Martian Insurrection (Mars Colony Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  And his brother’s heart was broken.

  This was the shittiest situation Ozzy had ever been in, but as shitty as it was, business was business and, right now, Ozzy’s business was to keep his family safe.

  He placed his hands on both sides of Lou’s visor and looked him dead in the eyes. “I love you. I’m doing this for you and my daughter.”

  Lou’s expression was full of pain and tears cascaded down his cheeks. Deep sobs escaped from Lou, and he lowered his head into his hands. “She was the love of my life, Ozzy,” he whispered.

  “I know.”

  “No! No, you don’t know. She was all I had. The only family left. And now she’s. . .gone.”

  “You have Lily and…you still have me.”

  Lou dropped his head and didn’t respond.

  “Lou, I know you hate me right now and want to be as far away from me as possible. I wish things were different, and I wish you could understand why I do the things I do. Maybe by you being here, you will understand me a little better."

  Again, Lou didn’t respond.

  Ozzy stood and walked to the ladder, feeling empty and soulless. He was doing this for his family, but he knew Lou would never understand.

  He eyed his weapon’s rack next to his workbench. The rack was full, and he’d need all he could carry.

  9

  Ares Monument, Mars

  Ozzy clipped on his helmet, and the airtight suction fizzed in his ears. He activated the oxygen tanks and took a breath.

  With Gragas and Jozi by his side, Ozzy walked toward the ramp. He and Jozi both had two rifles and two photon pistols, and, most importantly, Ozzy had his satchel around his belt line for the crystal sphere.

  Ozzy touched the ramp button.

  Heavy footsteps clanked across the storage bay. “I’m coming along.”

  Ozzy slowly turned around and saw his brother standing there with a rifle. “I’m sorry, Lou, but no. I’ve done enough—”

  “Try to stop me.” He chin trembled, and his eyes were full of tears. “This man killed Gloria. And I’m going to kill him.”

  Ozzy couldn’t allow it. Quad would kill Lou, especially in the condition Lou was in. Ozzy straightened his lips, doing his best to hold in a cry. “Gragas, use one of those full-body cuff devices on my brother. You know, like the one that held Quad down in the mine.”

  Gragas didn’t move. “I’m sorry, Ozzy, but no. I will not go against your brother’s will. This is not the same situation as Quad, who was invading your space and trying to harm you.”

  Ozzy folded his hands across his midsection. He didn’t have anything to say to his brother, and if he did, he’d be wrong no matter what it was. That’s how sorrow went. When someone was sad and lost a loved one, there was nothing you could do or say to get them to think right or to brighten their spirits. At least, that’s how it was with him and his brother.

  “Alright,” said Ozzy, “then let’s go.” He touched the ramp button again, and it began to open. “Jozi, how much time until Quad gets here and lands?”

  “Three minutes at most.”

  Not good. Ozzy took a deep breath. “Nothing like a tight time limit to get your ass moving.”

  The door shook when it hit the crimson sand, and for the first time in a long time, Mars was helping Ozzy out. “Dirt devils dead ahead. Two of them.”

  Dirt devils, along with sandstorms, were the worst natural disasters that Mars could throw at its inhabitants. A sandstorm could last months on end, but a dirt devil which was like a mini tornado, hit Mars more often and sent sand into a twirling mess throughout the air, and here were two now. It would hinder Quad’s landing and slow his movements once he got out of his craft.

  “Let’s go,” Ozzy shouted as he ran down the ramp.

  When his feet hit the sand, they sank in and slowed him down. He pumped his legs and bounced in the thin gravity, landing one boot after another, while trudging toward Ares Monument.

  The monument was gigantic. They were near its chin, but from where they were standing, it was a mountain and looked similar to all the others around them. From space, the appearance would be of a man’s face. Luckily, they didn’t have to climb it and crawl through its ears or mouth, or worse, its nostrils. The entrance, according to the myths and legends, was at the chin.

  The dirt devils moved closer, sending sand across Ozzy’s radiation visor. He pulled down his dust visor and trekked closer to Ares Monument.

  “Quad is coming into view,” said Jozi.

  Ozzy glanced over his shoulder and into the dusty air. “I see him.”

  The oval ship gleamed like a perfectly polished Earth silver coin. It had propulsion technology Ozzy hadn’t seen before. On Mars, ships needed long, boomerang-style wings to keep flight in this atmosphere.

  Quad’s craft didn’t have wings. The technology on that thing must be remarkable.

  “I’ll be at the rear covering you,” Gragas said.

  Lou grunted while following behind Ozzy. “I should have stayed in the rig.” His voice cracked and sounded full of pain.

  “I’m sorry, Lou, but we can’t turn back now,” Ozzy said. “I’d have to go back with you and let you in.”

  Ozzy rounded a large boulder and was under the chin’s shadow. He turned on his EVA suit lights.

  Hieroglyphs were everywhere, which showed how Martians did things—label, instruct, and explain. It was as if they were getting ready to die off any minute during their civilization’s rise, and they needed to leave information for any ETs flying over Mars that needed guidance in some way or another.

  The humans happened to be those ETs.

  Gragas spoke over the com line, “Quad has landed. Jozi and Lou, find a place to get low. We’ll be shooting at him the moment we see him, but we won’t hit him. He’s too fast. What we will do is distract him so Ozzy can find a way in.”

  “Got it,” Jozi said.

  “Sure,” Lou said in a low voice.

  Ozzy looked over the glyphs that were in a line directly above him. It wasn’t much, but usually, and he hoped beyond hope, the Martians left clues how to get into places.

  The dust from the storm picked up and swirled around him.

  Ozzy put his forearm in front of him, doing his best to block the sand from slamming into his dust visor and scratching it to a point where he couldn’t see.

  “I have Quad in my sights,” Gragas said. “Don’t shoot yet.”

  “Yep, I have eyes on him,” yelled Jozi. “Four o’clock.”

  Ozzy had to hurry.

  He used his forehead light to highlight the hieroglyphs while squinting over the red soil starting to coat and scratch his visor.

  The first glyph was a vendel; an ancient, long-extinct flying bird that represented the underworld.

  That meant the entrance was underneath.

  Wapooh! Wapooh!

  Ozzy instinctively ducked.

  “Hold your fire,” ordered Gragas.

  “I hit him,” yelled Lou.

  “You only warned him of your location,” Gragas said. “Crawl seven meters to your right and hold fast. You don’t want a blast headed your way.”

  “I can’t see anything. The sand is sticking to my visor,” Lou said.

  “Get lower,” said Jozi. “It’s not as bad for some reason if you crouch.”

  Ozzy turned and saw Lou crouching. Gragas and Jozi were behind boulders, their weapons forward. Ozzy looked past them, trying to catch a good glimpse of Quad.

  He didn’t spot him.

  But it didn’t matter. He had to concentrate and block out the outside chatter. He squatted and glared up at the rock.

  A dead woman. A dead man. An ankh. A sieve. A sand cobra, which was something that resembled an Earth cobra, but again, extinct, was also etched on the rock.

  The last glyph was an upside-down cup. He’d never seen that before. Was it actually a cup?

  Crap.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what it’s saying. It’s just show
ing me random Coptic pics.”

  “That’s what you get for taking us here,” Jozi shouted.

  “It’s all as it’s supposed to be,” said Gragas. “It’ll come to you, Ozzy. Keep working at it.”

  Bahoof!

  Ozzy fell to the side. A thick glob of dirt smashed into his legs, raining down rock and dense soil.

  Quad had almost ended his life right then and there. Ozzy crawled closer to the rock, making himself as small as possible. How did Quad see so easily through the swirling sand?

  “Open fire,” Gragas said.

  Wapooh! Wapooh! Wapooh!

  Ozzy didn’t look but could hear the blast of photon fire coming from his friends and brother. He pushed himself to his knees and aimed his light at the glyphs, hoping to see something else.

  A snake can dig underground. A vendel was the guardian of the underworld in Ancient Martian mythology, or perhaps it actually lived in the ground as bats did. An ankh. Wait, that’s not a true ankh. An ankh meant life, but this one had an “x” in the middle instead of a horizontal line. That meant death.

  Death was underground. Dead man, dead woman. You bury the dead, at least the Martians did. The sieve. Yes, again, the ground. The sieve traps minerals like gold, and all the remaining material and particles fall through the sieve and onto the ground.

  A fall.

  Ground.

  Was there a trap door underneath him?

  “Got it,” Ozzy said through the sounds of blasts and small explosions echoing around him.

  “Good,” said Jozi. “Every time we think we’re pushing this guy back, he pops up closer.”

  “Lou, I need you,” said Ozzy.

  “Okay, on my way,” Lou said, his voice dull and numb.

  Ozzy started to dig and used his gloved hands to push away the sand. He was like a dog searching for a bone, except the bone was the entrance to Ares Monument.

  Lou kneeled next to his brother.

  “Dig, Louey, dig.”

  Lou nodded his head and began pulling at dirt, rocks, and sand and throwing them to the side.

  Within minutes, they had a nice hole.

  Both Ozzy and his brother were panting, and sweat dripped down Ozzy’s temples and armpits, his body burning up in his EVA suit.

  He dialed down his thermostat.

  Lou had continued to dig, and Ozzy went back at it, pushing more sand away from the hole.

  “I don’t see anything,” Ozzy complained.

  “Hurry up, Ozzy,” Jozi said. “Quad is getting closer and closer. We can’t distract him forever.”

  “Understood.” He paused and looked up at the rock wall above him. “The cup. What the hell does the cup mean?”

  Think, Ozzy. Think.

  He rubbed his hands together, doing his best to let the ideas come to him rather than thinking them up. Usually, he paced like he did when he was a professor, but that wasn’t an option unless he wanted to be easy pickings for Quad. “Show yourself. What does the cup mean? Show me.”

  He closed his eyes. “The cup is upside down. That means—” He opened his eyes and grunted loudly in frustration. “What does the cup mean?”

  “What cup?” said Lou, his head darting back and forth. “I don’t see a cup anywhere in this hole.”

  “Because there is no actual cup down…” he gasped. That was it. The upside-down cup meant that all the words were the opposite meaning. Usually, the cup was right side up. You can’t fill a cup if it’s upside down.

  Down is up. Death is life. Underground is above ground. He took his eyes off the hole.

  Bahoof! Bahoof!

  Ozzy and Lou went flying. Ozzy slammed against the rock under Ares’s chin, and Lou slid across the sand and rolled away, hugging a rock wall.

  Ozzy pushed himself onto his knees and glanced upward, staring at the wall, looking for more markings. “It’s right there.”

  A thin cut went in a large circle just past the glyphs and into the chin. But how do you open it?

  Wapooh!

  “I’m hit,” Lou screamed.

  Ozzy gasped and his eyes widened. He looked at his brother who was holding his side and leaning forward.

  Not good.

  10

  Ares Monument, Mars

  Ozzy sprinted and slid on his knees next to Lou. He put his hand on Lou’s back and gently pushed him forward. “Where are you hit?”

  His brother let out a raspy cough and cringed. “In the stomach, genius.”

  Shock crossed Ozzy’s face, and his heart raced a beat faster. “Keep your hands on your stomach and cover up the wound the best you can. I’ll get us inside.” If carbon dioxide seeped into Lou’s bloodstream, it’d be lights out in under two minutes. The oxygen would evaporate in Lou’s body, and carbon dioxide would take over.

  A bad combination.

  Lou grabbed Ozzy’s arm while continuing to cover his wound with his other hand. “Don’t. Just…let me…die.”

  The sand around them burst, sending rocks and crimson dust onto their EVA’s.

  Ozzy shook his head. “No. I’ll get you to safety.”

  Laughter erupted from his brother but was soon followed by hacking coughs. “Ozzy and safety…are…oxymorons.”

  They were, and Ozzy knew it even better than his brother. It didn’t matter. He had to get Lou inside Ares Monument. Ozzy would rush him back to Relic if he could, but a Marshole bounty hunter was between Ozzy and his ship.

  He held up his index finger. “Hold on. Just a little while longer.”

  “Let me see my wife. I don’t care if I live. I want to see her on the other side.”

  Lou was giving up and probably gave up the moment he heard Gloria had died.

  Ozzy shook his head again. “No, stay alive for her.”

  Another blast kicked up more sand and pushed against Ozzy who leaned to the side. He slammed into the rock that made up the bulk of the monument.

  “Cover up, Lou.” Ozzy crawled over to the hieroglyphs. Everything was the opposite, so what was down was essentially up. “Wait a minute.” He stared at the upside-down cup. It had a far deeper etching than the rest.

  His eyes shifted over to Lou who was trying to get up. “Stay there, Lou.”

  “No,” he grunted.

  Shit.

  Ozzy reached up, touching the cup, and traced his finger on the image.

  Ffzzooom!

  He jumped back. A large, cylinder-shaped blue beam of light shot down from the jutting rocky chin to the ground.

  Ozzy turned to see if Jozi and Gragas saw what had just happened. They were in the middle of a weapon’s fire exchange, blasting multiple photon bolts at a rapidly approaching bounty hunter.

  Quad was like a ninja but ten times nimbler and quicker.

  Ozzy turned and examined the light, trying to figure out what it did. Lou was bent over and walking toward him, his feet dragging along the sand.

  His brother looked pale, and sweat was dripping from his face. He was breathing heavily.

  “What does this do?” Ozzy yelled at the rock.

  “What did you do now, Brother?” Lou said, moving closer to Ozzy.

  “I have an idea,” Ozzy said, unholstering his gun. He threw it inside the blue light. The gun hovered and then shot up into the rock, disappearing like a ghost through a wall.

  “You ain’t throwing me in there.” Lou dropped his hand from the wound, exposing it to the elements. “I’m done, Ozzy.”

  “Not on my watch, Louey.” Ozzy rushed forward, grabbed Lou, and pushed him into the light.

  “Hey,” yelled Lou, his arms flailing. In seconds, he moved upward and vanished from view.

  Ozzy waved his arms. “Hey, Jozi. Gragas. I found a way in.”

  “About time,” Jozi said as she backed up, her rifle recoiling against her shoulder, which sent a dozen more shots Quad’s way. She turned and raced toward Ozzy. “Where to?”

  Ozzy pointed to the light. “Step inside.”

  “What?”

  �
�Just do it.”

  Jozi reached him. “That doesn’t look safe.”

  Ozzy knew it was; he’d seen this before. He grabbed the back of her EVA and pushed her inside. Joze screamed and lifted off the ground toward the rock. She, too, disappeared.

  “Gragas, you’re next.”

  “You first, Ozzy.”

  A shot zipped over Ozzy’s head and singed a rock wall behind him.

  Ozzy ducked. “Okay, gladly.”

  He stepped inside. A static sound encapsulated his helmet’s auditory sensors, and a wind rushed from the ground to the rock ceiling.

  He was lifted off his feet and sped toward the rock wall at what seemed to be a hundred miles per hour.

  “Whoa,” he yelled and closed his eyes.

  A moment later he stopped moving. His boots were on hard, level ground, something opposite of the sand he was standing on a second ago.

  “Ozzy,” Jozi’s voice could be heard in the distance. “Your brother.”

  Ozzy opened his eyes and saw he was in a massive room. It was rounded, had staircases going up and down along its perimeter, and a thin shield of some type in front of a doorway a few meters away—a barrier into another room. The walls were gray rock with nothing beautiful about them.

  Ozzy turned in circles, mesmerized by what he was seeing. “From the Ancient Coptic tablets, the Ares Monument holds secrets, technology, and records of Mars’s past, and even the true history of our solar system and all the ETs that have occupied it since the beginning of time.”

  “Ozzy,” Jozi’s voice was stern. “Your brother needs you.”

  Ozzy’s mouth gaped open. Lou was on his back, shaking, his hands by his side. Jozi was crouched next to him, her hand on his stomach.

  “Oh my Mars,” said Ozzy. He hurried over.

  Lou’s eyelids were rapidly blinking. His mouth was moving, but nothing was coming out.

  “Lou,” said Ozzy. “Lou.”

  Lou’s eyes shifted to Ozzy’s. “Tell your daughter I love her.”

  “What? No, Lou. Brother, you can make it.”

  Lou shook his head. “No can do, Ozzy.” He lifted his hand, shaking it.