Prisoner on Kasteesh Read online

  When the capsule’s systems had sensed its rapid descent, its tiny thrusters had fired bravely. But they were designed only to gently guide a free-floating space vehicle – not defy the pull of gravity. A crash-landing had been inevitable.

  As his brain began to function properly again, the Chairman scanned the capsule’s interior, and tried to decide on his next step. The exit hatch was quite clearly crushed beyond a hope of opening. So he was trapped inside.

  Then he must call for help.

  There was a small comlink handset clipped to the armrest of his seat. He snatched it and raised it to his mouth.

  ‘Mayday, Mayday, this is an emergency.’

  The Chairman depressed the comlink’s main switch as he spoke, hoping this was the right thing to do. He wasn’t used to having to work things for himself.

  ‘Can anyone hear me? I repeat, this is an emergency.’

  He released the switch and waited. Nothing happened.

  Sweat beading on his pale forehead, the Chairman tried again.

  ‘Mayday, Mayday. I am in need of urgent assistance. Please respond.’

  This time, after a few seconds’ delay, a faint voice came crackling from the handset’s transducer.

  ‘Distress call received loud and clear. This is the trade ship Fatfox. I hear you, friend. We have a location fix. Please identify yourself.’

  The Chairman blew out his cheeks in relief, then squeezed the comlink again.

  ‘Come and get me immediately.’

  There was another short pause. Then the Fatfox’s answer came back.

  ‘I repeat, please identify. Who am I speaking to?’

  The Chairman was losing his patience. He squeezed the switch irritably.

  ‘Don’t you recognize my voice, you imbecile? This is the Chairman speaking, leader of the Perfect World.’

  The pause this time was significantly longer. Then . . .

  ‘Very funny, wise guy,’ crackled the stranger’s voice. ‘And I’m Queen Tallulah of Neptune. Did you know that misuse of the Mayday distress call is a galactic offence? I suggest you try some other prank next time.’

  The comlink went dead. Despite several attempts to raise the Fatfox again, the Chairman could get no response.

  In a surge of temper, he flung the handset against the wall. It rattled around the tiny spherical escape pod, before coming to rest somewhere underneath his seat.

  This would never have happened if it wasn’t for those infuriating Armouron! thought the Chairman bitterly. His hatred for his old adversaries was growing with his rising sense of panic. Wait till I get out of this mess. I’ll make those armoured fools wish their precious order had never been formed!

  Chapter 19

  Departures

  SNOW LOOKED FROM Ja’Prith to the waiting ship and back again. The heaviness she felt in her heart showed in her face.

  Your fellow knights await you, my young friend. You must go.

  Her father’s mind-mate stood before her in the odd M-shaped posture of his kind. His narrow eyes held a sadness too. But the voice Snow heard in her mind was calm and resolute.

  Even the best armour in the universe cannot stop some things hurting. Parting brings pain, but it will pass.

  Salt had put the freighter down on the planet’s rocky surface as soon as he had realized that the creature pursuing them was carrying Snow. Ja’Prith had swooped down to settle beside the ship. All four knights had hurriedly disembarked to greet Snow – and her remarkable companion. It wasn’t every day you got to meet a real-life alien, after all. Salt too had come to pay his respects to the giant beast.

  Tea-Leaf, Rake and the others had wanted to hear all about Snow’s narrow escape from the besieged research station. Snow had pointed out that, for a while at least, they had been in far greater peril than her.

  ‘Ja’Prith’s comrades were destroying every Corporation escape craft that tried to make a run for it back there. If he hadn’t sent a mind-message to tell them your ship carried friends, not foes, they’d have knocked you out of the sky too.’

  Talk of ‘mind-messages’ had provoked more questions. But Snow was reluctant to discuss her new-found abilities. She had not yet had time to come to terms with them herself.

  Now the others were back on board the vessel, preparing it for the start of its journey back to Earth.

  But Snow was finding it difficult to leave. She had only known her father’s mind-mate for a short space of time, but the bond between them was already remarkably strong. Telepathic connections ran deep, she was beginning to realize. And there was still so much she wanted to ask about her father.

  A sudden desperate thought flashed into Snow’s mind – triggering an instant response from Ja’Prith.

  No. You should not stay.

  The giant creature turned his elongated head to look at the columns of fire and smoke rising from the research centre in the distance.

  Look! urged Ja’Prith’s mind-voice. The Corporation is finished here. Kasteesh is free once more. I and my brothers and sisters will labour to return our great city to its former glory. The Chairman will not chain us again!

  The creature turned his gaze back to Snow.

  To see out my days with you in your father’s place, on my back, would thrill my heart. But your home world has great need of your unique powers. It is up to you and your order to fight the Corporation’s evil at its heart – on Earth.

  Snow hung her head. The voice in her mind became more tender.

  For many cycles I have lived in the hope that Hoshiko was only beyond the range of my thoughts, not beyond the grave. But I am at peace now. Your father may no longer survive in body, but his spirit lives in you, brave Alida.

  You have rescued me from a prison cell. And you have freed me from something far worse – my grief. For both, I am for ever in your debt.

  Ja’Prith bowed his alien head low to the ground, in a gesture of respect. When he lifted it again, his eyes were sparkling.

  I look forward to the next time we fly together, daughter of Hoshiko.

  Sensing that this was his parting thought, Snow forced a smile and formed her own farewell mind-message.

  As do I. Take care, Ja’Prith.

  She watched as the noble creature extended his huge wings and launched himself powerfully into the air.

  Before long, he was a dark speck against the sky, then gone altogether.

  Snow turned and made her way slowly up the freighter’s boarding ramp.

  Salt’s desire to make a swift departure was understandable. Their four-day time limit – the period over which they were supposedly visiting the out-of-town smelting plant – was fast running out. Time was of the essence.

  Although the freight ship had a stardrive and would serve to get them home, it would take time to manoeuvre the sluggish vessel out of Kasteesh’s orbit before they could safely make the spatial jump.

  Then there was more time to allow for the tricky last stage of their journey, once back on Earth – their return to the Academy itself. Salt’s plan was to ditch the freighter half a day’s hike from the smelting complex, then make their way to the complex on foot. He was confident his friend Rajsim could arrange for them to return to Nu-Topia by shuttle – as though having completed their ‘field trip’ – without raising anyone’s suspicions.

  It was only after Salt had piloted the ship out of Kasteesh’s atmosphere that Snow had an opportunity to speak to him privately. As the vessel thrummed its way steadily towards the point where they could safely engage its stardrive, she approached her old mentor, a little nervously. The others were busy goggling at the amazing views of the planet below – this was only their second experience of space travel and they had spent the whole of their first journey shut in a dark cargo pod.

  ‘Master.’ Snow tried her best not to sound accusing. ‘Why did you never tell me the truth about my parents?’

  Salt hit a flashing control button, then turned slowly in his pilot’s chair to give Snow his full atte
ntion. The gruff old armourer’s eyes shone with uncharacteristic tenderness.

  ‘I’m sorry for being less than honest with you, believe me,’ he rumbled. ‘I gave your father my word. I hope you can forgive me.’

  Snow nodded silently.

  ‘If there is anything you wish to know about your parents, I will be do my best to answer any questions,’ continued Salt. ‘I have honoured my promise. Now is no longer the time for half-truths.’

  Snow looked down for a moment, then lifted her gaze to meet his. ‘Then . . . what really happened to them?’

  Salt drew a long, slow breath. ‘You were less than four months old when your father brought you to me,’ he began. ‘At the Academy, under cover of night. We had never met before, but Hoshiko had sought me out as a fellow Armouron – the only person he believed he could trust.

  ‘He told me of his life with the Mshanga; of his capture by the Corporation; and of the torment he suffered at their hands – but I imagine your friend Ja’Prith has already recounted that part of your father’s tale?’

  Snow nodded. ‘But Ja’Prith never knew what happened to him after he was taken to Earth,’ she said quietly.

  ‘He escaped,’ said Salt. ‘He wanted dearly to return to Kasteesh to free Ja’Prith – he suffered greatly from their separation. But he was terrified of falling into the Corporation’s hands again. Not because he feared for his own life, you understand. He was no coward. But he realized that the advanced mental powers he was developing were something the Chairman would do anything to duplicate – so that he could use them for his own corrupt ends.

  ‘So your father went into hiding. The White Knights sought him relentlessly. For some time, he managed to evade them. He even met and fell in love with your mother. You were born two years after his escape. But only months later, his luck ran out. The Corporation located your family home somehow. A team of White Knights staged a night raid. Your father only just managed to get you away safely.’

  ‘My mother?’ pressed Snow.

  ‘She was killed in the attack on your home,’ Salt said gently. ‘Your father was a broken man when he left you in my care. That night in the Old School, he made me swear two things: to do everything in my power to keep you safe; and that when you were old enough to ask after him, I should tell you he was dead. He feared that otherwise you would attempt to seek him out and put yourself in danger. And he was quite certain that his death was imminent. He left his medallion with me – the one which you now bear in your breastplate. An Armouron Knight only surrenders their medallion on their deathbed.’

  Salt reached out to take one of Snow’s neat hands in his own massive palm.

  ‘I spent only a few hours in your father’s company. But it was enough to recognize him as a brave, noble man. He would be as proud of what you achieved back there on Kasteesh as I am.’ He smiled warmly. ‘You have the same fearless spirit I saw in your father that night.’

  His spirit lives in you.

  Snow suppressed a sudden swell of emotions as she recalled Ja’Prith's farewell.

  ‘Thank you, master,’ she said simply. ‘I just needed to know.’

  She turned away and crossed slowly to one of the large viewports in the ship’s side. She stared blankly out at the shrinking sphere of Kasteesh.

  She knew that she, like Ja’Prith, must seek to accept her father’s death. But her adventure on Kasteesh had brought buried feelings of loss to the surface again. All too briefly, it had seemed that her heart’s desire – that her parents would someday miraculously return to her life – had been about to come true.

  She must recognize that desire for the fantasy it was and let it go. She must find a way to be at peace with her father’s death, as his beloved mind-mate had done.

  But it was hard.

  Epilogue

  Parqul-Tuz moved a claw over his air-chair’s steering sensor, causing it to rotate ninety degrees.

  ‘You see those?’

  The Auroxilan extended one of his several stubby arms to point at a row of a dozen wagons standing near the brink of the vast salt quarry of which he was owner and boss.

  The white-haired stranger nodded silently.

  ‘They’re full of salt-rock,’ continued Tuz. ‘The whole lot needs splitting down for processing.’

  He looked back at the human.

  ‘The day-shift splitters signed off an hour ago. I’m short of somebody to work nights. The job’s yours if you start immediately. All the tools you’ll need are in the wagon with the tarpaulin over it.’

  He fixed the man with a hard three-eyed stare.

  ‘I’ll pay fifty credits for every wagon-load you split. If you’re as strong as you say, you should get through a couple a night. Interested?’

  The human eyed the row of wagons for a few moments before replying.

  ‘If you double the rate, I will do them all tonight.’

  Tuz snorted incredulously. His flabby blue body began to shake with laughter.

  ‘All of them! Don’t be a fool! There isn’t a being in the galaxy who could split twelve wagons of salt-rock in a single eight-hour shift!’

  But the human’s earnest expression didn’t falter. He was serious.

  Tuz gave another snort. He sensed a chance to profit from the stranger’s foolishness.

  ‘Fine – double-pay if you manage all of them. But half-pay if you don’t. What do you say to that?’

  The man paused briefly before nodding again.

  ‘You’ve got yourself a deal!’ roared Tuz. ‘And good luck with achieving the impossible!’

  He turned his air-chair and glided away, still chortling to himself about the human’s ludicrous proposition.

  Once alone, the man strode purposefully towards the first wagon.

  ‘Nothing is impossible,’ he murmured to himself, ‘if you put your mind to it . . .’

  Standing before the wagon, he closed his eyes. His brow furrowed and a look of intense concentration filled his face.

  Four massive rocks on top of the first piled wagon began to rise slowly into the air. They floated up, then across, to hover impossibly over a part-filled crate of split rock. There was a series of loud cra-ack sounds and neat fractures suddenly appeared in each of the levitating rocks. Their fragments tumbled down into the crate.

  The man immediately focused his concentration on the next layer of rocks. He had a hard night’s work ahead of him. But it was worth it. On the terms he had agreed, the pay would be enough to begin his journey back to Earth.

  And he had to get back – whatever it took and whatever the risk. There was someone he was desperate to see.

  Someone he would happily cross a galaxy for . . .

  The Armouron

  Don’t miss any of the titles in this awesome series:

  The Armoured Ghost

  Lying Eyes

  The Caged Griffin

  Prisoner on Kasteesh

  ARMOURON: PRISONER ON KASTEESH

  AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 409 09688 7

  Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,

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  This ebook edition published 2014

  Copyright © RDF Media Ltd/Armouron Ltd, 2013

  First Published in Great Britain

  Bantam Children 9780553821970 2013

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