Markus turned toward the doorway and Leonidas saluted, fingertips to the corner of his faceplate, while wondering if he should remove the helmet. That was proper protocol, but protocol had to be bent when ceilings were in danger of collapsing.
“Adler,” Markus said. Instead of returning the salute, he waved his fingers for him to come closer. “You’re here. Good.”
“You should have called for me sooner, Sire,” Leonidas said, managing not to let the feeling of betrayal creep into his voice. Barely. He regretted that he had hesitated when Zhou first commed.
“I agree.” Markus walked forward and gripped Leonidas’s arm, the touch barely noticeable through the armor. Leonidas appreciated it, nevertheless. Markus never looked at the cyborgs as if they were strange and alien. He always remembered that Leonidas and the others had grown up as human as he had until they had agreed to serve in the fleet and to undertake the surgeries that gave them greater strength, stamina, and agility. “It was a mistake,” Markus added, grimacing.
“Sire,” one of the civilians said. “If we can leave, we should go now. There’s nothing left for you to command, nothing left to be done. We have to retreat while we still can.”
“What’s the matter, Tage? Afraid your stockholders won’t pay the ransom if the Alliance gets ahold of you?”
“Of course not, Sire.”
“The satellites are still online.” Markus waved at his earstar. “My men are still able to hear my voice. They need to hear my voice.”
Leonidas did not recognize the man—Tage—or any but the key members of Markus’s staff. Nearly a hundred staff members had come with the emperor, fleeing the main palace when it had been attacked, some of them, Leonidas suspected, because they had bought or bribed their way along. The Alliance would be after anyone who had been integral in the running of the government.
Markus turned back to Leonidas. “I have one last mission that I need to send you on, Colonel. It may be the most important mission of your life. You’ll be in charge. Everything, all of my hope and all of the empire’s hope, rides with you.”
“Send, Sire?” Leonidas said. “I’m yours to command, as always, but I belong here. Protecting you.” He couldn’t help but frown toward the command chamber, again feeling frustrated that he hadn’t been called in to deal with those intruders. “I’ve ordered my men to fight their way to an Alliance ship and claim it for our own. We can get you out of here.”
Markus smiled sadly. “There’s nowhere left for me to go. Besides, my people are fighting and dying down on Perun. They need to hear my voice, to know who they’re fighting for. If we can at least keep this planet…”
“Yes, Sire, but you can give them your voice from a ship.”
“Been trying to tell him that,” Tage said.
“The Alliance would find me as easily on a ship in orbit as they would here. They’re everywhere, an infestation left unchecked for too long. It’s become too great to eradicate now.”
“Sire,” Leonidas said, well knowing the man’s philosophical streak and his ability to lapse into quoting historians and pundits from ages of old. “You don’t need to sacrifice yourself.”
“Ah, but the sacrifice has already been made.” Markus pushed up his sleeve, revealing twin puncture marks in the vulnerable flesh of his inner arm. It looked like he had been bitten by a viper. “It was a drone,” he said. “One of the ones that came down with the intruders, the intruders that took us completely by surprise. I wish there had been time to call you. I wish I’d thought to have some of your people in Command.”
“What is it, Sire?” Leonidas asked, his gaze locked on the wound. The marks were swollen and oozing clear fluid.
“A fancy custom-made poison. The doctor has already analyzed it. He’s in there trying to find a cure—” Markus waved toward one of the suite’s side rooms, “—but he’s never seen anything like it, so he’s not hopeful that there will be time.”
“Sire…” Leonidas did not know what else to say.
“I have a day or two more. Long enough to do my best to rally our people.” Markus smiled, though it appeared forced. “There’s still hope.”
Leonidas clenched a fist. “You want me to go after the spy? Zhou said you knew who betrayed us, who blabbed the location of this hideout to the Alliance.”
That had to be the mission. What else could it be?
“No. She is… It doesn’t matter now.” Markus turned his head toward the bedroom. “Thorian? It’s time.”
“Go to your father,” a woman said quietly from that room.
“I don’t want to, Mother,” a boy replied. “You’re sick. I can’t leave you. I have to protect you.”
Sick? The emperor’s wife? Three suns, had she also been poisoned? Or was this something else?
“That’s very brave of you, but there’s nothing you can do, love.”
“I can. I have Starseer powers. I just have to concentrate, and I can figure out how to heal you. I know I can. I just need time.”
“Time is something we have little of right now,” his mother said. “It’s speeding away faster than light. Give me a hug before you go.”
“I’m not going,” the boy said stubbornly, his voice muffled, as if his face was pressed into her shoulder.
Markus closed his eyes, moisture glinting on his lashes. His face, always older than it should have been for a man who hadn’t yet seen fifty years, seemed ancient now, lines made deep by too many years of stress, too much on his shoulders for too long. He appeared in danger of collapsing.
Leonidas, looking again toward those puncture wounds, held out a hand to grip his shoulder, to hold him up if need be.
“Thank you,” Markus murmured, then took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “Thor, I need you to come now. Major Sadangi, are you ready?”
The officer appeared first, exiting from the same room that held the doctor researching a cure. A wiry, dark-skinned man, he wore a flight suit rather than armor, a helmet tucked under his arm. He frowned at Leonidas and pushed a hand through his short gray-speckled black hair.
“Sire, he’s huge,” the major said, a plaintive note in his voice.
Leonidas returned his frown, not knowing what this was about and not caring. Like the emperor’s wife, he felt the press of time as explosions continued to go off in the distance. His men, he knew, would give their lives to keep those Alliance soldiers from passing that intersection and getting back into these tunnels, but even cyborgs were not indestructible.
“All cyborgs are huge, Sadangi,” Markus said. “We like them that way.”
Judging by the major’s lip curl, he did not agree. “He’s not going to fit in the ship. And I don’t need him. I can get the boy out of here by myself. And there’s room, too, if you’ll change your mind.” Sadangi glanced at Markus’s sleeve, then looked away, swallowing noticeably.
“You would have me flee and leave my wife and my staff here?” Markus asked.
“Everyone should flee. If those cyborgs can get some of the Alliance ships…” Sadangi must have been listening in to the comm chatter.
“We’ll flee if and when it makes sense to do so. But for now…” Markus lifted his hand toward the bedroom, where a thin ten-year-old boy with sandy hair, freckles, and tear-streaked cheeks stood in the doorway, a personal bag clutched to his chest. Despite his youth, he wore a weapons belt with a small blazer pistol in the holster.
Sadangi sighed. “I’m ready, Sire.”
Markus faced Leonidas again, and Leonidas struggled not to wilt noticeably as he got the gist of what this special mission would be. Protecting a boy? What did he know about children? Nothing. Surely there was someone better qualified for this.
“Adler,” Markus said, “I need you to get my son, the prince and heir, away from here. There are Starseers on Dustor who will hide him away. Sadangi has the coordinates. The Starseers aren’t all with us—some are blatant Alliance supporters—but these are distant relatives. We can trust them. They’ve agreed
to shelter and train Thor until it’s time for him to make his appearance in the system again. For now, my team is going to feed the news the story of his death.”
“Sire, it sounds like all you need is a bodyguard,” Leonidas said, “to make sure Thorian and the pilot make it to these Starseers.” He barely kept himself from shuddering at the idea of handing the boy off to the eccentric and arrogant people with their disturbing mental powers.
“We don’t need a bodyguard,” Sadangi snapped. “Definitely not a cyborg bodyguard.”
Markus lifted a hand toward him. “They need the best, Adler. Leonidas. That’s you.”
“Sire, I’m in command here. I can’t leave my men. They need me. I can comm Kearney or one of the other cyborgs to—”
“You are my choice,” Markus repeated. “Thor is my only remaining son. That he survive is more important than anything that could happen here. This isn’t up for debate.”
Leonidas shut his mouth.
“From either of you,” Markus added, glaring at the major.
“Yes, Sire,” Sadangi said, shrinking under that glare.
“The ship is ready?” Markus asked.
“Yes, Sire. Assuming the Alliance hasn’t found the backdoor yet.” Sadangi grimaced. “They’ve found everything else. They’ve had plenty of help.”
Leonidas wished someone would tell him who, so he could try to find and kill that spy. While he could understand the emperor wanting to protect his heir, any of his men could do that. He hated the idea of skulking away in some escape ship while the rest of his soldiers fought and died in this base.
“Thor?” Markus crossed the room, hugged the boy, and whispered into his ear.
Leonidas tried not to hear the private conversation, instead looking over at Sadangi, wondering if he would have trouble with the pilot. The major was eyeing him back, open distaste on his face, despite the fact that Leonidas outranked him.
“You have a problem with cyborgs?” Leonidas asked. “Or is it me in particular that you find unappealing?” He didn’t care if the man liked him or loathed him. He just wanted to know that Sadangi would follow orders when given them.
“Got a problem with cyborgs who think they’re better than humans,” Sadangi said as Markus continued to speak to his son—the boy was making one more plea, asking to stay here, to help his parents with the poison. “Heard they were planning on making you a general, so you could lord it over whole brigades of soldiers. Human soldiers.”
“I doubt anyone is getting promoted anytime soon,” Leonidas said. “As to the rest, I don’t think I’m better than anyone.”
Sadangi snorted. “Haven’t met a cyborg yet who didn’t.”
Markus returned with Thor, his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “He’s ready.”
Already familiar with Sadangi, Thor did not do more than glance at him, but he gave Leonidas a long look from boots to helmet. They had never met before, not in person.
At more than six and a half feet in height, Leonidas towered over the boy. He towered over a lot of people. He did not know if it would help, but he removed his helmet, so he might appear less intimidating. He did not know if his short, sweat-soaked black hair would help, but he at least ought to look human. The implants were all underneath the skin, so he did look fully human when in clothes or naked, but he knew the red armor scared people. There had been many instances during the centuries that the empire had existed when the Cyborg Corps had been called in to deal with dissenters and rebels, so history was full of stories of red-clad soldiers annihilating people in the name of the fleet and the empire.
“He’s scary,” Thor whispered to his father, the boy apparently not realizing that Leonidas heard most whispers.
“That’s why he’ll be the perfect person to protect you,” Markus said.
The boy’s face wrinkled up with skepticism.
“He’s also a good man. Go, Thor. It’s time.” Markus pushed the boy, not toward Leonidas, but toward Sadangi.
Leonidas told himself that made sense, and it was because Thor was more familiar with the pilot, not that it was a slight or rejection.
“Time to go,” Sadangi said, leading the boy toward the door. “You better keep us alive, cyborg colonel.”
“I will, Major,” he said, giving the rank emphasis to remind the pilot of their respective positions in the fleet hierarchy.
Sadangi ignored him, saluted the emperor, and walked out. Thor gave his father a long look as he left, and Leonidas thought the boy might cry, but he kept his chin up and followed the pilot.
Another chain of explosions went off in the distance, and Leonidas put his helmet back on. He, too, gave the emperor a long last look as he strode out, knowing he would never see the man again. After working for him indirectly, and sometimes directly, for nearly twenty years, the idea did not sit well with Leonidas. But he did not know what he could do. He was no physician, and it sounded like Markus had one working on the problem. Leonidas could not fault the emperor’s decision to remain in contact with his troops, his people.
Markus gave him a solemn salute before touching his earstar and returning to work, to reassuring his people. As if the end wasn’t near for all of them.
Part 2
Leonidas let Major Sadangi lead the way. He had not been told the location of this escape ship. He only hoped the Alliance did not know about it, either.
Thorian tagged along right behind Sadangi, keeping up with the man’s longer legs, his bag clutched to his chest. He kept glancing back, not at Leonidas, but at the corridors behind him, perhaps wishing he could run back to his parents, or hoping that they would catch up. Leonidas was surprised that Markus hadn’t arranged for his wife to escape to safety too. But if she had been bitten by whatever drone had delivered that poison, then it made sense for her to stay with a doctor.
Another round of explosions went off in the distance, and Leonidas almost turned on his comm to contact his men. But if they were in battle, his voice would only distract them. He wasn’t there and didn’t know the situation anymore. Captain Stein was in charge.
Voices spoke quietly from somewhere up ahead, and Leonidas pulled his thoughts back to the here and now. He increased his speed, touching Sadangi’s shoulder as he surged past. He also held a finger in front of his lips, hoping the gesture would be understood through the faceplate. The voices were too soft to hear, and he doubted the major had heard them at all.
Sadangi nodded curtly, not protesting as Leonidas ran ahead.
“Ssh, Your Highness,” Sadangi whispered, turning toward Thorian. “Try to keep your bag from clanking. There may be enemies ahead.”
Thorian held it tighter to his chest and slowed down.
Leonidas wanted to race far ahead, to make sure he eliminated the trouble well before the prince arrived, but he was the only true combatant here, so he also had to worry about someone coming up from behind Sadangi and the boy.
The voices grew quiet, and he suspected their approach had been detected.
Up ahead, the corridor ended in a large, dark chamber. A hangar?
Leonidas slowed as he approached the entrance, stepping as quietly as possible in his big combat boots. His eyes were as enhanced as his hearing, but even he struggled to see details in the dark hangar bay. All of the lights were off inside, a contrast to the brightly illuminated corridor. He grimaced, knowing he would be an easy target when he reached the entrance and was silhouetted against the lights.
He stopped in the mouth of the corridor, where he could use the corners for partial cover, and squinted into the gloom. He could pick out the frame of a single imperial bomber facing a pair of double doors. If that was their escape ship, no wonder the emperor had not sent more people along. It had more room for bombs than for passengers, and its cockpit was only designed to hold two comfortably. Thorian would have to ride in the small cargo space behind the seats. Leonidas hoped there were provisions for a long trip. He assumed the craft, usually a short-range vessel, had been modified fo
r interplanetary transport.
A few crates were stacked to one side of the small hangar, and Leonidas pointed his rifle in that direction. He did not see anyone, but he thought he heard the soft inhalations and exhalations of several people over the thuds of footsteps coming from behind. It was a logical hiding place. The rest of the bay was empty, with nobody crouching in the dark near the walls—his eyes could tell that much. He did notice a large rectangular spot on the ceiling above the ship—a vent?
It might be nothing, but he kept his eye on it and on the crates as he held his palm out behind him to keep Sadangi back. Movement stirred in the shadows, someone leaning out from behind the crates for an instant. A man in combat armor. He chucked something before ducking back behind protection.
Leonidas fired, not at the man, though he was tempted. Instead, he targeted the projectile hurtling through the air. His blazer bolt streaked through the bay, briefly lightening the darkness, and slammed into the object. It exploded, the brilliant white flash blasting away all the shadows. His faceplate automatically darkened to protect his vision.
“Wait here,” Leonidas barked over his shoulder, then sprinted toward the crates.
The grenade had blown up closer to them than it had to the doorway, so he expected the people to be taking cover, their hands above their heads. He sprang into the air, leaping over the ten-foot stack of crates. Four Alliance soldiers in dark combat armor came into view as he descended.
“Look—” was all one had time to shout.
Another jerked his blazer up to shoot at Leonidas, but he kicked it out of the man’s hands as he landed. Instead of firing, he jammed the butt of his rifle into the closest man’s chest, sending him flying. He grabbed another with his armored hand and hurled him into the crates. Though heavy and large, the crates tumbled down all around the man, knocking into others at the same time. One struck the back of Leonidas’s shoulder, but he barely noticed. He batted aside a rifle pointed at him as it went off. The bolt grazed the side of his helmet and was deflected. The rifle flew out of the soldier’s hands and across the bay, striking a wall on the far side. Leonidas grabbed him by the seams of his chest plate before he could skitter backward. He heaved the man from his feet, hurtling him into the wall with enough force to smash in the side of his helmet. The soldier did not rise again.
The Fallen Empire Collection by Lindsay Buroker Page 77