Free Athena Lee Chronicles 7: The Martian Inheritance by T S Paul Page A

job.”
     
    I stopped walking abruptly. “What? Who is ‘pencil whipping on my ship?” I’ll have their ass!” Several crewmen in the corridors were just staring at me. Nodding absently at them , I resumed walking. “Wilson, please tell me you messaged someone to fix the ‘work’ they did.”
     
    “Of course. I sent Ellery a message in your name.”
     
    “Good. Put all four on report and send the vids to security and the Captain. Tell security I want them out of my section.”
     
    “Yes, Athena.”
     
    It only took a moment to redo the maintenance schedules to exclude the four troublemakers. I gave Ellery careful instructions and told her to contact me with any major issues; everything else should go through the XO, Commander Blomkvis.
     
     
     
    Being short has its advantages when your quarters are the size of a small closet. I can’t imagine how someone like Lieutenant Behr could live in one of these. It would be hell. I checked my uniform over carefully, I would be meeting diplomats and wanted to look my best. Embarrassing the Navy would be a bad start to this mission. Reaching into my trouser pocket I removed the archaic data crystal that Dad had given me. I had studied this thing for weeks. Nothing on the ship would play it. Wilson said that the code was something he was not familiar with: he could break it but doing so might erase the information. I returned it to my pocket. It might come in handy.
     
     
    The Bridge was standing room only. Finally the captain had the images from the bridge transmitted to screens across the ship. Everyone wanted a first hand look at fabled Mars colony. I felt out of place in my dress blues standing next to the Captain.
     
    “Captain, we are being hailed!”
     
    “Put it on the screen.”
     
    The head and shoulders of a man dressed in an old style button down uniform appeared on the screen. “To the ship that just crossed our frontier. State your business and planet of origin. Failure to do so will result in imprisonment and seizure of your ship.”
     
    “Lieutenant Sprong, send our greeting and information please.”
     
    “Yes, Sir.”
     
    The man on the screen must have received what Sprong sent because his eyes widened a bit. “Greetings, James Cook. We have been looking forward to your arrival. I am sending you a navigational beacon. You will be met by a customs and navigation ship. Please allow the pilot to direct you to a parking orbit as is required by Martian law.”
     
    The screen abruptly went dark as the local ended the conversation. “Sir, we have a lock on the beacon.”
     
    Mars wasn’t as red as the history tapes showed. Terraforming efforts over the last two hundred years had changed all that. Patches of green and blue could be seen on the surface.
     
    As our ship traveled closer to Mars more details could be discerned. Mars orbit was extremely crowded. Over a half dozen massive space stations surrounded the planet. We would later learn that each major city had a station in geosynchronous orbit. The beacon’s ‘trail’ led us to a medium sized ship painted with bright yellow and red stripes. This had to be the customs ship.
     
    “Sir, we are being hailed on all channels. They instruct us to follow at a distance no greater that ten kilometers. They say that we will parking the ship in Deimos orbit.”
     
    “Sir, Deimos?” Lieutenant Behr, the navigator had a question.
     
    “Captain, I can answer this one.” I hated to interrupt but father prepared me for all things Mars.
     
    “By all means Commander Lee.”
     
    “Lieutenant Behr, Mars has two small moons. One is called Deimos and the other Phobos. The names come from ancient Greek history. They were the companions of the God Mars in battle. In Greek they were ‘panic’ and ‘terror.’ If you are familiar at all with Old Earth entertainment and fiction the moons were used as the locations of demons and aliens. Though as far as I know they have never found either