Alpha Rising (18 page)

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 stuff?”

“
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.