“You know I can’t do that.” Not unless it was the only way to save Cormac. Then I would do it in a heartbeat and take my chances, promise or no promise. I would not allow Cormac to die. No way. He was mine. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of it.” I fought back tears and knew I was going to fail miserably. “Not the stupid bomb or the escape pod or you guys or the stupid Hive. None of it.”

“The new Hive armor absorbs the power from an ion blast. Cormac’s weapons will be useless against them.” Enzo had both palms flat against the energy barrier that separated us. I had to look way, way up to look him in the eye.

“How do you know that?”

“How do you think we got here? We were deployed Latiri 7 for a ground assault, and a unit of Hive ambushed us with their new armor. We ripped them to pieces, but there were just too many of them.”

“A fucking swarm.” Stryck spoke between hits. “I will kill them all.”

Oh my god. What was I supposed to do now? Ruk had refused to take a weapon. Cormac had two rifles and a blaster, but what good would that do him against twelve of these Hive things if they all had special armor? Cormac was big and scary. So was Ruk. But they were two guys fighting a dozen. Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Free us, Abby.”

I took a deep breath as I considered my options. An eerie silence enveloped me, and I looked around, realizing every single one of the Atlan prisoners was on his feet at the very edge of the energy fields that trapped them inside their cells…watching me.

Staring, really. Creepy. Intimidating. I had no idea what to do.

“How many of you are there?” I tried to see into the darkened corridor beyond this first section and found I could not.

“There are nine Warlords here. They had others, as well, in the other sections of this place. I do not know how many. But they broke quickly. The Hive took them away, and they did not return.”

“But you guys didn’t give in?”

“We are Warlords.” Enzo spoke those three words as if they would explain everything I needed to know. Luckily for him, I knew Tane and the others on Earth. I knew what a Warlord would do to protect his mate and his people.

“Cormac? Are you there?” I had to give him one more chance. Maybe he had turned his comms back on.

Silence was my only answer.

“Every moment you wait is another you give the Hive to kill your mate.”