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  “Please. It’s just a little—”

  The constable stepped on it before Kim or Casmir reached him. Fragile components crunched under his heavy boot.

  “Might have had a transmitter in it,” the constable drawled, grinning at Casmir’s distress.

  “Asshole,” Kim said.

  “What’ve you got in your bag, girlie?” He leered at Kim and turned toward her.

  Casmir’s jaw clenched harder. He couldn’t believe the Kingdom Guard willingly employed this thug. Had nepotism been involved in the hire? Bribes? Blackmail?

  Kim stood over her bags, her stance wide, her arms crossed over her chest, and she didn’t answer. She’d endured the same search that Casmir had, though the bully had been more inclined to grope her than punch her. Casmir doubted that was any better. He knew Kim well enough to be certain that his calm, unflappable friend was a split hair away from losing her temper and pummeling the guy.

  “Those sticks—what are they? Swords?” Meat Paws grabbed her bag, the wooden swords strapped to the outside. “You have a permit to carry weapons on Forseti, girlie?”

  A gunshot rang out in the concourse, and shouts and screams erupted.

  The constable whipped his head up and sprang to the window.

  Dread filled Casmir’s gut, and he met Kim’s eyes, finding a similar emotion there. After all the insanity of the last week, what were the odds that this had nothing to do with them?

  The constable cursed. “What are they?”

  They?

  Casmir shook his head, hoping his creations hadn’t made another appearance.

  “Maybe you should go check, Constable.” Wishing he were taller, Casmir rose on tiptoes to peer out the window, but the man blocked it, his nose pressed to the glass. More gunshots fired, and the squeal of some other weapon hurt Casmir’s ears. “It sounds like your friends need you.”

  The constable whirled on him. “Are you responsible for that? Some diversion so you can escape?” He thrust his finger toward the door. “Innocent people are getting hurt.”

  Casmir lifted his hands. “I don’t even know what’s going on out there.”

  A scream of agony pierced the door.

  The constable squinted, his fingers curling into fists, and strode toward Casmir.

  Casmir skittered back, kicking one of his tools and sending it careening off a wall. Kim slipped behind the constable and pulled herself up so she could see out the high window. She dropped down immediately.

  “Two crushers,” she said.

  Casmir cursed violently, both at the crushers and at Meat Paws, who was determined to grab him and maybe throttle him to death. He ducked and only avoided being caught because the constable clipped his hip on the table. Casmir ran around it, trying to keep the man on the opposite side from him.

  The constable whipped out a stunner and pointed it at Casmir’s eyes. “You tell me right now if you’re responsible for that. Because if you are…” His finger tightened on the trigger.

  Casmir dropped to the floor. He couldn’t let himself be stunned. Those crushers had to be here looking for him.

  Again.

  A crack boomed in the room, and he thought the constable had fired a gun—a real gun.

  “You bitch,” the man snarled.

  Kim.

  Casmir sprang to his feet in time to see her crack him again with one of her wooden swords. It rapped against his knuckles, and he dropped the stunner. She waded into him, the two practice blades a blur as she pounded them into his flesh. He blocked a few strikes with his arms, bellowing at the pain the blunt blows caused, then roared and charged at her.

  She sidestepped him, and he thundered past and slammed into the wall. She pounced before he’d recovered, and she landed a solid blow on the back of his head. Rare fury burned in her eyes—or maybe that was desperation, for she glanced at the window.

  “Stun him.” Casmir pointed at the constable’s fallen weapon, hoping they would get in less trouble if the man wasn’t seriously injured.

  Casmir ran around the table to grab it, but Kim beat him to it and fired as the constable readied himself to charge again. He pitched to the floor, his cheek landing in the broken pieces of Casmir’s robot.

  Kim tossed his weapon on top of him. “Don’t call me girlie.”

  “I’m glad you’re on my side.” Casmir rose on tiptoes again so he could peer out the window, then yanked his head down. “You’re right. Two crushers. I can’t tell if it’s the same two. They all look the same. They’re striding down the concourse, hurling aside anyone who gets in their way.” He swallowed, his brief glimpse burned in his mind. “I saw some Guards that looked like—at least one couldn’t be alive. Not with his neck twisted like that.”

  “We have to get out of this room without them seeing us.”

  “And go where? We can’t lead this trouble back to the Dragon. Even if we could escape that way, I bet the Guard has Lopez’s ship locked down.”

  “I don’t know, Casmir.” Kim moved around the room, snatching up their belongings and returning them to the correct bags with swift precision. “You made these things. How do we kill them? Or reprogram them? Because it’s clear they’re not going to stop hunting you.”

  “You need a physical key to program them. I made sure they couldn’t be tampered with remotely. They don’t even have wifi receivers in their metal molecules. And you’ve seen how impervious they are. I mean, if we could get our hands on explosives or a rocket launcher, we might be able to destroy them. But we couldn’t fire such a thing on a space station without risking blowing a hole in the exterior. A thousand alarms probably go off if you even remove the safety on a weapon like that.”

  Kim finished packing the bags and thrust his satchel at him, sans the robot bird that was beyond repair. He gave it a sad nod, whispered, “Zikhronah livrakha,” then pushed it out of his mind. There wasn’t time to be sentimental.

  “There has to be a way to get them off your back,” Kim said. “We don’t let bullies run our lives, right? Human or robot. You’re smart, and this is your world. Come on, Casmir. Think of something.”

  Her encouragement helped. He was smart, damn it. And this was his world. He’d made those crushers. Who better than he to defeat one? Except that he’d designed them to be difficult to defeat. What he truly needed was a crusher of his own to fend off the other ones.

  He froze halfway through the motion of slinging his satchel over his shoulder, and it clunked him in the back. “Could that work?”

  “Yes,” Kim said.

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”

  More gunshots fired, more screams. They were closer, louder. Farther up the concourse toward this room.

  “I trust you,” Kim said, “and we’re out of time.”

  Casmir ran to the fallen constable and snatched the stunner that Kim had dropped. It wouldn’t do a thing to the crushers, but he might need it to convince people to let him in someplace with tools and the materials he would need for the work. Work that would take hours and hours, even with the finest manufacturing equipment, and even if he could find the exact materials he needed. The schematics he’d designed and programs he’d written were stored in his chip, if not hardwired into his brain, but he feared that wouldn’t be enough.

  But he had to try.

  “All right. We’re going to build our own crusher,” Casmir said. “But we can’t do it here. Any thoughts about how we can get out of here without them seeing us? I know you read all those stories about ninjas as a kid.”

  “Ninjas didn’t spend a lot of time skulking through space stations. Ancient Japan was purportedly full of forests.”

  “There were some artificial plants next to the robot squirrel kiosk.”

  Kim peered out the window. “We can go now.”

  “What? They left the concourse?” Casmir sprang to the window to check for himself.

  “No.”

  Casmir groaned. They were walking into the airlock hatch that led to
the Dragon.

  He ran for the door. “We have to help Captain Lopez.”

  “No.” Kim gripped his shoulder. Hard. “Lopez has Qin. She’s better than you or me for combat. You build your robot, and then maybe you’ll have a chance to play hero.”

  Casmir knew she was right, but it stung his heart to run the other way when people he knew were in trouble. By the time he built a robot, it would be far too late to help Lopez and Qin if they weren’t able to handle the crushers themselves.

  “My map—” Kim pointed to her contacts, “—shows several levels devoted to manufacturing ships and asteroid-mining equipment. Would they have the tools and materials you need?”

  Casmir jerked out a nod. “They might. All right, let’s go.”

  The crushers were gone when he opened the door and slipped out, but he stumbled at the sight of so much carnage, so many broken tables, plants, kiosks… people. There had to be more than a dozen men and women down on the deck, not moving. Others cried and groaned, grasping injuries.

  The knight who’d been questioning them—Sir Russo—appeared, leading twenty men in combat armor. Casmir halted and tried to blend into the wall. Russo didn’t notice him. He ran toward the Dragon’s airlock tube with his pertundo extended in one hand and a rifle the size of a cannon in the other.

  Casmir was tempted to shout a warning, a reminder about the bioweapon—they dared not blow open that bulkhead in the lavatory—but Kim squeezed his shoulder again.

  He forced his legs to run away from the interrogation room and the concourse and deeper into the station. He couldn’t help until he had more than his puny hands to offer.

  14

  Bonita headed to the lavatory to retrieve the case, so she could walk it into the station and hand it to the authorities. She was surprised they hadn’t barged in yet. They had mentioned quarantining her ship, and she knew the airlock hatch on her end was closed, but she couldn’t believe they wouldn’t send in Guard officers in combat armor.

  “We have a problem, Bonita,” Viggo said.

  She froze with her hand halfway to the latch. “Another one? I’m maxed out. I refuse to accept any more.”

  “Sorry. I’ve tied in to the public station feeds, and two of those crushers appeared in the concourse. They’re knocking everyone aside.”

  “Shit. They’re after Casmir?”

  “They actually just turned toward our airlock hatch.”

  “Ours? Why?” That word came out as a plaintive whine. She couldn’t help it. Why was the universe flinging so much crap at her this month?

  “Unknown. Perhaps the bioweapon was always what they wanted, and Casmir mistakenly believed they were after him.”

  “They can have it. I’m not defending that death trap anymore, and I’m not risking them shooting up my ship to get it.” Bonita spun around, debating on hiding places. If she wasn’t in their way, would she be safe? If she hid, that might help ensure that. “What kind of scanners do those crushers have? Do you know? Do they find their targets by sensing heat?”

  “I know nothing about them other than the name that Casmir supplied. There aren’t any public records on them.”

  “Of course not.”

  “They’ve reached our airlock hatch. A knight and several armored men are shooting at them and trying to stop them. Ineffectually.”

  “Wonderful.” Bonita sprinted down to the cargo hold and flung up a floor panel that appeared identical to the hundred others.

  It led to a freezer that was designed for carrying food for the crew and frozen cargo rather than smuggling anything, but it might be ideal for avoiding heat-sensing robots.

  A horrific wrenching came from the airlock, followed by a clatter, and Bonita envisioned the crushers ripping her hatch off and flinging it across the concourse. She slipped down the textured metal steps, careful not to make a sound. Her galaxy suit adjusted immediately to the temperature, keeping her body warm, but without her helmet up, she felt the icy bite of cold air on her neck and face.

  Bonita pulled the overhead panel into place, careful not to scrape it or make any noise. The frozen darkness of a coffin swallowed her, but she didn’t mind. It was better than what was coming.

  She crouched, her back to a box of vat steaks, as ominous thuds reverberated through the deck above her. She touched her helmet controls, and it unfurled and snicked into place. That tiny noise seemed to boom in her ears, and she held her breath, hoping the crushers hadn’t heard it.

  The helmet display gave her night vision, but there was little to see. Crates of frozen food boxed her in from all sides.

  The footsteps came across the deck of the cargo hold, two sets, heavy.

  Shouts drowned them out. Firearms roared, and bullets clanged off something in the hold. Bonita winced, imagining more damage to her ship. She and Viggo could handle simple repairs, but if those people blew holes in the hull, the Dragon wasn’t going anywhere, even if she could bribe someone to release the docking clamps.

  A foot slammed down right above her. The thick metal warped, denting before her eyes.

  She lurched back, trying to wedge herself into a gap between two crates. Not that their meager protection would help if the crushers tore open the panel. They were sure to see her.

  More clumps and thumps sounded over her head, then a thunderous bang as something was hurled into a wall.

  “Viggo?” she whispered, trusting her helmet to patch her through to the ship, even if there wasn’t a pickup in the freezer. “Do I want to ask what’s going on?”

  “I believe not, Captain.” His voice came softly through the helmet speaker next to her ear.

  “Who’s winning?”

  “I would say a stalemate at this time. One crusher is keeping a knight and eight armored law enforcers from going deeper into the ship. Another one is searching the ship. I have put my cleaning robots in hibernation so they won’t be damaged.”

  Gunshots fired in rapid succession, followed by a crash.

  “I’m more worried about the ship being damaged,” Bonita said. “Has it been?”

  “There are two punctures in the hull currently.”

  Another crash sounded.

  “And numerous dents,” Viggo added with disapproval.

  Bonita clenched her fist with more than disapproval. Frustration coursed down her arm, and she squeezed so hard an alarm flashed on her helmet display.

  A cacophonous boom pounded her ears, and the deck lurched. Now how many punctures were there? And was the case with the bioweapon still safe?

  “The Kingdom Guard team has managed to down one of the crushers,” Viggo said. “The head was torn off. Mostly. It’s hanging on by a strand. Ah, never mind. The head is melting and reaffixing itself. I’m not certain melting is the correct term.”

  Bonita groaned. “What are these things?”

  “Now, they’ve grabbed the crusher.”

  Footsteps thundered in sync, the panels vibrating.

  “They’re running toward… oh, the forward hatch,” Viggo said. “It’s starting to fight back, but if they’re able to, yes, they’ve opened the hatch. I’ll have to burn a lot of the oxygen mix later to refill the ship with air. But the crusher was blown out into space. As was one of their people.”

  “Someone in full armor with a tank, I hope.” Bonita didn’t care that much. She wanted them all off her ship, crushers, knights, and Kingdom Guard officers included.

  “Armor with a limited oxygen supply likely. They’ve closed the hatch so nobody else will be blown out. My exterior cameras show the crusher tumbling away from the station. It doesn’t appear to have any means of propulsion to reverse its direction.”

  “Good. Finally, a weakness.”

  “The Kingdom Guard officer has jet boots. He’s angling toward a hatch on the side of the station.”

  “What’s the other crusher doing? Is it damaged?”

  “No. It’s methodically searching the ship. The Guard officers are looking for it now. It is not attempting to
hide. Its mind appears to have but one track.”

  “Fine with me. I don’t want to deal with killer robots that get philosophical.”

  Gunshots fired from higher up in the ship, closer to navigation. Bonita grimaced as she imagined more damage being done to the hull and equipment.

  Footfalls returned to the cargo hold, heavy and ringing as they struck the deck. She knew it was the remaining crusher before Viggo warned her.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered.

  She froze, not planning on it.

  Shouts came from the corridor. A muffled, “There it is!” reached her ears.

  Guns fired, and bullets clanged off something over her head. The crusher?

  “Is it leaving?” she breathed.

  “It didn’t get anything.”

  “Not that we can see. It could have hidden something in its body. If it can reattach its head…”

  “It couldn’t hide a whole rocket,” Viggo said.

  More gunshots fired, the clangs coming from near the airlock now.

  Bonita’s knees ached, and her thighs burned from crouching. She willed everyone to leave her ship.

  “Inspector,” a man said as he paced above Bonita. “We dealt with one of the robot-things, but the other is heading back into the station. It’s looking for something, but we don’t think it found the bioweapon.”

  Bonita didn’t hear the response.

  “Right. We’ll keep searching the ship. If it’s here, we’ll find it.”

  Another pause.

  “Haven’t seen her. We’ll find her.”

  Bonita grimaced again as the footsteps receded. She had no doubt who her was.

  “What now, Viggo?” she whispered once the cargo hold fell silent.

  “Unknown, Captain.”

  “Are there still men standing guard in the concourse?” She hoped vainly that they had all taken off after the crusher and that she could walk off the ship while nobody was looking. But to what end? She didn’t want to be stranded on Forseti Station. She wanted to fix her ship, get rid of those vials, and get out of the system.