Crossfire (Star Kingdom Book 4) Read online

“It must have been nice to be a Fleet officer in the old days,” Ishii said, “when everything was more black and white. When the king was noble and doing the right thing, and you were positive that you were doing the right thing in swearing an oath and serving under him. It’s all murky these days, but you don’t find out how murky until you’re higher up the ranks, until you’ve committed yourself to a career, and your family’s fortune and honor are all bound up in you serving the throne.”

  Asger eyed Ishii’s cup, then raised his eyebrows toward Casmir.

  Casmir suspected that was to imply that Ishii had started drinking before they arrived.

  “It’s not an easy time to be a knight either,” Asger said quietly.

  Casmir thought about saying the same thing of roboticists, but he’d been enjoying teaching and researching and his career in general, the crusher years aside, before all this started. Whatever life he was leading now, it had very little to do with the career he’d chosen.

  Ishii drank deeply from his cup and cradled it in his hands instead of setting it down. “Sometimes, I wonder what it would have been like to be a military officer in those original days of expansion. I bet it was something to serve under Admiral Mikita.”

  Casmir had been in the middle of taking a drink, and he almost choked on it.

  Asger gave him a knowing look.

  “I’ll wager he never asked his men to use morally offensive tactics to win his victories,” Ishii said, not paying attention to them. “He was too smart. He didn’t need to.” He lowered his cup. “Or do you think that’s true? Was he as good as the history books tell us? Or has he been shown in a more favorable light because it served the needs of the present?”

  Ishii looked at Asger and Casmir, as if he truly wanted their opinions. Casmir’s left eye blinked again.

  “I’d guess he was an all right guy,” he said carefully, though he couldn’t truly know. Rache had been cloned from the same genes, and he was…

  Casmir wasn’t sure what Rache was. Maybe not as evil as he’d once believed but definitely not a good guy. Good guys didn’t blow up refineries and shoot soldiers simply because they’d sworn oaths to the wrong king.

  Asger smiled. “If you look at any of the histories, as told from the conquered systems, he was considered better to deal with than any of the Kingdom’s other war leaders. I suspect he was at least fair.”

  Casmir slumped back in his chair and vowed to do something he’d been thinking about before—research Mikita more now that he was outside of the Kingdom and could, he hoped, get a more realistic picture of the man.

  Asger and Ishii started talking about Xolas Moon and if the submarines they had rented from Tiamat Station would be enough to find the astroshaman base, and Casmir closed his eyes. He didn’t want to go back to sleep—and his dreams—but the drink was making him drowsy.

  An incoming message alert popped up on his contact, and he would have ignored it, but it was from Princess Oku.

  A little flutter teased his insides. It had likely been sent days ago, waiting for a Fleet or courier ship to pass through the wormhole and deliver digital messages to the System Hydra network, so it wouldn’t have anything to do with the events on Tiamat Station. Too bad. Part of him hoped that Tambora would mention him to Oku and say good things, such as that he’d been kind, helpful, and dashingly handsome as he’d reprogrammed the station’s robots. Even if she’d met him only briefly at the end, after everything had been wrapped up.

  Professor Dabrowski,

  Thank you for finagling Scholar Sato’s help with my bee project. She sent me a request for more information! I’m very excited. If we can get the bees to survive on Shango Habitat, then we can share them with the habitats in the other systems and help people increase food output and gain more independence from planetary agriculture consortiums.

  Casmir smiled, wishing Oku were in charge of the Kingdom instead of Jager, though he suspected she would do her best to avoid such an onerous fate and was probably relieved her older brother was their father’s heir. But Casmir could imagine her on diplomatic missions, winning allies for the Kingdom by handing out hives of bacterially enhanced bees.

  Your robots are very cute, she added on a new line, and his first thought was that she meant the robot bees, but then he remembered the video about Tork and Zee chitchatting about him. I have seen the file on the crusher project, and I would not have thought one could ever be considered cute or could be at all playful. But perhaps they are like hounds and only need the right handler to mellow their personalities?

  There was a video file attachment after that showing a short-haired gray-blue hound on its back in a dog bed in front of a fireplace, its forelegs crooked in the air and its head lolled to one side. Her head, Casmir decided, since the pose made it easy to tell.

  A hand came into view, dangling a fluffy bird toy above the dog’s head. She didn’t move. The hand returned with a squishy ball that Casmir guessed squeaked—he would have to play this later on a system with speakers. The dog yawned, lolled her head to the other side, and didn’t open her eyes. Finally, the hand returned with a dried fish. The dog sprang up, sat perkily, and thumped her gray tail. The hand delivered the fish, and the dog bounded out of view. The camera shifted from the fireplace, past a dark window, and to a large canopied bed where the dog was now lounging again, her head on the fluffy pillows.

  That is Chasca. My brother breeds hunting dogs—well, he has someone breed them for him—and she was the runt of the litter and afraid of loud noises, so deemed unacceptable for hunting. I said I’d take her, and she goes with me on my travels now. And everywhere else.

  Have a good journey, Casmir.

  Casmir! She’d used his first name.

  Maybe it had been an accident since she’d started the message more formally. He grinned and decided he didn’t care. If she’d accidentally used it, that meant she was thinking of him by first name when she thought of him. That was excellent. He wasn’t sure what to make of the implication that the dog slept in the bed—how did that work if she had human… visitors?—but he decided it was sweet that she’d sent the video. Her response to him sharing his robots.

  “He looks more content than we do,” Ishii observed.

  “Perhaps sake mellows him out,” Asger said. “I’ve never seen him go this long without talking.”

  Earlier, their voices had turned into a drone in the background, but now Casmir opened his eyes, realizing they were talking about him.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was reading a message from… home.”

  “It must not have been from your mother,” Asger said. “I’ve seen your expression when you’re dealing with her.”

  “I get along well with my mother. That particular time, she was displaying unnecessary and excessive concern about the state of my underwear.”

  “You can see the quartermaster on the ship if that’s still a problem,” Ishii said dryly.

  “It’s not. She sent me a bunch when I was back on Odin. There was even enough to give some to—a friend.”

  Ishii grunted, having no idea who he was talking about. Asger, who had been there, looked disturbed at the identification of Rache as a friend.

  “How far are we from Xolas Moon?” Casmir decided a topic change was in order. “Do we need to start planning how best to use your men and those submarines?”

  “There’s a briefing in the morning.” Ishii finished his cup and went back for more sake. “I suggest we let ourselves relax for the night and worry about it tomorrow.”

  Casmir hoped he could relax and that the nightmare wouldn’t return. He found himself wishing he were back home so he could visit his parents for dinner and spend a Sabbath speaking with his father about the decisions he’d made lately. About whether he was doing the right thing by getting involved.

  Kim was logical and gave practical advice, but his father, even though he was a math teacher, always understood the conflicts of the heart better than anybody he knew. He would pull Casmi
r aside for Torah study, and ever so coincidentally find passages that applied to whatever Casmir was wrestling with. For a time, Casmir could sit back and allow himself to be the student again, with his father the teacher. Though he feared even his father would be daunted by what had been going on in Casmir’s life lately.

  Perhaps for now, with the future still a question mark that promised only danger, and the road home a long one, Casmir would try to focus on what pleasant thoughts he could find. Maybe he could talk Zee into doing something entertaining that he could record in preparation for the next time he came up with a reason to send a message to Oku. Would he sit up for a fish? Perhaps not. And Casmir found the idea of him lounging on the bed with his head on the pillows alarming.

  He would think of something else. Something cute. Something that Oku would find endearing and that would take his mind off the worries he feared wouldn’t end anytime soon.

  THE END

  Look for Gate Quest, the fifth novel in the Star Kingdom series, in September.

  In the meantime, please don’t forget to leave a review for Crossfire if you’re enjoying the series and think others should check it out.

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