When the Star Nomad came into view, Alisa was so relieved to be back that she nearly ran forward and hugged the hull. Her relief was short-lived because she soon remembered that when she had left, she’d thought she would return with her daughter at her side.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, she hit the button to open the hatch and lower the ramp. Since it had been dark for hours, she expected the others to be asleep, but Mica and Yumi sat cross-legged on the floor of the cargo hold, candles scattered about them and the overhead lights off. They were engaged in some kind of fast-breathing exercise—or maybe a séance.
“Job hunting going well?” Alisa asked as she walked in, Alejandro behind her.
She looked around, hoping to spot Beck lounging somewhere.
“We gave up on that a couple of hours ago,” Mica said, crinkling her nose as Alisa drew closer. Yumi’s eyes were closed, and she did not seem to notice that anyone had come in. “Given that the imperials are now cut off from the rest of the system, they have surprisingly good records of their former subjects who chose to become Alliance soldiers. A tip for you: that’s not a selling point when applying for positions here.”
“I’m surprised you were denied so quickly,” Alisa said. “You’d expect applications to sit for days in a quagmire of a virtual queue somewhere.”
“Robots. They reject you quickly. Some messages came in for you while you were gone.” Mica waved in the direction of navigation.
“Thanks. Has Beck been back?” Alisa asked. “I lost my comm.”
Mica shook her head. “I thought he left with you.”
“He did. We were separated.”
“Did it have something to do with the stench you’re wearing like a dreadful perfume?”
“No, and Alejandro stinks too. You needn’t look straight at me when you say such things.”
“Were you two bonding in a sewer together somewhere?”
“You got the location right.” Alisa considered Alejandro, his filthy robes and his usually clean-shaven chin dark with stubble. He looked like he had a headache too. “I don’t know about the bonding. Do you feel bonded to me now, Doctor?”
Alejandro rested his palm against his stomach. “I feel like I may throw up.”
“Apparently, we’re not bonded, Mica.”
“Unfortunate.”
“The stench is far more dreadful in here, isn’t it?” Alejandro asked. “I’m going to scrub myself in the sanibox. And perhaps burn my robe.” He shambled toward the stairs, looking like he had been run over by the sewer cleaner. More than once.
“Rough night?” Mica asked.
“Very much so. You haven’t heard from Leonidas, by chance, have you?”
Mica shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since he left with you. You seem to be losing crew and passengers left and right.”
“The mind is peaceful and calm,” Yumi intoned. “The breath is the center, the core, the focus. The—” A round of coughing, or maybe that was gagging, interrupted her litany, and her eyes opened. “Captain, your fecal aroma is disturbing our meditation.”
“I think our passenger is telling me to take a shower, Mica.”
“An accurate interpretation, I believe.”
The ship had a couple of heads, but only one sanibox. Alisa would have to wait for Alejandro to finish, but she supposed she could be polite and take her fecal aroma to another part of the ship. She dreaded the idea of smelling up NavCom or her cabin. Maybe she would wait outside of Alejandro’s cabin. This night of misadventure had been his fault.
Mica’s gaze shifted past Alisa’s shoulder, toward the still-open hatch. Alisa turned, worried that the soldiers might have already figured out where Alejandro and his orb had fled. But a familiar figure limped up the ramp.
“Leonidas,” Alisa blurted and rushed forward to help him.
She had never seen him limping or showing any sign of pain, even after his fight with the cyborg Malik. Now, blood saturated the shoulder of his jacket, cuts slashed his sleeve, contusions darkened his cheeks and jaw, and a cauterized gouge in the side of his neck marked a spot where he had been hit with a blazer—had that beam cut an inch to the right, it might have killed him.
He looked like he might collapse when he reached the top of the ramp, but he stood straight and lifted his chin as she rushed up. “He was not the superior fighter.”
“Does that mean he looks even worse than you?” Alisa did not know if he would be too proud to accept help, but she slid her arm around him without asking and waved toward the stairs. “You can lean on me, if you want. Let’s get you to sickbay. Alejandro owes you some bandages and a tube of QuickSkin for the help you gave him tonight.”
At first, Leonidas merely gazed curiously down at her and did not move. Did he object to her offer of help? Or the implication that he needed it? Eventually, he stirred, walking at her side. He did not lean on her, but he didn’t push her arm away, either.
“Perhaps it’s selfish,” Leonidas said, “but I’d like to think that I deserve more than bandages and tubes.”
“Like what? Money? Medals?”
He paused at the base of the stairs, either to collect himself or to wonder why Mica and Yumi were sitting amid all those candles. “To be honest, I’d like some cookies right now.”
Alisa almost laughed, though she supposed it made sense. It had been a long and arduous night, more so for him than for her and Alejandro, and he must be craving carbohydrates. With all those muscles of his, he probably burned through energy stores quickly.
“I have some chocolate in my cabin,” she said.
“Oh? That might do.”
Yumi sighed noisily and stood up. She wrinkled her nose, made a gagging sound again, and stooped to blow out and pick up her candles.
“Is our meditation session over?” Mica asked blandly.
“We cannot be expected to reach a state of higher consciousness with all of these distractions. We will try again when—” She made another gagging noise, abandoned the candles, and pushed past Alisa to sprint up the stairs. She tripped, then disappeared into the core of the ship, the gagging sounds continuing.
“I hope she makes it to the head,” Alisa said. She didn’t have any cleaning robots currently, thanks to everything of value having been taken from the ship during the years it had resided in a junkyard. “Especially since Beck is missing. He’s the only one here who’s volunteered to clean for me.”
“He’s the only one here that you actually pay,” Mica said, picking up discarded candles.
“I’ll gladly give you a salary if you agree to stay on board and officially take the position of ship’s engineer.”
Mica sighed at her.
“No, no, you needn’t overwhelm me with displays of gratitude. Having you here is reward enough.” Alisa tilted her head toward the stairs. “Ready, Leonidas?”
“Yes.” He still would not lean on her, but he did lean on the railing as they climbed.
Alisa could have let go of him since there were railings all the way to sickbay, but he had been willing to sacrifice himself so that she and Alejandro could get away. She found herself reluctant to let go, as if it would be abandoning him. Even through his clothing, she could feel the hard muscles of his torso. It was almost as if he wore combat armor even when he didn’t. Sleeping with him would be like sleeping with a particularly angular boulder. She smirked, imagining the poor wives of cyborgs waking up in the morning with bruises from having rolled over and bumped against those granite bulges.
“Are you experiencing inappropriate humor?” Leonidas asked, eyeing her smirk as they reached the top of the stairs.
“Yes, but I’m keeping it to myself.” She turned him up the walkway, toward the interior of the ship. “I thought you would approve.”
He grunted.
“Do many cyborg soldiers get married?” she asked.
“No.”
Alisa kept herself from asking if it was because of bruises suffered in bed. She doubted she could ask
the question in such a way that wouldn’t be misinterpreted as being insulting. Actually, it was probably insulting even if interpreted correctly.
“Too busy blowing people up to have time to seek love?” she asked.
“The empire was a demanding employer.”
“If you worked for me, I’d give you time to seek love.”
“It seems I’m not yet done working for the empire,” he said quietly, an unexpected bleakness taking over his face.
Alisa bit her lip, wanting to go find Alejandro and slap him. Leonidas wasn’t his to command, damn it. Alejandro was right—he’d been selfish to suck Leonidas into his mission.
When they reached the sickbay door, Leonidas extracted himself from her grip, looking relieved to slip away. He had never mentioned being married now or in the past, so maybe it was a touchy subject for him. Or maybe he’d just had enough of her closeness. She had to admit that the aroma only intensified when two of them were together, and he did have those enhanced nostrils.
“I’ll get Alejandro out of the sanibox and send him your way,” Alisa said, deciding to give him his peace rather than going in and continuing to inflict her help on him. Alejandro would be far more qualified to treat him—and probably wouldn’t ask nosy questions about cyborg personal lives. He definitely wouldn’t think about being in bed with a cyborg.
• • • • •
Alisa almost felt human again when she stepped out of the sanibox, but her head still ached, so she would return to sickbay for a painpro before crawling into her bunk. She needed to give Leonidas some chocolate too. The man certainly deserved it.
The built-in netdisc on her desk flashed, signaling the messages Mica had mentioned, but she got dressed and headed to sickbay first, leaving her soiled clothes for the automatic washer, though she was afraid they would simply have to be burned. She delved into her drawer for her stash of sweets and poked through the small assortment of choices. It was odd to be selecting one of her precious dark chocolate bars to share. They were expensive and often hard to come by in the freight lanes and on space stations. She grabbed the pecan and raisin one, figuring Leonidas might appreciate a few extra calories.
“I apologize for causing you to miss your appointment with your contact,” Alejandro was saying as Alisa approached sickbay. The hatch door stood open, bright light slashing out into the night-dimmed corridor. She slowed her steps, listening.
“I’m beginning to think that the gods don’t want me to—”
The way he broke off made Alisa think he’d heard her coming. Trying not to feel guilty for eavesdropping—again—she continued to the hatchway.
Inside the small sickbay room, Leonidas sat on the single medical table, his shirt off as Alejandro worked on him, using skin binders to hold gashes together while the QuickSkin sealed the wounds.
He hadn’t gotten to a gash on Leonidas’s forearm yet, and Alisa started, glimpsing a hint of metal and circuitry revealed by the flesh and muscle that had been laid open. Even though she had logically known that Leonidas had cybernetic implants, it was jolting to actually see machine bits inside of someone that she had started to think of as human. As normal. A person. Maybe even a friend, not a machine.
“Marchenko,” Leonidas said, a guarded greeting.
Blushing because she had been caught staring, Alisa jerked her gaze up to his face. “I brought your chocolate,” she blurted, waving the bar. Maybe he would forget that she’d been gaping at his cybernetic innards.
“Thank you.”
Alejandro kept working and did not seem to notice the exchange. He had taken the time to finish his shower and change clothes before coming to sickbay, this robe identical to the last, except with a paucity of sewage clinging to it. Alisa found it strange to see a man in a gray monk’s robe wielding medical tools. She wondered if he knew how to fix cybernetic pieces if they were damaged, but she did not want to pry.
“Will he live, Doc?” she asked, coming forward to hand Leonidas the bar.
“Yes, but he should refrain from tangling with younger cyborgs.”
“He wasn’t that much younger,” Leonidas grumbled, accepting the bar and opening it with delicate precision that seemed at odds with the bulky muscles of his arms.
“Fifteen years, I’d guess,” Alejandro said.
Leonidas made a face. “Damn, I’ve gotten to the age where fifteen years doesn’t seem that long of a time.”
“Must be rough getting old,” Alisa teased, though fifteen years also wasn’t quite the eternity for her that it had seemed when she had been younger. The forty she judged him to be would have been ancient to her when she had been in school. Now it didn’t seem that far off. “Though at least you’re not as ancient as the doctor. Doc, your hands steady, there? That’s not an age-related tremor, is it? Can I get you something?”
He shot her a dirty look. “Do you have a purpose here, besides delivering chocolate and admiring Leonidas’s physique?”
The blush that had warmed her cheeks earlier returned. “I wasn’t admiring anything. I was—” She broke off, not wanting to admit to gaping at his machine parts.
Leonidas’s eyebrows rose, but he did not say anything, merely snapping off the end of the chocolate bar and putting it in his mouth.
“I was coming to see if you two are staying on or want to try another city on the planet, or what you plan to do,” Alisa said. “I still need to hunt down cargo and resupply, but after today, I think I better try another metropolis. The idea of staying here makes me twitchy, now that I know the imperial army is hunting for your orb.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked me to leave yet,” Alejandro said quietly, his gaze back on his work.
“There hasn’t been enough time to cogitate and realize the wisdom of doing that.”
“Are you asking now?”
“No. I mean, not exactly. I need money, and if you’re willing to keep paying, you can stay aboard.” Even as the words came out of her mouth, Alisa wondered at her offer. What was she thinking? She had her own mission ahead of her, one that would be hard enough to accomplish without people constantly attacking her ship because of Alejandro’s presence. But if she sent him packing, Leonidas would go with him, and she found herself reluctant to say goodbye to him forever.
Leonidas broke off a piece of the bar and offered it to her.
“Thanks,” she said, accepting it. Maybe it would help with her headache. Leonidas was not the only one who had expended a lot of energy tonight.
“Have you decided yet which city you’ll go to next?” Alejandro asked.
“No. I’m open, so long as I can get a cargo. I’ll put out some feelers, see what’s out there tonight before I go to bed. I need a few hours of sleep before I trust myself to fly us anywhere. Besides, I don’t want to leave without Beck. I need to figure out what happened to him.”
Alisa grimaced. She liked Beck, but he was someone else who was making her life more complicated than it needed to be. If she found out he had gotten into trouble with campus security, she would help him get out of it, but if he was simply out shopping and carousing, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to leave him here and look for another security officer, one who wasn’t wanted dead by the mafia.
Leonidas offered Alejandro a piece of chocolate, but he refused it, moving around his patient to seal the gash on his arm.
“Will your implants heal on their own?” Alejandro asked. “Or do I need to do something?” He waved at the exposed circuitry.
That answered Alisa’s earlier question as to whether he had any experience with cyborg surgery.
Leonidas gave her a wary look before answering, as if he anticipated that she would mock him or make a snide comment. She bit her lip, distressed that she and her sharp tongue had made him expect that.
“If the implants are seriously damaged, they need to be replaced,” Leonidas said, “but they do have self-regenerating capabilities that will be adequate for this.” He pointed his chin at the gash.
> “Good.” Alejandro pulled the ragged edges of the wound together, making the cybernetics disappear. “Captain, I still need the use of a comprehensive library. Would you consider putting down in New Dublin?”
Alisa nodded. “I’ll see what’s available in the way of cargo there.”
With her daughter missing, it seemed inane to worry about something as prosaic as cargo, but she had rejected Sylvia’s offer of a loan. Perhaps that had not been wise, given her predicament. She hated to be beholden to anyone, but she would need money to keep her ship in the air so she could hunt for Jelena. She had no idea if her daughter was even here on Perun, or if they had taken her to another planet altogether. She would head to that library, too, and do what she had wanted to do earlier, look up where the local Starseers could be found. Maybe she could get a lead from them.
“Good. I will continue to pay for my cabin,” Alejandro said. “And I will pay for Leonidas’s too.”
Leonidas arched his eyebrows. “I can pay my own way.”
“I insist.”
“Oh? What do you expect from me in return for such largesse?”
“Maybe he expects you to perform sexual favors for him,” Alisa said, the joke coming out before she could think better of it. This was why Leonidas expected mockery from her. She sighed.
“That seems unlikely,” Leonidas said dryly. At least he did not seem offended.
“I’ll go check on Beck.” Alisa left them, feeling like she was fleeing. For some reason, she was not that comfortable in her skin around Leonidas. Maybe she should rethink her offer once again and ask them both to leave at the next stop.
The sickbay hatch clunked shut softly behind her, and she paused, frowning back at it. They hadn’t bothered shutting it before. What were they about to say that they didn’t want people to overhear? Or was she just being paranoid? Maybe Leonidas simply did not want anyone else to walk in and stare at his naked chest. Or maybe Alejandro needed him to take his trousers off to treat wounds on his lower half.
The Fallen Empire Collection by Lindsay Buroker Page 35