Arkadian Skies: Fallen Empire, Book 6 (35 page)

“Yumi? Alejandro?”

“We made it,” Yumi said. “The soldiers were able to clear the other pile of rubble for us before your explosion went off.”

“That was Beck’s explosion,” Leonidas said dryly.

“Oh sure, blame me,” Beck said. “I was trying to save your cyborg hide.”

“Abelardus is leading us through the back corridors,” Yumi said. “Me, Alejandro, Ostberg, and some of the soldiers. He says we’ll meet you in the courtyard.”

“Good,” Leonidas said.

“Is my… did the Starseers make it?”

Leonidas considered the concave rubble pile. A few faint groans came from underneath it.

“I believe so,” Leonidas said, striding to the blocked doorway. “I’ll dig them out.”

“Make sure they inhale the drug,” Yumi said.

“I’m hoping they already have,” Leonidas said.

“I’m hoping it works,” Alisa muttered.

“Everyone else needs to get out of here,” Hawk said, waving toward the hole in the wall. “Back to the ship in case your engineer can’t disarm that bomb.”

“If she doesn’t, being in the ship might not matter,” Beck said grimly.

“What does that mean?” Alisa asked. Her words were partially drowned out by Leonidas hurling huge pieces of ice aside as he unburied people.

Beck must have heard enough because he came to stand beside her and pointed at the holodisplay. Not only was the volcano visible, but the image showed the temple floating above the lava in the caldera at the top. The gray smudge appeared tiny compared to the volcano and the miles of rainforest around it, but Alisa was certain it represented them. As Beck touched it, the map zoomed out and tilted, almost nauseating her. Suddenly, she was looking at the entire continent, the green forests and gray mountains in the middle, and the cities along the coasts. A jagged black line ran under their volcano, intersecting with other crooked lines that stretched across the continent.

“It was doing some animations when we first walked in,” Beck said. “It showed the temple blowing up and dropping into the lava and triggering a bigger explosion. That starts a chain reaction. The volcano blows up, the whole continent shakes like a paint mixer, and then it sinks into the ocean.”

“The temple blowing up can’t possibly cause all that,” Alisa said. “Can it, Mica?”

“Normally, I would say no, but if our mad Starseers did something to the fault lines with the staff, who knows? Its specialty seems to be earthquakes. Maybe the planet Kir shook itself into oblivion when it was destroyed.”

Alisa rubbed her face, wrinkling her nose as an astringent smell rose above the ever-present sulfur. She had some of that purple stuff on her palm. Great. Being sedated was just what she needed now, after forty hours without sleep.

“Then you better disarm it, Mica,” Alisa said.

“It’s complicated.”

That did not sound promising.

Hawk and Leonidas were pulling Starseers out of the ice fall, but they both looked over, then exchanged glances with each other. Alisa did not know when they had started doing that—or commenting on each other’s asses—but at least they weren’t shooting at each other.

Beck ran over to help the two men. As they pulled out a groaning Starseer woman, setting her down next to three other people they had extracted, the holodisplay started showing the animation Beck had explained. At a loss as to what she could do, Alisa tapped her stun gun. Maybe shooting everything in the room would help.

Mica glanced back, sweat dripping down her face. “This is a hodgepodge, Alisa.”

“What does that mean?”

“I have no idea which wire does what. I think the best I can do is cut it away from the computer, so we can throw it into the lava.”

Alisa grimaced. She’d wanted to throw the
staff
into the lava, not bombs. “Won’t that just do what that cartoon there is showing?”

“I don’t know. They may have put it here for a reason, because something in here would act as fuel and increase the explosive power of the bomb when it’s ignited.”

Alisa looked skeptically at the walls of computers but grabbed her comm. “Abelardus, you there?”

“We’re just getting back to the ship, but we need a pilot,” he said.

“What’s behind the walls in this computer room?”

“Offices.”

Alisa watched Mica crane her neck to see around the bomb and probe carefully with a laser tool, cursing as she did so.

“What about
under
it?” Leonidas asked, hefting an unconscious Starseer and thrusting the man into Hawk’s arms.

Hawk made a startled grunt but accepted the load.

“Start getting these people back to the ship.” Leonidas glanced at the countdown floating in the holodisplay. “You too, Beck.”

“A lot of the equipment for the engines is down on that level,” Abelardus said.

“Fuel?” Mica asked.

“Could be,” Abelardus said.

“
Could
be,” Mica growled. “So helpful. I bet he knows exactly where the hops for the beer are.”

“Give me a second, Grouchy One.”

Beck and Hawk ran out, carrying men.

“Send some more of your soldiers to carry out the rest of the people,” Leonidas called after them. He helped a Starseer who was able to walk to the hole, then strode to the bomb and looked over Mica’s shoulder.

The rest of the ice rubble in the doorway and corridor had been cleared. There were more Starseers waiting to be carried out, the fight gone out of them now, but Leonidas seemed to think he could see something Mica did not. Maybe he could.

“Shit,” Mica said. “I almost cut a wire. These may be dummies or may not do anything crucial, but…”

“They may blow us all up?” Alisa asked, hopping from foot to foot. She ought to sprint to the ship, dive into NavCom, and get the
Nomad
as ready as she could for a quick takeoff. But to run away and leave her engineer—her
friend
—here seemed too cowardly to contemplate.

“Thoughts?” Mica asked Leonidas.

Alisa winced, knowing she rarely asked for help. She had to be stumped.

“Yeah,” Abelardus said, his voice having a distracted quality to it. “I checked. There’s fuel in the room under you.”

“It’s going to have to come off then,” Mica said, then glared at Alisa. “This is bullshit. I’m not risking blowing myself up.”

“We all blow up if it goes off,” Alisa said, glancing back as Hawk and Beck returned, this time with Mica’s hand tractor so they could more easily carry out the rest of the Starseers.

“The hells we do,” Mica said, not looking at them. “Ships can
fly
, Captain. Maybe you noticed.”

“If we fly away without doing something, millions of people could die in whatever earthquake is rigged to start.” Alisa couldn’t even imagine the scenario shown in that display, of the whole land mass being destroyed.

“Fuck them. They shouldn’t have moved to a continent full of volcanoes.”

“There’s no time for arguing.” Leonidas glanced at the countdown—it was under five minutes now—and grabbed the laser cutter from Mica. “I’ll do it. Alisa, make sure everyone is on the ship and get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You’re the pilot. You don’t leave and everyone could die.”

Alisa clenched her fists in frustration even though she knew he was right.

“If I don’t blow myself up, you can come back and get me.” He thumped her on the shoulder. “In fact, I’d appreciate if you did just that.”

“Right. Come on, Mica.”

Leonidas faced the bomb, but only for a second. “Wait,” he blurted and reached for Alisa’s comm unit.

She handed it to him. “Abelardus is on there.”

“I know,” Leonidas said. “Where does all this ice come from, Abelardus?”

“What do you mean?”

“The panels that have been coming down have looked like they can regenerate the ice. They had some lines going to them. What’s in them? Liquid nitrogen? Are there tanks somewhere?”

“Oh, yeah. I think so. There’s a bunch of chemicals under the audience chamber, in the room next to the brewing equipment.”

“Yes,” Mica said, snapping her fingers. She lunged back to the bomb and closed the case, then dove into her bag. “I have QuickPutty to plug the holes. If we can flood the case—”

“On it,” Leonidas barked, already sprinting for the doorway, almost knocking Hawk and Beck over as he disappeared into the corridor.

Beck floated six Starseers out with the hand tractor. Alisa had a mind to stay and help Mica, if she needed it, but Hawk grabbed her around the waist and tossed her onto his armored shoulder.

“What’re you
doing
?” she blurted.

“Pilots don’t help with disarming bombs,” Hawk said, striding to the hole in the wall. “Let your people do it while
you
fly everyone else to safety.”

“I can
walk
,” Alisa said, more indignant at being carried than anything else. He was right—they were all right. She knew it. It wasn’t as if she could do anything but get in the way.

“And yet you show a proclivity toward not doing so. Did you vex your superior officers when you were an Alliance pilot?”

“You can ask Commander Tomich the next time you see him.”

“Tomich used to vex
me
.” Hawk set her down in the courtyard, but he stayed behind her to ensure she did not turn around.

Alisa didn’t. She ran into the ship, bypassing limp Starseers sprawled all over the cargo hold, and went straight to her seat in NavCom. She readied the craft to take off, then fiddled with her braid impatiently, waiting. Watching.

Mica sprinted out into the courtyard first, beelining for the ramp. Alisa had left it down with the hatch open, and she would keep it that way until Leonidas ran out.

She opened her comm channel to him, though she did not say anything, not wanting to distract him if he was in the middle of a delicate operation.

Mica ran into NavCom, grabbing the back of the co-pilot’s seat, and stared at the view screen.

“He found liquid nitrogen,” she said. “He’s pouring it into the case.”

“And that’ll freeze the detonator?”

“Should create a block of ice inside and freeze everything. I hope. That was a low-tech homemade bomb. If it hadn’t been so unorthodox, I could have…” Mica growled and shook her head.

“I thought you liked homemade bombs.”

“Only when I’m the one making them. Amateur work is unpredictable.”

Alisa shifted one of the cameras so that it pointed straight at the doorway. “Leonidas, where are you? Isn’t that timer down to its last minute?”

“You’ll have to take off,” Hawk said, appearing in the hatchway to NavCom. He had removed his helmet, and his short, wiry hair was damp with sweat. So was his tense face.

“Thirty seconds,” Alisa said.

“Close the hatch and take off,” he growled, stepping into NavCom. “Or I will.”

“We’re not leaving him here.” She glared at him when he kept coming, wondering if she would have to defend herself. She didn’t have Leonidas here to protect her, and Mica looked like she agreed with Hawk.

Hawk didn’t bother arguing. He leaned past Alisa, trying to get to the controls. She had no idea if he’d flown a Nebula Rambler 880 before, but he had been a pilot hero, so he could presumably manage. If she let him.

Before she could think better of it, she yanked her stun gun out and pressed it against his rib cage. “Stop.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he roared, not stopping. “This whole ship will blow if—”

Alisa fired.

Hawk’s body spasmed, and she winced, feeling the electrical charge of the gun’s nimbus. It numbed her fingers and toes. Not a good idea to fire so close. Fortunately, Hawk crumpled to the deck between the seats. Or unfortunately, perhaps. He would have one more reason to want her hunted down once she let him go.

“There,” Mica shouted, pointing at the view screen.

Leonidas ran out of the building, that black box with its snarl of cut wires clutched against his crimson chest.

“Uh,” Alisa said, not sure whether to be relieved or horrified.

Instead of racing for the
Nomad’s
ramp, he sprinted across the courtyard, bypassed stairs, and leaped straight up to the top of a tower where he hurled the bomb away from the temple. A testament to his strength, it rocketed through the smoke, flying farther than any man should have been able to throw something. From its trajectory, Alisa assumed it eventually struck the inner wall of the caldera, but with the
Nomad
down in the courtyard, she did not have a view of it. A distant boom drifted to the ship.

“Great,” Mica said. “Now the volcano is going to topple down all around us.”

“Can’t you be glad that we’re still alive? For the moment?”

“A moment isn’t much to celebrate. I want lots of moments.”

Leonidas jumped back into the courtyard and ran to the ship. A rumble followed in the aftermath of the bomb detonating, one that Alisa hoped wasn’t announcing Mica’s volcano collapse. Apparently, freezing the bomb had only temporarily delayed the explosion. Or maybe it hadn’t worked at all and Leonidas had been forced to cut wires and pray.

As soon as he ran inside the ship, Alisa raised the ramp, closed the hatch, and took them into the air. She saw the charred inner wall of the volcano where the bomb had struck it. It was still intact, but she found those rumbles ominous.

To her surprise, the temple started rising as the
Nomad
flew over the lip of the caldera.

“We didn’t leave someone behind, did we?” Alisa asked.

“Maybe Leonidas found the controls to move it,” Mica said.

“When would he have had time?”

Leonidas jogged into NavCom, pulling his helmet from his head and eyeing the view screen before meeting Alisa’s eyes. She lifted a hand toward him, and he removed his gauntlet and clasped it gently. She would have flung her arms around him for a hug, but she was piloting them to safety. The smoke had grown thicker around the volcano, and she flew them out over the greenery of the rainforest. In the rear camera, the temple appeared, rising up over the top of the volcano. It drifted away at a slower pace than the
Nomad
, but it, too, headed for the relative safety of the rainforest.

“Did you do that?” Alisa asked Leonidas.