Arkadian Skies

  “Am I supposed to come up with explosives?” Mica asked.

  “You didn’t bring any with you?” Alisa asked.

  “Of course I did, but I’m saving them for a crucial moment. Such as when I need to blow up annoying prisoners.”

  Alisa winced, certain the Tiangs could hear her. “My odds of befriending them are looking worse and worse.”

  It was a foolish mission to start with, Abelardus spoke into her mind.

  Thanks for sharing your unsolicited opinion. Alisa waved to Beck and started downriver, back the way they had come.

  If the temple is in danger, we should be heading straight in that direction to help my people, not dealing with soldiers.

  If you know where the temple is, then you’re welcome to go talk to those soldiers and try to get a ride with them. Take Stan.

  If the staff was taken there, I can find it.

  Despite his grousing, he walked at her side as Alisa picked a route downriver, the light growing brighter as they neared the bend. Stanislav followed behind them, though she did not recall inviting him into the advance party. Maybe he truly could do something to distract those soldiers.

  The yelling started up again, this time amplified with a bullhorn.

  “Captain Marchenko,” someone called, the voice growing clearer as Alisa edged closer to the bend. How comforting that they knew exactly who they were dealing with. “We have your cyborg.”

  She flinched but kept advancing, pushing through grass and thorny brush.

  “He’s alive. For now,” the speaker added. It sounded like an older man. The mission commander? “We’ll trade him for Admiral Tiang and Dr. Tiang.”

  Alisa paused, both to consider the statement and because she had rounded the bend, and the Nomad had come into view in the field of grass where she had landed. Portable lamps had been set up all around it, beams of light flaring in all directions, shining on the canyon walls, the foliage, and the river. It also shone on the platoon—or would that be considered a company?—of soldiers stationed around the freighter. They weren’t quite ringing it five deep, as she had imagined, but there had to be close to a hundred people, with most of them standing in front of the open cargo hold—the only entrance to the ship aside from the airlock hatch.

  Several military shuttles were parked behind the Nomad. They would be fast and armored, and Alisa wondered if her team might possibly get to one and escape that way. But that would mean abandoning her ship, perhaps forever, and her soul protested the idea. Further, she suspected that military shuttles would be keyed to their crew and would not start for her.

  Abelardus and Stanislav stopped behind Alisa. Just out of the influence of the light, her group hugged the fern-smothered wall on the same side of the river as the Nomad, with the ship about a hundred meters ahead of them.

  “This offer is not indefinite, Captain,” the speaker said, a uniformed officer standing on the ramp. These soldiers all wore combat armor. Only the officer had his helmet off as he used the bullhorn.

  “You mentioned being able to do something?” Alisa whispered back to Stanislav.

  “You will not barter for your friend?” He sounded surprised.

  “I would if I trusted them. Can you tell if they have Leonidas?” She looked at Abelardus and Stanislav. There was enough illumination from the lights around the ship that she could make out their faces.

  If he were chained up under the ship or in the cargo hold, she might weaken and change her mind.

  “He’s not in the canyon,” Stanislav said.

  “He could already be dead,” Abelardus said.

  “You needn’t sound so pleased about that,” she growled.

  “I’m not. That’s my normal tone. He would be useful right now.”

  “I will create a distraction,” Stanislav said and withdrew something from inside his robe. It looked like a string of prayer beads. He closed his eyes and stroked them.

  He wasn’t praying for a distraction, was he? Alisa gave Abelardus an incredulous look.

  “Huh,” was all that Abelardus uttered as he looked at the beads.

  “That’s not that enlightening,” she muttered to him.

  “…someone in that direction,” a soldier called, pointing a flashlight toward Alisa.

  She scooted back around the bend, hoping the stone wall would cover them. But the sound of grass being trampled followed, a squad of soldiers heading her way. She looked back along the wall, able to pick out Beck and the others hunkered near it. Beck was the only one with armor. If they fought, it would be suicide.

  Sighing, she turned to face the advancing men and raised her hands. Surrender wasn’t much of an option, but it was all they had. She still refused to hide behind the Tiangs or try to barter her way to her ship with their lives.

  “Two shuttles are empty,” Stanislav observed, his eyes still closed. “This will be wasteful, but I fear a lesser distraction will be ineffective.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Alisa glared at Abelardus, as if he could decipher Stanislav’s plans.

  “They’re right over there,” a soldier yelled. “Drop your weapons and come out, or we’ll blanket fire.”

  Alisa turned back toward them, raising her hands higher. She was debating whether to toss her Etcher and stun gun when an explosion ripped through the canyon.

  Alisa lurched for cover behind the bend. Fiery yellow light swelled, mixing with the white of the lamps. Before she could decide if she wanted to peek out into the canyon, a second explosion roared.

  Pings and clanks sounded, tiny bits of shrapnel striking the rock walls—and the hull of the Nomad. Assuming that wasn’t the Nomad that had blown up. Even though Alisa realized it must be the shuttles, she couldn’t keep from peeking out to make sure her ship hadn’t been targeted.

  Soldiers shouted and took cover near the freighter as they gaped at the flaming wreckage of two of the parked shuttles. Men ran out of the other three shuttles, ducking falling shrapnel as they raced toward the freighter. One of those now-emptied shuttles blew up, a fiery ball leaping from the engine compartment in the rear.

  “Get them,” one of the nearby soldiers yelled, turning back toward Alisa’s group.

  “My staff,” Stanislav said calmly.

  Abelardus must not have objected to giving it to him, because Stanislav soon stepped past Alisa, his arms spread wide as he walked straight toward the group of soldiers ten feet away. En masse, they pointed their rifles at him. He waved one arm, and the weapons flew out of their hands. The rifles tumbled through the air and splashed down into the river.

  “They’ll have weapons built into their combat armor,” Alisa blurted, not certain if it was necessary. Maybe it was. Stanislav struck her as a little old-fashioned, like someone who might not spend his days dealing with the latest and greatest in combat armor.

  Three crimson energy bolts streaked toward him as the soldiers raised their arm blazers. They bounced off an invisible shield in front of Stanislav.

  Without so much as a hand twitch from Stanislav, the soldiers flew sideways. Their armored bodies crunched into the stone canyon wall. That should not have damaged the men overmuch, not from what Alisa had seen of fights with armor in the past, but none of them leaped to their feet after crumpling to the ground.

  “I’m locking their armor so we can continue past them,” Stanislav said.

  Indeed, the soldiers did not rise again. Frustrated yells came from within those helmets.

  Stanislav strode toward the Nomad—most of the soldiers guarding it were facing the shuttles, pointing their weapons into the grass on either side of the remaining ones. Maybe they thought her team was over there, sneaking up and planting explosives.

  An engine roared as one of the cruisers flew over the canyon, its running lights outlining the big ship against the dark, cloudy night sky. Alisa jumped when an e-cannon fired, the energy blast slamming down into the canyon. Dirt exploded between two of the remaining shuttles, leaving a huge smoking crater in the earth. Soldi
ers flung themselves away from the Nomad, some running down the canyon to get away from the attack.

  Shit, he’s powerful, Abelardus said into her mind.

  I gathered that, Alisa replied as it dawned on her that Stanislav had to be controlling the weapons officer on that ship, if not the whole bridge crew. That gave her one more reason to doubt that Stanislav had truly been defeated and left to die in that meadow. Not if he could do this.

  Even if she thought he was a liar, that didn’t keep Alisa from walking behind him, letting him be her shield as he approached the Nomad. There were still soldiers massed around the ramp, but he did not seem worried about them.

  He shouldn’t be able to concentrate on so many people at once, Abelardus spoke rapidly into her mind. And how in the hells did he get that helmsman and pilot up there to fire on their own people? You can’t—people aren’t easy to convince of something that goes against their nature.

  Maybe his prayer beads work better than Alejandro’s.

  Alisa waved for Beck to come forward. “Need your help to storm the fortress, Beck.”

  “Here, Yumi,” Beck said, thrusting a rifle toward her. “Help Mica guard the prisoners.”

  “Erp?” Yumi blurted.

  “I’ll do it,” Ostberg said brightly.

  Yumi did not hand the kid the rifle. Good.

  Shaking her head, Alisa pushed to catch up with Stanislav. Abelardus did, too, passing her to stride along at his side.

  Several of the guards at the ramp, taking cover under the overhang of the freighter, spotted the Starseers approaching.

  “There,” one cried, pointing a rifle at Stanislav.

  Alisa hesitated. She trusted Stanislav and Abelardus to create shields to protect themselves, but did not know how far those shields would extend. She yanked out her stun gun, though she could not imagine what good it would do her. It seemed like she should have a weapon and be ready to defend herself.

  As the first soldier fired, a dark figure sprang off the top of the cliff on the opposite side of the river from the Nomad. Alisa might not have noticed him, but the cruiser was flying by again, running lights brightening the night sky and gleaming on red armor. Leonidas.

  The Alliance craft hurled another explosive. It struck the ground at the same time as Leonidas landed in a roll that hurtled him through the brush like a boulder bouncing down a mountainside. He splashed into the river as the explosive went off a couple hundred meters downstream. Flames filled the canyon, and dirt flew as another crater was blasted out. The river flowed sideways into it.

  The chaos did not distract Leonidas. He sprang out of the water and charged the soldiers at the base of the ramp. They all turned their weapons toward him, finding him more of a threat than the black-robed Starseers. That was a mistake.

  Stanislav and Abelardus raised their staffs. Several of the soldiers firing at Leonidas flew to the side.

  Ignoring the blazer bolts splashing off his dirty armor, Leonidas crashed into the remaining soldiers, heedless of the fact that they also wore armor. Some of them managed to scurry away, but he was so fast that he caught four. Striking like a tornado, he lashed out, kicking and punching. Men flew, as if they had been thrown by a Starseer attack, some hitting the side of the Nomad so hard they left dents in the hull. The men rolled, and the fight disappeared into the tall grass, blades thrashing. Alisa could no longer see what was happening, but one after the other, soldiers were yanked down, disappearing from her view.

  When the way to the ramp lay mostly open, Alisa ran toward it, waving for Beck and the others to follow. Shouts of pain and squeals of weapons fire filled the canyon, the noise echoing off the walls. Someone had to be yelling orders, trying to round up the men, but the beleaguered soldiers were under attack from too many directions. Alisa made it to the bottom of the ramp, jumping over an armored man who flopped past like a doll hurled by a child.

  A squawk came from the grass, a startled cry from Yumi. Suyin Tiang had broken away from her. Her wrists were tied, but her legs weren’t, and she sprinted for the river.

  Alisa shot the stun gun before her brain caught up to her reflexes. As the beam hit Suyin and she dropped into the grass, Alisa wondered if she should have let the woman go. Maybe the Alliance would be less likely to chase after her ship if she left the Tiangs here. But was that safe right now? An air battle had started up as the four Alliance ships fired upon the cruiser that kept shooting into the canyon. The Tiangs might be caught in the crossfire if they were left in the field.

  Leonidas made the decision for Alisa, running over, grabbing Suyin, and racing toward the ramp. Mica, with a stun gun stuck in Admiral Tiang’s back, had already joined Alisa. Alejandro stumbled after them, sweat dripping from his chin as he staggered under the weight of Durant. Alisa winced, fearing they should have left him in the ship, perhaps in the secret cubby. Too late now.

  She grabbed Alejandro’s arm and helped him up the ramp. “Abelardus?” she called.

  He and Stanislav were still standing in the grass, a breeze tugging at their robes as they stood with their arms spread, their staffs raised.

  Start the engine and prepare to lift off, a new voice spoke into her mind. Stanislav. We’ll keep distracting them until the last moment. Be careful. There are more enemies inside the ship. Stay near the cyborg.

  Leonidas had already charged up to the top of the ramp and stopped, a limp Suyin over one shoulder and his free hand aiming his rifle ahead of him. Alisa ran up after him, but halted a step inside the hold, spotting the enemies that Stanislav had mentioned.

  Aware of the rest of her people joining her in the hatchway, Alisa stared up at a row of armored soldiers standing along the walkway and pointing their rifles at Leonidas. Some of those rifles shifted to cover Alisa, Beck, and the others.

  Leonidas growled deep in his throat, and looked like he might drop Suyin and spring for the walkway. Standing next to Alisa, Beck also crouched, as if awaiting the order to attack.

  “Hold on,” Alisa said, and lifted her hands, afraid that her non-armored people, the Tiangs included, would be caught in the cross fire. Unless they raced back outside, a possibility she was considering, there was nowhere to dive for cover. “Let’s talk.”

  Outside, the sounds of battle continued, both in the canyon and in the sky overhead.

  Inside, the soldiers hadn’t fired yet. With Suyin and Admiral Tiang in the group, they probably wouldn’t. And if Alisa was able to stall them, Stanislav and Abelardus should realize that they were in trouble. Maybe Abelardus would run in to help. If he could shield her team, Leonidas could start a battle with those on the walkway.

  A hiss-clank came from behind her, and she jumped. The ramp retracted, and the hatch clanged shut.

  “The time for talk is long past,” a cool male voice said from the walkway.

  Chapter 14

  “Actually,” Alisa told the armored soldier who had spoken, “this looks like an excellent time for talk. To keep people from doing something they’ll regret.”

  “Do you regret kidnapping my fiancée, Captain Marchenko?” the soldier asked.

  “Yes,” she said promptly. “Though it technically started out as a rescue mission.”

  Alisa squinted, trying to see through the man’s faceplate. It sounded like he knew her, but she did not recognize the voice. The man looked at Leonidas, sniffed in disdain, and let go of his rifle, a harness keeping it from falling. The seven soldiers lined up behind him did not lower their own weapons as he unfastened his helmet and removed it.

  “Hawk,” Admiral Tiang blurted. He stood in front of Yumi and Mica—or maybe it was more correct to say that they had shifted to stand behind him. “You came,” he added, pleasure in his voice.

  Alisa recognized the officer’s face, even though she had never interacted with him personally. Her suspicions were correct. It was the legendary pilot, a man in his forties with dark skin and black wiry hair shorn close. He ought to be walking with a limp, at least according to the old news fe
eds that had covered his last battle and subsequent discharge, but the combat armor might correct for that.

  “Of course I came, sir.” Hawk sent an aggrieved look toward Suyin, who still hung limply over Leonidas’s shoulder, as he dropped his hand to his rifle again. “We have your ship secured, Marchenko,” he said, his voice growing hard again as he met her eyes. “Have your people drop your weapons and let your prisoners go.”

  “I haven’t used my explosives yet,” Mica whispered. “I’ve got a couple of rust bangs.”

  With Hawk staring at Alisa, she did not whisper back. She met his eyes and said, “We don’t have any prisoners here. Just some people we rescued from the attack on Laikagrad.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” Hawk said.

  Admiral Tiang looked over at Leonidas but didn’t say anything that might have supported Alisa’s claim. After being drugged and dragged through the jungle, he might not feel very rescued.

  “We’ll gladly give them to you, but we would like to then fly away without being fired upon.”

  “What you would like and what’s going to happen aren’t the same.” Hawk curled a lip. “Traitor.”

  Alisa stifled a wince, though the words stung. “Contrary to Alliance belief, I haven’t betrayed anyone.”

  “Your crew complement suggests otherwise.” Hawk’s sneer took in Leonidas and perhaps the Starseers outside, as well.

  “What can I say? I hire the best people without prejudice.”

  Mica snorted.

  “If you’re retired and looking for a job, come see me,” Alisa offered grandly.

  “He’s busy running for office,” Admiral Tiang said.

  “Running freight sounds more honorable.”

  Hawk’s nostrils flared. Apparently, he wasn’t one of those officers with a sense of humor. Alisa missed Tomich.

  An explosion went off close enough to rock the deck of the Nomad. Leonidas glanced at Alisa, as if he were asking permission to take action. Alisa could lunge for the controls to try and override the cargo hatch, so the unarmored people could slip out that way, but if they were locked down from NavCom, it wouldn’t do anything.