Home Front: A Space Opera Adventure (Star Kingdom Book 7) Read online

  Home Front

  Star Kingdom, Book 7

  Lindsay Buroker

  Copyright © 2020 by Lindsay Buroker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you for following along with my Star Kingdom series. This is the second to last novel (or the penultimate, if you enjoy vocabulary words), and I hope you’ll find it a satisfying adventure!

  Before you get rolling, please allow me to thank those who continue to help me get these books out: my editor, Shelley Holloway, my beta readers, Sarah Engelke, Rue Silver, and Cindy Wilkinson, and my cover artist, Jeff Brown. Also, thank you to Cyd, Gen, and Jenna for hunting for typos. Thanks, everyone!

  1

  As the Kingdom warship the Osprey sped toward Stardust Palace Station, Casmir paced in sickbay, contemplating how he was going to get his friends Bonita and Qin out of the brig on the Chivalrous.

  He would have the help of his stalwart troops—Zee and a dozen other six-and-a-half-feet-tall tarry black crushers were in sickbay with him, alarming the crewmen with their presence. But Jorg also had crushers on board the Chivalrous, maybe more than Casmir had. All he knew for certain was that ten of Jorg’s crushers had raided Bonita’s ship to capture her and Qin.

  For now, troop numbers were moot since Prince Jorg’s ship was several hours ahead of the Osprey. Maybe a day ahead. The warship was towing Bonita’s freighter, so it had taken them longer to get up to speed.

  Even if the Osprey and the Chivalrous had been flying side by side, Casmir wouldn’t have been able to convince Captain Ishii to force board the other vessel, not when it was commanded by Prince Jorg and they were all part of one big happy fleet. One big happy fleet that kidnapped each other’s friends.

  “Does anybody else have a headache?” Casmir muttered.

  “Crushers do not get headaches,” Zee informed him.

  “I knew you were superior beings.”

  “Do you feel that a seizure is incipient? I am attempting to determine how to accurately predict episodes of your health condition. My medical files inform me that ictal headaches are associated with seizure activity and may occur before or after the event.” Zee peered down at him. “Do you feel confused or forgetful? Are any parts of your body experiencing numbness or tingling?” Zee picked up Casmir’s hand in his cool metal fingers and examined it, as if such numbness might be visible on the outside.

  “No. Thank you for asking. I believe this is a royalty-induced headache.”

  “My medical files do not mention such things.”

  “Odd.”

  “Uhm, is your robot holding your hand, Professor?” A nurse carrying tubes of SkinFill paused to look over at them.

  “Zee is trying to learn how to predict my seizures,” Casmir said. “It disturbs him that canines can do this but that crushers—so far—cannot.”

  Judging by the look the nurse gave them as he continued past, he didn’t find that any less weird.

  As Casmir extricated his hand from Zee’s examination, the coffee grinder in Kim’s borrowed lab whirred.

  “Shall we continue to discuss Incursion Plan B?” Zee stepped back and lifted an arm to include all of the crushers.

  Casmir had been brainstorming with them on the private network that Zee had set up. The crushers were doing most of the brainstorming, since they’d been programmed to be experts on battle tactics, while he observed and worried.

  “I’m concerned,” Casmir said, “that any incursion would result in crusher deaths if you had to face your doppelgängers.”

  He also worried that taking action against Jorg would seal his fate and that he’d never be allowed to go home. But how could he do nothing when the prince had his friends? Jorg had said he was using Bonita and Qin to ensure compliance from Casmir, Sir Bjarke, and Asger. He’d also implied that he would kill Bonita and Qin if Casmir didn’t capture Prince Dubashi and his lethal bioweapons before he escaped System Stymphalia and threatened the Kingdom.

  “They are not doppelgängers,” Zee said. “They are early-model crushers, smaller and inferior to a Z-6000.”

  Casmir decided not to point out that he’d built Zee in one night on a space station, kludging him together from the metals and existing medical nanites he’d been able to find. “They are smaller, but as diminutive guys around the cosmos tell the ladies, size isn’t everything.”

  Maybe he should point that out in a video to Princess Oku. He hadn’t sent her a message since he’d received that startling video from her with her father at her side. King Jager had been prompting her to speak in between promising Casmir her hand in marriage if he became an obedient slave and stopped working at cross-purposes with the crown.

  Casmir wanted to let her know that he liked her but that he would never accept an arranged marriage in which she was a prize to be won, dangled by her father with blatant manipulation. But how could he do that when that message had made it clear that Royal Intelligence was monitoring their exchanges? He wasn’t sure how, since he’d encrypted everything he’d sent, and his encryptions were known to flummox entire classes of graduate students, but he had to accept that they had no privacy.

  “It is true that they have existed longer than we have, and may have more combat experience, but we have been personally shaped by our maker.” Zee pointed a finger at Casmir’s chest, and Casmir forced himself to focus on the more immediate problem. “We have learned to be clever and versatile and to understand human quirks.”

  “You think that will help in a battle?”

  “We will not be flummoxed by sarcasm or humor, should we encounter human troops on the mission.” Zee lowered his finger. “You have been calling our incursion Plan B. Are you brainstorming a Plan A?”

  “I’d like to figure out a way to negotiate with Prince Jorg for Bonita and Qin’s return,” Casmir said.

  A bleary-eyed doctor wandered past the group, giving the crushers a wide berth, and walked into Kim’s laboratory. The smell of coffee was now wafting out of it.

  Casmir wondered if Kim was, besides making coffee, learning anything more about the virus Dubashi had created. She’d disappeared into the lab earlier, talking about researching the possibility of vaccines in case they couldn’t stop the bioweapon in time. Casmir didn’t want to think about failing at that. They had to find a way to stop Dubashi. Casmir’s to-do list was long and daunting
.

  The coffee grinder started up again.

  “Crusher observations suggest that Prince Jorg is more erratic and delusional than typical for a human,” Zee said. “According to Klinger’s military psychology book on dealing with enemies using non-combat methods, any attempt to negotiate with him should play into his delusions.”

  “Probably true,” Casmir said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  The doctor walked out, holding a covered mug of coffee. Casmir watched in bemusement as two crewmen strode out with similar mugs.

  “I told you she’d make mochas if we found chocolate syrup,” one told the other.

  “I didn’t say she wouldn’t, just that it would be hard to find. Do you think Ambassador Romano will miss that bar?”

  “His secretary said he doesn’t like chocolate and wouldn’t.”

  “He’s weird.”

  “Yeah.”

  “One moment, Zee.” Casmir held up a finger, then walked to Kim’s lab, curious as to why his aloof, privacy-preferring best friend had turned into a coffee barista. And also wondering if she could make him a hot chocolate. “Kim?”

  When he poked his head in, he found her sipping from a mug and reading the results of some experiment off a wall display.

  “Have you opened shop?” Casmir pointed at the portable espresso maker, grinder, and bag of beans she’d brought from Odin.

  “Not officially.”

  “Unofficially?”

  Her lips pressed together in disapproval. “Word got out that I have an espresso machine. The crew finds the coffee bulbs in the ship’s stores as execrable as I do.”

  “Can you make me a hot chocolate?”

  She frowned at him. “I’m studying outbreaks of the Orthobuliaviricetes virus over the last century and computer modeling the potential spread of the modified and far more deadly version that Scholar Sunflyer made, using estimates of virulence from the notes I found.”

  “But you made other people hot chocolates.” Casmir smiled. He wasn’t unconcerned about the virus, but he’d gotten the astroshaman leader Kyla Moonrazor to close off the wormhole gate leading out of System Stymphalia, so, at least for now, that threat couldn’t get to Odin.

  “Those were mochas. Espresso with chocolate syrup in it.”

  “Couldn’t you make me the same thing without the espresso? I’m working on possible solutions to our problems, but my brain is tired. I think it needs sugar. Brains operate on sugar, you know.”

  “The brain operates on glucose, yes, but the human body can acquire glucose from any carbohydrate and can also, through a process called gluconeogenesis, convert it from protein. You don’t need sugar.”

  “My brain is lazy. It doesn’t want to convert anything. It—” A message appeared on Casmir’s chip, and he grimaced. “Never mind. Captain Ishii wants me on the bridge.” As he read on, he grimaced again. “He’s expecting a comm from Prince Jorg.”

  “Will you get a chance to implement Plan A?”

  He’d told Kim about his options earlier.

  “I’ll give it a shot.” Casmir backed out of her lab and sent the rest of his thoughts to her chip. Zee joined him, leaving the rest of the crushers in sickbay. I doubt he’s going to negotiate with me. Regardless, I think we’re going to need autonomy to implement any of our plans. I’ll check on the repair status of Bonita’s ship while I’m on the bridge.

  If we take it and leave the Osprey again without permission…

  Casmir was flattered that she assumed he would be able to figure out a way to escape a Kingdom warship with a scruffy—and much slower—freighter, but maybe it would be better if he couldn’t.

  I know. I can kiss my arranged marriage to Oku goodbye. He’d also filled her in on that during their journey.

  I was more concerned about neither of us ever being able to go home again.

  I know, but we can’t leave Bonita and Qin in Jorg’s unstable hands. Casmir shuddered, remembering the video that Jorg had sent over of them beaten and battered in a brig cell on his ship. And I doubt we’ll be able to catch Dubashi if we’re stuck doing it Jorg’s way. Have you been in contact with Rache? I wonder if there’s any chance he would taxi us around again.

  Casmir doubted they would be able to catch up with Dubashi even if they slipped away in the Dragon, but Rache’s fast warship was another matter.

  The last I heard, he wanted you to buy one of those mushroom-fiber purses for Jorg.

  That wasn’t going to be one of my negotiation tactics.

  It was what Rache wanted in exchange for not attacking Jorg’s ship while our friends are on board.

  You shouldn’t have to bribe a man not to blow up a ship, Kim.

  Dubashi hired him to kill Jorg as well as Jager.

  Casmir had already known that, but as he stepped into the lift and headed to the bridge, he rubbed his face, feeling newly distraught that his clone brother would happily assassinate a plethora of people. Even though he had no love for Jorg, Casmir didn’t want to see his ship blown up. He especially didn’t want to see it blown up with his friends in the brig.

  I don’t want him to assassinate anyone, Kim added, but there’s a cold analytical part of my mind that wonders if the removal of Jager and Jorg wouldn’t solve some problems for our people.

  He shuddered again, horrified at even innocent musings that condoned murder. It would create different problems—and possibly bring in a time of civil war and upheaval, since the Senate would not accept Oku as a leader and Finn is barely old enough to shave. Any upheaval would only make it easier for Dubashi to enact his plans to wipe out all humans on Odin and take over the planet for his own people. Did your models of virus spread show whether that’s possible with the two rockets he got away with?

  After a grim pause, Kim admitted, It’s possible.

  I was afraid of that.

  Casmir, not expecting trouble on Ishii’s ship, stepped onto the bridge ahead of Zee. Two marines in combat armor with DEW-Tek rifles in their hands were positioned to either side of the door, and they reached for him.

  “What?” Casmir blurted, halting.

  Zee surged past him, grabbed the marines, knocked their rifles aside, and spun them into the wall. Casmir scurried back into the corridor and out of the way. The marines recovered from their surprise enough to fight back, but Zee was stronger than they were, even with the armor enhancing their human muscles, and they couldn’t break his grip.

  “Don’t fire!” Ishii called from the command chair in the center of the bridge. “Dabrowski, tell your robot to knock it off.” He sounded more exasperated than alarmed.

  “I am a Z-6000 programmed to protect Kim Sato and Casmir Dabrowski,” Zee said sternly over the thumps and bangs of ongoing struggles.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ishii said. “I know. Dabrowski, get in here.”

  “It was a mistake, Zee.” Casmir lifted his hands in placation as one of the marines thudded into the door frame. He hoped it had been a mistake. “Let them go, please.”

  Zee released the marines, but he stood in the doorway with his back to Casmir, so nobody from the bridge could get to him. Silence fell inside, punctuated only by a few pained grunts and soft curses from the marines.

  “I said to pretend to apprehend him,” Ishii said, “and loom at his side for this comm call with the prince.”

  “We were pretending, sir,” one of the men muttered sullenly.

  Casmir bent his head—he didn’t have to bend it far—to peer under Zee’s armpit. “Good morning, Sora. Maybe if you’d warned me that we were going to perpetrate a ruse, I could have informed Zee.”

  Ishii stood and faced him. “I didn’t realize he’d be trailing you like an enraptured lover.”

  “Or perhaps a bodyguard?”

  “Maybe an enraptured bodyguard.” Ishii gave Zee a dyspeptic look and waved for Casmir to come inside.

  Casmir patted Zee on the shoulder. “I think you can move aside now.”

  “Your supposed human allies do not tr
eat you with appropriate respect, Casmir Dabrowski.” Zee looked at Ishii, then at the marines. One of them was flexing his arm and glowering back.

  “I’ve failed to earn it then. Let me go in and practice my negotiating and people skills on Captain Ishii. He won’t be nearly as hard to win over as Prince Jorg.”

  Judging from the way Ishii folded his arms over his chest and glared at him, he didn’t agree.

  Zee stepped aside but walked close behind as Casmir joined Ishii at the command chair.

  “Can you have him stand over there?” Ishii pointed at a wall. “Prince Jorg is comming in three minutes, and he believes you’ve been in the brig since I captured your shuttle, not loitering at the new sickbay coffee shop like a feckless university student meandering through his major on his parents’ crowns.”

  “I didn’t know word of the coffee shop had spread.” Casmir pointed for Zee to move to the indicated spot. The last thing he wanted was for Ishii to imprison him for real.

  “I understand Doctors Sikou and Angelico were upset when Sato sneaked off the ship and failed to leave instructions on the espresso machine’s operation.”

  “I didn’t realize it was such an advanced piece of machinery.”

  “One minute, sir,” the communications officer said.

  Ishii glanced at the large forward display. Currently, it showed a field of stars. Casmir wished it could go on showing that. He didn’t want to see a giant version of Jorg’s face. Or any version at all.

  “Is there any point in me suggesting that you cooperate wholeheartedly with him?” Ishii waved his marines to come closer and frame Casmir. “While bowing deeply, groveling, and perhaps throwing in some genuflections?”