For once, the Colonel holds his tongue. Good, or else I might cut it out.
“You go back to Command and you tell someone else to continue with Red Web. Oh, and let them know the Mariners are here too. They’re not so shortsighted as the rest of us.”
Part of me expects to be slapped for insubordination. In all our years, I’ve never spoken to him like this. Not even—not even in the north. At the frozen place we all used to call home. But I was a child then. A little girl pretending to be a hunter, gutting rabbits and setting bad snares to feel important. I am not her anymore. I am twenty-two years old, a captain of the Scarlet Guard, and no one, not even the Colonel, can tell me I am wrong now.
“Well?”
After a long, trembling moment, he opens his mouth. “No.”
An explosion below matches my rage. The crowd gasps in time with the fight, watching as the wispy oblivion tries to live up to her odds. But the Mariner was right. The stoneskin will win. He is a mountain against her fire, and he will endure.
“My team will stand with me,” I warn. “You’ll lose ten good soldiers and one captain to your pride, Colonel.”
“No, Captain, someone else is not going to take over Red Web from you,” he says. “But I will petition Command for a Corvium operation, and when they’ve secured a team, it will take your place.”
When. Not if. I can barely believe what he’s saying.
“Until such time, you will remain in Corvium and continue work with your contacts. Relay all pertinent information through the usual channels.”
“But Command—”
“Command is more open-minded than you know. And for whatever reason, they think the world of you.”
“I can’t tell if you’re lying.”
He merely raises one shoulder, shrugging. His eyes rove back to the arena floor, to watch as the stoneskin rips the young oblivion apart.
Somehow, his reason grates on me more than anything else. It’s hard to hate him in a time like this, when I remember who he used to be. And then of course, I remember the rest. What he did to us, to our family. To my mother and sister, who were not so horrible as we were, who could not survive in the monster he made.
I wish he wasn’t my father. I’ve wished it so many times.
“How goes Shieldwall?” I murmur to keep my thoughts at bay.
“Ahead of schedule.” Not a hint of pride, just sober fact. “But transit could be an issue, once we set in on removal.”
Supposedly the second stage of my operation. The removal and transport of assets deemed useful to the Scarlet Guard. Not just Reds who would pledge to the cause but ones who can fire a gun, drive a transport, read, fight.
“I shouldn’t know—,” I begin, but he cuts me off. I get the feeling he doesn’t have anyone to talk to, if Baldy is any indication. Now that I’m gone.
“Command gave me three boats. Three. They think three boats can help get an entire island populated and working.”
Somewhere in my brain, a bell rings. And on the floor, the stoneskin raises his rocky arms, victorious. Skin healers tend to the oblivion girl, fixing up her broken jaw and crushed shoulders with quick touches. Crance will be happy.
“Does Command ever mention pilots?” I wonder aloud.
The Colonel turns, one eyebrow raised. “Pilots? For what?”
“I think my man inside Corvium can get us something better than boats, or at least, a way to steal something better than boats.”
Another man would smile, but the Colonel simply nods.
“Do it.”
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE HAS BEEN DECODED
CONFIDENTIAL, COMMAND CLEARANCE REQUIRED
Operative: Colonel REDACTED.
Designation: RAM.
Origin: Rocasta, NRT.
Destination: COMMAND at REDACTED
-Contact made with LAMB. Her team still online, no losses.
-Assessment: CORVIUM worth an operation team. Suggest MERCY. Suggest a rush. LAMB will hand off and return to RED WEB.
-LAMB passing intelligence vital to SHIELDWALL and removal/transit.
-Returning to post.
RISE, RED AS THE DAWN.
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE HAS BEEN DECODED
CONFIDENTIAL, SENIOR CLEARANCE REQUIRED
Operative: General REDACTED.
Designation: DRUMMER.
Origin: COMMAND at REDACTED.
Destination: RAM at REDACTED, LAMB at Corvium, NRT.
-CORVIUM suggestion under advisement.
-Captain Farley will return to RED WEB in two days.
-COMMAND split on punishment as is.
-Awaiting intelligence.
RISE, RED AS THE DAWN.
THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE HAS BEEN DECODED
CONFIDENTIAL, SENIOR CLEARANCE REQUIRED
Operative: Captain REDACTED.
Designation: LAMB.
Origin: Corvium, NRT.
Destination: RAM at REDACTED, COMMAND at REDACTED.