Gate Quest (Star Kingdom Book 5)

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Is he all right?” Rache asked.

  “I will protect Casmir Dabrowski.” Zee stopped beside Casmir to stand protectively above him. “I did not observe him being shot, so I deduce there is a ninety-seven percent probability that he is experiencing a seizure.”

  “No shit,” Rache said. “Sergeant Cabrera, get over here with your med-kit.”

  “Do we hold his head or something?” Asger wanted to help but was afraid to touch him. Casmir’s helmet rocked about as his legs continued to twitch.

  “His armor should insulate him well enough.” Rache crouched and turned Casmir onto his side. “As long as he doesn’t puke in his helmet.”

  As the mercenary with the first-aid kit arrived, the seizure thankfully wound down. Asger didn’t trust a combat medic to have experience with something like this. He wished Kim were here. Even if she wasn’t a medical doctor, he believed she would know what to do.

  Rache barked a handful of names and said, “Get the Stellar Drill set up. Fast. Moonrazor is still alive somewhere in the compound and probably turning her attention on us.” He waved at Casmir. “That was no random robot malfunction. She targeted his weakness directly.”

  “Wonderful,” Asger muttered, watching Casmir through his faceplate.

  His limbs had stopped twitching, but his eyes were moving behind his lids, his lashes flickering. Asger bit his lip, willing those eyes to open. Normally, he would assume Casmir would wake up and pull through, but with the virus and everything else going on…

  What if he didn’t?

  “Boss,” the medic said, “we lost Tango. His head was blown off. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “I know,” Rache said. “Funeral later. Do you have anything that can wake Dabrowski up? We need him to deactivate the gate, or we’ll frag everything on the ship by bringing it aboard.”

  Asger glared at Rache, furious that all he cared about was the stupid gate. And furious that it was all Jager cared about too. Casmir was an engineer, not an elite soldier. He shouldn’t have been sent down here.

  “Uh, I can check his blood sugar and electrolytes if we get his helmet off. It’s a chronic condition, right?” The medic waved at Casmir’s undamaged helmet. “Not from a head trauma? He should wake up on his own.”

  Mercenaries with packs on their shoulders rushed off to an open area in the chamber. Asger had no idea what the Stellar Drill was and didn’t care. He was on the verge of carrying Casmir back to the submarine so Kim and a real doctor could care for him—and so he could be someplace relatively safe.

  But it had taken them hours to walk all the way back here. Even if Asger ran all the way to the harbor and didn’t take any wrong turns, would it be fast enough to help?

  And would Rache let him take Casmir?

  Asger eyed Rache, remembering their last fight. And that he’d been losing it when help had jumped in. He might have to send Zee back with Casmir instead. Surely, Zee could run faster than Asger and never get tired, and Asger could keep Rache and his men from impeding him.

  “Casmir?” Rache reached past Zee to pat his chest. “Are you going to wake up, man? What’d that bitch do to you?”

  Asger jerked at the realization that Moonrazor might have done more than order the robot to flash that light. Earlier, she had been attacking his chip. What if she’d found some way to harm his brain through it? It wasn’t supposed to be possible, but she was some hacker extraordinaire. Who knew what was possible for her?

  “Zee.” Asger stood and faced Rache. “Take Casmir back to the submarine as fast as you can so Kim can help him.”

  Rache rose to his feet and gripped Zee’s arm. “No. Casmir is here to deactivate the gate. Once he does that, you can take him back.”

  Zee looked down at Rache’s hand.

  “He can’t deactivate anything right now,” Asger growled. “He’s not waking up.”

  “Give him a few minutes.”

  “He could be dying.”

  “It’s just a seizure.”

  “He has the Great Plague, asshole.”

  Zee plucked Rache’s hand from his arm.

  Rache barely seemed to notice. He faced Asger fully, his hands curled into fists. “Which won’t change if he’s taken back to the sub.”

  “It will if Kim gets him back to the Osprey and off this forsaken moon.” Asger watched those fists and watched Rache, almost wanting him to take a swing, so he would have an excuse to fight back.

  Why was Zee still here? He ought to take Casmir and go.

  “You don’t know that,” Rache said. “He would rather do something meaningful before the end. I know I would.”

  “This isn’t meaningful.” Asger flung a hand toward the stacks of behemoth hunks of metal. “He doesn’t care about the gate. He never did. He’s only here because Jager ordered it.”

  “Jager can shove his head up his ass—further than it already is.”

  “Zee,” Asger ordered. “Take Casmir back to the sub now, for his own good. Your job is to protect him, so protect him.”

  Zee bent to gather Casmir in his arms, but Rache lunged forward, reaching for the crusher.

  Asger sprang and punched him in the chest, knocking Rache back into the chamber.

  Rache twisted in the air, landing on his feet in a crouch and facing Asger. A pistol had appeared in his hand, and he pointed it at Asger’s chest.

  Asger might have scoffed, but ten of his men rushed forward to stand beside their boss, and far greater weapons came to bear on him. His armor couldn’t withstand all of them. And there was a chance that Casmir would be hit.

  “Get him out of here, Zee.” Asger stepped forward to block Zee’s retreat from the mercenaries’ sights.

  He wondered if it was the last thing he would ever do.

  18

  As Kim eased the submarine out of its improvised docking spot next to a pillar, she did her best not to bump it.

  Well aware of the other two submarines in the underwater harbor, she didn’t want to draw any attention. A vain hope, perhaps. Unless the pilots inside them were sleeping, there was little chance they wouldn’t see Bubbles 3 scooting back the way it had come.

  Would the other submarines give chase? She hoped not. With the mandated comm silence, they couldn’t question her, so she hoped they would assume the pilot knew something they didn’t know, not that he was drooling on the deck in the back.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Yas waved at the control panel from the hatchway to navigation.

  She held up an instruction book she’d found, open to the Quick and Dirty Navigation Tips for Tour Operators (aquatic license required) section.

  Yas shook his head. “I knew I was insane to go along with this.”

  Maybe she should have simply said yes. But as she’d so recently told him, she hated lying.

  “I spent several minutes reading that and familiarizing myself with the controls,” Kim said. “I’ve also played Sub Saviors with Casmir.”

  “And that is what?”

  “A video game where you navigate your submarine through the oceans of Odin, shooting the mutant creatures that mad scientist invaders drop from orbit to attack the planet’s harbors.” Kim didn’t mention that she’d only let Casmir talk her into playing a couple of times. She always had work to do, work that she preferred doing to playing games. But whenever they’d both been busy and barely seen each other for weeks, she agreed to spending bonding time engaged in “fun” activities, as he assured her they were.

  A lump formed in her throat as the memories surfaced, and she bit her lip hard enough to give her mind something else to focus on. She was doing this for Casmir. And she thought he might even approve. Stealing a submarine and steering it off to blow things up after spending ten minutes reading a technical manual was exactly the kind of thing he would do.

  Except that he had a great aptitude for anything mechanical, and he could get away with studying something for a few minutes and then operating it proficiently. She, on the other
hand…

  “We’re not going far,” she said, as much to reassure herself as Yas. “Just far enough that the explosions and breaking the ice won’t threaten the integrity of the base.”

  She glanced back and caught a worried expression on his face. That made her wish she hadn’t looked back.

  She’d been surprised he had agreed to go along with this and wasn’t sure if it was because he felt he owed her a favor or because he wasn’t that loyal to the mercenaries. She wouldn’t ask, lest he have reason to rethink his cooperation, go back and get another injector of sedative, and stab her in the neck while she was piloting.

  “The tunnel was long and winding from what I saw,” Yas said.

  “I know. I’m going slowly.”

  “Did you figure out how many torpedoes there are?”

  “Eight left. More than I thought.”

  “Enough to blow through a kilometer of ice?”

  Kim hesitated. She’d played around with a few equations, but she was missing too many variables to solve them—she had no idea what the thickness of the ice was or the explosive potential of the torpedoes—so she was operating on a best guess. She was also hoping that the bombs that had been going off in the base had weakened the overall ice shelf above this area of the ocean.

  “If it doesn’t work, we won’t have lost anything,” Kim said. “We were just twiddling our thumbs. If nothing else, a few more explosives going off near the base might distract our common enemy.”

  “We might lose our lives if the mercs wake up before we’re done,” Yas pointed out.

  “How long will they be out?”

  “An hour or so.”

  Kim grimaced. That wasn’t much time. They might have to figure out how to get the men out of their armor and lock them in one of the cabins. Would that be enough to contain them? They might have cybernetic enhancements that increased their strength.

  Yas sighed. “I can dose them again if we need it.”

  “Thank you.”

  She narrowly missed a pillar as she slid them out of the harbor and into the tunnel. Fortunately, she was going slowly and had time to correct, but as she soon found out, the tunnel wasn’t a uniform depth underwater, and she had to tinker with the ballast tanks to raise and lower them slightly. Which promptly made her wonder how much air the submarine had to work with.

  At least the other vessels weren’t moving to follow them, not yet. Would they if Bubbles 3 didn’t return? They probably knew that she—Rache’s prisoner—was here, but she doubted they would guess she’d managed to overcome the two men and Yas.

  Time bled past as she ponderously navigated the submarine through the tunnel, hoping none of those creatures showed up. She knew they’d attacked the men as they entered those doors, and that the mercenaries had killed a bunch of them. She didn’t know if they had killed all of them, but the pilot had reported they’d disappeared after the explosions had started. Kim hoped that meant they’d been scared away.

  “This looks like a good spot,” she said as their tunnel opened up into the sea, a uniform white-blue ceiling of ice stretching as far as the lights reached.

  “Next question: what happens to us when we start shooting torpedoes over our heads?” Yas eyed that ice ceiling. “You’ll have to fire from straight below if you want them to hit vertically and blow upward, right?”

  “They’re guided torpedoes, so, no.” Kim tapped the improvised control box that Rache’s men had wired into the navigation console. “But it’s just ice above us.”

  “A kilometer of ice is still going to be heavy.”

  “Not heavier than the water.”

  “Oh.” Yas digested that. “I see. It’s going to have to blow downward though, at least to some extent, right?”

  “I’m honestly not sure what’s going to happen, Yas. I can’t access the network to download information about demolitions, and I suspect this is a pretty unique scenario, regardless. We’ll shoot from a ways down and off to the side.” Kim took the sub down as she spoke, empty black water all around them, and she wondered if Casmir truly would approve of this, or if he would think she was taking an unnecessary risk.

  No, it was a necessary risk. She didn’t know how much time he had, and she feared it wouldn’t be enough. She couldn’t lose her best friend, not if there was something she could do.

  “Programming the first torpedo,” Kim said.

  “Grabbing my wang.”

  She threw him a startled look.

  Yas raised his eyebrows. “Is that not an expression in the Kingdom?”

  “I think not in reference to torpedoes… or nonsexual activities.”

  “Oh. It means I’m bracing myself.”

  “And your wang.”

  “A man’s most important appendage.”

  Kim wondered if her erudite doctor had been around the mercenaries too long. Poor Yas. Honor bound to continue to serve Rache, whether he wanted to or not.

  “Thank you for your help in this,” Kim said. “And for risking Rache’s ire.”

  “I’m more worried about the ire of those two back there, but you’re welcome. If this works, will you do me a favor?”

  “What?”

  “I want to help a friend—you met her. Chief Jess Khonsari. She’s in a lot of pain, but she won’t come in for an exam.”

  “This seems to be a theme on your ship.”

  “You noticed.”

  “No, you told me.”

  Kim got the submarine into a spot deep enough that they shouldn’t be in danger from debris that might drop down—or the force of the shockwave itself—and she picked her spot on the ice ceiling, tapping the coordinates into the torpedo launcher. She was nervous about damaging the submarine but reminded herself that numerous torpedoes had gone off near them during the skirmish earlier, and they’d survived. The more legitimate concern was likely that they would do nothing rather than do something horribly destructive that wrecked their craft. If only she had scientific equipment that could measure the density of the ice and suggest a weak spot.

  “I’d like to help her overcome the addiction she tells me she doesn’t have and, more than that, come up with a way to take away her pain. I don’t know if it’s from her cybernetic implants or if it’s less physical and more from the loss of her family and the stress and guilt of being a survivor. Your bacteria seem so versatile, and I’m aware that intestinal microflora play a role in several mood-stabilizing neurotransmitters and neuromodulators that work on the brain. Is there anything you or your research corporation have that might help? I think she might be more amenable to taking some probiotic concoction that a female friend gave her rather than something her doctor prescribed.”

  “Probiotic concoction, really, Dr. Peshlakai. You make it sound like we make yogurt.”

  “Sorry, but you know what I mean.”

  Kim fired the first torpedo. It zipped outward, then arced up toward the ice.

  “I might be able to customize something for her,” she said. “Trauma can vastly alter the landscape of the gut. A fecal sample would give me insight into her current species and strains of intestinal bacteria, and it’s very possible that some tweaking could have a positive impact on her ability to cope. But it would be good for her to have a full exam to check for more obvious issues. Although…”

  Kim paused to watch her torpedo hit via the submarine’s limited scanners that, according to instructions on a plaque, were designed more to help tour guides find aquatic wildlife for their passengers to view than anything else. The tip of the torpedo, even with all the power propelling it, only appeared to burrow in inches. A foot at the most. When it exploded, the shockwave barely disturbed the submarine.

  She frowned at the scanner, not picking up much in the way of ice knocked away. There was a divot that hadn’t been there before, but it was laughable compared to the overall thickness of the glacial mass.

  Kim fired another torpedo, but her hopes were already sinking. And she was feeling foolish. Even if demo
litions were far from her area of expertise, she should have guessed that the sheer thickness of the ice would make this next to impossible. Rache’s people must have used a long, sustained blast from the ship’s energy weapons to melt their entry hole.

  “Although?” Yas prompted.

  “Sorry. I was going to say that she might be more likely to go to another doctor. Maybe suggest a woman who has no relation to you or your ship and won’t report any issues that are found to Rache.”

  “There’s no reason why she should prefer a female doctor to… Oh, Rache. I hadn’t thought about that. Do you think she’s worried that I’d declare her unfit for duty if something came up? I mean, I’m confidential to a point with people’s medical records, but it’s not like a hospital setting. Your allegiance is to the captain and you have to make sure to report if anyone is a danger to the crew or the ship.” Yas drummed his fingers on the back of the nearest seat. “I’d like to scoff and say that Rache wouldn’t care if Jess had a few… flaws come up, but is that true? His men aren’t all geniuses, but he does select people who are very good at what they do, even if killing people is their only specialty. Jess is smart and her specialty is engineering, but if she’s struggling, and her brain isn’t working as well as it should be—hell, there was an incident right before I left where she was in so much pain she could barely keep going. Damn it. Rache might take her off the job if he knew how much she was enduring. Or he could demote her and put someone else in charge. I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate that.”

  Kim listened as he muttered to himself, but she was focused on the ice. Her second and third torpedoes made the hole larger, but she reluctantly accepted that her plan was laughable. This wasn’t going to work.

  Nonetheless, she fired a fourth torpedo. Even if all she managed was to form a crack that went to the surface… wasn’t it possible that might be enough for a signal to get through? A very, very focused signal perhaps.

  “I guess I need to find a nice doctor who isn’t me or related to the ship to send her to,” Yas said after a reflective pause. “If she’ll go.”