by S. E. Smith
“Your wish is my command. I’m sure Aunt Dian needs to eat and Jake could probably stand a good dinner. I know I could.” He laughed. “Let me show you the spot we picked out for the rock’s permanent home and then we can go find a restaurant in the city.”
A few minutes later as Steve drove along the winding road to leave the park, Juli squinted at the sky ahead and said, “What is that? See the weird cloud?”
“Fire, a big one by the looks of the smoke,” Steve said after assessing the gray column spreading across the sky.
When the car went by the ranger station, the mystery was solved, as half the building was engulfed in flame. Steve slowed down in case the rangers might need help but a local firefighter who was directing traffic waved them imperiously toward the exit.
Chilled, Juli sank limply against the car’s cushions. “I don’t think my rock appreciated being left in the junk heap.” She craned her neck to catch another glimpse of the fire and was relieved to see the ranger she’d talked to standing unhurt, conferring with the firefighters.
“The fire does seem like quite a coincidence,” Dian agreed.
“And it fits the pattern,” Steve said, accelerating as the car reached the main highway to the city. “All the more reason for us to do this job tonight and put the damn thing on the beach where it wants to be.”
When queried by Juli, Maeve made a recommendation for a restaurant and the team enjoyed a five course meal of the best sea food she’d ever tasted. “I need to talk to Chef Stephanie about developing a special menu featuring these delicacies,” Juli said as she emerged from the restaurant with her companions and headed toward the parking area. “What a wonderful experience. It’s nice to have good memories to go along with the seriously terrifying ones on this cruise.”
“Tonight should be a piece of cake,” Steve said as he handed her into the groundcar, while Jake escorted Dian. “I’ll brief you as we drive but basically, all you have to be responsible for is the rock.”
By the time they arrived at the park, Juli’s confidence was restored. Really the evening should be quite simple and how much trouble could there be, simply sneaking into the park and placing a rock with other rocks? She was a bit bothered to be trespassing but knowing what the rock was capable of, she resolutely opted to believe the minor transgression was justified.
Jake took a few moments to unlock the park’s gate at the ranger station and close it behind the groundcar after Steve drove through, the lights off. He was wearing special night vision adapters.
The smell of smoke from the partially destroyed ranger station was acrid on the otherwise balmy night air. Juli coughed and swallowed hard as Steve parked out of sight from the road and the team got out to hike to the rock pile. Nerves were making her a bit shaky but her companions were confident and moved with alacrity, so she stuck close to Dian, as previously instructed, and tried not to stumble as she snuck through the trees, approaching the junk pile from the side.
Jake and Steve stood guard while she located the rock, still in its wicker basket. Kneeling, Juli addressed the alien entities before she touched the container, hoping they were in the mood to listen. “I’ve come to take you the rest of the way to the beach tonight,” she said, trying not to feel foolish or like an actress in a low budget trideo. Thunder rumbled overhead and the breeze grew stronger. She smelled the promise of rain on the wind and hoped the storm would hold off until she was done with this task. Retrieving the basket, she rose with Steve’s help, cradling her burden close to her body, and rushed to the vehicle.
“Maeve found us a service road,” Steve said as he got behind the controls. “It’s never patrolled as far as she can see, which is a plus.” He drove as efficiently as always, even though the lights were off, steering by way of the vids and sensors. “It’ll take less time too, which is another point in its favor. More direct than the tourist access. The management here definitely makes the guests take the scenic route.” Glancing at the now tattered basket in Juli’s lap, he shook his head. “Not to offend anyone or anything, but I’ll be glad when we’re on our way home to the ship.”
The hair on the back of Juli’s neck prickled and she had goosebumps. She couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding riding her like a weight on her shoulders. This is too easy. She kept her eyes averted from the rock.
They arrived at the beach much more rapidly than she expected, based on the previous trip from the ranger station. Steve helped her out of her seat, burdened as she was by the rock, and then the four of them headed to the beach from the parking lot next to a small maintenance shed. Charrli ran ahead, pausing here and there to sniff at unusual scents. The path was narrow and the footing a bit uneven, so Juli was grateful for Steve’s help. She could walk faster when she reached the actual beach although the weight of her burden was pulling at her arms and back muscles.
“I’ll be stiff and sore tomorrow.” Maybe she could get Steve to give her a massage later. Juli’s mood lightened a little as she considered the prospect.
“I can carry the bag for you,” he said.
Although tempted to hand it over, she shook her head out of a sense of duty. “I think it’s safer for all of us if I keep it but thank you.”
“Going to be a wild night,” Dian said in a low voice from behind her. “The ocean is all stirred up by the oncoming storm.”
Juli risked a glance at the waves, which were much bigger than the ones she’d seen on her first visit to the beach. The surf pounded the sand with an audible boom each time a new wave hit. Foam blew through the air, tossed by the winds.
“Not much further now,” Steve said, raising his arm to point to a cluster of boulders and smaller rocks ahead.
Charrli growled, which was all the warning Juli had of what was about to happen.
“That’s far enough,” shouted a loud voice. “Stand where you are, throw your weapons over here and raise your hands where I can see them.” The command was punctuated by blaster fire, striking the sand close to Steve.
Juli’s first thought was a disjointed amazement the rangers had set a trap for them but then as six armed men surrounded them, blasters aimed menacingly at her and her companions, she stifled a scream. Not surrendering their weapons, Steve and Jake tried to shield Dian and her but plainly they were outnumbered.
“I’m not going to tell you again—toss your weapons away. Get on your knees, hands locked behind your heads,” the leader said. “All we want is the rock. Don’t give me any problems and you can all walk away from this encounter.”
“Amarotu Combine?” Jake asked as he and Steve complied with the order.
In shock, Juli went to her knees in the sand.
No one answered Jake’s question but the situation was obvious.
“You don’t want this rock,” Juli said. “It’s—”
“Bad luck?” The leader guffawed. “Yeah, we know all about its properties, more than you do most likely. The Combine had a spy embedded in Rodrimueller’s operation, tried to grab the chunk of stone once or twice before. Even tried to buy it from you, nice lady. You should have taken our offer. Would have been easier for all of us.”
“The rock killed your man on our ship,” Juli said. “Did you know that? Please let me put it where it wants to be and then we can all go home.” Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed across the sky.
“No can do,” the leader’s answer was cheerful. “My boss wants this thing. It’s worth a lot of credits, too many to be left sitting on the beach for someone else to come along and help themselves to.” He gestured to one of his men. “Bring her over here.”
Steve rose from his knees to challenge the thug as he grabbed Juli and Jake followed his lead, attacking the man nearest to him and sending him sprawling, leaving Jake in possession of the blaster. Barking loudly, Charrli lunged forward and sank his teeth into the leg of another man, who toppled over sideways, screaming curses. Dian pulled a tiny blaster from hiding and shot two thugs in rapid succession.
Juli hunkered d
own in the sand, cradling the basket since she had no weapon and no unarmed combat training. Suddenly Steve jerked her to her feet, forcing her to drop the rock’s container and pulled her to his side. He dragged her toward the tree line with him, as he continued firing his blaster. She realized he was doing his best to shield her body with his. Jake and Dian were also shooting as they ran.
When Juli reached the forest at the edge of the beach, Steve pushed her into the cover of a large tree. “Are they pursuing?”
Barely breathing hard, Jake shook his head. “We’re not what they’re interested in tonight. I’d be calling for backup otherwise. The Combine doesn’t want the trouble it would cause if we disappeared and on the other hand they know the planetary police would laugh at us if we tried to report a beef at the beach over a stolen rock.”
“Thank the Lords of Space for rational criminals,” Dian said in an acidic voice. “But I concur with your assessment.”
“Are you all right?” Steve stared at Juli intently while Jake and Dian kept watch on the Amarotu, still on the beach, clustered around the rock’s gaudy container. “Sorry if I was too rough but we had to get out of the situation.”
Clearing her throat to make sure her voice was steady, Juli said, “I’m fine, thanks to you.”
“We got the damn rock to the beach, which is what our orders were. We can’t help it if other people take it from there.” Steve sounded relieved.
“And we were lucky the Combine doesn’t want further complications,” Jake said. “We’d better be going, in case the boss changes his mind.”
“The gang members are between us and the groundcar, unfortunately. We’ll have to plot a course to work our way around. Or take a chance and wait till the coast is clear.” Steve took another cautious look at their adversaries.
“We’ve done enough,” Dian said. Charrli crouched at her feet, fangs bared, growling in counterpoint to the distant thunder. “The rest is up to the rock.”
“They’re leaving.” Jake’s voice was a mere whisper.
The Amarotu squad withdrew down the beach, carrying their wounded. Given the dark reputation of the crime gang, Juli couldn’t feel sorry a few of the thugs were injured. Steve, Jake and Dian had shot in self-defense. We could have been killed. She wondered if the alien entities had anything to do with their relatively easy escape. Her guess was affirmative.
“Can you walk?” Steve asked as she rubbed her arms in a futile attempt to stop shaking.
Before she could reply, a flyer came arrowing in from the direction of the ocean and landed where the Amarotu were headed. Steve pulled her to the ground and the other two also sought cover. Juli watched as the gang climbed aboard their unmarked transportation. Illogical anger at the way the criminals had so easily obtained their desire was pushing her to take action, thwart the escape but she knew there was nothing to be done.
“Where does the rock not want to be right now?” One arm around her as she lay hidden in the fernlike undergrowth, Steve’s question had an undertone of amusement.
“Oh. Oh!” With dawning comprehension, she watched the flyer rise serenely from the beach.
Suddenly there was a tremendous bolt of lightning right overhead, followed immediately by thunder, which drowned out an explosion as the Amarotu ship dissolved into fiery fragments, raining onto the heaving ocean.
“Lords of Space, I can’t believe it,” Juli said, barely able to breathe. “The rock blew up their flyer.”
Lightning played across the sky in a display of power rendering night into day.
Dian gripped Juli’s elbow so hard she protested involuntarily but forgot to breath the next second as the rock appeared on the sand about ten feet away from where she crouched. As the thunder rumbled, the dark sparkling minerals broke apart and sloughed away, leaving a brilliant white, marble like chunk, with the vein of purple glowing nearly as brightly as the lightning above had done.
The white and the purple drew apart until they were totally separated and then rose into the air, twining around each other like sinuous carvings in a mad dance Juli found too dizzying to watch. She blinked to quell the vertigo rising in her body and when she opened her eyes again, she saw two beings standing on the sand. Roughly humanoid, well over eight feet tall, the entities stood with clasped hands, facing the tree line. Their long manes of hair, one bone white and the other glowing purple, blew in the wind.
Juli was glad she couldn’t make out any details of the faces, although there was a red glow on each where eyes might have been. The creatures were oddly blurred. Neither made a sound or a gesture but rose into the air together and flew toward the ocean, soaring and dipping as if dancing and then suddenly diving below the waves in a flash of color echoed immediately by the biggest burst of lightning yet. The ocean glowed and then the illumination slowly faded until the waves calmed, the wind died and the clouds parted to allow the moons to shine brightly.
“I guess they went home after all,” Juli said as Steve helped her to her feet and she dusted the sand off her clothing. “I—I think we’re free to do the same.”
Charrli barked as if to agree with her.
Epilogue
“The beach is so beautiful,” Juli said. “Especially at night.”
“Not nearly as beautiful as the girl I’m finally taking on our first real date.” Steve leaned over to kiss her.
“It was nice of the captain and Maeve to close the beach level just for us tonight,” Juli said, gazing out to ‘sea’ and admiring the holographic moonrise the AI was projecting.
“And thoughtful of Chef Stephanie to make a special picnic dinner for me to impress my date with,” Steve said. He raised the lid of the basket sitting off to the side of their Nebula Zephyr blanket and helped himself to another seafood appetizer. “Can I get you anything else to eat?”
Shaking her head, Juli rose and extended her hand to him. “I vote for an after dinner walk, followed by a session of fairly intense kissing and then a retreat to your cabin because it’s got a bigger bed than mine.”
“I’m fully on board with that agenda.”
Barefoot they meandered down the beach, holding hands. “I’m glad you didn’t mind not spending any more time on the planet,” Juli said. “I didn’t want to tempt our luck—”
He laid a finger gently over her lips. “Don’t even say it. I won’t relax until we’ve left orbit without any stowaways whether animal, mineral or vegetable. Or anything else.”
“I’m surprised Dian decided to take her vacation there anyway,” Juli said. “I mean, I know she’s working while she’s there too and had promised her followers a special Tahumaroa program but she’s a braver woman than I am.”
“She has Charrli to protect her. Not to mention the Commissioner of Tahumaroa Parks she met.” Pausing in their leisurely walk, Steve drew her closer. “I’d rather not think about her or the dog or anything but you right now.” He put a finger under her chin, tilting her head to his for a kiss.
As their lips met and she melted into his loving embrace, Juli heard a rumble of very distant thunder, almost like applause.
About Veronica Scott
USA Today Best Selling Author
Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything. When she ran out of books to read, she started writing her own stories.
Seven time winner of the SFR Galaxy Award, as well as a National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, Veronica is also the proud recipient of a NASA Exceptional Service Medal relating to her former day job, not her romances!
She read the part of Star Trek Crew Member in the official audiobook production of Harlan Ellison’s “The City On the Edge of Forever.”
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Also by Veronica Scott
Star Cruise: Marooned
Star Cruise: Outbreak
Star Cruise: Songbird
Star Cruise A Novella: Stowaw
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Star Cruise: Mystery Dancer
Pauline Baird Jones - Cyborg’s Revenge
Project Enterprise Series
They say you can’t go home again, but what if it is the only way to truly be free?
Rap solves problems large and small. He solved them when he was human. He solved them when he was a robot. Now that he’s mostly human again, he’s still solving problems. He is currently working on his biggest threat—his old Master. He’ll need all the help he can get from his pet, Snake, and his new friend, Nelson, the AI inside his head. What he wasn’t expecting was the wrench that was thrown into the equation—Ale. He thought he knew all there was to know about Ale—but he was woefully wrong.
Ale’s new body has made her human again—mostly—and her new beating heart is pounding for Rap. It’s a pity that Rap is inscrutable and she’s got a huge secret that she can’t share. The secret stored inside her could be the key to ending the threat from their former Q’uy Master, or could doom them all to captivity once more.
Rap and Ale must face their greatest enemy if they hope to defeat him, but can they find love and a happy ever after while they do it? Only the chatty Snake knows for sure.
Chapter 1
The Plan
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“Unless you wish on a star.” Jett
It was ready.
Rap—formerly robotic unit RaptorZ—took a deep breath, trying to ease the tension in his shoulders and back. His chair creaked and he almost sighed. He used to be able to work around the clock without the aches or the creaks. He hadn’t needed a chair at all while in his previous unit. But he wasn’t a robot anymore. He reached out and used the datapad to flip through the plan again. Not that he needed to. It was burned into his brain. That hadn’t changed with his transition back to mostly human.
