“Good job, Chase,” she said.
He stepped out from behind the desk. “How do we get off this ship?”
Maurus checked the console. “If we can make it to the lower flight deck, I’ll get us out of here. We have to move fast—as soon as anyone realizes we’ve escaped, they’ll lock everything down.”
Chase turned to Mina. “Do you know where to find Parker?”
Before she could answer, a low groan came from cell number 1. Everyone turned and looked at the open door.
“Parker?” Chase dashed for the cell door, his pulse spiking. If that was Parker, he didn’t sound good. What he saw inside the cell stopped him in his tracks.
Vo sat slumped on the bench. There were several crusted gashes in his face, which was mottled with green and yellow bruises, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. He bared his teeth and made an ominous rattling sound in the back of his throat.
Behind him, Maurus cursed loudly and pushed past Chase. “What happened? How did you get here?”
Vo glared at Maurus. “After you leave, another attack,” he croaked. “No escape shuttle. Namatan shipper rescue me, call Fleet for help. And I tell them where to find you.”
“Where is the silver case?” asked Maurus. “The one you took from me?”
“Gone. He took it.”
“Who? Was it Captain Lennard? Tell me!” Maurus grabbed Vo’s shoulders and pressed him against the wall.
Vo gave a hideous scream that cut off in a wet coughing fit, and Maurus backed off. When he recovered, Vo eased himself off the bench and onto his feet. “You wanna know who took case? Same person that took these,” he hissed.
Shuffling on his long haunches, Vo turned around. To Chase’s horror, on Vo’s back, instead of his four long golden limbs, there were now four bandaged stumps. Vo looked over his shoulder, glaring at Maurus. “He came for you, make me suffer.”
“Who?” Maurus shook his head, his mouth agape.
Vo glowered as he shuffled back around to face them, and then the folds of his face curled up in a malicious smile. “Rezer Bennin.” He spoke the name slowly, enunciating every syllable, while giving a pointed look at Maurus. “Come to take his revenge for you stealing his money and android. He took case.”
Maurus brought his hands to the sides of his face and groaned. “Cursed suns of Hesta, I can’t go back and face that man. He’ll kill me on sight.”
“Cut off your arms.” Vo’s voice grew vicious. “I hope he cut off every one of your limbs, worthless Karsha swill!”
Maurus spat a few incomprehensible words at Vo and turned away. “Let’s go, Chase.”
“What about him?” Chase gestured at Vo, who, although obviously in a great deal of pain, leaned against the wall with a strangely contented smile on his face.
“Don’t feel too bad for him,” Maurus said coldly as he turned to leave. “He’s Shartese. Those limbs will grow back.” Taking one last look at the smuggler, Chase followed him out of the cell.
Maurus slipped behind the desk and typed something on the console, and Vo’s cell door slid shut. Mina stood by the door. “Do you know where to find Parker?” he asked. She nodded, reaching for the handle.
“Try not to attract any attention,” said Maurus. “The standby fighters are staged in the reserve hangar on level J. You’ve got five minutes, or we’re leaving without you.”
Mina walked out the door.
“Alright, let’s move fast,” Maurus said to Chase. He rifled through the guard’s desk and withdrew a slender black baton. “Just stick close to me.”
“But I’m not a soldier,” said Chase. “They’ll spot me in a second.”
“This ship has a small civilian population—you’ll be fine. I know a back hall where we probably won’t run into anyone. Keep your head down and walk fast.” He opened the door, sticking his head into the hallway before exiting the room.
The hall outside the brig was empty, and Maurus quickly cut across and into another quiet corridor. They walked swiftly for a minute, heading toward a recessed doorway. Maurus reached out for the handle, but the door opened before he could touch it. He jumped back with a salute, dropping his face toward the floor.
The young soldier who came through the door began raise his arm in return, but then he gasped, “You!”
“I’m sorry.” Maurus whipped out the black baton and pressed it against the soldier’s neck. It made a sizzling sound, and he tumbled to the floor.
Chase stared at the fallen soldier. “What did you—?”
“Stunned him. He’ll be fine.” Maurus led Chase down several flights of steep metal stairs and into a narrower, curved hall where the right-hand wall was lined with doors. He stopped at the first one and entered a numbered code to open it. As they stepped into a dark hangar, Chase could see the sleek lines of the fighter parked inside.
Maurus approached the Khatra quickly and opened the side door. “Get in.”
“We have to wait for Mina and Parker.”
“We can’t,” said Maurus. “There’s no time to wait.”
“But—”
“They’ll be fine. The Fleet isn’t after them, they’re after you and me. We need to get out of here right now.” He grabbed Chase by the upper arm and began to pull him toward the craft.
“We can’t leave them!” Chase yanked his arm, wincing at the sharp tingling as he phased through Maurus’s grip.
Maurus looked at his hand, then at Chase. “How did you do that? What on Taras are you?”
“I’m not leaving Parker behind!” Chase repeated.
“No worries, you won’t have to,” said a voice behind him. With a wry smile on his face, Parker stepped into the docking chamber with Mina, his eyes already on the vehicle. “We’re stealing a Khatra?” he breathed, reaching out reverently to touch it.
Chase exhaled with relief and stepped aside to usher Parker toward the Khatra.
“Everyone in, now,” barked Maurus.
With a boost from Mina, Parker climbed up into the fighter, peering over the vehicle’s one seat. “Are you joking? We’ll never all fit in here.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Maurus said. “Hurry up!”
The crawl space behind the Khatra’s seat was barely big enough for one person. They wedged themselves in shoulder to shoulder with their knees drawn up to their chins. Chase had to incline his head at a sharp angle to avoid hitting the metal hull. Maurus jumped into the seat and closed the hatch. He drummed his hands against the manual controls as the vehicle powered up.
“Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered. The seconds stretched on, and finally Maurus hissed, “Yessss.” They lifted off the deck.
“It worked?” Chase asked. He strained to look over the back of the seat and caught a glimpse of star-spattered space through the front window.
“We’re out!” said Maurus. “We’re as good as—”
“Lieutenant Maurus!” interrupted a furious voice from the front console. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Maurus veered the fighter out and away from the Kuyddestor. “Sorry, Captain, looks like you lose this round.”
“All weaponry is pointed right at you, Lieutenant—you have ten seconds to surrender,” said Lennard.
“And kill my hostages? I think that’s against Fleet regulations, isn’t it?”
“Are you insane?” Lennard roared. “Do you realize what you’re doing?”
“Yes, I do,” said Maurus. He was quiet for a moment, tapping at the console. When he spoke again, his voice was low and hard. “Just like you knew what you were doing when you sent me to Trucon on that bogus mission. You won’t get away with any of this.”
There was a pause. “Don’t—” came the captain’s angry voice over the console.
At that moment, Maurus launched the fighter into a fold, and they passed out of transmission range.
CHAPTER TWENTY
They reappeared in a quiet segment of space, and after a tense second, Maurus released the breath he
had been holding. “We did it!” he said, sounding fiercely pleased. “Hang on a minute while I plot out our course.”
Parker leaned toward the front, unintentionally jamming his arm into Chase’s side. “Where are we going now? What’s the plan?” He was ghostly pale, and the occasional deep wheeze made it sound like he still had some difficulty breathing.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Chase asked.
“Of course,” Parker scoffed.
“Because you look terrible.”
Parker made a face. “It’ll take a lot more than a full dose of Goxar poison to keep me down. So what’s the plan?”
As Chase twisted away from Parker’s sharp elbow, he realized he hadn’t given much thought to where he might find his sister. Qesaris was the only place he had seen her, so it seemed only natural to go back and look for her there. When Maurus didn’t answer, he spoke up. “I have to go to Qesaris to find my sister.”
Parker shifted to look at Chase. “Your what?”
“Don’t worry,” came Maurus’s low mutter from the front. “Qesaris is where we’re headed.”
Chase paused. He had expected Maurus to want to go straight to the safety of his homeworld. “You’re not planning to go after the case, are you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You heard what Vo said. Rezer Bennin is out for revenge—he’ll kill you. You’ll never get the case. Just leave us on Qesaris and go back to your people.”
“Go back to my people? Is that an order?” Irritation crept into Maurus’s voice. “If I can get that case, I still have a chance to clear my name. And not just that—I can expose whoever it was in Fleet command that orchestrated the destruction of Trucon. This is my duty as a soldier of the Fleet.”
Chase shook his head. How could Maurus still think of himself as a Fleet soldier after all that had happened?
Parker jabbed him in the shoulder. “I’m sorry, your what? Can you say that again? Sister?”
It was useless to argue with Maurus, so instead Chase turned to Parker. “Yes, my sister. You remember when I told you about that girl in the bathroom, when you told me I was crazy?” He proceeded to repeat what Lennard had said to him about Lilli Garrety. “That must have been my sister—that’s why she was so upset when she saw me,” he finished, trying to contort himself into a more comfortable position against Mina, who sat as still and inflexible as a statue.
“Because she thinks you’re dead, just like the captain said.” Parker was silent for a moment. “How do you think she found you in the first place?”
“I don’t know.” Chase had gone over the memory so many times in his head that he was able to recite their entire conversation to himself. “Wait, there was one thing. She mentioned a name, something like, ‘Dornan didn’t see you, but I did.’”
“Dornan?” Maurus’s voice rang out sharply. “As in, Colonel Eileen Dornan?”
“You know who that is?” Chase asked.
“She’s the chief medical officer of the Naxos Vector Command. What does she have to do with you?”
“I have no idea—” Chase began to say.
“Of course! Don’t you remember, dummy?” Parker interrupted. “She was the officer running things at the medical center. She put the lasobind on my forehead after I split it open.”
The older female officer with the baby-doll face! Chase gaped at Parker. “Do you tinik—?”
“Hold that thought, Chase,” Maurus said, sitting up from the console. “I’ve got our course entered. Lennard’s going to be right on our tail, so I’m giving it the full push. Things might get a little rough—we’re going to get to Qesaris in record time. Prepare for fold.”
Before Chase could utter another word, the universe collapsed around them, and the fighter tore across the galaxy in a dizzying rush, completing each fold nearly on top of the last. Bright objects flashed in the windshield, nearby planets and colored swirls of distant nebula. After an hour or so, Chase began to get a tight headache from all the folding, and his entire body ached from being cramped up for so long. It was still infinitely better than riding in Vo’s decrepit shuttle.
Then the flashing images stopped, and they were enveloped in darkness again, with only the glow of the console to see by. The vehicle’s gravity generator kept them seated, but Chase could feel that the Khatra was zooming downward. Gray light filtered in through the front window as they entered the atmosphere of Qesaris.
“I’m sure Lennard put an alert out on this fighter, so I can’t land in any standard docking stations,” said Maurus. “I’m going to land us at the port in the Shank. This will put us close to Rezer Bennin’s lair, so we can get in and out with the case in a hurry.”
We? Chase pushed the question out of his head, and instead tried to think of how he would go about finding his sister. Her final clue, I’m being held by the one who led the end, was not terribly helpful, and a planet was a very large place to be hidden on. Was it possible that she was still in the café where she’d jumped him? Unlikely, but maybe it was the best place to start.
Maurus slowed the vehicle, and after a few gentle turns, they settled to a stop. Almost immediately the hatch popped open. “Alright, everybody out—quick, quick,” said Maurus, exiting the Khatra with a fluid jump and leaving Chase and Parker to pull themselves out of their cramped positions and scramble after him. Mina landed beside them with a heavy thump.
They walked swiftly through the hectic port, weaving through the tangle of parked vehicles and steaming vents and drawing stares from the raggedy men and creatures who worked there. Fortunately, the contingent of Fleet soldiers who’d been monitoring the port when they left was no longer there. Maurus rested one hand near his hip, where he carried the black baton he’d taken from the brig. They took a lift up to the street level of the Shank, and Maurus began to lead the way down a dark alley.
Chase stopped. “Hang on. Where are we going?”
Maurus glanced back at him with an impatient frown and ushered the group into a recessed doorway. He scanned the three of them. “Okay, we need a plan. Mina, you should take Parker out of the Shank, somewhere safe.”
“Don’t you—” Parker began to protest.
Maurus turned to Chase. “You come with me. We’ll deal with Rezer Bennin.”
“What?” asked Chase, raising his voice over Parker’s noisy objections. “No, I came here to look for my sister.”
Impatience crossed Maurus’s face. “Lennard is already on his way here, and it’s only a matter of time before Vo cracks and tells him about the case. I have to get to it before he does.”
“But I need to find her,” said Chase, wrinkling his brow.
Maurus’s voice dropped low. “I don’t know if I can do this without you. We’ll go look for the girl once we’ve taken back my case.”
“You mean if we’re still alive. If we’re not being chased halfway across the galaxy.” Chase’s temper began to rise. “This may be the only chance I have to save her.”
“You don’t even know if she’s really your sister!” Maurus said through gritted teeth.
“Captain Lennard said—”
“You told us he said Chase Garrety had a sister, and he also said Chase Garrety is dead. Look at you! You’re not human, you pass through solid objects! How can you think you’re really that boy?”
Chase felt his face growing hot as a tight, angry feeling knit together in his chest. “I am. I know it.”
“You realize it’s possible you never even saw the girl? Nobody else did, did they? Parker, did you see her? Her image could have been implanted in your memory as a way to control you.”
Chase paused, uncertain. Could that be possible?
“Shut up!” Parker stepped forward and shoved Maurus in the chest. “Stop trying to manipulate him. We saved your life once already, or did you forget that?”
Maurus knocked Parker’s hands away. “And I’d be back with my people by now if it weren’t for you!”
Parker snorted. “You
still can—go back and get the Khatra. Get out of here.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Maurus grabbed Parker’s shirt, and instantly Mina’s hand was clamped on his shoulder. He let go, hissing in pain.
“Stop!” Chase shook his head at all three of them, fighting over what was his decision. “Parker, I can take care of this.”
Maurus shook Mina off and turned all his attention on Chase. “I’m asking you to trust your gut. Yes, you’re special. There’s no one like you in the universe. But you have to realize that you can’t really be that boy. You’re probably walking into a trap.” He placed his hands on Chase’s shoulders, his dark eyes blazing with purpose. “Let’s go get that case and tell the universe who was really behind the Trucon attack.”
Chase put his head down to avoid Maurus’s fervent gaze. On the Kuyddestor, he’d been so certain he needed to save his sister, but now Maurus was messing with his head and that certainty was crumbling. It felt incredibly selfish to ignore Maurus’s noble goal in favor of his own possibly imagined one, and for a moment it seemed almost like he had no choice.
But he was so close to getting the answers he needed. How could he reach them if Maurus made him change his plans? He closed his eyes, and the girl’s terrified face flashed before him. Anger pulsed in his veins. Chase raised his head and squared his shoulders. “Maybe I’m not Chase Garrety,” he said. “But I know what I saw, and that girl needs me. If you wait, I promise I’ll help you afterward.”
Maurus’s face tightened, and with an angry huff he dropped his hands, backing away. “I won’t make it to afterward. But I won’t waste any more time trying to convince you. Good-bye, Chase.” He turned and stalked down the alley, shoulders taut, quickly disappearing into the gloom.
Chase turned to Parker. “Did I do the right thing?”
“Do you really believe you have a sister out there?” Parker asked.
Chase bit his lip. Maurus had told him to go with his gut on this, and his gut told him that the frantic, desperate girl he’d seen needed his help. He nodded, and then asked, “Do you really think I’m Chase Garrety?”
“Pssht, of course! Did you not have a Chase Garrety chip in your head when I first met you?” Parker smiled. “So, how are we going to find this sister of yours? Tell me exactly what she said to you, every word.”
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