“Many left in pursuit of the crusher, but two remain. I believe they have orders to keep anyone from coming or going.”
Bonita leaned her helmeted head against a box of frozen cauliflower. “How do I get these people off my ship, Viggo?”
“Perhaps if you show yourself, explain the situation, and help them find the case, they will be lenient.”
“They’ve already condemned me. What kind of lenience can I expect? Twenty years in prison instead of a life sentence? And what would happen to my ship if they sent me off to some mining asteroid to serve my time. What would happen to you?”
“Twenty years is not as long to me as it is to you, but I believe I would find not having you aboard to be boring.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s also unlikely that someone else would order me new vacuums.”
“Figure out how to get me out of this situation, and I’ll buy you a cadre of vacuums.” Granted, she would have to collect Casmir’s bounty to be able to afford even a cadre of salt shakers, but if she could get off this station, there would be hope.
“A tempting offer, Captain. If I think of a solution, I will let you know.”
“Are they all wearing self-contained suits or armor?” Bonita asked, mulling over ideas.
“All except for the knight. I am uncertain whether a helmet folds out of his armor, but currently, his head is unprotected.”
“Is there air on all of the levels or was it vented?”
“There is sufficient air. The hatch was only open for a few seconds.”
“If he’s unprotected…” Bonita drummed her fingers on a crate of frozen juice bulbs. Did she have anything in small glass containers? Or what looked like glass containers? Breakable glass containers. “Minced garlic in a cube. You’ll have to do.” She tore into a box full of fresh-frozen herbs.
“What do you plan, Captain?” Viggo asked warily.
“I’m going to attempt to do what you suggested, but if they try to get me off the ship to arrest me, I’m going to bluff.”
“That may not go well.”
“That’s normal for me these days.”
Sneaking into the huge machine shop on Deck 17B was easier than Casmir had anticipated. Almost everything on the furnace and manufacturing levels was automated, so once they’d gotten past the keycard reader, they hadn’t been questioned by anyone. Even with the battered remains of his tool collection, he’d managed to make a card that fooled the simple system. Casmir gathered that theft wasn’t a big problem when it came to shipbuilding equipment that weighed tons.
Finding and collecting the sophisticated nanites he needed to program and integrate into the molecules of the liquid metal alloy he was about to make had been more difficult. He’d been about to give up and send Kim to sneak into the hospital, in the hope that their medical nanites would work in his matrix, but then he’d found a molecular manufacturing laboratory that supplied materials to a nearby zero-g semiconductor plant, and he’d been in heaven.
“Do you want me to do anything?” Kim asked as he set up the tools he would need to reprogram the nanites in the back of a shop.
An electric smelting furnace that he would use later blocked them from view from the main doorway, but that didn’t make Casmir feel safe. He was sure there were security cameras all over the station, documenting his trespassing and theft. He could only hope that once he had some protection, he could more easily get to the bottom of his problem and get his life back. His life where he went to work, was paid, and could in turn pay for the parts he was using today. Admittedly, he would have to work for a year to earn enough to pay for the expensive materials.
“Just watch the door, please,” Casmir said as he set to work.
He’d chosen a shop with a back door so they could run if they had to, but if the crushers were the ones to stomp in, hunting him down, it might not matter. There wasn’t an airbike here that he could steal.
“Already doing that.” Kim had stopped ten feet away in a spot where she could see the door, and stood ready to spring into action.
“I should have known. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. Just build that robot. Or even better, build an army of them, so we can survive the day.”
“I won’t have the time or materials to build an army, but I’ll see what I can do with this one.”
After a few minutes, Kim glanced his way. “I’m sorry, Casmir.”
“For what? I’m the one who got us in trouble. And who should have thought of this back on Odin. Not that I had time there to build anything.” He glanced at a digital clock on the wall, though it wasn’t as if the crushers had given him a schedule of when they planned to find him next. Was it delusional to hope the ones that had appeared on the station hadn’t been looking for him? That someone had sent them after the bioweapons? Probably. He suspected they’d gone to the Stellar Dragon because it was the last location they knew he’d been.
“For snapping at you. And for being cranky.”
“If you’re cranky—and I’m not saying that you are, because my mother told me never to accuse a woman of being cranky or emotional, especially not that—it’s definitely not without reason.” He worked while he spoke, afraid to take the time to glance over at her. Fortunately, the nanites were fresh from the manufacturer and a blank slate, so he didn’t have to hack through any security measures to start uploading the code. The code the military didn’t realize he still had on his chip. “You shouldn’t be here, and it’s my fault that you are. And I can’t even wish that you weren’t here, because I’d probably be dead by now if I was alone.”
“I think you could have figured out a way to get the better of Constable Braindead on your own.”
“Is that what you were calling him? I’d decided on Constable Meat Paws. I’m afraid I’m better at being the distraction than the deliverer of death by a thousand blows of wooden sticks.”
“I stunned him. It’s hard to knock someone out with bokuto.”
“Is it?” Casmir asked. “You left him nicely purpled. Like a ripe eggplant.”
“Are you supposed to sound so approving when you talk about violence?”
“If the violence is being done to bullies, it’s acceptable.”
“He was doing his job.” Kim sounded like she regretted thumping the man. She didn’t lose her temper often, but it was like a switch flipping when she did.
Casmir thought Constable Whatever had deserved it. It was a lot less than the crushers would have done to the man if he’d been in their way.
“In a bullying way,” he said firmly, feeling a twinge of regret for his lost bird.
Kim snorted.
“You probably didn’t get bullied in school, so you don’t recognize their hateful kind. Sometimes, they’re chameleons, friendly and charming in front of authorities, and then utter assholes when there’s no chance of repercussions for their actions. Admittedly, that constable was more of a red-headed rock agama than a chameleon.”
“A what?”
“A red-headed rock agama. They’re lizards with brilliant red heads and electric-blue bodies, and they’re super territorial. They challenge intruding males by puffing out their throat pouches and bobbing their heads like they’re doing drunken pushups. Tell me that doesn’t remind you of our constable tormentor.”
“I didn’t notice a throat pouch.”
“He was probably hiding it. If you’ve never seen those lizards, they’re beautiful. You should visit the reptile museum in the capital, or go see them in nature on Karudera Continent. They thrive down there. It’s supposed to be like Africa on Old Earth. Did you know Odin supposedly has all the species that existed on Earth, even some that were extinct by the time the colony ships left? Apparently, we brought…” He caught himself rambling while he worked and glanced at Kim. “I believe I went on a tangent. What were we talking about?”
“Bullies,” she said dryly. “Why do you think they never bothered me?”
“Well, you have those sticks. An
d didn’t you once say that your brothers picked you up after school in the van for the dojo? With the logo on the side? The one with a slim, unassuming man breaking a log with his fist?”
“Yes, but girls don’t usually beat each other up. I wish they did. It’s easier to dodge a punch than gossip and insults.”
“For you maybe.” Casmir tossed her a lopsided smile.
“You are better at talking than punching. You would have made a good girl.” She said it as if she were stating a fact, not delivering a taunt. “Maybe we should have traded places in school.”
“Would I have learned how to break a log with my knuckles?”
“Of course not. Everybody knows you have to use a palm strike on a log.”
“Palms are still impressive.”
“I’ll let my father know. That’s him on the logo.”
“Lacking the knowledge to properly use my palms,” Casmir said, “I had to build my own robot bodyguard in school. Ralphie, I named him. He helped me survive the middle grades.”
“I’m surprised it took you this long to realize you should do the same thing here.”
“Me too. I guess I’ve gotten used to being moderately respected by my peers at work and being surrounded by people far more inclined to banter about academia than pick fights.”
They fell silent, and Casmir didn’t know how much time passed as he worked, finishing with the nanites, and then venturing out for the metals he needed. He felt the pressure of trying to replicate in hours something that had taken his team six months to make back in the military research lab. But that had included days and days of experimenting and testing, failing, going back to the drawing board, then building and testing again. Now, he could essentially work from a blueprint.
Sometime near the start of the station’s day cycle, Casmir yawned and rubbed his eyes, even though he knew he shouldn’t with his contacts in. They were gritty, watery, and likely bloodshot. He glanced at the clock again, worried that more people would come into the manufacturing area with the start of a new shift.
“I’m following the station news,” Kim said quietly. “Everything is on lockdown, and citizens and visitors are being ordered to stay in their homes and hotel rooms. From what footage I could find, two crushers walked onto the Stellar Dragon, followed by the knight who questioned us and many armored men. One crusher walked off about twenty minutes later.”
“Where did it go?”
“The station cameras lost track of it. News reporters are asking for updates from any citizen that sees it.”
“Why do I have a feeling it’s looking for me?” Casmir asked.
“Because it left the ship without the rocket?”
“It probably doesn’t care about the rocket. It just wants me.” He surveyed his work, wishing it was further along. “If you’re bored, you could spend some time trying to research who sent these after me.”
“I have been.”
“And you haven’t found anything either?”
“Not about you or the crushers. There’s a fresh report that terrorists broke into a military research lab on Odin this week but nothing about what they stole, if anything.” Kim shrugged. “It’s interesting, but there’s not anything definitive to link it to the previous break-in and the missing crushers.”
“Terrorists? What kind of terrorists?”
“The article was vague, and I can’t access the government databases to run searches there.”
“No, I can’t either anymore,” Casmir said. “I had limited access even when I worked for them. Since we’re at a dead-end with what’s available in the public records, all I can think to do is destroy the crushers the person or organization that’s after me obtained. Then they’ll have to come themselves to get me.”
“You think that’ll be an improvement?”
“Maybe I’ll learn why they want me dead.”
“Hopefully not the instant before they shoot you,” Kim said.
“Hopefully not.”
15
Bonita waited until it was quiet in the cargo hold before easing out of hiding.
“The knight is alone,” Viggo informed her. “He’s in the lavatory.”
She strode that way, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible. “Using it or searching?”
“He’s running his hands over the wall panels. He’s done that in several cabins, so it may simply be luck that he’s in there. The others are searching in engineering, navigation, and the environmental-control room, currently. The two mercenaries you had in the brig were removed and taken onto the station.”
“Thank you.”
Bonita looked at the two tiny cubes in her gloved hands, a thin gelatin layer keeping the contents together. One held crushed garlic, the other frozen basil. They looked nothing like the laboratory vials that Kim had lifted from the case to examine, but Bonita was hoping the knight didn’t know anything about horrific custom-made bacteria or what kinds of containers one used to transport them. She would do her best to keep him from getting a good look at her cubes.
The lavatory hatch was open when she reached it. The knight heard her approach and spun toward her before she stepped inside. His hand tightened on his telescoping halberd, the shaft extending to give him the long version of the weapon.
Probably because she hadn’t grown up in this system and consumed all those stories about knights and their amazing combat prowess as a kid, Bonita would have been more concerned about a DEW-Tek rifle pointing at her chest. Nonetheless, she stopped in the corridor outside the hatchway.
“Despite what you think, Sir Knight,” Bonita said, forcing herself to use the respectful title they preferred, “I am not your enemy. I didn’t know what I was getting when I agreed to transport that case, and I will happily give it to you now, presuming you plan to take the weapon out and destroy it.”
He gazed at her, studying her eyes. There were stories about knights having telepathy and a knack for reading minds, but as far as she knew, even the colonies that adored tinkering with the human genome hadn’t managed to create brains with such abilities.
She was aware of clunks and clangs from elsewhere in the ship as his men searched. She could also hear a faint hiss of air escaping from the Dragon. Viggo had his repair robots out, working on fixing the leaks, but they must not have had time to patch the hull everywhere yet. She hoped the exchange tubes were hooked up to the station, and they were getting free water and oxygen while they were stuck here.
“Show me the bioweapon,” the knight finally said, “and I will make sure it is destroyed. You have my word that I don’t want to see that used on any human beings. It is true that King Jager has ambitions to extend the reach of the Kingdom again, but not through killing innocent people. What point would there be in bringing a habitat or station under one’s rule when there’s nobody left alive inside?”
That was more information than she had expected—and she wasn’t warmed by the plain admission that his king wanted to expand—but she found she believed it, that the knight didn’t want to sell this to someone else or use it. She believed he would destroy it.
“I’ll show it to you, but I would like to negotiate for my release afterward. As I said, taking it was an accident. I don’t deserve to go to jail over it, especially if I help you get rid of it now.”
His chin came up. “You are a smuggler. It’s not my fault that you inadvertently smuggled something more dangerous than you believed. In the Kingdom, smuggling involves a sentence of no less than ten years.”
“I’m not a Kingdom citizen. Your laws—”
“Apply to anyone traveling through our space. We will find the case, whether you help us or not.”
“Why not let me make it easy? I fetch it for you right now, and you turn your back and let me go. If not, who knows when that crusher will be back?”
His eyes sharpened. “How do you know what they’re called?”
“It’s not my first time seeing one.”
“They haven’t bee
n deployed in combat yet.”
Yet. Wouldn’t it be wondrous fun when the Kingdom sent out armies of them?
“Maybe not,” she said, “but you had a recent outbreak of them on Odin, and I’ve met two.”
As he opened his mouth to reply, someone farther up the corridor asked, “Uh, Sir Russo?”
Two of the armored men had climbed down the ladder from navigation and were staring at Bonita. Shit.
“Get her,” the knight said and strode toward her.
The armored men also stalked toward her.
“Don’t!” Bonita lifted her arms, one of the cubes between thumb and forefinger in each hand. “Look, I tried to be friendly, but you’re not hauling me off to some prison. I’ll die first, and I’ll take anyone on my ship down with me. From what the bacteria scientist said, this would be a particularly horrific way to die.”
Actually, Kim hadn’t said anything about what the gunk in the vials might do, but Bonita thought it was a safe guess.
The men stopped moving. The knight, the only one without a helmet on, squinted at the cubes.
“Stop,” he called to the others, then scrutinized Bonita, holding her gaze again. “Your sentence will go the other way now that you’ve threatened us. You’ll spend the rest of your life in a detention center.”
“I’d been wondering how I would finance my retirement. I guess that would make it a moot problem.” She smiled, trying to appear confident—and hide the tremor in her hands. Had she just sealed her fate? Gone from smuggler to terrorist? “Get off my ship, Sir Knight. You and all of your men, or I drop these. The green one can eat right through galaxy suits and combat armor, I understand. Before it eats through your flesh, muscle, and organs, leaving nothing but a steaming pile of brown goo on the deck. I’m not sure what the white one does. I guess we can find out together.”
She glanced at the armored men to make sure they weren’t moving and also to see if her words had any effect. It was hard to tell through their faceplates, but they exchanged looks with each other.
More guards stepped out of the environmental-control room at the other end of the corridor. Bonita tried not to panic. Nothing like being trapped.
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