Ariadne gave a cough and everyone turned toward the youngest. “I’ll find it,” she said. “The problem is I’d have to access the Tholosian mainframe through one of the royal fleet. The blaster won’t be labeled in the mainframe, but it has internal coding for the sequencer that requires access to the Tholosian system. If Damocles brought it to Laguna, I’ll know where.” She swallowed. Nyx felt a surge of protectiveness. The kid was putting on a good front, but she was scared shitless.

“That I think can also help with,” Rhea said with a smile, wiggling her fingers. She’d felled Cato with a touch, but he’d been injured and sick from infection. They all had to hope it worked on Oracle-coded soldiers who were at full health.

“Once we’re in the system, it shouldn’t take long,” Ariadne said, clearly aiming for more confidence than she felt. “Hopefully.”

“Good,” Kyla said. “Because looking at the manifest of ships coming to Laguna, this seems a likely candidate for storing the blaster and the ichor.” She drew up schematics of Eleuther. “It’s the fueling craft coming in with Damocles’s fleet, and it’s one of the biggest ships coming in to dock. You can access the nearest mainframe computer through the east storage bay. I’ll send you and Rhea the layout.”

“What if despite all of this, the plague is still released?” Rhea asked.

Clo let out a breath. “Me and Ariadne talked about that.” She held up small devices—metal circles the size of her palm.

Sher raised his eyebrows. “You stole my spharias?”

Nyx was damn impressed. Spharias were dead handy and hard to get ahold of. Nyx had used them before when her quadrant needed to take refuge somewhere uninhabitable. Set up in a circle, they created a mini atmosphere for a few hours. Useful when people needed to do work on a planet or moon with thin or no oxygen but didn’t want a bulky suit. How in the flames had the Novantae managed to get ahold of these?

“I borrowed your spharias,” Clo corrected. “We can make a perimeter around the area to lock in the epidemic. Hopefully, it won’t come to that, but it means the rest of Laguna might survive.”

“Remind me to give you a raise,” Sher said.

“In that case, why don’t we start with a new ship?” Clo said, pocketing her spharias. “Ariadne blasted mine and then it jumped down a wormhole.”

Ariadne turned from her computer and gave a sheepish smile. “You did give me permission. Anyway, from the monitors, it looked like Asteria was already pretty beaten up.”

Clo looked offended.