“Put your hands up.”
Ozzy spun around. A handful of guards were in the hall, aiming their weapons.
“This is not a good time, guys.”
“Drop your weapons,” shouted a guard. “And, I repeat, put your hands up.”
Ozzy eyed Gragas, who returned the gaze.
“One last warning,” barked a guard. “Put your hands up where we can see them.”
Ozzy shifted on his feet. “I don’t think so.”
36
Gale Crater City, Mars
A guard stepped forward, his eyes on Ozzy like he was the murderer of the century. “If you don’t want to get yourself killed, I would suggest you do as I say and drop your weapons and put your hands up.”
“I’m an MMP agent,” said Jozi, her hands raised. “Let me show you my ID.”
“Keep your hands where we can see them,” ordered the guard.
Ozzy stiffened. Gragas’s weapon was aimed at the guard. Ozzy never even saw him lift the rifle.
“Do it, Gragas,” Ozzy said. He was bluffing. In truth, the High Judge was dead, and he didn’t want to see anyone else die today, especially himself.
“Gentlemen,” said Gragas. “I’d suggest you lower your weapons. I’m an elite fighter from deep within this galaxy. Don’t make a mistake.”
“I’d do what that masked man says,” Ozzy said.
Kishiiish!
A window from across the room broke. A grenade spewing fire at one end rolled across the carpet.
“Duck,” shouted Gragas.
Ozzy dove. He hit the floor and crawled toward the desk. A flash of light engulfed the room. Ozzy closed his eyes and curled up, waiting for the percussion to throw him into a wall or burn him to ashes—whichever came first.
A thud reverberated against the walls, and the sound of wood smashing and more thuds filled his ears. Then someone yelled.
Ozzy opened his eyes. The flash had died down. Quad stood over Jozi, who was backing up to a now broken desk and reaching for her holster.
Gragas had a guard against the wall, raising him so his feet dangled. He punched him across the cheek, and the guy’s eyes shut, and he went limp and fell to the floor.
Quad cocked his head to the side. He spun and kicked, slamming his boot across another guard’s temple. The guard fell on contact and buckled to the carpet.
The room fell silent, the only sound was Quad’s heaving.
Jozi stood with her gun pointed at Quad. “You just created a shitstorm. Now everyone in the Ministry will vie for the High Judge’s position. And my guess is they aren’t much better than Robert.”
Gragas rested his hand on his sword’s hilt, ready to unsheathe and draw Quad’s blood if he attacked.
Ozzy sat on the ground, his eyes on a dead Robert Baldwin. He couldn’t believe it. The one man who ruined his life and continued to make Ozzy’s life a maze of mental torture and drama was dead.
Quad stood in the center of the room, his hands in fists, waiting for another guard to enter. “I did my duty. I no longer need to kill Ozzy. Especially after meeting him and you all, I didn’t want to kill him anymore.”
He sounded like a little kid confessing to his family.
Dozens of bootsteps echoed down the hall.
Quad went into a defensive stance. “I’ll stay. You all get out of here.”
Gragas grabbed his arm. “No, Quad. Come with us.”
Jozi rushed to one of the broken windows. She jumped through it and landed on the other side, planting her feet on a soft patch of grass. “Let’s go.”
Ozzy ran over to the window and leaped through, smashing into a bush and flipping onto his back.
A thud sounded, and someone landed beside him. It was Gragas, who helped Ozzy up. “You need to learn the finer aspects of balance, Ozzy.”
An MMP vehicle zipped passed. It came to a stop and reversed. More MMP vehicles were coming down the street, their sirens blaring.
“Duck, Quad,” Gragas shouted.
Photon fire riddled the room from where they had exited. Ozzy looked back. Quad was in full-fight mode, throwing MMP agents and guards all about.
He tossed a guard against the wall next to the window where Ozzy was standing. The guy turned and glanced out the window, stunned to see a wanted criminal staring back at him. He pointed at Ozzy. “That’s the guy who killed the High Judge. He’s getting away.”
Shit.
37
Gale Crater City, Mars
Ozzy thrashed through the shrubbery, burst out onto the sidewalk, and ran down the street.
A dozen MMP vehicles, noticing him, swerved and made a U-turn.
It wouldn’t be long until they caught up to Ozzy. Ten seconds, at best.
He unholstered his gun and shot over his shoulder.
“Watch it,” Jozi said, chasing after him. Gragas was on her tail and running fast, his cape whipping in the wind.
Quad, on the other hand, wasn’t in sight. He was most likely kicking ass.
Ozzy rounded a corner. “How are we going to get out of—”
Someone grabbed him around the waist, and Ozzy lifted into the air. He looked down, seeing his feet rise farther and farther off the sidewalk.
He looked over his shoulder and jerked back. “Holy Mars.”
Gragas had an arm wrapped around him and one wrapped around Jozi. His metallic wings were outstretched, and fire was thrusting out of his boots.
They were going fast; too fast and too high for the MMP hovervehicles to catch them.
Good move.
“I’m heading to the city’s exit tubes,” Gragas said. “We’ll get into Relic from there.”
“Well, land before you do. We need to sneak in past security. If they notice me, they’ll hunt me down. I’m being blamed for killing Robert.”
“There was no one there to witness the killing,” Gragas said.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m the prime suspect.”
“Right there!” Jozi pointed. “Land next to that park.”
Gragas zoomed down, landing near a dense tree line. His wings folded in, making a sucking sound.
Jozi rushed past the line of trees and into the small forest. She leaned against a trunk and put her hands on her knees. She was shaking, and her eyes welled up. “I feel like throwing up.”
Ozzy rubbed her back. “We’ll get to safety.”
Jozi shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s that Robert is dead. He was a jerk and all, but he was my uncle and like a father-figure to me…and I really didn’t know him just as I didn’t know my own father. I’m learning there are many secrets in my family, but now I will never get to the truth.”
Gragas walked into the forest and stood next to Ozzy. “We must get going. The MMP will zero in on our location soon if they haven’t already.”
Jozi nodded her head in quick succession. “Oh, they already have. They did the moment we exited the Ministry building. There are cameras everywhere. That’s why we need this tree cover.”
Ozzy nodded in agreement. “The only hope we have is if the news has circulated that the High Judge is dead. The camera monitors might be tied up in the commotion of it all.” He peeked through a bush. An empty hovervehicle was parked a few meters from their location.
Ozzy darted toward the vehicle. “Gragas, you’re not going to like where I’m going to put you.”
38
Gale Crater City, Mars
Ozzy checked the door.
“Dammit. It’s locked.”
“What are you doing?” asked Jozi, coming out from behind a bush.
“I’m stealing a hovercar.”
Jozi pursed her lips. “No, you’re not. That’s illegal.”
He put his hands out and shrugged. “Then arrest me.” He bent down and picked up a rock.
She put her hands on her hips. “I’m already in enough trouble, this only adds to it.”
He chucked the rock.
Kishiish!
The driver’s side windo
w shattered, crumbling tiny shards of glass onto the leather interior. He broke off the end of a branch on a nearby cedar tree and rushed back to the car. He put his hand through the broken window and unlocked the door. With the needles hanging from the cedar branch, he brushed the glass off the seat and onto the leaf-covered ground.
He gripped the hatch lever, and the trunk swooshed open. “Time to get in, Gragas.” He motioned at the trunk. “You’d be a dead giveaway when we drive to the flyway port’s departure terminal.”
Gragas walked to Ozzy and eyed the trunk. He shot Ozzy a look.
“Just get in.” He put his hand up. “Hold on.” A woman’s hat and coat were in the back. He pulled them out. “Okay, now get in.”
Gragas stepped in and curled up, fitting nicely inside. Ozzy slammed the lid. “Time to get going, Jozi. Wear these.” He held out the coat and the hat.
Jozi grabbed the items. “They’re pink. I hate pink.”
“Well, act like you love it. Put them on.”
Ozzy hurried to the driver’s side and jumped in. He unlocked the passenger side door, and Jozi sunk into her seat.
He fiddled with some wires on the panel and the hovercar purred, lifting up. “Thank you, beautiful.”
“Don’t call me beautiful,” said Jozi, furrowing her brow.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He patted the steering column. “I was talking to our new car.”
He eased his foot on the energy pedal and headed down a dirt road and out of the forest. He took a left onto a deserted street.
Jozi licked her fingers then rubbed her hands through Ozzy’s hair.
Ozzy jerked out of the way. “Ewww! What are you doing?”
“You want to look like a criminal driving this car or someone respectable?”
“Fine.”
She pushed down his disheveled hair, wiped the dirt streaks off of his face, and unzipped a portion of his jumpsuit, exposing a tuft of chest hair.
“Really?”
“Really,” she replied.
They turned down another street, heading for Gale Crater City’s flyway port where Relic was parked.
Eeeoooeeeooo! Eeeoooeeeooo!
A Mars Ministry Police hovervehicle pulled out from a side street, zipping behind them.
“Crap.”
“Don’t speed up,” warned Jozi.
“Why? We’re going to have to outrun him.”
“Pull to the side.”
Ozzy vehemently shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“Do it.”
The vehicle flew closer to Ozzy. “Dammit.” He slowed the vehicle and pulled over. “You better know what you’re doing.”
The MMP hovercar pulled around them, its lights flashing and its siren blaring and sped off.
“If there were more of them, I’d worry, but that one must have been heading somewhere else and been called to the scene,” said Jozi.
“Well, that information would have been nice a little sooner, don’t you think?”
Ozzy stepped on the driving pedal, zipping the car forward.
“Up ahead,” said Jozi.
“I see it.”
The looming flyway port had a tower and several large buildings that housed ship taxis, hovervehicles, and ships. The graviton shield descended into the flyway port’s large buildings and exit tubes.
They pulled up to a guard station.
“We’re going to have to do a nice acting job here. Follow my lead,” said Ozzy.
A guard opened the station window and leaned against the sill. “ID, please.”
Ozzy fumbled through his jumpsuit pockets, let out a loud sigh, and used his best rich-like accent he could muster. “Do you have it, Deary?”
“What?” said Jozi, her face turning a shade of pink. “I told you to grab it before we left. We can’t go back now, we’ll miss the rehearsal.” She threw her hands in the air. “Oh, Darling.”
That was a little too much.
Ozzy feigned a smile at the guard, thumbing over at Jozi. “We have a wedding soon, you know, over in Schroeter City.”
The guard’s face was like stone. He glared at Ozzy then at Jozi and back at Ozzy again. “What’s your ID number?”
“It’s 185145.” Ozzy snapped his fingers. “Can we get a move on it, sir? We’re in quite the terrible rush.”
The guard gave him another long stare, not liking being told to hurry. He turned toward his holocomputer and typed.
“I told you, Darling, that’s what would happen if we rushed. We’d forget things.”
Ozzy raised his voice. “Oh you’re always complaining. One minute you’re all high and mighty with the money I give you to buy this and that, and the next minute you’re—”
“Excuse me,” interrupted the guard. “You’re Lou Mack?”
Ozzy nodded. “Of course, I am.”
“It says you live in Tunnel Downs. What are you doing here?”
Ozzy screwed his face up. “Are you saying I can’t afford a home here? Check your files. I just moved here, and it should be updated by now.”
The guard huffed. “Just a sec.” He glanced at his holocomputer and typed on the holopad. “Sir,” shouted the guard. “Just go. I’ll figure it out later.” The guard motioned to drive forward. “Your S-4 Jumper is in lane one eighteen.”
Ozzy nodded. “Cheerio.” He drove the hovervehicle onward, moving down a decline.
He pressed a palm to his heart. “We should be movie stars.”
“I should. You shouldn’t.”
“Fair enough.” He drove into a tunnel and into a large and wide structure made from red cement. Ships were lined in rows. He turned the wheel and came around a column where Relic was parked nearby.
He stopped next to his craft, unlatched the trunk, and stepped out of the hovercar. Gragas climbed out and dusted himself off.
“Back to Olympus Mons where I can get the Eagle,” Ozzy stated.
Gragas folded his arms over his chest. “We need to talk.”
This had to be about one of two things: either he wanted to discuss Ozzy joining the Galactic Knight’s, or he didn’t want Ozzy to go to Earth.
Ozzy walked up the ramp and toward the ladder. “Okay, talk.”
39
Heading to Olympus Mons, Mars
Ozzy sat in the cockpit, readying to exit the tubes. Jozi was fiddling with some controls in the seat next to him. “Talk about what, Gragas?”
Silence.
“Gragas?”
He turned. The guy was nowhere to be seen.
He shrugged and ramped the ionic drives to full. Relic lifted and flew forward through the departure tube and shot into the sky. Ozzy pulled back on his control stick, steering her ahead.
He put in the coordinates to Olympus Mons and set Relic to autopilot. He slapped his hands together, rubbing them. “I haven’t asked you yet.”
Jozi lowered her head. “Sure.” She let out a big huff. “What else am I going to do?”
“Clear your name.”
She dropped her forehead into her hand. “Robert is dead. Right now, I’m all over the capital building’s holovids at the time of his death. I don’t think I’ll be clearing my name anytime soon.”
“Why can’t you accept the fact your life will get better now that Robert is dead, especially if Jonas takes over the High Judge spot?”
“Because he won’t. We didn’t set it up the way we needed to in order to expose Robert and the entire government system. An outsider isn’t going to be coming in. It’ll be someone inside the Ministry.” She stood up and walked out of the cockpit then turned. “How could we possibly get Jonas inside the Ministry? He has no leverage. No nothing.”
“He has money.”
Jozi cocked her head. “When are you going to realize that money isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be?”
“Jonas has my daughter and my brother and, heck, my daughter’s mother.”
Jozi pressed her lips together. “Look, if you think that Jonas would do something
bad to your family because you didn’t do something for him, then why would that make him a good High Judge?”
It didn’t matter. Ozzy wasn’t sticking around to find out, and he hoped Jozi wouldn’t either. He was about to make more money in this one job by retrieving the crystal sphere on Earth than most people made in a lifetime. After this job, the money he’d be given would guarantee a means to buy an Eagle and get him and what family he had left off of Mars.
“Jonas will do well. He may do things differently, but his heart is in the right place.”
“I hope you’re right.” She walked out of view.
He blew his cheeks out and swiveled around in his chair, eyeing the horizon. They wouldn’t reach Olympus Mons for another few hours.
Gragas stepped in. “About that talk,” he said.
Ozzy swiveled back around. “What is it, Gragas?”
Gragas folded his hands behind his back. “You’ve proven yourself a valuable warrior. Deep down, you’re a warrior of light. I know you don’t think so, but I see a great deal of things in life, and that much I can see.”
“You won’t drop it, will you?”
“No, not as long as you’re alive.”
“Gragas, I’m not joining the Galactic Knights. Not today not tomorrow and not ever.”
“Understood.” He bowed and went to leave.
“Gragas, it has nothing to do with you or your Galactic Knights.” Ozzy cleared his throat. “I’m a loner. I’m not one who works well with others and, because of that, I wouldn’t do well with your Galactic Knights. I do things better on my own, and I prefer it that way. It’s nothing personal.”
“I see, but it seems like you are beating your head on the same rock. You could simply walk around that rock to attain a better position in life, a more worthy position.”
“What rock am I beating my head against, Gragas?”
“The one that has money written all over it. The one that says I’m a loner written all over it. Money will come and go. It’s tangible. You can make a lot. You can throw away more. But the life of a loner isn’t sustainable. We are people of community, and that’s where we thrive. We thrive even more when we know we are working for the power of good, pushing back forces that are trying to hurt the innocent. You can be that, Ozzy. Your life would be fulfilled.” He put his hands together and bowed then walked to the ladder, climbing down.
Martian Insurrection (Mars Colony Chronicles Book 3) Page 15
