Crownchasers

by Rebecca Coffindaffer

  And then two of the devices wobble, break off from the web, and fly toward the probes.

  They explode. Two mini balls of fire, raining half-melted metal parts on the ground below.

  “This isn’t a challenge,” I growl. “Edgar built a minefield.”

  Thirty-Eight

  THE STRATEGIC-OPS AREA OF THE BRIDGE IS JUST one big projected image right now.

  Hell Monkey made several in-depth sensor sweeps, and Rose reconstructed a three-dimensional layout of the maze. I’m crouching in front of the glowing picture right now, staring up at it, rocking onto my toes and back to my heels again and again. Just . . . trying to think our way out of this.

  The whole sphere is several thousand cubic kilometers around, made up of thousands of these devices that—charmingly—seem to be magnetically drawn to things like probes and the outer hull of worldcruisers and other things I wouldn’t want to be inside when they hit. About ten kilometers in, it looks like the bombs stop and there’s an open core. We can’t see much more than that from the viewscreen because there’s some kind of fog cloud filling it. And all Hell Monkey has been able to pick up is “massive energy signature, definitely not normal,” and then it’s a lot of shrugging and grumbling.

  “Proximity alert,” Rose calls out, and I don’t wait for the rest of it because I’ve been expecting this one. I leap over to the dash and slam on the conn, opening a communication channel to the two worldcruisers dropping in to join the party.

  “Faye, Setter, this is Alyssa—do not approach that sphere. Do you copy? Those things are bombs with a magnetic propulsion bonus. Don’t get near it.”

  I wait, my heart slamming against my sternum in the silence, all my nerves vibrating. And then:

  “Very generous sharing, Farshot,” Faye croons. “Are we just supposed to take your word for it?”

  I throw my hands in the air. Not that they can even see me—we’re on audio only—but still. “You think we’re sitting around back here just for giggles? Ask Coy. She saw it too.”

  Setter’s deep, serious voice comes across next. “That’s a bit pointless given that you and Nathalia are working together. She would obviously corroborate your account.”

  “It’s all right,” Coy says, joining the conversation in one of her more affected drawls. “Let them throw themselves at that thing. It only serves to make my life easier.”

  “Nobody is throwing themselves at an—UGH!” I wave my hands at the Vagabond viewscreen. “Rose, initiate visual communications on-screen. Everybody show their damn faces, okay?”

  Coy responds immediately, appearing as she prefers people to see her: leaning back in her chair, boots up on the dash, like this is a dice table and not a crownchase. Setter is next, sitting in his jump seat just as proper as I would expect, elbows on his armrests, hands folded in his lap. Faye finally appears on-screen, and she’s . . . cleaning her blasters.

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Really, Faye? Don’t you think that’s a little obvious?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Alyssa.” She points one at the screen, making a show of pretending to ensure the barrel is clear, and then she flashes a big grin. “I’m just performing regular maintenance on my firearm, as is recommended.”

  “Okay, yahoos.” I drop into my own seat and tap a few buttons on the conn so the projected scan of the sphere floats in front of me. “We have a magnetized minefield and a beacon with a mysterious something-or-other inside it, and it’s all looking a bit dicey, to be honest.”

  Setter raises his eyebrows at me. “You want us to all work together on this? That’s not really the spirit of the crownchase.”

  I shrug. “A momentary pause where we combine our resources, and then we go right back to punching each other in the face over a tiny hunk of metal that we may or may not find. That’s feasible, right?”

  “I don’t see what the big deal is,” says Faye, flipping a hand at the projection. “It’s just another challenge, like the others, so there’s probably a way out or through or whatever.”

  Hell Monkey leans over the back of my chair. “Except we don’t think this trap was laid by the crownchase.”

  Setter doesn’t say anything, that stoic expression not even wavering. I swear to the stars he’s secretly an otari. Faye drops her blaster, leaning forward on her elbows.

  “No? Another party, then? Not”—her eyes slice over to me—“not someone like that person from the Defiant?”

  That sends a little shiver down my spine, but I shake my head. “No. Not that. Edgar Voles was in orbit when Coy and I got here, and we found some surveillance toys of his creeping around our ship.”

  “If you believe my mother’s little birds,” Coy chimes in, “he was lurking around here for quite some time.” She flicks a wrist, brings an image into the air—a headline from the Daily Worlds—and reads it aloud. “‘Ardent crownchase watchers spotted signs of his worldcruiser in Deoni orbit hours before other chasers arrived.’ Very promising.”

  Setter tilts his chin up, sucking in a breath through his teeth. “That is something I do not like. I was hoping Voles would fail to make any significant move until it was too late.”

  Coy laughs. “That sounds downright impractical of you, Setter. Are you feeling all right?”

  In the viewscreen, Honor Winger slides onto the armrest next to Faye and murmurs something I can’t hear. But it doesn’t matter because a second later, Faye bursts out, “That’s a good point—you’re all saying he just sat in orbit and that’s it? He didn’t come down here to the beacon at all?”

  “Not that we saw.” I sigh, rubbing hard at the bridge of my nose. I think I’m getting a migraine. I’ve never had a migraine before, but I might be on the cusp of a brand-new pain window. “He took off just before you two dropped out of hyperlight, right after . . . Gah!” I sit up suddenly and grab Hell Monkey by the shirtsleeve. The look on his face is very alarmed. If I were anyone else but me, he’d probably slug me. “He left right after that weird thingy disappeared into all that stuff in the middle.”

  Setter shifts to the edge of his seat. “A thingy?”

  The word sounds so weird coming out of his mouth that I almost laugh. Very loudly. But instead I nudge Hell Monkey, who says, “Drinn picked it up. Probe-shaped, but it had some kind of outer casing that was weird—”

  “Send me your sensor readouts. Both of you.” Setter’s already fixated on the conn, fingers moving across the dash, but he pauses and shakes his head. “I mean . . . I’m sorry . . . I think I have an idea. Something I read about recently. Prototype ship modifications. Just . . . send me those. Please. If you can. I—yes.”

  Faye snorts. “Nice out, Roy.”

  Hell Monkey drops down into his jump seat and transmits the information. And then there are several quiet, awkward moments as we wait for who-the-hell-knows. Whatever Setter is figuring. Probably something important. I hope.

  Faye whistles a few notes. “Anyone want to play Triple Dares?”

  “Ooh!” Coy pulls her feet off the dash, her face lighting up, but I cut her off quickly.

  “I’d like to point out that there are no med facilities open anywhere near here and I’m not flying anybody to one, so put a cork in it, Coy.”

  Grumbling, she slouches down in her chair again.

  “I think I have it,” Setter says at last, saving all of us from more thumb twiddling. “I think I have a way for us to get through the minefield.”

  Thirty-Nine

  WE HAVE THREE HOURS.

  That’s our best estimate as to when the area we’re in is gonna get slammed by a new sandstorm, so that’s our window to get this situation handled. I don’t want to fly into that minefield half-cocked under calm conditions, and I definitely don’t want to do it with gale-force winds and a blanket of swirling sand screaming across the Vagabond’s prow.

  Setter says that probe thingy Edgar sent through had been wrapped in some kind of superconductor material so it wasn’t magnetic like usual.
He thinks we can all modify our worldcruiser shields to do something similar—put off a super-unattractive vibe to the mines—but the problem is that, individually, it would take seven or eight hours for one of our ship AIs to calculate and make the adjustments needed.

  We don’t have that time. Which is why I suggested networking. We could link all our AIs together, and it would cut the processing time to two hours. Hell Monkey said he has a few tricks to shave another half an hour off that, at least.

  So—and I gotta say, I never saw this moment coming when this chase started—we used docking cables to pull our ships into a tight little diamond-shaped cluster and got our computers all talking to each other. We even combined our abilities to root out the rest of Edgar’s spiders from everyone’s ships before we networked, so he has zero eyes on any of us anymore. Like, hey, that’s some teamwork, right? Not bad for a bunch of politicians’ kids. But I guess when one person spies on you and lays a minefield between you and the biggest prize in the universe, it really inspires you to lay aside your differences.

  That was almost an hour ago. The engineers—Hell Monkey, Drinn, Honor, and Sabela—are off somewhere, I think on the Gilded Gun, making the modifications to help the AIs along. I swear they’re all like kids at a Ballarian candy market, crawling around, half in and half out of panels, giving each other shit about how poorly the other worldcruisers are being maintained. I got the distinct impression that I was more in the way than not, so I retreated to the galley and a strong pot of coffee. Rose is off-line right now, all power diverted to the shield modifications, but I need something to do and I’m not totally devoid of cooking skills. So I make a BEC. I’m not hungover, but my stomach kind of feels that way. Jittery, unsettled. Like I got the Eastern Sea sloshing around in there.

  You gotta tamp that crap down with bacon grease.

  I’m sliding the sandwich onto a plate when I hear a voice behind me.

  “That smells positively sinful.”

  I smile, but I don’t turn around. Just pull out another plate and some more eggs. “Welcome aboard the Vagabond, Coy. You get bored over there?”

  She snorts. “Like you aren’t climbing the walls here? I tried to help, but Drinn told me to go away. I get the feeling they’re rather in their groove.”

  “Same. I hope they can wrap it up soon. I’ve been watching sensors, and there’s definitely a storm starting to develop to the northeast.”

  I turn, one plate in either hand, and catch sight of a figure hovering around the galley door, arms crossed over her chest. “Hey, Faye.”

  She sighs and steps forward, dropping her hands to her hips. “Honor said it sounded like you two were over here. She suggested I . . . socialize.”

  A quick glance at Coy, who looks amused as hell, and then I hold out the plates. “Well . . . make yourself useful, then.”

  She takes them, though she makes sure to give me a look like it’s the biggest inconvenience of her life. Faye always gonna be Faye. I dig back into our food supply, coming up with more sandwich ingredients, and I’m halfway through another one when suddenly there is a person just there, practically right up on my elbow. I yelp and jump about six feet.

  “Holy hell, Setter! Don’t do that!”

  He shrugs. “I wasn’t being particularly stealthy in my approach.”

  “I saw him come in,” Coy calls from the table with a mouth half-full of food.

  “Thanks, Coy.” I poke Setter in the chest and put two more eggs on to cook. “Stuff like this is why I didn’t like to play with you when we were kids.”

  He huffs a little laugh. “You didn’t like to play with me, Alyssa, because I always pointed out when you were breaking the rules.”

  “Well, that too. It’s not like we were committing murder or anything. A little rule breaking is healthy for kids.”

  “For kids like you and Coy, maybe. Not for me.” There’s no trace of any kind of laugh now in his quiet voice. “I had—have—to walk a very fine line in the Roy family.”

  That stops me, and I glance at him. His expression is stoic. But his eyes are sad. I wish I had something I could say, but my mind has gone blank. So I just shove a plated sandwich into his hands and say, “Go eat something. Take a load off.”

  It strikes me a few minutes later, as we’re all sitting there eating (with JR lurking around and getting a shot of all this heartwarming action), that this is one of the weirdest moments of the crownchase by far. It’s been a bit since so many of us were in the same room. The last time was probably at Coy’s party on Yasha. And even then, we’d still been missing Faye.

  Like we’re missing Owyn now.

  “You broke the rules once,” Faye says suddenly, cutting through the silence. Her eyes are on Setter, who bolts down the food in his mouth before saying, “I’m sorry?”

  “I remember. You did break the rules.” A grin is growing on her face. “When we were racing on that empty storage deck on the kingship.”

  As soon as she says it, the memory floods back to me, and I laugh, tipping my head back. “Oh gods, she’s right. What were we—nine, ten?”

  “You were nine,” says Coy with a wink. “The rest of us were ten. Owyn was eleven and just hit a growth spurt and would not shut up about how fast he could run. ‘I beat every otari in my recruitment class—twice!’”

  “‘While I was sick!’” adds Faye.

  “‘And carrying a bag of lost puppies!’” crows Coy.

  I’m still laughing and now Coy is laughing. Setter shakes his head down at his plate. But I’m sitting next to him and I can see the little ghost of a smile creeping across his mouth.

  “And we all called bullshit on him and challenged him to race us,” says Faye.

  “Of course we did,” I say, turning to Setter. “And he flattened all of us—except you. You asked him the specific parameters of the race, what exactly constituted a win. And Owyn said, ‘First one around the deck.’ That was it. So he took off running, and you . . . went over, broke the lock on a hovercart, and zoomed past him like he was standing still.”

  Faye has started giggling now. “He was so mad. Fire-coming-off-his-head mad. I think it’s the only time I ever saw him like that.”

  Setter sits up and shrugs, his grin obvious now. “He didn’t say it had to be on foot. He should’ve been more specific.”

  Coy snorts, which makes the rest of us laugh harder, and for a moment, I’d swear we were all kids again.

  Setter carefully brushes crumbs off the table and onto his plate as the laughter starts to die down. “I still owe you one,” he says, nodding at me. “For taking the blame for the broken lock.”

  I wave his words away. “Eh. They never would’ve believed it was you anyway. They were used to me doing stupid crap like that.”

  Setter’s wristband beeps an alert, and he frowns down at it, then swipes it up to project a visual display so the whole table can see it.

  It’s a Daily Worlds breaking-news bulletin. A correspondent stands on the kingship, talking urgently to the camera drone hovering in front of them.

  “. . . all those just joining us, spokespeople from the kingship announcing that they’re suspending all ongoing investigations surrounding the death of crownchaser and prime family heir Owyn Mega and the unknown assailant that invaded the crownchase, citing concerns about internal security violations. This comes after days of silence regarding Mega’s murder and public outcries for justice—”

  Faye reaches over and smacks Setter’s wristband, cutting off the feed. “I’m full up on bullshit right now, thanks.”

  Setter shakes his head. “I just don’t understand. This is a threat to the crownchase—to all of us. Why wouldn’t the kingship want to complete their investigation?”

  I snort into my mug. “Maybe they don’t consider it a threat. Maybe it’s a bonus.”

  Faye slumps back, crossing her arms. “They won’t be able to put it off forever. Not with the Megas. Jenna will light their asses up.”

  “You’d be su
rprised what they can do,” Coy says, her voice quiet. “Whoever controls the kingship holds a lot of keys to a lot of doors.”

  I scan each of their faces—all the laughter gone, replaced by hollowness (Setter), sharpness (Faye), or a little of both (Coy). I tap the table, drawing their eyes.

  “They won’t hold the kingship forever. One of us will. So let’s decide now: whoever wins this thing will find out who killed Owyn and make them pay. Agreed?”

  I wait as Setter nods, then Faye. Coy nods as well and pulls a little metal flask out of the back of her belt. She pours a bit of what’s inside into her coffee and then does the same for us. Then she holds her mug in the air and says, “To Owyn Mega. May he ride with the war gods forever.”

  “To Owyn Mega,” the rest of us echo.

  Tears sting the backs of my eyes. I swallow them down with the bitter taste of coffee and the burn of alcohol.

  The clomping of boots fills the corridor, and a moment later, Hell Monkey leans in the galley doorway. He nods at the others, but his eyes find mine immediately.

  “I know that look,” I say, swinging my legs out of my seat. “That’s your there’s good news and bad news look.”

  He laughs a little, rubbing at his shaved head. “Well, the good news is that the shield modifications are complete. The bad news”—he looks around me to the other three—“is we’re about to have to take this truce to a whole new level.”

  Forty

  “WE’RE STUCK TOGETHER,” HELL MONKEY TELLS US as soon as the other engineers have joined us. “We managed to network the ships and fix the shields so they’ll repulse those mines, but it’s a hard manual override.”

  “We had to do some of this rewiring with actual, physical wires,” adds Sabela, shifting her weight forward in her hoverchair. “And if we drop those so we can spread out—poof. It’s all gone.”

  Okay . . . Okay, this is gonna be . . . different. I pace the room, tapping my hands against my legs, trying to process. “Can we fly like this? Like, in the formation we’re in now?”