Edge of the Stars1 Read online

  “Mars could have been a second base of operations for Coulter. Isn’t this where she was headed

  with her clones and mercenaries when she captured you and Axel? Who better to trust with the

  keys to your off-world kingdom than family? Also, there is a cyborg on this station. Just one? I

  think not. Where there are cyborgs, clones can’t be far behind. So, where are the rest of the bad

  guys?”

  “Well, damn,” Axel drawled, smoothing the stubble on his jawline. “That sounds like a whole

  herd of elephants to me.”

  For Mark, the trip to Mars hadn’t been an easy one. He’d been unable to shake the anxiety

  growing in the pit of his stomach as they’d approached the expanse where he’d killed Beth Coulter.

  In the vastness of space, he couldn’t be sure of the exact location. It didn’t matter. He felt a chill,

  which wasn’t going away anytime soon.

  Coulter had sabotaged the Terran Space Command’s mission to Jupiter, killing his brother,

  Erik, as well as 151 other scientists on the Europa Mission. Not to mention the dozens she’d

  murdered afterward. As a result, he’d taken her life in retribution.

  In his heart, he’d known her death wouldn’t be the end of it. Her insidious plan of world building

  with metal cyborgs, clones, and reprogrammed neural implants wasn’t over yet. It should be no

  surprise he’d come face to face with Coulter’s Phase 2, tucked away on an unsuspecting Mars. His

  gut had been tied in knots since finding the dead body today. Although the red cuff marks were

  gone, he still sensed the presence of the restraints on his wrists. He might never rid himself of the

  cruelty she’d inflicted.

  The original purpose for this trip had been to provide support for Eva’s terraforming experiment

  on the surface, while the others celebrated a group holiday, but those thoughts were fading fast.

  He wanted to start turning over every rock on the planet until he found the Parkers, or Königs, or

  whatever they called themselves, along with every secret they were hiding. However, now he must

  consider the welfare of five other people. Which meant he’d have to do things differently than

  before.

  ***

  After a delicious Italian dinner at Nero’s for Maeve’s birthday, Axel strolled hand in hand with

  his lady around the Green Level of the space station. The Tyson Gravity Field environment, both

  here and on the planet, enabled normal living without the assistance of grav boots. They found a

  secluded garden spot for some quiet time with a splendid rotating view of the dusty red planet

  offset by a galaxy of stars. The day’s events monopolized their conversation for most of the

  evening.

  “I could see it in Mark’s eyes the minute I walked in,” Axel said. “Panic. He controlled it, but

  it was there. It had to be the cuffs. Coulter restrained him like a lab rat on her medpod for hours.

  She injected him with a shitload of drugs while trying to get the human augmentation data out of

  him.”

  “Yes, I saw it, too, in his tone of voice and body language,” Maeve agreed. “Sometimes, people

  develop phobias after a traumatic event. It’s been about five months since the incident. You need

  to make sure he gets plenty of heavy workouts to keep his mind as well as his body healthy. He’s

  not like us.”

  Axel gazed at the amazing woman sitting next to him. Moonlight shimmered in her pale hair

  and danced off the crystal gems in her indigo jacket. As a sergeant in the Terran Military, he could

  never have been with Colonel Maeve Sorayne. Thus, his life would never have been complete. He

  didn’t know how long this would last; he was savoring it one day at a time.

  When he’d found Mark being tortured by Coulter, he’d surrendered to prevent her mercenaries

  from killing Mark, and they’d shot Axel twice in the process. No good deed goes unpunished,

  they’d shot Axel twice in the process. Having been a soldier for years, he’d suffered injuries before.

  That time, however, the damage had been too severe. He’d undergone augmentation surgery for

  his arm and leg, the same procedure which had saved Maeve’s life after her battle wounds years

  ago.

  Due to upgraded regulations, neither he nor Kamryn could return to their armored unit. They’d

  both joined Mark in his unending hunt for the remnants of Coulter’s holdings. As equal partners

  in his MAVREK venture, the combined four ships plus the valuable BioKlon medical equipment

  commandeered from the TMD made them wealthy. Axel found he liked having money and

  traveling in well-appointed spaceships as opposed to bare bones military craft, especially with a

  weapons locker full of new toys.

  He’d give it up in a nanosecond, though, if he had to make a choice. He’d even trade in both

  cyborg limbs for metal prostheses and live in a shack with a dirt floor if it would make Maeve

  happy. She made it all worthwhile. Axel laced the human fingers of his right hand through the

  augmented ones in her left hand, as he bent over to kiss her cheek. “Happy birthday, my love.”

  Chapter 2

  Their esteemed team member, Dr. Eva Jackson, had been invited to Mars for a Terraforming

  Symposium. So, they’d all traveled 34,000,000 miles to the rusty colored dust ball of a planet,

  where Martian days were 24 hours 37 minutes long, with a solar rotation of 687 days. As a result,

  most inhabitants celebrated two birthdays a year. Three surface domes and a Tyson Gravity Field

  allowed humans to live without the assist of exoskeleton suits or grav boots. Although a

  pressurized environmental suit with oxygen was still required outside.

  Under Aurora’s tri-layered dome in the northern hemisphere, sixteen scientists observed the

  first terraforming or “worldhouse” experiment in a biosphere, on a non-Terran planet. Their

  enclosed habitat overflowed with a heavy military presence, VIPs, and a plethora of electronic

  monitoring equipment. To her credit, Eva Jackson had experienced a modicum of success on her

  homeworld with terraforming selected desert environments. Today, she sat in a front row window

  seat, unable to control her excitement.

  Although Mark, Axel, Kamryn, and Colonel Sorayne accompanied Eva, they stood against the

  back wall, their height giving them a clear view over most everyone’s head. After the initial

  ceremonies were over, they filed out to talk among themselves.

  Mark said, “I want to make a donation to the family of the man who died yesterday, Carl

  Ivarsson. Do we know if he was married or had children? Did he live on Terra or here on Mars?”

  “I’m glad you brought it up because I have news.” Sorayne guided them to a quiet spot away

  from the activity surrounding the habitat. “He was an undercover detective for the MPLE, which

  is the reason no prints or ID came up when they scanned him. Since this information surfaced, the

  bakery owners, the Parkers, have gone missing. The shopkeeper and baker are gone, too. Mars

  now believes they’re all complicit in his death.

  “The MPLE’s backtracking the leads Ivarsson might have been working on, trying to figure out

  why he was there in the first place. The prevailing theory is smuggling. So, you’re off the hook,

  Dr. Warren. As far as the MPLE’s concerned,” Sorayne said, “you were an innocent bystander.”

  Unless he wasn’t. Mark wanted to believe the whole wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time
scenario.

  The churning in his stomach, however, told him just the opposite. He couldn’t shake it. Back on

  Luna, he’d started trusting his gut feelings. It hadn’t steered him wrong yet. It’s why he still kept

  a knife in his boot, wore a ballistic proof vest and carried at least one gun. “I’m glad they’ve

  dismissed any involvement on my part. But I’m not convinced he wasn’t mistaken for me.”

  Axel stared at him for a long moment. “All right, Mark. We’ll work your angle while the MPLE

  works theirs. We’ll put our cyber sleuths on it.”

  All three MAVREK partners received emergency comm messages from their pilot.

  “There’s a problem at the ship,” Kamryn blurted out, spinning around to leave.

  Mark grabbed her arm. “Eva,” he said, looking from Axel to Sorayne.

  “Go,” Sorayne said, waving him off. “Take my shuttle. I’m sending reinforcements to your

  ship. I’ll stay with Dr. Jackson.”

  The trio sprinted down to the underground docking station, straight onto Sorayne’s waiting

  shuttle.

  Within minutes they were up on the space station running through a maze of airlock tubes to

  the MAVREK-II. True to her word, two of the colonel’s troops were stationed at their ship’s

  entrance.

  Petra stood between them, prepared for action, or spoiling for a fight, wearing two sidearms

  with one of Axel’s new pulse rifles in her hands. “Nobody’s hurt. We detected a surveillance drone.

  Ohashi disabled it. She’s dissecting it.”

  They boarded the ship, making straight for the ScienceLab, which also doubled as their

  MedLab, if necessary.

  At the far end of the lab, Ohashi hovered over a small spider-like metal drone. She wore a

  headband with a magnifying visor, her short-bobbed hair tucked behind her ears, blue wrist length

  gloves covered her hands. She worked with microelectronic tweezers, dismantling the circuitry.

  Ohashi glanced up. “My new security system picked up an intrusion when an object breached our

  electronic barrier.” She resumed her examination. “We identified it. Sent out rogue commands for

  it to land. Made it think our ship was its home base. Petra flashed her boobs at a dock worker and

  got him to fetch it for us.”

  “I did not,” Petra protested.

  “All the data’s been downloaded to an old tablet, in case it blows up.” Ohashi pointed a blue

  finger to it on her workstation. “Flight logs are being decrypted.”

  Kamryn stepped forward with hands on her hips. As a six-foot-tall, 175-pound brunette, with a

  well-defined figure, she commanded attention. “Okay, somebody has to say it. Mark was the target.

  There’s no question about it now.”

  “You were right.” Axel spread his hands, leaning back against the counter, with one ankle

  crossed over the other.

  “This is one of those times when I don’t enjoy being right. It means they mistook the detective

  for me.”

  “No, not necessarily.” Petra braced her rifle against Ohashi’s workstation. “It means your two

  paths converged. You were both moving toward the same point. He just got there a few minutes

  before you did. Axel, weren’t you law enforcement before you became a soldier?”

  “Yes, four years in Phoenix.”

  “Would you waste time tracking down a lead if you didn’t think it had merit?”

  “No.”

  “Kamryn, you were DEA before joining the TMD?”

  “Yes, in Vancouver. I know where you’re going with this. So, no, we didn’t have extra resources

  to spend chasing down false leads.”

  “My point, exactly. The MPLE agent either had proof, or was working on getting proof these

  people were guilty of a crime. If they weren’t guilty, why run? I also think they must’ve learned

  about the terraforming experiment on Mars from the media, figured we were coming and were

  waiting to spring a trap. For Mark and Eva.”

  “Eva’s planetside—”

  “Don’t worry, Mark,” Petra said. “We commed Sorayne with an update. She’s providing

  security for Eva.”

  The tablet sitting next to Ohashi rumbled to life with the sound of an Old Earth race car engine.

  “Decryption’s finished.” She kept working. “Let it sit for a while, make sure there’s no self-

  destruct protocol.”

  The men went to work out in the small gym onboard. Everyone else wandered around the ship

  for the next hour until the data had been compiled. In the meantime, Eva returned with Sorayne.

  They met in the conference room.

  Ohashi began her report. “The drone was custom built on Mars. The satellite-based tracking

  program located its original home base as the same address on record for the Parker’s residence—

  I checked. An MPLE tour of the premises might be in order. Brother and sister lived together.”

  She muttered, “Kinky, if you ask me.”

  Eva waggled her fingers at Ohashi.

  “Wait,” Ohashi said, raising her hand to halt any questions. “That home base was overridden

  with one on this station, about here…” She spun her screen around to provide everyone with a

  schematic view of the space station. Flipping through the different levels, she narrowed it down to

  the Command & Control section. “The C'n'C is responsible for traffic in and out of the station.

  Someone in the Tower with Clearances and Security Codes had access to this drone.”

  Kamryn pointed to the electronic remnants scattered across the workstation. “How many legs

  did it have?”

  Ohashi looked up. “Six, why?”

  “Anything with more than four legs is not your friend.”

  Petra gave her two thumbs up.

  Ohashi resumed. “And just so everybody knows, I haven’t been off the ship since we arrived.

  I’m leaving the ship to go shopping, plus have dinner on the station tonight, then tomorrow I’m

  going planetside even if I have to buy a shuttle ticket.”

  “Me, too,” chimed Petra.

  “Me, three,” said Eva, not to be left behind.

  Axel slapped his hands on the mahogany table, grabbing their attention. “Not without escorts,

  you won’t.”

  Mark nodded. “I’ll go with them.”

  “No, you can’t,” Kamryn said. “You and Eva are not allowed to be outside this ship together.

  It’s against every rule in the book. I’m sorry if it sounds heartless or calculated, but we can’t afford

  to lose both of you at the same time. It’s not how security works.”

  Sorayne stood. “I’ll furnish armed guards. No one leaves until they get here.”

  Mark walked her to the entry hatch. “In case you haven’t noticed, Axel and I are outnumbered

  here. It’s important we keep these ladies happy. I’m going to put in an order for their escorts. One

  of Eva’s boyfriends was bronze, beefy and super smart. Petra likes mature men. Send a guy with

  a sense of humor for Ohashi. But make sure they can shoot the eye out of a moving cyborg. You’ve

  got two ships full of testosterone over there. It shouldn’t be hard to fill that order. Right, Colonel?”

  Sorayne chuckled, shaking her head. “I’ll be back with three prime specimens. While they’re

  gone, we can map out a plan to bring down the rest of Coulter’s Martian network.”

  ***

  Time dragged on as Axel sat at the conference table listening to the pros and cons of going

  public versus keeping their information a secret a
nd acting on it themselves. The arguments were

  civil for the most part, not counting a few flare ups; a foregone conclusion with four alpha

  personalities in one small space without a referee.

  “I still don’t think bringing the Martian authorities in on this is the right way to go,” Mark said,

  asserting his opinion for the third time.

  Sorayne played devil’s advocate. “If we don’t, some or all of you could get arrested for

  subverting their laws. Dr. Warren, you barely escaped that fate the first fifteen minutes you were

  here. Martian Law Enforcement is very militarized. We’re not in Terran space anymore, we’re in

  their space, which means we need to tread lightly.”

  Anger flushed in Kamryn’s cheeks. Unable to remain seated, she paced around the room. “We

  don’t know who to trust. The Parkers—or Königs—are dirty as hell. Their two employees are

  either dead or dirty. At least one high-ranking person in charge of this space station is in league

  with them. Plus, there’s a murdering cyborg on the loose. God only knows how many more. And

  does anyone really think no clones are hiding on Mars? Damn,” she said, “we’re up to our armpits

  in shit this time.”

  Axel reached out to Mark with an encouraging clap on the shoulder. “I understand why you

  don’t trust other people to make the right decisions when it pertains to Coulter. We’re not on Terra,

  or even Luna, where we’d have contacts or friends to pull our butts out of the fire. The best way

  to proceed is to bring our data, along with our suspicions to General Dimitrios at HQ on Terra.

  From his position, he will know who to contact here, as well as how much of the classified

  information to share about Coulter, BioKlon, the cyborgs, and clones.” Axel put his human right

  palm down in the center of the table. He looked up at Kamryn standing across from him, hopeful

  she’d agree with his assessment.

  After an awkward moment, she moved to put her hand over his.

  They looked at Mark. He acquiesced, placing his hand on top.

  Sorayne sealed the decision with her augmented hand.

  The stress evaporated as they reached an agreement.

  “Thank you,” Sorayne said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I didn’t relish having to bail any of you