Clo looked down at his hand, then met his eyes. They were as dead as a soldier’s. “I know the signs,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “I’ve seen Ari’s work. I saw Cato. These thoughts aren’t your own; you’d never think mass murder was the answer. You’d realize that made you just as twisted as the Tholosians. I’ve known you since I was fifteen years old. I know you.”

Kyla broke free from the remnants of the web. She grabbed the gun from the small of her back.

Clo ducked just as she aimed and fired at Sher.

He fell, tumbling to the ground with a metallic crash. No chance to worry whether anyone down below could hear the sound over the music.

“Sher!” Clo crouched beside him, her shaking hands seeking a pulse. She found one, his heart still beating. “Thank the gods, he’s not dead. When I saw you shoot . . .”

“It’s just a heavy stun,” Kyla said calmly. “I’ll finish the job.”

Clo couldn’t watch him die. She grabbed Kyla roughly. “No.”

Kyla winced. “He’s my cohort. We’ve fought together for decades and saved each other’s lives countless times. You think this isn’t hard for me?” Her voice caught. “But we can’t risk—”

“Then we’ll drag his ass back to Nova for a deprogramming, but we are not killing Sher.”

“There’s no time,” Kyla said. Clo grabbed Sher’s hand anyway, prepared to drag him her own damn self, but Kyla stopped her. “Clo. He’ll slow us down. We need to release the smoke and get out of here.”

“We can’t just leave him—”

The Commander shook her head. “We have to.”

Clo held back her tears, knowing she’d have to leave the man who had been her only family since her mother died. “I need to see,” she told Kyla. “I need to be sure.”

Clo turned Sher over, pushing up the hair at the back of his head.

There. A tiny implant, no bigger than so many cogs she’d fit into engines. She took the locket Ari gave her and pried open the back. Kyla didn’t ask what she was doing. The grief emanated off her so strongly, Clo didn’t need to be an empath like Rhea to feel it.

Clo used a wire from the locket and pressed it to the edge of the chip.

“Doing that without a precision laser will kill him just as surely as a Mors,” Kyla said.

“The odds are better. If it cuts him off from the Oracle, he might be able to resist the rest of his programming.”

“Or it’ll paralyze him.”

“Choose, Kyla. A blast or this?”

Kyla hitched in a ragged breath. “Do it.”