Prosperine: The Adventures of the Space Heroine Hickory Lace: Books 1, 2 & 3 (The Prosperine Trilogy)

by PJ McDermott

  The weapon glittered metallically in the light from the fire. Thurle took a dagger from his belt and tried to prise the sword from the statue’s hand to no avail. Drawing his longsword, he slashed at the statue’s fingers. His blade clanged and ricocheted, sending spasms of pain along his arm. Thurle was horrified. Sequana had assured him that stealing the sword was a command from Balor, but this felt like a desecration. He mumbled a prayer, forgive me Balor, and brought his weapon down with all his might.

  The statue’s arm shattered and the heroine’s sword clattered to the floor of the temple amidst a cloud of dust. He wrapped the relic tightly in his cloak, making certain not to touch the blade. Lifting it reverently, he bowed to the mutilated image, then hurriedly retraced his steps and left the temple.

  Touchdown

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jess Parker gripped the top of the pilot’s seat and shouted into Saurab’s ear. ‘I thought you knew how to fly this antique piece of scrap iron.’

  The spaceship bucked and swooped in the grip of the magnetic storm that raged in the ionosphere. The blinding red and green flashes of the flickering Aurora struck the hull and surrounded the jet with the eerie luminescence of St. Elmo’s fire.

  “Jess, for God’s sake strap yourself in before you get hurt.” Hickory Lace fought to stay in her seat and clipped on her cross belts. “I don’t want to lose you before we even get started.” The howling screech of the storm battering the hull almost drowned out her voice.

  “I know, Hick, but these two cowboys will kill us if they keep going like this.” Her head jerked forward as the ship hit a pocket of air and almost stalled. She glared at the pilot.

  The third passenger caught her shoulder and forced her back into her seat. “You heard the commander, Mother. You don’t want to disappoint your new hubby by going home early, eh? Mack told me he was looking forward to some bonding time alone with the kids. And you know Saurab. If you annoy him, he’s just as likely to belly-flop this crate to spite you.”

  Jess pushed back into her seat, buckled her belt and groaned theatrically. She raised her eyes to the heavens. “Hick, why did we have to bring Gareth along? He’s such a boy.”

  The jet shuddered violently, rattling Gareth’s teeth. “More to the point, Mother, why did you have to persuade the admiral to sign up two Dark Sun smugglers for this mission? If we get out of this alive, Mack is sure going to hear about it.”

  Hickory shook her head disbelievingly. What was it between Jess and Gareth that they took every opportunity to have a go at each other? The weird thing was that in an emergency, they would give their lives for each other. Jess was thirty years older than the boy, and she treated him like a wayward son at times, much to Gareth’s chagrin.

  The pilot turned his head and grinned. “Save the grievances for someone who cares, Earthlings. The Shahrazad has survived worse than this before now. Why not sit back and enjoy the ride—let the professionals worry about flying? After all, that’s what we’re being paid for, right?” He laughed and turned back.

  The jet hit an air pocket and lost height rapidly and then an updraft hoisted it skyward again. Hickory felt her gorge rise.

  “Hold tight,” said Jakah from the co-pilot’s seat. “Saurab flies the Shahrazad like he fights. He’ll get us down safely.”

  A memory of the diminutive Dark Sun single-handedly taking on three opponents flashed into Hickory’s mind. Saurab had skipped and rolled, avoiding his enemies’ swords and disarming them in the process. He had sent them running with a prick at their buttocks and a wild laugh. I’m not so sure being a member of a gang of space smugglers is the best qualification for a mission like this one.

  The ship pitched violently one last time. Saurab brought it under control and swept through a break in the clouds into the lower atmosphere. Instantly, the ship righted itself and the howling ceased. The Shahrazad glided smoothly to the surface. Saurab engaged landing thrusters, and the ship settled on the ground with a gentle, almost silent, hiss.

  Hickory let out a long breath and checked her team. All five had been through the Maquillage program before setting out on the mission. As a result, their metabolism and respiratory systems were now in harmony with the Prosperine environment. Their skin had also been impregnated with a screening agent, without which the radiation from Prosperine’s sun would kill them within a few days.

  Their physical appearance had been transformed to match Prosperine’s foremost indigenous species. Although humanoid in appearance, the Avanauri had evolved from herbivorous dinosaurs. Modern day males and females, the naurs and nauris, were hairless except for their eyebrows and a strip running across their skull from forehead to halfway down their spine. Their pupils were large and bright blue and, in Hickory’s and Jess’s cases, their eyebrows and cheeks had been made more prominent to emulate the nauris of Avanaux. Perhaps the most striking differences between naurs and nauris were around their eyes and neck. Where naurs had black pigmentation around their eyes, Hickory and Jess’s skin shone with speckled purple markings including around their eyes, following the curvature of their cheekbones and fading at their earlobes.

  Saurab’s eyes crinkled. “Well, we got here alright. Prosperine—in the middle of nowhere, just as the admiral ordered.” His fingers flew over the holo-screen and the engines cut out in a long whine. He unbuckled his belt and flicked the switch to open the cabin door.

  The three passengers disembarked and moved to the rear of the vehicle. “Okay, open the cargo door,” shouted Hickory, signaling to the pilot. The massive door lowered to the ground and Hickory walked up the ramp. “Jess, Gareth—switch on your SIM and set it to Avanauri.”

  The Simultaneous Interpret-Telepathic Communications Module was a two-way speech and transmission chip in the audio center of their brains. It translated foreign speech into English, and vice versa, and it had been implanted during Alien Corps training. The translation process was so fast it was like hearing the foreign words in English. The reverse was similar—they thought in English, and the SIM translated it into Avanauri, then sent the appropriate phonetic vibrations to their vocal folds. Hearing themselves speak a different language, one they ‘understood’ without having to think about it, took a bit of getting used to. But the SIM and the Maquillage were essential to operate under cover in alien environments.

  “Let’s get these supplies unloaded quick-time,” Hickory said, motioning to Gareth and Jess to follow her.

  Jess took off her jacket and tossed it on the ground. Her shirt was damp with sweat. “Affirmative, Commander, and then I want to have a few words with our smuggler friends. Where did they learn to fly, anyway?”

  “They don’t have the benefit of your Agency training, but at any rate, we got here in one piece,” said Hickory. At the same time, she wondered at her father’s choice of associates for this mission. Yes, it had started out as Jess’s idea, but the head of the Intragalactic Agency, the admiral, had jumped at the suggestion. Generally, Agency policy was to arrest any smugglers they bumped into, especially those like the Dark Suns who had a reputation for spreading mayhem wherever they operated.

  She wiped her brow. The day was too hot, and she had too much else on her mind to worry about that now. It was almost noon, and the air shimmered and the sand burned beneath her feet. At all points of the compass, she saw mountains. Those to the north looked closer, but Hickory knew this was an illusion. The mountains of Erlach were the mightiest on the planet. Some of their peaks stood over four miles tall and were cloaked in perpetual ice. In comparison, the crags of Western Avanaux were but molehills. According to her map, Saurab had landed the ship about twenty miles from the border.

  Jess dumped a backpack beside Hickory and said, “That’s the last of it. A pity we couldn’t bring Titus along. These packs are pretty heavy.”

  Hickory had a brief mental picture of the yarrak and smiled. Twice the size of a fully-grown Clydesdale, the animal was the favored choice of transport for the native Avanauri. More intelligent
than a dog and just as friendly, Titus would have been terrified in the confines of the spaceship. “We’ll have to make do with our backs unless we can track down some of his wild cousins.”

  Gareth approached with Jakah and Saurab at either side. All three were arguing fiercely, then Gareth threw his hands in the air. “Come on! We were a hairsbreadth away from stalling and you know it. From that height, we’d never have recovered.” He glared at Saurab. “Is that how they teach you to fly in the Dark Suns, eh? You guys are straight out of the Keystone Cops.”

  A dark flush crept over the smaller Saurab’s face. “Next time, you can fly her, little boy. I’d like to see how well you fare in a mega-ionic storm. Hmph.” He spat on the ground and walked away, muttering.

  Hickory pressed her lips together and shook her head. Gareth was a bright-eyed twenty-three-year-old adventurer and a good friend. But sometimes he was just a pain in the butt. She had been his lecturer at St Philip’s Academy when he had graduated maxima cum laude two years previously. The man was a brilliant engineer, specializing in propulsion systems—notably the latest Lightwave ‘surfing’ technology, but his genius came at a price. He had a mild crush on Hickory, which she ignored, and he had no patience for anything he perceived as incompetence.

  “Enough of that,” she snapped. “Gareth, keep your tongue in your head. We need to work together if we want to get this job done.”

  Gareth shaded his eyes. “What’s that about?”

  “I said—”

  “Not you, boss. That! Over there.” Gareth pointed.

  Hickory turned in time to see green lightning flash through a bank of dark clouds that were building rapidly in the distance. She shaded her eyes. The weather on Prosperine was enigmatic, caused by the overabundance of charged particles in the upper atmosphere. “A storm, maybe? Sure is colorful.” Clouds of indigo and dark red boiled rapidly towards them.

  “That’s not a regular storm, Commander,” said Jakah, stepping over to join them. “I suggest we take cover in the spacecraft until it passes.”

  “It’s sure moving quickly,” said Jess.

  “And heading directly for us,” said Gareth, as fiery forked lightning struck the earth, followed a few seconds later by a crack of thunder.

  Jakah and Saurab jogged to the spacecraft and climbed aboard. Hickory took one last look at the storm front and urged the other two to do the same. “Let’s go, move it!”

  The cloud rolled in front of the sun, turning the silent desert into a drab shade of olive green. Splatters of moisture fell as they made it into the Shahrazad. Saurab closed the door after them and turned on the monitors to give them a view outside. What had started out as a sprinkle rapidly became a torrential downpour.

  “What is that—hailstones?” asked Gareth, straining to be heard over the din.

  Saurab smirked. “More like procreation.”

  “Pro…” said Jess, a quizzical look on her face.

  “Maybe fertilization would be a better description. Jakah, what do you think?”

  “I think you’re an idiot,” said Jakah.

  Hickory looked from one to the other, frowning. “Someone had better explain it, and quickly.”

  Jakah’s grin faded, and he coughed. “I’ll try. It begins in the middle of the Endless Sea.” He waved his hand vaguely westward. “Hurricanes, blizzards—you name it, it all starts out there.

  “Every Spring, there's a burst of increased UV and extreme-UV emission from the sun that isn't entirely absorbed by the atmosphere. Some pretty wild weather off the coastline is the result. Tornadoes suck up moisture and anything that happens to be floating on the surface of the sea and transports it into the upper atmosphere.

  “The moisture condenses into a super-cooled cloud and is blown across the interior by seasonal winds. The cloud absorbs more ionic particles as it moves, which accounts for the light show.”

  “And it’s dangerous?” said Jess. “Why did you run?”

  “Well…the tornado season coincides with the start of the lifecycle of the Garfin—”

  “The Garfin?” Gareth turned to Jess. “That’s a small flying fish, eh? We came across them on the ship that took us from Dominion Island to Avanaux the last time we were here.” He turned back to Jakah. “What’s that got to do with the storm?”

  “Everything. At this time of year, the Garfin lay their eggs on giant seagrass mats ready to be fertilized by the mature males of the species, flying overhead.”

  “What? And then they’re carried off by a tornado?” Gareth grinned. “Tell us another one, why don’t you?” He saw Hickory frown at him and shrugged. “Come on, Commander. Don’t tell me you believe that. Doesn’t seem very sustainable, does it?”

  “Hold on a sec,” said Jess. “Explain what a tornado has to do with the reproductive cycle of fish.”

  Jakah pointed out the window to where the ground was covered with a green blanket. “For millions of years, the flying fish have come to depend on the tornados to take their eggs to the desert. It actually gives them a better chance of survival as a species. The eggs that are left behind are eaten by predators before they hatch.”

  “So, how come you know all this?” said Gareth, his eyes sparkling.

  Saurab tutted and said, “We didn’t waste our time on the journey here, Earthman. It’s all there on the vids if you wanted to watch.”

  Outside, the green substance was sinking into the sandy soil. “The eggs burrow into the ground helped by the rain deluge, which also sustains them for two weeks until they hatch, at which time they hop or crawl back to the sea. Only one in a thousand make it, but there are billions of eggs.”

  Gareth opened his mouth, but Hickory interrupted. “Thanks, Jakah. I appreciate the insight. But it does seem a risky survival strategy, hoping for a tornado before your offspring are devoured,” said Hickory.

  “At this time of year, there are dozens of storms over the endless sea. It’s not as risky as you might imagine,” said Jakah.

  Hinterlands

  The deluge was over quickly, and Prosperine’s sun resumed its outpouring of deadly radiation. Hickory wasted no time setting off. They had thirty-four days before their radiation protection wore off and they would need to return to the spaceport.

  The sand was soft and spongy underfoot, but there was no sign of any eggs, and she wondered if perhaps Gareth was right and the Dark Suns were indulging their sense of humor.

  It took two days to cross the scrubby desert. The ground was littered with rocks and stones where small desert dwellers hid, making it tough to travel more quickly for fear of twisting an ankle. The occasional scrawny stunted tree, shaped by the prevailing westerly winds, offered meager shade when they stopped to eat. Little else grew here except tufts of goldengrass and the occasional patch of flowers that startled the senses with their gaudy colors, cloying musk-like scents, and seemingly sentient behavior. Gareth looked nervously at one towering, orange-colored plant whose head swiveled to follow them as they passed it.

  By the time they neared the border with Erlach, all were suffering from leg weariness.

  “Why’d we have to land the ship so far away from the border?” said Gareth.

  “Gives us the best chance of it remaining undiscovered, doesn’t it?” said Saurab. “Even with the camouflage properties of our ship, a keen eye would spot it if they got too close.”

  “And it’s best not to let the Avanauri discover a spaceship lying in their backyard. We know that from experience,” said Jakah.

  Hickory slapped an insect from her face. “You’ve been found out before? What happened?”

  “That’s a long story,” said Jakah, “but it’s relevant to the mission.” He paused and scratched his nose. “It was the first time we ran into Sequana.”

  Saurab laughed. “Ahh, yes. The black scorpion—how could I forget?”

  Jakah grinned back at his partner then turned to Hickory. “That’s what we used to call him in the old days when he was just getting started. He wasn�
��t so hard to be around then. Enjoyed a drink too, I’ve heard it said.” His eyes swept the cloudless sky then searched the horizon. “The ground for the next couple of miles is pretty treacherous. Let’s take a break for a few minutes. Don’t want anyone breaking a leg because they’re tired.”

  They sat beneath the shade of a desert bush. Gareth sipped from his water bottle. “We’re talking about the same Sequana—the leader of the Pharlaxian rebels?” he said, squeezing his eyes shut.

  Jakah agreed. “The same. We took the usual precautions to avoid being seen. Landed our ship in the Hinterlands, a safe distance from civilization. It was unlucky that Sequana and his colleague, Barbish-sèr-Barbisha, happened to be wandering in the wild. He was undertaking some sort of ritual religious pilgrimage.”

  Saurab nodded. “Those two were the leading lights in the Temple, destined for great things.”

  Jess broke in. “He was a cleric? He certainly changed his tune.”

  The small Dark Sun shrugged his shoulders and continued. “Believe it or not, Sequana was considered one of the great young thinkers of the age, along with Barbish.”

  Hickory picked up a stout branch and weighed it in her hands—it would make her a good walking stick. “How did he react to seeing you? It must have been a heck of a shock. It would have gone against their whole belief system.”

  Jakah nodded and continued with the story. “We were in naur guise when we exited the ship, but in those days our technology was more basic than your Maquillage. We looked a little different from the locals and so we’d put it about that we were distant cousins from the east.” He shrugged. “It was still a shock to them of course. They’d never imagined anything like our spaceship and couldn’t take their eyes off it. They were desperate to know what its purpose was.”