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Sefina stays close as I sneak through the low-lying brush of the clearing. The sun is high in the blue sky as I check the air for scents I don’t like. All I find is the expected vegetation and Sefina’s sweet musk.

We spend far too much time underground for my taste. The moment we’re outside again, a calmness spreads through me. Whatever animals they based my model on, I know they were not cave dwellers. They roamed lands like this—wild and open.

I hope Sefina’s head injury has not affected her too much. I need her coherent if we’re going to succeed together on this mission. Otherwise, I’ll have to leave her with Kelta and hope she can get better care on the BlazeStar. But then I’ll have to set out to find this range extender on my own.

Sefina grabs my arm. I twist and look back to see a welvir watching us from the tunnel’s opening. It doesn’t come closer. Oddly, it just stands there, watching us. I think whatever Sefina did in the tunnels to the packs of welvirs has changed their behavior, though I’m not sure she knows what she did. She hasn’t said a word about it.

Perhaps it was a one-off because of the device Rebel cut out?

Before we cross the last of the meadow to the ship, I want to be sure we have access, and I can confirm who’s inside.

Menace>>FeatherLite: Identify yourself.

FeatherLite>>Menace: Kelta, Thruster’s mate. Scanners are clear. No Skysprinter activity within range. Hurry, while there’s an opening.

I take Sefina by the hand and lug her through the meadow. Being open and vulnerable on this planet for long is never a good idea.

Sefina grunts and struggles to keep up, but she tries, and that’s what matters to me.

Kelta uncloaks the ship. We pass under the wings, and the shield lifts again. I encourage Sefina up the narrow steps in the belly, then hike up after her.

Sefina automatically takes the bench behind the copilot’s seat and motions me upfront. I think it’s a familiar position to her.

I’d rather her be properly belted. “You take it. I will stand.”

Sefina studies me for a moment, then hesitantly takes the seat and straps herself in as Kelta lifts us up. “Hi.”

I’m not surprised Thruster’s mate is a pilot. It makes sense.

Kelta adjusts the sunshade band over her eyes, swings her braids behind a shoulder, and smiles at Sefina. “You must be Fin.”

“I’ve heard about you from Poppy. A rebel from the outer rim, right?”

“Yes. Titan communication is amazing, isn’t it? How far can it reach?”

Kelta and Sefina talk as if I’m not standing behind them, watching and listening. And suddenly I get a sense of how humans must feel when I speak silently with my Brothers.

“Med kit is on the bench,”

Kelta says, barely sparing me a glance. “Thruster wanted to be here, but he’s busy doing one last scan for other lost Titans. Clover just wants the last piece of the scanner back on board—the range booster.

“She says part of it got ripped out during the crash. They got enough scanners working that they could detect the part not far from the outpost that captured Chaos. That Solcrue base has since been destroyed. But there’s a tunnel that connects to an underground facility a few klicks east into the mountains. Its network will take you to the outpost that has the device now, based on their scan.”

I open the medkit and find the dermal repair gel. “That’s where we’re headed?”

“Yes. Fury said it’s still occupied by someone, likely the outpost survivors.”

Sefina rubs her forehead. “So it’s close to the BlazeStar’s location?”

Kelta nods. “Which means we can’t just blow it to shit or we’ll give away where we are. Commander Savage wants you two because of your stealth capabilities and knowledge of the Solcrue security systems. He wants the targets eliminated and the device recovered. No survivors.”

“Sefi,”

I say as gently as I can. “I need to pull your hair—”

“Oof,”

Kelta interjects with a waggle of her brows. “Not a lot of time for that, you two.”

Sefina scoffs and corrals her silky black waves away from me. “Don’t touch my hair.”

I lift the gel. “I need it up and out of my way so I can apply this.”

Sefina frowns, then collects her long ponytail and holds it aside. I dab the paste against her damaged skin at the back of her head and watch it slowly seal up beneath the drying blood all the while thinking about Kelta’s dirty mind and wondering if Thruster pulls her braids. He doesn’t seem like he’d be rough in bed. But he is an adrenaline junkie.

“That does feel better,”

Sefina remarks and looks back at me. “Thanks.”

We share a quiet moment as Kelta flies us deep into the forested mountains.

Please see that I’m not trying to hurt you.

“Boosters are in there, too,”

Kelta cuts in.

I break out of the trance Sefina has put me in and dig through the kit. “I thought we were out of these?”

“Clover engineered a few for critical assets in the field. The BlazeStar had enough supplies for some things, but Keanna and Cara have been foraging and replenishing what they can.”

I select two boosters, one for Sefina’s healing and another for her energy, and ready the injectors.

“Hell no. No more shots!”

Sefina unbuckles her chest harness and reaches for her belt.

“These aren’t going to put you to sleep, Sefi.”

“I don’t care! No more needles.”

Kelta chuckles to herself. “Sefi. That’s sweet.”

I bite my tongue to avoid snapping at a Brother’s mate. Any Titan would beat me to a pulp for it.

“Fine,”

I say, planting both on Sefina’s shoulder at once. “After these.”

She writhes and jerks, trying to pull away from me, but I keep her steady with ease. “What is wrong with you?”

I toss the spent cartridges in a bin on the ship. “Nutrient booster and one for infections. The tunnels aren’t clean. Emergency surgeries are always messy.”

“Heard about that,”

Kelta remarks as she highlights the target landing zone in the distant trees.

“About what?”

Sefina asks.

“That you sent out a pulse from your head that scared off welvirs,”

Kelta offers. “I mean, it’s all over the Titan coms.”

Kelta taps a screen, and it displays all the feeds of every Titan in the area. Fury speaks with Chaos about guard posts during takeoff. Tangle and Shifter are arguing about a crack in a wall. Amp relays the stats of the BlazeStar engine he’s working on to Clover.

“My DNA unlocks it because my mother built ships,”

Kelta offers, giving me a pointed look. “So you can’t lie to me and expect me to believe it. I hear everything up here, including thoughts that belong to Titans I can’t quite trace. So I’m just as eager to get this range extender back to Clover as she is.”

Sefina slowly turns to look up at me. “What is she talking about?”

“I didn’t say anything. It must’ve been Poppy, Shifter, or Bomber. But yeah, you did that. I saw it,” I admit.

Kelta clears her throat as she returns to piloting and briefly darts her eyes in my direction.

I growl. “I felt it.”

“Along with a few other things,”

Kelta utters under her breath.

I scowl at her.

“I didn’t see anything,”

Sefina says. “Unless migraine spots count.”

“Yeah,”

I say. “A blue pulse wave.”

“I am not some sort of ultrasonic pulse machine.”

Sefina stretches her neck and then checks her weapons as if to distract herself. “Whatever. Kelta, what does this object look like?”

“A cylinder in the middle with white bars and two semicircles of symbols that light up over the ends.”

Kelta pulls up an image. “This was the best Clover could find in the ship’s history, from back when it was being built.”

It’s a glossy chrome shade in the picture.

“Bet it’s dirty and busted now. But that’s better than going on nothing,”

Sefina says. “Thanks.”

“I’m going to drop you two with some camping gear in the approaching clearing, but I can’t stay. I’m on assignment with Holo, scanning for any other Titans we’re missing from the original drop.

“There’s conflicting data over missing Titans, which ones were lost during the jailbreak, versus those who have just gone silent. When we leave this place, there’s no telling when we’ll be back, you know?”

Sefina slumps and rests a hand on Kelta’s shoulder, a sign of compassion that surprises me. “Can we help with anything else before you drop us off?”

“Clover will then be able to run a final sweep of the entire planet. But in case you don’t find the unit, Thruster and I are doing our best. Everyone else is working final prep for the launch in just under two days. The sooner you get the unit and get back, the sooner we can get all the last details lined out and get off this blasted rock. Other than that, we’re good.”

“Why did Commander Savage not report these orders directly to me?”

I ask Kelta.

“He’s requested a few of us manage certain tasks because he can’t handle everything. Leah is technically a co-commander with him, but she’s busy working on the BlazeStar’s Titan repair facilities.”

“Everyone is heading to the ship directly,”

Sefina says. “No more pickup? That’s what I heard, right?”

When she meets my eyes, I nod. “Welvirs in the tunnels are making it too hard to move the whole group.”

Kelta banks around the mountains, checking the area before setting down in the meadow. “We’re all heading to our designated stations. As soon as the ship’s loaded, we’re on alert for Savage’s orders for ascent. Final orders will come through tomorrow. He’s just got his hands full right now.”

As we land, Kelta motions to the packs of gear in the seat behind her. “Take those. It’s the best of what I could scrape together. Keanna tossed in some dried meat strips. She would’ve come but is on guard in the tunnels below the mountain for welvirs.”

Kelta pulls up a scan of the underground facility not far ahead. “Nature’s ass marks tunnel access—two small mounds with a brushy hole in the middle. That will take you down to the passages where the device is. Not sure what you’ll find down there. But I would be on high alert for Solcrue and welvirs.”

“Understood.”

Sefina unbuckles her harness and gets up like she didn’t have surgery just hours ago. I’m glad to see she’s back to her old self, even the dissecting gaze that slides over me.

“Any chance you have extra ammunition?” I ask.

Kelta taps something on her dash that lights up a cabinet beside me. I open it and find a plethora of weapons, from blades and voltsticks to grav-punch guns and EMP grenades.

“Jackpot.”

Sefina collects a handful of magazines for her guns, then selects a midsize zembi from a drawer. “Can I?”

Kelta nods. “We found a crate on the ship. Just try not to lose it. Those are special Titan weapons.”

“Understood.”

Sefina straps it to her waist as I stock up ammo for my rifle and handguns, then snag a bag of EMP grenades. When I close the door, the cabinet seals and darkens.

“Good luck.”

“How do we get back to the BlazeStar?”

Sefina asks.

Kelta points to a wrecked radio tower. “Fury’s ship is cloaked on that mountaintop among the trees. But Menace can contact us when you’re out, and we’ll arrange for a pick-up. Clover wants the part ASAP. And we’re not going to leave without you.”

“Thanks Kelta.”

Sefina extends a fist to her. Kelta bumps it with hers.

“Be safe. Solcrue have advanced weapons in recent years. They’re scanning Titans and have built themselves a cyborg they call KillStar. She’s dangerous.”

“We have a menace,”

Sefina chuckles, filling me with a small sense of pride. “I’ve heard of her. We’ll keep an eye out.”

Kelta lowers the ramp. “Area is clear for the moment. Stay hidden.”

I descend first, scan the area, and then motion Sefina out once I’m sure the forest is safe.

The ramp closes behind her. Kelta waits for us to head into the trees before igniting her thrusters and hovering up into the sky. Her engines’ whirring drone fades with her ship’s dark shapes.

Seconds later, the warping hum of Skysprinter engines race after her.

Menace>>FeatherLite: Skysprinter hot on your tail.

FeatherLite>>Menace: thanks for the heads up.

Two seconds later, a gold rocket races across the sky, perpendicular to the ships, and turns the Skysprinter into flaming parts.

“Ooh.”

Sefina watches with me. “Was that—”

“Thruster, yeah.”

I watch him in awe as he rockets away. “Never seen him burn so brightly before.”

“Poppy said it was because of Kelta. She did something to him.”

Sefina shrugs. “Not like cybernetically. More of a side effect of bonding, I guess.”

I’m not sure that I want to find out what would happen to me if that’s the case. Can I become more of a beast than I already am?

“You know a lot about what’s going on for a human that hasn’t interacted with others much,” I say.

Sefina smirks and steadies the knife from her chest in her left hand, a gun in her right like a professional hunter. “I have to stay up to date on what’s going on if I’m to be any good as a guard. Poppy needed someone to talk to. We both got what we wanted. Now let’s scope out this bitch, get our shit, and leave this planet from hell behind.”

I post up beside her as we sneak through the forest with quiet steps, watching our surroundings for any signs of welvirs or otherwise. It’s reassuring to know she can see combatants in the dark as I can, but it also makes me curious. “Sefi, what do you see when you encounter a Solcrue?”

“They shimmer like welvirs but with a slight pulse of humans.”

She twists and scans behind us before continuing again. “They are my most vibrant enemy.”

Her body bumps my back, and it catches my breath in my lungs. A shadow in the woods makes me reach back and find her wrist.

Sefina turns to look up at me, then tracks my gaze to what I’m looking at.

“Titan,”

she whispers.

I try to ping my Brother but get no response. “Dark, no signal.”

Sefina digs through her bag and pulls out a set of binoculars. “It’s a trap.”

“How do you know?”

“Coilgun hole in his chest. No vines growing through him. It’s recent. By the way that the body is positioned, he wasn’t killed there. He was placed there.”

Sefina packs her binoculars away. “I’m sorry, Menace. Looks like Craze was the unlucky soul.”

I squint at my Brother. His digibadge reads Craze. “But Craze fell during the jailbreak. I remember. I saw him. I heard him. Most of us did.”

Something isn’t right.

Sefina’s dark brows knit. She scans the forest around us and motions to a spot above the access shaft. “Let’s post there so we can watch for a short time and see if anyone comes out.”

We hike up to the cluster of rocks and slide back so we can peer down at the access while keeping our eyes on the surrounding trees.

“So what you’re telling me is someone made a replica of Craze?”

Sefina asks.

I cringe at the thought. “I don’t know. But that Craze landed with Thruster. He never met up with any of us. Went DOI.”

“DOI?”

“Dark on Impact.”

I glance over in the direction my Brother lies and want desperately to pick him up and carry him somewhere safe where I can look through his broken parts, determine if he’s really gone, and if he’s really Craze.

“If he was a real Titan named Craze—”

“Sefi, don’t say that.”

“Hear me out,”

she whispers and taps her temple. “If that Craze was real, wouldn’t you have had two Craze codes appear in your coms before leaving Hyperion’s orbit? Wouldn’t one Craze sense the other? Wouldn’t you? Did you?”

I think back to the jailbreak. “I knew only of the Craze that fell on Hyperion. He was cut free by a Skysprinter rocket. I don’t know if he or the others survived. We are and always have been unique as any human and named as such. Two Crazes doesn’t make sense.”

“Isn’t it possible that someone saved parts of the plant or maybe an unfinished body and just finished it with whatever programming was left?”

“No. Titan’s plant was destroyed, obliterated,”

I tell her.

“There wasn’t a backup?”

she asks. “That doesn’t sound like the rebels I know. There were always backups for backups. They never put all their eggs in one basket. The main plant made the majority of Titans, I’m sure. But that can’t have been all of them.

“I know humans. I know how they get when they’re scared. They stockpile and stash things in places so safe that sometimes even they forget where they put them.”

“Sounds like a terrible plan.”

Sefina gets up.

I grab her. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To check out Craze’s body.”

I arch a brow.

“That came out wrong.”

Sefina plants a hand on her hip. “I mean to see what’s up with the situation around him.”

“I’m coming with you.”

Sefina stops me with a hand to my chest. But as she opens her mouth to speak, a strange noise leaves the tunnel access, making us both wince. “Oh, stars. What is that?”

My ultromotor charges in my chest. “A Titan in agony.”

As I’m about to check it out, the sound fades. When Sefina opens her eyes again, she notices the rips in the thighs of my tactical pants from welvir claws.

“When did that happen?”

“Yesterday.”

“No blood?”

“I heal fast.”

She shakes her head like she can’t think about it right now. “Stay here. I’ll be right back. If it’s a trap, it’s for Titans. I can’t afford to have you corrupted.”

I catch her arm.

Sefina glowers at me.

“Be careful.”

She unlocks her jaw and gives me a terse nod. “Don’t go anywhere.”

I watch her crawl down the mountainside and toward the decommissioned Brother. She scans the woods around her as she approaches his body.

Something about her looking so closely at another Brother has my insides squirming. I don’t like the situation. I feel like I’m leaving her vulnerable.

She turns to me in the distance as she approaches the body and motions a hand across her throat. He is definitely gone.

Sefina crouches beside him, keeping a gun in one hand. With the other, she reaches for my Brother and pulls something from his chest. I can’t see what it is at this distance, but it concerns me. Something is not right with Craze.

The sound of a Brother in agony comes from the access again. I get up and inch toward the shaft. I can’t help it because I can’t stand listening to it while I sit on my thumbs like an apathetic machine. I’m not.

Someone is hurting a Brother. I must find out what’s going on and stop it.

“Menace!”

Sefina calls to me as she sprints toward me. “Stop! Get away from that hole!”

But it’s too late. My body is moving on its own. It’s programmed into us to protect our brothers. I have to get to him.

I’m already dropping down inside the access. I don’t know where it leads, only that the room fills with light. A numbing hum sweeps over me with electricity that shocks me and thrusts my mind into oblivion.

Someone has lured me into their trap because they know exactly how Titans operate.

I have made a deadly mistake.