the file in order for it to spread. It is likely they have learned that we have taken over their ship and would be wary about any files we send.”
Casmir had warned Asger of exactly that. Here, the crusher had been able to upload the file directly, but unless they could send this crusher—Gad—to all the other ships, it wouldn’t work again.
A faint beep came from the other side of the bridge. The comm.
“One of the pirate ships is hailing us,” the crusher at the station said.
Asger, came a message from Bonita. I already told your father, but I see that the power went out on that warship. In case you didn’t know… you’re surrounded. And one of them has the Dragon. If you have any brilliance planned, I encourage you to deploy it. Now.
“They have Bonita,” Asger told his father.
“I know.” His eyes were bleaker than ever.
“Do you have a plan?”
His father hesitated, then nodded and strode to the comm. “Surrender.”
Asger lunged and caught his arm. “That’s not acceptable.”
“They have Bonita. And thanks to that virus, we’re sitting on a brick that can’t do anything. If you have another plan, let’s hear it.”
Asger scoured his brain, trying to find the brilliance Bonita wanted. And that his father wanted.
“We negotiate,” he said.
“Oh, yeah. That’ll work great. We’re so obviously in a position of power.”
“We have one of their ships. They’ll want it back. That’s something.”
His father’s face radiated skepticism.
“Let me talk to them,” Asger said, hoping inspiration would come. “Trust me.”
His father’s hesitation was longer this time, emotions warring on his face. There was a hint of hope in his eyes, hope that Asger could pull magic out of his ass, but it was being pummeled by skepticism.
His father spread his hand toward the comm station. “Talk to them. If you can get us out of this, I’ll…”
Asger raised his eyebrows. Even though it hardly mattered right now, he was curious how his father would finish the sentence.
“I’ll go to the king personally and argue for you to be allowed to bring Qin home and date her or marry her or whatever you wish.”
Asger almost snorted—they both knew Jager would never allow that—but the thought that his father would stand up for him to the king touched him. “We might start with dating.”
“That seems reasonable.”
Kim reached the airlock bay of the Dart with an oxygen tank fastened to her galaxy suit and all the useful equipment she’d been able to fit in the space-rated kit she’d grabbed from the ship’s sickbay. The last she’d heard, their ship had left the battle to the rest of the fleet and was flying into the asteroid. The Dart had tried firing directly at the hole the drilling device had created and disappeared into, but it had been like shooting a cannonball into a pinhole.
Casmir clomped into the bay with Zee and several other crushers, though Kim couldn’t imagine what they would do against a canister holding a virus. For that matter, she didn’t know what she could do. The crusher could blow it up as easily as she could.
She assumed Casmir wanted her along to lend her expertise if it was needed, but she would be better off helping the station’s medical personnel establish a quarantine and deal with the virus inside if it got through. She refrained from pointing that out, since walking away would mean leaving Casmir to go in alone. He looked more like a goofy teenager than an experienced professor as he shambled toward the airlock in oversized armor, his bangs dangling down into his eyes, and his not-space-rated tool satchel flopping against his hip. Because of his medical vulnerabilities, she’d always felt protective of him. Even if he was taking the crushers, she worried he would get himself into trouble and need a friend to guard his back.
“What are they going to do out there?” Kim pointed at the crushers that crowded behind him. Was one of them Reuben? She thought he’d followed her down, but she couldn’t tell him apart now that he was among the others.
“Either lend moral support or stand in front of us if a bomb goes off.”
Kim groaned at the thought of a bomb, but if Dubashi had been planning this since he’d left his base, he’d had plenty of time to build an extremely effective virus-delivery device. “Only you would want moral support from a robot.”
“I can be morally supportive, Kim Sato,” one of the crushers said. She thought it was Zee,