Any of the men could have sprung and tackled her before she could get out of the way, but she would drop the cubes on the deck if they did. And then they would break open. The men had to be calculating the odds now, wondering if they could reach her and keep her from dropping the cubes?
“You expect me to believe you would subject yourself to that fate?” The knight spoke quietly and took a subtle step forward.
“Stop!” Bonita jerked her arms up higher, as if she meant to throw the cubes.
He stopped.
“Get off my ship.” She backed up to make room for him to leave the lav. Then, not wanting the ones in the corridor at her back, she eased across the way and into the lounge. “Now.”
“Do it,” the knight said.
“But, sir—” one of the men said.
“Don’t argue,” the knight snapped and strode into the corridor, his purple cape flapping around his armored calves.
He didn’t throw her a backward glance or a threat; he merely stalked to the ladder, his back rigid, and descended. The men exchanged more looks with each other before following him down to the cargo hold.
Bonita didn’t trail them. She would get an update from Viggo. If they were setting a trap, he would know.
A clang echoed up from the cargo hold. The hatch shutting.
“How many did they leave behind, prepared to ambush me, Viggo?”
“None, Captain. They all left. Well played.”
Bonita lowered the cubes, the gelatin tacky from handling. “I wish I could agree. I think I’m just compounding my mistakes. All I want now is to get out of this system as quickly as possible and never return.”
“That does seem advisable.”
A faint clink-clank reverberated through the ship.
She almost dropped the cubes in surprise. “Was that the airlock clamp?”
“Yes, they’ve released us. I need to repair the damage to the hull before we can depart. And I assume you’ll want to recall Qin.”
Bonita tossed the herb cubes into the sink and wiped the gunk off her gloves. “They’re not going to let us go.”
“They have let us go.”
“Maybe they’re letting us leave their airlock concourse because a crazy captain is waving around deadly biological weapons, but they’re not going to let us go far. How much do you want to bet that the plan is to let us get twenty miles away from the station and then launch nukes at us? Destroy us and obliterate the bioweapon while they’re at it. Does this station have nukes?”
“According to the description on the network, it’s fully capable of defending itself and also extending solar sails to fly to different parts of the system if necessary.”
“So they can move out of the neighborhood if some of the bacteria survive the nuke. Good for them.” Bonita gripped the edge of the counter, staring bleakly at the pulped garlic in the bottom of the sink and trying not to see it as a symbol for her life.
“Two armed men have been left to guard our airlock on the station,” Viggo reported.
“Meaning they’ll shoot me if I try to leave.” Bonita activated her comm. “Qin, what are you up to?”
A long pause followed, and Bonita worried Qin had already been captured. Or she’d run into that remaining crusher and hadn’t come out on top.
“Searching for Casmir, Captain,” Qin whispered, the channel finally opening. The rumble of machinery sounded in the background.
“You’re a good crew member. But I need you to—” Bonita stopped. She’d been about to abort her attempt to collect his bounty, but her underlying problem hadn’t changed, even if she’d piled new ones on top of it.
She still didn’t have money to buy enough fuel to get out of the system. In theory, she could snag what she needed from one of the gas giants on the way to the gate, but she didn’t have an efficient means of collecting helium-3 from a planet’s atmosphere. She envisioned leaning out the hatch, trying to scoop up gas in a jar. She wagered Casmir could jury-rig something more practical.
“Stick to your mission,” Bonita said. “Find Casmir, but don’t let him know we aim to collect the bounty. Let him believe we learned about the bounty and the crushers, and we were worried about him. We’re offering to take him out of the system, and all we ask is for him to help us collect fuel along the way.”
“You want me to lie to him?” Genuine chagrin accompanied Qin’s words.
“If it makes you feel better, you can tell him that’s what I said.” Maybe Bonita should have made up that story to tell Qin from the start. When her assistant didn’t respond right away, Bonita added, “We’re in a precarious situation, Qin. The local authorities have let the Dragon go, but I’m positive it’s because they plan to blow us out of the stars as soon as it’s safe enough for them to do so without damaging their station. If you can’t find Casmir…”
She swallowed as unexpected emotion thickened her throat. Regret for getting herself into this situation. Regret for risking her ship and endangering Qin.
“You better stay on the station,” Bonita finished. “They shouldn’t have a qualm with you. With your skills, you can find another captain to take you on, easy.”
“Not a Kingdom captain,” Qin whispered, the words almost inaudible over the background rumble of wherever she was. “I’ve already… My hood slipped a couple of times. The people acted like I was some mutant carrying a contagious disease. A mother hurried her kids out of the lift when I got on it.”
“I’m sorry, Qin.”
“But I wouldn’t leave you anyway. That’s not right. I’ll find Casmir. I bet he can help. Maybe he knows how to disable the station’s weapons long enough for us to escape.”
Bonita didn’t know if a robotics scientist would have that kind of knowledge, but she let a tendril of hope creep into her body. If Casmir could hack into the system, that would be easier than bribing someone with nonexistent money.
“Good plan,” Bonita said. “If he’s willing, do that.”
Unfortunately, she feared Casmir would balk. Even if he was being chased by those crazy robots, she doubted he had ever done anything criminal in his life.
“If he’s not willing,” Qin asked in a soft, uncertain voice, “do I force him to?”
“Just explain that we’re his only way out of the system. Anyone else who offers him a ride will only be looking to collect his bounty.”
Bonita waited for Qin to say that was what they were planning to do. “Understood, Captain. I’ll find him.”
As soon as the channel closed, Viggo spoke. “You have a comm message, Captain.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it. Threats from the Kingdom Guard office, I presume?”
“No. A response from Pequod Holding Company.”
For some reason, her blood chilled. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if her life could get any worse right now.
Dread and curiosity mingled in her gut as she raced to navigation to check the response. It was a simple text message, no video.
Refinery 2, Saga.
“That’s it?” Bonita tried to scroll for more, but there was no more.
“That is the entire message. There is no truncation, no data loss.”
“Saga is one of the gas giants on the way to the gate, isn’t it?” If her memory served, it was the last planet in the system and, at its current position in its century-plus-long orbit of the sun, not that far from the gate.
“It would be appropriate to classify it as an ice giant or a gas giant,” Viggo said. “Most of its mass is comprised of a dense icy fluid of materials over a small rocky core. It has thirteen moons, none of which are inhabited, even by robotic mining systems. Winds gust more than a thousand miles an hour, and the average temperature is just below -200 Celsius.”
“So, it’s a nice place to visit.”
“It has two refineries that deliver gas by the tankful from collectors traversing a huge orbital ring that lets them dip into the planet’s atmosphere to gather helium-3, molecular hydrogen, methane, an
d other useful gases.”
Bonita’s ears perked. “Helium-3, you say? Do we have enough fuel to get there?”
Viggo’s long pause wasn’t reassuring. Bonita assumed he was checking and rechecking calculations, since he wasn’t one for dramatic flair.
“If we have no mishaps along the way, we could just reach Saga,” Viggo said. “We would not have enough fuel to return to Forseti Station or anywhere else.”
Bonita’s palms broke into a sweat at the idea of being stupid enough to sail off without enough fuel for a return trip. Her gloves sensed the heat of her hands and cooled a few degrees. As if that would keep her from sweating.
She licked her lips, then almost laughed because she was more nervous about this idea than about being shot at by the station or having a warrant for a life sentence placed on her head. That was because she’d been stranded before, and she knew how terrifying it was to be without fuel to run the engines, engines that not only powered the propulsion but drove the life-support systems. She remembered lying on her bunk alone and watching the condensation of her breath accumulate on the metal frame of the bunk above hers as oxygen slowly depleted and carbon dioxide built in the air…
Bonita shook away the memory, surprised at how vivid it was after twenty years. She’d survived that situation, and she would survive this one.
“As long as we can make it, we’ll be fine,” she said firmly. “The meeting point is a refinery. That’s perfect. We’ll drop off Casmir and pick up a tank of helium at the gift shop on the way out.”
“The refinery is populated only by robots. I deem a gift shop unlikely.”
“What, robots don’t have birthdays and anniversaries?”
“Not that they celebrate.”
“I’m sure we’ll be able to find some fuel in a refinery.” Bonita slid into her pod to answer the message, to let them know she had Casmir, and that she was coming. If fate turned her into a liar, she would be dead, and it wouldn’t matter.
“What do you think?” Casmir asked.
“It looks unnervingly like the other ones.” Kim covered a yawn as she walked around his finished product, the metal alloy giving it the same tarry black hue as the other crushers.
It towered six-and-a-half feet tall, six inches larger than the military models. Casmir hadn’t dared divert much from the known-good pattern of the previous ones, but he had given his slightly more mass, in case it helped. He had only been able to scrounge enough materials to build one, and he was well aware that two had shown up every time they had come after him.
“You couldn’t have made it look a little friendlier?” Kim asked. “Or at least used a less villainous color?”
“A color can’t be villainous.”
“Of course it can. That’s why all villains throughout history have worn black. Tenebris Rache wears a black mask.”
“You can’t rely on a mercenary for insight into fashion trends.”
“You can when it comes to fashion trends for villains. King Jager has declared him a pirate, not a mercenary, and an especially heinous enemy of the crown.”
Casmir yawned and waved away the argument. There hadn’t been any metal dye in the shop, and the color of his crusher was the least of his concerns. There might come a time when it would be useful if it could blend in with the regular ones, at least at first glance.
“What do we call it?” Kim asked.
“I am a Z-6000, programmed to protect Kim Sato and Casmir Dabrowski,” the crusher announced in a flat monotone.
Kim jumped back. “They speak?”
“Yes, they’re similar to androids in intelligence and linguistics ability.”
“None of the other ones spoke.”
“You didn’t ask them any questions.”
“It must have slipped my mind while they were trying to kill us.”
Casmir yawned again. The day cycle had returned to the station, the rooms and corridors brightening to simulate morning light on Odin, but all he wanted to do was find a place to take out his contacts, put in some eye drops, and take a long nap. But first, they needed to figure out—
A clank rang out, and the machinery rumbling in the other work areas sounded louder as a door opened. It must have shut again because the noise grew muffled once again.
“People coming to work?” Kim whispered.
“Let’s hope that’s all it is.” Casmir stepped up beside her so he could see the doorway leading into their room.
Kim had been watching it all night, never dozing off or faltering in her guard duty. Nothing had come in. Yet. The doorway lacked an actual door, so they couldn’t simply lock out intruders.
Footsteps boomed in the hall. They were too loud, too heavy, to belong to a human.
Casmir glanced toward the back way out of their workroom and took a step in that direction, but then he halted. He had a weapon to use now.
“Go take care of it, please, Zee.” Casmir pointed.
Without a word, his new crusher strode toward the front doorway.
“You have to say please to it when you give orders?” Kim asked.
“I like to be polite to robots. You never know when another Verloren Moon situation will arise,” he said, naming the ice moon that a large portion of computers and robots had taken over after gaining intelligence and liberating themselves in the last century. All of humanity, at least all of humanity living in the Twelve Systems, was glad they hadn’t shown any interest in spreading out from there.
“True. But we’re—” A crusher appeared in the doorway, and Kim whispered, “Never mind.”
Zee sprang, slamming into it so hard they struck the far corridor wall and crashed through it.
Kim gaped. “Do we help or…”
“No.” Casmir grabbed her arm and jerked his head toward the back exit. “We get out of here. It’ll find me.”
“I’m not sure yet whether to be comforted by that.”
Casmir didn’t try to convince her. Only time would do that.
He led the way out the back door and into a labyrinth filled with huge molds and covered vats of molten ore—a foundry. Heat rolled off the machinery and blasted their faces. A few voices mingled with the clashes, thunks, whirs, and grinding noises emanating from large alcoves, and the sounds from the fight soon fell behind.
Doubt filled Casmir as they ran farther away. There was nothing he could do to help, but what if his creation wasn’t up to the very first task he’d given it? What if the military had made modifications to his original design in the last year and the crushers were better killers now? Or what if it ended up as a stalemate with both machines destroying each other?
He tried to tell himself that it only represented twelve hours of work this time, not the months and years he’d put into the original project, but he couldn’t help but feel distressed at the idea of losing his creation before he’d even gotten to know it. What if—
Kim grabbed his arm, pulling him to a hard stop.
She pointed in front of them, down the wide aisle they were following, then tugged him into the shadows between two giant empty crucibles. A hooded figure walked toward them, a huge gun in hand.
“I think that’s Qin,” Casmir whispered, though he wasn’t sure. The hood shadowed her face.
Kim pulled him farther back. “Are we sure we want her to find us?”
“I… don’t know. We didn’t part on bad terms.”
It took Kim’s words to make him wonder why Qin would be looking for them. He couldn’t imagine any other task would have brought her down to this level of the station.
A scream rang from the walls, from back the way they’d come. Casmir’s heart crumbled. His crusher wouldn’t be hurting people—he had programmed it to defend only. That had to mean that his crusher hadn’t made it.
“Shit,” Qin said, only a few feet from their hiding spot.
She lifted her big anti-tank weapon. Casmir stepped out, just in case he was wrong.
A crusher strode toward them. Which one was i
t? He squinted. It was hard to tell if this was the six-foot or the six-and-a-half-foot one without another beside it for comparison.
Qin fired.
Belatedly, Casmir lunged over and pushed her arm away. The crusher saw the shot coming in time to react, dropping into a fluid crouch. The shell blasted over its head and slammed into a machine at the end of the walkway. It exploded, hurling shrapnel everywhere.
“What are you doing?” Qin barked. “Run. Get out of here. I’ll delay it.”
The crusher leaped back up. It did not sprint toward them. It looked at Casmir.
“I am a Z-6000, programmed to protect Kim Sato and Casmir Dabrowski.”
Casmir grabbed his chest. Thank God.
Qin hadn’t lowered her gun. “What is going on?”
“That one’s mine.” Casmir stepped in front of her as the crusher approached. “Uhm, Zee. Someone screamed. You didn’t cause that, did you?”
“My appearance alarmed several workers. They ran away.”
“I told you everyone knows black is villainous.” Kim stepped out of the shadows. “You should have made him pink.”
“What happened to the other crusher, Zee?” Casmir asked.
“It will reassemble itself soon. I do not know how to permanently destroy it.”
“According to the captain, the Kingdom Guards threw one out a hatch,” Qin said, backing away as the crusher strode closer.
Casmir nodded. “That would work. They can’t morph into anything they don’t have the base materials for—no making jet boots and rocket fuel. Zee, if you get a chance, throw that crusher out an airlock, please.”
“I will attempt to do so.”
An ominous bang came from beyond the vats, followed by the jarring booms of a pneumatic hammer.
“Let’s go,” Qin said, gesturing for them to follow.
Kim hesitated.
“Come on.” Casmir jogged after Qin, waving for both of his allies to follow. They could question Qin once they’d put fifty levels of the station between them and the other crusher.
She led them past two banks of passenger lifts and to a larger maintenance elevator full of paint brushes, buckets, drop cloths, and brush drones. They stepped in and she hit the button for a floor several levels above the airlock concourse.
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