Read Online Cleon Moon by Lindsay Buroker - Free Book Online

but she had no idea who was in charge of this one.
    The second android returned. Alisa expected one of them to order Leonidas to remove his armor and to try to take his rifle.
    Instead, the android that had been talking with someone said, “This way,” and continued down the hallway.
    Puzzled, Alisa followed in silence. Why would they bother taking her belongings while letting Leonidas walk about fully armed and armored?
    They passed several statues and paintings as they headed to an elevator. Alisa knew nothing about the art universe and had no idea if they were reproductions or originals or if they had any value.
    Their group stepped into an elevator that took them to the top floor, where they walked out into a loft space with no interior walls aside from a few half walls. The entire fourth floor of the building was someone’s residence with all manner of tables, sofas, fur rugs, lounge chairs, and statuary sprawled across the space. A distant corner held a kitchen that was only partially sectioned off from the rest.
    Soft sounds filtered through the vast room, the murmur of voices and the sucking of boots in mud, a noise that did not match with the tile floor. It came from one of the long walls where several live video feeds of the terrain outside the dome were on display. The familiar fungal stalks and swamps proliferated the area. The cameras moved to follow people in each video, sometimes groups of people and sometimes singles. They all carried weapons, everything from assault rifles to swords, and wore clothes and gear similar to what the young men asking about hiring guides had worn. Breathing masks identical to the ones Alisa had purchased covered the people’s lower faces, but all of their eyes were visible and wary as they scanned their surroundings.
    One of the pterodactyl-like creatures flew toward a group of four men and women, and Alisa jumped.
    Whatever camera was tracking them zoomed in close to follow the action. The people saw it coming—a screech sounded from integrated speakers that Alisa could not see—and stood back to back, raising their weapons. They fired, eliciting more screeches from the creature, but not deterring it. It flapped in, extending bird-like legs with long, sharp talons on the ends. It lunged for a woman with a blazer rifle. A man standing next to her dropped his firearm and hacked at the creature with a sword as its talons wrapped around her arm. He struck one of its wings, drawing a thick ichor that might have qualified as blood, but the creature did not let go. It battered him in the head as it flapped its wings, then it lifted into the air, carrying the woman with it, as if she were a mouse instead of a human being.
    The displays changed until all of them showed this particular party, now down to three people. They were running after the winged creature and firing at it, but it kept flying away. Another camera zoomed onto the scene, then took off after it. Three suns, it wasn’t going to watch as the dinosaur ate that woman, was it?
    Alisa turned away, her stomach churning with disgust and distress. She noticed Leonidas’s cool gaze—he, too, had paused to watch. His jaw was clenched, his eyes hard. It was the look he got whenever he realized that the system had turned into a less pleasant place since the empire had been ousted. She expected him to turn his hard eyes on her, with accusation clear in them.
    He did look at her, but only to murmur, “It might be difficult to leave the dome without being observed.”
    Alisa frowned. Did every party that walked or rode out of the city get cameras following after it? Or was this something reserved for those who went monster hunting? She cringed to imagine some mafia vid network tracking her team as she went to search for a secret Starseer outpost.
    A woman cleared her throat in the middle of the room.
    It took Alisa a moment to spot the figure settled on a chaise lounge with an iced drink in her hand. Tawny haired and tan