Dex’s words echoed in her mind as she stumbled into the small hallway leading toward the bridge, reverberating through her skull as she held her palm up against the blue access panel to the right of the door.

They joined with Nor.

Andi shook her head, willing away the treacherous notion. Her crew would never join with the queen of Xen Ptera, no matter how threatened. But what had Dex said about them...changing?

Then the door slid open, and all thoughts were driven from her mind as Andi darted inside, quickly scanning her palm on the interior access panel and entering a command to seal off the bridge. She exhaled, for what seemed to be the first time since she woke up, as the door slid shut behind her. It wouldn’t keep Dex out forever—after all, the ship had been his for years—but he’d still have a hell of a time getting in here once he came to.

For a moment, Andi rested her forehead against the cool metal of the door, which was at such odds with her flaming flesh. She closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath, then turned to look at the row of seats where her crew had once sat.

Seats that were now so terribly empty.

Her vision, once murky from the drugs, slowly started to clear as Andi made her way toward the front of the bridge. A groan slipped its way past her lips when she finally sat down in the pilot’s seat. It felt so wrong sitting there, as if she were taking the space that had always belonged to Lira. A space that she had no right to claim, after what had happened to Kalee. But Andi pushed her discomfort aside, replacing it with the fierce need to get her girls back. How she felt about piloting didn’t matter—not when their lives were at risk.

That was, if Queen Nor hadn’t killed them already.

Even as the thought crossed her mind, she vanquished it immediately. They were alive. They had to be. She couldn’t afford to think otherwise; couldn’t deal with that pain. It would hurt more than being skinned alive and slowly burned until her bloody flesh crisped over.

She had to save them, even if she got herself killed in the process.

Trying and dying was better than not trying at all.

With every second counting against her, Andi willed her aching arms up onto the console and slowly, painstakingly entered the coordinates for Arcardius. The navigation holoscreen began to flicker before her eyes, highlighted by the swirling, shimmering clouds outside the varillium walls of the ship.

The dense fog of color obscured Andi’s view of the stars, and the sight of it sent a shiver of dread down her spine. “Memory?” she asked breathlessly.