In the entrance hallway, there were three Alliance soldiers waiting for them, dressed head-to-toe in silver armour. They all prepared to fire another volley, but Kinfild and Ken attacked before they could finish pushing their rifles’ bolts back into place. The soldiers slumped against the wall, bodies smouldering.

  Kinfild opened an interior door, leading to a dark room. He held his finger up to his lips to signal for silence. Then, as softly as he could, he whispered, “If we can stay out of sight, then that’s for the best.”

  Ken nodded. “Where’s the array?”

  “It should be at the center. I sense something. The Alliance doesn’t seem to care about the array. I’d say they’re preparing to make another assault on the command post.”

  They snuck through the dark hallways, keeping low and keeping their heads down until they arrived at the central room. It was filled with machinery and tubes, not to mention crates and other supplies. Although there were a few soldiers, Kinfild and Ken snuck around the outer edge of the room.

  “Will they notice if we power up the array?” Ken whispered.

  “I have no idea,” Kinfild replied, matching Ken’s soft tone. “Can you pass me the identity note, please?”

  Ken reached into his pocket and pulled out the slip of paper. It had a messy note taking down the Gull’s transmitter signal. The symbols were messy—Ken had copied them by sight without knowing what they meant—but Kinfild could work with that.

  “Can we send a message from down here?” Ken asked.

  “There should be a small control panel. We should be able to make something work.”

  They snuck through the maze of machinery until they reached a brass sphere at the center of the room. There was a control panel on its underside, which Kinfild had to kneel to gain access to.

  “They didn’t destroy it,” he said. “They only cut it off.”

  After a few swipes of his finger, and after pressing a few buttons beside the panel, the device gave a soft whir. The upper half of the sphere began spinning, and static filled the room, making Ken’s hair spike up.

  The soldiers on the other side of the room whirled toward the array, and Ken ducked down, but not quickly enough. The soldiers caught a glimpse of his hair and fired at him. One blast surged overhead harmlessly, and the other blasts thudded into the crates in front of Ken, sending up an explosion of sparks.

  “You send the message,” Ken said. “I’m going to go deal with these guys.”

  He vaulted over the crates while the soldiers prepared their next shot, before Kinfild could even try to protest, and punched one of them in the face, shattering his visor and filling his armour with flame. The others met a similarly fiery death, but it wasn’t exactly quiet.

  A door hissed open on the other side of the room, and the two Wielders rushed in, both holding an Aes-shielded saber.

  “Come on…” Kinfild muttered, tapping the note into the transmitter control panel. All systems were active—now, he just had to reach the Gull.

  After a few seconds, there was a crackle, and the static faded, replaced by the assurance of the speakers that their destination was mostly quiet. There was only a faint pop and the distant rush of wind.

  “Hello?” Kinfild said, speaking into the control panel’s microphone. His voice crackled through the other side, leaving behind a mechanical screech of feedback.

  There was mostly silence, but finally, Lessa’s voice slipped back through the speaker. “Kinfild? Is that you?”

  The control panel’s speakers boomed unnecessarily loudly, filling the entire room with Lessa’s voice—even Ken, as he dodged wisps of darkness from the two Alliance Wielders, must’ve heard.

  “It is me,” Kinfild replied. “I don’t have much time. What were you trying to tell us?”

  There was no interference in the channel this time. This side of the transmitter was doing most of the work, keeping the link to the small starfighter open. Lessa’s voice returned loud and clear: “We need you to get a message to Ash. You have to drop the hyperspace barriers and let the Hand through to the wall. We’re almost aboard his ship, and we will be by the time the barriers are down.”

  “What?” Kinfild exclaimed. “You’re going to let him win?”

  “I promise,” she replied. “Jace and I have talked it through. It’s the only way. We’re going to destroy the Enemy and make sure the Split gets back in balance—so none of this ever happens again. So we don’t have to have any more worlds facing apocalypses or anything. And Jace needs to do it to advance.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “I’m certain,” she replied.

  “Very well. I will send the message.” He ducked as a stray burst of flame washed over the crates. Ken was doing his best against the Alliance Wielders, but they’d driven him back, pushing him up against a wall, and preparing to kill him. “Give me one moment.”

  Kinfild pointed his staff at the nearest Wielder and launched a bar of flame into the man’s back. It landed a [Hollow Dragon’s Bite] Curse, dropping the man’s potency by a massive degree, and preventing him from landing the Curse he was about to inflict on Ken. Then, he charged forward, swatting the man in the side of the head with his staff.

  “I will take this one!” Kinfild shouted.

  The distraction he caused allowed Ken to place a blow in the gut of the second Wielder. A cup of flames surrounded his fists, and he melted the man’s armour in a tiny patch. It wouldn't be enough, unless⁠—

  A pulse of willpower surged out from Ken, and his Aes surged, growing more pure, enhancing the effect of his cards. He’d locked in his pillars and advanced.

  “We’re going to fix the Split!” Ken yelled. “And you’re not going to stand in his way!”

  That had been the push Ken needed. Knowing that Jace had a plan.

  Whatever the case, it let Kinfild take his mind off the boy and focus on his own opponent. He drove blow after blow with his staff toward the man, but Kinfild wasn’t a physical-combat-focused Wielder.

  As soon as he’d driven his opponent far enough back, he gave his staff a whirl, then conjured a pulse of flame. He and the other Wielder were evenly matched, but the man was young, and he wasn’t nearly as precise or experienced. He failed to raise a shield in time to project his face.

  The initial blast didn’t kill the Alliance Wielder, but it put him on the back foot. After three more direct hits and a crack on the head, Kinfild was sure the man wasn’t getting back up. He turned back to help Ken, but the boy had already won.

  He knelt over his enemy, slamming flaming fist after flaming fist into the man’s head. He was long dead. Kinfild grimaced and walked over, then placed a hand on Ken’s shoulder. “You’ve won.”

  Ken fell back, panting, his face twisted into a snarl.

  “Are you alright?”

  After a few seconds of panting, Ken calmed himself, then stood up. “Let’s deliver that message.”

  Kinfild nodded. “One more transmission to send.”

  Ash and Perril stood by the shield gate, waiting behind the mound of rubble that they’d heaped in front of the doors of the Artanor Hall, waiting for the stone to fall and enemies to rush through. But a moment later, a soldier ran up behind him and said, “The southeast command post is sending us a transmission. I don’t understand, my lord. Someone named Kinfild is telling us to drop the hyperspace barriers? He claims to know you by name.”

  Ash beamed. That had to mean Jace was here. “Do it. He wouldn’t be asking us to drop the barriers if he didn’t have a plan.”

  52

  BOARDING

  “Honoured Hand, the hyperspace barriers have lowered. The Citadel Tower is no longer shielding our route,” a messenger said, kneeling behind the Hand on the bridge of the Gloryship.

  Plasma flashed, illuminating his face in magenta, and starships burned around them. Officers scrambled about, performing their duty at the highest level of competence he could wring out of the,.

  Finally, we have victory, the Hand thought. But it only lasted a single moment.

  He would have ventured to the surface and cleared the way himself—there were none who could stand against him—but as soon as the barriers fell, he needed to be ready to jump through hyperspace. As soon as the barriers fell, they would jump, so he needed to be aboard his ship. They didn’t know how long the way would stay open, and without him, none of this would work.

  But now that the gates were open, something felt wrong. A tendril of darkness stirred in his stomach, telling him to slow down.

  He shook his head. “Stay. The assault team has not breached the Citadel Tower yet, correct?”

  “C—correct, sir.”

  “Then we wait until we have confirmation. There is no need to walk into a trap in our moment of triumph.”

  Jace and Lessa flew the Gull up through the melee of starships. Halfway up, Kinfild had contacted them. They didn’t have much time. He trusted Kinfild to call Ash right after, dropping the hyperspace barriers and allowing the Hand through.

  They swerved around a battleship, only to find the Gloryship’s side hangars protected by impeccable point defense batteries. He turned away, dodging a trail of plasma, then dipping into a column of smoke to hide from the gunners.

  “What are you doing?” Lessa exclaimed. “Why are you turning away!”

  “The hangars are too crowded. We won’t make it in unnoticed. And the moment the Hand knows we’re aboard, he might not jump.”

  She nodded. “Do you have another plan?”

  “You won’t like it.” Jace turned toward the massive gash along the side plating of the Gloryship. It exposed girders and bulkheads to the outside air, and smoke trailed out from the gash. The edge still glowed bright orange, and debris fell off it by the second. But there was a long tube leading somewhere just beneath the armour, and it was just large enough to fit the Gull in.

  Once they got in, they could find a place to land. But at least no one would notice, as long as he veiled himself.

  Surging the Gull’s thrusters, he aimed for the end of the tube, then shot in.

  “This was some kind of steam pipe!” Lessa exclaimed. “They’ve shut it off because of the damage!”

  “Any idea what might be through the wall right in front of us?” Jace slowed down, pulling back on the control yoke.

  “Most likely a gap in the armour! Battleships have internal pockets in their outer armour to protect against torpedo strikes!”

  “Got it.” Jace triggered [Hyperdash], allowing the Gull to phase through the curve in the pipe, then emerged in a dark pocket of empty air, lit only by the Gull’s thrusters. He set the starfighter down on a girder, then popped the cockpit canopy. LeeKay scampered up onto his shoulder, and he made sure to take his new rifle with him as well.

  Once Lessa had all their equipment, they ran down the girder toward the inner hall. There was a maintenance hatch with an inactive airlock on the inside—it would surely activate if the outer hull was breached, but not now.

  After passing through the airlock, they found themselves in a standard starship hallway. Walls covered in tubes, netting, and sparse white plating, a floor of perforated steel, and a ceiling with sporadic incandescent lightbulbs.

  They tucked into an alcove to hide from the sight of the crew. Lessa asked, “What now?”

  “We have to find the Hand and face him,” Jace replied. “It shouldn’t be too long of a jump, right? We’re close to the Wall. Only a few minutes or so, so we’d better get moving.” He paused. “That’s odd. We should have entered hyperspace by now. Why isn’t the Hand jumping?”

  “I’ve got no idea,” she replied. “Maybe something’s wrong. Or we’ve got his plan wrong. We don’t know for sure what he’s planning.”

  Jace scowled. “Can we manually activate the hyperdrive?”

  “We…you should be able to do it. I’d bet they have the coordinates and everything planned and primed. They just need to spike their hypercore, or their hypercore array, with a jolt of Aes.”

  “Then we’ll force them to make the jump.” Jace held out his hand and triggered [Questforger], searching for the Gloryship’s hypercore. A tracking needle pointed down the hall, aiming toward the center of the massive vessel. By Jace’s estimates, it was pointing at the very center.

  They sprinted off in the direction of the tracking needle. The hallways were far from empty, but most of the crew were mortals. When they saw Jace and Lessa, they were smart enough to get out of the way.

  Now that they were forcing the ship to jump manually, there was no need for subtlety, and in the chaos, the chances of them getting reported before the Hand realized they were here were slim.

  They took an emergency stairwell down, where they encountered a group of soldiers that Jace and Lessa made short work of. He gave them the chance to surrender, but there was no way that the soldiers aboard this vessel weren’t the most devoted of all the Alliance’s forces. None of them were going to give up.

  Finally, they arrived at a restricted section. The tracking needle pointed to the other side of it, and the most recent quest had instructed him to search within ten yards. The hypercore had to be on the other side of the door between them and the restricted section.

  It was a metal door, but it didn’t mean much when faced with Jace’s Whistling Blade. He sliced through the door, then kicked the rest of it down, and he and Lessa barged into a control room filled with crew in their white tunics and hats and officers in black coats.

  “Stand down,” Jace said, pointing his rifle at an officer who was drawing his pistol. The officer didn’t listen, and he kept drawing his pistol. Jace ducked to the side and slammed the man with the stock of his rifle, flinging him into the wall.

  A crew member reached into a locker on the wall, and he pulled out a stubby repeating plasma rifle with a drum magazine. Jace’s eyes lit up. “I need that.”

  He used [Hyperdash] to close the distance and ripped the machine gun out of the crew member’s hands, then grabbed the man by his shirt and threw him through the windows beside them. He detached the drum magazine and kept it as a spare—he’d need more shots for his own rifle.

  The control room overlooked a ring of glass tubes. Each one had ten hypercores in them, filling them from floor to ceiling. They crackled with blue Aes, like lightning, and hovering kyborgs circled around them, keeping them clean. They chittered at Jace, angry that he broke the window, then even more angry about the dead body they had to clean up.

  Jace turned to the rest of the crew members. There was one more officer and three more general crewmen, but not a single one gave up. Lessa blasted them, firing a single pulse through them in a straight line.

  Jace gave her a nod, then turned to the control panel. “How do we make it jump?”

  “That’s controlled from the main bridge,” she replied. “Usually. But they trigger it with a burst of pure-aspect Aes, which should be stored in cells around here—and have its own transmission wires. We can’t control the pure Aes, but we can hijack the transmission wires and send your Aes through it.”

  “Will hyperspace-aspect work?”

  “It should. I dunno. Not my area of expertise.”

  Jace shook his head, then searched around the control room until [Questforger] came off cooldown. When he had it back, he triggered it again, but it wasn’t helpful. There were way too many cords and lines to accidentally detect.

  Finally, LeeKay exclaimed in delight, and pointed a manipulator arm at a panel on the back wall. Lessa ripped it off, then LeeKay pointed them to a wire with blue insulation. Jace ripped away the insulation and hesitantly touched it.

  “This is the one?”

  “Looks like it,” she replied.

  He expelled a pulse of hyperspace aspect Aes through the wire, and it flowed through the cord. Jace didn’t see where it went, but the hypercores flared bright, and the deck thrummed.

  The hyperdrive activated, and they were off.

  “Is the hyperdrive going to cause us problems?” Jace asked. “Considering we launched while we were so close to a planet?”

  “There’ll be some damage,” Lessa said. “The bigger the ship, the worse it is. And this ship was already in rough shape. But…we should live.”

  “Wonderful. Then let’s go find the Hand. And hopefully before we arrive.”

  The Hand narrowed his eyes when the ship entered hyperspace without his command. He stared out the viewscreen, watching the blank light. It was heading to the Wall whether he wanted to wait or not.

  Whatever had happened, he was almost certain he knew the cause of it.

  “They are aboard,” he said. He turned to the captain. “Proceed with our plan. This won’t be long.”

  “Sir, where are you going?” the captain asked.

  “I will be in my viewing gallery. Fighting them on the bridge would be unwise, don’t you agree?”

  “Y—yes, sir.”

  “Do not bother me, then, until it’s all over.”

  53

  THE GENEROUS HAND

  Jace used [Questforger] yet again to guide his way to the Hand. When it went on cooldown, Jace handed it to LeeKay, and the little kyborg reduced its cooldown as much as he could, leaving only a few minutes where it wasn’t available, before spitting it back out for Jace to take hold of.

  He and Lessa sprinted through the hallways, dodging crew and blasting anyone who got in their way. Instead of keeping the repeating plasma rifle he stole, he detached its magazine and fitted it into the new weapon they’d made.

  Along the way, he and Lessa formulated a quick plan. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best Jace could do given the circumstances.

  [Questforger] led them to the very front of the ship, to the beak where the Hand’s spears lay. They took the axial corridor once they found it, until it dropped them off at a massive, heavy blast door. The Hand was on the other side, as best he could guess with the help of [Questforger].

  It had been about fifteen minutes, but before Jace could even try to open the door, the deck lurched. The ship emerged from hyperspace, and immediately, red lights flared to life. A klaxon wailed in the distance.