Kahnu (The Guardians of Tomorrow Book 1) Read online

  Sighing heavily, "I don't know, I just don't know anymore," finally said Dedrick, shaking his head. "Something's definitely wrong with you.”

  Will you marry me in space?

  Liu had managed to decline every advance teammate Najib Shamsi had attempted on her and cursed herself for it. In truth, she liked him a lot but was too shy to act on it. Of course, the opportunities to meet anyone were limited. Outside of their daily training, the future astronauts were confined to their own quarters, with no other distractions than an indoor pool, a recreational area, and a beautiful but gated compound. But the Indian man had finally worn her out, eventually tricking her in accepting his invitation to a challenging game of ping pong. His “group” competition had turned out to be just the two of them. Of course, he had later admitted that it was François who had given him the idea. The Frenchman had heard through the grapevine that Liu was a ping pong champion back in her home country, and he had a feeling she would be hard-pressed to turn down a chance to play. He had also warned the Indian the petite woman had been known to be a fierce adversary. On that last point, Najib would later wonder if the Frenchman had spoken from personal experience that day. Regardless, he had been right. Later that same week, Liu was talking to Ladli about her new-found love and she was radiating.

  Ladli O’Connor, an Irish woman from Dublin who had discovered at an early age her sexual attraction to both men and women alike, had taken her teammate’s joyful news with mixed feelings. Although Ladli had never openly admitted it, the Team Two crew medical officer felt a strong attraction for her South-Korean female colleague. She had struggled to keep her feelings hidden during the early years of training, but Liu’s new-found happiness wasn’t making things any easier for the buffed redhead.

  Nonetheless, Najib and Liu’s relationship had grown, and one summer night, while the two were gazing at the stars and talking about their future on Mars, the Indian had asked the unexpected question: “Liu, will you marry me in space?”

  The brown eyed Asian had been completely taken aback, not only by the proposal itself, but also by the last few words of Najib’s question, “in space.”

  “Wh…what?” she had first replied, looking at him somewhat at a loss.

  He repeated the question, still staring at the starry sky, “Will you marry me in space?”

  “In space?”

  He turned to look at her, “Liu, will you marry me?”

  Her eyes filled up with tears and with a huge smile on her face, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately, “Yes, I will.”

  After the initial euphoria of the moment, the south-Korean leaned back and asked what Najib meant by “in space.” Najib envisioned the wedding taking place soon after their launch to Mars, during the flight there.

  “That’s still years away and there is no guarantee we will be on the team selected to go first anyway. I don’t think we should wait that long.”

  He knew she was right. Dedrick’s team was already the preferred choice by many, which probably meant they would have to wait until 2027, if everything stayed on schedule, before the next ship left Earth.

  Three months later, the two lovebirds were getting married on the ISS, thanks to Lars who had managed to convince his good friend Sir Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Galactic, to fly the couple to the international space station. Lars would later admit that convincing the famous entrepreneur had not been hard once both Branson and the ESA, the European Space Agency, had realized how much the publicity alone would benefit them. Branson had insisted on performing the ceremony, and Ladli had come as maid of honor, and Lars as witness. The event had been highly televised, and the newlyweds had been said to have loved the experience, even if Liu had felt a bit space sick for part of it.

  Mask Art

  “Did you ever think you would be here today?”

  “Honestly, no. I really liked the idea, but I never thought they would pick me. It’s still surreal…”

  Both men were seated, legs crossed on the floor of a small terrace overlooking the hillside. Arms around their knees, they were reflecting, staring at the distant panorama.

  “Did you?” asked Dedrick.

  “I don’t know… I think, in some way, maybe… I had a feeling 2013 was going to be special for me, you know?”

  “Do you miss anything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, like your family or friends? A woman?”

  “A friend, maybe…” François cracked a smile. “Yeah, my friend Christophe. We had some fun times together.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Still in L.A. I believe,” seeing the questioning look on Dedrick’s face, François added, “Los Angeles, California.”

  “Ha, yes, I’ve heard of it, of course. Never been, but I would like to visit, some day.”

  “It’s OK, you didn’t miss that much. It’s just another city,” he paused a moment. “Well, actually, I’m lying. L.A. was cool. I think I had the best three years of my life there. Christophe and I used to work at this place, “Mask Art.” We printed t-shirts. They had this cool technique where they had us bleach black shirts, and then print on the bleached part of the fabric. It was a real bitch to use bleach, though. It got everywhere, on our boots, our pants, our hands. I had holes everywhere. It was a nasty job. But the printed shirts looked really cool, I must say… I remember my last day there as if it were yesterday.” François’ thoughts wandered back to the distant memory…

  The business was on the first floor of a two-story building, smack in the middle of Hollywood, Los Angeles, the famous Californian movie capital. The large space was mostly filled with screen printing equipment, dozens of paint cans of various colors sitting on shelves, freshly painted shirts drying on their hangers, and stacked up boxes of shirts waiting to get their turn on the quad screen machines. About half a dozen employees were busy pressing down screens on stretched out shirts and sliding squeegees across mesh applicators. A few others were setting t-shirts in place or filling mesh screens with a thick colored ink, lining up squeegees, and getting ready to start a new batch. François had just reached the last step of the building’s only staircase, an outdoor concrete stairwell that showed more cracks than the dry beds of the Black Sea in late July. He entered the doorless room with a smirk on his face.

  It's not every day you see someone tell their boss ‘I quit!’ with a big smile on their face, but it's even less likely you would ever hear them add, ‘I'm moving to Mars!’ Yet, that was exactly what François Menardais had just said to his employer, Paul Wemlock, the man behind the only desk in the room. Christophe, standing in front of his quadcopter machine at the other end of the room, almost lost his balance when he realized his friend was serious. He knew he had applied for some crazy online astronaut program, something to do with Mars, but until today, he had never expected François would hear anything back. Plus, this whole going to Mars talk of his was simply ludicrous. Who in their right mind would spend billions of dollars on a space program, and then put it all in the hands of someone like François? Of course, he loved his friend, but he knew him too well. The nineteen-year-old Frenchman was disorganized, had no job experience whatsoever, no career aspirations, no real accomplishment of any kind to his name, knew nothing about being an astronaut, and hadn't even finished high school. François Menardais was a wannabe musician who had come to Los Angeles from France just a little over a year ago, seeking fortune and fame, and now worked part-time for a small screen-printing company that sold images of famous people and movies printed on bleached t-shirts. In fact, it was Christophe who had helped François get this job in the first place. And now, he was talking about flying off to some distant planet. If the endeavor was genuine, Christophe was happy for his friend, but in his opinion, selecting such a volatile character was not giving much credit to the company behind the project.”

  Paul was staring at his French employee with suspicion, “What do you mean, you quit? Why? And you're going where?�
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  For a moment, he even thought he had misunderstood the young man. It happened a lot, especially since Paul was British and François still had a fairly heavy French accent.

  “Mars. The red planet... You know,” he replied, pointing at the ceiling with one finger and a big smile on his face.

  Paul stared at him a bit longer with a puzzled look. Then, realizing there was probably an inside joke he was not getting, or that François simply didn't want to tell him why he was really quitting, he said, “Well, I guess, if that's what you want... OK. Sorry to see you go. But you must stay 'til the end of your shift, at least.”

  By now, most of the other employees in the shop had stopped what they were doing and were attentively following the conversation. François looked around the room and replied with little enthusiasm, “Yeah, I guess so. Can you give me my money before I go tonight?”

  “Sorry, you'll have to come back on Wednesday. David writes the checks and he's not here today,” replied Paul, mentioning his business partner.

  That was not entirely true. Paul could have given him cash, but he was a bit upset at the moment. He never liked people quitting on him, even if François was far from being one of his best employees. Now he was going to have to rework everyone's schedule until the found a replacement.

  François walked to Christophe's station and said, “Tu veux sortir une minute?”

  The two made their way down to the parking lot where they often sat during their lunch break.

  “Alors, c’est vrai cette histoire? Tu vas vraiment le faire? Partir pour Mars, je veux dire…” started Christophe. They rarely used English between themselves unless someone else was around, since both were much more fluent in their native language.

  “Ouai! Ça vat ètre genial! J’ai réellement impatience!” replied François.

  “Tu pars quand?”

  “Je sais pas exactement. La lettre dit juste que j’ai été sélectionné et que quelqu’un me contactera dans les jours qui viennent. Y’a aussi des papiers à signer, trucs legaux. Des formalités, quoi.”

  “Cool... That's cool...” replied Christophe in English, without much enthusiasm.

  Both were sitting on a parking block, looking at their feet, quiet and lost in thoughts. As the silence slowly became more obvious, both friends knew what the other was thinking... soon François would leave and probably never see his friend again. The sun was starting to set, and a tint of orange reflected off a car windshield, and onto the wall across from them.

  François cracked a smile. In a few years, if all went well, his whole world would be orange.

  “Hey, wanna drive up the PCH?”

  “Quoi? Maintenant là, desuite?” replied Christophe.

  “Yeah! Right now! On se prend une bouteille de Cisco au store du coin et on part faire un tour.”

  “Et Paul?”

  “Who cares? Come on!”

  A big smile came back on Christophe's face.

  “Sacré Yvon. OK, let's go!”

  Ten minutes later, the two friends were sharing a cheap bottle of Cisco, driving down Santa Monica Boulevard, on their way to the Pacific Coast Highway. François' old beat up, ‘87 Camaro wasn't the most attractive vehicle on the road, but the two couldn't have cared less at the moment.

  They were drinking, laughing, and checking out girls on the sidewalk, enjoying life. The sun was starting to set over the horizon as they finally reached the coast. Heading north, François soon mentioned how disappointed he was by the famous Malibu Beach. He did whenever he drove through it. François knew his friend Christophe had already heard it countless times, but the Frenchman began his rambling anyway.

  “I really don't see what the big deal is. If I was famous and had a lot of money, this is not the beach I would choose. I mean, you know I’m not big on France, but it's the people I don't like there, mainly. I love the topography, and the climate in the south is pretty nice for the most part. It's beautiful on the French Riviera. So much better than this rocky beach full of gravel and small bushes. It's just weird looking to me, almost creepy. And the water is cold as fuck most of the year. I'd like to live in Florida instead or on an island. Yeah, an island would be nice. A private one would be even better, with a helicopter pad and a yacht. Oh, and a recording studio with a grand piano, a white one,” he paused. “One day man; one day I'll have all that. I'll be famous, and I'll have enough money to never worry again about anything. And you'll live there too. We'll build you a house next to mine. We’ll have girls over all the time, hot ones, of course.”

  He cracked a smile. “You've got to hear this new demo I'm working on. It's really good. I think this time-”

  “Well, that's cool but I’m afraid you're gonna have to put your dreams of fame and your songwriting on hold for a while. I mean, with that Mars training program and all, looks like you're gonna be pretty busy,” interjected Christophe.

  “Yeah, you're right... hey, I could be the first human to write a song on Mars. Wow! That would be awesome!” suddenly thought François. “I better come up with something good, though.”

  “Yeah, I guess you better," said Christophe unconvinced. "Your training is what? Six years long? Eight? Well, at least you've got time.”

  They both laughed.

  “Plus, you don't know if you'll make it do the end of the program, you know. There's probably a bunch of tests you're gonna have to pass, first.”

  “That's not a problem. I've got this. I can feel it. I'm meant to do this. I'm gonna go to Mars. Wow! Do you realize what that means? I still can't believe it. It's gonna be SO awesome!”

  Once again, François' over-confident attitude was taking over his own rational judgment. But strangely, although most would have called him irresponsible, the young Frenchman always seemed to manage the impossible when he set his mind to it, and Christophe knew it.

  “Yeah, pretty cool... I'm gonna miss you though, man...” said Christophe in a voice that trailed off under his breath.

  François cracked a subtle smile and turned his attention back to the scenery in front of him. Racing west towards the coast, both young men watched in silence the last rays of sun disappear behind the horizon while the road carried them away in the night.

  Almost eleven years later, the sun in front of the two men perched on the terrace of the Mars First training complex was also getting low. Dedrick, looking pleasantly entertained by François’ story, was thinking of his own reaction when his dad had told him. Of course, in Dedrick’s case, things had been quite different. For one, he had never applied to be a contestant on the Mars First astronaut recruiting program in the first place. His father had done so without telling Dedrick. That had bothered him more than anything at first.

  Dedrick turned to François, “Did I ever tell you I never applied for Mars First?”

  “What? What do you mean, you never applied? How did you get here, then?”

  “Well, you see, my father—”

  Dedrick was brusquely interrupted by the abrupt opening of the door behind him, followed by the loud entrance of Liu and Najib, playing a game of mouse and cat.

  “Shit! Oops, sorry, didn’t know someone was here,” she said looking a bit frazzled and tipsy.

  “It’s OK, Liu, no harm done,” replied Dedrick.

  “Sorry guys,” added Najib with a smile as the two retreated the way they had come, the Pakistani-born Indian pulling the door shut behind them. As peace returned to the terrace, François got up and took one last look at the horizon.

  “I think I’m gonna go lay down, buddy. I’ll see you at dinner,” he said before exiting the balcony through the same single door.

  “Sure. See you there,” replied the Russian, half under his breath.

  Leaning back against the wall behind him, Dedrick aimed his gaze at the small sparkling lights past the dark forest in front of the complex. Thousands of vehicles, small as specs, were rushing along the string-like highways, barely visible in the far distance. He suddenly recalled the footage of
a bomb striking a similar looking city on the news the previous night. A new war had just broken out between two Asian countries he could not remember the name of. There was so much unrest in the world. He was going to miss many things about Earth but that, not so much.

  #

  It was only after a long phone conversation that Lars was able to convince the other board members to authorize a leave of absence for the crews to go spend some time with their families. He had felt very strongly that the astronauts could benefit greatly from the break. After all, they only had a few months left before the big launch, and it would not be long before the whole complex would be locked down for obvious safety reasons.

  To everyone’s surprise, however, one of the crew members had preferred to stay put.

  François, who had initiated the whole “vacation” idea, had been the first to turn it down. He had quickly explained he did not really get along with his family back in France and didn’t see the need to go anywhere. Dedrick and Vera had chosen to go to their respective stumping grounds together. Vera who loved traveling was looking forward to seeing Russia, but most of all, her sister, Cathy, who had recently moved back to Boston with a new man. In fact, the younger sibling was dying to meet the famous Russian commander in real life. Dedrick, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure he wanted anyone to meet his dysfunctional parents, but to his mother, he could never say no.

  Sabrina had been hesitant to head back to her Guatemalan hometown at first for fear of her stepfather’s wrath but had eventually agreed to it at the insistence of her mother. Going back would stir some painful memories of her sister, Sofia, who had passed away two years earlier from ALS, a lethal disease, but this would most likely be the last time she would see her mother in person. In truth, most were glad to spend these few days apart from each other, regardless of where they went. After more than ten years of constant proximity, only punctuated by rare personal time off the base, the change in venue had been a welcomed one.