Either way, he didn’t believe she was truly willing to turn her over. She could tell. Should she abort this now, or was there a chance to convince him he was wrong?
“I had no intention of trying to turn her over to anyone,” Bonita said, “until I saw that there was a reward for her safe return. Fifteen thousand is such a measly sum though. Hardly worth the trip to this system.”
“And yet you came.”
“I was hoping to see you and your extra toes swim.”
He snorted, his eyes briefly glinting with humor, and Bonita decided he was attractive, despite his dubious fashion tastes. If she’d met him in a bar, she would have taken him for a ride. Though she wouldn’t have asked to see his toes. He could keep his mutations under the blankets.
“If that was a request to see me naked,” Johnny—that name definitely didn’t suit him—said, “then I might be amenable to that. After business.”
“I assumed you’d be wearing swim trunks.”
“You go faster without them. Less drag. Send a picture of the girl, and we’ll discuss a price. I’ve been authorized some leeway when it comes to bargaining, though not an unlimited amount. The Druckers have already ordered more furry females to be made for their use.” His lip twitched in what appeared to be disapproval, though Bonita couldn’t tell if it was for the idea of the pirates using the furry females or for their existence in general. If he’d come from the Kingdom, he probably shared their prejudices toward modded people. Twelve toes, notwithstanding.
“You’ve been authorized? What’s your position?”
“I am the Druckers’ accountant.”
She waited, expecting it to be a joke. That couldn’t truly be his job, could it? Though she supposed it made sense for whoever handled the books to be in charge of retrievals and payouts.
“You don’t look like an accountant.”
“No?” He looked to the side, then plucked a light pen off his desk and tucked it behind his ear. “Better?”
She almost laughed but caught herself. She wasn’t going to show any interest in one of the animals who thought they owned Qin.
“Sure, I see it now.”
“Send the picture,” he said.
“Don’t be so pushy, pirate accountant. I don’t take well to being bossed around.”
“Please send the picture, Laser, so that I may justify continuing to flirt with you.” He didn’t sound even vaguely imploring when he said that please. His eyebrows still had that ironic tilt to them.
“Is that what you’re doing? Flirting?”
“You couldn’t tell? I had no idea I was so rusty. It’s rare that I meet a woman who doesn’t rear back in disgust at the idea of my extra toes. Do I need to promise a picture of myself naked in exchange for one proving you have Qin Three as a prisoner?”
“Promise you won’t send that, and I’ll see what I can get for you.”
His lips curved in a slight smile. “I shall eagerly await whatever you have for me.”
A lurid thought popped into her head. Damn it. This wasn’t going to turn out well.
She closed the comm and waved that it was safe for Qin to get up.
Bonita brought back a picture of his face. “You sure you’ve never seen him?”
“No, and I’d remember someone who talked like that. He doesn’t sound like the others.”
“Too many complete sentences?”
“With big words in them, yes.”
“Viggo,” Bonita said, “are you sure his comm came from that warship that we’re fairly positive belongs to the Druckers?”
“It came straight from the warship, yes,” Viggo said.
“Qin, let’s take a picture of you in the brig looking surly, defiant, and completely trapped,” Bonita said, “and we’ll see what happens.”
Qin made a face, but she tramped to the ladder to comply. She gave a long suspicious look over her shoulder at Johnny’s picture before descending.
9
Casmir floated behind Grunburg’s pod, watching over his shoulder as he worked and giving advice whenever he could. Tork was belted into the pod Casmir had occupied earlier, wired to Grunburg’s tablet and helping come up with an antivirus program to eradicate the virus that had shut down the Osprey.
When it looked like they were getting close to a solution, Casmir sent a message to Kim.
Is everything all right over there?
Her reply was prompt. I’m standing in a dark lab with Asger, reading periodicals on my chip, and wondering if there’s something more useful I could be doing.
Do you know what the Fleet techs are doing?
Praying and hoping, I believe.
I doubt their orders would allow them to do only that.
No, Kim replied. Likely not. Footsteps sound in the corridor outside every now and then, but I’m staying in sickbay and out of the way. I don’t know anything about engineering or programming.
Grunburg, Tork, and I are working on an antivirus program right now.
Tork? Is that the android our enemies left us?
Yes, he appears to be an adept programmer.
Oh, I’m sure. How can you trust— Did you wipe his memory and reboot him?
Something like that. I’ll explain later. We need a favor, and Ishii has never given me permission to contact him. This might not be the best time to reach out with overtures of friendship. Casmir had already tried contacting Ishii, but he’d either been too busy to notice or was already talking chip-to-chip with Grunburg.
What can we do?
We need to send you, or someone else over there, the antivirus program to install on the ship’s mainframe in engineering. And we need someone there to figure out how to get the power running to the mainframe, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
I think they’ve been trying to get the power back on for hours.
Hopefully, some clever engineer over there can figure out something. If nothing else, there ought to be battery-powered devices around the ship that aren’t hooked up to the network and weren’t affected by the virus. They could deliver power while you upload the antivirus program, enough to bring the system online briefly. It won’t take long for it to run. Grunburg’s program should give the computers what they need both to eradicate the virus and engage self-repair processes to fix all the damage that it did.
I’ll see what I can do.
Thank you.
“This is quite the sophisticated virus,” Grunburg murmured. “And I have quite the sophisticated headache.”
“Did you take some painkillers?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. What does a sophisticated headache feel like?”
“First, there’s a stabbing pain in my skull, then the back of my eyes throb, and then a sympathetic throb comes from the back of my head and runs down my spine.”
“Huh.” Casmir was glad he hadn’t struck his head. That sounded like the kind of thing that could cause a seizure. As it was, he was trying hard not to think about how much trouble everyone would be in if this didn’t work. And if Tork was lying to him about coming over to his side.
Casmir checked the scanners to see the other warship flying closer, about an hour away now. How close did it need to be for the virus transmission? Casmir bit his lip and watched Tork work, his eyes closed as his android brain interfaced directly with Grunburg’s tablet. Zee stood behind him, ever ready to snap his neck if he proved he was still an enemy instead of an ally.
“I think… Yes, it’s working.” Grunburg thumped his fist on the control panel. “Inside the quarantine I created on my tablet, the antivirus program isolated and eradicated the virus.”
“I’ve got Kim and Asger going to engineering to help us deliver it.”
“Does either of them know anything about programming?”
“No, but they’re both willing to talk to me, unlike most of your crew members and officers.”
Grunburg snorted. “I’ll contact the captain again. Last I checked, he was on hands and knees in
engineering, working alongside our men, trying to get an un-networked generator to power the environmental control systems.” Grunburg looked over his shoulder. “How were you planning to deliver the program? Chip-to-chip?”
“I think that’s the only option we’ve got, as long as the Osprey’s comm is down.”
Grunburg looked at Tork. He didn’t have to say anything for Casmir to guess his doubts. If Tork was truly working against them, he could be wrapping another iteration of the virus or some new threat into this antivirus program. And it was possible he was good enough that they wouldn’t detect it until it was too late.
“Right,” was all Grunburg said. “Let’s try this.”
The corridors of the Osprey were dark and quiet as Kim and Asger headed to engineering, having to bypass the inactive lifts and use the ladder wells. The ship had hundreds of crew, but all other than essential personnel—those who might have some skill at fixing this problem—had been ordered to stay in their quarters or at their duty station. The clangs of Kim’s and Asger’s boots sounded particularly loud on the ladder rungs.
Kim had her helmet up to protect against the cold that had crept into the ship. The ambient temperature, according to her helmet display, had dropped below zero. And it would drop a lot lower if the antivirus program didn’t work.
Asger paused when he reached the bottom of the ladder, not stepping into the corridor right away, and Kim stopped short of clunking him in his helmet with her boot.
“Problem?” she whispered.
Something about the cold silence of the ship made whispers seem appropriate.
“I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye, someone moving out there, but I don’t see anyone out there now.”
“Probably just an engineer, right?” Kim asked. “People should be down here working on the problem.”
“Yeah.” Asger didn’t sound that convinced, but he stepped into the corridor.
When she joined him, she noticed his pertundo in hand.
“Are you sure a shadow is all you saw?” she asked.
“I thought I heard a grinding, whirring noise too. When nothing is supposedly powered up now.”
Kim looked up and down the long, wide corridor they had entered. There was nothing there except closed doors along either side. None of those doors would be working now, so if Asger had seen something, it had to have moved away quickly.
“Casmir mentioned that anything battery-operated and not hooked up to the ship’s network should be able to operate without trouble. Maybe it was a cleaning robot.”
“I guess.” Asger headed down the corridor, not putting his pertundo away. “Engineering is this way.”
Kim trailed after him, the corridors seeming longer than usual in the quiet dark. A clang came from somewhere up ahead. The engineers attempting repairs? Or kicking some housing in frustration?
Asger slowed as they neared open double doors to their left. Kim, not having been to engineering on this ship before, assumed it was their destination, but it was dark inside. The sign painted on the wall was hard to make out with the blurry imprecision of her night vision, and they were almost to the entrance before she could read Shuttle Bay 02.
A grinding noise came from the dark beyond the open doors, and Asger halted.
“Stop,” a man inside whispered, the voice unfamiliar.
The noise halted.
“Get those damn doors shut so I can work,” another man said. “If we vent the whole ship, they’ll come after us.”
“Not if they can’t.”
Kim was about to say they should run ahead to engineering and warn the officers that someone was up to mischief when Asger sprang into the shuttle bay.
“Stop what you’re doing,” he ordered.
She rolled her eyes. Casmir might read about superheroes in comic books, but Asger thought he was one.
The grinding noise started up again, four times as loud. Something roared toward the doorway.
Kim hurried forward so she could see what was going on, suddenly wishing she’d brought a weapon. Why did she keep running into trouble on a secure Fleet warship full of soldiers and marines?
A huge machine with wide treads rumbled straight toward Asger. Blue and white indicators flashed on the front, highlighting a massive tunnel-boring bit. Aimed at his chest.
Kim took a step inside, but she was too far away to help. Asger crouched as if he would spring to the side, but he jumped straight into the air as the machine roared toward him. His cloak flapped, the whirling six-foot-tall bit almost catching it as he sprang over it. But Asger cleared the machine, landed on top, then jumped off on the other side. His boots rang out as he ran toward something.
One of the men cursed.
From the doorway, all Kim could see were the parked shuttles and the boring machine as it stopped, turned ponderously, and rumbled after Asger again. There was Casmir’s battery-powered machine that they could use… if it didn’t run out of power while trying to kill Asger. Was someone driving it? She couldn’t see a typical cab with windows. It looked automated.
Thuds rang out on the other side of it, followed by grunts of pain.
Kim was debating going for help, when a man raced out of the shadows toward her with a rifle gripped in both hands.
She leaped back into the corridor. The man rounded the doorway and charged out after her. He had the rifle, but he wasn’t armored, and he didn’t point it at her, so she lost some of her wariness.
“Where’s your damn friend?” he growled.
Casmir?
Abruptly, she recognized him. It was one of the would-be kitchen assassins who’d attacked Casmir in the computer cabin.
She growled and sprang for him. He must not have expected her to attack, because his movements were startled and jerky as he lifted his rifle to defend himself. She feinted twice with a jab and a punch, and then, when his arms were raised to block the punches, rammed her knee into his groin and stomped on his instep.
He roared, bringing the rifle down like a club. She whipped up a block, knocking his forearm—and the rifle—aside, then slammed her helmet into his nose.
The rifle clattered to the deck. He cursed, moisture springing to his eyes, and tried to grab her shoulders. She brought both forearms up and out, knocking his arms aside, then rammed him in the face again.
The bastard deserved a broken nose twice over for trying to collect on some stupid bounty. She finished him off with another knee to the groin, then, as he curled protectively over himself, she shoved him to the deck.
Kim jumped back, fists up in case another threat appeared.
But only Asger stood in the doorway, grinning and giving her a salute with his pertundo. The grinding and whirring had stopped, so he must have taken care of whoever had thought to use the tunnel borer as a weapon.
Claps came from farther down the corridor. Ishii. Two armed men stood to either side of him, rifles pointed at the jerk on the deck, but they lowered them when it was clear he wouldn’t be a further threat.
“I knew there was a reason we were paying you more than Casmir,” Ishii said, though his smile was fleeting. “Sergeant, put that man back in the brig, and find out what happened to whoever was guarding him.”
“Yes, sir.”
The two men rushed forward to pick up Kim’s foe.
Asger pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “The other one is in here. I think they were going to drill their way through the hull and try to take the shuttle and escape.”
Ishii rubbed his face, the epitome of a man having a bad week. “I bet captains had it easier in the old days, when they could have men who disobeyed orders shot.”
“What a shame that wanton murder is frowned upon these days,” Asger said.
Ishii gave him a dark look. “What are you two doing down here?”
“Coming to help get the main computer online long enough for Casmir and Grunburg’s antivirus program to be transmitted and installed,” Kim said.
“We’ve been tryi
ng for hours to get the computers back online,” Ishii said.
“He suggested a jumpstart from something with a battery.”
“We already thought of the shuttles for that, but they’re on the ship’s network and got knocked out along with everything else.”
“What about the tunnel-boring machine?” Asger waved behind him, though Ishii wouldn’t be able to see it from his position in the corridor. “That thing has a battery. A good battery.” He lifted his cloak, showing off a rip, though the SmartWeave fabric was already repairing itself.
“Mm, that might work. It’ll only give us a few minutes though.”
“Casmir said that’s all we need,” Kim said. “As soon as the antivirus program is installed, it’ll clear out the virus and repair any damage it did.”
“Casmir wrote the software program? Or Grunburg did?”
“It sounded like they were both working on it.” Kim decided not to mention that Tork, who was apparently a good programmer, had also been working on it. She trusted that Casmir was smart enough not to be duped by an android. After all, he’d been the one to warn Ishii that Tork could be booby-trapped.
“All right. Good.” As his men dragged the escaped prisoners away, Ishii peered through the door at the borer. “Let’s find a cable.”
10
Kim didn’t need to be in engineering, but she couldn’t imagine going back to her lab and twiddling her thumbs while she waited for the lights to come on. She and Asger stood off to the side, and none of the officers had shooed them away. If she hadn’t had her helmet on, she might have nibbled on a fingernail as the cable snaking through the doors from the shuttle bay down the corridor was plugged into a power converter.
A female engineer flicked a few manual switches, then opened a panel to adjust something. Kim wasn’t the only one watching intently. If this didn’t work, what was the alternative? When she’d walked into engineering to find wires and panels and tools strewn all over the deck, she’d gotten the distinct impression the twenty men and women working inside had already tried everything.
Crossfire (Star Kingdom Book 4) Page 12
