Arkadian Skies: Fallen Empire, Book 6 (8 page)

“What does a conviction matter if I’m standing next to you and Leonidas when the police launch a grenade at you?”

“This is the Alliance, not the empire,” Alisa repeated, hoping she didn’t sound delusional. “The police should arrest us, not greet us with grenades.”

“
Everyone
greets your cyborg with grenades.”

Alisa wanted to reject that notion, but he
did
make people twitchy when he appeared in that red armor.

Mica, muttering under her breath, walked out, leaving her netdisc open. Alisa leaned over and returned it to displaying the aerial coverage of the search drones. There were two craft near the junkyard now.

She flicked the comm to announce ship-wide, “Pull up the flashlights on your multitools or earstars. We’re going to power down for a while so we fit in with the junk in the junkyard.”

“Don’t we already fit in with the junkyard junk?” Beck hollered, his voice floating up from the mess hall.

Alisa ignored him, figuring he was grumpy over having the power to the mess hall shut down. He had a portable grill. Let him use that. How perfect did his preparation space need to be when he was using a saliva-slick whisk?

After turning off the power, leaving only a handful of emergency lights glowing to mark the hatchways and walkways, Alisa returned to her netdisc. It wouldn’t need to be charged for a while, so she could continue her research.

But she had already perused as much about Gutteridge as she wished to. She would warn Leonidas to watch for a trap when he and Alejandro went out. What more could she do? Besides be ready to fly in and pick them up in a hurry if necessary?

She scanned the news, looking for mentions of Starseers. There were a lot of recent reports, but when she checked them, they proved to be nothing more than speculation about linking natural disasters with their nefarious ways. The temple attack wasn’t mentioned anywhere, so she assumed the military had kept it—and their failure—a secret. A search for Starseers combined with children brought up nothing.

“So glad I have sys-net access again,” Alisa muttered. “It’s
so
useful.”

The netdisc beeped, showing her a bunch of her serialized vid dramas downloading in the background. She snorted. At least she would have something to watch while Alejandro was gone.

With nothing else to do, she found herself pulling up the old comm calls that had come in from the
Storm Fury
while the
Nomad
had been near Alcyone Station. She could use them to contact Tomich’s ship if she wished. Could she find out for Leonidas if Admiral Tiang was still aboard? And if so, could she think of a way to convince the doctor to come down for a visit and perhaps a surgery? Without kidnapping being required? There had to be a way to barter, bribe, or blackmail him—crimes perhaps, but lesser crimes than kidnapping—so he would want to do the surgery.

“Later,” she told herself. She dared not contact the Alliance before her team went to the hospital, lest she risk tipping someone off and making their journey more difficult.

On the other hand, if she waited… and if they tipped off the authorities on their own, she might have to fly in and rescue them, which would be followed by her streaking away from Arkadius as quickly as possible, likely with the authorities firing up her butt along the way. There would be no chance to talk to Tomich or the admiral then.

If she contacted Tomich now, maybe she could route the message through a few communications stations on the planet to make it hard for the
Storm Fury
to pinpoint the origin of the call.

If she
did
comm Tomich, would he be any help? She had betrayed him, in a manner of speaking, the last time they had met. But he had betrayed her, too, during what should have been an amiable dinner party. Didn’t that make them even? Maybe he would hold a professional but not a personal grudge against her.

And she had another reason to get in contact. Someone should warn the Alliance about the resurgence of this group of Starseers—the
chasadski
, Abelardus had called them—who apparently wanted to rule over the entire system. If she informed Tomich that they were the ones with the Staff of Lore, maybe he could tell his superiors, and the Alliance would stop putting effort into finding her ship. What was there left here on the
Nomad
for them to find? Leonidas had to be a minor problem for them, compared to that staff.

Not that Tomich would necessarily believe her. Still, he would have to check up on the lead, wouldn’t he? It could split their resources and result in fewer ships hunting for the
Nomad
.

Though Alisa did not know if it was wise, she found a couple of nodes she could relay a message through, and she initiated a call. She wouldn’t talk for long.

“
Storm Fury
, this is Lieutenant Park,” a comm officer soon said.

“I have information on a Starseer artifact,” Alisa said without identifying herself. “I need to talk to Commander Tomich.”

“Who’s calling, please? The commander doesn’t take comms from anonymous sources.”

“No? Tell him he wasn’t nearly that uppity when he commanded the Star Warriors,” Alisa said, naming their old squadron.

Silence fell after that. Alisa did not know if the lieutenant was checking on Tomich to see if he wanted to take the call or if she was simply referring the matter to some higher-ranking officer. Alisa well remembered being a lieutenant and being nervous at the idea of addressing a ship commander directly. Even if she had been on the irreverent side, she’d known better than to deliberately vex her superior officers with trivial matters.

A beep sounded, followed by, “I’m not uppity, Marchenko. I’m busy hunting for stolen relics that I was, according to my superiors, responsible for losing.”

“You’re doing that from the orbit of Arkadius?” Alisa asked, relieved to hear his voice and to also hear that it didn’t sound any more exasperated with her than usual.

“Maybe I got a tip that
you’d
be here.”

Alisa knew that wasn’t true, since she hadn’t known she would be coming this way until Durant had shown up on her cargo ramp, but she wondered if the Alliance already knew about the
chasadski
and had also guessed that they might visit the temple here.

“The staff isn’t on my ship anymore,” she said, just in case he would believe her.

“Oh? Did your Starseer leave with it, perhaps?”

“It was stolen by another group of Starseers. That’s what I commed about, to warn you. This may be a matter of galactic security.”

“That’s why you risked comming me, eh? You decided to risk having your location traced by my comm officer just to give me a tip.”

Alisa wondered if that was a warning that the lieutenant was doing exactly that right now—and that Tomich would be obligated to send a team to find her if he discovered the
Nomad’s
location. Yes, she would definitely keep this short.

“I’m sending you the image of the man who walked away with the staff,” Alisa said, tapping through her files as she spoke. She wouldn’t mention the possibility that the man was her father. “You may want to research him. He’s running with a group of Starseers called the
chasadski
. Pariahs. Apparently, they want to finish what their ancestors started centuries ago.”

“Taking over the system?”

“Just so. This man and the staff were last seen on Cleon Moon.”

“I’m aware that the staff was there,” Tomich said.

The Alliance must have an intelligence team trying to track down the artifact. He probably
had
gotten a severe reprimand for losing it. Alisa regretted that she’d caused him trouble and regretted even more that she was wrapped up in all of this. Sometimes, it was all she could do not to curl up on the deck and cry that she wanted to go home, to a home and people who no longer existed.

“And you believe it’s here on Arkadius now?” she made herself ask. She didn’t have much time and still needed to broach her main reason for contacting him.

“Don’t you?” Tomich said.

“We don’t have any proof.”

“Something brought you here.”

“The warmth and cheer we hoped to experience at the hands of the planet patrol,” she said, having no intention of going into detail on Durant and Jelena.

“Is that what caused your brute to rip a leg off an android patroller? The willful destruction of personal and corporate property is a crime here, you know.”

Alisa bristled at hearing Leonidas called a brute, especially when he had been doing her bidding and protecting her ship, but she worried about being traced and made herself stick to the script.

“We’re open to paying fines. Listen, Tomich. I’ve given you some information. Would you be willing to give me some information in exchange? It’s nothing—” Alisa kept herself from saying that it was nothing that would get him in trouble or nothing that would hurt anyone, because she couldn’t promise any of that. “Nothing major,” she said.

“The validity of your information is in doubt,” Tomich said. “Also, it wasn’t requested.”

“Tomich,” she said softly, “I don’t want that weapon in the hands of Starseers, especially Starseers with megalomaniacal tendencies. I care what happens to the system.”

He sighed. “What do you want, Marchenko?”

“Just to know if Admiral Tiang is still aboard your ship.”

“Why?” he asked suspiciously.

“He has expertise that one of my crew members is in need of.”

“Your cyborg.”

“He’s not
my
cyborg. But he’s a friend.”

“I’ll bet.”

Alisa clenched her teeth to keep from making a retort.

“Admiral Tiang’s whereabouts are classified,” Tomich said.

“Does that mean he’s
not
aboard your ship anymore?”

“Alisa,” he said, sighing again, a tired-sounding sigh this time. “Please don’t do anything to make matters worse. You’re already… in trouble. I shouldn’t be talking to you. Distance yourself from those imperial loyalists so you won’t be caught in the cross fire.”

She grimaced. Did that mean that someone was right now gunning for Leonidas and Alejandro? Oh, she knew the Alliance probably still wanted Leonidas for his supposed knowledge of the prince’s whereabouts, but had that escalated into something else? Was he designated shoot-on-sight? If so, Mica’s prediction about grenades might have been more accurate than she realized.

“Is there any information you would consider a fair trade for the location of the admiral?” Alisa asked. “We just want to talk to him.”

And force him to perform a surgery…

“He’s on leave, and he’s not coming back to my ship afterward. I couldn’t give you his whereabouts even if I wanted to. I can’t put him in harm’s way.”

“Even if I—”

“You want to end this transmission now, Marchenko. Trust me.”

She opened her mouth, not sure whether she meant to argue further for her cause or simply say goodbye.

“Don’t comm again,” Tomich said.

The line closed.

Alisa leaned back in her chair, trying not to feel stung. What had she expected? Even though she did not wish it, they were on different sides now. Still, she had a feeling he had kept her from staying on long enough for his lieutenant to complete the trace.

“On leave, huh?”

Alisa typed the admiral’s name into her netdisc search, wondering if he might have family on the planet. Why would he take leave right now if not for something important? Between the wrap-up in the aftermath of the war, the dimension-shifting space station, and the reemergence of the powerful Starseer artifact, it was a busy time for the Alliance military. She couldn’t imagine that Headquarters was letting many people go off on tropical vacations for rest and relaxation.

She found articles on the admiral from the time period when he had first defected and joined the Alliance. It had been considered a great coup to get him. She swiped through several stories listing his accolades and research expertise, hoping for mentions of family members.

Finally, in the twentieth article she looked at, she found one with a photo of him arm-in-arm with a woman about his age. His wife, it said, and the article also mentioned an only daughter. Alisa looked up both. The wife had passed away three years earlier, during an imperial attack on Outer Trason, the first planet officially taken over by the Alliance. In its attempt to get it back, the imperials had been responsible for the bombings of several military facilities, including a space station in orbit, one where his wife, a doctor, had been working. She had been killed, along with hundreds of others.

“That might explain his willingness to defect,” Alisa said.

But it didn’t explain his shore leave on Arkadius. She looked up the daughter, weeding through several women with the same name to come up with Dr. Suyin Tiang who lived in…

Alisa sat upright with a lurch. Laikagrad Vostok. That was the suburb they had flown over along the coast, less than forty miles from here. She ran a few double-checks to make sure that was, indeed, the Suyin who was the admiral’s daughter. Yes, and there was an announcement for an engagement and a wedding too. A wedding for—Alisa checked the local date—three days from now.

“Bet he’s coming down to attend his only daughter’s wedding.”

Alisa leaned back in her seat. Interesting, but what could she do with the information? Tell Leonidas, so he could plan a kidnapping? Surely, kidnapping the admiral right before his daughter’s wedding wouldn’t be a tactful way to get his help. He might be less crabby if the kidnapping happened
after
the wedding, but probably not significantly so. What if Alisa managed to contact him through the daughter’s publicly listed office information? It looked like Suyin worked at Tolstoy University, the campus in the same suburb where she lived. Could Alisa finagle a deal on Leonidas’s behalf? But what could she offer that might entice a man of power who presumably had everything he needed?

Out of curiosity, she looked up the daughter’s position at the university, wondering if she might have followed in her father’s footsteps. Maybe Alisa could find some kinship with another woman and have an easier time convincing her to help with Leonidas. What woman wouldn’t be charmed by his handsome and noble self? So what if he’d been—and still was—loyal to the empire…