Maybe I was crazy. I was asking Lorne and Declan to risk their lives for me. My only plan was to blow up a moon. I should be worried that hitting those crystals had nearly killed me the first time, and I was about to go back for round two when I still wasn’t fully healed, but I wasn’t. If I didn’t come back from this, I was okay with that.

I should also be worried about starting a war, but I wasn’t anymore. What Lorne had said about the war being inevitable had set in. He’d made sense. SpaceTech was evil. It had to be stopped.

Above and beyond everything else, I couldn’t carelessly leave good people to die.

Ahiga. Audrey. Tyler. Santiago. They’d be traitors for helping me. For hiding me. I couldn’t run when I could save them. No matter what happened to me, I was going to save them.

“Lorne and Rysden both said the war is coming. We might as well start things off with a bang.” I shrugged, trying to play off the enormity of what I was saying, but I couldn’t really. I’d never blown up anything, and I’d definitely never started a war.

“And blowing up the moon qualifies?” my father asked.

“I’d say so. Should be a pretty loud bang when it’s all done, which should give Declan more than enough time to get away from the base with my friends. There should also be enough time for SpaceTech to evacuate the rest of the base if the moon crashes into the planet, but it’s a gamble.”

“Doesn’t hurt that it might be fun to beat Jason at his own game, too.” Lorne grinned. “I’m in.”

“Declan?” I asked.

He gave me a grave nod. “Anything you need. I’m there. I owe you. I’ll never stop owing you. But this? This is easy. We can make this work. I don’t want to leave Ahiga there any more than you do.”

“It means leaving SpaceTech.” And his family. He’d once said that he didn’t feel any allegiance to them, and I wondered if that was true.

“It was only a matter of time, really. I wish I’d been able to change things, but I can help more with the Aunare now. But I do have one problem with your plan.” He leaned toward the camera, his gaze staring into me. “Are you well enough to do this?”

I opened my mouth to tell him that I was fine, but Declan held up his hand.

“No. No. Don’t you dare lie to me. I watched you on that moon. I was with you the whole time.” His voice was cold and furious. “I know what it did to you.”

I straightened up, ready to defend myself. “I don’t lie.”