While she was debating, the hatch flew open behind her.
“Yes,” Ostberg whispered triumphantly.
Alisa didn’t know if he had done that or if the other Starseers were coming, but Leonidas took it as a sign to burst into action. He lowered Suyin to the deck and sprang for the walkway. Alisa barely had time to react before blazer bolts streaked through the cargo hold. Beck raced after Leonidas, yelling and firing.
“Out, out,” she barked, grabbing Suyin and pulling her through the hatch. The ramp hadn’t extended, so she had to jump down while trying not to drop the unconscious woman on her head.
Mica and Yumi leaped out as Abelardus sprang over her head and into the hold. Stanislav followed him with less alacrity, climbing instead of jumping, his face twisted with pain.
Admiral Tiang landed next to Alisa, looking like he had been pushed rather than leaping out voluntarily. Ostberg and Alejandro also dropped down beside Alisa, the latter grunting and glaring at her as they tugged Durant back outside.
“This is not an appropriate way to handle a patient,” Alejandro growled at her.
“We’ll have to get a foldable hover gurney for the ship.”
Orange and red blazer bolts glanced off the hatch jamb and zipped out over their heads. Alisa ducked, pressing herself against the hull of the Nomad for cover, and ignored further complaints from Alejandro.
Clangs and thumps mingled with the weapons fire inside. The chaos outside was calming down, but the carnage left in its wake did not reassure Alisa that they were safe. Wrecked shuttles and craters littered the canyon floor, with a piece of a hull lying on a ledge halfway up the canyon wall. Other warped parts had flown a hundred meters or more.
An engine roared overhead. With Stanislav in the ship now, Alisa worried the soldiers out here would be able to regroup and cause trouble again.
Inside, the sounds of fighting lessened, so she risked rising on tiptoes to peer into the cargo hold. She found herself looking at the toes of a pair of red boots.
“Hand me the prisoners,” Leonidas said, lowering his hands.
“You mean the people we rescued?” Alisa waved for Mica to help her lift Suyin up to him.
“Give it up, Captain,” Mica said. “Even you can’t believe that. Or are you practicing for your appearance in front of a jury?”
Leonidas took Suyin from them and propped her against the bulkhead inside.
“Don’t be silly,” Alisa said. “We’re not going to be tried.”
“Straight to the firing squad, eh?” Mica asked.
Admiral Tiang came over of his own accord and lifted a hand toward Leonidas. Maybe he agreed with Alisa and thought being left behind would be a worse position to be in than imprisoned on a freighter. Or maybe he simply wanted to be with his daughter.
“They won’t be out for long,” Stanislav said from the cargo hold. “We should remove their armor and put them in the brig.”
He sat in the center of the hold, as if his legs had crumpled beneath him, his staff now in his lap instead of pointed at anyone. His face was much more haggard than it had been earlier, with bags under his eyes and an exhausted slump to his shoulders, as if he had been up for three days straight.
The soldiers on the walkway had fallen, two of them tumbling all the way to the deck. Beck stood near Stanislav, covering the armored men with his rifle, but he looked at Alisa in bewilderment.
“Who is this?” he mouthed.
Alisa shrugged, not sure where to begin. This wasn’t the time for explanations anyway. The Alliance ships and men outside would be getting their acts together soon.
“We don’t have a brig,” Mica pointed out. “The best we can do is stuff them in the rec room and make them play hologames from the last century.”
“It’ll be hard to get them out of their armor,” Beck said, “and they’ll be dangerous until they are. Mica, you have a crowbar in engineering?”
“I have a vat of acid.”
“That’ll eat through armor and flesh. And muscle and bones.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Yeah, these aren’t imperial soldiers. They’re just…”
“Pus-dripping moonpuffs who won’t leave us alone?” Mica suggested.
“You wouldn’t be calling them sissies if we hadn’t had Starseers to help us.” Beck cast that puzzled frown at Stanislav again.
Nobody asked, but Stanislav sighed and raised a hand. Clicks and clacks echoed throughout the cargo hold. It took Alisa a moment to realize it was the sound of dozens of pieces of armor unfastening.
“Is that possible?” she muttered, looking toward Abelardus. If she’d known it was, she would have asked him to do the same thing many times.
Abelardus shook his head, looking dazed and bewildered. “He has artifacts,” he said, waving toward the beads Stanislav held in addition to his staff. “And power. He’s a descendant of Alcyone, remember? And with the chasadski. They study things people with morality wouldn’t.”
Stanislav looked over at him, his expression sad or perhaps regretful. He did not correct Abelardus.
Leonidas hauled Durant into the cargo hold, laid him on the floor, and gave Alejandro a hand up. Yumi had made it on her own. Once everyone was inside, Leonidas hit the hatch button, and it closed once more.
“I’ll remove their armor and lock them up,” he told Alisa, but he paused at her side on his way. “You better get us out of here. While the soldiers are in disarray.”
“Yes,” she said, but first plucked a frond out of one of the seams on his back. “How did you escape?”
“Escape?”
“They said they’d caught you. They wanted to trade you for their people. There was an explosion and excited whooping, so I believed they had you.”
“That explosive landed a half a mile behind me. Maybe someone ordered the soldiers to act like they had gotten me so they could play that ruse.” He shifted his helmeted head as much as it would tilt—not much. “You weren’t willing to make that trade?”
“I might have if I’d believed they would deal honestly. Or if they had pushed your unconscious body out on a hoverboard and I’d seen you helpless.”
“If I ever let Alliance soldiers catch me or render me helpless, I probably wouldn’t consider myself worth trading for.” He rested his arm around her shoulders briefly, then ran up the stairs to attend to the soldiers. Helmets and leg pieces began pelting down from the walkway.
Alisa caught Stanislav looking at her, and figured he would remind her that they needed to get into the air, but as she started up the stairs, he said, “I’m pleased that he survived.”
“Why?” she asked, before she remembered that “Thanks” would have been the correct word. She was too puzzled by him.
“You care about him.”
“Right.” Still puzzled, she picked her way up to the walkway, stepping over soldiers and armor. She couldn’t deny that they wouldn’t have gotten back to the Nomad without his help, but surely, he had only helped because of the ride he supposedly needed. Though she wasn’t sure whether to believe he needed anything from her. With all that power, why couldn’t he just fly to the temple or wherever he wanted to go?
Alisa was halfway through the mess hall before she remembered that at least one of the soldiers had to be in NavCom, since someone had used the override on the hatch controls. Her step faltered, and she pulled out her stun gun.
But Abelardus strode out of the corridor leading to the cabins and NavCom with a uniformed woman over his shoulder. He twirled a stun gun of his own on one finger.
“This was the only one up there, unless someone’s hiding in your cabin, ready to spring out.”
“It’s more likely that they would choose Yumi’s cabin to hide in,” she said, heading past him. “There’s more to entertain people in there.”
“Then they would stumble out amid a smoky haze instead of springing out.”
“Likely so. Put her in the empty cabin next to Leonidas’s, please. We’ll
put half in there and half in the one by the lav.”
“Bet they’ll like listening to your cyborg beating on the walls at night,” Abelardus said. He looked weary, uncharacteristic bags under his eyes, and he didn’t add the usual smirk that came with his flippant words.
“I’m hoping none of them will be with us that long.” But now that night had fallen outside, Alisa couldn’t help but have longing thoughts about her bunk. They all needed rest, but she had no idea when they would get it.
Alisa glanced both ways at the intersection, half expecting Abelardus’s words to prove prophetic, but nobody jumped or stumbled out of any of the cabins. The hatches were all open, and everything from weapons to underwear was scattered in the corridor in the aftermath of the soldiers’ search. Sickbay had also been empty—and a mess—with the injured people from the apartment building gone. Alejandro would probably be more relieved than worried. He had enough on his hands with Durant. Alisa hoped he had taken his hard-won data with him and that the soldiers hadn’t found it.
She flopped into the pilot’s seat, firing up the engines and checking the sensors. Lights still flooded the canyon, with the stands left behind when the soldiers had fled. Some had tipped over, but not all, and Alisa’s cameras picked up movement outside. Several armored soldiers had gathered together and appeared to be arguing as they pointed at the Nomad. Others were rising from where they had been hurled, looking around, limbs shaky as they tried to walk. Alisa took some comfort from the lack of bodies, at least in the immediate area, but it was definitely time to leave.
The camera on top of the ship gave her a view of the smoky night sky above the canyon, but she couldn’t see much else. The sensors showed the destroyed shuttles, as well as two other ones that had survived the destruction. She was more worried about the ships in the sky. She found them, but not poised over the canyon and ready to shoot, as she had expected. Instead, they were flying in a formation twenty miles away. Having one of them break ranks and fire upon their own must have discombobulated the unit. Or was it possible that Stanislav was even now affecting them, or perhaps controlling the mission commander?
She shuddered as she lifted the Nomad out of the canyon. The power he had displayed was so far beyond what Abelardus and the other Starseers she’d met had done, it scared her. Abelardus said the staff had been taken away in that ship, but she wondered if Stanislav might be channeling its power somehow.
As soon as the Nomad cleared the canyon, she turned inland, flying low over the canopy. It was probably a vain hope, but maybe she could avoid notice a while longer if she skulked along among the trees.
Realizing she had no idea where they had to go next, Alisa reached for the comm. As much as she would like to shoot out into space and hope to fall off the Alliance’s radar, she doubted Abelardus or Stanislav would allow her to leave without visiting the temple. Yumi would want to check on it too. Why couldn’t Alisa ever fly a mission for herself?
“Abelardus,” she said over the comm, “I need you.”
“Words I’ve been waiting to hear for weeks,” he yelled up from the passenger cabins.
She rolled her eyes and hoped Leonidas was there to slap him in the back of the head. Those braids shouldn’t do too much to soften a cyborg blow.
Abelardus popped into NavCom and slid into the co-pilot’s seat. Leonidas followed him up the corridor, leaning his hands on the hatch jamb.
“Did you want to watch?” Abelardus smirked at him.
“No.”
“You sure? You could probably use some tips, just in case you get your cock working again.”
“Alisa,” Leonidas said, ignoring Abelardus, “Dr. Suyin is waking up. Do you want me to put her and her father in with Hawk, or separate them? I’ve got the rest of the soldiers stripped and in another cabin.”
“Stripped?” Abelardus’s smirked widened. “You must be expecting to get that surgery soon.”
“You can slap him,” Alisa said. “Or I can, if you want.”
“It would demean him more coming from you.”
“I doubt that. Go ahead and put Hawk with the Tiangs. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the opportunity to scheme together.”
“And we should facilitate that?” Leonidas asked.
“I doubt it matters. Abelardus, you said you could feel the staff. Can you give me directions? Or can Stanislav?” Maybe she should have called him up.
“Doubtful. When last I saw him, he looked like he was on the verge of passing out on the deck of the cargo hold.”
Alisa frowned. “Because of his injuries?”
“That and because he overextended himself, I’d guess.”
“Is Alejandro taking care of him?”
“Alejandro is in sickbay. He had Ostberg help him get Durant back onto the table, and they’re trying to reconstruct what they were working on.”
“Leonidas?” Alisa asked, making him pause. He had already been on the way out. “Will you also grab Stanislav and take him to sickbay?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” Alisa reached over and slapped Abelardus on the shoulder. “Directions.”
“Are you impatient or did you slap me because of my earlier comments?”
“Both.”
Alisa eyed the sensors again, but the Alliance ships hadn’t moved to pursue her yet. If Stanislav was responsible for that, and if he passed out, that might mean they would all chase after her again. And if he fell unconscious, how would they escape a second time?
“We’re going the right way,” Abelardus said. “Sort of. Head more southerly. I can’t tell exactly where it is, but I can feel it. It’s on this continent.”
“Southerly? There are a bunch of live volcanoes in that direction.”
“Southerly,” he said firmly.
Chapter 15
“A little to the left… no, more that way. I believe it’s at a higher altitude. Maybe in a mountain. That way.”
Alisa glared over at Abelardus, but he had his eyes closed as he gave directions, so he didn’t see. He kept giving her adjustments whether she had shifted their course to incorporate the last adjustment or not.
“Captain?” Yumi asked quietly, stepping into NavCom.
“You get in touch with your sister?” Alisa asked, knowing Yumi had been trying. “Or anyone at the temple?”
If the staff thieves had headed to the temple, it would be nice if someone inside could simply give her coordinates. But if the Starseers were currently dealing with this Tymoteusz and his crew, Alisa could understand why they wouldn’t be answering their comms right now.
“No,” Yumi said.
“Can you use any scientific methods to find the staff that are superior to my braided divining rod over here?”
“I heard that.” Abelardus opened a single eye to shoot her a baleful look.
“I don’t think…” Yumi trailed off. “Well, if it’s being used or actively giving off an energy reading, maybe?” She slid into the sensor station. “Mica, Alejandro, and I did take some readings of it when it was on the ship. Perhaps I could seek out its distinctive energy pattern out there. And since there are few high-tech human settlements in this part of the world, there should be less interference.”
“I can’t imagine why people don’t live here,” Alisa said, waving her hand as if she could bat away the ashy haze outside. The sky was already lightening with the promise of the first sunrise, but the ash reduced visibility in the same way a heavy mist did. She was relying heavily on the sensors to let her know where the ground was.
The sound of Yumi typing at the sensor station filled Alisa with hope that she might soon receive superior directions.
If you didn’t truly need me, you shouldn’t have called for me, Abelardus said into her mind. You got my hopes up.
Sorry, I thought you would be better at fulfilling my needs.
In most cases, I would be excellent at fulfilling your needs, however demanding. But that battle drained me. I’ll be suitably perky again in a f
ew hours. He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“Captain?” Alejandro asked over the comm. “You might want to come to sickbay.”
“Durant?” she asked, ever hopeful that he would come out of his coma.
“The Starseer wants to talk to you. He’s slipping in and out of consciousness, but he’s lucid for the moment.”
“Damned needy Starseers.”
Abelardus smiled lazily at her.
Alisa programmed the autopilot, though relying upon it down here in a planet’s atmosphere, especially when they were flying low, made her nervous. She would make this a quick trip.
“Let me know if anything interesting happens,” she said, rising from her seat.
“Can you nudge our course a little to the south before you go?” Abelardus asked.
“No.”
Alisa would wait to see if Yumi could provide more reliable directions before continuing to wind the ship around like a seasick snake.
She found Leonidas standing guard outside of sickbay. He had removed his helmet, but a rifle rested next to him, the stock on the deck.
“Expecting trouble?” Alisa asked, nodding toward the open hatch.
“From all quarters. I’ve removed weapons and armor from our prisoners and locked them in two cabins, but your hatches aren’t that secure.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I’ve got Beck guarding the corridor up there.”
“While you guard our Starseer guest?” Alisa peeked through the hatchway.
Durant was back on the exam table with Ostberg holding some monitor while Alejandro hooked up wires to Durant’s head. Was he about to try some new procedure? Now? Alisa wanted Durant out of the coma, but she didn’t know if this was a good time. Who knew when those Alliance ships would show up again? Or when the staff thieves would notice the Nomad getting close and attack? Or when a volcano would erupt under the ship’s belly? Alisa grimaced at the potential threats on all sides.
“Yes,” Leonidas said, pointing toward the deck behind the exam table.