Planet Killer (Star Kingdom Book 6)

by Lindsay Buroker

  No, that wasn’t that surprising. Their security hadn’t been that stellar—Casmir had hacked in easily enough to diddle with the lights and alerts in that shuttle bay.

  “I suppose it’s not fair to judge them by whether or not Casmir can hack into their network,” Bonita muttered, not when he’d gotten onto an impregnable astroshaman network.

  “Casmir?” Viggo had been ignoring her while she worked, but he naturally piped up at the mention of his favorite roboticist.

  “I bet he could find this missing scholar.”

  “Indeed so. He could also fix the squeak to the middle stall in the lavatory.”

  “He’s a man of many talents.”

  “Those knights slam the doors too hard.”

  “I don’t need details about what they do in there.”

  “They’re violating my doors, Bonita.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Exactly.”

  Bonita buried herself in her searches again, hoping Viggo would take a hint and stop talking. She would have to refrain from making comments aloud, since that had invited the conversation in the first place.

  Unfortunately, the searches continued to come up with nothing. If someone had hired bounty hunters to kidnap Scholar Serg Sunflyer, they had wiped the job from the boards and left no trace. But what if that same someone had tried to legitimately hire a bioweapons specialist before resorting to kidnapping?

  She switched over to public job boards in the system—they all had archives so one could see old postings even if they’d expired or been taken down.

  “What kind of job posting would you make if you wanted to hire someone to make you a biological weapon?” she asked, perusing but not sure what she was looking for. “I assume someone wouldn’t go right out and say in an offering for a position that they wanted deadly weapons capable of killing millions. Maybe in System Cerberus, but Stymphalia has governments that enforce laws and discourage that kind of thing.”

  “Kim would be a better person to ask,” Viggo said.

  “Unfortunately, she’s not here. I would have much preferred her to the two surly knights that can’t be in a room together without shooting ice spears out of their eyes. Kim is appealingly quiet. I like people who don’t talk too much.”

  “How about former people embedded in ships’ computers?”

  “They’re also acceptable if they don’t talk too much. Hm, here’s a posting from six months ago, someone looking for an expert in bioterrorism and bioweapon defense. Who better to hire to build a weapon than someone who’s an expert at defusing them?”

  Bonita flagged the entry and looked for other postings along that vein. Feeling that she might be on to something, she leaned in, engaged by the work. Since semi-retiring from bounty hunting and switching to hauling freight, she’d forgotten how much she enjoyed the challenge of finding people who didn’t want to be found.

  “Here’s another similar one. The job is being offered by Delta Tech Mining and Manufacturing. That sounds like something that might be owned by a Miners’ Union family, doesn’t it?” Bonita flagged that one too and kept looking. She didn’t want to make premature assumptions.

  “I have no opinion,” Viggo said after a time.

  “On what?”

  “Your question. I would not want to be accused of talking too much.”

  “Ah. Good.”

  “I will warn you that you have company coming.”

  Bonita glanced back, hoping for Qin, but Bjarke was approaching. Even though the bruise had healed, her hip twinged at the memory of her fall in the lift.

  Viggo issued a low growl that Bonita had never heard from him before.

  “Greetings, Toes,” she said. “You haven’t been showing up to the communal dinners. We’ve missed your snarky, surly presence.”

  “Speak with him about his issue, please, Bonita.”

  “The stall door issue?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry, Viggo,” she said as Bjarke stepped into navigation, surprisingly not responding to her comment. “It’s my largest concern too.”

  “May I sit, Captain?” Bjarke gestured to the co-pilot’s pod.

  He wore his galaxy suit once again, the material revealing enough of his hard form to bring memories to mind. She ruthlessly shoved them aside. She wasn’t interested in the hard form of someone who was such a pain in the ass.

  “Such formality. Go ahead. I’m sure you would anyway.”

  Bjarke paused with his hand on the back of the pod. “No, I would not.”

  “If I shooed you out of navigation, you would go?”

  “Yes.” Bjarke gazed at her with steady blue eyes. “But if you let me stay, you’ll get to hear my apology.”

  “Oh? Sit down, then.”

  He did so. “I’m sorry it’s taken me a couple of days to remember my manners, such as they are, but I apologize for being gruff and terse with you. I’ve been angry with the situation, not with you.” Bjarke slanted a sideways look at her. “Even if I’m fairly certain you dragged me off to distract me while your… friends escaped.”

  “I didn’t drag you anywhere. I said I knew where Kim had been working, and you followed me. And then you tried to seduce me so I’d tell you everything I knew and help you get her.”

  She expected a protest of innocence, but he arched his brows and said, “Tried? I believe I was at least moderately successful.”

  “At seduction? Oh, you’re not bad. But I didn’t tell you anything.”

  “You were on the verge of it in the lift. I remember you opening your mouth between gasps, about to spill everything you knew.”

  “All I was going to spill were instructions on what to do with your tongue. Fortunately, you seemed to have a decent grasp of that already.”

  “Decent. Is that all?” A cocky smile that was a little too knowing curved his lips.

  “I didn’t get to make a full assessment since we were interrupted. You sprang away like you’d been scalded.”

  “Yes. I do apologize for leaving you so abruptly, but since you were distracting me for the sake of your friends, you can’t be surprised that I, upon realizing your treacherousness, had to run off.”

  “Uh huh. You really know how to warm a girl up, Toes.”

  “We have several days on this journey. Perhaps you would give me another chance to warm you up.”

  “This is not the discussion I expected you to have with him, Bonita,” Viggo said.

  Bjarke’s eyebrows flew up. “Your ship is… verbose.”

  “I told you he was human once.”

  “And that his body was virile and attractive; yes, I remember.”

  “My ship is also attractive,” Viggo said.

  “Did he design it?” Bjarke asked.

  “Largely,” Bonita said. “You can thank him for the sauna and that garish bug-eyed statue in the wall back there.”

  “That is a figurehead,” Viggo said. “Traditionally, it would have been on the front of a sailing ship, but in modern times, tradition has placed them near navigation on the inside of a spaceship.”

  “Whatever it is, its teeth are scarier than Qin’s. It’s hideous.”

  “It’s supposed to be,” Viggo said. “Its job is to ward off evil spirits.”

  “We’ve been boarded by everyone from bounty hunters to mercenaries to uptight knights.” Bonita looked at Bjarke. “It’s clearly not working.”

  “There’s only so much a figurehead can do,” Viggo murmured.

  “Uptight?” Bjarke asked.

  “I can’t believe you would even attempt to deny it,” Bonita said. “Viggo has footage of you slamming bathroom doors and stomping around whenever Asger wanders past.”

  “I’m sure he’s doing more stomping and slamming than I am. And if your ship is recording that, it—he—may need a new hobby.”

  “As far as warming things,” Bonita said, before Viggo could jump in with some indignant comment, “maybe you and Asger should use this time to work out your
relationship instead.”

  “That doesn’t sound as pleasurable.”

  “But it would be the mature thing to do, assuming you actually want to have a relationship with him.”

  Bjarke sighed and gazed at the control panel. “I fear that will be more difficult than ever, given the side he’s chosen.”

  “Kim and Casmir aren’t enemies of the Kingdom. Even I know that. They risked their asses to stop terrorists on Odin. And so did Asger. That ought to make them heroes. And if you’re not on their side, I’m not sure what that makes you.”

  She expected him to leave in a huff, especially when long seconds passed and he didn’t answer. Then Bjarke settled back in the pod, as if he meant to stay for a while.

  Whatever. Bonita went back to looking up the companies that had posted the jobs.

  After a few minutes passed, Bjarke surprised her by speaking without the previous snark or bitterness. “William has made a lot of poor decisions over the years. It is difficult for me now to assume anything has changed. Even if I wished to believe the best of him, his superiors—our superiors—aren’t pleased with him and have made it clear that it’s my duty to keep him in line and complete the missions they give us. After being… ostracized for the last few years, I must do my best to fulfill their wishes. The king’s wishes.”

  Bonita had a feeling this was a conversation he should be having with Asger—William—rather than her, but her curiosity got the best of her. “Ostracized? Is that why you were posing as the Druckers’ accountant?”

  “It’s a legitimate post for an undercover knight, as the Kingdom keeps tabs on the major governments and players in all the systems, but it was definitely an assignment that was a punishment.”

  “Because you mouthed off to the wrong person?”

  He squinted at her. “Because William mouthed off to the wrong person. I admit I’ve made a few enemies over the years myself with my occasionally sharp tongue—”

  Bonita snorted.

  “—but his teenage antics paved the way for my recent spate of distant and isolated assignments. I am his father and therefore responsible for him.”

  “Even when he’s twenty-something?”

  “He is my son and heir. When I’m in my nineties, and he’s in his sixties, I’ll still be responsible for him and how his deeds reflect on the nobility, whether we still serve as knights or not.” Bjarke flexed a hand and studied the back of it. “I admit I hadn’t realized he was so angry with me for not being home. Before the punishment assignments, I was still sent off planet and out of the system frequently. My superiors found that I had fewer moral qualms than other knights and more easily lied and fought my way into shady organizations. They thought this was useful, but I think it’s also what made them uncertain that they could trust me fully. I wasn’t in the loop with Jager’s plans for extending himself—the Kingdom—into other systems, and I was as taken by surprise with the announcement of war and a blockade as anyone. You’d think I’d be old enough now that I wouldn’t have to keep proving myself to my colleagues and superiors, but…” He dropped his hand onto his thigh.

  “It does sound tedious. Maybe you should quit.”

  “One doesn’t quit being a knight. You train for it all of your life, and then you swear an oath to live and die by the Code and serve wherever the king needs you.”

  “Definitely tedious. I suggest telling your king and that prince to stuff it and starting your own business in another system.”

  “And shall I also give up my vote in the Senate and the lands that have been in my family for nearly a thousand years?”

  “The chains that bind you.” Bonita waved a dismissive hand, even though she couldn’t blame him for letting himself be bound. If she had ever inherited anything, especially if it was enough to ensure her livelihood during retirement, she wouldn’t be quick to give it up either. Not at this age. Not when she was nearing seventy and was starting over again with saving for retirement. Damn those ex-husbands, and damn her poor choices. She needed to stop making those.

  “Chains, perhaps, but they give purpose as well as binding. If I did not work for something greater than myself, I would lose some of my identity.”

  “Sounds like a personal issue to work through. Try some self-help books.”

  This time, Bjarke snorted, but he sounded more amused than angry. At least with her. Bonita didn’t know if she’d done anything to help his relationship with his son—or save Viggo’s maligned doors.

  “Delta Tech Mining and Manufacturing is owned by Dubashi,” she murmured, finishing up her research. “How did I know? We may be going in the right direction, Viggo.”

  “I am always going in the right direction,” Viggo said. “My navigation computations are infallible.”

  Bjarke, who’d been gazing at the forward display, lost in his own thoughts, looked over.

  “One of the other companies that was hiring is also owned by Dubashi. It may have been the same job, essentially, just a differently worded posting. The third… I’m not sure. It’s a private corporation, not publicly traded, so it’s harder to dig up information.”

  “A job posting by Dubashi?” Bjarke asked.

  “Seeking an expert in biodefense and bioterrorism. I was surmising that if he wasn’t able to attract a suitable candidate legitimately, he might have kidnapped one.”

  “Such as the scholar you were contracted to find?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. Which means we could be flying to the right place.”

  “And that we might encounter a bioweapon already in existence there,” Bjarke said grimly.

  “Another reason for me to punt you out the airlock and wait with the Dragon outside of firing range.” She winked at him.

  “You expect me to pick up your missing scholar while I’m in there?”

  “Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll cut you in on the bounty.”

  “Your mind works in odd ways.”

  “Practical ways.”

  The clang of boots on the ladder rungs floated up to them. Bonita glanced back as Asger came into view.

  “Captain?” Asger stepped into navigation. “I’ve been messaging Casmir, and he says he hasn’t seen Tristan. Have you had any luck contacting the Fedallah?”

  Bjarke swiveled the pod to look at his son.

  Asger jumped. “I thought you were Qin.”

  “Yes, we’re so obviously similar,” Bjarke said. “You’re in contact with Professor Dabrowski? What about Scholar Sato?”

  “I haven’t messaged her before. I don’t know if she would accept me as a contact, given whom I travel with.”

  “No fighting in navigation,” Bonita said, worried they would be at each other’s throats in a minute. With her caught in the middle.

  “I didn’t come to fight.” Asger ignored Bjarke’s cool stare and looked at her. “Will you try contacting the ship again, Captain? I don’t know if Tristan is still stuck in a locker in that shuttle or if he’s been killed. Casmir said he could ask, but if he did, Rache would know he’s got a knight stowaway, and that might not go over well.”

  “The implication that Dabrowski is working with Rache is disturbing,” Bjarke said. “And is Sato also there voluntarily?”

  “They didn’t tell me their plans,” Asger said. “I would guess they’re using Rache to get where they want to go rather than working with him. Casmir is good at getting people to go along with his schemes.”

  “But that murderer!” Bjarke lurched to his feet.

  “I said no fighting.” Bonita held up a hand. “Don’t make me get Qin to kick both of your asses.”

  The men glared at each other.

  Bonita rose to her feet, pushed past Bjarke, jabbing her hip into his side, and planted her hands on Asger’s chest. She pushed and did some glaring of her own. He was almost a foot taller than she, but he allowed himself to be maneuvered out of navigation.

  She turned, intending to do the same to Bjarke, but he gave her a stiff bow and headed o
ut on his own. To her surprise, he paused and rested a hand on her shoulder, fingers brushing her bare neck just long enough to put titillating memories in her mind, then walked out. He closed the hatch behind him.

  Bonita sank back into the pilot’s seat. When had her life gotten so complicated?

  Kim sat with Casmir in one of the two guest cabins they’d been assigned, each more utilitarian than the ones on the Osprey. They had bunk beds built into the wall, stools without any padding, and lockers containing galaxy suits with oxygen tanks, weapons, emergency rations, and equipment-cleaning kits. The weapons surprised her, especially since guards stood outside their doors, albeit the men hadn’t done anything to keep them from visiting each other or going to the mess hall.

  The last time she’d passed them, they’d been fondling their guns and staring at the crushers. All except Zee were lined up in the corridor. Casmir had started out with all of them in his cabin, but even he had agreed it was too tight with twelve hulking crushers standing around. Kim couldn’t imagine sleeping with them all staring down at her. Or even staring at a wall. The new ones weren’t as chatty as Zee—yet—but it wasn’t as if they were cuddly and cute.

  Now, she and Casmir were watching news footage from back home, this time video and sensor readings of the fighting near the wormhole gate. She found that easier to stomach than the earlier glimpses they’d had of bombings in the capital, but the System Stymphalia news anchor hadn’t mentioned if the ships attacking Odin had been driven off or not. Nothing more than snippets were getting through the blockade, and only when a fast, armored courier ship made it past Dubashi’s combined forces and through the gate.

  “We should have more ships than that available to fight these guys.” Casmir watched with his chin in his hand. “Why isn’t Jager or Admiral Whoever-is-in-charge throwing everything they have at the invaders to drive them out of our system and free up the gate so we can get more allies in?”

  “Maybe they were already destroyed.” Kim shifted her weight on her hard stool. She could have sat on one of the bunks, but the mattresses weren’t much softer.

  Casmir didn’t seem to mind. He was sitting cross-legged on the bottom bunk with his boots off.