The Money Star

by Jon Lymon

  Haygue knew the call would have to be important as interplanetary communications were notoriously expensive. He opened the door and was greeted with a salute from an impossibly young SEC guard.

  “I need to enter your video conference details, sir.”

  Haygue pushed the door open wider and the guard ducked under his arm and rushed into the room. He grabbed the remote control from the bedside table and pointed it in direction of the small screen that hung from the ceiling.

  “Who’s the call from?” Haygue asked.

  “I don’t know, sir. I mean I’m not allowed to know. All I know is it’s from Houston.”

  Having established the connection, the SEC guard nodded and walked backwards out of the room, shutting the doors on his way.

  Haygue waited for an image to appear on the screen, soon becoming impatient despite knowing the vast distance the signal was travelling. After a few minutes, a discernible image took shape and he immediately recognised the face on the screen. “Jack?”

  Jack wasn’t wearing a tie for the first time Haygue could remember. “Errol. Listen to me. You must get out. Get out of the facility. Get off Mars.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Just get the hell out. The place is going to go up.”

  “Go up?”

  “Boom.” Jack spread his arms wide, making a mushroom shape.

  “Who’s gonna blow it up, terrorists?”

  “I can’t tell you. Look, it’s getting complicated down here. Real complicated. But the order’s gone out to blow the place. The bombers are orbiting the planet as we speak.”

  “Bombers. What bombers?”

  “Our bombers, Errol.”

  “What? Our own bombers are going to destroy our own facility?”

  “Like I said, it’s complicated. I’m just giving you a heads up here. Get the hell out before it’s too late.”

  “What the hell is going on down there, Jack?”

  “It’s not good. Our own people are raiding our nuclear plants, stealing the fuel from our nuclear weapons to fuel their missions to the diamond asteroid. At a time when armies around the world are mobilising. Uniting against us.”

  “We should tell them we have the asteroid. Tell them to stay home.”

  Jack shook his head. “They wouldn’t believe us. No one believes a word we say anymore. There’s going to be a war, Errol, but our own citizens are disabling our nuclear advantage.” Jack looked over his shoulder like he was worried he was being watched. “Listen,” he whispered. “This is serious. We’ve been infiltrated. Maybe at the highest level.”

  Haygue jolted back from the screen, repelled by what Jack had just told him.

  “And you know what I mean when I say the highest level.”

  Haygue nodded. “But what do you mean by infiltrated?”

  “I don’t think the President is pulling the strings on this, Errol. We’re not pulling the strings, and you’re certainly not.”

  “Who the fuck is then?”

  The screen cracked. Jack spoke but the sound was lost.

  “Jack. Jack?” Haygue shouted. “I can’t hear you, Jack”. Then the picture was lost. Haygue ran to his room door, threw it open and called down the hall for assistance. The same SEC guard who had set up the conference call came running back in.

  “Get the connection back. I need that connection back, now.”

  “Yes, sir.” The guard pressed a few combinations of buttons designed to reboot the system, but shook his head. “The caller’s gone, sir.”

  “Gone? What do you mean gone?”

  “He’s hung up.”

  “Right, OK. Thanks er… have M Krugler come to my room immediately, please.”

  The guard looked at the bedside phone and wondered why Haygue couldn’t call the pilot himself, but he rushed over and dialled anyway. The guard had gone before M Krugler arrived ten minutes later, beige trousers on and a white towel around his naked shoulders.

  “We got some news, Hayguey?”

  If he didn’t have so many other problems, Haygue would have brought the pilot to task for referring to him in such a disrespectful way, but instead slammed the door behind him.

  “We need to get the hell out of here.”

  “I’m ready to go when you are.”

  “Like tonight. Like now.”

  M Krugler shook his head. “P3 will take at least another forty-eight hours to be skyworthy.”

  “Why so fucking long?”

  “Some kind of engine problem I was told.”

  “No good, no good. Can we use any of the other ships?”

  “Sure, there’s a couple with diamonds already loaded. But they’re way slower than Prospector III.”

  “We’ll have to use one.”

  “Why the big rush?”

  “Don’t ask questions. Just do as I say. If you want to live.”

  After insisting M Krugler put on some kind of shirt, the two of them headed with their luggage for the airstrip adjacent to the Pentagon. M Krugler pointed to one of the ships and Haygue nodded. They marched towards it purposefully, Haygue telling the guard on duty outside the ship that they had important business to attend to on board, and that he was to report to the officer’s mess with immediate effect.

  As the SEC guard ran off, Haygue and M Krugler boarded, the pilot heading straight for the cockpit while Haygue checked out the hold. He switched on the light and was delighted to see it contained three huge chunks of diamond, each about the size of a suitcase, as well as six smaller lumps. There was room for more was Haygue’s first thought, but he knew there wasn’t time. It would have to do. He estimated the payload was still worth several billion dollars, enough to give the US economy the shot in the arm it needed. He rushed back to the cockpit.

  “This baby is fuelled to the max and ready to roll,” M Krugler told him.

  “There’s a fair bit of loot aboard,” said Haygue, strapping himself into the co-pilot’s seat. Enough to get us handsomely rewarded when we get home.”

  “I’ll say amen to that.”

  “So let’s go.”

  “Right now? What about Stock?”

  “What about him?”

  M Krugler shrugged his shoulders and fired up the engines. The sound reverberated across the Martian landscape, disturbing the sleep of those SEC agents who’d had time to grab any. As Stock turned over in his bed, he was oblivious to the fact that his ticket home was about to leave him stranded on Mars.

  41

  The guards’ heads were close shaven, eyes behind their oxygen masks focused on the approaching transporter.

  Onboard, DT breathed deeply and glanced at Remnant, whose expression suggested he was spoiling for a fight. He’d said little since they left the Baton Uric, his eyes firmly focused on the road ahead. He’d asked Dorothea’s driver to put his foot down several times, and it had taken Aurora’s interventions for the requests to stop.

  The guards both stretched one of their arms in front of them, flat palms facing the oncoming vehicle. Remnant adjusted his oxygen mask and exercised his fingers.

  “Leave this to me,” said Dorothea, directing the comment exclusively at Remnant. She disembarked along with her driver and approached the guards.

  Those left in the transporter couldn’t hear what was being said, but could see the guards shaking their heads, then Dorothea gesticulating with a ferocity that took the guards by surprise. But still they stood firm. Dorothea’s hands found their way to her hips and Remnant wondered if she had a weapon concealed there.

  “What’s taking so long?” he whispered to no one in particular. “They’ve got to let her in, she runs the fucking planet.”

  “It looks like a no,” said DT.

  “I’m not taking no for an answer,” said Remnant. “No way.”

  Dorothea shook her head and started to walk back to the transporter.

  “Right, that’s it.” Remnant reached for the door handle, but DT grabbed his arm.

  “Wait.”
>
  “No more waiting.” Remnant shook himself free from DT’s weak grasp, jumped off the transporter and strode towards the SEC guards. Seeing the purposefulness of his stride, they immediately drew their weapons, suspecting (correctly) that he meant to force his way past them.

  Dorothea pushed Remnant back, with the help of her driver. “Leave it, Simon,” she shouted at him.

  It was then that alarms sounded around the facility. The SEC guards grabbed their handsets. “The airstrip,” one shouted to the other. “Someone’s launching.” Both guards ran off in the same direction. Remnant ran after them, following them through a gate in the wire fence that separated the rest of the facility from its modest main entrance. The guards sprinted towards a runway on which a small ship was taking off, its double nuclear engines glowing red, its roar rapidly reaching a crescendo.

  Remnant watched as the guards stopped at the edge of the strip, alongside half a dozen other guards, all powerless to intervene as the ship took to the skies. Remnant shot a glance to his right, to a side entrance into the facility out of which more SEC guards were streaming. He quickly ran past them and into the building.

  Inside was all metallic and panic, with SEC staff running around an outer corridor that spanned the entire circumference of the facility. From this outer corridor, long, dead straight walkways led, like spokes on a wheel from the outside entrances to the centre of the building, from which emanated a bright white light.

  Slowly, Remnant started walking towards it, the sound of running feet on the metallic floors echoing all around. All SEC staff were heading in the opposite direction to him, running for the exit as the alarm echoed off the walls.

  “Where are you going?” one of them shouted at Remnant.

  “Are you crazy?” yelled another.

  Remnant was deaf to them, such was his determination to discover if what lay at the end of the corridor was what he suspected.

  A burly SEC guard shoulder-barged past him, panting heavily in his haste to escape. “Incoming, incoming,” he shouted at Remnant, but he wasn’t about to turn back for anything or anyone. The bright light was less than fifty metres away, its glow forcing him to squint. Then he was grabbed under the arm by a SEC guard and dragged back towards the entrance. “We’ve got to get the hell out, buddy. This place is going up.”

  “I can’t,” Remnant shouted, shaking himself free from the man’s grip.

  The guard glanced over his shoulder at the object of Remnant’s fascination. “Don’t do it to yourself, man. It’s not worth it.”

  Remnant ran towards the light that was already beginning to dazzle him. He held his palms flat against the light in front of his forehead in a desperate attempt to shield his eyes from the object he yearned to see and steal. The intensity of the beam slowed his run to a stumble as his retinas burned. Light was bouncing off the walls, creating a kaleidoscope of rainbow colour his brain couldn’t process. He squinted, but the little light he let in seared down his optical nerve, sending a pulse of pain to the base of his neck. He had to shut his eyes but he desperately wanted to open them. To witness its brilliance. To see, once and for all, that it wasn’t a figment of his imagination.

  “Bomb!” someone yelled.

  Remnant felt a hand tug on his left bicep. The force flipping him around, away from the light. Another hand pulled on his other arm.

  “Get off me,” he shouted.

  He tried to fight them off but they were insistent.

  “Come on, Sye, we have to go. We have to go.” He recognised the voice.

  “No, leave me here. I want to stay.”

  “You won’t find him here,” said Aurora.

  “Who?”

  “Haygue. He’ll be gone by now.”

  “I don’t give a shit about Haygue. I want the diamond.”

  He tried to turn his head back towards the bright light. Aurora couldn’t resist looking down the corridor towards it. Even from behind the thick, dark lenses of the shades she was wearing, the brilliance of the glow could not be denied.

  “It’s too late, Sye.”

  Remnant shook his head, but felt himself powerless to fight against the force of two determined people dragging him away by each arm. Their walk turned into a run as the screaming and shouting reached a crescendo. Aurora guided Remnant back towards the entrance to the facility, the piercing alarms he’d been deaf to now pulsing through his brain. He opened his eyes as best he could, tears leaking through the miniscule gaps between the sore lids. He didn’t want to be running this way. He glimpsed Aurora’s face, pale with fear, running beside him. She adjusted his oxygen mask and shouted at him to breathe. Seconds later they were out, on the Martian surface, sprinting through the gate in the security fence. Remnant glanced to his right and saw Dorothea’s driver, one arm hooked around his, the other pointing towards the transporter up ahead.

  The road out of the facility was already heavy with vehicles forming a surprisingly orderly convoy of escapees. Then someone pointed to a thin line of flame in the sky heading towards them with a low whistle.

  “A tracer,” someone else yelled.

  “Come on,” Dorothea’s driver shouted.

  The tracer was above them in seconds and with a bone shaking boom it scored a direct hit on the centre of the facility behind them. Remnant was thrown in the air by the force of the impact, hitting the rocky terrain with a thump and a scrape. Screams, shouts and wails were all muffled for a few seconds, and Remnant was reminded of the explosion that destroyed DT’s jewellery store back home. Ears ringing, he strained to look up and saw DT jumping from the transporter, running towards him. Remnant reached out for his hand but couldn’t find it in the confusion. He tried to call out, but his voice was muffled by the oxygen mask. He looked left to see Aurora struggling to her feet beside him. To his right, Dorothea’s driver was lying face down, blood pumping through a gap in his hair. Remnant watched Aurora stagger back toward the transporter but fall short. He tried to call her name, but still couldn’t be heard. Then he was dragged to his feet by his arms. Barely able to stand, he let DT haul him onto the transporter, then watched as DT turned back, grabbed Aurora and lifted her aboard.

  Both she and Remnant lay panting on the floor side by side as DT and Dorothea ran over to check on her prone driver. Between them they lifted him into the back of the transporter. DT pressed a patch of cloth firmly to his head while Dorothea ran around to the driver’s side and took the wheel. She thrust the transporter into reverse.

  There were more shouts from outside as SEC scientists and security staff fled the facility. Some banged on the side of the transporter, desperately pleading to be allowed on.

  “There’s no room,” she shouted at them. “I’ve got three casualties in the back here.” She drew her laser. It was enough to disperse the SEC guards clinging to the sides of the vehicle. A couple had their oxygen masks ripped from their faces by desperate co-workers eager to secure a place on the transporter. The de-masked grabbed their throats, gasping for air that wasn’t there. Dorothea shifted into first and hit the gas. As she wheel-spun away, it looked like she was going to crash straight into the back of the convoy ahead.

  “Look out!” DT screamed.

  Dorothea knew what she was doing. At the last minute, she detoured off the road and headed into the Martian desert.

  42

  Remnant came to on the bottom bunk. His hands immediately reached for his eyes which were burning with a ferocity he’d not experienced before. He blinked to see if that would help ease the pain. It didn’t. He jumped up, scraping his head on the bottom of DT’s bunk. Rubbing the damaged area, he peered into the mirror. He could see, that was a start. Unfortunately, all he could see was a face that was craggy and lined. Eyes that were encircled by red, a mouth that drooped and hair that was greyer and thinner than he remembered.

  There were some thick wraparound sunglasses on the ledge under the mirror which he put on. Reducing the amount of light that bounced off his retinas helped ease the pain
.

  He opened the cabin door. The engines were quiet, so the ship was definitely static. He entered the cockpit to find Aurora curled up on the rear seat staring at her handset. She looked up when Remnant entered, then turned away.

  “Where’s DT?” he asked her.

  “Out,” was Aurora’s curt response.

  Remnant searched his brain in an attempt to discover why Aurora was taking such a tone with him. His thoughts flashed back to the SEC facility, the blinding light, and the pain in his biceps. Then the arteries to his heart pulsed like jump leads.

  “How’s the driver?” he asked.

  Aurora’s head remained bowed. Bettis peered over his shoulder and turned back again, shaking his head.

  “What happened to him? Aurora?”

  “He didn’t make it.”

  Remnant knew what she meant but that didn’t stop him asking her what she meant. The dominant emotion he felt when she told him wasn’t guilt. It was fear. The only thing he could think to say was “where’s DT gone?”

  “He’s out with Dorothea. They’re getting fuel.”

  “We’re leaving?”

  Aurora nodded. “We’re going home. Well, you are.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Aurora looked out of the cockpit window and across the blackened Martian landscape. “I’m thinking of hanging around here.”

  Remnant scanned the barren landscape. “What’s left for you here?”

  “Memories.” She turned her handset to face Remnant. The image of her three kids was losing its lucidity as the battery power drained. “It won’t be long before they’re gone.”

  “You can’t stay here,” said Remnant.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’ve got to get Haygue. We’ve got to make him pay for what he did.”

  “You’re not interested in Haygue. All you want is to get your hands on that diamond. You proved that in the facility.”

  Remnant recalled the entrancing bright white light, and being dragged away from it.

  “It was there. It was there, wasn’t it? I knew they’d stolen it. I said they’d brought it back here, didn’t I?”

  “Give yourself a pat on the back,” said Aurora sarcastically.