Stormy

by Wayne Greenough

  Table of Contents

  Stormy

  Stormy knows the Phantom of Space always rescues people in need of help. Well, she can certainly pretend to have an emergency by fiddling with the marble-sized atomic pile in her scoutship. But things happen. The faked emergency becomes a real emergency. Her little ship is about to blow up. Where is the Phantom, the man she now knows she loves? Will he arrive in time to save her, or will she become nothing but star particles?

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Stormy

  Copyright © 2012 Wayne Greenough

  ISBN: 978-1-77111-130-0

  Cover art by Angela Waters

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Devine Destinies

  An imprint of eXtasy Books

  Look for us online at:

  www.devinedestinies.com

  Stormy

  By

  Wayne Greenough

  To my wife June.

  Chapter One

  Stormy Weathers wasn’t mad. She was furious, and her ferocity manifested itself in this day’s early morning workout. Sam, her personal trainer, rushed at her, crouching low and preparing to hit her with what she knew would be his usual body slam. More often than not, the slam knocked her to the floor. It didn’t today. Inner fury slashed at her natural fairness and desire not to hurt her opponent. She dodged Sam’s movement and viciously chopped the back of his neck hard enough to knock him down. With her right foot, she kicked his ribs and he rolled over on his back. She jumped on him, raised her right fist and was seconds away from pounding him faceless, when Sam hollered.

  “Stormy, I’m not the enemy!”

  His words penetrated through her searing mad desire to literally clobber hell out of anybody and anything within eyesight. She stood up, shook her head, looked at Sam, and realized he wasn’t Lance, the reason for her…for her what? Hell fire, god-damn-it, for the white-hot burning anger inside her that had caused her erratic behavior bordering on temporary insanity! That’s what! Lance was the reason for her irrationality! Damn him all to hell! He was always the reason! And may he develop a pox on his miserable, sensuously wonderful feeling hide!

  She removed herself from Sam and helped him up from the workout mat. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled.

  Stormy watched Sam as he grabbed an already sweat dampened cloth and wiped his face. “Lance as always, I suppose.”

  She nodded.

  “Come home with me, Stormy. I need you, and I would like to think that you needed me.”

  Stormy liked and respected Sam, but that was all her feelings toward him would ever be. He was two hundred pounds of muscle, incredibly handsome, with black curly hair cascading to his shoulders that matched his eye color. He was thirty-five and still grieving over losing his wife in the mysterious Centauri One Starship crash that killed all onboard. Starship liners were failsafe in design, yet according to the crash investigators, Centauri One had gone full planet speed into the Ceres asteroid when jumping down from star travel speed. The crash incinerated twenty thousand passengers and crewmembers and was still being analyzed by experts.

  Stormy’s Lance was one of the experts. His theory was that Centauri One was first raided by space pirates, looted, then deliberately rocketed into Ceres. Of course nobody believed him. Or rather they didn’t want to believe him. Space piracy was always occurring and a constant terror to the spaceships that traveled the spaceways.

  Besides respecting and liking Sam, Stormy felt deep sorrow for him. Her gaze wandered the length of his sensuously muscular body until stopping at his midriff. A slight bulge indicated his ampleness and certainly without a doubt his sexual ability. She knew it would be very easy for her to succumb to Sam, go to bed with him for a quick super one night stand that might last for more than one night. It would serve Lance right. So, why shouldn’t she? Why not? Well, because she was hopelessly in love with Lance, that was why not.

  Sam broke the silence between them.

  “Lance is one lucky bastard who certainly doesn’t deserve you. I owe you an apology for admitting my feelings toward you, Stormy. I’m very close to falling in love with you, and I know I shouldn’t allow myself to do so. It’s just that I’m so lonely. I feel empty inside and lifeless. I want my wife, only my wife. The feelings I have for you make me feel guilty, like I’m committing adultery. It’s best that we end your training with me, before my feelings for you become uncontrollable. You know everything I know about hand-to-hand combat, fencing, and all forms of hand weapons. And I actually believe you have acquired techniques I never taught you. Anyway, Stormy, it’s goodbye, and good luck to you.”

  Stormy had been home and resting comfortably for several hours before she began hearing the talking in her head.

  From out of the star-lighted spaceways black with night;

  Glides a black ship, its portholes gleaming blue light.

  ‘Tis the Phantom Spaceman, the space pirate’s dread;

  His ancient spaceship’s engines thrusting, full speed ahead.

  He rescues people from the cold of space; he cheats icy death.

  For centuries the Phantom Spaceman’s mission has been clear;

  He must traverse space until a woman will hold him dear.

  Never in her life did Stormy think she might be psychic. Or would crazy be a better analysis of what was happening to her mind? Nevertheless, whether she was around the bend and faraway from sanity or not, she did hear a voice in her head. It confused her to the point she paced around her living quarters while her brain attempted to understand what she had heard. Am I actually losing my mind? No, of course I’m not! Or am I?

  She finally stopped and stared at the cake on the kitchen table. She hadn’t told Sam it was her twenty-fifth birthday. He would have insisted on buying her a present and taking her out to lunch, and lord knew she migiht have succumbed to a sexual encounter with him. Yes, she would have given in to his desire for her. Sam was much more understanding of her emotions than Lance. She would miss training with him. It was definitely best that their relationship ended.

  As she was cutting a big slice of birthday cake for herself and wishing for the one thousandth time or more that she was with Lance, she received another mental message. This one had a voice she recognized. It was her father’s.

  Stephen Weathers, whom she had not seen for ten years to the best of her memory, had always been a mysterious recluse. That is to say, a recluse ever since the slings and arrows of the scientific world he loved and gloriously tromped through attempted to debunk as fraud everything he wrote and especially what he invented.

  The word that followed him wherever he went was crackpot. It all but destroyed him. So to all humans sporadically settled in Earth type planets throughout the Milky Way Galaxy, Stephen Weathers decided he should make the population become one less. He disappeared without a trace, along with his entire collection of writings and inventions. As the years rolle
d by, he was thought to be no longer be alive.

  But now Stormy knew her father was still among the living, and she knew his location. Several minutes after the poem, or perhaps it was a ballad, her father said, Stormy, lass, I may be located inside Earth’s Solar System, in the Asteroid Belt. Look for asteroid 7692. Be careful, the asteroid’s orbital path is tricky and many other asteroids are all about it. Now I don’t want you to bother about stopping and thinking about all the words I’ve sent to your head, lass. I want you to hurry to me. I must see you at once. It is of the utmost urgency that we meet face to face, and immediately.

  Stormy failed to see how, after ten years, her father suddenly wanted to meet with her, and just what was the emergency that warranted that meeting? But he had used the words utmost urgency. Face to face with her father? Obviously something was terribly wrong. Her father had departed what he called the rotten human race back in 2390, right after he used many colorful adjectives describing the population of the planet Earth and the other six populated planets located in the Alpha and Beta Centauri Star Systems. He said his words using a very loud voice and they were repeated everywhere, thanks to a very gossipy news media that specialized in, and ghoulishly enjoyed, ripping souls from humans.

  She didn’t send her father a reply. It would have had to be mental anyway and at the moment she really didn’t know how to accomplish such a feat. In fact, she considered it to be a small marvel that she had even heard her father.

  She decided to tell no one. She was sure there were people who would like to know her father’s location and what he might be doing. They mustn’t find him. He had been forever hurt by his colleagues, whose heads without a doubt contained an overabundance of adipose tissue, when they informed the worlds about him in ways that portrayed him as the typical twenty-second century Hollywood version of a mad scientist.

  “Yes,” they had pompously said, while sneering at the mechanisms projecting them to all the populated planets, “We of the elite scholarly institutions fully realize that Stephen Weathers is brilliant beyond belief. However, and we say this with much regret, for he is indeed a most cherished colleague, we also fully realize he is completely insane, as far around the bend in our universe as anybody can be. We have thoroughly tested his many inventions, particularly his so-called improved version of his own faster than light drive, and sadly it was found by all of the scientific world to be inoperable. In simple language, so all may understand, it simply doesn’t work. In fact none of his inventions work. Sadly, though mind you this is very difficult for all of us to say, but yet we must, Stephen Weathers is a disgrace to the scientific world, and to all humanity.’”

  Stormy silently declared her father’s location would die with her. He deserved to be left alone to follow his own path in life.

  She nibbled on her chocolate cake and thought about what little she knew about her father. Her mind talked to her, dredging up bits of conversation her father had mentioned to her years ago. She heard his gruff voice trying to speak softly and failing miserably as he talked to her.

  “Legends of Space, Stormy, nothing is more exciting. There are grains of truth in every one of them. Pass that synthetic popcorn that has practically no taste. You’re hoarding my share. And I’d like some more salt and that stuff the world now says is butter. Hand them over. I once tasted real popcorn from the last seeds that could be found anywhere, delicious and it was indescribable when mixed with the real butter we used to have.

  “Now listen carefully, little lady, I’m presently researching a legend that I find fascinating, almost hypnotic to my mind. This legend mentions a phantom in space. It seems he continuously cruises the space lanes saving people from space pirates, and he seems to be looking for someone special. As of yet, I haven’t solved his mystery. But I will, even if I have to spend my entire life doing so. Ah, but my erstwhile colleagues, they have their non-thinking brains stuck up their rectums. I quote them, “Quote, the legend of a Phantom Spaceman is only a piece of fiction written by an ancient science fiction author who was unquestionably drunk and on funny pills at the time, unquote.” I disagree. The legend is real. My colleagues are stupid fools, no smarter than Chimpanzees, and when I say that I’m insulting Chimpanzees.

  “I’m also about to complete my studies of immortality. It’s possible to live forever, you know. In fact I plan on doing exactly that. Someday I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Stormy breathed deeply, pulling herself slowly away from memory recall and back to reality. She sighed one time and thought of her father’s mental message. It was evident he was still pursuing his interest in legends, and there was no doubt in her mind he was also working night and day on his many inventions. But studying immortality? Surely he would not have any success with the impossible.

  He did want to see her. He did say it was urgent. She sighed again and suddenly realized that the hollow loneliness she felt deep down in her heart was not only caused by Lance. She wanted to see her father. Yes, she had been longing for his presence ever since her mother died.

  Stormy walked to her communications system. She would send a message to Lance, her super-hot love interest, a dead bang gorgeous, muscular hunk with a flawless body, except for a long scar traveling from his left shoulder to his elbow. He towered four inches above her six feet and she loved every inch of him. And yet he infuriated her with his mysterious ways. She had met him because of her thoroughly boring job. It had gotten to her, to the point where she’d screamed loud enough to shake the building, then checked out early and gone home to her cubicle, but not for long. In a daze of raging frustration, she’d run up the staircase leading to the top of the building, climbed into her one person air-to-space-ship and cruised two hundred miles above the Earth in a matter of minutes, all in a desperate attempt at calming the pent up fury coursing through her body and soul, threatening to cause her to explode into fragments. She had then climbed into a spacesuit and gone through the airlock for a good look at Earth and to feel the peace of being all alone. She’d sighed several times while saying a few descriptive words about a certain big blue marble named Earth and how it was enslaving her and probably would for life.

  “Those are harsh words, for one as lovely as you. Care to tell me why you feel that way?” asked a questioning voice, directly behind her.

  Before she could turn around to look for the voice, a man in a spacesuit floated up within arm’s reach of her. He smiled, touched her space-suited left arm, and she instantly fell in love with him. Lance. “I apologize for interrupting your vocabulary. Look, let’s see if we can cure that frustration boiling over inside you. Why don’t you follow me to my runabout scoutship? It’s parked right behind yours and larger than your one person craft, even has a small galley and I make a great cup of coffee. Talking over a steaming cup of the brew has been known to cure many ills.”

  Stormy shook herself back to present day reality and hollered, “Lance! Lance! Lance!”

  Tapping on the send message section of her communications system, she began roasting him by saying he was a miserable rotten human being that should be skinned alive with a dull knife, or even something worse, like being danced upon by naked beautiful women he couldn’t seduce, for not celebrating her birthday, and why was he always going somewhere and not taking her with him, and she was always lonely and felt empty and lifeless without him. All he was interested in was their lovemaking, which was never often enough, or slow enough, or experimental enough, but she still loved him although at times she didn’t know why, and he certainly didn’t deserve her.

  So there, you impossible to understand, selfish, miserable excuse for a human being! I love you, and don’t you forget it! Till we meet again, Love, Stormy.

  They had made love in the darkness of the early morning, and several hours before her session with Sam. Their combined rhythm was superb, their joint climaxes indescribable, but still, even with all the wonderfulness of their lovemaking, it was never as long and lasting and certainly not often enough as sh
e desired. At times, she sensed Lance felt the same way. Then as usual, as if he received a signal from somewhere, he would bolt out of bed, dress quickly and be gone from their apartment without saying a word, and without even looking at her. Today of all days, on her twenty-fifth birthday, he never even said Happy Birthday, gorgeous as he slammed the door behind him. He left her crying, hurting deep down in her soul, and furious.

  She packed a few essentials, slung them over her right shoulder, and walked to the nearby elevator that would take her to the rooftop to her one person air-to-space-ship. Her next stop was a destination she knew didn’t exist. Five years ago asteroid 7692 had collided with other asteroids and been destroyed. The News Media had shown its destruction over and over, and even preempted the win a billion dollars contest just as the winner was about to be announced.

  So why was she going to the orbit of 7692? Because her father said he wanted to see her.

  Chapter Two

  Because of the mobility of the human race that was constantly overcrowding Earth’s atmosphere and space travel lanes, clearance and destination of any craft had to be be reported to the traffic controllers.

  Stormy Weathers disregarded all the safety precautions. She sped upward into the traffic areas like a two left-handed beginner. She narrowly missed colliding with several airbuses and a twenty thousand plus passenger spacecraft coming from Mars before she straightened out and decided to blast along in a somewhat normal manner.

  Her air-to-space ship could rapidly traverse great distances. In a matter of hours, she had dodged the cluttered asteroids with only inches to spare and was safely in orbit above her destination. She then discovered, much to her amazement, that her landing area was not on the surface of the no longer existing 7692, but inside it. It took some doing, but she managed to taxi safely through a giant airlock and to a soft landing. When stepping from her ship’s airlock, she was confronted by two burly looking individuals who said she was to be escorted to Stephen Weather’s private sanctorum. Once there she noticed the lushness of the room, the comfortable chairs and couches, the feelings and scents of friendliness, and the comfortable warmth exuding from everything in the spacious structure. Every wall was floor to ceiling bookcases and full of real books and documents. In the center of everything was a man seated on a leather couch, smoking a Meerschaum pipe and studying an unrolled manuscript. The man was her father.