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Jonas sat at his desk. He had hardly slept for days. He rubbed his tired eyes. He still had not made contact with Derek and his growing worry sickened him. When he had seen the red dots on their satellite surveillance cameras nights before, he had feared that an alien force was moving in to surround and kill his grandson. However, the next day, he found no trace of whatever had appeared on the radar grid. He summed the ordeal up as a product of his exhaustion and possible glitches in the satellite system.
But his burden had not lessened.
Boony entered the security office earlier than normal.
“Morning, Jonas,” she said with a broad smile.
“Morning.”
“You look exhausted. Still no news about Derek?”
“No.”
“Go get some sleep, sir. I can handle everything here.”
“I’ve tried. I can’t get my mind to stop worrying about Derek.”
Boony nodded. “I understand. Why not send out a search party to locate him?”
“No. Believe me, I really want to. But he was pretty adamant that he didn’t want me to treat him like a child any longer. And after he left, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that that’s exactly what I’ve done for years. He’s right. He’s a man, and I need to allow him to branch out from under my control. If I send men out to him, he’ll be insulted. That will make the gap between us even broader.”
“I can see his point.”
“After a few days, I see it now, too. But after losing my son and Derek’s mother, it’s still hard to let him become a man.”
“That’s understandable.”
“When you have children one day, Boony, you’ll completely understand.”
Boony smiled. “I’m sure I will, but with the likelihood of prospective suitors for me on Mars . . . I don’t see that happening.”
“No?”
She shook her head.
“You never know. Love finds you sometimes when you least expect it.”
Boony smiled. “I’m not sure I want it to find me. At least not here. I don’t know that I’d want the worry and responsibility of having children. I wasn’t exactly the model teenager. And even though I made a lot of bad decisions, my parents still gave me a lot of drama for wanting to move to Mars.”
“They did, huh?”
“Yes.”
“And how did you get them to comply?”
Boony shrugged and smiled. “I didn’t. I left.”
Jonas’ eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“Yes. They were always overbearing and never let me do what I wanted, so I had no other choice except to leave. So it’s good that you have decided to let Derek live his life.”
Jonas nodded.
Boony turned to her computer and sighed softly. She hated lying to Jonas, but he was in such mental anguish over Derek. She pitied him, which was a shame because he was the strongest person she’d ever met. He was solid and had a mental edge like sharpened steel. So, if a lie helped him overcome his needless mourning, it was worth it.
Of course, if he ever looked into her background, he’d know that she had been orphaned, a delinquent, and had blatantly lied to him about her past. But she wanted to ease his mind. He was the type of man she wished she’d had as a father. And since his job demanded that his focus remained keen, a little lie shouldn’t be too great of a crime.
“So how are we to handle the theft of the shuttle?” she asked, changing the subject.
“That’s all in Grayson’s hands now. There’s really nothing more we can do.”
“Okay. If there’s anything you need for me to do to help, please let me know.”
“Thanks. Keep trying to contact the Deimos Life Station at least once an hour.”
Boony nodded. “Not a problem. I can do that.”
“What we cannot afford is a similar incident like the theft of the Percival 3000. That’s a wakeup call for how we operate the security team. I’d really like the identification of the man from Deimos that landed here. That’d narrow down a lot of factors. However, not knowing means that we don’t know if there are any others hiding in the shadows with the same intent to steal a ship or bags of the MarQuebes or do something even worse.”
“That’s true. I never really gave that much thought.”
“The surveillance video only showed him exit the Deimos shuttle, didn’t it?”
Boony nodded. “Yes.”
“Never anywhere else?”
“From every camera angle where I have located him on surveillance video, he always wore the helmet. He never took it off, so he must have been aware that there were cameras.”
“It seems he covered his tracks quite well. But I still cannot help but think that he must have had ties with others here besides Sylvia.”
“I suppose that’s possible.”
“I have a few shady guards that I need to pay more attention to. God knows I really don’t have the extra time to do that.”
“Did you check the Deimos shuttle log?” she asked. “He’d have had to access the computer, wouldn’t he? Even if we can’t read the physical copy, there has to be one recorded with the computer.”
“I already had a tech scan for that information.”
“Nothing?”
Jonas shook his head. “No. The man cleared the computer. Wiped it clean.”
“Damn. Then he must have some tech background. Most people still leave tracks somewhere.”
“He didn’t.”
“Well, Jonas, there’s something else that I need to tell you.”
Jonas frowned. “What’s that?”
“The last time I was at The Vortex, I overheard some of the other guards talking about the shuttle theft.”
“And?”
“Some of the guards are actually viewing Sylvia as a hero.”
“A hero, huh?”
Boony nodded.
“That’s when you realize you have problems. When those standing on the right side of the law begin to think that a thief is a hero, they’ve lost all rationalization between right and wrong. They’re not far from stepping across the line of good and becoming what they were trained to fight against.”
“I know.”
“And if those on Deimos view the shuttle pilot in the same light, no telling what kind of chaos is happening inside that moon station.”
Boony felt uneasy. Who was the man with Magnus? While Magnus seemed trustworthy, and she truly suspected that he was innocent of murder, had he somehow been duped into helping a more dangerous individual make his way back to Earth?
She took a deep breath. “Seems we might have a lot more to be concerned about than we thought?”
“No. Grayson does. It’s his ship. Since they’re headed back to Earth, there’s nothing I can do. It’s his mess, and I expect he has plans on how to clean it up.”
“Surely this concerns you, too?”
“Of course it does, Boony. But look at me. My grave will be here on Mars. I’m too old to make a journey back to Earth. This was a one-way ticket for me.”
“You’re not that old.”
Jonas chuckled and shook his head. “I’m not about to put my body through the strain of space travel for another seven months again. It’s not worth it.”
She smiled. “It was rough on me, too.”
“Wait another forty years and reconsider that statement.”
“Oh, now—”
The security door flung open. Clark leaned against the doorframe, bent forward with his hands on his knees, trying desperately to catch his breath. Jonas rose and pulled his laser blaster. Clark’s eyes widened and his face grew paler. He waved his hands in surrender, panting, letting them know he didn’t mean them any harm. He couldn’t breathe. Sweat rolled down his face. A half-minute passed before he was able to breathe calmer.
“What is it?” Jonas asked, lowering his weapon.
“We’re got a major problem down in Shaft Fifteen.”
“What kind of problem?”
Clark panted and wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand. “We have found life on the planet. But it’s not a good discovery. They’re deadly, and there’s far too many of them for us to stop.”