Fallen Empire 1: Star Nomad (23 page)

The guard walked into view, as if to emphasize the miner’s point. He banged the muzzle of his blazer rifle against the bars in front of Alisa.

“Too much socializing down here.”

The miners turned away from him, their shoulders hunched. A few of them had holes in their shirts, revealing whip scars on their backs.

“You’re welcome to join in if you like,” Alisa told the guard. She doubted she could establish a rapport with him, but maybe she could get a few drops of information.

“With what?” the man asked. “Looking at your brute’s tits?”

“I’m amazed at how much interest there is in that.”

“Me too,” Beck muttered.

“Options are limited here.” The guard smirked.

“Say, Sparky, what kind of engine runs a ship this big?” Alisa asked.

Sparky looked at the guard, then gave her an incredulous look, as if he couldn’t believe she wanted to continue chatting with the man right there.

“A Molbydam 850,” Sparky muttered.

“Mica,” Alisa said, “that’s a smallish engine for a ship this big, isn’t it?”

Mica gave her a flat why-are-you-including-me-in-your-troublemaking look, but answered. “It’s the factory original for a Tolican Ore Driver. Nobody designed these ships to go fast. They just have to get their load from place to place.”

“This ship is fast enough,” Sparky said, sitting up. “Me and Hemm made plenty of modifications over the years, back when the company paid us well and didn’t make us sleep in cells with a bunch of sweaty men.”

“What kinds of modifications?” Mica stood up and joined Alisa at the bars. “I’ve seen a few ships blow up because some uneducated mechanics thought they were being clever.”

The guard seemed bored with the discussion and walked farther down the corridor, checking on the other cells.

“Keep talking to him,” Alisa whispered. “Make it sound like you know more about engines and this ship.”

“I
do
know more,” Mica said. “I grew up on a mining moon. I’ve seen every ship and configuration in the business.”

“Then it should be easy.”

“What should be?”

“Proving you’re the one the guards should select the next time they need something fixed.”

Mica’s eyes narrowed.

The guard ambled back toward them. Mica hesitated, but then launched into a lecture for the engineer, calling him a self-taught muck-for-brains who would likely get this ship blown up. Alisa gave her a surreptitious bright sun gesture, hand to chest, fingers splayed.

A door clanged open. Alisa hoped that meant a senior-ranking guard was coming, someone who might pass along word of Mica’s expertise if he heard about it. Instead, a familiar figure strolled into view. Malik.

The so-called
Sublime Commander
had removed his red armor and wore a sleeveless shirt that revealed thick arms and chiseled muscle, exactly what Alisa expected from a cyborg. He still wore the mottled black and gray uniform trousers of an imperial soldier, along with a flat ID chip on a neck chain. A rifle was slung on a strap across his back, and a long knife hung from a sheath on his belt.

Seeing him up close made Alisa want to step back as adrenaline surged through her veins. She couldn’t help it. After the war, she feared someone like this far more than she ever would one of the grubby pirates. It didn’t matter that both could kill her in exactly the same way.

A second man walked beside Malik. Alisa wished it had been Leonidas. Even if she didn’t think he would be a savior, she had a notion of what to expect from him by now. But it was one of the pirates from the cargo hold. He had also changed out of his combat armor, but she recognized the voice when he exchanged a few words with the guard. It was the one who had wanted to have some fun with her. Great.

She hoped that Malik and his buddy had come down to hand out lunch and had nothing more inimical in mind. Unfortunately, neither one was holding a box of ration bars.

“You.” Malik pointed at Alisa, barely glancing at the others in the cell.

“Me?”

Alisa made herself step back up to the bars, not wanting him to see her fear and also wanting a glimpse down the corridor. Had Leonidas come on this visit? Did he
know
about this visit? Where was he, anyway? When the two cyborgs had met, she hadn’t gotten the impression that Malik would do anything to make him disappear, but what did she know? Maybe what he had offered Leonidas had been a lie, and he had shot his old commander in the back as soon as he had a chance.

“Got a few questions for you,” Malik said, giving her that discomfiting half smile.

“I expect I know a lot less than you think.” Alisa couldn’t imagine what he thought she knew. Unless he had a question about the
Star Nomad
—and why would they?—she wouldn’t be the person to ask.

“We’ll find out,” his subordinate said, leering at Alisa’s breasts.

Malik thumped him in the chest. On the surface, it looked like a friendly thump, almost something done between buddies, but the force of it made the pirate stumble back and bump his shoulder blades on the bars across the way. Too bad none of the miners were poised to take advantage. One might have jumped forward, wrapped an arm around his throat, and broken his neck. Not that they would win an uprising with Malik there, but everyone here seemed so complacent, so accepting of their fate. Alisa wished they would fight, if only with words and spirit.

“Not until later for that, Bruiser,” Malik told his subordinate.

Bruiser. What a name.

“Sooner might help get her talking,” Bruiser said, leering again. “I can be forceful.”

The guard smirked. Malik just looked at him like he was an imbecile.

“Open it,” Malik told another guard that Alisa couldn’t see, someone near the door at the head of the corridor.

That meant there were three men and a cyborg out there. Unfortunately, Alisa did not see how her people could come out on top, even if they got a chance to charge out. If Malik hadn’t been there, maybe.

A clank sounded in the ceiling, and the grid of bars disappeared into holes up there. Malik reached for Alisa. Beck pulled her back and tried to step in the way. The guard stepped forward, pointing his rifle at him. Beck lifted his hands, as if to show he was only interested in putting himself between Alisa and Malik, then kicked out before that muzzle fully pointed at him. The rifle flew upward, and Beck flung himself at the man.

Malik lunged forward, moving too quickly to track. He caught Beck by the throat, halting his charge before it got far.

“Don’t,” Alisa yelled, reaching for Malik’s arm, knowing he could snap Beck’s neck easily. “Please.”

Malik paused and looked at her, his fingers wrapped around Beck’s neck but not squeezing all the way. Beck bared his teeth and grabbed his assailant’s forearm with both hands. The cyborg barely seemed to notice.

“He is your lover?” Malik asked Alisa.

“My security officer. I pay him to protect me from thugs. Whatever he does is my fault, so you should blame me, not him. Not his neck.”

Malik snorted. “Whatever you pay him, it’s too much.”

Beck grabbed his forearm and tried to kick him in the balls, but the cyborg lifted one thickly muscled thigh, blocking the attack easily. Alisa made a cutting motion, hoping Beck would pay attention. The odds were too ridiculously against them as long as Malik was there. Besides, she might be able to learn something if they took her someplace for questioning. Assuming she could avoid Bruiser’s attention.

“Did you hire the colonel too?” Malik tilted his head, watching her as he avoided everything Beck attempted.

“No.” Alisa figured she shouldn’t imply any relationship between her and Leonidas. She wasn’t sure if there
was
one, but just in case, she would not thwart whatever plans he might have. “I didn’t even want him on my ship.”

Malik snorted again. “Because he’s a cyborg.”

“Mostly because he’s imperial and I’m not. Fire and water, you understand.”

“Nobody’s imperial anymore. The war’s over.” Malik flung Beck away from him with no more effort than if he were tossing a wadded up ball of paper into a trash bin. Beck was hurled through the air, knocking Alejandro over before landing hard in the corner. His head struck the wall, and he slid down.

Alisa started toward him, worried that might have broken his neck after all, but Malik grabbed her before she could take more than a step. He yanked her into the corridor with enough force to take her from her feet. Fresh pain came from all the day’s injuries, and she clenched her teeth to keep from gasping. She tumbled against his chest, loathing that he could pull her around like a doll.

“Shut it,” Malik said.

The bars clanged back into place, separating Alisa from her people. Bruiser looked her up and down with a contented smile.

“Where are we going?” Alisa asked, focusing on the cyborg instead of the lusty creep. She feared Malik, there was no doubt about that, but at least he did not act like a sexual predator.

“Bruiser and I are going to have a chat with you.” A gleam of pleasure entered his dark eyes, and she wondered if she’d been too quick to judge his subordinate as the more vile person. “This way.”

Malik shoved her down the corridor with the gentleness of a jackhammer.

Chapter 16

Alisa stood in the center of a space that looked like a cross between a break room and a gym, with a table and chairs surrounded by weight-lifting equipment that had been creatively made from chains, cables, and spare parts that looked like they had come out of the smelter. The two doors leading to the room were shut, leaving her alone with Malik, Bruiser, and a simple wooden box resting on the table. Malik had searched her again, apparently not trusting that his pirates had done a good enough job, then handcuffed her wrists in front of her. She was not sure why he had bothered since he could thwart any attacks she might have come up with, but then the thought came to her that he might intend to leave her alone with Bruiser eventually. She dreaded that, but tried to tell herself that her odds of escaping would be better then.

“The colonel said he thought this was yours,” Malik said, walking to the table and putting a finger on the box.

“I’ve never seen it before,” Alisa said before it occurred to her to wonder why Leonidas had said that. Was it something out of
his
room? Something he did not want Malik knowing was his? If so, she did not appreciate him putting the onus on Alisa to explain it.

“No?” Malik asked. “It was in one of the cabins on your ship.”

Alisa almost said that one of the passengers had probably brought it on because the
Nomad
hadn’t had any personal effects left on it when she had gotten it, but she caught herself. If the box had been in someone’s bag, she did not want to get that person interrogated. Maybe this was Yumi’s stash of whatever it was she had intended to trade for her passage. Or maybe it was Alejandro’s missing item that meant so much to him.

“Was it?” Alisa asked. “What is it?”

Malik rested a hand on her shoulder, his fingers digging in slightly. It was more of a warning than an attack, but she had no doubt that he could crush her bones with those fingers. It made her appreciate that Leonidas, even if he had been grumpy on occasion, had never threatened her, physically or otherwise. She found herself wishing he was here, standing at her side, though that was silly. Like she had said, imperials and Alliance did not mix. Malik was wrong. For some people, the war would never be over.

“I believe you may be feigning ignorance,” Malik said softly.

Bruiser was watching from the doorway, and he bit his lip, his eyes gleaming as he leaned forward. Was the sick bastard getting excited at the notion that the cyborg might hurt her?

“Not me,” Alisa said. “I really am this ignorant. All I know how to do is fly. But maybe I can help you figure out whose box it is if you send your thug away.” Feeling audacious, she lifted her cuffs so she could pat Malik on one of his prodigious pecs. It was amazing his shirt did not rip from the strain of holding all those muscles in. She also wriggled her eyebrows at him. She had never been good at flirting her way out of trouble, but since she did not have a weapon or a ship to throw at him, she had to try what she could, so she thrust her chest toward him.

Her friendly pat and waggling eyebrows did not move him noticeably. He did not even give her chest a glance.

“Bruiser has been one of my loyal pirates since I took over,” Malik said. “He helped me overthrow his boss when he saw what I was.”

What he was? A megalomaniacal asshole?

“He knew that someone with my strength deserved to lead here,” Malik continued.

Yes, megalomaniacal asshole was the appropriate term.

“You have to reward your men once in a while to keep them loyal, and he’s taken a fancy to you.” Malik shrugged and stepped toward the table. “But first, I want to know what this is.”

He flicked the lid open, and a golden light filled the room. Alisa stared at it, forgetting thoughts of flirting. A sphere rested on a velvet cushion inside the box, the luminescent material alive with all the colors of the rainbow along with a few more. Within the surface of the orb, clouds and shapes swirled, morphing and changing in front of their eyes. It was beautiful, but Alisa had no idea what it was.

“Is it just a bauble?” Malik asked. “Or does it have some function?”

He picked it up with both hands, though the orb would have fit in one. He twisted it, and it came apart into four pieces, which he laid on the table. They glowed from their inner edges as much as they did on the curved surface, and Alisa had to squint to make out the shapes of those inner edges. They were jagged, with matching pins and holes, the whole thing designed to fit together like a puzzle, but with only four pieces, it was not a very complicated puzzle. It definitely arrested her attention, though, and she found herself wanting to reach out and touch those pieces, to hold them and not let them go. She struggled to focus, to come up with something to say that might improve her situation.

“Pretty, pretty,” came a whisper from the wall. Bruiser. He was staring at the pieces, transfixed.