Read Online Cleon Moon by Lindsay Buroker - Free Book Online Page A

skinned, she watched their approach with the air of a predator. A sleeveless and low-cut dress hugged her form, revealing the tops of breasts that Alisa suspected had been augmented. Perhaps the rest of her had been too. Her eyes seemed old to belong to someone who was the thirty or thirty-five she appeared to be. Alisa could not tell if she was the boss or some boss’s mistress, but either way, she looked like she wielded power here. The androids headed straight toward her.
    As Alisa and Leonidas followed them, his helmet remained forward, so she could not see his face or guess what he was thinking. The woman smiled as he approached, but her smile faltered when she took in Alisa. A dismissive frown turned her lips briefly, but she soon shifted her attention back to Leonidas.
    She produced a remote and tapped a button. The speakers muted, though the people fighting and dying on the vid displays continued.
    “Welcome to my humble home, Colonel Adler,” she said, removing any doubts they’d had as to whether the mafia people here knew who he was. Would they want the information in his head? About the whereabouts, or former whereabouts, of the prince? Or would this woman simply be interested in turning him over to the Alliance for the bounty?
    Alisa tried to step up next to Leonidas, but the androids took a position on either side of him, blocking her. Even though they had not drawn weapons, their stances made it clear they would stop him if he tried anything aggressive toward their employer. They dismissed Alisa completely.
    She eased to the side so she could watch everyone’s faces—and so she could put her back to the distressing displays on the wall. Neither the woman nor the androids paid her any attention. She folded her arms over her chest and leaned her hip against a fancy cabinet filled with dozens of ceramic and glass eggs.
    “Who are you?” Leonidas asked.
    “If I tell you, will you remove your helmet?”
    He gazed at her in silence.
    She chuckled. “I’ve seen your holo of course, and when I learned you’d landed in my humble city, I looked up some videos of you in action.” She smiled as she took a sip from her drink, ice globes jangling as the glass tipped. “I liked what I saw.”
    Alisa blinked slowly, realizing this might not be what she expected. Oh, Leonidas could still be in trouble, but perhaps for different reasons.
    The woman’s gaze slid down his armor, as if she were trying to see through it to the musculature—and various other things—underneath. Alisa resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Just because this mafia lady was intrigued by cyborgs, or Leonidas in particular, did not mean she wouldn’t hand him over to the Alliance if she didn’t get what she wanted.
    Leonidas did not react to the woman checking him out. He’d said that one of the reasons the fleet had tinkered with the cyborg sex drive had been so that they could not be seduced or suborned by pretty women. Alisa liked to think that Leonidas would have been indifferent to this woman, regardless. She wasn’t exactly subtle.
    “You weren’t the first cyborg military officer,” the woman said, “but you were the first one to rise so high among the ranks. I understand that the fleet didn’t want to put many cyborgs in leadership positions over its lowly human soldiers, lest they object to being ordered about by supermen.” She smiled and sipped from her glass. “My name is Solstice. I’ve been reading up on you, Hieronymus.”
    “Why?” Leonidas asked flatly.
    “You’re a cyborg colonel. One of a kind.” The woman—Solstice—spread her hand toward the various art pieces mounted on the ceilings and walls and cluttering every flat surface in the room. “I collect objets d’art, preferably one-of-a-kind items.”
    “He’s not an item ,” Alisa said, not caring that she hadn’t been invited into the conversation.
    “I enjoy surrounding myself with wondrous variety,” Solstice said, ignoring Alisa and keeping