“I have Quad in my sights,” Gragas said. “Don’t shoot yet.”
“Yep, I have eyes on him,” yelled Jozi. “Four o’clock.”
Ozzy had to hurry.
He used his forehead light to highlight the hieroglyphs while squinting over the red soil starting to coat and scratch his visor.
The first glyph was a vendel; an ancient, long-extinct flying bird that represented the underworld.
That meant the entrance was underneath.
Wapooh! Wapooh!
Ozzy instinctively ducked.
“Hold your fire,” ordered Gragas.
“I hit him,” yelled Lou.
“You only warned him of your location,” Gragas said. “Crawl seven meters to your right and hold fast. You don’t want a blast headed your way.”
“I can’t see anything. The sand is sticking to my visor,” Lou said.
“Get lower,” said Jozi. “It’s not as bad for some reason if you crouch.”
Ozzy turned and saw Lou crouching. Gragas and Jozi were behind boulders, their weapons forward. Ozzy looked past them, trying to catch a good glimpse of Quad.
He didn’t spot him.
But it didn’t matter. He had to concentrate and block out the outside chatter. He squatted and glared up at the rock.
A dead woman. A dead man. An ankh. A sieve. A sand cobra, which was something that resembled an Earth cobra, but again, extinct, was also etched on the rock.
The last glyph was an upside-down cup. He’d never seen that before. Was it actually a cup?
Crap.
He shook his head. “I don’t know what it’s saying. It’s just showing me random Coptic pics.”
“That’s what you get for taking us here,” Jozi shouted.
“It’s all as it’s supposed to be,” said Gragas. “It’ll come to you, Ozzy. Keep working at it.”
Bahoof!
Ozzy fell to the side. A thick glob of dirt smashed into his legs, raining down rock and dense soil.
Quad had almost ended his life right then and there. Ozzy crawled closer to the rock, making himself as small as possible. How did Quad see so easily through the swirling sand?
“Open fire,” Gragas said.
Wapooh! Wapooh! Wapooh!
Ozzy didn’t look but could hear the blast of photon fire coming from his friends and brother. He pushed himself to his knees and aimed his light at the glyphs, hoping to see something else.
A snake can dig underground. A vendel was the guardian of the underworld in Ancient Martian mythology, or perhaps it actually lived in the ground as bats did. An ankh. Wait, that’s not a true ankh. An ankh meant life, but this one had an “x” in the middle instead of a horizontal line. That meant death.
Death was underground. Dead man, dead woman. You bury the dead, at least the Martians did. The sieve. Yes, again, the ground. The sieve traps minerals like gold, and all the remaining material and particles fall through the sieve and onto the ground.
A fall.
Ground.
Was there a trap door underneath him?
“Got it,” Ozzy said through the sounds of blasts and small explosions echoing around him.
“Good,” said Jozi. “Every time we think we’re pushing this guy back, he pops up closer.”
“Lou, I need you,” said Ozzy.
“Okay, on my way,” Lou said, his voice dull and numb.
Ozzy started to dig and used his gloved hands to push away the sand. He was like a dog searching for a bone, except the bone was the entrance to Ares Monument.
Lou kneeled next to his brother.
“Dig, Louey, dig.”
Lou nodded his head and began pulling at dirt, rocks, and sand and throwing them to the side.
Within minutes, they had a nice hole.
Both Ozzy and his brother were panting, and sweat dripped down Ozzy’s temples and armpits, his body burning up in his EVA suit.
He dialed down his thermostat.
Lou had continued to dig, and Ozzy went back at it, pushing more sand away from the hole.
“I don’t see anything,” Ozzy complained.
“Hurry up, Ozzy,” Jozi said. “Quad is getting closer and closer. We can’t distract him forever.”
“Understood.” He paused and looked up at the rock wall above him. “The cup. What the hell does the cup mean?”
Think, Ozzy. Think.
He rubbed his hands together, doing his best to let the ideas come to him rather than thinking them up. Usually, he paced like he did when he was a professor, but that wasn’t an option unless he wanted to be easy pickings for Quad. “Show yourself. What does the cup mean? Show me.”
He closed his eyes. “The cup is upside down. That means—” He opened his eyes and grunted loudly in frustration. “What does the cup mean?”
“What cup?” said Lou, his head darting back and forth. “I don’t see a cup anywhere in this hole.”
“Because there is no actual cup down…” he gasped. That was it. The upside-down cup meant that all the words were the opposite meaning. Usually, the cup was right side up. You can’t fill a cup if it’s upside down.
Down is up. Death is life. Underground is above ground. He took his eyes off the hole.
Bahoof! Bahoof!
Ozzy and Lou went flying. Ozzy slammed against the rock under Ares’s chin, and Lou slid across the sand and rolled away, hugging a rock wall.
Ozzy pushed himself onto his knees and glanced upward, staring at the wall, looking for more markings. “It’s right there.”
A thin cut went in a large circle just past the glyphs and into the chin. But how do you open it?
Wapooh!
“I’m hit,” Lou screamed.
Ozzy gasped and his eyes widened. He looked at his brother who was holding his side and leaning forward.
Not good.
10
Ares Monument, Mars
Ozzy sprinted and slid on his knees next to Lou. He put his hand on Lou’s back and gently pushed him forward. “Where are you hit?”
His brother let out a raspy cough and cringed. “In the stomach, genius.”
Shock crossed Ozzy’s face, and his heart raced a beat faster. “Keep your hands on your stomach and cover up the wound the best you can. I’ll get us inside.” If carbon dioxide seeped into Lou’s bloodstream, it’d be lights out in under two minutes. The oxygen would evaporate in Lou’s body, and carbon dioxide would take over.
A bad combination.
Lou grabbed Ozzy’s arm while continuing to cover his wound with his other hand. “Don’t. Just…let me…die.”
The sand around them burst, sending rocks and crimson dust onto their EVA’s.
Ozzy shook his head. “No. I’ll get you to safety.”
Laughter erupted from his brother but was soon followed by hacking coughs. “Ozzy and safety…are…oxymorons.”
They were, and Ozzy knew it even better than his brother. It didn’t matter. He had to get Lou inside Ares Monument. Ozzy would rush him back to Relic if he could, but a Marshole bounty hunter was between Ozzy and his ship.
He held up his index finger. “Hold on. Just a little while longer.”
“Let me see my wife. I don’t care if I live. I want to see her on the other side.”
Lou was giving up and probably gave up the moment he heard Gloria had died.
Ozzy shook his head again. “No, stay alive for her.”
Another blast kicked up more sand and pushed against Ozzy who leaned to the side. He slammed into the rock that made up the bulk of the monument.
“Cover up, Lou.” Ozzy crawled over to the hieroglyphs. Everything was the opposite, so what was down was essentially up. “Wait a minute.” He stared at the upside-down cup. It had a far deeper etching than the rest.
His eyes shifted over to Lou who was trying to get up. “Stay there, Lou.”
“No,” he grunted.
Shit.
Ozzy reached up, touching the cup, and traced his finger on the imag
e.
Ffzzooom!
He jumped back. A large, cylinder-shaped blue beam of light shot down from the jutting rocky chin to the ground.
Ozzy turned to see if Jozi and Gragas saw what had just happened. They were in the middle of a weapon’s fire exchange, blasting multiple photon bolts at a rapidly approaching bounty hunter.
Quad was like a ninja but ten times nimbler and quicker.
Ozzy turned and examined the light, trying to figure out what it did. Lou was bent over and walking toward him, his feet dragging along the sand.
His brother looked pale, and sweat was dripping from his face. He was breathing heavily.
“What does this do?” Ozzy yelled at the rock.
“What did you do now, Brother?” Lou said, moving closer to Ozzy.
“I have an idea,” Ozzy said, unholstering his gun. He threw it inside the blue light. The gun hovered and then shot up into the rock, disappearing like a ghost through a wall.
“You ain’t throwing me in there.” Lou dropped his hand from the wound, exposing it to the elements. “I’m done, Ozzy.”
“Not on my watch, Louey.” Ozzy rushed forward, grabbed Lou, and pushed him into the light.
“Hey,” yelled Lou, his arms flailing. In seconds, he moved upward and vanished from view.
Ozzy waved his arms. “Hey, Jozi. Gragas. I found a way in.”
“About time,” Jozi said as she backed up, her rifle recoiling against her shoulder, which sent a dozen more shots Quad’s way. She turned and raced toward Ozzy. “Where to?”
Ozzy pointed to the light. “Step inside.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
Jozi reached him. “That doesn’t look safe.”
Ozzy knew it was; he’d seen this before. He grabbed the back of her EVA and pushed her inside. Joze screamed and lifted off the ground toward the rock. She, too, disappeared.
“Gragas, you’re next.”
“You first, Ozzy.”
A shot zipped over Ozzy’s head and singed a rock wall behind him.
Ozzy ducked. “Okay, gladly.”
He stepped inside. A static sound encapsulated his helmet’s auditory sensors, and a wind rushed from the ground to the rock ceiling.
He was lifted off his feet and sped toward the rock wall at what seemed to be a hundred miles per hour.
“Whoa,” he yelled and closed his eyes.
A moment later he stopped moving. His boots were on hard, level ground, something opposite of the sand he was standing on a second ago.
“Ozzy,” Jozi’s voice could be heard in the distance. “Your brother.”
Ozzy opened his eyes and saw he was in a massive room. It was rounded, had staircases going up and down along its perimeter, and a thin shield of some type in front of a doorway a few meters away—a barrier into another room. The walls were gray rock with nothing beautiful about them.
Ozzy turned in circles, mesmerized by what he was seeing. “From the Ancient Coptic tablets, the Ares Monument holds secrets, technology, and records of Mars’s past, and even the true history of our solar system and all the ETs that have occupied it since the beginning of time.”
“Ozzy,” Jozi’s voice was stern. “Your brother needs you.”
Ozzy’s mouth gaped open. Lou was on his back, shaking, his hands by his side. Jozi was crouched next to him, her hand on his stomach.
“Oh my Mars,” said Ozzy. He hurried over.
Lou’s eyelids were rapidly blinking. His mouth was moving, but nothing was coming out.
“Lou,” said Ozzy. “Lou.”
Lou’s eyes shifted to Ozzy’s. “Tell your daughter I love her.”
“What? No, Lou. Brother, you can make it.”
Lou shook his head. “No can do, Ozzy.” He lifted his hand, shaking it.
Ozzy grasped his brother’s hand. “Gragas will be up in a second. He’ll have something that can cauterize that wound. I’m sure of it.”
“No…I don’t…want…” Lou closed his eyes.
Ozzy tapped Lou’s helmet. “Stay with me.”
Gragas appeared out of nowhere. He held his rifle out, waiting for Quad. “We have to get moving.”
“Lou is injured,” Jozi said. “Do you have anything to help him?”
Gragas spun around. His shoulder’s drooped. “His life force is leaving.”
“No,” cried Ozzy. “Stay with me, Lou. You can do it, Buddy.”
Lou let out a loud cough and winced in pain. “No…don’t want…to.”
“Please!” Ozzy pleaded. “Lily will miss you. I will miss you.”
“Tell her I’ll be watching…over her.” Lou dropped his arms and closed his eyes. He let out a long, last breath.
“Son of a Mars,” growled Ozzy, slamming his fists onto the hard rock floor. “No, Lou. Come back.”
Jozi lifted her gloved hands, and Lou’s blood dripped from them onto the ground. “He’s dead, Ozzy. I’m sorry.” She started to put her hand on Ozzy’s shoulder, but he pushed it away.
He was a curse to his own family. He was an illness that needed eradication like the Martian Plague.
He stood and gazed down at his dead brother. With narrowed eyes, he unstrapped his rifle and pointed it where he figured Quad would appear any second. “I get the first shot.”
11
Ares Monument, Mars
“You don’t get any shot, Ozzy,” said Gragas. “We aren’t going to wait around for Quad to show up.”
Ozzy pressed his lips together, his posture going rigid as he tightened every muscle in his body trying to will Quad to show up. “The hell we won’t.”
Jozi placed Lou’s hands over his chest. She let out a sigh. “Why is the world like this?” She spoke softly and mostly to herself.
Gragas nodded his understanding. “There is more light than there is dark in this galaxy. Trust me.” He looked up and down the stairs and then stepped back, eyeing the shield. He reached out his hand and touched it, and when his hand went through it, he immediately pulled it back. “Why is this here?”
Ozzy held his position, not taking his eyes away from where he figured Quad would appear. “Why don’t you go check it out?” His voice was callous, his eyes like bolts of fire, matching the feeling in his gut. He couldn’t wait for Quad to show up. He’d end that bastard before he could take one step inside.
“Jozi,” said Gragas. “Touch the shield.”
“Why?”
“Please. I need to make sure.”
“Make sure of what?”
“The bloodline.”
Jozi made a weird face, not completely understanding what Gragas was asking. “Uh, okay.” She stepped a few paces forward and touched the shield. A spark flew, and electricity wrapped around her finger then shot outward, sending sparks every which way.
She yelped and jumped backward as fast as she could, shaking her hand.
Gragas stepped through the shield and walked back through into the entry room Ozzy and Jozi were in. “That’s what I thought. I believe only those of the bloodline can enter and exit through this shield.”
Ozzy concentrated and studied the doorway. He was trying to care, but at the moment he truly didn’t. Regardless, he noticed the doorway was arched. Small, rectangular devices positioned six inches from each other were screwed into the entry. That caught his attention, and he cocked his head to the side. “I don’t ever remember any Ancient Martian technology using screws.” He shrugged and motioned toward the shield. “Get the crystal sphere, Gragas. I’ll wait for the bastard.”
Ozzy’s heart felt like it was being crushed in a vice. His brother was dead. Who was next? His ex-wife? His daughter? Jozi? Clearly not Gragas as that guy was probably too elite of a fighter to die.
He shook away the thought and narrowed his eyes. “Come on, Quad. What’s taking you so long?”
“Let’s hope the sphere is in here somewhere,” Gragas said as he stepped through the shield.
Jozi backed up onto one of the stai
rcases, finding a good foothold, then crouched and aimed her rifle. “I’m in position.”
Ozzy sucked in a gush of air. “Hurry up, Quad.”
A surge of blue light like a firework display burst outward a few meters in front of Ozzy. And, as if on cue, Quad appeared. He lurched back when he saw the firing squad awaiting his arrival.
Ozzy pressed the trigger and held it down. The rifle slammed into the crease between his chest and shoulder, sending photon blasts against Quad’s armored battle suit and masked helmet.
Quad dropped his weapon, and Jozi shot blasts at it and shattered it to oblivion. She shifted aim and sliced his holstered gun in half as well.
Quad fell to the side, and Ozzy continued pounding him with multiple blasts.
Quad put his hands on the floor and pushed himself up. “No more.” A shock of electricity shot from Quad’s armor, splattering against Ozzy.
Ozzy twitched back and forth as electrical currents zipped through his nervous system and up and down his arms and legs.
He clenched his teeth, and his eyes blinked uncontrollably.
“Ozzy,” Jozi yelled. “Watch out.”
Quad laughed as he picked Ozzy up and tossed him against a wall. Ozzy’s helmet clanked against the rock, and the wind sucked out of his lungs on impact. He landed on the hard floor, his body weak and shaking from the electrical output that had run through his muscles.
She sent more blasts toward Quad. Swords strapped to Quad’s back shattered, splintering into several pieces and littering the floor.
Jozi was a crackshot, hitting as many weapons on Quad as she could, practically making him defenseless.
Practically, but not entirely.
Quad sent a strong kick across Ozzy’s stomach. Ozzy lifted toward the ceiling and landed back on the floor an instant later.
He writhed around and gasped for air but knew he needed to reach for his holstered gun in order to defend himself.
“I don’t think so,” said Quad, kicking Ozzy’s hand away.
“I do think so,” growled Jozi as she jumped from the stairs and onto Quad’s back, pressing her gun against the back of his head while wrapping her arm around his neck. She took a shot then recoiled back, the blast ricocheting off his helmet and back into her gun’s muzzle, turning her gun into a melted, gnarled mess.
Martian Quadrilogy Box Set Page 47
