Cleon Moon (2 page)

Alisa unmuted the comm. “There’s nothing wrong with my ship. What do you want?”

“To collect taxes, of course. You’re on course to land on Cleon Moon, are you not? And deliver freight? We’re here to make sure you pay the taxes due.”

“They’re closing fast,” Yumi whispered. “Taking up a position right behind us.”

Well within firing range, Alisa had no doubt.

“I suppose you’re some kind of official government representative?” she asked, as she raised the
Nomad’s
shields.

She poked at the sensors, checking for other ships within range. As she had suspected, there were no Alliance craft, nor did she see anything that might be considered a police craft. It was probably a free-for-all up here in orbit.

“Naturally,” the man drawled. “We collect taxes on behalf of the Moonstar Mafia, controller of Sargon, the largest and most imposing of Cleon’s domes.”

“We’re not going to Sargon,” Alisa said, though she had no idea if that was true yet or not.

“Don’t worry. We’ll split the taxes equitably with the other domes.”

“Sure you will,” she muttered.

“You have two options, Captain. Electronically transfer the funds to us, or lower your shields, and we’ll send a team over to collect a portion of your freight.”

Alisa muted the comm again. “I suppose they’ll be unimpressed when they learn that our cargo is ten chickens.” She looked at Leonidas. “Any ideas? I’m sure you and Beck can thwart their tax team, but Mica is still repairing the damage from the last time intruders forced their way onto the ship.”

Leonidas eyed the gray curvature of the moon. “Are we close enough that you can make it down to land before the shields give out?”

“Probably not if they have free rein to fire indiscriminately up my ass as we go down. Evasive maneuvers in a planet’s—or moon’s—atmosphere are always tricky, and there’s not going to be anything to hide behind until we’re all the way down. Maybe not even then. I don’t remember a lot of mountains on Cleon. Mostly swamps and giant fungal stalks that are a poor imitation of trees.”

“The fungal stalks aren’t
supposed
to be trees,” Yumi said. “They’re fascinating and a delight to study.”

“Hiding a ship behind one isn’t a delight. Unless it’s a very skinny ship.”

An alarm flashed on the console, and the
Nomad
shivered.

Yumi gripped the back of Alisa’s seat. “What was that?”

“A warning shot,” Leonidas said and stood up. “Invite them to board.” His blue eyes narrowed, a familiar glint entering them. “I’ll suit up and be waiting for them.”

“To show them the cargo and give them a tour?” Alisa asked.

“To show them my fists and my rifle.”

He turned toward the hatchway, but Alisa reached out, touching his wrist. “Be careful, please. I know you’re tougher than ahridium, but I’m sure they’ll anticipate trouble.”

“I would be disappointed if they didn’t come prepared.”

Alisa expected him to give her a curt nod and walk out, all business as usual. He was the consummate professional when on shift, and she had to catch him during a quiet moment, early in the morning or late at night, to entice him to drink coffee, eat chocolate, and let her lean on him.

But he stopped and clasped her hand. “May I order you to keep the hatch shut and stay in NavCom or would you find that overly stifling?”

Distracted by the pleasing way his thumb was brushing across the backs of her knuckles, Alisa almost forgot to respond. “It
does
sound restrictive. And I
am
the captain here. Technically, you only get to order Beck around.”

“Perhaps I can suborn your engineer and talk her into installing an exterior lock on that hatch, so we can force you to stay put.”

“You can’t suborn Mica. We were in the Alliance together. She’s loyal.”

“I saw her working on a new résumé this morning.”

“Damn her fickle ways.”

Leonidas let go of her hand, and Alisa resisted the urge to fling her arms around him for a goodbye hug. For one thing, Yumi was two feet away. For another, this was just some self-appointed tax collector they were dealing with. Not cyborgs, not androids, and not legions of soldiers in combat armor. It should be an easy battle for him.

The comm flashed again as Leonidas walked out.

Alisa swatted the button, not looking before answering. “We don’t have any electronic funds, so you’ll have to come aboard if you want your taxes.”

“Is that an invitation for us to loot you?” a woman asked dryly.

Alisa frowned at the comm, only then realizing that another ship had opened a channel. She turned toward the sensor display, wondering if she dared hope that this could be a rescuer. She would like to believe that a woman would be less likely to prey on innocent freighters, but that might be a foolish belief.

“Another ship is veering toward us,” Yumi informed her.

“You’re supposed to tell me that before they hail us,” Alisa whispered. She looked at the readout long enough to determine that the second vessel was another modified freighter, then turned back to the comm. “We
are
having a party in our cargo hold shortly,” she said, “but I’m not sure you’re on the guest list. Care to identify yourself?”

“I’m Captain Asaro. I’m here to collect your taxes.”

Alisa rubbed her forehead. This moon was even more of a mess than she had anticipated. As much as she feared and disliked most of the Starseers she had met, she hoped Jelena
was
in their care if she was down there. She would need someone who could keep the aggressively opportunistic locals away.

“We’re already talking to a tax collector,” Alisa said.

“I see that. He’s not authorized.
I
am.”

“You’ll have to talk to him about that. I have a limited amount of taxes, and he was here first.”

Alisa closed the comm, doubting there was anyone orbiting this moon that she wanted to talk to. The
Nomad
was still on course for the southern hemisphere. She drummed her fingers on the console, then nudged the speed up. Accelerating
into
a body’s gravitational pull wasn’t typically recommended, but an idea started to form in her mind. Maybe she could come up with a way to avoid being boarded.

“Abelardus,” she called toward the corridor. She hated to ask for his help, but a little Starseer persuasion might move this encounter in the direction she wished.

The
Nomad
shuddered as an e-cannon blast slammed into the rear shields. The first ship must have figured out that she did not have boarding in mind.

You require my assistance?
Abelardus asked smugly into her mind as he stepped into NavCom, his long thin braids dangling down the front of his black robe.

Haven’t we discussed the way you’re not going to talk into my head anymore?

Yes, and I adore our discussions, Alisa.

“Captain,” she growled, glaring over her shoulder at him.

Yumi gave her a curious look.

Alisa gestured to direct Abelardus toward the sensors. “Any chance you can convince those two captains that they’re mortal enemies and want to blow each other out of the stars?”

“It’s difficult to manipulate the minds of multiple people at once,” he said.

“If you can just convince
one
of those captains that they’re mortal enemies with the other, that should suffice. They sound like the kind of people who would shoot back if shot at.”

Another cannon blast slammed into the shields. Alisa snarled and took control of the helm. It was time for creative flying, whether there was anything to hide behind or not.

“They also sound like the kind of people who shoot at unarmed freighters,” Abelardus observed.

She would have snapped at him to at least try, but his eyes grew vacant as he stared toward the ceiling, and she realized he already was. Good. She braced herself to deal with the challenge of evading enemies while trying to find a safe landing spot down there. Neither swamps nor fungal stalks sounded like desirable things to come down on.

“Weapons fire is lighting up the sensors,” Yumi said.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Alisa said.

“They’re shooting at each other.”

“It’s working?”

“The newcomer fired a cannon at the one who hailed us—and fired at us,” Yumi said. “It only took seconds for that ship to shoot back. Now they’re both unloading everything they’ve got at each other.”

Alisa gaped at Abelardus. While this had been her plan, and she had hoped for this result, she hadn’t truly expected it to work, at least not so quickly.

He smirked at her. “There was some preexisting bad blood. It only took the lightest of nudges to convince the female captain that getting rid of the competition was a good idea. Especially when she thought she remembered a rumor that the
Star Nomad
was carrying a valuable cargo.”

“You didn’t put thoughts of a priceless Starseer artifact into her mind, did you?” Alisa couldn’t believe he would be that foolish, but who knew what went on inside that smug head?

“Naturally not. I tantalized her with thoughts of millions of tindarks worth of cyborg parts.”

“I don’t think Leonidas’s parts are worth that much.”

“No.” Abelardus sniffed. “They’re not. But I made her believe we have crates of cybernetic implants, state of the art. A valuable cargo. One worth fighting for.”

“It worked,” Yumi said. “Uhm, it may have worked too well.”

“What do you mean?” Alisa asked.

“The original tax-collecting ship has been incapacitated.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Abelardus said.

“Not when the other one is renewing its pursuit of us,” Yumi said.

Chapter 2

“We’re heading down now.” Alisa had not slowed the
Nomad
down while the other ships had been squabbling, and now she was glad. She had assumed that any fight that broke out would take several minutes to resolve. That woman’s modified freighter had to have some heavy weaponry, if it had destroyed that other ship so quickly. It would make short work of the
Nomad
too.

“Perhaps I dangled too appealing of a cargo in front of the captain’s eyes,” Abelardus said.

“I’d say so.”

Alisa watched their pursuer in the rear camera display as the contours of the continent came into view on the main screen. She could make out the infrequent domes rising up from the otherwise gray landscape. Hundreds of miles of swamps and fungal forests stretched between them, the flat wetlands devoid of mountains or canyons that Alisa might have flown through to shake a pursuer.

“Maybe you could amend your mental suggestion,” she told Abelardus. “Convince the captain that what she really heard about was a cargo hold full of rusted worthless cybernetic parts from centuries long past.”

“It’s much easier to convince someone of something they want to believe than of something they don’t want to believe,” Abelardus said.

“Does that mean you won’t try?”

“It means I already tried.”

A flare of yellow appeared on the rear camera as their pursuer launched a torpedo.

“Brace yourselves,” Alisa said.

That was going to hurt, even with the shields up.

She veered to the right, hoping to evade the attack, but the torpedo changed course to follow her. She wasn’t surprised. It slammed into their rear shields, exploding with a white flash that made Alisa wince as she was thrown forward against her harness. Abelardus might have gone headfirst into the view screen if he hadn’t caught himself on the back of a seat.

Alarm lights flashed, and the shield power dropped a terrifying fifty percent. It had already been down twenty. Another hit, and they wouldn’t have any shields left.

If the ship could last another minute, the
Nomad
would be skimming over the wetlands, where Alisa hoped, perhaps vainly, that she might find some cover. But she didn’t know if she had that minute.

Alisa thumped her palm onto the comm button.

“You’re going to have to pick up your expensive cybernetic parts by hand if my wreckage is scattered across a hundred miles down there,” she told the other captain, glancing back at the sensors, wishing that some police or military ship would appear to help them. But if anyone in the domes cared about squabbles between freighters, they weren’t coming out to show it.

“No problem,” the woman replied promptly. “I have mechanical minions that don’t mind such tasks.”

Chicken squawks drifted up from the cargo hold. Alisa wondered if their pursuer would be disappointed when all she found littered across the landscape was feathers.

The internal comm light came on. “Captain, what despicable and nefarious things are you doing to the ship?” Mica asked.

“
I’m
not the one doing them. We’ve picked up a tax collector.”

“Is it hard to collect taxes from a ship that’s been utterly pulverized?”

“That’s what
I
was asking.”

“Just got this ship halfway fixed,” Mica grumbled, amid clanging sounds. “Taxes. Thought we overthrew the empire to get
rid
of taxes.”

More clangs sounded.

Alisa did not know if Mica was fixing something or simply taking out her irritation by banging on the hatch.

“Strap yourself in, Abelardus,” she said as the swamplands grew larger and more distinct ahead of them. “I don’t want you falling in my lap the next time we get hit.”

“You sure that wouldn’t excite you?” he asked, sliding into the co-pilot’s seat.

Alisa grimaced, regretting that she hadn’t told him to lock himself in his cabin instead. But they had reached land, and she was too busy flying to retort.

Tall gray stalks rose up from the moist ground, some towering forty or fifty feet. They did not have branches or leaves, instead reminding her of stalagmites. The water had a sickly grayish tint that matched everything else in the moon’s bleak wilderness. Not seeing any promising mountains or buttes to swoop around, she flew low over a lake.

“I’ll try to distract her gunner into—ah.” Abelardus frowned. “They’re launching another torpedo.”

Several of the fungal stalks rose up from the water, each between five and ten feet thick, and Alisa weaved in and out around them, hoping the torpedo might strike them instead of her freighter. She had no idea if they had the mass and density of trees, or if a torpedo would cut right through them without exploding. A faint shudder went through the
Nomad
as she brushed one with the edge of her shield.