Starseers: Fallen Empire, Book 3 Read Free Page B

was a future she did not want, not for herself and certainly not for her daughter.

Chapter 2
    Alisa piloted the Nomad away from the space station and toward the ice-smothered north pole of Arkadius. When they got closer, she would call Yumi to NavCom for more specific directions, but Yumi had already said the temple was located near the pole. That was fine with Alisa, because habitations were sparse above the arctic circle. She hoped the military patrol ships that protected the planet would be sparse in that area too.
    Leonidas ducked into NavCom and slid into the co-pilot’s seat. Since nobody except Alisa knew how to fly the ship, she supposed she should re-dub that the passenger’s seat. She sat there when she needed to plot a course for the autopilot, but that was about all that station was for, other than holding a backup helm in case her station exploded. Or she exploded.
    The grim thought made her glance to the side to check the sensors. Satellites and ships in orbit lit it up at the edge of its range, but nothing was close at the moment. More important, nothing was following them. According to Beck, the Starseer on the station had walked away shortly after Alisa had gone inside with Khazan. She hoped that meant that her suppositions had been wrong, that the robed figure had simply been passing through and hadn’t been sent to spy on her ship. Or her interesting passengers.
    She looked toward Leonidas, debating whether she should tell him about the person. “Can I help you with anything?” she asked, since he had not spoken yet.
    It was not uncommon for the others to come up and chat with her about something or another while she was flying, but he rarely did. During the long days in space between planets, he kept to himself, exercising in the cargo hold or doing who knew what in his cabin. He had seemed even quieter since their stopover on Starfall Station, where he had gotten his combat armor repaired—and where he had watched an old comrade die in his arms. Alisa had been along for that, and she could understand why the events might have left him feeling pensive. He was well aware of the bounty out for his arrest, and now he was aware of what might happen to those who stood close while bounty hunters took shots at him.
    “I don’t need any help,” Leonidas said quietly, gazing at the view screen where icecaps floated in the frigid northern sea. He turned toward her, meeting her eyes. “I did wish to come and thank you.”
    “I—what?”
    “The proper response is, ‘You’re welcome,’” he said dryly.
    “I know. I mean, you are. But for what?”
    “For not turning me over to the Alliance when you had the chance.”
    Alisa almost pointed out that he had been standing behind her when she’d had that chance, and that he could have wrung her neck if she’d truly considered plotting against him, but she kept her mouth shut. Having him appreciative for something she had done—or not done—was new. And she liked it.
    “Both back near Perun,” he said, “and since then. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find Alliance soldiers waiting on Starfall Station or on Arkadius Gamma.”
    “If they had been, they would have been there for Beck’s free duck.”
    “Ah.”
    Alisa smiled. “You’re welcome.”
    His eyebrows rose. “That’s it?”
    “Did you expect something else?”
    “From you? I’ve come to expect inappropriate humor whenever it would be… inappropriate.”
    “I don’t always make a joke,” Alisa said.
    “Huh.”
    She wondered if he had waited two weeks to voice his gratitude for her involvement in the Perun escapade because he had worried that she would respond with sarcasm. That thought made her feel bleak.
    “I’m not certain if the Starseer temple will be a place from which we can depart,” Leonidas said, “but the doctor and I plan to leave your ship there or at the next possible stop.”
    That statement made her feel even bleaker. Which was stupid. Not an hour earlier,