Casmir had only jumped once before, but his exit from the dream-like state was nothing like the first time. The ship lurched hard as his senses groped their way back to reality. His first thought was that they had run into the side of the gate. Was that possible?
An alarm wailed, and men sprang from their pods and raced to the door. Their boots threatened to leave the deck as gravity fluctuated, then settled, then disappeared completely when a shudder racked the Osprey.
Casmir stayed where he was, certain his pod was safer than roaming free right now. What was—
“Battle stations,” Captain Ishii’s voice came over the comm. “All personnel to battle stations.”
Casmir groaned. Why didn’t anything out here in space ever go according to plan?
2
“That’s right, you hulking behemoth,” Bonita growled to the massive warship trying to edge her out of place in the queue for the wormhole gate heading out of System Hydra. “You better make room for me.”
A hesitant knock sounded on the hatch, and Qin poked her head into navigation. “Is it all right to come in?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” Bonita waved to the co-pilot’s pod.
“I wasn’t sure if you were having a private conversation with Bjarke.”
“I’m positive it’s only in his own mind that he’s a behemoth.” Bonita pointed at the Eagle, the first of three Kingdom warships, and a freighter from one of the local planets waiting in line. The Osprey, with Sir Bjarke Asger—and his son—aboard, had just departed, leaving glittering whorls on the event horizon of the gate.
“I won’t ask if you can verify that.”
Bonita couldn’t verify much about Bjarke, except that he was almost as good of a kisser as he thought he was, which she’d discovered when trying to talk him into taking Qin and Scholar Kelsey-Sato down to the moon. She still felt a little smug about her ability to entice a younger man. She might not be as limber as she used to be, but she had experience on her side.
“Good,” Bonita said. “A bounty hunter doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“That hasn’t been my experience with bounty hunters.” Qin walked in, magnetic boots keeping her on the deck in the negligible gravity, and slid her tall, athletic frame into the co-pilot’s pod. Like Bonita, she wore her galaxy suit instead of combat armor. They weren’t anticipating any trouble delivering the cargo Viggo had picked up at Tiamat Station—Bonita didn’t have any major enemies in System Stymphalia, and their destination, Sultan Shayban’s asteroid palace and station, was known to be a fair and friendly place to do business.
“Maybe I should have specified that a lady bounty hunter doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“That also hasn’t been my experience.” Qin smiled.
Bonita nudged the thrusters, placing herself solidly in front of the Eagle.
“I do hope you know,” Viggo’s voice came from the speakers, “that I’m not a fan of hulking behemoth warships breathing all over my thrusters.”
“Nobody’s breathing in space,” Bonita said. “Your thrusters will be fine.”
“That vessel isn’t leaving a sufficient following distance. It could plow into us.”
“That’s not going to happen. I’ve flown the Baldur Asteroid Gauntlet fifty times. I can avoid being run over by a warship if need be. If you hadn’t set such an ambitious delivery schedule, we could have gotten into the back of the line.”
“I didn’t know we would be delayed at Xolas Moon for two days while you warmed your lover’s many toes.”
“He’s not my lover. I was visiting El Mago and delivering your gift to him in sickbay.”
But before leaving the ship, Bonita had spent a couple of hours with Bjarke in the Osprey’s mess hall over a bland version of a mocha, but lovemaking hadn’t been involved. He’d been interrupted frequently by passing officers and comm calls from that obnoxious Ambassador Romano. She’d barely gotten a chance to ask him what happened down on the moon.
Maybe it was for the best. She’d been more intrigued by him when he’d been a smartass pirate accountant. She knew how to deal with pirates, bounty hunters, smugglers, and the like. What kind of relationship was she supposed to have with some noble knight from a backward planet?
“Did he like my vacuum?” Viggo asked. “M-784 is one of my favorites.”
“I didn’t ask. I left it on the table next to his bed.”
“Bonita. Surely you know when you deliver a gift on behalf of a sentient ship without a body of his own that he’ll want to know how well it was received.”
“Casmir was unconscious at the time. I’m sure he loved it.”
“I do hope he recovers fully from his illness. Human bodies are so dreadfully fragile.”
“He’s doing better.” Qin waved to her lightly furred temple and the chip embedded there. “I got updates from him and Asger today.”
“That’s good,” Bonita said.
Viggo harrumphed. “Casmir hasn’t sent me any updates.”
“You better send him a card to make sure he hasn’t taken up with another sentient ship on the side.”
“Funny.”
The whorls cleared, and an alert on the control panel informed them that they could transmit their destination to the gate. Bonita tapped in the code for System Stymphalia, wishing these Kingdom ships weren’t going to the same place she was. After seeing news of the war in their home system and the blockade at their wormhole gate, she understood why they couldn’t go home, but what were they planning to do in Stymphalia? Start trouble, she suspected. She hoped the Stellar Dragon could deliver its cargo and slip away before anything ricocheted off the Kingdom ships and hit them.
“Are you doing all right?” Bonita looked over at Qin as the ship glided toward the gate. “I haven’t seen much of you these last few days. You’ve been in your cabin a lot.”
“I’m fine. Good. I’ve just been thinking about… things.” Her cheeks, which lacked the fur of other body parts, showed a pink flush. “Asger,” she admitted.
“Which one?”
“Mine. Yours is rude and a jerk to his son.”
Bonita hadn’t seen Bjarke interacting much with his son, so she couldn’t comment on that, but she’d always found the younger Asger stuffy and arrogant, so maybe he needed someone knocking him down a couple of notches. Not that Bjarke didn’t have an arrogant streak. He just seemed more… fun.
“He kissed me,” Qin admitted so quietly Bonita almost missed it.
The words surprised Bonita. She knew Asger had given Qin that calendar, but she’d assumed it had more to do with arrogance over how beautiful his body was than an interest in anything romantic. Qin was a loyal friend and sweet and pretty, despite the fur, but it was hard to imagine some hunky noble knight who could have any woman he wanted developing feelings for her. For a freak, as Kingdom people called anyone who’d been genetically modified.
Bonita hoped Asger didn’t have some notion of having sex with Qin just to see what it was like to sleep with a furry cat woman. If he did, she would kick his cojones so hard they would fly out his mouth.
“Didn’t he try to kill you?” Bonita felt she should quell any chance of a relationship that might hurt Qin.
“Not recently.”
“Hm.”
Qin frowned at her. “Your Asger kidnapped us and locked us in a disgusting sex room.”
“It was a regular hostel room.”
“That’s rented by the hour and cleaned by the decade. Be glad your nostrils aren’t as sensitive as mine.” Qin wrinkled her nose.
“I’m bemused that you find that a greater sin than trying to kill someone.”
“It was a case of mistaken identity.”
“Guess you better keep Asger from running into any of your sisters back on the Drucker ship. Assuming you like them.”
“I do. I miss them sometimes. Not enough to want to go back… but I’ve occasionally dreamed of making enough money as a bounty hunter—bounty hunter’s assistant—to buy
them from the Druckers and set them free. I guess that’s silly since I couldn’t even afford to legally buy myself from them.”
“A commando raid with anti-tank guns and bombs seems more within your reach. Especially since bounty hunters’ assistants don’t make much less than bounty hunters.”
Bonita had made more than she expected from carting Bjarke across the galaxy, and Viggo had negotiated a surprisingly good price for the cargo they were taking to Stardust Palace—she assumed the crates were full of weapons and that the person paying them believed the war might seep out of System Lion and encroach elsewhere. Bonita wasn’t at risk of becoming wealthy any time soon, but maybe it wasn’t crazy to dream of the day when she would own the Dragon outright. Would she ever be able to retire? Or would she have to keep working until her reflexes slowed too much and some criminal’s DEW-Tek bolt caught her unprepared?
“Maybe you could get in touch with them and they could help from the inside,” Bonita suggested into the silence.
The event horizon appeared again, whorls and sparkles brightening the space inside the gate, and she nudged the Dragon toward it.
“We were indoctrinated in such a way that it’s hard for us to fight against them—the Druckers.” Qin sighed. “And we were punished whenever we turned our claws on one of the pirates. Even though my cohort sisters are all capable fighters, we all learned to fear the consequences of anything but loyalty.”
If they were like Qin, they were far more than capable fighters. It seemed a waste to leave such talent in the hands of a bunch of pirates. But should she truly suggest breaking them out to Qin? To what end? Would she hire them all? Start a mercenary outfit? Bonita was too old to change careers now. Besides, the last thing she needed was the Druckers, with their five warships full of pirates, to come after her.
It would have to be enough that she’d helped Qin get free. Though she didn’t know if the Druckers would leave her alone forever. When they’d made their escape from Death Knell Station, they’d left two pirates behind who knew Qin was alive. Bonita hadn’t checked to see if there was still a bounty out for her return, but there probably was. She glanced sadly at her friend, reluctantly accepting that their trip to System Cerberus had likely been for nothing.
“We’re heading in,” Bonita said. “Brace yourself.”
“I’m braced.”
Somehow, Bonita doubted Qin referred only to the gate jump. Maybe her thoughts were swimming in similar pools right now.
The familiar loss of full consciousness washed over Bonita, and then she was unaware of time passing as the gate’s technology defied known physics to take them to a star system a hundred light years away.
As soon as her awareness returned, a beam of crimson light streaked across the forward display.
“We’ve entered a battle zone,” Viggo announced.
“Hijo de puta!” Bonita pushed the groggy dream state away, made sure the navigation arm was connected to her chip, and veered them away from the gate. “We didn’t accidentally fly to Cerberus, did we?”
“We have arrived in System Stymphalia. Four mercenary ships are firing upon the Osprey.”
Even as Viggo spoke, the big Kingdom warship flew past, maneuvering with far more agility than she would have expected from such a large vessel. It returned fire as it sailed past the gate, its huge rail guns pounding rounds into a decked-out cruiser on its tail. The mercenary vessel’s engineering section exploded, starting a chain reaction that tore the entire ship to pieces.
“Three mercenary ships are firing upon the Osprey,” Viggo amended blandly. “Two more are heading in this direction.”
“I’m getting us out of here while they’re distracted,” Bonita muttered.
Qin glanced over. “Shouldn’t we help? Asger and Casmir and Kim are on there.”
“I’ll remind you that we don’t have the firepower to take on even one mercenary vessel, and the Osprey’s fellow warships are on the way. They’ll be fine.”
Qin bit her lip, eyeing the Kingdom warship as a missile blasted into its side, pieces of the hull flying off into space.
“They’ll be fine,” Bonita repeated, trying not to feel like a dog slinking away with its tail between its legs.
Just because she had friends aboard the Osprey didn’t mean she was allied with the Kingdom, and whatever fight they were involved in had nothing to do with her. If their king wasn’t such an ambitious ass, maybe they wouldn’t be attacked in whatever system they traveled to.
“What if the other ships don’t get here in time?” Qin asked.
Bjarke’s face flashed in Bonita’s mind, followed by Casmir’s affable smile, and her stomach twisted. “There’s nothing we can do to change the outcome.”
Qin gazed over at her. Maybe Bonita was imagining the disappointment in her eyes—it was probably just concern for her friends—but that didn’t make her feel better.
“Whose ships are those, Viggo? Can you tell who’s in charge? Rache isn’t out there, is he?” Bonita would be furious with the notorious mercenary if he was attacking the Kingdom, because he’d gotten a new contract, after he’d worked with Casmir and Kim back on that moon. Admittedly, the story she’d heard was that he had kidnapped them, not allied with them, but still.
“Two are from the Comet Slammers and three are from Debra’s Dire Deathdealers.”
Bonita snorted. She’d heard of the alliteration-loving Captain Debra before—there weren’t that many female mercenary commanders, so she took note when she encountered them—but couldn’t call her a friend. In fact, Bonita had captured and turned in one of her officers. The deadbeat had bought a star yacht and then never made any payments, and a debt collector had put a nice bounty on him. If Debra remembered, she wouldn’t be pleased with Bonita.
“I’m an idiot,” Bonita announced, and then commed what appeared to be the lead ship. “Captain Debra, this is Captain Laser Lopez. I have a friendly warning for you from one woman navigating the stars to another.”
“Her ship has taken some damage,” Viggo said when seconds passed without a response.
“Then she should be especially amenable to a warning,” Bonita said.
The comm spat static, and then a woman with a husky voice spoke. “Stay out of the way, Lopez, or we’ll blow you back through the gate.”
“Oh, I intend to.” And Bonita did. She had already set a course for Stardust Palace Station, picking a route that took them well underneath the flying energy bolts and missiles. “But since I came from the same place as that ugly warship there, I thought I’d offer you some intel that could save your life. I’ll be magnanimous and only charge five hundred Union dollars.”
Qin’s eyebrows rose.
Bonita muted the comm. “She’ll be more likely to believe me that way.”
Something between a grunt and a cat hacking up a hairball came over the comm. “I’m not paying you the value of my spit, Lopez. You screwed Lieutenant Gomez, remember?”
Bonita un-muted the comm. “I believe he screwed himself by making off with a million-dollar yacht he had no intention of making payments on.”
“Give me your intel, and maybe I’ll let you get out of here without accidentally shooting your dilapidated freighter into a thousand pieces.”
“Dilapidated?” Viggo cried. “I insist that we fly into battle and pummel her immediately.”
“What are you going to do? Hurl your vacuums at her? All right, Debra. I’ll give you a freebie this time. I squeaked into the queue at the Hydra gate, and there were seven more Kingdom warships right behind me. I expect them to start popping into the system any second.”
“Seven! We were told there were only two total.”
“They’re all coming here because they can’t go home. Something about their prince being in this system and raising an army. That sound right?”
“Their prince couldn’t be bothered to raise his finger for a manicure. Seven! Are you shitting me, Lopez?”
“Nope. Hope you’ve got more re
inforcements coming.”
Bonita cut the comm before Debra could question her further, then shrugged over at Qin. “Maybe it’ll help.”
“The gate is activating again,” Viggo said. “Let us hope, for the sake of your ruse, that the second warship comes through, and not another pushy freighter who cut in line.”
“I didn’t cut. We were there first.” Bonita waved a hand, pretending she wasn’t worried for her friends aboard the Osprey as they sailed away from the confrontation, but she kept an eye on the rear scanner display.
A second Kingdom warship did indeed come through the gate. Debra’s mercenary ships broke off and fled toward the inner system. The Osprey, now bolstered by the Eagle, turned its focus on the remaining two mercenaries—their captains were probably wondering why Debra had taken off when they’d expected two Kingdom ships.
Bonita spotted two more mercenary vessels speeding toward the gate, but Debra must have commed them a warning, for they veered off in another direction. As the Osprey and the Eagle obliterated the two that had stuck around, a third Kingdom ship appeared in the system. That ought to lend credence to Bonita’s words, even if only four appeared instead of eight.
“That was good, Captain,” Qin said. “Thanks.”
Bonita nodded, feeling she’d done her good deed for the week. Now, with luck, she wouldn’t run into any trouble as a result of it.
Once again, she hoped the Kingdom wasn’t heading to the same place as the Dragon. It was clear that anywhere their fleet went, trouble would follow. Or be lying in wait to ambush.
Sir William Asger walked onto the bridge of the Osprey, bracing himself as the momentum of the ship’s maneuvers threatened to overpower the artificial spin gravity and hurl him into a console. One of the damaged mercenary ships flew ahead of them, the big warship accelerating toward it.
“Fire at will,” Ishii commanded from his raised seat. “Lieutenant Bombay, open a comm to that ship.”
“You’re on, sir,” the officer replied.
Planet Killer (Star Kingdom Book 6) Page 3