Cleon Moon (31 page)

“The mafia ship,” Beck yelled, his voice sounding distant even though he was flattened to the ground right beside her.

Alisa turned her head, trying to peer past Leonidas’s shoulder. Thick gray smoke rolled over her group, and she could barely make out Mica and Leblanc crouching against the hull of the charger. Their ship was still intact. Good.

Leonidas sprang to his feet, yelling, “In, in, now.”

Alisa pushed herself to her knees, coughing as smoke rolled down her throat. Had the ship next to them been hit? No, it was the one two berths down—the transport that had been taking off. Now, it lay flattened to the ground, its hull peeled open from above like flower petals.

“Hurry,” Leonidas said, picking Alisa up as if she were a doll and setting her on her feet next to the hatchway. “They may be targeting indiscriminately.”

The hulking body of one of Leblanc’s war-freighters flew away, but it banked, as if to come back to finish the job.

A scream of pain came from the blown-up ship. There were people still alive in there.

Beck jumped to his feet, but instead of running into the charger, as a sane man would, he sprinted around the next craft and raced toward the downed one.

“Beck,” Alisa yelled, taking a step after him, though she knew she had to get her team out of here.

“I’ll get him,” Leonidas growled, lifting her again and plopping her through the hatchway of their ship.

Mica and Abelardus already waited inside. Abelardus grabbed Alisa, as if he thought she might turn around and run out. She was tempted. They hadn’t come all this way to rescue Beck only to let him get killed doing something idiotic.

“He’s not still trying to kidnap that man, is he?” Mica yelled.

Alisa could only shake her head and grab Leblanc’s arm. That big freighter was coming in for another pass, its weapons hot. She didn’t know where all of the mafia fighters had gone, but they weren’t there to intercept.

“Chef,” she said, “do you still have that earstar? Can you call off your men? At least until we’re out of the compound?”

Leblanc looked dazed, his gaze locked to the rooftop where his crashed ship smoldered. Maybe that Garcia he had been talking to had been a good friend.

Alisa shook his arm. She was sympathetic, but who knew what his people were targeting now? Did they even know he was still alive down here? Or did they think he had been on the ship that crashed? They could be on some revenge mission.

“Leblanc, please,” Alisa urged, on the verge of searching his pockets for the comm device so she could send the command herself.

He tore his gaze from the rooftop. “Yes, yes, of course.” He snatched the soot-covered earstar out of his pocket. “This is Leblanc. Who’s in command up there? Hold your fire until we get out. Do you hear?”

If they heard, it was too late. The freighter unloaded at least four kinds of weapons into the landing area, all aimed at the mafia transport.

Alisa gripped the jamb of the hatchway, staring in horror, not even wincing as the sound of exploding rounds and screeching weapons fire pummeled her ears.

“Leonidas?” she croaked. “Beck?”

Three suns, had they been on that ship? Even combat armor wouldn’t save a man from that assault.

She lifted a foot to step out as the freighter flew away, but Abelardus and Mica both grabbed her.

“We need our pilot,” Mica said. “Get us out of here, Captain, or we could all end up like that.”

Alisa tried to shrug out of their grips, but they would not let her leave the ship.

“We need to check and see if—”

Leonidas ran into view with a man slung over each of his broad shoulders. One was Beck, his naked bottom to the skies, and the other wore civilian garb. Leonidas raced to the hatchway, not slowed by his burden, and leaped into the ship.

“We’re not in the air yet?” he asked Alisa, dumping the men from his shoulders. He was none-too-gentle with Beck.

Alisa wanted to hug him, but she had no idea if that freighter would be back to raze every ship on the pad. Was anyone listening to Leblanc’s orders? He was buckling himself into a seat, trying again to reach someone.

“Getting there.” Alisa slapped Leonidas on the arm and raced for the pilot’s seat.

Abelardus pulled the hatch shut. A groan came from the men heaped on the floor. Alisa did not know if it was Beck or his prisoner. With her hands flying over the controls, she did not have time to look.

Smoke thickened the air outside so much that she could barely see. She had to rely on the sensors as they lifted off the pad. Fortunately, the modern charger had far better ones than the
Nomad
. Unfortunately, they showed countless ships clogging the air above the city. They were still fighting, mafia versus Leblanc’s people. Did either side have any idea if their employers were even alive?

The smoke lessened as Alisa took them over the rooftop, avoiding the crashed freighter but staying low, hoping not to attract notice. Maybe nobody would care about the bland off-white ship slinking away. It wasn’t as if the charger could easily be identified as belonging to Leblanc or the White Dragon people.

The rear cameras showed the armadas of ships swooping and banking, firing with abandon. Alisa wondered what kind of chef Leblanc was that he inspired such loyalty in his people, that they would go to these lengths to rescue him. Too bad they didn’t know that he no longer needed rescuing.

Alisa flew over a main arterial as she headed for the dome entrance where they had been let in. Nobody opened fire on the charger as she left the scene of the battle, and she relaxed an iota. Leonidas settled into the seat next to hers, tugging off his helmet.

The exit to the dome came into view, and Alisa groaned. The forcefield stretched across it, cutting off their escape route.

Chapter 18

“What are the odds that offering them drugs will open the door for us again?” Alisa asked, activating the comm.

“Poor.” Leonidas scraped his fingers through his hair and glanced back. “Any idea how your people got in here, Leblanc?”

“No, sir,” the chef said, leaning forward in his seat.

The sir surprised Alisa, especially coming from the corporate head of a giant restaurant business, and she wondered if he had some military service in his background. No time to ask now.

“Greetings, air traffic controller,” Alisa said over the comm. “This is Captain Andromeda again. We were unable to make arrangements for a wholesaling deal, and we’d like to leave the dome now.”

Mica snorted from the seat behind Leonidas. Abelardus had been left in the back—or had chosen to stay in the back—standing over the mafia man, who seemed to be unconscious. Beck was also standing over him, a fist on his hip, as if he had something to say and was annoyed the man wasn’t awake to hear it.

If there was anyone in the air-traffic control tower, the person did not answer Alisa’s message. She eyed the weapons panel as she guided them in circles in front of the forcefield. Would shooting at it do anything? The next time she came around, she tapped the weapons. A blazer bolt streaked out, landing in the center of the forcefield. It absorbed the energy with bland indifference.

“That’s not going to work,” Mica said. “We’ll have to find the air-traffic control tower, blow it up, and hope the forcefield generator is inside.” She pointed between the seats. “That’s probably it there.”

“Blow it up?” Alisa banked, taking them in another circle. “This is a city. Those are normal people down there, not imperial soldiers.”

Leonidas gave her a flat look and reached for the comm.

“Think they’ll be more likely to respond to a cyborg?” Alisa asked.

“I’m not comming the tower.”

“Uh oh,” Alisa said, noticing a change in the battle taking place over the Comet Compound. Several ships were veering away and heading in the charger’s direction. “Leblanc? Those look like food freighters.”

Leblanc waved his stolen earstar. “I got through to Captain Varesh. They’re coming to protect us.”

“I’d rather they came to open the door.”

Not surprisingly, at least a dozen of the mafia ships took off after the freighters. Alisa groaned. She had preferred it when nobody had been noticing them. She had a feeling she was going to have to do more than fly in circles shortly.

“Just hit the traffic tower,” Mica said. “The city is already in ruins. Look at all the smoking buildings. What does it matter now?”

Alisa admitted that having a war going on in the airspace over a city was not healthy for its citizens. But she did not need to add to their problems.

“We’re not going to shoot at non-mafia civilians,” she said.

“I bet they cleared out of the tower when this started. Wouldn’t you have? Especially if you were the idiot who let all these angry enemy ships inside?”

Alisa hesitated, tempted by the logic.

“This is Solstice,” the woman’s voice came over the comm, and Alisa looked at it incredulously. “What can I do for you, Colonel?”

“You have her
private
comm code?” Alisa whispered, unable to believe she had answered personally and also unable to believe Leonidas was comming her. What could she do to help from thirty miles away?

“We’re trapped in the city with the forcefield up,” Leonidas said. “Can you do anything to lower it? The odds of us returning your ship to you are poor if we can’t escape.”

Alisa ground her teeth. She
hated
the idea of asking that woman for help. Even though they needed it, she hoped Solstice did not have the power to provide it. It wasn’t as if she would have a remote control to some other mafia family’s dome, right?

“Which means the odds of
you
returning would be poor, too, I imagine,” Solstice said. “That would distress me far more than losing a ship, Colonel.”

Mica made a gagging noise.

Alisa might have done the same, but those two armadas of ships were drawing closer, and she had to concentrate on flying. She broke away from her circling pattern, eyeing that control tower again, and she headed along the dome away from the forcefield. The freighters turned to follow her. Or were they trying to cut her off? No, she realized, as a big one moved to flank her. They were protecting her.

“Captain Varesh,” Leblanc said from the back seat. “How did you get in before? We need to get out before those mafia ships realize we have one of their leaders.”

Something he didn’t need to announce over an unsecured channel…

“We bribed someone for a code, Chef,” came the response over the earstar. “It’s not working anymore. Looks like they shut down all access in and out of the city.”

Weapons fire slammed into the interior wall of the dome less than a hundred feet ahead of the charger. Alisa hit the button to raise the shields. Thanks to Leblanc’s buddies, the mafia ships were now firing at
them
too.

“What if we land, rent some bikes, and ride back?” Abelardus said. “I’d rather deal with dinosaurs than the mafia.”

Leonidas glanced back at him. “We should return the ship we borrowed if possible.”

Alisa kept herself from glaring at him. Barely. It wasn’t
his
fault that Solstice had taken a fancy to him, and he was saying the honorable thing, not the enamored thing. Technically, Alisa agreed with it. She would not ditch a ship she had borrowed, not unless it was a last resort, no matter who the owner was.

“I’ll wake up my hacker and see what she can do, Colonel,” Solstice said over the comm.

“I’ll hold my breath waiting for magic,” Mica muttered.

“Pardon?” Solstice asked.

“The crew appreciates your help,” Leonidas said.

“Who knew the cyborg would be the diplomat here?” Abelardus said from the back.

Blazer fire slipped past the freighter attempting to guard them and kissed the charger’s shields. More mafia ships seemed to take to the air with every passing minute. Alisa had a feeling the daring rescue Leblanc’s people had planned was going to end in an ugly way if someone couldn’t lower that forcefield. Their charger might meet an ugly end, too, if she relied upon the food freighters to protect her. As it was, she could barely see around them to figure out what threats were coming.

Alisa spotted a surround-flow holo option on the control panel and flicked it on. The display wrapped around her head, showing her the three-dimensional layout in all directions with the charger at the center. Ships and anything else moving were highlighted, showing up more brightly than the contours of the dome and the city lying below, and the computer quickly sorted out enemies and non-aggressors, displaying the former in red and the latter in blue. The amount of red floating in the air around Alisa was daunting. Nonetheless, she saw the field better now and started flying more defensively instead of simply letting the freighters try to protect her charger from fire using their bulk. She swept down toward the streets, zipping between buildings, hoping the mafia would be reluctant to shoot up their own city.

“Beck,” Alisa called back without looking, “is your new friend awake yet?”

“No.”

“How about finding a first-aid kit and stabbing him with something to rouse him? I can’t help but feel that we shouldn’t be getting shot at by mafia ships when we have the mafia boss aboard. That
is
who we have, isn’t it? You didn’t just pluck up a random passenger, right?” She glanced at Leonidas.

“He’s the brother I wanted to kidnap, yes,” Beck said. “Medric. A lot of the others were already dead or buried under a collapsed deck. Medric was injured and needs medical attention too.”

“I thought you were torturing him,” Mica said.

“I just want his people to stop hunting me.”

“He’s going to wake up airsick and puking if Alisa keeps flying like that.” Mica groaned, perhaps on the verge of airsickness herself.

No less than eight mafia fighters streaked after them, following the charger as Alisa dove through streets that were empty, either because of the hour or because of the battle raging overhead. She flew between buildings and around corners, trying to make sure their enemies were as likely to hit friendly targets as they were to hit her if they fired.