With a quick jerk of his hand, Tassos tugged her close, putting his face so near to hers she could smell the too-sweet notes of Silt on his skin. “And after that,” he said. “I’ll gun you down if you so much as blink in my direction.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Soiltech?” Pisces snapped as Hime ushered Oran to an exam bed. “What were you thinking? We’re meant to get that tech into the hands of the colonists, not Bullet warlords in the making. That wasn’t part of the plan, Cala.”

Pine, Sledge, and Pisces stepped inside the med bay, sealing the hatch behind them. Caledonia remained halfway between Oran and the door. She watched as Hime carefully manipulated his fingers, as Oran breathed intentionally through his nose. Pain etched itself into the shadows of his jaw, the lines around his eyes, and Caledonia stood rooted in place, guilt stacked on her shoulders like massive boulders. She hadn’t done this to him, but she’d let it happen. She’d needed it to happen.

She felt sick.

“Or maybe it was.” Pine kept his voice light as he crossed the room and stretched out on an empty exam bed. “And she didn’t tell us because she knew we wouldn’t agree.”

Pisces rounded on Caledonia. “Is that true?”

“It’s true.” Caledonia had never been good at lying, and especially not to Pisces.

“Do you know what you’ve done?!” Sledge burst forward, striding across the room in three terrifying steps. “Do you have any idea?! You’re making the next Aric Athair.”

She recognized the fear in his eyes, but she didn’t share it. “Only if he gets everything he wants.”

“If?” Pine asked, crossing his legs at the ankle and tucking his arms behind his head.

“If,” she repeated. “I didn’t promise him baleflowers or seeds. Only that they would be his for the taking.”

“You want us to find them first?” Pisces asked, incredulous. “Get rid of them before they claim them? That’s a hell of a gamble.”

“Everything we do is a gamble,” Caledonia countered. “We can’t contain soiltech. In fact, our goal is not to contain it, which means at some point, it will end up in the hands of Tassos or someone just as terrible. The point is, we can make more. We can make sure it gets into the hands of colonists, Slaggers, and whoever else needs it. That’s how we keep him from becoming Aric. By making sure the only thing he controls is Silt. Not food.”

The room was quiet but for the humming of machines and Oran’s harsh breath. Everyone knew there was truth in Caledonia’s argument, but it wasn’t the clean kind of truth they wanted. It settled between them awkwardly, a bomb waiting to go off.

I’m going to set his bones now. Hime’s signs were decisive.