Lost Planet 01 - The Lost Planet

by Searles, Rachel

  Bennin tilted his head with a smirk. “No? Then you won’t mind if I just—” He pointed the particle disperser at the girl in Mina’s arms.

  “No!” Chase’s hands flew up automatically, reaching for his sister. The shackles clattered to the floor.

  Rezer Bennin turned, swinging the crackling weapon toward him. Staring down the barrel of the disperser, Chase froze down to the very last hair on his head. Bennin looked down at the empty shackles lying on the floor, and his eyes narrowed.

  “What remarkable children. Or should I say, experiments?”

  Asa’s cool expression broke, and anger flooded into his face. “They’re not experiments. I’m their guardian. Let them be.”

  “I’m not sure I believe you. Maybe if you have to start from scratch—” Bennin hoisted the disperser into firing position, still pointing at Chase.

  Chase sucked in a gasp. It was all he had time to do.

  In the corner of his eye, he saw Mina shove his sister into Parker’s arms and throw herself at the henchman guarding the door. Asa dove across the room, tackling Bennin at the waist. A brief blast of the orange disperser beam skimmed just over Chase’s head and hit the ceiling, sending down a rain of concrete chunks.

  The disperser flew free and skidded across the floor.

  “How dare you!” cried Rezer Bennin, who lay on his back with a look of stunned fury.

  Asa crouched at Bennin’s ankles. “Don’t make me hurt you, Bennin. Just let us walk out.”

  “So the children do matter,” Bennin spat, teeth bared.

  “If you hurt any one of them, I’ll kill you,” Asa promised.

  Chase took a step toward the fallen disperser. Bennin yanked a handblaster from his coat and pointed it at Parker, who stood wide-eyed, clutching Chase’s sister to his chest.

  “No!” Asa’s voice rose in panic, and he leapt at Bennin as he fired. The red blast hit Asa square in the chest, and sent him flying backward. He rolled across the floor and lay still.

  Holding the handblaster out in front of himself, Rezer Bennin got to his feet. His flat features were disfigured with rage. He walked over to pick up the disperser, looping it around his shoulder, and pressed the comm panel.

  “Saleh, send up the men!” Bennin paused and, when no answer came, slapped at the panel again. “Saleh! Where are you?”

  He primed the disperser using the hand that was still holding the small blaster. The weapon crackled and spooled up as he brandished it at everyone. “I’ve had enough of this.” He pointed it at Asa’s body. Then he cocked his head, frowning.

  A rumbling noise sounded outside the room and deepened, joined by a sound like grating steel. Rezer Bennin reached for the comm panel again.

  And then the door exploded off its hinges.

  A tall, imposing figure stepped through a cloud of smoke into the chamber, blaster raised. Behind the helmet visor were familiar craggy features and pale wolf eyes.

  Despair struck through Chase like a deep chord. It had taken Captain Lennard less time than he had expected to catch up. He’d almost forgotten that the captain was pursuing them. But with Bennin on one side, Lennard on the other, and Asa possibly dead, they’d never be able to escape.

  Five more armed soldiers slipped through the door behind the captain. “Rezer Bennin, on behalf of the Federation of Allied Planets and the Federal Fleet, I order you to surrender!” Lennard shouted.

  “I don’t think so!” Bennin brandished the disperser. “Do you know what this is, officer?”

  “That is illegal contraband,” said Lennard. “Under section 427 of the Fleet charter, I order you to surrender your weapon and come peacefully.”

  “Fool! This weapon? You don’t stand a chance—I can disperse this entire room before anyone takes their next breath. Do you want everyone here to die?”

  An orange beam burst from the end of Bennin’s particle disperser, and Lennard dodged, narrowly missing the shot. The beam hit the wall behind him, leaving a gaping hole. “Rezer Bennin, put down your weapon!” he thundered.

  Maybe there was still a chance. Taking advantage of the distraction, Chase dropped to the floor and scrambled over to where Bennin had tossed the collar’s key. Someone from the Fleet took a shot at Bennin, who ducked and fired off another blast of the disperser. Keeping close to the floor, Chase dashed back to Maurus and with fumbling fingers stuck the key in the tiny hole. The collar broke apart and tumbled away.

  Maurus dropped to his knees, hands limp at his side. His dark hair fell across his face.

  Bennin grabbed Chase by the arm, and for a second he resisted, letting the man’s hand start to slide through his arm. But Maurus looked like he could barely lift his head, let alone run away. He would need the extra time that a diversion could provide.

  “Get them out of here,” Chase hissed at him, climbing to his feet.

  Rezer Bennin wrapped his arm around Chase’s neck, still gripping the disperser with his other arm. “If you want this boy to live, you’ll let us go.” He took a step toward the back of the room, wrenching Chase along with him.

  As he stumbled backward in Bennin’s grip, Chase kept his eyes on Lennard. “Take the shot!” he yelled, not sure if he meant Bennin or Lennard, half hoping they would both fire on each other at the same time. The captain’s snarl deepened, but he didn’t fire.

  Movement on the right—somehow Parker had slipped across the room to Maurus’s side, still balancing Chase’s sister on one hip. He was trying to help Maurus stand, but the Lyolian fell back down, his muscles too exhausted from the strain of the collar. Chase’s heart sank. There was no way Maurus would be able to escape. By the defeated look in his eyes, it was clear that Maurus knew this too.

  “Run, Chase,” he said hoarsely.

  And in a microsecond, it happened. Chase could feel the tension running through Rezer Bennin’s body and down his right arm as he turned the weapon, and he knew Bennin was going to fire the disperser at them all, Maurus and Parker and Lilli Garrety. He had to stop him.

  If he was really Chase Garrety, he’d already survived the disperser once, and he could do it again.

  If he was Chase Garrety.

  Chase phased through the arm wrapped around his neck and spun around, grabbing the nozzle of the disperser with both hands. He pressed it against his own chest.

  “Chase, no!” screamed Parker.

  There was an explosion of orange light and, in the background, more screams. Chase’s vision narrowed to a pinpoint as his body was overtaken with violent, uncontrollable trembling. For a moment, he was filled with a strange feeling of thinness. The room began to fade away.

  Barely there, he could feel himself jittering away to nothing but a shadow. He screamed, but he couldn’t tell if he was actually making the noise or if it was only in his mind. In waves he slipped away, dissolving and retracting in a painful tug-of-war. His hands on the weapon were almost transparent, melting outward.

  A piercing sound caught his attention, a high-pitched, keening wail. Chase tried to see who it was and in that moment had the strange sensation that his eyes were everywhere, that he could see the entire room through the orange haze.

  The girl, his sister, was finally awake. She was pushing away from Parker, who struggled to hold her, and her mouth was torn wide with a continuous scream. She slithered free and sank to the floor, her eyes huge and terrified, filled with the nightmare she had awoken to.

  It’s okay, Chase wanted to tell her. I can do this. But he couldn’t speak. He wasn’t even sure his mouth was there anymore.

  Shapes moved around the room, activity that he couldn’t distinguish. Chase focused on Rezer Bennin as he stopped to prime the weapon again. A burst of light fanned out behind Bennin like a halo, and the furious expression on his face melted into a blank stare. He fell forward, into and through Chase, landing on top of the disperser.

  “Move! Move! Move!” screamed a voice.

  With a colossal snap! like a hard bolt of electricity running down his spin
e, Chase came flying back to himself—his whole, present, focused self. He stumbled backward, his vision blurry and indistinct. He needed to find his sister, but he could barely see. A pair of wiry arms caught him, helping him stay upright.

  “Hold on there, buddy,” came Parker’s voice. “I’ve got you.”

  “Is he alright? Don’t touch him—he might be unstable,” said Lennard’s voice.

  “Shut up,” snapped Parker. “He’s fine. Chase, do you need to sit down?”

  “No. Maybe.” Chase wasn’t even sure if the words were making it out of his mouth, but with Parker’s help he sank to the floor, breathing deeply and trying to focus.

  Figures moved around him, disjointed voices swimming around and between the movement.

  “Tie Bennin up, get him to the brig.”

  “You got her? Get her out.”

  “Where’s Kaplan?”

  “How soon until Dietz gets here?”

  “Looks like an escape passage.”

  “Get your hands off me!”

  The last one was Maurus, and Chase blinked until he could make out the shape of the Lyolian, kneeling at the center of a circle of soldiers.

  “Lieutenant, on your feet. You’re coming back to the ship with us,” said Lennard, stepping into the circle.

  Maurus spat at his feet. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Kill me now if that’s your plan. The truth will come out in the end.”

  Lennard exhaled loudly. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. We can—”

  Shouting by the door drowned out the rest of the captain’s words. Fersad entered the room, trailed closely by two soldiers.

  “I need to leave,” growled the Kekilly mercenary. “I played my part, so pay up.”

  “Sorry, Captain, we couldn’t stop him—” said one of the soldiers.

  “Fersad, step outside and wait,” interrupted Lennard. “I’ll be finished here in a moment.” There was a tense stare down for several seconds, and finally the rangy mercenary turned and stalked out of the room.

  “He’s been working for you all this time!” said Maurus, his voice rising hysterically. “You sent him after me on Trucon—”

  He staggered to his feet, swinging his fists at the soldiers surrounding him. With a frustrated roar, Captain Lennard whipped around and shot Maurus in the chest.

  This Chase saw clearly: The Lyolian’s eyes turned sightless as he fell backward, shock still written across his face. He hit the floor hard.

  “No!” screamed Chase. He staggered to his feet and charged the captain.

  Lennard raised his hands, but Chase swung right through them. The captain tried to outmaneuver him, to grab his arms, but Chase was a blur of motion and rage. He couldn’t be restrained, and his fists connected where he wanted to connect, landing punches on Lennard’s ribs and chest. For a moment, he felt himself reaching a level of control over his ability that he didn’t know he had.

  Lennard tried to push Chase away and stumbled backward, holding a hand protectively in front of himself. He looked shaken. “Take him to the ship,” he told his soldiers.

  “I’m not getting on your ship!”

  “Yes, you are. If you want to stay with your sister, you’ll get on the ship.”

  Chase whipped around. The spot where the girl had been was empty. Parker had vanished too—even Asa and Mina were gone. Rage boiled up inside him. “Where did you take them?”

  “Chase, will you please cooperate?” A cautious tone crept into Lennard’s voice, as though he were talking to a wild animal. “I can explain more later, but for now I need you to do as I tell you.”

  Chase looked at the back of the room, where a team of soldiers was loading Maurus’s body onto a stretcher. A sob started to build in the back of his throat.

  “You killed him.” His voice broke on the words.

  Lennard glanced at the door and made a signal to one of his soldiers. “No, Chase, I stunned him. He’ll be fine. It was the only way I could get him to come easily, but you know I can’t do that to you.”

  Something loosened in Chase’s chest. Maurus was alive. But confusion bloomed and swelled, taking the place of his anger. “You’re helping him now?”

  Lennard took a step toward Chase, his hands still lifted in a defensive way. “I made a mistake,” he said in a low voice. “About him, and about you. Maurus said something that made me take a second look at everything that happened. And then the brig officer told me how you jumped through doors, and I realized that by some miracle, somehow, it was really you. I’ve been trying to find you ever since. And now I need to get you both away from here as quickly as possible.”

  The soldiers carried Maurus out, leaving only Chase and Lennard in the empty room. Parker, Mina, Maurus, his sister, Asa—everyone was gone. His choice had been made for him, but still Chase couldn’t bring himself to trust Captain Lennard. “Why? What’s going to happen?”

  A soldier leaned in the door. “ETA two minutes, Captain.”

  Lennard nodded in acknowledgment, but he kept his eyes on Chase. “Because others from the Fleet are coming and this is the only way I can keep you all safe from them. Please, Chase, come back to the Kuyddestor with me.”

  Kuyddestor. Hearing the word spoken in Lennard’s drawl, a distant connection formed in Chase’s mind. He frowned. Kuyd-de-stor. Could that be the answer?

  He spoke hesitantly. “Guide … guide the star?”

  Relief broke out on the captain’s weathered face. “Yes, Chase. Guide the star. Thank the heavens—it’s really you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The gray horizon of Qesaris fell away as the transport shuttle shot out of the atmosphere. Chase gripped his armrests and looked around at the soldiers who filled every other seat. Lennard had told him that Parker and his sister had been sent ahead of him, but he still felt a gnawing apprehension in his gut. He was exhausted, sore, and hungry, and wanted desperately to trust the captain’s promise that they were safe now, but a distrustful side of him knew that Lennard could easily turn back into a tyrant once they were all stowed away on his ship.

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes,” said the raven-haired officer sitting next to him.

  “My friends are already there, right?”

  “Everyone’s safe, don’t worry.” She gave him a warm smile.

  Through a sliver of front windshield, the hulking form of the Kuyddestor loomed ahead of them, far bigger than any building Chase had ever seen. Their transport airship slid neatly into the gaping maw of the entry spaceway, and multicolored lights shot past as they skidded down a tunnel into the docking bay.

  They exited the airship into a bright, bustling crowd. The cavernous hall was abuzz with activity, but the atmosphere was completely different from the last time Chase had arrived there—still intense, but the people on deck now seemed focused with an upbeat, positive energy.

  The officer put a hand on Chase’s arm. “Just wait here. I’ll send someone over to take you to a debriefing room.” She turned and left him standing alone by the airship.

  Chase waited approximately two seconds before slipping into the crowd to find everyone on his own. He weaved through the row of vehicles, keeping his distance from the jumpsuited mechanics running through the bay.

  “Hey there, stop.” Chase turned toward the low voice and saw Colonel Forquera ducking under the wing of a fighter to reach him.

  “Where are they?” he demanded. “Where is my sister?”

  “Relax, they’re here. Come with me.”

  Still crawling with anxiety, Chase let Forquera lead him out of the commotion of the docking bay. They passed through a doorway into a quieter hall, and Forquera glanced at him. “How are you doing?”

  Chase shook his head. “I don’t know.” His hands trembled, and he knew they wouldn’t stop until he was sure this wasn’t a trap.

  They stopped in front of a door that opened on a room with a long table. At the far end sat Parker. Alone.

  “Chase!” He jumpe
d to his feet, pushing his chair back with a scrape. “Are you okay?”

  “Where did they take my sister? Where’s Maurus?”

  Forquera ushered him inside the room and allowed the door to close behind them. “They’ve both been taken up to medical bay. They’re fine.”

  “Let me see her,” he insisted.

  “You can see her when she’s stabilized.”

  “She’s okay,” said Parker. “I saw them taking care of her.”

  Chase frowned uneasily. He trusted Parker’s word, but it still wasn’t the same as seeing her himself.

  Forquera stood beside the door. “When Captain Lennard gets back on board, he’ll want to talk more with each of you. For now, I’ll need you to stay in here until I can get the quartermaster to assign you some space. I’ll have someone bring you some food as well.”

  “One question,” said Parker, holding up his hand to stop the colonel from leaving. Forquera nodded. “How did the captain figure out that Maurus’s mission was a setup?”

  Forquera looked surprised, and an amused smile touched the corners of his mouth. “Because the report the captain received, the one he sent Maurus out to investigate, described a Lyolian slave trafficking ring delivering new shipments in the Truconian desert at night. The captain realized that someone had given him a falsified report, because—”

  “The Zinnjerha had already been coming out at night for two weeks before that,” finished Parker.

  “Exactly. There was no way anyone could have been moving anything.”

  “Is that why the Zinnjerha were acting funny?” asked Parker. “Did they sense the attack was coming?”

  Forquera frowned. “I don’t see how they could have. The thermodetonators weren’t installed until the day of the attack. As far as I know, nobody knew why the Zinnjerha were acting up—and now we probably never will.” He waited a second to see if Parker had any more questions, and then he left.

  Chase sat down in a chair and put his fists on his forehead.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Parker.

  “I keep thinking this is going to be a trap. Last time we were here, Lennard hated me, and he wanted Maurus dead.”