It’s not him—

She slammed the weapon across its face again.

—It’s not—

And again.

—Di.

The Messier twisted to look at her, half of its face buckled in, eyes sparking, and she gritted her teeth, raised the mace over her head, and brought it down one last time.

Die.

The Messier dropped to the ground and didn’t get back up. She pushed the palm of her hand against her eyes to wipe away the tears.

A heart—the Great Dark was looking for a heart. She concentrated on that as she dug into the uniform of the Messier and found the key to her handcuffs and undid them, rubbing at the marks on her freed wrists.

Then she took the steel dagger from the Messier’s frozen grip and slipped it into her boot.

She had to keep calm. Another Messier must have had the voxcollar key. Even though it was deactivated, she still wanted to get this bloody death necklace off her, then find a way out of here.

Suddenly, something bumped against her shoulder. She glanced up, tensing to strike—

It was a service bot, its bulbous lens narrowing to her.

No—it was E0S!

She recognized it from the dent in the top left corner of its cubed head where Di had “accidentally” slammed a door on it.

It beeped and extended something to her. A voxcollar remote. She took it. “E0S, thank the Goddess, you’re the best fifty coppers on discount I’ve ever spent.” She pressed it against the lock on her collar. With a click, it released and fell to the ground. She gave a sigh, rubbing her throat.

As a reply, E0S nudged her cheek.

“Did you stow away on the ship to follow me?”

It bleeped again.

“That was dangerous,” she scolded. “You could’ve gotten killed. C’mon—I don’t know what caused the blackout, but I’m not going to waste it. Do you remember the way to the docking bay?”

The bot bobbed in the air like a nod, and she told it to lead the way. It zipped out of the room and turned down the dark hallway, and she followed.

Jax

For the record, Jax hated this plan.

He knocked a lightsword away with his obsidian cuff and drove it down through the Messier’s skull.

He didn’t hate this plan because he had to play the bait in this Goddess-forsaken prison. He didn’t hate it because the entire dreadnought smelled like disinfectant and old socks. He didn’t hate it because his comm-links to Elara and Robb were out, or because the red lights were giving him a headache, or because the suit was making him chafe. He didn’t even hate it because this was the fourth Messier he had disabled, and he was finally breaking a sweat—

No.

He hated the plan because he would never find Ana, and these stupid Messiers were taunting him.

“You cannot save her,” the first Messier had said just before Jax pounded its face in with the butt of its own lightsword.