Shockwave

by Lindsay Buroker

  Her first thought was that he meant Qin, since she’d only been aboard a couple of months. “You mean Dabrowski? He’s not an ally. He didn’t even pay a full enough fare for where we’re taking him. And his not-wife didn’t pay anything at all.”

  Not that Kim had technically wanted to come.

  “He was astute and swift at reprogramming my robots.” Viggo still sounded indignant about the loss. “Perhaps he’ll have ideas for opening this, if that is what you want to do. I note that it’s been on board for six weeks, and you haven’t attempted to gain access previously.”

  “That’s because I previously thought it was a batch of high-end guns.”

  “You no longer believe that?”

  “Who sends a mercenary ship to collect guns? Yes, anything from Sayona Station is going to be cutting-edge technology and higher quality than you can find on Odin, but they’re supposed to be handguns and rifles, and that’s it. I only paid ten thousand Union dollars, and I think Baum paid fifty. That’s a lot to me, especially right now, but nobody sends ships full of mercs to mine such small asteroids.”

  Bonita ran a hand along the fine seam between the top and bottom of the case. Was it possible her blowtorch would work? Maybe, but then she risked heating up whatever was inside. The last thing she needed to do was cause an explosion in her lavatory. She already had craters in the deck plating of her cargo hold, thanks to that skirmish.

  The hatch opened, and Bonita whipped her pistol out and pointed it at the intruder.

  Casmir ambled in before he saw her, the pistol, and the case. He halted, his jaw dropping halfway to the deck.

  He whirled, lifting his hands in the air. “If that’s your illicit cargo, I didn’t see a thing.”

  “I know you didn’t, because it’s still locked in its case. I haven’t seen it either.”

  “Uhm, right. Is that a problem?”

  “That I haven’t seen inside? It wasn’t, until those mercs showed up and shot up my ship.”

  Bonita waited for him to leave. He kept standing there with his hands up.

  “I apologize for coming in without knocking,” Casmir said. “I didn’t realize anyone was in here. I had to… you know.”

  “By all means, use the facilities. Your half ounce of gold entitles you to all the toilet paper you need.”

  Casmir didn’t move. Probably because he didn’t know if her sarcasm could be taken at face value.

  She gave him an exasperated sigh. “Put your hands down. I’m not going to shoot you.” She realized she was still pointing her pistol at him and holstered it. “Especially if you really do need to use the lav. Shooting someone with a full bladder could result in a mess.”

  “That is possible. I encourage you to aim lower if you ever need to shoot me. Legs seem relatively repairable and, even if not, are unlikely to affect my ability to do my job. I’d be even more willing to sacrifice a foot.” He lowered his hands and pointed to the corridor. “I’ll wait out there until you’re done.”

  Bonita eyed the case and thought of Viggo’s suggestion. It wasn’t a bad one, but did she want some goofy stranger—and she did mean goofy—to know her secrets? Yes, he had helped them escape those mercs, but he was just looking out for his own life.

  “Casmir,” Bonita said, stopping him before he closed the hatch. “Do you think you could open this?”

  She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. Both by enlisting his aid and by trying to look inside the sealed case. But if something that wasn’t on the packing list was hidden in there and she tried to pawn it off on Diego, she could make an enemy of the pirate family.

  Shouldn’t she be old enough by now to stop making stupid mistakes? No, her last marriage was a testament to that.

  Casmir stepped inside and crouched for a closer look, scrutinizing the seams as she’d done and also the keypad. He tapped the keyboard integrated into the display, eliciting a soft beep.

  “What are you doing?” she snarled, her hand twitching toward her pistol again.

  He noticed the gesture and leaned back in alarm, his eye blinking. “Seeing what I’m dealing with?”

  Bonita forced herself to lower her hand. “Can’t you do that without touching it? What happens if you don’t finish entering the combination? It could shoot out flames or poison gas or who knows what.”

  “Flames? That seems an extreme response to an incorrect code entry. And unlikely given the size of the object and the likelihood that people who purchase such safes want most of the interior space for storing goods. Still, I accede to your point. It is likely that we’d be locked out after a certain number of incorrect tries. I simply wanted to know if it required a physical touch or if an electronic signal might work for activating the keys, because I do know of software for cracking systems like this. I would have to build something to interface with it. Hm, I don’t see any kind of port.”

  “Yes, Viggo mentioned that being a problem.”

  “Perhaps electronic pulses…” Casmir tilted his head thoughtfully.

  Thinking? Or waiting for input from the ship’s computer?

  Bonita waved toward the ceiling. “Viggo?”

  “You told me not to speak with you in the lavatory.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “It is generally a relaxing sanctuary where one prefers not to be disturbed,” Casmir said. “Though I have noticed that the differences in the equipment on a spaceship are rather pronounced and require more concentration than relaxation.”

  “Wait until you try it in zero-g.”

  Casmir grimaced, his hand drifting toward his belt before he caught it. “I’ll see what I can build while I’m downloading a cracking program.”

  “How does a robotics researcher know about cracking programs?” Bonita called after him.

  “I am also a teacher of teenagers. All good teachers have to be aware of the various methods students use to breach secure files, virtual and physical, in an attempt to alter test scores.”

  Qin appeared in the hatchway, looking over her shoulder as Casmir’s footsteps retreated. She turned her curious eyes toward the case.

  “Problem?” Bonita doubted Qin would openly question her choice to include Casmir in her snooping, but she preemptively changed the subject just in case.

  “The mercenary ship is falling farther behind.”

  “Good.”

  “But they sent a communication ahead to Forseti Station.”

  “That’s less good. Were you able to intercept it?”

  Qin shook her head. “No, it was on a tight beam.”

  “So, if they have allies on the station, they could be waiting for us when we arrive.”

  “Should we consider changing course?”

  “I’m sure we should, but I already told Diego we’d meet him there. And sell him this.” Bonita eyed the case. “Whatever it is.”

  Qin arched her eyebrows. “We could ask our captured mercenaries if they know what it is. One would assume they had some knowledge, so they wouldn’t be duped and accept a lesser prize.”

  “I don’t have any eslevoamytal along,” Bonita said. “It’s an expensive drug, and I haven’t had a reason to do interrogations for a while.”

  “I could question them without a drug.” Qin didn’t appear excited by the prospect, but something about the grim set of her eyes said she had done it before and could again.

  For the first time, Bonita was tempted to ask for more details about Qin’s past. She had a policy of not prying—most people in her line of work didn’t appreciate nosy questions about their personal history—and she’d gotten the gist over the last couple of months.

  “Here we go,” Casmir announced in the corridor.

  Qin stepped aside, and he entered with a portable keyboard attached to a little black box with a wire and a magnet or sensor or who knew what dangling from the end.

  “You made your thing for interfacing?” Bonita asked.

  “And running a software-cracking program, yes.” Casmir knelt beside
the case and attached the magnet to the keypad.

  “It takes me longer than that to make a sandwich.”

  “Oh? Do you make the pickles from scratch?” Casmir tapped a few commands on his keyboard—Bonita watched intently in case she ever needed to replicate the actions—then let it hang next to the case while he waited for the program to run. “One of my colleagues does that. He’s pickled everything from lemons to garlic to cauliflower to blueberries. Oh, and cured bacon. That was odd. His concoctions do make for an interesting aroma in the lunchroom when he brings them in. And he’s never happy unless everyone samples them.”

  A beep came from Casmir’s device, saving Bonita from having to come up with a response to the question—there had been a question in there, hadn’t there?

  “That’s a shorter code than I expected.” Casmir reached for the keypad on the case but paused. “Do you want to stand back? In case it’s wrong and you were right about the flames?”

  “Just press it. I can yank you in front of me quickly if need be.”

  “I see. You’re not willing to shoot a man with a full bladder, but you’ll push him in front of an inferno without hesitation.”

  “To protect myself from incineration? Yes, I’ll risk wet boots.”

  “Ew,” Qin said.

  “I guess it’s a good thing I only needed two of your cleaning robots earlier. I’d hate to leave you with a mess.”

  Qin’s ew turned into a giggle. It was a strange sound coming from someone who’d just been talking about interrogating prisoners. Maybe she was rethinking Casmir’s knightly potential.

  He tapped in a code, using a mix of letters, symbols, and numbers, and settled back on his heels. A reassuring beep came from the case, and the lid popped.

  Bonita eyed it warily, half-expecting a trap to be triggered. Casmir did not reach for the lid right away. She pulled out her scanner again. It still couldn’t read much with the case open only an inch, but it didn’t detect any heat or radiation.

  Casmir extended a hand toward it. “It’s your illicit case.”

  “Good. Thanks. Give me that.” She pointed to the contraption he’d used to open the lock. Whatever was in here, she wanted to be the person to have control over opening and closing it in the future.

  His brows lifted, but he handed her the device. Then backed up to the hatch, but he didn’t leave the room. He had to be curious.

  Should she make him go?

  She shrugged and pulled the lid up, standing away from the opening, but no traps sprang. His code must have been deemed acceptable.

  Bonita was disappointed but not surprised that the case wasn’t full of the various handheld weapons that had been on the list. It took her a moment to figure out what it was full of. A disassembled rocket in an insulated mold that would keep it from being jostled around in zero gravity. Several rows of vials lay next to it in insulated pockets. A slight vapor came off them, and she realized that section of the case was refrigerated. The vials had labels, but the print was too small to read without removing them.

  When Bonita reached for one, Casmir said, “I wouldn’t.”

  “Do you know what they are?”

  “I think Kim might,” he said grimly.

  “Oh, good. I wanted to have more people aware of the secret cargo stashed on my ship.”

  “You know I was going to tell her about everything anyway, right?” Casmir smiled, but the gesture only drew attention to his one-eyed blink. Was he nervous about what they’d unearthed?

  Bonita waved. “Go get her.”

  He tripped over nothing as he hurried away. He was nervous. Considering he had remained relatively calm while being manhandled by mercenaries, Bonita worried she should be nervous too.

  Kim appeared in the hatchway. She’d been wearing her borrowed galaxy suit all along, as Bonita had advised on the first day, but now she had the gloves on and the helmet in place.

  That alone made Bonita take several large steps back from the case. What had Casmir told her?

  As Kim gazed down at the case, she didn’t react with a gape or any of Casmir’s signs of nerves, but when she stepped inside and crouched in front of the vials, it was with slow and deliberate care. She picked up one of the vials, read the label, and examined the seal. She set it back in its pocket and picked up another one.

  Bonita watched her eyes through her faceplate, but she might as well have been watching an android. Kim methodically examined several of the vials. She barely glanced at the rocket. Bonita had seen a few of those in her day and thought it looked state-of-the-art but unspectacular. It was simply a tool for delivering and dispersing the vials, she wagered.

  But delivering and dispersing them where? A space station? A planet?

  “There are four strains,” Kim said. “With extras for… redundancy, I suppose. They’re all lab-grown and extremely customized—nothing existing in nature—so I can only make guesses based on the scientific naming conventions. And the presence of a delivery mechanism,” she added dryly, waving toward the rocket.

  “A bioweapon, I assume,” Casmir said from the doorway, his helmet also on now. “That’s an XR-7 Heavy Stinger—I know thanks to Professor Petrov’s fascination with model rockets. If it were detonated high enough in the atmosphere, it’s got the power to spread its payload over a continent.”

  “That would result in too much dilution, even for something extremely potent,” Kim said. “These vials aren’t very large. But a city might be targeted.”

  “A city with millions of people?” Casmir asked. “Like Zamek?”

  “Yes. And if those bacteria are self-replicating once they find a host, far more than a city could end up affected.”

  “Those are designed to kill people?” Bonita asked. “Is that what they would do?”

  “That’s my guess from the names.” Kim eyed the vials. “I’d love to have a look at the strains in my lab under my microscope. Well, maybe not in my lab. In the Biosafety Level Four lab at the back of our campus.”

  “You’re going to make me hyperventilate, Kim.” Casmir waved at the case. “I’ve been sleeping next door to that bulkhead. And taking a leak right under it.” His voice did have a hysterical edge to it, but he gulped and cleared his throat. “How about we close up Pandora’s box there, eh? Would that case be sufficient to keep the bacteria in if something happened to one of those vials? Like it broke?”

  Kim snorted. “Doubtful. Shipping this is even more illegal than making it. There should have been all manner of biohazard warning and fragile stickers covering this case, and the vials should have a containment field around them, not some completely ineffective padding. But, if the proper precautions had been taken, I suppose someone couldn’t have been tricked into delivering it then.” Kim gazed at Bonita.

  “I wasn’t tricked,” Bonita snapped, more out of reflex than because it was true.

  “If you knowingly brought this on board your own ship, you’re even more of an idiot than I think you are right now.”

  Bonita clenched her teeth, her fingers twitching toward her pistol.

  “Easy, my friends,” Casmir said, lifting his hands, ambling non-threateningly into the room, and standing between them. “I think this is a time for us to come together in problem-solving camaraderie rather than in insult-throwing angst that could lead to unfortunate mishaps. Such as bullets being fired next to horrible biological weapons that might be able to melt us into piles of radioactive waste from the inside out.”

  “Shit.” Bonita hadn’t truly intended to pull out her pistol—she just had that instinct when she was being threatened—but the idea that a little mistake could do what Casmir described… “Yeah, let’s close it up and put it away.”

  “Put it away?” Kim asked. “If you’re not an idiot, you’ll space that. Now. While we’re out in the middle of nowhere, and it’s unlikely to ever be found again.”

  Bonita carefully lowered the lid while considering her options. She could space the case. But she had Diego waiti
ng to buy non-existent weapons, and crazy mercenaries that knew she had it—and whoever their employers were had to know too.

  She could apologize to Diego and tell him the deal was off—she would have to, since she didn’t have what he’d agreed to buy. But what about the mercs? They knew where she’d come from, and they knew where she was heading. If she spaced it, they might be able to retrace her route and find it. Even if the case didn’t have any kind of heat signature, a metallic object would still be detectable on scanners.

  She could space it and blow it up with the railgun, but if her pursuers caught up with her again, they might not believe she’d destroyed it, at least not at first, not until they’d tortured her to death for its location. That would be an unpleasant way to go.

  Her life had been so much easier when she’d been a bounty hunter. She vowed to go back to that if she survived this hellish month. If she had to compete with young pups for bounties, so be it. She knew how to find people and take them down. This… This was too much.

  “Would that truly work?” Casmir asked Kim. “Someone knows she has it and could simply retrace our route to find it. And then what? Some unscrupulous bad guys have this weapon in our system. Unscrupulous bad guys who could be gunning for Odin.”

  Bonita nodded, glad he’d had similar thoughts, so she wouldn’t have to explain. Even if her concerns were more about her own life than the ramifications of the weapon being unleashed on a planet. She would worry about that after this was off her ship.

  “Space it and destroy it, then. Does this freighter have guns? If not, maybe one of Qin’s explosives and a remote detonator?” Kim looked at Casmir.

  “We’re not destroying it until we’re someplace with witnesses who will swear they saw me destroy it,” Bonita said. “Help me put this back in the cubby, Qin.”

  Bonita had carefully and with painstaking thoroughness closed the lid, and she gently lifted one side of the case.

  Qin hesitated before coming inside—it was the first time Bonita recalled her hesitating to follow an order. She ordered her helmet to affix itself before stepping close and gingerly picking up the other side.