Reckless Rescue Read Online Free Page B

think. This couldn’t be a coincidence. A settlement didn’t just exist on an unmapped planet. He stared at the picture until it blurred, then the name at the top of the readout drew his focus.
Semala.
    How could it have a name if it wasn’t on the star maps?
    There was only one explanation. Somewhere, in the depths of the database, a reference to this planet remained.
    Of course the gas he searched for wouldn’t be here. Only the desperate lived on planets where anysogen had been mined. He’d read reports about the effects on the first mining crews. It had taken years for them to realise that the gas, which had seemed so harmless at first, severely lowered fertility. Those miners had received huge payouts, and after that, machines had been brought in to do the mining. Those machines hadn’t been invented when this settlement was abandoned, but they would still have done all they could to separate the mining from the research facility. The anysogen would have been shipped here to be studied. He was close.
    He set his scans to a wider range, searching for the tell-tale signature. Seconds later, data readouts scrolled up beside a small picture of the next planet in the system, currently on the opposite side of the sun. A habitable atmosphere and the presence of water. Mineral analysis couldn’t be performed at this distance, but it was promising enough for him to set course immediately.
    Tyris leaned back in the chair, staring at the screen. It would take at least fifteen minutes to arrive at the next planet, but he couldn’t stop his heart racing. This could be it. His ticket back to the life he knew. The life he wanted. Waiting was agonising.
    Finally, the planet appeared in the front window. Barely any greener than the last, a white blanket spreading down from the pole indicated winter was on its way.
    Excitement building, Tyris checked the scans as they scrolled up the screen. Under the planet’s deceptively habitable skin, large pockets of anysogen gas lurked, close enough to the surface to make mining quick and easy.
    The Colonies needed this fuel urgently. When he returned with the news, they would surely be grateful enough to remove the humiliating limitations they’d placed on him.
    Tyris bit his lip, staring at the readouts. Something didn’t add up. Anysogen gas was extremely limited. It could be found only on the edges of the galaxy, on a certain class of planet. Someone had obviously known about this planet once, so why was it just sitting here? Whatever had happened on the first planet, Semala, was not enough to have halted mining, not when fuel was so short.
    What was going on here? Would announcing the anysogen find cause him more problems than he already had?
    Tyris rubbed the back of his neck, unwilling to let this opportunity pass. Surely nothing could be bad enough that the Colonies wouldn’t be thrilled at the thought of more anysogen. If he went straight to the public, the government couldn’t hide it anymore. Someone would be raked over the coals for this, but it wouldn’t be him. He’d be back on Urslat with Milandra, sipping cocktails.
    He entered the commands for more scans, took some aerial pictures of the most likely mining sites, and was about to head for home when a low humming started and the proximity sensors lit up.
    This area was littered with asteroids. Tyris switched back from the scan screen to his radar, easily identifying the cluster causing the warning. But all of them were small enough that they couldn’t make it through his shield. They shouldn’t have triggered the alarm.
    Except, he realised with a sickening thud, as the first asteroid bounced off the Hylista’s hardened shell, he hadn’t brought the shield back online after performing the scans. He reached to turn it back on, but before he could even touch the console, it went dark.
    The Hylista shuddered as more projectiles smashed into it.
    Tyris staggered towards his seat, the floor rolling under him. He managed