I think back to that morning in Mom’s lab. The security concerns he’d mentioned with hesitancy. He was throwing us off his scent, ensuring his access to the inner sanctum of the Reckoner industry.

And then there was the pup himself. A chill rushes through me as I remember the cyro-crate Murphy hauled out of our lab, the unusually high number of unviable embryos he’d found, my mother’s hesitation. He was stealing pups right out from under our noses, under the guise of protecting the industry’s investors.

Yet Bao clearly isn’t one of my mother’s monsters. Murphy must have been preying on dozens of stables.

“So he was the one who poisoned Durga,” I blurt. Murphy had access to the observation bays—he easily could have slipped in and dosed her with some IGEOC serum. Maybe he didn’t expect them to take me alive. Maybe that’s why he seemed so surprised to see me.

“If you say so,” Santa Elena drawls, her lips edging into a lopsided smile. It’s not an answer, and I hate that it’s not an answer. The agony of Durga’s death is still raw inside me, and all I want, all I need to close the wound, is somewhere for the blame to fall.

My gaze falls on the duffle I’ve unceremoniously deposited at the captain’s feet. “But if he’s your broker, why would he try to get me rescued?”

“Who knows? He’s a friend of your parents. He has an inkling of a conscience. He never anticipated uneducated pirates successfully hatching and training one of the monsters he sold us. Or maybe we’re not his most valuable clients.”

The last thought sends a shiver down my spine.

“Go ahead,” Santa Elena prompts, indicating the Otachi. “Give ’em a spin.”

I crouch, pull one of the devices out of the bag, and set it over my forearm. There’s a set of straps that I have to adjust to keep the Otachi in place and some loops that go over my fingers. It takes a few minutes to get everything where it should be. I roll my shoulder, adjusting to the weight, then switch the device on. As the dials beneath my fingers glow to life, a rare sensation takes hold of me, something I haven’t felt since that night on Bao’s back.

I feel powerful.

With a few twists of the dials, I set the Otachi to project Bao’s signal set and call up the homing signal. The tech responds at the lightest touch, a far cry from the heavy switches I’m used to. I step up to the edge of the trainer deck and raise my teched-up arm, pointing it at the tug’s side as my fingers hover over the triggers.