He was still lying. I knew it. Cage and Rune knew it too, judging by the way they glared at him. Did we have time to fight this particular battle? And could we afford to turn down allies right now, no matter how suspect?

Something clattered in the vents, and all four of us froze, sparks of terror reflecting in our eyes. But no one reacted more strongly than Liam. He jerked upright, still as a statue, his jaw gaping in unabashed horror.

That, more than anything, made my decision. I didn’t trust Liam. Not for a second. But he sure as hell wasn’t working with the aliens. “You’re actually going to stand with us?” I demanded.

He laughed shortly. “Hell, no. If I see one of those things, I’m running like hell.”

Well, that at least read honestly. “Then why should we take you along?”

“Because at least until I run, you get another gun. If we’re closed in, you’d better believe I’ll do whatever it takes to get us out of there. And for me, it’s try to escape with you or hide in here until the zemdyut find me or I starve to death.” My stomach rumbled loudly at the mention of food, and he gestured to a nearby shelf. “Help yourselves. It’s not enough to last much longer anyway.”

Barely daring to hope, I lunged for the cupboard to find an assortment of protein bars and bottled water. I handed them to the others and tore into a bar myself, still crouched on the floor beside the cupboard. It was chalky and overly sweet, but it tasted amazing at that moment. The offer of food went a long way toward making me trust Liam. Of course, I would probably have trusted Priya by this point if she’d handed me a candy bar.

Something at the rear of the cupboard caught my eye. I reached out and examined it. “Liam. Are these . . . ?”

“Stay-awake pills,” he said. “Uppers. Barely even illegal.”

I hesitated, meeting Cage’s eyes over my shoulder. He gestured, and I passed them over. “We’ve used these before,” he said, examining the bottle and showing it to Rune. “There didn’t seem to be any long-lasting effects.”

“No, but they made us jumpy,” Rune pointed out. “Given the current situation . . .”

I shrugged. “Can we take them?” I asked Liam.

“I’m not planning on coming back here.”

I nodded at his weaponry, the cutlass and the musket. “Do those actually work?”

“Naturally.” He sniffed, apparently deeply offended, and drew the musket to give me a closer look. It was a high-powered laser rifle, one probably costing hundreds of thousands of credits, cleverly designed to look like an antique. I had no idea why anyone would do something like that to a perfectly good rifle.

“Okay, once and for all,” said Rune. “Why does it look like that? And why do you, for that matter?”