Phantom Planet (Galaxy Mavericks Book 2)

by Michael La Ronn

  She rubbed her arms. She had redirected half of the cabin’s heat to the ship’s engines to make them last longer, and the temperature was dropping.

  “Those aliens were… I don’t know, I can’t describe them. Like black clouds with red eyes. I’ve never seen anything like them in any of the alien databases. I’ll never forget them.”

  She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It was too painful.

  “I am somewhere in the short arm of the Rah Galaxy. My ship is running low on fuel, and I have limited supplies. I have modified the ship so that its fuel will last longer, but even then I don’t know if anyone will find me in time. I’m not afraid of death. If the ship dies, then so will I, but it’ll be quick, and cold, and peaceful. What I’m afraid of is surviving. I’m afraid of looking Claire’s fiancé in the eye, telling him she’s dead and that she’s never coming back and that I couldn’t do anything about it. I’m afraid of going back to the apartment that Claire and I shared for four years, because when I see her old room I’m going to break down like I’ve never broken down before. I’m afraid of going back home to my family and telling them that they were right—maybe going into real estate and being a rebel against their wishes was a bad idea.”

  She laughed, and then sighed long and hard. “Yeah, that’s going to be a bitch. I’ve always had this desire to be my own person, you know? Sitting around on a star base is so boring. I’ve said ever since I was a little girl that I was going to live life on my own terms, that I would be someone extraordinary, that I wouldn’t just live a typical space opera life as a soldier. I’m not going to be like my sister, either. She wakes up every morning, goes to work for a company that will never appreciate her, then comes home and tries not to show her kids that she’s failed at life. At least with real estate, I can control my own destiny. Sure, I work for a company, but I can make as much money as I want. I can set my own schedule—I am NOT a morning person. If I want to go cruising in space by myself in search of a planet to sell, I can do it and never talk to anyone for weeks. If I want to go to a moon bar, I can totally do it. Hmm. I could use a cosmopolitan right now. Six, actually. I guess what I’m saying is that I fulfilled my dream. I should be happy and feel lucky that I’ve been able to do it. But is all of this worth it? Dying for no reason?”

  She really, really wished the camera would talk back to her. Something. Anything. Behind her, the ship settled and creaked like someone was approaching the cockpit. She knew it was no one, but the sound still made her jump, made her wish it was someone, even a space pirate.

  “My ultimate dream is to own a planet,” she said, smiling. “How cool would that be? An Earth-like planet named after me. Keltie. Keltie I or Keltie II—awesome! It would be like my own personal palace where I can do whatever I want. Anyone who wants to live their life on the fringe could come live there. Parents giving you trouble? Come on down! People at work just don’t understand you? Here’s your passport. Sick of those military recruiters? They’re banned from my planet. The only requirement is that you do something that makes you happy. I love my parents, but I never understood why they couldn’t just let me be happy. If in the off chance that they ever watch this, well… sorry. I’m just venting. I’m babbling. I don’t know what I’m going to do or how I’m going to pass the time so I’m just pouring my heart out here hoping that something will change. That God will hear my prayers and send someone to save me. I’m too young to die, man. I had planned to live until at least eighty. I always said that once I turned eighty, God could just take me. There’s no reason to go on after that. The wheels are pretty much falling off at that point. No thanks.”

  She smacked her forehead. “What are you doing, Keltie?”

  She reached up and cut off the camera.

  This was stupid.

  She cuddled up in her blanket and closed her eyes. After a few minutes of tossing and turning, sleep took her, and she slept long and hard.

  Chapter 12

  The ship’s engine died the next morning.

  Keltie stood in the engine room—a small space not much larger than a closet—shivering with a blanket around her as she watched the brilliant blue cylindrical drive power down and flicker off. It sounded like a dying animal—a sound that until now she had never heard outside of the training simulations.

  She waited for it to cool down, and when it did, she put on a pair of rubber gloves, opened up the metal grill at the foot of the cylinder and disconnected the wires.

  Bundles and bundles of wires.

  She had an idea. It was a dangerous one, but she had grown accustomed to danger now.

  The flight training manuals talked about extending the frequency of a distress beacon in dire situations. All you needed was a coat hanger, which she found in the small cabin. One of the crew members had a suit hanging on a metal wire hanger. Seeing it had triggered the idea.

  She didn’t know if it would work, but she tried not to think about it as she tugged at the wires. She pulled them out, trying her best to keep them as intact as she could before cutting them at the base where they met the circuit boards.

  Then she ripped out the circuit boards, chipping away at them with a hammer, then using its crowbar end to dislodge them.

  She tied the wires together into a long, long rope. Then she took a long bundle of it and laid it next to the airlock.

  She unhooked a fresh spacesuit from the rack on the wall.

  It was the last one. She checked the levels.

  Eighty-percent oxygen levels.

  Good.

  She didn’t know if a spacewalk was smart, but it was her only hope.

  Quickly, she suited up, then tied one end of the wire bundle around her waist and the other end to a pole in the airlock room.

  Putting on her helmet, she smelled someone else’s dried sweat and it made her gag. She wished desperately for clean clothes and water. But she snapped the helmet on and activated the suit. Slowly, oxygen funneled into the helmet.

  The airlock opened with a muted bang, and in an instant she was out into space.

  She drifted several feet from the ship. But she tugged the wire, and the tension sent her back toward the ship’s hull.

  She grabbed onto a metal ladder that led up the back of the ship. She climbed her way up to the top, where a small, purple, pear-shaped beacon pulsed in dark space.

  She reached into her pocket and found the coat hanger that she had folded in half. Pulling it out, she straightened the hanger. Fresh sweat beaded on her forehead.

  She hated working in suit gloves. They turned every finger into the equivalent of a thumb.

  She had almost completely unfurled it when she flubbed and the hanger went floating. She jumped, reaching out for it, but it was too far away!

  “Crap!”

  The hanger landed on the side of the ship, hooked on one of the metal rungs on the other side.

  She started across the roof, but then she felt the tug.

  The wire. It wasn’t long enough.

  Her heart throbbed.

  She couldn’t fail.

  If she did, this whole spacewalk would be for nothing and she would have wasted oxygen.

  Sighing, she untied the wire around her waist and gripped it with one hand. She tied it around her ankle. Then she crouched down and crawled across the smooth roof.

  The hanger was just a few feet away, dangling in space.

  Closer…

  Closer…

  Closer…

  Tug.

  She looked back. The wire wouldn’t give.

  She beat against the roof in frustration.

  One last chance.

  She crawled back to the beacon. She tied the wire around the beacon and let go of it.

  She looked back at the hanger.

  It was so close, yet so far!

  She dropped to her stomach, with nothing to protect her.

  This was stupid. So stupid!

  She crawled.

  Limb by limb. One at a time, she inched h
er way across the surface, praying that the ship wouldn’t jolt and suddenly send her flying off into eternity.

  She was nearly there!

  She seized her hands around the hanger.

  Success!

  She slowly turned around and crawled back to the beacon.

  She tied the wire to her waist, and then she connected the hanger to the beacon using a bundle of copper wires in her pocket. With a knife, she cut the sheathing off the wire and connected it to the hanger. She extended the hanger straight up into space.

  If she’d done her homework right, it might extend the range of the distress signal by a couple dozen light miles, which wasn’t much in space, but it was something.

  She started the journey back to the airlock, using the wire as her guide. On the last metal rung, she lost her footing and floated out into space.

  “Oh God!” she cried.

  She used the wire as a tether and pulled it.

  But the pole in the airlock was wiggling.

  The wire was coming loose.

  Her hands were really sweating now. She tried to use as little of her weight as she could, making her way the long two yards between her and the airlock… Only two yards, but it seemed impossibly far away.

  She reached the bay door when the wire snapped from the pole.

  Her hand went out and caught the lip of the bay door just in time.

  She climbed inside and punched the airlock button. The door closed and locked, and she threw herself on the floor, gasping.

  Would it work?

  Only time would tell. But it was a gamble, and she had just released a chunk of the ship’s available oxygen into space. She’d just burned energy too, as using the airlock wasn’t cheap, energy-wise.

  As she took off her suit, the ship chimed.

  Fuel levels at five percent. Please prepare for evacuation…

  Chapter 13

  Time crawled.

  Everything for her was a long, boring blur, until she only had two days’ worth of food.

  Then, impending death started to feel real.

  Her stomach grumbled as she tried to remind herself that she was only going to eat one meal today.

  Today…

  She’d lost track of time.

  She thought she had been on the ship for three days, but she wasn’t sure. Time just passed. There were no suns. No seasons. Just relentless darkness. She’d heard stories from the old days on Earth about places where it was dark for six months out of the year, and she wondered how those people coped.

  She didn’t mind the darkness. What drove her crazy was not knowing the time. The ship’s clock had died after the ten percent fuel mark. Only the absolute essentials were online now. The radio, the water pressure system, the appliances. Everything else was gone forever until the ship received more fuel.

  She stared at her food pyramid.

  Well, it had been a pyramid. Now it was a sad excuse of a square. Two cans of tuna and a sleeve of cheddar slices. After that, she would go hungry.

  And her stomach!

  Ripping pains nearly made her double over.

  She had never gone hungry before.

  No one ever had to worry about hunger on a civilized planet. There was always something to eat. Always someone you could ask for food back at home. It wasn’t like Earth in the old days. The only people who ever died from hunger died in space.

  Like her.

  She rubbed her shoulders, and her teeth chattered.

  She’d made a “doll” of Claire from a towel and an empty cardboard box. With a knife, she cut the towel in half and draped it along the sides of the box like hair. Then she punched out holes in the box for eyes, and drew a long squiggly line for a mouth.

  Morbid, but she didn’t care.

  “What should I do, Claire?” Keltie asked, sitting cross-legged in her seat.

  “You should follow your heart,” she said, mimicking Claire’s voice.

  “Maybe I’ll quit real estate and just work in an office,” Keltie said.

  “You should totally do that.”

  “And when I get back, I’ll order some cheeseburgers and fries, and a cosmo.”

  “One of those things is not like the other…”

  “Watch me. I’m going to devour them. In three bites and one gulp.”

  “Being hungry sucks, doesn’t it?” Claire asked.

  “No. It completely blows. Ha ha… at least I’ve got water…”

  “There’s always a bright side to starving, right? Like a shrinking waistline.”

  “That is not a bright side, Claire.”

  Keltie squinted. Claire’s doll morphed into Claire’s face, and then morphed back. She couldn’t focus.

  The whole thing was just so funny. Hilarious!

  She laughed as Claire started to speak again in her mind.

  Crackling static.

  Claire’s voice… Keltie couldn’t hear her speaking anymore. Static drowned her out.

  Keltie laughed. “Say that again, will you, lady?”

  “Where are you?” the static said.

  “I’m right here, silly.”

  “Can you hear me?”

  The static.

  She blinked.

  The radio. It was on. And blinking.

  “GGC Horizon to corsair, can you hear me?”

  A man’s voice.

  Keltie sprang out of her chair.

  “I hear you!” she screamed. “I hear you, I hear you, I hear you!”

  “This is the Galactic Guard. We received your distress signal. Where are you and how many are aboard?”

  “I don’t know where I am. It’s just me. Where are you?”

  “We’re approximately—”

  The radio crackled and cut out.

  Keltie slammed her fists against the panel. “Come on!”

  The voice spoke again. “Ma’am… coming… state… location… on… way.”

  “Just freaking perfect,” she said, shaking her head.

  The ship chimed.

  Fuel levels at two percent. Begin evacuation.

  Keltie grabbed her suit and ran into the airlock.

  She put it on and activated her oxygen system just as the ship spoke again.

  All power has been depleted. Please stand by…

  Then, out the small port window, she saw it: a galactic starship, sailing straight for the corsair.

  Chapter 14

  The galactic starship was a search and rescue ship—slightly larger than the corsair, but sleek like a bullet, with the bridge at the top middle.

  The rotunda-shaped bridge rotated to give a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of space. Three gravity rings circled the ship. High-beam lights crisscrossed in the front of the ship. They slowly swept the side of the corsair, checking every inch of the ship for signs of life.

  Keltie waved through the porthole, trying to get their attention. The lights stopped on her, blinding her temporarily. She covered her face and looked away.

  Something rocked the ship, making her stumble.

  The light disappeared.

  A long cord had fired from the rescue ship and attached to the corsair via a giant circular magnet.

  The ship rocked again.

  More cords with magnets attached to the corsair.

  A flash of red caught her eye, and she spotted a man in a spacesuit on the roof of the rescue ship. He had a long rescue basket shaped like a giant egg in his hands that he attached to a cord. Then he attached himself to a hoist and slid down the cord toward the corsair with the basket behind him.

  He landed on the top of the corsair.

  Keltie ran for the airlock button. Her heart sank when she realized that the ship’s power was gone.

  She couldn’t open the airlock.

  The radio line in her suit crackled.

  “My name is Petty Officer Grayson McCoy. It looks like you are stranded and have a limited oxygen supply. I’m here to help you.”

  The man knocked.

  K
eltie knocked back.

  “I can’t open the airlock!” she shouted.

  “What is your name, ma’am?”

  “Keltie Sheffield. Seriously, I’ve never been happier to hear another human voice.”

  “Keltie, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Let’s get you out of there. Can you open the airlock manually?”

  She found the manual override—a large lever in the wall covered in safety glass. She broke the glass and tried to pull the lever.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  She pulled again with all her might, but the damned thing wouldn’t move!

  “I can’t!” she cried. “It won’t budge.”

  “Those manual airlocks can be tricky sometimes. Do you have access to a rope or wire?”

  She cursed.

  “Umm, I had some wire, but it’s kind of floating in space right now.”

  “Floating in space…” Grayson paused. “Ah, gotcha. I see it. That’s not gonna do us much good. What were you doing?”

  “A spacewalk. I made a makeshift range extender for the distress beacon.”

  “Makes sense now. Explains why your signal was so faint. Well, Keltie, it sounds like we’re going to have to do this the hard way. How much oxygen do you have left in your suit?”

  She checked her levels. “About twenty percent.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Perfect?” she squeaked.

  “Usually, I catch people when they’re hovering around the five percent mark. Makes my life complicated. We should be able to get you into safety before you hit ten.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  “Do me a favor and stand back. If you can, hold on to something, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She retreated into the cabin and held onto one of the support beams on the wall.

  Grayson whistled, zipping up and down an octave as he started banging against the door.

  Then sawing.

  A faint hole appeared in the bay door, then it grew larger, a thin black line tracing upward, then across, then down.

  “Are you holding onto something, Keltie?”

  “Yes. What exactly are you doing?”

  The ship rocked again, and Keltie hugged the beam. A screaming ripped through the airlock, and then a huge, square section of the door fell off and floated into space.