“But I didn’t see any of them in the market while I searched for Cage, who I didn’t find, obviously. I think they’ve withdrawn.”

Great. We were probably going to walk into a situation where as many as five trained bounty hunters, armed bounty hunters, held Rune captive. I didn’t think it was pushing things to guess they had Imani, Reed, and Jasper as well. And we had what to fight them? Fire, which would hurt our friends as badly as anyone else. I could speak to them in different languages, which was awesomely useless. Mia, though . . . could she slip in, vanquish them, and sneak out again? “No one knows you can share your invisibility. It’s not listed in your file,” I thought out loud as we emerged from the marketplace, unmolested. “That might work to our advantage.”

“Maybe.” Mia set her face in determination. We took the stairs at a run, Alexei’s bulk clearing a path through the crowds. We drew a lot of unnecessary attention, but did it really matter at this point? I wished we could get a message to Cage. I wished Mia had found him in the marketplace. His speed would definitely come in handy in this situation, and I knew how he’d react once he realized Rune was in danger and he wasn’t here to protect her. I’d simply have to stand in as best I could.

Mia vanished at will. Cage moved at the speed of light. Alexei made fire. Jasper dismantled buildings. Back home, I’d always been top of my class, working myself into exhaustion to master every skill. Here, no matter what I did or how hard I tried, I was never anything but a burden. The realization struck me with the force of a physical blow. Maybe the best thing I could do was surrender myself and give my friends a chance to escape.

With that unpleasant thought in mind, I followed Alexei to the very bottom of the stairs and into the docking ring. This must have been an addition to Obsidian after the criminal element took over, because it definitely didn’t resemble any Omnistellar design I’d ever seen. We emerged through what I thought would be the emergency airlock on Sanctuary into a large, donut-shaped area reminiscent of the alien ship. Doors spaced at intervals along the walls marked berthed ships. We’d seen it before for all of twelve seconds. Now I took a good look and confirmed my first instinct. This was a hasty but well-built affair, tacked on sometime after the criminals seized Obsidian.

For now, all seemed quiet. People milled about, working and talking and laughing. No one shouted or screamed. “Bounty hunters can’t be popular on Obsidian,” I said nervously. “Maybe we can convince someone to help us.”