With that thought fresh in her mind, she opened the hatch. Abelardus stood there, in nothing but trousers, his long braids dangling down his bare chest and back.
“What?” she asked casually, though she was fighting not to blush, uncomfortable at knowing he may have been reading her thoughts just then. He had said he wouldn’t do that anymore, but who knew how he interpreted that deal? Maybe he believed it would be enough if he didn’t speak into her mind.
“There’s a ship that will come into range of your sensors soon,” he said. “I don’t think it’ll be an issue for us, but I knew you’d want to be alerted.”
“Yes, thank you. I’ll head to NavCom shortly.” She was in thin pajamas and wanted to change into something more substantial before roaming around the ship. She shut the hatch, hoping Abelardus would not linger. It was too early in the morning to deal with him.
Alisa dressed and slipped out into the corridor, the lights still dimmed for night. She had only slept a few hours.
“What’s new?” she muttered and headed toward NavCom.
A thump came from Leonidas’s cabin as she drew even with it, and she paused. More nightmares for him? She wondered if he would appreciate being woken from them. From Abelardus’s warning, it did not sound like she would need Beck and Leonidas to leap into combat armor to defend the ship, but maybe she should use the possibility as an excuse to rouse him.
Or maybe she should let him get his sleep.
She started past, but another thump came from within. She bit her lip and knocked softly. If he didn’t wake easily, she could leave him be.
But it was only a few seconds before the hatch opened, and a shirtless Leonidas looked out, his hair mussed and his eyes haunted, the shadows deep behind him. She wondered if anything in the waking world disturbed him as much as his dreams did.
“Sorry to bother you,” Alisa said, knowing he wouldn’t want to admit to his nightmares, “but we’re coming up on another ship. It’s probably nothing, but I’d feel safer if you were awake.”
“I’ll come up as soon as I dress,” he said, and closed the hatch.
Alisa trotted into NavCom, relieved when nobody except the stuffed spider dangling from the ceiling awaited her. Maybe Abelardus had gone back to bed or back into his cabin to dress. The men on her ship certainly liked to sleep with their shirts off. Maybe they hoped one of the women would be overwhelmed by their muscular masculinity and jump into bed with them. Well, Abelardus might think that. She doubted Leonidas did. It might even be dangerous for someone to fall asleep next to him. What would happen if he rolled around in his dreams and thunked his bed partner with an elbow, an elbow that could, with his strength, knock a hole in a wall—or a person?
She slid into her seat. Nothing showed up on the cameras yet, but the sensors displayed not one but two ships. Nerves jangled in her stomach, and her first thought was that Abelardus had underestimated the potential trouble that lay ahead. And ahead was the right word. Both craft were in the Nomad’s path. Not directly, but they would pass to the starboard side, close enough for the other ships to detect.
She tapped the console. Should she change her route to make a circle around them? Or was it too late? Had they already detected her? It wasn’t as if the Nomad’s sensors had the greatest range of any ship out there.
Leonidas slipped into NavCom. He bent to study the sensors with her.
“I can’t tell yet if they’re Alliance ships,” Alisa said, “but they’re close enough to each other to be having a heavy make-out session.”
His eyebrows twitched. She expected him to ignore the silly half of the comment, but he asked, “How close would they be if it was a light make-out session?”
“Nose to nose. Right now, they’re sidled up to each other, maybe with an airlock tube attached.”
“They’re not moving,” he observed.
“No, it doesn’t look like it. Maybe it’s a rescue.”
“Or a forced boarding.”
Alisa imagined an Alliance ship taking on prisoners after disabling a nosy craft that had meandered into the quarantined area. She turned toward the controls. “I’m going to give them a wide berth, hope they’re too busy with each other to notice us.”
“A good idea.” Leonidas sat down in the co-pilot’s seat, his head brushing the spider.
As Alisa adjusted their course, a soft beep came from the sensors. A third ship had come into range. This one was moving, sailing along in the direction she had been about to head.
“There are a lot of ships out here for a quarantine zone,” she grumbled and pulled her fingers back. The comm flashed, and she groaned. “So much for not being noticed.”
One of the ships from the pairing wanted to talk.
“What do you think?” Alisa looked toward Leonidas. “Should we pretend we’re all sleeping and ignore them or see what they want?”
“Are they transmitting a message?”
“Not yet.”
Alisa checked the sensors again. Since they had flown closer, she could now read a few more details.
“I don’t think those are warships.” She sent out a ping, which the ships should automatically respond to with Alliance IDs—if they were Alliance craft. Nothing came back. “Or Alliance ships.”
“That looks like a salvage tug,” Leonidas said, pointing to the larger one of the pair.
“The empire has some of those in the fleet.” Alisa distinctly remembered the one they had boarded near Perun’s moon.
“I doubt the empire has ships this far out anymore. The other ship looks like a freighter.”
Yes, a larger, newer version of the Nomad.
The comm flashed. The salvage tug again.
Alisa answered it. Now she was curious about what those two ships were doing out here.
“This is Captain Marchenko of the—” she started to respond.
She was interrupted.
“This is our find,” a man said. “Back the hells off, or we’ll blow you out of space.”
“Such tough words when addressing a freighter with no weapons,” Alisa said. “Do you chat up Alliance warships with that mouth? Because there’s one flying around not far behind me.”
Leonidas arched his eyebrows.
Alisa muted the comm. “I like to start my morning off by making jerks wet themselves if I can.”
“Just stay out of our weapons’ range, freighter captain, or we’ll—”
She un-muted the comm. “Blow us out of space. I got it. Thanks for the tip.” Alisa closed the channel. She adjusted her course slightly, to make sure the Nomad would not pass into the tug’s weapons’ range, but since that third ship lurked at the periphery of her sensor range, she did not veer far.
“Have you ever considered using more tact when addressing ships with far more firepower than yours?” Leonidas asked.
“I thought that was tactful. I didn’t insult his mother, his intelligence, or mock his penis size.”
“If I’m taking a job here, I’ll expect you to take my advice in security matters.”
“What would that advice be?”
“That we outfit this ship with weapons and find you some combat armor. Perhaps revoke your comm privileges.”
“Maybe we can dress you up in your pretty red armor, put a couple of blazers in your hands, and have you record the automated response message. That might keep people from harassing the Nomad, especially if you’re wearing your grumpy expression.” She pointed to his face. “Yes, just like that.”
Abelardus walked up to the hatchway, put his hands on the jamb, and frowned at Leonidas before meeting Alisa’s eyes. “Any trouble?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Alisa said.
“Or exacerbate,” Leonidas murmured.
“Sh,” she said, smiling at him.
Abelardus’s frown deepened, but all he did was push away from the jamb and disappear back down the corridor.
“Leonidas, are you a Starseer repellent?” Alisa leaned over and swatted him o
n the shoulder. “We need to spend more time together.”
“Hm.” At least he did not glower at her for presuming to swat him.
The pair of ships had come into camera range, so Alisa tapped the controls to bring them up on the view screen. They had correctly identified the salvage tug, but it lacked any markings to suggest imperial or Alliance ownership. The freighter looked like a civilian ship. Scorch marks charred large parts of the hull, and one of its thrusters had been blown off. She doubted it could even fly. Had it wandered into the quarantined area and been attacked by an Alliance patrol ship? Then been left to fend for itself? Perhaps the tug had been flying along the border of the quarantined area, looking for opportunities for salvage. Or maybe it had been the one to attack the freighter.
Either way, the tug did not move away from its prize to chase the Nomad. Her route ought to make it clear that she would fly past without bothering them.
“Why did you join the Alliance, Alisa?” Leonidas asked softly, looking over at her.
Her first instinct was to bristle and keep her past to herself, especially since he might be looking for a way to tell her the error of her ways, but he did not appear nosy or calculating. He had put on the T-shirt he wore under his combat armor, but he only had socks on his feet, and his hair was still tousled. He looked approachable, even friendly. Had he ever asked her about her past? She didn’t think so. She hated to rebuff his interest. But she hesitated. He was loyal to the empire. Would he understand?
She bit her lip and gazed at the view screen. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m not leaving until we’re positive that tug won’t come after us.”
“All right.” Alisa leaned back further, pulling her knees into her chest, and resting her feet on the edge of the console. “I think I’ve told you that I grew up on this ship, flying around the system from place to place with my mother, picking up and delivering cargo.”
Leonidas nodded.
“She made sure I kept up with schoolwork and could pass all the usual tests, but she’d always assumed that I would stay with her, share her career, keep to the stars. I enjoyed flying, but I wasn’t enamored with piloting the Nomad around. I dreamed of going to flight school and expanding my horizons.” She smiled. “That’s what I used to tell my mom. I really just wanted to fly fast and shoot things.”
“I can imagine.”
“When I was old enough, I applied to a number of universities. Perun Capital had a mathematics and gravities undergrad degree and also a good post-grad flight school. The government recruited top graduates for the fleet.”
Leonidas glanced at her in surprise. “You were thinking of joining the fleet then?”
“Where else would I get paid to fly fast and shoot things? But don’t get too excited. I was also considering becoming a bounty hunter.”
He snorted.
“Anyway, I went to the university there, and the classes were interesting and fun, but it was even more exciting for me because I was an only child and hadn’t had many other kids around to play with when I was growing up. All of a sudden, I was surrounded by people and interesting things to do. I signed up for the forceball team, debate club, martial arts, and even a volunteer dog-walking association. I made friends, including a girl named Tamra, who became my roommate—and a close friend. We were almost like sisters. I’d never had a sister and was delighted. We weren’t very similar people—she was very pretty, very likable, hardly ever abrasive and sarcastic.” Alisa grinned, though she was getting to the part of the story that was painful to share, even after so many years. “She thought I’d had a terribly exotic life and always asked me about the places I’d been. She was very smart, studying to be a doctor. A good person.” Her grin faded. “Around third year, some of the students in the clubs I belonged to were getting into politics and staging protests against the tyrannical oppression of the empire.” She looked at Leonidas, who was listening to her but did not comment on this. “I wasn’t that much of an activist, but I ended up getting involved in a peripheral way. The empire hadn’t offended me personally at that point, but I did remember how hard it was for my mother to make enough to pay her taxes and pay all the tolls along the shipping lanes. I also remembered a couple of times when she had been bullied by some of the officials working in those places, harassed because she was a single woman without a burly man around to protect her. She was as mouthy as I am and could generally take care of herself, but I know there were some moments she wished I hadn’t witnessed.”
“Bureaucratic asses can be found in any government,” Leonidas said.
“I’m sure, but the empire always seemed to have more than its fair share. But that’s not what turned me into an Alliance sympathizer.” She closed her eyes, remembering the campus, the idealistic young students organizing protests, certain they would change the system for the better. “There was a big protest planned that spring. We wanted free speech, something that people have fought for all throughout history and that has often been considered an unalienable human right. Something that the empire seemed to fear. I don’t have to tell you that there were fines for disparaging the emperor and the government, and that people who did it repeatedly sometimes disappeared or were brainwashed and came back… different.” She remembered a favorite professor, a grumpy white-haired chemist who’d said whatever came to mind, heedless of the consequences. She liked people like that.
This time, Leonidas did not argue with her. He had to have seen such things himself. Maybe as one of the empire’s soldiers, he’d even gone in to grab people. Probably not, though. Alisa imagined cyborgs being reserved for trickier situations. How hard was it for an armed soldier to stalk into someone’s classroom and take him away? Oh, usually, it had been campus security that had done the removals, but sometimes, if someone was believed to be dangerous, the soldiers had come.
“Tamra told me not to go to the protest,” Alisa said, “that I was only a year from graduating and that I’d never get into the fleet to fly if I had a record as a dissident. She was right. I told you she was smart, didn’t I? Much smarter than I. But I had friends who were going, and I wanted to support them. Also, we were all going out to drink afterward. That’s what passes for priorities in school, you understand.”
“I remember,” he said quietly, his tone somber. Maybe he could tell what was coming.
The Nomad was passing the salvage tug and the wreck, and the camera zoomed in on movement. Several people were out in spacesuits, hunting for items to collect. A giant hole had been blown in the hull of the wreck’s belly.
Alisa stared bleakly at it, still worried the same fate could befall the Nomad in the quarantine zone.
Leonidas looked over at her, so she made herself pick up the story again. She always dreaded telling this part.
“So, I went to the protest. The turnout was huge, students with signs, face paint, wild clothes, hover bots screaming our message. We took over the entire campus and walked out into the streets, created traffic jams. Spy boxes floated thick in the air above us, recording our movements, but we thought we were invincible since there were so many of us. They’d never be able to arrest us all, and the news cameras were recording. We thought we were getting our message out.” Alisa shifted in her seat, eyeing her feet. “Tamra ran up out of nowhere and found me. She grabbed my arm and said that I had to get out of there, that she’d been watching the news and that the fleet was being sent in to stop everything.
“I didn’t truly think we were in any danger—I figured, at most, they might gas us—but I let her lead me out of the middle of it. I didn’t truly want protester on my record, not since I was still thinking of becoming an officer and flying for the fleet then. Well, just as we got to the edge of the crowd, chaos came down on us. Drones, soldiers in shuttles and choppers, people rappelling out of the skies, as if we were enemy hordes raping and pillaging our way through the city. More troops ran in from the sides, humans, robots, armored vehicles.”
Alisa paused to take
a deep breath. This had happened more than ten years ago, but for some reason, these memories were much clearer than many others from back then. She recalled the scared shouts, the cries of pain, and even the smell of the horrible smoke the soldiers had launched into the crowd.
“People broke up quickly when that happened,” she said, “and everyone was trying to get away. Tamra and I ran smack into a tank. Someone shouted that we had a weapon. We didn’t. I think I had my backpack. That’s it. I pulled on Tamra’s arm to get her out of the way, but we were jammed in, couldn’t run. Soldiers fired into the crowd. I kept pulling on her. I couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t move.” Alisa touched her chest, remembering the blood, the scorch marks, the terrified and betrayed expression on her friend’s face.
Alisa cleared her throat, figuring she didn’t need to spell it out for Leonidas. “She wasn’t even a protester. She was a good student who never bucked authority. She only came because she was worried about me.” She blinked a few times, looking toward the sensors so Leonidas would not see the moisture in her eyes. “That was the day I went from disliking some of the empire’s policies but being willing to live with them to actively wanting to overthrow the government.”
“A lamentable situation,” he said.
She gave him a dark look. What an understatement.
“As I recall,” Leonidas said slowly, “the government—and the emperor—considered that a horrible debacle. The soldiers were supposed to break it up, nothing more, but tensions were high. There had been recent terrorist attacks on Arkadius and Haywire Station. The rebellion was already growing back then.”
“Know all about it, do you?” Alisa turned back toward him, not able to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Hundreds of students had been killed that day, and the emperor had considered it a horrible debacle? Gee. Everyone there had been unarmed, protesting only for the right to speak their minds. “You weren’t there, were you?”
She did not remember any red combat armor—her nightmare encounters with soldiers wearing that had come later, after she had been flying for the Alliance.