Lost Planet 02 - The Stolen Moon (10 page)

“Doesn't feel good to get left behind, does it?”

Chase looked up, expecting to see only Parker standing by his bed. His gut hitched when he saw Analora at his friend's side, her brow creased with worry. The petty smirk on Parker's face faded. “Oh, man, I'm sorry. Are you okay?”

Chase's eyes flickered over to Analora. He couldn't tell Parker the whole story in front of her. “No teleportation for me today,” he said in a tight voice.

Parker walked around the bed and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You know, buddy, I've never been a big fan of the teleport.” Of course, Parker had grown up with the knowledge that his parents were killed in a teleport accident. “At least you're okay.”

“I lost my only chance to find that person,” Chase said in a hoarse whisper. “To find your chip.”

“It's okay. If this person wants to talk to you that badly, they'll come back. Making you go down to Storros was pretty shady anyway.”

Analora finally spoke up. “So I still don't understand what happened. Someone stole something from your room and wanted to meet with Chase on Storros about it? Why?”

Parker shrugged. “It's … complicated. Not like you couldn't understand it,” he added hurriedly as her eyes narrowed. “Just like … we can't tell you everything.”

“I should be down there with Maurus,” Chase mumbled, his mind still fixed on the huge opportunity he had missed.

Analora had gone very quiet, her brows knitting furiously. “We could still go,” she said in a barely audible tone.

“Go where?” asked Parker. “Storros?”

She raised a finger to her lips. “Let's get out of here,” she whispered.

Chase hopped off of the bed and followed Parker and Analora. Outside the curtained-off space, the medical bay was quiet, two long rows of empty beds. One nurse sat at a desk entering information at a console, but she only glanced up briefly as they left. Dr. Bishallany was nowhere in sight.

They slipped out the door and hurried down the metal corridor. Once they'd put some distance between themselves and the medical bay, Analora began talking. “When you came onboard, did anyone walk you through an emergency drill? Did they show you where the jump pods are?”

“Yeah,” said Chase slowly. The jump pods were the escape shuttles for civilians and non-flight personnel. “But they only work when the emergency procedures are engaged.”

“Well … there's a way around that.”

Chase stopped in the middle of the hallway. “You're saying we steal a jump pod to go to Storros?” Even Parker looked a little wary.

Analora stopped, tracing a finger along the wall of the corridor. “There are more than enough for everyone on the ship.”

This was a crazy idea. She was clearly crazy. “I thought they just land on the nearest hospitable planet. Could we even make it come anywhere close to Lumos?”

“Oh. Well, no, you can't pilot a jump pod. There aren't any controls,” said Analora.

Parker finally chimed in. “But there's got to be some sort of automated guidance system built in. I might be able to figure out how to override the automated part.”

Chase burned a little at the admiring look Analora gave Parker. “We'd get in huge trouble,” he said. “How do you know about this, anyway?”

Analora dropped her gaze to the floor, and her voice fell. “It's why Dany got sent to Fleet academy.”

Parker arched an eyebrow. “Who's Dany?”

“He's my friend, Chief Kobes's son,” she began softly. “We were orbiting Namat last year, and he really wanted to go see the Namatans, but he got in a big fight with his dad. As a punishment Chief Kobes forbid him to go, so instead he rigged a jump pod to take him down. A day later they found him there and brought him back, and Chief Kobes kicked him off the ship and sent him to Fleet academy.”

“Sounds like the chief to me,” said Parker, a bitter note in his voice.

“We can't do this,” said Chase. “Parker and I have nowhere else to go.”

Parker put a hand on his shoulder. “Hold on. It's not like Captain Lennard is going to kick us off the ship. Yeah, we'll get yelled at. Won't be the first time, either.”

“He could send
us
to military school.”

Parker rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. He's going to send us to the Fleet academy for misbehaving orphans.”

Chase flinched at the word
orphan
. But Parker was right, trouble or no, the captain wouldn't kick them off the ship, especially not to send them into the hands of the Fleet. But he would be angry. “What about you?” he asked Analora.

She bit her lip and shook her head a few times in thought before she answered. “I want to do it. Dany said it was worth every second. Worst case, my dad will just send me back to live with my mom. He's not like Chief Kobes—he won't send me off to the academy.”

It was tempting, but Chase imagined Captain Lennard's reaction once he heard that Chase had stolen an escape pod to go off on his own. The captain thought of him as family, and had put himself and his crew in great danger to make sure Chase was safe. How could he betray him by doing something so reckless?

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I can't. I'll wait for Maurus and the other expeds to come back and hear what they have to say.” He kept his tone firm, but it was hard to watch the disappointed reactions on Parker's and Analora's faces.

“I'll go,” said a scratchy voice on the other side of the hall.

Parker and Analora turned around, and behind them stood Lilli, a pale little apparition who'd materialized out of nowhere, as serious and unsmiling as ever. “I'll go down to Storros with you,” she repeated. “Since Chase doesn't want to look for the person who contacted him.”

“Hey, Lil,” said Parker, glancing nervously at Analora. “You snuck up on us!”

“Where have you been?” asked Chase. “How long were you spying on us?”

Analora looked at Chase with a confused frown. “Is this…?”

“She's my sister,” he explained. “My
nosy
sister.”

“I have as much right to go along with them as you do,” Lilli flared, nodding her head at Parker and Analora. “You wouldn't have even given me the option.”

“That's because I would have had to find you first,” Chase snapped back. “You're a ghost.”

Lilli raised an eyebrow. “
I'm
the ghost?”

“Hey, hey,” Parker interrupted. “Save the sniping for the battlefield. Lilli, you want to take a jump pod down to Storros with us?”

“Yes,” she said immediately.

All three of them looked at Chase, and for a brief second, he despised them. It would have been hard enough to watch Parker and Analora go, if they'd gone ahead without him, but there was no way he could refuse to join if Lilli was going.

“Great,” he snarled.

Parker put an arm around his shoulders. “I knew you couldn't resist. Just had to get you out of your goody two shoes.” He turned to Analora. “Look up the coordinates for Lumos, if you can. My computer's, um, on the fritz.”

Analora high-fived him, grinning. “Let's meet at the starboard end of my hall in ten minutes. And dress warm.”

 

CHAPTER NINE

“What's with the pretty scarf?” Parker asked Chase as they headed back to their room, flicking at the gray material around his neck.

Too furious to respond, Chase stalked beside him, eyes locked on the floor. As anxious as he was to find the writer of the letter, he felt sick about what they were about to do. He glared at Lilli, who trotted alongside him. “You're coming for real, not sending a copy with us. If we get in trouble, we're all getting in trouble. No disappearing.”

Lilli gave an annoyed sigh. “Don't worry, I couldn't project that far even if I wanted to.”

“So is this really you?”

“I'll go get myself,” she said sarcastically, and vanished.

Chase looked around quickly to make sure there was no one else in the hall to have seen that. Back in their room, he grabbed a thin gray jacket—Fleet-issue with the symbols removed, just like the rest of the clothing the captain had provided for him and Parker.

Parker dug around in his drawer, pulling out something small. “I snagged an old translink from the engine room a while back, but I've only got the one.” He tossed it once in his hand and held it out. “You can have it.”

Chase shook his head, not looking up. “They gave me one already. You use it.”

Analora was bouncing on her heels as she waited for them at the starboard end of her hall next to a nondescript door marked EGRESS. She was dressed like an explorer in pants with built-in kneepads and a canvas jacket with lots of pockets. Her long hair was tied back in a thick braid and a white tube scarf lay slouched around her neck.

“Wow, you don't mess around,” said Parker.

She made a face. “This is what I wear when I'm helping my mom in the field. It's practical.” Turning to Chase, she asked, “Where's your sister?”

“I don't know. She'll probably bail. We should just go.” Suddenly Chase wanted to go as quickly as possible, to leave before Lilli could join. It was a terrible, horrible idea to let her come along.

Analora looked at Parker, who shrugged, and hit a red entry key on the door beside her. It slid open on a narrow hallway that was so dark and long that Chase couldn't see where it ended. Slim, evenly spaced doors, each one with a dark round porthole window, marked the escape pods that lined both sides of the hallway. Analora closed the main door again, and they hurried down the hall single file, past dozens of pods. Analora stopped in front of one. Her voice had grown nervous. “We'll just all cram in together, okay?”

Parker grabbed the door and opened, and the booth inside it lit up. “Let's do it.”

The pod contained a very snug, bullet-shaped compartment. Analora stepped in first, pulling a screwdriver from her pocket that she used to pry open a tiny panel under the display, revealing a primitive little control console. “Hmm. Dany told me how to bypass the emergency protocol.…”

Parker leaned over her shoulder, giving directions. “Not that one. The other. Did you bring the coordinates? Here, just let me do it. I'll deactivate the comm system too, so no one can track us. It wouldn't do us much good if someone just teleported down to where we land and brought us right back.”

“Oh, good idea,” said Analora.

Chase closed the door behind them and watched over their shoulders, his back to the windows and vertical bars that lined the tiny capsule. His eyes kept going to how snugly they stood together, their shoulders just touching.

Analora took a deep, shaky breath. “Okay, I think that's everything. Now we just have to—”

A furious pounding on the outside door interrupted her. Lilli's livid face just barely topped the door window.

“She's too late, let's go,” said Chase quickly. Analora gave him a strange look and leaned past him to hit the unlock tab.

Lilli squeezed into the capsule, glaring at everyone. She had put on a gray Fleet turtleneck sweater that was way too big and hung down almost to her knees. Parker opened his mouth like he was going to say something, and then thought better of it and just smiled at her.

“You made it,” said Chase grimly. His pulse began to pick up as Lilli closed the capsule door. This had to be the stupidest idea anyone had ever had. What if the jump pod malfunctioned, and they ended up lost in space? What if they got stuck somewhere? Or blew up? He opened his mouth, about to suggest they call the whole thing off.

Parker pounded his fist against the capsule wall. “Let's do this.”

“Okay,” said Analora in a shaky voice. “Here we go.” She reached over to the console and pressed a final key. For a second, nothing happened other than a few clicks around the inside of the escape capsule.

“Are you sure—” started Chase.

Before he could finish, the breath got sucked out of his lungs as the pod blasted upward, taking off like a rocket. They hurtled through the launch tube with a roar, and it was all Chase could do to stay on his feet, gripping the bars inside the capsule with a terrified expression frozen on his face, unable to see anyone else's faces clearly because everything was vibrating so hard. A second later, the capsule went suddenly dark as they burst out of the
Kuyddestor
and into space.

“Crazy!” cried Parker. They were still tearing along at a dizzying speed, but the ride smoothed out and the vibrating lessened. Three portholes gave a glimpse of the dark, empty space outside the pod, and in one the sliver of a greenish orb.

“That's Rhima,” shouted Analora, twisting around to look. “The moon.” After a few minutes the moon was already gone from view, and beyond the thin wall of the capsule lay endless black parsecs of space. Chase looked over at his sister, who stared out the window, gripping the bars beside her so hard her knuckles were white.

“How does this thing land?” Chase asked over the roar of the capsule's thrusters.

“Um, I'm not sure!” Analora yelled back. “I never got to ask Dany about that.”

There wasn't a gravity generator in the capsule, and as the capsule began to arc sideways, Chase had the sensation that he was falling from a very tall height. The four of them were packed tightly enough into the capsule that nobody could fly around and bang into anything, but whoever ended up on the bottom of the pile was going to get squashed. Soon the capsule was completely upside down, racing nose-first toward something they couldn't see yet, and Chase began to feel the blood rushing to his head.

Staring out the window as the faint glow of atmosphere began to creep into the surroundings, Chase became aware of fast, high-pitched breathing beside him. He looked over at Lilli again and saw that she was practically hyperventilating.