Cameron had seen nearly all of them because of the built-in security cameras in each cell. Quincy’s mind had deteriorated the most, by far. Stepping into the cell, Cameron glanced around, his sole purpose to end the life of the monster for good.
His opti-spectrum glasses started to glitch again. When they cut off his vision, pain exploded in the side of his head. Cameron went down hard and fast, already sensing another presence close. He kicked out, scoring a direct hit with flesh.
“Bastard!” shouted Quincy, his hot, rank breath filling the room. Cameron’s heightened senses reacted violently to the smell, costing him in reaction time as Quincy struck him again.
He reached out, grabbing hold of Quincy’s ankle and twisting it. The man screamed in pain and the sound of it gave Cameron great satisfaction. As his glasses continued to glitch, Cameron yanked them off and tossed them aside.
Quincy laughed. The sound was chilling and void of real emotion. “Problems seeing, Doctor? Yes, I made sure to tamper with your opti-spectrum glasses before you went into stasis sleep. I thought the droids might attempt to wake you when they sensed me sabotaging the pods. I didn’t want you to be a burden. Too bad you managed to still be one.”
Cameron relied on his natural gifts. He sprang up and off the floor with a speed that no doubt shocked Quincy, and punched the man directly in the face. Each sound Quincy made only increased Cameron’s ability to draw upon all his senses and get a clear mental image. It was a lot like echolocation, yet more.
He struck Quincy again and then grabbed him by his ratty shirt lapels. “You sick son of a bitch,” he snarled, his lips curling with disgust.
“Cameron!” Olivia’s voice cut through the cell, distracting him.
He was worried. “Livia, go!”
Quincy attacked then, gaining the upper hand and rushing at Olivia. He threw her across the room with a strength he shouldn’t possess, then ran from the cell. Cameron’s focus changed from wanting to kill Quincy to wanting to assure himself that Olivia was safe.
He moved to her side quickly, accessing her slumped body. Without his glasses he couldn’t run a diagnostic on her. “Computer, send medical droid 17390 to us at once. Seal off the bay doors to the women’s chamber. Report on Quincy’s location.”
“All bay doors sealed. One female unable to be contained. She is currently with medical droid 17390 and headed in this direction. Ex-commander Quincy is currently entering escape pod four.”
Cameron held Olivia against him, kissing her temple as she groaned.
“Ouch, what happened?” she asked.
“You took a header into a wall,” he replied. “What hurts?”
She sat up on her own and rubbed her neck. “Right now, my pride. Did Quincy escape because of me?”
“He escaped because I was foolish and couldn’t control my temper. I should have waited until I was a hundred per cent. Had I waited, I’d have noticed my glasses weren’t functioning properly.” Cameron sighed. “Instead, I let my temper guide my actions. I just wanted him to pay for hurting the woman I love.”
She gasped.
He paused. “Livia?”
“You love me?”
With a shaky breath he nodded and pulled her into his embrace. “Of course I do.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “I love you, too.”
The computer beeped. “Doctor Cameron, ex-commander Quincy has successfully detached pod four.
His course, New Earth Twelve.”
Olivia tightened her hold on him. He kissed the top of her head. “It will be all right. We’ll find him once we reach Twelve.”
“Is everything all right?” Rain asked, appearing in the doorway with Cara at his side.
“Holy stellar remains,” Cara whispered. “Quincy’s gone?”
“Yes,” Olivia said softly.
Cara made an odd noise. “Darn. I was hoping to get to see Doc there beat the living heck out of him.”
Olivia laughed nervously. “Somehow, I think you still might get to see that. I have a sneaky suspicion we haven’t seen the last of Quincy.”
Rain approached. “With respect, Doctor. I am sensing injuries on you. Odd, they seem to be caused by a short in something electronic.”
“Quincy sabotaged my glasses,” Cameron offered.
“All of them?” questioned Rain.
“All of them?” echoed Cameron, unsure what Rain meant.
“According to inventory logs, there are five additional pairs, all calibrated for you, in the lower storage deck. It will take some time to retrieve them but it can be done in transit, if you wish.”
“17390,” Cameron said with a wink, knowing the android didn’t appreciate being called by his number. “You’re all right, for an android.”
“So are you . . . for a Vanesier,” replied Rain. “You do tend to grow on a person.”
Androids weren’t known for their ability to joke. It meant the adjustments Cameron had done prior to launching the Rhea expedition were working, slowly, but working all the same. He grinned. “I’m the only Vanesier you know personally.”
“True.”
Cameron helped Olivia to her feet and hugged her again. He couldn’t stop touching her. She didn’t seem to mind. She laid her head against his shoulder. “Computer, open the bay doors to the rest of the women.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Cameron took Olivia’s hand in his. “It’s time to start the wakening for Oli.”
She groaned. “Do we have to?”
Cara laughed. “He’s your brother.”
“I know. Picture me explaining how I lost my virginity to his best friend.”
Cara leaned in slightly. “Is that before or after you explain how it is you’re not a little girl anymore?”
Cameron cringed. She had a point. He cleared his throat. “New plan. We let him sleep a bit longer. At least until I’m back in fighting shape and can move fast enough to duck his right upper cut.”
Everyone laughed.
Red Dawn
Delilah Devlin
Planet: Mars
Farming Tract: 782
Year: 2213
Mary stood alone in the middle of a vast golden field, only her little house in the distance to break up the view of her large tract. No signs of civilization, other than her well-ordered crops. She feathered a finger across the tip of the wheat stalk she held. Stiff, but not brittle. Soon the harvest would begin.
Loneliness nagged. She hadn’t thought it would bother her. The interminable days of chores and nightly reporting should have kept her too busy to notice she was alone, without another human being to talk to, other than the dispatcher who’d confirmed that this day her first shipment would arrive.
Tension rode her shoulders, boiled in her belly. Today, her life would change. Again.
Among the first who’d stepped outside the dome without a breathing device, she’d taken the chance the air was truly safe, that alien toxins wouldn’t accumulate in her blood or that the newly manufactured atmosphere wouldn’t smother her.
She’d had no fear. Only a sense of wonder and fierce pride that she, Mary Bledsoe from the Americas Sector, was among the first colonists of Mars.
Fifty years of terraforming the barren planet had at last produced a habitable world to replace the one they’d ruined. The Mars-Tech Company owned exclusive rights to the project, and had released oxygen trapped in the northern icecap to form an atmosphere that mimicked the former success of Earth’s natural greenhouse and normalized the temperatures. They introduced animals, insects, bacteria – everything necessary to ensure the soil would be ready for the first crops. They dug canals to deliver the water beginning to melt from the icecap to the plains, where crops were sown by huge industrial machines – all in preparation for the colonists who would assume responsibility for the first harvests, and thereafter all future plantings.