Lunara: The Original Trilogy

by Wyatt Davenport

  Parker smiled and took his hand, leading him into the command center. As he walked in, his radio crackled. He clutched his pocket, knowing Eamonn was in trouble again.

  The door snapped open, and Seth, Gwen, and Chloe jogged onto the platform. Seth scanned for any MSA soldiers and found no one, only a starship.

  The ship’s tripod landing base held up a sleek body and two narrow wings. As they hurried around the back, Seth noticed the stabilizing fin ran up the back of the ship, giving him the impression of a shark. The engine was a smaller model than the one in the Protector, but it had powerful enough quickdrives to get them to Lunara in a week or two. Large bay windows running alongside the ship offset the indigo, glistening exterior. The forward windows jetted out to form a pair of bug-like eyes.

  Gwen and Chloe ran directly to the loading ramp to the side of the ship.

  Seth adjusted his breathing mask and dashed to the far side of the platform to the maintenance hub. He slipped in. The hub consisted of four walls surrounding a control station, which connected it to the landing pad. Three of the walls were glass, and the back wall, where the control panel was located, glittered with a metalor finish.

  The hub’s connection indicated the ship was ready; monitored energy and fuels levels read at good to excellent levels. He adjusted the fuel pump to fill the tanks a little further so they would make it to Lunara if they had to detour to another landing site.

  The blast of the engine firing up startled him. The noise deafened him. His nerves tingled, but he didn’t realize how badly he was shaking until the engine’s roar shook the hub. He focused hard to adjust the gauges.

  A twitch tickled his neck. He turned around. No one was there. Chloe and Gwen were busy in the cockpit fiddling with the controls and preparing the ship for departure. Then Chloe started to wave at him, and he waved back. She probably wanted to know how the ship was doing.

  She jabbed her finger toward the doorway.

  He glanced over and saw it was fastened shut.

  Suddenly, she became emphatic and ran to the back of the ship toward the platform. What was she upset about?

  He walked out of the hub to meet her. When—

  A blunt object struck him in the side of the head, sending him sprawling across the platform. He came to a stop beside the ship. His head spun.

  By the time he realized the butt of a gun had knocked him senseless, Chloe came to him, holding his arm.

  "What do you want, Chancellor?" she shouted. "We won’t surrender to you this time. We’d rather die."

  "Would you rather he died?" the chancellor replied. "Come with us and Seth can go free."

  "You’ll let him go," she replied.

  "I promise."

  "Don’t believe him," Gwen said from behind, walking up cautiously. Her hand fingered her arm control, ready for a strike. "Father, the gun turret under the ship is linked to this control. I have you and your cronies programmed into the computer. Go back down the service elevator where you came from, and no one will be hurt."

  Gwen walked in front of him.

  Seth’s gaze moved over to the chancellor as he walked toward Gwen with his arms open.

  The chancellor’s three guards stood with their guns pointed at him.

  "You won’t shoot me. I know you can’t," the chancellor said.

  "Don’t let him conflict you, Gwen," Chloe said. "His mind is riddled with deceit."

  "She lies!" the chancellor bellowed.

  "Don’t take another step, Father," Gwen said sharply. "I’m not lying. You’re programmed into this computer, too. I have no hesitation after what you did to me. You lied to your own daughter. How can you look me in the eye anymore?"

  "I just wanted to protect you."

  "From what?"

  "From the entire fight. I did this so your children will be safe when the next disaster strikes. We have to speak out, take action, and prepare for the future. This is the time for your choice. You can give up those two to help Mars, and I will forget this ever happened. I can’t protect you if you kill me."

  Past the chancellor, the door to the platform snapped open, and troops fired toward the ship. Gwen tapped the control pad, and the turret killed the three guards around the chancellor in an instant. They fell with blackened chests. Then the turret turned toward the facility and fired numerous shots into the doorway, sending the MSA soldiers back for cover.

  Though dizzy, Seth pulled out his pistol and fired three quick shots across the landing pad into the doorway’s control pad, snapping the door shut when the emergency short circuit triggered.

  "Get on the ship!" Seth yelled. "The hub says it’s safe to take off."

  Gwen and Chloe turned and raced up the ramp.

  Seth pivoted his feet to run, but before he took even a half stride, the chancellor tackled him to the ground. An iron grip pressed around his arms.

  Seth should have figured that Gwen wouldn’t program her father into the turret’s targeting computer. He wiggled frantically, twisting his body, but even with his incredible strength, he had a hard time leveraging his body from the ground. The chancellor had all his weight on top of him. They wrestled—Seth desperate for an escape and the chancellor desperate for a chance at his perverted future.

  Inside the ship, on her way to the cockpit, Gwen grabbed her chest as a voice within contracted her ribs. Sheer terror waved over her body, but it was not her own fear. It was coming from someone else—such a pulsating sensation. She twisted around to see where and from whom it was coming.

  Chloe’s horrified face looked out of the hatchway.

  What is scarier than this current escape attempt? What has changed? Where is Seth?

  That thought triggered Gwen’s realization that, somehow, Chloe was projecting her terrified mind into her. Soon enough, Chloe’s terror would kill her, Gwen, by giving her a heart attack. Chloe read and sensed people’s thoughts, but Gwen was unaware until now that she also projected them. Another reason her father could never get his hands on her. And Seth was the only reason that she would show this much panic. He must be in trouble.

  Gwen staggered over to the hatchway and pushed Chloe to the deck of the ship, stopping the sensation instantly.

  Chloe’s mouth hung agape.

  Without saying a word, Gwen slipped through the hatchway and back to the ramp. She was the one who would have to save Seth. Chloe was useless.

  Chapter 40

  "Good news, sir," Parker called from across the room. "The passwords and the access codes are the same. It’s like we never left. They didn’t get around to changing them."

  "Without me or Tarlynn, they couldn’t change them without restarting the system," Ty replied. "The administrator program wouldn’t allow it." He pumped his fist. Finally, something was going their way; all they needed was a little more time to calibrate the defense systems to turn the battle around. "Weapons control. Retarget those turrets on the MSA fighters. Forget about the cruisers for now." He hastened over to where Grove had taken a seat at communications control. "Get in contact with the Protector. Tell them to draw the fighters close to the colony."

  Parker craned his neck as Ty approached. "What is it?"

  "You know the Emergency Missile System for defense against large incoming meteors. Why don’t we use a resonance charge on the MSA?"

  "We can’t hit a fighter with one of those. The missiles are too slow."

  "If we can keep from moving laterally, an MSA cruiser would be slow enough to get a decent lock on," Ty said. "We need to reconfigure the terminal to track the cruiser so we can lock on from this close of range."

  Parker’s eyes shot open. "I can do that."

  "Precisely. Get to work."

  The Protector darted around ship after ship with three MSA fighters on its tail. The hull—stressed to maximum tolerance—groaned, and claps of the explosive shockwaves grated at their ears.

  "I can’t shake it!" Buckley cried, eyeing the ship in her peripheral viewscreen.

  "Draw it towar
d Lunara. We’ll get cover there."

  "From what?" Buckley said. Her hands were moving the control stick back and forth. She was flying on pure instinct, her eyes zeroing in on the cluster of debris in their flight path, always staying three or four moves ahead. Cutting up and dodging back down, she worked back toward the reach of Lunara’s turret guns. "I hope they have those things running. I’m losing my angle with these fighters."

  "They will; hold her as low as possible," Eamonn replied. "Ripley, aim high over the ships with our cannons. I want those fighters dodging toward the surface."

  "I’m adjusting the cannons to fire high, sir," Ripley replied, his voice coarser than normal, no doubt dry from the tension.

  Outside of the ship, a streak of bullets fired out from the Protector's turret cannon and sailed over the top of the fighters, which, as Eamonn expected, dodged down to escape the intense stream.

  Out the front of the viewscreen, Lunara’s turret cannons swung around to target the group of fighters moving into the targeting zone.

  One MSA fighter panicked—no doubt seeing the turrets adjusting to target his fighter and not his enemy. He pulled up into the stream of bullets from the Protector. The other fighter pilots knew what was inevitable for them; they were trapped on all sides.

  Lunara locked onto the fighters and fired its double cannons at a frantic pace.

  The first volley tore away the plasma shielding from around the MSA fighter’s hull. Violently, the second volley ripped the hull into pieces, the engine mount tearing away from the cockpit capsule, making it spiral cruelly around. All the fighters met the same fate.

  A brilliant explosion of orange and red bubbled around the fighters, enveloping the pilots in a hellfire of flames. They had no time to eject.

  "Parker, do you have the resonance charge ready yet?" Ty called as he dashed over to the emergency firing terminal. Ty’s breath pushed against Parker’s ear as the chief leaned in over his shoulder.

  "I’m about a minute away," Parker replied. "I need to remove some fuel. The propulsion system will have to be more agile to get a darting target. I’m setting the resonance charge to explode in a bubble pattern, which will do the most damage no matter where it hits. Which one should I target?"

  "The one you can hit."

  "Okay, cruiser B on the left side. The captain is coming at a panicked angle and will have no room to turn when she reaches those wrecked fighters." He concentrated on the targeting screen. "The missile is ready."

  "Launch it then!"

  "Patience. I have to get the cruiser where I want it."

  Lunara shook as the MSA cruiser’s bombardment arrived with a horrific thunder. Several joints in the superstructure creaked.

  Lunara fought back. The whine of the anti-missile tracking turrets howled above the yelps of the command crew in the control station. The radar screen showed a massive convoy of missiles impacting Lunara. The command center shook violently.

  Ty fell to one knee and yelled several curses. Parker looked over, but Ty waved off his concern with a flick of his hand.

  Through the viewscreen, the command center watched the old communications tower crumble to the ground. The structure fell destructively into the new hangar bay. The bombarded surface around Lunara kicked up rocks and boulders that hurled onto the colony with a continuous rattle.

  "Parker, do it now," Ty pleaded.

  "Hold on," he muttered.

  Ty looked at him.

  For what seemed like an eternity, Parker sat motionless, concentrating on the targeting computer. "Gone!"

  The command center sat frozen.

  Parker took in a short breath and fixated on the resonance charge flying out of Lunara toward the MSA cruiser.

  "The missile is sluggish!" someone cried. "An easy target!"

  "No it isn’t," the radio crackled with Shannon Buckley’s voice.

  Out from the top of the colony’s towers, the Protector flew in front of the resonance charge, taking the full brunt of the firepower from the MSA cruisers’ tracking defense system.

  "Go Protector, stay with her!" Ty rooted.

  The left wing of the Protector screeched as the metal tore from the hull and flipped end over end toward the emptiness of space. The remaining salvo of antimissile fire skimmed harmlessly along its dorsal fin, rippling the plasma shielding.

  Eamonn knew they couldn’t take the MSA cruiser head-on for much longer. At best, the Protector had only one more maneuver before it came apart. At worst, the next hit would obliterate them. The cool hand of reality squeezed at his heart.

  A flash of light from the MSA cruiser sparked his senses. Instinctively, Buckley jerked the control stick to the side, pushing Gs into his head. He growled to relieve the pain.

  The Protector rolled, showed its belly to the MSA cruiser and purposely absorbed a heap of antimissile bullets. The pinging off the hull squealed into the crew’s ears, forcing a terrified yelp from Fenor Davis.

  After absorbing a full salvo, Shannon yanked the control stick back to level, sweeping the Protector away from the MSA cruiser, barely missing it.

  Eamonn knew Buckley had given the missile enough time, and he knew Ripley had been right; Buckley was the best pilot in the fleet. Maybe it was her finely honed instincts or her woman’s intuition—or maybe it was just fate that she should show her skill at this point.

  Cycling the viewscreen toward the MSA cruiser, Eamonn stared at the impending explosion. Even if they died in the next few moments, he had no intention of going without watching the missile strike the MSA cruiser.

  The last thing he remembered before it happened was a loud cry from Buckley, a cry of pure exhilaration.

  Parker swore he heard the missile bite into the MSA cruiser, but that was impossible through the vacuum of space. Tensely, they waited for it to rip the ship apart. Aside from radio chatter, which had slackened, silence filled the inside of the command center.

  Mouth agape, Parker fixed his stare toward the MSA cruiser. The hull, around where the missile entered, buckled and shook. The metal imploded, folding the ship in half. With an unexpected blast, a massive shockwave ripped the cruiser into two pieces. He shielded his eyes when the brilliant light flooded the command center.

  "Nuclear reaction," he muttered.

  The circular shockwave hurled itself toward the Sheriff and the Regulator, causing them to turn their noses up in an attempt to lessen the vibrations. It worked. The ships didn’t show any structural damage. However, he imagined the multitude of problems that now existed within the ship.

  Lunara was next on the shockwave’s path of victims; the north half of the colony took the brunt of the rippling wave. The moon shuddered under his feet, and a groan followed shortly thereafter. Small explosions beat like drums. Lunara held.

  Parker slumped, and relief washed over his body. They had won. They had defeated the MSA and reclaimed the colony. An uncontrollable smirk curled his cheeks upward.

  Some minutes later, the battle was over, and Parker could barely believe their success. The last MSA cruiser used the distraction of the explosion to retreat into deep space before anyone noticed. The Sheriff gave chase, but Ty recalled it to set up a defensive perimeter.

  The command center cheered for joy. Ty patted Parker on the back, and they walked down from the weapons controls into the main command area to celebrate with the other officers.

  "Well done," Ty said repeatedly. He shook the hands of many soldiers who wanted to thank him for his work—his luck, he thought—and he returned the favor with his own thanks.

  "Sir," Grove said, "I’m getting transmission from the Unity. Captain James reports that some are still alive on the ship."

  Parker raced over to the Grove. "Did you say the Unity?"

  "Yes, sure. They’re trapped to the east of Lunara."

  Parker needed to hear no more. He sprinted from the room and yelled back to Ty. "I’m taking the transport. She might still be alive."

  Methodically, Seth inched to the side,
trying to find enough leverage on the chancellor. The chancellor’s weight was concentrated on Seth’s shoulders, driving him hard into the platform’s cold concrete surface. He was so close Seth smelled his breath.

  Finally able to get his leg turned and free of the chancellor’s weight, he garnered all his strength and sprung up, tossing the chancellor across the platform, where he seemed to slide over the edge.

  "Father!" Gwen rushed down the ramp in full sprint.

  "Help, Gwen come save me!" the chancellor whined.

  Seth looked again and saw that the chancellor had not really fallen over the edge. Ever resourceful, or perhaps due to blind luck, the chancellor dangled over the edge, holding onto the landing pad’s guidance torches.

  "How the mighty have fallen . . . in the blink of an eye," Seth muttered.

  Seth stumbled as he got to his feet and fell back onto the platform. A wave of dizziness consumed him. He exhaled a deep grunt and pushed the sensation away.

  By this time, Gwen moved over and bent beside him, rubbing the side of his head. "Are you okay?"

  "Gwen, my head . . . let’s get to the ship. We must escape."

  He noticed blood on her hands. His blood.

  "I . . . will you be okay?" Gwen brushed the hair along the side of his head.

  "I’ll be fine in a moment. With my strength, the pain is passing. We must escape."

  Gwen looked long into his eyes.

  Seth knew she could hear her father’s pleas and had no doubt that she was conflicted.

  "Once you get to Lunara, you must tell the crew that I was loyal," she said. "I was never a traitor."

  "You never were," he said.

  "They doubt—"

  "Look!" He pointed past her to the doorway that was inching open. Soldiers appeared.

  "You must come with us," he pleaded.

  "I can’t," she said with a great emptiness. "I must save my father. There is no time to save him and get to the ship."

  Seth pulled on her arm, firmly. "I can’t leave you here alone."

  She grabbed his hand and held it against her arm. "You must; Chloe needs you. Save her. My father cherishes her abilities the most out of either of you." They both gazed toward the shuttle. "My father needs me like Chloe needs you. I must guide him back to what we had built before this all started, make him see this overthrow is wrong. My banishment was a part of his plan so I wouldn’t interfere, but my influence reminded him of my mother and her ideals and guided him to honesty. With me away, he drifted into secrecy and deceit."