Shackleton's Folly (The Lost Wonder Book 1) (24 page)

Alec was within ten meters of the surface. The mini-star’s granules boiled from below; arcs of magnetic forces swung wildly, ejecting polar plumes of material. The cable came to an end as Alec put out his arms, wrapped them through straps around what turned out to be a box. And, for a split second, the heat of the mini-star cooked Alec. The material the box was made of provided enough shielding that it protected most of Alec’s upper body.

Then he felt the spine-wrenching yank of the cable, as the safety line tied to the
Quest
demanded he left the vicinity. The straps he had woven his arms through now nearly yanked his arms from him, the suit’s carbon fiber mesh holding him together. The agency that had protected the box for thousands of cycles gave in and allowed him to leave.

The pain he was enduring was greater than he had ever experienced. A spasm shook him as the searing flesh of his feet caused him to try to pull his boots away from the heat. Had time slowed to a standstill? The mini-star filled his visor as the distance grew between him, the heat, and the pain. Alec felt the box in his arms, but it did not seem to matter anymore. The question he could not answer came to mind.
Did I make a difference? Were the contents of the box the third inscription pieces?
Numbness had overcome him in a tidal wave; Alec’s mind was not focusing well on anything.

A noise distracted him from his contemplation. It was the communicator crackling inside his helmet. His suit was toasted; he was going to need a new one. The communicator said his name. “Alec.” He managed to look up to see that he was being reeled back into the airlock.

The
Quest
’s thrusters lit up as he passed them. The ship flew into a shaft. Alec was not quite even with the tail of the ship when he was unceremoniously smacked against the hull. He felt his body scrape along the exterior of the hull during the mad dash back to the surface. Every course correction, every change in velocity was worth an extra bang against the side of the ship. When he got back into the ship, he would have to discuss this with Dancer. An Olympic athlete couldn’t manage the height he was getting from each and every slap alongside
Quest
’s hull.

The swing of the line made him the weight at the end of the pendulum. He wasn’t getting the height to clear pole-vaulting anymore — it was now somewhere between a high jump and hurdles. It all seemed improbable as he was dragged a short distance, which meant he was getting close to the airlock.

He had lived through the experience.

Hands grabbed his weakened body and pulled him into the ship. Alec lay there on the floor, unable to move a muscle.

He looked up to see Electra’s face through his visor, which was now cracked. She didn’t look good, which meant he was in bad shape. She closed the bulkhead and came back to him. It took but a second or so, in Alec’s perception of time, for her to take off his helmet. He tried to move, but his arms were still wrapped with the straps binding him to his prize.

“Did you retrieve him? He took some really big hits,” came Dancer’s voice from the intercom.

“Yes, we have him. Get us out of here as fast as you can, Dancer,” replied Electra. She looked down at her charge.

“Alec, don’t speak. Stay still and I will…” said Electra.

“…love you,” Alec lost consciousness. It was all for the better; he was really banged up and very, very tired. He was going to have to spend some time in the Medical Bay.

The
Quest
jostled back and forth. Electra pulled a toolbox of emergency rescue equipment closer to her and opened the lid. The magnetic base kept it in place. She rummaged through it and pulled out some heavy spacesuit cutters. They were for when seconds counted. She used the cutters to remove the straps from Alec’s arms to free the box from him. It took some doing, as the ship bounced them about. She freed first one arm and then the other. The ship pitched, and the box slid freely away from them into a wall on the other side of the airlock. Electra examined his spacesuit. It was burnt in some areas, and, in others, the heat had opened the suit a few layers in. She unsealed and took the gloves from his hands. She could see the intensely reddened, splotchy appearance and blistering of his skin.

Electra took the cutters and worked up the left arm to the collar. She started up his right arm but quickly found blood running down his arm from an open fracture, the gore and bone breaking through his skin. She hesitated only a second as she continued to remove his suit. Bruising on both arms started to show. Electra removed his cooked boots. They took the brunt of a lot of heat as Alec was yanked from the surface of the star. They, too, were burned like his hand. She cut up each leg, meeting up at his waist.

She had to hurry; her eyes watered. She made the cut through the chest wall of the suit from waist to collar, hoping the worst of Alec’s injuries were behind her. Electra’s heart pounded as she dropped the cutters to the floor and pulled apart the cocoon of life that had protected him. The tearing of insulation and threads reviled a crushed chest with at least one broken rib, broken and protruding from Alec’s chest. Alec’s breathing was becoming labored, but he was holding on.

“Dancer, Alec is hurt badly. I need you now!” she yelled into the intercom.

She smoothed back his hair; her tears fell on him. Electra whispered, “Love you.” The ship rocked, and the box slid back across the floor and into her thigh.

“Dancer! He has to go Medical Bay.”

She waited, holding on to Alec. She could not move him without causing more injury, so she waited. Electra looked down at the box resting against her. She had to know if this was really it. She examined the box; it opened with a simple latch. Electra turned the latch. It opened easily, but the box lid fell with a bang.

The pain she had been carrying with her for so long burst forth in a great release. A wail of sorrow and anguish reverberated from the walls of that airlock. She bent over the injured lover beside her and wept deeply. Electra was afraid of opening the box again and of what she would or would not find, but she needed to do this. Alec would not be lost like the members of her team who had died to retrieve this box.

The tears slowed to a trickle, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. Electra raised her hand to her lips, kissed her fingertips, and rested them gently on Alec’s forehead. She prepared to lift the lid of the box, getting a better grip this time, and bowed her head in a moment of respect.
This is for all of you who gave their lives for our people.
The lid lifted to reveal the third piece of the inscription.
The lives sacrificed to recover this were not in vain.

*

The
Quest
flew at full speed as the tunnel they were in suddenly ended just shy of the surface. Dancer and the
Quest
’s A.I. decided to make their own exit from the Snowflake. There, in front of them, was a small hole formed by a gap in the crystal positions, and the stars peeked through. The problem was that it was about two-thirds the size it needed to be for the
Quest
to escape. The two made the calculations in billionths of a second; weapons and loads were selected and fired. Missiles were used to break open a hole to a size large enough for the
Quest
to fly through, and the energy weapons followed to blast any pieces large enough to be a problem for the
Quest
’s shields. The
Quest
banked and rolled from the surface as it emerged from the Snowflake. The ship slipped into overdrive and put a great amount of distance between it and the Snowflake. The region that they had just escaped lit up with multiple energy beams reaching out after them. The
Quest
blurred into hyperspace as the FTL engines kicked in.

*

Dancer appeared at the door of the airlock. “He’s alive but just barely.” He had come in and scanned Alec.

“Dancer — to the Medical Bay, quickly. He’s lost a lot of blood,” said Electra as she wiped her nose.

Dancer had already started to pick up Alec in his arms, taking care not to exacerbate his injuries. “Immediately. Are you okay?”

She ignored his question. “Will he live?”

Dancer lifted the naked man from the cut-up spacesuit, “He is in bad shape. The blood loss is great.” He had raised to full height, with Alec cradled in his arms.

“He sacrifices so much of himself.” Electra helped Dancer adjust Alec’s battered body so he would not get any additional bruising on the way to the Medical Bay.

“That is his way,” said Dancer. “He gives of himself.”

Dancer and Electra made their way down the corridor quickly to the Medical Bay.

Electra looked down on Alec’s bloodied body.

Dancer watched Electra for her reaction. “He had me swear an oath that I would get you to your people if anything happened to him.”

“He is going to live,” Electra stated as fact.

Electra followed Dancer into the Medical Bay. Dancer laid Alec on the med-bed. Dancer initiated a full body scan. As the scanner moved along his body, the wall display showed large areas of damage from second-degree burns on his feet, lower legs, and hands. A broken arm that had poked through his skin. Three cracked and two broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and bruising of much of the rest of his body. A neural scan showed he had sustained a concussion.

“He’s lost more blood than I thought,” said Dancer. “He is too weak to handle any of the drugs we have to stimulate blood replacement.” Dancer took a mask from the headboard of the bed and slipped it over Alec’s face. The indicators showed the oxygen and anesthetic were flowing as prescribed by Alec’s injuries. Dancer started to close the med-bed’s canopy, but Electra stopped him.

“Can he use mine?”

Dancer scanned her. “Yes.”

“Take what you need from me, and then give me the drug.” She bent over and kissed his forehead. Then she stood up and hit the button herself. The bed closed over Alec and slowly filled with a transparent liquid. His body was able to breathe in deeply the mixture that would keep him unconscious, and the liquid with the added programmed nanorobots and stem cells would accelerate the healing of all of his physical injuries. The manipulator’s arms would operate on his injuries.

Dancer withdrew a folding chair from a compartment and placed it on the floor beside the med-bed. “This is dangerous, Electra,” Dancer said sternly. “The amount of blood we need from you could kill you.”

“Do not take this lightly,” she said as she squared herself, looking directly back at him. “When will we know he is out of danger?” said Electra.

Dancer responded, “Forty-eight hours.”

“Then what?”

“The bed will have him asleep for an additional 48 hours,” said Dancer as he took a reading. You will be here at least 24 hours yourself for the transfusion.”

The chair stretched itself out to support her. Electra picked up a datapad set in a recess of the room’s wall. She accessed the
Quest
’s navigation system.

“I will plot our course since I’m the only one here who knows where we need to go next.”

She brought up the holographic map of the galaxy and zoomed in on the section of the Frontier where the indicator had them located. She examined their current course and speed. She searched back to the beginning of their jump to hyperspace. There she found what she was looking for, the Heavenly Snowflake. The trinary system now found, she searched and had the navigation filter the star systems from that center point outward using a specific nebula profile. It took the system a moment to display candidates based on the information she had entered.

Three candidate nebulae were highlighted in the model. She tossed out the first nebula quickly because it had a new star within it. It was down to two possibilities. She zoomed in on the first and then returned to the previous wide-angle view of the region. Electra was about to zoom in on the second candidate when she had the navigation system return to the first nebula. Electra took a second look and then spun the nebula around the three axes to get a view from other perspectives.

That was it — just on the furthest edge of the data provided by the
Last Straw
. If it had been any further out, she would only be guessing as to where it was. She had the computer plot out the zigzag course from their current position. It would be a four-day journey to get there at three-quarters speed. Electra keyed in the commands, and the
Quest
changed course.

“You can pilot.” Done, she closed the application and replaced the datapad.

Dancer accessed the
Quest
’s Medical Bay system, giving instructions. A section of the wall opened, and the device wheeled itself out to stop next to her. Its cable systems reached out and wrapped themselves around Electra’s left arm from bicep to forearm.

Dancer opened a cupboard, and three drinks appeared. He handed her the first. Dancer scanned her. “You’re a demanding woman.”

Electra replied, “You have no idea what I am capable of, Dancer.” She looked at the drink. “Is this it?”

“It is just the first of many you will have to drink.”

Electra tipped the first one back and winced as she tossed it back. She looked up at Dancer, who nodded. She put the first cup down and picked up the next.

“Just because I am not of flesh and bone, Electra, does not mean I cannot understand that you and my friend Alec have fallen in love. I am happy for him; he has been very lonely recently. He jokes about his solitude, but I have the capability to recognize that this has weighed upon him emotionally.”

Electra finished the second cup and put her hand on the transparent cover encasing Alec. “I see. Then we will both watch over him.”

“Agreed,” said Dancer.

Electra watched over him like a tigress protecting her cub. Electra knew that the med-bed even now was in a continuous monitoring mode, directing the nanorobots to the injured areas of Alec’s body. She felt a little lightheaded as she picked up the third drink.

“Electra?”

She drank deeply, finishing the third. “I’m fine.” She lay back, the chair’s upholstery conforming to her body’s curves.