“Sashkur decided he wanted more than one Quadrant?”

  “Not Sashkur. The Emporer’s daughter, Le’lana. She went to work at Sashkur, a brilliant scientist in her own right. She didn’t invent the sigil tech, but as the story goes, she weaponized it and created the first army of archons, and the first Sigil ships.”

  “But it’s lost tech. Which means she didn’t win.”

  “She didn’t lose, either. She reconciled with her father after twenty long, bloody years. Right before he died. He promised her the Hegemony if she would destroy all traces of the technology, including anyone who knew anything about it and all of the archons.”

  “Geez. How many were there?”

  “I don’t know. Thousands at least. She agreed to the deal in secret and had them all poisoned. Galileo, Sashkur Tech’s homeworld, was obliterated, and the technology was lost and forgotten forever. Or so it’s written in the history books.”

  I shook my head. “I spent time on Head Case looking into Hegemony history. There’s nothing in it about any of what you just told me.”

  “It’s a figure of speech. Knowledge of the tech was erased from everything, and in time nobody remembered it ever existed.”

  I motioned to his sleeve. “Clearly, that isn’t true. How do you know about it? How did you become an archon?”

  “I think they’re gone,” Keep said, using the bulkhead to pull himself back to his feet. “We’ll have to be careful, but now’s our best chance to make it to the hangar.”

  It was the second time he’d avoided the question. I was pretty sure I didn’t believe his story anyway. Not only because nothing he had said was in any of the history books in Head Case’s datastore. It just didn’t feel right. But why would he lie?

  “Considering all of that, I don’t get the impression becoming your protege and learning how to use the tech is a step in the right direction. Like you said, lost tech is lost for a reason.”

  “Under normal circumstances, I would agree with you completely. But Sedaya was a major threat to the Hegemony before I knew he had learned about the tech. He’s a bigger threat now. We need every edge we can get.”

  “Is it really an edge? It didn’t stop him from capturing Caprum and the Dryka Duchy.”

  Keep’s head whipped around, eyes burning when he glared at me. “You weren’t there, kid. You don’t know anything about it.”

  I backed up a step, raising my free hand in surrender. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be a jerk. I just want to understand.”

  “You will,” Keep replied, shoving himself back up the bulkhead. “I’m sure of that. But first, we need to get out of here.” He didn’t need the sleeve to open the door from the inside. Tapping the control was sufficient. Leaning his head out, he made sure the corridor was clear. “Round three.”

  We ducked out of the storage compartment and into the passageway, slinking along it to the next intersection and turning right. As we progressed toward the hangar, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was so much more going on here than Keep was willing to tell me. Probably so much more than I would ever know or even wanted to know.

  But it sure beat the hell out of torture.

  CHAPTER 6

  “You’ve already seen that being an archon doesn’t mean having unlimited power,” Keep said as we paused halfway down a corridor, ducking into a doorway as a pair of guards came around the next corner. They hustled past without seeing us. “It makes me worth maybe a hundred soldiers, if that. But it’s only as strong as I am.”

  The statement made me laugh. “And you want me to be your protege? Keep, you do realize I’m dying, right? That I’m the complete opposite of strong?”

  “Au contraire. You made it this far despite your limitations,” he replied, turning to face me. “Seems pretty solid from my perspective. You’re more than your affliction, Bennie. A lot more. I knew it as soon as I watched you playing the game.”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded by the sentiment. It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to me. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime,” he replied, his expression turning dark. “I did everything I could to stop Sedaya from seizing Caprum. It just wasn’t enough.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “I know. Let’s table the feelings. We’re almost there.”

  We hurried down the passageway to the intersection, making sure the coast was clear before turning right. We snuck through two more corridors, hiding from the guards as they swept past. The fact we had made it this far without being seen surprised me. I would have thought Keep had done something with the sleeve to prevent the guards from doubling back over our route, except his wrist remained exposed and unlit. I’d already used up a fair share of dumb luck over the last few weeks, but maybe I had a couple of ounces left.

  Or maybe Keep was just really good at sneaking. He seemed to have more than a little experience with it.

  “There it is,” he said as we reached one last corner. “Take a look.”

  I peeked around the bulkhead. A unit of guards stood in front of a pair of blast doors, ready to shoot at the first thing that appeared in the passageway.

  “Can we get by them?” I asked.

  “We can. I’m more concerned about what might be waiting on the other side.”

  “Or who,” I said. “Is Sedaya an archon too?”

  “One of his lackeys had a gauntlet, which doesn’t bode well for us on that measure. I can’t stand toe-to-toe with him right now. He’d kill us both.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Four hangars means there’s only a twenty-five percent chance he’s in that one. Maybe less because he thinks we need a two-seater at a minimum.”

  “Or he thinks we’ll think that, which makes it more likely he’s there,” I said.

  “Or he isn’t involved with this at all. Let’s not overthink it, kid. We don’t have a lot of options here, and dawdling is just going to give the roaming guards more time to find us.”

  “So we go for it?”

  Keep pulled his blaster. “We go for it,” he agreed. “If we don’t make it, it was nice knowing you, Ben. I couldn’t have sold the ship to a better kid.”

  “To be honest, I kind of hated you until about twenty minutes ago,” I said. “But I’m glad I won’t die hating you.”

  He grinned and used his free hand to tousle my hair, which turned into a suddenly awkward moment that left us standing there staring at one another.

  “Uh… yeah,” I said.

  “Screw it. Let’s go.”

  We both turned to face the hangar, side-by-side, as we swung out from the corner, guns blazing. The guards opened up a few seconds later, a delay that cost three of them their lives and disrupted the aim of the others. Bolts whizzed past me close enough for me to feel the heat of them on my cheek. One round hit my coat, absorbed by the material, through it left a sizzling patch of melting compound behind. Keep’s overcoat took a hit too, matching the resistance of my own, armored despite its rumpled brown appearance. One of the sigils on his wrist activated, the invisible barrier ahead of us catching the better aimed rounds while we dropped the last three guards, leaving the doors clear.

  A bolt flashed past me from behind, followed by a second that clipped my hair, and a third that hit the back of my coat. Swinging my rifle around behind me, I cringed at the sight of the eight additional guards converging on us from two separate corridors, the six who weren’t shooting about to open fire.

  “Keep!” I snapped.

  “Get to the doors!” he shouted back, throwing his sleeve arm back at the guards. A wave of energy pushed at them, knocking their weapons aside and buying us precious seconds. Facing back the other way, he used the sleeve to force open the blast doors, gasping from the effort.

  The attack resumed as we reached the fallen guards in front of the door. Keep tried to step over one, exhaustion causing him to trip over the body. He stumbled forward just as the blast doors started to shut. As he fell between them, I lunged over the guards, shoving my rifle between the two doors. They stopped just short of decapitating him. The weapon immediately began to snap under the pressure. Grabbing Keep by his shoulder, I pulled him through the doors, sending us both sprawling into the hangar. The blast doors slammed shut behind us, smashing the rifle to pieces.

  I jumped back to my feet, fighting a wave of dizziness that caused my vision to blur. Two Keeps were face-down on the deck, not moving anywhere near fast enough. The hangar was currently unattended. Flippy sat near the front of the bay, almost a hundred feet away.

  “Keep, come on. They’ll be here any second.” I grabbed him again, helping him back to his feet. He looked awful. Sweating profusely. Body cold. Face pale. Worse, he seemed confused. “Keep?”

  He looked at me without any hint of recognition in eyes that fluttered and threatened to roll back in his head. He was down for the count, and there was nothing I could do about it but scoop him up. I hoisted him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry, drawing from strength I knew I didn’t have three weeks ago. Part of it came from sheer adrenaline, the rest from the muscle I had added onboard Head Case. I took off at a run, knees complaining with every step, heart thumping against my ribcage from the additional weight I was carrying.

  “I’m more than the cancer, I'm more than the cancer,” I chanted out loud, motivating myself as I charged across the hangar. “And I’m not dying on this freaking ship!” I shouted, tempting fate as the blast doors opened behind us.

  With twenty feet to go, the guards started shooting, bolts again whipping past me. I gritted my teeth and picked up the pace, hoping for one last ounce of luck and that it would hold long enough for me to reach Flippy. A burning path streaking across my ass told me I was hit, but not too badly. Another round skimmed my lower leg, sending a jolt of pain that nearly sent me sprawling. I refused to go down. I refused to give up. The consequences of being captured again were all the motivation I needed.

  I reached Flippy, gaining a tiny bit of cover as I practically threw Keep onto the wing, grateful when I didn’t spot any burn marks on his head or legs. His eyes were open, his awareness partially restored. He swung his blaster toward the onrushing guards, dropping one of them with a pair of perfect hits to the helmet in an impressive display of marksmanship.

  I joined him on the wing, quickly opening the canopy, grabbing the helmet and jumping in. He rolled himself over on top of me, pressing me hard into the seat and sending throbbing pain up my spine from the burn on my butt. Bolts smacked into Flippy, scorching the ship’s armor plating as I closed the canopy.

  “Shift to between my knees as much as you can,” I grunted, trying to get my hands around him to take the controls. There was no way to strap in like this, but the sardine can nature of the fit would prevent too much jostling within the cockpit.

  “I’m trying,” Keep grunted. “The cockpit’s smaller than I remembered.”

  “Can you at least start us up?” I hissed as energy blasts continued peppering the ship. “We can’t take much more of this.”

  Keep shifted on my lap, managing to flip the switch to start the reactor. I shoved his head aside to drag on the helmet. Surprisingly, the helmet's augmented reality erased Keep from my lap, giving me a clear enough view outside and of the HUD to activate the shields. However, not being able to see him proved more challenging to work around than I expected.

  “Get out of the way,” I growled, shoving him with my hand just enough to tap the shield controls.

  “There’s nowhere to get out of the way to,” Keep snapped back, wrapping his arms around his torso to make his shoulders smaller as he shoved his body tighter to mine. A fresh wave of pain welled up from the burn on my rear.

  The nodes came online just as the guards began encircling us. Their rounds smacked into the forcefield instead of adding to Flippy’s damage.

  “This was a great idea,” I complained.

  “Just get us out of here.”

  “The hangar doors are still closed. Can you open them?”

  “I don’t have the strength.”

  The ship’s computer blasted warnings in my ears. With the concentrated firepower around us, the shields were already stressed.

  “I’d tell you to hold on, but you’re already way too familiar with my lap,” I said, activating the anti-gravity and bouncing Flippy off the deck. I twisted the stick, too close to Keep’s groin to not feel a little bit weird about it, I swung the ship in a tight circle and opened fire with the cannons.

  At such close range, hitting guards with the ions practically disintegrated them, killing a couple before the others wisely hit the deck. My other shots went into the starfighters lined up across the rest of the bay, taking them out of the fight as well. I did four quick spins like that, coming to a stop facing the blast doors.

  “How do we get out?” I screamed. "Won't the shields—"

  “You don’t need to shout, I’m three inches away from your face,” Keep replied. “Just shoot the doors. The shields are on the outside, natch.”

  I suddenly felt foolish for not realizing the blast doors would be significantly weaker from the inside. I held down the trigger, sending round after round into the metal, slowly reducing it to slag and creating the beginnings of a hole big enough for Flippy to fly through.

  The guards resumed their assault, taking aim from prone positions and blasting Flippy’s belly. I fired the forward maneuvering jets, sending the starfighter backward and out of their line of fire while putting the guards in front of me. A dip in the nose lined up the ion cannons with the guards. They rolled aside to avoid being hit, and then ran for cover behind the other ships in the bay.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” Keep said.

  I resumed firing on the doors, easing Flippy toward them. My legs were already getting numb. I had no idea how we were going to spend more than a few minutes crammed together like this before it became really uncomfortable.

  Something hit the shields then, sending the ship’s computer into a frenzied cry of warning as half the nodes around the back of the ship overloaded and went offline. The threat display, tuned to reveal starships, was completely blank. I turned my head, the AR allowing me to see through the ship to the rear. Duke Sedaya stood in front of the hangar entrance, his face twisted in anger, his hands raised to chest height. He held a staff between them, four matching sigils alight on the length of the silver material.

  “Shit,” I cursed. “Sedaya’s got a staff of ass-kicking—.”

  “Punch it!” Keep growled.

  I did, throwing the throttle fully open. The sigils on Sedaya’s staff changed as he created a barrier to block the heat of Flippy’s thruster burn. We were both smashed back into the seat as the starfighter blasted toward the hole in the hangar bay doors.

  Keep must have activated his sleeve because the weakened metal moved aside, giving us a clearer exit. We blasted through just ahead of Sedaya’s follow-up attack, bolts of lightning like the ones Keep used in the dungeon, snapping off the edges of the opening milliseconds before we flew cleanly through it.

  “Yes!” I shouted before remembering Keep's ear was right next to my mouth. “Sorry," I said, a lot more quietly.

  The HUD suddenly came to life, tracking dozens of starfighters, before Keep could reply. They poured from the ship’s other three hangars. “Well, hell,” I griped, gnashing my teeth.

  Sedaya wasn’t going to let us escape so easily.

  It quickly became obvious that the duke had remained near Furion after capturing me. The planet was visible to my right, a pebble in an ocean of black. I turned Flippy toward it, still accelerating at full burn, the added pressure of Keep on top of me during the high-G maneuver making it really hard to breathe.

  “Where are you going?” Keep asked.

  “Where does it look like I'm going? Furion,” I replied.

  “Why?”

  “We need to hide somewhere. This ship doesn’t have a hyperdrive.” The realization froze my brain in its tracks. “Wait. Why didn't we take something that had one?”

  Sedaya’s starfighters began to coalesce behind us, the lead squadron opening fire on our tail.

  “Let go of the stick,” Keep replied.

  “What? We’re being shot at, and we have no shields.”

  “Let go of the stick,” he repeated. “Trust me.”

  I didn’t want to, but I did, taking my hands away. I lifted the helmet’s visor and looked down over Keep’s shoulder, watching as he flipped open the top of the stick, revealing a dark needle underneath.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked, before crying out in pain as he grabbed my hand and yanked it down on the needle, impaling my palm. “What the hell?”

  He pulled it away almost as quickly, dripping blood onto his pants as he replaced my hand with his, repeating the procedure. He didn’t use a single focus word. More like a sentence, as though he were casting a spell.

  Flippy’s entire fuselage slowed gently while a hole opened in the universe ahead of us, blacker than the black of space.

  I opened my mouth in awesome surprise as we dove straight into the void.

  CHAPTER 7

  As we exited the universe, I experienced what I thought nothingness would feel like if it were possible for nothingness to exist while we were present in it. The darkness in the void looked similar to the blackness of space, only deeper and darker, however that was possible. It felt completely different. More empty. More alone. More silent.

  Fortunately, it only lasted for a few seconds. More than that, and I think the loneliness of it would have driven me insane. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t actually alone. With Keep pressed so tightly against me, it seemed strange to even think of the sensation that way. But it was overwhelming. Overpowering. Dark and terrifying, like I imagined the last few seconds of my life would be.