“Silver?” Cyburn asked, his voice rising in sequence with his eyebrows.
Nix glanced over his shoulder at the door as if he expected Silver to pop out and start shooting at us or something.
“She’s been compromised.”
“What do you mean?” Cyburn’s features sobered.
“Imeanthat somehow Amada got to her and changed her in some way.”
“We can’t even find Amada,” Cyburn argued.
Nix shook his head. “I’m telling you. The Silver we know and love has jumped ship, that's not the real her in there. You need to be careful what you say around her.”
“I was just in the room with her,” I explained. “She didn’t mention anything. Her behavior wasn’t o—” I stopped suddenly, catching my error. I had just noticed a few minutes before how Silver was acting atypically quiet for her usual dogmatic self.
Nix stared at me as I put the pieces together that something was terribly wrong with our current picture.
My stomach clinched and my heart raced. A clammy sweat broke out against my skin, and I flushed with a nervous heat that scorched throughout my entire body.
The door to the maintenance room burst open without warning. Silver stood there, her eyes dominant, her posture intimidating. She looked nothing like herself.
I took a step backward toward Cyburn.
“Silver, what have you done?” he asked in a low growl.
“I’ve done nothing.” Silver’s robotic voice was as cold as ice. Her expression was even more glacial. She didn't even sound like her normal self, and even her expressions were altered.
“Did Amada do something to you?”
Silver didn’t answer. She just stared at us with a creepy sneer upon her robotic features.
Cyburn’s nostrils flared, and his lips spread into a thin line of anger. He looked at Nix. “We’ve got to find her.”
Nix nodded and adjusted the ammunition holster strap on his shoulder. “We’re going to, I promise.”
“It’s taking too long.” Cyburn’s energy dripped with impatience.
Silver attempted to step out into the corridor, but Cyburn blocked her path with his giant body.
“Silver, as Captain of the Blade, I demand you tell me what you have done.”
Silver's gaze flickered and for a moment she looked like her normal self, but then it was as if some programing worm over-rode her natural self and took over and she sneered again.
I feared what Silver had done but was also worried about what was going to happen with Amada. I just knew that I would be her first target.
She'd had a vendetta against me since the moment I came on board the Blade. I was sure she was going to wait and use me as her grand finale. It made me sick to think about it. Now if Silver was a traitor too, it opened a gateway for Amada to put even more diabolical plans into motion.
Before we could get an explanation out of Silver, the alarms from the bridge started wailing through the corridors.
We didn’t hesitate. We scrambled through the hallways as fast as we could in that direction. My heart was in my throat the entire way.
As we reached the flight deck, the navigation panels were flashing off and on. Bright red symbols were pinging across the screen. The alarm sirens blared so loud that I had to push my palms against my ears to muffle some of the shrill sound.
“The Imperial ships are heading straight toward us,” Cyburn said as he stared in horror at the navigation panels.
“What did she do?” I asked, referring to Silver.
“Theygave away our location again,” Cyburn said, turning around stiffly to glare at Silver who now stood smirking in the doorway of the bridge.