Home Front (Star Kingdom #7) - Lindsay Buroker Page 0,127

who are they? You think they shot him?”

Maddie nodded. “One of them is still alive. Rokuro will drag him up for questioning once we’ve made sure you and Chasca are safe.”

Oku appreciated that Maddie was keeping her mission ahead of whatever this new problem was, but she felt guilty now that a person had died. It wasn’t her fault—she couldn’t see how—but it made her worry about what was going on here. She still needed to get Chasca, but this had escalated into something scarier.

“Can Gunther still fly?” Oku pointed to the injured bodyguard.

He pushed himself to his feet. “Yes, Your Highness.” Pain leaked into his voice, but he strode over, only hesitating when he saw Hideki. “Are we taking this one?”

Maddie looked over the other air darters. “It’s the farthest from where the fighting was. It’s probably least likely to be damaged.”

“Right.” Gunther sighed and they worked together to pull out the body, while Oku tried not to get in the way.

When they were done, Oku sat in the co-pilot’s seat. Gunther took Hideki’s seat and fired up the darter, and Maddie sat behind them in the first row of passenger seats. After the canopy closed, one of the displays lit up with a prompt for a fingerprint—authorization required to open the hangar doors.

Oku, hoping Finn wouldn’t have thought of this and figured out a way to revoke her access, pressed her index finger to the screen. Long seconds ticked past.

“Is it possible Finn was planning to leave tonight?” she wondered.

“I can’t think of any other reason Hideki would have been down here,” Maddie said. “He’s your father’s personal pilot and only flies him, your mother, and you kids.”

You kids, she said, as if they were all still ten.

The display finally recognized Oku’s fingerprint and flashed an approval. The rolling doors slowly opened to the dark, foggy night.

“It’s possible your mother had some reason to sneak out,” Maddie said slowly, “but I can’t imagine what it would be. Nobody would stop her if she went to the royal landing pad and ordered a flight. But we know Finn has been up to something shifty.”

“I bet he was the one to recommend they use Chasca to get me out of the castle.”

Oku wondered if there was any way she could question her brother under one of those military truth drugs. Not likely. Not with him in charge. Not unless she forced her way back into his suite and had Maddie overpower him again. That would be hard to do twice. As it was, he would probably try to convince security to confine her to her room—or arrest her—when she got back.

Would they? She didn’t know. She’d never tried to cultivate anyone’s loyalty for some insurrection, but she thought—hoped—she was less of an ass than he was and that they might side with her over Finn. Maybe that was naive to believe. After all, Father had put him in charge.

“They who?” Maddie sounded as puzzled as Oku had been all night.

Oku almost mentioned the Military Intelligence tie-in, but she would keep Naruto’s information to herself until she knew more. And until Chasca was safe. Oku didn’t know if the people in black had been lying in wait for her or for Finn—but she worried there would be more than a lone sniper on that beach watching Chasca. Poor girl. She never should have been brought into this.

As the darter sailed out of the hangar and banked to head south along the beach, Oku’s reception improved. With fog obscuring the view in all directions, she looked up the tide tables and checked them against the time. Her fingers curled tight around the armrests of her seat. Everything had taken far longer than she’d wanted it to. It was going to be close, and if they had to fight when they got there…

Maddie leaned forward and gripped her shoulder, as if she knew Oku’s exact thoughts. Maybe they weren’t that hard to guess.

“We’ll get her,” Maddie said. “It’s not far.”

All Oku could do was nod and hope she was right.

Asger’s heart broke when he saw Qin crumpled unconscious on the deck with her helmet ripped off by her own sisters, but he was fighting for his life, and he couldn’t reach her. They wanted her alive—to take back to their awful coven of slaves—but neither the sisters nor the pirates cared about keeping Asger alive. They were shooting to kill.

Thankfully, the crushers were as powerful as the genetically modified women, and they outnumbered