“Think you can handle him from here, Sergeant?” Farrow asked, his tone dry as he looked toward Leonidas, who now wore little more than the snug underwear and T-shirt that he wore under his armor.
Even through her faceplate, the embarrassed flush to the female squad leader’s cheeks was visible. “Yes, sir.”
Alisa could wiggle her fingers but not much more. Reaching her Etcher was out of the question. Someone might have already removed it, anyway.
“Doctor?” Farrow asked.
The doctor leveled his tranquilizer gun toward Leonidas’s chest. Leonidas saw it and tensed, as if to spring, but the gun muzzle gouged deeper into Alisa’s neck. He met her eyes again and sighed. When the doctor fired, Leonidas did not try to dodge. A small dart thudded into his chest.
Alisa growled in indignation for him as he dropped to one knee, catching himself on the deck with his fingers. They needn’t have dropped him like an animal on the tundra. He would have let them walk up and inject him. Because he worried about the repercussions to her if he continued to fight, he would have let them. She blinked away tears of frustration as the drug took effect, and he tipped onto his side. His eyes found Alisa’s again. Though he did not try to say anything, and there was no betrayed wrinkle to his face, she couldn’t help but feel that he was silently accusing her, blaming her for what was about to befall him.
Farrow handed her off to someone else and strode toward the door. Alisa sneered after him and hoped he found utter chaos waiting for him on the bridge.
Her new captor hoisted her over his shoulder. The last thing she saw of the landing bay was the armored soldiers walking forward to pick up Leonidas’s inert body. They lifted him—he was as stiff as a plank—leaving his pile of armor on the floor. She imagined the Strikers returning to their bay, the doors opening, and that armor flying out into the void of space, lost forever.
Chapter 18
The mobility returned to Alisa’s limbs as she was carted through the corridors of the vast warship. Careful not to move so much that her captor noticed, she flexed her fingers and toes. She couldn’t see much from her position over his shoulder, but now and then, she caught glimpses of the squad of soldiers carrying Leonidas. They hadn’t bothered to find a hover gurney, and she hoped they were getting cramps from toting his heavy, muscled form. Probably not. Their armor would compensate and give them more strength. Too bad.
As they went around a corner, she turned her head enough to peer under her captor’s armpit. She could see the uniformed back of someone walking ahead of them. The doctor? She thought she felt the heft of her Etcher still in its holster, but she could not see it from her position. The soldiers either had not considered her dangerous—or they hadn’t considered the antiquated border world weapon dangerous. She wished she could show them the error of their ways, but she could not see how.
If she contorted herself quickly enough, maybe she could shoot the doctor, but she doubted her life would continue on for long if she managed to kill one of Farrow’s officers. Without Leonidas, there was little she could do, and he was still stiffer than a corpse back there. She had seen the tyranoadhuc gas used on cyborgs before and believed it would immobilize his machine parts—and effectively his entire body—for at least twenty minutes before it started to wear off. She groped for ways that she might delay the procession and tie up the doctor so he could not simply dose Leonidas again.
The ship shuddered, and the lights flickered.
“The Deadelus is down,” one of the soldiers carrying Leonidas grumbled.
“Commander better break this off soon. HQ was spaced sending us out to fight Starseers.”
“Can’t have them skulking about, making trouble right here on our planet. Besides, our fighters are through their shield, last report I heard. Their little fortress is about to be dead in the sky. If it isn’t already.”
A boom echoed through the warship, followed by a jolt much stronger than the previous ones. The man carrying Alisa stumbled as the lights flickered again, then went out completely. This time, they stayed out for a few seconds before emergency lighting popped on, the reddish illumination dull by comparison. An alarm siren went off.
“What?” came a surprised blurt from behind Alisa’s captor, followed by a gasp of pain.
As she lifted her head, trying to see what was happening, the man carrying her whirled around. Her feet struck the wall. She found herself dumped off his shoulder like a bag cast aside. She curled up, trying to protect her face as she hit the floor. Her captor sprang away, grabbing his gun and shouting.
Keeping her back to the wall, Alisa reached for her Etcher as she rose. It wasn’t there. Damn it, they must have disarmed her, after all. Her legs wobbled as she straightened fully, the muscles still stiff. The sounds of blazer fire burst out, filling her veins with adrenaline. Thumps, clanks, and cries of pain mingled with the weapons fire.
Between the poor lighting and the press of gyrating bodies in the corridor, Alisa could barely see what was happening, but Leonidas had to be free. Later, she would wonder how the drug had worn off so quickly, but for now, she was torn between wanting to get out of the way of stray energy blasts and wanting to help.
A uniformed figure ran toward the fray. The doctor. She lifted her fists, wishing she had a better weapon.
He glanced at her even as he lifted his tranquilizer gun. He was aiming at the snarl of armored men ahead of him, doubtlessly hoping for a shot at Leonidas, but when he saw her, his weapon shifted toward her.
Though she was still muzzy from the stun gun, she reacted quickly, distracting him by lifting a hand as if to grab his gun, then lashing out with a straight kick. She caught the bottom of his fist with the toe of her boot, cracking him hard. The tranquilizer gun flew free, clanging off the bulkhead behind him. He reached for a stun gun at his waist, but she attacked first, lunging in close. She curled her fingers and launched the palm of her hand at his face for a heel strike. His head jerked to the side to avoid the blow, even as he grabbed for her with one hand. Better than grabbing for the stun gun.
She whipped up a block to avoid the snatch and drive his arm wide, then curled her fingers further, this time for a punch. Her knuckles plowed into his unprotected belly. She followed that with a knee to his groin and a stomp to his instep. Picking on an aging medical officer probably wasn’t a great test for combat prowess, but she wasn’t above taking down an unchallenging target. He should have had the same basic training that she’d had, after all.
Under her barrage of blows, he stumbled back to the wall, his shoulders striking it. She grabbed the stun gun off his belt and yanked his medical kit out of his hands. What she planned to do with the latter, she did not know; she just knew she did not want him to have it.
With the stun gun in hand, she whirled toward the fight. As with so many weapons, combat armor would deflect its force, so she did not know how she would help or who she would shoot. The question soon became moot. Leonidas stood in the center of the corridor, still in his T-shirt and underwear, with two rifles slung over his torso on straps and two more in his hands. The armored men were on the deck, either lying still or rolling around, groaning. Some of their faceplates were cracked. All of the neck guards were dented, several in exactly the same spots, making Alisa wonder if he knew of some vulnerability in the armor that he had exploited.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” she said, dazed by the sight. “I know you’re a cyborg, but combat armor—”
“Doesn’t make a man invulnerable. For the most part, it’s designed to withstand impacts. The neck is particularly vulnerable to twisting pressure, assuming you’re strong enough to apply it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind in case I ever start carrying a hydraulic press on my back.”
“This way.” Leonidas jerked his thumb back the way they had come.
“You don’t want to stay around for the tour?” Alisa forced her legs into motion, her feet coming down in sync with the wailing of the alarm. The red emergency l
ighting stayed on.
“No.” Leonidas ran ahead of her, leading the way around a corner.
“How did you come back to life so quickly?” she asked, grunting when the deck lurched as the ship took another hit. “I thought you’d be out for twenty minutes.”
“I would have been. If the doctor had actually hit me.”
Alisa frowned at his T-shirt. “I saw the dart sink in.”
“Yes. I thought he was more likely to hit me in the neck, but I couldn’t have prepared for that. The heart was my second guess. My chest is a big target.”
“No kidding, but didn’t the dart go in?”
Leonidas juggled the rifles so he could reach under his shirt and pull something off his skin with the faint rip of a bond breaking. “Do you want your gauze back?” He held a wad of gauze and bandages toward her, his eyes gleaming.
“Uh, no. Especially not if it’s full of drugs and cyborg sweat.”
“The drug wouldn’t harm you. Tyranoadhuc was created with us in mind.”
“What about the sweat?”
“I can’t promise that’s innocuous.”
She snorted. “So you didn’t absorb any of the drug at all?”
“No, it was a ruse.”
“I had no idea cyborgs were such good actors.”
“I had a brief acting career in school,” he said as they rounded another corner. He fired at someone who jogged into an intersection ahead, faltering and gaping when he saw them. Leonidas’s blazer bolt streaked past the man’s ear, and he dove out of sight.
“What kind of acting career?” Alisa asked. He’d mentioned studying engineering before signing up for the army.
“I agreed to play the part of a tree in fourth year. To get out of penmanship class.”
“A tree?” She eyed him up and down, wondering if he had been tall even as a kid. “I guess that explains your convincing topple to the ground.”
“Indeed.”
“Did you use the Torovax?” she asked, still wondering why he had wanted it.
“No, I still have it. I was hoping that if the doctor shot me in the throat or jabbed me in a vein in the arm, I might have a chance to inject myself with a large dose before it took effect. In theory, it’s not supposed to have any effect on cyborg implants, but we found through unscientific methods that some of the men taking the muscle relaxer for pain shook off the effects of tyranoadhuc gas more quickly. So I might have come out of it after fifteen minutes instead of twenty.” He shrugged. “It could have made a difference.”
“Where are you storing it?” Alisa flicked her hand toward his bare legs and fitted underclothes. It wasn’t as if he had any pockets.
“Where it would have been found in a thorough search but perhaps not in a quick pat down.” Leonidas glanced toward his crotch.
“Ah.”
“I was hoping for luck.”
“And that whoever searched you wasn’t enthused at the idea of groping cyborg bits?”
“Bits?” His eyebrows rose.
“You prefer more anatomically correct terms?”
“I prefer terms that don’t imply diminutive proportions.”
“Oh? I would have thought that a man mature enough to be a colonel would be beyond being concerned about such labels.”
“Not really.”
She grinned as the hangar door came into view. He handed her one of the rifles and ran ahead.
There was not a window in the door. He waved the rifle at a sensor on the wall. When the door did not open, he switched tactics, turning a stream of fire onto the panel. Alisa jumped at the noise and destruction, then put her back to the wall and watched down the hall while he worked. The door did not respond well to having the sensor shot up. It bleated angrily at him. The panel smoked and sputtered.
“Problem?” Alisa asked.
When the door did not open under this barrage, Leonidas shouldered his rifle, gripped it with both hands, and pulled sideways. It opened with a moan, sliding into the jamb.
“No,” he said, holding it open with his back as he readied a rifle and checked the hangar bay.
Alisa edged closer, afraid the Strikers might have been recalled and the bay would be full of men. Whatever was going on out there, this warship was in trouble if it was on emergency lighting. The soldiers had implied the temple had been defenseless with the shields down, but maybe the Starseer darts had found some way to harm this craft.
The bay was still empty, Leonidas’s armor in a pile where he had left it. Alisa spotted her Etcher next to it.
After ensuring nobody was out there waiting to fire at them, he raced toward his gear. Alisa jogged after him, slowing to eye a shiny Striker-18 that remained in the bay. It might even have been a 20, one of the new models that she’d heard the Alliance had been rolling out. She had never flown one.
“Want to steal a better ship?” Leonidas asked, positioning himself so he could watch the doors while he donned his armor.
“Steal?”
“You could demonstrate the theft skills you spoke of.”
“No, the Alliance is already irritated enough with me,” Alisa said, veering to the pile to grab her Etcher. “But if we’re ever imprisoned on a nice imperial ship, I’ll be happy to steal something for you.”
He made a face as he fastened his torso armor. “If we’re ever on an imperial vessel, we won’t have to steal any ships. I can just order someone to give you one.”
“My husband used to give me chocolates, but a ship would be nice too.”
“Which would you prefer?”
“Probably for the ship to be made from chocolate.” Alisa started for the Striker-13, but then she realized they might have to take the new ship, after all. It would have a sensor key that would let it out the bay doors. If they flew away in the 13, someone would have to remain behind to open the doors manually.
“I don’t think the melting point of chocolate makes it sufficient to withstand the friction of entry into a planet’s atmosphere.” Leonidas snapped his helmet on.
“I’ll just fly it in space. I’m not that excited by land.” Alisa detoured to the Striker-20 to see if she could get into the cockpit. It opened in the same way as an 18, and it wasn’t locked. “I lied, Leonidas. We’re going to practice theft.”
She slid into the pilot’s seat, giving the gleaming new control panel a loving stroke. A holodisplay leaped to life, cupping her head as a half-dozen readings appeared in her forward and peripheral vision.
“Any chance the back seat is larger than on the last one?” he asked, running over in his armor to join her.
A door to the ship’s interior sprang open before she could answer.
“Company coming, Leonidas,” she said in case he couldn’t see the door through the Striker—this was a different entrance from the one they had used.
“I see,” he said, crouching to fire under the nose of the Striker. “Get the engines started.”
“Already on it.”
Blazer fire squealed, orange and crimson blasts lancing across the bay, half drowning out her words. Alisa fired up the engines and scrunched low in the cockpit. Leonidas could probably keep the soldiers from shooting her, but there was no need to take chances.
She ignored the pre-flight checklist and hurried through the minimum requirements to get the Striker off the ground. The men trying to get at them were problematic, but she worried even more about officers on the bridge. If they were being kept abreast of what was happening, they would override the hangar bay door access, and it would not matter if the 20 had a sensor key.
“Let me know when you’re ready,” Leonidas called up as he fired, keeping the soldiers pinned in the doorway.
“The Striker is ready,” Alisa called back. “Whether we can get out the doors is more questionable.”
“I’ll risk it.”
He fired several more times, red streaks melting dents in the corridor wall behind the open door and all of the soldiers ducking for cover. Then he sprang directly into
the back seat, as easily as if it were two feet off the ground instead of ten. As soon as his butt touched down, Alisa swiped through the holo button to close the canopy.
As it descended, the soldiers leaned out the doorway, not hesitating to fire. A crimson beam burned past, inches above her head, and she cursed, scooting down even further in the seat. A second beam splashed against the canopy. Glad for its sturdiness, she raised the shields even as she took them into the air.
“Comfortable back there?” she asked.
“No.”
“I’ll have a stewardess start our drink service soon.”
“Ha ha.”
“I’m still waiting for you to realize how delightful my humor is, Leonidas.”
He did not answer. She might be waiting a long time.
Alisa spun the Striker toward the bay doors as the soldiers raced inside, firing relentlessly. The weapons fire bounced off her shields, not doing any damage, and she didn’t think it would. It surprised her that they were racing forward, armed only with the hand weapons, but then someone lobbed something else into the bay.
She whipped the Striker about, delighted by how quickly and agilely it responded. As the object hurtled through the air toward her cockpit, her fingers danced through the holodisplay. A neural interface would have been ideal, but this craft was matched to some other pilot, someone probably injured and out of the action. Still, her fingers were fast enough. She targeted the object as it drew close and fired before it struck her shields. The grenade, or whatever it was, exploded with a spattering of tiny liquid particles.
“Ugh, ship-rated rust bang,” she said, trying to bank without accelerating forward. The liquid particles would eat through shielding, much as the small ones could chew through armor. That would affect her ship far more than the blazer blasts.
She scooted for the doors, knowing that at least some of the particles had struck the craft. She shook the wings, as if she could shake off the attack, like a bird flinging water from its feathers. It probably wasn’t effective.
The soldiers ran back toward the door, and she hoped that meant they had given up, or at least that they knew the bay would depressurize and they needed to get out before it did. They did not stop firing as they retreated. Two men were bent over something, perhaps preparing another rust bang. The shield monitor bleeped, letting her know that the power was at eighty-five percent and dropping. Plenty of juice left for now, but if they landed a rust bang more solidly, it would not be good.
[Fallen Empire 00.5 - 03.0] Star Nomad Honor's Flight Starfall Station Starseers Last Command Page 73
