End Game

by Lindsay Buroker

  Alisa gulped as she eased out—they didn’t have Leonidas cornered, did they?

  The boom of a destroyer sounded. Leonidas’s secreted weapon. Now, Alisa wished she’d dared to sneak weapons in under her jacket too.

  She led the way along the wall. Young-hee and Yumi, both with wide eyes, stuck so close to her that they nearly tripped her a couple of times. The squeal of blazer fire echoed throughout the bay, and more than one bolt ricocheted off the wall above or ahead of them. Alisa jumped when one blast struck close, leaving a sizzling crater in the bulkhead. She was all-too-aware that she wasn’t wearing her combat armor. Neither was Leonidas.

  They ran along the body of a large black shuttle, using it for cover, then slowed to a crawl and checked the way before darting out from behind it. As Alisa ran across the open stretch, several other craft came into view out in the bay. Blue-uniformed men lay here and there, groaning on the deck, some flat on their backs and some curled against the bases of shuttles. Most seemed to be moving, so Leonidas must not be trying to kill anyone.

  Alisa faltered when she spotted Leonidas racing away from a group of men. One aimed right at his back and fired. Leonidas anticipated it somehow, throwing himself forward into a roll. He somersaulted across the deck, red beams of energy sizzling through the air above him. He careened around the front of a shuttle while still rolling, sprang to his feet, and leaped up to the rooftop of the craft. He ran along the top, back the way he had come, firing down upon the startled men who hadn’t seen him jump. They scattered, fleeing for cover.

  Leonidas leaped from one shuttle to another and disappeared from Alisa’s sight.

  The thug-brothers left the corridor, Abelardus informed her as she continued along the wall, trying to reach their shuttle. They’re going to find another way in.

  Alisa grimaced. They had already passed one door, a metal one rather than a Glastica one. She had no idea if it led to a corridor or a closet, but she could see another clear one not far from where their shuttle waited.

  I’ll try to watch for them, Abelardus added.

  Beck raced out of an alley between two shuttles, startling Alisa as he appeared a few feet away. “Almost there,” he panted. “Follow me.”

  They reached the front of their white shuttle with meals painted on the side, and Alisa allowed herself to feel hope. But not much hope. They still had to get the forcefield down and figure out how to fly away past more than a dozen enemy ships. The troop transport shuttle had minimal shielding and no weapons.

  Beck raced down the long side of the craft, using it for cover, then poked his head around the corner where the back ramp was still down. He jerked back. Blazer fire slammed into the deck a foot from him.

  Alisa stopped a few feet behind him, and Yumi and Young-hee came up behind her.

  “Young-hee,” Alisa whispered, “can you distract whoever is—”

  Two security men leaped off the ramp. Weaponless, Beck couldn’t fire back. Instead of running—as if there was anywhere to run—he sprang at them. One got a shot off before he reached them, and a cry of pain escaped Beck’s lips.

  “No,” Alisa shouted, a surge of protectiveness rushing through her.

  She leaped forward and launched a side kick at the man who’d shot Beck before he realized she was there. Her boot caught his hand, and the blazer pistol flew away, striking the bulkhead.

  Beck slammed into the second man, taking him down, despite his injury. Alisa lashed out at the other guard again, kicking twice more before setting her foot down. He managed to block the blows and back away, but she lunged after him. His shoulder clipped the corner of the shuttle, giving her a second to catch up. He was six inches taller than she, but in her anger, she didn’t care. She barreled into him, throwing palm strikes at his sternum. He reached for her as she connected with a solid blow and felt bone crunch under the heel of her hand. His fingers brushed her shoulder, but he gasped and bent over in pain without gripping her. She curled her hand into a fist and slammed an uppercut into his chin. Pain burst from her knuckles, but his head whipped back, and she pressed the advantage. She slammed her knee into his groin and followed up the attack with two more palm strikes, one to the chest and another to the jaw. He fell to the deck, curling in on himself.

  A dark shadow dropped down in front of her, and she lifted her fists, prepared to fight again. But it was only Leonidas. He nodded once at her and gathered Beck in his arms. His opponent was moaning on the deck in front of him, but Beck gripped his abdomen, blood staining his white jacket. Holding him, Leonidas sprang onto the ramp and rushed into the shuttle to set him down.

  Young-hee and Yumi passed Alisa to run up after him. She started to follow, but paused, spotting Abelardus racing toward her, blood streaming from a gouge in his temple.

  Go, go, he urged. The cyborgs are coming.

  Alisa ran up the ramp with her neck craned over her shoulder. Scar and Whitey were charging toward them from that other doorway she’d noticed. She pumped her legs, knowing she had to get inside and hit the button to close the hatch, or they would be in all manner of trouble.

  Leonidas jumped past her as she made it across the threshold.

  “Stay inside,” she barked, lunging for the hatch controls.

  Abelardus raced up the ramp. In the cluster of people at the narrow entrance, he tripped over Beck and went down. Leonidas strode out onto the ramp, hands in fists as he faced the closing cyborgs.

  Alisa hit the button. “Get back,” she told him.

  He sprang back as the ramp was sucked into the base of the shuttle. He landed on the threshold in a fighting crouch. The hatch started to close, but the two cyborgs were too close. They jumped into the air, Scar trying to bowl through Leonidas. But Leonidas was a wall, and he shoved the cyborg back. Scar fell to the deck, but Whitey had made it to the threshold, and he caught the hatch as it came down, trying to close atop him. He held it up with his raw power, even managing to kick at Leonidas with one leg.

  That kick was so fast that Alisa could barely register the movement of the boot, but Leonidas caught it in midair and lunged close. He grabbed the cyborg and tore him away from the threshold and the hatch that was still trying to close. Instead of shoving him out, as Alisa would have wished, he slammed the younger man against the bulkhead inside. The hatch shut, keeping Scar out but keeping Whitey in.

  “Pilot,” Leonidas barked at Alisa, even as he rammed his foe against the bulkhead again, as if to shake the fight out of him. His eyes burned into the taller cyborg, and for the first time, the man hesitated. “You fled the empire to join a greedy rich woman trying to take over the system?” Leonidas growled.

  “I—”

  “Was the emperor even dead before you abandoned your platoon?” he demanded. “How many men did you leave behind to die?”

  Alisa wanted to stay and watch—she so rarely saw Leonidas genuinely angry—but he was right. They needed to get out of here.

  As she flung herself into the pilot’s seat, a bang came from the hatch. Scar. She wagered he had the strength to tear it open.

  She fired up the engine, glad the shuttle had been designed to be ready quickly, and took them into the air. Another clang came from outside. More thumps came from within as the cyborg got over being startled by Leonidas’s ferocity and fought back.

  Abelardus flung himself into the seat next to Alisa. “Working on getting that leech off the damned door,” he said, eyes focused in intense concentration.

  “Good.” Alisa glanced back as she flew them over the other shuttles in the bay. With the forcefield up, blocking access to space, all she could do was go in circles. “Young-hee? Any chance you can find the button that lowers that forcefield?”

  Young-hee limped toward a seat on wobbly legs, her hand to her waist, Yumi helping her. Only then did Alisa realize she had also been shot. No wonder she hadn’t been able to do much. Beck was on the deck on hands and knees, crawling toward one of the seats—or maybe just trying to get away from the fight in the b
ack. Leonidas and the younger cyborg were locked in a wrestling match, pausing only long enough to throw punches or head butt each other. Metal groaned as a fist struck the hull.

  “They’ll destroy the ship from within,” Alisa muttered, turning her attention back to the view screen. As she flew over the shuttles, skimming past the forcefield, Scar came into view, grabbing a couple of blue-uniformed men on the deck and racing for a doorway.

  “I convinced him that we knew a way to lower the forcefield, and that the bay would depressurize in a second,” Abelardus said.

  “I wish that were true.” Alisa’s words were drowned out by more thumps from the rear, followed by a gasp of pain. She couldn’t tell if it was Leonidas or the enemy cyborg.

  Alisa thumped the side of her fist on the control panel. They had to do something. Sooner or later, Scar would figure out that they didn’t have a way to lower anything, and he would return with reinforcements. And rocket launchers.

  “Young-hee?” Alisa asked. “Can you do anything?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know much about ships,” Young-hee said in a pained voice. “And I’m having a hard time concentrating now.”

  Abelardus looked at her and blinked a few times. “Young-hee, you were shot?”

  “Nice of you to notice,” she murmured.

  “Is there anything I can do?” He left his seat and knelt beside hers, laying a hand on her arm. “Do you know how to do a meditative trance to minimize your awareness of your pain?”

  “Of course, but this hardly seems like an appropriate time to drift off,” Young-hee said. She sounded irritated—or maybe just uncomfortable, but she didn’t pull away from him. Indeed, she slumped against him.

  “Better than being in pain,” Abelardus said, his brow pinched as he considered her with concern.

  “Abelardus?” Alisa asked. “If she can’t help, I’m going to need you.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said, though he didn’t leave Young-hee’s side as he looked toward the view screen. “I’ll try to get one of these lumps to think about the controls and let me know where they are.” He flicked a finger at the uniformed security men that Leonidas had knocked to the deck. Many of them were limping or crawling toward the exits. Scar must have shouted a warning for them to get out. Good. If, by some chance, Alisa figured out how to lower the forcefield, she didn’t want to kill people by venting them into space.

  She looked at the comm panel, wishing she had a code for Tomich’s personal comm unit. Not that he’d necessarily be able to answer it on the bridge, even if he had it with him. He wouldn’t be able to give up his cover, not even for her.

  But an idea popped into her mind. Maybe…

  She opened the comm and hit reply on the message that had come in earlier, first letting them into the yacht. “Greetings, Starry Elegance. This is the crazy captain of the catering shuttle. We don’t really want to die down here, but we’re desperate. We might do something alarming if you don’t let us go.”

  Unfortunately, the person who replied wasn’t Tomich.

  “Surrender your shuttle,” a woman said coolly. “You can’t escape.”

  Was that comm officer on the bridge with Tomich? Alisa hoped so.

  “Oh, are you sure about that? You might want to lower the forcefield and let us out. I’ve activated the self-destruct on my shuttle, and when it blows in three minutes, I figure it’ll take out the lower third or so of your fancy yacht.”

  “You’re bluffing,” a new speaker said. It sounded like the man who had checked out her ass and gone into the lav.

  “No, Captain, I’m not. You’ve got my back against the wall. You people called us in to work for you, all along intending to kill us.”

  “What is she talking about?” the captain muttered to someone.

  Alisa almost rolled her eyes. Maybe he had no idea. Maybe Henneberry or even someone as lowly as Chef Lunquist had been the one to set this all up.

  “Also, one of your cyborg traitors is trying to kill my cyborg in here,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over a screech of metal and a thud that came from the back. A chair that had previously been bolted to the deck smashed against the hull. “You’ve made us desperate. I’m not getting captured. I’ll do anything to escape. Two minutes. Say, you don’t have anything important down here on this side of the ship, do you? Engineering? Fuel tanks? Your boss’s styling salon?”

  “Just let her go,” a voice in the background said. Tomich. Good, he was going to help her. “It’ll be easier to blow up that shuttle once it’s clear of the ship than it will be to bring it down in the shuttle bay. Your people will just make a mess in there.”

  Blow it up? Maybe Tomich wasn’t going to be as much help as she’d hoped.

  The captain cursed. Alisa had no idea if that represented agreement or disagreement. She also didn’t know if the captain realized she was the same person he’d seen in the lav. If he did, he might be suspicious of Tomich’s motives.

  A beep came from the control panel.

  “The shuttle bay is depressurizing,” Abelardus said. “Yes. They’re going to let us go.”

  Alisa nodded, but did not get her hopes up too much. That forcefield wasn’t down yet. She kept flying in circles, her fingers poised to take them out if it lowered for even a second.

  On the deck below them, the last of the security men made it to one of the Glastica doors, turning sideways to lunge through as it automatically shut, red lights flashing around the frame.

  A thud and a crash sounded, and Beck cried out. “Damn it. Keep your fight in the back.”

  He escaped the thrashing cyborgs and clawed himself off the deck, past Abelardus, who was still in the aisle at Young-hee’s side, and into an empty seat, slumping against the hull. The bloodstain on his white jacket had grown, and his face was pale and pinched with pain.

  “We’re almost out of here, Tommy,” Alisa said, hoping her smile was reassuring.

  “Hells, you’re calling me by my first name? I must look like I’m going to die for sure.”

  “Nah, I just thought you needed some coddling. Once we get back, Alejandro will fix up your wound in no time.”

  “Coddling? Maybe cuddling.” Beck closed his eyes and let his head thud back against the hull.

  “When Abelardus is done cuddling Young-hee, I could probably get him to cuddle you.”

  “Your bedside manner is alarming, Captain.”

  Abelardus raised his eyebrows but did not otherwise object to the idea that he was “cuddling” Young-hee. She had closed her eyes and was leaning fully against him. They were both ignoring the battle in the back. Alisa didn’t know if she should order Abelardus to help, or if he would only get in the way.

  “Open the hatch,” came a growl from the back.

  “Leonidas?” Alisa asked.

  He had gained the advantage and straddled the younger cyborg. His jacket had been torn off, and his wig and most of his prosthetics had also disappeared in the fight. A deep gouge ran down the side of his biceps, and blood dripped down his arm and onto his foe. The other man looked just as bad. He stared up at Leonidas, eyes puffy, and blood running from the side of his mouth.

  “You heard me. We’re not taking this coward with us.”

  “Colonel…?” The voice of the cyborg suddenly sounded young, fearful. Full of dread.

  “The bay is depressurizing,” Alisa said. “The forcefield could open in as few as twenty seconds,” she added, glancing at the sensor display. “There’s still some air but—”

  “Then he better run fast.”

  Abelardus was the one to wave his hand and activate the button that opened the hatch. “Hold your breath.”

  The hatch opened partway, and Leonidas hoisted the cyborg to his feet.

  “Colonel, I didn’t realize…” the man started, his voice full of apology.

  Leonidas shoved him through the partially open hatch, then hit the button back there to close it. It snapped shut, and the internal circulation fans
buzzed on, filling the cabin with oxygen.

  Though injured, the cyborg landed on his feet. He sprinted around two shuttles and made it to the Glastica door. It didn’t open for him.

  “Forcefield’s coming down,” Abelardus said.

  The cyborg drew back his arm and punched the door. It cracked with the first blow, and he hammered it two more times, enough to get his fist through.

  Red lights flashed within the bay, and the forcefield disappeared. The cyborg’s legs flew up, as the lingering atmosphere was blown out. Somehow, he managed to find the leverage to tear that door open and pull himself into the corridor. He tried to push it back shut, but with that fist-sized hole in the Glastica, it would need repairs. Alisa couldn’t hear it, but she could imagine a wailing from within the yacht, announcing the breach.

  “Get out of here,” Leonidas said. “They’re going to close the forcefield as soon as they realize they have a breach.”

  “Already on it,” Alisa said, guiding the shuttle out. The red lights stopped flashing, and she feared the field would be raised any second, so she gunned it, probably leaving scorch marks on the deck. Oh, well. Something else for Henneberry’s people to repair. They deserved the hassle for trying to kill her team.

  The shuttle zipped away from the shuttle bay, the blackness of space wrapping around them. Alisa wished she could relax, but there were mafia ships all over the place around the yacht. All it would take was one of them firing at her shuttle to disable it. Or, as Tomich had suggested, the yacht itself might fire at her as soon as they were clear of its hull.

  “Making best possible speed,” Alisa whispered, choosing a route that would take them between two freighters that didn’t look as intimidating as some of the other mafia ships.

  She’d no sooner set her course than a hulking black ship bristling with weapons started into motion.

  “Uh-oh,” she said.

  The sensor panel flashed an alarm, as that ship powered up weapons. Two other mafia ships turned in the shuttle’s direction, and several more detached from the yacht’s airlocks.