My mouth was dry, it had been about thirty minutes of straight debating without break or water. I didn't need it though, we were winning. Of course it was fake, but it was based off of real problems in our world. The topic was our communications with our enemies, Earth's piggy backers, the Moon.

"Moonmen speak one language, power." Jeremy stated. He stood from his chair sitting in the middle of our circular tactics room.

I love being a senior because we get all the cool stuff. The tactics room is an exact representation of the real tactics room in New Velvet, our planet's capital. It was a large oval shape, the top was surrounded with the flags of all the planet flags. In the middle was ours, a dark red flag with a white aerial view of Mars. Under it are the words The Red, referring to our nickname The Red Planet.

"Excuse me, Jeremy," Mrs. Replo stated. "Please use correct terms when talking about people from other colonies."

Jeremy sighed obviously annoyed. "Fine, the Lunas only speak one language..."

I looked across the room and saw their flag. It took us a while to finally decide to put that up there, but in an attempt to mend fences, we took to doing everything we could to help out. Still, it was disgusting. It was black and white with two swords crossing each other. Finally, in an attempt to seem like a good group of people, the words across the top were United in Peace.

They weren't a good group of people, despite what they try to get you to believe. The Invasion of Earth was the hallmark event of them trying to hard to be powerful. They have what we have been taught is a Napoleon Complex. Just a small group of people biting off more than they could chew.

"Very good Jeremy. Daisy, if you could." Mrs. Replo called me. She was a nice lady, very short with a large body. She wore glasses that had a chain to keep them on her neck as she graded papers.

I stood looking across my fellow classmates, trying to judge their facial expressions to see what they thought of Jeremy's proposal offering them a seat beside us where we can create a steady flow of protection between the two of us. They seemed pleased, like it was not only a good idea, but the work of a genius.

It was my job to change that thinking.

Step one, complement my enemy.

"Ladies and gentleman, while Jeremy does have a correct theory when it comes to peace, peace doesn't come without loopholes."

Step two, bring them in with fact.

"When looking at the Moon's history with 'alliances' they don't really work well together. If you want proof, look at Earth. The once beautiful planet is now shattered with broken buildings and starving citizens. Did the Moon and Earth not have a fruitful alliance?"

Step three, bring them closer with a story.

"Let's say we have an alliance with the Moon that goes well until we die, well that's fine but what about our children? What about our legacy? Mars vs. The Moon has gone back since the day our forefathers left Earth and now it has escalated. It will keep escalating, regardless."

Final step, crush him.

"While Jeremy's proposal was good, the Moon is not a group of people willing to make trusting alliances. Who is? Saturn. The Saturnians have a strong army that is often overlooked by the overaggressive attitude of their sister in Uranians. Saturnians, the only group of people with access to the greatest military equipment in the Saturnian Space Force and have the only fantastic relationship with their sister the Uranians. As you should know, the Uranians are a force because of their willingness to fight no matter what. With them on our side, we can end the Moon's tyranny."

I looked at Mrs. Replo and out of the corner of my eye saw the smirks on the faces of my classmates, excluding Jeremy.

Wasn't long until the claps erupted and another one-hundred was scraped on my grading card.

The steps always work.

"Daisy, you killed it. Excellent job!" Some boy told me.

"Good job, see you in War Science!" Trisha said.

Complements all day long. By this time I only had War Science left before I could go home and take a nap.

All of a sudden I felt my hair being flicked, then I saw the strands blond curls out of the corner of my eye.

"Boy if this isn't you I'm going to be really embarrassed." I heard a male voice say.

I turned and saw Ben right behind me. I smiled. "Luckily it is me."

He sped up his pace so he was walking beside me. Ben Lispon, my best friend since the ninth grade. He was a tall fellow with big, ocean blue eyes. His body was lean with small but noticeable muscles out of his shirt. His naturally had rosy cheeks, so when he blushes his whole face turns red.

"How'd you do?" He asked me.

"Nailed it." I smirked.

"Nice! Here. Got this from Amy to give to you."

He handed me a pink envelope sealed with a sticker with the Johnson Family insignia, a green dragon with a red background. Amy probably invited me to another politician dinner.

"And, here is a sticker for doing good."

He put a sticker with a smiley face on his hand and pushed it on my chest.

"Let me make sure it's on."

He pushed on my chest over and over again until I slapped his hand off. "It's on. Go to class."

We both laughed and he left to his final class. I looked out the corner of my eye again and saw my hair was out of place. I looked left and went toward the bathroom.

Looking in the mirror, I could never see what all the boys saw in me. Sure, I had long blond hair which for some reason makes you 'more attractive'. That's why I might dye it brown. My eyes were a fire amber color. My nose was way too big, and I could stand to lose a couple pounds. That may not be true since I weigh 130 and Ben says if I lose one more pound I could be resembled to the old Pillsbury Dough Boy. All that does is remind me I need to go to Earth on their summer and get a tan.

After straightening my hair and taking that stupid sticker off I walked to War Science.

---

"Dad?" I shouted when I got home.

All the lights were off, which was strange. He did tell me our electric bill was too high though. Hell of a way to save electricity.

"Daisy! Don't... Shit!"

I dropped all my stuff and rushed to the living room.

From there in the kitchen I could see five men, all wearing gas masks and armed with military artillery. Moon artillery.

"There is the bitch!" One yelled as he spotted. His voice was obviously distorted to make it sound like he was talking through a computer program.

My heart was pounding when I ran back to the door. I struggled with the knob when I felt a pair of cold hands on my shoulder. I turned and punched him in the face, effectively knocking him down.

Probably should have mentioned, all girls on Mars are required to take a self defense course when they turn fifteen.

I pushed the man up against the wall and started choking him. "Who the hell are you?"

The man laughed. "Way too impulsive."

I looked up.

The last thing I saw was his gun swinging.

Sirens.

"One missing, robber dead."

All of these sounds were a little blacked out but I blinked my eyes open and looked. My house was almost destroyed. The streets of Mars were usually beautiful at night, but today all I could see was my life in flames.

"Daisy!" Ben tripped running to me. "Are you alright? I heard gunfire, your head, what's-"

My eyes widened. "Dad!"

I rushed to an officer. "Excuse me, where is my dad?"

"Daisy, they took him." Ben told me.

My heart dropped. "What?"

"I heard some officers talking, they said Robert was missing."

"No, that's impossible, that's..."

I felt tears stinging my eyes. Ben must have seen because he grabbed me and held me close to him. I wrapped my arms around him and let tears drip on his shirt.

He pushed me away, his hands still on my shoulders. "Listen, you can stay with us for a while, it's already been cleared by my mom. We'll find him, don't worry."

I nodded, tears still falling onto my cheeks. He pulled me back into and embrace and we hugged for the longest time.

I'd give my right hand for this night to just end.

"A break in tonight..." The reporter spoke.

I always hated the media, being on the inside of it all they always blow everything out of proportion.

"Daisy, you don't need to watch this." Ben spoke, he had a red soda and a bag of jelly beans in his hand.

"Why not? Might as well see how they make this more than what it really was."

He sat next to me and handed me the jelly beans. "Here, they are Blue Giant brand and I took out all of the licorice flavored ones."

My mouth dropped opened and I looked at him dumbfounded.

"Don't act so surprised I know you as well as I do."

I smiled at him. "I love you."

"Love you too."

I took the bowl of jelly beans and started to scarf them down.

He grabbed the remote. "If we are done with this can we change the channel to the Nature Channel?"

I looked at him with a ridiculous look. "Well I have to study if I want a job on Earth. The Moon kind of fucked that planet up."

I chuckled. "Yeah."

He turned up the volume and went to the guide.

The reporter spoke in the background. "However, this has striking resemblance to the murder of December Snow four years ago."

"Hold up, hold up let me hear this." I told him.

Ben exited the guide and turned the volume up louder. "December was also studying to be a politician when her and her family were brutally murdered by men, dressed up in Moon military outfits with Moon weapons. However these are not soldiers, but rather mercenaries of some sort. The question is, who is sending them? I'm Jennifer Lous, Velvet News."

I remember, we studied that girl in school last year. Moon Mercenaries, but why would they be targeting young politicians?

I looked at Ben. "I think I might know where they are taking my father."

---

Yo, that went well. I think at least. Anyway, review and maybe follow or favorite. Either one is cool. Had this idea when I did a space colonization speech for my class. It was a very interest topic. So, here we are. My internet goes in and out so I write.

Hope you enjoyed this first chapter. Peace! :)

P.S. Did you notice the December joke? :)