Starseers: Fallen Empire, Book 3 by Lindsay Buroker Page A

over there.
    As her shoulder hit the deck and she rolled in a somersault, the squeal of a blazer sounded. She glimpsed a bright orange bolt slicing through the dark air just behind her as she jumped to her feet. She fired again, not aiming and not caring, just hoping to make her attacker duck for cover as she raced toward the engine room. She dove again, this time aiming for the hatchway, the lanterns inside calling like a beacon.
    Mica stepped into the opening as Alisa rolled across the threshold. Mica yelped, jumping back in surprise.
    “Intruder,” Alisa blurted, scrambling to her feet.
    “So we deduced,” Mica said as she tossed something into the cargo hold.
    Blazer fire shot out of the darkness under the stairs and also from the opposite side of the hold, from the alcove of the airlock. Alisa cursed, realizing she had been standing by the hatch and chatting openly with spies watching on. Spies who wanted her dead.
    Alisa snugged up to the wall just inside of the hatchway. “Put out the lanterns, Yumi.”
    “Thought you wanted the lights on , not off,” Mica growled, jumping back to stand opposite of Alisa on the other side of the hatchway.
    “Not when they’re highlighting us for the enemy,” Alisa said, waiting for Yumi to scramble around the room, shutting off lanterns and flashlights while staying out of sight of those in the cargo hold. If she leaned out too soon, she would be an easy target with her body limned by the light.
    Deadly orange beams lanced through the opening between Alisa and Mica, splashing against the far wall. One almost took out a bundle of conduits. Another burned a scorch mark in the bulkhead.
    “If you bastards hit my new deuterium tank, I’m going to scrag you good,” Mica hollered, leaning out and shooting.
    “Aren’t we all scragged if they hit that?” Alisa asked.
    A cough came from out in the hold. An acrid smell tickled Alisa’s nostrils, so she assumed Mica had thrown a smoke grenade.
    “Nah, it’s triple-shielded, but I don’t want it scuffed.” Mica leaned out and fired. “You hear that, you ugly comet humpers?”
    Unlike Alisa, Mica had a blazer pistol, and her streaks of crimson flashed through the hold, brightening it as if lightning were flashing. For an instant, Alisa had a good look at the person crouching under the stairs, someone wearing a big, shaggy fur coat. She couldn’t target the man in the airlock alcove from her position, but she could shoot at this one. She leaned out just enough to line up her shot, but the hold had gone dark again, smoke and mist further obscuring her target.
    “Shoot again,” Alisa whispered to Mica.
    “Who gets to repair the pock holes later?” Mica growled, but she complied, dumping a barrage of fire in the direction of the airlock.
    In the light from her blazer bolts, Alisa spotted her man again. He spotted her too. He had a blazer out, the muzzle pointed straight at her.
    She fired first and lunged back behind the protection of the bulkhead. The man returned fire, but his bolts did not sizzle past her ear as she expected. They must have flown wide.
    “We’ll make Beck fix the holes,” Alisa said. “These are his mafia men.”
    “I’ll have a putty knife and a paintbrush awaiting his return.”
    Alisa risked peeking out again. When blazer bolts lit up the hold, Mica trading fire with the man in the airlock, Alisa spotted the figure by the stairs, flat on his back and not moving. Good.
    “Got a plan for the one in the airlock?” Alisa whispered. She couldn’t target him or even see him, and she didn’t think Mica could hit him effectively, either. In that alcove between the two hatches, he would be well protected.
    A cough came from the airlock.
    “ That’s my plan,” Mica said. “Hoping he pukes his lungs all over the deck.”
    “Beck’s going to need more than a putty knife to clean that up.”
    “He can—”
    A boom erupted from somewhere outside, and the ice heaved underneath the Nomad . The ship