Alisa’s legs grew weak, and she groped for the back of the sofa for support. She had not expected anything else, and yet, a silly part of her had hoped that she would not only find Jelena when she arrived on Perun, but that somehow, Jonah would be there, too, that it all would have been a mistake.
She brushed the back of her hand across her eyes. This was as much Sylvia’s pain as hers, and she managed to utter a soft, “I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” Sylvia came around the sofa and hugged her.
Alisa had never been that comforted by human contact, but she returned the hug.
“Do you need any money?” Sylvia asked. “A lot of the banks crashed in the last months of the war, and nobody has much—we’ve been clinging to physical assets and coin. You’ve probably noticed the imperial morat tanked and is barely worth anything in the rest of the system.”
“I’m fine,” Alisa said, even if she wasn’t, not in any sense of the word. But she didn’t want to take money from her sister-in-law, especially if she was struggling too. Money seemed so unimportant now, anyway. She stepped back, wiped her eyes again, and forced a smile. “Thank you.”
With her legs feeling numb, she walked back out to the front of the building.
As Beck had implied, Leonidas was on the comm, but they weren’t separated. They were both by the lamppost now, their heads tilted together. Leonidas had taken off his earstar and held it so they could both listen.
“What is it?” Alisa asked when the men turned in her direction, Leonidas reaffixing the earstar.
“Dr. Dominguez needs my help,” Leonidas said. “He’s run into trouble at the library. Someone is stalking him.”
“Someone more ominous than a twelve-year-old boy?” Alisa glanced at Beck.
“Apparently.”
“Are you going to help?” She remembered that Leonidas had asked Alejandro for help, something related to studying cybernetic implants and performing a surgery on him. Alejandro had refused, saying that he did not have the necessary knowledge, though it had sounded as if he did not want the knowledge. She did not bring this up, since she’d been eavesdropping and was not supposed to have heard the conversation.
“Yes,” Leonidas said without hesitating. He gave her an assessing look that she wasn’t sure how to read. “Come with me.” He waved for her to follow and started back toward the train station.
“Uh, I don’t respond well to commands,” she said, making him pause. “Unless that was your way of asking me out on a date. But if that was your intent, I would expect flowers and chocolate. Definitely chocolate.” Three suns, she could use some chocolate about now. “Oh, and perhaps use a more diffident tone.”
Beck smirked. Leonidas simply looked exasperated.
“You’ll be safer with me if Beck’s spy turns into something more dangerous,” Leonidas said, wriggling his fingers again, an order to follow.
“My spy?” Beck protested. “That kid was snapping pictures of you, buddy. And I can take care of the captain just fine. We’ve got chicken feed to buy.”
Leonidas’s eyes closed to slits. “You will not come to assist Dr. Dominguez?”
“What do you think we can do that you can’t, mech?”
Alisa agreed with the sentiment—all she had was her old Etcher in her holster, and her fighting skills were meager without the cockpit of a combat ship around her. But Leonidas’s question made her wince, feeling guilty. Even though Alejandro and his orb weren’t on her radar now, as far as problems went, he had patched her up after they escaped the pirate ship, and she felt a degree of debt toward him for that. His solicitude was one of the reasons she hadn’t seriously contemplated sending word about him and his orb off to Alliance headquarters.
“Stay then,” Leonidas said coolly and resumed walking.
“We better help,” Alisa said with a sigh. “Though you’re probably right in that there’s not much we can do that he can’t. Especially me.” She rapped a knuckle on Beck’s armored shoulder and started after Leonidas.
“After a few good jobs, when you’re flush with cash, you can get some combat armor, too, Captain.”
“I suppose being able to pee wherever you’re standing would be useful.”
Beck snorted. “That’s really only for emergencies.”
“Like when you’re in battle and get so scared that you lose control of bodily functions?”
“Basically. Or when an overly muscled mech stalks up to you, disarms you, and breaks your favorite gun.”
“You weren’t in your armor then.”
“No, but I wished I was. You get what you needed in that building?” Beck pointed his thumb over his shoulder as they followed Leonidas away from Sylvia’s apartment.
Alisa’s humor drained away. “No.”
“Maybe you’ll find what you need at the library.”
It was possible. Assuming that whatever was vexing Alejandro didn’t turn out to be that serious, she could make time for some research there. Alisa doubted any imperial subjects could help her locate the men who had taken her daughter, so there was little use in talking to the authorities here—as Sylvia had already found. From everything that Alisa had heard, the Starseers operated outside of governments, answered to nobody, and had ties to few who weren’t in the Order. That meant she would have to find a Starseer to get information on Starseers. There had to be at least a few here on Perun. Maybe the library would have data about a monastery or group residence or whatever they called their homes.
“Maybe I will,” she replied, nodding to herself.
Of course, even if she found a Starseer, there was no guarantee the person would talk to her, and it wasn’t as if she could coerce someone with prodigious mental powers into answering her questions. Maybe Leonidas could. After all, the imperial army had originally created their cyborg soldiers as an answer to the Starseer warriors, pitting physicality, endurance, and the ability to take a lot of damage against the mental powers of the Order.
“Beck, next time you hear me making sarcastic comments to Leonidas, stop me, will you?” She should dull the edge on her sharp tongue if she wanted his help. Of course, that might be moot until she actually located a Starseer. Still, she probably shouldn’t be so sarcastic with him. He had a knack for making her feel silly and immature about her comments.
“Stop you? I’m usually cheering for you. When that bastard orders you around, you should definitely tell him to balls off.” Beck quirked his eyebrows at her. “Or to bring you chocolate.”
“Chocolate is the way to my heart. And also to my compliance. Especially the good dark stuff. None of that wimpy cow or jakloff milk diluting the flavor.”
“Well, I’m not telling him that. Nobody wants you complying with the mech, Captain.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Chapter 5
To Alisa’s surprise, nobody rushed out to stop Beck from walking onto the open tree-filled campus of Morgan Firth University in full combat armor. Students in sandals and sarongs, strolling from class to class and enjoying the warm day, did give their group strange looks. Most of them veered away. A few glimpsed Leonidas’s jacket and veered far away. The reactions here—and of those boys in her old neighborhood—surprised Alisa. Even though she supposed she’d never wanted anything to do with cyborgs, even before the war started and they officially turned into enemies, she had not considered that the imperial subjects—Leonidas’s own people—would ostracize him.
Their luck ran out at the Staton Hall Library, its two intertwining towers spiraling up to great heights from the rounded base of the main building. As they walked up the wide marble stairs leading to the open double doors, an armed man in the blues of campus security stepped onto the center of the landing to block their way.
“No weapons allowed in the library,” he said, frowning at all of them and especially Beck, as he tapped a perky teal earstar hooked over his ear. Opening a comm? Or starting a video recording? “Or on campus at all.”
“We’re here t
o assist a colleague who’s in trouble inside,” Leonidas said.
“What kind of trouble could someone be in in the library?” the security guard asked. “They don’t shoot you if you don’t pay your late fees.”
“Unknown, but he was adamant.” Leonidas walked toward the door, making it clear he would go around the guard.
Beck followed, but the guard pulled out a stun gun and leveled it at his chest. “Stop or I will call for police robots.”
The stunner probably wouldn’t have affected Beck through his armor, especially since he still wore his helmet, but he did stop, looking to Alisa for orders.
“You are an alarming figure in all that armor,” she told him. “Why don’t you wait out here and chat up the security officer until we’re done?”
Beck scowled fiercely.
Leonidas, perhaps noticing that the guard was more focused on Beck, continued toward the open doors.
“Wait,” the man blurted. “Are you armed?”
He glanced toward the hip where Leonidas kept his destroyer and toward a similar spot on Alisa. She was about to ask if she could turn her weapon in to the front desk person to hold, but Leonidas glared at the guard and said, “Yes.”
“Then you can’t—”
Leonidas turned his back on him and strode inside. The guard’s stunner twitched, but he opted to keep it aimed at Beck’s chest. An alarm at the door beeped with indignation as Leonidas passed through. Whether it was reading his gun or all of his cybernetic parts, Alisa didn’t know.
“I’m with him,” she said and walked after Leonidas, giving Beck a wait-here signal, and hoped the guard would not stun her, either.
“I’m calling headquarters,” the guard growled and turned toward Alisa, his stunner leaving Beck’s chest.
She was watching over her shoulder and tensed, expecting to have to dive to the side if she didn’t want to be hit. But Beck’s hand darted out, and he caught the man’s wrist. With the servo-enhanced strength of the armor, the guard did not have a chance of escaping that grip.
“That’s not necessary,” Beck said, nodding after Alisa. “Why don’t we chat about it?”
Alisa worried that the campus police truck would be waiting for them when she and Leonidas came out of the library, but she hustled to catch up with him, hoping they would have time to find Alejandro and also hoping that she could do her research. Maybe security would be more likely to remember and hunt down the men, and she could slip unnoticed into the stacks.
Leonidas paused on the sprawling marble tile floor of the grand foyer and tapped his earstar, murmuring something. A few students using the physical materials check-out stations glanced at him, but unless one noticed his military jacket and Corps patch, he was not as strange of a sight as Beck in his armor.
“Which floor?” Leonidas was asking as Alisa joined him.
She glanced back toward the entrance. She had set off the door alarm, too, and doubted it was a good idea to linger so close.
“Basement Three,” came a hushed whisper that she could barely hear. “Two of them are blocking the door, so I can’t get back to the elevator. There are at least two more looking for me in here.”
“On my way.”
Leonidas did not immediately start walking, so Alisa assumed he had not been here before and needed to call up a map.
Glad to be semi-useful, she said, “This way,” and headed around the corner to where the closest elevators waited.
Several students were already waiting. When the chime dinged and the doors opened, Leonidas glared at them and strode inside. A couple of boys started after him, but he hardened his glare and flexed his muscles to make his looming stance even more intimidating than usual.
“We’ll get the next one,” one of the boys said, both of them scurrying back.
Leonidas looked at Alisa and pointed at the floor next to him.
She walked inside, but to be contrary, she stood on the opposite side of him from where he had pointed. Silent rebellion. He hit the button for the appropriate basement level and drew his destroyer.
Alisa eyed the big handgun, imagining the charges that would be brought against them if they shot up the library, not to mention leaving bodies on the carpet. “You think that will be necessary?”
She expected him to glare and tell her to leave the combat to him, but he looked down at the weapon and seemed to reconsider. He holstered it.
“Perhaps not. I don’t know who exactly is targeting the doctor.” As the elevator neared the basement level, he added, “Stay behind me.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, giving him a perky and completely insincere salute.
He glared at her. “Did the Alliance truly promote you to captain?”
“War makes for desperate times.”
He grunted. “I see.”
Leonidas stood to the side of the elevator doors as they dinged and opened, waving for her to stand against the wall behind him. She did so. She might be insouciant, but she wasn’t willfully stupid. Or at least, she tried not to be willfully stupid.
The lights were out. They shouldn’t have been. There were lots of archives in the basement, and the rooms weren’t as populated as the upper levels of the library, but Alisa had retrieved materials down here as a student and remembered lights.
After looking and listening for a few seconds, Leonidas eased out of the elevator. Alisa did not hear a thing, but he burst into motion and disappeared from her view. She rested her hand on her Etcher and held the door open, but did not step out. The area around the elevator lay open for several meters in all directions before the rows of desks and towering bookcases started up. She didn’t want to be exposed, especially when all she could glimpse were shadows and the vague outlines of the furniture. Dots of red emergency lighting lined a walkway on the floor, but nothing brighter came on.
Thumps, grunts, and a short broken cry of pain came from her right. The noises did not last for more than three seconds, and then it grew utterly quiet again.
Trusting that Leonidas had been the one inflicting the damage rather than the one receiving it, Alisa eased out of the elevator. He stood in the shadows to the side, two unmoving men in unremarkable clothing lying at his feet. Alisa assumed they were not dead, but she didn’t ask, not positive she wanted to know the answer.
The doors closed behind Alisa, the elevator being called up to another level. She found the basement room unsettling without the lights on, but told herself Leonidas could handle any trouble they came upon. She joined him, stepping over someone’s legs to do so. It was too dark to see much of the man’s face, but she doubted she would recognize him even if she pulled out the flashlight on her multitool.
After listening intently for a few seconds, Leonidas waved two fingers at her, gesturing for her to follow. This time, she didn’t salute him or make any snarky comments about his propensity for taking command and giving orders. She doubted they were alone down here, so she stayed quiet.
He followed the wall away from the elevators, around a corner, and past dark aisles of old books, the air having a musty and dusty smell, even though Alisa knew that robotic cleaners kept all of the library’s floors tidy. One couldn’t tidy up age. She had been told that some of the original books brought from Earth on the first colony ships were in Staton Hall, preserved and protected throughout the centuries. She was glad her people hadn’t bombed this building.
Something stirred down one of the dark aisles they passed, and Alisa jumped, reaching for her Etcher. Leonidas caught her wrist before she could draw it, his calloused hand rough against her skin, though his grip was not tight. He held up his other hand to his lips.
A soft beeping came from down the aisle, and two beady red lights swiveled into view a foot off the floor. Alisa let go of the hilt of her gun. It was one of the floor cleaning robots she had just been thinking about—she would have felt like an idiot for shooting it.
A thud came from deeper within the library, like a book falling to the floor.
Leonidas released Alisa and veered down the next aisle, heading in the direction of that noise. Alisa followed more slowly, careful to tread softly. As large as Leonidas was, he was good at running without letting his combat boots make a sound.
He turned at an intersection created by rows of bookcases, and Alisa lost sight of him. Though she didn’t want to make noise, she picked up her pace, having no doubt there were things more inimical than floor-polishing robots down here.
More thuds sounded, then something akin to a crash.
“Got you,” a man with a deep voice blurted.
Another crash came from the back of the room, and someone gasped in pain. Alisa hurried, trying to pick her way through the aisles toward the source. That had sounded like Alejandro.
She turned down an aisle, no longer trying to follow Leonidas since she did not know where he’d gone, and flashlight beams came into view, streaking about, cutting through the darkness. Someone was standing at the end of the aisle she had picked, his broad back silhouetted against the lights in front of him. Whoever he was, he wasn’t wearing a robe or a military jacket, and the way he crouched back from the mouth of the aisle made him look like a spy, or someone skulking and preparing a surprise attack. Alisa hesitated, not sure whether to backtrack and go down another aisle, or to rush forward and try to surprise him.
More thumps came from somewhere ahead of the man. Alisa could see something in his hand, but she wasn’t sure what it was. A weapon? Maybe a flashlight that wasn’t turned on? He switched it from his right hand to his left so he could reach for something at his belt. A blazer pistol.
Alisa crept forward as quickly and quietly as she could. The man slid his weapon out of his holster, lifting it to aim at someone.
She gave up on silence and sprinted the last five meters, tugging out her Etcher as she ran. As the man stepped forward, about to fire, Alisa clubbed him in the back of the head with the hilt of her weapon. Unfortunately, he did not conveniently crumple into an unconscious pile.