Chase headed back down the hallway, thinking he might go to the officers’ lounge instead, when a door slid open on his right. He froze as three MPs walked out, followed by a tall, dark-haired woman and two men.
“I do of course appreciate you putting your ship and crew at our disposal with such short notice,” one of the men was saying in an overly gracious tone. His face was plump and saggy, and the receding knot of hair on the top of his head was obviously dyed an obnoxious mahogany. He ran his hands over a wide, soft belly that bulged under an expensive-looking caftan.
“It’s only our duty, Ambassador,” said a familiar booming voice. Captain Lennard followed them out of the room, giving a slight frown as he noticed Chase in the hallway, and continued, “I’ll have the crew begin prepping the ship immediately.”
Chase frowned. Prepping the ship for what?
The ambassador smiled at Lennard in a condescending fashion. “We’ll send over a crew of our own people to help with the preparations.”
The tall, bony, raven-haired woman beside the ambassador caught sight of Chase and cocked her head. “Is there a large civilian population on your ship, Captain?” she asked in a deep, mellifluous voice.
“Some of our older soldiers have families on board,” Lennard said curtly.
The woman took a few steps toward Chase, eyeing him with a curiosity that made him regret coming to the conference level of the ship. “Hello there,” she said. “Who are you?”
Chase gulped and looked to Captain Lennard.
“He is one of a small number of cadets we took on board after Trucon,” Lennard explained. “His parents were killed in the disaster.”
“My dear boy,” said the ambassador loudly, shaking back the sleeves of his caftan to spread his hands in a way that Chase guessed was supposed to look welcoming. “Please know from me personally that the Federation acknowledges your loss with great sorrow. You are the Federation.” His words were slick-perfect, delivered as though he’d spoken them hundreds of times. “Come, Ksenia, we must be getting back to the Falconer. Captain, we will rendezvous with you again once we are in Rhima’s orbit.”
“I’ll escort you to the teleport chamber,” he said, giving Chase a stern look as he walked past.
Chase hurried away down the hall, but he paused to look back as the group entered the teleport chamber—all but Ksenia, who lingered in the hallway a moment longer, staring directly at Chase.
* * *
Parker spun around in his seat as soon as Chase got back to their room. “What did you do?” he asked, eyes alight.
Chase stopped where he stood. “What?”
The message flashed on the screen: Chase Garrety please report to the bridge immediately — end message —
Busted. The captain must be furious with him for snooping on the meeting and letting himself be seen by an outsider—and not just any outsider, but someone from the Federation. What a dumb mistake.
“What’s that all about?” asked Parker. “Chase?”
But Chase had already turned, sweat beading on his forehead, and walked out of the room without answering.
The elevator ride up to the bridge seemed to take forever. On the second floor, directly across from the elevators, was the double-door entry to the bridge. Chase took a step toward it and paused. He’d only been on the bridge a couple of times, and then as a guest—not summoned. He didn’t have a badge, so he had to press the notification key and wait to be identified and allowed inside.
The command desks on the bridge were organized in three tiers, all facing a huge video screen. The screen was split into six quadrants—one a feed of the mining colony, two with navigation charts, two filled with scrolling data, and one with the videofeed of a blond woman whom Chase recognized as Parri Dietz, a well-known intergalactic news anchor. In the front tier, the navigation officers sat relaxed, their duties relatively few as long as the ship was orbiting the colony. In the middle tier, the safety and weapons officers sat alongside Colonel Forquera, who glanced back at Chase and resumed the conversation he was having. And in the back tier, Captain Lennard sat at his wide console, with the communications and tactical officers at his side.
Without turning, the captain spoke. “So, you’re curious about the peace talks, are you?”
“Um, I just thought maybe…” Chase paused, hoping the captain would start talking again and let him leave the sentence unfinished, but Lennard said nothing. Instead he barreled ahead with the questions that eavesdropping had left him with. “What are we prepping the ship for? Why was the ambassador telling you what to do?”
The captain turned his chair and examined Chase, frowning slightly. “Chase, what do you know about the Federation?”
“They … run the Fleet?”
The captain suppressed a smile and looked at the officer beside him, a young woman with light auburn hair cropped short and dark brown skin. “Lieutenant Thandiway, do you take your orders from the Federation?”
“No, sir,” the lieutenant answered.
“Does Admiral Cort take his orders from the Federation?”
“No, sir. Separate but united.”
“Separate but united,” Lennard repeated, looking Chase directly in the eyes for impact. “The Federation and the Fleet are—how much galactic history do you know?”
Chase shook his head. He knew his parents had intentionally kept him unaware about the larger universe, in what was apparently a misguided attempt to shelter him from its dangers. And studying history hadn’t exactly been a big priority since he’d come onboard the Kuyddestor.
The captain sighed. “I apologize. I’d planned on setting you kids up with a tutor once you got settled, and I’m afraid I dropped the ball on that. I’ll put in a crew request once this mission is over.” He paused and interlocked his fingers. “Let me see how well I can explain this. Before there was a Federation, about a hundred years ago during the Expansion Era, all the planets operated independently of one another. There were a few individual alliances between planets, but no overarching governing body or regulation structure.
“When the Ganthas star system was discovered—Qesaris, Ueta, Senica, and Trucon, four habitable planets, none of them with preexisting civilizations—it was like this incredible jewel in the middle of the galaxy, and many planets rushed to claim one for themselves. Very quickly this escalated into fighting and became the Ganthas War, which dragged on for years and nearly ruined entire civilizations. In the aftermath, the planets left standing with the fewest losses made the decision to create a governing body for the known universe.”
“Which planets?” asked Chase.
“The strongest ones, which we now refer to as the alpha grade planets. It was at this time that they also created the civilization grading system. Now, the Federation needed some sort of body to enforce its regulations, but the alphas were unable to agree on how to organize this, so Earth, who had the largest and most advanced spaceforce, offered to establish the Federal Fleet, with the agreement that officers from other alpha civilizations would be trained and incorporated over time. This promise wasn’t actually put into action until very recently, when the officer interchange program began.”
“That’s how Maurus got into the Fleet, right?” asked Chase.
“Exactly. But do you understand the relationship between the two? The Fleet operates in conjunction with the Federation, but it’s run independently. That said, there is a lot of crossover—many former Fleet officers retire to work for the Federation. Officially, neither body has any say over what the other does … but there is an undeniable degree of influence.”
“So who’s in charge here, the Fleet or the Federation?”
Captain Lennard pushed his chair away from the console. “The Federation is heading to this conflict to mediate a disagreement between two Iota civilizations, and our role here is to support and protect their representatives. That means helping out wherever we can. What you overheard was that Ambassador Corinthe has requested that we host the first
round of peace talks aboard the Kuyddestor. Both sides insist on sending an entire delegation, and the Falconer isn’t big enough to accommodate them all.”
That sounded like a lot of strangers aboard the ship at one time. Chase didn’t say anything, but his panic must have showed on his face. “This is a good thing, Chase,” said the captain, softening his tone a bit. “We have a higher level of security aboard the Kuyddestor, which means everything will be under our control, and everyone will be safer.
“I’m going to be busy making sure these negotiations go smoothly, so I might not always be available when you need me. If I’m not, you can go to Colonel Forquera with any problems you have, okay?”
Chase glanced down at Forquera, who was still talking with his crew and didn’t give any sign he noticed that his name had been mentioned.
The captain leaned toward Chase, waving him to come closer and dropping his voice. “But more importantly, Chase, I need you to promise me that you’ll stay on the soldiers’ level during the talks tomorrow. There are already a lot of non-Kuyddestor personnel onboard right now to help out with preparations, and tomorrow there will be five times as many strangers on the ship. I need you out of sight, for safety’s sake. Same goes for your sister and Parker. I need you to keep an eye on them.”
Chase started to shake his head. “Lilli’s impossible to keep track of. I never know where she’s at.”
“Then today it’s your job to find her, and make sure she understands how important this is.”
Chase wanted to explain how she’d been hiding, but that would require talking about her traveling within possible earshot of the bridge crew. “Okay.”
“Promise me you’ll all keep out of sight, okay?”
“I promise.”
The captain smiled. “And I promise you that nothing will go wrong tomorrow.”
But somehow, the captain’s promise didn’t make Chase feel any better.
CHAPTER SIX
Chase sat alone in the canteen running his fork through a plate of greasy synth biryani, wracking his brain for ideas on how he could find his sister before the peace talks began. He hadn’t planned on eating alone, but Parker had come with him to get lunch and then left to take his plate back to the room and keep working. Chase scooped up a forkful of rice and stuck it in his mouth just as he realized that someone was standing across from him. Analora pushed her hair behind her ears and smiled at him as she sat down.
“Hey,” he said, gulping quickly. “I haven’t seen you around.”
She shrugged. “I’ve been catching up with my dad. He always wants to hang out together all the time when I first come back here. Takes a while before things get back to normal.”
“Ah.” He stirred his rice awkwardly, and set his fork down. “We’re supposed to arrive at Storros tomorrow. Are you excited?”
She shrugged. “I guess. I doubt we’ll be allowed to go visit Storros ourselves. The Storrians have a super strict immigration policy.”
It hadn’t even occurred to Chase that they might ordinarily have been able to go visit a planet they were stationed near. “How many planets have you been to?” he asked.
“Oh, gosh, a lot.” She began counting off on her fingers. “Earth, Jypras, Banafiel, Namat, so about four origin planets, plus maybe half a dozen colony planets.”
“Did you ever go to Trucon?”
She grew quiet. “Yeah, my mom and I went there once for a conference in Rother City.” She looked cautiously at Chase. “It was a nice place. Very sunny.”
Chase had only meant to find a planet in common that they had both visited, but he realized she thought he was from Trucon. Desperately he tried to change the topic. “So, what’s Jypras like?”
“It’s all water,” she said, shaking her head. “How do you like living on the Kuyddestor now?”
Chase placed his napkin over his plate as he considered this. “It’s okay. I don’t have much to do, besides my appointments with your dad. The blackout last week was kind of exciting.”
She grinned. “I slept through it. Time adjustment from Jypras.” She looked at the walls around them. “I guess the old girl needs to go in for a tune-up.”
Without thinking, Chase said, “Parker thinks somebody hacked the power grid.”
She frowned at him. “Who’s Parker?”
Before she even asked the question, Chase regretted saying Parker’s name. He liked having his own secret friend, someone he could just pretend to be normal around without all the baggage of his past that Parker and everyone else knew about. “Uh, he’s a friend,” he muttered.
“Why does he think someone hacked the power grid?” She wasn’t going to let this go, Chase could tell.
He sighed. “He’s pretty good at hacking and electronics and stuff like that, so he’s been trying to figure out what caused the blackout.”
Analora leaned forward, her curiosity fully piqued. “Why didn’t you mention him before? Is he from Trucon as well? Can we go see what he’s doing?”
“Um, Parker doesn’t like to interact when he’s working on something. He doesn’t really like people at all, actually.” Well, at least the first part was true.
“Oh.” Analora’s face fell.
Chase’s mind raced for a way to grab her interest again. “Oh hey, I met the ambassador,” he said. “Corinthe. He was on the ship.”
“Really? Did you hear they’re hosting the peace talks on the Kuyddestor?”
“Yeah.” After thinking it over more, Chase had decided that this did make him feel slightly better about the mission—if the Kuyddestor was such an important part of the process, the Fleet really couldn’t do anything bad to them. “The captain ordered me to stay on the soldiers’ level the whole time. He thinks I’ll … get in the way or something. So I’m not going to get to see anything.”
“Oh. Well, that stinks.” Analora fiddled with his empty tray, looking like she was thinking hard. “There are ways around that, you know.”
“What do you mean?” asked Chase.
She gave him a sly grin. “I know every inch of this ship, and all its secrets. Trust me—there’s a way.”
* * *
Standing in a narrow back hallway on the soldiers’ level near the ship’s maintenance offices, Chase watched as Analora wedged a knife stolen from the canteen into a panel of the wall, popping it loose. Behind was a black crawlspace with a bracket of wires running overhead.
Chase crouched and stuck his head through the opening, looking down the dark tunnel inside. “We’re going in there?”
“Behind the walls there’s a whole other Kuyddestor,” said Analora. “The maintenance corridors. You just have to know the right places to get to them.”
“How do we get out again?” In the back of his mind, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Parker’s said, You phase through it, dummy. But he couldn’t do that with Analora around. She thought he was normal—he didn’t want her to see that he was actually a freak.
“We can push this panel back out from the inside. This hall’s usually empty, so we just have to be sure to come back to the same spot. I’ve never been caught.” She held the panel steady with a knee as she looped her hair up on top of her head. “Get in and head to the right. I’ll be behind you.”
Looking quickly up and down the hall, Chase crept inside the wall. The crawlspace was dark and dusty, but as he scuffled along, his eyes adjusted and he realized there were ventilation spots every so often that let a tiny amount of light through. Behind him, he heard Analora get inside and pull the panel shut. He glanced back at her once and she flapped a hand, waving him onward.
After a few minutes, the crawlspace ended, but someone had cut a neat hole in the metal, and he crept out into an open space. As he waited for Analora to join him, he looked around. They were now in a tall, narrow corridor that curved and disappeared in the distance. Square utility lights sunk into the wall every few meters provided dim light, and the air was hot and smelled like wax and hair.
&nbs
p; Analora clambered out, rubbing the dust off her hands and grinning.
“Where are we?” he asked in a whisper.
“We’re in the maintenance area, beside the ship’s air filtration and climate control.” She placed a hand on the tall wall beside them. “This is the influx chamber.”
“How do you know all this?”
“My friend Dany knew the ship better than any of us. We used to come back here all the time, and he’d explain where we were and how everything worked.” Her voice sounded soft and happy describing these memories, and Chase felt a tiny twinge of jealousy toward this person he’d never met.
They walked along the wall of the gigantic influx chamber. At one point the closed crawlspace beside them curved back into the wall, creating a little alcove. Chase squinted at something crumpled in the corner. “Hold on,” he said. He crouched in the corner and picked it up, shaking out what appeared to be a woolen Fleet standard-issue blanket.
Chase squeezed the blanket, suddenly feeling ill. Could this be where Lilli spent her time hiding—in a dark corner inside the walls of the ship? He felt around on the floor and up around the pipes running along the wall, but there were no other clues as to who might have left the blanket.
“Is everything okay?” asked Analora.
“How big is the interior maintenance area, the whole thing?” Chase asked. “Could we walk through it all right now?”
“Oh, no way. It’s huge, and not all the parts are connected. There are a bunch of different entry spots we used to use.”
How would he find out where Lilli hid? There had to be a million places like this one. Chase looked down the long walkway in despair. Did she even come back to the same spot, or did she hide all over the place?
“Come on.” Analora grabbed the metal rung of a ladder embedded in the wall. “Let me show you how to get to the conference level.”
Lost Planet 02 - The Stolen Moon Page 5