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“We know about the insurrection on the other side of the portal,” I said. “A group of pirates known as the Broadsiders.”

“Yes!” he said. “They’ve been a scourge there foryears.You can fix it?”

“Yes,” Alanik said to my nod. “But first the inhibitor. We are able to tweak it in such a way as to facilitate.”

The aliens flew us down a wide street. Hesho hovered in closer to me, up near my head, watching the streets pass. “I do not like,” he said softly to me while Alanik held the attention of the green aliens, “feeling so small.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him, deliberatelynotmaking a wisecrack about his size.

“So many peoples,” he said. “So much variety. We wanted to escape Evershore and join the Superiority. I acted strong in front of the others because it was my life, as I had been trained. But it is difficult to be so small in such a vast universe. Particularly when you no longer rule any of it.”

“Do you miss it?” I asked, broaching a topic I’d been curious about since we returned. “Being emperor?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “I had thought I would not. I had thought that I’d be me, always—whether I ruled or not. I was naive, Spensa. I do not feel like myself without the power to command an entire people. But I should not have it. No, I should not. No one should…I see that.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think there’s an elegance to a military chain of command.”

“You do?” he said. “You certainly enjoy ignoring it. It seems everyone likes a chain of command so long as it doesn’t restrict them specifically. This is what I learned of myself. I believed in themonarchy—of course I did. Now I miss it, but only because of what I have lost.”

He glanced at me. “This is one truth the Superiority was correct about. They warned us that one person having too much power would lead to a civilization without freedom. Strange, that I should learn this lesson from those who did not follow their own counsel. They few use their precious democracy to oppress the many.”

I nodded, finding his thoughts fascinating. How often did you get to speak to someone who had held so much power, thengiven it up?

“You’re a hero, Hesho,” I said. “For what you have done.”

“If I were a hero, then I should not so violently miss rule. What is a gift, if given so grudgingly? I doubt…if I had not been lost and thought dead…I wouldeverhave truly given up power. I’d have continued in that half state, playing games.” He sighed, then raised a furry fist to me. “But I am a soldier now. On I will march. We are getting far from our ships. One of us should go back, to be ready for a rescue in case this goes poorly.”

I nodded, and he zipped back the way we had come. My Poco controls had been fixed by his engineers since our raid yesterday. He could easily pilot it alone now with his smaller set of controls.

The rest of us entered a large steel tunnel leading beneath the city. I moved closer to the front of the group, to hear what the leader was saying. “You’ll want both of them, I assume?”

Alanik looked confused. Before she could respond, I said, “Yes. I understand you received another inhibitor recently?”

“Just yesterday,” he said.

The enemy had learned from our assault on the data center—taking out the inhibitors had given us the cytonic advantage. They were beefing up their defenses. Hopefully in general, all around important bases. Because otherwise, if they’d targeted only the supply depots, that meant Winzik knew what we were planning.

I had a moment of worry. Worry led to my soul vibrating—withthoughts of having led my friends to their deaths. But my spiral was interrupted as the lead alien stopped at a door along the large tunnel.

“I hope we did well,” he explained. “The instructions were to put it in the most reinforced, protected place we had. This old mining tunnel seemed perfect.”

“You did well,” Alanik said as he landed the floating platform and had an assistant lead us into the locked room. They opened it, gesturing for us to enter.

I forced my emotions into check, then walked in first.

To find Brade inside.

14

I immediately went for my gun. We’d entered a small control room with some lockers on both walls and some industrial equipment along the far side. Brade stood by that equipment.

I put her in my sights.

Kimmalyn—at my side—swung down her gun, looking around with a panicked expression. One might assume her to be the least dangerous of us, because of her soft-spoken nature. But she had more confirmed kills than anyone in the flight but me.

Her rifle went immediately to her shoulder, and she engaged infrared vision on her helmet visor. Smart; she was looking for heat signatures, since she couldn’t see the threat.

I just stood there—heart thundering.