Chapter 15.4

“Go right ahead, try to escape. Please!” Ty dared, fixing the disgraced turncoat’s feet to the floor with an icy stare. Steve stepped around behind Commander Lewis, grabbed a wrist, wrenching it up sharply behind his back, and slipped a heavy-duty nylon zip-strip over it.

“If you’re smart, you’ll put your other hand in here, too,” Steve advised him as he glanced over at Ty and with a wink added, “I’m running low on these cause we’ve gone through so many in the last couple of hours.” But Ty was not feeling amused at this moment. His face was frozen with hatred for the man who had sought his demise and no doubt caused the death of his beloved Claire.

Seconds later, the silence in the cavernous room was broken by a burst of static over the communications system, quickly followed by a flickering image on the super-sized view-screen mounted high on the wall. A disembodied voice announced, “Houston, this is Commander Thomas Castle from Claire Base. Bolo One has landed, right in line between Penny Bright Crater and FP1 here on the Avernus Colles.” As the image snapped into sharp focus, the flight uniformed figure continued, “I would estimate we are within fifteen meters of our Mars Ascent Vehicle, and oh… about forty-five meters from the edge of the crater. We touched down shortly before sunrise and the sky is just getting clear enough to get a good look at our surroundings.”

Gazing into the camera and pointing out a nearby porthole, he continued, “Looking out towards the crater on the east side of the ship, it appears we are not alone on Mars. There is a robotic rover more or less on the edge of the crater’s rim. With two of its arms, it appears to be collecting shiny mineral aggregate, and placing them into large piles. I don’t recall that task as being in the plans for this particular mission. And, I don’t ever recollect any updates mentioning a robotic rover joining the party. This couldn’t be that rover from… what was it, 2012?” Tom inquired as he turned toward Carl.

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