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I give him a look, then trace the outline of my pregnant stomach. "Unless there's a bunch of other preggo guys from Earth, I'm pretty damn sure it's them."

"Valid."

"Do you know where they are?" Airos asks me.

"No." I point at my swollen face. "I tried to bust us out of here. Didn't work."

The ship shudders, and suddenly I have that uneasy feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you're on a plane that's changing altitude a little too quickly.

"This thing's going down," Tyler says.

"Then we find the escape flyer, as planned," says Airos. "That's where we'll find him." He turns to me to explain. "These large flyers typically have a smaller transport vessel aboard."

"The buzzer," I say. "Yeah, they have one. We couldn't find it."

"Follow me," he says.

"First, would you please get these damn cuffs off me?"

Airos grips the shackles again, and I'm alarmed by the sudden bloom of heat through the metal.

"Be still," he warns, gripping my forearm with his other hand. "I wouldn't want to take your hands off with them."

"You fuckin' better not, or else I'm gonna make you shake my dick for me every time I go for a piss."

My face flushes.Why the hell did I just say that?It's a joke I would've made easily to any of my army buddies, but saying it to Airos immediately feels weird. And to add to my embarrassment, Airos doesn't say a word in response. He just lets it hang in the air with the sound of the buzzing insects and the dying ship.

"That's a vivid goddamn image," Tyler says with a laugh.

Pop.

The shackles fall from my wrists.

"Hm, too bad," Airos says. "That would've been very interesting."

"Let'sgo," I groan.

With Airos taking point, we weave quickly through the underbelly of the ship, cutting through crew quarters where rows of empty hammocks hang at an off-kilter angle from huge ceiling beams. Anything not tied down has become a projectile we have to bound over or dodge, like a crazy obstacle course of death. The noise from the bugs is now louder than the ship, and the sound of their march bangs through the floor above us like a million hammers. The route we're taking is almost the exact same as the one Dustin had given me before, except one level down. That's why we hadn't been able to find the buzzer craft—we were on the wrong floor.

A section of the wall to our left suddenly shatters as a dozen mandibles punch through it, chewing up the thick planking as easily as a wood chipper churns through a softwood spruce. The bugs pour in, blocking our path with their numbers as they swarm towards the engine room. A lantern is knocked from the wall, exploding across the floor in a circle of flaming oil, and the bugs go wild to avoid it, but their wings act like bellows that quickly spreads the fire to the ceiling. Some of the bugs turn to advance on us, aggressively shaking their wings and snapping their mandibles. This is their territory now.

Airos holds his staff in front of him and hurls a bolt at the bugs, shattering one of their shells and splattering the wall with acrid blood. Immediately, another takes its place. I duck my head in reflex as I feel a bullet whizz past my ear—except it's not a bullet, it's a stone from Tyler's sling, and it smashes into the bug'seye. Instinct has me grabbing for my rifle, but of course I have nothing. Except...

I reach out with my hand, concentrating hard to find the small rock burrowed deep inside the dead bug's innards.

There.

I take it, and with a rapid jerk of my arm, send it careening back and forth through the air in front of us. It whips through shell after shell like a silent, bug-seeking missile, until my concentration wavers and I lose my grasp on the stone as it gets stuck somewhere deep inside one of them. Ten bugs seize up and go haywire, purple goo spurting from the tiny holes in their shells. They collapse, and the way is open.

"Fuck!" Airos says.

"Yeah, you're welcome?—"

He cuts me off when he grabs my arm and pulls me after him through black smoke and dying bugs, and that's when I realize the swarm has changed its attention from the engine room. Now, they're all coming after us.

Phoenix powers, you dumbass! That's what they're after!

"Dammit, I'm sorry!" I shout.