Shackleton's Folly (The Lost Wonder Book 1)

by Yunker, Todd

  “We will be back to retrieve him and the wounded,” said Alec.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  The Quest leapt from the ground, departing the hillside in darkness. Its engines first lit up the area and then faded as the distance became greater still. The Quest made short work of the trip to the asteroid field.

  Electra looked out the portal and saw titanic bands of energy flowing through and around the individual gardens. The red energy sparked across the highlighted gaps in the sphere. All of the gardens were receding from the star at the garden’s core. The black organic cloud, made up of giant robots, ebbed and flowed, seeming to touch down on the points of every garden wall.

  Dancer said with some surprise, “Will you look at that!”

  The Quest flew above the disk of the asteroid field. The ship’s exterior gleamed brightly in the star’s yellow light. The Illia lay about 40° ahead of them around the asteroid belt. Maintenance robots flew through the belt, grabbing individual asteroids and herding them toward the star. Once they had the rock on a trajectory with enough momentum to burn up in the star’s fiery surface, they released the asteroid and came back for another. The procedure was the same for all the material smaller than the robots. The bigger pieces required a larger, more direct, response.

  The Quest’s command deck was again full. Alec and Dancer were at their stations. Electra was seated at the engineer’s station. Alec checked his sensors. The asteroids were of all sizes and shapes. They had been attracted over the millennia by the pull of gravity — first to the garden and then down the gravity well formed by the pentagons and the artificial gravity systems surrounding them, as they had witnessed earlier. Now they were being recycled in the nearby star to one day become a part of another star system.

  Alec took the Quest down through the disk that made up the field and came out the other side. Once they were clear of the asteroids, Dancer’s attention went back to the maintenance screen. It showed the Koty battleship on the move. The Illia maneuvered itself closer to the asteroids.

  Alec took the Quest on a course that kept significant amounts of rock between them and the Illia. Alec pointed out the maneuver’s significance. “They’re hiding.” Alec switched the communication system on, setting it to a civilian frequency the Koty were known to use. Alec said, “Captain K’Dhoplon, it’s no longer safe for you here.” Alec listened.

  Dancer used the maintenance screen to give him the perspective he needed. “They are just sitting there,” remarked Dancer.

  “Of course, they are — they think they are safe where they are. The gardens are moving outward.”

  Electra stood behind Alec, looking at the monitor and out the port. A giant robot grabbed the quarter-kilometer rock they were behind and jetted out of there. They were out in the open, and three kilometers away was the Illia’s stern.

  Captain K’Dhoplon appeared on the communication channel, and his voice crackled from the speaker. “If you won’t die on the ground, so be it. You will die here in space. Fire!”

  A huge volley of energy blasts struck the Quest’s shields with enough energy to bring them into the visual spectrum. The source was not just one gun but from eight points among the aft decks of the battleship.

  Alec blasted the Quest out of there and kept as many of the asteroids as he could between him and the Illia. The battleship fired her engines to take up the hunt for the Quest.

  Dancer checked. “Shields down to 35 percent.” He got up and took the engineer’s seat. Electra had made way for him and taken the copilot’s chair to get out of Dancer’s way.

  Alec saw the concern in Electra’s face. “I had to try to distract them. The longer they stayed, the greater the chance they would get caught up in the cleanup.”

  “I know,” she replied.

  The Quest put on speed to outrun the Illia. Engines fired beyond the threshold of safety as the Quest started putting some distance between itself and the Koty, but now they were out in front of their massive forward guns. The Illia’s main guns trained themselves on their quarry, fired, and grazed the Quest. They did strike an asteroid next to the Quest’s shields. The exploding iron core of the asteroid became shrapnel that caused the Quest’s shields to fail. The explosion showered the hull with a coating of iron oxide and larger pieces. Control surfaces were damaged, and a chunk of asteroid stuck out of the aft engine compartment.

  The Quest set course for Atlantis. The Illia seemed to hesitate leaving the safety of the asteroid belt, but its Captain felt the escape of the humans too great an offense not to stop. The Illia throttled up her primary engines to full power as it followed the Quest through the asteroid field.

  Alec checked his flight controls and then looked back at Dancer and shook his head. Alec turned to Electra. “Nothing left we can do but get out of here.”

  Electra reached over, put her hand on top of his, and held it, giving it a squeeze. Electra was filled with emotion. “When the power goes out in the gardens, all life support will end.” She stated clearly, “My family won’t leave; they will suffer the same fate as our people. Please take me home; then you can leave.”

  Alec stared into the bulkhead marked by years of wear. He touched the spot and closed his eyes. Alec turned to Electra and said with conviction, “I am not leaving you behind.” He paused. “You’re stuck with me. I can think of no better place to be than with you and your family.”

  Electra smiled softly; a tear welled up and ran down her cheek.

  Alec gently wiped the tear from her face. “Now that’s settled. The flight controls might be a problem, but we will get her down safely.”

  *

  Captain K’Dhoplon surveyed his bridge. “Discontinue firing, and don’t stray too far from these rocks. The energy discharge will consume the ship if we are hit directly.”

  His weapons officer nodded.

  “Have the Saleen rendezvous with us immediately. We will catch and find the human soon enough after our forces have regrouped.” Captain K’Dhoplon cursed, “We will strip this place bare and conquer the galaxy.”

  *

  The Saleen selected a course its latest commander found as a pathway through the newly formed gaps in the exterior shell. They had taken readings and found a cycle to the red energy’s peak periods. The course lay in wait and timed it just right. The battleship Saleen made it across the gap between the gardens and made best speed to the Illia. The two ships closed and fell into formation.

  *

  The sphere’s expansion had slowed to a stop. The gardens were adrift; many had returned to their original orientation. Each of the hexagon garden walls had the same fields of energy collectors as they had found, and, in amongst the collectors, rose the same large energy rods that had been at the port. The rod devices extended to the same height as before — six kilometers.

  The energy capacitors within the walls had built up so much stored power that they were instantly ready for use. They targeted the largest in the field to cut them down in size for easier disposal. The rods aimed and let loose their power. Great beams of red energy reached out from hundreds of gardens, striking the asteroids greater than ten kilometers. This was a blasting operation. The red energy was being used to surgically cut them down to a more manageable size for the maintenance robots to haul off to the star for disposal.

  The largest asteroids — above a hundred kilometers — were the first to be cut up for disposal. Planes of energy sliced from above and below, paralleling the vertical axis as others cut across from right and left. The cutting was quick, and the beams were coming from opposite directions, negating most, if not all, forces on the rock. This meant that they stayed relatively close to where they were cut up. This was happening all over the asteroid field.

  The Koty ships had kept themselves close to the asteroids, but, now, with the robots disposing of the smaller asteroids and the red energy beams slicing the rest down to size, it was time to act. The Illia and Saleen were close to a medium-sized asteroid, about 90 kilometers
in length and 34 at the widest when it came. The great blasts of coordinated energy beams cut every 4.5 kilometers along its length and about every 3 along its width. The battleship Saleen quickly backed away from the asteroid. The red energy beam flickered as it cut through the rock like butter and hit the Saleen from behind, catching the ship in the engine compartment, causing the ship to explode in a brilliant spectacle.

  *

  The Quest neared the Atlantis garden. Alec nodded to the screen as they replayed the explosion of the second battleship. Alec said, “I have to go back. The Koty problem must be dealt with before they can report any of what they have seen.” He looked to Electra.

  She said with agreement, “They are a hostile race; we have seen a preview of what is to come. If they are allowed to report, we could soon expect a fleet of Koty warships and the murder of billions of beings.”

  Alec replied, “Then you’re with me?”

  “Alec, the Koty must be stopped by any means possible.” Electra tossed her hair back. “I left home and spent years in slavery waiting to find the Rovers who caused this to happen here. I’ve laid down my life to save my people already. This,” she pointed out the port, “fight with the Koty is nothing more than the end of my mission. If I have to die to save our people, our world, and our family, then I say ‘Let’s do it.’”

  “Our family,” said the surprised Alec.

  “We survive this, and we’ll talk.”

  “I don’t see why not — a Koty battleship against a space yacht. I’ll see what we can do.”

  *

  The battleship Illia maneuvered away from the chunks of asteroid and bits and pieces of the Saleen still floating by. The maintenance robots had arrived and were in the process of grabbing the cut-up chunks of the asteroid and bits of the Saleen that they could manage and hauling it away. The Illia was having a hard time keeping itself out of the way of the cleanup crew; the destruction of the Saleen had put a chill on the confidence of its crew and Captain. They had tried to make it out; they were stymied by the maintenance robots, but not directly. The few times they had tried leaving, they had drawn the attention of a nearby robot who came toward them, registering that they were a piece of debris floating away. The robots seemed to forget about them when they moved back into the asteroid field.

  Captain K’Dhoplon ordered the crew to ready the ship for FTL flight. They would have to align the ship so that, when they came to speed, they would engage the FTL engines and escape the station. The robots were beginning to show some progress in removing the largest rocks in the belt. This progress came at a price for the Illia. The largest asteroids were the ones giving them the best protection, shielding them from the energy beams. The methodical progress had nearly caught the Illia on three earlier occasions. The red beams cut through the asteroid nearest them, vaporizing rock and dicing up the space debris like a master chef chopping an onion in a rush. The ship’s shields lit up with the blasts.

  The Quest appeared from behind the blasts and raked the bridge’s forward shields with energy beams. Normally this would have meant little to a battleship, but on the heels of being grazed by the enormous directed energy rays, the Quest’s insignificant weapons knocked out the Illia’s forward shields.

  The Illia’s bridge crew recovered from the attack at their stations. Captain K’Dhoplon remained at his station. He demanded the attention of the crew. “Follow that human ship. On my mark, engage!”

  Bridge crew members readied their stations. “Bring us out at one-quarter speed,” said Captain K’Dhoplon.

  The Illia’s engines fired up, and the battleship slowly broke from the background of rock they were hiding behind into pursuit of the Quest. This alone drew interest from the robots nearby. Their real-time communication with the gardens systems provided a nearly instantaneous response.

  Captain K’Dhoplon demanded, “All forward batteries target the human ship, Fire at will!”

  The Quest flew evasive maneuvers as the Koty technicians tried both manual and computerized targeting to eradicate the Quest. The communication screens filled with Alec’s face. “Is that the best you Koty can do? I thought you were the best. It looks like a little old ship and a human is a match for a Koty battleship.” The screen went blank.

  “I want that ship blasted from existence. Now!” yelled Captain K’Dhoplon into the ship’s intercom.

  The Illia followed the Quest out into to the void beyond the edge of the asteroid belt. The Quest changed direction in a half roll, came out below the asteroid belt, and took a different course, keeping the rock between it and the Koty.

  *

  “It seems you have touched a nerve,” stated Dancer flatly.

  “I hope so. We can’t outgun him, so we’re going to have to out-fly them,” replied Alec.

  The Quest flew two kilometers from the surface of the asteroid field.

  “Dancer, you have the Koty on the screen — right?”

  “No.”

  The asteroids in the field the Quest was flying over erupted as the bow of the Illia punched up through the disk and plowed the rubble aside. Alec yanked the controls back hard and over, trying to avoid a collision with the hull of the battleship blocking their course. The rock displaced by the Illia swept into the Quest, knocking it up and backward. Smaller gun positions fired on the Quest, but the displaced rubble took the majority of the hits. The Quest’s shields strained to keep the asteroids from crushing the yacht.

  Alec kept the Quest’s bow from taking them directly into any rock of consequence. He managed to extricate the Quest from the floating debris.

  “How did they do that?” asked Alec.

  “Not sure. If we couldn’t see them on scanners, they shouldn’t have been able to see us.”

  “I think they did, somehow. Are we transmitting?”

  Dancer checked. “I think we are. They must have another tracker on the ship somewhere.”

  “Okay. Let’s see what we can do with that.”

  The Quest rolled as the Illia turned back to follow. The Quest put on speed. The Illia matched its prey. The Illia’s forward sections showed damage from impacting with the asteroids as it plowed through to fire on the Quest. The Quest poured it on, putting some distance between it and the Koty.

  “Electra, take a look at the maintenance screen.”

  Electra had it at the ready.

  “I want to know where the highest concentration of custodian activity is located in the belt.”

  Electra resized and zoomed in on the asteroid field. Icons representing the Quest and the Illia were shown traveling quickly over the belt, but ahead was an area of activity greater than anywhere else.

  “That’s it, then. We will make our stand there,” he said.

  Electra looked at him blankly.

  “Sorry — I intend to take on the Koty there.”

  Electra nodded. “We make a stand together, then.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  They held the intensity of their eye contact for just a second.

  “Here we go!”

  The Quest’s engines jumped to 110% of full power. They strained against the demand, but the Quest accelerated, opening up a huge lead. The Illia’s engines lit up with full power but could not come close to the speed and acceleration of the Quest. The Quest built up a lead great enough that, when it doubled back, the Illia did not notice it.

  *

  Captain K’Dhoplon wiped the blood of the weapons officer from his hand on the arm of his chair. The fool had missed the human ship after they had plowed the asteroid field to gain a tactical advantage that further damaged the front of his ship. This should have been over already. The humans could run from the Koty. All races did sooner or later. The Koty Union would be the dominant force in the galaxy for thousands of cycles once they were able to recover the armies of robotic soldiers he had seen.

  “Where is the Quest?” asked Captain K’Dhoplon.

  “We are closing in on it quickly, sir,” replied the science offi
cer.

  “What? Put it on screen.”

  The forward screen showed the two ships hurtling toward each other.

  “Forward batteries, fire!”

  A hail of weapons fire opened up on the oncoming yacht. The Quest did little to make it easy for the Illia to get a target lock on them. The closure rate climbed as both crafts increased their speeds to maximum.

  *

  Alec watched the maintenance screen as the two icons raced toward impact. “We’ll know in a minute.” The field in between the two craft started blinking. Alec looked out the port as energy beams flicked into existence in the removal process. The first asteroid to be cut to pieces was the largest on this side of the belt and the one the Illia was just starting to pass over. The asteroid went from the cold of space to plasma as the energy beams sliced through it like a hot knife through butter. Then the Koty battleship Illia became the focus of five energy rays in a crossfire. The shields flashed through the spectrum, holding on for the merest fraction of a moment, and then exploded.

  Alec banked the Quest over and off the asteroid belt. He wanted to put as much distance between the Quest and the custodians as possible. He set course for the Atlantis garden just as an energy beam grazed the Quest. The ship shook as the nearby rock exploded; chunks peppered the hull.

  The hexagons of the Emperor’s garden were all clearly outlined in red. Unlimited bolts of red energy sparked across the gaps of all the gardens. The arcs would start from the corners of the hexagons and move down the walls to the next corner. The red energy pushed the pieces even further apart.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Alec and Electra were at the controls, with Dancer at the engineer’s station. They fought the controls as the Quest plummeted into the Atlantis garden.

  Alec yelled out, “Hold on!”

  The Quest dived into the Atlantis garden at a steep enough angle so as not to skip off the atmosphere. The force field lid flickered from transparency to opaque and back again. The ship’s hull heated up, burning away the residue of dust covering the ship. The process gave the golden hull a sparkle as the dust superheated instantly, lit up, and vanished like an ember in a flame. The force field flickered again, and the sphere’s red energy filled the sky.