“What the hell is wrong with you?” Lyre snaps.

“You don’t get it.” My heart drums an angry beat in my chest. It’s all too much. Those drunks, the arms dealers—now not even my family is taking this seriously. The crowded bar presses in on me from all sides. “None of you fucking get it.” I look at Drom, who is feigning indifference as she sips her beer. “Never call me Gaian again.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Drom mutters, avoiding eye contact. She rubs one thumb over a scar on her arm. “Just a joke.”

Lyre releases me to pull out her comm and frown at it.

“Scorpia messaged me,” she says. “She wants us to meet her in an apartment building near the landing zone. Says it’s urgent.” She sighs. “What has she done now?”

“Let’s go find out,” I say, and head for the door with them on my heels, shoving my way through the crowd. The rising chatter is making my head pound; the heat of bodies is stifling. But most of all, I’m thinking of what Scorpia could be doing right now. Of course she would move ahead by herself. Take away any chance I have at a better option. It might already be too late for me to stop her. Too late for all of us.

As I pass by the table of drunks, one of them breaks into a botched version of the Titan planetary anthem, peppered with a generous amount of profanity.

My feet come to a stop. All thoughts flee my head. I move by instinct.

I grab a fistful of the closest man’s hair and slam his face into the wooden table. Twice, and a third time, and just as there’s a satisfying crack of his nose breaking, his friends overcome their shock and lunge at me.

The first one trips over his own feet in a drunken stupor, but the second manages to entangle himself with me, and we go down in a heap at Drom’s feet. She steps back, her face impassive, and leaves me to my own mess.

Not that I have any problems handling it on my own. These men are Devans, made soft by the decadent Zi Vi lifestyle, and so drunk they can barely keep track of their own fists. They’re lucky I decide not to pull my weapon. Instead, I leave one howling on the ground with a broken wrist, and rise to my feet before the other one manages to stand. I seize him by the collar the moment he does, and throw him across the nearest table, sending glasses shattering to the floor and patrons scattering. He lies still on his back, groaning, beer dripping off the table beneath him. The last member of the group is still sitting at the table, clutching his bloodied face.