“It’s all yours, Captain.”
She touched the hatch, not surprised to find it still hot. She pulled down her sleeve, grabbed the latch, and tried to tug it open. It did not budge. She cursed. How was she supposed to save her ship when she was locked in NavCom?
“Look out,” Abelardus said, pulling her back.
Another drone floated into view beyond the broken window.
“I’ll get it,” Alisa snarled. She swatted Abelardus away and fired through the broken window. “You figure out a way to open the hatch.”
She struck the drone dead on, but it only stuttered in the air, seeming to absorb the energy of the bolt. She fired twice more, growled, and pulled out her Etcher. Maybe bullets would do something.
The drone shot back. Fortunately, it aimed at the locking mechanism instead of through the window, or it would have taken Alisa’s head off. As if that lock wasn’t already mangled. She stood on her tiptoes and fired three rounds with her Etcher.
A wing flew off with her first shot. The second two hit it directly on the nose. This time when the craft stuttered, it did not recover. It pitched to the deck.
A boom came from the direction of the cargo hold. Alisa glanced at the view screen. Had Leonidas and Beck been forced back onto the
Nomad
? More smoke than ever filled the hold, and she couldn’t see a thing through the haze.
“Abelardus,” she said. “The hatch?”
“You’re a demanding woman, Captain.” He was crouching next to it, his hand on the warm metal, his face tilted in a thoughtful, or perhaps focused, expression.
“Yes, I am. Maybe you should have taken the time to find that out before going on a date with me.”
He smiled up at her. “Fortunately, I can meet the demands of any woman.” He stood up and grabbed the latch.
He had to heave, his shoulders quivering under his robe, but the hatch finally groaned open.
Smoke flooded into NavCom, and Alisa coughed. That did not keep her from striding into the corridor. She intended to make all of those robots suffer for blasting up her ship.
Abelardus caught her by the arm, pushing her to the side so he could pass her.
“You don’t have armor,” he said at her irritated look.
“Neither do you.”
He smiled, waved his staff, and trotted toward the cargo hold.
Another boom thundered through the ship, the deck quaking under Alisa’s feet.
“A secondary hull breach has been detected,” the computer voice announced, and the alarm seemed to intensify.
A breeze whispered past Alisa’s cheek, and the smoke streamed toward the cargo hold. Her stomach sank. They were venting the ship’s atmosphere.
Chapter 10
As Alisa and Abelardus passed through the mess hall and onto the walkway stretching over the cargo hold, two drones appeared out of the darkness. She jerked her blazer and Etcher up, one weapon in each hand, but the mechanical constructs were quicker. Crimson energy blasts streaked toward them. Alisa tried to dodge to the side, but knew she would be too late.
The blasts, however, never reached her. Abelardus, standing just in front of her, twirled his staff. He knocked one blast away, as if it were a ball instead of a scorching burst of energy. The other one never touched the staff. It seemed to be absorbed in midair by a forcefield.
Abelardus sprang forward, attacking one of the drones with the staff, trying to club the thing. Alisa had an opening and fired past his shoulder toward the second. She unleashed both bullets and blazer bolts. This close, her aim was impeccable, but it took several rounds before the drone faltered. It wavered in the air, wingtips shivering, and smoke wafted out, adding to the pall filling the corridor. Finally, it crashed to the deck.
Abelardus’s staff connected with the first drone. Something like silver lightning sprang from the weapon where it touched the metal. The lightning enshrouded the drone, and a noisy crack sounded over the ongoing alarm, like something short-circuiting. Metal plating flew off the construct, and it tumbled to the deck beside the first one.
Instead of continuing along the walkway, Abelardus paused, looking through the smoke in the direction of the airlock—and the other ship. The sounds of weapons fire drifted through the tube.
“Beck and the cyborg are in the engineering section over there, and they’re fighting another android,” Abelardus said.
“Are they winning?”
“I don’t think so. The android has more robots and drones helping him.”
“Great.” Alisa pointed at the smoke spiraling past, heading toward the wall near the big cargo hatch door. “Let’s check on the breach, make sure there aren’t any more drones, and find Mica.”
Alisa was tempted to go to Mica first, but she ought to be safe in engineering with the hatch closed right now. She wanted to make sure all of the drones were done before calling for her to come out.
When she and Abelardus reached the part of the walkway where the stairs should have been, the metal sagged and groaned under their weight. Abelardus hopped over the edge, the smoke so thick that he disappeared from her sight as he landed. A grunt and a crunch came up from below. He had probably landed on some of the wreckage.
Alisa holstered her weapons for long enough to sit on the edge, turn, and swing down. Abelardus reached out and steadied her as she landed. She wanted to say that she did not need help, but this wasn’t the time to be snippy. Besides, if more of those drones showed up, she
would
need his help. That staff and the shield he could generate would be all that stood between her and those energy weapons.
“This way,” she said, following the stream of smoke. It ran over their heads now, and she could make out a faint whooshing sound over the wailing of the alarm.
Abelardus sprang to the side as another drone zipped out of the smoke, zeroing in on them. He thwacked it with his staff, and that lightning burst into existence again, engulfing the automaton. Alisa fired twice and finished it off. As soon as it hit the deck, she hurried on, stepping over other destroyed drones and pieces of debris that looked like they might have flown off that tank. Some of the drones were half melted, as if by acid, and she remembered the rust bangs Mica had been making. Leonidas and Beck must have found them useful.
When she reached the wall, she followed it, shaking her head at the blast marks and soot coating it. A figure appeared in the smoke ahead, and she halted, raising her Etcher.
The figure spun toward her, lifting a hand. “Captain?”
“Mica?”
“It’s about time.” Mica lowered her hand, one of her homemade rust bangs gripped in it.
Alisa lowered her Etcher. “I thought you were in engineering.”
“There are
holes
in the ship.” Mica waved at open patch kits sprawled on the deck by her feet, along with a soldering iron and a few other tools. “Someone has to do something about them.”
Abelardus took up a guard position, putting his back to them and peering into the smoke.
“I thought the grab beam might help hold the atmosphere in,” Alisa said.
“It
is
helping. This could be worse. You watching my back? Good.” Mica shoved the rust bang into one of the big pockets in her baggy coveralls and returned to the breach.
“Something else is down here with us,” Abelardus said quietly, the words barely audible over the alarm.
“More drones?” Alisa drew the blazer pistol with her left hand again.
“No. I believe it is—there!”
A humanoid figure shambled out of the darkness toward them. An android, the one Alisa had seen earlier on the camera, the one Leonidas had fought.
It was armored, more of a hard exoskeleton than bulky combat armor, but that outer layer was burned and mangled. The android dragged one of its legs as it walked. A piece of pipe was thrust through its chest, sticking out on the other side. The side of its face had been destroyed, half torn off. Despite all of its injuries, it headed toward them, a rifle in one hand and something that looked like a grenade in its other.
Alisa started to fire, but Abelardus leaped toward the android, getting in her way. She cursed and thought to move to the side, but decided to hold her ground. Someone had to protect Mica’s back while she worked.
The android burst forward, meeting Abelardus several feet away. Abelardus swung his staff, but his inhuman foe lunged in and caught his arm before the weapon landed. Using his grip on Abelardus’s arm, the android hurled him across the cargo hold. He disappeared into the smoke, so Alisa did not see him land, but she heard the thud and his pained gasp.
She did not hesitate to open fire. The android started to turn after him, but when her bullets and blazer bolts slammed into its side, it shifted toward her. Grimly, she kept firing, wondering if she had just strung a noose around her neck.
The android strode toward her, her weapons fire bouncing off that exoskeleton. She lifted her aim to its head. It flinched as a bullet cracked into its cheek, gouging a hole into the faux skin and revealing a metallic skull underneath. The android continued forward. She backed up as far as she could, bumping Mica.
“Rust bang,” she blurted.
Mica turned, a rust bang in hand, but their enemy was too close. The android reached for Alisa.
A wall of air seemed to slam into their foe, and it was hurled from its feet. Alisa stumbled as the tail edge of the force struck her shoulder. She dropped to one knee, almost falling over Mica. The android hit the bulkhead with a thud, but rose to its feet immediately. Mica threw her rust bang at it.
“Get back,” she blurted, grabbing Alisa.
Alisa staggered to her feet as Abelardus ran out of the smoke toward the android.
“Careful,” she warned. A rust bang might be designed to eat through metal, but the spatters hurt like the hells when they landed on human skin.
Something skidded and clanked along the floor toward Alisa. At first, she thought the android had thrown the rust bang back, but this was a different weapon, the grenade it had been clutching.
Alisa started to dive away but saw that Mica had turned back to the breach, determined to patch the hole. She hadn’t seen the grenade.
“Look out,” she barked and grabbed Mica, pulling her and turning her away from the grenade.
She tried to kick it away before it could go off, but was more focused on getting them both out of there. She barely clipped it.
They raced several feet, Alisa pushing Mica ahead of her. The grenade exploded.
A wave of power slammed into Alisa’s back, carrying her into the air. She crashed into Mica as pieces of shrapnel struck her, burrowing through her jacket and blasting into her skin. She screamed as she fell, pain lighting up her body in a hundred places. She and Mica grew tangled, and Alisa’s shoulder struck the deck hard as she landed. A crunch sounded, and agony sprang from the injury.
The ship’s voice sounded, warning of another breach, and Alisa almost cried in frustration. Knowing the android was still back there and might be charging toward her, she tried to get her feet under her, but as soon as she moved her arm, the pain increased. Her shoulder would not take her weight. Blackness washed over her when she lifted her head. She gasped, willing it to go away. She was
not
going to pass out, not when her ship was in trouble and that cursed android was still alive.
Footfalls thundered into the cargo hold, and bright red armor appeared through the smoke. Leonidas veered toward the wall where Alisa had last seen Abelardus and the android. They were grappling there—she could just make it out as more smoke—more of their precious air—streamed toward the breach Mica had been trying to fix.
Leonidas descended on the android like a jackhammer. Alisa let herself fall back to the floor. She didn’t know if they were safe, but seeing Leonidas filled her with hope. If anyone could flatten that android, he could.
Beck came running into view. He looked toward Leonidas but then spotted Alisa and Mica and raced toward them. Behind Alisa, Mica moaned. She must have hit hard and perhaps taken some of that shrapnel too. Alisa hurt too much to roll over and look.
A clang sounded from the direction of the airlock. Alisa could barely make out Abelardus in his robe over there, closing the hatch. The smoke continued to destroy the visibility, and it irritated her nose and eyes. She tried to take a deep breath, to deal with the pain coming from all over her body, but she ended up coughing. The shards of metal that had burrowed into her skin seemed to poke deeper with the coughs, and tears pricked her eyes.
Leonidas rose, lifting the android over his shoulder, and called out to Abelardus, “Wait.”
He ran to the hatch and thrust his load into the airlock. The battered android did not fight him—maybe it was dead. Inoperable. Defunct. Whatever the right word was. Leonidas was not taking any chances. He tapped the controls, probably opening the outer hatch so the android would be dumped into the tube. Or into space if the
Nomad
succeeded in pulling away from the tube. Had Leonidas and Beck turned off the grab beam? Alisa had no way to know.
“Leonidas,” she said. She meant to call loudly and strongly to him, to be heard over the alarm still ringing throughout the ship, but his name came out as a pained gasp.
He heard her and left the airlock, running toward her.
All she meant to do was ask about the grab beam, but he scooped her into his arms. She winced as the shrapnel was pressed deeper into her flesh, and tears streaked down her cheeks, warm and salty where they touched her lips.
“Beck,” he called, his voice muffled by the faceplate of his helmet, “get Mica.” Then he raised his voice to bellow for Alejandro.
Alisa had no problem hearing that.
“We’ll get you to sickbay,” he said, speaking more quietly for her.
She gripped his shoulder. “Is the grab beam down?”
“Yes. We left the other ship with substantial damage in engineering.”
“Is the captain dead?”
“No, there wasn’t time. We heard the fight back here.” He strode toward the walkway. “We can talk about it in sickbay.”
“No, NavCom.”