Johnny stepped back, raising his hands, as if to hand off the mess to her—or in the hope that she wouldn’t also shoot him.
Bonita walked out, waving for the scholars to come along.
“I am beginning to like that woman,” Johnny stated, smiling fondly after her.
Qin looked at him but didn’t comment, still skeptical that she should encourage a relationship. The fact that he’d come back made her feel better about him—maybe he was what he said—but with Bonita’s three failed marriages, maybe it would be better for her to avoid men, especially snarky men. Johnny had more bite than Asger, and even if he hadn’t been some spy always on one mission or another, Qin couldn’t imagine him settling down with a woman long-term.
Though she supposed he must have if he was the father of Asger—her Asger. Was he? He hadn’t said. He’d only asked about him.
Qin realized she didn’t know Asger well enough to know if his father and mother were still around. She couldn’t remember him ever speaking of either of them to her. What if his mother was back at home, waiting for her husband to return, and he was out here among the stars, flitting from one spy mission to another, flirting with strange women along the way?
“You don’t approve?” Johnny was looking at her.
Qin wiped whatever expression had been on her face away and shrugged indifferently, even if she was anything but. “I watch out for my captain, the same as she watches out for me. You seem like trouble.”
“Trouble? Me?” Johnny pressed a hand to his chest.
“You did kidnap us the first time we met.”
“You were barely in that net for an hour. I don’t think that counts as a legitimate kidnapping. I didn’t even ransom you to anyone.”
“You’re really weird for a knight.”
He flashed a grin. “Why do you think they keep sending me out of System Lion for missions?”
“You’re not a good influence on other knights?”
“Oh, I’m not bad, I’m told. I had a squire once. He became quite the noble hero. Sir Zdrazil. Have you heard of him?”
Qin shook her head. “Until recently, I was never in System Lion.”
“Right, you’re one of the Druckers’… purchases.”
“Yeah.” At least he hadn’t called her a freak. She squinted at him. “Are you Asger’s father? William Asger?”
His face went from expressive and sarcastic to closed off. And he didn’t answer right away.
She squinted even deeper and more suspiciously at him. What could be between him and Asger? Asger was brave and noble and a good fighter. Weren’t those things knights were supposed to be?
“I am,” he finally said.
“You don’t get along with him?”
“You’ve seen that calendar?”
“Yes, he gave it to me.”
Johnny snorted and rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe he hasn’t grown out of that. I guess it’s better than the first batch of calendars he did. He was naked in all of the pictures for that one. It’s illegal in the Kingdom to make pornographic material of an underage guy. He was sixteen then. He lied about his age so he could get an agent and get the deals. And why? To make money? No. The family has money, and he had an allowance. It was all ego. Or some desire to impress women or his friends. I don’t know, but I had to beg and plead for him not to be kicked out of the squire program. And then I had to do it again when he passed his exams. There were questions of whether he should be allowed to become a knight, when he didn’t seem to represent the ideals of honor and chivalry.”
“Because he lets people take photos of him?” Since Qin had grown up in System Cerberus and been used as a sexual object by the pirates since she was twelve, she couldn’t manage to sound properly affronted by the idea of nude calendars. And nobody was considered underage for anything there. Money trumped morality, and most of the denizens didn’t have a moral code worth mentioning, anyway. It was only through reading books from elsewhere that she’d learned of such things.
“Naked photos. That get printed and distributed all over the system. Yes, he’s an adult now and has a fake name tied to his modeling work, but it’s not the image the Kingdom wants of its knights.”
Qin eyed Johnny’s barbed-wire dagger tattoos. She didn’t say anything, but he must have guessed her thoughts.
“These—” he pointed to his inked cheeks and the studded dog collar around his neck, “—are because I had to fit in with the pirates. They are temporary. The fact that knights have a certain image and uniform makes it easier to go undercover without being suspected of being one.”
“Ah.”
Qin kept herself from making further judgments, even silently, but she thought of Asger speaking with her in the park that night, the dewy scent of trees and grass all around them, and how they’d run up together to help in the aftermath of the synagogue bombing. And how he’d stood by her side and kept his people from arresting her, even though they’d given him strange looks and probably doubted his sanity for vouching for a freak.
She agreed that the calendars—and the underwear—seemed like a silly part-time job for a knight who, as Johnny had pointed out, shouldn’t need the money, but she doubted it was about money. Asger wasn’t much older than she was, and she didn’t feel all grown up yet, even if, in some ways, she’d never been allowed to be a child. Maybe he was still figuring himself out. Maybe he’d only wanted to put himself out there for attention. It didn’t sound like his father had been home much. What of his mother? Was she alive?
Johnny must have decided their conversation was over, because he headed for the corridor. As Qin watched him go, she wondered if she should warn Asger about this. Did he know his father was now in the same system that he was? Would they end up being assigned to work together? Would that be as problematic as she feared it might?
14
Asger joined Casmir, Rache, and Zee in the airlock. All except the pilot, a fighter, and Kim and Yas had already exited. Asger expected Yas, as their doctor, to come along, but Rache had asked if he wanted to come, rather than ordering it, and Yas had pointed to the little sickbay in the submarine and said he would wait there. There were supposed to be a couple of combat medics among the mercenaries that were going.
Rache’s other two submarines had found the underwater harbor and were spitting out more groups of his men. Asger would have felt better about this adventure if the Kingdom submarines were also in this part of the compound. He hated the idea of them inadvertently being used as cannon fodder.
Despite the glares Asger was shooting Rache, now that he knew how bad off Casmir was, Rache had given Asger the tranquilizer rifle he’d promised, with vials of Kim’s concoction loaded into it instead of darts. He’d also allowed Asger to choose a shell gun from the stash of weapons in the submarine, so he had that in addition to his DEW-Tek rifle and pertundo. If one was going to storm an enemy base, one might as well be prepared.
Casmir had donned his armor, adding a supplemental air tank, as the others had done, and he gave a thumbs up when Asger looked at him, but he was far quieter than typical. Asger rested a hand on his shoulder as water filtered into the airlock.
Casmir patted his gauntlet and said, “I’m glad you’re here, Asger. You’re an amazing knight and a good friend. I’ll tell your superiors that someday, if I live to see them.” He chuckled.
Asger’s throat swelled with emotion. He didn’t think that was funny at all, but it touched him that Casmir was trying to bolster him instead of worrying about himself.
“Thank you,” Asger said, his voice tight.
“I am also a good friend,” Zee informed them, the water up to his chest. It seemed crushers were waterproof. “I will protect you on this mission, Casmir Dabrowski.”
“Thank you,” Casmir said. “You are indeed an excellent friend. Far beyond what your creator could have imagined.”
“Yes,” Zee said.
Casmir smiled.
“He’s modest too,” Asger said.
“Would you be modest if you were such a sublime creation?” Casmir asked.
Asger opened his mouth to reply, but Casmir held up a finger.
“Keeping in mind that I’ve seen your scantily-clad figure on underwear tubes.”
“That doesn’t bely my modesty.”
“No? I would have thought one would have to have a reasonably high opinion of at least his exterior to have it plastered all over Zamek City.”
“It’s the interior I’m working on. And that underwear goes out all over the system, not just the capital on Odin.”
“It’s amazing that women don’t rush up to you everywhere you go and ask for autographs.” Casmir closed his eyes, as if the conversation was taking a lot out of him.
Asger hoped he wasn’t engaging in it simply to take his mind off his illness. Or maybe he even felt the need to try to take Asger’s mind off it.
“The pictures are on men’s underwear tubes,” Asger pointed out.
“But women are the ones that usually shop for men’s underwear. As my mother will be quick to tell you.”
“Maybe boys’ underwear. If you ever get married, I hope you won’t expect your wife to pick out your briefs.”
A weird expression twisted Casmir’s face, and he shook his head.
“I’m rescinding my offer of employment,” Rache muttered. He was facing the exterior hatch, waiting with his back to them.
“What?” Asger was sure Rache had never made such an offer to him.
“I offered Casmir a job once. No, twice. I rescind the offer. I couldn’t listen to this all day.”
“I’m relieved he was wise enough to reject it.” Asger shuddered at the idea of Casmir joining forces with Rache. The mercenary already had plenty of good men and a ship better than anything in the Kingdom fleet, as evinced by his ability to avoid getting caught again and again. He didn’t need an elite roboticist with a knack for taking over computer networks.
“I still have a vain hope of being able to return to my old life.” Casmir sounded sad, like he didn’t think that would happen.
Asger felt that lump return to his throat. He didn’t know if Casmir was worried about the illness—the Great Plague, damn it—or Jager, but Asger had to blink away moisture in his eyes at the idea that either would keep him from returning home.
Once the water filled the chamber, Rache opened the outer hatch, and the group swam out. Asger, worried the effort would tax Casmir too much, grabbed the back of his suit to help him along. Rache swam on his other side, keeping an eye on him.
Asger wished he could spit at the man, sure all that he cared about was keeping Casmir alive long enough to help his team get in.
The groups from the three submarines converged at the huge double doors that rose more than forty feet from the icy floor of the harbor to the black metal roof. The omnipresent pale blue light glinted off the mercenary team’s dark armor and faceplates. Everybody locked their magnetic boots to the door while Rache and another man swam around to look for a control panel.
Asger glanced back toward the submarines and the mouth of the tunnel they had entered through, wondering if those creatures would return. He’d heard that the other submarines had also tossed food out to distract them and that it had worked, but eventually, the creatures would finish eating, wouldn’t they?
“Everybody on the channel?” Rache asked over the comm.
He’d given Casmir and Asger the mercenaries’ frequency. Casmir had muttered something about any kind of comm channel being unwise—he’d insisted the submarines keep their comms off except for emergencies—since the astroshamans liked to fling viruses around. But this couldn’t be helped. They needed to be able to speak with each other.
Rache’s men replied with obedient yeses. Asger grunted. Casmir mumbled something.
Asger was worried about him. His chin was down, face hidden. If he had a seizure in the water, how could they help him? Were the combat medics qualified to do so? Asger didn’t know why Rache hadn’t ordered Yas to come along. Because it would be too dangerous for a non-combatant? Casmir was a non-combatant. He wasn’t even carrying a weapon, unless his tools counted.
“A bonus for anyone who figures out a way through this door without using explosives,” Rache said.
“Without explosives, sir?” someone asked. “Where’s the fun in that? I brought underwater explosives.”
As other mercenaries chimed in with similar sentiments, Asger half walked with his magnetic boots and half paddled to the seam between the two doors. Rache and another man poked and prodded at a control panel.
Zee was standing on the bottom of the harbor, gazing up at them. Did he have the strength to force the huge doors open? He might not have heard the request since he wasn’t wearing a helmet with speakers.
Asger thought he could force the blade of his pertundo into the seam, but he didn’t know about using it to pry the massive doors apart. It would be like using a toothpick, however strong a toothpick, on a normal door. And what defenses might this place have? It seemed unwise to force anything when—
A rumble emanated from the doors, and they shifted ponderously aside. The mercenaries swam back, pointing their water-protected rifles at the widening gap.
“Who did that?” Rache lifted his hands from the control panel. The man next to him shook his helmeted head.
“Me,” Casmir said. “Over the network. What kind of bonus do I get?”
“A pat on the back,” Rache said.
“That’s disappointing. I was at least hoping for a cookie.”
“Your blood sugar level is still recovering from all that soda.” Rache shined his helmet headlamp into the dark water beyond the doors.
“My blood sugar level is sublime,” Casmir said, though he sounded like he had a headache—Asger doubted anything of his was sublime right now. “My body can handle a cookie and a fizzop in the same day.”
Rache swam into the darkness, and more pale blue lights came on inside as he entered. It appeared to be an extension of the underwater harbor, with a couple more of the jellyfish-like ships inside.
“I’m reading a forcefield in there.” Casmir grabbed the edge of the door and pulled himself through. “And I think, if this map can be trusted, a way out of the water and into some tunnels.”
Asger shifted to stay near Casmir and go in ahead of him.
“The kind of forcefield you can lower with access to the network?” Rache asked.
“I’ll try. I’m getting bombarded with bots hurling viruses and more blatant attacks at my chip. It’s making it hard to do anything.”
“I’ll find you two cookies if you manage to get us in.”
“We didn’t bring any cookies, boss,” someone whispered on the comm.
“We have the Protein Pucks.”
“Those aren’t sweet.”
“They have chocolate chips.”
“Those aren’t chocolate, sir. I think they’re dehydrated beef tendon bits.”
“Oh.”
Casmir looked over at Asger. “I didn’t know getting kidnapped would be this bad.”
“If we get out of here,” Asger told him, “I’ll buy you as many cookies as you want.”
“Excellent. Thank you.”
The group swam inward and upward, where they could see a docking area and a surface to the water, but the promised forcefield covered it. When someone’s helmet bumped it, an electrical charge zapped him, and he gasped and jerked away.
“I can see something on the land up there,” a man said.
Asger squinted through the transparent forcefield and the rippling surface of the water. He could make out a few dark blocky shapes but wasn’t sure if they represented robotic threats or structures for storage or equipment.
“They’re moving, whatever they are,” another mercenary said.
Threats, it was.
“Shit,” someone barked.
“Look out behind,” Rache ordered.
Glowing creatures about
three feet long zipped through the open doors toward them. They were the same entities that had attacked the submarine before.
Several of the mercenaries fired with their waterproof weapons. Zee pushed off the bottom, his arms turning into something akin to fins, and treaded water near Casmir.
Asger pulled out his pertundo as one of the drone-like creatures zipped toward him. It didn’t have eyes, but a round fang-filled maw opened and closed with clear intent. Asger made sure he was blocking Casmir from the creature, then stabbed with the point of his pertundo.
The water made him slower than usual, and his aquatic enemy darted to the side, tentacles and fins giving it speed greater than he expected. It tried to get around Asger, as if it knew Casmir was the greater threat.
Asger lunged, stabbing again. “No, you don’t, ugly.”
This time, it was distracted, and he sank the point in deeply. The pertundo’s electric energy flared to life, lightning bolts arcing around the tentacled body. For a moment, all of those tentacles went stiff. But then the creature grew limp, more like jelly than anything solid, and slid off the pertundo. It started swimming again.
Casmir swam back until he bumped into a pillar supporting the dock. The creature rushed after him—there was no question that he was the target. Two more angled in from the side. Zee lunged and rammed into one of them. Like Asger, Zee wasn’t as agile in the water, but he managed to halt the creature’s progress.
The two others slipped past. Asger roared, kicking and slashing. He would do more than stab them. He would cut them into dozens of pieces.
He cleaved the closest one in half an instant before it reached Casmir, who had only his armor for protection. Asger didn’t know if that would be enough, but halving the thing seemed to kill it. He whirled toward the other as Zee ripped his foe into pieces.
A creature that Asger hadn’t seen almost got to Casmir on the other side, but a mercenary darted in, stabbing it repeatedly with a dagger. He also held a pistol, but the blade seemed more effective. Was that Rache? He finished killing the creature and kicked it away.
Gate Quest (Star Kingdom Book 5) Page 22