”
Shit.
That meant they’d try to bull their way through like they did on Earth. They’d get their craft’s Mars-side, and if one of them were that colony ship, they’d set up shop on Mars and do the same thing they did to Earth—slowly take it over and kick the humans off the planet.
Before that, a war would start. Death totals would rise, and humans would ultimately lose.
History was repeating itself.
This crap wasn’t something he wanted to be a part of. “How much money, Jonas?”
“Enough to get you that Class-14 Quadruple Engine Electrohydrodynamic Ionic Thruster 113 SX Vessel, also known as the Eagle, plus enough energy fuel cells that are big enough to power you to Europa.”
Ozzy sighed, repeating his question, “How much money?”
“Twenty-five million auric credits.”
His chest shuddered like an MMP rocket slamming into him. That wouldn’t only get him a ship, it’d get him a home on Europa too.
He kept his cool. “Half up front and in my auric wallet now.” He dug into his pocket and pulled it out, waving it in front of the holoscreen. “And what artifact will I be looking for?”
Jonas pressed some buttons that Ozzy couldn’t see. Ozzy’s auric wallet dinged, and holographic numbers lifted from his device displaying 12,500,000 ac’s.
Jonas clapped his hands together. “So, now that we have that done, I want you to find the most powerful weapon on Mars.”
Ozzy gave Jonas a double take. It didn’t make sense. Why would Jonas want such a monstrosity, and what in Mars’s-name kind of ancient weapon like that was buried on Mars? “What for?”
“For the coming armada, Ozzy. Unlike you, I like this place. I practically run Mars, and if I lose that, I lose everything. The other underground syndicates and I are the only ones who have the balls to fight the Dunrakee, unlike the Ministry, who fake shit, take credit for shit, and just lie their way to power.”
And the people took it hook, line, and sinker.
“What’s the weapon?”
“The Ark of the Concordant.”
If Ozzy was drinking water or alcohol, he would have spit it out then and there. “Are you kidding me?”
“Not in the least.”
The Ark of the Concordant was the cousin to Earth’s Ark of the Covenant. It was a deadly weapon, but the Ancient Coptics called it the communication device to their Creator, the ultimate truth-teller—whatever that meant—and a weapon of mass destruction.
Yet, only the Ancients could use it. It was tied to their bloodline. “The legends say that if you attempt to use it, you die.”
“We’ll find someone from the bloodline.”
Ozzy shook his head in disbelief. “How?” All the Ancients were dead.
“Don’t you worry your pretty face about that. Just follow the Coptic language hints, or whatever it is you do, and locate it and dig it up for us.” Jonas sat straighter. “You know what to do from there.”
The screen turned off.
Ozzy looked at his lap and massaged his temples. This would be it…his last take. Then forbidden archeological artifact business no more.
After this, he’d have enough auric credits to be off to Europa with Lily.
“Lily,” he shouted.
“Yeah, Daddy?”
“You ready for the story?”
“Yeah, but can you act it out with my toys down here?”
He let out a chuckle. “I’m on my way.”
And tomorrow he’d be on his way to finding the Ark of the Concordant and be off doing one of the few things he was best at doing—finding the impossible.
Ready for the next installment?
Link: Martian Ark
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