Hell's Hoplites - Book 1 - Thebes - 3 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 -

Sol System - Mars - Olympus Mons Mountain Range

Kawamura Sponsored Archeological Dig Site - Erskine’s Cabin

January 26th 2495 - 18:11 GMT

Jack was caught off guard by the phone call from Angela and was recovered by the time he had hung up. “Well Jackson Dane Sikorsky it is,” he whispered to himself as he walked into the bedroom. Pulling his shirt off over his head he slid the automatic under the pillow and the Benelli under the bed within easy reach; then pulling his pants and shoes off he fell into bed and grabbed the notebook holding the analysis papers.

After flopping onto the bed he spread the metallurgical analysis report for the plates on the bed and several mineralogy and metallurgy books as well. He spent most of the night trying to figure out the exact matrices of the metal but kept coming up blank. After having nodded off three or four times he finally closed the books and set them and the papers aside and dropped back onto the pillows. Even as tired as he was sleep didn’t come right away with thoughts of what Kawamura was up to and worrying about his new wife and child; he smiled at the last though. He loved Angela with all his heart and had done so since they had been gawky teenagers in college; this mysterious child that he had vowed to protect with all his resolve had also somehow wormed it’s way into his heart even though he had only held him twice and known him but for a day. Those thoughts saw him drift off to sleep with a slight smile on his face.

The next morning Erskine woke to a pounding on his door and barely stopped himself from pulling the automatic out from under his pillow and opening fire on the annoying sound. Standing up he slipped the automatic into the waist band of his shorts and tossed a shirt on to conceal the weapon before walking to the door. Bright light flooded into the room as he opened the door and he had to squint to make out the figure that had been pounding on his door and only just managed to not curl his lip physically but it was mentally in a snarl.

Before he could answer the figure it opened its mouth. “Sikorsky I can’t find your assistant anywhere and I need the work assignments for the camp crew and dig crew so that we can get started,” Dr. Kirk Dultrim professor of Archeology at Arizona State University blurted out authoritatively in a demanding tone.

“My assistant has gone to see her sister due to a medical emergency, the schedules are complete and I will be passing them out at this morning’s staff meeting in…” Erskine paused to glance at his watch seeing that it was only 6 A.M. “Two hours, those schedules are not your responsibility Dr. Dultrim,” He made to sure emphasize Dr. since Dultrim had purposely left it out when addressing him the little toad of a man had most likely done it on purpose believing that he should be the one in charge of the dig site.

Dultrim huffed for a few seconds but Erskine only stared at him unblinkingly until the man started to squirm. “If there is nothing else Kirk, I need to get cleaned up for the meeting,” He saw anger glint in the man’s eyes at the familiarity and then walk off in a tizzy.

Erskine repressed a chuckle as he closed the door and went in the bathroom. Stripping he took a whiff of himself and grimaced, stepping into the shower he turned it as hot as he could stand and let it relax muscles that were tight and stiff from a restless nights sleep for several seconds before starting to scrub.

Sol System - Mars - Fordtland

Aireal Di’Eriqua’s Home

January 26th 2495 - 02:00 GMT

Somebody once told me the world was going to roll me I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed… drifted out the windows of the car as it pulled to a halt in the driveway. Angela clicked the radio off, looking at the dashboard she saw it was two A.M. but lights were still on in her sister’s house. Pulling out her cell phone she dialed her sister’s number and got an almost immediate answer.

“Hey Angela are you almost here?” Aireal asked.

“Actually I’m right out in your drive,” Angela told her. “Could I park in the garage?” She asked.

“Sure not a problem, sorry I didn’t hear you, I was catching up on some Medical Journals,” he sister said over the rustle of papers.

Angela could hear her push through some magazines and papers and then a small click as the third door on the garage started to rumble up.

Pulling into the last stall of the large garage her husband’s car joined her sister’s SUV and sedan. Climbing out of the car she put a hand to her back and pushed to relieve the tension that had built up from almost eight hours of straight driving that was only broken by a couple of bathroom breaks and feeding of the baby.

Angela was pulling the baby out of the car seat and starting to stand up as her sister finally opened the door and entered the garage. Unlike her sister’s almost six foot frame and dark red hair Aireal blinked out at the world from a pair of large horn rim glasses that made her eyes appear larger than they were her light brown hair falling to the middle of her back only made her seem shorter than her five and a half feet.

Aireal had a puzzled sound in her voice as she spoke, “I thought you said you were pregnant not already given birth?”

“It’s a long story Sis, let’s get inside and I’ll explain it,” Angela told her sister the baby asleep on her shoulder.

The two of them walked into the house as the door rumbled back down and Aireal locked the door behind them. They entered the kitchen where the dining table had been littered with papers and periodicals then walked through into the living room, Angela set the baby’s blanket down and lay him on it gently so as not to wake him.

“So what’s going on Angela, you didn’t kidnap this kid did you?” Aireal whispered with a small squeak in her voice at the word kidnap.

Angela just shook her head and started explaining the events to her sister, and nearly an hour later the two of them were still sitting on the couch sipping coffee.

“Well,” Aireal said dragging the word out. “It is possible for some women to go through an entire pregnancy without knowing it, especially if they are a large framed individual and relatively healthy. It really doesn’t happen all that often but we can explain away a few things if I remove your implant and find that it had failed due to being defective,” Aireal said hooking two fingers from each hand in the air to emphasis the word. “We can also say you gave birth to him here tomorrow night,” Aireal mused a slightly faraway look on her face.

Angela nodded and pulled her cell phone out and dialed Erskine’s number. The phone rang a few times before being finally picked up, “Hey lass everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine honey I’m at my sister’s and she’s done an initial exam, it seems I’m a little more pregnant than what we thought, I’ll be giving birth in just a couple of days,” Angela told him the little fib that would continue the charade.

Erskine was silent for a moment, and then spoke. “Is everything going to be okay?” He asked worriedly.

“Aireal says everything will be fine and that it’s such a routine thing she can do it right here so that we won’t have to pay all the expensive hospital bills, and she can do all the paperwork right here as well and Mr. Alternat next door is a notary so no problems there either,” Angela told him.

“That’s good to hear, I’ll try to get away from the dig as soon as possible and come visit you,” he paused for a second. “Unfortunately Dultrim is trying to do some empire building again it looks like I’ll have to have Dr. Meltnor pop his balloon for him,” Erskine told her wryly.

Angela laughed at the thought of the stork like Wayne Meltnor standing at almost seven feet tall towering over the short and pudgy Dr. Dultrim. “That should be pretty interesting to watch,” She got out with a final snort.

“Yeah, certainly will,” Erskine replied with a small chuckle of his own. “Honey I have to get ready for this meeting and get all the paper work together and grab Wayne so I’ll talk to you later today or sometime tomorrow, and I’ll hopefully see you within the next few days. Remember I love you and tell our child soon to be born that I love him or her as well,” Erskine said before hanging up.

“Love you too honey, bye,” The phone clicked off in Angela’s ear.

“What was all that honey and love ya stuff about?” Aireal asked looking even more confused than after her sister had told her about finding the baby.

“Oops, sorry Aireal I left out one of the most important parts,” Angela apologized reaching behind her neck and unclasping the necklace she was wearing and pulling her rings off the chain before putting them on her finger.

“Oh my god is that what I think it is?” Aireal questioned pushing her glasses further up her nose as she peered at her sister’s hand.

“Yes it is,” Angela replied the excitement of being married and the love she felt for Erskine welling up again.

“How did he afford something like this on a professor’s salary?” Aireal questioned poking at one of the rings.

Angela snorted. “Well he’s not just a professor he’s got several patents on various new materials and equipment used to study metallurgy he’s also written several books on ancient languages, plus the bonus check he got from Kawamura wasn’t exactly skimpy,” Angela explained.

“Ah, it’s so beautiful, congratulations sis,” Aireal had tears in her eyes as she hugged her sister.

“Thanks, Aireal,” Angela wiped a few tears from her own eyes and smiled.

“Let’s go tell everybody that you’re married,” Aireal said excitedly.

“Uh, Aireal it’s still only four in the morning,” Angela pointed out. “And I’m pooped out after having driven for eight hours,” the words were punctuated by a jaw cracking yawn.

“Oh, you‘re right, I completely lost track of what time it was,” she stood up and left the room for a second coming back with a laundry basket with several soft blankets folded at the bottom.

“We’ll put the baby in here next to your bed in the guest room,” Aireal told her as Angela picked up the child the two of them walking towards the back of the house and entering the only spare bedroom that had not been converted to some other use. Aireal set the basket down and pulled a set of pajamas out of one of the drawers in the dresser and tossed them to Angela. “I thankfully still have some of your clothes from when you stayed here last time,” She told her sister explaining the pajamas.

Setting the baby and his blanket in the basket Angela picked up the pajamas. “I was going to say if I tried to fit into any of your pajamas I’d look awfully funny,” Angela smiled at her sister and the two hugged again.

Aireal left the room leaving Angela to quickly clean up before putting on the pajamas and crawling into the bed. Staring down at the baby as his chest rose and fell regularly in sleep she soon drifted off herself with one of her arms draped over the edge of the basket.

Sol System - Mars - Olympus Mons Mountain Range

Kawamura Sponsored Archeological Dig Site - Erskine’s Cabin

January 26th 2495 - 06:00 GMT

Erskine finished his morning ablutions quickly as he dressed for the dig site wearing a rather old but baggy Hawaiian shirt to hide the fact that he was carrying the large automatic on his hip. On his way out the door he grabbed up the folder Angela had left on his desk that held the schedules for the various departments for the next three months.

The stick thin figure of Dr. Wayne Meltnor head Xeno-archeologist at Cidonia University was sitting in one of the porch chairs with his legs up on the railing with the chair tilted back against the wall and his rather abused cowboy hat pulled down over his face.

“You would be such an easy target Wayne,” Erskine told his friend jokingly.

“Nah, I’ve heard you galumphing around inside that cabin for the last forty-five minutes,” the transplanted Texan told him his accent drawing the words out long and slow.

“Well we need to get to the chow hall to get ready for the meeting,” Erskine told him tapping a combat boot against one leg of the chair.

The chair’s front legs and the thin legs of the professor both hit the ground with a thud at the same time as he slid his hat back on top of his head.

“Well there goes my beauty rest,” the tall man bemoaned and stood up.

Erskine snorted. “You’re going to need a bit more than forty-five minutes worth to do you any good,” He was also slightly chagrined that the man who was actually three years older than him didn’t have joints that sounded like fire crackers when ever he bent them.

The two of them walked towards the building used for the kitchen and dining room in companionable silence for a few minutes and then Meltnor shot out. “Is something bothering your pard?” Erskine’s long time friend asked.

“Don’t over do the Texas thing Wayne,” He looked at his friend for a moment. “I do have a couple of announcements to make during the meeting however,” Erskine answered cryptically.

“Good ones or bad ones?” Wayne asked with a small frown on his face.

“Pretty much all good,” Erskine told the archeologist.

“Well at least something is going good around here,” he harrumphed.

“God now you sound like Dultrim, which by the way I’ll need you to keep him busy whenever he wants to bother me,” Erskine told the man with an evil twinkle in his eye.

The Texan cussed long and low his accent making them sound rather interesting as they turned the air blue. “Now just why in the Sam hills am I going to have to do that? Isn’t that Angela’s job?” The man managed to have both a disgusted and puzzled look on his face at the same time.

“You’ll find out soon enough as to why Angela won’t be able to do it; but it’s important someone does otherwise I’ll never get any work done, and if I don’t get any work done you might as well forget those nice checks you are getting from Kawamura. Cause no paper work means no pay, and if that fat toad is bothering me I won’t be able to write a decent report,” Erskine told the man next to him who just shook his head in disgust and made a rather lewd comment about where Dultrim could put his Doctorate sideways.

Erskine chuckled at the image it brought to mind. “I wouldn’t actually attempt that if I were you, his anal retentiveness may enjoy it,” Both of them were still chuckling at that as they ducked into the mess hall. The interior of the building was poorly lit with a few ceiling fans lazily stirring a mixture of tobacco smoke and the smell of burnt coffee.

“Gypsum must not have made the coffee this morning,” Meltnor muttered moving off to the chow line to grab a plate of runny eggs and still oinking bacon, Erskine was only a few steps behind him.

“You’re forgetting that he has the next two weeks off so he can take care of his mother until his sister returns from Earth,” Erskine reminded the man of where Peter Gypsum the head cook was still at.

Meltnor swore. “I completely forgot about that, I hope his mother is doing better,” he said quietly.

Both of them didn’t want to contemplate very long on the fact that the cook’s mother had full blown Alzheimer, and ninety percent of the time couldn’t remember her own name, but both felt for their friend whose heart had been broken the first time his mother didn’t recognize him.

Erskine shook himself carrying his plate of barely edible food to one of the tables that was occupied by several of the digs supervisors, most of which just nodded and went back to their greasy food.

“Where’s Angela at?” Dr. Julia Sorvento asked as she sipped her tea.

“I’ll let you guys know that at the meeting,” Erskine told her.

“It’s a secret,” Grumbled Meltnor as he attempted to cut a piece of bacon and gave up after a few seconds and popped it whole in his mouth and chewed, and chewed.

“It’s not a secret,” I just don’t want to have to keep repeating myself Erskine told the woman giving the Texan the evil eye.

“I always knew you were lazy,” Dr. William Redbear jabbed looking at Meltnor as he continued to chew on the piece of bacon and then slid his own plate off to the side.

“What’s the matter Billy?” Julia teased. “Don’t like pork?” She asked.

“Oh I like pork just fine, but not when I think it’s going to get up and start walking away,” Redbear grunted.

Erskine smiled as those around him sniped at each other and grumbled about the poor cooking the assistant cook was doing.

The good natured bantering continued for the next forty-five minutes until Erskine stood up and cleared his throat. “Alright folks time for our favorite thing we do every week, the staff meeting,” he said sardonically.

The announcement was met by several groans but was quickly followed by the scraping of chairs and tables as they were re-arranged into three long tables to accommodate all one hundred and twenty-seven people currently working at the dig site.

“Now as you may have noticed my assistant Angela isn’t present,” Erskine paused for effect. “But she did manage to finish the schedules for the next three months,” he said with a wicked grin.

Like the first announcement this was followed by awwws and groans.

“But during the next three months we will be digging up some of the most interesting items it has been my pleasure to uncover. While I was doing some further investigation when everyone was away I came across a large and I mean large as in 6.8 to 7.2 kilometer in length object buried vertically in the ground where we’ve been finding the various metallic plates that we so diligently dug up before everyone’s vacation,” Erskine explained.

Extreme interest started popping up on faces at this information and everyone became more attentive.

“The object appears to be rectangular in shape with the sides being approximately 3,700 plus meters on a side,” he continued to explain.

Someone in the audience gave a soft whistle as the total mass of the object was calculated.

“Yes a very massive item,” Erskine said as if answering the whistle. “Therefore everyone at the dig site will be working on this project for the foreseeable future,” he told them.

For the next couple of hours Erskine fielded various questions from the department heads and students as well as some of the actual contracted laborers who would be helping to move the massive amounts of material that was covering the object. He ended by revealing the metallurgical results of the testing on the plates that they had uncovered.

“Finally a couple more items before we break up and get to our assignments folks,” Erskine paused for a second. “As I stated earlier my assistant Angela is no longer in the camp, there are two reasons for that: One she and I have gotten married,” he told them pulling his wedding band out of his pocket and slipped it on, holding it up.

Several way to go docs, wolf whistles, and other happy comments filtered from the audience.

Waiting for the comments to die down he continued. “Two it appears that my wife is actually pregnant now and her sister insisted she leave the dig site to stay with her,” he explained the final reason for her absence.

“You didn’t waste much time did you Erskine,” Julia chortled.

Erskine felt his face blush at the comment, “Actually it would seem she’s been pregnant for close to nine months now,” he told the crowd and the announcement seemed to stun the crowd. “It seems her implant failed and her sister said that it is normal for someone that lives an active lifestyle not to show that much,” he explained. So don’t worry her sister will be actually delivering the baby within the next few days,” Erskine reassured them and then paused to sip his coffee and then sat it back down. “I’ll also be taking a leave of absence within the next couple of weeks to spend some time with my family,” he told his fellow dig members.

Erskine had barely finished speaking and was raising the cup of coffee to his mouth to take another sip when Dr. Dultrim stood.

“I would be completely honored to lead the dig site while you are away on family business,” the little porcine replica stated.

Erskine had to keep the cup of coffee in front of his mouth as soft comments rang out from the audience such as ass, toad, douche, and troglodyte; he nearly spilled his coffee at the last one. By the time he had schooled his face to be perfectly calm again he was tasting the bitter grounds at the bottom of the cup.

Clearing his throat he addressed the rotund professor. “Thank you for that offer Dr. Dultrim but I’ve already asked Dr. Meltnor to head up the dig while I’m absent,” Erskine said lying slightly.

Dultrim somehow managed to look disgusted, huffy, and arrogant all at the same time as he sat down.

“Now everybody I’ll give your department heads your schedules so as soon as I do get with them and then let’s get back to work,” with that Erskine sat patiently as first a long line of well wishers and congratulators accosted him then finally the department heads picked up their various schedules, by the time he got out of the mess hall it was nearly eleven o’clock.

Meltnor was waiting for him as he left the mess hall. “Sheesh talk about a busy month for you pal,” Meltnor said patting him on the shoulder.

Erskine just nodded lost in thought as they headed for one of the trucks being loaded with equipment. “Yeah it’s all come as a rather quick surprise to me,” he told his friend.

The students, laborers and professors; sans one annoying Dr. Dultrim; had the vehicles loaded with equipment by noon and broke for lunch. After the lunch break they would head for the dig site.

Lunch went fairly quickly as everyone was excited to return to the dig site. Excited chatter and shouts could he heard as everyone loaded into the vehicles that would take them to the location of the huge metallic anomaly was.

Erskine had the construction equipment spread out quickly and start digging a pit that would have to reach down to almost 150 meters before they would start seeing anything of the large object. Each bulldozer, backhoe, or bucket loader had a small team of students usually lead by a professor or teaching assistant to sift through each new pile to make sure no artifacts were lost in the rush, and each team lead was equipped with a radio and a four wheeler to run messages or to get more fuel and supplies.

By the time seventeen hundred hours rolled around Erskine had decided to call it quits for the day; they had managed to dig out a five meter deep pit that measured almost five hundred meters on a side. Astonishingly the work had gone quickly but they were getting down past the red sand into the harder dirt and soil and work would slow appreciably.

The various teams recovered numerous small artifacts, mainly more chunks of metal some pieces of what looked like some armored glass as well as some electrical components.

Erskine had not been sitting on his laurels unlike Dultrim he was leading one of the small teams of students as they sifted through the huge piles of sand. Tomorrow several dump trucks would be coming in to take the piles back to the base camp’s main site where more detailed analysis and sifting would occur it would also help to remove the piles from the dig teams way as they continued.

Erskine was the last one to quit and made sure everyone policed up their areas and loaded any equipment still remaining back on the trucks. As he was climbing into the cab of one of the trucks he had to bite back a curse as his lower back twinged painfully.

By the time everyone got back to the base camp they were dragging; the vehicles themselves were pretty much driven as is into the huge garage where they and the equipment were stored, maintenance and clean-up could be done after everyone had gotten dinner and a quick shower.

Sol System - Mars - Fordtland

Home Of Dr. Aireal Di’Eriqua

January 26th 2495 - 14:00 GMT

Angela was feeling much refreshed when she woke at two that afternoon. Quickly getting dressed in some clean clothes she fed herself and the baby and after that she gave him a quick bath and lounged around the house until her sister returned from her office in downtown Fordtland where she practiced medicine as a general practitioner. Although not that common in this day and age of specialists Aireal was able to keep her self fairly busy with the large amount of families that couldn’t afford to go see a specialist every time they got the sniffles. She also put in two shifts a week at the hospitals emergency room.

Angela sat back on the couch as Jack lay in his makeshift crib chugging down another bottle of formula. Her sister’s house was decorated in mellow pastels that helped relax the tension she had been feeling for the last eighteen hours or so, she shook her head at how quickly things had taken a turn for the strange. In the last forty-eight hours she’d gotten married, been on the ground floor of one of the largest Xeno-archeological finds ever, and had found a strange abandoned child, her child now, her and her husband’s, she smiled wistfully at that wishing he could be there with her now.

Her thoughts rolled around these strange events for a few minutes and then settled down on the particular subject of her husband as she remembered the first time they had met.

Sol System - Mars - Cidonia City

Cidonia University Main Quad

August 19th, 2469 AD

Angela stood watching the protestors as they marched in a picket line back and forth in front of the Marine Corps Recruiting Office. Most of them bore signs such as “Jovians for Jovians and Martians for Martians”, “No More War”, and other such idiotic things.

Between classes at the moment Angela had decided to stop at a hotdog stand on the quad and grab a gyro and soft drink as the sun was beating down mercilessly. With nothing better to do she continued to watch as the protestors spat out their idiot slogans and tried to block people as they entered the recruiting office.

Angela was almost ready to head to her next class that started in fifteen minutes when she saw a tall dark haired college student with a neatly trimmed goatee and mustache start walking towards the recruiting office and the crowd of protestors standing in front of it. The young man was wearing sunglasses and dressed in a loose fitting Hawaiian style shirt, khaki cargo pants, and hiking boots with his hands in his pockets as he casually walked towards the knot of people.

The young man paused for a second and considered the circling protestors with his head tilted at a quizzical angle and started to go through them when a small gap appeared but was quickly stopped by a beefy athletic type that was probably a member of either the football or rugby team.

The young man looked up at the larger student who stood a good seven and a half to ten centimeters taller and probably outweighed him by a good forty-five kilos; but that fact didn’t seem to worry him any. The beefy type said something to the young man who just smiled as he pushed his sunglasses on top of his head and said something back. The beefy type seemed to take it the wrong way and started poking a stiffened finger into the younger man’s chest which didn’t seem to affect him a bit and as the Beefy type seemed to start a tirade that had no effect on the younger man each jab got stronger and more vicious. Looking down at the offending finger he looked back up and said something else to the man who if anything got more vicious with the jabs.

The young man just shook his head as the beefy guy continued his tirade, it took Angela’s brain a few seconds to catch up with what her eyes had seen as she watched was the young man let out a sigh and casually reached out to break the beefy guy’s finger bending it almost to the point where it was pointing back at it’s owner. If Angela had blinked she would have missed it.

It took beefy guy’s small brain a few seconds to receive the pain signals from his hand and then he started squalling like a little girl. The young man side-stepped around the beefy guy but only got a couple of paces before two of his friends stepped in his way. He said something to the two but they just shook their heads in the negative and he seemed to sigh in resignation again. Much quicker than the eye could really follow he drove two stiffened fingers into one guy’s gut doubling him over and slapped open handed at the others throat sending him choking and gagging to the ground, at this disturbance and with three large beefy types either puking, screaming in pain or choking for breath the other protestors finally took notice and scattered.

After the others had scattered the young man nonchalantly looked around hooked a foot behind the puking guys ankle and dumped him to the ground face first into a puddle of his own vomit and then whistling he entered the recruitment office.

It wasn’t until later that day that Angela would find out that the song he had been whistling was Would You Like To Swing On A Star.

Sol System - Mars - Cidonia City

Cidonia University Library

August 19th, 2469 AD - Later That Day

Later that night Angela was kicking herself mentally for not leaving the library with her friends in a group; but she’d had some more research to do and it had kept her at the library on the other side of the campus until it was time to close for the night.

While Cidonia university had a pretty sizable security staff it was still a huge campus with over 100,000 students at any one time and covered over ten square miles of libraries, class rooms, labs, dorms, and other facilities.

Grunting at herself in disgust she re-adjusted the shoulder strap of her pack and walked down the last few concrete steps in front of the library and forged boldly in the direction of her dorm trying to stay on lighted and more public paths but it was past midnight and she only saw a few other students and not a single security guard.

As she was walking past what seemed a solid hedge of bushes two pairs of arms grabbed her and dragged her into them. Fighting to free herself she swung out with the book bag and connected solidly with one of her assailants to be rewarded by a blow to the chin and as she drifted between consciousness and darkness a thin black bag was pulled over her head and her only thought was that she was going to be raped and murdered, she tried to fight back more but her movements were slow and she felt addled.

As the seconds seemed to drag on agonizingly she felt hands tear at her clothes and felt the buttons pop free on her blouse. It took her several seconds after that to realize the hands that had been groping her and trying to pull her jeans off where no longer on her.

Angela felt hands on her again and started to swing out and was rewarded by a grunt of surprise.

“Hold on you’re safe now,” a deep voice told her and when the thin bag was removed from her head she found her self looking into gray eyes showing concern and recognized the young man from earlier that day.

“Can you stand up?” He asked her.

Still in shock she only nodded dully and he helped her to her feet. “Do you want me to call the Authorities?” He asked.

Still stunned she just shook her head in the negative as he led her out of the bushes, in the light of an overhead lamp he must have seen how badly torn her blouse was and he quickly unbuttoned his Hawaiian shirt and helped her on with it, Angela’s movements were slow and mechanical still being in shock as she pulled it on.

Angela saw that he wore a plain gray t-shirt under the Hawaiian one as he held her around the shoulders and started walking down the pathway, after a few feet he paused. “I suppose I should ask you where you want to go,” he asked as if he should have thought of it earlier.

Angela rattled off the name and address of her dorm. He got her there quickly without incident never letting go of her shoulders as he supported her. He walked her up to her dorm room and using her keys unlocked the door and laid her on the small twin bed in the room. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” He asked a look of concern in his eyes.

Angela started to shake her head, but stopped as pain rattled through it and whispered sleepily. “What song where you whistling on the quad earlier today?” she asked barely able to keep her eyes open as mental exhaustion tried to drag her down to sleep.

As her eyes closed she heard him chuckle softly and whistle a few bars. “An old show tune, Would You Like To Swing On A Star,” he informed her as she drifted off.

Angela felt him leave her side and the last thing she heard before tumbling head long into sleep was the click of the door opening and closing.

Sol System - Mars - Cidonia City

Cidonia University Dormitory 28E

August 20th, 2469 AD

The next morning Angela woke wearing the clothes she had the night before and the young man’s Hawaiian Shirt. Rolling over she flipped the radio on.

“Early this morning authorities found the bodies of two students behind a hedge row near the main library, one student was dead of a broken neck and the other was rushed to the hospital and died never regaining consciousness from the coma he was in. Authorities also state that from DNA analysis that these two are also the murder/rapists that have been terrorizing the campus for the last month, having beaten, raped and killed over a dozen Co-ED students,” the radio announcer spoke rapid fire as he read the new bulletin in front of him.

Angela shivered turning the radio off. It seemed her rescuer played for keeps; although she should have known that from the fight he had been in earlier yesterday.

Pulling off the Hawaiian shirt she tossed the clothes she had been wearing the night before in the trash and took a long hot shower to cleanse away both the grime from rolling around in the dirt under the hedge and the terror of the experience. Stepping from the shower she wiped steam from the mirror and saw that a large purple bruise covered one side of her jaw.

She spent the next hour getting dressed and cleaned up with a large amount of that time spent covering up the bruise. With both her attackers being dead and her not reporting it would probably be wise not to let anyone know what happened.

Angela spent the rest of the day immersing herself in her Engineering and Computer Science classes not even thinking about the incident until she returned to the dorm and found the Hawaiian shirt where she had left it. With some curiosity she pulled the shirt off of the clothes hamper and brought it to her face to look at it more closely she could smell her own sweat and perfume but also caught the smell of the young man, a slightly musky male scent that wasn’t unpleasant to the nose.

Sighing she was about to lay the shirt back down when something slid out of the breast pocket and bounced across the floor then under the small refrigerator in the kitchenette. Ducking down she looked under the refrigerator and found that the item appeared to be a small, thin, card size piece of plastic. Standing back up Angela pulled the refrigerator away from the wall and grabbed it. Flipping the card over she saw that it had the picture of the young man staring at the camera with a small smile and had his sunglasses pushed up on top of his head. Studying the card further Angela saw that it was a Cidonia City Bus Pass issued to one Erskine Sikorsky Age 19, and would expire in another two months.

Angela tapped the bus pass against her fingers for a few seconds in thought. “Well I have a name to go with your face now my mysterious rescuer,” she said quietly to the empty room. After a few more seconds of contemplation Angela took the card over to her computer and brought up a student directory and found his name, looking at his class records she saw that he had a pretty full boat and had actually been going to college since he was fifteen, he was taking classes in geology, mineralogy, metallurgy, ancient and Xeno-Languages as well as several other courses and would complete all of them by the end of the year with a grade point average of about 3.9.

Sitting back she had to wonder to herself why someone so obviously smart would want to join the Marines on the eve of another war, not that there was anything wrong with that it just seemed odd to her. He could obviously handle himself in a fight as he had demonstrated twice.

Angela scanned his records again and found his address, she also saw that he didn’t have any more classes until 10:00 hours the next morning, making a quick decision she set plans in motion.

Angela quickly finished her class work and took the Hawaiian shirt to an on campus dry cleaner picking it up a couple of hours later. That night she set her alarm for 07:00 hours and went to bed.

The next morning Angela dressed and cleaned up quickly heading for the nearest bus stop to the address she had found for one Erskine Sikorsky and bought coffee at a shop right across the street. Talking to the clerk in the coffee shop she found out about Erskine and to quote the clerk he “liked his coffee thick enough to float a horse shoe” and they kept a special carafe just for him that they only washed out about once a week and even added extra grounds too.

Angela lounged around the outside coffee shop until about 08:45 and then ducked back in to get a another cup of coffee for herself and one for her rescuer then went and sat back down at the table both cups of coffee in a carrier, the shirt was in a garment bag hanging from the back of one of the chairs.

At 08:57 Erskine walked up to the bus stop and waited for the bus to arrive, it did so at exactly 09:00. As he got on the bus Angela rushed across the street and in behind him on the steps; she stood behind him and watched as he patted his pockets obviously looking for the missing bus pass.

“Looks like I’ve lost my bus pass Ed,” Erskine told the driver.

“You known I can’t let you on the bus without one,” The driver told him with an apologetic look.

“Here let me take care of it for you,” Angela said slipping her arm under Erskine’s arm pit and sliding his card and then her own through the reader.

Erskine turned his head and looked at Angela. “How…” He paused as he saw who it was. “Well looks like I’m not the only one who comes to people’s rescues,” he said with an easy grin.

“I think we better sit down,” Angela said nodding her head towards the other people on the bus.

Erskine looked around and saw that several people were glaring at the two of them and he quickly led her to a seat at the very back. He motioned for her to sit down first and followed suit. “Where did you get my bus pass at?” He asked curiously.

“It was in this,” She told him handing the garment bag to him.

He unzipped the bag and saw his Hawaiian shirt freshly dry cleaned and on a hangar. “Thanks, you didn’t have to have it cleaned though,” he told her.

“I thought that it was the least I owed you considering the other night,” she told him.

“Yeah, luckily I usually take a walk around campus before going to bed; helps clear my head,” he explained.

Angela handed him the pass back and watched as he pulled his wallet out and slid it into one of the card holders and then handed the cup of coffee to him.

“Well I really do appreciate it, and the fact that you didn’t insist I go to see the authorities or the hospital,” Angela winced as he gently touched the edge of her jaw.

“I thought they had tagged you but I wasn’t totally sure,” he said apologetically at her wince.

“So you want to go to dinner?” Angela blurted out and then blushed. She didn’t know what was going on with her normally she wasn’t this bold.

“I don’t know, isn’t the guy supposed to ask the girl out to dinner. I’m not sure if I want to get involved with such a forthright woman; my mother always told me it would get me into trouble,” Erskine feigned indecision but his face was quickly split by a small smile. “I tell you what, you let me pay for it, and I’ll go to dinner with you,” Erskine bargained with her.

“Deal,” She told him sticking out her hand and he took it shaking it and then kissed the back of it gently, which caused another wince.

Erskine took a closer look at her knuckles. “You must have hit one of your assailants your knuckles are still swollen from the blow. You should really soak them in some hot water,” He told her.

She nodded her thanks and said she would. The two of them sat in companionable silence interspersed with small talk as they rode to the college campus.

Later that evening they had dinner together and went out several times over the next few weeks, Erskine graduated and then had to leave for Marine Boot Camp shortly thereafter and Angela didn’t see him for ten long years. The two of them stayed in touch via snail mail and Vid-Mail. Since then they had dated off and on for the last twenty-five years with Erskine involving her in any digs that he thought he would need her help on, that and she was good at organizing things and making schedules.

Sol System - Mars - Fordtland

Home Of Dr. Aireal Di’Eriqua

January 26th 2495 - 16:00 GMT

Angela’s thoughts were interrupted by the closing of the front door and she looked down to see Jack had fallen asleep again while her thoughts had been rambling; he had his bottle tucked alongside him inside the laundry basket.

“How are mommy and baby doing?” Aireal asked as she walked into the living room from the foyer.

“Baby’s fast asleep; mommy’s bored out of her gourd,” Angela told her sister sitting up on the couch.

“That bad huh, well maybe we can fix that,” Aireal replied as she set her doctors bag down next to the laundry basket.

“I was just thinking about the first time I met Erskine,” She told her sister with a bit of a smile. “And then I wondered why it takes men forever to do anything,” she continued with a sigh.

Her sister snorted as she looked into the laundry basket. “Well hello there Jack I hope we didn’t wake you with our girl talk,” Aireal said to the baby smiling at him as she picked him up and scooted her doctor’s bag across the floor with one foot and sat on the couch next to Angela.

“I need to examine him; I didn’t get a chance this morning before going to the office,” Aireal said handing Angela her son.

“I hadn’t even thought about that,” Angela admitted.

Aireal ran the standard battery of tests, reflexes, eye movement all the standard stuff and took a small DNA sample. “I’ll take this to the office tomorrow and run some tests, but he seems to be perfectly healthy baby,” she told her sister.

“You hear that Jack, you’re a perfectly healthy bouncing baby boy,” Angela told him holding the baby up in front of her and making goofy faces at him until he giggled.

“He doesn’t seem to cry very much,” Aireal commented.

“Doesn’t go to the bathroom very much either,” Angela told her sister. “I’ve only had to change his diaper once since we got up,” she explained.

“Hmm, that is a bit strange, although it’s hard to say what kind of digestive tract this kid has,” Aireal said and leaned over wiggling Jack’s toes. “Isn’t that right little man,” Aireal said smiling at him.

“I wish there was some way to run scans on him without any body knowing,” Angela mused as she bounced Jack up and down getting smiles and giggles from him.

“Well after tomorrow we can take him out in public, and we can go to my office after hours and run some more tests and scans,” Aireal told Angela as she placed her stuff back in the bag. “That and we need to get more baby stuff. We can’t have him sleeping in that laundry basket forever,” she said grimacing down at the basket.

“You’re right, another thing I didn’t even think of,” Angela sighed and played with Jack until his eyes started drooping again. “Makes me wonder if I’ll be a decent mother,” Angela admitted a hint of fear creeping into her voice.

“Hey now,” Aireal slapped her sister on the shoulder fairly hard, “don’t even say something like that, you’ve already risked your life to get this kid here and the two of you put this elaborate ruse together to keep him from being turned into someone’s science experiment,” she admonished pausing for a second Aireal gathered her thoughts. “To me that’s what parents have been doing for centuries, caring for and protecting their children and making sure they grow up right. You’ll do just fine as a parent even if he isn’t your natural born child,” Aireal admonished.

“I’m still not so sure,” Angela was gnawing on her lip in worry as she set the baby back in the basket.

“Oh something I forgot and you probably aren’t going to like knowing you,” Aireal told her sister rummaging around in her medical bag.

“I never did like that look,” Angela said eyeing her sister uncertainly. “You only ever give it to me when you want to stick me with something,” she said in distrust.

“Unfortunately yes, I need to draw some blood from you,” Aireal said absently as she pulled an IV and empty blood bag out. “I can synthesize the hormones you’ll have in your blood at work during child birth but it would take less time and effort if I’m able to draw some real blood,” Aireal said as she finished pulling the equipment out.

“Eeulh,” the noise that Angela made was filled with all of her disgust and fear of all things pointy that wanted to pierce her flesh. After a second she sighed and rolled her sleeve up. “Just don’t tell me it won’t hurt at all,” She told her sister with another sigh.

Her sister just grinned maliciously and swabbed her arm down with anti-septic and pinched around for a few seconds until she found a vein and then expertly slipped the needle in. She resisted a chuckle as her sister winced at the prick not even looking as she finished.

After a few minutes Aireal pulled the IV loose coiling it up as she walked into the kitchen and placed the sealed bag of blood into the refrigerator.

“You’ve always been such a wuss Angela,” Aireal said and sat back down on the floor next to her sister.

“Hey just because I don’t like needles doesn’t mean I’m a wuss,” Angela grumbled under her breath crossing her arms under breasts with a haughty look.

Aireal started giggling that soon turned into full throated laughter and Angela soon broke down and the two of them rolled in gales of laughter for several minutes. Finally drained and short of breath the two leaned against each other and looked down at the baby in the laundry basket.

“He sure is a cute little tike,” Aireal said and put her finger down in the basket near his fingers and they curled around hers.

“Seems to have quite a grip as well,” Aireal said in surprise.

“Hah, maybe he’s mad at you for sticking his mommy with needles,” Angela grinned wickedly at her sister.

Aireal pulled her finger free and pulled one of the blankets up over the baby.

“Let’s go out to the kitchen and make some plans for the next couple of days,” Aireal said dragging her sister into the kitchen.

Sol System - Mars - Olympus Mons Mountain Range

Kawamura Sponsored Archeological Dig Site - Area 3313C

January 16th 2495 - 16:00 GMT

The second day of the dig was easier as everyone started to fall into familiar patterns, it was only marred when one of the teaching assistants slipped on a rock and broke his ankle.

Erskine stood in the shade of a large canopy that had been set up with various coolers and drink holders for the professors, students, and workers. It was nearly sixteen hundred hours and this was the first full blown break he’d taken since they’d started working on the dig site ten hours ago at six hundred hours since then the sun attenuated by the Martian atmosphere had increased the amount of heat. The planet was still being terra-formed even after almost three hundred and fifty years as the machines were still holding the atmospheric heat in more than what should be needed.

He and Meltnor were having a quiet discussion about what should be done to shore up the sides of the dig as they went deeper and were occasionally consulting with an engineering firm via computer. Meltnor was turning away from the computer when one of the foremen approached the two and handed a ground penetration data sheet to Erskine.

The GPR or ground penetrating radar had been used to map out the item buried in the soil as they got closer and both of them were still astounded at the immense size of the item that had lodged itself in the Martian soil over 12,000 years ago if what the soil readings were telling them were to be believed.

“Hmm,” Erskine said rubbing his finger along the lower portion of the blurry image.

“I know that sound,” Meltnor said as he raised an eyebrow quizzically at his long time friend and colleague. “What have you found?” He asked.

Angling the picture into the sun a bit more he circled an area off to the side of the object with his index finger. “There appears to be something else right here, a lot smaller than the main object but still pretty large maybe 75 meters in length and about half that wide,” he explained.

Meltnor pulled a tear dropped shaped plastic case out of his pocket and pushed on the side of it causing a magnifier to pop free. Peering through the device he squinted and then stood up. “You’re right there is some object there interesting it seems to be almost human form in shape,” Meltnor mused.

This time Erskine squinted at the picture and turned it at a different angle. “Huh,” he mused. “I suppose…” He said trailing off in thought.

“Or both of us have just been reading too much sci-fi lately,” Meltnor chuckled.

“Could be,” Erskine replied deep in thought.

Meltnor clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m going to get a bottle of water, you want anything?” Erskine mumbled something and it took him a few seconds to realize he had said grape juice.

Walking over to the cooler Meltnor pulled a bottle of water and a grape juice from the cooler. Pressing the ice cold water to his forehead he handed the juice to Erskine, he finally cracked the bottles seal after a couple of seconds and drank down the entire thing.

After a few minutes Erskine put the GPR image down and drank greedily from his juice until it was gone and then pitched it into a recycling bin.

“So how’s Angela doing?” Meltnor asked.

Erskine’s face lit up at the mention of his wife, and a small smile creased his lips, but a hint of worry showed in his eyes. “She’s doing great, I guess her sister is going to induce labor tonight and deliver at her house,” Erskine told him.

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?” Meltnor asked worriedly.

Erskine clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Aireal says its common practice in the less populated areas, plus the paper work is a lot less than if she checked into a hospital,” he explained.

“That and the cost I’m guessing,” Meltnor said a tad dryly.

Erskine slapped a hand over his heart and took a tottering step back. “You wound me my friend, I’m not that much of a cheapskate,” he said with a mock hurt tone.

Meltnor rolled his eyes heavenward at his friend’s antics. “You’ve been driving the same car for over two decades,” he explained.

“Hey now don’t pick on my car like that, she’s a classic and you’ll hurt her feelings,” Erskine said mock indignantly.

“She might be a classic if all her electronics worked and she was a single color,” Meltnor jabbed back.

The two of them continued their friendly mocking of each other as they headed back to the part of the dig they had been working on but Meltnor was worried, he’d felt the slight tremble in his friends hand when he had clapped him on the shoulder.

Sol System - Mars - Olympus Mons Mountain Range

Kawamura Sponsored Archeological Dig Site - Area 3313C

January 27th 2495 - 20:00 GMT

By the end of the day they were a meter above where the top edge of the large object was and decided to call it quits until 06:00 the next morning.

Erskine quickly got everyone packed up and ready to head back to the main site and then helped clean up the equipment including the huge construction vehicles that weren’t left at the site itself.

It was almost 22:00 by the time he was able to grab a tray and stagger back to his cabin, he was about to raise a fork full of food to his mouth when his cell phone rang. A tad on the annoyed side he set the fork down and stabbed the speakerphone function on it.

“Yeah,” He growled not even looking at his caller I.D.

“Hey honey, it’s me,” rang out in clear tones over the speaker.

“Oh, hey babe; what’s up?” Erskine perked up at Angela’s voice and forgot about his dinner.

“Well I had the baby a couple of hours ago. We’ve got a healthy bouncing baby boy,” she told him continuing the lie.

“That’s great, so I guess it’ll be Jackson Dane Sikorsky then?” Erskine said a wide smile splitting his face.

“Here say hi to your new son,” Erskine heard rustling and then a muffled okay.

“Hey there Jack it’s dad,” Erskine said and received a small giggle in return. Angela came back on the phone.

“Any problems?” He asked.

“No everything went fine, I’m just a little tired,” Angela paused for a second. “Aireal is motioning for me to wrap it up, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow afternoon,” she told him.

“Alright, you and Jack take care; I’ll see you in about a week and a half,” he told her setting the phone back down.

The phone clicked off and Erskine dug into his dinner quickly finishing it he went to bed with a smile on his face.

Sol System - Mars - Fordtland

Home Of Dr. Aireal Di’Eriqua

January 28th 2495 - 06:00 GMT

Angela was up early and watched as the intense lemon yellow sun climbed higher into the sky dragging the temperature up with it as well. Bending down Angela checked on Jack in his laundry basket crib and then went looking for her sister and found her in the spare room that had been converted to an office.

Aireal lay sprawled over some papers and the keyboard of her computer snoring lightly; one hand was still curled around the pen she had been using as she filled out Jack’s birth records, a thin line of drool ran down one corner of her mouth.

I’ll just let her sleep for awhile longer, Angela thought to herself and tiptoed into the kitchen to fix some breakfast. Angela wasn’t much of one for diets and kept herself in good condition with plenty of exercise and outdoor work, most of which was done at dig sites and when she volunteered at Mars’ few national parks. Angela’s appetite was also legendary among her family members and colleagues, so humming a song quietly to herself she fixed half a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon, and a dozen fluffy golden pancakes topped with blueberry syrup. While fixing the food she also surveyed her sister’s stock of food and found that after only a couple of days they were already dwindling. “Have to get some groceries as well as baby stuff.” She told herself quietly.

Angela was done with the breakfast, had already washed the dishes and was well into her fourth cup of coffee when her sister came staggering into the kitchen with her hair matted, a keyboard imprint on one forearm and ink stains on her writing hand. Moving towards the coffee pot Aireal made a moi of distaste as if she had swallowed something sour in her sleep.

Aireal made it to the black and chrome and coffee pot and winced as she peered out the window into the backyard and bright shafts of sunlight lanced into her eyes. “Ugh, gotta stop staying up late,” she said pouring coffee into a mug that had a local medical supply company logo on it.

“I don’t think it’s the staying up late part that hurt so much,” Angela told her sister handing her a wetted napkin. “But the trying to type with your face and write with your nose part,” Angela gave her sister a crooked grin as she wiped a smudge of ink off of her cheek.

“I’ll have you know I do some of my best typing with my face,” Aireal said giving the best regal sniff she could and would have pulled it off if her hair hadn’t been sticking up at various angles.

Angela’s grin grew a little wicked. “Not surprising with a huge honker like that,” she kidded.

Aireal gave another sniff. “I’ll have you know the proper term is patrician,”

Angela managed to dribble coffee down the front of her shirt as she broke down in laughter and was soon joined by her sister.

It took almost five minutes for the two of them to calm down and when they did both were breathing heavily, with the occasional snort or giggle escaping.

“Hah, hmm,” Angela tried to speak clearly and resorted to sipping her coffee for a second. “We need to go get that baby stuff so Jack isn’t sleeping in a laundry basket anymore,” Angela told her sister seriously.

“Alright give me about half an hour and we’ll start hitting up the baby stores,” Aireal practically chugged her coffee, rinsed the mug and set it in the drying rack under the window.

Good to her word Aireal was ready to go in half an hour, although all she did was take a quick shower put on a little make-up and pull her hair up into a pony tail and was ready to go.

Angela transferred the car seat to her sister’s SUV and the three of them piled into the vehicle with a long list of everything they needed.

“Gah, good thing Erskine gave me his credit card,” Angela said running a finger down a list of almost fifty items.

“Yeah baby stuff can be pretty expensive,” Aireal said backing the big SUV out of the garage and onto the road dropping it into drive. “You should listen to some of the women gripe about the expense of the stuff, sometimes I feel like telling them if they didn’t want to spend all that money they shouldn’t have had kids in the first place,” Aireal told her sister.

The suburbs that Aireal lived in were on the outer edge of the city of Fordtland and it took them a half hour to make it to the mall that sat down town.

“Kinda ugly,” Angela commented as she unbuckled her belt and twisted in the seat to grab her purse.

“Yeah, it’s a pretty bad eyesore; some art deco snob artist from Earth designed it,” Aireal told her unbuckling her own belt and pocketing the keys. “He got paid way too much and people have been complaining about the place ever since,” she explained getting out of the car.

“I guess there isn’t much they can really do with it though,” Angela said holding the carrier in one hand as she shaded her eyes and looked at the multi-angled monstrosity that was the Fordtland Municipal Mall.

Looking down at the carrier in her hand she saw that Jack was looking around avidly, though she couldn’t blame him this was really the first time he had been out of the house other than when she drove from the dig site to her sister’s house.

Stepping into the mall the three of them were greeted by a cool blast of air conditioned atmosphere and Angela felt a slight shiver go down her spine as the cooler air dried the sweat on her skin.

The three of them stood looking around the mall for a second. “You know I think this might actually be the first time I’ve ever been in this place,” Aireal told her sister as she grabbed one of the stroller carts and helped Angela lock the carrier in place. “I usually just go buy my clothes at a department or discount store,” she explained.

Angela nodded. “I can’t say much either I really haven’t bought anything other than, shorts, cargo pants, jeans, and t-shirts for the last decade I think,” Angela pushed the stroller towards the directory for the mall and saw for the first time how nightmarish the layout truly was. The map showed a shape that was reminiscent of an amoeba trying to eat a crab, it didn’t help either that the mall was five stories tall.

Angela used the electronic touch screen to scroll down the list of shops and found at least six different baby stores, and of course they were scattered hither, dither and yon across the malls sprawling complex.

Aireal saw the look of dismay on her sister’s face as the six stores lit up on the map. “At least we’ll get plenty of exercise,” she told her sister with a sigh.

The first store they stopped at was called Baby Bonanza and had a western theme to it, they were able to get a changing table and a crib at a reasonable price and Jack left the store with a baby sized cowboy hat that he played with more than he wore.

The next couple of stores yielded more baby furniture, including a playpen, swing, and bouncer, by the time they got to the last store all they had left on their list was a stroller and more baby clothes.

“What do you think about this?” Aireal said holding up a baby shirt that had “Mom Rules!” across the front in bold red letters.

“Suuure,” Angela drug the word out and watched as she tossed the shirt on an already overflowing cart of baby clothes and toys.

While Aireal continued to go through the baby clothes with the occasional that’s cute, or awww, Angela focused on a row of strollers that was off to one side. She was just about to bend down and check the safety mechanism on one of the strollers when Jack made a gurgling sound and tossed his hat past her.

“Maybe we should get you into baseba….” Angela trailed off as she picked up the hat. Standing back up she saw a man wearing a rather severe black suit and sunglasses walk past the store and then pause, she watched surreptitiously as the man looked into the store seemed to spot something and then walk across to the center of the mall and sit on one of the benches across from the store trying to look nonchalant as he stared at the store.

Great, just freaking great, Angela thought to herself. Do they know about Jack or are they just keeping tabs on me since I’m Erskine’s wife and they want to keep some secrets to themselves, she thought worrying at her lip.

While these thoughts were running through her head Angela waved down one of the clerks and pointed to the stroller she’d been inspecting. “I’d like one of these please,” she told him.

The clerk nodded. “Certainly ma’am,” bending over the stroller he found the model number and came back a few minutes later with it on a two wheel cart.

“Time to go sis,” Angela told Aireal having to physically drag her sister away from the baby clothing.

“Aaahhh, but they’re so cute,” Aireal moaned.

“You’ll have plenty of time to spoil your nephew while he’s growing up,” Angela told her and hustled her towards the counter. Quickly paying for her purchase she told the clerk to take the stroller to the customer loading area where the rest of their items were waiting and then quickly pushed the mall stroller back to the customer service area.

Back in the SUV Aireal pulled it around to the side of the mall where their purchases were quickly loaded then they were on their way. Angela kept an inconspicuous look out for any cars that were following them as they first stopped at a fast food restaurant and then headed back to Aireal’s place. During the entire drive she only saw one car that was suspicious, a late model Lincoln Sedan followed them for a good twenty minutes before disappearing into traffic and Angela wasn’t sure if it was still following them when they got home.

Angela set Jack in his carrier on the kitchen table and gave him a bottle of formula then went to help Aireal unload the baby stuff.

Angela grunted as she and Aireal removed the changing table from the SUV’s cargo area and set it down. “Where are we going to put this stuff anyway?” She asked.

Aireal dusted her hands off and leaned against the heavy box. “I cleaned one of the spare rooms out and put the stuff in the basement storage area,” Aireal told her.

Sol System - Mars - Olympus Mons Mountain Range

Kawamura Sponsored Archeological Dig Site - Area 3313C

January 28th 2495 - 11:00 GMT

Erskine stood in the shade of the engine’s huge bell shaped nozzle and felt like a kid in a candy shop as he ran his hand over a portion of the metal that had crumpled from either extreme heat or a huge impact. More likely the impact, he thought to himself considering they had found the ship buried into the ground nose first.

They had managed to excavate another fifty meters of soil and were now just starting to reach the actual hull of the vessel. Not really sure what to do next Erskine climbed up the rope ladder to the lip of the pit and stood staring at the excavated part of the vessel. Crouching down he took a long look at a huge slightly curved chunk of metal that ran along one side of the engine nozzle and figured it for an engine blade that would move to help direct the exhaust from the nozzle. He stood for several seconds letting his eyes go out of focus as he stared at the wreckage and thought he caught sight of something that wasn’t the right color.

“Wayne, do you have your binoculars with you?” Erskine shouted over his shoulder and the stork like figure of the Texan came trotting up with a battered leather case.

“Here ya go. Not going to do some bird watching while the rest of us are working hard are you?” Meltnor joked and handed the binocular case to him.

“Yup, sure am, except this bird is rather large and has been dead for several millennia at least,” Erskine jibed back as he focused the binoculars on the spot he had seen.

“Did you find something interesting then?” Meltnor asked.

“Look at the engine blade near the middle and tell me what you see.” Erskine pointed and handed the binoculars to his friend.

Meltnor pulled his glasses off and brought the binoculars to his face, letting out a long hmmm, as he looked at the indicated spot. “I See it I think you’re right Erskine, there is something there,” Meltnor took a few more seconds to focus the lenses.

“Let’s see there are faint gold, green, and blue bands running around the tip of the engine blade and there is some kind of round object just below that,” Meltnor paused again and walked forward a bit to get a closer look but was jerked back by Erskine as he almost walked off the lip of the pit.

“Thanks,” He said distractedly. “There is something else,” Meltnor handed the binoculars back to Erskine.

“Yeah, okay; looks almost like Earth,” Erskine paused in thought for a second. “No not Earth, the continents aren’t right even if this has been here for several thousand years,” excitement filled Erskine’s voice. “I think we may have discovered some other planet that this ship came from, possibly extra-solar in origin,” Erskine lowered the glasses for a second and then brought them back up. “There’s something around the planet image, looks like eight six pointed stars spread equidistant around it,” he told Meltnor.

“You realize what this means Wayne?” He said turning even more excitedly towards his friend.

Meltnor gave him a puzzled look.

“We have proof of extra-terrestrial life that may have traveled here from another solar system and had been part of a government or organization,” he explained.

Understanding dawned on Meltnor’s face and he got as excited as Erskine, although it was hard to tell with his slow Texas drawl.

“Imagine the technological advances we can discover from this ship and maybe we can even contact them and establish friendly communications with them,” Meltnor said getting into it.

“Well let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” Erskine said sobering for a second.

Wayne wasn’t paying much attention as he muttered various possibilities to himself and started wandering off towards the rope ladder.

Erskine just rolled his eyes at his friend and pulled the short range radio off of his belt and his hand brushed against the Colt under his work shirt. Something still isn’t right, he reminded himself as he felt the reassuring weight of the weapon.

Bringing the radio to his lips he called one of the foremen. “Albert, go ahead and tell everyone to wrap it up and get everything put away. Also tell everybody that drinks are on me tonight,” Erskine heard a faint cheer in the background that brought a small smile to his lips.

It only took half as long as it usually did to get everything cleaned up and put away and everyone packed into the mess hall where Erskine had the cooks break out several kegs of beer that he had set aside for just such an occasion.

Erskine was toasted at least a dozen times by midnight and the place was getting rather raucous and the cigar and cigarette smoke was thick enough to choke a moose. Erskine was able to finally able to excuse himself a little after midnight and headed for his cabin to give Angela a call.

Sol System - Mars - Fordtland

Home Of Dr. Aireal Di’Eriqua

January 29th 2495 - 00:05 GMT

When her cell phone rang Angela was trying to read the instructions for putting Jack’s playpen together in Mandarin Chinese and was wondering how many Chinese people bought playpens manufactured on Mars.

Angela was about to pull her cigarette lighter out and set the instructions on fire when the first few notes of the Wallflowers’ Three Marlenas echoed from her phone across the room.

Taking any diversion she could get she jumped up and busted her toe against one of the playpens metal rods. Cursing she hopped across the living room and grabbed up the phone just as the long dead lead singer finished the first line of the song.

“Angela Sikorsky,” she muttered into the phone as she rubbed her toe.

“Hey babe, is something wrong?” Erskine asked.

“Oh hey, no nothing at all, just stubbed my toe against part of Jack’s new play pen is all,” Angela told him wondering if she could have broken her toe as it throbbed.

“How’s our boy doing anyway?” He asked.

“He’s doing just fine, he’s asleep at the moment, but he’s been pretty active today” Angela told her husband.

“How are things going at your sister’s house?” Erskine asked the slight hint of a smile in his voice.

Angela snorted. “I had to physically drag her away from some baby clothes at the mall before she maxed out your credit card,” she then told him how much she been spent.

She heard him wince over the phone. “I guess we would have ended up spending that much anyway not all at one time if we had known you were pregnant sooner,” he finally said.

“Yeah, it does kinda make you cringe when it’s all at one time,” Angela went on to tell him about her day and about the suspicious man and vehicle at the mall.

Erskine then told her about his day and his and Wayne’s discovery. “This is probably going to be the biggest……” Erskine didn’t finish his sentence.

Angela was just about to prompt him to continue when she heard a crackling noise in the background. “When did you guys get fireworks?” She asked puzzled.

“That’s not fireworks,” Erskine told her with a sick note in his voice that she hadn’t ever heard before.

“I’m going to have to call you back in a few minutes.” Erskine told her and she was about to reply when she heard a splintering crash over the phone and heard Erskine’s phone hit the ground followed by grunting and cursing and then a crunch as the phone went dead.

Angela looked at the phone in her hand and her stomach dropped through the floor.

Sol System - Mars - Olympus Mons Mountain Range

Kawamura Sponsored Archeological Dig Site - Area 3313C

January 29th 2495 - 00:10 GMT

“That’s not fireworks,” Erskine told his wife over the phone as he felt his stomach flop over coldly.

“I’m going to have to call you back in a few minutes,” he told her and was about to flip the phone shut when his cabin door crashed open and a hooded and masked figure came barging in with an AK-427 in his arms.

Instinctively Erskine threw the phone at the man’s face distracting him long enough for Erskine to pull his Marine Kabar out and get in close. The man recovered and saw him coming but wasn’t able to bring the rifle around due to the close quarters and dropped it to the ground.

Erskine held the back edge of the knife against his forearm in a reverse grip as he brought it around to slice into his attacker’s chest, unfortunately the man had anticipated the move and was able to block it with his forearm and then throw a wild swing at his shoulder. The blow pushed Erskine back a step but he came right back and landed stiffened fingers into the other man’s solar plexus.

Air whooshed from his mouth and he staggered back clawing for a knife of his own but Erskine brought the Kabar around and sliced the back of his hand open causing it to pop open and drop the knife just as he pulled it from his sheath.

The fight lasted longer than what Erskine was hoping for and he felt the crunch of his cell phone under his boot and cursed mentally.

The man was able to block several more attacks but Erskine was finally able to hook one of his ankles and flip him to the ground. Pouncing on him he jerked his head back by the hood and a fist full of hair and brought the knife across his throat in a vicious slash.

Erskine felt hot blood spray across his knife hand and arterial blood sprayed along the wall and onto the front porch and into the face of another assailant as he came through the door. Wasting no time as the man was disoriented Erskine threw the knife with all his strength and buried it to the hilt in the man’s chest. He went down but not before a death spasm tightened his finger on the trigger of his assault rifle forcing Erskine to throw himself over the side of the couch to avoid the tracer rounds.

After the magazine had emptied in the dead man’s gun Erskine grabbed his 8-gauge from beside the couch double checking to make sure it was still loaded and flicking the safety off in time to shoot another man in the chest as he came through the door. The heavy X-Pattern of shot threw the man clear off the porch; racking the slide Erskine put a rifled slug into another man he had glimpsed hiding behind the wall next to the door; the heavy slug blew out most of the man’s chest in a welter of bone shards and gore.

Sliding two more shells into the shotgun he headed for the door and shot a fifth assailant who had just finished killing one of the workmen.

Gunfire and screams punctuated the warm Martian night as Erskine tried to save anyone he could but ended up being too late every time only able to avenge the death’s of his friend and co-workers; unfortunately it was of little solace to Erskine as he expended the shotgun several times over until he was just down to his Colt.

The fire fight and deaths seemed like they had been going on forever but in actuality wasn’t more than fifteen or so minutes.

Erskine was starting to think he had gotten them all when he saw a small group of them carrying a steamer trunk sized shape towards the dig site. Snarling he brought the Colt up and pulled the trigger repeatedly the first shot took one of the hurrying men in the spine blowing it out his front and knocking him into one of the others riding the recoil upwards Erskine’s second shot took one of the gunmen in the head and it burst like a grisly balloon as it splattered the remainder of his fellows.

Methodically Erskine serviced targets until the slide locked back on an empty chamber, dumping the magazine he stood up from his crouched shooting position and rammed home a fresh magazine flipping the slide release chambering a fresh round as he did.

Hearing moaning Erskine walked towards the group of men that had been carrying the trunk. Stepping closer he pulled out a pen light and shone it on the scene, he had managed to kill all but two of the men and mortally wounding those two but he realized he was too late as he saw one of the men’s hands dart for the trunk and press a button.

The first two shots hit the man dead in the chest and the third hit him in the throat decapitating him.

Erskine’s instincts screamed at him to run but a calmer portion of his mind told him it was already too late and his last thought was.

I love you Angela.

The blast shook the ground and destroyed the main encampment and was even felt as far away as Olympus City but few people paid it attention as they went about their night.