Ship of Ruin

by Lindsay Buroker

  For now, Casmir sat on the bridge with tools purloined from engineering, and he was repairing some of the least damaged robots while Zee stood guard over him. He expected Asger any moment and had a medical kit waiting nearby, his stomach twisting and knotting as he prepared to lie to a man who’d risked his life to help him.

  More than that. Asger must have believed he was giving up his life when he’d chosen to stay, further exposing himself. It was only a matter of time before the effects of the gate touched him—and Casmir still wasn’t positive they wouldn’t touch him, that he would share Rache’s unprecedented immunity. He was sure Rache’s men didn’t, and, knowing he was eventually going to rendezvous with Kim in Skadi Moon’s orbit, he’d felt bad about booting the mercenaries from the ship. But if she found a cure, Rache could negotiate with her himself on his men’s behalf. He owed her, and he could damn well grovel, if that was what Kim wanted. And if Rache was willing to do so on his people’s behalf.

  The door slid open, and Asger walked up to where Casmir sat cross-legged on the deck between the captain’s seat and the navigation station, disassembled robots all around him.

  “Are you reconstructing your army?” Asger sank into the command chair with a weary groan. He was still wearing his dented and charred combat armor, but he’d removed the helmet, and his long hair hung limply about his shoulders. He let his head flop back against the seat.

  “Just repairing a few of the less broken ones.”

  Asger grunted. “You’ve talked to Ishii, right?”

  “No, he hasn’t commed me.”

  Actually, the comm light had been flashing when Casmir had first walked onto the bridge. It had been Ishii. And Casmir hadn’t answered or commed back. He hadn’t even looked at the message.

  “Really? He messaged me personally earlier, asking for an update. I was busy fighting at the time. Now, he’s not answering. He and the other captains must still be busy dealing with Rache’s cursed warship. Hopefully, once Rache wakes up and comms the Fedallah to pick him up, it’ll break off. Or, even better, the warships could just defeat it. That would be nice. They’ve got the mercs outnumbered. Even if they were damaged fighting this astroshaman ship, they should be able to take down the Fedallah. Especially considering Rache wasn’t on the bridge for the battle.”

  The fact that Asger could communicate so easily with Ishii was another reason Casmir had to relocate the ship without his knowledge. Easier said than done.

  “Yes. And since Rache didn’t get the cargo—” Casmir waved in the direction of the hold, “—he won’t have a reason to keep fighting to reach the gate. With luck, he’ll give up for now and disappear back into the ether to lick his wounds.”

  “I hope he has some wounds.” Asger rotated his shoulder, grimaced, and gripped it. “I also hope to never face him in battle again. He had to have had some knight training at some point. He knew exactly how to fight someone with a pertundo.”

  “He does have that Kingdom accent.” Casmir smiled, though mostly, he added another piece to the puzzle that was Rache.

  “Yes… Have we reached the point yet where you’re going to explain to me why you didn’t let me get rid of the Kingdom’s most hated enemy?”

  Casmir had promised to explain, even though he hadn’t been sure then how he would, and he wasn’t sure now. “Not yet. First, it’s time for some medical treatment.”

  He pushed himself to his feet and headed for the medical kit, willing his hand to be steady as he reached for the jet injector he had prepared. He glanced toward the doorway to make sure Zee was where he’d left him, in case Asger twigged to this and fought him. Yes, the crusher loomed by the door, watching attentively.

  “I just need to get back to Odin and spend a couple of days in a regeneration tank,” Asger murmured, his eyes closed.

  “Unfortunately, that’s not all you’ll need.” Casmir stopped in front of him. “I appreciate you staying aboard to help me—I’m not exaggerating when I say that even with all those robots, Rache and his mercs would have come out on top if you hadn’t jumped in—but there was a reason I wanted you to go.”

  “The disease from the gate.”

  Not a disease, it sounded like, but Casmir nodded.

  “Which you were willing to expose yourself to in order to stop Rache from getting the gate,” Asger said.

  Guilt stomped all over Casmir’s soul. It was possible he’d exposed himself, but he’d definitely believed he might be immune. However, he couldn’t explain that without explaining his link to Rache.

  “I couldn’t let you die doing something heroic—this wasn’t even your battle—while I ran off with my tail between my legs. That’s why I told the—that woman—to leave without me. She wanted to stay too.” Asger smiled slightly. “You seem to inspire loyalty in people who don’t know you that well.”

  “That goes away once they know me better and find my quirks annoying instead of charming.”

  Asger snorted, but then his gaze strayed to the jet injector. “Are you going to test my blood to see if I have it?”

  “I’m just assuming you do since everybody gets it. I spoke to my medical researcher friend, Kim, the one Rache kidnapped to start working on a cure, and we’re going to have to go meet up with her on that research ship if we want solid treatment. But this is supposed to slow down the rate of the cellular damage.” Casmir lifted the injector and tried to look honest and sincere. He’d looked up the name of a drug that was used in radiation treatment, and he was ready if Asger asked.

  “Did you already dose yourself?” was what Asger asked.

  “After I verified the gate was in the hold, yes.” Lies, lies, lies. Why did it bother him so much to lie? He’d never been great at it, but something about this seemed particularly heinous. As if lying to a knight was the equivalent of lying to a rabbi. “I guess we’ll find out how much it’s been helping when we reach the research ship.”

  “We need to hand over the gate to Ishii and the other captains first,” Asger said, “but that mercenary shuttle should have enough juice to get us back to Skadi.”

  Casmir nodded. “Of course. That will be perfect. Ready?”

  “Yes.” Asger tilted his head and pushed his hair back to reveal the side of his neck.

  Casmir grimaced, though it was what he’d come to expect from people wandering around in battle gear. Knight liquid armor wasn’t as bulky as typical combat armor, but it was probably just as tedious to remove.

  He pressed the injector to the side of Asger’s neck, appreciating the show of trust but also hating that he was betraying it. Yes, only for a short period of time, and only because he wasn’t sure handing the gate to Jager was the right thing to do, but who was he to make that decision? As Asger had pointed out, this wasn’t even his battle. It was chance that had brought him this way, a suggestion that the military would help him recover Kim if he helped them.

  But she had recovered herself—he would have to ask her for the details on that—and he… had searched the network for news of that station attack Rache had brought up. And found it. The crushers hadn’t been mentioned specifically, but he’d found a video clip with two of them stalking through the corridors, chasing down what had looked like the local police.

  It mortified him to think that his king might be secretly making war on other nations. Or, more likely, picking on small stations in an attempt to bully them into joining his side. Casmir had always hated bullies, and if King Jager now fell into that category…

  “You sure you’ve got the right drug?” Asger smirked at the long delay.

  “Yes. Sorry.” Casmir blushed and pressed the button, eliciting a soft hiss as the injector delivered the measured dose of tranquilizer. “I’m not that experienced at giving people shots.”

  He started to back away, but Asger gripped his arm.

  Fresh fear chilled Casmir’s blood. Had Asger already sensed the betrayal?

  “I helped you because the queen assigned me to protect you,” Asger said, me
eting his eyes, “and because I thought you might be the man to beat Rache. I was glad to be right, glad you made good on your word and came and helped keep him from getting the gate. And kept the shamans—their robots—from getting it out of our system. You’re crafty. I thought, if I was guessing right, you would be. That you had to be.”

  Casmir felt like a heel since Asger was praising him and he was in the middle of betraying him, but he was bewildered and intensely curious about where this was going.

  “Oh?” he prompted. “Why is that?”

  “Just something I overheard the queen say.” Asger smiled blearily and yawned.

  Casmir’s heart sank. Was the tranquilizer kicking in already? He would have waited to deliver it if he’d known Asger planned to divulge deep secrets.

  “What did she say?” Casmir asked. “Does she—do you know where I came from?”

  The comm panel flashed again—Ishii wanting to ask where the gate and the cargo ship had gone, no doubt. Casmir shifted his position so Asger wouldn’t see it.

  “Just a hunch,” Asger mumbled sleepily. He yawned again, and this time, his eyes closed.

  “Asger.” Casmir patted the side of his head. “You can take a nap in a minute, but can you please explain your hunch to me first?”

  Asger’s head lolled to the side, and the even breathing of sleep overtook him.

  Casmir groaned and stepped back. He told himself that the tranquilizer would wear off in eight hours, and he could ask Asger to explain then. If Asger was still talking to him. Unfortunately, he didn’t know if that would be the case.

  18

  The stolen mercenary shuttle was jetting away from Modi Moon, one of Saga’s many natural satellites, when a faint groan came from the rear row of seats. Casmir dimmed the navigation display and wiped everything that would have shown their route and where they’d come from off the control console.

  That sound signified Asger waking up, and Casmir worried about how he would react once he recovered from a drug-induced hangover and figured out what was going on. Casmir had tranquilized him again when the first round had worn off, realizing he needed more time to hide the cargo ship. He’d been in the middle of programming navigation instructions into its navigation system and a routine for it to follow for the next two years, if need be. At that point, it would run out of fuel, and its orbit would decay, but he thought he could resolve the gate situation, one way or another, before then.

  Now, they were hours away from the stealthed cargo ship, flying in Rache’s shuttle, which thankfully had an excellent auto-piloting system. A good thing, because Casmir had almost crashed twice getting it out of the cargo ship’s bay. He wasn’t sure, however, if the autopilot would be able to dock with the Machu Picchu. Casmir hoped Asger would handle it, since it seemed like the kind of thing that would require excellent depth perception.

  Asger groaned again.

  Casmir walked slowly to his spot on the bank of seats, his magnetic boots required now that they were back on a small craft without spin gravity. He’d harnessed Asger into the seats as well as he could, but he’d wondered if locking the powerful knight in the lav—the small bullet-shaped shuttle didn’t have a brig—would have been wiser, at least until he promised cooperation, or a lack of antagonistic behavior. But he suspected Asger had the power to break down a lav hatch.

  Casmir risked sitting next to him as his eyes opened, bewildered at first as they focused on him. They stayed bewildered as he lifted his head and glanced around.

  “Are we in Rache’s shuttle?” Asger asked.

  “Yes. Since Qin went back to the Dragon with yours, it was the only option.”

  “What happened to the cargo ship?” Asger’s brow furrowed as his gaze locked on to Casmir again. His eyes slowly narrowed into a suspicious squint. “That injection you gave me… It wasn’t for radiation, was it?”

  “No, but I have had time to talk to Kim, and she’s optimistic that she can help you when we get to the Machu Picchu. Help us.” Casmir didn’t know how to test his own blood for signs of cellular damage, so he still didn’t know if he was immune or not. He didn’t think he had any symptoms, but he also didn’t know how long they took to show up.

  Sweat dampened Asger’s brow, and his skin had felt hot when Casmir checked him earlier, but he didn’t know if that was a side-effect of being tranquilized twice or a sign that his body was deteriorating.

  “You knocked me out,” Asger said. “Why?”

  He didn’t sound angry—yet—but maybe because he was trying to figure out what was going on. The anger might come, and Casmir lamented that. He’d never dreamed of having a knight for an ally—for a protector—and he fully acknowledged that Asger had saved his butt.

  “It’s mostly luck rather than a premeditated plan that I ended up with the cargo ship and with the gate,” Casmir said, “but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted to talk to somebody, a neutral third party if possible, before handing it over to the military. To King Jager.” Casmir assumed they were one and the same. The military served the king. Jager might not know everything they did, but Casmir suspected he’d heard about the gate and given orders to retrieve it. He also suspected that when those crushers had been sent in to subdue that station… he’d known about it. “I’ve always considered myself a loyal subject,” Casmir added as he watched Asger’s eyes cloud over, “and it’s not my intention to do anything that could harm Odin or the Kingdom, but I’m not sure yet that I believe King Jager is the ideal keeper for the greatest technology our people have ever known.”

  “That’s not your decision to make. You just admitted that it was nothing but luck that put you on that ship.”

  “Maybe not nothing but luck,” Casmir murmured.

  “You’re a math teacher. You don’t get to pass judgment on the king or decide if he’s good enough for something you essentially stole.”

  “No, the astroshamans stole it. I—we—recovered it. I just haven’t decided yet when and to whom I’m going to turn it in. I will turn it in. Gates aren’t my field of study, so it’s of limited interest to me. You know, as a math teacher.”

  “Where’s the ship?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “You hid it?” Asger tried to lurch upright, but the seat straps caught him. He snarled and unbuckled them, so he could sit up.

  Casmir made himself stay in place, fighting the urge to skitter back. “I’d already re-engaged the stealth generator so Rache’s people couldn’t find it again. After I sent them off in their escape pods, I put it on a different course. One I’ll share as soon as I’ve talked to a few people.”

  “What people? What neutral third party could you possibly have in mind?” Asger gripped the seat to keep himself from floating off it—or maybe to keep himself from throttling Casmir.

  Kim, for starters, Casmir thought. He wanted to get her opinion, but also… “If it’s possible to repair her body and her chip wasn’t too damaged, Professor Erin Kelsey-Sato.”

  Asger gave him a blank look.

  “A loaded droid and one of the archaeologists who was down there and found the gate. Since her body isn’t human anymore, she’s probably the only person left alive from that team. I’d like to hear her thoughts as one of the scientists who was presumably involved in discovering it.”

  “Scientists? Scientists serve the Kingdom.” Asger scowled at him. “Like knights. And math teachers. They don’t judge the king.”

  Casmir smiled sadly. “It’s robotics.”

  Asger groaned and dropped his face into his hands.

  For a moment, Casmir wanted nothing more than to turn the gate over to Asger and go home, back to his old, comfortable life. Back to being respected by his peers and working on projects he loved. Back to being roommates with Kim and debating over the grocery list rather than having their lives threatened at every turn.

  But even if that was an option, could he do it? Could he ignore the rest of humanity now that he knew Jager was using his cr
ushers on other systems and that war might come to Odin one day?

  “Dabrowski,” Asger started, sounding like he was trying but failing to be patient.

  “I understand your frustration and that you’ve sworn an oath to the king. And you’re correct. I don’t have any right to do this, but I feel strongly about it, that maybe it’s worth my career, if not my life, to make sure I don’t make a mistake—another mistake—that could affect the lives of people throughout the systems. I am sorry I blindsided you. You don’t deserve that, but I knew you’d be loyal to the king—and rightfully so. I wasn’t sure you would allow yourself to contemplate morality if it might go against his wishes.”

  “I always contemplate the morality of my actions,” Asger said stiffly.

  “Good. I’m glad. But I think it’s better this way. You don’t have to contemplate anything. You were unconscious, and you don’t know where the gate ship is, so when the king asks, you can’t be found at fault.”

  “I can be found at fault for not strangling you.”

  “Ah. Yes, I suppose that could be problematic, although…” Casmir cleared his throat and pointed to where Zee stood by a wall, along with the ten security robots that had been in good enough condition to bring along.

  “Are you suggesting that your robots will stop me if I attempt to strangle you?”

  “Zee will. I’m not sure about the others yet. I haven’t had time to teach them about how delightful and worthy of protection I am.”

  Asger flopped back against the seat, looking more frazzled and irritated than delighted. “I took a chance in helping you get off Ishii’s ship. There will be repercussions, especially now. If you’d saved the day and handed the gate over to the military, maybe my actions would have been overlooked.” He looked at the porthole.