Mia hesitated, not looking at her, then nodded. “Thanks,” she muttered. That seemed to satisfy Imani, and we entered the cargo bay to find Liam and Reed arguing over something. Reed blocked the controls, arms spread wide, a look of terror on his face, and Liam . . .

Liam stood in front of him pointing a pistol at his chest.

I’d barely registered the pistol before Mia raced across the room, catching Liam’s arm and shoving it into the air, stomping on his instep in the same movement. Alexei leaped to her assistance, but she didn’t need him: by the time he arrived, Liam was on the floor with Mia’s foot on his throat, the gun trained on his face. “Why don’t you go ahead and move?” she suggested pleasantly. Her every limb trembled with restrained violence, as if eager to compensate for her recent disclosures.

Liam scowled and sputtered something.

“Mia,” said Cage, “I think you’re choking him.”

She considered that for a moment, then stepped back, releasing him but keeping him in her sights. “Want to repeat yourself?”

Liam sat, gagging and choking theatrically. “Bloody hell.”

“What’s going on?” Imani demanded of Reed.

He scowled. “I said not to open the doors until all of you arrived. He said he was getting off this ship now. I told him to wait, and he pulled a gun on me.”

Liam sniffed daintily, rubbing his throat. “Well, joke’s on you, kiddo. That gun’s not loaded.”

Mia hesitated, then twisted her wrist to check. The second she did, Liam lunged for her. He encountered Alexei’s fist halfway through his leap and collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

“It is so loaded,” Mia said crossly.

Alexei sighed and glared at Liam’s unconscious form. “Guess we’ll have to open the doors sometime.”

We quickly filled Reed in on what Alexei had told us. He responded with his characteristic optimism: “We have enough fuel to get us back to Mars,” he suggested.

“And what then?”

“I don’t know. Hide in the desert until we run out of life support? It’s sounding like the best option at the moment.”

Rune sighed and flicked her fingers toward the console. Gears shifted, and the doors slid open. The rest of us withdrew, weapons held loosely, ready for action.

The seals parted, and three uniformed security guards strode inside, looking so official that for a moment I almost could have been on a corporate station. Three more stood in the docking ring, weapons drawn. They all stared at Liam’s unmoving body. The man at the front of the group scowled. “We ordered him to open the doors some time ago.”

Alexei shrugged. “He fell.”

The guard didn’t seem amused. “You will follow us.”

We exchanged unhappy glances, but there wasn’t much choice. We followed them.