“Sher, what are you doing here?” I asked, spotting her standing next to George, a plasma rifle in hand.

  “You forgot to include me,” she replied.

  “I didn’t forget. I need you to stay here.”

  “You can’t keep trying to protect me like this, big brother,” she complained. “I’m a good shot, and I—”

  “I’m not leaving you here to protect you. Someone has to defend the ship. Matt, David, and the others already have jobs to do. If anyone gets on board, you’re the last line of defense.”

  “So why not have Emerald do it?”

  I motioned toward Emerald. “Do you really want to trust a woman going to war in snowman pajamas with David’s life?”

  She frowned. “Good point.”

  “Take a position on the balcony in front of the elevator. If anyone boards Head Case who isn’t us, blast them.”

  “Okay. Be careful.” She kissed me on the cheek before turning to the others. “I want all of you to come back alive. Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” George replied.

  “To be fair,” Emerald said. “I thought you didn’t want us to risk our lives anymore?”

  “That was before we had to transit a fleet back to Atlas and wound up inside Dominator,” I replied. “Plans change.”

  “We could all die.”

  “I’ll do everything in my power to keep that from happening. Let’s move out.”

  “Ben, we’ve got company,” Matt said, Head Case shuddering as loud thumps erupted from our ion cannons. The hangar doors rattled, suggesting return fire. “They’ve got archons with them, reflecting our cannon fire back at us. I don’t know how long our shields will hold.”

  “On my mark, cut your fire and open the hangar doors. We’ll deal with them.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Shaq, you know what to do.”

  “Mmmhmm,” he buzzed.

  “Ixy, stay out of sight. If you see an opening, try to take the archons by surprise.”

  “Yesss.”

  “The rest of you, follow me.”

  I headed straight for the hangar doors, swapping out Hell’s Bells for Highway To Hell. I could sense the difference between my ability to tap into chaos energy now than I had before using restore. The contrast wasn’t overwhelmingly significant, but David had had the right idea.

  Reaching the doors, I glanced to both sides of me, eyeing my crew. A ragtag group to be sure, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “Matt, now!” I barked.

  The thudding from the ion cannons stopped. The doors began opening, much too slowly. I pushed them aside at the same time I cranked up the volume on my guitar, hoping to unnerve the defenses with the sudden echoing roar of classic rock and roll. Shaq slipped out of the opening before it had fully spread, darting laterally while the enemy was distracted by the ear-splitting music.

  A dozen armored Niflin defenders hesitated and then swung their weapons toward us. A pair of archons hovered behind them, their reflect shields intact. They stared at me with wild eyes as I made a grand rock star entrance from the top of Head Case’s extending ramp. Obviously thinking they’d be safe behind reflect, my one strong separate tore the walls down, taking them and the guards completely by surprise.

  Emerald’s plasma rifle whoomped as she knelt and sent well-aimed bolts into one defender after another, joined a moment later by the rest of Team Hondo. The guards stumbled back, looking for cover before they could retaliate. I took the opportunity to pull the rifles from their hands, sending the guns up and over Head Case and into the depths of Dominator’s hangar.

  Just like that, the fighters were ready to surrender. Those who hadn’t found cover immediately fell to their knees and threw their hands up, their expressions beneath their helmets undoubtedly reflecting their terror. The guards behind cover had no other choice but to join their surrender, while the archons weren’t so quick to give up. I had seen the sigilship at the Bracken Factory use diffuse. It came in handy now as I took care of the lightning flashing toward me before it could make contact.

  George and Justus turned their guns on the archon who looked most likely to defend himself. They didn’t need to fire. The threat they presented was enough to motivate the wizard to throw his hands up, but he didn’t drop his shield. Shaq snuck in behind him, bypassing his shield and biting his ankle. He jerked, looking down for his attacker and then fell to the deck, dead.

  The other archon locked his frightened eyes on mine. He turned and ran, a shield of reflect behind him. Emerald’s plasma bolts ricocheted off his shield, punching into the deck.

  “Slippery little turd,” she complained, looking over at me with a big grin on her face. “Looks like the hangar’s ours.”

  “And both Lyke and Blorb know I’m coming,” I replied, allowing myself a satisfied smirk. “Good.”

  CHAPTER 44

  “What should we do with these guys?” George asked, keeping his rifle trained on the surrendering Niflin.

  “I’ll take care of them,” I replied, lowering the volume on my guitar and playing more slowly now that the action was done. I approached the six guards. “Take your gloves off,” I ordered.

  They did as I directed, putting their hands back up afterwards. I touched the backs of their hands in turn, calming them into a deep sleep.

  “Time’s wasting,” Emerald said, already waiting at the door. “Let’s go.” Ixy dropped down from the ceiling beside her, startling both her and me. “Damn it, do you have to do that?” Emerald snapped.

  “Yesss,” Ixy replied, rattling in obvious amusement.

  The hangar door opened and we moved out into the corridor, retracing some of the way Head Case had taken to reach the hangar.

  “We should split up,” Quasar suggested. “One group to the bridge, the other to the sigibellum.”

  “Good idea,” I replied.

  “I’m going for the Star of Caprum,” Justus announced. “Her Grace deserves to get it back.”

  I considered reacting harshly to his decision. He wasn’t in charge here, and even Dryka would want him to follow orders. But I also knew him well enough to know I wouldn’t get anywhere. His love for the duchess was greater than his loyalty to me, but I still had to warn him. “You won’t make it very far on your own.”

  ”I have to try.”

  “Do you even know where you’re going?”

  “I studied the schematics of Niflin battleships. I think so.” He put his hand on my shoulder while we continued walking. “If I don’t see you again, it’s been an honor fighting alongside you, Ben.”

  I nodded, a wad of indigestible forewarning settling in my gut.”Godspeed, Justus.” I hoped I’d see him again, but I knew the chances of that weren’t good. “Let me know if you make it to the Star. Don’t remove it right away. If we capture Dominator, we’ll need it to finish off the rest of the fleet.”

  “Aye, Captain.” He squeezed my shoulder before sprinting ahead of us, first to turn the corner. He quickly ducked back behind the corner, slamming his back against the bulkhead and looking back at me as energy blasts shot past where he’d come to a screeching halt in the cross corridor. “A little help?” he said.

  Emerald and Ki rushed to join him, the rest of us not far behind. I peeked around the corner, finding a group of four Niflin soldiers, two peering around each corner at the next intersection. I didn’t see an archon with them, so all I had to do to take them out was pull them out into the open.

  Next to me, Ixy heaved a long sigh, apparently disappointed she wasn’t getting any of the action.

  “I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have opposable thumbs,” I said. She responded with clicking laughter.

  With his path cleared, Justus nodded a silent thanks and turned right, taking off down the corridor while the remainder of Team Hondo gathered around me.

  “The bridge is near the center of the ship,” Quasar said. “We’ll need to go up a few decks and back toward the middle. The sigibellum is probably closer to the aft, the same way Justus just went.”

  “Probably?” I replied. “Is that the best we can do? This is a big ship.”

  “Once we have the bridge, Gia can help me pinpoint the exact location of the sigibellum.”

  “Brito’s fleet is getting slaughtered out there,” I reminded her.

  “I know.” She paused, no doubt communicating with Gia through her neural link. “Follow me.”

  Turning left, we fell in behind her, running through the corridors of the sigilship, fully depending on Zar to get us where we needed to go. A few minutes passed without encountering any other defenders. In fact, the entire place had become eerily quiet.

  “Zar, time,” I pressed again, worried about Brito.

  “We’re here,” she replied, stopping at a hatch. It didn’t open when she tapped on the control pad beside it.

  “Locked?”

  “We should expect that now. Wait one.” She stared at the pad while Gia worked on the problem through the neural link. In just a moment, the door opened, revealing a closet filled with flashing lights, wires, and a small display.

  “What is this place?” Ki asked.

  “Systems junction,” Quasar replied. “They’re sprinkled across the ship.” She tapped on the display, bringing it to life before navigating the touchscreen. To me, it was a maze of colored lines, much like maps I had seen of the New York City subway system. As she tapped on a line, it displayed some information written in Niflin. “Here,” she said, choosing the blue line. She rotated the three-dimensional map. “We’re here, on Deck Nine,” she said, pointing to our position.”Virtually halfway between the primary reactors on twelve…” She pointed to them. “. and the bridge on sixteen. Here.”

  “How close are we in actual distance to the bridge?” I asked.

  “About half a klick away.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” Emerald said, bouncing up and down. “Let’s hop to it.” She laughed at her bad joke, suddenly cursing and whipping easily around on the slick soles of her bunny slippers to open fire on the uniformed archon materializing to the left of us. Em’s round missed her as she came into full view.

  Before I could react, the archon’s powerful spread of energy slammed into us. Emerald fell back, a smoldering hole burned into the shoulder of her pajamas. Ki and George went down, too. One of the bolts cut right through Ixy’s leg, severing half of it. The bolts missed Shaq, and Quasar was out of sight inside the junction.

  I was luckier. The protostem of my guitar absorbed the chaos lightning, but the force of the attack still knocked me into the bulkhead. Nevertheless, I responded quickly, blocking her next round of diffuse. I straightened and charged her, strumming a jangling lick that expressed both my fear and fury while I launched lightning from the fingertips of my left hand. Four separate spears of energy lanced her body, and she collapsed in a smoking heap.

  I immediately turned back to my stricken crew members. Emerald was still alive, groaning and looking down at her chest. “That bitch ruined my jammies,” she complained. George was getting back up, too. As a former army grunt, he had taken to wearing protective underlay almost all the time. The attack had pierced the armor and left his arm dangling at his side.

  Ki wasn’t moving.

  Shaq stood beside her, small hand on Ki’s neck, checking for a pulse. Two of the bolts had hit her, one in the abdomen, the other in the chest, right over her heart, with enough force to tear through her armor. Shaq looked up at me and shook his head. She was gone.

  “Maybe I can reverse it,” I said, falling to my knees beside her. I glanced at Ixy, who had tucked in her damaged limb, holding it close to her body.

  “Seven moresss,” she wheezed, the hint of anger and pain impossible to miss.

  Looking back at Ki, I visualized time running backward for her. The bolts coming out of her body as she popped back to her feet. I didn’t sense anything from the crown, and what I wanted to happen didn’t. Maybe I just couldn’t get a clear enough image of it in my mind, or maybe the action was just too complex for even the crown to handle. Either way, I couldn’t bring her back. It saddened and infuriated me. She had been the last of Kat’s Litter.

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” Quasar said, putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “But we need to keep going.”

  “Yeah,” I replied bitterly, returning to my feet. I stepped over to George and put my hand on his wound. Reverse hadn’t worked, but I knew I could at least restore him. It only took a few seconds for the damage to fully heal.

  “Thanks, Captain,” he said.

  I nodded, turning to Emerald. “I’m good,” she said, though I wasn’t completely sure I believed her. “Save your energy for the bad guys.” She shouldered her rifle, ready to move out.

  “Forget splitting up,” I said. “It’s too risky if there are any more Gilded wandering around. Especially if they can all make themselves invisible. We’re going for Lyke and the sigibellum.” I glanced back at George. “I was determined before. Now I’m totally pissed off and ready to kick some ass.”

  CHAPTER 45

  We made our way through Dominator at a reckless pace. I stayed in front, holding a wave of diffuse in front of us to block any surprise attacks, sigil-based or otherwise. It was a constant drain on me, but I didn’t have any other choice. I refused to let the enemy catch us off-guard like that again. I refused to lose another crew member to something I could prevent.

  The invisible archon’s attack had created a new fire in my gut, a next-level focus and fury compounded by my inability to replicate reverse. Brito’s predicament ate at me too. We’d entered the sigilship nearly eight minutes ago. It might as well have been a lifetime. I tried contacting Matt through both my comm badge and slab to get an update, but it seemed the enemy had found a way to jam our signals. Quasar had even lost contact with Gia, which led me to believe there was sigiltech involved.

  Cut off from everyone else, it also meant Justus couldn’t reach me when he made it to the Star. If he made it to the star. I still had a bad feeling he wouldn’t. Maybe I should have fought harder to stop him from going. But that would have only been a waste of time we didn’t have. If he did reach the power source and found his comms down, I assumed he would pull the Star and try to smuggle it back to Head Case. Maybe that would be for the best.

  “That’s it up ahead,’ Quasar said, motioning to an unremarkable hatch about a hundred feet from our current position.

  There were no guards posted outside. We had made it all the way from the junction without running into any more trouble. It didn’t sit very well. Lyke had gone for the quick assassination and failed. Now that I knew about that attack vector, she’d likely decided it would be a waste of her remaining archons to try again.

  Which made this an obvious trap.

  A trap we had no choice but to walk into if we wanted to stop Dominator from destroying Brito’s warships. A trap we had to walk into if we wanted to stop Lyke and gain control of the huge sigilship. Period.

  “What’s the play, Chief?” Emerald asked. She hadn’t complained at all about her wound, but I could tell by the tightness of her face that she was in secret agony. Taking one for the team. If that was the only reason for me to crush Lyke, it would have been enough. But there were so many more reasons.

  “I’m going in after Lyke,” I replied.

  “Are you kidding?” Quasar said. “Your plan is to get yourself killed?”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “It’s not about confidence. It’s about sanity. I think we can all agree this is a trap. I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe all the archons left on this ship are in that room. With Lyke. Ben, you don’t even know how many archons there are, how powerful they are, or whether or not they’re Gilded.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.”

  “And?” she pressed.

  “And if all the archons are in that room, it means none of them are between here and the bridge. Which means you and everyone else have a better chance of securing the bridge while I deal with Lyke.”

  “I thought we just decided not to split up?”

  “That was before we knew this was a trap. Look, there’s nothing you can do to help me in there.”

  “Can help,” Shaq interjected.

  “Not even you, bud,” I replied. “They’ll burn you just like they did Ki.”

  “I can take it,” Emerald said, patting above her wound.

  “You got lucky. So did I. If the bolt the Gilded threw at me hadn’t hit my guitar, I’d be dead right now. If these archons can make themselves invisible, odds are that at least one of them will be out of sight in there, waiting for the right moment to strike. If any of you go in there with me, I’ll have to worry about protecting you. If you’re not there, I only have to worry about myself.”

  “You don’t need to worry about us,” Quasar insisted.

  “Yes, I do. If you go in there, you’ll die.”

  “So will you.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But I’m dying anyway. You all know that. And if I am going down, you can be sure I’ll take Lyke with me. Something I can’t do if I have to worry about any of you.” I looked each of them in the eye in turn. With Ixy, I looked into multiple eyes. “This isn’t how I want things to end. I wanted you safe on Prestige, far away from this. Since that didn’t happen, the best thing you can do for me is seize the bridge. Gain control of the ship. Crash it on Atlas if you need to, but get it out of the fight. If the enemy sees it go down, they might decide to run.”

  “Come to the bridge with us,” Quasar pleaded. “We’ll take Dominator down together. If that doesn’t bring that bitch out of hiding, nothing will.”

  I stared at her, hesitant. “She owes me a fight.”

  “She was smart enough not to stick to that agreement. You shouldn’t, either. None of us can stop you from going in there if that’s what you really want. But how far have you ever gotten by going it alone?”