Arkadian Skies: Fallen Empire, Book 6 (4 page)

“Your security man is a cyborg,” the android stated, gazing at her with unemotional silver eyes.

Alisa had not introduced him as her “security man,” but she supposed a person—or an android—wouldn’t look at Leonidas and think him anything else. That saddened her, reminding her that he had started his university career studying engineering, but this wasn’t the time for such thoughts.

“Of course,” she said. “Wasn’t that obvious from the size of his muscles?”

It wasn’t as if a human with a passion for gym work couldn’t gain Leonidas’s musculature, but it was more of a sure thing with cyborgs, at least the ones the imperial fleet had made to serve its purposes.

“An
imperial
cyborg,” the android said, flicking his hand toward the case. “Imperial soldiers are not welcome on Arkadius, especially those retaining their army battle armor.”

“The war is over,” Alisa said with a shrug. “He’s just my security officer now. It would be ridiculously expensive for him to buy new combat armor.”

The android touched his earstar again. Alisa itched to lean closer, to try to hear what whoever was talking to him was saying.

“Some of your passengers match the descriptions of felons wanted for theft from the Alliance,” the android said, his cool gaze resting upon her again.

“What theft?” Alisa spread her hands innocently.

The Alliance wouldn’t have mentioned the Staff of Lore in a system-wide bulletin, would it have? No, but it wouldn’t have needed to. Nobody would expect the government to explain what people had stolen from it.

“Search the entire ship from top to bottom,” Delta Five said. “We’re apprehending everyone.”

Alisa lunged for the hatchway. She had a notion of locking herself in NavCom and comming Leonidas, but she only made it one step into the corridor. The android moved too quickly for her to evade, catching her about the waist and lifting her from her feet. She kicked and threw an elbow back at his head, but it did not matter. When she connected, it was like connecting with a wall, and the android gave no indication that he felt pain. The arm locked around her waist might as well have been an ahridium bar.

“Beck,” she yelled. “I could use some help!”

She hoped she wouldn’t regret instigating a fight, since they were tangling with the law, or at least legal representatives acting as law enforcers. But with her legs dangling in the air, it was all she could think to do.

Beck leaped into the intersection, spotted her, and charged.

Afraid she would be flattened, Alisa lifted her legs, curling into as much of a ball as she could while restrained. But Beck angled toward the bulkhead at the last second, his armored shoulder bouncing off it as he bypassed her. He hooked his arm around Delta Five, pulling him backward with him.

If the android had not wanted to let her go, Alisa would have been stuck in the middle of the fight, but he must have decided to cast her aside so he could better defend himself. Or maybe he was programmed to keep civilians from being hurt—even suspicious ones that he wanted to arrest.

Still, Alisa was thrown none-too-gently into the wall. She just managed to keep from tumbling to the deck.

Thuds and clunks erupted behind her as Beck and Delta Five clashed. Weapons fire had not gone off yet, but that was sure to follow—the human patroller had come out of the cabin and would jump into the fray too.

Alisa, fearing that even an armored Beck would not be a match for an android, sprinted to the intersection and toward the cargo hold. She had to get Leonidas.

She almost ran past sickbay, but a scuffle going on inside made her stop. Alejandro was grappling with the other male patroller while Ostberg stood in front of the exam table, protecting Durant. He had a hand raised, his eyes slitted in concentration, but he kept getting jostled and probably couldn’t affect the patroller with whatever he was trying to do. Alejandro, never the supreme fighter, took a punch to the nose and stumbled backward, bumping into open drawers. The patroller pointed a stun gun at him.

Alisa leaped through the hatchway, yanking out her Etcher. The man started to turn, but not in time. She slammed the butt of the weapon down on his head and lunged for his stun gun. As he staggered under the blow, taking a second to recover, she snatched it out of his hand. She spun it toward him and fired.

The attack was invisible, but she felt the buzz of the energy currents in the air, especially at such close range. The man stiffened, his eyes rolling back in his head. He toppled to the deck, almost landing on Alejandro.

“You’re welcome,” Alisa blurted, and raced into the corridor again.

More thuds and bangs were coming from the crew quarters, and she winced when a blazer squealed from the same direction, but she kept going toward the cargo hold. A stun gun would do nothing against an android, and firing at a law enforcement officer with her Etcher was something she dared not contemplate.

“Leonidas? Mica?” she blurted over her comm as she raced onto the walkway. There was little point in whispering now.

Taking the stairs three at a time, she charged down to the cargo hold. She almost stumbled when she spotted the female patroller, now tied and gagged as she sat on the deck, propped against the bulkhead next to the airlock hatch. Abelardus leaned next to her, his arms once again crossed over his chest.

“That’s not what I asked you to do,” Alisa said, waving at the woman.

“I took the initiative to improve upon your suggestion.”

“It wasn’t so much a suggestion as an order.” She stepped toward the airlock as the sound of more blazer fire came from the direction of the crew cabins. “Mica? Leonidas? Are you done in there? Beck needs help.”

A wailing siren came from the other end of the airlock tube.

Footsteps rang out on the walkway above the cargo hold. Alisa spun, raising her Etcher. The android leaped over the railing with Beck chasing after him. The human patroller was not behind them, but Alisa barely had time to register that. Delta Five ran toward her, his emotionless expression giving no hint as to whether he meant to charge straight onto his ship or to grab her—or mow her over—along the way.

Alisa jumped to the side of the hatchway, bumping into Abelardus. The android raced up, and she pointed her Etcher at him, but hesitated, reminded again that this was a law enforcer, not a pirate or mafia thug.

The android did not look at her, instead bending to grab the female patroller. Beck had been several steps behind, but this gave him time to catch up. He launched himself at Delta Five’s back as he lifted the woman.

“Let them go,” Alisa yelled, but it was too late.

Beck’s armored form slammed into Delta Five. The android turned his back to protect the woman and also managed to brace himself with one hand on the airlock hatchway. Beck hit like a wrecking ball, but the android kept his feet. Delta Five twisted, kicking backward. The angle made it awkward, but he clipped Beck in the abdomen with his heel, enough to knock Beck away. Delta Five did not press the attack. He ran through the hatchway.

“Wait,” Alisa said, lifting a hand as Beck moved to follow. “If they’re running, let them go.”

“What about the cyborg and Mica?” Abelardus asked.

Alisa grabbed her comm unit. “Leonidas? Mica? Now would be a good time to return.”

They did not answer.

More footfalls sounded on the walkway. The human patroller, not the one Alisa had knocked out but the one that had been searching Leonidas’s cabin.

He saw them and lurched back toward the protective cover of the closed corridor. Alisa aimed the stun gun at him, but he had already disappeared from sight.

“Find cover,” she ordered Abelardus and Beck, expecting the man to lean out and fire at them any moment. She started toward the airlock chamber, but Beck waved for her to get behind him.

“I
am
the cover,” he said.

The patroller leaned around the corner and fired through the railing of the walkway as Alisa skittered behind Beck. Orange blazer bolts slammed into Beck’s chest plate.

Alisa tried to make herself tiny. She hated to cower behind someone else, but she had a better angle to aim at that corner from behind Beck than she would from within the airlock chamber. Besides, the android had gone that way. She didn’t want to leave her back exposed in case he set down his patroller and returned to the
Nomad
.

Beck fired at the patroller, using his built-in arm blazers.

“Wait,” Alisa said, patting his back. Fortunately, the man ducked back before being caught by a bolt. “We can’t
kill
these people. Abelardus?”

“Yes?” Abelardus said, sounding bored. He had taken a wide-legged stance, his arms bent and palms out, a strange-looking fighting position when he didn’t have his staff.

“Can you convince him of… something?”

The man leaned out, firing again. Blazer fire splashed off Beck’s armor, then shifted to streak toward Abelardus. It halted and bounced away before it reached him, ricocheting off an invisible barrier. Alisa leaned around Beck and fired the stun gun, hoping to get lucky. But they were short-range weapons, losing power and accuracy after more than a dozen meters. The man ducked back, unharmed.

“Like what?” Abelardus said.

“Anything. I don’t care. That Beck is too pretty for him to shoot. Whatever makes him drop his weapons and surrender.”

“It’s hard to reason with someone whose mind is amped up with adrenaline.”

The man leaned out once more, this time targeting Alisa. She ducked behind Beck again, but one blazer bolt screeched between his legs, slamming into the deck at her feet. She cursed, feeling like she was dancing on a hot stove, but kept herself from diving away from Beck where she would be even more vulnerable.

The alarm kept wailing on the ship behind her, and the sound of weapons fire erupted from somewhere in its depths.

“If I can’t shoot back, he’s going to keep doing that,” Beck said, taking another bolt to the chest plate.

Alisa leaned out, hoping to catch their enemy with the stun gun before he disappeared around the corner again.

Something slammed into the wall of the cargo hold near the main hatch. Nobody was over there, and it made Alisa jump. A yelp came from the patroller.

“Do you surrender?” Abelardus called up as the item that had struck the wall dropped to the floor. It was the patroller’s blazer pistol.

The man leaned out again, and Alisa fired, expecting him to have pulled out another deadly weapon. A knife flew from his hand, spinning toward Abelardus. This time, with more of his body visible, the stun charge caught him. The patroller stiffened and pitched against the far railing before dropping onto the walkway, one boot dangling over the edge.

“Make sure he’s disarmed, please, Beck,” Alisa said, patting him on the back. “And then find the one in sickbay and tie him up too.”

Beck jogged for the stairs, and Abelardus lowered his hands. He sniffed at the knife on the deck—it had hit his shield and dropped harmlessly down.

“How primitive,” he said.

“Yes, such a pain when the enemy doesn’t bring high-tech weaponry capable of truly ripping our hearts out.” Alisa dug out her comm unit again. “Leonidas, do you have a minute to talk?”

An explosion came from the other ship, and Alisa spun toward the airlock tube. Smoke wafted through it, obscuring everything at the other end.

“He may not be interested in teatime right now,” Abelardus said. “But if you want to talk,
I’m
always here for you.”

“Encouraging. Leonidas, if you hear me, can you get back over here? We want to escape without killing anyone.” Three suns, she hoped it wasn’t already too late for that. Thus far, her crimes had been somewhat open for interpretation under the letter of the law, but if her crew killed Alliance citizens… she would never find a way to explain that away.

“Mica?” she tried when Leonidas did not answer.

Alisa stepped into the airlock chamber, thinking of heading over to the other ship and trying to find her people.

Abelardus’s hand came down on her shoulder. “He doesn’t need your help.”

“Are you sure?” She shrugged his grip away and took another step, not appreciating being held back.

The smoke stirred at the other end of the tube, and she jumped back around the jamb, not sure whether to expect friend or foe.

“We’re coming,” came Leonidas’s voice over the comm—she also heard it in the tube.

“So I see,” she said as he came into view. He trotted into the cargo hold, waving at the hatch. “We programmed a disengage command from the other side. Close our hatch, and prepare to get us out of here.”

A wide-eyed Mica came through the tube after him, gripping her arm and wincing. Her sleeve was smoldering, but that didn’t keep her from glaring at Leonidas and asking, “What do you mean
we
?”

“Wait up,” Beck called, running down the stairs with one of the patrollers over his shoulder. He dragged the other one behind him, the man’s butt and boots bouncing as he thumped down the treads.

Alisa grimaced. The two men were still alive, but they would not appreciate the bruises they would wake up with.

Leonidas ran to Beck and grabbed the man on the deck. He led the way through the airlock tube, tossing the figure into the smoke, presumably into the safety of his own ship. Beck did the same with the other one, and they both sprinted back into the
Nomad’s
hold.

Mica hit the control panel to lock the airlock hatches as soon as Leonidas slammed them shut.

“You’re not flying yet?” Leonidas asked, looking at Alisa.

Alisa thought of several retorts, but she had no idea how long the android and his crew would be distracted. It was a foregone conclusion that Delta Five had already sent out a warning about her freighter. If he had identified her and her crew, he must know about its true identity too.

She ran up the stairs. Leonidas was right. It was time to put some distance between them and the patrol ship.

“Captain?” Alejandro asked, sticking his head out of sickbay as she passed. “Are we going to be able to make it down to the planet?”

“I hope so,” she said, not slowing down for a longer conversation. “But we can count on the Alliance knowing we’re coming.”