“Who told you that you were valuable, cyborg?”
Leonidas returned his hand to the weapons controller. “Negotiation may be our best bet. If we lose the prince, the empire loses… that which it can’t afford to lose.”
“It’s already lost more than it can afford to lose. I’m not going down without a fight. But by all means, comm them for a chat if you want.”
Leonidas tapped the communications button and tried to hail the approaching warship. He assumed its commander outranked all the pilots in the smaller craft and could order them to stand down. He just did not know how to convince the commander to do that.
Meanwhile, weapons fire streaked toward them, the lead fighters firing with abandon as their target drew closer. Sadangi swooped, spun, and dove, evading the barrage as best he could as he got closer, aiming to fly the bomber right between them. It seemed suicidal, but Leonidas understood the tactic. He had used it often enough in hand-to-hand combat against greater numbers. They might hesitate, worried they would shoot their allies rather than their enemy, and the closer the combat, the harder it was for people to react in time to dodge.
A one-man fighter came into Leonidas’s sights as Sadangi gyrated around like a drunken Delgottan cheetah. Leonidas did not hesitate. He tapped the trigger, and a soft thud vibrated through the bomber as its starboard e-cannon fired. A white ball of energy leaped forth and struck the other ship even as it attempted to evade fire. The projectile struck its shields, exploding with a flash. Unfortunately, the ship’s shields held.
Blazer fire pattered against the bomber’s rear shields, and a damage report streamed through the data floating near Sadangi’s head. The ship rattled and shuddered as he darted between enemies, trying to shake loose one right behind them.
Thorian gripped the back of Leonidas’s seat, fear quickening his breath. But the boy did not break down. He drew in a long breath and closed his eyes, as if to focus on some other Starseer trick. Leonidas did not know what he might do in this chaos, but hoped he could contribute again. Even though he had originally not wanted to be responsible for a child, he was already starting to see Thorian as an ally that could be relied upon.
A blast of static came over the comm.
“That’s the warship,” Sadangi said, taking them under the bellies of two fighters, nearly leaving his opponents in knots. “Guess they don’t want to talk to you.”
“Rude.”
Leonidas fired again and let out a short, triumphant grunt when he hit an enemy center mass. This time, it was too much for the shields to handle. Something exploded on the rear of the ship, and the pilot immediately dipped its nose, trying to steer away from the fight. Like an Octarian bear scenting blood, Sadangi dove after it, firing his own weapons as Leonidas launched another e-cannon blast.
The fighter blew up, and small bits of wreckage pinged off the bomber’s shields as they flew through the debris field.
“One down,” Sadangi said.
Something slammed into them hard, and the computer bleated a warning. Their shields dropped twenty-five percent.
“Damn it,” Sadangi said.
He lined up another shot, and Leonidas fired again. He doubted they could win, but he refused to give up. Another fighter sped away from them, smoke spewing from one of its thrusters.
Abruptly, all of the fighters turned, streaking away from the bomber.
“Uh, did we scare them?” Sadangi asked.
A shadow fell across them, blotting out the light from the two nearest suns. The Alliance warship.
“No,” Leonidas said, trying the comm again, hoping negotiation might yet be an option.
With the weapons on that warship, it could take this bomber down in one hit.
Sadangi’s hands flew across the console as he tried to escape, tried to take them away from the massive spacecraft. But the bomber halted with a lurch that threw Leonidas against his harness.
“Grab beam,” Sadangi groaned and slumped in his seat. “They’ve got us. There’s nothing we can do.”
Thorian’s eyes grew round as he watched the massive ship looming above them. Then he also slumped in defeat. And fear.
A knife sliced into Leonidas’s heart, the bitter cut of failure. Thorian had been taken from his parents, and now the men Markus had trusted to get him to safety were letting his enemies come take him.
Part 3
Leonidas could feel the power of the grab beam locked onto them even if he could not see the energy. The bomber lurched and was pulled sideways. Sadangi fought it, gunning the engines, but the invisible beam held them, drawing them toward the belly of the massive warship where a rectangular forcefield marked the entrance to one of its large hangar bays.
Sadangi cursed colorfully and thumped the side of his fist repeatedly on the canopy over his head.
“The control console doesn’t complain when you take your aggressions out on the ship,” Leonidas noted, remembering the irritated beep he had received from the weapons station.
“Because my puny human hands aren’t going to do any damage.”
“My hands are also human,” Leonidas said.
As he had so many times before, he told himself that this man’s opinion of him did not matter, but it was always hard to deal with the statements that implied he wasn’t human, just because of some implants and surgeries.
“Sure they are. That’s why you left dents on the stick there.”
“We don’t have much time before we land in their bay,” Leonidas said, forcing his feelings aside. “We need to figure out a course of action. I can leap out and attack, try to drive them out of the bay and find the forcefield controls so you can fly back out, but there would be nothing to keep the grab beam from catching you again.”
“Drive them out? Cyborg, you’re just one man, not a fleet. They’ll have a legion of armored soldiers waiting for us.”
“A legion? To deal with a two-man prisoner craft? That seems unlikely.”
“Fine, half a legion. And it’s not like we’ve been damaged so much that we can’t fight. I bet they know we have the prince with us. Otherwise, they would have blasted our ship out of the stars.”
“They shouldn’t know who we have, just that we were fleeing the base. They may believe we have the emperor himself.”
“I don’t see how that improves things. Or reduces the likelihood of dealing with legions.”
Leonidas turned in his seat to look at Thorian. “Is there any chance you could fiddle with the equipment that operates the grab beam? Turn it off so we can escape?”
Thorian licked his lips. “My abilities… are all right when I’m looking at something, and it’s familiar. And I do know lots about mechanical things—they’re easier than people’s brains. But we’re physically a long ways from the engine room, if that’s even where it is. I don’t know. I haven’t been on any Alliance ships.” His gaze dropped. “My brother would have known. He had all the ships memorized—ours and theirs. Nobody thought… I mean, he wasn’t supposed to die. I wasn’t supposed to—”
Leonidas reached over and rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder. He did not know anything about being fatherly and had little experience with children in general, but if Thorian somehow had the talent to do something neither he nor Sadangi could, he had to try. Leonidas had to convince him to try.
“I know everything about Alliance warships,” he said. “I can tell you exactly where it is. Or show you on a map.”
Thorian lifted his gaze.
“We’re getting close to that bay,” Sadangi said. “If anything’s going to be done, it would have to be soon.”
“Could you show me in your head?” Thorian whispered.
“What?” Leonidas asked.
“That would be easiest, to see the map and also what the room looks like from the inside. Have you been inside an Alliance warship?”
Leonidas thought of the boarding parties he had been on, the battles he and his men had waged in the corridors of ships just like the one h
overing over them.
“Many times,” he said, though the idea of having someone looking into his mind made him uneasy. Had the boy been properly trained in these talents? What if he did some kind of damage to Leonidas’s brain? Was that possible?
“I will just look,” Thorian said. “Think of it, please. Show me.”
It came out as a command, and Leonidas realized that was perfectly acceptable. Markus may have told him to get this ship to safety, but Thorian was the heir, the future emperor—if any of the empire remained after the Alliance was through.
“Go ahead,” Leonidas said. “I’m thinking of it.”
Thorian closed his eyes and reached out and touched the side of Leonidas’s helmet. Leonidas almost offered to remove it, but he did not want to break the boy’s concentration. Besides, assuming this didn’t work, he would have to fight soon. He could not let them have Thorian, no matter how inevitable the odds.
Thorian’s touch was curious and inquisitive, not like that of Starseer enemies Leonidas had met in battle in the past, men and women who had forced their way into his thoughts, stealing critical intelligence and raking their mental talons painfully through his brain as they did so. Thorian was nothing like that. His touch was gentle, almost as if he cared if he made Leonidas uncomfortable. They barely knew each other. It would be surprising if he did care, if he had that kind of empathy. And yet Leonidas sensed that he did.
For some reason, the closeness of the connection left Leonidas wondering what it would be like to have a relationship with a child, with a son or daughter. Occasionally, he had contemplated the possibility of having children and a wife, in those quiet moments when he felt a sense of loneliness and longing. He’d wondered if a family might fill that void in his heart in a way that comrades in arms could not. But he belonged to the fleet, body and soul. The empire had seen to that. A family was not an option.
Remembering the mission and the danger, Leonidas forced his thoughts to pertinent matters. He thought about the last time he had been in a warship’s engine room, of the men he had commanded to charge inside, to cripple the ship from within. They raced in, weapons firing, laying waste to the instrument panels as well as to the soldiers trying to protect their engines. He saw the grab beam panel in his mind, remembered firing at it to destroy the ship’s hold on an imperial transport. Alliance soldiers in combat armor raced in, distracting his men from their destruction, forcing an all-out battle in engineering. His troops overpowered the Alliance men, but not before Court, one of his sergeants, went down, a rust bang spattering and eating through his armor, making him vulnerable to blazer fire. Three years later, Leonidas could still distinctly recall the utter pain on Court’s face as he died under a barrage of Alliance fire.
He tried to shift away from those thoughts, instead returning to the image of the panel in his mind, especially when he remembered that a ten-year-old boy was experiencing these bloody, gruesome memories with him. With decades of such memories, his mind could not be the best place for a child to explore.
The bomber shuddered, and Thorian drew back, lowering his hand.
“If anyone is going to do something brilliant, it should be soon.” Sadangi pointed to the massive rectangle in the hull, queues of Strikers and Cobras now visible in the hangar bay. The forcefield had dropped, inviting the bomber in. As if it wanted to go in.
“I’ll try,” Thorian whispered.
Sadangi eyed Leonidas, his look making it clear he expected him to do something, not the prince.
“If you don’t like my plan to jump out and attack, we can shoot up the bay once the grab beam lets go of us,” Leonidas suggested, touching the weapons stick. He was in command here, but he had a dearth of good ideas and was open to hearing better ones. “They haven’t damaged this ship yet.”
“Yet.” Sadangi’s gaze shifted to the display blinking the shield power. “We can also keep our shields up when we get in there, but they’ll have the firepower to take us down eventually. Look, see those cannons on the far wall? This isn’t their first captured enemy ship, I’ll wager.”
“Likely not.”
“If we get into a firefight with them, we risk being blown up. We risk our cargo being blown up.” Sadangi looked back at Thorian.
“Yes,” Leonidas said. “My natural inclination is to go down fighting, but more than our lives are at stake here. We’ll see what they have to say before committing to battle. If there is to be battle, I’d rather be on the ground for it.”
Sadangi snorted. “I’d rather be in a cockpit.”
“I’ll go out first, talk to them. See if I can find an opportunity. You stay low, out of sight and out of mind. I’ll keep them focused on me. If a fight breaks out, I’ll battle them on the deck. You shoot from the ship. Thorian will stay behind your seat and out of sight. Unless he can dither with their grab beam ahead of time, I’ll have to charge into the ship and find it and disable it.”
“By yourself?”
Leonidas nodded. “If I can get there and disable it, you may be able to fly away with the prince. What happens to me after that matters little.”
Sadangi shoved a hand through his hair. “Does anything we do matter anymore? The end is…”
“Not inevitable. Never give up. You never know when you’ll catch the other side unprepared. Thorian?” Leonidas looked at the boy’s face, which was scrunched with concentration as the bomber was drawn through the hangar bay opening. If he was going to do something, it had to be soon.
Thorian gasped, as if he’d been holding his breath. He opened his eyes and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m not strong enough. I couldn’t find it. It must be too far. I’m good with mechanics, better than with people, I swear. But even with your memories, it’s hard for me to pinpoint the grab beam panel. We have to go there, so I can sabotage it in person.”
“If we’re there in person, I can sabotage it myself,” Leonidas said. “And that will be my goal.”
“Oh.” Thorian’s small shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry I’m not useful. A prince should be useful. My brother would have been able to disable it.”
Leonidas lifted a hand toward the boy, but the bomber clacked down, distracting him.
“Pressurization in progress,” Sadangi said glumly, looking toward a bank of Glastica windows overlooking the bay.
Uniformed soldiers watched from the control room up there, and Leonidas clenched his fist as he realized something. “This isn’t a Viper-class warship 880-A, it’s an 880-B.”
“How does that matter?” Sadangi asked.
“I was remembering an A.” Leonidas met Thorian’s eyes. “The grab beam generator isn’t in engineering on this model. It’s up there, in the hangar bay control room. That’s why you couldn’t find the right panel, Thorian.”
“Does that change anything now?” Sadangi asked. “Company’s coming.”
He pointed at one of three doors that were opening on the flight deck level, all of them spitting armed soldiers in blue-and-gray combat armor into the bay. The forcefield had gone up behind the bomber, sealing them in.
“It means we don’t have to go as far to disable the grab beam,” Leonidas said.
“Just through that legion,” Sadangi said.
“That’s barely a company of men.”
“Oh, is that all?”
Leonidas gripped Sadangi’s arm. “Listen, Major. We make a deal right here.” He was aware of the soldiers closing, three long squadrons coming out to check on their new prize. “No matter what happens, we don’t let them capture Thorian. Agreed?”
He expected a sarcastic response from the irreverent pilot, but Sadangi clasped his arm and met his eyes. “Agreed.”
“They’re rolling in mobile cannons,” Thorian whispered, looking between them and toward the closest door.
“They’re not sure if we’ll surrender or if they’ll have to peel us out of the bomber,” Sadangi said.
“Lower the shields before they get too set on that. Let them think we’l
l surrender.” Leonidas checked his helmet fasteners and his weapons. “It’s time for me to go out and talk.”
“Uh huh, and when I do my talking, do you have any particular targets in mind?”
“Just keep these men busy. I’ll handle the rest.”
“Cocky bastard,” Sadangi muttered.
“Imperial bomber,” came a snotty voice over a speaker. “Lower your shields and surrender. If you attempt to use your ship’s weapons, we will annihilate you.”
Sadangi tapped the comm button, ordering it to broadcast externally. “You sure you want to do that? An annihilation will make a huge mess in your hangar bay.”
Leonidas pushed Sadangi’s arm away from the comm controls. “I said I’ll handle the talking.”
“They might not appreciate your cyborg stuffiness.”
“We have privates on here to clean up messes,” the voice said over the speaker. “And we like to keep them busy, make sure they earn their pay.”
Sadangi snorted. “I thought these people were all volunteers. Do Alliance rebels get salaries now?”
“Maybe they do when the war is going well for their side,” Leonidas said grimly. “Lower the shields, so I can get out.”
“You’re in charge,” Sadangi said, not looking happy as he swatted a button.
“Now you acknowledge it,” Leonidas murmured.
The shields lowered as a second mobile cannon was floated into the hangar bay. Leonidas tapped the button to open the cockpit, nerves tangling in his belly. He had fought in hundreds of battles over the years, but he still got nervous before a fight. It was also hard not to worry that the Alliance might choose the annihilation option without waiting to talk. But no, they could have done that outside. They had captured the bomber for a reason.
Dozens of rifles pointed up at Leonidas as he climbed out of the cockpit. He twitched a finger, waving for Sadangi to slump down in his seat so he would be out of sight from the deck. Thorian was already curled into a ball. Leonidas wondered if his Starseer abilities gave him insight into the thoughts of the Alliance soldiers. If so, he could not decide if that was a good thing or not.