Episode Three: A New Adversary
Celina arrives on Mars only to find that Lexi’s new computing environment isn’t ready. What she thought was the plan doesn’t seem to be the plan anymore—unsettling the future.
Martian Colony at Lyot
Region North of Deuteronilus Mensae, Mars
October 2055
We’d been on Mars for almost a month, and Lexi was still stuck on the Schiaparelli. Just yesterday, the technicians who should have been finishing her new computing environment left to work on the ship in orbit, officially named by Space Force as Space Cruiser Marius. My messages to the command office about the delay and the assignment change went unanswered. My mothers, who I was sure knew what was going on, wouldn’t tell me a damn thing.
Now this summons to meet Aunt Mavis—no details, just “My office, zero-nine-hundred.”
So, I navigated the warren of tunnels and chambers carved out of the Lyot crater wall that form the Mars base, idly dragging my free hand along the smooth wall of fused regolith. The wide, vaulted tunnels were gratefully more spacious than the passageways on the ship that brought us here from Earth, but the artificial lighting, the pervasive reddish tone, and the ozone tang of the manufactured air didn’t let me forget how alien my new home was.
Even with the base’s clear domed sections, I missed the open spaces of the New Mexico desert. And going outside in an environment suit wasn’t the same, despite the endless, dry plains surrounding the base. When I signed on to relocate with Celeste and my mothers, I didn’t realize how much I would miss my old home. At least I wouldn’t have to get back on a ship once they moved Lexi to the lab.
Head down, watching my handheld for the next turn, in the low gravity I ‘Mars-glided’ around a corner and collided with Celeste.
“Celina, whoa. Slow down.” With quick hands, my sister kept me from crashing to the ground.
“Sorry, I wasn’t watching.” It was awkward, but I hadn’t seen my sister in weeks, so I gave her a quick hug. “I’m surprised to see you. I thought you were up on the Marius.” We resumed walking to Aunt Mavis’s office.
“I took the shuttle down last night. Aunt Mavis needs to see me. You know how she is, ‘My office. Zero-nine-hundred.’”
I smiled. “Yep. I got the same message.”
Celeste put a hand on my arm and stopped me in front of a hatch that looked like any of the other hatches we’d passed, except for the large Space Force emblem and ‘General Buckley’ on the placard. Celeste pushed the chime button, and the hatch slid open.
Aunt Mavis’s office, if you could call it that, was an unadorned cave with little in the way of comfort. The walls matched the smooth, reddish tone of the passageways. Display panels lined the perimeter around her central command console—a cocoon of technical readouts and operations data. A few metal chairs were the only signs that anyone ever visited.
Aunt Mavis got up from behind her workstation, gave us both a hug, and motioned us to her guest chairs. “I’m happy to see you both, but I’m afraid we’ll need to leave any further pleasantries for a later time.”
Our aunt looked tired, her skin a little drier, her crow’s feet a little sharper, and she was grayer than the last time I had seen her, which was only a few weeks ago, so that might have been my imagination. But her demeanor told me something weighed on her. She was always serious, but now she looked worried.
She returned to her chair and folded her hands on the surface of her command console. “Celina, Celeste. I’m changing your assignments. You’ll both be joining the Marius crew and leaving for Jupiter when she’s ready to launch.”
Celeste met the news with her usual excitement. She scooted forward and put her forearms on Aunt Mavis’s desk. “Oh, my God. That’s fabulous. When are you expecting us to leave?”
That was my sister—always ready for the next adventure.
I was not so enthusiastic. I slumped a little in my chair. Not exactly pouting, but close. Why did I need to go? I’m not an engineer or a technician—I’m not a space person. Why in God’s name is she sending me? I sat up straighter and got ready to ask Aunt Mavis that question when she raised a hand to stop me.
“Before you ask, Celina. You’re going because Lexi is going. We need real-time communications with the Jupiterians, and we don’t have time to make another copy and get it tested. I reassigned the technicians to begin the physical move of Lexi’s infrastructure from the Schiaparelli to the Marius. I need you there to manage her.”
This was too much. I’d just gotten Lexi acting normal after forcing her to keep the secret about Seth and convincing her the fake signals she was sending wouldn’t harm him, and now they wanted to put her on a warship. I dragged my chair forward, grabbed the edge of Aunt Mavis’s workstation, and tried not to yell. “You can’t be serious. Moving her and making her part of a military operation could damage her. We could lose everything that makes Lexi unique.”
Aunt Mavis leaned forward, looking sterner, as if that was even possible, and pointed a stiff finger at me. “That’s why you’re going. It will be your job to make sure she keeps functioning.” She lowered her hand, and her expression softened. “Celina, I know this isn’t what you wanted, but I need you. And if it helps at all, this is an all-hands-on-deck operation, so your mothers are also going. You’ll have plenty of help.”
“Well, when you put it that way, sure—sign me up.” I slid back in my chair and crossed my arms.
“I don’t need sarcasm from you, Celina. If I had someone else to send, I would. But do you really want someone else managing Lexi?” I hadn’t heard that tone in a while. Aunt Mavis didn’t need to raise her voice; you knew when you’d stepped over the line. And she had a point.
“No, I don’t. And, I’m sorry. It’s just—well—things just don’t seem to be going the way I thought they would.”
Aunt Mavis relaxed and rested her hands on the smooth, glass surface of her console.
Celeste had been fidgeting in her chair, watching our exchange. “So—when do we leave? What’s the plan?”
The door chime sounded before Aunt Mavis could answer, and she touched a contact. The hatch slid open, and the captain of the Schiaparelli came storming in, took a quick glance at Celeste and me, and turned his palpable anger on the general, waving his handheld at her.
“What the hell is this, Buckley? You can’t commandeer my ship. And you sure as hell don’t have the authority to order me to take command of the Marius.”
Aunt Mavis waited a beat, but Captain Bullard didn’t look like he had more to say.
“Captain, if you check the agreement between Space Force and SS&T, you’ll find I can commandeer your ship in an emergency. And you must have skipped the part where the Pentagon recalled you to active duty. You have resumed your Space Force rank of colonel under my command.”
The captain stood almost at attention, adopting a bit of a military posture. “No, Ma’am, I did not miss that part. I just think it’s ridiculous that you’d reactivate me. I’ve been out of the service, a civilian, for years. And—with no disrespect intended—what the hell is the emergency that you need my ship?”
“I’ll show you.”
Well, this should be interesting. I sure as hell wanted to know what the emergency was, why I was being shipped off to Jupiter, and why Lexi was being turned into a war machine.
Aunt Mavis stood and activated the large screen on the wall behind her desk. A few gestured commands and touches to contacts, and the screen depicted the three SS&T ships we’d discovered in the asteroid belt. The view included an overlay of a course projection.
She glanced back at the three of us and then returned to the screen, tracing the course projection line with her finger. “This is the emergency, Colonel. These ships have launched and are moving out of the belt.”
She turned back to address us directly. “Our projections put them on a course to Jupiter, specifically its moon, Europa, arriving in seven months. Space Force Intelligence reports the SS&T splinter group that built these ships made a deal for safe passage with the invaders and are heading there to load water, stealing resources they have no right to, and contaminating an entire world.”
Aunt Mavis stood a little straighter and looked right at Colonel Bullard. “You need to stop them and complete our primary mission to expel the invaders. The regular crew won’t be here for six months. We need to leave now. If we wait, it’ll be eighteen months before we can get there, too late to avoid the catastrophe these ships will visit on Europa.”
End of Episode Four, Part I | Read on for Episode Four, Part II