The comm beeped at him, and a red warning light flashed.
Alisa cursed and thumped her fist on the console, as if that would help. “The Fang is jamming our communications.”
“Is there a way to override them?”
“Not unless you want to climb up on the roof and realign the comm dish.”
He looked at her, maybe thinking she was serious.
“It’s a joke. That wouldn’t help. Besides, you might interfere with my reception of The Fiery and the Glamorous. We’ve already missed two weeks’ worth of episodes by being way out on the edge of the system.”
“Perhaps they’ll see that we’re in trouble,” Alejandro said, ignoring her joke.
The white imperial ships had grown on the screen, their cylindrical details now visible.
“Oh, they can see.” Even if the Fang was still invisible to their sensors, the imperials would have detected those energy shots being fired, and they would see Alisa’s evasive maneuvers. “I think they’re just not interested in helping. Do people here not love you as much as I thought?”
“Politics are always complicated.”
She glanced at him. “Are you implying that the Fang is from a different faction on the same side? Another imperial ship?”
“I can’t know that. I only know that some people may not be pleased about the existence of the orb, as you call it.”
“What do you call it?”
Alejandro pressed his lips together and said nothing.
Another beam of energy shot out, this time hammering into their aft shields. An alarm flashed the percentage of shield power remaining. Apparently, the warning shots were over. Maybe the Fang had realized where they were running and worried that Alisa might get help.
“Mica,” she said over the internal comm. “Can you get any more power out of the engine? Going faster would be excellent for our health right now.”
“I gathered that.” Some clanks and a grunt followed Mica’s words.
Alejandro glanced at Alisa.
“That’s the Alliance equivalent of yes ma’am,” she explained.
“Sometimes it seems unfathomable that your side won the war.”
“Even though you say things like that, I’ll still offer to buy you a drink after we land.” Another energy beam slammed into the back of the Nomad, this time with enough force that the ship bucked, even with the shields up. “If we land.”
The shield power dropped below fifty percent.
Alejandro clasped the three-suns pendant that dangled down the front of his robe and closed his eyes.
A little more juice filtered into the power display next to the flight stick. Alisa did not hesitate to boost their expenditure and push them into the red. The deck plating rattled under her feet, and the ship’s voice promised dire consequences if she did not ease back, but the imperial ships grew closer, their white and gray hulls filling the screen.
As soon as she was close enough, Alisa zipped past one’s thrusters, slowing enough to maneuver. She weaved between them, as if claiming them for dance partners at the Tri-Eclipse Ball.
“What are you doing?” Alejandro asked. “Trying to annoy them?”
“Not exactly.”
The Fang did not follow her, instead slowing down at the edge of the cruisers’ firing distance. Good. If Alisa had to, she would hide between the two ships until their pursuer got bored and left, or she would go with them all the way down to the planet if that was where the imperials were headed.
Unfortunately, the Fang did not hesitate for long. The sleek ship swooped into the view of her rear cameras again, and she could tell it was trying to target her without bothering the cruisers. The other captain’s audaciousness floored Alisa, and she thought Alejandro might be right, that these ships were all on the same side. The Fang certainly did not seem worried that the imperials would see it and fire.
Alisa guided them in close to one of the cruisers, almost bumping wings as she kicked up the acceleration. The cruisers raised their shields, and the Nomad shivered as her own energy field bumped against theirs. Giving them a little more room, Alisa piloted her craft in front of one cruiser’s nose an instant before the Fang fired. A red energy beam streaked through the air between the imperial ships. Had she remained where she had been, it would have struck them, but it zipped past without hitting its target.
As she took the Nomad under the belly of the same cruiser, the comm panel flashed.
“How much do you want to bet that’s the imperials, whining about us using them as asteroids in a Seek and Find game?” Alisa asked.
“I told you, I don’t gamble. But if I did, I wouldn’t take that bet.” Alejandro tapped the comm button. “Captain Ravencraft, are you now interested in coming to our assistance?”
“Who in the hells are you?” a man’s voice snarled.
“As I informed you previously,” Alejandro said calmly as Alisa continued diving and weaving, “I am Dr.—”
“Admiral Benton said we can’t fire on you, but if you don’t get your loathsome tick of a ship off my belly, I’m going to knock you into the farthest sun.”
“Loathsome?” Alisa snarled, almost missing another attack from the Fang. She danced toward the belly of the other ship to avoid it. “The Nomad isn’t loathsome.”
“If you would simply deter the Fang from attacking us further, we would be delighted to leave,” Alejandro said.
“More than delighted,” Alisa grumbled.
A new plan jumped into her head. Maybe the imperials needed more of an incentive to attack the Fang.
So far, she had been using the other ships to stay out of their attacker’s line of sight, but now she swooped out from underneath one and drew closer than wise to its thrusters. Making sure the Fang could see them, she pretended to get too close to one of the big housings. As if they had clipped the hull of the ship, or perhaps the shield, she threw the Nomad into an artful roll. The view spun, but in her mind, she kept precise tabs on where the cruiser was and where the Fang was. For a moment, their attacker had an easy shot.
“Captain?” Alejandro asked, gripping the console with both hands.
She couldn’t tell when the Fang was about to fire, so she had to guess. Where was the perfect spot? Her belly would be most vulnerable, so when it was exposed to them, she reached for the thruster controls. She waited, trying to time it just right, to judge when the weapons person over there would shoot. The ruse would only be good for one shot.
“Now,” she whispered and summoned full power.
The Nomad surged forward, losing the roll as she streaked into space. Alisa decelerated almost immediately, not wanting to be too far from cover if this failed.
The rear cameras caught the red beam lancing out and striking just where she had wanted—one of the thruster casings of an imperial ship.
“Hah,” she said.
The shields were up on the cruisers, and that shot would not do any damage, but she hoped…
A fiery ball of orange shot out from the cruiser’s rear e-cannon. It slammed into the side of the Fang, briefly lighting up all of its black contours.
Alisa grinned. The Fang would have shields, but those cruisers were big, powerful ships with big, powerful weapons. At that close of range, that cannon blast should have made quite a dent. To her delight, second and third shots followed after the first.
The Fang veered away, its tail between its legs. With that sensor-dampening camouflage, it soon disappeared from sight—and from the sensors—but in her imagination, Alisa pictured plumes of smoke wafting from its scorched hull.
“All right,” she said, adjusting their course, “I’m taking us down to dock before any more trouble finds us.” Such as if the irritated captains of the cruisers turned their cannons on the Nomad.
“A good idea.” Alejandro tapped the comm. “We thank you for your gracious assistance, Captain Ravencraft.”
“Get your tick off our belly,” came the less than gracious response.
Al
isa sneered at the comm, remembering the days when she had flown a combat ship and could have sent a few torpedoes up his nose for saying such snide things about her vessel. Alejandro closed the comm channel without comment.
“Are you done dogfighting up there, Captain?” Mica asked over the comm.
“Yes, thank you for your help. Are you sure you want to leave my ship to take an engineering job down on Perun?”
“More sure than ever.”
“You wound me, Mica. Nobody else will appreciate you the way I do.”
“If that’s not a lie, it’s an awfully depressing truth.”
Alisa looked at Alejandro. “I’m not sure if I was just insulted or not.”
“Alliance,” he muttered, gazing at the view screen as they flew down toward the city-lit continent on the dark third of the planet.
She brushed away the insults, implied and perceived, and focused on getting them down to land. She had no idea if reaching Karundula Space Base would provide any measure of safety. Someone was after Alejandro and his orb, a mafia outfit wanted her security officer dead, and Leonidas had the kind of reward on his head that could buy a person a small island. Even Yumi, Alisa recalled, had cast a few nervous backward glances over her shoulder when she had first boarded the Nomad back on Dustor. How in all three hells had she ended up with so much trouble on board? She and Mica might be the only ones here that nobody wanted dead, at least not badly enough to do something about it. And Mica was threatening to leave her.
Alisa should have felt exhilarated after escaping an uncertain fate with that Fang, but it was bleakness that rode down to the planet in her heart.
Chapter 3
Alisa trotted down the metal steps into the cargo area, anticipation and trepidation warring for prominence in her mind. She worried about stepping foot on the planet and about the trouble that her crew and passengers were carrying with them. But she also felt nearly giddy as she pictured walking up to her sister-in-law’s apartment, smiling brightly, and saying she was there to pick up her daughter.
It had been so long since she had seen Jelena in person, well over a year since her last leave and her last time visiting. And more than four years since she, Jelena, and Jonah had lived together as a family. The video chats had helped to keep Alisa up to date on the goings on back home, but it had been nine or ten months since the last one, and Alisa worried that Jelena would feel she had been abandoned. Alisa hoped they could make up for lost time in the future. They could travel among the stars together, share in Jelena’s studies, play games, and find the ingredients to make chocolates by hand, as they had often done before the war. Alisa had done similar things with her own mother when growing up on the Star Nomad. Sometimes, it had been a lonely life for a girl, but there had been interesting passengers now and then, and she had played with other children when they’d been in dock or planet-side for a few days. Alisa had many good memories of those days and hoped Jelena wouldn’t begrudge her new future, that she would learn to appreciate it.
Alejandro turned toward Alisa as she reached the bottom of the steps. He stood by the hatch, a satchel slung over his shoulder but not his duffel bag.
“You’re not taking everything with you?” Alisa asked.
He hadn’t left that orb in his cabin, had he? She couldn’t believe that, not when she was fairly certain he slept with the thing. He must have it in the satchel. She did not feel it, though, not the way she had on that pirate ship, when it had lain on the table, the four interlocking pieces glowing like miniature suns and raising the hair on her arms as it pulsed with some strange power she could only guess about.
“Not unless you’re denying me further use of the ship,” Alejandro said mildly.
“No, the cabin’s yours until we leave. But if you’re still here then, I’ll have to charge you for the next leg of our journey.” Alisa smiled, not expecting him to take her up on the offer. He’d been waiting weeks, if not months, to come to Perun.
But he tilted his head curiously. “Where are you going next?”
“I had Arkadius in mind.” The seat of the Tri-Sun Alliance government and a planet as populated as this one. No place for an imperial loyalist.
“Arkadius is reputed to have an excellent library,” he mused.
“Uh, yes, and the Floating Gardens of Scinko Terra too. One of the thirty-seven wonders of the system.” Or so the tourism pamphlets promised. Alisa was fairly certain it was the orgies that happened in the heated pools that rested on those floating terraces that made the place popular.
“I’ve seen the wonders. I haven’t seen all of the libraries.”
“Is that where you’re heading here? To the library?” Since they were in the capital, she assumed he would go to the university’s Staton Hall Library. It boasted forty levels filled with books and computer terminals stuffed with data from centuries past, some of the systems dedicated to reading formats that had long ago been forgotten, information that nobody had bothered scanning and modernizing.
“Perhaps,” Alejandro said noncommittally and smiled.
The lack of trust went both ways around here. Not that she could blame him. Whether the war had ended or not, she was Alliance, and he was imperial.
“Make sure to stop at the Black Bomber on the first floor. They put adreno-shots in their espresso. The students love it. It makes your hair stand on end.”
Much as his orb did. She didn’t mention that.
“When I was a surgeon, I occasionally had to perform emergency heart procedures on people who drank too many drinks like that,” he said.
“Students will go to great lengths to buy themselves more time to study,” Alisa said.
“I suppose open-heart surgery would pass for a medical bye. How long do you plan to remain here?”
“On Perun? Assuming the imperials don’t kick me out, a few days probably.” In addition to collecting her daughter, she needed to find cargo and buy supplies for the ship. She was well aware of the paucity of her funds and how she had to pay Beck with them as well as keeping the Nomad in the sky. She would soon have another mouth to feed, as well, but she smiled, not thinking of Jelena as a burden.
Clanks sounded on the steps, Beck tramping down in his full combat armor, including the helmet, with two rifles slung over his back in addition to the built-in weaponry of his suit. Oh, yes. The authorities were going to let him walk off the ship and into the world without any trouble whatsoever.
Leonidas appeared on the walkway and came down the steps after him. He wasn’t wearing his armor, carrying only his destroyer in a hip holster, the weapon barely noticeable under his old military jacket. Apparently, he wasn’t worried about people shooting at him as he walked off the ship. Did he even know about the bounty? Alisa wagered a lot of loyal imperial subjects would be happy to turn on one of their own for two hundred thousand tindarks.
Interestingly, Leonidas had not packed up and also was not carrying his belongings. Was he still considering her job offer? Alisa had the impression that he had business here on the planet, but not surprisingly, he hadn’t spoken of it.
Mica and Yumi walked down the steps after him. The chickens penned in the corner of the voluminous hold squawked with excitement at Yumi’s appearance, even though she did not head toward their feedbag. She wore her dress and boots, but not a purse or anything that might suggest she intended to go out.
Was it odd that none of Alisa’s passengers were in a hurry to leave? Given all the danger they had been in during the last two weeks, she would have expected them to bolt as soon as the hatch door opened.
“Not going out?” Alisa asked as Yumi strolled up with Mica.
“Not currently,” Yumi said. “Mica and I are going to scour the planetary network and hunt for jobs.”
“You’re not going to take my offer of a job as science officer, eh?” Too bad. It had crossed Alisa’s mind that Yumi might be talked into tutoring her daughter. Oh, she might not be the best influence on a young girl with her interest in psyched
elics, but so far, she had proven knowledgeable and useful, and she kept to her cabin when she was pursuing non-academic hobbies.
“I don’t think so,” Yumi said. “You hardly need a science officer on a freighter going back and forth in the shipping lanes out there. Though I must admit that traveling with you thus far has been stimulating.”
“Likewise. I’ll figure out a way to pay your salary if you change your mind.”
“Thank you. I’ll see what the job market is like here. It’s a populous planet, I understand, so teachers should be in demand.”
“You’ve never been?”
“No,” Yumi said. “I grew up in a small village on the northern continent of Arkadius. I’ve traveled to many places to further my education and explore, but I’ve rarely been drawn to the great metropolises. I hope to find something in a smaller country here on Perun.”
“Not me,” Mica said. “I want a job in the city here. I imagine they’re rebuilding, so there should be chances to put a stamp on the infrastructure of the capital that could last for centuries to come.”
“You’re not staying with the ship?” Leonidas asked Mica.
Alisa wondered if his interest—or was that concern—stemmed from the fact that he was seriously considering her job offer. She had made it before learning about that warrant. Should she revoke it? Having a wanted man on the ship where she intended to bring her daughter would not be a good idea.
“Jelena first,” she murmured to herself. She could worry about the rest later.
Leonidas looked to her, his brow creased. She had forgotten about his enhanced hearing.
“Mica doesn’t think keeping the Nomad in the air is intellectually stimulating enough,” Alisa said, “so I’ll be looking for a new engineer while I’m here.”
“Oh?” Leonidas asked. “Your ship is attacked regularly. It seems that an engineer would find a great deal to stimulate her here.”
“I’m hoping those days have come to an end,” Alisa said, glancing at Beck and Alejandro and thinking of the Fang. Maybe her hopes were delusional.