Planet Heist (The Dunham Archives Book 1)

by J. D. Hale

  I grinned at him, “Well, you’ll have to get over that because we’ll be spending a lot of time together from now on. Get ready, and I’ll come to your room in ten minutes. Wear something nice. If you don’t have a suit, talk to Rowan – he’s good with clothes.”

  We stood up.

  “I’ll see you then.” He said, and walked out of the little room. When I heard his steps down the hall, I exited and went to my rooms.

  I pulled out a black, ruffled blouse and a shimmery gold pencil skirt. I went a little more punk, I suppose, than normal with black fishnet tights and gold studded black heels.

  Of course, the outfit was much less important than the weapons. I was worried about what the Prime Minister had said about guards. It was clear that I could handle ten or so guards, but any more and they would easily overtake me. I simply wasn’t feeling on top of it today, and unless Ross could somehow, magically take out a legion of highly trained officers. Plus, they would be worse because I had just killed Dmitri Ivanov, their fearless leader. I still had the awful burden of knowledge on my mind that the entire police force of Saize was working for Zenda.

  Anyways, I covered my body in as many concealable weapons as possible. My classic Rizer under a sparkly bracelet, a sharpshooter gun in my large handbag, a long knife and my dagger strapped to the small of my back, and a set of throwing knives all protected me as larger weapons. Smaller weapons for simply injuries included my razor pins, the family ring, and sharply filed nails.

  Quickly painting my nails bright gold to match my skirt, my mind raced with all the possibilities of how the next hour could go. We could arrive unexpected and it could go completely smoothly. Or, they could be waiting for us with a host of guards armed and ready to kill. We might not make it in to the Archives or get shot the moment we step out of the Wasp. And there could easily be a mix of both.

  I looked at myself in the mirror while brushing out my hair, clearing the thoughts from my head. I had to keep my head clear.

  Perfect.

  I grabbed a huge bag – big enough for the five books I needed – and another backpack for whatever books Ross felt like grabbing. Stuffed in the bag were all the healing things I required in case of the inevitable fight bound to break out between any number of guards and myself.

  June 26th 9:30 am

  Saizian National Archives, Kaito, Saize

  “Alright, Ross, we have to get in without being noticed, and then I’ll tell you what you need to find for me, okay?” I asked as we stepped out of the Wasp, and it cloaked itself behind us.

  “So, how do we get in?” He wondered, sizing up the massive building. It was white marble, with massive columns and arch. At the very top was a huge green glass dome, glittering under the white-hot Saizian sun.

  “Clearly, you’re not familiar with the Dunham style. We’ll be stealthy about it, going in from the top.” I told him, and his eyes widened.

  “How do we do that?” His voice was hushed and alarmed.

  “We climb, duh.” I replied, “Follow me.”

  We walked to the south side of the building, where the marble was rough and trees grew thick, providing a shield.

  “Ill go first and help hoist you up.” I told him.

  He nodded, looking determined.

  I pulled off my shoes and set them down next to him. The wall was rough enough that it resembled a rock climbing wall, and I knew I would be able to climb it easily. I began pulling myself up, using the pure strength of my arms to scale the wall.

  “Nice view,” Ross said, and I could hear the grin in his voice.

  I gave him a look, “You’re asking for it.”

  But I couldn’t stop myself from smiling a little.

  I reached a window and climbed in.

  “Throw me my shoes,” I said, and he tossed them up. I caught them by the heel and put them on.

  “Now,” I commanded, half-dangling out the window, “grab my hand and I’ll pull you up to me.”

  “Are you sure you can lift me? You’re so small,” He said doubtfully.

  “I’m eighty percent muscle, and you don’t think I can lift you?” I scoffed, “Just give me your arm and trust me.”

  He lifted up his hand and jumped. I grabbed his wrist and pulled his admittedly scrawny body up to the window. He clambered through.

  “Wow.” Ross gawked at the massive room full of books, with at least twenty doors leading to more rooms full of ancient books.

  “This is the national library. We want to go down to the lowest level of the basement to the archives.” I said, “What do you know about this building?”

  “I know the whole architecture. It was built during Faelix Era’s ministry to hold the variety of paperwork and files from the previous five Prime Ministers. It’s mostly open to the public, except for the…archives. Great. We can get there through a staircase just down the hall. That’ll lead through the lobby, and then we can take a government only, password protected elevator down about three hundred feet below sea level. So you can follow me now.” Ross told me.

  I followed him, running down a flight of steps to the lobby. We stood before the door, and I looked at Ross.

  “We need to know the elevator password before we get there. If we have to guess multiple times, we’ll draw unnecessary attention to ourselves. So, what’s your plan?” I asked, trying to pick apart just how his thought process worked.

  “Password…password…” he thought aloud, “Nine-eight-four-seven-one-five-three.”

  For some reason, he was confident.

  I was befuddled, “Why do you think that? There’s absolutely no logic behind it.”

  “It just…came to me, I suppose. Out of the blue, those numbers just popped into my head, as if someone had whispered them in my ear.” He shrugged.

  That was when the idea started nagging me.

  “Like someone else whispered it in your ear?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Yeah. Weird, huh?” He was completely and utterly oblivious.

  “Well, I trust your…intuition.” I told him, feeding his naivety.

  “That easily?” He was apprehensive of my sudden trust.

  “Yes. Alright – down to the Archives we go.” I said, and pushed open the door.

  The lobby was huge, white and gold marble with huge golden chandeliers. The elevator doors were shiny gold, with a pass-code lock next to it.

  I typed ‘nine-eight-four-seven-one-five-three,’ quickly, and the doors slid open.

  The look I gave Ross was so askance that he couldn’t even hold my gaze for a moment.

  We stepped into the elevator before I could give it a second thought. I pressed the button that read ‘-75’,’ and we plummeted downwards so quickly it felt like a roller-coaster. The inside of the elevator was glass, and we could see the stone zipping up as we went down. The whir of shaft was almost scary for the entire minute it took to get to the lowest level or the archives. Ross looked extremely nervous.

  “Are you afraid of tunnels, by any chance?” I teased, fiddling with the gauze still wrapped around my arm. For some odd reason, I hadn’t bothered to heal myself, and it was still wrapped up and throbbing.

  I tuned into Ross’s answer.

  “No, it’s most the falling than anything. When I was little, I fell from the top of my house, and when I woke up, they told my mom and me something that changed my life.”

  I could tell it was something he didn’t want to talk about.

  That means it’s something I had to know. I smacked the ‘stop’ button on the elevator, suspending us in the middle of the shaft.

  “What did they say?” I prodded, knowing I was stepping over the line.

  He took a deep breath and sighed, “Some doctor told me that I ‘was comatose for four days and had badly damaged the right hemisphere of my cerebrum.’ While I was out, they had grafted a new part of the brain for me – just the part that stores memories, the part I had damaged. For some reason, though, the doctors had created a regular child’s b
rain, and an advanced, new type – something that had never been tested. My parents let me make the choice, and I wanted the cool one. I was seven – how could I resist something shiny and new? Ever since the surgery, I’ve been able to remember everything I ever heard – whether it was something I had read, or something unimportant a teacher told me. The thing about falling is that they told me if I ever hurt my cerebrum again, all those memories, everything that makes me special, will be gone forever.” He whispered.

  I pressed the floor button again, and we started back down.

  “Thanks.” I whispered. My voice suddenly sounded loud in the hush of truth.

  He shrugged.

  The doors opened and we stepped into a dark, dank, gorgeous Saizian library. The room was cavernous, carved out of the rocky ground. It was could this far down, and it was clearly helping to preserve a lot of the documents. Everywhere – on the floor in piles, stacked on shelves, and hanging from the ceiling – were thousands upon thousands of old the books, documents, and census records of Saize. This was the highest level of records – the farther down you went, the older the documents got. I was looking for information on the Intergalactic Police, Zenda, and the Xeron.

  “Alright, Ross, I need you to find five books for me, okay? And, you can grab whatever you want for your own studies.” I told him.

  He nodded confidently, assessing how the documents were organized.

  “The first is The Big Book of Intergalactic Police Facts, by Clyveien the Fourteenth.”

  He raced around the room, touching the books on every shelf. He pulled off a thin book and tossed it to me, and I set it down.

  The title was Nalakine for Beginners. I smirked and put it into his backpack.

  Ross continued around the room, searching for the massive book. Along the way, he picked up four more books, each longer than the next. He came back after each book and put them into his bag, and then returned to his diligent search.

  I checked out the book titles discreetly.

  1) Dunham History: From Joa the First to Kairee and Rowan.

  I was familiar with the book – it had come out only two years ago, and it shocked my mother. It showed the criminal history of my family, back from my great-great-great-great grandfather, the first criminal, to Rowan and I. I pondered the reasons why Ross would want that.

  2) The Power of Saizian Authority, the Prime Minister’s auto-biography. Know thine enemy, I suppose.

  3) Smartest Saizians, a book about the one hundred most intelligent people on my home planet. I was number ten when the book was published three years ago.

  4) The Ministry, a reference book containing information on each and every of the eighty-four previous ministers of Saize.

  After a few minutes, he hefted a gigantic book – at least five-thousand pages – and almost dropped it. I rushed over and helped him hold it. It wasn’t heavy to me and I could easily lift it, but I wanted Ross to feel needed.

  It fell into my bag with ease. Ross looked at me expectantly.

  “Next, I need last years’ census files. They should be in one of the filing cabinets – over there.” I pointed across the cavern to the great files.

  He leafed through the drawers and pulled out a massive manila folder stuffed with paper. Ross walked over and handed it off to me, and I placed it in my bag.

  “The next three books are a trilogy: “Police Technology”, “The Greatest Saizian Inventions”, and “Xeron: The Truth behind the Technology,” all by Areesta Nayathi, the Prime Minister.” I said.

  Apparently, these were harder to find. I watched Ross scramble around the room, searching each shelf and stack quickly. Then, he climbed up to the very top of the racks hanging from the ceiling. Way in the back of the room, on the very top of a dangling shelf, sat the three volumes. Ross spent five painstaking minutes carefully scaling the towers of books and files to the Prime Minister’s novels.

  “Oh! And there’s one more book I need: Mental Powers in the Especially Gifted Humans, for Those With Them.” I told him, and he began searching around.

  The book was one that had just occurred to me when I was in the elevator. I needed to do some research on people like Ross. Everyone in the universe – except, of course, the humans themselves – knew that the Earth people had the second highest mental capacity in the universe, behind only Saize. Humans with especially high IQs have a higher tendency for even more mental abilities – anything from simply telekinesis to what I expected Ross had.

  Ross found the book quickly and looked suspicious as he handed it to me, clearly wanting to know why I would want such a book.

  “I’m just going to walk around a bit, look for a little light reading.” Ross said to me.

  I was so enthralled with watching him that I didn’t hear the elevator doors slide open behind me.

  “Hello, Kairee Dunham.” An unfamiliar, deep male voice said, resonating around the cavern. I turned around slowly, wary of anything that this mysterious person could throw at me. Ross’s eyes went wide, seeing the man before I did.

  I sucked in a breath when I saw the man standing before me. He was stunningly attractive, with tan skin and cold, minty Saizian eyes. His arms were toned, covered in the garb of an Intergalactic Policeman. He had a chiseled jaw line reminiscent of a Greek god, high cheekbones and full lips. Stubble grew from his face, giving him the classic, rugged-handsome look. His brown hair was close-shaved, army cut. The man couldn’t be much older than Ross – maybe eighteen or nineteen. But just by the way he stood, it was clear he was highly trained in the special art of fighting. He stood in the most impressive fighting stance I’d ever seen – protected, but ready to spring.

  He cocked a gun at me and smirked.

  I was immediately attracted to him.

  “Before any shots are fired, I would at least like to know who you are. Can you imagine how completely embarrassing it would be to be killed by someone whose name I don’t even know?” I asked sarcastically.

  Ross snickered behind me, coming closer.

  “Before I tell you, make him stop approaching.” The attractive man commanded.

  “Ross, cut it out. You really shouldn’t worry about it, though. Ross can’t fight for his life.” I smiled, “No offense.”

  I heard Ross’s footfalls stop, and he dropped the books I had asked him to get a few feet behind me.

  “My name’s Az Salus.” He said simply. I keenly noticed that there was a sheathed sword on his belt.

  “And what exactly do you do?” I asked, even though I had a pretty good guess.

  “I’m the new Intergalactic Police Chief.” He said, confirming my suspicion.

  “Good to know. I’m oh, so glad they replaced that oaf Ivanov with someone tall, dark, and handsome. I prefer to fight the one’s that are nice to look at.” I smirked.

  “Don’t try that with me. They sent me down here alone because they knew I could take you.” He said, a little too cocky for my taste.

  “Don’t insult me.” I rushed him, pulling out my knife. He loosed a shot at my leg, obviously trying to immobilize me. I jumped, and he just stood there – stunned.

  “I see you’re just as impressive as they told me.” He said, almost flirtatiously.

  “Well, you’re not a good shot. Too predictable.” I smiled, “Now, let’s dance.”

  I whirled around, lashing out at his arm. My hands left three gashes in his arm. He returned with a crushing knee to my stomach, leaving me gasping for breath. I couldn’t help but be impressed – lately, I had been fighting people whose fists bounced off of my chest. That didn’t stop me. My fist connected with his iron jaw, dislocating it. That was the moment he unsheathed a brilliant sword and slashed it down my left arm, leaving a deep gash. I snarled like a wolf.

  “That’s a nice blade,” I interjected into the fight sarcastically, trying to distract him, “Why carry a blade while you have a gun?”

  “This blade can get through metal detectors and shrinks down, that’s why.” He explained
, and then cursed himself.

  “You really shouldn’t have told me that.” I grinned, and punched into his side. He smacked the butt of his gun into my collarbone, smashing it. The bone fragments poked through my skin, and I couldn’t help but grimace.

  Then, the inevitable happened.

  The pain filled me with rage.

  My right elbow slammed into his chest with debilitating force, and he staggered back. In his weakness, I let a barrage of agonizing punches into his ribs, leaving him gasping for breath. He only landed on more, solid punch to my stomach before I kicked his knee back, and he almost collapsed to the ground, but sprang back up and loosed another shot directly into my good arm.

  I cursed, and stabbed him in the same place. But, he didn’t have the will power I did.

  Az Salus collapsed to the ground in terrible pain, and I ran to the elevator, blood streaming down my arm.

  His bright sword lay on the ground.

  “Ross, grab my bag! And the sword!” I commanded as the elevator doors opened.

  He ran up to me, and we rushed into the elevator.

  Salus was straining to come after us, slowly limping.

  Ross jabbed the ‘shut doors’ button and we rocketed upwards.

  “Oh god, Kairee, that looks awful.” Ross said nervously, nodding at my arm.

  “It’s…fine. Stop…the elevator.” I wheezed.

  Too much blood to concentrate.

  Ross stopped the elevator.

  “In my bag,” I gasped, “…blue bottle. And…keep the bag away from…my blood.”

  He rummaged through my bag, and quickly found the healing gel that Hearth had given me so long ago.

  “One second…” I said, and flexed my arm. The bullet was still lodged in there, “When I…pull the bullet out, the bleeding will…get worse. Spread the gel on…the wound.” The torn muscles squeezed in my arm, and the bullet popped out.

  The bullet fell to the ground, and Ross took immediate action. It impressed me how smoothly Ross handled all the blood, not squeamish at all. I understood know why his mom wanted him to be a doctor.