out to scour the wreckage and find it.” Rache extended his hand toward the box.
“We’re so lucky,” Jess told Yas.
“Is this the only spot you were burned?”
“Uh, here too, I think.” She touched her shoulder. “It felt like the electricity shot through me. I grounded myself before opening the case, but it clearly wasn’t sufficient.”
“Let me scan the rest of your body. Electricity traveling through you can cause heart arrhythmia, seizures, and nerve injuries, among lesser maladies.”
“Wonderful.” Jess looked at Rache. “When do you need this online, sir? Do you have a specific target in mind that you need to detect?”
“I’d like to know where Prince Dubashi is, but more urgently, I want to find Kyla Moonrazor and convince her to open the gate for us. I believe she’s the one responsible for closing it.”
“Convince her with force?”
“Most likely. I doubt bribes and sweet-talking would work on her.”
Yas almost pointed out that something along those lines had apparently worked for Casmir, but he doubted Rache wanted to be reminded of that, and Yas didn’t truly know the details of Casmir’s chats with the astroshaman leader. “If you open the gate, won’t Dubashi also be able to get through and threaten your—the Kingdom home world with that bioweapon?”
Rache turned his masked gaze toward Yas. Maybe he hadn’t appreciated that slip. But from what Yas had heard, Rache had dropped about twenty clues to his identity when he’d been facing off with Prince Jorg—rumors were flying around the ship like holiday fruitcakes in the Tiamat Station mail.
“That’s why I want to know where he is,” Rache said. “I only want to finish my mission, not see a population annihilated by a deadly virus.”
His mission of annihilating one man with a dagger? Yas sighed and kept the thought to himself. He wouldn’t convince Rache to abandon that mission any more than he’d been able to convince Rache to leave Jorg alone. He had a vendetta and wouldn’t be stopped. What would happen when he completed his life’s goal and King Jager was no more? Would Rache continue being a mercenary or would he retire? He was young for that, but if everything had been building to Jager’s demise, what else would be left for him?
If he did retire, would he free Yas from his oath of serving him for five years? Maybe Yas could return home. Or, if they weren’t all marked as criminals in the Kingdom, take a trip down to Odin with Jess to help her see the surgeon and physical therapist that Kim Sato had mentioned.
“What will the Fedallah do when these slydar detectors become widespread?” Jess asked.
She was back to fiddling with the device while Yas smeared BurnBetter over her hand. Fortunately, his diagnostic scanner did not pick up notable internal injuries.
“It’ll depend on what we learn from studying this one,” Rache said. “If it allows scanners to pick us up across the system as soon as we enter a gate, then our days of hiding and striking with the element of surprise will be over. If it only helps with short-range scans, our slydar hull would still be useful.”
“Do you think the Kingdom has these scanners yet?” Yas wondered if Rache would be deterred from his mission if he believed the planet Odin was protected and he couldn’t get close to Jager without being detected.
“No,” Rache said. “If they did, they would have picked out the kamikaze bombers before they broke atmosphere on their planet. No matter how inept Jager is making his forces be right now.”
Yas squinted at him, not understanding that sentence. “You think he’s sabotaging the defense of his own system?”
“Likely so his people have losses and close calls and are scared. Scared enough to give him King’s Authority.”
“Which is what?”
“Similar to martial law on your Tiamat Station, but it extends beyond absolute control over homeland security. It extends his authority to include making policies and decisions for the entire Kingdom without needing the majority vote from the Senate.”
Yas would have guessed that their king could already do whatever he wanted, but he supposed he’d heard of their Senate and that it acted as a counterbalance against the supreme power of the throne.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the announcement has already been made,” Rache said, “and we just don’t know about it because we’re cut off.”
“Not for long, sir.” Jess plugged in a cable, and a display on a console above her head flared to life. “I think I’ve got this thing working.”
“Good,” Rache said.