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“Hold this over the wound,” he says gently, moving my hand up to apply pressure. “Even if the worst has happened, we have the technology on Logos to get you treated. All will be well.”
I gulp.
I think about what Mai would do.
“You’re right,” I say. “We don’t have time for this. We should get going.”
“That’s my girl,” he says, his drone low and rumbling, his words oddly human. I wonder if he heard it in a movie. “We’re almost out of here. It’s almost over. And then…then we can go home.”
I don’t know what he means byhome, exactly.
All I know is that, on the other side of this, I’m going to need a new eye.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
??
TARAVEN
Defying all logic and reason, Mai’s advice works.
No one questions why I’m here, other Skoropi rushing back and forth in the corridors of the ancestral temple. I guess if I were Zandro—enemy number one—they would recognize me on sight. But I’m just his engineer, and thus I have been relegated to anonymity.
I’ve never been more happy about that in my life.
While I don’t think these soldiers are aware of the battle in the docking bay just yet, they’re certainly up to speed on the larger advance on Liatra. According to the soldier out on the dock, comms don’t work inside the base, so they must receive all their information from the comms station Frankie reached us from, then relay it to the others by word of mouth. They’re still in the process of telling everyone that the planet is under siege by our joint forces, which means that chaos reigns in the corridors of the temple.
My ability to navigate the halls unimpeded is fantastic. My lack of knowledge of this labyrinth is less so.
I am truly lost.
I wander down the first hall I find, then down another. It looks just enough like the ancestral temple on the other side of the planet to be familiar, but it is different in every other way—and the interior makes no sense. It reminds me of Jaya, or even a juvenilezephtanwhose winding halls haven’t yet formed into something with any logic. All I can think of is veins branching off in a body, filling each limb with life.
It strikes me suddenly that this is a body.
And whoever is controlling it must be at its center—the temple’s version of azephtancortex.
I start taking the larger path each time, following the arteries. The vines on the walls grow thicker, richer, glowing with an eerie inner light. I run into more Skoropi, my heart pounding every time at the prospect that they’ll recognize me.
I pass at least thirty before someone finally catches me by the arm, his eyes glowing yellow. I try to control my bioluminescence, but my eyes and tail must light up with fear because his frown deepens behind his helmet.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“Uh…” I pause.
Because I have a choice here.
I could go to the cortex in search of the weapon’s control station…or I could look for Frankie and Malix.
“I’m…”
He jerks my arm and I stumble. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks. “Tell me where you’re going.”
“I was ordered to check on the prisoners,” I blurt out. “I seem to have gotten confused about the map again.”
The soldier sighs in frustration and pulls up his comm like he’s going to help me. My breath stutters, waiting anxiously for him to tell me where myekirahare…
…then he stops.
