Lina,” Gail softly called.

Lina blinked and raised her head. She moaned when she felt the stiffness in her neck and legs. She lifted a hand to her cheek, it felt stiff from her dried tears. She must have fallen asleep.

“What? What is it? Are we…?” She looked up and saw that they were still in the green crystal cave. Brushing a hand over her face, she groaned and straightened her legs. “Is it time to leave?”

Gail shook her head. Dread filled Lina when she saw the expression of sympathy in the other woman’s eyes. Pushing her hair back from her face, she frowned and looked down at Gail where she stood on the steps leading up to the turret.

“Bailey asked me to come get you,” Gail said.

Lina felt her eyes widen in concern. “Mirela…,” she asked, rising to her feet and motioning for Gail to move so she could climb down the ladder.

“No, Mirela’s actually awake,” Gail replied, climbing down and stepping to the side.

Lina jumped the last few rungs of the ladder and looked at Gail. “What…? Edge?” she asked, her stomach tightening in fear.

Gail nodded. “He doesn’t look too good,” she cautioned.

Lina swallowed. Pushing past Gail, Lina took off at a run along the dimly lit corridor. Turning, she jumped down the set of short steps leading to the corridor and the medical bay.

She reached out and grabbed the doorframe leading into the medical bay. Her frantic eyes swept the room, pausing on Mirela who was lying on one of the medical beds, quietly listening to Mechelle. Stepping inside, her turned to Bailey and the surgical bed.

Horror gripped her when she saw Edge on the bed. His body was bowed upward, and his hands were gripping the sides. Sweat glistened on his face, and his eyes looked wild. Bailey was tightening an extra set of straps around his legs even as his body jerked uncontrollably as if he were in the throes of a massive seizure.

“What happened?” Lina demanded, hurrying forward when Edge lifted his arm, straining to break free.

“They are eating me,” he muttered, his head twisting from side to side.

“I need to give him a sedative,” Bailey said, making sure the strap was secure before she hurried over to a tray near the bed.

Lina flashed Bailey a furious glare. “What the hell is the matter with him, Bailey?” she demanded through gritted teeth.

Bailey turned and stepped up near his head. She pressed the tip of the injector to his neck and pushed the button. Within seconds, his body began to relax.

“This won’t last long,” Bailey quietly said, placing the injector on the tray.

“Bailey,” Lina gritted out.

Bailey’s back was to her. She could see the other woman take a deep, shuddering breath before she turned to look at her. Bailey had the same look in her eyes that Gail had—sadness and sympathy.

“He’s dying,” Bailey quietly answered.

Lina could feel her head shaking in denial. The fear she had felt for Leon welled up in her throat again, threatening to choke her. Her hands trembled as she reached for Edge’s hand. Swallowing, she had to try several times before any words would come out.

“Dying? How? What? I…. He can’t. He can’t die. He can’t,” Lina said in a broken voice.

She turned away from Bailey to look down at Edge. He looked so pale. Even with the sleep medication, his eyelids flickered, and she could tell he was in pain.

“It’s the drugs that were pumped into him. They are some kind of weird nanotechnology. We thought that he was going into remission, but they continued replicating. They’ve multiplied,” Bailey explained.

Lina looked at the surgical bed. “The bed…. Surely, it would help him. Can’t it stop the things from replicating?” she asked in a barely audible voice.

Bailey shook her head. “No, at least not yet. The compound is unknown. It adapts whenever we introduce a new drug to counteract it. I just don’t have the knowledge to fight it, Lina. I’m sorry,” Bailey whispered, her voice thick with tears.

Lina stood beside the bed, watching Edge. His breathing was erratic. She lifted her free hand and brushed it across his temple. His skin was hot to her touch. Pain exploded through her until she felt like she couldn’t breathe. This pain was worse than it had been even with Leon.

“What…?” She bowed her head and took deep breaths in an effort to gather her courage. “Can you slow the nano-whatever down?”

“Yes, I think so, but I’m not sure what good that will do except draw out his misery. If the fever inside him doesn’t kill him, the attack on his other organs will. Unless we can get him to a Trivator doctor, I’m thinking it would be more humane to keep him sedated until…,” Bailey said, looking at Edge again. “I can program the surgical bed to slow his respiratory system and lower his body temperature. That may give him some extra time.”

Lina nodded. “Do it,” she ordered, bending over to press a kiss to his lips.

“Uh, gals, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but those warships aren’t going after the decoys. In fact, another big-ass warship just appeared on the scanner, and it looks like it knows where we are,” Andy said from the doorway.

Lina looked up at Andy. Her mouth tightened in determination. She looked at Gail, then at Mirela and Mechelle. A frown creased her brow.

“A signal…. Holy alien hell. There is a tracking device on the ship,” Lina muttered, her eyes widening.

“A tracking device? Where?” Andy asked.

Lina looked down at where she held Edge’s hand. Her mind ran through their conversation. He had mentioned a strange signal.

“The shield. Edge said there was a strange signal going off every once in a while in the shields,” she murmured. She looked over at Mechelle again. “I need you to find it. We can’t use the shields until you do. They will only follow us. Edge shut down just about everything, including the shields. Mechelle, you have to figure it out.”

Mechelle looked uncertain. She glanced at Lina before turned to look at her sister. Mirela gave her a tired smile.

“I can try. I was a gaming programmer, not an alien computer expert,” she said, rising to her feet.

“You did a hell of a job on the Spaceport,” Gail reminded her.

The look of uncertainty turned into one of pride. “I did, didn’t I?” she replied with a smile. “Okay, I’ll take a look. I’ll need to power on the computer system. If I can see the program, I might be able to see if there is an anomaly in the script. Binary code is the same everywhere. It is either on or off.”

“Well, we need you to make sure it is off,” Lina said, reluctantly releasing Edge’s hand so that Bailey could attend to him. “Take care of him, Bailey.”

“I will,” Bailey vowed.

Lina looked at Andy. “Can you fly this thing?” she asked.

“If it has an engine, I can operate it,” Andy promised.

“Ok, this is the plan…” Lina said with determination.