Truehearts & The Escape From Pirate Moon by Jake Macklem (ebook audio reader TXT) 📕

deepened color of her cheeks. That image sat in his mind as he collected the few bits of gear he had used while stopping for a snack and five minutes for Gwen.

He put on his backpack, picked up his rifle, and adjusted his hat, wiping the sweat from his brow. He was at the edge of a plateau. Below and beyond he saw a large flood plain covered in grass and dotted with small woods. Mountains occasionally rose from the flatland, but still some distance off. The trees that grew among the grass and foothills were short, with a thin covering of leaves. Only see the grass and the one kind of tree. Far above the base of the mountains, a kilometer above the plain, plant life started to grow again, much denser and in greater variety. Old-growth. That‘s a lot of water. With a tap, he activated the recorder attached to his combat armor. “It appears this plain floods regularly. The water comes from this direction… west.” Cam spun around, showing the massive channels carved in the iron mountain. “What causes the flooding can only be speculation at this point.” Spinning back to face the open plain: “Given the erosion level on the mountains, the amount of water that floods through these plains is astronomical. Acknowledging how arid the area is presently, it might be flash floods with currents strong enough to take everything with them as they pass. Or maybe the area is submerged for a period of time. Shaw out.” He tapped the recorder to turn it off.

“On the trail again. Yee-haw.” Cam walked the plateau edge, looking for a safe place to rappel down to the plain below so he could cross it to his pickup point. When it hits 50C I’ll find whatever shade there is. Get what sleep I can, travel again when it cools off. “Yep, night travel, day sleep. This is gonna be cake.”

He descended into the valley a short time later, a large rock functioning as his anchor point. Tying the rope with a knot learned in his military recon days, at the bottom he tugged a few times—the knot slipped loose and the rope fell to the valley floor. While expertly coiling the rope and planning his path, he spotted something interesting; a bright white-greyish metal reflected the light. Walking to a rock grouping, he pulled out his global survey scanner—or GSS—a handheld device with a detachable sensor, often called a wand for its sleek cylinder appearance.

Using the spectrum wand, he scanned the rocks. Platinum. “Hot damn!” He grinned and looked to the sky, tipping his hat. “Thank you, Verse!” He set down the GSS and dropped his pack, then removed his folding pick and assembled it. He slammed the tool into the rock, chipping out a chunk of platinum. We’re leaving Earth Gwen! And not on some derelict lifeboat that promises false hope. We’re going on an independent ship! With a respected and legitimate entrepreneur whose ship is big enough to carry all the supplies we’re gonna buy! The large hunk of platinum fell to the ground.

Picking the piece up, Cam smiled at its weight. Maybe a half-pound. This is a good bonus. He stuffed the rock into his backpack and disassembled his folding pick. No sense going for more. The return crew will ignore a few mementos, but if I get greedy they’ll report me. He replaced his backpack and returned the wand to the scanner. With a few key taps, he marked his longitude and latitude as a possible valuable resource location. If there’s a vein of this…

The next few hours passed quickly for Cam, leaping from idea to idea for gifts to get his family. For Gwen, he would pick up a few dresses, but her real gift would be repairing her grandmother’s pearl earrings. Pearl and platinum has a nice ring to it. A gift for Tomas was easy—a telescope. A good one, with a digital overlay and quality zoom. He could watch the ships coming and going from orbit. Calvin’s gift was more elusive and Cam thought long and hard on what the perfect gift would be, but nothing felt right.

As he began to feel the heat, he started seeing more and more large tree-like plants. Upon inspecting them, he realized they were more like a hemp stalk. Firm but pliable. They were thick-trunked, climbable, and grew well in the deeper recesses of the plain. Probably closer to the water table. The original reports on the moon indicated many rivers and streams, however, Cam had not come across anything but small, shallow, dried beds. Entering a grove of the trees, Cam found small comfort in the shade of the red leaves.

Searching the area, he saw his first signs of animal life—eggshells. Cam had seen insect creatures, but nothing else until now. The shells were the size of a soccer ball. Broken and scattered, it was impossible to tell if something got into them or if something came out of them—only that it had happened a while ago. Whatever laid those is gonna be big. Cam had been vigilant, he had not seen any tracks and knew nothing dangerous was around, but his thumb still flipped the safety off his rifle.

Deciding it was better to sleep in the tree than on the hot ground, Cam used his climbing gear to tie himself to the trunk and tried to get comfortable in the hot breeze. The branch he was sitting on was barely wide enough, but he disliked having his legs dangling beneath him. Cradling his rifle in his arms, he closed his eyes and tried to think. His mind still wrestled with the perfect gift for Calvin. As he drifted toward sleep his eyes snapped open and his heart skipped. “I don’t know my son.”

Between the heat and thinking of his family, he did not get much sleep. Through the red leaves, he watched the