From his monitor Lehane saw the long, curving window suddenly appear to go opaque as millions of hairline cracks accelerated through the crystal lattice. The Nidu marines visibly jumped at the sound; one of them wheeled around and raised his weapon at the window to fire at the noise.

"Jumpin' Jesus," Lehane said. These had to be some of the most jittery military personnel Lehane had ever seen.

The Nidu marine didn't get a chance to fire his weapon; the cracked window exploded outward, sucking the marine out with it. Several other marines followed in short order, some knocked out the hole by flying debris, others simply pushed out by the hurricane force of the air escaping into space and seeking equilibrium with a vacuum countless millions of kilometers on all sides. Two marines managed to keep themselves from being launched into the darkness, which merely meant they spent their last few seconds vomiting their lungs out onto the Promenade Deck. Death relaxed their grips and the two of them collapsed onto the floor, the very last of the air in the section ruffling their uniforms as it whistled past.

"Your orders, Captain," Picks said.

"Secure that breach and launch the lifepods," Lehane said. "But delay launching Creek's until I tell you."

"Breach secured," Picks said. "Launching pods now." Lifepods engirdled the Neverland like strings of pearls, each pod set in something akin to a magazine for a gun. When a life-pod is activated, it is pushed into space by electromagnetic repulsion, after which its tiny directional engines kick in, tweaking the descent of the lifepod toward its assigned beacon or location. As soon as one launches, a second is hauled up to the airlock door to allow another set of passengers to load in. The process is efficient and surprisingly quick; a new pod moves up to the airlock door in as little as five seconds after the last one clears. There were 144 lifepods on board, more than enough for passengers and crew. Except for today, when they were all being launched with only two passengers to share between them. Lehane hoped to God he knew what he was doing.

Around the ship Picks launched one lifepod after another, far more rapidly than usual because there was no wait for passengers. Lehane counted 40, 50,60 pods popped into space. "Launch Creek's pod," Lehane said. "Launched," Picks said, a moment later. "Keep launching the pods. All of them," Lehane said.

"Sir, the Nidu ship is hailing us," said Susan Weiss, the Never-land's communications technician. "They're demanding we stop launching lifepods and asking for the whereabouts of their marines."

"Ignore them," Lehane said. Too many pods were out there now. There was no way they could shoot them all down before one of them got clear of the communications jam and broadcast its distress beacon. The Nidu couldn't blow up the Neverland now, not without risking open war and censure. Lehane felt okay with pissing on them a little bit.

"The Nidu are firing," Picks said, and switched his video feed to one of Lehane's monitors.

"At us?" Lehane asked.

"Not yet," Picks said. "It looks like they're going after the pods."

Lehane watched as rockets flared silently from the Nidu gun-ship, followed a few seconds later by erupting flashes as the rockets hit their marks.

Come on Creek, Lehane thought. Make it through.

"Holy shit" Picks said, staring at his monitor.

"What is it?" Lehane said.

Picks looked up at his captain with a wide-open grin. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said, and sent the feed to Lehane.

Lehane looked down at his monitor again. Picks was right. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.

It was a UNE naval destroyer, about three times the size of the Nidu gunship.

"Here comes the cavalry," Lehane said.

Creek felt himself yanked forward as the lifepod finally launched. Robin cried out in a mixture of terror, surprise, and gratitude. The last few minutes had been extremely noisy and mysterious; after the grenades there had been an immense grinding sound, followed by muffled shouting, followed by a bang and what sounded like a tornado, followed by complete and total silence and then their pod pushing away from the Neverland. Creek had had more enervating slices of time in his life, those two days on the Plain of Pajmhi among them, but these last minutes were definitely in the top five.

Creek unbuckled from his seat and floated to the porthole in the sudden zero gravity. Out the porthole Creek could see a vacuum door on the Promenade Deck where a window used to be.

"That son of a bitch," Creek said, with admiration. "He shot them into space." If he made it out of this alive, he was definitely going to buy Lehane a drink.

The lifepod engines kicked on; Creek hauled himself back into his seat until they stopped firing. Once they had, Creek unlatched again and went back to the portal.

"What do you see?" Robin said.

"Lifepods coming off the Neverland," Creek said. "Lots of them. Do you want to look?"

"I don't think so," Robin said. "This zero gravity thing is not so good for my stomach."

Creek noticed a flash of light on the periphery of the porthole and then another closer to the center. "Uh-oh," he said.

"What?" Robin asked.

"I think the Nidu are firing on the lifepods," Creek said.

"Of course they are," Robin said. "We're still alive, Harry. That just won't do." There was a bitter edge to her voice that Creek felt was entirely justified at this point.

Another flash, much closer now, and then another. And then another, less than a kilometer away.

"Maybe I will take a look," Robin said, and tugged on her belt straps. "Sitting here isn't helping my stomach any."

"You might want to stay in your seat," Creek said.

"Why?" Robin asked.

Creek was about to answer when something large took over a significant chunk of the porthole field of view.

"Never mind what I just said," Creek said. "You're definitely going to want to see this."

Robin unhooked and swam her way to the porthole. "What am I looking at?" She asked.

"The very large UNE ship," Creek said, pointing. "Right there. And just in time."

"What do you mean, 'just in time'?" Robin said. "It would be 'just in time' if we were still on the Neverland. As far as I'm concerned, they're a little late."

"Trust me," Creek said, and looked out the porthole again to see if there were any more flashes, which signified exploding lifepods. There weren't. "They're just in time."

The lifepod suddenly shook violently.

"What was that?" Robin said.

"Atmosphere," Creek said. "We're on our way to the Chagfun surface. Time to strap in, Robin. This next part's going to get bumpy."

In one of those coincidences that would be ridiculous if they weren't entirely true, Creek and Robin's lifepod launched from the Neverland at almost precisely the moment the time limit for the auf-Getag clan to begin the coronation ceremony expired. What followed next was a power grab so quick, so balletic in its balance, grace, and speed that the Medicis, the Borgias, and all their equivalents across time and space, had they the knowledge, would have risen from their graves to provide its mastermind with a standing ovation.

At the time of the expiration plus some infinitesimal fraction of a second, the Nidu computer system deployed the instruction set enacted when no heir from the current clan on the throne ascends in time. The power of supreme access, previously locked in trust for the presumptive auf-Getag heir, was now dissolved and major functions of the Nidu political administrations apportioned to the ministers and generals who made up the highest level of the Nidu government. From this second until a challenger successfully assumed the throne, no single Nidu was in charge of the entire government.