text: [Themes: sci-fi]
  
  You follow Esmeralda as she picks her way through the tall trees along a barely-discernible path. You look up at the towering trees, festooned with snaking vines, their tops disappearing into the white mists of the planet's lower cloud barrier. You've no idea what is going on, or why your robot tutor seems to think she does, but she knows things about your parents (particularly your father) that you don't. Impatient and nervous, you can no longer remain quiet.
  
  "Esmeralda, what's going on? Why are we running away from the house? Are my parents in danger?"
  
  Still scuttling along the jungle path, the robot rotates her head 180 degrees to regard you with her glowing red eyes. "I don't know if your parents are in danger, Sandra. But if they are, I don't want you to be as well. Please continue to follow me. We must wait this out. Once the men are gone, we may return to the house." Her head swivels back to face the upcoming path through the trees.
  
  No, you don't particularly like your parents. You especially don't like your father. But you don't want them to come to harm, either. Without saying a word, you stop walking, turn around, and head back to the house.
  
  "Young lady!"
  
  "No, Esmeralda. I won't listen to you anymore." You press on with ever-increasing steps. Soon you're running through the trees. You hear Esmeralda's servos as she chases after you, but you ignore the robot as you push your way into the garden. It's not long before you've crossed the flagstones and have nothing but a green sward of lawn between you and the white Victorian mansion.
  
  You run onto the flagstoned path leading to the front of the house, bound up the stone steps two at a time, then through the arched doorway through one of the frosted-glass double doors-- which is strangely ajar. The living room stands before you with its polished blue marble tiles and the two spiral staircases that fold out of the opposite wall like the wings of a dove. Dashing across the tiles (the clacking of your heals possibly alerting any intruders, you realize), you grab the copper banister with the statue of Hephaestus and hurl yourself up one of the staircases, again running two-at-time up the plum-carpeted steps. You hear no sounds other than your muffled footfalls.
  
  Was this a bad idea? What if it's too late, anyway? Then you've just put yourself in danger too. No, you shouldn't worry about that. Your parents are your main concern right now.
  
  You rush down the hall, past open doorways until you get to the dark oak-wood door at the end. Framed by an ornately carved filigree of vines is another Hephaestus, standing before you in godly splendor, holding a blacksmith's hammer in one hand and regarding you with his great cyclopean eye. The master bedroom. Should you knock? No time for formalities.
  
  You try the brass knob and discover the door is unlocked. You push it inward and step through the doorway. White gossamer curtains bellow from open windows in a morning breeze at either side of the four-poster bed. Lying on the mattress, her black curls matted to her pillow with blood, is your mother. Her dark brown eyes stare into nothing and her jaw hangs slack.
  
  Already pounding in your chest, your heart starts banging a mad percussion. You feel your skin shiver with cold perspiration as a wave of dizziness washes through your skull. Pull yourself together! you think, suddenly. I've got to make sure father's okay. You scan the room and notice the bureau to the left of the bed has all its drawers hanging open. At its foot are a pile of your parents' clothes and the smashed remains of your mother's guitar.
  
  You glance in the bureau mirror and see a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl with with shoulder-length locks and bangs that don't quite hide a knitted brow, dripping with sweat. She looks small, frightened, and alone.
  
  > find Your Father's Radio to Call for Help
  You know your father always kept a a ham radio in an alcove at the back of the parlor room downstairs. If you can sneak down there without being discovered by the rocket men, maybe you could call for help. The marshal probably isn't the best option since he takes a while to get around the islands in the archipelago. But this is an emergency so maybe he or one of his deputies could rush over in their auto gyro. Or maybe you could contact someone from the mining company. Certainly, they'd recognize the radio band you'd be calling from and would be more than willing to help out the VP of Vulcan Mineral Corporation. Looking about you cautiously, you creep out of your parents' bedroom and then rush down the stairs and head for the parlor room. Upon entering it, you find Xavier, your family's butler, tugging on the glass and oak doors of the gun cabinet.
  
  "Xavier!" you whisper from behind him.
  
  He immediately turns and faces you, his mechanical limbs jerking like a marionette's. "Mistress, Sandra. I think you should hide somewhere right now. There are some strange men in the house and I am afraid they do not have our best interests in mind."
  
  "I know." You wipe tears from your eyes. "I-I saw mother..."
  
  Xavier cocks his head to the side and regards you with his painted gentleman's face. "I am sorry for her loss. Also your father's."
  
  "Waite, he's dead too?"
  
  Before he can answer, you hear footfalls from outside the arched entrance to the parlor room.
  
  "Please hide yourself, Mistress Sandra. I shall hold these ruffians off. I just do not wish to break the lock on your father's gun cabinet to get to his weapons."
  
  "Xavier, as the sole surviving Acosta living in this house, I grant you permission to tear the damned door off the cabinet if you have to!" You run to the side of the room, heading for the alcove where your father's radio resides. "I'm gonna call for help."
  
  "Now is not a good time for that, child. Please hide. The pool table should be a good place to tuck yourself under until these men leave."
  
  You stop and glance at the green billiards table where your father used to always beat you at pool.
  
  "No, I'm going to get help on the radio if I can," you say and then head to the alcove.
  
  The alcove was originally a window seat, but the cushioned recess was later replaced with a small mahogany desk and a plush chair on rollers. You slide the chair back and sit in it, your eyes briefly distracted by the misty jungle framed in the window. Somewhere beyond that wall of foliage is the rocket ship that brought these horrible men.
  
  As you reach your hand to the radio, you hear a loud crashing sound and glance at the the gun cabinet where Xavier has literally followed your instructions. He tosses the broken door onto the carpet where its diamond panes shatter. He then reaches for a ray rifle.
  
  You turn back to the boxy radio, flick the "on" switch up and turn the dials on its gray metal face. A shrill whirring sound screeches from the grill beneath the knobs and you quickly try to tune the device to a familiar band. You grab the the tall steel microphone from its stand and place it to your lips. "Hello, hello!" you say in a hushed but urgent tone. "Can anyone hear me? This is an emergency. I'm calling you from the house on Lozano's Island..." You pause as you desperately try to recall the coordinates to the island.
  
  "Put the gun down, robot!" calls a man's voice.
  
  Your look back and see Xavier pointing the ray rifle at a man in a black flack jacket. The man has a shiny metal pistol trained on your butler.
  
  "I will not let you harm anymore members of this household, sir," says Xavier.
  
  The man fires a blue bolt of energy at Xavier, who instantly fires back. There's a blinding burst of light as the two beams converge. You have to shut your eyes. When you open them, you see that the man and Xavier are both sprawled on their backs with black plumes of smoke coming from their chests. The carpet around them is licked with orange flames and spreading fast. Soon you realize to your horror that your cornered by the flames in the alcove.
  
  You turn and face the ham radio and realize the only way it can save you now. Lifting it from the table, you hurl it through the window. The pane shatters and you scurry over the desk and out the opening, cutting your hands and knees in the process. You tumble into a clump of bushes and spring onto your feet and start running from the house.
  
  > Mistress of Lozano's Island
  You never do find out what ship brought the men to your island. As you run from the burning house, you see the rocket's tail exhaust as it flies off heading North. Later, you meet up with Esmeralda. There's blood on her metal claws, and she explains to you that she killed all the other men who attacked the house. You're both shocked and relieved to hear this, but disheartened to see that the house is a smoldering inferno. The two of you walk to the landing pad of your father's auto gyro.
  
  "Who were those men, Esmeralda?" you ask, rubbing your bloody palms on your white dress.
  
  "I don't know, Mistress Sandra, but I do have my suspicions. It's over now, though. Let us fly to the mainland to report this to the proper authorities."
  
  At sixteen, you're too young to live on your own, so you go to Earth to live with an aunt and uncle until you can claim your inheritance and forge your own path. On your eighteenth birthday, you tell your relatives that you are ready to reclaim your birthright and soon book passage on a rocket ship to Venus. You have to do some minor sleuthing, but soon you find Margaret Sullivan in the city of Virgil on the Southern Continent of Tereshkov. She's living with an older woman artist, but it's an abusive relationship and she's more than happy to pack up and leave with you. The two of you set out to rebuild the Acosta mansion on Lozano's Island, but always you are haunted by that fateful day when those terrible men came out of the heavens to murder your parents.
  
  The End