Curse of the Altered Moon: Altered Moon Series: Book Two (The Altered Moon Series 2) Read online

  AZ Kelvin

  www.azkelvin.com

  The bookshelf of

  AZ Kelvin

  The Altered Moon Series

  Rise of the Altered Moon

  Curse of the Altered Moon

  Apogee of the Altered Moon

  Projects in the works:

  The Druids of Arden

  Green Rising

  Southern Winds

  Here We Ghost

  For more information on The Altered Moon Series and other projects AZ is working on be sure to visit:

  www.azkelvin.com

  Curse of the Altered Moon

  Altered Moon Series: Book Two

  Written by

  AZ Kelvin

  Published by Lee Companies, LLC. * Copyright 2013

  Original cover design: CJ Lee * Story Wrangler: Sunny Lee

  Edited by Nikki Busch/nikkibuschediting.com

  Second Edition 2016 ISBN: 978-0-9863395-5-4

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, vessels, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ~I dedicate this book to my late father, Bill Lee~

  My dad’s dreams were never mine.

  My dreams were never his.

  Thank goodness that didn’t matter to either of us!

  ~I love you, Pop…always will~

  Chapter One

  Beads of sweat stood out just below Star Pilot Gina Riley’s eyes and lower lip as she focused her attention on maneuvering the Altered Moon through a series of tunnels barely big enough to fly the ship through. ‘Oh yeah, big enough to fly a battle cruiser through,’ their allegedly reliable source had told her. Tuffy Polenz was known to embellish upon details now and then if it would glean a few more coins for his purse.

  “I’m gonna bitch-slap that bastard Tuffy, next time I see him,” Gina grumbled through clenched teeth.

  “Easy, G, we’re down to a meter and a half on the port side,” Science Officer Boss Keltzer read from his sensor screen. “One-point-seven on the starboard. Three-point-six to the dorsal fin. Ten-point-four meters below.”

  Captain CJ Evermore sat at the command station and watched the tactical overlay on the main viewer. “Ahead slow, G, looks like we have a bottleneck coming up.”

  The head-on silhouette of the Altered Moon was basically a triangle with the two wings and the dorsal fin making up the three points. The length of the ship from bow to stern was about two-thirds of the distance, wingtip to wingtip. While nimble and quick in open space, the Altered Moon wasn’t exactly made for flight in tight spaces.

  “Roll one hundred ten degrees to port and drop z minus four meters.” CJ studied the projected diagram of the tunnel layout.

  “Answering one-ten roll to port and drop four.”

  Gina maneuvered the ship as CJ ordered so it fit within the confines of the tunnel and could continue a hundred meters or so further on. The tunnel curved to the right and out of sight, but the scanners showed that it narrowed even further.

  “Bring us to a dead stop at the curve and we’ll do a deep scan of the next section,” CJ said to Gina.

  “Roger that.”

  “Science Officer, deep scan, if you please.”

  “Already on it. Deep scan commencing.”

  The tactical display updated as the scanners plotted out the tunnel dimensions. A mutual groan came from the bridge crew as they saw the dimensions shrink to smaller than the ship was wide.

  “GABI?” CJ called into the comms.

  “Here, Captain.”

  “You and Cal are going to have to stand by. We’ve run into a snag.”

  “Understood, standing by.”

  CJ got up from the command station and walked up to stand next to Gina at flight control. They watched the screen as the scan completed as far as it could through the dense rock walls of the tunnels. The wireframe structure on the tactical display representing the tunnel dimensions continued to get smaller as the scanners plotted farther in. He looked over at Gina after absorbing the new data. “Kinda tight, huh?”

  “Yup.”

  “Up for it?”

  “Yup.”

  “Okay. Boss, keep an eye on those screens.” CJ returned to the command station. “Switch viewer to starboard cam. Gina, spin us ninety degrees to port, lateral port thrusters. Keep it real slow and take us sideways down the tunnel.”

  “Copy that.” She hoped her captain didn’t have more confidence in her abilities as star pilot than she deserved.

  “Captain—?” Boss asked hesitantly.

  “Only as far as the next section, Boss,” CJ reassured him. “If it doesn’t get better, we back off and send in Moonshadow to recon the rest of the tunnel.”

  “We need the dark matter beams to get GABI and Cal into the chamber,” Boss stated the obvious.

  “Yes, according to Tuffy. We’ve come this far, we’re not leaving without at least seeing if it’s worth coming back.”

  “You’re not wrong there, Seedge.” Boss checked his display panel. “Seven meters now below, six meters above.”

  “Steady as she goes, G,” CJ said.

  “Aye, sir.” Gina slowly slipped the ship sideways down the narrow tunnel.

  Gina used short pulses from the port thrusters to move the Altered Moon little by little down the tunnel. She didn’t want to build up too much momentum in case she had to come to a quick stop to avoid hitting something unforeseen.

  “Another bottleneck coming up, Captain,” Boss read from the detailed scan on his console.

  “All stop,” CJ ordered.

  “Answering all stop.” Gina fired the starboard thrusters to arrest the sideways momentum of the ship and to bring her to a stop.

  “Run a deep scan, Boss, and bring up a three-dimensional readout of the immediate vicinity.”

  “Coming up now.” Boss initiated the scan and displayed the generated results of the bottleneck on the main viewer.

  CJ leaned forward in the captain’s chair to place his right elbow on his knee; he covered his lips with his fingers as he set his chin on his palm heel. He studied the readout, absorbing every protuberance, every contour, every angle, hoping for an answer to be there somewhere.

  “Boss, can you shade the open areas with grey?” CJ asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Boss said with a slight question in his voice. He made an adjustment on his console and the open areas of the display took on a translucent grey color.

  “Now, can you overlay a three-dimensional silhouette of the Moon on it?”

  Boss made a few more adjustments and an outline of the Altered Moon appeared on the screen as well.

  “Move it through the tunnel display and alter x-, y-, and z-axes where necessary.”

  Boss fiddled with some settings and the image of the Altered Moon began to slowly move along the simulated tunnel. The crew watched carefully as the display flashed red at points where the simulated ship collided with the tunnel walls. The outline of the ship would stop and readjust its position until it found a way past the obstruction. More than a dozen such adjustments were necessary to weave their way past the bottleneck, theoretically. Bumping up against a wall in a simulation, however, wouldn’t tear parts of a ship.

  “Deep scan shows a large cavern on the other side of the bottleneck, Captain,” Boss reported optimistically. “And, it appears to be the end of the road. Readout shows no other exits. We’ll have to come back out this
way,” Boss added with raised eyebrows and a gleam in his eye. “One wall reads flat and smooth.”

  CJ shot a look over his shoulder at Boss with his own eyebrows raised. “Can we hit the wall with the moonbeams from here?”

  “No, sir, ’fraid not.”

  “Gina, what do you think?” CJ asked the star pilot.

  “I think it’s a trap, sir.”

  “How so?”

  “I think it’s a lure to get ships in that cavern then seal off the exit somehow. Trapped with no way out and it wouldn’t take much to close us in. We barely fit through as it is.”

  “Yes, that’s an excellent point, G,” CJ sat and thought for a moment of what they’d already survived.

  Things had gone well for CJ and the crew of the Altered Moon in the two years since their involvement in exposing the Kang invasion. Several jobs, most of them legal actually, had put West Becreth Trading Company in a favorable financial position. Boss and Gina’s legitimate trading company covered up how the crew ‘covertly acquired’ rare artifacts. The crew kept the secret and everybody got a cut. Sweet deal: just don’t end up caught or dead.

  He could ask the crew for opinions all day long, but in the end it would be his decision, his responsibility.

  CJ poked the engineering icon on the comms panel. “Chief?”

  “Here, Captain, go ahead.” Chief Engineer Katy Latimer answered his hail.

  “Things are getting tight. Be ready for anything,” CJ advised her.

  “Roger that.”

  CJ poked the med bay icon. “Cat, will you come up and take tactical?”

  “Aye, sir, on my way,” came the answer over the comms.

  “Boss, bring every camera online. I want eyes everywhere.”

  Boss worked the instruments on the science station control panel for a moment. “All cameras are up, Captain. Scanners and perimeter sensors are online.”

  The hatch of the bridge pressure door slid aside and Chief Medical Officer Zhu Katsu stepped in. She greeted the others as she took her position at the tactical station usually manned by Tactical Officer Warren Caltrop; he was currently on special assignment with the resident self-aware artificially intelligent entity ‘GABI,’ who was also the ship’s operations officer.

  “Thank you, Cat. Bring the cannons online and stand by to blast anything that threatens to impact the ship,” CJ said, as she came in.

  “Understood.”

  “Boss, you call out the adjustments. Gina, just focus on maneuvering. Everyone ready?” CJ scanned the bridge to make sure everyone was eyes up and aware. He got two nods from Boss and Cat and an “aye, sir” from Gina, who was facing away from him. “G, super slow to starboard. Boss, you’re on.”

  “Roger that, Cap. G, pitch up twenty-two degrees in ten seconds, five seconds, three—two—one—now.”

  “Pitching up twenty-two degrees.” Gina rotated the bow of the ship up to the mark.

  “Roll eight degrees to port and drop two meters,” Boss read off the real-time diagram.

  “Rolling port eight and dropping two.” Gina maneuvered the Altered Moon so the right wing tip and the dorsal fin both cleared rocky outcroppings.

  “All stop,” Boss called out.

  “Answering all stop.”

  Boss studied the diagram for a moment. “Six degrees starboard yaw.”

  “Roger, six degrees starboard yaw.” Gina put the ship into a slow flat spin six degrees to the right. The left wingtip moved around a tight corner, which left the ship in a short upward-angled chimney-style passageway.

  “Okay, G,” Boss said. “We need a very clean eighty-two meters to the dorsal starboard quarter. No room for movement fore or aft.”

  “Understood.” Gina had already gone over the necessary thruster patterns in her head, which at her level of skill as a star pilot, were second nature almost to the point of being subconscious. She knew her job and her ship, and she knew exactly what she needed to do. She pushed the ship up and sideways with the ventral and port thrusters while maintaining attitude control and checking her speed with the dorsal and starboard thrusters. Gina held the ship in a perfectly static position while she slipped the Moon eighty-two meters up the angled passageway and brought her to a stop.

  “That’s my girl,” Boss said quietly.

  “Nicely done, G,” said CJ.

  Gina resettled herself in the pilot’s seat, “What’s next?” she asked.

  “The crux, actually,” Boss responded. “We need starboard yaw two hundred-sixty-three degrees, pitch down thirty meters, and roll to port fifteen degrees…all at the same time. Then slide to port twenty-two meters, flat spin to port thirty degrees, move forward one hundred and eighty-eight meters, and drop down into the cavern.” Boss finished with a ‘that’s all there is to it’ tone, which earned him a sour look from Gina over her shoulder. “You’ve got this, G, you’re the best star pilot there is.”

  “That is without a doubt,” CJ added.

  “Okay, kids, here we go.” Gina mustered all the skill and patience she had to maneuver the ship through the odd-shaped opening. The Altered Moon moved through it with little room to spare, as Gina deftly tilted, rotated, and spun the ship around the tight corners. The problem was she would have to do it all over again on the way out.

  “Room up front’s pretty tight, Captain,” Boss said.

  “Main view screen forward.” CJ leaned back as the image of the rock wall completely filled the view screen. “Reduce magnification.”

  “Already at zero mag.”

  “Oh…,”

  The wall seemed to get even closer as the ship slipped around the sharp rocky corner.

  The wall fell away a bit at first, then to a semi comfortable distance, as Gina finished the maneuver and brought the ship into position to drop down into the cavern. The tension on the bridge eased as they went lower and Gina moved the Moon into the spacious cavern. She brought the ship to a dead stop a hundred meters away from an unusually smooth and flat surface at the far end of the cavern. She set the autopilot to station keeping and leaned back, rolling her head around to unknot the muscles of her shoulders and massaging her neck with her hands as she did so.

  “Thank you, G,” CJ said, as he leaned forward on the armrests of the captain’s chair. ”You’re the best pilot in the business.”

  “Thanks, Captain, but I’ll hold that in reserve for when we make it out.”

  Now for the next step of the plan, which was somewhat unusual in nature and had been a bone of contention between Cal, the one who came up with it, and Cat, who thought it to be reckless and foolhardy.

  The obstacle they needed to overcome, other than just getting the ship inside the planetoid, was ‘The Wall’ itself, an apparently seamless wall of solid rock. Unnaturally smooth and flat, The Wall gleamed in the ship’s floodlights. No sensors could read beyond it and the precarious nature of the surrounding rock made such destabilizing actions like drilling and detonations out of the question. Who would build and hide such a wall and what was behind it had been the subject of many stories and speculations. The curious nature of The Wall had been curbed by story after story of the bad things that happened to any person or crew that obtained the map of its location, either through purchase or purloin. CJ and the crew bought the map, regardless of it being cursed or not, from Tuffy Polenz, thinking they had just the ship to deal with The Wall.

  The unstable rock and confined space were not the only things that kept fortune hunters from trying their luck against The Wall; no one even knew if there was another side. Maybe it was just solid rock. The truth of the matter was people were just plain scared of the place’s reputation.

  Cal had told CJ if they could make a big enough hole in The Wall with the dark matter Moonbeams, they could launch someone in a thruster suit through the hole into the chamber behind it and that someone could then recon the area and send information back out to the ship. That someone, of course, had to be Cal. Why? Because, he explained with typical Warren Caltrop wisdom,
‘Only someone with an ear nubbin pierced with a gold hoop could pull something like this off.’

  The description fit Cal himself to a T, due to the loss of his left ear and eye in a battle between the Arzian Alliance and the Kang Armada several years ago. The eye had been replaced with a silver cybernetic implant and, with his characteristic flair of personality, he had what was left of his ear pierced and fitted with a small gold hoop.

  The only glitch in the plan, and Cat made sure everyone was aware of it, was that no one knew what would happen to a Human being who’d been exposed to any concentration of dark matter. Chances were nothing would happen, given that items of solid nature like missiles and such had passed through without a problem after the dark matter dissipated.

  Cat just didn’t like the man she cared about being the guinea pig in this experiment. GABI had opted to go along as backup in case anything happened to Cal, which made Cat wonder why Cal had to go at all. She knew at the same time this was what he lived for. He was the classic thrill seeker and she loved him for it, but it didn’t keep her from expressing her concerns to CJ when the plan was first hatched.

  “Cal,” CJ called into the comms unit, “we are in position and ready to begin work on The Wall.”

  “Roger that, Cap. We’re good to go on your command.”

  “Very good, stand by.” CJ threw a sly look at Cat. “You want to give Cal’s EV suit a final inspection, Doctor?”

  “Aye, sir.” She could barely contain her smile.

  “All right, Boss, run a complete detailed scan of the entire cavern.” CJ looked over the image of The Wall in the view screen. “Let’s see if we can solve this mystery.”

  *~*~*

  Chapter Two

  While CJ and the others analyzed the cavern walls, Cat went back to the shuttle bay to see Cal off on his mission. Cal was going over the equipment again to keep busy while he and GABI waited for the ‘go ahead’ from the bridge to let the games begin, as Boss was fond of saying. He looked up and smiled as Cat came through the hatchway. “Zhu! How are ya, hon?”