Home Front (Star Kingdom #7) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,14
would applaud this level of dedication to fitness, but sitting a foot away from it was making her loca. She was glad when a female lieutenant walked into view, trailed by two soldiers with rifles and in full combat armor, if only because it made Qin take a break.
A break from fitness, not from being ready to escape or attack. Qin sprang to her feet and focused on the trio through the force field that had thus far made the cell escape-proof. If she’d had a tail, it would have been twitching.
Qin would, Bonita had zero doubt, test herself against those armed guards if she got a chance. And she might win. Bonita didn’t see any crushers.
“I’m Lieutenant Croix, a nurse.” The woman lifted a medical kit. “I’ve been sent to check on you.”
“More than four days after we were imprisoned and beaten up for no good reason?” Bonita asked.
“There have been arguments about whether or not you should be treated for injuries. The medical staff was for helping you.” Croix eyed Qin. “In case that makes you less inclined to maul me when I come in.”
“Nobody’s going to maul you, ma’am,” one of the soldiers said. Surprisingly, it was a female soldier behind the helmet’s tinted faceplate. Bonita hadn’t seen many women on the Kingdom ships, at least not among the grunts with guns and armor. “That’s why we’re here.”
“I still vote for stunning them before we let her in,” the other soldier, a man, said. “I’ve seen that one fight.” He had a stunner on his utility belt, but he jerked the rifle toward Qin.
“Let me guess,” Bonita said. “His stuffy and uptight Highness was against treating us.”
“That’s correct. The captain was for, but he wouldn’t argue much with the prince.”
“Arguing probably gets you thrown in the cell next door,” Bonita said.
The lieutenant didn’t smile.
“Step back.” The male soldier twitched his rifle again. Focused on Qin, he didn’t even glance at Bonita.
That made Bonita’s hackles rise, but she knew she didn’t look like much of a threat. The soldiers had taken their armor and weapons and even their shoes. She looked like the seventy-year-old woman she was as she stood in socks, trousers, and a shirt, the yellowing bruises on her face and forearms on full display. Qin wasn’t wearing more, but she still looked ferocious, the light fur on the backs of her arms reminding onlookers that she wasn’t fully human, even if they somehow missed the fangs. Qin was baring those fangs now.
She stepped back from the force field, but she raised her eyebrows and looked at Bonita. Asking if they should try to attack?
These soldiers didn’t seem like the cream of the crop. She and Qin might not get a better chance, but she had little familiarity with the ship—she’d barely been conscious when those crushers had dragged them to the brig—and couldn’t access her chip to check the network, message friends who might have helped, or even plot with Qin. The cell’s walls were blocking all connectivity. In the days they’d been in here, nobody had visited them or told them anything. Meals had been delivered by robots with crusher guards to ensure Qin didn’t mount an attack.
Bonita had no idea if Bjarke, Casmir, Asger, and the others had escaped Dubashi’s base, nor did she know what had happened to her ship. What if the Dragon had been so damaged that Viggo hadn’t been able to maneuver it away from those asteroids? What if it’d smashed against them and been wrecked beyond repair? All she owned was in her cabin there, and almost all of her net worth was in the ship itself, the part that was paid off. If she had to start over from scratch one more time…
She shook her head at Qin, then flopped back onto the bunk. Unless something major happened to distract the crew, she doubted they would be able to escape this ship, even if they managed to get out of their cell. She also didn’t know if it—it was much smaller than the big Kingdom warships—had a shuttle they could potentially commandeer. They would have to steal the whole ship. Something that would have been daunting even without the cadre of crushers aboard. Congratulations to Casmir for inventing henchmen—henchbots—that drained all hope from the hearts of prisoners.
“I will not attack you if you are here to heal my captain’s wounds,” Qin said, speaking for the first time.
Whether that swayed the soldiers or they’d planned to come in