Lancer winced and shook his head. “Too late for that, sir,” he whispered, sadness and regret replacing the pain in his eyes. “Wasn’t… alert. Didn’t expect trouble here. Should have. Trouble everywhere. Not a good time… to be a cyborg.” That regret seemed to deepen, as if he was talking about far more than his death, far more than this night.
“I know,” Leonidas said, his voice thick. He was aware of all the blood on the floor, the blood still flowing from that wound. His sergeant was right. It was too late. Even if he sprinted to the hospital, they wouldn’t make it in time. “I’m sorry, Sergeant. Todd,” he corrected, remembering the man’s first name from the personnel reports, even if he’d never used it. “She was after me, not you.”
“Ah.” Lancer’s brows rose slightly. A mystery solved? “After she shot me… said I wasn’t the… right one.” His gaze flicked toward a hover pallet floating near the wall. The woman must have intended to roll Leonidas onto it to take him in. She’d just shot Lancer because—for no good reason, damn it. “Makes sense,” Lancer added.
“Because I’m an ass that everyone wants to kill?” Leonidas asked, trying to smile, to make Lancer forget about his impending death, at least for a moment. He eased one of his hands out from under him and pulled off his helmet. To hells with the gas—he wanted his sergeant to see his eyes, not just the reflection of his own pained expression in the faceplate.
“Because you’re important.” Lancer managed the grin that Leonidas couldn’t.
Leonidas snorted. “Hardly that. It’s because the Alliance thinks I know where someone is, someone I haven’t seen in six months.” His throat closed up again, refusing to let him speak further. It was just as well. Lancer didn’t need to know that his death had been for absolutely nothing. That the Alliance wanted Leonidas for information that was six months out of date and growing staler by the day.
“Sir?” Lancer whispered, his voice barely audible now. His fingers twitched again. “Will you—” He broke off and coughed, blood dripping from his mouth. His eyes closed, and Leonidas feared that was the end.
Leonidas clasped his hand. “What is it, Todd?”
His eyes did not open again, but Lancer’s fingers wrapped around Leonidas’s hand weakly. “Let my mother know I’m—let her know… what happened. Only make it sound heroic. At least… respectable.”
Leonidas tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. “I will.”
“Thank you, sir.” Lancer managed another faint smile before taking his last breath, before dying in Leonidas’s arms.
After a moment, Leonidas eased back, resting his man on the floor. He rose and stepped away, anger and frustration replacing his sorrow. He punched the wall, his armored fist knocking straight through it. He might have destroyed the whole place, but when he turned, thinking of kicking that hover pallet into pieces, he glimpsed Alisa standing near the front counter. She had risked herself to fight the bounty hunter, and none of his anger was for her, but he eyed her warily, anticipating some inappropriate display of humor.
“I think I understand now,” she said quietly.
“What?”
“Why you don’t laugh.” She looked toward Lancer’s body, then back to him, moisture glistening in her eyes. “Do you want me to wait outside?”
He groped for an answer. Did he? He needed to take care of the body, arrange to send Lancer home for a proper funeral if he could, and he still needed to find someone to fix his armor. This wasn’t her mission. She’d just come along for a coffee.
Alisa walked over to him, eyeing him a little warily, then reached up and put her arms around his shoulders and leaned against his chest, not seeming to care that he was wearing his armor and covered in blood. He returned the hug, figuring he must look like he needed it. Maybe he did.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Thank you.”
She reached up, resting her hand against the back of his head, fingers lightly touching his hair. He’d never thought of himself as someone who needed comforting—he would go forward, dealing with the realities of being a soldier, as he always had—but he found himself appreciating having someone close. Having someone care. It almost startled him to realize that she did, considering what he was and especially considering he had pointed a gun at her chest the first time they met. She probably cared about a lot of things and just didn’t let it show. Usually.
Alisa stepped back, resting the palm of her hand on his cheek before letting go. “I’ll wait outside.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, holding his gaze as she walked out the door. As he stood in the dark smithy, it slowly dawned on him that she had come along for reasons that had very little to do with coffee. He doubted he should encourage that, and didn’t know how he felt about it, but he admitted that at least for now, it was good not to be alone.
THE END
Available in June 2016: Fallen Empire, Book 3: Starseers
Lindsay Buroker, Honor's Flight
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