Shackleton's Folly (The Lost Wonder Book 1)

by Yunker, Todd

  Electra said curiously, “Then why did it fail?”

  “A number of things were happening. After a few thousand years, my guess is that the worker’s descendants were growing fewer and fewer each generation. Then came what I believe was the clincher for them. The failure of the Groundskeeper to direct them and the systems related to maintenance. At first, I think some did try to fix things but, without directions from the Groundskeeper, they would have given up and gone native in the gardens they came from.” He handed Electra the maintenance screen. “The workers could have been recruited from the intelligent life forms in each of the gardens; without direction, they just rejoined their people.”

  He showed her the schematic of the gardens. The maintenance screen displayed a flight path from Atlantis back to the Citadel. Alec said, “It’s showing us the way — let’s finish this. We will need some help to get this done.”

  *

  The air cars slowed as they descended to the ground inside the perimeter set up around the Quest. The exterior of the ship had been cleaned and readied for flight by the robots Dancer commanded. Alec turned to Dancer. “You had the Quest cleaned up?” Alec was wearing a borrowed special forces uniform, equipment, and utility belt.

  “If we are to get the attention of the Koty, we have to look like something bright and shiny, not covered in mud,” replied Dancer. “Lures have to look the part.”

  Alec and Dancer stood and exited the air car. Electra, Commander Astraeus, and the two security personnel who carried the pieces of the inscription with them touched down in a second air car. Alec and Dancer met the security personnel and accepted the pieces from them.

  “Commander Astraeus,” said Alec as he turned his back on him.

  “Electra, you cannot seriously be going along with this plan,” implored Commander Astraeus.

  “Commander Astraeus, you have no authority here. I would suggest you follow your orders. You will follow us as planned,” came the brisk rebuff from Electra. Electra wore her own Special Forces equipment and gear she had left behind long ago. It didn’t fit as well as it had before, but that was what a few years as a slave will do for you. Her wrist bracer was on her forearm.

  Alec and Dancer walked to the airlock as the Commander reentered the air car just before it lifted and accelerated away, making the park’s edge in just a few seconds. It headed to the security force’s operations. The carriers filled quickly with specialized equipment and trained personnel.

  The airlock remained open and apparently empty as Electra arrived at the Quest. She was about to step through the airlock when Alec appeared, blocking her way. “I think you should reconsider coming with us, Electra,” said Alec.

  “You are asking me to stay here?” she asked.

  “I am. I would prefer that you stay here with your family safely.” Alec was serious in his request.

  “Alec, have you gone brain dead?”

  “No.”

  “I have to be there, and you know it. The men and women, the friends I have lost trying to recover the inscription pieces demand that I be there.”

  “You cannot blame me for trying.”

  “Oh, yes I can. Really.” She pushed him aside as she entered the Quest. Alec closed the airlock.

  Alec arrived on the command deck as Electra finished strapping into the engineer’s chair. She busied herself with the engine and weapons checklist. Dancer finished with his checklist and watched Alec sit and strap himself in. Alec looked over at Dancer and nodded. “Take her up.”

  The Quest lifted up and hastened toward the heavens. They quickly ascended through the atmosphere and made a show of it to attract all the wrong attention.

  The battleship Illia’s sensors, as well as forward scouts, easily spotted the Quest’s departure. Orders were given and sent to follow the human’s ship and to stop its escaping. The space yacht doubled back on the battleship, using its much higher speed and agility to out-fly the few fighters on patrols nearby. The Illia lumbered about as it turned to follow the fleeting prize.

  The Quest hurdled the garden’s wall without difficulty and made for the Maintenance Citadel. The passage through the legions of robots passed rapidly, with the Koty in hot pursuit. The Illia crossed the garden wall; its forward contingent of fighters and scouts caught up quickly with the Quest.

  The Citadel now in view, the Quest sped up with an engine burst to arrive first. Koty fighters fired on the Quest in an attempt to knock out her engines. The Quest managed to escape the hail of energy blasts and put even more power into the engines. They responded instantly and widened the already large gap between the ship and its pursuers. The Quest headed down to the deck and tried to become invisible in the metallic surrounding of this garden.

  They closed in on the Maintenance Citadel at breathtaking speed. Alec said, “Electra, what does the maintenance screen have on it?”

  “It has us arriving at the main entrance at the top of the steps,” she said as the screen animated their arrival and entry into the Citadel.

  Alec and Dancer took the Quest in at the fastest speed they could. The engines had to be reversed at exactly the right microsecond to stop them from overshooting the landing pad the maintenance screen had indicated. The Quest’s nose lifted; all thrusters were at maximum burn to reduce their forward momentum to zero. The thrusters were cut quickly and gave the ship time to settle down onto the landing pad; first the rear landing gear impacted with the ground, and then the nose gear smacked down. Alec cut the engines and went to Electra. He read the maintenance screen over her shoulder. It showed the Quest sitting in front of the Citadel. A line appeared at the airlock and went to the building’s front doors.

  Alec looked to Dancer. “Bring the pieces we have — and your minions.”

  “The Koty are coming, in a big way,” replied Dancer. He commented on the odds against them completing the mission. Alec crossed his arms and asked what he would then recommend doing. The silence lasted 30 seconds, until Dancer gave in.

  Alec smiled. “Stick to the plan, Dancer. Let’s go.” He turned to Electra, who was out of her seat and itching to get going. “Captain, this is your command. Orders?” Alec knew that Electra needed to be there at the end to honor the men and women she had led and lost in the pursuit of the Rovers. She was a strong, independent woman who’d had the willpower to survive slavery for years while she explored the galaxy, continuing her mission even with the odds stacked against her. Her humanity, no doubt, made it worse for her. Electra needed to be leading their team as part of her healing process.

  Electra looked at him suspiciously, “Captain. We have a plan and an invitation, from the looks of the maintenance screen.” She held it before her. “We follow it. An intelligence wants us to follow their instructions. Allies?” She handed it to Alec for his opinion.

  “Not my place to speculate, Captain.” Alec had her lead the way out of the command deck. Dancer grabbed his satchel filled to the brim with the fleet of autonomous robots he had last used in the black pyramid. The cache of robots included units both stealth and standard, ground track, wheeled, flyers, and dirigibles. The group’s eclectic makeup was an advantage as they headed into the unknown realm of the Maintenance Citadel.

  Electra, Alec, and Dancer left the Quest. The airlock closed behind them. Electra took point and ran up a short flight of steps to the massive double doors of the Citadel. She checked an ammo belt she’d hung over her hips and pulled up a projectile weapon she had slung over her shoulders. Alec reached the top step and stopped to read the maintenance screen. He had a larger version of the projectile weapon slung across his back and a pistol strapped to his thigh. The display changed to a humanoid holding the unit. It then showed the screen being turned, screen outward, and then viewed again. Dancer, satchel over his shoulder, arrived. Electra maintained a watchful vigil for the Koty troops.

  Dancer asked, “Now what?”

  Alec followed the instructions. He replied, “I’ll find out.” Alec turned the screen back to himsel
f. It showed him entering the Citadel. Alec looked at the massive closed doors. “We’re going inside.”

  The front doors were a golden hue, a contrast to the sandstone color covering the rest of the building. Alec had a chance to really look at the building’s architecture as they waited. The intricate carving cut into the front doors was of a lion on his back legs standing so its mirrored image on the other door seemed to hold it up. The use of lions and banners was very reminiscent of the family crests of Earth. Alec thought about it — Who came up with this first? — a debate to have with Dancer. Each of the double doors measured 9 by 40 meters and had to weigh many tons. Alec stepped up to one of the doors and lightly touched it with one hand. The material had a feel to it that Alec was unfamiliar with. It was warm, and he found his fingertips felt a little tingling sensation in them after he pulled them from the surface of the door. Alec looked back to Electra and Dancer; he placed his hand on the door and gave it a small push. Alec’s soft touch swung the door wide. The builders had an amazing ability to have balanced what was obviously a very massive door so that even a small push could open it.

  Electra nodded to him. “Send the go signal.” He rubbed the arm bracelet and sent the go signal. He led Electra and Dancer inside.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The cavernous interior of the Maintenance Citadel was made up of a phosphorescent, pink, marble-like material. The grand entryway and foyer spoke of an Empire at its zenith. Public art was important to all advanced civilizations, and here was no different. Electra led them through the great sculptures that lined the entry. Dancer had let loose his miniature army of bots. The ground units took off quickly and became scouts for the trio. The dirigibles had no difficulty lifting high above and became transmission platforms for the smaller, short-ranged communication bots in advance of the party. The fixed-wing drones were out of the line of sight, in the dimness ahead, in seconds. The only nonfunctioning units were systems that relied on repulsion technology. Dancer tried several times to reboot the units and get them into the air but failed.

  Dancer showed Alec and Electra the unit. “One failure or two, but to have all units out tells me a dampening field is in effect. No floating devices.”

  Electra said, “Nothing like this has happened before, but then, again, we have never used hover units inside. I will send a burst message to rappel by rope.”

  Alec checked his equipment, and all showed ready. He adjusted his wrist bracer and asked, “Dancer, you have anything else on the source of this field?”

  “No, but we are in the presence of giants, considering the highly advanced technology we have seen. I would not even know where to start asking questions.”

  The corridor opened up to reveal a central chamber that stretched back in the distance. Dancer received telemetry of his bots scouting ahead. Dancer whistled. “This chamber has three million cubic meters of open space.”

  Alec looked up high to the dimly lit ceiling. Above, a latticework of crystalline walkways crossed overhead, a few meters below the ceiling.

  A series of grand columns ten deep encircled the chamber and reached high above them to the ceiling. The walls had the First Ones’ writing that slowly moved within them. Dancer investigated and signaled to his minions to pay special attention to inscriptions and other sources of information around the chamber. The amount of data being sent to him suddenly jumped by a factor of four. Dancer paused a moment to take in the data and its significance. His translation algorithms were running at 110%.

  Dancer’s scanners flashed across the writing as it appeared. “The walls are a history of the Empire. Fascinating. They make sense to me now with the download from Atlantis.”

  Alec read the maintenance screen. It showed him the way to a statue at the center of the building complex.

  Alec pointed ahead, “This way.”

  They followed a path through a sculptured pine forest of Douglas fir trees 20 meters in height cut from pink marble — an Earth forest replicated in stone. The illusion was underscored as the scent of pine came to them on a soft warm breeze. Alec smiled and turned to Electra. “It’s what I imagined it would be.”

  Electra grinned. “You think this is wonderful. I will take you on a trip into the real woods, and you can experience the beauty our garden has.”

  A rustling sound came from their right. A large black-tailed deer came out of the trees. It was in full color and stood out against the pink marble trees. The deer, made of holo-beams and force fields, sauntered up to them and looked them up and down. A call from an unseen bird above them moved through space as it flew from tree to tree. The forest environment changed to accommodate the visitors. It recognized their species and provided visual stimulus customized for them, and it was just that — a visual representation of the real thing. Alec caught sight of a cougar that appeared out of thin air about 25 meters away and walked through the trees. The concierge system successfully adapted to the visitors, but the holographic projectors seemed to be out of alignment. Wildlife, sights, and sounds filled the forest as they continued to make their way down the path.

  The trees became denser the further in they went, making it difficult for two people to walk side by side. Alec and Electra walked together, with Dancer receiving telemetry from his minions.

  They could almost see something ahead when they stepped through the last of the trees into a meadow. The forest ended to reveal the statue of the Emperor of the First Ones, the individual who built this monument to the empire he ruled. The statue of the seated Emperor rose from the floor 125 meters. The grand throne of the Empire was sublime in its design. The seated Emperor held a scepter in one hand; the other hand was empty and outstretched before him. The Emperor’s attention was focused on the vacant space above his hand. The area immediately surrounding the statue seemed, surprisingly enough, to be the freshly waxed marble surface found in so many public buildings.

  The greatness of the Emperor and the Empire would be the impression any sentient being would have carried away from the emotional appeal of the experience. The metaphorical intent of the setting was evident: The individual lost in the woods moving forward, not seeing the future or the forest because of the trees. Then came the reveal of the Emperor in his stately pose, far above the world and looking ahead. The scale of the statue made the impression of the Emperor powerful. Any viewer would be made to feel insignificant contrasted with the might of the Emperor and his Empire.

  Alec and Electra walked a little closer together, as they contemplated what it was to be an Emperor of an Empire that could produce art on this scale.

  The statue had a dedication plaque that ran across a 10 by 25 meter flat slab of the same pink marble material as the throne. It had a missing lower right corner. An inscription was cut into the material’s face and filled the plaque from top to bottom and edge to edge. Alec’s interest focused on the missing corner that should have contained the ends of the last few lines.

  *

  The battleship Illia honed in on the Quest at the Maintenance Citadel. The battleship flew above the storage racks of giant robots. The Citadel was ahead of them in the distance. Fighter squadrons capable of trans-space-atmospheric flight launched from the battleship. They flew in formation for escort duties and waited.

  Four large armored personnel carriers sat wide open on the flight deck of the Illia. A voice from the speakers commanded, “To the carriers, double time, march!” A contingent of four Koty companies in full tactical gear jumped to a synchronized jog. On arrival at their designated APC, each company member entered, found a seat, and pulled down the body-forming restraint from above them. The military precision of the troops was the product of campaign experience — they had been on the tip of the spear on many occasions.

  Ground-assault, mechanized, light-wheeled guns were loaded in the side storage systems. Service personnel completed the storage of equipment and closed compartments for flight. Checklists were completed, and confirmation was given as to the readiness status of the
APCs.

  The last to arrive on the flight deck was Wolfgang Gray, who walked behind Captain K’Dhoplon. The Captain strode up to the lead APC and entered the airlock. Gray stopped just outside the carrier. He looked back at the Koty crewmen as they completed their functions and stepped away from the vehicles ready for takeoff. The Koty were conquerors. But their time, too, would pass, as the territories, planets, and peoples they took control of figured out that they were not the all-inspiring lords they wanted everyone to believe they were. Gray stepped into the airlock, and it closed swiftly behind him.

  The Illia launched the four APCs, which headed toward the Citadel. The patrol squadrons formed up around the carriers, escorting the larger, slower vehicles to their destination. The assault troops passed over row upon row of the metal colossus as they closed in on their objective.

  The landing pad the Quest had sat down on could not support any of their APCs. The Koty craft flew in formation over the wide, open area at the base of the stairs. The armored carriers landed in a pattern allowing for rapid deployment of both personnel and equipment.

  The ramps fell open with a clang of metal upon a solid surface as they hit the ground. Hundreds of Koty troopers deployed themselves in a perimeter around the ships. A contingent of 200 troopers moved from the APCs toward the Citadel, led by Captain K’Dhoplon and Wolfgang Gray.

  *

  Alec inspected the statue with the aid of his pad and half of Dancer’s minions he had redirected to the task. They scanned the statue with the same attention to detail they had when they had scanned the artwork in the black pyramid. A complete 3D model would be available for analysis soon revealing any internal compartments concealed within the structure. Alec’s experience had been that the larger the artifact, the more likely it was that there was a lot more to it than what met the eye. “We want them to bring the piece, so we’ll leave everything as is for now,” Alex emphasized to Electra.