The second dinosaur had reached Abelardus. Unlike Leonidas, whose helmet filtered the toxic air, Abelardus and the others had to worry about losing their flimsier breathing masks in a fight.
Alisa lifted her Etcher, waiting for the creature to get closer. She could hit an eye if she had the time to aim.
Abelardus did not appear worried about the approaching dinosaur, even though it was larger than the one Leonidas wrestled with, looming three times as tall as he was. He held his staff out with both hands, his eyes intent on the creature, concentrating. The dinosaur stopped a few meters from him, as if it had run into an invisible wall. It threw its head back and roared.
Mica lifted her arm, preparing to throw her weapon.
“Wait,” Alisa blurted, grabbing her wrist. “It could bounce off and hit Abelardus.”
She had no idea how the Starseer energy shield worked, whether it would repel in both directions, like a wall, or if it wrapped solely around Abelardus. If it was like a wall stretching between Abelardus and the dinosaur, Alisa and Mica would not be able to hit the creature from their position.
“You say that like it’s a problem,” Mica said, but she did lower her arm.
Alisa started to respond, but a premonition made her glance around the thick gray stalk behind her. She did not see anything or hear anything. Still, her instincts screamed of danger. She looked up as a shadow fell over her, and the talons of a diving pterodactyl filled her vision.
She flung herself sideways off her bike, fearing she would be far too slow. But blazer fire slammed into one of those outstretched limbs, and the dinosaur screeched, yanking its leg up to its body. Alisa hit the mud as the creature, distracted by the sniper, slammed into her bike.
Her mask was pushed askew, and she caught a whiff of foul, sulfurous air. She hurried to shove it back into place, even as she tried to climb to her feet. Pain jolted from her wrist when she put weight on it.
Fortunately, the dinosaur did not spring at her. She glimpsed red armor leaping through the air as she moved farther away from the thrashing creature. Its other set of talons had crunched through the bike casing and gotten caught in the engine. It dragged the vehicle several feet before Leonidas leaped onto the winged dinosaur, taking it down like a wrestler on the mat.
Alisa found her feet, but she was almost knocked over again as man and creature thrashed about on the ground.
“More of them,” Mica barked. She lifted her explosive again as four more pterodactyls sailed down from the gray sky.
Alisa put her back to a stalk and found her balance—and her gun. She picked out the rearmost creature, the one farthest from the ground. It was angling for Yumi. The thing had tiny, beady eyes, and she took the time to brace her hand and make sure her grip was steady. Her wrist protested mildly, but she held it there, firing three times in rapid succession.
The first bullet found its target, one of those beady eyes. As Yumi ducked for cover behind her bike, the pterodactyl’s head whipped back. The motion upset its trajectory, and it landed several feet from them, rolling and slamming into the base of a fungal stalk. Its wings flapped frantically, but it kept jerking its head around, and it did not rise again.
As Alisa prepared to fire again, an explosion ripped through the air.
Tiny pieces of something slammed into her chest, and she staggered back, imagining shrapnel. But a glance down showed bits of guts and blood.
“Mica,” she groaned, spotting two pterodactyls with their bodies blown up, one missing its head entirely.
“You’re welcome,” Mica said.
Alisa’s comm beeped from deep within a pocket. She ignored it, searching the sky and the area around them for further threats.
Leonidas finished off his pterodactyl and stood up. One of the T-rexes lay unmoving in the shallows of the lake. Another was up to its waist in a pool of mud, fighting feebly to escape. The quick-mud at work.
Another pterodactyl hung suspended in the air over the lake, frozen like a statue. Its eyes were open, but it could not move; it merely hung there, wings outstretched, defying gravity. Off to the side, Abelardus stood with his staff pointed at it. He moved the tip in a quick motion, and a snap came from the pterodactyl. It tumbled to the ground, a wing twitching but nothing else moving. Its neck was broken.
Abelardus lowered his staff and wiped sweat from his brow. Somehow, Alisa found his way of dealing with enemies more chilling than Leonidas’s raw power. Muscle and sinew, she understood. Breaking a neck with one’s mind? She shivered to imagine Jelena with the ability to do such things someday.
Alisa’s comm beeped again. She snorted and fumbled to find it while trying not to look at the carnage spread out around them. Those camera operators would be disappointed that they hadn’t managed to record the battle. Leonidas and Abelardus might have made for great ratings. She doubted her own display would have entertained anyone.
“Can I help you, Beck?” she asked when she saw who it was.
“Hello, Captain. Just wanted to let you know that I’m heading out for the meeting. I shined my boots and my helmet, and I look good.”
“Glad to hear it.” Alisa flicked dinosaur guts off her jacket.
“If I have to wrestle with this other fellow to get the job, what’s the lowest you want to go?”
“It would be worth the trip for ten thousand.” Assuming she found Jelena here among the Starseers. If she didn’t, Alisa would hate to delay for weeks to deliver cargo, no matter what the price. Already, she was shuddering to think of her daughter living out here among these insane predators.
“I’ll try to get the twenty,” Beck said. “How’s your journey going? You find the Starseers yet? Or—what?”
Alejandro’s voice sounded in the background, but Alisa could not make out the words. Leonidas had turned to listen to the conversation, and he walked closer now.
“Uhm,” Beck said, “someone was knocking at the hatch. Someone in a black robe.”
A tendril of unease wormed through Alisa’s belly.
“Any idea who that is?” she asked, the words more for Abelardus than Beck.
“The camera caught him, but he kept his hood low to hide his face,” Beck said. “Or her face. Doc’s worried it’s a staff thief.”
“Nobody should know about the staff.”
“One of my people would be able to feel its power from a great distance,” Abelardus said.
“How great a distance?” Alisa scowled at this new information. Shouldn’t he have warned her of that before? That she had a beacon glowing on the nose of her ship?
“I can sense it from here.”
“So ten miles?”
“At least. Maybe fifty.”
Alisa grimaced. “Have you been in contact with anyone? Invited any of your people to visit?”
“I sent a message to the leader of the outpost to let her know we’re coming,” Abelardus said, “but she didn’t respond. I still haven’t heard from Durant.”
“Your people don’t seem to want to talk to you.”
“I’m trying not to take it personally.”
“Fifty miles,” she said, wondering how many Starseers lived in Terra Jhero. “Does that mean every Starseer at this outpost we’re visiting knows it’s here?”
“Possibly.”
Wonderful.
“They will sense that a powerful artifact is near,” Abelardus said. “They won’t necessarily know what it is.”
“Is the Starseer still there, Beck?” Alisa asked.
“No. We pretended we weren’t home, and he went away.”
“Keep your eye out on the way to the meeting.” She was tempted to tell him not to go at all, but he wanted to make contact with the chef even more than Yumi wanted to collect disgusting mushrooms. He might sneak out even if she told him to stay put. At least he was wearing his armor. “Avoid people in robes.”
“Always a good idea, Captain.”
Alejandro cleared his throat loudly.
“Be careful,” Alisa
said and closed the channel. “We probably don’t want to dawdle,” she said to the curious looks turned in her direction. “Could be trouble coming to visit the Nomad.”
She well remembered how easily Abelardus had gotten through locked hatches on her ship. If that nosy Starseer didn’t find someone “home” the next time he visited, he might decide to invite himself in for a look around. And if Alejandro was the only one in there, he wouldn’t be a match for a Starseer warrior. As much as Alisa hated the idea of the empire having that staff, she didn’t want some stranger to have it either. There was no guarantee that the person would have good intentions. For all she knew, the Starseers were still bitter about having lost their homeland. Maybe they’d like to destroy a few planets as retribution.
You think poorly of my people, Abelardus spoke into her mind as Leonidas pulled a pack of flex-cords off the back of his bike.
Can you blame me? Your ancestors tried to take over the entire system.
Our ancestors believed ourselves the logical leaders over humanity. The planets and moons were fragmented. Many of the original colonies were struggling to survive, and few had built cities to rival those of Old Earth, even though centuries had passed. We wished to teach what we had learned and unite humanity once again. With ourselves as their benevolent leaders.
Cocky leaders, maybe.
Abelardus pressed his hand to his chest and bowed to her.
Leonidas glared at him on his way to a fallen pterodactyl. He pulled out a laser knife and cut into its neck, startling Alisa.
“Are you collecting meat for Beck’s grill?” she asked.
“Heads for the bounty,” Leonidas said, not looking up.
“You actually think anyone gets paid that bounty?” Alisa asked. “It might just be there to lure people out to get eaten for the cameras.”
“There are statues in the city of successful hunters.”
“We don’t know that they were successful. Maybe those are statues of the fallen, people who put on a good show before being eaten.”
“If nobody got paid, people wouldn’t be so eager to come out here.” Leonidas finished sawing off the head and stood up with it.
Alisa looked away from the grisly sight. “We’ll see. They might not pay you after you destroyed several valuable cameras.”
“I will be paid,” he said, then looked to the bikes and down at the head.
Searching for a way to carry them back? Alisa was not going to volunteer her bike as a cargo hauler. Yuck. Besides, it was already mangled from the clingy pterodactyl. She was relieved when it started up again.
“The ship will have weapons, and you will have combat armor,” Leonidas continued firmly, giving her a long look.
If they had been alone, she would have joked that she could survive sleeping next to him if she dozed off in armor. Or maybe she wouldn’t have. He did not look to be in the mood for jokes any more than he had been that morning. Guilt was even worse than pain. She knew that well.
Leonidas’s gaze shifted to where Yumi’s collection bag sat on the back of her seat.
“Don’t even think about it,” Yumi said, propping her fists on her hips. Alisa had never seen her say a defiant word to Leonidas, but she lifted her chin now. “It’s bad enough that you all trampled the rest of the mushrooms while fighting.”
“They’re heathens, aren’t they?” Mica said.
“Heathens who kept you from being eaten,” Abelardus said with a haughty sniff.
“My grenades kept me from being eaten,” Mica said. “And you give me that arrogant look again, and I’ll drop one down your robe.”
“I don’t think that would work.” Alisa pointed at the ground between his feet. “It would fall straight through.”
“If it blew up between his legs, I assure you it would do some damage.” Mica gave Abelardus a vicious smile.
Abelardus blinked and looked away. “Let me help you with those heads, cyborg.”
Leonidas gave a monosyllabic grunt to show his enthusiasm for Abelardus's help. He was tying the first one onto the back of his bike, sans a collection bag to store it in.
“I’m going to volunteer not to help with that project,” Alisa said.
“Can you help me try to salvage these mushrooms?” Yumi grabbed her bag and poked around the area where she had been gathering them earlier.
“Does anyone need help doing something that isn’t disgusting?” Alisa asked.
“I could use help with a shoulder rub,” Abelardus said. “It’s hard work pointing a staff at things.”
“Rub yourself,” Mica muttered.
Leonidas, his bright armor spattered with mud and dino guts, took a break from his head-collecting chore and came to stand beside Alisa. She thought he might also make a suggestion as to what Abelardus could rub, but instead he touched her arm.
“Is your wrist all right?” he asked quietly, turning his back to Abelardus and the others.
“It’s fine.” Alisa held up her wrist and what had previously been a white bandage. “But Alejandro may charge me a cleaning fee when I return this.”
“The dino heads should cover that. Though I hadn’t intended to take you on my monster-hunting excursion.”
“Ah, but then you wouldn’t get to nobly fling yourself across the swamp to rescue people.” She waved at the pterodactyl he had tackled. “Unless you’d brought Beck with you. He needs noble rescuing on occasion.”
“Yes.” Leonidas pointed at the creature she had shot. “You took that one down by yourself. A good shot.”
She thought to shrug away the praise, but it tickled her that he had noticed. “Thank you.”
“If the pterodactyls are worth five thousand a head, that’s half a set of armor right there.” He looked pleased as he held her gaze. “If we run into another one along the way, you can also shoot it, and then you need not sleep with anyone to fund your purchase.”
Alisa had her doubts about whether they would truly be able to collect rewards for these heads—if they did, she couldn’t imagine them being so lucrative—but she appreciated that Leonidas wanted to encourage her independent streak. Or maybe he just really wanted to see her in combat armor. She wouldn’t mind seeing that herself. She could get used to the claustrophobic feeling, especially if it meant being able to take hits by blazer fire and being able to breathe in places like this without worrying about having a mask knocked off.
“If we do encounter more of them—” Alisa was not quite as enthused with the idea as he appeared to be, “—will you be a gentleman and carry my severed heads for me?”
“Of course.”
The screeches started up again in the distance. He touched her arm again, then returned to gathering his prizes.
“We’re not going to want to stick around,” Abelardus said. “The smell of blood and dino guts could attract others.”
“Nothing like dino guts to rouse the appetite,” Mica muttered.
“By now, I bet you’re fantasizing about working on Alejandro’s booby traps.” Alisa brushed flecks of gore off Mica’s jacket. “You might want to make yourself a grenade launcher, too, so the fleshy things blow up farther away from us next time.”
“I’ll keep that project in mind.”
Once the heads had been loaded onto Leonidas’s and Abelardus's bikes—oddly, all of the women passed on having such trophies hung from the backs of their seats—the group set off, once again following the lake. Leonidas kept peering into the forest. Alisa hoped he wasn’t trying too hard to find a pterodactyl for her. Just because they had all survived this encounter without being injured did not mean they would fare as well in a second one.
“We’re here,” Abelardus announced a few minutes later, stopping his bike on a pebbly beach at the end of the lake.
“These are the coordinates you were given?” Alisa spun her bike in a slow three-sixty. She did not see anything except water, mud, mushrooms, and the giant fungal stalks.
“Yes,” Abelardus said.
??
?Did the people who gave you the coordinates actually want you to visit?” Alisa’s heart sank at the prospect of a dead end, a dead end with no clues in sight.
Chapter 9
Abelardus was smirking at her.
“I take it you know something I don’t,” Alisa said, bringing her bike to the edge of the lake.
“I know many things you don’t know.”
“It must be gratifying to be so educated.”
“It is.” Abelardus nudged his bike out over the lake, the thrusters creating ripples on the surface. “If you don’t mind floating over water, follow me.”
Mica was the first one after him. “Water will wash off the dino guts,” she explained.
“Only if you dive in,” Alisa said, trailing after them. “We’re not diving in, are we, Abelardus?” she added, another premonition jumping into her mind. If the outpost wasn’t up here somewhere, might it be under the lake?
“Not exactly.”
Yumi trailed after the group, peering left and right as they hovered over the lake, perhaps looking for some variety of mushrooms that floated on the surface. Alisa wondered if she had gathered enough of the orange pus-dripping ones to make her drugs.
Leonidas caught up with Alisa, riding protectively at her side. She smiled at him, remembering how, weeks earlier, she had hoped to one day have him in that position instead of looming at Alejandro’s shoulder, being his bodyguard. Her smile faltered as she accidentally put weight on her wrist. She should have asked the universe for more than a bodyguard. As much as she appreciated his presence, she wanted more. She wanted to have sex with him and then doze off beside him. Apparently, that was asking for too much.
He gazed over at her as they neared the shoreline of the small island. From the sadness in his eyes, she wondered if he was having similar thoughts.
No, she decided. Wanting more than a bodyguard wasn’t wanting too much. They would find a solution, one way or another. She would help him. There was a way. There had to be. They’d pin down that Admiral Tiang to solve Leonidas’s main problem, and then they would find someone else, a brain specialist if need be, to fix the nightmares. They would find a way.