The Fallen Empire Collection by Lindsay Buroker

by Discover Sci-Fi Special Edition

  “You seem to have given Alejandro enough that he’s convinced that you know what you’re talking about,” Alisa said.

  “Is his opinion something that would sway yours?” Yumi smiled slightly, the blue, green, and white glow of the console buttons and displays highlighting her face. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

  “At the moment, we both seem desperate to gain information that the Starseers may have, so I guess so.”

  Alisa studied the controls for a minute, then pulled back on the flight stick. The ocean disappeared from view as they shot toward the starry night sky.

  “You can go if you want,” Alisa said, flicking her fingers toward the hatchway. “Thanks for coming up to talk to me.”

  Yumi looked toward the corridor, then back toward the view screen, and finally over to Alisa.

  “My mother was—is—a Starseer,” she said quietly.

  “But you’re not?” Alisa asked, not surprised by the revelation at this point.

  “I never manifested the abilities, despite trying very, very hard as a girl. And later too.” Yumi’s expression grew wry, and sad as well. “My mother wasn’t around much when I was growing up—Father didn’t have powers, either. It’s not that uncommon for Starseers to have relationships with normal humans, since there are so few of their people left, but the powers often cause rifts and resentment, especially if the woman is more powerful than the man.”

  “So your mother left when you were young?”

  “She came around a lot until I was about ten. The records tell us that’s the latest age any children have come into their power. If they don’t display any abilities by then, it’s unlikely that they ever will. Some people have a bit of prescience and the like, but no telekinesis or mind manipulation abilities.”

  Mind manipulation. Alisa shuddered, remembering the way those men had caused Sylvia to freeze in the hallway, to let Jelena be taken in front of her eyes.

  “I thought my mother was a very glamorous and amazing person,” Yumi said, “so I tried very hard to develop those powers, hoping she would come back permanently, or that she would take me away to train me. My father was a good man, mind you, a scientist who taught me to love biology, chemistry, and the other branches, but I thought it would be incredible to join her and visit her world.”

  “Have you ever been? To the temple you’re directing us to?”

  “No. What I know is from the stories she told.”

  Stories that would be at least twenty years out of date now, Alisa judged with a sinking feeling coming to her stomach.

  As if guessing her thoughts, Yumi added, “My understanding is that the temples have been where they are for hundreds of years, so it’s not likely much has changed.”

  “Ah,” Alisa said neutrally.

  Yumi unfolded her legs and stood up. “Once you’ve allowed the computer pilot to take over, you should join me for some meditation. It could help you with your anxiety.”

  “So would shooting the people who took Jelena.”

  “Meditation is more easily achievable.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Alisa remembered trying a guided meditation exercise after a class once. She had not been able to keep her mind from racing all over the place when she’d been supposedly focusing on her breath and stilling her thoughts. She glanced back as Yumi started toward the hatch. “Say, is that why you got into the mind stuff? To try and find some powers?”

  Yumi turned back, that sad smile on her face again. “Yes. The meditation, the psychedelics. I thought that perhaps if I could alter my way of thinking, the power that lay untapped within my genes might be released.”

  “Has it ever?”

  “A few times I’ve thought…” Yumi shrugged. “Not in any significant way, no.”

  “Maybe you should try fondling Alejandro’s orb. It oozes power when it’s not in its box.”

  “I gather that he doesn’t want anyone touching that artifact. And I know—I can feel its power even when it’s in its box.” Yumi tilted her head. “Can’t you?”

  Alisa remembered the way she’d felt it in his cabin, but only after closing her eyes and thinking about it, almost having to be in a meditative state herself. “A little bit. But it’s really noticeable when the lid on the box is open.”

  “I should like to see it sometime.”

  “Do you have any idea what it is?”

  Yumi hesitated. “I have ideas. Nothing solid.”

  Alisa opened her mouth, intending to ask Yumi to share if her ideas became more solid, but the proximity alarm went off, and she cursed, spinning back to the controls.

  An imperial ship loomed up ahead of them in a high orbit. It looked like one of the ones she had played cat and mouse around on the way into Perun. She hoped its crew wasn’t holding a grudge.

  She changed her course to take them past it at an angle. A casual angle. She didn’t want to screech off in another direction and draw attention, but she knew they would have grab beams, more powerful ones than that Fang had possessed. If the captain had heard about the orb and was also on the hunt, he could easily catch them.

  Intent on the view screen and the sensors, Alisa barely noticed when Yumi slipped out. She sat tensely, sending glances at the comm, expecting to be hailed any moment. The sensors showed another imperial ship in orbit farther away. She wasn’t sure how many they kept up here, protecting the planet, but in a fight—or more accurately, a flight—the Star Nomad wouldn’t be a match for even one of them.

  The closest ship continued along its path, not detouring as Alisa piloted her freighter past them. Only when it switched from being in her side cameras to her rear cameras did she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. Either one hand wasn’t talking to the other in their fleet, or it was the night shift up there, and whoever was on the bridge had not gotten the message that clunky old freighters were trouble and should be detained.

  As the blackness of space stretched ahead and the imperial ship grew smaller in her rear camera, Alisa allowed herself to slump back in her chair. They had made it off planet with less trouble than she had expected. Maybe her luck would hold, and they would make it to Arkadius without trouble too. They had to fly across the system first, since Arkadius orbited Opus instead of Novus Solis, but thanks to Mica, they had supplies. Maybe she would be able to relax and catch up on some sleep. Beck could stop wearing his armor around and take her up on the offer of turning the mess into a commercial kitchen for his sauce making. So far, everything he had created had been good, so she wouldn’t mind tasting the results of his experiments.

  The proximity alarm beeped again, and Alisa sat upright.

  “I knew it,” she grumbled. “I knew it couldn’t be that easy.”

  She expected to find that one of the imperial ships had turned to pursue them, but the sensors detected another vessel up ahead, coming out of the shadow of Draco, Perun’s green moon. It was a big ship, larger than the imperial cruisers and even the dreadnought, and she thought of the mining craft that the pirates had taken over.

  Alisa altered her course. On the unlikely chance that it was simply flying to Perun, she would give it a wide berth.

  Her shoulders sagged when it altered its course. To cut her off.

  She changed course again. Some of her sense of defeat vanished when it grew close enough for the sensors to identify. It wasn’t a mining ship; it was a big salvage tug. It would have the speed of a Perunese legless toad.

  The comm flashed. Alisa highly doubted she wanted to talk to anyone hailing her, but she was bolstered by the knowledge that she should be able to outrun that vessel.

  She answered it with a terse, “Captain Marchenko, commanding the Star Nomad.”

  “Good evening, Captain,” a female voice replied. “This is Commander Bennington of the Alliance salvage tug Laertes.”

  Alliance? Alisa wanted to feel relief, but after her dealings with Major Mladenovic, she wasn’t sure she could trust her own people, not with t
his orb nonsense.

  “Nice to see you, Commander,” Alisa said, keeping her tone cordial in case these people might have good, or at least neutral, intentions. “Is there a reason you’re heading in my direction? We’re not in need of a tow, though I can see why you might think that, given the Nomad’s slightly advanced age.”

  A chuckle came over the comm. “She does look like she could have brought the first colonists over from Earth.”

  Alisa’s tone lost some of its cordialness when she said, “She’s not that old.”

  “We’re not coming to tow you. Simply to be in position if you accept my offer to trade.”

  “What kind of trade?” Alisa doubted she would like the answer, but found it slightly promising that the captain was offering to barter rather than simply demanding to take the orb. Bennington probably knew she couldn’t catch the Nomad, old ship or not.

  “I’ve been informed by an operative on Perun that you have something the Alliance has been looking for.”

  Yeah, she had something everyone had been looking for.

  “Since you’re a former Alliance officer yourself,” Bennington went on, “I’m hoping you’ll be amenable to a fair trade. I have been authorized to barter. I can’t give you the entire price, of course, since I’ll be taking on the security risk of taking it back to Arkadius myself, but what would you say to a hundred thousand tindarks? In exchange for us relieving you of your burden?”

  Alisa felt her mouth gape open. A hundred thousand tindarks for the orb?

  With that much money, she could buy information on her daughter’s whereabouts. Well, maybe not. Would the Starseers care about money? With their mental powers, they could simply arrange to win at the casinos on Primus 7 if they needed coin. Besides, while money might make her life a little easier, it wasn’t exactly her heart’s desire. She wanted her daughter, and she wanted to keep the empire from rising again. If she gave up the orb to the Alliance, it would be to help with the latter. Still, she almost hated to lose the thing, having the notion that she might somehow barter it to the Starseers if necessary. And then there was the complication that she didn’t truly have it. It was back in Alejandro’s quarters, and she couldn’t turn it and Alejandro over without making an enemy of Leonidas. As it was, she was surprised Leonidas was still talking to her. She would hate to lose that forever.

  “Can you be more specific on which burden you want?” Alisa asked, realizing she hadn’t responded and that Bennington might find that suspicious. “I’m not trying to be funny here, but I have several burdens right now.”

  The tug was still angling toward the Nomad, moving to overtake it—or come up beside it for an airlock transfer perhaps. Alisa could have shot straight out into space and left the Alliance craft behind, but she did not alter her course again, not yet. She was within the tug’s firing range—salvage ship or not, it had likely been used during the war and would be outfitted with weapons—and she did not want to take a butt full of buckshot if she could help it. Besides, she was curious about the commander’s offer.

  “Your life sounds complicated,” Bennington said, her tone still friendly. “Why don’t you let us simplify it?”

  “How?”

  Alisa was debating on mentioning that Alejandro had the orb and wouldn’t let her simply walk it to the airlock when Bennington responded with the unexpected.

  “Let us come alongside you, attach to your airlock, and bring some men over. We have an aerosol sedative that will knock out your passenger. I assume you have him chained or otherwise restrained somewhere?”

  Alisa snorted. She wouldn’t mind chaining up Alejandro, but that hardly seemed necessary. It wasn’t as if he was a fighter. She could probably just lock him in his cabin. The real threat was Leonidas.

  Thinking his name sent a jolt through her, and she felt like a dunce as she realized what “burden” the commander wanted to relieve her of.

  “You’re looking for Leonidas?” she blurted before she could stop herself. That tone of surprise would tell Bennington too much, that she had something else of value on board.

  “I assume you know that’s a pseudonym, Captain,” Bennington said, some of the friendliness disappearing from her voice, “and that you’re harboring Imperial Cyborg Corps Commander, Colonel Hieronymus Adler aboard your ship.”

  “No. I mean, yes. I mean, he paid his fare.” Alisa rubbed her face. Could she possibly sound more daft? This was throwing her off balance; she had been so certain they wanted the orb. “And he neglected to give me his real name.”

  Alisa didn’t hear a noise behind her; it was more a sense of being watched that made her turn in her chair.

  Leonidas stood in the hatchway, his arms folded over his chest as he leaned against the jamb. His face was impassive as he listened.

  “I’m not surprised,” Bennington said, “though I am a little surprised that you took a cyborg on as a passenger, knowing fully well that they serve the empire.”

  “Well, he didn’t advertise what he was,” Alisa said, glancing at Leonidas’s jacket with the Cyborg Corps patch on the front. It was the same jacket he had been wearing the day they met, the day he leaped thirty feet off the top of the Nomad and landed in the dust as if he’d hopped down from a curb.

  Leonidas raised a single eyebrow.

  “Captain, I hope you’re not implying that he’s walking around your ship of his own free will. Cyborgs are extremely dangerous, and he’s one of the most dangerous. The war crimes he’s committed…”

  Alisa hardly felt in the position to judge anyone for war crimes. Especially Leonidas. Since she had known him, he’d acted much more honorably than she had. Admittedly, she hadn’t known him long, and she had no idea what caused those nightmares he seemed to have on a regular basis.

  “You’re right that he’s dangerous, Commander,” Alisa said, now wishing she had been smoother and faster to think when the officer had first revealed what she wanted—things might have been easier if she’d just said that Leonidas had gotten off on Perun. “And I’m afraid I can’t accept your offer. Especially since I know the bounty on his head is two hundred thousand tindarks.”

  Leonidas’s other eyebrow rose. He didn’t seem surprised to hear about the bounty, but was perhaps mildly surprised to hear that Alisa had known about it. Granted, she hadn’t known about it long, and it had slipped her mind during all the chaos on Perun.

  Bennington huffed out a breath. “I knew you knew who he was.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t accept your offer.” Alisa wasn’t sorry at all. She would hand Alejandro and his orb over if it would help the Alliance and keep the empire from regaining power, but she couldn’t betray Leonidas. Her conscience wouldn’t let her. More than that, she was certain he wouldn’t let her, not when he was standing right there listening to all this. Had he been there since the beginning? She wouldn’t be surprised if he had.

  “Is that your final decision, then, Captain?” Bennington asked. “You won’t accept… one hundred and fifty thousand tindarks for him?”

  “Not to be impertinent, Commander, but do you even have that kind of money to offer? I know the Alliance isn’t that flush with cash yet, being too busy recovering from the war, and quite honestly, I don’t understand why this cyborg is worth that much.” This time, she was the one to raise an eyebrow, directing the gesture at Leonidas.

  He didn’t give her anything in return. He merely gazed at the tug on the view screen, his face a mask.

  “I assure you that I am authorized to provide the funds,” was all Bennington said.

  Alisa doubted it very much. She adjusted the Nomad’s flight path and increased to maximum speed. It was time to leave that tug back there kissing the moon. “Sorry, Commander, but I want the full two hundred thousand.”

  “You greedy little smuggler,” Bennington growled. “You would extort the Alliance? Even after you served in the war?”

  “I’m not extorting anyone. You just can’t have him. He’s mine.” Feeling a little sil
ly for not having a better excuse than that, Alisa shut off the comm before the officer could answer. Having Bennington think her greedy and that she wanted the full bounty for herself was better than having her know the truth, that she liked Leonidas and didn’t want to hand him over to her government or anyone else’s. And honestly, it made her feel like more of a traitor than just wanting the money would have. Cyborgs were imperials, and imperials were enemies. She wasn’t supposed to like them.

  “So, it turns out that the Alliance is looking for you,” Alisa told Leonidas, as if it would be news to him. She didn’t look back at him to check his reaction. She was watching the tug in the camera as the Nomad sped away.

  The big Alliance craft was lumbering right after her. But, as she had guessed, the Nomad was faster. Alisa raised her shields in case the tug tried to fire. She didn’t think they were close enough for the vessel to use a grab beam, but it would have a lot of range and power for towing, so she couldn’t be sure.

  “I know,” Leonidas said.

  He stepped into navigation and surprised her by laying a hand on her shoulder. She was too busy flying to analyze how the gesture made her feel, but it seemed to be one of thanks, and she appreciated it. He could have easily threatened her during that conversation, but he must have known that he didn’t need to. But had he believed it was because she wouldn’t be foolish enough to try to make a deal for him while he stood there listening, or had he realized that she’d come to care about him and wouldn’t have betrayed him even if he hadn’t been there listening? She wished she could find a way to let him know it was the latter, but she didn’t know how. Even if she tried, would he believe her, after she had stolen from Alejandro?

  Leonidas removed his hand and sat in the co-pilot’s seat. She was just thinking that it would be nice to have some company for a while when the proximity alarm went off again.

  “Now what?” she groaned. “I do not have enough chocolate on board to deal with all of these hassles.”

  The tug was still following them, but it had fallen behind, so that wasn’t the source of the alarm.

  “If you had a crate of chocolate, would that be enough?”