Chapter 99

Zeke sighed and pushed his fingers through his hair.

“I don’t want either city damaged. The only thing I can come up with is to create a shield over the crater, like Lee did over her city on Utopia. I have a lot of crystals, and I can make some globes to put them in and stick them on some poles.”

“If I put them at the highest points around the crater and on Mt Sharp, it should work. I can do something similar for Castle City and the mine, too.”

“What do you want us to do?” Lindsay asked.

“I’ll go get the crystals. If you lot make me twenty-four Oznglass balls, 60cm in diameter and 5cm thick. Attach them magically to an Ozlium pipe, 4m long and 15cm in outside diameter.”

“Make sure the pipe goes into the inside of the globe by a centimetre. Then manufacture an extra 72 lengths so I can make the poles 16m long, please. I’ll need to bury about a quarter of that.”

“The replicator can only make 3m lengths,” Vic said.

Zeke grinned, “I’m sure you can work out how to stick them together. I’ll be happy with 18m if it makes it easier. That will make it a hundred and forty-four sections. You can make them in batches of twenty-five.”

“The replicator is stocked, so it shouldn’t be a problem. You can make the globes two at a time in Hercules’s replicator in the hidden room if it helps. It’s stocked up too.”

“How long have we got?” Pat asked.

Zeke looked at Pedz, “From what they told me, about two hours at most and don’t forget we do have to mount them in that time too.”

“Okay. If we make them one at a time, you can fly off with one while we do the next,” Carly said.

“Well, I was hoping you and Lindsay could do the four on this side of the crater. You can jump together and cover the distance to get to the locations. We need a map.”

Zeke pulled a Padz from his satchel. He brought up a map and studied it for a minute. He then picked eight points around the circumference of the crater and two other points in the crater.

“You will need to cover about 180km to plant the four poles, and travel about 140km to get back here from the last one. I have another magic bag we can fill with what you need. Together, the 45km jumps should be easy.”

“You may need to do three jumps to get back. I marked two safe locations on the map. Do a close scan of the location on the aerial map and fix it in your mind before you jump.”

“If they keep control of the rest of the asteroid, we have plenty of time to get to Castle City,” Zeke added.

“Will we need to do Castle City?” Vic asked.

Pat said, “Yes. I agree with Zeke that it will need protection, too. It’s not that far from the Du Martheray crater. Even dropping that roid a short distance is still going to create a decent impact.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Zeke replied. “I’m going to mind-link with you all, and I’ll give you some spells to help.”

They were all surprised when they felt Zeke gently touching their minds. He popped the spells into their subconscious and then broke the links.

“The spell you need and how to do it will pop into your conscious mind when you need it. Let’s get going, people,” Zeke replied.

He then blinked.

Zeke was back in fifteen minutes with the crystals in a metre square bag that looked empty.

Carly had eight globes sitting beside Hercules. Lindsay had a 3m long pole attached to five of them and was working on the sixth. A stack of nineteen more pipes was lying in an open, 1m cubed by 2m long, two-sided steel mesh crate beside him.

Zeke picked up one of Lindsay’s poles and touched the globe on top. A 35cm wide and 10cm deep copper bowl, filled with de Ray crystals, appeared in the bottom of the globe and adhered to the pipe. He left the pipe standing like a huge lollipop.

He repeated the procedure on the next four globes. After doing the fifth, he grinned at Lindsay before he and five of the spare 3m long pipes disappeared.

Lindsay just shook his head. Just as Carly came out with the next two globes, Vic turned up with twenty-five more pipes in another crate on a levitation platform.

“Vic, can you send Pat to help me?” Lindsay asked.

“No worries, I can keep the pipes coming,” he replied.

Zeke popped back a few minutes later, “I found the best thing to do was to drive a pipe into the ground until just the tip was exposed. Join the other four to the pipe in the lollipop. Levitate the lollipop so it stands on end and drop it into the pipe in the ground. Then do the join spell to make it one pole.”

“Good to know. Will the crystals stay in the bowl if we lay the lollipop down?”

Zeke grinned, “Yep, they are bound to the bowl.”

Lindsay nodded as he kept working. He finished the tenth lollipop as Vic and Pat dropped off another batch of pipes. Zeke put the bowl of crystals in each. Since they had enough pipes for four complete assemblies, Zeke had Vic help him load the pipes into the magic bag.

Zeke opened the bag; its mouth was wider than it looked. He put it over the end of the pipes. He unstrapped them and told Vic to tilt the platform. They watched the pipes slide in and disappear. Four lollipops went into the bags, too.

Zeke blinked to the kitchen and returned with a box filled with energy drinks and snacks. He dropped them into the bag. He then sent Carly and Lindsay to plant their four lollipops. They would need a bit longer than Zeke as they had to rest a little and eat before jumping again.

Pat took over fixing the globes to the poles while Vic made either a batch of four globes or more pipes until he had the numbers of each that Zeke requested. Zeke would fill two globes with crystals and then relay his next two lollipops and extra pipes to the chosen sites on the circumference of the crater.