Perilous Hunt

by Lindsay Buroker

  She shifted Jelena further under her body, careful not to crush her as rubble poured down, much of it crashing onto her back. There was no shield protecting her. With her other arm, she pulled Thorian closer, groping for something to do, some way to stop Tymoteusz from whatever he intended to do. She would have reached for a weapon, but she couldn’t let go of the children. Nor could she risk letting them be struck by the boulders still slamming down, crunching into her legs and back, pummeling her body even through the armor.

  “Leonidas!” she cried, but she feared Tymoteusz had already dealt with him.

  Alisa looked around the best she could without moving the rest of her body, but she couldn’t see him. She couldn’t see anyone else through the hailstorm of falling rock, the piles of rubble growing all around. The entire chamber seemed like it would be full any second.

  Mommy? Jelena asked, the frightened voice sounding in her head instead of in her ears.

  Tymoteusz waved his staff, and for a moment, the rocks pelting Alisa halted, his shield extending over her. He reached toward her. No, not toward her. Toward Thorian.

  “No,” Alisa shouted, barely hearing her own voice with the cacophony thundering in what remained of the docking area. “Leonidas,” she cried again.

  She lunged for Tymoteusz as he grabbed Thorian’s shoulder.

  Her fingers sank into his calf with enough force to make him cry out. She squeezed as hard as she could from her prone position, her armored fingers digging into his flesh. She might have reached bone and broken it, but he recovered enough to smack her with the staff.

  An electrical charge leaped from it and coursed through Alisa’s body as if the armor weren’t there. A scream tore from her throat as sheer pain engulfed her.

  Tymoteusz yanked Thorian away from her, and she was powerless to do anything to stop him. He pulled his leg away from her weakened grip and strode away, a kicking and biting Thorian in his grip.

  The barrier’s influence faded, and once again rocks pummeled Alisa. One struck her in the back of her helmet so hard that her head rang.

  Mommy! Jelena cried in her mind, but she couldn’t answer. A distant explosion sounded, and the universe went black for Alisa. Pain and defeat were the last things she felt.

  Chapter 23

  Alisa woke to bright light shining in her face and the sound of chickens fighting with each other. She groaned and tried to roll over, to escape all of it, but her head pulsed sharply at the barest movement.

  “Stay still, foolish woman,” Alejandro said.

  Alisa might have obeyed him—falling back into the darkness and ignoring the pain sounded appealing—but then she remembered everything. “Jelena!”

  She lurched up so quickly that the world spun around her. No, that was sickbay. She was back on the Nomad. Where were they? Still in the asteroid? Where was Jelena?

  Alejandro steadied her with a hand to her shoulder. She felt it through her shirt. Her armor. It was gone.

  “Jelena?” she rasped, squinting against the light and trying to see around her. “And Leonidas?” She had no idea what had happened to him once the ceiling—and a zillion tons of asteroid above it—had fallen on her head.

  “They’re both here and alive,” Alejandro said.

  “Is she hurt? I need to see her. I need to hug her and let her know—”

  “She’s fine. Just some scrapes. She was in here a few minutes ago, wanting to talk to you. I’ll let her know you’re awake, but don’t try to move yet. You’re worse off than she and Leonidas were, but not the worst of all.”

  Alisa realized she was on the deck next to the exam table instead of on it. From below, she could only make out someone’s hand and the hem of a dusty black robe hanging over the edge. A brown chicken squawked and poked its head into sickbay. There looked to be several out in the corridor for some reason.

  “Thorian?” Alisa asked. Had Leonidas or one of her people managed to wrest him back from Tymoteusz?

  “No,” Alejandro said, his face darkening. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone?” Tears threatened Alisa’s eyes. “Gone gone? Did Tym…”

  “I don’t know. Leonidas said the rogue Starseers dropped the asteroid on him and he didn’t see what happened. He didn’t see anything until he clawed his way out, and Tymoteusz was gone by then. Abelardus is the one who says he saw in his mind that Tymoteusz took the prince back to his ship. He was buried under rubble at the time, too, though shielded with his powers. He couldn’t do anything until he got out.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then the ship left,” Alejandro said, his voice turning to a snarl, “slinking back out past the warship without those idiots ever seeing it.”

  “How can that be?”

  “Who knows what powers those people used? The last I heard, the imperial soldiers on the base were yelling at the soldiers on the warship that a Starseer ship had been there and gotten away with the prince. I tried to tell the imperials that this would happen. I tried to tell them that the staff was coming—I knew he’d be here, damn it. And nobody listened to me.”

  “Is that what you were doing locked in NavCom?” Alisa pressed a hand to her head, wishing the stabbing pain would go away. “Mica was suspicious of you.”

  “I just wanted them to get the megalomaniacal tyrant with the staff, so we could then give the staff to Thorian. It’s the same thing I’ve always wanted—to secure the future of the empire. But now that some powerful Starseer has Thorian, and now that he’s the one with the staff, it’s going to be impossible to get them back. If Thorian is even alive.” His fingers curled into a fist. “I don’t want Bondarenko’s weak-kneed, conniving empire to be the one that survives.”

  Alisa didn’t want any of them to survive, but she kept her mouth shut.

  “We’ll get him back,” Leonidas said, stepping into sickbay and around the table toward Alisa. The chickens squawked at his passing. “Thorian was alive when the ship flew away. Abelardus saw it.”

  Alisa lifted a hand toward Leonidas, relieved to see him up and well. Mostly well. The entire side of his face was mottled with a purple and blue bruise, but he otherwise looked fit as he knelt beside her. Now if someone would just bring Jelena to see her. Alisa needed to know that she was all right. That “Mommy!” that Jelena had cried out telepathically still rang in her mind.

  “Abelardus,” Alejandro grumbled. “For all the good he was. Any of them were. They promised they could band together and do something against the chasadski, and they were worthless. Why did I expect anything else? The Starseers let themselves get captured and slapped into those headbands back on Arkadius, and the ones here were just scientists and tutors. None of them could stand up to this Tymoteusz.”

  “Doctor,” Leonidas said, “you’re being rather condemning for someone who spent most of that battle hiding under the console in NavCom.”

  “I did not.” Alejandro scowled at him.

  “Bravo Six said you did.”

  “Bastard.”

  “I don’t believe he knew he was sworn to secrecy.”

  Leonidas dropped down beside Alisa. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and she slumped against him, glad for the support. Even sitting up was a challenge right now.

  “They hit us, and the entire ship almost broke away from the airlock,” Alejandro said. “Did you see what they did to the Starseer shuttle? They annihilated it.”

  “The imperial warship did?” Alisa asked, still confused as to what had happened. Where were they now? Had Bravo Six flown the Nomad away from the asteroid?

  “No, the chasadski ship. It has weapons. But I think it just shook the shuttle apart from afar. I assume the staff was used for that. The earthquake stick is what they should have called it.”

  Leonidas grunted and nodded toward the exam table. “How’s Ostberg?”

  Alisa’s gut clenched. Ostberg was the one who had been hurt? How badly?

  A chicken peered through the hatchway again. Were they here because of Ostb
erg? He did feed them often. Maybe their coop had been damaged during the chaos, and they had all escaped. To check on Ostberg. Alisa looked bleakly at the feathered head.

  “He has a lot of internal injuries,” Alejandro said. “His spine and ribs were smashed. I’ve stabilized him for now, but I’m going to need to keep an eye on him. He definitely needs a month in a regen tank, but…” He frowned down at Alisa. “We need to get the staff and Thorian. If he’s still alive.”

  The hells with the staff. She put her hand down, intending to push herself to her feet to see Ostberg, her throat tight as she thought of his injuries. He hadn’t been close enough for her to protect. He must have been too distracted to shield himself when the ceiling—the asteroid—came down on them.

  Before she had lifted herself even an inch off the deck, blackness encroached on her vision, and her headache intensified, sending sharp stabs of pain to one side of her skull.

  Leonidas pulled her closer. “Stay where you are for now,” he said.

  “You could use time in a tank too,” Alejandro said. “I’ve stabbed you all over with localized painkillers, but you’ll feel horrible when they wear off. Armor doesn’t make you invincible, you know.”

  “Why didn’t you stab me in the head while you were at it?” Alisa pressed a hand to the spot in her skull that throbbed with pain.

  “I’d be happy to stab you in the head.”

  Leonidas gave him a cool look.

  “Your bedside manner is as lacking as ever,” Alisa muttered, slumping against Leonidas again. She would have to trust that Alejandro would take care of Ostberg. “Was anyone else… injured?” She couldn’t bring herself to ask if anyone had died. Beck had been wearing his armor, so he should have made it, even if they’d had to dig him out, too, and Abelardus must have made it, if he had been giving Alejandro details on Tymoteusz. “Jelena?”

  She knew she had already asked, but she couldn’t keep from asking again, to make sure.

  “She’s fine,” Leonidas said. “You shielded her.”

  “Good.” Alisa met Alejandro’s eyes and then Leonidas’s, remembering the way Thorian had been torn from her grasp. And also remembering that she had promised Leonidas she would protect him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I couldn’t keep a hold on Thorian. I didn’t have the strength to keep Tymoteusz from getting him. Even with the armor.” She licked her lips. “I tried.”

  Alejandro’s jaw tightened, and he looked away, his eyes hard. Maybe she shouldn’t have admitted that she had been the one to lose Thorian. But it wasn’t as if he even cared about the boy. He just wanted his precious empire to have a leader from the right bloodlines, even if that leader was ten.

  There was no condemnation in Leonidas’s eyes. Just sadness. Somehow, that was worse.

  “Nobody would have had the strength,” he said quietly. “I tried to reach Tymoteusz and couldn’t get close. He waved that staff, and my armor started shaking itself apart from the inside out. Like what Thorian did to the major except even worse, I think. Then the ceiling collapsed on me, and it was too late to do anything. He’d disappeared back into the ship with Thorian and was long gone by the time I dug myself out. Then finding everyone under the ten-foot piles of rubble took even longer.” His voice grew tight, almost raspy, as he added, “Finding you.”

  “I’m not surprised that you’re the one who dug me out.” Alisa rested her palm against his chest.

  “I didn’t know if you were dead or alive under there.” Moisture glistened in his eyes, and he blinked and lowered his gaze.

  “I didn’t either.” She smiled and lifted her hand to the side of his face. She stroked his cheek and his jaw, the warm skin rough with beard stubble. “Thank you.”

  Even though her skull protested, she shifted enough to kiss him, to thank him for everything. He returned the kiss, gently, that fear of hurting her more present than ever. Given her condition—and she didn’t look forward to learning the full extent of her injuries when those painkillers wore off—that was understandable, but she still hoped to one day convince him that he could relax and worry about that less. She still had a fantasy of him shoving her up against the wall and unleashing all of his passions. But that would be something to strive for later. She’d been thrown up against enough walls today.

  “Mom,” Jelena blurted, hopping through the hatchway. “Are you awake? We have to get…”

  Alisa flinched back from Leonidas, dropping her hand—and her lips.

  Jelena gaped at her, and at Leonidas. Alisa’s first hope, that she might have broken the kiss before Jelena saw it, was squashed by the confusion screwing up her face.

  “I’m awake,” she said, vainly hoping that Jelena might forget about finding her mom in a new lover’s arms—or that she might still be too young to grasp what she’d seen. Maybe what she’d been about to say would be so important that she would push this moment aside and rush on. Alisa had intended to explain everything, of course, but not during Jelena’s first hour on the ship. And not after being caught locking lips with a man her daughter didn’t know. A man who wasn’t her father.

  “What are you doing?” Jelena drew back, gripping the hatchway. “With—with him?”

  So much for not grasping it. Jelena’s horrified expression said she grasped far too much.

  “Ah, there wasn’t time for introductions before, was there?” The words sounded inane, but she didn’t know what to say. She’d been too focused on finding Jelena to rehearse how she would explain that she’d discovered someone new to love. Jelena shouldn’t even have to deal with that now, not until after they’d had time to share their memories of Jonah and move on together. “This is Leonidas. He’s my…” She looked up at him, extending her hand and groping for a term that would suffice. My security officer? My bodyguard? My fearsome cyborg?

  He didn’t give her any help. He wore a bleak expression and looked like he wasn’t sure if he should let her go and get out of the way or if he needed to keep hanging on because she would collapse without his support. That was definitely a possibility.

  “Leonidas,” she finished lamely.

  Leonidas nodded solemnly at Jelena, but did not say anything. Maybe he didn’t have any more idea what to say than Alisa did. Maybe he knew Jelena would find anything he said unwelcome.

  Alisa blinked, struggling for control. She didn’t want Jelena to consider Leonidas unwelcome. She wanted her to like him. Too many people feared and rejected him. She didn’t want someone she cared about to do the same. And she didn’t want Jelena to feel the need to reject him. He would be a wonderful surrogate father one day, if she would let him become one. Why, oh why, hadn’t she rehearsed how she would explain this?

  “He’s not Dad,” Jelena said. “You can’t—you can’t.” She waved at them, having as much trouble saying things as Alisa. But there was no mistaking the betrayal in her eyes.

  “I know,” Alisa said, thinking she should agree rather than argue with her right now. Besides, she hadn’t fully come to terms with that herself. Maybe it was too soon for her to be with someone else, even if Leonidas was her greatest supporter, even if he’d saved her life numerous times, and even if he’d been there for her every time she needed him, even when they’d first met and they’d been enemies. Later, once Jelena knew Leonidas, maybe it would be easier to get her to accept him as something more than the hulking cyborg wandering the ship.

  Jelena shook her head and disappeared into the corridor.

  Alejandro was leaning against the counter, watching this with his arms folded across his chest. Damn him, he looked satisfied. As if he’d wanted her to get in trouble for her relationship with Leonidas. Why couldn’t he have been out there to be crushed by the asteroid collapse instead of Ostberg?

  Alisa dropped her chin to her chest.

  “I’m sorry,” Leonidas said quietly. “I heard footsteps, but there are so many people on the ship now—all of the Starseers and children, in addition to our previous passengers—that it didn’t occ
ur to me that it might be your daughter. I shouldn’t have kissed you with the hatch open.”

  “No, don’t think like that.” She touched his face again. She wanted to tell him that he could kiss her whenever he wanted, but that wasn’t quite true, was it? They couldn’t kiss, not in front of Jelena, at least not for now. Still, she hated to say that. The last thing she wanted was for there to be another reason for him to be hesitant with her. “Besides,” she said, opting for humor instead of seriousness, which was always easier for her, “I was the one to kiss you.”

  “Yes, but you don’t have augmented hearing to know when people are coming.”

  “I don’t know how even you could hear someone coming over the squawking of those chickens. Do you think they’ll stand sentinel out there until Ostberg wakes up?”

  Leonidas was not distracted by her attempt at humor. His eyes grew sad, and he said, “I don’t want to come between you and your daughter. Maybe we shouldn’t—”

  “No, damn it.” Alisa pressed her fingers to his lips, not wanting him to finish that sentence, not wanting him to say that they should stay apart. Even if he was right, and that it would make the transition easier all around. “I mean, maybe for a while, I have to be a mom and can’t be a lover at the same time, but later on, we’ll figure it all out. Please don’t pull away. I… would really like you to still be here holding me when these painkillers wear off.”

  “Actually,” Alejandro said, “you probably won’t want anyone touching you.”

  “Don’t you have some injections to prepare, Doctor? I’m sure there are other people on the ship who can’t wait for you to stab them with things.”

  Alejandro grunted dismissively—or derisively—but at least he turned his back to them to look at displays hovering over the counter.

  “We’ll figure it out,” she repeated to Leonidas, patting him on the chest. “You be yourself, and I’m sure she’ll get to like you eventually. It might take longer for her to like the idea of us together, but eventually, she will. I’m sure of it. You’re wonderful, Leonidas.”