Lost Planet 02 - The Stolen Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

who looked about his age. A girl he’d never seen before.
    Chase stared at her. Say something, you dope.
    She waited a moment, raising her eyebrows. “Can I help you?”
    â€œWho are you?” he asked, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.
    She crossed her arms. “I’m Dr. Bishallany’s daughter. Who are you?”
    â€œI’m … Chase.” Since when did Dr. Bishallany have a daughter? She didn’t look anything like him.
    The girl leaned against the doorframe. “What do you want, Chase?”
    â€œUm. I’m here to see the doctor?” He said it as if he were asking a question, and then gave himself a mental kick in the pants.
    She shook her head. “These are his private quarters. Medical offices are on the third level.”
    â€œYeah, I know.” Chase squinted at her. “I, uh…”
    Behind her, the slope-shouldered doctor hurried toward the entrance. “Chase, hello there. This is my daughter, Analora. She just got here a few days ago.” He placed a hand on his daughter’s arm. “Chase takes his sessions down here, my dear. I’m sorry, Chase, I should have sent you a message. There were some injuries caused by the blackout, and I’m heading up to the medical bay right now to help out. We’ll have to reschedule our appointment.”
    â€œThat’s okay. I was just coming by to check. I figured, after everything that just happened…”
    â€œWalk to the stairs with me?” the doctor asked. He strapped on a wristband communicator, gave his daughter a kiss on the cheek, and stepped into the hallway. Analora gave them a curious look as they left.
    â€œLater, Chase,” she said, letting the door slide shut in front of her.
    â€œShe lives on Jypras half the year with her mother,” the doctor explained as he hurried down the hall. She had to have gotten that blond hair from her mother, because she certainly didn’t have her father’s bushy black eyebrows.
    Chase rushed to keep up. “Yeah, I didn’t realize that you, uh…”
    As he spoke, the lights flickered, and they both glanced up at the ceiling.
    â€œLooks like they’re still ironing things out,” said the doctor with an unconvincing chuckle. “I’ve never been in a ship-wide blackout before. I hope you weren’t frightened.”
    â€œNo,” Chase lied. In all the time he’d spent letting the doctor try to poke him with needles to test the limits of his phasing, Chase had grown comfortable talking to him, so he only hesitated a moment before sharing the next bit of information. “Parker thinks someone caused it intentionally.”
    The doctor rubbed his bald scalp and glanced over. “Why does he think that?”
    Chase gave an irritated sigh. There was so much he wanted to say about Parker. “I don’t know, because he’s paranoid. Because he thinks it’s fishy that both the main and the emergency lights went off, and he doesn’t think it was caused by a software upgrade like Chief Kobes is saying.”
    The bushy eyebrows bunched into a frown. “Has he told someone about this?”
    â€œJust Maurus.” Chase paused. “I’d go tell the captain, but I’m sure he’s too busy fixing everything from the blackout. He’s always pretty busy.”
    Dr. Bishallany stopped in front of the stairwell door. “Don’t be afraid of him, Chase. He’ll make time for you. Go see him.”
    After leaving the doctor, Chase wandered through the hallway toward the elevator, navigating with ease the corridors that had been such a maze when he, Parker, and Lilli had first come aboard the ship. The three of them should have been quartered here on the civilian level, where soldiers with families lived, but the captain had insisted on finding space for them in the middle of the soldiers’ quarters, where he thought they’d be more