cargo hold, but it was Bonita. She spotted Kim right away.
“Tell Casmir—”
“He knows.” Kim nodded toward the battle, toward the old crushers fighting the new crushers. “He thought that would be a problem, and he’s working on it.”
She’d left Casmir in navigation to work on it remotely—and safely—via his chip, but he came out of the ladder well and pushed off across the hold toward them.
Kim held up a hand to stop him, assuming he didn’t intend to pass into the airlock and had miscalculated his trajectory.
But he shook his head. “I have to go over there and talk to them.”
“Talk to them?” Kim shifted to block him. Like her, he wore only a galaxy suit. It would be madness to run into a battle zone full of crushers and armored men. “Talk to who?”
“The crushers. And Rache and his men. And Jorg and his men. We shouldn’t be fighting each other. Dubashi’s attackers were the only real enemy here, and they’re dead.”
Kim thought Bjarke and Asger would object to Rache being classified as anything other than a real enemy, but that wasn’t what Bonita objected to when she lifted her hand. “Jorg is dead.”
Casmir’s shoulders slumped. “We were too late?”
Kim digested the news without emotion. She knew Casmir never wanted anyone to be killed, but she couldn’t stir up any remorse for the man who’d ordered her to build him a horrific bioweapon.
“Only by seconds,” Bonita said. “Though Rache may have been, uh, not playing with him exactly, since there was a small war going on all around them during their fight, but he turned it into some wrestling match instead of just blowing up Jorg’s shuttle—or Jorg.”
“Was just blowing him up an option?” Kim asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe not with all the crushers guarding him. Rache goaded him into running out and making it a one-on-one battle.”
Casmir recovered, shook his head, and moved Kim’s hand out of the way. “If Jorg is dead, then there’s really no reason for the remaining people and crushers to be fighting. I’m going to try to get them to surrender, or at least cease hostilities.”
“Can’t you talk to the crushers over the network?” Kim’s fingers twitched—she wanted to stop him from going over there and getting himself caught in the crossfire.
“Not the original ones. I intentionally set them up so people couldn’t hack into them easily and change their orders.”
“Even you?”
“It was what the military wanted.” Casmir shot past her and into the tube. He didn’t even have a weapon.
Bonita headed in the other direction. “I’m going to get the Dragon ready to fly in case we have to leave in a hurry.”
“I am already prepared,” Viggo announced, “but I welcome your return to navigation, Bonita. Two Kingdom warships approach. The Osprey’s weapons appear to be working again.”
Kim pulled herself after Casmir, more worried about him than the warships, though when the Osprey arrived, they would have another problem. Ishii might try to recapture the Dragon, especially after he learned Jorg was dead. Would Rache’s Fedallah fire on the Kingdom ships? Kim and the others hadn’t seen Rache’s warship on their way in, but it had to be nearby, waiting for the return of its combat team.
A sick feeling wrenched her stomach. What if Rache ordered his people to destroy the Osprey? She wouldn’t mourn Jorg’s loss, but Dr. Sikou and Captain Ishii were another matter. Ishii had only ever been trying to obey his orders and do the right thing. He’d looked the other way when Kim had fled to avoid the bioweapon duty.
Rache, she sent another message to his chip, though he hadn’t responded to the last one. The Osprey and another ship are coming.
This time, his response was prompt. I know.
Maybe he’d been engaged in his battle with Jorg before, and that was why he’d ignored her.
Please don’t have your ship attack them. Bonita and Qin—Kim saw Qin up ahead in the airlock chamber with Tristan, both trying to keep Casmir from going out into danger—are safe. Just get out of here, please. The Osprey is… Kim groped for an argument that would sway Rache. He wouldn’t care that Captain Ishii was a decent man. He wouldn’t care that every ship the Kingdom lost would make it that much harder for them to stop the war. He wouldn’t care that Ambassador Romano, who would probably be in charge of gathering troops now, was on there. I left my espresso machine in sickbay.
It was a stupid thing to say, but