Fallen Empire 1: Star Nomad (27 page)

“I think we’re close,” Alejandro whispered as they headed down one of a dozen narrow door-filled corridors that looked the same.

“How can you know?” Alisa felt like they were going in circles, visiting the same passages over and over.

“Some of them are up here,” came an authoritative voice from an intersection ahead.

Alisa cursed and waved at door sensors along the way until one opened. She and Alejandro slipped into a tight lav, a light flickering weakly overhead. Heavy footfalls pounded past in the corridor outside.

“Can you sense it?” Alejandro whispered, a distant look in his eyes. Had he gotten some big whiffs of what those pirates had been smoking?

“The stench of this lav? Absolutely. I don’t think these people have ever heard of disinfectant.”

Alejandro shook his head. “The map.”

“Map? You mean the orb?”

He blinked and focused on her. “The orb. Yes.”

Someday, Alisa was going to ask him what exactly that map led to, but for now, she said, “I don’t feel anything.”

She pressed her ear to the door.

“I do. I’ve grown attuned to it over the last few weeks.”

Alisa almost accused him of spending too much time with Yumi, but she
did
remember that the orb had some kind of presence. An effect on weak minds, as Malik had said.

“I think it’s clear,” she whispered, not hearing any more footfalls, though it was hard to be certain with the alarm blaring.

“I’ll lead,” Alejandro said, but she held up her hand and went out first. He didn’t have a weapon and had not asked for one. She did not know if he knew how to shoot.

She eased into the corridor, checking both ways and almost jumping. There weren’t any pirates, but a hover robot floated toward them. It had four sets of arms, a boxy body, and a head with sensor plates that reflected the overhead lights. Two of its claw-like gripper hands held laser tools for melting ore, and the others grasped cutting tools. She had seen several of the robots working in the smelter area when they had first been brought on board. Her first thought was that it would float past, harmless to people as it went about its job, but it stopped, its head rotating toward them.

“Intruder,” it announced from a speaker where a mouth would have been on a person.

Alisa might have ducked back into the lav, but Alejandro had already crept out behind her and was jogging down the corridor in the opposite direction. The robot raised one of its cutting tools, a tiny metal circle with serrated teeth spinning ominously. Sparks leaped from another tool, and an energy bolt streaked out of it. Alisa couldn’t leap out of the way quickly enough, and it bit into the sleeve of her jacket, searing flesh beneath the material.

She yelped and scrambled backward as she fired at it, choosing the pirate’s blazer rifle that she had grabbed since it would be quieter than her Etcher. An orange bolt slammed into the robot’s blocky torso, and it wobbled backward a few feet, but it recovered and started after her again.

Two more similar robots floated around the corner of the nearest intersection and turned in her direction.

Alisa sent a barrage of fire at them, then sprinted after Alejandro. He was disappearing around the corner of another intersection up ahead.

A hum from behind Alisa was her only warning. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she dove to the deck, sliding several feet on her belly. She almost felt silly—she was running from smelter robots, after all—but then a huge beam of energy shot over her head, slamming into the wall on the other side of the intersection. It left a smoking crater.

Cursing, Alisa scrambled around the corner on her hands and knees before springing to her feet. Just ahead, Alejandro stood with his back to a door, his hands raised. A long-haired pirate held a pistol to his chest, a knife raised in his other hand.

With adrenaline surging through her veins, Alisa reacted on instinct, firing as the pirate spotted her and shifted his gun in her direction. The man never got a shot off. Her bolt slammed into his forehead, and he toppled back, hands and boots twitching.

Aware of the robots trailing after her, Alisa sprinted for Alejandro, stopping only long enough to grab the pirate’s gun.

“We have to run,” she said, giving Alejandro a shove. “Here, take this. You need to be armed.”

“No. I’m a doctor, not a killer.” He turned back to the door, resisting Alisa’s attempts to move him down the corridor. “It’s in here.” He waved at the door sensor, but nothing happened.

“Are you joking? We can’t stop here.” Alisa flung her hand toward the dead pirate and another toward the intersection as the first robot floated around the corner. Without hesitating, it swung toward them, pointing those tool-filled arms at them.

Alejandro wouldn’t move.

Alisa thought about running and trying to lead the robots astray, but what if they simply stopped and shot him? Alejandro was jabbing at buttons on the sensor panel, but nothing happened. Alisa leaned past him and fired at the panel, sending shards of metal spraying.

A hum of electricity ran along her nerves again, and she shouted, “Down.”

This time, Alejandro listened, dropping into a low squat. The door opened as the robot hurled a red beam of energy down the hall. At first, it cut over their heads, but the construct’s arm lowered, adjusting the aim.

Alejandro dove into the cabin, and Alisa scrambled after him even as she worried that this was a horrible plan. They were going to be trapped, and she had no idea if one could surrender to a robot. Would it simply blast down the door and annihilate anything moving inside?

She glimpsed a second one rounding the corner before making it into the cabin. Despite her tampering, the door slid shut behind them. That was good, but she did not know if she could lock it, not after blasting the panel.

Alejandro helped her to her feet and took the recently acquired pistol from her hand. “On second thought, that does seem useful.”

He sprang for an armoire and a chest on one side of the cabin. Besides a bed and a table, they were the only places where someone might have hidden something, unless one counted the empty combat armor case, its crimson sides neither scuffed nor dented. They gleamed as if they had been recently polished. Malik’s cabin. Alejandro had guessed right. Amazing.

Alejandro flung open the chest. More worried about the approaching robots than finding the orb, Alisa tried to find the door lock, but the panel on this side of the wall beeped angrily at her, the surface hot from her attack on the other side.

She shot it, blasting the face in some vague hope that she might melt the lock. Not trusting that to happen, she jumped for the armoire. Alejandro had it open and was tearing through clothes, but she rammed her shoulder against it and shoved it in front of the door.

“Let’s pretend that will keep out a robot capable of smelting tons of ore.” Alisa looked around the cabin for more obstacles she could add to the roadblock or a way out, but there were no other exits in the room. “Suppose hiding under the bed wouldn’t fool them.”

Alejandro didn’t answer. He was too busy flinging clothing out left and right, enough items that Alisa suspected Malik might have taken over the old commander’s quarters without moving the original contents out.

Clanks sounded at the door, demanding clanks.

Imagining all three robots and maybe some pirates out there, Alisa headed for the armor case, hoping Malik might have left some weapons behind that were more powerful than her handguns. A snap sounded, and she was almost brained in the head with a shelf that went flying over Alejandro’s shoulder.

“I know it’s in here,” he snarled. “I can feel it.”

Alisa’s senses crawled, too, as they had in the break room when she’d been looking at the orb, but she did not take the time to debate it. A hiss and a grinding noise came from the door.

“They’re cutting their way in,” Alisa said. “You might want to finish there quickly, so we can, ah…” She had no idea. Get caught?

Another shelf flew across the cabin, knocking over a display device on the bedside table rotating through holo photos.

Alisa rooted into pockets and sleeves in the sides of the armor case, patting around the indentations built to fit the specific pieces. “Come on, Malik,” she whispered. “You’re a soldier. You must have some—” Her fingers brushed over some hard lumps in a pouch. “Yes, what’s this?”

A screech sounded as metal warped. Stronger light from the corridor flowed in around the armoire. Alisa pulled out two compact canisters. Rust bangs. And not the homemade version Mica had made, but legitimate ordnance from an imperial armory.

“This’ll do,” she said at the same time as Alejandro jumped back, a familiar box in his hands. He flicked open the lid, and golden light shone out.

“Got it.”

“Great. Now get back here, because we’re about to be invaded.”

Alisa had no sooner finished the words than something slammed into the armoire. It skidded forward a foot, wobbling precariously. Using her teeth, Alisa tugged free the tab that armed one of the rust bangs. She forced herself to hold it, recalling that the imperial ones had a five-second delay. The armoire tipped forward, revealing three robots and at least ten pirates crowding around the doorway.

Alisa threw the rust bang as they started to charge inside. The men’s eyes widened, and they stumbled back. One reached out, as if to grab it, but he must have recognized it, because he yanked his hand back and disappeared around the doorjamb. The robots did not sense their impending doom.

“Get down,” Alisa barked, shoving Alejandro toward the corner of the room behind the bed.

An explosion boomed, drowning out the warnings and imprecations of the pirates. Alisa and Alejandro tumbled into the corner, throwing their arms over their heads as corrosive ichor flew out in the corridor and also into the cabin.

The photo display toppled off the bedside table, landing on the floor in front of Alisa. She watched it out of the corner of her eye as shouts and cries of pain came from the corridor, and smoke wafted in through the doorway. The pictures continued to cycle, and she had glimpses of burly men in T-shirts lounging around a table and sharing drinks. Leonidas and Malik were both in the picture, glasses raised. The next photograph was a formal one, rows of men lined up in their army dress garb. She spotted Leonidas in that one, too, standing at the top left and wearing a crisp black imperial uniform bedecked with medals and ribbons, his face cool as he gazed at the photographer from beneath a black hat gilded with gold braids and insignia. Even though she knew what he was, what he had been, seeing that made her insides clench with discomfort.

Or maybe that was the damned orb. She and Alejandro were tangled on the floor, and it had ended up pressed against Alisa’s shoulders. A strange, numbing power coursed through her. Even through the box, it seemed to vibrate with energy.

“What
is
that thing?” She shifted away from it, half wondering if it was some super weapon despite Alejandro’s earlier slip when he had called it a map.

A spatter of corrosive goo dropped off the ceiling and landed on the picture displayer. The case sizzled, smoke wafting up, then hissed and died. The photos disappeared.

“Something very old,” Alejandro said, lifting his head and looking warily toward the doorway.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t hold it close to my balls, not if you ever want to have kids.”

“I already have children—they’re grown.”

“Ah, then maybe you’re safe, so long as your wife no longer expects you to perform husbandly duties.”

“We’re divorced—she didn’t understand my dedication to my work. Or my pathological obsession, as she called it.”

Alisa crawled out of the corner, the second rust bang in her hand. “Then by all means, cuddle that orb in your lap. Just don’t touch me with it.”

It had grown quiet in the corridor, and she risked peeking around the doorjamb—most of the door was gone, a giant hole torn out of the middle. The remains lay in the corridor along with the three robots. They weren’t floating anymore. The goo that was designed to eat through combat armor had corroded holes in their carapaces, revealing smoking wiring and gears. The decking also smoked, the acidic substance eating into it too.

Most of the pirates, their skin not as vulnerable as metal in this case, had made it to safety, though a couple lay stunned from the shockwave. She spotted several faces peering in her direction from the intersection. Someone poked a gun around the corner, and she jerked her head back into the cabin. She grabbed her own gun and, using her teeth, armed the second rust bang.

Without risking her head, Alisa hurled it into the corridor, bouncing it off the wall in the hope that it would angle toward the shooters. Blazer rifles squealed and red bolts streaked past the doorway, but the attack was short-lived.

“Move, move,” someone shouted.

“Now’s our chance,” Alisa whispered, waving for Alejandro to join her. He crouched behind her, ready to spring out.

As soon as the corrosive goo stopped flying, she peeked into the corridor. Nobody had a head around the corner now.

“This way,” she whispered and clambered out over the fallen armoire, trying not to make any noise. One of the robots twitched feebly, but none of them looked like they would be smelting ore—or intruders—again.

Alisa waited for Alejandro before turning to run. Unfortunately, they could not head back the way they’d come, not if she wanted to avoid angry pirates. At the first intersection, she let Alejandro choose the way. She had lost all sense of direction and hoped they would come to a sign that proclaimed the way to engineering.

The sounds of a firefight came from somewhere ahead of them, perhaps pointing the way better than a sign. It might be something to do with the escaped miners—some of them could have acquired weapons by now—but she did not think they were close to the landing bay yet.

“You know we’re running toward trouble, right?” Alejandro asked, his pace slowing. He had lost some of his intensity since recovering the orb. He carried the box tucked under his arm, his fingers curled possessively around it.