“No.” There have always been whispers about it—that if you enter a planet while technically dead in cryosleep, and come back to life when you awaken, it would make you a legal citizen. I’m sure some idiots out there have tried it, but I’ve never heard whether or not they succeeded. Regardless of that, and the impracticality of smuggling a frozen off-worlder, what he’s suggesting is dangerous. “I don’t know what rumors you’ve heard, but it’s not viable. It’s only a fifty percent chance that you’ll wake up at all, and no telling what the side effects will be even if you do.” I let out a huff of breath, shaking my head. Humankind has been struggling to perfect cryosleep technology for centuries, with no success as of yet. Most people who go under wake up with memory loss, or nerve damage, or worse. They don’t wake up as the same person who went under—if they wake up at all. “You must know all of this, Daniil. Why ask it?”

My teammate looks at me for a long moment. He lets out a soft sigh, his shoulders slumping.

“I don’t want to die here.” His cheeks flush with shame. Only on Titan would that admission be said with such a self-loathing expression. “I don’t want to be another death in a never-ending war.” He looks down. “And I will be, if I stay. A fifty-fifty chance would be miles better than what I have here.”

We haven’t spoken of Daniil’s secrets since he first spilled them to me—his heritage, the way he was dragged unwillingly into service—but I still remember them well. Daniil is barely more Titan than I am in peoples’ eyes, and when I leave, he’ll be all alone. I’d like to believe the others will take care of him… but who knows how much will change. Who knows how much my decision has already affected things, after seeing that hatred in Magda’s eyes. I realize now that her last words to me—filthy off-world traitor—must have burned Daniil as well.

“Please,” he says, when I say nothing. “There has to be a way. Don’t leave me here.”

My heart is heavy. Stars, I want to help him. I love Daniil—not quite in the way he wishes I did, but I love him nonetheless. And despite my determination to walk away, I can’t deny that part of me wishes I could rescue every member of my team from this awful war. Especially Magda… but Magda will die for her planet someday with a smile on her face. She would never come with me. And Daniil would.