“Because something’s failing in the drive system,” said Mina. “Look at the CF levels.”
Maurus cursed under his breath. “Thank you, Vo. He’s given us the most useless, poorly serviced escape shuttle in the galaxy.” He looked on for a minute. “You’ve got to let me pilot.”
“That would not be in Parker’s best interest,” said Mina.
Maurus made an exasperated noise. “I’m not going to run this marble hopper to Lyolia. It’d take a month and we’d all be dead long before we arrived. Untie me and I’ll reconfigure the energy cycles. I can make sure we get to the next colony.”
“Just tell me what to do,” said Mina.
“Piloting isn’t something you tell, it’s something you feel. The way you’re running the vehicle, we’ll burn up all the energy before we get anywhere. And once the power’s gone, we won’t last half an hour out here.”
“Please, Mina,” Chase said. “Let’s untie him. He’s a good pilot.”
“We can’t trust him,” said Mina.
“I’m not the villain you think I am,” said Maurus.
Chase turned in his seat to get a look at Maurus’s face. “You swear everything you’re telling us is true?”
Maurus scowled. “Of course.”
“Can you prove it?”
Maurus laughed bitterly. “I could until a few hours ago.”
With a sinking feeling, Chase realized what Mina had done to Maurus by giving away his silver case. “Let him pilot,” he told her. “It’s not like he can do anything to hurt us.”
Mina was silent, calculating. “Fine. I’ll go in the back with Parker. But if you try anything…,” she warned.
Maurus wriggled around on the floor of the shuttle so that Chase could undo the bindings on his hands. With a little artful squeezing, he swapped places with Mina and helped her transfer Parker’s limp body into the back. He glanced over at Chase before starting at the console. “I’m sorry about what I said about Parker. I’ll do my best to get him help.”
Chase said nothing and watched tensely as Maurus set to work, fingers sliding over the screens as he muttered to himself.
“How does it look?” Mina asked from the back.
“We’re down to just under a camber of two, but I think I can hold it steady here.”
“What’s a camber?” asked Chase, more to distract himself than out of curiosity.
“It’s a measure of bending.” Maurus rubbed his arms and flexed his fingers. “The shuttle’s engine bends space around us so that we can move through it at a speed faster than light. Most important invention in humanoid history.” He glanced at Chase, and frowned. “I’m surprised you don’t know this.”
Feeling stupid, Chase leaned back in his seat and looked out the window. He didn’t ask any more questions.
* * *
The escape shuttle had been designed for emergencies rather than comfort, and after about eight hours trapped inside, Maurus and Chase were both shifting uncomfortably in the front seat. There was no noise from the back, where Mina kept watch over Parker.
“How’s he doing?” Chase asked.
“Not well,” said Mina. “No one’s picked up on our signal yet?”
“Stupid Shartese garbage.” Maurus flicked a screen. “I can’t tell how strong our range is. I’m really fighting these flow levels.”
Chase looked back to see Parker lying still, his head in Mina’s lap, skin pale and damp. “What can we do?” he asked.
Mina just stared back at him with her implacable gaze, making it impossible for Chase to read whether she thought Parker would make it or not.
Chase looked out the window, but the stars visible through the portholes seemed to barely move. The idea of getting stuck out here, an inconceivable distance from anywhere, made his skin crawl.
Maurus leaned back from the console and sighed. “The Federation was supposed to put more range extender stations out in some of these Naxos clusters, but apparently that’s another project that got caught up in red tape.”
The entire statement was made up of words that made no sense to Chase. “What exactly is the Federation?” he asked, knowing that the question would sound strange, but tired of always feeling like he was two steps behind everyone else. “I mean, I know who’s in it, but what does it do?”
“What is the Federation?” Maurus repeated incredulously. “Chase, where are you from?”
Heat rose in his cheeks. “I don’t know. I mean, I have amnesia.”
“But aren’t you and Parker related?”
“No, he kind of found me. He and Mina were helping me when the whole Trucon thing happened.”
Maurus stared at Chase. “I had no idea.” He paused. “So when we were in the Starjumper, Mina was incapacitated…?”
“Someone had been chasing us.” Chase stopped, unsure how much detail to give. But it did seem that he and Maurus had a common enemy, and more than that, he wanted to tell him everything. “Soldiers from the Fleet.”
Maurus narrowed his eyes. “What?”
A sudden series of strangled beeps came out of the console. With a shudder, the shuttle began to spin around in a slow arc. “No no no no no,” muttered Maurus, leaning in to the controls, his face pinched with concentration. Gradually their gyration slowed to a stop, and he leaned back and smacked the console.
“Cursed Shartese! Vo didn’t do the proper upgrades on his energy storage units. I overloaded the flow and we just lost three fusion chambers. Electrical systems are failing.” His fingers flew over the screens. “We’re going to lose all power very soon.”
Cold horror crept over Chase. This was it. They were going to die stranded in the middle of the cosmos. “What do we do?” he asked in a small voice.
Maurus stared at a circular graph on the screen filled with dots and numbers. “There’s a Zeta planet nearby. The atmosphere is a little thick, but there’s plenty of oxygen and we should be alright if we can get there. Mina, is that okay?”
“Do what you can,” she said quietly.
“What about Parker?” asked Chase.
Maurus’s dark eyes were filled with anguish. “I’m sorry.”
Chase turned his head away so Maurus couldn’t see his expression. How had it come to this?
“I’m turning off every possible system to conserve energy, so it’s going to get really cold. I’m turning off the gravity generator as well. Buckle yourself in.” A moment later, the track lights along the walls of the shuttle blinked out, leaving only the dim bluish glow of the operating console as a source of light. Chase felt his body begin to lift off the seat, and his arms floated up alongside him.
The air inside the shuttle turned icy cold, and Chase tucked his hands into his armpits. His breath came out in white plumes.
Mina murmured something to Parker in the back and passed a silver insulation blanket to the front seat. “Chase, take this. I’ve got another one for Parker.” Chase struggled to pull the floating blanket around himself. Maurus turned away from the console for a moment to help him unbuckle and wrap up.
“Aren’t you c-c-cold?” asked Chase.
Maurus tugged the blanket tightly around Chase’s shoulders. “Can’t pilot if I’m all bundled up.” Chase caught his eye for a moment. Maurus’s face was intense, his expression unreadable.
The minutes inched past. Chase’s hands and feet tingled with cold, then burned, then went numb. He grew drowsy and had trouble staying focused on Maurus’s actions. His eyelids sank closed.
“Mina, I’ve had to decrease oxygen production,” he heard Maurus say thickly. “You may need to take over for me.”
Mina said something in reply, but Chase was drifting under again.
“We’re getting close.”
Chase forced his eyes open, and Maurus pointed out the tiny orb of the Zeta planet in the shuttle’s portholes. Their approach to the distant clay-colored planet was agonizingly slow. Chase tried to force himself to stay awake and watch, but he had developed a fierce headache,
and his numb feet ached.
“We’re not going to make it, are we?” he slurred. Maurus glanced at him, then turned his attention to the console without speaking a word. A few exhausted tears hovered at the corners of Chase’s eyes. The pain in his hands and feet was agonizing, and he slipped back into semiconsciousness to escape.
“Wake up.” Mina’s voice rang out from the backseat.
Chase opened his eyes to see the planet filling up their window. Beside him Maurus was blinking hard and lightly slapping his own face as he focused on the changing numbers.
“There’s not enough power for a proper landing, but the shuttle has a parachute that’ll slow our descent.” He frowned at the console, looking worried. “Well, the sensor’s broken, but it should have one. I’ll try to put us down in water. I’ve got to divert all the power into the heat shields so we can make it into the atmosphere without burning up. Make sure you’re strapped in.”
Chase checked his belts and glanced back at Mina, who had wrapped her arms around Parker’s torso. She braced her feet against the walls.
“Alright, here we go,” said Maurus grimly. “This is going to be rough.”
As the planet loomed closer and closer, Chase realized that they were not traveling slowly after all, that they were actually hurtling toward the planet’s surface at a speed that would smash them into little more than gas particles when they hit the ground. A bright glow from the portholes illuminated the cabin, and the temperature jumped from freezing to terribly hot. Suddenly drenched in sweat, Chase clawed at the insulation blanket, but it was wrapped around him and secured under the seat belt, and he couldn’t get it off.
Maurus gripped the edges of the console, watching shifting numbers, his lips moving silently. He frowned and touched the console. “Deploy,” he said loudly. He began scrabbling at the console, his eyes wild. “Override!” he yelled. “Deploy! Deploy!”
With a mechanical clang, the shuttle jerked to a sudden stop midair, sending everyone lunging forward. Mina slammed into the back of the seat, and Maurus cracked his head against the console with a curse. Chase’s head swam from the motion, the heat, and the low oxygen levels. His stomach felt as if it were trying to climb out of his throat.
“Everyone okay?” gasped Maurus. “We should land in water in less than a minute … I hope.” Through the portholes, all Chase could see was a swirling, creamy-colored haze. He slipped in and out of consciousness, but when the haze finally cleared, what he saw below was not blue water, but something sluggish and brick colored. He cringed and braced for impact.
They hit with a hard jolt, but rather than crumpling, the shuttle plunged and then drifted slowly back up. Chase squinted out the window. “Nah water?” he slurred.
“Close enough,” said Maurus, forcing out each word with difficulty. “Mina, open the hatch.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Mina calmly. “The pressure change is too great, it will hurt you. Can you open a vent?”
“Not much … pressure,” protested Maurus, but he lolled his head forward and made some changes on the console. There was a hiss, and moist, earthy-smelling air began to seep in, pressing from all sides like a leaden blanket.
They were alive, at least for a little bit longer. Too nauseated to feel anything close to relief, Chase leaned forward and threw up on the floor.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Chase sat back in his seat and waited for his dizziness to subside as the external air slowly filled the shuttle. The planet had a thick, sticky atmosphere, and his forcing the moist air into his lungs felt like breathing syrup.
Maurus looked over at him, his face flushed and his eyes bulging slightly. Chase wondered if his own eyes looked that way. It certainly felt like it.
“Let’s get out of here,” Maurus wheezed. “Mina, open the door.”
Mina unlocked the ceiling hatch and pushed it open. Maurus struggled to his feet to join her. Chase looked skyward as a blast of hot, humid air swirled through the cabin, blowing his hair across his forehead. He didn’t have the energy to stand. He could hear them talking, but their words were swept away by the wind.
Mina hoisted herself out onto the roof, and Maurus sat back down in the shuttle, heaving a deep breath. Chase rolled his head over to look at him. “And?”
Maurus attempted a wry smile. “Could be better. We’re in the middle of some kind of mud sea. Might be this world’s version of an ocean. Can’t tell how far it goes, but it looks like a pretty thick soup out there.”
Chase peeled himself off the seat and twisted around to look at Parker’s still, pale form on the floor. He stared at Parker’s chest until he could see its shallow rise and fall. “Aren’t there any people living here?”
“Guidance systems indicated there were no colonies on the planet.” Maurus leaned toward the controls. “We’ll have to hope someone picks up our distress beacon.”
Chase turned back around and looked at the flickering console screen. “Where are we?”
“This is a Zeta-grade planet. That means it can support organic life, but has no native civilization. Some Zeta planets are colonized, like Qesaris, or…” He hesitated, and said, “Or Trucon. But ninety-nine percent of the time they’re deemed unfit for settlement—this one probably because of the thick atmosphere.”
“Why was Trucon colonized if it was full of those monsters?” Chase asked. It seemed like years since the scaly creatures had attacked him outside Parker’s house.
Maurus paused for a moment to catch his breath. “The Zinnjerha? They were a threat, but I suppose the planet was very appealing for colonization because of its proximity to three other hospitable Zeta planets.” A dark look crossed his face.
“What is it?”
“I should have known,” Maurus muttered.
“Known what?”
“The mission my captain had sent me to investigate was a report of nighttime trafficking movement in the Truconian desert—Lyolians, of course, which is why it had to be me. But when I got there, none of it was true. The story wasn’t even feasible. I wasted all my time trying to figure out how my captain got his information wrong, when he was the one who knowingly sent me on a fool’s errand. I should have known something was wrong.”
The bitterness and regret in Maurus’s voice evaporated any doubt Chase might have had that he wasn’t behind the Trucon attack. He was telling the truth—he’d been set up. “It’s not like you could have known what was going to happen,” Chase said.
Maurus shook his head. “No, but I should have questioned every possibility. You can respect authority without mindlessly trusting it.”
Mina’s face appeared in the open hatch overhead. “The shuttle is beginning to sink,” she said.
A spike of adrenaline shot through Chase’s stomach. “What?”
She climbed into the back. “It’s gone down three centimeters in the last minute.”
Maurus cursed. “We must have split a seam when we hit the ocean.” He clambered out onto the roof. Chase struggled to follow him, but it seemed as if his body weighed twice as much as usual—just raising his hand felt like pushing his arm through water.
Taking a looped length of black cable from a storage compartment, Mina hopped out onto the roof of the shuttle. Chase hauled himself after her through the open hatch and looked outside at the strange world they had landed on.
All around them, for as far as he could see, was a wide expanse of flat, brick-colored ocean, rippling in a strong wind. The air was hot, moist, and earthy, and swirling clouds of pink- and cream-colored gases filled the sky. Mina tied one end of the cable around her waist and handed the other end to Maurus. Before Chase could ask what she was doing, she jumped off the sinking shuttle and without even a splash disappeared into the thick, murky liquid.
Chase looked at Maurus for an explanation, but he only studied the spot where Mina had gone under. A moment later, her head popped back up, glazed in viscous red mud. She wiped her face. “It’s very sticky, but I think
I can swim in it.” She began a lap around the vehicle.
“What’s she doing?” Chase asked Maurus.
“She thinks she sees some trees, or land, far in the distance. She’s going to try pulling the shuttle there.”
Chase squinted. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s too hazy to see very far. She’s the android; I’m taking her word for it.”
“Are we going to sink?” Chase asked. “What if no one hears our distress call? How are we going to get off this planet?”
Maurus’s mouth twisted, and he squeezed Chase’s shoulder. “Come on. We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?”
“Throw me the rest of the cable.” Mina had completed her lap, and the head that poked above the surface was barely recognizable. She tied the free end of the cable to the shuttle and began paddling out in front, trying to pull the shuttle, but with no landmarks, it seemed like they weren’t moving at all.
“This is useless,” Chase said. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“Look behind you.” A shallow wake, barely indented in the swampy surface, showed that they were making some kind of progress. “I’d imagine she’d burn her limbs out and wear them down to stumps if that’s what it took to save Parker. Not that she will—I’ve seen androids similar to her take a lot tougher beating than this.”
Chase still couldn’t see anything in their hazy environment other than swirling hot gas, but he hoped Mina’s senses were better than his.
Maurus gazed ahead, and then he gave his head a shake, as if to clear it. “I feel like I’m getting the hang of breathing this stuff, how about you?”
“I feel like I’m underwater,” Chase admitted.
Maurus laughed. When he looked over, a stab of fear went through Chase. Maurus’s face was crinkled up in a friendly grin, but a spot of bright red had bloomed in the white of his left eye. Chase felt the urge to touch his own eyes, wondering if the same thing was happening to him. He looked away, glancing down into the cabin, and shouted in alarm.
Below them, Parker lay in a shallow puddle of glossy mud that had formed on the floor of the shuttle. Maurus leapt down into the cabin and hoisted Parker’s limp body so Chase could pull him out onto the roof.
Lost Planet 01 - The Lost Planet Page 15