Piper floated across the Infinity sky. It felt infinite, for sure. No clouds. No wind. Only the light hum of her chair, and a breathtaking view of the pure blue sky and the craggy gray surface below. Oxygen hissed into the dome of her helmet, and she breathed calmly, gazing through the plastic shield. She was worried about Anna, but she couldn’t help appreciating the scenery. It was an amazing feeling to be flying in the open air, on another planet, across the universe from home.

Piper had never felt like her wheelchair was holding her back, but it did make her different from her friends. There were times when she missed the feeling of running or jumping. It was special and cool to be able to do something no one else could. She stretched her arms out against the sky as she flew. The heat from the blazing booster rockets below warmed the sleeves of her space suit.

The Light Blade’s cargo bay doors opened to allow her entry. Colin stood on the Clipper launch pad, an expression of grave concern on his pale face.

He looked exactly like Chris, except for the glasses. Piper did a double take upon seeing him in person for the first time. It was really uncanny. Even weirder than seeing a large-scale statue of him—which, oddly enough, she had also done.

“Hi, Colin,” she said. “Where’s Anna?”

“Right this way,” he said, gesturing formally for her to proceed alongside him into the hallway.

Piper took in her surroundings. In some ways, the Light Blade seemed similar to the Cloud Leopard, but it was more…sinister. The ship had been shadowing them for months, and it felt like a shadow in here. It had an unfinished quality to it, exposed pipes and wires running along the length of the hallway. And it was dim. Piper half expected things to start leaping out of the walls at her, like in a haunted house. A back-of-the-spine, tingling sensation crept over her.

“You are the medic, correct?” Colin said.

“Yes. What’s happened, exactly?” Piper asked, hovering along next to him. He moved a bit too slowly, she thought, for someone in the middle of a crisis. She chalked it up to his cold, alien nature.

“Anna has fallen from a great height,” Colin repeated. “I fear an injury of the skull or spine.” He stopped walking then and began fumbling with something he pulled from his pocket and held low at his side. Piper tried to turn to see what he was doing, but being side by side with Colin, the hallway space was narrow for that kind of maneuver.

Five seconds later, Piper screamed at the top of her lungs.

—

At that very moment, two miles below, Siena screamed at the top of her lungs. A cloud of Stingers swooped toward her. The flock shifted as if of one mind, with one goal: to devour her. It was an amazing sight…and deadly.

Siena slashed her net pole through the flock, then dove for the edge of the lake cavern, stumbling across the pebbled shore and flopping to safety on the cold cave rock.

The winged cloud surged upward, skating along the cavern wall. They dispersed above. They swirled the air like a tornado.

“We can’t…keep…doing this…,” Siena panted, pulling herself up onto her hands and knees.

“How many do we have?” Ravi asked.

“She got two more,” Niko said, checking Siena’s pouch. Exposed to the drier tunnel air, the Stingers lay limp inside the netting. “That’s ten total. At this rate, it’s going to take hours.”

“Days,” Ravi amended.

“And possibly kill us all,” Siena added, trying to keep her voice cheerful. She wasn’t sure why, when the situation was clearly so bleak. She gazed down the dark tunnel. Not dark. Pitch-black. “They’re really not coming back, are they?” she said of the Weavers.

“Obviously not,” Ravi snapped.

When the Omegas ran into the chamber for the first time, the horselike creatures had galloped away into the tunnels. It had been a mistake to let go of their reins, apparently. A lesson learned the hard way.

“I was just saying,” Siena muttered. She was not looking forward to leaving the cavern behind and returning to the dark caves on foot.

The flashlights from their packs barely made a dent in the wall of night. Ravi’s flashlight, set to the lantern mode, rested on the stones just inside the cavern. That and a stream of light from a crack in the rocks high overhead were all that saved the cavern from total darkness. The pale light reflected off the water, giving the cavern the ambience of a moonlit summer lake.

“We can take these few back with us to the ship,” Ravi suggested. “They’re not like bees—one sting. They’ll make more spores.”

“I don’t know,” Siena said. “Bringing home live Stingers wasn’t part of the plan.”

“So we change the plan,” Ravi insisted. He waved his hand toward the lake. “You wanna go back in there?”

“We have to keep trying.” Niko agreed with Siena. They had to carry through the plan. He picked up his pole. He was next to plunge in.

As if sensing Niko’s intentions, the Stinger cloud reformed. The winged things hovered, waiting to descend.

“Great,” Siena said.

“How about no.” Ravi stared into the dimly lit cavern. “We’ve done all we can do. Let’s get out of here.”

—

From the flight deck of the Cloud Leopard, Dash reopened the comm link to the Light Blade. The screen showed the flight console, empty.

“Colin?” Dash called, hoping he was just off-screen. “Colin, is everything all right over there?”

Long tense moments passed.

“Hello? Colin?” Dash tried again.

The screen flickered to a different angle. Piper’s face filled the screen. “Dash!” she cried.

Dash’s pulse pounded at the alarm in her voice. But he was relieved to see she had made it over there okay. “How’s Anna? What happened?”

Piper shook her head. “You were right!” she said. “It was—”

The screen flipped again. Dash found himself staring at Anna’s grinning face.

“Why, hello, Dash Conroy. I knew we could count on you.”

“Are you okay?” Dash asked. Anna looked none the worse for wear.

Anna laughed. “I have never been better,” she said. “And Piper will be fine too. Eventually.”

The camera panned out. Behind Anna, Piper floated helplessly on the bridge of the Light Blade, struggling to free herself from the ropes binding her to her air chair. They stretched across her chest, pinning her in place, and her wrists were tied behind her. Her legs hung free, as motionless as ever.

The truth hit Dash hard. Anna was never injured. It was a trap! And he’d fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

“Let her go,” Dash demanded. He jumped out of his chair, as if to run and help her. But there was no way for him to get from one ship to the other without the Cloud Cat.

“I could do that,” Anna admitted. “But this way, you’ll be sure not to lose us in Gamma Speed.”

“You already have Pollen Slither,” Piper said angrily. “You don’t need a hostage.” She wished they would lock her in a room or tie her to a post. She hated having her air chair used against her. Even more, she hated that she’d let her guard down, thinking the Omega crew really needed her help. It had been far too easy for Colin to lasso her wrists with the rope. Something like this never would have happened during a mission. She should have been ready for anything, even here. “Let me go!” she shouted.

“We’re not going to ditch the Light Blade in space,” Dash insisted. “We would never do that.”

“A little extra insurance never hurt,” Anna said.

“You won’t keep her,” Dash said. “You can’t. We’ll never leave this planet without her.”

“We’ll see about that,” Anna said. “The mission comes first.”

“No, my crew comes first,” Dash insisted.

The words spilled out before he even had time to think. He meant them, from the bottom of his heart.

And yet…

Eighty-four days remaining in the mission, with two planets still to visit. If Anna and Colin wanted to play hardball in a standoff over Piper, could Dash afford to wait them out?