Children Of Earth (Tales from the 23rd Century Book 1)

by Paul J. Fleming

  ‘Yes,’ Ezri replied and Maia could have sworn she saw the artificial being roll her eyes slightly as she spoke. ‘Not always at the most appropriate moments either,’ she added, giving more weight to Maia’s suspicions that her program had learnt the emotions surrounding frustration. ‘However, I feel I must add that what you see of the Captain is what he allows you to see. There is a lot more thought beyond the glib responses and errant ways which he keeps to himself, preferring people to just consider him as they see him. Even I do not know the full extent of the Captain’s history, but then again I have not had cause to pry. Should he wish me to know, he would tell me I am sure.’

  Maia nodded in acceptance of this, for everyone had their secrets and Maddox would be no different.

  ‘Do you ever regret what Simeon did? I mean, just giving you over like that?’ she asked before she truly thought through the indelicate nature of her query.

  Ezri keyed the sequence once the panel displayed the bay was fully depressurised, to lower the loading ramp to allow for the next stage of their operation.

  ‘No, I do not regret his actions,’ she answered quite simply as the two of them moved over to the beacons and the first one was pushed over the edge of the ramp to float away from the underbelly of the Erstwhile. ‘Albeit regret being an emotive state, I understand your inference. The simple fact is that I am now entirely self-reliant as the Captain took the measure of granting me title to my own program which, although not previously an established practice within the legal workings of the core worlds, there was no legislation against such a move being undertaken.’

  Maia was moving another beacon closer to the edge, helped with it’s much lighter presence in the vacuum of space. Although the artificial gravity plating was still in effect, it was diminished to a level which provided a minimal tactile pull so crew operating within the bay just did not float about futilely. She paused on the threshold of the ramp and glanced at Ezri who had just deposited another beacon into the blackness of space.

  ‘Wait. You mean the Captain does not own you? You own yourself effectively?’

  ‘Yes, just as you own your own destiny, I do so with mine,’ Ezri confirmed grasping the top of another beacon and encouraging it over to the yawning gap.

  ‘So your being here on this ship is now by choice rather than obligation?’ Maia queried as she tipped her beacon out to float away from the ramp and join its fellows.

  ‘That is correct,’ Ezri confirmed as she too launched her beacon over the edge. ‘I decided that if I were to follow my program’s destined objective to learn and adapt, where better to do so than in the company of the Captain and be involved in the many encounters and situations we have been through so far, and the many more to come. Also, the Captain seemed to be rather happy at the thought of me remaining on board once he granted me my freedom, so to speak. It was just an obvious choice for me to make.’

  Maia nodded in acceptance of Ezri’s surmising, following her example of wrestling one of the remaining beacons over to the edge of the ramp and then looking up as Ezri met her on the threshold with the final beacon.

  ‘So, these are the last two. What happens next once these are loose and flying free?’ Maia queried as she glanced up to Ezri, both of them pausing slightly before tossing the beacons out into the black.

  ‘As long as McCarthy does not blast these beacons to smithereens, they will activate on command from the flight deck and fire outward from this position, exiting the cloud with their transponders replicating our own signal which the patrol ship will be undoubtedly be searching for through the interference. They are shielded sufficiently to withstand the effects of the EM wave in the cloud and once they are clear, their completely disparate directions should cause the patrol ship to be chasing those ghosts. We wait a short time and then make our exit the way we came in and make a run for Sanctuary.’

  ‘Do you think we will make it? Will it work?’

  Ezri glanced at Maia momentarily and there was a raised eyebrow and a smile, obviously a practised copy of expressions she had studied on Maddox’s face when trying to be reassuring over a quickly hashed together plan.

  ‘It’s one of the Captain’s schemes,’ she replied to accompany the grin. ‘Why would anything ever go wrong with it?’

  Tuning and making her way back to the control panel to close the ramp and re-pressurise the bay, she left Maia on the threshold looking out into the black and tracing the small beacons as they drifted further away from the underbelly of the ship.

  Somehow Maia was not entirely reassured. She had an idea she had just been on the receiving end of Ezri’s latest attempt at sarcasm.

  5 Chasing Shadows

  Maddox closed the external communications after re-assuring Marshal that they would only be present for a brief stay whilst the beacons did their job, then the Erstwhile would leave without any further interruption to the brothers’ hermit-like lifestyle.

  Despite his initial reluctance, Marshal knew very well who he was dealing with and just how much he owed him. Albeit he did not like Martian patrol cruisers being brought to their front door, he understood Maddox would not have done so without good reason and turned his tug about and depart back to the domicile made from the hulls of three Stallion class liners at the centre of the twisted hulks scattered about the region.

  Quickly checking the progress of the beacons on his sensor scope, Maddox idly cast his mind back over the two Mercurian brothers' flight from the twisted justice proposed by the Mercurian Twilight Cartel and how he had incurred the wrath of the cartel by harbouring them on board his ship and evading their efforts to recapture the fugitives. In short, he did not agree with their accusations and certainly did not condone the punishment the cartel would usually meter out by dumping them onto the bleak, rocky surface of Mercury with only a single air tank between them and the prospect of either suffocating first or being roasted alive by the onset of the sun-phase being their ultimate fate.

  Even though his own actions caused unpleasantness for his own travels for a short period of time, as well as relations between the cartel and the Phoenix group to turn sour for a short period as he was meant to be an envoy for Phoenix to try and foster better relations and interaction between the two groups, the passage of time healed both rifts enabling him to return to Mercury on business and also actively rejoin the ranks of Phoenix, who had cast him out for fear of reprisals against other operatives they had present on the Sun baked planet at that time.

  Returning his thoughts to their present endeavours, he noted the beacons were all sufficiently clear of the Erstwhile to be sent on their merry way, and set about initialising their on board propulsion and navigation systems. Very soon they would depart and not too long after, the Erstwhile could break cover.

  As plans went, it was quite simplistic yet effective and Maddox was silently pleased so far, but a notification signal of an incoming transmission snatched him from his self-praise and he quickly checked the incoming call sign, feeling his shoulders sag slightly as it was Roland McCarthy, the second of the two brothers and the more cantankerous of them both.

  With a little hesitation brought about by his reluctance to speak with anyone who could potentially screw his plans up, Maddox acknowledged the call and put the image of the older McCarthy on the screen. He was only older by a few minutes, as they were twins, but it was a fact he did like to push in his slightly younger siblings face at any opportunity.

  ‘Captain John Maddox. It has been a long time my old friend, I assume from the patrol cruiser sniffing about outside that you are still on the rather fractious side of the law?’ Said Roland in a slightly condescending tone.

  ‘Fractious side of the law? Not at all Roland, in fact I couldn’t rightly say why they are out there or why they laid in pursuit aside from them being a tad aggrieved that I chose to take my leave of them before they told me I could do so,’ he replied in the most casual manner he could muster. ‘Fact is myself and the young lady I was meeting were just enj
oying a fine cup of coffee at Diner Dave’s when they burst in and we fled in fear of our lives ahead of some rather aggressive troopers.’

  Roland allowed a broad grin to spread across the wide freckled face framed by the bushy ginger beard on the lower half of the screen.

  ‘A young lady, eh? Why that does not surprise me is anyone’s guess, but I know you’re telling porkies by the fact Diner Dave serves brown slop in a cup and calls it coffee, but no one in this known ‘verse can stomach it! Anyway, that’s not why I am calling you. We’ve received a signal on a low band frequency which I think you are meant to receive, but as you’re inside the field you probably won’t be able to get it. I can route it through to you via our antennae if you want?’

  Maddox sat up slightly and regarded the Mercurian’s face on the screen carefully, trying to elicit any notion of deception on his part. No matter the history and the fact that Maddox had saved the two brothers from a certain death at the hands of Twilight, he would not put it past Roland to sell him out if there were a sufficient profit in it for him. Marshal was the more reluctant of the two to profit from others’ misfortune, and Maddox had a good idea who had sold pictures of the regent’s daughters in undress over SOLnet all those many years ago.

  The simple fact he was being so pleasant and helpful just made Maddox even more suspicious of his intent.

  ‘Seems pretty important, but if you don’t want to trust your old pal, I can just terminate the signal here by pushing this button…’ Roland said as his voice tailed off and he pointedly looked away to the side of the screen and began to reach for something that was there.

  ‘No, no, no Roland. It’s nothing to do with trust, I was just wondering how much it was going to cost me?’

  ‘You wound me, Captain!’ Roland replied, presenting his most hurt expression upon his chubby features as he leaned in towards the screen.

  Despite Maddox’s suspicions, if that signal did originate from Phoenix then the fact they were broadcasting a message openly across the waves gave rise to the notion that something serious was going on outside the EM wave screen that the crew of the Erstwhile should be aware of before making a run for it.

  ‘Roland, I’m just teasing you. What’s the matter, sense of humour waning as the years pass by?’ he jested at the screen. ‘Come on then, patch it through over here and let’s see what this mysterious message is,’ he said as he brought up the algorithms for decrypting encoded messages sent through by Phoenix.

  Roland simply nodded in confirmation and his image was replaced by what appeared to be garbled interference with the occasional unintelligible sound being uttered.

  Maddox quickly ran the message through the computer against the database and used his decoder to put the pieces of the message stream back together in an intelligible order. Once the process was complete, there was a pause before the computer signalled the message was ready to display as the encryption software unlocked the stream.

  As he expected the message was from Phoenix, but there were no faces displayed. Simply the rotating symbol of the bird rising from the flames which they had taken on as their rather obvious logo for the movement. He quickly read the text which was scrolling across his screen before asking the computer to pause the display as he contemplated the scope of the words he had just read. In essence, Phoenix was temporarily shutting down operations and advising all field operatives to go to ground until further notice. It was quite a daunting concept for the largest of the resistance groups to simply go into hiding in the face of increased Martian naval operations, but recent actions of which Maddox was quite aware, had led to unprecedented support for military action against all the resistance groups who may harbour or ally themselves alongside the newest emergent group known only as ‘The Children of Earth’.

  Resuming the message playback, he watched the video attachment which contained a message, not for him, but was one which apparently been broadcast over SOLnet to the key installations on the core worlds, decrying the Martian Aries Corporation as lying dictators who wanted nothing more than to enslave the human race on Earth so that they could strip mine what resources remained to further develop their own Martian colonies.

  Such facts were not news to Maddox as they were the key reasons for the existence of resistance groups such as Phoenix who objected to the occupation of Earth by the former colony after the bitter war which had seen the former bustling centre of all colonial operations and development devastated and brought to its knees in surrender.

  Now, apparently there was a new group who had claimed the right to strike back at the Martian oppressors by whatever means possible and force them to hand back Earth to its inhabitants, lending aid and support to the indigenous population for the rebuilding of their home.

  The Children of Earth were only known before this message for fractious devilment with small disruptions to computer systems which were put down to pranks by computer hackers. Their escalation in actions was quite clear as the enclosed supplemental video clip included a recorded news feed from the SOLnet Press Core of the Lunarian stock exchange where the booths which played host to the Aries Directorship were blown asunder by huge explosions, causing both damage to the infrastructure of the enclosing surface dome and the death of many traders on the floor. It was sure to say that they were now ascending to the very top of the Corporation’s list of targets to locate and quash with every resource they had at their disposal.

  Quite clearly, as was outlined in the message, the Martians were running many avenues of investigation and it was not only the Children of Earth who were feeling the heat from the new war on rebellion, but many of the existing groups were also finding their bases being stormed by heavily armed troopers and Sentinel bots, laying waste to most of everything that stood in their way. That was typically the Martian way, with a lack of determination between who the real target was and a wholesale assault on those they already knew to be against their methods and operations on Earth.

  Maddox thought of the patrol vessel that had pursued them to the fringes of the graveyard. He had been impressed by their dogged continuance above and beyond normal efforts usually displayed by enlisted troopers and naval officers. They may throw their weight about, but usually wanted their tours of duty to pass by without undue fuss.

  Quite obviously this attack on Luna had struck home and directives had been handed down from on high to put the squeeze on those they already knew about. No honour amongst thieves one Martian Lord had publicly said when they had previously tried to set one resistance group against another, his words denying them success by banding the groups together in one almighty push back to snub him. The unity did not last as there were too many different agendas within the various groups and soon the temporary alliance fractured with the resistance once again resorting to small operations and what basically added up to name calling with none of the smaller groups having the resources or capability to stand up to the much larger Martian foe.

  Maddox looked at the screen once more, concerned about this new addition to the resistance roster. He did not put it past the Martians themselves to have committed the atrocities on Luna and to forge the message in order to give them a justified reason to try and eradicate the smaller groups they already knew of in their proposed attempts to purge and root out the perpetrators of the crime. Quite clearly there was nothing he could achieve whilst the Erstwhile was hiding under the skirts of the McCarthy brothers, and he most certainly did not trust Roland not to sell them out in light of this new vigour the Martians were displaying to tighten the net about those they sought as criminals against the development of the civilised worlds.

  Storing the message for Ezri’s perusal and analysis, he reverted the screen back to display the visage of Roland and was completely taken aback to see a pair of fat buttocks quite clearly displayed on the screen.

  ‘Roland, I have to…. Holy stars! Where the hell are your trousers?’ he said incredulously as he involuntarily turned his head away from the screen in revulsion.<
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  ‘What? Oh, I was not expecting you back so quickly,’ was Roland’s simple reply. ‘In any case, I never have any visitors so what does it matter whether I wear pants or not?’

  ‘But you have a tunic on?!’ stated Maddox, quite confused.

  ‘Yes. Would you rather I was topless too? I put the tunic on for your benefit Maddox, as I said not too many visitors so I save on washing.’

  Maddox risked a glance back at the screen and saw Roland now sat with his lower half obscured by the table and his stout upper torso and head visible on the monitor, his face beaming with a mischievous grin.

  ‘Okay, let’s pretend that didn’t happen and move on quickly then. Did you see the message contents?’ Maddox asked earnestly trying hard to ignore the last few moments ever happened.

  ‘I know what it says. It says you are bad news to be in here when that ship is out there looking for you. Do whatever it is you are going to and leave quickly. We can always claim ignorance or that you threatened us as you are a twisted resistance member. The point is, I still thank you for your efforts all those years ago, but you’re not welcome in here any longer as long as they are cracking down.’

  Maddox glared at the image on the screen, the bushy beard, the sideburns and the balding head around the fat wide face being a focus for his frustration.

  ‘Fine. We’ll be out of your hair as soon as these beacons do their job. As long as no one tips them off, we should be well away from here. Would be awful for me to have to retreat back under cover of the EM field. Especially if I know they were warned.’

  The quite obvious warning needed no further emphasis and Maddox cut the transmission, his disappointment still causing anger within his mind. Without him, they would not be alive, now he was being sent packing?