The wounded beetle whipped and writhed in Leo’s grip, its four remaining legs pistoning helplessly.

“What are you going to do with it?” Gareth asked.

“I’m saving it,” Leo said. “I’m going to find it a new home.”

He glanced around until his eyes fell on the cherry tree across the yard. Hopefully it was far enough away that the posse of ants wouldn’t go hunting for it. Leo carried the squirming bug over and gently set it at the base of the tree, depositing it on a soft, pink petal like a babe in a crib. The beetle sat there, motionless, and Leo thought he was too late, that its injuries had overwhelmed it and his efforts were for nothing, but then its spindly legs began to move again, and the armored warrior hobbled off its flowery bed, slowly making its way toward the fence line.

Gareth stood next to Leo, watching. “Congratulations. You’re a hero.”

Leo thought he was being sarcastic, but he couldn’t be sure. “You think I wasn’t supposed to?”

“I don’t think there was a supposed to in this case.”

The beetle struggled to pull itself over a tree root with only four of its legs. “Do you think he’s going to make it?”

“I don’t know, Leo,” Gareth said. “But you gave it a chance, at least.” He reached over and mussed Leo’s hair. “Come on. We better get back to our ships. I think I hear dinosaurs stomping this way.”

Leo took one last look at the insect now disappearing into the grass, then turned and chased his brother back to the swings, already one step behind.

For once, Gareth was the one playing catch-up.

They sat with their backs to the wall of the hangar, a battlefield of blasted metal, pieces of mining bot strewn about. Skits was still parked beside the body of Nine, though she had given up on trying to put him back together. A song Leo didn’t recognize moaned softly out of her speaker as she gently caressed Nine’s blackened torso with one of her extendable claws.

The others still hovered around Crayt while Kat finished her patchwork, rubbing on the same ointment that Leo had once had to smear on Boo, the stuff that made the Queleti itch. The healing balm was of Aykari design, meaning Crayt was, in some way, getting a taste of his own medicine. He at least seemed to be taking it better than Boo had. Meanwhile, Baz and Zennia appeared to be locked in an intense discussion, though they were keeping their voices down and, perhaps even more surprising, their pistols holstered.

Leo wondered if they were talking about him. Or him and Gareth both. Gareth was Zennia’s bounty, after all. Her prize. He’d already told Leo how she’d found him at a Coalition outpost, using her former military connections to track him down the moment he appeared in their database. How he’d begged her to let him go so that he could try to find his brother. How she’d said that he was in luck, because she was looking for Leo as well. Not to mention that she had a good idea where to find him.