Lost Planet 02 - The Stolen Moon

by Searles, Rachel

  Chase stared out the window, feeling as confused as Vidal sounded. “Oh no,” said a small, desperate voice beside him. He turned his head to glance at Lilli, but a flash in the window diverted his attention.

  On the tail section of the Kuyddestor, a flat orange sheet of fire exploded outward, taking out a chunk of the ship at least two levels high. Shouts of shock filled the tiny transport shuttle.

  “Fall back!” commanded Vidal.

  The Kuyddestor receded slightly as Derrick pulled away. “What was that? Did they just get fired on?”

  “From where?” asked Maurus. “The Falconer is the only other ship nearby.”

  Parker shook his head. “It looked like an internal explosion.”

  Vidal kept trying to contact the Kuyddestor to no avail. Maurus shifted as far forward as possible, his eyes glued to the scene.

  Something must have gone wrong at the peace talks. Was this why Ksenia had wanted him to get off the ship? Had she known something might happen? Guilt rushed over Chase as he realized that they had sent Analora back to the ship just in time for this. Would she be okay? Would everyone else?

  The wisp of dread that had stuck with Chase since they’d left the Kuyddestor twisted into a thick coil that squeezed his stomach. If someone really was attacking the ship, the first person they would go after was the captain. Chase glanced over at Lilli again. Her eyes were closed, face waxy, as if she were trying to send a copy somewhere—like to the ship.

  “Hey, stop it!” he said, grabbing her shoulder and giving her a shake. If something happened to the ship when her copy was on it … he couldn’t finish the thought. “Cut it out!”

  Parker and Maurus both turned to them, watching as her eyes snapped open, wide and frightened.

  “Don’t do that!” said Chase.

  Lilli took a deep breath. “Soldiers have taken over the ship.”

  In a flash, Maurus was crouched beside her. “What happened? What did you see?”

  Her voice was shaky. “There was another power failure, a big one. This time it lasted longer, and when the power came back on a whole bunch of soldiers teleported onboard.”

  “I told you someone was hacking the power systems!” said Parker, his eyes bright and fierce.

  “What kind of soldiers?” Maurus asked. “Storrian? Werikosa?”

  “Fleet soldiers?” asked Chase.

  She squinted, trying to remember what she’d seen. “They were kind of like Storrians, but not really. They were a funny color, kind of blue.”

  “Werikosa,” said Maurus quickly. “What was the explosion?”

  “I’m not sure. They’re making everybody go to the flight deck right now.”

  “You said you couldn’t travel that far,” said Chase.

  Lilli looked at him with a stony expression. “I lied.”

  At the front of the shuttle, Vidal had turned around in her seat. “How does she know this?”

  Maurus looked up at Vidal. “Did you try to contact the Falconer?”

  “No,” she said, eyes locked on Lilli.

  “Tell them the Werikosa have hijacked the Kuyddestor. We need to inform the Storrian defense minister as well.”

  Vidal’s eyes flickered to Maurus. “How do we know that’s what’s really happening?”

  “Just trust me, okay?” Maurus put his hand on Lilli’s wrist. “Trust her.”

  Vidal paused, just long enough for Derrick to jump in. “This is crazy,” he said. “You’d have us believe the Werikosa, who can barely run their own planet, have commandeered our starship based on the word of a very imaginative seven-year-old?”

  “I’m not seven,” Lilli squeaked with barely contained rage.

  “You’re also not aboard the Kuyddestor right now, so it isn’t exactly possible for you to know what’s going on there, is it?”

  “She knows.” The stern authority in Chase’s voice caught Vidal’s attention, and he returned her stare without blinking, trying to convince her with his expression. He wouldn’t give up their secrets unless he absolutely had to.

  “Maurus,” Vidal said in a voice sharp enough to cut carbonite. “Is there something I need to know about these children?”

  Maurus looked intently at Lilli’s wrist in his hand. He gave her tiny paw a squeeze and looked up. “You’ll have to ask the captain about that, Lieutenant … but yes.”

  Vidal looked closely at each of them, and without a comment sat back down at the console. “I’m sending out a star system–wide alert on the hijacking of the Kuyddestor.”

  “Are there any other ships besides the Falconer in the vicinity?”

  “The main shipping lane has been more or less abandoned because of the Rhima dispute.” She paused. “Wait, there is something—a commercial vessel, it looks like—stationary on the far edge of the star system. They don’t have any call letters.”

  “Tell them to stay clear of the area,” said Maurus. “And send—”

  “The Falconer is requesting we dock with them,” interrupted Derrick.

  “Do it,” said Maurus. “Any demands the Werikosa have will probably be sent to them.”

  Chase could see the signs of a scowl on Derrick’s face as they zoomed high above the surface of Rhima, leaving the Kuyddestor stationary on the other side. On the greenish sunny side of the moon, the sleek Falconer was already waiting. Minutes later they were docking alongside the embassy ship, and opening their doors on an extended portal.

  Two Federation guards in dark blue waited on the other side of the door, along with Ksenia. Her tall, lithe frame was draped in a deep burgundy suit, and her dark hair was now knotted up on top of her head. She surveyed their small group. “Which of you is the lead officer?”

  Vidal confirmed and introduced her crew, vaguely referring to the children as “civilian passengers of the starship.” Chase stared intently at Ksenia, hoping to catch her eye, but she didn’t even glance at him. Was she pretending not to know who he was, or had he guessed wrongly that she did?

  “I’m Ksenia Oriolo, the Federation plenipotentiary for the Rhima terraforming project. Come with me.” She ushered them into the ship, down the hallway, walking with sure, determined strides. The Falconer was a completely different kind of ship—where the Kuyddestor was all functional metal and hard edges, the walls of the embassy ship were paneled in rich, dark wood, and thick blue carpet muffled their steps as they walked.

  “How much information do you have?” Vidal asked.

  “We only confirmed what you said in your alert. The Werikosa have taken control of the Kuyddestor.” She was smooth, confident, and almost too calm.

  Vidal continued without hesitation. “Is Ambassador Corinthe…?”

  “On the Kuyddestor attending the peace talks. I should have been there as well, but I had urgent business on Storros. Until his safety is secured, I’m the primary representative of the Federation and will run the details of this mission.”

  Lieutenant Thandiway, do you take your orders from the Federation? The captain’s words echoed in Chase’s mind. Would Ksenia be giving orders to the few remaining Fleet soldiers? Vidal didn’t say a word, and Chase wondered if roles were different in an emergency.

  A Federation Guard approached them in the hallway. “Madame Advisor, the hijackers have initiated contact. How would you like to proceed?”

  Ksenia didn’t break step. “Send the feed to the Condor conference room, and tell my secretary to join us.” Swiftly she led the group into a long, elegant room dominated by a lacquered table. Everyone quickly took their places in the deceptively heavy-looking seats around the table. Chase hesitated at the door before entering, unsure if they would be allowed to join, but Parker blew past and sat down like he belonged there, so Chase followed, making sure to keep Lilli by his side. No one said a word about them being there, but they were all staring expectantly at the silvery blue adamantine screen at the front of the room.

  Ksenia looked around the table, lingering a bit on Chase’s face. She tipped her head in t
he tiniest acknowledgment, and a rush of jittery joy filled him. It was Ksenia who’d tried to contact him. “Start the feed,” she said.

  Chase’s first thought after the screen illuminated was, I thought we were talking to a Werikosa? The face that filled the screen looked remarkably Storrian—same drooping beak of a nose, same tiny eyes and turtle-like mouth. Only after a few seconds did he start to see the differences: The Werikosa’s features were a little broader, a touch coarser. And of course there was a light blue-green sheen to his skin, the protective oily secretions Analora had told them about.

  “Greetings, Madame Advisor,” the Werikosa said. Beneath the translink version, Chase could hear that his native language was full of raspy sharp edges, unlike the slushy language of Storros. “We are in the process of sending over a list of demands.”

  “You’ve done something very foolish, Petrod,” said Ksenia, in a tone that suggested she’d spoken with this particular Werikosa before. “I won’t listen to another word until you confirm that no one aboard the Kuyddestor has been hurt.”

  The Werikosa swayed his head. “Hurt is … open to interpretation. No one is dead. Yet.” Chase closed his eyes briefly, relieved that everyone was still alive.

  “Don’t make that mistake. You’re in enough trouble as it is.” Ksenia shook her head incredulously. “Did you really think doing this would improve your situation? The Federation won’t allow you to stay on Rhima after this.”

  “You think it matters to us what the Federation allows? We already know what the Federation allows—it allows our wealthy Storrian brothers to ignore our pleas for help, to close their borders to our people, it allows us to work ourselves dead terraforming a paradise that we won’t be allowed to stay in.

  “Our planet is dying, our people are helpless. We are doing this for all the Werikosa children who didn’t make it to their first year because they starved, for all the villages that have been destroyed by sun flares during the Seasons of Fire. No one wants to help the Werikosa, so now we must help ourselves.”

  “You had a stake in the moon before you did this. Now I can’t help you.”

  “Currently the Storrian officials are not accepting our transmissions—”

  “Because they do not bargain with criminals,” Ksenia interrupted.

  “And so we are counting on you to ensure that our demands are met. If Storros doesn’t agree to grant us complete use of Rhima, we will use the full force of this starship to attack their planet.”

  “You won’t live that long, Petrod. There’s no way your paltry band of misfits can hold against an entire starship full of Fleet-trained soldiers.”

  “No? Well, maybe we should just kill them all.” Petrod stepped out of the frame, revealing the bridge behind him with all its officers crowded into the middle tier, Lennard and Forquera, the navigators and communications officers, pale but defiant. Behind them lurked three Werikosa strapped with heavy blaster rifles. Chase broke out in a sweat at the sight, knowing any of their lives could end in a heartbeat, at the whim of this lunatic.

  “Don’t worry,” came Petrod’s voice. “We prefer to keep them all alive. We don’t want to hurt anyone, not even one wretched Storrian.” He stepped back in front of the camera. “But we want our moon.”

  The transmission ended abruptly. The entire conference room seemed to take a collective deep breath as everyone leaned back in their seats. Ksenia issued orders to her staff, who quickly dispersed, leaving just her and the transport arrivals in the conference room.

  Parker leaned back in his seat. “I say just give them the moon and be done with it.”

  The corner of Ksenia’s mouth tilted up. “Were it only that easy. Storros already went into these negotiations intending to send the Werikosa back to their own planet. After this they won’t cede one inch.”

  “Can’t the Federation just tell them to?” asked Chase.

  Maurus shook his head. “The extent of the Federation’s power over its members ends more at suggestions than commands. In the end, each planet still gets to make its own decisions.” He looked at Ksenia. “You know this Petrod individual?”

  “I’ve been supervising the terraforming of Rhima for the Federation for the past two years. I’ve had my share of dealings with him. A hothead, and not a particularly smart one. I don’t think he’s the worst of your worries.”

  “The power outage,” said Parker immediately.

  Ksenia nodded. “Someone on your ship must have been working with the Werikosa to time the disturbance and arrange a way to teleport all those soldiers onboard. You have a traitor in your midst.”

  Parker slapped his hand on the table, vindicated, and Chase looked over at Maurus and saw his own dread reflected in the Lyolian’s eyes. His first guess at the traitor might have been Lieutenant Derrick, just based on what a jerk he was, but Derrick looked completely stunned.

  “What are our next steps?” asked Vidal. “Has Fleet high command responded yet?”

  “They have,” said Ksenia. “The nearest starship that can help us is the Destrier.”

  “Sinjan Devore’s ship?” The sudden alarm in Maurus’s voice made Chase’s skin crawl. What was wrong with Sinjan Devore?

  Ksenia nodded again. “The Destrier has been dispatched from the Ichis star system, but it won’t get here for three days. That’s how much time we have.”

  “Time for what?” blurted Chase.

  She turned her dark eyes on him. “Time to get the Werikosa to abandon this madness. The Kuyddestor has enough weaponry onboard to wipe out half the population of Storros. If we fail, and the Werikosa begin their attack, the Fleet will have no choice but to destroy the Kuyddestor and everyone on it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Chase leaned his forehead against the window, looking out at the flat green terrain of Rhima hundreds of miles below. A few patchy clouds were scattered over the moon’s surface, but there was little else to break the monotony of its landscape. It didn’t really look like much worth fighting for. And it definitely didn’t look like anything worth losing the entire Kuyddestor over.

  He turned around to face the velveteen-paneled sitting room where he, Parker, and Lilli had been taken after everyone else left the conference room. Ksenia had been the first to leave when she was called up to the bridge, so Chase never had an opportunity to ask her any of the million questions piling up in his mind. It didn’t look like he would get a chance anytime soon, either.

  Seated in the corner by a tall china cabinet, Parker stared hard at the floor, chewing on his lip and tapping his foot. He glanced at the window. “Anything good out there?”

  “I can’t see the Kuyddestor anywhere,” said Chase.

  “I’m sure the pilot is trying to make sure we keep the moon between us and them. Not that it’ll help. If they want to fire on us, we’re toast.”

  Frowning, Chase flopped down in a plush burgundy armchair. Beside him, Lilli was very quiet. He glanced over often to make sure she wasn’t trying to send a copy back onto the Kuyddestor again. Kneading his fists into the armrests, he tried to reason with the panicky voice in his mind. The Fleet wouldn’t destroy one of its few starships, would it? It would, if this were the plan to get rid of Lennard and Maurus and any other loose threads left over from the Trucon plot. But that was a crazy thought—the Fleet couldn’t have known that the Werikosa were going to hijack the ship.

  He needed to talk to Ksenia and find out what she knew. Was it really just an accident that they were all off the ship when it was attacked?

  The door to the sitting room slid open, and Maurus entered. “I need your help.” He went straight to Lilli and crouched beside her chair. “Can you get back onto the ship to see what’s happening?”

  “Yes,” said Lilli quickly, sitting up straight.

  “No.” Chase looked at Maurus. “Please, don’t make her do this. If she gets hurt there, she’ll get hurt here too.”

  Lilli shot him a scornful look. “Do you realize how fast I can disappear? Nobody
can hurt me.”

  Those words were familiar—Chase himself had said them before. He was the one who should be taking these risks, the one who couldn’t get hurt even if he tried. “Get me onto the ship instead. Shoot me like a missile. I’ll go right through the walls.”

  Maurus made a face and shook his head, his attention still on Lilli. “Can you get a message to the captain?”

  “No,” she said. “They’ve moved the entire command crew into the flight deck, and there are a ton of guards there. I couldn’t do it without being seen.”

  Parker spoke up. “I still don’t understand how they were Able to take over the ship so quickly. The Kuyddestor has enough crew and guns to stop an army.”

  “Most of the guns are locked in the armory, and the locks don’t work anymore,” said Lilli.

  “What do you mean?” asked Maurus. “Did you see something else?”

  “I eavesdropped on some conversations. Once the Werikosa got onboard, I guess the controls went crazy. Some things still worked, like communications and lights, but others just stopped responding. Weapons, locks, piloting controls.”

  Parker smacked himself on the forehead. “It was a trojan.”

  “A what?” asked Chase.

  “It must have been the blackout that happened a week ago. I bet somebody used it as a cover to install a trojan horse into the ship’s mainframe—a back door to access all the controls. Now whoever has control is making it impossible for the crew to fight back.” He leaned forward. “Is there any way to sneak back onto the ship? If I can get access to the mainframe, I might be able to figure out a way to override the trojan.”

  “You’ll still need someone to help you fight off the hijackers,” said Chase. “I should go too.”

  Maurus held up his hands. “Slow down, guys. I don’t really see how we could get back on the ship right now, and nobody’s going to want to send children to do the fighting.”

  “Ksenia might,” said Chase.

  “Why do you say that?” Maurus asked with a frown.