Gareth touched Leo’s cheek. “Leo, I’m so sorry.”

“Why? You’re not the one who hit me.”

“It’s still my fault you got hurt. It’s my fault we weren’t together. My fault you’re here with these . . . criminals. I was supposed to look after you. Dad told me to, and I didn’t. I screwed up. The moment I closed that hatch I regretted it. I wanted to take it back, but it was too late. You were gone.”

“Not for good, though,” Leo said. “You found me. Just like you said you would. Besides . . . they’re not as bad as you think.” Leo glanced at the Baz, Kat, and Boo, still facing off with Zennia, caught up in a muted conversation of their own. “They actually saved me. They helped me.”

“Helped you what?”

Leo looked at his brother’s patch—at the planet Aykar at the center, dwarfing the smaller planets encircling it. There was so much Gareth probably didn’t know, so much Leo had to tell him, but one thing that mattered more than the rest. “They helped me find Dad.”

His brother shook his head. “What?”

“He’s alive, Gareth. I’ve seen him.”

Then Leo told his brother that he should probably sit down. That they should probably both sit down. Because this next part was a doozy.

It was Gareth who saw it first. If it weren’t for his brother, Leo might not have even noticed. And then he wouldn’t have had the chance to stop it.

They’d happened upon it by accident, playing on the swings in the backyard, their mother at work, their father squirreled away in his office, he and Gareth pretending they were deep space explorers, zipping from one system to the next, looking for new planets to invade. The swings were their starfighters, one for each of them. To activate the jump into hyperspace you had to swing as high as possible and then actually jump off. Gareth was fearless, naturally, arcing out over the yard at maximum elevation, always landing upright, unlike Leo, who slowed down just before taking the leap, giving himself a countdown and closing his eyes, then stumbling awkwardly once his feet found the ground. It didn’t stop him, of course—whatever his brother would do, he would do. Just not as well.

Gareth had just made his fourth jump, this time to the made-up planet of Targis, which was rumored to be populated by talking dinosaurs, when he crouched in the grass, staring intently.

“Hey, Leo, come check this out.”

Leo dragged his feet, slowing his momentum, then hopped off his swing with a stutter step. As he approached he could see tiny movement in the grass were his brother knelt.

“I think they found an intruder,” Gareth said.

Leo crouched next to him to get a better look. What he saw was startling enough for him to skip a breath.

A bug, a beetle judging by its hard coat of arms, black plated segments with yellow stripes like banners streaking down its back. The beetle was nearly the size of Leo’s thumb—the kind of thing that would give you a heart attack if you found it sitting in your bathtub—but out here its Goliath-like stature was no match for its attackers.