Fallen Empire: Starseers Part 18

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 Sta.r.s.eer warriors in the middle of it, some of them crouching behind the landing pylons of her s.h.i.+p, 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 n.o.body was shooting at the moment. She could not see Leonidas, but she a.s.sumed 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 c.o.c.kpit 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 c.o.c.kpit of a Sta.r.s.eer 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 s.h.i.+vered from more than the cold air. When those s.h.i.+elds 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 Sta.r.s.eers 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 Sta.r.s.eer 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 Sta.r.s.eers, many of them wiping their noses and eyes-one looked to have vomited on his robe-stood aside to let her pa.s.s. 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 Sta.r.s.eers.

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 s.h.i.+elds had left.

Thwumps reverberated through the temple as the Sta.r.s.eers 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 embarra.s.sed that I saw you in such a state," Alisa said, undaunted. "It gave me time to map out my ma.s.sage 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 s.h.i.+fted upward and out the door where another round of fire streaked down from above to slam into the temple's s.h.i.+eld. 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 s.h.i.+ps were firing up, preparing to follow their comrades into the air. They must know a way out through the s.h.i.+elding, 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 Sta.r.s.eer s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+elds 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 wars.h.i.+ps 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 Sta.r.s.eer 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 Sta.r.s.eer 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 Sta.r.s.eer 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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 Sta.r.s.eer voices all sounded alike in her head, but she a.s.sumed 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 c.o.c.kpit. It wasn't entirely wrecked, so we brought it in off the ice and fixed it. Several of our s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 Sta.r.s.eers' 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 s.h.i.+ps were justified in what they were doing? What if the Sta.r.s.eers 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 a.s.sured 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 c.o.c.kpit, 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 s.p.a.ce-worthiness, but the c.o.c.kpit 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 b.u.t.ton to lower the canopy. "a.s.suming this thing is fully loaded, you should have the e-cannons and two torpedoes."

"I'm familiar with Alliance s.h.i.+ps."

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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 b.u.t.ton 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 s.h.i.+p 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.

His broad shoulders pressed against the clear walls of the c.o.c.kpit, his knees were almost pushed up to his ears, and he was glowering at her from inside his helmet, but he did have his hands resting lightly on the weapons' targeting controls.

"I see you would have been disappointed if I hadn't finagled things for you to be allowed to come along with me," Alisa said.

"After what my body has been through in the last twenty-four hours, getting ma.s.saged by rocks is starting to sound less distressing."

"Good. We'll make it a date then." She winked.

He arched an eyebrow.

The console binged, signaling ready. Alisa turned her focus back to the control panel and guided them into the air. She gave the Nomad a long look as she lifted off, worried she would not see her freighter again.

"Did you see how the other s.h.i.+ps got through the s.h.i.+eld?" Leonidas asked.

"Uh." That would have been a smart thing to pay attention to. "No. Did you?"

"They all flew down after they took off, under the temple." A thud sounded as he tried to point under the landing pad, and his elbow struck something.

"Then down we go too. And hope for a big glowing, obvious door."

Alisa eyed the tiny sensor display on the control panel. It had the power and range of a mouse running on a wheel. She could see the contours of the energy field, but nothing that hinted of a safe zone or a way out. Had the Sta.r.s.eers in the control room briefly lowered the gate so their pilots could fly out? If so, would they do the same for her? It would be a shame if she and Leonidas had to hide under the temple for the entire battle. Her conscience wished that would happen, even as her mind accepted that she would likely have to help if she meant to get the Nomad and her crew to safety somehow. For good or ill, her fate was tied in with the temple's right now.

As she dipped below the edge of the landing pad, flying under the Nomad and toward the belly of the sprawling temple, another fighter craft came into view. It was one of the silvery darts, probably the one that had taken off right before her. It remained in the air under the structure, hovering near the center of it. Waiting for her?

Follow me, the pilot said into her mind. Your s.h.i.+p doesn't have the safe route programmed in. I'll have to take over your controls to get you out and into the battle.

Oh, wouldn't that be fun. Alisa frowned at the idea of her s.h.i.+p being controlled by some Sta.r.s.eer. It had not gone well the last time she had been at the helm when that happened.

We rarely try to crash our own s.h.i.+ps, the pilot said dryly.

"Marchen-Alisa," Leonidas said, probably concerned that they were heading straight toward the energy s.h.i.+eld, which, according to the sensors, wrapped under the temple as well as curving above it. Beyond the invisible field, s.h.i.+ps from both sides flew about, weaving in and out of the mists as they engaged each other. The Alliance forces tried to focus on the temple, but the Sta.r.s.eers were fighting back now, harrying the small fighters and the wars.h.i.+ps.

"Yes, I'm talking to someone about it," Alisa said.

"Talking?" he asked darkly, and she suspected he knew exactly what she meant.

"To the fellow in the robes, I believe."

"You know who that is?" From his tone, it sounded like he did.

Before she could answer, her comm unit beeped.

"Captain?" Mica asked.

"Here," Alisa replied.

"I'm setting more explosives. I tried to detonate the first round, but it's as if they disappeared. The detonators certainly did. I a.s.sume you want us to get the Nomad out of here if I can destroy those clamps and get a chance to slip through the s.h.i.+elds. Since you're in a s.h.i.+p now, we can try to meet up away from the battle and find a way out of here."

"Ah, yes," Alisa said, hoping the Sta.r.s.eer pilot wasn't monitoring her thoughts or her communications. Ahead of her, his s.h.i.+p had started moving again, the nose dipping down, his craft almost vertical as it headed toward the ice. "That would be ideal, a.s.suming one of you can pilot her out of the dock. Can you?" She had never seen Mica fly anything, but wouldn't be surprised if she had done maintenance on s.h.i.+ps that required her to maneuver them around a s.p.a.ce station.

"Beck and I are arm wrestling to see who gets the honor of trying."

"That sounds rea.s.suring."

"We figure the s.h.i.+p will crash on the way through the mists, no matter who's flying. If we keep it close to the ice, it can't crash far."

"I'm not as enthused with this plan as you would think," Alisa said.

Crashes aside, how would she find the Nomad out there with all the d.a.m.ned mist? On the way in, she'd barely been able to find her a.s.s with her hand.