Their last stop of the day was in the windowed overlook chamber, where they could see the entire fleet spread out before them. Though there were sixty-one ships in all, Tassos was loath to take all of his into battle and leave the Net vulnerable. They’d settled on leaving five behind to serve the Net, which gave Caledonia fifty-six. So far, her radio message had resulted in no new arrivals, but there was still time and Caledonia still had hope that more survivors would hear her call and respond.

“Are you afraid that whoever you leave behind will take the Net from you?” she asked. “The rig?”

Tassos offered her a lazy smile in return. “No.”

It was unlike him to respond with so little. “Wouldn’t you?” she asked.

“Are you trying to convince me to stay behind?” he teased, still with that lazy smile. “To keep me from my prize?”

“No, but I’d like to know what makes you so confident,” she said. “I need to know that when we’re fighting out there, you won’t be worried about what’s happening back here.”

“You do want to know my secrets,” he said, letting his eyes travel the full length of her body. “I wouldn’t mind learning a few of yours.”

Strangely, the comment wasn’t a threat, but that didn’t make it any more welcome. “I’ll share all my sharpest secrets with you, Tassos,” she promised.

Laughter spilled from his lips, that scar digging more deeply into his cheek. “I see why my brothers are so smitten with you.” He paused, gaze drifting out to the rig before returning to Caledonia. “You want to know why I’m so confident? It’s because of this.”

He tugged a remote from his belt, holding it just out of her reach. It was a small black box with a six-digit keypad concealed beneath a door that snapped open at the press of a button.

“No one will try to take that rig from me.” He said the words with a dark kind of satisfaction. “Because if they do, I’ll enter the code and the rig will blow.”

With a wave of barely contained shock, Caledonia realized that Tassos would rather destroy the rig than see it in the hands of someone else. It was a choice she couldn’t imagine Lir making and so she hadn’t expected it of Tassos. Lir would always assume he could recover. He wouldn’t destroy something that might be useful to him in the future. But Tassos would rather lose everything than give Lir an ounce of satisfaction. It was a reminder that while Lir and Tassos might both be Fivesons, she couldn’t think of them as the same.

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