The Fire Crystal
Authors: James Lawrence
THE FIRE CRYSTAL
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James F. Lawrence
Copyright © 2013 by James F. Lawrence
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Disclaimer
This book is a work of fiction. All persons
and places described within it are imaginary. Any comparison or identification with real people, past present or future is unintentional.
This book is an adventure in Space and Time: It starts on Earth. The Quest for Fire Crystal takes place across the sea, jungle, and desert. The story moves up into Earth Orbit, and you make the jump into Hyperspace – inwards towards the Galactic Hub.
Tom, Calvan
, and Amber travel through time, to our own future - ten thousand years from now. There they visit the Hall of the Masters, and hear the warning from Jalwath the Elder.
A message for our own time that must be delivered:
Time travel is
the
single most dangerous thing in the entire universe
“Anything that can happen probably will.”
Jalwath the Elder 12,019 AD
1
Fireball
Tom fought with the controls as he desperately tried to pull the cruiser upwards. It was too late. He had come too close to Earth and felt the drag of its upper atmosphere. With a sick feeling he knew that the craft was committed to entry - and doomed. There was no turning back to the safety of space
. He wasn’t going home.
The outside of the cruiser was glowing cherry
-red now and would soon be white-hot with the heat of air friction.
“It wasn’t designed for this,” he said to himself,
The computer was warning? “Pull up! Pull up!”
“
If only I could,” he thought, and knew that he would have to eject – FAST!
It had been the first time
Tom was trusted to travel alone, and he was to meet-up with his grandparents. They’d moved to a new colony on another planet, and this was to be his first visit. This trip was supposed to be routine, and if only he hadn’t tampered with the controls the ship’s computer would have handled the navigation. He didn’t need to even enter the Solar System.
“Don’t ask
,” his father had said when he had questioned him about this star system.
“The Elders have decreed it a no-go zone,” and there must be a reason, his mother added.
He was curious to get close to planet Earth, and take a look for himself. Now he would have no choice, he would be going down and had to eject. But first there was the power core of his ship to think about, and what that much fire crystal would do to a populated area. He acted fast. While there was still some limited control, he had chosen what looked like an empty desert to crash in.
Locking the controls of the cruiser
, he scrambled into the escape capsule. As he sat down the hatch shut, and safety arms held him in position. Then the alarm in the main ship started blasting out a louder warning.
“GO” his mind was screaming, knowing that there were only a few seconds left before impact.
The eject button blinked on, and he punched out instantly.
A small group of people on Earth watched the drama from far below. A bright point of light was crossing the sky. A cry of surprise went up as they s
aw a small object detach itself, and then fly off at a sharp angle from the main object.
“They’ve come back for us
,” One man shouted joyously, and a cheer rose from the group.
Tom’s capsule dropped down through the sound barrier with a shudder. A sonic boom crashed acros
s the desert like a thunderclap, and echoed back from the dunes.
The main ship had disappeared over the horizon now. From where it fell a massive fireball spread slowly upwards, into the sky. The desert twilight turned into the brightest noon any of the onlookers had ever seen.
Tom watched from his capsule. “There goes the power core,” he said under his breath.
Nobody on the ground spoke, they just stood and watched in awe as the seconds moved on slowly.
Suddenly the shock wave hit. The onlookers were unprepared for this. They were blown over by a scorching blast that tumbled them along the desert floor. The wave passed over and rolled outwards across the arid land in an ever-widening circle. Peace again, although the landscape was still brightly lit but dimming, as the fireball spread into the upper atmosphere. Finally the people stood up and stared upwards again.
The point of light was close now
,
and very bright. Then as it grew closer they could make out its shape - it was a capsule and looked red-hot.
Tom noticed the people now. “This could be a long stay,” he muttered to himself.
“May as well say hello now.”
He could steer the capsule to some extent and managed to bring it hard down to the ground.
As the craft cooled he blew out the door and jumped clear - only adding to the drama. The small gathering had drawn cautiously closer. Tom held both arms up with palms outwards, in what he hoped would seem a friendly gesture. “Peace,” he had said feeling a bit ridiculous.
He need not have worried. They milled around him, shouting greetings and patting him on the back. Then a very old man stepped forward and hugged him, grabbing his arm, and raising it in the air as a cheer went up from the onlookers. Tom was amazed and after all the excitement a bit overwhelmed.
The old man gestured him forward with a smile and said, “Welcome, we have waited so long for your arrival.” He waved to a small building in the distance. Tom didn’t have to walk. He was picked up and carried shoulder-high, and all the time the people sang while clapping, and dancing in time to the song as they walked.
They were seated now in a comfortable room within the building, and Tom was conversing with the old man
. He found out that he was an Elder of his people – a leader.
Then the Elder explained.
“There is a legend among our people – a core belief that they were descended from the ‘Star People. These ‘Star People’ were passengers on a spacecraft. “It crashed on Earth centuries before, and the accident left it badly damaged. Worst of all the entire power core was cracked all the way through.”
Tom had taken these people to be a
primitive and friendly desert tribe. Then he remembered a saying from Space School about alien worlds: ‘Just because people lead a simple life, then don’t assume they are simple people’.
The
Elder said. “The Ancestors repaired the craft as best they could, but the passengers were left on Earth. The craft was still in very bad shape, and no on knew what would happen when they jumped into hyperspace.”
“So why jump
?” Tom asked.
“How else were they ever to cross the vast distance to their own world?” It was as much a statement as a question. It had been decided that the crew would fly back
, and bring help. There would be a rescue ship for them all to return in. The stranded people - this tribe’s own ancestors, had waited in vain, because rescue never came.
“Every generation of our people have added their own tale to the legend, but still the best guess is that
the crew simply didn’t make it home,” the old man said sadly. “So those left did what they had to do, and made the best of things. They farmed, traded and lived in peace with the local tribes.”
“How did they keep their knowledge from others?” Tom asked, knowing that this was something he would have to learn.
“It has become legend among our people, and we pass it on from one generation to another, but never speak of it outside of the tribe. When we watched your arrival, we thought you were them - our Ancestors the Star People returning for us.”
Tom decided there and then he would just tell the truth plain and simple, so he explained how he came to be here and the foolish
mistake. How he had come too close to Earth, and been dragged down by its atmosphere.
The old man was sharp
, and Tom realized he would have worked that one out for himself after seeing the manner of his arrival.
“Like a moth that flew too close to the flame,” the Elder had said.
Tom got the idea.
“The exit from the capsule was exciting,” the old man said laughing
. You scared us all.
“I was pretty scared myself,” Tom said.
“Will you use that beacon to contact your own people?” the Elder asked, pointing at the device that Tom had been holding since his arrival.
“If only that were possible,” Tom
said sadly. “It’s got a very limited range, and is really just a crash marker.”
Then
the Elder something that made Tom really sit- up and pay attention.
“What if you could find some fire crystal?”
he asked.
Tom was surprised. “How do you know about that? All of mine went up with the fireball.”
The Elder had smiled. “Rest and recover, then we will speak more,” he said with an air of mystery. Then he stood up and shook Tom’s hand. “Nothing changes for us, we live in hope of rescue. It’s part of our legend.”
One night about a week after Tom’s arrival a fierce electrical storm happened. The Elder had called him to a large roofed enclosure, with a glass sphere standing in the center. He gestured to Tom to look into it, and to his amazement he could see an image of the inside of a cavern. It glowed bright, almost as if it lit by blue flame.
The Elder explained. “Before the original crew left for the journey home, most of the fire crystal was unloaded. It was too dangerous to leave in a damaged ship, so they hid it in a deep cave for safe keeping.” Then he handed something to Tom and said, “This is a map, and shows the location where the crystal was hidden.” He had told Tom that it was in a remote mountain cave, on an island to the north.
“This is pure crystal,” he said. “If you power your marker with it, that would surely
give you a good chance of being found by your people, and rescued.”
Tom needed no further encouragement, and decided to set off the next morning. He really had no idea where to find the cave, and knew only that he should head north, thinking he would work on a search plan as he traveled.
Before leaving Tom had said to the Elder, “I believe that your ancestors were from my own home planet, Two Stars. If this quest is successful, and I find the crystal, then you will know. If I get rescued then we will come back for all of you, I promise.”
The Elder had thanked him
, and wished him good luck. “Our people will be telling stories of your arrival here one day; it will become part of our legend,” he said, clasping the boy’s hand with both of his own.