“Man…” Ken whispered. “How many weird things does your galaxy have?”

  “Enough,” Kinfild replied. “Now, come with me. We have a communications outpost to borrow.”

  “Is this king guy gonna send us a message?”

  “We’re sending his message for him. Come along.”

  Jace showed Lessa the new developments with the rifle as soon as it was ready, and she grinned. “It definitely worked,” she said.

  “Now, onto yours. We’ve done what we can here. What do we need to do to upgrade your rifle?”

  “I’m going to use the Sentinel’s armour to build a charge.”

  “How does that work?”

  “The armour holds Aes in it,” she replied, walking back to the barn. When they got inside, they ran back to the main worktable, where their local helpers were currently scrubbing the armour plates and polishing them. “Since this rifle charges up, I should be able to hold plenty of plasma-aspect Aes in the panels, allowing it a much, much greater output.”

  “That’ll work?”

  “Yeah. I mean, it won’t be as piercing, but the panels should have a purifying effect. They were containing massive amounts of Aes from the Sentinels and not bursting. In fact, they were designed to not burst.”

  “But they contain, not…absorb, right?”

  “Well, sorta. But they had to absorb a little. Trust me. If they were purely Aes-phobic, it’d be like oil and water. Filling them with Aes is what allowed them to act as armour in the first place.”

  “I’ll trust you on this one. What do you need me to do?”

  “I’m going to need you guys to hold stuff for me.”

  For the rest of the day, they did exactly that. Jace and the others held the panels in place while Lessa attached them. The usual method of particle board and hot glue wasn’t good enough for a rifle like this, which had to last, but they used cardboard and flimsy wood to hold it in place while they worked, as temporary supports.

  Of course, Lessa had been right about the nature of the armour. It didn’t block out any Aes, and in fact it wasn’t particularly durable without any Aes in it.

  They borrowed some screws and metal rods, which allowed them to attach the armour panels near the front of the rifle. While it wasn’t horribly important, the colour of the panels did match the rifle, giving the impression that chunks of it had broken off and were hovering around it.

  Next, the others held the rifle steady while she carved rune-lines up to the panels themselves, moving along the metal rods they’d used to attach it.

  When evening came, they were finished. She held up the rifle and attached it back to her exo-suit, letting it charge.

  “How long will it take?” Jace asked.

  “Ten hours for a full charge. To enhance every shot in it. But I should be able to test the first shot out in a little bit. After dinner?”

  “Sounds like a plan. We’ll test it after dinner.”

  They all gathered in the farmhouse. For everyone at the settlement, there wasn’t enough room at the table, so they’d set up a few tables around the edges. Kids’ tables, just like when Jace had been growing up.

  Candles and lanterns hung around the living room, and there was even a Christmas tree in the corner. It didn’t seem like anyone had set out any presents yet, but the kids were too busy playing with each other to mind.

  Jace couldn’t help feeling mildly guilty that he was out here, back home, celebrating Christmas Eve close to the remnants of his childhood home, all while others out in the wider universe were fighting for their survival. But he reminded himself that he wasn’t going to fight at his best if he was exhausted and overworked.

  After dinner, he stood in the back of the room. A few of the kids came up and examined his clothes and asked about Lessa and what she was. Since there was no molasses or spices left in the stores, they’d resorted to making shortbread cookies in the shape of gingerbread men, and Mrs. Calder gave out cups of homemade eggnog (it was incredibly thick and not necessarily as sweet as Jace was used to, and she’d compensated with a healthy helping of rum).

  Jace was expecting to feel a little dizzy after a single cup, but his body handled the alcohol with ease.

  “This is amazing!” Lessa exclaimed. “I can’t taste anything but alcohol!”

  Jace rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed.

  “What? There really wasn’t much alcohol back home. Sure, we had ale in the taverns but it tasted awful. It wasn’t sweet like this. But—I promise I won’t have too much! I won’t get myself hung-over. Or drunk. I still wanna test the rifle, and I won’t let myself do that with only half a brain.”

  As the night dragged on, Jace kept glancing out the window, looking up at the stars, and wondering if any of the bright pinpricks was actually an incredibly distant galaxy.

  Whatever the case, they were going back soon. And they’d be ready.

  After dinner, he and Lessa left the farmhouse and made a row of snowmen with some of the other kids.

  Then, once Jace had wrangled all of them and gotten them out of the way, Lessa activated the rifle. It hadn’t built up a full charge, but there was at least one fully-enhanced shot. The armour panels crackled with magenta lightning, and the entire barrel hummed. It gave him the impression of a leashed dog rearing to chase after a rabbit.

  She pointed it at the snowman and fired. A streak of white plasma with only a few vague hints of magenta on the edges surged out, piercing through the snowman and scattering its guts all across the lawn. It didn’t erase the matter from existence, but it was strong. Jace sensed Aes about the same strength as the light Sentinel’s Aes had been.

  “That’ll pack a punch,” he said. “Chances are, it kills any Wielder it hits. Anyone but the Hand.”

  “As long as I can hit them and they don’t overwhelm me.”

  “Sure. As long as that doesn’t happen.” Jace grimaced. Those kinds of thoughts were going to lead them down a dark path. “Now, we’ve got one more day. Let’s rest up and get ready for tomorrow.”

  Getting into the control room for the communications’ outpost’s broadcasting center was the easy part, as it turned out. Kinfild and Ken didn’t need to fight their way in. They simply posed as workers, entering the room to fix one of the telesignal receivers.

  Once they were into the room, Kinfild sealed the door and blasted the control panel with a bar of orangeflame. Ken manifested a jet of fire on the tip of his finger and sealed off the door entirely, welding it shut like he and Kinfild had practiced. His flame was orange as well, though it verged on yellow and burned much brighter.

  By the time they’d sealed the door, the mortal workers inside the control room jumped up. Most were Alliance soldiers, and they grabbed their plasma rifles.

  It wasn’t fast enough. With a whirl of his staff, Kinfild smashed a card, activating it and sending a swell of flame smashing through the soldiers. A few burnt inside their armour, and the rest tried to fire back with their rifles.

  But Ken was faster. He darted forward, coating his fists in a ball of fire each, and pounced on the nearest soldier, smashing the man’s vizor with a fortified punch. The visor shattered and the man died instantly.

  Ken and Kinfild made quick work of the soldiers. The rest of the workers—some of which seemed to be locals who had worked here before the Alliance conquered it—turned their gazes to Kinfild.

  “What’s happening?” one of them asked.

  “We surrender!” another shouted.

  “I am not here to hurt you,” Kinfild insisted. “We are with the Realm. You’ve seen what’s happening outside, correct?”

  Most of them nodded.

  “We are to send a message for the king. We are with the king, and we will begin by broadcasting his private seal. All the admirals will know its meaning.”

  “Y—yes,” said a young man sitting in front of a computer console. “How should I broadcast it?”

  “Open the channel wide. I want to reach every wireless telesignal receiver in the galaxy. Understood?”

  “Understood, sir. And what should the message be?”

  44

  IN PERIL

  A runic circle erupted around the peak of the Citadel Tower, flaring bright white. The rounded dome opened, allowing the central pillar to point directly up at the sky, and a beam of golden-white energy blasted up. It sheared through the sky, blasting through the planetary shield and shearing through an Alliance battleship hovering in the sky above and annihilating it in a single blast.

  The pillar of light quivered for a few seconds, then cut off.

  “It’s done, then?” Perril asked.

  “It’s done,” Ash confirmed. “Now, we have to hope everyone gets our message.” He tried to keep his gaze away from the carnage of the fight with the last Nightmare, and instead locked eyes with Perril. “Thank you for your help.”

  His heart still raced with adrenaline and anticipation, and a fog filled his mind. He didn’t want to process that Lady Fairynor was gone, and he still had a battle to win outside the tower. She believed in him.

  “Aye, you’re welcome,” Perril said. “Now, how are we going to get down? The portals have all been closing behind us.”

  “I don’t think we need to worry about that.”

  The dome at the Citadel Tower’s peak was sliding open, leaving a wider gap for sunlight to rush in—and the flashes of the battle high above. A horde of dropships hovered around the top of the tower, their thrusters blazing. Someone must have informed them that Ash was taking the trials.

  “It was probably Lady Fairynor,” Perril whispered.

  “She always believed I’d succeed…”

  A dropship descended, landing on the top level in front of Ash. The Realm dropships had always reminded him of gray, angular turtles, but they’d been designed with modularity in mind. There was a cargo compartment which could hold a detachable crew bay, artillery pieces, or tanks. This dropship had been outfitted with a shipping-container-like crew bay. A door gunner sat behind a heavy repeating plasma cannon, and soldiers spilled out, wearing their khaki fatigues and wide-brimmed tin helmets.

  An older man followed them out. He wore a heavy flak vest and a peaked cap, but in army browns.

  “General Boarbridge,” Ash said, dipping his head.

  The soldiers all bowed to Ash, and the general dropped to a knee. “Your Majesty,” he said. “How may we be of service?”

  “Please, bring me down to Artanor Hall.”

  “As you wish. Climb aboard.”

  Ash followed them to the crew capsule of the dropship. Because it was modular, there was no access to the cockpit or the two pilots sitting side-by-side, but the last soldier to climb aboard pounded the hull with his fist, and the dropship lifted up off the floor.

  The Artanor Hall was attached to the Citadel Tower’s base, but it was a long way down. The dropship circled down carefully, making sure to avoid the other military transports scurrying around in the air. As they descended, however, a wireless transmitter crackled to life at the back of the transport. The General pressed a button on it, accepting the communication.

  “Your Majesty,” said General Boarbridge. “This communication appears to be coming from you.”

  Kinfild had sent it. Good.

  “Play it,” Ash said. “I gave a friend my seal key.”

  The transmitter let out a roar of static, then Kinfild’s voice blared through. “Greetings, citizens of the Realm, and anyone else in the galaxy. You must have have seen it by now: the stars are lit. There is a new king of the Realm of Artanor, and this message comes directly from him. All Realm fleets are to muster at my location. In nine hours, we will depart for Kinath-Aertes, and we will meet the Alliance in battle. You are to uphold your oaths to your home. The Realm expects that every man will fulfill his duty to the crown.”

  “Help is finally coming?” General Boarbridge asked, shutting off the message as it repeated.

  Ash nodded. “Help is coming.”

  The dropship landed on the plaza in front of the Artanor Hall, and Ash and the others jumped out. He motioned to the general and his soldiers. “With me.”

  He marched through the front doors, approaching the throne and the gathered advisors. The First Attendant sat back, his head in his hands, while the generals and admirals tried to coordinate.

  But as soon as he saw Ash approaching, he stood up. “Guards. Arrest this usurper.”

  As soon as the four yellow-armoured guards behind the throne saw Ash, they bowed.

  “He is nothing! There hasn’t been a king for centuries!” The First Attendant ran to the table and pressed his hands against it. “General, tell him. I am in charge here. He is a figurehead, and nothing more!”

  Ash only raised his eyebrows, then triggered a technique card. With a pulse of turquoise energy, he pulled the First Attendant’s forehead down into the table. It collided with a dull thud, and the man fell unconscious.

  “They’ll be through the gate soon,” said General Boarbridge. “It can’t hold much longer, and we need to divert the power from the shield into keeping the hyperroute to the wall sealed.”

  “Understood,” Ash said. “Guards, with me. They’ll land troops here once they’re through—they’ll try to take down the generator and destroy the Citadel Tower, opening the hyperspace route to the Wall. We only have to hold it long enough for my friends to arrive. Perril, are you ready for one more fight?”

  “Aye, count me in,” she said. “If I’m going to die, it may as well be on my feet.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Ash said. He drew his Whistling Blade. “Once they breach the gate, and once they make it through our fleet, we hold this hall. No matter what comes through, they cannot reach the base of the Citadel Tower.”

  The next morning, Jace and Lessa woke up early—as usual. There was one more project in mind, and then they’d have to depart.

  “So, you think you can link my hypercore to the Gull’s hyperdrive?” Jace asked. He, Lessa, and LeeKay were the only ones under the Gull’s tarp, and they stared at the tiny starfighter. Everyone else was celebrating, and really, there was nothing else that Jace or Lessa could ask them to do.

  “I think so,” Lessa replied. “If I can modify the channels, we should be good to go. You’ll be able to link your own hypercore, and when you use [Hyperdash] in the Gull, the ship will come with you.”

  “Let’s give it a try, then. What do we need?”

  Lessa pulled the Luminian storage ring off her wrist. “This. We need this.”

  “What?”

  “It creates a bit of a pocket universe in of itself. But I think I can use it to help jump the channel between the Gull’s controls and its main Aes intake—when you link yourself to it—to the hyperdrive.”

  “I’ll hold the tools, then,” Jace said with a grin.

  It took longer than Jace was expecting to get ready. They hoisted the Gull up higher than its landing struts would normally allow by using some old car jacks from the farm house’s garage. Then, after removing the panels on the underside, they set to work modifying the starship.

  Their efforts went well into the afternoon. Mrs. Calder brought them some hot chocolate (made with some of their last supplies of cocoa powder they had in the house) to help them heat up. Jace didn’t tell her that he barely felt the chill, and enjoyed the warm liquid for what it was.

  “How are we going to actually fuel the ring?” Jace asked.

  “Do you have to ask?” Lessa tilted her head and glanced back.

  “More rune lines…”

  “Exactly!”

  After attaching the ring, she continued carving more channels with her engraving needle, until finally, finally, she’d fuelled each end of the Luminian storage ring. They had to create a tiny bulge on the bottom of the armour panel to fit back over the new set of runes, but it was done.

  In the evening, as the sun was setting, Jace and Lessa climbed into the cockpit and fired up the thrusters, then took the starship out high over the house. They were a little late for a Christmas Eve flyover, but he wanted to test out the new ability to make a small hyperjump.

  As they took off, he linked his attributes to the Gull, then launched up over the houses, flying high above the farm. He circled through the river valley, and only turned once he passed the old Baldwin Ranch, before activating [Hyperdash].

  Instead of him passing through hyperspace, the starfighter’s viewscreen lit up with bright yellow light, and the little starship lurched forward. It was only the blink of an eye—even less than the blink of an eye—but he had pushed his card to the very limit of its distance. They had travelled about three hundred feet, which didn’t seem like much, but in a dogfight, it could be critical.

  Plus the card allowed him to pass through objects unhindered. The same applied to the Gull.

  He circled back over the Calders’ ranch, preparing to land out front, but before he could set the ship down, his senses screamed out in warning.

  A barrage of plasmafire raced down from above, and heavy plasmafire. Something was trying to kill him. He triggered [Purify], then used another hyperdash to escape in a blink, dodging away from the barrage.

  The bolts impacted the empty countryside, throwing up columns of dirt and snow.

  “What was that?” Lessa exclaimed.

  Jace craned his neck upward, using his eyes to see what his senses could already identify.

  More Alliance ships had come for him, and this time, they weren’t playing it safe. Whatever faction aboard the Outcast wanting him dead had brought a battleship this time.

  45

  TESTING

  “They have battleships?” Lessa exclaimed, looking up at the same thing Jace was. It was the standard Koedor-Terginian smoke-chuffing heavy warship, certainly dispatched from the Outcast to hunt them.