Renegades by David Liss

Author:David Liss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

* * *

Planet Pleasant. I’d been hearing about this secret and horrific Phandic research facility for a while now. It was where they sent beings who wouldn’t get with the program so they could be galactic guinea pigs in scientific experiments. It was where beings were tortured and sacrificed to the Phandic war machine.

I felt myself gripping the side of the table. I needed to be out of that room and on a ship headed for Planet Pleasant now. An hour ago. I couldn’t stand the thought of my friends being there—of Tamret being subject to their experiments. Again.

“Why are they there?” I asked. My voice sounded raspy, almost broken. “What’s going to happen to them?”

“I suspect the Phands wished to understand how you could have maximized the Former tech tree,” Convex Icosahedron said. “It only makes sense that they would bring your friends to their premier research facility to understand how this goal was achieved.”

“I’ve got to get them out of there,” I said.

“Hold on, son,” Colonel Rage said. “It’s commendable that you want to help them, but I don’t see how a suicide mission gets the job done. We’re talking about a top-secret military research facility. What makes you think you would be able to successfully exfiltrate them?”

“I don’t know, but I have to try.”

“You are on the cusp of becoming a victim of your own success,” the colonel said. “Just because you’ve made it this far doesn’t mean that you can succeed at whatever you want.”

“Then let’s figure out a way,” I said, “because I’m not leaving my friends there to be experimented on. I am going to get them out and then we are going to get Ghli Wixxix. We are going to defeat the Phands without blowing up Confederation Central. That’s the deal.”

They all stared at me, no doubt wondering who this kid was who was giving them orders. I wondered the same thing. I also wondered what I could possibly be thinking. Getting everyone out of the Phandic research facility was even crazier than breaking into a Phandic prison. I had no special skills, no amazing team to back me up. I had, in short, no reason to think I wouldn’t be killed or captured within seconds of arriving at this high-security research facility, assuming whatever ship I arrived on wasn’t destroyed before I got close.

I realized that Colonel Rage was right. I was so used to succeeding with my wild stunts that I had lost all perspective. I couldn’t do whatever I wanted just because I wanted it. With my previous successes, I’d had a ton of help—Tamret, Smelly, and, most recently, the military tech tree. The feeling of being invulnerable wouldn’t fade away, but the actual invulnerability was long gone.

It was time to stop telling these beings what to do. They were actual freedom fighters who had put together a base and a plan, and who had real knowledge of the enemy they faced. I would do what they wanted and

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