End Game

by Lindsay Buroker

  “She knows I’m sitting right next to you when she says these things, doesn’t she?” Alisa grumbled, irritated that the woman had no understanding of the word taken.

  “I believe you were going to give me the location of that meeting,” Leonidas said.

  Alisa raised her eyebrows, wondering why he was asking when they already knew the location. She supposed it would be good to verify that Beck had been given the right spot. It was always possible that Henneberry’s people had seen through their catering front and were setting a trap for them even now. Alisa gritted her teeth and took them for another lap around the dome.

  “Colonel, love,” Solstice said, this time with a patient, parental tone to her voice, “if you were to show up at that meeting, after I told Ms. Henneberry that you were dead, I don’t believe my next visit with the woman would go well.”

  “I’m suspecting we may be locked in this dome for reasons that have nothing to do with her protecting us from the Alliance,” Alisa muttered.

  “Is that your secretary blathering in the background?” Solstice asked.

  “My secretary?” Leonidas asked.

  “Yes, the scruffy woman who follows you around and gets herself into trouble. I do hope she services you in some way.”

  Leonidas opened his mouth, perhaps to say she was the captain, but Solstice already knew that. She was just being obnoxious.

  Alisa leaned in and smiled at Solstice. “Of course I’m servicing him. Mornings. Evenings. Nights. All night, usually. Are you familiar with cyborg stamina? It’s amazing.”

  Leonidas touched her shoulder and gently pushed her back to her seat. Solstice looked a tad stunned, which should have mollified Alisa, but mostly, she felt silly for her childish outburst. That woman brought out the worst in her. She glanced at the hatchway and was relieved not to see Jelena or any of the other children lurking in the corridor.

  “Open the forcefield, Solstice,” Leonidas said, “or my captain with her creative, scheming mind will be left to find ways to open it on her own. Or perhaps we’ll get one of our Starseers to manipulate the mind of the person sitting by the button.”

  Solstice frowned at him. “Promise me you won’t show up at this meeting.”

  “Will you give me the location of Tymoteusz when you learn it?”

  “If I learn it, yes.”

  “If I have his location, I’ll consider staying away from the meeting then.”

  “You’ll consider it. Colonel…”

  “If you find yourself in any trouble because of my actions, we’ll offer you sanctuary on this ship.”

  “What?” Alisa asked.

  Solstice winced. “I’ve seen that ship. It’s far more of a dungeon than a sanctuary.”

  “Nevertheless, we’ll take you aboard. And I’ll personally do my best to protect you.”

  Alisa managed not to make a disgusted noise, but she couldn’t keep from curling her lip.

  Solstice sighed dramatically and cut the comm.

  Leonidas turned a palm upward. “I don’t know what else I could have said. Manipulating people isn’t my strength.”

  “You could have lied to her and told her we were going to the Waterfalls of Wagoo to experience the stimulations and pleasures of the famous tendrilled taloor fish.”

  “Lying isn’t in my nature. And I’m poor at it.”

  The comm flashed. “You’ve been cleared for departure, Star Nomad.”

  “Ah?” Alisa veered away from her circuit and zipped straight for the exit, checking to make sure Bravo Six was still behind her in the shuttle. A square of gray appeared ahead, the cloudy sky of Cleon Moon. She flew out, glancing at her sensors to make sure there weren’t any ships waiting to pounce on them. There weren’t, not down here anyway. Up in orbit was another matter. Alisa set a course that would take them up on the opposite side of the moon from the Alliance ships, hoping they wouldn’t notice the Nomad slipping away.

  As she flew, she noticed Leonidas sitting back in the co-pilot’s seat, watching her.

  “I know that was immature of me,” she said, feeling judgment in his difficult-to-read gaze.

  “Yes,” he said agreeably, “but it has resulted in me thinking about what servicing may entail.”

  Heat rushed to Alisa’s cheeks. “I would love to show you.”

  “But not now,” he said.

  “No, not now.” She glanced at him. “But if you don’t put on more than a towel, it may be hard to remember the reason why not now.”

  Leonidas started to get up, but paused, pointing to the comm. “Did you want to check Durant’s message?”

  Alisa hesitated. “He’s still off the ship with Ostberg.” And she had very deliberately not told him they were leaving. She’d thought about not telling Alejandro they were leaving, either, but he’d commed wanting directions to the junkyard, and had rejoined them before the painting was done. “Whatever messages he sent shouldn’t matter now.” Probably true, but she called up the information about the comm contact anyway. “It’s a one-way video recording. Sent to… someone on the Vega Sisters. Butch.”

  “Butch?”

  “That’s all it says. Shut the hatch, will you? I like to eavesdrop in private.”

  He grunted, but complied and sat back down. She played the message.

  “Butch,” Durant said, “it’s me. You’re the only loyal imperial chasadski I know. I need you to forget about our past disagreements and get a message to Tymoteusz.”

  Alisa straightened in her seat. Maybe she should have been eavesdropping on Durant’s messages from the beginning. Except she hadn’t considered that Abelardus would let him use his cabin—or that Durant would sneak into his cabin to use the comm. Why would Durant have wanted to contact Tymoteusz? Didn’t they want different things? Entirely different governments for the system?

  “I know he has Thorian and that he didn’t kill him outright.” Durant took a deep breath. “For that I’m thankful. Putting aside the matters of an imperial legacy and birthright, antiquated and outdated notions if you ask me, the boy has great potential. I first met him two years ago, after he came into his powers, and I offered to tutor him then. His father, not surprisingly, had other matters on his mind at the time, and much of the boy’s power is still locked away. Send this to him, will you, Butch?” Durant leaned forward, eyes imploring. “Listen to me, Lord Tymoteusz. Please. I know you see him as a threat, but he’s so young. He could be controlled, fostered to grow up as we wish. I would rather work with you in this matter than against you. Imagine how much easier a time you would have ruling over the system with a legitimate heir to act as your figurehead. The common man knows nothing of the Staff of Lore, and most have forgotten Alcyone’s significance in the shaping of our system. But they recognize Prince Thorian. Many would rally behind him. You, on the other hand, they will always see as an enemy. Do you not realize that? They fear the Starseers, and you having such a powerful weapon will only make them fear you more. Maybe you revel in that—I don’t know. But the boy gives them someone else to focus on. You could be the shadowy figure behind the throne, barely noticed, barely acknowledged, but in control over all. I would work for you, of course, just as I’ve promised to work for the prince.”

  Durant flinched and glanced to the side, looking like someone afraid he was going to get caught. Alisa wagered he hadn’t gotten permission from Abelardus to send that message.

  “Please consider the wisdom of keeping the boy alive, Lord Tymoteusz,” Durant said, facing the camera again. “He has value. That is all. I thank you for listening.” He clasped his hands in front of him and performed a hurried bow before snapping the camera off.

  “There’s no return message,” Leonidas said, scrolling through the comm history. “No way to know if Tymoteusz received it.”

  “If he did receive it, would he have paid attention? It sounds like he has his own plan for conquering the system and that Thorian doesn’t play a role.” She waved outward to indicate the ships that had to be coming
in for the mafia meeting.

  “Indeed. I wonder why he took him instead of killing him.” As usual, Leonidas spoke bluntly, but his lips pressed together, showing his displeasure at the idea.

  “I don’t know, but we can’t assume our time to find and retrieve him is infinite.”

  “No.”

  “I hope our plan succeeds, and that the meeting leads us to him.”

  “Our plan?” Leonidas arched his eyebrows.

  “You were the one to let me know about the catering gig. And your willingness to go along with it has given you partial ownership in it.”

  “Is that how that works,” he murmured.

  “Wait until you see the costumes I got us. Yours will make you sexy.”

  He looked down at the towel fastened around his waist and the bare muscled thigh that was clearly visible. “I’m not sexy normally?”

  “Oh, you’re quite lovely, but a woman does enjoy seeing a man in formal wear. I just wish my own costume was that fetching. I did order some attractive new underwear for myself while I was shopping for costumes and clothes for Jelena. For practical purposes, of course. It’s hard to thwart the plans of megalomaniacal despots when you have holes in your underwear.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “I also got a slinky nightie. In case you were curious.”

  “I suspect I am.” His gaze strayed down her body, making her wish she had something slinky on now—and that she could take advantage of that closed hatch to let him fondle it. “What constitutes slinky, exactly? In clothing.”

  “You’ll have to wait until I can show you.”

  “Waiting.” His mouth twisted. “It’s more frustrating than I realized it would be.”

  “For me too,” she said quietly. Had she known their first night together would be their last, she would have made more of it—and refused to answer the door the next morning when Bravo Six and Mica had come calling. “I miss—”

  The proximity alert bleated, and she cursed, whirling toward the sensors.

  “I miss the days when Alliance warships were friends instead of enemies,” she said. “Damn it.”

  “They’re heading toward us?”

  “Yes, we’re just about out of the moon’s gravitational field, but they’ve broken orbit to come see us.”

  “They’re still after Tiang,” Leonidas said. “And they won’t be happy that their first attempt to get him failed.”

  “No.” Alisa tapped the comm. “Abelardus, or any other Starseers that want to practice their mind control powers on Alliance pilots, please report to NavCom.”

  “Stanislav is the only one who’s proven himself talented at that.”

  “I know. It’s quite rude of him to be locked up on that warship, rather than here in NavCom where he could be of use.”

  A knock sounded at the hatch, and Abelardus’s face appeared in the window. Even though Alisa hadn’t locked it, he didn’t come straight in. He was gaping at Leonidas’s bare torso through the window.

  “Abelardus is ogling you,” Alisa told him.

  “That’s disturbing.”

  There’s a difference between ogling and being horrified, Abelardus informed her silently. Don’t you have a dress code on this ship?

  “If I had a dress code, bathrobes certainly wouldn’t be allowed,” Alisa said, drawing a frown from Leonidas, who then glared back toward the window. He grew irked whenever Abelardus communicated telepathically with her. Rightfully so, she thought.

  Abelardus opened the hatch, revealing not only himself, but Jelena standing there. Her head had been too low to be visible through the window. She smiled and started in, but faltered at the sight of Leonidas.

  Er, Alisa would have shooed him out already if she’d realized her daughter would show up. He wasn’t indecent, that thigh notwithstanding, but she was fairly certain eight-year-old girls weren’t supposed to see full-grown men in towels.

  Abelardus must have felt the same way because he dropped a hand over her eyes. “Jelena wants to help.”

  “Help?” Alisa asked blankly. She lifted a hand to wave for Leonidas to go change, but he was already on his feet.

  “I’ll put on my combat armor,” he said, glancing toward the sensor display.

  “At the least, put on some underwear,” Abelardus grumbled. “There are children on this ship.”

  Leonidas skewered him with a dark look as they moved aside to let him pass, but he didn’t pause for further banter.

  “I interrupted him in the middle of armpit washing to comm Solstice,” Alisa said. “It was important.” She reminded herself that she was the captain and didn’t need to justify her actions to anyone—so what if she kept a near-naked cyborg in NavCom with her?—but Jelena’s arrival had her flustered.

  “You said on the comm,” Jelena said, pushing Abelardus’s hand down, “that any Starseer who wanted to practice mind control could come to NavCom. I love practicing.” She flounced in, heading for the co-pilot’s seat. “So far, I’m best with animals, but I want to learn more. I want to be ready to get Thor back. Will we find him soon? Now that we’re leaving the moon? How far away is he?”

  Jelena started to slide into the seat, but Abelardus picked her up with both hands and nudged the fold-down sensor seat down. “Here, Jelena. Sit here instead of there. That seat isn’t sanitary right now.”

  Alisa kicked him in the shin. “Knock it off.”

  Jelena seemed to have already gotten over her surprise at seeing a shirtless Leonidas, so Alisa didn’t want to dwell on it.

  “I’m merely trying to keep the children on the ship from being traumatized,” Abelardus said. “You should thank me for being such a conscientious passenger.” He eyed the co-pilot’s seat for himself, then lifted the hem of his robe to wipe it down thoroughly before sitting.

  Alisa rolled her eyes and looked back at Jelena. She was far too perky for a girl who should have been in bed an hour ago.

  “There’s a warship chasing us down,” Alisa said, turning her focus on Abelardus. “Can you convince the pilot that he or she was mistaken and that we are, instead of a freighter, a particularly uninteresting piece of space debris?”

  “I’ll see what I can do, but as I’ve told you before, it’s hard to fool multiple people, and helmsmen tend to have first officers and captains standing behind them.”

  “Fool the captain, then. I don’t care, so long as they let us leave the moon’s orbit without another fight.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so determined to let Tiang stay here. Especially now that he’s brought vermin on board.”

  “It’s not the first vermin we’ve had on board,” she grumbled, thinking of Durant.

  “Now, now, my brother is noble in his own eyes.”

  Alisa pointed at the sensor display. “The warship, if you please.”

  “What should I do?” Jelena asked brightly as Abelardus closed his eyes to concentrate.

  “Uhm.” Alisa couldn’t imagine a child knowing enough about the minds of adults—or anyone—to successfully trick one into doing something, but she didn’t know how it all worked. She assumed it would be better if Jelena didn’t try to tinker with the same person as Abelardus. “You said animals are your specialty?”

  Was her daughter experienced enough at this to have a specialty?

  “I love animals. That’s why I want a pony. And a dog. And kittens. Kittens aren’t very big. Could we get some kittens?”

  Alisa rubbed her face, quite certain Jelena didn’t realize that they were in danger, even though the warship was now close enough to show up on the cameras, its hulking white body appearing on the view screen.

  “Maybe a kitten,” Alisa said, though she imagined that a cat living on the same ship as chickens might not work well. “But how do you use your powers on them?”

  “I talk to them. Well, not really talk, because they don’t have language like we do, but it’s easier. You just think in pictures. I read that if you can think in smells that’s even better f
or some animals. Like dogs. A dog’s whole world is what it smells, did you know?”

  “Are there any animals on that warship?” Alisa asked, thinking that giving Jelena something to look for might keep her busy. She didn’t have time now for in-depth conversations on the lives of dogs.

  “I can check.”

  “Good.”

  Jelena’s face scrunched up, reminding Alisa of Ostberg. She hoped he was doing all right in his regen tank down there. She could have used his talents on this adventure.

  While she waited to see if her Starseers could make magic, Alisa checked the sensors for other ships in the area. She didn’t have any delusions that anyone would help her out here, especially not against a big Alliance warship, but maybe she could throw one of those tax collectors in Agosti’s path.

  The comm beeped, and she thought it might be the warship, but Bravo Six’s face appeared on the monitor. She had almost forgotten that he was sailing along behind her, matching her speed in the shuttle.

  “Lady Captain, are you aware of the Alliance warship approaching?” he asked.

  “Very aware, Six. We’re attempting to dissuade them from following. Or attacking.”

  “An excellent plan. Please inform Chef Beck that I’ve created a heating system for the containers of food he wishes to bring aboard the shuttle.”

  Alisa hadn’t realized the android had been tasked with that job, but she said, “I will.” Assuming the Alliance didn’t blow the shuttle and the freighter out of the stars.

  “The pilot officer has orders to snatch us with a grab beam,” Abelardus murmured, his eyes still closed. “And a boarding team is being readied at their airlock hatch.”

  “Better than being blown out of the stars.” Alisa pushed the engines for more speed, not that it would matter. The warship would catch them easily, and they were far enough away from the moon that there was nothing to hide behind. Even with her Starseer allies, could Leonidas and the rest of her people keep another team from storming the ship?

  “I’m having a hard time influencing the pilot,” Abelardus said. “I believe they may have taken something similar to Yumi’s qui-gorn.”