“Got any ideas about how to get them to fly off and search for something else?”
“No, crazy ideas are your department.”
“I commed Tomich earlier and told him about the rogue Starseers and that we don’t have the staff. I was hoping that might entice them to search elsewhere. That was before we broke down the doors in the local hospital.”
“You commed him?” Mica stared at her. “That could have been traced.”
“I bounced it off a couple of relay stations. If it had been traced, they wouldn’t be searching for us. They’d be knocking on our hatch.”
“Give it a few minutes,” Mica grumbled.
“Right now, having Tomich’s ship swoop down to capture us might be preferable to whatever fate these searchers have in mind for us.”
“I doubt it.”
“You didn’t punch him, too, did you?”
“No. He left me engineering goodies.”
Alisa snorted. If they hadn’t been in the heart of Alliance territory, she might have considered trying to make a deal with Tomich, but he’d told her specifically not to comm him again. He would be obligated to hand her over to his superiors if he captured her.
A faint clanking drifted up from the cargo hold. It sounded suspiciously like a knock.
“Any chance that’s your cyborg throwing weights around down there?” Mica asked.
“I left him recovering on the deck in sickbay.”
“That doesn’t answer my question—he’s the person who got up from a coma, climbed into his armor, and went out to fight.”
“It’s not him,” Alisa said with certainty. “You’re monitoring the world there.” She waved at the map. “Can’t you tell?”
“The public satellites only track air traffic, not people.”
The clanging—the knock—came again. Alisa eyed the controls to the cameras, but she would have to power up the ship to turn them on and find out who was outside.
“Someone’s knocking on your door,” Abelardus said, sticking his head into NavCom.
Alisa spun toward him. “Can you tell who and how many?”
“Two men. They came out of a police vehicle at the entrance to the junkyard. A lot of men did. They’re paired up and searching on foot.”
Alisa let her head thud back against her seat. She had hoped for more time to come up with a plan.
“Do they have weapons?” she asked.
“Oh yes.”
“Weapons that could damage a ship?” Alisa supposed the odds of the men leaving the Nomad alone if nobody responded to their knocks were low.
“One is heading this way with a thermal lance.”
Alisa surged to her feet. “They’re not going to cut their way into my ship.”
“They seem to be under that impression.”
“You’ll have to power up and raise the shields,” Mica said.
“Then they’ll know we’re here.” Alisa tugged at her braid, frustrated with her options.
“They know that already.”
“Abelardus, couldn’t you play with their minds?” Alisa asked. “Convince them this is just a rusted-out hunk of metal?”
“Already tried when they first showed up. Got one to turn around, but his partner grabbed him and spun him toward the ship again. And they have superiors commanding them from that vehicle. They’re not going to wander off.”
Alisa glowered at him, even though it was unfair to expect miracles from him.
“You could send Leonidas out to deal with them,” Mica suggested. “He’s mowed down platoons of people before.”
“Not platoons of Alliance police. We can’t mow the Alliance, damn it.” Besides, Alisa didn’t want him to fight now. She wanted him to rest and recover. “They would have time to report to their superiors even if he flattened the nearby ones. We’d only buy ourselves a couple of minutes before the entire force descended on the junkyard.”
“The thermal lance is on,” Abelardus said. “The fellow is moving it toward the hull.”
Alisa growled and hit the power button. The thrusters would be coming out of a cold start and need a minute before the ship was ready for flight, but she got the shields up right away. The camera displays came on, showing the police near the cargo hatch scurrying back. She might have felt mollified when the big man wearing the welding faceplate tripped over his feet and fell down, but other uniformed officers were racing toward the ship. The police vehicle appeared, roaring toward them.
“Brace yourselves, everyone,” Alisa said. “We’re going for a ride.”
“Where are we going?” Mica asked. “Somewhere tropical and relaxing where we can recover?”
“I doubt we’ll make it to the city limits,” Alisa grumbled, eyeing her map and all of the search planes in the air. The Nomad would be spotted, and military and police craft would descend upon them within minutes. Seconds.
As the thrusters fired up, the ship shuddered, the first weapon being fired at the hull. The shields would hold up to a number of attacks like that, but Alisa knew it was the first of many. Eventually, the shields would fail. Maybe it would be better to stay on the ground and accept their fate without a battle.
“Guess I better get down to engineering.” Mica rose to her feet. “I’m sure things will be breaking soon. If not exploding.”
Alisa would chastise Mica for her pessimism, but it was quite well-founded in this case. “If you can fix exploding engines,” she called as Mica walked out, “I’ll give you a pay raise.”
“What are we up to? Three times nothing?”
“Plus shares of the nothing, yes.”
Alisa took them into the air, hoping her thrusters melted the bootlaces off a few of the cheeky officers getting close to shoot with their ship-rated blazers, the big weapons balanced on their shoulders. Another one fired, the blast slamming into the shields with enough ferocity to send another shudder through the ship. The debris that Mica had piled atop the Nomad tumbled off. Despite the seriousness of her predicament, Alisa laughed when one of the lawn chairs unfolded in the air and almost landed on the head of the officer firing the weapon. But he didn’t bat an eye, and more police ran up beside him, also with weapons.
Alisa wanted to fly straight up and out of their range as quickly as possible, but nothing good waited for her in orbit. She skimmed over the piles of debris in the junkyard and then out into the city, turning toward the sea, wishing she could hide within its depths. Too bad the hull of the Nomad couldn’t withstand the pressure of a dip. Nor would the thrusters enjoy a bath.
“Captain,” Yumi called, running into NavCom, a netdisc clutched in her hand. She almost crashed into Abelardus. “We have to get out of here.”
“I’m not in disagreement,” Alisa said.
“I got a message from my sister. A warning. She said get out of the city now. There’s going to be a—”
A thunderous roar filled the air, the noise driving straight through the hull of the ship to hammer at Alisa’s eardrums. Alarms flashed all over the control panel, and the sensor station’s high-pitched beeps pierced the ongoing roar. Alisa expected to be blown into pieces any instant. She must have bumped the comm, because a cacophony of speakers on local stations flooded into NavCom as the roar died down.
“…earthquake!”
“No, we were attacked!”
“…buildings on fire. Everything’s shaking.”
As the confused warnings continued, Alisa focused on the city below them instead of the Nomad. Buildings swayed back and forth in the throes of an earthquake. All over the place, fires leaped from rooftops. A boulevard split down the middle, a cavernous fissure opening up, and ground vehicles tumbled into it. A water main burst, shooting its contents into the sky like a volcano erupting, the droplets splashing the Nomad as the ship passed a hundred meters to the side. The voices on the comm continued, tangling over each other, some trying to establish order by telling people to seek shelter and others simply adding to the chaos by reporting events in a rapid
cadence.
It slowly dawned on Alisa that her ship hadn’t been attacked. The city had been, and it was still going on, waves rolling across it as if the buildings stood on water instead of dirt and rock.
Alisa looked toward her sensor panel, but found Yumi sitting at the station, her eyes round.
“That was my sister’s warning,” Yumi whispered. “She just commed a moment ago, just found out this was happening.”
“Then it was an attack?” Alisa asked. “Not a natural disaster?”
She stared at the view screen, her gaze riveted to the swaying buildings and the fissures opening in the ground. She imagined she could hear the screams of the people down there.
“An attack.” It was Abelardus who answered rather than Yumi. An uncharacteristic expression marked his face: utter horror.
“The empire?” Alisa asked. She couldn’t imagine that the imperial government had the means to create an earthquake, especially now, but perhaps she was underestimating them.
Abelardus shook his head. “It was the staff. The Staff of Lore.”
“Someone used it?” Alisa stared at the fires erupting in the city, more with every second, as buildings collapsed or toppled into each other and fuel lines broke. Those structures ought to have been built with earthquakes in mind, but many of them fell regardless. “To create an earthquake?”
“I’m not sure if that was their intent, if they knew what they were doing or if this was just… practice.” Abelardus touched Yumi’s shoulder. “Was it just the city? Or the continent? Or…?”
“My sister said Laikagrad was being targeted and that the government knew but wasn’t taking the threat seriously.”
“How did she know about it?” Alisa kept the Nomad flying toward the sea, even though she felt numb as she witnessed the damage occurring below. None of the search ships were chasing after her now. She couldn’t be relieved that this had happened, not when countless people would die down there, but she would use the chance to escape if she could.
“The chasadski tried to recruit Starseers at the temple,” Yumi said. “That was what that meeting was about. I hadn’t realized that the group was actually there at the temple. I don’t think Young-hee did either, not at first. While they were talking to the council members, it came out that they wanted to use the staff now that they had it, to make demands of the Alliance government. And if the government didn’t accede to their wishes… I believe this was a warning.”
“A warning?” Alisa pointed at the ripples still coursing through the metropolitan area. The main quake finally seemed to be dying down, but shockwaves would surely follow.
Yumi shrugged helplessly.
The comm chatter continued, a mix of public message channels and radio stations, and Alisa listened as she flew. A relatively calm voice came on with an emergency broadcast that was soon playing on all of the channels.
“…stay calm, and follow earthquake protocol. Do not go outside. The epicenter appears to have been in Laikagrad Vostok. Emergency teams are on the way to evacuate and render first aid. The rest of the city will be tended to in the order of damage severity.”
“Laikagrad Vostok,” Alisa blurted.
“Does it mean something to you?” Yumi asked.
“I know someone who works there.” And someone else who might be taking leave there. How senseless would it be if Admiral Tiang and his daughter were killed by a Starseer warning? “Someone take the co-pilot’s seat and scan the social feeds, please. Find out if anyone’s talking about Tolstoy University. Was it damaged? Is it still intact?”
“You’re not planning to make a stop, are you?” Abelardus asked. “We need to get out of here. If they attack again, just being in the air might not save us. I don’t know exactly what that staff can do, but if it destroyed a planet once, an earthquake is surely a minimal representation of its abilities.”
Was she planning on stopping? Did it make sense to? Just to see if someone who might be able to perform Leonidas’s surgery was still alive? Was she delusional to think this might be a chance to retrieve him? It wouldn’t be kidnapping him if he was in trouble, right? It would be a rescue.
Both Yumi and Abelardus were staring at her with concern—or maybe that was disbelief. Neither had moved toward the co-pilot’s seat.
“Damn it,” Alisa said, leaning over there to pull up the holodisplay herself.
“I’ll do it,” came Leonidas’s raspy voice from the hatchway. He pushed between Abelardus and Yumi and slid into the seat. “What do you need?”
He hadn’t even heard what she wanted, yet he was jumping in to help? She could have hugged him. She repeated her request for him.
“What’s at the university?” Leonidas asked, as he typed in the search.
“Some people who may need rescuing,” Alisa said.
“The whole city needs rescuing.” His face grim, he glanced at the fires and toppled buildings passing below them.
“We can’t help the whole city. We may be able to help a few people.”
He looked curiously at her, but he did not object to the idea. No, for all of the people he had killed as a soldier, following the orders of the empire, he was still a noble man. He would help those in need if he could.
“According to some of the students’ personal feeds, the university is on fire,” Leonidas said. “It’s every man for himself.”
Alisa bit her lip. “On fire” wasn’t the same as utterly destroyed, but she didn’t know whether to find the news promising or not.
Was it possible they could find the Tiangs? And get them out of the city if they needed help? And if they didn’t need help… this could be their chance to simply get them. They might not get another chance. For now, all of the planes, shuttles, and ships in the city were busy, no doubt being pressed into rescue duties. But that wouldn’t be the case indefinitely.
“We’re going to check on it,” Alisa said.
After all, Laikagrad Vostok was on the way to the sea and the exit route she had planned.
You’re crazy, Abelardus told her silently.
You just now noticed?
If you want to do something heroic, let’s find the source of the attack. Wrest that staff from whoever thought using it on a city full of innocent people would be a good idea.
A surge of outrage and indignation flooded into Alisa, and it took her a moment to realize the emotion was coming from Abelardus instead of from her. Oh, the chaos below upset her, too, but it wasn’t yet real to her; seeing it play out below was like watching the news about distant atrocities. She was surprised Abelardus of all people felt so strongly. Maybe he could sense the pain and suffering coming from those below, and it wasn’t a matter of watching buildings burn on a monitor.
Yes, he thought tersely at her.
Alisa almost told him that it would be suicidal for them to go after the person with the staff, but it occurred to her that this was their fault—maybe even her fault. If the Nomad hadn’t brought the artifact to Cleon Moon where those rogue Starseers could get it… and if she hadn’t left it so poorly guarded… it might not have fallen into such cruel hands.
She imagined the gray-haired, bearded Starseer. Stanislav Schwegler. She remembered him holding the staff, the way it had glowed as he walked out of the hold with it. And she remembered the one thing she could never forget, that he might be her father. If he had done this, she truly could not shirk the responsibility, the obligation to, as Abelardus had said, wrest that weapon from him.
“The damage is even worse here,” Leonidas said quietly, his gaze toward the cameras again.
Smoke filled the air, partially blotting out the suns and giving the air a surreal reddish tint. It was as if a giant forest fire burned, but the flames all came from the buildings and houses, more of them flattened as the ship drew closer to the epicenter.
“Heading for the university,” Alisa said, adjusting their course slightly. She looked over her shoulder at Abelardus. “After that, if you can figure out where that
attack came from, I’ll fly us there.”
She feared that even Leonidas would not be a match for a Starseer with that staff, but as much as she wanted to disappear into the stars, to resume the hunt for her daughter, she couldn’t turn her back on this. If this was truly a result of her negligence, didn’t she owe it to the universe, at least to the people living in this city, to try and get rid of that weapon?
Leonidas looked over at her, perhaps wondering if he had missed part of the conversation—and he had—but he did not object. Why would he? He’d been training extra this past week, preparing himself for the confrontation he had assumed inevitable. Maybe Alisa had been foolish not to also assume it had been inevitable.
“I’ll get my armor,” Leonidas said, easing out of his seat.
“It’s rated for fire, right?” Alisa asked.
“To a certain temperature, yes.” He did not expound on what that temperature was.
“Ask Beck to get his, too, will you?”
“Yes.”
Leonidas disappeared through the hatchway. Abelardus was bent over Yumi’s shoulder, pointing at the sensor panel as she poked something into her netdisc.
Alisa’s stomach churned with the nervous certainty that they were doing their best to look up where that attack had come from. What would they do if it had originated in the Starseer temple itself? If the chasadski had come to recruit Young-hee’s people, might not they still be there? What if that recruiting had been successful? At least in part? What if Lady Naidoo had been swayed and was standing next to Stanislav as he contemplated his next attack?
Alisa dug out her own netdisc, preferring its simple interface to that of the ship’s computer, and pulled up a map for Tolstoy University and the location of Dr. Suyin Tiang’s office. She dug up the home address for Suyin too.
Maybe it was selfish—or at least self-serving—but she was determined to check on the Tiangs before streaking off on a new mission. She silently admitted that she would rather do that than go off on a new mission. She shuddered at the idea of coming face to face with the man who might be her father. A man who might also be a mass murderer.