Final Battle (16 page)

Mars
—my home.

But for the moment, I hardly noticed it.

My dad sat in the pilot's seat in front of the control console. He turned as Ashley and I pushed through the hatch into the navigation cone.

Letting our momentum carry us forward, we floated toward him.

People say I look like him—even more so as I've grown older. I have the same dark blond hair he does. My nose and jaw and forehead were still bigger than I wanted them to be, but the rest of my face was starting to catch up. He was big, square and rugged like a football player. It would be great if I kept growing and became his size too. Of course, that's assuming when I got out of my body cast that …

I thought of my toes. How they had wiggled. And I wished this were the time to tell Dad. But his face was set in a frown. I'd save it for later.

“Dad,” I said, “we got here as quickly as we could.”

He nodded but seemed distracted. He pointed at his computer screen. “I've got something you need to see.”

Dad didn't move from in front of the screen to give us a better look. He didn't have to. Not in zero gravity. I hung upside down, above the screen. Ashley stretched horizontally behind him, looking over his shoulder.

Each of the spaceships in the fleet sent positioning signals to all the others. On the computer screen, each was a tiny white blip. If I had taken out a pen and connected the outer blips of the formation, I would have drawn a perfect diamond almost filling the screen. Since Dad was the lead pilot, our ship was at the front, with the others in formation behind. Ten ships, moving majestically and silently in space, thousands of miles apart. Some, like this one, held passengers. The others transported supplies and disassembled carbon-dioxide generators.

“The pattern seems normal to me,” I told Dad. I'd been worried there was trouble with one of the spaceships. Even though the former Manchurian military superpower had lost a series of battles during my Earth years, the World United Federation feared that their Terrataker rebels might try to stop our fleet as a last chance to win their war against the rest of the world.

“It is normal. But watch this.” Dad repeatedly punched a button on the console. The computer screen shifted and zoomed out. Again and again. Where once the diamond formation had filled the whole screen, it was reduced to half the screen. Then a quarter. It kept getting smaller and smaller until the blips of all 10 ships merged into one large blip.

Dad shrunk the screen more, and that large blip became almost invisible. Since it was plotted on a computer map of the solar system, the background was studded with the lights of brighter stars.

“Now it's like seeing our space fleet from millions of miles away, right?” I asked.

“Essentially yes, although you need to keep in mind it's a computer simulation of roughly 20 million miles of space. If the scale was truly accurate, you wouldn't even see the blip that represents our fleet.” As Dad spoke, he tried to look straight up into my face. He grimaced as his neck twisted. “Let me get you down here on Ashley's level.”

He was belted into the chair, so it took him very little effort to pull me beside him and spin my legs back so I was horizontal beside Ashley. My face was on one side of his shoulder. Hers on the other.

He glanced back and forth between Ashley and me. “Keep in mind that our formation is on the right-hand side of the screen, almost at Mars. Now look at the left side of the screen.”

“If the scale is 20 million miles,” Ashley said, “wouldn't that be about halfway back to Earth?”

“Pretty close,” Dad said. He almost touched the screen as he pointed to a star.

Except it wasn't a single star.

“Watch closely again,” he said as he hit the console button a few more times. The screen began to zoom in, each time making the white blip bigger. Seconds later the blip began to transform into an entire formation of blips.

“Looks like another fleet of spaceships,” I joked. “Weird that from this angle the stars would seem to fit together that way.”

“Tyce,” Dad said quietly, “it
is
another space fleet.”

“What?”

“I've received notice from the World United Federation. Our biggest fear has come true. It's a fleet sent by the Manchurians.”

I shuddered. “Are you sure?”

“Take a look at the style of the ships,” Dad replied. He clicked and clicked to zoom in closer. “See those markings?”

Ashley and I both looked closer, almost bumping our heads together.

“I believe,” Dad said, “they intend to invade Mars.”

CHAPTER 5

That night, as usual in zero gravity, I hooked my belt to my sleeping bunk so I wouldn't push off accidentally during the night and float into one of the opposite walls of my room.

I closed my eyes. But I doubted I would fall asleep. Too many thoughts bounced through my head.

If the next headache arrived on schedule, it wouldn't be for another two hours. I was glad for the chance to think without pain. I tried to direct my thoughts toward the Manchurian invasion.

Writing always helped me think, so I began to keyboard a journal entry.

I stopped keyboarding and stared blankly at my computer screen. The Manchurian space fleet should have worried me as I lay floating in the darkness, trying to fall asleep. The Terratakers had been doing everything possible to take over the Mars Project. If the Manchurians were on their way, I had no doubt that it meant Dr. Jordan and Luke Daab were with them.

However, my thoughts kept moving away to something else. I was too selfish. All I could think about was my toes. How they had wiggled at my command.

It's so easy to take your body for granted. I was just as guilty of this as anyone. In my wheelchair growing up, I was still able to move my arms and hands and head. I never gave much thought to how incredible that was. Your brain sends a command to your hands, and they move. Sometimes I forgot about the miracle of that because I got mad that my legs wouldn't respond. Those were the times that God seemed far away—or rather, the times that I didn't want to talk to him. I was mad at him too, so I ignored him. Pretended he wasn't there at all. Then a bunch of crises in my life and under the dome had forced me to think about him and discover who he really was. That there was more to life than what we saw on the surface. So I had come to peace, and it was easier to accept how he'd made me unique—even if it meant I was in a wheelchair for life.

And now, for the first time I could remember, my toes had moved!

After my surgery, the doctors had refused to make promises. They had said only time would tell if the surgery would work. But if my toes had moved after all these months in a body cast in space …

Lying in the darkness, I began to swell with hope. Maybe when the cast came off, I would be able to walk. To run!
What would it feel like?
I wondered.

Just as I began to daydream about running through the dome and catching a football thrown to me by Ashley, our ship exploded.

At least that's what it felt like to me.

It took a second to realize the explosion had happened in my head. The headache had arrived early. Even though my eyes were closed in agony, I saw flashing lights and stars, the way it is when you hit your head against something.

And just when I couldn't stand the pain any longer, the flashing lights shut down into total blackness.

CHAPTER 6

I met Dad at breakfast.

Well, it wasn't actually breakfast. Just some liquids in plastic bags called nutrient-tubes. I drank carefully for two reasons. First, although I had woken up normally when the alarm on my watch sounded, my head still throbbed a little. And second, you don't want to spill anything in zero gravity.

Once Ashley had told me a joke while I was sucking orange juice. I'd laughed and some of the orange juice had gone down the wrong throat tube. Because of my coughing fit, I'd spewed orange juice in all directions.

On Earth that would only mean a sticky mess on the floor, easy to clean up with a couple of wipes.

In zero gravity? Hundreds of tiny orange-juice pellets had immediately spread through the eating room. It had taken 10 minutes to chase them all down, slurping each one back into my mouth as Ashley groaned in disgust.

This morning I was alone in the eating room until Dad pushed through the hatch, holding a folded piece of paper. “Hey,” he said, “Ashley tells me you have some news. Hope it's good. I could use some right about now.”

I gave Dad the best smile I could. “My toes wiggled last night. I didn't say anything because the Manchurian fleet …”

“Sidetracked us,” Dad finished for me, worry spreading across his face. Then his eyes grew wide, as if he'd just realized what I'd said. “Really?” he said slowly. “Your toes actually wiggled? Let's see.”

I looked down and focused. They moved again. And even more than last time.

“I can hardly wait to tell your mother!” Dad exclaimed, grinning broadly.

“Me too,” I said.

Then Dad's grin faded. “You all right? I thought you'd be a little more excited.”

“Just worried about the other ships,” I said, trying to act as nonchalant as possible. I didn't want to concern him further by telling him about my headaches.

Dad nodded and held up the piece of paper. “The other fleet. With all that's happened since you left Mars, I don't blame you for thinking the worst.”

It was my turn to nod. If he thought I was worried about the Manchurians, I was going to leave it that way. He had enough to think about as head pilot of the fleet with people like Jordan and Daab on our tail. I'd keep my headaches to myself. Especially since I doubted there was anything he—or anyone else on board the spaceship—could do about them.

“This isn't going to make you any happier either,” Dad said. He handed me the paper. “A printout from Rawling.”

What kind of bad news would Rawling send? I wondered.

I unfolded the paper. It was an e-mail.

From: “Rawling McTigre”

To: “Chase Sanders”

Sent: 04.24.2043, 2:39 P.M.

Subject: Manchurian fleet

Chase (and Tyce)
,

Last night I received from Earth the same computer information that they indicated was sent to you. I presume you downloaded it immediately and saw that the Manchurian fleet is only a couple of months behind.

My director's report contains some additional information—that military officials on Earth just learned about the fleet themselves. Evidently the Manchurians assembled their own fleet on the dark side of the Moon and launched it in secrecy.

So that explains it
, I thought. Why no one—not even the higher-ups on Earth—seemed to know about the fleet until now.

Rawling's e-mail went on:

However, don't worry. Because you'll be arriving first, we should have ample time to set up the surface-to-space missile system you are bringing with you.

See you in two days. Stay in touch—and God bless your journey!

Rawling

P.S. In the meantime, Kristy sends you and Tyce and Ashley all her love. She can't wait to see you!

Kristy. My mom. I was glad to know Mom was thinking about me, just like I was thinking about her. When I didn't have to worry about killer headaches and a killer Manchurian fleet, of course.

“I don't get it,” I said, reading the e-mail twice. “It was well publicized that our fleet was carrying atomic missiles— in fact, enough to repel more than 10 Manchurian fleets—to protect Mars against future invasions. The whole point was to make sure the Manchurians didn't even try. So what do they think they can accomplish?”

“Rawling will give us all the information we're cleared to receive when we get to Mars,” Dad said. He squeezed my shoulder lightly. “And just so you'll relax, Rawling has a good point. We do have a lot of time to set up our defenses before the other ships arrive.”

“Maybe they have long-range weapons on their spaceships,” I put in. I'd learned from experience that you never knew what the rebels were up to. “Maybe they'll nuke the dome before our weapons can nuke them.”

“Maybe,” Dad said quietly.

I studied his face. “You don't look worried.”

“Ever since the Mars Dome was established 18 years ago, it hasn't needed weapons to protect itself from outerspace invasion. So tell me why Mars is suddenly considered valuable enough to be attacked.”

“The carbon-dioxide generators,” I said. It was an easy answer. That was the whole purpose of the fleet. Carbon dioxide meant that plants could grow. Growing plants produced oxygen. Eventually Mars would have enough atmosphere to be a new colony. And that means the colonization of Mars can take place that much faster.

“Exactly. If the Manchurians fire atomic weapons on Mars, it will destroy the very thing they want. So they won't. The only way Mars is worth anything to them is if they can land and take over the dome intact. But there's no way they can land once our surface-to-space missile system is in place. And we've got plenty of time to get it ready.” Dad patted my leg. “No worries, then, right?”

I hardly heard him.

“Tyce? Tyce?”

I was staring at my left leg. The one he had just patted.

“Tyce?” he asked one more time.

I looked up at my dad, hardly daring to believe. “It's the strangest thing. I think I felt that.”