Starstuff (Starstuff Trilogy Book 1)

by Ira Heinichen

  He leaned forward, close to Petrick, and narrowed his eyes. “We wish to give you something else,” he said.

  With his free hand, he reached behind his back and brought out another object, round and metallic with a chain dangling from it. He took the glowing stone in his other hand, and pressed it into the new object. The stone fit neatly into some sort of compartment. There was a click sound as the glowing stone was covered inside. Suddenly, the Seer was holding onto Petrick’s forearm, and dropping the new metal object into his hand. Petrick pulled his hand back to try to look at whatever this new thing was, but the Seer wouldn’t let go.

  “You need to stop touching my friend!” Suzy yelled at him, wrestling again against Panzer, but Petrick couldn’t muster the attention to tell her to stand down.

  The Seer captivated him. He looked sorrowful, pained, and he spoke again. “It was intended to affirm you were on the right path, Petrick, but now I fear it is meant to lead you back to it. Heed its words, and remember.” He pulled Petrick even closer to him and spoke again, and this time his lips did not move. ‘Remember.’

  Outside, there was an explosion.

  The Seer let Petrick go and turned his attention to Panzer, who was rushing over to the entrance of the tent. “Have all not been evacuated?” he asked her.

  Petrick opened his fingers and looked down at what the Seer had given him. It was round, like a medallion. It was familiar.

  “I kept behind a small garrison,” Panzer called back in answer to the Seer, “for protection.”

  The Seer closed his eyes. “That is unfortunate,” he said.

  Petrick ran his fingers over an engraving at the top of the medallion, and recognition hit him like a lightning bolt as he realized what it read, and where he’d seen it before.

  “What is that?” Barry asked, peering over his shoulder.

  “Balta,” Suzy called to the pirate captain, “that looks like your Star Farer’s medallion.”

  “We must leave,” Panzer called back to them. Her normally silk-smooth voice grated with panic.

  Another explosion boomed from outside, this time louder, closer.

  The medallion said, “Never Alone.” It was the same one his father had shown him in the dream. His father’s real medallion.

  A third explosion rocked the platform itself, and the Seer was knocked over onto his side. He struggled to steady himself, and Haber rushed over to help the small old man.

  The Seer waved him off. “No. You must leave. You are a key variable in the coming probabilities.”

  “Now!” Panzer shouted from the entrance of the tent.

  Barry and Suzy pulled Petrick to his feet, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the medallion in his hands. His heart was pounding. “Never Alone.”

  Had he made a mistake?

  “We have to leave, Petrick,” Suzy said into Petrick’s ear. Her voice was so tiny but so fierce.

  It pulled him back.

  His legs woke up, and he rose to follow everyone out of the tent. Panzer met them and directed them toward the tent entrance, then moved to go and fetch the Seer.

  The old, cracked man waved her off, too. “Protect the many,” he said to her gravely. “Not the one. Let him go.”

  Panzer bellowed out some sort of Syrruk curse or guttural yell and then left the Seer behind.

  Balta was the first to reach the edge of the walkway outside and gazed down at the unfolding chaos below them. The pirate captain’s eye widened with fear, and she looked back at the group as they reached her a moment later.

  “The Authority.”

  “How did they find us?” Haber said, panic sharpening his voice.

  “Come!” said Panzer, leading them back across the narrow walkway toward the rock wall.

  The group didn’t protest this time. They traversed the distance in a fraction of the time they’d taken to cross it before. They could see troops spilling from the entrance directly below them. They were all clothed in gray and white. They looked just like ants.

  One large figure could be seen, even from the high vantage, taking point against a flurry of weapons fire that seemed to come from thin air. Behind that large figure, protected by the ring of fighters, was a smaller hunched figure. Petrick recognized the two of them from Liberatia. One was Slink, and the other was the armored general from the marketplace.

  The Authority had found them indeed.

  As our group reached the rock wall, Petrick saw a flash of light from one of the soldiers and a trail of smoke began to rise up toward them with astonishing speed. Too late, Petrick realized that it must be some kind of rocket-powered weapon, and it slammed into the narrow bridge where they’d just been walking. It exploded, and the bridge cracked and then began to fall in slow motion. The Seer’s platform and his tent began to crumple with it.

  “No!” bellowed Petrick with a scream that shook his entire body, but there was nothing he could do but watch it fall with the Seer inside.

  This, too, is my fault, he thought.

  It crashed to the floor of the cavern with a mighty, ground-shaking thud, and a plume of dust and smoke billowed out from it.

  Then suddenly, Petrick was holding Suzy’s hand and a gloved hand, and their group was hurtling toward the troops on the cavern floor. Panzer was flying them downward.

  As they neared the floor and the fighting, Petrick could now see it was between Authority troops and her guard garrison, who only popped into view for brief moments to fire and then disappeared once more. Panzer was flying them directly over the Authority contingent, who were pinned to the entrance ledge.

  The fighters did not see them coming from directly above. Panzer locked eyes with Petrick as she brought them dangerously low and close. She then slowed.

  “Watch it!” Balta called to Panzer.

  They were so close that her voice caught the attention of the hunched man, Slink, in the center of the troops. He searched for them through the chaos.

  Panzer took her eyes off Petrick, and began to angle them away from the fighting, away from the Authority troops, out toward the field that lay just beyond the ledge. Petrick pulled his hand from the gloved Syrruk in one quick motion, and he dropped from the group, losing his lift.

  “Petrick!” Suzy called to him, eyes wide. “You’re slipping. Panzer, you need to get him back!”

  Panzer was trying, but to reach the boy, Petrick would have had to meet her halfway. He was dangling too far below the rest of the group now for her to grab him on her own. Petrick looked up at Suzy, and then at Barry and Haber and Balta. Shame filled his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to them.

  He didn’t lift his hand up to the outstretched Panzer. Instead, he started to wiggle his other hand free from Suzy’s small clutches.

  “Stop!” Suzy was holding on so tight that her knuckles went white. “What are you doing?!”

  “I have to protect you.”

  He finally freed his hand.

  He dropped to the ground just ten feet below, tumbling right at Slink’s feet.

  Slink smiled.

  Panzer quickly grabbed Suzy’s hand and hastened their pace away from the fallen Petrick. The shooting from the Authority troops behind them had stopped, momentarily.

  Balta, too, started thrashing so hard she looked like she was having a conniption fit. “Go back!” she yelled at the Syrruk host.

  “I must take you to safety,” she responded directly into their ears. “The Seer said to protect the many, not the one. He said to let him go.”

  “Let him go my ass!” Balta said. “We’re not leaving that kid with them!” And she heaved her hand loose, breaking the other side of the chain.

  They, too, tumbled to the ground as Petrick had, but they were a good three hundred feet now from the entrance to the hangar. The grass of the cavern floor made for a soft landing, and all of them sprang to their feet unharmed. The air this low was now filled with dust and smoke from the Seer’s fallen platform and the weapons fire.

&nbs
p; Suzy looked around immediately to make sure Clarke was okay. It took her a moment to realize that the dog was with Petrick.

  “He has Clarke,” she said, a chilly realization running down her spine.

  “Why did he let go?” Barry asked, desperately searching his friends’ faces.

  A series of weapons explosions at the entrance of the cavern drowned out the questions. The Authority troops were laying down covering fire as they retreated into the corridor that led back to the hangar bay. They had what they wanted, and they were leaving with him.

  Panzer crouched in front of her charges, shielding the group from the heat, blinding flashes, and bits of rock and dust that were kicked up. After it had settled, Panzer stood, catching sight of one lone figure left behind by the retreating Authority troops.

  “Is that Petrick?” Suzy shouted, peeking around their protector.

  It wasn’t Petrick.

  Panzer knew who it was.

  “You!” she shouted, raising her staff.

  It took Suzy a moment to look through the haze, but the Panzer and the other armored figure looked almost exactly the same—where Panzer was in all black, the other was in reds and golds. But they were the same height. The same build. They even moved the same.

  The other figure did not answer.

  Panzer whipped the jeweled staff around her head, and when it came back full circle to face the figure on the platform, a streak of crackling white energy shot out. The figure merely stepped aside, as if it knew it was coming.

  A flurry of other weapons fire, which must have been from Panzer’s garrison, rained down on the figure a moment later. Flashes of the garrison became visible for split seconds as they fired, then disappeared again. They seemed to be everywhere.

  This time the figure had to twist, jump, roll, and contort itself, but every bolt of energy was dodged before it reached its intended target. The figure knew what was coming.

  The flurry of fire stopped. The figure stood again on the platform, wordlessly impervious.

  It stared at Panzer. Through the helmet slit, Suzy imagined Panzer was glaring fiercely in return.

  “Give him back!” Suzy shouted.

  The figure turned its gaze to look at her, and Balta grabbed Suzy by the mouth and tried with futility to wrestle her behind Panzer’s protective stance. But, Suzy wasn’t going to take her eyes away from that figure.

  The figure looked at the petulant child for a moment, seemed to gather itself, and then spun off seven shots from its armored arms in the time it took Suzy to blink her eyes.

  Seven figures in black armor fell from thin air and thudded to the ground, dead. All seven of Panzer’s guards. In an instant. The figure on the platform then turned away and disappeared into the corridor back to the hangar bay.

  Panzer bellowed in rage and took off running after it.

  “Wait!” Haber called after her, but it was too late.

  Panzer flew to the ledge with a single bounding step, and then she too was gone from the cavern, having abandoned her charges.

  “I don’t understand,” said Haber. “How could the Authority possibly have known we would be here?”

  “We have to go after Petrick!” said Suzy. Her eyes were wild.

  Balta nodded. “That stupid, stupid kid,” she said, picking herself up from the ground. She set the pace running back to the entrance, the rest of the group running behind her. “I knew he was going through some stuff, but I didn’t peg him as capable of doing something like this.”

  “You believe it was Petrick who led the Authority here?” Haber asked incredulously.

  “He took Clarke with him,” said Suzy, hot, angry tears filling her face as well as Barry’s as it began to sink in what had just happened.

  Petrick had taken the dog. He didn’t mean to come back.

  “Listen, none of that matters now,” said Balta, breaking off in a full sprint, with the rest of them racing to keep up with her. “We have to catch up with those cronies.”

  “We’re going to get him back, right?!” Barry said, trying his best to not panic.

  “Not if we don’t hurry!” Balta barked in response.

  They reached the ritual cleansing room to find it blown wide open. The Authority were certainly not ones for subtlety, but that was all the better as far as Balta was concerned. It was deserted, as was the long corridor. No sign of Authority troops. They had a straight shot back to the hangar.

  “Move it!” she shouted, sprinting into the corridor.

  The heavy woman could move when she wanted to, and so could the children. They were running so fast, they nearly overshot the door to the hangar bay. Weapons fire booming beyond it saved them in that regard.

  They stepped up to the door, looking hopelessly for a control panel, but it blessedly slid open on its own with a rock-on-rock grinding.

  Balta shielded her eyes and blocked the children and Haber from stepping through as the flashes of energy discharge nearly blinded her.

  A large, boxy, and utilitarian ship with an exterior of pure shiny white sat in the middle of the hangar. An Authority transport. The transport’s gangplank was resting on the floor of the hangar like a tongue. Troops were stationed at its base, ringed around it. The Red Robert sat tucked off to the side where Balta had left it—hopefully undamaged. The firefight was concentrated in the other direction, between the transport and the few remaining Syrruk ships.

  Someone was giving the Authority hell. It took Balta only a moment to realize it was Panzer. Balta reached for her pistols, but it was clear they were too late to help the Syrruk woman. They had arrived just in time to watch an angry bolt of energy strike Panzer right in the chest. It flung her skittering to the far side of the hangar.

  She lay there and did not get up.

  The other armored figure, who had shot the decisive blow, watched Panzer’s motionless form for a moment, then signaled its troops to retreat into the ship. They disappeared into its holding bay, and with a clunk and a whine, the gangplank started to lift up.

  “Hey!” Balta shouted to the retreating force. They hadn’t seen her before, much to our group’s fortune it would seem, given what had just happened to Panzer.

  Suzy clawed around the barring Balta to get a look at what was going on. She zeroed in instantly on the center of the holding bay, right at the edge of the gangplank. Just before it finished closing, Suzy caught sight of Petrick standing next to the horrid-looking wasp of a man, whose hand was placed firmly on the boy’s shoulder. Petrick locked eyes with her for a brief moment before the gangplank sealed shut.

  “Petrick, don’t leave!” she screamed.

  But the gangplank solidly, undeniably shut. The Authority ship fired its thrusters, and it lifted off. It turned its nose toward the hangar doors, and it was gone.

  He was gone.

  48

  BALTA THREW herself into her seat in the Red Robert’s cockpit and furiously flipped switches on the console. Colossus had the ship primed and ready to leave almost as soon as they had all hurriedly entered. Suzy was wailing, only able to walk because Barry was holding her up. Haber took a position behind the captain.

  “Let’s go!” Balta shouted to Colossus, and they all felt the ship shudder as its boosters fired to take them out of the still-open hangar doors.

  A moment later, they were out in space . . . and space was dominated by the terrifying sight of the capital ship, gleaming from its running lights. The transport ship they were chasing was heading right for it.

  “Perhaps it is unwise to—” Haber started before Balta cut him off.

  “Can it, tin man!” she said. “We’re going to get him back!”

  Haber didn’t respond. Balta was right. What else could they do? The risk of getting caught by the giant ship be damned.

  Suzy sobbed something to Barry, but he couldn’t understand her. He just continued to hold her. He thought of all the times she had held him as he did now for her. She’d always kept her eyes dry and her head up. He would do
the same.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” he said to her. “It’s gonna be okay, Suze. We’re gonna get him back.”

  Balta was thinking Petrick had purposefully fallen right into the enemy’s hands. The little bastard hadn’t been surprised they’d been found. He looked like he’d known. The shifty Syrruk, for that matter, seemed to have known too, what with all their rushing of them to see the Seer and the “we don’t have time.” It made her head split in pain just thinking about the swirling questions.

  “We are going to get him,” Barry asked her. “Right?”

  Balta didn’t answer, she just gritted her teeth as she watched the transport ship glide into a hangar bay on the capital ship.

  “We have to get there before they engage their drive,” she said, sweat starting to bead on her forehead. She turned to Colossus. “Fire a rocket on their starboard side. Lower third quadrant should be right.”

  Colossus obliged without a word, and there was a pop! sound as a missile sped away from their ship toward the capital ship.

  “We have weapons?” Haber said.

  “Pirate ship has to have some teeth,” Balta answered. “Maybe we can knock it out with a lucky shot.” Barry knew she was hoping against hope; it was written on her face.

  The hope was in vain. The missile’s target wasn’t there when it finally arrived. The capital ship had flashed brilliantly in gold, and it was gone, traveling into the Dark Sky at speeds faster than that of light itself. Balta screamed a few curse words and banged on her console before punching up her own stardrive.

  “Hang on,” she said a moment before the Red Robert lurched beyond the light-speed barrier as well.

  It nearly knocked Barry off his feet, but he stood his ground. Ahead of them, the heads-up cockpit display showed the capital ship as a tiny dot ahead of them, but not completely out of sight. They still had a chance; they could see their quarry.

  “Come on, baby,” Balta said, stroking the Red Robert for a little more speed.

  Barry held out hope that this rust bucket could maybe catch up, and if only they could catch up, maybe then they could do something. Petrick wouldn’t be gone.