Lost Planet 02 - The Stolen Moon

by Searles, Rachel

  Her tone was unyielding. “We’re not taking him with us.”

  “This is Asa’s order, isn’t it?” said Parker in an acid voice. “Where is he? Let me talk to him.”

  “Soon. We’re heading back to his ship right now.”

  “You’re taking us to Asa?” A jolt of surprise ran through Chase like an electric shock. Of course that was where Mina would take them, he knew that, but still … After all these months of waiting, after the dramatic events of the past twenty-four hours, he was finally going to see Asa very soon.

  Parker gave an angry laugh. “Of course. He didn’t send her to save us. He sent her to capture us.” He crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes at Mina. “Did Ksenia really contact Asa? Or did you hear my SOS? How did you know it was me?”

  Mina ignored Parker and looked at Lilli huddled against the wall. “Are you alright?”

  Chase shook off his shock, his frustration with Mina returning. “She’s going to be, because you got her off that moon. Maurus and Vidal and Derrick are not, because you—”

  “That’s not going to work, Chase,” said Parker. “She doesn’t care. They’re on their own now.”

  But Chase couldn’t forget the last image he’d seen of Derrick, lying broken and still on the hard moon rock. Maybe he’d been a complete jerk to Maurus on the ship, but at the mine shaft he’d fought alongside them, and he’d always been good to Lilli. And if he hadn’t survived, would Maurus and Vidal be able to climb out of the mine shaft anyway? Even if they could, more vicious Werikosa—Hotha, if he was still alive, or others like him—would find them, and they no longer had any weapons to defend themselves with.

  Chase placed himself in front of Mina. If her orders from Asa were not to take any Fleet soldiers onboard, she wouldn’t break them. But there had to be a way around her android logic. “Please, do something. Tell the Fleet they’re there. Or if you don’t want to talk with the Fleet, tell a news reporter. Or anyone. Just, please. They’re trapped and hurt.”

  Mina arched a perfect eyebrow, analyzing him for a minute. “I can do that. I’ll put the word out.” Chase tipped his head back with a loud sigh of relief. At least it was something. Mina turned to head back into the front of the shuttle.

  “I’m coming with you,” Parker told her.

  “Not right now. Stay back here with the others. I’ll let you out once we’re docked on the ship.” The door closed behind her before he could protest.

  Parker slammed a hand on the wall and leaned forward. “That’s it,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re done. Asa’s not going to let us go back for Maurus, and he’s definitely not going to help the Kuyddestor, much less let us go back ourselves. Ever.”

  Lilli looked up at Chase, panicked. “We have to go back,” she said. “We have to help them. There’s not much time left.”

  Chase didn’t know if he wanted to explode from the pressure or just sit down and cry at how hopelessly things were turning out. It was too much, all of it. As often as he had dreamed of the day he would confront Asa with all his questions, this wasn’t the way he’d imagined it would play out. Their last interaction replayed itself in his memory on a nauseating loop. Asa had been furious with Chase for trying to save Maurus’s life, and coldly indifferent when the warlord Rezer Bennin had threatened them. Sure, he’d leapt in front of blaster fire to protect Parker at the end, but otherwise he’d been completely detached. If Chase was going to meet Asa again, he would have preferred to meet on his own terms, not as a captive. And not with the fate of the Kuyddestor and everyone they knew hanging over their heads.

  Parker looked around the cargo hold, his face tight with suspicious anger, reminding Chase that he wasn’t the only one with a million questions saved up for Asa. Beside him Lilli seemed to draw further inside herself. Chase peered closer at her, but he couldn’t tell if she was traveling or not. “Hey? You there?”

  She looked up at him, blinking as if she’d just awoken.

  “Did you travel to the Kuyddestor?” he asked. She nodded. “What’s going on?”

  “I found Analora. She’s hiding in the walls. She’s really upset because her dad’s with everyone else on the flight deck.”

  Chase frowned. “He’ll be fine as long as—”

  “No.” She shook her head violently. “He won’t be fine. They’ve told everyone that if the Kuyddestor comes under attack, they’re going to vent the flight deck. Everyone will get sucked out into space.”

  Chase tried to keep the horror from his face as he kneeled beside her. “We’ll tell Asa. We can still ask him to help.”

  Parker scoffed behind him. “Yeah, he’s got a great track record of helping others out of the good of his heart. And he loves the Fleet.” He slid down the wall to a squat. “No, he’s going to stick us all in some remote prison compound again, where no one will ever find us. Not that anyone will look for us, because everyone we know will be dead by then.”

  “Way to think like a winner,” Chase snapped over his shoulder.

  “You think I’m not as upset as you? I’ve never had the feeling like I was home before we started living on the Kuyddestor. But he’s got us. We’re trapped.”

  Chase realized he’d never gotten past his annoyance at how easily Parker had settled on the ship to understand what it actually meant to Parker to have a home with friends and freedom, with no android monitoring his every move. “He can’t keep us. I can get away.”

  “Of course you can escape.” Parker tipped his head at Lilli. “She’ll figure out something too, because she’s special like you, but I’ll be stuck, just like I was before.”

  Chase turned around fully and locked eyes with Parker. “We’d never leave you behind. I promise. And anyway, he’s not going to lock us up in some remote compound. We’ll convince him he has to help us.”

  Parker shook his head. “It’ll never happen. Did you really think we were going to get back on the Kuyddestor anyway? Even Maurus knew it was impossible. We can’t go back.”

  “We can,” said Lilli, with a sudden finality that made them both look at her. She lowered her head and said nothing else.

  Parker looked around suddenly and headed over to the window. “We’re slowing down.”

  “Do you see a ship?” asked Chase.

  Parker craned his neck as far as he could both ways. “Nope. We must be approaching head-on.”

  Chase joined him at the window to look out as the frame of a spaceway came together around them and the stars receded, and the shuttle came to a smooth stop in a docking bay. A pair of massive outer doors slid shut at the end of the spaceway, enclosing them in the larger ship.

  Chase’s heart slammed in his chest as they waited in the cargo hold. An impatient part of him wanted to phase out into the docking bay to start getting a look at where they were, but fear of losing track of Lilli and Parker made him stay. Finally the rear hatch opened onto the bay. Mina stood just outside the cargo hold, joined by a slender man with receding blond hair.

  “Hello,” he said, bowing slightly at the waist. He looked somewhat familiar to Chase, but he couldn’t place where from.

  “This is Jericho,” said Mina. She motioned for them to exit the shuttle. “Come along.”

  Chase put his hand on Lilli’s shoulder to reassure her as they stepped into the ship. The walls of the docking bay were pristine white, but more strangely, the massive chamber was empty and dead silent.

  “Where is everyone?” asked Chase, who had grown accustomed to the daily churn of activity aboard the Kuyddestor. He didn’t spend a lot of time on the flight deck, but when he did there were always at least a dozen people hard at work.

  Mina led them across the room and opened a door at the back of the docking bay. “There is no everyone. The ship mostly runs itself.”

  Their footsteps echoed off the walls as they walked from the docking bay into a spacious white hallway with wide blue floors. Parker turned to Mina. “So this is the mother ship I never got to see. How long were you guys track
ing us?”

  “Since you sent the SOS,” she said.

  “No.” Parker’s angry voice echoed down the empty hall. “How long have you been tracking us?”

  “Oh.” She shrugged. “Since you boarded the Kuyddestor. More or less. You never destroyed your chip.”

  “But I firewalled it.”

  “And checked the signal a hundred times a day. That’s basically cutting off communications with someone and then strolling past their house every day thinking they won’t notice you because you’re wearing a different colored shirt.” She looked Parker up and down. “You seem well. You’ve gotten taller.”

  “That’s what growing humans do,” he replied crisply.

  They hadn’t seen what kind of ship they’d arrived at, but going by the time it took them to walk down what felt like endless empty hallways, Chase guessed it was a large one. Most of the doors they passed were closed, although they got an occasional glance into a sterile meeting room or a darkened lab. How many people did it even take to run this ship, he wondered, and were any of them besides Asa humans?

  Finally Mina led them into an elevator, and they descended several floors. The elevator doors drew open, and standing in the hallway right before them was Asa Kaplan. His tall, lean frame, all wide shoulders and narrow waist, took Chase by surprise again—he’d forgotten what an intimidating figure Asa cut in person. His dark hair, slicked back severely, framed his pale face, which was a study in controlled intensity, as if he were holding back an explosion of glee or rage or some other gigantic emotion.

  “You’re here.” His tone was darkly triumphant. “Well done, Mina.” They crossed over to a door opposite the elevator, which opened on a large sitting room with a console-topped desk at one end and a black leather seating arrangement at the other. Asa led them to the chairs and bade them sit while he stood and looked them over with his hard blue eyes. Chase stared back at him, his heart racing. There was so much he wanted to say, to ask, but he found himself afraid to open his mouth.

  Fortunately, Parker had no such fears. “Don’t you have anything better to do than stalk and kidnap a group of kids?”

  Asa raised an eyebrow. “It’s nice to see you again too, Parker.”

  “It’s not nice to see you at all,” Parker spat. “Did you order Mina to leave our friends behind on Rhima? They were in trouble, and one of them—”

  “I told her to only bring the three of you onto my ship,” Asa interrupted. “And those aren’t your friends. They’re Fleet soldiers.”

  Anger finally loosened Chase’s tongue. “You don’t get to say who’s our friend. Maurus is one of the best friends we have.”

  Asa gave Chase a glare that made the words dry up on his tongue, and continued. “Mina will give you a tour of our ship and show you which areas are off-limits. Once you’ve settled in—”

  “You can’t do this,” said Parker angrily. “We’re not staying here.”

  Asa raised his eyebrows. “You think you have a choice? I’m still your guardian, Parker.” He gestured at Chase and Lilli. “I’m their guardian, too.”

  “According to who?” cried Chase in frustration. “How do you know us?” He glanced over at Lilli, who was leaning back against her seat and looking paler by the minute.

  “Some guardian you are,” sneered Parker. “I’d take you more seriously if you hadn’t run off and ditched us on Qesaris. After the first time you ditched us, on the Kuyddestor.”

  Asa’s face remained expressionless at these accusations, and he responded calmly. “If you’ll recall, on Qesaris I’d been blasted in the chest. I couldn’t fight. And Mina was no match for that many Fleet soldiers. Leaving was the only tactical decision.”

  “You sound like an android,” said Parker.

  This, of all things, made Asa flinch. After a pause, he said, “Well, it was easy enough to find you again. You couldn’t stop toying with that chip. Every time you tweaked your chip’s signal, I knew exactly where you were. I stayed just outside the Kuyddestor’s range, waiting for the right time.”

  Like a spider, thought Chase. Waiting for us to fall into your web. “You have to take us back,” he said. “The Kuyddestor’s been hacked and hijacked, but if we can sneak onboard, Parker knows how to beat the hacker to get the ship back in the crew’s hands.”

  “That’s not happening,” Asa said, ending the discussion abruptly by walking away from them over to the desk, where he took a seat and began scrolling through the console. Without looking up, he said, “Mina will take you to your new quarters. Any questions or requests can be directed to her.”

  “No!” said Chase. He stood and took a few steps, deliberately walking right through a coffee table in the middle of the room. It didn’t escape his attention how Asa’s eyes locked onto his phasing legs with a strangely hungry look. “You can’t keep us here.”

  Asa looked up at Chase’s face again, his expression resettling back into cold neutrality. “You can’t go back, Chase. In time you’ll see that this is the best thing that could’ve happened to you. The Kuyddestor is doomed, whether it gets destroyed by the Storrians or the Fleet or the Werikosa blow it up themselves. You’ll be presumed dead by anyone who knew you, and you can take a new alias and get a fresh start at life, far away from the Fleet.”

  “I don’t want a fresh start!” yelled Chase. Asa barely knew him—that he could possibly claim to know what was best for Chase was beyond infuriating. “I don’t care how much you hate the Fleet. These aren’t just soldiers, they’re people. They’re our friends. You can’t tell us that it’s best for us if we abandon them all to die.”

  “Chase, you don’t understand everything right now,” said Asa.

  “Then tell me.”

  Asa sighed and shook his head. “We’ll talk about it later. When you’re ready.”

  Chase’s voice was strained as he tried to contain the anger and frustration and desperation raging inside. “Tell me what I don’t know. Or send me back to the Kuyddestor.”

  “I won’t let you go back there.”

  “Yes you will,” came a thin, scratchy voice across the room. Lilli stood, looking like a warm breeze could blow her over. “You’ll help us get back onto the Kuyddestor, and you’ll go along, too.”

  Asa gave her a look that could wilt a flower. “And why would I do that?”

  Lilli looked at Chase, and he realized that she was on the verge of tears. “Because I’ve been lying this whole time. To everyone. Because I’m not really here. And if you let everyone on the Kuyddestor die, I’m dead too.”

  And then she vanished.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The act of Lilli disappearing jammed Chase’s thoughts. It defied logic—this was the real her, not a traveling copy. Wasn’t it? His mind raced, replaying every interaction he’d had with Lilli since they’d taken that stupid escape pod from the Kuyddestor. It was impossible. He’d seen her send a traveling copy all the way across a city before. But from a starship down to a planet? And all the way to wherever they were now?

  Asa had gone pale, his face a frozen mask. “Where did she go?”

  In Chase’s mind, one thought looped in a panicky blur: She’s on the ship, she’s on the ship, she’s on the stupid ship. On the ship that was under attack and at risk of being blown up with all its passengers. He took a moment to collect himself, and turned to Asa. “She’s not here,” he said coldly. “She never was. That was only a projection of her. Turn your ship around, and take us back to the Kuyddestor so we can get her.”

  She had told him she’d practiced sending her traveling copies, but he knew now that her ability had become much more powerful than he’d realized. It wasn’t just the distance she was able to send them—she also must have developed the ability to make multiple copies at once. He cursed himself for not figuring out on his own that it hadn’t been the real Lilli ever since they left the Kuyddestor, even though he knew it was impossible.

  Mina spoke from where she stood by the elevator. “Asa, Starseeker-Fo
ur has arrived in the docking bay.”

  “Fine,” said Asa dismissively, his eyes still fixed on Chase.

  “Alix reports there were five passengers aboard the vehicle, and—”

  He looked up. “What?”

  “They’re headed up to medical,” she continued impassively.

  His jaw tightened, and his guise of control slipped a bit as he turned back to Chase and Parker, standing quickly. “We’ll continue this later. In the meantime, find out where your sister went.”

  Chase shook his head. “I already told you, she’s on the Kuyddestor.”

  But Asa walked from the room without answering, leaving through a door behind his desk. Mina stayed behind, waiting patiently beside the elevator.

  “What on Taras is going on?” Parker said to Chase. “Is Lilli really still on the Kuyddestor?”

  “I don’t know,” said Chase. “I didn’t think she could travel this far.”

  “Neither did I,” came Lilli’s voice behind them.

  They whipped around to see her sitting on the edge of Asa’s desk. Parker whistled appreciatively. “Impressive move, little Lil. How’d you do this?”

  A glint of pride flashed in her eyes. “I told you I’ve been trying to push the limit on my traveling to see how much I could do with it. Going on the escape pod was a test. It was hard at first, keeping up the projection at that distance, but I got used to it pretty quickly. There’s a”—she twiddled her fingers in the air—“feel to it. A frequency.”

  “How far are you traveling right now?” asked Parker.

  “Farther than I’ve ever gone before. Actually I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up. It’ll get better if he turns the ship around.” The violet circles under her eyes seemed deeper than ever.

  “But I saw you make a copy on Storros,” said Chase. “Can you make more than one at a time?”