Perilous Hunt

by Lindsay Buroker

  When Alejandro did not answer, her mind went on a rampage, imagining the worst-case scenarios. Imagining Leonidas dead.

  “Alejandro?” she prompted.

  “Yes, we’re wrapping up as quickly as possible.”

  “Is Leonidas all right?”

  “He’s unconscious still, and we don’t know yet what the repercussions will be after dealing with so many unexpected difficulties. Yes, yes, be careful picking him up.”

  Assuming the last sentence was for Bravo Six, all Alisa said was, “Grab his armor and hurry to the ship. The Alliance is coming in. Stanislav and I are trying to delay them but—”

  “Understood.” The line shut down.

  “That man is so terse and grumpy,” Alisa muttered. “I can’t believe someone married him once.”

  Two of the armored soldiers sailed away from the exterior hatch, spinning head over heels as they passed into view of the porthole.

  “That you again?” Alisa asked.

  “Yes, but—”

  An e-cannon blast smashed into the side of the station, and the deck jerked under Alisa’s feet. The lights flickered and went out.

  “When I’m focused on them, the other Alliance ships have time to gather themselves,” Stanislav said. “I fear I’m better at harassing people than the Starseers that came along aboard your ship.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re an expert at harassing people.”

  His eyebrows twitched.

  “I can’t believe they’re firing on the station while their people are trying to board it,” Alisa said.

  “They only want to disable the main systems, not destroy the station.”

  “Comforting.”

  Alisa eyed the overhead fixtures, wondering if illumination would return of its own accord. Right now, only the running lights from the two ships allowed her to see anything as their beams slashed through the portholes.

  A siren wailed, and a computerized voice sounded. “Life support failure is imminent. Please evacuate the station. Life support failure imminent.”

  Alisa groaned, again berating herself for not coming back in her self-sufficient combat armor. But that wouldn’t have helped Alejandro and Tiang, and Leonidas couldn’t don his own armor while he was unconscious with robot bugs floating around in his brain.

  She reached for her comm, intending to check on the doctors again, but the inner hatch the soldiers were trying to breach blew off its hinges. It flew across the docking area and clanged off the bulkhead, as triumphant shouts came from the airlock. They must have reaffixed their airlock tube, because the air did not whoosh out, but Alisa didn’t know if that helped her people much.

  “Get back,” she whispered to Stanislav as she fired, hoping to make the soldiers hesitate. They wouldn’t know how many people were waiting in the corridor for them, not right away, and they might believe Leonidas was here.

  Return fire came immediately, orange and crimson blazer bolts lighting up the dark docking area. Alisa kept her shoulder to the corner of the corridor, exposing as little of her body as possible, but the blasts did not come close to striking her. They beat against an invisible barrier, deflecting back into the chamber.

  The soldiers tried to charge out, but Stanislav raised his arm, and they were hurled back into their airlock tube. Alisa thought about telling Stanislav to break their tube again, but with the hatch open, that would open the docking area to space. Not good.

  “Fire,” Stanislav commanded, lowering his arm. “The shield is down momentarily.”

  The soldiers were already recovering from his assault, jumping to their feet. Alisa fired, trying to peg the leader with a sustained blast that might burn a hole in his armor. But he fired back immediately. She plastered herself against the wall for cover as Stanislav raised a shield again. Blaster fire pelted it.

  “I do not wish to harm them,” he said, looking at her, his face in shadows. “But they will overpower us if all I do is defend.”

  He had barely finished the sentence before a grenade flew out of the airlock tube. It hit his invisible barrier, but exploded in a boom, a cloud of greenish smoke flowing outward. Alisa wouldn’t be surprised if that was some sedative—or poison.

  “Can you keep that from getting to us?” she asked, well aware that neither of them had armor with air filters.

  He gripped his beads tightly. “I can only do so much at once.”

  The soldiers pushed forward again. His eyes narrowed, and they stumbled back to the hatch.

  “Alejandro?” Alisa asked, taking a second to comm him—she couldn’t shoot anyway while Stanislav had that barrier up. “Unless you want to become a permanent resident of this station, you three need to depart now.”

  “Right behind you,” Alejandro said, his voice coming from the corridor behind them as well as through the comm.

  Bravo Six strode ahead of Alejandro and Tiang, carrying Leonidas in his arms as if he were a child instead of a six-and-a-half-foot cyborg. His crimson armor case floated along behind Tiang. All Alejandro toted was his medical kit. He ran past the others, joining Alisa, but coughed when he opened his mouth to speak.

  “What is that? Gas?”

  “Yes, welcome to the reception area. Stanislav?” Alisa asked. He was concentrating on the soldiers, on keeping them back in their airlock tube, and did not look toward her. “Can you make a shield across the whole area so we can run past and to the Nomad?” She jumped on her comm again. “Mica? We’re coming. Open the airlock hatch.”

  “Life support system has failed,” the computerized voice announced. “Evacuate the station. Life support has failed.”

  “These are not proper surgery conditions,” Tiang said, panting as he came to a stop behind Alisa.

  “Tell me about it.” In the dim emergency lighting, Alisa couldn’t make out much of Leonidas’s face, and she could only pray to the three suns that he was alive and stable. “Stanislav?”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. “I’ve erected a barrier. Go ahead. I’ll hold it.”

  “Captain?” Mica asked over the comm. “The air out there is full of some toxic substance. I’ll have to override the computer to let you in.”

  “We’d appreciate it if you did just that.”

  More soldiers gathered in their airlock tube, the armored men bristling with weapons. One carried a grenade launcher.

  An attack from one of the other ships slipped through, and the entire station shuddered so hard that even Bravo Six fell to his knees on the deck.

  Stanislav cursed. He must have lost his concentration as he stumbled against the wall because the soldiers surged forward, yelling and firing. Blazer bolts streaked across the docking area like fireworks. One slammed into Stanislav’s shoulder.

  “Back, back,” Alisa cried too late.

  She fired around the corner, but the armored soldiers raced right into her blasts, the bolts deflecting off their helmets and chest plates.

  Bravo Six stood up, still holding Leonidas. “Do we run for your ship?”

  Tiang and Alejandro got to their feet too.

  “That gas,” Alejandro started to warn, but Alisa didn’t hear him.

  Stanislav roared in fury and pain and threw his arms out. All of the soldiers that had raced into the docking area, some almost reaching their corridor, were hurled into the air. They flew thirty feet, to the far end of the chamber, and slammed against the wall.

  “Go, now,” Stanislav said, his face contorted with pain as he strode out into plain view, his arms up, those beads dangling from one hand. “Run behind me. I’ll stop them.”

  The soldiers fired at him before they had their feet under them, but he had another barrier up.

  The Nomad’s hatch opened.

  “This way,” Alisa ordered, and ran out into the docking area, cringing since it felt like she was exposing herself to all those soldiers.

  They shouted and fired, bolts slamming into Stanislav’s barrier right to her side as she ran. She hoped that barrier extended all the way to th
e airlock.

  Bravo Six raced after her, his stride long and effortless, even with Leonidas in his arms. Alejandro and Tiang hustled after them, arms over their heads, as if they were certain those bolts would reach them. Tiang had the presence of mind to keep the armor case floating after them.

  Bravo Six reached the hatchway first, racing into the Nomad’s airlock tube.

  “Android coming,” Alisa yelled, certain Beck would be in the cargo hold, ready to fire if any enemies charged in.

  She paused in the hatchway, waving for Alejandro and Tiang to run past her.

  “Stanislav, come on,” she yelled, raising her rifle to cover him if necessary. Could he run and keep his shields up at the same time?

  A blast struck the side of the station, white light flashing right outside the portholes. Alisa grabbed the airlock wall to keep from falling again, but the tube flexed behind her. A leak sprang, and the hiss of escaping air echoed in her ears.

  “What the hells?” she growled, glaring upward.

  The blow must have struck right above them. What Alliance idiots were targeting the station so close to their own ship?

  “Captain,” Mica barked over the comm as Tiang and Alejandro sprinted through the tube. “Are you in? The three imperial ships just showed up. We’re in the middle of a—” Something blew up behind Mica, wherever she was. Engineering? NavCom?

  “Stanislav,” Alisa yelled. “We have to go now.”

  He had fallen to one knee, gripping the shoulder that had been struck earlier, but he still faced the soldiers. The Alliance men hadn’t ceased firing, not even when the station had been struck. Sweat gleamed on Stanislav’s face, and he did not look at her, only waving with his uninjured arm for her to go.

  Leave now, he ordered into her mind. I’ll hold them off. If I don’t, they’ll charge onto your ship.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Alisa yelled at him. “Just run over here, and we can—” She broke off with a startled shriek as two soldiers who must have slipped out of their airlock and sneaked along the wall sprang toward her.

  The invisible shield stopped them, but they were less than five feet away. If Stanislav dropped his barrier, the soldiers would spring at her.

  “Just hold your shield,” she ordered and stepped toward him. If she had to, she could drag him away as he concentrated on keeping the men back. Again, she wished she had kept her armor on. Carrying a man would have been easy then.

  Movement from behind made her jump.

  “Sorry, Captain,” Beck said, grabbing her around the waist, “but we’ve got to go now.”

  “No, get Stanislav,” she yelled, struggling as Beck—who was in full armor—ran back through the airlock tube with her in his grip.

  He hit the button at the end, closing the hatch on their end and retracting the tube.

  “What are you doing?” she cried.

  But he did not slow down. He charged past the group of Starseers, all sitting cross-legged in the cargo hold, their heads bent with concentration, and he carried her up the stairs, heading for NavCom.

  “We can’t leave Stanislav,” she yelled, fighting him ineffectively. With Beck in his armor, it was like fighting a tank.

  Beck didn’t answer, nor did he slow down until he dropped her into the pilot’s seat. Yumi and Mica were already in NavCom.

  “Get us out of here now, Captain,” Mica said, flinging her hand toward the view screen.

  The three imperial ships had reappeared, the same ones that had flown past the Nomad two days earlier. They were keeping the station between themselves and the Alliance ships, but also firing at the station, sending torpedoes and e-cannon blasts slamming into the already charred hull. Five of the original eight Alliance ships were visible, navigating around the station toward the imperial ships. Another one had crashed into a nearby asteroid. There had to be another one she couldn’t see somewhere. The eighth was still attached to the station, its people attacking Stanislav.

  Even though Alisa knew they had to get out of there, since being attached to the station when it blew up would be suicidal, she whirled in the seat, furious with Beck.

  “Why’d you grab me?” she demanded. “You could have gotten him. I could have run. My legs work just fine.”

  “He told me to get you,” Beck said, touching the side of his helmet. “He said he had to stay, that someone had to keep them from overrunning our ship.”

  “A sacrifice that won’t mean anything if we all get killed,” Mica said. She grabbed Alisa’s hands and planted them on the control panel. “Fly, Captain. Fly.”

  Though still furious, as much at Stanislav as she was at Beck, Alisa snarled and did as ordered. Hands darting over the controls, she took the Nomad away from the airlock hatch. Lights flashed outside as blasts of energy slammed into the wheel and X of the station.

  She raised the Nomad’s shields, something they couldn’t have done while the freighter remained attached to the station, and veered toward the nearest asteroid, trying to stay away from both groups of ships. For the time being, they ignored her in favor of attacking each other. The imperials kept hammering at the station too. The Alliance ship that had been docked next to them took off. She had no idea if they had their soldiers with them or if those people remained on the station, locked in battle with Stanislav.

  The Nomad hadn’t made it far when the entire station exploded in a fiery ball that rivaled the light of the suns.

  Chapter 10

  Alisa flew at top speed toward a large lumpy asteroid spinning slowly on its axis. If they could slip behind it, and then behind another and another, they might elude pursuit. She hoped the Alliance and imperials were too busy with each other to pay attention to her, but that might be a vain hope. The Alliance wanted Tiang, and they must believe she still had him, and they probably thought she had a clue about the staff too. The imperials… Who knew what in all the suns’ fiery hells they wanted? Other than to blow that station into a zillion tiny pieces.

  She swallowed, moisture gathering in her eyes as she wondered if Stanislav had still been on the station when it blew. Unless the soldiers had managed to capture him somehow and take him onto their ship, there was nowhere else he could have gone. She hadn’t been appreciative of his presence and hadn’t gotten much of a chance to know him—hadn’t figured out if he was someone worth knowing yet—but his willingness to sacrifice himself so she could escape made her believe she had been judging him too harshly. Now, she might never get a chance to find out if he was—had been—a decent person under that mysterious robe. It did not seem right for his brother to still be roaming the system if he was dead and gone.

  “Why did Leonidas’s worm-brained people blow up that station?” Mica asked. She sat in the co-pilot’s seat while Yumi had the sensors, her nose pressed to the panel as she ran scans.

  “Did they think the staff was there?” Beck guessed. “And wanted to do anything to keep us or the Alliance from getting it?”

  “But they had already been there and searched for it.”

  “Maybe it was a different group of imperials.”

  “Captain, you need to change course,” Yumi said, urgency making her words quick.

  “What? Why?” Alisa complied as she questioned, trusting that Yumi had a good reason for the demand. They were flying around a huge asteroid, and its bulk blocked the view of the station and the battle still going on around it.

  “The other Alliance ship,” Yumi said. “It’s back in here. It’s—”

  “Right there,” Mica groaned, pointing at the view screen.

  A hulking warship flew into sight. It had been going one way around the asteroid at the same time as Alisa sailed the other way around it.

  She veered off, heading for three smaller asteroids to their port side. She threw everything into the thrusters, but if the warship wanted them, it would catch them. Still, if she slipped deeper into the asteroid field, the larger vessel would have a harder time maneuvering. She might elude it, even with her lesser engine
power.

  But the Nomad halted before she could zip between the trio of asteroids, the jolt throwing Alisa forward. She hammered at the controls, but wasn’t surprised when they did not respond to her touch.

  “What happened?” Abelardus asked, running into NavCom from wherever he had been.

  “Grab beam,” Alisa groaned, slumping in her seat. “They have us.” She looked back at him. “Unless you and your people can do something. Isn’t Ostberg good with machines? Any chance he can break their grab beam?”

  “Uh, maybe if he knows where it is.”

  “Yumi, find a schematic online, will you?” Alisa asked, eyeing the rapidly closing warship, its winged hull blocking out the distant light from Rebus, as it grew on the view screen. “While we still have time.”

  “The hells with that,” Mica said, jumping from her seat. “The kid can pluck the blueprint for the ship out of my head if he can use it.”

  “That might work. Come on.” Abelardus waved for her to follow.

  As the warship drew closer, thoughts of boarding no doubt in its commander’s mind, Alisa commed sickbay. There was nothing else she could do, and she needed to know if Leonidas had made it back safe. Alive.

  “Alejandro? Tiang?” she asked. “Are you there? How’s Leonidas?”

  Nobody answered immediately, and Alisa rose, tempted to run down and check in person.

  “Captain?” Tiang asked, his voice flat, impossible to read.

  “Yes?”

  “Leonidas is…”

  Alisa gripped the console, her heart pounding. “Is what?”

  “Awake and wishing to know when he can see you modeling your underwear.”

  Alisa nearly fell over. “What?”

  Tiang laughed. If that was an indicator of the man’s sense of humor, he had a horrible one.

  “He is awake,” Tiang said.

  “And well?” Alisa demanded, still not sure what was a joke and what was true. “I find it hard to believe his first words involved my underwear.”

  “No, he requested that we help him into his combat armor. It will likely be many days before we know if the surgery was a success in regard to sexual function.”