“Yes. I believe this.” Tork looked down at his hand. “You have returned me to a fully functional state. I will seek the virus program on my drives.” Tork closed his eyes and lowered his chin to his chest.
Casmir had no idea how long that would take, so he moved around the table, pushing himself over to check on Grunburg. “Are you badly injured?”
“No. Well, maybe a little. I hit hard enough to crack my head against the side of my helmet, and my eyes are crossing. That was really stupid.”
Casmir winced. “I know. Sorry. We both should have run and hid in the lav after putting that chip back in.”
“I meant that I was stupid. I shouldn’t have gone to check on him.” Grunburg frowned through his faceplate at Tork. “Are you sure he’s not doing something now to dupe us?”
“No.”
“I wish you’d said yes in a wise and scholarly voice.”
“Sorry.”
“I have detected a virus stored on my third auxiliary hard drive,” Tork announced.
“The schematic I downloaded for you shows only two auxiliary hard drives,” Casmir said.
“I have been further modified and upgraded from my factory baseline.”
“Handy. Can you encapsulate it so it won’t activate when it’s delivered to a new computer, and send a copy to Grunburg’s tablet? We need to work on that antivirus program.”
This would be the true test.
Long seconds passed. Casmir didn’t know if Tork was figuring out a way to render the virus inactive or if he was having second thoughts about working for them.
“Yes,” Tork said. “It has been deactivated. I will transmit it.”
“Let’s hope it’s written in a programming language I’m familiar with,” Grunburg muttered.
Casmir grimaced and nodded in agreement. But he wouldn’t be surprised if the astroshamans favored something obscure or brand new. “At the least, we can contact the Eagle and let them know it’s safe to come help the Osprey.”
“Are we sure it is?” Grunburg murmured. “Is there some way to test if he’s telling us the truth?”
“I think having the other warship fly over will be the test.” Casmir patted Grunburg on the shoulder, hoping the gesture was reassuring.
Judging by Grunburg’s bleak expression, he was envisioning two powerless warships spiraling out of control to crash on the moon’s surface.
8
“Ready?” Bonita asked, her pod nestling her tight as they approached the wormhole gate out of System Lion.
“Yes,” Qin said from the other pod.
The navigation arm kissed Bonita’s temple, interfacing with her chip, and she transmitted the destination code to the gate, the massive metal circle looking like little more than a huge dark gray donut hanging in space. That was how it appeared on the display, but Viggo’s scanners lit up with the energy radiating from it, even before she sent the code and it appeared dormant. Panels all along its surface gathered power from the distant sun, storing it until a ship needed the gate to establish a travel link to one of the other eleven gates in the system.
Bonita wondered how the existing network would handle a thirteenth gate being added on after two thousand years. As far as she knew, humanity only had theories as to how the things worked now.
“We’re heading in.” Bonita relinquished control to the autopilot as they flew toward the gate.
The interior flared to life, glowing yellow, as if a tiny sun was contained inside its circular rim. Even though the display automatically dimmed, she closed her eyes against the intensity and against the strange sensation soon to come. She had traveled along the gate roads hundreds of times during her career, but it never ceased to feel surreal as she lost consciousness, and myriad strange colors and images writhed in her mind while the ship and her body seemed to enter a state of utter stillness. Sometimes, it reminded her of “trips” she’d taken with psychedelic drugs in her youth, and sometimes, it was an experience she couldn’t describe.
Every time they passed out of the wormhole, she had the distinct feeling that the human body wasn’t supposed to be exposed to such strangeness, but none of the countless research studies done on frequent animal and human passengers had ever found a correlation between wormhole travel and death or disease. If anything, experiments had shown that there was less cosmic radiation in whatever plane or dimension one entered while inside.
Her stomach lurched as they came out on the other side, entering System Cerberus, and full awareness returned. Beeps sounded, and alarms flashed on the control panel.
“We are being scanned by three ships in the vicinity,” Viggo announced. “Four ships.”
“Hopefully, they’ll see that our cargo hold is empty and there’s no reason to attack us.” No logical reason. She’d had pirates come after her before just for the fun of it. A freighter made a large and appealing target.
She tapped the weapons panel to bring the rail gun online so anyone thinking along those lines would know they were armed.
Crimson beams streaked through space, followed by a missile launching.
Bonita tensed until she realized the Stellar Dragon wasn’t the target. A small corvette wheeled away from the attack, which originated at a heavily armored private yacht. The corvette had enough time to adjust course to avoid the DEW-Tek bolts, but the heat-seeking missile shifted course to follow it. The projectile slammed into the armored hull and exploded near its rear thrusters. The corvette unleashed a barrage of missiles in response.
“Should we… help?” Qin asked uncertainly.
“Nope.” Bonita steered them away from the gate and the conflict. Whatever was going on, it had nothing to do with them. “This is the kind of thing you hope for when you come to System Cerberus in anything smaller and less intimidating than a warship.”
“People trying to kill each other?”
“People creating a big distraction while you slink past unnoticed. If nothing like that is going on, you’re more likely to be targeted by the opportunistic bastards that loiter by the gate, waiting for easy marks. Back in the Kingdom days, their warships used to patrol all the gates to make sure nothing like this happened. It’s one of the reasons some people actually wish they still governed the entire Twelve Systems. Or that somebody did. Now that the systems are so fragmented, nobody worries about what’s happening outside of their own planets and moons.” Bonita peered at Qin over the side of her pod. “But you must know all about this, right? If you were with the Druckers, you must have spent a lot of time in this system.”
“I’ve been here frequently, yes, but nobody ever bothered the Druckers, and we—” Qin tapped a claw against her chest, “—were usually ordered to stay in our pen during space travel. We were usually only let out when it was time to board another ship or fight on a planet or moon.”
“Your pen?” Bonita curled a lip, imagining Qin in something akin to a dog kennel.
“That’s what we called it. It wasn’t that bad. There were cabins that we shared, four girls to a room—the others like me in my cohort and the older cohort—and then there was an exercise and eating area. It was our own area of the ship.”
“A private place where you could be away from the pirates?”
“Uh, no. They always made it clear that we were there to work for them, in all senses of the word, whenever they wanted.”
“Assholes.”
Qin didn’t answer.
“That’s why we’re making sure you never have to go back to them.”
“Did you ever get a response to your comm?” Qin’s voice had a weird note, as if she wasn’t sure to hope Bonita had or hope she hadn’t.
“Yes. That’s why we’re here. I sent a message to their publicly listed address, saying I had you on board and was willing to sell you for the right price, and a Johnny Twelve Toes replied to my message with a very wordy text.”
“Wordy?”
“It said: Come to Cerberus so we can talk real time.”
“
I don’t recognize that name. Are you sure it was the Druckers and that your message didn’t get intercepted?”
“No. But there are two thousand people working for the Druckers, right? They must get new recruits from time to time. Maybe it’s someone that came on after you left, or just someone on another ship that you didn’t know well.”
“Maybe.” Qin sounded skeptical. “But someone with the authorization to make deals would be relatively high up in the organization, not a new recruit.”
Bonita would be shocked if the Druckers intended to deal fairly with her, so she wasn’t that worried that the pirates might already be scheming. She had schemes planned too.
Once they were clear of the skirmishing ships, Bonita set course for a space station in the middle of the system that she’d visited numerous times for work. There was a clan there out of Cabrakan Habitat, in the system where she had grown up, and they always welcomed her for meals and holiday celebrations, so long as she brought something good to eat.
“I’m taking us to Death Knell Station and will try to set up a rendezvous with the Druckers there.” Bonita checked the scanner display to make sure none of the ships around the gate were following them. Most continued to ignore them, but a yacht that had come through the gate after they had was flying in the same direction as the Dragon. She would keep an eye on it. “I know the family that runs that place, and I doubt they’re allies of the Druckers.”
“The Amigos?”
“Yes, that’s their pirate name. The family is the Delgados.”
“You’re right,” Qin said. “They compete with the Druckers from time to time. The Druckers sneer at them because they mostly make money from the station now instead of going out to attack ships.”
“Yeah, how terrible of them to legitimately earn money instead of preying on others. Viggo, run some deep scans and see if there’s anything alarming going on in the system.”
“Certainly. Do you wish me to search the bounties listed in this system to see if there are opportunities to make money on the side?”
“No. There’s too much competition here and too many extremely dangerous people overall. I’ve never liked trying to do business here, unless it was just coming to hand someone in and get paid. But make sure there’s not a mark on us, will you?”
She hadn’t considered that there might be until Casmir had asked her to look him up, and they’d learned of the fresh bounty on his head.
It was possible someone looking for Casmir might have delayed intelligence and believe he was still on the Dragon. Bonita hoped not. She didn’t need complications. This was already going to be a difficult mission.
“Do you have a will, Captain?” Qin asked.
“Uh, yes. A somewhat outdated one. The last time I updated it was after my divorce—my first divorce—because I wanted to make sure that dung-munching donkey didn’t get anything from me if I died. In my foolish naïveté, I’d put him in the will. After that, I learned not to put anyone else in besides my cousins and nephews—real blood kin—because you can’t trust husbands. Or men in general.”
“Really, Bonita,” Viggo said. “That’s a dreadful prejudice. Some men are delightful.”
“You’re not going to talk about Casmir again, are you? Just because a guy lubes your robots doesn’t make him trustworthy for life.” Though Bonita admitted she would be inclined to trust the kid. Not enough to marry him, but fortunately, he hadn’t asked. It was possible she was losing some of the beauty that had made her more of a target of the opposite sex in previous decades.
“Actually, I was talking about myself,” Viggo said with impressive dryness.
“You don’t have testosterone anymore. Or a body. I’m not that worried about you being driven to lie, brutalize, and murder based on imbalanced hormones.”
One of Viggo’s robot vacuums rolled into navigation and slurped up imaginary dirt around the base of the pods.
“Perhaps you’ll meet someone nice one day,” Qin said, “who will change your mind about men in general.”
“Definitely not. Quickies are fine, but I’m not getting involved with anyone ever again. Why do you ask about the will?” Bonita wondered if she should add Qin to it, not that she truly had much to leave anyone. A bank back home owned half of the Dragon, and whoever inherited it would inherit the loan and tax payments too. And her savings, while not as bleak as they had been a few weeks ago, wouldn’t change anyone’s life.
“Just in case this doesn’t go well, and I survive and you don’t.” Qin peered over her pod with worried eyes. “I’ll do my best to protect you and make sure that doesn’t happen, but I’m… I’m a little scared. I want my freedom and for them to leave me alone forever, and I appreciate you trying to help me win it, but I know what we’ll be facing, and that has me concerned for you.”
Bonita was debating how to answer that—she didn’t want to wave away Qin’s very valid fears, but she did want to comfort her—when the comm beeped.
The identification of the caller came up: Johnny Twelve Toes.
“He must have been watching the gate for us.” Bonita wrinkled her nose, finding that degree of attentiveness discomforting. She’d wanted to reach the station before making real-time contact with the Druckers. And she’d hoped their fleet wouldn’t be anywhere near the gate. She needed time to set things up.
“The comm is originating approximately ten hours away,” Viggo said, “from a ship that is in orbit around Amber Moon. It appears to be a large warship, though it has no transmitter chip, so I can’t give you an identification.”
“It’s them,” Qin whispered. “Amber Moon is one of their favorite places. The clouds in the atmosphere make it easy for them to hide if they need to, not that they usually need to. Few risk pissing them off, and it’s been more than a decade since any of the government fleets came through and tried to instill order in the system.”
“Let’s see what he has to say.” Bonita accepted the comm, not sure whether to be pleased or not that there wouldn’t be much of a time lag. “This is Captain Laser Lopez. Speak.”
She braced herself for a snide comment about her name. Thirty years ago, few people had mocked it, but since her hair had gone gray, derisive snorts had become more typical. She hoped for a chance to prove to the Druckers that her marksmanship was as good as it had always been.
A request came through for video, and she grimaced. The pirate was offering it in return, but she would have preferred audio only. Maybe he wanted to see if Qin was sitting next to her in navigation instead of locked away down in a brig cell.
“Should I hide?” Qin whispered.
“Yes.” Bonita waved for her to leave navigation. “They might be suspicious if I don’t accept. Let’s play by their rules for now, so they’ll be caught off guard later when we don’t.”
Qin must have wanted to hear the conversation, because she opted for squeezing her broad frame and six-feet-two-inches of height under the main console.
“I guess that works,” Bonita murmured and accepted the request for visual.
The face that popped up on the screen was about what she would have expected from a pirate—a tattoo of a barbed-wire dagger dripping blood on each cheek, cool steely eyes, a studded dog collar around his thickly muscled neck, spiky blond-gray hair, and a more determinedly gray beard, shortly trimmed except for two slender braids that dangled down past the camera’s field of display. The only surprising part was that he looked to be around sixty, and Bonita wouldn’t have guessed that many pirates lived that long. Just as few bounty hunters survived long enough to retire.
“Captain Laser.” The man twitched an ironic eyebrow, but he didn’t openly mock her name. “May I call you Laser? Or do you prefer Lopez? I wouldn’t wish to presume inappropriate familiarity.” Very ironic.
And he had a Kingdom accent. It was faint, and Bonita usually wouldn’t have noticed it, but since she’d spent so much time with Kingdom denizens lately, her ear was tuned to it. He had the same stuffy way of spe
aking that Asger had, but there was no way he could be a noble from Odin. What stuffy Kingdom noble would turn pirate and maim his face with a tattoo gun?
“Laser works. What do you prefer? Twelve Toes? I’m going to need to see proof of those extra digits if you want me to use that. I hear they lop off mutations like that if you’re born in the Kingdom. You sure you aren’t Johnny Eight Toes?”
“The Kingdom is indifferent to extraneous digits, so long as they were legitimate mutations and not genetically engineered to confer some advantage. I find that my feet work like flippers in the water, so my swimming is excellent. Alas, I was not allowed to compete on the school teams as a boy.”
Under the console, Qin’s forehead creased. Yeah, it was a weird conversation, not at all what Bonita had expected.
“No doubt why you fled the Kingdom’s embrace and took up residence on a pirate ship.” Bonita couldn’t imagine what route might have led this man to the Druckers. It sounded about as likely as Casmir joining pirates. She made a mental note to look him up later and see if he had a bounty on his head. Maybe he’d fled System Lion because of some crime he’d committed.
“Yes, a dearth of competitive swimming opportunities inculcates a desire for pirate life in a boy. I’m going to need to see evidence of Qin Liangyu Three’s capture if we’re going to negotiate. If you are wasting my time, I will be extremely disappointed.”
“Your disappointment would be like a lover’s dagger to the heart.” Bonita pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “I’ve got the freak in my brig cell.” Bonita made an apologetic gesture toward Qin under the console with her other hand. She knew Qin hated that word. “There’s not a camera in there. Let’s figure out if we can deal. If so, I’ll take a picture for you to stick on your refrigerator. If not, I’m going to offer her her job back. She’s pretty handy.”
“Yes, I have footage of her fighting to defend your ship.” Johnny’s eyebrow twitched.
Ugh, what footage had he found? Something from the terrorist attack on Odin? Maybe a camera at one of those air harbors had caught one of Qin’s skirmishes.
Crossfire (Star Kingdom Book 4) Page 11
