Chapter 17
As Alisa slowly lowered the Nomad toward the temple, she kept her finger on the button for the thrusters, ready to streak out of the caldera at top speed should an attack come their way. The weapons mounted in those towers still appeared functional. And, of course, the Starseers themselves could attack her ship—or her—without ever showing themselves.
But the temple lay oddly quiet. Eerily quiet. If not for Abelardus’s promise that more than twenty people were down there, she would think someone had parked the floating fortress in the volcano and gone out for coffee and Asteroid Icies.
As the Nomad drew closer, however, she could see a ship perched in the landing area outside the walls, the same docks where her freighter had once rested. It was snugged up to the wall, and she hadn’t noticed it earlier, but the craft looked like the one that had shot away from the rainforest clearing, leaving Stanislav behind. Judging by the size, it shouldn’t be able to seat more than a few people. Definitely not twenty.
Alisa circled the structure one more time, looking for traps before committing to landing. But the temple floated about fifty feet above the lake of lava, nothing moving inside, the temperature and the smoke not damaging its hover engines. Her sensors did not show its shields raised or much energy coming from it at all.
“We’re ready, Captain,” Leonidas said over the comm, professional as always. He would never consider using her first name over the comm when he was about to go out on a mission. She resisted the urge to call him sweetcakes when she responded.
“Just looking for a parking spot,” she said. “Abelardus didn’t sound interested in rappelling.”
“Only because it’s hard to do in a robe,” Abelardus’s voice came over the comm.
“Ah, Captain,” Alejandro said, also down in the cargo hold. “Did you let the Alliance soldiers out?”
Combat boots rang on the textured metal walkway, just audible over the comm.
“I did,” Alisa said. “They didn’t complain about rappelling. Beck should be with them.”
“What about that is supposed to be reassuring?”
Ignoring the question, Alisa guided the Nomad in for a landing. She thought about cheekily setting down right next to the Starseer craft, but chose the middle of the courtyard instead. A central location seemed like it would be better if her people had to race back to the ship to escape. It would be too easy for the Starseers to cut off that single corridor that led to the docking area outside the walls.
They landed with a soft thump. In a puddle. The ice that so much of the fortress was made from appeared to be melting. Alisa assumed there was a more permanent framework beneath it all, but she did not find the water and slush comforting.
None of the doors to the courtyard opened at their approach. A few windows overlooked the area, but Alisa did not spot movement or lights behind any of them.
“Are we cleared to go out?” Leonidas asked.
“Just a moment.”
After one more final check, Alisa stood up. She left the engine hot, assuming they would need to take off quickly. Then she jogged down to the cargo hold where Alejandro, Abelardus, Leonidas, and Beck stood near the hatch, glaring over at the squadron of Alliance soldiers, Hawk and eight men.
“You’re not coming along,” Leonidas said, looking Alisa up and down and no doubt taking in her jacket and weapons.
“How do you expect me to come up with surprising ways to keep you alive if I’m not with you?” Alisa asked.
“I imagined you flying around in your ship in surprising ways.”
“Without weapons?”
“That lack hasn’t kept you from surprising your enemies in the past.”
Grunts and growls came from the open hatch leading to engineering. Mica and Yumi came out dragging a box. Alisa hadn’t realized Yumi had come down here.
“I’ll be useful against our nemesis,” Alisa told Leonidas. “I promise.”
He glowered at her.
“We have a nemesis?” Mica grunted, one of her homemade explosives teetering and threatening to spill out of the top of the box. Three suns, it was in a green bean can. There was another one made from a cracker tin.
Alisa rubbed her face. She needed to get her engineer better supplies.
“I’m considering the fellow in charge of the staff thieves and likely the one who attacked Laikagrad our nemesis,” Alisa said. “It’s possible he doesn’t yet know we’re his nemeses.”
“I doubt he thinks we’re here for the weather,” Mica said. “I’ve got rust bangs, smoke bombs, and explosives here for anyone who wants them.” She eyed the Alliance soldiers a little suspiciously, but waved them toward the box. Some of the men curled their lips and patted their own weapons. A few came forward and poked in the box.
“I hear his name is Tym,” Alisa added.
“That doesn’t sound like the name of a criminal mastermind.”
“So I told Stanislav.”
“These look rustic,” Hawk said, poking in the box.
“They’ll work fine,” Mica said. “If you’re too proud to launch green bean cans across a temple, then you can leave them. More for me.”
“You’re not planning to come along, are you?” Alisa asked.
“Of course not.” Mica frowned at Alisa. “Are you?”
“No, she’s not,” Leonidas said.
It was true that Alisa’s proper place was in the pilot’s seat, but she had arranged for Hawk’s men to go along. Shouldn’t she be there to make sure they played nice with her people? And didn’t try to push Leonidas off a tower and into a lake of lava while he was fighting the chasadski leader…
“I figured the person who joined these two forces together—” Alisa gestured at Hawk’s men and her team, “—should be there to act as a mediator.”
“Or a target when they start shooting at each other,” Mica grumbled.
Ostberg trotted down the stairs with his staff in one hand and Stanislav’s strings of beads in the other. Alisa started to question him, but he tossed the beads to Abelardus, who was holding out his hand, as if he had expected them.
“Did he object?” Abelardus asked.
“He was unconscious,” Ostberg said.
“I guess he didn’t object then.” Abelardus slid the beads into his robe, where they disappeared into some interior pocket.
Alisa frowned at this cavalier treatment of someone else’s belongings, but if they could enhance Abelardus’s power somehow, wouldn’t it be for the best? So long as he returned the beads later.
“Let’s roll out,” Leonidas said, opening the hatch. Hot, humid air that stank of sulfur rolled into the ship. “Abelardus, you can sense the staff, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re leading.”
“How lovely for me.”
Leonidas pushed him onto the ramp and followed right behind.
Alisa waited for the soldiers to tramp out before starting after the group. She had debated whether she should truly go along, but in addition to her other concerns, she wanted to keep an eye on Abelardus. He was a pilot himself, and there was a ship down there that he could use to escape if he got his hands on the Staff of Lore. Even though he spoke often of having Starseer babies with her, she wagered he would take off with that relic if he got the chance. Alejandro might too. He couldn’t fly, but he might try to make a deal with Abelardus. Hawk could fly too. Alisa was less worried about the Alliance getting their hands on the staff—she had considered giving it to them to get it out of her hands—but she couldn’t help but think this lovely lake of lava presented a convenient way to end the temptation of using it forever. If she had just a minute or two alone with the staff, she could run up to one of the towers and chuck it into the molten stuff. With luck, the staff would melt. Even if it didn’t, dredging it up could take years.
You needn’t sound so happy about that, Abelardus informed her, glancing back. He and the rest of the group had paused to survey the courtyard.
If you don’t try to trip me when I run up to a tower to throw it away, I’ll give you a kiss, Alisa replied.
Make it in front of the mech, and I’ll consider it.
Yumi stopped at the bottom of the ramp beside Alisa.
“You’re going?” Alisa asked in surprise.
“My mother and sisters… I have to look for them.”
“You don’t think they fled with the others?”
“We don’t know that anyone fled,” Yumi said quietly, her face bleak as she gazed up at the towers.
There wasn’t any sign of a recent battle, but her words made Alisa think of the underground Starseer outpost on Cleon Moon, the way people had been killed as they ran, killed without a wound on their bodies. And that had been before the chasadski had gotten the staff.
“It may be in the audience chamber,” Abelardus said, pointing toward the largest building. “Where all the monitors are.”
Leonidas nodded and waved for Alisa to come forward.
“Problem?” she murmured, circling the men to join him.
“If you insist on coming along, stay close so I can protect you.”
“You’re sexy when you give orders.”
He frowned down at her.
“And when you find my jokes inappropriate.”
“Let’s go, Abelardus.” Leonidas nodded toward the building and started walking, Abelardus on his right and Alisa on his left.
The Alliance soldiers fanned out behind them, with Alejandro and Yumi trailing behind and Beck walking protectively at her side. Yumi had grabbed a couple of Mica’s grenades, and she fingered them nervously. Alisa hoped they weren’t unstable. Alejandro clutched his medical kit, an injector already in hand. A tranquilizer gun would have been better.
Behind the group, Mica remained in the hatchway of the Nomad, her arms folded over her chest, her expression proclaiming that she expected trouble. Her box of explosives rested beside her. Alisa hoped the Tiangs stayed in their cabin and did not get it in their heads that this would be a good place for an escape attempt.
The group reached the door and entered the building, as Alisa had first done just weeks earlier. All was quiet in the foyer, save for the trickle of water coming from numerous directions. The ice-block walls glistened with moisture, and the carpet runner squished under their feet as they walked.
“There’s something under all the ice, isn’t there?” Alisa asked, imagining the floor melting away and all of them falling into the lava lake. That wasn’t quite how she envisioned destroying the staff. “You said it flew through space, didn’t you, Abelardus?”
“Yes, but it’s very cold in space, so ice wouldn’t have melted there. I actually don’t know what the structure under the ice looks like.”
“Yumi?” Alisa asked.
Yumi shrugged. “Nobody showed me a blueprint. Your first visit was my first visit too.”
As they walked the corridors, Alisa caught the soldiers glancing at each other and could see their lips moving behind their faceplates. A private conversation on their private comm channel. She hoped Abelardus was keeping tabs on them.
A clank sounded in the distance, and Leonidas halted.
“There are people in that direction,” Abelardus said. “Most of the people I’ve been sensing are in the audience chamber. Fifteen or twenty.”
“Enemies?” Leonidas asked.
“Isn’t every Starseer your enemy?”
Leonidas sighed.
“Is the staff with them?” Alisa asked.
“It was,” Abelardus said. “Now I think it’s behind the audience chamber.”
“Is there a way to circle around and avoid the people?” Leonidas asked.
“Not without punching holes in walls.”
Leonidas flexed one gauntleted hand. “That can happen.”
A few murmurs of agreement came from the soldiers behind them.
“This is my home,” Abelardus protested, looking toward Alisa.
She shrugged. She wouldn’t be pleased at holes in the bulkheads of the Nomad, either, but they also weren’t made of ice. Ice that was already melting.
“One hole,” Leonidas said. “Show us the way around.”
Abelardus grumbled to himself but continued down the wide corridor, nearly to the base of the steps that led up to the audience chamber. Alisa wondered if it was still getting the video feeds from all over the system, the way it had been when she had visited last. Or was the temple also cut off from outside communication?
Abelardus turned down a side corridor, but not before casting a long troubled look toward the closed double doors at the top of the stairs. The soldiers gave those doors warier looks. If the people waiting inside were Starseers, they must be aware of this infiltration group. But nobody charged out, nor did Alisa hear any more noises from that direction. Could the people be tied up or unconscious for some reason? Dissent among the enemy ranks?
After a couple more turns and a walk up a long hallway, Abelardus stopped and faced a blank wall. He touched the melting ice.
“There’s a computer room back here that handles all the feeds that go into the audience chamber,” he said. “It’s windowless, but there’s a door that opens to the hallway behind the chamber. It’s where Lady Naidoo and other council members have their offices.”
“The staff is back there?” Leonidas flicked open a port on the inner forearm of his armor and aimed a laser tool at the wall. It bit quickly into the ice.
“I think so,” Abelardus said.
“You think?”
“It keeps moving around.”
Leonidas met Alisa’s eyes. Was he also considering how far they could trust Abelardus?
Hawk and several other soldiers with similar tools in their armor joined him in cutting into the wall.
“There are panels behind the ice,” Leonidas said.
Alisa wasn’t surprised. She couldn’t imagine a castle made solely of frozen water being flown through space.
As she pictured the structure floating between the stars, it made her wonder if the chasadski had targeted it less out of a desire to recruit Starseers and more because they wanted to claim it as a base. A flying temple in space might make an interesting platform from which to launch plans of system-wide domination. But if that was their plan, why park it over a lake of lava? She hadn’t flown under the temple, but she imagined any ice on the bottom would have melted right away.
“We can tear them down,” one of the soldiers said, shoving cut blocks of ice out of the way.
Leonidas cut a hole in the core panel. It was sturdy with wires and pipes running through it, but he peeled it open as if it were made of paper. He did the same thing with the one next to it, creating an opening large enough for people to step through.
A dark room lay inside, tiny power indicators glowing green and red. Leonidas leaned the broken panels against a wall. Alejandro, stepping out of the way, bumped them, and one slid down the ice and clattered on the floor.
“That wasn’t very stealthy,” Abelardus observed.
“I’m sure they already know we’re here,” Alisa said, though she had winced at the noise.
Leonidas led the way into the dark room, waving for Alisa to follow. He hadn’t been kidding about keeping her close enough to protect. She hoped that she wouldn’t inadvertently distract him during an important moment.
Paying no attention to the walls of computers—there were enough of them to control the entire complex, not just the monitors—Leonidas strode for the door inside. Alisa shone her light over the equipment as more soldiers filtered in, making the room claustrophobic. She spotted a strange bundle of wires sticking out of a black box attached to one of the mainframes. Was that some jerry-rigged device placed there to fix a problem?
“Mica?” Alisa whispered into her comm. The unit informed her that it was using the Nomad’s limited transmitter and receiver rather than the planet’s satellite network. “I’m going to send you a picture of something.”
“Naked p
ictures of you and your cyborg?” came Mica’s prompt response. She was probably tapping her foot and waiting to do something.
“Not this time. Take a look at it and let me know what you think, will you?”
“This time?” Leonidas asked, his helmet leaned against the door as he listened for noise on the other side.
“She might be more eager to look at my pictures if I mix in things like that. You’ll cooperate, won’t you? To tickle the fancy of my engineer?” Alisa took a picture of the black box and transmitted it.
“Which one of you would she be most interested in looking at?” Beck asked curiously.
“You’ll have to ask her.”
“I can hear the people in the audience chamber,” Leonidas said. “They’re not talking, but they’re shuffling around.”
“I think they’re walking in circles,” Abelardus said.
So much for Alisa’s thought of the Starseers being tied up.
“Why?” Leonidas asked.
“No idea.”
“You can’t get the gist of any of their thoughts?” Alisa remembered that he had said Starseers could protect their thoughts from others, but she was surprised he couldn’t get anything at all.
“Oddly, I’m not reading much from them. They’re almost… I don’t know how to explain it. Like androids right now.”
“Was something done to them?” Yumi whispered.
“We’ll find out,” Leonidas said, opening the door.
As soon as he went out, Alisa poked her head through the doorway. She glimpsed the back of a black robe as someone went around the corner of a T-shaped intersection in the direction opposite from the audience chamber. Leonidas took a step, as if to give chase, but the chamber door burst open.
Men and women carrying staffs and wearing Starseer robes flowed out from the audience chamber. They also wore thin headbands with metallic disks pressed against their foreheads. The lights were out behind the Starseers, as if they had been wandering in the dark.
“Get back,” Leonidas warned, springing forward to intercept the defenders.
There wasn’t a way back. The soldiers were crowding the door, wanting to join him. Alisa stepped into the hallway, pressing her back to the wall to stay out of the way.