Oblivious to the old man’s plight, the hyperactive youth worked with rhythmic moves, tossing boxes and trash into the huge grinding mechanisms. Every toss moved him closer to the back.
Altemus watched from the corner of his eye and picked up the pace. Stretching over waist-high railings with arms aching, thoughts of defeat goaded him on. All or nothing. He pulled a door-sized piece of cardboard from the pile. An avalanche of boxes rained down.
Shouts from the youth dissolved in the noise when the old man saw the box stamped ARCHIVE LABELS. He pulled it free and disguised its weight by tucking it under one arm while juggling a larger empty box in the other hand. “Thanks, buddy,” he shouted as he headed for the lift.
*****
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Bach slept fitfully, muscles jerking. In his dream, he descended a floating staircase leading to a fog-shrouded garden of vibrant greenery and gigantic flowers. One deep red flower beckoned him and he succumbed to the crimson temptress’s overpowering appeal. Trampling over lesser flowers to reach it, head dizzy with anticipation, he cupped his hands around the petals and inhaled its magnificent raspberry fragrance.
The flower responded to his touch and, in what seemed like computer art unfolding pixel-by-pixel, revealed the Specter’s face in a yellow haze. “Behold the Ultimate World,” said the evil one. “Alas, you’ve rushed in vain to take your true love back to Dura.”
Now the dream became a panoramic view of the garden with a pathway winding through vibrant flowers. A man and a woman, both wearing matching red shirts with black crossed-circle emblems on the back, walked away hand-in-hand. They stopped for a passionate kiss, turned their heads and looked back—Kaz and Lynch.
Bach ran after them, legs moving in slow motion, waving, shouting, “Kaz, I’m here.” She looked back again, this time patting her pregnant stomach. Bach’s eyes darted from her stomach to Lynch’s gloating face. He pressed his hands against his eyes. When he looked again, the scene had changed, now the waving flowers were hundreds of warriors in red shirts with black symbols. Their orange eyes summoned him onward.
The Specter’s image slowly overtook the dream. The yellow haze grew larger. “We are the chosen ones,” his evil voice resonated with a distant echo. “And we have Altemus with us.”
Bach lurched awake to frantic raps at the door. He jumped out of bed, disoriented and mumbling, “Kaz … Altemus?” Drifting into clarity he yelped, “Oh, no, this is the day! I’ve overslept!” The knocking intensified. When he opened the door, Star rushed in talking faster than she ever had, saying her father was missing. Mouth agape, Bach only half listened as he noticed that the eternity circle pendant hanging around her neck aligned with the cross necklace he’d given her when they buried his crewmate Faith. The two necklaces formed the sacred icon.
Wondering if Bach understood her, Star rewound her message and delivered it a second time. “Dad didn’t come home last night. He left a note at Wilde’s workstation.” She took a quick breath and continued while Bach stared at the necklaces. “Oh, Bach,” she pled, “wake up. Dad’s note said you defected to Ulwor to rescue Kaz, and that he and I have gone to get you. Why would he leave a note like that?”
Bach tried to sort out Star’s message, the image of the symbol formed by the two necklaces, and his dream about Kaz. All of a sudden, as if the Creator placed a calming hand on his head, he connected to Star’s words and knew his first priority. He took her by the arm and rushed out the door. “Your dad’s note is a ploy, but we have to hurry. The Creator’s instructions are being fulfilled.”
“What instructions?”
“Let’s find Altemus. I’ll fill you in on the way.”
*****
CHAPTER NINETEEN
In the golden glow of Jenesis’s daylight phase, Altemus arrived at the restoration site with a robot to complete last minute tasks. As they transferred supplies from the ground transporter to the Alpha, the old man’s legs wobbled with every step, yet he labored on, wringing wet and burning with fever. After loading the last parcel inside the Alpha, he stopped for a drink of water, then staggered to the ramp and hoisted a paint compressor onto his shoulders like a backpack. Teeth chattering from chills, he braced himself for one last task. Unable to see more than a foot ahead, he snatched off his glasses and flung them near the back door. “Cloudy vision’s not going to stop me,” he growled.
With every bone and muscle in his body aching, Altemus hobbled down the ramp and braced against the railing of the scaffold left by the Rooks. Stepping onto the platform, he grasped the handrail and gazed up at the space station. Jaws clenched, he hugged his pain tight and bellowed at the formidable foe, “I’ve never been outdone by anything inanimate.” Numb fingers activated the lift.
The platform rose forty feet and wobbled to a stop with Altemus slumped on the floorboard. Head reeling like he’d stepped off a carnival ride, he slid the paint sprayer from his back with a whisper, “Please, Almighty.” On hands and knees, he fumbled to switch it on, but couldn’t. “Please,” he said again, pushing harder with his thumb. The valve slid open and the motor came on.
He managed to stand, but teetered backwards against the railing. The flimsy restraint bowed, as if ready to break and he struggled to rock forward to brace himself on the ship’s hull. Three wheezes from deep within his lungs brought the words, “I … christen thee … Kingship Alpha.” Hands trembling, he sprayed the letter A onto the ship. Straining to see its dark outline, he next painted the L. Over the drone of the compressor’s motor and hissing sprayer, Altemus heard something else. He stopped to listen. A high-intensity whine closed in and a powerful tremor rocked his body, bouncing his feet on the platform. He held his ears, and over the incoming craft’s razor-sharp treble shouted words that no one heard, “Damned enemy.”
The Rooks’ ship passed overhead, swirling Altemus’s silvery hair like a whirlwind. A waterspout waltzed across the lake. The glowing red spacecraft hovered for a moment then descended vertically twenty yards away. When the door slid open, two Rooks in blue jumpsuits stepped out, and one shouted up to Altemus on the scaffold, “Hey, old man, we’re havin’ a party and it looks like you get to come.”
Altemus’s mind raced with ideas to foil their plans, yet he acted nonchalant and continued lettering the ship. “Let me finish up here,” he yelled back.
The Rooks watched for a few minutes, laughing at the elder’s uneven lettering and clumsy handling of the paint sprayer. Then one nudged the other and they headed inside the Alpha.
Altemus turned the sprayer off and snorted, “Those fools can’t be inside my masterpiece.” He rode the lift to the ground and staggered toward Alpha’s open door. With vengeance in his stare and nerves jerking like he was possessed, he struggled for a good breath then yelled inside, “Is your party for me or my Kingship? I’m setting sail for galaxies unknown.”
A booming voice rang out, “Shut up!”
Hunched over to ease his pain, Altemus hobbled into the cabin waving his hand at the Rooks. “Here sons, I’ll show you my plans to start a new civilization in another galaxy. You can come along … we’ll rule our own empire!”
A Rook shoved him onto the wraparound padded bench in the cockpit area and bent over to eye level. “Why’d you lock the solid fuel tank old man?” His voice grated. “Are you so stupid you think a lock will keep us out?”
Sweating, with a glazed look in his eyes, Altemus smirked. “Solid fuel? Ha! How primitive, I don’t use solid fuel.”
The Rook shoved the old man’s chest. “Yeah, I bet … that’s why you locked it. Now sit there and shut up.” He pulled a tool from his utility belt and blasted the lock using a black particle beam. It liquefied and dripped to the floor. The sneering Rook focused on Altemus’s face, jerked off his glove and slipped his hand into the shaft. He let out a yowl, jumped back and flung a handful of foul-smelling glop across the cabin. Gagging in disgust at the slimy brown wad coating his hand, he jammed his fist under Altemus’s nose. “What’s this stu
ff?”
“My newest and most advanced fuel formula,” the wise old man replied with an air of pride.
The Rook snarled, “Liar.”
Altemus wobbled to his feet and pointed to the mucous-like puddle on the floor. He tried to speak, but couldn’t. After a long, shuddering breath, words tumbled out. “It’s liquid from fermented quees. I’m not allowed access to solid fuel anymore. Elder council terminated my security ranking. Said I’m old and crazy. But this will work, I tried a few drops on my lab model and it launched with the power of a small rocket.”
“Either you are old and crazy or you’re a good liar.” The Rook pushed Altemus toward the door. “Even if this crap does ignite, it won’t launch a ship this size. And the only trip you’re taking is with us. You’re exactly what we need.”
“Please, don’t take me away,” the elder said, “there’s more to do on my Kingship.”
“Kingship? Give it up old man, your life just changed.” The Rook shoved him down the ramp, then stopped and looked at his ally as if he had a revelation. “Wait! His little transporter might use solid fuel.”
The cohort ran toward the transporter to the sound of Altemus’s voice warbling across the sand. “There’s no fuel. Oh son! Come back, son! There’s no fuel.”
His captor cuffed him across the face. “Stop it! We’re not your sons.”
The old man’s right eye swelled. He rocked his head to one side. “We use liquid fuel.”
“Shut up, you’re driving me crazy.”
The cohort charged empty-handed from the transporter and grabbed Altemus by the chest. “Okay, genius, I tore the thing apart and liquidated your robot.” He shook the old man into a gasping fit of coughing. “Where’s the solid fuel? You burned something to get here.”
After a hard coughing spell, Altemus snobbishly replied, “I used exactly what I needed to get here … calibrated to the last crumb!” He coughed again. “I am a scientist, you know. I’m not going back to Dura. I’m taking my Kingship to another galaxy.”
The Rook pushed his captive toward the pulsing red enemy ship. “You’re only going as far as Ulwor. Then I’ll get the solid fuel recipe out of you.”
Altemus flinched. “Recipe? Oh, dear child, it’s not a recipe. It’s a formula. If you don’t call it a formula no one will know what you want. Call it a formula.”
The Rook lifted the old man from his feet and slammed him into a jumpseat behind the pilot’s seat. The three buckled up and the boomerang spacecraft tilted upright and shot through the illuminated sky. Altemus got his first glimpse of an enemy ship’s interior. The profusion of weaponry within arm’s reach brought a shiver.
As the craft leveled off above the golden planet the pilot detected a Duran ground transporter on approach. “Well, well, how interesting. Incoming chumps from Dura.” With a wicked cackle he arced the ship into a turn. “Let’s just head on back to Altemus Rider’s Kingship and pick up the new arrivals.”
“This is a neutral zone.” Altemus struggled to speak.
“Not anymore. Without you, things in Dura have changed, starting now.”
Altemus’s face glistened from the raging fever. With strength fading fast he strained to see out the pilot’s side window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the approaching transporter. But one eye swollen closed and cloudy vision in the other denied him.
Like lip-licking fools, the Rooks moved in for the kill. In the midst of their testosterone high, the copilot rocked back in his seat and flung a fist toward Altemus. “You know something about this don’t you, old man?”
Altemus’s open eye snapped shut defiantly.
The pilot powered his ship down.
Hands shaking, Altemus reached into his pocket, then rested his clenched fist at his side for a moment before tapping the gloating captain on the shoulder.
“Stop it!” grumbled the foe.
He jostled the captain again.
The copilot jumped up and landed a crushing blow to the old man’s head. “You’re dead!”
Altemus’s chin dropped to his chest. A warm stream of scarlet blood ran from his nose over his lips. His head bobbed to one side and nothing he said made sense. “Whining ears. Darkness. Light funnel. Star … Starsong.” Unable to raise his head, the elder lifted the small, but weighty box in his hand and, as if to gain strength or receive a blessing, clutched it to his chest for a moment. Then, his numb fingers opened the lid and removed something. Altemus struggled to lift his arm, then with a dying huff shoved the EMOG over the pilot’s shoulder.
Alarms blared, lights flashed, and the boomerang-like craft lurched and bucked, then flipped over at a ninety-degree angle. Helpless to react, dangling from their harnesses, the men’s bodies snapped back and forth. When the powerful engines shut down, the ship zigged and zagged like a kite without a tail, then corkscrewed into the death lake. A column of frothy water shot fifty-feet high, shrouding the area in a gray mist. The heaving lake crested with carnivorous bubbles and devoured its meal with a long-lasting hiss.
Bach and Star landed to the sight of the enemy ship sinking beneath the churning black water. He yelled out, “A Rook ship crashed!”
“What’s happened?” she cried as she glanced at the churning lake and bounded from the transporter without another word. Her father’s empty ship seemed a tragic forewarning. “No! Dad was here and so were the Rooks. Dad? Dad?” she yelled in a panic, stumbling across the deep sand toward the Alpha. “Where are you, Dad?”
Bach made a beeline to the old man’s transporter. The fuel chamber was destroyed and the liquefied robot lay puddled next to the blue hovercart. He darted to the steaming lake. “This is a cruel game.” Scanning the terrain, he spotted another grave on the hill next to Faith’s. His stomach knotted. “Altemus! They killed and buried Altemus!” Sand flying from his feet, he ran to the mound, dropped to his knees, and clawed at the ground with both hands. “He might still be alive. I’ll revive him.” His gut retched at feeling something solid, yet he dug deeper with hope, fear, and anger. “Boxes?” He ran back to the ship where Star waited at the ramp. Their anxious eyes connected.
“It’s boxes!” he said, trying to catch his breath.
She shook her head. “He’s not inside the main ship and the door leading to the other two is locked. Could he be on one of them?”
“No. The passageway door locks from the cockpit.”
“Did you check his transporter?”
“Ransacked. And his hovercart’s inside with a melted robot. He had to be with the enemy.”
“Maybe it wasn’t Dad. Maybe someone else came out here. Dad’s too smart, he would never have fallen into the Specter’s hands.” She looked at the sky as if he might appear in a rescue craft. “What if Dad was with them? They’ve crashed in the death lake.”
Bach led her inside to one of two, six-by-ten-foot, indestructible privacy rooms in the main cabin. He wanted to give her a moment to herself, but she grabbed his hand and wouldn’t let go. Looking in his eyes, she couldn’t speak.
“Star,” he struggled with his words, “he’s worked with me out here for a long time … fulfilling the Creator’s instructions. We couldn’t tell anyone. Yesterday he told me he had to make one more trip.”
Fighting emotion she said, “What made them crash? Ulwor’s ships have flawless failsafes.”
With Altemus nowhere to be found, and his hovercart inside the empty transporter, Bach felt sure that the ailing elder had fallen into enemy hands and was on the downed ship. He put his arm around Star and she nestled against his chest as he whispered, “Your father had divine guidance.” He choked up. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”
“I want to know for sure,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t leave until I know.”
He spoke softly, “He was a faithful man. It was hard to watch him suffer.”
She stood back and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her spacesuit, then ambled through the cabin. “Dad’s the tie that holds our continent together.
If he’s dead, Dura will fall.” She headed to the lake.
Bach followed, and on his way out saw Altemus’s eyeglasses on the floor. He handed them to Star at the lake. She clutched the wire frames to her heart, knelt at water’s edge, and drew a circle in the sand.
He crouched alongside and drew intersecting lines over the circle—top to bottom—right to left. “You ran a good race,” he whispered. Then he jumped up. “Star! The fuel!” Loping through the sand like a track runner with Star at his heels, Bach headed straight to the fuel chamber, lifted the flap, and noticed the melted lock at the same time. He slammed the flap down, held his head with one hand and snorted, “They got the fuel.”
She watched in silence.
“What the heck’s going on?” he yelped. A moment’s hesitation turned to floor pacing. “No, they didn’t get our solid fuel, it’s here somewhere. Altemus couldn’t configure the ship to carry it all at once. He must have hid it!”
“You mean we’ll have spare fuel onboard?”
“There was no other way. Now where would he hide it?”
She looked around. “Try to think like he would.”
“Not possible!” he replied, shaking his head.
Together they searched the cockpit, mid-ship workstations, relaxation area, galley, privacy rooms, and everything fore and aft, port and starboard, but found nothing.
Bach flopped on the cockpit bench seat, glared at the profusion of gauges and pounded his fist on the console. “Where is it?”
Star sat beside him “This mission was arranged by the Creator, right?”
“But I’ve looked everywhere. And I don’t see the logbooks either.” He tapped his fingers against his lips and eyed the cabin. Then he jumped up and bolted to the rear exit. “‘Think like he would.’ I just figured it out.”
Alpha Rising Page 13
