The Arks of Andromeda (The Imperium Chronicles Book 1)

by W. H. Mitchell

  "There doesn't need to be a difference between common sense and common ground."

  The prince chuckled. "Indeed."

  "I wasn't raised from nobility," Tarkio said, "but a threat to the Imperium affects me as much as you."

  "If I’m being honest, I've followed your rise in the senate with interest. I was happy to see you elected to the Council."

  "Really?" Tarkio said, not entirely believing what he heard. "Most of the time the palace ignores what's happening in the senate."

  "Not at all," Richard said. "We're not as isolated as you might imagine. Of course, some politicians seem more concerned with their own reelection than passing legislation."

  "Maybe," Tarkio said, "but it's the nature of the institution. We're not born into power as others are."

  Both men grinned, eying each other. At that moment, several of the other archsenators began talking excitedly.

  Tarkio grabbed one by the arm.

  "What's going on?" he asked.

  "Terrible news," the man said, showing them his datapad. On the screen, a news bulletin was flashing:

  SENATOR JOAN MARSHAL FOUND

  DEAD FROM APPARENT SUICIDE

  MORE DETAILS ON VOX NEWS

  "Dear lord," the prince said.

  Tarkio remarked, "The loss of her son was a terrible blow."

  "I see what you mean. They say there's nothing sadder than a parent who outlives her children."

  "Actually, she still had a daughter."

  "I had no idea. I thought her daughter died years ago."

  "Apparently not."

  "My condolences to her daughter then," the prince said. "But to my original point, I wanted to thank you for taking these pirate attacks so seriously. I swear some in my family couldn’t care less."

  "Not the emperor, surely?" Tarkio asked in alarm.

  "Heavens, no!" the prince replied. "I meant my brother and sister..."

  "Ah, of course. Siblings can be difficult at times, I'm told."

  "You have no idea," Richard confided. "At least they're headed to our mother’s on Revenna. Hopefully that will keep them out of trouble for a while."

  Tarkio smiled politely. "Well, let's hope so..."

  Chapter Eight

  Lord Maycare's yacht, the Acaz, descended into the thick cloud cover enveloping Hekla VII. Watching through the window as the ship descended into the atmosphere, Jessica Doric stood behind the captain's seat where Maycare sat at the controls with Bentley next to him in the co-pilot's chair.

  After minutes of nothing but curtains of gray, the Acaz broke through the clouds. Just as the survey team's report had said, the terrain was nothing but bleak snow and jagged, granite cliffs. As the ship skimmed along at a few thousand feet, a volcano came into view. From the crater at the top, a shower of ash fell across the surrounding heights, giving the mountain a dark outline against the white landscape.

  Following the coordinates Doric had given him, Maycare flew to a grouping of stone obelisks at the base of the volcano. From their shapes, the rocks were clearly man-made, although Doric doubted men had actually made them. Maycare set the ship down, sending a whirlwind of snowflakes swirling around the cockpit windows. Doric, Maycare, and even Henry Riff donned winter gear for the frigid temperatures outside. Bentley elected to stay aboard to look after the ship.

  "I don't care for the cold," the robot said.

  A ramp in the belly of the Acaz lowered, letting in a gale of biting ice crystals. Doric winced at the pain and pulled her fur-lined hood down a little tighter over her goggles.

  "Alright," Maycare said, "let's get going."

  Stomping down the ramp, the three trotted through the snow toward the stone grouping. Within minutes, they came to a set of steps. They followed the stairs up a short hillside, the volcano dominating their view just beyond. When they reached the top, the knoll flattened into what Doric assumed must have been a temple long ago. Now, only a few wind-worn columns remained. A little farther on, not more than twenty or thirty feet, Doric spotted a low altar.

  "This must be a thousand years old," Henry said.

  "I'd say at least five," Doric replied.

  "There's something coming out of the ground," Lord Maycare pointed to a spot just in front of the altar. "What is that? Smoke?"

  Doric came closer. One of the pillars had toppled over and severely damaged one of the slabs making up the floor. From between the cracks, threads of vapor dissipated into the wind.

  "No, I think it's steam," she said.

  In a semi-circle, they stood over the cracked stone.

  "I wonder what's under there..." Henry said, his voice trailing off.

  "One way to find out," Maycare replied.

  He lifted a sizable piece of lava rock and, before Doric could stop him, dropped it where the steam percolated up. It made a hollow thud.

  Maycare pounded the slab again and then a third time. The crack widened into a crevice while clouds of hot moisture billowed from the hole.

  "I think I see a staircase!" Maycare said, discarding the rock and crouching down on one knee. He reached into the crevice and pulled open the slab with a heave.

  Doric grabbed a scanner from her pocket and took a reading.

  "These energy signatures match the ones from the survey," she said. "The source must be somewhere inside the mountain."

  "Well, this looks like the easiest way in," Maycare said. "Unless you want to climb the side of that volcano..."

  A puff of smoke belched from the volcano in the distance, followed seconds later by a tremor beneath their feet.

  "On the other hand," Doric said, "it might not be safe underground if the ceiling collapses."

  Maycare smiled.

  "You know just what to say to win me over," he said and disappeared down the hole.

  Lord Maycare landed in the dark. Switching on a flashlight, he sent the beam down a long corridor. Like the temple above, the walls and ceiling were constructed from stone slabs.

  "Come on down!" he shouted.

  After Doric and Henry joined him, the three of them began shedding their cold-weather gear in the warm steam of the tunnel. Now suitably dressed, they followed the corridor a few hundred feet until it opened into a natural lava tube running left to right.

  "Which way now?" Maycare asked.

  Doric pointed her sensor in both directions, but the readings to the right were more pronounced.

  "That way," she said.

  They followed the tunnel for several minutes, the air becoming progressively hotter with every step. The incline also turned steeper, headed downward.

  "It really stinks in here," Henry coughed.

  "That's sulfur from the volcano," Doric said. "We should be close to the mountain by now."

  "I see light up ahead," Maycare said, turning off his flashlight.

  The lava tube glowed orange that only grew brighter as they went deeper. Reaching the end, they emerged into a domed cavern laced with rivers of molten magma. The lava, churning between dark and bright red, lit the ceiling above with flickering, hellish shadows.

  "I've never seen anything like it," Doric said. "This room must have been part of a larger magma chamber. I see more lava tubes farther up the walls."

  "There's a path to the other side," Maycare said. "We could walk across."

  "Um, that seems kinda dangerous," Henry said.

  "Where's your spirit of adventure?" Maycare asked him.

  "In my luggage?" Henry replied. "I could go back and get it."

  "It's alright, Henry," Doric said. "Lord Maycare and I can go on without you."

  "Alone?" Henry asked. "I think I'd better stay with you guys, if that's okay."

  "That's the spirit!" Maycare bellowed, heading off across the cavern.

  Above Hekla VII, the dull gray shape of the Sorcerer slid into orbit. On the bridge, Oscar Skarlander waited while the sensor chief scanned the surface.

  "I've detected the Acaz," the chief said.

  "Show me," Skarlander
replied.

  On the main monitor, the view of the planet from orbit changed into a topographic map covered in light blue contours. Not far from a tall, volcanic peak, a ship's outline was visible.

  Skarlander resisted the urge to gloat. Reading through the information on his datapad, he saw the emails between Maycare and Jessica Doric. If his lordship's robot hadn't left such an obvious trail when it hacked the University's system, Warlock would never have even known about the breach. Then, it was just a matter of backtracking until Warlock's team had hacked into Maycare's own servers.

  "Prepare the transmat," he said.

  Lord Maycare was nearly halfway across the lava chamber when he heard a warble from inside his pants pocket. It was Bentley on the communicator.

  "There's a ship in orbit," Bentley said. "It won't answer my hails and I detected a transmat signature a few moments ago."

  "You better take off and wait in orbit until you hear back from me," Maycare replied.

  "What's going on?" Henry asked.

  "I think we're about to have visitors," Maycare said.

  A man's voice, as if floating above the floor, pierced the gloom.

  "Hello down there!" he bellowed. "So nice to finally meet you in person, Lord Maycare."

  Looking up, Maycare saw three men standing at the lip of one of the lava tubes about ten feet off the ground. The man in the center had both hands on his hips and smiled behind a dark beard. The other two, larger and more menacing, carried blasters pointed in their direction.

  "Who the hell are you?" Maycare shouted back.

  "I'm Oscar Skarlander," he said, "from Warlock Industries."

  "I've heard of you," Maycare said, shooting a glance at Doric beside him.

  "And who’s that with you?" Skarlander said.

  "I'm Professor Jessica Doric," she answered for herself.

  "Ah, yes," Skarlander said. "I've read your papers from the University."

  "Really?" she asked.

  "Your findings were amateurish, but your grammar was impeccable."

  "Son of a—" Doric started.

  "What do you want?" Maycare interrupted.

  "Same as you," he said. "There's a power source in this volcano and I'm here to claim it."

  "Well, you can't!" Henry shouted.

  "Oh, I'm pretty sure I can!" Skarlander said.

  Two blooms of yellow light burst through the semi-darkness, lancing the lava rock on either side of Maycare and his companions.

  "Hold your fire!" Maycare shouted. "We're unarmed!"

  "An oversight you may not live to regret!" Skarlander yelled back.

  Maycare felt a tremor and saw the magma around them starting to bubble. Before he could process the significance, Jessica Doric was grabbing him by the arm.

  "We need to get out of here," she said in his ear.

  "Of course," Maycare replied. "They’re trying to kill us."

  "No, you don't understand—" she started, but the ground heaved upward as the whole chamber shook.

  Unlike the earlier tremors, this quake lasted nearly half a minute, sending pieces of the ceiling falling to the magma below in great splashes of liquid rock. Maycare tried to shout, but his voice was lost in a deafening noise that sounded like an avalanche tumbling down a mountain. Looking up, he saw sheets of snow from outside spilling through the ceiling like a waterfall. As the snow hit the lava, it turned into a torrent of hot steam.

  Against the scalding mist, Lord Maycare found Doric and pulled her to her feet.

  "Time to leave!" he said.

  "Wait!" Doric said. "I can’t find Henry!"

  They looked until Henry's shape became a dull outline with poor posture. Doric grabbed him while Maycare tugged on her arm.

  "We're going the wrong way!" she said, yanking Maycare toward the way they came in.

  "No, we're getting the power source," he barked over his shoulder. "Come on!"

  He was insane, Doric thought. One the other hand, her own adrenaline was making her feel a little crazy herself.

  She didn't struggle as Maycare led her along.

  The steam had started to thin. Doric could make out the walls around her, another tunnel apparently, although not a lava tube. She saw stalagmites jutting up like strangers milling in a crowd.

  Both Doric and Henry collapsed, trying to catch their breath. Lord Maycare remained standing, surveying the surroundings.

  "I hate this place," Henry gasped.

  "Agreed," Doric replied.

  "It was a lucky break, that earthquake," Maycare said. "But I've always been lucky..."

  "When can we go home?" Henry interrupted.

  "We're not leaving until we find that xenotech," Maycare said. "I'm not letting Warlock Industries get another artifact. God knows what they'd do with it."

  "Alright," Doric said. "Just give us a minute."

  While she rested, Doric watched the beam from Maycare’s flashlight darting around the tunnel. In the glare, she saw strands of white fur. For a second, she thought it might be alive, but the musty odor quickly told her otherwise.

  "What is it?" Henry asked.

  "A dead animal," Doric replied, standing up.

  "Big, too," Maycare said. "Must've been dead a long time. It's all skin and bones."

  "Look at the skull," Doric pointed. "It's like a bear of some sort."

  Maycare took the hide and gave it a shake. Then, dropping it, he started flashing the light around as if searching for something. The light stopped when it brightened a small stalagmite. Maycare gave the pointed column a sharp kick with his boot. The tip of the stone, about six inches from the point, broke off. Maycare picked it up and went back to the skin. He handed Doric the flashlight and started jamming the sharp rock into the belly of the creature's fur.

  "What are you doing?" Doric asked.

  "I've got an idea," he said. "Let's see how my luck’s holding out."

  Henry walked behind Lord Maycare and Professor Doric as she followed the data on her scanner. After an hour, they came to the source of the power readings at the end of yet another tunnel.

  Henry struggled to see past Maycare and Doric as they peeked around the corner into a cavern, smaller than the one before but again laced with streams of flowing magma. In the center of the chamber, his back facing them, Skarlander stood atop a dais of stone where a crude altar had been built. His two bodyguards loitered nearby next to a grav sled hovering a few feet off the ground. Henry assumed the sled was to carry the xenotech in case it was too heavy to lift.

  Skarlander turned, revealed something cradled in his arms like a newborn. It was a huge sapphire, the size of a pineapple, glowing with a radiant blue light. Skarlander's face basked in the glow.

  "Good," Maycare said.

  "How is this good?" Doric asked.

  "They're not expecting us."

  Maycare pulled the animal skin over him and, hidden beneath the white hide, charged headlong into the room. Seeing this bear-like creature rushing toward them, the two guards glanced at each other before running in the opposite direction toward one of the lava tubes. Maycare chased after them, howling madly.

  Henry wanted to ask the Professor what was going on when he realized she was already dashing toward the stone platform. She jumped onto the dais and struck Skarlander across the head with a piece of stalagmite.

  Skarlander dropped the sapphire and fell to his knees, holding the side of his bleeding face.

  "Henry!" Doric shouted. "Get the crystal!"

  Henry hesitated. The Professor must be crazy, he thought.

  Doric barked at him again. "Do it!"

  As if slapped, Henry jumped up and scrambled through the sandy dirt to the edge of the molten lava where the sapphire had landed. He could feel the intense heat searing his hands and face. Reaching down, he slipped his fingers around the jewel and was surprised by how cold it felt. He held it up so Doric could see, but Skarlander was holding her by the wrist.

  Skarlander pointed at Henry.

  "Give
it to me!" Skarlander said.

  "I don’t want to," Henry replied.

  "Do it," Skarlander said, "or I'll dump her in the lava!"

  Out of the corner of his eye, Henry saw Maycare returning to the cave, running at full speed and without the animal skin. The two bodyguards were right on his heels, their weapons drawn. One of them fired, narrowly missing Lord Maycare.

  Henry screamed in pain, noticing his shoulder was smoldering, apparently hit by the errant shot. Holding his shoulder, he also realized he was no longer holding the power source. Henry dropped to his knees trying to find the sapphire and saw a blue glimmer reflecting off the molten magma flowing a few feet away.

  "Shit!" he said.

  Everyone, including Lord Maycare and the two bodyguards, stopped and watched the crystal bobbing along.

  Skarlander pushed Doric away and ran to the edge of the stream of burning rock. The crystal’s icy blue color began pulsating red as it sank deeper into the lava. Skarlander strained to reach it, but his fingers were inches too short.

  As the artifact dipped completely below the surface, its pulsing light was still visible under the lava. The viscous magma began bubbling violently.

  "Get on the grav sled," Maycare told Doric. "Quickly!"

  "Henry needs our help," Doric said.

  "I'll get him," Maycare said. "Now go!"

  The river of lava, like an incoming tide, erupted from its banks, spewing waves of churning liquid like thick, glowing molasses.

  Doric climbed onto the back of the grav sled, which was nothing more than a floating platform the size of a mattress. Heat and acrid smoke burned her eyes, filling them with tears. Even with blurred vision, she saw Lord Maycare dragging Henry to the sled.

  Behind them, the floor flooded with lava as the level rose with each boiling burst of energy from the artifact.

  The grav sled dipped as Henry jumped on beside Doric. Maycare pushed the sled until, running out of ground, he clambered on board. A swell of magma sent the grav sled lunging toward a random lava tube. Like a raft shooting the rapids, their barge jetted into the narrow passage and the darkness within.