Hero Code

by Lindsay Buroker

  When he stepped into the shuttle, a chauffeur waved him to a seat. The hatch closed behind him. Casmir was halfway into the indicated seat when he recognized the man sitting across from him. King Jager.

  “Oh, Your Majesty,” he blurted, and tried to alter his motion from sitting into a bow. He almost pitched forward and fell into the king’s lap.

  The chauffeur stuck an arm out as one of the bodyguards surged forward protectively. Casmir managed to catch himself before their services were needed, and he quickly sat in the seat.

  Jager watched this all impassively. There were other empty seats in the back of the shuttle. Casmir guessed he had come along with his daughter, and their myriad bodyguards, for her… treatment, if that was what she was getting. Casmir was curious about it, but there was no way he would ask the king for details.

  He rested his hands on his knees and waited to be addressed, though he assumed this would be about the keycard. Would Jager simply demand it back? Or would he want to know why Casmir wanted to visit the seed bank?

  “You look reasonably well after your adventures,” Jager said.

  “Yes, Your Majesty. I got battered around a bit, but my mother gave me some Rejuv, and it worked better than I expected. She uses that on everything, you know. Applies it to wounds, burns, rashes, eczema, and gives it orally as an immune-system boost. Those are the on-label uses, I believe. I’ve also seen her give it to plants. Externally, of course. I don’t think there’s a way to give plants an oral treatment. Though I suppose one could do injections of a sort.” Casmir could hear himself babbling, and was aware that he needed to end it, but for some reason, he couldn’t make his mouth stop spitting words. It was just like with Rache. Jager also made him nervous.

  “And you’ve seen your family,” Jager said, ignoring the babble completely. Maybe his mind had wandered. Casmir couldn’t be the most important morsel on his plate for the day.

  “Yes.” Casmir forced his lips together to keep further words from spewing out.

  “The results of your trip to the terrorist base were adequate. I would say more than adequate, but I’m not pleased to learn that a heinous criminal was not only on my planet but seemed to be working with you.” Jager’s brows rose. Inviting an explanation?

  “I figured I had to draw upon resources that weren’t readily accessible to the Kingdom Guard and the knights, since they’d already tried and failed to locate the base.”

  “And you consider Rache—” Jager spat the name out like a poisonous mushroom, “—a resource?”

  “Not technically.” Casmir’s eye blinked twice.

  He had to be careful—very, very careful. If the king believed he and Rache were buddies now, Jager would have him exiled—or worse—as a punishment, whether Rache had helped with the terrorists or not. And if Casmir really screwed up, he could get Kim incriminated too. But he couldn’t lie or skirt the truth or he’d break out in a sweat, if not hives, on the king’s expensively upholstered seat. That might happen whether he lied or not.

  “I wouldn’t say I manipulated him into wanting to work toward my goals,” Casmir said, “because that sounds, er, manipulative, but after the terrorists bombed the synagogue and kidnapped my parents, I knew I had to do whatever was necessary to stop them.”

  “I assume you’re done manipulating him?” Jager asked.

  “Oh, yes. He’s a most distasteful human being. I have no desire to spend time with him.”

  Jager snorted, and Casmir was positive he read the irony in the king’s eyes. By now, Casmir had no doubt that Jager knew he and Rache shared the same genes—and he was positive the man knew who their progenitor was and likely who had ordered them cloned.

  “See to it that you don’t cross his path again,” Jager said. “You are only of use to the Kingdom and the crown if we can trust you.”

  Casmir nodded and smiled. “I understand.”

  But could he trust Jager?

  And did it matter, even if he couldn’t? He didn’t want to give up his home, and he longed to one day return to the work he loved at the university, even if he planned to get more involved in politics and fight harder to make changes for the better for people. As long as he wanted to live on Odin and be a Kingdom subject, he had to do whatever the king wanted. Even if he now wished he’d never met Jager.

  “Good. My Fleet reports have come in.” Jager’s eyes closed to slits. “An invisible ship was reported activating the gate and escaping our system. More than seven days ago. It could be anywhere in the Twelve Systems.”

  Casmir slumped back in the seat. He hadn’t forgotten that he’d promised to find the missing gate and fix the problem he’d inadvertently created, but he’d hoped it would turn out that the Fleet ships that had checked his coordinates had simply failed to search adequately. How had he messed up and let someone else find it? Someone else who’d taken it… He couldn’t even guess where. The astroshamans were a religion, not a nationality. They existed all over the Twelve Systems. Their headquarters could be anywhere. And they could also be working for someone else. As the terrorists here might have been.

  “You promised to find the missing gate to redeem yourself,” Jager said.

  “Yes, Your Majesty. I did.”

  “Pack your belongings and whatever tools you need for an extended journey. You’ll only be welcome back on Odin if you bring that gate with you.”

  “I understand.” Casmir dropped his chin to his chest. He wanted to rail that this was unfair, but was it? He’d meddled, overestimated his abilities, and this was the logical result. The king could have shot him outright.

  “Captain Ishii and the Osprey are on their way to Odin to pick you up. They’ll be here in three days.”

  Casmir jerked his head up. “Ishii, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  Of all the warships and captains in the Kingdom Fleet, he had to be assigned to travel again with his nemesis from robotics camp?

  “Is there any chance that I could, if I can talk her into it, fly with the Stellar Dragon and Captain Lopez? I would prefer—”

  “No.”

  Casmir lifted his finger. “But we’ve worked together in tough situations a number of times now, and I’ve found it advantageous to have an unassuming freighter rather than—”

  “No.”

  Casmir lowered his finger. “No?”

  “This will be a military operation with a military commander in charge. You will go as a civilian advisor and answer to him. A knight will accompany you to act as your bodyguard and to keep you out of Captain Ishii’s hair.”

  “A knight?” Not his knight? “Not Sir Asger?”

  “I am debating whether Sir Asger’s loyalties are compromised when it comes to you.”

  “He did deliver me to your dungeon.”

  “After releasing you from Ishii’s brig cell and taking you off in his shuttle, presumably at your urging, to start the whole mess with the gate.”

  “May I point out that if Sir Asger and I hadn’t intervened, the cargo ship would have escaped the system or Captain Rache would have obtained it?”

  “The ship escaped the system anyway.”

  “But Rache doesn’t have it.” Casmir hoped the king would see that as a positive point, since he felt so strongly about Rache.

  “Let’s hope. If he hadn’t been seen in your wake here on Odin, I would assume he’s already looking for it. Is that where he was going? Did you tell him anything?”

  “I told him I was responsible for it currently being lost,” Casmir said. “He neglected to tell me where he was headed after this.”

  “Pack your belongings and be ready, Dabrowski.” Jager pointed at the hatch, and it opened. “I’ll consider whether I’m going to give Asger a chance to redeem himself or not.”

  “He was paramount in bringing down the terrorists, Your Majesty.” Casmir wouldn’t argue about his own merits, but it bothered him to let Asger be disparaged without saying anything. “I know he’s loyal to the Kingdom.” He almost added an
d the queen but realized that might be part of the problem. Maybe Jager didn’t care for a handsome young knight being more loyal to his wife than to him.

  “Let’s hope,” Jager repeated, pointing again to the hatch.

  Having no urge to linger, Casmir hurried out. He found Qin and Kim waiting in the alley, standing under the eaves and watching the shuttle in the drizzle.

  “We wanted to make sure you weren’t kidnapped,” Kim said.

  “Those bodyguards and I have been practicing our glowers on each other.” Qin leaned around the corner, but she smiled and waved instead of glowering. Maybe the glower practice had only been necessary while Casmir had been inside.

  “Whose was fiercer?” he asked.

  “Mine. You can’t glower effectively without fangs.”

  Casmir believed it might be more of a sneer than a glower if teeth were on display, but he wasn’t an expert on menacing people, so he kept the thought to himself.

  “Everything all right?” Kim eyed Casmir. “Your mother invited everyone to dinner.”

  “Even me.” Qin beamed.

  Casmir’s throat tightened. He realized that he might not see Qin and Bonita again after he left Odin. They would likely depart soon, headed off to whatever bounty hunting or cargo hauling they planned to do next, and he… He had a date with the extremely unappealing Captain Ishii. Ishii glowered very well, even without fangs.

  “Good,” he said and made himself smile. “Bonita too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does she realize my mother is a physical therapist and will insist on helping her with some exercises before dinner?”

  Qin looked toward the door. “I think so. They were discussing leg lifts and wall squats when we left.”

  “I’ll make sure to bring alcohol to the dinner. To ease the pain.”

  “From the procedure?” Kim asked. “Or from enduring your mother’s well-meaning assistance?”

  Casmir nodded. “Both.”

  Qin packed the recently delivered food crates into the freezer section under the cargo hold deck as Bonita lay on a mat, groaning dramatically as she did leg lifts.

  “I would rate that an 8.7,” Viggo said.

  “A what?” Bonita lowered her leg and scowled suspiciously toward the closest speaker.

  A robot vacuum trundled past her mat.

  “I have decided to rate your groans on a scale from zero to ten, with zero being inauthentic and ten being worthy of a theatrical award.”

  “You’re hilarious, Viggo.”

  “Indeed. Over the years, numerous passengers on the Stellar Dragon have remarked on that very fact.”

  “How many is numerous?” Qin climbed out of the freezer and closed the lid.

  “Not less than six.”

  “In a hundred years?” Bonita grimaced and did a few more leg lifts. “That’s a long time, but that number still seems too high.”

  A beep came from the closed cargo hatch. Had the delivery robot found another crate it had forgotten to bring?

  Qin jogged over and opened the hatch. The same woman who’d delivered a parcel to Casmir the week before stood on the ramp. When she saw Qin, her mouth opened and closed a couple of times before she managed to thrust it at her.

  “No signature necessary,” she blurted and ran back to her vehicle.

  Expecting it to be for Bonita, Qin headed toward her mat with the flat, lightweight package. But she read the shipping label as she started to set it down. It was addressed to her and from Sir William Asger.

  A nervous flutter teased her stomach.

  “What is it?” Bonita asked. “Not a book about knee exercises from that awful nurse, I hope.”

  “It’s from Asger.”

  “What are his feelings on knee exercises?”

  “I don’t know. It’s addressed to me.”

  “Oh?” Bonita sat up and waved at the flat package. “Open it.”

  Qin used a claw to slice a careful opening and slid out a card in an envelope and a Kingdom calendar for the upcoming year. On Odin. Qin scratched her head with the same claw. “That’s an odd thing to give to a space traveler. Does he think I’ll visit here often and need to know the date?”

  “What is it?” Bonita climbed to her feet.

  Qin showed her the front of the calendar, the image of a hooded man on the cover, his face in shadow.

  “Is that him?” Bonita pointed at the jawline visible, its dark blond beard and mustache impeccably trimmed.

  “Oh. I think it is.”

  Bonita took it and flipped to the first month, then laughed at the shirtless Sir William Asger posing with his leg up on some metal beam with industrial buildings in the background. His muscles were on prominent display, his eyes twinkling as he smiled at the camera. Bonita turned to the next month. This time, Asger’s legs were also naked as he stood in front of trees, with nothing but an artfully placed branch blocking the view of his groin.

  “Ay, que güero,” Bonita purred.

  Qin’s cheeks flamed red.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen naked men before. It was just that none of the Drucker pirates had looked like that.

  “I don’t think it’s the date that he wants you to look at.” Bonita held up the near-naked picture for Qin’s perusal. “If I were still married, I might have left my husband for this. If only to fool around. But he’d have to promise not to talk or stick his haughty nose in the air.”

  “Why do you think he sent it to me?”

  Bonita had flipped to the next month. In the photo, Asger was dressed and on the beach with the surf in the background, but the way his wet clothing hugged his muscular form left even less to the imagination than the branch picture.

  “Captain?” Qin prompted when Bonita continued her perusal without answering.

  Bonita smirked and looked up. “I’m just making sure they didn’t leave any months out. Look, he signed December. Oh, and the front.”

  “Does that… make it more valuable? Like a signed book?”

  “I’m not sure what the collectors’ market on calendars is like. I imagine he mostly wants you to hang it in your cabin and ogle him while you’re entertaining yourself.”

  Qin’s cheeks flushed even hotter. She wasn’t positive Bonita was alluding to… sexual entertaining, since they’d never discussed such things, but she found herself mortified nonetheless.

  “He wouldn’t want that. He’d be horrified at being ogled by a… me.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true. All men like to be ogled by all women. It’s human nature. What’s the card say? That he’s realized you’re the most magnificent woman ever and that he was an idiot for prejudging you?”

  “I’m guessing not.” As Qin used her claw as a letter opener, she noticed that Bonita had tucked the calendar under her arm. Maybe she intended to put it in her cabin. “Liangyu Qin,” she read. “He got it backwards, but most people do.”

  “Give him credit for trying. I wouldn’t have guessed he knew you had more than one name.”

  “Qin, my apologies for attacking you when we first met. If you return to Odin in the future and need an escort to the park to hug trees at night, let me know. I’ll be happy to go with you.” Qin smiled. It wasn’t a confession of love, but at least it seemed an offer of friendship.

  “Hug trees?”

  “My feline DNA called me to the wilds of the park over there.” Qin waved.

  “And for you to cuddle with the native foliage?”

  “An urge came from somewhere.”

  “Usually, felines sharpen their claws on trees.”

  “You file my claws every month, so that’s not necessary.”

  “Huh.” Bonita handed her the calendar and waved skyward. “Where to next?”

  “You’re letting me decide?”

  “As long as it gets us out of this system. I’ve had enough of the Kingdom. And I thought you might like to pursue your freedom.”

  That had been on Qin’s mind. She still didn’t want to accept a
ny of Bonita’s new money to attempt to bribe the Druckers, but she did long for her freedom. True freedom where she wasn’t owned by anyone, even on paper. She didn’t yet know how she might barter for that, but she had speed, strength, and agility, and a captain willing to fly her places. That was more than most people had. She couldn’t help but think of all the things Casmir seemingly fearlessly accomplished without any of those things. If he could do it, couldn’t Qin?

  “Yes,” Qin said firmly.

  Bonita raised her eyebrows.

  “The last I heard, the Druckers’ main ships are in System Cerberus.”

  “The system run by criminals, liars, cheats, frauds, pirates, and gangsters?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll set a course. If nothing else, there should be plenty of bounty-hunting work.”

  “Of that I have no doubt.” Qin knew there would be more than the typical number of people there who would try to collect on her bounty, but she vowed to elude them and find her freedom. One way or another.

  Epilogue

  Casmir stood in the shadows of a row of hedges that surrounded the five-story black glass and blacker steel cube of a building that was the Royal Zamek Seed Bank. It was late, and only the windows by the lobby were lit. A robot guard on two wheels rolled around the exterior of the complex, making steady and predictable circuits. There weren’t any gates or other barriers across the wide sidewalk that led to the front door.

  Casmir pulled the keycard out of his tool satchel, the acorn appearing to be no more than a dark smudge in the dim lighting.

  It wasn’t too late to back out. He’d said he wasn’t going to do this, because he didn’t want to risk Oku getting in trouble. But tomorrow, he was to ship out on a mission he might not survive. Even if he made it back, he didn’t know when that would be, and he couldn’t help but feel like an idiot for not yet having figured out who he’d been cloned from. Rache knew, Jager knew, the queen knew, and Royal Intelligence probably knew. Even Asger had seemed to suspect something. Did Princess Oku also know? Probably. She had known of his existence before they’d met face to face.