Ship of Ruin

by Lindsay Buroker

  “What could possibly be down there that’s making people get sick and die?” Ishii asked.

  “I don’t know. All I know is that the archaeologists found a gate fragment down there. At the least.”

  Ishii’s eyebrows shot up.

  “You don’t know about that?” Casmir looked back and forth between them.

  Did Asger seem less surprised? It was hard to tell.

  “I assumed the archaeologists reported all their findings to the government when they asked for help,” Casmir added.

  Ishii frowned, looking perplexed.

  “I’m aware that they reported finding what might be a gate,” Asger admitted. “It’s in pieces down there, or it was.”

  “How do you know more than I do?” Ishii asked in exasperation. “Isn’t he your mission?” He thrust a finger toward Casmir.

  “It seems so.” Asger contemplated Casmir as if he believed someone had made a mistake in sending him out to protect a lowly civilian roboticist.

  “Why wouldn’t Fleet have told me about all this?” Ishii demanded. “I understand need-to-know, but they sent me to blow up a ship with quarantined survivors on it. Do they truly fear a virus or are they covering up that we may have found a gate? And how much trouble am I going to get in because I didn’t blow it up?”

  Asger lifted his hands in a gesture that wasn’t successful at placating. “I don’t know much more than you do. It’s possible the Fleet higher-ups don’t know anything about this at all, that it went straight to Royal Intelligence and the king and queen. That’s a civilian research ship, after all.”

  “Is that what that teched-up cargo ship stole?” Ishii flung a hand toward the wall. “A spare gate?”

  “I doubt anyone found an entire gate,” Asger said. “The report mentioned pieces…”

  “I bet Rache knows more than both of you combined. Maybe that cargo ship is full of his friends or employers.” Casmir tugged on his boots. “If we get Rache, we can get Kim back, and you can interrogate him about all he knows. I’ll cheer you on as you do it.”

  As soon as the last words came out, he wondered if they were true. If they got Rache’s mask off, everyone would see the unsubtle resemblance, and everyone would know they were related. Would that land him back in trouble again? Guilt-by-association? Or guilt-by-blood, more accurately. Casmir snorted, wondering if Rache would have an allergic reaction to interrogation drugs.

  “Dabrowski,” Ishii said, “we have orders to go to the gate and stop that cargo ship from leaving the system.”

  “If they have gate bits in their hold, that seems like a good idea.” Fully dressed, Casmir stood on his own and faced them.

  He was ready to go get Kim, but he needed a shuttle. That was the only way off the ship and the only way to catch up with Rache. Except, ugh, he needed a pilot too. Casmir’s poor depth perception would have gotten him laughed out of flight school if he’d ever applied.

  “But you need to leave behind a strike team and a shuttle, Captain. And I need to be on it. We can’t leave Kim with that man.”

  Asger frowned. “You don’t even know that’s who has her. Or why he would want her.”

  “Like I said, it’s got to be for the same reason you wanted her. Nobody else out here has any experience with horrific bacteria that kill people.” Casmir had no idea yet if that was what they were dealing with, but he didn’t much care. He just knew he had to rescue his friend.

  He didn’t like the way Ishii and Asger were exchanging long looks.

  “Just leave me with a shuttle and some men, Captain. Sora. Please.” Casmir spread an imploring hand. “I promise not to tell anyone else your childhood nickname.”

  Ishii scowled, not looking amused.

  “And I won’t complain if you tell everyone you know about my Teacup experiences. Please.”

  “I have orders, Dabrowski. We’ve already left orbit.”

  “What?”

  Casmir lunged to grab him, but Ishii stepped back and evaded the grasp easily.

  “Asger, calm him down or put him in the brig until he calms down on his own,” Ishii said. “I’d say to drug him, but I don’t need him convulsing on the deck again.”

  “Wait, Sora—”

  “Captain Ishii,” he said and stalked toward the door.

  As Ishii strode out, Casmir glimpsed Zee’s shoulder, the crusher in the precise spot where Casmir had told him to wait hours earlier. He almost, in a fit of stupidity, ordered Zee to stop Ishii, to force him to give Casmir a shuttle and a pilot, but even Zee couldn’t plow through a crew of six hundred, including a hundred marines in combat armor.

  Casmir slumped into the chair, utter defeat making him far more fatigued than the drugs had.

  “I’m sorry, Casmir,” Asger said quietly. “As much as Rache hates the Kingdom, he doesn’t usually target civilians. If she cooperates, maybe he’ll let her live.”

  “I’ve known Kim for seven years.” Casmir dropped his head between his knees and gripped the back of his neck with both hands. “If there’s one thing she doesn’t do, it’s give in to the demands of bullies.”

  7

  Yas hadn’t found anything enlightening, at least in regard to the medical problem, in the strange derelict, and he rushed outside as soon as the shuttle returned, descending slowly into the narrow canyon. It landed in the same icy spot, lights brightening the forest of frozen stalagmites. The sun had set, its meager light fading from the moon.

  Yas strode toward the shuttle and waited for the hatch to open. Long moments passed, and he stepped back, wondering if some Kingdom soldiers might have killed Rache and taken it. What would he do if angry marines leaped out, pointing rifles at his chest?

  When the hatch finally opened, interior light slashing out into the night, nobody at all stepped out.

  “Come help your new colleague set up the lab, Dr. Peshlakai,” Rache’s dry voice came over the comm.

  Yas grimaced and walked into the shuttle, expecting to find a hapless woman tied to a chair. He found Kim Sato in a bright yellow hazmat suit leaning against the navigation console with Rache next to her in his black armor. She wasn’t tied and didn’t hold any weapons, but the way her arms were folded over her chest made her attitude clear. When her dark gaze landed on Yas, he read accusation in her angry eyes.

  Yas turned to close the hatch—and avoid her eyes. He wished he dared say he wasn’t with Rache, that he was also a prisoner. But that wasn’t strictly true. He’d agreed to this, and he had, however inadvertently, been responsible for Rache bringing her down here.

  Rache pointed toward the back of the passenger area, to the mess-turned-laboratory where Yas had been working before. Yas sighed and headed back to pull out the medical equipment. Maybe he could apologize to Scholar Sato when Rache wasn’t glaring at them both.

  Rache reached for her, as if to force her to follow, but she jerked her arm away before he touched her. Chin up, she strode down the aisle toward the lab.

  “I brought as much medical equipment from the Fedallah as I thought would be useful and that would fit,” Rache said.

  Even if they’d had all the equipment in the warship’s sickbay, Yas, who’d done an inventory and knew what was there, doubted it would have been sufficient for their purposes.

  Judging by the way Kim stopped and stared at the counter and the contents of the cabinets, she was unimpressed. Or perhaps in shock.

  “Have you contracted the disease yet, Doctor?” Rache asked.

  “I’m showing signs of cellular damage, yes. I retested everyone down here less than an hour ago, and everybody is now. We should retest you.”

  “I’ve been away from the moon and the wreck.”

  Kim spoke for the first time. “Numerous crew members from the research vessel who never came down here died—according to the quarantined people who remain unaffected. I was in the middle of determining if person-to-person contact caused it, whether something in the air did, or if they brought back something from the wreck that c
aused the people on board to be afflicted. By the way, I’d like to see the wreck at some point to see if it spurs any ideas. I was on the verge of going over internal video footage of the research ship to try to learn exactly what happened and how this spreads.”

  “Does this mean you’re agreeing to work on this now?” Rache asked.

  She shot him a hard look. “I was working on it before. You didn’t need to drag me down to this frozen hell.” Judging by the way she waved at the mess station, she might have been referring to her new work area more than the moon. “I had a state-of-the-art lab up there. I’d be hard-pressed to find evidence of the common cold here.”

  “I’ll be happy to give you a tour of the wreck personally,” Rache said.

  “What an honor.”

  “This is Dr. Peshlakai.” Rache waved at Yas. “He will assist you as needed.”

  Yas grimaced, hoping Rache wouldn’t say he’d been the one to request Kim for the team. That hadn’t been his intent when he’d brought her up.

  Kim gazed at him with dark impassive eyes. It was his first time meeting her—he’d seen the roboticist, Casmir Dabrowski, when they’d been on board but not Kim Sato—and Yas wished the circumstances weren’t so dire. He would have been curious to ask her about her work.

  “Yas Peshlakai?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, surprised a Kingdom medical researcher had heard of him.

  “I took a toxicology class at the university,” she said. “I remember reading some of your papers and being surprised that you weren’t much older than I was and had publications in a prestigious journal.”

  “It was something I got into at a young age.” He felt wary with her but warmed a little at the recognition.

  “I wouldn’t have expected to find you working for a mercenary.” She must not have heard about his president’s death.

  Yas snorted. “I wouldn’t have expected it either.”

  “My people currently have a limited amount of time to live,” Rache said coolly. “How about you get to work and save the lengthy introductions for later?”

  “Their—our—lives wouldn’t be at stake if you hadn’t insisted on coming here, Captain,” Yas said, feeling bolstered by Kim’s presence, though maybe that was foolish. Did he think having a woman around would keep Rache from killing him? If anything, Rache might see him as superfluous now.

  “A risk worth taking,” he said again, heading for the hatch and waving for his fighters to come outside with him. So he could return to searching the wreck?

  As far as Yas knew, nothing had been found while he’d been gone.

  “Don’t forget to send us a sample of your blood, Captain,” Yas said.

  “I will when I’ve had more time down here to be infected.” Rache opened the hatch and stalked out.

  “I suppose there’s no chance he’ll be the first to die?” Kim leaned against the counter with her arms folded over her chest again.

  Yas realized she hadn’t agreed to help. What if she stood there, glowering at the equipment, and refusing to do anything? It would be hard to blame her, given that she’d just been kidnapped, but he knew he’d soon feel the effects of all that internal damage, so he wanted her assistance. No, he wanted her to take the lead and know what to do.

  “Scholar Sato,” he said, “I’m very sorry you were brought into this, but I hope you’ll continue the work you started up there. As I told Rache, I’m afflicted, as is our engineer.” He wondered if introducing her to another woman might make her more inclined to help. But Jess’s mouth might not endear Kim, and it wasn’t as if Yas could tell the story she’d shared with him in confidence. Even if it might evoke sympathy from an outsider. “It’s also likely that you’ll be afflicted now that you’re down here.”

  Yas had been wearing a galaxy suit and breathing from his oxygen tank while he’d been outside, but he removed his helmet now. Kim, ensconced in the hazmat suit, eyed him through her faceplate. He doubted he had to tell her that it was unlikely any form of suit would protect her from the threat.

  “How did you end up here, Dr. Peshlakai?” she asked.

  “You can call me Yas, and it’s a long story. Essentially, I was framed by someone who made it look like I killed my president. Rache helped me escape, but there was a catch.”

  “I bet.”

  “I agreed to work for him for five years. At the time, I was desperate and didn’t know who he was.”

  “Finding out must have been delightful.”

  “I may have cried a little. In a masculine way, as befitting a man of my stature.”

  Kim snorted, but she turned around and waved at the microscope. “Show me what you’ve got so far.”

  Casmir paced in sickbay while Zee stood by the door, and Asger sat in a chair, his book open in his lap. Casmir didn’t know how much attention he was paying to it, as he’d been on the same page for a while, but he did know the knight wouldn’t let him go out the door. He’d already tried. Sort of. After a few steps in that direction, he’d scurried back, because Zee had stepped ominously forward to intercept Asger’s attempt to intercept Casmir.

  He hadn’t wanted to start a battle between his two allies, even if Asger’s support was somewhat academic and stifling at this point. At least he hadn’t followed Ishii’s suggestion to throw Casmir in the brig.

  In the last hour, Casmir had sent a number of messages to Kim, but wherever she was, she wasn’t responding. He hoped that meant she simply didn’t have network access, not that she was unconscious—or worse. Either way, her silence worried him.

  “Get some rest, Dabrowski,” Asger said, perhaps annoyed by his pacing. He stuck a finger between the pages and waved the book in a motion that might have meant go-to-bed or I’m-close-to-beating-you-with-this. The title on the front read Either/Or. How appropriate. “You’re not going anywhere except to the gate with the rest of us.”

  Casmir gritted his teeth, wondering where Bonita and Qin were. Had they taken off in the Dragon or were they still lurking in the area, waiting to see if any opportunities to make money from the gate discovery came their way? Maybe he should have asked Ishii to drop him off on Bonita’s ship—if it was around. Requesting a shuttle had been too much. Why would Ishii give him one of his shuttles? Even if losing Kim would be tragic because of her contributions to medicine, she wasn’t one of his officers, so he probably didn’t feel obligated to protect her.

  Not like Casmir. She was only out here because of him, damn it.

  While he paced, he accessed the network and found a chip ident for the only Captain Bonita Laser Lopez listed in the directory. He’d never spoken chip-to-chip to her when he’d been on board, but she didn’t wear glasses, so he assumed she had an implant and contact display.

  He sent a request for approval and paced, hoping she wasn’t sleeping or already in another system. Though if there was a small war going on at the gate, she would have a hard time leaving.

  How’s your interrogation going, Dabrowski? came her response.

  I had an allergic reaction and a seizure, Laser. Please call me Casmir. Thank you.

  So it’s going well, eh?

  Kim was kidnapped from the research ship. Casmir was relieved she’d responded quickly, but he didn’t want to waste time chitchatting, not when the warship was taking him farther from Skadi Moon with every passing minute. Are you and the Dragon still in the area?

  More or less. We’re orbiting the moon on the opposite side from the research ship, mostly hoping the military forgets about us. Viggo is finishing the repairs that we started. They need to be done before we jump to another system, and…

  You’re still waiting for an opportunity to make money?

  There was a long pause before a response came back.

  I don’t want you to think I’m a greedy, money-grubbing ratera, Casmir, which wouldn’t be surprising since I was willing to sell you, but I could really use a break. I don’t have anything lined up, and because I was an idiot and sent that money back to Rach
e, who’s probably dead…

  I don’t think he’s dead. I think he’s the one who kidnapped Kim. And you didn’t sell me. You tried to collect what was, presumably, a legally issued bounty. He was about to ask for a favor, so he didn’t want her to think he held anything against her.

  Why would he want Kim? Did he get himself infected with something vile when that bioweapon exploded?

  Casmir hadn’t considered that possibility, but if Rache had been infected by the bioweapon, he would have gone after Kim immediately. He wouldn’t have taken a meandering route down to the moon first.

  I think he got infected with whatever is in that wreck down there. The same as the archaeologists who visited. Casmir returned to pacing—he’d stopped and was staring blankly at the wall while he read his messages, and Asger was squinting suspiciously at him. Casmir kept his head down, studying the deck.

  You think I should take the Dragon down there and fire my railgun at him, his shuttle, and the wreck? See if I can blow them all up for real this time? There is a bounty on his head, FYI. I checked. The Kingdom government has issued one for almost a million.

  While I understand your desire to rid the systems of him and collect a bounty like that, I’d prefer you not attempt to obliterate him when Kim is standing next to him.

  Ah, right. Sorry. What did you have in mind? I assume you didn’t contact me just to catch up. You’re not in the brig over there, are you? I would have assumed they had their cells shielded to prevent inbound and outbound messages, but you’re probably crafty enough to get around that.

  No, I’m in sickbay with a knight standing guard.

  Ah, the seizure. Right.

  Casmir thought about pointing out that the allergic reaction had been more alarming than the seizure, but it didn’t matter. Will you help me if I can get Captain Ishii to transfer me to your ship?

  Another long pause followed. He knew he was asking her to risk getting close to the military, who might have a grudge against her thanks to the Forseti Station mishap, and also to potentially confront Rache. It was a major request. What could he offer her—legitimately offer her—to make it worth her while?