Orville Mouse and the Puzzle of the Shattered Abacus (Orville Wellington Mouse Book 2)

by Tom Hoffman

  “Very funny. Wait, I just thought of something – what about The Dragonfly? How are we going to reach the MV Bermitar without it? Can we bring it with us?”

  Abacus shook his head. “Impossible. The entrance we used was for personnel only, not for vehicles. We’ll need to find an alternate mode of transportation once we are within the Black Wall. I’m certain we’ll find something suitable. When the war ended the Anarkkians withdrew their forces, but left behind all their weapons and vehicles. The cause of their withdrawal was never clearly determined, though there are numerous theories. The most recent one gives credit to an Elder named Edmund the Explorer and a lone Anarkkian warrior name Neilana. It is claimed that Neilana taught the Anarkkians to hear the mystical sounds produced in nature, the songs of the oceans, trees, and sky. Once the Anarkkians heard these wordless songs of incomparable beauty they lost all desire to conquer other worlds, choosing instead to conquer the worlds within themselves. True or not, that is the current theory. I tend to believe this theory as I know for a fact that Neilana was a highly esteemed figure in Anarkkian culture.”

  The rest of their journey through the tunnel proved uneventful, the adventurers being careful to avoid the lower levels. One day later they stepped through a black cylinder into brilliant desert sunlight on the inside of the Black Wall.

  Chapter 27

  The Ring

  “I’m tired of this sand. I liked the beach at the Vesarak Sea where Mum and Papa used to take me, but it wasn’t a thousand miles long and I didn’t have to carry a giant backpack.” Orville was sitting in front of his tent dumping sand out of his boot.

  “Cheer up, maybe we’ll find a vehicle pretty soon. Hopefully one that flies really fast.”

  Proto clambered up onto a pile of boulders and gazed into the distance. “I see a forest about ten miles away. The trees are not green, however, they are blue.”

  Abacus nodded. “That would make sense. The Anarkkians reseeded the area inside the Black Wall with their native flora and fauna.”

  Orville looked up curiously. “What does that mean?”

  “They eliminated all the existing life forms, replacing them with plants and animals native to Anarkkia.”

  “What kind of animals? Scary ones that eat mice?”

  “It is highly doubtful they would have introduced dangerous predators into their own colony. You should be quite safe.”

  Proto had his own thoughts regarding dangerous predators. “Unless of course the once gentle creatures mutated as a means of survival, just as the purple flowers on Varmoran did. Who knows what dreadful beasts may have evolved over the centuries.”

  It took the adventurers the rest of the day to reach the blue forest. Even Proto had to agree the area was quite lovely, almost bucolic. “It is charming once you get used to the idea of blue leaves. Quite a variety of vibrant hues, very fetching indeed.”

  Sophia looked up at a particularly tall and graceful tree. “It’s odd to see birds with four wings, but they’re so colorful and their songs are quite melodious.”

  Orville and Abacus strolled ahead of the others, studying the lovely forest. He stopped short, peering through the trees. “That looks like a town. Do you think it’s safe to go in there?”

  “Settlements built by the Anarkkians were abandoned at the end of the war. It should be perfectly safe. This will be an excellent spot to begin our search for a functioning vehicle.”

  “I can’t wait. This pack is getting heavier by the minute.”

  “Your pack’s mass is increasing? How is that possible?”

  “Um, it’s not actually gaining weight, it just feels heavier because I’m getting tired.”

  “Curious. I will enter that idiosyncratic phrase into my algorithmic database. If your pack attains too much subjective mass, I shall be happy to carry it for you, thus decreasing the time necessary to reach the MV Bermitar and increasing the probability of saving your world. This is excellent. Have you noticed my verbal acuity increasing exponentially as I integrate your colloquial speech patterns into my engineered intelligence?”

  Orville raised both eyebrows. “Oh, that’s nice.” He had no idea at all what Abacus was talking about. He turned back to Sophia, calling out, “There’s a town up ahead!”

  Sophia dashed forward, catching up to Orville. “Do you see any creatures?”

  “Abacus says the towns have all been abandoned, but we might find old Anarkkian vehicles. I just thought of something, we should have brought the floaters.”

  “You’re right. We’ll find something soon. Let’s go look around.”

  Orville stopped to examine the first building. “The houses are weird looking. They’re round and kind of wiggly, not straight and square like ours.”

  “They are different, but maybe the Anarkkians just liked round houses.” Sophia stepped over to the odd structure, running her paw across the rough outer wall. She flicked her wrist and a small knife appeared. Using the knife she gouged a hole in the side of the house. “Look, when I cut into the outside wall this thick liquid oozes out.”

  Orville touched the liquid with his paw. “It feels like tree sap.”

  “I don’t think they built these houses, I think they grew them.” Sophia got down on her knees and dug with the knife at the base of the home. “The house has roots. It’s definitely a tree that grew into the shape of a house.”

  “How could a tree do that?”

  Sophia shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I guess they must have altered the instructions in the seed that tells the tree how to grow. Instead of growing a big trunk and branches it grows into the shape of a house. They could build an entire village with a handful of fast growing modified seeds.”

  Orville peered through one of the windows. “It even has rooms inside it.” He tapped on the window. “The window is part of the tree. How could they make it transparent?”

  “It’s beyond me. We don’t have tech like this on Mintari. Hey, there’s some metal buildings inside a big security fence. There could be something in there. It looks like a military compound, like Norrich Bunker on Periculum. The main gate is chained shut.”

  “I can fix that.” Orville flicked his wrist and the chain vanished. Orville and Proto pushed the heavy gate open. “Now we just have to get past the main doors.”

  Orville studied the complex circular lock on the two enormous doors, then with a shrug converted it into a thought cloud. The towering doors squealed open.

  “It’s dark in there.” Sophia sent a sphere of brilliant light into the building. She grabbed Orville’s arm. “Way in the back! A blinker ship!”

  “Just like the ones we found on the mesa in Periculum. Do you think it will fly?”

  “Let’s check. I’m curious why a blinker ship belonging to the Elders is sitting in a Anarkkian military compound.”

  “Maybe they captured it.”

  “That could be.” Sophia wove her way through the maze of crates, metal drums and rows of eight foot tall blue cylinders.

  Orville put his paw on one of the cylinders. “What do you think these are?”

  Sophia studied the markings on the side of it. “I wouldn’t touch it. It looks like it might be a weapon, or something that powers a weapon.”

  Orville jerked his paw away from the cylinder.

  “That is a force tube for an Anarkkian heavy beam pulsar weapon. If you rupture the outer shell it will result in the formation of a one mile wide crater and the destruction of our first forms.”

  Orville slowly backed away.

  Abacus reached out and ran his hand over the dark blue cylinder. His voice had a strange tone to it. “Abacus MV Expergo. Seven reassemblies. If I thought I could...” He stopped, glancing over at Orville. “I apologize for my wandering thoughts. We must examine the blinker ship to see if it is functional.”

  “Sophia knows how to fly them. We found four of them when Draken Mouse sent us to Periculum. Actually he made Master Marloh send us there, but we found blinkers in Norrich Bunker an
d used one to escape from the mesa where the Gnorli bird left us. It was Sophia’s idea to roll the blinker ship off the mesa and use the emergency canopy. I was pretty sure we were going to hit the ground at about a thousand miles an hour, but her plan worked and we landed safely. Then we ran into the green sticky ball creatures. We wouldn’t have escaped from them without Proto’s tasty cakes.”

  “I do not understand the purpose of your story. How is it relevant to our current situation?”

  “It’s not really, it’s just kind of an interesting story about blinker ships.”

  Abacus turned and walked toward the ancient blinker ship.

  Orville frowned. “My mum loves that story.”

  Sophia was examining the blinker ship’s interior. “Same controls as the ones on the mesa.” She eyed the circle of yellow lights on the curved console. In the center was a four inch circular violet disk. “That’s the one.” She slapped her paw down on the disk and covered her ears. There was no shrieking alarm as there had been on Periculum. Instead, the circle of lights changed from yellow to violet and a low humming sound emanated from the base of the ship.

  Abacus was standing behind Sophia, watching as she tested the controls. “It is functioning properly. This will carry us across the sea and convey us to my second form. We must hurry.”

  Orville entered the ship and scanned the cabin. “Look at the size of that coat! How big were these Elders?” He stepped across the floor to a long dark blue coat hanging from the wall. “This is big enough for three of me. Hey, Sophia, look!” Orville pulled the heavy garment down from the hook and draped it over his shoulders. “It’s the famous blinker pilot Captain Orville to the rescue!”

  Sophia rolled her eyes and snorted. “You might want to see a tailor before you try to rescue someone wearing that.”

  Orville shoved his paw into one of the pockets. “There’s something in here. It feels like a ring. Maybe it will fit me.” He pulled out a golden band mounted with a brilliant green oval stone. “It has little white lines in it just like the blue marble.”

  Abacus whirled around. “Don’t put that on your–”

  Unfortunately for Orville, the warning had come too late. He had already slipped the ring onto his paw.

  The first thing Orville did was scream. The second thing he did was scream again. He screamed the first time because he was seated at the controls of a gleaming Mintarian attack scout ship streaking toward a wall of fire at four thousand miles an hour. He screamed the second time when he saw his arms. They were covered with red scales, his fingers nine inches long and tipped with razor sharp curved yellow claws.

  Chapter 28

  Shields Up

  The odd thing was that Orville knew how to fly the attack scout ship. A split second after he flashed through the wall of fire he reached out and slapped his long scaly fingers across a green sphere hovering two feet in front of him, spinning the sphere to the left. The ship made a ninety degree turn at four thousand miles an hour.

  “Inertia deadeners, can’t live without ’em.” Orville’s mind was racing. Inertia deadeners? He had no idea what they were, and yet he knew exactly what they were. They were what allowed him make inconceivably sharp turns at four thousand miles an hour without getting squished against the wall like a striped Snavle bug. Orville groaned. What was a striped Snavle bug? Why had he even said that?

  His attack ship shot up through the atmosphere into dark space, Orville quickly scanning the horizon for enemy ships. He tapped a yellow disk and hollered, “What do we got?”

  A melodious voice from the console replied, “Anarkkian Interstellar Battle Cruiser, sector R2. Anarkkian Attack Command Vessel, sector D2.”

  “Scouts?”

  “All scout ships destroyed. We are the last.”

  Orville cursed loudly. “Size 6 Throttle online, now!”

  “Size 6 Time Throttle ready. Number 4 tab.”

  Orville stomped his red scaled foot on a circular panel beneath the console. “Cloak on! We have three minutes!” He whirled the green sphere with his left hand and the ship flashed to the right. “There it is. She’s a big one.” He shot toward a mammoth silver interstellar cruiser standing in bright contrast to the absolute blackness of dark space. The cruiser was bigger than anything he had ever seen. “Creekers, better make that a Size 7 Throttle!”

  “Size 7 Time Throttle online. Number 5 tab.”

  When he was so close that the Anarkkian cruiser filled the sky Orville smacked his paw down on a bright yellow tab with a strange symbol on it. He had never seen it before and yet he knew it was the number 5. With a loud popping noise a gleaming object flashed out from the front of the scout ship, heading toward the center of the mammoth cruiser. “Throttle away! Evasive action!” He whirled the green sphere toward him and his ship instantly reversed course. He was now streaking away from the cruiser at four thousand miles an hour. “Time shields up!”

  A staggeringly bright green field of energy surrounded Orville’s scout ship. He hammered down on a blue square tab and a holo image of the Anarkkian battle cruiser appeared in front of him. Orville watched with grim satisfaction as a small point of blue on the battle cruiser began to expand, spreading out across the ship’s hull. In less than a minute it was all over. “She’s frozen. They won’t be causing any trouble for the next ten thousand years or so. Time shield down, cloak off.”

  “Spectral door opening, altitude three miles. Mintarian commercial transport ship coming through. Scanning. Identity MV Bermitar. No crew, no Abacus.”

  “How is that possible? No crew and no Abacus? What’s the Anarkkian command ship doing?”

  “Pulsar beams coming online. Changing course, heading toward MV Bermitar.”

  “Scan Bermitar for weapons.”

  “Nineteen thousand time throttles present.”

  “Largest?”

  “Size 15000 M2 Galactic Time Throttle.”

  “Holy nadwokks, why would they have one of those? They were outlawed by the Fourth Mintarian Council. If that ship gets pulsed this whole galaxy is frozen, and that includes us. How soon can you cloak us?”

  “Immediate cloaking for twenty-nine seconds. Three minute cloaking online in nine point two minutes.”

  “Not enough time. How many distractors left?”

  “Three scout attack, one M7 Spectral Attack Cruiser.”

  “All right, we have to use it. Send the spectral cruiser twenty miles to the rear of their command ship. It’ll take them two minutes to realize it’s a distractor. That gives us two minutes plus twenty-nine seconds of cloak.”

  “Spectral Cruiser released. Doorway opening in fifteen seconds.”

  Orville was feeling queasy. He was here, but he was not here. He was the pilot but he was not the pilot. He knew things he could not know, and even worse, he was covered with red scales and had long yellow claws. Before he had time to solve any of these puzzles he slapped his hand across the green sphere and the scout ship flashed to the left, heading directly toward the Anarkkian Attack Command Vessel.

  Right on time the massive spectral door appeared twenty miles to the rear of the Anarkkian ship. “That should get their attention.” The Anarkkians reversed course, retreating from the MV Bermitar and heading toward the wildly flashing spectral door. “Right now they’re trying to figure out what’s going to come through that door. We’re going in!”

  Orville watched as a massive array of brilliant energy shields popped up around the end of the Anarkkian command ship facing the huge spectral door.

  Without knowing why he was doing it, Orville spun the green sphere forward and hammered his knee to one side, pushing a red lever.

  “M7 Spectral Cruiser exiting doorway.”

  The Anarkkian command vessel seemed to shudder, inconceivably powerful heavy pulsar beams flashing out from the stern ports toward the huge Mintarian cruiser plowing out through the spectral doorway.

  The instant Orville’s knee hit the red lever his ship shot forward at fifteen thousand m
iles an hour. “Cloak on! Time shields up! Number 6 ready?”

  “Cloak on, twenty-nine seconds. Shields up. Number 6 online, number four tab.”

  Orville gave a grim smile. “Let’s see what they think of these brimbleberries. Target up!” A small round circle appeared on the ship’s transparent domed canopy. Orville moved his eyes toward the Anarkkian command ship, the small targeting circle tracking his line of vision. When the circle was on the bridge of the Anarkkian ship he slapped his hand down on the number four yellow tab. With a loud popping noise a number six time throttle flashed out toward the Anarkkian vessel.

  “Course 180!” Orville spun the green sphere and his ship shot backwards, now retreating from the Anarkkians at fifteen thousand miles an hour.

  “Cloak off, shields down. Power down, deadeners off, time shields up.”

  Orville turned his gaze to the Anarkkian ship. He wanted to see this one up close and personal. It looked as if some gigantic invisible hand was painting the ship a bright azure blue. The heavy pulsar beams stopped, frozen in time like immense glowing columns of crackling ice. The massive spectral door and the phantom M7 Spectral Cruiser faded away to nothingness. The MV Bermitar was safe.

  “That it?”

  “There are currently no Anarkkian vessels in the vicinity.”

  “I’m going to board the MV Bermitar and make sure she’s stable. I’ll have to cloak her so the Anarkkians don’t find her. The last thing we need is for them to get their claws on a Size 15000 M2 Galactic Time Throttle. Whoever put that on board a private vessel should be rotting in a Quarian Prison.”

  “Orville? Are you all right?”

  “Cloak on, time shield up!”

  “What are you talking about? Wake up!”

  “Unnhh. I had red scales. I was flying a scout attack ship. It was terrifying. I saved the MV Bermitar.”

  Abacus gave a look of surprise. “You saw my second form? The MV Bermitar?”

  “I prevented the Anarkkians from destroying it. I hit two of their ships with time throttles.”