Star Nomad (Fallen Empire, Book 1)

  Chapter 4

  The light of two of the system’s three suns beat down upon Alisa as she weaved through the city, back toward the crowded ship docks, her rented hoverboard hissing and sputtering. She led it along behind her like a dog on a leash. A drunken dog with a limp that liked to bump into passersby. People of white, brown, and mixed skin colors cursed her in an amalgam of Russian and Chinese that was the planet’s native language. Alisa apologized in Standard, lamenting that nobody seemed to notice or care about the Alliance jacket she wore. She’d helped free these people, damn it. A little respect would have been nice, drunken limping hoverboard or not.

  At least the storeowner had been sympathetic to war veterans, and after looking at her military ID, he had been willing to give her the supplies on credit. She’d promised to pay him back as soon as their passengers signed on, which, she hoped, would be before the end of the day. If nobody showed up, she would have to find a way to hustle for some coins. She wondered how the cyborg would feel if she asked him to pay his way.

  Alisa was relieved when she spotted the Nomad, the suns throwing rays onto its bronze and silver hull. The craft looked old in the harsh desert light, but reputable. It had never belonged in that junkyard with those derelicts, and even though she couldn’t help resent it, and even fear it, for how it had betrayed her mother, she admitted that the ship still deserved to be out here in the light of day.

  The hatch stood open and the ramp down, inviting people in. People who could pay. Alisa hurried toward it, hoping numerous well-heeled passengers had signed aboard while she had been shopping for supplies. She supposed it would be foolish—or overly optimistic, as Mica would say—to hope that their cyborg guest had disembarked, changing his mind about riding into space with them.

  As she neared the ship, a commotion broke out in front of one of the merchant tents set up along the open-air docks. A gun fired, and people scattered.

  “Thief!” a woman cried and lunged out of the tent holding a blazer rifle in both hands, a faded yellow dress flapping around her legs as she ran.

  People sprinted away from her. Alisa pulled out her own gun and jumped behind the hoverboard for cover while looking for the thief. A young man was racing down the promenade, zigzagging and gripping his injured arm. Alisa hesitated to shoot since she couldn’t tell if he had truly stolen anything and since she didn’t have a stun gun. The proprietor did not hesitate. She fired, heedless of the nearby people. Her aim was better than Alisa would have expected, and a bolt of energy slammed into the man’s back. He tumbled to the cracked cement walkway. The woman stalked toward him, her head held high, ignoring the people giving her alarmed looks. When she reached the man, she patted him down, pulled a gold chain out of his pocket, and stalked back to her tent.

  Alisa kept expecting the sounds of sirens or at least for a couple of automated police patrollers to show up, both to see if the thief had survived and to take the woman into custody. Killing someone for stealing had never been legal.

  Slowly, as the crowds returned to the promenade and as nobody came to do something about the thief, who was probably dead by now, it dawned on Alisa that imperial law wasn’t being enforced anymore. After all, the empire had fallen. She knew from watching the news holos while she had been recovering that there was a three-planet government that the Alliance had set up on the most industrious and resource-rich planets, but they were a long ways from here. Alisa had no idea what passed for the law out here now or even if the Alliance had influence here. Someone must have stepped in to fill the void of the missing imperial government, but she didn’t know who.

  “That’ll teach you to be unconscious for two months,” she muttered.

  Alisa was lucky to have survived that final battle and to be walking again, but she couldn’t help but feel a little bitter over the mediocre medical care the hospital here had been able to provide. Had she gone down on a more sophisticated world, with all of the modern medical tech, she might have been out in a week or two.

  She tugged the hoverboard into motion again. She was alive now and had her health back. That was what mattered. That and the fact that she was going home to be with her daughter again. Focusing on that made it easier to avoid thinking about the fact that Jonah was gone and that there was no longer a home waiting for her back on Perun. She hadn’t figured out yet what she would do after she had Jelena back.

  When Alisa led the hoverboard up the Nomad’s ramp, she found Mica on her hands and knees in a corner of the spacious cargo hold, a welding mask pulled over her face. She gripped a soldering gun in gloved hands, navigating a seam along an interior bulkhead.

  “Does that mean we’re not as ready for space as I was hoping?” Alisa asked, looking around as she brought the supplies inside.

  She did not see the crowd of passengers she had hoped would be waiting, but perhaps they had already been shown to their cabins? She did see a row of burly men lined up against the bulkhead next to the stairs that led to the upper decks. The big open cargo hold took up the bottom two-thirds of the ship, with only the engine room sharing space with it down on this level. Living quarters and navigation lay up top. There was nothing as fancy as an elevator on this old ship.

  Some of the men leaned against the bulkhead while others sat on duffel bags or hover cases. Several of them were eyeing Mica’s butt as she worked, though the appraising gazes turned toward Alisa as she walked in.

  “Just doing some finishing touches,” Mica said, kneeling back and pushing up the mask. “Your applicants for the security gig have showed up.” A sour twist to her lips suggested she might have been aware of the butt inspections.

  “Thanks.” Alisa lowered her voice, walking over to talk privately to Mica before speaking with them. “Have any prospective passengers interested in rides off-world come along?”

  “Plenty have come along.” Mica pulled her mask back down. “None that have had coin.”

  “Ah.” A queasy feeling crept into Alisa’s stomach. How could she hire security guards when she didn’t have any money and wasn’t guaranteed to have any coming in? As it was, she wouldn’t be able to pay back the storeowner if she didn’t get at least one passenger. She had put an offer out, saying she was available for carrying freight, but she couldn’t imagine what freight someone might have to export from Dustor. The desert planet wasn’t known for its industry. Or anything else. Other than its utter lack of mentions in tourism brochures.

  While mulling over her bleak options, Alisa parked the hoverboard for later unloading and walked toward the men. None of them looked like the sort who would appreciate it if she told them she had published the notice in error and that she didn’t have a position open after all.

  Movement near the hatch drew her eye, and she paused.

  A man in a gray robe was walking up the ramp. He peered inside, tapped a black-and-gray beaded earstar, checked something on a holo that popped up before his eyes, and finally looked back into the hold.

  “Are you seeking passage to Perun?” Alisa asked, holding up a finger toward the job applicants. On the chance this man had money and wanted a ride, she wasn’t going to risk letting him wander off to another ship. Most of the craft docked here hadn’t looked spaceworthy—there was a dirigible a few docks down—but she had seen one other freighter, possibly also accepting passengers.

  “I am,” the man said, taking a few more steps to the top of the ramp.

  “What’s she want to go to Perun for?” one of the applicants muttered. “Empire’s still got its clutches sunk in there.”

  “I don’t care, so long as she’s hiring,” another said.

  “She’s not the captain, is she? I’m not working for a skirt.”

  “A skirt? That looks like a uniform to me.”

  Alisa ignored them and headed toward their potential passenger, though she took note of the men who didn’t sound enthused about working for her.

  “I’m Captain Marchenko,” she said, touching her palm to her chest, then lif
ting it toward the newcomer.

  “Dr. Alejandro Dominguez,” he said, returning the gesture. He was a handsome man with bronze skin, his hair more gray than black, and she judged him in his early fifties. He carried a satchel and duffel over his shoulder, not bothering with a personal hoverboard.

  “A doctor?” Alisa looked down at his long gray robe, a simple rope belt tying it shut. She wouldn’t object to a doctor on board, not in the least, but she had taken him for a monk with that attire. He even wore a silver pendant with the three suns clustered on it.

  “I was a surgeon for many years, though I mostly do research now and seek to better understand the path the gods have set us upon.” He lowered his bag so he could press his hands together in front of his chest and bow.

  One of the applicants, the one who had been complaining about skirts, muttered something about religion and lectures.

  Alisa was curious how a monk doing research had ended up on this dustball, as there weren’t any monasteries or libraries, as far as she knew. Maybe he’d been marooned at the end of the war, the same as she. She wouldn’t ask. She wasn’t going to risk offending a paying passenger.

  “It’s two hundred tindarks for the ride,” she said. “Sound reasonable?”

  That might be on the high side, but she had little concept of what was fair these days. Her mother had only rarely taken on passengers, and that had been years ago. Since then, Alisa had ridden for free on military transports when she hadn’t flown in her own craft. But she figured she should start high, since people liked to haggle.

  “A little steep,” Alejandro said, “but you are the first ship that’s been heading to Perun in the two months that I’ve been seeking passage.” His expression turned wry.

  Between that comment and the one the job applicant had made, Alisa was starting to wonder if everyone else knew more about what was going on back on her home planet than she did.

  “It’s brave of you to take the trip,” Alejandro remarked, glancing at her jacket. “You won’t be welcome there now.”

  “So I expect.” Alisa shrugged. She wasn’t about to explain her situation to a stranger. “You look respectable, but I’m going to have to ask for payment in physical currency and up front. I hope you can understand. Food and a private cabin are included,” she rushed to add, hoping to soften her demands. Besides, it would be easy to offer a private cabin, since she had so few passengers.

  “Ah, of course. Give me a moment.” He lifted the flap of his satchel and poked around inside. Given the number of scrolls, books, and pouches stuffed inside, it might take him a while to locate his purse.

  Feeling relieved that he hadn’t objected, Alisa returned to the applicants. She could afford to hire one now and to pay back the storeowner. Things were looking up.

  Despite their earlier mutterings, they all straightened as she approached, adopting a modicum of professionalism. They were all male, all brawny, and all even scruffier and more disreputable-looking than the cyborg. Maybe her plan to hire one of them to keep him in check was a silly one.

  “Who’s got his own combat armor?” Alisa asked.

  She had asked for it in the ad, even though she hadn’t known if she would be lucky enough to get it, since a full suit cost thousands of tindarks. Even army veterans rarely had a suit of their own since theirs had been issued by—and returned to—the military. Usually, only well-off mercenaries and security guards working for big companies had the gear. Still, she spotted a couple of men with cases, and that stirred her hopes. A man in a quality suit of combat armor might just beat a cyborg in a fight. She hoped a fight with the cyborg wouldn’t be necessary, but if it was, she wanted someone who could handle him, or at least delay him while Alisa shot him.

  Two hands went up. The shoulders of the other seven men slumped.

  “Sorry, fellows,” Alisa told them. “It’s going to be a requirement for the position.”

  If nobody had shown up with combat armor, it might not have been, but she had to take one of these two men, given the choice. Not only because of her cyborg issue, but because the ship’s spacesuits had long since been stolen, so if they needed any repairs done mid-route, it would be useful to have someone who could tramp around out on the hull. Any combat armor worth its price ought to have magnetic boots and be rated for space. One never knew what kind of trouble would latch onto a ship out there.

  The two men lowered their hands as the seven rejected applicants walked past the doctor and headed down the ramp. Mica had come over to talk to Alejandro. Hopefully, she would collect his payment and see him to a cabin.

  Alisa turned her attention back to her remaining two applicants. One was a pale-skinned fellow with a smug smirk. He had a handsome face and looked like he knew he had a handsome face. Alisa was fairly certain he had been the one making comments about working for women.

  The other applicant was a stocky, brown-skinned man with a wild tuft of blond hair that she assumed was dyed or otherwise modded. “Tommy Beck, ma’am,” he said, slapping a hand to his chest, then holding it out in greeting. “Served four years in the fleet, got out, did some private gigs, then fought for the Alliance for all four years of the war.” He glanced down at the collar of her jacket, taking in her rank. “It’ll be good to work for a real officer, not someone who bought a ship and figures that qualifies him for something.”

  The other man snorted. “You don’t have the job yet, Beck. But I see they taught you how to kiss ass real well during that war.”

  “You don’t have a problem working for a woman?” Alisa asked the pretty boy before Beck could retort—or do something with the fingers he had just curled into a fist. She was already fairly certain she would reject this clod on principle, but she ought to ask to see their résumés, if they had brought them, and perhaps for a demonstration of their skills.

  “Draper,” the man said, his gaze dipping to her chest. Instead of looking at the rank on her collar, he was more interested in studying her breasts. “Done all kinds of work for women,” he said. “I’m sure I can keep you pleased.”

  The attention made her wish she still had her wedding ring, but she had always taken it off when she handled the flight stick of her Striker. It must have fallen out of her pocket during the crash, because it hadn’t been there when she had awoken in the hospital and poked into her uniform. Either that or someone there had looted her unconscious form—considering that all of her valuables had been missing, that did seem to be a possibility. Alisa remembered how distraught she had been, worrying that Jonah would be disappointed at the loss of the ring. That had been before the letter had come.

  “I don’t think a man whore is what she’s looking for,” Beck said. “At least that wasn’t listed in the job description.”

  “Suck my asteroids, Beck.”

  Draper stepped forward, raising his arm toward Alisa. To put around her shoulders, she realized with displeasure. She stepped back, but he still got close enough to drop his hand onto her shoulder. She could have scurried away and avoided him completely, but didn’t think it would be seemly for the captain to be seen fleeing the prospective employees.

  “Happy to advise you on security matters, Captain,” Draper said, squeezing her shoulder and using his grip like an anchor to ooze closer. “Lots of pirates and gangsters out there these days. It’s not safe anymore to fly between here and Perun. Mafia’s got ahold of one of the Perun moons, you know.” He squeezed her shoulder again.

  Alisa dropped her hands to her hips, her fingers an inch from her Etcher. She leveled a flat look at him, trying for the stern authority of an experienced commander even if she’d never led anything more than a squadron of pilots, men and women who had been too busy worrying about peppering the defenses of imperial cruisers and dreadnoughts to challenge her authority. Draper wore a weapons belt, too, and even though he acted like a sleaze, was probably a quick draw. He had muscles, not just a pretty face.

  “Why don’t you take your hand off her, Draper?” Beck
said, stepping forward.

  “Why don’t you contemplate your tiny prick, Beck?” Draper oozed even closer to Alisa, sliding his hand down her back. “How about a tour of the ship, Captain?”

  That hand was on its way south to her ass. Alisa’s reflexes overrode her desire to appear cool and nonchalant. She tried to move to the side, her fingers touching the butt of her gun. He moved more quickly than she expected, clasping her wrist before she got the weapon all the way out of her holster.

  “No need for impoliteness, Captain. I’m just being friendly. I expect you’ll need a friend out there.” His other hand continued downward to squeeze her ass.

  She stomped down on his foot, glad he wasn’t wearing his combat boots now because he winced satisfyingly and released his grip on her butt. He still had her wrist, though, and that wasn’t acceptable.

  Something crashed into Draper before she could decide on her next move. Beck.

  He rammed Draper with his shoulder, and both men flew away from her, tumbling to the ground. Draper cursed, but that was all he had time for. A punch slammed into his solar plexus. He snarled and returned the attack.

  Alisa skittered out of the way as they thrashed about, heads clunking against the metal decking, flesh smacking against flesh. She kept her hand on her Etcher, though she didn’t break up the fight. First off, she didn’t know how she could—they wouldn’t even hear her if she shouted at them to stop, and she had no intention of shooting them. Second, for good or ill, she was getting a preview of their unarmed combat skills.

  She looked over at Mica and the doctor, hoping their new passenger wouldn’t be alarmed by the display. His eyebrows were arched, but he didn’t seem worried. Mica didn’t look surprised by the wrestling match. She had probably heard a few more unsophisticated comments from the applicants while she had been waiting for Alisa to return.

  “Part of the interview process,” Alisa called over to the doctor. “We’re taking on crew.”

  “Of course,” he murmured.

  She remembered his religious pendant and hoped the sight of men pummeling each other wouldn’t disgruntle him, at least not until after he had paid. She had never considered herself overly religious—even if she’d caught herself praying right before that crash—and didn’t know all of the rules of the monastic lifestyle, but she was fairly certain violence wasn’t encouraged. Three of the ten edicts handed down from the founders had to do with living peaceably with one’s neighbors.

  The men rolled in her direction, cursing and snarling, and Alisa had to move out of the way again. Droplets of blood flew, spattering her deck and making her rethink her decision to let them settle this themselves. Maybe throwing some water on them or hitting one of the ship’s alarms would break them up.

  Draper came out on top, straddling Beck’s torso and gripping his neck with both hands. Blood smeared Beck’s face, but he tried to fight back, twisting and bucking, doing his best to thrust Draper away from him. He gripped the other man’s arms, shoving at the hands wrapped around his neck. But Draper had him pinned effectively, and Beck’s face was turning red.

  Alisa grimaced. She had hoped the man with manners would prove the better fighter and come out on top. She supposed this was typical of the universe, that the bigger asshole ended up being the stronger man. Draper’s eyes were filled with an alarming glee as he tightened his hands around Beck’s neck. Alisa had the sense that he’d killed plenty of men in his life, and that he liked doing it.

  When it became clear that he wasn’t going to stop squeezing Beck’s neck until he passed out—or worse—Alisa stepped forward, coming in from behind him so she would catch Draper by surprise. She pressed the muzzle of her Etcher against the side of his head, suspecting he would ignore her without the authority of a weapon behind her words.

  “Interview’s over,” she said, keeping her voice as calm and full of steel as she could. “Let him go.”

  Draper eyed her, his hands still around Beck’s neck. Beck’s face had turned from red to purple.

  Draper sneered. “You ever shoot anyone, girl?”

  “Eighty-seven enemy pilots during the war,” Alisa said, meeting his eyes, “and the asshole in the junkyard the other day who also thought women wouldn’t kill.”

  It had been easier out in space, with distance and a cockpit keeping her from looking into the eyes of the person she was targeting, but she could kill in self-defense, and she could do it to keep this creep from murdering someone at her feet.

  “Get off my ship,” she said. “I won’t ask again.”

  Seconds passed as Draper scrutinized her face—and her gun, probably thinking he might be able to knock it away before she could shoot. In the end, he released Beck. Alisa stepped back so he could get up, but she kept her Etcher trained on his head.

  Draper rose to his feet, a knot swelling at his temple. Beck was the worse off, with his split lip bleeding as he wheezed for air. At least he could get that air now. He sucked in deep breaths as he rolled away from the other man.

  Alisa, keeping her eyes on Draper, nodded toward the hatch. “Thanks for applying for the job, but you’re not hired. Beck, you’re hired.”

  Draper curled his lip. “What, because he didn’t look at your tits?”

  “Among other things,” Alisa murmured.

  “I’m the better fighter. You let womanly sentiment decide who you hire, and you’ll get screwed by the first pirates you run into.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  “Stupid bitch,” Draper grumbled and headed to his case of armor.

  Alisa gritted her teeth, half-tempted to shoot him in the leg, if only because letting him disrespect her would make her look weak in front of her people. But this wasn’t the war, and he wasn’t an imperial soldier molesting innocent settlers and supporting an oppressive regime.

  Draper slapped a button on the side of his case, and it floated into the air. “Follow,” he said, and walked it out the hatch, not looking back.

  Alisa let out a sigh of relief when he disappeared from sight. Beck found his feet, his breathing returning to normal and his skin back to brown instead of red or purple.

  “Ah, thanks, ma’am,” he said, wiping his sleeve across his bloody mouth. He wore a sheepish expression, and she could tell she wasn’t the only one concerned about coming across as weak in front of the others.

  “You’re welcome. Grab your gear, and I’ll show you where to stow it.” Alisa turned toward the doctor, intending to take him to his cabin at the same time—he had fished out a small pouch of physical currency and was presumably ready to pay.

  Movement at the top of the stairs leading out of the cargo hold caught her eye. The cyborg. How long had he been watching from the walkway up there? She didn’t think he had been up there when she had first walked in—maybe the sounds of the fight had drawn him.

  He walked down the stairs, his expression as chilly as ever, especially when he glanced toward Alisa and Beck.

  Beck stirred, his gaze locking on the cyborg’s uniform—on that patch that proclaimed what he was. The cyborg strode toward Alisa. Beck drew a blazer.

  Alisa flung up her hand. “He’s not—”

  But Beck was already pointing the blazer, and the cyborg blurred into action before she could finish her sentence. She knew he was fast from her own experience with him, but watching from the side was just as alarming. In the split second it took Beck to raise his blazer, the cyborg burst across the distance between them, disarmed him, and rammed his back against the bulkhead.

  “Shit,” Alisa muttered and jumped over to stop the incident before it could escalate, before poor Beck ended up with a hand wrapped around his neck again. “Cyborg,” she said, wishing she had gotten his name, “this is Tommy Beck. I just hired him to help with security, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mangle him.”

  Those cool blue eyes turned toward her. Beck tried to knee his assailant in the groin, but the cyborg easily deflected the attack by shifting his leg.
He didn’t even look at Beck, his eyes remaining fixed on Alisa.

  “This ship doesn’t need security,” he said. “It has me.”

  It. The ship. He hadn’t said that she had him. That was certainly no promise of loyalty. Alisa would not point out that the main reason she wanted to hire security was to handle him if he decided to betray them. Even if he hadn’t done anything to bother her or Mica so far, she couldn’t forget what he was, someone who had sworn himself to the empire and the imperial fleet, accepting all those implants in exchange for a lifetime of service. What would happen if they ran into ships loyal to the empire? Or even pirates who had been imperial soldiers and were now reduced to surviving by preying on others? She couldn’t know that he wouldn’t turn her and her people over to former imperials if given the chance. It wasn’t as if he had wanted to share this ship with anyone. She just wished she had a Starseer to use against him instead of Beck, who, as polite as he was, had now been bested twice in as many minutes.

  She sighed, fearing Draper might have been right, however much of an ass he was. Maybe she was letting sentiment overrule logic.

  All she said out loud was, “You’re getting off at the first stop, right?”

  The cyborg kept staring at her, and again, she had that uneasy feeling that he could read her mind. Yes, a Starseer would have been the ideal opponent to keep him in line, but those people were rarer than Teravian diamonds, and they didn’t hire on as security on rusty old freighters.

  The cyborg released Beck, taking the man’s blazer with him when he stepped back. He clasped it with both hands as he stared Beck in the eyes, then flexed his forearms and bent it in half with a pitiful squeal of metal. The cyborg dropped the broken lump onto the deck and strode back to the stairs leading out of the cargo hold.

  “Fucking imperial mech,” Beck growled, glaring after him.

  Alisa noticed that he didn’t say it very loudly.

  She rubbed a hand down her face and glanced toward Mica and the doctor again, wondering what their passenger’s expression would be this time.

  Alejandro was watching the cyborg’s back as he climbed the stairs, his dark eyes closed to thoughtful slits. Alisa couldn’t read the expression, but almost thought there was recognition in it. That made her uneasy because it implied that their passenger might have been associated with the empire. What if he’d been a doctor—a surgeon, he’d said—for the military, and he had seen many cyborgs?

  Alisa shook her head. What did it matter now? More than seventy percent of the system had been loyal to the empire, or had at least kept their mouths shut about the draconian laws the empire had imposed. Only fifteen or twenty percent of the system’s population had joined the Alliance openly and fought to put an end to imperial rule. Alisa was proud of what they had accomplished, as were many, but she would have to keep in mind that many people she encountered in the future would not be. She would have to be careful going forward, and it might be smart to stop wearing her uniform jacket.

  “Captain, I, ah—I appreciate the job,” Beck said, “especially considering…” He stepped away from the bulkhead, frowned down at his broken blazer, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, you haven’t seen my best yet, that’s for sure, but I’m a decent fighter, especially in combat armor. Got a mind for all the connections and wiring in the helmet. My superiors always said so. And I’m decent with a wrench too. You won’t regret hiring me. Oh, and just wait until you taste my barbecue.”

  Alisa blinked, looking away from the doctor. “Pardon?”

  “I’m an excellent grill master.” Beck managed a smile, though his puffy lip made it lopsided. “Make my own sauces and marinades. Brought my portable grill along too.” He pointed his thumb at a duffel resting beside his armor case. “If you can provide fresh meat, I can work magic on it.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Beck.” She patted him on the arm. “Grab your gear, and I’ll show you and the doctor to your cabins.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  As she walked away from Beck, she told herself that this would work out. He was polite and respectful and wouldn’t likely be trouble as long as she could keep him from plotting the cyborg’s death. Those traits were worth more than all the fighting prowess in the universe.

  When she approached Alejandro, he tossed her the coin purse. Alisa caught it, feeling like they were back in medieval times on Old Earth. She looked forward to returning to a planet with a decent banking system and checking her account to see if she had any money in there. The Alliance hadn’t had much to pay its troops with, but she and Jonah had both had regular jobs before the war.

  “Glad to have you aboard, Doctor,” she said.

  “You can call me Alejandro,” he said. “As I said, I’m mostly retired. Research, you understand.”

  “Of course.” She hoped she could talk him into serving as a medic for them if they ran into trouble. If nothing else, Beck’s lip could use some attention. “I’ll get your bag.”

  She reached for the duffel at his feet, but he rushed to step in front of her, blocking her from it.

  “Not necessary,” he said quickly. “I’ll get it.”

  “Uh, all right.” Alisa quirked an eyebrow at Mica, who shrugged.

  As the doctor shouldered the duffel, someone else walked up the ramp, a woman in boots and a simple green dress. She rolled a wood and brass trunk behind her, the sides plastered with stickers featuring everything from razorback ducks to garden plants to DNA double helixes and diagrams of elements from the periodic table. A few customs stamps from different planets were mingled in.

  “Is this the Star Nomad?” she asked, pushing one of two long, black braids behind her shoulder.

  “Yes, I’m Captain Marchenko. Need a ride to Perun?”

  The woman glanced over her shoulder. “I do, indeed.”

  The crowd had thinned out on the promenade as the last sun dipped toward the horizon, the desert temperature already starting to drop. Alisa didn’t see anyone following the woman.

  “I’m Yumi Moon, a traveling science teacher seeking employment. How much is the fare?”

  “Two hundred tindarks. Physical coin.”

  Yumi hesitated. “Tindarks? Not morats?”

  “Imperial money’s no good here.” Alisa couldn’t imagine that there were many places left where it was.

  “I have one hundred tindarks,” Yumi said. “Will you take the rest in trade? I have merchandise worth well more than you’re asking.”

  She patted the side of the trunk and smiled hopefully. She looked to be a few years younger than Alisa, in her late twenties perhaps, though her smooth, bronze skin made it hard to pin down.

  Alisa almost asked what kind of merchandise, but did she truly care? She would have taken Yumi on for a hundred. Still, a good businesswoman ought to haggle, right? “One hundred in coin and one twenty in trade, since I’m sure it’ll take me a while to find a buyer for whatever it is you’ve got.”

  “Probably not that long. Your crew may even be interested.” Yumi smiled again. “But I agree to your terms.” She stuck out her hand, but paused before extending it fully. “Providing you’re leaving soon?”

  “Taking off by midnight.” Alisa could have left that moment—nobody here wanted to hurry to Perun more than she did—but she would wait a little longer in the hope that a few more passengers wanted rides. However unrealistic the wish, she hoped someone had taken her up on her offer to haul a load of cargo, too, as freight was easier to manage than people and rarely required food and fresh towels.

  “That should be fine.” Yumi rested her trunk on the deck and fished out a few coins. “Here. I’ll be right back. I’m going to get my chickens.”

  “Ah, chickens?” Alisa asked.

  “They’re absolutely fabulous in space. Did you know chickens came across the expanse from Old Earth? They’re one of the chosen creatures. Their droppings make wonderful fertilizer, and we’ll have eggs every morning. You’ll be delighted.”

&nb
sp; “Chickens?” Alisa asked again, horrified at the notion of them running around the cargo hold. Or worse, getting loose and pecking at wires in engineering. Had chickens ever caused a catastrophic engine failure?

  “You’ll be delighted,” Yumi repeated and trotted down the ramp.

  “They better not fertilize my ship,” Alisa called after her.

  All she got for a response was a cheerful wave over the shoulder.

  “Chickens?” Mica asked, coming up beside her and gazing out at the reddening sky over the city.

  “Looks like we’ll have a cargo, after all.” Alisa grimaced, hoping the woman only had a few chickens. She could fence off portions of the cargo hold in a pinch, but was already wishing she’d haggled and demanded even more of a payment. After all, chickens were passengers too. “Any trouble getting people settled in?” she asked.

  “Not really, but Beck refused to bunk next to the cyborg—you get his name yet?”

  “No.”

  Mica raised her eyebrows. “Are you going to?”

  “If he wanted us to know, he would have offered it.”

  “Mm. You didn’t mention to the passengers that there’s going to be a ten-day diversion, did you?”

  “I thought I’d wait until after we’re in space and their money is in the vault.” Alisa gave an apologetic shrug. “I’m a touch desperate right now.”

  “I wasn’t judging you.”

  “Are you sure? Your nose wrinkled dubiously.”

  “I have a nervous tic.”

  “You’re nervous about something right now?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Alisa thought about mentioning what quirky people engineers were, but decided to let it go. “At least things are looking up. We might get more passengers tonight. One more, and we could even turn a profit on this trip.”

  “You have a lot of patches that should be swapped out for replacement parts,” Mica said. “Expensive replacement parts. If you want to keep this barge in the sky, you need to sink some money into it.”

  “Mica, are you trying to squash my optimism with your pessimism again?”

  “Just stating the facts.”

  “That was a yes, right?”

  Mica’s nose wrinkled again.

  A commotion arose among the people passing along the promenade near the base of the Nomad’s ramp. Alisa’s first thought was that Yumi was returning with her chickens, but she didn’t see the woman. She did, however, see two men in gleaming silver suits of combat armor, the square panels on their arms signaling weapons ports that could be lifted for firing. As if that wasn’t enough, they both carried massive assault rifles. One also wore a bandolier of grenades. Thanks to their helmets being tucked under their arms, Alisa had no trouble seeing the thick girths of their necks and their I-can-break-granite-with-my-teeth jaws. She would have believed they were cyborgs, but they might just have been gym enthusiasts. Either way, she hoped they continued past her ship.

  They stopped at the base of the ramp and looked up at her.

  “Any chance they’re here to apply for the security gig?” Alisa murmured.

  “They’re late if they are,” Mica said.

  Judging by their matching suits, suits that had likely been issued by some wealthy employer, Alisa doubted they were looking for a job. She thought about hitting the button that would withdraw the ramp and close the hatch, but the men were already halfway up. They would probably tumble inside, exactly where she did not want them.

  “You fellows looking for someone?” Alisa asked.

  She remembered the nervous glance that Yumi had sent over her shoulder and her desire to leave town quickly. She wasn’t a thief in trouble, was she?

  “Yup,” one of the brawny men said.

  They stopped a few feet lower than Alisa on the ramp, but even so, they were tall enough to look down at her. The speaker produced a palm-sized netdisc. A holographic display popped into the air above it, and a familiar face with brown skin and blond hair rotated to face Alisa. Tommy Beck.

  “We’re looking for this man. You seen him?”

  “No,” Alisa said without hesitating. She did not look to the side to see if Mica wrinkled her nose this time. Maybe it wasn’t wise to hide someone that she knew nothing about, but Beck had bowled into Draper on her behalf, and he seemed like a decent fellow. These men seemed like they pummeled sabertooth rawangas to relax, when they weren’t busy ripping people’s heads off and shooting them.

  “Boss figures he’s heading off-world,” the speaker said, his gaze scouring the cargo hold behind Alisa. His buddy drummed a beat against the double barrels of his assault rifle. “There are only three ships that have filed flight plans with the dock master that say they’re going to break atmo in the next twenty-four hours.”

  The flight plans for the ships docked here shouldn’t have been public information. These men did not look like police, so it made Alisa uneasy to know they had gotten that data somehow.

  “Haven’t seen him,” she said with a shrug, refusing to show her unease. “Who do you work for? I can let them know if he comes by before we leave.”

  “The White Dragon,” the man said, his tone challenging.

  Alisa wished she could say that she hadn’t heard of them, but the mafia organization was large enough—and cruel enough—that it often made the news. She kept her face from showing any expression, but doubts danced in her head. She wouldn’t have pegged Beck as someone who would poke his nose into hornets’ nests, but if he had, then she would be a fool to keep him on her ship. Just because he’d stood up for her wasn’t a reason to position herself in the crosshairs of the mafia.

  “Got a contact number?” she asked nonchalantly.

  The man poked something in his holodisplay, and the image of Beck disappeared. A laser beam shot out of the disc and burned into the wall next to the hatch controls. Alisa jumped and opened her mouth to protest, but the device finished quickly, leaving a name and comm code etched into her hull.

  “Contact number,” the man said dryly. “We’ll be checking the cameras. If we see that he did, indeed, board your ship, we’ll be back.”

  The silent man smirked and tapped one of his grenades.

  “Great,” Alisa said, “maybe next time, you can etch a Banakka board on my wall, and we can play a few rounds.”

  Neither of them smiled. Nobody on this planet appreciated her humor.

  “If you’re lying, you’ll regret it,” the speaker said. “Lying isn’t healthy, you know.”

  “Yeah, I hear it hardens your arteries and gives you cavities.”

  He scowled at her. “You looking for trouble, girl?”

  “No. Look, I told you, I’ll let you know if I see the man. I’m helpful.”

  After a long glower, the thugs stalked back down the ramp and strode to the next ship docked along the promenade. People skittered out of their way as they passed. If they didn’t, the men shoved them out of the way with enough force to knock them over.

  “Why does our trip to Perun keep getting more complicated?” Mica asked.

  “I don’t know, but I really don’t want to play Banakka with those two.” Alisa thumped a fist on her thigh. She’d wanted more passengers, but lingering here wouldn’t be a good idea, not now. Besides, the passengers and crew she had already taken on were looking to be trouble enough already. “I’m going to run my preflight checklist. As soon as Yumi gets back with her feathered cargo, let me know. We’re shoving off.” She would have to electronically transfer the funds she owed the storeowner once she had an account set up again.

  “No arguments here.”

  As Alisa headed for the steps, she spotted the cyborg up on the walkway again, looking down on the cargo hold. Yet another exchange that he had probably witnessed. She supposed it would be pointless to fantasize about him smashing the hells out of those two thugs in their sardine cans. No, he had disliked Beck instantly, so he wouldn’t defend him. The cyborg was probably thinking about tossing him out the
airlock at the first opportunity.

  Alisa grumbled to herself, taking the steps three at a time. The sooner they got off this dustball, the better.