“No. I’m tired of war,” Altair says. “What I want is somewhere new. Somewhere we can start fresh, free of this bloodshed and these grudges.” He pauses. I still don’t understand, but I wait for him to continue rather than interrupting his thoughts. “When we left Earth, we couldn’t be one hundred percent sure these planets would provide a home, either. I find it hard to believe the rest of the universe is as empty as people say.”

“But we have no ships.”

In response, Altair’s smile grows into something less bitter, more genuine. My thoughts race. Titan may be poor in many ways, but it is rich in a few things: quartz, iron, and oil. And we have factories to refine them, to create steel and silicon, and to build solar panels to export to the other planets. People may sneer at Titan, but in some key ways, it has the most potential of any planet in this system. If someone wanted to build a ship—to build a fleet—then, theoretically, Titan would be the place to do it. And if they have more power sources like the one I found… if they have a way to use them in human-made ships… exodus could be possible.

But in a place where homeland means everything, to merely suggest such a thing would be traitorous. I hesitate, weighing each word before I speak again.

“How would the other generals feel about such a plan?”

Altair’s smile fades. His eyes wander past my head again.

“I suppose we’ll find out when it’s ready,” he says, his eyes moving back to focus on me. My breath hitches as I understand. What he’s suggesting—what he’s doing already—is traitorous, and he has no qualms about it. He searches my face before continuing. “When the time comes, I’ll need people like you at my side. People who are intelligent enough to see beyond these stupid, bloody battles and this pointless war.”

Pointless. Though I believe most of what he’s saying, that word rankles. How many people have I watched die—and how many have I killed—for this war, on his orders, to hear it called pointless now? I’ve spent so much time trying to convince myself that it had to be worth something.