Shackleton's Folly (The Lost Wonder Book 1) (31 page)

Dancer went inside the airlock. Electra yelled at Alec from the tree line. “Alec!”

Alec’s body ached as he turned to see Electra running toward him over a free-form obstacle course shaped by the power of the wave. Alec called out, “What did you find?”

Electra, breathless with excitement, handed him the maintenance screen. She said, “I found a building buried in a hill back there, with a maintenance worker’s skeleton. He had this in his hand,” she said as she pointed to the maintenance screen. “They are very rare, and, in the entire time we have been here, we have never found one active.”

Alec took a closer look at the paper-thin crystalline material. The characters in the material — “on” might have been a better description — seemed to come from the crystal itself. Alec held up the sheet to the light and could not see any circuitry, but it still continued to display information both graphically and in text. He rubbed the surface. The display changed, and a 3D rendering of the Endless Beach garden appeared above the device. A blue curved line flashed as it appeared to be moving toward an island chain.

Alec pointed out to Electra a section on the coast in the middle of the path of the destructive wave. “This looks like about where we came down.” Alec stood, holding the screen up as he compared the topography of the hills around them to those on the screen. “Those hills look like this area,” he said, pointing to the foothills in the distance. Alec looked at the screen and then checked each direction in turn.

Dancer came from the
Quest
with a bucket of bottled beer. He offered it to Alec, and he took one. Dancer put it down, picked up a bottle, and opened it. Then Dancer offered it to Electra, who watched Alec with interest as he tossed back the bottle, taking long, slow gulps from it. He finished the beer and chuckled. “A two-row malt, flaked barley, Mt. Hood hops, CaraPils malt, pure water, and ale yeast. A fine Golden Ale, Dancer.” He closed his tired eyes. “I’m glad you were able to print up some of the Kiwanda Cream labels. The best batch we’ve made, partner.”

Electra turned to Dancer.

“Alec likes things — no,
obsesses
over — all things earth based. No need to worry.” He looked over at his friend. “Yet,” said Dancer with a mischievous grin. “We brewed the beer based on an earth recipe.”

Alec opened his arms wide and spun slowly in place. His eyes took in the horizon. He stop abruptly, his eyes meeting Electra’s bewildered expression. “This device is telling us someone or something is interested in us. This is a warning to evacuate."

Electra picked up the maintenance screen, held it up, and compared it to the terrain around them. She stopped and sat down. Alec sat down beside her. Electra pointed to the corners of the device. “Hold them.” Alec did as he was asked. Electra held the two free corners and pulled at them. The screen grew larger with the tension being applied. The surface and terrain rendering scaled up, as did the size, to a large architectural drawing. They held it firmly and examined the map closely.

Alec bent over and looked at the surface of the screen he could still see bordering the rendering. “This material is so light.” Alec shrugged his shoulders, his eyes meeting Electra’s.

“It’s not any harder to hold than before,” Electra said with interest. “We should be able to find out what we need to do to fix everything.”

Alec looked to the sky. “Of course, with a facility as large and complicated as this sphere, you would need hundreds of millions of custodians.” He looked for icons along the edges of the screen. Alec ran his hand along the edge closest to himself and found what could be a control icon for a pinch zoom motion. The view zoomed out, and they saw the entire landmass they were on. A blue dot appeared and began to flash, indicating their location on the island at the furthest end from the oncoming wave. Again it zoomed out, until they could see all of the Beach Garden.

The blue-dot flash quickened, capturing the attention of both Alec and Electra. The display changed and zoomed back on the blue line in the ocean moving toward them. The line was over darker water, the darkness of a tall wave. It was a second wave on its way. It had washed across entire island chains and archipelagos as it came at them. The swiftly moving wave was well on its way to the landmass with the flashing blue dot.

Alec yelled to Dancer, “A second wave is on its way. We gotta go. Now! This next wave is going to be worse.”

Electra carried an armload of tools inside. Alec gathered a chair and some other small tools and headed for the airlock. Dancer came from behind the
Quest
.

Dancer had an oil rag in his hands. He wiped some fluids from his digits. “Sorry, Alec. Couldn’t hear you. Thought I’d do that maintenance we talked about.”

Alec skidded to a stop by the ship. Alec said incredulously, “You did what!?!”

Dancer saw Alec’s agitation and replied indignantly, “I had to pull the injectors on the FTL engines. We talked about this.”

Alec unconsciously looked in the direction of the ocean, expecting to see the wave coming even then, “Yes I did, but not now! We have another wave heading our way, and it’s a lot bigger than the first one. Can we get out of here?”

Dancer scratched the back of his head as he looked at what needed to be done. “Well, maybe.”

“Not good enough, Dancer, not remotely good enough. Let’s hit it, then,” commanded Alec.

Electra gathered the remaining equipment and stowed it aboard the ship. The maintenance screen went dark as she grabbed it. She grabbed the corners diagonally from each other and pushed them together. Electra returned it to the original size, and it displayed the garden’s systems updates and the latest news.

Alec turned to Dancer. “Double check to make sure everything is picked up. I don’t want to leave some irreplaceable pieces of equipment or tools out on the ground or leave a panel open, leaving us vulnerable.”

Dancer leapt to the top of the
Quest
. He rushed back and forth to check that all panels were sealed. The FTL engines were not going to take them to the next star, but they were ready for interplanetary system flight. Dancer made sure the panel seams were lined up and then headed back toward the airlock.

Alec made his way quickly around the
Quest
. He looked for equipment as he mentally checked off items on a takeoff list — undercarriage, landing gear, and engines. He would have Dancer get the FTL back online at the first available opportunity.

Alec completed the mental checklist finding only a wrench on the ground near the tail of the
Quest
. He made it back to the airlock and sealed it behind him. He dropped the wrench into an open toolbox on the way to the command deck. He spun the pilot’s chair around enough to take his seat. Alec and Dancer worked as one to run through preflight in an abbreviated time.

Electra manned the engineer’s station and turned on the outer shields. The panels registered no change. She turned them off and back on again — still nothing. “Shields are down,” she announced.

“I hope it does not become a problem,” replied Alec as he cleared some warning lights.

Electra had the maintenance screen running in front of her. The display showed the second wave smashing into the coast at great speed. The wave’s height measured at 100 meters as it washed ashore. The
Quest
fired her engines, but they sputtered, with bits of material still in their throats. Electra could now see the monster wave hurtling toward them out the port, its face churning with tons of water to pound the
Quest
’s hull until it surrendered itself and her crew to a watery end.

She was so close to getting home again that she would not give up. Electra had had some close calls in her past, but it was those whom she’d led during this mission that made it hard for her just to give up. They were colleagues — no, more than that, they were good friends — who would give their lives to further this mission to save their families, friends, and their world. Electra refused to be the one who gave up.

Alec turned to Electra. “Vent some fuel into the system for a richer mixture. I am going to try something different.”

Electra did so, as the oncoming wave was clearly coming closer. Water from the base of the wave reached the
Quest
.

“Not enough time to get us out of here,” stated Alec.

The pressure of the moving water had little effect at first, but, soon, the rushing liquid reached a height that lifted the ship a little.

But then came the wave.

“Now,” yelled Alec.

The white-capped wave was still nearly 100 meters tall and beginning to break the wall of water, curling as gravity pulled it over, forming a large hollow above the
Quest
. The ship’s long, graceful design allowed the firing of the engines to propel the ship up the deep face of the thick curl of water forming the tube. Alec kept the ship angle down and across the wall of water, like a champion surfer keeping his longboard riding the wave through the tube to safety.

Electra held her breath as Alec and Dancer managed the
Quest
’s course as the tube’s curl now fully enclosed them in a gas chamber. Alec fired the thrusters at full acceleration as the ship reached the collapsing end of the chamber.

The
Quest
burst forth from the water’s surface. A trail of froth followed them for a short distance as the
Quest
put some distance between it and the ocean wave sinking below. It was soon evident that the wave had finally run out of energy as it sank to ground level and returned back to the shoreline and basin.

Alec took the ship on a long, circular climb to scan their landing zone. The devastation was total after the second wave’s passage.

“Electra, I promised to get you home. It’s time,” said Alec.

“I just provided the coordinates for the nav computer,” replied Electra.

“Then make it so,” replied Alec.

The
Quest
rose higher in the atmosphere. The second wave scoured the land below as they cleared the garden’s force field. The ship gracefully turned in a wide arc and headed due west of their position. The engines, freed of the contaminants clogging her system, climbed even higher, allowing it to accelerate to a speed fast enough to get them to their destination in just a few hours. They could go faster, but maintaining a slower speed would mean they would not stand out against the background of the sphere too easily to the ship tracking them. The
Quest
sped over the islands far below. The ship was back in its element.

The G-type main-sequence star at the heart of the sphere bathed the interior with a soft light and warmed the interior surface well enough to keep water in liquid form. The maintenance functions that cleared the interior space of debris had stopped. A belt of material and asteroids formed between the star and sphere. Its growth was being fed by the space debris captured by gravity wells at each of the 12 pentagons.

The Skiptracer’s ship found its way to the asteroid belt in its search for the
Quest
. The ship dodged rock and small asteroids as it tried to avoid detection from the
Quest
or other life forms within the sphere that might not appreciate the uninvited visitors.

The creatures Worrell and Gino were playing leap frog, one sub-creature at a time. Gino reassembled first and kicked Worrell in the backside as it tried to complete its assembly.

Gino screamed with glee, “I first.”

Worrell’s sub-creatures picked themselves up from the floor and reassembled again. Worrell said spitefully, “You going to lose your topselves if you don’t find that ship again.”

Lights and alarms sounded at an ear-splitting volume. Gino moved quickly to the console and keyed in commands. The alarms, loud enough to wake the dead, continued unabated in their mission. Gino grabbed a wooden club from its receptacle on the front of the console. Its long shaft came down in a graceful arc as Gino aimed it at the control panel. The panel showed evidence of previous interventions. A great ringing of metal against wood filled the compartment. The alarm ended.

Gino pointed elatedly, “We have them again. Trace Unit not functioning. Discovered it, they must have. Lucky we found them before they found it. Visual tracking now available.”

The forward screen filled with a distant view from above of the
Quest
over the Endless Beach garden. The ship sped directly toward the garden wall closest to the ship.

Worrell whispered, “Must sneak up on them from behind. Set course.”

Gino manipulated the console and whispered back, “Course laid in.”

Worrell said even lower, “Engage.”

The Skiptracer’s ship changed course to pass through the asteroid belt around the star.

Worrell said excitedly, “Bounty on this will be high; take the ship we will.”

Gino replied with dreaminess, “We will go home for a while. Take some mates.”

Worrell keyed in data. Worrell said eagerly, “Fun that.”

*

The Koty Union battleships
Illia
and
Saleen
emerged from the dust cloud’s tendrils in formation. Squadrons of fighters launched and deployed in defensive formations. The small fleet’s arrival disrupted five of the nearby planetoids in sweeping orbits. Battleships and fighters masses effected the orbital patterns beyond the computed variances. Each of the control stations built into their respective planetoids sent an alert signal to the sphere’s defensive system. Great systems within the sphere awakened for the first time in millennia to the threat of invasion.

The
Illia
and
Saleen
approached the sphere in a long, spiraling course, with their respective fighters extending their defensive range. It was hard to conceive what they would do if the sphere became a threat to them, but they would retaliate until the last of the ships were vaporized.

The bridge crew of the
Illia
propelled themselves about their duties as they gathered information about the void within the nebula. Data poured in from the flights of fighters and probes that had been deployed to scout ahead.