Planet Killer (Star Kingdom Book 6)

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Is that what you want? You scarcely seem a man repentant and regretful of your sins.”

  “I know. I didn’t think I’d miss the Kingdom or Odin after Thea was gone. I wasn’t that close to my foster brothers, and Lord Lichtenberg was always a distant, hard-to-please figure. Lady Lichtenberg was nice enough. I’d be upset if I learned she died. I don’t find myself missing people that much, but I miss the forest, the evergreen branches dripping after a rain, the grasses full of dew, and the damp, gray beaches and the smell of the sea and the salt air misting my cheeks. Maybe it’s just hiraeth, but since learning that Odin is being bombed, I’ve caught myself thinking that I’d be sad if I never got to walk barefoot on the beach outside of Lichtenberg Manor again. I should have done that when I was there to help you.”

  Kim didn’t know what to say to his voiced nostalgia. It was hard not to suggest that he’d brought it on himself. Even though she understood why he was so very angry with Jager, she couldn’t see it as justification for all that he’d done. She hated that he was so willing to kill soldiers to hurt Jager, men whose only crimes had been being born into the Kingdom and finding work that suited them.

  She dropped her chin, feeling it was a betrayal to all those dead that she was here talking to Rache. That she’d come to care for him.

  “Casmir isn’t noble or anywhere in the line for succession,” she murmured. “The Senate would laugh if he attempted to proclaim himself king.”

  “Conquerors don’t worry about succession lines,” Rache said dryly.

  “The Senate would also laugh if he tried to proclaim himself a conqueror.” Kim almost choked, imagining what Casmir’s parents’ reaction would be. Even as a mental exercise, this contemplation boggled her mind.

  “I wonder,” Rache murmured.

  “You didn’t mention Oku. Does she also need to be slain? Because I’m positive Casmir won’t sign on for that.”

  He wouldn’t sign on to slay anyone, not even people who deserved it.

  “No,” Rache said. “We were never close, but she wasn’t the whiny brat that Jorg was. I did my knight’s training with him. What a joke that he could even pretend he would selflessly sacrifice himself for someone, which is one of the core tenets in the Knights’ Code.”

  Kim almost pointed out that selfless sacrifice didn’t seem to be Rache’s modus operandi either, but that was perhaps not fair. He might risk his life for someone he cared about. Or for something he cared about. He’d been willing to risk it all to keep Jager from getting that gate. She wondered if he’d managed to get any pieces for himself after all that, and if he had, what he would do with them.

  “For my vision, Oku would simply have to step aside,” Rache decided. “Which she might. She was always far more interested in examining beetles on the sidewalk and capturing fireflies in jars than in listening to Lichtenberg and her father talk politics.”

  “How old was she when she was doing that?”

  It hardly seemed fair to judge someone’s leadership potential by their age-seven antics.

  “That was at all ages I knew her, I believe,” he said dryly. “Though by her teens, she was capturing the fireflies so she could breed the ones with a predisposition toward eating the larvae of slugs, thus to keep slugs from infesting her gardens.”

  That story made Kim want to spend time with Oku, not dismiss her as someone to be pushed out of the way. Not that Rache’s fanciful imaginings had anything to do with reality or would come to pass. It was odd that he was voicing such things. Maybe he’d sampled a few of the mushrooms before coming in.

  “What I wanted to ask you,” Rache said, “is about your story.”

  Nerves rattled in her belly like autumn branches bare of leaves. She’d expected this, and even wanted to talk to him about literature, but maybe she’d been silly to share something of hers. Even though he’d professed to like the fantasy trilogy she’d published under a pen name, what if he had more critiques than accolades for the short story?

  “I liked that you gave your parasitic protozoan intelligence and had it wrestle with its urges, knowing that it was, in destroying its host to feed, destroying its home and ultimately itself. In my arrogance, I did wonder if you wrote it for me and were giving me a message.” His eyebrow twitched.

  Kim decided it was a vociferous twitch. “As a professor of mine once said, it matters not what the author intends but what the reader takes away.”

  He chuckled. “True enough.”

  “Is that the question you feared I wouldn’t answer?” She admitted that she hadn’t answered it, not really.

  “No.” Rache gazed thoughtfully at her. “I also noticed a lot of scientific vocabulary in the story. Which makes sense given your background and that it was, at least on the surface, about a biological matter. But I remembered another author I read who used a similarly scientific vocabulary in what was a fantastical story set in a made-up world.”

  “Ah.” The single syllable came out dry. Or maybe that was her throat.

  Had the short story truly been enough to link her to her allegory-writing pen name?

  “Since I was curious,” Rache continued, “I ran a software program to analyze and compare the works. Your short story and the published fantasy trilogy by this author. I suspected you were familiar with the work, since I saw the signed copies in your mother’s apartment and you reacted to me lifting one off the shelf. At first, I thought you might also be a fan of the author and have modeled your writing after his. His, as I assumed from the initials, though I suppose there was no reason for me to assume that, other than there were few bathing scenes.”

  Kim blinked. “Few what?”

  “I’ve noticed that female authors tend to write more about sybaritic pleasures, at least in that genre, than men. Hot springs in caves were frequent occurrences in my childhood reading.”

  “But only by female authors?”

  “It was a noticeable trend. The male authors always wrote of battles and sleeping on the ground if the characters slept at all. Anyway, I ran the software program, and the computer estimated with eighty-seven percent certainty that the short story and the trilogy were penned by the same author.”

  “Interesting.”

  Rache gazed at her. No, it was more of an intense scrutiny than a gaze.

  A part of her wanted to keep her secret, even though she didn’t think he would react poorly to the revelation. He’d liked the work, after all; he’d said as much. Right now, Casmir was the only one who knew of her secret fiction-writing hobby. But she decided Rache would appreciate being trusted with the knowledge.

  “I wrote them during my summers off while I was going to graduate school,” Kim said. “They didn’t sell that well, so my publisher didn’t ask for anything else in that genre. I tried a thriller the following summer, sort of a mindless let’s-write-something-that-might-actually-sell project. My editor took out all my five-syllable words and replaced them with five-letter words. Or fewer. It didn’t do badly. I have a standing invitation to write more of those, but I’ve been too busy with work, and I’m more fond of stories that actually have something to say.”

  Rache continued gazing at her through the admission. She couldn’t tell if he was stunned or rapt or simply thoughtful. He’d been fairly certain when he walked in, after all. Eighty-seven-percent certain, anyway.

  “I think that if I fell at your knees and asked you to autograph my copies, you’d be uncomfortable rather than flattered,” Rache finally said. “So I’ll refrain.”

  “Yes. Thank you.” Kim decided he’d grown to know her fairly well in their short times together, but she realized she shouldn’t refuse to sign them. She’d signed her mom’s copies, after all. But that had been as a joke that they had both been in on. It hadn’t been an attempt to pass herself off as someone else. This felt… weird.

  “Are you all right? You look like you’re panicking. I didn’t mean to make you feel awkward. That’s why I brought the mushrooms.”

  Kim s
norted. “No, it’s fine. It just seems borderline dishonest to sign as a fake entity. Obviously, I did it for my mom, but that was different. Maybe if I had more experience, I wouldn’t feel that way. You caught me off guard.” She realized he might not have spoken literally. “Do you actually have physical copies?”

  If he didn’t, she couldn’t sign anything.

  “Yes.” He smiled lopsidedly. “That’s why I’m distressed that someone has developed a way to see through the ship’s slydar hull. This is my only home, so my books are here. I would be upset to lose them. The ship and the crew, too, of course, but mostly my books. Some are very old and were hard to obtain.”

  “Maybe you could get a safe deposit box on some neutral planet.”

  “Then I couldn’t admire them and read choice passages again from time to time. As I do with yours.”

  Kim looked at the deck, uncomfortable with that look of admiration. She’d never been comfortable with admiration, but having it come from someone she’d developed feelings for made it all much more complicated. And—yes, he was right—awkward.

  “Sorry, I’ll stop staring at you with rapt adoration now.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  “I suppose I’d better get back to trying to find blueprints for that moon base.”

  Kim looked at him again. “Are you going to help us… get in?”

  She’d almost said help us kidnap Dubashi. But Casmir had been careful not to mention that, and as much as she wanted Rache to be on her side in this, she feared he wouldn’t be.

  He took a deep breath and shifted his gaze to the wall above the bunks. “I haven’t decided what I’ll do. I want to protect you, and you seem determined to fling yourself into danger with Casmir, who is for some reason on a suicide mission for a random Miners’ Union leader he can’t know that well. But I’ve been hoping I could use the chaos of this war to more easily get to Jager. I’ve had the thought that Dubashi might even offer me that gig.”

  “Assassination?” Kim tried to keep her tone neutral, but an icy chill zapped her nerves.

  “Yes. I’d do it for free, naturally, but… I mentioned my fears to you the last time we spoke. I think I’d be more fully committed if it was a job. In ten years as a mercenary, even though I’ve been injured and almost killed and taken losses of equipment and men, I’ve never failed to complete a job.”

  Was it a betrayal that Kim hoped Dubashi didn’t offer him that contract?

  Rache stood, but before heading for the exit, he bowed deeply to her, as if he were the knight he’d once trained to be. “I understand you’re busy with your career, but should you ever wish to write more books of any kind, and you’re not interested in your publisher’s mandates, I would happily open a publishing house to print them for you. Across all the Twelve Systems, should you give me the rights to do so.”

  “Because starting a publishing company is a small matter.” Kim smiled to hide that she was flustered. She should have thanked him instead of making a snarky comment.

  “In the grand scheme of businesses, it’s not too complicated, not in this day and age. You don’t even need to buy a press. Pequod Holding Company has started and invested in numerous businesses, so I’m not without means.”

  “Thank you.” Kim stood, feeling she should see him out, or maybe hug him for his offer, even if she couldn’t see herself taking him up on it. Having her work published by a criminal and enemy of the Kingdom was scandalous at best. “I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my stories.”

  She clasped his hands. For once, they weren’t enshrouded in gloves, just as his face wasn’t hidden behind that featureless mask. His skin was warm, his palms calloused, and she realized his face wasn’t far from hers. Maybe standing up had been a mistake. Getting this close had been a mistake. What if he kissed her? What if she kissed him?

  His gaze traced her face, her lips, and he lifted a hand to her cheek, but it hovered an inch away. He arched his eyebrows. A question. Could he touch her? She had a feeling he’d never asked a woman before, had just assumed that anyone holding his hands would want it—would want him.

  Did she? And if she did, would it be a betrayal to her people and all those he’d killed?

  She felt a tension and frustration that she wasn’t sure was sexual or just stress. She closed her eyes and slumped forward, pressing her forehead to his shoulder instead of kissing him.

  “Why did you have to say you’re thinking of assassinating my king, David?” she mumbled.

  He sighed softly. “Because he’s an asshole. And I apparently don’t have the knack of wooing complicated women.”

  She shook her head but didn’t pull away from him. “I’m not sure I’m the complicated one here.”

  “Maybe we both are. Maybe that’s why I brought the mushrooms.”

  She laughed, and some of the tension seeped from her. She leaned into him, and after a moment’s hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her. It wasn’t unpleasant. Which was the problem.

  “Clearly, I made a mistake in not trying them,” she said.

  “I thought so,” he said mildly and stroked her hair.

  She let him.

  22

  Casmir swigged his anti-seizure medication with a swallow of water, sanitized his teeth, and went back to the bottom bunk in his cabin.

  Kim hadn’t returned since wandering off with Rache. He tried not to think about them doing lurid things together in her cabin—or his. It was too disturbing. In part because Rache was still a criminal, even if he’d helped them, and in part because she’d always so firmly dismissed any interest in touching or close-up human contact—it warped his reality to think of her doing lurid things at all. He’d always assumed she would one day find some brainy scientist who was equally indifferent to touching, and that they would have a nice wholesome relationship where, if they had children, they would employ test tubes and artificial wombs. Rache was neither nice nor wholesome.

  If he was honest with himself, it bothered him that she might consider Rache as a mate when she’d never looked at him with even vague romantic interest. She was far more likely to be exasperated than interested if he wandered around the house shirtless, and tell him he was scaring the squirrels on the back fence. He’d accepted from the day they first met that she wasn’t interested in a relationship with him—she’d made sure to establish the no-touching rule right up front—and that had never bothered him, but it didn’t seem… right that she could have zero interest in him but be attracted to someone with the same face. Yes, Rache had all those muscles, but of all women, surely Kim should be able to appreciate someone for his mind. Rache’s mind couldn’t be an appealing thing to peer into. It just couldn’t.

  Sighing, Casmir dimmed the lights for the night. But he didn’t slide into the sleep sack that was supposed to keep him comfortable while protecting him should anything happen to the ship’s gravity. He hadn’t yet figured out what he was going to do when the Fedallah reached the prince’s moon base.

  He’d considered waiting for Rache to disembark for his meeting and then sneaking off with his crushers to hunt for and kidnap the prince, but he suspected the moon base would be full of guards. Even with the crushers, Casmir feared he would need an ally to get into the base and find Dubashi. If Rache planned to accept a contract from Dubashi to go fight against the Kingdom, he wouldn’t agree to help Casmir kidnap his putative employer.

  Rache might even lock him in his cabin or the brig if he realized what Casmir planned. Casmir didn’t think Rache would hand him over to Dubashi, now that they had a relationship of sorts, but he wasn’t entirely positive about that. He dared not put his fate in Rache’s hands.

  “I’m going to need autonomy,” he murmured, now wondering if it had been a mistake to leave the station with Kim. She probably would have been fine alone with Rache, and it wasn’t as if Bjarke had been after him. He could have finished minting the rest of the crushers and then found another ride to the base. Maybe. It did seem like it would be best to make
his move during this big meeting. Presumably, there would be a lot of ships and people coming and going, so it would be easier to sneak onto the base.

  “If there is somewhere on this ship that you wish to go,” Zee said from his spot by the door, “I will accompany you and ensure you are not deterred.”

  “Thank you, Zee. I was thinking more of how I’m going to find the freedom to complete my promise to the sultan once we get to the moon base.”

  “You now have a mighty army to command. We can protect you and take you anywhere.”

  Casmir smiled. “Have you had any promising conversations with any of them yet?”

  Zee hesitated. Casmir didn’t think he’d ever noticed him hesitating. Much like an android, Zee could process options a thousand times faster than a human being, so it wasn’t as if he needed time to think.

  “They have not yet developed interesting personalities,” Zee said.

  “It did take you a while to do that yourself. And for me too. You’d be waiting even longer for a freshly birthed human to develop into anything except a squirming, crying little creature. Though I’ve heard watching the process can be fun.” He smiled wistfully, wondering if he would ever have children. He’d always thought it would happen someday, that he’d meet that perfect someone and have at least two kids—as he could attest, being an only child could be lonely—but with his fate so up in the air, dare he continue to expect that future?

  Even if something came of his video exchanges with Oku—alas, he hadn’t received a new one since arriving in System Stymphalia—was he foolish to imagine a future in which they might be permitted to get married? And have children? He knew it was silly to speculate about such a thing with someone he barely knew, but he feared the king would forbid his daughter from marrying some scruffy clone.

  “I have had occasional exchanges with Tork, but since messages must be carried through the wormhole gate on a ship, they are delayed by days,” Zee said, apparently having no opinion on babies. “It is not an efficient way to compete in a network game.”