The Fallen Empire Collection by Lindsay Buroker

by Discover Sci-Fi Special Edition

  Leonidas waited at the base of the ramp for them to approach in case they bore news that could affect him. Such as that squadrons of police officers or Alliance army soldiers were roaming the station, looking for stray cyborgs.

  “Evening, mech,” Beck called to him as they approached, his expression more wary than the cheerful tone would have implied. “Are you waiting to help us load these boxes into the cargo hold?”

  “No,” Leonidas said, his own tone flat. He would help if Marchenko asked him to, but he was a passenger, not crew. Besides, he had little interest in assisting the security officer, a man who had served in the Alliance army during the war and who preferred to call him mech rather than use his name.

  “Going to get your armor fixed, Leonidas?” Captain Marchenko asked, giving him a warm smile and waving at his case.

  Alisa, he reminded himself. She had asked him a couple of times to use her first name, though he found the familiarity difficult. She, too, had been in the Alliance army, and she’d referred to him simply as “cyborg” for the first week after they had met. Still, they had been through a lot since then, and she had fought to keep the Alliance from capturing him during the Perun battle. She’d said that he had paid his fare for a ride on her freighter and that was that, but she had risked her life, doing far more than most civilian captains would do to protect a passenger. For that, he could certainly address her by her first name.

  “I am,” Leonidas said. “I made a late-night appointment with an excellent tech smith in Refinery Row.”

  “Better watch out for yourself, mech,” Beck said, lingering instead of leading the train of cargo into the hold. “When we were out, looking for cargo-hauling deals, I saw lots of sleazy villains and opportunists skulking in the back alleys. And the not-so-back alleys. This station is rougher than it was the last time I came through here.”

  Leonidas was tempted to point out that the empire had likely ruled the last time Beck had visited. Of course the station had been safer and more orderly. The Alliance had been so busy overthrowing the throne that it hadn’t worried about how well it could govern the system once it achieved its objective. But he didn’t want to engage in a conversation with the security officer, so all he said was, “I’ve heard.”

  “I could go with you,” Alisa said, still smiling at Leonidas.

  He blinked slowly, perplexed as to why she made the offer. Something to do with his warrant?

  “For my safety?” he asked.

  She chuckled. “Yes, with my prodigious muscles and state-of-the-art weaponry—” she patted the bullet-slinging Etcher pistol in its holster under her jacket, “—I’ll be your bodyguard.”

  “There’s an image,” Beck muttered. “Your head only comes up to his shoulders. Do you even weigh half as much as he does?”

  Leonidas wanted to order Beck to trot up the ramp to unload the hoverboards and to butt out of his conversation with Alisa, but he wasn’t a colonel anymore. Once, he had commanded a battalion and undertaken special missions for the emperor. Not anymore. He was nobody now. Except a man wanted for information he didn’t have.

  “I don’t know,” Alisa said. “We haven’t jumped on a scale together and made comparisons. Why don’t you get Mica to help load our cargo, Beck? She’s got a hand tractor in engineering.”

  “Sure, Captain.” He saluted, an Alliance army salute that came naturally to him, reminding Leonidas of what Beck and Alisa had been in the war, a noncommissioned officer and an officer. Alisa didn’t act much like an officer, preferring flippancy and irreverence to stately shows of decorum and authority, so he could forget sometimes that she had been a captain and had flown ships against his people. Perhaps even against him.

  “I just meant that I’d keep you company if you want it,” Alisa told Leonidas as Beck ambled up the ramp, the hoverboards of crates barely fitting through the wide hatchway at the top. “You’ll have to wait several hours while the smith repairs your armor, won’t you? We could grab some dinner.”

  “I ate on board,” Leonidas said before it occurred to him that she was making an offer of camaraderie rather than one of necessity.

  In his youth, he would have caught that sooner, navigating the relationships between men and women without any more trouble than the average teenager, but twenty years with cyborg implants, in addition to the physical and biological changes the army had made to him, had left him a stranger to male-female relationships. He hoped to change that one day, perhaps even to have a family, but his quest to find an appropriate cybernetics specialist had been waylaid.

  “Ah,” Alisa said, her smile faltering. She turned to head past him and up the ramp.

  “Coffee, perhaps?” Leonidas suggested.

  “If I get a mocha this late at night, I’ll be swinging from the catwalk,” Alisa said, waving toward the elevated walkway in the cargo bay. Despite the words, she returned to his side and nodded toward the concourse. “Perhaps a decaf. Also, did you know that there’s a shop in there that specializes in nothing but chocolate?” Her eyes gleamed. “It’s open around the clock.”

  Leonidas didn’t share her obsession with the sweet stuff, but he burned a lot of calories even when inactive, so he wasn’t opposed to the occasional carbohydrate bomb. He subvocally ordered the case of armor to follow them as they left the ship. The earstar that hugged his lobe, awaiting his commands, relayed the order to the smart interface on the case, and it hummed along behind them.

  The concourse was quieter than it had been during the day cycle when they had first landed, but the people they passed seemed more disreputable than the ones he’d observed then. Many wore hats and hoods that shadowed their faces, with few efforts made to conceal the BlazTeck firearms that they carried. Weapons had been illegal for civilians to carry, especially on ships and space stations, when the empire had maintained order.

  More than one of those armed men eyed his armor case, but nobody approached him openly. A good set of combat armor was worth thousands, and even damaged, his would fetch a high price. But it had been issued by the imperial army, the crimson color of the case matching that of the armor inside, a color used predominantly by the men in the Cyborg Corps. Those who had served in the military, both imperial and Alliance, knew the meaning of that color, and many who hadn’t knew it too. He doubted anyone here would be foolish enough to assault him.

  Alisa cast a wistful look toward the restaurants and shops in the kitschy Castle Arcade, a wide walkway lined with faux cobblestones, the buildings to either side and on the levels above ensconced in gray brick. If any castles on Old Earth had flashing cloud lights in obnoxious colors such as these, it would be news to the historians. Leonidas supposed the chocolate shop was down there.

  Presuming she would be fine with waiting to visit until after he dropped off his armor, he guided her to one of the floating bridges that created tunnels between the two massive cylinders that marked the different halves of the station, separating the shopping and entertainment region from the refinery that this station had first been built to house. The tech smith’s shop was on that side.

  The number of shoppers and passersby dwindled significantly as they stepped off the bridge and into a night-dimmed corridor. His ears, sharper than those of any unmodified human, caught the whisper of clothing rubbing together from around a corner at an intersection ahead. That wouldn’t necessarily have alarmed him, but then he heard the snap of a battery pack being secured in a blazer rifle.

  He shifted from walking beside Alisa to walking in front of her.

  “Does this mean you’re not open to hand-holding?” she asked.

  He lifted a hand, hoping the gesture would be quelling. Her sense of humor came out at the oddest and most inappropriate times. Granted, she didn’t have his hearing and likely did not sense the possible threat ahead.

  Feet shuffled around the corner. The ceiling lamp over the intersection, already dimmed for night, flickered and went out. Suspicious timing.

  Leonidas rested his hand on th
e butt of his destroyer, a deadly handgun some referred to as a hand cannon. It wasn’t useful in stealth situations, but he had a feeling that making a statement might be ideal if muggers waited around the corner.

  By the time he reached the intersection, his senses had informed him of three people waiting, two on one side, one on the other. The single person had light footfalls and sounded like someone small, perhaps a woman or a child. Leonidas drew his destroyer and with his left hand, removed a fluidwrap from his pocket. He wasn’t as well armed as he would be for going into battle, but with the warrant the Alliance had out for him, he had assumed he might run into trouble.

  Before entering their line of sight, he glanced back at Alisa, this time lifting his palm in a stay-there gesture. Inappropriate humor or not, she had drawn her Etcher and appeared ready for a confrontation. That was good, but he had no desire for her to risk herself in some minor squabble.

  Not making a sound, he burst around the corner. He threw the fluidwrap across the intersection at the smaller person while sprinting for the other two. He was tempted to shoot them, but they hadn’t yet committed a crime. Also, he doubted the punishment for mugging was death on this station, and even if it was, he no longer had the authority to help enforce the laws.

  Two big, fat tattooed men with long hair bound with beads scrambled back, their eyes widening. One carried an old shotgun more appropriate for hunting Arkadian ducks than men. The other had the blazer rifle Leonidas had heard being loaded.

  He surged across the five meters between them and bowled the first man over, even as he registered that the second was lifting his arm to throw a fluidwrap of his own. Leonidas ducked as he hurled his first adversary aside, the ball-shaped projectile flying over his head, its energy netting unfurling too late. The shotgun clunked to the floor as the first man struck the wall so hard that he might have cracked his skull.

  Leonidas realized he had used too much force, a constant problem for a cyborg capable of bending steel bars with his hands, but he did not feel much regret in this case. Realizing his net had missed, and perhaps what he was up against, the other man dropped his blazer and tried to back up, to flee.

  He did not scurry away quickly enough to outrun a cyborg. Leonidas caught him around the neck and lifted him in the air, his feet dangling six inches above the floor. The man gasped and gurgled even though Leonidas was careful not to completely cut off his airway. His foe kicked futilely, the efforts so puny that Leonidas did not bother blocking them. His torso and thighs, enhanced with subcutaneous implants as well as ridges of hard muscle, could take a lot of abuse.

  As he glanced toward the intersection to make sure his fluidwrap had, indeed, caught the third person—it had—the dangling man reached for a pistol holstered at his belt. Leonidas reacted instantly, tearing away the belt as well as the trousers it held up. He wouldn’t normally rip off an opponent’s pants, but he didn’t want to hurt these people more than he already had and thought humiliation might do as much to end the fight as brutality.

  “Are you done resisting?” Leonidas asked the man, chilling his voice to ice, an art he had mastered as an officer commanding hundreds of young, strong idiots.

  His adversary’s eyes grew round at the realization that his hairy legs were dangling, exposed to the alley and its occupants. Or maybe he realized that he was the only one capable of responding. His nearest ally was unconscious, and the young man on the other side of the intersection lay pinned by a net. The mugger’s own net had flown uselessly wide and now plastered the wall, lighting it with electric blue tendrils that crackled and zapped. They would deliver a stun charge to a trapped person, but they had no effect on the wall.

  “Leonidas?” Alisa asked from the corner, an odd note to her tone.

  He looked to her, worried that she had spotted some other trouble. Her head and her firearm stuck around the corner, her gaze turned toward him.

  “Am I disturbing you?” she asked, a smile quirking the corners of her lips. “I can leave you two alone if you want to take more of his clothes off.”

  Leonidas gave her a sour look. Of course she would make a joke. He should have known.

  “I’m… done… resisting,” his captured thug wheezed, Leonidas still using his throat as a handle by which to hold him up.

  As he lowered the mugger to his feet, Alisa strode over to the one flattened on his back by the net. His features were hard to make out under the crackling blue energy of the net, but he looked young, fifteen or sixteen perhaps with an attempt at facial hair tufting his chin.

  “What was the plan?” she asked him, tapping him on the chin with the muzzle of her Etcher. “Rob anyone who came this way?”

  “Slavers are around,” the boy said.

  “On Starfall Station? Really? This used to be a respectable place.”

  “Always around,” the boy mumbled, “and paying good right now.”

  “For cyborgs?” Alisa looked at Leonidas.

  Leonidas barely glanced at them. He was searching his captive and removed a small pistol from his jacket pocket—amazing how a man with no belt or trousers could still be armed.

  “For women,” the boy said.

  Surprise blossomed on Alisa’s face.

  “We were just going to shoot the cyborg.” The boy’s gaze slid toward Leonidas. “And take his armor.”

  “You’d just kill him? For no reason? Why, because he’s not human?” Her tone had turned impressively frosty.

  Leonidas watched her indignation with some bemusement since just a few weeks earlier, she’d been calling him cyborg and hadn’t seemed to believe he was fully human. He did appreciate that once someone shifted from enemy to ally for her, she was loyal to that person. He hadn’t experienced a lot of that from those outside of his unit, those who weren’t cyborgs and didn’t understand what it was like to be human, but different. Mostly, he encountered fear and uneasiness, even from men he had worked beside for years.

  “Uh, because he had big guns,” the boy said, wilting under her glower. He looked toward Leonidas, his expression hopeful, as if he might help him. Hardly.

  Leonidas had been debating whether to let his captive go since the muggers hadn’t actually managed to do anything to them, but that comment, along with the fact that they had wanted to sell Alisa to slavers, hardened his heart. He ripped off the man’s shirt, drawing another look of surprise from Alisa, and tore it into strips. He used them to tie the mugger’s ankles and wrists together, then moved onto the unconscious man to give him the same treatment.

  “I suppose you’d find it unseemly if I made a joke about how you like to strip your captives and then tie them up.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t even know what she was implying. Something sexual, he had no doubt, but most such jokes went over his head.

  “You’re good to have along for a fight—or a mugging—but we need to work on your sense of humor.”

  “We?” After tying the first two men, Leonidas started for the third, but something on the ceiling behind the light fixture caught his eye. He berated himself for not noticing it earlier, but the fixture nearly blocked it.

  “I’ll help,” Alisa said. “I like projects. In truth, I just want to see you laugh now and then.”

  “I laugh. When it’s appropriate.”

  “You haven’t laughed since I met you.”

  “We’ve been fighting enemies and fleeing for our lives since you met me.”

  “What about after we escaped from the pirates? Remember? Beck barbecued that bear meat. We were relaxing, chatting, and drinking Yumi’s fermented tea since that was the closest thing we had to alcohol. Everyone was enjoying themselves, and Beck told jokes while he grilled.”

  “Beck isn’t funny.”

  Alisa squinted at him.

  Three suns, she didn’t think Beck was a comedian, did she? Please.

  “I laugh,” Leonidas repeated sturdily.

  “I don’t believe you. Unless you do it alone in your cabin at night. Which I doubt,
because I’ve heard you thumping around in there, presumably having nightmares.”

  He’d had an argument poised on his lips, a suggestion that maybe he did laugh when he was by himself in his cabin, but it froze before coming out. He hadn’t realized that he made noise when he slept. That he had nightmares was no surprise—he remembered them well when he woke up with a jolt, memories of battles gone wrong and lost comrades and guilt rearing into his mind. But he felt chagrined to learn that others were also aware he had them.

  Not knowing what to say, and certainly not wanting to linger on this topic, he returned his attention to the light fixture. He stood on tiptoes to pull an item down from the ceiling.

  “What’s that?” Alisa asked, thankfully changing the topic.

  He flipped it to her. “A small mirror.”

  She caught it easily, perhaps not with a cyborg’s enhanced reflexes but certainly with a pilot’s reflexes. He’d seen her fly a few times when it counted, such as when they were being chased through asteroid belts, and she was good at her job.

  “Low tech way to see who’s coming, eh?” Alisa tossed it onto the boy’s chest, shaking her head as she looked down at him. “Slavery. I’m not sure whether to be horrified or flattered. I would have thought I was too old to attract slavers.”

  Leonidas raised his eyebrows. He knew she had an eight-year-old daughter and guessed her to be in her early thirties. Since he was edging up on forty, he would hardly call someone in her thirties old. The muggers—slavers—probably hadn’t looked beyond her face and the curve of her hips when determining her potential as a slave. While she wasn’t gorgeous, she was attractive and had an appealing smile. Too bad she was usually mouthing off when she made that smile. The Alliance had probably encouraged mouthiness, considering it a promising trait in someone signing on to help overthrow the government.

  “You’re supposed to say something like, ‘You look fabulous, Alisa, and you’re not too old to attract slavers.’”

  “You want to attract slavers?”