With more audacity than she felt, she made herself lift her chin and ask, “You going to show me the map of the inside of this asteroid, or do I just get to grab my butt with both hands and let the autopilot steer us into a rock?”
Seconds passed without him moving, without him doing anything but staring into her eyes, as if he could make her pay for all the Alliance had done with the power of his mind. She almost told him that he wasn’t a damned Starseer, but she sensed she had already pushed him far enough. She couldn’t assume he wouldn’t hurt her just because she was the pilot. A person could suffer a lot of pain and still be functional enough to fly.
Finally, he stepped back and turned toward the asteroid floating innocuously above the desk. He swiped an irritated finger through the display, and the map grew larger.
“It’s rough, at best, and it may not be accurate,” he said. “I advise that you save the butt grabbing for later and fly very slowly and very carefully. There is a way in, but it may be difficult to navigate.”
“Into what?”
He glanced at her, his lips pressing together.
“If you don’t tell me, how am I going to know when I get there?”
“It’s a research station.”
“For researching what?”
“You don’t need to know that to find it.”
She propped her fist on her hip and almost told him that the empire didn’t need to worry about keeping confidences anymore, that the emperor was dead and there wasn’t anyone left in the organization with the time to care about old secrets. But did she want to pick another fight with him? Next time, he might not keep control of his temper, and a pissed off cyborg would be a very dangerous thing.
“Fine,” Alisa said. “You didn’t answer my other question. Are we dropping you off there?”
He hesitated. “I may need a ride out again. If the person I seek isn’t there or isn’t—” He shook his head. “I may need a ride to Perun.”
It occurred to Alisa that she might have the opportunity to strand him on this asteroid of his. If there weren’t any ships and pilots docked at this research station, he could be stuck there for a very long time. One less cyborg to go back to Perun and help the empire try to reestablish itself. One less cyborg to get in her way.
An alarm blared, making her jump. She cracked her elbow on the hatch and scowled.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Proximity alarm. We’ve got company.”
Chapter 7
When Alisa reached NavCom, Mica was still there, though she was standing now, frowning as she looked back and forth from the sensor display to the view screen. Alisa turned off the alarm and slid into the pilot’s seat. The asteroid field still stretched before them, but a massive ship had come into view in the distance, flying parallel to the edge of the belt. The huge craft stretched miles in length, with all manner of equipment protruding from its hull. It reminded Alisa of all the tools in a dentist’s office, if they had tumbled from their drawers and stuck to a giant rectangular magnet. With an engine.
“Corporate mining ship,” Alisa said. “We shouldn’t be of any interest to them.”
Mica waved at the view screen. “So, it’s just a coincidence that they came out from the asteroid field and are heading straight toward us?”
“Uhm.” Alisa peered at the sensor display, hitting a button so it would play in reverse.
“Perhaps it’s attracted to the scrap potential of this freighter,” the cyborg said, coming to stand in the hatchway.
Having him behind her made Alisa’s shoulder blades itch.
“I hope you’re not implying that all this ship is good for is scrap,” she said, “or I might arrange to have it land on you once we’ve let you out to snoop around on your secret station.”
“Snoop?” Mica glanced back at him.
“I get the impression from the vague directions I’ve been given that our cyborg friend here isn’t an invited guest.” Alisa grimaced as the sensor displayed the last fifteen minutes of readings, readings that showed the mining craft angling toward them until it was close enough to trigger the proximity alarm.
“I’m not uninvited,” the cyborg said.
“Just so long as we don’t get shot at on the way in.” Alisa lowered her voice to mutter, “I’ve gotten more than I bargained for on this trip already.”
“It’s possible there’s no need to head for a secret base in an asteroid field to get shot,” Mica said. “If that ship gets much closer, he’ll be able to shoot us right here.”
“Mining ships don’t have weapons.” Alisa was about to make a comment about her engineer’s pessimism, but the cyborg spoke again.
“That one does.” He stepped forward, leaning past them to point at some of the protrusions on the big ship that Alisa had assumed were mining equipment. “Torpedo launcher, mega blazer, e-cannons, and that’s a new DZ-468-A, less than two years out of the factory.”
“Asteroids must be getting feisty out here for a mining ship to need all that,” Mica remarked.
Alisa slumped back in her seat. “I take it that pirates or something of that nature took over that ship.”
“Pirates would be my guess.” The cyborg lowered his arm and stepped back.
Alisa turned off the autopilot and grabbed the flight stick. “Mica, head down to engineering, will you? Just in case there’s trouble.”
“How can there not be trouble?” Mica slid out of her seat.
“Unless they’ve ratcheted up their engine in a big way, we’ll be faster than them.” Alisa angled them away from the mining ship and toward the asteroid field. They had to go in anyway, and there would be plenty of hiding spots among the rocks. Maybe they could even hide in the cyborg’s secret research facility.
“They’ve ratcheted up their weapons,” Mica said. “What makes you think they won’t have put a new engine or six in there?”
Alisa shook her head and flicked their shields on, though she still hoped the pirates wouldn’t bother with them. “We’ll still be more maneuverable. Piloting that hulk must be like flying a planet.”
“They’re launching a torpedo,” the cyborg said, watching the sensors. “Ship-rated.”
“I see it.”
Alisa dove, twisting the bulky freighter as if she were back in her one-man Striker. She headed toward a small asteroid on the periphery of the belt. The torpedo blew up behind them with a flash of white that lit the view screen. The Nomad shuddered, experiencing the shockwave even though they had evaded the explosion.
They could take a few direct hits to the shields, but Alisa would prefer not to—they might need that shielding when they were flying through the belt. There would be all manner of debris in there, some of it too small and densely packed to avoid, but dangerous to the integrity of the ship all the same.
A second torpedo shot after them as Alisa took them behind the asteroid. She thought it would act as a shield, but this time when the white light flashed, the explosion blew a new hole in the asteroid, and rock debris hurtled everywhere. Shards ranging from head-sized to shuttle-sized battered the Nomad. Even though they did not strike with the devastating force of a manmade weapon, the console lit up with complaints at the assault.
“Ship-rated,” she muttered. “More like asteroid-rated.” An alarm flashed to her right. “Mica, engineering is calling you.”
“As always.” Mica headed for the exit.
The cyborg and his big muscled torso had to turn sideways so she could pass. Alisa hoped he would leave right after Mica did—she didn’t care for critics standing behind her as she flew, definitely not imperial cyborg critics. Instead, he eased into the vacated seat beside her.
Irritated, she hit the comm switch with more force than necessary to call upon the other craft. “Greetings, unidentified mining ship,” she said. “This is Captain Marchenko of the Star Nomad, an unarmed and peaceful vessel on an expedition to gather interesting ore samples for a scientist among us who is seeking a better understa
nding of the universe. If we’re heading toward your mining claim, we will gladly divert to another location. Please direct us as you wish. Violence isn’t necessary.”
Alisa glanced at the cyborg, half-expecting him to comment on her ruse. It wasn’t as if she expected it to work, but now and then, she had come across men who hesitated to fire on women, some ancient Earth notion of being chivalrous, she supposed. Maybe whoever was at the weapons control console over there would feel that way.
“A better understanding of the universe?” the cyborg asked. “Is that what your female passenger is looking for when she chants to herself in her room?”
At least he wasn’t making comments about Alisa’s wild flying. That flying had kept her and her crew alive many times in the past when they shouldn’t have survived. Only when the odds had been too astronomical, the numbers too great, had she lost battles.
Static spat from the comm. “Puny freighter,” a woman’s voice said, “you’ve entered territory claimed by the Fist of Darkness. Your ship is ours. Slow down and prepare to be boarded.”
So much for finding a chivalrous man in charge of the other ship.
Alisa muted the comm. “Fist of Darkness?” she asked the cyborg. Maybe he had some knowledge of them.
He shook his head. “Must be a new one.”
Alisa flicked the mute off. “If we’ve stumbled into your territory, Fist, we’ll gladly leave.”
“It’s Fist of Darkness, and nobody leaves our territory alive.”
“Charming.” Alisa muted the comm again.
“Given how much trouble you get into,” the cyborg said, “you might want to look into installing weapons on your ship.”
“I’m sure my mother would have installed weapons long ago if the empire hadn’t made it illegal for civilian ships to have them.”
“Your mother?”
Alisa had forgotten that Mica was the only one who knew the history of this ship, that it belonged to her family, or it had before she had junked it. She felt a twinge of guilt for that, but reminded herself that the ship had betrayed her first, not the other way around.
“This used to be her ship,” she said shortly. This wasn’t the time to explain her background in great detail. “I grew up on it, running freight with her. And we ran into trouble back then too. Weapons would have been extremely useful. Too bad having them could get you thrown into jail. Or worse.”
“The empire kept the shipping lanes safe. It wasn’t necessary for civilians to have weapons.”
“The shipping lanes, usually, but not always. And not everyone wanted their cargo picked up or delivered to places on the shipping lanes.”
“If your mother was a smuggler, then—”
“She wasn’t a smuggler,” Alisa snapped. “Your empire wasn’t as infallible or great as you seem to think it was.”
“Nevertheless, I doubt the Alliance will have the infrastructure to maintain the same degree of order.”
“Fine, I’ll put in an order for cannons as soon as I can get ahold of a catalog from the weapons supply store.” And as soon as she had the money to do so.
Pushing the ship to maximum speed, Alisa took them away from what remained of the asteroid—about half of it. The formerly roundish rock now looked like a cheese wheel that had been attacked by rats. The bulky mining ship turned to follow the Nomad. More asteroids loomed ahead, larger now on the viewing screen, a mix of giant rocks, some almost moon-sized and projectiles as small as a fist. Hit either one fast enough, and it would screw up a ship. Any sane pilot would slow down; Alisa tried to get even more juice from the engines.
Another torpedo chased them into the asteroid belt. It blew up just off their tail, and Alisa’s hand tightened on the flight stick, the Nomad rocking as the force brushed the edge of the shields. The sound of chickens squawking in complaint drifted up from the cargo hold. Alisa sighed. At least her two human passengers weren’t up here complaining. Yet.
The Nomad would already have outpaced a regular mining ship. As Mica had suggested, this one must have improved its engines. But Alisa held out hope. The asteroids would be more of an obstacle to the pirates as their big ship struggled to maneuver around them. Unless they just shot them into oblivion.
She glanced at the cyborg. His face was hard to read. Cyborgs probably weren’t allowed to look afraid. “I don’t suppose you’d like to hop on the vid-comm, flex your cyborg muscles, and tell those pirates that a platoon of your kind will be waiting in here in combat armor if they try to board us?”
“My kind?”
“You know, brawny and full of enhanced machine bits.”
Three suns, he wasn’t going to pick this moment to be offended by her irreverent streak, was he? She didn’t like him, but it wasn’t as if she intentionally wanted to irritate him, not now. If they did get caught and boarded, she would need his help.
“I’m just as human as you are, Marchenko,” he said stiffly, then pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll put on my combat armor, but I suggest you not mention I’m here. Let them think Beck is your only defender.”
From the tone of his voice, she couldn’t tell if that was a dig at Beck or not. It probably was.
“Cyborg?” she asked, glancing back, but only for an instant. They were deep within the asteroid field now, and she couldn’t divert her attention for long.
“What?”
“You have a name?”
He grunted. “What do you care?”
A fair enough question, considering they had been on the ship together for more than a week, and she hadn’t tried to get to know him.
“I don’t,” Alisa said, “but if they have cyborgs, too, it could get confusing when I’m yelling, ‘Cyborg, shoot, shoot.’” She threw a smile over her shoulder, though she didn’t know why she bothered. It wouldn’t assuage his prickly feelings toward her.
Indeed, he was staring at her, his eyes hard. She expected him to turn and walk away without answering.
“Leonidas,” he finally said.
Leonidas? What kind of name was that? Something out of Old Earth mythology? She wagered that whatever it was, he had made it up on the spot.
“Great,” was all she said. “Can I call you Leo?”
“No.” This time, he did turn and walk away.
Alisa hoped that seeing him in his big red suit of armor would make those pirates wet themselves if they managed to board her ship. Not that she intended to let that happen.
She dove between two huge reddish-brown rocks, hugging the curve of one and changing direction so that she could dart farther into the field while the asteroid blocked the pirates’ view. She swooped left and right, up and down, putting as many rocks between herself and the mining ship as possible. She thanked the gods that they were a long ways from Opus and Rebus so the gravitational pull wasn’t as much of a tangled mess as it was when flying between the three suns.
Asteroids skimmed past, near misses making her flinch, though her hand remained steady on the stick. A few not-so-near misses bounced off the shields, but they were rare. Alone in NavCom, with nobody’s judging eyes upon her, she found the peaceful relaxed state of mind where her body reacted of its own accord, the ship like an extension of her own nervous system as her brain processed information without conscious effort on her part.
As she had predicted, the mining ship fell behind. Alisa eased back on her breakneck speed and was about to call back that the cyborg—Leonidas—wouldn’t need to dress to kill after all. Before she could, a warning bleep came from the sensor panel. There was a ship ahead of her. No, three ships ahead of her.
“Now what?” she groaned.
Chapter 8
The first ship that appeared, coming over the rim of an asteroid like a sun rising, made Alisa suck in a startled breath. It was a Striker-18, the exact spacecraft she had flown her last two years in the army, the spacecraft she had been flying in the final battle when she crashed. What was the Alliance doing out here?
Thrusters firing, the small b
ut deadly vessel flew toward her. She was of half a mind to open the comm and try to talk to the pilot, but two more ships flew out from behind boulders ahead of and to either side of her. Those two were also one-man craft, but they were imperial bombers, not Alliance ships.
As Alisa dove under the asteroid the first ship had just appeared above, she realized that these all had to be stolen ships, not representative of either Alliance or imperial forces. She streaked downward and away from all three, immediately guessing from their positions that they were with the pirates and that they had been sent out here to cut her off. They either had orders to destroy her or to delay her so the mining ship could catch up. Well, neither was going to happen.
Unfortunately, the one-man ships not only outnumbered her, but they were faster and more maneuverable than the Nomad. They zipped after her, shooting a stream of blazer bolts, peppering her rear shields. The attacks weren’t as powerful as those torpedoes the other ship had fired, but she knew from firsthand experience that a one-man craft could do enough damage to bring down a bigger ship eventually. Worse, the sensors showed the bombers readying torpedoes of their own.
She weaved and dove through the asteroids, her mind not as calm and her reflexes not as instantaneous as before. She was too busy trying to come up with a plan, with a way to outsmart those bastards. That was all she could do, since she had no weapons and no way to outrun them.
She did notice that they did not fly through the asteroids as quickly as she would have in those small, quick vessels. They might not be as experienced as she. She led them into a denser portion of the asteroid field, hoping she might get lucky and one would splat against the rocks. Too bad the pilot’s shields would save him from utter destruction even if that happened.
“Bombers?” Leonidas asked, back in the hatchway, this time in his red armor, his helmet under his arm.
Even though she knew it was him, and that he was the same man—cyborg—he had been a few minutes ago, a jolt of fear ran through her at seeing that armor in her peripheral vision. Odd that memories of cyborgs storming her ship in the past could terrify her more than the attack that was going on right now.