(eng) Lindsay Buroker - Fallen Empire 07 by Perilous Hunt

Author:Perilous Hunt [Hunt, Perilous]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Alisa finished her pancake wrap and drank two mugs of coffee while the trio of treasure-hunting ships followed along behind, silent stalkers among the stars. She had stopped trying to outfly them, as they had proven too smart to veer close to an asteroid and crash. For the last hour, she had been mulling over possible ways to get rid of them. Unfortunately, the mulling had been unproductive thus far.

“What if we just stop?” Leonidas asked from the co-pilot’s seat, his helmet in his lap.

Alisa regretted telling him to put his armor on when it turned out that there had not been a need, at least not yet.

“I bet they’ll stop too,” Alisa said. “And wait us out. They won’t need food, so they can stay out here indefinitely. We, on the other hand, will run out of supplies eventually. Not to mention that there are still Alliance and imperial ships skulking around out here, looking for the same thing that we seek.”

“Imperial ships don’t skulk.”

“They do when they’re outnumbered and a long way from Perun.”

He gave her a dry look.

“The Alliance ships are skulking, too, in my opinion. Everyone is sneaking around out here, trying to find the staff and the children. And we don’t even know if the staff is nearby. Maybe after Tymoteusz lost us, he decided to take it off to a tropical beach somewhere for a vacation.”

“He didn’t,” Abelardus said from the corridor behind them.

Yumi, who had gone for coffee, slipped past him and returned to the sensor station.

“How do you know?” Alisa asked Abelardus.

“One of our people, Nyarai, who has excellent range says she can sense the staff. It’s not close, but it’s near the asteroid belt. The chasadski might be flying just outside of it, also watching us and waiting to see what we find. Now that Stanislav isn’t here to shroud your ship, Tymoteusz must not have had trouble locating us.”

Alisa groaned. “Why can’t people do their own research? Why are they pestering us?”

“We could fire at the treasure hunters,” Leonidas said. “They’re more of an immediate threat.”

“You’ve taken a look at their weapons complements. You really think we’d be a match for them?”

“Not in a straight battle where both sides will do anything to win, but if they think we can lead them to their prize, they may be unwilling to destroy us.”

“I’m not willing to take that chance,” Alisa said.

For now, they were only guessing why the androids were back there. She did not want to assume she knew their assignment.

“Another option,” Leonidas said, “is to simply continue the search and not worry that we’re being followed. Until we actually find the children, it doesn’t matter if there are androids watching us. And if we do find them, well, we can fight for them then. The androids may even be indifferent to the children if they’re only here for the staff.”

“That’s true,” Alisa said, assuming their employer didn’t also want the prince. Did the kid have a bounty on his head right now? “I wonder if they would believe me if I told them we’re not after the staff.

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