Short Stories from the Star Kingdom Read online

  “He might have been.” She smiled. “Tenebris Rache.”

  “What is his new title in the government? Minister of External Affairs? That sounds extremely pompous.”

  “He didn’t give it to himself, so that doesn’t count. This Vorfolk Chemscience looks like a newly formed private company. They’ve only had one shipment of supplies. Their address isn’t far from here. They supposedly make industrial chemicals for military and private use. Too bad their listed laboratory hours are over for the day.”

  “Why is that?”

  “If they were still open, we could have gone and questioned someone.”

  “We could go and snoop around without questioning anyone.”

  “I’m sure I don’t have to point out to you that we would need to involve law enforcement and they would have to get a warrant for that to be legal.”

  “I’m dead. Laws don’t apply to me.”

  Kim poked his arm. “You feel alive.”

  “An illusion.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll make appointments tomorrow to visit each of these three laboratories. Since I’m in the field, I should be able to come up with a plausible reason to come by.”

  “Yes, I’m certain that bacteriologists have a great many uses for industrial chemicals.”

  “My company works in a number of different research areas. They’ll see me.” Kim ordered the auto-flier to take them to Rache’s address to drop him off.

  He would have preferred that their date continue—and fantasized about taking her to break into the secret laboratories of mad scientists who were eschewing the law for their greedy goals. It sounded like an appealing adventure, and maybe it would give her an opportunity to use her martial-arts training to kick people—something she’d done a few times to his own mercenaries. Sadly, she was unlikely to do anything illegal now that she was back on her home world. She’d gotten her job back, and she was a friend to the crown now; being irresponsible—and kicking random people—could reflect badly on her and her comrades. Understandable if slightly disappointing.

  As the flier took off, Rache tapped a finger to this chin. It wasn’t as if he had anything to lose if he committed crimes. If he found the kidnapper and safely brought back Kim’s friend, she could hardly fault him for a little breaking and entering. She would agree that he was a hero if not a superhero.

  Rache smirked, bemused that Casmir had planted that silly notion in his head. Not that it was going to come to pass. He wasn’t going to become some altruistic do-gooder. He merely wanted to help Kim because he cared about her. Besides, he owed her a few favors after all those kidnappings. Even better, she might kiss him again.

  As they soared over the rooftops of the city, Kim squinted over him. “When Casmir has an expression like that, it means he’s scheming something.”

  “We’re not very similar people.”

  Rache didn’t want to tip his hand. If she knew he would go, she might try to talk him out of it. Even if she didn’t, she might get her hopes up that he could deliver Pounce to her. Then what if he didn’t find anything? She would be disappointed and not in the mood for kissing.

  “Other than the identical DNA.”

  “Other than,” he agreed amiably.

  She was still squinting at him when they arrived at his building, and he climbed out.

  “Goodnight, Scholar Sato.” He bowed deeply to her. “Remember, I get to pick the place for our next date.”

  “Once I find Qin’s sister, I’ll go anywhere with you.”

  “Anywhere? How exciting. I’ll start planning for that eventuality now.”

  * * *

  • • • • •

  * * *

  Rache had infiltrated his share of laboratories in his mercenary days, mostly in space habitats and stations, not on planets, so he thought he knew what to expect from one. As he stood outside of Vorfolk Chemscience in his black combat armor, with a rifle slung over his back and a stunner stuck to his hip clip, he gazed nonplussed at the entrance to a middle unit in a commercial building in a suburb of Zamek City.

  To the left was a dentist’s office. To the right, a parcel-shipment center. Vorfolk had tinted windows, but Rache could make out a receptionist’s counter in the front and a waiting area with chairs. It looked like the kind of place one came for blood draws or maintenance of chip implants, not a building appropriate for mixing industrial chemicals. Maybe they had vats of burbling fluids somewhere in the back.

  “Are you certain this is the correct establishment, Tenebris Rache?” Amit asked from his side.

  The crusher appeared equally out of place in the suburban parking lot. Rache was glad that it was midnight, with no auto-cabs, pedestrians, or aircraft in sight. Had people been wandering into the dentist’s office, a crusher and an armored ex-merc would have received countless concerned glances.

  “Let’s check the back door.” Rache had no doubt he could flick a gauntleted finger and force the front door open, but he would feel silly doing so if this wasn’t the right place. It was entirely possible that none of the three companies that he and Kim had singled out had anything to do with Qin’s missing sister. A shipment of vials was a dubious clue at best.

  A huge robotic street cleaner rumbled past as Rache and Amit circled the building, slurping up debris and incinerating it in its core. A stray dog that had been licking what looked like days-old spilled ice cream mashed into the pavement darted into an alley to avoid the bulky contraption.

  Rache and Amit also turned into the alley, and Rache wondered if the dog would start barking at the crusher. He’d heard from Kim that Queen Oku’s dog barked uproariously at them if they didn’t turn into furniture. But the shaggy mutt had its nose to the pavement, no doubt seeking more abandoned food, and didn’t look back at them.

  The building was larger than it had looked from the front, and Rache decided there might be room for vats of chemicals after all. And perhaps a kidnapped warrior woman?

  He and Amit passed a trash bin and slowed as they neared the Vorfolk door. The dog had passed by the doors to three other tenants in the building and stopped with his nose to the ground in front of this one. Loud snuffling echoed from the alley walls as he explored the crack under the door.

  “That canine is atypically interested in that establishment,” Amit said.

  “I noticed. Think that means that a cat was dragged this way?” Rache was joking—it was far more likely that a sausage had been dragged that way—but Amit gave him a serious answer.

  “I do not believe that the genetically engineered women smell like domestic felines.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  The dog noticed them and whirled toward them to bare its teeth. Rache couldn’t tell if ensuing growls were for Amit or for him—his armor was likely as alarming to a canine as a crusher—but he walked forward and made shooing motions. The dog decided the fight wasn’t worth it and sped off down the alley.

  “My olfactory receptors are more than equal to a human’s nose,” Amit said, “but they are unfortunately not equal to that of a canine nose.”

  “Meaning you don’t smell cats or hot dogs?”

  “Hot dogs?”

  “Never mind.” Rache wondered if Casmir’s crusher understood his sense of humor.

  The solid metal door in the back was locked, and there were no windows to peek through. Rache eyed the corresponding trash bin, wondering if any clues might be found inside. The lid was locked, and a keypad flashed a request for a code.

  “Do you wish me to open that lid?” Amit asked.

  “I don’t think we have what the Kingdom Guard would call probable cause.”

  Rache debated if he cared. He’d blown up spaceships and refineries before, and a trash bin was insignificant in comparison. Admittedly, he’d been paid to destroy those other things, but he was here to help Kim. The end justified the means.

  He pointed at something on the lid. “Does that look like the fur of a cat woman to you?”

 
“I believe humans call that lint.”

  “Nope, I think it’s fur.” Rache plucked up the innocuous substance, snapped the lock, and lifted the lid. As the pungent scent of strange plastics and chemicals wafted out, he tossed the small tuft aside. “You may have been right. I think it was lint.”

  He slid his faceplate down to protect his nose from dangerous chemical scents and rooted around in the trash. He made a note to clean his armor well later and was about to give up when he found a few empty vials that matched the one Qin had given Kim. That didn’t necessarily mean anything—they’d specifically picked this place because they’d ordered vials like this—but it made him want to investigate further.

  “Let’s go inside the building.” Rache closed the lid.

  “I feel compelled to warn you that I can protect you from danger, but I have been programmed not to take aggressive actions against humans unless it is absolutely necessary.”

  “I know.” Rache reached for the door but paused. “Why are you reminding me of that? Do you detect someone inside?”

  “Not yet, but it is possible security forces will be summoned if we forcibly enter the structure.”

  “True. I’ll handle them.”

  Rache forced open the back door and stepped into a cavernous room with barrels stacked along the walls and a maze of floor-to-ceiling mixing equipment filling the floor space. A short hallway on the far side led to the receptionist’s area he’d seen through the windows. Interestingly, a cement stairwell along one wall led to a basement. He hadn’t expected the commercial building to have an underground level.

  A soft blue light flashed to the side of the door he’d forced open, and Rache sighed. The control panel for an alarm system was mounted on the wall, demanding a code and informing him that he had thirty seconds to enter it.

  “I don’t suppose your maker programmed you with any hacking abilities,” Rache said to Amit.

  “He did not.”

  Rache ripped the control panel off the wall and smashed it under his armored boot.

  “Do you believe that disarmed the alarm?” Amit asked.

  “No, but it felt good. Let’s get in and out quickly. It won’t take long for the authorities to arrive to check on that.” Rache didn’t see anyone up here, but he wanted to check out the basement. He pointed to Amit’s chest. “Why don’t you stay up here and try to deter them if they get here before I’m done? Chances are, it’ll be androids, not humans. You can destroy androids, can’t you?”

  “I have also been programmed not to take aggressive actions against robots, androids, and crushers unless it is absolutely necessary.”

  “Have I mentioned how delightful it is that Casmir is a pacifist?”

  “You have not.”

  “Remind me to start bringing it up daily. Just stand in front of the door and don’t let them in.”

  Rache jogged down the cement steps, which ended at a solid metal door with another control panel to the side. Casmir, with his ability to hack into security systems, would have been a good person to bring along, but he probably objected as much as Kim did about doing illegal things these days. Everyone had gone respectable.

  Rache leaned his shoulder against the door and pushed, his armor adding power to his already enhanced muscles. A large deadbolt snapped, and the door opened. He stepped into a cement-floored room lined with rows of giant shelves, laboratory workstations and equipment, and—hah!—two cages bolted to the walls in the back corner.

  One was empty, but in the other, a humanoid figure with feminine curves lay crumpled on the floor. Pounce? Her back was to him, so he couldn’t tell, but if not, she was another big lady. Either way, he now felt justified in his breaking and entering.

  Rache slung his rifle off his shoulder and walked in carefully, pausing when two hulking Magmaburst Defender robots came into view in the shadowed corners. They stood dormant on their twin caterpillar treads, their blocky red metal heads almost brushing the ceiling. Each robot had four arms, two ending in graspers and two in the barrels of blast cannons capable of knocking down walls.

  Rache had encountered such robots before. They weren’t nearly as sophisticated or dangerous as crushers, but they could do plenty of damage.

  A bang came from upstairs. The authorities trying to force open the door? It wouldn’t take them long to run around to the front.

  Rache circled the perimeter of the room as he jogged toward the cage, hoping luck would be with him and he would avoid whatever invisible beam or tripwire triggered the robots to attack.

  Before he’d made it halfway there, red eye-like indicator lights flared to life on both robots’ heads. So much for luck.

  The robots hummed to life and rolled toward Rache as they raised their cannon arms.

  He sprinted the rest of the way to the cage and ripped open the locked gate with a great heave of his back muscles. The thick locked snapped as the first of the robots’ weapons fired.

  Rache dove backward into a roll as a ball of white energy slammed into the wall next to the cage.

  “Wha?” the woman asked, her voice slurred and confused.

  “Stay down,” Rache barked, springing to his feet.

  A second cannon blasted, raw energy sizzling through the air, then blowing through several bars at the top of the cage.

  “Far down,” Rache added.

  He sprinted toward the closest robot. As it tried to target him, he zigzagged unpredictably, then sprang into the air. Another blast came from its cannon arm, blowing a crater in the floor, but Rache flew through the air and landed on its head. He wrapped his arms around it and twisted with all of his might. Metal wrenched and wires snapped.

  The other robot spun toward its decapitated comrade, weapons humming, but it must have been programmed not to fire toward a fellow robot.

  Rache leaped from the broad shoulders of the one he’d destroyed over to the other one. It whipped its cannon up faster than he expected. Rache twisted in the air, contorting himself to try to avoid the blast.

  It buzzed past, millimeters from his back, and slammed into the ceiling.

  As he dropped out of the air, Rache almost missed his target, but he managed to hook an arm around the robot’s stout head. Pieces of the ceiling—and furniture from the floor above—tumbled through the huge hole its weapon had created.

  As Rache wrapped both arms around the robot’s head—the thing didn’t have anything like a neck—a dentist chair crashed down, shattering into dozens of pieces as it landed. It startled him but not so much that he failed to tear off the robot’s head.

  He leaped free as it smoked and sputtered, landing in a crouch with his rifle raised. The other headless robot was spinning on its treads. He fired at both of them until they warped and melted and stopped moving.

  Footsteps thundered on the stairs. Hell, security had gotten past Amit.

  Crashes came from somewhere above, possibly explaining it. Amit sounded like he was involved in a battle of his own.

  Using one of the robot husks for cover, Rache aimed his rifle at the doorway. Instead of the androids he’d hoped for, a Kingdom Guard—a human Kingdom Guard—rushed inside with a stunner.

  Rache almost fired instinctually, but the man wasn’t armored, and he caught himself. He reached for his own stunner.

  A second man crept in after the Guard, but he didn’t have a weapon in hand.

  “You there,” the Guard said as he spotted Rache. “You’re under arrest for trespassing and destruction of property.” He glanced not at the robots but at the broken dentist chair, which had caught fire, due to a bunch of burning papers and floorboards falling down after it. “Come out with your hands up.”

  Rache leaned out and fired at him. The Guard was fast enough to fire back, but the stunner blast had no effect on Rache’s armor. His own bolt took the Guard in the chest, the blue nimbus flaring and swallowing him. His eyes rolled back in his head as he pitched to the floor. Apparently, the Zamek City authorities didn’t expect to find ex-mercen
aries in full combat armor breaking into commercial buildings in the suburbs.

  The second man squeaked and ran back out the door. Rache caught him before he’d gone up three steps.

  “Stop, stop,” he blurted. “I’m the owner!”

  He was scrawnier than a string bean, so Rache didn’t have any trouble hauling him back into the room and pinning him to the wall so that he had a view of the cage. “Meaning you’re the one who kidnapped the girl?”

  The prisoner—yes, Rache could see her face now, and she was indeed one of the Qin sisters—had rolled onto all fours and was shaking her head—trying to shake off the effects of whatever she’d been drugged with. A pointed ear poked out of a tangle of dark hair.

  “That’s not a girl,” the man said, his eyes flaring with indignation. “She’s a genetically engineered creation.”

  “So that makes it okay to kidnap her out of her home?” After all his years in space, Rache had seen too much to be appalled by anyone’s lack of morality, but he knew Kim would be irked and would say something sarcastic and biting. Since she wasn’t here, he could fill in for her.

  “They said they caught it in a tree.”

  “A tree house on a knight’s estate. She’s a person, you idiot.” Rache wrapped his hand around the man’s throat, more to cut off anything else indignant and irritating that he might say than because he truly planned to throttle him. “What were you going to do with her?”

  “Make more.” The man grasped Rache’s arms, trying to push them away.

  Even if Rache hadn’t been armored, the string bean wouldn’t have had a chance at removing his grip.

  “I can sell them to mercenaries and armies for a fortune,” the man rasped. “Get off me. Who are you?”

  Rache almost answered truthfully, if only because it would drive more fear into the dolt, but a streak of lunatic humor flashed through him, and he said, “The Main Event.”

  “What? Let me go.”

  Tired of interacting with the man, Rache lifted his stunner and shot him in the chest. Let the authorities handle the questioning.