Mars Colony Chronicles (Books 1 - 5): A Space Opera Box Set Adventure

by Brandon Ellis

  Jozi stepped forward and walked toward Marino. She turned. “Uncuff me.”

  4

  Tunnel Downs, Mars

  Sergeant Marino uncuffed Jozi and then Ozzy. He pointed down the street. “Get going.”

  Gragas bowed. “Ozzy, do what he says.”

  “I have a different route if you don’t mind,” said Ozzy, kicking open Venessa’s door.

  He rushed inside with Jozi behind him. They grabbed their hidden weapons and went up the elevator. They hurried across the upper portion of the underground city passing carts with food smoking from their grills and several family owned shops and cafes. Finally, they made it to a large garage where they had parked their ship and made their way to his S-4 Jumper, otherwise nicknamed…Relic. Next to Relic was Venessa’s designated parking space empty and no sign of any agents. Ozzy let out a sigh of relief.

  Ozzy sat in his cockpit, leaning against his chair’s backrest. “Mars’s plumber’s hole, did that just happen?” He shook his head.

  If Gragas hadn’t arrived, Ozzy would have been cuffed and on his way to prison by now.

  Truthfully, it didn’t matter. Robert would be exposed for the fraud and treasonous bastard he was and soon.

  Anonymity was on the case.

  When exposed, Robert wouldn’t be able to pay the bounty hunter to kill Ozzy—if Robert was indeed in on the plot.

  Ozzy activated Relic’s engines. “Here I come, Lou.” He had to get to his brother’s work at Pollack Mine.

  Thinking about his brother and that he needed to be the one to tell Lou his wife was dead brought a small bit of nausea up Ozzy’s throat. He swallowed it down like he swallowed just about every emotion he refused to feel. The last thing he wanted to do was break this kind of news. It would crumble the man, and Lou would want to crumble Ozzy in the process, blaming Ozzy for yet another death in the family.

  Jozi rubbed her hands together and grimaced. “If I had any hopes of getting back on the MMP’s good side, well, I just lost it. Unless—”

  “Don’t say Robert. Him being your uncle will not change a thing, plus you practically saved their asses down there, Jozi. You kept them from taking the first shot. How many of those men and women were thinking of their families instead of blowing a Galactic Knight’s head off?”

  Jozi blinked several times. “They won’t see it that way, but Robert might if I can talk with him.”

  Ozzy wanted to say who cares. But her life and her passion were with the Mars Ministry Police and the man she called her other dad, Robert Baldwin, the damn High Judge of the Ministry—the most powerful man on Mars—of all people. She’d do almost anything to serve and protect again and to have a blood relative. She had been abandoned and left as an orphan, always wondering if she had any family members related by blood, and now this information about Robert actually being her uncle must nearly having her wanting to burst out of every seam in her body.

  Jozi reached for the com line, and Ozzy reached to gently touched her hand. “I don’t want to alert Robert I’m not in custody right now. He might still think otherwise.”

  She pulled her hand back, biting the inside of her cheek. “Let me call, please. I’ll keep you out of the com channel holodisplay, and I’ll act like I’m driving and that you’re in custody.”

  “Why do you want him to know so bad?”

  “He already knows. I want him to know that I know, which will lift the burden off his back and may lighten our situation. He’s obviously been holding it in for a long time and has wanted to tell me for years, but because of reasons I don’t know, he couldn’t reveal it to me.”

  That was some story she had in her head. To Ozzy, Robert was a liar. Nothing more. Nothing less. Ozzy wanted to cringe at Jozi’s moment of child-like innocence, but his mom’s empathy crept into his mind, “Walk a mile in another person’s shoes…”

  “I’m sorry, Jozi, but no can do. We’re not calling the High Judge.” They were less than a minute away from the flyway port to get out of this town. Ozzy brought up the holoscreen. He swiped the keypad, initiating engines. Relic purred and the S-4 Jumper rose into the air and blasted forward, zipping past parked ships and into a system of tubes.

  He turned on his headlights, hurrying toward the flyway. The tube widened and opened to a large port with hovering ships ready to exit the city. Windows lined the tubes, acting as an underground tower of sorts, and amber lights were next to each window, lighting the area for the exiting craft.

  Ozzy pulled back on the throttle. “Dammit.”

  The dark Tunnel Downs flyway port was more packed than he expected. Ozzy clicked on his com channel and connected to the tower. “I have to skip the ship check. I have an emergency.”

  “Negative, S-4 Jumper, the departure patterns are full.”

  “Yeah, sorry, Tower. You’re not going to like what I do next.” He flicked off his com line and pushed the throttle forward.

  Jozi’s head jerked back, and her eyes were almost as big as her opened mouth. She pointed ahead. “Watch out.”

  “I see it.” He veered left, avoiding a small two-person Mervette hoverjet. He flew around a bigger craft, an S-32 Samurai Puddle J, and hovered in front of it.

  He could practically hear the swear words coming from the other driver’s lips, along with the security alerts and warnings the tower was trying to get through to Ozzy’s disconnected com line.

  He pulled forward and entered a departure tunnel all decked out in white and lined with multi-colored lights.

  His alarm system beeped. It was the tower getting through to Ozzy in another way. He pulled up the alert’s holoscreen.

  Warning. Launch tube 11 is shutting down.

  “Why couldn’t you just wait your turn, Ozzy?” Jozi asked in a low tone, frustration seeping through her words no doubt because Ozzy would not allow her to call Robert.

  Ozzy ignored her because it should have been obvious—someone was trying to kill him and his family, and that someone might also be at Pollack Mine right now to get his brother, so he had to get out of Tunnel Downs quickly.

  The tunnel in front of him started blinking, which meant it was going offline. “That’s hogwash,” whined Ozzy. He flicked on the com line. “Do you think I’d be acting like this if it weren’t an emergency?”

  “Sir, we ran a check on your ship’s ID. Your name is Ozzy Mack, and you have been placed under criminal lockdown by the High Judge. Land your craft. We’re taking you into custody.”

  Ozzy punched his armrest. “No can do, Richard.” He didn’t know if that was the guy’s name in the tower, but Dick, short for Richard, sounded about right. “Either let me fly out of here, or I’ll blow the inner and outer tube doors with my AAR-7’s, you know Air-to-Air Rams. I have aft and bow locked and loaded, ready to launch into the tube’s exit and entrance doors.”

  The truth is, he didn’t have any weapons. The last time Relic was fixed, the techbots automatically dismantled them on account that the weapons system he had was illegal. A civilian craft carrying missiles and photon cannons was frowned upon.

  Ozzy paused, waiting for a reply. When none came, he continued, leaning into his flight console and closer to his com mic. “You know what will happen when that occurs? You won’t be able to shut the outer tube because it will be blown to scraps. You won’t be able to secure Tunnel Downs either because the inner tube opening will be shot to bits. Ultimately, the oxygen will be sucked out, and everyone in Tunnel Downs will die of carbon dioxide inhalation in about two to three minutes. Got it, Charlie?”

  He pressed a lever parallel to the floor and zipped forward. His back slammed against the backrest.

  Relic flew forward like a bat out of hell.

  Jozi’s mouth flew open, grasping her hands to her chest. “What are you doing, Ozzy? You’re going to kill us.”

  “They’ll open the exit door. Trust me.”

  The colored light lining the departure tube runway blinked on and off as they passed each one, coming ever closer to the
end of the tube.

  The exit tube’s door wasn’t opening.

  Crap.

  “Slow down, Ozzy.” Jozi gripped her armrest, her fingernails poking through the upholstery and her knuckles turning bare white.

  “I said, trust me.” At the moment, though, Ozzy wasn’t trusting himself. The tower had to take his bluff. They had to. He didn’t have any missiles or weapons, but they didn’t know that from Adam as the tower would most likely detect that there had been some type of weapons installation on his ship in the past, but would they trust their holocomputers that no weapons were actually installed?

  “Stop the craft, Ozzy.”

  It was too late.

  Relic approached the exit door. If Ozzy stopped now, he might slow down just under a hundred miles per hour before ultimately hitting the door.

  If so, he’d die anyway.

  He grinned. It was better him dying than his daughter and brother being killed. With Ozzy dead, Quad wouldn’t be able to finish his job, and hence, wouldn’t be paid and would need to go home or find another bounty.

  Ozzy hammered the throttle forward. If he were going to die, he’d make it a firework’s show. He’d be famous for years.

  He knew Jozi would kick his ass in the afterlife, but maybe he could haunt the lying, backstabbing, evil pig: Robert Baldwin.

  Relic beeped, and all the warning lights blinked and the alarms blared. His cockpit went red, yellow, and orange, all the caution colors Ozzy could ever want.

  “Ozzy,” screamed Jozi, closing her eyes and bracing for impact.

  “We got this,” he yelled, knowing they didn’t.

  A bright light filled the tube.

  The tube’s exit door was opening.

  But it was too late.

  Ozzy closed his eyes and bared his teeth, readying for the explosion of all explosions.

  5

  Tunnel Downs, Mars

  No explosion came.

  Ozzy opened his eyes just as the departure door fully opened, and Relic shot out of the tube like a cannonball. One of its wings scraped against the lip of the tube but nothing serious.

  Ozzy took a deep breath. “Oooey!” He fist pumped the air, wiping the sweat trickling down his face with his other hand.

  Relic rocked up and down, and Ozzy straightened her out. He checked Indigo’s digital operation that was connected to the craft’s CPU and auxiliary engine room.

  It was on and working well.

  Indigo was his secret weapon. The indigo-glowing rock kept him invisible to all radar, though not invisible to the naked eye.

  Sitting next to him, Jozi breathed heavily, and her eyes dilated as she snapped, “You…are…I can’t believe you. You’re…insane. You’re a danger to society.” She tapped her chest several times with her pointer finger. “You’re a danger to me.”

  Ozzy laughed, punching in the coordinates for Pollack Mine on the flight console. “You gotta trust me.” He almost rolled his eyes at his own response. In truth, they should be a splat against the tube’s exit door, and if she could see how fast Ozzy’s heart was beating, she’d know Ozzy was as surprised as her. Regardless, he acted calm.

  “I need to talk to Jonas.” He put up a finger, quieting any further discussion on the almost dying subject.

  He brought up his com line’s holoscreen and called Jonas Moon.

  Jonas answered with a grape in his mouth. Did the guy ever stop eating?

  Jonas smiled. “I’m glad you called, Ozzy.”

  Ozzy frowned. “That’s never a good sign.”

  Jonas leaned forward. “It’s a great sign. Thanks for letting me know your ex-wife and Lily were coming over,” he said with a smirk. “They’ve been here for about fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s why I was calling.”

  “Yeah, a little late.”

  “Where are they?”

  “You look panicked, Ozzy.” Jonas turned around and waved someone over. Lily came into view, a lollipop in her hand and a wide smile on her face. “Hi, Daddy. You coming to play? It’s fun here.”

  “Are you having a good time, Lily-bug?”

  She nodded and licked her lollipop. “I love it.”

  Jonas patted her head. “Get along, girlie. Your dad and I have business to attend to.”

  Lily shrugged and cocked her head. “Alright, but get here soon, Daddy. Mom’s teaching me one of these cool board games that…” she pointed at Jonas, “…this guy has.”

  She walked away from the screen.

  “Sunny,” said Jonas, glancing over his shoulder. “Take Venessa and Lily to the gardens. Throw a picnic or something for them.”

  Ozzy relaxed a bit, thankful she was safe. “She’s a smart girl. She’ll try to get as many sweets from you as she can.”

  “She beat me in chess in about two minutes, Ozzy. She saw it on my table and challenged me to a game. The little bitch—” Jonas cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. That slipped. Your little girl beat me in chess.” Jonas took in a deep breath. “Okay, why I was call—”

  “I was the one who called,” reminded Ozzy, placing Relic on autopilot and watching his rear cams for any potential MMP craft heading his way.

  So far so good.

  Jonas’s face reddened. “Don’t interrupt.” He sighed. “There are thirteen crystal skulls in this solar system. One for each planet and, apparently, there used to be thirteen planets in this solar system.”

  How the hell would Jonas get that kind of information?

  “Did you read that from an Ancient Coptic glyph, Jonas?”

  “I read it from one of your earliest books that you wrote when you were a professor at Gale Crater University.”

  Ozzy flinched. Was Jonas the one who bought that copy?

  “And in order to activate fully those crystal skulls, you need the crystal sphere,” said Ozzy.

  Jonas nodded. “The sphere is locked away in Ares Monument.”

  The Ancient Martians had created a Face on Mars, otherwise known as Ares Monument, that could be seen from space. It depicted a Martian face—nose, eyes, forehead, mouth, and ears. It looked human, but was, in fact, Martian.

  “When the sleeping crystal skulls touch the crystal sphere, they awaken, and of all things, they talk and give vital information about the past, the present, and the future,” said Jonas. “That’s what you wrote. They also help you get what you ultimately desire.”

  It’s what the tablets and scrolls said, but it had to be all myth and complete and utter bullshit. Right?

  “I’ve tried, Jonas. I really did. I couldn’t get inside Ares Monument.” He never tried. He simply didn’t want to go.

  Jonas cracked his knuckles while giving an unhappy look. “Well, try again. I have major plans for that sphere. It’s going to help me take over the Ministry and put me at the head of the Mars government. If I don’t take over the Ministry, do you know who has plans to blackmail the High Judge and take his seat?”

  “Mort Wildly,” replied Ozzy.

  “Yes, Wildly. With your Ark and with my crystals, you’re going to help me take over the government.”

  Ozzy wanted to laugh. Ain’t no way in Mars-balls was Jonas going to be the next High Judge. The next elections weren’t for another two years.

  Unless…

  “Jonas, do you know Anonymity?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  Jozi punched Ozzy in the leg. “Don’t spill the beans.”

  Ozzy put his hands up in surrender. “It’s okay. I can trust Jonas.”

  Jozi bared her teeth. “No, Ozzy.”

  “What’s the big deal here,” Jonas asked. “What are you hiding from me?”

  Jozi crossed her arms and leaned back. “Don’t do this, Ozzy. This could compromise everything.”

  “It won’t, Jozi. Look, Jonas, we have some damning information on the High Judge. It will be released to the public soon and by Anonymity. This will oust Robert from his position.”

  Jonas gave a half smile and scratched his chin. “Th
at’s very interesting news. What do you have on him?”

  “You’ll see, but it’s a lot. This can help you get closer to what you want, the High Judge position.” A person would have to be nuts to want that, but if Jonas became the High Judge, life would be a hell of a lot easier for Ozzy and Jozi. Yet, if Mort Wildly—another crime boss much like Jonas—somehow took the position, then life would be rather shitty for Ozzy and probably for the rest of the population. “I can’t talk about the specifics at the moment. I’m heading to Pollack Mine to get my brother, who’s in danger. I’ll pick up Lily and her mom after, alright?”

  “Well, go get your brother and take him to Ares Monument with you. That’s how you’re going to help me take over the High Judge position. I’ll give you enough auric for you to finally get your Class-14 Quadruple Engine Electrohydrodynamic Ionic Thruster 113 SX Vessel. You know, the Eagle. Plus, I’ll add a significant amount more auric, Ozzy. A lot more. You can travel to Europa to the make-believe colony you think exists or to Alpha Centauri for all I care after you get this sphere for me.”

  “Wait, you want me to get the crystal sphere?” Butterflies stirred in Ozzy’s stomach. From what Jonas just explained to him about getting the Eagle and even adding more auric to the pot to get him enough battery cells to Europa, this might be the mother lode of all payments. “How much are you talking, exactly?”

  Jozi shook her head at Jonas. “Ozzy’s not interested.”

  Ozzy dismissed her statement with a wave of his hand. “I’m interested. How much?”

  “Forty-five million auric credits. Half up front, and the other half when I get the crystal sphere.”

  The first payment was almost enough on its own to buy the Eagle. “Send me the first bit.”

  Jonas intertwined his fingers. “It’s already in your account.”

  “But, what about your brother?” Jozi asked.

  “As Jonas said, he’ll come along.”

  “That’s the last thing he’ll want to do after he hears about his wife.”