THE END

Chapter 23- Lindsey

"No, absolutely not," I say, pacing around the perimeter of my office. There has to be something else we can do. I'm the head official, I should be able to think of something.

"I think you're forgetting who's really in charge here," she tells me. "These children are traitors, and I want them dead."

"In case you haven't noticed, they may be our only shot at beating the Rebels. It may not be a good plan but it's the only one we've got."

Mars doesn't have nearly all the resources we brag about. We threaten them with bombs, but we're running dangerously low. And we told the Rebels that our population was higher than it is.

There's only 705 of us left on Mars...

She rolls her eyes. "In case you haven't noticed, I haven't forgotten your secret. That you befriended a traitor of your own, and by that extent are a traitor yourself. And you know that the other officials wouldn't approve. You'd be impeached the moment they found out the truth."

She's right. I'm loyal to Mars, but Carter wasn't always. He came from a Rebel family, who fought long and hard against Mars, but they were all killed years ago. Since we were childhood friends, when his family died I managed to get him a job working for the officials. Then when I became head, I promoted him.

No one else knows that he came from a Rebel family, that he wasn't always loyal to Mars. It doesn't matter that he is now, people would be suspicious anyways. Because if we've kept this from them, what other information have we withheld? For all they know their planet is being run by a traitor.

And once one official begins to doubt my loyalty, it will spread. Soon all the citizens will have doubt as well, some may even join the Rebels. The planet would fall even farther into chaos.

She stares me down, hatred in her eyes. "I want them dead," she says again.

"How?"

"I don't care how. Just do it." She glares at me.

I need something believable. Something that doesn't look like we just killed them off for no reason.

I pace back and forth, arms crossed. What if we can't defeat Jupiter without them? Then again, there are so few people left that it doesn't matter, we'll all be gone soon enough. Makes me wonder what the point is of all this then, when humans are going extinct anyways.

But I can't afford to think like that. I'm an official, right? Head official. Loyal to Mars and its citizens above all else. Loyal to my people and my planet. Destined to bring justice to the solar system and rebuild humankind.

And yet I can't get rid of this uneasy feeling in my gut, a sign that something will definitely go wrong. The government has been losing its hold on the people for a long time now. The officials have their supporters, of course, but that's only a couple hundred. The rest of the Mars citizens have started to sympathize with the rebels. If we don't stamp them out soon, our entire planet will be in uproar.

There have been enough smaller riots already, that we've barely managed to contain and cover up. For a long time the people of Mars were sheltered from the fighting, distanced from it all. Because of this, they had more subdued opinions. It was all far away to them, the fighting wasn't important enough to warrant such concern.

But now that we're sending out our own soldiers, now that there are a small enough amount of humans left that they are no longer expendable, now they care.

On Mars, no one but the soldiers can have guns, or automatic weapons. On more than one occasion rioters have been seen with old fashioned pistols and hand guns, machinery that they must have been hiding within their families for centuries, proving that the people were never going to listen to every rule. That they never had the unwavering faith in our government that we assumed they did.

She clears her throat, startling me out of thought.

She gives me one last glare and walks out of the room. I can hear her heels clicking all the way down the hall as she walks, her nails screeching as she drags her hand along the metal wall. Finally it fades.

I barely sit down before I hear frantic running toward my office. Someone knocks on the door. Alarms start blaring. The loudspeaker comes on but I can't hear it, people are shouting outside.

I throw open the door to find a breathless Carter. He tugs me along behind him by the arm, "They've escaped."

"What? How?"

But there's no time for talk. We're sprinting through the hallways now, dodging people and passing monitors and cameras that were supposed to be watching the two rebels.

We round a corner and stumble through some doors, guns at the ready, guards at our heels.

"Aim to stop, not to kill!" I shout above the noise as we pass through the doors outside, although I doubt anyone will heed my words.

The daylight blinds us for a moment. I squint and see our Mars pods all lined up ahead of us, except one. It's taking off! Cecily and Neil have stolen a pod!

It rises shakily at first, but when shots ring out from my men the aircraft picks up speed and is soon out of the bullets' reach.

We watch it fade from view. "Damn it!" One of the men shouts.

"Do we hunt them down with a missile?" Another suggests.

"We're too low on ammo for that, we'll need to save everything we have if we want to fight the rebels any longer," Carter says.

Suddenly I notice her behind me, smiling. "I have a better idea in store for them."

"And what's that?" I ask coldly.

"Send them our best killer. They won't stand a chance."