Double Cross

by Sigmund Brouwer

  If I was right, the Hammerhead would truly be unstoppable. It could circle the Earth at speeds unknown to any previous military weapon. With a red burst, it could hit any target, raining horror down from the sky. I was ready for my final question.

  “Dr. Jordan, will you please tell me why the telescope was not operational? Why, when it was fixed, I could not find the comet at the coordinates given to Dr. McTigre?”

  Rawling is going to find out more about the techie responsible for the telescope. It can’t be an accident—the fact that the telescope wasn’t working.

  “Mr. Sanders.” Dr. Jordan’s voice was so furious that it cracked. “Command your son to obey!”

  Dad’s words came through loud and clear in my helmet. “My son is the pilot. He is in control of the ship. I will respect his decision. As shall you. And I, too, find it very interesting that the comet you say we’re targeting does not exist.”

  I wanted to cheer at the stern anger in Dad’s voice.

  “Begin the countdown,” Dr. Jordan ordered me. “Immediately.”

  “Are you saying that you have no answer?” I asked. “Or are you saying that the threat of a comet does not exist? Are you saying it’s a manufactured excuse so that governments on Earth will not question you as you break the international weapons ban treaty to test the greatest military equipment invented in the history of humankind?”

  “Begin the countdown. Immediately.” Dr. Jordan was almost shouting.

  “Will you answer my questions?”

  “I repeat, begin the countdown!” he yelled full force into my helmet.

  “Sir,” I said calmly, “might I remind you of the space pilot’s first rule?”

  “Begin the countdown. Immediately. That is a direct order,” Dr. Jordan barked.

  He didn’t sound like a scientist. He sounded like a military general. My hunch had been proven right.

  “Sir, I believe it is unsafe to proceed,” I said. “I abort this flight.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Fifteen minutes later, I was inside the Habitat Lander. Part of me ached with regret for how badly I had wanted to take the Hammerhead into space. Yet I knew a few moments of freedom outside my wheelchair compared so little to the terror that the Hammerhead could inflict on Earth, if it was transported back and launched from the moon.

  One look at Dr. Jordan’s face through his space helmet, and I knew he was furious. His face was puffed with anger. All that showed through his space helmet were his eyes, his nose, and his bared teeth.

  He and I both knew he could not force me to fly. No one, not even the highest military general, had the power to make a pilot break the safety rule.

  I thought then that I’d won. That even with an hour until our shuttle finished its orbit and was in position to return to Mars, the Hammerhead would not fly.

  I was wrong.

  “Ashley,” Dr. Jordan said a few seconds after I had pushed my way into the crew area, “remember when I told these two you were merely a sightseer, along for the ride?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was barely audible in our space helmets.

  “Now is the time they learn the truth about you. That you, too, are capable as a test pilot.”

  Ashley nodded very slowly. A glint of silver inside her space visor caught my eye from the earring she wore. The one that matched mine around my neck. Seeing the earring reassured me. I knew what she believed. I could trust her. It was a symbol, too, of our friendship. She wouldn’t fly. Not after our conversation on the telescope platform last night.

  “Prepare for a target mission,” Dr. Jordan hissed.

  “Yes,” she said.

  She’s betraying me again! “Ashley! You can’t.”

  “I can. And I will.” She paused. “I don’t want any help in the cargo bay. Not from either of you.”

  Now it was reversed. Me in the observation window of the Habitat Lander. Me looking down on the space helmet that showed through the much smaller observation window of the Hammerhead.

  The space torpedo was still tethered to the much larger Habitat Lander. It hung in orbit with us. As a backdrop, the giant red surface of Mars moved slowly beneath it.

  It could have been me there, ready to explore the space beyond Mars.

  But it was Ashley.

  And, unlike me, she had begun the preignition countdown.

  Tiny flares, each as bright as a sun, suddenly burst from the rocket nozzles of the Hammerhead.

  “Excellent, Ashley,” Dr. Jordan said. “Now go ahead and release the safety cable.”

  I could only imagine a click as the Hammerhead released it. The cable floated harmlessly away.

  “Thank you, Ashley. You know your mission. Stay in radio contact as long as possible. We will monitor you on radar and with satellite transmitters.”

  Inside the Hammerhead was the equivalent of a GPS, which would fire radio waves back to a locator on the Habitat Lander.

  “Yes,” Ashley said. “But I won’t make it past Phobos.”

  “I don’t understand,” Dr. Jordan said.

  “Watch,” she replied. “You’ll understand soon enough.”

  The Hammerhead lifted slightly and hovered beside the Habitat Lander’s observation window. Through the small window of the Hammerhead, I couldn’t see Ashley’s face—just the dark globe of her space helmet against the lighter background of her space suit.

  “Tyce,” Ashley said. “Good-bye, my friend. I wish it didn’t have to be like this. I wish it could have been different. Remember what I told you at the telescope. Remember the silver earring.”

  Then the Hammerhead waggled, like fingers waving good-bye.

  With a burst of brightness, she and the Hammerhead disappeared into the solar system.

  We watched it on radar. For 3,500 miles the Hammerhead continued to gain speed on its approach to Phobos, that small moon only 18 miles wide.

  The Hammerhead did not swerve.

  Twenty seconds before impact, Dr. Jordan began to shout in disbelief.

  Ten seconds before impact, I began to pray—with my eyes open. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the radar screen, which showed a tiny, fast blip moving toward a bigger, much slower blip.

  Five seconds before impact, I moved to the observation window and stared out into the deep black of the solar system.

  One second before impact I took a deep breath and said good-bye. By then there was no mistaking Ashley’s intent. It takes bullet-like accuracy to hit the only object in space between Mars and the asteroid belt millions of miles away.

  Then there was impact.

  I heard it through the alarm bell on the radar screen. And saw it. A bright bloom of light flashed off as quickly as it had flashed on, leaving only the deep darkness of space.

  And a deep emptiness in my heart.

  CHAPTER 21

  Two days had passed since Ashley chose to pilot the Hammerhead into Phobos. For those two days, after arriving back on Mars, I’d been locked in my room, refusing to talk to anyone except Mom and Dad.

  I knew everyone under the dome would be in shock, and I didn’t want to hear them talk about Ashley being dead. Last night Mom and Dad told me that the new impact bowl on the face of Phobos, easily seen from the dome’s telescope, had been named Ashley’s Crater. I’m not sure I’ll ever want to go up to the dome’s telescope again.

  I wonder if anyone on Earth will ever know the price Ashley paid to keep their blue sky a place of safety, not death.

  After the “test run,” I had arrived home so exhausted that I hadn’t even had the strength to put any of my thoughts on my computer. Until now.

  It’s like what Dad and I just talked about. Every sword always has two edges: a good side and a dangerous side.

  Nuclear fission could be used as a source of cheap energy. Or it could make a bomb that would destroy entire cities.

  Genetic research could save lives with medical advances. Or be used to create hideous new creatures.

  The Hammerhead could help us b
y sweeping away asteroids or comets that threaten human life. Or it could destroy millions of lives if military people used it to try to control the universe.

  And so on. Every new invention or advance could be used for good. Or not for good. That was the two-edged sword.

  I leaned back in my wheelchair and sighed.

  I wished badly that Ashley would step through the doorway and give me a big grin.

  I wished badly that she was up at the telescope, waiting for me.

  I wished badly that I could have the chance to apologize for what I’d said to her the other night. I wished I could tell her that I understood she really lived what she believed. That by sacrificing her life, she had given all she could for others.

  Most of all, I wished I could go back in time and let her wreck the Hammerhead with her robot, so she wouldn’t have had to do it the way she did in space.

  But I wouldn’t have that chance.

  All I’d have were memories.

  As Dad explained, evil is part of the two-edged sword. Evil exists because God allows us to make choices. He wants us to choose to love and obey him, instead of being forced to do what he wants us to do. As humans, sometimes we choose to do good. But other times we choose to do evil. That’s why evil exists, and sometimes bad things happen that are outside our control. Like the fact that Ashley felt she had no other choice than to take the Hammerhead into a direct collision course with Phobos. Otherwise, the Hammerhead could have been used to destroy millions on Earth. And like the fact that she had to be so secretive about her past, in order to protect the others she’d talked about. Just who were those others? I wondered.

  Then Dad and I talked about Ashley’s death. I asked him why she had to die so young. Dad said he didn’t have an answer for that. And that there were some things we would not know until we got to heaven and could ask God face-to-face. The most important thing, Dad said, was to trust in God. To know you had a place in heaven. That you didn’t have to be afraid of the mysteries of his universe.

  Or think that you should be able to solve them all.

  CHAPTER 22

  After I finished writing in my journal, I found Dad in the quiet common area of our minidome.

  I rolled my wheelchair up to where he sat, drinking coffee and staring at nothing in the darkness.

  “You couldn’t sleep either, huh?”

  “No,” I answered.

  We sat together for a while, neither of us speaking. I had too many thoughts in my head. I didn’t know where to begin.

  “I wish I didn’t have to go,” he said. “I’m going to miss you.”

  In a few days he’d be leaving again, on another shuttle run to Earth. And taking Blaine Steven and Dr. Jordan with him. Now that Rawling knew Dr. Jordan had been sent here for a weapons test, he’d ordered him deported to Earth.

  “I’m going to miss you, Dad. A lot.”

  More silence.

  He put his hand on my shoulder.

  “In my thoughts, I keep hearing some of the last things Ashley ever said to me.”

  Dad waited.

  I heard her words clearly up on the telescope platform, the night before the Hammerhead’s test mission: “Tyce, I can’t tell you. It would hurt too many others. Even that is saying too much.”

  “There was a lot about her we didn’t know,” I said.

  Ashley’s words rang in my head: “Please help me. Telling you what I know could cost me my life.”

  I had not helped her. I had not trusted her. And that made me incredibly sad. I owed her more than that, even if she wasn’t here. It had taken her life to make me want to help.

  “Remember I told you I grew up in Denver. I didn’t. That’s what I’m supposed to tell everyone.”

  “Would you help me, Dad?”

  “Yes,” he said. “With what?”

  In the darkness, I blinked back tears. Dad hadn’t asked me first with what. He’d simply said yes. He trusted me.

  “There are others. Like us. And we are their only hope.”

  “I want to find out about Ashley. Where she came from. Who she really is. When you get back to Earth, can you do what you can and send e-mails?”

  Dad squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll do everything I can. You have my promise.”

  “Thanks.”

  “There are others. Like us. And we are their only hope.”

  I didn’t know who they were. Or where they were. Or what they needed to give them hope. But Ashley was gone.

  That left me.

  CHAPTER 23

  I didn’t sleep well that night.

  Dreams I couldn’t remember kept waking me up.

  I sat up once, calling Ashley’s name into the darkness. Then it came back to me what she’d done. I cried into my pillow for a long time.

  In the morning, I didn’t want to get out of bed. Getting dressed and getting into my wheelchair would mean that the day had started. And when the day started, I’d have to admit to myself that Ashley was gone.

  Except, when I finally pulled myself into sitting position, something shiny caught my eye on the seat of my wheelchair.

  It was tiny and silver. In the shape of a cross.

  An earring. Like the one on a silver chain around my neck.

  I felt for mine, wondering if it had somehow fallen off.

  It hadn’t. It was still there. With the matching one on the seat of my wheelchair. As if someone had placed it there while I slept.

  Ashley?

  SCIENCE AND GOD

  You’ve probably noticed that the question of God’s existence comes up in Robot Wars.

  It’s no accident, of course. I think this is one of the most important questions that we need to decide for ourselves. If God created the universe and there is more to life than what we can see, hear, taste, smell, or touch, that means we have to think of our own lives as more than just the time we spend on Earth.

  On the other hand, if this universe was not created and God does not exist, then that might really change how you view your existence and how you live.

  Sometimes science is presented in such a way that it suggests there is no God. To make any decision, it helps to know as much about the situation as possible. As you decide for yourself, I’d like to show in the Robot Wars series that many, many people—including famous scientists—don’t see science this way.

  As you might guess, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering about science and God, and I’ve spent a lot of time reading about what scientists have learned and concluded. Because of this, I wrote a nonfiction book called Who Made The Moon? and you can find information about it at www.whomadethemoon.com. If you ever read it, you’ll see why science does not need to keep anyone away from God.

  With that in mind, I’ve added a little bit more to this book—a couple of essays about the science in journals one and two of Robot Wars, based on what you can find in Who Made The Moon?

  Sigmund Brouwer

  www.whomadethemoon.com

  JOURNAL ONE

  CAN WE EXPECT

  SCIENCE TO BE

  OUR SAVIOR?

  Q: What’s ahead?

  A: For the first 10,000 years of recorded human history, the fastest that any human could travel was the speed of a galloping horse. (Unless someone wanted to jump off a building or a cliff !) Horse-drawn wagons were very slow, wind-powered ships were slow, the first trains were slow, and even the first automobiles were slow.

  It’s only in the last hundred years or so—the tiniest sliver of time—that technology has allowed us to travel faster. Some cars go as fast as 200 miles an hour. Airplanes can go faster than sound. A journey that took the early American settlers weeks or months by wagon over dangerous territory, we can accomplish in hours on an interstate in air-conditioned comfort.

  In fact, thanks to science and technology, most of us truly live better than kings did only 100 years ago. We live in heated homes with running water, HDTVs, and washers and dryers. Doctors no longer try to cure us by applying leeches to our h
eads to suck blood; we can get the best of modern drugs and operations. We’re protected by electronic security systems and police forces; we probably don’t lie awake at night worrying about barbarians tearing down our town. We store our wealth in electronic binary codes in bank computers, not in piles of gold or silver that armies can steal.

  And these improvements in science and technology are happening faster and faster. After all, it was only 40 years ago that a man first stepped on the moon.

  Now SUVs have more technology than the first spaceships, and your computer has more calculating power than the computers that placed the first men on the moon. With cell phones and computers, you can instantly communicate through satellites to locations anywhere in the world.

  Medicine? Your body can be vaccinated, wired, and soon, cloned.

  Even color TVs aren’t very old. Now you can entertain yourself with the virtual reality of music videos, computer games, and theater screens three stories tall.

  Science and technology are staggering, amazing, incredible. Who knows how many more leaps ahead we will be by AD 2039, the date of this story? And what’s even more exciting is that you, like Tyce Sanders and his virtual-reality missions, may be the one who helps discover this new technology!

  Q: Can science and technology stop crime? Can they prevent heartache, loneliness, fear? Can they make families perfect? Can they prevent death?

  A: The answer to all of the questions is obvious. No.

  Although the conditions around you have improved with blinding speed, you can still suffer pain, guilt, heartache, fear, and loneliness deep inside you. Where it matters.

  Those who look to science and technology to save us as a human race assume we just don’t know enough yet. But learning more about our world and how it works doesn’t make problems go away. The answer is all too obvious. All you need to do is read the headlines of a newspaper or watch the daily news to see it.

  The real problem—sadly—is the choices we make. Some are good choices. Others are hurtful, evil choices. Because God loves us, he gives us the power to choose. But then we have to live with the consequences.