Arkadian Skies by Lindsay Buroker

Author:Lindsay Buroker [Buroker, Lindsay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Lindsay Buroker
Published: 2016-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

“No sign of pursuit yet,” Yumi said from the sensor station.

“Good.” Alisa thought about calling for more power from the thrusters, as the Aszarian Sea passed below them, the last of the setting suns gleaming red across the deep green water. But no. She didn’t want to get there prematurely, before their pursuers arrived. If Stanislav was there with the Staff of Lore and had taken over the Starseer temple, they would need all the help they could get. Alisa just had to figure out a way to convince their pursuers to be that help.

“At present speed, it looks like we’ll arrive at the coordinates Abelardus and I calculated in about forty-five minutes.”

“You’re a steady science officer and navigation assistant, Yumi. You should let me hire you.”

Yumi’s expression appeared more stressed than pleased at the words.

“No word from your sister or mother yet?” Alisa asked.

“Nothing.” Yumi gripped knobs on the panel that did not need to be gripped, and she stared at the monitor. “I’d just barely reestablished communication with my mother after ten years. And met sisters I didn’t even know I had. If something happened to them—if I’ve already lost them before I got to know them… It doesn’t seem fair.”

Alisa opened her mouth, intending to say that they didn’t know yet that anything had happened to the temple, but Yumi probably wanted commiseration, not logic.

“You’re right,” she said. “It wouldn’t be fair, especially if they were standing up to those thugs that stole the staff.”

Yumi sniffed. “I heard one of those thugs might be your father.”

“You’ve known me for a lot of weeks now. Would you be shocked to find that thuggishness ran in my family?”

“No.”

“Thanks.”

A knock came at the hatch, and Leonidas’s face appeared in the window. He nodded at her.

Alisa took a deep breath and waved for him to come in with their guests. She had asked him to set up this moment, so she couldn’t shy away from it.

Leonidas entered first and stood as close to Alisa’s seat as he could with Yumi sitting behind her. Suyin and Admiral Tiang came through behind him, both wearing annoyed expressions. Very similar annoyed expressions. Alisa had no trouble seeing the family resemblance in their dark brown eyes and small noses, though Suyin had lighter skin and a wave to her hair. They did not look much like prisoners, despite their expressions. Leonidas had not bound their hands, probably because there weren’t any intellicuffs on the ship—and the old-fashioned handcuffs in Mica’s sex-toy drawer had been used for a previous adventure—but the way he was herding them around and looming behind them must make them feel like captives.

“Captain,” Admiral Tiang said. “Is an explanation forthcoming? Colonel Adler has been quite tight-lipped.”

“Because he doesn’t know the plan yet.”

Indeed, one of Leonidas’s eyebrows went up. He was being patient in going along with her when there hadn’t been time to explain. She had wanted to get the Nomad out of the city as quickly as possible after learning that the Alliance might be tracking Suyin by her earstar or some other method.

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