“She’s asleep. I was playing chess with Jonas waiting for her to wake up, but you came here and surprised us.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a tight hug. “Why is that person lying down?” Lily pushed away, and her expression changed from joy to fear in seconds. “He looks hurt.”
“That’s Uncle Lou. He got an owie, but…” Ozzy glanced at Jonas, who was walking up the ramp. “Jonas will use his medbots to help him recover. Right, Jonas?”
Jonas crossed his arms, resting them over his fat belly and rolled his eyes. He glanced over his shoulder at one of his guards. “Get my medbots ready and a stretcher. We’ll get Ozzy’s brother to my personal medical wing.”
“Thank you, Jonas.”
“Yeah, you have my sphere, Buddy?” Jonas rubbed under his chin, pushing his jaw outward with interest sparkling in his eyes.
Ozzy thumbed over his shoulder. “Gragas has it.”
Jonas flinched. He and Gragas weren’t on the happiest of terms ever since Gragas blew Dawes to hell and back, taking many of Jonas’s auric assets that were resting in the banks of the city of Dawes. “Take Gragas,” Jonas ordered his guards. His eyes squinted, and his face turned as red as the crimson soil outside the graviton-domed cities.
Ozzy stepped back and toward Gragas. Jozi, her hand on her holstered gun, also positioned herself next to Gragas.
“Bury your beef with Gragas, and I’ll give you the sphere.” Ozzy winked.
Jonas’s eyebrows rose. He held up his hand, which stopped his guards from pushing past Ozzy and grabbing the Galactic Knight. “You really like this fellow, don’t you?”
“Without him, you wouldn’t have your sphere.”
Jonas dropped his hand. “Whatever.” He shooed away his guards. “Consider my grievance against him no more, plus we shouldn’t do this in front of the girl. It’s bad manners. And, Gragas, it was more of a technicality than anything. You know, to show people that if they screw with me, bad things happen.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now, the sphere?”
Ozzy lowered Lily. “Go back in and see Mommy, okay?”
Lily pouted and dropped her chin against her chest. “Okay.” She stomped down the ramp then quickly changed her gait into a skip and disappeared around a tree and to the mansion’s back entryway.
“Gragas, hand Jonas the crystal sphere, and I’ll gladly accept the rest of my auric credits.”
Gragas moved forward and extended the sphere to Jonas.
Jonas grunted and grabbed the sphere like a greedy weasel. “It’s beautiful.” He snapped his fingers, signaling for a guard. “Bring the Ketler Crystal Skull.”
It was a skull Ozzy had found on Ketler Asteroid—his old squatting grounds where he used to park Relic to get away from the world and every MMP on it.
A guard walked up the ramp with a skull matching the same glowing colors of the crystal sphere.
Ozzy’s brows snapped together. “Do you have all thirteen skulls, Jonas?”
Jonas patted the sphere as if it was his pet. He didn’t look up. “Almost.”
“Why are you bringing the Ketler Crystal Skull in here?”
“I know, I know,” replied Jonas. “I need all thirteen crystal skulls to get the powers of this sphere, but I only want to see how they interact. Have you read the Rose Coptic Tablet?”
Ozzy nodded. The tablet suggested that even one crystal skull next to the sphere could make the crystal skull sing and if used properly to hover objects and also heal anything and everything in its presence.
Jonas smiled. “Care to test this on your brother?”
“The medbots are fine.”
“Party pooper.” Jonas cocked his head to the side and motioned for his guards to take Lou.
A few guards came forward with a gurney and placed an unconscious Lou on it and covered him with a blanket.
“You’ll take good care of him until he’s better?” asked Ozzy.
Jonas nodded. “Of course.”
“Then after you give me the rest of the credits, I’ll be back here to pick him up in my Eagle.”
“Fine with me.”
The guards carried Lou down the ramp and went in the same direction as Lily.
Jonas walked the sphere over to the guard holding the Ketler Crystal Skull.
Kashiiish!
A bright, blue light pierced the air. Ozzy threw up his forearm to cover his eyes and dropped to the ground.
A commotion erupted around the ship.
“What in Mars-nuts did you find me?” growled Jonas.
19
Tagus Valles, Mars
The sphere was shattered and in shards where it sparkled on the ramp’s floor. The crystal skull was intact, but Ozzy wasn’t hired to keep that unharmed. He was hired to bring back an undamaged sphere.
He hadn’t even exited Relic, and he was already in a heap of shit.
“What the Mars-tar did you give me, Ozzy?” Jonas jammed his clenched fists on his hips, and his eyes looked like pots of boiling molten lava. “Did you try to screw me over and give me a fake or defective sphere?”
Ozzy stood. “You know just as well as I do what happened, and I don’t have a clue.”
“You haven’t a clue? This is your expertise, Ozzy. What. Happened?” Jonas asked.
Ssswooph!
Pieces from the sphere began to shoot toward the ceiling and form a straight line. Each shard projected light, which created a holoscreen from the ceiling to the floor.
Ozzy and Jonas stepped back.
The display blinked on, showing two planets floating in the cosmos. Both were blue and green and about the size of planet Earth, and they were glowing in front of the gold and brown colors of Jupiter.
A woman’s voice, sounding much like Shar’s, said, “Before the war between Mars and Maldek ended life on both planets, our great mystics and shunned scientists knew the end of Mars was at hand.”
“What are we watching, Ozzy?” asked Jonas.
Ozzy looked around. Jozi and Gragas were standing next to him along with Jonas, and they all gazed at the screen in front of them.
Ozzy was too busy wanting to hear what the person had to say to respond.
“Ozzy, what is going on? You’re the expert here.”
“Shut up, Jonas.”
The voice continued, “…so we sent many of our great secrets, artifacts, and technologies to Earth; hidden until those of the bloodline could find them.”
The image panned out, bringing Earth into view. A straight, white line connected Mars to Earth. The image zoomed in on Earth and moved in closer and closer until the vid burst into Earth’s atmosphere, through the clouds, and to the left edge of a continent.
It panned, going past ocean waves slamming onto the sand-covered beaches, and moved eastwardly. The image slowed. Martians were in the hundreds and looked as if they were toiling the ground.
“We planted thousands of seeds from our home planet that turned into trees,” continued the voice, “all of which were eventually called redwoods. That is where we hid the crystal sphere—under one certain redwood’s roots. There it will be found. It will call to the bloodline when the bloodline knows of its whereabouts…and when the bloodline is ready.”
The display screen faded, taking all the shards with it and blinked out of existence.
Ozzy heard Jozi gasp, and Gragas and Jonas were shaking their heads. They stood there for several seconds, not saying a word.
Jonas reached over and patted Ozzy’s back. “You’re of the bloodline, as we discussed before, and that’s why I had you find the Ark of the Concordant.” He cleared his throat. “And now I need you to go to Earth and find the real sphere for me. After that, I will pay you what you are owed.”
Jonas spoke matter-of-factly as if everyone standing in Relic’s storage bay knew exactly what the plan was—even Ozzy—and that he would be completely fine with it.
“Did you just say you’ll pay me after?”
“You heard me correctly.”
&
nbsp; Ozzy stiffened. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Never would I kid about money. You didn’t retrieve what I asked for. You brought me a map, not the artifact. That means your mission isn’t over yet.”
Ozzy curled his fingers into a fist. “You piece of—” He took a step forward, but Gragas wrapped his arms around Ozzy’s chest.
Jonas smirked. “You’re going to dig under the redwoods to their roots.”
“The redwood roots?” said Ozzy, shrugging Gragas off of him. “You’re telling me a tree planted eons ago is still alive?” Jonas wasn’t thinking clearly. If anything, the tree and its roots died tens of thousands of years ago, if not longer.
“The roots, Ozzy. It’s probably somewhere buried in the root system,” Gragas said. “Roots from newer trees are probably tangled around the sphere as we speak.”
Ozzy shot Gragas a look. “Whose side are you on?” He shook his head. “Even if the redwood trees were still around in the location specified on the screen, and if the sphere is tangled somewhere within a redwood root system, then what makes you think I’d be dumb enough to fly my ass to Earth and get the damned thing? You ever hear of the Dunrakee? Yeah, they run that planet right now and would blow my tail out of the sky the instant they saw me.”
“I don’t think you should go, Ozzy, but my guess is that the root system, just like all root—”
“Not now, Gragas. Enough of your school lessons,” shouted Jonas, slashing his hand in the air. He took a deep breath, smiled, and strode to Ozzy, wrapping his arm around his shoulders. Jonas rolled his eyes upward as if looking into an imaginary sunset and lifted his hand to paint a scene for Ozzy. “Just imagine. You grab the sphere, bring it back to us, and you’ll be lauded as a hero in the black market and all the crime syndicates. Oh, it’s a grand plan, I know. All the crime syndicates will want you for their digs, and you’ll be rich beyond rich.”
Ozzy slouched in his stance. The last thing he wanted was to continue to work for crime bosses. “Read my lips, Jonas—The Dunrakee are on Earth. The Dunrakee don’t like humans. The Dunrakee kill humans. The Dunrakee would kill me. My answer is no.”
Jonas dismissed Ozzy’s words. “But you have that indigo rock that makes you practically invisible on all types of radar, and of all things, as I said before, you are someone who can find a pin inside a Mars hill.”
“Okay. I’ll think about it,” Ozzy said, pushing Jonas’s hand off his shoulder. His answer was no, but he’d tell Jonas that after he was inside his cockpit and flying away from Tagus Valles with his daughter in the cockpit.
He wouldn’t tell Jonas the “no” in front of Jonas’s cronies, who outnumbered him and his friends ten to one.
“Ozzy, don’t do it,” Jozi said. “You have a family that needs you. You—”
Jonas cut her off. “What if I offered you one hundred million auric credits? With that, you wouldn’t ever have to work again, you’d be with your daughter whenever and wherever you want, and you can finally get that Eagle you’ve always pined for.” Jonas folded his hands over his belly and eyed Ozzy.
Ozzy paused, forcing himself not to wince, flinch, or do anything that told Jonas he was all in. That was insane auric, and anyone would be insane not to take it.
“Ozzy.” Jonas took out a holopad and began typing. “I’m sending this to Relic’s com line. Open it up when you’re in the air.” He pressed another button. “Sent. It will have important information for you to read and tell you about what’s going to be happening on Mars soon. As you will see, the crystal sphere is very much needed…by me.”
Ozzy pointed at Jonas. “First, give me my daughter back.”
Jonas rubbed his chin. “I’ll send her and your ex-wife to my private resort in Gledhill along with Lou. No one knows that I own it, and no one will ever think twice about going there. They’ll have a great time. And they’ll be safe. Trust me.”
Ozzy could see it in Jonas’s eyes that this was leverage against him. Jonas knew if Ozzy snuck Lily on board during his trip to Earth, what would stop him from changing course to Europa instead? He could hide out on that moon and live the rest of his life in bliss.
Ozzy exhaled the breath he’d been holding. Jonas was a killer, but he was trustworthy among his friends. No harm would come upon Lily-bug. “Alright.”
Jozi stomped her foot, her face going stern. “Are you serious, Ozzy? You’re going to do this?”
“For that kind of money, there isn’t any reason I shouldn’t.”
“What about Anonymity?”
“He’ll get the truth out. You’ll see.”
“We need to be here to make sure,” said Jozi.
Ozzy ignored her. Money was the topic now, not Anonymity. Nonetheless, he’d wait another two days to celebrate Anonymity’s information dump about Robert. He wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Jonas stood straighter, typing on his holopad again. “I knew you’d come around, Ozzy.” He pressed another button, sending information to Relic’s com line. “This certain ship will get you to Earth. But you’ll have to pick it up.” He walked down the ramp, then spun on his heels. “You’ll figure out a safe, stealthy trajectory to get to Earth and extract the sphere, I assume?”
Ozzy nodded, his mind filled with auric credits and the freedom he’d always wanted—after he extracted the artifact from Earth, got it back to Jonas, and was given the happy-ton of money.
Finally, his dream would be realized. “I’ll figure out how to get the artifact. I always do.”
Jonas cracked a large smile. “That’s my Ozzy.”
20
Tagus Valles, Mars
One day until Anonymity releases the documents to the world, thought Ozzy.
Ozzy set the controls and eased Relic’s engines on. He was in the flyway exit tubes on Tagus Valles and ready to fly his vessel to Olympus Mons where he would think of a way to get to Earth.
Ozzy yawned. It was morning, and he and his small rag-tag crew spent the night sleeping in Relic on Jonas’s property. He had dinner with Lily and his ex-wife, Venessa, that evening then Jonas shuttled them off to the resort.
And here he was now, in a damn departure tube, ready to start a mission to Earth.
For all the money Jonas was giving him, he’d fly to the Dunrakee leader and slap him on the ass.
But Ozzy needed an Eagle. He couldn’t get to Earth to extract the crystal sphere in Relic. There was no way. How’d that slip his mind? How’d it slip Jonas’s?
He turned on his com line. If Jonas needed him to get the sphere, then Jonas would need to supply the ride.
He had the map, or rather the shape of the continent where the sphere was buried, ingrained in his mind. He’d draw out what was in his memory as soon as he landed in Olympus Mons where he would rest up for a bit and prepare.
The sphere, however, apparently called out to the bloodline when the bloodline had knowledge of its whereabouts or something like that. So maybe he didn’t need the map. Instead, the sphere would be like an emergency beacon in his mind.
Though he doubted it, but stranger things had happened.
In the back of his mind, he figured this might be a suicide mission. What was more important: his family or getting this sphere for Jonas?
“Don’t do this, Ozzy,” Jozi said. “You can’t survive the defensive arrays and the ships that the Dunrakee have lined up around Earth’s exosphere.” Her lips purse tightly in annoyance, and she shook her head, throwing her hands in the air. “It’s absolutely nuts.”
He grunted in response, doing his damnedest to ignore her. I’d be nuts not to do this mission for that amount of money.
“Jozi is right,” said Gragas who was standing behind Ozzy’s chair and holding onto the headrest.
“Thanks for the support!” Ozzy pushed the throttle forward. The flyway’s amber lights blinked on and off and whizzed by faster and faster as more energy from the engines supplied to the ionic boosters, moving Relic toward the exit.
The flyway dep
arture tube opened, and Relic blasted into the butterscotch-colored sky. The sun was fading on the horizon, and the blue sunset of Mars was peeking over the skyline. In a few hours, the skies would be dark and twinkling full of stars.
When Ozzy was ready to punch in Jonas’s number, a few lines and paragraphs blinked onto the com screen instead. Ozzy had almost forgotten that Jonas had typed several things on his holopad and sent them to Relic’s com channel.
Begin transmission.
Ozzy, you’re the only guy I trust outside of my own family. I wanted to let you know I’ve aligned with Lyra No Tail against the Ministry and Mort Wildly. We’re bringing more crime lords on board soon. We’ll be taking over the government then taking over Earth. You have the Ark of the Concordant. You will soon have the crystal sphere to give us. That will be more than enough to rid this solar system of the Dunrakee and the Ministry and to get Earth back once and for all. The artifacts you find will guarantee we’ll keep it that way.
But, right now, I need you to go to Lyra No Tail. She has an Eagle. Convince her you need to borrow it. If she says no, tell her our alliance is off. That should be enough to persuade her to hand over her precious Eagle so you can get us the sphere.
End transmission.
Ozzy sighed and nodded. Am I ever going to get my own Eagle? “Looks like we’re taking a detour.” He veered the craft into a tight turn, heading for Schroeter City where Lyra’s crime syndicate exploited the rich and gave to the poor—so the half-cat, half-human proclaimed.
Jozi let out an exasperated breath. “I’m staying back at Olympus Mons.” She glanced out the cockpit’s side window. “Hopefully, what’s-her-butt doesn’t try to kill me.”
“I understand,” muttered Ozzy. “I have to make this one last stop before we part ways.”
“Yeah, figured.”
Ozzy assumed she would try to make things right with Robert. He didn’t know how that would go, considering Robert should be on the run or in jail soon after the truth was smeared all over the com channels tomorrow.
Martian Quadrilogy Box Set Page 50
