Keeper

Craig Speakes

Description

After an entirely uneventful summer, the arrival of helicopters full of soldiers, an unusual looking black train and a curious burst of light during a storm, leads twelve year old Arthur to discover that he is suddenly able to talk to his ever so sarcastic cat. The retrieval of a little black box, ends in them being taken to a restricted government facility where they not only discover the existence of a secret global project to build a space ship based on artefacts and plans retrieved from a meteorite, but that Arthur and his cat are the only ones who are able to make it all work. In a drastic turn of events the mission is forced to launch.Their arrival at their destination in the far reaches of the universe appears to go unnoticed, and euphoria quickly turns to trepidation. Forced to take matters into their own hands, a small party is sent down to the planet's surface to try to make contact. But no sooner have they landed they learn that their ship has been captured and their crew taken hostage, including Arthur's father. On the run, they make their first alien contact with the planet's resistance, where it transpires that they have arrived on the eve of the final battle of a 100 year war against an evil empire. Called upon to join the resistance efforts, they are thrown into the thick of the fighting, on a world where wars are fought with giant robots, strike ships and levitating tanks. With victory secured, a daring mission is devised to rescue the captured crew. Injured, Arthur wakes to find that his father is still missing, and he is more determined than ever to get him back.

Sujets

• Children's

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781803133706
• Langue: English

Extrait

Copyright © 2022 Craig Speakes

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.


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ISBN 978 1803133 706

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd



For A

Allow yourself to have dreams and desires in this life, and the courage and fortitude to see them through to fruition. May you be blessed with the wisdom and sensibilities to know the difference between conceding because the path has grown rocky and knowing when it truly makes sense to change course.

Mum,

Thank you!


Contents
1
Strange Goings-On
2
More Surprises
3
Speak This Word
4
Something Unexpected
5
Papa
6
T8
7
The Experiment
8
The Arrowhead
9
No Going Back
10
No Time
11
T-Minus and Counting
12
The Horizon
13
The Tunnel of Light
14
Is There Anybody There?
15
Pod Drop
16
Tresk
17
First Contact
18
The Resistance
19
Raise a Glass Before Dawn
20
The March to War
21
Chaos Unleashed
22
Clash of the Osmari
23
Abandoned
24
A Healing Hand
25
The Tofaran Storm
26
Right on Target
27
A Time of Peace
28
Apperon
29
A Risky Enterprise
30
Cat’s Finest Hour
31
A Familiar Face
32
The Decision
33
Unexpected


1
Strange Goings-On
It was the summer holidays. School was out. Arthur and his family had packed up their things at the end of July and had moved from their home in the outskirts of London to their grandmother’s little cottage in the Lake District. Built by his great-great-great-grandfather over a hundred years ago, it was situated on the side of a steep, sloping hill and surrounded by a garden so chock-full of apple trees and fruit bushes that there was always something ripe and ready to be picked. It was, without doubt, the holiday that the family most looked forward to each year. And ever since he could remember, Arthur had spent the majority of his summers there.
The time, as usual, had flown by. Those four weeks which had seemed to stretch out before him, full of the promise of exciting adventures, had suddenly turned into one, and the number of adventures: precisely zero. But then, what had he really been expecting? Nothing ever happened at the cottage, and that was OK—it was still way better than being back in the city.
Then, one day towards the end of August, quite unexpectedly, something did happen. Arthur, oblivious to the fact that it was about to, had stayed in bed that morning playing games on his phone as usual, until the rumblings in his stomach had made it impossible to ignore them any longer. Utterly famished, he’d gotten up and ventured into the kitchen to find a large pot of porridge perched on the stove by the window. Still warm, a search for the whereabouts of the strawberry jam had revealed that his aunt had once again attempted to hide it all in the back of a cupboard. And realising that the situation called for him to be extra crafty about it, he poked his head around the door to check that she wasn’t about to walk in and catch him red handed—quite literally in this case—and sneakily helped himself to a large dollop or three. With the jam safely hidden under a layer of mush, he stole outside into the garden to eat it.
One interesting but highly regrettable fact about the summer holidays was that the older he got, the less relaxing they seemed to become. This, he reasoned, could be entirely explained by the lists of chores, tasks, to-do lists (whatever you want to call them), which now appeared every morning like clockwork. And, if that wasn’t bad enough in itself, they were becoming longer and more tedious every year. Clean this… do that… change something else. Most of them, completely unreasonable. After all, what was the point in making your bed or tidying up your things when you were only going to need to sleep in it or use them again? Resistance, however, was useless, and that morning had been no exception.
Rushing to finish his list quickly, he had arrived at the conclusion that it was going to have to be a lake day. That’s not to say that most days weren’t, in fact, lake days, but for some reason, he was especially sure that this one needed to be. And no sooner was everything done than he grabbed his fishing rod and pack, and whatever could be found in the kitchen that looked good, and headed off to the nearby lake. The cat, spying him opening the garden gate, trotted after him.
One of the biggest in the area, the large expanse of water was surrounded by thick pine forests and long stretches of sandy beach. Ever popular with bathers during the hot weather, Arthur would always head to the side that was the least crowded. This was not just because it was obviously far better for fishing, but also because several summers ago he’d made the chance discovery of an old, abandoned jetty there. Hidden from sight by thick reed beds and missing half of its boards, it jutted out just enough for him to be able to see what was happening on the other side without anyone being able to notice that he was there.
Ever careful to avoid giving its location away, he stopped beside the stone that marked the entrance to it, checked that the coast was clear, and climbed into the reeds, working his way along to the end. On the other side of the lake, the usual crowds were having fun splashing around in the warmth of the summer afternoon.

‘Argghh!’ cried Arthur, throwing up his arms to protect his face from the reeds which had suddenly begun thrashing about wildly. Out of the corner of his eye, he could just make out a number of large, dark shadows, thundering overhead. And scrambling to his feet once they’d passed by, he stood watching in amazement as helicopters started setting down amongst billowing clouds of green smoke in the woods on the other side.
‘What the!?’ He mumbled to himself, as men dressed in black uniforms and carrying what looked like guns jumped out and vanished into the foliage.
Unsure what was happening and noticing too that all the bathers were no longer where they should’ve been, Arthur hurriedly gathered his things together and made his way back down the path towards the railway line and the track back to the cottage.
At the end of the lake, the men from the helicopters were busy setting up a barricade across the main road. Curious to see what they were doing, he was just about to duck behind a tree, when he caught sight of them also preparing to block off his way home.
‘You’re too late—it’s closed!’ said one of the men as Arthur sprinted over to them.
‘But I need to go that way to get home.’
‘Where’ve you come from, then?’
‘From the lake.’
‘Impossible—the lake was cleared hours ago.’
‘OK, but that’s where I’ve come from, honestly.’
The soldier eyed him suspiciously.
‘Wait,’ he ordered, pulling a radio from his belt.
‘Colonel, there’s a kid here who says he ne