Martian Republic: The Fateful Secret

Chapter 7: The Plan

Location: Bosporos Planum, Martian Republic

Timestamp: 2pm, +2 Standard Martian Time

The meeting room next to Control Room 2 seemed to express efficiency and practicality, considered by many to be an important doctrine in the harsh Martian environment. The simple steel and glass tables and chairs as well as the simplistic holoprojector in the centre of the room all seemed to say, work efficiently, be practical and get serious.

Today, there were only five people in the meeting room. Amy Averin, Zerve, Jen and a young man named Josh.

"Some of you might have noticed odd things going on with the settlement's utility systems in the past few days."

They all nodded.

"I have a rather sound explanation for all of them," began Amy. "One that suggests criminal action. I have found out from my sources in NASA and the CNSA via a software engineering forum that there is something terrestrial governments are trying to hide from us. The attack on the water circulation system was probably unintended. The real purpose of the cyberattack was to throw the communication systems into disarray. At the same time, Zerve found that a spacecraft carrying valuable supplies of helium-3 to Mars embarked on an alternative orbit, delaying its transit time by three weeks, effectively grounding all Martian space-faring craft except for a bunch of NIMFs."

"Okay, I get what's going on," said Jen. "They're trying to lock us in, practically block off our access to other planetary bodies for a while to prevent us from getting out of here and finding what they don't want us to."

"Exactly," said Amy. "You have the picture entirely."

"A terrible kidnapping event happened earlier today," said Zerve in a terse tone, nodding at Jen, prompting her to continue.

Jen swallowed before speaking.

"I was out exploring the area around the settlement with two of my friends – Kelly and Mark. Suddenly, a jet black NIMF showed up and two men ran out. They pinned Kelly down. Mark then attacked one of them, causing him to get momentarily distracted. I quickly ran off and I heard the NIMF take off about a minute later."

"The question is, what did they show up for?" asked Josh. "Why were the two men there?"

"I forgot to mention – I think our auxiliary comm station is compromised. One of the fibre-optic cables looked like it was forcibly disconnected from its port and sealed back in."

"Were the two men carrying anything on their utility belts and can you describe their faces?" asked Zerve.

"They seemed to have an assortment of tools clipped to their belts. One of them seemed to a small SlatePC bound to his right thigh."

"That proves everything," said Zerve. "They were trying to install another malware into the system, seeing that we managed to fix it the first time they did it. When they saw you three, they knew their cover was blown. They probably wanted to capture and silence all three of you. Luckily, Jen escaped, foiling their plans entirely."

"Now that we know about what happened and how it happened, I think we should come up with a plan to rescue Mark and Kelly while trying to find out what terrestrial governments are hiding from us," said Amy.

"The obvious first thing to do is to establish contact with the exploration team on Enceladus," said Josh. "That way, we can find out what people are trying to hide from us. I will then track down the NIMF that took off with Mark and Kelly and pursue it with the Hyperion, the fastest NIMF on this planet."

"Isn't it currently parked in one of the equatorial settlements?" asked Jen. "I heard it from one of the pilots yesterday."

"Yes. That means I'll have to get the paperwork done to borrow it. At least I have connections I can use."

Zerve plugged a fibre-optic cord into his SlatePC and began tapping furiously on the holographic keyboard projected on the meeting table.

"I'm bringing up the flight profile of the unknown NIMF as it exited Martian airspace. We can predict its destination from it due to the restricitive trajectories required for interplanetary journeys."

A hologram of Mars was projected into the air by the holoprojector in the middle of the room. Zerve walked over to it and pointed at a purple line that curved diagonally around half of Mars.

"What we have here is the flight path of the NIMF that captured Mark and Kelly, let's just call it Captor-NIMF. As you can see from the data, it took off right next to Bosporos Planum base and flew northward. It then exited Martian atmosphere. According to visual data from the Irovea satellite constellation, it then flew Earthward."

He shrunk the hologram of Mars to the size of a ping-pong ball and brought up the map of the inner Sol System. The predicted flight path of the Captor-NIMF appeared to intercede with the location of TransitPoint-5.

"As you can see, it touches the location of TransitPoint-5, which is a fairly large orbital spaceport. It is quite close to Mars at this point, allowing the NIMF to get there in just about half a day's time. My theory is that they intend to board a DFD equipped spacecraft and get to Earth. In that case, we have to get to that orbital spaceport as fast as possible and wait there in preparation."

"In that case, Josh would have to get to that spaceport as quickly as possible," said Zerve. "Amy will monitor operations from the base here and coordinate with TransitPoint-5's security forces while I establish contact with the Enceladus exploration team."

"Let's call this Operation Find and Expose," said Josh. "We find and rescue Mark and Kelly and expose what terrestrial governments are hiding from us."

"Operation Find and Expose officially begins now," said Zerve, raising his voice and standing up for effect. "May God let this mission succeed.

Josh got up from his seat.

"I've got to go to the hangar now," said Josh. "I promise that I will be able to get to TransitPoint-5 in time and rescue our two citizens in time."

"Goodbye, Josh," said Zerve. "I mean, see you later, after this mission."

The last bit was necessary. Under the dire circumstances, the fact that the three of them, especially Josh might even be alive after the whole ordeal was debatable.

He quickly got up from his seat and walked out of the meeting room, one hand clasping his SlatePC. He sailed right past the central meeting area in the centre of Dome 2, a large hemispherical room that contained many droid-manned shops and massive genetically modified vines engineered to possess incredible aesthetic value while photsynthesising at an unprecedented rate. He walked right to the centre of the room and took a lift down to the ground floor. As the slightly opaque doors slid open, he found himself looking right into the dark expanse of the hangar.

Sensing movement, the overhead lights turned on, illuminating the vast hangar. Thick support beams braced the entirety of the hangar, their imposing blocky shapes giving the hangar a rugged feel. Smaller NIMFs were parked further in while huge beasts fitted with Direct Fusion Drives lined the docking slots nearest the hangar door.

Josh walked over to a NIMF marked as BPP-25 and waved his hand in front of a rapid-fingerprint-sensor. Recognising his fingerprint, the NIMF's rear ramp lowered. He climbed in and seated himself in the pilot's seat.

"Please upload required paperwork into the database," came a masculine voice from the dashboard.

Josh sent the digital paperwork that Amy had already prepared for him into the settlement's portal. While they were allowed to bypass bureaucratic paperwork in dire circumstances, Amy did not want to cause widespread panic in the settlement or risk information about their mission being leaked. According to the paperwork, he was flying to TransitPoint-5 to pick up a batch of special comm equipment that had been misplaced in the previous transport run from Earth to Mars.

Carefully manipulating the control column, he eased the NIMF out of the hangar and shot up into the sky, heading for the capital.