Fallen Empire 1: Star Nomad (8 page)

Another bolt of energy sizzled after them. Alisa turned abruptly, banking hard to take them around the sharp angle and up into the smaller canyon. She clipped the top of a tall pole cactus, leaving it on its side. Three suns, she’d forgotten what a behemoth the
Nomad
was. Out in space, where everything was on a galactic scale, it did not matter as much, but she would feel like an idiot if she wrecked her own ship without having suffered a single blow from the enemy.

Beck’s fingers tightened on the armrests, and he paused in his story.

Alisa spotted what might be a ledge on the satellite map. She increased her speed.

“When I got out, nobody was hiring fighters,” Beck said. “I figured that was a sign from the stars, time to take a shot at making my dream happen. I wanted to open a restaurant, to prove that my sauces were brilliant. I’d get people talking about them, figure out which they liked most, which ones would be the most likely candidates to sell on the interplanetary market.”

Alisa tipped the freighter on the side, flying along the wall to avoid fire from above. Another crackling bolt slammed into the middle of the dried river.

The canyon was growing narrower. Piloting would get tougher, but their enemy should have a tougher time shooting down between the walls too. She hoped.

“I didn’t have the funds to open the restaurant on my own,” Beck continued. “I thought about selling my combat armor, but it’s more than ten years old and has some dents and scrapes that won’t buff out. The secondhand place didn’t want to give me anything close to a fair price. A man was there when I was trying to make the sale and asked what I needed the money for, then said he knew someone who might give me a loan if I didn’t mind a hefty interest rate.” Beck flexed his fingers on the armrests as the
Nomad
dipped below an arch, the shields bumping the bottom edge on the way through. “I was enamored with my idea and figured I could handle the interest. In truth, I could. I took on a partner with experience in restaurants, and we weren’t open a month before we had more business than we could handle. Considering how screwed the economy is on Dustor, I figured that was damned impressive, and it would only be a matter of time before I could start my sauce line.”

If Alisa had not been busy avoiding fire, she would have given him some incredulous looks. It wasn’t that she blamed a man for having dreams, but what kind of combat specialist fancied himself a chef?

“One night, we had a special guest come by, the man who had indirectly financed my business. Weeks had passed, and I never had any idea the mafia was behind it. I thought I’d been taken on by some benevolent angel investor, albeit a greedy one.” Beck snorted noisily. “Turns out, this was one of the six brothers that founded the White Dragon Clan. He loved good food, and I figured things might turn out all right. I’d feed him an excellent dinner, and he would know that he had made a wise decision by investing in my enterprise. That was before some enemy of his decided to poison him that night, using my food to hide the drugs. He—”

“Hold on.” Alisa raised her hand to pause his story and hit the intercom. “Mica? I know we packed light, but is there anything down there you can use to make some explosives? I have an idea that may or may not work.”

She eyed the satellite imagery again, considering a ledge ahead of them. There was no way to tell how thick it was or how much space was underneath it. She might very well reach it and find out it was only a plateau, but the way it thrust out into the canyon and halfway over the riverbed gave her hope.

The “Uh” that Mica responded with did not sound promising.

“I have DZ-4 bombs,” an unexpected voice said over the intercom. The cyborg.

“Get them. I need you to meet Beck at the hatch.” Alisa doubted the cyborg would appreciate taking orders from her, but their pursuer chose that moment to fire again. The energy bolt blasted past without going anywhere near them, but it slammed into the top of a cliff up ahead, and rubble rained down as the
Nomad
passed. The thumps of the pieces bouncing off the shields resounded throughout the ship.

“I’ll be there in less than a minute,” the cyborg said. He sounded unperturbed, as if he had been fired on a thousand times in his life. He probably had.

“You have any explosives, Beck?” Alisa asked.

“No, but I can blow the hells out of a man with the blazers built into my armor. Might be able to put a dent in some ship’s shields if I have long enough.” He unfastened his harness and stood.

“Go with the cyborg. Help him plant explosives. If my plan works, we won’t need you to go toe to toe with a ship.”

“The mech?” Beck scowled.

“We’re all on the same side.
Your
side.” Alisa turned a frosty look on him, hoping to remind him that he had brought this upon them. She didn’t want anything except cooperation from him.

“Right. We’ll get it done.” He ran out the hatchway.

Alisa tapped the intercom. The ledge was coming up. She would have to work quickly and hope the shields could take a couple of hits from the mafia ship. The canyon narrowed further up ahead. Good. That should make her actions more believable.

“Brace yourselves, everyone,” Alisa said. “We’re about to get hit.”

“Pardon?” Mica asked.

“Trust me.” Alisa nudged the flight stick and took them upward, hoping it would look like they were giving up on the canyon and fleeing back to the city.

The White Dragon ship reacted even more quickly than she expected, the pilot firing at her with glee. Her fingers twitched, wanting so badly to take evasive maneuvers, but she forced herself to stay on a straight and predictable course.

An energy bolt slammed into their starboard side. An alarm flashed on the console, warning her that the shields had dipped below fifty percent power.

Alisa was too busy with other controls to do more than glance at it. She hit a button to vent exhaust at the same time as she spun artfully, corkscrewing back down into the canyon. She leveled them out just enough to pilot them toward the ledge at the same time as they lost elevation.

Footsteps clanged on the deck behind her, and she glimpsed Alejandro racing to NavCom, gripping the hatchway with both hands as he stared at her. The artificial gravity compensated for the spinning, but the ship still jostled back and forth.

Busy concentrating, Alisa did not acknowledge him. She leveled further just before they slid under the ledge, the thrusters skipping off the ground. Alejandro cursed, nearly tumbling to the deck.

The ledge was barely high enough for the
Nomad
to slide under. Alisa reversed the thrusters, halting them far more abruptly than the ship was designed to do. This time, Alejandro almost ended up in her lap. Alisa vented more exhaust, hoping it looked like smoke from above.

“Cyborg, Beck, you’re on,” she said, hitting the control to open the hatch even as she settled them onto the ground under the far end of the ledge. Their nose peeked out, but not so much that the White Dragon ship should be able to tell that the
Nomad
had landed with control instead of in the crash she’d done her best to simulate. “Plant some explosives on the ceiling of the ledge, right behind us, right where you would land if you were an enemy ship coming down to check us out. Set a delay if your bombs don’t have a remote detonation capability.”

The men did not respond, but she flicked on the exterior cameras and saw them running down the ramp in the direction she had indicated.

“You
pretended
to crash,” Alejandro said slowly, also watching the camera.

“Yeah. Did you come up here to pray for us in case we were really going to crash?”

“Actually, I was going to call you a maniac and try to wrest control of the ship from you.”

“Are you a pilot?”

“No, but I felt desperate.” He shrugged, his hand wrapped around his pendant. “I haven’t been in many battles.”

Alisa thought about pointing out that this was tame as far as battles went, but it wasn’t over yet. They could still end up in pieces littered up and down this canyon for miles.

“They’re hovering over us now,” she said, watching the sensor display. She flicked several switches. “I’m killing all non-essential power so we look dead, but not everything. If they decide to blow this ledge to Old Earth and back, we’ll need to take off. I’m hoping they have orders to bring Beck back alive for his punishment.”

Alejandro scratched his head. “I… feel like a planet that got left off the map.”

“He failed to explain that the mafia is after him before he accepted his new job.”

Alisa watched the camera as they spoke, wincing when she realized how high above them the underside of the ledge was. The
Nomad
fit with ten feet to spare, and the ship itself was over thirty feet high.

As she was trying to remember if there was collapsible grav scaffolding somewhere in the ship, the cyborg ran to the rock wall. It was vertical with few obvious handholds, but he climbed up it as if there was a rope ladder hanging there for him. Beck could only stand and watch, pointing his rifle vaguely down the canyon at the cactuses poking up on either side of the riverbed.

Alisa glanced at Alejandro. He was watching the camera too and did not appear surprised. She remembered that hint of recognition she’d glimpsed on his face when he had first seen the cyborg. She wasn’t sure if it had been because he recognized him specifically or just that he was familiar with cyborgs.

“You haven’t met him before, have you?” Alisa drummed her fingers as she watched him switch from vertical to horizontal, still finding hand and footholds as he maneuvered far enough out along the ceiling of the ledge that he could plant the bombs where she had requested.

Alejandro hesitated, then shook his head.

She almost pressed him further, but the blip that represented the other ship moved. “They’re coming in to check us out more closely,” she announced. “Or, with luck, to land and try to board us.”

“That’s what you consider lucky, is it?”

“Hurry up, boys,” she muttered, her hand hovering over the external comm. She was about to warn them that they didn’t have much time, but the cyborg let go of the ledge then. He dropped forty feet, twisting in the air to land on his feet. He crouched deeply to absorb the impact of the landing, but anyone else would have broken both legs trying that move. “Must be nice to be able to do things like that,” she mumbled.

“They give up much in exchange for their abilities,” Alejandro said dryly.

The words made her think he might know a lot more about it than she did, but even if there had been more time, she wasn’t sure she would have asked for details. Cyborgs were the enemy. They had been long before the war had started, acting as tools of death for the empire, assassinating those who didn’t precisely obey imperial law. She had no wish to humanize them and think of them as anything except monsters to be avoided.

A shadow fell across the canyon. The other ship coming in. To land, Alisa hoped. They could have fired from up above without dropping into the canyon.

Beck and the cyborg raced up the ramp and showed up on the interior cameras in the cargo hold. Alisa flicked the switch to close the hatch, then moved her hand toward the buttons that would turn main power back on and raise the shields. She was tempted to hit them now, as the enemy ship lowered itself toward the ground, but that would register on their sensors. The
Nomad
couldn’t play dead in the water and have the shields up at the same time.

Sweat dampened her palms. They could have withstood a few more blows with the shields up, but without them, that energy weapon would blast a hole in the hull and possibly kill them all.

“He better be one damned amazing grill master,” Alisa said. She expected a feast if they got Beck out of this.

“Pardon?” Alejandro asked.

She shook her head. Beck could explain his story to the others later, assuming they survived this.

The enemy ship came into view, a sleek black vessel with dozens of weapons protruding from the hull and a gun turret on the top. It hovered briefly, eyeing them.

Alisa grimaced, wishing she had shoved the
Nomad’s
nose into the wall and brought down some rocks around them. They probably looked like they had landed instead of crashing. At the least, she should have had the cyborg kick some dirt onto the hull while he had been out there.

“The explosives can be remotely detonated,” the cyborg said over the intercom. “Tell me when.”

“I will,” Alisa said. Reminding herself that he hadn’t agreed to accept her as his captain and follow her orders, she made herself add a “Thank you.”

She wasn’t surprised when she didn’t get a “You’re welcome” in return.

The other ship landed. Ten feet away from the ledge.

“Damn.” Alisa thumped her fist on the console. She had hoped they would creep under the ledge, and that she could bring it down on the ship as the
Nomad
flew away.

“Now what?” Alejandro asked.

She held up a hand, hoping…

There. A hatch opened in the belly of the black ship, and a ramp lowered to the ground. Six men in combat armor followed by six more men in regular clothing came out. Judging by all the weapons they carried, both sets of men had raided their armory on the way out.

“They really want you, Beck,” Alisa said.

“But they’re not getting me. Right, Captain?” Beck responded from the cargo hold.

“Let’s hope not. Got your rifle ready?”

“Always.”

The squad of men marched toward the
Nomad’s
hatch.

“This is as good as it’s going to get,” Alisa said. “I hope it’s enough.”

“Captain?” Beck asked.

Alisa waited until all of the men had walked under the ledge and were passing beneath the bombs. “Now, Cyborg.”

The explosives blew before she finished the words, the boom thunderous in the confined canyon. It was a good thing she had already been pounding the button to raise the shields. Power surged through the ship, the thrusters activating as she took them out as fast as she could. Huge boulders tumbled down from above, slamming to the ground around and on top of the White Dragon men. They slammed into the top of the
Nomad
, as well, a cacophony of bangs sounding as the shields deflected them.