Kylee stared in amazement. She’d never been inside a shuttle before, let alone on the command deck. Sure, she’d seen pictures, but this was for real and magical in spite of the bloody corpses slumped in the oversized seats. She tried to imagine what the instrument panels must have looked like, all filled with glowing holo images, and how the controls worked. Let alone what it must have been like to look through those now filthy-windows—covered with spattered bits of dried blood and vegetation—and see stars. Behind the pilot and copilot’s seats she found a row of three plush high-tech conforming seats. She punched one with her fingers, feeling the cushioning sink and flex.

She turned then, stepping out of the way as Falise climbed down the extendable ladder from the escape hatch. Rounding the seats, Kylee got her first real look at the white-haired woman, although she didn’t look more than thirty. She was slim, her face perfectly formed, lips thin. Something wasn’t right about her blue eyes . . . until it hit Kylee that like Dek and Falise’s eyes, they’d been genetically altered.

No expression crossed the woman’s face as she and Kylee stared eye-to-eye.

“Who are you?” Kylee asked, resettling her rifle back on its sling.

“She won’t answer,” Falise told her after having stopped long enough to check the bodies in the command chairs. “She’s the IG’s Third. She’s an analyst, genetically and cybernetically engineered to manipulate data. Think of her as a human computer.”

“Wow. Must be really fun on a date, huh?”

“Her only sexual function is to service the IG,” Falise said as she pushed past Kylee and stepped through the lock into the cargo compartment.

“That’s fucked up.” Kaylee stared curiously. The woman didn’t seem to care, just looked blankly back with those too-blue eyes.

Falise, taking one last look, said, “It’s for the IG’s protection. If he restricts sexual activity to members of his Four, he can’t be blackmailed, biased, or manipulated.”

Kylee waved a hand in front of the Third’s face, seeing the pupils react, but no other change in the woman’s features. Creepy as that was, the Third turned on her heel to follow Kylee into the cargo cabin. The lights had a dim glow, while most of the illumination came from a long tear in the right side of the fuselage. In the first row of seats, a guy in a high-collared, official-looking, medium-gray jacket, sat with his head back on the rest. He appeared to be in pain. The guy’s hair was close-cropped and silver; kind of looked like a helmet the way it was cut. His thick jaw was knotted, lips pinched, and when he opened his eyes, he fixed Kylee with the kind of black-eyed stare that pinned her like an invertebrate on a study board.