Crossfire (Star Kingdom Book 4) Read online

  “Just Ishii.” He smiled ruefully. “Hourly. And Zee of course.”

  “I don’t think Zee counts as a people.”

  The stolid crusher did not react to the comment.

  “How can you say such things? He’s delightful company.”

  “I still think you need to get him a pink bow tie.”

  “I thought we agreed on periwinkle.” Casmir stepped to the side and offered her the sole seat.

  She declined and leaned against a rack of servers, careful not to bump anything. “I’m going to try to find the captain and suggest something to him, but I thought I should run it by you first.”

  “And here I thought you just came to visit. I brought my dice.” Casmir waved to his tool satchel and personal bag—had he truly not been given any quarters?—hunkering under a console. “We could play a game.”

  “Are you allowed to do that?”

  “No, but I would rebel for a chance at human interaction.” He arched his eyebrows. “What do you want to run by me?”

  “I think you’re the best bet to figure out how to get those gate pieces to stop emitting the pseudo radiation. It doesn’t make sense to keep trying to find treatments to help people who are exposed to it when it could presumably be turned off somehow. And since you’re immune and an engineer, who better to do it?”

  “Someone who’s extensively studied the gate technology?” Casmir smiled self-deprecatingly, but he also rubbed the back of his neck and looked like he was considering it.

  “Name someone who’s done that and might be immune, and I’ll suggest him or her to the captain. I doubt it’s one of Rache’s hobbies.”

  “Probably not. He’s too busy reading about ancient whales. Does your mother have an engineering background at all?”

  “No, archaeology and anthropology.” Kim supposed she could mention her mother to Ishii—Casmir might do better if he had someone with knowledge of the gates at his side—but was reluctant to bring Kingdom attention to her. As she’d learned earlier, Jager was aware of her mother and aware that she had many friends outside of System Lion. It hadn’t sounded like he trusted her. “You’re good at figuring out mechanical things, whether you have a background in them or not. I think you could do it.”

  “I’d be willing to try. I’m still not sure…” Casmir glanced toward the ceiling—toward some hidden camera?—and adjusted what he’d intended to say. “It would be good to keep anyone else from dying, especially since everyone is determined to go cozy up with the gate pieces, so I’d take a shot.”

  Kim suspected he’d kept himself from saying he still didn’t want the Kingdom to end up with the gate. She hoped he would give up on that idea and work wholeheartedly for Jager. Maybe it wasn’t ideal for the entire Twelve Systems, but if he insisted on opposing the king, he would end up exiled—or worse.

  “Good. I’ll tell the captain.”

  Casmir leaned against the console, his expression glum, and Kim waved at the row of displays behind him. She was reluctant to leave so soon when he was starved for company.

  “How’s the search going? Have you found anything?”

  “I’ve been researching the astroshamans themselves and have some possible places they might have taken the gate to hide it, but I find myself wondering if they would have taken it to a home base—I found information on secret laboratories and shrines in underwater locations few can get to—or if they’re handing it off to someone else.”

  “You found evidence to suggest they’re working for another party?”

  “Not evidence, no. The astroshamans have their own private satellite network in most of the systems, so they leave a minuscule footprint on the public networks. I’m just debating why a religious order would want an ancient wormhole gate. Maybe they want to explore the rest of the galaxy or leave the Twelve Systems and find a new place to live, but why the terrorist stuff on Odin then? And why would they have cared about me helping Jager? Only people planning to stick around in the Twelve Systems would care about that.”

  “Weren’t you hypothesizing that the terrorist activity was to distract the Kingdom so the astroshamans could slip in and get the gate in the first place?”

  “That could be part of it, but I was also debating if the timeline matched up. The terrorist activity began months ago, before the gate was discovered and reported to our government. The crushers started coming after me about the same time it was unearthed, but it’s not like that would have affected the government or military in a significant way. I feel like we’re dealing with two separate events and two separate motivations. I wish we’d been able to question that ex-chief superintendent.” Casmir grimaced, perhaps seeing the nightmare he’d shared—or the real event—over again. “I’m reluctant to tell Ishii to spend months hunting down all the astroshaman bases if ultimately, someone else is in charge. Though I don’t know how that would work either. The astroshamans aren’t mercenaries—not en masse, anyway. They’re not known to have a lot of alliances or allegiances to humans outside of their religion. Who would think of them as the likely people to hire?”

  “There were astroshamans in the cargo ship you boarded and astroshamans in the terrorist base, right? Whether they’re responsible or not, they know something.”

  “True.”

  “So if you find someone high up in their organization—they have high shamans as spiritual leaders, don’t they?—the captain could question him or her with a truth drug.”

  “I suppose. I’d just like to be able to point Ishii right to the spot where the gate is. Even though I have mixed feelings on whether we’re the rightful holders of it, I… like being efficient.” Casmir shrugged, almost appearing embarrassed. “You know, good.”

  “Well—” A faint hiss reached Kim’s ears, and she broke off. “What is that? That’s not a computer noise.”

  “It sounds like air blowing.” Casmir glanced toward a small vent high on a wall. “Put your helmet up.”

  Kim held her breath and tapped the small control patch on the chest of her galaxy suit, and her Glasnax helmet unfolded from its pouch below the back of her neck, pausing only when it encountered her braid. She hurried to tuck it inside so the helmet could seal. The heads-up display came on, and she ordered it to check the atmosphere for unexpected elements.

  The hiss was probably indicative of an innocuous leak or transfer of air somewhere—surely a Fleet warship had to be at the top of the list of safest places in space—but Casmir was doing the same thing.

  “My suit is reading nitrous oxide in the air,” he said quietly.

  An instant later, her display flashed a similar warning. “That’s a sedative, and it can be deadly if you inhale too much.”

  “Sounds like a good time to break for a non-leisurely lunch.” Casmir headed for the door.

  “Wait.” Kim gripped his arm. “Someone may be trying to flush you out. If they assumed you would hear that and get your helmet on in time…”

  “Who here would want me knocked out?” Casmir asked, but he didn’t try to pull away from Kim. “Zee, check the corridor, please.”

  Zee took a step, coming right up to the door, but it didn’t open.

  “The door is not opening,” Zee said needlessly. “Shall I force it aside?”

  “Uhm. I don’t know. This is weird. I’m going to comm the bridge.” Casmir stepped back to the console, bumping Kim in the tiny space, and tapped the comm controls.

  Kim eyed the door, expecting a couple of men in combat armor to stomp in at any second. She didn’t have a weapon. She’d assumed she wouldn’t need weapons here on a Kingdom ship.

  “The comm isn’t working.” Casmir scowled at the control panel. “Give me a minute. I have access to all the systems from in here…”

  “Do you have any weapons in your tool satchel? Or tools suitable to be turned into weapons?”

  “That’s Zee’s job, but my power drill is vaguely intimidating if you want it.” His back was to her, fingers flying across the interface.
/>
  A faint scuff sounded in the corridor outside.

  Kim thought about lunging for his drill, but it wouldn’t do anything against someone in combat armor.

  Her helmet display flashed another warning, letting her know that she needed to hook up an oxygen tank if she wanted to continue enjoying air unaffected by the environment around them, an environment now filled with nitrous oxide.

  Someone or something bumped against the door. A would-be attacker? Or someone coming to help them?

  “Hah,” Casmir said. “Figured out the override. That was some kludgy hacking. Bridge, I need to report—”

  The door slid open, and two armored men lunged inside.

  Zee blocked them, throwing his weight into it, and they bounced back into the corridor. Zee sprang after them, attacking them and denying entry to the cabin at the same time.

  Casmir lunged to a side wall and pulled Kim back with him.

  “Do you want your tool satchel?” She grabbed it as cracks, slams, and wrenching noises came from the corridor. Something clattered to the deck.

  “No, I want to hide out of sight of the door.”

  “I’m not good at hiding.” She poked into his satchel for the drill.

  “I can give you pointers later.”

  A DEW-Tek weapon fired, and a crimson bolt sizzled into the cabin and slammed into a computer display. It exploded, tiny shards of metal pinging off the walls and Kim’s and Casmir’s galaxy suits.

  Casmir cursed. “Are they trying to kill us?”

  “You sure you don’t want the drill?” Kim offered it to him.

  “Pin them down, Zee!” Casmir yelled, even though they couldn’t see the corridor from their spot against the wall. “Get them out of their suits! And get rid of their weapons, please!”

  “Do you think he’ll do better work if you add the please whenever you give an order?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Casmir grabbed his satchel and peered inside, but before he could find whatever he had in mind, thunderous footsteps rang above the cacophony in the corridor.

  “Drop your weapons!” a female voice ordered.

  Clatters sounded.

  “Professor Dabrowski?” the woman called. “Are you all right in there?”

  “Should I admit that my hands are shaking and I’m trying to remember if I took my seizure medication this morning?” Casmir whispered.

  “No,” Kim said.

  “Right.” He raised his voice. “I’m fine. We’re all fine in here. Thank you.”

  “Could you, uhm, call off your robot?”

  Casmir walked warily to the door. Kim was right behind him, though she hoped this intervention meant she wouldn’t need to find out if his drill was powerful enough to break through the seam of some thug’s combat armor.

  Six armored and armed men and women stood in the corridor, pointing their weapons toward the deck at Zee’s feet instead of directly at him or at the two armored men he held by the backs of their necks. One man hung limply and appeared unconscious. The other was squirming. Two DEW-Tek pistols lay on the deck under their feet.

  Casmir retracted his helmet and pushed a hand through his hair. “Is anyone else confused by the fact that all of the people are wearing the same blue armor?”

  “Don’t worry, Professor,” the woman said. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  The gas had dissipated when the door opened, but Kim left her helmet on.

  “Zee,” Casmir said, “thank you for apprehending those men. Hand them to the nice…” He looked at the woman’s armor, but none of the suits had insignia. “Soldier.”

  “Sergeant Sekimoto,” she supplied.

  Zee lowered the men to the deck and thrust them toward the soldiers without letting go of their armored necks. It wasn’t until the two attackers were surrounded and gripped by multiple people that he released them. He stepped back and loomed in the doorway, leaving Kim without much of a view.

  “The captain has been informed of this incident,” Sekimoto told Casmir. “I’m sure these men will be questioned under a truth drug, and we’ll figure out what happened.”

  “Thank you,” Casmir said.

  “What happened,” Kim murmured as the armored soldiers tramped off, “is that someone is still trying to kill you. The Black Star terrorists? Someone else?”

  Casmir slumped against the wall. “Is it selfish of me to hope that there isn’t more than one group?”

  “No, that seems reasonable. Some people might hope there weren’t any groups.”

  “I don’t think I get to be that lucky.” He closed his eyes.

  Kim tried to determine if this was an occasion when the rules of friendship required a hug—would a hug make him feel better? He wasn’t injured. After all he’d been through these last couple of months, he ought to be somewhat inured to danger. He looked more tired than overly distraught. She ended up patting him clumsily on the shoulder and wondering what it would be like to simply know what was appropriate and not need to go over a flow chart in her mind to determine the most human action.

  Casmir smiled wanly and opened his eyes. “Thanks. I think I’ll send a note off to Bonita.”

  “Are you hoping Viggo and his robot vacuums are in the area and will come to your rescue?”

  Casmir snorted. “Is it strange to wish for that? I asked the king if I could ride on the Stellar Dragon instead of on a Fleet warship for this mission. Sadly, he said no. Granted, I don’t know if Bonita would have agreed to come, but I knew even then that I would feel safer if I wasn’t sleeping on the deck in Ishii’s computer closet.”

  “You knew about the closet in advance?”

  “I knew I wouldn’t receive the luxury yacht experience. It’s better than the brig, at least. Or it was until that attack.” He shook his head. “I’m going to ask her if she can check for bounties. I wouldn’t have thought I had to fear bounty hunters on a Fleet warship, but… otherwise, I really irked those two men. Whoever they were.”

  “That seems unlikely. You haven’t been out of your closet.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been managing to annoy a lot of people lately. Jager is irked with me. Ishii is irked with me.” His expression grew contemplative. “I do think I’m finally on better terms with Rache. We parted with a handshake.”

  “The underwear gift must have worked.”

  “Technically, those were from my mother. My point is that I’ve made progress with him. Maybe I shouldn’t yet give up on my relationship with Ishii. If he starts to like me, maybe he’ll try harder to keep his men from killing me.”

  “That shouldn’t happen, regardless. Make sure to get the details of that interrogation.”

  “I will, but I think Bonita may be more forthcoming with me than Ishii or his sergeant. She finds me charming.”

  “Charming? I think useful may be the better adjective.”

  “Viggo and his robots find me charming.”

  “That sounds more plausible.”

  4

  Captain Bonita “Laser” Lopez sank back into her pod with relief as the blue-and-green swirls of Odin receded from the Stellar Dragon’s rear camera. She hadn’t been positive the government would allow her ship to use the launch loop, which was the only way her old freighter could escape the planet’s gravity, nor had she been certain Kingdom fighters wouldn’t swoop in and do their best to blow her out of the stars.

  Yes, she had helped Casmir—and through him, the Kingdom government—bring down that terrorist base, but she’d also made a lot of threats to the law enforcers on Forseti Station a couple of months before. And then there had been that bioweapon… She hoped the Kingdom Guards were satisfied, after searching her ship on Odin, that she no longer had it in her possession, but they had never stated that she was free to go.

  “Look at all that green,” Qin said from the co-pilot’s pod. “I’m going to miss it.”

  “The planet or the trees on the planet? I know you won’t miss the people, since they kept try
ing to kill you.”

  “Yes, but that happens everywhere. I’m a professional warrior, so I’m used to it.” Qin held out one of her long arms and flexed her lightly furred hands, her claws extending. She wore “metallic sparks” nail paint today. “I’ll miss the trees most. And then the grass. And the smell of the ocean.”

  “Once we win your freedom, you can go back if you want. Though there are other places in the Twelve Systems with those things. Some of the space habitats even have all that. More lakes than oceans, I suppose, but they are there.”

  Qin made a noncommittal grunt.

  Bonita wasn’t as excited by trees and oceans. She’d grown up on habitats and ships, and she tended to feel uncomfortable on planets and moons with so much openness. They had a lot of gravity, too, and that made her joints creak and ache.

  Although—she flexed one of her legs, bumping her boot against the console—maybe they would be less prone to that now. Usually, a bump like that would have made her knee twinge with pain, but the slight jolt was uneventful this time. Dare she hope the procedure she’d undergone would be a permanent fix? She’d forgotten what it was like to walk without pain. She liked it.

  It made her want to pull out one of the treadmills in the lounge and run some sprints. It also made her want to solve Qin’s problem so they could go back to bounty-hunting. She’d begun to feel she was too old for chasing after criminals, but with better knees—and Qin as the muscle—maybe she could finally earn enough money to pay off the Dragon and one day retire. Now that she had been paid by that medical company on Odin and had some Kingdom crowns in her account, the universe seemed less suffocating, the possibilities less limited.

  “I did some research,” Bonita said, “and confirmed that the Druckers were last seen in System Cerberus. I’m heading for the gate out of System Lion and plan to go there, but I’d like to have a solid plan in place first. You said you don’t think they’ll simply sell your contract for that fifteen thousand Union dollars?”