“Still not one hundred percent healed, but that hasn’t stopped him from causing a stir,” Gareth said. “The Aykari have labeled him a traitor, so he’s currently under the protection of the UPE. As soon as he found out his invention worked, he insisted on sharing it with every civilized planet that would listen.”

“How’d he manage that?” Leo wondered.

Kat flashed him a conspiratorial look. “I hooked him up with a couple of guys who could help him get the word out. You know the kind: socially awkward, conspicuously brainy, capable of bypassing high-level security and accessing sensitive information.”

Leo definitely knew the kind.

“We contacted them and I reminded Dev how he double-crossed us earlier and then threatened to remove his brain if he refused to help. Crayt gave them the file with all of his and your father’s data and then they transmitted it all across the galaxy. It’s out there now, Leo. Your father’s research. Crayt’s design. The Djarik’s plans. All of it.”

“Anyone who wants to can build their own don’t-blow-up-the-world device,” Gareth added. “Everyone gets to decide if the treasure is worth the curse.”

Leo nodded. That was what Crayt had wanted. To give people a choice. Of course the Aykari were still intent on smashing their footprint onto every planet with something to offer, and the Djarik were still determined to stop them. The war hadn’t ended in the three days Leo was out, but maybe this would shift the balance. Give some hope to all those stuck in the middle.

“So what about us?” he asked. “Where do we stand?” He meant humans. Earth. But Kat took it differently.

“I guess for now we stand with each other.”

Leo grunted. “Sounds like something Baz would have said.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

In the quiet that followed, Leo could almost feel him in the room, hear the rap of his fingertips drumming along the Icarus’s console, the slap of his flip-flops against the floor, the sound of his voice. You did good, ninja turtle.

Kat studied her titanium hand for a moment, as if she’d caught her own reflection glinting off the metal. Then she stood up and placed Leo’s get-well rabbit back in his lap. “It’s good to see you, Leo. You feel better. That’s an order from your captain. And no more sneaking aboard pirate ships. Those guys are not to be trusted.” She gave Gareth a hard stare. He gave her a salute.

As she moved toward the door, Leo stopped her. “Kat?”

She turned, hands tucked into the pockets of her blood-stained jacket. The one she would probably never clean because it made her look notorious. And pirates relied on their reputations.

“Thanks.”

Kat nodded. “We don’t leave crew behind,” she said. “See you around, ship rat.”

And then she was gone.

The observation deck of the EDFS Nightingale was smaller than the one on the Beagle, though it still offered a spectacular view. There were benches if you wanted to sit and watch a comet streak by or just stargaze for a while. A few wounded soldiers were doing just that, staring longingly at the planet they’d risked their lives defending. Leo took them in all at once, their cybernetic limbs, the angry pink topography of burns still in the process of healing, the lost-but-still-searching look in their eyes. He wondered if any of them had been on the shuttles that landed on that Djarik command ship.