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Her body calms inside mine. The heartbeat I detect in her neck eases, and I know I bring her comfort. She trusts me, and it brings back a shred of the pride I once felt as the guardian of my Brothers.

Sathrin falls to his knees.

“We will win. Your doubt and your desire to be anything like the enemy make you a threat to the empire. Sorry, brother. Lieutenant Groll expects loyalty and perfection. You doubt your people. How you made it this far without execution, I don’t know.

” Celathious holsters his gun and walks back into the trees.

Several minutes pass after he’s gone that I just hold Esthi and drink in her scent while I wait for her to steady herself.

Finally, she twists around and looks up at me.

Esthi rests her cheek to mine in a tender moment I wish could last. It is a foreign stimulation.

Only Mother Besha on Titan ever showed us such compassion.

“We have to go to him,” she says sadly.

“What?” I watch as Esthi walks back into the creek. It takes a second for me to process what she’s doing. But I follow her in case Celathious finds us.

She hikes the bank on the other side and walks down the river to where Sathrin lies, bleeding out. Olive iridescent fluid runs from his body down the rocks and into the water.

He gasps from a hole in his chest as she kneels to him. “Hello, Sathrin.”

Every muscle piston in my body tenses, waiting for a move from him that I don’t like.

The Solcrue squints at her and shakes his head once. “Human...”

“Yes.” Esthi digs through her bag, grabs an injector, and peels it from the plastic. “Don’t you know your species prefers natural selection?”

His breaths rattle.

“He’s bleeding internally,” I tell her. Diagnostics scans fill my vision. “He’s not going to live.”

She looks up at me. “That’s what the Solcrue want, isn’t it? For all of us that they deem less valuable than their elites to suffer until we ultimately die, and they can have their unburdened utopia in the stars?”

Esthi jams the injector with vehemence into the hole in Sathrin’s chest. “Your people took my sister. Where is she?”

Sathrin’s face screws up in agony. “I don’t know where every slave is stationed!”

The muscles in Esthi’s jaw flex. “The special units trained to fly your ships. She’s in cybernetic armor.”

“Commanders Ahronis and Kravith have control of the VoidDiver program.”

“He’s lying, has to be,” I say.

Esthi smirks. “No. It’s built into Solcruean medicines to tell the truth as they’re healed, so reports can be filed with accuracy. Isn’t that right, Sathrin?”

The hexagonal cells of his face darken in waves as he coughs and splutters. He musters a nod.

“What is the plan during takeoff?” she presses.

His gaze darts around like he doesn’t want to say it.

“Sathrin.” Esthi twists the injector.

“Oh! Okay, fuck!” He grunts and curls a lip. “Venom Squadron is set to attack the mountain.”

This is new to me. “What is Venom Squadron?”

“We have acidic weapons that eat into soiridium and most Titan metals. Everything but hydramidium.”

“How do we stop them?” I ask.

“You can’t. Ghost cloaks are like nothing I’ve ever seen.” Sathrin chokes and starts convulsing.

Esthi injects him with a little more medicine, bringing him back to us.

“Why help me?” he asks. “Just for information?”

I have the same question.

Esthi sits back, leaving the injector in his chest. She hasn’t depressed the plunger completely. Sathrin reaches for it like he wants to finish the job, but his hands shake violently.

“Your species has caused us a lot of pain,” she says.

I scan the area for Celathious and any other heat signatures but find nothing more than a few small rodents in the brush.

“Reversion Syndrome,” he wheezes.

“You like humans?”

“I notice when their system is more advanced than ours.”

She rests an elbow on a knee and tilts her head. “Alright, answer two questions. How you respond will determine what I do with that injector. What is the purpose of life?”

Sathrin gazes up at the sky. “Don’t know. Wish I did.”

“Because you don’t want to die?”

His breathing grows labored. “No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“That’s more than two.” He curls up onto his bad side.

“Why not?” Esthi challenges.

“One chance.”

She chews a cheek. “One chance to live? One chance to be anything, and you chose to hate, kill, enslave...”

“Born to it.” His eyes plead with her, then drift away, filling with regret like he’s accepting his fate. “I know nothing else.”

Esthi’s anger fades. “Last question.”

He groans with what little air he has left.

“What is sentience?”

Growing uncomfortable, I hang my head and scan behind us, fearing what she considers life doesn’t include us.

“Awareness. Feeling.” He rolls onto his stomach, and a string of bloody drool drips from his mouth.

Esthi depresses the injector, watching him carefully. “Bonus question. Who is capable of sentience?”

Sathrin looks up at me.

A smile decorates her face. She pulls out another injector, a smaller one, and taps it into his shoulder.

“Now, Sathrin...” Esthi gets to her feet, rolls him onto his back with a boot, and tosses the spent booster injector atop his chest. “You get a second chance. Don’t cock it up.”

She slings her bag over her shoulders again and motions me back across the creek. I pick her up, clutch her against me, and bound over it in one jump.

ArmorClover: Venom Squadron planning to attack during takeoff. Hydramidium is the only effective shield against acid spray.

She doesn’t respond.

I repeat the message over the local network, hoping someone in the area can pass it on to her, Amp, or Savage. A Skysprinter roars closer, and I know we can’t stay topside for me to resend the warning.

“Do not do that again,” I say to Esthi as we dart inside the tunnel system where Brunt stands guard. “Please.”

“He broke. Didn’t you see it?” Esthi asks as I jump down the ascent shaft. Brunt closes the entrance overhead with a single punch.

He lands beside us and encourages us on as rock rains down, filling the tunnel behind us.

Esthi asks me to put her down, so I do. “We got critical information and hopefully a rebel out of him. That is how we build contacts inside the system. Only time will tell if he sides with us or not.”

“He might turn on us, report us.”

“Doubt it. His people tried to kill him. He’s going Gray .”

“You’re so certain.”

Brunt gives me a mental nudge.

BruntArmor: I heard your message about Venom Squadron. Is that what the Solcrue told you?

ArmorBrunt: A-firm.

BruntArmor: We must move fast then. If they did not get the message, we must find a way to stop the squadron ourselves.

Esthi marches ahead of us. “Yes. It’s one of the few things humans can do that you can’t because you can’t feel it.

There is an energy our subconscious picks up that can only be shared between us.

Just like you talk with your telepathic network, we can feel the energy of another if we know how to quiet ourselves and listen. ”

“If he hadn’t changed?” Brunt asks.

Esthi puts her goggles on. They light up with green readouts. “I would’ve put a bullet in his head to make it clean and as painless as possible. Celathious wanted him to suffer. That is why I say without a doubt Sathrin will turn. There’s nothing worse than being betrayed by your own people.”

“Why do you say that like you have experience?”

Esthi draws a knot of hydramidium from her bag and calls up to Magma.

“Who betrayed you?” I press, worried I’ve handled the situation at the creek incorrectly.

Magma drops back, sees what she’s holding, and takes it cautiously in his hands.

“Think you can mold this into something we can use against acid weapons?” she asks him. “Shields?”

Magma looks at me. “Yes.”

“Thanks. I have to get working on his shield generator repair.” Esthi takes out her tablet as we follow Carver’s path and the other Titans toward the outpost.

I don’t think Esthi wants to talk about whatever happened, but I’m desperate to know it’s not me. I stay beside her, hoping my presence will be enough of a reminder without being too pushy. Brunt guards us from the back while Magma heats and softens the metal in his hands.

While we walk, I forward the update about Venom Squadron and what’s happened to my brothers. Mace and Karambit slink back to group up with us, forming a guard squad around Esthi without even thinking about it. I think they feel a similar dedication to her that I do.

“My uncle.” Esthi taps her tablet to my chest. As she looks over the readouts, she opens a wiring diagram and begins highlighting breaks.

“He was CSP. When they came for Myria, he was onboard the Solcrue ship. If I ever see him again, I’m going to kill him for letting them take her and all the others from us. ”