Fallen Empire 2: Honor's Flight

by Lindsay Buroker

  Realizing it had grown quiet behind her, Alisa turned around. Mica was staring at her from a spot pressed against the wall with a soldier moaning at her feet. Leonidas stood in the center of the corridor, dents and black burn marks in his crimson armor. The rest of the soldiers were down around him, some moaning, some not. She hoped he was still trying not to kill anyone, as her conscience was already in knots over this mess. She told herself that if she had let Leonidas go without helping him, and without extracting his promise to try not to kill, it would have been worse.

  “We’ll have to get to engineering to release the grab beam,” Mica said. “What you want to do after that, I have no idea, because we won’t be able to get back to the ship.”

  “We’ll just have to take over the tug,” Alisa said.

  “Oh, I’m sure that will be easy.”

  “This way,” Leonidas said. “You can talk on the way.”

  He turned down the corridor, not asking for directions. Maybe he had the specs for all of the Alliance and imperial ships in the system memorized.

  “Better keep your prisoners in front of you,” Alisa whispered, striding after him. “If there are cameras, someone might wonder why we’re not wandering off.”

  Leonidas paused, waving for them to pass him. Alisa glanced at a fallen rifle again, this time wondering how good of an idea it was to leave all these men behind, still armed. If all they were was wounded, they could get up and join the fight again. But taking their rifles probably would not matter, since they had extra weapons built into their suits, and it wasn’t as if she could simply tie a rope around someone in combat armor. The men would easily break free. Besides, she didn’t have any rope.

  Worried they would end up facing those people again, she hustled to join Mica in the lead. Her face was bleak, but she strode quickly down the corridors, presumably heading toward engineering. Alisa had never been on a tug and had no idea where anything was.

  Her comm beeped. She might have ignored it, but that was Beck’s number.

  “What?” she whispered, glancing down corridors as they passed through intersections. The passages stood empty now, but she doubted it would take long for the tug’s commander, that Bennington woman, to realize what had happened and to send down reinforcements.

  “Some angry-looking soldiers are trying to force their way into navigation,” Beck whispered. “Is Leonidas dead? Where are you?”

  “We’re with him on the tug. We had to pull the airlock tube.”

  “Leaving all these pissed soldiers with us?”

  “Sorry. They might be less pissed if you just let them in and they don’t have to break down the hatch. And I would appreciate it if there weren’t any more broken doors on my ship than necessary.”

  “Not like you’d be the one fixing them,” Mica grumbled.

  “Tell them you’re prisoners and that you were hiding up there to avoid the fighting.”

  “I’m in my combat armor, Captain.”

  “So?”

  “You think they’ll believe I’m a prisoner?”

  “You can point out that Leonidas can best you whether you’re in combat armor or not and he wasn’t worried about it.”

  “That’s not a thing I’m eager to point out to people, Captain.”

  “Just make up a plausible story.” Alisa followed Mica into a lift, where she pressed a diagram of the ship, the big section at the bottom marked engineering. The doors shut. “I don’t have much time to talk, but stay safe and be careful. Tell them you fought for the Alliance in the war.”

  Banging sounds came over the comm.

  “And am I telling them that our doctor fought in the war too?” Beck asked quietly. “He’s sitting on his box and looking concerned.”

  “Did he comm the imperials?”

  The doors opened, and Alisa glimpsed a large open room with high ceilings before Leonidas stepped in front of her, waving for her to stay put as he slipped out.

  “He did,” Beck said. “But he’s not sure if they’re coming, or if they believed him.”

  “That’s reassuring. Tell him to hide the box under my seat and lie to them. I’m sure he can manage that.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Weapons fired somewhere in front of Leonidas, and Alisa cut off the comm. Once again, she felt helpless as she pressed herself to the wall next to the lift doors. Mica had her thumb on the touch-display, keeping those doors from closing.

  A bolt of energy sizzled between them, slamming into the back wall. Alisa crouched and threw her arms over her head and neck.

  Silence soon fell outside, only the hum of machinery and computers breaking it.

  “Clear,” Leonidas called.

  Alisa eyed the smoking and melted wall at the back of the lift, then stepped out. Mica turned left and strode straight toward a workstation.

  Alisa joined Leonidas in the middle of engineering. He had disarmed two men in uniforms, ripping up one’s shirt to make strips of material to tie them together, back to back in the middle of the deck. From the way their heads lolled, neither appeared conscious. Leonidas kept them in his peripheral vision, but he watched the lift and another door that must lead into the rest of the ship.

  “If this works, what’s next?” he murmured, not looking directly at her. Maybe he had cameras on his mind too.

  Alisa feared that someone who sat and watched a video of this would immediately be suspicious of how easily she and Mica were going along with Leonidas, especially since he had not pointed a weapon at them once. A stranger might simply think they were cowed, but Tomich knew her. If he saw this, he would wonder why she wasn’t trying to get away—and also why she wasn’t making rude gestures and throwing sarcasm and insults at Leonidas.

  What’s next, Leonidas had asked. Alisa feared it would be an arrest warrant for her, assuming they somehow managed to get away. She wasn’t sure how that would happen right now, unless she left her ship and her people behind and stole the tug. That would definitely result in an arrest warrant. Or more likely a shoot-on-sight warrant.

  “Marchenko?” Leonidas prompted.

  “I think you can call me Alisa now.”

  “Seems overly familiar for a captor-prisoner relationship.”

  “What about for a captain-passenger relationship?”

  “Are you going to keep Dominguez and me as passengers if we get out of this? I thought you might make us walk the plank.”

  “He paid your fare to Arkadius. You’re staying.”

  “You’re an interesting woman, Captain Marchenko.”

  He said that in the way a scientist spoke of an unexpected result from a specimen rather than in the way a man spoke of a woman he wanted to get to know better, perhaps over dinner and subsequent recreational activities. She told herself that was fine and looked around the engineering space, searching for inspiration. Their predicament was slightly more important than thoughts of dinners.

  They couldn’t steal the tug. Even if it did not have a crew of dozens, if not hundreds, it would not have been logical. No, they had to force the tug to release the Nomad, disable the grab beam, and somehow get back to her ship. Oh, and they would still have to deal with the squadrons of soldiers that were currently banging at the door to NavCom.

  “What are the odds of finding spacesuits that fit us down here, Mica?” Alisa asked.

  Mica, busy cursing and scowling at a console, did not answer the question. Instead, she said, “This is locked down. I need a retina scan from someone with access. Or a computer hacker.”

  Leonidas promptly strode toward his tied men. Alisa headed for the first storage cabinets she spotted. She was certain there would be spacesuits somewhere on the ship, as exterior repairs sometimes needed to be done, but she worried they would be close to an exterior hatch rather than here in engineering. Still, engineers would be the likely ones to go out on repairs. Maybe she would get lucky. She could use some luck this week.

  “They should have attacked by now,” Leonidas said from the c
onsole—he had toted the two men over, lifting both rather than untying them—and had one’s face turned toward a scanner. A slender beam shot out as he pried the man’s eyelid open.

  “I’m pleased that they haven’t,” Alisa said.

  “They must know we’re here.”

  “Might be planning some other trouble for us,” Mica said.

  “How about some optimism here?” Alisa asked as she poked through cabinets. “Maybe they’re confused as to what’s going on. Maybe they think we’re still on the Nomad, and they haven’t figured out that we’re here molesting their engine room.”

  A click sounded, followed by a faint hiss.

  Leonidas’s helmet spun toward the direction of the noise, his gaze locking onto a vent near the ceiling.

  Mica scowled at Alisa. “I hate optimism. It has no place in space.”

  Chapter 17

  “Gas,” Leonidas barked. “It won’t affect me, but—”

  “We’re dead takka?” Mica demanded, glaring toward the vent.

  Alisa could not see anything coming out of it, but she trusted that Leonidas’s helmet sensors told him it was there. “Can you identify it?” she asked, rummaging through another cabinet as efficiently as possible with her hands cuffed. She was on the verge of asking Leonidas to break the chain, but she didn’t want to waste the time.

  “No.”

  “So it might be knockout gas, or it might be more deadly?”

  Alisa tried to breathe lightly. The engineering room was big, so it should take a while to disseminate, but if it was something extremely potent, even a small amount could affect them. Affect them, or kill them.

  She hoped that the commander wouldn’t choose such a drastic measure when two of her own people were in here. Of course, the commander might believe that her people had already been killed.

  Leonidas strode to the lift doors and waved at the sensor to open them. Nothing happened. He roared and forced them open, metal screeching and warping.

  “While we’re impressed with your strength, I doubt the lift is going to work now,” Mica said. “If anyone cares, I’ve disabled the grab beam.”

  “You’re right,” Leonidas said with disgust, poking at buttons.

  A computer voice informed him that the damage to the doors made the lift inoperable.

  Mica coughed and wiped her eyes as she glowered at the vent. She was closer to it than Alisa and moved to the opposite side of the room.

  Finding the cabinet empty, Alisa ran to a pair of doors between two workstations. One with giant warning labels on it led to the reactor. The second was unmarked. She tugged that one open, and the gleam of light reflecting on faceplates met her eyes.

  “Mica, over here.” Alisa practically leaped into the closet space to paw at the uniforms, hoping to find ones that would fit women, though she would risk shambling around in something twice her size as long as she could make it airtight.

  “I’m checking the door,” Leonidas said, running out of the lift and toward the other exit. Alisa wagered it, too, would be locked. Likely guarded as well. The soldiers out there might expect him to be able to force his way out.

  Mica crowded the closet doorway behind her. “Shove one out here,” she rasped, coughing again. “I think that’s prienzene in the air.”

  Alisa did not recognize the name of the drug. “Is it deadly?” She grabbed the two smallest suits and pushed them out of the closet.

  “If the dose is high enough and unless the antidote is administered in a timely manner, yes.”

  “Great. Leonidas—we need your strong hands.” Alisa thrust her cuffed wrists into the air. She would not be able to climb into the suit with her hands fastened together.

  Leonidas stood with the side of his helmet pressed against the door—listening to troops in the corridor outside? He left his position and raced across the room to grab her chain. He snapped it easily, not hurting her at all, then turned to do the same for Mica.

  “They have men lined up in the corridor outside the door,” Leonidas said. “They’re certain we’ll charge out to escape the gas.”

  Alisa did not answer. She was trying not to breathe since she could feel indicators of the gas, a dry tickle in the back of her throat, a burning in her nostrils. She dove into the suit she had selected, fumbling with the fasteners, not sure whether her hands were shaking as a side effect of the gas or out of fear. Who knew if the commander would bother administering the antidote to the prisoners who had just broken her grab beam?

  Leonidas stayed beside them, helping with the suits and helmets. Mica was dressed first—she was probably more experienced at donning spacesuits for exterior repairs—and she strode off to poke into one of the cabinets Alisa had searched earlier. She must have seen something useful inside, though Alisa couldn’t remember what. She’d had a singular purpose in mind.

  As soon as her helmet was in place, she activated the internal life support system, hoping she hadn’t already breathed in too much of the tainted air. How long until one passed out after exposure? The rough tickle in the back of her throat worried her, reminding her of an allergic reaction to something. If her airway closed off, all the oxygen in the suit’s tank would not matter.

  Alisa leaned on Leonidas to tug on the boots and tried not to worry about the rest.

  “Stay behind me when we go out,” he said, plucking at the flimsy material of her sleeve. “This won’t stop weapons fire.”

  “Is going out a good idea?” Alisa asked. “When there’s a squadron of soldiers waiting out there? You can’t play cat and mouse with them when they’re expecting you.” She eyed the burn marks on his suit. How much more damage could it take? “Unless Mica can find the lights and gravity controls for this ship too.”

  “I found something better,” Mica said, backing away from a cabinet full of tools.

  She grinned wolfishly at them through the faceplate of her helmet. In both hands, she gripped a big tool with a tank and fuel hose and nozzle.

  “Is that a flame thrower?” Alisa asked.

  “A blowtorch for welding breaches in the hull.” Mica strode toward the workstation she had been at before. An orange flame flared from the muzzle of the tool. Without any apparent discretion, she torched the controls.

  “I see that retina scan was crucial,” Leonidas said, eyeing the tied men on the floor beside the workstation. One watched Mica’s blowtorch with woozy concern.

  “It was,” Mica said. “That was to make the tug let go of our ship. This is to ensure it won’t be able to reacquire our ship.”

  A clank came from the door, and Leonidas turned his rifle in that direction.

  “They’ll soon grow impatient with waiting and simply walk in,” he warned.

  After she finished destroying the station, Mica jogged to a wall opposite the door and the lift. “There should be a corridor back here.” She glanced at Leonidas, as if for verification.

  He nodded. “Yes, and there’s another lift that way, too, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to burn through—those walls are full of conduits and wires.”

  “I can do it.” Mica laid into the bulkhead. “And they can bill my captain for the damages.”

  “Lucky me,” Alisa murmured.

  The door to engineering slid to the side. Leonidas fired instantly, reacting before it fully opened. He stepped in front of Alisa, blocking her view—and blocking her from harm. She peered around his shoulder in time to see armored men jump out of the way out in the corridor. The door slid back shut again.

  “That won’t stop them for long,” Leonidas said. “They’ll realize I just have a blazer rifle and that they can charge it with their armor on.”

  “It might not be your gun that they’re afraid of,” Alisa said.

  He gave her a wolfish smile, his eyes gleaming.

  “Working as quickly as I can,” Mica announced.

  Leonidas took Alisa’s arm and led her to the bulkhead where Mica was working, wielding the blowtorch like a professional. That
did not mean the process was quick. The bulkhead was thick, and as Leonidas had said, she was cutting through insulation and conduits too.

  The lights flickered, then went out.

  “Was that you?” Alisa asked. “Or are they trying to confuse us?”

  Something snapped inside the wall, and flames leaped from the bulkhead. Alisa stumbled back, her movements awkward in the spacesuit. It lacked the balance servos of combat armor.

  “It might have been me,” Mica admitted, waving away smoke.

  Alisa could see it by the light of the blowtorch, but she couldn’t smell it. That was good, reassuring her that the gas should not be getting inside of her suit, either.

  Mica ignored the dancing flames and went back to melting a hole in the bulkhead. A thump came from the door. Were the soldiers preparing to charge in?

  “That’s enough,” Leonidas said, when Mica had cut a semi-circle into the bulkhead. He planted a hand on her shoulder and pushed her to the side.

  “Really,” she said, eyeing him like she was considering applying the torch to his armor.

  He ignored her, slipping his gauntleted fingers into the gap she had made. He found a grip he liked and pulled. Metal squealed and ripped as he tore open a piece of the bulkhead. Wires and broken conduits spilled out, along with a flame retardant insulation. He tore it away, shreds of metallic fluff flying into the dim light.

  “I’ll have to burn a hole in the other side too,” Mica said, waving the blowtorch.

  “No time.”

  Leonidas turned sideways and slammed a side kick into the bulkhead. His boot went through the wall, the noise making Alisa jump. His foot got caught, but he maintained his balance, extracted it, and kicked three more times, battering a bigger opening. Then he grabbed it and tore the metal away further, making the hole large enough so he could wedge his armor through. Light streamed in from the corridor on the other side.

  “You’re a beast, Leonidas,” Alisa murmured.

  He looked back at her for a second, giving her that expression she had seen before, the wistful one he got sometimes when he told her he was as human as she was.