It all happened so quickly, Ziro had to pinch himself a time or two just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. One moment the squad was surrounded by spearheads and the very next they were being hoisted onto the shoulders of dozens of Liwan maidens, carried into town and heralded as heroes.

If evil made a sound, this was it. The hum grew steadily louder with each passing second, haunting the ears with its eerie tone then boring its way into Ziro’s skull and threatening to drive the mouse insane. At times he felt the ground itself tremble in anticipation of what was to come. Every instinct told him to run but he froze. Then darkness filled the air.

Ziro’s blood froze as he jolted awake in a hurry. His sleep had been light, plagued with nightmares of a one-footed owl and a red-eyed shadow chasing him through the woods. He shook his head and sat up, half expecting to come face to face with some kind of horrendous creature invading their camp. Instead, under morning’s first light, he saw Streak, running around the smouldering campfire being pestered by a furry white moth, with bright orange eyes. The fluttering creature kept following him around as he scurried about, colliding into his head.

Night swallowed the mice before they were ready. Ziro managed to kindle a fire before the coolness of the dark became too unbearable, but without shelter or his blaster to protect them they were easy prey in a wild world.

Magenta couldn’t scream to save her life. Snatched from above by the piercing talons embedded in her shoulder it was all she could do to breathe and even that wasn’t going so well.

Tension was high as the squad waited in earnest for the creature to reappear. With blasters raised and vengeance on their minds, they scanned the waters.

There were only two things Ziro knew for sure at this point: he was going to throw up, and he wasn’t going to look cool doing it.

Nothing could erase the smile from Ziro’s face, not even the gut-wrenching anticipation of being rocketed two hundred tails per second on one of the most rickety transports ever designed.

Ziro wasted no time rushing across the room in pursuit of the perfect recruit. He was at a full run by the time he reached topside from the tunnel. The girl had clearly moved faster than he first anticipated.