Shockwave Read online

  Casmir cleared his throat. “Really, Captain. Sharing is no problem, especially if it will reduce the fare. Uhm, perhaps those charming men over there would like to come.” He nodded toward the thugs with the rifles.

  “They’re not invited,” Bonita said. “Look, you’re wasting my time. I need— Wait, did you say you were an engineer?”

  “A mechanical engineer with a robotics specialization, yes. I teach classes and lead a research team over at the university. We’re working on—”

  Bonita jerked her hand up. “I don’t care about that. How are you with fusion reactors?”

  “Er, they rarely come into play in robotics.”

  “I have a breach in my core containment chamber. The reactor is offline right now, but if we can’t use the fusion drive, we’re not even making it to the moon anytime soon.”

  “Repairing the chamber sounds relatively simple,” Casmir said. “I can take a look.”

  “If you can fix it, and you’re prepared to part with that gold, you’ve got a deal.” Bonita thought about asking if his tungsten was valuable, but she doubted the shipyard supervisor would take it, and she wasn’t going to visit the local pawnbrokers.

  “Excellent.” Casmir planted his plastic baggie with its gold chip in Bonita’s hand and strode up the ramp leading into the open hatch. He paused as soon as he got to the top. “Which way is the fusion reactor?”

  “In engineering,” Bonita said.

  “Yes, of course.” Casmir looked left and right. “And which way is that?”

  Bonita dropped her face into her hand, rethinking the wisdom of letting this guy touch her equipment.

  “Right.” It came out as a groan. She would have Viggo run every diagnostic and analytical piece of software he had when Casmir was done. “You, Kim, was it? Does he have a clue what he’s doing, or is he likely to screw up my ship?”

  Normally, Bonita wouldn’t ask a stranger for a reference, but after so many years in such a dangerous business, she was good at reading people. Kim struck her as someone who might be honest to a fault.

  “Engines aren’t his area of expertise, but he’s smart. If you have a technical manual in your database, he’ll be fine.”

  Bonita tried not to be horrified by the idea of someone using diagrams in a book as a guide to fix the most imperative part of her ship. But what other options did she have? She couldn’t afford to have the shipyard repair everything. She hoped Casmir would know if he was in over his head and be intelligent enough to tell her. After all, he was about to fly off in the ship too.

  Bonita nodded to herself, encouraged by the thought.

  Kim hadn’t moved. She was gazing at the hatchway at the top of the ramp. Casmir had disappeared, and she appeared faintly confused.

  “You sure you don’t want to come?” Bonita asked.

  “No, absolutely not. But he didn’t say goodbye, which is customary when a friend is going off into danger. I wasn’t sure if I should depart now or wait or…” She shrugged again.

  “We’re not leaving yet. You can come inside and monitor him if you want.”

  “Monitor? I have a medical background. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what he was doing.”

  “You could make sure he doesn’t leave any lubricants or gels on my light fixtures.”

  “I haven’t succeeded at that yet.”

  Gunshots rang out, and Bonita jumped.

  Kim whirled toward the noise, dropping her bags and landing in a fighting crouch. Bonita backed up the ramp, yanking out her pistol but wanting nothing to do with a fight. She hoped she had that option, that this didn’t have anything to do with her and her illicit cargo, but she couldn’t be sure.

  “Get out of here,” someone yelled, firing again. “No trespassing robots.”

  “Our bullets are bouncing off it!”

  The lighting wasn’t bright near the periphery of the shipyard, and Bonita squinted, trying to see what the men were firing at.

  Kim cursed. “Not again.”

  Two dark humanoid figures strode out of the night, ignoring the workers—and the bullets ringing off their torsos. They didn’t wear clothing or have distinct facial features, but they seemed to be looking straight at the Stellar Dragon.

  One of the guards, a hulking man with arms like pylons, gave up on shooting and ran forward, using his rifle like a club. He landed a blow with the butt that would have knocked the head off a man—and most robots.

  “Androids?” Bonita paused and looked down at Kim.

  “Worse,” she said grimly. “I have to warn Casmir.”

  She snatched up her bags and ran up the ramp, slipping past Bonita without bumping her.

  Bonita almost reached out to stop her from boarding, but boarding looked like a good idea right now.

  “Yo, supervisor!” Bonita yelled, spotting the small man running out of his office to take a look at the commotion. “We need to leave now. Here’s payment for the services that were done.”

  She threw the baggie, glad for the natural weight of gold. It sailed across the pavement and landed at his feet.

  Unfortunately, he was gaping at the intruders and not paying attention to her. What was his name? It had been on his invoice.

  “Nakajima!” she yelled, and this time he looked. “Take that gold and check us out. Remove whatever locks you’ve got on my ship.”

  Bonita glanced back to see what the intruders were doing and nearly fell off the ramp. They’d broken into a run. They had passed two of the ships and would be at hers in seconds.

  She sprinted inside and slammed her hands against the control panel to pull in the ramp and close the hatch.

  “Viggo,” she shouted from the cargo hold, “fire yourself up!”

  “I am aware of the danger, Captain,” the computer’s voice came calmly from the speakers. “Readying for take-off now.”

  “Good. Are the mag-locks off?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Not good.” As Bonita raced across the hold toward the ladder leading up the two levels to navigation, a thud sounded, something striking the hull. A second thud immediately followed.

  Casmir and Kim ran out of engineering.

  “Crushers?” Casmir looked toward the closed hatch.

  “Whatever they are, they’re trying to get in.” Bonita raised her voice to yell. “Qin, I need you and the biggest weapons you can find.”

  “Yes, Captain,” came Qin’s muffled reply from wherever she was.

  “Can we help?” Casmir called.

  “Yeah,” Bonita said over her shoulder. “Stay out of the way.”

  Bonita left her new passengers in the hold, scrambled up the ladder, and flung herself into her pod in navigation. The piloting interface swung over as she considered the display showing the view in front of the ship. Smaller cameras fed in exterior views from the sides and the back. She groaned when she saw the two dark figures—what had Casmir called them? Crushers?—attached to the rear of the ship like ticks.

  She was about to comm the supervisor outside, but the mag-locks let go without notice. Maybe he was watching and hoping she would take this trouble far, far away from his shipyard.

  “Happy to.” Bonita slapped the internal comm. “Everyone, hang on. We’re going to pull some g’s while I try to shake the sand out of our boots.”

  “Sand, Captain?” Viggo asked as Bonita took them into the air, blasting away from the shipyard and up the coast. She spun the ship like a barrel hurled down a long bumpy hill. “In one’s boots? The very idea is making me cringe. Discomfort. Grime.”

  “Is it hard to cringe when you’re a virtual being existing inside a computer’s circuits?”

  “No, I cringe extremely well. You’d just have to be another virtual being existing in the circuits to see it.”

  Bonita didn’t answer. She stuck her tongue between her teeth and concentrated on piloting. Her pod absorbed the force of their spin, but something broke free and rattled around in one of the lower levels, clanging and clunki
ng. There was always some damn thing that didn’t get secured properly. She hoped Kim and Casmir were smart enough to find a pod and weren’t flying all over the cargo hold.

  When she checked the exterior camera displays, Bonita groaned. Not only had she not succeeded in shaking off the crushers, but they had advanced up the dome-shaped body of the ship, ticks moving from the ass end of the dog toward the head. And toward a hatch right behind navigation. If they had the strength to force it open—if they were as strong as androids, they surely would—they could drop into the ship right behind her.

  “Qin!” Bonita hollered. “I need you to pry some dangerous robots off the roof. Do you have your big gun yet?”

  “I’m ready, Captain.” Qin sprang off the ladder and stood in the short corridor, gripping a safety hook with one hand and wearing a Brockinger anti-tank 350 on a sling across her torso, the gun so big it bumped the bulkhead on either side. She grinned, pulled an explosive canister out of her bandolier, and dropped her helmet over her head.

  “You definitely don’t need a knight to save you,” Bonita said.

  “No, Captain.”

  “Use that closest hatch. They’re almost there. Be careful not to damage the hull.” Bonita grimaced, wondering if that was possible when the crushers were attached to it. “And hang on tight. I’m going to keep trying to buck them off. I don’t want to lose you in the ocean.”

  “Understood,” was all Qin said, her face turning serious.

  She sprinted up the ladder that led to the roof hatch. Bonita didn’t feel right sending a kid to fight her battles, but she had to fly, and Qin was far better at hand-to-hand combat than she.

  A clang sounded, and Bonita could hear the rush of wind blasting past as the hatch opened. On one of the cameras, Qin appeared, rising halfway out and using her legs to brace herself on the ladder and the bulkhead as she used both hands to aim the big gun.

  The crushers were closer to her than Bonita had realized—those things moved fast—and the first one rose to its feet. There was no way it should have been able to do that with the ship dipping and gyrating. It had to have powerful integrated magnets.

  It lunged at Qin. For a split second, only one of its feet was attached to the hull. As Qin fired, Bonita spun the Dragon again.

  Qin’s canister slammed into the crusher’s chest and blew.

  “Down!” Bonita screamed, afraid the explosion would tear off Qin’s head.

  But she’d dropped below the hatchway before Bonita’s warning. The explosion combined with the ship’s spin knocked the crusher free. Its buddy turned and lifted a hand, as if to grab it, but Qin popped back out of the hatchway, distracting it.

  Bonita nodded with relief as the first crusher tumbled through the air, falling a thousand feet and landing in the ocean. She hoped it rusted quickly and never made it to shore.

  She steadied the ship so Qin could more easily deal with the second one.

  Qin fired as it drew closer, but this one had learned from its buddy’s mistakes. It flattened itself to the hull, and the canister sailed over it, exploding uselessly behind the ship.

  Qin reloaded as quickly as any practiced military veteran, but it wasn’t quickly enough. The crusher surged across the intervening space and grabbed her. Qin released her gun and drove her palms into her foe’s chest. The blow would have sent a human being flying backward at neck-breaking speed, but she might as well have struck a six-foot-wide steel pylon.

  The crusher tried to pull her through the hatchway, but Qin hooked her feet under a ladder rung. She cried out but managed to finish loading the Brockinger, the explosive canister clicking into place.

  “Don’t shoot when you’re inside the ship!” Bonita called. “You’ll blow out half the hull.”

  Before Qin could fire, the crusher knocked the weapon aside with so much force that the strap snapped. The Brockinger clattered down the ladder to land in the corridor.

  Qin battered her enemy with a barrage of palm strikes, trying to keep it from climbing through the hatchway and getting inside. But the robotic creature did not feel pain, and it was too heavy or strong to budge. Bonita had the feeling it didn’t care one iota about Qin and simply wanted to throw her outside because she was in the way. It wanted to get inside and acquire its real target.

  Was that Bonita? Or her new passengers? Or the cargo? Had the same people who had killed Baum sent these things?

  Metal groaned as the rung Qin’s foot was hooked to threatened to give way.

  “Keep us flying straight, Viggo.” Bonita lunged out of her pod and ran back to help.

  Qin’s foot was still hooked, and she was fighting the crusher, keeping it from climbing in and getting a better grip on her. But her other leg flailed free, and the rung groaned again. The crusher would pull Qin out of the ship any second.

  “Not happening,” Bonita growled and snatched up the big Brockinger.

  She made sure it was properly loaded and found as good a spot as possible.

  “Twist free and drop down, Qin,” she ordered, finger on the trigger. “I don’t have a clear shot.”

  The ladder rung tore free. Qin did a somersault in the crusher’s grip, trying to pull free, but it was too strong. It yanked her through the hatchway and flung her outside.

  “No!” Bonita cried and fired.

  The canister struck the crusher in the torso. It bounced off, fortunately not back into the ship. Bonita groaned again as it exploded uselessly outside the hatchway, the ship shuddering from the shockwave, and scrambled to load another round. Yellow flames lit the night. Surprisingly, even though it hadn’t been a direct hit, the explosion was enough to make the crusher pause. Momentarily.

  Bonita fired again.

  This time, the canister struck the crusher in the head and exploded. It flew backward, out of sight of the hatchway.

  Bonita charged up the ladder and stuck her head out to look around, in some vain hope that Qin hadn’t fallen off. Wind roared in her ears. Cold night air smothered the hull, only the Dragon’s running lights brightening patches here and there. As misty sea air battered Bonita’s face, trying to rip her ponytail off her head, she climbed out farther.

  “Qin?” she yelled. “Are you… anywhere?”

  “Here,” came a muffled call from behind her.

  Qin crawled across the hull on hands and knees toward the hatch. She was following a seam, finding purchase where normal human fingers would never have been strong enough to do so.

  Bonita reached out as soon as she was close enough, offering her hand. Qin grasped it, and they scrambled back inside together.

  After the hatch was closed, the roar of the wind blocked out, Bonita slumped against the bulkhead in relief.

  “Is my gun all right?” Qin looked back and forth, then spotted it where Bonita had dropped it.

  “That’s what you’re worried about?”

  “I was only able to get away from the pirates with three military-grade weapons. They’re quite valuable.” Qin methodically checked the function of the Brockinger.

  Get away. A reminder that Qin had escaped and someone might come looking for her one day.

  Qin hadn’t admitted that, instead trying to imply that the pirates had no interest in her any longer, but several times, a word slip here and there had suggested otherwise.

  “Let me know if you have any injuries that need patching up.” Bonita patted her on the shoulder and headed back into navigation. “Someone had better fly this freighter.”

  Qin, frowning at a small dent on the butt of her Brockinger, did not reply.

  “Really, Bonita,” Viggo said. “I am perfectly capable of flying the ship. All you have to do is give me a destination. Anything short of Earth, and I can get us there.”

  “Last I heard, nobody remembers where Earth is.” Bonita collapsed in the pilot’s pod and did a sweep to make sure there wasn’t anything else hostile attached to the hull.

  “Precisely why I would have a difficult time flying you there.”
>
  A few minutes later, Qin stepped into navigation. She’d put her big gun away but still wore her combat armor, her helmet folded back to reveal a contusion swelling at her temple. Her face was flushed, and her eyes gleamed, as if she’d enjoyed herself back there. Bonita couldn’t imagine.

  “Thanks for getting rid of the freeloaders.” Bonita jerked her thumb toward the hull. “No gold, no passage, right?”

  “Seems reasonable, though I didn’t bring you any gold when I came on.”

  “You’ve earned your keep.” Bonita hoped her new passengers would too, especially since Kim hadn’t paid anything. And didn’t want to come. Bonita thought about offering to set her down somewhere, but after the night she’d had, she was too paranoid to land anywhere on Odin again.

  “Thank you, Captain.” Qin pressed her hands together in front of her chest and bowed.

  Not for the first time, Bonita wondered what kind of crazy upbringing she’d had. She’d tried to look up Qin when she’d taken the girl on board, but all she’d found were encyclopedia references to some Ancient Chinese heroine back on Earth that she must have been named for.

  Did her pirate family have descendants from that region? Some people knew where on Earth their ancestors had come from. Many more did not. Much had been lost during the years after the twenty-four colony ships had arrived in the various systems.

  “Our new passengers saw me,” Qin admitted quietly.

  “They say anything to you?” Bonita’s hackles bristled as she prepared to protect her assistant if needed. Qin could take care of herself physically, but mental attacks were harder to deflect.

  “They just stared in surprise.” Qin lowered her voice. “Like I was a freak.”

  “Well, you’re not.”

  One of Qin’s pointed ears rotated slightly.

  “The Kingdom people are the only ones who bat an eye at modded humans. There are plenty of them roaming the rest of the systems. You’re perfectly normal.”

  The way Qin smiled sadly suggested that hadn’t been her experience, but she changed the subject instead of arguing.

  “Do you think those strange robots were after us?” Qin asked. “Because of the cargo?”