Star Nomad (Fallen Empire, Book 1)

  Chapter 18

  Alisa rushed into the cell, barely aware of the bars clanking into place behind her. She dropped to her knees beside Beck.

  “What happened?” she asked Alejandro.

  “Several thugs came to take Yumi away. Beck flung himself at them, almost overpowered them too. One of them hit him with a stun gun. He’s lucky they didn’t kill him. Slaves are worth money, apparently, so it’s a shame to lose them. But mauling them beforehand is fine.” Alejandro clenched his jaw. “My attempt to steal a gun was not successful, nor did they have an interest in my attempts to sway them into doing the right thing so that they could stand tall and be proud when their Reckoning Day came.”

  “If the pirates had scalps on their belt, I suspect they’ve already given up on the notion of their reckoning going well.”

  “I fear that’s so.” Alejandro’s eyebrows drew together, as if he couldn’t imagine the concept. “They must be praying that there is no afterlife where they will be held accountable.”

  “Can you pray for a lack of religion? Is that how that works?” Alisa rubbed the back of her neck. If Leonidas were there, he would point out that this was an inappropriate time for humor. And he would be right. She couldn’t deal with the idea of Yumi being mauled by pirates. Not just one. Several, Alejandro said. How would she survive that? How could Alisa have brought her into this situation where such an atrocity could happen? “Did they take Mica too?”

  “No, she was taken earlier, according to your plan.”

  “My plan?” Alisa gave him a bleak look. Nothing here was a part of her plan. None of this. It was all a mistake. They never should have been out here.

  Maybe Leonidas felt guilty for having inadvertently caused this, and that was why he was going to risk getting himself killed to free them and the other prisoners. She only hoped he could arrange for the gates to open soon. She should have gotten more specific details from him. What was the timeline they were working with? Had he meant that he would take Malik down to the station later this day? Later this week?

  “She argued engineering with that miner in front of the guard and sounded like she knew what she was talking about.” Alejandro spread his hand and shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. But when some pirates showed up down here, needing something fixed, she finagled herself onto the team. They took Sparky too. Told him he’d better watch and make sure she didn’t sabotage anything, and he agreed. He seemed happy to tattle on her if she did do something wrong. But she didn’t appear deterred. She wore a very determined look.”

  Alisa rubbed her neck harder, as if that could help with anything. She wished now that she hadn’t come up with that plan. Now, Mica was off who knew where, and Leonidas might arrange for the security failing at any time. How could Alisa lead these miners to her ship when she had to run off and find Yumi and Mica? At least she had an idea as to where Mica would be, but those pirates might have taken poor Yumi anywhere.

  “I’m sorry about Ms. Moon,” Alejandro said quietly.

  Alisa lifted her head. “It’s not your fault that we’re here.”

  “Perhaps, but I always envisioned myself as… someone capable. I ran an emergency room for several years. I was good at my job, so good that I attracted the notice of influential people. I— That’s not important. What I mean is that I always thought that if I had to take care of myself in some less than civilized setting…” He sneered at the old rusty walls of the cell. “I imagined myself being able to handle myself. To be flung aside so easily has been humbling.”

  “Don’t be humble, Doc. Be pissed. And then when you get a chance to pay them back, use it.”

  “Not entirely injudicious advice, I suppose.”

  “Given the source?”

  “Given the source.” He gave her a half-hearted smile, one that faded quickly.

  Alisa was tempted to tell him that they needn’t give up yet, that if Leonidas acted quickly, there might be time to get Yumi before it was too late, if they could just find her. But she remembered her suspicion that there were cameras monitoring the cells and kept her mouth shut. Instead, she laid a hand on Beck’s cheek, hoping it would rouse him. If the gate opened, she did not want to have to figure out a way to carry Beck. Even without his combat armor, he had to be close to two hundred pounds.

  She turned the touch into a poke, then a prod. “Tommy? Wake up, will you?”

  “Old Earth fairy tales tell of a princess waking a prince with a kiss,” Alejandro observed.

  “Yeah? What do they say about pilots and security officers?”

  “I’m not sure working career men and women were mentioned.”

  “No? So, you were out of luck if you weren’t a prince or a princess?”

  “I believe so.” Alejandro patted Beck’s chest. “He should wake soon. It’s been almost a half an hour.”

  A half hour. Already? Alisa worried that Yumi could have already been raped in that time, especially if the pirates had just dragged her to the nearest empty room.

  She pushed herself to her feet. There was nowhere to go, but she paced anyway.

  Beck groaned.

  “It seems you’re the one with the power to rouse him.” Alisa grabbed one of the bars, as if she could push them up into the ceiling with her strength. “And you didn’t even have to kiss him.”

  “I have experienced hands.”

  Beck rolled over, nearly putting his face in Alejandro’s lap. “Wassit?”

  A comm panel beeped at the end of the corridor. Alisa pressed her face to the bars, glimpsing a guard’s sleeve as he answered. She couldn’t hear the conversation, but it was short. A moment later, the door opened, and the guard walked outside, leaving the prisoners alone in their cells.

  Alisa rubbed the bars. This might be it. She willed them to retract.

  But it was the door that opened again, not the gate. She slumped. The guard had probably just gone to the lav.

  A slight form scurried into view, glancing over her shoulder several times.

  “Yumi,” Alisa blurted, shocked. She was alone. “You got away?”

  The miners across the way, men who had heretofore ignored the goings on in Alisa’s cell, now perked up. A few peered up the corridor, perhaps noticing the missing guard.

  “Captain Alisa,” Yumi said, spreading her arms, as if they could hug through the bars.

  Since they hadn’t hugged at all before, Alisa found the gesture a tad odd, but she was so glad to see Yumi again that she would have returned it if she could. Yumi did not even appear hurt. Her dress wasn’t torn and dotted with bloodstains. Her eyes, however, were dilated and her cheeks had a flush to them. The pirates hadn’t drugged her with something, had they? Why would they bother?

  “Yumi, it’s good to see you. How did you get away from your captors, and is there any chance you can find a button on that control panel over there to let us out?”

  Yumi grinned broadly. “I convinced them that sex is far more stimulating when under the influence of rifters. I’m not sure they believed that, but they were intrigued when I promised I could get them some. They just had to take me to my trunk. Which they were happy enough to do. There’s an entire room full of things they’ve stolen from people, did you know?”

  Alejandro jumped forward, joining Alisa in gripping the bars. “Did you see my duffel bag?”

  “I don’t know. I saw lots of bags. I was only looking for my belongings, and they were getting quite grabby, so I had to act quickly. When they saw the various herbs and mushrooms I keep with me, the pirates were quite excited. And overeager. They overdosed themselves. I may have helped them.” She grinned again. “I had to help myself, too, or they wouldn’t have relaxed enough.”

  “Did you kill them?” Alisa asked, patting Alejandro on the shoulder. He looked like he wanted to reach through the gate and shake Yumi by the shoulders until she gave him more information on his bag.

  “Not at all. I left them having a very exciting time, all within their own heads. Only one
of them noticed that I was leaving.”

  “What did he do?” Alisa glanced toward the door.

  “He waved and said to enjoy my trip.” Yumi chuckled. “Adolescent humor in grown men. Always a strange thing.” She gripped her chin and walked up the corridor to the guard station. “I don’t see any buttons. There’s nothing up here but a chair and a half-eaten bar of some mysterious and dubious substance. Those words are quite mellifluous, aren’t they? Mysterious and dubious.”

  Alejandro thunked his head against the bars. “I’m relieved she’s safe, but this will wear off soon, won’t it?”

  “You’re the medical doctor, aren’t you? Don’t you know?”

  “My clientele rarely came into the hospital because of overdoses on street drugs. I’m not even sure what rifters are.”

  Alisa imagined him presiding over the emergency room of a hospital in a wealthy neighborhood where the presence of the imperial authorities was so strong that a drug dealer wouldn’t dare wander the streets.

  “They’re mushrooms,” Yumi called from the guard station. “Most exquisite psychedelic mushrooms.” She giggled, and a cabinet or drawer thumped shut.

  “Try the control panel, Yumi,” Alisa suggested again. Had she even noticed it?

  Alejandro sighed.

  “She’ll find it,” Alisa said. “She not only escaped from a group of pirates but also managed to finagle herself a tour of the loot room. All while drugged. I’m going to make that position of science officer official and offer her a job. When she’s sober.”

  “Yes, I’m sure a knowledge of psychedelics will be useful on a long freight-hauling mission.”

  “I’ve pressed everything,” Yumi said. “Nothing’s working.”

  Alisa peered down the corridor again—Yumi was wandering about near the door. “You’re sure?”

  She glanced toward the smudge on the wall that she had worried was a camera. Maybe she had been wrong and the cells weren’t being monitored.

  “You can’t open the gates from in here unless you have one of the remotes,” a miner said. “You—”

  The door opened.

  “There she is,” someone immediately said. “How’d she get out?”

  Alisa groaned.

  “Hello, pirates,” Yumi said cheerfully, spreading her arms, now offering them a hug.

  There were two of them, and they strode through the doorway, pointing their guns at her.

  “Get back, Yumi,” Alisa whispered, though it was useless advice. There was only so far she could go before running into a wall.

  “I… yes.” Yumi frowned at the fearsome faces of the pirates. They didn’t look pleased that someone was on the outside of the bars. “I’ll just go back here.”

  She scooted back until she was even with Alisa and Alejandro. Alisa gripped the bars, as if she could do something. Beck growled and rose to his feet, joining Alisa on her other side.

  “How did you get out, girl?” one of the men asked, advancing.

  Yumi backed farther, until there was nowhere for her to go. When the guards drew even with the cell, Alisa was tempted to reach and try to grab one of their guns, but her arms weren’t that long. She—

  A clang sounded as the gates on all of the doors rolled open.

  The guards spun. “What the—”

  Beck was the first one out. He bowled into the lead guard, knocking him against a wall with a roar. The second guard aimed at him, but the previously apathetic miners came to life and leaped from their cells. The guard shifted his aim, his gaze jerking from threat to threat.

  Alisa kicked the bottom of his hand. His blazer rifle flew out of it and clanged off the ceiling. As she kicked him again, this time in the side of the knee, the weapon hit the ground in front of her cell. The guard tried to spin toward her, but his knee gave out. She snatched up the weapon as he reached for a dagger at his belt. She shot him in the chest.

  Beck and the other man were grappling, and Alisa turned the blazer toward them. She needn’t have bothered. Beck had gained the advantage, wrapping his hands around the pirate’s neck and bashing his head into the floor. He finished the abuse with a palm strike to the nose. The pirate’s head clunked against the hard floor, and he did not move again. Beck knelt back, his chest heaving.

  “My way seemed easier,” Alisa said, waving the blazer when he looked in her direction.

  “I’m a tactile fellow. I like to use my hands.”

  “Is that why you took up grilling?”

  “That was because the closest thing to a cook we had on my first ship was the private who handed us our ration bars.” Beck stood up, frowning at what was quickly becoming a crowd in the hallway.

  There had to be at least forty prisoners. Several were already heading for the door.

  “Wait,” Alisa called.

  “The hells with that,” several of them growled, their backs to her.

  “I have a ship.”

  Everyone stopped and turned.

  “And I’m a pilot,” she added. “I’m getting off this barge, and I plan to take you with me.”

  They cheered. She bit back a grimace, not sure making noise was the best way to go. Leonidas might have gotten Malik off the ship by now, but there would still be plenty of pirates between here and the landing bay. Even though she had been hanging off a man’s shoulder on the way in, that hadn’t kept her from noticing what a long walk it was.

  “We like that plan,” someone said. It was the one who had wanted to see Beck’s tits earlier. Lovely.

  “Arm yourselves as much as you can. If we run into pirates, we don’t want to leave them free to warn others.”

  Another ragged cheer went up, the miners excited at the idea of being armed, or perhaps about pummeling pirates. They turned and headed out the door. Alisa realized they probably had a better idea on how to get to the landing bay than she did. This had been their mining vessel once, after all.

  “Alejandro, Yumi, Beck,” Alisa said, waving them over as miners pushed past her. They were going to have to act quickly if they wanted to find Mica and find Alejandro’s orb before their mob was caught and detained again.

  “We going to engineering?” Beck asked, having armed himself with a rifle.

  “I need my bag,” Alejandro said as they walked after the mob. “Yumi knows where the loot room is.”

  “I do,” Yumi said brightly.

  “I don’t know if the orb is back with the other loot,” Alisa said.

  Alejandro looked at her sharply. “How did you—”

  “Malik brought it out to question me about it. He thought it was mine.”

  Alejandro’s face closed down, and she had the distinct impression that he was upset that she had seen it. As if having it in Malik’s hands wasn’t worse than her knowing about it. She didn’t even know what it was.

  “The last I saw of it,” she said, “Malik was walking out with it in a box.”

  Following the mob of prisoners, they came out of a corridor and into a wide four-way intersection with robot ore carts floating past.

  “Let’s check the loot room first,” Alejandro said. “Yumi?”

  “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 t
ake 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.