CHAPTER NINE

ZANE

We left the Techwave blitzer behind and made our way back through the woods, along the lakeshore, and up to the lawn.

Rigel was there, clutching a blaster, a hoverglobe bobbing up and down over his right shoulder like a flying flashlight. He rushed over to us. “Asterin! Are you injured?”

“I’m fine,” she said, waving him away the same way she had done to me earlier. “Just a few bumps and bruises. I hardly noticed them.”

My gaze strayed to the reddish bruise on the side of her head. I didn’t see how she didn’t notice that, especially given the way the goose egg on my own head was still pounding, but I kept quiet.

Beatrice, Wendell, and Fergus crossed the lawn and stopped, hovering beside Rigel. My gaze roamed over my grandmother, my father, and my friend, but other than their rumpled clothes and dirty, sweaty faces, they looked fine. A tight knot of tension unwound in my chest.

Rigel spun around to me, his eyes burning like brown suns in his tight, angry face. “How did you let this happen, Lord Zane? I thought you were supposed to be the leader of the Arrows. One of the strongest psions and best warriors in all the Imperium. If you can’t protect Asterin and keep her from getting kidnapped during a simple celebration, then we need to seriously rethink our potential alliance with the Zimmer family.”

My grandmother sucked in a breath and opened her mouth, but my father laid a warning hand on her arm, and she reluctantly remained quiet.

Equal parts hope and annoyance spurted through me at Rigel’s harsh words, but my annoyance quickly won out, the way it usually did. “Are you insinuating it’s my fault that the Techwave attacked the solstice celebration?”

Rigel’s continued glower was answer enough, but even more worrisome was the soft chime of confirmation that rippled through my mind at my own words. My psion power was muttering that there was a nugget of truth in my flippant statement. The Techwave might have come here to steal House Rojillo technology, but the attack also had something to do with me.

“Tonight’s events are the fault of the Techwave, no one else,” Beatrice piped up in a sharp tone. “We all know how dangerous they are and that they will do anything to get what they want, even attack a peaceful celebration.”

Rigel crossed his arms over his muscled chest. “And what did they want, exactly?”

“To be determined,” I replied in an icy voice. “But as you so succinctly pointed out, I am the head of the Arrows, which means I have a job to do.”

Rigel glowered at me again, but I ignored him and turned to Asterin. Her face was calm, but her shoulders were tense, and her fingers were fisted in her skirt. Now that the threat from the Techwave was over, she was probably worried that I was going to reveal her extracurricular activities in the R&D lab.

An Erzton lady stealing from a Regal lord would cause quite the scandal and would severely damage Asterin’s chances of landing a husband, if not destroy her family’s quest for an Imperium alliance altogether. No Regal House would want a thief and a spy in their midst. Even my grandmother would think twice about such an arrangement.

Oh, yes, if I revealed Asterin’s secret, I could probably end our potential engagement before it even began, but I was going to keep her lab break-in to myself. I would use the information if—and when—it best benefited me. Now was not that time, but future blackmail was always an excellent option.

“Lady Asterin, please excuse me. I must make sure there is no threat of another attack, but I’ll check on you again as soon as I can.”

Her shoulders relaxed, and her fingers released their white-knuckle grip, although she still eyed me with suspicion. She was right to be wary of my seeming benevolence.

“Of course,” she murmured. “Thank you, Lord Zane.”

I bowed to Asterin, then straightened up and tipped my head to Rigel, Beatrice, Wendell, and Fergus. I looked at Asterin a heartbeat longer, then spun around on my heel and stalked away to assess just how much damage the Techwave had done.

Despite the destruction on the lawn, no one had been killed, although several guards had been badly burned from the electrical shocks they’d received. The lack of casualties did little to ease my guilt, though. Over the past several months, the Techwave had hit dozens of Regal facilities on various planets, but this attack had happened on my watch, while I was the head of the Arrows, and innocent people had been hurt and terrorized right under my nose.

Rigel was right about one thing. I hadn’t protected Asterin or my family or anyone else tonight. No, tonight I was nothing but a bloody failure.

As much as I wanted to slink off into the dark and brood about my many shortcomings, I had work to do, so I packed all my feelings into another permaglass box in my mind and buried it right beside the one still containing all my physical pain. Compartmentalizing my emotions was something else I excelled at as an Arrow.

I spent the next hour moving from one group of Regals, servants, and guards to the next, making sure the injured were treated and the castle was secured. I didn’t think the Techwave would return, since they seemed to have gotten exactly what they were after, but I wanted to be prepared in case I was wrong.

Once everyone on the lawn had been taken care of, I went in search of Lord Jorge. I found him and my father in the castle, peering at the destruction inside the bombed-out library.

Jorge’s face was gray with shock, and sweat beaded on his forehead, despite the temperature-shielding device on his wrist. “This is my fault,” he mumbled in a low, shaky voice, staring at the splintered furniture and charred books. “I was so very proud of everything I’ve accomplished, and I wanted everyone to see how strong House Rojillo is. I never dreamed the Techwave would attack the castle, especially during the solstice celebration.”

He turned to me, a stricken look on his face. Nausea surged off him and churned in my own stomach. “You were right, Zane. I should have been more careful. I should have implemented your security suggestions. Maybe if I had, none of this would have happened.”

Wendell laid a comforting hand on Jorge’s shoulder, but I remained stiff and silent. Jorge was right. If he had implemented my suggestions, we might have thwarted the Techwave attack instead of being left picking up the pieces.

Jorge shuddered out a breath. Then he shrugged off my father’s hand, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and straightened his spine. “I will take full responsibility for this disaster with Callus Holloway, the other Regals, and the gossipcasts. You have my word, Zane.”

The regret and sincerity in his voice loosened some of the throbbing knots of anger and frustration in my chest. “There will be plenty of time to talk about that later,” I said in a rough voice. “Right now, I want to know what the Techwave stole.”

I told Jorge and Wendell how Silas had infiltrated the castle, taken Asterin hostage, and accessed the secret library terminal. The only thing I didn’t mention was that Asterin had infiltrated the main R&D lab. I wanted to pinpoint what, if anything, she had stolen first. Then I would decide what to do with the information.

Jorge’s dark gaze flicked over to the spot where the hidden terminal had been. A grim look filled his face, and he spun around and stalked away. My father and I followed him.

The Regal lord quickly moved from one corridor to the next and went down some steps. Eventually, he ended up in the same R&D lab where I had discovered Asterin earlier. The door was still open, and Jorge stopped and gaped at the terminals, tools, folders, plastipapers, gelpens, and other debris that littered the floor. I hid a grimace. I’d made quite a mess sliding over the workstations when I’d been chasing after Asterin earlier.

“Did the Techwavers access this lab along with my library?” Jorge asked.

“Looks that way,” I lied in a calm, steady voice. “Can you tell if they took anything?”

Jorge marched over to a locker in the back of the room and submitted to a series of retinal, DNA, and fingerprint scans. The grate slid aside, and he yanked out a high table with a holoscreen embedded in the center of the chrome.

Jorge started typing, his fingers flying over the screen. Several holograms appeared, and he swiped them away one at a time. “Looks like the Techies pulled up the designs for House Rojillo’s latest air purifier. It’s a minor project that’s already been on the market for several months. They only looked at it for a few seconds. They must have accessed it by mistake.”

He shrugged off the seeming coincidence, but I peered at the time stamp on the last hologram. Not the Techwave—Asterin. Somehow she had gotten past all the lab’s security measures and into the House Rojillo servers. I frowned. But what could she possibly want with designs for an air purifier?

Jorge started typing again. After several seconds, his fingers stilled, and a single hologram hovered over the table. “The Techwavers downloaded the schematics for my new temperature-shielding device.” His face creased with confusion. “How strange.”

“Isn’t the technology valuable?” I asked. “You said earlier that you were going to use it to bid on the climate-control contracts at Promenade Park.”

Jorge shrugged again. “Yes and no. The tech could help me win the contracts, but I don’t understand why the Techwave would want it. According to the gossipcast reports, the Techies usually steal weapons, or designs for weapons, or materials to make weapons. Not climate-control tech.”

He rubbed the holoscreen on his wristwatch, making it flicker and flare with light. After a few seconds, his fingers stilled, and his shoulders sagged. “It doesn’t really matter what the Techwave wants with my designs. No one will give House Rojillo a contract or want to buy our products now. Not after tonight. I’m ruined, and my House and family along with me.”

Jorge’s gaze dropped to the watch again. An angry snarl spewed from his lips, and he tore the device off his wrist and hurled it across the room as if he couldn’t even stand to look at it right now. The device tinked off a wall and dropped to the floor.

Once again, my father laid a sympathetic hand on the other man’s shoulder. “The attack wasn’t your fault, Jorge. The Techwavers are vicious, determined terrorists who delight in torturing others. They would have gotten what they wanted one way or another. At least no one was killed.”

Jorge nodded, but disbelief filled his face. We all knew exactly how quick the Regals were to blame one another for the smallest infraction—and this was far from a small infraction.

The other Regals would openly shun the members of House Rojillo, along with their products and services, while the gossipcasts would rip Jorge’s reputation to shreds. As for Callus Holloway, well, there was no telling what kind of punishment he might inflict on Jorge personally or what sanctions he might slap on House Rojillo.

Jorge was right. Tonight’s attack was exactly the kind of scandal that could destroy a Regal House.

“House Zimmer will stand with you,” Wendell said. “Perhaps we can work on your temperature-shielding technology together. Figure out why the Techwave stole it and what they plan to do with it. Perhaps we can even find some way to improve the tech and make it valuable enough that the other Regals can’t help but buy it, along with your other products.”

Jorge nodded again, but lines of worry, fear, and doubt cut deep grooves into his face, making him look a decade older.

“Come on,” my father said in a gentle voice. “There’s nothing more you can do in this lab tonight. The workers can help you clean up the mess in the morning.”

Jorge gave an absent nod, then shoved the table back into its slot and locked the grate. Wendell steered the other lord out of the R&D lab.

I started to follow them, but then a thought occurred to me, and I headed to the opposite side of the room. I crouched down and grabbed the climate-control device that Jorge had ripped off his wrist.

Despite being thrown against the wall, the device was still in one piece. Wide silver band, a small holoscreen, tiny bits of lunarium and sapphsidian glinting here and there. Once again, it reminded me of an old-fashioned wristwatch instead of the advanced technology it truly was.

I twirled the device back and forth in my fingers, wondering why the Techwave had gone to so much trouble to steal something so small and seemingly harmless—and what deadly thing they were planning to do with it.