“Technology.”
“You must have a rat on the inside.”
I shake my head and instantly regret it. The room tips, and my head feels like it is filled with liquid. “What happened to your world?”
He clicks an angry pattern. “It is dead.”
I wonder why.“Did you try to stop it? Or did you just blast your way through…sacrificing yourlesserslike you did here?”
He backhands me across the face, and I smash against the floor. The soldiers around him cheer and encourage his savagery.
I spit the blood from my mouth and gasp for air. “I would not send my son to fight my battles. I would keep him safe…so he could fight his own…when I am gone.”
He sets his boot on my throat and applies pressure. “You do not understand our struggles.”
“You do not care about ours,” I wheeze beneath his boot.
“You’re right.” He cocks his head. “I do not.”
“General Kaslok.” A Neb steps forward.
“Not now.” The general growls as he clicks at me. “You are a disgrace to your kind. And you have been a poison in my fleet. Any last words?”
“Sir!”
The Neb spins a tablet around. I strain to catch a glimpse of whatever is so important that he would interrupt his general. It displays a video feed of a mass of soldiers flooding the prison bay that the beast dragged me through. “We’ve been boarded.”
“By who?” General Kaslok demands.
The Neb looks at me.
“Drathious?” the general asks.
“Yes and Amphirans. A Lazariot.Humans.”
Human?
I blink harder as red lights flash throughout the ship. Sirens blare.
And there, on the screen, in front of the group, is the most gorgeous female I’ve ever seen, her human skin laced with fire in her blood, synthetic wings shielding a crew of my closest friends as they all fire weapons, shooting down Nebs with ruthless force.
“Jor-s-k. DIA. D…you…ead?”
I strain to look down at my wristband, but my throat is still under General Kaslok’s boot. He roars, and his body starts smoking. “Get them off of this ship!”
The other soldiers in the room with us funnel for the exit, minus two, who remain with him, no doubt as his personal guards.
“Sir, we should go.” The tablet continues translating. “The prison system is compromised.”
“What do you mean?” the general demands.
“They’ve let them out.”
“How many?” General Kaslok demands.
The Neb cringes in anticipation of backlash. “Everyone.”
The ship jolts, knocking the translation tablet off the throne. It cracks and displays a four-way split screen of rotating camera feeds. Elix and Zariah arm prisoners and take over the lower levels. I look through the glass floor to see Elix’s green face leading a flood of scrappy prisoners into the munitions bays.
