Gate Quest (Star Kingdom Book 5)

by Lindsay Buroker

  “I’ve got plenty stored up for him.”

  “Why did he kidnap you?” Asger asked her. “I could see him wanting Casmir, but doesn’t he already have your bacteria?”

  “Yes.” Kim shrugged. “I’ll be sure to ask him when I’m unleashing my vitriol.”

  “Shall I let him know you want to see him alone?” Asger pointed his thumb at the hatch.

  “We don’t need to be alone for it.”

  The hatch opened, and Asger expected Rache—who else would be brave enough to come in and engage with a vitriolic woman?—but it was the mercenary doctor, Yas.

  “Uhm, hello.” He lifted a tentative hand. A mercenary loomed in the corridor behind him. “Scholar Sato? I apologize that you’ve been brought here against your wishes again—I can say I had nothing to do with the idea this time—but as long as you’re here, I wondered if we could talk about what’s in your case.”

  “Do I get to charge an hourly consulting fee?” Her expression was flat, and it was hard to tell if she was joking.

  “Certainly. Bill it to Rache.”

  She snorted. “Fine. Come in.”

  “Actually, I’ve got them laid out in sickbay.”

  “These subs have sickbays?” Kim asked. “I didn’t notice that on ours.”

  “There’s a chair in a cubby with a first-aid kit strapped to the wall. I just set up a small folding table.”

  Kim grumbled something under her breath and walked toward the hatchway.

  Zee stepped toward the hatch ahead of her, and Yas lurched backward, bumping into the chest of the mercenary behind him.

  “Do you need me to accompany you and protect you, Kim Sato?” Zee asked.

  “Uh, he won’t fit in the sickbay,” Yas said.

  “I don’t think I need protection from Dr. Peshlakai,” Kim said.

  “What about the heinous and nefarious Tenebris Rache?” Zee asked.

  Kim raised her eyebrows at Casmir. “Did you program him to use those adjectives?”

  “No,” Casmir said. “Zee is a superior individual, capable of making his own judgments about human beings.”

  “Did you program him with Kingdom newsfeeds?”

  “I have been watching Kingdom dramas,” Zee informed them. “And also reading fictional narratives that Tork suggested about astroshamans. We are attempting to learn to better understand humanity through the art that it creates.”

  “Rache stars in dramas?” Casmir looked puzzled. Or maybe envious.

  “Tenebris Rache is the villain in no fewer than three recently produced fictional narratives,” Zee said.

  “The heinous and nefarious villain?” Kim asked, her face still difficult to read.

  “Indeed so.”

  “I’ll risk it. You better stay here with Casmir, Zee.” Kim waved back to her friend. “He looks wan.”

  Zee strode to Casmir’s side and slung an arm around his shoulder. “I am prepared to assist if he has a seizure or other medical malady.”

  “I’m fine, but thanks.” Casmir patted the tarry black arm. “Just hot. Why is this sub so much warmer than the other one?”

  Asger frowned. “It’s not.”

  Kim waved Asger to the door before heading out after Yas. “I don’t have network access anymore.” She waved at her temple. “Are you able to contact the ship or anyone on the other subs?”

  Asger shook his head. He’d had access when they’d been near the entrance into the ocean, but he suspected they’d moved too far away from it and the ice was blocking satellite signals.

  “Damn. I wish I’d thought to ask earlier for a report.”

  “A report on what?”

  Kim glanced at Casmir, but he wasn’t watching them. He was teaching Zee how to make the Kingdom’s three-fingered let’s-be-friends-instead-of-enemies gesture.

  “I want to know what the autopsy on that woman’s body revealed,” Kim whispered, her comm channel off so Casmir wouldn’t overhear.

  “I’m sure it will be confirmed that she was stabbed.” Asger wasn’t sure why this was a secret, but he also lowered his voice and turned off the comm. “I saw the knife in her back.”

  “I did, too, but you don’t need to stab someone twelve times and stuff them in a luggage compartment if all you want to do is kill them.”

  “I assumed the murderer was a very angry person.”

  “I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I’m starting to wonder if the murderer was a very scared person.”

  A chill went through Asger. He hadn’t observed that Kim was the type to give in to melodrama. “Why?”

  Kim glanced over her shoulder at Casmir again. “Just a hunch.”

  “Scholar Sato?” Yas poked his head back inside.

  “Yes, I’m coming.”

  Asger frowned after her as she walked out. The last thing they needed was another problem.

  7

  It was the middle of the night ship’s time when the Dragon drew close to the Machu Picchu.

  When they were half an hour away, the alarm Qin had set went off, and she dressed and headed up to navigation. She thought about donning her armor, but she didn’t yet know if Bonita would send her aboard. It had been an automated distress call, so it was possible nobody was left alive over there. But the Dragon ought to be close enough now for the scanners to determine that.

  Qin was surprised that Bonita wasn’t in navigation. The forward display was zoomed in on the damaged research vessel.

  “Bonita went down to the cell,” Viggo informed her as Qin slid into the co-pilot’s pod to check the scanners.

  “To talk to the prisoner?” Qin supposed he was technically a passenger, not a prisoner, but since he was locked up for the trip, she was inclined to think of him as the latter. “Or, uhm, do something else with him?”

  “The bars remain in place with Bonita on the outside and Johnny Twelve Toes on the inside.”

  “That doesn’t entirely answer my question.” Qin imagined Bonita being experienced enough with sex to come up with creative ways to engage in the various acts through bars.

  “She is questioning him to determine if he knows anything about the Machu Picchu or what a Kingdom research vessel is doing in this system,” Viggo said dryly.

  “Oh, good.”

  “They discussed sex earlier. And whether extra toes offer any advantages during coitus.”

  “Ew.” Qin leaned an elbow on the console to peruse the results of the scan. “Does he actually have extra toes?”

  “If he’s taken off his boots at all during the trip, it was while the lights were off. I do have night-vision capabilities of a sort, but they are limited to areas of the ship where I can employ heat sensors. That cell is not such a place.”

  “So some things remain a mystery even to the sentient ship who sees all in his domain?”

  “Indeed so.”

  Qin chewed on her lip. “They took a lot of damage.”

  It was definitely from weapons fire, not an explosion caused by a malfunction. One of the rings that assisted with the big ship’s spin gravity had been blown half off, the hull was scoured black in numerous places with large pieces of plating missing. A great gaping hole exposed several decks on the starboard side. The thrusters were offline, but it looked like the engine that powered the environmental systems was still online. The ship wasn’t spinning, so there wouldn’t be any gravity over there, but there was heat and air. And there was life.

  “It looks like at least four life signs, maybe more,” she said.

  “I’ve picked out six while I’ve been watching. A couple are in engineering, and the heat from the engine interferes with the readings.”

  “Have they tried to comm us?”

  “No, they’re still issuing the distress call, but that appears to be coming from an auxiliary comm system rather than the main one on the bridge. I don’t read power from the bridge or the deck below.”

  “So it’s a real mess over there.” Qin tapped the scanner display, picking out a
irlocks on either side of the ship. One was close enough to the damaged area that it might be too warped to dock with, but the other one hadn’t been hit. “Have you tried to comm them?”

  “Bonita did when she was up here. There was no answer.”

  “Probably nobody in that auxiliary comm cabin to hear it. They may be hiding. Or trying to repair their ship.”

  “That’s what I surmise. I—”

  Their comm panel lit up, and Viggo paused.

  “Is that them? Should I answer it?” Qin frowned at the display. The hail wasn’t coming from the Machu Picchu but from another ship about four hours away.

  “I’m not the captain. You don’t have to ask me.”

  “But you’re more than a hundred years old and wise.”

  Qin hesitated, not sure if she should answer or not. This wasn’t System Cerberus, but that didn’t mean that everyone who wanted to talk would be friendly. She pinged the ship first and tried to get an ident.

  “Nobody has called me that before,” Viggo said.

  “Not even Casmir?”

  “No, but we’ve spent so little time together. Perhaps he would eventually.”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  The ident came back as a freighter called the Maze Runner. The name sounded familiar. Qin didn’t think she’d run into it in the months she’d traveled with Bonita, but it was possible the Druckers had dealt with it in her years working for them.

  “It’s a smuggler,” Viggo said. “That ship is in our database under Captain Amazing. We’ve encountered him before.”

  “Captain Amazing?”

  “Presumably, he named himself. If all is the same as it was two years ago, he is a smuggler and opportunist with a crew of at least twenty, and they’ve got a lot of hidden weapons on the hull of the ship, even though it’s designed to look like they don’t. It’s registered out of Cerberus.”

  “I think I’ll not answer the comm then.”

  “I’ll let Bonita know there’s an old friend who wants to talk to her.”

  “Is he an old friend?”

  “They’ve exchanged gunfire a couple of times. When last they met, she gouged a hole in the side of his temple.”

  “So they’re close to each other.”

  “Their DEW-Tek bolts have been close to each other.”

  Qin definitely wasn’t answering the comm. But the caller was insistent. The comm kept pinging until Bonita clomped out of the ladder well and into navigation.

  “It’s Captain Amazing,” Viggo informed her.

  “What’s he doing in a respectable system?”

  “He seems eager to tell you.”

  Bonita settled into her pod and accepted the comm.

  “Back off, Lopez,” a male voice ordered. “We’ve already laid a salvager’s claim on that ship.”

  “You can’t claim a ship from halfway across the system, you idiot,” Bonita said.

  “Screw you. We’re two hours away.”

  Bonita glanced at the long-range scanner display. “It looks more like four.”

  “If you’re there trying to steal our salvage when we get there, we’ll blow your decrepit garbage scow out of the sky.”

  “Decrepit! Garbage scow!” Viggo’s voice thundered from the speakers. Somewhere, vacuums vroomed like air bikes revving up for a race.

  “You’re offending my ship,” Bonita said blandly.

  Qin rotated her ears away from the hatchway and the roar of the vacuums. She was tempted to grab a couple of cotton balls, but she didn’t want to miss any of this. Her blood warmed as she imagined going into battle with this Captain Amazing.

  “Your ship can suck my cock. If you take anything off our salvage, I’ll blow you all the way back to the gate. This isn’t like Port Blanco. You can’t shoot at me from behind a crate. We’ve got you outgunned a thousand times.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re tougher than a black hole. We’re just going to rescue the crew. The crew that might object to you salvaging their ship while they’re on board it.”

  “Unfortunately, as I’ll report to the authorities, the crew’s not going to have made it. Their comm is down. They’re not telling anyone otherwise. If you don’t want the same report to be filed on you and your noisy garbage scow, you’ll be long gone by the time we get there.”

  The channel went dead.

  “Bonita,” Viggo said, “I want to order more weapons and hull armoring for the Dragon so we don’t have to kowtow to criminals like that.”

  “As soon as we get you paid off with the bank, we can add all the upgrades you want. In the meantime, we’re not kowtowing.”

  “We’re still going to rescue the crew, right, Captain?” Qin rose to her feet. “I’ll go get my armor on. We’ve got time.”

  “Yeah, go get dressed. Viggo, where in the system is that Kingdom ship? The Osprey.”

  “Orbiting Xolas Moon approximately one day away. Two other Kingdom warships are with them, and another one is flying from the moon toward the gate, but it’s not much closer. This is the same small fleet that left Odin when we did.”

  “Let’s send them a message. They might be too far away to have heard the research vessel’s distress call, but they should send some help if they know smugglers are trying to salvage one of their ships.”

  Qin was on her way down the ladder, but she heard Viggo’s reply.

  “Even if they divert that closest ship, it won’t get here in time to stop the Maze Runner.”

  “I’m hoping that some threats from the Kingdom will be enough,” Bonita said.

  “In this system, I doubt it.”

  Qin hopped into her cabin and grabbed her armor and her anti-tank gun. She would be enough. Maybe not to keep the ship from being illegally salvaged, but she could rescue the crew and be back in under three hours.

  Assuming they didn’t see her cat’s ears and fur through her helmet and run off and hide. It was a Kingdom crew. She frowned, worried about the possibility, especially since Bonita would need to stay on the Dragon. She couldn’t go to another ship when an enemy was coming.

  “I’ll rescue them, whether they agree to come along or not,” Qin muttered.

  Casmir checked the settings for his combat armor, wondering why it wasn’t doing a good job of keeping the temperature at an optimal point for his body. The SmartWeave of a galaxy suit always did, and he’d assumed this would be superior. If combat armor could handle an icy ocean or the even icier dominion of space, why would it have trouble maintaining an accurate temperature in a climate-controlled submarine?

  He tugged at the hard collar, tempted to remove more than his helmet. What would Rache and his mercenaries think if he wandered around naked? Not that he had wandering in mind. He felt more like lying down for a nap. Why couldn’t Rache have locked them in a bedroom rather than an office?

  “You doing all right, Casmir?” Asger had his hands clasped behind his back and was pacing, as he had been for the last hour.

  “Fine. I’m just warm. And thirsty.” Casmir looked around but didn’t see any water. “Aren’t kidnappers supposed to provide beverages for their hostages? If that’s not covered in the Intersystem War Treaty, it definitely should be.”

  “I think it is mentioned in the humane conditions chapter.”

  “I knew it.”

  “According to my sensors,” Zee said from the spot he’d taken up next to the locked hatch, “your body temperature is elevated.”

  “I have a fever?” Casmir plastered a hand to his forehead and groaned. “I’m sick? I don’t mean to kvetch, but this isn’t fair, Asger. I can’t be sick now. There’s too much to do.”

  Asger stopped pacing and stared at him. He glanced at the hatch—Kim still hadn’t come back—and then stared at Casmir some more.

  “Are you just now noticing how radiant and appealing I am?” Casmir scratched an itch on his cheek. His skin felt rough, as if he’d been hugging a cat or some other animal he was allergic to.

  “Something like that,”
Asger murmured, though his eyes appeared more worried than amused.

  He probably didn’t want to get sick from whatever bug Casmir had caught. Unfortunately, they were stuck together in this cabin.

  “Sorry,” Casmir said. “I’ll try not to breathe on you.”

  Asger started to say something, but the hatch opened. Rache leaned his head in and looked right at Zee, as if waiting to see if he would attack before committing himself to entering.

  Zee gazed back indifferently. Casmir had told him only to pursue his usual bodyguard duties here, not to be aggressive with anyone. Even if Rache might deserve some aggression—Casmir didn’t believe his rescue had been anything more than an excuse to snag him for his knowledge—Kim could give him that when he inevitably spoke to her. Probably in front of all of his men, because Casmir doubted Kim would allow Rache to talk to her alone in an airlock after this stunt. At least, that was his hope.

  “Let’s have a chat, Casmir,” Rache said.

  “What’s the matter? Are you lonely with only the company of your stolid and unimaginative mercenaries?” Casmir’s eye blinked. Would he ever stop feeling nervous around Rache?

  “They have excellent imaginations. Just a minute ago, Corporal Chains was regaling the others with amusing stories of sexual conquests that were obviously made up.”

  “I bet.”

  Rache crooked a finger. “Come.”

  He walked out of the cabin without waiting to see if Casmir actually did.

  Asger rolled his eyes.

  Casmir was tempted to stay where he was, but he was curious if there was any sign yet of the astroshaman base. He was also curious if Rache had a better plan than the Kingdom submarines did—insofar as Casmir had been informed. Ishii and the marines had all been tight-lipped when he’d asked how they planned to defeat the technologically superior astroshamans. Casmir hoped it involved more than rowing up in their tourist submarines and spitting torpedoes.

  “Breathe on him when you’re out there,” Asger said as Casmir passed.

  Casmir snapped his fingers and pointed at him. “An excellent plan. I shall endeavor to do so.”