The Vanished Specialist (The Lost Planet 2)

I think about the way she felt as I brought her pleasure. Her taste. Her sounds. Her scent. “She is safe with me,” I growl, ignoring his question. “Leave us be. She chooses to be with me.”

His eyes widen slightly before a scowl takes over. “I make those choices,” he grunts. “I am the commander and you need to remember your place. What you are doing is grounds for punishment. There is a reform cell with your name on it if you do not open this door now.”

“I am sorry,” I say as I retreat from the window. “I cannot obey, Commander. Not when my lilapetal’s life hangs in the balance.”

I don’t wait for his response and settle back in my chair.

“I get what you’re trying to do,” Sayer says again, making his irritating presence known. “I respect that. Just know that Aria doesn’t approve, therefore Breccan doesn’t either. It’s in your best interest to open that door.”

“And it is in your best interest to go the rekk into silent mode.”

The piece of rogshite laughs at me before going silent once more, giving me a chance to look at my father’s notes.

The notes are detailed. So many notes. Greedily, I read over every question in the margin. Every calculation. It is evident from the notes and the drawings, that Lox and my father took Belin to Sector 1779 right away. The traveling to Bleex Mountain was treacherous, but they eventually managed to get around it and to the building. It took some searching, but they prepped one of the old surgical rooms and booted up a surgical bot. Father explained how he had to clean and sterilize everything, including the patient. He and Lox wore protective clothing and they used something called Haxinth—a detailed formula he notated—to administer to Belin to make him what Father called a “living corpse.” Belin, under the influence of Haxinth, became unfeeling and unaware of pain. He said it was imperative that Belin not be awake and with his senses during the exploratory surgery.

Lox stood by Belin while Father sat in the desk with the controls. The surgical bot was mounted on the ceiling and Father controlled it from across the room. His notes said the bot was more precise than a mort’s hand. Together with the surgical bot, Lox and my father cut open the “living corpse” and made incisions in his lungs. With a tool attached to the bot’s “hand,” Father was able to soak up the sticky fern secretions that clung to the mort’s lungs. According to his notes, so much time passed that they were starved and dizzy, yet they kept going until they had cleaned out every bit of it. Father used the machine and some microbots to close the incisions and then the larger one on his chest.

Belin must have reacted to the Haxinth badly at first, though, because they could not rouse him for many solars. His wound from the surgery healed, but he remained lifeless, although no longer needing respiratory assistance. My father and Lox traded shifts watching over him. Talking to him. Injecting him with nutrients and different medicines in hopes that something would wake him. On the twelfth solar, Belin woke. His voice was scratchy and raw, but he was able to sit up. They had healed him.

My mind whirs at the possibilities. What if Sector 1779 holds the key to Emery’s health and survival? What if I can heal her like my father healed Belin?

I am jolted from all thoughts when the door is smashed open and a very angry commander storms in with several equally infuriated morts at his back.

“I tried to warn you,” Sayer mumbles from above me through the comms system.

“Get out!” I roar at Breccan, standing from my seat and taking a protective stance in front of Emery.

Commander shakes his nog in disappointment. “Draven, I want him bound and taken to a reform cell.”

Before I can fight, Draven pushes past Breccan and pounces on me. The mort is half crazed and stronger than a sabrevipe. He shoves me against some shelves, sending precious instruments crashing to the ground, and jerks my arms behind me. I am cuffed with a zuta-metal clamp and unable to move a muscle.

“Calix,” Emery whimpers from behind the mask, her blue eyes alight with fear.

I struggle against Draven’s hold to no avail. “This is not over,” I vow to her. “I will find out how to heal you. Stay alive for me.”

Breccan tries to comfort her and she scrambles from his touch. It makes me blind with rage, forcing me to charge at my commander to protect her. Using just my shoulder, I shove him away from her and tackle him to the floor. My fangs are bared and gnashing near the vein in his throat, desperate to make purchase. Before I can tear out the pulsating vein with my teeth, I am jerked away. Avrell walks in with a syringe dripping with something.