“Among other things,” the captain said grimly. “Xolas Moon has become an inordinately popular place.”
“What does that mean?” Bonita wondered after the channel closed.
“That I may be busy soon,” Bjarke said. “My toes may have to remain cloistered.”
“Darn,” Berg muttered.
15
Casmir stoically resisted the urge to ask how much farther, mostly because he worried Zee or Asger would pick him up and carry him if he did. If he hadn’t been surrounded by Rache and twenty-odd mercenaries, that might have been acceptable—his legs were rubbery and tired, and he was positive the endless ice tunnel they’d been walking through was uphill—but his ego demanded he attempt to keep ambulating of his own accord.
At least the floor was gritty, rather than slick, and the walking wasn’t difficult. Several men could walk abreast in the tunnel. Of course, that meant that a vehicle or an army of huge robots could also appear out of nowhere and try to mow them down.
He was doing his best to keep an eye on the network, but there were hundreds, if not thousands, of nodes on there, and his attempts to pull up even a map had been met with resistance. It wasn’t just that he was struggling to gain access to what he needed; there were bots and other threats roaming out there, constantly spotting his tiny little presence and attacking. He’d lost count of how many viruses they had tossed at his chip. If not for the antivirus program that he, Grunburg, and Tork had made to deal with Moonrazor’s distinctive work back in System Lion, he was sure his chip would already have melted to mush in his head.
As it was, his brain throbbed. He didn’t know if it was from the illness or all the effort he was expending, trying to monitor a dozen programs running at once and making adjustments as needed, but he wished he was at home curled up in bed. He would even settle for his bunk on Ishii’s ship.
A shudder went through the floor, and the men ahead and behind jerked their weapons up as they peered into the darkness.
“Are those explosions?” someone asked.
“Yes. They’re being set off on the other side of the base.” Rache waved his scanner. “Either our men or the Kingdom men. Or both. I read hundreds of people in that direction.”
“People or mech-heads?” someone asked.
“Both, I’m sure.” Rache looked back at Asger, or maybe the special rifle he’d given him. So far, there hadn’t been an opportunity to use it.
A loud snap erupted nearby, and even the hardened mercs jumped.
Casmir looked up. That hadn’t been an explosion. It had been the ice above them. He remembered reading as a science-loving kid absorbing everything he could that ice snapped and cracked a lot in glaciers as they shifted. Hearing it overhead was ominous, especially since he knew how much ice was overhead.
“Keep walking,” Rache said to his men.
He didn’t sound concerned, but he rarely did. He would probably issue a calm, sarcastic observation as some enemy drove a dagger into his chest.
Sweat dribbled down the side of Casmir’s face. He was thirsty, but he’d already consumed half of what was in the built-in reservoir in his armor, and he didn’t know if the composition of the ice around them was drinkable.
He wished he could remove the combat armor. It was claustrophobic, with the insulating interior pressing against his body from all sides. If he thought about it too much, he would imagine it getting stuck on him and never being able to escape its enveloping clutches, and the claustrophobia would elevate into panic. He didn’t need that here. He had too much else to worry about, too many real threats.
But he longed to take off his helmet to wipe his sweaty brow and rub his gritty eyes. His heads-up display promised the air was breathable if nippy at twenty degrees below zero, but he worried about attacks and figured he had better keep his head and everything else protected.
Rache fell back to walk at his side, waving Asger out of the way.
At first, Asger looked like he wouldn’t oblige, but Casmir lifted a hand to let him know it was all right. He was a little surprised when it worked. It wasn’t as if Asger was like Zee, programmed to protect him—and obey his orders.
“Are you wondering how you’re going to get the gate pieces out when we find them?” Casmir asked, since he’d been wondering that off and on.
A few of the mercenaries were carrying large packs that had to hold more than supplies. Earlier, Casmir had assumed they were explosives or other weapons, but as they’d wound their way deeper into the ice base, another suspicion arose.
“I’ll find a way,” Rache said vaguely.
“You won’t confide in me, eh? That’s disappointing. Is it because you revoked your job offer?”
“Oh, that’s not really revoked. I’d still hire you, especially now that I know you’re even better than Amergin at getting into secure locations and disabling robot defenders.” Rache looked over at him. “You just wouldn’t be permitted to talk about silly topics.”
“I couldn’t talk about silly topics at all? If any of my previous employers had put that stipulation in my contract, I’d never have gotten a job.”
“You can talk about them after-hours in your cabin, so long as I’m not there.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
Rache thumped him on the back. “Yes.”
Thanks to the armor, which made him more like a tank than his normal scrawny self, Casmir didn’t pitch forward onto his nose from the friendly blow.
“Can you speak with anyone outside?” Rache waved upward toward the ice—or maybe the ships in orbit. “You’re on the astroshaman network, right?”
“Sort of. I’m trying to make my presence very tiny and unnoticeable—though her bots are still finding me and attacking at irregular intervals.” Even as he spoke, one of them darted in, reminding him of those biology vids they’d shown in school of sperm burrowing into an ovum, but these didn’t want to make babies with him; they wanted to obliterate him, or at least scramble his chip beyond all use. He didn’t think his biological body was at risk. Not from computer viruses. It had other problems to worry about. “I haven’t tried to send any communications, since that would be akin to jumping up and down and waving flags.”
“Could you send a quick one later if you have to? At that point, the astroshaman threat should be nullified.”
“Possibly. Is that when you’re going to want me to let your ship know where we are and that you’re planning to take the gate pieces out through a hole in the ice instead of back the way we came?”
Rache looked sharply at him, and Casmir knew his guess was right. Those mercenaries likely carried the parts of some device that could be assembled to burn through however many hundreds of meters of ice were above them.
“Once we have the gate pieces, that’s when I’ll need to get the message out, yes.” Rache hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to admit to the rest of his plan, but he shrugged and continued. “I may be able to get on the general system network once there’s a large enough hole, and contact my ship directly, but it’ll depend on where the Fedallah is and where the moon’s satellites are.”
“When we’re ready to be valiantly rescued, I’ll gladly use the astroshaman network to cry for help. Assuming I’m still alive and conscious and able to do so.”
Casmir again resisted the urge to ask how much farther, mostly because he doubted Rache knew. His stomach was starting to feel queasy, and he worried he would have to puke, which he did not want to do with a helmet on. Ishii’s admonition about throwing up in his borrowed armor came to mind.
Rache gazed at him. “Did they tell you what you have?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyway?”
Casmir sighed. “Yes.”
The Great Plague. If it had been some lesser calamity, Kim would have told him. If it had been something likely to make everyone around him sick, the crew would have been taking measures to quarantine him. Instead, everyone whose name he knew had come by to sit
next to him at some point in that last hour. And Asger kept looking over at him like he might cry.
Casmir was touched that they cared, but he didn’t want people to worry about him. He regretted that he’d contracted this and was now a burden on everyone, especially his friends. He didn’t care that much about burdening the mercenaries. He felt guilty that he couldn’t spend the mental energy to conjure wrenches to throw into Rache’s plan.
“I’m not sure if I had it before,” Rache said. “If not, I might look as bad as you before long.”
“That bad? You must be terrified.”
“Oh, I am. At least nobody would know if I got those little splotches.” Rache waved to indicate his mask.
“You’d know. They itch. And they would get all gross under there from your sweat. Mask sweat. This is rarely mentioned in comic books about superheroes who wear masks, but it must be a thing.”
“Mine is made from SmartWeave. It cools as needed.”
“You might be all right then.”
Casmir rested a hand on his stomach, not that he could even feel the touch through the armor, and willed it to stay calm. Maybe speaking wasn’t a good idea. Still, he was curious about Rache’s experience with the Plague. If he’d had it and survived it, was it possible Casmir could? Or had Rache only survived because of his clean genes and immune system enhancements?
“How can you not be sure if you had it? The Great Plague?”
“I remember getting horribly ill about a year after I left System Lion. I’d acquired my first ship and was recruiting mercenaries to get my army established. I was surrounded by experienced military officers who knew far more than I did. Many of them came from outfits where mutinies were common, and all you had to do was assassinate your captain to take his ship. I was trying to keep them together on a mission while not letting them notice that I was in a weakened state, but I had to disappear into my cabin for four days because I was puking and itching and itching while I puked.”
Casmir’s skin crawled in sympathy, and he reached up to scratch his cheek before he remembered the helmet. “What did your doctor say?”
“I didn’t have a doctor yet. And I didn’t want the men to know how bad off I was. I told them I was thinking deep tactical thoughts and would come out when I was ready to use my brilliance to pull off the mission.”
“Did they believe that?”
“I don’t know, but they left me alone. I survived, and we finished the mission.”
“Because of brilliant tactical thoughts you had while sick?” Casmir doubted he could manage brilliant thoughts of any kind as long as he had this headache.
“More brute force and a little luck.”
Another tremor shook the floor, and more snaps echoed from above. This time, Casmir heard an explosion, very faintly and muffled by distance and who knew how much intervening ice.
Rache looked at his scanner. “There’s definitely a battle going on over there. It irks me not to be able to jump on the comm and get updates. I suppose I should be glad the enemy forces are occupied elsewhere.”
An alarm pinged in Casmir’s mind, and he turned his attention to his antivirus programs. One of the bots had altered its code and was coming in with a fresh attack. Grimacing, Casmir scrambled to combine his programs into a new defense that would keep it away.
“You said her before,” Rache said. “Did you mean Moonrazor? Is she here? I have no way to tell if she’s one of the ones battling the Kingdom over there.”
Casmir held up a finger, needing his focus for this. A bead of sweat ran down his nose. He snarled and unclasped his helmet, risking a glacier falling on his head so he could wipe his face.
His programs wove together and repelled the new attack. He was about to turn off his chip, since they were just walking and hadn’t encountered any physical threats since the harbor, but for the first time, a text message popped up on his contact.
Do not believe that I am unaware of your team or will let your incursion go unopposed.
Rache poked him.
“Yeah, her,” Casmir said, remembering his question. “I’ve sensed her presence in the background, guiding the bots, and now… I think that’s her speaking to me.” The speaker hadn’t asked for permission to establish contact, so she shouldn’t have been able to send a message, but he wasn’t surprised that she could.
“Speaking to you?”
Casmir waved to his chip and debated if he should answer or stay quiet. Earlier, he had contemplated trying to negotiate with her.
I deem the Kingdom the greater threat and am prioritizing dealing with them first, her message continued, but I am aware that you forced open the doors to the emergency harbor and disabled my security robots. I do not know why you are working with those sleazy mercenaries, but it does not matter. You shall not steal the gate from my people.
Uhm, you came into our system and stole the gate from us first. We are engaged in a perfectly legal retrieval operation. Casmir supposed there was nothing legal about Rache’s retrieval attempt, since he was simply another opportunist attempting to snag the gate, but in the case of the Kingdom… The gate ship crashed on a moon in System Lion, as I’m sure you haven’t forgotten, so it was within Kingdom domain, and it had been found by our archaeologists.
That ship crashed before the Kingdom ever existed. Just because your ancestors landed on Odin doesn’t give you the right to the gate. Our ancestors created it together, using the advanced computer technology of the time, and it belongs to all of humankind, not backward shrubs from the Kingdom who consider it unholy to tinker with their genes. Half of them won’t even chip themselves, so they wear glasses like dumb monkeys with tools.
Ignoring the insults to his people, Casmir latched on to what really mattered. You believe the gate should belong to all of humanity? Anyone who wants to study it? I’m not opposed to this notion. But your actions don’t jive with that. You’re trying to keep it to yourselves. Wouldn’t it be better to share it with all the Twelve Systems?
That is not what your king wishes.
Yeah, but he’s not here. I am. Let’s negotiate. Is there anything you want that I can help you get in exchange for two-thirds of the gate? You could keep a third to study on your own.
Two-thirds! You have nothing and you think I’ll negotiate with you?
Nothing? I have many things. Such as a fever, weary muscles, itchy skin, and achy joints that made him glad for the supportive framework of his leg armor, even if the suit as a whole was constricting. At least taking the helmet off had cured his head of being hot. His damp hair was freezing, and the frigid air burned as it went down his trachea, but he couldn’t bring himself to put his helmet back on. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in some of my first-edition comics? There’s one with an antihero that looks a bit like you. Mechofrez. Even though humanity doesn’t trust her because of her machine bits, and she breaks the law and uses vigilante methods of pursuing justice, she regularly saves people from the villainous monsters sent by the super corporations trying to control the Twelve Systems. Have you heard of her? They’re great comics.
No. I would give you none of the gate, not even if you offered the most scintillating and tastiest data. We need it all.
Why is that? Didn’t you say that it belonged to all of humanity? To study?
Casmir was aware of her prodding at his defenses as they spoke and realized that was the only reason she’d sent a message. To distract him.
He braced himself for another assault. He wasn’t disappointed. His brain seemed to vibrate at the waves of attack bots battering the shores of his chip like a tsunami.
As he struggled to weave together defenses once again, scraping through his files for something new he could layer on that would further wall off his chip, the cold and the chatter of the mercenaries around him seemed to be too much, almost as much of an assault on his senses as the computerized attacks. He stopped walking, his vision warping around the edges as colored dots appeared, and he fought down panic�
�and what he feared was an incipient seizure. If he passed out, Moonrazor would have free rein to wreak havoc on his chip.
His breaths came in quick pants, and he focused on repelling her. Gradually, the tsunami weakened, pushed back beyond his mental breakwater. He forced himself to suck in cold shaky breaths, trying to slow his heart.
Is that little chip your only cybernetic part? You are impressive for a completely biological being.
Thanks. Casmir gripped his knees, focusing on the ground and willing his vision to normalize. I wish more women told me that. You forgot to answer my question. If you believe all of humanity should have the right to study the gate, why hoard it for yourselves?
We are not going to study it. We are going to use it.
“Casmir,” Asger said, a hand resting on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Use it? How? It’s only one gate. It would have to be taken to another system and tied into the existing network to be of any use. Which could potentially disable the existing network if anything went wrong. Casmir shuddered. Do you know how to do that? You’d never get permission from the other governments to tinker with their gates.
We do not need to ask for permission. We already have a ship ready to transport the gate as soon as we’ve proven it is viable. And we’ve taken control of the gate in System Stymphalia. If you irritate us, your prince will not make it back from his engagement ball.
“The astroshamans control the gate in System Stymphalia?” Casmir blurted aloud. “Has that been on the news and I’ve missed it or…?”
Rache looked back at Asger and then at Casmir. “The Miners’ Union and the six major governments of that system have joint control of their gate. I haven’t heard anything on the news or from my intel man about it.” Rache squinted at Casmir. “She may be feeding you false information to throw you off. Why is she even talking to you?”
Gate Quest (Star Kingdom Book 5) Page 24