Hello again.

With the end of the story now planned, you would not believe how many changes I've made to the next ten chapters... but since you did not know what was in them originally, you won't notice anyway, so it's a bit silly of me to mention it.

Ignore what you just read.

Chapter 36

The New Journey

Down on Earth, the new head of the Railgun Complex effectively went into hiding for the next twenty four hours; while in Mars orbit, the youngest astronaut didn't have a minute to herself. Abigail Dias had spent the last few weeks gaining much needed experience on Orbit Station maintenance as well as unloading supply ships sent up from the surface and sorting the contents into units for the MTV and units for the Orbit Station. When the MTV finally arrived, it was only twenty minutes later than expected and that's not bad after an interplanetary journey. The brake motors were applied gently to the heavy flywheel at the centre of the obit station to counter act on the direction of spin and slowly bring the station to a halt. When the operation was completed, everyone felt the weightless effects of micro gravity on the entire station, but it allowed the MTV to safely dock for equipment and supply transfer.

"One of us has got to get Luis alone and tell him what we've learned about his son" Ruth said adamantly.

"But do we tell him Sage knows already?"

"I don't know; but it's not the kind of thing you should keep secret."

"This is also the kind of news that could get us thrown out an airlock" Jarred thought "I don't know about you, but I'm starting to wonder what else Roux and Sage are keeping from the rest of us."

"Don't fool yourself into thinking it's just those two" Ruth noted "There could be ten, fifty or even a hundred colonists in on this; we'll have to tread carefully but..."

Ruth stopped talking when the airlock door started to open and much to their disappointment, the Kindermans found themselves face to face with Commander Neville Sage.

"What are you two looking so guilty about?" Sage barked.

"Sorry Commander but when I've been alone in space for so long, I lose my edge for proper discipline and protocol. Seeing you there sort of snapped us back into reality again."

"Pathetic" Sage mumbled "and your long isolation is no excuse for looking so scruffy. Go straight to your station quarters and get yourselves cleaned up; then get back here and help with supply transfer."

"Certainly sir" Jarred saluted "I just want to head down to operations and say hi to Luis... I mean Major Dias."

There was something in Jarred's voice Sage's did not like although he did not know what it was; it was probably the Ruddy Turnstone of Paranoia picking at the small hairs on the back of his neck. In the end, the Commander decided to leap right into the situation and over react.

"Negative" he barked "Follow your orders; you can catch up over tea and crumpets when your work is done."

Sage was the kind of person who did not get many cards on his birthday; very few people knew when it was and of those who did, no one cared much at all.

As the Kindermans gathered up the packages containing their personal belonging and floated off as ordered, the small bird on Sage's shoulder plucked out one of the man's ear hairs and stimulated his suspicion to extreme levels.

"Dias, this is Sage" he spoke into the Airlock to Operations Intercom "Get your gear and your kid and meet me at the MTV Airlock in ten minutes."

Down on the planet, a small convoy of Surface Exploration Vehicles (SEV) made its way slowly across the surface of Mars. Several units were fourteen meters long and were basically mobile habitats, while others carried supplies and remote controlled construction machines. They all snaked along single file along the cleared path created by Kwame Moloi and Jaden Walker over the last few weeks, and were all driven by one single person in the lead vehicle.

Maybe drive is the wrong word to use as Sierra Corbin basically sat in the control section and monitored the train of vehicles moving along behind her. As Kwame and Jaden had crawled across the planet a few weeks earlier, they had left behind small solar powered electronic transceivers every five hundred meters to mark the path for the computer controlled SEVs to follow. This meant Sierra's main task was to keep the lead vehicle on track and ensure the rest of the vehicles followed as they should.

The path they took had its literal ups and downs but it was a reasonably smooth ride thanks the work undertaken by Kwame and Jaden. Moving very slowly, Kwame's unit had removed rocks and pulverised the sharper parts of the surface while Jaden machine consisted mainly of a series of grinding barrels revolving against the direction of travel to create an almost level path. It was not a road like they had on Earth, but it did make the convoy's journey faster and safer as well as ensuring the wheels of the SEVs would enjoy a much longer life.

"Corbin to Dias; can you read me April?" Sierra called over the comms unit.

April was not expecting a report from the control section so she feared the worst as she leapt at the microphone.

"Receiving you Sierra; what's wrong?"

"What makes you think something's wrong? I'm patching through a call from your daughter."

The communicator cracked and popped a few times until a new voice came through the speaker.

"Can you hear me Mom?" Abigail called.

"I'm reading you Abi; what's wrong?"

"Always with you there's something wrong" Abigail sniffed "Dad and I have been ordered onto the MTV at once so we may not get another chance to call before we leave. Dad asked me to let you know we're both fine, we love you and Saffy and we'll call again as soon as we can. Good luck with the new base and I gotta go; bye."

"Abi..?" April called into the microphone "Abigail!"

"Give it up Mom; she's gone" Saffron noted with a smile.

Luis Dias appeared at the airlock only two minutes after receiving the order from Sage, who of course still wasn't happy.

"Where's the..." the Commander started to say something he shouldn't but managed to catch himself in time "...the Cadet?"

"I wanted to get down here straight away so I asked her to finish a few tasks for me" Luis looked at his watch "She should be here within the time you allotted sir."

Luis hoped she would be on time, so the trip to Earth would not start on the wrong foot and he was delighted when Abigail floated into view only ninety seconds later.

"Five minutes to spare" Luis grinned "Well done Cadet."

"Indeed" Sage agreed "You two stow your gear and get to work transferring the supply pods from Earth to the station and I'll load up our supplies."

This order surprised both the Major and the Cadet; Sage was not the kind of person to do physical work when the job could be given to a subordinate.

"Would you... like me to help you sir?" Abigail risked asking in case it was some kind of test.

"No thank you Cadet; I want you to get some real life experience with the Robotic Manipulator Arm while we have the chance."

Luis felt sure Sage wasn't telling him everything about his reasons but he did not like to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth; it would indeed be good for Abigail to receive some on the job training. Later as she moved the first pod from the MTV to the Orbit Station, the young girl did her best to keep her mind on the job but sometimes it began to wander a little. Abigail could not help but contemplate what the Manipulator Arm was holding; the supply pod had come from Earth, shot into space by a Railgun and collected from orbit by her friends Ruth and Jarred. Now after a journey of almost two hundred million kilometres, it was firmly under her control and would soon be sent down to her mother on Mars for use at the second colony site.

Eleven hours later, with all the pods transferred and the MTV refuelled, Jarred and Ruth watched helplessly as the ship drifted slowly away from the orbit station and began its last trip to Earth.

"We'll just have to talk to April instead" Jarred sighed.

"Sage was worried" Ruth noted "and the way he replaced you for this trip tells me both he and Roux already knew about Adisa and the baby still being alive. The problem is we don't know who else is in on the secret so we'll have to tread carefully."

"Maybe bide our time here and volunteer to work with April at Base Two later."

"Makes sense" Ruth agreed "With Sage and Luis supposedly on the last trip to Earth, Roux should expect us to look for a new career."

"And while we're here... we could diligently monitor all communications between Earth and Mars maybe?"

"I love it when you're diligent" Ruth purred as she nibbled on his ear.

Finally have my first reader in my home town so I decided to check how long I have been on this site. A few years I thought so I was surprised to see I joined in 2008.

NINE YEARS?! AAARRRGH!

Where did the time go? I was 44 years old when I started writing. I don't plan to stop anytime soon so if the stories should suddenly stop appearing, I probably died of old age (not for a long time yet I hope).