“It’s not like we need to land on a half tindark coin,” Alisa said. “Anywhere on the freighter, and we can grab on, magnetize our boots, and walk along the hull to the hatch.”
“You are crazy. What happens if we miss?”
Shouts sounded down the corridor behind them, along with the firing of weapons. They had left that noise behind as they descended the ladder well, so if they were hearing it again now, that meant that soldiers were down here, on this level. Alisa and Mica didn’t have much time.
“And what happens if we make it?” Mica demanded, grabbing Alisa’s arm. “There’s a huge squadron of very irritated soldiers with boot problems in there. They’ll shoot the first thing that comes in the door.”
Heavy footfalls thundered in a corridor near them, someone running in their direction.
“Inside,” Alisa whispered, tugging open the hatch to the airlock. The outer hatch remained shut—it would take a minute for the ship to depressurize the inside so they could jump off. She hoped they had that minute.
Mica unleashed a stream of curses as she shoved herself into the airlock. As Alisa stepped across the threshold after her, a familiar figure raced around a corner and sprinted toward them. Smoke wafted from the back of Leonidas’s crimson armor, his faceplate was cracked, and he was limping. None of that slowed him down.
Someone fired around the corner toward his back, but he spun and loosed a few bolts, driving the soldier back into hiding. He lunged into the airlock, barely keeping from knocking Alisa over as he hit the button that made the hatch slide shut behind him.
“Cycle the lock,” he barked.
“Already on it,” Mica said.
Alisa made sure her magnetic boots had a hold on the deck as air hissed out of the chamber.
“I can’t help but notice the tube isn’t extended and that your freighter is way over there,” Leonidas said, breathing only slightly heavily after his crazy run.
“That’s because cyborgs are extremely observant,” Alisa said. “We’re jumping.”
A red beam streaked down the corridor, slamming into the thick door.
“Soon, I hope,” Alisa added. “Mica?”
“Any way to keep them from overriding the hatch controls?” Leonidas said, facing the window.
His shoulder blocked most of Alisa’s view, but she glimpsed armored soldiers sprinting down the corridor now that Leonidas couldn’t shoot them.
“Move,” Mica said, hefting the blowtorch.
Wordlessly, Leonidas did so, flattening his back to the wall. Mica welded the metal around the spot where the hatch slid into the wall. The first of the soldiers reached the controls on the other side.
“I’m opening the door,” Leonidas said, shifting to the outer hatch while Mica continued to work.
Alisa knocked on the window. The soldier trying to open the inner hatch looked at her. She had absolutely nothing to say to him and was only trying to buy Mica time, so the metal would melt—or harden. Alisa didn’t know exactly what Mica was doing, but she widened her eyes and pointed behind the man. He scowled at her and returned to the controls.
“Well, that bought us almost a second,” Alisa muttered.
Mica backed away, turning off the blowtorch as the outer hatch opened, and the vastness of space stretched before them. Since the airlock chamber was already depressurized, there was no tug or any sensation of currents stirring. However, a faint hiss reached Alisa’s ears.
She crept up behind Leonidas, touching a hand to his back. “Is that you? Is your suit damaged?”
“Is it damaged?” Mica asked, joining them at the outer hatch. “He looks like he got run over by a herd of Senekda buffalo.”
Clunks and thuds came from the hatch behind them. Mica must have succeeded in jamming it. Either that, or the men realized they couldn’t open it now, not with the outer hatch open. Of course, they might be able to override the interior controls and close that outer hatch.
“I’m venting air,” Leonidas agreed. “We’re jumping? Is that the plan?”
“Yes, how’s your aim?” Alisa asked.
“Probably better than yours. Hang on to me.” He grunted and stepped to the edge, gripping the jamb with both hands and looking back at them.
“Your cyborg isn’t modest, Captain,” Mica said.
“I don’t think modesty is listed as a desirable attribute on cyborg recruiting posters.” Not sure where to grab him, Alisa opted for the strap of the rifle slung across his torso. He wouldn’t let that fall off, she was sure.
Mica, still carrying the blowtorch, wrapped her free arm around his neck and climbed onto his back. Alisa almost made a comment about her revising her bedroom fantasies, but more thuds came from behind them, and Leonidas crouched to push off. Alisa swallowed, fear riding in her chest despite her proclamation that the freighter was huge and hitting it would be easy.
Leonidas pushed off more gently than she expected, stretching his arms out above his head, like a swimmer diving into a pool. They sailed into the blackness of space, stars suddenly visible in all directions. The view took Alisa’s breath away even as it terrified her.
If Leonidas miscalculated and they missed…
Fortunately, they seemed to be on track to hit the freighter. It grew larger as they sailed across the void, the other Alliance warships, along with two imperial vessels, coming into view to the sides.
“We’re going to make it,” Alisa said.
She gripped Mica’s arm with her free one and caught an amazed expression on her engineer’s face as she gazed around them. Alisa felt that same sense of wonder. She knew they still had to deal with the soldiers inside the Nomad, but for now, utter peace and silence surrounded them, their suits protecting them from the cold.
Until Alisa felt something pop.
Alarm surged through her. Had something happened to her suit? No, a reverberation came through her hand where she was touching Leonidas. A tiny stream of air shot out from his damaged suit.
Alisa’s first thought was to worry that he wouldn’t have enough oxygen to make it. Then Mica patted her frantically on the shoulder and pointed ahead of them. That tiny stream of air, released under pressure, was altering their path slightly. And they were still far enough from the Nomad that a slight change of angle mattered.
Alisa’s earlier alarm turned into terror as their path changed—it would take them over the top of the ship and out into space. She shifted her grip so she could clamp her hand over the leak, but it was too late.
They would overshoot the Nomad and be stranded until someone noticed them and picked them up. Or didn’t.
Leonidas’s helmet swiveled toward Mica. As they continued to sail through space, he reached back and grabbed her arm. Alisa frowned in confusion. Then she realized it wasn’t her arm that he had snagged but the blowtorch. She let him have it. He must have pressed something because a razor popped out of the wrist of his armor. He jabbed it into the gas tank on the blowtorch, then twisted it and his arm back at an awkward angle. The force emitted from the tank must have been greater than what was coming out of his suit, because their course soon adjusted. Once again, the Nomad lay within their path.
Mica grinned and thumped him on the shoulder.
Alisa smiled smugly at her, wishing she could say that her cyborg, as Mica had referred to him, had no need to be modest.
They approached the hull of the freighter, Leonidas angling them toward the back of the craft. Alisa lost all feeling of smugness, of anything except for shock, when the cargo hold hatch came into view. It wasn’t shut, as it should be. Instead, it gaped open, the dark interior of her ship open to the elements of space.
Chapter 20
Alisa crawled as quickly as she could along the exterior of the Nomad without losing her boots’ magnetic grip on the hull. She had to get to the cargo hold, see why the hatch was open, and figure out if the rest of the ship had been closed off or if… it hadn’t. If it hadn’t, everything would have been blown out into space. Even if
it had, everything in the cargo hold would be gone. She grimaced, thinking of Yumi’s chickens.
Leonidas, who was leading their crawl along the hull, stopped, tapped her shoulder, and pointed down. Though impatient, Alisa paused to look. And gape. A soldier in combat armor drifted past, arms waving, a rifle still gripped in his hand. She tensed, thinking he might manage to shoot, but he appeared too distressed by his situation to notice them.
Leonidas continued toward the hatch, maneuvering around the edge and disappearing from sight. Mica and Alisa reached the spot at the same time. Alisa poked her head around the edge, not sure what to expect. She glanced at the dim corner where the chicken pen had been kept. The birds and the makeshift fencing and netting Yumi had erected were gone, as were some items that hadn’t been bolted down.
Shaking her head, she climbed down the edge of the hatch until she could set her boots on the deck. Leonidas was already halfway across the hold, heading for the stairs leading up to the walkway. Landing behind Alisa, Mica planted her feet, then hit the button to close the hatch.
Alisa barely noticed. She strode after Leonidas, trying to see up to the corridor leading into the crew areas. Was the hatch up there open? Closed?
With his long legs, Leonidas made it up the stairs first. Alisa scrambled after him, almost tripping. She cursed the awkward suit, even if it had kept her alive so far in the vacuum of space.
She caught up with Leonidas at a hatch that was thankfully closed. He was knocking at it with the butt of his rifle, probably ready to spin the weapon around if anyone unfriendly came to check on them.
Mica had headed toward engineering instead of joining them. Lights flickered on, and machinery clanked, the oxygen regeneration system being activated and gravity being restored. Alisa appreciated her dedication to getting the ship in working order again, but she was currently more worried about Beck and Yumi. She bumped Leonidas inadvertently as she tried to see through the small window in the hatch.
He stepped aside so she could peer through. Alisa almost laughed at what she saw. Two chickens were running amok in the corridor as Yumi chased after them, trying to gather them up. Beck stood in his combat armor, leaning against the wall, holding up a finger toward the window. He held a rifle in his other hand. Had he played a role in getting rid of the soldiers? He must have.
“Life support has been returned to the entire ship,” came Mica’s voice over the comm speakers.
Beck ambled forward and opened the hatch.
“What happened?” Alisa blurted, rushing in and gripping his shoulder. She would have given Yumi a squeeze, too, but one of the chickens escaped and was heading toward the cargo hold. Yumi groaned and chased after it.
“A little chicanery,” Beck said, “and some time spent going over the operations training videos for a Nebula Rambler 880 to learn how to override the ship’s safety system and open the hatch to space when people are inside the cargo hold. People that were oddly floating around and cursing a lot even before we got the doors open.” He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows toward her. “Do you have any idea how hokey and out-of-date those videos are?”
“Yes…” A chicken ran past Alisa’s boots. “How did you get the chickens out of the cargo hold while not letting the soldiers out?”
“Yumi said she had to feed them a while back.” Beck shrugged. “The soldiers weren’t really mad at us. They did pry us out of navigation so we couldn’t fly anywhere, as if those horrible videos could have shown us how. Did you know the woman speaking in them wears striped polyester pants and has collar lapels that flare out almost to her elbows? Was that what passed for fashion in the last century?”
“All you need to do is look at the rec room carpet to know the answer to that.” Alisa frowned. “How did Yumi go from feeding the chickens to getting them up here?”
“She took them up one at a time, saying they needed their medication.” Beck shrugged again. “She’s got a sweet and innocent smile. They believed her. I did feel a little bad sending the soldiers out into space after they were fairly reasonable with us—even if they were swearing up and down that they were going to strangle the mech and anyone sympathizing with him—but I figure their armor will keep them alive long enough for their ships to pick them up.”
“Captain?” Alejandro said, leaning out of the hatchway to NavCom. “I’d appreciate it if you saved the briefing for later and piloted us out of trouble before anyone figures out what’s going on.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Doctor,” Alisa said dryly. “By the way, is there any chance you have the antidote to prienzene gas in your medical kit? Mica and I breathed some in.” She did not know if it had been enough to cause long-term damage, but she could still feel the uncomfortable swelling in the back of her throat along with a dull ache behind her sternum.
“The antidote? No.”
“Not enough room in your bag after packing that orb?” She did not manage to keep the bitterness out of her voice. What had she expected? That he would anticipate running into people that would hurl poisonous gases at him during his journey?
“I can make a compound to accelerate and enhance your body’s ability to flush exogenous toxins,” Alejandro said. “You don’t look that bad, so that should suffice.”
Should. Alisa was not sure if she should find that word comforting but decided to do so. She also decided not to think about how he had been contemplating that her death might be convenient for his mission. He shouldn’t have a reason to want Mica out of the way, so with luck, he would make the same substance for both of them.
“Good,” she said and gave him a warm smile in case it would help endear her to him. “Thank you.”
Alisa patted Beck on his armored shoulder—he was looking concerned over this talk of poisonous gas—then headed to NavCom. If Alejandro would fix up a special compound for her, the least she could do was comply with his suggestion to pilot them out of the area. Besides, she agreed with the sentiment. The sooner they got out of here, the better.
“We’re glad to have you back, Captain,” Beck said firmly, waving at his chest and pointing in the direction Yumi had gone—he also waved to include the wayward chicken darting around. “I’ll prepare a celebratory dinner if you can get us away from all of these party crashers.”
“I’ll do my best.”
In NavCom, Alisa slid into the pilot’s seat—she wanted to collapse and take a few minutes to gather herself, but there was no time. Her fingers flying, she steered them away from the tug and the warship she had crashed the tug into. The warship was in the process of extricating itself, and Alisa wanted to be far away when it regained room to maneuver. She had no doubt that its commander would be livid with her as soon as he or she found out who had been responsible for that mess.
The other two Alliance warships still flanked the Nomad, but they did not attempt to pursue, nor did they maneuver to use their grab beams, not with the three big imperial ships looming in a triangular formation in front of them. Any ship that wanted to grab the Nomad would have to lower its shields to do so. Alisa’s plans for escape hinged on the hope that neither side would trust the other enough to risk that. She wasn’t about to comm anyone to ask. She simply guided her freighter downward, away from both sets of ships. The green orb of Perun’s moon filled the space ahead, and she headed for it, figuring she would disappear behind it and get out of the other ships’ lines of sight—and out of their commanders’ minds—before once again setting a course for Arkadius.
The proximity alarm beeped as one of the imperial cruisers charged away from the pack. It flew past the Alliance ships, arrowing straight after the Nomad.
“Damn it,” Alisa cursed, pushing the engines to maximum, no longer worrying about stealthily sneaking away.
The cruiser surged to its maximum, which was far greater than the freighter’s. Alisa weaved as she flew toward the moon, hoping vainly that providing a busy target would give their grab beam operator a hard time. Something brushed against the Noma
d’s shields, a first attempt to snatch them. She flew like a drunk, a calculating drunk. Maybe if she could reach the moon’s orbit and—
The second attempt to latch onto them worked, and the Nomad halted with an alarming jolt.
“Not again,” she groaned, slamming her fist against the console.
“More trouble?” Leonidas asked, walking into navigation, his helmet under his arm, his crimson suit so battered and soot-marked that it looked like he had dragged it out of a junkyard. Or a dumpster.
“You could say that. Any chance I can talk you into rolling down a window and throwing the doctor’s orb outside for them?”
Leonidas lifted an eyebrow.
The comm flashed, and she slapped her palm on the button, giving it a surly glower.
“Captain of the civilian freighter Star Nomad,” a male voice said. “As you are no doubt aware, we have restrained your ship.”
“Must be your people,” Alisa muttered, not bothering to mute the comm. “They have the bureaucratic gift for using a lot of words to state the obvious.”
“You will be permitted to fly away, despite damages done to our university library, but we require that you leave behind a sphere-shaped artifact. We are preparing to board and pick it up. If you wish our generous offer to release you to remain in effect, you will have it waiting and will not resist us.”
Not surprisingly, Alejandro showed up in the hatchway behind Leonidas to hear this. Alisa scowled at him, then ignored both men to reply to the imperial bureaucrat.
“This is Captain Marchenko,” Alisa said. “If you try to board my ship, I’ll blow up your sphere-shaped artifact. It’s been a nice paperweight for my desk, but I’m sure I can replace it with a moon rock.”
Alejandro smacked a palm to his forehead and ran his hand down his face. The faintest hint of a smile curved Leonidas’s lips upward.
“If you destroy the artifact,” the imperial speaker said, “we will destroy your ship.”
“Then it’s going to be a bad day for all of us.” Alisa leaned back in her seat, prepared to wait out his bluff. She hoped it was a bluff.
The Fallen Empire Collection by Lindsay Buroker Page 47