“Incredible,” Bill said. “Your intuition was correct.”

  Our chunk suddenly changed direction, pulled by a different gravitational current. The force of the new wave caused us to shift.

  “There,” I said, pointing to another piece of rock going the right way. “Follow that one.”

  Bill burned precious fuel to match the new trajectory.

  We caught the next wave, then another. Each time, I found the currents by watching the debris. I acted as if I was back on my bike, leaning into curves by instinct more than sight. The debris field became our roadmap, showing us where the waves were strongest.

  Now, however, the moon had crumpled, peeling away and dissolving into smaller and smaller pieces and flowing toward the gas giant. It couldn’t just be gravitational forces doing that, because Alina had said that would take months at least. Something had definitely accelerated the process.

  As the moon dissolved and peeled away, we saw what lay at the heart.

  “Bill, are you seeing this?”

  He looked back. “I do not believe this.”

  “We’re seeing a—what is that?” I said.

  “It seems like a vast machine,” Bill said.

  Right, we saw a vast spherical machine. Parts of it moved, or maybe churned was the better word. The core of the moon was a machine. That didn’t make much sense… except it must be some High Polarion gimmick.

  The spherical machine pulsed with lights. Then it ejected masses of pods like seeds from a dark flower.

  The pods scattered in all directions. Some dove toward the gas giant, others shot outward toward deep space. One passed close to us, and through its transparent hull I caught a glimpse of something that would haunt my nightmares—tentacles or cables, it was hard to tell, but they were wrapped around a core of light that pulsed with malevolent intelligence.

  “What are those?” I shouted.

  “I have no idea,” Bill said.

  The machine’s pulses were speeding up, building to something, I’d say,

  I tried the comm. “Alina, come in. We have a situation down here.”

  Static was the answer.

  With no other choice, we caught another wave, this one stronger than the others. Our pod groaned under the strain, and I heard something pop in the hull—a breach, probably.

  Behind us, the alien machine gave one final pulse, so bright I had to look away. When I turned back, it was gone—not destroyed, just gone. In its place was something that made my eyes water.

  “Is that a hole in space?” I asked in a small voice.

  It was as if someone had cut a sphere out of reality, revealing a lattice of light beneath. Through the hole, I could see something vast and alien moving in—I don’t know—another dimension?

  “It is a spatial anomaly,” Bill said. “It would appear that the machine’s final function was to create a doorway.”

  The anomaly lasted three more seconds. Then it collapsed, reality snapping back like a rubber band. The implosion created one last gravity wave, bigger than all the others. I could actually see a ripple in space racing toward us.

  “Hold on,” Bill said.

  I gripped the T-suit tighter, feeling the black globe pulse against my chest like a second heartbeat.

  “Is it going to kill us?” I shouted as the wave approached.

  “We’ll know soon,” Bill said.

  Then the wave hit us like God’s fist.

  -50-

  The pod tumbled end over end, G-forces crushing me into my seat. Through the spinning viewport, I caught glimpses of the gas giant, stars, and debris, all whirling in a kaleidoscope of motion.

  After a time, Bill fired the thrusters, burning through our remaining fuel to stabilize us. When the tumbling stopped, we were moving fast, and miraculously, in the right direction.

  “The wave threw us clear,” Bill said.

  The surprising thing was it hadn’t thrown everything else clear as well. It had moved us and a few other pieces faster, but not everything at the same speed.

  I looked back at where the moon had been. All that remained was an expanding cloud of debris, already being dragged into streams by the gas giant’s gravity.

  “Alina,” Bill called over the comm.

  Her voice crackled back, clearer now that we were farther from the gravitational chaos. “We see you,” she said. “I’ve calculated a descent path for the Theron through the gravity distortions. It’s risky, but we can meet you at fifteen hundred kilometers in altitude.”

  Twelve minutes later, the Theron appeared above us, its hull gleaming against the star field.

  Gorrax’s voice boomed over the comm: “Got you, Captain.”

  The warfighter maneuvered the pod into the bay where magnetic locks grabbed it.

  When the airlock cycled and I stumbled into the cargo bay, still clutching the massive T-suit, my legs nearly gave out. The regular gravity felt wrong after the pod. Maybe worse, my hands were shaking.

  Alina stared at the ancient suit. “Is that it?”

  I twisted off the helmet and let it thump onto the deck. Then I nodded. We’d done it. Against impossible odds, we’d retrieved a critical piece of the puzzle for stopping the Burnt Polarion.

  Gorrax approached. “You look beat, Captain.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “No you’re not,” Alina said, scanning me with a handheld device. “Your core temperature is down two degrees and your stress hormones are through the roof.”

  “Get off it,” I said.

  “Gorrax,” she said. “Help the captain.”

  The huge Tokari pulled the T-suit from the pod, setting it on the deck. Then he took one of my elbows and guided me toward the hatch.

  I looked back at the T-suit. It was huge, bulky, and ancient-looking with that ominous black globe in back.

  “Alina,” I said. “That black sphere on the suit. When I touched it earlier… there’s something weird about it.”

  Alina stopped walking and turned back to look at it. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Bill couldn’t detect it, but there was something… I don’t know what, like it was or is alive.”

  Gorrax growled low in his throat, making a warding sign in the globe’s direction.

  Alina frowned at it and then looked at me. “Let’s get you better. We’ll worry about it later, okay?”

  I did feel beat, and nodded.

  In the medical bay, Alina ran a full-body scan while I lay on the diagnostic bed. The readings showed fatigue and stress, but nothing dangerous.

  I sat up.

  “We need to test the T-suit and make sure it works before we go after the Burnt Polarion,” I said.

  “Test it how?” Gorrax asked. “Teleportation is not like firing a blaster.”

  “I’ve been studying Axion’s files,” Alina said. “It’s supposed to allow point-to-point transportation across several thousand kilometers.”

  “We already knew that,” I said.

  “Is the black globe a power source?” Alina said.

  “I don’t know what it is,” I said.

  “We do need to test it,” Bill said.

  “That’s what I’m saying,” I said.

  “Studying its structure is what I mean,” Bill said. “We shouldn’t make any teleportation tests until we understand how the suit is supposed to work.”

  “Bill’s right about that,” Alina said. “Otherwise, the suit could telefrag you, or teleport you into solid matter, or send you to the wrong coordinates. Or scatter your atoms across space.”

  “Aren’t we cheerful,” I said.

  “Or,” Gorrax said, “that black sphere could do something we don’t expect. If it felt wrong to you, Captain…”

  I looked at each of them—my crew, my friends, the people who’d followed me across the galaxy on this insane mission.

  I yawned. I was tired after all this. Before I did anything else, I needed to lie down and shut my eyes for a few.

  -51-

  I couldn’t sleep even though I needed it. After medical, I’d gone to my cabin and lain down. Two hours later, I got up and hurried into the cargo bay. The T-suit and that black globe had piqued my curiosity.

  I studied the black globe, thinking about what I’d felt before. The suit itself looked really old and worn. What was with the circular disc above the helmet? What exactly was teleportation in reality? I mean, I knew the theory, kind of, sort of, well, from TV.

  Maybe I should try it on and see what I felt. As I considered the idea, proximity alarms started blaring.

  What the heck? I looked up and then around. What was going on?

  “I have a contact,” Alina said over the comm. “I’m on the bridge.”

  It was her shift, so that made sense.

  “A—A vessel has just appeared,” she said.

  “You mean dropped out of foldspace?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “It might have been hiding from us until now.”

  “You mean cloaked?” I asked.

  “That could be it,” she said. “It’s small and sleek—”

  The scout ship shuddered, cutting Alina off. It didn’t feel as if the scout ship shook from an impact or an explosion. I realized I felt the difference, and it struck me that I’d been on the scout ship long enough to recognize different types of sensations. I had no idea what this might be—

  The air shimmered and sparkled with golden light in a small area of the cargo bay. Within the golden light, two figures materialized and became solid.

  I’d watched enough Star Trek to recognize teleportation when I saw it.

  My jaw dropped.

  A skinny Colonel Pendance stood there, in black combat gear. I thought he was stuck on Antares 8, freezing his butt off where Axion had left him. Beside him was a woman who looked familiar. I swear I’d seen her before. She was pale and achingly beautiful, with snow-white hair and blue eyes. She wore a flowing gown that seemed to shift between fabric and starlight. Then it hit me, but I knew it couldn’t be right. She was Axion’s niece, the Burnt Polarion’s daughter. I’d met her before aboard the Dreadstar, in the Polarion game system. How could she possibly be real then or standing here?

  I had a terrible feeling about this.

  “Hello, Kane,” Pendance said, his face twisting into the parody of a smile. “Miss me?”

  Before I could answer, wall-of-fur Gorrax burst through the cargo-bay hatch, with Bill right behind him. The massive Tokari took one look at the intruders and charged the woman with a roar that shook the bulkheads. Why he chose her, I don’t know. Maybe the warfighter had an instinctive understanding about who was the most dangerous.

  She raised a hand, doing it almost casually, and Gorrax slammed against an invisible barrier. He bounced back, stumbling.

  “How obscenely primitive,” she said, her voice carrying the same arrogant tone she’d used by the fountain in the game system. She wasn’t the reasonable old crone from the Glacial Stone Age but the prissy bitch who could have won any Miss America contest of any year.

  Bill moved fast, trying to flank her. She spun, her gown flaring, and Bill was sliding backward across the deck as if shoved by invisible hands.

  “You deal with them,” Pendance told her. “Kane is all mine.”

  I was already moving, grabbing a wrench from a tool rack. I had my boot knife, but this seemed more reasonable against Pendance. I didn’t want to kill the man. Maybe I was making the wrong choice because I was exhausted, running on two hours of sleep after the nightmare on the moon. Either way, my muscles felt like sodden paper.

  Pendance’s bionic fist caught the wrench and tore it from me. Damn, he was strong with that hand. His flesh hand shot out, grabbing my face as if I was some punk he could toss around.

  “You have no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to this,” Pendance said.

  Screw him. I karate chopped his wrist to get his hand off my face. Then I drove a knee at him, knocking him back.

  “You dick,” I said. “What’s your problem?”

  He stared at me with hatred.

  “I saved you on Antares 8,” I said. “Axion would have killed you. You ought to show some gratitude, dude, instead of being a Grade-A prick about it.”

  He laughed without any humor, his eyes burning with hate. This was the psycho I remembered from my initial moment on the Dreadstar when he’d beaten those two losers to death with his bionic fist. He thought himself such a tough guy, and he had been, but come on.

  Behind me, Gorrax roared, metal crashing, and Bill’s servos whined. They fought against the woman, who no doubt used semi-magical powers against them.

  “Where did you find her?” I said.

  “I’ve dreamed about this moment,” Pendance said, ignoring my question. “I might have frozen to death in the Polar Region, but I knew I’d never get to choke off your air as I watched you die before my eyes if that happened.”

  “She’s crazy, you know?” I said, wondering if Pendance might be as well. He was talking like a freak.

  Pendance sneered. “I don’t care about her. I don’t care—”

  “Hey, tough guy,” I said, interrupting his speech. “You know her dad’s the Burnt Polarion, right? He wakes up, the universe goes—poof—is gone, made null and void.”

  Pendance laughed like the real psychos had in prison. They didn’t care about normal things, but about how to inflict pain. They got off on it, real whack jobs, and dangerous to boot.

  “Oh, Kane,” Pendance said, starting for me.

  I had my hands up, and I knew he meant business because he didn’t draw the sidearm holstered on his belt. This wasn’t a boxing match or a cage fight. This was the School of Hard Knocks and he had the advantage with the bionic arm.

  But none of that would matter if I knocked him out first.

  He reached for me, and I swung a haymaker. The bastard weaved to the side as if he knew all about close combat. I jabbed with the other hand, connecting, and stepped back to get out of reach of the bionic hand.

  Blood oozed from his nose, and his lips tightened.

  “Back off, dude,” I said. “We can settle our score after we save the universe.”

  He screamed in a primeval way, and it threw me off, making me freeze for just a second. It was enough. His flesh hand knocked my fists aside as his metal arm shot out and clutched my throat.

  I gagged, clawing at the metal fingers crushing my windpipe. I kicked at his balls then, but his combat gear gave him protection. The bionic hand lifted me off my feet as if he were Darth Vader, slamming me against the bulkhead so hard my teeth rattled.

  “You ruined everything,” he snarled, his face inches from mine. “You stole my position, my authority and my life. Do you have any idea what the Ick did to me because of you?”

  Black spots danced in my vision. I tried to knee him, but he was holding me too high. My feet barely touched the deck. The edges of my vision were tunneling.

  He laughed and hurled me from him.

  I hit the deck hard, rolling, gasping for air through my bruised throat. Pendance stalked after me, taking his sweet time now that he figured he had me beaten.

  “I’m going to make this last,” he said.

  I scrambled backward on my hands and knees, trying to get some distance. My feet hit a storage crate. There was nowhere left to crawl.

  Pendance reached down with his bionic hand, grabbing my shirt front, hauling me up. His flesh hand drew back for a punch.

  I had no choice, did I? He told me he was going to kill me. I believed him.

  My right hand found the boot knife’s handle. I wasn’t screwing around now. I yanked the blade and drove it up into his armpit, finding the gap in his combat gear where flesh met bionic housing.

  The knife bit into muscle, fat and maybe nerve bundles. Pendance roared, his grip loosening just enough for me to drop free.

  “You son of a bitch!” He swung the bionic fist at my head.

  I’d seen what that could do. I ducked, the metal hand cratering the bulkhead where my skull had been. I slashed at his thigh, opening a gash through his gear.

  He grabbed for me with both hands—flesh and metal working together. I dove between his legs, twisted around and came up behind him. Then I drove the knife at his spine, but the combat-gear mesh blocked the thrust.

  He spun faster than I expected, the bionic arm backhanding me hard. I hit a storage container and bounced off, the knife flying from my grip.

  Pendance charged, bionic hand reaching for my throat again. I dove aside, grabbed the knife from the deck, and rolled away as his metal fist punched a hole in the container.

  “Stand still so I can kill you!” he snarled.

  I jumped up, feinted left and went right, slashing his gun hand. He cursed, reaching across his body and drawing his sidearm with his bionic hand. He must be done fooling around as well.

  Run from a knife: charge a gun.

  I lunged and stabbed as hard as I could. The mesh would stop a slash and a regular thrust, but it didn’t help as I shoved with everything I had, using my considerable bulk. The knife punched through the mesh and went in under his ribs, angling up toward his heart.

  Pendance’s eyes went wide. He dropped the sidearm so it clunked on the deck, grabbing my wrist, maybe trying to keep me from twisting the blade.

  Instead of that, I shoved the knife deeper.

  He staggered backward, letting go of me, looking down at the handle protruding from his torso. Blood was spreading across his combat gear, a deeper darkness on black.

  Pendance looked up at me, tried to speak, but only blood came out. His legs gave out as he crashed to his knees, then toppled sideways onto the deck.

  Whatever he’d been going to say, he’d never get the chance now. The poor sod was as dead as the losers he’d face-beaten that day on the Dreadstar.

  I was panting and looked around. The High Polarion woman was watching me with cold calculation.

  I did not like that.

  Bill and Gorrax were both stretched out on the deck, unmoving. I hoped they weren’t dead.