Chapter 2
He was a cyborg.
Oh, he looked fully human, with icy blue eyes, a strong jaw in need of shaving, and black hair even more in need of cutting, but humans didn’t jump thirty feet from the top of a spaceship, land on their feet next to a person, and proceed to attack so quickly that an Alliance officer with combat training didn’t have time to react. If there had been any question about his enhanced capabilities, the dusty black imperial fleet uniform jacket that he wore would have eliminated them. The rank pins had been removed from the collar, but the front of it was covered with patches that denoted a deluge of training, everything from atmo-parachuting to weapons and demolitions expertise. There was also a round patch with a fist over a sword and a shield. The symbol for the Cyborg Corps.
Alisa had lost colleagues to the Cyborg Corps during the war, and like all Alliance soldiers, she had heard the rumors that they had been responsible for the assassinations of many of their top brass and several political leaders. This cyborg wasn’t young—he had a few gray hairs at his temples—so he had probably been a senior sergeant. He might even have led some of those assassination teams.
There was no warmth in the eyes that stared relentlessly into hers, and they were uncomfortably knowing, as if he could read her mind. Not likely—she had never heard of a cyborg with Starseer capabilities—but that didn’t make her feel any better.
“You’ll have to get him to turn around,” Mica said.
She stood several feet away, her toolbox still in hand. The cyborg hadn’t pointed a weapon at her. Yet.
“What?” Alisa asked, never taking her gaze from her enemy.
She didn’t know what she could do if he decided to shoot—his reflexes and aim would be a lot better than those of the wiry thug they had left burning—but she would face him, regardless, keep her chin high. Whatever skills and abilities he possessed, his side had lost the war. Her people, comprised only of full-blooded humans, had won.
“You know,” Mica said, “so I can club him in the back like I did the badger.”
“Ah,” Alisa said, watching the cyborg’s face, looking for some hint that he might appreciate their humor—or at least that he wasn’t contemplating killing them.
She rose slowly from her crouch, not liking the way he could look down at her. Unfortunately, he still looked down at her. She wasn’t a short woman, standing a couple of inches shy of six feet, but he still had six or eight inches on her. The breadth of his shoulders and solidness of his limbs made her sure he would have been an intimidating man even without the cyborg implants. The imperial fleet doctors had probably loved getting their hands on him.
He tracked her movement, his gaze flicking downward briefly, taking in her uniform jacket, she suspected, not checking out her boobs. He wasn’t the only one wearing signs of his last career. Though her worn trousers and shirt weren’t anything remarkable, she wore the same jacket she had worn throughout the war, a mottled blue and gray Alliance military jacket. She didn’t have as many patches as he did, but the one on her left breast proclaimed her a combat pilot. He might even now be wondering if she’d blown up some of his buddies. She wouldn’t be surprised if she had, but it would have been from the cockpit of her Striker-18, not from the ground.
“Go away,” the cyborg said, his voice as hard as his eyes.
Mica looked at her, her brows rising in surprise. She wore civilian clothes, and the cyborg had barely glanced at her, but she must have noticed him checking out Alisa’s uniform jacket. Maybe she’d expected him to shoot her.
Honestly, Alisa had expected it too. In the brief weeks she had been out of the hospital, she’d noticed that the end of the war hadn’t meant an end in hostilities, not here on a planet that housed both former Alliance and former imperial soldiers, many squabbling over what was no longer claimed or defendable by law.
“Go away?” Alisa asked, not because she hadn’t understood him but because she couldn’t go away. She had come for the ship he was standing in front of, and she wouldn’t leave without it. Would it be better to admit that and try to bargain with him, or to hide in the shadows and watch from a distance, hoping he would leave eventually? “We just got here. We’re interested in…”
She trailed off because the cyborg had turned away from her. He waved his hand at the sensor she had been angling toward earlier, and a hiss-clunk sounded as the hatch opened, and the ramp inside unfolded in three stages, the end coming to rest on the ground.
She didn’t know whether she was more indignant that he’d dismissed her as a non-threat by turning his back or because he’d somehow gained access to the ship. The latter wasn’t all that hard, but it did suggest computer knowledge she wouldn’t have expected from a ground soldier, cyborg or not. They were usually combat specialists and not much more.
He tossed her gun at her feet and stepped onto the ramp, clearly intending to go inside and shut the hatch on them.
“Wait,” Alisa blurted. She ran and picked up her gun and started toward the ramp. “We came to—”
She halted mid-sentence again, this time because he’d paused, turning back toward her, another weapon in hand. His weapon, this time. A single-barreled destroyer, a handgun that had the nickname “hand cannon” for a reason. It was the first thing in the cavern she had seen that wasn’t dusty and neglected, and it was pointing between her eyes.
“I said, go away,” the cyborg said, his tone and his narrowed eyes promising that he would shoot if she lifted her gun toward him or tried to follow him.
“I can’t,” Alisa said, though she probably should have opted for her earlier thought of hiding and simply waiting for him to leave. But it would take days for Mica to fix the ship, if not weeks, and if he was squatting here, they would have to deal with him one way or another. “We need this ship.” She waved to the Star Nomad, careful to use the hand that wasn’t holding the Etcher. That she kept pointed toward the ground.
“It’s mine,” he said.
“Technically, it’s Finnegan’s,” Alisa said, wondering if he knew anything about the junkyard or the history of the place.
“He’s not here. I am.”
“Look, we plan to fix it.” Alisa didn’t know how wise it was to share their plans, but she waved at Mica and her toolbox anyway. “I’ll happily trade you that lovely ship over there for this one. It’s bigger. I happen to know the living quarters are cramped on this freighter. All of the extra space went to the cargo hold. You’ll find that ship over there much more palatial. You’re a tall fellow, right? Surely a little more headroom would be desirable. My friend there could even fix it up for you, perhaps put in some sparkly lights and heated bunks. You can bring back the ladies and impress them with your fancy lodgings.”
She thought a little humor might draw the cyborg into a conversation—or at least a negotiation—but if anything, his eyes grew even harder at the talk of ladies and lodgings.
“You make me sound like a contractor that builds brothels,” Mica muttered.
“You’re versatile. I’ve seen your work.”
The cyborg turned his back and started up the ramp again, but some new thought must have occurred to him because he paused and pinned Mica with his cool stare. “You’re a mechanic?”
“An engineer. I served in—”
Alisa made a shushing motion. The cyborg already knew what she was, but it would be better not to increase his ire by letting him know Mica had been an Alliance officer too. If he was unaware of that, maybe he would be open to working a deal with her, if not Alisa.
“She’s a mechanic and an engineer,” Alisa said. “She can fix anything. Got a creak in any of your mechanical parts? I bet she can even fix you.”
The cyborg’s eyes narrowed again.
“Your jokes aren’t helping as much as you seem to think they are,” Mica whispered to her. “I believe he’s going to shoot you.”
Alisa thought about mentioning how charming Mica’s pessimism was, but was afraid she was rig
ht. Instead of trying to be funny, Alisa met the cyborg’s eyes and decided to make a plea toward his humanity, if he had any.
“Please listen to me for a moment, Sergeant, is it?” she guessed. He definitely had the look of a no-nonsense veteran, and she hadn’t run into many officers among the Cyborg Corps—despite being willing to use cyborgs, the imperial fleet had always seemed to prefer fully human officers in leadership positions. When he didn’t respond to her guess, Alisa pressed on. “This ship used to belong to me. I know it from nose to tail, because I grew up on it. I brought Mica here to see if we can get it fixed up and into the air. As you might have noticed, rides off this planet are scarce right now.”
Alisa figured he had been stranded here after the war, too, left behind because of an injury or perhaps just left behind because there had been nobody left to look after—and pay—the soldiers in the imperial fleet.
“I know exactly what’s wrong with the ship,” Alisa said, pressing on when he once again did not respond, “and I believe fixing it is possible.” If nothing else had been done to it in the last six years. Seeing that the cyborg had access made her worry that others had found access and might have been inside, scavenging every last piece of the ship’s innards. “We want to fix it and take it off this planet. If you’re just making a home inside there, then I was serious in my offer. We’ll help you fix up another place to live, any ship here that you want.”
“To where?” he asked.
It took Alisa a moment to realize he was asking where they intended to go.
“Teravia,” she said, lying. There was no way she was giving him her flight plan.
Those already narrowed eyes closed to slits, and she was reminded that he was pointing his gun at her chest. She expected him to accuse her of lying, but instead, he asked, “You willing to stop in the Trajean Asteroid Belt on the way?”
“On the way? The T-Belt isn’t on the way to anything except the Dark Reaches.”
“You want to get on this ship, you’ll make it on the way. To Teravia,” he added, putting emphasis on the name. Yeah, he knew she was lying.
It didn’t matter if she was lying. The T-Belt wasn’t on the way to her real destination of Perun, either. Taking that diversion would add a minimum of ten days to her trip.
Alisa closed her eyes, seeing her daughter’s face in her mind. Even though it had already been well over a year since she’d been able to get home to see Jelena, she hated the idea of extending that absence any longer than necessary now that the war was over and her service to the Alliance was fulfilled. Especially now that she knew Jonah was gone and that their daughter was staying with an aunt whose inner-city artist’s loft wouldn’t be an ideal place for raising a child.
“Ah, Cap—Alisa,” Mica whispered. “Mind if I have a word with you?” She eyed the cyborg, then jerked her chin toward one of the other ships.
“Give us a moment to discuss our flight plans,” Alisa told the cyborg, then added a, “Please,” remembering that she’d decided to be reasonable with him. Reasonable people said please and thank you, even when dealing with the enemy.
The cyborg said nothing, merely leaned against one of the support posts that lowered the ramp from the side of the ship. He folded his arms, his destroyer still in one hand, his expression one of indifference. Alisa didn’t know if it was a mask or not. He had seemed vaguely interested when he’d learned Mica was an engineer, and it sounded like he wanted a ride. Interestingly, he wanted a ride somewhere specific and remote. Most other people just wanted to get the hells off this dustball.
“You don’t want to go asteroid hopping?” Alisa asked when she and Mica were out of earshot. She didn’t think her colleague would mind the delay since she didn’t have a pressing need to return to Perun the way Alisa did.
“With a cyborg? Are you spaced? What if he decides to shoot us once we get to wherever he wants to go? Or what if he gets an itch and rapes one of us? Both of us. Hells, we can’t outfight him. Did you see how fast he took your gun away?”
“I’m trying to forget, thank you.”
“If we were stuck on the ship with him, we’d have no place to escape. There’s nowhere to run, not like here.” Mica waved toward the shadows.
“On the ship, off the ship, if he didn’t want us to escape, nothing would keep him from running us down,” Alisa pointed out, aware of how fast cyborgs were on foot.
But, even though she made the argument, she had to concede to Mica’s point. There wouldn’t be anything to keep him from taking over once the ship was fixed and they were in the air. And what kind of loon wanted to go to the T-Belt, anyway? There was nothing out there except automated drilling stations and smuggler and pirate hideouts. Showing up there in a clunky freighter without a weapons system wouldn’t be wise. From what she’d heard, even heading to Perun would be a risk these days.
“He’s probably fantasizing about shooting you right now,” Mica whispered, glancing at the cyborg. He hadn’t changed position. He was looking out into the cavern rather than at them. “Whatever he was in the imperial fleet, I bet it wasn’t a homeless vagabond forced to squat in a junkyard full of cannibalistic maniacs. We were on the side that drove him to this. Don’t think he won’t resent us.”
Alisa couldn’t accuse Mica of being overly pessimistic this time. In all likelihood, she was right.
Still…
“I don’t see what choice we have,” Alisa said. “He doesn’t look like he’s moving.”
“We’ll take another ship then.”
“What ship?” Alisa waved at the sea of dust, rust, and shadows surrounding them. “These are all derelicts in here—they probably didn’t fly when they were brought in, and they’ve surely been scavenged to the core and back since then. The Nomad is—was… The engine was still working and the hull was intact. I didn’t sell her because she was in poor condition.”
Mica sighed. “I know. You told me. But that was then. We don’t know what condition she’s in now.”
“She’s the most likely ship in here to ever fly again. Listen, I’d actually been thinking of taking on some passengers, anyway, if we can get her working. We need money for supplies, and people would line up for miles at a chance to get off this world and back to one of the core planets.”
“Oh, I know that, but how many of those people could actually pay? You may not have noticed, but Flint Face over there didn’t offer to drop any tindarks in your purse.”
“I know, but others might, and if we have paying passengers, we could use their money to hire a couple of security men, too. Some beefy brutes who could stand between him and us.” Alisa pointed her thumb toward the cyborg.
“You really think a rent-a-guard is going to be a match for an imperial cyborg?”
“Maybe not, but if we had a crew and passengers, he might be less likely to try something… untoward.”
Alisa couldn’t help but think of Mica’s earlier words of rape and killing. Was she being naive in contemplating this? Did they have any other choice? It wasn’t as if she had the money to buy a ship, even if there had been any available on Dustor. What little she had received from Finnegan all those years ago had gone toward the down payment on the apartment that she and Jonah had purchased, an apartment that had apparently been incinerated by bombs. The virtual financial system was a mess these days, with accounts no longer being accessible across the sys-net, so the three coins in her pocket were all she had to her name. Technically, she ought to still have some money in her bank account on Perun, but what remained of the empire had settled in there, and as an Alliance soldier, she wouldn’t be welcome. She had no idea how she was going to get in to find her daughter, but she had a week’s voyage to figure it out. Now, she would have a week and ten days.
“Untoward.” Mica curled her lip. “You know what’s worse than an optimistic engineer?”
“An optimistic captain?”
“Exactly.”
Alisa left Mica grumbling to her toolbox and approach
ed the cyborg again. “You’ll be pleased to know that we’ve decided that we would be fools not to visit the magnificent wonders of the Trajean Asteroid Belt before heading to our final destination.”
She expected the cyborg to say, “Good,” or something of that ilk. Instead, he grunted and walked inside.
“Oh, yes. It’s going to be fun playing Carts and Chutes with him in the rec room during the evenings.”