Martian Plague Read online

Phwapoom! Phwapoom!

  A photon torpedo shot from the craft’s wings.

  Jozi jumped. The torpedo went high and wide, connecting with the building, folding the wall in on itself, then imploding cement and steel inward, toppling a segment of the building to the ground and creating a mountain of rubble.

  Another torpedo shot good and true.

  Ozzy leaned against his door, waiting for the hit.

  Krackboom!

  It impacted the ground a dozen yards in front of Jozi, picking her up. The rushing dirt and debris against her feet pushed her into the rover.

  She was flung into Ozzy, smashing him into the driver’s side door.

  Ozzy shoved her into her seat and reversed the rover.

  “Shut the door,” hollered Ozzy, cranking the wheel, heading away from the building, and planting his foot on the pedal.

  Jozi slammed the door and put her head in her hands, her P-116 photon gun dropping onto her lap. “Did you hear the crying?”

  Ozzy didn’t but nodded anyway.

  Jozi shot him a look. “Little kids were bawling, probably running for their lives.” She pressed the com line to active and dialed the High Judge. “Not under my watch.”

  “He’s not going to care, Jozi. He only cares about himself.”

  “The Ministry has to know.”

  “They’ll let the MMP deal with it. Don’t you know that by now? I’ve been watching troop movements for months. He is stockpiling all Martian Marines and Marine equipment, weapons, and vehicles at Gale Crater City. He’s defending himself from Dunrakee terrorists. He’s not defending the human race.”

  A missile screamed past them, smoke trailing from its tail, and exploded against a house. The concussion blast pushed hard against the rover, and it slid across the road. Ozzy slammed the brakes, simultaneously turning the wheel, skidding the rover into a turn and onto another street.

  People dove for cover, and the Mars Ministry Police were running to the scene, some sending their own large, military-grade rockets and photon cannon beams at the invading ships, and others tending to the injured and dying.

  The High Judge didn’t answer.

  Jozi dialed again.

  “You don’t think the Ministry observed half a dozen Dunrakee ships heading toward Tagus Valles on their radar just before the terrorists arrived here?”

  “Then why didn’t they warn us? Why didn’t they warn the city?” complained Jozi. “The signals and com channels must be jammed. The Ministry might not be able to get through to alert the authorities.”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” Ozzy used a thumbs-up gesture, giving her a sarcastic wink.

  The High Judge didn’t answer a second time.

  “We have to do something,” said Jozi.

  “Yes, we’re going to get the damn cure and get it to my daughter.”

  He zipped by several MMP trucks and swung a right. The trucks were carrying a boatload of rifle-toting Mars Ministry Police agents.

  Jozi blinked several times at Ozzy, obviously not believing what he had just thrown out of his mouth. “We’re saving everyone, not just your daughter.”

  “Okay, you can see it that way, but once we cure everybody—if these plants still exist and actually work—then you can stay here with everyone else while our race is eventually blown off the face of Mars by the Dunrakee swine. My daughter and I will be far away from this terrible planet.” There was a big doubt in his mind that he’d find a cure at Moonshinka Rock, but he had to try.

  Ozzy eyed several Dunrakee ships descending toward the city, shooting photon blasts every which way.

  They were making a hot mess out of Tagus Valles. Thick black smoke rose from the streets and structures, covering the metropolis and darkening the hazy shields all around.

  “The Dunrakee won’t beat us a second time. That’s not going to happen.” She rolled down her passenger-side window. “The Dunrakee will not take us over. Not while I’m standing.” She pointed her gun out of the window and took several shots.

  A giant explosion shook the city like a Marsquake, and a thunderous roar came from behind Ozzy. He looked in the rearview mirror, and his heart skipped a beat. A large fire cloud loomed in the direction from where they had escaped. Jonas’s office building was probably gone, and Jonas with it.

  There goes their meeting at Wally’s Pass.

  He glanced at the gauges on his dashboard, checking the outside oxygen levels in the city. They were lowering to dangerous levels.

  “If they don’t close up that shield, then this city is dead in less than half an hour,” warned Ozzy.

  He had to find a way to a craft.

  Another Dunrakee ship was lowering.

  “Keep your eye on that ship,” he said and pointed. It was descending past a small, circular skyscraper nearby.

  “Alright, but why?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Care to share?”

  He slowed and rounded a corner, then pressed his foot down on the pedal. “No.”

  “There,” shouted Jozi. “Take a right.”

  Ozzy gripped the wheel and turned. The tires skid and bounced, doing their best to find traction. The wheels grabbed hold, sending gray smoke into the air and leaving black rubber on the ground.

  Up ahead, the ship’s skids lowered. It hopped when it touched the ground, sparking against the concrete as it landed.

  Ozzy slowed the rover and pulled off to the side of the road. Men and women ran, screaming for their families, and dead people, blood pooling by their bodies, lay on the street. Torn and cut off limbs were strewn about.

  Ozzy grimaced.

  “The craft’s ramp is opening,” informed Jozi.

  “Alright.”

  He noticed the dimensions of the opening were about the size of his rover. It was a good fit. This holy-shit idea might work.

  A pack of ten or more Dunrakee soldiers exited the craft, fanning out. Two held crates, and they dropped the boxes on the ground. The boxes broke into pieces, and mice and rats ran out like they were on fire.

  Ozzy’s mouth gaped open. The Dunrakee were the ones spreading the Martian Plague. They were the culprits. He should have known. The Ministry’s explanation for the plague was bullshit, and most likely bullshit for a reason. They didn’t want to seem as incompetent as they were when dealing with the Dunrakee terrorists.

  Ozzy gunned it and sped toward the Dunrakee ship.

  Jozi grabbed the dashboard. “What are you doing? You’re going to get us killed.”

  Ozzy shrugged. “We’ll die one way or another.”

  They closed in on the craft quickly, and Ozzy grinned, his eyes like saucers. He’d never done anything like this in his life, and why would he?

  The Dunrakee ship’s ramp began to close.

  The rover’s front tires hit the edge of the ramp, pressing it down toward the asphalt, cracking chunks of blacktop and sending them into the air.

  The Dunrakee pilot turned and put his hands up, startled by a vehicle driving into his craft and barreling down on him.

  Ozzy pressed the automatic window lever, lowering Jozi’s window. He grabbed her gun and then turned the rover, pushing on the brakes with both of his feet.

  He aimed at the pilot through the open window. The gun recoiled when he took one shot. His vehicle slammed into the craft’s side wall a second later, bringing the rover to a complete halt.

  He stepped out of the vehicle and raced to the cockpit, photon weapon in hand. He charged, gun outward, ready to end this bastard.

  The Dunrakee was folded over the back of his chair, his arms limp, his head dripping clear fluid. Ozzy’s shot, while he was inside the rover, was true. The prick was dead.

  Ozzy usually missed, but his luck was high, and he was two for two today.

  He pushed the Dunrakee off of the seat and sat down, pulling the control stick back and the hover lever upward, bringing the craft into the sky.

  “We’re in business.”

  He pressed the control st
ick forward, keeping the level parallel with the floor, and upped the throttle. The instrumentation and steering was just like Relic’s—may she rest in peace.

  The engines rumbled, and he propelled the craft forward, heading for the hole in the shield.

  A long and loud beep about ruptured his eardrums. He pounded a button on the flight console, shutting the blasted thing off. “We’ve got company at six-o’clock, Jozi. I don’t think the bubble-heads are happy that I stole their craft. Get up here and strap in. This is going to be the ride of a lifetime.”

  14

  Tagus Valles, Mars

  Ozzy throttled the ionic boosters to full speed. His head lurched back into the seat’s headrest, pressing against the clear, slimy Dunrakee blood.

  At the moment, that was the least of his concerns. He looked at the hole in the shield. “Well, Jozi, your wish has been granted.”

  The rover slid toward the closed ramp as Jozi crawled through the open window. “What wish?”

  “They fixed the graviton shield. The hole is closing.” He looked over his shoulder. “Hurry. I’ve got a Dunrakee on my ass. Can’t do much maneuvering with you not restrained in your seat.”

  “I’m going as fast as I can.”

  The ship shuddered. “That’s a hit.” It was a glancing blow, but maybe his fib would speed her ass up.

  The hole was closing faster. “Almost to the opening. This is going to be a nail-biter,” screamed Ozzy.

  Jozi reached for the seat and grabbed the armrest.

  Ozzy eyed his radar and rear vid cam screen. “He’s closing in.” He gripped the control stick tighter. The hole was closing more. “The Dunrakee has target lock on me.”

  Jozi pulled herself into the chair and strapped in. Her head sunk into the headrest from the ship’s booming thrust.

  Ozzy contracted his abdomen muscles and leaned forward the best he could, his hand hovering over a few buttons, levers, and switches.

  “There.” He punched one of the buttons.

  A sound, like banging pots and pans, echoed throughout the cockpit.

  “What was that?” Jozi asked.

  “I think that was the rear deflector shields.” He cocked his head to the side. “And from the sound of it, I don’t think they worked.”

  Jozi peered through the cockpit as the city’s graviton shields rapidly approached. “It’s closing. Bank left. Bank left. We’re not going to make it.”

  Ozzy narrowed his eyes. The bandit chasing his ass pulled the trigger, sending a volley of photon cannon slugs his way.

  “Come on,” he said to himself. “Just a little more.”

  The hole in the shield was shrinking.

  “Two seconds,” he blurted out. “One.”

  They blasted through the hole moments before it closed, and the photon blasts sunk into the shield, absorbing them and sending blue electric lightning across the inner graviton barrier. An explosion followed from the Dunrakee bandit not able to pull away in time, most likely ending his life trying to end Ozzy’s.

  Ozzy let out a long breath. “Ooey!”

  Jozi shook her head. “I can’t believe we made it.”

  The ship’s com link blared on. “Click…clack…vvv…kalow awoni luwawa… click… clack.”

  Ozzy turned off the com link. “Damn, that was fast.”

  “What was that?”

  “Dunrakee language. Just ignore them.” He lowered the craft.

  “You understand their language? What did they say that was so fast? It sounded angry.”

  Ozzy shrugged. “I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  Jozi gave Ozzy an ominous stare. “Tell me.”

  “Not something you’d want to hear.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to me, but I’m a big girl. I can handle more shit in a Mars sol than you can in a 687 day year on Mars.”

  “Fine. They pretty much said we’re dead. Well, they said we would have a bounty on our heads, and to me, it was quite fast to put a bounty on someone’s head. But, apparently, we kinda killed the son of a Dunrakee stronghold leader. You know, the leader at Dawes. I’d like to explain that the son tried to kill us first, and we were merely escaping, and his son just can’t fly worth shit, but I don’t think they’d care.”

  “You got all that…from that?”

  Ozzy nodded. A little bit of Dunrakee words went a long way.

  Jozi smacked her forehead. “Do you have a magnet for bad luck?”

  Ozzy ignored her comment and concentrated on the flight console. He glanced at the port and starboard cams. The wings were doing well. He checked the solar batteries and the electrohydrodynamic engines. They weren’t doing well.

  He was losing power.

  He scrunched his nose. “What in the Mars dung is happening?”

  “Uh oh. What?” inquired Jozi, shaking her head at another potential problem.

  He switched to the aft vid display. He ran his finger through the holovid. There was definitely something wrong. Smoke was flying out the tail in large, round puffs.

  He frowned. “We’ve got two problems. Our engines were hit, and we have about ten to twelve minutes of flying time before batteries completely drain from the failing engines.”

  Jozi pointed ahead. “A third problem. It’s getting late.”

  The sun was falling over the horizon, highlighting the fine dust in the Martian atmosphere a deep orange and sending a cool, blue aureole near the bright sun.

  He lowered the craft. “We need a place to land.”

  “Where is the next city?”

  “About an hour away in Briault.”

  A beep sounded from the flight console. Another bogey decided to fly on his ass, though it wasn’t a Dunrakee military ship or a Ministry craft.

  Ozzy lifted his leg and put his boot hard into the flight console, denting it, successfully halting the beeping sound.

  Jozi swiped his leg down with both hands. “Knock it off, bird brain. Stop acting like a hothead and think.”

  He grimaced. “That’s one way I think.” He grunted. “We have to land.”

  “Now?”

  Ozzy nodded. “We need enough power to land vertically. This isn’t designed to land on a runway, so gliding into a landing would be like taking a chainsaw and buzzing the belly in half. The sand would make this thing its bitch.”

  And without power, they’d freeze to death overnight. The less power he wasted right now, the better. He glanced over at the rover. Maybe that could be insulation to keep them a tad warmer after they landed.

  He doubted it. Outside the cities, Mars’ nights were hell.

  The craft behind them sped up, shortening the distance between the two ships.

  “What’s he doing?” said Ozzy under his breath. “If he wanted to kill us, he’d do so by now.”

  He lowered the parallel lever, and the craft shook, slowing down and beginning its landing phase. A pair of rocky hills were a short distance away. It looked like a perfect spot to land, hopefully tucking them in, making it hard for the bogey to land next to them—if that was the enemy’s plan. But why the hell wasn’t the guy activating his weapons and attempting to blow them out of the sky?

  Maybe the Dunrakee wanted them taken alive, not dead. The bounty must be a shitload of auric currency.

  Ozzy tilted the parallel lever downward, lowering the craft. The red rocky hills rushed up at them, and their large girth blocked out the sun entirely.

  A small quiver and the craft bounced slightly, correcting itself a moment later. It landed, and red dust lifted into the air, swirling around, and slowly fell toward the earth.

  The cabin and cockpit lights switched off, and the flight console blipped out. The ship was out of power.

  “Get your space suit on. It will regulate temperature for a while,” ordered Ozzy, getting out of his seat and walking over to the rover.

  A shadow loomed over their craft. Ozzy turned toward the cockpit window. Jozi was glaring up at the darkening
sky. “The ship is landing next to us.”

  Damn.

  “Get in the vehicle.”

  “Then what?”

  “We wait it out. Hopefully, they’ll just move along. If they don’t and get in somehow, we’ll run their asses over in our rover.”

  Jozi jogged to the passenger side and opened the door. She rolled up the window and shut the door firmly, making sure it was sealed. She punched in the High Judge’s number on the com link.

  He didn’t answer.

  Ozzy stepped in the car and slammed his door.

  “Where is the High Judge?” She threw her hands up and dropped them in her lap, sighing.

  “Probably on his way to a Jupiter moon.” He took a quick look at Lily’s picture on the console and then at the briefcase on the floor next to Jozi’s feet.

  “Why would he do that?”

  Ozzy lifted his shoulders, playing dumb. She must not know about the rumored colony being built there. Some said it was make-believe, but he chose to believe it, so he let it rest. The more she didn’t know, the better it would be.

  “We—”

  A knock on the ramp cut Ozzy off. They both twisted in their seats, eyeing the long, red ramp door. “What was that?”

  Another knock.

  And then a third.

  15

  Unknown, Mars

  Ozzy’s hands shook. The moisture from his and Jozi’s breath had formed a foggy shield on the rover’s inside windows, and it was beginning to freeze. The power had shut off not only on the ship but in the rover as well.

  And they were still inside the rover.

  The temperature was dropping fast.

  Jozi kept her eyes forward. “They must have left.”

  “Yep.” He hadn’t heard a knock in hours. He didn’t want to hear it again. Whoever it was could just leave.

  The small strip lights lining their EVA’s were the only source of light operational at the moment, and Jozi’s highlighted her face well. For a badass, she was incredibly beautiful; there was no doubt about that. But women were in his past and to think such thoughts were becoming more and more forbidden in his mind. A few years ago, he learned his lesson well—he wasn’t good at relationships.