They crowded around the window of the door. Both Asteria and Zelus’s bullet crafts were gone, the loading bay empty. The engines on smaller ships were so silent, they hadn’t even heard them over the main hum of Zelus.

Clo gaped. “He’s stolen my bogging ship!”

Ariadne’s voice sounded through the speakers. “I can’t tell if he’s in the bullet craft or the other ship from here.”

Clo shoved away from the door and sprinted as fast as her leg would allow down the hall back to the command center, the footsteps of the others echoing behind her. “He’ll be in Asteria, definitely. It has the supplies. The bullet craft is a diversion.”

“Should I fire at him?”

Clo paused. Don’t, she wanted to say. Try something else. Not Asteria. Not my ship.

It wasn’t just some stupid hunk of metal she’d pieced together. It was the only thing she had left of Briggs. She knew every wire, every nick on its nose, every twist of its corridors. She could point out each part that they had painstakingly added, and the purpose they all served. That part for speed. That part for emergencies. That part for luck.

Eris caught up to Clo, and a flicker of shock registered in her features. Clo didn’t want to explain. How could she explain to a princess who was raised never to care for anyone? Who saw everyone and everything as disposable? A tool to be used or destroyed.

Clo swallowed the painful lump in her throat. “Fire,” she said on an exhale, her voice breaking. “Kill the bastard.”

She ran through a corridor that was not hers. Zelus was too big, too sprawling, too Tholosian. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t home.

The ship shuddered as it fired.

She reached the command center. Ariadne was on her tiptoes, hands curled around the controls, tense. Rhea hovered behind her, resting her hands comfortingly on the smaller girl’s shoulders.

“Asteria’s shields are down fifty percent, but they’re holding,” Ariadne said. “We need to hurry before he jumps.”

Of course the shields were holding; Clo and Briggs had added the tech themselves. “He can’t jump; the ship needs to rest from chasing Zelus,” Clo said. “Let me do this.”

Ariadne slid out of the way.

After Asteria, the controls of Zelus felt wrong. Everything felt wrong.

Clo shut her eyes briefly. “I’m sorry, Briggs,” Clo whispered, and fired thrice. The turrets on the bottom of the ship powered up, and the ship shuddered as the projectiles released.

Asteria jumped. The blasts hit nothing; they zoomed out into the dark expanse of the galaxy.