“Sure there was. I could’ve killed them.” She tossed her head, her greasy dark hair reflecting the red of the dirt. “Are you seriously going to pussyfoot around this mess? We have one goal here: to destroy the alien ship. If we have to take out a few guards to do it, I’m not going to shed any tears.”

“Those weren’t guards,” said Jasper coldly. “They were miners.”

I tried to remember and drew a blank. “Jasper, did you grow up here?”

“I did.” He leveled Mia with a dark, challenging glare.

She shrugged. “Friends of yours?”

“No.”

“Do they need to be?” Reed demanded. “If we start killing people, we’re exactly what the corporations say we are.”

Mia ignored that, keeping her focus on Jasper. “You loyal to Mars Mining?”

“No. My family is part of Tourism Rouge.”

“Then what does it matter?” she exploded, jabbing an accusatory finger in his direction. “Why are we even discussing this? I didn’t kill them! They’ll wake up in an hour with a headache like Kenzie’s. Is that really such a bad thing? You guys better grow up. There’s no way we’re going to destroy the ship without hurting someone. Maybe even killing them.”

“She has a point,” said Imani softly.

My jaw dropped, and I spun on her. She shrugged uncomfortably. “I’m not on board with killing anyone. But if those things arrive, they’re not going to share my scruples. I mean, I know it sounds awful, but if it comes down to a few dead guards versus an entire planet?”

Rune and Reed both shook their heads, but the others went strangely silent. I drew another deep breath. I expected Alexei to follow Mia’s lead, and I didn’t really know Jasper. But it troubled me to see Imani and especially Cage yield to her logic. It troubled me even more that I kind of understood her point. “All right,” I managed in a reasonable tone of voice. “I get what you’re saying. I do. And if we have to knock out a few guards, that’s fine. But can we please leave violence as a last resort? There are always unintended consequences. We don’t know who’s waiting for these people, or who will come looking for them. And when they regain consciousness with those headaches you mentioned, they’re going to report us.”

“We’ll be long gone by then,” Cage said. I spun to glare at him, and he held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not saying Mia was right. Hell, I’ll be honest: I don’t know what’s right anymore. Not sure I ever did. But what’s done is done, and we need to get out of here and destroy that ship. Fast.”

The sense of his words registered. How far away were the aliens? How fast could they travel? Would they set off in immediate pursuit of the ship once they received the signal? Would they even receive it? There were too many questions and not enough answers, and no one, apparently not even my father, was going to listen. Whatever we did, we had to do ourselves.