I breathed in, recalling what it felt like to pick up the subtleties of the energy’s presence when I played my guitar. It typically presented as an internal warmth, like a shot of hard alcohol on a cold winter’s night that snaked through my veins and across my whole body. Trying to focus on that feeling, I breathed more deeply, hoping to recreate it. A long shot maybe, but what else did I have to do while cooling my heels in stir?

  “I don’t think prayers will help you, Murdock,” Tsu commented.

  My eyes drifted open, and I sharply exhaled my breath. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but my experiment was a total failure. Theoretically, I didn’t need the guitar. In reality, I still did. “You just can’t seem to ignore me,” I said, surprised to find her no longer sitting at her desk. Instead, she approached my cell from the direction of the blast door. “I’m starting to think you secretly like me.”

  “Yeah, that’s it, exactly,” she huffed. “I’m just bored, and you looked way too content sitting there.”

  “How can you get bored in ten minutes?”

  “Try two hours,” she corrected. “Your little friend dozed off an hour ago. I don’t know what you were doing all this time.”

  I looked over at Shaq, curled up beside me. He lifted his head lazily and buzzed a mea culpa for having fallen asleep. “You won’t believe it, but I don’t know what I was doing either. I felt like I only had my eyes closed for five minutes at most. I wasn’t floating or anything, was I?”

  “Not that I noticed.” She turned her head, glancing around the cell. Her eyes locked onto the partition for the toilet at the same time that mine did, her face quickly paling. “That’s new.”

  I stared at it in shock. The metal barrier was crushed into the bulkhead as if I’d pushed it.

  Apparently, I had activated my construct without my guitar! My excitement came fast and left even faster when I realized I had done it while I was in a meditative state so deep I didn’t remember doing it. The downside to that…I hadn’t been able to control it.

  I looked at her curiously. “You didn’t see that happen? Or at least hear it?” She stared back at me in silence, face twisted in confusion. Realization suddenly struck me. “You left for a while, didn’t you?”

  Her jaw clenched. “I had to pee,” she admitted. “It’s not a crime.”

  “But leaving your post without calling for backup is probably against regulations. Am I right?”

  “What? You going to tattle on me? Who would believe you?”

  “I don’t care if you went to the head. No offense, but if you aren’t going to help me, I don’t really care about you at all. I just want to get out of here. People are dying, and you’re wasting precious time keeping me locked up.” I let my frustration out as I spoke, the end of the sentence coming out harsher than intended.

  Her eyes shifted from me to the crushed partition and back. Her visible worry suggested she believed I had intentionally destroyed it, and could do it again. “I have orders,” she explained, as if that would prevent me from doing to her what I had done to the partition. She whirled away from me, retreating toward the guard station, obviously intent on calling for help. But before she could take two steps, a flash of light created a halo around her, and she tumbled to the deck, revealing a one-tenth scale Head Case hovering just over the lip of the station. The muzzle of one of the ion cannons still glowed softly.

  “Shit,” I said, looking down at her prone body. “Please tell me you didn’t kill her.” The lights flashed twice, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Tsu might have been a sassy lassie, but we were still on our side. It wasn’t her fault that Keep had chosen to play stupid head games. “Matt, can you get us out of here?”

  The energy shield shut down and the lock on the cell door clanked free. Shaq leaped onto my shoulder before I jumped to my feet and pushed the door open. Stepping out of the cell, I kneeled beside Tsu to check her pulse, ensuring she was still alive before straightening up and peering into Head Case’s forward transparency. A grinning, six-inch tall Matt waved at me from the pilot’s station as the small hangar door opened and a diminutive Quasar leaped out, landing on the edge of the guard station. The lip looked narrow to me, but more than wide enough for her to stand on at her current size.

  “This is so weird,” I told her, grinning. “Thanks for busting us out. Are we expecting Batten to be on his way back down?”

  “Not likely,” she said, running over to push up a switch on Tsu’s console. “I just unlocked the blast doors leading out of here,” she explained. “They won’t know you’ve escaped unless they’re monitoring this specific control panel. And why would they monitor it with you under guard?”

  “Nice work, Gadget Hackwrench,” I replied. “Now we just need to locate a hangar with enough space for Head Case to embiggen so we can get the hell out of here.”

  “That won’t help,” Quasar said. “We’re in hyperspace.”

  “Seriously? I hoped Batten was lying about ferrying me back to Atlas.”

  “Sorry, Ben. He was telling the truth.”

  “Then why did you bother busting me out?”

  “Because I know you don’t really want to go all the way back where you started.

  “Good point. I don’t know what Keep is hoping to accomplish, anyway. He needs to give me access to sigiltech, to chaos energy, for me to be useful in a fight. What’s to stop me from transiting away as soon as we drop out of hyperspace?”

  “Maybe he’ll try to convince you otherwise.”

  “After this? Fat chance I’ll listen.”

  “But Ben—”

  Quasar started to argue, but I quickly cut her off. “I know what you’re going to say. Don’t worry. I won’t make innocent people pay for his actions. Anyway, I don’t suppose Gia can turn off the nav computer from here?”

  “Her neural doesn’t have a link to her mainframe while we’re in hyperspace. I have a very scaled down version of her in my head. That’s why we opened your cell the old-fashioned way.”

  “In that case, can her neural turn off the nav computer?”

  “I’m afraid not. We’re going to have to do that the old-fashioned way, too.”

  “How are we supposed to navigate through a ship full of Blues who have orders to arrest me without hurting them?”

  “Why do you think it took so long for us to open your cell? Meg, Leo, and Grizz were hard at work figuring out how to patch the ion cannons to deliver a non-lethal hit. Besides, it’s against regulations to use lethal ammunition or settings onboard a Royal Sentry when it’s at any alert level beneath yellow. The corporal’s rifle must be using stun charges.”

  Smiling, I bent down to scoop up Tsu’s rifle. “Not bad.”

  “Don’t get too excited. Those rounds won’t go through Marine armor.”

  I pulled the placket apart on the front of my shirt, revealing the softer armored underlayer beneath. “What about this?”

  “It’ll take a few hits to knock you out, but you’ll feel every one of them.”

  “Fantastic. So I have a rifle I can’t use on the most dangerous targets. Maybe if you scale Head Case up to the height of the room, you can pass me a guitar.”

  “That would look ridiculous,” Quasar remarked. “Besides, your fingers would still be too big to play it.”

  “You’re seven inches tall. I’m sure all of this looks ridiculous,” I replied. “But you’re right, it probably wouldn’t be big enough for me to play it.” I held the open palm of my free hand toward her. “Hop on.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “You were a Royal Marine. You know the layout of the Sentry. I need you to be our guide.”

  She stared at my hand before hesitantly climbing onto it. I lifted her to my shoulder, depositing her beside Shaq, who was nearly twice her size.

  “Shaq, no offense,” she remarked, “but you’re terrifying up close at this scale.”

  He nuzzled the side of her face to reassure her.

  “Listen, the Marines took my guitar to the armory. If I can use sigiltech, it’ll make getting Prestige out of hyperspace a whole lot easier.”

  “Getting there without being seen could be a bit tricky,” Quasar replied. “Our best bet is to try to reach Kritchek’s quarters.”

  “How will that help?”

  “With any luck, we can use his terminal to gain command access to the nav computer and pull Prestige out of hyperspace.”

  “That sounds great, but how do we keep the Sentry out of hyperspace while we make our way to a hangar to escape?”

  Quasar’s answer didn’t come quickly. She looked at me, concern etched across her tiny face. “Someone would need to stay behind to keep the interface locked out.”

  I shook my head. “Oh no. I’m not leaving anyone behind.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “No. We’ll think of another one. We can go to the armory and get my guitar. Once we’re out of hyperspace, I can transit us out of here.”

  “How’s that going to help? You haven’t seen Gloin. You can’t transit there. This ship is closer to where we want to go than anywhere else we can get to. It’s here or nowhere, Cap. We both know that.”

  I stared at her before glancing at Head Case again, looking through the forward transparency to Matt and Justus in the pilot seats, Sheri, George, and Emerald behind them, and Dryka at the command station. My crew and hers had combined forces to do whatever it took to snatch David back from the enemy. Maybe Keep didn’t think he was a valuable asset, to the point that he would rather waste a week dragging me back to Atlas than help me rescue him, but I knew better.

  “If we make it to the armory, can Gia’s neural open the door?” I asked, turning my attention back to Quasar.

  “I won’t know for sure until we get there,” Zar replied. “But Ben, I still think—”

  “Our objective is the armory,” I insisted. “I’m done messing around. I need my guitar if we’re going to take control of this ship.”

  Quasar didn’t argue. Instead, she pointed toward Corporal Tsu. “How do you feel about dressing in drag?”

  CHAPTER 7

  “Well, it worked for Luke Skywalker,” I said, wincing as I forced closed the last clasp of Tsu’s hardened combat armor. More than a little snug in too many wrong places, limiting my range of motion, it was too loose in others. Otherwise, it felt like wearing a slightly too-small male version, especially after I picked Tsu’s helmet up off her desk and shoved it down over my head.

  Sized for her smaller head, the headgear turned out to be the most uncomfortable part of the whole disguise. The chin guard dug into my chin, and the visor pushed slightly against my nose while the top of the helmet squeezed down on my head like a vice. I could already feel a headache coming on, and the lack of breathing room left me feeling like I couldn’t get enough air. I looked over at Quasar, standing with Shaq beside the station control panel. “How do I look?”

  “You look like a Royal Marine,” she replied.

  I nodded, glancing into Head Case’s transparency again. Matt had an amused smile on his face, while Emerald and Sheri both flashed me two thumbs up. Between cross-dressing as a female Marine and flashing my giant rear at them, I had provided Team Hondo with a lot of future fodder for yanking my chain.

  Bending over, I scooped up Tsu, who remained fully clothed in the same armor underlay I wore. She groaned but didn’t open her eyes as I carried her back to my cell and laid her gently on the cot. Returning to the guard station, I grabbed my barely used threads, balled them up, and tossed them into the cell with her.

  “She’s going to be pissed when she wakes up. Glad I won’t be here,” I said, closing the door and locking it before reactivating the shields. “Are you two ready to ride?”

  Shaq crouched for Quasar to swing a leg over his back. “Hold on tight,” he buzzed.

  She grabbed a clump of his fur in each hand. “Does that hurt?” she questioned.

  “Nuh-uh,” he answered, coming up out of his crouch.

  He was long but not that tall, and Zar had to bend her knees and lean forward like she was riding a motorcycle to keep her feet up off the deck. “How’s that?” she asked.

  “Good for me,” he replied. His initial reluctance to be used like a horse was understandable, but like me wearing Tsu’s armor, he was willing to take one for the team. “Ready to go.”

  I watched Head Case shrink quickly to the size of a bumblebee as it vectored toward me. Matt guided it past the front of my visor and up out of sight, landing somewhere on top of the helmet where he could settle the ship in behind a vent spacer.

  “Okay, Team Hondo,” I said, tapping the door control. “Here we go.”

  Quasar clung tightly to Shaq as the blast doors opened and he leaped over the edge of the guard station. Spreading his arms and legs, his webbing caught air, and he glided gracefully to the deck just ahead of me. He darted out through the opening doors before I could fit through them, waiting for me behind the cover of one of the support arches running along the corridor.

  “RuPaul, eat your heart out,” I said, just before awkwardly clanking my rifle against the armor’s chest because I wasn’t accustomed to the pair of bulges jutting out to accommodate the female form. Shaq and Quasar’s heads both spun around to see what I was doing, and I had no doubt Matt was getting a good laugh out of it. I adjusted my grip on the weapon to hold it properly and got underway, exiting the brig without any additional wardrobe faux pas. The blast doors closed behind me, locking automatically. Hopefully, no one with the security clearance to unlock them would open them and discover my escape until we had completed our ultimate objective.

  To capture Prestige.

  It sounded insane. It felt insane. But I’d reached the point where a desperate act was the only choice we had left. Spending a week traveling back to Atlas wasn’t an option. Giving up on David was a no-go. And besides, the Marines would be under strict orders to disable me, not kill me. Worst case, we ended up right back in the brig.

  Fortunately, this part of the ship wasn’t heavily occupied, and the few crew members we crossed paths with accepted my presence in the passageways without question. They never even saw Shaq or Quasar. The jagger always managed to sniff out incoming before they arrived and was incredibly adept at finding dark little niches to tuck into. It helped that every sailor we passed had somewhere to be. They didn’t waste any time gawking at other crewmen they encountered in the corridors.

  I followed Shaq and Quasar through the Royal Sentry, remaining on foot instead of riding one of the automated trams, my anger with Keep increasing every step of the way. I understood his original decision to go for the zouchem crystal first, but I couldn’t make sense of his inability to see David’s value, and it still boggled my mind that he’d given Kritchek orders to arrest me. Why had he taken things so far?

  I’d heard the saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but this was Keep. He was a thousand years old. At one point, he was one of only a very few people in the galaxy who still remembered sigiltech. He’d been so married to the goal of destroying all traces of the technology that he’d killed innocent people just because they’d worked for Sashkur or knew about the project.

  And here he was, on a power trip? It didn’t make any sense.

  I paused in the middle of the corridor, losing ground to Shaq when he didn’t realize I had suddenly stopped. Rushing back to me, he and Quasar both looked up at me with confused expressions.

  “I just had a thought,” I said, keeping my voice low through my helmet’s speakers. “Maybe it’s crazy. But what if Keep never ordered Kritchek to arrest me?”

  “Then why would Sergeant Batten say he did?” Quasar asked.

  “What if that’s what Kritchek told him, and being a good Marine he just took him at his word?”

  “Ben, I’m sure you don’t want to think Avelus is capable of treating you like this, but—”

  “Just think about it, Zar. You left the Galaxian on Atlas to contact Rickard because we believed Blorb might have compromised the Royal Guard. It turned out not to be as bad as we feared, but that doesn’t mean we had no reason to fear the possibility. Now here we are, on the Royal Sentry closest to where Blorb stashed David to create new sigils, and Keep wants to waste an entire week schlepping me back to Atlas? I’ve been recycling the idea over and over, and I can’t make any sense of it except that maybe being the Regent has gone to his head. But Keep’s never cared about power. He cares about the promise he made to his wife to prevent sigiltech from destroying the Spiral.” I paused before spitting out the rest. “And he cares about me.”

  “So maybe he’s trying to protect you,” she suggested. “To keep you out of harm’s way.”

  I shook my head. “He knows he can’t do that. He needs me in the fight.”

  “Then maybe he wants you in the fight he chooses, not the one you choose. I think you’re grasping at straws, Cap. Every individual on every ship in the Royal Guard has been prick tested by now, I’m sure.”

  “We tricked Blorb with Hiro using blood. That’s not a foolproof test. And if Kritchek was in charge of the testing…”

  “Okay, I get it, but I don’t think you should convince yourself of things that might not be true just to fit your narrative.”

  “Might not be true,” I emphasized. “We don’t know for sure.”

  “We don’t,” she finally admitted. “It’s not impossible that you’re right and Kritchek is an Aleal, or that, for whatever reason, he’s lying about Keep’s orders. But if that’s the case, where are we going? Because I doubt it’s back to Atlas.” She paused, face blanching. “I really hope you’re wrong about this.”

  “I kind of hope I’m right,” I countered.