“What the fuck kind of a name is Cato anyway?”

“It’s Old World language,” replied Ariadne, ever the encyclopedia.

“For what? Asshole?”

“Shrewd,” Ariadne corrected, clicking away on her tablet as she pulled up the original Zelus manifest. “Cato Rigel-12. The Rigels were a militus cohort bred for intelligence.”

“Then he’s got a malfunction in his genetic engineering.” Nyx followed closely behind Eris, hoping to get the command to put a Mors blast to his head.

“How did this happen?” Eris asked Rhea as they rounded a corner in the main hallway.

Eris’s hands were balled into fists; she was probably frustrated because until they could get the ship up and running, they were stuck in Tholosian territory. Nyx didn’t blame her. She wanted to get the fuck off this rock.

Rhea shook her head. “Maybe it was always a failsafe.”

“Or he did it when you brought him into the command center,” Eris said.

“I only left him alone for—”

“You don’t need to explain yourself,” Nyx snapped. “You were trying to help the bastard. As soon as he tells us how to fix this, I’m killing him.”

Nyx flung open the door to the medical center. The pilot—Cato—didn’t even show surprise when she seized him by the front of the shirt. “Get up.”

“A little difficult when I’m tied to the bed,” he retorted.

Eris undid his bindings from the posts and re-bound his hands together. Nyx hauled his ass out of the bed and half-carried, half-dragged him out of the room.

“Hey, careful with my wound,” he protested as his feet skidded across the marble hallway of the ship. “Your friend just cleaned it.”

“Careful? I ought to stick a knife in it just to watch you scream.” Nyx flung open the door to another room and shoved him inside. “Get in there. Sit down or I’ll send you straight to the darkest level of Avern.”

The interrogation room was nearly sealed. The air ducts were too tiny to climb through. No escapes.

Eris, Ariadne, and Rhea followed behind; Clo had stayed in the command center to see if she could work around Cato’s lock, but told them over the Pathos that it wasn’t looking promising. The only way to unlock it was a code, and the cypher was this Tholosian brainwashed dickbag.

Eris stepped forward, but Nyx put up a hand. “Let me do this.” It was what she was trained for. Control, Nyx told herself. Control. “You,” she said to the pilot. “Talk.”

Nyx knew how she sounded: wound tight, coiled with a promised violence itching to lash out. One wrong word, and she’d break the bones of his face to bash the information she needed out of him.

“Talk, huh?” His grin was slow. “About anything? Because I can chat for hours. It’s one of my most infuriating qualities. Just ask your friend here.” Cato glanced at Rhea.