“Access is denied,” the woman repeated. “You will turn around and leave the vicinity, or we will force you to do so.”
Alisa muted the comm and muttered, “Very brave of you to threaten an unarmed freighter, assholes.” She turned off the mute and tried to force a smile into her voice. “May I inquire as to why? Our passengers didn’t inform us that there was a quarantine or any reason that we wouldn’t be allowed to land.”
Though… now that she thought about it, she remembered that none of the other ships that had been leaving Dustor at the same time as the Nomad had been heading to Perun. She distinctly remembered Alejandro mentioning that he had been waiting a while for a ride.
“Only loyal imperial ships are allowed access to our world.”
“We could be loyal,” Alisa said. “I just want to run freight. Is there a license I can apply for?”
“A loyalty license?” The woman really did have the driest voice. Even Leonidas, who did dry quite well himself, would have been impressed.
“Yes, I’ll take one. I want to run freight all over the system. May I land and apply?”
A new voice came over the comm, and Alisa had the impression of a senior officer leaning over the communications officer’s shoulder. “Was that lippy mouth appreciated by your superiors in the Alliance army, Captain Marchenko?” he asked, his tone as dry as the woman’s.
Alisa had the distinct impression that the man referred to her military rank rather than her status as a freighter captain. It seemed someone had looked her up.
She should have shut up, but she could not resist responding. “Oh, absolutely. My wit regularly left the senior officers in guffaws.” She ignored the incredulous look Beck shot her way. “It’s well known that the ability to appreciate humor was what won us the war.”
“Alcyone knows it wasn’t honor,” the man muttered darkly.
Alisa sighed and leaned back, muting the comm again.
“What?” she asked to the stare Beck was still leveling at her. “It’s not like they were going to let us in, anyway.”
“Access denied,” the man repeated. “Leave now.”
Alisa resisted the urge to add that the utter lack of humor had surely been what resulted in the empire losing the war. But, in truth, her senior officers had not truly appreciated her wit that much. They had appreciated her piloting skills, but that was about it. Only Jonah had regularly laughed at her jokes, whether they were funny or not.
A knock at the hatch kept her mind from traveling down tunnels of nostalgia and regret.
“It’s Leonidas,” Beck said, grabbing the netdisc off the console, even though he had turned off the holodisplay several minutes before. There was no condemning evidence floating around to alert Leonidas to the treachery in his mind.
Alisa punched a couple of buttons to alter their course—not away from the planet, not yet, but along a lateral trajectory that would not take them any closer. Then she rose to open the hatch. Like most of the doors and controls on the old ship, everything had to be done manually. She unlocked it and slid it open. Leonidas and Yumi, one of the passengers who had paid in advance for a ride to Perun, stood in the corridor.
“Any chance you can dress up in your red armor and get us an invitation down to the planet?” Alisa asked Leonidas, not ready to give up yet.
Even without his combat armor, Leonidas was intimidating: tall, broad-shouldered, and brawny. His bulging arm muscles were on display in the sleeveless vest that he wore today. As Alisa had noted before, he looked entirely human, albeit extremely fit and developed for a human, but she’d seen him hurl big men twenty meters across a shuttle bay and drop from great heights to land easily on his feet. There was no doubt as to what he was.
His gaze flicked toward the ships on the view screen. “The doctor’s name might be more likely to gain you entrance. I’m not anybody anymore.”
Uh huh. And that was why someone had a ridiculously large bounty out for him.
“You didn’t try giving them my name already, did you?” Leonidas added.
“No, I gave them my name, and they didn’t like it,” Alisa said. “Given what a fine name it is, I couldn’t imagine anyone else’s performing better.”
He frowned down at her, probably not sure if that was pure sarcasm or if there was a useful answer in there.
“I see you haven’t learned to appreciate my humor yet,” Alisa said.
“Was that what that was? Humor?”
Yumi snickered softly, her dark eyes twinkling. Those eyes looked a little odd, the pupils dilated, and Alisa wondered what she had been smoking, chewing on, or snorting this time.
“I’ll work on my jokes,” Alisa said. “Would you mind asking the doctor if he’ll come up here and talk to the imperials?” She stopped herself from saying that she would get him herself if his brawny bigness were not blocking the corridor. She didn’t truly want to annoy him. It was her reflex to be snarky to the enemy—better than letting the enemy see one’s fears and weaknesses. But somewhere between the T-belt and here, she had stopped thinking of him as an enemy. She hoped that was not a mistake.
Leonidas lifted a hand and headed toward the passenger cabins.
“Same offer goes for you, Yumi,” Alisa said.
“Pardon?”
“If you have any sway on Perun and can get us down there…” Alisa extended her palm toward the ships filling the view screen.
“Ah. I don’t think the empire has reason to dislike me, but unless they’re in need of science teachers, I’m not certain what value I would have in their eyes.”
“You do have that flock of chickens in the cargo hold.”
“You think there’s a chicken shortage on Perun?” She smiled, pushing a long braid of black hair behind her shoulder.
“It does have a large population with cities stretching for hundreds of miles along the coasts. I wouldn’t be surprised if food became a problem for them eventually.”
“A problem my ten chickens can doubtlessly help them with.”
“I’ve heard chickens like to make more chickens.”
“Not with the way that Tommy is demolishing their eggs in the mornings.”
Beck lifted his hands. “You said they were free for all. And I’ve shared my large omelets.”
The comm light flashed on the console again. Even though Alisa had altered her course, the imperial ships were shadowing her. She expected another threat, or for someone to point out that flying parallel to a planet was not the same as flying away from a planet.
Leonidas returned. “The doctor says he’ll request that they let us through, but he wishes to communicate from the privacy of his cabin.”
“Does he,” Alisa murmured, wondering what secretive things Alejandro intended to say. She supposed it did not matter. Once they landed, he wouldn’t have a reason to return to her ship. He would depart and do whatever he needed to do here, he and that strange glowing orb that he protected like a mother with a newborn babe. After that, she would never see him again.
Alisa flicked a couple of switches to give Alejandro comm access from his cabin. He could be the one to deal with the imperial officer’s insults too. Then she slid into the pilot’s seat and drummed her fingers. It crossed her mind to eavesdrop, and she might have done just that if she hadn’t had so many witnesses. Nothing like witnesses to help one rein in tendencies toward moral ambiguity. Still, she wouldn’t have felt that wrong for eavesdropping, not when she suspected Alejandro and his orb were at odds with the Alliance. More than once, it had crossed her mind to report him and what she had seen once she reached an Alliance world.
Leonidas stepped to the side, and Alejandro appeared behind him.
“Any news?” Alisa asked.
“We’re to be allowed to land at the Karundula Space Base. A civilian station.” Alejandro said those last words firmly, making Alisa wonder if there had been an argument over that matter. Had the imperials wanted to direct them to a military facility? Where they would be more easil
y monitored or even locked down?
“That’s excellent,” Yumi said, clapping her hands together. “The girls will enjoy getting out.”
“Yes, finding sunlight for your chickens was my primary concern too,” Alisa said, watching as the dreadnought veered away. The two cruisers moved toward her, assuming a flanking position. “Oh, goody. We get escorts.”
“Better than being shot at,” Leonidas said and headed toward the rear of the ship.
Beck pushed himself to his feet and rapped his knuckles on his breastplate. “Guess I better find my helmet.”
Yumi wandered away, too, leaving only Alejandro gazing at the planet, a mix of emotions on his face, none of them easy to read.
“What did you say to convince them to let us land?” Alisa asked.
“I simply gave them my name.”
“No mention of the specialness of your orb?” She smiled and quirked an eyebrow.
Alejandro frowned at her. “If they interview us, speak nothing of that.” The order seemed strange coming from him, a mild-mannered man in the gray robe of a disciple of the sun gods. Perhaps he realized it, because he added, “Please.”
Alisa waved an indifferent hand. “I’m just relieved they’re letting us land. Yumi’s chickens need sun, you know.”
“Is that why they’ve been complaining so much,” he murmured.
“Either that, or because Beck is stealing all of their eggs.”
Movement on the screen drew Alisa’s attention back to the controls. The two imperial cruisers were veering off. As the Star Nomad angled toward the surface of the planet, they shifted into an orbiting path again.
“I guess they decided we weren’t interesting enough to escort, after all,” Alisa said, more relieved than concerned. She hoped the imperials would not call ahead to the base and alert the locals about suspicious Alliance sympathizers en route.
Alejandro frowned but did not reply.
A couple of minutes passed, the imperial ships turning into white dots in the distance. As Alisa took them down toward the largest of Perun’s continents, something slammed into the freighter. She did not have her harness on and was hurled forward, the flight stick smashing into her stomach as her head nearly cracked the view screen.
“What in the hells?” she blurted as she hit the button for the shields.
Alejandro lay crumpled on the floor between the seats and only groaned as a response. She checked the sensors. If there had been a ship or any type of object that could hit them, the proximity alarm should have gone off.
“What’s going on up there?” Mica asked over the comm. “You’re bruising my ship.”
“As soon as I figure it out, I’ll let you know.” Alisa’s hands flew over the controls, getting damage reports and also cycling through the exterior cameras, trying to see with her eyes what the sensors had missed. “And it’s my ship. You said you were leaving me for a better job as soon as it came along.”
Something struck them again. This time, the Nomad merely shuddered slightly, the shields protecting them, and on one of the cameras, Alisa glimpsed a blast of blue energy striking them.
“E-cannon,” she growled. “Someone’s firing at us.”
She squinted into the darkness of space, trying to see where the blast had come from.
Alejandro pulled himself into the co-pilot’s seat and fastened his harness. Alisa should have done the same, but she was too busy scowling and peering.
“The imperial ships?” Alejandro asked, bewildered.
“No. Though they sure departed in a timely manner. Look. Do you see that? That dark, angular blob?”
“Angular blob?” From the way he still sounded dazed, he might have hit his head.
“Yes, there’s definitely something there.”
As if to agree with her, the sensors finally gave a tenuous beep.
“Twenty tindarks says that’s a Stealth Fang.” Alisa had fought against them during the war. They were usually imperial ships, but they were also popular with the criminal element since they did not show up on sensors until they were right on top of an enemy.
“I don’t take bets, Captain.” Alejandro had recovered enough to grip the console and peer at the screen.
“Because your religiosity forbids it?”
“Because my financial acuity forbids it.”
“What’s going on?” Leonidas asked, walking up the corridor with Beck.
Something made the ship shudder again. This time, Alisa did not see the fire from an e-cannon, but her control panel lit up in complaint.
“Beck may get to use his armor,” Alisa said, nudging the Nomad to maximum speed, hoping to escape their near-invisible pursuer.
Leonidas looked sharply at her. “Someone’s trying to board us?”
“That was a grab beam. They’re going to have to get closer to catch us, but…” Alisa eyed the sensors where their enemy now showed up as a fuzzy green blip. “They’re faster than we are, so it seems likely that could happen.”
“Can we get down to Perun first?” Alejandro asked.
She did not need the computer to run the calculations comparing the distance, their speed, and her speed. “No.”
Chapter 2
They couldn’t make atmosphere and definitely couldn’t reach Karundula Space Base before the other ship caught up. Alisa changed their course, all too aware of the agile way the Fang followed them. The angular ship was hard to see, its body all black with no running lights, and a sensor-dampening system camouflaging it until it was close enough to strike. But she knew what she was dealing with. The triangular craft was as sleek and maneuverable as a Delgottan cheetah. She knew its range for that grab beam too. Another minute or two, and it would be close enough to get the beam to stick, to capture the Nomad.
Leonidas and Beck had charged back to their quarters to fully suit up. Having a cyborg on their side should help even the odds if they were boarded, but Alisa would prefer not being captured at all. Where had those imperial ships gone?
“You doing all right, Alejandro?” she asked.
His eyebrows were pinched together, and he gripped his waist, like he might have clunked his ribs hard when he fell.
“You’re not going to die, are you?” she added, wishing she had a field full of asteroid debris to fly through so it might slow down their pursuers.
“Rebus-de teaches us not to fear death, that our souls live on for eternity, floating in the Dark Reaches and finding peace with the cosmic essences that were born with the universe and that shall continue on forever.”
“I think you can find cosmic essences in Yumi’s cabin, if you want to commune with them preemptively.” Alisa should not have mocked him, especially if he was quoting scripture to reassure himself, and raised an apologetic hand as soon as the words came out.
“I do not believe you,” Alejandro said.
“Pardon?”
“When you said that your Alliance superiors appreciated your wit, I do not believe that you spoke the truth.”
“You imperial folk are so mistrustful.” Alisa grinned at him, but it was a short-lived gesture. Their pursuers tried to envelop them with their grab beam again.
The ship lurched as a tenuous hold grasped them. Alisa accelerated, decelerated, and dove downward, trying to shake them. The Fang wasn’t close enough yet. That grip shouldn’t be a solid one.
There. Adding a clumsy barrel roll to her dive did the job.
“Shook them for the moment,” Alisa said. “But that slowed us down too.”
She corrected their course, heading in the direction the imperial ships had gone instead of down toward the planet. Unfortunately, she could not see those ships anymore. They had taken off quickly. It was as if they had been running from the trouble. Or intentionally leaving the Nomad to its fate.
“Should we try communicating with them?” Alejandro asked.
“The imperial ships?”
“The people chasing us.”
“I think they effectively express
ed what was on their minds when they fired at us,” Alisa said.
Something they hadn’t done again, interestingly. The Fang was close enough. It could have fired numerous times by now. The Nomad had sturdy shields, but they would not hold up indefinitely. But the Fang did not want to obliterate Alisa’s ship. Clearly, it wanted to capture them. Maybe the Fang’s crew had hoped to disable the Nomad with that first surprise strike. The helmsman over there probably was not too concerned that it had failed. There was no need for concern. They had the faster ship.
Alejandro hesitated, looking at her, then pushed the comm button. Was he worried she would object? If he wanted to chat up the people chasing them, that was fine with her. She was too busy flying to care. Ah, there were those two imperial ships. The white dots that represented the cruisers had come into view.
“Unidentified ship that is attacking us, this is Dr. Alejandro Dominguez. Please explain your actions. We are a peaceful and unarmed freighter.”
Alisa thought of Beck and Leonidas. They were not entirely unarmed, though the handheld weapons would be of no use until intruders forced their way onto the ship.
Alejandro received a response by way of a red beam of energy that lanced past the starboard wing. It did not strike them, but it might have shaved some paint off the hull.
“I don’t think they want to talk,” Alisa said. “Why don’t you see if you can raise those cruisers? Tell them that you’re about to be captured or killed or tortured or worse and that we could use an ominous imperial presence to loom scarily at our backs.”
Alejandro hesitated, and she wished she had eavesdropped on his conversation with the imperials. If they were buddies, as she had suspected, he shouldn’t hesitate to ask for help now, should he? And they would gladly give it… They wouldn’t veer away and pretend he wasn’t in trouble. Such as they were doing now. Hm, he hadn’t blackmailed or otherwise coerced them, had he?
Alejandro tapped the comm, directing the signal ahead of them. “Captain Ravencraft? This is Dr. Alejandro Dominguez. There are unfriendly ships in your planet’s orbit, and we’re being attacked. We are in need of—”