Ship of Ruin

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Thank you for the input,” Sikou said. “We’ll try to find your doctor’s records and start up where he left off.”

  “We may want to rig a magnetic field around sickbay if we can,” Kim suggested. “Since these people are inside of one, and they’re alive. I’m skeptical that the Glasnax alone is protecting them, since we’ve now encountered numerous crew who died in full and, at least at first glance, un-breached galaxy suits.”

  “It may just be that they—” Sikou pointed at the quarantined scientists, “—never came in contact with the—whatever it is. Ayik, you said your people got in there before the team returned?”

  “Yes. And we haven’t left in case…” He waved at the sickbay, or maybe the air in sickbay and the ship as a whole.

  “A good idea,” Sikou said. “I’m going to suggest you stay in there until we’re able to ensure there’s no threat out here. But don’t worry. We’re on it, and the labs here look state-of-the-art. There’s equipment for everything from specimen analysis, incubation, biosafety, and research and development. There’s even a cryonics chamber. We should have everything we need to solve this problem.”

  Kim didn’t point out that the Machu Picchu’s doctor, who’d had access to everything here, hadn’t managed to do so.

  Sickbay on the warship reminded Casmir more of a vault than a hospital. It was located in the center of the great vessel, with no portholes and pale gray walls that matched the pale gray ceiling and complemented the dark gray deck. There weren’t any entertainment displays, bookcases, or holo-games. He imagined patients got better as quickly as possible so they could escape.

  He wasn’t sure whether to be encouraged or disturbed that his interrogation was going to take place in sickbay rather than the brig. He had a lot fewer bad associations with jails.

  It wasn’t that he’d ever received poor care in a hospital, just that there had been so many trips in his youth. Countless tests related to his seizures, the eye surgery, instances of anaphylactic shock from allergies, broken bones from his woeful attempts to participate in sports. All those childhood visits should have inured him to the hospital experience, but he’d always had a gift for mentally torturing himself with worry. Even as an adult, every time he went for a simple doctor’s visit, he was certain someone would confirm his suspicions that his inevitable and painful death was close at hand.

  A male nurse saluted sharply when the captain and the knight came in, the man’s face as serious as a dagger to the heart. A female nurse winked at the knight and saluted her captain with a saucy jutting of her hip. Ishii’s lips pressed together at this slight irreverence. Casmir promptly liked her. She was pretty, with glistening ringlets of black hair that made him want to tug at one to see if it bounced. Other things, he could already tell, bounced nicely.

  The presence of the captain, the knight, and two guards flanking Casmir quelled any urge to flirt. He clasped his hands behind his back and waited for instructions.

  He didn’t see any doctors and wondered if they had all gone over to the research ship to help Kim. Or maybe this procedure was simply so basic that a doctor didn’t need to stand by. He hoped so.

  “We’re questioning this man, Lieutenant Adjei,” Ishii said. “Prepare a dose of eslevoamytal.”

  “Yes, sir.” The female nurse—Adjei—smiled at Casmir. “Are you on any medications? I need to make sure nothing in your system could interact with the eslevoamytal.”

  Flustered by the smile, which was even more intriguing than the hair, he stumbled over his words. “No. I mean, yes. Er, I was, but they’re probably out of my system now. A pirate stole my meds.” His eye blinked and watered, and he wiped it. “Even the antihistamine,” he added, hoping allergies might explain his tics.

  “A pirate? Unfortunate. Do you have any known allergies or reactions to drugs?”

  “Do you want a list?”

  Her lower lip drooped—in surprise?

  “The only drug I’m deathly allergic to is the seizure medication ethosuximide,” Casmir said. “Found that out the hard way. Also, you can kill me with cashews and pomegranates. Though I’d prefer it if you didn’t. I’m doing my best to stay alive this month.”

  Ishii made a disgusted noise. “There aren’t cashews in the truth drug. Sit there.”

  He gripped Casmir’s arm and propelled him to a chair locked to the deck. He swiveled it so it faced the room.

  If Zee had witnessed the rough handling, he might have attacked, but Casmir had ordered him to wait in the corridor. That wouldn’t, he hoped, prove a mistake.

  As soon as Casmir sat, Adjei came over with a jet injector full of a dubious fluid that looked like it should be used to clean drains rather than inserted into someone’s vein.

  “Efficient,” Casmir murmured.

  “We strive for that on the Osprey. Will you tug down your suit top, or do I need to get the burly men to do it?” She waved at his sleeves and gloves.

  Casmir resisted the urge to be stupid and ask if she would remove his suit for him. Besides, she kept stealing glances at the knight, who was tall, handsome, muscular, and probably starred in women’s fantasies on a nightly basis.

  The knight didn’t seem aware of her glances. He’d pulled out a physical book from who knew where under his cloak and was reading.

  “I’m here to cooperate.” Casmir flashed back to Rache’s doctor drawing his blood from his neck, and he unfastened the top of his suit. He caught the captain glowering at him and realized it would be a good idea to attempt to befriend Ishii rather than continuing to pick at old scabs. That might have been easier if Ishii hadn’t heard him sharing his childhood nickname with his men. “I’ll answer anything you need to know, Captain. By the way, I know we were busy sniping at each other earlier, but the Osprey is really impressive. Congratulations on the command. Have you had it long?”

  Ishii gazed flintily at him. As much as Casmir wanted to dislike him and assume his noble blood had gotten him the command, that was probably only partially true. Casmir didn’t interact often with members of the military, but even he knew thirty-two was young to have a ship like this and the responsibility that went with it.

  “You said it was a Great Raptor 7, right?” Casmir went on, having found success enticing sullen colleagues into talking by bringing up their passions. Ishii had to be proud of his ship and know all about it. “Two fusion reactors for redundancy, and what, twenty or thirty DEW turrets, ten torpedo bays, and six railguns? Crew complement of over five hundred?”

  “Six hundred,” Ishii said grudgingly. “We have a company of marines too.”

  “You must have been sent to hunt down Rache.” Casmir doubted platoons of marines would be sent along to deal with a quarantined civilian ship. That suggested the Osprey had only recently been diverted, as he’d suspected.

  “I’m surprised a roboticist knows anything about spaceships,” Ishii said. “Or would be out here at all. I seem to remember you puking on a children’s ride once. The Teacup, I believe it was called.” His eyes glinted with pleasure at this memory.

  Nurse Adjei was focused on his bare forearm, finding just the right spot for her injector, and only twitched an eyebrow at the comment. Casmir wondered if it was too late to crawl under the desk next to the chair.

  “I have a colleague who collects model spaceships of all kinds,” Casmir said. “He educates me on the attributes of everything in his collection whenever we have lunch together.” Which was more often than Casmir might have opted for, but the rest of the faculty tended to avoid Kovacs. He didn’t have an off switch, as Simon always said.

  The jet injector hissed as the drug entered his bloodstream.

  The nurse paused, a frown creasing her brow. “You’re not on anti-nausea medication, right now, are you?”

  A twinge of worry went through him at her reaction and the possibility that he did still have some in his system. The Dragon had plenty of non-prescription stuff in its little sickbay, but he didn’t think he’d taken any since his
capture. His body had finally somewhat acclimated to the variable gravity of the ships he’d been on.

  “Not for a couple of days,” Casmir said. “The gravity on your ship here is actually quite delightful.” He smiled at Ishii, having no problem making the statement sincere.

  “Uh huh.” Ishii looked at the knight. “Do you want him first?”

  The knight, whose name hadn’t been mentioned yet, put a finger in his book to mark his spot and extended a hand toward Casmir. “Go ahead. Establish whether he’s done anything criminal or not, as that will affect what I divulge to him.”

  Casmir studied him with fresh curiosity, trying to decipher the statement—was it possible this was another knight who’d been sent to warn him of something? Before he could get far in his musings, Ishii distracted him by leaning forward and dropping his hands onto the armrests of the chair.

  “This would be more intimidating if you were taller,” Casmir informed him.

  Ishii’s eyes closed to slits.

  Casmir hadn’t meant to resort to insults. Was that the drug already affecting him?

  “Did you know about the bioweapon when you boarded the Stellar Dragon?” Ishii asked, getting right to business.

  “No. And neither did the captain. She thought she was smuggling weapons, I gathered. The guns and cannons kind, not the terrible disease-in-a-vial kind.” An uncomfortable warm sensation plucked at the back of Casmir’s throat. God, he wasn’t having an allergic reaction to the drug, was he? “She’s a bounty hunter, but she’s run up against some hard times, so she started smuggling stuff. Except for when she tried to collect a bounty on me. Did you know Tenebris Rache—”

  “Stop,” Ishii said.

  Casmir complied, glad for the command since he’d been burbling. He’d hoped to avoid the subject of Rache, at least the part where they were twin brothers.

  “Did Kim Sato know about the bioweapon when you boarded?” Ishii asked.

  “No, she didn’t even want to come along.” Casmir moaned. “It’s my fault that she’s here. Those crushers came after me, and that knight told me to flee the planet because someone wanted me dead, and I was afraid they’d interrogate everybody who knew me in order to find me, so I told Kim she had to leave home. She’s my roommate, you know. She was buying me celebratory wine because my prototype bird flew. Isn’t that nice? People don’t always get her, because she prefers work or being alone to social gatherings most of the time, but she doesn’t dislike people. They just make her uncomfortable in large numbers. She thinks I’m all right though. Most of the time. Do you know the story about how we almost didn’t become roommates?”

  “Stop.” Ishii sighed and looked at the knight in exasperation.

  Was this not going as expected? Casmir had no basis for comparison, but he hoped Ishii hurried this along. He’d imagined this would be like consuming alcohol—something that tended to leave him awful at lying—but it was definitely a drug. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his heart pounded in his chest, and his throat was itching in earnest. Should he tell the nurse he needed some allergy medicine? Or was he simply having a panic attack? It wasn’t as if those never happened…

  Ishii snapped his fingers in front of Casmir’s face, and Casmir realized he’d missed some more questions.

  “Did you cheat at robotics camp?” Ishii asked.

  Casmir wasn’t sure if it was a test question or something for calibration. He couldn’t imagine Ishii cared after all these years, but he heard himself answering promptly, as if his mind was detached from his body, and he listened from somewhere else in the room.

  “No, you did,” he said with unfeigned distress. “Or someone on your team did. Rocky—that was our final robot—you remember? Rocky was sabotaged before the battle. We didn’t realize it until afterward, but he was missing…” Damn, why was his throat so tight? And was he breathing heavily or was that Ishii? Someone definitely was. He was so hot. “Someone took a piece out of the high-torque servo—he was walking kaput. Like me. I can’t—uh, nurse? I think I need…” He was wheezing. That was definitely him. He patted Ishii’s arm urgently. “Epinephrine, please.”

  He had to be polite with nurses and doctors. Reasonable and logical. His mother had told him that once. He couldn’t be afraid all the time or talk about minor issues, or they would think he was a hypochondriac.

  “Sir,” the nurse said from somewhere far away. “Back up, please.”

  “What the hell is wrong with him?” Ishii stepped back and squinted at Casmir’s face. “Are those hives?”

  The nurse approached with a jet injector. Was that an antagonist? Or more of the truth drug?

  Casmir shook his head violently, abruptly afraid of the latter. They would kill him.

  “Sir, he’s—”

  The world disappeared from his awareness, and Casmir didn’t hear anything else.

  5

  “This way, Doctor,” Rache said, waiting in the shadowy interior of the buried wreck.

  Yas didn’t know when it had crashed, but it looked to have been embedded in the glacier filling one end of the canyon for a long time. Maybe the glacier had shifted and revealed some of the ship only recently. He didn’t know anything about this moon, other than the ridiculously frigid temperature his helmet display reported, but he assumed Skadi had some kind of tectonic activity in its core, something that had created its varied terrain features.

  “Nobody’s had their suits or helmets off,” Rache said, apropos of nothing, as far as Yas could tell.

  He led the way into the wreck, through shadowy holds and corridors, the walls more akin to circuit boards than the panels or smooth surfaces that humans would typically cover things with. Yas paused and touched one of the exposed surfaces, shivering even though he couldn’t feel the extreme cold through his gloves.

  “I would assume not,” Yas said, eyeing the environmental stats displayed in his helmet. “It’s rather lacking in oxygen out there. And nippy.”

  “The temperature is the least of our concerns.”

  Rache led him into a cavernous space filled with… Yas wasn’t sure. Giant empty molds? Then he spotted a couple of bodies, and he forgot to wonder what had been in them.

  They wore yellow and brown galaxy suits that had frosted over, so they weren’t Rache’s men. Were they part of that original archaeology team? For scientists, they had an unlikely number of rifles and pistols strapped to their suits. How long had they been there?

  “Am I here to look at the bodies?” Yas asked quietly.

  “Take a blood sample. See if they had the same thing that killed those scientists on the refinery.”

  “Do you think they’re part of that team that got left behind? Guards, maybe?” Yas waved at the rifles.

  “No.”

  He waited to see if Rache would explain further, but he only jerked a hand toward the bodies. “Do you have something in there to cut open their suits and get their blood?”

  Blood that would be as frozen as they were. But that shouldn’t matter much. He could still test them for the cellular damage that had killed the others.

  “Yes.” Yas patted his medical kit.

  “See if you can identify them too. I’m guessing they’re not from this system.”

  Yas wasn’t either, so he wasn’t sure about the significance of that, but he said, “Yes, sir.”

  “After you get that, you better take samples from the rest of the men too.”

  Yas looked sharply at him.

  “Chains and Getton both independently reported feeling off. I’ve got Chaplain running scans of everything to check for radiation or any strange energy readings. Nothing so far.”

  “We’ve been down here for less than two hours,” Yas said. “Even if there was a pathogen that they had somehow contracted through their suits—I deem that highly unlikely—they shouldn’t have symptoms of anything yet.”

  “Test everyone, anyway.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Rache walked over to join Chaplain. The o
ther men must have been exploring elsewhere, deeper in the wreck. Dark conduit-lined corridors—or maybe access tubes?—headed away from the bay.

  Rache and Chaplain pointed at the huge molds while holding a private discussion. Chaplain gestured with his hand scanner and shook his head. Each of the molds was wider across than a person, and whatever had lain inside had stretched thirty or forty feet in height and a dozen feet in thickness. Had they been empty for centuries? Or only recently cleared out? It was hard to imagine anyone in a shuttle coming down and taking even one of the large pieces, much less hundreds.

  After some final orders to Chaplain, who jogged off deeper into the ship, Rache headed back toward the exit.

  “Where are you going, sir?” Yas asked, a little alarmed at being left alone in the strange place, especially when he didn’t yet know what had killed the two armed men on the ground.

  “To look for signs that something larger than a shuttle filled with archaeologists landed here recently,” Rache said without looking back.

  He sounded irked. Because someone had cleared out the place first? What did he think had been in the molds? Pieces of a gate? An entire gate?

  “Take those blood samples, Doctor,” Rache said.

  “Yes, sir,” Yas murmured and set to work.

  He took his samples as quickly as possible and returned to the shuttle, setting up a small lab in the mess area. Over the next couple of hours, he analyzed specimens and had Rache’s grunts report to him for blood draws.