Grant Versus the Mushroom Men

By TE Smith

While exploring ancient ruins on an alien world, three friends make an amazing discovery. They find a mysterious device, its function a complete mystery. But before they can even figure out just what the strange sphere is used for, their colony, Bourassa, is attacked from space. The humans and an alien race known only as the “Squids” have been skirmishing in deep space for years. However, the “Squids” have recently escalated the conflict to include bombing the actual human colonies. So when their alien enemies appear in the skies over their home; Grant, Abby and Aaron decide that the appearance of the aliens just after they’ve discovered the artifact cannot be a coincidence. They need to keep the artifact, which could be anything, away from the aliens at all costs. Grant’s worst fear is that it is something that the “Squids” could use as a weapon. So, until they can figure out just what the artifact is and what type of power it might possess they will do everything they can to keep it out of enemy hands. The three young friends have no idea how their actions might turn the tide of the war and even affect the fate of the galaxy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TE Smith
• Release date: Jun 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311393685

TE Smith

TE Smith is a first time novelist living in British Columbia, Canada.She is married and has two young boys.In her spare time she enjoys playing with the kids, writing, reading, weightlifting, running and cycling.

Book preview

Grant versus the Mushroom Men

By T E Smith

Copyright 2014 T E Smith

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover Art:

Space Colors by Euderion.DeviantArt.com

Lava Tube Cave, WA by Thomas Shahan

Both images used under Creative Commons License

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

About the Author

Chapter 1

Our headlamps barely cut through the darkness as we advanced through the ancient catacombs. The floor and the walls of the long, dark passage were covered in twiggy mosses and fungi that looked like they were built out of children’s building blocks. The mosses came in hues of blue and green but the fungi were all shades of gray. They cast eerie shadows on the floor and created a treacherous path. If we weren’t careful where we stepped, any one of us could easily roll an ankle or worse. It would take a long time to get home on a sprained ankle, let alone a broken leg.

The ruins were damp, which chilled the air and made it necessary to wear jackets even though it was the middle of summer. Every few steps one of us would inadvertently kick one of the spindly mosses, sending up a cloud of spores that smelled like cinnamon. I hoped they weren’t poisonous or toxic, I didn’t want to contract some weird alien disease.

The tunnel floor was flat with arched walls and ceiling. The walls were made of light and dark gray blocks about three foot square each. If you flattened out the walls they would look like a giant checkerboard. The archaeologists that first investigated the ruins after they were discovered dated them at about 2500 years old. They were in excellent shape considering their age. The archaeologists hadn’t had any luck discovering who had created the tunnel system but whoever the builders were they certainly liked their head room. The ceilings were twenty feet high.

Abby, Aaron and I investigated a different section of the catacombs every weekend. We were about an hour into this day’s wandering through the winding passageways and were almost at the end of the area that we’d previously explored. New territory was dead ahead!

Aaron stopped at a side passage. This is the one, right? We haven’t been down here yet, have we? The way he was standing there pointing down the passageway he looked like he was posing for a picture, but then he often did that. Aaron is one of those really fit guys that always looks like he’s flexing or showing off. He probably isn’t even aware that he’s posing most of the time.

I heard Abby sigh and looked at her. She was almost as tall as Aaron but had a slender, almost delicate build. That didn’t mean that she was fragile or anything, she’s about as tough as they come. She was standing just behind Aaron with one hand on her hip and the other on her forehead. Her pale skin and long blonde ponytail looked even more fair than usual in the light from my headlamp. She was in her ‘I can’t believe you just said that’ pose. I realized I was staring at her and looked away. Even when Abby was dressed down for exploring the ruins I still found it hard not to stare.

This delay was typical. Once we got deeper into the ruins Aaron stopped us every couple of passages. He seemed to think that he could figure out where we’d been before. The trouble was that one checkerboard tunnel looks a lot like the next and some days he ended up wasting a lot of our time. I don’t know why he didn’t keep a map like I did. Well yeah, I actually do know why. He knew I was keeping one so he didn’t need to.

I don’t think this is the one but I’ll double check. It was quicker to just check the map than to argue with him. Plus it gave me ammunition to argue with. Sometimes I thought about lying and just telling him that I’d checked it but I had to be sure. One of these times he’d end up being right and I’d never live it down.

I used my Layered Visual Interface to pull up my map of the ruins. I’d been constructing it since we’d first started exploring a couple of years ago. After a few moments of load time the map appeared superimposed over my regular vision. This made my actual view of the tunnel the background behind the map. The LVI was the method that we used to control our Brainbox computers. Everyone got their Brainbox implanted behind their left ear when they were five. I couldn’t imagine not having it since it was used for a variety of tasks like accessing house computers, communicating with friends, taking pictures and videos. I loved my Brainbox.

With the map obstructing my vision I could still see what was going on but it wasn’t really safe to walk around with all the obstacles in here. That’s why I didn’t have it on all the time. Just by thinking about it I rotated the map so that it was oriented in the same direction that I was facing. I could see that we had been down this passage last weekend.

Yeah man, we’ve been down here already. It makes a turn to the right after about a hundred yards and then runs right into a collapse. Total dead end.

I don’t remember it. Let’s check it out to be sure. Maybe you made a mistake on your map.

Abby wasn’t having any of it, Oh come on… Seriously, when was the last time the map was wrong?

Aaron thought about it for a few seconds. I knew that the map had worked flawlessly once I’d finished debugging the program. My Brainbox automatically logged all the passages and kept track of where we were. It used input from my own vision and the compass built right into the implant. I hoped Aaron would just admit that I was right so we could move on.

He finally answered. The map’s been wrong before, can you be one hundred percent sure that we went down there before?

Abby and Aaron both looked at me questioningly. Well I couldn’t be one hundred percent certain but I was about ninety-nine percent sure. The program hadn’t made a mistake in over a year, not since I declared it officially finished. It’s a straight passage to a corner and then a dead end. I can upload the map to you if you want.

Abby jumped in before he could reply. Just go check it out yourself. We’ll wait here for you.

He quickly agreed, Fine with me, you two look like you could use the rest anyway.

He was right. I could use the rest. My legs were feeling worn out and I was breathing hard.

Abby flopped down beside me on the rocky ground while Aaron walked off towards the dead end. Geeze, he’s such a pain sometimes. I figure this will be faster than arguing. You know he’d just be pouty for the rest of the day if we didn’t let him do what he wanted.

Yeah, I just hate wasting time, I replied. "You know my map hasn’t been wrong for over a year.

I know, but he’ll only be a few minutes and he wasn’t wrong about us both needing a little break.

Yeah, I guess it just bugs me a bit that I designed the map to avoid this exact situation. I mean he can’t actually think that his memory is better than the mapping program can he?

I’m sure he doesn’t actually think that. He just likes to do things his own way. You know, being in charge. I think he’s just too used to it.

He certainly was used to it. He was Captain of just about every sports team in school. That didn’t make it any less annoying though.

I decided to drop the issue and activated my Brainbox music player, I kept the volume low so that I’d be able to hear Abby if she talked to me. Even though we were disconnected from the Galactanet this deep in the ruins I still had a long playlist saved in memory. It wasn’t as long as Abby’s list though, it was hard to tell sometimes but I think she was listening to her playlist virtually all the time.

The song that was playing in my head was Flowers by Eliza. It was the most popular song in the Confederation these days, even out here on a backwater planet like Bourassa. I couldn’t stand it though. I skipped past the song and deleted it. No matter how many times I deleted it, it always seemed to come back. Popular stuff had a way of sneaking back into your playlist, usually with ads attached to the start or end of the song.

Argh, I can’t stand this song.

Which song?

Flowers. I’ve heard it so many times I’ve got it memorized and I didn’t like it the first time I heard it. It just got trojaned back into my playlist which makes it even worse.

It’s not that bad. It’s kind of catchy."

Yes it is that bad. You just don’t have any taste in music,