End Game

  “There’s someone here you may want to see,” Hawk said, nodding toward the door, then walking in that direction.

  Several of the soldiers hurried to follow him, their boots ringing on the metal deck. Agosti stayed behind, waving for one squad to hop up into the shuttle. Though Alisa wanted to follow Hawk—there was only one person on this ship he could mean—she glanced back, worried her people wouldn’t be treated well.

  I’ll make sure they don’t get too handsy, Abelardus informed her silently. Go see your dad.

  Thank you.

  Alisa started after Hawk, but two of the soldiers blocked the way, insisting on searching her and Leonidas before letting them go. Her pat-down was cursory. They were much more thorough with Leonidas and kept a rifle on him while they searched. He wore a stony expression, and his jaw seemed to be permanently clenched. She rested a hand on his bare forearm. He looked down at it, then gave her a look she couldn’t decipher.

  “You could go to sickbay with the others,” she said. “I think I’ll be all right with Hawk.”

  “Senator Hawk,” the soldier searching Leonidas growled.

  “I’ll go with you,” Leonidas said, ignoring the man. “Left to your own devices, you might say something lippy and get yourself locked into the cell next to Stanislav.”

  “How would your being along stop that?” She squeezed his arm.

  He looked down at her hand again, and she was about to ask if something was wrong—did he mind the familiarity in front of the enemy?—but the soldiers stepped back and waved for them to head to the door where Hawk waited. Alisa did not attempt to hold his hand or touch him while they walked, but he looked rough enough that it was hard for her not to offer support of some kind.

  She expected Hawk to lead them through the winding corridors of the ship and to the brig, but found herself gaping at a black Starseer robe as soon as they walked into the room with the controls for the shuttle bay. It was a grimy robe with more than a few tears in it, but the person wearing it looked well, his short beard and hair trimmed, and his eyes far more alert than Alisa had expected.

  Hawk extended a hand toward him and started to say something, but Alisa rushed forward and hugged Stanislav.

  He made a startled noise, but soon returned the hug.

  “I wasn’t expecting this,” he murmured quietly.

  “Well, you were killed, or so I thought, before I got a chance to decide if I liked you or not.” Aware of the soldiers looking on, Alisa backed up. She lifted her hand quickly to brush moisture from her eyes, the tears surprising her.

  “Hm, I shouldn’t have allowed that to happen.” Stanislav smiled slightly.

  “No, you shouldn’t have. I ordered you to follow us, and you got this stupid idea in your head about staying behind to sacrifice yourself.”

  “Stupid? I thought it was noble.”

  “I mistake those two often,” Leonidas said, “in her eyes.”

  “The eyes of family are the most important ones,” Stanislav said.

  Alisa noticed he wasn’t cuffed or restrained in any way. He didn’t have his staff, but that hardly made him weaponless, especially considering he did not appear to be drugged.

  “They’re letting you roam about freely?” Alisa asked, glancing at Hawk. He was standing back but watching, as were four of the armored men. “When I saw a vid of you—when Agosti tried to bribe me—” this time, her glance at Hawk was a darker one, “—you were unconscious in a brig cell.”

  “Yes, the admiral kept me there for quite a while. I remember little of it, since napping was enforced.”

  “With drugs,” Alisa said.

  “With drugs,” he agreed. “But when Senator Hawk arrived, he had me woken so he could make a deal with me.”

  “Deal? What deal?” She looked at Hawk again, though she didn’t know why she bothered. He wasn’t responding to any of her looks. He simply stood with his shoulder against the bulkhead, his arms folded over his chest, waiting and watching. Thinking he might gather some juicy intel?

  “I’ve agreed to help the Alliance defeat Tymoteusz,” Stanislav said.

  “Weren’t you going to do that anyway?”

  “Not if I was locked in a cell and drugged out of my mind,” he said dryly. “I’ve also agreed to help them take the staff from the chasadski.”

  Alisa squinted at him. She could believe that he would want the staff out of Terrible Tym’s hands, but did he truly want the Alliance to have that weapon?

  “Well, we have very similar plans.” Alisa didn’t mention Thorian, since she doubted Hawk or anyone in the Alliance particularly wanted him to come out of this alive. “You should come back to the freighter with us, and we’ll chase Tymoteusz down together. Maybe we’ll even come up with a plan that can defeat him before getting in a squabble with him this time.”

  “We have a plan,” Hawk said.

  “Really? Because so far, your people have let him saunter past under their noses without even reacting. And for that matter, so has the empire. He’s taken over their people and used them against us.”

  “We’ve acquired a sufficient supply of qui-gorn that such things won’t happen to us when we confront him. I cannot speak to what the empire has come up with to battle him, but we weren’t planning on inviting them to the showdown when we locate and confront Tymoteusz.”

  “They have a habit of inviting themselves.”

  “So I’ve noticed.” Hawk frowned, not at her but at Leonidas. He was standing back while Alisa had her reunion, saying nothing.

  “He’s not telling them anything,” Alisa snapped.

  “So you think.”

  “So I know. You think I don’t monitor the comm channels on my own ship? You can ask him. I’ve eavesdropped on him plenty of times.”

  “She does eavesdrop often,” Leonidas agreed blandly.

  Great, the first words he’d spoken in front of the soldiers, and they were to agree that she was shifty. Even if she had set herself up for that, she gave him a dirty look.

  “Don’t forget to arrange for my cocoa while you’re negotiating,” he told her, unaffected by her look.

  “This isn’t a negotiation,” Hawk said.

  “So, no cocoa?”

  Hawk frowned at him.

  “Leonidas didn’t used to make jokes at inappropriate times,” Alisa informed him, “but I’ve rubbed my tendencies all over him, and he’s picked some up.”

  “I hope he enjoyed all that rubbing,” Hawk murmured.

  Leonidas’s tight smile had a devilish aspect. He seemed to be in a better mood. Alisa wondered if Stanislav was speaking to him telepathically. Maybe reassuring him that he would keep the soldiers from pestering their team unduly? Did Stanislav have that kind of sway now that he’d cut his deal?

  “All right,” Alisa said to Stanislav, “you’ve agreed to help them defeat Tymmy. That’s good. Since we’re going the same way, we can help too. And you can ride along with us.”

  “That would be acceptable to me,” Stanislav was quick to agree.

  “Absolutely not,” Hawk said. “She’s not going to get her rickety freighter involved in a space battle. That’s ridiculous. He can come if he wants to help—” Hawk pointed at Leonidas, “—but not her.”

  “Space battle?” Alisa asked, ignoring the jab at the Nomad. “That’s your big plan for dealing with Tymoteusz? A space battle?”

  “We’re bringing a fleet.”

  “A fleet he’ll have shooting at each other before you get into weapons range with him.”

  “I already told you that we have a drug that can counteract attempts at mind manipulation,” Hawk said.

  “Fine. Let’s say that’s effective. What about the staff? I had the delightful experience of being on an asteroid base that he shook into pebbles remotely with the thing. He could quake your ships into pieces. Your big weapons and shields wouldn’t mean anything against that power.”

  “He can’t wave his hand—or staff—and destroy a fleet all at once.
We have enough ships that he won’t be able to handle them all. He’s in a simple transport ship. All we need is to get a few rounds off, and it’ll be obliterated. I don’t care how powerful he is; he will die in the vacuum of space, the same as anyone else.”

  Alisa opened her mouth to object—how did he know that Tymoteusz couldn’t wave the staff and destroy a fleet all at once?—but he continued over her.

  “I agree that he may be able to seriously damage our ships and kill many of our people before we take him down,” Hawk said. “That’s why we have someone who can go in first and keep him busy while we approach and attack.” He nodded to Stanislav.

  Stanislav did not appear particularly gleeful at the role he’d been given, but he did nod back.

  “You’re not going to sacrifice yourself again, are you?” Alisa asked, alarmed and distressed. She’d just gotten him back. “Didn’t he kick your ass in your last confrontation with him?”

  “It wasn’t quite that bad,” Stanislav murmured.

  “Leonidas carried you out of that field.”

  Hawk’s lips thinned. That probably wasn’t the intel he’d hoped to gain. “You’re his brother, right? Aren’t you of similar levels of talent?”

  “You mean, am I as powerful as he is?” Stanislav’s mouth twisted. “In addition to having his power amplified by the staff, he spent thirty years studying the chasadski ways—the dark ways. I spent two years in that camp after events left me… disillusioned with the system and humanity as a whole—” he turned a sad smile on Alisa, “—then, finding the whole practice distasteful, went off to be a hermit. I made some tools, kept some bees, and bred goats. I wasn’t testing myself against other Starseers in battle and trying to learn more about the dark arts, because I didn’t care about them. I minded my own business. Of course, my parents had died by then, and I foolishly did not know that I had family out there besides Tym.”

  “Goats?” Alisa asked.

  “Did I not mention them before?”

  “You didn’t. Were there any horses? Jelena has expressed an interest in horses.”

  Hawk lowered his face into his hand, looking like a man whose amazing plan had just been shredded apart by a five-year-old. Or, in this case, a fifty-five-year-old, goat-raising hermit.

  Stanislav held her gaze. “You found her.”

  Hadn’t he poked into her mind yet to see that? She supposed they had been discussing other matters.

  “We did,” she said.

  “Senator Hawk,” Stanislav said. “I would like to see my granddaughter before we head off to confront Tymoteusz.”

  Hawk lowered his hand. “Where is she?”

  Alisa had expected him to refuse outright. “On my ship. Back near Aldrin.” Even though she didn’t think the Alliance—or at least Senator Hawk—wanted to fly over and pulverize the Nomad right now, she kept the specific location to herself. She didn’t trust anyone fully these days, except for her own crew.

  Hawk shook his head. “We can’t take the time to backtrack. Henneberry’s yacht, and the mafia ships she seems to have selected for her new coalition, have already taken off. Our operative over there says they’re heading out into the middle of nowhere, not back toward Aldrin.”

  “I’m sure Operative Tomich can update you on their final location when they arrive.”

  Hawk stared at her. “How do you always know as much as we do about what’s going on?”

  “I’m sly and crafty.”

  Leonidas, good man that he was, did not bring up her eavesdropping tendencies again.

  “I thought you didn’t care about the staff,” Hawk said. “I thought you just wanted to get your daughter back, which it sounds like you’ve accomplished.”

  “I don’t care about the staff.” Alisa sensed that he didn’t believe her, but she didn’t know how to change that. “And all I did want was to get my daughter back. But Tymoteusz stole one of her schoolmates, and I found myself promising that I would help get him back.”

  Leonidas stirred behind her, and even though she wasn’t looking at him, she could feel his gaze suddenly boring into the back of her head. No, he wouldn’t want her bringing up Thorian to the Alliance.

  “One of her schoolmates?” Hawk asked. “What would a megalomaniacal future dictator want with—oh. Prince Thorian.”

  “They were studying under the same tutors,” Alisa said.

  Hawk frowned. “Our intelligence said—” He looked toward the doorway into the shuttle bay, perhaps searching for Agosti, but all the men had disappeared, Alisa’s crew included. They must have gone out another door and, she hoped, straight to sickbay. “We assumed he was dead. Tymoteusz was reputed to want him dead.”

  Alisa was surprised how much the Alliance knew, considering they hadn’t been in the middle of things, the way her ship had been. But they hadn’t known Thorian was alive. And she’d just informed them of that.

  She closed her eyes. Stupid, Alisa. Stupid. She and Leonidas could have retrieved Thorian and sent him off with the Starseers to be educated someplace where he wouldn’t be harassed by people who wanted him dead or who wanted to use him. Or hells, he could have even stayed on the Nomad, where he and Jelena could have played with Zizblocks. And if Stanislav returned to them, maybe he could have tutored them.

  But, no. She’d opened her mouth. And Hawk had gotten the free intel he’d hoped for.

  She couldn’t look at Leonidas, but she apologized silently to him. Later, she would apologize aloud. She hoped this wouldn’t end in a way that left her apologizing for the rest of her life.

  “Well,” Hawk said, “we’ll try to get him out alive if there’s any chance, but if we have the opportunity to blow Tymoteusz’s ship out of space, we have to take it.”

  Alisa swallowed, again feeling Leonidas’s gaze upon her.

  “Let us come along,” she found herself offering. “You do your fearsome fleet plan, but Stanislav can ride with us, and then he’ll distract Tym while we find a way to board his ship. We’ll get Thorian and the staff, which the Alliance can have for—”

  “Nobody’s boarding the ship,” Hawk said. “We’re blowing it up from as far away as possible. If the staff survives the explosion, we’ll pick it out of the wreckage later.”

  “But there are innocent—”

  “The prince was raised from birth to be a player on a field of strife and politics. He’s known his fate from his earliest days. He’ll understand.”

  “Why he’s being blown up? How lovely for him.”

  Hawk shook his head, his eyes saying that he wasn’t discussing this matter further. “You’re not going along. Whatever scheme you’ve been hatching, it ends here.”

  Alisa clenched her jaw, but did not argue further. Let him think what he wanted. She wasn’t done hatching schemes.

  Stanislav smiled faintly.

  “If I let you go,” Hawk said, speaking slowly as if he was analyzing whether or not this was a good idea even as the words came out, “will you agree to lead one of our shuttles back to your ship to pick up Admiral Tiang?”

  “Tiang doesn’t want to go. I’ve been trying to get rid of him for weeks.”

  Hawk’s brow wrinkled.

  “He’s locked in his cabin, doing some strange medical research. He made Leonidas catch him rats in a junkyard on Cleon Moon.”

  Hawk looked at Leonidas, who nodded once. Odd that Leonidas’s word seemed to mean more to Hawk than hers. Or maybe not. They’d bonded together while fighting the Starseers.

  “Well,” Hawk said, “Admiral Tiang has a commission in the Alliance fleet, which means showing up to work every day. His leave is long over, his daughter is worried about him, and Headquarters wants his butt back in a medical research facility on one of their ships. I have to insist that he leave your ship.” He looked Alisa in the eyes. “I could make the release of your team and your shuttle contingent on our ability to retrieve him. But I would prefer you simply did the right thing and led us to your ship so we could get him. Whether it was y
our intent or not, you are harboring an officer who is, at the least, AWOL, and may be in more trouble than that.”

  Alisa wanted to tell him to go kiss an asteroid and to find Tiang on his own, but the regret in Hawk’s eyes as he spoke that last derailed her. He probably didn’t want to bring his future father-in-law back for possible punishment, but even senators couldn’t do whatever they wanted. He must feel he had no choice.

  Alisa looked at Leonidas, wondering what he thought. The main reason she’d wanted to keep Tiang was because whatever he was working on might be useful against Tymoteusz, but Hawk was standing here forbidding her and her “rickety” freighter to get involved in that battle. Not that she intended to obey him—after all, she’d planted that tracking device for a reason. But was it worth incurring further animosity from the Alliance by extending Tiang’s refuge?

  “Whatever he’s working on,” Leonidas said, “your military probably has a better chance of deploying it and putting it to use than we do.”

  She sensed that he had more on his mind, more that he wouldn’t say in front of Hawk. She would have to wait to ask him later.

  “If you’ll let my team go,” Alisa said, “we’ll lead one of your shuttles back so you can retrieve Admiral Tiang. Stanislav—”

  “Stays with us,” Hawk said firmly. “That’s the deal.”

  Stanislav smiled sadly and did not deny it.

  “Then I reluctantly accept it,” Alisa said. “My team would like to leave as soon as possible.”

  That tracking device wouldn’t have infinite range. If Henneberry was even now heading off in one direction, and the Nomad was back in the opposite direction, Alisa already risked losing her prey. If the shuttle were capable of flying interplanetary distances, she might have simply taken off in that. No, that wasn’t possible, she realized. Mica had the other half of the tracking equipment back on the Nomad.

  “Good,” Hawk said. “I will arrange it.”

  He waved his fingers toward a couple of the soldiers and moved over to talk to them.

  I would have liked to meet your daughter, Stanislav spoke into her mind, but I made this deal before I knew you had her.

  It’s fine, Alisa thought. You can see her after you shove that staff into your brother’s exhaust port. Painfully.