She squeezed her lids shut. Again, there was the lopsided grin, the voice saying, “What’re you doing, Mitz?” and the flash of silver as he raised his hand towards her.

“I shot first.” It was hard to speak, and she had to pause to wet her lips. “He would have killed me if I hadn’t. I went to court on murder charges.”

“You didn’t get a conviction, though,” Skye said.

“No. My lawyer told me to claim it was an accident. He said there wasn’t enough evidence that Captain Jones was colluding with the rebellion, and if I tried to claim I’d killed him in self-defence, I’d receive the death penalty. So I pleaded guilty to manslaughter. I didn’t know what else to do. The court accepted it, and I received a dishonourable discharge from my job.”

Mitzi opened her eyes and focussed on the ceiling tiles. “I was right, though. Six months after my case finished, it was proven that Captain Jones had been leaking classified documents to the rebellion for years. Because I’d pleaded guilty, though, I couldn’t appeal my case. So the manslaughter charge stayed, and with it died any chance of getting my job back.”

“That sucks,” Skye said, echoing Mitzi’s own words back at her.

Mitzi chuckled. “Sure does.”

Mir didn’t say anything, but she pulled something out of her pocket. Mitzi glanced at it and raised her eyebrows when she saw it was the hairband she’d given the girl on the ship. Mir pulled her hair up and tied it back tightly, still refusing to meet Mitzi’s eyes.

Across the room, Franc cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Captain?”

“Yeah?” Mitzi bounced to her feet, shaking off the stupor the conversation had cast over her. “Is it Adam?”

“No, no, it’s the suit—I think Nic is trying to talk to us.”

Mitzi jogged to her suit, which stood open, waiting for her to step back into it. “Nic?” she called into the helmet and heard his voice come back faint and tinny.

“Just thought you should know. I’ve been scanning the planet for heat signals, and I’ve just now gotten a response.”

“There’s someone alive here?”

“Uh, no, I wouldn’t say that exactly. The heat signals appeared out of nowhere. You know what that means, right?”

“Yeah.” Mitzi turned back to the room, surveying her team. Skye was still sitting with Mir. Ellen had joined Eoin on the lounge chair opposite Adam’s unconscious form, and Franc stood off to one side, a half-drunk bottle of water in one hand. “The Cymics are changing into their human forms.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Mitzi squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled. “How many?”

“I wish I could give you an accurate number, but the place is lighting up like a Christmas tree. There must be hundreds… possibly thousands of them.”

Right as Nic finished speaking, a series of deep, metallic clangs came from the door to their right. Three distinct knocks followed.

The atmosphere inside the room was so thick, Mitzi could have cut it with a knife. The team held their breath, watching the door and waiting. There was silence for half a minute, then a voice called, “Hello?”