“I’m a minor ruler of a tiny space station. Hell, I’m not even in charge right now.”

  “It isn’t tiny, and compared to what the AOP has to spare, you might have one of the largest fleets on this side of the Sphere. The fight against the banshees is a fight for all of us. I know there are a lot of stars in the Sphere. But this is only the beginning, and I don’t know how it will end.”

  She stares at me in silence for a few seconds. “And what makes you think you can deliver this station to me? You’re one man. Two if you count your partner. Amelin has an entire army.”

  “One, Amelin’s army is composed of greenies, washouts, cowards and criminals. Two, Rozik isn’t just any old soldier; he’s some kind of Commune Special Forces. And three, I’m Odin Longknife.”

  Chapter 26

  She stares wide-eyed at me. I’m used to it at this point. I made it twenty years without having to tell anyone about my secret identity, and I’ve been spewing it left and right over the last few days. I wouldn’t do it, except it seems pretty damn effective as either an intimidation tactic or confirmation of trustworthiness.

  When the person who hears it believes it.

  “I don’t believe it,” Amelia says.

  “Why not?” I reply. “I escaped from my captors and fought my way here to you. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “I believe you know how to fight, and that you’re likely ex-military. But Odin Longknife is long dead.”

  “The name was buried a long time ago, that’s true. But the person isn’t. Ask Kratz, he examined my needle. He knows it’s true.”

  “Kratz? The tech?”

  “Yes. Your brother’s wife Sasha had him pull my profile. She didn’t believe me either, but he does.”

  She stares at me some more, but her expression changes from disbelief, to confusion, to acceptance. I guess she trusts Kratz’s opinion.

  “Do you know how many bounties were on your head after Capricorn? Do you know how many people wanted the Commune to win and the war to end?”

  “That’s why I disappeared.”

  “If I brought you in, I could buy a new station. I could settle my own planet. A new safe haven for refugees. I wouldn’t need to rely on what you call dirty chrome.”

  “Turning me in would be dirty itself.”

  “And very profitable. Assuming you really are who you say you are.”

  “Could your conscience live with that?”

  “I already live knowing I’ve turned the other cheek on a lot of things I don’t agree with. Yari, for instance. Grandfather would be disappointed in me if he knew some of the things I accepted to keep this place thriving.”

  “There’s still the fact that you won’t get your station back without me. And you won’t betray me once we do.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because you aren’t like your brother. You still believe in doing the right thing. Besides, all the chrome in the Sphere won’t mean a thing when the banshees come.”

  “That’s true. Assuming I can believe anything you just told me.”

  “I hope it’s worth the risk.”

  She considers for a moment and then nods. “It is.”

  “We have to leave him behind,” I say, motioning to Geramin. “We can’t wait for him to pass.”

  She nods and stands up, leaning over the bed. She kisses her grandfather on the forehead. “I have to leave now, gramppy. I’m sorry. It’s what you would want me to do. May the gods see you safely to the Beyond.”

  She straightens up and looks at me again. “Is that the only gun you have?”

  “No,” I reply, tossing her the pulse rifle. “You can have this. Do you know how to use it?”

  She catches it smoothly and smiles. “Are you kidding me? I know how to protect myself.”

  “Had to ask. Where’s the exit?”

  She points to the bed. “Underneath. It was originally designed to get Grandfather out quickly in the event of an emergency.”

  She drops to her knees and reaches under, pulling out a low gurney that pops up as it clears the frame. She pushes it away so we can crawl under. She’s about to when a loud whine sounds from one of the machines behind Geramin Rocklin’s head.

  “Gramppy,” she says, standing up to look at him.

  “All units,” Colonel Trix says over the comm. “Old man Rocklin is dead. Move in. I repeat, move in.”

  Damn it. I grab Amelia’s hand, tugging her toward the floor. “We’ve got to go, now!”

  We both drop as the door to the room lights up from the heat of plasma and then collapses inward with a loud clang. She stays with me as we crawl beneath the bed, to a nearly invisible platform in the center. There’s a control pad embedded in it, and she taps it..

  As we begin to drop away, I can see the guards’ feet jumping over the slagged door as they enter the room en masse. Above us, a replacement floor slides into place, concealing our exit.

  Slick.

  The platform descends to Deck Seventy-four, stopping in the center of a dark room. The lights come on and a door opens to my left, leading into a long passageway.

  “It won’t take them long to figure out what happened,” Amelia says. “Let’s go.”

  I jump to my feet, realize I’m still clutching her hand and let go, joining her in a sprint down the passage, which ends in another thick door.

  “Colonel, this is Yellow One,” I hear in my ear. “They’re gone, sir.”

  “What?” Colonel Trix hisses. “They can’t be gone. There’s no other way out.”

  “I’m sorry sir, but they aren’t here.”

  “There has to be a hidden door somewhere. A bolt-hole. Search the room.”

  “Roger, Colonel.”

  “They’re looking for the escape route,” I say.

  “How do you know?” Amelia replies.

  I tap near the comm in my ear, careful not to activate it, though it’s tempting to let Trix in on my little secret. Amelia notices the small bud and laughs. “Where did you get that?”

  “Armory,” I reply.

  “How did you get into the armory?”

  “Walked right in.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Your brother’s goons aren’t all that bright.”

  “Tell me about it. He still got the drop on me, though. Damn Mumba for betraying me.”

  I assume Mumba is the pilot who killed Locke. And I agree. Damn him for his betrayal.

  We reach the next door. Judging the distance from where we came in and my estimation of the room’s position on Deck Seventy-three, I’m pretty sure we’re near this deck’s outer ring. Amelia puts her hand against the security panel and the door slides open. Like the other doors in this area it’s on a separate network from the ones I locked down.

  The reveal of the next area proves I’m both correct in my estimation of our location, and wrong about the general layout. There’s no outer ring here. Instead, we’re in another secret hangar. A sleek, arrowhead-shaped craft fills the space. It’s a design I’ve never seen before.

  “Emergency evac,” Amelia repeats, explaining why there’s a ship here instead of an interior escape route. The craft is stuffed into the small area, clearly either designed or selected specifically for this purpose. She puts her hand against a security panel beneath the tail and a hatch drops from the rear, allowing access.

  “I take it you know how to fly this thing?” I ask.

  “I do, but I think you’re the better choice, Odin,” she replies, waving me in.

  I go first, ducking to climb the ramp into the craft. There’s just enough space behind the cockpit to lock in the gurney we left behind and a small jump seat for a passenger. The cockpit it small too, and I barely fit past the side of the pilot’s seat to slide into it.

  It comes to life as soon as I do. The three-point harness automatically stretches over me, the information panel and primary HUD activate and the control stick and throttle light up. It’s a standard setup, and very old-fashioned compared to the mesh. Like the freighter, I’ve flown these controls before because it’s part of Academy training. But it’s still been a long time. When I put my hands on the stick and throttle I feel like it’s only been a day or two, not over twenty years. Muscle memory might get a little rusty, but it never forgets.

  “Are you secured back there?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder.

  “I’m ready to go,” Amelia replies.

  “Colonel, we found it,” Yellow One says into my ear comm. “A false floor that leads to Deck Seventy-four.”

  “Seventy-four?” Trix replies. “There’s nothing on Seventy-four.”

  That’s what he thinks. “How do we open the outer hangar door?” I ask.

  “There is no outer door,” Amelia says. “Just flat hull, otherwise someone would have noticed. It’s rigged with explosives, but you need to blast it to start the reaction.”

  Now I understand why the door we came through is so well sealed. It’s going to leave the entire compartment in a vacuum. “Your brother’s going to know we’re out here as soon as I blow the door.”

  “This is the way out, Odin. Like it or not.”

  So be it. “Roger.” I shift my finger on the stick. The craft is armed with a pair of fixed plasma cannons and a small complement of missiles hidden in launchers tucked into its wings. I select the plasma cannons. “Here we go.”

  I tap the trigger, firing a single pair of small toroids into the wall ahead of us. The bolt’s energy spreads along the wall, and then something in the wall takes over, causing the whole thing to fracture and glow. Then it detonates outward, flinging small pieces of debris into space.

  I hit the throttle, and my body pushes back in the seat as the Arrowhead shoots forward into the black.

  Chapter 27

  There isn’t a whole lot of maneuvering space between the station core and the extension corridors and modules that surround it, and I’ve only gone a short distance when I need to change direction and sweep along the side of the station core.

  “Okay, we’re out,” I say. “How do we get back in?”

  “There’s a hangar on Deck One-sixty,” she replies. “We can land there.”

  “I thought Amelin has the entire core locked down?”

  “This ship was made for a very specific purpose. It has full root access to the mainframe and can’t be overridden.”

  “How?” I start to ask, looking back at her. She’s already retrieved a terminal from the bulkhead and is entering commands.

  “This ship also has access to a private corvette positioned on the dark side of Naraka,” she says. “I’m tunneling through to the synchronizer so I can activate it remotely and bring it to the station.”

  “How do you know your brother hasn’t already discovered it?”

  “If he had, it would be here. Don’t crash us into anything.”

  I look forward again, rolling slightly to avoid a support beam as we cross the last of the habitation rings. We rocket down the side of the cylinder and past it, toward open space at the bottom of the outer dome.

  “I’m accessing the hangar…nevermind. Someone is already opening the doors.”

  I notice the sudden slit of light appear, growing larger until it becomes a square with a shield of reflective energy maintaining the atmosphere inside. But if the hangar doors are opening and Amelia isn’t responsible…

  A dark shape launches from the hangar, followed by another and then another. The moment they all clear the shields, they immediately vector in our direction.

  “We’ve got incoming,” I say as a red light flashes on the Arrowhead’s display. The ship’s HUD activates across the entirety of the craft’s forward transparency, offering a holographic projection of the theater around the ship.

  “Drones,” Amelia says. “If you really are Odin Longknife, you should have no problem with them.”

  That’s easy for her to say. I’m not meshed into a Skirmisher with Joie. I’m not meshed at all. It’s a pretty severe handicap.

  “AI or remote piloted?” I ask, pushing on the throttle to gain speed. I’m planning to shoot past the outer shell of the station and circle back.

  “AI,” she replies. “How many do you have?”

  “Six.”

  “That’s the full complement. The bulk of the station’s defense systems are limited as long as we stay inside the dome. If we can get around the drones, we should be home free.”

  There goes my original plan. I cut the throttle, pulling it all the way back to trigger the reverse thrusters to slow the craft down. I twist the control stick, firing port side vectoring thrusters and making a tight flip and turn in space. The g-forces are unreal, and as I level off and rocket back the other direction I worry that I knocked Amelia out.

  “Still with me back there?”

  “I’m here,” she replies. “But if you do that again I might not be. I’m going to puke.”

  “Hold that thought.”

  I add velocity as the drones split up, each of them coordinating vectors to converge on where they’ve predicted I’ll go. AI drones are tough to beat outside of a Skirmisher or other meshed vessel, where aggregate human brain power plus an assistive AI can help increase the perfection of maneuvers and rapidity of calculations. I’m a serious underdog in this fight, but I’m not going to tell Amelia.

  The Arrowhead is the one thing that might help even the odds. No matter how good the AI in the drones are, they’re still limited to the capabilities of the designs they’re loaded into. Geramin Rocklin’s escape craft was made to get him out of any emergency danger, and I’ve already discovered it’s both fast and maneuverable. Its atypically slim profile lowers the target surface and allows it to fit through areas other craft might struggle with.

  To that end, I make a sharp and sudden right turn, pulling hard over and getting yanked against my harness as I tighten my stomach to fight the g-forces. The maneuver puts me directly in line with one of the outer modules, sending me streaking toward it.

  The drones adjust to follow, pushing to the limits of the design without needing to account for keeping an organic thing alive inside. Two of them get into position behind me, while the other four split up, taking a track that will line them up with me when I cut beneath one of the corridors that connect to the outer docks.

  “What are you doing?” Amelia asks.

  “Trust me,” I reply.

  I break for the bottom of the docks like the drones expect. But then I cut the throttle and alter my vector at the last second, sticking tight to the module and passing so close it’s a miracle I don’t accidentally scrape it. The drones start shooting as I come out the other side, but their aim is wrong and the bolts go harmlessly overhead. I quickly arm a missile, the tracking system appearing on the HUD. I swing the front of the craft across the field ahead, hitting the trigger at the exact moment the targeting computer announces lock. The projectile flashes away, crossing the short distance and turning to catch the drone before it can get away.

  I adjust my vector, hit the throttle and cut along the dome, staying close to the modules as the five remaining drones fall in behind me.

  “Wow,” Amelia says from behind me. “Maybe you are Odin Longknife after all.”

  I don’t answer her, staying focused on my flying. I accelerate sharply again, taking advantage of the Arrowhead’s power. The drones send bolts whizzing past, struggling to adjust to the narrow profile. Whoever designed the ship was smart enough to know how the drones would target it. If I ever meet him, I owe him a drink.

  I reach the side of a module and vector toward it, making another hard direction change and slipping between a pair of extension corridors and ending up pointed back at the core. The drones zoom by behind me, not powerful enough to make the same maneuver I did. I repeat it twice more, making a circle around the module before firing the retro thrusters and flipping the Arrowhead over. The move makes my head pound, and I fight to stay conscious, my vision dimming as the blood rushes from my head. It doesn’t stop me from firing the plasma cannons as the drones cross the module, and two of the unarmored craft break apart as a result.

  I hit the throttle again, shooting toward the fresh debris field and through it, letting the particles hit the hull before their velocity is high enough to damage it.

  The remaining drones are all out of whack, and they slow behind me to reorganize, giving me a decent head start as I climb the exterior of the station toward the bulb at the top.

  “Amelia?” I say, checking to see if she made it through the maneuvers conscious.

  She didn’t.

  I adjust vectors again, streaking through the extensions and getting back in view of the core. I keep accelerating, staying too far ahead of the drones for them to hit me. I have an idea to finish this quickly, but it requires a decent bit of runway.

  Like I said, the trouble with AI is that its chaos becomes predictable. So does its perfection, and at that point you can use that itself as a weapon.

  Or a distraction.

  I’m closing on the inner side of the bulb at the top of the core cylinder. The structure of the outer synchronizer unit is attached to the end of the station, reflecting the lights from the modules around it off its gold surface. It looks like an old jet engine from the outside—nothing complex or advanced. In this case looks are very deceiving, and they hide the trillions of nano-sized parts perfectly arranged on the inside. The synchronizer alone probably cost Rocklin as much as the rest of the station.

  “Last time,” I say to Amelia, even though she can’t hear me. Then I tighten my stomach again, in preparation for the last quick and dirty course adjustment.

  I don’t cut the main throttle this time, instead turning the stick so the Arrowhead sort of tumbles in space, rolling and turning in what looks like a messy, out of control spin that yanks the craft hard around to face back the way we came. I nearly lose it then, struggling to bring the ship back in line when it begins to oversteer, the bow dipping toward the synchronizer and coming dangerously close as I force it back under control. In the whole fight, it’s the only move that causes my heart to beat a little faster.