Shackleton's Folly (The Lost Wonder Book 1)

by Yunker, Todd

  The Quest, having found nothing of consequence above, came out of the landing bay, increasing both its speed and vertical climb, putting the little outpost as far behind as possible in the shortest amount of time.

  *

  Electra had not vacated the pilot’s position. Dancer was in his copilot seat and watched for hazards ahead.

  Alec sat at the engineer’s station. He had the crystal that O had given him inserted into a reader to extract the data files. “Dancer, I’ll send you our final coordinates. Please put together a few hops and jumps that will make it hard for anyone to follow.”

  Dancer received the coordinates and made his calculations. “This will be like making a four-cushion bank shot.” He keyed in the course, with the addition of some extra stops. “Course for the Frontier plotted and laid in.”

  They all saw it on the sensors. Something big was dropping from FTL to regular space.

  Alec said, “Go, go, go!”

  Dancer manipulated the touch screen in front of him and then engaged the FTL engines.

  The Quest blurred from space and vanished into the night. The Illia and Saleen emerged from the far side of the rock in the proximity of Blind Load. The battleships broke formation. One took the northern hemisphere of the space rock to blockade, and the other took the southern. Several flights of fighters deployed to stop any ships from escaping their net.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The door of his compartment closed behind Alec. It had been a long day; he stretched his arms and shoulders to work out some of the day’s heavy abuse. He was a little fuzzy on what he needed most — the soft embrace of his sheets or a shower. A film of blood, sweat, and dirt covered him from head to toe. Alec pulled his shirt off and tossed it into a corner. He checked the healpad on his ribs. He pulled it gently from the corner. It revealed that the skin underneath had healed but was still a little tender. It was amazing how some of these new treatments worked. Alec left the healpad on his thigh in place. He kicked off his shoes and pulled off the sweaty socks. This seemed to free his feet, and each article of clothing he removed seemed to bring a general sense of relief. He looked at himself in the mirror. Alec made a self-appraisal in the full-length mirror built into the closet door; he was getting too old for the races. It was one thing to race — but in the unlimited class? He knew it had been necessary, and it had been up to him to man up.

  Instead of a piece of the inscription, O had given him a location, where it was supposed to be. That wasn’t the deal he’d made with O, but he had little recourse.

  He had noticed his own behavior had changed since Electra had come aboard. You can go a thousand light years knowing what was needed, what had to be done — at least conceptually.

  He began to reflect on what it was, exactly, that he was doing.

  He was continuing the quest to find the land his father had said was out there for humanity. The Falls of Ur were the key to discovery. They were supposed to be near the new human home world. How to find them was the problem when you didn’t exactly know what they were. Yet the goal remained the same: At the end of all of this was a new world, a safe one, where humans could raise families and live a full life.

  When Alec had finally struck out on his own, he bounced around hitching a ride on a human supply transport visiting all the human communities. Alec had thought that, if he looked hard enough, he would find the companionship he craved. It quickly became evident that the everyday hardships had taken their toll on everyone. He visited one of the large transports, aptly named the Mayflower. The ship was in desperate need of maintenance and the crew were struggling to keep the ship in one piece. The communal life allowed for the upbringing of the next generation, but the population was still on the decline. The limited government made it patriotic to have children, but that had lost its attractiveness as hope for any kind of future had dwindled and was close to extinction.

  At one point, Alec had found himself sitting next to a little dark-haired boy with an arm cast, green in color. Alec had struck up a conversation and had asked about how he had hurt himself. The boy, Devin, said that he had fallen on the deck and broken his wrist. Alec said he had done much the same when he was Devin’s age. He pulled his datapad from his shoulder pack and showed Devin some pictures of him at about the same age playing in the tall grass of a world with two daytime moons and a hot blue star. Devin said that was a funny way to paint a room. Alec said he wasn’t in a room — he was planet side with his father. Devin looked at him blankly. It turned out that Devin had never been outside. He had never experienced running across an open field to play, and an open sky was not part of his world.

  Alec had thought, Why start a family if this was all we had to look forward to?

  His mind, snapping back into the present, instantly went back to images of Electra. Alec stood in his shorts and shook off that idea. She was real — so real, in fact that, ideally, she was the reason he was doing this. If he could find her home, he would go to their government and request asylum for all the human refugees. He hoped the return of Electra would garner the favor of her family and government officials. Alec had not talked to Electra about it. She knew the plight of humans out in the galaxy. He did not want her to feel that the only reason he was helping her was to try to get his people accepted on her world.

  She had become reason enough for him to move heaven and earth to get her back to the people who loved her and, without a doubt, missed her dearly. Alec took a deep breath and let it out slowly. A shower to scrape off the grime was what he needed — and a cold one, he thought, feeling his excitement grow.

  Alec dropped his shorts, tossed them into the hamper, and opened the door of the shower. He stepped in and turned on the water. The pulsating water stream was so inviting. He let the water beat on his body as he turned himself so that every centimeter of skin had the chance to get invigorated by the heat and water droplets. He grabbed the body wash and used it liberally on his hair and upper body. The heat of the spray massaged his aching muscles and rinsed him clean. The water jets ran through a cycle of slow, longer pulses to short, fast pulses and started over again. He reached for the bottle of indulgence and found it missing from the shelf. Hands came from behind him working his shoulders and back with the body wash. He reached out and steadied himself, both hands on the wall. The hands massaged his neck and worked down his shoulders slowly, melting away the stiffness and fatigue. A fire blazed within his heart; the passion burnt full and focused, engulfing him.

  Alec’s arousal was complete as the hands continued to work on his lower back. Gentle, yet firm, they took away the pain at their touch. They worked downward from his beefy thigh to his foot. He felt her bare skin bump against him. He forgot everything that was weighing on him physically, mentally, and spiritually. Alec could not contain himself any longer and turned to her. She was as he had seen her the first day aboard ship — so beautiful. He was a man fresh from the desert, finding a miracle of an oasis. She was that to him.

  He moved closer, searching for what he felt in her hazel eyes. Electra, the beautiful, vibrant woman, was there just as he had witnessed before, but this time she was with him. The water pulsed slowly from above to wash away everything between them, leaving them fresh. He started to take a step toward her; she flew up and pressed against his chest, keeping him at a distance. Her eyes were ablaze with desire. He raised his hand slowly and took her by the top of the wrist of the arm holding him back, lowering it to her side. Then he slid his hands around to the small of her back, closing the distance between them.

  Alec was about to say something, but she pressed a finger of her free hand to his lips to silence him. Electra arched back, plunging her head into the fast-pulsing water stream matching her heart beat and shook herself free of the last vestiges of inhibition. She suddenly melted against him with a deliciously feminine sort of willingness. Alec freed her wrist and took her in his arms, their naked bodies pressing together, exploring one another — eager, ravenous for release. Alec lif
ted Electra up by her thighs and pressed her to the heated shower wall. She wrapped herself about him as they moved rhythmically, as one. He arched upward, thrusting all the closer into her. She grabbed his neck as she moaned, “More.”

  She kissed him again with intense passion, surrendering to it and him. Electra arched back, pressing herself hard against his body. Their movements became frantic, rising with their emotions. The shower’s heated spray pulsations were climaxing, taking them over, its rapture enveloping them.

  A heaving breathlessness fell over them as Electra gently caressed his face and playfully nibbled on his ear. Alec did not let go, her arms around his neck, her legs still wrapped about him. He carried her back to his compartment.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The life in Blind Load would need time to heal the wounds inflicted by the Koty. Troops scanned every nook and cranny in every landing bay on the dwarf planet. What authorities there were gave the Koty all the information they had on the Quest — the supplies it took aboard and what the crew did while in the city.

  Media files were provided to Wolfgang Gray of the race at Nowhere Downs. He pursued them while being shuttled to meet with a shopkeeper who had sponsored Alec in the race. Gray arrived at the shop in an armored transport. He leapt out of the vehicle and walked up to the shop’s front entrance. The troops had been busy searching the premises for any sign of Alec and Dancer. The media bots had captured Alec’s surprising win of the race.

  Gray was more interested in what had happened on the dock. The video of the woman who had administered first aid and took care of Alec was of interest to him. He slowed the video down as it got to the part where they let themselves go. Gray watched as the passion the two felt for each other was unleashed. He enlarged the part of the screen showing the woman. She was beautiful. How did Alec end up with her, and, for that matter, who was she? Gray had scoured the Registry for a woman who would join him in his self-imposed exile. He found no one who met his criteria who would join him. This woman was not in the Registry. She was truly beautiful and full of passion. He would have her. He touched the image on the screen he held. Gray would start his own little colony somewhere safe. He would lead his handpicked colonists to lend credits to those with a little credit and nowhere else to go. They would lend at fantastic rates of return, and, if they didn’t get paid, they would hire some of the worst Skiptracers in the galaxy to get their money for them.

  He zoomed the screen tightly on Electra’s face to stop the video as she giggled and smiled to someone off screen.

  The shop’s door was kicked inward and hung from its hinges. He walked to the back of the shop. The merchandise and the shelving were piled up in a heap as it was searched. The floor was littered with broken pieces of pottery and glass. Larger items were just left on their shelves and the whole thing shoved across the floor to crash into the wall. There wasn’t a thing standing in the same place in the storefront as it was earlier in the morning.

  The proprietor, O, stood behind the counter with two Koty shock troopers pointing their weapons at her. She was crying, her shop and inventory smashed and destroyed.

  Gray looked about the shop, “O, where is it? Or would you like them to ask you again?” Gray pointed to the troopers. “They do not like to ask twice — believe me.”

  O stammered, “There is little I can say. I never had what you asked for, and Shackleton is long gone.”

  Gray crossed the room to the counter. He sneered, “Too bad.”

  O straightened up. Wolfgang watched the process that took only a fraction of a second. O’s body became jelly-like as she fell through her escape grate on the floor, no longer a solid.

  The troops were too stunned to do anything. Gray leapt up on the counter; he pulled a blaster from his hip and fired down the grate after O.

  He said with disgust to the troopers, “Come on. She’s gone.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The first leg of the journey took the Quest into space on the edge of the galactic habitable zone. Radiation from the supermassive black hole at the galactic center made going much closer a suicide mission.

  The Quest blurred back into normal space almost on top of a large ore-processing freighter. The monstrous craft had giant apertures capable of consuming great chunks of rock and processing it for profitable minerals. The Quest held a course that would bring her alongside the great space leviathan named the Last Straw.

  Dancer was working on a pencil drawing of Alec in a heroic pose, with Electra standing nearby, scantily clad. He liked the imagery of the old Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom series. Dancer had drawn Alec in a loincloth and harness, his arm outstretched above him, with staff in hand. Electra wore next to nothing, in the manner of Burroughs’ warrior princess Dejah Thoris. In Dancer’s sketch, Alec and Electra were standing over the heaped pile of oarsmen he had competed against at Nowhere Downs — the victor and his mate standing over the vanquished. Dancer worked hard to do the scene justice. He would paint it in acrylic later.

  The sensors alerted him again to the freighter’s proximity. Dancer scanned them a fourth time. It seemed that the ship’s crew wasn’t going to take space static as their response. The hailing alert blared again.

  Dancer shook his head. He clicked communications, and the screen came alive. “This is First Officer Dancer of the Starship Quest. With whom do I have the pleasure of communicating?”

  The display filled up with a partially lit face. It was hard to discern just what the communication screen was focused on.

  “Captain W’shiquan of the Last Straw. Inbound. You trading?”

  Dancer replied quickly, “Why, Captain, of course we do.”

  Captain W’shiquan moved about. He confessed, “Not have much to trade.”

  Dancer replied, “I’m sure we’ll do business.” The display went dark. Dancer flipped an intercom switch and spoke. “Alec, an ore transport from the Frontier. A trading opportunity knocks. Maybe intelligence or…”

  Alec’s voice came from the intercom, “Star Charts!”

  *

  The cargo deck was the largest space available. Alec and Dancer opened all the boxes and pulled an assortment of goods out, creating a quick display of all the items available. Dancer worked hard with Alec to get everything ready. They used every possible surface to display merchandise that would catch the eye of those aboard the Last Straw. It wasn’t going to be easy to figure out what would interest this unfamiliar species.

  It wasn’t hard for Dancer to note that his partner was in a much different head space than he had been in recently. Compared even to as recent a time as yesterday, his persona had lightened up. Alec finished displaying the merchandise when he glanced over at Dancer. Dancer just shook his head. He had scanned his partner and found under his shirt a few scratches and a bite mark on his upper chest.

  “What?” queried Alec.

  “Mister Sunshine — aren’t we all bright and shiny?” said Dancer.

  “Oh, shut up,” said Alec. He found it hard not to smile broadly.

  “Well, at least we now know she isn’t a carnivorous plant life form,” replied Dancer.

  “God no, not plant life.” Alec smiled thoughtfully, “Wow…”

  The airlock hissed as it pumped atmosphere into the lock. The larger cargo door raised to reveal large, thick-skinned quadrupeds. They stood among the trading-goods samples littering every surface.

  Alec said, “I am Captain Alec Shackleton. A pleasure to have you join us, Captain.”

  “Captain W’shiquan. This be Vaali, my first officer.”

  Captain W’shiquan and first officer Vaali moved amongst the goods. There were boxes of many kinds of goods, including a box of Hawaiian shirts, baggy Bermuda shorts, and skimpy bikinis.

  Captain W’shiquan said, “Complete transaction fastly.”

  Alec assured him, “Not a problem at all. You’re the customer.”

  Vaali became excited. He picked up a box of women’s lingerie. He took out a black see-throug
h nightie and held it up; then he put it on top of his head. Electra entered the cargo deck with a cup of coffee in hand. She took a sip as the aroma crossed the room, capturing Alec’s attention. Electra smiled, walked over to him, handed him her cup, and winked. She kissed him softly on the cheek. Vaali’s headgear caught Electra by surprise. She gave Alec a questioning look, with an arched eyebrow.

  Alec went over to Vaali. “Not exactly how I’d have it filled.”

  Vaali asked, “What used for?”

  Alec said, “My species has two sexes. Male and female are needed to reproduce. This garment is worn by the female to attract a male.”

  Vaali threw it over his shoulder. It floated high in the air and landed draped over Electra like a black see-through veil.

  Alec said, “Much better. I approve.” His bright eyes and smile lit up.

  Captain W’shiquan spoke up. “Like some you have. What we trade?”

  Electra pulled the nightie from her head, a hint of a smile curling the outermost edge of her pursed lips as she glared at Alec. He responded with a shrug of his shoulders.

  Alec stammered, “Oh, yes — information.”

  Captain W’shiquan replied, “We not stupid. Have mining claim.”

  Alec put his arm over the Captain’s shoulder. Alec said reassuringly, “Save it, Captain. You’ve been around. I want to hear what you know about the Frontier.”

  Captain W’shiquan looked at Vaali and then at the trading goods. He said, “Knowledge worth what?”

  Alec responded, “I guess you’ll just have to give us a sample, and we’ll see if we want to deal.”

  *

  The Quest pulled away from the large ore-processing freighter Last Straw and left it behind as it changed headings. The wall monitor was filled with the face of Captain W’shiquan. Alec, Electra, and Dancer put away the sample merchandise. Captain W’shiquan said starkly from the screen, “Business done. Gone home.”