A Plain Jane Book One

  Chapter 20

  Lucas Stone

  He didn’t know how long he knelt there, body hunched over, armor forcing him to remain completely still. He tried everything, everything to get it to move. He ran every single command he could think of, attempting to use every emergency protocol that he’d ever been taught to turn the armor off. None of that worked. He couldn’t regain even a minuscule amount of control.

  The more he remained immobile, the further Jane got away from him. No, ran away from him.

  Who knew where she was by now? Still in the company of the assassin robot no doubt. And who knew what it would do to her?

  Lucas’ arms were tired, his shoulders aching from fatigue. His body was in such an awkward position, but he couldn’t move it to alleviate any of the strain. He couldn’t even use his com-line to make a call, to try to find some help. No, all he could do was remain exactly as he was, almost soldered to the spot.

  Inside his armor at least he could move his face and his mouth. He repeated her name over and over again, swore at himself, swore at his armor. None of it helped of course; he could rail and shout all he wanted, but the armor was far more powerful than Lucas was.

  He wasn’t aware of how much time had passed, but as it wound on, his body growing more fatigued as he resigned himself to the fact Jane was now too far away for him to catch up, he considered doing something he’d never had recourse to do in the past. He considered giving up. After all, there was nothing he could do. He’d tried everything, and everything had failed. So now there was only one more option: stop trying.

  Lucas fought with the demon of surrender for countless more minutes, until finally he just closed his eyes, clenched his teeth together, and tried one last time to get his armor to move.

  There was a sound behind him.

  Lucas moved. No, Lucas snapped up. All agility and control back, he punched to his feet so quickly that he jumped into the air almost half a meter.

  The sound from behind, the footsteps, finally neared, and a person suddenly dashed in front of him. “Are you all right, security officer?” the person asked.

  Lucas stumbled backward, breathing heavily, moving his arms up and down as he clutched his hands into fists. Then he turned his palms toward his face and stared at them, or stared at the armor.

  “Security Officer,” the person repeated, “can I assist you in any way?”

  Lucas stared at his hands for a few more precious seconds, wondering if they would suddenly stop working again, and then finally looked up.

  There was an Endurian before him. An elegant, tall, red-skinned race that resembled humans, but had two stunted horns coming from their head and a pair of relatively inoperative wings tucked neatly at their back. This Endurian was dressed in a tunic that suggested he worked for the Galactic Senate.

  “Are you okay, security officer?” he asked again.

  Lucas managed a nod. “We have… there’s a situation. There is an assassin robot on this planet. We need to contact planet-wide security now and alert them. We need to redirect all scanners to root out its biosignature,” Lucas was aware he was panting, that he was trying to cram his words all out at once, but he didn’t stop himself. He was just happy that he had some kind of control over his armor again. He even set his helmet to transparent, satisfied that it obeyed his every command.

  The Endurian suddenly blinked quickly as no doubt he recognized that the security officer before him was none other than Lucas Stone.

  “You are here,” the man said, voice now a whisper, “but where is your friend?”

  “Sorry?” Lucas asked quickly, even shaking his head. “The security—”

  “I understand, Mr. Stone, and I will make the calls immediately. However….” His eyes darted back and forth, looking all the way over the path as if he were checking for something. “I was expecting there to be someone else with you. Director Karta said—”

  “You’re the contact,” Lucas said through a hasty breath. “An assassin robot has got her.”

  “The assassin robot didn’t kill her on the spot?” The Endurian asked so quickly Lucas had to wait for his brain to catch up.

  “No.” Lucas kept on trying to catch his breath. “She… I don’t think it is going to kill her yet. But we need to get to her as soon as we can.”

  The Endurian paled and just for a moment a flicker of anger seemed to dance between his eyes, but as soon as it occurred it stopped. Then he simply shook his head. “What horrible news. We must make the relevant security calls at once. Quickly, come inside.”

  The Endurian gestured toward the massive building before them.

  Lucas followed.

  …

  Jane

  She woke up.

  She’d been asleep.

  Or something like that.

  It was the first time Jane could remember that her consciousness had ever been interrupted for so long; the incident at Central Shipyards when she’d been stunned hadn’t drawn on as long as this. It was such a strange, strange feeling to adjust to. She had no experience with it; she didn’t sleep, and she’d never swum to the depths of the ocean only to black out due to lack of oxygen.

  It was the weirdest of sensations. It felt like a part of her was missing, that her memory had been edited, that her awareness had been snapped off for a couple of hours.

  Yet now she was awake. More importantly, she wasn’t alone.

  She was in some kind of chamber, and it appeared to be made of rock, like a cave. The stone was crafted and molded here and there, a doorway to her left, a semblance of a ceiling above her.

  There was also something, or someone, right in front of her.

  She narrowed her eyes, her vision blurry.

  “Thank the gods of Hoya, you are awake.” Whatever creature was in front of her clutched a hand to its chest.

  The more Jane stared at it, the more her vision started to correct itself, and she finally realized it was a Hoya. The same elegant, blue, tailed race to which Mandy belonged.

  Yet unlike Mandy, this Hoya was neither ignoring Jane for being boring, nor was it draping itself over her shoulders as it waited for something exciting to happen to her. Oh no, it was just standing right in front of her, its wide, beautiful blue eyes open as far as they could be, as it stared down at Jane with clear wonder.

  “Jane,” Element 52 said. “Jane,” it repeated in a strange and unique voice.

  She turned her head to see that it was standing at the other side of the room, in the doorway, looking at her.

  Rather than ask where exactly she was and what exactly had happened, one word and one word alone jumped into her mind. “Lucas?” she asked immediately. Twisting her head this way and that to see where he was.

  “Lucas?” she said a little louder, hoping that he was simply in whatever corridor lay beyond the door.

  No reply.

  “Lucas didn’t come,” Element 52 replied, “he chose… not to,” it said, voice sounding neutral.

  Suddenly Jane remembered. She remembered Lucas trying to duck behind her, trying to shoot Element 52. She also remembered that Lucas had then stumbled, falling to the ground. Then Jane, her body controlled by it, had simply turned around and jumped into the water.

  Then she remembered the static.

  Jane clutched a hand to her head, closed her eyes, and tried to recall, even though the memory was disturbing, just how incredible that sensation had felt.

  “The Assister has currently been disabled; it has used too much energy in fending off the external attack on its processor, in hacking Element 52, and in bringing you here, and must now regenerate,” the Hoyan said quickly, its eyes still perfectly wide as it stared down at her. “You will be safe here, Pala,” it added with a nod.

  Jane opened her eyes. “Pala?” she asked. “My name is Jane.”

  “Nevertheless, you are Pala,” the Hoyan repeated with a low bow.

  Over the years, Jane had learned enough about Mandy to realize that her race loved any
kind of game, especially word games. So while Jane didn’t know what Pala meant, she doubted it was important. Perhaps it was Hoyan for monkey, jacket, cheese, or metallic gangway. It wouldn’t matter. What did matter was that Lucas wasn’t here? What did matter was that the last time she’d seen him, he’d stumbled to the ground?

  “Is Lucas okay?” she asked out loud, not knowing whether anyone would know the answer, but asking desperately nonetheless.

  “The biosynthetic membrane of his armor was momentarily overcome by an external hack,” Element 52 replied, “the same hack that forced you to jump in the ocean. Though the Assister fended it off eventually, his armor is less advanced.”

  “What?” Jane put a hand up to her head, trying to push past the pain and confusion, and then finally took a steadying breath.

  “Come now, Pala, you have to get up,” the Hoya helped her forward, using its tail to gently press into her back as it pushed her to stand.

  “But what about Lucas? I need to go and find Lucas,” she repeated almost in a daze.

  “Too late,” Element 52 shook his head, “has been contacted by Krill.”

  Jane blinked back through a steady headache that was now growing in her head but managed to force her eyes open and stared at Element 52. “What do you mean? Krill? Isn’t that some kind of fish or algae? Don’t whales eat that?” she was aware that her question was quite stupid, but she didn’t exactly have the brain cells to think of something smarter.

  “Krill is secret Galactic-wide organization that’s being masterminded by Darq—”

  Jane waited for the pain. She waited for the horrible, fiendish stabbing pain that she knew should accompany that word. Darq was the name of the species that had attacked her in Research Lab Two, the name of the species that Specimen 14 belonged to. She knew she wasn’t allowed to think about that. She knew that the implant would act in any way possible to stop her from even entertaining the thought of thinking about that.

  …. Soon she realized she’d thought about the implant.

  No pain.

  She opened her eyes warily.

  “You must give the Assister time to rest,” the Hoyan said as he kept on trying to push her up, onto her feet, and get her moving. “But we have no time. We must get you off this planet. There are Krill here, we must move, they’ll try to contact the Darq, or they’ll try to kill you themselves. We must move.” The Hoyan now pushed her through the door.

  Element 52 snapped easily to the side and then began to walk behind her. Jane got the distinct impression that it now shadowed her footsteps like a bodyguard or a faithful dog.

  “But Lucas,” she tried again, “we can’t leave without him.”

  “He made his decision,” the Hoyan said, a note of detachment in his voice. “Unfortunate. We could have used him. But now that’s in the past, and we must act, and you must move. We must get you off this planet as soon as possible. Before they send anything after you.”

  “What are you talking about? Why? And what do you mean Lucas made up his mind?” Jane asked, trying to slow down, but not being able to as the Hoyan kept on pushing her in the back.

  “There will be time to discuss this later. But now we must act.” The Hoyan didn’t once stop pushing forward.

  Jane finally acted herself. She dug her feet into the ground, and she resisted every single push. “No. I’m not going another step until you tell me what is going on.”

  “Jane, it is dangerous here. They have turned on the planetary-wide sensors, and it will not be long until they can scan down to this depth,” Element 52 replied. “So we must move. I can inform you as we walk.” He now talked in fully formed and intelligent sentences, and it was obvious that his sophisticated system was adapting to the task quickly; whereas only hours before he’d been talking in baby sentences and just repeating her name, he’d probably be reciting sonnets off balconies by tomorrow.

  Element 52 paused, looking right at Jane, clearly waiting for her to hold up her part of the bargain. When Jane took several steps forward, keeping her eyes locked on the assassin robot as she did, it gave a brief nod.

  “Lucas Stone attempted to act against you—” Element 52 began.

  “No, he didn’t,” she snapped passionately.

  “He attempted to shoot me, despite your orders,” Element 52 clarified.

  “Lucas doesn’t take orders from me,” she pointed out quickly, still walking forward, but still staring at Element 52, making sure her expression was stern, irritated, and yet resolute. “He was doing whatever he thought was best—”

  “I’m now integral to your safety; in hacking and rewriting my systems and subroutines, the Assister has enabled me to track your biosensors; I will be able to locate and assist you no matter the distance between us,” Element 52 responded easily. “In threatening me, Lucas threatened you. In threatening you, he can no longer be trusted—”

  “I trust him.” She ground to a halt again.

  “We have to keep on moving,” the Hoyan hissed, though the hiss wasn’t angry, it was just nervous and quick.

  Begrudgingly she kept on moving.

  “I trust Lucas,” she repeated.

  “Perhaps, but we cannot trust him completely,” the Hoyan interjected. “He doesn’t know what is going on here, he’s Galactic Force trained, he’s not Paran; he has no business interfering with this. He was useful in getting you off Earth, but—”

  “I trust Lucas,” she said, voice now entirely terse. “And he wasn’t just instrumental in getting me off Earth; if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be alive. Now you tell me, both of you, what is going on.” She stopped, crossed her arms, took a step away from the both of them, and stared their way warily.

  “Pala, please,” the Hoyan begged, “we don’t have time.”

  Jane didn’t uncross her arms.

  “Jane is determined,” Element 52 pointed out quite insightfully.

  “You are right I’m determined, I want to go and find Lucas, and I want to find him now. I don’t care if we don’t have time to get off this planet; I’m not leaving without him.”

  The Hoyan shot a sideways look at Element 52. “The Assister can no longer assist, it must re-energize.”

  “Excuse me?” Jane narrowed her eyes. She was going to get what she wanted: she wasn’t going to leave until she got Lucas. That was a fact.

  “Jane, I repeat to you that we must leave now. Please understand that with so many Krill informants, it will not be long until the Darq finds this planet, and finds you. It will not be possible to defeat it; in fact, it will be unlikely that you will be able to run from it again. I was sent to Earth by the Krill in the first place, to break the Darq out of containment. I have also been programmed by Krill agents to sense out Paran technology and to obtain or eliminate it. I sensed you on those grounds, I followed through with the impulse to eliminate you. Yet your Assister fought back, enabling Lucas Stone to defeat me before it could complete its hack on me. However, the Krill still had full access to my systems: they learned of your whereabouts and your existence on that night, and the Darq learned from them not long after. I was sent to this planet to finish what I started and attempt to eliminate you, but the Assister intervened in full this time. It has completely destroyed the external operating procedure of the Krill; they can no longer control me. It has also reprogrammed my base matrix, introducing moral subroutines. I’m no longer a threat to you. However, the Krill know that you are here, and had full access to my operations and sensor logs up until the Assister completed its hack; they’ll use this information to identify your whereabouts and track you down. And they’ll kill you. We must get off the planet before they are capable of enacting this plan.” Element 52 kept on flashing its tail around as it spoke, as if it were gesticulating. Yet one thing was clear, Element 52 might technically be an assassin robot, but he probably wasn’t your regular, run-of-the-mill, universal killer anymore. Her Assister had done something to him, given him morals, or something like it – changed him from the
inside out. That or assassins were getting chatty these days.

  “I’m not going to—” Jane began. Despite the fact everything Element 52 had just told her was startling, she still had to follow through with her first and foremost priority: Lucas. She couldn’t leave without him.

  “I’m sorry, Pala, but you leave me with no choice.” The Hoyan said.

  In another moment Jane felt something press up against her neck, then she blacked out. For only the third time in her entire life, she lost consciousness.

  …

  Lucas Stone

  He was sitting on a chair in the Endurian’s office, even though the last thing he wanted to do was sit down. What he wanted to do was run outside, jump into the water, and swim down until he could find her. Hell, he would swim all over the damn water planet until he could finally reach her.

  Yet he was still sitting there.

  Waiting, waiting for the Endurian to make his calls, to ensure the correct security protocols were now in place. While it was taking longer than Lucas would have liked, and longer than Lucas would have suspected, he didn’t interrupt.

  Eventually, the Endurian looked up, blinking its perfectly black eyes at him. “All the measures are now in place,” he said simply.

  Lucas snapped up to his feet. “I will go and—”

  The Endurian gestured for him to sit down. “Please, Mr. Stone, take a seat.”

  Lucas resisted the urge to point out that it wasn’t Mr., and that Lucas had a rank and was hardly a civilian, but he just pressed his lips together and waited.

  “I assure you, all correct security procedures are now in place, and your friend will be found. And she’ll be found quickly. Trust me, there is no point in rushing out to join the hunt; it will be over in moments,” the Endurian blinked heavily.

  Lucas narrowed his eyes at the move; as far as he knew, Endurians didn’t blink. “Look, I’m not just going to sit—” he began.

  “Of course not, Mr. Stone, I expect you have many, many questions. I will answer them. Shall we start with who Jane is?”

  Lucas stilled in his chair. Though moments before he’d been bouncing his legs up and down, he now stopped, even his breath stilled in his chest.

  “She’s Paran, I can confirm that,” the Endurian answered, blinking again.

  “I thought you were meant to be Paran too? The Director said—”

  The Endurian put up a hand. “I will tell you a secret, Mr. Stone, a secret about us Parans. Ever since the fall of our great empire, we have deliberately weeded out all of our racial characteristics.”

  Lucas grated his teeth together quietly. It was something to do with the term “weeded.”

  “I see you are confused, let me explain. We have always been a… secretive race, Mr. Stone, and when our home planets were overrun, those of us who survived found that we had to integrate with the rest of the Galaxy to live on. And it is forbidden in our culture to reveal our features to an outsider. So in becoming refugees, Mr. Stone, in becoming drifters, we naturally had to adapt our appearances. Each of us, as we went our separate ways, adapted to whatever race we found ourselves living with.”

  “That’s why she looks like a human,” Lucas confirmed something he’d suspected already.

  The Endurian, or Paran, or whatever it was, nodded his head low. “Your friend Jane would have grown up on Earth, and naturally, she would have been adapted to resemble your race.”

  Though Lucas was keen on hearing the rest of the story, because he seriously needed to know what the hell was going on here, he couldn’t deny that a part of him felt sickened by one simple phrase: she’d been adapted to. She hadn’t adapted herself, and she hadn’t chosen to change. No, she’d been adapted to. Yet Lucas didn’t say anything, he simply waited.

  “I’m Endurian, your friend is Human,” the Endurian repeated.

  “But who is she? What is that thing, the Darq, and why is it after her? Is it just because she’s Paran and she happened to be close by when it woke up?”

  The Endurian didn’t answer for a moment, and in fact, looked at him, its black eyes blinking again. Lucas now realized that he’d been correct, and that Endurians didn’t blink, but the man sitting in front of him wasn’t an Endurian.

  He was Paran, or at least that was what he was telling Lucas.

  And so was Jane.

  “Why is it after her? How do we stop it? How do we kill it?” Lucas now sat forward in his chair, his movement tense and quick.

  That was when the Endurian flicked his head to the side and looked Lucas’ armor up and down. “Why don’t you tell me? I have learned, no, I sense, that stored within your armor is a living Paran database.” It blinked its eyes feverishly again.

  Lucas leaned back and narrowed his eyes. “You can sense that?”

  The Endurian nodded his head emphatically. “All Parans can sense our own technology, and only Parans can operate it. If you allow me, I may be able to help you access the information you now store. Make sense of it, try to find out how to destroy the Darq.” The Endurian now stood.

  Lucas didn’t, in fact, he receded in his chair a little.

  He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something didn’t feel right, and he had the distinct feeling that the Endurian or Paran in front of him wasn’t all he was cracked up to be.

  Yet Lucas didn’t do anything, he just sat there, locked his teeth together, and watched carefully.

  “If only you allow me to help you, I will be able to decode the information stored in the Paran database.” The Endurian now walked around the desk until he was facing Lucas.

  Lucas finally stood. “How are those security measures going? Have they found Jane yet?” This Endurian obviously didn’t get it; right now Lucas didn’t care about the Paran database, he just wanted Jane back. This talk could wait.

  The Endurian ticked his head to the side, blinked rapidly, and then faced Lucas again. “I’m sure everything is fine, and soon Jane will be found, but while we wait, we must make the most of this opportunity. Believe me, the information that’s now stored in your database could help you, could help us win this war.”

  Though Lucas held his position, he got the distinct urge to take a step back from the Endurian, but instead he simply let his expression crumple. “Look, shouldn’t Jane be our priority now?”

  “There is a war coming, and we must prepare,” the Endurian snapped, as if he were angry that Lucas had even asked the question. Then he gave a breath, and a distinctly faked smile crossed his lips. “Now, Mister Stone, we must act quickly. Allow me access to your database, give me a direct uplink to your armor. I will download the information to my personal computer.”

  “I know this is important, but it isn’t my priority now,” Lucas replied, keeping his eyes on the Endurian the whole time, noting every single expression and every single movement. “Right now I need to know that Jane is safe. So right now I’m going to go find her.” Lucas turned on his foot and headed for the door. Except, when he reached it, he bounced right off a security field, his own armor crackling with energy as it absorbed the electricity and redirected it through his feet and into the floor until it was grounded. “What the hell?” he snapped quickly.

  “These are standard security procedures during an event such as this,” the Endurian clarified. “Do not be alarmed, Mr. Stone.”

  “Well, you can turn these shields off. I’m going to find Jane,” Lucas stood right next to the security field and waited for it to shut down.

  “Mr. Stone, please, sit back down,” the Endurian tried again.

  Lucas finally snapped; he’d had enough of this. He had to find Jane, and that was honestly the only thing he had to do. He didn’t need to give the Endurian access to the Paran database, or whatever it really wanted. That could wait, the questions could wait, the war – if it was even going to happen – could wait. Right now Jane was running around Planet Gold with an assassin robot, and Lucas just couldn’t let that happen. He was going to find her, and well, do what
Lucas Stone did best: he was going to save her, probably whether she liked it or not.

  “Mr. Stone, I would have thought that your loyalties should lie with your people, to the people of the Galactic Union. I assure you that all security measures are in place, and Jane will be found soon, without your help. If you have any care for this Galaxy, for your Galactic Force, you will turn around, sit back down, and give me access to your Paran database. It is imperative that we have access to that information as soon as we can,” the Endurian’s voice was now curt and harsh, almost like a whip.

  Lucas turned around. “Shut down the field,” he pointed a gloved finger right at the Endurian, “and that’s an order. I’m on official Galactic Force business.”

  “The Galactic Force? You have every duty to the Galactic Force, Mr. Stone, you must give me access,” he tried again, now blinking so furiously that Lucas could hardly make out the blacks of his eyes.

  Lucas ignored the man, turned around, pulled out his gun, and shot several times into the security field. A field like that would only take a single round of blasts before it would fail. Yet it didn’t. So Lucas kept on slamming round after round into it until he’d shot a steady pulse of almost one hundred blasts. The field still didn’t falter once. “What the hell? What’s going on here?” he spat.

  Lucas didn’t get a chance to find out; in another second he lost control of his armor. He now felt the familiar sensation of his armor locking into place around him, his muscles no longer able to move within it, his mind trying its hardest to relay order after order to his non-responsive living membrane.

  “It is unfortunate I have had to take that step. But you are uncooperative. They assumed you would be uncooperative. They hoped that you would understand, but they were wrong,” the Endurian spoke behind him, but Lucas couldn’t reply; even though he could scream all he wanted from inside the confines of his armor, he couldn’t make the words travel through the toughened and hardened exoskeleton. Yet his helmet was still set to transparent, and he could see the flickering field in front of him, see his arms as they were locked in place, gun still clutched in his hand, but with no capability of using it.

  “If you do not surrender the information, we will take it,” the Endurian pointed out in a voice that told Lucas the alien was smiling through his words.

  Lucas just stood there. The Endurian was doing the seemingly impossible; it was hacking Lucas’ armor.

  “This is more difficult than we would have expected, but given time, we will breakthrough. Mr. Stone, it is unfortunate that you didn’t choose to help us. With your help, this would have been quicker,” the Endurian continued to talk, this time its voice calm and even as if it were admonishing somebody for being late for a party, not telling a man forcibly trapped in his armor that it was disappointing that he hadn’t chosen the bad side in the fight for the Galaxy.

  Inside his armor, Lucas screamed and swore, shouting at the Endurian until his throat went dry.

  “Mr. Stone, I cannot hear you,” the Endurian eventually pointed out. “I can see that your head is moving around underneath your transparent helmet, and I imagine that if I were to move in front of you, I might be able to make out what you are saying by reading your lips. However, I have no care to. I will repeat once more that it is a shame that you couldn’t find it in your heart to help us.”

  Lucas didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to help his armor, how to try to stop the hack. Now he knew it was a hack, and it wasn’t just his armor playing up on him, Lucas panicked. He had precious seconds until the Endurian gained complete control. This wasn’t meant to be able to happen anymore. The Galaxy had spent 100 years perfecting bio-armor so this couldn’t happen. It had learned the lessons of the bad old days, when soldiers had been hacked into, some external force turning them against each other and finally themselves.

  Yet Lucas was still standing there, his armor being hacked, moments away from losing control completely.

  “I must say it is complicated, but we are finally managing to break through the defenses,” the Endurian assured him. “We Krill are a resourceful group.”

  It was happening. Lucas was losing control. All he could think of as he waited, on the edge of something truly horrible, was Jane. Her name kept on popping into his mind and swimming through his thoughts as he just stood there, arms locked in position, body stiff. Where was she? Was she okay? Had the assassin robot killed her by now? What if the security forces of this planet were just as efficient as the Endurian had led him to believe and had already plucked her out of the water? What exactly would the Endurian do to her? Whatever it was, Lucas wouldn’t be able to stop it, as Lucas couldn’t move, all he could do was wait until the alien behind him managed to gain full control of his armor…. He just had to wait.

  Jane, hang in there, he thought one last time before the Endurian finally broke through.