“Something else is down here with us,” Abelardus said quietly, the words barely audible over the alarm.
“More drones?” Alisa drew the blazer pistol with her left hand again.
“No. I believe it is—there!”
A humanoid figure shambled out of the darkness toward them. An android, the one Alisa had seen earlier on the camera, the one Leonidas had fought.
It was armored, more of a hard exoskeleton than bulky combat armor, but that outer layer was burned and mangled. The android dragged one of its legs as it walked. A piece of pipe was thrust through its chest, sticking out on the other side. The side of its face had been destroyed, half torn off. Despite all of its injuries, it headed toward them, a rifle in one hand and something that looked like a grenade in its other.
Alisa started to fire, but Abelardus leaped toward the android, getting in her way. She cursed and thought to move to the side, but decided to hold her ground. Someone had to protect Mica’s back while she worked.
The android burst forward, meeting Abelardus several feet away. Abelardus swung his staff, but his inhuman foe lunged in and caught his arm before the weapon landed. Using his grip on Abelardus’s arm, the android hurled him across the cargo hold. He disappeared into the smoke, so Alisa did not see him land, but she heard the thud and his pained gasp.
She did not hesitate to open fire. The android started to turn after him, but when her bullets and blazer bolts slammed into its side, it shifted toward her. Grimly, she kept firing, wondering if she had just strung a noose around her neck.
The android strode toward her, her weapons fire bouncing off that exoskeleton. She lifted her aim to its head. It flinched as a bullet cracked into its cheek, gouging a hole into the faux skin and revealing a metallic skull underneath. The android continued forward. She backed up as far as she could, bumping Mica.
“Rust bang,” she blurted.
Mica turned, a rust bang in hand, but their enemy was too close. The android reached for Alisa.
A wall of air seemed to slam into their foe, and it was hurled from its feet. Alisa stumbled as the tail edge of the force struck her shoulder. She dropped to one knee, almost falling over Mica. The android hit the bulkhead with a thud, but rose to its feet immediately. Mica threw her rust bang at it.
“Get back,” she blurted, grabbing Alisa.
Alisa staggered to her feet as Abelardus ran out of the smoke toward the android.
“Careful,” she warned. A rust bang might be designed to eat through metal, but the spatters hurt like the hells when they landed on human skin.
Something skidded and clanked along the floor toward Alisa. At first, she thought the android had thrown the rust bang back, but this was a different weapon, the grenade it had been clutching.
Alisa started to dive away but saw that Mica had turned back to the breach, determined to patch the hole. She hadn’t seen the grenade.
“Look out,” she barked and grabbed Mica, pulling her and turning her away from the grenade.
She tried to kick it away before it could go off, but was more focused on getting them both out of there. She barely clipped it.
They raced several feet, Alisa pushing Mica ahead of her. The grenade exploded.
A wave of power slammed into Alisa’s back, carrying her into the air. She crashed into Mica as pieces of shrapnel struck her, burrowing through her jacket and blasting into her skin. She screamed as she fell, pain lighting up her body in a hundred places. She and Mica grew tangled, and Alisa’s shoulder struck the deck hard as she landed. A crunch sounded, and agony sprang from the injury.
The ship’s voice sounded, warning of another breach, and Alisa almost cried in frustration. Knowing the android was still back there and might be charging toward her, she tried to get her feet under her, but as soon as she moved her arm, the pain increased. Her shoulder would not take her weight. Blackness washed over her when she lifted her head. She gasped, willing it to go away. She was not going to pass out, not when her ship was in trouble and that cursed android was still alive.
Footfalls thundered into the cargo hold, and bright red armor appeared through the smoke. Leonidas veered toward the wall where Alisa had last seen Abelardus and the android. They were grappling there—she could just make it out as more smoke—more of their precious air—streamed toward the breach Mica had been trying to fix.
Leonidas descended on the android like a jackhammer. Alisa let herself fall back to the floor. She didn’t know if they were safe, but seeing Leonidas filled her with hope. If anyone could flatten that android, he could.
Beck came running into view. He looked toward Leonidas but then spotted Alisa and Mica and raced toward them. Behind Alisa, Mica moaned. She must have hit hard and perhaps taken some of that shrapnel too. Alisa hurt too much to roll over and look.
A clang sounded from the direction of the airlock. Alisa could barely make out Abelardus in his robe over there, closing the hatch. The smoke continued to destroy the visibility, and it irritated her nose and eyes. She tried to take a deep breath, to deal with the pain coming from all over her body, but she ended up coughing. The shards of metal that had burrowed into her skin seemed to poke deeper with the coughs, and tears pricked her eyes.
Leonidas rose, lifting the android over his shoulder, and called out to Abelardus, “Wait.”
He ran to the hatch and thrust his load into the airlock. The battered android did not fight him—maybe it was dead. Inoperable. Defunct. Whatever the right word was. Leonidas was not taking any chances. He tapped the controls, probably opening the outer hatch so the android would be dumped into the tube. Or into space if the Nomad succeeded in pulling away from the tube. Had Leonidas and Beck turned off the grab beam? Alisa had no way to know.
“Leonidas,” she said. She meant to call loudly and strongly to him, to be heard over the alarm still ringing throughout the ship, but his name came out as a pained gasp.
He heard her and left the airlock, running toward her.
All she meant to do was ask about the grab beam, but he scooped her into his arms. She winced as the shrapnel was pressed deeper into her flesh, and tears streaked down her cheeks, warm and salty where they touched her lips.
“Beck,” he called, his voice muffled by the faceplate of his helmet, “get Mica.” Then he raised his voice to bellow for Alejandro.
Alisa had no problem hearing that.
“We’ll get you to sickbay,” he said, speaking more quietly for her.
She gripped his shoulder. “Is the grab beam down?”
“Yes. We left the other ship with substantial damage in engineering.”
“Is the captain dead?”
“No, there wasn’t time. We heard the fight back here.” He strode toward the walkway. “We can talk about it in sickbay.”
“No, NavCom.”
“You’re injured.”
“We have to get away from the other ship while there’s time, especially if the captain is still alive.”
Leonidas hesitated.
“NavCom,” Alisa said firmly.
Behind her, she could hear Mica having a similar argument with Beck. He wanted to take her to sickbay, and she was demanding to be put down so she could repair the breaches.
“NavCom,” Leonidas agreed.
He stopped where the stairs should have been. Alisa was wondering how they would get up to the walkway when he simply bent his legs and sprang with her still in his arms. She gasped, flinging her uninjured arm around his neck. They landed on the metal with a clank, the framework shuddering beneath them.
Leonidas jogged through the mess hall and toward NavCom, kicking aside fallen drones as he went. “Looks like you had a little trouble up here.”
“Just a little. Abelardus was actually useful.”
“I see,” he said, his tone growing cool, his expression frosty behind the faceplate.
Those two, Alisa decided, were even less likely to become friends than Leonidas and Beck.
Alejandro was
still in NavCom, watching the camera feeds. Yumi sat at the sensor station.
Alisa stretched her hand toward the pilot’s seat, wanting Leonidas to deposit her directly in it.
“What’s going on over there, Yumi?” she asked as he did so, setting her down with impressive gentleness for a big man in combat armor.
“Their engines are overheating,” Yumi reported. “The grab beam let us go a couple of minutes ago. Alejandro and I were debating if we should try to pilot the ship away without your help.”
“No need.” Sitting on the edge of the seat so her back would not touch anything, Alisa reached for the controls. Or she tried. The pain in her left shoulder was too intense. She clenched her jaw and handled the controls with her right hand. It wasn’t efficient, but she made do.
“Get your med kit, Doctor,” Leonidas said. “She needs help. So does Mica.”
“What about you?”
He hesitated. “Later.”
Alisa grimaced. She hadn’t realized he was injured, too, but how could she be surprised? His armor might have protected him from blazer bolts, but if the android had thrown him around as he had thrown Abelardus that one time, he could have internal injuries.
She guided the ship away from the Explorer and put them on course toward Leonidas’s coordinates. She did not know if that was the wisest choice, but they were closer to that destination than to anything else. It would take more than two days to reach the nearest space station where they could dock for repairs, assuming someone on board could afford repairs. She dreaded hearing about all the damage the Nomad had taken. The cargo holds of freighters weren’t meant to serve as the fields for space battles.
The alarm continued to complain about the breaches, but Alisa waited until they were well on their way before she overrode and silenced it. She wanted to ask Mica how the patches were going, but she trusted her engineer to do her job without monitoring.
Alejandro returned and pressed his auto injector to her neck. A soft hiss sounded, and she felt a sharp tap.
“Painkiller,” he said. “But you’re bleeding all over your chair.”
“Even worse than sweaty butt prints,” Alisa muttered. She hadn’t realized she was bleeding that badly, but if he could tell through her jacket, it must be substantial.
“We’ll deal with it in sickbay.”
“Is the autopilot on?” Leonidas asked.
Alisa hated to leave NavCom when they were still so close to their enemy, but both Alejandro and Leonidas were giving her expectant looks.
“I can turn it on now,” she said.
“Do it,” Leonidas said, his tone making it clear it was an order.
Maybe later, she would remind him that she was the captain. Now, all she wanted was for someone to pull those metal shards out of her back. And fix her shoulder. She was sure now that she had dislocated it.
“Done,” she said, lowering her good arm from the controls.
She turned, intending to stand up and walk to sickbay herself, but Leonidas swooped her into his arms again, being mindful of her injuries. If she did not feel like sharp-fanged snakes were burrowing their way into her kidneys, she might have found the gesture romantic.
“Someone’s on a spacewalk on the enemy ship,” Yumi said, scanning through the various screens of data the sensor display offered. “Doing repairs.”
Alisa let Leonidas carry her out of NavCom, but she knew she would be back up here shortly if the android captain got his ship working. Even with his engines operating at half-capacity, he could catch up with the Nomad. And if he did… she didn’t know what they had left to throw at him.
Chapter 11
Alisa’s shoulder itched like mad. She lay on the exam table in sickbay while Mica and Beck sat on a bench, waiting for their turn. Beck had removed his armor, and he had some impressive bruises on his arms and torso, though he was chatting amiably, in good spirits. Mica wore her usual glower and winced whenever she moved. At her insistence, she and Beck had finished patching the breaches before making their way up here. Nobody could fault her dedication to duty.
Leonidas was also in sickbay, still wearing his armor, except for his helmet, as he stood next to Alisa. He watched quietly as Alejandro worked on her bare back, removing dozens of pieces of shrapnel and applying QuickSkin to pull the edges of the wounds together so they could heal. By now, she had received enough drugs that she did not feel any pain, but they did nothing to suppress the itching within her shoulder. Alejandro had injected repair nanobots to work on the torn ligaments and cartilage.
A clank sounded as Alejandro dropped yet another piece of shrapnel into a bowl on the table next to her hip. Alisa had lost count of how many that was. Fortunately, Alejandro was quick and efficient as he removed them. It was strange to think of a man with a penchant for hiding under the control console as being good at anything, but he was in his milieu here.
“Next time, you can just yell at me, Captain,” Mica said. “I can fling myself out of the way of a grenade as quickly as the next person.”
“I’m sure you can,” Alisa said. “I wasn’t sure you would. You seemed intent on fixing that hole.”
“It’s important to fix little holes before they become big holes. It’s also important not to wage battles from inside your spaceship.”
“I’ve heard that. Odd how hard it is to avoid. Is Yumi still in NavCom, Beck?”
He had been the last one to join them in sickbay, stopping in his cabin to peel out of his damaged armor first. He had probably peeked in on her.
“Yes,” Beck said. “She said she’d let us know if that other ship starts moving again. Especially if it starts moving in the same direction we’re going.”
“Good. I’m glad someone is up there.” Alisa almost added that her small sickbay was quite crowded, with Alejandro having to step around Leonidas as he worked, and with Beck’s and Mica’s knees encroaching on the space around the table. But she did not want Leonidas to leave, so she kept the thought to herself. She twisted her neck to look up at him. “Do you have any injuries that the doctor should be looking at that are more important than mine?”
By now, she knew him well enough to believe he would stand there, half dead and only held up by his armor, before admitting to her that he was in pain.
“No,” he said.
She couldn’t tell if he was lying. “So, you’re just here for moral support?”
“Yes. And also for Dominguez’s drugs.”
She smiled at his propensity for calling people by their last names, no matter how many times they corrected him. A byproduct of twenty years in the military, she supposed. She and her fellow pilots had usually used call signs. Maybe that wasn’t much different. First names were so personal. The military probably preferred it when people distanced themselves from each other, so it wasn’t such a blow when one’s comrades dropped in battle. As if names could make a difference in thinking of someone as a comrade, a friend.
Leonidas’s hand hung near the exam table, so she reached over and clasped it, hoping he hadn’t had too many close calls with those androids. Having to watch from a distance, from a camera that hadn’t even recorded him for much of the battle, had been distressing. He could have fallen, and she wouldn’t have seen how it happened or even learned about it until later. She had hated that about losing Jonah. Watching him die would have been horrible, but it seemed a crime not to have been there in the end. To have someone be dead and to not even be aware of it. Weren’t lovers supposed to have a psychic link? To sense when something was wrong with the other person? Maybe the Starseers had that ability. Starseers who actually had power, not just mutated blood.
Leonidas pulled his hand away, and she felt a stab of disappointment. But he only removed his red gauntlet, then returned it to the table, offering it again.
“Are you feeling much pain?” He tilted his chin toward her back where Alejandro was working on yet another shard.
Maybe he thought she had grasped his hand because she needed s
omething to squeeze. No, she just… liked having it.
“Not really. I’m fairly numb. The doctor has good drugs.”
“Yeah, he does,” Beck said. “I can barely feel my neck now. Wrenched it bad when I hit a bulkhead. What’s with all these overly muscular people hurling you into walls? How is that a respectable thing to do to an opponent?”
“It’s slightly more respectable than straight-up shooting a person,” Alisa said.
“Is it? I feel that’s arguable.”
“We’re lucky we didn’t all get blown out into space,” Mica said. “Next time, you fierce armored warriors need to take the battle to the other ship sooner.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Leonidas murmured.
“Did you call me a fierce armored warrior? I like that.” Beck beamed a smile at Mica.
Maybe Mica should give up on finding Yumi cute and see if Beck was interested in sharing his fierceness with her.
“Did you tell the captain about the box, Leonidas?” Beck asked.
“No.”
“What box?” Alisa asked, wincing as Alejandro extracted a long piece out of her back—it might not hurt that much, but the sensation was even worse than the itching. She found herself squeezing Leonidas’s hand. He squeezed back lightly. “And did you just call him Leonidas?” she added.
“Apparently, that’s his name,” Beck said. “Well, actually it’s not, according to that wanted poster, but he seems fond of it.”
“Yes, and he’s been fond of it since the week we all met, but I haven’t heard you use it.”
Leonidas rotated his head toward Beck, and Beck met his gaze, his expression turning wry.
“He pulled an android off my chest plate,” Beck admitted. “I thought I was about to be ripped into a thousand bits.”
Huh. Maybe it had been worth having the Nomad poked full of holes if it meant that Beck and Leonidas had bonded in that battle. Now if she could just get Abelardus to stop calling Leonidas a mech and insulting him.
“There was a lead box in engineering,” Leonidas said. “It was sealed, and we didn’t have time to break into it, but our suits detected some radiation leaking from it. A small amount. The sides of the box appeared quite thick.”