“Yeah, my legs feel like rubber,” I agreed as the elevator doors swooshed open.

  “Cap, I’ve got the climate control system you requested,” Meg said as Leo helped her roll an ugly square box out of the elevator. “I know it’s not much to look at, but Asshole didn’t have much spare material to create a proper casing. We’re lucky we had enough to include heating and cooling. Plug it in, Leo.”

  He unwound the cord from the pegs on the back and guided it around the sigibellum to connect it on the other side of the ring and then maglocked it to the deck. “Hot or cold?” she asked.

  “Hot,” I replied.

  She flipped a switch on the front of the machine. Nothing happened. She turned it off and on a few more times. Still nothing. Frowning, Meg crossed her arms over her chest. “Leo, are you sure you plugged it in?”

  “Of course I plugged it in,” he groused back. “You watched me do it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive I know how to work a plug.”

  “With you, that’s always in doubt.” She tried it again. Failing to power on, she kicked the box. It still didn’t start. “What the hell?” she complained, reaching into a pocket of her overalls for her multitool.

  “I just hope the nuke sled works better than this,” Dryka commented.

  Meg’s face flushed, embarrassed. “Leo, don’t just stand there. Help me with this.”

  “Why do you have to be so bossy? Leo said.

  “Because I’m the oldest. Get the screws on that side.”

  I stood over them, still shivering as I turned my gaze to the forward displays. A few minutes earlier, Brito’s fleet had been far enough away to be invisible to the naked eye. Now their hollow blue ion trails had come into view. A glance at the sensor grid gave me my first look at the shape of the vessels. Long and rectangular, each resembled a series of boxes mounted to a central cylinder with an arrowhead shaped bow.

  Seeing the mockup on the grid reminded me of what I had read about Nobukkian military vessels. The design was standardized to serve a wide range of functions, from cargo hauler to heavy battleship. The purpose and capabilities were determined by the individual modules locked together on the frame. The benefits of the design were clear, but so were the drawbacks. The ships were good at everything, but master of nothing. As warships, they tended to lack the same level of shield protection a ship like Prestige, or even Head Case, possessed.

  Yet Brito’s fleet had successfully turned away one of Blorb’s attacks, claiming bragging rights as the first to take down a sigilship. Even if he had lost ten of his own in the exchange.

  “Matt, Commander Volker,” I said, opening multiple comm channels on my slab. “Come about and match speed with Brito’s fleet. Count Brito, maintain course and velocity; we’ll fall in with you.”

  “Acknowledged,” Brito replied. “Commander Volker, are you sure you can spin that whale of yours around in time?”

  “Watch me,” Volker answered, keen to accept the challenge.

  I felt the change in inertia as Matt gently turned us around and increased the thrust from the mains, pressing to bring us to a stop as Brito’s fleet approached. Keeping an eye on Prestige, I watched the huge Sentry fire its many vectoring thrusters from the bottom stern, flipping the ship’s tail over head to more quickly get it facing the other way. Considering the stresses the maneuver had to put on the superstructure, it was impressive how easily the huge ship could pull it off.

  “Very nice,” Brito admitted once Prestige finished the reversal. “Score one for Atlassian engineering.”

  “And Royal Navy knowhow,” Volker added.

  “Of course.”

  “Commander, have you been able to reach the Imperium?” I asked.

  “Negative, Captain. I’m afraid all communications with Atlas have been lost. I’m trying not to think about what that might mean for the Prince, the Regent, Orbital Defense, or the rest of the population.”

  “Yeah. Me, too,” I agreed. I tapped off the comms and looked at the twins. “Meg, anything?” They had the cover off the device, and were tinkering with its guts.

  “Not yet,” she replied. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll make do if you can’t get it going.” I activated the comms again. “Count Brito, Commander Volker, I’m going to open the portal now. Keep your ships as tightly packed as possible. Once you get to the other side, spread out immediately. I expect Blorb’s forces to react violently to our appearance. They’ll see the rift open before we start coming through.”

  “So much for the element of surprise,” Brito said.

  “It’ll still be a surprise,” I replied. “When we get there, I’m going straight for Dominator. Do what you can to keep the other sigilships off our ass.”

  “Don’t you mean off your scalp?” Brito joked lamely. “Will do, Murdock.”

  Shaking my head at his corny one-liner, I disconnected the external comms, struck by another idea. “Ixy,” I said, tapping my comm badge. “I need you on Five.”

  “Yesss,” she acknowledged. “Comingsss.”

  I rubbed my hands together, warming them up a little before once more taking hold of my guitar. “David, can you track my energy expenditure at all?”

  “Like to give you an idea of how much you have left in the tank?” he replied.

  “Yeah.”

  He shook his head. “If I had more time, I could work something out.”

  Unfortunately, there was no more time. “Nevermind.”

  “Got it!” Leo shouted as the small heat exchanging unit rumbled to life.

  “Yes!” Meg applauded, throwing her arms around Leo from behind. “Nice work, Leo the Great.”

  “Thanks, sis,” he replied, straightening up as a blast of hot air immediately began chasing away my internal chill. The added warmth helped me to quickly get some feeling back in my hands. I started playing again, sticking with the Doors as they had helped me break on through once already.

  “Matt, bring us ahead of the fleet so I can open the portal.”

  “Aye aye, Captain,” he replied. Head Case accelerated ahead of the oncoming warships, quickly opening a gap between us and them. I didn’t start expanding space quite yet. Instead, I gathered chaos energy internally so I could create the transit as quickly as possible.

  “Captainsss?” Ixy said as she scuttled out of the elevator.

  “I need a seat. I might get too weak to stand.”

  “Yesss,” she answered. I expected her to use her webbing to create a suitable chair. Instead, she crouched behind me and wrapped her forelimbs around my chest, her abdomen running down my back and angling between my legs.

  “Not what I was thinking, but it works,” I said. Her head loomed over me, which might have been terrifying if I didn’t trust her the way I did. Shaq abandoned my shoulder, hopping to the top of the sigibellum’s corner display. “Here we go. Matt, slow us down.”

  “Aye aye,” he answered.

  I turned to Dryka. “Dutch, get ready.”

  She nodded and passed my slab to Ixy, who held it in front of me with two of her limbs. Dryka moved to the center of the sigibellum to activate it.

  I repeated the same process as before, sending chaos energy through the crown. Space shifted well in front of Head Case, stretching out and tearing open a new passageway. I didn’t make it much larger than the last time, expecting the ships behind us to follow us through tightly packed. My body shook from the coldness created by the energy drain, and I slumped back against Ixy, keeping all my focus on the music and the transit. Once we reached the other side, I would need a minute to get some strength back.

  I doubted Lyke would give me that long. I’d have to compensate. Somehow.

  The heater beside me helped more than I had thought it might, but it couldn’t counter the general fatigue I was already feeling or the worry that my cancer would choose an inopportune moment to stress me out. I could only hope that because the mutated cells had a hand in my ability to activate sigiltech, the consistent use of it would hold those side-effects at bay.

  The portal loomed in front of us. Matt guided Head Case in, passing us quickly through the breach the same as we had done ten minutes earlier. Like before, I had a strange sense that we were being watched while crossing the void.

  We had yet to emerge on the other side when I switched gears, channeling chaos energy to my construct instead of through the crown. A shield of absorb surrounded Head Case, the burn warming me back up through it did nothing for my physical drain. Only sheer willpower would keep me upright in the minutes to come.

  Fortunately, I had determination to spare.

  CHAPTER 41

  It was no surprise that the enemy was waiting for us as we emerged from the rift. With our ancient sensors, the grid was worthless in accurately updating us on the full count of opposing forces. They appeared immediately in the displays surrounding the sigibellum. I immediately recognized them from the glow of sigils along their hulls.

  Despite having a few seconds of lead time before our arrival, the overall advantage they had wasn’t as great as I had initially feared. In part, because the portal I made was much larger than they undoubtedly expected. And they didn’t know how or why…until they saw what came through it. Also, they had no idea what sigils I might be ready to use, and as a result held a more defensive rather than offensive posture than they might have otherwise.

  It didn’t work out well for them.

  Between Dryka on the sigibellum and me being able to split chaos energy between my construct and the crown, we were effectively three sigilships in one package. I used that to our immediate advantage, keeping up our shields while holding open the portal.

  “Dryka, hit them with everything you’ve got!” I shouted as we cleared the rift. Matt threw Head Case into hard maneuvers to port and then starboard as we took incoming fire. It sank into my field of absorb, held there for later use.

  Dryka activated immolate, sending gouts of unnatural fire spreading across the galaxy like a flamethrower, quickly bathing one of the sigilships that had chosen to attack instead of defend. Its hull melted nearly instantly, scoring us an early victory.

  The effort of holding open the transit while taking in more opposing fire through absorb left me leaning heavily against Ixy, my arms like lead weights as I continued to play. I’d already lost the tempo and notes of the song, just making random sounds to keep the chaos energy flowing. I couldn’t channel this much for long.

  Ixy’s limbs tightened around me, holding me securely as we rocketed toward a pair of sigilships. One switched to reflect, the other prepping a lightning attack, the sigils recognizable as they glowed from the enemy hulls. Their tactics weren’t terrible, but it was immediately obvious they hadn’t ever fought another sigilship, especially one with an experienced crew.

  Matt knew the symbols too. He changed his vectors, giving me the perfect angle to disperse the energy I’d collected. I focused it into a tight burst and let loose, sending it into the defending ship. The attack worked out better than I’d planned. The first ship ricocheted off the first half of my reflect and into the second sigilship, nearly slicing it in two before it could attack.

  The archon on the first sigilship wasn’t strong enough to maintain reflect against the onslaught. The second half of my attack blew through its defenses, ripping a nasty gash along the ship that took it out of the fight.

  Three sigilships down in less than thirty seconds.

  But where was Dominator?

  Prestige had emerged from the portal behind us, immediately launching starfighters and opening up with their repaired batteries, sending a mass of firepower at the enemy fleet. Brito’s first echelon of warships wasn’t far behind. They spilled into space and began spreading out in groups of six. Each group concentrated on a target. A flash of lightning from one of the sigilships cut into the emerging Nobukkian frigates, destroying two of them in a blink.

  “Matt, let’s go give Brito a hand.”

  “Aye, Captain,” he replied, changing our vector.

  “Dutch, get ready.”

  “I’m ready,” she replied.

  The enemy captain saw us coming and switched to absorb.

  “I can reverse the shield,” David said, watching the action from where he sat with his back against the bulkhead, laptop on his knees, flipping his gaze up and down between the laptop and the sigibellum’s grid.

  “No, that’s our secret weapon. We need to save it for Dominator.”

  “Okay.”

  I glanced at the feed from the port side. Only half of Brito’s ships were through. The sooner I could drop the transit, the sooner I could fully invest in the fight. For now, I settled on dampen, using it to hopefully weaken the enemy’s ability to absorb our assault. The glow of sigils on the enemy ship dimmed, proving the method effective.

  “Dutch, now,” I said.

  She unleashed immolate, breathing fire at the enemy sigilship. It seemed the archon on board didn’t realize what I had done. The sigilship slowed to absorb the energy of our attack, the intensity building on the edge of its sigil shield, the archon on board waiting to disperse it back at us. What the enemy didn’t realize was that their shield couldn’t absorb all the energy we were pouring into it. The shield suddenly shattered, fire and stored energy slamming into the ship, breaking it apart in seconds.

  “Ben, check the grid!” Matt shouted.

  Our systems had finally caught up, painting a display of everything surrounding us. It was more intense than my original interactions had suggested, and in those initial moments, the sheer volume of enemy ships nearly stole the fight from me. Blorb had committed more sigilships to this fight than I even believed he possessed. Dozens of ships held position over Atlas, the bulk of them Niflin corvettes, but also handfuls of traitorous Nobukkian frigates and a hodge-podge of outworld vessels similar to what Kritchek had collected.

  A mess of starfighters joined the enemy forces, Orbital Defense apparently already in tatters. The three Royal Sentries orbiting Atlas were all missing from the grid, though the identification of large chunks of debris suggested they had been out here when the fight began. A few dozen Royal Guard starfighters had somehow survived, as well as twelve or so smaller cruisers, but they were at the fringe of the fighting, in the midst of a hasty retreat or possibly hoping to draw some of the attacking units away from us.

  Where the hell was Dominator?

  It wasn’t showing on the grid. I didn’t see any evidence it was here at all. Had Lyke stayed behind, waiting for me at the rendezvous point and forcing me to choose between defending Atlas and fighting her? That seemed unlikely. Was she waiting somewhere nearby, planning to jump or transit in once we arrived? More plausible, but I couldn’t imagine Blorb not leading this attack. I felt like I was missing something.

  For the moment, it didn’t matter. We had plenty of other targets. There were at least a dozen sigilships in the process of regrouping to gang up on us and Prestige. Meanwhile, the Niflin corvettes were maneuvering around, building up their formations to stand toe-to-toe against Brito’s frigates. Flashes of energy filled the feeds all around us, quickly joined by the smaller trails of torpedoes arcing across space.

  I checked the rift again. Eighty percent of the Count’s forces were through, including his flagship, the largest and most heavily armed of the bunch.

  “Matt, let’s get on that trio of sigilships on the starboard side,” I said, identifying our next potential victims.

  “Aye, Captain,” he replied, again changing vectors. The two nearest enemy corvettes fired on us as we passed them, energy blasts surrounding Head Case, some of them catching in my web of absorb. “Torpedoes incoming,” Matt announced. I found the half-dozen warheads shooting toward us and dropped absorb. I counted on the shields for a moment while I dispersed some of the energy I’d collected back into the projectiles, wiping them out.

  I only had our guard down for a second.

  That was all it took.

  Something hit us hard.

  Maglocked to the deck, David was spared most of the impact, while Dryka grabbed onto one of the displays, holding fast to the sigibellum to remain on her feet. Shaq dug his claws into the corner of a display screen. Ixy and I didn’t fare so well. The impact sent us both rolling across the deck, the blow knocking my guitar from my hands. It swung wildly from its strap, completely stealing my focus from my remaining sigiltech actions. I couldn’t see it, but I knew instinctively that the rift would close immediately, and anything caught within, whether in whole or part, would be trapped inside the void.

  “What the hell?” David groaned, focusing on the grid.

  I swung my guitar back into my hands. Recovering even sooner than I did, Ixy quickly carried me back to where we’d been so I could get a look at the displays. The sigibellum glowed more brightly beneath Dryka as she activated what I assumed was a defensive sigil. Probably just in time. Head Case shuddered again, taking more hits while I struggled to get back into the fight.

  My eyes burned, my body shaking with the cold chill that ran through me when I saw Prestige, or rather what remained of it. The massive Royal Sentry was in a billion pieces, shattered as if it were a china vase dropped on the floor. Debris had flown out from it in every direction, the larger pieces careening into the Nobukkian frigates that had just cleared the rift. Smaller bits of debris created an odd outline of the negative space immediately recognizable to me.

  Before I could even utter the name, Dominator solidified into view.

  CHAPTER 42

  “Should I reverse now?” David asked, seeing Dominator appear way too close for comfort.

  If he reversed us a little, we could avoid the hit we had taken. But I had no idea what Dominator’s position was during that time. Lyke had somehow made the ship invisible, both from sight and from sensors, before apparently ramming Prestige right through the heart. The huge ship was still in motion, turning broadside to us as a fresh group of sigils activated along its bow.