Beyond the Farthest Galaxy or The Search for Valhalla, are working titles for a science fiction novel that I would like to finish one day. To share some of my writing with my readers, I am posting the first chapter below.
In truth, I am not a scientific person. I’ve never been a big fan of Star Trek (I know, sacrilege) and thought the last three Star Wars movies were laughably awful.
That said, for years I’ve been tinkering with my own science fiction story. What I like about the genre is that it’s so creative. Like what Tolkien did with Middle Earth, it allows you to create your own world, your own creatures, planets, life forms, society, religion, etc.
The basis for the plot of Beyond the Farthest Galaxy is the classic Robert Lewis Stevenson novel Treasure Island. No, my story is not a re-hash of Stevenson’s, I mention this only to give you a rough idea of the plot line for the story.
Over the years I’ve accumulated a pile of notes, character sketches and outlines for Beyond the Farthest Galaxy, but have not actually written much more than the first chapter. I present it here to give people something to read.
Will be curious to hear what people think of Will and the planet Eden.
* * * * * *
1. William Pendleton
Like two dancers moving together, Will and Rafe pulled their longbows to their ears. The ox horn bows creaked as they took aim at a 5’ tall, two hundred pound, bipedal striped fox.
The striped fox had been named after a small animal native to a planet called Earth in the innermost systems. They both had red fur, a long snout, pointy ears and sharp fangs, though from the pictures Will had seen of Earth’s fox, it was not as big and dangerous as the one he was looking at down the length of his stone-tipped arrow. Their striped fox used its red fur and black stripes to blend in with the Oryo bushes that grew wild in the forests of Eden. Many an early settler had gone for a leisurely stroll through what looked like beautiful gardens, only to have a striped fox leap out from hiding to tear out their throat.
“Now,” Rafe whispered and the two let loose their bow strings. The arrows whistled through the air as they sped toward their target; Will’s red-fletched bolt striking the beast clean through the throat, a kill shot, while Rafe’s white-fletched shaft passed harmlessly through the Oryo bushes to thud into a tall Moroso tree.
As the beast fell, Rafe cursed under his breath. Months ago, when Rafe had convinced Will to go hunting with him, it had been his idea to award their kills to whomever made the better shot. Rafe had made this arrangement because he thought he had better aim, and it irritated him to learn that although his school friend couldn’t memorize and recite the names of the twenty-two inner star systems like Rafe could, Will had better eyesight and a steadier hand.
Lowering his longbow, Will commented, “You missed, again.”
Their companion, Keeta, a little humanoid creature bigger than a chimpanzee screeched in glee as she scampered through the tall grass to plunge a crude stone knife into the striped fox’s chest to make sure it was dead. Keeta belonged to a sentient tribe called Namba that lived in the Moroso forests of Eden. Namba weren’t as intelligent as humans, but they had their own language, had developed crude Stone Age tools and lived in the giant Moroso trees in herds of one hundred or more, mostly eating the fruit that grew wild in the forests.
Rafe considered Keeta and the Namba ‘idiots.’ In fact, he considered most humans idiots too, but Will couldn’t help admire Keeta’s skill with her crude, razor sharp knife. The Namba had six fingers on their hands and feet and their extra digits made them extremely dexterous at things like peeling back the hide from a dead fox.
After Rafe pulled his errant arrow from the Moroso tree, he raised his hand as if to strike the Namba. “I told you not to let her touch them. She’s done it again. She’s bloodied the fur. It’s no good.”
Will caught Rafe’s wrist and stopped him from striking Keeta. “You can have the hide. Just don’t hit her.”
“You sure?” Rafe said slyly. “I took the last four. You only got one.”
“It’s all right. Take it.”
Rafe smiled, “If you insist.”
Rafe and Will had met in the little one-room school house on the island of Ithaca. Their parents were members of an organization called the Anti-Technology Foundation. Will and Rafe’s grandfather’s had both served on the first starship, the Republic Colony Ship (R.C.S.) Compass, to enter the Gaia Galaxy. After they’d arrived, they’d found the planet, #R492, which system probe readings had determined contained the elements necessary to sustain human life, The crew of the R.C.S Compass found five planets in the system, one of which was Earth-size, predominantly covered by water, and crawling with flora and fauna. It looked so green from orbit they’d named it after the Garden of Eden. The world contained two continents, Capri and Iberia and a small island they named Ithaca after the home of the ancient mariner Odysseus. It wasn’t until they began exploring the surface and trying to set up a base that they learned Eden’s animal life, though not as advanced as humans, could be every bit as dangerous.
After the Republic colony Avalon was established on Capri and a wormhole generator constructed, starships began to pour into Gaia exploring the neighboring planets and setting up additional outposts on Capri and Iberia. Disgusted by the way the newcomers cut down the Moroso forests and exterminated creatures like the striped fox, a group led by the R.C.S. Compass’ original crew, including Will and Rafe’s families, informed the government officials at Avalon they were going to set up their own settlement on Ithaca called Independence, and they wanted to be left alone.
Calling themselves the Anti-Technology Foundation, or Anti-Tech’s, the group published a manifesto stating that they blamed society’s ills on the scientific advancements that had polluted the inner systems. Though they were laughed at and ridiculed in the press, the Anti-Tech’s said they intended on showing the universe it was possible to live a good, productive life by leaving their electronic gadgetry behind and living off the land. While the robotic farms built on Capri and Iberia produced enough food to feed a dozen planets, the Anti-Tech’s on Ithaca, though happy, struggled just to feed themselves.
As Rafe stuffed the striped-fox pelt into his backpack, Will spotted a long, dark shadow as big as a cloud moving quickly across the grass. Without a sound Keeta used her tail to scramble up a Moroso tree and hide among the giant leaves.
“Get down you big dummy!” Rafe yelled diving behind a striped Oryo bush.
The shadow passed over Will, blocking out the sun. He gazed up at the largest creature he’d ever seen, bigger even than the atmospheric craft that buzzed over Ithaca on their way to Avalon’s starport. People called them Eden dragons, but they weren’t real dragons, not like the ones Will had seen in the picture books at school. Eden’s dragons weren’t lizards with scales and didn’t breathe fire. They had feathers like a bird, talons long as a tractor blade and a beak so sharp it could bite a man in half, and sometimes did, if you got caught out in an open field and weren’t paying careful attention. On a clear day it was difficult to spot them against the sky because of their light blue underbelly, but today was partly overcast and the giant bird easily discernable against the dark clouds rumbling across Ithaca toward the island’s central mountain, the Twin Peaks.
Squinting, Will tried to figure out what it was carrying in its talons. “It’s caught something,” Will said, shielding his eyes with a big hand. “Something shiny.”
Keeta poked her head out from among leaves bigger than she was, and Rafe came out from hiding among the bushes. “It’s picked up a shuttle.”
Will had never been on a public shuttle, but each year one visited from Avalon carrying officials from the Republic. According to Will’s grandfather, they came to try cheating the Anti-Techs out of their land. Republic orbital surveyors had scanned valuable mineral deposits on Ithaca and wanted to buy it from the Anti-Tech’s, but Independence’s city council refused to sell. As Will recalled, a shuttle could hover over land or water and held about twenty passengers. The dragon carried the heavy, titanium steel vehicle as easily as a cat carrying a mouse.
“Where you figure the shuttle came from?” Will asked.
“Avalon, you idiot. Where else? You don’t see any shuttles in Independence do you? We’re still back in the twentieth century. We ride horses and plow with oxen while the rest of the universe flies space ships and manufacturers its food in factories.”
“Seem’s like a mite far to fly. I wonder if anyone onboard is still alive.”
“Why else would it pick the damn thing up,” Rafe said watching the creature disappear behind a cloud. “Eden dragons don’t eat metal. They’re carnivores. It’s flying to the Twin Peaks. She’s going to feed the survivors to her young.”
Will didn’t understand big words like ‘carnivores,’ but figured it meant dragons liked to snack on humans, which Will already knew.
“I’ll bet you there’s all kind of gear on that shuttle,” Rafe said. “If we could find the wreck, there’s no telling what might be onboard. Computers, helmets, maybe even a pistol or a decent rifle. Here we are, living in the Space Age, hunting with bows and arrows. I was born in the wrong place.”
“If there are any survivors, maybe we could help them,” Will replied.
Rafe laughed. “With what? These?” he said shaking his bow. “By the time we climb up the Twin Peaks, there won’t be any survivors. You coming?”
Rafe had a nose like a hunting dog when it came to smelling a profit. Though it was illegal on Ithaca to own any of the high tech devices made on Capri, all Rafe ever talked about was getting to Avalon where he wanted to gouge himself on video games, moving picture stories, and little boxes that magically played music. Rafe’s goal was to make enough credits selling striped fox furs to bribe a shuttle pilot from Avalon to stow him onboard. His dream in life was to get off Ithaca and go to work for one of the interstellar corporations surveying the star systems around Gaia. According to Rafe, you could get rich if you discovered some new mineral, gas or plant, that the corporations could turn into some fancy new consumer good and sell for a fortune to the ‘idiots’ back in the inner systems.
“I’m not a farmer,” Rafe told him again and again. “I’m an entrepreneur.”
When Rafe asked Will if he wanted to come with him to Avalon, Will shrugged and said he’d think about it. In truth, he hadn’t thought about it much. Will liked Ithaca. He liked the slow pace of life. He enjoyed walking behind his father’s plow. Though Rafe hated it, Will enjoyed getting up at sunrise and feeding the animals in the barn. When everyone got together to help a neighbor build a new barn, and afterwards threw a picnic with fried brownie steaks and nectar juice, Will got a nice warm feeling inside. He loved farm life, nor could he understand why Rafe was in such a hurry to leave it all behind.
“Come on,” Rafe said. “We got to make it to the base of the Twin Peaks before it gets dark. You can help me carry whatever we find. That shuttle is going to pay for my ticket off this chicken shit island.”
The two young men walked all afternoon across a vast plain of dark green sawgrass. Sawgrass looked pleasant enough from a distance, but if you examined it closely you could see each blade was made up of teeth-like saws that could tear through cloth pants, which is why both young men wore tough, knee-high leather boots tanned from the hides of Eden’s domesticated cows called brownies that provided their beef.
With Keeta perched on Will’s shoulder, the two young men trudged across the broad empty plain keeping a close eye on the purple clouds blanketing the afternoon sky.
“What if Montana comes back?” Will asked. The old timers that had crewed the R.C.S Compass called the two last remaining Eden dragons Montana and Nebraska, because they said they were as ‘big as the states of Montana and Nebraska.’ Though Will had no idea what a ‘state’ was, he figured they must have about the size of John Franklin’s barn, which was about the biggest thing Will had ever seen.
“Montana’s going to be busy for a while,” Rafe said urging Will to pick up the pace. “It’s Nebraska I’m worried about. Don’t look at me you idiot, keep your eyes on the sky.”
They trekked across the field without any trouble and made their way over the Oryo covered foothills to the base of the Twin Peaks. It was too late in the day to make it up to Montana’s nest on the snow-capped northern peak, but by nightfall they were able to make it half way up the mountain to the place where the air became too cold for trees and bushes to grow and they were forced to camp out in one of the many caves that dotted the eastern face.
“I know what you’re thinking before you even open your mouth,” Rafe said as they chewed on the tough, cured beef sticks they carried in their packs. “No, we ain’t making a fire and cooking up some of that ceva meat.”
Ceva were a stork-like bird that lived in the Moroso trees, famed for the brightly colored red, orange and gold tail feathers. The humans on Capri had hunted out all of the ceva for their feathers which they sold to the inner systems for ladies’ hats. Rafe had taken to shooting the birds with his bow just to scalp off the feathers, making Will suspect he had a secret contact in Avalon. What birds had survived on Capri and Iberia had flown to Ithaca where the Anti-Techs placed them on their endangered species list and protected them under their animal rights’ laws. That didn’t stop Rafe. He wasn’t against breaking the rules when there were credits to be made. None of which Will understood. The universal monetary system was made up of invisible things called credits you couldn’t carry in your pocket. They lived in something Will’s grandfather called a ‘system,’ only it wasn’t a star system. On the contrary, from what Will could figure out, this kind of system was so small, you couldn’t even see it. Nor did he see the sense of trying to store up something you couldn’t hold in your hands.
Will refused to shoot birds just for their feathers, something Rafe dubbed ‘idiotic.’ He hated to see their carcasses go to waste, so when Rafe killed one of them, he had taken to wrapping up the ceva meat to cook. He would have liked to have brought some home to his family as it tasted like chicken, but Rafe said he’d only get arrested for poaching, so instead he cooked the breasts and thighs for Rafe and Keeta.
“No fires,” Rafe glared at him. “Go to sleep.”
Using a rock for a pillow, Will wished he’d thought to pack a blanket. Keeta curled up into a ball beside him, providing some warmth, but not enough to keep his teeth from chattering after the sun went down.
They rose early and began to climb the rocky east face keeping a close eye out for Nebraska who was known to live on the southern peak. Like the ceva, the humans on Capri had shot up all their dragons, leaving only Montana and Nebraska. Every year when the shuttle from Avalon arrived in Independence, one of the subjects the government and Anti-Techs liked to argue over was the fate of the two remaining giant birds. The Republic’s officials claimed the dragons were a nuisance that mistook their robotic farming machinery for brownies, which cost them a fortune every year in lost equipment. The city council at Independence refused the Republican Guard’s planetary fighters permission to fly across their air space, saying the dragons had been on Eden first and had as much right to be there as humans, a position Rafe considered ‘moronic.’
Will sweated as he climbed, even after snow began to appear among the rocks. He was beginning to agree with Rafe that maybe the Republic was right for once, and maybe the city council was foolish for letting the last of Eden’s dragons live, especially when Montana and Nebraska might make a meal out of him at any moment.
Using whatever cover they could find, which wasn’t much, as no fauna grew this high on the Twin Peaks, the two young men made their way slowly through knee-deep snow. It was getting so cold, Will’s hands had turned red as a tomato making him try to remember what he’d learned in school about frostbite. While he fretted over such things, Keeta began to jabber excitedly in his ear.
Rafe hid behind a large outcropping of rock and motioned for Will to join him. “Your little pet…”
“Don’t call her that.” Like the ceva and the dragons, the humans on Capri had been merciless to the Namba, selling their populations to the inner systems as pets that they advertised as ‘smarter and easier to train than dogs.’
“All right then, your girlfriend then. I was only trying to give her credit for spotting it first. Look up there,” Rafe said pointing at a mangled piece of wreckage that had once been a titanium steel hovercraft. With the roof smashed in, it looked like a burned out shell of a building.
Keeta chattered in alarm and together the two young men ducked behind the rock as a large dark cloud drifted lazily across the snow. They watched as Montana returned to alight on the shuttle. Like a farmer opening the double doors of a barn, the dragon used its long talons to pry open what was left of the shuttle. The bird lifted its cruel red eyes to the sky, opened its curved beak and thrust its head downward as rapidly as a striking snake. Montana tore a row of blue cushioned seating from the craft and tossed it aside. Eventually it found what it was looking for. Rafe gasped as they watched the giant bird snatch up a lifeless human from the wreck, lift its head and swallow the body whole. Flapping its wings excitedly, she rummaged with her beak in the shuttle coming away with another human, this one alive—though not for long. The man got off three shots from an energy pistol before Montana ripped him in two with her talons as easily as Will might snap a breadstick in half at Sunday supper. With a high pitched screech of triumph, the dragon launched itself off the shuttle. With a piece of what had been a man in each of its claws, the giant bird soared over their hiding place, banked between the Twin Peaks and flapped its way to the top of the northern peak where it fed the bloody remains to a single blue-feathered hatchling.
“Come on. Now’s our chance,” Rafe whispered.
His throat dry and his knees wobbly, Will followed Rafe as he struggled through the deep snow. Will was plenty scared, but determined to see if they there were any survivors left that might need their help. What they found reminded Will of the time a transport ship carrying colonists from the inner systems had crash landed on Ithaca not far from Independence. His grandfather had told him to close his eyes, but Will had to look, and had been horrified at the sight of dozens of human bodies dangling from the Moroso trees like the blood red flowers that bloomed on them in Spring.
Keeta scampered back and forth across Will’s broad shoulders, chattering to herself nervously as Will fought back an urge to vomit up the brownie stick he’d eaten for breakfast. Like the transport ship, the shuttle was torn and twisted beyond recognition. Thankfully Will saw only six bodies. The first four had no pulse, the fifth breathed, but bled from his abdomen and appeared unconscious.
The sixth was a woman hiding in the tail section under what remained of the single engine. While Rafe looted the ship, giggling in girlish delight every time he found some new treasure, Will knelt in the snow beside a dark-haired woman only a few years older than himself. As he lifted the sheet of metal she’d been hiding under, his heart leapt into his throat. The girl was prettier than a newborn colt or a field of sweet corn on a summer’s morning. The sight of her face and fluttering eyelashes took his breath away.
“I-I didn’t think anyone would c-come,” she shivered, her breaths coming in smoky gasps. “Who sent you?”
“I’m just here with Rafe,” Will said apologetically. “Are you hurt?”
“My leg,” the woman said. Her body convulsed from the pain and the cold. “I think it’s broken. If you could just…”
“Don’t go no where,” Will said. With Keeta chattering in his ear, even though he didn’t understand Namba, somehow they both knew each other’s minds. Keeta pointed toward what he was looking for. In what used to be a storage bin, Will found a pile of blankets. He took them back to the woman and wrapped her in them.
“Thank you,” the woman said trying to smile. “My name is Joan. My father is the director of the E.M.C. If you can get me out of here, he’ll pay a rich reward.”
“Did I hear mention of a reward?” Rafe said joining them. His backpack bulged with electronic goods and he carried an old projectile rifle over his shoulder. “I was going to tell you to forget her and help me carry this heating unit down the mountain, but… How much of a reward?”
The woman eyed Rafe like he one of those acid spitting plants that grew in the Moroso forests and it had wrapped its vines around her ankle. “Not a hollow credit unless you drop what you are carrying and help Mr. Fairchild. I believe he’s still alive.”
Rafe laughed. “You’re in no position to bargain. Come on Will, leave her, and help me carry this equipment. With everything I’ve collected, we can not only book passage to Avalon, we’ll be able to live like senators. I bet we don’t have to work for a year.”
Joan reached up and touched Will’s face, searching his eyes. Her fingertips sent electric waves rippling up his spine like picture’s he’d seen of a science project called Jacob’s Ladder. “Please help Mr. Fairchild. Carry him here. We’ll cover him in blankets and hide him. I’ll send a rescue team. We’ve got to try.”
Will nodded and found the man with the gut wound and was about to lift him, when Rafe got in the way. “Hold on there hero.” Going through the man’ pockets he found a picture I.D. “Lieutenant Winston Fairchild, Eureka Mining Company, Navigator, E.M.S. Meridian,” Rafe read. “Ooh. Lieutenant. I’m taking his boots. They’re a good pair of synthetics. Perfect for sawgrass.” He pulled off the left boot, then the right, crying out in surprise as a pair of goggles fell to the ground. “Looky here,” he said. “Mr. Fairchild’s is hiding an optical headset in his boot. Must be something worth hiding. What could..?”
A black cloud covered them and a flap of giant wings knocked over both young men as Montana swooped down and snatched up Lieutenant Fairchild. Will fell hard against a twisted bit of metal that used to be the main beam of the shuttle. Gingerly he touched the bump rising on the back of his head.
Keeta keened in terror and clung to his neck as Will picked himself back up. He looked up through the hole in the shuttle’s roof to watch the majestic blue bird bank between the twin peaks as she carried Fairchild to her nest.
“Sorry about your friend,” Will said. Carefully he put his arms under the woman and lifted her off the ground. With Rafe berating him, telling him to drop Joan and help him carry his loot, and Keeta screeching in his defense, Will started down the Twin Peaks. Paying no attention to Rafe, Will hurried as fast as he could through the deep snow, carrying the woman as easily as a newborn lamb.
“Do you know what your Namba is saying?” Joan whispered weakly.
That surprised Will. “You understand her?”
“Some. Don’t you have an electronic translator?” the woman said and laughed lightly. Just seeing the woman smile made Will’s heart beat faster. “I forgot, you’re Anti-Tech. Your Namba is saying that your companion is evil. She keeps repeating it over and over, boka, boka, boka. It usually means bad. But in the pitch she’s using, it means evil.”
Rafe had his rough edges, but Will never thought of him as any worse than anyone else on Ithaca. “Rafe’s my friend,” he said defensively. Come to think of it, Rafe was Will’s only friend. The only one his age in the little school house they’d attended since they were boys. One day on the playground Will found two of the older kids banging Rafe’s head against a tree, claiming he’d picked something out one of their pockets. Will didn’t think it fair for two older boys to bloody Rafe’s face the way they were doing, so had pulled them off Rafe. When they turned their rage on him, Will blackened one of the boy’s eyes and broke the other one’s nose before their school teacher Mr. Edwards happened along and made him stop banging their heads into the same tree they’d been using to punish Rafe.
Ever since that day he and Rafe had been friends. He’d been overjoyed when Rafe asked him to join him hunting and fishing. Even if Rafe usually found some clever way, like claiming Keeta bloodied the pelts, to keep most of their catch, it was good to have a buddy. Even if Rafe called him a ‘big dummy’ more than he liked, that didn’t make him evil. Did it?
“Your friend is not a friend,” the woman said pulling her blankets closer around her. “You’re freezing. Take one of these blankets.”
“Thank you m’am, but that would mean stopping and I ain’t about to stop here in the middle of this open ground. Not with Montana roosting close by.”
By midday they’d left the snow behind and began their way down the rocky slope. Will found a cave that provided shelter against the wind and set the woman down inside.
“We’ll rest a few minutes,” Will said. “You hungry?”
“Starving.”
Will broke his last beef stick into three equal pieces and shared it with Joan and Keeta. “Should have thought to shove some snow in my pack,” Will said ruefully. “It would have melted by now and we’d have something to drink.”
The woman looked at him gratefully as she chewed. “I can’t figure out what someone like you is doing with someone like him.”
“Oh, Rafe’s not that bad.”
“No, he’s worse.”
As Will chewed thoughtfully, Rafe caught up with them. Scowling, Rafe unhooked his heavy pack and set it down gently, so as not to break any of the electronic gadgets he’d found. Wordlessly, Joan and Rafe glared at each other.
“Come here dummy.” Taking Will’s elbow, Rafe led him outside and showed him the goggles he’d found in Lieutenant Fairchild’s boot. “She didn’t care about him. She wanted this.” He flipped open the glasses and fit them on Will’s head. Tapping a button on the frame, Rafe said, “Go to files. Search for Valhalla.”
Will blinked as the clear glass of the goggles snapped on and a series of lines, words and planetary maps flashed before his eyes. The images moved so fast Will began to feel dizzy. He pulled the goggles from his face and handed them back to Rafe. “Makes my head hurt.”
“Yeah, well, that goes away,” Rafe said. “It’s an old optical headset. I don’t think the data is stored on the glasses, it’s probably saved on a secure server somewhere, this is just a link. But you can use it to access Fairchild’s personal credit account, read the intergalactic news, talk to a friend, watch a movie. Short of wiping your ass, this little baby will do just about anything. But the really important stuff, I found in a folder he had labeled ‘top secret.’ I don’t understand it all. It has to do with planet named Valhalla. And if it’s top secret, it’s worth a lot of credits to someone. This thing is as good as a treasure map. I sell this to the right buyer, the two of us can get away from cow town and live like emperors. The only thing you need to do is—dump the dame. You don’t have to cut her throat, just leave her here. With that leg of hers, she’ll never make down the mountain. Both of our hands will be clean.”
“Now Rafe, you know I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can. If you don’t, you’ll force me to put a bullet in her.” Lowering his voice, Rafe added. “We bring her back, she’s going to rat me out to the city council. All our plans will be ruined. I’m doing this for your own good, Will. You’re the only friend I got here. All you gotta do is walk away. Go on. Start down the hill.”
Will took a few steps back toward the cave. “I’m sorry.”
The woman had been right. Rafe was evil. He watched his friend unsling the rifle from over his shoulder and point it at him.
“Now, I’ve never had any practice with one of these. But at this range, even I can’t miss, you idi…”
Rafe never finished his sentence. His first glimpse of the giant winged bird was reflected in Will’s eyes. They’d finally found Nebraska. Or rather, Nebraska found them. Will ran for the cave, never taking his eyes from the creature. It was huge, even bigger than Montana, and easily recognizable by the scar that ran from under its right eye down its throat and through the white feathers on its chest. Its wingspan wider than John Franklin’s barn, the dragon swooped in out of the sun. Too late Rafe turned and tried to fire, but in his terror he fumbled with the gun, dropping it before he could get off a shot. Nebraska landed on him like a hawk on a rabbit, covering Rafe with his talons, but not squashing him under his weight. The dragon screeched and rolled Rafe over with a single talon like a cat toying with a mouse.
Will stumbled into the cave and snatched up his bow and quiver.
“Don’t! He’s not worth it! He was going to kill us both,” Joan yelled. She wore an optical headset similar to the one Rafe had taken from Fairchild. “I’ve got a signal. Don’t go…”
Notching an arrow in his bow, Will ran back outside, Keeta alongside him. The first missile stuck the bird in the chest. It was like trying to bring down a starship with a pointy stick. Shouting and waving his arms he tried to get the creature’s attention. If he distracted the beast, Rafe might be able to roll to safety. Nebraska glanced over at him like he was an annoying fly. The giant bird reared up and flapped its wings, throwing a cloud of rocks and dirt at him, driving Will back a step. Wiping the dust from his eyes, he aimed his second arrow at the bird’s face and let fly.
Keeta hopped up and down in glee. An eye shot! White fluid oozed from the red orb and the beast screamed in pain and rage. Now Will had his full attention. Deciding it had had enough fun with Rafe, the dragon raked its sharp talons over him, slicing Will’s school pal up like a loaf of bread. Rafe screamed in agony, his dismembered arms and legs flopping on the rocky ground the same way a ceva’s body twitched after you cut off the head.
Will placed a third arrow in the dragon’s throat and was reaching into his quiver again when Nebraska reared back his head, aiming to spear Will with its beak. Only Keeta ran out in front of him, drawing the bird’s attention, diverting his aim. The beak struck with cobra-like quickness—snatching up the little Namba. Keeta wailed as Nebraska lifted its head to the sky and opened its jaws wide. With a single gulp the dragon swallowed Keeta whole. A bulge that had once been Will’s friend slid down the bird’s long neck and disappeared.
More angry now than afraid, Will put a fourth arrow into the bird’s throat, which in its hurry to get at Will trampled on what remained of Rafe’s body. The young man’s head and chest splattered against the hard ground the same way an overripe plum exploded when you threw it against a wall.
As the dragon reared back its head, knowing he was about to die, Will let fly a fifth arrow. It flew straight and true right inside the beast’s open beak. As the arrow pierced Nebraska’s pink tongue, out of the corner of his eye Will detected an arrow of another kind speeding at the dragon’s back. Something long and white as snow struck the creature from behind. The next thing Will knew, Nebraska was enveloped in a wall of flame. The white missile had been fired by a robotic system fighter that soared high overhead, doing a victory roll between the Twin Peaks. Will was knocked off his feet by the concussion. Nebraska tried to spread its wings and fly, but its feathers lit up faster than dried hay in a brush fire.
Joan had managed to crawl from the cave where she lay on the ground watching. With Nebraska filling the mountain air with black smoke and screeching out its death knell, Will picked up the woman and carried her back inside lest they both end up trampled underfoot.
“Are they both gone?”
“Yes,” Will said. “You did that?”
“If you have the credits, in a matter of minutes you can have an X-11 shoot down anything on Eden. I may go to jail for breaking about a dozen of your laws, but you were worth saving. I can’t believe I watched you stand up against a dragon with only a primitive bow. That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Keeta was the brave one,” Will said. I’m just a big dummy, he thought. Will glanced at Rafe’s backpack and considered opening it to see what Rafe traded his life for, but left it alone. He needed to get Joan to a doctor.
Nebraska finally ceased its cries and fell, landing so hard it shook the ground.
“Wait here. I’ll be back,” Will said, intent on making sure Montana was not hovering overhead. Nebraska sizzled like a steak on a grill at a picnic on Foundation Day. The air smelled like burnt ceva. Like he’d been drawn to the colony transport crash site, Will could not help but stare at Rafe’s body. It looked as smashed, broken and bloody as one of Eden’s oversized mosquito’s that Rafe had liked to squash with a hammer.
Not far from Rafe’s remains his rifle lay on the ground. Will considered picking it up, but what was the point? The Anti-Techs would only take it from him. The sun broke through the clouds and glittered on something lying next to the gun. It was the goggles Rafe had found on Lieutenant Fairchild. Will put them on, but grew frustrated and took them off when he was unable to figure out how to make the pretty pictures flash before his eyes.
Rafe had called it a treasure map to a planet called Valhalla. Will had never heard of the place, but the idea of owning something ‘secret’ lifted goose bumps on his arms. Like Joan, he would break the law too. He shoved the glasses into his pocket and went to tell her it was safe to move.
The last thing I’ll say about book 3 is that the same way that Eury was reunited with Theokles during the Battle at Phalerum in book 2, his friend will reappear in time for the Ionian Revolt’s famous Battle of Lade. There will be some surprises regarding Theo and his mistress Stesilaus, so I’ll close here before I give anyway any spoilers.
The Wandering King 