Phobos crossed to his twin’s side. “We made it to the bunker, Dei. You’re okay. We’re safe.”

Atlas approached Romy’s bed. She shifted her feet to allow him space, and he sat. Weariness slumped his shoulders.

“I’m not sure where to start,” he said, running his hand through his hair.

“I think you should start in the middle, and then do flashbacks to the start,” Houston offered. “Or, Or! Start at the end and work back.”

Romy winced as the doctor yanked down the front of her top to slap some electrodes below her clavicle.

“That guy never shuts up,” Phobos muttered, now at Deimos’s side.

Atlas stared at Romy for a long, long moment. She was unsure what he was searching for. Something shifted in his gaze the longer he kept his eyes on her. His handsome face settled into softer lines.

He inhaled sharply. “From age eighteen, I’ve been commander of Orbito Four. I was placed there as a cadet at seventeen.”

Romy and the others stared at him. Thrym rounded to her side, dodging around a focused Houston. The doctor pushed a needle under her skin, and she barely felt it. Commander of Orbito Four.

“How did you become commander?” she croaked.

He shifted uncomfortably. “I have some high-profile family members . . . and I’m not the commander anymore. Not after the events of the last few days.”

The knot sat in frozen silence as they absorbed that.

Elara licked her lips. “Wouldn’t your absence be noticed?”

“Orbito Four is full of. . . .” Atlas glanced at Romy. “All the people who have lost their knot.”

Her gaze fell to her fisted hands. What he meant was, Orbito Four was for soldiers who had lost their minds. Everyone knew what Orbito Four was for.

He shrugged. “They do not register my absence. Orbito Four is a research vessel first and foremost. The unstable soldiers are studied and we send teams out to Earth.”

“The research teams,” Romy said.

Atlas looked at her. “Yes,” he said. “Except the teams don’t research. They are orbito representatives at Mandate meetings. The teams are doctors, strategists, psychiatrists, engineers, geneticists. All those aboard Orbito Four are in the employ of the organisation I work for. It has taken us over a century to infiltrate to this extent. It was our greatest achievement.”

And he’d thrown this away to help them. Romy could see the sadness in his eyes; over ten years for his people to build this bunker, over a century to infiltrate a space station. Yet he’d chosen to help the knot and risk it all, at great danger to himself.

Understanding dawned. “That’s why you had the transmission dock set up. So Commander Cronus would think you were on the orbito!”

Atlas nodded.

Her eyes were unblinking. Atlas was commander of Orbito Four? This whole time?