Mara Koilo sprang from her seat and
wrapped her tall brother in the biggest hug she could give.
"Mmm... it's great to see you, Mara,”
whispered William. He sighed with contentment, squeezing her in return.
"I’m glad to see you too, William!" She
let go and gave him a pat on the arm, before returning to her seat. He followed
and seated himself beside Mara. The nanite chair responded with changes to the
chair to provide that excellent support.
Captain Florstaff addressed them both. "It is
rare to have 2 active duty personnel from 2 different branches and
being siblings at that!" He smiled.
He leaned on the silver desk, folding his hands. “On
a heavier note, William will accompany you, Mara. He requested that he go this
way, when he found out where you were being sent.”
She smiled at her
brother.
Mara had to ask, “Sir, there seems to be more to
this mission than meets the eye, is there something else at play here?”
“Ma'am, the information you have now is all I was
permitted to give you, before your departure from the base,” answered
Florstaff.
She exchanged a glance with her confused brother.
He raised his dark brown eyebrows. I'll explain it to him later. She turned back to the Captain.
“I understand, Sir.”
Captain Florstaff rose from his chair. “Good. You two
are dismissed. We will dock with the Coast Guard in about 3 hours.”
The Koilos both stood in respect to the Navy Captain
as he exited the office.
Mara let out a sigh. She strode to the door with
her box in hand. William put on his hat and walked with her to the conduit.
Before leaving the bridge, Mara looked out to the base. The sun was now closer
to the horizon; not quite evening yet. She entered the conduit. They were once
again in the corridor where Josh had leaded her to the Captain.
“Where to?” asked Mara.
“We’re going to go below to the quarter’s section,”
he said; continuing down the corridor. "I'll show you where you are
staying for the trip." He took a right from the conduit, taking another
one down the hall. William led her to yet another conduit glowing green. He
disappeared. Mara then stepped in.
This time they appeared in an aisle that was lined
with thick windows looking out to the cobalt world. The opposite side had doors
at intervals along the hall. Names glowed light blue in the panel of each one.
William stopped at door 3. "Here it is,” he said, stepping back.
The doors automatically swished open. Mara entered
a white room with a bed to one side and a chair on the other. The ceiling was
low. Lighting glowed from under the edges of the wall. Soft, red covers of the bed looked quite
comfortable. Upon sitting on it she found that it had the same properties as
that of the Captains office chair. William sat in the silver chair with a
dramatic sigh.
Smiling at each other, Mara noticed how fatigued
her brother looked.
"How have you been?" said the two
simultaneously. They laughed.
"You go first, Will."
He groaned. "I've been doing fine. I just got
back from Arkqif yesterday. It is a settlement in Sector 7. It is more or less
a war zone now." He paused, staring at the wall. "What about you,
Mar? What was that about your orders back there?”
"I have been recently assigned to Onkorplas. I
am a bit confused, because I sense something else behind this mission. Don't
ask me why, I just do. Other than that I've been doing fine. Hey, have you
received any letters from the family lately?"
He sat up. "Yes. Mom and Dad are settling down
in Arizona. Brian is on a new assignment to the Pacific. Mathew and Rebecca are
still working for the FBI on the office side of things, last I heard. I don't
hear much from them."
"How long have they been there now?"
"Probably about 2 years. Now, Mom and Dad said
that Rebecca was considering joining the Special Ops group."
"Wow. I can definitely see her doing that
job."
Mara thought about her 21 year old, red haired
sister. Rebecca was very intelligent and had a knack for solving
things on a dime. She missed her company. Her family had not been together for
over three years. She was glad her other 2 brothers weren't here. All there
would be during any time of the day would be merciless teasing. Nevertheless,
she did miss her obnoxious brothers.
Just then, they heard "dive, dive" over
the intercom. William walked out to the window. Mara followed and stood beside
him. They felt the pressure increase as the Wies Hart sunk deeper. She blinked when
white lights flashed on in the hall, making it difficult to see anything out
there. Once the engines engaged, the floor beneath their shoes thrummed.
"Well, I'll have to catch you later, Mara. I'm
going to go get some rest before we get to CSTC."
She nodded. "See you then."
Mara watched him leave through the conduit. Walking
back into her room, she figured she could get some rest as well.
Upon entering, she commanded, “Computer, show Wies Hart's direction and destination using
map display.”
Sitting down on her bed, she opened her box. A beep
sounded from the wall opposite her bed. A holographic display of the route they
were taking appeared on the wall. Mara saw that they were going to go
through a tunnel that cut through the continent of South America. It leads to the
Gulf, where they were to dock with a smaller vessel. Wies Hart was too big to try and dock on the
Florida coastlines.
Looking down, Mara pressed an emerald button on the
side of the box she held. Another holographic display appeared from above the
opened container. It listed the objects that were stored there. Everything she
had was broken down to their molecular make-up and stashed in tiny bags. A
device sat on top of those bags. It looked like a code reader, but when pointed
at the molecular stash, it sent out a pulsating signal. That signal was the key
for the molecules to combine to form what it once was.
The music IPod was what Mara was after. She tapped the
glowing air, at the place where it now showed: ‘Object retrieved’. She took out
the Bonder device and the bag for the IPod. Placing the stashed bag on her bed,
she pointed the Bonder at it. It quickly took shape. The plastic bag it was in
molded to the IPod, giving the object a sleek shine. She put everything else
away in her box and laid down to listen to Enya's music.
Later Mara woke up. Oh,
great, I had better not have missed anything. She was being called. Jumping up from
her bed she put her tiny IPod in the box.
"Computer, who called me," she asked while straightening
her uniform.
It responded in a male voice, “Captain Florstaff on
command deck."
The map was still up. They had arrived. She gathered her
things and headed to the command deck. The Gulf glowed bright blue through the hallway
windows. Walking past, dolphins swam by with a chorus of chirps.
Upon arriving to the command deck, Mara saw that they had
already docked with the Coast Guard ship. William stood conversing with
Florstaff toward the back of the large room. She walked over to join them.
The Captain nodded toward Mara."You are dismissed
Koilos. Godspeed and safe travels."
He gave each of them a firm handshake.
William led the way. Once in the corridor on their way to
the docking port, he stopped and turned toward his sister, with a guarded
expression. "We received news about a half hour ago that Onkorplas is
destroyed."
Mara didn't know what to say. She waited for an
explanation. "You
are coming with me, until otherwise ordered. I have to warn you though; things
are going to get rough."
With that, they continued on down the corridor. 'Yeah but just how rough?’ thought Mara in frustration.
So far she had been tossed around with orders. That was
one annoying factor of being in the Military. Now, that she was active duty,
Mara could understand a bit of her father's way of life when she was a kid. She
always sensed the frustration, and impatience from her parents whenever they
received orders or were suddenly told that her father was leaving for
deployment.
"We're still going to Sector 7?" inquired Mara.
They were now outside on the bridge. "We can't
discuss that right now," stated her brother. He looked out at the boat
they were going to dock with.
11 min. later, a southerly wind, filled with
saltwater moisture, was not much more than a breeze as they boarded the Coast
Guard's ship. Looking out into the Gulf, they glanced at a roiling black storm;
such a contrast against the clear sunny sky above them. A guard checked their
tabs, verifying who they were. Then he led the way to a lower deck. The ship
only had 2 levels. Its floor was medal grating that was painted with a durable
tan paint. As they passed yet another door, Mara caught sight of a holographic
map of their solar system. The men in the room closed the door when they saw her
pass by. The guard stopped at the very last door. “This is where you’ll stay
till we stop at the Florida panhandle.”
“Thank you, Sir,” said
William. Once the security left he opened the door and revealed a small room
with bunks as walls on either side. A small circular window looked out onto the
gulf. Through it, they could see that the storm they saw was heading towards
them.
The boat's engine set a vibrating rhythm to the
hull. William climbed into a top bunk to the right of the door, while Mara
slipped into the bottom bunk to the left. Silence filled between the two as
they each lay thinking about what was going to happen. Mara had a fleeting
thought on what she saw as they passed the room with the holography. She tended
to be a bit paranoid, so she let it go. Better to keep things she didn't understand to herself, than make a fool out of herself. She wondered what her
silent brother was thinking about.
Out of all the Koilo kids, Mara and William understood
each other best. At least that was so when they weren't trying to one up each
other. They didn't need to verbally express what bothered the other. One look
gave enough explanation. Mara could sense emotion from others, while her
brother could pick up social cues and hints in conversation. When put together
they worked well as a team.
However, Mara was often at a loss when it came to picking
up on social. cues/hints in conversations. It took a lot of patience from
William just to help her in those moments. In those times, Mara was impressed.
The greatest fear she had was that she would be given up, left to struggle by
herself. William possessed a great patience for his sister, besides their
parents. She learned so much from them. Without their teaching, Mara would not
have been able to get through Military training; something to be thankful for.
Now brother and sister were going to be tested. How well would they work
together in the trials to come?
