Xalata Orbit and Melody Fret: The Hammer of Asttar Read online

  Xalata Orbit and Melody Fret - The Hammer of Asttar

  A novel for teenagers of every age.

  By

  Nick Evans

  © 2015 Nick Evans

  Copyright notice

  Xalata Orbit and Melody Fret - The Hammer of Asttar

  By

  Nick Evans

  Published by Nick Evans

  The Mill House, Manor Court

  Bishops Offley

  Stafford

  ST21 6ET

  First published 2015

  © 2015 Nick Evans

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized copying or reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  Xalata Orbit and Melody Fret - The Hammer of Asttar

  Copyright notice

  Chapter One

  A silent traveller

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  The traveller moves on

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  The Coming Threat

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Hammer of Asttar

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Locked on target

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Epilogue

  About the author

  Dedicated to Gabrielle Hadley, my soul mate

  Chapter One

  "For Frank’s sake!" muttered Xalata Orbit as she stepped out of the immigration area and, through the group of travellers exiting the immigration lounge, saw the leering face of Adolf Fark set eyes on her.

  The lunar shuttle had just completed the trip from Earth with its cargo of people, supplies, tech and large quantities of things that just couldn’t be made on the Moon. It was the lifeline that tripped back and forth from one of Earth's orbiting space stations. These were connected to the land with elevators that ran up and down a carbon fibre connection, getting rid of the need for rockets to help people leave the Earth's gravitational pull (an idea that had been thought up by a science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke, hundreds of years before).

  Xalata’s trip had begun the day before as she left her home to come and join Brett Orbit, her father, at the Hydroponics Department of the Moon’s Central Air Facility. Following the journey, she'd then been put through the indignities of security at Arrivals, where screening made sure that infected travellers, terrorists and illegal imports of potentially dangerous goods could not gain access to the fragile spaceworld of LunarBase.

  Now, though, she was angry as she saw the person meeting her.

  "Zala-taar ... my dear ..."

  "It’s ‘Zah-latta’, not ‘Zala-taar’," she broke in "and I’m not your dear. I thought Dad was going to meet me."

  "Unavoidably detained, I’m afraid. The demands of his work, you know. My name is Adolf – pronounced Ay-dolf, as you can hear – see we have something in common already! I volunteered to meet you – to welcome you to Luna and help you get settled in."

  Fark’s voice dripped with unsettling tones that made Xalata’s skin crawl. She knew that she had to make a good impression – not one of her strengths generally – but she also knew that more than a few minutes alone with this creep would be enough to ensure that she completely blew it before she’d even begun. Summoning the best effort she could, she set her face in as genuine a smile as she could manage – supreme effort – and followed Fark as he led the way into the Arrivals area of LunarBase Nearside – the main hub for anyone visiting the Moon.

  Xalata had been living with an aunt on Earth while her father followed the big opportunities on the Moon and earned enough to keep her at a good academy for her initial education. Earth was not a great place to be - a massive pandemic, named "The Great Plague", had made normal life almost impossible around fifty years previously. Normal medicines had not stopped the advance of the superbug that had cut a swathe across the world and reduced its population by one third.

  So survivors of that period had settled themselves in secure and easily defended areas - mostly on islands such as The British Isles, Madeira, Malta and the Caribbean, or in huge walled cities that had been built to defend their inhabitants: Beijing in China, Chicago on the borders of the US with Canada and Dubai, in the Persian Gulf. Border controls were strict and there was lock-down of any area that showed signs of the disease.

  Terrorists had also used the virus as a weapon, infecting citizens in undefended cities and causing widespread terror, panic buying and isolation among cities’ residents. Those unlucky enough to be outside had a high chance of contracting the disease and of death. Normal life inside the enclaves was much as before, but simply locked down and restricted.

  Now, though, was the time when Xalata needed to make some choices about what she wanted to do. When she reached fourteen, her father had encouraged her to come out to LunarBase to learn hydroponics – growing plants without any soil and making breathable air, as there was no atmosphere on the Moon. Frankly, the idea bored her, but she’d had enough of life on Earth, her friends – such as they were – irritated her and the idea of an adventure to the Moon captured her imagination more than anything else had managed to do over the years.

  She was quite tall for her age - 14 years and four months old - a tricky age. As she'd come from Earth, she was still wearing Earth clothes, although she'd had to wear a pressure suit for part of the journey. She stood now in the Arrivals area, wearing her black and red-flashed ScramSuit - a one-piece travel outfit - and faux leather boots with brightly coloured titanium buckles - her very favourites. Pretty, in an angry sort of way, she had clear blue eyes and dark spiky hair that stood out from her head in a series of angles.

  So here she was with not much idea of what to expect on the Moon and a chip on her shoulder the size of the Zandos building in New London. And Fark was already frying her wiring with his oily manner.

  "We’ll take the TransTrak across to your accommodation," said Fark, "and your things will follow in a little while."

  "OK – but when do I get to see my Dad?"

  "That will depend on his duty period. Most people finish at around 18 hours, Earth time. Meanwhile, let me look after you ..."


  Fark was short and skinny with lank, greasy hair that flopped across his eyes. His pointed nose and wet lips made him look vaguely like a burrowing animal. He wore the uniform of business people everywhere - dark trousers, white open-neck shirt with a pointed collar, fitted blue jacket and shiny dark blue shoes.

  He rubbed his hands together as he talked, one hand on top of the back of the other, reminding Xalata of a bad waiter in a sleazy restaurant she had once visited with her aunt.

  "I can take care of myself ...", Xalata bit her lip, "well, I mean, that’s very kind of you, Mr Fark ..."

  "A-dolf, please."

  "Yes. Sorry, A-dolf. Kind, very kind. But really there is no need to trouble yourself. If you can take me to the habitat then I can settle in by myself."

  She could see that Fark was not impressed. His moist lips set into a thin line and he flicked his unusually long, oily hair back, away from his eyes.

  "I see. Very well." And he marched off with big strides (for a small man), leaving Xalata to scamper in his wake, as the last thing she needed was to lose him until she arrived at her new home.

  The TransTrak boarding was only a few hundred metres from where they had arrived and Fark quickly identified the correct set of pods that were heading to Xalata’s habitat.

  Making conversation to ensure that no one could accuse her of being tricky, moody or difficult (regular descriptions from her teachers and keepers on Earth), she said: "I haven’t seen anything like the TransTrak before, Mr F ... erm, Adolf, A-dolf – sorry! On Earth we’re using trains and travelators."

  "Ah yes – not really practical here on the Moon. Low gravity and the lack of an atmosphere make it difficult to travel on the surface. So we’ve become like worms, my dear, worms! Nanobots create new tunnels to each habitat, as they are built – it’s really very quick indeed. A typical tunnel between two points – say of 50 kilometres – can be cut, lined and prepared by the ‘bots in under two months. When it’s finished, they just stop – part of their clever programming. Now, we can flash through these tunnels in a pod and no one steps on the surface."

  As he spoke, the pod in which they had sat, with around ten other people started to move and, as it left the boarding unit, it quickly gained speed until everything outside the windows was simply a blur. It was silent – maglev, magnetic levitation, Xalata guessed – and there was no sense of motion after the initial acceleration.

  "So what happens if the nanobots don’t stop tunnelling?" asked Xalata, continuing the conversation in the hope that she could get Fark’s mind back onto holding forth about stuff and stop him from looking at her.

  "Well of course that did happen in the early days. Programming for the ‘bots was still not perfected and the termination override on one project failed to engage and the 'bots continued to tunnel right around the Moon’s circumference. They only stopped when they reached their starting point because, for the first time, there was nothing left to tunnel. Awful stew about that in the Praesidium – it should never have happened. But then people started to realize that we now had a complete lunar circumnavigable tunnel system – by accident. Not that we use it."

  "But don’t the 'bots run out of power?"

  "No my dear – never. They create their own power from the resources they find in the material around them, just like they do with the building materials. Everything is made from what’s there already. On the Moon, we can only make things with what we have. So the imagers – "dupers" I think you young people call them – print new objects and devices from the materials that we have here – rock, minerals and chemicals that we can extract from the surface."

  "So, ultimately, the ‘bots can go on for ever and so can the dupers?"

  "Well yes and ... oh, here we are. 20 kilometres in a matter of moments!"

  The pod decelerated sharply and pulled into a disembarkation area and, as they moved to step out onto the platform, Fark turned to Xalata:

  "You need to play nicely with me, young lady. I can make life very unpleasant if I am so minded," and with that strode off again to the exit, Xalata following behind.

  A silent traveller

  It was about half a kilometre across by a kilometre long and it rotated along its length in a lazy motion that belied its purpose. It had sat in the outer reaches of the Asteroid Belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, since the solar system had formed and the leavings of the planet-making had simply gathered together to form a band of left-over rock and minerals that rarely moved ... unless they were pushed.

  This nameless rock had been pushed, quite deliberately. Engineers had captured it, built massive nuclear fusion devices on it to give it a thrust out of the belt and had detonated the devices to send the asteroid on a new path, towards the terraforming fields on Mars, building a habitable planet out of a hostile environment.

  It rushed silently through space, its presence unnoticed by anyone other than those who sent it. Its final objective was to hurtle through the atmosphere of Mars and impact the surface of the Red Planet at high speed, throwing up rock and minerals, spilling out its own ammonia-rich core, helping to kick-start the greening of the planet and the creation of a breathable atmosphere.

  But then, something changed.

  Chapter Two

  The habitat was bigger than she had expected. A large clear atrium, like a glass bubble, swept overhead, covering a mall area with shops, entertainment and eateries, just like on Earth. From the sides of the atrium, tunnels pitched underground, labelled with street names – Victoria Road, New York Drive, London Avenue. As far as Xalata could see, they bore no resemblance to the roads she knew on Earth. Each tunnel was formed of crystalline stone – a little like marble but without any colours other than a bland, off-white. Thinking about it, she realized it was the same as the walls of the tunnel for the TransTrak:

  The ‘bots again, she mused. They set off down Victoria Road and after an initial slope downwards for about 10 or 20 metres, the surface levelled off and the tunnel stretched out before them.

  "So, if you want natural light, you need to go back to the mall, then?" she questioned Fark.

  "No, indeed. There is more light available in each home within the habitat – you’ll see in a few minutes. There is always a lightdome that brings in natural light, usually in the main living area. You can imagine that, with the habitats being largely underground, we have to restrict the amount of surface that is exposed to the lunar vacuum. A breach on any lightdome would of course be fatal to those living in there, within only a few minutes. So you’ll discover that there are airlock overrides which close quickly in the event of a breach anywhere in the habitat."

  "Pretty freakin’ gloomy, if you ask me." As she spoke, she thought of Fark’s words as they disembarked the pod. "It’s very kind of you Mr ... A-dolf," she corrected herself, "to tell me all about the habitat ‘n’ everything. I’m sure it’ll be great once I get used to it."

  "Well, let’s see how you like this then," said Fark as he pushed through a swinging airlock door that was covered in signs warning about its sudden closure in an emergency. "Your home is just down here and Brett will be along very soon I am sure."

  The smaller corridor now led to a number of doors to the left and right, but the one Fark approached was at the very end, facing down the way they had come. On the door, which looked like wood but felt like cool plastic, was a nameplate with "Orbit" in simple print upon it.

  "Your key," said Fark and he handed Xalata a small plastic disk about the size of a large coin. As he did so, the door opened automatically. "It only works for you," he continued. "It’s hard-wired with your DNA so that, when you approach, the door will open for you and only you. If someone else tries to use it, not only will the key fail, an alert will sound and the area will lock down. So, don’t share it!"

  "OK," said Xalata. "Sounds a bit overkill."

  "Indeed not, my dear. Security is a major priority here. Although privately owned by corporations, the habitats and the work that goes on here are h
ighly guarded. You will learn that in some ways this may restrict your life occasionally. It’s all for the greater good."

  Xalata walked through the door into a small lobby from which opened a number of other doors.

  "I’ll leave you here," said Fark. "Your father will no doubt be back in due course, but your luggage will also arrive. Open the door when it arrives, but do not let anyone else inside. Establish first that people are who they say they are."

  "OK – er, thanks," said Xalata and she stood by the door as Fark walked out.

  "Anything, my dear. Anything at all. You have only to ask," he said as he turned on his heel and walked away.

  Xalata watched him go and suddenly felt very alone and rather scared. Here she was on the Moon for Frank’s sake! The only person she knew was Fark, and her Dad would return, who knew when? She decided to explore – a job that wouldn’t take very long.

  The home consisted of the entrance lobby, a utility cupboard containing equipment for cleaning, a small living area and kitchen/diner with – yes, a lightdome - a bathroom with a shower, loo and hand basin and two tiny bedrooms – one with a small double bed and the other with two bunks.

  Everywhere was light and off-white and there was no sense of a personality about the place. It could have as easily been a prison on Earth as a home on the Moon. In many ways though, it was better than Xalata had expected. What had she expected? She couldn’t really recall, but all she felt was a big sense of displacement – being somewhere totally alien to her.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp buzz and she realized that it must be a visitor at the door. She went back into the lobby and saw a flashing red light on a speaker grille near the door. On a tiny screen she could see an image of the person outside – no sign of Xalata’s bags. In fact, the visitor was a young girl, about her age.

  "Hello," she said to the microphone, pressing what she assumed was the intercom button. No. It was the door release and, a moment later, she was facing the girl on the doorstep.