Dressed in a red hooded jumpsuit, designed to maintain his equilibrium, Pend Wii Am Monchi lay recumbent on a Genticline, courtesy of Earthstar Corporation, in the ambient comfort of the hermetically sealed spacious Airscape departure lounge.
At two point four decades, third generation Martian, Pend was heir to the Monchi dynasty.
He was about to embark on his first journey off-planet.
His destination was Earth.
He was going there to kill.
Mars and Earth were in perihelion, putting the planets at 33.9 million miles apart.
Outbound, the trip would take nine months.
Pend would spend three months on Earth before it was again in perihelion with his home planet.
If all went according to his meticulous planning, a year in the making, he would be back home in twenty-one months.
Pend was not traveling alone.
His entourage was twelve.
Four personal bodyguard: two dieticians, two valets, two personal secretaries, two companion tutors, and two significant others.
Wirelessly coupled to Pend’s neural Asset, the Genticline’s monitors were steady in the blue bar phase. Despite his imminent undertaking, Pend’s neural and physiological performances were optimum.
As with the members of his entourage, via his Asset, Pend had been fed all the relevant information pertaining to the periods of induced torpor their nine-month journey would entail and the recovery period they would have to undergo on their arrival on Earth.
What Pend alone had also received, were precise details on how to locate his target, and how to obtain the means by which he would execute the killing. Arranged privately in advance, the whole stratagem was in place.
The PA announced that Earthstar One was now boarding.
In response, following their magnetic guidelines, the Genticline’s conveyed their recumbents to the departure gate.
MARSPORT. EARTH
In the early hours, Earthstar One made a textbook landing at Marsport’s launch bay four. Sited on the former Overberg missile test range, in the southernmost tip of Africa, Marsport has for some time been the premier location for inbound traffic from Mars.
On their arrival, Pend and his entourage were conveyed to their accommodation for obligatory rest and recuperation. During which, under strict medical supervision, their physiological and psychological wellbeing would be monitored, whilst they acclimatised to Earth’s atmosphere.
Released from Earthstar’s medical facilities, Pend and his bodyguards were taken by road to their prearrange rendezvous with two guides.
These guides would then take them on to the location where the kill was to take place.
Secrecy, from here on, was paramount.
Pend’s target was heavily protected.
The journey was arduous. And four days later they could go no further by road. From there on, the party would make their way on foot through ever-changing environmental habitation.
In preparation, the party donned nano-based hyper-stealth bodysuits. Powered from their backpacks, the colour-altering, IR cloaked, suits enabled the wearers to maintain bodily equilibrium, whilst they moved undetected through changeable terrains.
Guided by GPS, the party arrived at their well concealed laying up point.
They were two miles from the target site.
Leaving their excess baggage with the two guides, Pend and his bodyguards set out for their GPS established forward observation point.
On their arrival, the elevated location provided an uninterrupted view of the kill zone.
From their tree-shaded vantage point, the party were able to make out the movements of armed, vehicle-mounted, and foot-bound guards. It was a given that those guards were permitted to shoot on sight any unauthorised intruders.
This whole endeavor had been timed to within the hour. Pend’s target followed a fairly predictable routine.
Watched by his bodyguard, Pend prepared his state-of-the-art weapon.
That done, he assumed a comfortably prone position. From where, he dialled in the telescopic sight’s cross hairs on the helmet of a guard moving right to left.
Holding the weapon lightly, Pend allowed its aiming mechanism to calculated the distance to target at 1.688.03 miles, the wind speed at 4 knots due east, and adjust its elevation and trajectory accordingly.
Thus prepared, Pend settled in to wait for his target to show.
That happened a little short of three hours later.
By which time, the sun was beginning its descent, at Pend’s two o’clock.
Pend watch his target with his naked eye as it came into view.
Satisfied, he lowered an eye patch over his left eye, and settled his right eye into the soft rubber light shield of the weapons telescopic sight.
His target sprang into stark, crystal-clear detail.
Pend placed the cross-hairs squarely between his targets eyes
Breathing in, Pend slowly exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.
In a cloud of dust, as though struck from a great height, the target fell to the ground.
After a journey of tens of millions of miles.
Pend Wii Am Monchi killed the last matriarch of the family Loxodonta Africana.
Retwords 