The Lost Wreck of the Spero
by Nemo West
For more than two centuries, explorers have searched the planet Etruria for a crashed starfreighter with a priceless cargo. Childhood friends Chelle, Sam, and Triss have grown up in the shadow of the Spero’s legend and searched in vain for it themselves until their friendship fractured. Now, they must reconnect and follow a tantalizing new clue to find the treasure that could save their homeworld.
Chapter 6: A Plan
Triss sat huddled against the starboard bulwark of Sam’s rover as it chugged back toward New Tuscany. She had a distant, shell-shocked stare. Her mournful expression reflected all the humiliation and hopelessness that morning’s events had inflicted on her.
After fretting for several minutes, Chelle tentatively approached her old friend. “Hey,” she greeted as she sat down on the deck.
“Hey,” Triss replied without looking up.
“Do...” — Chelle cleared her throat — “do you want to talk about it?”
Triss shrugged. “What’s the point?”
Chelle arched her brow. “Well, I care about you.”
Triss turned. “You do?” Then she quickly looked back at the mangroves slowly drifting past. “Why?”
“Because you’re my friend.”
“Yeah, right.” Triss hugged her knees tighter. “Some friends we are.”
Chelle pursed her lips. She knew that if they returned to New Tuscany without resolving their differences, none of them would ever see each other again. This was Chelle’s last chance to change things, to try and mend their broken friendship, and she refused to let that precious opportunity slip away.
She cleared her throat again. “Back at our campsite, Deak said he’d threatened to evict your parents to try and get what he wanted from you. Does that mean what I think it means, that he tried to force you to marry him before?”
Triss froze for a moment. Then her shoulders slumped. “Deak had been overcharging my parents on rent for years. They owed an outrageous amount of money.” She sighed ruefully. “He said he’d forgive their debt if I married him.”
“So, that’s why you wanted to find the amrathyte so badly,” Chelle realized. “You wanted to pay off your parents’ debt.”
“I wanted them to be free,” she said, struggling to control a quiver in her voice. “And I wanted to be free. I wanted to finally quit that awful job I had to take offworld so I could pay Deak. I wanted to come back home.” Then she gritted, “And I wanted to do all of it without having to marry that disgusting pig!” She deflated and hugged her knees. “But I couldn’t.”
Sensing her friend’s need, Chelle scooted closer and tentatively slid an arm around Triss’s shoulders. When Triss didn’t object, Chelle felt an electric tingle of reconnection. “I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through,” she comforted.
Triss sagged into Chelle’s embrace and dropped an exhausted head onto her shoulder. “Thanks.”
Gradually, Chelle summoned the courage to share a burden of her own she’d been carrying for years. “You know, all this time, I always thought...” She sighed. “I always thought you left Etruria because of me and Sam.”
“No,” Triss said, “I didn’t leave because of you guys.” She shifted her head to glance up at Chelle. “But all the crap you two put me through back then certainly made it easier to go.”
“I’m... I’m really sorry for my part in all that.” Chelle drew a long breath. “You just seemed to be able to get all the attention and affection you wanted, and I could never get... any. It felt so unfair, and I was so, so miserable.” She cleared her throat. “But I should never have taken that out on you. It certainly wasn’t your fault.”
Triss processed that for a moment. “You made me feel like you hated me,” she said. “And after I left, you never reached out, so I thought you really did hate me. The more time passed, the more scared I was to come home, because I didn’t know what I might be coming back to.” She curled deeper into Chelle’s arm. “Growing up, you were the best friend I ever had, and I never understood what I could have done to turn you against me like that.”
That revelation struck Chelle like a punch to the gut. “Oh, Triss, you didn’t do anything,” she assured. “I was just a knotted-up, angry kid. To me, it looked like you had everything I wanted — the beauty, the style, the attention — so, I took my pain out on you. I... I was a terrible friend. And I’m sorry.”
Triss suddenly slid her arms around Chelle’s waist and squeezed her tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered with weary relief.
Chelle returned that hug wholeheartedly. “I’ve missed you so much!”
After a few moments, Triss said, “For what it’s worth, being the object of all that attention isn’t as great as it might seem from the outside.” She grimaced. “It made a good guy like Sam develop an infatuation that almost ruined our friendship. And it made a despicable guy like Deak do everything he could think of to manipulate me into giving him what he wanted.” A shadow seemed to pass over her, and she shrank further into Chelle’s embrace. “Now, I have to spend the rest of my life with that creep.”
While Chelle had been present for Deak’s ultimatum earlier that morning, the terror of having a blastgun aimed at her face had kept her from fully processing the bargain Triss had struck with him. As she thought about it now, Chelle soon comprehended the full magnitude of what Triss had done: she’d agreed to shackle her entire future to a spiteful, ugly monster like Deak in order to save Sam and Chelle’s lives. If she hadn’t, then all three of them would be decomposing in the Tobosan mud right now.
Spurred to repay Triss’s sacrifice, Chelle started running through every scenario she could image that might allow them to turn the tables on Deak. She shuffled through long-neglected memories of the Spero legend, recalling trivia from their old explorers club, recollections of days spent crawling through mud and prying up stones in the marsh, as well as dreams of what she’d do if they ever found the legendary wreck.
Soon, a favorite old fantasy triggered a flash of inspiration. Chelle had always loved to imagine herself being interviewed by some normally dignified newscaster who was overawed by their discovery. That’s when she realized the discovery of the famous missing freighter would make for a sensational news story.
Chelle sat up and grabbed Triss by the shoulders. “You’re not going to waste the rest of your life with that creep,” she promised. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Triss blinked. “Wh-what?”
Chelle turned and shouted to Sam over the clank of the engine. “Sam, you spent your entire life hunting for the Spero, right?”
Still recovering from the shock of morning’s events, Sam slowly turned to her. “Yeah.”
“And you’ve been meticulous about that quest,” Chelle continued as she jumped to her feet and crossed to where he sat at the rover’s helm. “I mean, you spent years cobbling together all the siphons and digging equipment you’d need, just in case you ever found that ship.” Chelle cocked an eyebrow. “So, when we actually did find it, were you meticulous then, too?”
Sam hunched his brow. “How do you mean?”
Chelle leaned toward Sam, conspiratorially. “Did you record the geo-coordinates?”
“Of course, I did.”
A cunning grin tugged the corner of Chelle’s mouth. “And if we make those coordinates public, then anyone could come out here and confirm our discovery, right?”
Sam glanced around nervously, as if afraid of being overheard. “Well, yeah.”
“Good,” Chelle approved. “Then I want you to send Deak a message. Tell him we need to meet with him.”
“Are you crazy?” Sam balked. “I don’t want to be anywhere near that maniac again.”
“Tell him he needs to hear us out, or we’ll share the Spero’s coordinates with the whole galaxy.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
Chelle cocked her head. “Do you want to let Deak marry Triss?”
“No!”
“Then send that message, because this is how we’re going to save her.”
Sam sat back in his seat and stared straight ahead for several moments. “Do you think this will work?” he wondered.
“Yes, I do,” Chelle said with a determined grin. “Because I have a plan.”
Copyright © 2022 by Nemo West
