Hero Code

by Lindsay Buroker

  “You have something to brief me about?” Yas asked.

  Dare he get his hopes up this soon? The day before, he’d told Amergin everything he remembered from that eventful night, but since they weren’t in the same system, Yas had expected it would be weeks before he heard anything.

  “Not specific to your president’s assassination, but you should know that wasn’t the only one. The Mining Union lost one of their key leaders a few months ago—mysterious poisoning—and there are rumors out there that the attack on Stribog Station in System Augeas wasn’t something the Star Kingdom instigated, despite a bunch of their crushers being seen there. Who’s involved? There’s lots of speculation, but someone who has access to those crushers—or who knows how to make them.”

  Yas had never heard of them until a few weeks ago. As far as he knew, Rache’s quirky twin was responsible for inventing them, but that didn’t mean much. If the schematics had been shared around, manufacturing facilities all over the Twelve Systems could be creating them now.

  “There’s a terrorist group down on Odin known to have some—the Kingdom is calling them terrorists, anyway; I reckon they’re someone else’s freedom fighters.”

  “Some crushers?”

  “Yup.”

  “I didn’t see any of those on Tiamat Station that night—or ever.”

  “Doesn’t mean they weren’t there. You know your president was strangled, right?”

  “That’s what the news reports said, yes.” He shuddered, imagining someone doing that to the poor old lady. And it also disturbed him to think that someone would think him capable of such a thing.

  “I’ll keep looking for information. Just be aware that it might be a powerful group that’s behind things, if these deaths and attacks are all linked.”

  “Does that mean Rache won’t be willing to go after them?”

  “Not necessarily, but he might want more pay.”

  “I’m not paying him at all, except with my time.”

  “Yup.” Amergin smirked and gripped Yas’s shoulder. “Seems like you might be living on this ship for a long, long while, Doctor.”

  Yas sagged against the wall.

  Amergin released him and ambled away.

  Yas looked for Jess, wanting to resume their conversation, or maybe just cry on her shoulder, but she was gone.

  7

  A robot vacuum whirred softly as it trundled along the deck in front of the open cargo hatch, slurping up water spatters left by the misty breeze. Night had fallen outside, and the wind had blown clouds in from the sea. The air smelled delightfully salty, and Qin liked the sensation of cool water droplets landing on her cheeks.

  Occasional honks, beeps, and sirens sounded out in the city, but the area around the air harbor and the street running past the castle were relatively quiet. She wished she could go out and explore, perhaps visit those trees she kept smelling.

  “Must we leave the hatch open?” Viggo asked.

  “No, but I may not get to go outside, so I’m trying to enjoy what I can.” Qin’s heart ached at the idea of staying on the ship the entire time they were on Odin, however long that would be. The search and interrogation had been completed, but four Kingdom Guards remained on duty, sitting in and standing near a vehicle parked fifty meters from the cargo hatch. Qin had little doubt their job was to make sure that she and Bonita didn’t wander off.

  “Outside is filthy. Staying in here is much preferable.” Four more of Viggo’s vacuums sailed out of engineering to dry the only slightly damp deck near Qin’s feet. “Inside with the hatch closed. You’re going to clog my filters with all manner of unsterile microbes.”

  “Isn’t that what those filters are there for?” Bonita asked from the ladder well. She walked across the cargo hold, limping even though she looked like she was trying not to limp. “To bathe in all manner of unsterile dirt and germs?”

  “Had I a stomach,” Viggo said, “it would be extremely unsettled at the thought.”

  Bonita stopped next to Qin and grimaced at the lit pavement outside, or perhaps at the Guards watching them. It could also be that her knees were bothering her more than usual. Her limp had been more pronounced since they landed. Was it because of the strain of Odin’s strong gravity? Qin hoped she hadn’t injured her knees further in the battle.

  “We have a meeting tomorrow.” Bonita patted Qin on the shoulder. “With the baron who may buy Casmir’s patent. He still finds it suspicious that the creator is not available to state that he gave it to me, but I’m hoping Casmir will find a way out of that dungeon.”

  “So he can come talk to the patent buyer?” Qin asked. “Or so he’ll avoid torture and great personal pain?”

  “I’m amenable to both of those things. He’s not a bad kid. And I wouldn’t wish torture and personal pain on more than sixteen or seventeen people.”

  “That many?”

  “Well, I have three ex-husbands.”

  “The rest are just mortal enemies?”

  “Men and women who have done me wrong—who have done a lot of people wrong. You work in the bounty-hunting business long enough, you run into some unappealing sorts.” Bonita cocked her head. “Wouldn’t you wish your pirate masters—your former pirate masters—some torture and pain?”

  “No.” A breeze brought in a fresh misty whiff of the ocean, and Qin inhaled the salty scent. “I guess I was raised to know I was their property and expect… what I got. I feel rebellious for having run away, for being out here wondering how I can make my freedom permanent. But I don’t wish anyone torture and pain. I guess if I wished anything, it would be for something to happen in their lives that would cause them to empathize with others and not treat them so callously.”

  “You know what’s likely to happen in their lives to cause that? Their deaths. Their painful deaths, ideally.”

  Qin smiled and let it go. She and Bonita were different people, and that was fine. More than once, Bonita had stuck up for her when she hadn’t been willing to do it for herself, when her instinct had been to turn the other cheek. In battle, different instincts came into play and she could kill enemies without a thought, but outside of battle, she tried to keep her equanimity. She was too dangerous to let herself lose her temper. This was a better way for her.

  Another scent tickled her nostrils, and she knew Asger had also come down the ladder. She wondered if he’d heard any of the conversation and, if so, what he thought of it.

  Not that it mattered what he thought. She had to keep telling herself that. She wasn’t even sure why he was still on the ship. What exactly had he promised Casmir?

  “The baron is going to come here for the meeting,” Bonita said. “We don’t have to go anywhere. I explained our predicament. After the baron—I think he’s also the chief executive officer—got over his alarm that we are possibly considered criminals in the Kingdom—pending the outcome of this little investigation, I suppose—he agreed to come personally.”

  “That’s good.”

  Good that Qin would never have to set foot off the ship. Never see the beach or the trees…

  Bonita noticed Asger walking up, his pack over his shoulder.

  “Captain.” He bowed politely, a very shallow bow. “Since the investigators have left, and you seem to have recovered from the questioning, I’ll take my leave of your ship.”

  Bonita stepped to the side and gestured toward the ramp.

  “As I told Qin,” Asger said without looking at Qin, “Casmir asked me to help you if you need anything. You’re welcome to comm me if any trouble comes looking for you. Also, those gentlemen by the vehicle out there have instructions to protect you as well as to keep you here.”

  “I suppose it’s bad form if something happens to the prisoners on their watch,” Bonita said.

  “I suppose.” He nodded to her, then looked at Qin, hesitated, and nodded to her as well before heading down the ramp.

  Qin knew it was silly, but she felt a little zing of triumph at his eye contact. Maybe
eventually, he would come to see her as a human being. Or at least a person with human thoughts and feelings.

  Bonita closed the hatch, cutting off the scents and the mist. A surge of disappointment rushed through Qin. It was a ridiculous feeling—after so many years on ships and stations, she should be used to being closed up inside of them—but she couldn’t help but long to experience nature.

  “I’m going to get some sleep,” Bonita said, heading for the ladder again. “So I can be perky and bright for any negotiations that might take place tomorrow. I should know better than to get my hopes up, but it would be nice if we could leave this system at a net profit instead of a net loss.”

  Qin trailed her to the ladder as the ship’s lights dimmed for the night cycle. “Do you think afterward, if we haven’t heard from Casmir, we should do something?”

  Bonita stepped out of the ladder well on the middle deck but paused before heading to her cabin. “Just get that out of your head, kid. This isn’t like the deal with Rache. We didn’t get Casmir into this trouble. He picked it for himself, and he can get himself out of it. Besides, we can’t take on a whole government. What are we going to do? Bomb their castle?”

  “No. I just wish we could help.”

  “Then pray for him, kid.” Bonita headed into her cabin, shutting the hatch with a soft clang.

  Qin didn’t point out that she hadn’t been raised to believe in any deities and knew little about religion of any kind. It hadn’t been deemed important when the scientists and their military advisors had been training her to kill. Maybe the Druckers would even have considered it a flaw if she developed some kind of religion-inspired morality that made killing objectionable.

  She headed toward her cabin, having a vague notion that lighting a candle and hoping for Casmir’s well-being would be the same as praying, but thoughts of the trees and the smells of nature crept back into her mind. She was sure a park was nearby. It shouldn’t be in use this late at night. Maybe… maybe she could slip out without the guards outside being any wiser. She was fast and stealthy. They might not see her leave.

  Before she’d consciously decided to enact her plan, her feet led her up another set of rungs to navigation and the hatch in the ceiling right behind it. She climbed up and slipped outside, inhaling deeply and feeling invigorated by the damp air.

  It was dark on top of the ship, and the Dragon’s dome shape provided enough contours for her to stay low and out of sight of the guards. She slithered partway down the hull, then sprang free, landing in a soundless crouch twenty feet below. She ran across the pavement, keeping the ship between her and her potential observers. Here and there, red lights glowed, indicating cameras and drones patrolling the perimeter of the air harbor. She doubted her trip would go unrecorded, but she hoped she could make it to the park and back before anyone cared enough to look for her. She also hoped she wouldn’t get Bonita in trouble.

  When she reached the towering wall around the landing area, she sprang into the air, powerful muscles letting her sail as high as a panther. She alighted atop the wall, then jumped down into an empty street, closed businesses lining the sides. She couldn’t yet see trees, but her nose guided her toward them.

  If anyone was watching the street from the windows, they didn’t call out. But why would they? In the dark, who could tell that she wasn’t entirely human?

  A half a mile whizzed past under her boots, and it wasn’t long before the scent of earth and grass and trees grew stronger, and the dark swath of a park came into view. Qin sprinted the last quarter of a mile and sprang to land in the grass, ignoring the gravel path meandering through the vegetation. She ran to a tree and rested her palm against the trunk, letting her claws expand to lightly grip the bark. At first, she just wanted to touch it, to revel in this hint of nature that called to something deep in her genes. But as she looked up at the sprawling branches and how they stretched to the next tree over, which stretched to the one after that, an idea formed in her mind, and she knew she had to make it a reality.

  She tore off her boots and her socks, then climbed the tree. Branches rattled, her body too large for the soundless passage she would have preferred, but she found her balance as easily as she’d hoped, and ran out on a tree limb. A startled bird that had been roosting for the night squawked and flew off. Some predatory urge to spring after it rose up within her, but she squelched it. She wasn’t hungry. She didn’t need to hunt. She needed… She didn’t know what, but she sprang to the next tree. And the next.

  The branches weren’t wide, but they were strong enough to support her weight, and she landed easily, claws sinking in when she needed. A grin sprawled across her face as she felt the damp wood under her feet, the scent of foliage all around her. She’d never in her life done this. Only three times had she been on worlds with trees like this, and she’d always been with the pirates, never allowed to run off, to play. Only to work, always to work. And often to kill.

  She traversed the entire rim of the park before running out of conveniently placed trees. Finally, she dropped down and wrapped her arms around the one next to her, wishing she knew the name of the species. Wet grass tickled the bottoms of her foot pads, dampening her sprinkling of fur. She pressed her cheek to the trunk, inhaling deeply, so pleased to be there that tears welled in her eyes.

  She heard the soft whisper of footsteps in the grass before she smelled anyone’s approach. The breeze had shifted, and she was upwind of the other park-goer.

  Qin, trained to expect danger from every quarter, turned to face the person as he spoke.

  “Uh, Qin?” It was Asger.

  Had he followed her? Why? To protect her from trouble? Or to make sure she didn’t get into trouble?

  “Yes?” She crossed her arms over her chest, refusing to feel silly about having been caught hugging a tree.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He gazed curiously at her, his face in shadow and difficult to see, even with her enhanced nocturnal vision. He stood on the grass, the city and the bluff lit up behind him. The castle wasn’t visible from here, but numerous large structures along the bluff were, and she experienced some amusement at a phallic spire sticking up directly behind his head. Bonita had a tendency to call pompous people dickheads. It seemed especially appropriate for Asger.

  “I wanted to see the park,” Qin said.

  Asger looked at the tree she had been hugging. “Oh.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I was talking to the guards when one of the air harbor cameras spotted you jumping the wall and gave them an alert. I said I’d find you. I was afraid if they went after you, they might shoot first and ask questions… never.”

  “Would that matter to you? You did try to kill me the first time we met.” Qin wondered how she could ask him to leave so she could flop down in the grass and wriggle her bare toes in it. She longed for a couple of hours out here before she had to go back to the ship. Would he allow it or try to force her to return?

  Asger gazed to the side, toward the buildings on the bluff. “Casmir said you weren’t the one who killed Sandor.”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “My friend—a knight—who we lost at the Kvasir Belt, fighting pirates—the Drucker pirate family—who were stealing from miners in the belt. We drove them off but lost men. Good men.”

  Qin closed her eyes and tried to remember such an incident. The Druckers stole from many and claimed five large warships among them. They were rarely all together, so it was possible this had happened without her knowledge.

  “I hadn’t been to System Lion before I came with Bonita, but the Druckers have five ships, or they did when I last saw them, and they only sometimes work together. Each brother captains one, and they’re often out for themselves. There were two cohorts of us that they ordered, three years apart. Nine in each. There are—were—nine Qin Liangyus and nine of the older girls. I’m Liangyu Three. We’re not identical to each other or the older cohort, but we’re all
from similar genetic material. You could call us sisters.”

  Qin prodded the damp grass with her toe. She didn’t like talking about her past with normal people who’d grown up in homes with parents, because it only emphasized that she was an oddity, but she didn’t want to be enemies with Asger. If by explaining she could make him understand that she wasn’t the Qin Liangyu he had a grudge against, maybe it would be worth it. Or maybe it didn’t matter. Casmir had befriended Asger, and it hadn’t gotten him very far. It bothered Qin that Casmir was trapped in some dark dungeon with nobody to fight for him. Had his family even been told?

  “But you killed when you worked for the Druckers?” Asger asked.

  “Yes, I killed for them. But I didn’t work for them. They never paid me. They paid to have me made, and so they owned me. That’s the law in some systems. There’s a contract out for me right now—they’re paying to have me returned.” Maybe she shouldn’t have admitted that, but she doubted a Kingdom knight would stoop to collecting a bounty put out by pirates. “I escaped six months ago. I don’t want to go back. I’ve always longed for freedom. Battling seems to be in my blood, but I want to choose my battles.”

  “They think they own you?” For the first time, Asger sounded indignant. Indignant on her behalf or just at some vague notion that people shouldn’t be bought and sold?

  “They have a piece of paper from System Cerberus that says they do own me.” Qin couldn’t manage to speak with his same indignation. There was slavery in several systems, and that was just how it was.

  She was surprised it didn’t seem to exist in the Kingdom. She’d expected System Lion with their royalty and nobility to be less egalitarian than more.

  “That’s loathsome. How much money do you need to buy your freedom?” Asger spat. “You shouldn’t even have to buy it. It’s your right to have it. You should wipe out those damn pirates.”

  “There are about two thousand of them spread between those five warships,” Qin said. “I’d have to talk Casmir into building me a very large robot army to have a shot at that.”