Alpha Rising

by G. L. Douglas

Bach’s three-foot stride carried him to the mound beside Faith’s where he dropped to his knees and dug deep into the sandy pit. He freed a box and lifted the lid. “The solid fuel!”

  The bounty grew to five boxes of fuel, three logbooks, wrist viewers with technical data involved in Alpha’s restoration, copies of interplanetary journals, and a small wrapped package.

  Sprinting between the gravesite and the ship he set the boxes and books outside the back ramp, yelling as he ran, “Wish that robot wasn’t damaged, I could use him.”

  Star relayed the items inside and stepped back out. “How many more?”

  He returned with his arms full. “Last ones. Here, take this.” He handed her a box the size of a phone book wrapped in white paper.

  She shook the box side-to-side. Something heavy shifted an inch or two, and something else slid with a clunk. “It doesn’t sound like fuel.”

  “Open it.”

  She unwrapped it on the way inside. “Faith’s Bible … and an iridescent purple box.” She balanced the box in her hand. “It’s heavy. Some kind of alloy.”

  “Looks like a big ring box,” he said.

  Her peek inside ended with a puzzled huff. “Empty.” She shrugged and snapped it closed.

  “Can’t be.” Bach grabbed the box. His hand dipped from the weight. “Wow, heavier than it looks.” He opened it then looked around the floor. “Did something fall out?”

  “No, it was empty.”

  He put the box in a drawer with the Bible. “We’ll figure it out later.”

  Star filled a storage hold with the extra fuel while Bach took two boxes to the flight deck. Holding a mound of briquettes against his body in one hand, he flipped open the lid on the fuel shaft. Then he yelled, “We’ve been sabotaged! There’s liquid in the chamber.”

  Star checked the chamber then, strangely, told Bach, “Put in the briquettes.”

  He stared at her and again said, “There’s liquid in the chamber.”

  “Try it,” she said, walking away while giving the ship the once-over.

  Bach tried to slide a briquette into the slot, but it didn’t fit. He jammed it against the opening—turned it over, around, and sideways, and even tried twisting, before trying a second piece. “Star, they don’t fit,” he groused, “chamber’s too small. And I know it won’t work with that stinkin’ brown stuff in there. Why is this happening?”

  She answered from aft ship, still looking around. “It’s Dad’s ruse for the Rooks … a phony fuel system. Now, help me find the real fuel chamber.”

  Bach searched one side of the cabin for the fuel shaft, and Star the other. Each of them opened and shut drawers and pushed or pulled anything movable in an all-out search for the lead-in chamber. “Don’t worry about looking on either of the other ships,” Bach said. “Rule ’em out due to distance. Not feasible to operate from there.”

  Star sat on the wraparound bench in the cockpit and slowly moved her eyes across cabinet facades, floor gratings, and ceiling panels. She noticed her father’s black marble nameplate attached to the wall near the mid-ship galley. There was no logical reason for him to put it on the ship. She went to the plaque and tried pulling it up, but it didn’t move. She sighed, still stroking the golden letters, and looked around the cabin for anything else that could serve as a fuel safe. The side-to-side stroke of her fingertips caused the plaque to give. She pushed down and slid it sideways. “The fuel chamber! Bach! Over here,” she yelled.

  “Under the nameplate from his office door? Brilliant!” Bach grabbed the boxes of briquettes he’d set aside and fed them into the shaft.

  Now minutes from liftoff, Star headed to the cockpit to close the back ramp. She raised the lever, but the door didn’t budge. “No!” she said, moving the lever up and down.

  Bach nosed over her shoulder. “A generator problem. Override the sensor with a hot spark. We weren’t able to test-fire those generators.”

  “It’s something more than a generator.” She tried again, but got only an odd crackle from the area around the lever. “What’s wrong? This technology plays off of one of my designs. It’s not possible it would react this way.”

  Bach flopped on the bench, tapped icons on a pressure-sensitive pad and rocked a switch. No ignition. He glared with contempt at the renovated spacecraft. “Everything’s scrambled at once.” Scrambled? He jumped up and grabbed Star’s hand. “Hurry!”

  “What?”

  “The EMOG scrambles instrumentation. Find the EMOG!”

  “The EMOG!”

  “Altemus must have anticipated enemy intervention and planted it to disable the ship.” Bach bounced around the ship like a pinball, checking the flight deck, the mid-ship alcoves with wall hammocks, and the two safety rooms. He and Star searched every possible option one-by-one, but didn’t find the EMOG. Growing anxious, Bach’s breath came in short spurts. He shoved the hair back from his forehead and pivoted in a circle. “Where would he have put it? Think!” He paced, babbled, and walked past the aft storage hold a half-dozen times, touching everything more than once. “It’s U-shaped,” he said. “If I were Altemus where would I hide a U-shaped device?”

  “Near something relating to a u,” she said logically.

  “Good answer. But what relates to a u?”

  After they’d looked at every lettered object around the ship, Star said, “I didn’t find anything.” An instant later, she noticed the Up and Down lettering on the panel around the controller to the back ramp. She snapped the clamps from the fascia and lifted it off. Inside, the EMOG generated its deadly power.

  “Bach, here! Under the ramp’s controller.”

  He rushed aft for the mysterious little box and grabbed it so fast he knocked it to the floor along with the Bible. A slip of paper fell from the Bible. He scooped it all up and loped back to the bench. “That’s what this strange purple box is for,” he said with a full-throttle expression of joy. “Altemus did it! He finished his special project! He told me he was trying to develop a compact container for the EMOG so he could carry it easily, but I never expected anything so small. How did he find time?” Clutching the weighty box, Bach’s emotions turned fragile. “It’s part of his legacy. He’s smiling somewhere, knowing his dreams and life’s work will pay off. Oh, I wish he were here to see Alpha rising.”

  Silence reflected Star’s sorrow. She held the paper that fell from the Bible and first read it to herself, then aloud. “‘I have one EMOG, you have the other. Use it wisely for lakes that deceive, and enemies who don’t believe. Godspeed.’ -Altemus.”

  Bach gulped, “The other? He made the second EMOG?”

  She looked at him, not really seeing. “That’s what brought down the enemy ship.”

  “He spared himself further suffering at the enemy’s hands, and made the ultimate sacrifice.”

  She choked back tears. “I was trying to find a cure for his illness. I needed more time.”

  “He didn’t die in vain.” Bach clutched the Bible to his chest, and could barely speak. “Star, I have to rescue my fiancée and my crewmates.” He waited for a moment until the lump cleared from his throat. “Is there a way we can rescue them with this ship? Do you think they’re still alive?”

  “I believe they’re alive. The enemy will use them as a means of controlling you.”

  Bach moved to the cockpit, wiping something from his eyes.

  Star secured the Bible in a holding bin, but kept her father’s note in her hands. Sitting alongside Bach, she silently read the note again then pressed the paper between her palms. “Does Godspeed mean anything to you?”

  “It acknowledges our Creator, God, and asks him to grant a prosperous and safe journey.” He fired up the engines.

  She closed the ramp. “Godspeed.”

  *****

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Bach launched the big, three-piece Kingship and entered clear space above the dark dust cloud surrounding planet Jenesis. Relieved to be on his way, he didn’t anticipate trouble. But warning ala
rms sounded and onboard intelligence showed enemy spacecrafts closing in from three directions. “Damn! Rooks in pursuit. Three of ’em,” he called out.

  Star readied defense systems and computerized the approaching ships’ speeds. “Alter course to number three configuration. Five seconds ’till they surround.”

  Bach increased fuel burn, and a pre-programmed maneuver moved the big ship out of the line of attack. “Escaped ’em for the moment.” The image on his viewscreen showed the enemy ships surrounding nothing.

  The Rooks adjusted their pattern and aligned three abreast. “Regrouped. Comin’ full-on like a wall,” he said.

  She tapped on a keyboard. “Let them follow until we break the gravitational pull, then lead them on a chase to nowhere. Solid fuel’s four times more powerful than their liquid. They’ll burn out before we do.”

  “Not if they shoot us down first.”

  “They’d want us alive. If Dad’s gone, we’re the ones likely to know the fuel secret. They’d also want to inspect this ship’s technology. They’ll try to force us down or damage us.”

  Bach’s jaw flexed. “We can’t waste fuel. Supply’s limited.”

  “I don’t know much about this mission,” Star said. “But we’ll make adjustments later.”

  “I won’t burn extra fuel on a chase, but….” He thrust the ship full throttle and, in the process, pinned himself and Star to the wraparound cockpit bench. Once beyond Jenesis’s gravitational pull, he cut back on power and, tense but satisfied, said, “See ya, Rooks.”

  “For now,” she said.

  *****

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Bach piloted Alpha through the zone while Star studied the flight plan to familiarize herself with the mission’s sequence.

  In anticipation of a long trip to the first planet, Bach put the ship on auto, got up and stretched his legs, and looked out an observation port. “Boy, those daystars sure light up the place. Space is a beautiful island of calm after living under that dark cloud and the enemy’s torment.” Just then, the ship passed through a domain of total darkness and emerged in a nebula of pure electric green. He hooted at the vaporous phenomenon. “Whooo, beautiful!”

  “It’s normal here,” she replied.

  “Like something from a fairy tale.”

  She glanced up from reading the itinerary. “This is a big undertaking, Bach. How long will we be gone?”

  He sat beside her. “Seventeen days. Using the co-op crews’ route maps and landing sites will make navigating and landing easy, but finding the two inhabitants with the symbol may take time.”

  “Two inhabitants with a symbol?”

  “I haven’t filled you in yet. I’m sorry.” He touched her two necklaces. “We’ll find two people on each planet with a symbol of hope. A crossed circle … the chosen ones.”

  She lifted her necklaces and stared at them. “Chosen ones?”

  “The Creator said we’ll recognize them by that symbol, and they’ll accept our invitation to board the ship.” While Star digested Bach’s comments, he added, “They’ll stay in the AstroLab. We’ve built climate-controlled chambers that simulate the various planets’ environmental conditions. Altemus and I call it the environmental module, or E-module.”

  “An E-module? Sounds interesting.”

  “Your genius father designed it. Over time, he had Reno and Elan bring in additional supplies when they made their co-op runs to the other planets. Then he, and robots way smarter than I, utilized those, as well as leftover resources from the space station.”

  “Why did you keep the big space station attached?”

  “For transporting animals. We’re bringing them back too.”

  “Animals?” Star hesitated, in deep thought, then released the lock on the passageway from the Wizard through the space station to the AstroLab. “I’m going to check out the other two ships,” she announced. “I need to know where everything is and what’s aboard.”

  “You’re gonna love the stuff on both of them,” Bach said.

  Star cut through the space station to the E-module. Inside was a small common area bordered by numerous doors leading to climate-controlled chambers. She opened the first door and stepped into a small living area where a dozen live green plants grew from a floor of soil. Berries grew on two plants, vegetables on others, and on one small shrub, violet flowers bloomed. She touched the leaves and pressed her nose to the flowers to get the full effect of their delightful fragrance. No one heard when she whispered in a voice filled with wonder, “This is the first time in my life I’ve seen real plants and flowers growing, not simulated on a computer screen.” She closed her eyes and inhaled the fresh, clean air. “I could stay here forever.” The tactile, fragrant wonderland permeated every pore as she moved on to the next chamber. There, warm, dry air wrapped around her soft skin as she walked across the sandy floor to a knee-deep pool of water in one corner.

  Star explored the environments one-by-one, delighting in each discovery along the way. A small circular door leading into one chamber intrigued her so she hunched down and stepped through the portal. Her entrance into an icy-cold igloo came with a gasp at the unexpected contact with freezing air. She would long remember this crystalline room where ice crystals tingled her hands, cold air filled her lungs, and her breath became visible and frosty. “Magical,” she murmured.

  In the environmental pod’s hydroponic garden, aromas of ripe fruits and vegetables growing in their watery troughs exuded a rich bouquet that immediately captured her attention. She licked her lips. “I can taste this food on my tongue just by the smell.”

  Bach’s voice came through the intercom. “You okay over there?”

  “I’m in awe,” she shouted. “I love it!”

  When she finished exploring the E-module, instead of using the crossover passageway leading back to the Wizard where Bach was, Star entered the renovated space station which now served as a replicated wildlife paradise with trees, caves, a pond, a frozen plain, small pens and corrals, and a water-filled chamber running the circumference. She couldn’t help but talk to herself. “We can transport animals from all the planets. This is like a wondrous dream and I don’t want to wake up.” Spellbound, she strolled through the symbiotic phenomenon, smelling and touching the natural wonders of verdant foliage, turquoise blue waters, and natural colors long lost to Jenesis. “Incredible!”

  Then she heard a faint sound, like the cry of a small animal. She followed it to a greenery-filled nook where a wire enclosure nestled among the plants. Two furry faces peered out from their roomy home on wheels. She bent down for a better look. “My babies!” She pulled the cage onto the walkway. “Why did your grandpa put you aboard?” Talking to the wurrs, she rolled the cage all the way back to the cockpit. “Bach,” she said, her voice questioning. “I found Lotus and Arro in the animals’ module. Why would Dad have put them aboard?”

  “I don’t know.” He scratched Lotus under the chin through the wires. “He knew you’d be gone.” The cat-like wurr made a snoring sound and marched in place with its front paws. The soft kneading of her paws crinkled a piece of paper resting on the grass in the bottom of the cage. Bach talked to the wurr. “What did you bring, Lotus?” He pulled the paper from between the wires and unfolded it. “An A to Z roster?”

  Star scrutinized it with a shrug. “Hmmm. Your name’s beside the B and mine’s next to the S.”

  He looked it over again. “A blank list your father hid from the Rooks?”

  “We’ll figure it out as we go.” She touched her pets through the cage wires as she headed back to the passageway and returned them to their exciting new habitat.

  When Star got back to the cockpit, Bach said, “Okay, Alphamate, buckle down, we’re nearing our first stop.”

  “Alphamate?” She smiled. “I like it.” She glanced at the computer data. “En Gedi, dead ahead. I can’t wait to see the different planets. Nova’s told me many stories, and I’d love to explore. Do you think we can?”

&
nbsp; “Averaged out between ten planets, seventeen days doesn’t leave much time. Like one of my favorite old Ravens’ tunes says, ‘Time … will turn you hard as stone.’”

  “Hard as stone? That’s strange. Sing it.”

  Bach cleared his throat and sang with gusto. “‘Time … will turn you hard as stone. Without mercy it won’t leave you alone. Don’t count the days, and don’t waste time sleeping, the life in your soul is not yours for the keeping.’” He chuckled. “I gladly confess that I’ve advanced from those days.”

  She rolled her eyes and nodded. “And perhaps it sounded a little different when your Ravens performed it.”

  “Yeah, better,” he said, smiling. “They weren’t off key.”

  “What does ‘the life in your soul is not yours for the keeping’ mean?”

  “That’s up for interpretation. I believe it has to do with when you die. A lot of Ravens’ stuff didn’t make sense, but their music was my favorite for years.”

  “Nova once talked of the spider musicians on planet Troas.”

  Bach snickered. “Ravens, Spiders. Musicians always choose strange names. Maybe we’ll get to hear them perform.”

  “I have a question on something else,” Star said. “Once we locate those with the symbol, and all the animals, what happens when we get back to Jenesis?”

  “Don’t know. There was no instruction for when we get back. I think we’ll bring in more people to strengthen our population and benefit from the talents of those individuals. And logically, certain animals will be for food. We’ll protect others for reproduction to ensure survival of their species.”

  “But we’ll be gone for seventeen days; won’t there be confusion in Dura when we’re not around during that time? If Wilde believed Dad’s note, he thinks we’re all in Ulwor. He might spark a confrontation between the continents to get us back.” She paused. “What if the Specter appears and tells him that my father is dead?”

  “He won’t believe the Specter. And I’m sure Altemus covered it somehow; he and I were both under instruction from the Creator.” Bach looked from the window and enlarged the image of planet En Gedi on his viewscreen. He handed Star the travel log containing information from Griffon and Nova’s co-op trips and began descent.