Alisa was about to head to the cabinets when she remembered the presence that the orb had. She had been able to feel it, like energy humming in the air during an electrical storm, when it had been out of its box on the pirate ship. Apparently, the box provided some insulation, because she had not noticed it other times, but she also had not tried to notice it. The thing—an artifact, the major had called it—disturbed her and made her want to stay away. But she could not do that now. She backed to the center of the room and flipped off the flashlight. Though she hated taking her attention from Alejandro, she closed her eyes and tried to open up her other senses. The even rhythm of his breathing comforted her slightly.
Alisa had no idea how to use her sixth sense or whatever it was that was involved in these things. Maybe she should have joined Mica and Yumi for meditation. An altered state of consciousness might be helpful for this.
After a few seconds, she thought she sensed something. Her imagination? Gooseflesh rose on her arms. The feeling seemed to originate from the direction of Alejandro’s bunk. Maybe he did have it under his pillow. Or under his blanket.
Flicking her flashlight on again, she eased back to his side. Carefully, she lifted the edge of his blanket. A bead of sweat ran down her spine. Searching the room was one thing, but risking touching him? That was sure to rouse him.
She crouched down to look under the blanket without lifting it higher, sweeping the flashlight through the space. She couldn’t keep from imagining Alejandro waking up and staring at her, his face less than two feet from hers. But all of her worries disappeared when she spotted the satchel nestled under the blanket and against his chest, the strap hooked around his wrist with his arm draped over it. Three suns, a lover would be jealous of the thing.
She couldn’t detect the sewer odor, so he must have laundered it since they had returned earlier. Or maybe he had showered with it. Paranoid bastard.
There was no way she would try to get that strap off his wrist, but she put away the flashlight and risked poking her hand under the blanket. From the way he held it, she might be able to lift the flap and extricate the box without bumping him. Maybe.
Even as she tried, she could not believe she was doing this. There was absolutely no excuse she could make to explain herself if he woke up. No, she would have to club him over the head and hope for the best. She did have her Etcher in her holster. But she didn’t want to kill him, and everyone would hear that gun going off. This would have been much less crazy if she had a stunner. She made a note to herself to buy a wider variety of weaponry someday—if she ever had time to go look for legitimate work.
She slid her hand under the flap and felt the corner of the box, the hard wood slightly warm under her fingers.
Alejandro grunted, his even breathing stopping. Alisa froze. His arm moved, and she yanked her hand out, dropping to the floor beside the bunk. He stirred further, the blankets rustling slightly. She lay on her back, looking up at the dark ceiling, her heart pounding against her rib cage. If he woke fully and decided to use the lav, he would step on her on his way out.
More rustling came, then a quiet pause. His even breathing started up again, fainter than before. Even though he sounded like he had fallen back to sleep without fully waking, she waited for several minutes before risking sticking her head up. She slumped with relief when she realized that he had turned over. Not only that, but he faced the wall now, and the satchel remained on the bunk behind him, his arms no longer around it, the blanket no longer covering it fully. Maybe one of the sun gods was looking down upon her and wanted to help. The strap might still be hooked to his arm, but she could easily reach the flap, and she did so, opening it. She eased the box out, her hands shaking as she backed away with her prize.
Alisa wanted to sprint for the corridor and the cargo hold so she could get off the ship as quickly as possible, but she made herself step slowly, quietly. She would still be in trouble if he woke up.
She eased into the dark corridor, looking both ways.
A thump came from her left, and she nearly dropped the box. She whirled, turning on the flashlight, expecting to find Leonidas standing there.
The corridor was empty. The noise had come from inside his cabin, not outside of it. Good.
Alisa hustled in the other direction, more eager than ever to get off the ship. She barely kept from sprinting down the steps and into the cargo hold. A few lights were on, and Mica waited near the hatch, yawning as she fiddled with something on her netdisc.
“Open the door,” Alisa said. “We’re going.”
Mica eyed the box tucked under her arm. “I see that.”
She wasn’t moving quickly enough for Alisa’s tastes, so Alisa leaned past her and thumped the button for the hatch. Cold salty air rushed in as the ramp lowered. Not waiting for it to settle, Alisa grabbed an empty shopping bag and hurried outside.
“How long do we have?” Mica asked, jogging to catch up.
Alisa waved at the sensor to close the hatch, then turned toward the empty walkway outside. At least, she expected it to be empty at this time of night, but she almost crashed into someone striding past a lamppost. For the second time in as many minutes, she nearly dropped the box.
A hand reached toward her, and she leaped back, her nerves on edge, before it registered that she knew who this was. How many people ambled along the concourse in full combat armor?
“Beck,” Alisa blurted. “Where have you been?”
She felt guilty that she had forgotten about him ever since the major’s message had come in. She had meant to look up his comm number and try to reach him.
Beck glanced over his shoulder. He wasn’t wearing his helmet and had it tucked under his arm. He did not carry bags of chicken feed or anything that would suggest he had been out shopping. “Extricating myself from trouble.”
“With campus security?”
“First with them, yes, but all I got was a warning there for walking onto campus with weapons. But on the way back, a truck screeched out from an alley and two men with rifles tried to take me down. I can’t prove it, but I think they were White Dragon. They must have people on this planet—and the word must be out that I’m wanted dead.” He grimaced. “I was wearing my helmet too. I shouldn’t have been easy to identify. All I can assume is that they’ve got me tagged somehow. I’ll have to take my armor to a master smith, see if he can figure it out.”
“A good quest for you for tomorrow. Why don’t you come with us now?” Alisa gripped his arm and turned him away from the ship, pointing down the dark concourse. She glanced back at the hatch, making sure it was still closed. Alejandro could wake up any moment and come storming out of the ship.
“Now?” Beck blinked and looked from her to Mica. Then his gaze snagged on the box under her arm. “Uhh, what’s that?”
“A long story,” Alisa said, relieved he had started walking. She stuffed the box into her bag so it would be less obvious. “But your timing is impeccable. We could use someone burly and intimidating for this meeting.”
“And you chose me instead of the mech?” Beck lifted his head, sounding pleased.
“Of course.”
Mica twitched an eyebrow in her direction but kept her mouth shut. Maybe she was too tired for sarcasm or pessimism tonight. Alisa certainly was.
She looked back a final time before a bend took the Star Nomad out of sight. She dreaded returning, not knowing if Leonidas and Alejandro would have left and been locked out, or if they would still be there, waiting to punish her for her betrayal.
No, she told herself once again. It wasn’t a betrayal. They were enemies, both of them. She was Alliance. She needed to find her daughter. All of this was perfectly logical.
The words did not keep her from feeling that she had left her honor in shreds on the floor of Alejandro’s cabin.
Chapter 11
“Someone’s coming,” Beck whispered, nudging Alisa with his elbow.
She blinked, coming fully awake, hardly able to belie
ve that she had dozed off while standing against a stack of shipping containers. She, Beck, and Mica were in a rail yard across the parking lot from the Spaceman’s Wharf, the restaurant Major Mladenovic had picked for their meeting place. The sky had lightened a few shades since the last time Alisa had opened her eyes.
Numerous cars were parked on the asphalt around the restaurant, while fliers perched in a separate rooftop lot. People walked in and out of the building, the scents of eggs and baking bread wafting out, but Beck wasn’t pointing in that direction. He was looking toward their left, at dark shadows inside the rail yard between two rows of shipping containers stacked three high and towering thirty feet above the asphalt.
Alisa had decided to wait here, where cargo was removed from ships and put onto trains to transport across the continent, rather than in a booth inside the restaurant, because she hoped to see Mladenovic walking in. More specifically, she hoped to see Mladenovic and however many men he brought with him walking in. He shouldn’t need more than a couple of people to ensure she cooperated and to give her the information she needed. If he brought an army, she would assume it was a trap.
Following Beck’s pointing arm, Alisa spotted a man in unremarkable civilian clothes walking out of the shadows. It was the major, his glasses reflecting the light of a lamp near the edge of the rail yard. Two men in mismatched combat armor strode after him.
“Thought you said this fellow would be wearing an Alliance uniform,” Beck said.
Alisa had summarized the message for him on the way over here, leaving out the details about her daughter. Beck had assumed she was turning the orb in for money, or just because the Alliance had ordered her to, and it had seemed simpler to let him believe that than explaining the truth.
“I’m not surprised he isn’t,” Alisa said.
“He would have the police or imperial soldiers jumping on him if he wandered around here in one of our uniforms,” Mica said, pushing away from the post she had been sitting on and yawning. She might have been dozing too. “There’s a police flier parked over there in the restaurant lot,” she added.
“Hope that means that they’ll come out to help if those two thugs in combat armor try to get rough,” Alisa said, debating whether she should step out of the shadows to greet the major or wait for him to cross the street and go into the restaurant. She wasn’t likely to have trouble with him in an eatery full of people.
“Are you making implications about the kinds of people who wear combat armor, Captain?” Beck asked.
“Just that they probably get crabby if they spend all day and all night in all that gear.”
“Actually, the padding inside mine is quite comfortable. I’ve been known to lock the leg servos and take a nap while standing up.”
“That’s a revelation that’ll make me feel particularly safe with you guarding my back in the future.”
“I don’t nap while guarding people, Captain.”
They weren’t talking loudly, but one of the men in armor caught up to the major and tapped him on the shoulder. He pointed at Alisa’s group. So much for the safety of a booth in the restaurant.
The three men veered in her direction. Mladenovic’s mouth moved as he murmured something. It might have been to his men or he might have had an earstar. It was too dark to tell. Alisa did not like the idea of him reporting to some superior that he had located her. Nor did she like the idea that he might have other men around that he could be checking in with. When she and Mica and Beck had arrived, Alisa had led them on a stroll around the rail yard and the restaurant, looking for any hidden trouble—such as squads of men poised to leap out and grab her. They hadn’t seen anything, but it had still been fully dark then, leaving plenty of hiding spots, especially among the shipping containers.
“Want me to look tough and menacing, Captain?” Beck asked, shifting closer to her.
“Is that hard to do when you’re outnumbered two to one?”
Technically, they were three to three, but Alisa did not have anything with her that could hurt someone wearing combat armor. She did not know what Mica had. She wore her big purse and was known for carrying homemade explosives and smoke bombs in it.
“Yes, but I can manage,” Beck said. “I’m a veteran.”
When he got close, Major Mladenovic lifted a hand, and the two armored men stopped. He continued forward a few steps, his eyes locking onto the bag Alisa had slung over her shoulder.
“Captain Marchenko,” the major said, his gaze shifting to her face.
“Major,” she said.
“You’re early. And not in the Wharf.”
“I assumed clandestine deals went on in shadow-filled places like this rather than at cheerful booths with yellow-flowered tablecloths.”
“You’ve been watching too many spy vids.” His gaze again shifted toward her bag, but he also eyed Mica’s big purse.
She was leaning against the post, her arms across her chest, looking calm. It was hard to tell if Beck was flexing his shoulders and thrusting his chest out when he was in that armor, but either way, he was looming effectively. Too bad the major’s men were just as good at looming. They carried rifles as well as their built-in weapons, and in the dim lighting, she thought she saw a grenade launcher poking up over one man’s shoulder. Interesting choice for a meeting at a restaurant.
“One has to entertain oneself somehow during long flights.” Alisa shrugged. “While I’m enjoying the small talk, you said—”
Her comm beeped, startling her. Out of habit, she almost reached for it, but she did not want to talk now. Besides, it might be Alejandro, having woken up and realized that she, Mica, and his orb were missing.
“Not going to answer that?” Mladenovic asked mildly when it beeped again, quite insistently.
“No, it’s possible that’s the owner of something I recently acquired.”
His gaze sharpened. “You stole it? You didn’t kill the monk?”
The monk? Was that what he thought Alejandro was? Interesting that an intelligence officer wouldn’t know the full story, that Alejandro had been a doctor working for the emperor’s family. Of course, maybe he did know and assumed that she did not.
“You didn’t mention that as a requirement,” Alisa said, boggled that he seemed to find the idea of theft more unappealing than killing people. And then taking their stuff. “Look, I have what you asked for. You said you have information to trade.”
Beck’s helmet swiveled toward her, but only briefly before he returned to glowering at his counterparts.
“The Starseers took her,” Mladenovic said.
“I know that. But where?” Alisa’s fingers curled into a fist. If all he had was the same information she had… Hells, maybe he’d seen the same video she had seen and that was it. All of this stress would have been for nothing.
“We can help you find her, but I need to see the artifact first.” He held out his hand.
Alisa did not move. She needed time to consider. Was this truly the right thing to do? So many people wanted this thing. Did the Alliance have more right to it than the remnants of the empire? Maybe neither of them should have it. If it was some Starseer artifact, maybe they should have it. The thought that she could possibly trade it for her daughter if necessary jumped into her mind. Not that it was hers to trade. Three suns, what was happening to her morality? Before this night, she had never considered stealing. She had always believed she was an honorable person, someone who did the right thing. But what was the right thing in this situation?
“Captain,” Mladenovic said, his voice growing cold. “If you think you’re going to keep it for your own personal gain—”
“I don’t care anything for personal gain. I just want my daughter, damn it.”
Mladenovic took a step forward, his hand still out. “And I told you: we can help you find her.”
The men in armor took a few steps forward too.
“Captain?” Beck whispered, lifting one of his arms, readying the embedded weapons.
>
“Can you help me, Major?” Alisa asked. “I don’t think you know anything more about her kidnappers than I do.”
“Not now perhaps, but I have the resources of a battalion of intelligence officers at my disposal. I can help. Once you give me the artifact.”
“I fought for the Alliance for four years, nearly died more than once. One would think the army would offer to help me with this situation whether I give them anything or not.”
Mladenovic’s jaw tightened. “Enough of this.” He lifted a hand toward his men. “Take it.”
Beck stepped in front of Alisa, the energy weapons on both of his forearms popping up from their ports. “Don’t even think of touching her.”
One of the men fired at Beck as Major Mladenovic tried to lunge around him, reaching for her. Alisa leaped back, her shoulder blades brushing the shipping container behind her, and pulled out her Etcher. She glimpsed Mica ducking behind her post and throwing something to the ground behind the major and in front of his armored men.
As Mladenovic lunged for Alisa, smoke spewed forth from Mica’s weapon. Alisa pointed her Etcher at the major, but he threw something as he lunged to the side. She fired, but was distracted by the object he’d thrown, and her shot went wide. Black threads snapped out, and something akin to a giant spider’s web smacked into the front of her body, the strands sticking to her skin and her clothing. An ugly version of a fluidwrap.
She jerked her arm toward Mladenovic as he approached from the side, fighting against the restrictive embrace of the web to aim her Etcher at him. An instant before she fired, he kicked out, his boot striking the bottom of her hand. She kept her grip on her gun, but pain exploded where he’d struck her, and the sticky strands stuck to the barrel. She could not aim her weapon except by turning her entire body around. She got off another shot, but it again flew wide.
The major sprang at her, crashing into her and taking her to the ground. Alisa was aware of Mica shooting from behind her post and of Beck now grappling with one of the armored men. The second one was running toward Mica, her bullets bouncing uselessly off the chest plate.