Jamie Childress - GALACTIC TREASURE HUNT V: Lost Fortress of Light

Galactic Treasure Hunt Lost Fortress of Light
Written by Jamie Childress
Illustrated by Chris Braun

ISBN: 978-1-935487-06-7

Text Copyright 2009 by Jamie Childress
Cover and Illustrations Copyright 2010 by Chris Braun

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing September 2010

Printed by Color House Graphics Inc. Grand Rapids, MI 49508
(Month and Year Files Submitted to Color House Graphics)

Published by

Adventures Unlimited Press
One Adventure Place
Kempton, Illinois 60946 USA
auphq@frontiernet.net
www.adventuresunlimitedpress.com

For: Cameron, Finn, Kira and Hatcher...for reminding us that every day can be an adventure.

Special thanks to Satchi Nita, Clay Dubofsky and the other friends and family who helped edit this book. Finaly, thanks to everyone who bought enough copies of our first four books to encourage us to try another.

About the Author Jamie Childress: When hes not writing stories, Jamie Childress is an aerospace engineer who works for Boeings Research and Technology division. If he could find a wormhole, he would definitely want to visit another universe.

About the Illustrator Chris Braun: Chris works as a graphic illustrator for Boeing. When hes not doing that, he enjoys playing with his kids, karate, drawing and computer games.

Prologue

It started out as a typical lazy summer. Jake and his brother Scott were enjoying their summer vacation. Fortunately for Jake and Scott, their do-nothing summer blasted off into adventure when a space alien named Nojo landed in the woods behind their house.

Nojo is a space archeologist from a planet in the constellation of Orion. Hes searching for lost Delphian treasure. The Delphians are an alien race that vanished thousands of years ago. They left behind fantastic riches all over the galaxy. Nojo is searching for a great treasure called the Pillar of Knowledge which is the ancient computer library of the Delphians. It contains fabulous inventions and answers to the mysteries of the universe. When Jake and Scott first met Nojo, they accidentally touched a spherical key he had found. The computer codes in the key were transferred into Jake and Scott. Now they are the key keepers and their heads hold the computer keys to unlock the waypoints to the Pillar of Knowledge. A waypoint is like a road sign along the path to the Delphians long lost treasure. To find the treasure they have to find the next waypoint.

Nojo needs Jake and Scott to open the waypoints. So he takes them on his adventures to far away places. Their adventures have taken them to the moon, Atlantis, the days of the dinosaurs, the future and even to a lost universe. When they visited the lost universe, they made friends with King Bandilar and his daughter Kefreti on the planet Alsera. Read Galactic Treasure Hunt #3- Lost Universe to get the full story.

1 The Starship Arrives

Jake felt his half of the radio vibrate in his pocket and instantly stopped swinging his plastic light saber at his brother. Scott couldnt resist the easy opening in their light saber duel. He bopped Jake on the head lightly and said, Score!

Jake gave his brother a glare and shook his head. No way! Id already stopped, declared Jake as he pulled the piece of his radio from his pocket. Nojo finally called us.

I knew that. I was just messing with you, replied Scott, while dropping his light saber and handing his own piece of the radio to Jake for assembly. Its about time Nojo called. Its been a week since we heard from him.

Eight days actually, corrected Jake, as he twisted the two halves together and held up the completed radio. He used to call us almost every day.

The little round radio made two short beeping sounds to indicate it was turned on and working. That was it, nothing else. The boys expected Nojos cheerful British sounding voice to pop out of the radio. But, no, there was nothing.

This was so odd, that at first the boys just stood there waiting. Finally, Jake spoke up, Hello, Nojo. Are you there?

Scott looked at Jake and shrugged his shoulders. Maybe its broken, he suggested.

Jake thought for a moment then replied, You might be right. Lets go to the meadow. Maybe hes there and we just cant hear him.

Scott went into the laundry room to tell his mom where they were going. Mom, can we go play in the woods for a bit? Were looking for our friend Nojo.

Their mom stopped folding laundry for a second and replied, Sure, honey. I hope you find him. You havent played spaceman in awhile. Just be back by 5:00. Were having spaghetti for dinner.

We will, promised Scott. Then he headed for the back door with Jake.

Jake took the radio apart and handed Scott his half when they got out side. Lets go, said Jake simply.

The brothers started to trot down the well-worn trail to the meadow. As they went along, they ran faster and faster. These two rarely walked anywhere, but today it was a race to see Nojo.

Hes here! yelled Scott when they arrived at the meadow.

The starship was floating right in the middle of the meadow, just like every other time theyd met

Nojo here. The boarding ramp was down, but Nojo was not standing beside it.

The boys ran right up to the boarding ramp. Hey, Nojo! Nojo! they both called. But they didnt get an answer. No Nojo. No answering call from within the ship. Silence.

This is weird, said Scott getting just a bit concerned. This, in itself, was odd since Scott almost never got concerned about anything.

Very weird, agreed Jake. Maybe hes hurt on the bridge deck or something. We need to check it out.

They trotted up the boarding ramp and hurried to the bridge deck. When they got there, it was empty. They called Nojos name, but all they heard in response was the gentle whir of the boarding ramp closing behind them.

The next thing they knew the starship zipped out of the meadow in the blink of an eye. They were headed directly for the moon.

2 Autopilot

Hey, whos driving this thing? asked Scott.

I dont know, replied Jake. But we should take over before it crashes into something.

Both boys sat in their normal chairs on the bridge deck, and Scott announced, I want to fly first. I never did get to fly low over the Moon. That looked fun.