Fallen Empire 1: Star Nomad Read Online Free PDF Page A

glancing at the cyborg. He hadn’t changed position. He was looking out into the cavern rather than at them. “Whatever he was in the imperial fleet, I bet it wasn’t a homeless vagabond forced to squat in a junkyard full of cannibalistic maniacs. We were on the side that drove him to this. Don’t think he won’t resent us.”
    Alisa couldn’t accuse Mica of being overly pessimistic this time. In all likelihood, she was right.
    Still…
    “I don’t see what choice we have,” Alisa said. “He doesn’t look like he’s moving.”
    “We’ll take another ship then.”
    “ What ship?” Alisa waved at the sea of dust, rust, and shadows surrounding them. “These are all derelicts in here—they probably didn’t fly when they were brought in, and they’ve surely been scavenged to the core and back since then. The Nomad is—was… The engine was still working and the hull was intact. I didn’t sell her because she was in poor condition.”
    Mica sighed. “I know. You told me. But that was then. We don’t know what condition she’s in now.”
    “She’s the most likely ship in here to ever fly again. Listen, I’d actually been thinking of taking on some passengers, anyway, if we can get her working. We need money for supplies, and people would line up for miles at a chance to get off this world and back to one of the core planets.”
    “Oh, I know that , but how many of those people could actually pay? You may not have noticed, but Flint Face over there didn’t offer to drop any tindarks in your purse.”
    “I know, but others might, and if we have paying passengers, we could use their money to hire a couple of security men, too. Some beefy brutes who could stand between him and us.” Alisa pointed her thumb toward the cyborg.
    “You really think a rent-a-guard is going to be a match for an imperial cyborg?”
    “Maybe not, but if we had a crew and passengers, he might be less likely to try something… untoward.”
    Alisa couldn’t help but think of Mica’s earlier words of rape and killing. Was she being naive in contemplating this? Did they have any other choice? It wasn’t as if she had the money to buy a ship, even if there had been any available on Dustor. What little she had received from Finnegan all those years ago had gone toward the down payment on the apartment that she and Jonah had purchased, an apartment that had apparently been incinerated by bombs. The virtual financial system was a mess these days, with accounts no longer being accessible across the sys-net, so the three coins in her pocket were all she had to her name. Technically, she ought to still have some money in her bank account on Perun, but what remained of the empire had settled in there, and as an Alliance soldier, she wouldn’t be welcome. She had no idea how she was going to get in to find her daughter, but she had a week’s voyage to figure it out. Now, she would have a week and ten days.
    “Untoward.” Mica curled her lip. “You know what’s worse than an optimistic engineer?”
    “An optimistic captain?”
    “Exactly.”
    Alisa left Mica grumbling to her toolbox and approached the cyborg again. “You’ll be pleased to know that we’ve decided that we would be fools not to visit the magnificent wonders of the Trajean Asteroid Belt before heading to our final destination.”
    She expected the cyborg to say, “Good,” or something of that ilk. Instead, he grunted and walked inside.
    “Oh, yes. It’s going to be fun playing Carts and Chutes with him in the rec room during the evenings.”

Chapter 3
    The cyborg never left the ship.
    It had crossed Alisa’s mind that if he ever did, she and Mica could maroon him here, assuming they got the Star Nomad working. After all, she hadn’t given her word that she would take him, and it wasn’t as if he had done her any favors. Letting her onto a ship that she had as much right to be on as he did not qualify. But he never left.
    He had claimed one of the small crew