“Well, how long do you think we have before we get to the next fight?”

  “A few days. Maybe a week or two, max.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, thinking. “Okay. Well, if I can get the preliminary stuff set up, are you game to have your brain scanned?”

  “Set up whatever you need to set up, and then get back to me,” I answered.

  “Okay. Deal.”

  “Now, shut up and eat your burger before I beat you to it.” I’d already eaten more than half of mine and was still hungry.

  He picked it up and took a huge bite. “Over my dead body,“ he said with his mouth full.

  CHAPTER 34

  I followed the to-do list I laid out to Matt to the tee, finishing my burger and setting up a briefing with Commander Volker. Given the size of Prestige’s briefing rooms, I didn’t take all of my crew with me. Shaq, of course. Matt, Dryka, Quasar, and Leo. I wanted an engineer to help vet the feasibility of my plan, and Grizz was too absorbed in his grief right now.

  Prestige had already come out of hyperspace by my command before I arrived at the conference room with my entourage. Commander Volker was there with Lieutenants Cox and Gonzalez. Like the rest of the Royal Marine assault team, Major Nori had died on Gloin behind the controls of one of the mechs. I felt his loss the moment we entered the room. He was my biggest supporter among the Royal Guard, despite the fact that I’d had him imprisoned for a short time.

  “Commander Volker,” I said, stopping just over the threshold. “My deepest sympathy for the loss of your fellow Royal Guards. I–” I froze. The sentences I had gone over in my head on the way to the room suddenly felt so inadequate.

  “Apology accepted, Captain,” Volker said.

  He and his officers had risen to their feet to greet me. They all wore stoic expressions, keeping their pain, disappointment, resentment, blame, or whatever else they felt hidden firmly behind their military bearing. I wasn’t military. I struggled to do the same, stabbing at my eyes with the cuff of my jacket sleeve as I peered down at the deck.

  “The important thing is the mission was a success,” Volker continued. “The primary source of the enemy’s ability to escalate is back under our control. I’m sure David’s expertise will be of tremendous benefit to us.”

  “Yeah,” I said softly, finally looking up. “That remains to be determined. His research was all destroyed during our escape.” I glanced at Quasar, hoping nobody had told Volker exactly what had happened to David’s laptop.

  Cox seemed more disappointed than the Commander. “Then we have no way to create a more powerful weapon than they already possess.”

  “It’s an inconvenience,” Volker countered. “I’m sure David can still be of benefit to our cause. Isn’t that right, Captain Murdock?”

  “I believe so,” I replied. “He’s already hard at work on a theory.” I had left him with Meg on Deck Six, poring over all the crap Miklos and Archie had collected to build their inventions. His idea to build a mote control device had ignited the same passion in him I had seen when he first showed me his sigil simulator. He seemed intensely determined to build something before we reached our destination, wherever that wound up being.

  “A theory?” Gonzalez asked, a portion of his anger slipping through his military veneer. “We lost two hundred Royal Marines for a theory?”

  “Not just a theory,” I snapped.

  “We might have lost David’s research,” Matt said. “But so did the enemy. That’s something.”

  “And David did finish one last sigil before we brought the mountain down,” Quasar added. “He put it on a catalyst ring. It’s one of a kind.”

  “What does it do?” Cox asked.

  “We should bring the Regent into the conversation,” Dryka suggested. “Before we go into further details.”

  “Agreed,” Volker said.

  She took out her collator and placed it on the table, standing up to activate it. Like before, the conference table in the Imperium overlapped the same table on Prestige, filling in the remaining seats with the ghosts of Keep, General Nattic, and Admiral Vaslon. Hiro wasn’t with them this time.

  “Captain Murdock,” Keep said, grinning widely when he saw me. “I’ve heard mixed reports about your efforts on Gloin.”

  “Your Honor,” I said, bowing my head respectfully. Keep seemed a little surprised by the gesture. “We recovered the asset, but we paid a great price to do it.”

  “It’s difficult to lose so many good men and women,” he agreed. “But they knew what they signed up for. I’m sure they made the ultimate sacrifice without hesitation.”

  “And then some,” I agreed. “I wouldn’t be standing here now, otherwise.”

  “Duchess Dryka informs me that you’ve developed a potential plan to outmaneuver Blorb. But she wouldn’t tell me what the plan is.”

  “Because she doesn’t know yet,” I replied.

  “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that we’ve thought we had Blorb cornered before. He’s always managed to slip from our grasp.”

  “As I’m all too aware,” I said. “I can’t guarantee the same won’t happen again, but I’m convinced the reward is worth the risk.”

  “You said that about Gloin,” Gonzalez blustered. “I’m not sure that turned out to be true.”

  “I’m not sure it didn’t turn out to be true,” Matt barked back, once again coming to my defense.

  “That’s enough,” Keep said, his voice unnervingly stiff, stern, and powerful. He was really growing into his role as Regent. It wasn’t necessarily a good thing. I missed the old Keep. “Captain, what’s your plan?”

  “I want to challenge Admiral Lyke to a duel. Ship-to-ship. May the best crew win.”

  “That’s crazy,” Gonzalez said before anyone else could react.

  “Excuse me?” Keep said in clear disbelief. “You’re a powerful archon, but Dominator has the Star of Caprum. You’ll die, Bennie.” His voice cracked, and he suddenly froze, realizing he had lost his air of nobility and broken character. Coughing, he reverted back. “I can’t permit this, Captain.”

  “Just hear me out, Your Honor. Please?”

  “Very well,” Keep replied.

  “David made a ring with a powerful new sigil. I call it reverse. He can use it to turn back time with specificity.”

  “Turn back time?” Cox gasped. “That’s impossible.”

  “He already used it once to save our lives,” Quasar said. “Colonel Coil jumped us on Gloin. We would have died if not for that sigil.”

  Keep was doing his best not to look too impressed with or curious about the sigil. “And you think this can give you an edge against Dominator?”

  “Yes and no,” I replied. “Assuming we can draw Lyke out, if she lands a killing blow we can reverse the situation and make a different choice. The problem is, so can she. In that sense, it would allow us to delay the inevitable. But, what if instead of buying ourselves extra lives, we use the reverse sigil to get Dominator’s exact spatial coordinates at the endpoint of the reversal? If we time it right—”

  “You can transit to Dominator and go after Lyke in person,” Keep finished. “Mano-a-mano. Hand-to-hand. Or sigil-to-sigil, in this case.”

  “If I win, Dominator isn’t just out of the fight. It falls back into our hands, with the Star of Caprum. Badabing badaboom.”

  “And what if you lose?” Volker asked.

  “That’s where the risk comes in,” I replied. “But you said it yourself, Your Honor. The Star is Lyke’s edge. Take it out of the equation, and she isn’t stronger than me. Not even close.”

  “Maybe not, but she also isn’t the only person on that ship,” Keep said. “It’s not like you can walk onto the bridge and start dueling.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Quasar said.

  “Me too,” Shaq agreed.

  “I’m sure you would,” Keep said. He paused thoughtfully. “I don’t know. It’s very risky.”

  “But if it works, it’s game over,” I said. “We win. It doesn’t matter how many warships the enemy has—sigil or conventional—they can’t defeat Dominator with the Star any more than we can.”

  “What if you can’t transit in time?” Keep asked. “You’ll have a couple of seconds at best. You’d have to time it perfectly.”

  “Like I’m in a hop race,” I agreed. “I can do it, Keep.” I flinched, forgetting propriety in my eagerness to defend my case. He didn’t call me out.

  “I want to tell you that I know you can,” he replied. “But this is rough, even for you.”

  “We have to do something,” I pressed. “My cancer is spreading. I’ve only got another month, two if I’m lucky. We aren’t going to get a better chance than this.”

  Keep shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  I opened my mouth to continue arguing when Nattic spoke. “Your Honor, if I may.”.

  “Go ahead, General,” Keep replied.

  “From what I understand of transiting, you’re using sigiltech to open rifts in spacetime at different points in the universe, and passing through similarly to folding space. Is that correct?”

  “Pretty much,” I agreed.

  “So what about sending an explosive device through this rift instead of yourself? The enemy ship isn’t protected from the inside. A big enough detonation would destroy it without putting your life at risk.”

  “There are a couple of problems with that,” I replied. “For one, if we blow up Dominator, we lose the Star of Caprum.”

  “I’m okay with that,” Nattic said.

  “For another, I need to maintain physical contact with anything I want to bring through the rifts. Otherwise it could get lost in the void. And I’m pretty sure we don’t want a bomb going off in there.”

  “I see,” Nattic replied.

  “Captain, that’s not completely true,” Keep said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “You told me—”

  “It’s true of living things that can be distracted by the temptation or despair of the crossing. Inanimate objects aren’t subject to those outside influences. A bomb should work just fine, and I think that’s a great idea.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Nattic said.

  I glanced at Dryka. She sat stone-faced, no doubt angry at having the Star treated like it didn’t matter. In the grand scheme of things, maybe it didn’t. But it still held great value to her. Even so, she didn’t argue with the General’s idea.

  “Dominator would still be an incredible asset to gain,” I said. “There’s no guarantee Blorb is on board, and the war won’t end until he does.”

  “Maybe not even then,” Matt said.

  “Meaning we could really use the ship,” I added.

  “I’m not arguing the value of Dominator,” Keep said. “I’m arguing the value of your life.”

  “It doesn’t have any value,” I said. “I’m going to die soon enough anyway. How about this? I can go over with an explosive. A dead man’s switch. I die, it goes off. Best of both worlds.”

  “No. As Matt just pointed out, Dominator isn’t the be-all, end-all of this fight. We need you for as long as we have you. I think your basic plan is sound, but Nattic’s alteration is the only way I’ll permit it to move forward. If you think you can get Lyke to play along.”

  I stewed over his reluctance to put me in danger. He was trying too hard to protect me, and I didn’t like it. Even so, I took a page from Dryka’s book and accepted the decision. “I can get her to bite. I’ve got a plan for that too.”

  CHAPTER 35

  “Well,” Matt asked as we scaled the hangar steps to the elevator. “What’s your plan to draw Lyke in?”

  While I’d promised Keep I could convince Lyke to accept my challenge, he hadn’t questioned me on how I would contact her—I had confidence Gia could find a way if I couldn’t—or what I would do to convince her to fight. Not that she would need much convincing. I hoped. And I didn’t go into any detail about my plan, because I wasn’t sure it would work. Keep trusted me to get the job done, and I got the impression he didn’t want the military brass to have all the details.

  Keep had been Regent for a few weeks now, and he had grown into the role in terms of his posture, presentation, and possibly arrogance. But the Keep I knew was still in there, lurking behind the more polished exterior. He understood the need for secrecy.

  After thinking it over, I answered Matt’s question, in a way, when we reached the top of the steps and I paused in front of the elevator, turning to Dryka. “Dutch, I’ll need the collator.”

  “You think Lyke has one, too?” she questioned, picking it out of her pocket.

  “Succaath and Sedaya were working together. And Lyke was Sedaya’s primary archon, the admiral of his growing sigiltech fleet, and probably more.”

  “Thanks for sinking that thought into my head,” Matt said.

  “It makes sense that she would have had a collator,” I continued. “Whether she kept it after Sedaya double-crossed Suck-ass is a different story.”

  “So your big plan is to call her and ask her out on a date?”

  “Pretty much,” I replied. “Not everything has to be complicated.”

  “You don’t think that’ll make her suspicious?” Quasar said.

  “Of course it will,” I answered. “She’ll wonder what trick we have up our sleeve that we think we can beat Dominator.”

  “Do you think she knows about the scale sigil?” Matt asked.

  “I don’t know, but after seeing the sigilship defending Gloin use that expulsion sigil to wipe out an entire squadron of Royal Guard ships, I’m concerned scale won’t work in our favor. If we’re on the sensors one second and gone the next, and Dominator can trigger something like that…” I shook my head. “We’ll be too small to get out of the way, and our tiny size may make it impossible for me to fully separate the energy wave.”

  “Good point,” Matt agreed. “Damn, I was hoping to change your mind about using reverse with that.”

  “I think reverse is a good idea,” Dryka said. “Lyke won’t see that one coming. I’m not sure how I feel about sending a bomb into the ship, though.”

  “The Star of Caprum?” I asked.

  She nodded. “It’s a one-of-a-kind family heirloom. An unlimited power source, and Keep wants to blow it up like it doesn’t matter.”

  “I wouldn’t go as far as to say it doesn’t matter to him. But stopping Blorb matters more.”

  “It does to me, too. But I thought your suggestion to go through with the bomb was perfectly reasonable.”

  “I didn’t,” Matt said. “Don’t treat Ben like he doesn’t matter.”

  “That’s not it at all. You know that, don’t you?” I nodded when she glanced at me. “I’m just being pragmatic.”

  “Then why didn’t you speak up at the meeting?”

  “I’ve known Avi a long time. I know when to argue and when to stand down.” She looked at me. “He loves you, Ben. I can see it in his eyes. Right or wrong, like it or not, he would make any excuse to reduce your risk. I bet he still thinks he can save your life.”

  She wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t already guessed, but hearing it from someone else made it even more real. “Maybe keeping his loved ones safe is what matters the most to him. You and I, both. The Star is amazing, but it’s still an inanimate object.”

  “I know,” she replied. “And ultimately, you’re right. But I can’t help thinking it’s the wrong move.”

  “It’s the move we agreed to,” I said. “And it beats the heck out of losing.”

  “I can’t disagree with that.” She held the collator out in her palm. “What do I do to contact Lyke?”

  “Just think about her, I guess.”

  “I don’t even know what she looks like.”

  I’d forgotten Dryka had never seen Lyke before. “Five foot nine, brown hair, pointed features.”

  “Total Karen,” Matt added.

  “Who’s Karen?” Dryka asked.

  “Nevermind,” I said. “Maybe you can just visualize Dominator. If there’s a collator on board, that might be enough.”

  Dryka nodded and closed her eyes. I looked around the hangar, waiting for the ghostly visage of Dominator’s bridge to appear. Dryka’s eyes opened and she glanced around, expecting the same. “I guess it’s not—”

  The collator activated. My blood immediately went cold, a shiver running through every part of me.

  Lyke wasn’t on Dominator’s bridge. Instead, she appeared to be in what looked like one of Blorb’s reproduction facilities, with colonies of Aleal growing on both sides. Obviously, she knew about Blorb.

  And she was helping him.

  “I think you may have been off about the probably more part,” Matt quipped.

  “Murdock,” Lyke said. If she was surprised to hear from me, especially through this channel, she didn’t let it show. “How nice of you to call. I accept your surrender.”

  “Actually, I was contacting you to accept your surrender,” I replied.

  “Really? Because from where I’m standing, it seems like my side is winning.”

  “You’re killing innocent people. Don’t you care?”

  She shrugged. “They don’t need to die. They just need to get out of the way.”

  “That is harsh,” Matt commented.

  “You do know that Blorb killed Sedaya, right?” I asked.

  “Of course. It was always part of the plan.” She smiled. “You know as well as I do that Sedaya was a little…unstable. He wanted to be a Niflin, for fate’s sake. Blorb has a real goal. A true motivation. And he’s more willing to share the spoils. With you, too, Murdock. We don’t need to be enemies. We can all work toward the same, common goal. You could live like an Emperor, without having to be one.”

  “Is that what’s in it for you? Money?”

  “Power,” she replied. “That’s what I desire. When the Spiral bends the knee to the new Emperor, the entire Fertile Quadrant will become my domain, to do with as I please.”

  “And you really believe Blorb will stick to that deal?”

  “He isn’t human. He doesn’t lie like one.”