Lost Planet 02 - The Stolen Moon

by Searles, Rachel

  Maurus hesitated a moment. “Stay with them,” he commanded. Another explosion hit as he turned around, throwing him to his knees and filling the room briefly with light from a brilliant white fire outside the windows. Smoke poured in from the hall as Maurus stumbled from the room.

  “Please buckle in, Chase,” said Lilli, tears streaming down her face. It was a futile action—he would be thrown right through the harness when they crashed. Still, he sank into the seat beside her and fumbled with the straps.

  A deep shudder ran through the ship. Outside the window, the horizon slowly tipped back to a level plane, but they were still plummeting toward the moon. An unsteady rocking motion tipped the entire ship back and forth, and the engines screamed in deceleration.

  “I’m sorry,” came Parker’s choked voice over the roar of the engines. He gripped the straps of his harness with white knuckles. “This is my fault.”

  The engines whined even higher, creating a vibration that rattled the walls, but they seemed to be slowing as the ship neared the surface. Squeezing Lilli’s hand, Chase couldn’t stop himself from watching out the window as it came closer and closer, holding his breath for the second when they would make contact. It came with a deafening crunch of metal, and they all went lunging forward in their seats. Chase popped right out of his harness like he’d expected and fell to the floor, rolling through several rows of chairs with a series of grunts as Lilli’s screams—and possibly Parker’s?—rang out. The Falconer skidded across the landscape, sliding around out of control but gradually slowing down. Finally the entire vehicle lurched up on one side slightly before falling flat with a final crash.

  For a moment, no one said anything.

  “I cannot. Believe. We’re alive.” Parker dropped his head forward, still clutching the harness.

  Chase sat up, his head still spinning, and started to crawl back toward the others.

  The door slid open, and Vidal and Derrick rushed in. “Oh, thank the stars, he put you in here,” wheezed Vidal. “Come on, we have to go. Petrod’s going to fire again.”

  Before Chase could argue, the officers hustled them from their seats and ran with them down the hallway, while all around staffers and crew frantically gathered what they could. At the exit, the door was locked.

  “Unlock the door!” shouted Vidal. No one was listening. Derrick pulled a blaster from his belt and fired at the lock mechanism, kicking between each blast. Vidal did the same, timing with him, and after half a dozen blasts, the door began to come loose. They pushed it out far enough to almost squeeze through, but not enough.

  “There’s a brace bar on the outside blocking it!” shouted Vidal. She hurled herself at the crack, but even her tiny frame couldn’t fit. She looked to Lilli, but before she could ask, Chase grabbed the blaster from her hand and leapt at the crack, his skin tingling where he had to phase through the metal.

  He landed on pebbly ground and wheeled around. A thick metal bar held the door tight to the vehicle, but it took only one shot with the blaster to knock it away and the door fell away onto the ground.

  Derrick swept Lilli into his arms and jumped down, Parker right beside him. Vidal still stood inside the ship, looking down at them. “Run!” she shouted, motioning away from the Falconer. She looked back inside the vehicle, and an anxious look crossed her face.

  “Come on!” yelled Derrick.

  She turned back, eyebrows scrunched. “I can’t—”

  The missile hit so fast, Chase didn’t even hear it coming. It struck somewhere on the other side of the ship, filling the air with an earsplitting thunder. The shock wave tore through him, strong enough that he fell back onto the ground. Struggling to sit up, he saw Lilli, Parker, and Derrick all lying dazed. Vidal had been thrown past them, and lay in a groaning heap on the ground. Derrick was at her side immediately.

  “Maurus!” she screamed, fighting to get back to her feet.

  Federal Guards and staff came stumbling out of the ship, shocked and bleeding. Ksenia appeared, confused, her dark hair half undone and tumbling into her face.

  But no Maurus.

  Before anyone could stop him, Chase took a running leap back into the Falconer, sprinting down the hallway. Smoke hung thick in the air, and so, eyes burning, he ran at a crouch, covering his mouth with his sleeve. Another missile might not hurt him, but if he dropped dead of smoke inhalation, he wouldn’t do anyone any good.

  He came upon Maurus so suddenly that he nearly tripped on him. He was lying on the floor outside the control deck, one shoulder of his uniform burned away. Chase dropped to Maurus’s side, shaking his good shoulder.

  Groggily Maurus responded, pushing himself to his knees to crawl down the hall inch by painful inch with Chase’s help. By the time they made it back to the exit, Chase was dizzy from smoke and had no idea how Maurus was even still going. They fell out of the ship and into the waiting hands of Derrick and several Federation Guards, who held them up as they hobbled away from the smoking wreck.

  Two more missiles hit, right on top of the other, and the Falconer exploded behind them. Most people hit the ground automatically, but the Guard on Chase’s right was still standing, and took a chunk of debris in the back of his leg. He fell with a grunt. Ears ringing, Chase looked around the chaotic, smoky scene, frantic until he saw Parker and Lilli huddled together. Vidal scrabbled across the ground, ash and tears streaking her face, and nearly tackled Maurus, sobbing into his chest. Maurus pressed his face into her hair, holding her tightly with his one good arm.

  Feeling like he was intruding on something private, Chase looked away. Across the way, Ksenia sat, stunned, while one of her staffers mopped blood off her forehead with a torn-up jacket.

  “They can’t do this,” she said faintly, staring at the flames licking the smoldering ruins of the Falconer. “I have diplomatic immunity.”

  “I don’t think that counts for much here,” muttered Maurus as he plucked up the burned edge of his jacket, hissing at the long burn that ran down his arm, pink layers of skin already peeling back.

  “We need to try to contact the Fleet,” said Vidal, wiping at her face and straightening up.

  “With what?” Derrick gestured at the Falconer. “We’re stranded with no comms.”

  As they debated, Chase crossed the area and knelt beside his sister. “Are you okay?”

  She gave him a somber look. “I’m not hurt, but I’m pretty much reading your lips right now.”

  “My ears are ringing too.” Chase looked around at the flat, green landscape—all low rocks and pebbles covered in something like moss. Terraforming had made it possible for them to stand on the surface of the moon and breathe its air, but from what he could see it was nothing more than a barren wasteland. Just above the far horizon, a long, ghostly sliver of massive Storros hung suspended in a sky the gray of twilight.

  “We’re totally stranded,” said Parker. He looked at Lilli. “I don’t suppose you can find us a ride out of here?”

  She arched a thin eyebrow at him. “It’s not like calling a jettaxi.”

  “I guess we just wait until we all starve, or the Werikosa come back to kill us.”

  “They’re not going to come after us anymore,” said Chase. “They just wanted to wreck our ship.”

  “You’re right,” said Parker in a flat voice. He picked up a pebble and threw it hard, almost hitting the smoking hulk of the crashed ship. “I’m sure they’ll keep us around long enough to watch the Fleet blow the Kuyddestor out of the sky.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A thick column of black smoke rose from the wreckage of the Falconer. They were sitting a good hundred meters away, but Chase could still feel waves of heat coming off its twisted, fire-licked frame. A few people spoke quietly in small groups, while others sat staring at the horizon, obviously still in shock. Maurus lay on his side on the rocky terrain, grimacing as Vidal and Derrick examined his wounded shoulder.

  Vidal got to her feet, looking around the group of stunned survivors. “Is
everyone accounted for?”

  Ksenia nodded as she joined their group. “Yes. Most of the Falconer’s crew were androids, fortunately.” She had walked over to the crest of a low hill to look at the horizon. Pushing her hair back from her blood-crusted forehead, she said, “I have a rough idea where we are. There’s a gravity mineworks that we should be able to walk to. We’ll be able to find food and water and communications there. It’s…” She paused and frowned before waving her arm vaguely toward the darkening horizon. “It’s somewhere in that direction.”

  Parker gave a half-laugh. “I don’t suppose you thought to grab a locator off the ship before it blew up.”

  “You.” Narrowing her eyes, Ksenia towered over him in her torn maroon suit. “I don’t want to hear a word from you. The Kuyddestor wouldn’t have attacked us if it weren’t for you. This is all your fault.”

  Parker scowled up at her. “I was getting past the firewalls. I was doing more than anyone else.”

  “You were deliberately provoking the hijackers. I was running the mission. It was my decision to make whether we took offensive action or not.”

  “We asked your permission to get on a networked computer,” hissed Maurus from where he lay on the ground. “You just didn’t think Parker would be capable of breaching their security.”

  “Of course not!” cried Ksenia.

  Vidal jumped in. “The Werikosa would have attacked us eventually. They were looking for any excuse.”

  “No they weren’t,” insisted Ksenia, pushing her hair back in an agitated manner. “They wouldn’t have attacked us if they hadn’t felt threatened.” She turned back to Parker. “You brought that attack on us. You did that to him.” She pointed at Maurus’s raw, red shoulder.

  Parker stared at the ugly wound, momentarily lost for words. For a moment Chase was torn between wanting to defend him, and not wanting to anger Ksenia before he even got a chance to talk to her.

  “Leave him alone,” growled a scratchy voice. Lilli crouched on the outskirts of the group, glaring at Ksenia through narrowed eyes. “It happened, and it’s over, and finger pointing isn’t going to change anything. At least we’re alive.”

  One of the Falconer’s pilots, whose broken arm hung in a sling, asked, “But for how much longer?”

  No one answered, and the only sound was the flickering of flames and metallic creaks as the remains of the Falconer fell apart. Maurus pushed himself up on one elbow, stifling a gasp. “For now let’s focus on getting to the mineworks. Are we talking about far as in a day’s walk, or more than that?”

  Ksenia pursed her mouth. “I saw it through the window as the ship was coming down. It’s walking distance.”

  It took a while to gather themselves up and scavenge what little supplies they could find. The Guard who’d taken shrapnel in his leg couldn’t walk, and two other crewmembers stayed behind with him. The rest of them set off slowly across the endless mossy rocks of the Rhima landscape. Ksenia marched ahead with her few remaining staffers, her dark eyes wide and watchful. The crew of the Kuyddestor followed silently, casting occasional glances into the sky, as if they might see their starship somewhere up there. Derrick had torn up his own jacket to fashion a sling for Maurus’s wounded arm, frowning as Chase watched him lower it carefully over Maurus’s head.

  Maurus kept up with the rest of them, but he walked stiffly, his face tense, eyes fixed straight ahead. The sling seemed to help stabilize his arm, but clear liquid seeped from his burned shoulder and soaked the gray fabric. “We need to find a place to keep warm,” Chase said to Parker in a low voice. “The sun’s going to set soon.”

  “No it won’t,” said Parker. “It looks like dusk because we’re at the terminator. The line between light and dark.”

  “Right.” Chase nodded. “And soon it’ll be completely dark.”

  “No,” corrected Parker. “Rhima is tidally locked to Storros—the same side always faces the planet. It revolves around the planet, so all sides see the sun at some point, but it doesn’t rotate on its own. I think I read it takes thirty-nine days to make a full revolution, so we’ve got a good day or two before the darkness gets this far.”

  “Lords, Parker.” Lilli gave him a sideways look. “Spending time with you is like hanging out with an encyclopedia.”

  Chase stifled a laugh and gave Lilli a thumbs-up as she tried to hide the smile creeping over her face. Scowling, Parker stomped away to walk in a different part of the group.

  As long as they walked, the landscape never changed—gray tinged with mossy green and mostly flat, with some low rolling hills and dull skies. The twisted hulk of the Falconer soon lay far behind, with only a thin plume of smoke to mark where they’d left it. Chase’s clothes smelled burnt, and he felt filthy. He ran his hands through his hair and looked at the sky, worrying about what was happening to the crew on the Kuyddestor and how Analora was doing.

  “Why hasn’t anyone come to look for us?” he asked. “The Storrian defense fleet probably saw what happened, didn’t they?”

  Vidal, walking ahead of them, glanced back. “I’m certain they did. But what do you think would happen if a Storrian ship comes anywhere near Rhima, let alone tries to land on it?”

  “Oh,” said Chase, as understanding dawned on him. Regardless of whether or not they knew that there were Falconer survivors, the Kuyddestor hijackers would ensure that nobody came anywhere near their coveted moon.

  Derrick spit on the ground. “We’re trapped down here like rabbits in a cage.”

  They stopped after an hour of walking over the monotonous land to take a short rest. Maurus sat on the ground, holding his shoulder at a funny angle. Vidal crouched beside him, talking in a low voice. When Chase approached, he saw that Maurus was shivering. “Chase, can you look around and see if anyone has any water?” she asked softly.

  He went straight to Ksenia to ask. She was sitting on a boulder with her staffers gathered around her. They appeared to be arguing about something, but before he could overhear what they were talking about, the staffers left.

  “No, there’s no water,” she told Chase when he asked. “My staff thought to take all their personal items and electronics, but nobody took any survival equipment.”

  Analora would have known what to take, Chase thought. It was a perfect opportunity to ask Ksenia about everything—the microchip, the note, the meeting on Lumos—but suddenly he wasn’t sure how to begin. Should he just ask her outright if she’d left the note? What if she said no? A musty, mossy smell blew by on a breeze, and without thinking he wrinkled his nose.

  “Stinks here, doesn’t it?’” Ksenia gestured at the green horizon. “Part of the oxygen production program was a surface-wide distribution of lichen spores. That’s what you’re smelling. Along with a blend of factory-generated gasses and liquids.” She poked at the thick, spongy lichen covering the boulder she sat on and frowned. Chase glanced at the lichen and looked up, about to ask what she’d been doing in Lumos, but he found her giving him the peculiar, intense gaze he’d seen before.

  “What?” he asked.

  She spoke quietly. “Chase, if the Kuyddestor doesn’t survive this … situation, would you like to come with me? I can find you a new home. One where you belong.”

  Chase took a step closer. “Are you the one who left me the note?”

  She paused before giving him a tiny nod. “Yes, I am.”

  Excitement started to rush up, but he dampened it with caution. “Why did you want me to meet you in Lumos?”

  “I wanted to meet with you in private.” She looked over her shoulder. “We shouldn’t even be talking about this now.”

  But he needed more confirmation from her. “So you know who I am.” She nodded. “Did you know the ship was going to be hijacked?”

  She flinched in surprise. “If you’re suggesting that I somehow had a hand in this…”

  “No, no,” Chase said hastily. “I just thought maybe, because it happened when…” Fearing that she might cut the conversatio
n off, he went straight for the big questions. “What do you know about my parents? Did you work for Asa Kaplan?”

  “We can’t talk about that here.” Ksenia stood. “Come with me when this is over, no matter what happens to the Kuyddestor. I’ll have all the answers for you then. I’ll find you a new home.”

  The reaction Chase felt to the idea of leaving the ship was so powerful it surprised him. “The Kuyddestor is my home. I can’t leave it.”

  “You don’t belong there,” she said firmly, turning away to end the conversation. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  When Chase returned to the other side of the group, Maurus was hunched over, taking tiny sips from a flask that Parker had somehow wheedled out of one of the staffers. He managed a wink when he saw Chase’s worried face. “Don’t worry, I’ll live. What does this put you up to now, three times you’ve saved my life? Soon I won’t want to leave your side, Chase Garrety.”

  Vidal was talking to the Federation staffers, who stood in a tight unified group. She came over and crouched next to Maurus. “The staffers have decided to go back to the ship.”

  “What ship?” asked Maurus. “There was nothing left.”

  “They think they’ll have a better chance of getting rescued if they stay there. They’re scared about getting lost.”

  “We’ll find the gravity mines, right?” asked Chase.

  “We will.” Vidal smiled at him, but her eyes showed enough doubt to make Chase worry. She put a hand on Maurus’s leg. “If this is too strenuous for you, you can go back with them.”

  Maurus shook his head. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he grunted, struggling to his feet.

  Vidal sighed, making a face at Chase. “Well, that’s good, because it looks like raw meat.”

  If Ksenia was disturbed by her staff’s lack of faith in her leadership, she didn’t show it. The staffers set back the way they’d come—easy enough to follow, by the path of crushed and bruised lichen they’d left in their wake. The rest of them continued on, guided only by Ksenia’s promise that they were going the right way.