Short Stories from the Star Kingdom Read online

  The man walked off, but the long assessing look he cast over his shoulder reminded Bonita that she should put her payment in the vault sooner rather than later. On this station, payment involved physical currency rather than bank transfers, so she had a roll of Miners’ Union dollars in her pocket, courtesy of the android warehouse manager.

  Captain Bonita? Viggo, the sentience linked to the ship’s computer, asked. He sent the message to her embedded chip instead of using the ship’s comm system, even though she was close enough to hear the speakers in the cargo hold.

  Yes? she replied in kind.

  There’s a girl in the cargo hold.

  Trying to steal something? Bonita bristled at the idea. Or stowing away?

  She appears to be hiding.

  So, a stowaway who wanted a ride off the station. If Bonita lived here, she would want to escape, too, but she couldn’t afford to feed passengers who didn’t pay. I’ll get rid of her.

  Bonita made sure her male admirer had moved on before striding up the ramp, doing her best to hide her limp. When she’d been a bounty hunter, she’d made more money and could have paid for the knee surgery she needed. If not for the ex-husband who’d made off with everything in her savings account, she still could have paid for it.

  Back corner near the engine room, Viggo prompted.

  Got it.

  Though she didn’t expect much trouble from a “girl,” Bonita drew one of her pistols as she walked around crates that hadn’t yet been unloaded. She peered into a shadowy nook between the cargo and the bulkhead.

  “Come out of there,” she said.

  The shadows stirred. With the crates blocking the overhead lights, Bonita couldn’t make out the person in the shadows, but the girl appeared bigger than she’d expected. The movement stopped, and nobody stepped out.

  Bonita frowned and pointed her weapon into the shadows. “Come out now. This is my ship, and it runs freight, not stowaways.”

  The shadows stirred again, and this time, someone walked slowly out. Someone huge.

  Bonita skittered back, startled by the six-foot-plus woman-thing that stepped into the light.

  Her knee twinged as she caught her foot, but she barely noticed. She was too busy staring at the broad-shouldered, muscular, furry, and fanged cat-woman warrior. Cat-woman something. She carried three firearms on straps hanging from her shoulders, including a huge Brockinger anti-tank gun, and she gripped the strap with hands with long claws.

  “Viggo,” Bonita squeaked, “that’s not a girl.”

  The female warrior had a thick black mane of hair, with pointed ears that stuck up through the locks. Her face was mostly human—even attractive, with more skin than fur, full lips, a straight nose, and dark, solemn eyes with slitted cat’s pupils—but the rest of her had been designed to kill. No doubt.

  The pointed ears drooped. “I am female.”

  “Sorry,” Bonita said, reacting to the chagrined expression. “I just meant I was expecting someone…” Someone with pigtails and far fewer claws and fangs, she thought. “Shorter.”

  Viggo snorted over the speaker.

  The warrior frowned and looked around, sniffing the air. Checking for another person?

  “That’s the ship,” Bonita said.

  “It has intelligence?”

  Her voice sounded normal, if a little deep for a woman, the accent muddled like that of most other spacers who traveled throughout the Twelve Systems, the tics of their origins rubbing off over the years.

  “He certainly thinks so.” Bonita rubbed her face and lowered the pistol pointed at her stowaway. If she was half the warrior she looked to be, she could probably dodge energy bolts and knock Bonita twenty feet before she could get a second shot off. “What are you doing on my ship?”

  The woman looked toward the open hatch as a robot rolled up the ramp to pick up another crate.

  “Hiding,” she said softly.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way—” Bonita waved at the guns, but she meant to include the whole package, “—but you look like the kind of person that other people hide from.”

  The woman’s face fell. She was younger than Bonita had guessed at first, a teenager maybe.

  “I’m looking for a job. Is there any chance you’re hiring? I’m prepared to demonstrate my qualifications as a guard—I’m proficient in dozens of weapons and firearms and unarmed combat. Uhm, I don’t have a résumé.” She said the last word slowly and carefully, as if it was new to her.

  Bonita imagined some ship’s captain asking her to send over a résumé and snorted. The three guns and muscles hinted strongly at her capabilities.

  “Look, kid, what’s your name?” Bonita asked.

  “They called me Three, but I would prefer Liangyu. Or Qin is fine if that’s a mouthful. Just not… Three.”

  “Uh, right. Qin. I’m sorry, but I can’t afford an…” Bonita waved at her and her weapons. “All that. You have to go.”

  “Room and board would be sufficient.” Qin raised hopeful eyebrows. “Until I’ve proven myself worthy of pay.”

  While she groped for a way to convince her large guest that she wasn’t hiring, Bonita shifted so that her back wasn’t to the open cargo hatch. Even though Viggo would warn her if trouble were coming, her shoulder blades were itching. She used her chip to look up Qin Liangyu Three on the system’s network. She didn’t find an instance that included the number, but thousands of years earlier, Qin Liangyu had been some folk hero from Asia on Old Earth.

  “You pick your name?” Bonita suspected this Qin had been engineered in some geneticist’s laboratory, probably in System Cerberus, where buying all manner of modified animals and human beings was commonplace, and nobody batted an eye at the idea of one person owning another.

  “No. They gave it to us. I’ve looked it up before, but I don’t know if any of my DNA comes from that part of Old Earth. I don’t really know where it comes from—or what I am.” Her ears drooped again. For a hardened warrior, she was easy to read. “They didn’t teach us about our ancestry or culture or anything like that. Just about group and solo battle tactics and how to stay in top shape in the lower gravities of space.”

  “Those are important things.”

  Whistling drifted up from the ramp.

  “The new owner of the cargo is coming,” Viggo said.

  “Thank you.” Bonita started for the ramp but paused to shoo Qin behind the crates.

  It was possible she had only meant to hide from Bonita, but she might also be hiding from this nebulous they she had mentioned.

  The whistling grew louder, and a rotund woman with jowls that flapped as she walked came into view. Two towering bodyguards in combat armor flanked her.

  Bonita kept her grimace to herself and walked forward with her chin up. The energy bolts of her DEW-Tek pistol would bounce right off that armor, so she hoped the woman hadn’t come for a fight.

  “Deirdre.” Bonita forced a smile. “Your android paid me already, so I wasn’t expecting a personal visit. Have you come to give me a tip?”

  “A tip? I’m afraid not, my dear Laser. I’ve inspected the cargo, and it’s damaged. I’m going to have to ask for half of my money back.”

  “Your android already inspected it and said nothing.”

  “He only opened a couple of crates, as you know.”

  “There’s no reason why any of it would be damaged. It was strapped down for the whole trip. As you can see, the crates all look fine.” Bonita waved as robots hefted a couple more of the big crates, leaving only two remaining, the two that Qin was hiding behind.

  “Might have happened before you got ʼem.” Deirdre shrugged, hooking her thumbs into her belt. “That’s the business. Sometimes people try to take advantage. You’ve got to be wary, inspect a cargo before you take it on.”

  “I did inspect it. I know everything is fine.” Bonita clenched her jaw. Even if she hadn’t been hauling freight for that long, she was no neophyte to being an independent operator.


  She crouched slightly, ready to spring if her visitor ordered her men to attack. They were armored, but Deirdre wasn’t.

  “I guess they got something by on you then. It’s a shame.” Deirdre clucked her tongue. “Boys, search her for the money. We don’t pay for damaged goods.”

  Damaged goods that they’d mostly off-loaded and stuffed into their warehouse…

  The armored men strode forward.

  Bonita scooted away and turned, as if she meant to run for the ladder well to the upper decks. But she twisted, her knee jolting her with pain for the sudden move, and dove between the men.

  Even though the armor gave them extra speed and strength, her move surprised them, and Bonita got by, rolling to come up right in front of Deirdre. The men shouted, but Bonita focused on her target, lunging forward as Deirdre reached for a pistol.

  Her own pistol already out, Bonita smashed into her foe, then darted behind her and grabbed her. Using the woman as a shield, she whirled and pressed her pistol to Dierdre’s temple.

  “Don’t even…” Bonita started but trailed off, her mouth dropping open.

  She’d expected to find the men charging at her, but they dangled several inches above the deck, Qin’s big strong fingers wrapped around their armored necks. Their weapons had been torn out of their hands and lay on the deck behind her.

  The men struggled, and one twisted, almost landing a kick on Qin’s thigh. She growled and slammed their helmets together, as if each of the big guards weighed ten pounds instead of two hundred. The Glasnax faceplates on those helmets were strong and impervious to almost anything, but that couldn’t have felt good.

  Qin spun with her arms out, the men’s legs lifting into the air as if they were discuses in an old-fashioned Olympics, and she hurled them over Bonita’s head—Bonita yanked Deirdre down with her to duck—and out into the busy docking area. They bounced three times, armor clanking and startling passersby, and skidded into a kiosk where a robot offered them refreshments for a “very agreeable price.”

  Qin picked up the men’s fallen rifles and added them to the armory she already wore.

  Bonita rose, pulling Deirdre up with her, the pistol still pressed to her temple.

  “About that cargo,” Bonita said calmly, as if this was exactly what she’d expected to happen, “I believe you were mistaken in your inspection.”

  Deirdre swallowed, her jowls trembling. “It’s possible I was, yes.”

  “Maybe you better go re-inspect it, eh?”

  Bonita turned, pointing Deirdre down the ramp and releasing her, though she kept the pistol aimed at her back. Out in the docking area, the armored men had climbed to their feet, but neither rushed back to the ship. Deirdre looked over her shoulder, not at Bonita, but at Qin, who’d come to stand beside Bonita at the top of the ramp.

  “That’s something you can put on your résumé,” Bonita remarked. “Experience hurling armored men.”

  “Is it?” Qin asked. “Good. They said I had to fill up a whole piece of paper.”

  The loader robots returned for the last two crates. Deirdre shook her head and strode away, waving for her men to join her. They walked quickly and didn’t look back.

  “I hope that’s settled.” Bonita eyed Qin. She definitely would be handy to have around. “Thank you for the help.”

  Qin bowed her head. “Can I reapply for a job now?”

  “Freight haulers don’t make enough money to hire crews.”

  Qin’s big shoulders slumped. “I see.”

  “I used to be a bounty hunter. I’ve been semiretired since my partner—my sniveling excuse of an ex-husband—screwed me over and ran off. It’s gotten…” Bonita shifted her weight onto the knee that was hurting less at the moment. “It’s gotten more difficult of late, all by myself. But maybe if I had some young strong help, I could get back into it. Bounty hunters can make more money than freight haulers.”

  Qin brightened. “I could help with that. I even know of some guys on this station with bounties on their heads.”

  “They wouldn’t be the guys you were hiding in my ship from, would they?”

  “Uhm. Possibly.” Qin looked uneasily toward the passersby, as if reminded of this, and slunk back into the cargo hold. “They work for one of the pirate families. They’re just little minions sent off on an errand, but I know they’re both wanted on this station. On lots of stations. I looked them up because I thought maybe I could turn them in myself, but I wasn’t sure if… the law would side with me.” She shrugged. “They believe I belong to their boss. I object. I’m about to turn nineteen. In many systems, I would be considered a free adult, allowed to go where I wish and do as I please.” Qin’s eyes grew wistful as she gazed out at the station.

  Bonita wagered Qin wasn’t from one of the systems where slavery was illegal, but since she perfectly understood the need to be free and control one’s destiny, she was inclined to side with Qin.

  “What are their names?” Bonita glanced toward engineering as four circular robot vacuums whirred into the cargo hold and started sucking up lint and slivers left behind from the crates. “Viggo will look them up on the bounty-hunter job board we’re still subscribed to. He’s not busy.”

  “Not busy?” Viggo’s voice came over the speaker. “Really, Bonita. Do you see the mess that cargo left? Not to mention what those odious oversized robots did to my deck. They left grease spots all over.”

  “Or I’ll look them up.” Bonita shook her head as more vacuums appeared from the various compartments around the ship. Truly, this was an emergency to be dealt with immediately.

  “Sledgehammer Syler and Boom-Boom Barbato.”

  “Whatever business could they be in? Dentistry? Upholstery?” Bonita used her chip to access the bounty-hunter job board.

  Qin smiled bleakly. “They’re not that tough. I could take them in a fair fight. But they know me, and they know their bosses will be angry if they don’t recover me, so they won’t let it be a fair fight.”

  “No, we won’t let it be a fair fight.” As Bonita prodded a thumb to her chest, a robot bumped her ankle as it tried to vacuum between her legs. “Viggo.”

  “My apologies, Bonita. You’re on their route.”

  “How rude of me.”

  “I wasn’t going to mention it, but yes.”

  Bonita widened her stance so the robot could get through, wondering if other captains had to deal with entities like this. Most ships just got a programmed AI. But she’d ended up with a ship that had once belonged to a human being, who had, just before he died, had his consciousness uploaded into the computer.

  Qin perked her eyebrows. “You’re going to help me?”

  “If by help, you mean provide a distraction while you beat them up and then turn in their battered unconscious bodies for the bounty, then yes.”

  “That’s perfect.” Qin grinned and gripped Bonita’s shoulder.

  It didn’t hurt, but her wicked claws did flash alarmingly in the ship’s light, the razor edges on several ragged, as if they had broken off.

  Bonita had to fight the urge not to spring away. “Those are… noticeable.”

  “Sorry.” Qin’s grin turned to a grimace, and she tucked her hands behind her back.

  “You don’t have to apologize, but if this works out, maybe we can tidy them up a bit.”

  “Like a manicure? I’ve never had a manicure, but I’ve read about them.” Qin drew a hand to examine the claws, extending them to their full length, like five deadly switchblades built into her fingers and thumb.

  “Yes, a manicure. I have nail polish.” Bonita almost choked at the idea of filing and polishing claws, but if she couldn’t afford to pay the kid, she could at least do her nails.

  Assuming this worked. As the bounties and pictures came up for the two hulking toughs—both looked to have been modded to have more muscle mass than normally possible—Bonita worried she might have agreed to far more than was wise.

  * * *

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  * * *

  “Are you sure I should be walking in the open like this?” Qin eyed the station goers who were eyeing her right back.

  Genetically modified people, animals, and people-animals weren’t that uncommon in System Stymphalia, but Qin’s impressive build her made noticeable. Even though her eyes and ears were expressive and without malevolence, and she’d left all but her anti-tank weapon behind in the ship, she looked like someone’s tough on a mission to kill. The glances were probably less because she was an oddity and more because people were concerned that she was after them.

  “That’s the point. You’re the bait. We want someone to see you and report to those two thugs.”

  “Sledgehammer and Boom-Boom probably aren’t far behind me. I spotted them across the concourse yesterday, and I think they spotted me back.”

  They were moving out of the docking area and into that concourse now, with all manner of restaurants, pubs, and storefronts to either side of the wide boulevard, along with occasional gates for commercial transport to different parts of the system.

  “The hope is that they’ll focus on you and not notice me—or think I can give them any trouble.” Bonita had donned a leather jacket over her galaxy suit, even if it was a dubious fashion statement. It allowed her to carry an under-jacket pistol holster that nobody could see, along with an eight-pack of compact smoke grenades. She exaggerated her limp, so she would appear like even less a threat, though she expected the thugs to dismiss her at the first glimpse of her gray hair.

  “And, uhm, the vacuums?” Qin peered over her shoulder at the four whirring discs pretending to vacuum while trailing after them. They blended in with the various station robots emptying trash bins, cleaning storefront windows, and picking up food wrappers.

  “A further distraction. That’s all.” Bonita resisted the urge to roll her eyes.