After one particularly loud crack, Bonita scowled over at him. “Why don’t you take a nap? I’ll let you know if they respond.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me, Captain?”
“You just now noticed?” She shooed him toward the hatchway. “Don’t you need to tell that uppity knight that you’re not really out to get the Kingdom? Just because the enemy didn’t answer your comm message doesn’t mean the warships didn’t notice it.”
“Ah, good point.”
Casmir pushed himself out of the pod and headed to Asger’s hatch. He knocked and wasn’t surprised when Asger promptly answered. It was hard to imagine anyone sleeping well knowing they were heading to a battleground.
“Come in,” he called.
When Casmir opened the hatch, he found Asger in a pushup position on the deck. He sprang to his feet and stuck his head out to squint both directions down the corridor before stepping back and letting him in. What, had he been afraid Qin would be standing out there, ready to leap into his private space? Back on the Osprey, Casmir had been inclined to like Asger, since he’d helped him escape confinement, but his attitude toward Qin made Casmir wanted to punch him in the nose. Still, he shouldn’t burn bridges—or knights—as they could be useful when trying to escape villains.
“Do you have a minute?” Casmir asked. “We’re about an hour from the gate. I thought we should discuss our options.”
“Do we have options?” Asger sat on the edge of his bunk.
A few wrinkles creased the blanket, but he clearly hadn’t been under the covers. His book lay on the pillow.
“No. We need to make some.”
“Ah.”
“And I should warn you before someone else tells you that I offered to submit a résumé and work for the enemy if they would take me on board. I also expressed disgruntlement as a Kingdom subject, but I was actually quite enjoying my work and my life before all this started.”
Asger gazed blandly at him, either thinking he was a loon or not knowing what he was talking about. Well, if he hadn’t been sulking in his cabin, he could have been there for the genesis of that comm message.
“I thought someone who works for the king should know,” Casmir added. “In case some overzealous communications officer on one of those warships recorded it to blackmail me later.”
“What happens if someone on the enemy ship offers you a job?”
“The odds that they’re here for job recruitment seem slim. I was just hoping someone would reply, and we could learn more about that ship and who’s flying it and why. Also where they’re taking their stolen cargo, in case we need to pursue them through the gate.”
Asger grimaced and didn’t deny the possibility. Maybe he was in communication with Ishii or someone else on the warship and had been keeping tabs on the battle.
A message alert came through on Casmir’s chip, and it automatically downloaded a long letter and some large files. From Kim.
“She’s alive.” Casmir clenched his fist. “Kim’s alive.”
He started to smile, but as soon as he began reading her letter, grimness replaced relief.
“She’s been afflicted with the… She’s not calling it a disease. She says it’s not bacterial or virological.” His shoulders slumped. “And she doesn’t think she has much time. She sent letters for me to send along to her family in case she doesn’t get a chance to…”
His throat tightened, and he couldn’t keep speaking. He tried to sit on Asger’s bunk, but his focus was locked on the letter, and he missed the edge. He ended up on the deck, staring as the lines scrolled through his vision.
How long ago had she written this? She mentioned not being sure when it would go out due to limited reception because they were down in some canyon. He wiped his eyes. What if she’d already died?
There were three postscripts at the end of her message to him.
P.S. For some reason, this isn’t afflicting Rache. You may be immune too. I found something interesting in his blood, though I’m not sure yet why or how it would convey immunity.
That confused him, but he read on, less concerned about himself now and definitely not concerned about Rache.
P.P.S. I found my mother… in pieces and inoperable. I don’t want you to risk coming here, since everyone except Rache is deteriorating rapidly, but if you get the chance to collect her somehow and can repair her, I would appreciate it.
P.P.P.S. I went into the wreck and looked around. Rache believes someone got here first and stole the gate pieces that were in the hold. I’m sending a bunch of pictures and some footage I recorded, some of the molds, but more of the ship itself. Let me know what you think if you get this in time. Rache’s people seemed more interested in searching it than in figuring out who sent it. It doesn’t look like anything humans would build, so who did? If we figure that out, maybe it will help.
Casmir opened the attachments and watched her recordings. He’d gotten a sense of a dark, shadowy background before, in the video with the monkey droid—Erin Kelsey-Sato—waving a piece of gate around, but it hadn’t focused on the walls or drives or anything in the ship. Now, he watched intently. Even though it didn’t look like Kim had gotten back to engineering, it didn’t take him long to form the opinion.
In case time was of the essence, he sent back a quick response. Later, he would go over the footage in more detail and send a longer reply.
Kim, I’m glad you’re alive—please stay that way, as you know damn well how hard it is to find good roommates! Your pictures remind me a lot of images humans have taken from space of Verloren Moon, the one claimed by artificial intelligence and built out into one giant computer, as far as we know. Your mother might know more—I’m sorry her body is inoperable currently, and I will definitely try to fix her when we get back together, which will be soon—but I’ve always thought the theory that makes the most sense is that automated ships were sent from Earth to set up the gate network long before humans ever arrived in the Twelve Systems. If that’s true, the archaeologists may have found one of the ships that didn’t make it all the way for some reason. Or maybe it made it but had a spare gate, so its cargo wasn’t used, and it simply landed on Skadi in case its gate was needed for backup in the future.
If that is what happened, those computerized ships would have traveled the long way to the Twelve Systems, and passed through who knows what strange places over the centuries. Is it possible they were equipped with a means to defend themselves if some previously unknown alien life tried to jump them and steal their cargo? And that the archaeologists triggered it somehow?
That’s just a guess. My mind is on combat right now. It could also be that it simply flew through something strange and deadly to humans but not computers and is now contaminated. I’ll do some research and send more information as soon as I have it.
I wish I could say I was on my way to help you right now, but I need to help the Kingdom warships keep what is very likely the stolen gate from getting out of the system.
Stay safe, my friend.
“Casmir?” Asger prodded his shoulder.
Casmir blinked, refocusing his eyes. Asger crouched in front of him.
“Are you all right?” he added.
“My best friend is dying,” Casmir said, the words coming out raspy and broken. He was sitting on the deck, crumpled against the bunk, but he didn’t care. “And I’m flying in the opposite direction when I should be back there helping.”
Was Kim still down on the moon? With Rache? Or had they left after finding out the gate parts had been stolen?
“I’m sorry.” Asger lowered his hand. “I spoke to Ishii earlier. He doesn’t expect you to be able to do anything and said you’d just be in the way. I should jump in my shuttle and continue to the battle to assist in any way I can, but if you want to fly back to Skadi, I won’t try to stop you.”
Casmir dropped his face into his hand. A part of him wanted to run to navigation and tell Bonita to change course, but he’d told Ishii
he would help, whether Ishii believed he could or not. And they were almost to the gate. Shouldn’t he try to do something after they’d flown all this way?
Not that he wouldn’t rather help Kim. Did he truly care which faction of humanity got hold of this new spare gate? Yes, it could change the face of the future, but it wouldn’t likely change that much in his lifetime. And if Kim died—
A beep sounded, and Bonita’s voice came over the comm. “Uh, Casmir?”
Her tone held a strange note.
Casmir pushed himself to his feet. “Yes?”
“You should come see this.”
Casmir stepped into the corridor, pausing when Asger came out after him. He hoped Qin was sleeping in her cabin and that they wouldn’t have another incident. He’d meant to address that issue when he knocked on Asger’s door. Not that it seemed that important after reading Kim’s message.
Casmir climbed the ladder and entered navigation, where a robot vacuum whirred along the deck. “What is it, Laser?”
“The last time the Union ship appeared, it launched that.” Bonita pointed at the display.
They were close enough to the gate now, that Viggo didn’t have to magnify the view much, and Casmir’s stomach twisted with nerves as he saw the warships. The one that had been listing was now little more than a dead hulk floating in space. Shuttles ran between it and the other warship still defending the gate, and there was Ishii’s Osprey stationed on the other side of it, also sending shuttles. To pick up the survivors?
Bonita wasn’t pointing at the gate or the Kingdom ships but at a blue cylindrical shuttle speeding away from the scene. It was heading in their direction. Back toward the Kingdom planets and habitats?
“It launched a shuttle?” Casmir asked. “Is it an escape pod? Were they damaged, and they’re sending their survivors?”
“The cargo ship continues to have the ability to maneuver, enter stealth mode, and fire weapons,” Viggo said.
Bonita didn’t answer, merely looking at Casmir as if he were missing something obvious.
“You think it’s coming for us?” he asked.
It was coming toward them. Straight toward them? It was hard to tell without a top-down view of both ships.
“I think it’s coming for you,” Bonita said. “You’re the one who offered to hire on.”
“Uh, have they commed us?”
“Not yet.”
A yellow light flared to life on the comm panel.
Bonita arched her eyebrows. “Now they have.”
“Freighter Stellar Dragon,” a bland unisex voice said. “Prepare to link ships and send over mechanical engineer Casmir Dabrowski.”
Before Casmir could respond, the channel went dead.
“You may have just gotten the job you applied for,” Bonita said.
“Uh,” Casmir said again.
It was all he could come up with.
12
A soft chime sounded in Kim’s mind, letting her know that her chip had found access and sent her files. She let out a relieved breath. She was sitting in the shuttle between Yas and the engineer, strapped in as Rache flew them out of the canyon and up toward orbit. Toward the Machu Picchu, Kim hoped.
“We going to die, Doc?” the engineer asked, her voice tired and defeated.
Yas didn’t answer. Kim thought he might have nodded off again. The fighters were in the rows behind them and barely making any noise. One had been helped into his harness by his comrades, and Kim wouldn’t be surprised if he died before the day was out.
“I’m hoping I can find something in one of the labs that can reverse our cellular damage,” Kim said, responding when Yas did not.
“Is that possible?” the engineer asked. “I was meant to die a couple of years ago, when the rest of my family did, and somehow I survived. I always figured I’d been living on borrowed time since then, and there were times when I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. But now that I’m looking death in the eye again…” She cleared her throat and glanced at Kim, seeming a little embarrassed.
Kim wouldn’t have judged her. She understood perfectly.
“I’m Jess, by the way. I don’t think anyone ever introduced us.”
“Kim Sato. And as soon as the network access gets a little stronger, I’ll do some searches. There are numerous proven anti-aging therapies out there. I’m hoping that something like that might work—and that the research ship has the appropriate equipment. The Kingdom doesn’t embrace that technology as much as other systems since it strays into areas that most of the predominant religions find questionable.”
“I sure wouldn’t mind a room in the TamTam Medical Spa right now. A little massage, a little muscle stimulation, a little regenerating the crap out of my cells… I used to go there when I was an athlete. They have some stuff that works good.”
Unfortunately, those medical spas were weeks away. Kim would have to find something on the Machu Picchu that could regenerate cells. She would also need to make sure any souvenirs the archaeology team had brought back were disposed of. Something had killed the crew, and there was little point in researching rejuvenation techniques if it was still up there, oozing death.
Not that she expected to find anything capable of doing that up there. It was a science research vessel, not a medical spa. The best she could hope for was—
She sucked in a breath as a thought bounced into her mind. Dr. Sikou had mentioned a cryonics lab. If the ship had the means of reviving frozen specimens, not just freezing them…
“That could be it,” Kim whispered. “Cryonics by its very nature has to rebuild aged and frozen—i.e. damaged—cells from the inside out in order to revive a body.”
“Enh?” Jess looked blearily over at her through bloodshot eyes.
“Just think hopeful thoughts.” Kim nodded at her, unfastened her harness, and made her way up to the front to sit in the co-pilot’s seat beside Rache.
“You came to keep me company?” he asked. “Thoughtful.”
“I want to make sure you’re planning to take us to the Machu Picchu,” Kim said. “I need to do some research, but I have an idea that may work as long as we’re no longer being exposed.”
She thought of the quarantine area inside sickbay. If nothing else, she could ask the engineer who’d devised the magnetic field if he could extend it to include the cryonics lab. Assuming that lab had what she needed. If it didn’t, they could all freeze themselves and order the ship to pilot them back to Odin where an advanced military facility could revive them. She shivered at the thought of essentially dying and being revived, but it would be better than simply dying. Forever.
Rache poked her shoulder.
“What?” She blinked at him. Had he spoken?
“I said I’ll drop you off, but I can’t stay. I need to rejoin my ship. They’ve alerted me to something that needs my attention.”
“Your crew needs your attention.” Kim waved behind her.
“It sounds like they need your attention. I’ll drop you all off there.”
Kim was tempted to object, but did she truly want him to stick around and breathe down the back of her neck while she worked? No, it would be better and more comfortable to be free of him. It just rankled that he would leave his dying people behind instead of staying to…
To do what? Hold their hands? She could hardly imagine him doing that.
Casmir would do that. He would give everybody hugs and make silly jokes to make them feel better.
She wished she’d hugged him before they’d parted ways. But as much as she hated to admit it, she was probably more like Rache. Stiff and aloof. Finding the idea of touch unappealing. She would rather throw herself into finding a solution than sit and hold someone’s hand. Her brain knew how to work on solutions. It didn’t know how to be… comforting. Sympathetic. Human.
She shook her head, irritated with her meandering thoughts. This was the time to focus on that solution-finding, not on her own deficiencies.
“Fine,” she said,
realizing Rache was watching her. “I’ll do what I can.”
He nodded. “Good.”
As they flew higher, and more of the stars came into view, Casmir’s response to her letter and files came in. Glad for the distraction, Kim read it promptly.
He thought that wreck had been a robot ship from Earth? And that the damage it was inflicting on people who came in contact with it might be an attack? Hm. Was it possible the gate pieces were booby-trapped to keep anyone—or anything—unapproved from taking them? That was one of his hypotheses. He also shared the same thought that she’d had, that the ship might have passed through something strange in space and carried it along with it.
Kim leaned back in the pod. Her helmet was off, and she brought her braid around to her face and rested it against her flushed skin while debating if Casmir’s observations changed anything.
Did it matter if that ship had exuded some kind of defensive attack to keep people from getting the gate pieces? Would that even make sense? The existing gates that were anchored in space let humans go through them. Humans in ships, admittedly. There was no flesh-to-gate contact. But still, astronauts had gone out in suits to study them in situ. She’d never heard of them being afflicted with this accelerated aging.
She closed her eyes, feeling like she was close to grasping something, but it kept eluding her. Maybe because she was exhausted and her brain was turning to mush in her skull.
She looked at Rache, wondering if he would have any better insight. His brain ought to be fine. And in theory, as useful as Casmir’s brain, though she had no idea what kind of education he had in there. He read books. But would that help with this?
“Casmir thinks that wreck was an automated ship sent from Earth to bring the gates here for installation—that one down there might have been a backup—and that when the archaeology team entered the structure, it decided they were unauthorized personnel and attacked. The archaeologists, and now us. Everyone except you, for whatever reason.”
The Machu Picchu was visible on the forward display now, and their route shifted as he guided them toward an airlock hatch, but he glanced at her while piloting. “Did you ever figure out what’s different about my blood?”
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