“You’re welcome. For what?”
“For facilitating my escape from the Alliance by attacking that doctor.”
“Somehow, I doubt you needed my help. And I don’t feel all that magnificent about knocking out an old man who’d forgotten all of his military combat training.”
“He wasn’t that old. And he was aiming more tyranoadhuc at me.”
Still holding her gaze, Leonidas lowered himself to one knee beside the desk. Since Alisa was seated, it put them closer to eye level. And not that far apart. What did he have in mind? Her heart rate sped up at the thought that it might involve lips. Both of their lips. She knew she shouldn’t be thinking of romance or even flirting with him, but her body sometimes overruled her brain when it came to propriety.
She leaned her elbow on the desk, stealing some of the inches between them. He also leaned forward. His fingers brushed her knee as he reached under the desk. A knee had to be the least erogenous zone on a human being, but the light touch made her body flare with heat. She would regret sleeping with him, and feel it a betrayal to her late husband, but she knew right then that she would do it if she got the chance.
“Leonidas?” she whispered.
“Yes?”
A few faint thumps and scuffs sounded under the desk, and she looked down.
“What are you doing?”
He leaned back, pulling out a flat metal sticker. “I believe I’ve located your tracking device.”
“Oh.” Alisa doubted she had ever uttered the syllable with more disappointment.
Yet, when he leaned back and stood up, her body stopped tingling in anticipation, and rational thinking found its way back into her mind. Too soon. It was too soon to think about sex with other men. And he still wasn’t her type. Too damned many muscles.
“Khazan must have stuck it under there when we talked. When she was so kindly warning me that I might be in danger.” Alisa sneered. “Some days, I almost miss the war. At least then, I knew who my enemies were and who my allies—my friends—were.” She looked up at Leonidas. These days, she saw the man instead of the cyborg, but she hadn’t forgotten what he was—who he had been. “I guess you know all about that, huh?”
He was returning her regard, his eyes still holding a touch of sadness.
“Yes,” he said, and lifted his hand, brushing her cheek with his knuckles.
Three suns, what did that mean? Did he care about her, after all? No, she knew he cared, but did it mean he more than cared? That he did have romantic feelings toward her, but that he was avoiding acting upon them for some reason?
He lowered his arm, and she wished she had let herself appreciate the gesture, and maybe even reached up to hold his hand, instead of overanalyzing it.
“Leonidas,” she said, “do you—”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Alisa broke off. He held her gaze for a moment longer, then turned toward the hatch as Yumi and Mica stepped into view.
“Hello,” Mica said brightly, waving. “Are we interrupting anything?”
Yes, Alisa thought. “No,” she said.
Leonidas folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the desk.
Mica looked back and forth from Alisa to Leonidas, and Alisa fought down a blush. Mica had figured out sooner than she had that she had feelings for their cyborg passenger. But it wasn’t as if they had been caught kissing. She had nothing to defend. Even if they had been kissing, she would have nothing she had to defend. Except that she had started to care very much about a man who was her enemy, an enemy who apparently wanted to find a super weapon for the young emperor and facilitate the empire reconquering the entire system.
Alisa massaged her temple. When had her life grown so complicated?
“We’ve looked everywhere,” Mica said. “We couldn’t find the tracking device.”
“That’s because Leonidas just found it,” Alisa said.
Leonidas held up the slender disk.
“You could have told us,” Mica said.
“What are you going to do with it?” Yumi asked.
Leonidas held it between his fingers and squeezed, crushing the device.
“I’d been thinking of sticking it on the next ship we crossed paths with,” Alisa said, “so the Alliance would hare off on a wild glow worm hunt, but I suppose utterly destroying it works too.”
Leonidas ground it between his fingers, as if they were a mortar and pestle, then tossed the mangled pieces on the desk.
“Thanks,” Alisa said, “I’ll make a note for the cleaning service to handle that.”
“The cleaning service?” Yumi asked. “Is that Beck?”
“He’s chef and security.”
“Right now, he’s not being either,” Mica said. “He’s hanging his head and feeling guilty after trying to help betray your cyborg.”
“Your cyborg?” Leonidas asked mildly, arching an eyebrow at Alisa, as if she were responsible for that term.
Alisa tried to brush it off with a nonchalant wave. “Engineers aren’t good with remembering names unless the things involved have sprockets and gears.”
His other eyebrow rose. Mica looked at his arms. This time, Alisa could not sublimate her blush. She wished she could retract the comment. For one silly second, she had forgotten that Leonidas had… if not sprockets and gears, certainly machine parts.
“And wheels,” she added lamely, as if she could fix the thoughtless joke.
“Hm,” Leonidas said.
Mica and Yumi shifted their weight, both looking almost as uncomfortable as Alisa felt. It had been so much easier when Leonidas had clearly been the enemy and they hadn’t worried about offending him. But when he had been the enemy, he hadn’t bantered with her and touched her cheek.
“As I was saying,” Yumi said into the awkward silence, “this might be the time to ask Beck to clean the latrines, since he’s feeling guilty.” She smiled.
“Cleaning the latrines,” Mica said. “Just the job I want the man who handles my food to have.”
“We don’t have a large crew,” Alisa said. “People have to be versatile and do numerous jobs.”
“What job is the Starseer going to do?” Mica asked.
The job of staying in his cabin and not pestering her with intrusions into her mind, Alisa hoped. “He’s a passenger. He doesn’t have to do a job.”
“Must be nice.”
“Speaking of that, are you planning to stay on a little longer?” Alisa hoped the answer was yes, since she was still low on funds and could not imagine taking the time to find and hire a decent engineer. It was bad enough her passengers wanted to take another side trip.
“What choice do I have?” Mica asked. “You didn’t exactly set down in one of the employment hubs of Arkadius.”
“You don’t think the Starseers would have hired you?”
“Maybe to clean latrines. From the brief contact I had with Beck’s dinner guests, they didn’t seem overly impressed with people who can’t tie cherry stems in knots with their minds.” Mica looked toward the maps still hovering in the air over Alisa’s desk. “Where are we going next?”
Alisa gave Leonidas a wry look. “The middle of nowhere, apparently.”
He returned her gaze blandly. She wondered if he was thinking about sprockets and wheels.
“I guess that’ll give me time to update my résumé,” Mica said.
THE END
LAST COMMAND
Fallen Empire, the prequel
by Lindsay Buroker
Copyright © 2016 Lindsay Buroker
Part 1
Colonel Hieronymus “Leonidas” Adler spotted the grenade as it zipped through the smoky corridor toward his group of men. He ran toward it, even though his combat armor would not likely save him from the power of the explosion if he miscalculated. He swung his rifle, striking it against the small, blinking sphere. The force sent the grenade shooting back down the corridor like a rocket.
It exploded as it reached the invaders, the fla
mes brilliant even through the smoke. The walls and floor quaked. The ceiling collapsed under the weight of the tons of rock above it, and men’s screams were audible over the cacophony of falling rubble. Leonidas’s enhanced cyborg hearing picked out each individual cry of pain. He grimaced, but turned his back, leaving the men to their deaths. He had no sympathy for the Alliance invaders, not now, not when the emperor’s life was in jeopardy.
“Nice hit, sir,” one of his men, Sergeant Kearney, blurted over the comm. “We need to put together a forceball team for next year’s battalion picnic. You can be on my side.”
The sergeant waved from the smoky corridor ahead, smoke curling about his crimson combat armor, the full body suit dulled by the dust clinging to it. Dust and someone else’s blood.
“Make jokes later, Sergeant,” Leonidas said, jogging to join him. “That was the only way to the hangar bay.” He didn’t know how they were going to get the emperor out now, and he ground his teeth in irritation. This was supposed to be a secret palace. How in the suns’ fiery hells had the Alliance found out about it?
“Might not be a later, sir,” Kearney said. “Got to get all my jokes in now.”
“The timing is inappropriate. Tibilov, Stein, you still have the pilot?”
“Yes, sir, but the computer says there’s nothing left for him to fly. All the tunnels that lead to the hangar bay are gone, and it looks like the Alliance collapsed the bay itself. On top of our ships. How’re we going to get out of here?”
“It doesn’t matter if we get out of here. Just if the emperor does. I’m sure he has backup ships somewhere.” Leonidas sure hoped that was the case. “Keep that pilot alive.”
“Trying, sir. The Alliance drilled themselves a new door into the palace. They keep lobbing explosives through it. It’s terribly inconsiderate.”
“The colonel will show you what to do with their grenades when we get there,” Kearney said. “We’re putting him up for captain of the new forceball team. Think he’ll mind a demotion?”
“Retreat if you have to,” Leonidas said, ignoring the banter. “There’s no point in keeping that intersection clear now. Thomas, are you still in Command and Control?”
All of his men were on the same channel, and Thomas should have heard—should have responded—but he did not.
Leonidas growled, increasing his speed. Kearney, younger and with more recent and more advanced implants, was outpacing him. Trying not to feel all of his forty years, and the countless battle injuries he had received during them, Leonidas drove himself faster.
Another explosion came from behind them, someone trying to clear that rubble. The floor rocked and tilted, as if they were aboard a ship instead of deep within an asteroid. The lights flickered, and artificial gravity faltered momentarily. Leonidas flicked an eye to activate the neural interface within his helmet and ordered it to magnetize his boots. He caught Kearney before he could float upward, and pushed him back down to the floor.
“Boots,” Leonidas barked, barely slowing his run.
“Got ’em, sir. Thanks.”
Leonidas led the way down another corridor, heading toward the sounds of shouts and the squeals of blazer bolts. Alcoves lined the passage, places where men could find cover as they made a stand, protecting the interior of the hidden palace from intruders. They were empty. There was nothing left in this wing to defend. Even if there had been, Leonidas wouldn’t have had enough people. Only six cyborgs and twenty-five soldiers had been sent to guard the emperor and his command staff. The rest of his team—and the entire imperial fleet—were spread out, defending the chain bases, Perun, and the command outpost on Arkadius. He had no idea where the Alliance had come up with enough people for all the battles they had started this week, but reluctantly admitted it was proving effective.
“Colonel Adler?” a voice said over the channel.
“Yes?”
Another explosion ripped through the complex, almost drowning out the man’s next words.
“We need you to report to Command and Control.”
“Now?” Leonidas asked. “Who is this?”
He and Kearney finally reached the others, the men defending the large intersection with six corridors leading from it, several to key places such as Environmental Controls and Command and Control. And the now-destroyed hangar bay.
Rubble lay strewn about in mounds, and Alliance soldiers were firing from two of the tunnels, pinning the imperial soldiers against the back half of the large intersection. Leonidas’s men knelt behind the rubble piles, returning fire. Dozens of Alliance soldiers in blue-and-gray combat armor lay in the corridors, some buried under collapsed ceilings, and some simply still on the floor, the faceplates or chest plates of their armor torn away, all likely dead. But still more were coming. They must have brought hundreds if not thousands of men for this infiltration. They knew what a prize waited for them if they won.
“This is Governor Zhou,” the man ordering him to Command and Control said. “Hurry, Adler. There isn’t much time.”
“I can’t leave my men now, sir,” Leonidas said, dropping behind a rubble pile where two cyborgs in crimson armor knelt over a man in a black uniform, dust coating the material, blood smearing his face. His eyes were open, not blinking. “Damn it, Tibilov. Is that our pilot?”
Leonidas fired as he spoke, blazer bolts streaking down the corridors, keeping the Alliance soldiers from advancing into the intersection. He spotted another grenade hurtling toward them. This time, he shot it. It exploded in the air well before it reached them, but the already damaged infrastructure quaked again, and more rubble rained down, slamming into the floor—and into people’s helmets.
“It was our pilot, sir, yes. A piece of ceiling got him.”
Someone nearby cursed. “We can’t get to our ships, and don’t have a pilot to fly even if we find another ship? We’re going to die on this rock.”
“Stow that, soldier,” Leonidas said. “We’re going to charge them, press them back, and take one of their ships. Do you understand?”
First, he had to get the emperor and as many of the government officials as he could. That wouldn’t be easy with so many corridors collapsed, but they weren’t out of options yet.
“Yes, sir.”
“Adler, now,” Zhou’s voice came over the comm again, sounding breathless—and in pain.
“Sir, was Command and Control attacked?”
“Just get back here.”
Leonidas hesitated. Someone would need to lead the charge to push back the soldiers and take one of their transports. These were his men. He ought to be the one to do it. He hated obeying civilians, as they usually had their own asses in mind, not the mission, but if the Alliance had somehow sneaked into Command and Control, the emperor would be at risk.
“Our spy knew right where to hit us,” Zhou said. “I think I know who it was.”
“I’m on my way, sir,” Leonidas said. Maybe Zhou needed him to find that spy if he was still on the asteroid. This wouldn’t be the first time he had done special missions for the emperor and his staff. “Captain Stein, lead the charge. Get us a ship, and then hold it. The emperor’s going to need a ride out of here.”
One of the men in red, firing from another rubble pile in the middle of the intersection, turned back for long enough to nod and say, “Yes, sir.”
Leonidas gave Kearney a pat on the shoulder and took off down the corridor opposite of the invading force. Running away from the enemy made him feel like a coward, even if someone had commanded him to do it.
He sprinted around a corner, the servos in his leg armor giving him even more speed than cyborg implants alone would have, and he almost crashed into a boulder blocking the passage ahead. He reacted quickly, coming to a stop in front of it and whipping up his blazer rifle. He flicked it to sustained-fire mode and pulled the trigger. An orange beam lanced out, cutting into the rock. He growled at the time it took, trying to shear off enough that he could break the boulder and squeeze past.
&nb
sp; Halfway through, he dropped the rifle, letting it hang from its strap across his torso, and assaulted the boulder with his gauntleted hands. He pushed against both sides of the line he had scored, his shoulders heaving within his armor.
The boulder snapped so loudly it sounded like a grenade exploding. He did not hesitate. He planted his feet and shoved at the smaller half. It skidded across the floor, thousands of pounds of rock fighting him. Finally, he was able to push it past the other half, leaving a small passage. Later, he could use those rocks for cover if he needed to defend this corridor.
He continued his sprint, leaping over rocks and broken ceiling panels, and finally turning down the last corridor, a short and unlabeled one that looked like it ought to lead to a storage closet instead of the command core of the empire, of all that was left of the empire.
A soldier stood guard at the door, but he stepped aside when he saw Leonidas coming. A couple of broken Alliance spy drones lay crumpled at his feet, smoke wafting from their destroyed metal entrails, proving that the soldier had been doing his job.
Leonidas gave him a curt nod as he raced past and burst into Command and Control. He halted almost as quickly as he had for the boulder. The high-tech office with its walls of monitors and holodisplays stood in ruin, control consoles crushed beneath rubble and shattered screens leaking smoke. The bodies of the dead, at least ten men and women, were strewn about the area, several civilian staff and also a handful of intruders in gray sensor-scrambling body suits. A tunnel had been drilled down from above, its dark mouth yawning open in the ceiling.
“Zhou,” Leonidas barked, looking around. The chamber was empty of life, but he heard voices coming from one of several side rooms. “Where are you? Why didn’t you call me sooner? You didn’t tell my men about this attack.”
“You were already swamped,” came the weary reply. Governor Zhou leaned out of a doorway and waved for him to come. Blood caked his bald head, and a gash in his jaw leaked more blood onto his clothes, on what had been a high-end suit, probably from some expensive tailor back in Perun Central. “The emperor wants to see you.”