Page 1 of Capture of Capricorn

PROLOGUE

What a beautiful day.Zora tapped her hands against her steering wheel as she drove to the grocery store. The sunny Saturday morning—yay, the weekend—had her in high spirits. After she completed the adulting tasks, like getting food for the week and doing a bit of a tidy-up, she could hit the garage to start work on her next project.

During the week, she worked as a metallurgist at a company researching ways to combine and use metal. In her spare time, she indulged in her side hustle of creating metal art, which she charged prime prices for. Who knew there was such a big market for owls made out of bolts and nuts, or novelty lawn ornaments?

A sign on the side of the road drew her eye. Garage Sale, AKA used junk no one wanted. However, given the cost of metal, sometimes garage sales could be good for finding scraps for cheap that she could use. Cast iron pans, any kind of copper, even old tools and metal-based odds and ends could be repurposed.

On a whim, Zora veered, following the arrow on the sign, and headed down a residential road. She easily found the place by the number of cars lining the street. She parked and walked to the driveway crowded with items and people. Tables had beenlined up and held heaps of household items; dishes, glasses, stacks of books, and a bunch of eclectic items that all had one theme in common.

Zora’s brows rose as she noticed the seller apparently had a fetish for all things stars and Zodiac. A quick peek at the books showed them either relating to the constellations in the sky or pertaining to the symbolism, from the history to the mysticism around them.

“My uncle was a bit of a nut,” a woman with curly hair and rosy cheeks confided as she sauntered over to Zora’s side.

“By the looks of it, he was really into astrology.”

“Just a bit. When he died, I couldn’t believe the amount of stuff he had stashed.” The woman sighed. “We hadn’t talked in decades. My mom, his sister, says he wasn’t the same after returning from a trip in Australia. Whatever he experienced over there led to his obsession.”

“What’s this?” Zora’s attention was caught by a metal egg-shaped sphere sitting between a large ceramic mug and a vase carved with symbols.

“No idea, but he must have prized it since he had it sitting on the fireplace mantel by itself.”

Zora grabbed the object and frowned as a tiny shock went through her fingers. She turned it over in her hands. “It’s not very heavy.” She hefted it. “Wonder what it’s supposed to be.”

“No idea, but if you want it, I’ll sell it for a buck,” the woman offered. “I want to get rid of as much of this as possible, else it will cost me a fortune hauling it to the dump.”

A dollar? She’d have gone up to five. “Sold.” Zora paid for the metal egg and tucked it under her arm as she kept browsing for other items she could use. She spent another five bucks on a box with some old rusty tools that could be cleaned for use. She almost bought a painting, too, which surprised, as she didn’t usually give a shit about that kind of stuff. However, the canvas,painted by hand and signed by the artist, caught the eye. The image of a very muscled dude, facing away, holding a sword, with a tattoo of the libra scales on his back did intrigue. Seemed like something you’d see on the cover of a romance novel, not hanging in some guy’s house. While intriguing, she couldn’t imagine displaying it, though, and thus chose to leave it behind.

Zora loaded her car with the stuff she’d bought, finished running her errands, and headed home. While she ate a sandwich, she eyed the sphere sitting on her counter. The smooth surface didn’t reflect anything, nor did it glint with the light no matter how she turned it.

What was it made of? Perhaps, despite its metallic appearance, it was painted plastic. Given its light weight, if the shell actually was metal then it would most likely be hollow. She’d soon find out.

The garage attached to her house had been converted into a workshop that included a welder, workbench, mini forge, basin with a faucet that she could fill for cooling, and a pegboard on the wall holding a variety of tools.

She set the sphere in a vise before grabbing a knife with the intent of peeling the surface. The tip of the blade slid across the orb without leaving a scratch. Hunh. Unexpected. Applying the drill to it to create a hole also failed. She took a reciprocating saw to it next, the jagged carbide teeth sharp enough to cut through anything.

The saw whirred, the blade screed, all to no effect. She blinked at the unmarred object. Definitely not plastic, but what kind of metal could withstand what she’d done thus far? None she could think of off the top of her head but she wasn’t giving up. On the contrary, the mystery intrigued.

Zora put on her welding mask and fired up her torch. A white-hot flame jetted from the nozzle, and she ran it over the orb, back and forth, before holding it in one spot.

The metal didn’t melt. Hell, it didn’t even change color. She held a hand over it, expecting to feel radiating heat off it, but instead felt nothing. When she poked it right after, preparing herself for a singed fingertip, the surface temp of it remained the same.

Definitely strange. She didn’t recall ever studying a metal that didn’t heat. As she ate some lunch, she pored over textbooks left over from her years at university. She went through the index, seeking out metals with the toughest properties. Tungsten, which had a crazy high melting point, titanium, chromium…

In her attempt to identify, she tried everything she could think of, even swung at it with a mallet!

Boing.

Her arms trembled from the reverberation, and the unmarred orb mocked.

What the ever-loving fuck?

Zora went to bed that night completely puzzled and woke in the morning determined to figure out the mystery. She logged onto some of her forums, the small community of metalsmiths always eager to help each other—and show off their talent.

She posted an image of the sphere and detailed her issues in identifying it.

Most of the comments that poured in over the course of the day proved unhelpful.

Alien artifact. Bury it deep!She doubted it was ET-crafted. However, it did make her wonder if it came from some kind of meteor. It would explain why she couldn’t class it.

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