Shockwave

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Sir Russo,” the knight said shortly.

  Casmir bowed and said, “It’s been an extremely eventful week, and I’m hoping to get home as soon as possible, but I fear it’s not safe. Uh, how much do you know about that?”

  “We know who you are and that good men died on the day you mysteriously disappeared from campus, Mr. Dabrowski.” The senior officer, an inspector, his badge said, leaned his fists on the table. “Tell us about the contents of that safe.”

  You mysteriously disappeared? Casmir didn’t like the accusatory sound of that. In his absence, had he somehow gone from being a victim to being a suspect for something? Who could have possibly come to that conclusion?

  “Safe? If you mean the case holding the rocket, it’s about this big by this long.” Casmir demonstrated with gestures. “And the other contents are—” he looked at Kim to see if she wanted to explain, but she had adopted a stay-silent-unless-questioned position, “—alarming.”

  “There is a rocket.” The knight sucked in an alarmed breath. “And it was on Odin. Dear God.”

  “It could end up back there if we’re not careful,” the inspector said. “Dabrowski, how many people are on that freighter? The official dossier says it’s just the captain, but we know there’s at least one other crew member, some modded freak the captain didn’t report when she came to Odin. But for all we know, there are twenty armored men in there. Too many for even a knight to handle.”

  The inspector shot Sir Russo a firm look, and the knight’s lips pinched into an annoyed expression, suggesting they had argued about this earlier. Had Russo intended to charge straight onto the freighter?

  “Well, there aren’t twenty people.” Casmir paused, feeling another twinge of guilt, this time because it seemed like it would be a betrayal to help these men storm the Stellar Dragon.

  He wanted the authorities to know about and get rid of the bioweapon, the same as Kim, but what if Lopez and Qin were hurt or killed in the process? Lopez hadn’t been willing to give up the case to the mercenaries. Would she try to hide it from the Kingdom Guard? How much money did she have tied up in that cargo?

  Casmir shifted uneasily, remembering her admission that her funds were low.

  “For what capacity did the captain recruit you, Dabrowski?” Russo asked. “Advice on the rocket? We already know why Sato was there.” He frowned at Kim as he waved at her. “I trust you tested the samples and found them viable.”

  Kim’s eyebrows flew up.

  “I assume you were careful,” Russo added, “but is there any possibility of leakage? Do we need to quarantine the ship, or is it safe to retrieve the vials?”

  “They were sealed when I saw them.” Kim looked at Casmir. Was she as bewildered by this line of questioning as he?

  “Er, advice on the rocket?” Casmir asked, struggling to get his head above the quicksand burbling up around them. How could these people know so much but be so wrong about everything? “I happened to know the model and its capabilities, but my specialty is robotics. That must have come up in your research.”

  “We know your specialties,” the investigator said coolly. “And we know you’ve published papers on rockets as well as robotics.”

  “I haven’t published anything on rockets…”

  He trailed off as the investigator flicked a tablet on and slid it across the table so he could see the article on the display.

  “Oh, that was for a ballistics class that was required for graduation. There was an opportunity to earn extra credit and some leeway on the final exam if we wrote a couple of research papers and submitted them to periodicals. I was honored that mine was published, but I was mostly pleased to get full marks from crusty old Professora Langbottom. I was worried about my grade-point-average in those days, you understand.”

  The investigator and the knight exchanged long looks.

  Casmir wondered if they were messaging each other back and forth. The second Guard, an imposingly tall and broad constable with rolled-up sleeves displaying meaty arms, merely watched everything. He’d walked around the table to stand between Casmir and Kim and the exit.

  As if Casmir would try to flee from a knight. Where could he even flee to on a space station?

  “There are two people on the crew,” Kim said, “Captain Lopez and a modded woman with extra strength and likely other attributes we didn’t see demonstrated. Neither we nor they learned the truth about their cargo until we were en route. My understanding is that Lopez was trying to deliver what she believed were guns. Then we were attacked by a mercenary ship and barely got away. After that, she snooped and learned she’d been duped. As you deduced, I’m a bacteriologist, and I would be happy to advise your experts on how best to dispose of the bioweapon once you acquire it. Neither Casmir nor I went aboard that ship to help commit a crime. We were fleeing the crushers that were chasing and trying to kill him. Any chance you or one of your colleagues on Odin knows who’s trying to kill him?”

  Casmir nodded, grateful to Kim for parsing it so clearly for the men. That should help.

  But the constable snorted with disbelief, and the inspector and the knight exchanged another long look. Casmir kept himself from pointing out that typically only lovers gazed into each other’s eyes for such unwavering lengths of time.

  Sir Russo jerked his head toward the door.

  The inspector nodded and said, “We’re going to talk to our superiors. Constable Davis, search them for weapons and keep them here.”

  “Gladly.” The constable cracked his knuckles and eyed Casmir like a tasty morsel.

  Casmir couldn’t keep from grimacing—or maybe cringing. He’d dealt with enough bullies in his life to recognize the type, the eager gleam in the eye of someone who enjoyed having power over others. And putting that power to use.

  “Let’s see those pockets, you treasonous deadbeats,” the constable said, striding forward as soon as his colleagues left, the door shutting behind them.

  Kim scowled. “We haven’t betrayed anyone.”

  “Don’t much care.” The constable cracked his knuckles again.

  There was only one high window in the wall next to the door. Was the glass insulated so the people shopping in the concourse wouldn’t hear them scream? Casmir decided it would be a shame if his wails of agony interrupted the purchase of someone’s robot squirrel.

  Yas walked past the bridge and toward the captain’s briefing room and quarters, glancing out a porthole that he passed. The ship had undocked from the refinery, but Rache hadn’t yet given the order to blow it up. Maybe he was waiting for the autopsy results. Yas wished he had found more.

  He looked down at the small opaque capsule that he’d cleaned off assiduously before heading up here and hoped it contained something that would distract Rache from the fact that Yas had no idea what had killed those people.

  The double doors opened as he approached, and he found Rache standing in the briefing room, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed at news footage on a screen. When Yas walked in, Rache paused the playback, the display freezing on the face of a man with shaggy brown hair, a lazy eye, and a grin that didn’t seem appropriate for the headline flashing over his head.

  Odin robotics professor chased by military robots, almost killed in explosion.

  “What did you find?” Rache looked at Yas’s hand.

  “As I told Corporal Chains before he would let me back on the ship, the body had no sign of a viral infection, no hint that the immune system had sensed a threat and responded, and nothing to suggest poisoning.” Yas had checked and rechecked for symptoms of toxic exposure, since poisoning would have explained deaths without outward signs of violence or illness. “There was a great deal of cellular damage throughout the body, and I believe that’s what killed them. Just looking at the cells, I would have assumed they belonged to very old individuals who died from the deteriorative diseases of age.”

  “They didn’t look that old.”

  “No. I believe this may have happe
ned quickly. I might have thought acute radiation exposure, but I’ve seen plenty of that when dealing with space-faring peoples, and this wasn’t the same. Usually, acute radiation exposure causes outward signs such as bruising, bleeding from the orifices, hair loss, ulcers, etc. But you saw these bodies. They were unblemished. Further, we should have been able to detect radiation on their suits, and I tested the bodies and also the refinery for exposure. The refinery isn’t particularly well-insulated from cosmic radiation, which isn’t surprising since no humans work there, but that’s not what killed those people.” Yas spread his hands. “I’m sorry I don’t know what did.”

  “I see.” Rache didn’t sound pleased.

  Yas didn’t know if it was with him or with the situation. Even though Rache’s features were hidden behind that mask, Yas suspected the captain didn’t like excuses—and wasn’t hiding the fact.

  “I did find something else that may be useful.” Yas held up the capsule between his thumb and forefinger. “It was strategically hidden inside the body of the man I autopsied. I almost missed it.”

  “Strategically hidden? What does that mean? He shoved it up his ass?”

  “Close. He swallowed it. It was on its way through his gastrointestinal system, the protective shell keeping it intact.”

  Rache didn’t speak for several long moments. “It seems that these archaeologists found something someone thought was worth killing for.”

  “We don’t know that someone else killed them yet, I’m afraid.” Yas shrugged apologetically for the vagueness of his findings.

  “Actually, we do. I suppose we don’t know what exactly happened to the people on the refinery yet, but someone blew up their ship. I had Trotter do a scan of the area, and he found wreckage. We also found video footage from exterior cameras on the refinery and were able to access it. Three days ago, an unmarked cargo ship modified with dozens of extra weapons chased a shuttle from an Odinese research vessel in this direction. The shuttle was damaged. As it passed extremely close to the refinery, a team of six people with crates took a spacewalk out its hatch to one of the airlocks here.”

  Rache waved toward a porthole and the refinery outside.

  “Their shuttle continued past,” he went on, “accelerating toward the gate. It wasn’t a long-range craft, so they either hoped to gain assistance from the Kingdom warship that’s always stationed at the gate, or they wanted it to look like that’s what they were doing. It’s possible the entire crew went on that spacewalk, and it was on autopilot. The unmarked cargo ship continued after the shuttle without slowing down at the refinery. It’s likely they didn’t see the people depart. Both ships flew out of the refinery’s camera range shortly after, but the wreckage we found was in the direction they were heading. It was so pulverized as to be unidentifiable, but it’s likely it was the remains of the shuttle.”

  “Where did the shuttle originally come from? A research vessel, you said?”

  “Yes. Our scanners picked up the matching vessel in orbit around one of Saga’s moons—Skadi—which is currently on the far side of the planet from us. A Zamek newspaper article from a couple of months ago mentioned it and a large team of archaeologists and scientists heading out on a mission. It didn’t discuss what they were researching.” Rache pointed at the capsule. “How long ago would that have been ingested?”

  “Ah, transit time would have varied depending on stress, hydration, and other factors, but perhaps a day before he died, and I gauge they died no more than a day before we found the bodies. We have to assume that if they spacewalked from their shuttle to the refinery, some time passed between when they arrived and when they died.”

  “So, the archaeologist may have swallowed it before his team left their shuttle, assuming their attempt to hide wouldn’t work and they would be captured.”

  “Yes,” Yas said. “He also could have swallowed it when they got to the refinery. If he knew he would die and believed whoever was chasing them would find their bodies and their belongings…”

  “Destroying whatever is in there—” Rache pointed to the capsule, “—would have been a surer way to hide it.”

  “Maybe he hoped someone friendly would find them, at which point, he would want to share the contents.”

  “Did you look inside?” Rache’s tone grew cooler, and he held out his hand for the capsule.

  Yas couldn’t tell from that tone if he would be in danger if he had. “I didn’t open the capsule, no. I scanned it to see what it contained—there’s a storage chip inside—but that’s it.”

  Rache carefully broke open the capsule, then retreated into his quarters on the far side of the room. Yas didn’t know if he was hunting for something to read the chip—he didn’t recognize the connector or know what could interface with it—or if he meant to leave Yas in the dark while he examined it.

  But Rache soon returned with a suitable transfer cable and plugged it into the display on the wall. The robotics professor’s face was replaced with shaky video footage. A recording made from a helmet cam?

  Rache leaned his hip against the table and watched.

  “That doesn’t look like the refinery,” Yas said, not sure if he should offer to leave or not. His curiosity kept his feet rooted.

  “No.”

  “It looks like the corridors of a very old ship. Or a station. Sort of. Is that daylight pouring in?”

  Rache looked at him silently, then back to the footage.

  Yas clamped his mouth shut. The back of someone’s spacesuit came into view for a moment. It looked like a civilian suit, not military or Kingdom Guard. And then it was gone. The operator of the camera passed under a gaping hole in the ceiling of the corridor, wan sunlight entering, shining on a mound of snow and ice that he had to climb over.

  “They’re down on a moon or a planet,” Yas murmured. “With at least some gravity.”

  The video stopped and restarted in what might have been an engine room. Yas didn’t recognize the design of the ship or even the style of architecture. Gray and black unpainted metal walls. Exposed circuits not covered by panels. Pale dust—or was that frost?—over everything.

  A monkey bounded into view, and Yas almost pitched over, startled. The brown furry creature held a panel or maybe a circuit board in its hands, its tail whipping about as it bounced up and down.

  If the sight of the creature surprised the person operating the helmet camera, no twitch or jerk of surprise showed up in the feed. Rache also didn’t react.

  “A robot?” Yas guessed, able to think of no other explanation for a monkey on an archaeological mission.

  “Or a loaded droid.”

  “Oh, right.” Yas knew dying people occasionally uploaded their consciousness into androids, but he hadn’t met a monkey version. “Too bad there’s no sound.”

  The camera came closer to the monkey and the frosty circuit board in its hands. Rache sucked in a surprised breath as the details on the surface sharpened.

  Yas didn’t recognize anything on the board. It looked like something out of a computer, but what kind of computer, he couldn’t guess.

  The video stopped and didn’t switch to anything else.

  Rache looked at the date stamp. “Six Odin days ago. The farthest away they could be and have had time to come to the refinery and die—or be killed—is one of Saga’s thirteen moons. We can’t assume it was Skadi and that the research ship has been orbiting it the whole time, but Skadi is a frozen hunk of ice. I believe it’s the only one of Saga’s moons with a surface that you could walk around on, but I’ll double check.”

  “Are you going to forgo your refinery-destroying mission to go exploring?” Yas was careful to keep judgment out of his voice. He didn’t know Rache well enough yet to be certain his life wouldn’t be in danger if he irked the man.

  Rache gripped his chin, the mask malleable enough to allow it. It was more of a hood than a mask, Yas decided, and it covered his hair as well as his face. Whatever the black mesh-like fabric was made from, it d
idn’t keep Rache from seeing through it.

  “Forgo? No. I’ve already been paid, and I will complete my mission. But if what I think those people found is still down on that moon, I would prefer it if Jager wasn’t the one to get it. That research ship is registered to a university on Odin, so it’s possible the Kingdom government sanctioned the mission. Jager might have sent them personally.” The ice had returned to Rache’s tone, as cold as the pile of snow they’d seen on the video. He looked at Yas. “Did you ID that body while you were poking through its cells?”

  “Yes. His ident chip was still implanted. He was a spaceship-engineering professor named Kinyar Boehm from South Zamek University.”

  “An engineer? That’s not what I expected. Though maybe they needed someone with mechanical expertise on their team.” Rache looked back to the display, perhaps thinking of the circuit board.

  He held up a finger. While he ran a network inquiry?

  “The only loaded monkey-droid working in the archaeology field in any of the systems is a Dr. Erin Kelsey-Sato,” Rache said. “She’s also from Odin.”

  “Ah,” Yas said neutrally.

  Even if it turned out that some Kingdom operative had been responsible for killing his president and framing him, Yas couldn’t manage the blanket hatred that Rache seemed to feel toward all of King Jager’s subjects.

  Rache must have sent a command to the screen, for the display switched back to the roboticist.

  Huge swaths of text accompanied the man’s photo. Rache flipped through a few more photos and more text. Yas couldn’t read the words from across the room, but the pictures all seemed to be about the roboticist. Casmir Dabrowski, as he was identified in one headline. On the run and currently missing. One photo showed a blown-up parking garage on Odin. Another looked to be from a traffic camera that had caught the man with a woman riding behind him on an airbike as a tanker blew up on a highway behind them.

  Rache zoomed in on the woman. Two names flashed as the computer identified the faces. Dabrowski and Kim Sato.

  “A still-living relative of the monkey?” Yas scratched his head, wondering how Rache had known to pull up this story before Yas had walked in with the camera footage. Had he found something in the crates his men had been searching?