This week's film and TV reference is so obvious, there will be no great accolades for spotting it. I wonder how long I can keep this up?

Chapter 67

In Ten Million Kilometres, Turn Left

With the Mars Transfer Vehicle getting closer to its destination, the communication lag time was considerably lower, making conversation with Mars much easier; also the Mars Citizens Council had finally agreed to let April and Saffron talk to the MTV crew. It had originally been decided that there would be no direct contact by anyone outside the Council Leadership until the investigation into what was now being called The Sage Incident was complete. But it had already taken far longer than expected and did not look like ending anytime soon. There was also the amount of support April was gaining in the general community because she still had not had the opportunity to talk directly to her son.

In the end April found it quite difficult to find the right words when she finally sat down in front of the comms screen.

"Hi Mom" was the obvious thing for Blue to begin with.

April did not reply straight away, but instead she tried unsuccessfully to hold back the tears when she saw him sitting in between Luis and Abigail.

"Say hello to your son Dearest" Luis prompted.

"Oh don't spoil the moment" April snapped "Hello Henry... it's... it's so good to talk to you at last."

The conversation progressed slowly and it was obviously very awkward for everyone. It wasn't Calla moving around behind the Dias family and causing a distraction that was the problem, but more the disturbing knowledge that their conversation was far from private. Not only were there three other people in the room with April and Saffron, but everyone knew it was all being recorded for later scrutiny, and April was certain her words would surely be misinterpreted and used against her by unscrupulous people with their own agenda.

April eventually found her voice and so began a lively conversation about Blues life inside the Railgun Complex and all the changes trust upon him by a young girl falling out of an air vent. Although there would be much more to talk about in the future, April was just glad to find out about the basics of her son's life.

"I'm looking forward to seeing you all in person when the quarantine time is up" Saffron noted later in the conversation.

Luis had been waiting for that particular subject to be brought up because he wanted to gain some information without being too obvious.

"I'm looking forward to seeing you too" he admitted "Have the Mars Council set a time for the quarantine period yet?"

Before April could respond, one of the council members pressed a button on his console and appeared in half of the MTV comms screen.

"After consultation with the medical staff, we believe a period of fifteen weeks would be advantageous" he noted.

"Fifteen weeks?" Abigail gasped "That's almost four months."

"We're very sorry but the base safety must be our main priority" the councillor insisted.

"I'm gonna get bored out of my brain sitting around on the Orbit Station for fifteen weeks" Abigail sighed.

"So tell me about Earth Henry" April changed the subject "I'm still finding it hard to believe everyone from the ship you were born on is still alive; what are they all up too?"

"Well I suppose the biggest news is Professor Adisa has retired and sailed off to America with Henry Deming; Doctor Spencer is in charge now."

"How is Sarah?" April smiled.

"She's good Mom; and she's doing a great job with the Railgun rebuild."

"Railgun rebuild?" the Council member interrupted again "What is she planning?"

"Don't panic; she's not gonna swamp Mars with thousands of people" Blue shook his head in disgust "When we found out we'd been lied to for so long, Sarah came up with a new plan. We're going to the Asteroid Belt to build new colonies. If you hadn't sent Sage on his little spy mission, we would have built a new colony without disturbing Mars at all; we could have been neighbours."

"Sage wasn't spying on you" the Councillor declared.

"That is a load of..." Luis began before realising who he was sitting next to "...rubbish; pure garbage. I was told it was a survey of the conditions on Earth but when we stumbled across the Tanker in Sumatra, Sage was suspiciously ready to go. Safety systems had already been bypassed, warning alarms disabled, and all he had to do was press a button and jettison the Orion capsule."

"He did that on his own" the Councillor objected "No one knew he was intending to take such drastic action."

"Roux and Klein didn't know" Luis pointed out "but how do you know some other member of the Deep Council didn't give him a sly word on the side?"

"I... I'm sure that wasn't..."

"You can't be sure unless you are a member of the Deep Council" Luis accused.

"NOW STOP THAT!" the Councillor snapped "We've had far too much paranoia and accusation here already."

"And most of it seems to be directed at my wife" Luis scowled.

"Well she did cause a lot of upset here" the man insisted.

"She just tried to bring the truth to where it had been covered up for so long" Luis shut down all argument.

"We all realise that is true Luis, but it has still made us very nervous. No one on the Citizens Council is sure how it all happened in the first place; we don't know how many people were behind it all, and what their ultimate plan was. Seriously; what would have happened if we had never found out?"

Luis was still mightily peeved, but he could understand why there such turmoil on Mars with no one being sure who to trust and who to suspect.

"Is there any chance at all you could please stop arguing with my husband and let me talk to my family again?" April huffed.

Everyone managed to put aside their differences for the time being to allow this family, separated by time and distance to finally make an attempt at becoming whole for the first time. While everyone had the opportunity to say a few more words, April and Blue definitely ruled the conversation. Almost two and a half hour had passed before the communication line was finally closed and the MTV crew were once again left alone to drift along through interplanetary space.

"Time to alter our destination" Luis revealed as he accessed the navigational computer.

Calla and Blue looked to Abigail for answers but she just shrugged her shoulders.

"Thanks to Calla's earlier observations, I did some calculations and came this conclusion" Luis continued "We would have about eight to ten weeks of food with rationing if it were not for the supplies sent from Earth; supplies Mars does not know we have. Considering two to four weeks of quarantine time is more than enough, then fifteen weeks means someone wanted to be sure we would access the Supply Pod sent from Mars."

"So why are we altering course?" Blue asked.

"I want to make sure we have an innocent excuse for not going to the Orbit Station" Luis explained "so we may as well go straight to Sarah's little asteroid and start work. Not only will it be safer, but it will give us something to do during the quarantine period."

"Hmmm... neat idea" Abigail nodded.

"I'd love to see the look on Moms face when she finds out where I'm going now" Calla grinned.

While circumstances were far from perfect for the crew of the MTV, deep space was not the only place suffering from conflict and discord. Deep underground near the Arizona border, a certain ship's captain was slowly becoming more and more despised by the people around him.

"Considering how long you've been doing this, I thought someone would have worked out a viable priority system by now" Reed Branson barked.

"We work with this equipment all the time" a very annoyed machinist replied "We all know which parts are the most important and which ones are less so."

"But there's no coordination of effort and everyone appears to have a slightly different idea as to what piece of farm machinery has the highest level of importance" Reed argued "If you'd only concentrate more effort on the machines that will be of the greatest use overall, then you would get them as close to perfect as possible before moving on to the next priority. Then you would have far fewer major breakdowns during important sowing and harvest times."

"But then we'd all be reliant on fewer machines to cover the whole area and moving them around from farm to farm takes more fuel than we have in reserve" one of the farmers pointed out.

The argument continued for a few more minutes until everyone realised no work was being done; efficiently or not. As the locals returned to their work in the machine shop, Shifty casually walked up and started putting boxes on a handcart, trying his best to look innocent.

"Well if you wanted to alienate everyone, you've certainly wasted no time getting it done" he said quietly.

"Good" Reed smiled to himself "Did the guards take any notice of what was going on?"

"Of course they did; any fights or arguments among us outsiders is pure entertainment to them" Shifty noted "These two will probably tell all the others about it when their shift is over."

"I hope they do" Reed nodded.

"Are you sure you don't want me to let the others in on your little plan? If it doesn't work, you could end up being the most hated man in the entire community."

"Can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs" Reed succumb to the influence of the Budgerigar of Overused Metaphors.

"Maybe so but that doesn't mean you have to throw them in people's faces."

"What do you think your mother will do when she finds out we're going passed Mars to the Asteroid Belt?" Blue asked as he and Calla reviewed a topographical map of 16 Psyche.

"Let me put it this way; I'm glad I'm well beyond her reach" Calla grinned "But seriously, I don't think it will add much to her current stress levels. I know I told her I was not going to land on Mars but I'm sure she knew I'd be the first one inside the Landing Capsule if the opportunity arose. We have this thing where I promise not to do anything too risky, and she pretends to believe me. When you think about it though, travelling a little further into space doesn't sound anywhere near as dangerous as landing on another planet, even if it has been done many times before."

"You weren't planning on ever going back to Earth were you?"

Calla lowered her eyes and smiled at Blues accusation.

"Well I wouldn't say never, I'm just not in any hurry."

"These are the voyages of Space Cadet Calla" Blue smirked "Her ultimate mission: to flitter around the solar system with the express purpose of avoiding her mother.

"What the heck are you talking about?" Calla wrinkled her nose.

"Never mind" Blue tried to stop grinning "I get the feeling your Mom has never really become accustomed to your adventurous ways."

"You should have heard the screaming match we had when I told her I wanted to stay on the Star Runner with Dad and not go with her on one of the bigger ships with her."

"Yeah I've wondered why your Mom wasn't with you when you arrived at the Railgun" Blue noted.

"Yachts that size are a funny thing" Calla began.

"I've never found them amusing in the slightest."

"Do you want to hear this story or not?" Calla said sternly.

"I'll be good" Blue promised.

"You can have a crew of six on board but the perfect number is three; one on the tiller while the other two take care of the rigging. When we joined up with the fleet, Mom said she and I should go on one of the larger vessels, while a more experienced sailor crewed with Dad and Emerson."

"But you weren't about to put up with talk like that, were you?"

"Not on your life" Calla agreed "Long story short, Mom lost out again."

"I'm beginning to feel quite sorry for your poor mother" Blue noted.

Reed Branson sat by himself at the end of the day, ignoring everyone else in the dining room, while they gladly ignored him too. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see several guards chatting as they ate and was pleased to notice when one of them pointed Reed out to his friends. Nothing happened for another fifteen minutes but when a few of the guards had finished their meal, they stood up and wandered over.

"I hear you've been making yourself quite unpopular amongst our little rural group" the senior guard smiled in a very creepy way.

"It wasn't my intention" Reed replied "I was only trying to help the id... people."

"Fancy yourself as the boss man eh?"

"Hardly; it's just that I used to be a Ship's Captain and prior to that, I was a sailor so I know the advantages of having a leader and a chain of command to keep everything running smoothly. Any one of them would make a good leader but they're all afraid of stepping on each other's toes; so instead of getting coordinated, they all continue to do their own thing while saying what jolly chums we all are."

"Sounds like you prefer a more structured lifestyle" the Head Guard noted.

"Yeah and if I can't find it around here, I may have to go back to my ship and look elsewhere."

"Perhaps... but what you're looking for might be closer than you think" the guard nodded knowingly.

Reed had hoped to hear more of what this man had to say, but it seemed now was not the time because the entire group of guards turned and left without another word. When they were out of sight, Reed turned to look at the outsiders eating nearby. As soon as they saw him looking at them, they all pretended they had not been watching what had just been going on; they were all very unconvincing.

Been doing so much story checking and rewriting over the last month, I went from ten chapters ahead down to three. But I finally got back to the new stuff last week and have it back to five chapters in the bag. I still can't see the end of the story, but I can see the glow of its tail lights.