Home Front (Star Kingdom #7) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,113
just trying to take advantage of the situation?”
“They failed to tell me their exact motivations,” Nalini said tightly from the command pod. “You’re welcome to open the comm and invite them to dinner, if you wish.”
“I am a sexy date, but I was thinking of offering to pay them to go away.”
Nalini gave him a flat look—maybe she disagreed with his assessment of his sex appeal. “Do you have money? Because I’m not paying mercenaries to not attack our station. That would set an abysmal precedent, and I know my father wouldn’t approve.” Her mouth twisted. “I know that because he already told me when I brought it up.”
“I do not have money, but I’ve heard that Tristan has a big estate on Odin.”
Tristan glanced at him from the weapons station as the ship twisted to chase after another mercenary. “Sir Sebastian tried to leave that to me, but I’m certain the Senate overruled that months ago and gave it to his son.”
“But do the mercenaries know that?”
“Casmir, you can’t give away someone else’s land.”
“I suppose not. I’m just brainstorming. If we could get them talking, maybe we could trick them into accepting a file download, and I could send my virus over.”
“I think everyone in the system has heard about your virus by now and won’t fall for your tactics,” Nalini said.
Casmir snapped his fingers. “What if, instead of paying them to stop attacking your home, you pay them to go somewhere else? Is anyone, by chance, harassing any of your real-estate holdings right now?”
“Not that I know of.” The second look she gave him was less scathing and more thoughtful.
“What about hiring them to go find Dubashi?”
“Unless we give them a slydar detector, they’re not any more likely to find him than we are.”
“They don’t have to find him. All we need is for them not to be here.” Casmir checked the scanners to see if his request to Ishii was bearing any fruit. Ishii hadn’t said anything, but maybe…
Two of the Kingdom warships were on the way here. The Osprey and the Eagle. Good. But unless this turned into a protracted siege, they wouldn’t make it in time to help. Bad.
“Damn it.” He wished he’d contacted Ishii much earlier.
Casmir noticed one of the Drucker ships had veered off its course toward the station and was attached to Jemadari’s yacht. He prayed that his friends would survive that ordeal and come out victorious, and he wished he were able to help. The crushers he’d sent would have to be enough.
“You’re welcome to comm the mercenaries, Professor. It’s not like talking to them can make anything worse.” Nalini’s voice lowered to a mutter to add, “Probably.”
Before he could send a message, a skirmish on the scanners caught his attention. One of their ships was chasing a visible mercenary ship, which would be fine, but the slydar detector showed two camouflaged mercenary vessels veering in to cut it off.
“Captain of the Daedalus,” Casmir commed their ally. “You’ve got two ships coming in from under your belly. Are you getting our scanner transmissions?”
The Daedalus fired at their target as one of the hidden mercenary ships fired at it. Their shields faltered before establishing themselves. The Daedalus veered onto another course, trying to shake its pursuers.
“We’re getting them but delayed, Admiral,” came a grim female response.
Casmir almost told the officer to call him Professor or by name, but his honorific wasn’t the priority. “I’m streaming it to the fleet as real-time as possible.”
He grimaced. Their ally ships that were farther out were getting the same lag that he’d gotten when relying on the feed from the station.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to send a slydar detector over here.” She sounded harried.
“Can we get to the Daedalus in time to help, Your Highness?” Casmir showed Nalini the scanner display, though this wasn’t the only troubling skirmish. Numerous of their fleet were in tight situations, being chased by ships they couldn’t detect.
“Do it,” Nalini told their helmsman.
The Daedalus fired at one of its pursuers, but the blasts streaked through space behind the ship. They couldn’t accurately target the camouflaged craft, even with the shared scanner feed. Casmir thumped a fist against his thigh. This wasn’t working.
As he watched helplessly, one of their ally ships took too much damage and lost power. The asteroid’s surface defenses fired at the camouflaged mercenary, driving it away before it could finish off the ship, but it was still out of the fight. Something needed to change.