He only dared to open it halfway before he crawled forward, stuck his head out, and peeked into the hallway.

  Two Lilri soldiers stood at the far end of the corridor, but they weren't looking in his direction. They leaned against the wall, talking to each other in a low hushed whisper so they wouldn't disturb the sleeping prisoners.

  Richmond scooted back inside the cell and went through an elaborate, painstaking process of taking his metal strip out of the lock. He didn't want to bend it. He crawled into the corridor, pulled the door shut behind him, and left it unlocked in case he needed to beat it back here in a rush to hide.

  He was out of his cell in the middle of the night. He was at large.

  Richmond stayed low to the floor and hugged the wall where the shadows would at least partially hide him from the Lilri. A single lamp burned at the far end near where the two guards stood. The rest of the lamps that usually lit the corridor were all turned off for the night.

  His senses kicked into high gear now that he was out of his cell. He hadn't been paying attention when the Lilri had brought his friends downstairs and locked them up. He'd been too broken up about losing Aemon.

  He hadn't been paying attention last night, either. He'd been too excited about using the tunnel system to get out of here. Now his mind shifted and brought back information and memories he didn't even know he had. He remembered where the Lilri had put all his friends.

  He found his way to the first cell, which was Hayes'. Richmond crouched against the wall and kept a close watch on the soldiers while he slotted his metal strip into the lock on Hayes' door.

  The process went a lot faster this time. Richmond knew exactly how far to insert the strip now and how much pressure to put on it when he turned it. The lock clicked, and he darted inside before he pushed the door shut behind him.

  Hayes lay sound asleep on his bed. He didn't wake up when Richmond entered.

  Richmond slipped over to him and clamped his hand over Hayes' mouth to keep him quiet. "Corporal!" he hissed. "It's me! It's Captain Richmond!"

  Hayes jolted out of a sound sleep and started to struggle. It took Richmond another few minutes of explanation to calm him down.

  "What are you doing here?!" Hayes whispered. "You scared the shit out of me!"

  "We're getting out of here!" Richmond whispered back. "Get up. We're leaving."

  "How?" Hayes looked around and blinked. "How did you get in here?"

  "The Gria told us more than they realized. Come on."

  Richmond slipped out of the room. He had to use hand signals to make Hayes stay close to the floor. Hayes' jaw dropped when he saw the bent metal strip.

  Richmond didn't have time to explain it. They crept to the next cell. It was Fadek's. He didn't much like the idea of waking up a fully grown Drichi when he was sound asleep. This could turn out to be a deadly mistake.

  Richmond unlocked the door anyway. Fadek lay curled up under his feathers on his bed. He didn't stir.

  "We'll both have to restrain him so he doesn't attack," Richmond whispered.

  Hayes nodded, but Richmond's voice woke up Fadek even though he was trying to be quiet.

  Fadek's head snapped up. "Who's there?!" he boomed. "Who are you?!"

  "It's me, Fadek!" Richmond whispered. "It's Captain Richmond! I found a way out! We're going to escape."

  Fadek took a minute to fully understand, and in that moment of silence, all three men heard the Lilri soldiers coming down the corridor. They must have heard Fadek.

  He pushed Richmond and Hayes into a dark corner behind the door. Fadek sat back down on his bed.

  The two Lilri came to the door, peered through the window, and then used their own keys to try to unlock the door. They either didn't notice that it was already unlocked, or they didn't think to do anything about it.

  They pushed the door open. "What's going on?" one of them demanded. "What's the disturbance? You should be[?]--"

  Fadek let out a spine-chilling shriek, launched off the bed, and hurtled at the soldiers with both his claws raised. He tackled them both, one under each claw. They didn't have time to pull the door shut. He dove through the open door, pinned both soldiers on the floor, and killed them in a split second.

  He towered over their dead bodies and glared up and down the corridor, looking for any other unsuspecting Lilri to show themselves.

  They didn't. They wouldn't change their rotation for another five hours.

  Richmond and Hayes hustled out of the cell. They could work much faster now.

  Richmond went to Zuna's cell next and called through the bars to wake her up while he slotted his metal strip into the lock.

  Hayes and Fadek went from cell to cell and woke up everyone else before Richmond got there. He freed everyone, and they rejoined in the corridor.

  "Now what?" Leatherwood asked. "We can't get into the tunnels."

  "We can assume the Vasyke know about the tunnels by now," Zuna remarked. "They may even have found the explosives."

  "We have another way out," Richmond told them. "We have to go through the Necrodrome."

  CHAPTER 5

  Richmond and his friends had to divert multiple times on the way upstairs to avoid running into Lilri soldiers. The friends passed dozens of different levels before they returned to the hallway leading to the Necrodrome's holding cell.

  "What if the wall is down and the guard screen is still in place?" Niur asked.

  "Then we'll come up with another plan."

  Richmond passed down the hall to the holding cell. No soldiers stood guard in the hall outside. The cell was empty.

  The wall and the guard screen both stood open. The group saw why as soon as they got inside.

  The engineers, mechanics, and technicians were still working out on the course. They repaired, sabotaged, and replaced yesterday's ships. Crews went back and forth between the arena and the hangar to bring the ships inside.

  Richmond didn't see why the repair crews needed to leave the guard screen open. He didn't see anyone going into the holding cell.

  He waited for the latest crew to move a ship into the hangar. Then he signaled his people forward. They crept into the hangar and hid behind one ship after another on their way closer to the gate. The party had to huddle in breathless silence while the repair crews brought Zuna's big-engine ship back inside.

  Some of the technicians went into the holding cell, left through the door, and came back with different pieces of equipment. That explained why they'd left the guard screen open. The holding cell was the technicians' quickest way to get back inside the palace.

  As soon as the repair crew left, the friends bolted outside and scampered behind the nearest obstacle to hide. The repair crew couldn't see the group from here.

  The allies could hear the repair crews just fine. They gave themselves away by banging, welding, and grinding all over the arena. They also yelled instructions, directions, and jokes across the arena while the crews worked. Their noise gave Richmond and his friends the perfect cover to race away to the other side of the course.

  Getting around the giant arena took a lot longer on foot. The party halted outside the maze.

  "We can get out through the fighter chute," Richmond announced. "The energy field is down, too. The Vasyke don't keep it up when a bout isn't going on."

  "How do you know that?" Zuna asked. "You've only been here during bouts."

  "I've scanned the Necrodrome from the outside." He frowned at her. "Don't tell me you didn't notice. We all scanned the Necrodrome dozens of times."

  She looked away. "...I never checked."

  "Well, it's true. Let's go. We can get up into the stands over here."

  He led the way to the maze wall. It butted up against the arena wall where it rose into the stands.

  Richmond grabbed hold of the maze wall to pull himself up. Fadek pumped his wings once and propelled himself up there. Then he used his powerful claws to pull the rest of the party onto the maze wall before he boosted them into the stands.

  Richmond waited for the others and then turned his attention to the fighter chute. He and his friends had to hike a long way up the tiers before they got near it.

  The noise of repairs drifted out of the arena from a distance. None of the technicians or engineers could see the allies in the dark.

  Richmond paused at the mouth of the chute. The energy field didn't stop him from looking straight down into its black depths.

  "Are we really doing this?" Leatherwood whispered.

  "If it means getting the hell out of here, then yes, we're doing this." Richmond sat down on the lip of the chute and pushed off.

  He slid down it, but it wasn't as steep or as dangerous as he might have feared. It tilted downward at a gently sloping angle and then straightened out to run level for a few hundred yards.

  The chute ended at the outer palace wall. The desert stretched away as far as the eye could see.

  The Lilri airfield lay right there beyond the chute opening. No wonder they landed their ships here. The fighters could fly into the chute from here and straight up into the Necrodrome.

  The four warships that had been patrolling Nesara also sat at the airfield. They didn't stand guard over the city anymore.

  Maybe the Vasyke didn't think they needed the warships to stand guard, now that they had the fugitives back in custody with no tunnels to escape a second time.

  A few scattered soldiers patrolled the airfield. The friends had to duck back inside the chute when a Lilri patrol passed right in front of them. The Lilri didn't see them in the dark.

  Richmond's gaze traced the airfield. All those ships hovered right in front of him. Any of them would be powerful enough to take him and his people into orbit and signal the Chronon Vanguard.

  He didn't dare to speak out loud to tell his friends what he planned to do. He just motioned them forward.

  No one questioned. They followed him onto the airfield, and in a few minutes, all those ships hid the group from the patrols.

  Richmond dove from ship to ship again. Their enormous sides gave him all the cover he could ask for.

  The warships proved an irresistible temptation. His attention always migrated back to them. The fighter craft looked so puny and weak in comparison. The same argument kept coming up in his mind no matter how many ways he thought about the situation.

  If the Lilri discovered him gone, they'd send warships after him. He would need at least one warship of his own to combat them.

  He didn't want to risk sending each of his people in a different warship. They needed one warship for all of them. He made his way to the nearest one and hid behind a fighter craft to scope out the terrain.

  Maintenance crews and uniformed soldiers worked around the vessel. Some of these people wore a different kind of uniform. He recognized it from the warship base in the mountains. These people must belong to the warship crews.

  They helped the maintenance staff repair and recondition the vessel. Too many people worked around the ship. Richmond didn't dare to go out there now.

  He wouldn't be able to capture it with so many crewmen on board, but he couldn't bring himself to walk away, either--not when he'd gotten this close.

  The crews used floodlights to illuminate the area so everyone could see what they were doing. That made sneaking on board impossible, too--or so Richmond thought.

  He stayed where he was, and soon the ship's crew went on board. The maintenance staff stayed a little longer, but in a little while some of them drifted off, too.

  Half stayed behind. Richmond couldn't tell what they were working on. The noise and commotion died down. The remaining crewmen did their work in silence.

  Richmond waited another half an hour before the crewmen started packing up their tools and equipment. They took some of it on board the ship. The maintenance crew wheeled the rest of it away somewhere else--probably to a different warship.

  Each worker stayed away for at least five minutes before he or she came back to get the next load.

  This happened three times before Richmond dared to leap out of his hiding place, sprint on board the ship, plunge through the cargo hold, and hide in one of the side compartments. His friends crammed in with him and a bunch of emergency evacuation gear. Fadek pulled the door shut behind him, but he didn't latch it.

  Richmond waited until all the shoving, gasping, and whispering quieted down. He was just about to ease the door open a crack so he could decide on his next move to take this ship.

  Right then, the engines fired up. The noise rumbled through the cargo hold. The vibration built to deafening thunder.

  Then the cargo hold slammed shut with the friends trapped on board the warship as it lifted off the ground and launched.

  CHAPTER 6

  Richmond eased open the supply compartment door and stole a peek across the cargo hold.

  "Where are we?!" Hayes yelled over the engine noise.

  "We're flying somewhere!" Yagni told him.

  "I know that, chump!" Hayes roared. "Where are we flying? That's what I want to know."

  "No one is around." Richmond tried to stand up, and had to step on a few people to do it. "Stay put and I'll see if I can check."

  "I'm going with you." Leatherwood tried to stand up, and made Fadek bellow.

  "I said stay put," Richmond countered. "Too many people running around will be too obvious. Keep out of sight."

  He pushed the door open, got out of the compartment as quickly as possible, and shut the door behind him before any of the others decided to lodge another protest.

  He didn't see anyone in the cargo hold, but he did see a small control room to the side. Electronic screens flashed information, and he thought he saw a chart of Narillia on one of the displays.

  He hustled across the hold and bent over the screen to see where the warship was going. He only planned to find its location and then check the personnel situation so he could decide how best to take this ship.

  He froze when he saw the warship launching straight up into space. The warship kept climbing on an intercept course for the Chronon Vanguard.

  The Vanguard line had pushed deeper into the Tevorian solar system to engage with the Brath. Dozens of battleships locked in mortal combat with Brath Marauders near another Tevorian planet. Hundreds of Splitwings revolved around the Marauders, trying to fight their way close enough to damage the enormous ships.

  Seven Vanguard battleships had taken heavy damage and fallen back out of the battle line. Those seven gathered close together to give each other protection. They didn't realize they had drifted too close to Narillia.

  The Lilri warship blasted out of the atmosphere on a dead course for these seven battleships. The screen in front of Richmond showed the Lilri powering up the warship's weapons to fire on the stricken ships.

  Richmond attacked the controls with shaking hands. He navigated to a layout of the warship and then stole a quick glance at both the engine schematics and the weapons systems.

  He left all of that up on the screen, charged back to the supply compartment, and practically ripped the door off its hinges.

  "Come on!" he called to his friends. "The ship is launching an assault on the Chronon Vanguard!"

  Leatherwood's jaw hit the floor. "You mean this warship is attacking the Vanguard alone?"

  "Yes!" Richmond bellowed. "Come on! We need to sabotage the ship to stop the attack!"

  He herded his friends to the nearest elevator and pushed everyone inside. None of them was armed after their recent captivity in the Necrodrome. He would have given anything for a rifle right now, but he would just have to improvise.

  He stopped the elevator at the engineering deck, made sure no one saw the friends sneaking around, and sent half his people in one direction toward the weapons arrays. He took Fadek, Hayes, and Zuna to the engine compartment.

  Richmond only had to glance through the door to see dozens of engineers already working in there. He steered his three comrades up a ladder leading to the fuel reserves above the engine compartment.

  He would have given anything for an explosive of some kind right now, but he couldn't risk damaging the ship while he and his people were on it. He still held out hope that he could somehow disable the ship. Then the Vanguard would capture the Lilri and find him and his friends on board. Mission accomplished.

  It wasn't accomplished yet, though.

  He got Fadek to locate the fuel pump. Fadek tore out the wiring to the pump, and the rumble of engine noise immediately started to die.

  Richmond hustled everyone away, but not quickly enough. An ear-splitting alarm went off down in the engine room. Frantic Lilri voices called back and forth when the engineers realized the fuel pump wasn't working.

  Richmond used a complicated system of hand signals to direct his people to another ladder leading back down inside the engine room. The friends had to hide among some scorching hot conduits until the engineers climbed up into the superstructure to work on the fuel pump. They left the engine room itself unguarded. Fadek jumped down, raced over to the controls, and started tinkering with everything.

  Richmond strode around the engine room looking at everything. His hands felt awfully empty without a weapon to guard his friends.

  He tried to listen to what the engineers were doing. He panicked when he heard one of them coming closer.

  He shoved his friends back outside. Fadek grabbed Richmond harder than Richmond grabbed him. "Get back to the cargo hold!" Fadek ordered. "Hurry!"

  Richmond didn't know what Fadek had done to the engines. It couldn't be anything good.

  He didn't argue. Fadek split away to the weapons arrays to alert the rest of their friends to come back to the cargo hold, too.

  Richmond, Hayes, and Zuna bolted for the elevator, and had to divert into an alcove when a group of Lilri crewmen came out of the elevator first.

  The friends hid, and Hayes pointed to the stairs nearby. Richmond nodded.

  The three friends waited until the coast was clear before they dashed out, plunged down the stairs, and didn't stop until they shut themselves into the supply compartment.

 

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