Lunara: The Original Trilogy

by Wyatt Davenport

  "But he was evil for years," Seth said. "He’s been constructing this plan since the war ended."

  Gwen shook her head. "He never would have acted if I was here. I know his heart is good. Go now or my guards will have died in vain rescuing you."

  In the distance, the chancellor moaned. "Gwen, help your father."

  Her eyes widened.

  "I’ll come back for you," Seth said. "When we have recovered, I promise you."

  "You will," she said, rubbing her hand across his cheek. She kissed him on the forehead and pulled him to his feet. "Go now."

  He dashed up the ramp, and Chloe pulled on his hand, guiding him into the ship. The hatchway door shut, and they moved into the cockpit.

  Gwen hurried over to her father, grabbed him by the jacket, and heaved until he had enough of a grasp to pull himself on top of the platform. She didn’t care if he was injured. She didn’t even check. The ship started to hover off the deck. The engine’s ion drive flared into full power, and the landing struts retracted. A smirk formed, infinitely small on her face, but as wide as Mars’s biggest chasma in her heart, as the soldiers stormed on the platform and shot futilely into the reinforced hull.

  The ship eased away from the facility, turned the engines to full, did a sweeping turn, and blasted at a steep angle through the sky out into space. They had escaped.

  "I knew you wouldn’t program me into the gun turret’s computer," her father said. "I knew you still loved me."

  He grabbed her with both of his arms and drew her close.

  She started to weep on his shoulder. Her father was lost. Somehow, she would find a way to bring him back.

  She heard boots shuffling, then Thomas Cross moved up to them, sneering at her. "We will take her into custody from here, Chancellor."

  "No. She is my daughter."

  "She broke into the security center and killed a man."

  Gwen took in a quick breath. So they did know about her foray into the security center before the gala. Her father had protected her. Why?

  Her father’s faced turned sour. "She saved my life. Where were you when I was in trouble? Stuck behind the doorway."

  Cross was unimpressed. "Should I send a squadron to capture the ship? We can’t risk them."

  "No, get us a transport back to the main dome. We have a war to win. Our forces on Mars have almost completed their objectives, and the rogue force over Lunara should be easily overpowered. Those two will be caught in a trap regardless, and Bauer will need them alive."

  "We should kill them now," Cross said. "They will only cause trouble for us."

  Gwen’s heart skipped. Cross was a brutal man, and she felt better about not programming her father into the turret gun. He was the only man keeping Cross from killing her.

  "Not yet," her father said. "Be patient. They have nowhere to run."

  Gwen’s stomach tightened at the thought of Seth and Chloe’s capture, as they had risked so much for their escape. She held her father’s arm as they walked off the platform. She took one last gaze into the sky and wished the blue streak above her a pleasant voyage and safe return to Lunara. Tears streamed down her face.

  Chapter 41

  The Unity, half buried, sat in the distance. The back of the ship was a heap of twisted and scorched metal. The front was unscathed, but lunar dirt and dust covered it. The MSA cruiser lay motionless to the side of the Unity, and trails of smoke and fluids leaked from different parts of the cracked hull. The Unity’s bridge crew was fortunate when they crashed to have had the agility to pull up and lessen the impact. Parker doubted anyone on the MSA cruiser survived, not after seeing the peeled back air locks, the result of an explosive decompression that had ripped through the ship on impact, exposing the crew to the vacuum of space.

  Piloting the transport vessel, he circled the Unity, and the silhouettes of people moved in the main window into the bridge. He lowered in toward the emergency hatch that was marked with yellow and red warning stripes.

  Ten minutes later, the transport vessel locked clamps to the hatch, resonating with a clang. Both jubilation and pure terror vexed his thoughts of what might lie inside. Will Sarah be alive or dead? Can I face either eventuality?

  When the door sealed, the clasp released to open the hatch. His ears popped. He looked for Sarah, but the officers, floating toward the hatchway, blocked his line of sight.

  "Thank you, sir," an officer said. "We thought no one would ever come. We almost ran out of air."

  "Come right in, plenty of air in here. Take a seat in formation, I’ll get you back to Lunara in no time," Parker said, waving his arm for them to enter.

  The soldiers moved by him one by one.

  His face fell as he watched the soldiers; some had severe burns on their arms and legs, and some with broken ribs held their sides; the ribs had most likely been broken by their restraining harnesses during the jarring impact.

  Finally, she appeared. She held gauze to her mouth, covered in blood. Parker raced through the hatchway directly for her, almost thumping his head on the ceiling with the sudden shift to low gravity.

  "Sarah, I thought you had died. I . . . I . . ."

  She extended her arm, and he grabbed on to her to stabilize himself. He pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her. He lowered the gauze on her lip. The left side of her lip was black and blue with stitches closing it.

  She touched her hand to his face. "I don’t think I’ll be winning any beauty contests."

  "You would win every one running away. It wouldn’t even be a contest," he said, moving his lips toward hers.

  She stopped him. "It will hurt."

  "I’ll be gentle." Parker whispered, running his fingers through her tattered hair. He moved in once again to kiss her.

  She stopped him again. "I’ll get blood on you."

  "It doesn’t matter." He forced his lips to hers.

  She dropped the gauze and embraced him, pulling him in tighter. She cringed at the stinging pain with each kiss but she continued.

  He knew she had fallen in love.

  An hour later, Parker and Sarah met Eamonn Dalton, Shannon Buckley, Ty and Jan Falloom, the brave boy Harry Corvo, and his sister, Emily. They stood gazing out toward the red dot hovering between the charred remains of the battlefield.

  Parker noted the silence lasted for a long time. The aches of exhaustion started to throb in his weary body, and he had no doubt they felt the same. He thought back to the meteor run before the invasion and the closeness of the crew then. Considering they had faced so much adversity together before, he didn’t know why they had fractured so decisively on Mars. He was confident that when the events of the last few days set in, they would pull together and bring justice to the MSA. That was his plan.

  "Do you think they’ll be all right?" Jan said. "I feel so bad leaving them the way we did."

  "Seth will protect Chloe until it costs him his life," Eamonn said. "She will do the same. They will come out of this okay in the end, but I don’t envy their position. We lost Roche and Gwen."

  Parker’s jaw tightened. "Gwen is not dead, and she will help them. I know she is on our side, working from within."

  "She is a part of the crew of the Protector," Jan said, "and even if she is the chancellor’s daughter, she won’t betray us."

  Eamonn sighed. "Let’s hope she hasn’t turned."

  "I know she hasn’t," Parker said. "The crew’s bond is too great."

  "Wow, check that out!" Harry shouted, pointing out of the window.

  Small explosions from within the debris field sent a brilliant flash of blue and green into view. Parker pulled Sarah in a little closer.

  Epilogue

  "Quickdrives activated," Seth said. "All we can do is wait. I spotted an MSA cruiser on long-range radar fleeing Lunara. I am getting positive reports from Aethpis about a victory on Lunara. I’m encouraged, but let’s stay low profile nonetheless."

  "I agree," Chloe said, moving over to where he sat. They both stared out t
he rear window at the fading Mars. "We need to keep hidden for as long as possible. We don’t really know what is happening on Lunara."

  The ship turned, righting itself on the assigned course toward Earth. Mars slid into view out of the aft porthole.

  "Mars is fading," Chloe said. "I hope Gwen is all right. She sacrificed a lot to save us. Including her reputation."

  "She stayed to save her father, not only from the fall, but also from himself and what he is doing on Mars. If anyone can stop the MSA, I think Gwen can. She’ll bring peace to Mars."

  "I sense confusion in her heart. She loves her father so much. I hope it doesn’t cloud her judgment."

  "She will have help," he said. I promised her I would return to Mars to rescue her. I just hope we are not too late."

  "We will return."

  THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES . . .

  Lunara

  Gwen and Eamonn

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Ahead, the scout ship of the Martian Supremacy Authority (MSA) lurked somewhere on the far side of the moon. The Earth’s shadow faded its hull. At this distance, the scout’s ion drive blended with the stars, speckled across the vast blackness of space. To the port side of the Protector, toward the aft, the radiant white gray of the planet Earth blazed off the hull. Dusk approached Lunara.

  Eamonn Dalton, captain of the Protector, hero of the Alliance, sat in his chair, watching the tracking screen trace the trajectory of the MSA scout. The ship’s intent was clear. Only minutes before, it had skimmed the surface of the moon, readying itself to scan the fleet of the newly formed Alliance.

  Purposefully, he sat back in his chair, awaiting the next move. He would remain patient. In time, the scout would appear.

  In the pilot’s chair in front of him, an antsy Shannon Buckley piloted on the assigned course.

  The scout ship remained casual, even with the Protector and its starwings bearing down on it. Eamonn called up the gravity well calculations from the Lunara orbit and confirmed his previous query. The scout couldn’t engage quickdrives before the Protector would intercept it. Eamonn’s patience was warranted.

  Shannon rustled in her seat again. He glanced in her direction. In the two weeks since the battle of Lunara, they had been inseparable. Using the clout gained with his victory, he had assigned her to the Protector full time, and they also chose to spend off-hours together. He was falling for her.

  And yet…

  Guilt pulled at his heart. Madelyn had been his only love, but she died standing up to the chancellor. With her death still fresh on his mind, he wondered if he had rushed too quickly to form such a close relationship. He shook off the thought. He hadn’t seen Madelyn for five years. He wasn’t about to let another fascinating woman slip from his fingers.

  "Shouldn’t we engage a little faster?" Parker McCloud said over the radio. He was piloting one of the starwings. "The scout is edging closer toward the edge of the moon’s gravity well."

  "I don’t want him to slingshot around the moon and pick up speed. As long as he is holding course, we’ll catch him before he can engage his quickdrives. Hasn’t your wife taught you patience yet?"

  "Sarah hasn’t been around long enough to rub off yet."

  "I hear ya," he said, and a chuckle crackled over the radio. "No sudden movements."

  "Nonetheless, we should send a deaf bomb," Jan Falloom radioed from the other starwing. "We’ll be coming into his radio range in thirty seconds."

  "Already setting the target." Eamonn fingered the weapons control keys on his arm panel. He targeted a path ahead. The control panel beeped; the bomb was ready. He disengaged the safety key and pressed the discharge button.

  With a flare, giving a slight lurch to the Protector, the bomb sped out.

  After a heart-stopping minute, it detonated. A green ball of light leapt out from the epicenter of the explosion. The scout ship shook gently and regained its level moments later. By the time the shock wave contacted with the Protector, only a low-pitched hum reverberated across the hull. The sound disappeared before Eamonn could focus on it.

  Immediately after the green light passed over, the radar screen flared with echoes. The bomb had done its job, effectively hiding the Protector in plain sight. Out of the hundreds of radio blips on the screen, only three were real: the Protector and the starwings. The scout’s cloak still eluded their understanding.

  The scout swayed away from the moon and then back, trying to locate its predator after suddenly going blind. Shannon matched pace for pace, keeping the Protector in the scout’s blind spot.

  But the secondary reaction caught Shannon off guard. The scout ship twisted then dove toward the surface.

  Eamonn pursed his lips, wondering why the ship cut a lot steeper and was off-angled for an attempt to slingshot the lunar gravity. Something was wrong.

  "Engage," he said over the squadron’s channel. "Parker, don’t let that ship cut back along the surface. Keep it in front of us."

  The starwing thrust ahead of the Protector. "I’ll hold it," Parker replied. "Adjusting speed to match."

  "Jan, get ahead of him," Eamonn ordered. "I want to force him toward the surface. We can pick him up when he lands."

  "Affirmative." Jan sent her starwing angling down.

  The scout continued on its deep descent.

  Eamonn wondered what the scout was doing. The space in front was uneventful so there weren’t many places for it to go. The empty space away from the moon wasn’t an option. The Protector and the starwings could catch him in a matter of seconds. And aside from Lunara, the landscape of the moon itself was a monotonous expanse of craters.

  They had the scout ship trapped. "Finally," he muttered. This would be the first of nine scout ships they had been able to spot far enough in advance to catch. The others had escaped too easily, taking the secrets of the new Lunaran fleet.

  "Captain, we are out of the deaf bomb’s range," Jan radioed. "Radar is back."

  The scout veered toward the largest of the craters and one of the deepest, if Eamonn remembered his lunar geography correctly.

  That word deepest lingered in his brain.

  Wham! A jolt rocked the Protector. Eamonn’s teeth chattered, the shaking was so violent.

  Suddenly, without a yelp of warning, the lurch of the ship shoved him back, pressing his organs against his ribs. He gripped the arms of his chair hard to ease the gravity pulling on him. The blood rushed from his head, causing white spots in his eyes. He groaned through gritted teeth, easing the pain and clearing his eyes long enough for him to see why the Protector dove.

  Six MSA fighters streaked out of the crater, all firing toward them. The scout weaved neatly between the fighters and away from the Protector.

  The Protector leveled off, and Eamonn’s head cleared. A jumble before, the myriad of alerts became recognizable. He punched on the control panel to pacify the high-pitched chirps of the engine cooling system, the drawn-out pulsing barks of the terrestrial body proximity feelers, and finally the frantic beeps of the hull stress-tolerance sensor. The only warning left was the radar system buzzing to let him know about the missiles heading toward them. Luckily, the MSA hadn’t hidden their missiles from radar or they would be a heap of space debris. Shannon’s initial maneuver had fooled the homing sensors into shooting the missiles past their position, but they already had a preliminary lock on the Protector, so the group was coming back.

  Eamonn reached over to his weapons control panel, flipped through the selection of functions, and found what he had asked Parker to install only days before—the guardian flares. He sent twenty shooting out the back of the ship.

  For a long moment, the flares fizzled, and suddenly, they burst into an arrayed spectrum of visible and nonvisible light, so bright their reflection glittered off the surface of the dark side of the moon.

  The dozen missiles diverted their course and slammed into the pulsing light like lemmings following an ill-begotten order.

  The next instant
, a fireball surrounded the Protector. The yellows, reds, and oranges swept over the viewscreen, bubbling in spherical flames, blinding the Protector to everything. The creaking and cracking of the expanding hull echoed throughout the bridge.

  Again, Eamonn deactivated the structural-tolerance sensors and flipped on the hull’s cooling units. He let out a long grunt, hoping the ship would hold.

  And as fast as the flame consumed them, the fireball dissipated into the nothingness. The frame groaned spastically as it rapidly cooled. Eamonn grimaced and peeked toward the diagnostic screen. The hull’s sensors were within acceptable limits. His concern waned, and he refocused on the enemy.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow with the cuff of his jacket. Jinx, it’s hot in here.

  His stomach dropped again. The Protector lurched sideways, corkscrewed, and turned backward all in the same movement. He gripped the arms of his chair like vices, attempting to clear his spotting eyes and trying to decipher what was wrong.

  The Protector arched long enough to sharpen his senses and discern the beeps from the radar. A single pulse indicated one missile remained on their tail. Unfortunately, as he read the display screen, the missile closed in too close for guardian flares to obliterate it, and the Protector’s turret guns couldn’t catch the darting speed of the football-sized missile. He could do nothing but wait and rely on the talented, or maybe reckless, piloting of Shannon Buckley.

  The beeping stopped. He blinked, looking at the radar blip.

  Or I could rely on my old pilot for a little help.

  "The missile is gone!" Jan shouted over the radio. "Location plus ninety degrees, plus six degrees on the Z—a group of four MSA fighters trying to surprise you. Cut along my course; I will create a lane for us."