If I take this pill, the last they’ll ever hear from me—the real me, not some missing persons report—is a call from last night when I was too preoccupied with Durga to ask about anything going on in their lives.

Footsteps sound in the hall outside, but no one opens the door. They must be finishing up now. The boat’s engines start to hum and the floor underneath me feels less steady. I shudder, clutching the pill in my fist. The ridges of the raised lettering on the capsule dig into my skin. Six characters in total. EpiTas. Half of a Spartan phrase. E tan e epi tas. With your shield or on it.

Come back alive and victorious, or don’t come back at all.

That’s our way. That’s our principle. That’s how we protect our industry, which in turn protects the clients that commission us. If we can’t defend them, we’re worthless. If we can’t defend ourselves, we’re worthless.

Other Reckoners have fallen. Uli, off the coast of the Philippines, killed by heavy shelling. Kou, near the Dominion of South Africa, strafed by harpoons. And now Durga, by the Southern Republic of California, slaughtered with nothing but a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher.

Their trainers all did the right thing. Their trainers all took the pill.

Durga is dead. Dear, sweet Durga, the big, dumb, playful turtle who loved her ship more than anything, died falling apart from the inside, unable to protect herself from the pirate captain’s rockets. Her body has probably settled on the floor of the NeoPacific. A whole ecosystem of bacteria and scavengers will gather to break down what’s left.

It’s only natural that I’m supposed to follow her there.

Hours must pass. My muscles ache, but I stay frozen on the floor, staring at my clenched fist and trying to conjure the thought that will bring it to my lips.

Every fight I’ve ever assisted in ended with a sinking pirate vessel, with my dad clapping me on the shoulder as I changed the beacons over to bring our Reckoner down from her seething, righteous frenzy. He would have known what to do today. The pirates wouldn’t have won.

I wouldn’t be sitting here with the capsule in my hand.

Nausea churns at my stomach, and for a moment the stench of Durga’s blood almost overwhelms me. I dig my fingernails into the flesh of my arms, fighting to keep my last meal down. If I don’t do this now, the pirates will use me. Whatever that means. They could force me to cough up information on every Reckoner my mother has ever engineered, every beast my father has ever trained. They could get me to confess weaknesses in our monsters, weaknesses in our facilities, anything that could give them an upper hand.