After ensuring nobody was out there waiting to fire at them, he raced toward his gear. Alisa jogged after him, slowing to eye a shiny Striker-18 that remained in the bay. It might even have been a 20, one of the new models that she’d heard the Alliance had been rolling out. She had never flown one.
“Want to steal a better ship?” Leonidas asked, positioning himself so he could watch the doors while he donned his armor.
“Steal?”
“You could demonstrate the theft skills you spoke of.”
“No, the Alliance is already irritated enough with me,” Alisa said, veering to the pile to grab her Etcher. “But if we’re ever imprisoned on a nice imperial ship, I’ll be happy to steal something for you.”
He made a face as he fastened his torso armor. “If we’re ever on an imperial vessel, we won’t have to steal any ships. I can just order someone to give you one.”
“My husband used to give me chocolates, but a ship would be nice too.”
“Which would you prefer?”
“Probably for the ship to be made from chocolate.” Alisa started for the Striker-13, but then she realized they might have to take the new ship, after all. It would have a sensor key that would let it out the bay doors. If they flew away in the 13, someone would have to remain behind to open the doors manually.
“I don’t think the melting point of chocolate makes it sufficient to withstand the friction of entry into a planet’s atmosphere.” Leonidas snapped his helmet on.
“I’ll just fly it in space. I’m not that excited by land.” Alisa detoured to the Striker-20 to see if she could get into the cockpit. It opened in the same way as an 18, and it wasn’t locked. “I lied, Leonidas. We’re going to practice theft.”
She slid into the pilot’s seat, giving the gleaming new control panel a loving stroke. A holodisplay leaped to life, cupping her head as a half-dozen readings appeared in her forward and peripheral vision.
“Any chance the back seat is larger than on the last one?” he asked, running over in his armor to join her.
A door to the ship’s interior sprang open before she could answer.
“Company coming, Leonidas,” she said in case he couldn’t see the door through the Striker—this was a different entrance from the one they had used.
“I see,” he said, crouching to fire under the nose of the Striker. “Get the engines started.”
“Already on it.”
Blazer fire squealed, orange and crimson blasts lancing across the bay, half drowning out her words. Alisa fired up the engines and scrunched low in the cockpit. Leonidas could probably keep the soldiers from shooting her, but there was no need to take chances.
She ignored the pre-flight checklist and hurried through the minimum requirements to get the Striker off the ground. The men trying to get at them were problematic, but she worried even more about officers on the bridge. If they were being kept abreast of what was happening, they would override the hangar bay door access, and it would not matter if the 20 had a sensor key.
“Let me know when you’re ready,” Leonidas called up as he fired, keeping the soldiers pinned in the doorway.
“The Striker is ready,” Alisa called back. “Whether we can get out the doors is more questionable.”
“I’ll risk it.”
He fired several more times, red streaks melting dents in the corridor wall behind the open door and all of the soldiers ducking for cover. Then he sprang directly into the back seat, as easily as if it were two feet off the ground instead of ten. As soon as his butt touched down, Alisa swiped through the holo button to close the canopy.
As it descended, the soldiers leaned out the doorway, not hesitating to fire. A crimson beam burned past, inches above her head, and she cursed, scooting down even further in the seat. A second beam splashed against the canopy. Glad for its sturdiness, she raised the shields even as she took them into the air.
“Comfortable back there?” she asked.
“No.”
“I’ll have a stewardess start our drink service soon.”
“Ha ha.”
“I’m still waiting for you to realize how delightful my humor is, Leonidas.”
He did not answer. She might be waiting a long time.
Alisa spun the Striker toward the bay doors as the soldiers raced inside, firing relentlessly. The weapons fire bounced off her shields, not doing any damage, and she didn’t think it would. It surprised her that they were racing forward, armed only with the hand weapons, but then someone lobbed something else into the bay.
She whipped the Striker about, delighted by how quickly and agilely it responded. As the object hurtled through the air toward her cockpit, her fingers danced through the holodisplay. A neural interface would have been ideal, but this craft was matched to some other pilot, someone probably injured and out of the action. Still, her fingers were fast enough. She targeted the object as it drew close and fired before it struck her shields. The grenade, or whatever it was, exploded with a spattering of tiny liquid particles.
“Ugh, ship-rated rust bang,” she said, trying to bank without accelerating forward. The liquid particles would eat through shielding, much as the small ones could chew through armor. That would affect her ship far more than the blazer blasts.
She scooted for the doors, knowing that at least some of the particles had struck the craft. She shook the wings, as if she could shake off the attack, like a bird flinging water from its feathers. It probably wasn’t effective.
The soldiers ran back toward the door, and she hoped that meant they had given up, or at least that they knew the bay would depressurize and they needed to get out before it did. They did not stop firing as they retreated. Two men were bent over something, perhaps preparing another rust bang. The shield monitor bleeped, letting her know that the power was at eighty-five percent and dropping. Plenty of juice left for now, but if they landed a rust bang more solidly, it would not be good.
Alisa hunted for rear weapons as the Striker crept closer to the bay doors, doors that showed no sign of opening yet. They should have passed the automated sensor station. Any second, the bay alarms would go off, warning of depressurization. Or they should.
She found rear e-cannons, but she hesitated with her finger on the controls. She did not want to kill the men. All she wanted was to keep them from firing at her. She adjusted her aim toward a clunky life pod resting on the deck near the door. The Alliance should not mourn its loss too greatly.
As the soldiers preparing the rust bang lifted their heads, one pointing at her, she fired. Whatever they planned to do next, she didn’t want it to happen.
The cannon bolt launched, brightening the bay as the crackling white-blue energy streaked away. The soldiers dove for the doorway as the bolt slammed into the life pod. The unarmored and unshielded ship disappeared in fire and smoke.
“Are you able to open the doors from here?” Leonidas asked.
“It should have been automatic in one of their fighter ships.” Alisa hunted through the holo control screens, looking for a way to request that they open in a more demanding manner.
Her comm light flashed, and a familiar voice said, “You’re not going anywhere, Colonel.” It was Commander Farrow.
“It’s Captain Marchenko,” Alisa said, “and I really think you should reconsider. Your hangar bay is full of smoke already. I’m sure you don’t want to lose more equipment.”
Alisa had reached the hangar bay doors, and they remained depressingly closed. She had to sit the Striker down in front of them.
The smoke was clearing back at the remains of the life pod, and she could see more soldiers crowding the doorway. Men had come to the other doorway as well.
“Don’t they have a bigger enemy to fight?” she grumbled, worried that someone on the bridge would find a way to override the Striker’s controls next.
“If the warship’s shields are up, we won’t be able to fly out, right?” Leonidas asked.
“Right, but I don??
?t think the shields are up anymore, not with the jolts we’ve been feeling.”
Abruptly, the lights in the bay flashed, and the blaring of a new alarm joined the one that had been sounding. The clashing noises hurt Alisa’s eardrums, even through the barrier of the cockpit’s canopy. In her cameras, she saw soldiers that had crept back into the bay race for the doors. A computer voice spoke, but she could not hear it. Sooner than she could have expected, the hangar bay doors opened.
She hadn’t done anything to cause that to happen, but she was quick to take advantage. She piloted the Striker straight toward the opening.
You’re welcome, the Starseer voice spoke into her head.
Thanks, she replied, even though she did not know how grateful to feel, especially if this was the same person who had been responsible for them being captured in the first place.
Regardless, she guided them out of the bay and shot into the mist. It was disorienting, especially since she had forgotten that this entire battle was going on a couple hundred meters above the surface of Arkadius, rather than in space.
An explosion brightened the murky air behind her, a fiery orange ball so intense that it drove away the mist. The nose of the warship drooped, the craft tilting downward, and it started to descend toward the ice.
Alisa swallowed, realizing how close she and Leonidas had been to being trapped inside and going down with it. She forced herself to focus on finding the Nomad and nothing more. Already, the mist was returning, swallowing the warship, hiding its descent and crash from view.
She had no idea where her people were, and the modern Striker-20 controls had no more luck in reading her surroundings through the mist than the older craft had. If not for the tug of gravity, she would not have even known up from down. She guided them slowly toward the ground—the sea of ice. From there, she hoped to fly around slowly, searching for the temple and the Nomad. Even though she was skeptical of Mica’s flying skills, she hoped her crew had found a way to escape the docks. She’d had enough of Starseers, at least for now. Later, she would find a way to find the ones who had taken her daughter.
“You didn’t open the doors, did you?” Leonidas asked quietly.
“No, I think that was one of the Starseers,” Alisa said.
“If they helped us, it was for a reason.”
“You don’t think they knew how sad of a place the universe would be without my humor in it and were responding accordingly?”
Leonidas did not respond accordingly or otherwise.
“You’re supposed to chuckle and agree when I say things like that,” she pointed out.
He stirred, the shoulder of his armor clunking against the canopy. That seat wasn’t any more spacious for him than the last one had been. “I did not wish to distract you from your piloting,” he said. It sounded like a polite way to say her humor wasn’t worth responding to.
“I didn’t know your chuckles had the potential to be distracting, but since I haven’t heard you laugh, I’ll accept that as possible. I might fall out of my seat in surprise if it ever happened.”
“I, on the other hand, am not in danger of falling out of this seat, even if a shoehorn were applied.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “It would take a very large shoehorn to move a cyborg.”
“Yes.”
The blue-white of the ice came into view through the mist, and Alisa pulled up to skim slowly along it. Inside the warship, she had lost all concept of direction, so she had no idea where they were in relation to the temple. All she could do was fly a search pattern and hope to stumble across something. She glanced at the holo map and the sensors, hoping something might slip through the interference. It did not, but the mist grew less dense ahead and to the right. She veered in that direction. It cleared slightly.
“Any chance that’s the temple?” she murmured.
“You know more than I do,” Leonidas said.
“Glad to hear you admit it.”
As the vista opened even further, Alisa saw the first of the wreckage. It was a massive amount of wreckage, and she thought it was the temple, smashed down into the ice with craters blown in its sides and the towers destroyed. But she picked out the mangled shape of one of the warships. She did not think it was the Nautilus.
Cracks stretched from the ice all around it, but it had not broken through completely, and soldiers were out on the frozen water, waving as if she could fly down and rescue them. Here and there, Alliance Strikers also lay, mangled and broken on the ice.
“This was the site of the fighting,” she reasoned, though she did not see the temple anywhere. The visibility was not as great as it had been earlier, with some of the mist creeping in from the sides, but she should have been able to see the temple. It had been huge and in the center of the cleared area.
“They must have moved it,” Leonidas said.
With a jolt, she realized he was right. She did not know how much time had passed, but she was sure it was more than the seventeen minutes the Starseers had needed.
“So, which way did it go?” Alisa asked. “And is the Nomad still with them? Or did something happen to my ship? My crew?”
She knew Leonidas did not have the answers to her questions, but muttering them aloud seemed more comforting than keeping them to herself.
Another massive wreck came into view, another Alliance warship. This time, the vessel had broken through the ice as it landed. The nose and front half of the hull had already disappeared into the black water underneath. There were not any people out on the ice. This had just happened. Alisa flew close enough to read the letters on the side: Star Nautilus.
“We didn’t escape that by much,” she said grimly as the craft continued to sink into the water. “Blessing of the Suns Trinity,” she muttered, hoping the crew found a way to escape.
In the little Striker, there was nothing she could do to help ensure that happened.
“Can you plot a course that will be likely to take us out of the mist?” Leonidas asked.
“I—” She jerked, as the holodisplay disappeared, and the ship started flying on its own. The autopilot indicator was off. “No,” she said slowly, “I don’t think I can.”
She leaned back in the seat and lifted her hands. The ship continued to cruise above the ice, turning toward the mist and heading into it.
“This might be bad,” Leonidas muttered.
Considering they had ended up prisoners the last time the Starseer had taken control, Alisa could not disagree.
Chapter 19
Long moments passed as the ship flew into the mist, skimming along a few meters above the ice. Alisa sat tensely, tempted to wrestle back control of the flight stick, but she doubted she could. At least there weren’t any mountains looming up for them to crash into.
The mists grew thicker as they traveled farther from the crash site—crash sites. If their Starseer controller was going to fly them all the way out of the Northern Mists, then his range was more impressive than she had thought.
A couple more minutes passed, and the Striker veered to the right, descending slightly. It wasn’t until the ship slowed almost to a hover that Alisa could make out something ahead of them in the gloom. Her heart soared as the bulky shape of the Nomad came into view. It was resting on the ice, the hatch open and the ramp down. It did not look like it had crashed. There was no sign of the temple, nor any other ships.
The Striker settled into a hover before lowering to the ice. Alisa had the canopy popped before the landing struts touched down.
“Mica?” she called. “Beck? Yumi? Is everyone all right?”
She scrambled out of the cockpit, aware of Leonidas landing beside her, his crimson boots bright against the ice. As she trotted toward the Nomad, he strode after her, one of his purloined rifles in hand.
A figure stepped out of the mist near the base of the ramp. Alisa halted so quickly that she skidded on the ice. She recognized the robed figure even before he pushed his hood down. He carried the same staff and sa
tchel as the pilot had. Abelardus.
He looked at her briefly, but his gaze soon shifted toward Leonidas, locking onto his face. Leonidas stopped a few feet away, and they glared at each other, shooting blazer bolts with their eyes. Abelardus may have opened the hangar bay doors so they could escape, but he was also the reason they had thought it was a good idea to go up there in the first place. Leonidas, Alisa suspected, would not forget that.
A feeling of unease wormed its way into her stomach. The Starseer wouldn’t have done anything to her crew and passengers, would he have?
“They are fine,” Abelardus said, inclining his head, then looking toward the open hatch.
Mica and Beck appeared at the top and hustled down the ramp. Beck reached Alisa first, surprising her by wrapping her in a bear hug.
“Glad you made it back, Captain,” he said, lifting her from her feet before setting her back down.
Leonidas stepped close, his eyes narrowed, but the cool gaze was only briefly for Beck, or perhaps for his presumptuousness. It settled onto Abelardus instead.
Mica came in close enough to pat Alisa on the shoulder. She gave Abelardus a wary look, too, but smiled at Alisa. “That’s not the ship you left in,” she observed.
“I thought I’d upgrade while I was out.”
“It’s too bad it won’t fit in the cargo hold.”
“Technically, it could fit inside. I’m less certain about getting it through the door.”
“Maybe if your cyborg pushed from behind.” Mica nodded over Alisa’s shoulder. “Welcome back, Leonidas.”
Without looking away from Abelardus, he gave her a curt return nod.
Yumi and Alejandro came into view at the top of the ramp, both wearing thick coats over their clothes.
“What happened, Abelardus?” Leonidas asked. “You were supposedly dead, and I was imprisoned for your murder.”
“You seem to be a man who doesn’t stay imprisoned for long,” Abelardus said, brushing a few of his long, thin braids over his shoulder.
“You tried to frame me.”