Khar stared, half-afraid he was imagining it. Lily’s VoidBrace. Of course. Horos would not have known it did not belong to the Vitro; both ships used the same design. But within a certain radius, Helios could track those signals even when the unit was powered down.
He slammed his palm to the screen and started the search. Feeling foolish but compelled to show gratitude in some form, he spoke to the ship.
“Help me find her and I will let you compete again for the position of First Husband.”
He could not be sure, but he thought Helios’s lights dimmed for a heartbeat and brightened again. The barely visible flicker reminded him of the way Divani narrow their eyes to slits, cutting the ambient glare to signal trust.
Khar let out a strained laugh, the first emotion to break through the cold fear that had clenched his heart since he realized Lily was gone. With Helios, he actually had a chance of tracking the Vitro. He also knew he would be outmatched if anyone besides Horos was aboard.
Notice: missing device locked. Navigation updated.
Helios’s voice filled the cabin, but Khar had already read and authorized a deep-space jump before the ship could finish. The plan was to shadow the Vitro one jump at a time, riding the trace left behind, hoping they would pause long enough to be caught. They were fortunate that Horos could not plug into the IMPERIUM navigation lattice. Manual jumps had to be shorter; otherwise, pursuit would be impossible. That bought Khar time to recruit allies. They would not get a second shot.
While Helios charged for the jump, a window during which outbound comms were unreliable, Khar drafted two messages.
The first went to Vegrun, informing him of the plan and that they should remain in contact. He again not so subtly warned that as long as Lily remained aboard the Vitro, Vegrun was not to make a single move that might endanger her. Otherwise, Khar would find himself a new mission: the elimination of a tentacled billionaire.
The second message was harder. In the end, he chose honesty and simplicity.
I need your help. They took my partner. I am in pursuit. Sending coordinates and will update after the jump.
No more context was needed. The network node he used was accessible to exactly three beings, wrapped in layers of security. No one had noticed it because no one had ever used it.
Its creators had saved it for a last resort and prayed they would never need it.
For the first time in his long, eventful life, Khar called on his brothers. The old Khar would have bristled at this. The Khar of now was past caring. He would do anything and call in any debt if it meant seeing her alive.
They dropped out of deep space. Helios immediately plotted the next destination. Two replies waited for Khar, startlingly similar in tone.
“I would never endanger Lily, you blockhead. I hired a private mercenary squad. We follow your lead.”
“Well look who crawled back. We would not budge for you, but your partner is innocent, aside from having the poor taste to fall for a jerk. Out of respect for her, we will be there.”
Khar frowned at the screen. Apparently he had that effect on everyone. Fine. They could think him a jerk as long as they did what he said. He sent each of them the updated coordinates and cleared Helios for the next jump.
The chrono-cycles blurred into a single, relentless chase. The signal from Lily’s missing wristband grew stronger between jumps, proof that Helios was narrowing the gap. His brothers pinged in that they were close. They rendezvoused at one of the plotted points and boarded Helios without wasting a heartbeat, hauling aboard crates of weaponry and gear for grappling ships.
Step one of the family reunion was to attempt, with great brotherly affection, to beat their elder sibling for disappearing. Khar put them both on the floor. As he always had since childhood, minus a handful of lucky upsets. This time the victory was decisive.
Aros drummed his fingers on Helios’s deck to signal surrender, then switched to a far more dangerous armament: questions.
“Khar, what happened to you? We have not seen you in chrono-cycles and now you show up imprinted? Who is your partner?”
Khar got to his feet and tossed a packet of first-aid gel to his younger brother, Ikar, so he could patch his nose from the scuffle. All three knew Khar was buying time, but Aros and Ikar had nowhere to be except in his face until he cracked.
Eventually the silence stretched too long to bear, and Khar knew he could not stall any further.
Instead of digging into the past, which would only hurt all three, he reached for the only thing that brought him uncomplicated joy.
“I met her three chrono-months ago. I was a fool then.”
Aros opened his mouth to say he still was, but the youngest, who had always been the wisest in matters like this, kicked his ankle to shut him up.
“Ahem. So at first I kept my distance,” Khar went on.
Aros could not help himself. “You? Afraid of a female? I would pay to see it. What species is she? Must be something special if she can wring respect out of you, though I still do not see how she tolerates you.”
Khar considered spacing Aros and finishing the mission with Ikar, then forced himself to calm. Ikar’s even, neutral tone nudged them back on course.
