“The corsairs should be ready in a few minutes. Alistair and I will take the group leader. The rest of you will follow us. We will start on the bright side near the equator, and we will end on the dark side, just as the captain recommended. That means that we’ve got a short window to get into orbit.”
She glanced at a thin, dark-skinned woman next to her. “Kamala, have you heard from the staging crew?”
“They’re ready for us,” Kamala said. “They’ve even started introducing some greenhouse gasses. I’ll send the signal when you depart.”
“That brings us to selling,” Keltie said. “I sent the planet specs to everyone. There are plenty of selling points, but focus on the key ones: location, gravity, location, and freedom from most of the Zachary Galaxy laws. Here in the Rah Galaxy we care about freedom, so show them that. And location! Remember, say yes to everything. You can never say ‘yes we can’ too much on this kind of voyage. If they ask you about increasing the planet’s temperature, you tell them we can do it. If they tell you they’re afraid of the radiation, you tell them not to be afraid. You smile, you alleviate their concerns, and you always keep the conversation positive. About the only thing we can’t do is increase the brightness of the star, okay?”
The crew nodded as they took notes.
“That brings us to the land trip. The suits are charged and will protect us for long enough to show them around,” Keltie said. “Keep your eyes open and please don’t let anyone get hurt. That would be the ultimate downer.”
Keltie faced Alistair, who was standing next to two blonde-haired women—twins. “That leaves finance. Alistair, when we finish the land trip, I want you, the attorney and the insurance agent onboard. We will fly Charsworth and his leaders into twilight. That sounds like a pretty good place to close, don’t you think?”
“Love it,” Alistair said. “I’ll be ready.”
Keltie clapped her hands. “Let’s get going so we can all come home just a little richer.”
Everyone clapped, and a few of the team members patted her on the back.
A shrill alarm cut through the cheer, and it made Keltie’s heart sink.
Emina scanned the screens on her panel as everyone crowded around. Then the captain’s eyes went up to the window and she cursed.
A small, gray dot was moving around the planet, barely visible between the planet’s brown atmosphere and the black space.
Keltie knew it the moment she saw it, and she wanted to kick the control panel.
“No!” she yelled.
It was another luxury cruiser.
Competition.
Chapter 3
Keltie slammed the control panel as she watched the gray dot make its way slowly across the wispy face of the planet. She hit the panel so hard someone’s plastic cup fell over and spilled coffee on the metal grille floor.
“Sorry,” Keltie said. “But this really pisses me off.”
She picked up the cup and put it forcefully back on the panel. She gave Emina an angry glare.
“Why didn’t you tell me there was another broker visiting?” she asked.
Emina shrugged. “I didn’t know.”
Keltie turned to Kamala, who was inching toward a pillar to hide.
“What about the staging crew? Didn’t they notice?” Keltie asked.
Kamala’s eyes were frightened. “N-Not if the cruiser didn’t pass over them. A lot of them are interns, so they wouldn’t know to scan the skies,” Kamala said.
“It wouldn’t matter,” Emina said. “They can’t scan the entire sky. If we’re lucky, they haven’t been there for too long.”
Keltie moved to a control panel with a telescoping camera. Taking control, she zoomed in on the ship.
It was a Leisure Class Luxury Cruiser, just like theirs. She knew the pistol shape anywhere. She zoomed in on the rear of the ship—the Sun Deck bay was open. Solar sails on the top of the deck were extended upward, like fish fins, facing the planet’s star—an energy-generating maneuver that would prepare the ship for the voyage home.
“Crap!” she said. “They’ve already started their tour. They’ve probably been down there a few hours. Those sails look pretty hot.”
She took a moment and breathed in deeply, closing her eyes. She felt the room tense up along with her. She didn’t mean to frighten them, but this was serious!
She wasn’t going to let this sale escape her. She was going to go get it, and no one would stop her.
“Alistair, is there a registered sale yet?” she asked.
Alistair had a translucent screen in his hand, and he flicked through a directory of text. “Nope. We’re still in play.”
“Any idea who it could be?”
“You’re not gonna like this, Kel.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Claire Westington Realty.”
Claire was… her best friend.
They worked together under the umbrella of the Macalestern Corporation. They’d gone through training together. Hell, they had shared an apartment for four years.
But Claire was a formidable real estate agent. Keltie had a lot of enemies that she hated losing to, but losing to Claire would be even harder because they competed over everything. And everyone in the company would know, since their competitive nature was well known and well talked about.
This sucked.
“At least it’s her,” Keltie said, “but I’m not losing.” She pointed to the ship. “Guys, we’ve got to win this planet.”
She started for the elevator. “Time to move out.”
***
Keltie jogged onto the Sun Deck with a portfolio screen under her arm. She shouldn’t have been running in her wedges, but she had no choice.
She smiled wide at the guests, who were lined up neatly on the far side of the deck. The walls and floors were gray and white, and the deck was nothing but a wide open bay. Above, a long swath of glass revealed deep space, and the light of Kepler’s distant star shone in, giving the bay a morning light glow.
She stopped at a shining yellow obelisk that hovered just off the ground. It was as tall as her, and its carbon surface shimmered like water in a cove and radiated waves of heat.
A Crystalith. The carbon-based alien life forms that helped humans escape from Earth over two thousand years ago. They were sentient, but in their own way. It was custom to acknowledge them and seek their wisdom after any celestial event.
Keltie pulled out her portfolio tablet and opened an app on her home screen shaped like a Crystalith. Several bubbles with pre-populated text appeared. She pressed one.
How do you interpret recent events?
The tablet produced a series of pictographs that looked like a mix between inkblots and chemical bonds. A piano appeared below the pictographs—a single octave. With two fingers, she played a major interval, and the inkblots raised off the surface of the tablet and chimed.
The Crystalith shimmered in response. Keltie looked closely and saw several blots appear within the front of the creature. Its timbre matched hers—that was a good sign.
Quickly reading the crystalline blots within the alien’s face, she dictated into her screen.
“You don’t know what caused the outage, either, huh?”
More blots.
I am too far into the ship. Minimal radiation. Somewhat safe to proceed.
“Somewhat is all I need,” Keltie said.
The Crystalith shimmered again, reorganizing its blots. Blots upon blots appeared, a visual speech happening in real time. She recognized a few of the lead-ins and sighed. She didn’t have time.
The Crystalith race, despite not being able to talk, was quite talkative. For dozens of years, humanity had perceived them as dumb, floating, shining objects. But when scientists figured out that they could talk, and rapidly—that blew the door off extraterrestrial communication, and it led to the aliens sharing wisdom that helped humanity ultimately make advances in space travel.
The Crystaliths’ story of their journey
to Earth was… well, complicated.
“I already know the story,” she said, striking a dissonant chord on the piano and stopping the Crystalith’s visual story. She touched a bubble on her tablet that read Thank you for your time. Always remember.
‘Always remember’ was their version of a blessing. A tribute to those that had died when their planet was destroyed hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Keltie tucked her screen under her arm. The room shook with the rumble of engines, and she looked up to see seven company-issue corsairs firing up. Forty feet long, twenty wide, with solar sails that rose off the top of the ship like dorsal fins, and rotating gravity rings that activated during flight—there was no better (or more expensive) ship to do a planet showing in.
She loved corsairs. They had speed, comfort, and maneuverability—much more than a luxury cruiser. The handling was second-to-none. Back home she had a pink one with leopard print sails. She’d bought it after selling her first planet. She’d named the ship Faye.
She missed Faye right now, but then again, Charsworth would hate the idea of touring a planet in a pink spaceship. Better to keep everything neutral.
She breathed in exhaust as she jogged toward the corsair in first position.
Charsworth was waiting for her. He wore a white Oxford shirt with oblique buttons that formed a V near his shoulder. A purple, paisley bow tie framed his face. He was smiling with perfect white teeth.
“Magnificent!” he said. “You didn’t tell me we were going in corsairs.”
She forgot he was a spaceship nut. He was the kind that probably spent spare weekends under the belly of a ship just like this one.
She was definitely going to be talking spaceships with him from now on.
“This tour is full of surprises, Mr. Charsworth,” Keltie said.
“How familiar are you with driving one of these?” he asked.
“I happen to own one,” she said, smiling.
Charsworth gave her a nod of approval. “I own five.”
“Oh?” Keltie asked. She pulled the plastic keycard out and tossed it into the air. Catching it, she said, “But the question is—are you ready to ride?”
Chapter 4
The airlocks on the Sun Deck opened, and the corsairs dipped out into space.
In the lighted cockpit of Keltie’s ship, all the buttons glowed blood red as shadows fell over them.
Keltie placed one hand on the control joystick covered in blue buttons and another on a small panel with a few buttons and a radar screen. She trained her gaze ahead, all her years of flight training transforming her instantly.
In a rearview camera on the corsair’s tail, she saw the luxury cruiser inch further and further away.
Keltie leaned down as the weightlessness began. She wore a reddish-orange astronaut suit that was slimmed down to conform to her body, and a helmet with a polycarbonate, dome-like face. She hated the reddish-orange color. Even though it was supposed to help make you easier to spot during a rescue mission, she always pushed the company to provide options. The color made her feel like a bloated orange star. Gray or blue would have been much better.
Charsworth and Alistair wore suits, too. In her camera view of the ship’s salon, the rest of the passengers also wore spacesuits, strapped into seat belts. They looked out the long, rectangular windows on the corsair’s side in wonder.
“We’re in space,” Keltie said into her communicator headset.
The six other corsair pilots confirmed.
“You’re all clear,” Emina said from the bridge. “You can activate your power now. Maintain a good distance apart. Proceed with your gravity rings.”
Keltie pressed a yellow button marked with the image of a spaceship with a ring around it.
The ship hummed as a mechanical sound activated behind them, around the middle of the ship. Then, a whirring sound and a loud motor.
The golden ring was working, rotating around the ship’s front, middle and rear to create centrifugal force. Flights without gravity were so… two thousand years ago.
Gravity returned quickly. She landed in her chair and the seat belt automatically tightened around her.
“Hold on,” Keltie said, grinning.
She pulled up on the joystick and pressed the acceleration button. Then she tilted the stick, throwing the corsair into a roll. Kepler spun in front of them.
“Whoa!” Charsworth said.
Keltie pulled out of the roll and accelerated even more. The force pushed her back into the seat like an invisible wind. Kepler passed beneath them in a bluish-brown blur.
Charsworth held onto the seat handles, smiling the whole time.
Alistair looked like he was going to be sick.
Keltie rolled again, ending upright in Kepler’s orbit.
She backed off the accelerator and the corsair slowed; the engine died down to a gentle purr.
“You really know how to pilot this thing,” Charsworth said. “That was one hell of a roll.”
Keltie smirked. “I don’t fly too much like a girl, do I?”
“Talk to me after re-entry,” Charsworth said.
“Talk to me after I vomit all over the place,” Alistair said. He opened his helmet and popped a pill.
Keltie’s communicator beeped. “Geez, Keltie—would you mind slowing down?”
It was Kamala.
“Would you mind keeping up?” Keltie asked. “We’ve got a planet to show.”
Another corsair jumped on the communication channel. “Skies are looking pretty good below. Everyone ready to enter?”
“Ready.”
“Ready.”
“Ready when you are, fearless leader.”
Keltie glanced at her radar screen. The other corsairs fell into a linear formation behind her. They were ready to enter the planet’s atmosphere.
“Everyone, follow me and hold on,” she said, nosing toward the planet. “We’ll orbit for a bit and then enter. Set the auto-entry coordinates and prepare your passengers.”
Keeping her eyes on the dark side of the planet, she pressed another button on the joystick. A gentle bell in the cabin sounded.
“Hay-lo,” she said. “It’s me, Keltie. We’re going to enter Kepler’s atmosphere shortly, so please keep your seat belts on. If anyone suffers from space motion sickness, now would be a good time to take your medicine. If you look to your left, you’ll see the dark side of Kepler. The planet is what we call ‘tidally locked,’ much like the old moon on Earth. The planet orbits its star but does not rotate, so one side of the planet is eternally in light, and the other eternally in darkness. It’s so poetic.”
The passengers nodded, talking to each other.
“I can’t wait for you all to see this planet in person,” Keltie said. “Prepare for entry.”
She guided the ship toward the clouds and her joystick rattled, telling her it was time to activate the ship’s automatic atmosphere entry feature. She flipped a switch on the control panel and activated the intercom again.
“Another announcement from yours truly. Please place your arms in entry position. I don’t want anyone to have neck problems. Oh, and enjoy the ride!”
The joystick automatically moved away from her and her seat slid backward a few inches.
Keltie put her arms up as if to box. The ship began to rattle and shake violently.
Alistair and Charsworth did the same, the ship jolting them around.
Metal arms extended on the front of the ship, carrying a large, golden heat shield.
The heat shield warmed up rapidly, and Keltie thought in passing that she didn’t want to be on the other side of that heat shield.
A sonic boom exploded as the ship broke the sound barrier.
Keltie felt the boom in her heart. It always startled her.
Soon, the blackness of space gave way to the bluish dome of Kepler’s atmosphere, and the shaking grew even more violent. At times Keltie thought her seat belt would snap. But she kept her arms against her chest and
pushed back against the force.
Ahead, a bluish shock wave appeared in front of the heat shield.
In the feed from the camera on the tail, she watched the other corsairs enter the atmosphere behind her, streaking through the sky like meteors.
Yellow and red burning plasma covered the windows and reminded Keltie of hellfire. The windows’ protective coating kept them safe, deflecting the plasma around the body of the spacecraft.
After a minute, the plasma burned off.
A rocky continent sprang up below them, brown and craggy and covered with clouds. Light divided it in half; one side was dark and the other was light.
The ship steered toward the light side, and before long the darkness disappeared behind them, and the world stretched before them, dawn-like and mysterious.
Still the shaking rocked the ship, then a noise like several sledgehammers beating against the hull sounded. The ship slowed.
“Parachutes are deployed,” Keltie said.
Inside the salon, the passengers cheered and hugged each other. Successful re-entry was still, after thousands of years in space, something to celebrate. Especially on an unknown planet.
Keltie breathed a sigh of relief, too. Exploding during re-entry wasn’t on her bucket list. She just hoped that Charsworth was impressed with her flying. It would make the rest of this tour much, much easier.
The fierce, howling winds of the planet carried the ship further into the lighted terrain. Keltie knew she was fully ensconced in Kepler’s atmosphere and no longer in space.
The joystick extended to her, and her seat inclined upward. Grabbing the joystick, she pressed another button, and metal cords reeled the parachute into the top of the ship as the engines kicked on, propelling the ship through the sky.
Keltie pulled on the joystick as hard as she could to stabilize the ship. Then the solar sails extended from the top of the spacecraft and the navigation system told her they were online. A charging meter appeared, slowly gaining energy as the sails absorbed sunlight.
Phantom Planet (Galaxy Mavericks Book 2) Page 2