The sauna with instructions in a language she couldn’t decipher. She was never sure if she was relaxing in it or irradiating herself.
“All right, you can share my nickname.”
The hatch opened, and Bonita took another deep breath and strode onto the station. Countless people, androids, and robots of all types walked, rode, and flew past. She’d intentionally parked at the freight end of Docks and Locks, so nobody should think twice about someone pushing a big box around, but she did boost it a couple more feet off the deck so the average person wouldn’t be able to see inside and wonder at her odd cargo. Not that anyone here would likely bat an eye at a corpse or unconscious woman stuffed in a box.
She kept her eyes and ears open as she strode toward the restaurant facing the dozens and dozens of portholes and airlocks, most with ships docked at them. According to the Dragon’s scanners, the Drucker warship that Viggo had been watching was still at that moon, so Johnny must have sent some smaller craft. That was a relief. If it was a combat shuttle, it shouldn’t bring more than twenty people along. That was still an intimidating number, but not nearly as intimidating as four hundred.
As she walked, Bonita looked out the portholes, hoping to spot their ship coming in. Not that it would wave a Druckers pirate flag and be easily identifiable. It was possible, if not likely, that it was already there, one of the innocuous shuttles or yachts that Viggo had scanned on the way in.
Bonita turned into the alley at the corner of the restaurant and carefully pushed the freezer box around massive trash and composting bins attached to the walls on either side. When she reached the alley running parallel to the main concourse, she spotted a partially open door in the back of the restaurant.
A dish girl with her dark hair swept into a ponytail met Bonita’s eyes and whispered, “¿Nuevo Popocatépetl va a erupciónar?”
“Sí, señorita.”
The girl ducked back inside. Bonita’s shoulder blades itched. She wanted to put the helmet up on her armor, turn her back to a wall, move Qin’s box out of the way, and hold her rifle—or maybe the big Brockinger—in both hands. But she had to look like she was here to make a deal, not start a war.
She leaned casually against a trash bin and yawned a few times. The alley was largely empty, other than a robotic garbage vehicle trundling toward her from a few blocks away. It paused frequently to collect refuse.
Six big men in forest-green combat armor strode around the corner, their steps in sync, rifles in their arms. Bonita did her best to look bored, and she didn’t reach for her weapons as they approached. Two of the men’s helmets were back, their faces easy to see. They walked ahead of the others. Neither was her graying accountant.
As the men came closer, she could make out the faces behind the faceplates of the others. None of them belonged to Johnny.
Her shoulders relaxed an iota. These six pirates could make plenty of trouble for her, but she had a hunch she’d have a harder time tricking Johnny. These pups all looked to be in their twenties.
“Where’s your backup, Grandma?” one of the leaders asked, eyeing her and the freezer case.
“I never had kids, and it’s Laser.”
“Laser, right. So scary. That our Qin?”
Bonita unclenched her jaw—she hadn’t realized it was clenched—and patted the side of the case. “Should be. You got my twenty-five? I assume you brought physical currency since I haven’t had any money pop into my account.”
“We got it.” One of them tapped what looked to be a toolbox full of screwdrivers. “Let’s see it, or you don’t get the key to unlock the case.”
“Let’s see the money,” Bonita said.
“Sarge?” the man with the box asked.
“Show her, Xun.”
“What if she really doesn’t have backup? We could just take everything. Leave her dead here. No one would even have to know. The bosses wouldn’t care.”
“Johnny said to deal fair with her,” the sergeant said. “Do you want to cross him?”
The case holder—Xun—seemed to shrink inside his armor. “No. But he’s not a boss. The bosses wouldn’t care.”
“They also wouldn’t care if Johnny killed you. Show her the money.”
Xun walked forward, opened the box, and displayed crisp white and red Union dollars. They had either come straight out of a bank machine, or they were counterfeits. Bonita would have preferred digital currency but reminded herself she hadn’t come here to take their money.
“Let’s see inside the case,” the sergeant said. “Is that a freezer?”
“Hard to find a suitcase large enough to stuff her body in,” Bonita said.
The men snorted.
“They are big girls.”
Bonita adjusted the hover control, and the freezer case lowered to within a couple of inches of the faux pavement. Qin remained inside in the same position, her eyes shut.
“Yup, that’s one of the Qins,” the sergeant said. “She drugged or stunned or what?”
“Tranqed.” Bonita waved indifferently. “You’ve probably got thirty minutes until she wakes up.”
Or thirty seconds. Assuming her people came through. Bonita had been reassured by the dish girl giving the pass phrase, but Jaco’s men should have attacked by now.
The garbage truck rumbled a block closer and paused to unload another trash bin. She picked out people inside the cab of what had appeared to be an automated vehicle. Maybe they were the distraction she had paid for. If so, she needed to buy a little more time for the vehicle to make its way to this section of the alley.
Two of the men stepped forward to grab the freezer case.
Bonita held a hand up. “I want to count the money.”
The men exchanged exasperated looks.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, but—no, I definitely don’t trust you.” Bonita snapped her fingers and pointed at the money box.
“You sure we can’t just kill her, boss?”
“Not here.” The sergeant looked toward the restaurant and up and down the alley, his gaze lingering on the approaching garbage vehicle.
Bonita stepped forward. The man holding the money sighed and let her count it.
A message came through on her contact. Viggo.
Bonita, my external cameras show that two men in armor have taken up a position in front of my airlock tube. They have rifles with grenade-launcher attachments.
Is their armor green? she replied.
Yes.
Is either of them Johnny?
I can’t tell. Even if they weren’t wearing helmets, I wouldn’t know how to recognize him with clothes on.
Ha ha.
A couple of men in the local gray of the station militia have paused to look at them. So far, the authorities are not approaching or making aggressive gestures, and the green-armored men are only standing and watching, but if you intend to return to the ship with Qin in tow…
I understand. I won’t, not right away. We rented that slot for two days, so if we need to, we’ll disappear into the station for a while. Worst case scenario, if they keep watching, I’ll leave on my own and come back in a few days to pick up Qin.
“Satisfied?” the sergeant asked.
“Yes.” Bonita returned the money to the box and waved to the freezer case. “She’s all yours.”
No, she thought. The worst case scenario would be if her putative allies didn’t show up, and these pirates walked back onto their ship unopposed, and Qin believed Bonita had abandoned her.
As the pirates backed away, Bonita feared that scenario would come to pass. Maybe the garbage vehicle was just a garbage vehicle.
“You taking this money or what, lady?” the man holding the box asked. “Because if you’re not, me and my buddies will enjoy spending it ourselves.”
Bonita reached for it, but she didn’t want to take it and then disappear with Qin. That would make the Druckers more suspicious than if Qin seemed to die in the explosion and Bonita ran away without taking t
he money. If she vanished with both, the Druckers might put their next bounty out for her.
“Yeah, I—”
Something lofted out of the front of the garbage vehicle, and Bonita jumped back. A clank sounded as a grenade landed between several of the armored men.
“No Druckers on our station!” someone cried from around a corner.
“Death to Druckers!” came from another corner.
Bonita scurried for the nearest trash bin as the armored men whirled toward the threats. She commanded her helmet into place and resisted the urge to pull the freezer case back with her. She couldn’t let the Druckers see her showing too much attachment to Qin.
The restaurant door opened, and someone leaned out, firing several times with a rifle. The bolts splashed harmlessly off the pirates’ armor, but then the grenade blew. It hurled two of the Druckers into walls. Bonita grimaced as Qin’s case rocked violently under the force of the shockwave.
The glass door on top opened slightly.
Not yet, Bonita messaged with her chip as she yanked out one of her smoke grenades.
The Druckers opened fire at the garbage vehicle and the restaurant entrance as another grenade lofted toward them. One of their bolts hit the projectile midair, and the thunderous boom echoed from the walls. Sirens started up in the distance. It wouldn’t be long until the station militia showed up.
Bonita made herself wait until none of the pirates were looking her way before rolling her smoke grenade out into the alley. It came to a stop right under the freezer case and spewed a gray-blue cloud. Weapons fire streaked down the alley from both ends now. Bonita carefully rolled out two more smoke grenades. Billowing clouds from the first filled the air, and the case grew difficult to make out.
Now, she messaged Qin. Set the explosives and slip out. I’m back by this trash bin.
Coming, came the quick reply.
A crimson bolt tore off the partially open restaurant door, and the man who’d been firing jerked back inside. Thuds and clanks sounded, the smoke swirling around as the pirates found someone to fight. Bonita wanted to shoot at them, to help her allies, but she had to play the role of startled bystander, surprised by this unexpected development.
“Hurry, Qin,” she whispered.
Since she couldn’t see the case through the smoke anymore, Bonita didn’t know if Qin had slipped out yet. Was she having trouble setting the charges? Bonita was on the verge of asking when a familiar figure leaped out of the smoke and joined her behind the trash bin.
Before Qin had fully crouched down, the charges went off. A squad of security robots rolled around the corner in time to witness it, and they rocked back as the shockwave hit them. Broken glass and the warped shards of the freezer case clanged off the walls, the robots, and the armored men.
As the security robots rumbled into the alley on massive treads, unperturbed by the explosion, Bonita rolled out her last smoke grenade. As fresh gray clouds filled the alley, she tapped Qin on the shoulder, and they ran off in the opposite direction she’d last seen the Druckers. Only the firing of weapons and thuds of armor striking armor proved they were still there.
Something slammed into her shoulder as they ran, and she would have pitched to her knees, but Qin caught her by the arm. Bonita had a feeling that had been a DEW-Tek bolt and was glad she’d opted for armor.
They ran down the alley, staying behind the shops instead of returning to the main concourse. The smoke faded, and Bonita felt vulnerable.
She blew out a relieved breath when they reached a grate for the large central ventilation system that connected the levels of the station. It leaned next to the duct entrance, four screws resting neatly on the pavement beside it. Bonita ushered Qin into the duct, relieved when she fit. Bonita hadn’t been certain she would.
She couldn’t put the screws back in from the other side, but after she climbed in, she twisted and pulled the grate into place. She hoped her allies would come and replace the screws so there would be no sign of their passing. She also hoped the Druckers would be driven back to their ship and wouldn’t have time to investigate the remains of that freezer case in too great of detail. If they could scour it at their leisure, they were sure to notice the lack of Qin bits in the wreckage.
“Are we going to try to come out farther down and make our way back to the ship?” Qin whispered.
“We’re not going to try to come out at all, not for a while. Viggo says there are two Druckers watching our airlock.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Yes, hide until they get bored and go away.”
“Oh.”
Bonita thought that oh sounded worried. She hoped it was a needless worry. They’d gotten this far. They just had to wait until opportunity favored them again.
18
The long corridor leading away from the shuttle bays and airlocks was quieter than Kim expected. The patrolling robots must have kept the area free of rioters. Now and then, they passed a deactivated Aegis Defender sitting silently on its treads in the middle of the corridor or in front of a door.
Kim thought Casmir might truly have been able to take over the station if he’d ordered all the robots to detain the inhabitants at once, but she couldn’t blame him for shying away from the idea. Countless things could go wrong, and if the robots ended up killing people, how would they be better than Kingdom marines?
“Are you deep in thought?” Rache asked quietly. “Or trading text jokes with Casmir?”
He was walking at her side while Yas led the way, Zee walking at his side in case anyone jumped out at them from the front.
“Should I be alarmed that you’ve learned enough about me to know that both are equally viable possibilities?” Kim asked.
It was safer to make a joke than share her thoughts. She didn’t doubt Casmir’s assessment of why Rache was here, so she would have to be guarded around him. She would prefer to be able to trust him, but if they had opposite goals, it did not seem safe.
For some reason, that gave her a twinge of sadness. Hearing his voice and seeing him come walking out of the shuttle had startled her, even though she should have realized their paths might cross once more on this quest for the gate. Would he ask for that dinner date again? Not here, surely. She ought to be safe from having to come up with an answer.
“Not alarmed, I should think,” he said, his voice even softer. And faintly amused. “Might I suggest being pleased by my attentive perceptiveness?”
Yas glanced back. Kim couldn’t see his face well through his helmet, but she thought she caught a flash of alarm from him. Maybe he wasn’t used to Rache flirting with a woman. If that was what he was doing.
Rache must have caught the glance, too, for he didn’t try another joke. Kim told herself she wasn’t disappointed and that she wouldn’t like to walk somewhere private with him so she could ask him about the mysteries of his past. The months of his absence from the race circuit, the fiancée that had been reported as missing but who Rache and the ex-chief superintendent had known was long dead.
Yas stopped in front of a lift.
“I think it’ll be hairier on the upper levels,” he said grimly.
“If there’s a circuitous route to the lab that’s less likely to be occupied, that would be ideal,” Rache said, “but if we need to fight our way there, so be it. The locals are probably using broken chair legs and rotten vegetables for weapons.”
“It’s unlikely they’ll be in combat armor, aside from Station Civil Security—” Yas stepped into the lift with Zee, “—but it’s legal to own personal firearms and DEW-Tek weapons here, so there may be more resistance than you expect.”
“Understood.” Rache gestured for Kim to enter first, bowing his head slightly, as if he were inviting her into a restaurant.
She walked in, wondering what it would be like to simply have dinner somewhere with him. She imagined he’d be an intriguing person to debate literature with.
The lift hummed and rattled as it went upward, then jolt
ed and came to an abrupt halt. They were between levels.
“And here we have the real reason nobody was on Level 1,” Rache muttered.
“Maybe we should have kept Casmir and his tools with us,” Kim said.
Yas hit a few buttons, but nothing happened. Rache slung his rifle onto his back and planted his gauntleted hands on the two sliding doors. He pushed hard, something snapped, and the doors jerked open in fits. Kim found herself on eye level with the floor of Level 5 and the ceiling of Level 4, with two feet of space for them to squirm out through.
“I don’t object to tools,” Rache said, “but sometimes, brute force is simpler.”
“Force need not be brutish,” Zee said, then morphed himself into something liquid and indistinct to ooze out onto Level 5 through the gap.
“Is it me, or is that robot chattier than it used to be?” Rache said.
“Casmir’s been encouraging it to develop a personality,” Kim said.
“How does he do that?”
“He talks to it.”
“Huh.”
Rache lowered his hands to offer Kim a boost. She didn’t need the help and was debating whether to accept it or to simply pull herself up when a shout came from the corridor.
At first, she thought Zee had run down it and attacked someone, but his legs were visible, shaped back into their usual form, in front of the lift.
“It’s one of those monsters from Stribog Station,” someone yelled.
“It’s the Kingdom’s monster!”
Shots rang out, clanging off the elevator shaft above their car. Next came the ssh-boom of something more powerful firing. The lift rattled, slipping two inches.
“Wonderful,” Rache muttered, pulling himself out as Zee raced down the corridor.
Rache ran out of sight after him.
“I suggest we wait while they handle the violence,” Yas said.
“I’m not good at waiting.” Kim didn’t want to needlessly throw herself into danger, but she had her vials along, and it might be better to knock out the inhabitants rather than shooting them.
The shots had stopped by the time she climbed out, one of her vials in hand. She sucked in a startled breath at the carnage in the corridor ahead. More than a few bodies lay tangled among garbage, doors torn off hinges, broken furnishings, and spent bullet casings. Zee and Rache hadn’t done all that—or any of that.
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