Home Front (Star Kingdom #7) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,119

came to Oku’s side.

“None of your business. Father’s not going to change his mind and give you the throne. You don’t deserve it. Nor is he going to marry you off to some stupid knight who will rule through your name.”

This was the last thing Oku cared about right now, but she couldn’t help from blurting, “He said he’d do that?”

“Sir Oswald on the Senate is who he mentioned. Not to me. He didn’t know I was there.”

“When was this?”

“Just yesterday, when he heard about Jorg’s death. But it sounded like he had it as a contingency plan all along. If me and Jorg couldn’t show we had the chops to rule. Well, I’ve got the chops, and I’ll show him that. And you’re not going to be around to be some knight’s trophy wife.”

Before the guards appeared in the doorway, Oku pulled out her stunner and shot her brother. He tumbled to the floor, a startled expression frozen on his face. She pocketed the stunner, and she had time to kneel beside him as the first of three burst into the room.

“They went that way,” Oku shouted, pointing toward the open window. “Two men were here when I came in, strong-arming him to be a part of a kidnapping attempt on me.”

Maddie gave her an incredulous they’re-not-going-to-believe-that look. But the guards didn’t know what was happening.

One looked at her and started to say, “But she’s the one who shot Wolf…” The others burst into motion without stopping to consider if they should doubt her. One ran to the window while the others rushed back into the corridor.

“Ring up an alert,” one of them shouted. “Put the castle on lockdown.”

For the moment, they were left alone in the room. Oku jerked her head toward the hallway, and Maddie followed her out.

“Are Gunther and Rokuro in the Receiving Room yet?” she whispered.

“Almost.”

“Let’s go. I still need to get Chasca.” And she also had to worry about who’d been pulling her brother’s strings to arrange this. Dealing with some plot of Finn’s would have been bad enough. But this had turned a lot more dangerous.

Qin stood in the middle of the cargo hold all by herself, or so it would seem to the pirate boarding party. Her faceplate should hide her features at a distance so they would assume she was Jemadari’s hired help and nothing more. She held her big Brockinger gun but kept it lowered at her side, as if she knew she was outmatched and intended to surrender.

Asger and Bjarke were hiding behind stacks of crates. The crushers had turned themselves into what looked like black sheets of metal and flattened themselves against the hull to either side of the airlock. That entire side of the hold and part of the ceiling were now black instead of the blue of the ship’s interior walls. Hopefully, the pirates wouldn’t think anything odd about the quirky paint job until it was too late.

Grinding and wrenching sounds reached Qin’s ears as the outer airlock hatch was forced open. She made herself keep her weapon down, though her instincts shouted for her to shoot at the pirates when they barged in.

But when someone entered the airlock chamber and peered through the circular window of the inner hatch, it wasn’t the pirate Qin expected. It was a familiar face, one almost identical to her own. The Druckers had sent her sisters to board the ship.

Her first feeling was one of alarm—she’d hoped she wouldn’t have to fight them—but then she realized this might work out. If all of her sisters were being sent, she could pull them into this ship right away. They might not have to take the battle to the pirate warship at all, unless Asger and Bjarke wanted to sabotage it so they could get away more easily.

More wrenching sounds came as her sisters brought in blowtorches to force open the inner hatch. Qin walked to it—it would be better to ensure Jemadari’s ship remained flyable—and held up her hands. Her Brockinger swung on its strap, but she acted as if she would let them in. Which she would.

“Are we going to have to fight them?” Asger murmured quietly over the helmet comm. He was leaning out from behind his stack of crates.

“Let’s hope not,” she said without moving her lips. “They’re good.”

“I have no doubt.”

She resisted the urge to make a shooing motion to send him back out of view. Her sister was watching her. Between the thick window and