Cleon Moon (3 page)

“Brace yourselves,” she said again, watching the torpedo weave through the stalks after them.

It had irritating precision. She banked hard around a clump—or was that a copse?—of towering stalks, the
Nomad’s
belly almost skimming the murky water around them. The torpedo shot past, going too far before banking. It turned sharply. Too sharply. It clipped one of those fifty-foot stalks and exploded in a fiery blast that took out the entire copse.

As Alisa started to congratulate herself on surviving another thirty seconds, something huge leaped out of the water ahead of them. She shrieked as a hulking scaly figure slammed into the
Nomad’s
shields in front of the forward camera, momentarily blacking out the view. A thump sounded as the massive creature bounced off, flew to the side, and disappeared back into the water with a splash.

“Just to be clear,” Abelardus said, “were we bracing ourselves because of the torpedo or because of your flying?”

“What
was
that?” Alisa asked Yumi, ignoring him.

“One of the dinosaurs common to the southern continent,” Yumi said. She, too, sounded shaken, but she hadn’t shrieked. Alisa felt chagrined by her response. “They’re the local wildlife. Some scientists made them after the domes went up. I believe they’re something of a tourist attraction.”

“Do the tourists like it when they leap out of the water and try to plaster themselves to their hulls?” Alisa forced herself to take a breath when she realized her voice sounded squeaky.

“Your engines may have alarmed it.”

“You sure it wasn’t that torpedo exploding?” Alisa asked, then sobered and checked the sensors. Their foe was still out there and probably had more torpedoes.

“That also could have been the reason,” Yumi said agreeably. “I wish we could get out here. I believe I saw several interesting varieties of mushrooms growing in the shadows of some of those stalks. I would
love
to get a sample of the mycelial mat we flew over.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Alisa spotted the other ship flying over the shoreline ahead of them at the same time as the proximity alarm complained again. “Tell me something new,” she told it, and checked all of her cameras, certain another torpedo was on its way. “Yumi, how about finding me a place to land where that ship’s weapons can’t get us?”

“The swamps are reputedly full of quick-mud,” Yumi said. “Landing may not be safe.”

“Neither is flying.”

“They’re coming after us,” Abelardus reported. “Firing again.” He wasn’t looking at any displays, so presumably his fancy mental powers were telling him that.

Alisa swooped back into the fungal stalks rising from the lake, taking care to stay a few meters above the surface this time. She did not want to hit another so-called dinosaur, both because she didn’t want to kill random wildlife and because she was sure it would make a mess if it were sucked into one of her thruster housings.

The torpedo appeared on the sensors, a hot red blip chasing them. It swerved through the stalks, zooming closer. Despite Alisa’s best efforts to shake it, it refused to crash into an obstacle. She rose up, flying over the rounded tips of the stalks, and when it followed, she dove down, as if she intended to take the freighter for a swim. It zipped after her, closing fast. When it was only a few meters from her rear shields, and when the brackish water was close enough to taste, Alisa pulled the
Nomad’s
nose up.

Water sprayed as the shields skimmed the surface, but she managed to rise again before immersing the ship. The torpedo did not turn quickly enough, and it plummeted into the lake. She leveled out and zipped away, not certain if the water would do anything to thwart the projectile or its energy-seeking capabilities.

An explosion filled the rear camera. Some fungal stalks blew up, and others tottered and fell, their thick bodies floating atop the water like logs.

The comm light flashed.

“How many of my torpedoes can you avoid, fellow captain?” the woman crooned.

“I can avoid them all day,” Alisa said. “I flew a Striker in the war. You think I’m worried about your puny torpedoes?”

“
Puny
?”

Alisa muted the comm. “Maybe I shouldn’t have goaded her.”

“I’m attempting to influence the gunner,” Abelardus said, “but he’s terrified of his captain and cringes at the idea of disobeying her or willfully being inept.”

“She sounds like a lovely lady,” Alisa said, watching the freighter streak across the lake after them. She took the
Nomad
away from the water, hoping some other terrain feature would inspire her. She needed to force the other ship to crash, not simply crash its torpedoes. Who knew how many it carried? “Abelardus, how far are we from your Starseer buddies? Any chance they would help us if we flew close and they knew one of their delightful relatives was in trouble?”

“A delightful relative? Is that me or you?” He smirked at her.

“I’m no Starseer’s relative,” she said, though she knew what he was implying.

“Your father was. Have you looked him up yet?”

“Do you think this is a good time to discuss my family?” Alisa dove into a shallow valley, swerving to avoid even denser concentrations of the fungal stalks while groping for inspiration and waiting for the inevitable next torpedo.

“Why not? We discussed mycology mats, or whatever it was.”

“Mycelial mats,” Yumi said.

“That wasn’t a discussion. That was Yumi waxing passionate about fungi.” Alisa eyed a blanket of mist that floated over the lowlands of the valley. “Yumi, those dinosaurs? Do they have a habitat where they enjoy loitering in packs?”

“I believe some of the flying ones have pack tendencies. They favor marshlands.”

“Marshlands? Isn’t the whole moon marshlands?” Alisa ignored a flash from the comm after confirming it was their pursuer again and not some savior wanting to help them out.

“I’ve heard there are fens in the northern hemisphere,” Yumi said.

“Is that a joke?” Alisa glared back at her. Where was Leonidas to comment on inappropriate humor?

Yumi appeared tense rather than comedic, her lips pursed as she did some breathing exercises. Or maybe she was trying to keep from hyperventilating.

“There’s another valley in that direction,” Abelardus said, pointing. “Past that pond. Turn and head into it there. I see what you have in mind, and I can help.”

Blazer fire streaked through the fungal stalks as their pursuer swooped left and right, trying to get a good shot at the
Nomad
. A few of the blasts made it through the forest, pattering against the rear shields. They weren’t as powerful as the torpedoes, but the shield power still inched downward. The other ship missed more often than hitting, fortunately. Fungal stalks pitched over or exploded in masses of cellulose. A ten-foot-wide one thumped down onto the enemy as it passed. Unfortunately, it bounced off the shields and did not do damage.

Alisa turned the
Nomad
toward Abelardus's pond, having little choice but to trust in his “help.”

She kept swooping about, trying to provide a difficult target, as she headed into a misty quagmire. Mud mingled with the murky water they flew over. She was glad they were not on foot.

“There.” Abelardus pointed toward a clump of fungal stalks.

As Alisa took the ship in that direction, more blazer fire bounced off their rear shields. A low-power alarm flashed on the console.

“I don’t see anything,” she told Abelardus.

“Just keep flying. Stay low. Trust me.” He flashed a grin at her.

She groaned. He hadn’t earned her trust yet.

“I believe she’s arming another torpedo,” Yumi said.

“Slow down,” Abelardus said. “Let her get closer.”

“Are you spaced?” Alisa glared at him.

“It’ll have to be close.”

“It would be nice if you explained yourself,” she growled, but he sounded confident, and she did not know what else to do. She slowed down, but she was careful to keep some of those stalks between her and the other ship, weaving in and out as unpredictably as she could.

“That’s right,” Abelardus crooned, watching the rear camera. “Come closer. You know we won’t be able to evade your torpedo if you get extra close before firing it.”

“Yumi, I think our Starseer has gone crazy,” Alisa said, her fingers twitching to summon more speed. This was ludicrous.

“It does happen,” Yumi said.

“Does it look like that when it does?” Alisa jerked her thumb toward Abelardus. He was leaning toward the rear camera display, curling his fingers in a beckoning gesture.

“I—look!” Yumi blurted.

Alisa, focused on the view ahead of them, did not immediately see the dozens of winged creatures springing away from that copse of fungal stalks. Looking like Old Earth pterodactyls, they flew into the air, a huge swarm of them. They beelined toward the enemy craft, giant wings flapping as they battered against the shields all around the nose of the ship, right where NavCom ought to be.

The ship jerked, as if it had been struck, and Alisa had no trouble imagining the pilot flinching in surprise just as she had done earlier when that hulking dinosaur had leaped out of the water. Up in the air, the pilot would have had time to recover. But they were flying through a maze of massive fungal stalagmites mere feet above the ground. That jerk of surprise resulted in one of the enemy ship’s wings clipping a copse of those thick stalks. Even though they looked like giant mushrooms instead of trees, they clearly had mass. The ship ricocheted away, bouncing off more of them, and was thrown into a spin. The tail of the craft dipped into the mud, and between one eye blink and the next, the entire craft flipped over onto its back.

Alisa did not hesitate. She angled the
Nomad’s
nose toward the sky and streaked away at top speed. Their foe would not be stuck for long, and she doubted the ship had taken serious damage. She did smile, imagining it flying into a dock somewhere and the captain having to explain the mud on the topside of the hull.

Abelardus leaned over and swatted her on the shoulder. “See?” He grinned. “You can trust me.”

“Did you startle them?” Alisa asked.

“Of course. Animals—even genetically engineered mutant animals—have simpler minds than humans. Herd instinct too. Startle one, and they all follow.”

“Flock might be the more appropriate term in that case,” Yumi said.

Abelardus did not respond. He was grinning at Alisa, like a boy hoping for praise.

She sighed, hating to encourage him, but he
had
been useful.

“You’re moderately handy,” she said.

“Of course I am. You’ll come to see my value in time. I’m handy in many ways.” He lifted an arm.

He wasn’t going to
hug
her, was he?

“Weapons would be handier,” Leonidas said from the hatchway, giving Abelardus a dark look.

Beck stood behind him. They both wore their combat armor and were probably disappointed they hadn’t gotten an opportunity to fight.

Alisa could not share that disappointment. She could scarcely believe that not one but two ships in orbit had randomly decided to pick on her. Taxes. Please. That second ship had wanted her entire cargo. Though she might have Abelardus's overzealousness to thank for that. Maybe neither ship would have bothered with her if he had telepathically shared images of chickens with the captains.

Abelardus lowered his arm and smirked at Leonidas. “What’s the matter, mech? Bitter that you were useless today?”

“I’m never useless.”

“Keep telling yourself that. Maybe your ego won’t feel so bad about taking a salary from a woman who can barely keep the lights on.”

“All right,” Alisa growled. “Keep me out of your cockfight. And give me the coordinates to the Starseers, Abelardus. Roaming aimlessly around this moon obviously isn’t good for one’s health.”

“Does that mean we won’t be stopping to harvest fungi?” Yumi asked.

“Harvest what?” Beck asked, peering around Leonidas’s broad shoulder.

“We’ll see,” Alisa said. “First, I want to find these Starseers and find out if Durant has been here.”

And Jelena, she added silently, glancing at the rear camera. It was empty of anything except swamps and fungal forests now, but she couldn’t help but think about all the times she had come close to dying in the last few weeks. To die before finding her daughter again, before telling her how much she loved her… That would be intolerable. Poor Jelena had to feel abandoned right now, maybe worse. Who knew what she was enduring with this Durant? What if he was half the nuthead that his brother was? She grimaced, thinking of Abelardus taking care of children.

Abelardus's cocky expression faltered as he looked over at her. Damn it, was he surfing through her thoughts again?

“Coordinates, please,” she said tersely.

“It’s nothing but swamps around their outpost, and we need to get masks to walk around outside of the domes,” Abelardus said. “Also, the Starseer enclave will be hard to find, even for me. We should land in one of the cities and take hover bikes out. The coordinates are roughly between Terra Dhwan and Terra Jhero, so either of those domes would do.”

Alisa pulled out her netdisc and popped a map up on its holodisplay. At least, she tried to do so. After offering a short glimpse of the terrain around them, the holodisplay flashed. A sign appeared in the air, blotting out the map.

Five tindarks per hour for Cleon Moon sys-net access
, it read.

She growled at it, but kept her complaints to herself. Leonidas was still in the hatchway, and she didn’t need him pointing out that sys-net access had been free for everyone and installed throughout the greater three suns region when the empire had reigned. Some opportunist here must have taken over the orbital satellites that provided access.

“Anyone have a bank chip that works and mind paying?” she asked. “Assuming Cleon Moon is tied in with the banking network.”

Yumi leaned forward and swiped her finger through the display. It promptly announced that she had been logged in and would be charged another tindark pre-access fee. Whatever that was.

“Thanks, Yumi,” Alisa said.