Just as he finished programming the command, the door to the bridge opened with a snap.

The clock began to tick down from five minutes.

4:59

4:58

4:57

He spun around in his chair.

A Metal stood in the doorway, hands on either side of the cut door. This android was different, though. It wore the same Messier uniform, but there were more bars on its shoulders. Higher in rank.

The dreadnought’s XO—its Executive Officer—if he had to guess.

It turned its red eyes to him—and Jax saw the monster peering through.

Di.

Jax bit the inside of his lip so hard, he tasted the blood against his tongue, and it grounded him for a moment.

This was the beginning of the end. And he wished he had a second—just a second more—with Robb.

“Well, that’s new,” he told Di. “Can you patch yourself into service bots, too? Street-sweepers? Trash receptacles? I bet you’re right at home there—”

“I should have known it was you,” said the Emperor through the XO’s mouth.

4:48

4:47

Just a little longer. He unsheathed his lightsword. “I am rather predictable,” he replied, and launched himself at the Messier.

Ana

“Are you sure this is the right way?” she asked E0S.

All of the hallways looked the same, but she could’ve sworn she had already passed these doors before. She needed to get to the docking bay—hijack a skysailer and get the heck out of here. Trouble was, there weren’t any bloody signs around this deathship. The dreadnought was more confusing than the palace—and she’d gotten lost so many times in those hallways, it bruised her ego.

E0S gave a blip and flew down the corridor. Without much choice, she followed. She passed what looked like a tech bay with darkened Metals inside, spare parts lined up on the far wall like different pieces of armor. It seemed like the HIVE had an endless supply of soldiers at its beck and call, and that worried her.

Where had they gotten so many Metals?

The more she saw of the dreadnought, the more she began to believe the rumors—that the HIVE was turning people into Metals, and then HIVE’ing them. But why couldn’t the HIVE just create androids without memory cores—like the androids on the Tsarina? That would’ve been a whole lot easier.

It didn’t make sense, unless there was something she didn’t yet know.

For the length of the corridor, she and E0S clung to the red-lit shadows, until one of the corridors finally looked familiar from when she’d first arrived. The elevator to the docking bay should be close.

E0S turned left at another intersection—and suddenly recoiled backward, beeping furiously.

“What—?”

Ana barely had time to brace before someone slammed into her in the intersection, and she bit the floor hard. She gasped, trying to push whatever had attacked her off, but they straddled her and pinned her to the ground.

In the dim red light, her attacker’s blond hair shone like copper, her cheekbones harsh, the arrows underneath her eyes darker than pitch. Wait—she knew that slant of eyebrows, the downward curve of her lips.