Reath would have strongly preferred to move quickly, because the Drengir continued to close in around them. However, his obvious plan of escape seemed not to concern them, which meant there was some serious flaw Reath hadn’t thought through yet.

If it’s that big a problem, I’ll find out about it soon enough, he told himself.

He wanted to get them talking, both to learn what he could and so they’d finally stop referring to him as meat. “So,” he said, “are the Drengir from this world and some of you traveled to the station? Or did you settle this planet by leaving the station on one of the hyperspace pods?” To Reath, the pods looked like an automated relay, but he wanted the Drengir to confirm that.

What he said interested them, he could tell—but they still didn’t acknowledge him. One of them said, “Others of our kind remain on the station. It has seen them.”

The Drengir leader hissed, which seemed to be their version of a thoughtful sound. “Then they were not killed. Only dormant. If they are dormant, they can be freed.”

“Can we do it without falling dormant ourselves?” asked another Drengir. “Why should we risk ourselves for the weak?”

In response, the Drengir leader lashed out with his thorn whip, forcing the speaker to crouch submissively. “We do not risk ourselves for the weak. We risk ourselves to learn if we can again use the pods. If so, we can resume our hunt. At last we will find fresh meat.”

“Okay, so, that’s just one mention of ‘meat’ too many, and we’re going to go now,” Reath said, nudging the tottering Dez more strongly toward the first pod.

“We will be able to hunt!” A Drengir pointed a moldy green finger at Dez. “This one has told us that nothing holds us back any longer.”

When did Dez start giving Drengir pep talks? But by then Reath understood that Dez wasn’t himself and hadn’t been since almost the moment of his transport. He’d obviously sustained a serious head injury, but that had been only the start of his problems. The Force alone knew what Dez might’ve been drugged with or interrogated about.

He faced the Drengir evenly as he kept edging Dez farther and farther back. They’d almost reached the launch mechanism.

“Once the Amaxines were our enemies,” said the Drengir leader to those who surrounded him. His followers all rustled in apparent agreement. “They built this structure to better fight us. Then we found it, and used it to fight them. They abandoned the station, left it to us. Our victory!”