Shockwave

by Lindsay Buroker

  And Bonita and Qin were on their backs in separate lavatories. Fantastic.

  A soft knock sounded at the hatch. Such polite mutineers.

  Except they weren’t mutineers. They were prisoners. Escaped prisoners.

  “From now on, all prisoners ride in the brig, Viggo.”

  “Yes, a wise policy. Though Casmir did make two new cleaning robots for me out of spare parts.”

  Was that why Viggo hadn’t paid that much attention to what those two had been concocting? Casmir, the only man in the system who knew how to win over computers.

  The hatch opened. Bonita peeled one eyelid up, saw the crusher stride in, and lowered it again.

  She’d often imagined bravely facing death with her eyes open. She’d failed to imagine herself lying in vomitus, too weak to lift a hand. How shortsighted.

  “Hello, Captain Lopez,” Casmir said politely, his footsteps coming to a stop near her head.

  She wanted to strangle his polite throat.

  “I apologize for the little virus Kim coerced back to life in order to incapacitate you, but we were worried you would send us to this Pequod Holding Company in flex-cuffs, and we’d like to go with our hands free and more options available. We’d prefer not to go at all, but your actions have made it clear that we’re not safe staying with you. If circumstances somehow play out favorably, I’ll try to arrange for some helium-3 to find its way into your cargo hold, but I’ve recently been told I’m overly optimistic, so that may not be possible. However, Kim says you should recover from your illness in short order, and then you can retrieve it yourself.”

  Bonita didn’t say anything. She didn’t even open her eyes.

  “Again, I apologize for your discomfort,” Casmir said. “I just didn’t think you were open to reason. Ah, I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me when your Pequod contact is showing up? They aren’t in the refinery, are they? We didn’t see a ship…”

  “Go to hell,” Bonita rasped, then rolled over and threw up again.

  Casmir gripped a handhold in navigation as the Stellar Dragon eased toward a bank of airlocks on the side of the refinery. Saga’s massive blue body filled most of the view beyond the sprawling structure, swirling angry clouds streaking across its gaseous atmosphere at hundreds of miles an hour.

  The long-range scanners showed a civilian research ship orbiting one of the planet’s thirteen moons, but when Casmir tried to comm it, the panel locked up. It seemed Viggo wasn’t going to let him send outgoing communications. The research ship was a twelve-hour flight away, so the crew probably wouldn’t have dropped what it was doing to come help him with his problem, but he wouldn’t have minded asking. Cajoling. Begging. Pleading…

  Unfortunately, it looked like Casmir and Kim were alone in dealing with whoever was coming. Unless they could avoid dealing with them somehow.

  He eyed a pair of automated mining ships that were docked at the refinery.

  “Viggo is taking us all the way in, huh?” Kim pushed herself into navigation to stand beside Casmir. “Any chance we can change the course and not go where these people will be waiting?”

  Zee was anchored in the corridor, watching their backs in case Qin or Lopez recovered enough to rush them.

  “All the controls are locked down.” Casmir hadn’t even been able to sit down in the pilot’s pod. Its sides had tightened into a ball, denying him access.

  He had some hacking knowledge, but he was skeptical about successfully getting around the security measures while the intelligent computer entity inside was watching everything he did.

  Once again, he eyed the mining ships and then looked to the scanner display showing the distant research vessel.

  He switched to chip-to-chip messaging to speak to Kim. There’s a research vessel orbiting Skadi Moon. I wonder what they’re studying. There’s not an atmosphere or much of value down there.

  Why are you worried about what they’re studying right now? Kim frowned at him.

  I thought they might be more inclined to accept us on board as temporary passengers if either of our expertise would be useful to them.

  Kim’s frown turned to an expression of enlightenment. You want to take one of the mining ships over there?

  If we can get to one and figure out a way to override its automated programming. Those ships should have plenty of fuel. What they might not have is oxygen, since there’s no human crew. But if we take a couple of air tanks for these suits… Casmir pointed his thumb toward the supply cabinet in the corridor. My concerns are that the captain of that ship will say no and, even if he or she says yes, that we might be endangering the crew. The Stellar Dragon’s scanner doesn’t show any weapons on their ship.

  Maybe we could talk them into giving us a ride somewhere civilized before this Pequod Holding Company shows up.

  That would be nice. Dare he be that hopeful?

  “I believe I’m being quite lenient in letting you live when you infected my crew with a virus when I wasn’t paying attention,” Viggo said, belatedly replying to their conversation. Maybe he had been busy discussing something with Lopez. “It is only because you promised they would recover soon that I haven’t reacted in a vengeful manner. And because you repaired vacuums that I believed beyond repair.”

  “Vengeful?” Kim murmured. “Do you think he could kill us?”

  Maybe she realized she had taken more of a risk than she believed.

  “All he would have to do is seal the rooms with Lopez and Qin, then open an exterior hatch and vent the ship’s atmosphere.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “Don’t give him ideas.”

  “I’m sure he has plenty of his own ideas already.”

  “A great many,” Viggo said agreeably. “How long until Qin and Bonita recover?”

  “I spoke truthfully to them,” Kim said. “They’ll be weak for a few days, but they should be feeling better in a matter of hours.”

  Casmir was glad. Lopez had been so sweat-slathered and miserable. He hadn’t realized Kim’s virus collection would contain anything that virulent.

  Viggo issued a noise akin to a harrumph.

  Are we leaving the ship as soon as it docks? Kim asked silently as the Dragon glided closer to an empty slot.

  Yes, the sooner we get to one of the mining ships, the better. It’ll take time to figure out how to override the autopilot.

  Are you sure Viggo will let us leave?

  No. Let’s find out.

  Casmir left navigation, giving Zee a pat on the way by, and headed for the cabinet with the oxygen tanks. Kim was also in a galaxy suit, so it wouldn’t take them long to prepare to leave.

  “The captain wants you to wait here until our contact arrives,” Viggo said as Casmir reached for the cabinet.

  “She doesn’t want us to wait on the refinery for whoever’s coming?” Casmir slowly withdrew two oxygen tanks, wondering if Viggo would keep the hatch locked so they couldn’t walk off the ship. He thought of that blowtorch in the kitchen.

  “No,” Viggo said.

  “She wants to make sure she gets paid and we don’t just walk ourselves into a trap,” Kim muttered.

  If Casmir and Kim were still on board when Lopez recovered, he didn’t know how she would respond. Maybe Lopez would shoot him herself and hand his dead body over to Pequod Holding Company. Casmir hadn’t thought to ask if his bounty specified he be alive or dead at delivery. Given his experience with all those crushers, he assumed these people wanted him dead.

  “Is there any chance you can tell us when the Pequod ship arrives, Viggo?” Casmir handed one of the tanks to Kim and fastened another onto his own suit. He was tempted to take extras, but Viggo would guess their plan right away if they did. “Captain Lopez was disinclined to share that information.”

  “The captain does not know. She was given this location but no date and time. She never spoke to anyone.”

  “So we could be here for a month?” Kim attached the tank to her suit and pointed at two others nestled insid
e the locker.

  Before Casmir could decide whether to grab them, Viggo said, “Another ship just appeared on my scanners. Oh dear.”

  For a computer, he could convey dread in his words quite well.

  Casmir ran back into navigation, checked the scanner display, and flinched at how close the new ship was. It had to have twenty layers of slydar on the hull because there was no way it should have been able to sneak up on them without Viggo detecting it.

  “I am putting an image on the display,” Viggo said. “And informing the captain that we have company.”

  The display, which had previously shown the side of the refinery, shifted to a camera on the other side of the ship. A black vessel approached like the shadow of death. Sleek and angular and bristling weapons like a porcupine bristled quills. It had no running lights, and its edges seemed to blur and blend in with the stars behind it. One could look right at it and miss seeing it. Just as the computer’s scanners had, until the last minute.

  The longer Casmir looked at the approaching vessel, the more certain he became that he’d seen it before on news reports. It was possible there were many of that model and that this wasn’t the same ship that was always featured in those horrific news stories, but he doubted it.

  “You’ve identified it, Viggo?” Casmir asked.

  “It does not have an ID chip such as Kingdom ships are required to have,” Viggo said, “but I do recognize it. The Fedallah.”

  “Let me guess,” Kim said. “The captain calls himself Ahab.”

  Casmir looked curiously at her.

  “Fedallah is the crazy prophetic harpooner in the book who foresees Captain Ahab’s death. Aren’t you excited to be captured by a fan of the classics, Casmir?”

  “The captain of the Fedallah is Tenebris Rache,” Viggo said.

  “The pirate who’s destroyed dozens of Kingdom ships, military outposts, and research laboratories in the last ten years,” Casmir said numbly, wishing he were back on Odin where the nefarious captain’s exploits had been disturbing but distant. A single ship didn’t have the might to bother Odin and its orbital defenses, but the rest of the system seemed to be fair game. “No, I can’t say that I’m excited by his reading hobby.”

  Kim’s sarcasm faded, replaced by open-mouthed shock, her eyes widening with alarm. She recovered enough to mask her fear and say, “He probably just read the comic book.”

  Casmir couldn’t manage a response. He pushed shaking hands through his hair. Tenebris Rache. Was this the man who’d wanted him dead all along? Why?

  Because he’d made robots for the military, and Rache loathed the Kingdom and King Jager and all he stood for? How would such a man even have gotten hold of crushers to reprogram them and send them to hunt down Casmir? His ship never went anywhere near Odin; if it did, the military would hunt him down relentlessly. No, the pirate skulked about near the gate and the gas giants, striking and then leaving the system anytime the military got close. Nobody was sure how he got past the guard ships at the gate, but he did. Over and over. He’d even attacked and disabled them a few times.

  The bristly black ship glided toward the airlock hatch adjacent to the Stellar Dragon.

  “I have to get out of here.” Casmir checked to make sure the mining ships were still docked. “Viggo, you have to let me go. Please. I’m not asking for any help. Just open the hatch so I can leave.”

  “Do it,” came a weak rasp from behind them.

  Lopez hung in the air behind Zee, her gray braid floating free around her head, the crusher’s arm keeping her from advancing farther. Her shoulder slumped against the wall, her face was ashen, and her legs looked like they would have given out if they’d had to support her weight.

  “Pardon, Captain?” Viggo said.

  “Let them go.” Lopez met Casmir’s eyes. “I didn’t know who it was. I thought that company was some business that wanted you for your brain, to question you or make you work for them, not…”

  “My brain isn’t that valuable, I’m afraid,” Casmir said bleakly.

  Lopez’s gaze shifted toward the Fedallah on the display. “Nobody deserves that fate. To be tortured by a sadistic madman and killed.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I didn’t know.”

  “As you wish, Captain,” Viggo said. “We are docked, and I am unlocking the airlock hatch.”

  Casmir nodded to Lopez. “Thank you.”

  He kept himself from pointing out that he wouldn’t be in this situation if she hadn’t tricked him, but there was no time for voicing grievances. The pirate ship would be docked within minutes. Casmir didn’t know what the inside of the refinery looked like, but he assumed it would only take the pirates a few seconds to walk from one airlock to the next.

  He tapped the button on his chest plate to bring his helmet over his head and pulled himself past Lopez and Zee toward the ladder well using the handholds on the bulkhead.

  “Come with me, please, Zee,” he said, though he needn’t have bothered. The crusher strode after him, its soles magnetized as effectively as Casmir’s boots.

  Kim also came after him, but Casmir lifted a hand. “You better stay here.” He switched to chip-to-chip messaging to add, I’m still going to try to enact my plan, but it’s going to be an extreme long shot now to get to the mining ship and escape. “If he only wants me, you should be safe staying on the Dragon.”

  “I’m from the Kingdom. If the news stories are even remotely accurate, he would shoot me simply because I was born on Odin.”

  “Lopez can hide you.”

  Kim looked over her shoulder. Lopez dangled limply in the corridor, her head lolled against a wall.

  “Just stay here and promise me you’ll speak fondly of me when they hold my funeral back on Odin. And have a wonderful career, and find a new roommate who can get ready in the morning without making a mess. And who doesn’t leave pieces of projects all over the coffee table.”

  “Casmir, I’m not—”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not giving up. But I don’t want to get you killed.” He hugged her, his helmet clunking against hers. “Stay here and hide. Promise me!”

  She did not.

  Casmir rushed down the ladder and into the cargo hold while thinking about how he would get away now. Even if he made it to the mining ship, it was a Kingdom mining ship. Rache would have no problem blowing it into a million pieces.

  An image of a news story from five years earlier popped into his head, video footage of Kingdom soldiers shot dead all over the cargo hold of their own ship, of two of the king’s most loyal knights strung up and staked to makeshift crosses where they’d been stripped and tortured and left to die.

  Captain Rache was pure evil, and he wanted Casmir.

  Willing his hands to remain steady, Casmir hit the button to open the airlock hatch. His helmet display had automatically synched with his chip, and his contact scrolled the environment outside, along with his medical stats. His blood pressure and heart rate competed for the position of most alarming stat, and he tried to remember if he had taken his seizure medication that morning or if he was thinking of the day before. Would Rache shoot him if he was in the middle of convulsing in midair? That would be a delightful way to go.

  He stepped into the small airlock chamber with Zee and started to close the hatch behind him, but Kim stuck her arm out to halt him.

  “What are you doing?” Casmir asked.

  She pulled herself inside, a stunner and a borrowed Starhawk rifle in her hands, and closed the hatch. “Coming with you.”

  “Kim, I’m trying to nobly sacrifice myself so you can get away. You’re making that difficult.”

  “You said you had a plan, not that you were going to fling yourself at the guy’s feet.”

  “My plan has a low probability of success.”

  “Well, now it’s improved.” She stuck the stunner in his hand.

  “You think your kendo skills will make a difference against a fleet of sadistic pirates?”

  “No, but if
we’re captured, I bet I can engage the captain in a literary discussion of Moby Dick while you think of a way to get out of trouble. I wrote a paper on it.”

  “What was it about?”

  “Penises.”

  “Uhm, what?”

  “To be specific, the social and homoerotic bonds between the male characters in the story.”

  “Just the sort of discussion a psychopathic killer should find fascinating.”

  “He might.”

  The air finished draining out of the chamber, and a green light signaled the outer door ready to open.

  Aware that Rache’s killers might already be in their own airlock chamber, Casmir fired his jet boots to hurry down the short connection tube to the refinery’s hatch. It was locked. He tried a few buttons, but it asked for a code. He should have known that any stranger with a ship wouldn’t be permitted to stroll onto a government refinery.

  “Zee, can you open that?” Casmir realized they were in a vacuum now and that sound wouldn’t travel. He pointed at the hatch and mimicked forcing it, hoping he’d given the crusher enough intuitive reasoning to grasp what he wanted.

  While he was demonstrating, Kim stepped forward with the rifle and blasted the hatch controls. Casmir cursed and scrambled out of the way, his boots firing him into the side of the tube.

  “You’re going to get me killed before Rache even finds us,” he blurted over their shared comm.

  “You and your robot were taking too much time.”

  Kim stopped firing—she’d melted a hole around the latching mechanism—and yanked on the hatch. It opened easily. Fortunately, there wasn’t an inner hatch, and they flowed out into a bay full of pipes and lined with rows of hulking storage tanks. There wasn’t any light inside, other than a few flashing yellow and blue indicators on bulkheads, and a flashlight beam activated on Casmir’s helmet.

  Kim only took three seconds to look around before hurrying toward the other airlocks, all visible farther down the outer wall of the bay. Casmir hurried after her, but he shone his light around as he and Zee navigated over the pipes. If he could find some inspiration here, he wasn’t too set in his plan to improvise.