don’t.”
“No? Hm, I have a friend who’s there now who would probably send me a detailed report. I’ll share it with you if you share everything you have with me.”
“Princess Tambora?” Van Dijk guessed, reminding Oku how much Royal Intelligence knew about all her trips and who she made friends with in other systems.
“Yes.” Oku lifted her chin, expecting an argument that Tambora was too young to be reliable. Oku still had to deal with that prejudice herself when speaking with all the crusty old senators and people in control of her life.
“I’ll accept that report,” Van Dijk surprised her by saying. “And I’ll send over what I have that isn’t too sensitive for—”
“All of it.”
“Pardon?”
“Send everything. If anyone has clearance, surely I do.” Oku lowered her voice. “Especially now.”
She didn’t want to claim her older brother’s vacated position—and she highly doubted her father would ever name her his heir—but Van Dijk was someone who considered all the possibilities, and there was a remote possibility it would come to pass. If so, she would have to deal with Oku in an official capacity for a long time to come.
“Very well, Your Highness. All my reports from the system. Unfiltered.” Van Dijk’s eyebrows twitched. “I hope you can read quickly.”
“You’ve seen my academic records.”
“I have. Stay safe, Your Highness.” Van Dijk bowed and left.
Oku dared hope she had a new ally, or at least someone who would send her what she wanted. She also hoped that while delving into the reports, she would find what she wanted to be there, proof that Casmir had been working for the good of the Kingdom all along, not against it.
35
Casmir’s heart was pounding when he regained awareness after coming out of the wormhole.
His first thought was that something had happened, that they were already under attack, but the voices of Nalini’s crew were calm and quiet as they reported in. The Kingdom warships and their allies, the five Drucker vessels, and most of the fleet Casmir had temporarily acquired had gone through ahead of the Dart, so even if the blockaders had been prepared to jump on anyone coming through the gate, they would have been too busy to attack this ship.
His second thought was that he would have a seizure or some other medical event, and he freed an arm from his pod so he could rest it on his chest. He could feel his heart pounding under his fingers. It wasn’t his imagination. But he didn’t experience any of the telltale symptoms of an impending seizure.
“Maybe your body just knows that you’ve come home,” he muttered to himself, “and that home is a dangerous place for you now.”
Zee leaned around the side of his pod and peered at him. “Are you well, Casmir Dabrowski?”
“I hope so.”
“Your heart rate is accelerated.”
“I’m nervous.” Casmir smiled, hoping that was all it was.
After all he’d been through, it would be mortifying if he developed some terrible new illness as he flew back into his home system. He bit his lip. The home system where he didn’t know if he would be welcome…
“Maybe we will be if we can take care of this blockade,” he muttered.
The words were for himself, but Nalini looked over at him from the command pod. On the journey to the gate, she’d kept offering the seat to him, pointing out that he was in charge of this hodgepodge fleet, but he kept refusing, saying he was more comfortable at the scanner station. And it was true. He kept tinkering with and refining the slydar detector.
“I think that’s going to happen whether we lift a finger or not,” she said. “Have you checked the scanners yet?”
No, he’d been busy checking his heartbeats.
Feeling sheepish, Casmir focused on his station. There were a lot of ships out there. His mouth dropped as he worried that they all represented the invasion force that Dubashi had put together, but no… Many of those were Kingdom Fleet ships, and not only the warships Casmir had been working with for months now. There were at least twenty warships in an array facing the gate and firing at the blockaders. Ishii was leading his own fleet to flank those same blockaders, careful to stay out of the crossfire.
Nalini murmured an order to her helmsman to do the same.
“It doesn’t look like they even needed our help,” she pointed out.
A chip message popped up from Ishii. Dabrowski, this slydar detector Grunburg and Hodges put together with your schematics is fantastic. But