“And the coordinates to his mansion,” Matt answered, looking at me. “We can go there as soon as you’re ready.”

  “How long is the trip?”

  “Nine days.”

  I did some back-of-the-napkin math. “That would only leave us five days to get Hiro back to Atlas.”

  “Assuming we find him with Usari,” Quasar said. “Which seems unlikely. He may have funded the starship, but I don’t see him as the type to get personally involved.”

  “Right,” I agreed, deflating quickly. “Which means if he isn’t there, we’re screwed.”

  “The good news is that we’re probably already screwed,” Quasar continued.

  “Good news?” Matt asked.

  “Unless Usari took Hiro to protect him. Otherwise, why wouldn’t the kidnappers have killed him right away? Either we’re going to run into a benevolent recluse or we were never close to saving Hiro in the first place.”

  “Where does that put our current odds of saving the Spiral from war?” I asked.

  “Fifty-fifty?” she ventured.

  “I think it’s less than that. How many days to Atlas from Usari’s planet?”

  “Cicana,” Matt offered.

  “How many days to Atlas from Cicana?” I repeated.

  “I don’t know. We’d have to put it into the hyperspace nav software when we get there.”

  “Gia says approximately twelve,” Quasar said.

  I exhaled another defeated sigh. “We’re definitely screwed. Hell, we were screwed before we ever bothered with Mushari.”

  “Are you serious?” Matt said. “You opened a portal between Dryka’s ship and Head Case to get back onboard. You’re a walking Mustang. If we rescue Hiro, you can bamf him right back to Atlas like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  My suddenly sour mood turned again. In my exhaustion, I had actually forgotten about my ability to transit. “Geez. Yeah, you’re right. I can do that, can’t I?”

  “You idiot,” Matt replied, smiling.

  “Jerk,” I teased back for old times’ sake.

  Emerald returned to the flight deck with her hands balled into fists. She leaned over from behind me, holding both hands out. “Pick a hand.”

  “We don’t have time for your bullshit, Em,” Matt complained.

  I ignored him, choosing her left hand. She opened it, revealing the collator. “Lucky guess.”

  “Fifty-fifty,” I replied.

  “Ben, are you sure you’ve got enough energy to use it?” Matt asked.

  “It doesn’t require much. I’ll keep it short. But I need to warn Keep. Em, can you put it under my hand?”

  She sat beside me again, clasping my paralyzed hand in hers and pushing the collator to my flesh, holding it there. It was more contact than I needed, but I wasn’t in a position to complain. I activated my construct, a wave of nausea coursing through me as I did. It took some effort to hide the reaction, and I gritted my teeth as I activated the device.

  Radiance’s bridge came into view, the ghostly overlay nearly filling the entire flight deck. Dryka sat in the command seat at the center-rear of the space, while Keep stood in front of her, looking up at the ship’s large forward surround. Difficult to make out in its translucent state, it appeared they were approaching the Death Star. Or rather, the Bracken factory.

  With a large, roughly spherical shape, the factory appeared to be hollow, with a huge open hole where the parabola of a giant, planet-killing laser should have been. I assumed the under-construction starships were built within, protected from view while the drones and workers completed them. Additional workstations rounded out the bridge, each of them occupied. Justus sat at one of them, and had already turned away from his display in response to the collator’s shift.

  “Benjamin,” Dryka said, seeing me before Keep did. Her expression started warm, but quickly faded to caution. “Are you not well?”

  That question got Keep to spin around more quickly. He only needed a glance to know what had happened. “Oh, Bennie. You overdid it, didn’t you?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I replied. “I didn’t have much choice. It’s a long story.” I shifted my attention to Dryka. “I’m okay. I just used a little too much of my energy stores. I'm recovering.”

  “Does it have anything to do with the tsunami?” he asked.

  “You know about that already?”

  “I may have been keeping tabs on the situation on Bushara.” He shrugged. “Not that I was worried about you or anything.”

  I smiled knowingly. Of course he was worried about me. “It has everything to do with the tsunami. Emil turned traitor and brought Sedaya’s Guilded down on us. I burned a ton of energy dealing with them, which also got PD interested in us, along with a group of mercs in charcoal jumpsuits. Add Legrond and his unit into the mix, and fun times were had by all. We barely made it off Bushara alive.”

  “I’m glad you made it out,” Dryka said. “But I thought we’re the ones who were supposed to be walking into a trap.”

  “Yeah kid, I’m grateful you made it too.”

  “Here’s the thing, Keep. We only got out of there because Dominator showed up, and Lyke used it to blast the Royal Sentry on our ass and all of its starfighters to dust.”

  Keep’s expression hardened. “You mean to dust as a figure of speech, right?”

  “I wish I did. David’s been busy. He’s cooked up a few new sigils since we last saw him. Legrond’s archon nearly killed me with one.”

  “That’s…not great,” Keep replied.

  “Are you saying Lyke helped you escape?” Justus asked, a look of disbelief on his face.

  “We’re not sure if she was intentionally helping us or just hadn’t gotten around to us yet,” Matt said. “But there were thirteen seconds between when she destroyed an entire starfighter wing like a zapper killing flies and when we made it to hyperspace. So she had an opportunity.”

  Keep rubbed at his chin. “Makes you wonder if she’s working with Succaath.”

  “That’s what we’re going with,” I agreed. “Though I’m not quite ready to count her as an ally, especially after what happened on Windfall.”

  “You weren’t with Team Succaath when you were on Windfall. But I’m with you on your decision to stay cautious. Whether the snake’s in the grass or out in the open, it’s still a snake.”

  “The important thing is we made it out, and we only lost Druck doing it. Though I can only move my head and wiggle a few of my toes right now. I didn’t lose consciousness, and my feeling is coming back faster than it has in the past. I think because I ate a lot of food to compensate for the burn.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Did you get what you went for?” Dryka asked.

  “We did,” I replied. “The blueburn was sold to some rich guy named Carlton Usari. He—”

  “Usari?” Keep said, confused. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know, because he’s a recluse with no clear interest in politics or power. Except what if he’s a benevolent actor who grabbed Hiro before Blorb could kill him. Then it might make perfect sense.”

  “It would if there was any way for Usari to know about Sedaya’s plans before anyone else did,” Justus cut in. “That seems unlikely, if not impossible. But if he’s on Team Asscrab, then why doesn’t Sedaya know Usari has him? Or at least guess that he might have him? I would think he’d be on Sedaya’s list of suspects.”

  “Me, too,” I agreed. “In any case, Usari’s homeworld, Cicana, is our next stop. There’s just one little wrinkle.”

  “It’s too far from Atlas to get Hiro back on time even if you do find him there alive,” Keep said.

  “You just pulled that off the top of your head?” Matt said, impressed. “We had to math that.”

  “I am a thousand years old, Sherlock. I know some things. Badabing badaboom.” He smirked at Matt before sobering as he returned his attention to me. “Once you recover, Bennie, you can transit from Cicana back to Atlas. Easy peasy, no problemo.”

  “It’s already a tremendous long shot that Hiro is still alive. Assuming Cicana isn’t crawling with Gilded and I don’t end up drained again, then we can hopefully transit. But after Bushara, the odds of things going smoothly feel dramatically lessened. In any case, I don’t think you need to worry about Bracken. We’ve pretty much confirmed they weren’t involved. Heading to Atlas is probably the next best course of action for you. If we don’t make it back in time, or make it back at all, maybe you can at least find a way to reveal the Empress for who, or rather what, she really is.”

  “You know what happens if we do that,” Keep said.

  “And you know what happens if you don’t,” I replied.

  “Ben’s right,” Dryka said. “It’s too late to prevent Sedaya from seizing control of the Hegemony. We can’t give him a chance to tighten his grip. I’ll contact our allies, and we’ll descend on Atlas in a unified front.”

  “Your Grace, even with their ships, we don’t have enough to stand against the Royal Sentries, nevermind the sigilships,” Justus warned.

  “If we expose Blorb, General Nattic will refuse to follow any of his orders. We’ll be backup for the Sentries, not targets.”

  “Bingo!” Keep agreed before turning back to me. “But it’ll all go a lot smoother if you get Hiro back there with us. At the very least, you’d better bring yourself back.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I replied.

  “What do we do about Bracken?” Justus asked. “Something made all their workers abandon the factory.”

  “If it’s a trap, better to shy away from it, now that we have our lead,” Dryka answered. “If it’s a red herring, it worked to split us up and slow us down, but there’s no reason to linger. Either way, I think it’s time to go. Set a course to Atlas.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Justus said, turning back to his station to carry out her order.

  “Your Grace!” one of the other crew members shouted from his station. “Sensors are picking up activity from the factory.”

  Dryka looked at the surround, quickly zooming in the camera view. A ship was in the process of emerging from the hole. Hardly a new build, it looked to have been patched together from portions of other ships that had all seen better days.

  My blood immediately went cold. “Dryka, get out of there.”

  “Ben, what’s wrong? It’s only a scavenger ship. They probably heard the factory had been abandoned and went to look for salvage.”

  “No,” I countered. “That’s a sigilship. Turn around and get out of there now. Get to hyperspace as soon as—”

  I went silent as the sigilship’s hull started glowing, the sigils etched into the various metal plates coming to life.

  “Shit,” Keep cursed. “Jackie, come about. Now!”

  “All hands to battle stations,” she growled into Radiance’s comms. “All hands to battle stations. Arm the torpedoes. I want shields to full power. Justus, full speed ahead.”

  “What are you doing?” Keep asked. She had chosen to ignore both my warnings and Keep's, deciding instead to charge? “You can’t beat that ship.”

  “How do you know?” she shot back. “It’s been a thousand years since anyone tried. Shisen, get me a firing solution.”

  Radiance shuddered violently, though there was no indication they had suffered an attack.

  “Your Grace, I think it’s pulling us in,” Justus said.

  Lightning bolts lanced out from the starboard bow of the ship. The rest of the vessel had yet to clear the hole in the station, and it was already attacking. The energy sizzled across Radiance’s shields. Immediately, warning tones sounded on the bridge.

  “Your Grace, we lost three nodes,” one of the other crew members snapped.

  “Jackie, we need to retreat,” Keep said. “We’re in no position—”

  “How are we going to stop an entire fleet of them if I can’t even get a single shot in on one?” Dryka shouted. “You’re an archon. Help me!”

  “Newsflash, kiddo. I can’t match a ship with a sigibellum on my own,” Keep shot back.

  “Your Grace, we can’t get hold of a hyperspace path,” Justus said, his voice remaining surprisingly calm. “Our velocity is too erratic to finalize the calculation. We need to get free of them.”

  “It was a trap,” I said, heart pounding. Dryka and Keep were in trouble, and I was thousands of light years away. Even if we were in the same place, there would be nothing I could do.

  “We can’t get free of them.” Keep growled softly. “You had your chance to run.”

  “Bullshit,” Dryka cursed. She stood up, wiggling her finger with the push ring on it. “Come on, Avi. Maybe we can break free together.”

  Radiance shuddered as a second burst of lightning crashed into the bow, sending the ship’s computer into another fit as more shield nodes blew out.

  “We can’t push ourselves away from this distance,” he replied. “We don’t have the strength, even combined. Maybe when we get in closer, if we can stay in one piece that long. You should have listened to me in the first place. I’m still looking out for you, kiddo. And I do know what I’m talking about.”

  She nodded. “You’re right. I know. I didn’t realize how powerful a ship like that could be. They don’t even have any guns or starfighters.”

  “Because they don’t need them. We need full shields to the bow. Overload the nodes if you must. It’s better to overheat them over time than to let the sigilship destroy them.”

  “Packard, do it,” Drya shouted.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” she replied. “All shield power is redirected to the bow.”

  Just in time. A third blast hit the ship's bow. The shields managed to catch it this time. The sigilship finished exiting the factory, turning slowly toward Radiance. With Dryka’s ship plowing straight toward it, and the archon or Gilded on board pulling them in to keep them from altering their course, they were closing on the ship in a hurry. A collision seemed impossible to avoid, and I had a feeling that’s exactly what the sigilship’s captain wanted. A glowing sigil across the hull just below the bow suggested as much. It looked like a slightly modified version of separate. Would an impact tear Radiance in two?

  Keep had been alive during the first Sigiltech War. He must have seen this kind of maneuver before. He had to know what was coming. But he also knew his limitations. And Dryka’s. He would get them out of the mess her pigheaded aggressiveness had put them in.

  I hoped.

  The sigilship began to accelerate. Radiance continued adding velocity as well, the two ships on a direct collision course. I could see the tension building in Dryka’s face as the distance between the ships rapidly closed. Keep remained focused on the view in the surround, one hand in his pocket, posture maybe a little too relaxed. Dryka reached out and grabbed his free hand, clutching it tightly as the seconds ticked past way too slowly.

  “Avi,” she said softly, fear building.

  “Patience, kiddo,” he replied. “Too soon and the archon will counter the action. Get ready.” She activated her ring, the sigil on it beginning to glow. His ring glowed in his pocket, its light diffusing through his pants. “Wait for it.”

  Another bolt hit the front of the ship. Higher pitched warning signals blared across the bridge.

  “Forward shields are down, Your Grace,” Packard announced, her voice tense with fear.

  “Wait for it,” Keep said again.

  The sigilship grew huge ahead of the smaller Radiance, the collision only a handful of seconds away.

  “Now!” he barked, lips moving as he whispered his focus word.

  She did the same, and I could see the strain on both of their faces as they struggled to counteract the archon’s pull. At first, nothing happened. Then Radiance began turning, pushing off the sigilship as if they were shoving against it with an oar. The bow of the enemy ship just missed Radiance’s bow, nearly taking off the port side of the hull as the two vessels scraped past one another with only a few feet to spare.

  “Hold steady,” Keep groaned, brow wrinkled and sweaty, his face tight.

  “I should have kept my popcorn,” Emerald said, interjecting during the tensest moment of the exchange.

  “Shhhhh,” everyone else on the flight deck responded at once.

  “Hold steady,” Keep repeated. Dryka looked pale and ready to drop. She had never had to use sigiltech like this before. I imagined she would wind up unconscious from the effort.

  “Your Grace, we have a hyperspace path to Atlas,” Justus announced.

  “Just…go,” she growled back, barely able to speak.

  Radiance skated past the sigilship. The archon must have realized they were inside Radiance’s hyperspace containment range because he canceled the pull. The sudden release sent Radiance jolting forward, the inertia enough to throw Dryke and Keep onto the deck, their maglocked boots preventing them from sliding across it. Having already initialized the jump, the hyperspace field expanded around Radiance.

  And then they were gone.

  CHAPTER 32

  “That was too close,” Matt said after the collator’s connection vanished with Radiance.

  “That was so fun!” Emerald exclaimed, looking at me. “Wasn’t that fun, Boo?”

  “Yeah, loads," I replied, the tension beginning to drain out of me. “I prefer my friends still alive.”

  “Oh, I knew they would make it. I wasn’t worried at all.” Emerald began leisurely inspecting her fingernails as if she were considering a manicure.

  “You weren’t?” Quasar asked, one side of her upper lip curling. “Because the rest of us were.”

  “Nope. They had it in the bag." She glanced over at me. "I could tell.”

  There was so much conviction in her tone, I almost believed her. “Well, next time, share that with us so we don’t all have heart failure.”

  “What fun would that be? It would be like looking away from a horror movie, right before the stabbing.”

  “Sometimes it’s better to look away.”