He shook his head.

  Shoji came over the intercom to tell Liezl that they were approaching the destroyer. She patted Isaac on the shoulder, a weak gesture that came across as awkward and half-hearted, but she had no idea how to comfort someone going through what he was going through. She nodded to Krust and Wiggins and said all she needed to say with her eyes. Do not bother them, or I will burn you from the inside out.

  Wiggins, perpetual worm that he was, only nodded in return.

  Liezl entered the cockpit and began docking procedures. They didn't speak as they would have during any other maneuvers. The idea of speaking to Shoji felt absurd, like talking to a goat and expecting the goat to respond. Shoji was a different creature than he’d been a moment ago. He was a father now, and she did not know how to speak his language.

  Tin Man entered the large hangar bay doors and waited for the airlock to pressurize and open to the rest of the bay.

  Shoji softened only when in the presence of Isaac and Kinsey. Liezl saw it in his face now, that light in his eyes that just barely pierced through the thick, black fog that was the constant worry of a father. The eyes of a family man.

  They escorted Isaac and Kinsey out of Tin Man to a pair of waiting gurneys. Isaac perked up for a moment when he realized he was on a Vhast ship that seemed to still be under the command of the Vhast, but his head fell back as soon as he lay down.

  "Get them to the med-bay and give them a full workup," Shoji said. "I transferred an info cache on human medicine before we left the moon."

  Kinsey perked at that. "I was the first woman on the moon, you know."

  Shoji smiled. "They're dehydrated and malnourished."

  A thin Vhast nodded reassuringly. "We'll take care of them, sir." The team of Vhast pushed Kinsey and Isaac away.

  Shoji stood, frozen, watching as they left. There was an insecurity in the stiffness of his back, showing how unsure he was that he would see his family again.

  Liezl stood behind him. Her hand hovered over his shoulder, wanting to help ease his mind but not knowing how.

  "Go with them," Shoji said.

  Liezl suddenly shifted to a different awkward situation. She wanted to argue that watching Isaac and Kinsey lay in hospital beds was a waste of her time. "I think—"

  Shoji turned to face her. The muscles in his jaw pulsed, and his eyes strained to stay focused. "Go with them." His words fell out of his mouth, heavy with fatigue. His composure was about to crack, and Liezl didn't want to see what lay beneath the haggard surface layer.

  She nodded.

  Shoji walked away.

  Wiggins appeared at her side. "I'll deny it forever if you repeat this, but you should be leading this mission."

  A squeal of surprise leapt from Liezl's lips.

  "He's compromised." Wiggins pointed at Shoji's back, growing smaller as he approached the bulkhead doors on the other side of the hangar bay. "Not thinking straight."

  "He's an EDI commander. He's the only person on Earth who's fought off an alien invasion and battled hostile aliens in space."

  "And he's a warlord, and he's making decisions based on self-interest."

  Liezl scoffed.

  Wiggins spread his hands. "Sure, I've been known to act in my own self-interest occasionally, but this is different."

  "How?"

  "Because this going to get me killed."

  Liezl stepped away from him, toward the doors through which Kinsey and Isaac just disappeared in the far corner. "Run a diagnostic on Tin Man. Make sure he's ready to fly."

  "I respect Commander Shoji Mora as much as the next world-saving hero, but that man is not that Shoji Mora." Wiggins peppered Liezl's back with words. "He's broken."

  The med-bay felt too sterile. After seeing the inside of the prison station, the shining surfaces and alcohol smell were too jarring a contrast.

  Isaac and Kinsey lay flat on separate beds, both appearing to be asleep. The Vhast medics, or Liezl preferred to assume they were medics and not just the closest thing they had on hand, were performing scans. The results displayed on monitors mounted on the walls.

  The Vhast nodded to Liezl as she approached then continued their work.

  Liezl sat in a chair between the two beds, looking from one to the other, feeling like a cat on a fencepost. She watched as the medics inserted IVs and set up UV lamps to replenish fluids and vitamin D. When the medics eventually left, Liezl had resigned herself to sitting and watching and waiting.

  Without the activity to observe and occupy her mind, her attention shifted to Shoji. Something about him had been bugging her since he first arrived back on Earth. She knew from the moment he removed his helmet that he was a different man. Years in captivity on the other side of existence would do that. But it was only now that she began to wonder whether this different man was suitable to be leading this sort of mission. Whether he was suitable to follow.

  Before she could sink too far into the questions, Kinsey stirred.

  Liezl shot up, fluttering with pent-up energy. "Do you need me to get someone?"

  Kinsey groaned and shifted her weight. "No." She pushed up onto her elbows, wincing in anticipation. Her face relaxed when the pain didn't come. "What did those rocks pump into me?"

  "I have no idea," Liezl said. "But the Vhast are just doing what Shoji told them to do."

  Kinsey shot further upright, no longer concerned with her body's potential reaction. "And why would they be doing that?"

  Liezl swallowed hard, clearing the lump in her throat so she could tell the story of the last three years on Earth.

  "Warlord." Kinsey spoke the word like she was testing it, slipping it on like a dress and looking it over in the mirror. She nodded. "Good. That'll help."

  Silence spread between them, and Liezl waited for Kinsey to fill it. When she didn't, Liezl said, "Help with what?"

  Kinsey's features pulled to the center of her face. The first sound escaped her lips before she bit it in half.

  Liezl grew irritated again, the same feeling she's had in Shoji's presence since the beginning, like she was being led into the dark and not given the courtesy of a flashlight. "The mission was to get you all back. We won't leave without Beck and..."

  "Cullen."

  Liezl's cheeks burned. She repeated the name in her head. "Cullen. Shoji won't leave them. But this guy Malfek has them. How are we supposed to find Malfek?"

  "The admiral is the grandiose type. He doesn't take pains to hide himself, especially in his own system."

  "How do you even know that?" Liezl threw up her hands.

  Kinsey narrowed her gaze on Liezl but said nothing.

  Pressing her palms to her eyes, Liezl said, "I expect to learn more as this mission goes on, but I'm only learning how much I don't know."

  A chuckle, hoarse and cracked, leapt from Kinsey's lips. "That's every mission with Shoji."

  Liezl stood and walked slowly around the perimeter of Isaac's bed. She studied the discolorations in his skin, bruising so deep it looked like a permanent part of him. She tried to imagine their life these past years, in the dark, not knowing if they'd ever see home again, waking up each morning thinking it could be their last.

  "What happened? After you went through the gate?"

  Kinsey eased back onto her pillow, sharp exhales like burst of air steering an aging zeppelin. "I think Shoji should be the one—"

  "It happened to you too," Liezl said. "It's not just his story. I'm part of it now, too. I need to know what's going on."

  Kinsey turned her head, like it was being pulled, and looked at Isaac. "Sometimes, I think we died, and this is hell." Her voice, healing from the water and medicine, shattered again. Tears surged from her eyes, a sudden deluge that came too fast to control. She grunted, winced at the pain, and wiped the tears away.

  "I don't remember all of what happened right away," Kinsey continued. "After Tin Man destroyed the Earth gate, there was feedback burst. A shockwave kicked out of the Baz gate—like an EMP. It disabled a lot of the Baz ships. Caused chaos. But it hit us too. I was in and out for I don't know how long. When I finally came to, I was lying on the deck of a ship, looking up at people I didn't know."

  "The Baz captured you." Liezl said it like a fact and expected it to be confirmed as such, but the flicker in Kinsey's eyes gave her pause. "It wasn't a Baz ship?" She leaned on the edge of Kinsey's bed, forcing herself into the focus of Kinsey's vision.

  "No."

  The word hit Liezl in the throat. She'd pieced together a timeline in her head. An assumed chronology of the course of events. The crew was stranded in Baz space. Without a ship, they were promptly captured and held prisoner for the last three years.

  "You didn't come here on a rescue mission, Liezl."

  Liezl jumped back as if Kinsey had thrown hot coals at her feet. She took a half-step forward, determined to step on those coals if that meant answers, but a voice at her back pulled her away.

  "I made contact." Shoji stood in the doorway.

  Liezl spun, ready to scream in her commander's face for lying to her, even though she couldn’t say yet what it was he lied about.

  Shoji spoke before she could. "There's someone you need to meet. Someone who can explain to you why we're really here."

  12

  The asteroid belt surrounding a cluster of moons in the same sector as the prison station played havoc with long-range scanners. The Baz fleet would have received word by now of the breakout and would have assumed Shoji's role in it. Baz patrols would be scouring the system. Malfek preferred physical patrols because the Baz system was littered with belts and clusters just like this one, rocks that emitted a radiation or magnetic field or something that stuck a thumb in the eye of scanning technology.

  Shoji had never cared to learn the science behind, just the effect. Beck was fascinated with it, as she was with lots of things. She wanted to study them, to understand if this was an energy that had been documented in our portion of the universe. She wanted to study everything, but they were too busy surviving.

  Munk parked the fleet inside the belt. He suggested having the fighters stationed on each of the moons, ready to deploy if a Baz patrol happened upon them. Shoji liked the idea. He felt no compulsion to enforce his will, to make it known that he was warlord and it was his word that steered their ships. He was glad to have a second-in-command who acted with sense and purpose, someone who made decisions, so Shoji didn't have to. That allowed him to dive completely into his own worries. Which he would have done regardless, but he at least knew now that the fleet was in capable hands. If he was capable of feeling at ease right now, that would have done it.

  Liezl hadn't said a word, which would have been concerning in any other situation, but Shoji understood her silence. She was holding a butterfly. A delicate creature had landed in her hand. If she spoke or breathed and moved too suddenly, the creature would fly away, and she would never see it again.

  He'd offered her what she wanted from the start: answers. He hadn't given them to her for the same reason she was now quiet. If he spoke of Cullen, of Beck, of his family, then their circumstances would become too real. Saying aloud that he left behind his son, who was born in captivity, that he intentionally put a universe between himself and the only people he loved, would turn his insides to dust. Even thinking it now, he struggled to fly Tin Man straight.

  Wiggins felt no such need to remain quiet. He didn't care for butterflies. If a creature was too stupid to land in his palm and soak in his radiance, then it had no right to exist.

  "Where the hell are we going?" Wiggins's childish whining only sounded more nasally over the ship's comms. "We have recovered two of the three people we came here to recover. I think we can call that a success. What? No, what are you—" Krust could be heard but not understood in the background. "Sorry, the rock tells me we've recovered two of the four people we came here to recover. Though I only signed on for three. Still, not bad. Anyway, I want to know why we are leaving the fleet and flying off on our own. The Baz-tards—trademarking that, by the way—will be out in force after our fearless leader announced our presence by kicking in their prison. I think we should—"

  "Put Krust on," Liezl interrupted.

  Shoji smiled.

  "Um, yes?" Krust's temperament was so unlike the other Vhast's, unsure and timid.

  "Hi, Krust," Liezl continued. "How are you?"

  "I, um, I am well. And you?"

  "I'm a little concerned. There seems to be this perpetual whining sound coming out of the engine room. It sounds almost like a dog… Do you know what a dog is? It's a needy little creature we have on Earth that can't really do anything for itself and spends all of its time waiting for others to feed it and walk it and pay attention to it. I'm worried it’s a sign of a deeper problem that could have a lasting impact on the success of this mission. Do you know the sound I'm referring to?"

  "I... Yes."

  "Please look into when you can."

  "I will."

  A burst of angry shouting erupted in the background before the call ended.

  "Enjoy that?" Shoji asked.

  "I certainly did," Liezl asked.

  The atmosphere in the cockpit was immediately lighter. They had both moved and breathed and talked, and the butterfly remained.

  They didn't dare chance it for the rest of their flight, which was only a matter of minutes. Their destination was inside the same asteroid belt where Munk hid the fleet, for the same reasons. The people they were going to see had remained alive a long time for one reason: they knew how to hide.

  "There it is." Shoji pointed out the viewport at one of the larger rocks in the belt. Several smaller rocks looked to be orbiting it, held in place by the magnetism that played havoc with scanners.

  He felt Liezl's eyes on him, and the questioning inside her look.

  But she didn't say anything, and neither did he.

  Tin Man touched down, and then didn't move. Shoji powered down and unstrapped from his control harness.

  Liezl jumped when he spoke. She was expecting him to walk away without a word as was now his habit, but he stopped beside her.

  "The Baz weren't the first to find us after we blew the gate." The entire story danced at the front of his brain. For the first time, he wanted to tell it, but he didn't have the chance. A swarm of ground vehicles emerged from their hiding places and surrounded Tin Man.

  Liezl looked at her scans, which showed nothing. Then she looked out the viewport at the vehicles, now aiming the cannons mounted on the roofs at them. "So, who did?"

  "Come on." Shoji exited the cockpit. "I'll introduce you."

  To Liezl's credit, she said nothing as they descended the ship. She said nothing as they exited Tin Man. She said nothing as they stood outside, cannons aimed at them. She said nothing as three people exited one of the ground vehicles and approached them, guns slung over their shoulders.

  "I sent word to Isola," Shoji said to them. "She's expecting me."

  They nodded and returned to their vehicle.

  Liezl only spoke when Shoji began to follow them and gestured for Liezl, Krust, and Wiggins to do the same. "What's an Isola? And who are these people?"

  The strangers walked ahead of them and gave no indication that they considered Shoji and the others a threat. Though they wouldn't be much of a threat against those cannons, so that did little to put Liezl at ease.

  "I agree with Danbury," Wiggins said. "This is a stupid idea."

  "I didn't say that," Liezl hissed. "I just want to know what's going on."

  The strangers stopped at the rear of their vehicle, a big, bulky thing that looked built for transport rather than combat. They opened the back and nodded for Shoji and the others to get in.

  "You will," Shoji said. "Soon." He climbed in, and the others followed.

  Two strangers were waiting inside, sitting on long benches that lined its walls. Each had guns. They regarded Krust with curiosity, not hostility, but it seemed like only a grain of sand was needed to tip those scales in the other direction.

  The vehicle lurched and groaned and rolled on, falling in line behind two others that looked more built for combat, sleeker and faster. The rest of the vehicles, four from what Shoji could see, fell in line behind them. The convoy traveled no more than a mile over jagged rock before it entered a cave.

  The rocky walls were lined with lanterns that glowed with pale light. They cast the rest of the cave in a ghostly way, making the crags seem to crawl across the floor. The vehicles broke out of formation and parked along the walls, front end facing out for a quick evacuation if needed. Shoji knew enough of their procedures to know that there were ships hidden not far away, likely camouflaged among the cluster of peaks they’d passed on the way.

  The back doors of the vehicle opened from the outside. A new stranger said nothing, just stepped aside, implying it was time for them exit. Shoji led the crew further into the cave, away from the vehicles. The ceiling sloped downward, adding a sense of claustrophobia. He remembered the caves on Mars, how lost he felt, like walking further into darkness, and knew that Liezl must feel the same now.

  They stopped at a ring of lanterns set out on the ground. A stranger told them to wait, that it wouldn't be long. Shoji took stock of the strangers, some of whom weren't strangers to him at all. They were mostly humanoid, of varying sizes. Some neared the size of the Vhast, but none reached it. One of them had a bulge on either side of his midsection, which Shoji assumed was an extra set of arms shoved into a suit made for a species with only one.

  The strangers said nothing. Wiggins, for all his arrogance and entitlement, remained silent as well. Shoji was grateful for that. His brain may have been an asset, but Shoji wasn't convinced yet that it outweighed the risk of his mouth.

  There was no mistaking who wore the suit that emerged from a narrow tunnel that led deeper into the cave. She was tall and slender, and the pulsing, blue light that shone from within made the suit appear to be holding back a flood of water.

  "A setup," Wiggins said.

  "Shut up," Shoji said.