Chapter 1
The Milky Way was clearly visible on the Martian night sky, a sight that was now lost on Earth due to its light pollution. Everyone called Terraformed Mars the green paradise. Having grown up on Earth, he hadn’t understood what that had meant, until he set foot on this planet. Rainforests, vast oceans, red rocky deserts, majestic clouds, and peaceful rivers. All lost treasures that were once plentiful on Earth. It was the place where everyone wanted to be, and only the most privileged had the chance.
“I can never tell if you loved the moon, or hated it,” commented Alexis, sitting on the patch of grass next to the twenty-seven year-old soldier.
Tank kept his gaze on the shimmering ring-shaped moon. “The moon’s actually Noah’s Ark, the colony ship,” he said instead and pointed up at it, while subtly leaning sideways into her head. “That’s why on some days, when the ship is aligned correctly, we can see right through the center.”
The young woman with long golden curls smiled. “I grew up here, Tanner. I know what the moon is.” She leaned back to pick up a glass of white wine from her other side.
The red-head soldier returned the smile, but his eyes were still locked on the moon. “But, did you know that the ship is so large that a hundred thousand people can live in it? There’s a whole city in that thing.”
“I also know that the Norms were banished to that ship ten years ago,” she retorted smartly.
A flash of old memory entered Tank’s mind uninvited. It was an image of a shuttle leaving Earth, the very one his little brother had been on. He quickly pushed that memory away and stretched his arms. “So, are your roommates home, tonight?” he turned and asked with a sexy grin. “I would move out of the barracks, if it wasn’t so expensive.”
“There it is again.”
“What?” he asked innocently, trying not to laugh while reaching out for her delicate hand.
But, she swatted his hand away, surprising him. “Why is it you never tell me anything about yourself?” Alexis was frowning. It wasn’t a cheeky frown, he realised. She was upset.
“What do you mean? You know plenty about me.” He lowered his voice into a register he knew she’d respond to, for good measure. “You’ve seen
all of me, many,
many times.”
She didn’t rise to the bait. “We can’t talk about your family. We can’t talk about your past. And now, apparently, we can’t talk about the Norms.”
His smile vanished. “Babe---”
“If you really want us to move in together, you’ll have to open yourself up to me.”
Tank blinked. Move in together? “Wait, I didn’t---”
“Save it. That’s what you were getting at with your whole
it’s too expensive to move out alone.”
Fuck, how does she do that? He felt his cheeks heating up a little. She was the only one who could make him feel this way. After a short pause, he turned towards her and smiled uncertainly. “So, we’re moving in together?”
“God, yes. My roommates are too nosy about our sex lives, and it’s just weird to do it in the room next to the barracks with all your friends listening.”
Yes! Tank smiled genuinely at her nonchalant reply. She had just agreed to move in together! He cleared his throat subtly, trying to mask his elation. “And don’t get me started on the bed sheets,” the soldier chipped in seriously. “I mean, we wash them every day, but you really don’t want to know how many couples are using them!” A thought suddenly gnawed at him. Why did it seem like moving in together was a bigger deal to him than to her?
The beautiful woman turned towards Tank at that, an eyebrow raised. “The bed sheets?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a big, strong, soldier, fearless in battle, crawled through mud and crap, covered in scars...and the
bed sheets are what gets you?”
“They were terrible sheets.”
Alexis laughed at that. “Aww, poor baby. Don’t worry, I already know which bed sheets to get for our new place.”
Tank’s wristpad beeped loudly at that moment. However, he ignored it, leaned back and looked into her large brown eyes. “Hang on, you’ve already picked out our sheets?”
“Shouldn’t you get that?” she quickly gestured at his wristpad instead.
The soldier allowed a grin to form on his face. “You’ve been thinking about moving in together, too, haven’t you?”
She pretended that she didn’t hear him. Unfortunately, her cheeks betrayed her. “Check your wristpad already!”
Leaning forward, Tank kissed her and examined his wristpad at the same time. The text ‘WHERE R U’ was displayed across the curved plastic screen on his wrist. He pulled away quickly and stood up, wiping her lipstick from his mouth. “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck...I’m late!”
She stood up, perplexed. “For what? I thought you got a day pass?”
“I’m supposed to give Aaron a ride to the mines---it’s his first day!” he explained quickly before sprinting towards the rover at the edge of the clearing.
She blinked. “You’re running off in the middle of our date...to give a sixteen year-old boy a lift?” she asked, sounding astounded at her date’s peculiar choice of priorities.
“I’ll be back in a jiffy, babe!” he shouted from the edge and pulled himself up into the rover, unable to keep the grin from his face.
“Should I be worried at how happy you are to leave me...
for a boy?” she yelled back good naturedly at the soldier.
Tank turned on the electric engines and stepped on the pedal, causing the rover to kick some gravel behind it as it skidded away from the clearing. As he was driving away, however, he stuck his head out to retort his reply at the young woman in the clearing. “
Nothing to worry about, babe, he’s just my little brother!”
The handcuffed young man in a prison jumpsuit stared down at the unopened chocolate bar in his hands. Images of his best friend’s neck twisting grosteaguely...the sounds of it snapping pierced through the air...the lifeless unblinking eyes staring at nothing and at him at the same time. The images wouldn’t leave his head. He had gotten his best friend killed...for nothing. Tiny had trusted him, and paid for it with his life. Yet, his little brother was still gone.
“...robbed the life of four of our soldiers in the compound. There is no doubt the defendant is mentally unstable and is prone to extreme violence. Thus, I cannot, in good conscience, recommend the defendant to be released into the colony ship with the other Norms. Instead, the prosecution will pursue the---let me remind the jury that the prosecution does not take these charges lightly---the prosecution will pursue the
death penalty, in the case of the state versus Mister Tanner Afaro, a Norm terrorist.”
“Objection, your honor!”
“On what grounds?”
“The statement is inflammatory, your honor. The prosecution has yet to prove that my client is a terrorist. More importantly, the genetic makeup of the defendant is irrelevant to the case and should never have been mentioned to a jury comprising of only Fects!”
“Sustained. The jury will disregard the last sentence of the prosecution’s statement. Would the prosecution like to revise their closing statement?”
“No, your honor. The prosecution rests.”
A large double door suddenly burst opened and rapid footsteps echoed around the hall. When it stopped, Tank could hear intense whisperings between his defense attorney and the newcomer. But, he ignored it and kept twiddling the chocolate bar in his fingers. How did he get his hands on it, anyway? He vaguely remembered crawling desperately towards Tiny’s lifeless body before he was taken away by the soldiers.
“The defense, your closing statement, please. The defense, please give your closing statement. The defense---
Mr Dewitt, would you like to share your discussions with the court, or should we take a recess while you conclude your affairs?”
The clearing of a throat. “I apologise, your honor. The defense would like to submit new evidence.”
A chair slid loudly along the wooden floor. “Objection, your honor! The prosecution hasn’t had time to examine the new evidence!”
“
Sit down, Parker. Objection overruled. The prosecution will get their chance of a rebuttal a few days from today, if deemed necessary. Defense, come forward to the bench with the evidence.”
“Yes, your honor.” Heavy footsteps moving towards the front of the courtroom. “Your honor---” The beeping of a device downloading the digital evidence. “According to the lab results, my client is genetically enhanced.”
Whispers erupted around the courtroom. “
Order in the court! I don’t understand. According to the defendant’s own testimony, he claims to be a Norm.”
“My client lied. Tanner Afaro, is in fact, a
Fect.”
Tank finally tore his eyes away from the chocolate bar and looked up, confused. That couldn’t be right. He was a goddamned Norm, he was sure of it. Why would his parents lie to him?
“The defense will now like to move for a mistrial, as the entire case had been built upon the false assumption that my client is a---in the words of the prosecution---a
‘Norm terrorist’. There is no need for my client to leave Earth, and thus, he should be trialed in a juvenile court in a timely fashion, like all the other sixteen year old Fects.”
“Tank, whaddafuck took you so long!” the to-be-miner teenager with black hair shouted while scrambling onto the rover.
“Language, Aaron.”
“Tonight’s my first day at work.
First day!”
The soldier spun the steering wheel and pulled the rover away from the kid's modest house. "I know, I'm sorry, buddy. Look, I'll talk to your boss, let him know it's not your fault."
The teenager groaned. "You're kidding, right? The foreman totally hates me. Now he's going to hate me even more!"
Tank grinned at the younger man. "Then you shouldn't have dated his daughter."
"I didn't know who her father was at that time---wait," the black-haired teenager sat up and stared intensely at Tank's mouth. "There's lipstick on your...oh. You were on a date with Alexis, weren't you?"
The soldier smiled as he steered the rover up a red hill. The frequency of lamp posts quickly diminished as they exited the town. The roads were more and more lit up by the gentle sheen of silver moonlight.
"I knew it! Dude! Why didn't you tell me? I could've gotten a lift from someone else!"
Tank peered sideways at the younger man and chuckled. "What, and miss your first day as a big working boy?"
Aaron slugged the soldier in his shoulder. "Seriously, dude! You're not meant to leave in the middle of your date!"
Tank guffawed aloud at that. "You're giving me relationship advice? Really?"
The rover was now driving along the lake, but it was so pitched dark that the only thing visible on the large body of water was the reflection of the moon. "So? How did it go?" the black-haired teenager inquired curiously.
A small smile formed on the soldier's lips. "I did it. I asked her to move out with me, and she said yes."
Aaron whooped excitedly at that. But his good mood quickly deteriorated into melancholy. He leaned onto the dashboard and gazed up at the shimmering ring-shaped moon. "It's a full moon tonight," he muttered before glancing at Tank. "Did you tell her about Riki?"
Shocked, Tank stiffened. He hadn't heard that name for years. "Who?"
The teenage boy glanced up at the moon again. "Is that where he is? You have that 'look' whenever you’re looking at it. Is that why you want to go to Noah's Ark so badly?"
"
Aaron, stop," the soldier snapped. Then, he softened his tone, although, it was still tense. "Where did you hear that name?"
"From you, five years ago," his young friend replied and leaned back onto the chair. "When a creepy drunk-ass stranger walks up to an eleven-year-old you and calls you 'Riki' while crying like a baby, you tend to remember it."
"
I wasn't crying---" he stopped and inhaled. "This is rich, coming the kid who lets others kick him around like garbage. Who put a stop to that, huh?"
The younger man huffed. "I was perfectly fine! I could've stopped it myself if I wanted too." Aaron crossed his arms and lowered his voice. "I just don't believe in stopping violence with violence."
"And that's exactly why I had to step in," Tank said quietly, smiling a little. A large and brightly lit structure came into view. Yellow and blue lamps were evenly scattered around the mining sector. Flushed against a red rocky cliff was the crowded mine entrance. It was busy as always, even though it was night time.
"There's an opening for Noah's Ark in the military."
Surprised, the soldier turned his head towards the boy.
"I heard my mum talking about it with someone on the phone. Apparently, some soldier broke a leg or something, so they're looking for a replacement."
Slowing down the rover, Tank parked it a few hundred yards from the mine entrance. He didn't say anything.
"You're going to leave us, aren't you?"
Swallowing, Tank realised he didn't know what he wanted. He was building a life with Alexis on Mars, the green paradise. He has been with his squad mates for nearly a decade, and they were his family. He had even become quite fond of the brat, Aaron.
However, his real little brother was somewhere up on the moon, assuming he was even still alive.
"Tank, if you're leaving, you have to tell me about Riki, first. You can trust me, I swear."
The soldier laughed a little at that. It was the second time today someone had asked him to reveal his past to them. "Tell you what, buddy. I'll tell you everything before I go anywhere, promise," he assured the teenager. He had meant it. Somehow he knew he could trust the kid with his secrets.
Smiling widely, Aaron gave his older friend a fist-bump, climbed out of the rover and ran into the mines to start his night shift. Tank briefly wondered if the foreman was as sadistic as his young friend had made him out to be. He chuckled at that thought.
Pulling open his wristpad, he instructed it to dial a well-connected contact he had made when he first arrived at Mars. This woman was a 'Humanitarian', or more colloquially known as a 'Norm-sympathiser'. So, even though she was a Fect, she understood his plight and was on his side.
"Hello?" a female voice said from the wristpad.
"Diana, there's an opening in Noah's Ark---"
"Stop, I know. I sent in your application three hours ago."
The red-head exhaled in relief. However, he was still unsure. "Be straight with me, Diana. What are my chances?"
"Very good. I think you'll get it."
"You said that last time. And the time before that. And the time before that, too."
"Tank, it's different now. You've finished serving your criminal sentence with flying colours, and for once, you're one of the better candidates for the position."
His emotions were mixed at the news. He was finally going to the moon.
But, would Alexis understand him leaving? He had to get his brother out of that colony ship.
If he was still alive. He had to save him. He had to. They both could have a life here, on Mars. He only needed to get Riki some fake identification. He hasn't figured that part out, yet, but he will.
Twelve years. Tank couldn’t believe it had been that long! Fuck, will he even recognise his little brother when he finds him? He’d be twenty-two, now!
If he was still alive.
"Hey, Tank, there's more.” A hesitant pause. “There are reports of some...
mutilations, in Noah's Ark."
"Mutilations?"
"Apparently, some psycho killer is on board, and they're killing the Norms in the colony."
His chest tightened at that. Riki was on board with a psycho killer? "Can you find out more about it?"
"Yes, I'm collating the---"
The call suddenly fizzled out.
Puzzled, Tank tapped the wristpad a few times, but all he could hear from it was static. Outside the rover, the workers of the mines started becoming agitated. Curious about what was going on outside, Tank put away his wristpad and climbed out of the vehicle. Something was wrong, he realised. Something was...
'moving'. He had felt this, once, before, a long, long time ago.
The deep rumble was becoming more and more apparent, and it emanated from everywhere at once. It was becoming oddly difficult to stand up straight on his two feet. The blue and yellow lamps around the area exploded one by one, causing the nearby miners to scramble away in panic and confusion.
"Oh, fuck," Tank muttered, understanding descending upon him. This was Mars, it wasn't supposed to happen here!
"
What's going on?" a mine worker ran up to Tank and demanded. He was hysterical, clearly struggling to grasp the situation.
Tank grabbed the frenzied miner and planted him next to the rover. "Hang on tight," he told him. Then, he turned and faced the entrance of the mine. There were two ten-story-scaffoldings on either side of the entrance, and they were both swaying dangerously from side to side. Oh, fuck. He quickly cupped his mouth and leaned forward. "
Everyone, get away from the entrance, NOW!" he roared.
Most of the workers heeded his instruction and started to evacuate the mine entrance. Unfortunately, some of them were too late --- one of the towering scaffoldings tilted, bent, and snapped! There were a lot of screaming as the entire ten-story structure came collapsing into the ground, kicking up a tremendous amount of red debris into the air, blinding everyone in the area!
The miner behind him grabbed his arm. "
What's going on?" the frenzied man asked again.
Tank turned to shield his face from the incoming cloud of red dust with his arm. Fuck, fuck, fuck! The only things he could hear now were the screams of the miners and the metallic creaking of the other scaffolding. Risking a peek over his arm, the soldier caught a glimpse of a large metal beam falling in his direction!
Crash!!
In an instant, the vehicle next to him was completely crushed by the fallen object, and he was thrown a few feet away! Disoriented from the event, and trying to shake away the ringing in his deafened ears, Tank slowly scrambled up and looked for the miner who was standing next to him before the crash happened.
“Fuck,” Tank cursed aloud. The miner was on his back with a large glass shard protruding out of the right side of his chest. He was wheezing painfully. Dashing forward, Tank attempted to stop the spurting blood with his hands. “You’re going to be fine,” he told the man, unsure if he believed it himself.
Terror naked in his eyes, the worker looked up at the soldier. “What’s going on?” he asked for the third time, his voice growing weaker as he wheezed in his next breath.
Tank tried to smile reassuringly and pushed his hands harder over the bleeding wound. "I've been through this once, before, on Earth," he explained quietly to the dying man. Glancing off in the distance, he could make out a section of the city’s skyline. A cloud of red dust was swirling around the center as a building tipped and slammed against another. Like dominos, they tumbled until ten massive skyscrapers had been reduced to mounds of nothing. In his mind, he swore he could hear the screams. "That...was an
earthquake."
“The fuckin’ gods themselves don’t want us on this planet, that’s what it is,” growled Commander Matthew as he stepped out of his rover a few feet away from Tank. “Private Jensen Queen, prep a fuckin’ rescue team to enter the mines!” barked the commander at the top of his lungs. “Private Holly Bennett, get someone to blast those fuckin’ rocks open!”
The cloud of red dust had mostly settled and the destruction was even more catastrophic than Tank had imagined. The collapsed scaffolding had struck the building next to it, ripping half the building open. So far, they had already counted over fifty fatalities in this area alone. No one knew what was going on inside the mines after the entrance had collapsed. All electronic communications were still jammed by an unknown source. Fuck. Aaron was inside the mines. That stupid brat.
Tank glanced at the doctor next to him as she pulled a bag over a dead body. The shard was still sticking out from his chest. Only, the man was now dead. Tank wasn’t able to save him.
“Private Tanner Afaro!”
Responding to the call, Tank spun around and saluted. “Sorry, sir! I’m ready, sir!”
“You better fuckin’ be! For fuck’s sake, get someone to secure that fuckin’ scaffolding!”
Tank glanced up at the other scaffolding, the one which hadn’t yet collapsed. He swallowed nervously. It didn’t look steady at all, as if it could fall over at any moment without warning.
“I got this one, commander,” said the foreman of the mines before Tank could say anything.
Commander Matthew glared at the younger soldier. “Snap out of it, private! You can grieve for the dead, later.”
The soldier looked at his commanding officer pleadingly. “Sir, I would like to go into the mines with Jensen.”
“
Private, I decide where you fuckin’ go and what you fuckin’ do, is that clear?”
“Sir, please, Aaron’s in there,” Tank tried again, not bothering to hide his desperation.
With a huge sigh, the commander shut his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, he looked at Tank with disdain. “Fine, get outta here and report to fuckin’ Jensen!” he barked.
Tank smiled appreciatively. “Thanks, commander!” he saluted and scanned around for Jensen.
“Private, your priority is the safety of
all the miners, not a single teenager, you got it?” Commander Matthew shouted at Tank as he was leaving.
However, Tank pretended he didn’t hear that. He had to save that brat no matter what! He just had to. Fuck. However, he was a soldier, which meant he had to follow orders, too. What should he do once he was inside the mines? If it comes down to Aaron’s life and the other miners’, should he still follow orders?
Jensen and Holly were arguing about something when Tank approached them.
“Just blow up the rocks with a few well-placed charges! If we wait any longer, they’ll run out of air!” argued Jensen.
“You don’t know that --- the explosives could trigger another collapse and kill the miners! We should take our time and cut it open carefully with lasers,” reasoned Holly.
They were debating the best way to re-open the entrance to the mines, Tank realised. Dammit, there wasn’t enough time for this! It was at that moment they both simultaneously turned to face him, surprising him a little.
“Tank,” called Holly. “You’re our tie breaker!”
“Just tell her we’re better off blowing them up, already!” Jensen chipped in impatiently.