Dex took a few steps forward, surveying her face beneath her helmet for the telltale silver veins, but there was no trace of them on her dark complexion. She looked him up and down as well, as if she, too, were trying to see through to the blood beneath his skin.

“Who do you serve?” Klarisa asked pointedly.

Dex shrugged. “It depends on the time of day. Griss in the morning, Jurum in the evening.”

The woman stared back at him for a moment, her comrades utterly silent behind her. Then she burst into laughter. “Arez, you sorry bastard. You haven’t changed a lick since we last saw each other.”

“Much to your satisfaction,” Dex said, finally allowing himself to step forward and engulf her in a tight hug.

He hadn’t seen Klarisa since they’d graduated from the Academy. She’d also gone on to become a Guardian, but their paths hadn’t crossed since he’d joined the Bounty Hunter’s branch. He felt a twinge of guilt for not following up with her these past few years, but this surprise reunion gave him the first bit of hope he’d had in three weeks.

“Sorry to ruin the moment, but what’s going on?” Andi said, coming up next to them. Her hand rested lightly on Gilly’s double-triggered gun at her hip, though Dex was relieved to see she wasn’t yet reaching for her twin swords.

“Andi, this is Klarisa, a fellow Guardian,” Dex told her. “We attended the Academy together.”

Andi remained tense, despite his words. “Who are you with?” she asked Klarisa.

Klarisa looked back at her group. “We’re with the Underground, led by Arachnid. But we choose our own paths—and control our own minds.”

“Did you bring my ship down?” Andi demanded.

“We’ve been doing that with any ships that enter this airspace,” Klarisa replied apologetically. “We’ve saved many Unaffecteds this way. Some people were traveling when the attacks happened and weren’t infected with the virus.”

“You almost killed us, and you ruined my ship.”

Dex knew then that Andi and Klarisa would never be friends.

“Usually the ships we bring down are in better shape than yours was,” she explained, surveying the damaged hull of the Marauder.

“My ship was perfectly fine before you interfered,” Andi hissed, glaring at the woman. Dex tried not to snort at the obvious lie. “So you’ve been doing this a lot? How did you know we weren’t a ship full of Xen Pterran soldiers?”

“We’ve been monitoring the flight patterns of Nor’s ships, and none of them have taken the route yours did. They usually come and go from Craatia, so we assumed your ship was an anomaly, like the other Unaffected ships we’ve encountered.”

Andi nodded. “Where is your base?”