“Hold up,” Nine whispers in my ear. “I’ve got an idea.”

Exposed as we are, I’m not sure it’s a great time for one of Nine’s crazy ideas. But, a moment after he stops us, the cow-beast in the cage groans again and lumbers awkwardly to its feet. It staggers to the side and pushes all its weight against one side of the cage, causing the Mogs pushing it to yell for assistance as the whole thing threatens to topple. Then, the monster mule-kicks one of its huge cloven hooves at the bars, nearly smashing the face of a Mog.

“I asked it to give us a distraction,” Nine whispers, more Mogs closing in on the cage to try sedating their experiment. “Poor thing was happy to help.”

Nine’s animal telepathy works like a charm. As if it’s at last discovered a purpose in life, the cow thrashes about, bulling towards the sides of its cage, even catching one Mog in the shoulder with its horn. The chaos creates an opening for us to slip through the mass in front of the greenhouse and make our way towards the hangar.

We all stop at the sound of a Mog blaster being fired. Turning around, I see the officer holstering his blaster, a smoking hole in the side of the cow’s head. It slumps in the cage, unmoving. He yells some orders, and the Mogadorians begin loading the corpse onto the warship.

As I tense up, Nine whispers to me, “Better this way. It was in a ton of pain.”

With some distance between us and the highest concentration of Mogs, I feel comfortable enough to whisper back. “What were they doing to it?”

Nine pauses before answering. “I couldn’t, like, have a heart-to-heart with the thing. But I think they were trying to figure out how they could make it more efficient. They’re, uh, experimenting with the ecology.”

“Demented,” Marina mutters.

We pick up some speed as we move towards the hangar. On our right, at the edge of the runway, are a trio of the smaller, saucer-shaped Mogadorian ships. A maintenance crew of five Mogadorians huddles around one of them, pulling circuit boards out of the ship’s underbelly and generally looking befuddled. I guess Mogadorians can have technical difficulties, too. Other than those guys, the coast is clear.

The huge, sheet-metal doors of the hangar, wide enough for a small plane to pass in and out, are only open a few feet, just enough to let a person pass through. There are lights on inside the hangar, but all I can see through the gap is empty space.

Marina slows down as we reach the doors and then stops fully to peek inside. While she’s doing that, I look over my shoulder. Nothing’s changed—the Mogs are still loading materials onto the warship, completely unaware that we just snuck through their ranks.

“Anything?” Nine whispers, and I can sense him craning his neck, trying to see through the crack in the hangar doors. Before I can answer, I hear Marina’s breath catch in her throat. My hand stings, shot through with cold, like I’m suddenly clutching a block of ice.