Lost Planet 01 - The Lost Planet (14 page)

“You won't get—” Parker's outburst was cut short as Gorma slammed the butt of his blaster gun into his ribs. He doubled over with a gasp. Gorma raised the weapon again, and Chase grabbed Parker's arm and dragged him hobbling out of the room, where they were hustled back through the courtyard and into an alley.

“You know, you don't have to take us to the port,” said Parker with a nervous laugh. “You can just let us go.”

In response, Gorma fired a blast at the ground. Parker jumped aside with a shout as a shower of dirt sprayed against his legs.

“If it weren't for the money, I'd just kill you right here,” the one-eyed henchman growled. “Now move!”

*   *   *

They descended into the port, a deep pit in the middle of the Shank, by taking one of the open lifts that ran along the craggy walls. Ships shot up and down in the middle of the vast space, miraculously not hitting one another or the towering metal poles that circled the basin. An assortment of vehicles filled the floor of the port, surrounded by a stream of constant activity.

Men ran among the vehicles, wheeling containers and carrying equipment. The din of the mechanics working on parked machines was deafening. What stood out most of all, however, was the cluster of gray-uniformed Fleet soldiers standing near a building in the middle of the port, and the wide berth that everyone else was giving them.

“Hey!” Gorma shouted at a pointy-faced creature who buckled under the weight of a metal crate on its back. “What's going on over there?”

Without looking over, the creature responded in a high-pitched, oddly fluid voice. “Soldiers inspecting every vehicle. No departure without inspection.”

Gorma muttered something ugly and herded the boys forward. Chase looked around frantically, trying to see a way to slip into the crowd without getting shot. Nothing good would happen if Gorma sold them to a slave trader—a
Goxar
slave trader. Wasn't it the Goxar that Parker had claimed were a species to avoid? Beside him, Parker furrowed his eyebrows and watched their captor warily.

They wound their way through the maze of vehicles and stopped in front of a long, dark freighter covered in angled spikes. A metal gangway extended down from the open entrance. Gorma pounded his blaster gun against the side of the ship.

“Traders! Got a bargain for you. Two Earthan boys, five thousand for the pair.”

A shadowy shape appeared inside the recesses of the entrance. Chase couldn't make out anything but a pair of eerie yellow eyes.

“Five thousand!” Gorma repeated, shoving Chase toward the dark figure. Chase tried to push back against his hand. The yellow eyes didn't blink.

From the corner of his vision, Chase saw movement and sensed something very large approaching out of the chaos of the port behind him and Gorma. The man that towered over him a second later was monstrous, at least a foot taller than Gorma, with impossibly wide shoulders and long, rangy limbs. Tawny hair fell to his shoulders in straggly knots, and a chaotic design of tattoos covered the sleek, almost feline angles of his face. A moment later, the smell hit—a rank, musky odor so overpowering Chase could practically taste it.

“Bennin?” the tattooed man barked in a coarse voice.

Gorma scowled up at him, his hand sliding down to the trigger of his blaster. “Excuse me?”

“You work for a Rezer, name of Bennin?”

Gorma's eyes narrowed. “Who wants to know?”

Chase looked back at the entrance to the freighter. The yellow Goxar eyes had vanished. He stepped back beside Parker.

For a second the tattooed man glared down at Chase. His dark irises were ringed in electric blue, wild against the inky patterns circling his eyes. He inhaled deeply, lifting his chin in a way that looked like he was smelling both Chase and Parker. Then he turned back to Gorma. “I seek the Lyolian who had business with your Rezer Bennin.”

“Along with everyone else in the galaxy,” said Gorma. “I know nothing.”

“You lie. Everyone in the Shank knows that the Lyolian is hiding within the Ambessitari syndicate.”

“Who are you working for, tracker?”

The tattooed man grabbed his shirt. “That is not your concern. Where is the Lyolian?”

Gorma's eyes flickered to the hand on his chest. “Take your paw off me, you stinking Kekilly dog.” He tipped his head downward to indicate the blaster gun he'd pointed at the tattooed man's rib cage. The man's lips curled back, and a low growl rattled in his chest.

Gorma had all but forgotten the two boys standing beside him. Chase took another step backward, and before he even had the chance to glance over, Parker yanked his arm hard and took off running. Chase dashed after him, his mind a blur of panic screaming,
Run run run run
.

Behind them, Gorma shouted, and a beam of blue light flashed to their right. Parker dashed past the side of a wide ship. Chase was just behind when the blue light erupted all around him. A cold feeling spread through his chest, and he staggered a few steps as though he had been shoved.

“Parker?” he wheezed.

Parker looked back at him and almost crashed into a man wheeling a piece of equipment. “Go!” he screamed, sprinting away. Chase stumbled after him, rubbing his chest. The cold feeling passed after a few ragged breaths.

With Gorma still yelling somewhere behind them, Chase caught up with Parker and zigzagged around vehicles and scrap heaps. They turned and found themselves in a loading zone where stacks of metal crates and containers created a towering maze. As they ran between them, Chase wondered if there was a way they could climb up on them and hide.

Movement flashed by in gaps between the stacks to their left—someone was running in the next row. Gorma's shouts still sounded somewhere behind them. Had the tattooed man joined the pursuit? Or had more of Bennin's henchmen arrived?

Chase grabbed Parker's sleeve and pulled him into a narrow space between containers on their right. They edged their way through to the next row.

“There!” Chase pointed. The tall stacks around them made it hard to see, but they could tell that this row led straight to a lift that was readying to rise off the ground. If they ran hard enough, they could jump onto the lift and make it out of the port. Chase threw himself into a sprint and had just taken his first few paces, when a figure stepped out into the middle of the row, bringing them both to a skidding halt.

It was Maurus. And he was holding a blaster gun.

Chase took a step backward. Was Maurus helping Gorma now too? Parker cursed and wheeled around to run back the other way.

“Stop!” A flash of blue exploded at their feet, and Parker fell to the ground, screaming and clutching his ankle. Chase froze and raised his hands.

Maurus flung open the door of a container. “Get in.”

“I can't walk,” cried Parker.

Maurus leveled the blaster at Parker's face. “Get. In.”

Silently Chase helped Parker to his feet. Parker limped over and pulled himself inside the container, which was barely two shoulder-widths across.

Maurus pulled a communicator from his belt. “It's container 249XU5,” he said into the mouthpiece and paused, listening. “Yes, you'll get the money!”

Chase stopped in front of the container. “You can't do this to us. We saved your life.”

Maurus responded by pressing the nozzle of his blaster against Chase's chest. His eyes blazed. Chase hoisted himself inside the container, shaking with anger, and squeezed beside Parker.

Behind them, the door clanged shut, and they were engulfed in darkness.

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

The sound of frantic breathing echoed off the walls of the tiny container. In total blackness, Chase placed his hands against the door and ran his fingers along the edges, but there was no way to open it from the inside. Maurus had boxed them up like a gift for Gorma and the Goxar slave traders.

Parker groaned behind him, and there was a metallic
thung
as he hit the wall with a frustrated grunt.

“Parker, are you okay?”

“Yeah. I'm fine.”

“Your foot—”

“I'm
fine
. Switch places with me, let me try the door.”

Parker had just squeezed past when something struck the outside of the container with a deafening
clang
. With a squeal of metal, the container rocked wildly from side to side, throwing Chase into Parker. Someone was moving them.

“Let us out! Help!” Parker hammered at the wall as they rocked and swayed, but between the thickness of the container and the unbroken racket of the port, Chase guessed no one would hear them. He braced his arms against the walls, trying not to slide as the container continued to rock. After one last scream of scraping metal from underneath, as though they were being dragged across a floor, there was silence. He tipped his head back against the wall, his ears ringing.

A light, skittery sound danced over the top of the container, like claws being dragged over its surface. Chase stared into the darkness.

“Parker, what's a Goxar?” he whispered.

“They're Epsilon grade.” Parker's voice trembled. The scraping sound meandered down the wall, behind their heads.

Chase's voice dropped lower. “But, what are they?”

“They're the most dangerous species in the galaxy. They don't live like normal people, with rules and stuff. They're crazy. And they have these super-poisonous spikes on their backs that they can tear off and throw.”

“Are they going to kill us?”

“Probably. Eventually.”

The skittery sound went away. Some muffled footsteps followed, and soon it was silent again. The air inside the container was getting moist and stuffy. Sweat dripped down Chase's face and pooled on his back. “We're going to suffocate before they let us out.”

Parker shifted his weight beside Chase. “We've got to be able to open this.” A second later the container reverberated around them as he slammed his body against the door. “Ow!”

“Let's try together.” Chase reached out and found Parker's shoulders, rotating him. “Here, turn sideways. In one, two, three … go!”

Chase rammed his shoulder against the container door, and the jolt traveled through his body in a prickling rush as he tumbled out onto a grate floor. He sucked in a breath of clean air, about to whoop with joy, and stopped. The door of the container was still closed. He stared for a moment, confused. Frantic pounding sounded from inside.

“Chase! Where'd you go?” came Parker's muffled cry.

Stunned, Chase mutely twisted the container's exterior deadbolt and wrenched it clear. Parker pushed the door open and crawled out, staring at him. “What was that?”

“What do you mean?” asked Chase, looking around the dim room. Stacks of long containers on the metal grate floor created narrow walkways in what had to be the cargo hold of a ship. He avoided Parker's eyes, but his mind asked the same question:
What just happened?

“What do I mean? Chase, you got outside without opening the door! How on Taras did you do that?”

Chase ignored the question, walking toward a ladder on the wall that led to a ceiling hatch. “Let's get out of here.”

“Let's get—what the heck? What aren't you telling me?”

Chase whirled around. “Nothing! Nothing! I don't know anything!” It was exactly as Parker had said—he'd passed right through a locked door. The strange incidents were starting to add up, and a question was forming at the back of Chase's mind, but he squashed it into a deep, dark corner. “I must have fallen through a weak spot or something.”

“On a solid metal door? Are you joking?”

“Just let it go! We need to get out of here.” Chase turned back to the ladder.

“If you can walk through doors, a whole lot of things are going to start making sense about you. What are you?”

“Shut up!” shouted Chase. He started up the rungs of the ladder, the combination of shock and defensive anger generating an electric energy that coursed under his skin. At the top of the ladder he opened a circular hatch, poking his head out into a narrow metal hallway. There was no one in sight. He pulled himself up into the hallway, and Parker joined him a second later.

“How do you think we get out of here?” Chase asked in a whisper.

Parker eyed him warily. “I don't know. Why don't you try jumping through another door?”

Chase ignored the comment, slipping down the hall. It terminated in a circular room with four closed doors and a set of metal stairs leading up. Without a word, Chase went straight for the stairs.

The stairs ended in the control cabin of the ship, fortunately empty. A curved window stretched over the consoles at the front of the cabin, with a view of the next parked vehicle in the port.

Chase turned to leave and bumped into Parker. “This isn't the way out,” Chase said, grabbing Parker's arm to pull him back down the stairs. “What are you doing? We've got to go.” But instead of leaving, Parker stepped forward and looked at the controls.

This ship was nothing like the Starjumper. The front consoles were covered in splats of dried food and pieces of yellowed tape, and above them hung a mess of cables and levers that dangled around a wide and well-cushioned captain's seat. The whole place had an unpleasantly stale, yeasty smell.

Parker touched the console, muttering to himself. “Hold on. I don't think this is…”

“Are you stupid? Let's get out of here!” Chase dragged him one step away from the console. A noisy clattering rang out in the hall below.

Parker's head snapped around. “Hide!” He pushed Chase toward the back of the cabin, where a row of low storage cabinets lined the wall. Parker yanked open two cabinet doors and climbed inside one, indicating that Chase should do the same beside him. Wedging himself among a jumble of hoses and cables, Chase hooked his fingers around the lip of the door to yank it shut. “Idiot!” he said under his breath. Now they were trapped in the control cabin—not much better than being trapped in the cargo room.