It turned out to be Admirals Hawk and Tiang, Hawk wearing the rumpled uniform trousers and T-shirt he’d had on under his combat armor. His people had brought many weapons along on their assault of the Nomad, but not any spare clothes. He limped slightly as he maneuvered into the mess hall.
“Coffee dispenser is over there,” Alisa said, waving toward the counter. “And you’re welcome to use the rec room if you want a place to talk.” She waved toward the hatch, hoping that was a subtle and polite way of inviting them not to linger. She didn’t want to deal with glares and accusations right now.
“Actually, we came to talk to you,” Hawk said. “And you.” He nodded toward Leonidas.
“Oh?” Leonidas said warily.
“You wish to have your sexual function returned, correct?” Admiral Tiang said, waving a hand toward Alisa, or perhaps the way they were sitting next to each other. Intimately.
Leonidas grimaced, glancing at Hawk. It had taken weeks—months?—for him to admit his deficiency to Alisa. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about, and Hawk was still a stranger, even if they had fought in battle together.
“As I said earlier, I wish to have the ability to have children,” Leonidas said.
Tiang's eyebrows drew together.
“And sex,” Leonidas added before Tiang could point out that there were ways children could be accomplished without “sexual function.”
Hawk didn’t look surprised by the conversation. Had he and Tiang been discussing it? It was hard to imagine the star pilot caring about Leonidas’s penis status.
“Going in and physically returning erectile function would be a simple enough matter,” Tiang said. “The brain synapses that were destroyed may be more difficult to regrow after, what’s it been for you? Twenty years?”
“Yes.” Leonidas was hard to read now. Like an android.
Alisa didn’t know if she should lay a comforting hand on his, or if he might glare at her if she did, for causing this uncomfortable conversation to come about. But Alisa found the discussion encouraging, even if it was making him uncomfortable. Why else would the admiral have brought it up unless he was contemplating offering his services? Would he have a price? Alisa didn’t know how much money Leonidas had, but the dinosaur-hunting funds should still be in his account, and he had imperial morats back on Perun.
“And then there are the failsafes in your brain,” Tiang added.
“The what?” Alisa asked.
“The empire didn’t want anyone going in and tinkering with captured cyborgs, possibly finding a way to reprogram them to work against the empire,” Tiang said.
“Reprogram?” Alisa said. “He’s not a computer.”
“No, but there are ways to control anyone.”
Alisa thought of the Starseers who’d been turned into zombies and shook her head bleakly.
“The empire preferred to lose its soldiers, even its valuable cyborgs, rather than risk subversion.”
“Lose?” She gaped and gripped Leonidas’s arm. “You mean if someone tries to operate on him without knowing better, it could kill him?”
Without answering her, Tiang met Leonidas’s eyes again. “I assume you knew about the failsafes.”
Leonidas nodded, not appearing as alarmed by all this as Alisa. He’d known? Truly? How could he be so blasé?
“It’s why I would prefer someone experienced do the surgery,” he said.
“I do have the experience, with cyborg brain surgery and more,” Tiang said. “If anyone could avoid the triggers and reverse the connections, I believe I could.”
“Would you consider doing it?” Leonidas asked, sounding detached and clinical, not eager.
Alisa assumed that was an act, but she couldn’t be sure. He might still feel conflicted by the idea of them having a romantic relationship, of him being in a position where he might hurt her one day.
Tiang looked to Hawk. Alisa hoped he wasn’t going to ask the pilot to assist him in surgery.
“Admiral Hawk believes a deal could be made,” Tiang said.
Leonidas had to be curious, but he did not ask for details. He waited in silence. But Alisa could tell from the way he held motionless, eyes intent, that he was interested. He might have said he had to give up on this dream, but perhaps he had been lying to himself. He still cared. A great deal.
As the silence continued, Tiang and Hawk each looking like they wanted the other one to make the offer, Alisa fiddled with her coffee mug. There was going to be a price. How high?
“Tiang is willing to do his best to address your issue,” Hawk said, much less blunt than Tiang, “but we want you in exchange for the surgery.”
“Me,” Leonidas said, his tone flat.
“The Alliance has been trying to get the information in his head for a while,” Alisa said. “He’d be a fool to walk into your arms.”
“The Alliance wants the prince’s location, right?” Hawk raised his eyebrows, clearly privy to what happened among the higher ups. Hells, he was a higher up. As a researcher and medical expert, Tiang’s rank had little to do with command power, but Hawk was a different story. He’d risen through the pilot ranks and then above. If he had plans to get into politics, he must be well-connected, both inside and outside the military. The fact that he thought he had the sway to have this negotiation and cause Leonidas’s bounty to be lifted spoke to that. “Am I correct in assuming that you no longer know where he is?”
Leonidas hesitated, as if debating if he should give away even this tidbit of information, but then nodded once.
“We know now that he was on Cleon Moon recently, but we’ve lost the trail again too.” Hawk shrugged. “Regardless, you misunderstand me. We want you, not necessarily what’s in your head, beyond command experience. You’re an asset in battle, clearly. Even if you drop ceilings on your allies.” Hawk smiled slightly.
Leonidas did not respond.
It slowly dawned on Alisa what they wanted, and excitement welled up from deep inside of her. They were trying to recruit him? For the Alliance army? Did that mean they would forgive all of his past actions? Everything he had done in the name of the empire? If he would simply work for them?
“Times change,” Hawk said. “Just as Admiral Tiang and I came to the Alliance from the empire, we would like you to do the same. We’ll equal your rank, and in time, you would have men to command again. Even cyborgs, if you want to spearhead our program. Tiang says he mentioned to you that we intend to start one up.”
“Yes,” Leonidas murmured.
Alisa bit her lip. This would mean they would finally be on the same side, assuming she could figure out a way to get the Alliance to forgive her actions.
“You would have to trade in your red armor for our blues and grays,” Hawk went on, “but if the surgery was successful, there would be no reason you couldn’t have a family. Soldiers are people. They deserve happiness too, eh?”
Hawk smiled at Alisa, though she suspected that was more because he saw her as Leonidas’s prize rather than out of any interest in her. He wasn’t trying to recruit her back into the Alliance army. Not surprising, considering she had stunned him. Oh, well. She had other priorities now. She was all Jelena had left—and she was tired of fighting. She’d already missed so many years of motherhood. She didn’t want to miss more. If agreeing to this got Leonidas on peaceable terms with the Alliance, she would happily be his prize. She would miss having him on her ship and working for her, but surely he was more suited to the rigors of the military. Wouldn’t he be happier with more than Beck to order around? And she could still be with him from time to time—she could run most of her freight in whatever area he got stationed in. Whenever they were together, they could—
“I thank you for your offer,” Leonidas said. “But I cannot accept it.”
“What?” Alisa asked at the same time as Hawk did.
Leonidas stood up, leaving his coffee mug. “I can’t give the Alliance my loyalty.”
He headed for the crew cabin
s, his back stiff, as if he had been offended.
What the hells? This was a stellar offer. All he had to do was say yes. The empire was gone. Why couldn’t he see that? To cling to something dead was foolish and bullheaded.
“Leonidas,” Alisa blurted, stretching a hand toward him.
He looked back as he left the mess hall and held her gaze for a long moment but ultimately kept walking.
• • • • •
Alisa banged on Leonidas’s hatch, not caring if all of Hawk’s people heard it. Several long seconds passed, and she thought he wouldn’t answer, wouldn’t even discuss this with her. Maybe he knew she intended to argue, to try to talk him into it. And he didn’t want to deal with that.
She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down so she could be reasonable. Not frustrated.
Finally, the hatch opened. Leonidas stood there, wearing an extremely wary expression.
“Not ready to swear your allegiance to First Governor Vestergaard, eh?” Alisa asked, struggling for a casual tone. He wouldn’t want a lecture. Or wheedling. Or scheming. No matter how much craziness and danger she had added to her life by trying to get him the very thing those people were offering.
“No.”
“May I come in?”
He hadn’t stepped aside and extended his arm in invitation, as he usually did. His tense stance said he did not want to talk about this. Too bad.
“Since I’m the captain, I can override the lock,” she said. “And I’m not too afraid to storm into a cyborg’s cabin. Because I’m not that wise. You know this by now.”
Leonidas dropped his chin, the gesture looking more like a sign of defeat than acceptance. She didn’t want to do battle with him. She wanted to love him, damn it.
He moved aside so she could enter and closed the hatch behind her.
Alisa sat on the edge of his bunk, hoping he would join her there. “Leonidas… would it be so awful? The empire is gone. If the emperor were alive, would he truly begrudge you getting on with your life? Starting a new life? Wouldn’t you rather work as an officer—do battle and lead men again?—than live in hiding for the rest of your life? This is your chance to get all the bounties dropped, to switch to the side that is now the dominant power. Hells, I wish that offer was on the table for me.”
Instead of coming to sit beside her, he gazed at the unexciting rivets in the bulkhead above the desk. “I thought you wanted me to stay here and work for you,” he said.
“I would love that.” Her voice caught on the words, and she realized just how true they were, how much she would miss him if he grew busy with a new command and was only a part-time entity in her life. If that. But wasn’t this for the best? Wouldn’t it suit him more? “But I don’t want you—or us—to have to hide from the Alliance as fugitives. I’m already worried about bringing my daughter into all this.”
Alisa folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them.
Leonidas sighed and came to sit beside her. Not close enough for her to lean against his shoulder, but at least it was better than having him stand and glare at the bulkhead.
“I don’t believe in the Alliance,” Leonidas said. “I know you were traumatized by what happened at the Perun Arcade Massacre, but I saw just as much of that perpetrated by your people. You didn’t have numbers or resources, so you used guerrilla tactics. Terrorist tactics. I understand. That’s what you do when you’re the underdog and it’s the only way you can win. That’s happened all throughout the history of war, and it’s depressing how often it works. You don’t have to be clever or intelligent to strap a bomb to your chest and walk into a spaceport and blow yourself up in the middle of hundreds of innocent people.”
Alisa scowled at him. She remembered the incident to which he referred, as it had been among the opening salvos of the war, but… “That was one fringe case. He wasn’t even working with the knowledge of our leaders.”
He gave her a sad smile, making her doubt her knowledge, making her wonder if he knew something she didn’t.
“Those who are clever find a way to work from within the system to effect change, especially when the system has been providing a safe and secure place for everyone for a dozen generations. You don’t throw all of that away and leave a void to be filled by lawless opportunists only out for themselves.”
“Your safe and secure empire was an oppressive, totalitarian place that everyone who wasn’t in power hated. And feared. You call the Alliance terrorists because you were bigger and they opposed you, but they were freedom fighters to us. The empire was the one spreading terror and—” She stopped talking because he was looking mulishly at the deck, and also because she didn’t want to have this old argument again with him. “I don’t want to fight about this.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I wish you to understand why I can’t be like Admiral Tiang. I can’t hop over to the other side, just because it would be convenient for my career to do so.”
“Have you looked up his past? His wife? I’m sure it wasn’t only his career that motivated him.”
“I don’t have such motivations.”
“You have me,” Alisa said, exasperation leaking into her voice.
He rubbed his face. “I can’t. Not when I’ve picked up the corpses of innocent people blown to pieces by bombs. When I’ve walked through the rubble left after enemy ships strafed cities. When I’ve seen children’s bodies crumpled in the debris. I can’t join people who chose civilian targets because they knew they would lose if they did the honorable thing and attacked military installations. I can’t join a people without honor.” He clenched his jaw.
Alisa had the urge to defend herself and her honor, but she knew he wasn’t directing his words at her, even if she had flown for the Alliance. Besides, she had made too many questionable choices lately that cast doubts on her honor. She couldn’t deny that.
“So, how about you tell them you’ll join, get your surgery done, and then disappear into space with me?” She smiled and bumped his arm with her hand, knowing full well that his honor would not permit that either.
He did offer her a faint smile. “How about we just disappear into space without the lies?”
His brows rose with hope, wary hope. Did he think she would reject him if he didn’t sign up to get himself fixed?
“Or is it too… frustrating for you not to have a fully functioning security officer?” he added quietly.
“That would be a strange thing to gauge a security officer’s effectiveness on. None of those security androids out there would have jobs.”
“No? I thought some of them were fully functional.”
Alisa snorted. “I think the functional androids get placed in another line of work.”
“I’m not an expert on that.”
“Because you’re too busy ripping their arms and legs off to get to know them.”
“Perhaps so.”
“Leonidas…” Alisa scooted closer and slipped her arms around his waist. “I’m not going to lie, since you’ve pointed out that I’m not good at it. I do selfishly want all of your parts to work, but the reason your refusal of their offer really upsets me is because I don’t want to see you hunted by the Alliance for the rest of your life. This would be a chance to avoid that fate. And have sex with me.” She kept herself from going on, from pushing her own agenda, but she couldn’t resist smiling and adding, “Then you could find out if I’m able to pronounce all the syllables of Leonidas while in the throes of passion, or if I’ll mangle it. Or have to shorten it to Leo. I’m certain you’ve been wondering.”
One of his eyebrows lifted. “As long as you don’t call me mech, I believe I would take a mangled name as a compliment.”
She wanted to say that she had never called him that, but she had once, when she’d been angry. “Just don’t put it in my head. I’d hate to have it on my mind so that I worried about it slipping out and offending you. It could give me performance anxiety.”
He slid a muscled arm around her back,
shifting her closer to him. “I doubt you’re the one who’ll need to worry about that.”
She found that who’ll encouraging. Who will. Words to describe something that would happen in the future. That had to mean that he hadn’t given up on the idea completely, even if he had rejected Tiang’s offer.
“You never know,” she said, for he was gazing at her, as if expecting a response. “It’s been a long time for me too.” Too long, especially considering that he had been starring in her dreams lately. The suns knew she should have been too busy these last couple of months to have sexual dreams, but brains and hormones didn’t always operate logically.
“Twenty years?” he asked.
“Not quite that long. But combat armor isn’t the only thing I’ve been wishing the time to go shopping for lately.”
His forehead wrinkled.
“While you were browsing catalogs for weapons for the ship, I was browsing for… more personal items.”
The forehead wrinkle didn’t go away.
She decided not to go into more detail. It wasn’t as if she had placed an order. Alas, it was hard to have deliveries made to a ship that never stayed in one place for long. Of course, if she had him, she wouldn’t need such personal items. She rested her palm on his chest, the curve of his pectoral muscle firm beneath the thin shirt, his skin warm through the material. She couldn’t help but wonder if she was lying to herself about what she cared most about. She did want him to walk on Alliance planets without harassment, but she also wanted him, not just at her side, but in her bed. Maybe it was pure selfishness that was guiding her these days.
Leonidas must have figured out her catalog habits, or simply read the longing in her touch, because he lifted a hand to the side of her head. He stroked her hair a few times, then reached around her back and tugged her ponytail holder free. A tingle of pleasure curled through her body as he slowly unfastened her braid. She didn’t know what he had in mind, but stroking her hair seemed to please him, perhaps in an aesthetic or soothing way if not in a sexual one.