Arkadian Skies: Fallen Empire, Book 6 (21 page)

“Captain?” Yumi said, walking out of the mess hall and meeting her in front of the now-crowded sickbay. A worried frown creased her brow, and she ignored Alejandro’s cranky-sounding orders drifting out.

“What is it?” Alisa asked.

“I can’t get in touch with my sister anymore.”

“She’s not answering your comms?”

“It’s more like they’re not getting through. My messages are bouncing right back to me. I tried my mother, too, and it was the same thing. I’m worried something happened to the temple.”

A couple of the injured people in sickbay were looking at them, so Alisa waved for Yumi to go farther up the corridor with her. “You said before that the
chasadski
had visited the temple and tried to coerce people to join them.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think they would have had the power to do something if that coercion didn’t work?”

“Against so many Starseers? I’m not sure. I don’t know how big their group is. And I don’t know what the Staff of Lore can do, besides start earthquakes.”

“Do you know where the temple is now?”

Yumi shook her head. “Young-hee didn’t tell me where it was moved, just that it was supposed to be safe and hard for the Alliance satellites to find.”

“Well, try to figure it out, and we’ll check on it, after we check the spot you and Abelardus found.” The spot where that attack had supposedly originated. Alisa knew Abelardus wanted to confront the staff thieves, but she found herself hoping that they would be too late.

“What if they’re the same spot?” Yumi asked.

What, indeed. “We’ll figure that out when we get there.”

A throat cleared behind her. Leonidas stepped out of sickbay.

“Alisa?”

“Yes?” she asked, as Yumi returned to the mess hall.

“There wasn’t a cat,” he said quietly.

“Huh?”

“Remember when Ms. Tiang spoke to a Hawk on the comm?”

“Her fiancé, yes,” Alisa said.

“She mentioned checking on a cat. I broke down the door to enter the Tiangs’ apartment and looked around for the admiral. He ended up being next door, taking care of the injured girl and her mother, and then they got trapped in there when an aftershock took down a beam. That’s where I found them, but I had a good look around their apartment first and didn’t see a cat or sign of one being owned. I’d thought to collect it or at least let it out if it was there.”

Alisa nodded, though cats would have been the last thing on her mind if she’d been tramping through a smoke-filled, earthquake-ruined building.

“I asked the admiral about it before we left the floor,” Leonidas said. “He was confused. He said there wasn’t a cat.”

“You think that was a code or something? A message for her fiancé? Letting him know she thought she was in trouble?” Alisa curled her fingers into a fist. She wagered it had been exactly that. Suyin had seen Leonidas, identified him, and believed herself in danger. Alisa growled, frustrated. It wasn’t as if they had chained her up and threatened her. They had been saving that for
later
.

“Have you looked up who the fiancé is?” Leonidas asked.

“No, have you?”

“There wasn’t time, but I remember a Hawk from the war.”

“So do I,” she said, thinking of the famous pilot again. “Admiral Hawk Hammerstein. But there could be a lot of people with that name. Granted,
Hawk
would usually be a nickname or call sign for most people.”

“If it
is
the admiral, then he’ll have a lot of resources to throw at getting his fiancée back. It would be wisest to leave her and her father here. Neither is injured, and we haven’t done anything to them that they could object to.”
Yet
, he seemed to add silently, his eyebrows raising. “There’s no need to take them with us to look for the staff.” His lips stretched wide, in an expression that might have been wry or sad, an acknowledgment that there was a need, but not enough of a need to justify imprisoning them and taking off with them, especially if they were likely to be chased the whole way.

Between one eye blink and the next, an idea formed in Alisa’s mind.

She grabbed Leonidas’s arm. “Oh, yes, there is.”

“What?”

“Just go along with me,” she said over her shoulder, already running for NavCom.

Chapter 11

“No sign of pursuit yet,” Yumi said from the sensor station.

“Good.” Alisa thought about calling for more power from the thrusters, as the Aszarian Sea passed below them, the last of the setting suns gleaming red across the deep green water. But no. She didn’t want to get there prematurely, before their pursuers arrived. If Stanislav was there with the Staff of Lore and had taken over the Starseer temple, they would need all the help they could get. Alisa just had to figure out a way to convince their pursuers to
be
that help.

“At present speed, it looks like we’ll arrive at the coordinates Abelardus and I calculated in about forty-five minutes.”

“You’re a steady science officer and navigation assistant, Yumi. You should let me hire you.”

Yumi’s expression appeared more stressed than pleased at the words.

“No word from your sister or mother yet?” Alisa asked.

“Nothing.” Yumi gripped knobs on the panel that did not need to be gripped, and she stared at the monitor. “I’d just barely reestablished communication with my mother after ten years. And met sisters I didn’t even know I had. If something happened to them—if I’ve already lost them before I got to know them… It doesn’t seem fair.”

Alisa opened her mouth, intending to say that they didn’t know yet that anything had happened to the temple, but Yumi probably wanted commiseration, not logic.

“You’re right,” she said. “It wouldn’t be fair, especially if they were standing up to those thugs that stole the staff.”

Yumi sniffed. “I heard one of those thugs might be your father.”

“You’ve known me for a lot of weeks now. Would you be shocked to find that thuggishness ran in my family?”

“No.”

“Thanks.”

A knock came at the hatch, and Leonidas’s face appeared in the window. He nodded at her.

Alisa took a deep breath and waved for him to come in with their guests. She had asked him to set up this moment, so she couldn’t shy away from it.

Leonidas entered first and stood as close to Alisa’s seat as he could with Yumi sitting behind her. Suyin and Admiral Tiang came through behind him, both wearing annoyed expressions. Very similar annoyed expressions. Alisa had no trouble seeing the family resemblance in their dark brown eyes and small noses, though Suyin had lighter skin and a wave to her hair. They did not look much like prisoners, despite their expressions. Leonidas had not bound their hands, probably because there weren’t any intellicuffs on the ship—and the old-fashioned handcuffs in Mica’s sex-toy drawer had been used for a previous adventure—but the way he was herding them around and looming behind them must make them feel like captives.

“Captain,” Admiral Tiang said. “Is an explanation forthcoming? Colonel Adler has been quite tight-lipped.”

“Because he doesn’t know the plan yet.”

Indeed, one of Leonidas’s eyebrows went up. He was being patient in going along with her when there hadn’t been time to explain. She had wanted to get the
Nomad
out of the city as quickly as possible after learning that the Alliance might be tracking Suyin by her earstar or some other method.

“Must be odd for him to be outside of the loop on command decisions,” Suyin said, eyeing Leonidas.

“There’s not much of a loop,” Alisa said. “Unless you count the busy little racetrack inside my head. We’re heading to the Belt of Fire, the Draco Continent specifically. My science officer and our Starseer believe that’s where the attack on Laikagrad originated.”

The Tiangs’ foreheads wrinkled in similar manners. The admiral had deeper creases.

“We’re going to try and retrieve the Staff of Lore from the person who used it on Laikagrad,” Alisa added, nodding to the admiral. He, of course, would know all about the artifact.

“I wondered if that might be it,” Tiang murmured. “The newscasters were blathering about earthquakes, and when I commed the
Storm Fury
early on, they barely had time to talk to me… But as to who has it, it’s not one of your people?” He stared at Alisa. “We know you stole it.”

“Technically, we found it first,” Alisa said, “but then it was stolen from us on Cleon Moon by some Starseers who apparently wouldn’t mind taking over the system. I’ve heard that today’s attack was a warning or a demonstration of power, and assume someone higher up than you knows all about it.”

Alisa thought the admiral might protest, or at least sniff haughtily at the idea that he, an admiral, would not be in the loop, but all he did was frown thoughtfully. It wasn’t as if medical officers were involved with command decisions, so maybe he wasn’t surprised by the idea.

Suyin looked back and forth between Alisa, Leonidas, and her father, no hint of understanding on her face. Given the top-secret status that the Staff of Lore must have been given, Alisa was not surprised that the admiral had not brought it up at family dinners.

“You came here to get it back?” Tiang asked.

“I never wanted it in the first place, but yes. I don’t want the empire or rogue Starseers or anyone dangerous to have it.”

Leonidas stirred, but did not say anything. Alisa would freely admit later that she’d not had much to do with the decision to go after the staff, that this was someone else’s mission, but this version of the story seemed easier to explain for now.

“But you came specifically to get me,” Suyin said. “What do I have to do with… whatever this stolen item is that you seek?”

“We came because you were in the city that had been attacked and we were close by,” Alisa said. “I’d looked you up when I was trying to find the admiral. For a, uhm, personal matter.”

“What personal matter could you have that involves me?” Tiang asked. “I don’t even know you.”

Something else that would be difficult and awkward to explain in its entirety right now. Especially with Yumi sitting there, looking curiously on. Alisa did not want to presume to talk about Leonidas’s secret desires in front of her. Or in front of Suyin either.

“Leonidas needs some work done,” she said, hoping that was suitably vague, “and apparently, you know about cyborg… work, since you’ve done some before.”

Tiang blinked slowly a few times, processing that.

Leonidas sighed quietly and looked toward the ceiling. No, he definitely did not look like he wanted to have this conversation with others around. Well,
he
could broach the subject himself and talk to these people if he wanted to use a different tactic. He had been letting her take charge ever since the Tiangs had been brought on board. No, ever since he had agreed to work for her. Whether he agreed with her all the time or not. He was a man of his word.

“What kind of
work
?” Tiang frowned at Leonidas. “You look fine, boy.”

If Alisa had been drinking, she would have choked at hearing someone call Leonidas
boy
.

“He looks dangerous,” Suyin muttered. “They
all
do,” she added, squinting at Alisa.

“Me?” Yumi lifted her eyebrows. She looked about as dangerous as a dishtowel.

“They didn’t come to pick us up as part of some humanitarian mission,” Suyin said, leaning close to her father. “They were taking advantage of the situation. We’ve been abducted.”

Alisa made an indignant noise. It was all she could manage since it was the truth.

“Whatever you think my father can do for you—and
you
—” Suyin frowned at Leonidas, “—you’re delusional if you believe this is the way to get our help. If you know what’s best for you, you’ll take us back to the city right now.”

“I rarely know what’s best for me,” Alisa murmured. “And we’re not abducting you.” Maybe if she kept telling everyone it was a rescue, more people would believe her, including the rescue victims. “We just needed to leave in a hurry once we got your father.” She nodded to Admiral Tiang, trying to get a read on him. He didn’t look very imposing without his army uniform, just a slight man in a rumpled shirt with thinning hair. But those slender fingers of his could apparently do complex surgery involving cybernetics.

“To get the staff,” Tiang said, looking at his daughter. “It would actually be my duty to acquire it from these thieves if I could.”

“We’re not thieves,” Alisa snapped. “If anything, Tomich stole the staff from us. It belongs to…” Uh, she didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

“You?” Leonidas offered, an eyebrow twitching.

More than eyebrows twitched on the Tiangs.

“Certainly not,” Alisa said. “It belongs in the middle of a sun. Thrown way down deep where it will burn to a crisp or at least be unavailable for megalomaniacs to use.”

Admiral Tiang gaped at her. “It must be
studied
. Such power doesn’t exist in the system anymore. If it could be harnessed, it might be the answer to the faster-than-light travel that has eluded us for so long. Imagine a journey between star systems that didn’t require cryonic freezing and centuries to complete.”

“Father, they don’t care about space travel.” Suyin grabbed his arm and drew him as far away as she could, which wasn’t very far in the compact NavCom compartment.

A heated argument broke out. Alisa looked at Yumi and Leonidas and shrugged. She was open to other tactics to use to sway the Tiangs to their side, or to at least get them to stop talking about thieving and abductions.

“Thirty-five minutes to our destination,” Yumi said unhelpfully.

Leonidas nodded, as if he’d found the statement more useful than Alisa had.

“Very well,” he said. “We’ll do our best to retrieve the staff and then return our guests to their home.”

What was left of it. Alisa doubted either of them wanted to go back to that apartment until repairs had been done.

“We need to drop off the injured, as well. We shouldn’t have brought them along,” Leonidas added, a hint of sternness entering his tone. “This will be dangerous.”

“Of course it will,” Alisa said. “That’s why I’m hoping for help.”