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Tivek rose beside me, even as his tall frame seemed to deflate. "If our friends received it and acted on it…”

"They'll be flying straight into an ambush," I finished.

We stood in silence for a moment, the horror of the situation settling over us. Our arrival on the planet and our seemingly successful rescue might have made everything worse. Our friends could be walking into the same nightmare we were trying to flee.

"We have to warn them," I said. “We need to find the others and tell them what we heard."

Tivek nodded then reached out, brushing a strand of mud-caked hair from my face with surprising gentleness. "Stay close to me. Step exactly where I step."

My heart did a strange little flip despite our dire circumstances. I leaned into his hand, unable to find words. Even if I knew what to say to make things better, this was not the time.

Tivek turned, and I followed as he began picking his way through the dark marsh, each movement deliberate and silent. Behind us, the enemy facility continued to burn, smoke mingling with mist to burn my throat and sting my eyes.

But none of that mattered. All that mattered was getting to the rest of the rescue team and warning them., and then getting a warning to our friends who were undoubtably in route.

I only hoped we weren’t too late.

Chapter

Twenty-Four

Tivek

“Grek, grek, grek.” The Drexian curses slipped out before I could stop them. The mud was sucking at my boots each time I lifted a foot from the muck, we were separated from the others and had no idea where they were, and we now knew our friends might be flying into a trap.

I glanced at Morgan, moving silently beside me in the night, her environmental suit adjusting to the dimness of the marsh and making her little more than a bobbing head. Even so, I was glad she was with me. She was the only one in our group who knew the truth about me, who knew my secrets. That was some comfort, even if I would eventually have to explain to my superiors why I'd revealed myself to her. But that was a problem for another day, if we survived long enough for it to matter.

Right now, I needed to focus on finding the others and stopping the Kronock's trap from ensnaring more of our people. If Deklynwas leading the others to his hidden ship, I needed to think like my brother to find it.

“Where would he hide something so big?” I muttered, trying to put myself in my brother's mind. If I were a cocky Inferno Force warrior like my brother, what would I do?

"Are you talking about Deklyn's ship?" Morgan asked, her voice startling me from my thoughts.

I hadn't realized I'd spoken aloud. “Um, yes. I’m trying to figure out where he would have concealed it."

Morgan's brow furrowed in concentration. "If I were trying to hide a ship here, I'd probably use that range of hills that borders the eastern edge of the marshland. Natural cover, far from the buildings, and rocks that could help scramble sensors.”

I stared at her, impressed. "You might be right.”

I thought of Deklyn again. My brother might be a brash warrior, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t clever or trained in tactical warfare. He wouldn't have survived this long in Inferno Force otherwise. "That's exactly the kind of location he'd choose."

I recalculated our position relative to the eastern hills, mentally mapping the shortest path that would keep us concealed in the marsh as long as possible. We needed to adjust our course by about fifteen degrees.

"This way," I said, veering slightly left. "If we stay low, the swamp should provide cover most of the way."

I didn't add that once we cleared the marsh, there would be scant cover until the hills. Even in the dark, we could be spotted, but some worries were better left unspoken.

We walked in silence for a time, the distant light from the burning prison casting everything in a murky haze. Time seemed to stretch and compress at the same time with every step the same and no way to see more than an arm’s length in front of us. Had we been walking for hours or minutes? The sameness of the terrain made it impossible to tell.

Gradually, the dark grasses of the marshland began to thin out. Through gaps in the vegetation, I caught glimpses of our destination, a low range of hills silhouetted against the night sky and rising from the planet like the spine of an enormous, buried creature.

"There," I whispered, pointing.

Morgan managed a weak smile that held as much apprehension as relief.

I did not blame her. Despite feeling relief that we were leaving the misty swap, we would soon be exposed. If Deklyn had hidden his ship in those hills, we'd need to cross open terrain to reach it. I scanned the expanse quickly, seeing no shadows of figures ahead of us. Either our friends had crossed already, or they were behind us.

Or you’re going in the wrong direction, a little voice whispered in the dark recesses of my brain. I pushed that traitorous thought aside. This was the right way. It had to be.