Crownchasers

by Rebecca Coffindaffer

  Hell Monkey shrugs. “If we put some extra clamps on the cables, one or two worldcruisers could probably tow the others.”

  “One,” grumbles Drinn. “In that minefield, you want one set of coordinates, one trajectory, one person’s hands on the wheel.”

  Sabela nods. “It’s a good point. Don’t try to stick two threads through one eye.”

  Honor shakes her head, sighing. “You and your sewing metaphors.”

  Sabela turns her head and winks. “It’s called having a hobby, Winger. You should try it.”

  “I don’t like this,” says Faye. “Four worldcruisers stuck together—that’s a four-times-bigger target to hit.”

  “But one with shields working for it rather than against it,” points out Coy.

  Setter tents his fingers together, frowning. “Will we have access to our ship AIs?”

  “Limited capacity only,” says Sabela. “What we’re asking them to do right now is taking a lot of their . . . concentration, so to speak. They’ll be able to maintain some basic ship functions, but much more than that and it’d be like trying to cook a meal and juggle at the same time.”

  Honor’s mouth quirks in a wry grin. “So if you were hoping for any help plotting a course through the enormous laser web, you’re out of luck. All trajectories and coordinates will have to be done by hand.”

  Coy whistles, long and low. “Now that’s bad news. You should’ve led with that. I haven’t manually navigated a course in ages. I’m not even sure I remember how.”

  “I do.” I don’t say it very loud, but those two words cut through the chatter. All eyes turn to me, and I hold my chin a little higher. Because I can’t network a ship’s computer or reprogram a shield generator or even process my own basic emotions, but this? This I can do. “I know how to chart a course, and I can get us to the other side. Get back to your ships. Get your cannons warmed up just in case. If this goes south, we’re going out swinging. And if we make it through, we’ll part ways on the other side. Got it?”

  I sweep a look at everyone—crownchasers and engineers—and I’m not sure for a second who is going to listen and who is going to give me the finger. But one by one, starting with Coy, they nod and disperse, and pretty soon it’s just me and Hell Monkey again.

  He cracks half a smile, but I can see it takes work. “Commanding always looks good on you, Farshot.”

  Shrugging, I stride past him and head for the bridge. “Let’s see how long I can hold on to it. By the time we get into the middle of this thing, they might seriously regret falling in behind me.”

  Hell Monkey is right on my heels, almost bumping into me when I stop by the strategic-ops table. “Do you know?” he asks in a low voice. “What’s at the center of the minefield?”

  I pull up a projection of the navigational chart for the surrounding area and then sweep a look around, checking to ensure our resident mediabot isn’t close enough to hear me. It’s on the bridge, but not right on top of us, so I angle my head away from it and drop my voice.

  “I have an idea. But”—I exhale and sag a little—“it’s ridiculous, H.M. Like it shouldn’t be anywhere on my sensors because it’s not actually possible, but . . .”

  He nods. “But Voles’s probe went in there and disappeared, so where did it go?”

  I straighten and grab a tablet from a holder on the wall, pulling up the formulas I’ll need to plot a safe(ish) course. “This could all be a real big mistake.”

  “We could do what Voles did. Just send a probe. It’ll just . . . take a few more hours to modify one.”

  I shake my head, scribbling on the tablet surface with my fingertip. “We’re already behind. Time to get bold. And a little stupid.”

  Hell Monkey grins. “Aye, Captain.”

  By the time the other crownchasers report in over the open comms channel ten minutes later, I’m ready. Sitting in my jump seat, harness buckled, hands on the controls. I know she’s “just” an AI, but it’s weird and somehow extra quiet without Rose’s voice. Not like she’s talking at us all the time, but she’s usually always there when we call out. Like an incorporeal aunt or something.

  I take a deep breath, flex my fingers, and then propel the Vagabond forward.

  Stars and gods, she feels different like this, towing three other ships behind her. It takes a minute for me to adjust to the weight and the drag and the awkward size. Which is a minute too long because it throws my course off and we almost hit one of those lasers right off the bat and blow our asses sky-high. Hell Monkey sucks in a breath as we come . . . this . . . close . . .

  And then we’re past. Only, like, twenty more of those to go. No big.

  The laser lines cast weird slices of red light across the bridge as I ease our bulky shape past the next set of mines. It’s so quiet that I swear I can hear the other chasers breathing.

  Faye’s voice blurts out over the comms, making me jump. “It’s like walking through a damn cemetery.”

  “Faye!” I snap. “That scared the living hell out of me!”

  Coy jumps in immediately because of course she does. “I thought we’d all agreed not to talk. Is that not true? Are we talking now? Because I would feel much better—”

  “This is an extremely delicate situation,” Setter says, sounding like a disapproving teacher. “It would be better to maintain a level of quiet—”

  “Oh, boo on you, Roy, you’d have us all as quiet as Carnoghlian monks all the time—”

  Faye pipes in with a comment that I only half hear because I’m trying to keep from clipping a laser with the Gilded Gun’s keel, but the sound of their bickering actually relaxes me. Which might be kind of weird. But it helps take a little of the pressure off my mind. Like putting on white noise or something to help you zone out.

  We’re about halfway across when Hell Monkey says, very quietly, “Not to be that guy, but can you go any faster?”

  I give him one hell of a side-eye. “Yes, this definitely seems like something I should rush.”

  “I just got a ping off our sensors. Our good luck is running out. There’s a sandstorm moving in fast.”

  Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit. I put a little more oomph in our thrusters. Just a little. Going much faster than this would put us at risk. The four of us all clumped together means it’s a much tighter squeeze than one alone, but hey. At least there aren’t any mines flying at us yet.

  “How far away is the edge of the storm?”

  “Seven and a half minutes. I don’t think we’ll get much more time than that.”

  “So much for that three-hour window.” It’s gonna be close. It took us about ten minutes to make it halfway through, and it’s gonna get even tighter before we break clear. Hell Monkey puts a countdown clock in the upper corner of the viewscreen and I keep an eye on it as we get closer . . . and closer . . .

  At a minute and a half left, I put a call out over the channel. “Coy. Faye. Setter. Your cannons all ready to go?”

  “Of course,” Coy says. “Why? Are you worried?”

  “Check your sensors. Take a peek north.” I glide the ships to a stop, taking a deep breath, wiggling my fingers to loosen some of the tension that’s been building in them. Next to me, Hell Monkey pulls up the Vagabond’s gun controls.

  Faye lets out a string of curses across the channel, and Coy joins her on some of the more colorful ones.

  “That’s an enormous storm,” Setter says, very calmly. “Sabela, how far away—”

  “Five hundred meters. It’s gonna be on us in twenty-five seconds.”

  There are two rings of bombs and a hundred meters between us and the center of this minefield. I don’t know what’s inside it—there’s some kind of cloud or fog concealing the core—but I know that if I lean on the thrusters, even dragging three other ships, I can get us clear in ten seconds.

  As long as we don’t get exploded to death.

  “Weapons hot, folks. Shoot those things down before they hit us.”

  I don’t wait for feedback. As soo
n as I see Hell Monkey nod, I floor it.

  I clip a laser line almost immediately out of the gate. I mean, it’s not like our current configuration is set up for dexterity, especially not when we’re going for speed. The ships twist a little with the sudden change of speed and—bam. The port side of the Deadshot runs through part of the web and this horrible wailing siren fills the air.

  “LIGHT IT UP!” Faye hollers, and then all I hear is the thud of cannon fire and the roar of an explosion. The shock wave slaps against the side of us, knocking us farther offtrack, and I slam down on the thrusters, pushing them to accelerate faster.

  Yelling from Coy and Setter. More alarms and wailing and cannons.

  Two more mines explode, rocking us around on violent air currents.

  We’re fifty meters away, but it feels like we’re standing still. Faster, dammit. FASTER.

  Hell Monkey curses and scrambles at the gun controls, catching a mine dropping straight down on us at the last second and blasting it into nothing. The concussive force slams hard into the Vagabond’s dorsal—sparks flying, metal groaning. The red emergency lights start to flash.

  Ignore it, Farshot. Almost there. Almost there . . .

  The viewscreen goes white for a second as we hit the edge of that cloud-like something or other, and then . . . we’re through.

  The space around us is open air, clear of mines or laser webs or anything else except two things, both about fifty meters away.

  A floating beacon.

  And a wormhole.

  “I don’t fucking believe it,” breathes Hell Monkey in awe, his eyes practically bugging out of his head.

  I don’t either. Suspecting it is one thing, but seeing it is a whole other. I check the sensors, but they’re telling me exactly what my eyes are. Someone or something managed to defy every law of physics I know and construct the entrance to an artificial wormhole inside the atmosphere of Deoni. It’s bordered by these intermittent metal globes, like maybe that’s what’s projecting it? Or just containing it? I don’t honestly know and I don’t really have time to find out because there’s ten seconds left before that sandstorm hits and according to our sensors, half a dozen of the mines we triggered are still flying toward us.

  The other crownchasers are filling up the comms, yelling—about the bombs, about the storm, about the actual real-life wormhole dead in front of us—but I don’t hear any of it. I hear the distant boom of more cannons blasting into the minefield and see the numbers ticking down on the viewscreen.

  Very smoothly, very deliberately, I reach over and flip on the sublight engines.

  As we’re burning across the open space, a whole world of chaos closing in on us, I hear Setter yell, “ALYSSA FARSHOT, ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US ALL KILLED?”

  And then we hit the entrance of the wormhole. And it’s all just darkness and silence.

  IS THE END IN SIGHT?

  As the polls tighten, experts say the crownchase may be entering its final stages

  WHAT IS HAPPENING ON DEONI?

  With four crownchasers now down on the storm-riddled planet, we analyze what outcome viewers should expect to see

  “JUSTICE FOR OWYN” PETITION ROCKETS TO 3 BILLION

  The kingship responds with a statement declaring that “policy will be dictated by the needs of the empire, not the will of a mob”

  WEAPONS MANUFACTURER MISSING ITEMS, POSSIBLE THEFT

  Reports say that at least one ship and an array of other potentially dangerous devices have disappeared from a Mega facility on Rava VI

  WORLDCRUISER S576-034, IN HYPERLIGHT

  EDGAR HAD CONSIDERED GOING THROUGH THE WORMhole himself. After he’d done the requisite reconnaissance, of course, and ensured not only that the structure was stable but that it led to the same location each time. He’d sent three probes in over several hours while he’d implemented the minefield his new allies had procured for him. The first two had taken an hour after passing the perimeter before they started transmitting—both from the same set of coordinates—but he’d wanted a third data point to make sure. Wormhole travel was tricky at best, and he couldn’t afford a misstep. Especially not now. Not when he’d lost his biggest advantage in the chase so far.

  Edgar paces in front of the monitors that used to be linked to his spiders. They’re all dark now. He hadn’t noticed Alyssa finding the first one—he’d been distracted trying to finish the minefield—but he’d watched as the rest of the crownchasers had rooted them out of their ships and destroyed them one by one, working together like a cohesive team. The thought puts an unpleasant, bitter taste on the back of his tongue that he can’t quite swallow away.

  He has no need for sour memories from childhood. It doesn’t matter now.

  “Incoming transmission, Edgar Voles,” says NL7. “The third probe.”

  Finally. “Do the coordinates match?” he asks as he joins the android at the strategic-operations table.

  “It does. It seems to have exited in the same proximity as the other two.”

  He sucks in a deep breath, not sure whether he feels elated or frustrated. On the one hand, he knows for certain where the wormhole leads. On the other hand, it will take him around six hours at hyperlight to reach that system. It could potentially put him far behind the other crownchasers, if they are able to make it past the minefield he’d left.

  But then again, it’s not as if he doesn’t have a contingency plan.

  “NL7, initiate hyperlight. Maximum possible speed.” He sits down in his chair and taps out a message.

  Coordinates confirmed. I will meet you in that system in six hours and thirty-seven minutes. The others are in pursuit. Be prepared to encounter any and all of them.

  The response is swift and abrupt.

  WE WILL CLEAR THE WAY FOR YOU.

  FIVE YEARS AGO . . .

  NORTHWEST RECEPTION ROOMS, THE KINGSHIP, APEX

  “ALYSSA FAROSHTI, YOU’RE GOING TO GET US ALL in trouble,” Setter grumbles in my ear.

  I shoot him a glare over my shoulder. “No one asked you to come, Setter.”

  We’re crammed into a narrow service passage, peeking into the crowded reception rooms where most of the elite of the empire are mingling and drinking and being boring. My uncles are in there somewhere too, but I’m not looking for them. Actively trying to avoid them is more like it.

  “Seriously, Setter, it’s Triple Dares.” Faye moves up from the back, squeezing past Owyn and Coy so she can get a look at the room. “If you’re not here for some trouble, why are you playing?”

  She presses close beside me as she scans the people, and my heart flutters. It’s been doing that a lot lately when Faye is near. I look back at Coy, who winks at me and gives me a double thumbs-up. I’m tempted to strangle her.

  “Over there,” Faye says, pointing to a table in a corner by the windows. There are rows of delicate flute glasses sitting on top of it, and behind them, three buckets full of ice with a bottle of Systrian champagne chilling in each one.

  Faye had dared me to go steal one.

  “Your move, Faroshti,” she whispers in my ear, and I shiver as her breath hits my neck.

  I sweep a quick look at the closest partygoers and dart toward another table situated close to the service passage. This one has hors d’oeuvre trays all over it, and I sweep one up and prop it up on my shoulder, blocking full view of my face as I work my way along the wall. When I get to the champagne table, I turn my back to it and grope with my free hand, fingers finally closing on the neck of one of the bottles. I slip it up under my jacket and jam it in the back waistband of my pants, then speed walk toward the service passage. I can see Coy and Faye and Owyn and Setter just inside it, urging me on—

  —and then there’s a body in front of me. I tilt my head up to see William Voles, his dark hair slicked back, his face all sharp angles, his eyes narrow and cold.

  “Primor Voles.” I swallow. The freezing-cold condensation of the champagne bottle is soaking through my shirt. I lift my tray right
up under his nose. “Canapé?”

  A slight sneer twists his mouth, and he pushes the tray back down. “You really are such a testament to your uncle.”

  I hear people say that a lot in different ways. All of them implying that I’m an embarrassment or a disappointment to the great and beloved Atar Faroshti. Honestly, I’m over it. It doesn’t even bother me anymore.

  I grin up at him. “You mean charming and destined for greatness?”

  “A once great and powerful family . . .” He plucks one of the hors d’oeuvres off the tray and pops the whole thing in his mouth, looking down his nose at me as he chews and swallows. “Quite frankly, I don’t expect the new reign of the Faroshti to last all that long.”

  Uncle Charlie says I’m too impulsive. That I don’t stop and think enough. That whenever I get an idea in my head, I should take a deep breath and count to ten before I act on it.

  So I take a deep breath. I count to ten.

  Then I dump the whole tray of canapés on William Voles’s fancy clothes, spin away from him, and make a break for my friends.

  We race back down the service passage, laughing, and we don’t stop running until we’re all the way on the other side of the kingship.

  Forty-One

  Stardate: 0.05.32 in the Year 4031

  Location: Riding impossible wormholes halfway across the quadrant. It’s okay. Jealousy is totally natural.

  I BLINK.

  And all I see are stars, filling up my eyes.

  I blink.

  And I pour into them and spread out and out into nothingness.

  I blink—

  —and the Vagabond’s emergency lights flicker on all over the bridge, angry and red. Giving me shape again. My body floats upward, held down only by the harness wrapped around my torso. I look over at Hell Monkey, and he’s blinking, slow, disoriented, like he’s just waking up.