Fallen Empire 1: Star Nomad (18 page)

Yumi pushed away from the wall, gave the dead bear a wide berth, and headed for Alisa’s discarded bag. She opened it and peeked inside.

Alisa paused in the glass doorway of the lab—Leonidas had already gone back inside. She was still waffling over what to do with the parts she had grabbed, but she didn’t want someone else to presume to take them while she was deciding. Was Yumi thinking that she could buy a lot of chicken feed with the latest and greatest in cyborg bits?

Yumi dropped the bag. “You should look for eyes.”

“Uh, pardon?”

“The optical implants. You could fit hundreds of them in your bag, and I bet they’re worth even more than the muscle augmentations. My understanding is that the optical technology was born out of scientists creating new eyes for the blind—if you remember your history, you know that many people went blind when first colonizing Dravon. The human eye didn’t do well there, until the domes were erected. Anyway, replacement eyes are not inexpensive, and there are many who could use them, not to enhance anything necessarily, but for quality of life issues.”

“Have you seen any eyes?” Alisa asked, her interest piqued despite her moral dilemma.

“Not in here.” Yumi shrugged. “Maybe there’s another room.”

Alisa looked toward Leonidas, though she did not expect him to help her shop for items to loot. Still, he was the expert on this place, the one with the map. He was hunched over a computer console facing the glass, his netdisc out again. Planning to copy some files?

“It’s not a QuickMart,” Leonidas growled, not looking at either of them. “I’m not going to look up the inventory to help with your theft.”

No, he wasn’t happy about having this place pillaged. Or maybe he wasn’t happy he had not found the person he’d hoped to find, and that was making him cranky. She almost pointed out that he was being cranky, but she had not forgotten that he had saved her life. She resolved to tamp down her lippy streak. At the least, she wouldn’t snap a retort about theft. Besides, she probably deserved his comment.

She stepped around a workstation, curious about what he was looking up. Would he let her see?

She almost tripped over the torn up remains of another body. More of the bones remained with this one, but they were equally gnawed and scattered about. A shredded white lab coat lay beside what was left of the ribcage.

The sight sobered Alisa, stealing all thoughts of comebacks and lippiness.

“That’s not a thief,” she said, then gave herself a mental kick. A nice stating of the obvious.

“No,” Leonidas said, not taking his eyes from the holodisplay. Columns of text drifted in the air before him, the words too far away for Alisa to read. The little red light flashed on his netdisc. Yes, he was copying files. He opened a second display above another console, and video imagery of the station came up.

“Do you think it’s… the person you were looking for?” Alisa asked.

He did not answer. Perhaps his silence was answer enough. He could have said no without revealing anything to her. But saying yes might mean revealing that they had come all this way and risked their lives for nothing.

Though she was curious as to what he was looking up, she opted to give him his privacy. Everything on that screen would probably go over her head anyway.

But as she backed toward the door, he looked up, pinning her with his gaze.

“Stay,” he said.

“Because you’ve grown to appreciate my company, and you’d be lonely without me?” She hadn’t managed to tame that lippy streak for long.

“Because there may be more of those bears on the station.”

“What makes you think that?” She’d had the thought herself but wondered if his sensors had shown him something. He had not put his helmet back on.

Leonidas held up a finger, his gaze drawn back to one of the displays.

A clang came from the room with the shelves. Alisa jumped, spinning toward the noise and reaching for Beck’s blazer again.

“Sorry.” Beck waved a bloody knife. He had removed his helmet and was kneeling beside the dead animal. “That was just me.”

Alisa curled a lip. “What are you doing?”

“Told you—I’ve been looking for fresh meat.” Beck winked at her.

“I… you’re joking, right?” Alisa leaned out the door and found Yumi. “He’s joking, isn’t he?”

“I’m not sure. He has carved a large sample.”

“If there are more of those around, is it wise to fling blood all over the place?” Alisa asked. “Won’t the others smell it?” She touched her side, aware that she was leaking blood of her own.

“These bears are top-level predators on Octaria,” Beck said. “Each with a large range, a range they keep the competition out of—I doubt there are multiple ones in here. Even if they started out that way, they would have likely killed each other, especially since, ah, food supplies apparently got scarce here after a while.”

Food supplies? Alisa did not want to think about that.

“Are they omnivores?” Yumi asked. “They may have been able to subsist on whatever supplies were here for humans. They may have also hibernated to slow their metabolisms and food requirements.”

“I really don’t want to know about their metabolic needs,” Alisa said. “Leonidas, how much longer do you need? I think we’re all ready to get back to the ship.”

Leonidas was staring intently at one of the displays in front of him. Alisa walked back around the workstation. He’d closed down the one with the text on it and put away his netdisc, but the video display was running, showing footage on cameras around the station. Something moved on one of them, something big with black fur, and Alisa jumped.

“Is that live footage?”

Leonidas enlarged the image, and two more of the great fanged beasts came into view, all three of them shambling along on all fours, passing through the familiar chambers of the research station, rooms Alisa and the others had just passed through. In the video, the crates were neatly stacked, and there weren’t any bones on the floor. That let her relax an iota. She leaned forward and checked the date stamp in the corner.

“Two months ago?” she asked.

“Yes, we’re two months too late,” Leonidas said, cupping his chin with his hand as he continued to watch.

“What brought them here? Can you tell?”

“Not what. Who.”

He poked his finger through the display, and the footage started playing in reverse, the giant bears heading butt first in the direction of the airlocks. In that first room, a person came into view, someone wearing a black robe with a cowl pulled over the head. Leonidas scrolled back further, then let the video play, showing the person—it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman—coming out of the airlock behind the three giant bears.

“That’s the one we killed,” Leonidas said, pointing to the bear in the middle.

Alisa had no idea how he could tell. The big shaggy creatures all looked the same to her, the same and terrifying. But she was more curious about the person walking behind them, as if they were domesticated livestock rather than man-eating predators. The bears ambled in front of the cloaked figure without showing any inclination toward spinning around and taking a chomp. Even on all fours, they were as tall as the person’s shoulder, and he or she appeared thin and insignificant next to their bulk.

Leonidas zoomed in on the robed figure’s chest, showing a pendant with a red moon on a silver star background.

“Starseer,” Alisa breathed.

She had only ever seen one in real life before, when she had been a girl walking through a busy concourse on a space station with her mother, but she remembered the dark robe, the cowl pulled over the head, and the pendant. Even though she hadn’t seen the person do anything indicative of mind powers, simply walking along with a metallic staff like some monk of old, she hadn’t forgotten the way people muttered and moved away. Even though Starseers were rare sights in the system anymore, everyone knew their history and what they could do.

As she and Leonidas watched, the cloaked figure opened doors without touching the panels, leading the bears into the room outside of this first lab. He or she waved a hand, and the creatures raced into the corridor, heading deeper into the station—to hunt. That done, the Starseer turned and walked out, the black robe sweeping the floor as he or she returned to the airlock and disappeared from the station’s cameras.

Leonidas’s fingers curled around the edge of the workstation, and a crunching sound came as they dug into the hard material. He glanced down, made an irritated noise, and let go. Alisa backed up when he turned his sour expression toward her.

“The Alliance have any Starseers on the payroll?” he asked, the words sounding like an accusation.

“Not that I know of.”

Admittedly, she wasn’t in the know when it came to decisions from the First Governor and senior military officers. She had been a lowly lieutenant for most of the war, and even when she’d made captain, she had only been in command of a squadron of Striker pilots. Who knew what had been going on among the leadership? Nevertheless, she doubted they had allied with Starseers.

“The Starseers have always been associated with the empire, haven’t they?” she added.

“I heard rumors that some were working with the Alliance. It’s unlikely you people could have overthrown the empire without help.”

Alisa bristled at the implication that normal human beings couldn’t have any effect on a bloated government so full of itself that it hadn’t seen the threat coming until it was too late for them to do anything. “Of course. We people were so inept. How could we have possibly beaten the mighty empire and its cyborg armies?”

“I didn’t say you were inept, but you were outnumbered twenty to one, if not more. We had superior forces, supplies, and the infrastructure for delivering them. If you hadn’t resorted to despicable guerrilla tactics—”

“Tactics aren’t despicable if they’re your only chance for freedom. You think we didn’t know we were outnumbered? That the odds were against us? What were we supposed to do? Toss our infantry soldiers out on a battlefield to face your superior forces in open combat?”

Leonidas stepped toward her, huge and intimidating in that armor, and it was all she could do not to scramble backward. “You were supposed to fight with
honor
, not bombing civilian buildings and destroying resources that all of humankind relies upon.”

“I never bombed any civilians. I served on the
Merciless
and the
Silver Striker
. We were in space, transporting people and engaging in battle to defend our resources. Your warships were the ones that wanted to annihilate us, wipe our rebellion from the system. And don’t act like the empire never did anything morally reprehensible. You think I’ve never heard of what the Cyborg Corps were responsible for? The assassinations you carried out during the war? The way you made powerful people disappear before the war ever started? Everybody knows what that red armor stands for.” She poked him in the chest. She might as well have poked a steel wall—all it did was hurt her finger.

“Everybody knows
nothing
. I’ve never assassinated anyone. I’ve always fought with honor. The stories you people make up to justify your actions are ridiculous.”

“Stories? Sure, me and millions of other people. We’re just sitting around and making up stories about cyborgs.”

“I have always acted honorably,” he repeated, his nostrils flaring.

“So. Have. I.”

“Yes, you’re a very honorable thief, shoveling imperial goods into your bag.”

“Oh screw you, mech.” Alisa bumped her hip on the workstation as she stalked toward the door, but she barely noticed. She almost crashed into Beck, who had come over to peek inside.

“Problem?” he asked, looking at the two of them.

“No,” Alisa said at the same time as Leonidas. It came out with the fury of a curse word. For both of them.

“That’s good.” Beck gave Yumi one of those long looks of concern. “I’ve got some meat for tomorrow. Just got to do some research and figure out what kind of marinade I need to soften it up a touch. How about we head back to the ship, so I can do that?”

“Fine with me.” Alisa didn’t bother looking at Leonidas to see if he was done with his research. She didn’t particularly care. Instead, she tapped the comm button on her multitool. “Mica, how’s that game going? You beat my high score yet?”

A hiss of static came from the comm, then silence.

“Mica? Dr. Dominguez?” she asked, a sinking feeling spreading through her stomach. She looked toward the dead bear, remembering the two others in the video. They couldn’t have gotten through the airlock and onto the ship, could they? If they had, there was no cyborg on board to make short work of them.

“We have to get back to the ship,” Alisa said. “
Now
.”

Chapter 13

Alisa was about to step into the airlock, both Beck’s borrowed blazer and her Etcher in her hands, but Leonidas caught up then and stretched out a hand to stop her. She opened her mouth, intending to bark at him to get out of the way, but he only held her up long enough to step in front of her. He strode into the airlock tube, his own rifle pointing down it.

“Stay between us,” Beck whispered from behind her. He shooed Yumi toward Alisa, and they followed Leonidas into the tube.

As soon as she could, Alisa hustled into the cargo hold, searching in all directions, afraid she would spot blood—or worse. The chickens were still there, squawking plaintively. If a bear had stormed onto the ship, would it have gone for them first? Or would it have been drawn by larger prey?

Leonidas must have felt some of Alisa’s worry, her urgency, because he broke into a run, heading for the stairs. With the cargo hold empty, it did not take long to verify that there weren’t any bodies in it, so Alisa hurried after him. She prayed that they would find Mica and Alejandro in the rec room, still playing that game. Maybe something had simply happened to short out the comm system.

They reached the small kitchen and mess hall, and Alisa peeked into the rec room off to the side. The asteroid game hovered in the air over the table, the back of a character’s head and gun in view as he stood in a spaceship, ready to clear more enemies from the level. The game was a little too apt at the moment.