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  Mission Cerex

  Books 1, 2, & 3

  Trillion Dollar Sky

  Mission Cerex: Book One

  David Colello

  Copyright © 2019

  For my north star, Meghan

  Chapter 1

  Pia Lamotte strode into the boardroom leaving tiny puffs of dust in her wake, jetlagged from the eight hour flight to France, and desperate for a decent espresso. Many Multinat corporations had contracted her before as a mercenary biologist. After fixing whatever was holding up the latest billion dollar project to replicate and replace plant life, she retreated back to the wild. Each time Pia felt more conflicted, but permits to study the rapidly shrinking areas of actual nature were expensive, and these business behemoths had money to burn. She thought about refusing this latest invite, but reconsidered when the Natocorps agent who trudged out to find her implied her work itself was in peril.

  The room was bright but cold, and three identically dressed suits waited at a plain glass table as she was ushered inside. All eyes scanned Pia, and she could feel them judging whether they had made the right choice. She was a curious mix of natural feminine grace and hardened exterior; slim khakis tucked into field boots, weathered jacket covering a tight knit sweater, and though her face looked carved out of granite, she moved so fluidly that her feet barely touched the ground. A black velvet choker completed the outfit, with her hair held up in a messy blond bun using a pen she stole from the plane.

  “Mademoiselle Lamotte, thank you so very much for coming to speak with us. We understand this is unorthodox, but discretion demands it.”

  “Well you've got my attention,” smirked Pia with cracked lips, her French accent worn down to a barely noticeable word or two per sentence. She had soft features despite the rough treatment they endured, but her usually disarming smile met a stony wall this time.

  “Yes, and while we have it, we also need you to sign this NDA before we proceed,” said the man on the right, opening his leather briefcase with a crisp snap before sliding a paper across the table.

  “And if I don't?” asked Pia amusedly.

  While the others were clearly frustrated at her unprofessionalism, the center suit merely shrugged. “Then we apologize sincerely for wasting your time, and of course will reimburse you for the inconvenience. Our jet will return you to Utah immediately.” He was young for an executive type, barely older than Pia, with shrewd eyes that were always calculating his surroundings.

  Pia reached up and slid the pen from her bun, signing the NDA with a playful flourish as her hair tumbled down past her shoulders.

  “Just having a bit of fun with you, gentlemen. Now that my lips are legally sealed tight, what's the big secret?”

  “Pia, if I may call you that,” began the lead suit.

  “You may,” she quipped, enjoying the rare taste of civility.

  “My name is Jared Miller, President of the Natocorps Commodities & Acquisitions Division. We're rather excited to have you come today. You have a, shall I say, unique area of expertise, but one that happens to coincide with our present goal.” He sounded vaguely German, but grinded down into a sharp edge of controlled corporate power.

  Pia despised the rise of the Multinats and doubted she would ever have a goal that coincided with these amoral gluttons. Most likely they needed a new formula for their food structure base. All food had long since been replaced by 3-D printed substitutes, but it was a struggle to maintain a healthy enough mixture when so few natural ingredients were left to use as a base for the clonal replication process.

  “Are you at all familiar with Ceres?” he asked, while he and his associates quietly watched her reaction for signs that she may be hiding information.

  “Ceres...as in the God of something or other?” she guessed.

  “Agriculture and grain I believe, but no not the Goddess. The dwarf planet.”

  Pia was genuinely nonplussed at this point. What began as mild curiosity and a free trip home to Paris was becoming increasingly bizarre by the minute. “And with what exactly, may I ask, do you think I can help you?”

  “Ceres resides in the Asteroid Belt. Reconnaissance missions have found evidence not only of significant amounts of water ice in the soil, but also of abundant precious metals and rare earth elements.”

  “So...you're going to go mine this little rock and bring back all of its treasures?” Pia offered, still merely playing along with the odd conversation.

  “That ‘little rock’ is over nine hundred kilometers wide, and is as ancient as the solar system. It wasn't big enough for tectonics to churn away at the crust and sink all the heavy elements down to the core, as has happened here on Earth. Simply put, there could be trillions of dollars of resources just waiting to be scooped right up off the surface.”

  “Fantastic, go rip apart another planet. I really don't see why I'm here, Mr. Miller.”

  “We're going there next month,” he said determinedly. “And we need you to come with us.” He paused for a response from Pia but, getting nothing except a blank stare, continued with his pitch.

  “As one of the few biologists left in the world with prolonged field experience, and by far the best I might add, we need you to oversee the plant life for our mission.”

  Her eyebrows rose for a moment, then furrowed down in confrontation. “No. No chance in hell,” she blurted out, not believing for a second that refusing them would be so simple.

  “But what will you do instead? Going back to your precious wastelands might prove more difficult than you imagine.” Miller’s tone now matched his eyes, with razor sharp edges tracing every word that left his mouth.

  Pia felt the panic rising through her chest, like an animal who senses it's trapped before feeling the metal teeth. Somehow she managed to ask, “And why is that?”

  “We finalized the purchase of much of eastern Utah last week, and your permits now go across my desk for approval.”

  She stood up so quickly her chair scraped backwards a few feet. “This is blackmail!”

  “Technically it's coercion, perhaps not strictly legal and above board, but...we're kind of splitting hairs at this point, aren't we? Actually, we were hoping it becomes something closer to bribery. Sign on for the mission, and upon successful establishment of our base on Ceres, you will be on the first rocket back to Earth, free to play in the dirt for as long as you wish with our blessing. If all goes as planned, no more than two years from start to finish.”

  The color drained out of Pia’s cheeks. This was more human interaction than she had experienced in months, and now every sentence was a roller coaster of emotions. ‘Pando forest’, she thought. ‘'I could finally save it from extinction. But at what cost? Then again, refusing would mean certain doom for her entire current research.’

  Sensing the kill was within reach, Miller added, “Our survey team is already hard at work identifying where to begin strip mining. Nothing great there, some silver maybe, plenty of interesting salts, but enough to recoup our expenses if we dig deep enough I'm sure…”

  Pia ran her rough hands back and forth over her crossed forearms, wishing this was all just a nightmare. “You're a real bastard, you know that?”

  At this Miller broke out into a genuine sounding laugh. “Oh, now don't be like that Pia. Think of it as a grand adventure, an opportunity to help both of us tremendously. I just know we'll get along once we spend a bit of time together. After all, it will be a long couple of years if we can't play nice.”

  “You're going too?” This she most definitely did not expect. Even next to his fellow corporate cronies, Miller's manicured beard and slicked back hair displayed a pampered lifestyle that didn't seem a match for a difficult and dangerous assignment such as this.

/>   “Of course,” he stated simply. “This is the beginning of a whole new era for humanity, and I will be Commander of the mission that makes it all happen.”

  ‘Ego, there's the reason’, she thought. “Can I think about it?” she stalled, as her mind desperately tried to keep up with her emotions.

  “Alright, we're reasonable people. Someone will escort you to your room where dinner will be made available. When I call at eight o’clock I expect your answer. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” she stammered, glad to be able to flee that room as quickly as possible so she could attempt to gather her wits.

  Rocked by the meeting, she shuffled her boots through a maze of corridors, just managing to keep up with the brisk pace of her guide. Upon reaching her room a key card was politely offered, and she was finally left alone. For a few minutes she stood quietly in the empty hall, pacing back and forth.

  Suddenly a nearby door opening startled her out of her thoughts. A thinly built man with black jeans and ancient looking flat sneakers with stars on them appeared. He blew a tangle of dark brown hair out of his face and stared at a schematic projection emitted from his necklace, a state of the art holocomp that allowed him to manipulate the projection with his hands. After turning towards Pia, he quickly tapped the necklace to turn off the display.

  “Whoa, hey,” he said. “No chip?” Then as he recovered his composure, he walked up and shook her hand. “Xander McKinnon, but everyone calls me Zee.”

  “Pia Lamotte, just Pia is fine.”

  “You here for you know what?” He winked playfully and gave her a knowing glance.

  “Maybe, I don't know. Besides, I can't talk about it, it’s complicated.” Pia crammed her hands into her khakis and shrank her shoulders inwards.

  “Complicated like this?” Zee countered, pointing to a patch on his t-shirt emblazoned with CEREX. “There's only a couple dozen people staying in this whole damn building, and they're all part of Ceres Express.”

  “They've asked me to join,” Pia finally admitted, “and I have until after dinner to decide.”

  “Well you have to, I imagine.”

  “Have to what?”

  “Join. Natocorps doesn't just ask nicely. If they need you, they're gonna do whatever it takes to get you.”

  “I'm beginning to realize that.” She slumped her back against the door and slid down to the floor. Then after a few moments, she turned her face back up towards Zee. “Have you eaten yet? I could use someone to help me work through all this.”

  “Actually I just finished, but I'll keep you company if you want.”

  She fumbled her keycard through the door lock a few times, refusing help from Zee. When she pushed the heavy wooden door open, what met her eyes was as shocking as it was familiar. It was as if she was stepping into her house out in the Utah steppes, down to the smallest detail. The simple furnishings, many hand carved from the very trees she was studying, all in their usual layout.

  “Interesting room, rather rustic for my taste, but a welcome change from the plastic wasteland in most of this place,” Zee noted.

  “It's...how did they…?” Pia started then stopped as she absorbed the view. She walked over to the table, her dining room table, and ran her hand along the edges.

  “Holographic copy,” Zee explained patiently, “simple enough process, they must have taken a 3D shot of your place after picking you up. Then they upload the design into the building’s computer and print out the appropriate pieces here. I guess it's supposed to be comforting, but I always found it a bit corny.”

  “It's creepy as hell, that's what it is,” she decided. Everything was wrong, not by much, but by the only parts that mattered. Each object had been replicated nearly to perfection, but still; the rug had none of the smell of Earth walked into it over months of pacing, the table was too smooth to have come from any real tree, and the floor was stubbornly free of the creaking that sang to her when the winds picked up strength.

  The two unlikely companions sat down on the faux furniture and waited in awkward silence for a moment. Zee looked around curiously, breaking into a grin now and again. “So who are you, Jane of the Jungle or something?”

  “Sorry, I don't entertain much,” she laughed gently, grateful for the break from her thoughts.

  “I don't mean to pick on you. Just surprised, you one of those tree worshippers?”

  “I study them, how some are managing to survive the massacre of what our environment has become.”

  “I've never seen one in person before, are they big?”

  “Seen what before?”

  “A tree.”

  Pia had to check her anger before responding. She knew that most people lived in completely urban isolation, but that it might be possible to go one's whole life without seeing a tree drove home the true scale of the devastation she was fighting against.

  “For the last three years, my main focus has been Pando forest in Utah. It’s far away from human settlement, and utterly unique. Pando is a forest, but also a single colossal organism. There are forty thousand exact genetic clones, and the whole forest is hundreds of thousands if years old.”

  “How can it grow so old?” Zee asked.

  “Individually, none of the trees could. It's their interconnectedness that sustains them. Every square mile contains massive amounts of fungus underground. Entire ecosystems are existing just out of sight, where different species share nutrients to help sustain the forest as a whole.”

  “Sounds alien,” Zee grinned. His arms gestured awkwardly whenever he spoke, but his eyes were calm and kind.

  “I don't know why I'm still here,” Pia shook her head despondently. “Natocorps is going to get what they want and destroy my work whether I help them or not.”

  He got up and shrugged himself into a walk around her room. “Well listen, for what it's worth, they don't seem immoral so much as amoral. They act in their self interest, no matter what. Pretty common trait, I find.”

  “Being common doesn't make something right.” Her body tensed as she felt a growing disgust with her situation, but Zee went on as if he hadn't heard her.

  “You have something that they need, and it sounds like they have something that you need too. Talk business to them, it's the only language that they understand.”

  “Is that what you did?” she asked, while ordering up some tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich at the wall console.

  “Well, I worked for Natocorps already, New York office, but hell yes. Everyone who's being asked to go on this mission is the best at what they do. If they want us, they better pay. Sign up to go, and you'll have the best equipment, the best technology, the best everything. They have 3-D printers that I never even knew existed yet, and I'll have a factory full of them to use when we get back.”

  Pia said nothing as the soup ingredients were squirted out in sequence and the sandwich was built layer by layer then heated until a crispy outer crust signaled it was finished.

  Zee took offense at her silence. “You think I'm a dirtbag for working with a Multinat?” His gaunt face tightened, then quickly washed away any sign of stress.

  Pia watched him closely, then resumed taking her meal to her phony work desk.

  “Not everyone has the luxury of being able to complete their research a hundred miles from nowhere,” Zee continued. “The rest of us suckers need equipment, and every last decent piece of it is owned, operated and laser tagged by one of the, what's left now, seven Multinats?”

  Pia wiped her lips with the imitation rag she always kept hanging off her cot. She relaxed back into her chair, feeling more comfortable in the familiar surroundings despite her initial repulsion. She swept her arms widely around herself and smiled, a pleasant easy smile that took the sting out of Zee’s words.

  “So you like my luxurious lifestyle, huh?” Pia teased. At that, both of them laughed. “The truth? I'm more than a little terrified of being shot halfway across the damn Solar System.”

  “You and me both,
” Zee admitted. “Try not to think about it, and finish your soup. I'll leave you to think it over, I've got to go work.”

  Pia put her spoon down and rose to shake Zee’s hand. “Good luck, and thanks for the advice.”

  “I hope I see you again, Pia.” With that he tapped his necklace and was off to walk the halls while numerous screens flashed before his eyes. He seemed genuine, oblivious, and eager to help. ‘Americans’, she thought dismissively, but then found herself staring at him as he receded down the corridor. ‘Cute though.’

  The room was dim, made to look like candles were burning instead of the LED panels which were lining most of the walls. Everything she saw gave the impression of meticulous planning, and she wondered if her brief conversation with Zee was no accident either. She sat near the comm console on her table, the sole addition the room had made to her usual decor, and tapped the center.

  Nothing happened. She let out a sigh, then heard a voice behind her, “Over here, Lamotte.”

  She turned abruptly in her chair and saw a hologram of Jared Miller in an attempt at a casual stance.

  “Well, what shall it be? Can we count on you to help us?”

  “I have to imagine you are aware of the sheer magnitude of the challenge facing you, the preparations that will have to be made. This will take longer than the month time frame you discussed earlier.”

  “Yes, fortunately we began such work nearly six years ago, Pia. Our spacecraft, including life support systems and organics lab, was carefully designed by the best minds available.”

  “There are only three or four other scientists in the world that would be up to that task, and I know all of them. They were willing to help you get set up, and yet here I am getting the hard sell. My guess is that you threatened their careers, but they all have families and wouldn't agree to get shot into space, so they bargained with you and did the extensive groundwork. Am I close so far?” Pia’s face hardened into a ceramic mask, with green eyes boring into her holographic guest.