I closed my eyes against the agony of memory. “That day haunts me, too.” A piece of the truth slipped out. “I lost half my squad trying to disable the bombs, and the rest of us barely made it out because Command left us to die. I resigned the same day.”

Torran frowned. “But they flaunted you for months after that.”

A bitter, self-mocking smile twisted my lips. “I’m aware. It was the only way to save Eli, Kee, and Lexi.” I slid out of his arms and away from the horrors of memory. “So you will need to shield us. Can you shield everyone?”

The change of subject wasn’t subtle, but Torran didn’t call me on it. His fingertips hovered in the air for a second before he dropped his arm. “I can’t shield all of you and communicate and fight. We’ll have everyone pair up. My team members are strong enough to shield multiple people, but it’s easiest one-on-one.”

I turned back to the blueprint. “How many Valoffs are we going to find in the bunker?”

Torran’s expression hardened. “I hope none.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Does that seem likely?”

“No.” He stared at the display. “Two or three mid-level civilian telepaths is most likely. In the worst case, it’ll be at least two telepaths and a telekinetic, all military trained.”

I rocked back and forth between my toes and heels. The thought of a telekinetic waiting for us in an underground bunker was the stuff of nightmares. “Can you subdue another telekinetic?”

His smile was quick and fierce. “Yes. But it is highly unlikely that it will be necessary.”

I pointed at the cross-section of the underground bunker. Lexi hadn’t been able to uncover a floor plan, so this was all we had. It didn’t tell us how wide the bunker was, just how deep. “If you were using this as your base, where would you be?”

Torran pointed at a large room in the middle. “Somewhere on this level. It’s easily defendable from either direction and most likely where bunks are.”

I nodded my agreement. That’s where I would set up, too. Now we just had to figure out how to get in without getting killed.

Our first training session proved that the Valoffs were so used to telepathic communication that it was going to be a problem for the humans in the group. Sure, my team could communicate with our comms, but more often than not, we ended up going a completely different direction than Torran’s team because our base strategies were so different.