A Plain Jane Book One (28 page)

If it were anyone else,
Lucas would try to repeat to them that everything would be okay,
that they would find a way to fix this. Yet he had repeated that to
Jane so many times that it seemed simply futile to keep on saying
it anymore. Plus, it was obvious she didn't believe him. Who was he
to state categorically that everything would work out in the end?
He didn't know what he was dealing with, neither of them did.
Neither of them knew who Jane was, who was really after her, why
Adam Thomson had attacked her, and what would happen
next.

‘
Only 50 minutes till we arrive,’
Lucas noted quietly.

Jane dipped her head in
acknowledged. She opened her mouth, looking as if she wanted to ask
something, and then turned back to the view screen.

He watched with interest and
waited for her to say whatever was on her mind. It took a long time
for her to rub a hand over her eyes and mumble: 'What do we
do . . . if it doesn't work?’

‘
I . . . we try
someone else,’ he replied slowly.

‘
Then what?’ She kept on staring
at the view screen.

‘
Look, Jane, I know there is a
lot about this situation that we don't know, but if we keep on
trying to find out more information, we will eventually figure this
out. The Director’s contact is a start. If that doesn't
work . . . ’ he drummed his hand on the
console. If that doesn't work, he wanted to say, then they would
simply try to find another Paran. Lucas got the distinct impression
that another member of her race – if Jane was indeed a Paran –
would be able to help. After all, the Director had said that only
Parans were capable of using their own technology. It had been
confirmed that the implant inside Jane's brain was Paran. At the
very least a Paran could give them some insights into what it was,
how it worked, and why in the hell it might be in there in the
first place.

‘
We will solve this,’ he
promised.

He stared up at the view
screen. They were nearing their destination. Now all he had to do
was wait for whatever would happen next, even though a part of him
suspected that it would probably be frantic, dangerous, and likely
unstoppable.

Chapter 16

Jane

The ship finally entered
planetary orbit.

Jane had never been much
fascinated by Galactic geography, and hardly knew anything about
the planet below her. Yet she could see with her eyes that it was
mostly water, with only the occasional patch of green. Its
atmosphere also gave off a soft yellow glow. It was really quite
beautiful, and reminded her of a gem glittering in the
sun.

Lucas keyed different
commands into the computer, and then their ship began to descend
towards the surface. As it did, the pit of Jane's stomach bottomed
out.

What was waiting for them down
there? The Director had said that a member of that ‘P’ race would
meet them, and would hopefully help them find out what was going
on.

T
he exact second Jane thought about meeting
someone from that race, she gave a violent shudder. Lucas looked up
at her quickly, and rather than stare at her face, his eyes fixed
on a point just behind her left ear. Was he looking at
the . . . at
it
? Was
he using the fancy scanners in his armor to take readings of it, to
see if it was active, to see if it was about to take control of her
body and send her spinning around the room, cartwheeling, kicking,
rolling, and fighting everything in sight?

‘
Not long now,’ Lucas mumbled,
‘and I have got this,’ he said in a far more certain voice, ‘I will
do everything I can to ensure you are safe,’ he put a lot of effort
into making his words slow, deliberate, and very
genuine.

Jane just nodded. Then her
gaze slipped back to the view screen, and she watched the clouds
race around the ship as it descended towards the planet below.
Eventually the fantastic view was enough to pull her thoughts away
from her problems and to the wonder that was around her. It was
such a surreal experience to see the ship moving so quickly in
relation to the clouds but not to feel anything move in the ship
itself: inertia dampeners were stopping Jane from being smashed up
against the ceiling as the ship dropped towards the
surface.

Now
they broke through a cloud bank, and a
glittering blue ocean engulfed the entire view screen. Jane gasped
in amazement. It was beautiful, better than beautiful, incredible.
She could see the ocean below glittering, and as they got closer
and closer, she could make out various buildings dotted here and
there amongst the waves. They were silver and white, obviously made
of metal as their surfaces glistened so beautifully in the sun.
They were all interconnected, though some were dotted out on the
periphery with nothing but the waves lapping around
them.

‘
Not a bad view, is it?’ Lucas
stated from her side.

Jane didn’t answer and she
didn't look at him, but not because she was ignoring him; the view
before her completely held and captivated her. In all her
fantasies, she’d never imagined something quite so
beautiful.

The ship now slowed and
leveled out, traveling flat over the water. Just before it could
dock with one of the massive buildings that was now shooting into
view, it started to plunge down towards the waves again, and Jane
found her hands snaking out and latching onto the armrests of her
chair.

‘
It's okay, it docks underwater,’
Lucas said immediately, that same genuine, careful edge to his
voice.

In another instant the
ship plunged underneath the ocean waves, sinking with an incredible
speed, the water lapping over the view screen.

Suddenly there was
nothing but blue ocean all around them, but before Jane could get
her bearings, the ship started to shoot forward again, and very
soon it neared one of the massive buildings. Docking in space was
one thing, and was incredible to behold. But docking
underwater
 . . . well Jane had never thought such
things occurred in the Galaxy, but of course they did: there were
so many planets out there all with such different environmental
conditions. She was simply finding out just how naive she truly
was.

The massive building
before them, that Jane could see stretching out in all directions,
had a large tunnel that the ship now shot through. Rather than
travel through it and for a door to close behind them, cutting off
the ocean beyond, they shot through a kind of security field
instead: a blue flickering wall of energy that Jane did not notice
until they actually passed through it.

She jumped in
fright.

‘
It's all right; the ship’s
shields prevent us from getting fried by the security field,’ Lucas
pointed out clearly.

Now they were in a tunnel,
it was completely dry. It was also dark, save for two single lines
of illumination that were either side of the ship.

‘
Not long now,’ Lucas mumbled as
he entered something into the panel before him.

He was right, because in
another instant the ship came hurtling towards what Jane realized
was a solid black wall. Once again, before she could scream, the
ship suddenly changed angle, and started to shoot up through a
tunnel that opened out above them. Then finally the tunnel
disappeared and they found themselves in a massive hangar-bay, ship
after ship docked with magnetic clamps in neat rows to their
sides.

In barely half a minute
their own ship docked, a magnetic clamp latching onto the bottom of
it and dragging it towards the metal gangway to their
left.

Lucas kept entering things into
the panel for a little, and then turned to her, a smile shifting
across his face. ‘Welcome to Planet Gold,’ he spread his hand
towards the view screen.

Planet Gold? Strange name,
surely Planet Ocean or Planet Blue would be better. Jane did not
point that out for fear of sounding absolutely stupid. As she’d
already overreacted several times when the ship had plunged through
the ocean, gone through the security field, and had shot up the
tunnel, she didn't want to seem like any more of a Galactic
newbie.

‘
All right, I have done a
preliminary scan of news feeds and any communiqués I have been able
to access, and it doesn't look as if there will be an entire army
waiting out there for us,’ Lucas kept on staring at the panel in
front of him. ‘But that being said, maybe it is best for you to
stay in the ship—’

‘
No,’ Jane snapped, and there was
an edge to her voice, one that she had never found herself using
before. In fact, it almost seemed as if her voice didn't belong to
her at all.

Lucas blinked in surprise, his
eyebrows actually shooting up. ‘It's just—’ he tried.

‘
I am going with you,’ Jane used
the same voice, and stood up quickly.

Lucas appeared to wait a
moment, and then stood up beside her. ‘Okay.’

Jane shivered as she
caught up to what she’d just said: she was going to follow Lucas
Stone as he tried to meet a shadowy contact given to him by the
Director of the Central Shipyards, in the hope that the contact
would be able to tell him exactly what Jane was and why half the
Galaxy apparently wanted her dead. Really, she would much prefer to
stay in the ship and let him do all of the footwork, the running,
the fighting, and the adventure. Yet she
couldn't . . . she couldn't turn around and sit back
down in that chair; it felt as if that option simply wasn’t
available to her body . . . .
It
was exerting control. While it
wasn't taking full control yet, she knew that if she fought it, it
would. So she took a shaky step close to Lucas, as if that would
help, and set her gaze in front of her, resigning herself to the
fact that yes, she was about to continue the adventure. There would
be no sitting out this part of it apparently.

Lucas Stone

The situation was getting
ever more complex. Worse yet: Jane was going to follow him. He
didn't know what was waiting for them on Planet Gold. They were
meant to be going to see a Paran, but that didn’t mean that a Paran
would actually be waiting there for them. Specimen 14 was turning
out to be very resourceful and very, very calculating –
anticipating their every move. Plus, Lucas still didn't know how
Adam Thomson fitted into all of this. The kid had obviously been
trained, equipped, and had sat there on the Central Shipyards well
before Jane had ever arrived. Meaning that his attack had likely
been opportune rather than planned.

Was he some kind of spy?
Or was he something else? Did Specimen 14 have abilities that Lucas
was not yet aware of? Something psychic? Had the creature somehow
been able to take command of Adam Thompson's body just like Jane’s
implant had the ability to take control of her own? Though Lucas
could not rule it out, he doubted it. Adam Thomson had been
equipped with an electro blade, and not only were they banned for
use by citizens, but someone usually required a great deal of
training in using them to be effective with them, let alone turn
them on.

No, whoever Adam Thompson
was, he had been on Central Shipyards waiting long before Jane had
arrived. Which meant that the situation was, in fact, even more
complicated than Lucas had once believed.

He’d been to Planet Gold
several times – it was one of the central worlds of the Galactic
Union. There was often a lot going on here, everything from
politics to corruption to just general and quite fun watersports.
Yet this wasn't going to be a holiday.

He keyed in the code that
opened the door at the end of the ship, and he braced himself. He
braced himself for the possible army that was waiting
outside.

The door opened. There was
no army.

Well, at least not an
armed one.

As soon as the doors
opened, the filming began. Hovering holographic cameras lined up in
front of him, humans and aliens from different news crews standing
just behind the row of cameras, all yammering to him as one, their
voices creating an unpleasant din, a cacophony he wanted to get
away from by turning his armor onto full and disabling all audio
feeds.

Jane was standing right
behind him now, one of her arms actually pressed up against
his.

‘
Lucas Stone,’ the closest
reporter shouted, ‘do you have any comments?’

The question was repeated
by all of the other reporters.

Lucas winced at the noise
of their shouts and the glare of the holographic projectors as they
scanned him over and over again.

‘
Comment, do you have a comment?’
one of the other reporters shouted.

‘
About the incredible events on
Earth? About the fact Galactic Force transmissions have been
intercepted without correct security codes? Has it been overrun?’
one far more excited reporter asked as he jumped up and down on the
spot, his tail twisting around and around like a rotor.

‘
What?’ was all Lucas could
ask.

‘
All communications with Earth
went dark after the Galactic Senate began an investigation into why
recent Galactic Force communiques appear to be faked,’ the excited
reporter said, his tail now twisting around so fast that Lucas
wouldn't have been surprised if the little guy took off in
flight.