Rhea didn’t even think. She scrambled up, darted for the gerulae’s utility belt, and grabbed the first thing her hand touched. An oil canister.

She launched it at the pilot.

The canister slammed into the pilot’s temple, and he went down with a muted cry. Rhea breathed hard, watching his body for any movement. None. Had he been at full strength, she wouldn’t have stood a chance at knocking him out with one hit.

“Thank you,” Rhea said, looking at the women next to her.

They stared expressionlessly down at the pilot, barely even blinking. The scythes on their cheeks seemed to absorb the harsh overhead hangar lighting.

While there had been servitor in the Pleasure Garden, the gerulae had been kept strictly on the other side of the walls. Attendants could answer queries, give polite responses that were just lively enough to show a facade of choice. Gerulae, Rhea knew, were different. Did they even know what was happening?

Rhea shook her head. No time for that.

“Can you help me?” she asked the gerulae. “I can’t . . . I can’t drag him alone.”

They stared at Rhea wordlessly. Rhea reached out to take the first woman’s hand. “Can you—”

A vast emptiness expanded inside Rhea. She couldn’t hear thoughts, no, but this woman’s emotions . . .

Nothingness. Dark. Bleak. An abyss, floating down down down down into the black can’t scream can’t speak nothing nothing nothing no—

Gasping, Rhea released the gerulae’s hand. “Gods. Gods. I’m so—gods, I’m so sorry.”

The women blinked at her, and Rhea could feel the echo of that chasm inside her. How dark and long it was. And she could do nothing to help them. Nothing.

Rhea shut her eyes, hating this. Hating everything the Empire had done. Hating how inept she felt because, right now, she couldn’t do anything other than fix this one small problem: the pilot.

“Help me with him,” she urged the gerulae firmly.

They only responded to commands. The Oracle would not let them act on anything that might be considered a choice.

The women grasped the pilot’s hands and helped Rhea drag him back to the ship. Once they had him restrained in the command center, the gerulae returned to the ship they were servicing and kept scrubbing the metal clean. The Oracle had left them with nothing, just like that Evoli who had died. No names, no voice, nothing for themselves. Rhea wondered what crime they had committed to become this. It might have been nothing more than being too slow to bring Damocles his breakfast.

There’s nothing you can do for them.

Rhea returned to the command center and looked over the pilot. He smelled of sour sweat and sickness, which meant his injury was bad. He’d been on the ship, hidden somewhere for days, with no medical attention.