A BOMB.
Mali threw herself under the worktable that was littered with Willa’s frequency-emitter equipment, shielding her head with her hands. A bomb had gone off—a package that Leon had smuggled from the station. The explosion had ripped through the chambers of the Gauntlet. Torn apart the central vestibule, shattering half the control compartments.
Dust still rained down through the recess rooms. The bomb’s boom echoed off the walls, making her ears ring and her head spin.
She blinked out of her shock.
Had she seen right? Was Bonebreak really . . . gone? Dead? That Mosca trader was the last person she’d expect to sacrifice himself.
Dust clouded as the wreckage settled. Dazed, she squinted through it, trying to find the others. Something was dripping, splashing her. Blood? Was it hers or someone else’s? She held up her wet hands, relieved to find it was only water seeping through the walls.
She crawled shakily out from under the table. Willa was frantically trying to salvage the damaged emitter equipment, and from across the room Serassi was yelling something at her, but Mali couldn’t make out the words past the ringing in her ears. She caught sight of a beam pierced through Serassi’s leg, pinning her in place near the coded monitor. Her dark Kindred blood was soaking into the fabric of her left pant leg and mingling with the puddles of water on the floor.
Mali traced the lines of water up to the ceiling, still feeling dazed. Where was the water coming from? The Gauntlet modules weren’t powered by any liquid fuel source. The water had to be external. . . .
The storm.
The realization hit her with a dark sense of foreboding. When they had entered Drogane’s atmosphere, Cassian had warned of the planet’s unpredictable weather. He’d said they were fortunate to land during the eye of the storm and that his instruments indicated the worst of the weather would most likely hold off until the Gauntlet was over.
But storms were anything but predictable.
“Mali!”
Someone was calling her name, but it sounded small and tinny, as though coming from miles away. She tilted her head, tapping her ear to try to stop the ringing, as she searched the room, coughing through the dust. Cassian had gone to Serassi’s side and was trying to wrench the beam out of her leg with his bare hands. Willa was still fumbling with the equipment like it was more precious than any of their lives. Ironmage was sprawled on his back near the bench, unconscious, a bruise on his temple where shrapnel must have hit him. She started to crawl toward him to make sure he was alive when someone streaked across her line of vision.
Anya’s clothes—the impostor.
“Stop!” she yelled. The impostor was the only one who could tell them where the real Anya was. She tried to scramble to her feet, but her balance was thrown off from the blast. She careened first to the left, then to the right, until she managed to grab hold of a bench.
Leon was near the doorway, clutching the side of his face, blood streaked over his tattoos. The impostor was running straight toward him.
“Leon, don’t let him get away!”
Dazed, Leon shook his head, stumbling as though he too were barely able to stand. Mali choked in desperation. She tried to take a step forward but tripped and fell.
“Please, Leon, I . . . I need you!”
She winced at her own words. Never in her life had she begged someone for help. And yet Leon didn’t look at her with a gloat of superiority. He only blinked through his daze, eyes darting to the impostor, and nodded.
“I’ll get him, Mali. I promise!” He took off after the impostor.
Mali sucked in a sob—leave it to Leon, a criminal, a smuggler, a lovable pain in her side—to be the one person in the world she could rely on.
She pushed to her feet, making her way across the room after them. She clung to the wall for support as she stumbled into the central vestibule.
She froze, gaping. The vestibule was even more damaged than the Mosca recess room. The floor behind the judges’ dais was now a hole where the bomb must have exploded. There was no sign of Bonebreak’s body, only a few pieces of torn rust-red jumpsuit. Her stomach twisted as she felt an unexpected hitch of sadness. Sadness, for a Mosca? But not just any Mosca. A Mosca from whom she’d never expected anything but betrayal but who had just saved all their lives.
The four Chief Assessors’ chairs had been ripped up and twisted, the dais itself splintered in two. Monitors crackled and hissed, showing only static. For a second she remembered that Cora was trapped inside the Gauntlet puzzle chambers, and she ran to the portal door. Had Cora felt the blast? Had the bomb broken the puzzle modules? But the portal door was still sealed, a burn mark across the front the only sign of damage. Mali tried to pry the door open with her fingers, but it wouldn’t budge. She let go with a frustrated sigh.
Cora was still on her own.
Half the overhead lights had shattered and the few remaining ones flickered uselessly. Bodies of Gatherer and Axion and Kindred delegates littered the floor, and she fought the urge to turn away at the sight of a severed arm wearing a Mosca sleeve, and a chunk of hair, and a single boot with the Axion crest.
She coughed, trying to clear the dust from her eyes. Where had Anya’s impostor run to? Had Leon caught him? Some of the survivors were starting to rise out of the dust. It felt like eternity since the bomb had detonated, but Mali knew it must have been only seconds. The dust hadn’t even fully settled. She heard moans. A scream of pain. And yet that high-pitched ringing was still in her ears.
She tapped her ears again as she stumbled around the remains of the vestibule. She let go of the wall and suddenly slid across the floor, catching herself on the broken dais. This wasn’t just off-kilter balance from the blast. The room was actually leaning. Water was running down the floor, pooling against the back wall. And then the room shook and shifted again, and Mali and the others were thrown backward. She clung to the dais.
It was the storm, she realized as more water poured in through the ceiling. The bomb’s blast must have compromised the infrastructure of the Gauntlet modules. The structure was no longer stable. It might have easily withstood the storm before, but now they were at the mercy of Drogane’s raging tempests.
“Mali!” Leon appeared in the doorway, one hand clutched over his bleeding face.
“Where’d he go?” she yelled back. “Where’s the impostor?”
“Forget him—behind you!”
She spun just as an Axion lunged for her. She ducked out of the way, twisting around the dais, using the off-balance room to her advantage. The Axion tumbled toward the back wall, hitting his head hard. Mali took a deep breath, steeling herself.
She flexed her muscles, ready to fight. The Axion was pushing himself to his feet again, but he was dazed from the blast too. She frowned, noticing his uniform. Beneath the thick coating of dust, he wore long, gauzy white robes that swept the floor. Gatherer robes.
She saw movement from the corner of her eye. Another Axion rose from the dust, coughing. He ripped a thick Mosca mask from his face. Confused, she caught sight of a Kindred uniform she recognized—Fian’s uniform. Only now an Axion woman wore it, her gaunt frame too small for it, the sleeves dangling too long for her arms.
“It’s the blast.” Leon stumbled beside her, still clutching his face. Blood had stained the collar of his shirt a crimson red. “It somehow set off Willa’s equipment and triggered the frequency that makes them drop their disguises. Now all those sneaky bastards can’t hide anymore. They’re exposed and they know it. There’s no telling what they’ll do—we should be ready for anything.”
Mali drew in a sharp breath. That was the high-pitched ringing she still heard. The frequency that Willa had broadcast to turn Axion impostors back into their real selves. It had spread beyond the Mosca recess room into the full Gauntlet chambers, and now the impostor Fian was exposed, and all the rest. . . .
She swallowed hard as she took in the bodies. Despite the Gatherer and Mosca and Kindred uniforms, over half were, in reality, Axion.
“So many of them,” Mali said, trying to keep the panic from her voice. Suddenly the room lurched violently to the side, and Mali grabbed Leon’s arm to keep him from being thrown to the floor. “The structure isn’t stable anymore!” she called over the din. “It could be ripped apart! We’ve got to get Cora out of there.” She pointed toward the portal door.
“We can’t.” Cassian came out of the rubble, the flickering lights making his eyes look hollow and grim. “She’s the only hope we still have. The Axion can try to impersonate us, but they can’t impersonate the stock algorithm. They can’t alter a computer program. Cora has to finish. She must win. It’s the only thing that will give us enough power now to stop them.”
“But they’re exposed!” Leon said. “Their plan’s shot to pieces. They’ll try anything to stop her, even if it means ripping the Gauntlet apart with their own hands.”
“That is why we have to hold them off,” Cassian said. “We have to give her a chance.”
Suddenly, the shrill frequency stopped.
Mali felt a swell of relief to hear herself think again, but it only lasted a moment. A growl sounded as a dusty shadow ran up behind Cassian.
“Behind you!” she yelled.
Cassian ducked as an Axion in a Gatherer’s robes tried to slam a piece of debris at his head. Cassian straightened and stepped hard on the Axion’s too-long robe and shoved the creature to the floor, then smashed his other boot in the Axion’s face.
“Hold them off!” Cassian yelled. “Don’t let them stop the Gauntlet!”
Mali needed no further encouragement. She exchanged a quick nod with Leon, who spun on an Axion delegate who was running toward one of the broken monitors. Leon grabbed a piece of broken glass and slammed it into the Axion’s face.
The room lurched again, and more storm water poured through the ceiling. Mali slipped and fell just as an Axion loomed over her. She drew back her foot to kick the Axion off-balance, but a loose piece of debris flew over her head, slamming into him.
Mali jerked around to find Serassi already picking up another piece of debris to use as a projectile. Willa was next to her, leaping into the high rafters and kicking over an Axion with the momentum.
“Where’s Ironmage?” Mali called to Serassi.
“Still unconscious,” Serassi said. Maybe for the better, Mali thought, not to know yet that his brother was dead. Anger swelled in her blood. Bonebreak had saved their lives. He’d redeemed himself, he’d stayed and fought, he’d even sacrificed himself.
She squeezed her hands into fists.
He couldn’t have died for nothing.
She tossed her head up and recognized a flash of white. Anya’s clothes. The Axion who had been impersonating her was fighting with Redrage and another Mosca near the rear wall of monitors. The anger inside her concentrated harder.
For Bonebreak.
For Anya.
For everyone who wanted to be free.
“Willa!” she cried, catching sight of the chimpanzee swinging in the rafters. “Help me!” She jerked a finger toward the impostor Anya, and Willa gave a quick nod and hurled herself from rafter to rafter toward the Axion. Mali raced along below her, dodging the worst of the fighting. Willa reached the Axion first. She threw herself from the rafters, slamming into the Axion’s back. The impact brought Redrage crashing down too.
“Go,” Mali said to Redrage. “Help Ironmage in the recess room. Leave this one to me.”
Redrage, limping hard on her right leg, gave a quick nod.
Mali turned to the Axion, who had been shoved to the ground by Willa. Mali smashed her fist into his face, as silver blood spurted down the front of Anya’s clothes.
“Where is she?” Mali demanded. “Where’s Anya?”
The Axion grinned his silver teeth, tight skin stretching over high cheekbones. “It doesn’t matter,” he hissed. “You won’t leave this planet to find her. We’ll stop the Gauntlet. We’ll soon rule again, as we were born to do.”
Willa huffed in anger and pinned the Axion’s hand back as Mali slammed another fist into his face. He only laughed again, those silver teeth sparkling. Anger swelled in her until all she could see was red. She grabbed the closest piece of wreckage, one of the chair legs from the judges’ dais. The end was torn and jagged.
“You aren’t stopping the Gauntlet,” she said. “Cora will win.” She pressed the chair leg against his neck.
“She still has one break left,” he said, coughing. “The moment she steps outside that door, she’ll never step back in to finish round three. We’ll stop her.”
Worry made Mali hesitate—she glanced over at the Gauntlet door. He was right. Any moment Cora would finish round two. She’d be spit out straight into this chaos.
“Willa,” she said, “find Cassian. Tell him he has to watch that portal door. Tell him when Cora comes out, he has to protect her.”
Willa gave a nod and leaped onto the nearest bench. Mali searched the room for Cassian, and her stomach curled when she saw him. He and the Axion impostor who’d posed as Fian were facing off against each other, a chasm in the floor between them. Water filled the pit, crackling now with life, electrified by rogue wires.
The Axion who’d been disguised as Anya snickered beneath Mali’s hands. “You see? You can’t stop us.”
“Like hell we can’t.” It was Leon. Mali’s heart lifted. He crouched beside them. “And when we do, we’re going to rescue Anya and everyone else you’ve kidnapped and replaced. And we’re going to enjoy torturing their locations out of you.”
He smiled at Mali and nodded toward the broken piece of metal in her hand. “Would you like to do the honor of torturing him, or should I?”