End Game

by Lindsay Buroker

  “We’ll see what we can do.”

  Chapter 18

  Alisa stood up, stretched, and grimaced when her spine cracked. She had been sitting in NavCom for two days, watching Mica’s tracking program, constantly worrying that the blip that represented Henneberry’s ship would move out of range and disappear. She also worried that the Nomad would stumble across some Alliance ships, zooming past to join Hawk and Agosti’s fleet. If any of them saw her freighter, they might report it to their superiors.

  Alejandro walked into NavCom in his gray robe, his three-suns pendant dangling from his neck and what looked like a copy of the Xerikesh tucked under his arm. He gazed thoughtfully at the holodisplay featuring the blips.

  “Have you been praying that we’ll catch up to Tymoteusz and the staff?” Alisa asked, feeling she should say something, even if he would have preferred it if she didn’t.

  He had been avoiding her path, or she’d just been too busy to notice him, so they hadn’t butted heads too often of late.

  “I have been praying that Thorian is still alive,” Alejandro said. “I fear… that much time has passed, and that Tymoteusz may have decided the boy doesn’t have a role in this new government he’s concocting.”

  “Perhaps not.” Alisa remembered Durant’s message and wondered if his plea had ever made its way to Tymoteusz’s ears. “Would you lament his loss because he’s a nice boy who deserves to live or because your empire doesn’t have a figurehead left without him?”

  Alejandro’s lips thinned as he glared at her. “Both. He’s a smart boy. He could become a good leader on his own one day. And with the Starseer power, he could deal with many who opposed him or attempted to manipulate him. But he needs time to finish his studies and mature.”

  He needs time to be a boy, Alisa thought. “Yes,” was all she murmured aloud.

  “Any guesses as to where they’re heading?” Alejandro nodded toward the blips.

  “Currently? Toward the middle of nowhere—no planets or moons or stations align with our current heading. But Henneberry has changed course a few times, so it’s hard to predict her final destination. She may suspect she’s being followed. The tracker hasn’t been deactivated, so that’s good at least. She probably doesn’t suspect we’re following her.”

  “She probably wouldn’t worry about us even if she knew.”

  “Good. Then we’ll surprise her with our amazing competence.”

  “I know I’d be surprised,” Alejandro muttered and walked out, his hand wrapped around his pendant.

  “Ass,” Alisa muttered.

  She grudgingly admitted he wasn’t wrong to be skeptical. What had her ship and passengers managed to do against Tymoteusz in previous meetings? Absolutely nothing.

  Realizing she hadn’t gotten the details yet on the tank Tiang had left them, Alisa checked on the blips a final time, tapped a couple of instructions for the autopilot, and stood up. She needed to find out what Tiang had told Leonidas. Would it be possible to deliver that retrovirus using what they had? Could she count on having a secret weapon useful against chasadski?

  Alisa tapped the stuffed spider dangling over the co-pilot’s seat on the way out, suspecting she would need any luck she could get in the days ahead. First, she checked Leonidas’s cabin, but he did not answer. She headed to the mess hall. Beck had served a dinner of cumin-rubbed snagor skewers a while ago, but perhaps Leonidas had returned for a second helping of dessert.

  When Alisa entered the mess hall, the lights were on, and the scent of vanilla and cinnamon hung in the air. Beck was washing dishes while his portable grill sat on the table, the lid down with something presumably baking inside. She started to ask if he’d seen Leonidas, but Beck turned, a finger to his lips, and pointed under the table.

  Alisa squatted to peer between the benches. Jelena was curled on her side with a blanket wrapped around her, and three chickens at her back, nesting in the folds. Eyes closed, she seemed to be sleeping. So did the chickens. Alisa had never heard of chickens sleeping with humans. Even Ostberg, who they’d followed around the ship, hadn’t slept with them, insofar as she knew. Alisa didn’t know whether to be concerned or proud that her daughter had developed an affinity for animals. Or was that affinity from animals?

  “She helped me mix up the bread pudding,” Beck whispered, pointing toward the closed grill, the source of the vanilla and cinnamon scents. “She asked if I’d bring her a piece if she went to bed. I said she’d probably be sleeping before it was done and cooled, and that I wouldn’t want to wake her up. Figured she could have some in the morning.”

  “And?”

  “She wasn’t willing to wait.” Beck lifted his eyebrows. “It seems impatience runs in the family.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not impatient. I’m quick and decisive.”

  “Due to impatience.”

  Alisa stuck her tongue out at him. As long as she was being impatient, she might as well be immature too.

  “She brought a blanket out and camped there, so she’ll wake up when the bread pudding is done,” Beck said, turning back to the dishes.

  “And the chickens?” Alisa spotted chicken droppings on the deck near the corridor and frowned. There was a reason she preferred them to stay in their coop. Too bad she hadn’t thought to steal one of those floor-cleaning robots from Henneberry’s ship. Normally, she wouldn’t entertain theft, but it seemed a fitting way to reward a person who thought the service workers were expendable.

  “They’d been wandering around, and I guess she didn’t order them back to their coop.”

  “Hm.” Alisa straightened up. She thought about carrying Jelena to her cabin and putting her in her bunk, but the chickens would probably start squawking and wake her—and everyone else who had gone to bed. “Have you seen Leonidas?”

  Beck pointed his thumb toward the cargo hold. “He headed that way with his hover pads a while ago. Said he wanted to get some extra training in before we meet up with the chasadski. But from the way he was sniffing at my grill, I think he might have been looking for a reason to stay up until the pudding is done too.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.” Alisa waved to him and headed toward the cargo hold.

  Sickbay was dark, so Alejandro must have decided on praying from his bunk instead of his workspace. The entire ship seemed quiet with so many of their passengers departed. Alisa hadn’t truly appreciated having all those Starseers around, but the children hadn’t bothered her, and she missed the noise of them playing, footsteps thundering on the deck as they raced everywhere. Why would one walk when one could run?

  For the first time in… a while, she wondered what it would be like to have more children. She’d been lonely from time to time as an only child growing up on the Nomad with just her mother. She remembered wishing that she had some siblings. Did Jelena ever wish that? Back in their flat on Perun, there had been schoolmates for her to play with, but it was much quieter out here in deep space, and adults were now her only options for companionship. Of course, even if Alisa had more children, Jelena would be at least nine when the first was born. She probably wouldn’t consider a baby that much fun to “play with.” Instead, she’d find herself pressed into babysitting duties as she grew older. Still, Alisa couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have more children running around the ship. And to be around Jelena more than she had been these last four years.

  The lights were dimmed for the night in the cargo hold, and Alisa did not hear anything as she approached, certainly not the thump, thump, thump of Leonidas’s boots and fists connecting with those pads. She stepped out onto the walkway, reminded that Leonidas and his enhanced eyes could see perfectly well in the dim lighting.

  A few clucks came from the coop, but the chickens down there seemed as torpid as the ones under the table.

  “Leonidas?” she called softly when she reached the stairs.

  There wasn’t any light coming from engineering either. Mica must have finished he
r projects for the night and gone to sleep. Alisa wished she could forget about Tymoteusz and the staff and change course, head off to restart her life. Pick up a contract, haul some freight, go horseback riding with her daughter on a stopover.

  But her promise to find Thorian bound her to this course.

  “Down here, Alisa,” came Leonidas’s voice from somewhere under the walkway. He sounded oddly mellow, not at all like a man who had been exerting himself.

  “Half lighting,” Alisa ordered and started down the steps. Leonidas might be able to see in the dark, but she did not have that ability.

  The light rose to a twilight level. Not so much, she hoped, that the chickens would wake up and start demanding food. Alisa paused at the bottom of the stairs, surprised to find Leonidas lying on his back under the walkway with his hands pillowing the back of his head. He gazed upward, like someone lounging in a grassy meadow to stargaze. But all he could be looking at was the ceiling, or perhaps the two hover pads floating in the air above him, as if he had paused their program.

  “Is your exercise equipment malfunctioning?” Alisa asked.

  “No.” He lowered his chin to his chest, watching her through his lashes.

  “Are you malfunctioning?”

  He snorted softly. “Perhaps.”

  She left the stairs and joined him under the walkway, sitting down with her back to the bulkhead. “What does that mean?”

  “I took the wrong powder.”

  “What?” Her first thought was of Beck’s bread pudding recipe, that perhaps some powdered substance had been involved, but then she remembered the tins Yumi had given him.

  “I was talking to Abelardus, who was pestering me and following me to my cabin. I wasn’t paying enough attention when I grabbed the tin. They look similar, you know. It wasn’t until the powder hit my tongue and tasted different that I realized my mistake.”

  “Well, at least you didn’t have a tin of poison sitting on your desk.” Alisa eyed his stretched-out form. He did appear relaxed. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. She couldn’t help but remember some of the other effects that drug was supposed to have on those who used it, and her cheeks warmed at the thought of the amazing orgasms Yumi had promised.

  “I could have spit it out,” Leonidas said. “As soon as I tasted it, I knew.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “I almost did. But… I was curious.” His head lolled to the side, and he met her eyes in the dim lighting.

  Alisa wished they were in a meadow with stars stretching above them. “About relaxation?”

  “Among other things.”

  “You sound mellow. How do you feel?” She resisted the urge to look toward his crotch, then blushed further, feeling silly that such a thought had come to mind. But she couldn’t help but wonder about the drug and what it did. Could one truly be relaxed and aroused at the same time? She supposed so, though Leonidas had seemed tense whenever he’d been aroused around her in the past, worried about hurting her and worried about who knew what else.

  “Well, I didn’t punch Abelardus on my way out of my cabin,” Leonidas said, “and that had been on my mind on the way in.”

  “What was he bugging you about?”

  “Just saying that we needed to come up with a plan for battling Tymoteusz because I proved so inept last time.”

  “As if he was ept.”

  “I think we need to see what we’re dealing with and where, and figure out whether the Alliance will be playing a role before spending a lot of time making plans.”

  “Probably true. I admit that I came down here to ask you about something similar. I hope it won’t put you in the mood to punch me.”

  “I doubt it.” He smiled a lazy smile. He looked more like a man on the verge of falling asleep, rather than one contemplating arousal and orgasms. “What’s your question?”

  “I was wondering about the tank Tiang gave you.”

  “It’s safe. I locked it up, and I’ve got Mica making some canisters to store weaponized doses.”

  Alisa shivered at the term weaponized, even if that was exactly what they needed. The fact that her genes and Jelena’s genes were similar to Tymoteusz’s made her all too aware that this stuff would affect her.

  “I know what it’s supposed to do, sort of, but do you think it’ll work?” she asked. “Can it truly help us?”

  Leonidas pushed himself into a sitting position and scooted back to lean against the bulkhead, his shoulder touching hers. “Possibly,” he said. “If we get close enough to use it. From what Tiang explained to me—and there wasn’t time for a thorough explanation—his retrovirus is able to temporarily disable the immune system, so the invasion won’t be detected, and then amp up brain activity to cause seizures. He also said the bug is designed to cling to a Starseer barrier, if not burrow right through to get inside. If it clings, it’ll get through as soon as the person drops it.”

  She listened to him as he spoke, concerned about the ramifications—what happened if the concoction was sprayed on one of their Starseer allies? Or in Jelena’s or Thor’s presence?—but she was also growing aware of the warmth of his shoulder against hers, the way his heat seeped through the fabric of his T-shirt and into her body. His forearms were bare, the shadows from the walkway bars playing across the corded muscles.

  “So,” she said, reminding herself that she hadn’t come down here to admire his physique, “you’d have to be very close to use this weapon, right? To make contact with your target?”

  “You smell good,” Leonidas said, turning his head toward her again.

  “What? I mean, I’m glad. I walked through Beck’s kitchen, so I probably smell like vanilla.”

  “Faintly,” he agreed, and shifted toward her, his nose coming to touch her hair, his lips brushing her ear as he inhaled.

  Her senses sprang to life, and her awareness of him shot from medium to off the charts.

  “Sorry,” he murmured, drawing back and looking upward, perhaps thinking of the ship and the crew—and Jelena. “Mellowness isn’t the only thing I’m feeling. Once you came down, ah, never mind. Yes, the way he has it designed, it would be a short-range weapon, but the canisters I mentioned—I think I can modify that grenade launcher I got at Solstice’s to throw them fifty, a hundred meters, at least. The canisters would disperse their contents on impact.”

  “Impact?” Alisa mouthed, struggling to follow his words now that her thoughts had shifted from the practical to the libidinous. She wasn’t supposed to be the one who was extra horny after twenty years of abstinence, but she couldn’t help but think that Jelena was sleeping, and that even if she woke up, her focus would likely be on desserts. And she was way up there. Alisa and Leonidas were down here and could move into engineering and close the hatch. They would be unlikely to be interrupted until morning.

  “We could shoot at him from afar,” Leonidas said, “but obviously, we’d still have to be on his ship.”

  “Yes.” This time, Alisa shifted toward him, lifting her hand to rest on his chest, to feel the swell of his firm muscle beneath her palm. The thin material of the T-shirt did not hide much. What would he do if she kissed him? Feeling she should make a pretense at continuing this conversation, one she had come down here to start, she managed to pull her thoughts together enough to say, “But boarding his ship was going to be a necessity anyway. To get Thorian.”

  “Yes,” he murmured.

  His chin dropped to his chest, and he looked at her hand. She could feel his heartbeat beneath her fingers, the rise and fall of his breaths. She stroked his chest and looked him up and down, trying to gauge if he was less tense than the previous times they had been close enough to touch. Parts of him were—other parts were plenty tense. Unlike with his combat armor, his gym clothes did not hide a lot.

  Seeing that he was having thoughts just as libidinous as hers sent a surge of heat through her, and she shifted sideways, putting her leg atop his, thoughts of climbing fully into his lap coming to mind.
/>   Leonidas licked his lips. “We should… not. Right?”

  It wasn’t a very firm not, and when she didn’t answer right away, his arm slipped around her waist, pulling her across him, astraddle his lap, just as she had imagined. She sucked in a breath, feeling him against her. His other hand came up to the back of her head, fingers pushing into her hair, nails scraping at her scalp, sending delicious shivers through her body.

  “Probably not,” Alisa whispered, her gaze snagging on his lips, the desire to kiss him flaring within her, along with the desire to fully mold herself to him, to feel the hard contours of his body against hers. She almost said that Jelena would never know, but if she poked around in either of their thoughts tomorrow, wouldn’t she? Unless they could avoid thinking about this, avoid thinking about the way Leonidas’s fingers slid under her shirt and meandered across the bare skin of her back, sending fire along her nerves. “But you must have expected… what were you thinking when you didn’t spit out the powder?”

  She pushed his shirt up, letting her own fingers roam across warm, bare flesh.

  “It crossed my mind…” He cleared his throat—his voice had gone hoarse. “I promised myself I wouldn’t go to you, wouldn’t bother you.”

  “But you hoped I would come to you?”

  He snorted. “I’ve hoped that every night I haven’t been on the drug. Most mornings too.” He managed a lopsided smile, his hands continuing to stroke her under her shirt, his thumb slipping beneath her bra to follow the curve of her breast.

  “It would have been sad if I hadn’t come then.”

  “Very sad. I would have had to entertain myself down here.”

  “My cargo hold isn’t the stuff of sexual fantasies, at least not as far as I’ve noticed.”

  “Well, those are brand new hover pads I’d intended to work out with.”

  “New hover pads get you excited?”

  “A little.” His hand shifted around to cup her more fully. “But not as much as you.”