“Here it comes,” Meg said. She and Leo stood beside me in Head Case’s hangar, watching while a pair of Royal Navy techs guided a hovercart up the ramp. A small metal crate rested on the cart, three feet long and a foot high. A biometric lock that only Meg could open protected its contents. A pair of nuclear warheads once mounted to a couple of Prestige’s torpedoes, now converted into a bomb.

  “I thought it would be bigger,” I said as the techs reached the top of the ramp and approached us. “Are you sure it’s enough to destroy Dominator?”

  “The size doesn’t matter,” Leo said.

  “It’s how you use it,” Meg agreed. “And since we’ll be using it on the inside of the ship, it’ll definitely be enough. Don’t worry about that, Cap.”

  “Captain Murdock,” the lead tech said, coming to attention in front of me. “Commander Volker sends his regards.”

  “As you were,” I said, smiling. “I like the look of the Commander’s regards.”

  The tech laughed as he and his companion relaxed their postures. “Where do you want it, sir?”

  I cringed a little at being called sir and turned to Meg.

  “Deck Five,” she said. “By your leave, Captain.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Be careful with that thing.”

  “I was planning to hit it with a hammer to test it’s stability,” Leo said sarcastically. “But I guess that might not be a good idea.”

  “Stop being such a smart-ass,” Meg said.

  “Would you rather I be a dumb-ass?”

  Meg groaned and shook her head, leaving the techs unsure how to react to the casualness of the exchange. When they saw me laughing, they seemed to relax.

  “Does anyone here know why the elevator doesn’t come all the way down to the hangar deck?” Leo asked as he positioned himself on one side of the crate with one tech. Meg stood opposite him with the other. They grabbed handles attached to the crate, groaning as the four of them lifted it. “This thing is heavy.”

  “Total design flaw,” Meg strained. “If I had known it was this dense, I would have asked Ixy and Quasar to come down too.”

  They shuffled toward the steps, struggling with the crate. By the strain on all their faces, it had to weigh at least a few hundred pounds.

  “I’ve got it,” I said, swinging my guitar into playing position. I spit out an impromptu lick, lifting the crate out of their hands and guiding it up and over the railing to the upper deck.

  “Whoa,” the lead tech said, having never seen sigiltech before. “It’s like magic.”

  “I can bring it up to Five for you,” I said. “I’m headed the same way.”

  “That would be helpful,” Leo replied, still out of breath.

  I turned to the techs. “You two are dismissed. Give my thanks to Commander Volker.”

  “Yes, sir,” the lead replied. “Thank you, sir.” They turned and left the ship, exiting back into Prestige’s hangar.

  “Show off,” Meg joked, offering me a big smile.

  “Come on,” I said, leading them up the steps to the elevator. I kept playing nothing in particular, improvising chords while I pushed and pulled the crate, holding it level at waist-height. Leo called the elevator down.

  Emerald was inside when the doors opened. “Heya, Boo,” she said, eyes shifting to the crate. “Aww, you shouldn’t have. I accept.”

  “I didn’t know you had a nuclear bomb on your wishlist,” I replied.

  “You don’t know me at all, do you?” she pouted before laughing. “I was just coming to look for you. I’m bored.”

  “I don’t exist to entertain you, Em.”

  “I know.” She paused as if she was trying to decide whether to be a pest. “What are you doing?”

  “Bringing the bomb to Deck Five,” I said. “Then I’m going up to Six to check on David.”

  “That sounds fun.” She looked at me expectantly.

  “Fine, you can come,” I said, giving in.

  “Yes!” she exclaimed, smiling broadly. “A person can only spend so much time exercising, eating, and watching movies. This jump is taking forever.”

  “It’s going by fast for me,” Meg said.

  “That’s because you have something to do,” Emerald argued.

  “I thought you were looking for your son?” I said.

  “I was, but Prestige’s datastore didn’t help, and I can’t do a wider hypernet search until we drop.”

  “No leads at all?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You should ask Gia for help.”

  “I wanted to do it on my own. To put in the effort and prove I still care.”

  “Are you saying you don’t care?”

  She looked at the floor, shaking her head. “No. I do. I just…maybe he’s better off without me.”

  “Emerald,” Meg said. “Believe me when I say, he’s isn’t.”

  “Yeah,” Leo agreed. “We know what it’s like to grow up without our mom.”

  “I grew up without my father,” I agreed. “We don’t always get a choice in that. But you can give your son that choice. Let him decide.”

  “What if he rejects me?”

  “Taking that chance proves to both you and your son that you care,” Leo said.

  She smiled. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, twins. I thought you both hated me.”

  “You can come on a little strong sometimes,” Meg said.

  “But we don’t hate you,” Leo added. “You’re part of the crew, which makes you part of our family.”

  “Awww!” Emerald hugged both Meg and Leo before turning to me. “You don’t want to be left out, do you?”

  I smiled. “If I stop playing, the crate will fall onto the floor and possibly explode.”

  “It’s not that unstable,” Meg said. “It has to be armed before it’ll explode.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Uh…yeah, but let’s not take any chances.”

  Emerald settled for kissing me on the cheek.

  The elevator stopped on Five, and I guided the bomb across the deck, past the sigibellum to a simple electromagnetic sled Meg and Leo had devised for it. According to them, it worked similarly to a railgun, and would shoot the warhead through the portal I opened with enough velocity to ensure it would reach the other side before Dominator could clear the coordinates. It was crazy to think about. Crazy to look at.

  “You can put it down here,” Meg said, standing beside the sled. I lowered the crate gently and stopped playing my guitar, watching while Meg used her eyeball and fingerprint combined to open the secured casing. Being military, there were all kinds of procedures related to the transfer of the explosive, which was why it was only being delivered now, two days before we reached the former stardock coordinates.

  The warheads were in separate, cushioned cutouts inside. They didn’t look like projectiles. Rather, they were a pair of pretty ordinary looking cylinders with a couple of receptacles for wires that would complete their circuits and allow an encrypted detonation command to be delivered to their onboard CPUs. The devices could be set to explode on impact, at a certain range from a target, by timer, or remotely, offering a wide array of possibilities for setting off a mass wave of destruction. Meg could program it via the ship’s computer, and would set it on a ten second timer when the time came to fire the device.

  “It almost feels like cheating,” Emerald commented as Meg and Leo lifted the first warhead out of the crate, both of them straining to relocate it to one of the twin chambers on the sled. They lowered it carefully into place, leaving the wires disconnected.

  “Do you know the old saying?” I asked. “All’s fair in love and war?”

  “I do now. I like it.”

  The twins stood over the crate, ready to collect the second warhead.

  “Do you want me to get it?” I asked.

  “No, it’s okay,” Leo huffed, out of breath from lifting the first explosive. “We’ve got it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We’re engineers,” Meg said. “This is all the exercise we get.” She smiled as they hefted the second warhead and dropped it into its place on the sled.

  “There,” Leo heaved. “I think I gave myself a hernia.”

  “Grow up,” Meg teased before turning to me. “We’re going to run some tests. Thanks for helping us get these up here, Captain.”

  “Anytime,” I replied. “We’ll see you two later.”

  “You bet, Cap,” Leo said.

  Emerald and I left them to their testing, riding the elevator up to Deck Six. As expected, David was hunched over his laptop, though I was surprised to find Sheri sitting on the workbench next to the computer, talking to him while he worked. She smiled and waved as Emerald and I approached.

  “Hey, Ben and Em.” She said it like we were sugar-coated candies.

  David looked up and turned to us. “Perfect timing,” he exclaimed with a big grin. “I just finished uploading new firmware to the helmet.”

  “Should I be scared?” I asked.

  “Only if you’re afraid of potential awesome,” he replied.

  “Sher, pass me the helmet.” She reached across the laptop to pick it up and pass it to me. “Thanks, sis. So, what did you do to it?”

  “I uploaded the algorithm. Right now, you’ll still need your guitar to tap into chaos energy, but instead of directing it toward your construct, just think about what you want to do with it. The helmet will read your brainwaves and hopefully draw in the correct motes.”

  “I thought the idea was that I wouldn’t need the guitar anymore?”

  “Ultimately, it is. But this is an early prototype.”

  “It’s not early, anymore.”

  “I told you I didn’t think this would be ready for the battle royale. One step at a time, Ben.”

  “Okay.” I pulled the helmet on. The colored lines went across the visor, all of them currently flat. “I feel like Professor X.”

  “Give it a try,” David said.

  I played a few chords, drawing in the energy. I gently pulled Sheri, trying to shift her on the bench. She shifted, but the lines didn’t move. I tried again, with the same result.

  “Stop tugging on me,” Sheri complained.

  “I need to tug on something, and you’re convenient.”

  “Do me! Do me!” Emerald volunteered. “I’ll stand over here. Pull me to you.” She crossed the room and turned toward me, waiting.

  I tried again. “It’s not working,” I said. “The energy is going through the construct.”

  David tapped furiously on his keyboard. “Hold on, I’m checking for errors in the firmware.” He pored over a bunch of text output for a minute. “It’s not registering anything. You’re right, it must be going into the construct.”

  “Maybe if you split it,” Emerald suggested. “Like you do on the dance floor.”

  “I shouldn’t need to split it,” I said.

  “As a test?”

  “Okay,” I agreed, playing a few more chords. I pushed against the bulkhead with the construct, while trying to pull Emerald toward me with my mind.

  I was trying to be gentle. The green line snapped upward, and Emerald flew toward me, her feet dragging along the deck. I dropped both actions as she collided with me, knocking us both to the floor.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  She laid on top of me, cracking up. “That was so much fun!” She hopped back to her feet and ran to her starting position. “Again!”

  “I only meant to knock her off balance,” I said to David. “You were right about the firehose.”

  “You’re channeling pure motes,” he replied. “Zero wasted energy. It’s amazing!”

  “And dangerous,” I added. “I’m not sure I can control it.”

  “Practice makes perfect.”

  “David, you’re so smart,” Sheri said, squeezing his shoulder.

  “No, I’m not,” he replied, shrugging while blushing profusely.

  I ignored the exchange, looking across the deck to Emerald. “Are you ready?”

  “Hell yeah. Hit me!”

  This was going to be fun.

  CHAPTER 38

  "Quiet everybody! Captain on deck!" Matt shouted when I walked into the lounge. His sharp whistle instantly silenced the group. Except Emerald of course.

  "Heya, Boo!" she waved from the sofa, where she had wedged herself between David and Sheri like a self-appointed chaperone filling in for me. Grinning, I acknowledged her greeting with a squeeze of her shoulder as I circled the sofa to stand beside Ixy where she’d hunkered down underneath the television. It was the best spot to address everyone all at once. All eyes turned to me, the crew waiting expectantly for me to start the briefing.

  George and Ixy had been good enough to bring in chairs from the kitchen to provide enough seating for almost everyone. Matt and Ki had to sit on the piano bench.

  It was the first time we had assembled in weeks, mainly because Meg, Leo, and Grizz had been consistently busy making repair parts or overseeing the actual repairs. Even now, they still had valuable work to do. But this was important, too.

  "As you probably know, Prestige will drop out of hyperspace in about ten minutes. It'll be a quick stop. Just long enough for us to run through our final diagnostics and tie up remaining loose ends. I want to thank our engineers for their exceptional work over the last nine days, and even further back than that. You’ve been pulling double-shifts and all-nighters to get Head Case as ready as possible for the fight to come, and we’re all in your debt. Especially you, Grizz. I think I speak for all of us when I express both my sorrow and admiration for the way you’ve handled yourself during these difficult times.”

  “Cakes all around!” Emerald announced, drawing laughs from most of the crew.

  Except Grizz. He nodded solemnly. “Finding Blorb and killing that son of a bitch is all the thanks I need, Captain Ben.”

  “You have my word that I won’t rest until that mission is accomplished,” I replied. I paused for a few heartbeats, my gaze sweeping over the crew. “When Matt and I first met Keep, we never imagined this was a real starship, or that the Manticore Spiral was a real place. Matt doubled-down on the fantasies of a dying friend, a last hurrah for a—”

  “Brother,” Matt interrupted.

  I smiled warmly at him. “He put every penny he had on my happiness. Which is still unbelievable to me. Even though the experience hasn’t gone according to our plans. Honestly, nothing about it has been the way I would have drawn it up. Despite all the trials and hardships and struggles we’ve had over these last months, getting to know all of you, working alongside you, has been the highlight of my life.”

  “Ours too!” Emerald shouted.

  “You’re the best, Captain,” Shaq buzzed from my shoulder.

  “Yesss,” Ixy agreed, gently touching my cheek with one of her pedipalps. I smiled at her.

  “I want to thank you all for your contributions,” I continued. “Not only as members of this crew, but also as part of my family. I’m grateful for the time we’ve gotten to spend together. I’ve been fortunate in having a chance to get to know each and every one of you as incredible individuals. And good friends.”

  “Even me?” Emerald asked.

  “Especially you, Em,” I replied with a wink.

  “No offense, Ben,” Quasar said. “We appreciate the compliments, of course. But this all sounds way too much like a farewell speech. And I hate goodbyes.”

  “As usual, you beat me to the punch,” I answered, sweeping my gaze across the others again. “The fact is, we only need a limited crew for the fight to come. Matt, David, and I will launch with Head Case. There’s no reason for the rest of you to put your lives in danger. I brought you here so I could thank you for your service and order you to stay behind.”

  “What?” Shaq buzzed in my ear, his reaction similar to the others’ immediate response. “Not leaving.”

  “Forget it, Chief,” Emerald said, folding her arms over her chest. “I’m not leaving you.

  “Me, neither,” Sheri agreed. “You can’t just dump us off when it suits you.”

  I put up my hands to silence them, fighting to control my emotions. “I’ve struggled with this decision for days,” I said. “I knew none of you would be happy about it, and to me that’s just proof of how close we’ve all become. And how special all of you are. But you’re wrong, Sher. I can dump you off, because this is my ship. I’m the Captain, and you’re bound to follow my orders. That’s why I’m not asking you to leave. I’m telling you.”

  “This is bullshit,” Quasar griped, looking at Matt. “You’re still half-owner of this ship. You have some say here.”

  Matt glanced at me. I nodded, giving him permission to have his say. “I’m sorry, Zar,” he said, looking back at her. “Ben’s right. There’s no point in all of us dying if we lose. If for no other reason than somebody has to be around to keep fighting.”

  “But we won’t lose,” Emerald argued. “That’s the whole point. We’ve got this.”

  “Yeah,” Ki agreed. “I didn’t watch the attrition of my entire unit just to bow out at the last minute. I’m willing to die for this cause.”

  “Me too,” Quasar said.

  “Thirded!” Emerald agreed.

  “And what about your son, Em?” I asked. “He should have a chance to see his mother again.”

  “He doesn’t even know who I am. He won’t miss me. And if I die heroically, maybe if he does try to find me, he’ll always remember me that way.”

  “Don’t you remember what we talked about the other day? Kids need their parents.”

  “I need you, Ben.” I watched her eyes take on the sheen of unshed tears.

  “No, you don’t,” I replied. “You’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.”

  “Want to stay,” Shaq buzzed. “Can help.”

  “I know you want to stay, bud. But I can’t let you do that for me. The best way you can help, the best way any of you can help, is by staying here on Prestige.”

  I could see Sheri was about to explode. “You can’t ask me to leave both you and David behind,” she argued. “I won’t do it!”

  David reached across Emerald’s lap and took Sheri’s hand. “Yes, you will. You don’t want your mother to lose both you and Ben.”