Jenny and Kate are on their way to join the colony on Mars. Along the way, a discovery upends everything they thought they knew about the gas giants.
Interplanetary Transport Schiaparelli
The Void between Earth and Mars
January 2055
Kate and I were finally on our way to Mars; we and a hundred other intrepid adventurers. The Mars base had grown to a small settlement in the last fifteen years. Even non-scientists were emigrating. The settlement boasted a fledgling hydroponic farming industry, and resource extraction for some local manufacturing had taken root.
We were about two weeks out from Earth, eight months from Mars, and were relaxing in the transport’s small lounge, enjoying a sealed bulb of wine, and doing a bit of reminiscing about the kids, as proud parents do. When we’d decided to stay in New Mexico and watch our daughters grow up, I’d accepted that passing on the Mars opportunity back in 2037 would put my career on hold. The deep space antennae project was an enormous success, and I was grateful to stay on the signal analysis team.
But Kate’s career flourished as she stayed on the bleeding edge of the advances in artificial intelligence. Jessa was a perfect example, almost human-like in her abilities. We’d brought a copy of Jessa along and still hadn’t settled on whether this version was a twin sister, a child, or a clone. The two versions communicated regularly, but we could tell their personalities were drifting apart. Celina had taken a particular interest in this question; Kate and I could leave it to her to resolve. I was sure Celina would give the shipboard copy a new name at some point.
When our girls completed their PhDs, Celeste in Engineering and Celina in AI, it was time for them to leave. We weren’t surprised that our daughters wanted to use their skills at the edge of the new frontier—on Mars. How could we not go with them? As their mothers and with practical skills, we could emigrate with them.
And we could reconnect with Mavis. She retired from the Space Force in 2042 at the mandatory age of sixty-four, joined NASA, and moved to Mars. She was leading NASA’s Outer Planets Crewed Flight team. The group in New Mexico had continued to intercept and translate the gas giants’ transmissions. We’d increased our translation success rate to about forty percent, but were still missing most of the conversation. NASA still couldn’t send anything much past the asteroid belt. After losing the Europa Clipper, they had sent several exploratory probes—with the same results—destroyed by massive energy blasts in the vicinity of the gas giants. For now, crewed expeditions were out of the question. It was Mavis’s job to find a way through. Basing her team on Mars gave them access to the asteroids and a shorter transfer orbit to Jupiter than they’d have from Earth once they found a way to get there. We worked in parallel with her team, sending messages of peace, goodwill, and conciliation—none had received a response.
As I got up to refill our bulbs, the hatch to the lounge cycled. The hatch door opened, and a middle-aged man entered. His tanned, deeply lined face belied the youthful look of his black hair without a touch of gray. How I envied that, as I doubted they’d have hair dye my color on Mars.
He stopped when he saw Kate and me. “Sorry, ladies. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll come back later.”
Kate, who’d become quite the social charmer, got up and walked over to greet him. “Nonsense. Jenny and I can’t hog the lounge. The ship’s too small not to mingle with our fellow travelers. I’m Kate, and that good-looking redhead over there is my wife, Jennifer.”
A look of surprise, out of place with Kate’s introductions, washed across his face. “No way. You can’t be Jennifer Chandler and Katherine Watson.”
I walked over and handed Kate her wine. “But we are. Why is that such a surprise, and who are you?”
“I’m sorry. My name is Raul Fuentes, and I’ve been wondering about you two since you disappeared from the University over thirty years ago.” Fuentes ran his hand through his hair and stood and stared. “I’ll be damned—after all this time we meet. When the FBI shut down my investigation of Dr. Raymond’s murder, your whereabouts remained a mystery until I joined INTERPOL and learned you’d been stashed away in a secret base.”
I clutched Kate’s arm in alarm. “Murdered? Someone murdered Dr. Raymond? Why would anyone murder Carl?”
Fuentes switched his gaze back and forth between Kate and me. “You didn’t know? He was stealing your work and selling it to SS&T. It seems he threatened to go public, and his handler killed him. You really didn’t know?”
Kate and I exchanged a glance. “No. We had no clue—what a shame. Working for the Space Force in New Mexico, we’ve been kind of out of touch. We never really reconnected with the University. Is that what brings you to Mars? Something going on with SS&T?”
“In a way. I’m the new Inspector General for Mars.”
Kate flashed an impish smile. “So, IG Fuentes, you’re the new beat cop.”
Fuentes returned the smile. “Please, call me Raul, and I prefer to think of it as the town marshal, but without the six-shooter.”
A loud beep from my comms badge interrupted our conversation, followed by Celina’s excited voice. “Mom. Mom. You’ve got to come to the lab right now.”
Kate and I hit our comm badges. “I’m on my way.” I chuckled at our little family joke about asking two moms for something.
Fuentes gave us a quizzical look. “Anything I can do to help?”
I guessed the new IG had a security clearance, so I invited him along. “Not sure, but come along, and we’ll see what has our daughter so excited.” We set down our wine bulbs and headed to the science lab.
Arriving at the lab, we found Celina in the AI booth, talking with Jessa’s hologram. She must have called her sister since Celeste was also in the booth.
Celina heard us approaching and got up from her seat. “Mom, Mom, talk to Jessa. She’s discovered something.” Celina smirked at the amused smile Kate and I shared at Celina always using two moms. “Stop it, you two. This is important.”
Kate moved into the booth’s console seat. “So, Jessa. What’s the big emergency?”
“Hello, Kate. Celina and I were testing the new translation algorithm against the Jupiter data and thought it might be interesting to calibrate it against the kilometer band before looking at the centimeter band. Rather like how Jennifer switched bands back in 2022.”
Celina had been fidgeting, impatiently tapping her toes, wringing her hands. “Mom, we’ve translated a communication in the kilometer band. The radio signals correlate with the cloud movements, just like you found, so we know it’s them. It’s an appeal for help, Mom. The indigenous intelligence on Jupiter and Saturn have been asking us to stop the destruction.”
Celeste put a quieting hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Mom, we need to contact Aunt Mavis right away. Aliens from outside the solar system are hiding in the gas giants’ clouds. The intruders are extracting hydrogen, stealing the native entities’ homes, and killing them. They need us to stop it.”
The room became still and quiet as we considered Jessa’s discovery. We’d been talking to the invaders, not the indigenous intelligence. The intruders had been warning us away and destroying our probes so they could remain in hiding.
Alien intruders had invaded our solar system, and our neighbors needed rescue. The Mars colony just became an outpost in an interplanetary war, and the enemy had a thirty-year head start.
This ends Book One.
Follow along with Book Two: It Always Ends with a Nuclear Device for the next several months as we publish each episode in old-fashioned serial style.