All Ryley wanted to do was rest. His ears vibrated with the shouts and angered yells of his fellow board members, his brain throbbing from the hours of stress-fuelled arguments and stubborn pride. He shoved the door to his apartment closed with an exasperated grunt and ambled into the hallway, eyelids drooping and the siren call of sleep tempting him to his bed. His stomach gurgled.
The strip of lighting beneath the wall-mounted cupboards activated as he entered the kitchen. The fridge hummed softly and the digital clock on the screen ticked towards midnight. He discarded his jacket over the back of the dining chair, rescuing the dinner Lyra had promised to leave for him and cramming the plate into the microwave. Placing his elbows onto the worktop, he wiped at his face, palming his closed eyes to erase the notion of slumber from them.
"Is it true? Have you arrested Marguerit Maida?"
Ryley swivelled at the tiny voice, blinking away the blur covering his field of view. "Lyra? What are you doing up? I assumed you were in bed."
"Couldn't sleep," she replied plainly, staring at her father with hurt in her eyes and padding into the kitchen. The smooth, metal flooring tingled cold against her exposed feet. "You didn't answer my question. Have you arrested Marguerit Maida?"
Ryley hung his head, grasping the surface behind him. "Yes."
"On what charge?"
"For working against the interests of the Alterra Corporation."
Lyra gritted her teeth, the frenzy in her blood simmering. She tightened her fists and took a moment to collect herself. "That planet is not the property of Alterra."
"Yes it is," Ryley told her, spitting out the words harsher than he meant to. "They have invested enough time, money and effort for them to claim it as their own. With no sentient beings to communicate with, they class the planet as empty and open for takers." The microwave pinged, and he jabbed hard at the switch, the door releasing and swinging wide to discharge a cloud of steam. He wafted it aside and used a towel to pick up the scolding hot plate, sliding it down onto the countertop to cool. "I have come from a difficult meeting. Everyone's at odds. Nobody wants to agree on what to do. I haven't got the strength to argue with you."
"What do you want to do?" In her heart, she understood this wasn't what her father wanted. The purple smudges beneath his eyes and the withering angle of his demeanour were sufficient indicators of the stress and strain he was under.
Ryley opened his mouth to speak, to unhesitatingly express his wish to see Maida freed, but it didn't matter. He didn't have that power. His position on the board of governors was an honorary one, a false act of generosity after the press had pressured them into making a hero of him. Nothing he said counted. Not that he hadn't tried. He'd put forward countless suggestions, seeking to make Alterra better for everyone, but the ruling elite weren't interested in the welfare of their staff or the ethics of what they were doing to the planet below. All they craved was information on how they could strengthen their profits. "When I..." He gulped down the gnarling anxiety coiling from his stomach and dropped his eyes to the floor. "When I was down there, I found an island. Some survivors of the crash planned to meet there, only they never made it."
Lyra's resentment ebbed; he'd not spoken like this in a long time, and he scarcely talked about his ordeal after the demise of the Aurora.
"While I was there, I found Degasi bases and journals. Marguerit survived a crash like the Aurora's with two others. A Torgal CEO and his heir, if I remember rightly." The memories floated like specks: the rush of the tide on the shore, and the algae smell of the sea air. The sweat dappled on his brow in the radiating heat. "It didn't go well for them, and from what I understood from one particular entry, Marguerit had died. Claims were she was last seen drifting away on the back of a Reaper. I must admit, having come up against those bastards, I'm rather impressed."
"I've heard the stories about Marguerit, dad," Lyra said. "You can't work so close to 4546B and not know the tales, but why are you telling me this now?" She joined him at the dining table, clasping her hands together and laying them down in front of her.
Ryley drew in a powerful breath and released it in a burst of apprehension; he couldn't keep it from her. She had every right to know, no matter how she might take it, and she'd find out, eventually. It was better coming from him. "Maida spoke to your mother about a week after the reports ceased. She won't tell anybody what they talked about, but she insists she saw her."
Lyra's jaw slackened and her breathing hitched, her laced fingers breaking apart as she lapsed back. The seat squeaked at the sudden impact. A hundred questions buzzed in her mind like dragonflies, all demanding her attention, all just as important. "She could still be alive?" she breathed, tears pouring down her cheeks in wet trails. Droplets dripped from her chin and onto her purple pyjama top.
"I'm not sure."
"I got a message from mum," Lyra said after a quiet moment. "She sent it before the reports stopped, but I only got it a few days ago." She spoke hesitatingly, every few words accompanied by a second of silence as she sought to assess his reaction. "She was in a facility and there was lava outside. She thought there might be something significant there."
"I know that place," Ryley mumbled, his hunger all but forgotten about and dread filling his veins. His stomach twitched sickeningly. "I told her not to go there."
"Huh? What did you say?"
"It's nothing. You know what your mother is... was... I..." He rolled his eyes. "What I mean is you know her well. She explored everything, down to the finest grain."
"She said this was important."
"It's a delayed message. She won't be there now, and even if by some miracle she was, we wouldn't find anything good."
"That doesn't mean we shouldn't look," Lyra argued. She didn't understand why he was brushing this off like it was nothing, treating her mother's last note so nonchalantly they may as well have been discussing the weather. If her mother really was dead, if she had succumbed to the unforgiving tides of the alien world below, surely he'd still want to bring her body home? "No matter what state we find her in, she deserves to be-"
"Lyra, you are meddling in things you don't understand," Ryley snapped. "Drop it." He shoved his chair backwards so hard it almost fell over, snatching his plate from the table and storming into the living room.
She waited in the hazy hum of the kitchen, hoping he'd come back and apologise for his outburst, but the door remained closed, and she found herself once again left alone with her grief.
* * *
Lyra jogged down the stairs to the lower decks of the station, the walls resounding with the roar of the ships flying back in to the loading bay. A few pilots wandered by her, their oxygen masks dangling from their faces. It wasn't odd for lab personnel to be there, but she kept her head down. Her mission required discretion, and the fewer people who saw her, the better. A deafening screech of returning jets rumbled as she passed the lobby leading to the hangar. She scarpered past to evade the brunt of the turbulence, covering her ears to shield them from the blasts of noise.
The floor beneath her changed from concrete to metal, the grating clanging with each step she took, lower into the belly of the station and through the narrow walkways of the brig.
At the front desk, she planted her PDA into the connection slot carved into the countertop and slid her authorisation to the guard on duty.
"Can you confirm your name, position, identification, and reason for being here," the man requested, fatigued eyes darting across the screen.
"Lyra Robinson. Junior Researcher. Alterra ID LR90104. I'm here to conduct research for Professor Patrick Pearson."
"That's fine. Go on through."
She snatched her PDA from the counter and crossed through the barriers. The holding cells were mostly bare, just a few stragglers who Alterra wanted to deal with, presumably for trivial matters. But it wasn't the regular cells she was heading for. Meandering through the twists and angles of the Juno Station brig, she arrived at a bulky metal set of doors and produced her PDA. A blue light shot from the circular scanner mounted at eye-height, floating up and down the device and permitting her entry.
The units of the segregation block were murkier than those in the regular block. They were drab, cold, and miserable, intended to sap any sense of spirit and life from those locked within. They had placed Marguerit in a cell near the end of the lengthy row of dark cubicles. The woman herself sat stock still on the makeshift bed that stuck out of the wall like a shelf, one knee raised and the other leg dangling off the edge. The toe of her worn boots scraped the grainy ground, and her jacket lay abandoned over the seat nailed down in the corner.
"Are you not cold in here?" Lyra asked. Admittedly, it hadn't been the first question she'd planned on asking.
Marguerit looked up at her guest, cynical eyes scouring her cautiously. "I've been in colder," she responded slowly.
Lyra approached the tempered glass of her containment unit. She'd assembled a list of things she wanted to ask for Pearson's research, but that all vanished as she faced the legend Alterra employees whispered about. "You communicated with my mother a few months ago, didn't you?"
The older woman grinned widely, her browning teeth splitting her lips. She twisted away for a moment and nodded to herself before she shoved herself up off the bench. "I thought you seemed familiar. You're like a tiny version of Astrid."
"Did you speak to her?"
"I did. Not that I'll ever tell anyone what we talked about."
"Not even her own daughter?"
Marguerit rocked her head side to side, almost sorrowfully. She'd made a vow to Astrid, and she wasn't about to break it because of puppy dog eyes and a grieving girl. "No."
As disappointed as Lyra felt, part of her accepted her response. Marguerit and her mother had likely encountered things none of them could comprehend, things that couldn't fall into the hands of Alterra, and even though she'd never tell a soul, secrets had a habit of spreading in a place like this. It was better to say nothing than risk delicate information reaching the wrong ears. "I think I understand," she said, striding a little closer. "But that's not the only reason I'm here. You know the planet, right? The secret ways nobody knows to look?"
"Maybe." Marguerit frowned, observing the youthful woman; Astrid had chatted about Lyra before, but standing before her, hearing her speak, and catching the mischievous danger in her tone was like listening to Astrid herself. It was almost scary. "Why do you ask?"
"Because Alterra is doing nothing to find my mother, and someone needs to. Can you help me?"
Marguerit scoffed, bridging her arms over her chest. "What makes you think I'll agree to that? Do you honestly think I want to go back to that hell?"
"So you'd rather rot in an Alterran prison for the rest of your life?" Lyra lifted an eyebrow. "If you help me find my mother, I will give you the codes to ship we'll take, and you can leave 4546B and Alterra behind for good."
"You are just like your mother," Marguerit laughed. "Always plotting. How are you so certain this will work?"
"I'm not, but it's all I have." She swallowed hard. "So will you assist me?" Marguerit's hardened expression only grew fiercer, and for a moment Lyra feared she'd decline, but after a few tense seconds, a beam cracked across her face.
"I'll help you. I suppose it's the only option I have, at least at the moment, and I trust your mother enough to trust you. But you'd better do your damnest to ensure you succeed, because if you don't, it won't only be you Alterra go after."
It hadn't been a straightforward decision to make; she wanted to save her mother, but she knew the cost was high. One false move, and everybody she'd ever loved would face the consequences of her actions. "I'm aware of that."
"There is something I want to know, though. How are you planning on returning if I have your ship?" Marguerit questioned.
"Probably in handcuffs," Lyra admitted. "But if it means I can find my mother, I don't care what it takes."
* * *
She spent the hike back up to the hangar clutching the files to her chest as though they'd leap out of her grasp and vanish into the vacuum of space. Her fingers jittered against the paper, the investigation within them virtually worthless since Maida had refused to answer any of Pearson's queries, but she didn't care about that. Her heart sang with the increasing prospect of locating her mother. She tried not to get her hopes up, there was no way of knowing what awaited them on the deadly water planet below, but with Marguerit agreeing to assist her, she felt one step closer to success.
"Someone's in a merry mood today."
Lyra spun on her heels. Cassidy casually leaned against the lowered leg of an Alterra jet, calculative eyes regarding her. Behind her, Samuel and Hunter rested against a stack of supply crates.
"Where are you going on such a rush?" Hunter asked, swinging around the standing support of the plane until Cassidy swatted at him to stop.
"Work stuff." Lyra gestured over her shoulder. "It's hectic. A load of fresh samples arrived this morning and Pearson needs-"
"We know what you're doing," Cassidy interjected. "Samuel came to us after you stopped by the artefact lab. Admittedly, we thought nothing of it at first, but after hearing from one of your technician buddies how you so passionately volunteered to speak with Maida, perhaps he wasn't wrong." She approached the younger woman, steering her away from prying eyes. The other two followed them into the empty side lobby, blocking the entryway. "He thinks you are planning to go down to the planet to find your mother. Is that true?"
Lyra stared at the shorter male recoiling into the corner and ducking his head so that his flutter of golden hair covered his eyes. She nodded sheepishly, scuffling her feet. "But it doesn't matter what any of you say, I'm going."
"I know," Cassidy assured her, rubbing her upper arms and affording her a light smile to allay the tension emanating from her. "We understand. This is your mother we're talking about." She peeked around at the others, the pair behind her nodding solidly. "Which is why we're coming with you."
"What?" Lyra squeaked, her hand slapping over her mouth as a couple of maintenance workers dashed down the stairs.
Hunter moved to let them pass, and they melted into the hubbub of the loading bay. "You didn't think we'd just leave you to do this on your own, did you?" he replied with an impish grin. "We are a team. Whatever troubles we face, we face them together."
"No." Lyra fervently shook her head. "You can't."
Cassidy shrugged. "We've already decided."
She rounded to Samuel, the voice of reason, the rational one of the group, but he appeared just as decided as the others. "You agreed to this too?"
"I did." He may not have possessed the confidence of Cassidy and Hunter, but he sure as hell wasn't about to allow his best friend to confront the perils of 4546B alone. "I'm not a powerful swimmer, I am petrified of almost everything, and the notion of a vast stretch of ocean makes me so nauseous I could vomit for days." He strode towards her and reached for her hands, squeezing them reassuringly. "But I won't abandon you."
"I can't ask this of you," Lyra said, wrestling through the apprehension streaking through her core. This would not be some glory mission. Success was slim, and they were likely to suffer severe repercussions if they returned.
"You're not asking," Cassidy insisted. "We're going with you, and that's that. If the higher-ups won't get off their asses and do something, then we will. We're with you, Lyra, all the way."
Her throat squeaked as she sought to force her words out, but she couldn't do this alone. Reluctantly, she conceded and bowed her head.
"Now that's all settled, do you have a strategy?" Hunter asked.
"Sort of," Lyra admitted, lowering her voice. "Marguerit has agreed to help, but it will be risky just getting off the station. What we'll be doing will get us into major trouble, even if we succeed. Not to mention the fact that it could cost us our jobs and may end up in us spending the rest of our lives behind bars."
Cassidy and Samuel remained stalwart, acknowledging the uncertainties but accepting them anyway, but Hunter's grin stretched across his dusky features, expanding from ear to ear and sparkling playfully in his dark brown eyes. "We already told you we were in," he said teasingly. "You don't have to keep tempting us."