Niko, Ravi, and Siena returned to the Light Blade after the harrowing adventure. Their sacks full of Stingers had gone limp in the lack of moist air. They didn’t get enough to make a thousand, unless the Stingers could be revived to produce more spores each.

“We’ll have to humidify them somehow,” Siena said.

“Put ’em in a little sauna?” Ravi suggested.

“Something like that,” Niko agreed. “But who knows if they’ll even make more spores in captivity.”

“We should go back and release them into the caves,” Siena argued. “If we bring them with us, they’ll die.”

“The ZRKs can build them an enclosure,” Niko suggested. “We’ll pump some steam in. They’ll be okay.”

The three tubed their way to the rec room. They tied the Stinger bags together there—better to work with them after the Gamma jump. As soon as the Cloud Leopard was ready to go, the Light Blade had to follow within a short time or they’d lose the Gamma trail completely.

Anna was alone up on the Light Blade bridge when the Cloud Leopard’s message came through.

“We’re jumping to Gamma Speed,” Dash said. “Get ready to stick with us.”

Anna smiled at him. “We’re ready. See how nice it is when we can all get along?”

“Don’t push it,” Dash said. “We’ll expect to see and talk to Piper first thing when we get to Tundra.”

“We’ll take good care of her,” Anna promised. “She’s our insurance policy, remember?”

Dash’s jaw tightened. “Going to Gamma in five.” He punched out and the screen went dark.

“Catch you on the flip side,” Anna murmured to the empty screen.

The rest of the Omega crew made their way to the flight deck and strapped in for the Gamma jump. Down in the utility room, Colin released Piper’s wrist restraints in order to strap her air chair securely to the ship.

Clearly, he didn’t want her going anywhere.

“You could let me come up on the flight deck,” she told him. “I’m not going to mess with anything.”

“You’re still a hostage,” he answered. “You stay here.”

The door slid shut behind him, leaving Piper alone with the clicking and clunking sounds of the ship’s machinery. She looked around the small space. It was barely more than a utility closet. Pipes and tubes lined the walls. The door was a thick sheet of metal.

Worst of all, there was only one reason she could think of for them to tie her to the ship. They were going to Gamma Speed.

Piper fought against the sudden sting behind her eyes. A Gamma jump would last weeks, or even months. Would she be a prisoner the entire time?

She hated this small room. Through the walls she could hear the engine noises…plus a hissing, rattling sound that didn’t seem entirely normal. Then again, nothing was normal about this situation.

Once they were in Gamma Speed, she would convince them to untie her. There would be no reason not to. They couldn’t very well keep her tied up for the next few weeks. At least she hoped not.

Piper’s mind tripped toward her bigger worry. Would they release her on the next planet? Would she get to participate in any more retrievals, or was she going to be a captive for the remainder of the journey? On the one hand, she hoped Dash and the Alpha team would stage some sort of daring rescue, but on the other hand, she really did believe the mission should come first. The most important thing was getting the elements back to Earth in time.

She wanted to kick herself for her gullibility, though. Her role in the Voyagers mission may have come to a halt, all because she’d gone out of her way to help someone in need. Next time, she promised herself, she wouldn’t be so foolish.

—

After the Gamma jump, everyone on the Light Blade relaxed. They could spend the next several weeks or more free from worry about getting lost in space or dodging strange creatures in unfamiliar terrain. Training for the challenges of Tundra would begin now.

“All right!” Ravi cheered. “Four planets down, two to go.”

Siena also grinned. It felt good to shed the concerns that came with each planet adventure. She looked toward Niko, expecting to meet a smile in response.

Niko’s face was pale. He stood perfectly still in the middle of the flight deck. He wasn’t looking at the screen or at the crew. He stared straight ahead, as if unseeing.

“Niko?” Siena asked. A different kind of concern flashed through her. “Are you okay?”

He blinked several times. “Yeah, I…well, I…” He made a choking, gargling sound.

“Whoa, man,” Ravi blurted out. “You don’t look so good.”

Niko stumbled forward, bracing himself against the back of a chair. Ravi and Siena leapt to his sides and caught him as he fell to the floor. Niko’s eyes rolled back into his head, and his arms and shoulders twitched.

“Niko! Oh no,” Siena cried. “What’s happening?” She cradled Niko’s head as Ravi tried to hold his flailing arms in place.

Anna leaned over them. “Is it a seizure?”

“Hurts,” Niko groaned.

“Where?” Siena asked. “Where does it hurt?”

Niko pushed his chin toward his right shoulder. Ravi grasped the collar of Niko’s uniform shirt and pulled it down over his arm.

Siena gasped. A red welt the size of a fingertip dug into the skin over Niko’s shoulder socket. A Stinger spore had gotten through!

“Oh my God,” Siena breathed. She exchanged a frightened glance with Ravi. This was bad. Really bad.

Tiny red lines radiated from the center of the wound as the poison leached further into Niko’s system. “What do we do?” Ravi asked. “Dig out the spore? Try some kind of medicine?”

“I don’t know,” Anna snapped from above. “All they told us was that Stinger spore poison is fatal.”

Siena felt the words like a fist around her heart. Ravi lowered his eyes.

Anna paced the room. “How could this happen?”

Colin, ever practical, said, “The mission was dangerous. We all knew that.”

Niko passed out in Siena’s arms. His body went limp.

“We can’t just let him die!” Siena cried. “We have to try something.”

“But Niko’s our medic,” Ravi said. “We’d kind of need him in order to help him.”

“Well,” Anna said, trying to keep the unsettledness out of her voice. She glanced at Colin. “Actually…we do have another medic on board.”

Siena and Ravi turned to her. “What are you talking about?”

Anna cleared her throat. “We have a guest belowdecks.” She punched a button, and the screen showed Piper strapped in place in the utility closet. “A little insurance policy so the Cloud Leopard crew doesn’t try anything tricky.”

Siena was horrified. “You kidnapped Piper?”

The flight deck fell into silence as the crew processed this information.

Ravi shrugged. “Makes sense. They definitely won’t ditch us now.”

Siena glanced from the incriminating image on the screen to Niko’s limp body sprawled across her lap.

On the screen, Piper’s eyes searched the room as if looking for an escape option. Siena grew angry looking at Piper’s distressed face. “That’s horrible. I can’t believe it. Where is she?” It was hard to determine the room from the close-up image.

Anna and Siena stared at each other for a long moment. Not exactly a battle of wills, since Anna was in charge, but the flight deck fell silent as the girls faced off.

Siena remained crouched beside the collapsed Niko, holding him in her arms. Anna stood over her.

“Where is she?” Siena shouted. “I’ll go get her!”

“The Stinger serum is fatal,” Ravi said. “There’s really no point.”

“We have to try,” Siena said. If Piper could give them any chance of saving Niko’s life, then maybe, maybe Siena could live with what Anna and Colin had done. If some good could come of it…

“Please.” The word was already on Siena’s lips as Anna turned away, rushing from the flight deck.

Anna raced through the ship’s corridors toward the utility closet. This is stupid, she thought. It’s only prolonging the inevitable. And yet she found herself running as fast as she could.

It hurt to hope for the impossible. But everything about the Omega crew’s mission was already on the edge of impossible.

She threw open the utility closet door. The blond girl strapped motionlessly into her seat looked startled as the mission commander burst into her small would-be prison cell.

“Piper,” Anna said breathlessly. “We need your help.”