Starseers: Fallen Empire, Book 3 (30 page)

“We’ll find out,” she murmured. “We’ll find out.”

Epilogue

Alisa walked into her cabin, propped her fists on her hips, and scowled around at the interior.

As soon as they had flown out of Arkadius’s orbit and she had been able to leave the
Nomad
in the hands of the autopilot, she had finagled her crew into helping her check all the areas that Captain Khazan had walked through on her way in to chat. Chat and plant a homing device, apparently. Beck and Yumi and Mica were still searching the cargo hold. Alisa had checked the handful of niches and crevices in the corridor leading to her cabin, peeking behind all the hatches along the way.

She headed for the desk. That had been where they had spoken, though Khazan could have stuck something tiny and innocent-looking on any wall. She might have simply flicked it into the bed sheets. She had been sitting right next to the bunk, and it wasn’t as if Alisa had found a lot of time to do laundry lately.

Grumbling, she grabbed the soft minkling blanket and shook it, listening for the clink of something falling out.

A knock sounded at the hatch behind her.

“Come in,” Alisa said, tossing the blanket into a heap on the floor as Leonidas walked in.

He looked down at it and raised his eyebrows.

Alisa, rummaging through her sheets, only glanced at him.

“If you’re not too busy eviscerating your bedding, the doctor and I have come up with a promising set of coordinates to check.” Leonidas held up his small netdisc.

“We’re going to Cleon Moon before we check anything.” Alisa shook out the top sheet, managing to avoid snapping the corners at him.

“This is nearly on the way.”

“As nearly on the way as the Trajean Asteroid Belt was to Perun?” Alisa tossed the sheet onto the pile with the blanket and patted down the bottom sheet.

“That was more of a scenic detour.”

“I’m not sure that’s what I’d call a mining ship overrun by pirates wearing scalps like jewelry.”

“I was thinking of the asteroids. Some of them had aesthetic interest.”

“If you say so.” Alisa stopped searching for long enough to stick her hand on her hip and look at him. She had taken Abelardus on as a passenger, since he had given her more information on finding Jelena than anyone else had, but she was not enthused about using her ship to hunt for an artifact capable of destroying planets.

Leonidas was wrinkling his nose. “I believe you have dust mites in here.”

“Are your cybernetically enhanced nostrils telling you that?”

“I can see them floating in the light from your lamp.”

“Those are motes, not mites.” Or so Alisa hoped. The ship
did
need new mattresses, especially in the crew cabins. But the ship needed new everything, and other systems were far more critical than beds.

“Hm,” Leonidas said noncommittally.

“Does this mean you’re going to refuse to have your massage done in my cabin?”

She expected him to dismiss the comment without answering. After all, he hadn’t seemed any more enthusiastic over the idea of a massage than he had been about the ear rub she had offered him a few weeks earlier.

“I hadn’t considered appropriate locations for such things,” he said. “Have you collected suitable rocks?” He peered toward the foot of the bed, as if a nice collection of river stones would be piled there.

“Not yet, but I exfoliated my elbows in the sanibox this morning.” She pushed up her sleeve and displayed one for his perusal.

“I’m certain they would make interesting tools.”

“Careful, Leonidas. You keep calling my body parts interesting, and I’ll be so overcome with ardor that I’ll throw myself at you.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Well, banter wasn’t his strong suit. She should be tickled he had played along for a while. Further, it had been many days since he called her humor inappropriate. Maybe it was growing on him.

“Let’s see the netdisc,” Alisa said, waving him to the seat at the desk.

Leonidas nodded, a hint of relief entering his eyes. She tried not to find it depressing that he would rather talk about the doctor’s mission than her throwing herself at him.

He laid the flat disc on the desk, choosing to stand rather than sit, and waved a hand over it to call up the holodisplay. It opened to a star map and coordinates.

“How did you already find a location?” Alisa sat at the desk so she could call up her own netdisc and type in the digits.

“We scoured the Starseer database files that Dominguez copied while he was in the library. There were only six nursery rhymes and one old ballad that referred to the Staffs of Lore, with only two being nonsensical enough that we thought clues might be buried within the words.”

“Only one in three nursery rhymes were nonsensical? Those numbers seem low.”

“I’m certain a lot of the old nursery rhymes that came over from Old Earth are only nonsensical to us because we don’t know the context. These seem truly silly, with one mentioning old names for the constellations suitable for racing around on a dragon’s back. We immediately thought the lines might be directions.”

“We or you?” Alisa asked.

Leonidas hesitated. “I’m the one who analyzed the rhyme.”

“You’re not the brains behind this operation, are you?”

“Only when it comes to math. Dominguez’s pre-medical degree was in biology. Appropriate for a future surgeon, but he admitted he chose it because it involved less math than the other sciences.”

“Well, your math-loving brain came up with coordinates that are in the middle of nowhere.” She pointed at the holodisplay that now floated above the desk next to his, the image that had come up when she plugged in the coordinates.

“I know, but we can go take a look. The doctor suggested I apply force on you if you resist my suggestion.” He smiled faintly, and she had little fear that he would follow through with that.

“The doctor can sit on his balls and bounce on them,” she said. “Leonidas, there’s nothing to take a look at. Not even an asteroid. According to my computer, your coordinates are halfway between nothing and nothing.”

“Then it shouldn’t take long to look at them.”

“To detour to them on the way to Cleon Moon would add an extra four days to our flight plan.”

“I could tell Dominguez that you’re only willing to go if he buys you chocolate. And a new mattress.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my mattress.” She scowled at him while avoiding the temptation to ask how
much
chocolate they were talking about. “Besides, don’t you think I need combat armor before I shop for bedding and munchies?”

“You
do
need combat armor.” Leonidas leaned his hip against her desk and scratched his jaw. “It’s expensive, though, and I don’t know how much money the doctor has to spend on this mission. There’s nobody back home refilling our coffers. That’s a certainty.”

“What happened to
your
mission? The one that required you to drag my ship to the T-Belt before you ever met the doctor or his orb?”

Leonidas lowered his hand, his blue eyes growing wistful. “It is… not a priority.”

“Because it’s personal, and you think it’s more important to put a super weapon into the hands of a ten-year-old boy?”

His brow creased.

“After you stormed inside, I got some intel from Abelardus,” Alisa said.

“I did not storm. I strode.”

“Stormily. By the way, I’ve already had a talk with Beck, but you might want to have another one with him, preferably not the kind where you bend all of his weapons in half. I’d prefer not to have treachery going on among my crew and passengers. It’s bad enough that we now have a Starseer onboard.”

“I will speak with Beck.”

Alisa waited to see if he would discuss his plans for the orb, the staff, and the prince, but he merely gazed down at his feet. He was wearing faded running shoes. They did not look that fascinating to her.

“I
would
like a chance to resume my mission, as you call it, someday soon,” he said quietly.

“Does it involve ancient artifacts or super weapons?”

“No.”

“Then I’d much prefer to help you with it than I would to help the doctor or the Starseer. You know the odds are against Abelardus having the same goal as the two of you, right?”

“I’m aware. I don’t trust him. You may wish to be wary about the information he gives you as well.”

Oh, she would be. And if Abelardus got in contact with Durant through her ship’s comm system, she would not feel remotely bad about recording that message for her own perusal.

“I’m wary about everything these days,” she said. “Even, thanks to you, my mattress.”

“I apologize for that.” He smiled at her, the sadness of the expression making her think mattresses were not the primary thing on his mind. “In addition to bringing you the coordinates, I came to thank you.”

“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.