Mica had headed toward engineering instead of joining them. Lights flickered on, and machinery clanked, the oxygen regeneration system being activated and gravity being restored. Alisa appreciated her dedication to getting the ship in working order again, but she was currently more worried about Beck and Yumi. She bumped Leonidas inadvertently as she tried to see through the small window in the hatch.
He stepped aside so she could peer through. Alisa almost laughed at what she saw. Two chickens were running amok in the corridor as Yumi chased after them, trying to gather them up. Beck stood in his combat armor, leaning against the wall, holding up a finger toward the window. He held a rifle in his other hand. Had he played a role in getting rid of the soldiers? He must have.
“Life support has been returned to the entire ship,” came Mica’s voice over the comm speakers.
Beck ambled forward and opened the hatch.
“What happened?” Alisa blurted, rushing in and gripping his shoulder. She would have given Yumi a squeeze, too, but one of the chickens escaped and was heading toward the cargo hold. Yumi groaned and chased after it.
“A little chicanery,” Beck said, “and some time spent going over the operations training videos for a Nebula Rambler 880 to learn how to override the ship’s safety system and open the hatch to space when people are inside the cargo hold. People that were oddly floating around and cursing a lot even before we got the doors open.” He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows toward her. “Do you have any idea how hokey and out-of-date those videos are?”
“Yes…” A chicken ran past Alisa’s boots. “How did you get the chickens out of the cargo hold while not letting the soldiers out?”
“Yumi said she had to feed them a while back.” Beck shrugged. “The soldiers weren’t really mad at us. They did pry us out of navigation so we couldn’t fly anywhere, as if those horrible videos could have shown us how. Did you know the woman speaking in them wears striped polyester pants and has collar lapels that flare out almost to her elbows? Was that what passed for fashion in the last century?”
“All you need to do is look at the rec room carpet to know the answer to that.” Alisa frowned. “How did Yumi go from feeding the chickens to getting them up here?”
“She took them up one at a time, saying they needed their medication.” Beck shrugged again. “She’s got a sweet and innocent smile. They believed her. I did feel a little bad sending the soldiers out into space after they were fairly reasonable with us—even if they were swearing up and down that they were going to strangle the mech and anyone sympathizing with him—but I figure their armor will keep them alive long enough for their ships to pick them up.”
“Captain?” Alejandro said, leaning out of the hatchway to NavCom. “I’d appreciate it if you saved the briefing for later and piloted us out of trouble before anyone figures out what’s going on.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Doctor,” Alisa said dryly. “By the way, is there any chance you have the antidote to prienzene gas in your medical kit? Mica and I breathed some in.” She did not know if it had been enough to cause long-term damage, but she could still feel the uncomfortable swelling in the back of her throat along with a dull ache behind her sternum.
“The antidote? No.”
“Not enough room in your bag after packing that orb?” She did not manage to keep the bitterness out of her voice. What had she expected? That he would anticipate running into people that would hurl poisonous gases at him during his journey?
“I can make a compound to accelerate and enhance your body’s ability to flush exogenous toxins,” Alejandro said. “You don’t look that bad, so that should suffice.”
Should. Alisa was not sure if she should find that word comforting but decided to do so. She also decided not to think about how he had been contemplating that her death might be convenient for his mission. He shouldn’t have a reason to want Mica out of the way, so with luck, he would make the same substance for both of them.
“Good,” she said and gave him a warm smile in case it would help endear her to him. “Thank you.”
Alisa patted Beck on his armored shoulder—he was looking concerned over this talk of poisonous gas—then headed to NavCom. If Alejandro would fix up a special compound for her, the least she could do was comply with his suggestion to pilot them out of the area. Besides, she agreed with the sentiment. The sooner they got out of here, the better.
“We’re glad to have you back, Captain,” Beck said firmly, waving at his chest and pointing in the direction Yumi had gone—he also waved to include the wayward chicken darting around. “I’ll prepare a celebratory dinner if you can get us away from all of these party crashers.”
“I’ll do my best.”
In NavCom, Alisa slid into the pilot’s seat—she wanted to collapse and take a few minutes to gather herself, but there was no time. Her fingers flying, she steered them away from the tug and the warship she had crashed the tug into. The warship was in the process of extricating itself, and Alisa wanted to be far away when it regained room to maneuver. She had no doubt that its commander would be livid with her as soon as he or she found out who had been responsible for that mess.
The other two Alliance warships still flanked the Nomad, but they did not attempt to pursue, nor did they maneuver to use their grab beams, not with the three big imperial ships looming in a triangular formation in front of them. Any ship that wanted to grab the Nomad would have to lower its shields to do so. Alisa’s plans for escape hinged on the hope that neither side would trust the other enough to risk that. She wasn’t about to comm anyone to ask. She simply guided her freighter downward, away from both sets of ships. The green orb of Perun’s moon filled the space ahead, and she headed for it, figuring she would disappear behind it and get out of the other ships’ lines of sight—and out of their commanders’ minds—before once again setting a course for Arkadius.
The proximity alarm beeped as one of the imperial cruisers charged away from the pack. It flew past the Alliance ships, arrowing straight after the Nomad.
“Damn it,” Alisa cursed, pushing the engines to maximum, no longer worrying about stealthily sneaking away.
The cruiser surged to its maximum, which was far greater than the freighter’s. Alisa weaved as she flew toward the moon, hoping vainly that providing a busy target would give their grab beam operator a hard time. Something brushed against the Nomad’s shields, a first attempt to snatch them. She flew like a drunk, a calculating drunk. Maybe if she could reach the moon’s orbit and—
The second attempt to latch onto them worked, and the Nomad halted with an alarming jolt.
“Not again,” she groaned, slamming her fist against the console.
“More trouble?” Leonidas asked, walking into navigation, his helmet under his arm, his crimson suit so battered and soot-marked that it looked like he had dragged it out of a junkyard. Or a dumpster.
“You could say that. Any chance I can talk you into rolling down a window and throwing the doctor’s orb outside for them?”
Leonidas lifted an eyebrow.
The comm flashed, and she slapped her palm on the button, giving it a surly glower.
“Captain of the civilian freighter Star Nomad,” a male voice said. “As you are no doubt aware, we have restrained your ship.”
“Must be your people,” Alisa muttered, not bothering to mute the comm. “They have the bureaucratic gift for using a lot of words to state the obvious.”
“You will be permitted to fly away, despite damages done to our university library, but we require that you leave behind a sphere-shaped artifact. We are preparing to board and pick it up. If you wish our generous offer to release you to remain in effect, you will have it waiting and will not resist us.”
Not surprisingly, Alejandro showed up in the hatchway behind Leonidas to hear this. Alisa scowled at him, then ignored both men to reply to the imperial bureaucrat.
“This is Captain Marchenko,” Alisa said. “If you try to
board my ship, I’ll blow up your sphere-shaped artifact. It’s been a nice paperweight for my desk, but I’m sure I can replace it with a moon rock.”
Alejandro smacked a palm to his forehead and ran his hand down his face. The faintest hint of a smile curved Leonidas’s lips upward.
“If you destroy the artifact,” the imperial speaker said, “we will destroy your ship.”
“Then it’s going to be a bad day for all of us.” Alisa leaned back in her seat, prepared to wait out his bluff. She hoped it was a bluff.
“Captain,” Alejandro said slowly. “May I suggest—”
“No.”
Alejandro’s eyebrows rose.
“Leonidas, I do wish you’d accept my offer of employment,” Alisa said, “because I’d love to be able to order you to carry wayward passengers out of NavCom for me.”
Alejandro scowled at Leonidas, as if he’d been the one to make the impertinent comment. Alisa did not see if he returned the scowl, because her sensors showed one of the other ships moving away from the cluster. It was one of the Alliance warships.
The grab beam disappeared as the imperial ship raised its shields, rotating to turn its weapons toward the newcomer.
Alisa did not question her luck. She immediately reengaged the thrusters, returning them to her original course. The other ships would have trouble locking onto her if there was a moon in the way.
“They let us go?” Alejandro asked.
“Clearly, my threat made them tremble in distress,” Alisa said.
Focused on the path ahead, she did not look back to see if he rolled his eyes at her or made a rude gesture.
The comm flashed again. Alisa thought about ignoring it, but the call was coming from one of the Alliance ships rather than the imperial craft.
“Yes?” she answered.
“Well, that’s slightly more professional than answering with, ‘What?’” a familiar voice said. Tomich.
Alisa did not know whether to be relieved by his contact or not. She had left him with a mess.
“Commander,” she said carefully. “Are you going to let us go?”
She realized that it was his ship that had advanced on the imperial vessel. They were now facing each other, posturing.
“Us,” Tomich said, his voice flat.
He must have seen enough or heard enough in his reports to believe she had been working with Leonidas. She did not see any point in denying it now. He would think less of her if she lied. They had been colleagues once, sharing more than a few drinks over lost comrades, and she did not want to intentionally give him a reason to feel distaste toward her.
“For the moment. They paid their fare. I’m taking them to—” Alisa glanced at Alejandro, “—where they want to go.”
Tomich was silent for so long that she glanced at the comm to see if the channel was still open. She also checked the sensors to make sure he hadn’t decided to give chase, imperial ships notwithstanding.
“The next time we meet,” Tomich finally said, “you owe me one.”
“I will be glad to buy you a sake while we watch a forceball game.”
“One sake? That’s it?”
“Two? I’m just a lowly freighter operator now, you know. I don’t have a regular Alliance paycheck to rely on.”
Tomich grumbled something under his breath, then sighed. “I have a feeling I’m going to regret this day.”
“Thank you, Commander,” she said, taking all hints of sarcasm and irreverence out of her voice.
The comm light winked out. Alisa suspected that the next time she ran into Tomich, he would be as likely to punch her as accept a drink from her. It was also possible that his superiors would punish him for letting the Nomad go—and put out a warrant for her arrest.
She sighed and looked back at the two men in her hatchway, wondering about her sanity for continuing on with them.
Epilogue
Alisa stood up, turning the autopilot on to navigate the start of their journey to Arkadius. The stars were bright and clear, and the sensors showed no sign of pursuers, imperial, Alliance, or otherwise. She decided she could risk a shower. Maybe even bed. The lights had dimmed a while ago, signaling the ship’s night cycle, and she had finally stopped having to run to the lav. Apparently, Alejandro’s toxin-clearing potion had involved kicking her kidneys into overdrive.
It had been a couple of hours since they had cruised away from Perun’s moon, leaving the damaged Alliance ships glaring across the stars at the imperial ships. She trusted they wouldn’t start a war with each other. The Alliance could call in a lot of allies, and with the Star Nomad—and Leonidas and Alejandro—gone, the imperials had nothing left to fight over. She just hoped she would be allowed to approach Arkadius when they arrived in a week. Just because Tomich had let her go didn’t mean that his superiors would not put out the word for her capture.
“Marchenko,” Leonidas said, stepping out of the dim corridor and into NavCom.
He wore soft black gym pants and a gray T-shirt, no sign of his uniform jacket tonight. The T-shirt fit him like a second skin, and Alisa made herself look away, thinking of Mica’s admonitions about letting her feelings get them into trouble. As if Alisa couldn’t get into plenty of trouble without feelings ever coming into play. She admitted that her actions might not have been the wisest, even if they had possibly resulted in less loss of human life than if she had simply let Leonidas charge onto the Alliance ship with rifles blaring, no thoughts of choosing non-vital targets in his mind.
“Still not calling me Alisa, eh?” she asked.
“If I did, you might take it as a sign to call me Leo.” His mouth twisted with distaste. “You’ve defaulted to that a couple of times.”
She had defaulted to “mech,” too, which she regretted. “I could call you Hieronymus,” she offered, since that was the name on his arrest warrant, even if it was a mouthful.
His mouth twisted further. “I don’t know if I’d answer to that. It was my grandfather’s name, and I always thought it was horrible. My fellow officers just called me Adler.”
“What do your brothers call you?”
“Mech.”
Alisa blinked. “Seriously?”
He had said that he and his brothers did not get along fabulously, that one had even joined the Alliance, but this sounded like outright antagonism. How could they feel that way about him? Even if he was supposed to be the enemy to her, she couldn’t imagine him ever acting with anything but honor. She wished she could look at her own record and know she had always acted so.
“Not to my face,” Leonidas said, “but I’ve heard them talking to each other about me when they thought I couldn’t hear.”
“They sound like lovely people.”
“They’re quite a bit younger than I am. They don’t know why I joined.” His hand flicked toward his forearm, maybe to indicate more than joining, but also the implants.
“Why did you?” she asked, looking into his eyes.
He did not meet her gaze, instead staring at the stars on the view screen. Alisa knew there wasn’t much exciting to see out there—she had checked and double-checked before allowing herself to think of showering.
“I need to stop at Starfall Station on the way to Arkadius,” Leonidas said. Pretending he hadn’t heard her question? “There are tech smiths there. I need to get my armor repaired and thought it would be good to do so before we visit Starseers unannounced.”
Alisa nodded. “That’s not a problem. As you said, it’s on the way.”
The Nomad could use some new parts, too, as Mica was quick to point out on a daily basis. And the airlock hatch needed repairs. They were lucky the ship was still spaceworthy after the soldiers had forced their way in.
“The doctor seems certain that we’ll find trouble on Arkadius,” Leonidas said dryly.
“Trouble finds him wherever he and his orb go.”
“Odd. He said the same thing about you.”
“Me? As if getting waylaid in the library
was my fault. Or getting jumped by Alliance ships trying to leave the planet.”
He winced. “No, that was because of me.”
“I just try my best to improve uncomfortable situations.” Alisa shifted and patted the seat of her chair, where a stretch of engineer tape held a rip together.
“Uncomfortable situations? That’s an understatement, isn’t it?” His gaze shifted from the stars to her face.
“Not to an optimist. Right now, I’m optimistically being positive that we’ll reach the Starseer temple on Arkadius and both find what we’re looking for.”
“You believe your daughter is there?”
She wished that were the case, but she was tempering her optimism on that matter. “That would be ideal, but at the least, I believe they’ll know where I can find her.”
He was holding her gaze now, his eyes warm with sympathy. She hadn’t seen that from him, and she didn’t know what to say. Maybe she wasn’t expected to say anything. The urge to lean against him for support crept into her, but she did not give in to it. She was the captain. Captains did not lean on others for support, certainly not their passengers.
“I spoke with Dominguez earlier,” he said quietly. “He told me about how you threatened him on my behalf.”
“Oh?” Alisa wouldn’t have been surprised if Alejandro had lied to Leonidas, implying he hadn’t wanted to abandon him. But then, she hadn’t quite figured Alejandro out yet. One moment, he was pretending religion meant something to him, and the next, he was proving that he would do anything and sacrifice anyone to complete that mission of his. “And are you annoyed? He said you would happily sacrifice yourself for him and his orb quest.”
Leonidas did not appear annoyed. He looked mellower than she had ever seen him. Maybe because the lighting was dim, and he was wearing the clothes he probably slept in. Except he would take the shirt off to sleep. She remembered the time he had answered the door in the middle of the night with only pants on, then found herself blushing at the memory for some reason. Perhaps because it was easy to picture him that way again with that T-shirt hiding little of his musculature.