“Occasionally,” he said, not that convincingly.
She patted him on the back again. “Let’s get the Nomad into the air and to a hospital. Then we’ll go find Admiral Tiang, as requested by his daughter.”
Leonidas’s eyebrows rose.
“It’s not a kidnapping if it’s requested by a family member,” Alisa informed him.
“Another delay?” Abelardus asked. “While the person who wielded the staff may be flying away from the area where the attack originated? If he flies to another continent or off the planet, we may never catch him. I’m not strong enough to track the staff to the stars and beyond.”
“A short delay,” Alisa said. “I promise.”
She strode back to the ship, glad when Leonidas fell in at her side. She knew she had his support, at least. Even if he did not believe this was the best time to hunt for doctors to help with personal matters, he would stand at her side. She believed that, and it touched her.
Wonderful, you and your cyborg can hold hands while the entire star system is brought to its knees.
Alisa kept walking and did not look back at Abelardus. Maybe you should use this time to figure out how we’re going to get the staff back from those people when we find them. Because I’m sincerely doubting that will be an easy thing. She thought of Durant’s unconscious form, and then of the way Leonidas had looked when he had been in a coma, and she also thought of the dead Starseers from the outpost on Cleon Moon. She hoped Abelardus was monitoring those thoughts, because even though she had agreed to help, and she agreed that she was partially to blame for the relic being stolen, she worried this might be a suicide mission. And it wasn’t supposed to be her mission, damn it. When was Durant going to wake up and tell her where her daughter had been taken?
I’m hoping your father will hesitate to kill you, Abelardus replied, sounding petulant.
So, what? Your plan is to use me as a distraction—or bait—while you try to slip in close enough to grab the staff? Alisa had never even met her father, if that Stanislav truly was he. How much could he possibly feel for her? It wasn’t as if she felt anything for him, especially after he had stormed onto her locked ship and helped hurt Leonidas.
All I know is that we can’t let those people keep that staff, Abelardus said.
Hells, maybe he was planning to use her as bait.
Chapter 10
From her seat in NavCom, Alisa watched the internal camera, chafing at how slowly people were being loaded onto gurneys and wheelchairs, and moved out of the cargo hold. She had landed on the rooftop of a hospital near the university in a spot meant for a shuttle. The front and side of the Nomad hung over the corner of the building, overlooking the broken streets and damaged buildings of the city. The dubious perch wasn’t what had her antsy. She worried that any moment hospital security would realize what kind of troublemaker was parked atop their building. As soon as the last patient was walked, wheeled, or floated off the ship, she intended to take off.
Her honored guest had just made her way to NavCom to report that most of the wounded had disembarked, and Alisa had directed her to the co-pilot’s seat. Suyin kept fidgeting, alternating between checking her earstar messages, crossing and uncrossing her legs, and popping mints into her mouth from a tin.
“Haven’t heard from your father yet?” Alisa asked, checking the other camera displays. In particular, she eyed the one showing the hospital doors, since a manned security booth stood next to them. Even though the emergency services would be busy for hours, if not days, the aftershocks had stilled and enough calm might return for the military and police to remember they were looking for a Rambler 880.
“Not yet,” Suyin whispered. “Not from my fiancé either. He wasn’t on-planet when it happened, but I know he’ll be worried about me as soon as he hears.”
Alisa hadn’t thought to look up the name of the fiancé and started to ask what line of work he was in, but a thump came from the corridor, interrupting her.
“Get off me!” Abelardus growled.
“Be right back.” Frowning, Alisa left her seat to charge out of NavCom. Even before she spotted Abelardus in the intersection leading to the crew cabins, she had an inkling as to who might be on him. There was only one person on the ship who could truly threaten him, after all.
“Stay out of my head,” Leonidas snarled, his hand planted on Abelardus’s chest, pushing him against a bulkhead. He had removed his helmet, but still wore his armor, so that hand probably felt like a thousand pounds pressing into Abelardus. His staff lay on the deck at his feet, leaving Alisa to wonder who had first decided to make the confrontation physical.
“Then tell her to get this boat in the air and take us south,” Abelardus said. “Fixing your problem isn’t the priority right now. Or ever.” His eyes narrowed in anger, or maybe in the start of an attack.
“Gentlemen,” Alisa said, aware of Suyin leaning to the side of her seat to peer through the hatchway. “Can we discuss this elsewhere?”
Before she had finished the words, Leonidas was flung away. But he took Abelardus with him, his fingers curled into his robe. The two men smacked into the corner on the opposite side of the intersection. Abelardus lashed out with a punch, and before Alisa quite knew what happened, the two men were on the deck, limbs flying.
She glanced back—yes, Suyin was staring at the skirmish.
“Uhm, one moment, please.” Alisa held up a finger and closed the NavCom hatch.
When she turned back to the fight, trying to figure out how she could stop it peacefully—or at all—Leonidas had already gained the upper hand. Abelardus was nearly flat on his back, though he had gotten a knee up as Leonidas straddled him. It was planted in Leonidas’s chest. That did not keep him from gripping Abelardus’s shoulders with his bone-crushing strength. He could have gripped Abelardus’s neck.
“Is this really the time for this?” Alisa hissed.
Beck jogged in from the direction of the mess hall. “What’s going on? Some of the nurses taking people off are looking concerned.”
Yumi, who had gone to sickbay to help Alejandro with the more urgent cases, appeared behind Beck, her face concerned.
“A disagreement,” Leonidas growled, never taking his eyes from Abelardus.
“Over someone’s broken cock,” Abelardus growled back, “and how it’s completely irrelevant right now.”
“Uh, what?” Beck asked.
“This is about helping people,” Leonidas said. “And you’re not the captain, so whether we do or don’t do it isn’t up to you.”
“The only one you want to help is yourself. So you two can finally fuck.” Abelardus grabbed Leonidas’s armored forearms, his face turning red as he vainly tried to push them away. “Don’t pretend this is something noble when it’s not.”
Suyin’s face appeared at the hatch window. Three suns, was everybody curious about this? And were the words traveling through the hatch? It wasn’t yet time to tell Suyin that she’d been… selectively rescued.
“Yumi,” Alisa said, meeting her gaze over the men. “I don’t suppose you have any nice mushroom powder that we can sprinkle on them to cool their tempers?” Or knock them the hells out. That would also be acceptable.
“They would have to ingest it,” Yumi said.
A clang drifted up from the cargo hold, reminding Alisa that other people were still aboard. She didn’t need them distracted from their departure. She needed them off the ship, so the Nomad could retrieve the admiral and get out of here.
“Leonidas,” Alisa said, crouching down so he would see her, even if he refused to look away from Abelardus in case another attack came. “Let him go. Abelardus, we already discussed this. If you can’t wait two hours for us to head to what is most likely certain doom, then you can go rent a ship and fly down there on your own.”
“Certain doom?” Beck whispered to Yumi.
Maybe Alisa shouldn’t have said that part.
Abelardus and Leonidas continued to glare at each
other. It was as if they hadn’t even heard her.
“If I have to, I’ll get my stun gun and zap both of you,” Alisa added. “You’re putting on a bad show for my guest.”
Leonidas finally knelt back, shoving Abelardus’s knee aside as he stood up. Abelardus wrapped his fingers around his staff and glared up at him. Alisa stepped forward so she would be in his line of sight. It wasn’t as if she could truly threaten either of them, but this was her ship, and they would follow her orders. Or they could leave. She briefly turned her baleful gaze toward Leonidas. Even though she was positive Abelardus had antagonized him, she wanted to let him know that she expected him to let go of people when she ordered it.
He didn’t look particularly apologetic as he gazed back. Belligerent might be a better word to describe that expression. Abelardus sure could rile people up.
Someone knocked on the bulkhead. Mica. She peeked around Beck’s shoulder.
“They’ve off-loaded everybody.”
“Thank you,” Alisa said.
Mica flicked her fingers toward all the people crowding the intersection. “Is this what you do when I’m down in engineering? Loiter in the halls? I always assumed you were doing some work up here. Pushing buttons or whatever it is you bridge crew types do.”
“There has been some button pushing,” Alisa said, glancing at Abelardus. But she didn’t stay to trade barbs with Mica. It was time to check on Admiral Tiang.
When she opened the hatch to NavCom, she thought Suyin might still be there, watching through the window, but she had returned to the co-pilot’s seat. Alisa started to shut the hatch behind her, thinking to close out any trouble—or untimely conversations that Suyin might overhear—but Leonidas stopped it mid-swing. He stepped in behind her.
She half-expected a lecture of some kind, about how she should be keeping Abelardus in check better, but all he did was quietly sit at the sensor station. Alisa checked the cameras and spotted two security officers out on the rooftop with their heads tilted toward each other in conversation as they faced the Nomad. She promptly forgot about Abelardus and Leonidas and fired up the thrusters.
“Brace yourself, Mica,” she commed down to engineering. “I’m pushing buttons.”
“Don’t strain yourself,” Mica said. “I’ll be down here, siphoning power to the shield generator.”
“And that’s more grueling than pushing buttons?”
“I have to pull some levers too.”
“Hawk,” Suyin blurted, touching her earstar. “I’m so glad I got through.”
Alisa lifted off from the roof, letting her conversation drop so she wouldn’t interfere with Suyin’s. Hawk. Was that a name? A pet name for a lover? Alisa had only come across one other Hawk in her career, the former imperial fighter pilot captain who’d accepted a promotion to admiral in exchange for coming over to the Alliance. He’d fought a few times during the war, despite his lofty rank, and he was legendary in the cockpit. As with Admiral Tiang, acquiring him had been a coup for the Alliance.
Alisa shifted uneasily as the name came up again. She was sure it was a coincidence, but if it wasn’t… Admiral Hawk Hammerstein was the last person she wanted in charge of chasing down her ship for kidnapping the Tiangs. At the end of the war, he had been discharged for an injury that had never healed all the way, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still have friends in high places and the support of the military. At the moment, Suyin thought this was a rescue mission, and it technically still was, but what would happen when Alisa tried to convince her special guests to stay aboard? And for Admiral Tiang to operate on her cyborg?
“Yes.” Suyin glanced at Alisa. Leonidas got a longer look. She lowered her voice and turned her head. “I love you too. I know. I’m on my way home now. Yeah. Father is… I’m not sure. Yes.” She glanced at Leonidas again.
Even sitting innocuously on the small fold-down sensor station seat, he looked fierce and intimidating in that armor. And Suyin had witnessed him pinning Abelardus to the deck.
“You can finish that in one of the cabins if you want privacy,” Alisa whispered, pretending she wasn’t even vaguely interested in the conversation as she focused on the view screen. “The ones on the left end are unlocked and unoccupied.” The captain occasionally eavesdropped on conversations that occurred in those cabins, but other than that, they were perfectly private…
Alisa looked at the holomap, the navigational system pointing out a route to the address to Suyin’s apartment.
“It’s all right,” Suyin said, also glancing at the map. They were getting close. “We’re almost done. I’ll call you back later. We’re checking on Father now…. And the cat, yes. I’m sure Father is fine. But, Hawk, the wedding may have to be postponed. The city is…” Suyin shook her head, watching the skyline on the view screen.
Some of the fires had been put out, leaving less smoke thickening the air, but that only allowed a clearer view of the devastation below. Elevated railways had collapsed, buildings had toppled, and shuttles and trains and ground vehicles were crashed on every street, sometimes into the sides of structures. In some places, the fissures that had opened up had been large enough to swallow entire communities. The newer buildings should have all been rated for earthquakes, but the news kept reporting how this had been off the charts, more than any natural phenomenon in history. Apparently, they hadn’t yet figured out it hadn’t been natural. Or they were keeping that information from the citizens.
Suyin tapped her earstar to close the link, folded her hands in her lap, and gazed forward.
Alisa groped for something to say, figuring she ought to be establishing a bond with the woman for later, for when she let Suyin know that they would like her and her father to remain aboard as guests for a while. Because surely they would expect to be taken to a hospital after the rescue. What happened if Admiral Tiang was wounded and needed to be taken to a hospital?
“There’s the tower.” Suyin thrust her finger toward the view screen. “It’s still standing.” Utter relief filled her voice.
Understandable since a lower building next to the elegant black-windowed structure she pointed out had crumbled onto its side, blocking two streets with its rubble. The tower was not without damage. Even the Glastica, a nearly impervious material, had not survived the assault to the building, leaving windows open to the elements. At least those elements were friendly at the moment. One of the suns had set, but the other shed perky rays of light across the city. A torrential downpour would have been more appropriate, in the midst of all this damage.
“I’ll have to land on the roof,” Alisa said, eyeing a water tower tipped on its side and countless overturned patio chairs and tables. There should be room, but she would be squishing things again.
“That’s fine,” Suyin said, leaning forward in her seat, her gaze devouring the apartment building. “We’re only three floors from the top. Does it look like there’s been internal damage? More than the windows? Look, that one floor…”
The black windows, those still intact, made it hard to see the interior, but Alisa could definitely see beams and perhaps even ceilings down as she swooped in toward the roof. Lights on emergency vehicles flashed down in the streets, but most of the ground traffic was frozen in place, with too many routes blocked off to be usable.
Alisa settled the Nomad on the roof, wincing at the crunching of chairs and a potted fern. Well, that had been on its side anyway.
“Leonidas?” she asked, turning in her seat.
Suyin flinched and mouthed, “Leonidas?”
Maybe Alisa shouldn’t have used his name. But that wasn’t his real name. Why would Suyin have recognized it? Unless her father had mentioned him for some reason, it seemed odd. The Alliance had just known him as Colonel Adler during the war, Colonel Adler who, for a time, commanded the elite Cyborg Corps. Perhaps the Alliance higher ups—those well above Alisa’s rank—had known more about him. But Suyin was a civilian. Odd.
Leonidas had already stood. “What’s the ap
artment number?”
Suyin hesitated.
“He’ll bring him out safely,” Alisa said. “We have no interest in hurting anyone here. I’m just a freighter captain, and he’s just my chief of security.” Could one be a security chief of a department that only had two people in it? A question for another time.
“I’ll go with you and show you,” Suyin said, rising to her feet.
Alisa hid a grimace. She didn’t want to risk Suyin finding her father and then disappearing, choosing the labyrinths of the damaged building over returning to the freighter.
“You don’t have armor to protect you,” Leonidas said, his voice gentler than usual. “There may be fires. Other dangers. I’ll bring him back.”
Suyin faced him, looking into his eyes. Trying to read his intent? “Ninety-seven-F,” she finally said. “Three floors down.”
“Understood.” Leonidas inclined his head toward her, then met Alisa’s eyes. “If there are others in need of rescuing?”
This time, Alisa hesitated. If they took another trip to the hospital, it would be another place where Suyin and Admiral Tiang might think they should be let off. And she couldn’t let them off yet. Not until she had propositioned them. She would like for them to get to know her—and Leonidas—first. But to leave injured people behind? That was unacceptable.
“Bring them,” she said. “We’ll get them to a hospital. Take Beck with you again.”
Leonidas nodded again and strode out.
Alisa draped her arm over the back of her seat, once again wishing she could go along, but once again acknowledging that her place was in NavCom. Besides, someone had to establish a rapport with Suyin. If they won her over, she might be able to influence her father, to suggest that helping Leonidas would be the right thing to do. Alisa knew very well just how much influence a daughter could have on a father. She remembered some of the times that she had informed Jelena that it was bedtime or that no, she couldn’t have just one more chocolate, only to have her slyly negotiate—wheedle—concessions out of Jonah.