Chase You To The Sun (2 page)

They spent all morning strolling along Jupiter Boulevard to check out the shops and cafés until their rumbling stomachs drove them to
The Red Giant
. The restaurant wasn’t that busy yet, so they picked a table near the large, oval window staring out into space. Ganymede was a glistening, bright dot in the distance against the backdrop of millions of stars in the black sky. “Look, there’s my home world,” Lana mumbled, pointing at Jupiter’s largest moon.

“You used to live in Novi Moscow, right?” Alen asked.

“Yeah. I grew up there, but I had to get out of the capital after my mom died. My dream was always to be a student on Mars.”

“Why Mars?” he wanted to know.

Svetlana smiled a bit self-consciously. “Because it’s so close to Earth. I like being there. Tori and I met at an Elite summer camp in Great Germany when we were children, you know. That’s why I have a soft spot for Earth, I guess.”

“We’re actually going to Earth so Alen can show me the place where he grew up,” Tori divulged. “And we’re going to meet up with my uncle Gustav in Hungary. Oh, and we’re also meeting Alen’s friends on the British Isles. Ava and Nicolas Carter.”

“Sounds like you won’t be bored any time soon,” Lana laughed. “If I have any time left, I might join you guys in Hungary or Britain.”

Alen rubbed his forehead for a second. “I think we’re all going to have less time than expected,” he said with a frown on his face. “Most cruisers to Earth have been delayed because the army’s patrolling the Jupiterian border. They closed the airspace around the planet because of those pirate attacks.”

“Oh, right. Bruce Randall and his crew of bandits,” Lana nodded sourly. “He’s always causing trouble everywhere I go. Isn’t it about time he retired?”

“Not likely,” Alen replied, drumming his fingers on the table. “He’s not that old.”

Lana shrugged. “Actually, I have no idea how old he is. I don’t even know what he looks like.”

“Right.” Alen narrowed his eyes. “They keep pictures of criminals out of the media, don’t they?” He swiped at his pad for a few seconds, then slid it across the table. “This is him.”

Curiously, Svetlana picked up Alen’s pad – he probably had mug shots of criminals from all over the solar system in his security files – and looked at the picture on screen.

Two intensely slate-gray eyes stared back at her above high cheekbones. Her gaze lingered on the smirk playing around sensuous lips. The dark eyebrows arching above his gray eyes seemed to be slightly cocked in disapproval, or perhaps amusement, and the angular planes of his face were framed by long, dark-blonde hair shot through with gold. Lana couldn’t help but blink at the picture of Bruce Randall in amazement. She’d always assumed the guy was as old as her father, but he wasn’t – he looked like he was in his mid-thirties. He looked rebellious, dangerous – and also incredibly attractive. She couldn’t deny it.

“He’s not at all what I expected,” she blurted out, putting the pad down so she wouldn’t keep staring at Bruce like an idiot.

Tori’s mouth curled up in a smile. “Well, what did you expect? An eye patch and a peg leg?”

Lana bit back a giggle. “Don’t be stupid. Pirates like that don’t exist anymore.”

“No.” Alen put his pad away. “He’s far more dangerous than the pirates who used to roam the seas. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more intimidating man than Bruce Randall.”

“You actually met him?” Lana stared at Alen. “What, you arrested him or something?”

Alen hesitated for a second. “No, I worked with him. A long time ago. Just for a few months.”

“You...” Lana trailed off, glancing aside to catch Tori’s gaze.

“I’ll tell you some other time,” her friend mumbled, looking a bit flustered.

“Let’s just say I’ve been on both sides of the law,” Alen explained. “But I decided to stick to the good side some years back.”

At that moment, the waiter showed up with their drinks. Lana was relieved Tori changed the subject to something safe – their trip to Earth and the places they’d visit.

“Let’s take the first available flight out tomorrow,” Tori suggested. “If we’re delayed, at least we’ll be able to get to Earth as soon as possible. Where do you need to go for your trade negotiations?”

“Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital,” Lana replied. “Mr. Stockton booked me a hotel room there for the next six days. I can’t wait to see Greenland. People always say it’s so beautiful.”

“Can you believe it was once completely covered in ice?” Alen mused. “Before the poles shifted, the entire country was an Arctic region.”

“Then why did they call it Greenland?” Lana inquired with a frown.

“I think it was a marketing ploy,” Tori said. “When the Vikings were trying to convince their countrymen to colonize the island, they made it sound more inviting than it actually was.”

Lana chuckled. “Good business move, I guess.”

After lunch, she left Tori and Alen to spend some time packing for her trip. Actually, she hadn’t even unpacked everything yet since arriving at the station. Where was her small travel bag? Maybe she’d left it in storage back on Mars. She couldn’t remember.

With a sigh, Lana flopped down on the couch and decided to settle for her old suitcase – the one she’d always brought along on summer camp. Maybe it was meant to be. This suitcase had been her faithful companion during her previous trips to Earth, so it was only fitting she should bring it along now.

“We’re gonna have fun together,” she whispered, patting the bag as if she had to reassure her suitcase instead of herself.

T
he next morning, an enormous crowd had gathered in front of Airlock Nine. Apparently, Tori hadn’t been the only one with the idea of catching the early flight – eager travelers were all huddled around the ticket desk, waving wads of bills or brightly-colored cards in order to buy a seat on the first outbound flight of the day.

“Now what?” Lana put down her suitcase with a frustrated grunt. “We’re never gonna get out of here. I do have a ticket, but that’s for tonight’s flight.”

“Yeah, and that’s just one ticket,” Tori said sulkily.

Alen pursed his lips in thought. “I might have an idea. You girls stay in line while I try something.” He stalked off in the direction of the Boulevard.

“What’s he gonna do, commandeer a spaceship?” Lana teased her friend.

Tori snorted. “What’s with the pirate lingo?”

“Well.” Lana bit her lip. “He used to work with a famous pirate, right?”

Tori shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah – about that. Alen was part of the Croatian resistance when he was young, and then he turned to a life of crime. He spent six years in jail, but he tried everything to leave his past behind. I guess he knows Bruce Randall from some job he did back then.”

Lana tried her very best not to blush when she heard that name again. She was never going to admit this to anyone, not even to her best friend, but she’d had some pretty intense dreams about Bruce last night. His face had haunted her dreams, his mocking, gray eyes staring at her, a faint grin around his lips as he dangled an eye patch in front of her face and whispered: “Not what you expected, Lana?” In the dream, he’d been lusting after her, and it had terrified her and turned her on at the same time. She didn’t know what the hell was wrong with her – it had to be nerves about her mission to Nuuk.

“Alen seems like a great guy,” Lana told Tori. “I don’t think his past is that important. Have your parents met him yet, though?”

Tori grinned. “My mom has. And she adores him, believe it or not.”

“Wow! That’s pretty amazing.” Lana knew how difficult Mrs. Weiss could be at times – she’d had the dubious honor of being Tori’s one and only ‘approved friend’ through high school. Sadly, they hadn’t seen much of each other at the time, since Tori lived on Mars and Lana had still been on Ganymede. “How did that happen?”

Her friend smiled. “He smooth-talked my mom in German all day long.”

They chatted some more about Tori’s new lover until Alen returned with a large grin on his face. “We’re all set,” he declared. “We’re flying out in one of the ships in the DSD One fleet. I convinced one of their pilots to drop us off on Earth before heading for Venus to pick up some military personnel.”

“Pulled some strings, did you?” Tori playfully kissed him on the cheek.

“It helps if you’re the Head of Security on the neighboring station.”

Alen took them to the other side of the hallway to the launch bay where the military ships were docked. A jolly-looking guy with a black mustache was waiting for them at Airlock Twenty. “Welcome on board,” he said. “Don’t forget to tip the driver.”

Lana chuckled. She stepped forward to check in first, waving her ID card in front of the scanner next to the entrance. The fake passport she was using was linked to a secure channel informing her dad where she’d checked in. That way, he could always keep track of her. Otherwise, checking in was usually just a formality – nobody really looked at the name and other info on the screen attached to the scanner unless an error message popped up.

As expected, the scanner gave her the green light, announcing that ‘Lana Petrova’ was boarding, and Svetlana entered the small ship, pushing open a few doors on the left side. Since the vessel wasn’t built to transport civilians, there were only three rooms containing narrow bunk beds, but she didn’t mind – flying out to Earth before everyone else was the best thing that could have happened today.

“So, are you and Captain Blanco bunking together?” Tori giggled as she boarded the spaceship next. “Or are there enough rooms for all of us to enjoy some privacy?”

Lana raised an eyebrow. “There are three rooms. I think Captain Blanco is cool, but not
that
cool, thank you very much.”

Once the ship had left Desida One, they each picked a room and then sat down at the small table near the biggest porthole in the ship’s belly to have some coffee. Captain Blanco had disappeared into the cockpit. Outside, Jupiter quickly slid out of view.

“So, who are Ava and Nicolas Carter?” Lana inquired curiously. “Those names don’t really sound Croatian.”

“They’re not,” Alen replied. “Nicolas was my first boss after I came out of prison. He recommended me to Commander Kelso of Desida Two because he discovered I could do a lot more than just gardening.”

“You were a gardener?”

“A groundskeeper. I also befriended his wife before I left for my new job. Ava is a lovely girl.”

“I can’t wait to meet them,” Tori enthused. “They’re a bit like Uncle Gustav, you know. Helping commoners and teaching them how to farm, that kind of thing. Actually, Nicolas used to belong to one of the richest Elite British families on Luna, but when he married Ava, his parents cut him loose.”

“Why?”

“Well, he’s her half-uncle, to start with, and she’s of mixed heritage – common and Elite. They had to keep their relationship a secret for quite a while,” Alen explained.

Lana fell silent. The rebels who killed her mother had been British. Of course, they hadn’t been Brits from Earth – their resistance cell had been on Amalthea, one of Jupiter’s struggling production unit moons – but the whole experience had left her scarred and suspicious of anything that wasn’t Elite. If she was completely honest, she’d tried to avoid dealing with British commoners after her mom’s death.

“Well, I’ll try my best to drop by if I have any time left,” she promised.

The rest of the day flew by rather uneventfully. There was a small magnetic storm close to the asteroid belt, but Captain Blanco managed to fly them through with minimal turbulence. By the time it was nine o’clock Desidan Time, the DSD One vessel had reached Martian airspace.

“We’ll be landing at Deimos for the night,” the captain told them, getting out of the cockpit for a short break. “It will take another hour or so to get there.”

“That’s quick.” Lana peeked out the window to look for the smallest of the two Martian moons, but it was still too far away. Mars was a bright-red floating disc among the stars, though.

Tori joined her at the window. “It’s a shame we can’t visit New Berlin,” she said.

“Maybe we can do that on the way back.”

“Yeah.” Tori smiled. “That way, I can show Alen where I grew up, too.”

Suddenly, they were interrupted by a loud, blaring siren coming from all corners of the room. Red warning lights started to flash along the ceiling.

“What the...” Captain Blanco jumped up from his seat and ran back to the cockpit.

“What’s going on?” Svetlana gulped down the ball of nerves stuck in her throat. She was always a bit nervous about space travel, no matter how many times she’d flown back and forth between Ganymede and Europa or other planets in the solar system. Alarm bells and warning lights on any kind of spaceship or cruiser immediately put her on edge.

“Might be a meteor,” Alen shrugged. “Or another object blocking our path. It’s the standard warning signal whenever the ship’s on automatic pilot.”

“It’s another ship,” the captain shouted from the cockpit. He’d left the door open to keep them updated. “A big one. And it seems to be on a collision course.”

“Try some evasive maneuvers,” Alen said.

“That’s going to be difficult. We’re in controlled airspace. If I avoid this ship, I might slam into another one.”

Lana felt her stomach turn with fear. Some of the high-tech cruisers servicing Mars actually traveled near the speed of light and couldn’t be seen in time, which was why everyone was supposed to stick to the standard flight routes. Sergei had taught her that once. She snuck a peek into the control room, her gaze landing on the gigantic ship outside now hovering in front of them and blocking their path.

“I’m gonna hit the brakes,” Captain Blanco grumbled. “There’s no way to avoid this thing. You think they’re adrift?”

“I have no idea,” Alen replied. “Nobody should be using this route but us, so yeah – I guess that’s the only explanation.”

They all froze when the intercom started to crackle. “This is your one and only warning,” a crisp, British voice erupted from the comm system. “Make a full stop and prepare to be boarded.”

“What the fuck?” Captain Blanco exploded. Despite his outburst, he did exactly as he was told. The DSD One ship hovered motionlessly in space, at the mercy of the enormous ship preventing them from reaching Deimos. “Is this some kind of random check?”