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 window 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, r
eadying 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.
Ozzy’s com channel blared.
“What now?”
He groaned and massaged his temples trying to get the growing stress to go away.
He pressed the com channel. “Yes, Jonas?”
“Ozzy, we have a problem.”
40
Nearing Olympus Mons, Mars
Ozzy slumped his shoulders. Problems arising in his life were, well, becoming an everyday occurrence. “I’m not surprised. What is it?”
Jonas wiped his nose with his fingers, his face reddening. He grabbed an orange and began peeling it. “You killed the High Judge. Do you know how much that sets me back? Where is this information that was supposed to be splattered all over the vid screens?”
Ozzy rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, Jonas, it was an accident—”
“An accident? Did you slip and oops, your weapon went off and shot the High Judge in the head?”
“It was Quad. He went against our wishes.” Well, not really against Ozzy’s wishes, but what Jonas didn’t know. . .
“That’s why it’s now imperative you retrieve that crystal sphere because we have a second problem.”
“Shit, what now?”
“Wildly didn’t take the murder of the Ministry’s High Judge too well. He took it a bit. . .personally.”
“That’s not my problem.”
Jonas continued to peel the orange. “Yeah, it kind of is. You see, he had a long-standing plan of being the hero to the people and taking Robert Baldwin down. He was setting him up and was going to expose Robert. Then Wildly could be a hero the people could trust. He figured he would run for High Judge and easily win.”
Ozzy knew all of this, but, again, it wasn’t his problem. “Okay, Jonas. I said I was going on the mission, and I haven’t changed my mind, so, trust me, I’ll get the sphere.”
Jonas threw a piece of orange peel on the floor. “I have intel that suggests he still wants to be the people’s champion. To accomplish this, he’s on his way to take out Robert’s killer. He has vowed via the public news coms that he will kill Ozzy Mack and Jozi Ryan.”
Ozzy lowered Relic. “And the other heads of the Ministry pinned it on me, didn’t they?”
“Everyone in the world knows you had history and a bad relationship with Robert. You were filmed going into the Ministry building and leaving Robert’s office through the back window. He was found dead a minute later. You and Jozi are the prime suspects and the labeled murderers.“
Shit. Ozzy checked his radar. He didn’t see any of Wildly’s birds in the air to intercept him.
“Where is Wildly?”
“We don’t know. He turned off all communications with the other crime syndicates.” Jonas took a bite of an orange section. The juice ran down his lips to his chin. “I have my security flying to the coordinates where Lyra No Tail left her Eagle.”
Ozzy’s mouth dropped open. “Then Wildly’s also heading for the Eagle? How did he get the coordinates?”
“He has eyes and ears everywhere, as all us crime lords do. So, get there as fast as you can, and fly the Eagle into whatever hiding spot you have there. Don’t let Wildly find you. My guys will be there soon enough.”
The com channel went black.
Ozzy sucked in a gush of air. He rushed to the railing overlooking the storage bay. How did Wildly know where Ozzy was going in the first place?
“Gragas?”
Gragas stepped down from the forklift. “Yes, Ozzy?”
“Get as many weapons off the rack as you can. We’re going to have a fight when we get to Olympus Mons.”
From down the hall, Jozi stepped out of Ozzy’s room and shot him a look. “What mess are we getting into now?”
Ozzy scowled. “Wildly is on his way, and he’s bound and determined to kill us.”
Jozi rubbed her eyes. “Is Indigo activated?”
“Yes.”
Jozi looked Gragas up and down, cl
early noting the weapons he had attached to his battle suit, belt, and legs. “Do you have any detonation charges on you?”
“Yes, but not many.”
“Good. I have a plan.”
41
Olympus Mons, Mars
Ozzy swung Relic around a mountain peak. Olympus Mons’s enormous head rose to the edge of the thin atmosphere on Mars, whose red, rocky skin gleamed against the sun’s rays.
At the base of the mountain was a small dot. It was the Class-14 Quadruple Engine Electrohydrodynamic Ionic Thruster 113 SX Vessel—that damned Eagle he coveted so much.
“Bring us down right there,” said Jozi, motioning toward a rock formation.
Ozzy lowered Relic. Olympus Mons disappeared behind the mountain peak, and all that was in front of them was the butterscotch sky and a red and gray mountain range.
Ten minutes ago, they had set half a dozen of Gragas’s detonation charges in specific locations at the base of Olympus Mons, near the Eagle’s position, but far enough away not to harm the bird.
“Gragas,” said Jozi. “Did you call Quad?”
“Yes. He got away from the MMP agents and the guards back at the Ministry building.”
“Did he say he’d help us?”
“I gave him the location, but he said nothing. He shut off the com line before I could do any convincing.” Gragas placed his hands in prayer position and gave a slight bow. “I’m sorry, Ozzy.”
Ozzy patted his stomach. What they were trying to do was to stay alive by ambushing Wildly and his crew, but it didn’t take away the dreadful sensation that death could be knocking on his door at any minute.
He thought he’d be numb to it by now.
Ozzy lowered the skids, and Relic shuddered when she touched the ground. They were entrenched by the mountains towering over them and their gloomy shadows.
Indigo was well and active and connected to the auxiliary engine room.
Mars Colony Chronicles (Books 1 - 5): A Space Opera Box Set Adventure Page 57
