The Lost Wreck of the Spero

by Nemo West

Table of Contents

Chapter 5: The Spero

Curtains of spring-flex retaining wall stretched between anchor posts on Toboso’s blue-black water. A small but powerful machine whirred quietly as its solar panel charged in a beam of Tyrrhenian sunlight. The wide hoses connected to that machine siphoned mud and water out of the small perimeter within the retaining wall and pumped it to a dump site on the far side of a nearby ridge. Roughly three shoulder-widths in diameter, the pit inside that wall would let the three friends shimmy down to its base after enough mud had been cleared.

“I still can’t believe we actually found it,” Sam said from a perch on the prow of his rover, with his legs dangling off the side. Even though it remained almost entirely hidden beneath Tobosan mud, he gazed over their discovery in dazzled rapture. “The Spero,” he repeated for the umpteenth time that week, murmuring the words as though petitioning a patron deity. An almost beatific serenity had settled over him, and Chelle had never seen the spark in his eyes shine so brightly.

By contrast, a cloud seemed to have drawn its shadow over Triss. She’d become restless and often paced their campsite with an almost manic impatience. Most days, she stared at the slowly draining pit inside their retaining wall with the intensity of a stalker waiting to confront her ex as soon as he stepped outside to get his mail. Chelle knew that whatever Triss was hiding had now bubbled very close to the surface, but she still refused all Chelle’s attempts to talk about it.

For her own part, Chelle felt a strange sense of fretful expectancy. She knew she should be excited. After all, they’d finally found the legendary wreck of the Spero, as evidenced by the weathered sponson sticking out of the mud beside their retaining wall. Last week, they’d scraped almost two centuries of sediment from that fin-shaped projection to reveal the telltale crimson-and-taupe livery of the Terra Nova corporation, as well as an alphanumeric vessel designation that confirmed the long-lost freighter was indeed submerged right beneath where they now stood. Yet Chelle couldn’t shake a distinct feeling of unease; it clung to the underside of her enthusiasm like the crust of grit on a popsicle that’s been dropped in the dirt.

Maybe a lifetime of self-loathing and disappointment simply prevented her from believing a dream this monumental could actually come true for someone like her. Or maybe the whole thing just seemed too implausible to be true: buried treasure overlooked for centuries by hundreds of other explorers, yielding its secrets now because of the new sprinklers on the south forty. Then again, maybe it was some lurking, subliminal dread over what would happen if they actually returned to New Tuscany with pockets full of amrathyte.

So many unresolved tensions and resentments still lingered between the three of them. Would Triss go back to the new life she’d built offworld, no matter what they dug out of the Tobosan mud? Would her departure break Sam’s heart all over again? Would Chelle find the courage to tell Sam how bitterly his rejection had devastated her all those years ago, extinguishing a young girl’s crush and fracturing their friendship? Was there any hope at all that this adventure — perhaps the last the three of them would ever share — could have a happy ending?

Chelle gradually realized she was afraid to find out. No matter what might happen next, the reunion they’d shared for the past few weeks had been the best time she could remember having in years. She’d missed her friends, and she didn’t want to lose them again.

Then she discovered something entirely new to worry about when a low, malignant throbbing sound woke all three of them the next morning. Nestled together in the cabin of Sam’s rover, they slowly sat up to find a lanky figure, silhouetted by pre-dawn twilight, lurking in the cabin doorway. He held a snub-barreled blastgun at his hip, and that sinister throbbing sound indicated the weapon was charged. At such close range, a blastgun could easily pulverize flesh into a runny paste. As they comprehended the situation, Sam, Triss, and Chelle all froze.

“Who are you?” Sam ventured as he raised his arms to shield Chelle and Triss. “What do you want?”

“Get up,” Deak growled.

Sam blinked. “Deak? I-is that you?”

“I said, get up!” Deak barked, aiming his blastgun directly at Sam’s face.

Dumbfounded and still groggy, Sam flinched. “Wh-what’s going on?”

Impatient, Deak suddenly lunged forward and slammed the butt of his gun across the side of Sam’s head. It struck hard and knocked Sam sideways into Chelle’s lap. Triss yelped in fear and Chelle instinctively leaned over Sam’s back to protect him.

“Now, all of you, get up!” Deak snarled.

Triss and Chelle glanced nervously at each other and stood up. Then they helped Sam to his feet. He clutched his bruised scalp and blinked rapidly, trying to refocus his bleary vision.

Deak stepped back from the doorway and waved his blastgun. “Outside!” he ordered.

With a sense of rising dread, the three friends obeyed and trudged onto the deck of Sam’s rover. In the early morning, ribbons of pale fog hovered above Toboso’s blue-black waters. Tyrrhenian sunlight tinged the horizon red and glowed between gaps in the mangrove canopy like a thousand grim eyes.

No longer silhouetted by the dawn, Deak was now visible to the others. He wore an expression they all recognized from their childhood, when he’d bullied them ruthlessly. Now, however, his focused, malicious scowl seemed far more sinister. “Off the rover,” he said.

One at a time, Triss, Chelle, and Sam all hopped off the rover into the middle of their muddy campsite.

Deak leapt down behind them. Then he pointed toward their spring-flex retaining wall with his gun. “Now, get into that pit you dug.”

Triss turned to him, wide-eyed. “Oh, Deak, please. Don’t.”

In response, Deak leveled his weapon at her. “Into. The. Pit.”

The three friends faced each other with dread. Seeing little other choice, they slowly turned and marched toward the retaining wall. Nearby, the siphon continued chugging as it slowly sucked muddy water away from the Spero’s hull, but there were still several feet left to clear.

At the rim of the pit, Sam suddenly stopped and turned to Deak. “Let them go,” Sam begged. “This is all my fault. None of this was their idea. They wanted nothing to do with it. I dragged them out here.” He swallowed anxiously. “Please, let them go.”

Deak scoffed. Then he jerked his blastgun sideways between his hands and lunged forward, shoving Sam. Caught off-guard, Sam staggered backward into Triss and Chelle. The three of them quickly lost their footing in slippery Tobosan mud and tumbled down into the pit. They landed in a jumble of knees and elbows amid the thick, gelatinous muck beneath the marsh’s surface.

As they grunted and squirmed, struggling to disentangle themselves, they suddenly heard a gun-blast from their campsite up above. All of them froze. In the ensuing silence, they soon realized the sturdy chugging of the siphon had ceased. Deak had destroyed it.

Soon afterward, Deak appeared at the rim of the pit, looming over his colony-mates. “You wanted to find the Spero so bad. Now, you can enjoy your discovery for the rest of your lives.” Then he aimed his gun at the lip of the retaining wall and fired. The blast tore through the spring-flex material, and a torrent of blue-black doom streamed through the resulting hole.

Sam and Chelle gawked and scrambled even more urgently to right themselves in the narrow pit. Cold, muddy water quickly swallowed their ankles. Triss glanced at her friends for a moment. Then she set her jaw resolutely and looked up at Deak. “If you stop, I’ll give you what you want!” she shouted.

Deak cocked his head. Then he peered down at her intently. “Oh, you will, huh?”

“Yes!” Triss raised a protective arm in front of Sam and Chelle. “As long as you promise to let them go.”

Deak glowered at her. “So, it had to come to this before you finally gave in?” He shook his head. “Threatening to evict your parents never worked.” Then he smirked. “Guess I should’ve tried to kill your friends a lot sooner.”

Flopping in the water as it rose to her knees, Triss shouted, “Just get us out of here!”

Deak pursed his lips and watched the water rise to their hips before he finally snorted, “Yeah. Alright. Fine.” Then he trudged out of sight.

Soon afterward, a limb of rope tumbled into the pit. Sam hurriedly helped Triss and Chelle climb out before hauling himself up. When they finally collected themselves at the lip of the pit, the three friends turned to find a smug Deak smirking at them with his blastgun propped on his shoulder.

“You weren’t supposed to find it, you know” Deak said. “We buried the damn thing underwater and planted signal jammers all around the site to give false feedback to any scanners in the area.”

“Wait, you... buried the Spero?” Sam blinked. “You mean, you knew where it was all along?”

“Of course, I knew. My great-great-whatever-grandfather landed it here after he hijacked it. And my family has been making sure it stayed hidden ever since.”

“Your family hijacked the Spero?” Sam sputtered.

“Then it never crashed on Etruria,” Triss realized. “Your family faked the shipwreck story.”

Deak nodded. “That’s right.”

“But I don’t understand,” Sam said. “If your family already has the amrathyte, then why are you still living on Etruria? There are plenty of other worlds where that kind of wealth could give you much better lives than anything this place has to offer.”

“It’s not that simple,” Deak replied petulantly. “After the Spero went missing, Terra Nova watched the precious stone markets on every world like hawks. My family managed to sell a few pieces here and there over the years — enough to make us comfortable — but there was no way to offload the entire haul without getting caught. We had to wait.”

Chelle put the pieces together. “For the salvage rights to expire,” she realized. “That way you can claim the whole cargo instead of just a measly finder’s fee.”

Deak sneered. “Oh, look. You figured it all out. Those rights expire next year, and after waiting two centuries, I’m sure as hell not going to let you three screw things up for my family now!”

Sam held out pleading hands. “But what about the volcanic pollution? With the amrathyte, we could buy the atmosphere scrubbers we need to save New Tuscany.”

“Why?” Deak grimaced. “You think I give a damn about this pesthole of a colony?” He shook his head. “As soon as my family cashes out the amrathyte, I’m leaving for good. So, let that volcano poison the whole world, for all I care. I can come back next year with hazmat gear to stake my claim on the Spero.”

“But... what about us — all of us, the entire colony?” Sam protested.

“I don’t care about you — any of you.” Deak glowered at Sam. “Every time I saw you out in the marsh, I told you to quit looking for that damn ship.” He clicked his tongue. “But you wouldn’t listen. You just kept poking and prodding and digging.” He sighed. “And if it wasn’t for Triss, you would’ve ended up the same as Jace Cavender and Dalton Tham.”

Sam’s eyes widened. “What... what happened to Jace Cavender and Dalton Tham?”

“Me and my family took care of them,” Deak sniffed.

“You mean, you killed them?” Chelle asked.

“They got too close.” Deak narrowed his eyes. “And so did you.” He turned to Sam. “So, for the rest of your life, I want you to remember, this is all your fault.”

Sam furrowed his brow. “What’s my fault?”

“You’re never going to get so much as an ounce of the amrathyte.” Deak grinned. “And you’re also never going to get the girl you’ve been chasing your whole life.”

Sam blinked. “Wh-what do you mean?”

Deak leered triumphantly. “Triss and I are getting married.”

Sam’s jaw dropped. “What? You two are getting married?”

Chelle gawked at Sam. “That’s your biggest concern right now?”

“Oh, pipe down,” Deak scoffed. “You two can bicker at each other later. But before I send you three back to New Tuscany, I need to make sure we’re all clear on what just happened here.” He pointed to Sam and Chelle. “Triss agreed to marry me in order to spare your lives. In return, you owe her the courtesy of keeping your mouths shut about everything you saw and heard today. As far as the rest of the colony is concerned, you never found the Spero and, obviously, I never tried to kill you.” Holding the stock of his blastgun in one hand, he bounced the snub barrel like a billy club in his other hand. “Think you can handle that?”

Chelle drew a caustic breath and glared at Deak. “I don’t think we have a choice.”

Deak grinned. “Glad we have an understanding.” Then he nodded toward the trio’s campsite. “Now, pack up all this crap and get out of here.” He paused to level a cold glare at Sam. “And never come back to Toboso Marsh again.”

Proceed to chapter 6...

Copyright © 2022 by Nemo West