The words rang with persuasion in Alisa’s head, sounding perfectly reasonable. If she hadn’t had so many conversations with Abelardus, telepathic and otherwise, she might have caught herself pausing to listen, but she recognized the mental coercion for what it was.
“You have no right to her,” Alisa said, reaching for her stun gun. “She’s my daughter.”
She grasped Jelena’s hand. She didn’t want to throw her over her shoulder and run, but she would to keep the Starseers from taking her again.
The men exchanged looks with Westfall, and one started to lift a hand. Would they attack her again? Alisa growled, lifting the stun gun.
It flew out of her hand before she could fire.
“Adler,” Sinclair yelled again. “Get the boy, or at least figure out which one is blocking us.” At least a dozen armored soldiers crowded behind him in the passage.
“We can’t open the hatch,” one of the gray-haired Starseer scientists said, as Alisa was debating whether she wanted to bring a more powerful weapon to bear on the men in front of her.
“Force it,” another Starseer growled, pointing his staff at the hatch.
Those not trying to take Thorian and Jelena were pushing the other children toward that hatch, toward that shuttle. But they had to stop now. Nothing happened, and it remained closed.
“I tried. It’s sealed somehow.”
“I can sense someone using his power to hold it shut,” Westfall said, her eyes closed to slits.
Alisa thought of the Starseers on her own ship. Might they be working with her? Trying to force everyone onto the freighter? Or was this Tymoteusz and his people? Keeping everyone from escaping?
“We have the same problem,” Ostberg said. He had moved to the hatch leading to the Nomad’s airlock. “It’s locked.”
“Company is coming in,” Mica said over the comm. “It’s our favorite chasadski ship, the same one from the volcano and from Caravan Circle.”
“Beck,” Alisa said, “help Ostberg with the door. We’re getting out of here.”
Jelena frowned, taking a step back toward the Starseers. “Mom, we can’t leave everyone. Do you know what they’re teaching me? It’s amazing. I can wash the dishes without my hands now!”
“A trick you’ll have to show me, but we need to go. Trouble is coming.” Alisa itched to lean forward and grab Jelena, as she would have before, but it had been so long. What if she ran back to hide behind the Starseers to stay out of her reach? What if she picked them over her mother?
“It’s not budging, Captain,” Beck said from the hatchway. “Definitely something more than a mechanical failure. It’s like pulling down a foot-thick metal wall.”
“Leonidas,” Alisa said, waving toward the hatch. Surely, he could pull down a wall like that.
He whispered a few words to Thorian and jogged to the airlock. Thorian glanced at the Starseers, but ran after Leonidas, evading a grasp from one of the adults. He waved a hand behind him, and the men who had come to grab him stumbled back.
Alisa felt a stab of envy—Thorian would willingly follow Leonidas when Jelena, her own flesh and blood, was hesitating to follow her?
She growled, squashing down the feeling, and groped for reasonable words to sway her daughter.
“Jelena, they’re all welcome to come. And we have more Starseers aboard. People who can teach you. There’s even—” She stopped herself just before mentioning Stanislav. She’d almost said that she could introduce Jelena to her grandfather before remembering that he was most likely dead now. “There are Starseers to teach you,” she repeated instead.
Metal groaned behind her. Leonidas had reached the hatch, and his whole body leaned outward as he pulled at it. It was as Beck had said; he seemed to be trying to pull open an entire bulkhead rather than a door. Still, that groan made her think he might do it.
“Captain, are you there?” Mica asked, sounding exasperated.
“Yes, sorry. A lot going on here.”
“Tell me about it. Look, the warship is still out there, but the gray Starseer ship zipped past it. I think he’s coming in to dock. Right beside us.”
“He’s coming to the base?” Alisa had thought Tymoteusz wanted to collapse this place, not board it. What the hells?
“He’s coming for me,” Thorian whispered so softly that Alisa barely heard. He was standing beside the hatch while Leonidas struggled, his eyes full of fear as he gripped the bulkhead.
The Starseers who had been after him had stopped a few steps back. Where could they go if they managed to grab him? Back into the depths of the station? They would have to deal with the soldiers if they did.
“If Tymoteusz is coming,” Abelardus said, “this is our chance to fight him, to get the Staff of Lore.”
“That’s not my priority right now,” Alisa said, her eyes locked onto Jelena.
Abelardus either did not hear her or ignored her. He walked toward the other Starseers, lifting his arms, his staff in one hand. “Listen, friends. An enemy approaches, but he has with him a powerful artifact.”
“Tell us something we don’t know, genius,” one of the scientists said, almost startling Alisa into laughing. In a less perilous moment, she would have.
“Who is that?” someone else asked.
“The idiot brewer from the Arkadius Temple.”
Abelardus scowled. “I’m a pilot and a fighter for our people. Listen to me, if we band together now, all of us—” he pointed his staff at the soldiers crowding the corridor, “—we can defeat him. We can take the staff from someone who has proven that he doesn’t want what’s best for our people, and then we can find someone more appropriate to wield it. Someone who will bring prosperity to our people, who will use it wisely.”
“You?”
“It doesn’t matter who, so long as it’s not a crazy tyrant who wants to take over the system.”
Alisa couldn’t believe Abelardus was using this moment to try to get the damned staff.
“Jelena,” she said, crouching so they could see eye to eye. “I’ve been flying all over the system, looking for you. Those people took you from your aunt Sylvia without your permission, right? It was without my permission too. If you want to stay friends with some of them—” she pointed toward the other children, more than toward the adults, “—that’s fine, but please come back with me. I miss you, and I want to take you home.”
Jelena’s eyes widened. “Home is gone,” she said. “Dad is gone. You weren’t there. You didn’t see. But he’s gone.”
Alisa winced, the words sounding like an accusation in her ear. And a true one at that.
“I know,” she said. “I should have been there. I should always be there for you. Let me make it up to you. We’ll have a new home aboard the Star Nomad, aboard my ship. It used to be my mom’s ship. It’s a fun place. There are games and interesting people.” She stopped, afraid she was trying too hard.
“And brownies?” Jelena asked.
“Definitely brownies. Beck got some more chocolate at our last stop, and he can make anything.”
“We’re getting a pond too,” Beck added cheerfully from behind her. “With fish and ducks.”
Alisa might have shot him a dirty glare—they were not getting a pond—but she was too focused on her daughter to acknowledge him.
Jelena bit her lip and looked at the robed figures behind her. The Starseer group’s focus had split in two directions, neither of them toward her. Part of the group was trying to get their airlock hatch open, just as Leonidas was working on the Nomad’s, and part of the group was looking farther down the docking area, toward the hatch that the soldiers had originally come through. Alisa had a feeling that docking slot wasn’t empty any longer. Had the chasadski ship already snuggled up to the airlock? What would happen if Tymoteusz strode out here, waving that staff? Could anyone stop him? But why would he enter the base he had been trying to destroy? Didn’t he want Thorian dead? And apparently anyone standing close to him? Alisa doubted he would bot
her sparing her life a second time, especially with Stanislav gone.
“Jelena?” Alisa prompted and held out her hand. It was time to get out of this hole, as soon as Leonidas managed to muscle their hatch open. She would take Jelena and whoever else followed. If Abelardus and the Starseers wanted to stay here and have some epic battle with Tymoteusz, let them.
Jelena reached out and clasped her hand, then wrinkled her nose. “It’s cold.”
“That’s the armor. I’ll take it off when we’re safe. And I’ll give you a real hug.”
“And a brownie.”
Alisa grinned. “Definitely a brownie. And we can make some chocolates too. Do you still like Andromeda Android? I was thinking of ordering some molds.”
Jelena started to smile, but a clink sounded, followed by an angry hiss.
“Station breach,” a computerized voice announced, an alarm starting up in its wake.
“Shit,” Leonidas said, backing away from the hatch.
It was still shut. The tremendous force he’d been applying must have ruptured something within the bulkhead. He threw an anguished look at Alisa, as if he’d failed her, as if he lamented that his strength hadn’t been enough to solve the problem this time.
The hells with that. He wasn’t to blame.
Alisa activated her comm. “Mica, I need you to get this airlock hatch open now. Some Starseer with a staff up his butt has wedged it shut somehow. Figure out how and then blow it open if you need to.”
“That’ll damage the base even further.” Leonidas pointed in the direction of the hiss, the sound of the atmosphere escaping.
“It won’t be the first base we’ve destroyed,” Alisa said, wanting to get away with Jelena and not caring one whit about this place or the staff. “Mica, if you need help, get the Starseers out of the rec room and use them as battering rams on the hatch.”
Have I mentioned that you’re doing a fine job of endearing my people to you? Abelardus spoke into her mind.
“Have I mentioned that I don’t care?” Alisa said, glowering at him.
Maybe you could run for political office alongside that Admiral Hawk.
“Maybe you could stay out of my head.” Next time she used Yumi’s drug, she would try a larger dose.
“They say they’re dealing with their hated enemy,” Mica said.
“Terrible Tym? Are they keeping him from docking?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
“Just find a way to open this hatch, or drill a new one in this bulkhead,” Alisa said. “I want to get out of here, now.”
“Do I get a reward if I succeed in meeting your insane demands?”
“Beck is baking brownies later.”
You promised me you’d help me get it, Abelardus spoke into her mind, scowling in her direction.
“A brownie? I can do that.”
His scowl deepened. The staff. He’s brought it here. Now’s our chance.
The Starseers were murmuring among themselves, probably silently as well as out loud. Abelardus’s speech did not appear to have done much to sway them. Maybe because they’d already proven they would rather run than confront people. Maybe because, when they’d left their brethren behind to confront the chasadski before, those Starseers had been killed.
“What do you want me to do?” Alisa asked Abelardus quietly. “If you and your legion here manage to thwart Tym and get the staff, I’ll come back and pick you up.”
Leonidas stalked from their hissing hatch to the one where the chasadski ship seemed to be docking. There were no portholes or cameras showing the hollowed-out asteroid outside of the base, but a few clanks emanated from that direction. The ship attaching an airlock tube?
“A station breach is occurring,” the computerized voice announced. “Air levels are lowering dangerously for human occupants. Repair robots have been dispatched.”
“How’re they going to get here with the barrier blocking the passage?” someone asked.
“And how are we going to breathe if all the air escapes?” someone else asked.
A wrenching of metal made Alisa jump. Leonidas stepped back from the other airlock hatch.
“What did you do?” Alisa asked.
He held up the wheel that allowed for manual opening and closing if the computerized controls did not work. It had been bent and torn away. “Hopefully, made it so the chasadski have as much trouble getting in as we’re having getting out.”
Alisa doubted that would work. They could probably twitch their fingers and rip the hatch off its hinges.
A tremor went through the floor.
“Not again,” Alisa groaned, reminding herself not to grip Jelena’s hand any harder, not with her armor on. Oh, how she looked forward to peeling it all off.
The trembling quickly grew in intensity.
“Lady Westfall?” Jelena asked, her voice quavering with fear as she looked toward the gray-haired Starseer.
Alisa swallowed, upset that she would look to those strangers for help—for protection—rather than to her mother.
Thorian pushed away from the wall and came over to hold Jelena’s free hand. Alisa wasn’t sure whether it was to comfort Jelena or because he, too, wanted to be comforted. If he could read thoughts, could he tell how many of the people around here wanted him for their own reasons? Did it make him feel like a piece in a chess game rather than a boy?
“They’re coming,” he whispered.
The shaking grew more intense, as it had before, when the ceilings had crashed down.
Leonidas ran over to pick up Alisa’s helmet—she grimaced, feeling guilty that she had forgotten all about it, especially when it was brand new and he’d been the one to buy it for her. He raced back to her side and held it out to her.
“Put it back on,” he ordered.
Alisa hesitated. It wasn’t a bad idea, but she did not want to let go of Jelena’s hand, afraid that she might run back to the Starseers if she did. But she didn’t want to admit to that fear, either, didn’t want to admit to how tenuous she felt her grasp was on her own daughter.
She squeezed Jelena’s hand and released her, accepting the helmet. She hurried to put it on but struggled with the fasteners, thanks to the floor heaving under her feet.
The bulkhead that held the airlocks rattled, as if something had rammed into it.
“Damn it,” Mica cursed over the comm.
“What’s going on now?” Alisa asked, watching Jelena and Thorian struggle to keep their footing. A crash sounded in the corridor behind the soldiers, and several of them whirled in that direction.
“Our Starseers are attacking the other ship,” Mica said. “And it’s attacking back. We’re taking damage.” Mica cursed again. “We may have to leave.”
“Leave? This base is shaking itself apart.”
“So is this ship.”
The comm closed, and Alisa stamped a foot in frustration. How was she going to get her people out of this trap, onto the ship, and out of the asteroid?
“Thorian,” Leonidas said. “Are you still practicing your engineering skills? Your Starseer engineering skills?” He wriggled his gauntleted fingers.
Thorian had been staring at the airlock hatch—or through it—but he wrenched his gaze to Leonidas.
“I lost my Zizblocks,” Thorian said.
Alisa looked incredulously at Leonidas as the floor heaved again. This wasn’t the time for a discussion about toys.
“I’ll buy you some new ones if you can find the atmospheric generator on the chasadski ship and take out life support.”
“Life support?” Alisa asked. “A spectacular explosion of the engine and the entire ship would not be unappreciated right now.” She squinted at Thorian. Did he have the same kinds of talents that Ostberg had? For that matter, did any of the adult Starseers? And if so, why hadn’t they already tried to attack Tymoteusz’s ship?
“I already tried,” Ostberg said. A ceiling panel plunged down beside him, and he jumped.
“You tried bre
aking something in engineering?” Thorian asked.
“Yeah, but someone over there is shielding it. I can feel his touch. I can’t lock down anything.”
“But there are moving parts,” Thorian reasoned, frowning down at the quaking floor. He nearly lost his balance and fell over without seeming to notice, but Leonidas steadied him with a hand. “Not everything can be locked down or shielded. Not if they are to continue working. And you’re right, Colonel Adler. Life support being broken would affect them. Even powerful Starseers with powerful artifacts.”
“I already tried,” Ostberg repeated.
“Yes, but I’m better than you are.”
“Whatever. I bet you’ve never blown up a ship.” Ostberg gave Alisa a triumphant look.
She turned an entirely different kind of look on Leonidas. Were they depending on children to save them?
“Mica,” Alisa asked. “Are you—”
The floor heaved violently, and the children toppled. Alisa lunged and caught Jelena, the balancers in her armor helping her stay upright, while Leonidas caught Thorian. Ostberg pitched to the floor, along with many of the other Starseers.
A shout came from the corridor, followed by a burst of blazer fire. Only when Alisa glimpsed a crimson beam streaking across the docking area and bouncing off the wall did she realize that the barrier had fallen. The soldiers pounded their way into the chamber, fanning out, pointing their weapons at the Starseers.
“Not now,” Alisa yelled. “We have a common enemy.”
“I’m having Six undock us,” Mica said.
Alisa barely heard her over the shouts and blazer shots and the continued breaking down of the base. Still, she managed to blurt, “You can’t leave us. We’re right here.”
“We won’t go far, but your freighter will be pulped if we stay attached to the lock. The Starseer ship just fired at the shuttle, and now the warship is sending shuttles in. One just launched an e-cannon blast. Maybe they’re trying to hit the chasadski ship, but the weapon struck the base instead.”
“That wasn’t another staff earthquake?” Alisa asked, pulling Jelena with her as she stumbled to put her back to the wall.
“No. I don’t know what in the hells is going on, but everyone is firing at everyone else, and we’re in the middle of it all.”