Lexi flatly refused to accept telepathic communication from any of the Valoffs. It was her decision, so after a few experiments, I became the link between the two teams. Kee fitted Torran with an earpiece so he could hear our comms. It had a built-in mic, but he forgot to reply aloud often enough that we eventually nixed it. Instead, Torran looped me in to his telepathic orders, and I relayed them over the comm to my team. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked well enough.

Luckily, the Valovian armor was much easier to get used to. It was lighter and more flexible than the armor we normally wore, and the protection was even better. We didn’t look very much like Valoffs, not with our curvier builds and variable heights, but at least we were unrecognizable.

And it might be enough to cause another Valoff to hesitate.

It took several tries, but we finally moved enough as a team that we successfully cleared the shared hallway and all of its various rooms without anyone stepping into the line of fire or moving in the wrong direction.

Torran led, and I was positioned directly behind him. Half of his commands I could relay via hand signals and skip the comms altogether. Everyone had paired up with the most vulnerable team members—Kee and Havil—roughly in the middle. Lexi and Nilo were behind me, followed by Havil and Anja, then Kee and Varro. Eli and Chira brought up the rear.

If we had to split up, Eli and Chira would take Havil, Anja, Kee, and Varro while Nilo and Lexi joined Torran and me.

Torran didn’t have anywhere to practice with ranged weapons, so we decided that we would use our own plas pistols and rifles. Valovian weapons weren’t that different, and we’d had some limited experience with them thanks to the war, but a delicate rescue mission wasn’t the place to test our knowledge. We’d spent countless hours with our weapons. Familiar was better.

By the time we stripped off our armor and did a debrief, it was nearly dinnertime. Torran cooked us a local meal that was as delicious as it was unfamiliar. We’d all taken to sitting in the same seats we’d had on Starlight and yesterday’s grim silence had been replaced by laughter and teasing.

But as the sun sank behind the horizon, my tension started climbing. Kee, Lexi, Nilo, and Varro planned to visit the monitoring station as soon as it was fully dark. Kee and Lexi hadn’t been able to find a remote way to override the surveillance system, so they were going to have to get close to breach it.

I knew they could take care of themselves, but I never liked it when my team was in danger—especially when I wasn’t there to watch their backs.