He looked like he wanted to cry again, but he nodded. “Then you have it.”

  A hush fell over the lounge. We all looked at one another, unsure what to say now that I had quickly settled any argument on the matter. None of them wanted me to die. But we had a job to do.

  “What if I could boost the odds a little bit?” Keep said, breaking the silence and drawing everyone’s attention.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He looked into my eyes, a sly smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I may not have been completely forthright about everything I know.”

  “Gee, there’s a shocker,” Matt said.

  “What is it now?” I replied.

  “My wife had a lab. A secret place not exceptionally far from here. A week to get there, max.”

  “You said her work was lost.”

  “Most of it was. She erased all of the data on her experiments after she made me immortal. Good thing too, because the Royal Guard caught up to her in orbit on her way out. When she wouldn’t give up the location of her lab, they killed her.”

  The words sent a chill down my spine.

  “Wait a second,” Matt said. “You worked for the Royal Guard.”

  “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. So?”

  “But they killed your wife.”

  “They thought she was on Sashkur’s side. And for a long time she was. Until she saw what sigiltech would turn the universe into. By then, it was too late to save her. I tried. I warned her to leave. But she had to finish destroying her work. She had to make sure nobody could replicate what she did to me. Could you imagine if the Empress really was immortal? Humanity needs fresh blood. New people with new ideas. Without it, we would go stale, and eventually we would all die.”

  “But her lab is still intact?” I asked.

  “As far as I know.”

  “And what does it have that will help?”

  “Gilded catalyst. And a machine to stamp it. If Davie can build the sigil, then we can save your life. I’m ninety percent sure of it.”

  “That’s a pretty big boost,” Gia said.

  “Yeah,” Druck agreed. “Makes me feel like maybe you won’t croak after all.”

  “We have to go,” Matt said. He looked at the others. “Does anyone here disagree now?”

  Nobody objected. My heart jumped at the revelation, though I also remained hesitant. “Why didn’t you say anything about this before?”

  “The situation’s fluid, kid. The variables changed.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “For one thing, the lab is supposed to stay lost. Revealing the location to all of you is a massive risk against everything I’ve worked so hard on for a long, long time. But that’s not the only thing. Bennie, you did something with sigiltech today I didn’t even think was possible. You showed a level of mastery that in a lot of ways leapfrogged you over me in terms of ability. Combined with your natural talent, that instantly makes you a very big deal. One that’s too valuable to lose if we can avoid it. You asked me how much you’re worth to me before. The answer is a hell of a lot. Not just to me, but to the whole Spiral.”

  “And here I thought you cared about me as a person,” I said.

  “Don’t take it the wrong way, kid. After a thousand years and the loss of my wife, I don’t care about anybody as a person. But as a weapon? I care about you bunches.”

  “So when all is said and done, this is just like the Last Starfighter?”

  He laughed. “Maybe it is, after all.”

  “Give Alter the coordinates,” I said. “Let’s set a course.”

  CHAPTER 29

  I didn’t have the best week. I didn’t really have any week at all. With the cancer beginning to spread like wildfire through my body and everyone on the crew buying into keeping me alive at least long enough to reach Omega Station, as the research lab had been known, I spent the entire time on a cycle of calmed sleep and waking just long enough to eat, exercise as best I could, and take my meds.

  Fortunately, I wasn’t awake long enough at any time to fall into too much of a depression. It was strange to me how I had been so accepting of the disease and its obvious course when Doc Haines broke the news. Now that the course neared its completion, I didn’t want to finish the race.

  But maybe that was the point.

  Looking back at my life before Keep had come along, I had been content enough, I suppose. But in a lot of ways going through the motions. I numbed myself with video games and movies, and even though I enjoyed hanging out with Matt and playing in the band, I’d never felt completely right. Fully whole. Not that I ever dreamed of suicide or anything close to that. But hearing I had cancer and only a limited time to live had put everything in perspective. Sure, my family would miss me when I was gone. So would Matt, of course. But that would be it. No wife, no kids of my own. I would pass on, and outside of them nobody would remember me.

  Now I had a real purpose. Something important to accomplish. People were depending on me, whether or not they even knew it. And I had a family that I had created myself, not been born into. Maybe we were forced together. Maybe if we succeeded some of us would go our separate ways. But the shared goal made us tight.

  In the beginning, Keep had promised me the adventure of a lifetime. In the beginning, that promise had seemed impossible for him to fulfill. There had been a lot of struggle over the last couple of months. A lot of violence, fear, pain. But there had also been laughter, friendship, and some serious adventure. Plus freaking magic.

  Maybe it seemed crazy, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

  I awoke this time with Matt shaking my shoulder to jog me out of my augmented sleep. My body felt heavy and tired. Too tired for someone who had spent eighty percent of their time sleeping. I glanced up at him. His expression was light, a big smile spread wide. I noticed he had shaved his head, removing his rockstar golden locks in exchange for a cleaner, more militaristic look.

  “You cut your hair,” I said.

  “Yeah. I know you aren’t doing chemo so yours isn’t falling out, but I figured it was still a show of support. How do I look?”

  I laughed. “Hair or no hair, you’re still ugly.”

  He laughed back. “We’re out of hyperspace, approaching Omega Station. You’re still here, and we’re here.”

  That news was enough to cajole me to a sitting position. I didn’t feel that weak physically. The calming helped a lot with that, even if it hadn’t been able to control the cancer as well as we'd hoped. Though Alter had said there was a good chance I had only survived as long as I had because of it. “What about David?”

  “He and Keep have been at it all week. Neither one of them has slept much. He seems to love it, though.”

  “Did he come up with something?”

  “He says he’s close.”

  I was tempted to lie back down again. We didn’t need to arrive at Omega Station without a sigil. I decided I wanted to check in on his progress myself. I doubted there was anything I could do to help, but I could guarantee there was nothing I could do if I did nothing. I slid off the bed and onto my feet, still wearing a tracksuit. I would never have put myself in one before, but it really was that comfy, even to sleep in.

  “How long until we touch down?” I asked.

  “That depends,” he replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s go up to the flight deck. You need to see this.”

  I nodded and followed him out of my bedroom. Shaq was curled up on the arm of the sofa in the lounge, and he picked up his head as soon as we entered, immediately launching himself to my shoulder and nuzzling my neck. He reacted the same way every time I got up, and from the impression in the couch I knew he had settled there for the long haul to wait for me.

  “Hey bud,” I said, scratching behind his ears.

  “How are you feeling?” he buzzed. It was a more complex series of sounds, but once Alter had told me what it meant the first time I’d remembered the sequence.

  “I’m upright and not coughing up blood. No dizziness. No shortness of breath. At least at the moment. I consider that a win.”

  “We’re almost there,” he replied. “You’ll be okay.”

  “I appreciate the positive attitude,” I said. “I’m going with that too.”

  “Where’s everyone else?” I asked as we headed from the lounge to the elevator.

  “Already on the flight deck,” he replied.

  “The whole crew?”

  “Yeah. They wanted to see this place, since it’s supposed to be so super secret.”

  “It sounds like it’s worth the price of admission, since you want me to see it instead of just telling me about it.”

  “You’ll understand when we get there.” The elevator took us up to Deck Four. Matt brought us to a stop just outside of the flight deck for dramatic effect. “Levi,” he said, pausing there for a few beats to drum it up a bit more. “Open the doors to the flight deck.”

  The doors slid aside. My eyes shot right to the forward viewport, to see what it was that made Omega Station so special.

  All I saw were a bunch of rocks.

  At least, that’s what my mind registered them as at first glance. But as I stepped over the threshold onto the flight deck, the nascent memory began to fill in.

  “That’s the Star Squadron level,” I said, recognizing the pattern of the asteroids that drifted across space ahead of us. “The one we played on.” I pointed at one of the spinning rocks. “I almost flew into that one.”

  “Yeah,” Matt confirmed. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “It is pretty cool.” I kept walking forward, staring out the viewport at the asteroid field. Surprisingly, there was even a ship in the distance, dead in space with a gaping hole in its side. A battle had already been fought here a long time ago.

  “Ben, you’re here,” Alter said from nearby. I was so enamored with picking out the details of the scene in front of us I had forgotten everyone else on the crew was already here.

  I turned my attention to her, surprised to see she had erased her normal shoulder length hair, switching it out for a bald scalp. Her too? The others stood behind her, and as I shifted my gaze from her to them, I saw they had all shaved their heads, either down to a peach fuzz or totally bald. Even Gia had sacrificed her locks for me.

  “This is what I really wanted you to see,” Matt said, coming up beside me. “We’re with you, Ben.”

  A few tears welled as I smiled. “I feel like I should shave my head. Thank you all. This really means a lot to me.”

  “It was no trouble at all,” Druck joked. He had retained his typical level of baldness and hair loss. “I actually thought I should try to grow some hair to show support, but it didn’t work out too well.”

  “It’s the thought that counts,” I replied. “And no matter what happens, I’ll never forget it.” I turned back to the viewport. “Keep, I guess you modeled the Star Squadron level after this place?”

  “Bingo,” he replied. “Sashkur built Omega Station here to make it both hard to find and hard to reach.”

  “But using this for the game, it seems like you planned on bringing whoever you found back to this place one day.”

  “Nope. I just knew the difficulty of navigating through this field. Add combat to the mix, and it bumps the challenge up to ace level. Because that’s what I needed. An ace. And that’s what I found. Badabing badaboom. That we’re here is purely coincidental.”

  I wasn’t completely sure I believed that, but I didn’t argue.

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” David said. “I thought I would have the sigil by now, and hooking into Head Case’s computer has accelerated my progress exponentially. The type of sigil you need is easy to conceptualize, but hard to execute. I’m almost there, though. I’m pretty sure of it.”

  I didn’t really like his use of pretty as a qualifier for sure, but I nodded. “I know you’re doing the best you can,” I replied. “I’m not dead yet, and as long as the super secret base is as super secret as Keep says, we should have a little more time.”

  “Nobody found Omega Station,” he said. “It’s impossible.”

  “Avelus thought that since you’ve flown a simulation of the field before, you might want to fly us in,” Alter said.

  I glanced over at the pilot seat and smiled. “Absolutely.”

  CHAPTER 30

  I sank into the pilot seat and pulled the helmet on, the sheet metal between me and space fading as the augmented reality system took over. I only had a limited view of the asteroid field before. Now I could see it in all of its glory. A massive obstacle course, with a prize somewhere inside.

  “How do I find Omega Station?” I asked.

  “Head for the center of the asteroid field, and then follow it until you see a rock that looks like a camel,” Keep replied.

  “A camel?”

  “It’s two chunks that smashed together at some point and fused. Or maybe two hit a third asteroid and they all fused. It kind of looks like Mickey Mouse’s noggin too if you see it from the right angle.”

  “A camel or Mickey Mouse head,” I said. “Got it. I guess. Everybody strap in. This is going to be a bit of a roller coaster ride.” I watched the asteroids and the sensor grid, getting a feel for the movement of the rocks as the rest of the crew found seats and restraints.

  “What’s a roller coaster?” I heard Druck ask David from their jumpseats.

  “It’s an amusement park ride. You go in a small, open cart up a big hill, and then drop down the other side. Gravity builds up your speed enough to go back up additional hills and into loops and stuff.”

  “Sounds boring.”

  “It’s not as fun or cool as a starship. But we make do with what we have.”

  “I always loved roller coasters,” I said.

  "You know, we can take it slow through the field,” Matt said. “That’s what I did in the game.”

  “If you want to call it that,” Keep replied. “You hung out at the edge of the map for eighty percent of the time and then mosied through like a dead man slumped over a horse.”

  David cracked up at that, which caused the rest of us to laugh. It was a much needed tension breaker.

  “When it comes to starships, I don’t know how to go slow,” I said at the same time I punched the throttle to max. The mains fired, shoving us back in our seats as Head Case launched toward the field.

  “Woooooo!” David shouted from his seat.

  “We’re gonna die,” Druck decided as the ship rapidly accelerated directly toward one of the asteroids.

  I didn’t change course, letting the asteroid spin away in front of us, revealing a gap ahead. Blasting through it, I twisted the stick while pulling back on it, guiding Head Case up and over the rock behind the first one. We hit a wider gap, adding velocity before reaching the next group of asteroids.

  Twist left. Pull up, Pull back. Twist right. Fire reverse thrusters. Reduce throttle.

  We shot around the asteroids one after another, diving and climbing, sliding sideways in both directions, spinning fully around. It was just like the classic Atari game, except I had a much larger field to play in and didn’t have any intention of blasting the space rocks.

  But I had always been good at that game.

  “Ugh,” Druck said. “I feel sick. If this is like a roller coaster, then roller coasters suck.”

  David laughed. “I thought you were a big tough mercenary?”

  “I am. But I still prefer solid ground.”

  Checking the sensor grid, I knew approximately when we reached the center of the field’s width. With the asteroids forming a wide circle around a distant planet, I knew that even staying within the middle of its boundaries, it might take hours to find Omega Station. Fortunately, Keep sat on the sofa right behind me, keeping a close eye on the asteroids as I navigated around them, searching for the secret Sashkur research facility.

  A need to cough to get my breath forced me to ease off the throttle, and when Alter looked at me in concern I nodded to her, silently asking her to take the stick. I coughed while she guided Head Case, a dry, heaving hack that left my throat sore. At least it came up empty of blood.

  “I’ve got the stick,” I announced once I had finished the expulsion, retaking control of the ship. Alter remained more alert, ready to switch-off if, or when, I needed to cough again.

  Ten minutes passed. Twenty. The density of the field relaxed somewhat, and we flew through larger pockets of open space, still keeping a keen eye out for the Mickey Mouse camel. According to the ship’s computer, a full flight through the entire field would take over a day. I hoped we hadn’t entered on the wrong side.

  An hour passed. Two. Alter and I switched off piloting Head Case a few times so I could both cough and take a few minutes at a time to rest. What had started out as exciting and adventurous slowly turned plodding and boring, just like Druck’s idea of a roller coaster. The constant changes in direction, thrust, and inertia began wearing on everyone. Quasar snored loudly from her jumpseat.

  “Are we there yet?” Druck asked by the end of hour three, getting antsy. I didn’t blame him. I felt antsy too.

  “I wish,” I replied. “Keep, how do you know we didn’t blow past it?”

  “You didn’t,” he answered. “I’ve been watching the whole time. I’ve been here before, remember? I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “How do you know it hasn’t been destroyed? Or changed orbits? Or collided with another asteroid?” Matt asked.

  “Because Sherlock, it hasn’t. Any of those things.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It was in that orbit for ten thousand years before Sashkur hollowed it out. There’s no reason to think it's moved now.”

  “It could have been destroyed. You said the Royal Guard caught up to your wife.”

  “They never found Omega Station. They hit her ship on the way out. You might have noticed it in the distance.”

  A cold shiver ran down my spine. That was the ship his wife died on? Was that how he knew the coordinates? It should have drifted away over so much time. It must have had enough power to stabilize before it went completely dead. Which meant she probably hadn’t gone quickly or painlessly. She had probably suffocated as the hobbled ship ran out of air.