“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered, wincing. The sensation of having talons raking through her brain had lessened, but her head still throbbed with pain. It was as if Naidoo’s very presence caused distress.
“Captain?” Beck asked again, his voice still very distant. “Who are you talking to?”
Alisa could not respond to him. She twitched a finger. It was all she could manage.
Command your cyborg to stand down, Naidoo ordered. My people must get to our fighter ships so they can defend the temple. We are targeting the warships, but they are well armored, and their small fighter craft are harrying us. There is a limit to what we can do with our large artillery weapons. The smaller ships are too maneuverable for us to easily target.
Alisa could imagine. She had flown similar craft all throughout the war.
A silence came after her thought, though she sensed that Naidoo had not left her mind.
We must take down the pilots one-by-one with our mental powers. There are many, many craft up there. We need our own pilots in the air. Call off your cyborg. He’s too damned crafty, keeping our warriors distracted and under attack so they’re struggling to focus their mind powers on them.
Alisa resisted the urge to think a firm Good in response. This wasn’t the time to be smug, not when she was in the same boat as the Starseers right now. If the Alliance succeeded in destroying the temple, the Nomad would surely be destroyed right along with it.
I must have your word that your people will not harm Leonidas if I ask him to get out of the way, Alisa thought back, then wondered if she should have spoken out loud. How in the hells did telepathy work? She decided that if Naidoo knew who she had spoken to days ago at the station, then she ought to be able to hear these thoughts.
He has injured many of my people, Naidoo growled into her mind, not sounding like she wanted to issue that order.
Well, he’s not going to stand down so they can injure him right back. Again. Alisa tried to make her own voice a growl. They’ve been treating him badly since he arrived. Have you even knocked on Abelardus’s door to see if he’s in his room? Or done a scan of the station? I sincerely doubt he’s been murdered. If only Alejandro’s look at the blood had helped confirm that notion.
He is one of our best pilots, and we’ll be missing him in this battle, but one man is not what’s important now. Call off your cyborg.
You’ll give the order that he won’t be attacked? And you’ll let us go? Alisa asked.
Naidoo did something akin to a snort in her mind. Your fate should be intertwined with ours, since you led these people here.
How do you know that’s true?
Alisa couldn’t rule out that Khazan might have done something, but if she didn’t know that for sure how could Naidoo possibly know it? Or was this more jumping to conclusions, as they had done with Abelardus’s supposed murder?
Your fate is tied to ours, Naidoo repeated. You’re not going anywhere. Unless you want to help with the battle.
What?
Your cyborg has robbed us of one of our pilots, and I saw in your mind that you have experience with fighter craft.
“I’m not fighting the Alliance,” Alisa blurted, so appalled by the notion that it came out through her lips rather than from her mind.
A light shone into her eyes. Alejandro had joined Beck in kneeling to check on her, and was peering at her pupils.
“She’s clearly conscious,” Alejandro told Beck.
The Alliance is trying to destroy us, Naidoo said. And you may have noticed that they’re not overly concerned about taking you down with us. If not for our shields, your ship would already have been destroyed. We all would have been. Your precious cyborg too.
Alisa wanted to argue, to say that Naidoo was wrong, but she couldn’t. It would be a lie. Farrow didn’t care if the Nomad went down with the temple. He’d given her a chance to escape, but if she hadn’t taken it, that wasn’t his problem. What did he care if extenuating circumstances had kept her from fleeing?
Just help us drive them off, Naidoo said. Once they leave, we’ll move our temple so they can’t find us again. You’ll be free to go.
And Leonidas?
Naidoo sighed.
I need him. Realizing that was not likely to sway the woman, Alisa added, I need him to go up and fight, to help you. Most of what you’ve got that I can fly are two-man fighters. I need him to be my gunner.
A boom rattled the Nomad—it must have rattled the entire temple. The warships were hurling more than torpedoes and e-cannon blasts now. Alisa thought of what might happen if the engines that held the temple aloft were damaged.
Very well, Naidoo said. Take him. Help us fight off the intruders, and we will let you and your freighter go afterward. I will also tell you what I know of Durant if we’re successful.
Alisa sucked in a breath. Before, Naidoo had denied knowing who Durant was. How much did she truly know? Enough to help Alisa finally find her daughter? Would Naidoo keep her word?
Yes, came the firm response.
The pressure in Alisa’s mind eased, and she was able to sit up. Beck and Alejandro helped her.
“Captain, are you all right?” Beck asked. “What happened?”
“I… just agreed to fight the Alliance.”
Beck rolled back on his heels. “I don’t think that will go well.”
“Nor do I, Beck. Nor do I.”
• • • • •
Alisa inched down the Nomad’s ramp, well aware of the smoke still clouding the chilly air and of the Starseer warriors in the middle of it, some of them crouching behind the landing pylons of her ship, some of them boldly facing the doorway into the temple with their staffs or firearms raised. Their backs were to her. She did not know if Naidoo had relayed her orders to them, but she found it encouraging that nobody was shooting at the moment. She could not see Leonidas, but she assumed he was still near that door.
“Leonidas?” she whispered, tapping her comm. “Has anyone talked to you yet?”
She had not told him about Naidoo’s words yet. After her conversation with the woman, Alisa had simply grabbed a spare blazer pistol out of Beck’s cabin and hustled for the cargo hatch. She missed her Etcher. She should not need a handgun of any sort in the cockpit of a Striker or whatever they put her in, but if she was captured, it could be a different story. Maybe. Her stomach churned at the idea of firing on her own people, on fellow pilots she may have flown with in the war.
When she flew up there, would they know it was she shooting at them from the cockpit of a Starseer craft? She wished she could think of a way to help end this battle without actually hurting anyone.
Fiery blue and white streaks rained down overhead, bouncing off the translucent dome-shaped energy shield that protected the temple, at least for now. A torpedo exploded with a thunderous boom and a flash of white light that made her cover her eyes. Alisa shivered from more than the cold air. When those shields failed, as she imagined they inevitably would, those projectiles would slam into the towers and spires—and the landing pad. As she stared at the attack pouring down from the mists above, she imagined Jonah watching from the balcony of their apartment as bombs tumbled from the sky and into their neighborhood. Had he seen it coming? Had he watched the inevitable, knowing there was not time to escape?
“I’m here,” Leonidas said finally, sounding bewildered.
Alisa jerked her thoughts back to the present.
“The woman who came and let you out of your cell is here with twenty people in flight suits,” he said, “and she’s telling me I’m supposed to stand down, that she won’t fire.”
“I negotiated a deal.” Alisa was surprised Yumi’s young half-sister had been chosen to talk to Leonidas, but maybe it made sense. They probably thought he wouldn’t harm a woman who was somewhat familiar to him.
“A deal that involves me standing down?”
“They want to get by you and out to their fighter craft so they can defend the temple. You’re a minor
inconvenience now.”
“Minor. Really.”
A couple of the Starseers in the smoke had noticed her murmuring from the ramp. One woman faced her, lowered her staff, and waved for her to come the rest of the way down. Tears streaked the woman’s cheeks, and her wave turned into a nose wipe. That smoke was potent. Even here on the edge of it, Alisa could feel her eyes starting to water.
“Go get him, will you?” the Starseer woman asked. “We won’t bother you.”
Alisa licked her lips, nervous despite the promise and despite Naidoo’s words, but she walked down the ramp and turned for the door. She held her breath on the chance that it would help against Leonidas’s smoke. The Starseers, many of them wiping their noses and eyes—one looked to have vomited on his robe—stood aside to let her pass. They appeared more relieved than irritated, at least when it came to her. They were probably happy to let someone intervene with Leonidas.
Alisa poked her head through the doorway to the temple and found him standing against the wall in his armor, a lumpy black bag she had not seen before slung over his back. The tip of a rifle poked out of it, and he carried another rifle in his arms. He also had more of those grenades hooked to the belt built into his armor.
The ice-block corridor stretched ahead of him, several faces leaning around a corner at the first intersection. Alisa glimpsed the shoulders of someone wearing an orange flight suit rather than the usual robes. He looked like a normal human being, someone she would go flying with and then share a drink with afterward.
As she reached Leonidas’s side, Alisa smiled up at him, hoping to put him at ease. She was also relieved to see him alive. She laid her hand on the barrel of his rifle and pushed it down so the tip pointed at the floor. He arched an eyebrow but let her.
“We’re standing down here,” she called to the Starseers.
Someone’s touch brushed her mind, and she stiffened. Next to her, Leonidas growled low in his throat. But the touch was brief—checking to see if they were telling the truth? Then the men and women in flight suits raced around the corner. They did not make eye contact with Alisa or Leonidas as they ran through the doorway. They sprinted straight for the one- and two-man craft docked at the far end of the landing pad from the Nomad. Their urgency made Alisa wonder just how much power those shields had left.
Thwumps reverberated through the temple as the Starseers fired more of their artillery weapons from the tower tops.
“How did you get out of that cell?” Alisa asked.
“I pulled down the ice blocks in the ceiling to access the conduits there. I crossed a few wires and shorted out the forcefield.”
A faint thrumming started up, reverberating through her shoes and up her legs. It was not the same as the abrupt thwumps of the big artillery weapons. Something to do with the hover engines that held the temple aloft? Were they being overtaxed because of the barrage?
“Conduits in the ceiling?” Alisa hadn’t noticed conduits up there. She knew his vision was better than hers in the dark, but could he see through things she couldn’t? Or had he just been paying more attention than she had? “Is that what you were studying when you were flat on your back? I thought you were taking a nap.”
“Cyborgs don’t nap,” Leonidas said.
“I thought you were human. Humans nap.”
“Not when they’re military officers—former military officers—trapped in an enemy stronghold.”
“The ice pressing through your skimpy underwear kept you awake, huh?”
His helmet rotated toward her, his eyes closed to slits behind the faceplate.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed that I saw you in such a state,” Alisa said, undaunted. “It gave me time to map out my massage plans for when we get out of this and you come visit me. I plan to shop for some nice rocks at our next stop.”
Leonidas’s gaze shifted upward and out the door where another round of fire streaked down from above to slam into the temple’s shield. He did not correct her “when we get out of this” to “if we get out of this,” but it had to have crossed his mind.
Several of the sleek, ice-colored combat craft lifted off, wind gusting across the landing pad in their wake. The engines on many of the other ships were firing up, preparing to follow their comrades into the air. They must know a way out through the shielding, or perhaps those manning the temple controls would lower it briefly for them.
Alisa wondered if Lady Naidoo expected her to simply hop into one of the two-man craft and take off. Would the Starseer ships respond to a stranger pilot climbing in? Usually, craft were keyed to their pilots and the maintenance crew. Maybe Naidoo would forget about Alisa, and she wouldn’t have to go up.
“You won’t be able to pilot your freighter out of here as long as the shields are up,” Leonidas said, stepping outside. “But they may not last much longer. If they falter, we may have an opportunity to lift off before we’re obliterated. With luck, those warships won’t waste time targeting a harmless freighter when their goal is close enough to taste.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not the deal I made. Even if the docking clamps weren’t holding the Nomad down, I promised that you and I would join their pilots and defend the temple.”
“We’re going to attack the Alliance?” Leonidas stared at her.
“Are you stunned or pleased?”
“Both. But why would you—”
Back in the temple, a robed figure wearing a bulky satchel and carrying a staff ran around the corner, heading straight at them. Leonidas dropped his hand toward his rifle, but it stopped midair, two inches above it. The Starseer flicked a finger as he continued toward the doorway. A grimace of defiance crossed Leonidas’s face, and his fingers quivered, but he could not touch the weapon.
“You’re going up with us, right?” the Starseer asked, his hood pulled low to shadow his features. He was tall and broad, and the voice seemed familiar.
She nodded. “That’s the deal.”
The shadowed face regarded Leonidas briefly, but the Starseer did not pause for long. “This way,” he said, and raced for two of the remaining combat craft. “The dart is mine.” He pointed to the last of the ice-colored ships, a one-man craft with an arrow shape. “You can take the Striker over there.”
Alisa eyed the rusty Alliance craft docked at the end. A Striker-13 rather than the 18 she had flown in the war, it looked like it hadn’t been taken out for a run in a long time. In fact, judging by the patches along the side, it had survived a crash.
It did, a voice spoke in her head, and Alisa jumped. The Starseer voices all sounded alike in her head, but she assumed this was the robed pilot speaking to her. He had already jumped into his own craft, the dart, and was lowering the clear canopy of the cockpit. It wasn’t entirely wrecked, so we brought it in off the ice and fixed it. Several of our ships were acquired that way.
What happened to the pilot? Alisa asked as she popped the canopy.
She didn’t make it.
Alisa wagered most of the pilots—and the crew—of the ships that flew into the mists didn’t make it. She now suspected that had less to do with natural phenomena and more to do with the Starseers’ almost obsessive efforts to guard their secrets, even if it meant murder. Three suns, was she truly going to defend these people? What if the Alliance ships were justified in what they were doing? What if the Starseers had been fiddling with the tectonic plates beneath the continents of Arkadius? What if they did want to take over the planet?
We just want to be left alone, the other pilot assured her. There are too few of us left to think of war or taking over anything.
Alisa did not know whether to believe him or not. Naidoo had lied to her once, and what of the way they had treated Leonidas?
“Marchenko, do you expect me to fit back here?” Leonidas asked.
She had slid easily into the cockpit, as if she were slipping into a favorite old pair of pants—the 13 was noticeably older and less sophisticated than the 18, not to mention the rust edging
the seams that made her doubt its space-worthiness, but the cockpit size was identical to the model she had flown. The back seat was big enough for a soldier in a flight suit, but had not been designed for a tall, brawny cyborg, certainly not one in combat armor.
“Alisa,” she corrected him, “and wouldn’t you rather be in the air than down here, helpless to have any effect on your fate?”
“What I want won’t do anything to make me smaller.”
“Just try to wedge yourself in. You should be able to scoot the seat back for a little more leg room.”
Hurry, the other pilot said, his dart taking off with a noisy flare from its thrusters. We need all the help we can get. It will be another… twenty-three minutes before the temple’s engines are fully online and can move the structure.
Working on it, Alisa thought, fastening her harness.
Grunts and clunks came from behind her as Leonidas tried to draw all of his armored limbs into the seat.
“I’ve got control of the blazers up here,” Alisa said, fastening her harness and hitting the button to lower the canopy. “Assuming this thing is fully loaded, you should have the e-cannons and two torpedoes.”
“I’m familiar with Alliance ships.”
Right, he had probably helped destroy plenty of them.
“Are you familiar with how to get your elbow all the way inside?” she asked, waving at a red light flashing on the control panel. “Because the canopy refuses to close with bits of you hanging out.”
“It’s as uppity as its pilot,” he muttered amid more clunks and grunts.
The canopy was finally able to close fully, and the alarm light went out. Alisa hit the button to fire up the engines. Much like the Nomad, this older model did not have holocontrols, and forget about a surround-flow display for her peripheral vision. As the ship flared to life, she looked back to check on Leonidas, to see if he would be able to access the weapons while he was stuffed in there like pickled degafish in a jar.