Jelena curled her upper lip.
“I’m surprised she isn’t keeping you all in there now,” Alisa added. If Abelardus knew there was trouble, the rest of the Starseers must also by now.
“I escaped,” Jelena said. “To check on you!”
“Thoughtful.” Alisa jammed her feet into her boots.
“And to help.”
“Very thoughtful.” She grabbed her helmet and strode for the hatchway. A distant clang sounded. Their delivery truck driver knocking on the hatch?
“I’ll come with you.”
“You can come with me as far as the mess hall.” Where she would deposit Jelena firmly in the rec room and hope Westfall, indeed, had plans to keep the children safe. She felt guilty foisting her daughter off on someone else, but Jelena had been so independent since she returned that it seemed normal rather than strange. “Want a ride along the way?” Alisa asked, trying to head off the objection that appeared to be forthcoming. “I’m extra strong in my armor.”
“Really?”
Alisa crouched and waved to her back. “Grab on.”
Jelena slung her arms around Alisa’s neck and wrapped her legs around her waist. Though she was in a hurry, Alisa did a few jumps—careful not to hit her head on the ceiling—and then sprinted to the mess hall at top speed. This resulted in a peal of laughter from Jelena, one that secretly delighted her.
Westfall stood in the mess hall by the rec room hatchway, her arms folded over her chest, and one foot tapping on the deck. She frowned when Alisa ran into the room.
Alisa refused to look sheepish. She deposited her load and said, “I’d appreciate it if you watched my daughter. We’ll try to keep the trouble to a minimum.”
“I was watching her. She ran away.”
“No, I sneaked away,” Jelena said.
“She needs more discipline from her mother,” Westfall said.
“We’ll work on it when life returns to normal,” Alisa said.
“Alisa?” Abelardus called up from the cargo hold. “We’re ready to deal with our guests.”
“Stay with Lady Westfall,” Alisa told Jelena. “No more sneaking today, all right? But if you can help from within the rec room, I’d be more than happy to have that assistance.”
“Oh? Lady Westfall, what can we do to help?” Jelena ran past her and into the rec room, where the other children waited at the game table, watching the exchange curiously.
“We’ll monitor from in here.” Westfall headed inside and locked the hatch.
Good.
Alisa jogged into the cargo hold to find the hatch still shut and Abelardus and Beck standing next to the controls. Beck wore his full armor and had a rifle slung across his chest. Abelardus had his staff. If they were going to fight with twenty armored soldiers, they would be drastically outmatched, but Alisa allowed herself a smidgen of hope when she spotted Young-hee, Martya, and Nyarai in the shadows under the walkway.
“Groceries instead of guns?” Alisa asked them as she came down the stairs.
“We’ll do our best,” Young-hee said. “I’ve touched the minds of a few of them. Someone promised them a fight, and they seem eager for it.”
“Can you make them eager to deliver cabbages instead?”
“They’re less excited by that prospect. It goes against their orders and their natural tendencies.”
“What are their orders? Can you tell?”
“They’re here for Tiang,” Abelardus said.
Ugh. Alisa hadn’t even seen Tiang all day. As far as she knew, he was still locked in his mad scientist lab.
“It’s hard to convince people to do things they completely don’t want to do.”
“But not impossible, right?” Alisa asked. “I’ve seen Stanislav make weapons officers fire on their fellow ships.” Stanislav who was drugged and stuck in an Alliance brig at the moment. She should have been making plans to rescue him instead of waiting for something to come of her messages to Tomich.
“He’s powerful,” Young-hee said.
“You are too. I’ve seen you hurl your own people around.” Alisa gripped her shoulder lightly, careful of the strength from her armor, and smiled at the others. “I know you can do this.”
“We’ll try.”
“Let them know there are cookies available to delivery people who bring in our goods without causing any trouble,” Alisa said. “Oh, and just try to target whoever is in charge. If they’re soldiers, they won’t do anything without their squadron sergeant or whoever came along giving the order.”
Young-hee blinked. “That’s a good point. And obvious. I hadn’t thought of it.”
“Good. Try that. And the cookies.” Alisa jogged over to join the men. “Beck, we have cookies, right?”
“If Leonidas didn’t eat what was in the jar this morning.”
“There are eight children on the Nomad right now, and you’re automatically blaming him for missing cookies?” Alisa peered at the monitor to find the grocery truck backed up the Nomad’s ramp, its large rear door not yet rolled up. Crates full of fruits and vegetables were painted on that door. So innocuous looking, as was the man in overalls standing next to the exterior comm panel, frowning as he waited for a response. He tried knocking again.
“Leonidas has a bigger mouth than any of those children,” Beck said. “Bigger everything.”
“He is a big man,” she agreed.
“If that was a comment about sexual anatomy, I didn’t need to know that information.”
“You two have bled and fought together. I thought you already knew everything about each other’s anatomy.” Alisa reached for the comm panel.
“We didn’t do it naked,” Beck muttered.
“This is Captain Marchenko,” she said to the person standing outside. “Can I help you?”
“We’ve got your order,” the man said, sounding exasperated.
“Excellent! Please roll up the door of your truck, and we’ll get our cargo hold loading equipment ready to receive you.”
“We need you to open your hatch.”
“Which we’ll happily do as soon as you open your truck and we can see the goods.” She looked to Beck. “Right?”
“Happily,” he agreed.
“This is a mafia-run city, after all,” Alisa said. “We figure it’s wise to see our cargo before inviting people into our ship.”
The man tapped a green earstar and muttered something too softly for the comm to pick it up. He listened for a moment, then raised his voice.
“If you don’t want your food delivery, we can find someone else who does,” he said.
“Of course we want it,” Beck said, rushing to speak before Alisa could. “It’s in there, right?” he whispered to Abelardus.
“Under the soldiers, yes,” Abelardus whispered back.
“They better not be crushing my peppers and star pods with their boots.”
“Is there some reason you can’t open the door and show us the goods?” Alisa asked innocently. “It should only take a moment, and then I’ll be happy to open our hatch.”
“Fine, fine,” the man snapped, then turned away from the camera to mutter again.
Long seconds passed.
“Are they doing something crafty?” Alisa asked Abelardus.
“Hiding.”
“Craftily?”
“No, but well enough that we won’t be able to see—”
On the video display, the truck door rolled up. Crates of fruit sat next to boxes of fresh meat and piles of potatoes and cabbages. Alisa squinted but couldn’t see any soldiers.
“They’re there,” Abelardus said.
“Open your hatch,” the man outside said. “If there are any further delays, I’ll be forced to charge you another delivery fee.”
“Another? There was a first one?”
“There were a first three. As you pointed out, this is a mafia-run moon. We deal with taxes, you know.”
“Yes, I’ve met some of the tax collectors.” Alisa thought s
he caught movement in the very back of the van behind that potato pile. Was that the gleam of a helmet? At least she had delayed the inevitable. She hoped Leonidas and Mica were on their way back. “Opening the hatch now,” she told the man and closed the channel. “Young-hee? Have you got the sergeant picked out?”
“I believe so. Ready.”
Beck stopped Alisa before she could reach for the hatch controls. “I’ll do it. Why don’t you and Abelardus take cover behind the stairs?”
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to hide while you take the brunt of the fire if the mind manipulation doesn’t work.”
“Yeah, it is.” Beck waved toward the interior of the ship. “Your little girl is up there.”
Alisa hesitated, wanting to point out that since she had combat armor now, she shouldn’t be hiding, but if trouble rolled through the hatch along with that truck, she could shoot well enough from behind cover.
“Thanks, Beck.” She clapped him on the shoulder and jogged for the stairs. She waved for the Starseer women to gather behind them too.
Abelardus stayed with Beck, who shrugged and hit the controls.
The hatch thunked open, and Alisa tensed, expecting the soldiers to stream out immediately. Instead, the truck backed farther up the ramp, clearing the top of the hatchway by a foot. It rolled into the cargo hold, and the chickens, which heretofore had not been making a fuss, erupted in a group protest.
At first, there wasn’t any movement in the back of the truck, aside from a single potato that rolled from the top of the pile to the bottom. Then someone spoke.
“You heard me,” a man said from behind the food crates. “Get this cargo unloaded.”
“Er, Sergeant?”
“I said do it.” A soldier in green Alliance combat armor came into view, a rifle hanging from a strap across his chest. But his hands were full of bumpy sacks of root vegetables, not weapons.
“The others are confused,” Young-hee said. “We’re working on soothing them, making them believe their sergeant didn’t crack his head on the casks of whiskey. Westfall and the others are helping.”
The sergeant jumped down from the truck, his movements mechanical, less fluid than those of an android. He walked the sacks over to where other food crates were fastened in the cargo hold. Soon, a few more men came out, carrying sacks or boxes. One operated a hand tractor and moved the potatoes en masse.
“It’s working,” Alisa breathed, hardly able to believe it. The men acted more like automatons than human beings, and seeing people’s minds manipulated always made her uneasy, but in this case, if it would save lives, who was she to complain?
Yes, have faith in my people, Young-hee spoke into her mind. By the way, that sergeant is expecting cookies.
I’ll hand deliver them personally if all that food makes it to a safe harbor.
Alisa watched with delight as the men continued to move crates. The chickens clucked cheerfully, too, perhaps smelling some fresh corn.
Next to Alisa, sweat gleamed on Young-hee’s forehead, and the other women wore expressions of utter concentration. Alisa had the sense that it wouldn’t take much for things to unravel, and she silently urged the soldiers to hurry with the unloading.
She activated the comm inside of her helmet. “Admiral Tiang? Are you in your cabin?”
Several seconds passed, along with a thud and a grunt, before he replied, “Yes, Captain.”
“Your people are here to pick you up, just in case you want to go with them.” She didn’t want to lose him, but she also knew these soldiers would eventually drive outside of the Starseers’ influence and realize that they hadn’t accomplished their mission.
“Go? I’m in the middle of a crucial step. Captain, I’m so close. Tell that Admiral Agosti that I’ll be happy to join him as soon as I’ve perfected my experiment.”
“They’re almost done, Captain,” Beck said, his voice coming over her comm. He was whispering, too, dumbfounded as he watched the armored soldiers delivering his vegetables.
“I see that,” Alisa said. “You’ll have to thank our Starseers with a special meal tonight.”
“I’ll be preparing about three hundred special meals tonight. Not expecting to get any sleep.”
“Well make it three hundred and ten, eh?”
He snorted. “Might as well. I—”
A shadow fell across the cargo ramp, and Alisa winced, imagining some of Solstice’s law enforcers zooming in at an inopportune time. But whatever made the shadow did not land, at least not in sight. The soldiers continued offloading the truck until a clunk sounded above the cargo hold. Alisa frowned up at the ceiling. Had something struck them?
It’s Leonidas and Mica, Abelardus told her. There were no docking slots open, so Bravo Six landed the shuttle on the roof.
“Oh,” she said. Of course.
Alisa turned on her comm, intending to tell them that they did not need to charge to the rescue, but a clang came from the cargo ramp as Leonidas landed on it. He was in full combat armor with his biggest rifle in his hands. All of the Alliance soldiers swung in his direction.
Problem, Abelardus said into her mind as Alisa said, “Stay out there, Leonidas.”
But seeing him broke the spell. Shouts filled the cargo hold, and the soldiers dropped what they were carrying and snatched up their rifles.
“Run, Leonidas,” Alisa said. “The Starseers are handling—”
The squeal of blazer fire cut her off as all the soldiers opened up at once. Some stood their ground and fired, and others ran for cover behind the grocery truck. Most of them shot at Leonidas, but a few swung rifles toward Alisa too. The spell was definitely broken.
“Get back,” Alisa shouted to Young-hee and the others as she lunged out from behind the stairs. She wanted the soldiers aiming for her, not the Starseers. She didn’t know if the women could all make protective barriers the way Abelardus could.
Blazer fire slammed into her shoulder, and she abruptly stopped worrying about anything else except staying alive. Leonidas charged into the cargo hold, shooting at the men he could target without risking catching anyone else in the crossfire. Others, he bowled into, using his sheer power to knock them out of the way. Blazer fire tagged his armor, bouncing off, for now.
Alisa fired at those targeting her, but she did not truly want to hurt anyone, especially not Alliance soldiers. “Abelardus,” she yelled. “This would be a good time for mind play.”
It’s always a good time, he told her, and a second later, three armored soldiers flew through the hold and slammed into one of the bulkheads.
“Find the admiral,” the sergeant yelled. He ran toward the stairs—and Alisa.
She fired at his chest piece, then flung herself into a roll to avoid his fire. A crimson beam bounced off the staircase railing. Fortunately, Young-hee and the others had moved into a corner, behind some of the freshly deposited food crates. They were safe, for the moment.
As Alisa jumped to her feet, whirling to fire at the sergeant again, he growled and sprayed blazer bolts in her direction. The armor made her fast, but his made him fast too. Until his rifle was torn from his hands by a mental attack. It flew up and landed atop the food truck. He paused, gaping toward it, and Alisa took advantage. She sprang at him, rotating and slamming a side kick into his chest.
He flew back, as if a battering ram had struck him rather than a boot, and smashed into the side of the grocery truck. He left a dent as he slid down it. Unfortunately, the blow did not deter him for long. He lifted his arm to fire at Alisa with his built-in blazers.
She dove toward him, rolling to advance under the bolts. Before he could adjust his aim, she came up and sprang for him. Instead of bothering with her built-in blazers, she relied on her unarmed combat training. She hammered punches and kicks at him, hoping the armor would give her the speed and the strength to dent his. She aimed for seams instead of the usual centerline targets. Seemingly startled by her ferocity, he tried to jump back to give himself space,
but his back thumped against the side of the truck.
Shadows fell across them, making them both pause. Three of his men had climbed atop the truck to avoid Leonidas. They sprang from it to the walkway, bypassing the stairs. Beck had planted himself at the bottom of the steps to keep soldiers from advancing into the ship, but these three made it past him. He cursed and turned, as if to run up after them, but two soldiers near him waded into him, keeping him there.
Realizing they were after Tiang, and that their search of the ship might take them to the rec room, Alisa renewed her attack against the sergeant with intensity. If she took their leader out, the others might falter.
Her fists flew, and she barely felt the impact as they hammered into his chest plate. She threw an uppercut that took him in his armored chin, her fist landing hard enough that it knocked his head back. It clanged against the side of the truck. Before he recovered, she chopped her open hand down on his faceplate. A faint crack reached her ears. She lifted her hand to strike more blows, but the sergeant was hurled to the side even as she swung.
She scrambled back, afraid she would be swept away too. She couldn’t tell which Starseer was responsible, but the man hurtled through the air, legs over head, as if he were doing cartwheels. He landed on the cargo ramp and rolled down, joining a pile that already had ten men in it. A few were trying to struggle to their feet, but having the sergeant crash onto them discombobulated them further.
“Let’s get them all out there,” Alisa said over her comm, as she turned toward the stairs, prepared to chase after those other three soldiers. “Then we can shut the hatch and take off.”
We have been working on that, Abelardus spoke dryly into her mind, as another armored man spun through the air and out the cargo hatch.
One of the men Beck had been facing dropped to the ground, but the second one still hammered him. Leonidas had leaped up to the walkway in time to head off those three soldiers and was engaged with all of them at once, crowding the narrow space.
Since nobody else was charging at her, Alisa shifted so she could aim at Beck’s opponent without risk of hitting him. She popped one of her blazers out of her suit and fired at a seam on the man’s back. It was hard to sustain the pinpoint fire with him boxing with Beck, but she did her best. Sooner or later, his suit would light up with a warning about the damage he was taking…
End Game Page 10
