“Because I think she’s the one who took Parker’s chip and left me the note. I saw her in Lumos, where we were supposed to meet.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“I didn’t get a chance to talk with her, but I know she saw me there.”
He held Maurus’s gaze for a long time, and for a second it seemed like he might have convinced him. Then Maurus shook his head. “Even if it she was the one who contacted you, what does that mean? That she’s working for Asa? That she has Fleet connections? Do you think she even knows about your—” Maurus waved a hand up and down at Chase, leaving his ability unspoken. “You don’t know what her intentions are.”
“That’s why I need to talk to her.”
Leaning back, Maurus rested his elbows on his thighs. “We need to be very cautious about this until we know more about her, and about what’s happening aboard the Kuyddestor.”
The door slid open again, and Vidal stood in the doorway. “What’s going on?” She walked toward them, her eyes on Lilli. “How do you know what’s going on aboard the Kuyddestor? Are you psychic?”
“No,” said Lilli, drawing out the word. She glanced at Maurus.
Maurus chose his words carefully. “Lilli’s an … exceptional child. We were just talking about a way to get Parker access to—”
“So that whole story about them being stranded orphans that we’re prepping for the cadet program?” Vidal interrupted. “That was all bogus?”
“Oh, we’re totally stranded orphans,” said Parker. “That part’s right on the money.”
Vidal crossed her arms. “If there’s something I should know, now is the time. Don’t leave me in the dark when the entire ship is at stake.”
With an exasperated sigh, Lilli closed her eyes. A second Lilli appeared behind Vidal, tapping her on the shoulder. Startled, the lieutenant turned and uttered a surprised “Ooh!” as the copy vanished again. When she turned back to the real Lilli, her eyes were round. It took her a moment to find her voice. “Can … can all of you do that?”
“No,” said Chase bluntly.
“They each have different skills. Parker is an exceptional hacker.” Maurus glanced over at Chase, his dark eyebrows knitting, and said nothing about Chase’s phasing. “They can help us—it’s our biggest advantage in this situation. They’re not just normal kids.”
Vidal blinked. Her eyes kept going back to Lilli. “Can she contact the captain—?”
Maurus shook his head. “We just established that the entire command crew is unreachable.”
“What about the engine room?”
“I can check there.” Lilli closed her eyes for a moment, and Chase gritted his teeth until she reopened them again. “There’s no one in the engine room. From the Fleet, I mean. Lots of Werikosa.”
Maurus shook his head again. “That won’t work then.”
“If you can get me on the ship, I can get disable the trojan.” Everyone turned to look at Parker as he spoke. “For now, just get me a networked computer. I’ll try to see if there’s any kind of tiny chink in the Kuyddestor’s firewall that will get me access from outside the ship. No promises though.”
As Maurus and Vidal discussed options for getting Parker a computer, Chase leaned toward his sister and spoke softly. “You said they were taking everyone to the flight deck. Did you see Analora there?”
Lilli glared at him, eyes flashing. “I thought you didn’t approve of me traveling to the ship?” Chase looked away, and her tone softened. “I didn’t see her. Maybe she’s hiding.”
Inside the walls of the ship. Chase could picture her there, hiding out from the Werikosa. He hoped that was where she was. “If you do see her, tell her help is on the way. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Is it?” For a second, her tough façade fell, and she was just his little sister, looking to him for reassurance.
“Of course. Nobody’s going to blow up the ship. No one’s going to get hurt.” A tiny bit of relief crept into her expression when he said this, but he wasn’t nearly as confident in those words as he sounded. “I need to go find Ksenia and ask her some questions.”
“She’s on the control deck, just down the hall from the conference room we were in.” Lilli closed her eyes for a second. “If you jump left in front of the door and step forward, there’s a closet where you can hide and listen in.”
Chase stared at her. “Did you just send a copy up to scope things out?”
A tiny, proud smile appeared on her face. “Instead of really ‘traveling,’ I can send out a flash, just to be there long enough to get a quick look. It’s so fast no one sees—usually. I slipped up a few times on the ship, but I’m getting better at it.”
Was this why she’d been disappearing in public on the Kuyddestor? “You’ve been practicing?”
“Of course. I practice all kinds of things. You know, ‘Anything worth doing takes elbow grease and time.’” She paused, and her mouth twisted in a funny way. “That’s something Dad used to say.”
“Oh.” It sounded like good advice, even if knowing the source felt like pins sticking in his heart. In all his tests with Dr. Bishallany, they’d never spoken of Chase actually trying to practice or improve his phasing. It was just something that he did. Was this something he should have been working on? With these thoughts in mind, Chase left the sitting room to look for Ksenia.
The Falconer was tiny compared to the Kuyddestor—only three levels, and the back portion all devoted to the engine core. Chase wandered through the middle level, where the conference room and control deck were located. He stopped in front of the door to the control deck, and before anyone could open the door, he jumped into the wall on the left like Lilli had told him to do.
The space he landed in was pitch dark and tight—the inside of the wall, but not an open crawl space like on the Kuyddestor. By the burning sensation in his torso, he could tell there had to be some sort of beam that ran through the middle of the space, dividing him in half and forcing him to continuously phase around it. Hissing quietly through his teeth, he took a big step forward and emerged into a slightly less dark and more open area. This must have been the closet Lilli meant—there were jackets hanging behind him and a row of shelves to his left filled with binders and neatly stacked containers.
The voices on the other side of the door were quiet. There were vents cut into the bottom of the door, so Chase crouched down to be closer. A man’s voice came through, giving what sounded like a list of updates.
“Storrian fleet has taken position around its borders. Their coverage is spotty at best.”
“They’ll get slaughtered,” came Ksenia’s voice. “They’ve never had to fight off more than a few ragtag border jumpers—never an all-out war.”
“We’ve also got a request for comment from that reporter from the UNN.”
A long, irritated sigh. “That pesky woman. Tell her due to the sensitive nature of the situation, we’re unable to comment at the time. If she persists, have Mallory give her some sort of blow-off remarks.”
“Very well.”
“If that’s all, I’m going to head back to the ambassador’s chamber to prepare for further negotiations with Petrod.”
“Just one more thing. The Fleet soldiers onboard have requested network access.”
“Oh? Did they say what for?”
“I think they want to try to make contact with the crew being held hostage. At least that was my impression.”
“Good luck with that. Petrod’s got the ship locked down tight. Go ahead and set them up with a console, though.” Ksenia paused, and in a lower voice asked, “Did you disable their transport like I asked you?”
In the darkness, Chase’s eyes widened. Why on Taras was Ksenia trying to trap them on her ship?
“Of course, Madam Advisor.”
“Excellent. It’s for their own protection. I don’t want them to get any foolhardy notions about heroics. We’re shorthanded enough as it is.”
“I understand.”
&nbs
p; There were footsteps, and the sound of a door zipping open and closed. Chase sat in silence for a moment, absorbing what he’d learned. He would have to tell Maurus about their transport. Ksenia’s words about disabling their vehicle to protect them rang false—she wanted to make sure they didn’t leave her ship. He started to rise, but stopped when voices from the piloting crew started up again.
“Keep a close eye on those heat sensors. We won’t have time to prep for a jump if those slugs decide to come for us after all.”
“Understood.”
“What a Hesta-horking disaster this is,” muttered the first speaker. “Never thought she’d end up in command of the mission.”
“She’s a little high-strung, I guess.”
“More than that. I heard she got shipped out here two years ago as a punishment for some Federation scandal. It’s probably driven her over the edge working with slugs and those wacko Storrians for that long.”
The second crewman made a noise of agreement, and they settled into silence again. As quietly as possible, Chase slipped out the back of the closet, through the wall, and, after a cautious peek, into the hallway, where he hurried back to tell the others what he had learned.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When Chase got back to the sitting room, everyone had left but Parker. A staffer was already setting up a computer at a mahogany coffee table. Parker looked over the man’s shoulder, hands twitching as if he wanted to do it all himself.
“Alright, that’s good, I can take it from here.” He prodded the disgruntled staffer from the seat and sank before the console. His expression immediately settled into what Chase recognized as fully immersed mode, eyes bright and alert on the screen while the rest of his face went slack and his hands flew over the keyboard.
“Parker, we need to talk.” Chase waited to continue until the staffer had left them alone. “I went to the control deck and heard some weird stuff.”
Parker didn’t turn his head away from the screen. “Yeah, that’s cool,” he muttered.
“Ksenia had her crew disable our transport,” Chase said as loudly as he dared. Parker nodded, still typing. Chase waved his hand between Parker and the screen. “Hello, will you listen to me? We’re trapped here.”
With visible effort, Parker pulled his eyes away from the computer. “I heard you,” he said dryly. “And wow, that’s weird. But I’m trying to hack through the multiple firewalls of a Titan-class starship, which is kind of impossible, so that our friends don’t all die. Please don’t be mad if I place more priority on what I’m doing than what you’re talking about. Tell this to someone who can actually do something about it, like Maurus.”
Chase gaped, speechless. Half of him wanted to punch Parker in his know-it-all face, but the other half of him knew he was right. Parker gave him a long, sober look without a speck of his usual flippancy and turned back to what he was doing. Feeling weirdly chastised, Chase left the room and went to look for Maurus.
He found all three Fleet officers and Lilli in the dining room a level below, sitting at an elegant table with china plates of creamy pasta in front of them. Vidal was the only one eating, while Lilli stared stonily at her untouched plate and Maurus and Derrick engaged in a heated discussion.
“What you’re saying is patently untrue. The velocity forces alone would crush you in a millisecond,” said Maurus, smashing his pasta with a fork in demonstration.
Derrick made a scornful face. “It is possible, if you do it with the right degree of torque.”
Vidal smiled at Chase and waved him over to the seat beside her. “We were all starving. It’s going to be a long day—you should have something to eat, too. Keep your energy up.” She flagged an attendant who waited in the corner of the room, and leaned toward Chase to gesture at the two arguing. “This is so old. They’ve been fighting about the same thing, in one form or another, since the first day Maurus came aboard the ship.”
“Lieutenant Derrick doesn’t like Lyolians?”
She sighed. “Karsten … has a tradition to uphold. He comes from a long line of jerks.”
The attendant set a plate of the same short, creamy pasta on the table. When Chase looked up to thank him, he saw blank, glassy eyes and realized the man was actually an android. His stomach growled. It had been ages since he’d scarfed down a synth croissant from the canteen, and he started shoveling pasta into his mouth. “This is really good,” he mumbled.
Lilli glared at him. “It’s gross.”
Vidal smiled, shaking her head. “These Federation bigwigs get served real food every day, no synth. We should have a plate sent up to Parker, too.”
“He won’t eat right now. Not while he’s working.” Realizing he’d been distracted by the food, Chase set down his fork. “Um, I need to tell you something. I overheard Ksenia tell someone from her crew to disable the transport we came in.”
“What?” Vidal raised a hand to get Maurus’s and Derrick’s attention. “Guys, stop your bickering and listen to this. Say it again, Chase.”
Uncomfortable with the sudden attention, Chase locked onto Maurus’s eyes and repeated the information. “She said something about how she didn’t want us to run off and try to do something heroic.”
“You’re joking,” said Derrick. “Where did you hear this and in what context?”
Maurus was already on his feet. “That’s madness. I’ll go to the flight deck and check it—”
Suddenly the room was spinning, and everyone and everything went flying as an earsplitting BOOM shook the entire Falconer. All the china plates were dashed from the table, splattering the carpet with cream sauce. Chase landed on the floor, dazed. He’d flown right through the back of his chair.
Vidal groaned and rubbed her forehead. “What on Taras was that?”
Maurus grabbed the edge of the table and pulled himself up. “Get to the control deck!” he barked, running out the door with Derrick.
For a panicked moment, Chase couldn’t see his sister anywhere. “Lilli?”
“Here,” she said in a shaky voice, crawling out from behind an overturned chair.
Shaking off her bruised head, Vidal climbed to her feet and followed Maurus, turning to Chase and Lilli in the doorway. “You kids stay in here!”
Were they under attack from the Kuyddestor, or was this some kind of horrible accident? Chase itched to run after the soldiers and see what he could learn, but beside him Lilli looked pale and terrified as she stood. He couldn’t leave her alone. At the far end of the room, the serving android stood up and began methodically gathering the broken dishware. Chase leaned against a chair to catch his breath.
“What are you doing?” Lilli asked impatiently. “Let’s go after them!”
The hallway was empty, but at the other end of the hall Chase could hear shouting from behind the closed door of the control deck. “Meet you inside?” he asked Lilli. She nodded, and without a word Chase jumped through the wall and stepped into the coat closet. Lilli was already there, standing off to the side.
“Have you lost your mind, Petrod?” came Ksenia’s voice from the other side of the door. She sounded furious, but also shaken. “We’re trying to work with you to resolve this in a peaceful manner. No one on the ship has been trying to break down your defenses, I promise you that.”
The voice that answered was a loud, angry blare, and Chase clutched his ear as the translink boomed a translation. “Someone on your ship is launching a hacker attack on our firewalls as we speak. The first one was a warning shot to get your attention. You have one minute to make it stop or we will annihilate your vessel.”
Parker. Chase looked at Lilli, eyes wide, and with a nod she vanished.
“Get the boy,” Ksenia growled in a low tone. In a louder voice, she said, “Be reasonable. You know me. We’ve worked together. We’ll investigate your concerns—”
“Fifty seconds!”
Footsteps were running out of the control cabin already. Chase turned and leapt at the back of the closet, racing th
rough the inside of the walls until he burst through the velveteen panels of the sitting room.
Lilli was already there, pulling on one side of the computer. “You have to stop!” she shouted. “They’re going to kill us!”
“Just let me do this!” yelled Parker. “I’m already through the first firewall!”
Chase reached between the two of them, phasing between their arms, and tried to grab the computer. His hands phased uselessly through it. Focus! he screamed at himself, and just like that, his hands latched onto the metal frame.
Parker glared at him from the other side of the computer, trembling and white with a rage that Chase had never seen before. He yanked it toward himself again just as a handful of Federation Guards came through the door. Lilli moved away, but Chase and Parker stood frozen as a Guard raised his handblaster and fired a short blast at their hands.
“Ouch!” roared Parker as the computer crashed to the floor. Chase stumbled back, rubbing his numb hands.
“What are you doing?” Maurus pushed past the Guards. “Did you just fire at children?” He pulled his own weapon and pointed it at the computer.
Before he could fire, a monstrous roar tore through the ship, and everything and everyone was flying, falling, the ship around them shaking like the rage of an angry giant. The first thing Chase saw once the room had stopped spinning was Lilli, staring down at him and crying. He peeled himself off the floor and put his arm around her. Maurus was already beside them, helping Parker to his feet.
They hurried past the dazed, groaning Guards sprawled across the sitting room floor and ran down the hallway. Maurus waved them toward another doorway and into a room filled with rows of passenger-style seating. “Don’t look out the window,” he commanded.
Of course it was impossible not to look after he’d said that, but Chase immediately regretted it. The green horizon of Rhima stood sideways as the ship hurtled in an uncontrolled fall toward the moon’s surface. Because the ship’s gravity generator was still working, they couldn’t feel a thing, but the sight made Chase instantly dizzy.
“I said don’t look,” snapped Maurus. He pushed Parker into a seat and hit a lever beside it, and a five-point harness popped out around him. As he helped Parker fasten the straps around his chest, Chase made Lilli sit down and did the same for her. He pushed Maurus away when he tried to help. “I’ll be fine. Go save the ship.”
Lost Planet 02 - The Stolen Moon Page 13
