Ahiga leaned close to my ear. “You going to be okay from here out? Better if you show a strong front. They’ll be watching.”

I knew all about faking it. I could suck up any signs of weakness until I got to a spot where I could rest. I wasn’t sure what was going to be on the other side of that door, but I had to be ready for anything. I stepped away from him. “How long will I be like this?”

“For anyone else, I’d say they’d be fine in an hour, but I’m not sure how long it’ll last for you. The drugs should process out of your system in twenty-four hours. If you’re not better by then, we’ll figure something out.”

I gave him a small nod, hoping he was right. That this overall dead weight feeling in my body would fade and that I’d feel more like myself soon. Because I wasn’t sure I could take it much longer.

He entered a code in the panel beside the door, and it slowly opened. Heat rolled into me, and I stumbled back a step. One second in it and my tank top was already sticking to me. I pulled it away from my skin and shot a look at Ahiga.

“We’re on a volcano planet. Better get used to the heat quick,” Ahiga said.

For some idiotic reason, I’d been expecting to see the surface of Abaddon when I stepped out of the ship. Which made no sense. But I was kind of disappointed that I didn’t even get a glimpse of it. The entire ship was swallowed up by the windowless hangar. It could easily hold downtown Albuquerque inside of it, skyscrapers and all.

This was going to be my new home, and it was important that I took note of everything I could. I was in a whole new place, and surviving meant observing everything I could about my surroundings. So I kept my eyes open as I stepped out of the ship and onto the catwalk.

Even one foot out of the ship and it was suffocatingly hot. “Is the AC running?”

Ahiga grunted, pointing to rows on rows of square blocks along the walls of the hold. “Those units are going all the time, but they just let our ship in. It’ll take a couple hours for the hot air to circulate out and bring the temp back down. And by then, another ship will be here. So mostly it stays this way. It’s only 107 right now.”

That was a pretty specific temperature. “How do you know?”

He pointed to a vidscreen by the large bay doors. It said the temp in bright red numbers.