Alarms went off again. Someone had spotted us. Jasper raised his hands and wrinkled his brow, and the door crumpled in on itself. “That should buy us a few minutes. Now what?”

The original plan involved swiping explosives from the mines. Obviously, the midmorning attack on our room obliterated that idea. I’d had some vague idea of Alexei simply overheating the ship until it exploded, but standing in front of it, it was clear I’d been dreaming. It was too big, too sleek, made to withstand weapons fire in the vacuum of space. No amount of flames would damage it. “Maybe we can find where the signal is coming from?” I asked hopefully. “Destroy that instead of the entire ship?”

Rune shook her head. “I tried that when I first spotted the signal. If I’d found it, I might have been able to deactivate it.”

We all stood stupidly staring at the thing, and I cursed myself. The others relied on me to come up with something. They’d probably assumed I had a plan in mind when in truth, I hadn’t been sure we’d make it this far. What were we supposed to do now?

A heavy sigh came from the other side of the tarmac. We all spun, raising our weapons and targeting the area. “You’re surrounded by fuel,” came an annoyed voice, and a man strode around the corner of a nearby ship. “Use it to obliterate that pain-in-the-ass ship.”

We stared in silence for another moment before Cage found his voice and asked the question on everyone’s mind. “Excuse me,” he said, “but exactly who the hell are you?”

THIRTEEN

THE MAN STEPPED INTO THE light. He had smooth olive skin and a loose black ponytail and, disconcertingly, a patch over his left eye. He looked like someone’s modern vision of a pirate, right down to the loose white shirt, tight black pants, and tall boots. A pistol and an actual sword hung at his side. All told, he could have stepped out of the pages of Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5, and at the sight of him I was almost overcome by longing, brief but painful in its intensity, for my old life, when evil corporations existed only in the pages of fiction.

“Does it matter who I am?” He lifted his hands in surrender, although I got a strong sense he was mocking us. “I’m giving you the answer to your problem. Fill the ship with fuel and have your fiery friend there blast it to kingdom come. Or would you prefer to stand around waiting for security to break through that door?”

We exchanged glances, but he was right. “Do it,” I ordered, without stopping to think that they might not want to obey me.

To my surprise, no one argued. Weapons were holstered, and everyone sprang into action. “Can you lift those barrels?” Cage demanded of Jasper, already on the move.