Leonidas shifted to put his arm around her. By the three gods, she hadn’t been fishing for comfort. She hadn’t even expected him to be someone who would offer it. She wiped her eyes, tears lurking there for all the wrong reasons.
“War is ugly,” he said quietly. “Even if your side comes out on top, nobody wins.”
“Yeah,” she whispered, having nothing wiser to contribute.
She thought about pushing his arm away and saying she was fine, but after the day she’d had thus far, she found herself reluctant to do so. She doubted he truly cared, but it felt good to have someone offering an arm. She probably should have sat in silence and appreciated it, but her inappropriate humor was piqued when more sewer gunk flew off the brushes to spatter them on their faces, and she imagined how disgusting the arm around her must be.
“This would be cozier if you didn’t smell so bad,” she said.
He grunted and withdrew his arm. “You smell just as bad.”
“I know.” Alisa bit her lip, regretting the comment. He was still sitting next to her, but the world felt lonelier with the arm retracted. “But I have grand plans to bathe soon,” she said, hoping to salvage the situation or at least make him feel that she hadn’t been rejecting him. “I hope you do, too, before you show up for your ear rub.”
“My what?”
“I thought you sounded intrigued by the idea of an ear rub earlier. Didn’t you say you would prefer to be treated like a cat rather than a bat?” Hm, that had sounded funnier in her head.
Leonidas did not seem to know how to answer the question. Or maybe he did not think it was worth answering. He eventually said, “You’re an odd woman, Marchenko.”
“I know.”
Somehow, she had ended up being the one feeling rejected. Her and her big mouth.
Light flashed in the darkness behind them, and she stiffened. Leonidas bolted to his feet, jostling her.
“Another cleaning machine?” Alejandro asked, turning to look.
“No,” Leonidas said. “It’s their cyborg.”
The light was far in the distance—it had been some time since the cleaner turned a corner—and it was moving. Alisa could not see anything around it, but from the way it jerked about, it seemed like someone might be running with a flashlight.
“You can see him?” she whispered.
“Yes, and he’ll catch us soon.”
Alisa pulled out her Etcher, hoping it would still fire after being doused in the sewer. A blazer weapon would have, but she had bullets with gunpowder inside them. Did it even matter? Would a bullet stop a cyborg?
She scrambled to her feet. She would at least try.
“Leonidas?” Alejandro asked, worry in his voice.
“You two stay here,” Leonidas said, stepping toward the rear of the cargo bed. “I’ll keep him busy so you can get away.”
“No,” Alisa said, surprising herself with her concern for him. He had said the young cyborg had newer implants than he did. And he might have denied that they would automatically mean he would lose in a fight, but she worried that would be the case, that youth and greater powers would win out against age and experience. “We can all fight him, shoot at him. There’s nothing for him to hide behind, right?”
Alisa bit her lip, ragged and tired nerves flaring to life again. Even with the cleaning machine rolling along quickly in the tunnels, the flashlight was already twice as close as it had been when she first spotted it. Alejandro did not have a weapon, and hers might not fire until she got new bullets. What help could they truly be?
“There’s nothing for either of us to hide behind,” Leonidas said fiercely, and then he sprang away, leaping off the back of the cleaner and sprinting toward the light.
Alisa crouched at the rear of the cargo bed, staring back, frustrated that she could not do anything. It was too dark to risk shooting at their enemy. She would be just as likely to hit Leonidas. Besides, the cleaning machine kept rumbling along, quickly taking them away from where the men would collide.
Alejandro rose to his knees, also looking back. “I didn’t mean for him to sacrifice himself,” he whispered.
A blazer beam flashed crimson. Alisa thought Leonidas dropped into a roll to avoid the attack, but only because it continued past him. It was too dark to tell much more. A bang sounded, and smoke filled the tunnel, obscuring the flashlight beam.
The sounds of flesh striking flesh came from within the smoke, the cyborgs meeting in a flurry of blows. Alisa couldn’t tell what was happening, other than that the soldier had stopped advancing. Then the cleaner came to an intersection and turned a corner. Leonidas and the battle completely disappeared from sight.
Chapter 8
Alisa slogged through the salty night air with Alejandro, following a boardwalk along the harbor, her head throbbing with each step. The headache was only one of her physical complaints. They had been denied access to the late-running trains and trolleys thanks to their stench, and she had a blister from walking in wet shoes. A moving sidewalk had carried them for a while, but even then, guards and off-duty soldiers had given them suspicious squints. Apparently, anyone smelling of the sewers was up to something fishy—or, more likely, did not belong in the nicer parts of the city.
As they passed a sign proclaiming that the space base lay a mile ahead, Alisa glanced back for the hundredth time. She and Alejandro had both lost their comm units in the sewers, so she couldn’t check on Beck or Leonidas until she reached the Nomad, but she kept expecting to see Leonidas jogging up behind them, even though it had been several hours since they had parted ways. She and Alejandro had ridden the cleaner until it arrived at the sewage treatment plant near the harbor, and it had taken them some time to find a way up to the surface. They had covered more miles since then, and Alisa’s battered body sagged with weariness. She wanted a long shower and her bunk, but she doubted she would sleep, worrying instead about Leonidas’s fate and about how she would find her daughter. Somehow, she doubted she would be allowed in the library again tomorrow if she showed up at the door. The imperial soldiers would probably be watching the entrance, and she might have been marked as a member of Alejandro’s orb-carrying party.
“I shouldn’t have told him,” Alejandro said quietly, noticing her glance. His voice was weary, his shoulders slumped.
“What?”
“It was calculating to do so, and I knew exactly what would happen when I made the choice. But… I’m regretting it.” He sounded like someone confessing to a priest rather than someone who carried the wisdom of a religious order with him at all times.
“You mean telling him about the emperor?” Alisa asked quietly, glancing around. It was late enough that few people were out, and most of those who were favored the public transportation options over walking. “That your mission had been assigned by him on his deathbed?”
“Yes. I knew that Leonidas, as a loyal former fleet officer, would feel duty-bound to help me if I told him. He’d worked for the emperor’s staff before, if not directly for the emperor himself, and I know he received a few awards that the emperor personally pinned on his jacket. I needed his help, even though I didn’t want to need it, if that makes sense.”
“He’s a powerful ally.” Alisa thought of the way she had tried to hire him.
“Yes. And my odds for success go up a lot with his help, something that wasn’t guaranteed until I told him about my mission. But I didn’t mean for him to get killed.”
“We don’t know that’s what happened.” Alisa refused to believe that Leonidas was dead. It was too soon to start thinking that way. He could have simply lost track of the cleaning machine after dealing with the other cyborg and been forced to find his own way out of the sewers. “Besides, I think you’re wrong.”
“About what?”
“That you had to tell him that to gain his help. He seems like someone who would be loyal to his friends, even those recently made, as well as his old emperor.” Alisa thought about pointing out that Leonidas had
gone to the library to help Alejandro before he had known the rest of Alejandro’s story.
“Yes, you’re probably right. I do hope he’s all right. I would not wish to carry his death on my conscience.”
They finished their walk in silence. To Alisa’s relief, nobody stopped them when they entered Karundula Space Base. The automated security scanner at the doorway recognized them as passengers and crew that left earlier in the day and had nothing to say about the dried sewage decorating their clothes. It was fortunate that Alisa’s ship was docked in an exterior berth. They might have had more trouble walking into the main building where lights remained on and security guards patrolled the concourses.
When the Star Nomad came into view, Alisa was so relieved to be back that she nearly ran forward and hugged the hull. Her relief was short-lived because she soon remembered that when she had left, she’d thought she would return with her daughter at her side.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, she hit the button to open the hatch and lower the ramp. Since it had been dark for hours, she expected the others to be asleep, but Mica and Yumi sat cross-legged on the floor of the cargo hold, candles scattered about them and the overhead lights off. They were engaged in some kind of fast-breathing exercise—or maybe a séance.
“Job hunting going well?” Alisa asked as she walked in, Alejandro behind her.
She looked around, hoping to spot Beck lounging somewhere.
“We gave up on that a couple of hours ago,” Mica said, crinkling her nose as Alisa drew closer. Yumi’s eyes were closed, and she did not seem to notice that anyone had come in. “Given that the imperials are now cut off from the rest of the system, they have surprisingly good records of their former subjects who chose to become Alliance soldiers. A tip for you: that’s not a selling point when applying for positions here.”
“I’m surprised you were denied so quickly,” Alisa said. “You’d expect applications to sit for days in a quagmire of a virtual queue somewhere.”
“Robots. They reject you quickly. Some messages came in for you while you were gone.” Mica waved in the direction of navigation.
“Thanks. Has Beck been back?” Alisa asked. “I lost my comm.”
Mica shook her head. “I thought he left with you.”
“He did. We were separated.”
“Did it have something to do with the stench you’re wearing like a dreadful perfume?”
“No, and Alejandro stinks too. You needn’t look straight at me when you say such things.”
“Were you two bonding in a sewer together somewhere?”
“You got the location right.” Alisa considered Alejandro, his filthy robes and his usually clean-shaven chin dark with stubble. He looked like he had a headache too. “I don’t know about the bonding. Do you feel bonded to me now, Doctor?”
Alejandro rested his palm against his stomach. “I feel like I may throw up.”
“Apparently, we’re not bonded, Mica.”
“Unfortunate.”
“The stench is far more dreadful in here, isn’t it?” Alejandro asked. “I’m going to scrub myself in the sanibox. And perhaps burn my robe.” He shambled toward the stairs, looking like he had been run over by the sewer cleaner. More than once.
“Rough night?” Mica asked.
“Very much so. You haven’t heard from Leonidas, by chance, have you?”
Mica shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since he left with you. You seem to be losing crew and passengers left and right.”
“The mind is peaceful and calm,” Yumi intoned. “The breath is the center, the core, the focus. The—” A round of coughing, or maybe that was gagging, interrupted her litany, and her eyes opened. “Captain, your fecal aroma is disturbing our meditation.”
“I think our passenger is telling me to take a shower, Mica.”
“An accurate interpretation, I believe.”
The ship had a couple of heads, but only one sanibox. Alisa would have to wait for Alejandro to finish, but she supposed she could be polite and take her fecal aroma to another part of the ship. She dreaded the idea of smelling up NavCom or her cabin. Maybe she would wait outside of Alejandro’s cabin. This night of misadventure had been his fault.
Mica’s gaze shifted past Alisa’s shoulder, toward the still-open hatch. Alisa turned, worried that the soldiers might have already figured out where Alejandro and his orb had fled. But a familiar figure limped up the ramp.
“Leonidas,” Alisa blurted and rushed forward to help him.
She had never seen him limping or showing any sign of pain, even after his fight with the cyborg Malik. Now, blood saturated the shoulder of his jacket, cuts slashed his sleeve, contusions darkened his cheeks and jaw, and a cauterized gouge in the side of his neck marked a spot where he had been hit with a blazer—had that beam cut an inch to the right, it might have killed him.
He looked like he might collapse when he reached the top of the ramp, but he stood straight and lifted his chin as she rushed up. “He was not the superior fighter.”
“Does that mean he looks even worse than you?” Alisa did not know if he would be too proud to accept help, but she slid her arm around him without asking and waved toward the stairs. “You can lean on me, if you want. Let’s get you to sickbay. Alejandro owes you some bandages and a tube of QuickSkin for the help you gave him tonight.”
At first, Leonidas merely gazed curiously down at her and did not move. Did he object to her offer of help? Or the implication that he needed it? Eventually, he stirred, walking at her side. He did not lean on her, but he didn’t push her arm away, either.
“Perhaps it’s selfish,” Leonidas said, “but I’d like to think that I deserve more than bandages and tubes.”
“Like what? Money? Medals?”
He paused at the base of the stairs, either to collect himself or to wonder why Mica and Yumi were sitting amid all those candles. “To be honest, I’d like some cookies right now.”
Alisa almost laughed, though she supposed it made sense. It had been a long and arduous night, more so for him than for her and Alejandro, and he must be craving carbohydrates. With all those muscles of his, he probably burned through energy stores quickly.
“I have some chocolate in my cabin,” she said.
“Oh? That might do.”
Yumi sighed noisily and stood up. She wrinkled her nose, made a gagging sound again, and stooped to blow out and pick up her candles.
“Is our meditation session over?” Mica asked blandly.
“We cannot be expected to reach a state of higher consciousness with all of these distractions. We will try again when—” She made another gagging noise, abandoned the candles, and pushed past Alisa to sprint up the stairs. She tripped, then disappeared into the core of the ship, the gagging sounds continuing.
“I hope she makes it to the head,” Alisa said. She didn’t have any cleaning robots currently, thanks to everything of value having been taken from the ship during the years it had resided in a junkyard. “Especially since Beck is missing. He’s the only one here who’s volunteered to clean for me.”
“He’s the only one here that you actually pay,” Mica said, picking up discarded candles.
“I’ll gladly give you a salary if you agree to stay on board and officially take the position of ship’s engineer.”
Mica sighed at her.
“No, no, you needn’t overwhelm me with displays of gratitude. Having you here is reward enough.” Alisa tilted her head toward the stairs. “Ready, Leonidas?”
“Yes.” He still would not lean on her, but he did lean on the railing as they climbed.
Alisa could have let go of him since there were railings all the way to sickbay, but he had been willing to sacrifice himself so that she and Alejandro could get away. She found herself reluctant to let go, as if it would be abandoning him. Even through his clothing, she could feel the hard muscles of his torso. It was almost as if he wore combat armor even when he didn’t. Sleeping with him would be li
ke sleeping with a particularly angular boulder. She smirked, imagining the poor wives of cyborgs waking up in the morning with bruises from having rolled over and bumped against those granite bulges.
“Are you experiencing inappropriate humor?” Leonidas asked, eyeing her smirk as they reached the top of the stairs.
“Yes, but I’m keeping it to myself.” She turned him up the walkway, toward the interior of the ship. “I thought you would approve.”
He grunted.
“Do many cyborg soldiers get married?” she asked.
“No.”
Alisa kept herself from asking if it was because of bruises suffered in bed. She doubted she could ask the question in such a way that wouldn’t be misinterpreted as being insulting. Actually, it was probably insulting even if interpreted correctly.
“Too busy blowing people up to have time to seek love?” she asked.
“The empire was a demanding employer.”
“If you worked for me, I’d give you time to seek love.”
“It seems I’m not yet done working for the empire,” he said quietly, an unexpected bleakness taking over his face.
Alisa bit her lip, wanting to go find Alejandro and slap him. Leonidas wasn’t his to command, damn it. Alejandro was right—he’d been selfish to suck Leonidas into his mission.
When they reached the sickbay door, Leonidas extracted himself from her grip, looking relieved to slip away. He had never mentioned being married now or in the past, so maybe it was a touchy subject for him. Or maybe he’d just had enough of her closeness. She had to admit that the aroma only intensified when two of them were together, and he did have those enhanced nostrils.
“I’ll get Alejandro out of the sanibox and send him your way,” Alisa said, deciding to give him his peace rather than going in and continuing to inflict her help on him. Alejandro would be far more qualified to treat him—and probably wouldn’t ask nosy questions about cyborg personal lives. He definitely wouldn’t think about being in bed with a cyborg.
• • • • •
Alisa almost felt human again when she stepped out of the sanibox, but her head still ached, so she would return to sickbay for a painpro before crawling into her bunk. She needed to give Leonidas some chocolate too. The man certainly deserved it.