“Get inside,” Kim told the crushers and backed away. “Under cover.”

  They ran back to the others as the first aircraft swept in low, that searchlight probing the wreckage, lingering on the armored bodies. Another vessel flew past closer to the forest. Still more engines sounded to the south, more aircraft flying in this direction.

  “We may need to hide,” Kim said.

  “We can’t leave without our patients,” Irena said.

  “The crushers may be able to carry them.”

  “This is a critical time to move them,” Irena said. “They need—”

  “One of the aircraft is landing. It’s black and unmarked.” Aleksy put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “I know you want to protect the injured, but whoever these people are, they’re out for blood. And they might not care that it’s ours.”

  “Shall we defend the premises?” the closest crusher asked.

  A hatch opened, and men wearing unmarked dark gray armor and carrying huge rifles jumped out. Whoever they were, they weren’t the prince’s security.

  “Yes,” Kim said. “Keep them from coming in here. Try not to kill anyone.”

  Irena threw her an alarmed look.

  The third crusher, the one she’d left guarding the secret door, must have realized his services were no longer needed there, for he ran down a staircase and out to help his buddies.

  “What’s happening?” Finn rasped weakly, his eyes open for the first time.

  “Trouble,” Kim said grimly.

  “My men… Where?” Finn tried to turn his head but winced before he saw much.

  Outside, someone fired into the air, blasting a stone off one of the castle walls.

  “We detect people alive in there,” a man shouted. “Send out the prince, and we won’t harm you.”

  Kim was inclined to ignore them and hope they believed their detectors were wrong. She grabbed one of the injured men and pulled him around the corner, so there would be standing walls between them and the entrance. Fleeing to the tunnels would have been ideal, but with the crushers now occupied in defense, there were more injured men than people to carry them.

  “I repeat, send out the prince, or we’ll come in and get him!”

  Aleksy shouted, “Who are you? There are only injured people in here.”

  “Don’t worry about who we are. Send out the sniveling traitor of a boy, so we can make sure he never rules our Kingdom.”

  Finn was coherent enough to widen his eyes with fear at the words. “Get me out of here,” he whispered.

  The armored men rushed toward the castle. The crushers surged forward to intercept them.

  As the first DEW-Tek bolts lit up the yard and blasted into the demolished entryway, Kim dragged another man behind cover. Aleksy saw what she was doing and helped her with the third, someone conscious enough to groan in pain.

  “Sorry, my friend,” Aleksy said.

  The firing stopped as the crushers engaged with the attackers, and Kim thought the three of them might be enough to keep the strike team from getting into the castle, but another aircraft flew in, preparing to land.

  “The tunnels,” Finn whispered.

  “Can you stand?” Kim asked.

  “Yes,” Finn said as Irena said, “No.”

  “Just help me up.” Finn rolled over and tried to push himself into a sitting position, but he gasped in pain and collapsed back to the floor. “Painkillers,” he panted. “I need… painkillers.”

  “I already injected you and the other injured men with as much as I dare.” Irena stroked his hair with a maternal, soothing gesture.

  Kim wondered if the fact that she would have preferred to punch Finn—or inject him with a sedative so he couldn’t talk—ensured she would never make a decent mother. She’d never been positive she wanted to find out, to pass her genes along to offspring, but the wildness of this night made her worry that she wouldn’t survive and have the opportunity to make that choice.

  “Hell.” Panting from his small exertion—and what had to be a lot of pain—Finn lay back, eyes wild as he listened to the fight. Despite the speed and effectiveness of the crushers, a few DEW-Tek bolts made it into the castle. One sliced through the handle of a hanging copper pan, knocking it to the kitchen floor with a clatter.

  “The castle would be easier to defend if it still had all of its walls,” Kim muttered.

  “Who are you people?” Finn squinted up at Irena.

  “The only ones in this castle,” Aleksy said. “Why were you trying to capture us if you don’t know who we are?”

  “I was here for Dabrowski. He’s a criminal.”

  “He’s not here.” Aleksy didn’t point out that he was a Dabrowski too. Maybe he didn’t think Finn deserved to know if he didn’t already.

  “Move out, move out!” someone shouted outside.

  Kim risked peering around the corner, but all she could see was one of the crushers silhouetted against the lights of an aircraft. New weapons boomed from the sky as more aircraft flew in close.

  “We can’t get an ambulance,” Aleksy said, “but it’s no problem for eight aircraft to show up for a battle on the lawn.”

  Kim glimpsed one flying low, this one with the purple coloring of the Kingdom. “I think Finn’s people might be here.”

  “Please, God, let that be true,” Finn groaned as weapons fired and metal screeched. Several engines roared as some of the aircraft on the ground took off and bolted from the area.

  “Just an FYI,” Kim said, looking down at Finn, “if you survive the night, you owe your life to Irena Dabrowski. Someone hit you with an explosive, and then a stone ceiling fell on you. Your heart tried to stop a few minutes ago.”

  Finn scowled.

  Irena appeared uncomfortable at Kim’s attempt to make sure she got credit. “It’s possible he would have recovered from a cardiac dysrhythmia on his own,” she murmured.

  “And it’s possible he would have died.” Kim wanted her to get credit because they’d all risked their lives to come back up here and because Casmir’s parents didn’t deserve to be in danger. Neither did Casmir, damn it. Kim was tired of the entire royal family.

  “Do we allow the Kingdom Guard troops into the castle, Kim Sato?” one of the crushers called back.

  “Do they want to kill us?” Kim called wearily.

  What would she be doing, she wondered, if she’d stayed on Rache’s ship? And what was her mother doing right now? And were her father and brothers all right? She leaned her head against the stone wall.

  “No,” a familiar female voice called. Princess Oku. “We came because—it’s my fault Finn is here. Is he still here?”

  “Shit.” Finn closed his eyes—or maybe they rolled back in his head as he passed out.

  “Most of his party is dead,” Kim replied, “but he’s still alive, as are three others. Let them in, please, crushers.”

  Several armored guards accompanied the unarmored but well-protected Oku inside. Her personal bodyguard, Maddie, stuck right beside her, weapons in hand as she eyed the destroyed foyer and searched for enemies.

  Kim and Aleksy backed up slowly and raised their arms. Irena frowned back at them but remained with Finn, cradling his head protectively, as if the guards might accidentally trample him.

  “Prince Finn and these other men need medical care urgently,” she said.

  “We’ve got a shuttle that can take him straight to the infirmary at Royal Intelligence Headquarters.” Oku waved several men forward to gather up the wounded.

  “He needs to go to a hospital,” Irena said.

  “The infirmary has all the equipment you would find in an intensive care unit,” a female soldier—no, that was Chief Van Dijk—said, “and there’s a surgeon waiting for him in our shuttle.”

  Armored men with hover gurneys trotted into the dining hall. Irena must have decided that was sufficient, for she finally backed away. Several guards carefully loaded the injured onto the gurneys and took them out.

  “What happened?” Van Dijk asked Kim. “No, tell me on the way back. Come.”

  Kim glanced at Irena and Aleksy, noting that guards walked beside them to ensure they had no choice but to go with them. She positioned herself to Oku’s side as everyone trudged out.

  “Will they be all right?” Kim waved to Casmir’s parents. Maybe she should have asked the question for herself, too, but thanks to Casmir, it was the Dabrowski clan that was in the most trouble.

  “No harm will come to them in the headquarters building.” Oku lifted her chin. “I will not allow it.”

  Van Dijk, the person who likely had more power to allow or deny things in that building, glanced back but didn’t naysay the statement. She also didn’t reinforce it.

  As Kim, Irena, and Aleksy were strapped into seats in the shuttle, hulking men with weapons sitting to either side of them, Kim worried that she would be trying to follow Casmir’s progress from a dark dungeon cell.

  Casmir nibbled on a fingernail as their borrowed cargo ship lifted off. The deck reverberated as the thrusters carried it toward the chasm.

  “Double-checking to make sure we’ll fit,” Asger said from the helm.

  Casmir tried sending Zee another message. Once again, he didn’t get a response.

  “There must be some kind of dampening field,” he reasoned, then rolled his eyes at himself because it should have been obvious. “Whatever has kept the astroshamans from sensing the gate pieces down there, when they haven’t had trouble sensing them throughout the other systems where they’ve been plucking them up, may be keeping me from communicating with the crushers.”

  “What happens if there are no gate pieces and all of this was for naught?” Asger flew them over the chasm, took an audible deep breath, and tapped the controls to start the descent.

  “Jager wouldn’t be hurrying down here in person if they weren’t here.”

  “True. My father is taking off. I’m having to lower us slowly and carefully. This is tight.”

  “I know. You’re doing great. Thanks, Asger.”

  Casmir drummed his fingers on the console and started writing code to create his own false beacon, in case Tork didn’t come through in time.

  As the cargo ship lowered slowly, the craggy walls of the chasm filling the display and their running lights playing off the blue and white ice, Casmir had time to worry about the AI ship. What did it want? Were the artificial intelligences that had claimed Verloren Moon truly allies of the astroshamans? And if so, to what end? Had Moonrazor offered to take them along to the new system she’d scoped out? Maybe she’d offered them numerous uninhabited moons and planets so they could expand.

  “Halfway down,” Asger said. “I think. I’ve struggled from the beginning to get readings from the bottom.”

  “I know.”

  I am transmitting the program, a message from Tork came in to Casmir’s chip. In the AI vessel’s wake, our ship has lost power, auxiliary power, and all access to battery-powered technology. For some reason, I am unaffected.

  I’m relieved. Maybe they like androids.

  An interesting hypothesis.

  I’ve received the program. Your timing is perfect. Thank you. Casmir sent it over to the transport ship via the comm, using Kingdom codes he’d made for himself back on Ishii’s ship. He commanded the other vessel to download and execute the file.

  You are welcome. Do inform Zee of my excellence and superiority to crushers, who I assume were unable to help you in this manner.

  I didn’t ask them, since you have experience with astroshamans, but I will inform him of your excellence.

  Thank you. After a hesitation, Tork added, I am unable to contact him for the next move in our game. Has something happened?

  I hope not. I’m about to check on him.

  I request that you do not allow him to sacrifice himself. I would be distraught if we could not finish our game, and also play other games in the future while discussing the peculiarities of humanity.

  I’ll do my best.

  Thank you.

  The comm beeped.

  “Is that your father?” Casmir didn’t think Bjarke would notice the software being installed, but he wanted to warn him that it was running. If it worked, the astroshamans would go after him with single-minded purpose. Which might also lead all of the Kingdom ships to chase after them.

  “That’s the Kingdom warship the Shikra demanding to know who’s commandeered this cargo ship and also ordering us to surrender and prepare to be boarded.”

  “You can tell all that without answering?”

  “I made the mistake of answering last time.”

  Another comm call came in, a second indicator light flashing at the station.

  “And that one?” Casmir asked.

  “Lowe Base. They have similar demands.”

  Casmir checked on the approaching ships. The invisible but marked astroshaman ships were close, but—he clenched his fist—they were taking off after Bjarke’s decoy ship. So were several of the Kingdom ships.

  He whispered a quick prayer for Bjarke and Qin, hoping he hadn’t condemned them to their deaths. The Kingdom ships might hesitate to fire on a vessel from their own military, but the astroshamans wouldn’t have any such qualms.

  The comm lights stopped flashing at the same time.

  “How’d you hang up on them from the helm?” Casmir asked.

  Asger glanced at the comm console. “I didn’t. We’ve also lost contact with Tristan in the base.”

  The scanner station pinged with alerts, drawing Casmir’s attention.

  “Raise the shields, Asger,” he said grimly.

  Outside, lights flashed on the icy chasm walls as they reflected the orange and red of DEW-Tek fire below. A battle that hadn’t been visible from farther above was raging at the bottom of the chasm. The scanners lit up, not only with weapons fire but with signs of life. Humans in combat armor—dozens of them. And there were his crushers. At the center of the fighting.

  For the first time, the cargo ship’s scanners detected the gate signature. It was coming from the bottom of the chasm and off to one side. In some hollowed-out alcove?

  A blast struck the bottom of the ship. The thick hull repelled the weapon with only the faintest of shudders, but it might be the first of many attacks.

  “The shields are up,” Asger said. “We’re still two hundred feet from the bottom. Do we keep going down?”

  Casmir scanned the terrain below them, the instruments much better at reading the bottom of the chasm now. The majority of the fighting was indeed taking place in a large alcove under one of the ice walls. The bottom of the chasm, the ground directly below them, appeared to be empty.

  “Yes,” Casmir said. “We have to.”

  Hey, Zee, he messaged, hoping he could get through now. Is there any chance you’ve found the gate pieces and will be able to drag them out here and load them up if we open the hatch?

  A massive vault door with a complicated security system is in place, Zee responded as the weapons fire intensified below.

  The scanners showed an artillery weapon firing, and a crusher was blown out of the alcove and across the chasm where he splatted against the wall.

  Zee? Casmir worried that had been his friend. He slapped the button for the ship-wide comm. “Mouser, we’ve got a battle happening. I need you and your sisters to get ready to jump out and help.”

  We were able to reach the vault door, Zee continued after a pause, perhaps during which he’d reassembled his blown-off pieces, but it is extremely sturdy and even we were not able to breach it. Perhaps the notable computer hacker, Casmir Dabrowski, will be able to thwart the security system.

  I’ll do my best. Casmir checked for a wireless network, then groaned. There wasn’t one down here, and he could no longer access the one above. It occurred to him that whoever had built this place must have feared that astroshamans—supreme computer hackers themselves—would be the ones to find it and try to access it. I’m going to have to go to the door interface in person.

  That will be very dangerous.

  So I fear. Casmir plucked at his parka, well aware that he wasn’t in a galaxy suit, much less combat armor. A single stray DEW-Tek blast would take him down.

  “We’re all at the hatch and ready, Casmir,” came Mouser’s reply.

  “Why are you going through her instead of Qin?” Asger frowned over at him.

  “Qin went with your father.”

  “Damn it, Casmir. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t she tell me?” Asger thumped a hand on the console hard enough to dent it. “That’s a suicide mission.”

  “That was okay for your father but not her?”

  “He’s a knight. Being willing to sacrifice yourself for the good of the Kingdom is in the Code. She’s… she’s…” Asger groped in the air with frustrated fingers before thumping his hand down again. “Damn it, Casmir,” he repeated.

  “I know. I’m hoping it won’t be a suicide mission.”

  He hoped that would be true for all of them.

  “You’re an optimist.”

  An alarm bleated from the scanner console. Casmir checked it, expecting to find more weapons fire peppering them from below, but a massive Kingdom warship had flown directly over the chasm—directly over them.

  “Uh oh. Somebody wasn’t fooled by the decoy ship.” Casmir checked the ship’s identification and swore. “That’s Jager’s Starhawk. Of course he wasn’t fooled. He’s the one who ordered the gate pieces hidden here.”

  The warship, with weapons capable of demolishing small moons, opened fire on them.

  Even with the shields up, the jolts that reverberated through the ship had Casmir gripping the edge of the console while his teeth rattled. Their vessel lurched and slammed into one of the ice walls.

  “We’re sitting ducks!” Asger swore at Casmir again, and then at Jager, and then at the universe in general.

  Alarms flashed all over the bridge as the fury of a king betrayed pelted down on them. They struck the opposite wall. One of the displays flashed that shields were down to twenty-five percent.

  “Can you land?” Casmir asked. “We’re going to have to abandon ship.”

  And run out into enemy fire…