Wonderland part 10 - Sacrifices

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WONDERLAND

Phantasm had a premonition that led her to meeting the Guardsman.  They find out that there was a common incident in their lives that changed everything for both of them.  Then they learned of an impending alien invasion by the Zendats, and have prepared for it.

Phantasm, (Chelsea Juarez) is a skilled hand to hand fighter.  Her precognitive ability means she can anticipate any move that a foe can think of, and means she gets powerful premonitions about the near future.  She wears customized body armor, and has a lot of gadgets she uses as she fights crime in the city.  But even with a multitude of weapons, such as her bow and specialty arrows, she still prefers beating the bad guys to a pulp in hand to hand combat.  She was injected by Wonderland, and has enhanced natural abilities now.

Guardsman (Edward Fenton) is the strongest hero known on the Earth.  He was injected by the drug Wonderland, and is the only survivor out of nearly 400 test subjects.  He is able to lift about 6 tons, and he is even tougher than he is strong.  He has enhanced reflexes and regenerates injuries very quickly.  He has a set of experimental forearm bracers and gauntlets that have a Vibranium coating, which reflects energy and dramatically enhances his punches. 

Sarah Pennington is Chelsea’s best friend.  She is an ace computer hacker, and is a huge fan of both Phantasm and Guardsman.  She has taken a job as Chelsea’s housekeeper by day, and Phantasm’s girl Friday by night.  Now she is bonded to an alien soul crystal, giving her the powers of Sapphire.

Darrev Shahkem is the last surviving member of the last race to encounter the Zendats.  It turns out he is human, and likely his ancestors were brought from Earth to his now destroyed world.  He has been bonded to a soul crystal for over a decade, and has the powers of Silver.

Chelsea's father, Marco Juarez, has been granted clemency from his involvement with Wonderland.  He has a set of advanced battle armor that he has committed to the defense of the earth.  Heavily armed and armored, he also has worked with the heroes sharing his knowledge of combat tactics gained from his time as an Army officer.  He is called Power Armor.

Cliff Higgins and his wife Annie have both just been hired by Chelsea.  With all of the business going on lately, she realized she needed a security officer, and her dad’s old commander in the Army is a great fit!  He also designs the armor than Guardsman and Phantasm wear.  Annie is a gourmet cook, and only Cliff is aware that she is a Master of Tae Kwon Do, as well as being an expert pistol marksman.

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From Wonderland part 9 – Assault on Zenda

As they finish the turn, she sees it – the Zendat sphere.  No one knows what the Zendats call it, but everyone refers to it as Zenda.  She is astounded at the sheer size of this construct.  It must be 30 miles across!  She calls back.  “Target is in view, we should be there in about 5 minutes.”  Phantasm releases her straps and moves to the cockpit.  She uses her precognitive sense, and stares at the sphere.  Then she starts directing Silver where to move to.  After about 4 minutes, they are close enough, and Silver deploys a chute to the skin of the sphere.  Phantasm grabs Guardsman’s hand, and then both of them start looking a little fuzzy… then they go through the wall!...

…Now the rest of the troops come in and they all see their objective.  About eleven miles north, they see the Destroyer fleet, at least 50 of them!  And Major Juarez is able to see their true objective; the C&C center.  When he hits that with the nuke on his shoulder, it should wipe out their military arm.  They just need to get Power Armor to within 7 miles so he is in range.

But they all are thinking; what will they be dealing with over those miles…

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Wonderland part 10 – Sacrifices

Major Juarez looks at the scene.  He knows what the mission is, but sees an opportunity they cannot miss.  This is a decision he has to make himself.  Any transmission strong enough to contact the Commander will be detected.

He turns to his troops that are gearing up.  “You men have been handpicked for this mission.  You know your jobs; you know what you are capable of.  But we have a target of opportunity we cannot pass up.  What good will it do to take out their military arm if they can just rebuild it?  We need to take out their power source as well.”  He points at the synthetic sun.  “We need a team to go there.  We have a spare nuke launcher, just like the one on my shoulder.  Lieutenant, pick your top squad.  They have a new mission.”

The Platoon leader is well aware of his top squad.  But he knows, this is going to be a one way mission, no extraction.  He hates to lose these men, but he knows… this mission will call for the toughest troops, the coolest heads… “Squad leader Baker, report.”  Corporal Ted Baker runs to the Platoon leader.  “Reporting as ordered, sir.”  “You heard the Major.  Your team will take the spare nuke launcher and proceed along this support to within 7 miles, and fire at a primary support for the synthetic sun.  Don’t shoot at the star; it may consume the weapon.  Shoot at a support structure so it breaks loose from its containment system.”

Major Juarez walks up to the squad leader.  “I don’t need to tell you; this mission is near suicide.  We need a small team, and there are so many things that can go wrong.  But it has to be done.  We will try and save your team, but no guarantees.”  The corporal looks at Power Armor and says, “There is never a guarantee in anything in this life, Major.  We will get the mission done as ordered.  And yes, I know, the Earth is depending on us, sir.”

Major Juarez steps out of his armor and walks up to the young man, shaking his hand.  “I don’t like this, ordering men to near certain death.  I want you to know this is harder than any decision I have ever made.”  Then he climbs back into his armor and powers it up.  Then he salutes the Corporal, and says, “Have your men take a reserve parachute each.  In this reduced gravity and with your added strength, that should be enough if you have the opportunity to jump.”  Then Major Juarez turns towards their target.

One squad is staying with the supplies as a reserve, and two squads with their platoon leader and platoon sergeant are going with the heroes.   They proceed forward, with their first waypoint being a support structure running to the center, about a mile ahead.  Guardsman and Power Armor are leading the way.  They have the toughest skins, so they are taking point.  They get to the support and Guardsman, Silver and Sapphire help get the men to the base of the support strut.  The habitat rotates to make about ½ earth gravity, but the shell of the sphere rotates very slowly, only creating a gravity of about 1/30^th of earth.  The men heading to the core have a much easier time since they aren’t fighting much gravity, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy.

Phantasm turns to the Platoon leader.  “Keep in mind that you can probably jump 50 feet in the air right now.  Work out tactics in your minds that take advantage of this.”  The platoon leader smirks and passes the word back to his squad leaders.  The group continues for about 10 minutes, and then they see a mech patrol.  It consists of 4 mechs in a diamond pattern.  They seem to be on a routine mission, and the gang hides behind a hill.  They think they have lost them, and then Phantasm senses it; the Wonderland in their blood.  But if she senses them… She calls out, “They know we are here!”  Then she leaps up and fires an exploding arrow at the nearest one, staggering it.  Then Power Armor fires his jets, and shoots both LAAW rockets, at one, causing it to collapse to the ground!  Then the other three mechs start flooding the area with their poisoned flechette darts.  Silver flies up and fires concussive blast after blast at one, eventually toppling it over!  Guardsman flies straight into another, picks it up and slams it into the ground!  The heroes move out of the field of fire and the troops open up with their SAWs and LAAWs.  The fight is over in about a minute, but Major Juarez is worried…

“We need to set a defensive position.  You know they are going to send everything to stop us!  After we hold their attack, we start forward again.”  The troops find a good defensive position and work out fields of fire.  They set their heavy weapons, including a mortar team, and call for a fireteam back at the supply station to bring ammo.  Phantasm walks to Power Armor and says, “It’s not going to work.  I have the feeling that this is what they want us to do.  You and Silver should move ahead and launch your missile.  We will hold them here and try to figure out what their plan is.”

Major Juarez is trying to put it all together, and then Guardsman walks up to him and whispers, “Professor, never doubt your daughter’s premonitions.  If she said it, it is going to happen.  We need to change the script, but still make them think they are in control.”  Marco Juarez, Professor of Biology, Army Major and proud father to Chelsea Juarez, the Phantasm, straightens up, and nods.  “Silver!  You and I are moving ahead, but we need to stay away from them.”  Silver nods and picks up Power Armor!  In this reduced gravity, he can easily move him around.

They go above the support beam, and then move to a maintenance chasm.  They get themselves about a mile from the group, and then they see explosions and hear gunfire!  But they have the big mission… they move forward.  Power Armor uses his sensors to steer away from incoming units.  They continue on, praying that the group can hold out.  They use cover, and see that the area between the habitat and the forward command area has virtually no life on it.  They get to the range, and then they see a destroyer moving towards the group!  That’s their plan, have the heroes too involved to do anything other than defense, and have the Destroyer lay waste to the area they are at.

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Baker Squad is traveling towards the synthetic sun.  It is pretty tough going; they are basically climbing straight up!  The reduced gravity simplifies things, but they are still moving slower than they like.  They keep a careful eye out, and so far have avoided all contact.  Their squad has 3 guys carrying the rocket launcher as well as their M-16s; two 2-man SAW teams; two guys each carrying 2 LAAW rocket launchers, a STINGER missile launcher, and Heckler & Koch MP5s; and Corporal Baker plus fireteam leader Selvas carrying M-16/M203 combos.  A very well armed group!  It’s slow going but they have closed to within 10 miles, only 3 to go!

Suddenly, one of the troops steps on something that gives way.  He looks down and sees it was a camera!  “Corporal, I think they know we are here.”  He looks at him and gets a steely look in his eyes and signals for everyone to watch for anything.  They keep climbing, and then see one of those smaller escort craft approaching them.  Baker signals and the two guys with Stinger launchers get ready…

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At the supply station, one of the fireteams has loaded up on munitions and has left to go rearm the main assault team.  The other fireteam has set up and is waiting; they have divided up into two soldiers holding SAWs, and two others that are ready with a belt of ammo and a LAAW.  The leader is using his favorite weapon, a long barreled UZI chambered for the 10mm pistol round, with an M203 slung underneath.  These high velocity bullets make the UZI into a good medium range strike weapon.

These troops were told they can detect Wonderland in other beings, and they sensed it in Guardsman, Phantasm and Major Juarez.  They were told to use this sense to detect approaching Zendats, since they all have been given Wonderland.  Suddenly one of the troops senses the presence.  They turn to see a pair of Zendats coming over a hill.  They immediately draw their pistols, but the fireteam leader takes them out before they can aim.  “This is bad.  If there are any others nearby, I am sure they heard the gunfire and will be calling for help.”  The group braces for an attack.

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Power Armor and Silver are proceeding to their target.  Then they see a huge dip in the edge, it must be where they park the destroyers while they travel.  They judge that they will be about 2 miles from the C&C center on the other side.  But they need to get there.  The missile has a long lock time to make sure it doesn’t fire accidentally.  The only way to get a lock is to hold it on target for 15 seconds, and Power Armor needs to be on the ground for that.  He looks at Silver, and says, “Go take care of that destroyer.  If it gets there, the whole team is dead.  I’ll get across this chasm and take care of business.  In this weak gravity, I should have enough fuel to get there and get out.”  Silver nods, and then flies up towards the destroyer.

Major Juarez knows he only has enough fuel to get there.

Silver looks at the Destroyer, and would be surprised if he survives entering and fighting in there.  But he has an ace up his sleeve.  He reaches into a storage compartment in his armor.  He has been hiding it from Sapphire.  He pulls out… the emerald soul crystal.  He knows the crystal wants to bond with him.  He hasn’t said anything to Sarah, because he doesn’t want her to worry.   This has never been tried before, bonding with two crystals.  His bond is hesitant to do this; this is unfamiliar to it as well.  He places the crystal against his heart, and it spreads in a circle.  He hesitates, but then looks at the destroyer, and sees it will be attacking the group in about a minute.  He grants permission, and it spreads out over his body, and he screams!  The pain, it is nearly unbearable!  The two crystals are trying to bond together, and Darrev’s body is taking the brunt of it!

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The STINGER missiles fired by Baker squad’s missile men slam into the escort and it burst into flames, crashing into the ground below.  Their dampening field must not work inside the sphere!  Corporal Baker is relieved, but knows they only bought a couple of minutes.  He looks at the scene, and makes a decision.  “Duke, Simmons!  Strap to the upright!  Davis, hold on tight to the nuke launcher and grab onto Steven’s belt!”  They do as Corporal Baker commands, and then he gives some quick instructions.  Duke and Simmons put everything they have into a heave ho!  And toss Stevens in the air, with Davis hanging on for dear life!  In the 1/30^th gravity, they fly the last half mile up, and then Stevens uses a rope to pull them back onto the support!

They catch their breath for a second, and then Stevens lashes himself to the support, and holds Davis steady.  He checks the range, and he is good to go!  He sights in on a support structure, probably using a magnetic bubble to hold the star fragment in place.  He waits the 15 seconds until he gets a tone… then pulls the trigger.  The missile flies out, with a camera guided flight directly at the support.  Stevens and Davis release the rope and jump!  The rest of Baker’s squad sees Stevens and Davis falling, and jump as well!

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Silver stands up and stands erect.  But he is no longer Silver.  His two bonds have a new name they would prefer – Emerald Moon.  He flexes his forearms, and sees the green stripe on his arm grow and pulse, as if it is ready to go!  He flies up to the destroyer and the green portion of his armor extends tendrils that seep into a closed hatch.  Then he pulls, and the door rips lose, and he tosses it away!  He fires concussive beams into the ship, and then flies in.

The team is waiting for the Destroyer to strike, there is nowhere to run!  Then the front of the ship is ripped by a huge explosion, and they see Silver fly out!  Except he doesn’t look like Silver… The ship crashes, and the green tendrils guide the fall right onto the attacking Zendats!  Once the group is decimated, the heroes and troops make short work of the remnants.  Emerald Moon flies down to the group and he walks up to Sapphire.  His helmet fades, as does hers.  Sarah says, “How, how… how did you do that?  Why didn’t you tell me you were chosen by the Emerald crystal?”  He looks at her and says, “I didn’t want you to worry…”  She looks at him sternly!  “You and me, we have something together.  This superhero stuff is new to me, and quite frankly, so is this relationship stuff.  Please, please, please… I can take it.  You don’t have to hide things from me.”  Then she leaps at him and kisses him with all her heart.  The troops, who feel thankful to be alive, start clapping!  Sarah turns towards them with a bright red face and says, “Trust your ladies guys.  I think you will find they are tougher than you think.”

Phantasm says, “Silver, where is Power Armor?”  he replies, “My bonds prefer we be called Emerald Moon.  And Power Armor went on without me, he had me attack the destroyer, and he went forward to fire the missile.  But it looks like he will be firing it less than a mile from the target.”  Guardsman gets big eyes, and then flies off towards where he should be!  He knows this will give away his position, but he turns on his GPS locator, and sees Power Armor!  He turns it off and flies towards him.

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The force at the supply cache start firing at the approaching enemy.  Then they are forced to duck at the hail of poisoned darts flying at them!  One of the SAW gunners gets hit, and instantly dies.  One of the supply specialists moves up – his specialty won't do any good if everyone is dead!  He brings a LAAW rocket with him and then readies a belt for the SAW.

Suddenly, they hear gunfire and explosions!  The hail of darts stop, and they look out and see that Baker squad is landing, with all guns blazing!  The supply depot guns start blazing away, and as they are firing, they see the Nuke go off at the central core.  They all obey their training and hit the deck!  Right after that blast, they see another go off…

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Power Armor sets and sees the target.  He waits patiently for the lock, and finally gets the tone!  He fires, and turns to run.  With no fuel he will have to hoof it and hope for the best.  Then Guardsman lands “POWER DOWN! RIGHT NOW!”  Marco Juarez does as Guardsman says, and braces himself.

The nuke goes off, and Guardsman has plastered himself over the back of Power Armor.  He thinks, ‘This is going to hurt…’ and then the blast reaches him.  The force, heat and energy cause incredible pain, even to someone as tough as Guardsman!  He feels like a thousand knives are striking his back, and he cannot think.  Then the blast fades, and he topples over unconscious.   Power Armor has restarted his armor, and is horrified when he sees Guardsman!  His sides are burned badly, and he looks like he may not be alive!  He turns him over to see his backpack has been consumed, along with his back armor, and his back is burned black.  He uses his IR sensors, but cannot understand what he sees!  Guardsman is alive, but energy is flowing throughout his body, traveling throughout, and he sees it – his skin is starting to heal at a phenomenal rate.

A moment later, Sapphire flies in carrying Phantasm.  She runs to him and rips off her mask.  “BOBBY!”  He starts to move, and then he wakes up.  He turns to see Chelsea’s beautiful face, and says, “Have I told you how much I love you lately?”  With tears in her eyes, she nods, holds him tight and says, “Don’t ever let me forget it.”  She feels the burn on his back, but something is strange.  She lets go and looks, and sees his back repairing itself way too fast.  Then she looks at his face, and is stunned!  “Bobby, your eyes…”  He stands up, and knows.  The radiation from the explosion changed something.  He looks up and sees a few escort craft flying towards them.  He zooms into the sky, and bright yellow beams of energy come out of his eyes!  They cut the escorts in half, one at a time.  Then he lands.  “It’s time to get out of here.”

Guardsman picks up Power Armor and Sapphire picks up Phantasm, and they race back to the group.  They see the soldiers have already leaped back to the supply station.  And they see the synthetic star is starting to destroy everything.  Major Juarez says, “TIME TO GO!”  And Sapphire says, ‘Where’s Emerald Moon?”  One of the troops says, “He went into his ship, something about taking care of things.”  Major Juarez takes a headcount.  56 went in with the heroes, and 41 are still alive.  They head into the opening.

But something is not right.  They are not in Emerald Moon’s ship.  They are in one of the shuttles.  The troops split up and go between the two.  Sapphire says, “Where is Darrev’s ship?”  No one knows.  Then the shuttles HAVE to release, the sphere is getting too unstable.  Major Juarez nods, and the doors are shut.  The pilots launch away, getting emergency coordinates and burn rates from Houston control.

Then they see it.  Emerald Moon has moved his ship to the base of the sphere, and long tendrils have come out of it and are powering the engines!  As soon as the shuttles are clear, the engines fire, and the sphere begins moving towards the sun.  Sapphire is about to explode from panic!  “I need to save him!  How do I get out?”  Phantasm grabs her.  “Sapphire, you can’t.  You told me your bond can keep you alive for about 20 minutes in space, right?  That ship is well over an hour away at your top speed.  We-we can’t lose both of you.”   Sarah causes the armor to reveal her face, and she says, “I don’t know if I want to live without him…”  Then she holds her closest friend and starts bawling.  Guardsman looks out and sees that Silver’s ship is out of power, and is floating freely, but is too far for them to get to.  He says, “He was a brave man.  Even though this wasn’t his home, he was just as courageous as anyone that has ever lived here.”

The shuttles begin their reentry, and the pilots perform an expert job at getting the ships safely on the ground.  After they come to a halt, the door opens.  A stairs ladder is waiting, and Guardsman leads the way.  As they are leaving, there is a crowd, including the Commander, waiting for them.  A bevy of reporters is there as well to meet the heroes.  Everyone cheers as the heroes descend!  The cheering doesn’t abate as the soldiers begin to descend the ladder.  When they get there, a group of reporters put their microphones in front of Guardsman and Phantasm.  Sapphire is floating above; she really doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now. 

Phantasm, with her voice disguised by her mask, moves forward and speaks.  “We won.  It was an amazing battle with amazing teamwork, and Power Armor made some very astute decisions that decided the battle for us.  Unfortunately, there were losses.  Fifteen brave soldiers aren’t returning.  And one hero sacrificed everything.  The hero Silver, who at the end was known as Emerald Moon, chose to sacrifice his ship and himself to steer the Zendat sphere into the sun.  According to Houston Control, the sphere should be crashing into the sun in about 2 months.  Even if there are any Zendat survivors, and I doubt that, they do not have enough time to fix things.  The greatest threat to the human race has been extinguished.”  The crowd cheers!  Power Armor steps forward and walks up to the Commander, stunned to see that it is Cliff Higgins XO from his old unit.  “General, I just want you to know, that Colonel Higgins will be proud.  I’ll be talking to him a bit later.”

The Commander gets a smirk on his face.  Colonel Higgins was the one that showed him the real meaning of commanding, not just do the time and get the job, but leading men, doing it right, so they will proudly follow you through the gates of hell.  And this was hell.  Over a quarter of all active US military became casualties.  And now the real job begins, trying to put the world back together.  All major and many minor nations were devastated by the attacks.  As bad as Manhattan was hit, Tokyo was hit harder.  London took over 2 million casualties.  The destroyers did substantial damage to 34 major cities worldwide.  And it will be years, maybe a decade, before things are back to somewhat normal.

The Commander gets a C130 assigned to getting the heroes back to the Philadelphia area.  As they are flying, all of them are relieved, proud, and yet at the same time devastated.  They saved the world!  They defeated the biggest threat to intelligent life in the cosmos, or at least as far as they know.  But they lost one of their own.  Sapphire sits by herself, and says nothing.  Every once in a while, Phantasm and Guardsman goes over to try and talk to her, but after a few seconds, they give up.  She is in no mood to talk to anyone right now…

When they arrive, Sapphire flies Phantasm home and takes her in through the well.  Guardsman carries Power Armor and has Chelsea talk him through going into the garage, and the battlesuit is locked up in Cliff’s armor lab.  They go into the house, and see Cliff and Annie are beckoning for them to go in the kitchen.  Annie has a marvelous meal set up for them.  Chelsea and Sarah are already there, and Chelsea is chewing thoughtfully.  Sarah is picking at her food.  Bobby and Marco sit down, and they begin to eat thoughtfully.  Cliff frowns as he watches them being so morose.

“You all had a mission.  You all knew what the cost could be.  And yet all of you went on that mission without hesitation.  I’m sure you are thinking, ‘why him and not me?’  Well, it wasn’t your day.  It was his day.  And you all knew he went in there ready to make the ultimate sacrifice if needed.  You all did.  This is not a time to mourn.  There will be plenty of time for that later, in a proper setting, when we all have a chance to look back on what he did.  Celebrate your victory.  Think about the billions of lives you saved.  Nothing can change what happened to him.  And nothing can change your incredible achievement.  When I was commanding a regiment in Iraq during the Desert Storm war, it was an incredible achievement.  We beat the enemy soundly with few casualties.  But twelve of them were in my unit.  It’s hard to think we had a great victory when 12 brave men under my command died.  But it was a great victory.  I had to accept that.  I attended every one of those twelve men’s funerals.  I hand wrote all twelve letters that went back to their families.  And yes, I celebrated the victory.”  With that he goes into the living room and turns on the television to catch up on everything that happened.

All of them at the table bow their heads and eat their dinner quietly.  Afterwards Marco goes up to his room to consider everything his commander said.  While he is lying there, the communication device that was given to him by Lexko goes off.  He activates it and sees the holographic image of Lexko displayed.  “Greetings Marco Juarez, I see you have beaten the Zendats, and their world of terror is preparing to dive into your sun, a fitting end to a race that would have completely destroyed every sentient being in this sector of space if they could.  We watched the entire thing via a stealth satellite we had in orbit near the sphere.  While my race is too passive to help in the conflict, we did see one way we could help.”

He moves out of the view and turns his device to show Darrev sitting in a chair!  “The hero Emerald Moon was in his depleted ship, with the last of the breathable air already gone.  His bond was keeping him alive when we found him, but he was very close to dead.  We brought him into our ship and treated him, and he is very much alive.  If you would like, we can transport him into your dwelling place right now.”  Marco gets up and runs downstairs.  He sees Cliff and Annie cleaning up, and the rest have all retired to their rooms.  He says, “Now would be a good time, right next to me.”

There is a flash of light, and Darrev appears next to him.  He looks very weak, but he is alive!  Professor Juarez shakes his hand, and is very glad to see him!  Cliff and Annie run over to him, dumbfounded to see he is still alive!  Marco goes to Bobby and Chelsea’s room, and knocks.  Bobby comes to the door and sees Darrev, and goes back in to wake up Chelsea.  They both come out and are so glad to see him!  Then Chelsea gets on her phone.  “Sarah?  Please come down to the living room.  No, you NEED to come down.  Now.  I DON’T CARE!  It’s important you get down here as soon as possible.”  Chelsea gets a shocked look on her face!  “Don’t you ever talk to me like that again.  And get your ass down here now.”  Then she hangs up.

A moment later, a terse looking Sarah walks down the steps in her robe and pajamas.  She gets into the living room, and is too stunned to move!  “D-Darrev?  You-you are alive?”  He looks at her, and it is obvious that he is weak, but it is also obvious that he has nothing but love in his eyes for her.  He turns and weakly walks towards her, and then she runs and leaps into his arms, almost pulling them both to the ground!  She just holds him and tears stream out of her eyes.  Then she looks at him and slaps him!  “You didn’t even give me a chance to say goodbye…”  Then she holds him tighter.  Sensing that he is weak, she leads him over to the couch and sits with him, where they talk quietly.  The rest of the people there leave them alone to talk.

Marco looks at his comm and says, “He is here, and he is fine.  I don’t know how you did it, but thank you for saving him.”  Lexko says, “You are welcome.  As per our agreement, we are going to be leaving shortly to start developing your world, Mars, into a habitable planet.  I do have one question though.  You mentioned a friend that lost three limbs in the attack on your city of Manhattan?”  Marco nods, knowing Lexko can see him.  “Can you bring her to your location tomorrow morning?  We may be able to help her.”  He replies, “Yes, I will do that.  Thank you for everything you were able to do.  I know your race was pacifistic, and what you were able to do was marvelous.”  Then they salute each other and end the call.

“I’m glad everything worked out, but I am drained.  I think I am going to retire for the evening.”  Everyone waves at him as he walks up the stairs.

Marco Juarez lies down on his bed, and pulls out his cell phone.  There is one thing he needs to take care of.  He dials a number and listens.  A female voice picks up.  “Hello?  Who is this?”  He replies, “It’s me Elizabeth, it’s Marco…”

NEXT:  Changes