End Game

by Lindsay Buroker

  I hope I’ll survive to have that opportunity.

  You better survive. Jelena needs a teacher, and I don’t trust this Westfall lady.

  You wish me to teach her? Do you trust me?

  I’m working on it. Besides, you’re a relative. I figure you won’t charge much for tutoring. Payment in cookies, perhaps.

  Stanislav snorted.

  Alisa noticed that Leonidas had moved closer to her, and she turned to lean against his uninjured shoulder. Since he was wounded, she ought to be offering him support, but she felt drained, physically and emotionally. On the one hand, she was delighted to have been reunited with Stanislav, but on the other, it wasn’t much of a reunion. He was about to be taken off on a mission that sounded suicidal to face a man who was more powerful than he. Tymoteusz might have stopped short of killing Stanislav before, due to their kinship, but would he stop again? Especially when Stanislav would be showing up with a fleet of soldiers? Even if Stanislav and the Alliance managed to pull out a victory, it didn’t sound like anyone intended to get Thorian out before blowing up the chasadski ship. She had promised Jelena she would get her friend back. How could she go back to the Nomad and say that wouldn’t happen now?

  Leonidas must have sensed her angst because he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into his chest. She appreciated the gesture, but she felt too guilty to derive comfort from it. She’d also promised him that they would get Thorian back.

  She blinked away tears before they could fully form and took a deep breath. No, she wasn’t giving up yet. As she’d told herself, they could track Henneberry to the meeting spot and arrive not much later than the Alliance fleet. Maybe Tymoteusz would be late in joining up with his new mafia allies, and Alisa would have time to get the Nomad to the party. And then, while the battle was engaged, somehow she and Leonidas could take a team in to retrieve Thorian. True, that sounded utterly suicidal, considering ships would be firing at the chasadski ship while she was attempting this infiltration. But maybe she could think of something. Depending on where Henneberry and her allies were going to meet Tymoteusz, she might have days to plan.

  “Are you taking solace in my arms?” Leonidas asked. “Or scheming?”

  “What makes you think I’m scheming?” Alisa tilted her head back to meet his eyes.

  “You’re standing very still. Usually you hug me back, and your hands roam a bit when you’re taking solace.”

  “Well, my father is a few feet away. I wasn’t sure how boldly my hands should roam.” She smiled over at Stanislav, but he merely shook his head and wiggled his fingers in a continue gesture. He also turned away to give them some privacy.

  “I enjoy it when they roam,” Leonidas murmured softly.

  “Oh? Are you able to enjoy it now?” She looked back at him and noticed he was watching her through his eyelashes. “Drugs worn off?” she whispered.

  “Possibly. My head is clearer.”

  Implying that he had experienced some side effects from Yumi’s concoction? Alisa once again lamented that he felt the need to take them.

  “Other things are more noticeable too,” he said, sliding his hand down her back to rest on her butt. “And I have this urge to stamp out your memories of spending time in lavatories with other men.”

  “Oh?” She smiled. “How would this stamping be done?”

  “If we were alone, I’d show you.”

  She thought about pointing out that they could spend time together on the shuttle on the way back, but since she had to pilot it and the only private spots were the compact lavatories in the back, that wouldn’t be the ideal place for coming together. Especially since those lavatories weren’t particularly soundproof, as far as she’d noticed.

  Hawk came back into the room and lifted an eyebrow at Leonidas’s hand placement. “Is this how the rubbing off of tendencies is accomplished?”

  “Sometimes,” Alisa said.

  Leonidas released her, and she stepped back.

  “One of Agosti’s surgeons is removing your man’s bullet and patching up the woman,” Hawk said. “I’m having a shuttle prepared for Admiral Tiang. It will pick him up and take him to a transfer station on Sherran Moon so he can get a ride home. It will fly back with you when your people are ready to go.” His gaze hardened slightly, as if to warn her that he knew her reputation as a pilot who could escape from unwanted pursuit and wouldn’t appreciate it if she tried to do so this time.

  Alisa sighed. Unfortunately, she had no such plans, not with time pressing. She would have to hand Tiang off and immediately head after the tracking signal with the Nomad.

  “Can it take non-combatants to the moon too?” Leonidas asked, then looked at Alisa. “The children. And the Starseers who haven’t shown any aptitude for battle.”

  “Not all of the children,” Alisa said, having no intention of letting Jelena go again. But she conceded the point about the rest of the crew. Yumi might wish to stay behind too. This wasn’t her battle.

  “You don’t think she should be taken somewhere safe?” Leonidas asked.

  “With whom? Westfall? So she can disappear before we can come back to get her? I don’t trust that woman, and I’m not risking losing Jelena again.” She could understand his concerns, and maybe he was even right, but the idea of having to spend a year looking for Jelena again… It made her clench her fists and want to pummel Starseers.

  “As you wish,” was all Leonidas said.

  Alisa scowled, but did not say more. Hawk was probably already wondering why the Nomad needed to send its passengers somewhere “safe.”

  “Do you want to get fixed up too?” Hawk asked, pointing at Leonidas. “You’ve been bleeding on Agosti’s deck.”

  Leonidas shook his head and started to speak, but Alisa interrupted him.

  “Yes, he does.”

  Leonidas arched his eyebrows.

  “I know you adore it when Alejandro seals you up, but we have to wait for the bullet removal anyway, right? You should get patched up here in case we run into trouble before we reunite with him. It makes sense for you to be at your fittest.”

  He doesn’t want to leave your side, Stanislav informed her silently, a smile tugging at his lips.

  She wondered if he felt pleased that he had been instrumental in getting them all the way together.

  Alisa patted Leonidas’s chest. “We’ll come with you,” she said, pointing to Stanislav.

  Hawk did not object. “This way,” he said, and headed into a corridor.

  Alisa and Leonidas followed him, Leonidas wrapping an arm around her waist again as they walked.

  He was hoping to find some privacy while he wasn’t leaving your side, Stanislav thought, trailing after Alisa and Leonidas.

  All right. I don’t need you translating his thoughts for me. I get enough of that from Abelardus.

  Ah, quite right. I shall give you both your privacy.

  Besides, she didn’t need a translator. She knew perfectly well what it meant when a man’s hand kept finding its way down to cup her butt. It occurred to her that if she sent Jelena away with Westfall in the shuttle, she and Leonidas could have some private time as the ship tracked down Henneberry. There wouldn’t be any need to have him drugged. But it seemed such a selfish thought. Of course, keeping Jelena aboard when the ship would be flying into danger seemed selfish too. It was too bad Perun was so far away; she might have arranged commercial transport for Jelena back to her sister-in-law in the capital, and then picked her up after Tymoteusz, the staff, and Thorian had been dealt with, but it was over a week to Perun from the Aldrin moons. That was a long time for an eight-year-old to be sent off alone. And would the Starseers even allow Alisa to take Jelena from them? They were all so insistent that she needed tutors.

  Alisa sighed as they followed Hawk into a lift, wishing she knew the right thing to do.

  Chapter 16

  The comm flashed in the shuttle’s cockpit.

  Alisa yawned and answered the familiar signal. “Marchenko her
e. Is that you, Mica?”

  Behind her, Beck, Young-hee, and Leonidas were sleeping, stretched across seats or on the deck. Abelardus was playing a game on someone’s netdisc, and Yumi dozed in the co-pilot’s seat. The blocky shape of the Star Nomad coasted through space on the view screen.

  “Who else would it be?” came Mica’s voice over the comm. “Hardly anyone else on here knows how to work this dilapidated control panel.”

  “Well, I assumed Bravo Six was still flying.”

  “I’m here, Lady Captain,” came Six’s deadpan voice.

  “He’s flying,” Mica said, “but he called me up here to ask if we should be alarmed by the fact that you’ve picked up a stalker.”

  “The Alliance shuttle snuggled up to my butt is here to pick up Tiang,” Alisa said.

  “Good.”

  “I see you’re going to miss him.”

  “I’ve got him quarantined in sickbay. It’s the only place with self-contained air and filtration.”

  Alisa frowned at the comm panel. “And that’s necessary, because…?”

  “One of his rats got loose. I found it having a seizure on the deck in the middle of the corridor. It died while I was knocking on his cabin to tell him to take care of it.”

  A tendril of worry wormed its way through Alisa’s gut. “He’s created a virus or bacteria or something? And it’s out? Are the children in danger?”

  Don’t forget to be concerned about the rest of us too, Abelardus spoke into her mind.

  You’re not even on the ship. She waved dismissively over her shoulder.

  I’m about to be. And so are you. I’m sure if you have the genes, you could be affected, whether you’ve ever manifested powers or not.

  I know, but that doesn’t matter. Alisa hadn’t been on the ship for the last twenty-four hours. She was far more worried about Jelena. And yes, the other children. She had promised those Starseers a safe haven.

  “Tiang says no,” Mica said, “but I think he’s naive. And when he talks about what exactly he’s doing, it goes over my head. Alejandro also isn’t certain about what Tiang has made. He’s the one who suggested locking him in sickbay with some rat bars and a bucket to piss in. The Starseers have barricaded themselves in the rec room of their own accord. There’s not a separate filtration system in there, so I’m not sure what they hope to accomplish, but I haven’t minded the quiet. I was a little tempted to lock the hatch to make sure they stayed in there.”

  “Lovely. I’ll let the Alliance soldiers know that they might want to wear their combat armor or decon suits to pick up their wayward admiral.”

  Mica snorted. “We working with them now?”

  “Not… exactly.” Alisa thought of Stanislav, the way he’d waved goodbye through the door when Alisa had piloted the shuttle out into space. He’d said little of his fears, but she got the sense that he didn’t expect to live to see her again. Or to see Jelena ever. That upset her and angered her too. He had already tried to sacrifice himself once. He didn’t need to do it again. She would come up with something. “They’re taking Tiang back to his people, and that’s it. His leave ended, and he’s been AWOL for a while.”

  “Understood.”

  “Since the Nomad only has one airlock, we’ll dock this shuttle first, transfer everyone in, and then have Bravo Six come pilot it out alongside us again. The soldiers can come in after that.”

  “Nice of you to accommodate them.”

  “I didn’t have much choice,” Alisa said.

  “I bet. Good to have you home, Captain.” Mica sounded sincere.

  Alisa could imagine how it must have been to deal with Tiang and a bunch of scared Starseers. It would make wrangling Yumi’s chickens seem easy in comparison.

  As she relayed the information to the Alliance shuttle, Leonidas roused himself from the deck and came to stand behind her, running his gaze over the holodisplays and checking the status of everything. She wouldn’t have minded having him stroke her hair, but he merely clasped his hands behind his back, the image of the professional soldier. Probably preparing himself for the idea that Jelena would be in there, perhaps poking into his thoughts soon. Alisa lamented that she hadn’t found a private moment for a tryst with him. He would take some more of Yumi’s drugs when they got inside and forget the desire for private moments.

  We’ll figure it out, she thought silently toward him, though her brain hurt from how many things she had to figure out. At least, there wasn’t any trouble as she guided the shuttle in to dock with the Nomad. The Alliance pilot also accepted that he would have to wait his turn. She’d thought he might object, but his little shuttle had shields and weapons, so he probably wasn’t too worried about losing the Nomad and his objective now that she’d led them to the ship.

  Alisa almost tripped when she walked into the cargo hold. The chickens were in their coop, and they squawked uproariously when Yumi appeared. But that wasn’t what startled her. Near the coop, half under the walkway and against the hull, something was being constructed. Something that looked suspiciously like a cross between a tank and a pond.

  “Mica,” Alisa yelled as the rest of her crew filed off the shuttle. “What is this… this in my cargo hold?”

  How had Mica found time to build anything while worrying about viruses and quarantines?

  “It’s going to be the pond,” a delighted voice said from the walkway. Jelena skipped down the steps, faltered slightly when she noticed Leonidas, but hugged Alisa anyway.

  Leonidas made a wide berth around them and headed straight into the ship. To drug himself? Alisa felt frustrated anew, but she was also pleased to see Jelena and to receive the hug. She returned it before remembering…

  “What are you doing roaming the ship, little girl? I thought all the Starseers had barricaded themselves in the rec room.”

  Jelena offered her sly smile. “Almost all of them.”

  Alisa snorted, though she couldn’t help but feel concerned. If Tiang had unleashed some virus that affected those with Starseer blood, she would prefer Jelena be locked in a closet somewhere.

  “I needed something to build,” Mica said, stepping out onto the walkway. “When I was banging at things with a hammer, it made it harder for people to complain to me. Not impossible, unfortunately, due to that pesky Starseer telepathy.”

  “Now we can get ducks and geese,” Jelena said brightly.

  Abelardus and Young-hee, perhaps not interested in the fowl outcome, headed up the stairs together.

  “I didn’t know you were eager for those, Jelena,” Alisa said, feeling like she was losing a battle she hadn’t even signed up to participate in.

  “I’ve been feeding the chickens while Yumi was gone.”

  “I’m sure they appreciate that,” Yumi said, gazing fondly at the tank. “Thank you.”

  “It’s good practice,” Jelena said. “For when I get my horse friend.”

  “Uh, I thought we discussed that, how we would go riding on Upsilon Seven, but not actually have horses on the ship.”

  “Oh sure, Mom. I know, but I’ll think of any horse I ride as my horse friend because I’ll talk to her in her mind, and we’ll be real close.”

  Bravo Six jogged along the walkway and down the stairs. He headed for the airlock and the shuttle, but Jelena ran over toward him.

  “Watch this, Mom. Arm, please, Bravo Six.”

  The android slowed and glanced at Alisa. “May I pause for approximately thirty seconds, Lady Captain?”

  “Uh, sure,” Alisa said, having no idea what they had in mind. She doubted the Alliance soldiers were in a hurry to get over here now that they knew they might be entering a quarantine zone.

  Six stuck his arm out straight from his shoulder. Jelena jumped up and grabbed it with both hands, swung her legs up, tucked them in, and did a somersault to land on her feet again.

  “His arm doesn’t move at all,” Jelena said, grinning. “It’s like a bar at the playground.”

  She did another somersault to demo
nstrate while Bravo Six stood patiently with his arm out.

  “Ah, very acrobatic, Jelena,” Alisa said, “but Six has some flying to do now.”

  “All right.”

  Six retracted his arm, bowed slightly to Jelena, and strode into the airlock. Alisa looked wistfully in the direction Leonidas had gone, wishing Jelena would approach him at some point. She felt certain that he would volunteer an arm as sturdy as a metal bar for gymnastics purposes.

  Alisa walked over and hit the controls to cycle the airlock. She watched as the tube withdrew, and the catering shuttle flew out of sight. The Alliance shuttle zipped in without hesitation, extending a tube of its own.

  “I suppose someone should go up and warn Tiang that he needs to go back to his people,” Alisa said.

  “What?” came a distressed cry from the direction of sickbay.

  “I believe Abelardus or Leonidas informed him,” Mica said.

  “Ah.” Alisa hit the button to let the soldiers in once they finished their docking procedure, then headed for the walkway. Jelena had wandered over to join Yumi in feeding the chickens. “Jelena, come with me, please.”

  Alisa did not want her down here when soldiers she didn’t know came aboard the ship, and also did not want her here when the soldiers dragged Tiang and his equipment through the cargo hold. She could easily envision some vial dropping and breaking, the contents oozing out and exposing Jelena to whatever he’d made.

  Jelena hesitated.

  “I’ll wait until you come back to feed the rest of them,” Yumi offered.

  “All right.”

  Jelena skipped over and jogged up the stairs with Alisa. She missed the days when she’d had that much energy. Wasn’t it close to the night cycle on the Nomad? She ought to make sure Jelena had eaten and send her to bed while these transfers of people happened.

  “But I need to be here when you go to meet the chasadski,” Tiang was saying when Alisa approached sickbay.

  Leonidas was the one who had delivered the message and was standing in front of the hatchway. Jelena dropped back, walking behind Alisa and eyeing him dubiously.