by T. R. Harris
I fingered the microphone again. “Steady now. We were expecting this. Do not let the enemy infiltrate your lines. Ward them off at maximum range.”
No sooner had I cut the connection than the space between us and the Suf-D’s erupted in a shower of oncoming plasma bolts. I whipped my small starship around one hundred eighty degrees and raced off toward the five Union warships. We were within their bolt-range in seconds.
“Are you trying to get us blown out of space, lieutenant?” Lefty asked after my unexpected maneuver.
“I’m counting on the Union ships having orders not to destroy us, but rather to bring us back alive. Kinness knows about the Galactic Lights, and he probably suspects we know where they are. With Enic dead, he would lose his best chance of securing them for the Union if the ships open fire on us.”
“That’s a lot to assume,” Angela said in a whisper.
We all inhaled sharply as the Enterprise shot through the line of Union warships, and without a single bolt being released in our direction.
That’s not to say the warships didn’t fire; they just didn’t fire at us. Instead they had other things to worry about, like the twenty-two incoming cannon bolts from the Suf-D fleet.
Most of the bolts fired from the Union ships at that point were defensive in nature, designed to intercept those released in their direction. But that was a tenuous proposition. The tiny balls of intense energy were extremely hard to target and hit, plus there were a lot more of them streaking their way then the Union ships could counter.
A few moments later—and after launching a small answering salvo aimed at the Suf-D ships—the Union force split up and turned away. The fifteen enemy ships broke into smaller squadrons and lit off after them.
In the meantime, I gunned my small private starship and followed a long and distant arc back to our original course. None of the Suf-D’s followed—we were too minor a target to bother with, especially after Angela shut down all our weapons and shields. Ten minutes later we were off their screens and free of the pursuit from Sylox.
“Reckless as ever,” Lefty commented.
“I prefer to call it bold and decisive.”
“No…it was reckless. Attacking a war fleet in a motorhome is reckless.”
The other four people in the pilothouse sided with my Army buddy, at least verbally. But deep down inside, I was sure they were experiencing nothing but awe and admiration for yours truly. As well they should.
Chapter 16
It took us another four hours to reach Ackonnon. As the planet grew on the screens, I referenced Grac’s Planetary Guide for more information. I entered my species as Human and all the specifics were converted to compare with Earth standard.
Location: The Janis Swath, Section Eight-A. Political Affiliation: Although within the Suf-D Coalition status, unaffiliated. Atmosphere: Nitrogen-oxygen, compatible to Humans. Gravity: .89 percent. Population: Two billion, nine hundred million. Primary industries: Mining, fishing and tourism.
I pulled up some pictures of the natives and found them to be about ninety-nine percent Humanoid—Prime in the vernacular of the galaxy. Curious, I scanned some images of their housing units. Bingo! Above ground and tiny boxes, just the type of units I specialized in. Sure, Ackonnon wasn’t the capital planet of the Quad, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a branch office here someday.
As we swept into orbit, I got real-time images of the landscape below. On high magnification I noticed most of the planet was covered in rows of towering mountain ranges that flattened out into wide plains with a mixture of deserts and cultivated regions near clusters of cities and towns. But it was when I tapped into their broadcast system that I got my most-startling bit of news.
“Hey, get this,” I said, transferring the video feed to the main screen. Everyone was in the pilothouse at the time, so they all shared in my discovery.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Angela said after a couple of minutes of watching. “I thought the Galactic Lights were supposed to secret?”
As I flicked through the channels, there was commercial after commercial mentioning the mythical Galactic Lights. There advertisements for souvenir shops, offering replicas of the Lights, for treasure hunting tours led by experienced Light-Guides, along no shortage of books and datapads detailing how so-and-so had discovered the Lights, proving once and for all that they were real. It reminded me of some of the small towns in Northern California claiming to be Big Foot-Central, with proof-positive that the elusive beast was real. You could even purchase a plaster cast of his big foot to take home with you….
After a few minutes of watching the ads, we came to two conclusions. One: The natives truly believed the Lights were on Ackonnon—if they really did exist. And two: They didn’t have a clue where they were.
I searched for any references to Mount Hibress, the place Enic had told me was the resting place for the Lights, expecting at any moment to run across guided tours of the Chamber of Lights and its walls of gold. To my relief, I found the mountain, but it didn’t seem to be part of the Lights lure on Ackonnon. This was either by design and part of the Guardians well-crafted misdirection campaign. Or the natives really were that stupid.
I concluded it was probably a combination of both. Sometime in the distant past the planet had become associated with the Lights, so why not exploit that notoriety for the benefit of the masses? But don’t steer them in the right direction. In fact, when I pin-pointed Mt. Hibress, it wasn’t anywhere near where most of the Lights tourist activities were concentrated.
It was in the southern hemisphere; just an average burned out volcano reaching a mean altitude of around nine thousand feet about sea level. A few small villages sat at the base of the mountain, with fishing as their primary means of commerce.
Like most planets in the region, Ackonnon was suffering from the war being waged in the Quad. It had no military to speak off, so it had no means to ward off unwanted visitors. There had once been a planetary space traffic control system, but that had been abandoned when forces from the Coalition and the Confederation began to drop in on the planet uninvited. Now any ship could come and go without as much as a challenge from the surface.
Dominic Klein was at the controls of my small starship when we zeroed in on Mt. Hibress. A few quick circles of the peak revealed that the top of the mountain was an ancient caldera about three miles in diameter and covered now in a light blanket of summer snow. The ground was littered with huge boulders and shear drop offs, all except for one small area that looked like it had been carved out of the side of a small secondary mound near the center of the caldera. Klein set the Enterprise down on the narrow landing platform. This was where Enic said I’d find a tunnel leading to the Chamber of Light. The artificial landing pad was encouraging. Others had been here before us.
I scanned the external video images for any signs of an entrance into the mountain.
It didn’t take me long to realize that finding an entrance wouldn’t be the problem. The problem would be deciding which one.
All along the steep slopes creating the bowl of the caldera, literally dozens of lava tubes stared back at me with their solitary black eyes. Some were barely ten feet in diameter, while others spanned several hundred feet across.
“You don’t have a clue which one, do you?” Lefty asked after I expressed my misgivings.
“Enic didn’t give me a clue. He just said I would find the entrance.”
“After about a year of searching,” Roger Bennet added sarcastically.
Angela snorted. “Seeing how it is on this planet, all we have to do is look for the tunnel with the ‘This Way to the Chamber of Lights’ sign out front.”
“I hope it’s that simple,” I said.
During my research into the Lights, I’d found literally hundreds of worlds claiming to be the hiding place of the Lights. Yet Ackonnon was the only one in this region of space. It wouldn’t take the Union long to realize the planet was our destination. They’d shake the Suf-D flee
t and get back in the hunt.
We didn’t have year to find the entrance. We probably had less than a day.
********
“You wouldn’t happen to have any winter gear onboard,” Lefty asked as he flipped through the series of exterior camera views.
We’d all come aboard with what we were wearing at the time back on Sylox, without anything extra. I had a new shirt, pants and shoes I’d bought earlier in the day of Enic’s speech, along with a light gray blazer. Lefty and his men were also dressed in casual business attire, designed to blend in with the crowd at the conference center. They certainly hadn’t worn combat gear on the job, at least not in any outwardly display of firepower. Concealed armament was the order of the day, however nothing that could protect them against the cold of a desolate alien mountain top.
Even Angela looked like she was on her way to a business meeting. Fortunately, she was wearing a pair of sensible flats and not high heels.
The bottom line: None of us were ready for a hike through dark volcanic passages looking for ancient treasure.
“There’s a couple of light jackets in the staterooms,” I answered. “Might even be a shirt or two. But no boots, parkas or anything like that.”
Bennett checked the outside temperature. “It’s about sixty degrees outside; it looks colder,” he reported.
“We’ll survive,” Lefty grunted. “Just find us the goddamn entrance, Jason. We don’t have all day.”
I recovered my blazer, and with the collar turned up to protect against a light breeze, I stepped outside the ship.
Honestly, the cool fresh air was a welcome relief to the stuffy, odor-infested atmosphere inside the ship. Angela covered herself with one of my old windbreakers, leaving the long sleeves to cover her exposed hands like gloves, and joined me outside.
It was mid-morning on Ackonnon, and the relative warmth of the local sun felt good against my face. This was only the ninth planet I’d been on, but its similarity to Earth made it fail to trigger any feelings of wonder. Instead it was a brief stopover, like when you land at an airport in a foreign country but never leave the terminal.
Fortunately I did have a pair of binoculars aboard, and now I used them to survey the numerous lava tube openings dotting the walls of the caldera. They all looked alike. The thin layer of snow on the ground had masked any paths or signs of prior visitation leading to them. The only way to find the right one would be stand in the entrance and look in.
Angela was staring at a particular tunnel, one directly in line with the front of the ship. She looked the other way, following a line from the rear of ship toward the opposite cliff. Another opening was lined up there with the Enterprise.
“Could it be that simple?” she whispered.
I focused the binoculars on the tunnel behind the ship. Both the forward and aft tunnels had similarly-sized entrances and were located at about the same level as where the ship now sat.
“See how the landing area is aligned with those two openings,” Angela said. I was ahead of her, having already noted the significance.
“Like markings on a compass.”
“Exactly!” she exclaimed. “Maybe the platform was cut with a dual purpose in mind.”
There was only one way to find out. Both openings were about a mile and a half away. The mound we were on sloped down farther into the caldera before the sides of the began to rise to form the cliffs.
“You ready for a morning stroll?” I asked.
“Just so we don’t have to hold hands.”
Damn, I’d been counting on that.
Chapter 17
I had a set of walkie-talkies onboard—just standard issue for starships—so, Lefty and Dominic Klein set out for the tunnel at the forward end of the ship, while Bennett was assigned to accompany me and Angela to the tunnel at the rear. We each had a flashlight and an emergency first-aid kit. Call it a throwback to my Army days, but I believed in being prepared, at least for minor problems and injury. I hadn’t been expecting a treasure-hunting expedition when I stocked the Enterprise, so this was the best I could do.
Traversing a maze of rocks and uneven ground, it took us forty minutes to reach the opening of the lava tube. It was evident from the beginning that people had been here before, lots of them. I called Lefty and was informed that his tunnel was virgin ground and that he and Klein were on their way to us, double time. We were told not to go inside until they got there.
Of course I didn’t follow instructions.
The opening was about thirty feet in diameter, with evidence of prior lava flows forming a gently sloping ramp up from the base of the caldera. Just inside we found several abandoned crates, shoring equipment and even a rusty set of tracks. At one time, alien beings had worked this tunnel, yet by the looks of things now, no one had been this way in several years, possibly hundreds.
There were also a generous of skeletons scattered about. In most cases, it was hard to tell if they were from animals or intelligent life. They came in such varying size and shape that I concluded it was a combination of both, but mainly animals, possible food for the workers.
The floor of the tunnel was well-worn, especially following the path of the rail tracks. Angela and I ventured a couple of hundred feet inside before Bennett called us back, saying Lefty would be pissed if we went any farther.
We were waiting innocently at the entrance when Klein and Lefty jogged up. They weren’t even winded, the bastards.
“Looks like this it,” Lefty said redundantly. I’d already come to that conclusion.
We entered the lava tube, with Klein in the lead. I stayed close to Angela, not because I felt any manly need to do so, but just because I liked looking at her. Besides, if I did encounter any trouble, I knew she’d be there to save me. That was no joke.
As we made our way in, the passageway narrowed. The rail tracks spanned the floor, but it was obvious they hadn’t been very effective. Several long sections were missing and the space between them wasn’t always consistent. About a quarter mile into the mountain, they ended altogether.
That was when we came to our first challenge.
It was a wide canyon along our way, jagged and deep, which dropped off into a pit full of fallen boulders about three hundred feet below. If necessary, we could have climbed down and back up the other side—if we’d brought any climbing rope and equipment, which we hadn’t.
With the beam from his flashlight, Dominic Klein illuminated a mass of roots growing from the ceiling. Several dangled to our level.
He turned to look at me and smiled.
“No frickin’ way,” I said.
“C’mon, lieutenant, this is your chance to play Tarzan.”
I wasn’t buying it. Besides, it didn’t make any sense. I was sure Enic’s people didn’t swing from vines when they brought the Lights to the mountain.
“Klein, you lead the way,” Lefty ordered. “We need Jason alive to work the key.”
“Is that the only reason?” I asked. I was curious.
“In this particular case, yeah.” Lefty’s smile was disarming, but not reassuring.
Dom found a vine to his liking and jumped on it several times, testing its carrying capacity. Then he stepped back as far as he could before racing forward, swinging across the narrow abyss with his legs held out in front of him. This was child’s play for an Army Ranger, and he made it across with grace and competence.
But as he stood on the other side, something caught his attention off to his left. He laughed and shook his head.
“What’s wrong?” Lefty called out.
“Nothing, Sarge, just that there’s a bridge about forty meters to your right.”
All of us on this side of the fissure turned our flashlight beams in that direction. The trail narrowed here and disappeared around a rock outcropping. We shuffled through the channel single file until rounding the huge rock. Here the path widen, and as Dom had said, met up with a rickety-looking bridge made of frayed rope and wood planks.
I was growing more frustrated by the moment. This was so much bullshit—
Before I could voice my opposition, Angela was already halfway across the thirty-foot-long bridge. It swayed with her movements, but otherwise appeared solid and functional. She made it across without a problem. She turned to us, displaying a giddy smile. “C’mon, that was fun!”
She was acting like this was part of Disney ride. I knew better.
I wanted to go last, but Lefty insisted I go next. Both he and Bennett outweighed me, and they didn’t want risk breaking the bridge before the key-master made it across.
Remarkably, the crossing was easy and uneventful, again something we’d trained for in the Army—so many years before. Klein met up with us and we were soon back on the main path leading deeper into the mountain.
Ten minutes later the trail widened into a ball-shaped cavern. A strong and bitterly cold breeze whistled through it, causing us all to quicken our steps to reach the shelter we saw as a smaller opening on the other side of large stone cavity. I could tell where the wind blew in from right to left, originating from an opening in the ceiling and then following a flat, sloping path to an exhaust tunnel several hundred yards to my left.
We coughed from the thick dust in the wind.
The going was pretty easy here, with the floor of the cavern relatively flat.
Klein was racing ahead of us, blazing the trail…right up to the point he disappeared from view.
Lefty was ten feet behind him and skidded to a stop right about where Dom was last seen. The rest of us were at Lefty’s side a second later.
Dom surfaced a moment later, coughing and covered in thick, brown ooze. As he struggled, he upset a thin layer of dust and dirt that covered what looked to be a slowly moving river of mud. A shallow coating of water now created waves in the surface, showing us the edge of the flow. We ran along the side, staying parallel to Dom, who didn’t seem to be having too much trouble staying above the surface, as long as he didn’t struggle too much.
