Home Front (Star Kingdom #7) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,47

warning look.

Bjarke looked over his pod at Asger.

“We’re fine,” Asger said.

Kim touched Casmir’s shoulder. “Are you all right? You’re not going to have another seizure, are you?”

“I hope not.” Casmir made himself straighten and blink away what had probably been a glassy-eyed stare at the deck. “I just feel daunted and… responsible.”

“For what? Jorg’s death?”

Casmir didn’t have words for all the regrets he had and all the failures he’d inadvertently instigated, so he only shook his head. “Let’s hope Sultan Shayban is a reasonable—no, generous—man and isn’t disappointed that I can’t drop Dubashi in his lap, as I was supposed to do in exchange for all the materials for building those crushers.”

“Ah.” A troubled furrow creased Kim’s brow. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“I haven’t.” To ask for more favors when he hadn’t even fulfilled his part of the bargain…

Casmir shook his head and went to find a place to lie down. He still had a headache from his last seizure.

Numerous mercenaries came to sickbay after the battle on the Kingdom yacht, and Yas called in the ship’s single nurse and also a recruit with a steady hand to help. The men’s armor had protected them from energy weapons and bruises, but many had broken bones and other internal injuries. The crushers had thrown them around so hard that even the insulation of their equipment hadn’t been enough to cushion them. Yas had heard variations of the same story from several of the men.

He was almost surprised when Rache walked in, his helmet off but his mask on, as usual. Since he had numerous enhancements to speed his healing, he usually bypassed sickbay and suffered in silence in his quarters until his body mended itself.

Rache nodded to the men as he passed. “Report, Doctor? Are Chaplain and Drang doing all right?”

Those two had been carried into sickbay unconscious.

“They both have skull fractures and swelling in their brains. Chaplain also looks like someone drove a jackhammer through his ribs and into his liver.”

“Crushers hit hard. They’ll make it?”

“They should, but they’ll be out of commission for a while.”

Rache nodded. “Until that gate is open, we don’t have anywhere to go.”

His voice sounded determined rather than accepting, and Yas wondered if he had some plan to figure out how to open the gate.

“I am contemplating searching for Kyla Moonrazor,” Rache added in a quiet tone. “I’ve heard she’s in this system. There aren’t many people Dabrowski could have contacted with the power to wave a hand and render an advanced piece of ancient technology inoperable.”

“We could just wait. If he was responsible for the gate, well, he’s going to want to go home eventually.”

“As soon as the Kingdom has the ships it needs to stop its war. But it would be easier for me if we could get through now, while there’s a blockade and all of the Kingdom is distracted.”

“Do you still have… that mission in System Lion?” Yas stepped into his small private office in sickbay, and Rache followed him to collect his report. “Won’t Dubashi find out you blew up his ships? Those were his ships that were attacking the Kingdom yacht, right?”

“They belonged to people working for him, yes. It depends if they got a report out before they were destroyed.” Rache sounded indifferent to the notion. Maybe he didn’t believe Dubashi would care, as long as Jorg was dead. That was hard to believe.

“I heard the Kingdom warships were swooping in as we left the scene. Are you sure… Is Jorg truly dead?”

If he’d been left near death or even dead with the possibility of resuscitation, it was possible the Kingdom men had found him and brought him back on board.

“He’s dead,” Rache said with certainty.

“Did you do it?”

“Yes.”

“A DEW-Tek bolt to the back? Or face?”

“I broke his neck.” Rache said it simply, stating a fact, and without remorse. “He attacked me first. I did goad him into it, but that was out of a notion that some people would find it less inappropriate if it were a fair fight. He was willing to be goaded. He called me a wart on the face of humanity and slavered and foamed at the mouth when I brought up his delinquent past.”

“Some people?” Yas tapped his tablet to send a report on the men’s status to Rache’s chip. “Like Kim?”

“Kim and perhaps my doctor.” The mask hid any facial expression Rache might have shared, but Yas imagined an eyebrow raising. “I also went to the brig to collect her friends, Lopez