Cinnamon Sands Academy: The Ghost Caves of Mars

CINNAMON SANDS

ACADEMY

THE GHOST CAVES

OF MARS

Salley J Robins

This is a work of fiction. The characters, realms, and events portrayed are fiction. Any resemblance to real people, places, and events is purely coincidental.

Copyright ©2018 - 2022

Salley J Robins

The Second book in the CSA Series

First Published July 23, 2018

Cover Art:

SelfPubBookCovers.com/ChristyLihani

All rights reserved

DEDICATION

In memory of Dominic Mathew Hunter,

a good and true friend to the real William Glenn.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My heartfelt thanks for all the Scientific Information from the amazing resources of NASA and ESA.

Bravo to the men and women in space programs around the world.

Thank you to every forward looking dreamer, scientist, and planner. Because of you, our future is there, waiting for us to make it happen.

As always, my gratitude to my editor-in-chief, Ed.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE: COUNTDOWN

1 - INTRODUCING DOM

2 – DARKNESS AND LIGHT

3 – NEW FRIENDS

4 – I AM HERE

5 – THE SKILLFUL DRILL

6 – TOSS THE MARK

7 – MARS ROCKS

8 – A DIFFERENT KIND OF FOODFIGHT

9 – THE FLARE SCARE

10 – IS IT SUMMER YET?

11 – UNDER THE STARS

12 – THE MINES OF MARS

13 – GHOSTS IN THE UNDERWORLD

14 – TIME RUNS OUT

15 – GOODNIGHT, MY DIRT BROTHERS

16 – FOUND THEN LOST

17 – DUST DEVILS RIDE AGAIN

FURTHER WORKS BY SJ ROBINS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE: COUNTDOWN

The boy with wheat colored hair and a grime-streaked face was eight storeys above the town. He was holding a skim-board, that amazing work of anti-gravity crafted into a flying skateboard, under one arm and using it to keep his feet on one of the roof tower struts. The other hand worked quickly to disconnect the wires to the timer. He’d done it! But then, he saw another timer farther up, the bomb above it wired into the lining of the colony roof. When the explosion came, William barely had time to grab onto a rung and hang on for dear life. The skim-board shot out from under his arm and he dangled above the sparkling waters of Ares Lake.

Dazed, he watched the plasti-glass panel tumble slowly through the air. The low gravity of Mars caused a slo-mo effect like in an adventure vid. His brain sent off alarms – their air – the precious oxygen! Everyone would die! He realized that time had run out. He drew a breath but the air rushing past him was thin. He gasped like a fish out of water. His body hurt from lack of oxygen. His hold on the strut weakened. Slowly, finger by finger he lost his grip until only the index held him there. He hoped he would hit the lake. Then he worried that he might hit the sculpture at the center of the lake… and then he woke.

William’s eyes opened and he blinked a few times. He raised his wrist and dictated what he remember into his bio-band. There really was no need for him to do that. The nano computer would have heard him through his ears anyway. Where the particles had been tattooed into his body, the design of his bio-band was charcoal colored and had a bit of a North Pacific Indian motif but that was only because it was what he envisioned it should be. The unseen components were introduced into his body before his family arrived on Mars. It allowed him to stay in contact with the main computer and anyone in the colony. With his thoughts, it could become what he thought it was: a camera, an audio recorder, a blank canvas, a magnifying glass, a stopwatch, or alarm. The possibilities were only limited by how he thought about it and the amount of available protein and minerals in his own body.

The dream was a real memory. He had saved the Dome last year from catastrophe, and cut the signal to a bomb designed to collapse the colony. Only the primer bomb had detonated. Saboteurs from a rival corporation had jammed the communication relay and then planted the bombs in order to steal the secret of super-sand and the amazing things that the Aires Company sold throughout the solar system. The dream was even more frightening than the real thing had been. At the time, he hadn’t really been aware that he was slipping from the strut but help had arrived. The bad guys were rounded up, the Dome repaired, and all had ended well. His nano-computer spoke inside his brain, This is your wake-up call. Your countdown has been completed. Today is Dom Day. It took only those last four words and William sprang from his bed. The nightmare turned into a fragment of memory that was quickly dismissed.

1 - INTRODUCING DOM

I want to be the boy with the Dragon tattoo, Dom said. He had no idea that a century earlier there had been a book with a very similar title; he only knew that it sounded cool. The technician directing the nano computer projection wand smiled. He’d heard that one before. But to twelve year old Dominic about to embark on a trip for Mars, a dragon sounded extremely unique. The tech man explained, The way your tattoo appears is all a matter of who you are and how it believes you want it to look. You just have to learn how to configure it in your mind. The only limits to your Nano-Implant Identity Band is your imagination. Four months later, as he traveled to Mars in the colony ship with his family, he was still trying to conjure up something that might conceivably be mistaken for a dragon. It took an awful lot more concentration and direction of thought to make the band shift even a little from the basic pattern of curving lines that the technician had drawn when he injected the nanos into Dom’s skin. So far the best design he had managed was a kind of woven leaf and fleur de Lys design. The carbon-based nanos were tied to the small dark bump that sat on the inside of his wrist. That was the physical contact point most often used to send communications. The tiny particles in his arm could easily become what he needed them to be.

Although the official name of Nano Implant Identity Band was used in documents or abbreviated to NIIB, almost no one on Mars ever said it. The nickname bio-band had been adopted by nearly everyone because it had a great retro sound to it. A few kids on Mars called it their nano beast as if it were a small animal inside them. It was nothing of the sort. The bio-band was an internal monitoring and computing device. It allowed the systems of the Dome to keep track of every person in the colony. In turn, it allowed every person in the colony access to the mainframe computers. In effect, it turned them into walking computer terminals.

The Back to Human movement at home called the bands barbaric. Of course they wouldn’t even use the public services and social nets that most people did. Dom’s mom said they were living in the real world. That seems rather odd because as far as Dom could tell everyone was living in the real world. But he thought maybe his mom meant they were just dreamers. His dad who was not technological at all used to say they really just streamers, people who’d been born in the wrong river of time. Dom was fascinated by the bio-band. On Earth everyone had a chip, sure, but there was no interaction with it. It was just a way to identify you and keep you from getting lost. Though, there was little chance of that happening when you had your buds in your ears and they could project a screen that hooked you into the system. It was great. Everyone was connected. Well, except for those who chose to live off the grid.

Dom worked hard to master the workings of the internal computer that now lived inside him. It was attuned to his eyes and ears. With practice, it would hear his thoughts. A quick push on the stud that was under the surface of the skin where the thumb joint met the wrist would activate his bio-band. While active his tattoo, darkened and pulsated. It was made from minerals and crystals that flowed just been a surface of the skin. They had their own special programming and kept track of each other in the system of his body. Many of them remained close to the stud forming and reforming cells from the nutrients within him. In fact they were a part of him. But with the control from his mind he could reform them into whatever kind of device he needed. The only tricky bit was learning to use that control correctly. But three months on a spaceship was the perfect setting to learn, and so he did.

*****************************************

ZZZZZZZ! VVVROOM! The tall platinum-colored ship descended tail down into Crater City One. Orange exhaust poured down like a giant inverted flare against the butterscotch-pink of the pearly sky. For a moment, the ship looked off-center and appeared to be falling more than landing. The craft loomed large as it neared the group of people clad in e-suit who waited below. Their softly glowing helmets reflected the glare of the exhaust. For a moment, no one breathed.

William Glenn, who stood at the edge group, watched the ship with keen anticipation. It had been four months since the attempt on the Dome and the first ever skim-boarding contest and nothing exciting had happened at all. School and chores went on with that amazing regularity. Now, at last, that had changed. The ship he’d been waiting for was here, and his heart pounded with anticipation. A thought that caught in his throat burbled right up to the surface as a breathy question, Hey, was that a wobble? No one around him answered, unsure what to say.

His heart rate increased and though he held his breath, a light film of condensation blurred his vision. It only lasted a moment as the atoms of his helmet absorbed the moisture. He mouthed a silent prayer, Please let it be okay. Okay? Then, as if in answer, the ship slowed down, straightened, and it was clear that the landing would be normal. Of course, William never thought of this, the first base on Mars, as Crater City One, or even CC-1, the official name, but only as the Space Port and that was exactly what it was.

The huge Martian crater stood open to the stars. A multitude of machinery hummed with activity. Two ships had blasted off earlier that day. The first bound for the new outpost on Io, home to modern pioneers. People called it the high frontier though William had no idea why. The other ship was headed for Earth, carrying iron ores and the even more precious products the colony made from Super-Sand.

The group of people were gathered behind a clear wall near the landing pad and watched for the cloud to settle. All wore the colored e-suits that protected them from the cold Martian air and the glowing orbs of the helmets made it look as if they had giant marbles for heads. The new incoming craft carried supplies for the people of Mars and two dozen new families. And in that group of new colonists was his best friend in the whole solar system. Now that nearly every large asteroid between Mars and the Moon had been mined, the Red Planet was about to step up its production. That meant more people were needed to run things. When the Glenn family had moved here eight months earlier, William had asked, Dad, why does Aries Corporation want families on Mars? There’s nothing out here, couldn’t machines do the job just as well? His dad had explained, Machines are fine, but there’s more to it. Remember that feeling when we first landed and everything was strange and new? It’s human nature to explore and here we are!

William considered this and continued his line of thought, Yeah, but it seems like a couple of tech guys could have just run it all for cheap. What does Aires get out of keeping us all alive? His mom had laughed saying, William, you know how they say that possession is nine-tenths of the law? Well, I think in space it might be ten-tenths! It would be really easy to come in and take over a mining machine and a couple of tech guys. Who would know? A large group of colonists, though, that’s another matter. He knew that was true after what had happened recently.

Impatiently, he began to bounce from one foot to the other in a way that always drove his sister, Anika, crazy. Calm down, Will, she said. And then because she knew he hated it, she added, They’ll get here when they get here. William could have predicted she would say that almost word-for-word. It was the kind of thing she would say. In fact, she had said it, many, many times before. He turned so she could see his Who Cares? expression. Even with their helmets activated, he was pretty sure she could see it. The low gravity of Mars made bouncing high easy but his next bounce was too enthusiastic and off centered. He bounced into right Anika.

Before she could be tempted to retaliate, her bio-band vibrated in her wrist and inside her head she heard a chime alerting her to an incoming call. Turning slightly, she spoke to the nano-computer that moved beneath her skin. Video on, she said, though she could have just as easily thought it and let the images play inside her eyelids. But she wanted William to see and so she held up her arm. A small ghostly head appeared above the tattooed flowered design that circled Anika’s wrist. William saw Veronica Valdez, the bane of his life. She sat near him in class and always seemed to find him when they were out somewhere. He was pretty sure that every time she yelled his name, several solar panels cracked with dismay. His biggest fear was that she might have a crush on him ever since his amazing skim-board ride. Anika looked at him and called, Say hi to Veronica, Will! She held up her bio-band arm and turned so he could see her palm. The hologram of Veronica’s heart-shaped face and shining black hair floated above Anika’s hand and smiled at him. He could almost imagine her calling his name. He made a face, then bounced away with as much force as he could. Same old William, Anika muttered to Veronica, as she watched him flee from the scene, Wait until you meet his friend, Dom. You won’t believe how nice he is. William heard that and called back, You stay away from him, Veronica! Dom is my friend. The girls laughed.

Well, really his name was Dominic, but William had never called him that. It had been plain Dom since the day they’d met four years earlier. William had been six then and Dominic seemed a very grown-up eight years old. It was the first day of true communal school. Until then, he had only done lessons on the home system. For months he had been longing to go to school like his sister. Finally, he had turned six and the day had arrived. He had been excited but now it was scary. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea that he had to be with all these kids. William was getting swamped by the frighteningly large crowd of students waiting to enter the gigantic hall.

On any other day, Anika would have been there to make sure he found his correct computer terminal. She would have introduced him to the person who monitored the booths and was called a teacher. However, that day, she had been sick and William’s mom had hooked up Anika to the computer-doc. The machine said she had the flu and it was serious so she had to rest in bed. Mr. Glenn said he would take William instead.

Soon, they were standing there, across the street from the hall, looking at a large group of kids waiting for the doors to open. They looked so confident that William suddenly felt silly holding his dad’s hand. William announced that he could find his own way. His dad seemed to understand and said, You’ll be fine, Son, go on, I’ll see you after school. A nervous flutter waffled in his stomach, but he was certain the others