“Maybe someone else is already infiltrating the compound,” Abelardus said, walking out and standing behind Alisa and Leonidas.
“Or maybe another rescue is going on,” Alisa said. She had warned the chef’s warehouse guard, hoping for exactly that, but could his people have gotten something together so quickly? Or maybe someone was rescuing prisoners unrelated to Beck and the chef? “Mafia bosses take lots of prisoners to torture and blackmail, don’t they?”
“I’m not an expert on their practices,” Abelardus said. “Starseers don’t join mafia organizations. We have higher standards.”
Alisa kept from pointing out that the Starseers were similar to a mafia organization, with their separate government, blood ties, and hidden installations all over the system. All they needed was a secret handshake and an interest in gambling rings.
Really, Abelardus said dryly into her mind.
“Let’s try that door.” Leonidas pointed toward the one with smoke billowing out of it. “I can hear shouts coming from inside. Something about escaped prisoners, but it doesn’t sound like anyone is near that exit, at least not yet.”
“Am I going on this incursion?” Mica stood in the hatchway, her satchel of grenades over her shoulder and a blazer pistol in hand. “Or do I wait here and keep the ship powered up and the hatch locked until you return?”
The ship was already powered up and ready. Alisa had seen no reason to turn everything off. Also, she worried about leaving Mica behind without anyone to protect her if someone tried to board the ship.
“Wouldn’t you be disappointed if you didn’t get to use any of your freshly made explosives?” Alisa asked.
“No,” Mica said.
“Come anyway. It’ll be safer with Leonidas.” Alisa waved.
Leonidas was already heading for that door, so she hurried after him. He halted when he reached the front of a yacht-like transport ship and held up a hand. Alisa and Abelardus stopped behind him.
“Wait behind this ship,” Leonidas said, pointing between the transport and a cargo hauler next to it. “Someone’s coming out now.”
As Alisa started to obey, she saw what he meant. Six men in gray uniforms strode out, rifles gripped in their hands and a hoverboard full of crates floating behind them. They halted, nearly tripping over each other, when they spotted Leonidas in his crimson armor.
“We’re here about a drug deal,” Alisa called, waving the bag, still hoping their ruse might work. Even if all they could do was get close enough to subdue those men before any of them could comm their employers, it would be worth it.
But the men did not seem to notice her. They only had eyes for Leonidas. Their weapons came up as they lunged back for cover in the doorway—two jumped onto the back of the hoverboard, using the crates to hide behind. Alisa found herself shoved behind the transport—Leonidas pushing her out of the way. As she stumbled into the shadow of the ship, he opened fire.
Return fire came at the same time, orange blazer beams streaking toward him. Instead of hiding, Abelardus stayed close to Leonidas, using his staff and his mental powers to deflect the bolts. Leonidas relied on his armor to do the same. He soon charged out of view, heading for the doorway and the men.
Alisa checked to make sure Mica was not in danger, but did not see her.
“Mica?” she asked, using her comm. “Are you safe?”
“I jumped back into our borrowed charger,” Mica replied. “My safety is yet to be determined. I expect someone to throw bombs at this ship any second.”
“Your pessimism knows no bounds.”
The firefight continued longer than Alisa expected, with blazer fire streaking through the landing area. Had reinforcements come out?
She ran along the body of the transport, thinking she might find a good angle to fire from at the far end. She doubted Leonidas needed her help against six guards, but who knew what else might be coming out of that building? If Solstice had androids, the White Dragon might too.
The hatch on the side of the transport was open, crates and luggage already stacked inside. Were the mafia bosses having it loaded because they thought they needed to flee? Or maybe someone inside had been preparing for a night departure before this trouble had come.
As she ran past the hatchway to the far end, an explosion ripped from somewhere inside the building. The pavement under her feet trembled, and a moment later, bricks and shards of rock pounded down around her. She leaned against the hull, covering her head with her arms. A piece bounced off the back of her hand, and she hissed with pain.
The firefight on the landing pad did not abate, and as soon as the rubble’s fall lessened, she continued to the end of the transport. She eased around the back corner, and the windows of the building came into view. She did not know what had blown up, but the walls she could see were still intact. She approached the other corner of the transport and leaned out from behind it, blazer in hand, to check on the doorway.
Most of the gray-uniformed men lay on the ground, and the hoverboard had pitched sideways, dumping its crates. Leonidas was grappling with what looked like a man, but could not be—it was matching his strength. Each combatant appeared to be trying to throw the other.
Abelardus flew out of the doorway, nearly crashing into them, his black robe hiked up to his waist.
“The way to the transport is blocked,” someone yelled from inside the building. “We need backup at the west door.”
Alisa grimaced and pointed her weapon at a man leaning out the doorway, aiming at Abelardus. She fired before he did, the blazer she’d grabbed from the pile having more kick than she expected. The sizable double bolts slammed into the figure hard enough to hurl him back out of sight.
Leonidas succeeded in throwing his opponent across the landing pad and into the hull of a yacht not far from Alisa’s position.
Watch out, Abelardus spoke into her mind as he scrambled to his feet. That’s an android.
The figure in question bounced off the hull and landed on his feet in a crouch. Not obviously damaged, he sprinted back toward Leonidas.
So I see, Alisa thought back.
“Take Abelardus and go in and find Beck,” Leonidas said over his helmet comm, his voice amazingly calm, considering he was charging to meet the android. “I’ll hold the landing pad so you can get back to the ship once you have him.”
He and the android crashed together so hard it sounded like a building falling down. They hit the ground, limbs entangling like wrestlers fighting for a dominant position. The android’s expressionless face never changed, not even when Leonidas’s fist caught him in the cheek, tearing away his fake skin to reveal the metal skull underneath.
Alisa wanted to stay and help, but Abelardus was waving at her from the doorway. Leonidas was right. If they couldn’t get Beck and got stuck here on this landing pad—or were forced to take off—this whole trip would be for nothing.
Giving Leonidas and the android a wide berth, she sprinted for the doorway, jumping over fallen men as she went. Bleakness mingled with adrenaline in her nerves. She hadn’t wanted carnage. The more people who died because of this rescue, the more the White Dragon leaders would want Beck—and Alisa—dead. Even if they flattened this place, she doubted it would leave a dent in the mafia outfit’s system-wide operation. It would only irk them further.
She joined Abelardus inside the doorway—the man she’d shot earlier was not moving. He lay on a tile floor in a smoky corridor that led deeper into the building. Shouts and the sounds of blazer fire came from that direction.
Abelardus led the way, his staff in one hand.
“Can you tell what’s happening?” Alisa asked, relieved to let him go first. Until she got her combat armor, she was vulnerable to every stray bullet or blazer bolt. Even though he did not have any armor beneath that robe, he had proven apt at defending himself with his mental talents.
“Chaos,” he said.
A crash sounded in the landing area behind them. Alisa glanced back, but smoke now hi
d the doorway. She imagined that noise had been Leonidas and the android slamming together again, or perhaps hurling one another against a wall.
Something stirred in the smoke as Abelardus reached a stairwell, and Alisa whirled, pointing her blazer. It might be Leonidas, but it might also be that android.
A familiar figure came into view, tousled hair sticking up in more directions than usual. Alisa lowered her weapon. Mica raced up to join them, her satchel bouncing on her hip with each step.
“Trouble at the ship?” Alisa asked.
“No, but I heard Leonidas send you in here alone. Thought you might need help.”
“Alone? She’s hardly alone,” Abelardus said.
“Alone without cyborgs,” Mica corrected.
Abelardus grumbled something under his breath and pointed into the stairwell. It was just as smoky as the corridor, if not more so. “Up or down?”
“Down,” Alisa said. “Dungeons and torture chambers are always underground, right? Nobody wants prisoners to have a cheerful daylight view that might give them hope and strength to resist.”
“Your logic is always interesting,” Mica told her.
“Interesting in an innovative way or interesting in a flawed way?”
Another explosion rocked the building, and a ceiling fixture slammed down a few feet away. Alisa jumped.
“The explosives are being set off in the basement,” Abelardus said, “and most of the chaos is coming from down there.”
“Let’s go down there then,” Alisa said, thinking again that another rescue might be going on. Maybe they could find the other incursion team and join forces.
“Definitely flawed,” Mica grumbled.
Abelardus wore a dubious expression, but he led the way down the stairs.
They descended into more smoke, and it grew darker with many of the light fixtures broken. Water spattered Alisa’s shoulders. Sprinklers going off. Mica coughed, batting at the smoke. The shouts and sounds of weapons firing grew louder. They came to a landing and headed down another flight, puddles gathering on the stairs.
“Can you sense Beck, Abelardus?” Alisa asked.
“It’s difficult to pick out individuals when there are so many people. People and—” Abelardus broke off, raising his staff with both hands and facing the corridor at the bottom of the stairs as something appeared in the smoke.
A silver metal robot with a humanoid upper body and a cart-like lower body floated toward them. It carried a serving tray in one hand and an integrated firearm in the other.
“Only in a mafia compound,” Alisa muttered. She was still several steps up from the bottom of the staircase and had to crouch to target it.
Abelardus, closer to the bottom, received the robot’s attack. A ball of orange energy crackling toward him, and he twitched his staff a few inches to the side. The energy ball struck the tip and bounced away, ricocheting off the wall and back down the corridor. It zipped past an inch from the robot’s blocky head.
Unfazed, the robot fired again.
Abelardus snarled as he blocked the second energy bolt. “I hate machines. You can’t get into their heads and convince them to wet themselves.”
“Is that a typical Starseer tactic?” Alisa asked.
“It tends to end fights in a non-violent manner.”
“So long as nobody slips and falls in the aftermath,” Mica muttered from behind Alisa.
After deflecting another blast, Abelardus made a fist, then opened it in a thrusting gesture. The robot flew backward, its bottom flying over its top as it sailed down the corridor.
Abelardus lunged after it and cracked it with his staff, that familiar lightning spreading from the shaft and to the downed machine. As he finished it off, the sound of heavy footsteps came from further up the stairs behind Alisa.
She and Mica whirled in that direction. There weren’t any alcoves or bends in the stairs where they could have dove for cover.
Alisa fired as soon as the first hulking figure came into view, but groaned when her brain caught up to her reflexes. The man was in gray combat armor, so her blazer bolt spattered uselessly off his chest plate. He lifted an arm toward her, and the barrel of a compact blazer popped out of the suit.
“Rust bang,” Alisa barked, backing down the steps and hoping Mica was already digging into her satchel.
The requested rust bang hurtled toward the armored man as Alisa scrambled toward the bottom, grabbing Mica’s arm and pulling her along with her. Their new attacker jerked his arm up, trying to shoot the rust bang before it reached him and exploded. While he was distracted, Alisa turned and sprinted down the corridor, leaping over the robot upturned on the floor. She spotted a side corridor that they could turn down, but she almost crashed into Abelardus who, instead of running, was spinning back toward the armored man. He jumped out of her way, then ran toward the base of the stairs, his staff raised.
“Run,” he barked over his shoulder.
Alisa disobeyed his order, only going as far as that side passage. She lunged around the corner with Mica right behind her.
A dead-end corridor lined with cells to either side stretched away from the intersection. Fortunately, it was empty of people. Gruesome torture implements hung on pegs and shelves on the walls, a mix of modern force-maces and archaic branding irons and gripping tools.
Alisa huffed a humorless laugh, turning her back to the implements. She had been right about the dungeon being in the basement.
“That soldier wasn’t able to deflect the rust bang,” Mica said, already turned back toward the fight and reaching into her satchel. “Clearly, he doesn’t have your aim. It’ll take a while for it to eat through his armor, though.”
Crimson blazer bolts streaked down from the stairwell, the man’s answer to the attack. Abelardus deflected some with his staff and whatever mental shield he had erected around himself. Other bolts that weren’t in danger of hitting him zipped past. Someone cried out in surprise and pain from the other end of the main corridor.
“We may be surrounded,” Mica said, waving in that direction. Smoke made it impossible to see to the end.
“This would have been much easier if someone had wanted to cordially invite us in to test my drugs,” Alisa said.
The armored guard had reached Abelardus, and they were fighting on the bottom steps of the stairs. The man couldn’t get past Abelardus's defenses, but Abelardus appeared to be having a similar problem. That lightning from his staff crackled around the armor without hurting the man inside. And the constant barrage of blazer fire probably kept him too busy to focus on mental attacks.
“Wearmouth, you down there?” someone yelled from the top of the stairwell.
“Uh oh.”
They were about to have more company from that direction.
“If Beck’s not here, I’m going to be pissed.” Mica armed one of her devices and hurled it past Abelardus, bouncing it off the wall to avoid his barrier. It clanked off the armored man’s shoulder and dropped to the stairs behind him. He glanced at it, and tried to push past Abelardus, but the barrier might as well have been made of solid brick.
“Another rust bang?” Alisa asked, pointing her blazer down the corridor in the opposite direction, where she could make out movement in the smoke. Were they about to be rushed from that side too?
“Not exactly,” Mica said.
A flash of white preceded a thunderous boom that came from the direction of the stairs. The armored soldier was lifted from his feet and hurled at Abelardus. The explosion must have startled Abelardus, because his shield dropped, and the man crashed into him. Ceiling panels and stone walls tumbled as he and the guard went down in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. The stairwell itself disappeared in smoke and dust. So did Abelardus and the guard atop him.
“That was supposed to explode farther up the stairwell,” Mica said, wincing.
Two uniformed men took advantage of the chaos and raced toward Alisa’s group. Though worried for Abelardus—and wondering how the
y would escape since Mica had taken out the stairs—Alisa was ready for them. Thankfully, these men were not wearing armor. They carried massive destroyer handguns—Leonidas had one in his quarters that she had seen often—and belts full of what might have been torture implements.
Alisa did not hesitate to shoot, aiming for one man’s chest. He tripped on a broken drone crumpled on the floor, and it saved him. Her blazer bolt slammed into his shoulder instead of his chest.
His buddy returned fire, huge booms of energy bursting from the destroyer. Alisa jumped back, glad she had the corner for partial protection. The destroyer blast slammed into the wall beside her, gouging a huge hole in the metal. Fresh smoke assailed Alisa’s eyes, but she squinted and leaned out, knowing those men would be on them in a few seconds if she did not stop them.
She stuck her pistol around the corner, firing high and without looking, then squatting down as another destroyer blast slammed into the smoking wall behind her at head height. She leaned one eye around the corner, just enough to aim, and squeezed off two rounds before ducking back, too quickly to see if her bolts hit.
Another blast streaked down the corridor, this one tearing into the rubble where the stairs had been instead of coming anywhere close to Alisa. Mica leaned out, another grenade hefted. Alisa started to warn her not to throw it, that they would be trapped if another corridor collapsed—they might already be trapped if there wasn’t another stairwell leading up. But Mica stopped short of throwing her weapon. She leaned back in, raising an eyebrow at Alisa, who had her back flat to the wall.
“Sometimes, I forget why the Alliance was so happy to have you flying for them,” Mica said. “Flying and shooting.”
Alisa peeked around the corner. Her last two shots had struck true, and the men were down, one still, one writhing and clasping a hand to his chest.
“Even a drunken, blindfolded monkey gets lucky sometimes,” Alisa said, glancing in both directions before running out to grab the men’s weapons, in case they had the life left in them to fire again.
She almost faltered when she had a good look at the rubble filling the stairwell from bottom to top. Only the tip of Abelardus's staff was visible sticking out from under the jumble of bricks and ceiling panels. The armored guard had been completely buried. Or so Alisa thought. A grinding and shifting sound came from deep within the pile, something stirring.