The Red Baron’s medical wing, like most things about their ship, is far more impressive than our own. As Orion said, there’s even a pressure-sealed quarantine room. Smart, especially given what they’re transporting. I limp past the medical beds and supplies and hit the pressure pad to open the quarantine area, leaving a bloody handprint behind. Once the door shuts behind me, it’s like I’m in my own cramped and sterile little world. The room holds a single metal bed and a small cabinet.

Inside, I find five familiar vials. Orion was telling the truth.

My lips curl slightly. Clever of Captain Murdock to hide these in plain sight. His crew would have had no reason to search for them here. And if I didn’t know what to look for, I never would have found these even if I glanced in the cabinet. I remove them carefully now, setting each out on the counter. Five tiny vials with barely visible, shimmering content—and so much potential destruction. But it ends here and now. Maybe the quarantine room won’t be enough to hold the alien weapons’ destruction, and the pirates will go down as well. But if they don’t, at least the weapons will be destroyed. And I will die with them.

It’s better than what I imagined. No—it’s perfect. The perfect ending for me, though I didn’t realize how desperately I was searching for one until this very moment.

I take my own family’s vial out of my pocket and set it alongside the others. Next, I pull out the photograph I took from Momma’s cabinet and unfold it, placing it on the counter. And one last object: an energy grenade. Simple but effective.

I study the photograph before shutting my eyes, trying to fill my mind with the memories I saw before. I reach for another glimpse of the clouds parting to reveal the sun on Nibiru—but I see only darkness. Perhaps that’s all I deserve. I take a breath and move my thumb over to the grenade’s pin.

A body slams into me, and my wounded leg gives out. My forehead thuds against the floor, along with my chest, knocking the air out of me and sending the grenade skittering. I scramble to grab it as my head spins and my ears ring, but a hand clamps down on my wrist and pins it there.

“Corvus, you stars-damned moron,” my captor shouts in my ear, and I go still as I realize who’s pinning me. Scorpia’s lanky body presses against my back, her hand holding my wrist trapped. “Wanna explain to me exactly what you’re doing?”