The Pandora Chronicles - Book 1 (A Scifi Adventure Thriller) (27 page)

Maybe Briggs was just bluffing.

“Like I said, it’s all classified,” Briggs said dismissively. “The United States thanks you for your services, which you will be compensated for. Go back to your teaching and partying, Solomon. Forget about all of this.”
 

He climbed into the last armored car that had been patiently waiting for him to finish his conversation with Nick.

“Wait!” Nick yelled as he pointed Finnegan’s sword towards Briggs. When the director turned to look at him, he said, “The books, I want them.”

“The red one is US property,” Briggs replied. He picked up the
Belladonna
’s logbook, the one that Nick had dug from his ancestor’s coffin, and turned it around in his hands. “I’m still trying to decide whether this one is, too.”

Excalibur spoke for the first time since exiting the cave. “That one’s not relevant anymore,” she said. “I verified its contents myself—just a diary of a dead pirate. The only data of any value was the location of this place, which we don’t need anymore since we secured the artifact.” She looked at Nick and for a moment he caught the tiniest glimpse of compassion. “Solomon only wants it because he’s related to the owner.”

Briggs frowned at the book, then at Nick. “What, like some long lost great uncle, or something?”

“Or something,” Nick replied, all the while glaring at Briggs. “It belongs with me, just like this sword. It’s all I have left of my family. The way I see it, this might just make up for sending an armed chopper after me.”

Briggs’s eyebrow shot up, before tossing Nick the logbook. “Don’t cause me any more trouble, Solomon. I’d hate to shoot you.” He turned to Excalibur. “Coming, Agent?”

She nodded and gave Nick the same look she had given him earlier, making it clear that this wouldn’t be the last he’d see of her.

But Nick was too pissed off to care.

“Go screw yourself, Briggs,” he yelled as the armored car drove off, leaving him standing there alone in a cloud of dust with his middle finger high in the air.

Nick looked around and saw the quad bikes where Astrid’s men had left them. Resigning himself to having to ride one of them down to civilization again, he fastened the cutlass to the side of the most comfortable looking quad bike and put the logbook in his jacket pocket. Then with a final groan, he straddled the vehicle and pushed the accelerator.

Chapter 39

One week later. South beach, Miami, Florida.

Nick Solomon glanced at his watch for the second time.
 

He wasn’t the type to get nervous before a date but the woman he was supposed to be meeting had that effect on him. Some would go as far as to say she terrified him.

After the events on Cedros Island, Nick made it back on US soil only to find out someone had requested a leave of absence on his behalf at the college. He figured it was most likely the NSA, allowing time for him to infiltrate Astrid’s inner circle and obtain the red ledger.
 

Which the NSA then took, he reminded himself, together with an alien artifact of immense power without even so much as a pat on the back for putting his neck on the line, not once, but twice, for a mission they forced him into.

So, in order to recover from his ordeal, Nick had decided that an extended vacation at a luxury hotel in South Beach was in order—he had
 
money to spend and loads of free time to do it.
 

And besides, he was still peeved about wasting those concert tickets.

On his second night there, he had received a text message from Agent Excalibur.
Maddie
, he reminded himself. Screw the code names—she was the girl he grew up with, and no amount of ass kicking and super sleuthing could change the way he saw her.

After what happened the last time they had seen each other, Nick was genuinely surprised she wanted to meet outside of business hours.

As usual, heads turned when she walked in, a perfect physique with just the right curves that would make the goddess Aphrodite jealous. Excalibur had chosen a simple, sapphire dress, loose enough to inspire fantasies—something which Nick was more than happy to indulge in. Her golden-blonde hair was tied in a loose plait with two strands hanging smoothly on either side of her face, and her icy-blue eyes glittered like fireflies.

She walked up to Nick and gave him a light embrace. Surprised, he returned it, and pulled out her chair.

“Is this how you treat all women?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Usually. Although, for some reason, you make me nervous,” he admitted.

She smiled. “How so?”

“You nearly killed me. Twice.”

Her smile turned into a grin. “Then you better make sure your hands don’t wonder.”
 

Nick was suddenly very conscious of his palm pressed against the small of her back and quickly retreated. They both sat down at their dinner table, in what was probably one of the most expensive restaurants on the planet.
 

Excalibur looked around and took in the suit that Nick was wearing. “You clean up nice,” she remarked. “Although, only you could pull off the rebel look in a tux.”

Nick had his shirt collar open and no neckwear whatsoever. His blazer hugged his frame, but the man made no effort to look smart. “Thank you,” he said with his usual smirk.

She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t a compliment.”

“Yes, it was.” he shot back. Nick motioned for the waiter, signaling for him to pour a few sips of red wine in Excalibur’s glass. She twirled it and took a tentative sip.

“Impressive choice,” she said.
 

The waiter topped their wineglasses and placed the bottle in an ice bucket.

“So,” Nick began, once they were alone again. “Why am I sitting here with you?”

“Because you can’t say ‘no’ to a beautiful woman?”

He cocked his head. “Fair enough. Okay, then, let me rephrase that. Why is Agent Excalibur seeing me again?”

She grabbed her purse and opened it. “She’s not. I went off-duty for a bit after we were done with our assignment. My only official business this evening is to hand you this.” She passed Nick an envelope.

“What’s this?” he asked, taking the envelope and peeling it open. Inside, he found a cheque made out to his name. Nick took it out, counted the zeroes and let out a soft whistle.

“Your paycheck,” she replied.

“Damn. The government does pay well, after all.”

“Only in some sectors.”

The waiter appeared again, this time to bring their orders—a seafood salad with a side of caviar for her, while Nick, on the other hand, had selected the largest lobster in the tank and ordered it stuffed with the Chef’s speciality. Without a word to one another, they dug into their food, and the conversation stilted.

“I have nightmares,” Nick said, after a few minutes of silence. “About when I connected with the… you know…”

She nodded. “What kind of nightmares?”

He dropped an empty lobster claw on his plate. “Monsters from space coming over. People killing each other. Death, destruction. I feel the same kind of dread as if I’m constantly walking on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the moment I slip up and fall.” He looked directly into her beautiful cold eyes. “I meant what I told you guys on that island.”

Excalibur smiled. “That we should go screw ourselves?”

“Well, yeah,” Nick replied. “I mean, not you. Just Briggs. He’s nuts.”

“Yet, you were the one yelling at a moving car,” she pointed out.

“Okay, I’m insane too,” he said. “But I’m also charming, so that makes it all right.” Nick let out a heavy sigh. “I meant the part where using that sort of technology is dangerous.”

She shrugged. “Nothing either one of us can do now, not even Briggs. It’s completely out of our hands.”

Their conversation was interrupted when the wait staff arrived to clean away their dishes.

“That was a nice treat,” Excalibur said, changing the subject. She sipped her wine. “I’m glad I asked you out, Professor.”

Nick smiled nervously. “I’m still not sure how well this date is going. Or if it is a date at all.”

She smiled and opened her purse again. “Maybe this will convince you,” she said, sliding across a keycard.

“What’s that?”

“A key to my suite upstairs,” she replied coyly.

“Huh?”

“You know, for a supposed player, you’re very slow on the uptake,” she said playfully. “This is my first vacation in three years, ever since I took up the codename Excalibur, in fact. And I happen to find you very attractive.” She smiled seductively. “Not to mention the fact that you did promise we’d spend some time together in a fancy hotel in Florida once we were done. So, Nick Solomon, are you a man of your word?”

Nick swallowed hard. He tentatively slid his hand forwards, brushing against hers and their fingers intertwined together.

“I didn’t think you’d actually go for it,” he said.
 

She rolled her eyes and they seemed to twinkle as she smiled. “What can I say, Solomon. You got to me. So, how about it?”

Nick stood up and, still holding her hand, helped Maddie out of her seat. He pressed her close to him and their lips met in a fiery kiss—the prelude to a long and passionate night.

He smiled at her. “I say, hell yeah.”

EPILOGUE

“The ashes of your existence will fertilize the soil for the universe to follow.”

—
Richard Kadrey,
Sandman Slim

Terraferma Habitable Colonial Space Station: Aurora. 3012.
 

After a long day of learning how to pilot star-craft and memorizing deep space navigation algorithms, most cadets would simply be too exhausted to do anything but pass out at the Academy’s barracks.

Captain Lazar Solomon had just graduated mere weeks ago and already was given his rank. It was an honorary rank in recognition of his skills, but once he would enroll in an actual military division, it would become his official status. Even as a cadet, the Major who served as the Academy’s headmaster had assigned him to real combat missions. In the eyes of the
Aurora
’s military forces, he was an up-and-coming prodigy, a rare genius that came about once in a lifetime.

The nurse who found him abandoned back on Earth, just before the Event, had tried to help him with his mental recollection, but to no avail. Lazar had no memory of his past, just a series of flashes and a name clear as daylight: Solomon. They had assumed that was a family name, the first clue to discovering who this mysterious boy was. The nursing home had given him an official name, but Solomon much preferred his nickname.
 

Lazar was a moniker given to him by the Academy, once they saw him employ his favored tactic of playing possum to lure the enemy. He also had a knack for coming out unscathed from scenarios that were designed for failure, and often required technicians and programmers to redo the simulation algorithms all over again.

Ever since his first breath, Lazar Solomon felt different from everyone else: an alien, even amongst his people. He would often have visions or display feats which could be considered unnatural phenomena, and that was precisely why he always explored his abilities in the privacy of his quarters, all by himself.

Until that was no longer enough. The voices in his head grew louder by the day, compelling him towards a specific course of action.

Whatever the voices wanted, he knew he would find the answers in the Army’s archives, accessible only to personnel with the rank of Captain or above. So, in hopes of sating his strange curiosity, he snuck in a few weeks ago to access the data, and the information he found had left him staggering.
 

He saw it all, locked away in a databank inside an old-style wooden drawer: what he was, his nature, his memories, the voices, his abilities, the three space stations in orbit, and the Event which forever reshaped their home planet—it was all connected.
 

And it all led to one being in the entire galaxy: him.

Something had awakened inside him and it was like he had been reborn over the course of a few days. Lazar waited until the time was right—
felt
right—before springing into action.

It was the dead of night and the docks were devoid of life at this hour. He passed through locks and controls, all the way to the hanger where fourteen commercial, deep-space star ships sat as dead as outer space. He quickly selected the one best suited for his needs and hijacked it.

He took off without a second thought, guided only by his instincts, speeding towards a specific location: the Protosphere, a man-made protective barrier which served as a dome above all land on the space station.

Beyond that was outer space, and the uncertainty it brought. Few souls ever dared venture beyond the boundaries of their space stations, but Lazar knew there was nothing left for him on
Aurora
.

Whatever answers he sought were now among the stars.

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