Star Nomad

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Your wish is my command, Sir Cyborg,” Alisa said with a smile.

  “So glad you asked for my name,” he muttered.

  As Alisa piloted them along the curvature of a slowly spinning asteroid, an oblong one came into view, its surface dotted with so many craters that it looked like a block of Boracan eye cheese.

  “That’s it,” Leonidas said, his voice calm, though he had to be excited inside. Assuming cyborgs could get excited inside. “Take us to the far side.” He poked at the holodisplay and produced a close-up of a set of three craters. “We’re looking for that configuration.”

  “Anything on the sensors, Yumi?” Alisa wanted to make sure there weren’t any ships around to see them slip into the crater. She could easily imagine getting trapped in a dead end.

  “Iridium, cobalt, aluminum, nickel…”

  “I meant ships. Are there any ships on the sensors?” Alisa leaned back and slapped the button to widen the scan to the field rather than a specific asteroid.

  “Ah. Nothing within range.”

  Alisa reduced their speed and flew slowly over the surface. The asteroid was about ten kilometers on its longest axis and less than half that wide. A sizable research facility could be maintained inside. She looked for signs on the surface that it had been mined, but did not see any obvious clues.

  “There.” Leonidas pointed, the configuration of three craters coming into view, exactly as they appeared on his map.

  “Which one do I enter?” Alisa eyed them without pleasure. They weren’t wide, and the spin and the gravitational force of the asteroid could add challenges.

  “Any of them. They’re supposed to connect at one central tunnel.”

  “Supposed to. Words like that fill a pilot with confidence.”

  He grunted. “I haven’t noticed that your confidence is lacking.”

  “I’m going to take that as a compliment, though I doubt you meant it as one.”

  One of his eyebrows twitched, but he did not disagree.

  Alisa chose the upper crater, reversing the thrusters to slow them as they approached it. Already, she could feel the gravitational pull of the massive rock. The dark hole yawned, no hint of manmade influence inside. She flicked on the ship’s searchlight, and a strong white beam illuminated the way. Around the edges, the crater appeared natural, a deep pockmark that extended hundreds of meters into the surface where something had struck the asteroid long ago. Farther in, it narrowed and the walls grew less natural. What should have been the pit of the crater turned into a tunnel, a manmade tunnel. The sides appeared to have been chiseled out by robots, much like one would expect to see in a mining complex.

  Leonidas leaned forward, gripping the back of the empty co-pilot’s seat, the first indication that he was excited.

  The darkness grew absolute as they flew deeper, the light from the stars and the suns fading behind them. Even though Alisa knew nothing lived out here in the vacuum of space, she half expected a bevy of bats to flap out of the black depths, battering them with their wings.

  “Fly carefully,” Leonidas said. “There may be traps.”

  “What?” Alisa shot him her best incredulous look. “You didn’t think to mention that earlier?”

  “I deem the likelihood low. I heard nothing about traps when I was researching this place. I simply thought it advisable to mention the possibility.”

  Alisa would have preferred if he hadn’t.

  “This is quite fascinating,” Yumi said, glancing from the view screen to the sensor display. “Had I known the trip would include a tour of the Trajean Asteroid Belt, I wouldn’t have balked at the price.”

  “You didn’t balk at it, anyway.”

  “In my mind, I did.”

  Alisa nudged the flight stick. “Is this asteroid spinning on us, or was this tunnel carved out by a miner high on glowrum?”

  “Small asteroids may spin a complete rotation once every few minutes,” Yumi said, “but the large ones spin much more slowly, generally taking many hours to complete a rotation.”

  “Glowrum it is,” Alisa said, nudging the stick again. None of the rear cameras showed a view of the exit hole anymore.

  Two other tunnels melded into theirs, like streams joining a larger river. Alisa wondered if there was anything in those other tunnels. It seemed strange to dig three entrances to a secret research base. Unless psychedelic alcohol truly had been involved.

  “I’m reading an energy source up ahead,” Yumi said.

  “A fission reactor will be providing electricity for life support and basic operations,” Leonidas said.

  The search beam bounced off metal up ahead. Massive cylindrical tanks—water tanks?—were embedded in the rock to either side of the tunnel, leaving only a tight space to pass through. There wouldn’t have been room for a ship much larger than this one.

  Thinking of Leonidas’s mention of traps, Alisa slowed them further, easing toward the gap, her fingers on the maneuvering thrusters.

  Yumi stirred. “There’s a surge of power. We—”

  Blue light flashed, and Alisa cursed. The harsh light wasn’t just outside, but filled her ship, reminding her of the X-ray search beams she’d had to walk through when entering campus back on Perun. Those had been scanners. She hoped that was all these were.

  Even as she had the thought, the ship lurched, as if a hand had reached out and grabbed it. They halted abruptly, hanging in the space between the two tanks.

  “Uh, Leonidas?” Alisa prompted.

  “Unauthorized personnel,” a mechanical voice announced over the comm. “This is an imperial research station. If you cannot identify yourself as an authorized visitor, you will be destroyed.”

  “Uh,” Alisa said again, reaching for the thruster controls, worried she wouldn’t be able to reverse the ship.

  Leonidas caught her wrist. “Touch nothing.”

  “I sure hope you’re authorized.”

  Leonidas hit the comm button with his free hand. “Research Station Blackstar, check again for authorized personnel.”

  The wave of blue light washed through the ship again, highlighting their faces as it drove every shadow from the cabin. Alisa spotted dust bunnies under the co-pilot’s seat and told herself to clean that later—if they survived until later.

  A red light appeared ahead, seemingly springing out of the side walls. What was that? Some kind of ray of energy that was going to irradiate them all?

  Leonidas frowned. Had he expected to be recognized and let in?

  The red light increased in brightness in front of them, and an alarm beeped on the console.

  “The temperature is rising out there,” Yumi said, her earlier curiosity and enthusiasm for this “tour” replaced by concern as her words came out rapidly. “Quickly. If it continues at its current rate, it’ll reach the melt point for most metals.”

  “The shields are up,” Alisa said.

  “They won’t hold indefinitely.”

  Alisa pulled her wrist away from Leonidas. He let her—she wouldn’t have been a match for his strength otherwise. He wore a puzzled expression, the first one she had seen from him.

  “Unauthorized personnel,” the mechanical voice announced. “Prepare to be incinerated.”

  Alisa hit the thrusters with the side of her fist. Time to get out of here.

  A good idea, but the ship did not move. Whatever was keeping them from continuing farther also kept them from retreating. The red light grew so intense that Alisa couldn’t look at the view screen. Sweat broke out along her brow. She wasn’t sure if it was because the heat was already making itself felt through the shields and the hull, or if she was just panicking. Squawks from terrified chickens floated up from the cargo hold. She wasn’t the only one panicking.

  Deep nasal-sounding breaths came from behind her seat.

  “What are you doing, Yumi?”

  “Placing myself in a state of optimal heart rate variability to reduce my body’s stress response and induce calmness,” Yumi sa
id slowly, her eyes closed to slits. “The Starkowatz Philosophy teaches us to feel less anxious about death through altering our consciousness, but sometimes, it can be difficult to get the mind to cooperate.” She closed her eyes all the way and went back to her breathing.

  “I have trouble getting my mind to cooperate all the time. Leo, buddy, last chance to do something, or we’re about to find out what the melt point is for cyborg sprockets.”

  Leonidas gave her one of the flat looks he was exceedingly good at, then leaned closer to the comm. “Research Station Blackstar, check for delivery of authorized cargo,” he said, forgoing the mention of personnel this time.

  The blue light flashed, scanning them again.

  Alisa tried again to move the Nomad. The thrusters activated without a problem—they just couldn’t generate enough of a push to send them anywhere.

  Abruptly, the blue light disappeared, and so did the red light outside. The view screen dimmed, though it had been so bright that the red rectangle remained in Alisa’s vision, as if burned there for all eternity. A small price to pay for the cessation of that heat. She might have slumped down in her seat, but the field holding them released them. She nudged the thrusters, and the Nomad ambled forward, as if it had never been held.

  Leonidas wore a dyspeptic expression, not looking nearly as relieved as Alisa felt over escaping death.

  “Is that you?” she asked, the pieces of the puzzle clicking together. Unless one counted Yumi’s chickens, she didn’t have any other “cargo,” certainly nothing that would have pleased an imperial security checkpoint. “The authorized cargo?”

  Leonidas smoothed his expression, ignoring her question. “There’s a docking station. Find a spot for us, then join me in the cargo hold.” He shifted his helmet out from under his arm, gripping it with both hands. “Have your new science officer check and see if there’s oxygen and gravity inside of the station.” He turned, plopping the helmet onto his head as he walked out.

  “Anyone tell you that you’re not the captain here?” Alisa called after him.

  She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t respond. He’d been irked when she had referred to him as your kind. Being classified as the cargo probably irritated him even more.

  Chapter 10

  At the end of the tunnel, Alisa found only two docking ports, tubes and connectors dangling out of the wall as if someone had left in a hurry. Maneuvering the Nomad into the cramped spot took a lot of care. She couldn’t imagine that two ships could ever dock at once.

  “Guess they don’t invite a lot of people over for game night,” she said to Yumi, who still sat behind her.

  One of those tubes looked like it might be for replenishing water tanks and thus, through electrolysis, a ship’s oxygen supplies. Alisa would have to check to see if it was operable. She felt like fate, if not Leonidas, owed her something for what had been a harrowing trip out here.

  Near-death experiences hadn’t been uncommon during the war, but she had been fighting for something noble then. To die out here for nothing, with Jelena never knowing what happened to her mother, that would be intolerable.

  “Are you going to get out and look around in there?” Yumi asked. “Or is he going in alone?” Her voice was steady. She seemed to have recovered from their close call with that security system. Maybe the noisy breathing had worked to calm her down.

  “Oh, he’s definitely going in alone,” Alisa said as she let the autopilot complete the docking procedure. She took the helm when they were cruising through asteroid fields and dodging enemies, but preferred to let the computer line the tabs up with the slots. Besides, she had a headache after the intensity of the last few hours. “I wouldn’t mind exploring a bit on my own though.”

  In truth, she wouldn’t mind poking around to see if there might be anything they could salvage and sell. With the empire gone, this research station might be abandoned. A few years ago, she had never imagined herself poking around in wrecks or abandoned facilities, scavenging for parts, but the reality was that she didn’t know what awaited her back on Perun or if her bank account even existed anymore. If she could find a few valuable items to sell, she might be able to replace the parts Mica had mentioned, and she would be in a less desperate situation going forward. She did not want to take custody of Jelena if she couldn’t afford to keep her fed and clothed. Further, for all she knew, it might take a bribe to get onto Perun and find her in the first place. She had no idea if she would be able to communicate with her sister-in-law, or even if she was in the same place as she had been months earlier, when she had mailed that letter.

  “It will depend on the atmosphere,” Alisa said as a hiss sounded, the airlock connecting and sealing with the station. “Leonidas has a suit, so he can go in, regardless. Beck should be able to go in too. Though if I send those two in together, I’m not sure both of them will come out.”

  No, if Beck went in, she wanted to go in too. It was annoying not to have a spacesuit—not to mention unsafe. If some maintenance issue popped up that required a space walk, Mica would have to send Beck out to do the fixing, something he might not have any experience with. Alisa supposed she should be happy they at least had two people capable of going out, but spacesuits would definitely go on the list of things she would buy if she could find some valuables here that were worth selling.

  “I can’t tell from here what the atmosphere is like inside the station.” Yumi waved at the sensor display.

  “You might be able to get a reading once the airlock is open. If the men have good combat armor, their suits will also be able to scan the air, see if it’s breathable. They might be able to tell if anyone is home too.”

  Her hopes of salvaging would go up in smoke if there were residents. It would be one thing to acquire a few items from an abandoned station, but what if Leonidas expected to find people here? As much as she would like new equipment for her ship, she wasn’t going to steal for it.

  “Uhh, Captain?” came Mica’s voice over the intercom. “Could you come down to the cargo hold? We have a problem. Specifically, I have a problem.”

  The ship was sealed in, so Alisa pushed herself out of her seat and headed toward the lower deck. Her legs felt wobbly after sitting for so long—sitting and facing death.

  She found Leonidas standing near the airlock in his crimson armor, his helmet fastened and a rifle and a bag slung over his shoulder. Though Alisa had not asked him to, Beck had suited up too. His armor was white with silver accents, and he also carried an assault rifle. Mica stood near the airlock, too, but as Alisa walked down the stairs, she assumed that whatever problem she had called about was between the two men.

  Mica folded her arms over her chest and scowled at Alisa, making her rethink that assumption.

  The chickens jittered and squawked at her as she left the stairs. A lot of feathers dusted the decking over in the corner that Alisa had given Yumi, feathers that had managed to fly impressively far from the temporary fencing that kept the birds secured. The poor things probably hadn’t appreciated the heat wave any more than the crew had.

  “What’s the problem here?” Alisa asked.

  “Your cyborg thinks he’s taking me on a date,” Mica said.

  Her cyborg? When had she been given ownership over Leonidas?

  “What’s the matter?” Alisa asked. “He’s not cute enough for you?”

  Leonidas’s eyebrows twitched behind the faceplate of his armor. They liked to do that even when he offered no other reaction. Tiny rebellious body parts that would not be sublimated.

  “Not funny,” Mica said. “I don’t even know what the atmosphere looks like over there. I’m not leaving the ship. Engineers don’t leave the ship. We stay in our engine rooms and cuddle with our machinery. There are centuries and centuries worth of precedents to back me up.”

  “You won’t go anywhere you don’t want to go,” Beck said, tapping the barrel of his rifle and eyeing Leonidas, who was standing close enough to him that he could probably knock th
at rifle out of his hands before Beck could aim it at him.

  Alisa looked at Leonidas, his face hard to read—his eyebrows weren’t doing anything now. “Care to explain?”

  “You won’t leave without your engineer,” he said, his voice sounding hollow through the helmet’s speaker.

  Alisa mouthed the words, trying to understand what he meant. It took her a moment to piece it together.

  “You think we’ll strand you here?” she asked.

  “I’m certain you’ve considered it.”

  Yes, but he wasn’t supposed to know that.

  “I would be a fool to leave our best fighter here when there are pirates swarming around out there, probably waiting for the Nomad to leave the belt.” Not that Alisa had any intention of flying out of the belt in the same spot that she had come in, but it seemed a reasonable argument to sway him.

  He gazed back at her through the faceplate, not noticeably moved by her argument. Maybe he thought she was a fool.

  “She comes with me,” he said.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Muscles,” Mica said, taking a few steps away from him to stand beside Alisa.

  As if she could do something to stop Leonidas if he decided to grab her. She wasn’t even carrying her Etcher, not that the bullets would do more than bounce off the hard shell of his armor.

  “Besides, I don’t have a spacesuit,” Mica said. “Who even knows if there will be air over there?”

  Alisa glanced toward the control panel next to the airlock. They could check that now that they were attached.

  “The air will be fine,” Leonidas said without turning to check.

  “How can you know?” Beck asked, still tapping a beat on his rifle. “You been here before? Whatever your little quest is here, it has nothing to do with them.” He waved toward Mica and Alisa.

  Leonidas hesitated. Because he knew it was true? That it was unfair of him to ask for a hostage?