She embraced the chance, lunging at another guard with her small hidden blade. It didn’t matter the size, so long as the blade struck true. The guard dropped beneath her attack, blood spraying as he fell, staining the metallic exterior of the pod.

Andi dropped to the ground, wrists still cuffed as a guard swung the butt of his rifle toward her head. He missed, narrowly avoiding hitting Darai instead.

Another guard leveled his rifle at her, finger poised over the trigger.

“I said don’t shoot!” Darai howled. “Get the others, but leave the general to me!”

He had Nor in front of him, shielding his body with hers, the coward.

Andi turned her gaze to the old man, spinning the small blade around in her fingertips until the tip pointed at him. “You,” she snarled as she strode forward. “You are not going to take my title. You deserve to die for what you’ve done.”

“Go ahead—try to kill me,” Darai said, glaring at her from behind Nor’s frozen form. “You won’t succeed.”

He closed his eyes as if he were concentrating, a rather strange reaction to being faced with an enemy and a sharpened blade. Andi realized, too late, what he was about to do, as Nor’s frozen form suddenly lunged forward, her body moving like a trained fighter’s. She swung her leg upward, then down to arch over Andi’s shoulder, just over the spot where Valen had stabbed her during Ucatoria. The hit struck hard and true.

Andi fell to the ground, pain lancing through her as she rolled with her hands pressed to her chest, magnacuffs gouging against her skin. The old wound screamed with phantom pain as she rolled to her feet, blade still held carefully in her grip.

Andi circled, sidestepping Nor.

“You cannot defeat me,” Nor said, but Andi knew the words weren’t hers. They came from her lips, but they belonged to the puppetmaster she was unwittingly protecting. Her eyes rolled back into her head, revealing only the whites as she lifted her hands, curled them into fists and smiled. It looked exactly like the grin on the old man’s face as he stood beside the pod, eyes closed, motionless. All the while, the two-headed scientist continued her work on Valen.

The moment it was completed, the moment he was uploaded, the satellite would be cast into the sky. And then all Darai would need to complete his mission was Andi’s General access, to unlock the weapons network.

“Let go of her mind,” Andi growled. “Release Valen and Nor from your power.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Nor said back, speaking Darai’s words. “You have one more chance, Androma, to hand over your title and stop this fight.”

“And why would I do that?” Andi asked.