Crossfire (Star Kingdom Book 4)

by Lindsay Buroker

  Facades of residential apartments and commercial shops lined the corridor—it was designed more like a street, with cross passages creating intersections—and corner lampposts burned with cheery fake firelight that was at odds with the rundown surroundings.

  Zee stood in the middle of the first intersection with two young men in his grip, their feet dangling six inches above the faux pavement. Rache was picking up a couple of fallen weapons.

  Not seeing any further danger, Kim helped Yas out of the lift. A woman screamed in the distance, and shots rang out.

  Kim grimaced, fearing her vials would be of little use in quelling the chaos here. She tucked the one she’d pulled out back into a pocket.

  “What was that?” Rache asked, glancing at the pocket.

  “I made some knockout vials.”

  “Nice.” He almost purred the word, and his approving tone made her smile before she could catch herself. “Is it the same stuff Casmir used in the Black Stars compound?”

  “No. Just a sedative. I didn’t have the urge to make confused station inhabitants vomit and drip snot onto their chests.” She waved at the men—almost boys—that Zee still had in the air. They were flailing and trying to kick him, but Zee might as well have been a steel wall.

  “I managed not to vomit.” Rache’s tone turned dry. “However, I was unable to still my nostrils’ snot-secretion reflex.”

  “No? Perhaps your prowess isn’t as great as I assumed.”

  “Really.” He gripped the rifle and homemade grenade launcher that he’d retrieved from the boys, bent them in half with a wrenching that rang from the walls, and tossed them through a broken window.

  “Shit,” one of the dangling boys said.

  The other one, less intimidated, snarled, “Screw that Kingdom ass-licker. He’s probably a girl when he’s not in armor.”

  Kim resisted the urge to point out that girls were not ineffective, with or without armor.

  Rache strode back to Zee, patted down his captives, and removed pistols tucked into their boots. He bent them as easily as he had the larger weapons and tossed them aside.

  “Perhaps you should have asked before firing,” Rache said. “I loathe the Kingdom. And their asses.”

  “Screw you,” the brave one said.

  The other one looked like he wanted to disappear.

  “Let them go,” Rache told Zee.

  Zee looked toward Kim instead of complying.

  “How do you call him off the hunt?” Rache asked Kim.

  “Casmir says please.”

  “Of course he does.”

  “I am only programmed to obey Kim Sato and Casmir Dabrowski,” Zee stated.

  Ah, that was the problem.

  “Let them go, please, Zee.” Kim would have preferred the boys be tied up somewhere, but that might make them targets for opportunist opponents that chanced past.

  Zee released the boys, and they sprinted away.

  “That was Tenebris Rache,” one whispered, the words just reaching Kim’s ears.

  “Was not.”

  “Was too.”

  The boys raced around the corner, and their conversation grew inaudible. Rache gazed after them. Was he pleased to have been recognized? Proud of the reputation he’d established?

  “What were your captain’s orders?” Rache asked Kim without commenting on his infamy.

  “The guy in charge of the ship I got stuck on?” she asked.

  He faced her, though she had the sense that he was paying close attention to their surroundings, as well. “That person usually has the rank of captain, yes.”

  “I have no idea what his orders are.”

  “Truly?” Rache asked softly.

  Did he think she would spill everything she knew, even when it might be considered treason? No, there was no might about it. To give intelligence to this enemy of the Kingdom would absolutely be considered treason.

  “We’re not on the same side, Rache,” Kim said, resisting an urge to use the name he’d given her. His real one. David.

  “Ah.”

  Rache gestured for Yas to lead again, and Kim waved for Zee to walk at his side. She would have volunteered to lead herself if she’d known where she was going, but the map she’d been able to pull off the system’s public network was basic. She should have asked Casmir for the passcode to get onto the station’s security network.

  “Would you tell me what Casmir’s orders are?” Rache asked, his tone more amused than dry this time.

  “He doesn’t have any orders. He’s a civilian advisor, the same as I am. We’re not in the loop.”

  Maybe he would believe that and drop the subject. Kim hoped they were close to Chi’s lab.

  “He doesn’t have orders to… rescue the princess, was it?”

  “No.”

  “Or your colleague?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure he’s not an independent contractor rather than a civilian advisor?”

  “He is independent.”

  “I only ask because if Jager takes this station by force, it will be seen as an act of war by the rest of the system, perhaps by governments in other systems. He’s not trying to hide his presence here. There’s no room for debate, as there was at Stribog, where the crushers mysteriously showed up and the Kingdom was blamed, but somewhat uncertainly blamed. Here, there would be no uncertainty.”

  “Do you care?” Kim hadn’t wanted to continue the conversation, but she couldn’t help but wonder.

  He hated the Kingdom, didn’t he? Or was it just Jager that he hated? After all, he’d been born and raised on Odin. He’d fallen in love with a woman from there…

  “That Jager is starting something he may not have the capability to finish? No. But it’s likely that someone, perhaps a band of wealthy families such as Dr. Peshlakai is a part of, will hire mercenaries to evict whatever forces the Kingdom leaves behind. And I am in the area.”

  She squinted at him, though he wore his usual mask under his helmet, so there was nothing to see on his face. Had he already been hired? Maybe Casmir was wrong, or only partially right, about the submarines. What if Casmir and the Kingdom and Rache and his men were on opposite sides because of more than the gate quest?

  Yas took them up a narrower side street. The ceiling ended, giving the illusion of a sky high above them, commercial and tenement buildings rising, as if they’d been built outdoors instead of in a station.

  Trees arose from circular openings in the sidewalk, growing tall in the half gravity, and expensive-looking cabs and air bikes were parked at the curb. Most had been damaged, windows and frames smashed, doors ripped open and interior compartments rifled through.

  “This is my parents’ building.” Yas stopped in front of double Glasnax doors. “There’s usually a security guard stationed here.”

  Gunfire in the street a block away made him wince.

  “We’re not far from the lab. It’s just around the corner.” Yas pointed, fortunately in the direction away from the gunfire. “Mind if I go up and see if they’re home?” Yas hesitated. “You can go on without me.”

  “We’ll stay together.” Rache waved at the door. “Check.”

  Yas hurried inside, and Rache strode after him. Kim thought about waiting outside, but Zee might draw unwanted attention again. Better not to give the people here any more reason to fight, especially such a dangerous opponent. Fortunately, Zee hadn’t been programmed to kill, just to defend, and Rache… she had no idea how programmed he was at this point in his life, but at least he wasn’t inclined to get rough with surly teenagers.

  They rode a lift that worked better than the last one and came out on the top floor, with large windows allowing faux sunlight to stream inside. The residence should have felt opulent, with its marble floors and elegant architectural details, but displays had been torn off walls, doors forced open, and furniture destroyed and left in pieces in the hallway.

  Yas muttered worriedly to himself, and Kim wished she could think of s
omething to say that wouldn’t sound inane. She thought of her family back home and what would happen if war came to System Lion and Odin. Was it possible the capital city could end up looking like this? Or worse?

  Yas groaned when he spotted what Kim assumed was his parents’ apartment, and the door had been forced open. He rushed inside. Rache peeked in long enough to check for danger, then decided to wait in the hallway.

  Kim waited warily with him, afraid he would ask more questions that she would have to dodge. He faced her, and she had the sense that he wished to speak. Maybe he was trying to come up with something to say that wouldn’t put her on edge. As if that was possible here.

  Even though she was sympathetic to Yas’s plight, Kim wanted to hurry up and find Chi. She’d tried to contact him again when they’d arrived at the station, but once more, he’d gone silent. Not gassed into unconsciousness again, she hoped.

  “I’ve just finished Ajda Basheer’s The Sun Never Sets in Space,” Rache offered. “Have you read it?”

  She stared at him. He wanted to talk about literature? Here?

  Was this an attempt to bring up something they could safely discuss without worry of treason or betrayal?

  “I’m familiar with the author,” she said, “but I haven’t read anything of hers, save for a few poems in a literature class. I remember them as nods to the collective existential crisis that mankind seems to feel in wondering if we have the right to remake space and entire worlds to better suit us.”

  Rache chuckled. “That sounds about right. The book has a narrative structure, but she does lean toward poetic prose. There are chapters from the point of view of bacteria that existed on Yemaya when humans arrived and terraformed the planet, and now the bacteria are almost extinct, and they’re struggling to adapt and survive on a world with a vastly different climate than they evolved in.”

  “The bacteria are sentient?” Kim suspected it was a literary device, but she’d read a few papers hypothesizing the existence of a collective intelligence among some species of bacteria.

  “A bit of anthropomorphism. I assume. Perhaps you could read it and let me know your opinion as a bacteriologist. Or simply as a reader of literature. I would be interested in your opinions, either way.” He bowed. Formally.

  She couldn’t tell if this was his way of flirting or if he simply longed for someone with whom he could discuss the things he read. If most of his men weren’t educated, or if he felt he had to keep a distance from them, she supposed he couldn’t wander down to the mess hall and chat about books with them.

  He had picked a lonely existence for himself, surrounded by people but with nobody to talk to. Though if she was honest with herself, her life wasn’t much different. Before she’d met Casmir—before he’d befriended her, winning her over almost against her wishes—she’d never had a best friend. Especially when she’d been younger, she’d been that weird kid who skipped grades in school and went to the university early, who hadn’t known how to connect with normal people. She’d found colleagues she could speak with easily enough at Parvus Biologia, but many of them were as stiff and socially awkward as she was, and she’d never felt the urge to invite them for social activities outside of work. And they’d never invited her. Most of them were much older, but she wasn’t sure that was the only reason she never truly felt she fit in.

  Yas burst back into the corridor, and Kim jerked her thoughts back to the present. She was here on a mission; this wasn’t the time for daydreaming—or wallowing in her own existential crises.

  “They’re not there, and everything is broken or stolen.” Yas had retracted his helmet, and he gripped his hair with both hands, as if he might tear it out in clumps. “The household robots were smashed. There’s moldy food on the floor in the kitchen and a dead bird on the balcony. I don’t think anyone has been here for days. Or longer.”

  “We’ll find this Scholar Chi and ask him where they went.” Rache gestured back toward the lift.

  “You think they went somewhere? Or—” Yas glanced back toward the open door, the apartment in disarray, “—I thought they might have been kidnapped. Because of their wealth and power in the system. The old system.” He grimaced.

  “We’ll find out.”

  As Kim trailed them out, she tried not to think about the fact that the Kingdom sympathizers might be the ones who’d taken Yas’s parents. And that she and Casmir—or at least Asger—were here to find the Kingdom-sympathizing president and help him stay safe and maintain his position. She also tried not to think about Rache’s comment that his mercenaries might be hired to fight that president and his people, to evict him from power.

  “I’ll read that book,” Kim said quietly as they walked back out into the street.

  She didn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t an olive branch, not exactly, but maybe an acknowledgment that there could never be anything between them but she still wanted him to have someone to talk to about literature.

  Rache gave her a long look. “Good. Thank you.”

  She swallowed. It seemed a strange thing to thank a person for, but it filled her with an unfamiliar emotion she couldn’t quite identify, and she said, “You’re welcome.”

  19

  “If this President Chronis has a chip, it’s not on the network,” Casmir said as he and Tork rode with Asger in an open tram car that zipped them toward the government end of the cylinder-shaped station. Lights streaked past, and their passage created a breeze that ruffled his hair. He’d had to leave his small army of Aegis robots behind when they hadn’t fit through the car entrance.

  Casmir tried to focus on finding the president, not on the fact that he was leaving Kim—and Zee and Rache—far behind when his main reason for coming to the station had been to help her. He also tried not to dwell on the rotting bodies they had passed on their way to board. His stomach was churning for reasons that had nothing to do with gravity.

  “He must be in hiding,” Casmir added. “I’m sure lots of people are trying to hunt him down. They may believe that the Kingdom threat will go away if he goes away. Or is killed.”

  “In hiding, yes, but somewhere protected, I’m sure.” Asger watched the route ahead, platforms and signs for stops blurring past. “He has control of all the security forces and had control of the security robots until recently.”

  As their car slowed for the final stop, Casmir got a better look at walls covered in graffiti, including an image of two men holding hands crossed out by a huge crown—the Star Kingdom symbol. The idea of his government being boiled down into some monolith that stood for stamping out freedoms made him sick. The Kingdom wasn’t perfect, and he’d often lamented its restrictive genetic engineering policies, but it wasn’t the most tyrannical government in the Twelve Systems. One had only to look to System Cerberus and the asteroid-states of the Miners’ Union to find slavery, laws that only served the wealthy, and systems that allowed the poor to die in the streets.

  Admittedly, those governments hadn’t taken over the Twelve Systems in the past and forced their rules on huge swaths of people. Casmir could see why those who enjoyed freedoms that weren’t allowed in the Kingdom would fear a second coming.

  So, why was he here, helping Asger find the man who wanted the Kingdom to be in charge of this station? Casmir rubbed his face, wishing he had a better answer. Because if they didn’t restore order, the marines would? And with more violence?

  As the car stopped at the last platform, Casmir almost missed spotting sudden movement in the shadows.

  “Down!” Asger barked.

  Casmir ducked as gunshots rang out. He scooted away from the door opening, using the low sides of the car for cover.

  Asger sprang out to the platform, and Tork followed him.

  “A knight!” someone screamed.

  “They’re here, they’re here!”

  More gunshots fired. They clanged off metal at least twenty feet away. Whoever was out there wasn’t targeting the car—not when they had Asger to shoot at.<
br />
  Casmir pulled out his stunner and peered over the top of the car wall. Asger had switched his pertundo for a stunner of his own. He dodged a huge barrel thrown at him, then fired at two men with DEW-Tek pistols, backed up by a woman with a hunting rifle shooting bullets.

  His armor protected him, but Asger dodged and leaped so rapidly that none of their attacks even glanced off. He fired three times, and the stun beams caught each target precisely in the chest.

  A few meters to his side, Tork grappled with an android that had been given a shotgun. It must have been someone’s independent servant, not one on the security network that Casmir now controlled. Tork tore the weapon from its grip and hurled it onto the tracks.

  A whisper of fabric sounded behind Casmir, his only warning. He spun as someone thudded down in the car behind him. He tried to bring the stunner to bear, but big strong arms wrapped around him from behind and hefted him off his feet.

  “Kingdom scum,” his attacker snarled.

  Casmir threw his head back as the arms squeezed with rib-crunching pressure. His attacker must have seen it coming, because Casmir didn’t connect with the nose-splattering satisfaction he’d hoped for.

  He tried again, apologizing to his neck as he whipped his head back. This time, he struck a glancing blow to his captor’s chin.

  It hurt the man enough to loosen his grip. That gave Casmir a split second to twist around enough to point the stunner at the man’s torso.

  He fired, but the nimbus caught him, too, and even though his opponent released him, Casmir’s legs were numb when he landed, and he crumpled to the deck.

  Idiot, he swore to himself, realizing that anyone with more than twenty minutes of experience with weapons would have foreseen that. At least his attacker pitched to the floor of the car, head clanging on the metal wall.

  As Casmir dragged himself backward, his legs barely working, another thud came from behind him, someone landing in the front of the car. Damn it.