Planet Killer (Star Kingdom Book 6) Read online

“Mercenary ship,” Ishii said, “this is the captain of the Osprey, the warship you attacked without provocation. Who hired you to ambush us?”

  “Sit on it, Kingdom Captain,” came the sneering response. “If it’s big enough for the job.”

  “Tell us who hired you, and we’ll spare your lives.”

  During a still moment, Asger moved to Ishii’s seat, gripping the back for support.

  “Screw you,” the mercenary said. “And if you bring a boarding party over, we’ll blow up our ship and them with it.”

  The comm closed.

  “Disable them without destroying them, Lieutenant Dag. I want to question one of them under truth drugs.”

  “You don’t think they’ll follow through with their threat if you send over a party, sir?”

  Ishii grunted. “They won’t self-destruct. They’re mercenaries fighting for money, not duty-bound warriors fighting for their nation. I expect them to roll over and play dead any minute.”

  Asger caught the doors to the briefing room opening and his father walking out.

  “Do you want me to lead the boarding party, Captain?” Asger had come up to offer his services, assuming a boarding party, or several, might be put together, but now he felt the need to show himself particularly willing to help, to walk into danger for the good of the Kingdom.

  “I’ll handle that,” his father said, stepping up to the other side of Ishii’s seat.

  Asger glared at him. With his garish tattoos finally removed, he looked more like the disapproving knight Asger remembered from his youth.

  His father glared back. Did he not trust that Asger could handle the simple task? Or did he simply not trust Asger?

  Asger regretted that his father had caught him walking out of that tunnel in the ice base with Rache’s mercenaries, but he’d fought with the Kingdom troops against them after that. His father must know Asger wouldn’t willingly side with criminals.

  “I have marines for that,” Ishii said.

  “The value of knights far surpasses that of run-of-the-mill combat troops,” his father said.

  Ishii glanced at him. “The pomposity of knights certainly surpasses theirs.”

  “We know our worth.”

  “And aren’t afraid to tell others about it.” Ishii flicked his fingers. “Go ahead, Bjarke. I’ll have some of the marines meet you at the airlock on Deck D. As soon as we clean up the rest of this trash, we’ll link up and send you over.”

  Asger bristled. He knew it was petty to care that Ishii was choosing to send his father over him, but he’d volunteered first, damn it. And he thought that he and Ishii had developed a good working relationship these last few weeks. Sir Bjarke had just dropped in out of nowhere, like an asteroid defacing a moon.

  “Excellent.” His father walked past Asger without offering him a spot on his team, though he paused, as if waiting to see if Asger would ask.

  Asger clenched his teeth and held his tongue. His father left the bridge.

  “A message came in from your command right before we left Hydra.” Ishii waved to the briefing room that Asger’s father had come out of. Had he received a message too? “I think they have another mission in mind for you.”

  “Will I like it?”

  Ishii only shrugged.

  As Asger walked into the briefing room, he wondered why the message had come to the ship instead of directly to his chip. Because such transmissions could be encrypted to a higher degree? Dare he hope that meant he was being offered something good? Another chance to prove himself? Or was it too late for that?

  He was well aware that he hadn’t accomplished what his commander had wanted on Xolas Moon. The Kingdom warships had managed to retrieve a few of the gate pieces, but so had every other ship that had been in that crazy scramble at the end. Including Rache’s, he suspected. And the astroshaman leader had gotten away with more than half of the gate. Even with the blockade, word must have gotten back to Prester Court by now. Jager couldn’t be happy with the outcome.

  Baron Farley’s broad face came up on the comm display in the briefing room. Asger was alone, the doors shut, so whatever dressing down he was about to receive would be in private.

  “Sir Asger,” Farley said coolly, “you’ve once again failed in your mission. Not only that, but you allowed yourself to be captured by that devil-damned criminal, Rache.”

  Asger wanted to argue that he’d only gone along to protect Kim and Casmir, that he’d had no choice, but this message had been recorded days earlier. Arguing would do nothing. Neither would putting his fist through the display.

  “I will assign your father to interface with Prince Jorg and the Fleet warship captains on our behalf,” Farley continued. “I am assigning you a minor task. If you can’t handle this one…” Farley’s gray eyes lifted heavenward.

  Asger’s hands clenched the edge of the briefing room table hard enough that his fingers ached. He forced himself to let go, though those fingers only snapped into frustrated fists.

  “Take one of Captain Ishii’s shuttles to Stardust Palace,” Farley said. “You’re to fetch the pertundo of an ex-knight, Tristan Tremayne. Prince Jorg wants Tristan executed, but we are tactfully going to fail to fulfill that order. You won’t be faulted for that. You’ll only be faulted if you can’t bring the weapon back. Since he’s no longer a knight, he cannot keep it. After you get it, reunite with the Fleet, help Prince Jorg make sure the mercenaries gathering in that system won’t be a problem, come help drive out the intruders here, and then bring the pertundo with you to Odin. When this is all over, we’ll discuss in person whether you’ll be permitted to keep your pertundo.”

  Asger rocked back on his heels, once again tempted to put a fist through the display. Only envisioning his humiliation at having to explain to Ishii what had happened to it stayed his arm.

  The only good thing was that Farley wanted to talk to him in person before dismissing him. Maybe Asger would finally get a chance to plead his case and explain that he’d fought hard and done some good while he’d been out here.

  He would have to be convincing, because it was a foregone conclusion that his own father wouldn’t stand up for him.

  With his cheeks hot and his jaw aching, Asger left to gather his gear for a duty that could more easily be achieved by a self-addressed and postage-paid parcel box.

  3

  Casmir tried to calm his nerves as he waved at the door chime sensor for the briefing room on the bridge. Zee was with him, but Casmir wasn’t as comforted as he usually was by his sturdy presence. Zee could protect him in battle but not from this.

  Ishii had commed him, demanding the presence of his civilian advisor for a meeting with Jorg. They were still four days from the planet that the prince’s ship orbited—he was trying to recruit reinforcements from one of the larger population centers in the system—but that was close enough for near real-time communications.

  Behind Casmir, the forward display on the bridge showed the charred and battered mercenary ship they were attached to and the three other Fleet warships looming beyond it. Casmir had heard a boarding party had gone over to question the mercenaries and find out why they’d attacked.

  “If he doesn’t answer, we can leave, right?” Casmir asked Zee.

  “Do you wish to engage in another treadmill workout?” Zee had been suggesting that all morning. He was as determined as Kim that Casmir regain his health.

  “Certainly not, but I could find something to do. Hiding under my bed from the notice of Jager’s male children, perhaps.” Before this, Casmir had been completing his robot bee schematics and sending them to Kim to include with whatever bee-bacteria suggestions she made to Princess Oku. Even if that project would be delayed by the war, he didn’t want to be tardy on his end. He’d also been scouring the news feeds, trying to figure out not just what was happening in System Lion but what was going on in the rest of the systems. The reports were fuzzy on who the commander of the joint fleet was, but more than half the ships belonged to
Prince Dubashi.

  The lift doors opened and Kim walked out, turning toward the briefing room before she spotted Casmir.

  “You were also called to a meeting?” she asked.

  “Yes, but Sora isn’t answering the door, so maybe he changed his mind and we can leave.”

  “Casmir Dabrowski wishes to resume his training in the gymnasium to improve his weakened state of health,” Zee announced.

  Casmir swatted Zee on the solid chest, banging his knuckles and promptly regretting it. “You know that’s not true. Did I program you to lie?”

  “Crushers are programmed to achieve desired results for their missions. This sometimes involves subterfuge.”

  “My health is your mission?”

  “It will be easier for me to protect you and keep you alive if you are hearty.” Zee patted him on the head.

  Kim opened her mouth, but Casmir lifted a finger to cut her off.

  “Don’t say it.”

  “That your crusher has developed even more personality, and that it’s possibly a bug, not a feature?”

  “Yes.”

  “As you wish.”

  Zee patted Kim on the head.

  “Definitely a bug,” she muttered.

  The door to the briefing room finally opened. Casmir expected to walk into a large meeting with all of Ishii’s senior officers, but the only people physically present were Ishii, the marine Colonel Jeppesen, and Ambassador Romano, a man Casmir had been doing his best to avoid since returning to the Osprey. It wasn’t that hard, since Romano looked through him instead of at him whenever their paths crossed—he probably had no idea that Rache had shared that video of Romano trying to barter Casmir’s life for information. Today, Romano was sitting in a chair at the conference table and cleaning his nails, so it was fairly easy to pretend he wasn’t in the room, especially when someone more prominent was gazing back from one of the comm displays on the wall.

  Technically, four people were gazing into the briefing room from displays, but Casmir doubted the captains of the three other warships cared about him or wanted anything from him. The fourth man was another matter.

  Casmir had never met Jorg, but he recognized the prince from the media. His angular face was a mask, the long nose hawkish, the blue eyes cool. He looked far more like Jager than his sister Oku, who took after her mother. Thankfully. She was much prettier than this man.

  Prince Jorg never gave speeches nor made public appearances unless it was at his father’s side, so Casmir had no idea what he was like. The media usually said favorable things, that he had passed his knight’s training and was working with his father to learn to rule the Kingdom, but Casmir didn’t much trust the media, since it had always portrayed Oku as a flake. She apparently didn’t mind that, and had even cultivated the image, but didn’t that mean Jorg could be cultivating his image?

  As Casmir stepped up to the table, he vowed to reserve judgment. Maybe he would get lucky and Jorg would be a reasonable man.

  Casmir caught Kim giving him a sidelong look as they walked in, Zee clomping behind. She had to wonder why she had been called to this meeting. Casmir wondered why he had been called.

  It was only bad luck that he and Kim were still here on the Osprey. They’d completed the mission they’d been brought along to advise on, even if it might not have been a satisfactory completion in the eyes of the king. Casmir was secretly pleased with how things had turned out, at least when it came to the splitting up of the gate. It disturbed him that so many people had died in that ice base to gain a result that he thought should have been logical to everyone from the beginning.

  “Both civilian advisors are here now, Your Highness.” Captain Ishii bowed to Jorg’s face on the display.

  “Step forward, Scholars Dabrowski and Sato.” Jorg had a haughty imperious tone, even more so than Asger and the various knights Casmir had met, but at least he didn’t call them twerps or common scum.

  Casmir stepped into Jorg’s view and bowed, with Kim hesitating only a second before replicating the gesture. Zee stepped up behind them and crossed his arms over his chest. Casmir hadn’t programmed the crusher on royal etiquette, not imagining that they would be called into court that often, and he hoped Jorg wouldn’t choose to take offense.

  “That’s your crusher, Professor?” Jorg sounded more intrigued or assessing than offended.

  “I am a Z-6000, programmed to protect Kim Sato and Casmir Dabrowski.”

  “We call him Zee,” Casmir offered.

  “Is it larger than the other ones?”

  When had Jorg had an opportunity to see the other ones? Had it been in person? And where were those other ones these days? Casmir had heard only a few scattered reports of the military using them to take small stations on other systems. He wondered if those actions were what had prompted Dubashi and his allies to preemptively launch a war in System Lion. Had some of their holdings been impacted?

  “About a half a foot taller, yes, Your Highness. When I made him, I was hoping he could best the ones that were hunting me.” Casmir’s left eye blinked. He hoped Jorg didn’t know or wouldn’t point out that Casmir had signed an agreement with the military, stating that he wouldn’t share any of the work he’d done in their research facility. He was fairly certain the fine print had forbidden him to make more crushers for his private use.

  “What would you need to make more of them?” Jorg asked. “Here in this system?”

  Casmir let his lips part, even though they weren’t ready to utter words. He should have guessed this was the reason Jorg had wanted to see him. But he already regretted having helped to create the original crushers, since they weren’t being used as the friendly golem protectors he’d envisioned.

  “Time,” Casmir said, “a high-quality manufacturing facility that I could rejigger, and a lot of metal and a few medical resources.”

  “Medical?”

  “Yes. For the original project, we had a nanite-manufacturing facility on base, but for Zee, I reprogrammed existing medical nanites. I could send a list of everything I would need, Your Highness.”

  A list of materials that he hoped would be next to impossible for the prince to acquire here in this system. Casmir didn’t think the Kingdom had many trading partners here. Or anywhere.

  “What facility in System Stymphalia could meet your manufacturing needs?”

  Casmir accessed his chip and scanned the local offerings. A couple of planets had numerous sophisticated manufacturing facilities, but they were both on the far side of the sun from the gate in their current orbits, so it would take weeks to reach them. “The two closest are on Shiva Habitat and Stardust Palace.”

  The heretofore silent Ishii, who was standing to the side in a stiff parade rest, spoke up. “You may already know, Your Highness, but Sir William Asger just received orders from his superiors to take one of my shuttles to Stardust Palace on some errand.”

  Some dark emotion narrowed Jorg’s eyes at the name of the station, but he quickly masked his thoughts.

  “I suppose that would work best. Stardust Palace Station has stockpiles of metals that its many mining ships bring in. Professor Dabrowski, you will go there and negotiate with Sultan Shayban for the right to work on his station and make no fewer than a hundred crushers like that one.”

  A hundred?

  Casmir opened his mouth to ask how long Jorg planned to stay in the system, because this task would take some time, but someone on Jorg’s ship spoke off to his side, distracting him.

  “I am well aware of that,” Jorg replied, then focused on Casmir again. “The Kingdom may currently be unwelcome on Stardust Palace, but I trust you can gain access.” His voice cooled a few degrees. “I understand you have the ability to win over the leaders of small nations.”

  “Only one leader, Your Highness.” Casmir doubted he could count Kyla Moonrazor. Even if she had kissed him. “And President Nguyen was technically only the Secretary of Education at the time.”

  “So I understand. Fin
d a way to convince Shayban to help you.”

  “Do I have access to any funds to pay him? The proprietary alloy we use to build crushers is fashioned from expensive materials.”

  “I’m not giving that man a single crown.” That anger flashed in Jorg’s eyes again. “You can ask his wealthy daughter for money if you need it. Maybe that sniveling ex-knight can get it for you.”

  Casmir couldn’t keep from throwing a bewildered look at Kim. Not only did he have no idea what Jorg was talking about, but it didn’t even sound rational.

  She lifted her shoulders but didn’t say anything. She looked like she was trying not to be noticed. Understandable. What impossible thing would Jorg ask her to make?

  “Find a way to get the crushers made, Dabrowski,” Jorg said. “I don’t care if you have to steal materials from the bastard.”

  Steal? How was he supposed to steal tons of metal from the station he then needed to stay on and use for manufacturing? Even if he were so inclined to try, he found the idea so morally unappealing that he would have a panic attack in front of the vault door. Or a seizure.

  “After the colossal waste of time Shayban put me through, I’m disinclined to play fair with him. Do this for your king, Professor, and perhaps your past transgressions will be forgotten. I wish to return with an army of crushers as well as a fleet of spaceships from all the allies we can muster.”

  And how many allies would that be? So far, the only ships the Osprey had encountered in the system had tried to kill them. Was Jorg having better luck?

  “I will try to find a solution to the problem you’ve given me, Your Highness.” Casmir couldn’t bring himself to promise that he would steal the resources to build a hundred crushers, but maybe he could think of… something.

  Ishii gave him a sharp look, perhaps catching the nuance of his vague answer.

  Fortunately, Jorg didn’t catch it—or didn’t care.

  “Scholar Sato,” he moved on.

  A grimace crossed Kim’s face, but she smoothed her expression before stepping closer to face the display. “Yes, Your Highness?”