Striking Mars (The Saving Mars Series-5)

by Cidney Swanson

  Life will find a way. Unless Lucca Brezhnaya found a way first.

  Mei Lo’s smile vanished and she turned from the scientists. She wished the Raiders could comm. Intel. Hades and Aphrodite, she needed intel.

  40

  Tranquility Base, the Terran Moon

  Jessamyn awoke in near-darkness to the sibilant hiss of someone calling her name in a whisper.

  “Jess,” came the call, once again.

  “What?” demanded Jess, sitting up too quickly and hitting her head on a rail beside her bunk. “Ouch!”

  This additional noise brought Pavel into a blurred sort of wakefulness.

  “I’ll drink the kávé this time,” he murmured. “I promise.”

  “Who’s there?” snapped Jess, ignoring Pavel’s mutterings.

  “Me. Yevgeny.”

  The Ghost? He’d been gone several days. Jess remembered how vague he’d been about where he was going. Or why.

  “Okay,” said Jess. “Glad you’re back. We’ll see you at rations.” She turned heavily, trying to draw her pillow over her ear. It flopped back.

  “No, no,” said the Ghost. “You’re already awake. Might as well get up.”

  “What time is it?” demanded Pavel.

  “Oh, I don’t know. 03:00 or so,” replied the Ghost.

  “What in the name of Ares are you doing here at three o’clock in the morning?” asked Jess.

  “There’s something you need to see,” said the Ghost.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Pavel, sounding very alert.

  “Wrong?” asked the Ghost. “No, no. Nothing bad.”

  “This better be important,” muttered Jess, kicking off her bunk.

  “You sleep too much,” said the Ghost.

  The newly awakened pair shuffled behind him.

  “To the hangar,” he said, as if he were answering a question they’d simply forgotten to speak aloud.

  Well, they would be plenty awake by the time they walked all the way to the Ghost’s hangar.

  “You were doing that thing again,” Jess murmured to Pavel.

  “Huh?”

  “You know, that thing where you wake up talking about some nonsensical thing from a dream,” replied Jess. “It was coffee today. Something about drinking your coffee.”

  “Oh,” said Pavel. And then he seemed to remember it. “Oh, right. I dreamed Aunt Lucca had made me an astonishingly bad cup of kávé, and she was angry I wouldn’t finish it. She was going to send me to New Timbuktu so I could learn to appreciate what life was like without kávé.”

  “Wow,” said Jess, shaking her head. “You live more in your dreams than any of us experience in a week.”

  “I’ll trade my bad dreams for your boring ones any day,” replied Pavel.

  Jess snorted. “A dream about kávé hardly qualifies as a bad dream.”

  “It depends who’s serving the kávé, now doesn’t it?” Pavel ran his hand back and forth over his bed-head hair. “I could use some kávé right now; that’s for sure.”

  “Jumble’s sending that rations shipment. Tell him to add coffee.”

  Pavel shrugged.

  “Tell him,” insisted Jess. After a moment, she added, “There’s no shame in preferring the food or drink you grew up with.”

  “Jumble’s shipment has been postponed.”

  “Why?”

  Pavel ran one hand along the rough surface of the tunnel wall. He looked distracted. Or uncomfortable.

  “Why?” Jess repeated.

  “It’s not like we’re going to run out anytime soon,” said Pavel.

  But Jessamyn sensed he wasn’t telling everything he knew. “What about Yevgeny’s walk-out boots? He needs that new pair. Have you seen his old ones?”

  “Listen,” said Pavel. “It’s a safety thing. We thought it would be best if no one dropped anything here for the time being. You know, after your little incident with the bounty hunter.”

  “He wasn’t a bounty hunter. He was just some greedy son of Phobos taking advantage of a coincidental meeting.”

  “Exactly,” said Pavel.

  He sounded satisfied, as if he thought he’d proved his point.

  Jessamyn scowled.

  They arrived in the hangar, postponing further discussion of their relative safety.

  “Over here, over here,” called the Ghost, scampering to the far side of the hangar.

  He came to a halt just in front of the Star Shark, now sitting under a large piece of canvas.

  “Why’s that tarp over the ship?” asked Pavel. “It’s not like it’ll rain.”

  The Ghost’s normally somber expression altered as he gave a dramatic tug to the canvas.

  “Ta-da,” the Ghost said, triumphantly.

  “What?” demanded Pavel.

  Jess saw it right away. Pavel’s “What?” felt almost manufactured to her. How could he not notice? But it didn’t matter.

  “Oh,” she said softly. “Oh, look at it!” She bounced over to the ship in two long strides, eagerly running her hands over the sections of the heat shield which had, previous to today, been scarred and ruined.

  “The panels,” she said. “You replaced them.”

  The Ghost grinned. The expression, as ever, looked as if it caused him slight pain.

  “You did it, man,” said Pavel. “We can get home now.”

  At this the Ghost’s expression fell. “Well, you can, of course, but I was rather hoping you would consider remaining as my guests for … for a while longer. It would be safer.”

  “Of course,” said Jessamyn. Her voice was matter-of-fact. “We’re not going anywhere. You did a fine job, and we are in your debt.”

  Inside, her gut twisted. Yevgeny had gone without taking her along. Didn’t he know how much it meant to her to get out and fly a little? Of course not, she reminded herself. He hardly knew her at all.

  “Oh, well,” said the Ghost, his face reddening. “Yes. It was really the least I could do for … family.”

  “Thanks, man,” said Pavel. “For everything.”

  “It was no problem,” said the Ghost. “I do better on my own, anyway.”

  It was no problem? Better on his own? Jessamyn’s eyes narrowed. Pavel, or someone, must have asked Yevgeny to not take Jess along on his latest scavenging trip.

  Pavel was avoiding Jessamyn’s gaze.

  “Okay,” said Jess to Yevgeny, “so, we’ll see you in a couple hours for rations.” She turned to leave the hangar, indicating with a jerk of her head that Pavel should follow her.

  Jess strode rapidly down the tunnel. As soon as she judged they were out of Yevgeny’s hearing, she turned on Pavel and stopped, her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing. “I’ve seen you express more surprise over a ration bar on your dinner plate. Did you know where Yevgeny was going?”

  Pavel perused the floor of the corridor, not meeting Jessamyn’s gaze.

  “Did you tell him not to take me along?” demanded Jess.

  “I was going to talk to you about it.”

  “Okay. Let’s talk about it.”

  “Jess,” said Pavel, bringing his eyes to meet hers. He was smiling, tentatively.

  “What gave you the right to tell him not to take me along?”

  Pavel’s smile disappeared. “I’m sorry, okay?”

  “No,” snapped Jessamyn. “It’s not okay. How dare you take that decision away from me?”

  “It’s not like that,” said Pavel. “The Ghost brought it up because he was worried about you.”

  “And you didn’t bother to set his mind at ease? Or tell him that I was the one he should be having the conversation with in the first place?”

  Pavel breathed out heavily. It was his angry breathing. But Jessamyn didn’t care. She was the injured party here.

  “It’s not safe for you to go flying into the orbits where spacers hang out,” said Pavel. “Here, you’re safe. But you go down there, and it’s a whole different story.”

  “It was my decision to make
, Pavel! Mine!” She turned away from him, furious, and stormed back in the direction of the hangar.

  Pavel chased after her, and she turned to add one more thing.

  “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “Hey,” said Pavel, reaching for her arm to stop her from dashing off again. “You were right about one thing — I’m the one who convinced him not to mention it to you.”

  “Let go of me,” said Jessamyn, her voice low and threatening.

  “Fine,” said Pavel, holding both hands up as if in surrender. “Just don’t shout at Yevgeny. It was my fault. Not his.”

  Jessamyn spun away from him without responding.

  ~ ~ ~

  Hieronymus Bunche preferred the nickname “Lightning Boy” for what he assumed were obvious reasons. His mother, an artist, had chosen his name, his father having been absent for as long as Hieronymus could recall.

  Hieronymus was sent to the correct schools and enrolled in the approved sporting curricula and discouraged from watching old vids. “Your friends will tease you,” said his mother. But she’d been assuming he had friends. As it was, he was teased so severely for his name that a little obsession with outdated superheroes didn’t make much difference.

  Lately, things had been looking up for poor Hieronymus. As his peers aged, they found it more interesting to pursue liaisons with their romantic interests than to torment an oddball. After the years of teasing, being simply ignored was amazingly cool.

  For obvious reasons, he didn’t share his secret feed alias of “Lightning Boy” with his peers at school. Some days he thought about changing his alias. But no one who knew him on the feeds hassled him over his name. He would change it when he re-bodied in a few years — an event to which he looked forward.

  Nearly constant volunteer work for broadcast feeds had gained him an abundance of re-body credits. He was pretty sure to get a healthy twobody. The only thing that caused him occasional concern was the thought he would no longer have the manual dexterity necessary for some of the games he loved.

  Still, he would always have chess. A few stiff joints or a bit of clumsiness wouldn’t affect his ability to win at his favorite game. In the past week, he’d come out tops in every division in which he played, which meant he’d beaten “Ares Spawn,” one of the best players Hieronymus knew. “Ares Spawn” had only come into the chess scene recently, which made Hieronymus wonder if the player hadn’t discarded an old name to adopt the current one.

  He thought again about the possibility of changing his alias now instead of at the end of his first-body. “Lightning Boy” had been great when he was eleven, but it was starting to make him sound just a bit silly now that he was fourteen. Yesterday, when he received a comm from Pavel Brezhnaya-Bouchard, he’d been a bit embarrassed to be known as “Lightning Boy.” Although, as names went, Hieronymus was nearly as bad. Maybe he should change that name, too.

  It had been amazingly cool to wake up to a “thank you” from the Chancellor’s nephew. It had been even nicer to post the comm on his personal feed and see the new followers the post brought him. Maybe he should invite Pavel to post a list to his “Top Ten” feed. Something like, “Top Ten Ways to Turn the Government Around Today,” or maybe “Top Ten Ways to Make Earth a Better Place.” That sort of thing would be right up Pavel’s alley.

  But how was he supposed to contact Pavel? There had been no return code in the comm. Which meant Pavel didn’t want to be contacted. Hieronymus sighed heavily.

  As far as Hieronymus could tell, no one even knew where Pavel was at the moment. But how amazingly cool would it be to be the person who found him? That would get him some followers, he thought, smiling.

  He could start a whole, “Where on Earth Is ___?” feed, following famous people around the globe. Would that count as public service for re-body credits? Probably not. But it would bring him more viewers.

  Why hadn’t anyone thought of this before?

  Someone probably had. Many of his great ideas turned out to be either not so great or already exploited.

  But ten minutes of searching turned up nothing at all like what he had in mind. He began coding the new feed immediately. “Where on Earth Is ___?” was going to be a hit. He just knew it.

  He would make it live once he’d located Pavel Brezhnaya-Bouchard. Talk about starting things off with a big bang! He rubbed his hands together and began hacking through the encryption which was meant to keep Pavel’s location a secret.

  Most hackers would have given up after a day or two of fruitless work. But not Hieronymus. He knew, in his gut, that Lightning Boy wouldn’t have given up, so neither would he. Not ‘til he found his man. In the end, it took him nearly a week. Whoever had provided Pavel with his encrypted send-code, they’d been good. Amazingly good.

  “But not good enough,” said Hieronymus, grinning from ear-to-ear. “I found you!”

  And what a find it was! Who would have guessed Pavel Brezhnaya-Bouchard lived on the Moon? Hieronymus made a few final adjustments to the look of his feed and then gave the verbal command to make “Where on Earth is ____?” live, with the Chancellor’s elusive nephew as the first located celebrity.

  Exhausted from too many late nights in a row, Hieronymus crawled into bed, telling himself he would send a message to Pavel asking him about contributing to his “Top Ten” feed tomorrow.

  41

  Budapest, Earth

  “What reason do we have to believe this broadcast is telling the truth?” demanded Lucca Brezhnaya. Before her, in holographic miniature, stood Captain Vladim Wu.

  “There appears to have been an exchange between the boy and your, ah, nephew,” replied Wu.

  “My nephew whom you led me to believe was dead,” Lucca snapped at the hologram.

  “Yes, Madam Chancellor,” said Wu, bowing in apology.

  “I suspect Mr. Zussman is alive as well,” said Lucca, tapping her forefinger thoughtfully against her chin. “Look into that possibility.” She glared accusingly at the Moon, gibbous but still bright over Budapest. It would be such a great pleasure to kill Zussman herself, if he was, in fact, still alive. “But my nephew is the priority. What other proof of life do you have?”

  “The language employed in the communication is a good match for your nephew’s typical mode of expression. I’ve had four language experts analyze the comm independent of one another. Three of them say it is Pavel.”

  “You can fire the fourth,” said the Chancellor, tapping her nails on her desk. It was her nephew. She felt it in her bones.

  She’d already communicated with Yevgeny, who had confirmed he had been away during the time period in question. Which meant Pavel must have had full access to his uncle Yevgeny’s cozy little lunar base.

  Wu cleared his throat.

  “What is it?” snapped the Chancellor. “You know I despise clearers-of-throats.”

  “We have located a trajectory consistent with what we would expect of a ship departing the Moon. In the considered opinion of my team, there can be little doubt as to its occupant.”

  “Hmm,” said Lucca. She paced before her tall windows, overlooking the city. “If we do this, it must be done discreetly. Nothing to link a random explosion in the upper reaches of space to a certain nephew of mine living on the Moon.”

  “Of course, Madam Chancellor. The fact that he appears to have fled the Moon will make it easier for us to target him without raising suspicions and, er, misplaced sympathies. If I might offer a recommendation?”

  “Out with it.”

  “A single ship, firing a minimal payload. We feel a space battle involving multiple ships is more likely to prove … embarrassing for your Excellency.”

  “Can you do it? Take them out with one ship? I seem to recall some difficulties with the last assignment I gave you involving a single ship.”

  “Madam Chancellor, I personally volunteer for the mission,” said Vladim Wu. “There will be no mistakes this time.”

  The Chancellor smiled. “Wu, how very th
oughtful of you. I would feel much more at ease knowing you were the one firing on my nephew’s ship.” She sighed heavily. “Such a waste. Such promise.” She turned her gaze to her windows and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Such a tragedy.”

  “Yes, Madam Chancellor.”

  “Very well,” she said at last. “You have your orders. Take the ship out with a minimum of weapons-fire. Comm me when the assignment is complete. Chancellor out.”

  She turned from the holograph. It was a pity. She felt it deeply. But Pavel had left her no other choice. “Goodbye once more, my dear, bright boy,” she whispered in the direction of the gleaming moon.

  42

  Tranquility Base, the Terran Moon

  Jessamyn was still fuming about Pavel keeping secrets from her. Trying to protect her as if she were incapable of taking care of herself. She wasn’t going back to bed this morning, that was for sure. She stormed back to the hangar.

  The Ghost had moved from the Star Shark and was now working on one of his other ships.

  “Have you taken the Star Shark out yet?” asked Jessamyn.

  “What?” The Ghost blinked at her, surprised to see her so soon again.

  “Is my ship in working order?” she asked, ignoring the inconvenient fact that it wasn’t really hers.

  “I don’t know,” replied Yevgeny. “I haven’t taken her out.”

  “In that case, I will,” said Jess. She wasn’t nearly as angry at Yevgeny as she was at Pavel, but she didn’t want to hang out and have a long conversation with him either. All she wanted to do right now was feel her hands on a nav panel and fly as far away as the ship’s fuel allowance would permit.

  “Alone?” asked Yevgeny.

  “That’s how I like it best,” said Jess, parroting his own words back to him. Okay, maybe she was a little ticked at him.

  She opened the hatch and grabbed her g-suit, putting it on inside the ship’s cramped interior even though it would have made more sense to do this outside the ship. All she wanted right now was to get some altitude.

  How could Pavel have treated her like this? It was infuriating. Jess ran a few quick checks on her suit and powered up the ship. Everything was in perfect working order. That was a huge relief. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d needed to get away this badly.