The Fallen Empire Collection by Lindsay Buroker

by Discover Sci-Fi Special Edition

  An alarming crack came from outside, and Alisa jumped. Her first thought was that someone had fired a weapon, but she shivered when she realized what she had heard. Ice snapping. As she had noted earlier, they had landed on the frozen sea, not solid ground. Her ship, which weighed thousands of pounds, even without cargo in it, was resting on a sheet of ice. She had no way of knowing if that ice extended downward for hundreds of meters or if they were on a shelf only inches thick.

  “How is there mist when it’s so cold out?” Beck asked. “The thermometer in my suit says it’s forty below out there. Isn’t mist or fog droplets of water?”

  “Part of the charm of this place, maybe,” Alisa said. “You could ask Leonidas. He was reading the encyclopedia entry.”

  Leonidas had started down the ramp and did not look back. It was dark outside, not as absolute as inside the ship, but Beck was right. They had left the sun behind, with twilight descending upon them. The fog did not help. It was so thick that Alisa could not see past the end of the ramp.

  She started down, thinking to catch up with Leonidas before he disappeared. Outside of the ship, the temperature dropped drastically, and she rethought the wisdom of going out without a jacket. Without a jacket, mittens, scarves, boots, snow pants, and three or four blankets.

  Leonidas halted at the base of the ramp and unslung the rifle on his shoulder. “Get out here, Beck.”

  “Something you want me to see?” Beck was walking right beside Alisa.

  “I hear people, not far from here. We’re not alone out here.”

  “White Dragon people?”

  “We’ll go ask with our rifles,” Leonidas said, “unless you plan to hide behind Marchenko.”

  Beck lifted his head. “I do not.” He slapped his own rifle. “If they are White Dragon, they’re my problem.”

  Very true, Alisa thought but did not say. She was surprised Leonidas was willing to lead the way to deal with mafia thugs who presumably wanted nothing to do with him. Though, upon reflection, she wasn’t sure why she was surprised. She had yet to see him shy away from any battle. It even seemed to put him in a good mood.

  “Alisa,” Leonidas said, “close the hatch and wait inside. We’ll let you know if it’s safe to come out for repairs if they’re needed.”

  Alisa bristled at receiving orders and also at the idea of hiding inside, but she reluctantly admitted that her Etcher wouldn’t do much good if the White Dragon crew was wearing combat armor. And without the protection of a climate-controlled suit of armor, she could freeze before she reached the other ship. Already, she was shivering as the frigid air needled right through her clothing. There wasn’t a wind—of course not, or the mist would dissipate—but the bite to the air had her stuffing her hands into her armpits.

  “He calls you Alisa now?” Beck murmured from her side.

  “I told him to,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  “I bet he’d call you Tommy if you called him Leonidas.”

  “What a treat that would be.”

  “You’re not bitter about his suggestion about the celery seed, are you?”

  “Yes, I am. Is that immature?”

  “You did ask for his opinion.”

  Beck grunted.

  Leonidas walked away from the ramp, apparently trusting his ears or his sense of direction when it came to where the other ship had landed. The fog soon swallowed the bright red of his combat armor. It felt like they were on some unexplored alien world rather than Arkadius with its billions of residents. Billions of residents who were not crazy enough to live anywhere around here.

  “I better go see if I can get the White Dragon more pissed with me,” Beck said with a sigh and trotted off after Leonidas.

  Alisa grimaced, realizing he was right. Every time he defended himself from them, he destroyed some of their equipment, and he might have killed some of their men by now. Alisa thought back to her first encounter with them when she had dropped a cliff onto the heads of a squad of men. After that, she could not be certain that the mafia clan was only after Beck now. She might be on the list of people they were hunting for too.

  “They’ll have to get in line,” she muttered and returned to the cargo hold.

  The lights were still off, and it was not much warmer inside than outside. Even though she hated the idea of closing the hatch while her men were out there, she shuddered to imagine enemies sneaking into the ship while everyone was working on repairs. Alisa liked to think she could take care of herself in a fight, but she wouldn’t be a match for men in combat armor, and she knew it. With a tug of the handle, she activated the ramp mechanism, drawing it in and closing the hatch.

  A lit candle appeared on the walkway above, Yumi coming to the cargo hold. Both she and the flame appeared blurry—some of that pervasive mist had found its way inside the ship and lingered in the air.

  “Coming to check on your chickens?” Alisa asked.

  “Yes. I didn’t know our flights would be so incident-filled when I decided to bring them along with me.”

  “Sorry about that. Maybe you can sell them to a friendly Starseer who wants the insides of her ship fertilized regularly.”

  Alisa wondered if the mist surrounded their temple. If so, and if they never had sun shining on them, maybe it wouldn’t be an ideal place for critters. Did Starseers keep animals for pets or livestock? She knew so little about them. Except that they did not have a reputation for being friendly toward outsiders. She remembered that tickle in her mind before she had struck the White Dragon ship. Maybe she just wanted to give herself an excuse for that crash, but she couldn’t help but think that the Starseers had seen the two ships coming into their territory and had arranged it. Was someone paying that close of attention to their borders? Or had they set up the obstacle course and now trusted in that to keep people from finding them?

  “Really, Captain,” Yumi said, making her way down the stairs, “you bring up fertilizer often, but I clean their pen regularly, and I have a compost tumbler in my cabin. I’m turning their droppings into a wonderful medium for growing things.”

  “You’re composting poop next to your bunk? My mom didn’t even allow passengers to eat in their cabins.”

  “Sounds draconian.” Yumi smiled and crossed to the chickens, who had grown oddly quiet since Leonidas opened the hatch. Maybe they were cold.

  A curse and a clank came from the direction of engineering. Alisa headed that way to check on Mica. She was surprised the lights were not back on yet, especially since the crash had been fairly controlled, all things considered. They had landed on their belly, after all. But the shields had been down for that last blast from the enemy ship. Alisa hoped the hull had not been breached.

  A moan sounded, not from within the ship but from outside. It seemed to float across the frozen sea, as if some animal was out there and in pain. A snap echoed up from below, from the ice.

  Alisa quickened her pace, rubbing her arms as she went. The sooner they were airborne again, the better.

  “Mica?” Alisa asked, opening the hatch and poking her head into engineering. Several lanterns were propped on consoles and machinery, driving the shadows back from the room. “You might share some of your lights. Yumi is using a candle to check on her chickens.”

  Mica lay on her back on a rolling platform tucked under the engine, and she pushed herself out to scowl up at Alisa.

  “Judging by the expression on your face, the news is not good,” Alisa said. “Either that, or Beck’s duck skewers aren’t agreeing with you.”

  “The skewers were excellent. The news is that I can’t figure out why the lights and non-emergency systems are out. I’m sure the hull is dinged up after that landing, but the engine is fine. All the connections I’ve checked are fine. The gum I’ve got holding the oxidizer valve in place is even still there.”

  “Gum? That doesn’t sound ideal. Did you mention needing valve holder thingies on your shopping list?”

  “Thingies?”

  �
��Thingies.”

  “I didn’t mention them on the last list, no,” Mica said. “I wanted to make sure I got my new tank.”

  “I guess a tank is more exciting to cuddle with than a valve.”

  “Infinitely more so, yes.” Mica pushed herself to her feet, looked around, and frowned. “Where did all this fog come from?”

  “I opened the cargo hatch a few minutes ago. Beck and Leonidas went out to look around, possibly to shoot people.”

  “Well, tell them to shoot the fog out of my engine room when they get back.” Mica swatted at the air. “What is this stuff? Is it corrosive?”

  “I hope not.” Alisa tried to decide if the mist was denser than it had been in the cargo hold, or if she could simply see it better since there was more light in here. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “That depends.” Mica grabbed a flashlight and pointed it into an open panel. “On a quiz, how many things in engineering would you label as thingies?”

  “No more than fifty percent, I should think.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “You’re a charming woman, Mica. We need to find you a soul mate.”

  Mica stuck a wrench in the panel and grunted as she pried at something and the tool slid off, clanking on the side. “I’d settle for a good job.”

  “I thought you wanted a challenging job, not a good one. What could be more rewarding than a mystery to troubleshoot?”

  Mica sneered and waved at the fog.

  “No need to answer that,” Alisa said. “I’ll go check on Alejandro and be back to pat you on your back when you get my lights back on.”

  Mica responded, but her head was stuffed into the access panel again, and Alisa could not make out the words. Perhaps that was good. She doubted they were flattering.

  Another eerie cracking of ice sounded as Alisa headed back through the cargo hold and toward the walkway. She winced and found herself stepping more lightly.

  “Any idea how thick the ice is up here, Yumi?” she asked as she passed the chicken pen.

  “If memory serves, the ice at Arkadius’s north pole averages from three to five meters in thickness, with ridges up to twenty meters thick.”

  “Three meters?” Alisa paused with her hand on the stair railing. “That’s, uh, not as thick as I would like for it to be, considering my entire freighter is parked on it.”

  She waited, hoping Yumi would tell her that the ice was plenty thick to support them, but another snap sounded outside, and Yumi gave her a bleak look. “Due to the size of the cargo hold, there’s a lot of air inside your ship. It’s highly likely that we would float once in the water.”

  “Float?” Alisa stared at her. “While that’s slightly more encouraging than news that we would plummet to the bottom of the ocean, how in the hells would we take off if the thrusters are half underwater? And for that matter, what happens if the ice refreezes around us? It’s cold enough to kick spit out there.”

  Yumi shrugged helplessly. “I suggest we pray that the ice remains stable.”

  “Who are we praying to? The sun gods or the Starseers who may have arranged that crash as a way of implying we’re not welcome here?”

  Alisa expected Yumi to defend the Starseers and say the crash didn’t have anything to do with them and could only be blamed on the strange weather phenomenon. Instead, she shrugged again, offering another bleak look.

  Alisa walked up the stairs very carefully. The mist seemed to follow her, as if whatever had come in during the short time the hatch had been open was being fruitful and multiplying. She reached for her comm unit, thinking to check in on Beck and Leonidas as she headed for Alejandro’s cabin, but her hand did not make it to her belt. A creepy sensation came over her, and the hairs on her arms stood up.

  “I’m really starting to dislike this place,” she whispered and continued on, turning up the corridor to the passenger cabins.

  The feeling of discomfort increased as she walked closer to Alejandro’s cabin. Maybe it wasn’t the mist bothering her, after all. Maybe he was playing with his orb.

  “Odd timing for it, if so.” She knocked on his hatch.

  He did not answer. She tried the latch and was glad it was not locked, since the electronic override would not have worked. When she tugged the hatch open, she found bright golden light flaring from the floor in the center of the cabin. She squinted, almost blinded after the dimness of the corridor.

  Alejandro sat cross-legged next to the orb, staring down at the rainbow lights swirling within its depths, unaware that his hairy legs were on display above his shoes. He seemed mesmerized by the orb, which lay nestled on its velvet cushion inside the box, its luminescence pouring out, reflecting against all of the metal surfaces in the cabin.

  “Doctor, you’re supposed to invite the captain in when she knocks at your door,” Alisa said. “It’s polite.”

  He did not answer, nor did he tear his gaze from the orb. After that first cursory inspection, Alisa avoided looking at it. That was harder than it should have been. The glowing surface called to her, inviting her to look, even as gooseflesh arose all over her body, and her instincts said to get out of the cabin. She remembered the cyborg pirate Malik’s words about weak minds being affected by the artifact.

  “Doctor,” Alisa repeated, forcing herself to step into the cabin to nudge his shoulder.

  He still did not move. His eyes were open, but they were not blinking.

  Alisa kicked the lid shut. Alejandro flinched. The light lessened considerably, but to Alisa’s surprise, some continued to leak out through the seam in the wooden box. It hadn’t been doing that before. Previously, when the lid had been down, the strange energy it emitted had not been nearly as noticeable, and since she had been in a dark room to steal it before, she knew that light had not escaped the box.

  “What?” Alejandro asked, finally looking at her, squinting up with confusion in his eyes.

  “We’re in a jam right now,” Alisa said. “This isn’t the time for communing with eerie spheres.”

  “I just checked on it…” He touched the deck on either side, further confusion wrinkling his brow, as if he was not sure how he had gotten down there.

  “It’s fine, other than being extra uppity right now. Why don’t you leave it under your pillow and come help us in engineering. We need to get the power back on so we can take off before we break through the ice and become a boat.” She doubted Mica wanted to see Alejandro in engineering any more than she wanted Alisa and her thingie-lexicon there, but it might be good to get him away from that box for a while.

  “Ice?”

  “We’re in The Hells’ Leftovers. You’ve heard of it?”

  “I—yes.” Alejandro blinked around the room, which was still partially illuminated by the box. “Where did this fog come from?”

  “The hells, apparently. Maybe all three of them combined to muck up this corner of the planet.”

  Alejandro picked up the box and climbed to his feet. “Yes, I remember now. The Starseer temple. It must be nearby. Maybe that’s why the artifact is responding.”

  “Responding?”

  “Getting uppity, as you said,” he said dryly, his usual demeanor returning.

  “You think just being in the presence of Starseers could cause it to intensify its strangeness?”

  “From my research, I believe—” He broke off with a frown for her. “You’ll get no further information out of me, Captain. Please do not pry.”

  “I didn’t know it was prying to walk into someone’s room and keep a creepy artifact from taking over his mind.” Alisa waved and strode back into the corridor. “Come make yourself useful, Doctor. We need all hands.”

  The ice cracked again, the snap sounding as if it came from directly below the Nomad.

  Alisa scowled, wishing she knew a way that she could be useful.

  “It’s colder than death in here,” came Mica’s voice over the intercom. “Who opened the hatch?”

  “W
hat?” Alisa ran to the walkway. The wide cargo hold hatch was open, the ramp once again unfurled, almost obscured by the thick mist rolling into the ship. “Yumi?”

  Alisa peered toward the corner. The chickens were still in their pen, still being oddly quiet.

  “Yumi’s in here,” Mica said, leaning out of the hatchway to engineering. “Making herself useful by holding flashlights and not calling pieces of sophisticated equipment thingies.”

  “She didn’t open the hatch?” Alisa walked slowly down the stairs. Her arm hair was not standing on end now that she had shut the orb box and moved away from it, but another feeling of unease crept over her as she stared at the open hatch, the mist and cold air rolling in.

  Yumi stepped out of the engine room. “It wasn’t me.”

  “Then who opened it?”

  Chapter 4

  Alisa commed Leonidas as she walked across the cargo hold to close the hatch. She kept her other hand close to her Etcher as she went.

  “Leonidas here,” he responded softly.

  The sound of his voice sent relief through her. The way things were going, she had almost expected him not to answer, for him and Beck to have walked off into the mist, never to return.

  “Did you and Beck come back to the ship?” Alisa opened the panel and looked at the lever for manually opening the hatch. When she had closed it, she had tugged it downward. It was now back in the up position. There was no way it could have fallen upward.

  “No,” Leonidas said, a worried note in his voice. “I just took down the two perimeter guards watching the White Dragon ship. It’s down at the base of a cliff here, and they were expecting trouble.”

  “Beck is still with you, right?” she asked, looking around the foggy cargo hold.

  “Yes. He took out one guard’s rear left haunch.”

  She snorted, remembering Beck’s claim to having helped with the Octavian bear in that asteroid laboratory.

  “I heard that, mech,” Beck growled over the comm. “I was drawing fire. That’s why you got those two so easily.”