“How did you run out of a locked cell?” Gokhale demanded.
Kim frowned, as if confused by the question, though she worried her acting abilities wouldn’t be up to snuff. “The bars came up. Is there a security measure in place to release prisoners in the event of a fire, air leak, or other danger?”
Casmir clasped his hands behind his back. He looked wan and like he might have inhaled more of that gas than Kim had, but her stomach was still writhing too.
“Sultan Shayban?” Casmir asked. “I was hoping to speak with you. I have a proposition. But, ah, maybe you want to let your people deal with the… intruders first.”
“Leave a couple of men out here with them,” the sultan told Gokhale, “and figure out what’s going on inside. My comm chief alerted me to two ship-transport freighters waiting outside of our asteroid, loitering suspiciously.”
Gokhale and two of the riflemen stepped warily into the control room. Four more men had appeared behind the sultan, all armed and in a vibrant teal and dark blue uniform. His bodyguards?
A vent started up in the control room almost immediately. Kim waited for a complaint or cry of alarm in regard to Zee. She was surprised Casmir hadn’t shouted a warning for him to cooperate and not hurt anyone.
“A proposition?” The sultan looked Casmir up and down. “You don’t seem to be in a position to propose much of anything, boy.”
“I’m an academic, sir. The things I offer are stored up here.” Casmir touched the side of his head. “Not in my pockets.” He looked down at his bare legs and chest. “Fortunately.”
Kim sighed, doubting this would go well.
A curse came from the control room. They must have found Zee.
“Mehta and Kudla are stunned and tied up,” someone called. “And who are these people? They’re in stolen uniforms. And they’re unconscious. What the hell. Did those nudies do that?”
Where’s Zee? Kim messaged Casmir, her arms starting to ache from holding them up. But the humorless riflemen continued to point deadly weapons in their direction.
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Casmir smiled at her, not looking as daunted as he should, given the situation. Maybe he had collected a cadre of security robots that were ready to wheel in under his command.
“Sultan Shayban,” Casmir said, “I know this isn’t the best time, but I believe I can help you. Do you have time for that meeting? Uhm, I can put on my galaxy suit, if I can find it, so you don’t have to be concerned about my… lack of pockets.”
Shayban opened his mouth, but Gokhale stepped out, her dark eyes wide and her skin much paler than it had been a moment before.
“You better see this, Your Highness,” she said.
Footsteps came from behind the sultan’s bodyguards. They glanced back but didn’t otherwise react when another man jogged into view. He also wore a security uniform but had more braided tassels on his shoulders than the assistant chief.
“Sorry I’m late, Your Highness. The Excelsus robots weren’t at their posts.”
Shayban raised his eyebrows. Fortunately, he appeared calmer and almost amused by all this, rather than angry. “Where were they?”
“Uh, they’re around the corner back there. Poised for… I don’t know what. Someone appears to have overridden their programming and given them new commands.”
Kim refrained from looking at Casmir.
“It’s Dubashi’s men, Your Highness,” Gokhale said. “I ran their chips, but I hardly needed to. I recognize one from past criminal trespass on our station.” She stepped back into the control room, waving for everyone to follow.
Kim hadn’t figured out what was happening yet, but it sounded like Casmir wasn’t getting blamed for the robots or the cell bars going up.
“We’ll all step inside,” Shayban said. “Come Professor, Scholar. We’ll get to your story next.”
Wouldn’t that be fun.
Kim let Casmir go first, and he stepped into the mess of smashed stations, broken office chairs, and downed people, then turned to the right and sat on a tarry black sofa resting against a wall. Kim almost fell over. Zee.
Casmir patted to the seat next to him. The “couch” was as hard as Kim had suspected it would be, and she felt odd about sitting on their bodyguard.
“I see my tool satchel.” Casmir pointed.
He didn’t try to get it. Security officers filled the room, several pulling up camera recordings, and one trying to question a groggy man they’d managed to rouse. The tied-up guards were pulled out from under the console and released, though they were still unconscious.
“I’m more interested in finding my galaxy suit right now.” Kim rested a hand on her bare legs, cold and a little self-conscious.
You don’t suppose Dubashi sent these people to kill me, do you? Casmir was eyeing the unconscious intruders, now identified as Dubashi’s men.
I don’t see how he could have known you would end up here. But it is quite a coincidence that they happened to show up here while we were detained.
Casmir shook his head bleakly. It’s so bizarre to be wanted dead by a man I’ve never met. What does he truly believe I can do to help the Kingdom in its war? And why does Dubashi hate the Kingdom so much?
You can’t think Rache is the only one Jager has angered.
Did he ever tell you his story?
Rache? Yes.
Will you tell it to me?
No.
Casmir lifted his brows. No? Really? But you tell me everything.
It’s not my story to tell. You’ll have to ask him yourself. And possibly rub his head. That makes him chattier.
Casmir’s look of curious inquiry turned to one of mild horror. I’m not rubbing anything of his. That’s illegal in the Kingdom.
Probably not in System Stymphalia.
Kim rubbed her arms, tempted to hunt for her temperature-modulating suit. Her undergarments lacked SmartWeave fabric.
Maybe she could. Nobody was paying much attention to them. With the owner of the station looking on, the officers were working hard to quickly figure out what had happened. A woman reviewing the camera feed looked around the room, and her brow furrowed as her gaze lingered on the couch. She opened her mouth, no doubt to reveal Zee’s identity, but Shayban came and sat with a weary sigh next to Casmir. The woman gaped but opted not to say anything.
“Long day, Your Highness?” Casmir asked.
“Many meetings,” Shayban said. “I enjoy the spoils of my wealth and appreciate that my family is well cared for, but I do occasionally miss the days when I captained an exploratory mining ship and my only meetings were with my first officer and the ore.”
“Ore is delightful.”
“I certainly appreciate it.”
“It can be transformed into so many things.” Casmir patted the couch fondly. “I’m not aware of anything that meetings can be transformed into.”
“Headaches.”
“True.”
The frazzled assistant chief reported to Shayban, standing painfully erect. Kim might have felt bad for her predicament, if Gokhale hadn’t been one of the ones to arrest her.
“We’ll be here all night trying to figure out everything, Your Highness, but after a preliminary investigation, it looks like Dubashi sent a team to try to take over the controls for Ship Bay Three—we’ve received a report that our officer on duty there was also knocked out. We’ll have to question his people thoroughly, but as you know, all of our fighters and combat vessels are housed there. It’s likely they wanted to render them inoperable or perhaps even steal them. The ship-transport freighters waiting outside of our asteroid just fired up their engines and are leaving.”
“Why is Dubashi picking a fight with me while he’s got his hands full picking a fight with the Kingdom?” Shayban mused.
“No idea, sir, except that if he’s short on ships and were to steal some of ours… We have quite a bit of firepower here.”
Do you think this has something to do with us? Casmir mess
aged Kim while Gokhale’s report continued. Or is it a coincidence?
We may have to wait until Dubashi’s men are questioned to find out. Assuming station security tells us what they find. As far as they know, we’re suspicious interlopers too.
Not me. I’m bonding with the sultan.
By letting him sit on your crusher and agreeing that meetings are odious?
Precisely. We’ll be having breakfast together in the morning.
You’re rather optimistic for someone sitting here in his underwear with puke drying on his chest.
I’m hoping he’ll take me up to his suite for a shower before breakfast.
You’re an intruder, not his date for the night.
We’ll see. I saw the wistful look in his eyes when he longed for his ore-exploring days. This is a man who loves metal, and I am a man who also loves metal, and the things it can be made into. We’re kindred spirits.
You got all that from your two-sentence exchange, huh?
Absolutely.
“There’s one more thing, Your Highness.” Gokhale eyed the couch uncertainly. “After reviewing the camera footage, I’m reasonably certain that you’re sitting on one of the Kingdom’s killer crusher robots.”
Shayban’s eyes bulged, and he surged to his feet. “What?”
“Zee was single-handedly responsible for defeating the intruders, Your Highness.” Casmir rose to his feet, waving for Kim to do the same. He didn’t react to the weapons that shifted over to focus on the “couch.” “Zee, you can show yourself now, if you wish.”
Zee morphed before their eyes, returning to his hulking six-and-a-half-feet of intimidating killing power.
“Oh, magnificent,” the sultan breathed, looking him up and down. “What alloy is he made from? Are there no wires and circuit boards? Or are all of his operating instructions and sensors and everything integrated into… what? Some kind of liquid matrix?”
“I’ll be happy to tell you all about him.” Casmir patted Zee’s arm. “I’m one of the original creators. Zee, this is Sultan Shayban. I believe he’s deeply grateful for your assistance in subduing the intruders.”
“Oh, yes,” Shayban said. “I wish I’d seen it. You say there’s a video, Gokhale?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Do have it sent to me. I want to know all about this—what did you call it?”
Casmir opened his mouth, but Zee spoke first.
“I am a Z-6000, programmed to protect Kim Sato and Casmir Dabrowski. I am the most superior crusher constructed to date.”
“His mantra developed an addition,” Kim muttered to Casmir.
“He’s pleased with himself for passing as a couch.”
“I am highly adaptable and capable of learning from the humans—and the furnishings—around me,” Zee added.
“Fascinating.” Shayban reached out and touched Zee’s solid chest.
“Yes,” Zee said.
Shayban’s eyebrows rose.
“I forgot to program him with modesty,” Casmir said.
“I’ve always found modesty to be either a sign of low self-worth or a fabrication used to improve people’s opinions about a person. I don’t care for it.” Shayban faced Casmir. “How much would you charge to make me a crusher like this?”
“How interesting that you would bring that up…”
Kim watched in bemusement as Casmir schmoozed the sultan. Maybe he would find an effective solution for his problem after all. If only she could find a better solution for hers than arranging her own kidnapping.
Asger sat on the edge of a beige suede couch in the living room of a spacious suite decorated with dozens of maps of cities, continents, space stations, and habitats. There were also numerous blueprints of sprawling structures, often alongside a photograph of the completed complex. It wasn’t the decorating scheme he would have expected from a princess, but he remembered from his research that Nalini was a real-estate developer.
The couch looked expensive, and he felt uneasy putting his armored butt on it. What if he creased the suede? Or scratched it with his pertundo handle?
Qin, either with similar concerns or no interest in sitting, stood behind the couch like his bodyguard. Nalini was in the kitchen, talking on the comm, and Asger felt tense for more reasons than the furniture. Would security come up soon to collect them? Tristan had invited them inside to talk, but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t be by to arrest Asger afterward.
Tristan returned from a back room, now wearing dark blue pants and a tunic with light blue trim. They made Asger think of pajamas but seemed typical of the station attire he’d seen. Tristan, it seemed, had gone native.
He carried his pertundo, the telescoping shaft in its most compact form, and he offered it hilt-first to Asger.
Asger blinked and accepted it. He hadn’t expected Tristan to give it up easily.
“I assumed someone would send a message ordering me to mail it back.” Tristan headed into the kitchen, returned with a tray of miniature sandwiches cut into triangles and stuffed with pâté, set it on the low table, and sat in a chair that matched the suede couch. “I didn’t expect a personal visit,” he added with a shrug. “I would have given it to Jorg when he told me he’d make sure I was kicked out of the knighthood, but he was being such a smug ass that all I wanted to do was shove it up his—” he glanced toward the kitchen where Nalini was visible and also at Qin, “—poop hole.”
“Is that the kind of language you’re required to use around princesses?” Asger asked.
“I try to be a gentleman around ladies.” Tristan rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands. “Is it true that Jorg is still in the system and trying to raise an army? That’s what the reports I’ve seen have said, but it’s difficult to tell for sure what he’s doing.”
“It’s true.” Asger didn’t know how much he should say to someone who’d switched to what the Kingdom would probably consider the enemy side. At the least, Jorg would.
“And it’s also true that invaders have blockaded the gate back home?”
“Yes.”
“We saw the footage of Odin being bombed.” Tristan stared at his hands. “I don’t regret the choices I made, but I regret that they mean I can’t return to help. Even if my family is gone or… incarcerated—” he said that last quickly and quietly, “—I have friends there, and it’s where I grew up. As hard a time as I had in Zamek City sometimes, I think it’s always what my mind will conjure up when I think of home.”
“There was some bombing going on in the capital itself, the last I saw.” Asger grimaced, also wishing he were there to help.
“I’m surprised they sent you for my pertundo with all that happening.”
Asger’s grimace deepened. “I’m not the most trusted knight right now. I think this mission is my punishment.”
Tristan matched his grimace. “From Jorg?”
“From Baron Farley. I don’t think I’m on Jorg’s radar. Jager’s maybe.”
“That’s so much better.”
“The king is stuck in System Lion, so I’m not that concerned about him for the moment.”
“Is it just me, Asger, or is it odd that our forces couldn’t swiftly repel an invasion fleet? We have, what, a hundred warships spread throughout System Lion? How many did the enemy bring? I heard Dubashi is at least partially behind it. Is that true?”
“I think so. I’ve been out of the loop on another mission, so this came as a shock to me. We were—I mean, Jager was—trying to make inroads in other systems. I hadn’t heard of any threat on the horizon at all. Jorg’s orders are to raise an army to bring home to help break the blockade.”
“I want Odin and all of our habitats and stations to be safe,” Tristan said, “but I’m terrified of Jorg having the authority to lead his prick to the toilet, much less men into battle.”
“I thought you were using polite language for the ladies present,” Nalini said, coming in from the kitchen, where she’d likely heard much of the conv
ersation.
“I am.” Tristan smiled at her. “I said prick instead of penis or cock.”
“Ah, I see. Yes, my sensitive ears are much less maligned, now that I think about it.”
Asger glanced back in time to see one of Qin’s sensitive and pointed ears swivel slightly. She hadn’t been speaking, merely watching the door and a female android that had been introduced as Nalini’s bodyguard, Devi.
Asger wondered if he should invite Qin to sit on the couch beside him. Would she? She was clearly on edge. He also kept expecting trouble to find them. They’d destroyed security drones and stunned and tied up several people. To believe that there wouldn’t be consequences, and that they could sit here and munch on finger sandwiches, was silly.
“I’ve heard much worse,” Qin said, and Tristan realized his gaze had prompted the others to look at her. “I’m not a lady.”
“All women should be treated like ladies,” Tristan said.
Qin focused on him and tilted her head curiously. “Are you really from the Kingdom?”
Asger’s cheeks heated as he remembered his initial reaction to Qin. He was amazed that Tristan didn’t seem fazed by her… catness. He hadn’t been out of System Lion for that long, had he?
“I was.” Tristan’s face grew glum until Nalini sat down next to him in his chair, a chair that wasn’t designed for two people. They seemed amenable to sharing.
Asger looked away and pretended he wasn’t made uncomfortable by them gazing adoringly at each other.
“I will be sad to see my—the—pertundo go,” Tristan said. “I suppose it’s naive to hope that something will change and one day I could…” He looked at Nalini. “I wouldn’t leave you, of course, but it would be nice to be welcome back on Odin.”
She smiled. “From what you’ve said, there would be plenty of real-estate opportunities we could explore.”
Asger felt his mouth drop open. “Tristan was talking to you about real-estate opportunities?”
“I’ve been learning about rent-to-value ratios and determining a multi-family property’s capitalization rate,” Tristan said.
Planet Killer (Star Kingdom Book 6) Page 16