Leo thought about it. Shook his head. “That’s dumb. I would have written about Earth. That would have been the first song I wrote.”

His father laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing. Just—your mother said the same thing. That he’d ignored the very best one.”

For some reason that pleased Leo, being told he was like his mother. Though he pretty much knew that already. He pulled the pillow even tighter to his chin and then nestled into his father’s side as the music got louder again. He heard his father sniff and looked up in time to see him blink away a tear.

“I don’t know, kiddo. Maybe she was right. Some days . . .” He took a breath. “Some days I wonder if it will ever be worth it, you know?” He put one arm around Leo, the other conducting, cuing in the violins. “We used to talk, your mom and I, about the way things were and the way they used to be. And she’d say that sometimes she wished the Aykari had never found us. That we never knew they existed. That it was better before. She was like you. For her, the Earth was always enough. This house. Her garden. You boys. Me. She said that was all she wanted. It always made me feel bad, for wanting more. And now that she’s gone . . .”

His father didn’t finish the sentence. Leo didn’t press him to. Instead they sat and finished the song, both of them afraid to go back to sleep, knowing the nightmares were still there, waiting for them.

After a moment a new song came on, low, heavy strings striking the same ominous note over and over again, building in intensity, the horns sneaking in like an animal’s warning growl. The song made Leo uneasy.

“What’s this one called?” he asked.

His father stared through the glass door into the darkness. “This one is called ‘Mars,’” he said. “‘Bringer of War.’”

They were here.

Suddenly the cockpit of their borrowed Aykari transport was cast in a long shadow, and Leo found himself staring up at the most massive Djarik ship he’d ever seen, its egg-shaped hull blocking the light of the sun and a thousand other, more distant stars, eclipsing even the topaz halo of the Earth itself.

“What is that?” Gareth asked.

“It’s big, is what it is,” Kat answered.

It was easily five times the size of the Coalition cruiser—the one Kat said could tear their little transport apart. The Djarik flagship was accompanied by several craft of a more modest size, but it was clear they were there only to defend the queen bee should she come under attack. This was the ship that would destroy the Earth. Leo suddenly went cold, knowing full well that it could. Knowing exactly how.

“Incoming transmission,” Kat said. A holo emitter embedded in the ship’s console activated, projecting the image of a glitchy figure slowly coming into focus.

Leo expected to see a Djarik, dressed in officer’s attire or decked out in battle armor. He expected a spike-frilled jaw and a thick hide made of silver scales. Black reptilian eyes belying both keen intelligence and extreme prejudice. He expected something alien and menacing.