The Vanished Specialist (The Lost Planet 2)

“Very well,” Draven says, holding out the book he has brought.

I take it from his grip. Flipping through it, I am amazed at all the notes. From everyone. Detailed notes from Galen about plants. A whole section from Ozias on how to repair the comms system. I am pleased to find some useful information from Avrell about birthing a mortyoung. There is plenty to read, so I simply skim through it before closing it. “What is all this?”

“All your questions answered. Sayer stays on the comms. Since you make communication at the same time each solar, we don’t miss your broadcasts. He’s been gathering all the information you needed. Breccan wanted me to bring you two back, but Avrell worried your mate might be pregnant by now. That book is what Aria calls ‘the insurance policy.’ Whatever the rekk that means.”

“It means,” Emery says as she takes the book from me. “They wanted us to come back, but in case we couldn’t, there was a backup plan to keep us safe and informed.” She giggles. “This is amazing.”

“Did Lox ever show?” I ask, my blood once again turning to ice.

Draven scowls. “He attempted to steal the Mayvina. He did not succeed.”

“Is he dead?”

“I rekking wish,” he growls. “But, no. He’s out there somewhere. It’s wise you keep greeting all your guests the way you greeted me.” He looks back at the chamber door. “But I’m going to leave you with some better weapons. That rekker isn’t suited up like us. He’s traipsing around out in the biggest geostorm we’ve seen in nothing but scraps of a minnasuit. You see him, you shoot him with a zonnoblaster.”

“Thank you, Draven,” I say. “Will you be staying for some delightful ‘cabbage’?”

Emery playfully elbows me, sensing my teasing her.

His lip curls up. “I brought my own rations. I will be staying long enough to help you fix the comms and then I must go. Galen has been watching the geostorm’s pattern and we’re in for an influx of magnastrikes in the next few solars. I need to be headed back long before then.” He snags his helmet up and heads for the chamber door. “Let me unload this gear and we’ll get to work.”

As soon as he’s gone, I take Emery’s face in my hands. “All we had to do was hope.”

She stands on her toes, her swollen stomach pressing against my firmer one. “Hope hasn’t let us down yet.”

My lips press to hers and we kiss like there is no tomorrow.

Passionately. Frantically. Endlessly.

But fortunately, for us, we have many more wonderful solars ahead of us. And each morning, I will wake and hope for more.

Hope hasn’t let us down yet.

Epilogue

Draven

Three Solars Later

I step through the decontamination bay still sizzling from a near miss of a magnastrike. My sub-bones feel as though they’re alive and crawling with energy from the blinding white of the magnastrike that melted the back of my suit.

I was nearly rekking killed by the elements, and yet it didn’t threaten to consume my mind like this facility does. The familiar roaring inside my nog comes raging to the forefront like a pack of hungry sabrevipes eager to feast on my sanity.

Stop thinking about it.

My skin crawls as I quickly dart my gaze back at the exit. I can escape if I need to. I’m not trapped here.

I’m not trapped.

I’m not trapped.

I can escape if I want.

Heat, nothing to do with my near miss with the magnastrike, burns through me. This heat was something that caught fire within me when I’d contracted The Rades. With the fire came the maddening thoughts. The voices. The terror. The darkness. The pain.

Inside my chest, my heart is pounding to the point I feel dizzy. The past three solars, aside from the horrible geostorm, were freeing. When Breccan asked for a volunteer to take Calix and his mate the necessary supplies they needed at Sector 1779, I’d jumped so fast at the chance, I made all the morts around me startle.

This place is a prison.

My mind is a prison.

This rekking planet is a prison.

And despite it all, everyone around me seems happy. Hopeful even. When Theron and Sayer brought back the aliens, it was as though all the morts were brought back to life. As though they had purpose again.

Everyone but me.

The arrival of the females only further aggravated my mind. Their soft, sweet voices remind me of my mother and sister. Of a past where I once laughed and had purpose. I don’t laugh anymore. I don’t do anything aside from try to live solar by solar. The only time I feel some semblance of peace is when I’m in The Tower. And since this geostorm has been ravaging us for nearly a revolution, I haven’t spent any time hardly at all up there. This trapped feeling only intensifies each solar.