Gate Quest (Star Kingdom Book 5) Read online

  Kim. Had anyone been able to check in on the submarine?

  “Is Kim all right?” Casmir asked.

  “We haven’t been in contact with the sub since we left. You ordered that, remember? For us to keep chips and comms offline.”

  “Right. I remember.” Casmir had been the last one to contact Kim. But his chip was still blinking OFFLINE. He couldn’t contact anyone until he fixed it.

  The buzz of the magnetic field bothered his ears and made his stomach queasy—queasier. Casmir sighed with the realization that he was probably going to have to find somewhere to throw up to feel well enough to focus on the gate. He commanded his helmet to unlock, bracing himself for the frigid air, and lifted his hands to remove it. They were still shaking. Using his fine motor skills on the gate, if required, would be a delight.

  Rache returned with his tool satchel and the tabs from his medic’s kit. Bangs and thumps sounded as the final pieces of the Stellar Drill were locked together.

  “Make sure they’re careful and don’t bring down the ceiling in such a way that it could compromise the field,” Casmir said.

  “I will,” Rache said.

  “And if all the ice up there starts melting, be careful about the generator over there.” Casmir pointed.

  “We will. Here, take these and get to work.” Rache held out the tabs.

  Asger stirred at the command, looking again like he wanted to punch Rache. Casmir patted Asger on the chest. It would be fine.

  “I will. I just need a moment.” His stomach continued to churn. He’d hoped the icy air might calm it, but it didn’t look promising.

  “We don’t have a lot of moments, Casmir,” Rache said. “You hear that?”

  Casmir didn’t hear anything except the buzz of the field. He wasn’t even sure it was truly there and not his ears playing tricks on him.

  “The explosions from the other side of the base have stopped. The rest of the submarines—yours and mine—and their crews might be dead. Leaving Moonrazor and all of her resources on the way to deal with us.”

  “I understand. I’m not trying to dawdle. I just need…” Realizing it was inevitable, he walked a few steps away from them, his hand on his stomach.

  “To pause for dramatic tension?” Asger asked.

  Casmir threw up.

  “Or that,” Asger said.

  Rache waited for Casmir to finish and return before holding out the tabs again. “I’m glad I don’t have your genes, you know.”

  “Everyone is, yes.” Casmir didn’t bother washing out his mouth, just stuck the tabs under his tongue, grabbed his satchel and headed toward the gate.

  He tried to find some zen calm in his beleaguered mind that had to live in his even more beleaguered body. He didn’t let himself think about how maybe he should have given more consideration to Moonrazor’s offer. If it hadn’t meant abandoning his comrades and betraying his friends…

  No, this was the only route ahead. And he prayed he could navigate the obstacles blocking it.

  19

  The Eagle rendezvoused with the Osprey in low orbit, and Qin, Kelsey-Sato, Beaumont, and Bjarke—an unlikely-looking group, if the startled glances from the soldiers they passed were an indication—transferred to the familiar warship via a long airlock tube. Qin had never been aboard, but she’d seen the exterior several times now, and she knew Asger, Casmir, and Kim had all flown on it recently.

  She was surprised to learn they were all down on the moon trying to infiltrate the astroshaman compound and retrieve the gate.

  A thrum went through the deck as soon as they entered what turned out to be a shuttle bay, and Qin sensed the Osprey already accelerating away.

  “The Kingdom is in the middle of hunting for Rache’s warship,” Bjarke said when Qin looked at him. “That’s why the Eagle was delayed in its mission to escort the Machu Picchu safely from the gate when they entered the system. Someone will get in trouble over that. All of the Kingdom ships are hunting for Rache now—they hope to blow up his ship or at least disable it so the mercenaries can’t make off with the gate. Rache and his men are down in the moon base, too, and I heard they’ve been nettlesome.”

  A nearby soldier who was prepping a shuttle said, “Nettlesome isn’t nearly a powerful enough word to describe Rache and his thugs, Sir Asger.”

  Qin whirled, looking for Asger before her brain caught up to her reflexes. The man meant Bjarke. Her Asger wasn’t here, but if she went along, maybe she would see him. Maybe they would fight together again.

  Bjarke walked up to the open hatch with his crew. “Is this the one taking the submarine down? We’re ready to board.”

  The soldier frowned at Qin. “It’s only supposed to be you and Professor Beaumont, sir.”

  “I brought reinforcements.”

  The soldier’s frown shifted down to Kelsey-Sato.

  “Don’t dismiss her, Sergeant,” Bjarke said, “or she’ll bite your knee.”

  “Sir Knight,” Kelsey-Sato said, “I am a respected archaeologist with hundreds of papers published in scholarly journals. I do not bite people.”

  “Would you smack him in the nuts with your tail?” Bjarke asked.

  “If the occasion demanded it, certainly.”

  “You better let us in, Sergeant.”

  “Sorry, sir. You need to talk to the captain first, so he changes my orders. He’s on the bridge.”

  “Time is of the essence.”

  “Yes, sir. The turbo-C lift goes up to the bridge nice and quick.”

  Bjarke’s jaw clenched, and Qin thought he might try to bully or force his way onto the shuttle, but he said, “Put yourself and your things on board, Professor Beaumont. We’ll be right back.”

  The soldier didn’t object, and Bjarke strode off, Qin and Kelsey-Sato following. Qin wondered what would happen to her if the captain refused to let her go along. She would be stuck on this ship and wouldn’t even have Bonita, who had remained on the Eagle, to speak with. Would Viggo and the Dragon be allowed to dock and pick up Qin when it returned? Or would the Osprey be too busy hunting for Rache’s ship?

  The lift did get them to the bridge quickly, and they walked out to the crackling static of a poor comm connection.

  “…tried everything, sir,” a man was saying over the speaker, pain lacing his voice. “Lost all the subs… Lost Simonek… troops trapped… trying to dig out.”

  A dark-haired man sat in the command chair in the center of the bridge, his elbow on his thigh, his face in his hand. It took Qin a moment to recognize him as the gruff officer whom Casmir had sniped with over the comm months earlier about robotics camp. Captain Ishii.

  Several officers at stations around the bridge were looking at him, as if they expected him to spout brilliance that would improve the situation. Bjarke walked up to his chair.

  Qin trailed behind, not getting too close. She’d kept her helmet on, so her features would be less noticeable, but the captain might want to see her face and know who she was. If he acknowledged them. Bjarke had stopped at his chair, but Ishii hadn’t lifted his head yet.

  “The first communication we get in over eight hours, and it’s to say they’ve failed utterly,” Ishii groaned into his hand, then lifted his head, his bronze skin flushed with anger. “Lamar, if you don’t find a trace of that merc ship and blow it out of the sky, I’m going to—” He stopped, noticing Bjarke. “Who are you?”

  “Sir Bjarke Asger.”

  “You’re supposed to be on the shuttle and already out the door. Someone needs to get down there and…” Ishii’s gaze trailed to the comm station, the weak static still spitting out, though the words had stopped. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe there’s no point now.”

  “Is Asger down there?” Bjarke asked quietly. “William Asger.”

  Ishii squinted at him, and a light sparked in his dark eyes as he seemed to make the connection for the first time. “He was kidnapped with Sato and Dabrowski.”

  “Does Rache still have them?” Kelsey-Sato ask
ed.

  Ishii looked over at her with a frown. Qin couldn’t tell if he knew she was related to Kim.

  “The astroshamans could have them now. I don’t know. The commander thinks they’re dead. They were taken almost a day ago, and it’s been chaotic and crazy since then.”

  Kelsey-Sato grew corpse still.

  Bjarke clenched a fist, his face going rigid.

  “That’s the first report that’s gotten through the ice,” Ishii continued. “There are explosives going off down there, and they’ve created fissures. If we’re right over them, we can get comm signals.”

  “If bombs are going off, they’re still fighting.” Bjarke sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “Send me down. I want to take Kelsey-Sato and Qin along with me.”

  “Who is Qin?”

  “That’s Qin.” Bjarke pointed at her. “She can break a mercenary or astroshaman in half with her bare hands. She helped me get the scholars off the Machu Picchu.”

  The static ended abruptly, the channel going dead.

  “Are you sure we should send anyone else down there, Captain?” a graying officer asked from another station. “We may simply have to report that the mission was impossible.”

  Ishii sighed. “We need to at least try to retrieve the survivors. If there are any. And stay here to blow Rache’s ship out of the sky if it tries to pull the gate out of that mess down there.”

  Qin closed her eyes, fearing they were too late. What if Asger was already dead? And Kim and Casmir? Was it possible? And she’d missed it all because she’d been off on her own personal quest? If she’d been with them, would it have changed anything?

  “It seems unlikely,” the other officer said, “that he would succeed where four Kingdom warships failed.”

  “The warships aren’t the problem. It’s that we’re limited to those damn rent-a-subs.” Ishii sneered. “If we determine that our men are all dead, I’m dropping a nuke in the middle of the seismic activity down there. Right on that astroshaman base. Those pricks had no right coming to our system to steal our gate.”

  “You can’t blow up the gate,” Kelsey-Sato protested.

  “I’m ready to blow up this whole moon.”

  “Let us go down and look first, Captain,” Bjarke said.

  “Another comm coming in, sir,” an officer said. “It’s the Falcon. They’re still flying down above the surface, trying to find sign of the base and Rache’s ship. They’re receiving a message from one of the subs and are relaying it to us.”

  Ishii lifted his head. “Which sub? Did someone on our team make it?”

  “It’s one of Rache’s subs.”

  Ishii slumped back in his chair. “I don’t want to hear from them.”

  “Uhm, sending it through, sir.”

  “This is Kim Sato, temporarily in charge of the, ah, I think this is Bubbles 3.”

  “Kim!” Qin blurted before she could catch herself. “Are you all right? Is Casmir with you?” She glanced at Bjarke. “What about Asger? Oh, and this is Qin. We’re in your system now on the Osprey.”

  “Kim,” Kelsey-Sato spoke up, hopping onto the console next to the comm officer so she would be heard—the man jerked back in surprise, lifting his hands as if she might contaminate him with monkey-droid germs. “It’s your mother. I am here aboard the Osprey as well.”

  Ishii cleared his throat. “I’ll handle the comm if you don’t mind.” He snapped his fingers at Bjarke, as if he should be minding his wayward charges.

  Bjarke looked at Qin, but he didn’t say anything or make any silencing gestures. He probably wanted to know about Asger too. Assuming he cared and didn’t consider his son a disgrace he’d be better off without. Qin clenched her jaw.

  “Greetings, Mother,” Kim said without detectable emotion in her voice. “Captain, Rache kidnapped the three of us. He took Asger and Casmir into the base with his team hours ago. The astroshamans are able to attack and plant viruses through the comms and our chips, so I haven’t communicated with them recently.” Her voice turned grim. “I don’t know if they’re alive or not.”

  “At least there’s hope,” Ishii whispered.

  “That body, Captain,” Kim said. “Did Dr. Sikou autopsy it?”

  Qin frowned at Bjarke and Kelsey-Sato in bewilderment, but neither of them looked like they knew what she was talking about either.

  “Yes,” Ishii said. “We tried to warn you, but the ice was either interfering or you’d already turned off your comms.”

  “The dead woman had the Great Plague,” Kim said.

  Ishii gaped. “How did you know?”

  “Casmir has it now.”

  Ishii swore and dropped his face into his palm again.

  Qin’s heart sank. Not Casmir.

  “Sir,” the comm officer said, “the Falcon’s scanners picked up a reading of something flying near a hole in the ice, a newly formed hole. They fired and hit what they think could be Rache’s ship. They’re in pursuit.”

  “Good,” Ishii said. “Tell Captain Malcolm that I’ll send a bottle of my best sake over if he nails that bastard.”

  Qin clenched and unclenched her fists. She didn’t care about Rache’s ship, not now. She cared about Asger and Casmir. Poor Casmir. Was Rache forcing him to work on that stupid gate when he was dying of a horrible plague?

  “Kim,” Kelsey-Sato said, “what’s the status of the gate? Professor Beaumont, a loaded android gate specialist, is here with me. He was asked to assist in finding out a way to deactivate the defenses so humans can work on it without danger. I invited myself along.”

  “I don’t know if they’ve located it yet,” Kim said, “but I know Casmir was daunted and would gladly accept your help.”

  Kelsey-Sato spun toward Ishii and Bjarke. “We have to get down there.”

  “That’s what I came up here to tell the captain,” Bjarke observed mildly.

  “Go.” Ishii stood again. “Go, all of you. Take more men to help. Take the sub through—” Ishii spun toward the comm station. “Falcon, you said there’s a new hole?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s next to where there’s been a surge of seismic activity, likely explosives going off. We think it’s the location of the base.”

  “Is the hole large enough to lower a sub down?”

  “Yes, sir. It looks like someone had exactly that in mind. Or to take the other subs out through it.”

  “Tell Captain Malcolm to keep that area clear for us. I’m sending a team down.”

  “Yes, sir. Uh, do we shoot at the civilian ships too?”

  Ishii scowled. “Did they break orbit and go down?”

  It was one of his own officers that answered. “Yes, sir. There are more ships in orbit than there were an hour ago, and more than two dozen are down running searches along the ice. Some are in the vicinity of the Falcon’s chase.”

  Ishii lifted his gaze toward the ceiling. “Why, why are all the kami against us on this mission?”

  Maybe because it isn’t your system and you don’t have the right to be here, Qin thought, but she didn’t speak aloud. She wanted the captain to agree to send her, now more than ever. Casmir and Asger needed her. She was sure of it.

  “Don’t shoot any civilian ships on purpose,” Ishii said, “but if they get in the way, don’t let them keep you from targeting Rache’s ship.”

  “Tell your team to bring my sake,” a gruff voice said. The Falcon’s captain?

  “You need to show me dead mercenaries first,” Ishii said.

  The man grunted and closed the comm.

  Ishii pointed at Bjarke. “Go. Keep them alive and get that gate for the Kingdom.”

  Bjarke bowed and ran to the lift. Qin raced after him, assuming that meant that Ishii didn’t care if she helped. Kelsey-Sato sprang through the doors just in time to avoid getting her tail caught.

  “I’m looking forward to another meeting with that gate,” she said. “Hopefully without astroshamans ripping my head off this time.”

  “We’ll p
rotect you,” Bjarke said.

  Qin agreed. She just hoped they weren’t too late.

  Asger paced in front of the magnetic field as Casmir worked inside, his tools and monitors spread next to a single gate piece that had already been pulled off the stack. Wires ran from a section in the middle to a bank of computers along one wall. Casmir had already checked out those computers. Asger didn’t know if he’d found anything.

  It looked like the astroshamans, or some impervious androids of theirs, had already been working on the gate. Trying to do in days what Casmir now had minutes to do? Asger assumed that they hadn’t succeeded, since the protective field was still up.

  “I can confirm that it’s emitting the pseudo radiation right now,” Casmir said over his shoulder, waving a handheld device that appeared homemade rather than factory-produced.

  His words came out slurred, but they were clearer than they had been earlier. Asger tried to find that reassuring.

  “I thought we didn’t know how to detect that,” Rache said.

  He wasn’t pacing, merely standing with his arms folded over his chest as he alternately watched one group of his men, who were burning a hole in the ice ceiling with the special drill, and the others, who were monitoring the three entrances into the chamber.

  “We didn’t. On the way here, I borrowed some of Kim’s bacteria to come up with something.” Casmir lifted a device as if that would clarify everything. Asger imagined bacteria with legs running on little treadmills inside to power it. “Since they could sense the radiation.”

  Asger wanted to tell Casmir to stop talking and save his energy, but it seemed to be part of how he thought. He occasionally said things to them, but mostly he spoke to himself, muttering as he poked through everything. Zee trailed him faithfully, staying close enough to protect him if some hidden attack appeared—or catch him if he collapsed.

  One of the mercenaries jogged up to Rache. He was also holding a device, though Asger recognized it as the life-form detector Rache had been carrying earlier.