Because it was, Shoji thought, but he didn't feel like expounding on the nature of his escape or plan to return at the moment.

  "Well done," Shoji said. "And it can generate enough power to jump all our ships?"

  Krust nodded. "Hypothetically, it can generate enough power to jump our ships twice over. It is a very efficient design."

  Shoji studied Wiggins to see if the man had anything useful to add underneath his brooding. Satisfied that he did not, Shoji said, "Then prepare to leave."

  "I already am, Warlord," Krust said. "All of my things have been loaded onto the destroyer. The lab belonged to a renowned Vhast scientist. I hope to fill her role with honor."

  An idea pulled a smile to the corners of Shoji's mouth, and he did not resist it. The joy had nothing to do with the young Vhast, who, Shoji assumed, would be excited by the opportunity he had in mind. It was for Wiggins, and the squirming that would likely ensue in a few moments.

  Shoji clapped Krust on the shoulder. "You aren't going on the destroyer. That lab belongs to someone else."

  Wiggins snickered, seemingly pleased by what he assumed to be a blow to the Vhast's ego.

  "You're coming with me on Tin Man," Shoji added.

  Both Wiggins and Krust went silent, their colors showing their feelings like waving flags—both red, just for different reasons.

  Shoji turned and left the room before either of them could respond.

  Wiggins caught up to him in the main lobby, which was a copy of the lobby from the administrative building, though lacking the seating. This room was meant to serve as a waystation, a hub for people of action to find their places of action, not a spot to wait and be told what to do.

  "You're joking, clearly," Wiggins said, breathless.

  "Clearly," Shoji said humorlessly. "Because I'm known for my jokes."

  "That Vhast can't come on Tin Man."

  "Tin Man is my ship."

  Wiggins shrugged. "Is it, though?"

  Shoji stopped and spun to face Wiggins so they were nose to nose. Shoji breathed his displeasure out through his nose like a dragon breathing fire.

  "I'm just saying," Wiggins continued. "Tin Man was Manifest Industries property. Of course, the EDI, in all its self-important tyranny, declared Manifest derelict in its responsibilities to Earth and its people and absorbed Manifest and its assets. Like a catfish, the bottom-feeding, wide-mouthed..." He trailed off before clearing his throat and beginning again. "My point being, Tin Man now belongs to the EDI."

  "I'm stealing it."

  The words hit Wiggins like a hammer in the chest. Not that it surprised him, but the bluntness had an impact. "Oh."

  "Add that to the list of crimes you can report to the Kyle and the commanders when you return home."

  Another blow to the chest. "Yes."

  "On that note, I'm not giving you a ship. I can't spare any. I've installed jamming software on the compound’s comms. It's set to a timer. Once I've gotten the head start I need, it'll shut off, and you can call for your own ride."

  "You're leaving me?" The desperation in Wiggins' voice was pathetic and surprising. Jason Wiggins was many things, but he was not humble enough to allow himself open vulnerability. His shield of bloated ego was ever-present.

  Shoji resumed his march. "There's plenty left in that bottle of Scotch. Someone will be here to collect you before you can finish it."

  Shoji was ten yards down the hall before Wiggins broke into a run to catch up again. "Suppose a former tech magnate, present tech genius did decide to join you on your treasonous jaunt through space. You and he would be encountering an endless array of unseen alien technology, yes? Wonderful gadgets that no human eyes have seen before?" He waved away Shoji’s silent correction. "A handful of human eyeballs aside."

  "Yes. We will be traveling further than any human outside my original crew has ever traveled. We will encounter technologies no one on Earth has ever seen. Most of those technologies will be trying to kill us."

  If that last part bothered Wiggins at all, he didn't show it. "Then let's suppose this dashing tech genius got his hands on some of these alien technologies. Would you do anything to stand in his way of using them to return to his former glory?"

  The question made Shoji's throat burn. Bartering with a man like Jason Wiggins before embarking on the mission to save his people made his stomach churn. Needing Jason Wiggins to save them made him want to vomit. "I don't care what this alleged genius does after. If he helps me get my people back, he can go be king of some distant moon." Shoji stopped at the door to the lobby. He stood toe-to-toe with Wiggins, looking down his nose into Wiggins’s eyes swirling with dreams of wealth. "But if he decides to join my mission, and he jeopardizes it in any way, I will jettison that genius into space and leave him there to float and die."

  Wiggins couldn't see past the piles of money in his eyes to care about the threat. "Sounds fair."

  The conference room of the administrative building had been completely transformed into its opposite: a room where decisions were made and carried out. Munk, Krust, Coraline, Liezl, and Wiggins stood around a circular table with a holographic projector in the center.

  Shoji stood at the front of the room, arms crossed, remote hidden in his hand so the projector seemed to act on its own. The astral map that drew the team's attention zoomed out. "This is our current location—Earth's moon," Shoji said. "This is our destination."

  Everything on the map became a blur as it rushed lightyears across the cosmos, uncharted planets and star systems disappearing in a flash, until it stopped just as suddenly. It now displayed a massive planet, fifty times the size of Earth, encircled with a chaotic system of hundreds of moons.

  "This is Baz," Shoji said. "The empire's home world. The scale of this is hard to grasp." An inset of the Solar System appeared on the map. "This should give you some context." The inset fit neatly over the map, showing the team that Earth's entire system covered roughly the same amount of space as Baz and its moons.

  "That's...impossible." Wiggins dismissed what he saw. "For one planet to hold all of those moons in orbit, from that far away. Its gravitational pull would be so intense, it would crush everything on its surface. You're telling me people live there?"

  "We don't have much intel on the Baz home world, but remember it’s the Baz and not humans here," Shoji said, his voice darkening. "We do have a little intel on its moons, however." The map zoomed in on a cluster of moons near the outer rim. "I don't believe these are natural formations. I think they were built."

  "Space stations?" Liezl asked.

  "I think so," Shoji said. Something definitive in his voice made it sound like he was surer than he let on. "Likely some are military stations, but some are probably civilian centers."

  Liezl tilted her head and narrowed her eyes on Shoji.

  He pressed a button and zoomed in on the main planet. A column of statistics appeared along the edge of the image. "The planet is extremely densely populated. They ran out of room for their people."

  "So, they built moons for them to live on," Wiggins said, sounding impressed.

  "Where did this information come from?" Liezl asked. Her skeptical gaze cut through the projection of the map and lanced into Shoji's chest.

  He held up his arm as an answer. "There was data embedded in my arm. Installed at the same time as the control program for the jump tech."

  Liezl continued to stare, waiting for an answer. None came. "One day soon, I hope you'll tell us a little more about what's in that arm and how it got there."

  The projection shifted again. It moved down to focus on a cluster of moons. Some of them were identified as being space stations, some as moons, others with question marks. The intel wasn't complete. One of the orbs, the smallest, was completely illuminated. "This was the last recorded location before I jumped. This is Myazarene. It's a natural moon, one of the smallest in the system. The Baz have a monitoring station established there, with equipment powerful enough to monitor signals across the universe."

  "Or amplify jump tech enough to jump from there to Earth?" Wiggins asked.

  Shoji nodded. "After I escaped, I made for Myazarene. I knew the equipment there would get me home. We are going to jump the fleet as close as we can to this moon. As soon as we do, Tin Man is going to drop to the surface and tear that station apart, preferably before it can alert the main Baz armada. Even if we're successful, they'll know within a couple hours that the station is offline, but it should give us enough of a head start."

  "To do what?" Liezl pressed. Her impatience and frustration was mounting.

  With a click, the projection faded, and the room felt much darker than had a moment ago. "Munk, you are second-in-command of the fleet. You will coordinate its movements unless I'm giving direct orders. Coraline, you are in charge of the civilians. Keep them organized and calm." He pointed at Liezl, Wiggins, and Krust. "You three are with me."

  He turned and left them, questions and commands swirling like a tornado behind him.

  The entire Vhast fleet was spread across the surface of the moon. The destroyer alone occupied the entire launch pad. The rest—forty starfighters and two transports—were scattered like weeds in an untended garden. They had been sitting unused for three years, since the Vhast had settled here, deciding this was their home until their warlord returned and ordered them to pull up stakes.

  That day had come, and the Vhast were all too happy to oblige. They didn't like staying still. Sailing through space was in their blood. It was as much a part of their cultural identity as being a warrior.

  Every ship was fueled. Engines rumbled. They only waited for the word.

  Shoji ascended the interior of Tin Man, his crew at his side. Fortunately, Krust was on the smaller side for a Vhast. If he was any wider, he wouldn't have fit in the shaft or been able to move from compartment to compartment. Krust and Wiggins split off to set up in the engineering section. Shoji and Liezl continued to climb.

  They entered the cockpit and strapped in. The eve of a new mission was always tense, but Shoji felt the hotter tension burning at the center of it. "You can still get out," he said.

  "You're a real asshole sometimes," Liezl shot back. "How did Beck ever stand it in this chair?"

  Shoji shot around. The core of him burned with anger so intense that he couldn't say all of the horrible things screaming in his head. He was grateful for that. If he had been able to say them, this mission would have been over before it started. As much as he tried to ignore it, he couldn't do this alone. He needed a crew. He needed a copilot.

  "I'm sorry," Liezl said, watching the anger burn out of him. "I didn't..."

  Shoji shook his head. "It's fine. I shouldn't have..." He slid his hands into the control gauntlets. "Let's just go get them back."

  They ran through the jump-gate activation sequence. The familiar blinding light. The pain like lightning in his teeth. The sourness wrenching his guts.

  And then they were gone.

  7

  The jump was a familiar pain for Shoji now. He came out the other side wracked with nausea and head spinning, but he could still function. The same didn't hold true for the rest of his fleet.

  The Tin Man crew groaned in his ear.

  "Are we dead?" Wiggins said. "I feel very dead."

  "I don't think so," Liezl said. "I hope being dead doesn't feel this bad. Like my insides have melted."

  "And my outsides have melted," Krust added.

  "Focus," Shoji barked. He studied the scans of the area. "We've got incoming!" Tin Man shot upward as soon as Shoji had oriented himself, which took less time each jump. They had appeared underneath Myazarene. This wasn't ideal, as the monitoring station was on the side. They'd need to circumnavigate the entire thing to reach it.

  "It's a standard patrol," Shoji said. "One frigate and six supporting starfighters. Munk, scramble our fighters. Focus the destroyer's attacks on the frigate. Take it out before it can react, then sweep up the rest."

  Munk acknowledged the orders, trying not to sound like he felt as though he had melted as well.

  "We're going to take out the monitoring station before it can spot us and radio for reinforcements." Shoji slipped into his attack maneuvers like he was putting on an old pair of pants. Comfortable. Fit to his body like a second skin.

  The surface of Myazarene passed in front of them. A greenish surface, like a stormy sea, with rock formations jutting up like breaking waves.

  "Ready the laser," Shoji ordered. Beck would have known what he intended to do. He could have done it himself, flown and operated the laser at the same time, but he wanted Liezl to get comfortable with it. Needed her to. "Fire as soon as I give the word. We'll cut the base up the middle, like dissecting a frog in biology class."

  Liezl forced her eyes open. "Quick admission, I never did that. I convinced my lab partner to do it while I shut my eyes."

  The monitoring station appeared in the distance, the horizon on this small moon just miles away and closing fast.

  "In three..." Shoji began to count down.

  Liezl squealed as she placed her thumb on the laser's activation button.

  "Two...one!"

  Liezl pressed. The laser burst from the shoulder-mounted turret. Sparks and fire spewed from the monitoring station below. Tin Man flew the length of the station, and then Shoji rolled in a tight maneuver to take another pass. After two incisions, Tin Man dropped to the surface.

  Shoji extended the wrist-blade. "Scan the wreckage," he said to Liezl. "Find any active comm signals.”

  Liezl was happy to receive an order that didn't involve explosions. "There. Found one at the heart of the building."

  Barely had the words left Liezl's mouth before Tin Man jumped and came down in the middle of the station. Shoji swung the blade, slicing the structure apart like some crazed farmer in the middle of a hayfield. He kept slicing until nothing stood. Tin Man had reduced the entire monitoring station to rubble in a matter of seconds.

  "Signals?" Shoji said.

  Liezl studied her monitor. "None."

  "Munk, how's that patrol?"

  "Scrapped," the Vhast commander said.

  "Well done. Hold position. We have a little more cleanup to do down here. Alert me immediately of any incoming ships."

  Tin Man stepped over the ruin he had just created. Once clear, Shoji activated the boot thrusters and hovered over the surface, a little faster than a walk.

  Liezl craned her neck. She tried to catch Shoji's eye but realized that method of getting his attention wouldn't work here. "Where are we going?"

  "I have to pick something up."

  Liezl's mouth fell open. Some sounds fell out in a jumble before she could force them into the shape of words. "Like groceries? Or some library books or something? We're on an alien moon."

  "Yeah," Shoji said. "It's not my first time here."

  Heat flared in her cheeks. Though she quickly assured herself it was an easy mistake to make, especially when Shoji seemingly took great care to keep his time in Baz space a secret. She tried to imagine what it must have been like, what sort of horrors he'd endured, but her imagination was limited. Until minutes ago, she couldn't imagine what it would feel like to turn an alien structure to rubble with the press of a button.

  They traveled only a minute before Tin Man slowed. Another second, and he stopped. The cave rose like an anthill from the ground.

  "Stay here." Shoji slipped out of his control harness.

  "Excuse me?"

  "I'll be right back." He squeezed past her toward the cockpit exit.

  Liezl threw off her straps and stood too fast, bumping her head on the ceiling. She winced, but the pain wasn't enough to slow her pursuit. "Hold on. You act like we just stopped at a corner store. What, you just popping in for some snacks before we hit the road?"

  Shoji didn't respond. He popped the hatch and stepped into the tube that would bring him down to the airlock in Tin Man's foot.

  "Goddamn it, Shoji." The anger that burst out of Liezl surprised them both—enough that Shoji finally stopped and looked over his shoulder. "I've done nothing but help you since you poofed out of nowhere back at Vandenberg. I've followed you to the moon, aided you in stealing a spacecraft, taking command of a foreign army, and absconding with both to other side of the universe. I think I've earned some answers. What the hell are we doing here?"

  Shoji looked down at his metal hand, clenching into a fist. She saw the tension in his face, the tug on his lips, the desire to speak. But the muscles in his jaw tightened. He could only force a few words through his teeth. "Be right back. Stay put."

  She wanted to scream, but, like Shoji, her body wouldn't let her. All she could do was watch as he descended into the bowels of Tin Man.

  "Did someone just climb past us?" Wiggins said.

  "That was the commander," Liezl said. "No cause for alarm. He's just, you know, stepping out for a minute."

  "Right," Wiggins responded after a moment of silence. "Stepping out for a minute. I only ask because Krust here says that sounds batshit crazy, and I'm trying to show him that the good commander has everything well in hand."

  "I did not say that," Krust said.

  "Just sit tight," Liezl echoed Shoji's words. "We'll be underway in a minute."

  Shoji walked across the barren landscape. He climbed down into the cave. Every second he was gone felt like a breath full of glass. Her eyes darted back and forth from the localized scans to the cave opening. The monitoring station seemed to be the only installation on the small moon. If there were other Baz forces on Myazarene, they hid their presence completely. That thought did nothing to settle her nerves.

  What if they had hidden their presence completely?

  They could be circling her right now, and she wouldn't be able to get to safety without abandoning Shoji in that hole.

  If Shoji was even still alive. He could have fallen and broken his leg, and she wouldn't know.

  Sweat rolled into her eye. "Commander? Please—"

  "I'm here." Shoji emerged from the cave. He held a small case, tucked under his arm.