Laija and Froj gasped and looked away, squinting their eyes. They understood what had just happened. “The Council has activated the Ark.”
The beam of light was heading for Maldek, and it was too late to stop it.
Froj spun on his heels, cradling the Gaia Stones in his arms, and rushed toward the ship. Laija was fast on his heels.
A Gaia Stone fell from his arms, and then another. He went to turn and pick them up.
“Forget them. Keep going,” yelled Laija.
The ground trembled and Froj figured three kept safely was better than none, and raced toward the ship.
He ducked under the ship’s low door frame and sat in the passenger’s seat. “Hurry, Laija, we don’t have much time.”
Laija’s eyes were like saucers and her breath came quickly when she jumped into the craft’s pilot’s seat, grabbed the control stick, and lifted the ship into the air.
She initiated boosters and blasted forward, the quickly ground whizzing by them at thousands of miles per hour. Laija punched in the coordinates to the opening on her flight console. “We’re heading to the entrance, Froj. It will take us to the base.”
Froj shook his head adamantly. “No. Leave me outside the opening. I have an oath I must obey. I don’t have time to hide the Gaia Stones, so I’ll leave them with you.”
“No time,” screamed Laija, swiping her finger over a vid screen in front of her, and motioning her hand at it. Perspiration formed on her forehead and upper lip “Look.”
A zoomed in live video of planet Maldek was on the screen, and the beam was penetrating it, changing the world’s beautiful blues and greens to furious browns and reds.
The planet was cracking, dying, and chunks of it were erupting and breaking off into the cosmos, some slamming into Maldekian fleet ships, turning them into space dust and debris.
Froj gulped hard. It was true. If they wanted to save the Gaia Stones, they had no time to stop, let alone slow down. The end was nigh, and if they didn’t get underground soon, both Laija’s death and the death of these stones would arrive shortly.
Kyje had predicted that if the Martian Council used the Ark of the Concordant as a weapon on Maldek, it would tear Maldek to pieces and with Maldek’s annihilation, came theirs.
And it was coming.
“We’re almost there,” yelled Laija.
Froj peeled his eyes from the vid screen and glanced out of the cockpit window at an opening up ahead. It was large and round with grasses and clumps of spindly trees all around. It was easily big enough for a ship to fly through.
“Just drop me off at the hole’s lip right there. You’ll have time to get underground, and I’ll have time to die with honor, like your father.”
Laija gripped Froj’s forearm with her hand. “No.” Her bottom lip quivered. “I’m not losing you.”
“Laija, you—”
A boom echoed across the firmament and Laija swiped her hand across the vid screen, changing the vid’s viewpoint to the location of the sound they had just heard.
“Like I said, no time. It’s happening.”
A large rock from planet Maldek, bigger than ten star cruisers, blasted through the Martian atmosphere and was tumbling toward the ground. Another rock followed, and another.
A pound echoed across the firmament and the world shook, and a mushroom cloud formed. And from that mushroom cloud came a massive shockwave of fire, and it was rushing toward Laija and Froj like a tsunami.
“Oh no,” said Froj. “Speed up. Get us there faster.”
“I’m trying,” hollered Laija.
Froj squeezed the Gaia Stones, watching the fire tsunami moving at a break neck speed. He brought his eyes to the entrance to the underground base in front of them, not knowing which would happen first—them getting burnt to nothingness, or escaping into the entrance to the underground base in time.
“These stones are the human’s lifeblood, Laija,” said Froj, his arms shaking. “They are the most vital thing to their survival, to understanding where they came from, and why they are the key to the Universe. It explains their purpose in the cosmos. Without it, they are lost. But with it, they will will be able to hold back the darkness slowly consuming the universe and spread light throughout.”
Laija looked at him, her jaw set and her posture strong. “We won’t die, and either will these stones.” She pushed down on the control stick. “Hold on tight.” And flew into the hole in the ground and into a carved out earth tunnel; the entrance to the underground base.
Yet, the wall of fire followed them, sucking through the hole like being inhaled into a vacuum, and the ship shook chaotically and heated up from the fire storm heading their way.
Laija turned on the com line, patching into the underground base. “Close the door,” she yelled. “I’m in the tunnel. Close the outside door.”
She glanced at her screen, looking at the rear camera view. The fire was licking at her ship’s tail, ready to consume them at any second.
1
2700 AD—Mars
Gragas leaned forward in the captain’s chair. “We’ve entered Mars’s atmosphere.” He pressed several buttons on a holopad attached to his chair.
A handful of Galactic Knights were at their stations, nodding confirmation.
Kat, an Elix—half cat, half human—sat next to Ozzy, studying a holomonitor in front of her. “We’re narrowing in on where your daughter’s exact location is in Gledhill Resort, and we’ll extract her as soon as we can. Your brother and Lily’s mom should be there as well. This will be a quick in and out.”
Ozzy swallowed hard. They needed to get his family out of Jonas’s resort, where they had been staying while Ozzy was on Earth trying to kill every last Dunrakee on Earth.
He failed and destroyed the Ark of the Concordant, instead of the alien race the Ark was supposed to destroy.
“Thank you, Kat. I owe you one.”
She shot him a look, though he couldn’t see her cat eyes past the Galactic Knight’s mask. Her robotic voice blared through her auditory mouth piece translating her Elix to Ozzy’s language. “You’re a Galactic Knight now. We don’t keep score, okay?”
He shifted in his seat, keeping his mouth shut. Not keeping score was an odd idea. If someone did Ozzy a favor, Ozzy kept it in mind to return the favor in kind to that very person someday—and he always did.
Yet, right now, it didn’t matter.
He was strapped in a chair, safety restraints around his waist and shoulders, and his stomach was performing flips in his gut and sending a tingling sensation rising up his throat. He had to get his family before Jonas knew Ozzy screwed up his mission on Earth, and worse yet, botched it up on purpose.
“Do we have the coordinates set in the holocomps?” asked Jozi Ryan, who was sitting near Quad at a station across the bridge.
Gragas turned in his helm’s chair. “Yes, my friend. We will extract our targets soon. The good news is that we don’t see anything strange or out of the ordinary. So far as we can tell, Jonas Moon has no idea the Dunrakee are still alive on your race’s home world.”
A dome came into view on the bridge’s holoscreen. It was Gledhill, a city owned by the Ministry’s High Judge, Jonas Moon. Gledhill Resort resided there, and at this time Lily would be in her bed sleeping or most likely just waking up.
Ozzy shook his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose. This better go right, or he didn’t know what he’d do. He had trusted Jonas with his family, and to trust a crime boss no matter how trustworthy they seemed, was plain idiotic. Assholes in power had an agenda. And Jonas’s primary agenda was ridding the solar system of the Dunrakee, and he didn’t want anyone or anything to stand in his way.
“Jonas will be there,” mentioned Jozi. “He’ll want proof that you’re telling the truth about killing all the Dunrakee on Earth. I know him like the back of my hand.” Jozi eyed her hand like it was a foreign object.
Back on Earth, she had been killed, and was miraculously brought back to l
ife by Quad.
And since then, Jozi wasn’t the same.
Quad repaired her well, but her heart was a machine now. Her vital organs gone, replaced by gadgets and gizmos that functioned like their replaced counterparts.
Jozi squeezed her wrist, and wrung her hand around it. She did that a lot. He had asked her why once, and she responded with a melancholy look.
“Ozzy, you’re up.” Gragas pointed to the station Ozzy was sitting at.
Ozzy nodded and flicked the com line to call. He punched in the digits to Gledhill city’s arrival flyway port. “This is Ozzy Mack. We are requesting permission to land.”
This should work. Ozzy was no longer a criminal according to the news feeds he’d caught a few times on his way from Earth to Mars. The High Judge had pinned Ozzy as the hero of Mars.
Hell, he even saw holovids of his picture being plastered on the sides of buildings. He was the new celebrity. The Hercules of the future.
The Dunrakee were no longer a threat because of him. The human race could live peacefully and fly back to Earth where they’d live happily ever after…
…except they couldn’t.
“Ozzy Mack,” came a voice over the com line. “This is Gledhill tower. Slow your craft down, and prepare for landing. The tubes are open.”
Ozzy waited for the next questions and commands.
Nothing came.
And that was odd.
Ozzy cleared his throat and pressed the com button. “Do you need my code?”
Silence.
Ozzy leaned in, bringing his lips closer to the mic. “Sir? Do you need my code?”
“We have bypassed all codes to let you in. This is how it will be from this time forward, Ozzy Mack. You are Mars’s hero. We thank you for your service.”
Ozzy’s slouched in his chair and let out a sigh. He shrugged. “I guess we’re fine?”
Jozi shook her head and pursed her lips. “Jonas must have changed all security protocols for you. That’s interesting.”
It was. At least for Ozzy. He was used to sneaking around and lying his way into cities.
Dizzy, the Galactic Knight’s astrogater, lowered the ship into the tubes that led under Gledhill and to the cleaning ports, where ships were washed of any radioactive iodine perchlorate dust that may have found its way onto a ship’s outer surface.
Amber lights lined the sides of the tube, and Dizzy slowed the craft, easing his way down the tube and to a large door with a four painted in the middle.
The door opened and the bridge was quiet, and the tension palpable. There was something amiss, something Ozzy couldn’t quite place.
“Jonas knows.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Kat. “He doesn’t know.”
The ship vibrated as Dizzy extended the landing sleds. They entered the cleaning port, and Dizzy placed the craft into a hover, landing it a moment later. He turned the engines to idle, and water like heavy rain fell from the ceiling pipes, drenching the ship.
Ozzy furrowed his brow. “How would you know he doesn’t know, Kat?”
“Because I know. Leave it at that.”
Gragas set his elbows on his thighs, and rested his masked chin on his palm. “Quad, do you detect anything out of the ordinary?” He pointed to the closed door on the opposite side from where their craft just entered—the entrance to Gledhill city.
Quad tapped his helmet. “I’m seeing people walk around on the other side of the door. They are civilians. Nothing to be afraid of.”
Jozi pushed off her chair. She pursed her lips and squinted her eyes, and paced toward the vid screen, eyeing it like it was the Martian devil. “What are the civilians wearing?”
“Many have long coats. Some are wearing what I’d say are human’s regular attire. Very drab and dull if you asked me. But—”
Quad stood, and slapped an energy battery magazine into his double barrel photon rifle. He lifted his mask a few inches, exposing his black lips and scars that riddled his chin. He licked his lips like a predator about to feed on its prey. “They are walking in long circles, never entering a ship or exiting the flyway port building.” He dropped his hand to his rifle. “This is a setup. They know.”
Kat shook her head. “It can’t be. I would know if it was, and Jonas never said—”
She cut herself off.
Gragas spun around in his chair and stood. “What do you know, Kat?” He unholstered his sidearm.
“I have an inside track to Jonas. This is news to me.” She took out her weapon. “I’m rarely told the wrong information, but today is an exception.”
“And we have a snake in our midst,” said Gragas, hurrying to the bridge’s exit.
Jozi stood, pulling out her weapon, and followed Gragas. “I’m going to kill that rat.”
Ozzy dropped his head in his hand. He’d forgotten about Sonya Zeld. If it wasn’t her pink hair, her tight outfit, and her pale skin, he’d peg Sonya Zeld as a real live snake.
And she’d been on the mission to Earth from the outset.
Even though Ozzy paid her to keep her mouth shut, to tighten her lips on the lie of the century, she must have patched into Jonas Moon’s com channel to let him know the operation to Mars didn’t exactly go as Ozzy explained.
Ozzy stood and slid his hand to his gun. The ship trembled as the cleaning port door opened to the city. The civilians that were walking to a fro stopped, and turned.
They reached into their coats, and pulled out photon pistols and rifles.
Dizzy made several popping and snapping sounds, words form his alien language. The Galactic Knight crew rushed to their stations. Gragas halted. Jozi stiffened. And Quad let out a grunt.
Those weren’t civilians beyond the ship they were in. No, those were Mars Ministry Police, now run by a crime boss incognito as the new High Judge.
Jonas Moon knew Ozzy had failed his mission, and he obviously wanted Ozzy and his Galactic Knight friends captured, or worse yet, dead.
2
Gledhill, Mars
“Zeld!” Jozi marched out of the bridge and down the corridor.
Gragas went after her, and Ozzy spun on his heals, racing toward them.
“She ratted us out,” said Ozzy, his nostrils flaring and his eyes narrowed, searching for the snake. “Where the hell are you, Zeld?”
He followed Jozi and Gragas down a corridor and around a corner toward crew quarters where Zeld’s room was located.
If she was smart, she’d be hiding. If she wasn’t, she’d be dead soon by Ozzy’s gun.
Wapooh!
A photon blast whizzed by Ozzy’s shoulder and singed a wall. Ozzy instinctively crouched, and Gragas did the same.
Jozi continued to walk, completely unaffected by the sudden photon gun shot. She looked over her shoulder at Gragas, and went into a run. “Zeld is exiting the craft.”
There was no emotion in Jozi’s voice, none on her face, as if danger was just a mere footnote.
She was less human than Ozzy had thought.
Gragas and Ozzy hurried toward the holding bay, running down one corridor after another, passing the engines room and the crew quarters.
Entering the holding bay, a cold breeze swirled in the air, and blue lights highlighted the room.
Jozi was on one knee, pointing her gun down the open ramp.
Ozzy came to a quick halt. “Shit.” A horde of MMP Agents, with their weapons drawn, were at the bottom of the ramp and Ozzy could see Zeld hurrying and pushing through the MMP crowd, finally disappearing amongst the agents.
“Put your hands up. You’re under arrest on orders by the High Judge for breaking code 992.”
Gragas kicked the ramp’s button with the his boot. The ramp clicked and moved upward. An agent rushed to the ramp and stepped up onto it.
Gragas pulled his trigger. His gun recoiled, kicking back hard. A bright flash expelled from his muzzle, and the agent lurched backward. He dropped his gun and grabbed his wounded shoulder. He fell off the ramp and tumbled to the gro
und.
The ramp closed, hissed, and sealed shut.
Gragas turned, and headed out of the holding bay. “Ozzy, we’ll have to fight our way to your family.”
3
Gledhill, Mars
Ozzy snagged Gragas’s cape. “There has to be a better way.”
Gragas pushed Ozzy’s hand away. “We don’t have time. I told you we’d keep your daughter safe, and right now, she’s not safe. We need to get to her before Jonas does anything drastic. We have no idea how long he’s known.”
Ozzy tensed. Deadbeat dad, deadbeat brother, and everything else he could think contributing to his shortsightedness and over trust with Jonas filled his head.
He held in a scream and hurried down a hall. Jozi’s boots clanked loudly on the metallic floor behind him.
Jonas knew everything. But how long had he known? Ozzy shook his head, doubt in his mind. Regardless what Jonas knew, Ozzy’s goal was to keep his family safe.
“Gragas, stop.”
Gragas continued to walk.
Ozzy put his hand up. “Gragas, please. How are we going to get them?”
Gragas picked up his pace. “Easy.”
“Easy?” He ran after Gragas. “What do you mean, easy?”
Gragas tapped his helmet. “I’ll think of it on the fly.”
“I don’t want to endanger my daughter by going balls-out blasting weapons when we find her.”
Jozi rested her hand on Ozzy’s shoulder. It was cold. She squeezed. Ozzy cringed and went to his knee.
She pulled back. “I apologize, Ozzy. I don’t know my own strength yet.” She picked him up like a raggedy doll, and shoved him into the wall.
His head whipped back and he grunted. He brought his hand to the back of his head, rubbing the sudden ache, and wincing in pain.
She huffed. “Again, I’m sorry. This new strength is…well…knew to me.” She set Ozzy on his feet and rubbed her temple, thinking. Her eyes welled up and she wiped a tear, and shook her head, most likely gathering her bearings. “I’m not used to the new me.” She huffed and shook her head again. “But regardless, I know Jonas more than you think I do. I know you worked with him, but I conducted surveillance on him for years when I was an MMP Agent. He strikes quick, and deals with the consequences later. He has no heart like us. He’s a sociopath. If you want your brother, your ex-wife, and your daughter alive, then we go now.”
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