The torpedoes chased down the Explorer as the ship dodged away, trying to move in time. Alisa knew better than to get smug, but it felt good to see their pursuer engaged in the same evasive maneuvers it had forced the Nomad to use. The projectiles had far enough to travel that the Explorer almost slipped away from them, but the torpedoes turned at the last moment, tracking its energy reading. They slammed into the ship’s shields, exploding with flashes of white.
The Explorer survived the assault, but it immediately turned back the way it had come.
“I’d like to be relieved,” Abelardus said, “but I doubt I should be.”
“No,” Alisa said, watching their forward camera as the warship flew closer, its massive body blocking out the stars, blocking out everything. “I wouldn’t be.”
She hit the comm button. “Thank you for your assistance, Storm Fury.” Sounding grateful couldn’t hurt, especially since the warship’s weapons were still hot. “Is there anything we can do to help you?”
Leonidas snorted.
“Well now, that’s an interesting question, Captain Marchenko,” a voice spoke over the comm, a familiar voice.
“Are you here to take me up on an offer of sake, Commander Tomich?” Alisa asked, wanting to feel relief, but not certain that she should. Tomich sounded contemplative, even wary. This time, it wasn’t the tone of an old squadron mate—an old friend—greeting another.
“I believe we need to have a chat, Alisa,” he said. “Sake is optional.”
“I’m open to chatting.” She was open to anything that didn’t involve the Nomad being blown to bits.
“In person.”
She hesitated. Was he wondering if she was still being influenced by Leonidas? Or someone else? Did he want to see for himself if anyone was looming behind her when she spoke? Or was he hoping that he might influence her if they spoke in person? He must know all about the orb now. She wished she could tell him the truth, that she cared very little about it or whether any of her passengers found this staff—she would prefer it if they did not. She would be happy to dump Alejandro and Abelardus into one of Tomich’s cells, so she could fly off to Cleon Moon and find Jelena.
“Really,” Abelardus murmured quietly from behind her.
Three suns, was he in her head again? Didn’t they have a deal about that? She glared over her shoulder at him briefly before responding to Tomich.
“Your ship or mine, Commander?” she asked.
“That depends. If we come to visit you, are you going to sic your cyborg on us?”
Leonidas’s eyebrows rose.
“I suppose that depends on whether you really just want to talk or if you’re coming aboard to take him prisoner.”
“He’s not my priority right now,” Tomich said. He sounded truthful.
“What is your priority?”
“I’m not authorized to speak with anyone about that, unless…” Tomich sighed. “Alisa, do you know more about all of this than I do? I understand your passenger has some kind of key to the station.”
“The station?” She tried to sound knowledgeable rather than puzzled, but so far, all she had seen was that plaque. She certainly did not see a station anywhere ahead of them. They were close enough now to see all of the Alliance ships on camera—when the warship wasn’t blocking their view. The four other vessels were sprawled out around Leonidas’s coordinates, but there was absolutely nothing at those coordinates, nothing that she could see and nothing that the sensors could detect.
“You’ll see it if you stay here long,” Tomich said grimly. “Of course, my admiral is telling me to make sure you don’t stay here long. It’s dangerous to be this close. I doubt your freighter has the special hull that our science ships have.”
“Uh, no. There’s not much special about this freighter, but we do need to do some repairs. If we could have twenty-four hours without anyone firing upon us, that would be wonderful.”
“Do you still have the key?” He lowered his voice. “I may be able to get you a reprieve if I can tell Admiral Moreau that I’m getting information about something that will help with our problem.”
“What problem? The radiation?”
“More the source of the radiation.”
“I’m open to talking to you about what I know,” Alisa said.
For once, Alejandro was not breathing down her neck when she communicated with the Alliance. Might she find a way to explain everything to Tomich? And if she did, would he believe her? Or had she done too much lately for the Alliance to ever see her as anything more than a troublemaker—if not an enemy—again? Even if Tomich believed her, would it be enough? He might command a warship now, but he was only one commander in a large fleet with many senior officers above him.
Alejandro might not be in NavCom, but both Leonidas and Abelardus were regarding her warily, Leonidas because he did not know what she was thinking—and Abelardus because he did.
She shrugged at them, muted the comm, and said, “We need to go along with them.”
They could not escape, and they certainly could not fight.
“For now,” Abelardus said. “I want whatever information they have. They’ve been here longer than we have, studying the… phenomenon.”
Why did she have a feeling Abelardus knew much more than she did? He turned toward the view screen, toward the warship, a distant look entering his eyes. Maybe he was poking around in people’s heads over there right now.
“Let’s talk on your ship, Marchenko,” Tomich said. “Are you going to let us board without a problem?”
Alisa un-muted the comm while watching Leonidas’s eyes. “Who’s us?”
“Myself, my science officer, and Admiral Tiang. He’s a doctor and a research specialist, not the fleet commander.”
Which meant he had at least two admirals over there that he was dealing with, two admirals who outranked him and could give him the order to make the Nomad disappear.
“Is that Dr. Longwei Tiang?” Leonidas asked, an odd intentness taking over his face.
This wasn’t some past enemy of his, was it? Alisa remembered the way he had reacted with that Commander Bennington during the Perun moon skirmish.
“It is,” Tomich said. “Who’s speaking, Alisa?”
“That’s—”
“Adler,” Leonidas said.
“The cyborg,” Tomich said, his voice going flat.
“A cyborg, yes,” Alisa said. “I have a Starseer too. I’m collecting interesting people.”
Abelardus, still wearing that distant expression, did not look at her.
“You have a Starseer?” Tomich asked.
“Yes, I do.”
Long seconds passed, and Alisa suspected that Tomich was the one muting his comm this time. Telling his superiors all about it? Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe she should have gotten Abelardus to change into normal clothing and then simply presented him as another security guard. He could have rifled through people’s thoughts and reported back to her, assuming she could convince him to do so. Now, everyone would be on guard.
She growled in disgust at herself.
“All right,” Tomich said. “To answer the question, yes, Tiang was an imperial medical doctor. He defected to our side late in the war, for a promotion and because we promised him that he could keep doing his research without being bothered. I gather the latter was more important to him. He’s our top person out here working on this right now.”
“Your top person for working on… what was it exactly?” Alisa prompted.
“I assume you would prefer it if we didn’t bring your ship into one of our bays,” Tomich said, ignoring her question. “We’ll attach to your airlock and be over in fifteen minutes with the people I listed and a handful of troops to protect the admiral. Just protocol, understood? Nobody’s looking for a fight.”
Alisa grimaced. People who weren’t looking for fights seemed to be inspired to find them when they saw red cyborg armor. Maybe she should try to convince Leonidas
to stay away from the meeting. Alejandro could teach him how to hide under the console in NavCom.
“I assure you, we’re tired of fighting,” Alisa said.
He sighed. “I’ve heard cyborgs never get tired.”
“If you give us thirty minutes, my head of security can make something nice for dinner.”
“Your security officer? I’m not sure what’s more alarming, the fact that you have a crew large enough to warrant a head of security or that he cooks.”
“Technically, he’s my only security officer,” Alisa said. “But I assure you his food is wonderful, not alarming.”
“Do I need to bring someone to taste it to make sure it’s not poisoned?”
“Tomich, if I could afford fancy poisons, I wouldn’t be piloting a seventy-year-old freighter.”
He snorted. “You sure that scow is only seventy years old? Someone might have set the odometer back on you.”
“Keep insulting my ship, and I will arrange for something special in your food.”
“Poison?”
“I’d be foolish to poison an Alliance officer while I’m surrounded by Alliance ships. I do, however, have access to chicken droppings.”
“Dastardly,” Tomich said. “You know, I miss the days when you were working on my side.”
“So do I,” she said too softly for anyone to hear.
Almost anyone. Leonidas gazed down at her.
“Thirty minutes then,” Tomich said. “We would prefer not to be met at gunpoint.”
Leonidas said nothing but folded his arms over his chest.
“Thirty minutes,” Alisa agreed, then hit the internal comm. “Beck? Where are you?”
“Finishing up with the doc in sickbay.”
“We have guests coming to dinner. Can you make something nice in thirty minutes?”
“Thirty minutes? That’s not enough time for a good marinade or rub. What are you trying to do to me? And who’s coming to dinner? Not those androids, I assume.”
“A commander, an admiral, a science officer, and a bunch of grunts.”
“An admiral?” Beck’s voice got a little squeaky. He was out of the Alliance now, but he might still find an admiral intimidating. Hells, Alisa found an admiral intimidating, and she wasn’t intimidated by many people.
“Yes, one who used to work for the empire and defected, apparently.” Alisa looked at Leonidas again. Did he have any intelligence on the officer that might be useful? She would have to see what she could get out of him in the next half hour.
“I’m not sure if that makes him more scary or less scary,” Beck said.
“Neither am I.” Alisa was tempted to ask Yumi if she had any special incense that might soothe nerves around the dinner table—or around the airlock hatch. When those soldiers came in, that would be the tensest moment, assuming Leonidas was standing at her side in his armor. She thought again of asking him to stay out of sight. “Yumi?”
Yumi’s eyes were locked onto the sensor display, and she did not seem to hear her. She hadn’t spoken in some time. Maybe she was running scans of the Alliance ships. Alisa wouldn’t mind knowing if the research and medical vessels had any interesting capabilities in addition to their special hulls.
“Something interesting, Yumi?” she asked.
“I’m reading an anomaly.”
“What kind of anomaly?”
“I don’t know exactly. Your sensors are limited, but there’s definitely a disturbance in space, with a growing amount of energy coming from an area roughly focused at the coordinates that Leonidas gave you.”
“Are the Alliance ships moving away from it?”
“They’re getting closer.”
This might not be Alisa’s mission, but she couldn’t help but be curious. Curious and wary. Would her ship be safe if the energy anomaly grew? Was it the source of the radiation that had imbued those artifacts and ultimately killed everyone on that pilgrim ship?
“Invite me to dinner,” Abelardus said, “and I’ll get some answers from the officers.”
“Won’t you get those answers whether I invite you or not?” Alisa asked.
“Yes, but this way, I can sample Beck’s food. I’ve heard grand things about it, but he hasn’t offered me any yet.”
“Odd.”
“Yes.”
“All right, gentlemen.” Alisa made a shooing motion toward the corridor. “Let’s go set the table. Yumi, keep me apprised, will you?”
Judging by the way her nose was to the sensor display and her eyes never wavered, she wasn’t interested in going to dinner. “I will.”
Chapter 13
A clank sounded as the warship extended its airlock tube and fastened it to the Nomad’s seal. Alisa shifted her weight from foot to foot. She stood between Leonidas and Abelardus. Abelardus had his staff, but was not otherwise armed. Leonidas wore his full combat armor, helmet included, and he carried two rifles, one cradled in his arms and one slung across his shoulder on a strap. Beck was in the mess hall, scrambling to get his meal together. Alisa hoped this was not all a ruse and that she wouldn’t regret having her security officer in an apron instead of armor.
She also worried that seeing Leonidas armed would send Tomich’s men reaching for their triggers. He had only given her a flat look when she’d suggested that he might find different attire more comfortable for dining. She had no idea if he intended to eat. If the scents of barbecuing meat and spices wafting into the cargo hold delighted his taste buds, he gave no indication of it.
Another clang sounded, followed by a knock. Alisa almost laughed. That had to be Tomich.
She started forward, but Leonidas stuck his hand out to stop her and strode toward the hatch. She went with him, determined that her unarmored face be the first thing that the soldiers would see.
The inner hatch already stood open, and she tried to slip past Leonidas to enter the airlock chamber so she could unlock the outer one.
“Alisa,” he said softly, again stopping her with a hand out. “You can’t assume that past relationships will play a role here. He will have his orders. This may be a trap. Like all the others, he may simply want the orb.”
“If that’s the case, you can shoot him just as easily from over there—” Alisa pointed to a spot three feet behind her, “—as you can from here.” She pointed at the floor of the airlock chamber.
“You would be in the way of my fire,” he said stubbornly. “And in the way of theirs. They could easily grab you.”
“I appreciate your concern, but as the captain of this ship, I insist on greeting visitors personally. I’m afraid that if they see you first, there will be a scuffle. Or an all out war. And my cargo hold can’t handle another battle.” She waved to indicate the patches on the walls and the destroyed stairs—the mangled remains had been shoved under the walkway, and an improvised rope ladder hung in its place for now. “If you’re going to work for me, you’ll have to accept me as the captain and take orders. That’s how it works. Chain of command and all that. I trust you’re familiar with the concept.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him.
He frowned. She waited for him to point out that he hadn’t taken the job yet, or for him to simply scoff at the idea of taking orders from a lowly freighter captain. Instead, with his face grave, he stepped back. He didn’t step back as far as the spot she had pointed at, but he did give her the space to open the hatch first.
The knock came again. Alisa turned and, with snakes slithering about in her stomach, pressed the hatch release button. Even though she wanted to trust Tomich, a part of her worried that Leonidas was right, that the Alliance soldiers might snatch her, take over her ship, and take anything they wanted.
The hatch opened, and Commander Tomich stood there, looking dapper in his uniform, a bottle held in one hand and the other pointedly held away from the blazer pistol holstered on his belt. He grinned at her, a roguish grin that always made him look closer to twenty than to forty and that won many ladies to his bed. Not that she’d ever been on
e of them. He was notorious for pursuing higher-ranking women. She wondered who he was luring to his bed these days. Leonidas’s Admiral Tiang had sounded male.
“It’s good to see you, Alisa,” Tomich said, though his grin faltered when his gaze shifted toward Leonidas. “It is so odd seeing you with a cyborg standing at your back.”
“I’d say it’s odd seeing you with a bottle of alcohol in your hand, but we both know it’s not.”
The grin returned, if slightly more forced now. “No, it’s not. Though I don’t usually imbibe during duty hours. Our superiors frown upon that, as you may remember. This is for you.” He thrust the bottle of clear liquid toward her with both hands. “A dinner gift.”
“Thank you.” Alisa accepted it, relieved he had brought sake instead of weapons. “Is this the part where I invite you in to enjoy the luxuries of my humble ship?”
She peered past his shoulder. Several young soldiers in combat armor were lined up behind him, though nobody was pointing a weapon in her direction. A couple of older officers waited at the far end of the airlock. The admiral and the science officer, she presumed.
“Luxuries?” Tomich looked at the patched walls. “You have luxuries here?”
“We have good food, if nothing else.”
“That would be a welcome reprieve from our cook’s rehydrated offerings.”
Alisa turned to lead Tomich and his people into her cargo hold. Having all of those armored soldiers striding after her made her uneasy, but she felt better knowing that Tomich was between them and her. Leonidas stuck close, never straying more than a couple of feet from her side.
When the soldiers strode out of the airlock, they spread out, looking all over, presumably hunting for threats to their admiral. Every one of them gave Abelardus a long look, an even longer look than Leonidas received.
“Didn’t you say a few soldiers?” Alisa asked, watching more than she expected enter the hold. “That looks more like twenty or thirty to me.”
“Does it? Huh.”
She propped a fist on her hip.
“Admiral Moreau only agreed to let Admiral Tiang come over if he came with a suitable guard,” Tomich said.