Gate Quest (Star Kingdom Book 5)

by Lindsay Buroker

  The doors groaned and slid open to reveal a dark empty shaft.

  “Your hands may be more magical than mine,” Johnny said.

  She leaned into the shaft and looked up and down, her night vision kicking in.

  “The car is down there.” She pointed. “We’ll climb.”

  “Gravity just came back on. You may have noticed.”

  “So? It’s only half gravity.”

  “Is there a ladder in there?”

  “There’s a vertical rail.” Qin slithered into the shaft and gripped one of two rails running up opposite sides. They were narrow and only raised an inch from the surface, but her fingers had the strength to pull up her bodyweight, especially in partial gravity.

  “Ah, yes.” Johnny leaned in after she made room. “The ladder for those with so much upper body and finger strength that they sneer disdainfully at rungs.”

  “I assume that’s you. Since you’re magical.”

  “I suppose my ego is going to demand that I ensure it’s me.” A grunt sounded from below as he maneuvered himself into the shaft. His voice far more strained, he added, “I thought I’d gotten to the age where my ego wouldn’t get me in trouble as often.”

  Qin passed two sets of closed doors and paused at the next set, hoping she remembered correctly and didn’t end up climbing them into a closet. She also hoped the power didn’t come on without warning, sending the car upward to squash them.

  Johnny grunted and cursed his way up the shaft, but he did come climbing after her. She could have offered to carry him—if he came from the Kingdom, she doubted he had any genetic amplifications to his muscles—but she doubted he and his ego would permit it.

  As it was, she struggled to brace herself horizontally, legs splayed between walls, so she could find the leverage to force the doors open. It was much harder from that position, and blood rushed to her face. She slipped once, her efforts too much for the magnetic soles to stay planted, and a noise of wary uncertainty came from Johnny.

  “I won’t fall on you,” she promised, trying the doors again.

  “Good. Thank you. I can’t help but wonder if someone noticed us about to climb the elevator shaft and started up gravity just to hinder us.”

  “I’m hoping the only people here want to be rescued by us, not hinder us.” She finally succeeded in shoving the doors open, then pulled herself through, almost stepping on a woman crumpled on the deck.

  Qin swallowed, checking for enemies before crouching to check for a pulse. She didn’t find one. The woman had died in her galaxy suit, but her helmet hadn’t been on, and her face was burned beyond recognition. Scorch marks covered the walls, and if Qin hadn’t been wearing her own helmet, she would have smelled the acrid remains of a fire. Some of the ceiling material had warped and melted into uneven waves.

  Johnny scrambled out of the shaft behind her, and with thoughts of enemies fresh in her mind, Qin started to jerk her weapon toward him before catching herself.

  He lifted his hands, eyeing her warily. “I’m on your side, remember?”

  “Are you?” Qin shifted the weapon away from him and stepped past the body.

  “I’m exactly what I told you I am.”

  “The second time or the first?”

  “Would a pirate accountant have a palm print that opens Kingdom locks?”

  “That might not be your own palm. Maybe you stole the prints of the guy whose name you took.” Qin grimaced as they passed another burned body, this one charred all over.

  “The spy’s lament. Even when you tell the truth, you’re mistrusted.”

  They turned down a corridor that was even more damaged than the first but thankfully devoid of bodies. Qin worried about what they would find in sickbay. More people dead than alive?

  “How do you know Sir William Asger?” Johnny asked quietly.

  Qin almost tripped. “What?”

  “Laser showed me his calendar and implied he’d been a passenger.” His tone turned dry. “I suppose it’s possible she was lying and that she’d picked it up at a gift shop.”

  “It’s none of your business, and this isn’t the time to discuss it.”

  “As you wish.”

  Again, she was surprised when he didn’t give a snarky response. She was also surprised he remembered Asger’s name, even if Bonita had mentioned it at some point. Had she?

  As they approached the double doors to sickbay, she sent a message to Bonita. Captain, did you ever tell Johnny Asger’s name? Because he just asked about him.

  I showed him your calendar, came Bonita’s prompt response—she was probably monitoring their progress from navigation on the Dragon.

  Apparently, it made an impression on him.

  I don’t think I ever shared Asger’s name. He must have looked it up.

  Based on what? An image search? If you just showed him the calendar over the comm, it would have taken a lot of work to snag an image file out of that, and would Asger’s face even come up on a search outside of System Lion?

  Is he giving you reasons to be suspicious of him? Bonita asked.

  Well, he’s not being sarcastic with me.

  That is suspicious.

  Qin couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

  They reached the doors, but they didn’t open. The fire hadn’t damaged them or the surrounding wall, and Johnny stepped up next to her to try his palm on the panel.

  “Wait.” She caught his wrist. “In case it works, stand over there.” She waved to the side of the door so he wouldn’t be an easy target.

  “Right. I’m not armored, am I?” He almost sounded surprised. Maybe accountants got into more fights than one would think. Pirate accountants.

  He stepped to the side and palmed the lock. The doors slid open.

  Qin caught movement and sprang to the other side as crimson DEW-Tek bolts streaked out of the dim interior. She’d glimpsed two people crouched behind exam tables.

  “I’m Qin from the Stellar Dragon,” she called as more bolts streaked out. “A civilian freighter.” No need to mention Bonita’s bounty-hunting tendencies. “We heard your distress call and came to help.”

  A few more bolts sizzled out, slamming into the charred walls farther down the corridor. Qin braced herself to run in and disarm the people—she’d seen enough to know they wore galaxy suits, not combat armor—but she would prefer not to risk hurting anyone.

  “Hold on,” someone whispered, Qin’s keen ears catching it. “Lieutenant Schneider did send out a distress call.”

  “It could be those asshole pirates back to finish us off.”

  “We’re from the Kingdom,” Johnny called, emphasizing that arrogant-sounding nobleman’s accent. “At least I am.”

  “And who are you?” a woman called.

  “Sir Bjarke Asger.”

  Qin gaped at him. Asger?

  When he’d given them his first name back at the station, she had assumed it was his surname. She squinted at his jawline, currently in profile, and tried to decide if he looked like Asger, her Asger.

  The tattoos were distracting, and Johnny—it was hard to think of him by another name—was paler, like he hadn’t been on a planet and exposed to sunlight in a long time. His hair was paler, too, but it was shot with gray, so maybe that was natural. They did have similar strong jaws, broad shoulders, and well-defined facial features.

  “Show me your pertundo,” the woman demanded.

  “I don’t have it. I’ve been undercover of late.”

  The woman snorted. “Sure you have.”

  “I’d be happy to show you other things of mine that are more permanently attached, but it’s possible they’d attest only to my health and fitness and not my nobility.”

  Ugh, maybe he was related to the Asger she knew. William. Qin would have guessed that an older version of Asger would be more mature, but maybe not.

  Someone else murmured, another woman.

  “Ladies,” Johnny—Bjarke—whoever—said. “If you send out distress c
alls and greet your rescuers like this, people won’t come to rescue you more than once.” He spoke in a friendly and soothing tone, if an arrogant one.

  Qin held her tongue to see if his accent would be more likely to make the women relax than hers. There was also the matter of her fur and fangs that tended to distress people, especially Kingdom people.

  “Throw down your weapons and come in,” the first speaker said. “Then we can talk.”

  “Very well, but I do urge you to chat quickly. A salvage ship is on the way, and they’ve already warned us that they’ll fire on our ship if we don’t get away from here.

  “Salvage!” the second speaker cried. “First someone kills the captain and first officer and deliberately wrecks almost all of our equipment, and now someone else is here to salvage the ship? We were supposed to be protected. This is an outrage! Captain Konig was supposed to bring his ship to escort us, not tell us to meet him at that moon. An outrage, I tell you. I hope the entire bill for repairs and replacement goes to him.”

  “Are you going in?” Qin asked Johnny. Since she was armored, she should go first, but if his face kept them from firing…

  “I don’t know. I think they could slay me with their eyes right now.” He did toss his pink stunner through the doorway.

  As it clattered across the deck, the women’s conversation paused.

  “Is that a gun or a toy?” one whispered.

  “I’m told it’s a Lady Shufflebottom,” Johnny said.

  “That’s what you traded your pertundo for? What did you go undercover as? A male prostitute?”

  “It’s a long story.” Johnny didn’t sound that offended at the implication. Maybe he had gone undercover as a prostitute before.

  Fearing they were wasting time, Qin pushed her big Brockinger anti-tank gun across the sickbay deck, then walked in after it with her hands up, facing the women still crouched behind the exam table. They both had pistols pointed toward her chest.

  “I’m Qin. Do you have injured? What are your names?” Qin glanced toward protected rooms in the back—her ears caught someone moving back there. “Our ship, the Stellar Dragon, is attached to your port airlock.”

  They looked from the big gun to her and back to the gun. Maybe she should have thrown out a pink stunner.

  “We have injured, yes. I’m Scholar Ito, and this is Dr. Kagawa. But Scholars Beaumont and Kelsey-Sato are in charge. They’re in engineering with Wagner and Mazur. We’ll have to ask them about leaving. Especially if there’s a salvage ship on the way—damn it, we are not salvage.”

  “Scholar Kelsey-Sato, the archaeologist?” Qin asked. “I know her daughter, and I met her briefly on this ship back at Skadi Moon.”

  “You do?” The woman squinted at her. “What color is her hair?”

  “Her hair? Uh, brown and monkey-colored.”

  Ito snorted. “Yeah.”

  Qin realized it had been a test.

  “Give me a moment.” Ito turned away and pulled out a comm unit and whispered into it. The words weren’t meant for Qin’s ears, but she heard them anyway, “Scholars, can you two come up here? We have visitors. They want to help us. One says she knows Kim.”

  “We’re more rescuers than visitors,” Johnny said, also catching the whispers. “Do you have injured people we can move to our ship? Your sickbay appears damaged.” His gaze flicked toward scorched walls and equipment that had been destroyed not by fire but by weapons blasts. Strewn pieces were scattered across the deck.

  “It’s extremely damaged, due to pirates blowing everything to bits,” the doctor snarled.

  “Why did they do that?” This wasn’t Qin’s fight, but she couldn’t help but wonder why the ship had been targeted. Because it was a Kingdom vessel outside of their system?

  “They didn’t say, but we’re here for important research. We got permission from two of the governments in Hydra to come study the Heimdall Twist Quasar, which is most visible from this system.”

  “A quasar?” Qin had assumed they were here for the same reason as the Kingdom ships, to find that gate and study it. But maybe that was still top-secret, and this was their cover story.

  “Indeed. It’s been quite active of late.”

  “What was the name of the ship that attacked you?” Johnny asked.

  “The Roundabout,” Ito said. “It looked like a mining ship. We realized too late that it was retrofitted with all manner of weapons. Weapons that tore into us and caused significant damage. Scholar Kelsey-Sato thinks they wanted to attack the Kingdom warships but didn’t dare go into battle against their equals—or betters—so they took their aggressions out on us. But if that’s true, why did they send a team over to blow up all of our research equipment and kill so many of the crew?”

  “The Roundabout is a pirate ship with loose ties to Prince Dubashi in the Miners’ Union.” Johnny gripped his chin. “The last I heard, Dubashi opposes King Jager’s desires to expand and is willing to act against him, but not openly. He’s hired people that can’t easily be tied to him. Some say he’s even hired the mercenary Rache.” Johnny glanced at Qin.

  That made her uneasy. How much did Johnny know about Bonita and Qin’s adventures of late? He couldn’t know that they’d all worked together with Rache against those terrorists on Odin, could he?

  Johnny headed back to look in the rooms where Qin had heard people. “We need to clear everyone out of here, unless you’re close to getting your engines back online and can escape the smugglers.”

  As he spoke, Qin heard faint footsteps in the corridor and turned.

  “We’re not,” a new voice said, a man rounding a corner with Kim’s monkey-android mother standing thigh-high at his side.

  The speaker wore spectacles and a rumpled green-plaid suit with white shirttails hanging out. His eyes had a mechanical cast to them, and Qin’s first thought was that they were cybernetic replacements, but her helmet display informed her that neither Scholar Sato nor the man had heat signatures. He had to also be an android.

  “We’re not leaving and letting those people—” his lip curled in a human sneer, “—come salvage a ship worth tens of millions of crowns for parts.”

  “Professor Beaumont,” Ito said. “We have injured and—”

  “Yes, I know.” He—Beaumont—adjusted his glasses. “If the captain of the freighter is willing to take them to the nearest station for medical assistance and protection, we should transfer them. But everyone else who’s able to remain and can handle a weapon should stay to defend the ship.” His gaze fell to the Brockinger and the stunner, lingering on the latter. “That will not be sufficient against criminals.”

  “Tell me about it,” Johnny said dryly.

  “I’ve sent a communication to Captain Konig of the Eagle,” Beaumont said, “and his ship is already on the way. It should have been at the gate when we entered the system, waiting to escort us, but I understand the Kingdom is playing hide-and-seek with a mercenary ship around Xolas Moon. Konig estimates he’ll be here within sixteen hours.”

  “The salvage crew will be here within two,” Johnny said.

  “So we only need to hold the ship for fourteen hours. Excellent. This can be done.”

  “We didn’t hold it last time,” Ito snapped.

  Scholar Kelsey-Sato’s tail twitched during the conversation, but she didn’t disagree with her chatty colleague. She looked curiously toward Qin, but Qin couldn’t tell if there was recognition on that furry monkey face.

  “Last time,” Beaumont said, “the pirates caught us off-guard and boarded with a party of more than fifty armored men.”

  “Last time, we had armored men and women. Who are now dead. Nobody left alive and uninjured is a combatant.”

  “We had only a dozen people trained in firearms to defend the ship,” Beaumont said. “If the university—and King Jager—had known we were going into a system of such unrest, we should have been given far more. I will be having words with the board when we get back.”

  “Whic
h you’ll only survive to do if we leave the ship and get passage to a station where we can arrange transport home. Don’t think your android circuits make you immune to pirates with rifles.”

  “They do make me sturdy.”

  “Which is why you hid with the rest of us civilians when the boarding party came.”

  “I hid because of the top-secret knowledge stored up here.” Beaumont pointed to the side of his head. “It will be imperative when the military recovers—”

  Ito hissed loudly to interrupt him and waved at Qin and Johnny. “Your maps of the Heimdall Twist Quasar aren’t as important as you think.”

  Qin thought about pointing out that she knew about the gate, but she didn’t know if Johnny did. Did any of this even matter right now?

  She looked back and forth between the arguing people, aware of seconds ticking past. Two hours was not much time, and they had even less than that if they wanted to get away before Captain Amazing took pot shots at the Dragon. Qin would be willing to attempt to hold the Machu Picchu from within against a boarding party, if she heard a good reason, and if Bonita agreed, but she was skeptical about either happening. With the ship already so damaged, did it matter if a salvage crew came on? As it was, they would likely be disappointed with the offerings.

  “Who are you?” Johnny asked the android. “Just a professor?”

  Qin guessed he was another loaded droid, like Scholar Kelsey-Sato. He also had a Kingdom accent. Everyone here did.

  “Professor Beaumont is in charge of the civilian team and the science mission,” Ito told Johnny. “We lost the captain, first mate, and most of the crew, so he’s more or less in charge of the entire ship now.”

  “Who are you?” Beaumont looked Johnny up and down disdainfully.

  “Sir Bjarke Asger.” Johnny bowed. “Undercover and using feminine weapons this week.”

  “Vilmar’s son?”

  Johnny blinked. “Yes. You knew my father?”

  “Knew? Has he passed on?”

  “A few years ago.”

  “He was so young.”

  “He was ninety when he died.”