Chase You To The Sun Page 2

  “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.

  2.

  The 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?”

  “It doesn’t feel like one,” Alen responded, a frown knitting his eyebrows together. “If this is a Martian security vessel, where are the Great German insignia? Or the British ones?”

  Lana’s jaw dropped when a small, unmarked shuttle emerged from one of the airlocks, setting course for their ship. Alen was right – this didn’t look like a security check at all.

  The spacecraft trembled as the strange shuttle docked at their one available airlock with a metallic thud. Everybody turned around to face the entrance, which opened with a hissing sound and spat out three tall men dressed in dark green clothes and holding guns.

  Oh God. Lana took a step back in blind panic, her eyes fixed on the tallest of the three men. It was him. Bruce Randall, the space pirate. He looked a bit different from the picture she’d seen – his blond hair was shorter, and his mouth certainly wasn’t smiling. But that wasn’t what struck her most. It was how cruel and absolutely intimidating he came across. His sheer height was frightening to behold. If she stood next to him, she was sure the top of her head wouldn’t even reach his shoulder. And he wasn’t just tall – he was built like an athlete. His shoulders were square and broad, and his large hands gripping the gun looked like he could snap her neck in two without any difficulty. His entire appearance screamed ‘I am powerful and merciless’ at her.

  Her heart stopped when the intimidating man with the steely contours strolled toward her, seeming entirely at ease. “You,” he said in a voice that was deeper, rougher and darker than anything she’d ever heard before. “Come with us.”

  What?! No, he couldn’t possibly mean that. “But I...” She swallowed, her stomach twisting with fear. “Why? I haven’t done anything.”

  He smirked. Now he looked more like his mug shot – secretly amused by something she didn’t understand. “Maybe not. But your father has.”

  “My name is Lana Petrova,” she said, trying to stand taller when he stopped right in front of her. He was standing so close her forehead almost touched his chin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  His hand closed around her upper arm. “You are Svetlana Ivanova,” he said coldly. “And you’re my prisoner.”

  “Leave her alone,” she suddenly heard Tori cry out. “Please.”

  “Shut up,” Alen hissed. “Don’t provoke him.” He stepped up to Bruce, looking at the notorious pirate with a hint of trepidation in his eyes. Admittedly, Alen personally knew him from his past life as a criminal, but he’d also made it clear that Bruce was a guy he had genuinely feared. “Look... can’t we talk about this?”

  Bruce turned around, appraising the man who dared to address him in such an amicable tone of voice. “Novak,” he replied after a moment’s pause. “Stay out of this.”

  Alen visibly paled. “Don’t hurt her. Please.”

  “I won’t.” Bruce smiled lazily. “She’s worth more alive than dead.”

  “But...”

  Bruce raised his gun, fingering the trigger as he stared Alen down. “You bore me,” he stated calmly.

  Oh shit – this could easily turn into a blood bath if she didn’t intervene. Svetlana took a deep breath, tapping the space pirate gingerly on his muscular arm. “I’ll come with you,” she offered, her voice trembling. “I won’t resist. Just – don’t harm my friends.”

  Her kidnapper turned his face to look at her with a hint of surprise in his eyes. “All right,” he said, letting go of her slowly. “Don’t try anything.”

  “What about the others?” a dark-haired man next to Bruce piped up.

  “Stun them,” he replied. “They might follow us otherwise.”

  Lana clenched her fists, bracing herself for the screeching sound of the stunners filling the room. She watched as Tori, Alen, and Captain Blanco dropped soundlessly to the floor.

  Turning around, Lana blinked nervously when Bruce’s gaze landed on her once more. “And sedate her,” he added, as if she weren’t there. “The heaviest dose.”

  Before Lana could say anything, Bruce’s friend grabbed her shoulder and whipped out a syringe, plunging the needle all the way into her arm. Her head felt immediately heavy and the room started to spin around her as if she was caught in a maelstrom.

  After that, the entire world faded to black.

  3.

  Ouch.

  Lana moaned softly as she woke up with a pounding headache. Her mouth felt dry like the Martian desert. She opened her eyes to a crack before shutting them again to avoid being blinded by an overhead light. Where was she?

  “She’s awake,” a male voice said.

  “Give her some water,” another man said.

  When someone put a cup to her lips, Lana scrambled up and eagerly gulped down the water, her eyes still closed. Only when the light above her head was dimmed did she risk opening her eyes again.

  The dark-haired man who’d sedated her before was sitting on the edge of the bed she was lying on, refilling her cup with water from a bottle. “Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” he said glibly, handing her more water. “Enjoyed your little nap?”

  Lana licked her lips. “Where am I?”

  He smiled in cruel amusement. “That’s the million-pound question, isn’t it?” he replied. “Or rubles, in your case.”

  With bleary eyes she looked around the room. There wasn’t much to go on: the curtains were drawn, the walls were undecorated, and the only piece of furniture that the room seemed to contain was the bed they were sitting on.

  “I’m John, by the way,” the man said, still smiling at her. It was creeping her out. “Bruce asked me to take care of you while you were sleeping.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “Two days.”

  “Jesus.” No wonder she’d been thirsty as hell. Lana absently reached for the pad in her pocket to look at the time when she realized it was gone... and so were the clothe
s she’d been wearing on the Desidan spaceship. She was now wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt.

  “Yeah. Sorry,” John commented, when he saw her puzzled expression. “Had to do a strip search. To make sure you weren’t wired or anything. I hope you like your outfit – I just took some random stuff out of your travel bag.”

  This man had undressed her while she was unconscious? Lana’s stomach turned with revulsion. Anxiously, she glanced away when John’s smile broadened to a lecherous grin. “I wouldn’t mind doing a strip search again,” he continued, his voice dropping. “Should be more fun when you’re awake.”

  Oh God, no. Not this. Lana jumped up from the bed, backing away toward the other man in the room, praying this friendlier-looking silver-haired man would stop his colleague from whatever it was he had in mind.

  “Bruce said he wanted to see her immediately once she woke up,” the man said, apparently sensing her panic. “Let’s get her to the living room.”

  Lana would have hugged the guy if he hadn’t been a gun-toting pirate. “Yeah, let’s get me to the living room,” she repeated in a tiny voice.

  John’s face fell, but he didn’t protest. Instead, he stalked over to the door and pushed it open, revealing a long hallway lined with potted plants on either side. It looked like they were in some kind of mansion. She definitely wasn’t on board a spaceship anymore – Lana could always tell the difference between artificial and natural gravity. The pirates had brought her to a planet, but which one?

  She walked down the corridor flanked by the two guards. It opened up into a gigantic sitting room crammed full of luxurious furniture. A giant 3D-TV was fixed to the wall facing the long, white couch. And Bruce was standing in the middle of the room, his gaze never leaving her face as she approached him. Everything looked strangely Elite. Lana hadn’t expected that from a pirate’s lair, somehow. It made the whole situation oddly surreal.

  The fear she felt when Bruce took a step forward and grabbed her arm was real enough, though. “John, Chester,” he nodded at his two helpers. “Leave us.”