“It’s that way,” Yumi said, pointing to the right.
The miners were all going to the left. To the landing bay, presumably.
“I’m looking to get my underwear and deck of nudie cards back as much as the next person,” Beck said, “but shouldn’t we head to engineering to find Mica first?” He pointed straight ahead—a faded plaque on the wall said that engineering and mining operations lay that way.
Alisa appreciated that he was more worried about her crew than material items, and she almost split them up, but they only had two guns between four people. They might find more weapons in the loot room.
“What about your combat armor?” she asked him.
Beck cursed. “You’re right. I could mow down pirates a lot more easily that way.”
Especially if they ran into pirates who were in combat armor. It wouldn’t take long for them to realize their prisoners had escaped and to gear up.
“Yumi?” Alisa prompted.
“This way.” Yumi took the lead, and Alejandro puffed out a relieved breath.
Beck hurried to catch up with Yumi, walking at her side and watching for trouble. Alisa and Alejandro followed, and she glanced back often, certain pirates would catch up with them any second.
Trouble was waiting in the room Yumi led them to, rather than in the corridor behind them. Voices came from behind the door where she stopped, a pockmarked old metal door with a plaque reading Refining next to it.
“There were four of them when I left,” Yumi whispered.
Her eyes did not seem as dilated now, and some of her effervescence had faded. That meant the pirates should be coming down from their drug highs too.
“We’ll take ’em by surprise,” Beck said, waving his rifle at the door.
Alisa nodded, stepping up to join him, ready to charge in.
He waved a hand at the door sensor on the side. A red light flashed. The door didn’t open.
“Probably need clearance,” he grumbled.
Seeing no better option, Alisa knocked on the door with the butt of her purloined blazer.
“Are we still taking them by surprise?” Alejandro asked.
“Absolutely,” Alisa said. “Perhaps you can give them a surprise lecture.”
A thump came from the other side, followed by curses.
“I’ll give them a surprise crack on the head,” Beck said.
The door opened with a puff of smoke. Unless mushrooms could be smoked, the thugs had sampled some of Yumi’s other wares.
As soon as a man appeared in the haze, Beck leaped inside, firing. Someone cried out. Alisa went in after him, wanting to choose targets more carefully, but a pirate bowled into her in his haste to escape. She stumbled back and stuck her leg out to trip him. He stumbled but didn’t fall, grabbing a gun holstered at his waist and twisting toward her.
Alisa shot him in the chest. He fell on his back in the corridor between Yumi and Alejandro, their eyes wide as they gaped down at him.
“Wait,” someone blurted. “They’re not—”
Gunfire drowned out the rest of his words. Beck moved in a frenzy, shooting and punching and kicking, occasionally stumbling because there was junk all over the floor, bags, boxes, clothes, books, papers, and all manner of personal belongings. Alisa stepped on a hairbrush as she moved farther into the room. She searched for a target, but Beck knocked out the third man as she watched. He spun slowly, his rifle at the ready, making sure nobody rose.
“Good work, Beck,” Alisa said.
“Thanks. I would feel slightly prouder about my abilities if they hadn’t all been spaced out of their minds.”
“I’m sure we can find some sober pirates for you to shoot later.”
Alisa felt uncomfortable about killing addled people, even murdering and raping pirates, but leaving them alive to sound an alarm would not have been acceptable, either.
A clang came from somewhere down the corridor.
“Help me drag that one in,” Alisa told Alejandro. Her team did not need pirates stumbling across dead cohorts while they searched.
His face paler than usual, Alejandro bent to comply.
“They were smoking my jashash,” Yumi said, sniffing as she entered the room. “I did not offer to share that with them.”
“Clearly, they should have come to the brig and asked for your permission before digging in.”
“I’d say so. Look at this mess.” Yumi clambered up a pile of trunks and bags that was scattered with needles, patches, and hand-rolled cigarettes, along with numerous bags and canisters of dried herbs, mushrooms, and who knew what else.
“It looks like a pharmacy exploded,” Alisa said.
“I may struggle to come up with enough product that hasn’t been tampered with to pay the other half of my fare,” Yumi said, snatching up bags.
“Believe it or not, getting paid isn’t my primary concern right now.” Alisa spotted her own duffel slumped near the metal legs of a machine and picked her way toward it. She did not have many valuables left, but she at least had a couple of changes of clothes.
Alejandro was digging furiously through another bag, sending undergarments and shirts flying. Alisa found her gun belt and strapped her Etcher on, then tossed her duffel onto her back, keeping both hands free for fighting.
“Yes,” Beck said, slapping a hand down on his hover case of armor. “It’s here.”
“Get dressed,” Alisa said. “We need to get to engineering.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Alisa itched to get going, but it would take Beck a few minutes to get his gear on. She prayed that the miners would reach the landing bay without being recaptured, especially since Leonidas had specifically asked her to see them out. She felt responsible for them.
“Can I help you search?” she asked Alejandro.
He looked up, a lost expression in his eyes. “It’s not here.”
“Are you sure?” Alisa looked at the messy piles.
“You said Malik had it? He must have recognized its value and decided to keep it on him.” Alejandro surged to his feet. “Or maybe it’s in his quarters.”
Alisa wanted to tell him that they could not go tramping all over the ship, that they would end up captured that way, but she had given her word that she would help him find it.
“Captain,” Alejandro said, touching her forearm. He looked like he wanted to grab it and shake her. “This is more important than you and I or any of this.” He waved his arm toward the ship as a whole. “I was given a task. I can’t fail.”
“Yumi,” Alisa said, “help Beck with his armor and keep the door locked. Alejandro and I are going to find the Sublime Commander’s quarters.”
Beck had been clasping his leg greaves on, but he halted to stare at her. “Wait, you can’t go off alone. This will only take me a few minutes. I—”
“When you finish, head to engineering, and find Mica,” Alisa said. “We’ll meet you there. If you’re not there, we’ll head to the landing bay.”
“Captain, you hired me to—”
“Protect my crew,” she said. “That’s an order, Beck.”
He let out a frustrated huff, but went back to donning his armor.
Yumi joined him and picked up pieces to hand him.
“Alejandro,” Alisa said, waving toward the door.
There was no need. He was already charging for it, not bothering to grab his personal belongings.
“Stuff those in your armor case, will you?” Alisa asked Beck as she headed out, knowing the case had hover capabilities and that he could easily bring the doctor’s gear along.
“Yes, ma’am,” Beck said, his voice hollow as he stuffed his helmet on.
He would be ready soon, and he and Yumi could head to engineering. Alisa just hoped this side errand would not delay her and Alejandro for long. Or get them shot.
As they stepped into the corridor again, an alarm started wailing, and she feared her hopes were in vain.
Chapter 19
None of
the plaques at the intersections mentioned crew quarters, nor did Alisa see anything so handy as a map anywhere. With little to go on, she headed back to the break room where she had been questioned, figuring it might be near the personal areas. She and Alejandro had to duck into cabins and hide behind machinery several times to avoid pirates stomping through intersections, some wearing combat armor, some not, but all armed. A siren continued to wail, and she could only assume it had to do with the escapees. She grimaced, imagining a bunch of unarmed and malnourished men and women trying to defend the Star Nomad from murdering pirates while they waited for the pilot to show up.
“I think we’re close,” Alejandro whispered as they headed down one of a dozen narrow door-filled corridors that looked the same.
“How can you know?” Alisa felt like they were going in circles, visiting the same passages over and over.
“Some of them are up here,” came an authoritative voice from an intersection ahead.
Alisa cursed and waved at door sensors along the way until one opened. She and Alejandro slipped into a tight lav, a light flickering weakly overhead. Heavy footfalls pounded past in the corridor outside.
“Can you sense it?” Alejandro whispered, a distant look in his eyes. Had he gotten some big whiffs of what those pirates had been smoking?
“The stench of this lav? Absolutely. I don’t think these people have ever heard of disinfectant.”
Alejandro shook his head. “The map.”
“Map? You mean the orb?”
He blinked and focused on her. “The orb. Yes.”
Someday, Alisa was going to ask him what exactly that map led to, but for now, she said, “I don’t feel anything.”
She pressed her ear to the door.
“I do. I’ve grown attuned to it over the last few weeks.”
Alisa almost accused him of spending too much time with Yumi, but she did remember that the orb had some kind of presence. An effect on weak minds, as Malik had said.
“I think it’s clear,” she whispered, not hearing any more footfalls, though it was hard to be certain with the alarm blaring.
“I’ll lead,” Alejandro said, but she held up her hand and went out first. He didn’t have a weapon and had not asked for one. She did not know if he knew how to shoot.
She eased into the corridor, checking both ways and almost jumping. There weren’t any pirates, but a hover robot floated toward them. It had four sets of arms, a boxy body, and a head with sensor plates that reflected the overhead lights. Two of its claw-like gripper hands held laser tools for melting ore, and the others grasped cutting tools. She had seen several of the robots working in the smelter area when they had first been brought on board. Her first thought was that it would float past, harmless to people as it went about its job, but it stopped, its head rotating toward them.
“Intruder,” it announced from a speaker where a mouth would have been on a person.
Alisa might have ducked back into the lav, but Alejandro had already crept out behind her and was jogging down the corridor in the opposite direction. The robot raised one of its cutting tools, a tiny metal circle with serrated teeth spinning ominously. Sparks leaped from another tool, and an energy bolt streaked out of it. Alisa couldn’t leap out of the way quickly enough, and it bit into the sleeve of her jacket, searing flesh beneath the material.
She yelped and scrambled backward as she fired at it, choosing the pirate’s blazer rifle that she had grabbed since it would be quieter than her Etcher. An orange bolt slammed into the robot’s blocky torso, and it wobbled backward a few feet, but it recovered and started after her again.
Two more similar robots floated around the corner of the nearest intersection and turned in her direction.
Alisa sent a barrage of fire at them, then sprinted after Alejandro. He was disappearing around the corner of another intersection up ahead.
A hum from behind Alisa was her only warning. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she dove to the deck, sliding several feet on her belly. She almost felt silly—she was running from smelter robots, after all—but then a huge beam of energy shot over her head, slamming into the wall on the other side of the intersection. It left a smoking crater.
Cursing, Alisa scrambled around the corner on her hands and knees before springing to her feet. Just ahead, Alejandro stood with his back to a door, his hands raised. A long-haired pirate held a pistol to his chest, a knife raised in his other hand.
With adrenaline surging through her veins, Alisa reacted on instinct, firing as the pirate spotted her and shifted his gun in her direction. The man never got a shot off. Her bolt slammed into his forehead, and he toppled back, hands and boots twitching.
Aware of the robots trailing after her, Alisa sprinted for Alejandro, stopping only long enough to grab the pirate’s gun.
“We have to run,” she said, giving Alejandro a shove. “Here, take this. You need to be armed.”
“No. I’m a doctor, not a killer.” He turned back to the door, resisting Alisa’s attempts to move him down the corridor. “It’s in here.” He waved at the door sensor, but nothing happened.
“Are you joking? We can’t stop here.” Alisa flung her hand toward the dead pirate and another toward the intersection as the first robot floated around the corner. Without hesitating, it swung toward them, pointing those tool-filled arms at them.
Alejandro wouldn’t move.
Alisa thought about running and trying to lead the robots astray, but what if they simply stopped and shot him? Alejandro was jabbing at buttons on the sensor panel, but nothing happened. Alisa leaned past him and fired at the panel, sending shards of metal spraying.
A hum of electricity ran along her nerves again, and she shouted, “Down.”
This time, Alejandro listened, dropping into a low squat. The door opened as the robot hurled a red beam of energy down the hall. At first, it cut over their heads, but the construct’s arm lowered, adjusting the aim.
Alejandro dove into the cabin, and Alisa scrambled after him even as she worried that this was a horrible plan. They were going to be trapped, and she had no idea if one could surrender to a robot. Would it simply blast down the door and annihilate anything moving inside?
She glimpsed a second one rounding the corner before making it into the cabin. Despite her tampering, the door slid shut behind them. That was good, but she did not know if she could lock it, not after blasting the panel.
Alejandro helped her to her feet and took the recently acquired pistol from her hand. “On second thought, that does seem useful.”
He sprang for an armoire and a chest on one side of the cabin. Besides a bed and a table, they were the only places where someone might have hidden something, unless one counted the empty combat armor case, its crimson sides neither scuffed nor dented. They gleamed as if they had been recently polished. Malik’s cabin. Alejandro had guessed right. Amazing.
Alejandro flung open the chest. More worried about the approaching robots than finding the orb, Alisa tried to find the door lock, but the panel on this side of the wall beeped angrily at her, the surface hot from her attack on the other side.
She shot it, blasting the face in some vague hope that she might melt the lock. Not trusting that to happen, she jumped for the armoire. Alejandro had it open and was tearing through clothes, but she rammed her shoulder against it and shoved it in front of the door.
“Let’s pretend that will keep out a robot capable of smelting tons of ore.” Alisa looked around the cabin for more obstacles she could add to the roadblock or a way out, but there were no other exits in the room. “Suppose hiding under the bed wouldn’t fool them.”
Alejandro didn’t answer. He was too busy flinging clothing out left and right, enough items that Alisa suspected Malik might have taken over the old commander’s quarters without moving the original contents out.
Clanks sounded at the door, demanding clanks.
Imagining all three robots and maybe some pirates out there, Al
isa headed for the armor case, hoping Malik might have left some weapons behind that were more powerful than her handguns. A snap sounded, and she was almost brained in the head with a shelf that went flying over Alejandro’s shoulder.
“I know it’s in here,” he snarled. “I can feel it.”
Alisa’s senses crawled, too, as they had in the break room when she’d been looking at the orb, but she did not take the time to debate it. A hiss and a grinding noise came from the door.
“They’re cutting their way in,” Alisa said. “You might want to finish there quickly, so we can, ah…” She had no idea. Get caught?
Another shelf flew across the cabin, knocking over a display device on the bedside table rotating through holo photos.
Alisa rooted into pockets and sleeves in the sides of the armor case, patting around the indentations built to fit the specific pieces. “Come on, Malik,” she whispered. “You’re a soldier. You must have some—” Her fingers brushed over some hard lumps in a pouch. “Yes, what’s this?”
A screech sounded as metal warped. Stronger light from the corridor flowed in around the armoire. Alisa pulled out two compact canisters. Rust bangs. And not the homemade version Mica had made, but legitimate ordnance from an imperial armory.
“This’ll do,” she said at the same time as Alejandro jumped back, a familiar box in his hands. He flicked open the lid, and golden light shone out.
“Got it.”
“Great. Now get back here, because we’re about to be invaded.”
Alisa had no sooner finished the words than something slammed into the armoire. It skidded forward a foot, wobbling precariously. Using her teeth, Alisa tugged free the tab that armed one of the rust bangs. She forced herself to hold it, recalling that the imperial ones had a five-second delay. The armoire tipped forward, revealing three robots and at least ten pirates crowding around the doorway.
Alisa threw the rust bang as they started to charge inside. The men’s eyes widened, and they stumbled back. One reached out, as if to grab it, but he must have recognized it, because he yanked his hand back and disappeared around the doorjamb. The robots did not sense their impending doom.