Crossfire (Star Kingdom Book 4)

by Lindsay Buroker

  She groaned.

  “Problem?” Qin asked.

  “I’m about to find out exactly what they think.”

  Unless she denied the request. But if she didn’t have anything to hide, why wouldn’t she accept the request? Johnny would be suspicious if she didn’t.

  She accepted the request and preemptively sent the first message. What the hell was that, Toes? If you didn’t want to pay me, you could have said so. Now we’ve all got the station militia on our asses.

  There was a long pause before he replied. Dare she hope some lucrative accounting business had called him across the system, and the pause represented lag?

  Toes? That was all that came with the response at first.

  Your nickname is too long.

  Johnny would be sufficient. That reply came much more quickly, which sadly meant there was no lag. He wasn’t on a ship heading for the gate. Stallion is also acceptable. Or mi rey, if you prefer.

  I do not. Bonita couldn’t believe he was still in the mood to flirt with her—and in her own language. She hoped he wasn’t merely distracting her while his men tracked her down, drawing ever closer to her hiding spot. What do you want? You going to tell me you had nothing to do with your people messing up the exchange and almost getting me killed?

  I was going to ask how much you paid the locals to mess up the exchange, as you say.

  Bonita grimaced. She’d been afraid he would see through her ruse.

  Where are you? he added.

  At the spa and wax on Level 23, getting my leg hair removed.

  In anticipation of meeting me later?

  I’d be shot by the locals if I met you anywhere on this station. You’ve already deprived me of my crewmate and the money you agreed to give me for her. I want nothing else from you.

  She withdrew her permission for him to contact her. She had an encrypted chip, so it shouldn’t be easy for the government or anyone else to track her through it, but it was always possible the Druckers had some state-of-the-art technology that could outmaneuver it.

  “Let’s move somewhere else.” Bonita patted Qin on the foot. “Another level. The Druckers are still here. I think we’re going to have to hide on the station for a couple of days and hope they can’t find us.”

  “Are they searching for us?” An audible whine came from Qin’s stomach.

  Her metabolism was faster than Bonita’s, so she had to be even hungrier.

  “I’m not sure, but Twelve Toes wanted to know where I was, and despite what he said, I don’t think it’s for the purpose of dating me. He suspects that I set all that up back there.”

  “Do they believe I’m dead?” Qin sounded painfully hopeful as she shuffled down the duct on her hands and knees.

  “I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to draw any attention to you or your demise. I’m hoping the locals didn’t give them the opportunity to investigate the remains of that freezer case.”

  “Maybe you should have left some steaks in it.” Qin’s stomach whined again, and she snorted. “Not for me to gnaw on while I was in there. But so there would be some realistic chunks of meat spattered on the walls.”

  “That’s a little too macabre for my ruse-designing skills. Besides, if they analyzed the meat, they would have seen that it had come from a vat, not a Qin.”

  “The Druckers aren’t big on forensics. I don’t think there was a lab on any of the ships.”

  Bonita supposed Qin would know, but the fact that they had an accountant made her think they had more career niches filled on those ships than she would have guessed. “I’ll remember that for the next time we need to stage our deaths around them.”

  The third time Qin’s stomach made a pitiful noise, Bonita said, “Let’s head to one of the lower levels. We can get a room and something to eat.”

  “It would be safer to stay in the ducts for a couple of days.”

  “Not if your stomach whines so loudly it leads the pirates to us.”

  Qin snorted again, but she found one of the perpendicular shafts that would take them to the lower levels. They found a quiet spot where she could force open one of the grates without anyone hearing the noise. They slipped out, and Bonita looked around, recognizing the area.

  “Level 12. You can rent anything from inexpensive wall drawers to sleep in to posh hotel rooms, and also—”

  Qin’s nostrils twitched. “Food. Cochinita pibil… pemita with milanesa… pozole… huevos divorciados.”

  “Well, you can’t technically rent those things. I’m impressed that you can identify so many foods from my culture.”

  “You’ve made them all at one time or another while I’ve been aboard. The slow-roasted pork is my favorite.”

  “Can you identify all things you’ve only had once?”

  “I can identify all things.” Qin grinned at her, fangs flashing. “All things with odors, anyway. But that’s most things.”

  Bonita almost said that was probably the true reason the Druckers wanted her back, but she didn’t want to bring them up, or the threat of them being captured. She hoped the pirates truly believed Qin to be dead, even if Johnny was suspicious of her. She could deal with their ire, ideally by working three systems away from now on; she just wanted to make sure Qin wasn’t on their radar any longer.

  They stuck to alleys and maintenance shafts behind buildings, angling toward a modest hotel where Bonita knew the owner and doubted he would rat on them. From there, they could order food. But the less they were out in public, the better.

  “There’s an entrance just around the corner.” Bonita took the lead, pointing to where a flashing sign promised cheap rooms, free soap included.

  Before they reached it, three figures in green combat armor rounded the corner and faced them. Bonita groaned. Even though Qin wore her helmet and galaxy suit, they would guess right away who she was.

  They were all armed, but Qin charged them anyway. She looked like she would fire the Brockinger but must have thought better of drawing that much attention to herself.

  A crackling yellow net of energy dropped down from above before she reached her targets.

  “Look out!” Bonita blurted.

  Qin sprang and tried to roll fast enough to evade it, but the net was huge, almost like a parachute, and it fell like a rock. It caught her in its clutches.

  Bonita leaped back, hoping she could avoid it and help free Qin, but a second one appeared out of nowhere—she’d glanced up when the first one fell and swore a second hadn’t been there. She wasn’t nearly fast enough to avoid it. The strands wrapped around her, energy snapping and crackling like a wildfire, and it embraced her like an unwelcome lover. Whatever the net was, it was as strong as steel and sticky as a spiderweb. It soon smothered her, pressing her legs together and her arms to her sides. She couldn’t move.

  She could see through it well enough to tell that Qin was equally bound. Even with her great strength, she couldn’t escape it.

  Two of the men grabbed her, hefting her over their shoulders. The third man strode toward Bonita, and somehow, she knew who it was before he pushed his helmet back.

  “Good evening, Laser,” Johnny Twelve Toes said. “I apologize for apprehending you so, but I feared you would stand me up if I suggested a nicer place to meet for our date.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Are you sure? You haven’t even seen all of my toes yet.”

  She spat a string of curses that he wouldn’t likely understand, but she didn’t care. She was frustrated with herself for walking into the trap. She’d known the man was dangerous—she’d sensed that right away—but she’d still gone through with her plan. Qin had been right. They should have stayed in the ducts until they were certain the Druckers had given up and left.

  “I do like a lady who’s not afraid to curse when appropriate.” Johnny smiled at her, but he also slapped his rifle down into his palm and pointed it at her. “I’m afraid I must insist you come with me, Captain.”

  The men carrying Qin dis
appeared around the corner. Bonita wanted to fight, to continue to curse at Johnny, but she couldn’t let Qin out of her sight. She didn’t know what fate awaited them, but their odds would be better if they stuck together.

  That didn’t make it any less bitter when Johnny grabbed her around the waist and slung her over his shoulder. She still had her weapons, but it didn’t matter. With her arms and legs pinned, she couldn’t reach them. She couldn’t do a damn thing.

  Casmir stood in front of the console side by side with Secretary Nguyen while Asger paced behind them and Tork guarded the entrance. Casmir and Nguyen were staring at the scanner display, waiting for something to happen. He was worried because he didn’t think the virus had taken this long to unpack itself when Tork had sent it to the Osprey. Was it possible he had messed something up when he’d added on his hastily constructed code? Or had the pirates seen it coming and neutralized it somehow?

  It had taken a good programmer—Grunburg—with Tork standing by and sharing his insights about astroshamans to come up with the antivirus program. Were the pirates likely to have someone that good?

  Nguyen glanced at him. “What did you say your name is?”

  “Casmir Dabrowski.”

  “And you’re a professor of robotics?”

  “Yes.”

  “To answer your earlier question, I taught space archaeology for more than twenty years on Nabia before running for office here. I grew up and went to school here before moving away for better work opportunities. I was gone for more than twenty-five years, but then I married a man on Level 2 here—a second marriage—and thought to retire. But when I came back to live with him here, the people were divided, and there was so much more political tension than when I’d grown up here. President Bakas always seemed so beleaguered. I thought she needed another woman on her cabinet that she could lean on, and I somewhat naively thought I could help. Now she’s gone, and I’ve been stuck dealing with…” She waved, either to encompass the station or indicate her frustration in general.

  Casmir thought the word she’d left off was assholes. Or something like it.

  “No good deed goes unpunished, eh?” he offered.

  Nguyen grunted and checked the scanner again. No change. At least the pirates had stopped firing at the station. For the moment. What would happen when they realized the transmission code was bogus?

  “Do you know a Dr. Erin Kelsey-Sato?” Casmir asked.

  “Yes. I’ve known her for a long time.”

  “In both forms?”

  Nguyen snorted. “Yes. I told her to pick a sexy female android body. She chose to be whimsical.”

  “Her daughter, Kim Sato, is my best friend. She’s here on the station, too, looking for her colleague, a Scholar Chi.” Casmir didn’t mention Rache. He was tempted to check in on Kim, but if she was dealing with the same crap that he and Asger had dealt with on the way here, he didn’t want to risk distracting her.

  “Oh, she’s spoken of her daughter.”

  Casmir raised his eyebrows. He always had the impression of Kim and Dr. Kelsey-Sato being very distant. Even though Kim had risked much to recover her mother’s deactivated droid body from Skadi Moon, they’d barely spoken two words in Casmir’s presence.

  Nguyen must have read uncertainty on his face, for she added, “Good things. She’s proud of the work Kim does.”

  “Huh, I’ll let Kim know. I think she’ll be pleased.”

  “Erin is a hard person to know well, and I’ve read between the lines that she finds her daughter equally challenging to relate to.”

  “Yeah. They must have difficult genes. I wouldn’t know anything about that.” Casmir’s eye blinked, and he snorted. At least he didn’t sneeze. The station didn’t seem to be overflowing with allergens, despite the various trees he’d passed.

  Nguyen eyed him sidelong. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Admiral Mikita?”

  “Yes. Nobody in the Kingdom though. The pictures there seem to have creatively evolved over the centuries. He’s eight feet tall in them and dashing and handsome.”

  “Hm. Are you working with the Kingdom now? Or did you and your knight truly flee those ships?”

  “Your knight?” Asger’s pacing paused.

  Nguyen had shifted to look straight into Casmir’s eyes. The one that looked straight ahead, anyway. He felt compelled to honesty.

  “It was a ruse. I—” Casmir pressed his hand to his chest, “—do not approve of everything Jager is doing, and I do not think we should be conquering anyone or tricking anyone into joining the Kingdom, but when the king says you’re going on a mission, you go. I have family back on Odin, so I must be loyal to Jager.”

  Asger frowned. Maybe Casmir shouldn’t have spoken so openly, but he sensed that he could make some headway with Nguyen, that she was curious about him and might be grateful for his help—if they got the better of the pirates.

  “The people here who think they want the protection of the Kingdom,” Nguyen said, “don’t realize that one must be loyal and do what the king wishes, or they may not like the consequences.”

  “Has there been a lot of need for protection lately?”

  Nguyen waved toward the pirate ships. “More than there used to be, yes. The pirate families are growing ever larger and more powerful. Some stations have started sending bribes—tributes, they call them—to the princes of the Miners’ Union for protection. Others are increasing their military spending. We’ve never considered ourselves militant and haven’t wanted to go that way, but… What are the options? Few, I fear.”

  “What if a deal could be made that allowed your station the freedom of expression and beliefs that it’s always known but made you a satellite colony of the Kingdom?”

  She arched her eyebrows. “You think you can arrange that?”

  “I think…” Casmir wished he could say yes, that he had the power to do so. But who was he back home? A simple robotics professor.

  “Their power went out.” Asger pushed between them to the scanner and checked the other pirate ships. “All of their ships have lost power.” He gripped Casmir’s shoulder and grinned. “It worked.”

  “Good. Good.” Nguyen pressed a hand to her chest, murmured something in her own language, then added, “How long will it last?”

  “Until someone with a battery-operated tunnel-boring machine and the antivirus program shows up,” Casmir said.

  Nguyen gave him a strange look.

  “It’s a long story,” he said.

  Asger moved away, chin to chest and eyes glazed. He had to be talking to Ishii.

  “Is there an antivirus program?” Nguyen asked.

  “Yes. Tork has it. He has it and the original virus.” Casmir waved at the android.

  Nguyen’s eyes sharpened, and he could almost see ideas churning in her mind.

  “Is there a price at which you would sell these programs?” she asked. “Are they yours to sell?”

  Casmir considered Tork, who was only online with his memory intact because of him. Neither Ishii nor anyone else on the warship had expressed any interest in the android or the virus. They’d all wanted both destroyed.

  “I didn’t make the original virus, but Tork is currently working for me. If he’s amenable to it, I would be willing to let him stay here, so long as you were willing to provide him a telescope.”

  Nguyen’s eyebrows rose again.

  “He has an astronomy hobby, you see,” Casmir said, “and I promised to help outfit him so he could work on it.”

  Tork watched them, blatantly interested in the conversation. “The schematics for Tiamat Station show an observatory with an excellent high-powered telescope on one end.”

  Casmir had worried Tork would reject the idea of being foisted off on someone else, but he sounded intrigued. A stationary position would be more ideal than a roving warship for observing the stars. It would definitely be superior to stargazing from Odin, where the atmosphere made observatories less effective than in space.

/>   “That is true,” Nguyen said. “If your android were to stay…”

  “Tork is his own android and would have to be treated like a person with rights,” Casmir said, “but I would consider leaving him here if I knew he was in good hands. I should warn you, however, that others would eventually figure out an antivirus program and learn not to accept transmissions from your station.”

  “Maybe, but that might take a while. It’s not like the pirate families are buddies and share intelligence with each other freely. They compete ruthlessly with each other, from what I’ve observed.” Her gaze locked onto Casmir again. “You didn’t mention your price, other than telescope access.”

  Casmir looked down at the console. How much trouble would he get in for this? Grunburg probably still had a copy of the antivirus program on his tablet, so it wasn’t as if Tiamat Station would be able to use the virus to keep Kingdom warships away. It would largely be helpful to them in deterring others from targeting their station.

  He was inclined to give Tork to Nguyen to try to foster some goodwill between Tiamat and the Kingdom, even if that seemed vain when the warships had been so unwilling to help with the pirates. At the least, she would feel goodwill toward him, though he wasn’t sure if that granted any advantage. Would he ever be this way again?

  Maybe not, but did it matter? He hated bullies, and he loved giving people a means of fighting them.

  Casmir met her gaze and stuck out his hand. “Free with the telescope, providing Tork agrees.”

  He and Nguyen looked at Tork together.

  “I am reading the specifications for your telescope right now,” Tork said. “It is magnificent. The largest and most powerful in System Hydra.”

  “It is,” Nguyen said. “Astronomers and astrophysicists throughout the system come here to do research.”

  Casmir hoped it hadn’t been damaged by the pirate strikes.

  “I agree to stay, so long as Professor Dabrowski doesn’t mind.”

  “Zee will miss you,” Casmir said, “but I don’t mind.”

  “Excellent.”

  Nguyen accepted his hand clasp. “Thank you, Professor.”

  In Kingdom style, he bowed over the handshake. “You’re welcome, Secretary Nguyen.”