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I’d saved Tessa’s life and doomed my own.

I step forward, putting myself between the Aurelians and my captors. Their auras crystalize, wracked with anxiety – but they can tell from my aura that I’m certain in my actions.Thisis the way, and if they respect me, there’s nothing they will do.

The Bullfrog holds out the Bond-Disruptor ring and I reluctantly put it on. The Aurelians instantly wink out of my mind.

They may never return there.

I walk forward, and as the doors shut behind me, I turn to get one, last, tortured look at my men.

Then, the door closes, and they’re gone.

I’m marched forward, wading through the fetid water. Part of me wishes we’d chosen the other option – urging my Aurelians to burst forward like a trio of beasts, cutting down my captors.

But even with their Bond-enhanced strength and speed, they never would have made it across the room.

Now, I can only pray that I didn’t make our situation worse.

The Sentinels march me around the first corner – and then my mouth becomes chillingly dry, even in the heat and humidity of this ship.

I watch twenty Sentinels turn and march away, clanking like haunted suits of armor.

There had beentwentyadditional Sentinels stationed behind the corner from the Aurelians? Enough to wipe them from existence five times over.

Then, Igetit.

They were posted there just in case the Aurelians tried the very thing we’d been planning. My triad might have even been able to cut their way through the first five Sentinels at the doorway – but then, they’d have rounded that first corner and would have been cut down like grass the very second they turned the corner. Those twenty Sentinels might as well have been a firing squad.

My instinct saved their lives…

For now.

But I’m in an even worse situation than we were before. Now, I wade through the brackish water without my Aurelians to back me up.

I gaze around, perhaps noticing the sheer horror of this place for the first time, thanks to my heightened senses. The fleshy walls of the Toad mothership are crawling with maggots. The whole place almost seemsalive. My stomach churns, and I throw up – watching with disgust as tadpoles swarm between my feet to gobble up the protein.

The Sentinels don’t pause for me. They march relentlessly forward, and as they pass, one grabs me roughly by the shoulder, forcing me to match their pace.

They lead me back to the room I’d shared with Tessa and throw me inside. As the doors close, I watch the Sentinels turn and stride away.

Thank the Gods, Lord Oblog apparently still doesn’t think I’m enough of a threat to post guards at my door.

ButamI enough of a threat?

My only chance now is to do what the Aurelians had planned to – to cut my way through the door and rush to the hanger bay. If I sprint and get lucky, perhaps there’s a slim chance I could make it there by myself. At least Marcel’s detailed map of the ship’s layout is burned into my memory, overlain with the mental map I’d constructed using the techniques Ling taught me.

But who am I kidding?

All alone, I know I don’t stand a chance. If –if –I evenmake itto the hanger bay, I’ll then have to face down a bay full of Toad pilots and mechanics while I try to make it to the Reaver, or steal a ship.

I’m not even the best pilot. Ling taught me well enough to fly, but even with the slim possibility that I actually manage to steal a ship, I’ve thenstillgot to get away from the Mothership with its barrage of las-cannons and missile launchers locked onto me.

The never-give-up confidence Ling had hardened inside me crumbles. I realize I’ve been doomed since the moment I set foot on this Toad mothership.

No, before – ever since I first booked passage on the Elnor.

I just didn’t know it at the time.

Despair wells up inside me. I ache desperately for the silent reassurance of my men – their auras in my mind.