“Gyer, you in here?” Gramma’na repeated. “Bedroom’s through that door. But he probably isn’t here.”

  Shaq buzzed, pointing toward the office when I looked down at him. He ran along the floor on all fours, pausing in the doorway and buzzing again.

  “Someone left a holographic projector in there,” Alter said, translating for him.

  I entered the room. An operating table rested in the center of the room, with apparatus behind it for anesthesia and monitoring. A small cube sat in the middle of the table.

  “That’s a projector?” Matt asked, standing beside me.

  “How do I make it work?” I said, glancing at Alter.

  “Pinch the sides,” she replied.

  I leaned over and did as she said. The projector activated.

  A two foot tall Duke Sedaya formed around the cube, a terrifying grin across his tiny, ugly face.

  The projection was so good, Sedaya seemed almost real, standing casually on the table with his arms folded across his chest in full arrogant asshole mode. Shaq hopped up next to him, stretching out on his hind legs to nearly match the hologram’s height.

  “Earthians,” Sedaya said, an exasperated fury in his voice. “It seems we’re to continue circling one another like a pair of wayward stars, destined to collide. I would have preferred that you had died on Cestus or remained imprisoned on Persephon, at least long enough for me to claim Keep’s sad excuse for a starship. You’ve proven yourselves more resourceful than I would have guessed considering your origin planet. Resourceful enough to become a serious thorn in my side.”

  “Good,” I said, tempted to crush his projected head between my thumb and forefinger. My body started shaking, the news that my one chance of survival was gone like a bucket of ice poured over my head. I had dared to hope that my cancer might be cured, and now that hope was gone. At the moment, I didn’t know how to fully process that fact.

  “As I’m sure you know, Atticus Gyer isn’t here. I’m afraid he isn’t anywhere. His end is unfortunate. As one of the premier cyber-enhancement specialists and surgeons in the Fertile Quadrant, he was a valuable tool to the Nobility.” He unfolded his arms, smirk fading. “His death is on your hands, Earthians. You forced my hand. You are responsible.” He settled down again. “Now, you have in your possession something that belongs to me. Something that never should have fallen into your hands, though the idea that you were inadvertently working for me without knowing it is a stroke of amusing irony. The slab is mine. I want it back.”

  “I knew it,” Alter whispered.

  “I considered holding Atticus hostage and offering him to you in exchange for the device. But the knowledge of your disappointment and unavoidable demise was too pleasurable for me to deny myself. Besides, I prefer to take what I want, and this way, I get the Star of Caprum too. This time, you won’t escape. Goodbye, Earthians. Forever.”

  Gramma’na was already moving before the hologram shut down. Her cane smacked the cube, knocking it from the table and into the corner.

  Where it exploded.

  CHAPTER 32

  The force of the detonation threw me backward into Matt, who slammed against the corner of the doorway. Gramma’na fell back through the door, while Alter was knocked into the nearby wall. Shaq was closest to the explosion but had also reacted to the swinging cane, leaping for my shoulder as it had swung toward him. He never made it, thrown by the force of the blast toward the open door, where he grabbed on with his sharp claws.

  It was over in seconds.

  But it was just beginning.

  “We’ve got trouble!” Quasar bellowed from outside, backed up by a sudden eruption of gunfire from Druck’s rifle and the softer thumping of her plasma.

  I forced myself back to my feet, ears ringing, head spinning, trying to make sense of what was happening and everyone’s position inside and outside the home. The explosion of the cube had left a hole in the back wall, a stroke of good luck for us, as it offered a better, unexpected escape route.

  “Fall back inside!” Matt yelled from behind me, the concussion of the explosion muffling my hearing so that I just barely heard him.

  Druck practically dove through the open front door, Quasar backing in right behind him as plasma sizzled by her, coming almost close enough to melt her face off before hitting the frame. As Druck crawled on his hands and knees toward us, she ducked to evade a second round, and then Quasar slammed the door shut and locked it. The heavier metal absorbed the attack. For now.

  “I’m going out,” Alter said, rushing out through the hole before either Matt or I could stop her.

  “Jasana’sa!” Gramma’na called as well, to no avail.

  “Zar, what’s the situation?” Matt asked, shaking off Alter’s recklessness and taking charge in a way I had never seen before.

  “They came pouring out of the houses across the street. Too many to count. We can’t stay here. They’ll box us in and rip us apart.”

  “I’m surprised Sedaya didn’t expect the cube to kill us,” I said, my voice hoarse from the dust and heat.

  “He’s not taking any chances,” Druck said. “Man, couldn’t you have pissed off Duchess Lazby? I hear she’s got a soft heart.”

  “Out the back,” Matt said. “Zar, take point. Watch out for Alter. Don’t hit her with friendly fire. Druck, you next. Gramma’na in the middle. I’ll bring up the rear.” He pulled his blaster, so I pulled mine. Shaq jumped from the door to my shoulder.

  “Are you okay, bud?” I asked.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he buzzed back.

  “We need to make our way back to the spaceport,” Matt continued. “Is the wagon still outside?”

  “The wagon is, but the driver’s dead,” Quasar answered.

  “What about the lizards?”

  “I don’t know.”

  A shout from outside drew my attention. A male’s voice, not Alter. Probably her first victim.

  “Zar, go,” Matt said. “We’re right behind you.”

  “Copy that,” she replied, moving to the hole. She slipped outside, firing on an unseen enemy as she did. Druck, right behind her, opened fire as well, sending out a burst from his rifle and then rushing into the darkness.

  Back on her feet, Gramma’na didn’t hesitate to go out the back, twisting the end off her cane as she did. I wasn’t entirely surprised when she, more than able to defend herself, fired blue laser bolts from it.

  Rounds continued punching into the front door, the metal, sagging from the heat, about to give way.

  “Ben,” Matt said, laying his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll find someone else.”

  I nodded, fighting to stay positive. Part of me wondered if he and the rest of the crew would be better off if I died here. At least then everyone could stop worrying about me. “We have to get out of here alive first.”

  “We will; come on.”

  The attack on the front door stopped. “Wait,” I said, crouching in the office doorway and facing the front. Matt realized what I planned and backed me up.

  Someone kicked the door open, his form fully visible in the frame. We both opened fire before he could charge in, followed by the others. A handful of blaster rounds cut through his armor and took him down.

  “Now!” Matt said, jumping up and rushing for the hole.

  I joined him outside, nearly colliding with Quasar.

  “Almost forgot,” she said, holding up one of the explosives she had taken from the armory on board Head Case. She threw it inside, all the way to the front of the dome.

  When it exploded, it took at least three Niflin with it, along with the entire front of the house.

  “Jeez!” Druck howled. “What the hell?”

  Even Quasar looked horrified by the power of the device. “I underestimated that one. Sorry.”

  We moved out into the dome’s small yard, between two other domes where a few dead Niflin mercenaries already lay. In the darkness, it was impossible to know who had killed them, but I was sure Alter had already managed her fair share. Where was she?

  Gramma’na waited a few yards ahead, near the side of the dome. Alter had vanished into the night, no doubt stalking our attackers.

  “Gramma’na, do you see anyone?” Matt asked.

  “Not after you just woke the whole planet. They all ran inside,” she replied. “And I think you toasted our ride.”

  “Shit,” Quasar said. “Sorry. Again.”

  “Someone here’s bound to have a car,” Gramma’na said. “At least you took out the ambush party.”

  “Sedaya might have sent more,” I said, surveying the carnage. “It still wasn’t enough.”

  Lights flashed low overhead, revealing a half dozen dark ships descending toward our position. Mercenaries leaped out of both sides of each craft, thrusters on their backs framing them as they dropped to the surface.

  “Jinxed,” Matt said, shaking his head. “Gramma’na, which way?”

  She pointed with her cane.

  Quasar took point again, as we sprinted from Gyer’s house toward the dome behind it. Gunfire rained down from above, the dropships firing at us with impunity, the entire city apparently defenseless against attack.

  “Aren’t there any cops or anything around here?” I shouted as she reached cover, just in time to avoid the plasma bolts that sizzled into the wall behind us. “Or can they just do this all night?”

  Lights in the sky further out answered my question. The dropships overhead stopped shooting, rushing ahead of us to unload their mercenary cargo before the air defense arrived.

  “It’ll take them time to get out here,” Gramma’na said. “But they’ll come. I can’t believe the gall of that Duke.”

  A fresh round of gunfire from closer to Gyer’s house hit the area around us. Matt and Druck spun back around to return fire, cutting down the first of the mercenaries before being forced to again take cover.

  “We can’t stay here,” I said.

  Shaq buzzed something in my ear, too long and complex for me to understand. Before I could ask him a yes or no question, he jumped off my shoulder to the ground, quickly digging a small hole and tucking himself into it to hide.

  I knew he wasn’t playing ostrich. Rather, he was the best kind of booby trap. “Good luck, bud,” I said as the rest of us headed away from the position at a run, doing our best to move diagonally between the houses. With all the action, the residents were smart enough to stay inside and out of trouble.

  I looked back at the next block, just in time to see the first of the mercenaries reach Shaq’s position. I barely spotted the Jagger as he climbed out of his hole and jumped onto the merc’s gloved hand, apparently able to bite through the material. The guy started to shout and then went silent as he collapsed. Shaq jumped from him to the next in line, landing on his faceplate and climbing over it. When the guy reached up to grab nothing but empty air, Shaq clawed the merc’s lines of life-giving atmosphere in half, choking him almost immediately.

  I lost track of Shaq after that, my attention taken up by the jet-suited mercs dropping in front of us. Caught between them and those behind us, there was nothing to do but attack.

  Screaming like deranged banshees, we rushed straight at them, both sides opening fire, may he with the best armor and aim win. Gramma’na’s blue bolts were like Hawkeye’s arrows, dead on with nearly every blast, smashing through helmets and dropping the Niflin like flies. My aim had improved since Matt and I had started this crazy journey, but I still managed to mostly hit armor, the blasts damaging the outer shell of several mercs without breaking through.

  Quasar was the first of us to get hit, grunting as she took a shot to her chest and another to her thigh, leaving her burned but alive. Druck got hit next, the mechie suffering only a slight burn to his arm. Then I got hit. Luckily, the shot hit my coat, which absorbed the entirety of the blow. We were also fortunate that the Niflin hadn’t managed to hit us from behind, thanks to Shaq taking them all out. I could hardly believe he had made such short work of them.

  We managed to clear our flank of mercenaries too, cutting to the right and ducking behind another house as more of them came into view on our left, shooting into our cover.

  “Shit,” Matt growled. “Where the hell is Alter?” He turned to me. “Can you remote Head Case to us?”

  I nodded, grabbing the phone from my pocket and quickly navigating into the remote access. Instead of receiving a view of the tarmac from inside Head Case, a red error message popped up instead.

  REMOTE ACCESS LINK FAILED.

  “It’s not working,” I said.

  “What?” Matt replied. “It needs to work.”

  I tried again, with the same result. “Not working.” I showed him the message. “Maybe they did something to jam the signal.”

  “Shit! How are we going to get out of this?”

  “I don’t know, but we will.”

  Looking up, I spotted the defense ships approaching overhead. The dropships spotted them too. They turned and started shooting, sending plasma streaking across the sky. The defenders tried evasive maneuvers but two of them were too slow, taking solid hits that tore through their craft. Flames and smoking debris billowed out of the wounded ships and fell to the ground. The two craft peeled away from the scene, struggling to stay aloft.

  My heart sank as a third defense force ship took a lethal hit and blew up. I had hoped they would convince the mercenaries to break off the attack.

  Wishful thinking. Without being able to summon Head Case, I had a bad feeling we were all about to die.

  CHAPTER 33

  A whine joined the loud commotion, a pair of bright lights lighting up the mercenaries coming our way. Like on Caprum, the car slammed into two of them and came to a stop. And like on Caprum, Insane Clown Posse Alter jumped out, her fiery batons tearing into the nearby mercs.

  “Who is this now?” Gramma’na said.

  “Who cares,” I replied, covering for her. “We’ve got a ride.” I looked back toward where I had last seen Shaq, put my fingers in my mouth and whistled sharply. He must have heard me, because he raced along the ground toward the car.

  “When did you learn to do that?” Matt asked as we ran for the transport.

  “I could always do that,” I replied. “I just never needed to.”

  Our ride was an open-cabbed flatbed hovertruck, big enough for all of us to climb onto the back as Gramma’na claimed the driver’s seat. The vehicle didn’t have a steering wheel, controlled instead by a pair of levers like a ride-on lawnmower.

  “Hold on to your asses,” Gramma’na shouted, putting the thing in motion. She spun it in a tight circle just as Shaq jumped up, landing on Quasar’s shoulder and running across her to me.

  “Nice work,” I said to him as he settled and started cleaning himself. “You good?”

  “Mmm-hmmm,” he replied.

  The truck jerked forward, stopping beside Alter. “You coming?” Gramma’na asked. Alter turned and smiled, leaping gracefully onto the seat beside the old woman as she deactivated her batons and replaced them with a plasma pistol.

  “Let’s go!” Matt shouted, pounding the side of the truck.

  Gramma’na tore us out of there, racing away from the mercenaries closing in from every side. By the way they formed up and kept shooting behind us, I knew we had evaded being surrounded by a matter of seconds.

  Matt, Druck, and Quasar returned fire, taking a couple more of them down on our way out to one of the wider thoroughfares. Overhead, the Niflin dropships swung around and started shooting again, pelting the road behind us as they sought to zero in on us.

  Alter stood up on her seat, firing her pistol at one of the ships. The rest of us followed suit, creating a barrage of return fire that pushed the dropship off course, but not before one of us hit it somewhere important. Smoke began pouring from its rear, and when it pulled up and away, it blew up.

  One down, too many remaining.

  Scanning the sky, I found more defense ships headed for the dropships. A dozen flashes from that direction led to a dozen thruster trails, missiles rocketing toward the Niflin craft. They stopped shooting at us, taking evasive action and dropping what had to be decoys from their tails. The defense missiles, pulled off course by the decoys, detonated short of the dropships..

  The defense ships seemed to expect the diversion. They followed up the first strike with ion bolts aimed ahead of the dropships, which flew right into them. All of the Niflin ships erupted at once into airborne fireballs.

  “Woooo!” Gramma’na screamed at the sight. “Go get those bastards!”

  I smiled and slumped back in my seat, accepting the moment of respite as we shot along the stone street, returning to Birilli proper. Looking at the sky, I waved at the defenders in their small atmospheric fighters as they shot past. One of them tipped its wing in response.

  The sky lit up again, four thick bolts dropping from above and slamming into the defense fighters. They disappeared in midair, vaporized by the powerful strike.

  “Shit,” Quasar said beside me as a much larger object appeared far above. “Sedaya must really, really hate you.”

  “He wants the slab,” I replied, sitting up again. “And the Star. He has too much to gain by stopping us here.”

  “I think he might succeed,” Druck said.

  “Nice attitude, ground-pounder,” Quasar snapped back. “We made it this far.”

  Smaller dropships started spilling by the dozens from the sides of the larger ship. They didn’t all head toward us, but rather spread across Birilli, angling to land forces all over the city and leaving us with nowhere to hide.

  “They’ll capture the spaceport,” she continued. “It’s up to Planetary Defense to push them back.”

  “You would think a whole planet could stop one dropship,” Matt said.

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Whether or not Sedaya paid Duke Rolo enough to compensate for the potential damage, and then some.”

  The statement caught me by surprise. “You mean Sedaya might have bribed the Duke of Furion to let him invade without intervention? Just so he could kill us?”