The Fallen Empire Collection by Lindsay Buroker

by Discover Sci-Fi Special Edition

  Someone. Senator Bondarenko?

  “I didn’t figure it was the doctor’s winning personality or ability to quote scripture that got him invited down,” she said. “But why fly with me? There are other ships.”

  “We’re here already. And Yumi’s here. She’s the one with the map to the temple in her head. Oddly, she wishes to stay aboard while she looks for employment.”

  Alisa snorted. “Did you try to bribe her to get her to leave with you?”

  “Alejandro may have.”

  She snorted again. Alisa could not imagine why Yumi cared one way or another who she rode with, other than that her chickens were settled in here, but she found herself smugly pleased that Yumi had turned down Alejandro’s bribe.

  “There’s also an implication that she can get us an invitation in to see the Starseers,” Leonidas said. “Since their usual modus operandi is to diddle with the minds of the people who try to find them, causing them to become lost, that could be useful.”

  “You believe she has this knowledge and these connections? When you don’t know anything about her?”

  “We have no reason not to trust her.” His tone chilled a few degrees. “It’s not as if she’s tried to steal from us.”

  “Not us, him,” Alisa growled. “I haven’t taken anything from you.”

  “I have nothing of value. Unless you count what’s under my skin, and those implants wouldn’t be worth much these days. Old tech, you understand.”

  “You act like I’d slice you open to make two tindarks.” For some reason, his disdain affected her more than it should have, and she found her throat tightening with emotion, a mix of frustration and something else she couldn’t identify. “Look, I’m not a thief. I’m just—”

  She swallowed and looked away, unable to get more words out. It would have been an excuse, anyway. Wasn’t she a thief now? It did not matter that she’d brought the orb back. She wouldn’t have if the original plan had worked out.

  “Never mind,” she said when she found her voice again. “Fine, whatever. You want a ride, it’s another two hundred tindarks each. I need to pay Beck and get supplies for the voyage.”

  “Don’t forget to save for a down payment on your combat armor.”

  She smiled bitterly, remembering how he had said that with her mouth, she would need a set. He probably believed that now more than ever. Tears threatened to form in her eyes, and she looked away, waving him toward the hatch, hoping he would accept that the conversation was over and leave. She let out a breath of relief when he stood and headed toward the mess room.

  Still looking toward the far wall, she lifted her hand and wiped her eyes. She didn’t want anyone to see her cry, not when she had no one to blame but herself for her current mess. If she hadn’t joined the Alliance four years ago—

  “You never mentioned you have a daughter,” Leonidas said quietly from the hatch.

  He hadn’t opened it yet.

  Alisa swallowed, lowering her hand, not wanting him to guess at her tears. “It’s nobody else’s business.”

  “How old is she?”

  She meant to harshly say, “Why do you care? Go away.” What came out was a sniffle and, “Eight.” She hated bothering other people with her problems, but a part of her wanted him to know so that he might understand, so he would not condemn her for the choice she had made. “It’s been a year and a half since I’ve seen her in person. I was a pilot and made the choice to help the Alliance when they sent out the recruiting papers. I left Jelena and my husband because I thought I was joining a worthy cause, doing something that would make her life better. And his too. He didn’t have the freedom to do the research he wanted, and I know it ate at him, frustrated him. But it was a hard choice—what kind of mother leaves her daughter for four years when she’s that young? At the time, I didn’t know it would be that long, but… I’ve regretted the choice many times since then.” She wiped her hand down her cheeks, smearing away the tears that had escaped, keeping her head turned away from him. She wagered that cyborgs never cried.

  “We all make choices we regret,” Leonidas said quietly.

  A part of her wanted to stay silent, in the hope that he would go away. A part of her was curious and didn’t want him to go away.

  “What do you regret, Leonidas?” she asked.

  He hesitated. Not sure he wanted to share with a thief? Her mouth twisted as she looked down at her plate—she was tired of looking at the wall.

  “Among other things,” he said, “I have no children.”

  “You still have time for that, if you don’t let Alejandro get you killed.”

  “Perhaps.” He said it the way someone says something to be agreeable, not because they really mean it.

  Odd. It wasn’t as if he was ugly. Alisa was sure there were plenty of women who would drool over his big muscles, and he had a handsome face when he wasn’t glowering.

  “She might like you,” Alisa said.

  “Who?”

  “My daughter. Her favorite cartoon character is Andromeda Android.” Realizing he might take offense to being compared to an android, Alisa hurried to add, “If you haven’t seen the show, Andromeda was created by the empire to do its bidding. She broke free from a mad scientist’s laboratory and now lives in the underworld on Perun, solving crimes and helping the downtrodden. She has a psychic cat named Boo. That’s possibly the reason Jelena liked the show so much, especially when she was four. Hm, you should probably get a cat, Leonidas.”

  She glanced at him to check his reaction. His brow was wrinkled as he gave her one of his I-find-your-humor-perplexing looks. Well, at least he did not appear offended.

  “Jelena and I used to watch the cartoon together when I was home from my delivery runs. In the middle of the day, while Jonah was at work. It was our time.”

  “I see.” He waited, perhaps to see if she would say more, and then tugged on the handle to open the hatch.

  “Leonidas?” she asked.

  He paused. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry I called you a mech.”

  “You’re not the first.”

  “No, but…” Alisa groped for a way to say that she had come to think of him as a friend—whether that was wise of her or not, all things considered—but she found that hard to admit. Perhaps because she doubted he would admit it back, not now. Maybe not ever. “I always thought of myself as honorable. But I guess it’s easy to be honorable when your life is normal and your needs are met. It’s when you get desperate that your morality really gets tested, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” he agreed.

  “Do you have any family, Leonidas?” She wasn’t sure why she kept using his name when there was nobody else in the room. Maybe as an apology for calling him something else earlier, implying he was less than human.

  “My parents are gone. I have two younger brothers.”

  “I was an only child. I always wanted brothers or sisters. Someone to play with on the ship during the long voyages. I never knew my father, and when my mom didn’t make it back from her last freight run—well, that was hard. I was glad I had Jonah by then. It seems wrong that now, years later, I have less than I had before. Aren’t you supposed to accumulate more things—more friends, more family—as life goes on?”

  “Not in my experience.” Was that a hint of regret in his voice? If he truly wanted children, why hadn’t he tried to find someone? Had he been too busy with his career as a military officer?

  “Are the brothers at least good company?” Alisa met his gaze, this time for more than a second. Her eyes had dried, and it seemed safe to do so.

  He scoffed.

  “Surely, they don’t pick on you.” She waved at his brawny arms.

  “Neither of them have any interest in talking to their half-machine brother.” He smiled, as if in indifferent dismissal, but it did not look that sincere. “One of them joined the Alliance.”

  “That is a crime.”

  He glowered at her, though it seemed mor
e of a mock glower this time. It made her smile. She doubted he would forgive her for taking the orb, or trust her going forward, but at least he wasn’t threatening to pull her toenails off to make her talk.

  A knock came at the hatch. Leonidas opened it, and Mica poked her head in, eyeing them warily. She leaned back out again.

  “They both have their clothes on,” she announced.

  Alisa felt her eyebrows fly up. That was what people had been speculating about out there? Not that she was in here being tortured for information?

  “Really,” Leonidas said dryly and walked out.

  Mica came in and took his vacated spot. “I ordered supplies today while you were hiding—”

  “I was sleeping.”

  “Where no one could reach you. Our groceries and the parts that were available have been dropped off. I’ll have to make do with some things until we have time to wait for delivery of a special order. That’s all fine, but what I came to tell you is that we may have trouble.”

  “How extraordinarily novel for us.”

  “Yes.” Mica slid her netdisc onto the table and thumbed the holodisplay to life. “That’s the camera by the hatch.”

  Two men were standing at the base of the Star Nomad, poking at the controls next to the hatch. Someone had raised the ramp, so they had no way to get in, but Alisa did not like the looks of them. They wore bland, forgettable khaki and white clothing, but they had the lean faces and short hair of soldiers.

  “Are they trying to comm us or get in?” Alisa asked.

  “Both. They started out comming. We haven’t answered.”

  “That’s antisocial of us.” Alisa grabbed her plate and stood. It looked like it was time to take off.

  “Nobody wanted to share the lamb burgers.” Mica followed her into the mess hall.

  “Last one out of the mess hall does the dishes,” Beck announced. He was cleaning his grill, but a stack of crumb-filled dishes sat on the table. Yumi and Leonidas had disappeared.

  “I have to fly us somewhere,” Alisa said.

  “Oh? Where?”

  “Apparently, we’re going to visit a Starseer temple on Arkadius.”

  “Well, that’s one place where the White Dragon thugs won’t likely find me.”

  “I don’t think anyone finds you in a Starseer temple,” Mica muttered.

  “You have reservations about going?” Alisa asked, assuming she had heard Yumi sharing her information earlier since she did not sound surprised by the announcement now.

  “Many. Want a list?”

  “Not really. I need to talk to any Starseers I can find.”

  “What’s the point when they’ll just wipe your mind of the conversation later?”

  “You sound like you have personal experience.”

  Mica hesitated, then shook her head.

  “I’m surprised we’re going,” Beck said. “Why would the doc believe Yumi could lead us to a Starseer temple? It’s not as if she’s been waving her hands and doing magic.”

  “You didn’t see him take her napkin?” Mica asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The doctor was sly about it, but he slid it off her lap while she was eating. I wouldn’t be surprised if he went straight to sickbay to analyze her DNA.”

  “We don’t have a gene sequencer in sickbay,” Alisa said. “You’re lucky if you can find bandages.”

  “Maybe he has one in his cabin. He brought a big duffel aboard.”

  “I assumed it was full of gray robes.”

  “Either way, he came back a few minutes later and told Leonidas they were going to Arkadius,” Mica said.

  Alisa grimaced, more at the idea of Leonidas going along with Alejandro than at the notion that Alejandro might have found Starseer genes in Yumi’s spit. She wanted him on her side, damn it, not on the side of the imperial lackey who kept implying that he wanted to get rid of her. Except when he decided he wanted her to fly him somewhere. Then Alejandro did not seem to mind her presence.

  She supposed she would be safe as long as he could keep using her. After that, she would have to watch her back.

  Chapter 14

  The stars were muted, outshone by the city lights sprawling along the harbor. Alisa did not care. They would be much brighter soon. She’d taken off a few minutes earlier, leaving those two men banging at the hatch and ignoring a couple of comm messages flashing on the console. Maybe she would answer them once the Nomad had broken atmo and the chance of the authorities catching up to them dwindled. Maybe she wouldn’t.

  She was relieved at the idea of escaping some of her problems by shooting off into space, but she did worry that Jelena was with Starseers here on Perun and that she would be taking an extra journey for no reason if she headed to Arkadius. Instead of rocketing straight up into the atmosphere, she cruised over the ocean, waiting for the person she wanted to question to join her before committing to this new route. Unless her passengers had their noses pressed to the portholes, they should not notice that she was flying mostly laterally for now.

  Alisa tapped the internal comm. “How are things looking in engineering, Mica? We got enough gas to make it to Arkadius?”

  “Gas? This is an RG-classic mobile fission reactor. It uses—”

  A soft knock came at the open hatch to navigation, and Alisa cut the lesson short with a question of, “Well, we got enough of it?” She waved for her visitor to enter.

  “We have enough, but don’t plan any side trips.”

  “Who, me?” Alisa murmured, thinking of the research-lab-pirate-ship fiasco.

  Yumi walked into NavCom and sat cross-legged in the co-pilot’s seat, arranging her dress over her knees and tucking her boots underneath her. “You wanted to see me, Captain?”

  “Just wanted to have a chat with my unofficial science advisor.”

  Yumi gave her a wary look.

  “Who it now seems may potentially be an advisor on Starseers as well as chemistry and the metaphysical,” Alisa added.

  “I know a few things,” Yumi said, that wariness creeping into her tone too. It was strange to hear from the bubbly and open woman. So far, she had been willing to talk about any topic.

  “You heard me mention that four men in Starseer robes and with some interesting mental powers kidnapped my daughter from my sister-in-law.”

  “You didn’t get into specifics when you were hollering at Leonidas, but yes.”

  “I wasn’t hollering. I was arguing defensively.”

  “Of course.”

  “Can you think of any reason why the Starseers would take an eight-year-old girl?”

  “Only if they wanted to train her as one of their own.” Yumi looked curiously at Alisa, scrutinizing her as if she could see through her skin and into her DNA to check for gene mutations.

  “I don’t have any Starseer blood,” Alisa said. “I’m positive about that.”

  “Your husband?”

  Alisa hesitated, still not certain she could quite believe Sylvia's revelations on that matter. How could she have known Jonah for more than ten years and never have stumbled across that secret?

  “The main order of Starseers has a government and laws they abide by,” Yumi said when she didn’t answer. “They’re not necessarily the same as imperial laws—or now, Alliance laws—but they aren’t without morality and structure.”

  “Are you saying that my daughter shouldn’t have been kidnapped?”

  “I’m saying that those may have been rogue operatives. Or they may have had permission to come get her.”

  Alisa frowned. Permission? Surely, Jonah would not have given that. They had both signed legal documents before she shipped out to join the army. At the time, they had been more worried about assigning custody if she didn’t come back alive, but he’d also given her full custody of everything they had if something happened to him, and they had named Sylvia as Jelena’s guardian, should something happen to both of them. She was damned sure there hadn’t been anything in those documents about Starseers
being given permission to tote their daughter away.

  “I understand you told Alejandro that a Starseer temple on Arkadius would be the place to look for information, both for him and for me,” Alisa said.

  “It’s where the seat of their government is, and there’s also a teaching academy there for youths.”

  Alisa chewed on that. Did that mean it was the kind of place where a kidnapped girl would be taken to be trained?

  The lights of an island passed below them, its population sprawling all the way up the side of an active volcano. If what Yumi said was true, would Alisa be safe in plotting a course to Arkadius now?

  “There’s no such teaching academy here?” she asked.

  “Not that I’m aware of. There are Starseers that live here—you can find them on any planet of sufficient population—but they’re likely spies watching over the government. It was the empire, after all, that was instrumental in rendering their world uninhabitable and killing thousands and thousands of them in the Order Wars.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that some of them hold a grudge, even centuries later.” Alisa gave Yumi a sidelong look, wondering where her passenger/science advisor fit into the Starseer community. She had already said more than was common knowledge.

  “That is true,” Yumi said softly. “Even those who don’t hold grudges are often aloof with… the non-talented.” She gazed toward the view screen, watching the dark ocean sail past beneath them.

  “Would you care to explain how you know so much about them?”

  Yumi continued to watch the ocean, not speaking, her hands resting on her knees. If her eyes hadn’t been open, Alisa might have thought she had lapsed into one of her meditation sessions.

  “Is it necessary?” Yumi finally asked. “Will you trust my guidance without knowing?”

  Alisa snorted. Trust was in short supply around here right now, but she assumed that she was the one most people were questioning. Yumi hadn’t stolen anything from anyone.