Fallen Empire 2: Honor's Flight

by Lindsay Buroker

  Leonidas stood quietly and listened before venturing away from the door. The scent of blood was stronger inside.

  When he did not hear anything, he walked down the aisle and turned toward the front of the building. The holosign glowing in the window, proclaiming the business open, shed some extra light. To his eyes, it clearly illuminated the prone person lying on an open stretch of floor near a front counter and payment machine. It was a man, blood pooling on the floor next to him, a rivulet of it leading to a drain nearby. It had dried, but only partially. This hadn’t happened long ago.

  Though he shouldn’t have disturbed a crime scene, curiosity drove him forward. He knelt, careful to avoid the blood, and rolled the body over. With his keen night sight, he easily saw the hole in the man’s clothes. Something—most likely a knife—had punctured deep into his flesh, slipping between his ribs and piercing his heart. It had only taken one stab to kill him. Someone had either gotten lucky or had known exactly what he was doing.

  A draft stirred the hair on the back of Leonidas’s neck, the door he had used opening. He sniffed, then sighed as he caught Alisa’s scent, a mix of simple, warm feminine skin and the lavender hand soap in the lav on the ship. She bumped against something in the dark, but otherwise moved quietly as she maneuvered through the shop toward the front of the building.

  He turned to face her, his nose and ears having already determined that they were alone in the shop, aside from the dead man. Whoever had stabbed him had since left.

  The holosign must have provided enough light for Alisa to see his outline in the front of the room, because she lifted a hand toward him. “Turns out your armor case fits through the door fine if you tilt it on its side.”

  “Ah.” He stepped toward her, thinking she might not notice the body, the shadows being thicker along the floor. Maybe he could usher her away from it. But her gaze fell upon it before he reached her.

  “Uh, not your work, I assume?”

  She didn’t appear overly squeamish about the body. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. If she’d fought in the war, she must have seen plenty of death, even as a pilot.

  “No,” he said. “I believe this is Master Tech Camden Meliarakis, the owner of the smithy.”

  “The one who was going to fix your armor?”

  “Yes. I spoke directly to him about six hours ago and made the nocturnal appointment.” Leonidas lowered his voice to murmur just for his earstar, “Time?”

  It responded by speaking a soft, “Twenty-three twenty-seven, Starfall Station time,” into his ear.

  “I’m three minutes early for my appointment,” Leonidas told Alisa.

  “Very punctual of you.” Alisa frowned as the armor case floated to a stop beside her, almost bumping her arm, as if it wanted attention. Or maybe it wanted to know when the armor inside would be repaired.

  Leonidas started to wonder who else he could contact for the job, but that made him feel selfish—and guilty. So he walked around the shop, thinking he might figure out what had happened. It wouldn’t matter to the dead smith, but it would make Leonidas feel better about thinking of his own needs first. Besides, it was hard to forget that he’d had a hand in keeping the peace for a long time. It was hard to shed that responsibility. Granted, he’d been more of an interplanetary peacekeeper than a police officer, but he’d always fought to protect civilians.

  “Shall I call the police again?” Alisa asked. “Or should we just disappear without touching anything? Reporting a mugging was one thing, but I’d hate to be detained because we were suspects in a murder. You, especially, shouldn’t be caught here.”

  “No,” Leonidas murmured, peering at the closed roll-up door. Since the lock in the back had been intact, he presumed the murderer had come in through the front. Given the shop’s around-the-clock hours, the door had likely been unlocked at the time.

  He confirmed that it was still open without touching anything. Leaving fingerprints behind wouldn’t be a good idea for exactly the reason Alisa had alluded to. He did not need the Alliance adding civilian murders to the list of reasons they wanted him arrested.

  “Unlocked,” he said. “The murderer may have come in, pretending to be a customer. The smith was stabbed in the front, so he might have even known the person. At the least, I bet he didn’t expect trouble.”

  As Leonidas moved away from the door for a closer look around the premises and the counter, he was aware of Alisa watching him.

  “Are you going to attempt to solve the crime?” she asked.

  “You don’t approve?”

  “Well, I don’t mean to belittle this man’s death, but you investigating it won’t get your armor fixed, and I’m worried that if we’re found here, you’ll be in a lot of trouble.” She walked to the window and peered out into the street, her gaze flicking upward, as if to look for spy boxes.

  Leonidas could now guess why the one in the back had been shot down. Had the murderer gone out that way? So as not to be seen? Locking the door as he went?

  “You don’t think you’ll be in trouble too?” he asked.

  “Oh, I reckon my mouth could also get me into trouble—” Alisa flashed him a quick smile, though it appeared more distracted than heartfelt, “—but you’re the one my people want.”

  “Your people.”

  “The Alliance people.” She shrugged. “The ones with two hundred thousand tindarks on your… not your head, exactly, because they want you alive. That’s one boon for you. I can’t imagine less than an army taking you in alive. Even that army would need some tanks and armor-piercing rounds.”

  Cyborgs were not quite as invincible as that, but Leonidas did not correct her. No need to educate her on the various poisons and chemicals that could act on his unique mecho-biology. And it wasn’t as if he was impervious to blazer bolts or bullets. In his armor, he nearly was, but that armor was in shambles now. He needed to get it fixed, one way or another. Was it selfish to hope the smith had an apprentice that he might contact? He leaned around the clerk’s counter to eye the shelves and display screens.

  “Hm, what is this?” Leonidas mused, pulling a large case out from behind the counter. The case was familiar, since one very similar to it floated in the middle of the room. This one was resting on the floor rather than hovering, but it was the same size as his.

  “Combat armor?” Alisa asked.

  “Red combat armor.”

  “You mean crimson,” she said quietly. “And only cyborgs have that, right?”

  “The color isn’t—wasn’t—forbidden in the private quarter, but it’s somewhat infamous, yes, since it was issued to soldiers in the Cyborg Corps.”

  The case was unlocked, so Leonidas opened it, wondering if he would know the owner. He also wondered what had brought one of his people here after the war ended and the imperial army largely dissolved. He supposed Starfall Station was as likely a place as any to move on and look for work. He’d heard rumors that some of his cyborg colleagues had become mercenaries, others bodyguards and heads of security for wealthy civilians. It seemed demeaning employment after working for the empire for so many years, maintaining order and keeping the people safe. Though it was not as demeaning as piracy—he’d already run into one of his people engaged in that, planning to carve out an empire of his own in territory no longer being patrolled.

  “Sergeant Lancer,” Leonidas read off the plate fastened to the inside of the lid.

  An image of a big farmer turned soldier came to mind. Sandy blond hair and freckles, a boyish look even after more than ten years in the army. Yes, Leonidas remembered him, and a twinge of excitement ran through him at the idea of reconnecting with someone from the unit. Even if Lancer had been along for many of the battles that were the fodder for Leonidas’s nightmares, he still wanted to see the man. He hadn’t had a chance to say a proper goodbye to anyone when the empire had lost and the unit had been disbanded. He had been too busy on a last mission for the emperor.

  “Anyone you know?” Alisa asked
.

  “Yes, I remember him. We fought together on many occasions.” Leonidas found a receipt on the top of the set of armor and read it. “This was just finished. He’s scheduled to pick it up at midnight station time.”

  “That’s not far off, but I’m not sure waiting here for him would be wise.” Alisa leaned closer to the windowpane. “Someone’s coming.”

  “Someone who looks like he might need the services of a smith? Or someone who might be a smith?” Leonidas hoped it would be the apprentice, though it might not help him if it was. The man would be too distraught over his master’s death to fix armor tonight. Besides, Leonidas twitched at the idea of an apprentice handling his most prized possession—and one of the few possessions he had left. He would have to do some research to find out if anyone else on the station was qualified.

  “Someone who looks like she might be here to investigate the death of a smith,” Alisa said. “It’s a woman, and she’s wearing a police uniform.”

  “We better leave then.” Leonidas nodded toward the back door.

  “Don’t forget your box.”

  “Never,” he murmured.

  The armor case floated after him as he moved away from the counter. He stepped past the body, experiencing a twinge of regret at leaving the smith’s killer at large without trying to help, but it wasn’t his responsibility to enforce order here, and he doubted the police would appreciate his assistance. Besides, if a patroller was on the way, she would be more useful here than he.

  Leonidas held the back door open for Alisa and his case to exit. He heard someone lifting the roll-up door. He slipped outside, shutting the back door softly, noticing his bare hand on the knob. He should have taken more care not to leave fingerprints, but maybe it didn’t matter. The Alliance was already after him. He’d probably be on the run for years to come. If they didn’t catch him first.

  Alisa did not make any jokes as they retraced their steps through the alley, and for that he was glad. He wasn’t in a good mood and didn’t want to make the effort to be good company. Uncranky company. His helplessness here on the station—in the system as a whole—grated on him more than it had in the previous months.

  As Alisa turned up an alley heading toward the street, Leonidas paused, a ladder catching his eye. It led up the side of a warehouse to a third-story rooftop.

  “Alisa,” he said softly, waving for her to come back. He gave a subvocal command for the case to stay put by the side of the building, then told her, “Side trip.”

  “Oh? Somewhere exotic?” She arched an eyebrow toward the ladder.

  “It depends on how exotic you consider rooftops.”

  “Not very,” she said as he started up.

  “Then this side trip may disappoint.”

  As he climbed, Leonidas listened for noises back at the smithy or out in the street. He did not hear anyone walking or talking, but if the policewoman had verified the existence of a body, a violently murdered body at that, she might have called for backup. He wondered how she had learned of the smith’s death, since he hadn’t seen a flashing alarm or anything of that nature.

  Once he reached the top of the warehouse, he had to drop to his belly to crawl across it. The arched ceiling that had seemed high when down in the street, had its beginning at the wall behind the buildings, and it stretched only a few feet above the warehouse rooftop. Pipes and ducts rose in spots, too, further tightening the space as they disappeared into the station above. The hum of machinery reached his ears, reverberating through the rooftop. In spots, colorful graffiti adorned the ceiling.

  He crawled to the far side of the warehouse so he could peer into the street. An inebriated couple crossed at an intersection several buildings away, leaning on each other and laughing too loudly. Targets for muggers, Leonidas supposed. He didn’t yet see any other police, though he scanned the shadows closely in case others lurked in the recesses.

  Alisa scooted up beside him, eyeing the white outline of a penis and balls graffitied above them. As a military officer, she had doubtlessly seen worse, but he found himself hoping that it was too dark for her normal human eyes to pick out the details.

  “If I’d known you would bring me someplace so cozy, I would have brought a blanket and a picnic basket.”

  Apparently, she had better-than-average normal human eyes.

  “Do you have one? A picnic basket?” He couldn’t imagine her bare bones freighter possessing such comforts, not when it had been huddled in the back of a junkyard cavern a month earlier. The lavatories didn’t even have towels, something that might have compensated for the fact that the body dryers only worked intermittently.

  “Not presently, but for you, I would have bought one.”

  “I had no idea I rated special consideration.”

  “Yes, the specialness of braided wicker.” She grinned at him, surprising him since he hadn’t thought his comments that witty. “You’re bantering with me. That’s excellent. I have hope that you might one day laugh, after all.”

  He returned his attention to the street. With a man dead a few buildings down, Leonidas did not think this was the time for laughter. Or banter.

  “Are we looking for anything in particular?” Alisa asked, not visibly chagrined by his lack of a response.

  “Sergeant Lancer. His armor will be ready soon, and if it were me, I wouldn’t be late to pick up such a precious item. He may have deliberately asked for a late-night pickup so he could avoid walking through the station during prime hours.”

  “Is there a warrant on his head too?”

  “I don’t know, but if he’s toting a case of red armor around, people will know what he is. Most former imperial soldiers can change out of their uniforms and blend in. It’s not so easy for cyborgs, even without the armor.”

  “You look completely human when you’re not cut up with your implants showing.” She waved to his arm, where he’d received such a cut a couple of weeks earlier. Dr. Dominguez had sealed it, leaving only the faintest of scars, one of many after so many years in the military. “An overly muscled human who spends four hours a day in the gym,” she added, grinning again, “but a human.”

  “Overly?” He twitched an eyebrow.

  Her grin widened. “Depends on your tastes, I suppose. I have a fondness for lanky scholars who appreciate my irreverent humor.” Her grin faded, and he wondered if that described her late husband.

  “Which is why you’re on a rooftop, shoulder to shoulder with me,” he said, thinking that responding to her banter might distract her from uncomfortable memories. The three gods knew he had his share of uncomfortable memories and understood about needing distractions.

  To his surprise, her cheeks reddened. Someone else wouldn’t have noticed in the shadows, but he had no trouble picking up the flush.

  “I just wanted an excuse to go out for a mocha,” she said, scooting closer to the edge of the building and peering into the street. “Will you be inviting your friend along if he shows up?”

  That wasn’t what he’d had in mind, though the image of Alisa walking arm-in-arm with a big, brawny cyborg on either side of her amused him for some reason. She wasn’t that short of a woman, standing roughly five-foot-ten, but the top of her head only rose an inch over his shoulder, and he wasn’t even that tall for a cyborg. The imperial army had enforced strict recruiting standards, picking men that had rated highly on athletic tests and had also already been physically imposing. They had been fussy about who they invested in for the expensive surgery necessary to turn a human into a cyborg—or killing machine, as Leonidas’s recruiter had said all those years ago. He remembered being unimpressed by the rhetoric. Yet here he was.

  “You wouldn’t be intimidated by walking into a coffee shop with two cyborgs?” Leonidas asked, realizing she was looking at him and remembering that she had asked a question.

  “Intimidated?” Her forehead crinkled.

  He snorted. “Never mind. I forgot who I was talking to.” He had yet to see her intimidate
d by anything, neither cyborgs turned pirates nor imperial warships on their tails. No matter who was after her, she was always ready to fling sarcasm like others flung bullets. “To answer your question, I want to keep him from walking in on a murder investigation where he might be turned into a suspect and held.”

  “Ah.”

  Alisa looked past him and toward the front of the smithy. “Is the policewoman still in there? I wonder how she knew to come looking. That body didn’t report itself.”

  “She may have been sent to investigate the broken spy box,” Leonidas said, though he thought it was interesting that Alisa, too, had noted that there hadn’t been any alarms triggered.

  “It was behind the building, not in it. She strode straight to the front door, didn’t she?”

  “You sound like you want to go peek in the window.”

  She raised a finger, looking interested in the idea, but then lowered it and shook her head. “No, I don’t need to go looking for trouble any more than you do. We’ll just wait for your friend and—” Alisa frowned. “There’s not a possibility your friend is responsible for this, is there? What if he already came by, and the smith tried to gouge him for some reason? Because he was a cyborg, and the smith’s loyalties were with the Alliance maybe.”

  Leonidas was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “First off, if he had come already, he wouldn’t have left his armor behind. Second, a cyborg wouldn’t have bothered with a knife when he could simply break a man’s neck.”

  Alisa frowned down at his hand where it rested next to the lip of the rooftop. “Thanks for putting that image in my mind.”

  He regretted making the comment, not wanting her to feel uncomfortable around him. He had two brothers who’d never gotten over the fact that he’d given himself to the army, mind and body, twenty years earlier. After their mother died, he’d stopped going home. Family gatherings were awkward enough when everyone was… fully human.

  A faint whir reached Leonidas’s ears, and he squinted into the gloom at the back of the building. Something stirred in the shadows. He whipped out his destroyer, instantly locking onto the target. It wasn’t a person—he would have seen that—but it took him a couple of seconds to figure out what the squarish thing bobbing along the far side of the roof was. A spy box. One that hadn’t been shot. Yet.