Free The Pandora Chronicles - Book 1 (A Scifi Adventure Thriller) by Ryan Attard Page A

to blow up the entrance to that place and cause a cave-in, permanently sealing that ungodly spot. The elders agreed immediately.
    Finnegan used all of the Belladonna’s powder kegs and led a team of warriors and hunters to the mouth of the cave. He warned them not to enter or even gaze at the darkness within. The explosion shook the very ground they stood upon and a portion of the cliff below collapsed.  
    Seconds later, the cave was sealed.  
    Finnegan knew it was only a temporary solution, but that was all he could do for now. He knew from his visions that another man—one with his same strange powers—would one day claim the orb inside.

    Finnegan and Tier set sail shortly afterwards, and through a series of negotiations, Finnegan managed to put together another crew from passing ships. Their new voyage took them through the rivers of Panama before Finnegan asked his men to leave, but not before paying them handsomely for their services.
    On his way to Jamaica, he settled on a rowboat with Elizabeth Tier, the red book, his captain’s log, which detailed his voyage, and a few provisions and arms for safe passage.  
    The Belladonna was set on fire, though Finnegan knew it wouldn’t burn for long. In a few hours, a British galleon would intercept it. They wouldn’t recognize it as one of their own and would bring back the half-charred vessel to Port Royale. All of the ship’s documents would have become ashes by then, and the Belladonna rendered little more than a phantom. It would sit for a decade inside the ship yard until a bloke by the name of Francis Drake would become its eventual owner, and change its name to the Golden Hind .  

    Finnegan and Tier settled into a quiet rural life. It wouldn’t be a very long life; what they saw and the usage of their abilities had taken a toll on their minds and bodies. Perhaps that was the price to pay for threading upon God’s territory.
    Tier had the red journal shipped back to the Order. They had not added any new information to its contents, and the Order would assume that the mission was a failure. Without more people with special abilities to undertake the task, it was unlikely the Order would be able to attempt such a mission again.
    After his last adventure Finnegan would never set sail again, although he did spend days out at sea, fishing for his family.
    Before he built his new house, new family, and new life, Finnegan had one final piece of business left.  
    He acquired a sturdy coffin and filled it with dirt and hay. In a tightly sealed box, he placed his captain’s log, the only document which proved the existence of people with abilities like his, the Order, and detailed maps leading to the cave.
    He took the coffin out to sea, amidst the blue waves of his true home, the Caribbean. There, he sunk his coffin and returned to Jamaica where he bribed a government official to tamper with the records. As far as the books went, no boat was rented, no coffin purchased, and some lucky man simply happened to stumble upon ten pounds in silver.
    Shortly thereafter, Finnegan and Tier settled down together in a small house by the countryside where she bore him a son—a son that would be the catalyst for events to come.  
    As for the coffin, Finnegan knew that the waves would carry it off until, eons later, it would end up in the precise spot it needed to be.
    Until that moment in time, the coffin, with all its secrets, was destined to lie beneath sea, sand and sky, waiting for the one chosen to reclaim it.

PART 2

    “All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. This I did.”

    — T.E. Lawrence

Chapter 13

    Trinity College, June 2012.

    Nick Solomon was late. Again.
    He darted in and out of groups of students, bobbing and weaving like a boxer in a ring.