The gravity kicked in with a whoosh, and I tumbled to the floor, fortunately landing feetfirst. Cage clattered beside me, less lucky. He swore loudly as he landed on his shoulders, but he also rolled neatly to his feet and gave me a cocky grin. I shook my head in response, fighting a grin of my own.

We collected ourselves, everyone coming to terms with the last few minutes. “Did they even ask for your ID?” Imani asked at last, her voice weak. I glanced over to find her healing a cut on her arm. It looked painful, but she didn’t appear fazed.

“Nope. Guess their attention was elsewhere.” The pirate chuckled.

“Fantastic.” Mia crossed the room in three steps, her face a barely contained explosion of rage. “Then I think it’s about time you answered some questions.”

He pivoted in his chair, unstrapped himself, and leaned back, folding his long, lanky legs at the ankle. “It’s not enough that I just saved your lives?”

“Actually, no, it is not. So, let’s start with the basics. Who are you, why did you help us, and where are we going?”

The rest of us gathered behind her. Mia might be overly aggressive, but she asked reasonable questions. For all we knew, this guy was some sort of Omnistellar bounty hunter who’d smuggled us out of Mars to turn us in. We might have leaped from the frying pan into the fire.

The man sighed and jumped to his feet. Up close, he wasn’t much older than us, maybe in his early twenties. He gave Mia a mock bow. “Liam Kidd, at your service,” he announced. “I helped you destroy that ship before it attracted any more of the aliens, which is a very worthy deed. And I am heading home, where, alas, we shall part ways. You’re on your own once we reach Obsidian.”

A resounding silence answered his pronouncements. Eyes shot open. Mouths worked furiously. For my part, I merely rolled my eyes. Obsidian was a fairy tale, a stupid story kids told when Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5 and the other anticorporate media didn’t fill their rebellion quota.

But then I caught sight of Alexei, his face twisted in a snarl. “We are not going to Obsidian,” he said, danger in his tone.

“What do you know about the aliens?” Rune demanded at the same time. “How do you know about them?”

Her question echoed in the cargo bay, maybe the most important question of all.

The pirate—Liam—sighed. “Let’s discuss this in a friendlier setting, shall we?”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Alexei stepped forward. For the first time in a long while, I remembered him as he’d been when we first met: physically imposing, dangerous, and aggressive. His shoulders seemed to expand to fill the room, his eyes hard flecks of steel above a jaw so sharp it looked like it could draw blood. “Let’s talk about Obsidian, where we are not headed.”

“What’s Obsidian?” Imani demanded.