Lunara: The Original Trilogy

by Wyatt Davenport

  An older lady walked over toward Chloe, tilted her head back, and allowed her to drink the water. She finished the entire bottle before he could thank Dakota.

  "Why are you doing this to us?" Seth said. "We are in pain!"

  "You’re breaking my heart," Dakota whispered. "But I can only make it easier for you. I have dedicated my life to Hans, and we are deep inside a secured facility. I can’t do anything, so you have to endure the pain. It is making you both more powerful."

  "Look at Chloe. She can’t survive another around." Seth pressed his arms against his restraints. "Anything you can do to help Chloe, I will be forever grateful. If you can get her released, I’ll cooperate fully with all your experiments."

  "Absolutely not," Chloe said. "I’ll never leave you. I would die instantly if they forced me to leave."

  Dakota craned her neck and whispered into his ear, "I’ll try."

  Over the display, Eamonn relayed battle numbers to Sarah Cortez as she picked herself up off the deck and surveyed the damage to the Unity’s bridge.

  "We are in rough shape, Captain Dalton," she said. "The conduit behind her spit electrical sparks across the controllers attempting to fix them."

  The viewscreen flickered static between battle reports.

  "Fenor," he said. "Clean it up."

  Sarah wiped her forehead with the cuff of her jacket. "The plasma fires are heating the air to almost unbearable levels. My crew is in utter chaos. My sensory technicians are feeding outdated information into weapons control systems, pilots are listening to multiple orders, and station commanders are running around in total confusion. I’m not sure we can last much longer."

  Eamonn didn’t blame Sarah for being so overwhelmed. She was a simple diplomat who attended galas and state dinners, but he had to tell her something to get the Unity in a position to make a difference. "Sarah, tell your fighters that the transports need to get to Lunara. Focus on that."

  Eamonn gazed out the view port. He took in a quick breath as he watched the more heavily armed MSA cruiser pummel the Sheriff.

  "The Sheriff needs our help," Sarah muttered, and she trembled, seeing the desperate situation.

  "The Sheriff is doing its own job. We can’t sacrifice our own jobs in a battle for a rescue."

  He didn’t know how she expected to help the Sheriff anyway. Her ship was caught in a similar battle and was rocking violently back and forth as a barrage of missiles blasted its starboard side.

  A squadron of MSA fighters strafed the aft shield.

  He flipped on another comm channel. "Alpha squadron. Get those fighters off the Unity."

  "Already on it," the lead pilot replied. The squadron swooped in from above and sprayed a stream of sonic bullets into the lead ship of the MSA fighters. The MSA fighters jerked away toward the craters of the moon.

  "Captain Dalton," Sarah said. "They have wised up and are taking out the mines. The radar jamming is lost in section 1B; the Barracuda can be targeted on radar again."

  With a quick glance, Eamonn scanned the radar screen. "Send a warning message to the Barracuda and remind her to keep pushing their MSA cruiser farther out. She is doing good."

  Eamonn had lied. The Barracuda wasn’t doing its job correctly. The Sheriff and the Regulator kept pushing their MSA cruisers farther away, some ten thousand kilometers out from the colony. The Barracuda had yet to force the MSA cruiser anywhere. It wasn’t the Barracuda’s fault; they didn’t have enough ships to move them simultaneously. Its assigned MSA cruiser was on the far side of Lunara, and it was more wide open. The confined area at the head of the battle prompted the other MSA cruisers to move to safety, but the Barracuda’s MSA cruiser could move throughout the large area without giving up positioning.

  "The Barracuda is demanding help from us," Sarah said.

  "Miss Cortez," Eamonn said. "We can’t provide any help. She’ll have to do it on her own. The Unity needs to protect the transports. Tack to the port side, don’t let any salvos batter your aft shielding. From my readings, they need time to recharge. Fire all remaining secondary starboard missiles to clear space around you."

  "Do what he says," Sarah said to the tactical officer beside her.

  The Unity mustered enough strength to volley another barrage of missiles toward the belly of the MSA cruiser. The Unity was too slow, however. The MSA cruiser rolled and avoided all but one of the missiles, the last missile catching the turret cannon on the bottom of the ship’s hull. But the attack served its purpose. The MSA cruiser banked back toward empty space, reaching a safe distance to recoup.

  "One out of range," Sarah said. "Now get us between Lunara and the cruiser the Regulator was assigned."

  "Sarah," Eamonn said. "You would put yourself in the crossfire."

  "The transport must get to Lunara," she said sternly. "I know what we have to do, now."

  "You’re right," he replied. "Get the transports to Lunara."

  She rushed away without turning off the viewscreen. He faintly heard her say, "Communications, tell those Asterfighters we need them closer to Lunara. We’ll never open up space if they are strafing the perimeter."

  Eamonn felt more confidence in her now. He had delivered his message of the importance of roles within a battle.

  Chapter 37

  "Stop it! Stop it!" Seth implored Hans, the faint scent of burned flesh torturing his nose. Chloe screamed again, and a twitch ran through his face with each of her hollers. Seth stretched his restraints to maximum, but the futility of his actions infuriated him more than the pain.

  Hans ignored their pleas, continuing to apply the electrical pulses into her spine. After each cycle, his nurses would mutter a few statistics to him. He would sit at his terminal and adjust her torment to adhere to his requirements.

  Seth felt stronger and more focused after each session. Hans Bauer told him his body was getting much stronger, and he was beginning to believe that Bauer had more knowledge about him than he had ever realized. How had he discovered so much in such little time?

  Seth looked over at Chloe, who couldn’t raise her head, and her eyes remained closed. He wondered if she was conscious.

  "Hans, are you about done?" he yelled. "She can’t take much more of this. Give her a break. Give me more pain!"

  "She isn’t finished," Hans remarked. He moved over beside Seth. "You impress me. I believe you are twice as strong now as you were when you joined us. The girl, however, has been failing. She doesn’t have the physical skills needed to run the same experiments. I’ll have to find someone else you care about to enhance your need to develop." He walked toward him, circling the table and coming up close to Chloe, touching her face with his hand. "Or would you increase tenfold if I bring her to the brink of death or even death? Such hatred of me would no doubt lead to interesting results."

  "No!" He swung his body toward Hans, causing the table to rock so hard it tipped over. The back of his head smacked hard against the floor. He gritted his teeth to stave off the pain.

  Hans stepped back, waving his guards into the room.

  Seth thought quickly. If a bolt or a strap had been damaged during the fall, he might have a chance to free himself. Once free, he would kill Bauer. He pulled on his restraints, trying to jar himself loose, but the cuffs clamped to his wrists held like vices. He pulled again, but the cool ring of a gun’s barrel against his cheek stopped him.

  Technicians moved in and positioned themselves in all corners of the table, and with one heave, they set it on its legs.

  "That is some strength," one tech remarked as he knelt to secure the table. "These tables weigh upward of two hundred pounds. Would take some leverage to move them like he did." He attached elbow clips to the legs and bolted it to the floor. "What is with this guy, Dr. Bauer?"

  "Do your job! I will worry about ‘what is with this guy,’" Hans snapped at the young tech.

  "Sorry, Doctor."

  Seth took paced breaths to calm his raging mind. Hans had successfully goaded him into a fit of su
preme anger. Seth knew Bauer prized Chloe more than he did Seth. Chloe’s mind was special, and Seth knew that Hans cherished its potential. So why did he think Hans would ever kill her? An image of her death flashed into his mind. Samantha spoke the truth when she said Chloe was his weakness. He had to start thinking like a scientist and control himself.

  "How did you find us?"

  "Your original physicals when you became pilots for Lunara. It was the first time in your life you gave blood to Mars, and I found you."

  Seth was puzzled. "You were looking for us, specifically?"

  "Yes and no. I have been researching the effects of metalor on human development for the last twelve years. It occurred to me, while I was working for the chancellor, that not only could we use metalor on metals but with carbon elements as well. His obsession with eugenics led me to attempt to enhance human DNA and development. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was unsuccessful, but I still searched all blood and tissue samples for an occurrence in nature. That is when I found the two of you, or more specifically, I found Chloe. You only have trace amounts of metalor in your system, no more than other people who work with the meteor stones, so I’ll be conducting further experiments on both of you to determine why you are so different. I suspect when I analyze the muscle fiber samples I took from you, I will find the reason."

  "You know why we are like this?" Seth said.

  Bauer smiled. "Soon enough I will, and then we can make Mars a better place—"

  From the room above, faint cries, shouts of confusion, and clear direct orders resonated. Next, the room shook, and this was followed by a slow rumble rippling from the front to the back. The smell of smoke appeared in the air and gained in strength.

  Seth eyed Hans; the scientist’s face turned pale, and he took steps back toward the wall.

  Hans didn’t plan this, Seth thought.

  Hans barked at his guards to secure the doorway as he hastened to the communications unit on his desk. "Security, what is that noise?"

  Another rumble sounded, louder than the last. The room shook again, and as the beakers and test tubes fell to the floor, the shattering of glass echoed. In front of him, Chloe’s table rocked back and forth.

  Seth could hardly see now because of the smoke. He thought everyone had left. No. All the nurses are behind a bank of computers. He took in a deep breath of smoke and coughed.

  Above the laboratory, the air rumbled and billows of smoke poured into the room. The fire suppression system turned on and suffocated any flames instantly. But smoke hazed the laboratory, and Seth smelled the explosive burn off, but luckily, no further flames ignited.

  He listened intently from the outer room as gunfire rattled from the hallway. Flashes of light burst through the room above. The exchange was short.

  The next few seconds felt like hours to him. Shadowy figures emerged amidst wisps of smoke.

  "Help! In here!" he called out, not knowing if friends or foes were stepping into the inner room. Several troops dressed in the blue and gray of the Zephyrian combat force came through the haze and secured the lab. No threats remained, and they whistled a hoot of confirmation.

  A familiar figure walked through the smoke and entered the room. Seth recognized her long curly hair instantly. "Gwen! I knew the crew would come."

  "No," she said, scanning the room. "Only me."

  He narrowed his eyes.

  The troops unstrapped his legs and arms. He sprang to his feet and rushed toward her. Reaching out with his hand formed like a claw, he pressed Gwen to the wall, hard, harder than he had expected to push her.

  Her troops raised their guns and pointed them at him.

  She waved them down. "What is that for?" Her voice cracked under the weight of his hand.

  "That was for betraying us at the gala and making us go through who knows how many days of torture." Seth moved his hands from her throat onto her shoulders, pressing her into the wall. "Why?"

  "I didn’t do anything wrong. How could you think I would betray you? I am the one rescuing you," Gwen countered. "My father betrayed me. I came to get my friends and myself to Lunara. Lunara is under attack again, but this time Aethpis is trying to reclaim it. The battle at Lunara will decide if the newfound Alliance has any chance of survival. We need to go and help anyway we can."

  He didn’t believe her. "You knew nothing about your father’s treachery?"

  "No, he lied to me, too. He deceived us into telling the crowd and the planet those lies. He controls most of Mars now. We can’t afford to let him have you or Lunara, or we will lose."

  He loosened his grip and relaxed his hands. He had to get Chloe out of there. Gwen had come to save them, so who was he to disbelieve her? He moved over to Chloe’s table and unfastened her restraints. He shook her shoulders, trying to wake her.

  She mumbled words he couldn’t understand.

  "Wake up." He took her in his arms and sat her up.

  "I—I just had the worst dream," she muttered.

  "I am afraid it wasn’t a dream," he whispered into her ear. "We must leave. We have to get to Lunara."

  Chloe opened her eyes and looked at him with a blank stare. "Carry me."

  "As far as you need."

  Gwen stepped forward and grabbed Seth’s shoulder. "I brought clothes for each of you. You’ll need them when we get outside. Put them on quickly. I’ll help dress Chloe."

  Once they were dressed, Seth picked up Chloe.

  She put her arms around his neck and held him tightly.

  Gwen pulled out a syringe from a pouch she retrieved from her knapsack.

  "Hey, no needles," he hissed. "I’ve seen enough of them for a lifetime."

  "Just a stim to reenergize you and help with your hydration," Gwen said. "It will not hurt. I promise."

  "Give it to Chloe. I’m fine."

  Gwen touched the needle to Chloe’s arm.

  Chloe’s head perked up for a moment and fell back onto his shoulder.

  "It’ll take about ten minutes. She won’t be able to run a marathon, but she will be awake and alert."

  "Good enough. Let’s leave."

  Gwen led up the stairs toward the outer room, where the troops had already secured the prisoners and cleared a path out for them.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Seth caught sight of Hans cowering behind Dakota.

  "Bauer, I should kill you but I won’t. Mars’s revenge isn’t worth your life." He walked out of the room without looking back.

  "Jan, fire the EMB charge, I’m bringing in the transports," Eamonn sounded over the radio.

  "I’m almost there, but I’m experiencing massive MSA counterfire. They installed dual cannon turrets on the towers. Watch out for them."

  Jan angled her ship toward her target.

  Eamonn watched as the MSA fighters drove her too far to her left. She would have to make a sweeping pass along the surface to realign herself.

  Suddenly, his screen lit up with a red flash.

  An MSA fighter had come out from behind a berg of wreckage and debris, swept behind her, and locked onto her tail.

  "Protector," she said. "I need some help here."

  "Buckley!" It encouraged Eamonn that Jan had spotted the fighter. It would give him time to help her.

  "On our way," Buckley replied. "Falloom, veer up thirty degrees. Sweep him across my screen."

  Eamonn gritted his teeth. "If you miss, she can’t escape."

  "Trust me. If he pulls up with her, his lateral thrusters will be in no position to leverage him out."

  "I confirm," Jan radioed back.

  Eamonn remained hesitant, but he had no better ideas, and time was short. If they didn’t act in the next few seconds, Jan would be dead.

  Jan blasted the engines on the starwing, tilted its nose ten degrees upward, veering the ship off the surface.

  The MSA fighter matched her movements, blasted a powerful third thruster, and closed the gap.

  The ever-closing MSA fighter panicked Jan as she wobbled her
wings back and forth. Her speed was at maximum, and Eamonn noticed on his display that her lateral thrusters were dangling between critical temperature and emergency shut down. He knew she had no extra power to escape if they missed. The MSA fighter had her locked.

  His throat tightened.

  Buckley darted the Protector and swooped down from above, startling the MSA fighter into an abrupt jerk to his port side, but he was not in time to avoid the spray of bullets along the aft engine mount.

  After a sudden burst of flames, smoke trailed behind the MSA fight, and the pilot, realizing his thrusters were inoperable, ejected himself into space.

  Eamonn let out his held breath as the MSA fighter spiraled into the lunar surface, sending up a cloud of dust and rock. "Nice shooting, Buckley."

  Jan turned the starwing back, sweeping across the surface of the moon.

  A surge of confidence rushed through Eamonn. The Protector was on Jan’s tail, cleaning out all the garbage in front of her. She would have a clear shot in a matter of moments.

  "You are square for a shot," he said.

  "I read you," Jan replied.

  To their starboard, the Regulator blasted its missiles hard into an MSA cruiser. The amount of firepower the Regulator released was unlike anything Eamonn had ever witnessed and exceeded what he thought possible. He realized with a sudden fright why cruiser-class starships never engaged one another in space wars. The entire display looked devastating.

  Jan’s starwing streaked toward what could be its destruction, a target no more than a few meters wide. It was the ventilation shaft leading directly into the sector’s power systems.

  Eamonn tracked Jan to the location, squeezing tight against the arms of his chair. If she missed by even a meter, the EMB charge would become useless and dissipate into the void of space. The transports needed this shot.

  He pursed his lips. Her targeting computer relayed a yellow state.

  "Fire it!" he said impatiently.

  "No!"

  Eamonn knew she was right and cursed himself for pressuring her. She could fire safely now, but it would be a less accurate shot. She had to wait for the green light, the absolute lock. Nothing else would be good enough.