“No, I was on a ship orbiting Arkadius. We were hunting for the bombers who tried to blow away the floating gardens in the capital.”
“I would have signed up for the Alliance that day, if things had been more organized then and I’d known how. But like you said, they were just some crazy rebels back then, attacking whatever they could get close to. I’ve heard that what they started calling the Perun Arcade Massacre was one of the catalysts that unified people.”
“Yes.”
“I finished school—it was amazing and horrifying that things just went on. There was a memorial, but that was it, at least on the surface. I went to flight school, as I’d planned, but there was no way I would join the fleet after that. They even tried to get me. I didn’t have the highest test scores in my class, but I was good in the cockpit. I told them to balls off. They didn’t try to recruit me again. I did some tourism stuff right out of school, but I’d met and married my husband by then. We talked about having a family, so I went for the stable delivery gig. It was as boring as watching a moon spin. But it was responsible. Adult. I never forgot Tamra and the others that died that day. When someone approached me about joining what was becoming a respectable rebel force… it didn’t take much convincing. It didn’t hurt that I still wanted my chance to fly, to really fly. It was selfish, leaving Jonah and Jelena, but I thought I could make a difference too.”
She checked the sensors. They had moved out of camera range of the wreck. Interestingly, the other ship she had detected, the one that had kept her from veering off to the side as far as she would have liked, had altered its path and was cutting toward the salvage tug now.
“I understand why you joined the Cyborg Corps, Leonidas,” she said, having heard his story about needing money for his mother’s illness, “but why did you stay? After events like that—and it’s not like that’s the only atrocity that occurred—didn’t you ever question what you were doing? How could you remain loyal to the empire?”
“It was less about being loyal to a government and more about being loyal to a person. Governments are always problematic. The bigger and more bloated they get, the more opportunity there is for corruption, and the empire was no exception. When I met Markus—the emperor—I was probably about the age you were when you lost your friend. He chatted very candidly to my platoon in the Cyborg Corps—I was just a corporal then—and thanked us for being there and for enduring the surgery to be able to better serve. He was only a few years older than I was and had only recently lost his father to assassins. He had the responsibility of running an empire spanning more than fifty planets and moons on his shoulders. I saw him now and then over the years, more frequently when I was commanding the Corps, and he was always straight and honest with us. When things went wrong, he tried to fix them, but the throne is—was—an illusion. An illusion of power. In the early days of the empire, it was real, especially when some of those emperors had Starseer powers, but the corporations have been running things for decades, if not centuries. Markus met resistance at every turn when he tried to make real changes. Many of the men around him had been placed there by his father’s regime, and they were puppets with strings, owned by money. I know one of his regrets in the end was that he sometimes let them pull his strings, too, that he gave up ground in exchange for small victories. When his sons showed Starseer powers, first the eldest and then the youngest, he hoped that might be what would allow his family to finally turn things around, to have real power that could fight back against financial power.”
Leonidas waved his hand. “I know, this isn’t the story you asked for, but the answer to your question is that sometimes all options are unpalatable, all you can do is choose the lesser of two evils and try to be the voice of reason within a system that isn’t always reasonable. If there’s nobody left on the inside that cares, then the fall into atrocity is swift and horrible. To not support Markus would have been unthinkable.”
“The Alliance isn’t—wasn’t—an unpalatable option,” Alisa said sturdily, even as she felt surprised that Leonidas had been close enough to the emperor to speak of him by first name.
“Yes, it is. Your revolution destroyed the infrastructure of the entire system, and if you think those same corporations don’t have their hooks in your new government, think again. In the meantime, your Alliance is just as happy to threaten people as the empire was.” He waved toward the sensors. “Who do you think destroyed that ship? And for what? Because it wandered into a quarantined area? It’s not like what’s inside of here is a matter of interplanetary security.”
“Are you sure about that?” Alisa asked, thinking of the staff that Abelardus had described. And then there was that radiation. What if more affected ships flew out of the quarantined area? What if the pilgrim ship had reached Primus 7?
Before Leonidas answered, the comm light flashed.
Another check of the sensors showed that the new ship had made good time and had already joined the other two. Alisa did not know if they were allies or competitors and didn’t much care, so long as they were occupied with each other and continued to ignore her.
“Yes?” she asked, answering the comm. It came from the salvage tug, the same as before. She braced herself for some dire ultimatum.
“We need help,” the voice said—it was the same person who had threatened to blow up the Nomad earlier.
“Really.”
“We’ll split half our salvage with you. Just get this other ship off us.”
Alisa frowned over at Leonidas. “Does he realize we don’t have weapons?”
“Perhaps not.”
“Please, to anyone who can hear this,” the voice shouted. “Send help. We—” The message broke off as an explosion sounded in the background. Someone screamed. A woman.
Alisa looked at her sensor display. “The new ship is firing on them,” she said, stating the obvious.
“Do you want to do anything about it?” Leonidas asked.
“Like what? It would take us twenty minutes to get back over there, and we don’t have anything to throw at them. You wouldn’t be able to board if their shields were up, and I’m sure they are.”
Leonidas spread his hand, palm up. “I don’t know what we could do, but sometimes, you come up with interesting schemes.”
“Schemes. Please. The only scheme I want to enact right now is the one where we wake up Mica so she can try to get us more power from the engines.”
“Very well.”
She scowled at him. He hadn’t said anything condemning, but why did she have the sense that he wanted her to try to help? What was she supposed to do?
Alisa made a disgusted noise and tapped on the comm controls, trying to target the newcomer. “Hello, there! This is Captain Marchenko, and I just thought I’d warn you that Alliance warships have been spotted in the area. This might not be a good time for blowing up other ships in a dramatic and noticeable way.”
The other ship did not answer. A few seconds passed, and the salvage tug disappeared from her sensors, leaving only a smattering of wreckage where it had been.
“Sorry,” Alisa told Leonidas. “It’s hard for me to come up with brilliant and sophisticated schemes before breakfast.”
“Would you like me to bring you something?”
She looked over at him, half-expecting that to be sarcasm, though she wasn’t sure why. But he appeared earnest in his offer. Huh. Who ever would have thought an imperial colonel would offer to fetch her breakfast?
A beep came from the sensor display. Alisa turned toward it, and her shoulders slumped.
“Forget breakfast,” she said. “I think I need you to bring all of the weaponry you can muster.”
The newcomer had left the wreckage and was zooming straight toward the Nomad.
Chapter 8
After Leonidas left NavCom to put his armor on, Alisa commed Mica’s cabin. She feared she would need brilliance from her engineer more than she needed an armed cyborg. The ship chasing them had obliterated the tug, not boarded it. And L
eonidas couldn’t do anything unless they ended up engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a boarding party.
“The ship better be on fire,” came a groggy snarl.
“I need you up, Mica. We’re being pursued.”
“Not by a lustful cyborg, I suppose.”
“A ship that just blew up another ship is closing the distance quickly,” Alisa said.
“Fine, I’m on my way to engineering.”
Alisa put the rear camera display on the view screen. It hadn’t taken long for the new ship to come within visual range. A few more minutes, and it would be within firing range too. It was sophisticated and modern, with a bluish-gray, aerodynamic hull designed to hit mach speeds in a planet’s atmosphere. Clearly, it had no trouble finding speed in space, either. She recognized some of the weapons attached to the hull, such as e-cannons and torpedo launchers, but there were others she could not name. The ship looked like some prototype that had come out of a secret engineering facility.
She hailed them. “Greetings, speedy ship. This is the captain of the Star Nomad. I see you’re headed my way. We have sandwiches and coffee if you’d like to join us for breakfast. I wouldn’t be surprised if my security chief could finagle a way to make waffles on his grill too. He’s quite the talented chef.”
She didn’t expect an answer. Judging by the design, that looked like the kind of ship that would be full of arrogant jerks who did not feel compelled to respond to messages—or accept breakfast invitations.
“Greetings, Star Nomad,” a polite voice came back to her. She could not tell if it belonged to a man or a woman. “This is Captain Echo of the Explorer. Breakfast is unnecessary. We have scanned you, and we believe you have a Starseer artifact aboard.”
They had scanned her interior from that distance? And been able to pick up the orb’s power signature? That was definitely a state-of-the-art ship.
“Did you?” Alisa asked. “How interesting.”
“We are collecting Starseer artifacts and are prepared to offer you ten thousand tindarks for yours.”
That wasn’t the follow-up she had expected, especially after watching the Explorer—that name seemed wholly inapt for what that ship could do—blow away that tug.
“Oh? What did you offer the tug for its artifacts?” Alisa had no idea if the salvage ship had gathered any artifacts, but buying time seemed like a good idea. The Nomad was about six hours from Leonidas’s coordinates. There might be an Alliance ship there, one that wanted to enforce its quarantine. If she made it there, maybe she could convince them that the Explorer was more of a threat than her innocuous freighter.
“The tug was unwilling to negotiate with us,” Captain Echo—what kind of name was that?—said. “We were forced to pursue more ruthless methods of acquiring artifacts. My employer has assured me that these methods are acceptable and not illegal out here beyond the Alliance’s sphere of influence.”
“He sounds like a nice fellow.”
“My employer is female.”
“Even nicer. Who do you work for?”
“Does the identity of my employer factor into your willingness to sell the artifact?” Echo asked.
“It might.” Alisa muted the comm. “Leonidas?” she called down the corridor. “Do you want to get Alejandro? Or Abelardus? Or whoever is holding the orb now?”
“Neither will sell it,” he said, striding into view, all of his armor on except for his helmet.
“We can at least pretend to negotiate. Buy time.”
“Buy time until what? Do you expect to find allies out here?”
“I expect to find Alliance ships enforcing their quarantine,” Alisa said. “Whether they’re allies or not is up for debate, but this Captain Echo may hesitate to blow us up in front of their noses.”
Leonidas grunted and headed for the passenger cabins.
“Please inform me if you are considering my offer, Captain,” Echo said.
Alisa un-muted the comm. “I’ve called for the owners of the artifact. I’m just flying this ship. You’ll have to negotiate with them.”
“Very well. You have ten minutes.”
So generous. “You sure you don’t want to come aboard for waffles?” Alisa asked.
“I do not require sustenance.”
The clues clicked together, and Alisa realized what she was dealing with. An android.
She slumped back in her seat. With all their ahridium frameworks and gold circuitry, androids cost a fortune to build, but whoever owned that ship clearly had money to spend. As a pilot, an android would have faster reflexes than she had, and as a combatant, if it had been programmed to be one, it would have even greater strength and speed than Leonidas. She also doubted Abelardus would be able to tinker with its mind, or computer banks, or whatever androids technically had.
Leonidas returned with Alejandro and Abelardus. Alisa also glimpsed Beck in the corridor behind them.
“That’s not the ship I warned you about,” Abelardus said, eyeing the Explorer on the camera. It had settled in behind the Nomad’s wing, well within firing range.
“It blew up the ship you warned me about,” Alisa said. “Doctor, someone wants to buy your orb.”
“It’s not for sale,” Alejandro promptly said.
“I’m the one who’s holding it now,” Abelardus said.
“Does that change the truth of my statement?” Alejandro asked.
“No.”
“Then you two have the job of convincing that captain over there that he doesn’t want it,” Alisa said.
Abelardus gave her a suspicious look, but he turned and gazed at the back corner of NavCom. Maybe he was gazing through the bulkheads and in the direction of the ship. It did not take long for him to turn back around and frown.
“The captain isn’t human.”
“So I’ve gathered,” Alisa said.
“Neither is his—its—crew.”
“How large is the crew?” Leonidas asked.
“It’s hard for me to tell—they’re androids and don’t register as typical life for me—but I believe there are three total. Maybe four.”
“Put on your armor, Beck.” Leonidas brushed past him. “I’m getting more weapons.”
“And here I thought someone mentioned breakfast and waffles,” Beck muttered, turning to follow Leonidas.
“Captain?” Echo asked, comming again. “Have you decided yet if you wish to accept my fair offer?”
“We’re discussing what the orb is worth and if your offer is, indeed, fair,” she said.
“It’s under current market value, but my employer has only authorized certain amounts of payment for the artifacts we seek. I must also point out that I am authorized to use force, if necessary, to acquire the object in question. I’ve analyzed the capabilities of your ship. You have few alternatives, so I advise you to take my offer.”
“Uh huh. And what is the current market value of a glowing yellow orb?”
Alejandro’s lips flattened, and he reached for the comm to turn it off. Alisa blocked his hand. They should keep the android talking as long as they could, especially if the alternative was being fired upon.
“It’s impossible to know what it would bring at auction,” Captain Echo said, “but we estimate its value at one hundred and eighty-five thousand tindarks.”
A hefty sum. Almost as much as the Alliance was willing to pay for Leonidas and information on Prince Thorian’s whereabouts.
“And you’re only offering us ten thousand?” Alisa asked. “Seems stingy.”
“As I’ve explained, it’s a fair offer, especially considering the alternative is to have your ship destroyed so I can pluck the artifact from your wreckage. My mission is to acquire all Starseer artifacts and return them to my employer. I will not be thwarted in this matter. I am an excellent captain.”
Alisa watched Abelardus as the android spoke. His eyes were closed to slits. She hoped he was figuring out a way to sabotage that other ship. His Starseer brethren had used their minds to brin
g down some of the Alliance ships that had attacked their temple.
“I’m sure you are,” Alisa replied. “And just out of curiosity, how much is the staff worth?”
Alejandro glared at her. “Stop giving away intel,” he whispered.
“Oh, I think Captain Echo already knows about it,” she said, not bothering to mute the comm. “Why else would he be out here? Why are all of these ships out here?”
“Because someone blabbed.”
“Someone, yes.” She looked at Abelardus. She ought to search through the rest of his video messages when she had time.
“I’ve only spoken to Lady Naidoo,” he murmured.
“You do not have the staff in your possession,” Captain Echo said. “I have scanned your ship thoroughly.”
“But we could help you get it if we received a sufficient cut. I have a Starseer about, surely an asset that you don’t claim.”
“My employer has received all the information from her Starseer acquaintances that is necessary for this artifact hunt. Also, to answer your question, I estimate the value of the Staff of Lore at approximately 75.3 million tindarks on the black market.”
Alisa let out a low whistle. “Not bad. What would you offer us if we got it for you?”
Alejandro scowled at her. Abelardus smiled faintly. At least someone knew she was scheming for time and hoping an opportunity to escape the Explorer came their way.
“Your help is not required, Captain,” Echo said, his voice flat with no hint of emotion. Of course, that was always the case with androids, and it did not give Alisa a way to tell if he was intrigued or if he was simply shutting them down without considering the offer.
“Not at all?” Alisa asked. “Would you pay me for my Starseer? He could be an excellent guide for you.”
Abelardus’s smile faded, and he frowned at her. “Trying to get rid of me, Alisa?”
That would be a perk.
“Just trying to save my ship,” she said.
“I have no need for a guide, and human frailties would be a burden as we get closer to the coordinates.”
Alisa muted the comm. “It sounds like he expects more radiation.”