Version Innocent

Chapter 30

  Dawson had watched the entire scene through Lt. Madison’s eyes because, unlike every one else present at the event, she could see all the other marines. It had been a tense moment when the Martian Secret Service agent was moving towards Terra. What no one else could see were the six marines who were on the floor with them and the other two who were keeping vigil from the doorway. They all had their weapons armed and if the Mars Secret Service agent hadn’t stopped when he did, they might have intervened. Dawson was glad they hadn’t had to. It would have revealed their presence and probably caused an international scandal. It would also have let them all know what the Fleet was capable of, and that could have resulted in tremendous fallout from Fleet security for exposing classified secrets.

  The speech Terra had given, while not as impressive as those Dawson had seen Earth politicians give, was pretty good. Then again, she didn’t have to worry about getting elected or anything. She had the power, almost like a monarchy but not quite. The look on Ariel Stoneman’s face had been worth all the effort to keep the three of them safe.

  The Marines had stopped three attempts to waylay the three of them. The first just outside the tunnel to the Gates Family dome, a second when they got off the train, and a third had been thwarted by the advance team that had been scouting the capital long before the three had ever left the Gates Family dome. Fortunately the Marines were as good as their reputation. They stopped all three groups and managed not to leave any bodies. All the men, whom Dawson had identified using the Powel’s identification system, had come from the asteroid colonies; hence, they would be unknown on Mars. Dawson doubted that Ariel could have gotten any true Martian to attack Terra Gates. She and her family were too much a piece of Martian history for that. They might vote her out of power if they could, but she’d done a lot of good things for Mars in the past.

  “We’ve just followed the three out of the library building. Should we follow and continue to protect or let them go now that the vote is over?” Lt. Madison asked him over their secure connection.

  “Follow them back to the Gates Family Dome and once you see them safely inside, I’ll have Captain Whetherstone send the launch to pick you all up under the pretense of needing some supplies,” Dawson replied.

  “Affirmative,” Lt. Madison said. She wasn’t ever very wordy, but even less so when she was on assignment.

  “Captain?” Dawson began, initiating a link to the captain from his quarters.

  “Yes, Agent Dawson?” the Captain’s reply came back. There was no visual, just a voice.

  “The operation has been a success. I would like you to send the launch down on the pretense of needing something to retrieve the marines after they have escorted Terra Gates and the others back to her dome.”

  “Yes, it’s all over the Martian news channels. Terra Gates’ mysterious reappearance. They’re going on and on. I’ll have Lt. Commander Bowman break out the launch and go to pick up some fresh food stuffs, so long as we’re here,” the Captain agreed.

  “Thank you, Captain,” Dawson replied and then broke the connection. He’d better get a report for Harding ready. He was sure that after the media broadcasts made it to Earth, Harding would be squirming for news. Dawson composed a data packet with a brief report of their activities along with a view of the entire scene at the board meeting room as seen through Sam’s eyes. Let him see it for himself and draw his own conclusions. Perhaps it would keep him from sending endless questions as he had after the last report. When the report was ready, he encrypted and sent it to the communications queue that would transmit it back to Earth via tight laser transmission. Fleet would then route it to Harding.

  When he was done with his report, he re-linked to Sam’s implant to keep abreast of what was happening down on the surface. Dawson hoped that now that the vote was out of the way they would be able to move on to find Storm 6.7, and maybe he’d find out why Storm owed Terra something, and what.