She’d gone into the king’s offices that morning and tried to get an update from Senator Boehm on the war and what was happening with Jorg—and Casmir—in System Stymphalia, but he and the rest of her father’s staff had shooed her out, promising she was safe and didn’t need to concern herself with any of this. She’d crossed her arms, attempting to be stern and stubborn, even though it wasn’t in her nature, and had refused to leave until someone gave her some information. Boehm had merely walked away, saying he had a meeting. At a loss and with nobody to be stern to, she’d slunk out.
Oku wished Casmir would send her a message and let her know what was happening in System Stymphalia—and with him. But she hadn’t heard from him in more than a week. She didn’t even know if her message had made it through the blockade on one of the automated courier ships yet.
“You need something to do, Your Highness,” Maddie commented as Oku walked past for the twentieth time.
The Citadel was as safe as the castle, but nobody was willing to entertain Oku’s suggestion that she didn’t need a bodyguard here. Maddie had drawn the short straw that morning.
“I pulled all the weeds in the garden.” Oku waved to what had been a tidy pile of discards and what was now a scattered pile surrounding a hole. Chasca was digging for who knew what.
“You need something to do that a robot couldn’t do.”
“Robots can do a lot.” Oku was sure Casmir would agree.
She understood Maddie’s point though and was about to ask for suggestions when she spotted Casmir’s mother, Irena, walking through the courtyard with an older woman who had also come in on the bus. They paused, and Irena directed her friend to do a few stretches.
The guards were keeping an eye on them but didn’t insist that they return to their rooms. It had been two days since any ships had gotten through to the city with bombs. Oku hoped that meant everyone was safe, and they could all go home soon, but it might only signal the calm in the eye of the storm.
She headed toward Irena, not sure what she wanted to ask, but curious if Casmir had sent his mother any messages. Maybe it was because she was stuck here without access to her work, but she found herself missing his chatty updates. However, she was scared of what his response would be to the one her father had recorded, so maybe it was good that she hadn’t heard back.
“Good morning, Princess Oku.” Irena curtsied.
“Good morning, Mrs. Dabrowski,” Oku said.
Irena’s friend also offered a greeting, then walked to one of the garden benches to sit down.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Casmir?” Irena asked.
“No. I thought you might have.”
“He wrote several times when he was in System Hydra, I believe it was, but I haven’t heard anything in a couple of weeks. And it’s always hard to tell how he’s actually doing when he does communicate. He jokes around and uses humor to downplay the seriousness of things instead of telling us what’s really going on.” Irena shook her head. “I remember him coming home from school as a boy with a swollen eye and a bloody nose. In a fit of parental worry and indignation, I demanded to know what happened. He neatly sidestepped the question by saying he’d decided to do an experiment to see if a person’s blood pressure affected the rate at which blood flows from a wound.”
Oku, not certain if Casmir’s parents knew about his run-in with the Great Plague yet, didn’t mention it—though this story possibly explained why he’d neglected to tell Oku about it. “Did you ever find out what happened?”
“Yes, but only because another boy’s mother commed to force her son into apologizing to Casmir for tripping him, as he called it.” Irena’s eyes narrowed at the memory. “As if you can give yourself a black eye while falling. He didn’t even have any scratches on his hands. Oh, well. It’s the distant past now, and fortunately, Casmir was never the type to hold a grudge or plot revenge on someone for a wrong. His father isn’t either. After such events, Aleksy would always come up with a lecture for Casmir about how forgiveness, not anger, would help him resist yetzer hara, and that it would make him a boring target to his tormentors. That may have been true, or it may simply have been that as Casmir got older, he got crafty about finding ways to protect himself.”
“He mentioned the robot bodyguard he built.” Oku looked up yetzer hara on her chip instead of asking for a definition, not wanting to remind Casmir’s mother that she wasn’t of their faith. She wondered what his parents would think if they found out about her father’s… offer. Could she truly call it that? Her father’s manipulation was more like it.
“Yes.” Irena smiled. “He got good at using his humor to deflect attacks too. If you make people laugh, he’d say, they’ll forget they want to punch you. He learned to use it like a shield, which helped him, but it can be hard to get a serious answer out of him if he doesn’t want to give it. You’re never quite sure when he’s really hurting inside.”
Oku looked down at her feet. She knew about shields. She’d learned to make them herself, not to keep people from hurting her but to keep them from realizing she existed at all. It had seemed the safest way to avoid being used or drawn into political quarrels, but after so many years of that, she feared she’d hidden herself so well that she’d given up all the power and influence inherent in her position. Nobody consulted her, confided in her, or kept her in the loop, and it was frustrating now that so much was going on.
“I hope he’s not hurting, wherever he is,” Oku said when she noticed the pensive expression on Irena’s face. “I’ve been trying to get updates about what’s going on in System Stymphalia, but I’m not…” She bit her lip, hesitant to admit how powerless she was. But would Irena judge her? Wasn’t she in the same position? “I don’t have a lot of power in my father’s court. It’s been hard to realize I don’t know how to change that. I’ve tried to, ahem, assert myself, but it didn’t go well.”
She had influence among other academics, but that did her no good here.
“Assert yourself?” Irena raised her eyebrows.
“Yes. Sternly. With one of the senators.”
“If my years of marriage and treating male clients have taught me anything, it’s that they’re more likely to respond to empathy than sternness, at least from women.”
“I’m not sure how to empathize with Senator Boehm.”
“Is that the frazzled man with the gray hair that stalks the corridors, talking about how he’s too old for all of this?”
“Mm, possibly.” Oku thought that described most of the senators.
“The secrets one will withhold from enemies one will give in confidence to a friend,” Irena said, sounding like she was quoting something.
“I’m not an enemy.”
Irena’s eyebrows drifted upward again.
“They may consider me a pest,” Oku admitted. At least this week. “You think if I try to… make friends with some of the senators or maybe people in Royal Intelligence, they’d be more likely to talk to me?” She supposed that was obvious; she just didn’t know how to make friends with people thirty and more years older than she and with no interest in science. She’d always found it much easier to connect with academics than her father’s political peers, people who always had some agenda and who it seemed safest to avoid. “I don’t have a lot in common with them.”
“You’re human, and we’re in the middle of a war.” Irena spread a hand. “That’s enough.”
Oku was about to say she would keep the advice in mind when Senator Boehm walked out the front door, heading for a vehicle in the parking lot. He did look frazzled. Maybe he would appreciate someone to rant to…
“Excuse me, Irena.”
“Of course,” Irena murmured.
With new determination, Oku headed over to intercept Boehm. No, not to intercept him. To walk at his side.
26
Kim clasped her hands between her knees as Rache’s shuttle whipped into one of several tunnels in the moon base, heading toward the coordi
nates they’d been given. He was sitting next to her in one of the banks of pods, but they had barely spoken since launching from the Fedallah a half hour earlier. Eight of his armored mercenaries filled nearby seats, in addition to the pilot up front.
As far as Kim knew, Rache had been invited in by Dubashi himself. That wasn’t keeping him from going in without backup.
Kim wished she had backup. The plan was for Rache to drop her off with Dubashi’s people, collect his reward, and head to the meeting while she… figured out the rest for herself. He’d asked if that was truly what she wanted or if he should look the other way and let her sneak out of the shuttle while he attended the meeting.
As much as she would prefer to stay hidden, she doubted she would be able to gain access to the rest of the base without Casmir there to hack into networks and open locked doors. She’d end up stuck in the shuttle bay. By letting Rache turn her in, she ought to be taken directly to the medical laboratories and briefed on what Dubashi wanted done. At which point she could find out what had already been done. She just hoped her homemade knockout grenades would prove sufficient when the time came to escape.
Fortunately, Casmir, Bjarke, Asger, and Tristan were also on their way to the base—she’d checked in with Casmir during the ride over—so she ought to be able to hook up with them eventually. But she had no idea if they would be directed to the same docking area or would be anywhere near her in what was doubtless a giant subterranean complex.
Kim glanced at Rache—he wore his armor but hadn’t donned his helmet—tempted to ask if he would come back to check on her after the meeting. But she’d been hesitant to address him since the incident with Tristan.
It was her fault that Tristan had been there to injure Jess and damage the Fedallah, and Rache certainly knew that. He’d radiated tension since then, somehow palpable even with the mask hiding his features, and it made her regret causing the change. She missed the comfortable evening they’d spent reading and drawing and chatting in his quarters. He hadn’t snapped at her, or voiced any blame, but she wasn’t sure how to interpret this new edge.
Casmir was never like that. She couldn’t remember many times in the years she’d known him that he’d lost his temper or even displayed real anger. Frustration, occasionally, but if he hit his thumb with a hammer, he would apologize to the hammer for using it inappropriately instead of slamming it down on something.
It wasn’t fair to compare Rache to Casmir and vice versa, but it was hard to resist the temptation. Scientific studies on twins often yielded interesting results, so maybe it was natural for her mind to make comparisons. She wondered if Rache would let her test his neurotransmitter levels and compare them to Casmir’s. Not that Casmir could be considered a baseline for normal.
Rache glanced at her and sent a chip-to-chip message. Are you admiring my handsome profile or having pensive inner thoughts while looking vaguely in my direction?
She blushed, realizing she had been looking at him while thinking. Your mask blurs your profile. I was wondering if you would let me test your neurotransmitter levels.
He tilted his head as if he were scrutinizing some strange new life form. Kim blushed harder. She’d just requested to turn him into a science experiment.
Do they seem that unbalanced? His customary dryness came through with the words.
No. They’re fine. Kim clasped her armrests and faced forward. And your profile is handsome even when it’s blurry.
Thank you. I think.
She decided against asking for help. It wasn’t his job to keep her out of trouble. She would find a way out on her own. Besides, she didn’t want to ask Rache for any more favors, not when this last one had almost turned disastrous.
Her insides tightened into a knot as she imagined what would have happened if Rache had killed Tristan. Could she have forgiven him for that? Could she forgive him for all he’d done and all that he might do? She knew the answer, from a moral and law-abiding point of view, should be a resounding no, and yet… he’d helped her more than once. And he’d helped others on her behalf. And he liked her books and wanted to start a publishing company for her.
She leaned her elbow on her armrest, dropped her face in her palm, and wondered if her life would ever return to normal. And, if it did, would she be disappointed by the absence of a criminal mercenary captain in it? Why couldn’t he just be some attentive scholar she’d run into back in the capital? Having a relationship with him would have been a far simpler matter then. But would she have been attracted to such a man? Or was some rebellious part of her soul attracted to the villain? No, she didn’t think that was it. She’d had no trouble turning away jerks in the past. The problem was that he was a villain, but he wasn’t a jerk.
“I don’t know,” Rache murmured, “if that forlorn position means you want a hug, you want a neck rub, or you’re mourning what can only be the execrable state of my neurotransmitters, and you’d be horrified if I touched you at all.”
She didn’t know either. None of them quite fit. “I’m more of an essay than a multiple choice kind of person.”
“Complicated.”
“I know.”
“Do you give partial credit for earnest effort even if the answer isn’t right?”
Kim started to nod and say that she appreciated his concern, but the craft slowed for some checkpoint, or maybe for a forcefield to be lowered, and he leaned into the aisle, shifting his attention toward navigation. She couldn’t see the forward display over the high seat back in front of her.
“Almost there, sir,” the pilot called back. “They’re letting us in.”
“Good,” Rache replied. “Land wherever they tell us. We’re all allies here.”
One of his officers looked over at Rache, glanced at Kim, then looked back to him. “Are we allies, sir?”
“Our meeting with the prince will determine that,” Rache said.
“We must have passed nearly a hundred warships on the way in. Looks like he’s hiring the whole galaxy.”
“Yes,” Rache said.
“You may get your wish, sir. An end to the Kingdom.”
“Yes,” Rache said more softly.
An end to Jager was what Kim thought he wanted. But to create that end, would he partake in an invasion force that would kill millions? And what if, after all that, Jager got away?
The thought made her want to cry.
Don’t do it, she thought silently. It wasn’t until he looked at her that she realized she’d sent the message, not just thought it. She wouldn’t take it back. If you must kill Jager, then so be it. But don’t help destroy a world.
Would you forgive me if I killed him?
A faint clunk reverberated through the shuttle as it settled onto a landing pad, but Rache’s masked face didn’t turn away from her. She sensed his intentness as he waited for a response.
I don’t know. Kim knew what Jager had done to him, at least his side of the story, and Jager had thrown Casmir in the dungeon and was a threat to him—to both of them—but her entire body chilled at the idea of condoning murder. Or at looking the other way while it was done. But she would accept it over genocide. I do know that I wouldn’t forgive you if you helped kill my family and my colleagues, and Casmir’s family and his colleagues, and everyone we know in Zamek City and on Odin.
I’ll keep that in mind.
It sounded like the kind of thing one said when one didn’t plan to comply but didn’t want an argument. She didn’t try to keep the bleakness off her face.
Rache unfastened his harness and stood, joining his men in the rear as they selected weapons from racks. Kim had her galaxy suit, her case of laboratory supplies, and a stunner that he’d given her. She assumed someone would take it as soon as she left the shuttle, but for now, she made sure it was at the bottom of the case, just above the innocuous-looking tins from the mycology lab.
She found Rache waiting for her in the back. The side hatch was already open, and she glimpsed his men fanning out defensivel
y on a rough stone floor. It didn’t look like anyone was there to meet them yet.
“Rache?” Kim asked, then lowered her voice to correct herself. “David?”
“Yes?” he replied equally quietly.
“I didn’t get a chance to…” She hesitated when one of the men glanced back inside, no doubt waiting for his boss to join them. “Can we have a second before we go out?”
He drew her into the airlock, held a finger up to the senior-ranking man outside, and closed the exterior hatch. The pilot was still in navigation up front, but he wouldn’t see them unless he came back. He wouldn’t see them at all if Rache closed the inner hatch, as he once had so they could have a private moment, but she wouldn’t ask for that. They probably only had a few seconds until Dubashi’s people arrived.
“Before we go out and part ways,” she said, “I want to thank you for coming to get me. And for not killing your stowaway. And for giving Casmir that shuttle.”
“I lent him that shuttle. He better not get it destroyed. Or puke in it.”
“Yes, thank you for lending it to him.” She debated whether she’d said enough for the situation. For some reason, it was always hard for her to express gratitude. Maybe because she didn’t like needing help—it always seemed a weakness—and thanking someone was admitting it, in a way. “And thank you for wanting to start a publishing company for me.”
“That latter being the most important?” He sounded amused. Good.
“It’s up there.” Kim smiled and rested her hands on his shoulders. With his armor on, there was nothing but the hard carapace to feel, and she was disappointed—she should have done this when they’d been in her cabin together, and he hadn’t been wearing armor. And he’d been hugging her and stroking her hair. But she’d been too busy being conflicted then. That hadn’t changed much, but she had this uncomfortable sense that they were picking different sides and she might not see him again. She didn’t want to walk away without…
Planet Killer (Star Kingdom Book 6) Page 39
