Planet Killer (Star Kingdom Book 6)

by Lindsay Buroker

  “That’s a grisly thought,” he said.

  “Or maybe our ships were sabotaged ahead of time? Or, if there’s fighting throughout the system, they could be busy defending Odin and all of our moons, stations, and habitats.”

  “Those thoughts aren’t any less grisly,” Casmir said.

  “War doesn’t induce cheerful musings.”

  Casmir flopped back on the bunk. “It makes me uneasy that we’re flying away from the System Stymphalia gate instead of toward it. Even though I logically know that taking Dubashi out of the equation is the best thing we could do for our people, I feel like we’re fleeing rather than helping.”

  “We’d have to go through that if we tried to make it home.” Kim pointed at footage of a courier ship trying to thread the needle on its way into the system, but two Miners’ Union warships zipped in and riddled it full of holes. The thrusters died, and half the hull plating was blown off. “I hope that was an unmanned ship.”

  Casmir shook his head. “I just thought we had more might than this. Why has Jager been out picking fights in other systems if he doesn’t have a massive fleet to back him up?”

  “Some of the Fleet is stuck outside the system. The attack and the blockade must have come as a surprise to Royal Intelligence.”

  “It’s only the four warships that we know of.”

  “That we know of.” Kim doubted anyone would bother mentioning other stranded ships on other missions to civilian advisors, advisors who had gone rogue, at least from Jorg’s viewpoint.

  Casmir gazed intently up at the frame of the bed above him. “Royal Intelligence is a sprawling organization, and I assume that we have spies in all the systems—we even had someone in System Cerberus. How could an invasion fleet have taken our people by surprise?”

  Kim spread her hand. She didn’t know.

  “Something isn’t adding up,” Casmir said. “I feel like if we were back home, we would have an easier time gathering intelligence and ferreting out answers.”

  “Or we’d be in jail.”

  She would be, at least, for running away from Bjarke—from Jorg. Strange that with one choice, she had likely become more of an outright criminal in the Kingdom than Casmir, with all of his twisting and bending of the orders he’d been given.

  “That is possible,” Casmir said. “And I didn’t have a network signal down in the castle dungeon, so information gathering was difficult.”

  “I think we’re in the best place we can be to help our people.”

  A message came in on Kim’s chip from her mother.

  Kim, I have seen some of the footage coming out of the Kingdom. I hope you are not still on one of those warships and in the middle of all that. If you are, I advise you to escape as soon as possible. A war is not a healthy place for a scientist. They’ll either shoot you by accident or use you for amoral purposes.

  Kim laughed shortly.

  “Enh?” Casmir looked over.

  “Message from my mother.”

  “Does she agree we’re in the best place to help our people?”

  I lament that my stance may mean that I won’t be welcome back in the Kingdom, the message went on, but I have been offered a position on Tiamat Station, heading up research on the piece of the gate that the station ship was able to bring back. Did you know President Nguyen used to be an archaeologist and that we have met before? How strange that she is a political leader now, but it’s beneficial for me. Should you escape from the Kingdom, she is willing to give you and Casmir work and lodgings here for however long you wish. I invite you to come. I do not know how the war in System Lion will end, but I fear to be associated with the Kingdom any longer, regardless.

  If you do make it back home… give my regards to Haruto and his boys.

  “Not exactly,” Kim said. “She suggested we escape from the Fleet promptly and come stay with her on Tiamat Station. She’ll be researching the gate and can get us jobs.”

  “We did escape. Maybe she’ll approve.”

  “Probably not of us going off to risk our lives infiltrating Prince Dubashi’s base.” Kim shifted again on the hard stool.

  “We survived infiltrating an astroshaman base.”

  “You barely survived.”

  “But you didn’t get so much as a hangnail. That evens things out.”

  Kim thought of all the worry and regret and questioning of herself she’d done when Casmir lay there in sickbay and she hadn’t been sure whether he would live or die. She didn’t want to experience that again. Nor did she want to die herself when she had so much work left that she wanted to do. There were so many projects that might help humanity that she longed to pursue, and, if she was honest with herself and acknowledged her ego, she also longed for a place among the famous scientists known throughout human history.

  “I wonder if Rache would take us back to System Hydra if we asked,” she murmured wistfully.

  She wouldn’t abandon this course, not when there might not be anyone else who could deal with Dubashi’s theoretical bioweapon, but it was hard not to see the appeal in her mother’s suggestion. Her corporation even had a lab on Tiamat Station—or would once that building was cleaned up—so she could go back to her old work. Her useful work.

  “We’ve been flying the other direction for three days, and you haven’t even flirted with him. You’d probably have to offer him a shoulder rub to get him to consider it.”

  “He hasn’t come by.” Kim didn’t know if Rache was busy, avoiding her, or giving her space in case she needed it. Maybe he was waiting for her to come to him? But his quarters were behind the briefing room that was accessed through the bridge. She would feel conspicuous walking past his officers to knock on his door, especially when she was fairly certain they all believed she and Casmir were prisoners.

  “You could send him flirty videos.”

  “I thought you didn’t approve of me having a relationship with him.”

  “Oh, I don’t, but if you’re going to ask him for favors, your chances might be better if you did favors for him first.”

  “Such as sending flirty videos?” Kim didn’t even know what a flirty video looked like. Her putting on lipstick and making kissing sounds? She curled a lip.

  “Not with that face. You look like you took a bite of an orange and found out it was a lemon.”

  That effectively summed up her experience with relationships thus far.

  “I did send the story I wrote,” she admitted. “Yesterday. It took me two days to work up the courage.”

  “You launch enemies across shuttles with side kicks, but sending someone a story is what takes courage?”

  “Yes. Is that weird?”

  “I think it just means we’ve identified your only vulnerability.” He smiled at her.

  “Not only, surely,” she murmured, then rose to her feet. “I’m going to see if we’re allowed to use the gym.”

  “Kim?”

  She paused. “Yes?”

  “I have to go to the moon base and try to get Dubashi because I promised Sultan Shayban I would, and because… I’m coming to believe that I have the power—in the cerebral computer-hacking-and-robot-building sense of the word—to effect change. For the better. But I wouldn’t blame you or think any less of you if you went and joined your mother. I think your power is to make bacteria that are beneficial for mankind as a whole, not to deal with failures of politics.”

  “There’s not a definition of power that mentions computer hacking or robot building.”

  “Maybe not yet.” He winked.

  “If there’s a bioweapon, someone who understands biology better be there to deal with it.”

  “Yas has a medical background. Maybe you could make him a nice cheat sheet or flowchart to take into the base. I’m sure he could get in as Rache’s guest.”

  Kim’s mind fell in a pothole at the thought of someone holding a flowchart while trying to disarm a bioweapon.

  The door chime rang. Since she was nearest, she waved at
the sensor to open it.

  Rache stood there in a black galaxy suit rather than his usual black combat armor. He wasn’t wearing any visible weapons, though the form-fitting attire made it clear that his body was a weapon, and she thought of the time he’d rolled up his sleeve so she could draw his blood. Strange that she should admire a man’s physique when she had so little interest in a physical relationship. Or was it akin to buying a sculpture purely for aesthetic purposes? He was nicely… symmetrical.

  “You weren’t in your cabin,” he remarked blandly.

  “We were watching footage from the war,” Kim said, refusing to be embarrassed by the direction her thoughts had strayed.

  Rache gazed past her to Casmir, who was still flopped on his back on the lower bunk, prodding the slats above him with one socked foot. “I gave you separate rooms because I thought you might like privacy.”

  Kim twitched a shoulder, not sure how to read the comment. Had he wanted her to be alone?

  She was pleased to have a private place away from his ship full of hulking strangers, but Casmir was familiar and comfortable. They were in a star system she’d never visited before and far from their home that was under attack. She would rather have a friend to commiserate with than hunker down alone in a strange place.

  “May I speak with you in private?” Rache held a hand out toward the corridor.

  Casmir, his head now upside down and dangling off the bunk, watched them curiously.

  “I assume the corridor is not your destination.” Kim waved at the crushers and the guard by the door. There was no privacy out there.

  “No.”

  “Do you wish for me to accompany you, Kim Sato?” Zee was also watching them. His head was in the upright position, and he was, as always, poised to spring into battle if needed. “You may be in danger.”

  “She’s not in danger,” Rache said to the crusher. He sounded more amused than irritated today. That was good. “And you and your small army are receiving free room and board on my ship, so you would do well to consider me an ally.”

  “My army is ideally sized for infiltrations.” Zee, on the other hand, sounded a tad indignant. “And we do not require board. We only take up room. If you are the one responsible for providing this, then I believe that makes you our landlord or perhaps hotelier, not our ally.”

  “Hotelier, right. I’ll have some towels and little soaps delivered later.” Rache looked toward Casmir. “Your crusher is lippy.”

  “Yes, isn’t he wonderful?”

  “Your life’s crowning achievement, I’m certain.”

  “I am a glorious achievement,” Zee agreed.

  Kim, afraid Casmir’s lippy crusher might offend Rache, stepped into the corridor.

  “Are the other ones going to be lippy too?” he asked as they walked past them. They lined the corridor like statues, but their hollow eye-like indentions followed Rache.

  “I think it depends on how much time they spend with Casmir, learning from him. Zee didn’t speak much in his early days.”

  “It must have been like the air was perfumed with serenity.”

  They passed one of the guards, and the man’s eyebrows flew up. Maybe Rache didn’t typically speak of perfume with them.

  “We were being harassed by bounty hunters, terrorists, and law enforcement, so not really.”

  “I only had the bounty hunters looking for you to protect you from the terrorists.”

  “Me or Casmir?”

  “Casmir, I suppose. I didn’t know you at the time. I hadn’t kidnapped you yet.”

  “Which is, naturally, how all good relationships start.”

  Rache stopped in front of her guest cabin and waved the door open. Kim wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that he’d chosen the staid spot instead of his own cabin. If he had to sit on those awful stools, she could be certain he wouldn’t overstay his welcome. But it would have been more comfortable to relax on an actual chair, in a room with books and art.

  “Will you be offended if I point out that my cabin on the Osprey was more posh?” Kim asked when they were alone.

  “If the Kingdom outfits its ships with posh cabins, that may be why it’s losing the war.”

  She halted mid-step.

  “Are they losing?” Kim wouldn’t be surprised if he had more intelligence than the news anchors were sharing. “In that last footage, it looked kind of even. But I suppose if ships have gotten through to Odin… I wouldn’t have expected that.”

  “Nor I. I’ll be curious what Dubashi says at this meeting. I know he has allies involved in the invasion that are from some of the systems’ governments as well as other Miners’ Union families, but it’s mostly his ambitious project, I gather. He’s funding everything, and a lot of those ships in Lion are his. I’m surprised the Kingdom hasn’t quashed the blockade and the entire force.”

  “Casmir was saying something similar, that the math doesn’t add up.”

  “Jager doesn’t like showing his work either,” Rache said dryly, and Kim smiled, remembering Casmir’s comments about showing his work—or not—on the submarine. “Thank you for sending that story. Will you sit down?” He gestured to the bunk and unlocked a stool from the deck for himself. “I am more interested in talking to you about your writing—especially since I had no idea that you do write—than Jager.”

  He tilted his head in what she assumed was a curious look.

  “Will you take that off for the discussion?” She waved at his mask, wondering if she’d have to offer to rub his head again to get him to comply. His hair had been soft, so she hadn’t minded. Touching was more acceptable when she initiated it and was in control. Which would probably make her a horrible and bossy lover. But she hated surprise touching. The one and only time she’d gotten in trouble in school had been when she’d punched a kid who’d thought sneaking up on her and tickling her—as he’d called it—had been fun.

  “Of course. I planned to.” Rache tugged off the hood and mask, his hair ruffled underneath, and poked into one of the pouches on his utility belt. “I also brought this, in case you want to relax.”

  “Relax?”

  Rache pulled out a pouch she recognized from Casmir’s gift box. “Mythic and Mystical Mushroom Mixture,” he read from the label. “A blend of dried psilocybin mushroom, cacao nibs, and special berries to offer a tasty treat and a transcendental and enlightening experience.” He held them up for her perusal and arched his eyebrows. “Casmir is trying to drug me.”

  “So naturally you brought them here to share.”

  “I had Yas run some tests on them. He said they didn’t contain any toxins other than naturally-occurring psychoactive and hallucinogenic compounds.”

  Kim raised her eyebrows. “You thought he might poison you?”

  “No, but I could see him happily giving money to some huckster selling gifts, not realizing that it was a setup for someone to poison him.”

  “I suppose. I’m more worried about the special berries. What does that mean?”

  “That they’re genetically modified or engineered for superior taste?”

  “More likely their entheogenic potential.”

  Rache opened the top of the package and sniffed. “We could eat around them.”

  “Are you actually proposing that we consume them?” Kim wouldn’t have guessed that Rache would drink alcohol, much less take psychedelic drugs. Or any kind of drug that would affect his mind. Didn’t a mercenary captain have to be alert and at the top of his game at all times, lest some mutinous coalition assassinate him and take over his ship?

  “Don’t you trust Casmir’s taste in gifts?”

  “No.”

  He laughed shortly, a smile tugging at his lips, and she remembered how much she liked that expression on him. How rare it was. Too bad it was fleeting.

  “And I’m not eating them,” Kim added. “You’re not trying to muddle my mind to get me in bed are you?”

  “Nothing so crude. I would prefer that your
mind be fully present if we ever engage in such activities.” He looked around, didn’t see what he sought—a table?—and pulled over another stool to set the bag on. “I did think it might loosen your tongue if you munched on them. I’d even be willing to munch with you if it meant you’d answer a question I have.”

  “You don’t think I’d answer it without being drugged?”

  “I don’t know. You haven’t brought it up yet, and if what I’m thinking is true, then its existence suggests a desire for secrecy.”

  She squinted at this vagueness. This wasn’t the conversation she’d expected to have with him. He hadn’t said anything more about her story or the essay she’d sent with her thoughts on the book they’d read.

  “You wouldn’t worry about mutinous assassins trying to kill you and take over your ship if you were drugged yourself?” she asked.

  “Not at the moment. None of my men want to come down this corridor with Casmir’s army looming outside. A number of them have fought Zee. It was a memorable experience. He hurt us even through our combat armor. We blew him up twice, but he put himself back together.” Rache’s dark eyes grew flinty. “I’m wounded, offended, and even disgruntled that Casmir is building an army for that pissant Jorg instead of for—”

  “You?” Kim raised her eyebrows.

  “I can see why he wouldn’t give them to me, but why not for himself? He doesn’t need to be the crown lackey.”

  “He did program them to obey him first and foremost. I’m skeptical that he’ll hand them over to Jorg without contingencies.”

  “No? Does he plan to use them to march on Drachen Castle, slay Jager, Jorg, and Finn, and take the crown for himself?”

  “I’m not sure how you can ask that with a straight face.” Kim decided she wouldn’t say more about the crushers or Casmir’s deal with Shayban, not to Rache. As friendly as Rache was with her, he was still a threat to the Kingdom and at odds with what she and Casmir wanted to do. Was this the intelligence he’d hoped she would deliver under the influence?

  “I let hope guide my tongue,” Rache said.

  “You’d truly want Casmir in charge of the Kingdom?”

  “Sure. He’s not going to hurt anyone, and he’d probably give me a pardon.”