maze. And when I did, he smiled, said how clever I was, and walked off.
“The next time he drew a maze, I couldn’t find the center. No matter how hard I tried.” She shifts uncomfortably. “He just watched me try from the floor among his pencils. Like an old evil ghost inside a little porcelain doll. That’s how I remember him. It’s how I see him now when I think about him killing Father.”
The Telemanuses listen with a foreboding silence, as afraid of the Jackal as I am.
“Darrow, he’ll never forgive you for beating him at the Institute. For making him cut off his hand.
He’ll never forgive me for stripping him naked and delivering him to you. We are his obsession, just as much as Octavia is, as much as Father was. So if you think he’s going to just forget how Sevro waltzed into his citadel with a clawDrill and stole you from under him, you’re going to get a lot of people killed. Your plan to take the cities won’t work. He’ll see it coming a kilometer off. And even if he doesn’t, if we take Mars, this war will last for years. We need to go for the jugular.”
“And not just that,” Daxo says, “we need assurances that you’re not aiming to begin a dictatorship, or a full-demokracy in the case of victory.”
“A dictatorship,” I ask with a smirk. “You really think I want to rule?”
Daxo shrugs. “Someone must.”
A woman clears her throat at the door. We wheel around to see Holiday standing there with her thumbs in her belt loops. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. But the Bellona is asking for you. It seems rather important.”
Cassius lies handcuffed to the rails of the reinforced medical gurney in the center of the Sons of Ares infirmary. The same place I watched my people die from the wounds they suffered to save me from
his clutches. Bed after bed of injured rebels from Phobos and other operations on the Thermic fill the expanse. Ventilators whir and beep, men cough. But it’s the weight of the eyes that I feel most. Hands reach for me as I pass through the rows of cots and pallets lying on the floor. Mouths whisper my name. They want to touch my arms, to feel a human without Sigils, without the mark of the masters. I let them as well as I can, but I haven’t time to visit the fringes of the room.
I asked Dancer to give Cassius a private room. Instead, he’s been set smack in the middle of the main infirmary among the amputees, adjacent to the huge plastic tent that covers the burn unit. There he can watch and be watched by the lowColors and feel the weight of this war the same way they do. I sense Dancer ’s hand at work here. Giving Cassius equitable treatment. No cruelty, no consideration, just the same as the rest. I feel like buying the old socialist a drink.
Several of Narol’s boys, a Gray and two weathered ex-Helldivers, slump on metal chairs playing
cards near Cassius’s bedside. Heavy scorchers slung around their backs. They jump to their feet and salute as I approach.
“Heard he’s been asking for me,” I say.
“Most the night,” the shorter of the Reds answers gruffly, eying Holiday behind me. “Wouldn’t have bothered you…but he’s a bloodydamn Olympic. So thought we should pass the word up the chain.” He leans so close I can smell the menthol of the synth tobacco between his stained teeth. “And the slagger says he’s got information, sir.”
“Can he talk?”
“Yeah,” the soldier grumbles. “Doesn’t say much, but the bolt missed his box.”
“I need to speak with him privately,” I say.
“We got you covered, sir.”
—
The doctor and the guards wheel Cassius’s gurney to the far back of the room to the pharmacy, which they keep guarded under lock and key. Inside, among the rows of plastic medication boxes, Cassius
and I are left alone. He watches me from his bed, a white bandage around his neck, the faintest pinprick of blood dilating between his Adam’s apple and the jugular on the right side of his throat.
“It’s a miracle you’re not dead,” I say. He shrugs. There’s no tubes in his arms or morphon bracelet. I
frown. “They didn’t give you painkillers?”
“Not punishment. They voted,” he says very slowly, taking care not to rip the stitches on his neck.
“Wasn’t enough morphon to go around. Low supplies. As they tell, the patients voted last week to give the hard meds to the burn victims and amputees. I’d think it noble if they didn’t moan all night from pain like lonely little puppies.” He pauses. “I always wondered if mothers can hear their children weeping for them.”
“Can yours?”
“I didn’t weep. And I don’t think my mother cares much for anything other than revenge. Whatever
that means at this point.”
“You said you had information?” I ask, to business because I don’t know what else to say. I feel an ironclad kinship with this man. Sevro asked why I saved him, and I could aspire to notions of valor and honor. But the deepspine reason is I desperately want him to be a friend again. I crave his approval. Does that make me a fool? Disloyal? Is it the guilt speaking? Is it his magnetism? Or is it that vain part of me that just wants to be loved by the people I respect. And I do respect him. He has honor, a corrupted sort, but true honor nonetheless.
“Was it her or was it you?” he asks carefully.
“What do you mean?”
“Who kept the Obsidians from boiling out my eyes and taking my tongue? You or Virginia?”
“It was both of us.”
“Liar. Didn’t think she’d shoot, to tell the truth of it.” He reaches up to feel his neck, but the manacles jerk his hands to a halt, startling him back into the room. “Don’t suppose you could take these off? It’s dreadful when you’ve got an itch.”
“I think you’ll live.”
He chuckles as if saying he had to try. “So, is this where you act morally superior for saving me?
For being more civilized than Gold?”
“Maybe I’m going to torture you for information,” I say.
“Well, that’s not exactly honorable.”
“Neither is letting a man put me in a box for nine months after torturing me for three. Anyway, what the hell ever made you think I give a shit about being honorable?”
“True.” He frowns, creasing his brow and looking startling, like something Michelangelo would have carved. “If you think the Sovereign will barter, you’re wrong. She won’t sacrifice a single thing to save me.”
“Then why serve her?” I ask.
“Duty.” He says the words, but I wonder how deeply he means them any longer.
In his eyes I glimpse the loneliness, the longing for a life that should have been, and the glimmer of the man he wants to be underneath the man he thinks he has to be.
“All the same,” I say, “I think we’ve done enough evil to one another. I’m not going to torture you.
Do you have information or are we just going to dance around it for another ten minutes?”
“Have you wondered yet why the Sovereign was suing for peace, Darrow? Surely it must have crossed your mind. She’s not one to dilute punishment unless she must. Why would she show leniency to Virginia? To the Rim? Her fleets outnumber those of the Moon Lord rebels three to one. The Core is better supplied. Romulus can’t match Roque. You know how good he is. So why would the Sovereign send us to negotiate? Why compromise?”
“I already know she wanted to replace the Jackal,” I say. “And she can’t very well have a full-scale
rebellion on the Rim while trying to cuff his ears and fight the Sons of Ares. She’s trying to limit her theaters of war so she can focus all her weight on one problem at a time. It’s not a complicated strategy.”
“But do you know why she wanted to remove him?”
“My escape, the camps, the disruptions in helium processing…I could list a hundred reasons why
installing a psychopath as ArchGovernor could prove burdensome.”
“All those are valid,” he says, interrupting. “Convincing, even. And they are the reasons we provided Virginia.”
I step back toward him, hearing the implication in his voice. “What didn’t you tell her?” He hesitates, as if wondering even now if he should tell me. Eventually, he does.
“Earlier this year, our intelligence agents discovered discrepancies between the quarterly helium production logs reported to the Department of Energy and the Department of Mine Management and
the yield reports from our agents in mining colonies themselves. We found at least one hundred and twenty-five instances where the Jackal falsely reported helium losses due to Sons of Ares disruption.
Disruptions which didn’t exist. He also claimed fourteen mines destroyed by Sons of Ares attacks.
Attacks which never happened.”
“So he’s skimming off the top,” I say with a shrug. “Hardly the first corrupt ArchGovernor in the
worlds.”
“But he’s not reselling it on the market,” Cassius says. “He’s creating artificial shortages while he stockpiles.”
“Stockpiles? How much so far?” I ask tensely.
“With the surplus inventory from the fourteen mines and the Martian Reserve? At this rate, in two
years he’ll have more than the Imperial Reserves on Luna and Venus and the War Reserve on Ceres
combined.”
“That could mean a hundred things,” I say quietly, realizing just how much fuel that is. Three quarters of the most valuable substance in the worlds. All under the control of one man. “He’s making a play for Sovereign. Buying Senators?”
“Forty so far,” Cassius admits. “More than we thought he had. But there’s another kink which he’s
involved them in.” He tries to sit up straighter in his cot, but the manacles around his hands anchor him to a half-slouched pose. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to tell me the truth.” I’d laugh at the idea if I didn’t see how serious he is. “Did the Sons of Ares rob a deep space asteroid warehouse in March, several days after your escape? About four months ago?”
“Be more specific,” I say.
“A minor main belter in the Karin Cluster. Designation S-1988. Silicate-based junk asteroid. Nearly zero mining potential. Specific enough?”
I reviewed the entirety of Sevro’s tactical operations when I was making my recovery with Mickey.
There were several assaults on Legion military bases within the asteroid belts, but nothing remotely like what Cassius is talking about.
“No. There were no operations on S-1988 that I know of.”
“Gorydamn,” he mutters under his breath. “Then we judged right.”
“What was in the warehouse?” I ask. “Cassius…”
“Five hundred nuclear warheads,” he says darkly.
The blood on his bandage has spread to the size of a gaping mouth.
“Five hundred,” I echo, my own voice a distant, hollow thing. “What was their yield?”
“Thirty megatons each.”
“World killers…Cassius, why would they even exist?”
“In case the Ash Lord ever had to repeat Rhea,” Cassius says. “The depot lies between the Core and the Rim.”
“Repeat Rhea…that’s who you serve?” I ask. “A woman who stores enough nuclear warheads to destroy a planet, just in case.”
He ignores my tone. “All evidence pointed to Ares, but the Sovereign thought it gave Sevro too much credit. She had Moira investigate it personally, and she was able to trace the tags of the hijacker ’s ship to a defunct shipping line formerly owned by Julii Industries. If the Sons truly didn’t steal them, then the Jackal has the weapons. But we don’t know what he’s doing with them.” I stand there, numb. Mind racing to piece together how the Jackal might utilize so many atomics. According to the Compact, the Martian military is only permitted twenty in its arsenal, for ship-to-ship warfare.
All under five megatons.
“If this is true, why would you tell me?” I ask.
“Because Mars is my home too, Darrow. My family has been there as long as yours. My mother is
still there in our home. Whatever the Jackal’s long-term strategy is, the judgment of the Sovereign is that he will use the weapons here if his back is to the wall.”
“You’re afraid we might win,” I realize.
“When it was Sevro’s war, no. The Sons of Ares was doomed. But now? Look what’s happening.”
He looks me up and down. “We’ve lost containment. Octavia doesn’t know where I am. Whether or
not Aja is alive. She has no eyes on this. The Jackal might know she tried to betray him to his sister.
He’s a wild dog. If you provoke him, he will bite.” He lowers his voice. “You might be able to survive that, Darrow, but can Mars?”
“Five hundred nuclear warheads?” Sevro whispers. “Holy bloodydamn shit. Tell me you’re joking.
Go on.”
Dancer sits quietly at the warroom table, kneading his temples.
“It’s bullshit,” Holiday grunts from the wall. “If he has them, he’d have used them.”
“Let’s leave the deductions to the individuals who have actually met the man, shall we?” Victra says.
“Adrius doesn’t function like a normal human.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Sevro says.
“Still, it is a solid question,” Dancer says, annoyed at the presence of so many Golds, particularly Mustang who stands beside me. “If he has them, why hasn’t he used them?”
“Because that sort of escalation will hurt him almost as much as it hurts us,” I say. “And if he uses them, the Sovereign will have every excuse to replace him.”
“Or he doesn’t have them,” Quicksilver says dismissively. He floats before us, blue holoPixels shimmering over a display panel. “It’s a ploy. Bellona knows what you care about, Darrow. He’s plucking your heartstrings with notions of oblivion. It’s bullshit. My techs would have seen major ripples if he was moving missiles. And I would have heard about plutonium enriching if the Sovereign had them built.”
“Unless they’re old missiles,” I say. “Lots of relics lying about.”
“And it’s a big solar system,” Mustang says evenly.
“I’ve got big ears,” Quicksilver replies.
“Had,” Victra says. “They’re whittling them down as we speak.”
The leaders of the rebellion sit in a semi-circle in front of a holoprojector which displays asteroid S-1988. It’s a barren hunk of rock, part of the Karin sub-family of the Koronis Family of asteroids in the Main Belt between Mars and Jupiter. The Koronis asteroids are the base for heavy mining operations by an Earth-run energy consortium and home to several disreputable astral way stations for smugglers and pirates, most notably 208 Lacrimosa, where Sevro refueled on his journey from
Pluto to Mars. The locals call the smuggler ’s cove Our Lady of Sorrows, where life is cheaper than a kilo of iced helium and a gram of demonDust, or so he says. He’s unusually quiet about the place and his time there.
Gold warroom meetings are held in circles or rectangles because people facing one another are more likely to engage in intellectual conflict than people sitting side by side. Golds relish that. I’m trying a different tack, having my friends face the problem—the holoprojector, so if they want to argue with one another, they have to crane their necks to do it.
“It’s a shame we don’t have the Sovereign’s oracles,” Mustang says. “Strap one on his wrist and see how forthcoming Cassius really is.”
“Sorry we don’t quite have the resources you’re used to, domina, ” Dancer says.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“We could torture him,” Sevro says. He’s in the middle of the table cleaning his fingernails with a blade. Victra leans against the wall behind him, flinching in annoyance with each flake of nail that falls onto the table. Dancer is to Sevro’s left. The meter-tall hologram of Quicksilver glows to his right, between us. Having declared Phobos a free city on behalf of the Rising, he functions as its Governor and now hunches over a small stack of thumb-sized heart oysters with a platinum octopus
shucking knife, arranging the shells in five even mounds. If he’s nervous about the Jackal’s reprisals against his station, he doesn’t look it. Sefi sweats underneath her tribal furs as she stalks along the perimeter of the table like a trapped animal, making Dancer shift in agitation.
“You want the truth?” Sevro asks. “Just give me seventeen minutes and a screwdriver.”
“Should we really be having this talk with her here?” Victra asks of Mustang.
“She’s on our side,” I say.
“Are you sure?” Dancer asks.
“She was crucial to recruiting the Obsidians,” I say. “She’s connected us with Orion.” I made contact with the woman after speaking with Cassius. She’s burning hard with the Pax and a sizable remnant of my old fleet to meet me. Seems impossible I’d ever see the ornery Blue again, or that ship which was the first place to feel like home since Lykos. “Because of Mustang, we’ll have a real navy.
She preserved my command. She kept Orion at the helm. Would she have done that if she didn’t have
the same aims as us?”
“Which are?” Dancer asks.
“Defeating Lune and the Jackal,” she says.
“That’s just the surface of what we want,” Dancer says.
“She’s working with us,” I stress.
“For now,” Victra says. “She’s a clever girl. Maybe she wants to use us to eliminate her enemies?
Place herself in a position of power. Maybe she wants Mars. Maybe she wants more.” Seems only yesterday my council of Golds was discussing whether or not Victra was worth trusting. Roque spoke up for her when no one else would. The irony is apparently lost on Victra. Or maybe she remembers
Mustang’s vocal distrust of her intentions a year ago and has decided to repay the old debt.
“I hate to agree with the Julii,” Dancer says, “but she’s right in this. Augustans are players. Not one’s been born that hasn’t been.” Apparently Dancer wasn’t impressed with Mustang’s lack of transparency earlier. Mustang expected this. In fact, she asked to stay in her room, away from this so she wouldn’t detract from my plan. But in order for this to work, in order for there to be some way to piece things together in the end, there must be cooperation.
They expect me to defend Mustang, which shows how little they know her.
“You are all being rather illogical,” Mustang says. “I don’t mean that as an insult, but simply as a statement of fact. If I meant you ill, I would have hailed the Sovereign or my brother and brought a tracking device on my ship. You know what lengths she would go to in order to find Tinos.” My friends exchange troubled glances. “But I didn’t. I know you will not trust me. But you trust Darrow and he trusts me, and since he knows me better than any of you do, I think he’s in the best position to make the call. So stop whimpering like gorydamn children and let’s be about the task, eh?”
“If you have a buzzsaw I could do it in around three minutes….” Sevro says.
“Will you shut the hell up?” Dancer barks at him. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him lose his
temper. “A man will lie through his teeth, say whatever you want to hear if you’re pulling off his toenails. It doesn’t work.” He was tortured himself by the Jackal. Just like Evey and Harmony were.
Sevro crosses his arms. “Well, that’s an unfair and massive generalization, Gramps.”
“We don’t torture,” Dancer says. “That’s final.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Sevro says. “We’re the good guys. Good guys never torture. And always win.
But how many good guys get their heads put in boxes? How many get to watch their friends’ spines
cut in half?”
Dancer looks to me for help. “Darrow….”
Quicksilver pops open an oyster. “Torture can be effective if done correctly with confirmable information in a narrow scope. Like any tool, it is not a panacea; it must be used properly. Personally, I don’t really think we have the luxury of drawing moral lines in the sand. Not today. Let Barca have a go. Pulls some nails. Some eyes if need be.”
“I agree,” Theodora says, surprising the council.
“What about Matteo?” I ask Quicksilver. “Sevro shattered his face.”
Quicksilver ’s knife slips on the new oyster, punching into the meat of his palm. He winces and sucks at the blood. “And if he hadn’t have passed out he would have told you where I was. From my
experience, pain is the best negotiator.”
“I agree with them, Darrow,” Mustang says. “We have to be certain he’s telling the truth. Otherwise we’re letting him dictate our strategy—which is classic counterintelligence on his part. It’s what you would do.” And it’s what I tried to do till the torture started with the Jackal.
Victra, who has been silent on the issue till now, walks abruptly around the table into the holo projection so that black space and stars play across her skin. Jagged white-blond hair drifts in front of angry eyes as she pulls her gray shirt off. She’s muscled and lithe beneath and wears a compression bra. A half dozen razor scars stretch three inches at a diagonal across her flat belly. There’s more than a dozen on her sword arm. A few on her face, neck, clavicle.
“Some I’m proud of,” she says of the scars. “Some I’m not.” She turns to show us her lower back.
It’s a waxy melted swath of flesh where her sister left her mark in acid. She turns back to us, raising her chin in defiance. “I came here because I didn’t have a choice. I stayed when I did. Don’t make me regret that.”
It’s startling to see the vulnerability in her. I don’t think Mustang would ever let her guard down in public like this. Sevro stares intensely at the tall woman as she tugs her shirt back on and turns back to the holo. She reaches for the asteroid with both hands to stretch the hologram. “Can we get better resolution?” she asks as if the matter is settled.
“The picture was taken by a Census Bureau drone,” I say. “Nearly seventy years ago. We don’t have
access to the current Society military records.”
“My men are on it,” Quicksilver says. “But they’re not optimistic. We’re fighting a legion of Society counterattacks right now. Gorydamn maelstrom.”
“This is when having your father around would come in handy,” Sevro says to Mustang.
“He never mentioned anything like this to me,” she replies.
“Mother did, once,” Victra says thoughtfully. “Antonia and I. Something about nasty little goody bags that Imperators could collect on the fly if the Rim went off the tracks.”
“That matches with what Cassius says.”
She turns back to us. “Then I think Cassius is telling the truth.”
“So do I,” I say to the group. “And torturing him doesn’t resolve anything. Cut off his fingers one
by one, and what if he still says it’s true? Do we keep cutting until he says it’s not? Either way it’s a gamble.” I get a few reluctant nods and feel relief that at least one battle’s won, if a little wary knowing how savage my friends can become.
“What did he suggest we do?” Dancer asks. “I’m sure he had a proposal.”
“He wants me to have a holoconference with the Sovereign,” I say.
“Why?”
“To discuss an alliance against the Jackal. They give us intel, we kill him before he can detonate any bombs,” I say. “That’s his plan.”
Sevro giggles. “Sorry. But that would be bloodydamn fun to watch.” He pulls up his left hand and
makes a talking motion with it. ‘Hello, you old rusty bitch, you recall when I kidnaped your grandchild?’ ” He pulls up his right hand. “Why yes, my goodman. Just after I enslaved your entire race.” He shakes his head. “No purpose in talking to that Pixie. Not until we’re knocking on her doorstep with a fleet. You should send me and the Howlers after good old Jackal. Can’t press a button without a head.”
“The Valkyrie will attend this mission with the Howlers,” Sefi says.
“No. The Jackal will invite a personal attack,” I say, glancing at Mustang, who has already warned me off that course. “He knows us too well to be surprised by things we’ve done in the past. I’m not throwing lives away by playing into his understanding of our strengths.”
“Do you have anyone inside his inner-circle, Regulus?” Dancer asks Quicksilver. Surprisingly, the
two men seem to rather like one another.
“I did. Until your Grays broke Darrow out. Adrius had his chief of intelligence purge his inner circle. My men are all dead or imprisoned or scared shitless.”
“What do you think, Augustus?” Dancer asks Mustang.
All eyes turn to her. She takes her time in replying.
“I think the reason you’ve managed to stay alive so long is because Golds are so consumed with the individual ego that they’ve forgotten how they conquered Earth. Each thinks they can rule. With Orion returning and Sevro’s gains, your greatest strength now lies with your navy and an Obsidian army.
Don’t help the Sovereign. She is still the most dangerous enemy. You help her, she focuses on you.
Sow more seeds of discord.”
Dancer nods in agreement. “But are we sure the Jackal would actually use the nukes on the planet?”
“The only thing my brother ever wanted was my father ’s approval. He did not get it. So he killed
my father. Now he wants Mars. What do you think he’ll do if he doesn’t get it?”
A menacing silence fills the room.
“I have a new plan,” I say.
“I should bloodydamn hope so,” Sevro mutters to Victra. “Do I get to hide inside anything?”
“I’m sure we can find something for you, darling,” she says.
I nod my agreement.
He waves a hand. “Well, then let’s hear it, Reaper.”
“Hypothetically, assume we take half the cities of Mars,” I say, standing and summoning a graphic
from the table that shows a red tide flowing over the globe of Mars, claiming cities, pushing back the Golds. “Say we crush the Jackal’s fleet in orbit when Orion joins us, even though we are outnumbered two to one. Say we shatter his armies. With the Valkyrie’s help, we fracture the Obsidians away from the legions and have them join us, and we have a groundswell from the populace itself. The machines of industry grind to a complete halt on Mars. We’ve rebuffed the Society’s countless reinforcements
and we have insurrection in every street and we have cornered the Jackal after years of warfare. And it will take years. What happens then?”
“The machines of industry don’t stop off of Mars,” Victra says. “They keep rolling. And they’ll keep pumping men and materiel here.”
“Or…,” I say.
“He uses the bombs,” Dancer says.
“Which I also believe he’ll use on the Obsidians and our army if we go ahead with operation Rising Tide,” I say.
“We’ve been prepping the operation for months,” Dancer protests. “With the Obsidians it might just work. You just want to scrap it?”
“Yes,” I say. “This planet is why we fight. The strength of rebel armies throughout history is that they have less to protect. They can rove and move and are impossible to pin down. We have so much
to lose here. So much to protect. This war won’t be won in days or weeks. It will be a decade. Mars will bleed. And at the end, ask yourselves: What will we inherit? A corpse of what was once our home.
We must fight this war, but I will not fight it here. I propose we leave Mars.”
Quicksilver coughs. “Leave Mars?”
Sefi steps forward from the shadows of the stone room. “You said you would protect my people.”
“Our strength is here, in the tunnels,” Dancer continues. “In our population. That’s where our responsibility lies, Darrow.” He glances at Mustang, his suspicions clear. “Don’t forget where you come from. Why you’re doing this.”
“I have not forgotten, Dancer.”
“Are you so sure? This war is for Mars.”
“It’s for more than that,” I say.
“For lowColors,” he continues, voice gaining volume. “Win here and then spread across the Society. It’s where the helium is. It is the heart of the Society, of Red. Win here, then spread. That’s how Ares intended it.”
“This war is for everyone,” Mustang corrects.
“No,” Dancer says territorially. “This is our war, Gold. I was fighting it when you were still learning how to enslave human beings at your…”
Sevro looks at me in annoyance as our friends descend into bickering. I give him a little nod and he pulls his razor and slams it into the table. It cuts halfway through and trembles there. “Reaper ’s trying to speak, you shitgobblers. Besides all this Colorism bores me.” He looks around, terribly pleased with the silence. He nods to himself and waves a theatrical hand. “Reaper, please, continue. You were getting to the exciting part.”
“Thank you, Sevro. I won’t fall into the trap of the Jackal,” I say. “The easiest way to lose any war is to let the enemy dictate the terms of engagement. We must do the thing the Jackal and the Sovereign least expect of us. Create our own paradigm so they’re playing our game. Reacting to our decisions.
We must be bold. Right now we’ve sparked a fire. Rebellions in almost all Society territories. We stay here, that means we are contained. I will not be contained.”
I transfer the image on my datapad to the table so that the hologram of Jupiter floats in the air.
Sixty-three tiny moons dot the periphery but the four great Jovian moons dominate its orbit. These four largest—Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa—are referred to collectively as Ilium. Around those moons are two of the largest fleets in the Solar System, that of the Moon Lords, and that of the Sword Armada. Sevro looks so pleased he might faint.
I’m giving him the war he didn’t even know he wanted.
“The civil war between Bellona and Augustus has exposed larger fault lines between the Core and the Outer Rim. Octavia’s main fleet, the Sword Armada, is hundreds of millions of kilometers away
from its nearest support. Excepting the Sceptre Armada around Luna it is the greatest weapon Octavia has. Octavia sent our good friend Roque au Fabii to bring the Moon Lords to heel. He has shattered every fleet that has been thrown against them, even with the help of Mustang, the Telemanuses, and the Arcoses, he has beaten the Rim down. On board these ships are more than two million men and women. More than ten thousand Obsidian. Two hundred thousand Grays. Three thousand of the greatest killers alive, Peerless Scarred. Praetors, Legates, knights, squad commanders. The greatest Golds of their Institutes. This fleet has been reinforced by Antonia au Severus-Julii. And it is the instrument of fear by which the Sovereign binds the planets to her will. It, like its commander, has never been defeated.” I pause, allowing the words to sink in so they all know the gravity of my proposal.
“In forty days we’re going to destroy the Sword Armada and rip the beating heart out of the Society war machine.” I pull Sevro’s razor out of the table and toss it back to him. “Now, I’ll take your bloodydamn questions.”
Dancer finds me as I make final preparations to board the shuttle with Sevro and Mustang that will take us to the fleet in orbit. Tinos swarms with activity. Hundreds of shuttles and transports gathered by Dancer and his Sons of Ares leadership depart through the great tunnels to make their migration toward the South Pole, where they will still ferry the Obsidian young and old from their home to the safety of the mines, but the warriors will go to orbit to join my fleet. In twenty-four hours, they will move eight hundred thousand human beings in the greatest effort in Sons of Ares history. It makes me smile thinking how much happier Fitchner would be knowing the greatest endeavor of his legacy was
to save lives instead of to take them.
After covering the evacuation with the fleet, I will burn hard for Jupiter. Dancer and Quicksilver will remain behind to continue what they started and hold the Jackal on Mars till the next evolution of the plan begins.
“It’s haunting, isn’t it,” Dancer says, watching the sea of blue engine flares that flow past our stalactite up to the great tunnel in the ceiling of Tinos. Victra stands closely with Sevro at the edge of the open hangar, two dark silhouettes watching the hope of two peoples float away into the darkness.
“The Red Armada goes to war,” Dancer breathes. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Fitchner should be here,” I reply.
“Yes, he should,” Dancer grimaces. “It’s my greatest regret, I think. That he couldn’t live to see his son wear his helm. And you become what he always knew you to be.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, watching a Red Howler jump twice with his gravBoots and rocket off the
edge of the hangar to enter the open cargo hatch of a passing troop carrier.
“Someone who believes in the people,” he says delicately.
I turn to face Dancer, glad that he’s sought me out in my last moments here among my kin. I don’t
know if I’ll ever return. And if I do, I fear he will see me as a different man. One who betrayed him, our people, Eo’s dream. I’ve been here before. Saying goodbye on a landing pad. Harmony stood with him then, Mickey too as they said goodbye on that spire in Yorkton. How can I feel so melancholy for so terrible a past? Maybe that’s just the nature of us, ever wishing for things that were and could be rather than things that are and will be.
It takes more to hope than to remember.
“Do you think the Moon Lords will really help us?” he asks.
“No. The trick will be making them think they’re helping themselves. Then getting out before they
turn on us.”
“It’s a risk, boy, but you like those, don’t you?”
I shrug. “It’s also the only chance we have.”
Boots clomp on the metal deck behind me. Holiday moves past up the ramp carrying a bag of gear
with several new Howlers. Life moves on, carrying me with it. It’s been nearly seven years since Dancer and I met, yet it seems thirty on him. How many decades of war has he faced? How many friends has he said goodbye to that I’ve never known, that he’s never even mentioned? People who he loved as much as I love Sevro and Ragnar. He had a family once, though he rarely speaks of them now.
We all had something once. We’re each robbed and broken in our own way. That’s why Fitchner formed this army. Not to piece us together, but to save himself from the abyss his wife’s death opened in him. He needed a light. And he made it. Love was his shout into the wind. Same with my wife.
“Lorn once told me if he had been my father he would have raised me to be a good man. ‘There’s
no peace for great men,’ he said.” I smile at the memory. “I should have asked him who he thinks makes the peace for all those good men.”
“You are a good man,” Dancer tells me.
My hands are scarred and brutal things. When I clench them their knuckles turn that familiar shade of white.
“Yeah?” I grin. “Then why do I want to do bad things?” He laughs at that, and I surprise him by pulling him into a hug. His good arm wraps around my hips. His head barely coming to my chest.
“Sevro might’ve worn the helmet, but you’re the heart here,” I tell him. “You always have been.
You’re too humble to see it, but you’re as great a man as Ares himself. And somehow, you’re still good. Unlike that dirty rat bastard.” I pull back and thump his chest. “And I love you. Just so you know.”
“Oh, bloodydamn,” he mutters, eyes tearing up. “I thought you were a killer. You gone soft on me,
boy?”
“Never,” I say, winking.
He pushes me off. “Go say goodbye to your mother before you go.”
—
I leave him to shout at a group of Sons marines and work my way through the bustle, bumping fists
with Pebble who Screwface pushes on a wheelchair toward a boarding ramp, tossing a salute to Sons
of Ares I recognize, talking shit back to Uncle Narol who walks with a troop of Pitvipers. They’re destined for a sabotage mission against the Jackal’s deep space communication relays. My mother and Mustang stop talking abruptly when I arrive. Both look distraught.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“Just saying goodbye,” Mustang says.
My mother steps close to me. “Dio brought this from Lykos.” She opens a little plastic box and shows me the dirt inside.” My little mother smiles up at me. “You fly into night, and when all grows dark, remember who you are. Remember you are never alone. The hopes and dreams of our people
go with you. Remember home.” She pulls me down to kiss my forehead. “Remember you are loved.”
I hug her tight and pull back to see she has tears in her hard eyes.
“I’ll be all right, Ma,” I say.
“I know. I know you don’t think you deserve to be happy,” she says. “But you do, child. You deserve it more than anyone I know. So do what you need to do, then come home to me.” She takes my hand
and Mustang’s. “Both of you come home. Then start living.”
I leave her behind, confused and emotional. “What was that about?” I ask Mustang. Mustang looks at me as if I should know.
“She’s afraid.”
“Why?”
“She’s your mother.”
I walk up my shuttle’s landing pad, with Sevro and Victra who join Mustang and I at the bottom.
“Helldiver…” Dancer shouts before we reach the top. I turn back to find the gnarled man with his fist thrust in the air. And behind him the whole of the stalactite hangar watches me, hundreds of deckhands on mechanized loading trams, pilots, Blue and Red and Green, who stand at the ramps of their ships or on the ladders leading into their cockpits, helmets in hands, platoons of Grays and Reds and Obsidians standing side by side carrying combat gear and supplies—the scythe sewn onto shoulders,
painted onto faces—as they board shuttles bound for my fleet. Men and women of Mars, all. Fighting for something larger than themselves. For our planet, for their people. I feel the weight of their love. I feel the hopes of all those people in bondage who watched as the Sons of Ares rose to take Phobos.
We promised them something, and now we must deliver. One by one, my army raises their hands till a sea of fists clench as Eo’s did when she held the haemanthus and fell before Augustus.
Chills run through me as Sevro and Victra and Mustang and even my mother raise their hands in
union. “Break the chains,” Dancer bellows. I raise my own scarred fist and step silently into the shuttle to join the Red Armada as it sails to war.
The Yellow Sea of Io rolls in around my black boots. Great dunes of sulfur-laced sand with razorback ridges of silicate rock as far as the eye can see. In the steel blue sky, the marbled surface of Jupiter undulates. One hundred and thirty times the diameter that Luna appears from the surface of Earth, it seems the vast and evil head of a marble god. War grips its sixty-seven moons. Cities hunker under pulseShields. Blackened husks of men in starShells litter moons while fighter squadrons duel and hunt troop and supply transports among the faint ice rings of the gas giant.
It’s quite a sight.
I stand upon the dune flanked by Sefi and five Valkyrie in black pulseArmor waiting for the Moon
Lord’s shuttle. Our assault ship sits behind us, engines idling. It’s shaped like a hammerhead shark.
Dark gray. But the Valkyrie and Red dockworkers painted its head together on our journey from Mars, giving the ship two bulging blue eyes and a gaping mouth with ravenous bloodstained teeth. Up between the eyes, Holiday lies on her belly, sniper rifle scanning the rock formations to the south.
“Anything?” I ask, voice crackling through the breathing mask.
“Nothin’,” Sevro says over the com. He and Clown scout the little settlement two clicks away on gravBoots. I can’t see them with the naked eye. I fidget with my slingBlade.
“They’ll come,” I say. “Mustang set the time and place.”
Io is a strange moon. Innermost and smallest of the four great Galilean moons, she is a belt-notch larger than Luna. It was never her destiny to be fully changed by the Golds’ terraforming machines.
She’s a hell Dante could be proud of. The driest object in the Sol System, rife with explosive volcanism and sulfur deposits and interior tidal heating. Her surface a canvas of yellow and orange plains broken by huge thrust faults from her shifting surface. Dramatic sheer cliffs rising from the sulfur dunes to scrape the sky.
Huge stains of concentric green freckle her equatorial regions. Finding crops and animals difficult to cultivate so far from the sun, the Society Engineering Corp covered millions of acres of Io’s surface with pulseFields, imported dirt and water for three lifetimes on cosmosHaulers, thickened the planet’s atmosphere to filter Jupiter ’s massive radiation, and used the planet’s interior tidal heating to power great generators to grow foodstuffs for the entire Jupiter orbit and exportation to the Core and, more important, the Rim. She’s a farm deck with the biggest breadbasket between Mars and Uranus with easy gravity and cheap land.
Guess who did all the labor.
Beyond the pulseFields is the Sulfur Sea stretching from pole to pole, interrupted only by volcanoes and lakes of magma.
I may not like Io. But I can respect the people of this land. Ionian men and women are not like humans of Earth or Luna or Mercury or Venus. They are harder, lither, eyes slightly larger to absorb the dimmed light six hundred million kilometers from the sun, skin pale, taller, and able to withstand higher doses of radiation. These people believe themselves most like the Iron Golds who conquered
Earth and put man at peace for the first time in her history.
I shouldn’t have worn black today. My gloves, my cloak, my jacket underneath. I thought we were
going to the anti-Jupiter side of Io where sulfur dioxide snowfields crust the planet. But the Moon Lord’s operation team demanded a new meeting point at the last moment, setting us on the edge of the Sulfur Sea. Temperature 120 Celsius.
Sefi walks up to stand beside me with her new optics scanning the yellow horizon. She and her Valkyrie have taken quickly to the gear of war, studying and training day and night with Holiday during our month and a half journey to Jupiter. Practicing ship-boarding and energy weapon tactics as well as Gray hand signals.
“How’s the heat?” I ask.
“Strange,” she says. Only her face can feel it. The rest benefits from the cooling systems in the armor. “Why would people live here?”
“We live everywhere we can.”
“But Golds choose,” she says. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
“I would be wary men who choose such a home. The spirits here are cruel.” Sand kicks up from the
wind in the low gravity, floating down in wavering columns. It’s Sefi who Mustang thinks I should be wary of. On our voyage to Jupiter, she has watched hundreds of hours of holofootage. Learning our
history as a people. I keep track of her datapad’s activity. But what concerns Mustang isn’t that Sefi is fond of rain forest videos and experientials, but that she has spent countless hours watching holos of our wars, particularly the nuclear annihilation of Rhea. I wonder what she makes of it.
“Sound advice, Sefi,” I reply. “Sound advice.”
Sevro lands dramatically before us, spraying us with sand. His ghostCloak ripples away.
“Bloodydamn shithole.”
I dust off my face, annoyed. He was incorrigible the whole journey out here. Laughing, pulling pranks, and slipping off to Victra’s room whenever he thought no one was looking. Ugly little man’s in love. And for what it’s worth, it seems to go both ways. “What do you think?” I ask.
“The whole place smells like farts.”
“That your professional assessment?” Holiday asks over the com.
“Yup. There’s a Waygar settlement over the ridge.” His Howler wolf pelt kicks in the wind, jingling the little chains that connect it to his armor. “Buncha Red hunched goggle heads carting distillation gear.”
“You’ve scanned the sand?” I ask.
“Ain’t my first slag, boss. I don’t like this face-to-face bullshit, but it looks clear.” He glances at his datapad. “Thought Moonies were supposed to be punctual. Pricklicks are thirty minutes late.”
“Probably cautious. Must think we’ve air support,” I say.
“Yeah. Because we’d be bloodydamn shitbrains for not bringing some.”
“Roger that,” Holiday says in agreement over the com.
“Why would I need air support when I’ve got you,” I say, gesturing to Sevro’s gravBoots. A plastic gray case sits on the ground behind him. Inside, a sarrissa missile launcher in foam padding. The
same Ragnar used on Cassius’s craft. If the need arises I’ve got myself a psychotic Goblin-sized fighter jet.
“Mustang said they’ll be here,” I say.
“Mustang said they’ll be here,” Sevro mocks in childish voice. “They better. Fleet can’t squat for long out there without being spotted.”
My fleet waits with Orion in orbit since Mustang took her shuttle to Nessus, the capital of Io. Fifty torchShips and destroyers hunkered down, shields off, engines dark on the barren moon of Sinope as the larger fleets of the Golds swim through space closer in to the Galilean Moons. Any closer and the Gold sensors will pick us up. But as it hides, my fleet is vulnerable. With one pass a measly squadron of ripWings could destroy it.
“The Moonies will come,” I say. But I’m not sure of it.
They’re a cold, proud, insular people, these Jovian Golds. Roughly eight thousand Peerless Scarred call the Galilean Moons of Jupiter home. Their Institutes are all out here. And it is only Societal service or vacations for the wealthiest among them that takes them to the Core. Luna might be the ancestral home of their people, but it’s alien to most of them. Metropolitan Ganymede is the center of their world.
The Sovereign knows the danger of having an independent Rim. She spoke to me of the difficulty
of imposing her power across a billion kilometers of empire. Her true fear was never Augustus and
Bellona destroying one another. It was the chance that the Rim would rebel and cut the Society in half.
Sixty years ago, at the beginning of her reign, she had the Ash Lord nuke Saturn’s moon, Rhea, when its ruler refused to accept her authority. That example held for sixty years.
But nine days after my Triumph, the children of the Moon Lords who were kept on Luna in the Sovereign’s court as insurance toward their parents’ political cooperation, escaped. They were assisted by Mustang’s spies which she left behind in the Citadel. Two days after that, the heirs of the fallen ArchGovernor Revus au Raa, who was killed at my Triumph, stole or destroyed the entirety of the Societal Garrison Fleet in its dock at Calisto. They declared Io’s independence and pressured the other more populous and powerful moons into joining them.
Soon after, the infamously charismatic Romulus au Raa was elected Sovereign of the Rim. Saturn
and Uranus joined soon after that, and the Second Moon Rebellion began sixty years, two hundred and eleven days after the first.
The Moon Lords obviously expected the Sovereign would find herself mired on Mars for a decade,
maybe longer. Add to that a certain lowColor insurrection in the Core and one can see why they assumed she would not be able to devote the resources needed to send a fleet of sufficient size six hundred million kilometers to quash their nascent rebellion. They were wrong.
“We’ve got inbound,” Pebble says from her station at the shuttle’s sensor boards. “Three ships.
Two-ninety clicks out.”
“Finally,” Sevro mutters. “Here come the bloodydamn Moonies.”
Three warships emerge from the heat mirage on the horizon. Two black sarpedon-class fighters painted with the four-headed white dragon of Raa clutching a Jovian thunderbolt in its talons escort a fat tan priam-class shuttle. The ship lands before us. Dust swirls and the ramp unfurls from the belly of the craft. Seven lithe forms, taller and lankier than I, walk down into the sand. Golds all. They wear kryll, organic breathing masks made by Carvers, over nose and mouths. Looks like the shed skin of a locust, legs stretching to either ear. Their tan combat gear is lighter than Core armor and complimented with brightly colored scarves. Long-barreled railguns with personalized ivory stocks
are strapped to their backs. Razors hang from their hips. Orange optics cover their eyes. And on their
feet are skippers. Lightweight boots that use condensed air instead of gravity to move their user.
Skipping them over the ground like stones on a lake. Can’t get much height, but you can move nearly sixty kilometers an hour. They’re about a quarter the weight of my boots, have battery life for a year, and are dead cold on thermal vision.
These are assassins. Not knights. Holiday recognizes the different breed of danger.
“She’s not with them,” she says over her com. “Any Telemanuses?”
“No,” I say. “Hold. I see her.”
Mustang steps out of the craft, joining the much-taller Ionians. She’s dressed like them, except without a rifle. Joined by another Ionian woman, this one with the forward hunching shoulders of a cheetah, Mustang joins us atop the dune. The rest of the Ionians stay near the ship. Not a threat, just an escort.
“Darrow,” Mustang says. “Sorry we’re late.”
“Where’s Romulus?” I ask.
“He’s not coming.”
“Bullshit,” Sevro hisses. “I told you, Reap.”
“Sevro, it’s fine,” Mustang says. “This is his sister, Vela.”
The tall woman stares down her smashed-flat nose at us. Her skin is pale, body adapted for the low gravity. It’s hard to see her face past the mask and goggles, but she seems in her early fifties. Her voice is one even note. “I send my brother ’s greetings, and welcome, Darrow of Mars. I am Legate
Vela au Raa.” Sefi slinks around us, examining the alien Gold and the strange gear she carries. I like the way people talk when Sefi circles. Seems a little more honest.
“Well met, legatus. ” I nod cordially. “Will you be speaking for your brother? I’d hoped to make my case in person.”
The skin to the side of her goggles crinkles. “No one speaks for my brother. Not even I. He wishes for you to join him at his private home on the Wastes of Karrack.”
“So you can lure us into a trap?” Sevro asks. “Better idea. How ’bout you tell your bitch of a brother to honor his bloodydamn agreement before I take that rifle and shove it so far up your farthole you look like a skinny Pixie shish kebab?”
“Sevro, stop,” Mustang says. “Not here. Not these people.”
Vela watches Sefi circle. Taking note of the razor on the huge Obsidian’s hip.
“I could give a shit and piss who this is. She knows who we are. And she ain’t got a little trickle goin’ down her leg standing toe to toe with the bloodydamn Reaper of Mars, then she’s got less brains than a wad of ass lint.”
“He cannot come,” Vela says.
“Understandable,” I reply.
Sevro makes a grotesque motion.
“What is that?” Vela asks, nodding to Sefi.
“That is a queen,” I say. “Sister to Ragnar Volarus.”
Vela is wary of Sefi, as well she should be. Ragnar is a name known. “She cannot come either. But I was speaking in regards to that hunk of metal you flew here on. Is it meant to be a ship?” She snorts and turns up her nose. “Built on Venus, obviously.”
“It’s borrowed,” I say. “But if you care to make an exchange…”
Vela surprises me with a laugh before becoming serious once more. “If you wish to present yourself to Moon Lords as a diplomatic party, then you must show respect for my brother. And trust
the honor of his hospitality.”
“I’ve seen enough men and women set aside honor when it’s inconvenient,” I say probingly.
“In the Core, perhaps. This is the Rim,” Vela replies. “We remember the ancestors. We remember
how Iron Golds should be. We do not murder guests like that bitch on Luna. Or like that Jackal on Mars.”
“Yet,” I say.
Vela shrugs. “It is a choice you must make, Reaper. You have sixty seconds to decide.” Vela steps
away as I confer with Mustang and Sevro. I motion Sefi over.
“Thoughts?”
“Romulus would rather die than kill a guest,” Mustang says. “I know you don’t have any reason to
trust these people. But honor actually means something to them. It’s not like the Bellona who just toss the word around. Out here a Gold’s word means as much as his blood.”
“Do you know where the residence is?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “If I did I’d take you there myself. They’ve got equipment inside to check for radiation and electronic trackers. They’ve studied you. We’ll be on our own.”
“Lovely.” But this isn’t about tactics. No short-term game here. My big play was coming out to the Rim knowing I had leverage the Sovereign doesn’t. That leverage will keep my head on my shoulders
better than anyone’s honor. Yet I’ve been wrong before, so I double-check and listen now.
“Do the rules governing treatment of guests extend to Reds?” Sevro asks. “Or just Golds? That’s
what we need to know.”
I glance back at Vela. “It’s a fair point.”
“If he kills you, he kills me,” Mustang says. “I’m not leaving your side. And if he does that, my men turn against him. The Telemanuses turn against him. Even Lorn’s daughters-in-law will turn against him. That’s nearly a third of his navy. It’s a bloodfeud he can’t afford.”
“Sefi, what do you think?”
She closes her eyes so her blue tattoos can see the spirits of this waste. “Go.”
“Give us six hours, Sevro. If we’re not back by then…”
“Wank off in the bushes?”
“Lay waste.”
“Can do.” He bumps my fist with his and winks. “Happy diplomacy, kids.” He keeps his fist out for
Mustang. “You too horsey. We’re in this shit together, eh?”
She happily bumps his knuckles with her own. “Bloodydamn right.”
The home of the most powerful man in the Galilean Moons is a simple, wandering place of little gardens and quiet nooks. Set in the shadow of a dormant volcano, it looks out over a yellow plain that stretches to the horizon where another volcano smolders and magma creeps westward. We set down
in a small covered hangar in the side of a rock formation, one of only two ships. The other a sleek black racing craft Orion would die to fly next to a row of several dust-covered hover bikes. No one comes to service our vessel as we disembark and approach the home along a white stone walkway set
into the sulfur chalk. It curves around to the side of the home. The entirety of the small property enclosed by a discreet pulseBubble.
Our escorts are at ease on the property. They file in ahead of us through the iron gate that leads to the grass courtyard into the home, removing their dust-caked skipper boots and setting them just inside the entryway beside a pair of black military boots. Mustang and I exchange a glance then remove our own. It takes me the longest to remove my bulky gravBoots. Each weighing nearly nine
kilos and having three parallel latches around the boot that lock my legs in. It’s oddly comforting to feel the grass between my toes. I’m conscious of the stink of my feet. Odd seeing the boots of a dozen enemies stacked by the door. Like I’ve walked in on something very private.
“Please wait here,” Vela says to me. “Virginia, Romulus wishes to speak with you alone first.”
“I’ll scream if I’m in danger,” I say with a grin when Mustang hesitates. She winks as she leaves to follow Vela, who noticed the subtlety of the exchange. I feel there’s little the older woman misses, even less that she doesn’t judge. I’m left alone in the garden with the song of a wind chime hanging from a tree above. The courtyard garden is an even rectangle. Maybe thirty paces wide. Ten deep from the front gate to the small white steps that lead into the home’s front entrance. The white plaster walls are smooth and covered with thin creeping vines that wander into the home. Little orange flowers erupt from the vines and fill the air with a woodsy, burning scent.
The house rambles, rooms and gardens unfolding out from each other. There is no roof to the house. But there’s little reason for one. The pulseBubble seals off the property from the weather outside. They make their own rain here. Little misters drip water from the morning’s watering of the small citrus trees whose roots crack the bottom of the white stone fountain in the center of the garden.
A little glance at a place like this was what led my wife to the gallows.
How strange a journey she’d think this was.
But also, in a way, how marvelous.
“You can eat a tangerine if you like,” a small voice says behind me. “Father won’t mind.” I turn to find a child standing by another gate that leads off from the main courtyard to a path that winds
around the left of the house. She might be eight years old. She holds a small shovel in her hands, and the knees of her pants are stained with dirt. Her hair is short-cropped and messy, her face pale, eyes a third again as large as any girl of Mars. You can see the tender length of her bones. Like a fresh-born colt. There’s a wildness in her. I’ve not met many Gold children. Core Peerless families often guard them from the public eye for fear of assassination, keeping them in private estates or schools. I’ve heard the Rim is different. They do not kill children here. But everyone likes to pretend that they don’t kill children.
“Hello,” I say kindly. It’s a fragile, awkward tone I haven’t used since I saw my own nieces and nephews. I love children, but I feel so alien to them these days.
“You’re the Martian, aren’t you?” she asks, impressed.
“My name is Darrow,” I reply with a nod. “What’s yours?”
“I am Sera au Raa,” she says proudly. “Were you really a Red? I heard my father speaking.” She
explains. “They think just because I don’t have this”—she runs a finger along her cheek in an imaginary scar—“that I don’t have ears.” She nods up to the vine-covered walls and smiles mischievously. “Sometimes I climb.”
“I still am a Red,” I say. “It’s not something I stopped being.”
“Oh. You don’t look like one.”
She must not watch holos if she doesn’t know who I am. “Maybe it’s not about what I look like,” I
suggest. “Maybe it’s about what I do.”
Is that too clever a thing to say to a six-year-old? Hell if I know. She makes a disgusted face and I fear I’ve made a mistake.
“Have you met many Reds, Sera?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve only seen them in my studies. Father says it’s not proper to mingle.”
“Don’t you have servants?”
She giggles before she realizes I’m serious. “Servants? But I haven’t earned servants.” She taps her face again. “Not yet.” It darkens my mood to think of this girl running for her life through the woods of the Institute. Or will she be the one chasing?
“Nor will you ever earn them if you don’t leave our guest alone, Seraphina” a low, husky voice says from the main entry to the house. Romulus au Raa leans against the doorframe of his home. He
is a serene and violent man. My height, yet thinner with a twice broken nose. His right eye a third larger than mine set in a narrow, wrathful face. His left eyelid is crossed with a scar. A smooth globe of blue and black marble stares out at me in place of eyeball. His full lips are pinched, the top lip bearing three more scars. His dark gold hair is long and held in a ponytail. Except for the old wounds, his skin is perfect porcelain. But it’s how he seems more than how he looks that makes the man. I feel his steady way. His easy confidence, as if he’s always been at the door. Always known me.
It’s startling how much I like him from the moment he winks at his daughter. And also how much I
want him to like me, despite the tyrant I know him to be.
“So what do you make of our Martian?” he asks his daughter.
“He is thick,” Seraphina says. “Larger than you, father.”
“But not as large as a Telemanus,” I say.
She crosses her arms. “Well, nothing is as large as a Telemanus.”
I laugh. “If only that were true. I knew a man who was nearly as large to me as I am to you.”
“No,” Seraphina says, eyes widening. “An Obsidian?”
I nod. “His name was Ragnar Volarus. He was Stained. A prince of an Obsidian tribe from the south
pole of Mars. They call themselves the Valkyrie. And they are ruled by women who ride griffins.” I look at Romulus. “His sister is with me.”
“Who ride griffins?” The notion dazzles the girl. She’s not yet gotten there in her studies. “Where is he now?”
“He died, and we fired him toward the sun as we came to visit your father.”
“Oh. I’m sorry…,” she says with the blind kindness it seems only children still have. “Is that why you looked so sad?”
I flinch, not knowing it was so obvious. Romulus notices and spares me from answering.
“Seraphina, your uncle was looking for you. The tomatoes won’t plant themselves. Will they?”
Seraphina dips her head and gives me a farewell wave before departing back down the path. I watch
her disappear and belatedly realize that my child would be her age now.
“Did you arrange that?” I ask Romulus.
He steps into the garden. “Would you believe me if I said no?”
“I don’t believe much from anyone these days.”
“That’ll keep you breathing, but not happy,” he says seriously, voice having the clipped staccato delivery of a man raised in gladiatorial academies. There’s no affectations here, no purring insults or games. It’s a refreshing, if estranging, directness. “This was my father ’s refuge, and his father ’s before mine,” Romulus says, gesturing for me to take a seat on one of the stone benches. “I thought it a fitting place to discuss the future of my family.” He plucks a tangerine from the tree and sits on an opposite bench. “And yours.”
“It seems a strange amount of effort to expend,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“The trees, the dirt, the grass, the water. None of it belongs here.”
“And man was never meant to tame fire. That’s the beauty of it,” he says challengingly. “This moon is a hateful little horror. But through ingenuity, through will we made it ours.”
“Or are we just passing through?” I ask.
He wags a finger at me. “You’ve never been credited for being wise.”
“Not wise,” I correct. “I’ve been humbled. And it’s a sobering thing.”
“The box was real?” Romulus asks. “We’ve heard rumors this last month.”
“It was real.”
“Indecorous,” he says in contempt. “But it speaks to the quality of your enemy.”
His daughter left little muddy footprints on the stone path. “She didn’t know who I was.” Romulus
concentrates on peeling the tangerine in delicate little ribbons. He’s pleased I noticed about his daughter.
“No child in my family watches holos before the age of twelve. We all have nature and nurture to
shape us. She can watch other people’s opinions when she has opinions of her own, and no sooner.
We’re not digital creatures. We’re flesh and blood. Better she learns that before the world finds her.”
“Is that why there are no servants here?”
“There are servants, but I don’t need them seeing you today. And they aren’t hers. What kind of parent would want their children to have servants?” he asks, disgusted by the idea. “The moment a child thinks it is entitled to anything, they think they deserve everything. Why do you think the Core is such a Babylon? Because it’s never been told no.
“Look at the Institute you attended. Sexual slavery, murder, cannibalism of fellow Golds?” He shakes his head. “Barbaric. It’s not what the Ancestors intended. But the Coreworlders are so
desensitized to violence they’ve forgotten it’s to have purpose. Violence is a tool. It is meant to shock.
To change. Instead, they normalize and celebrate it. And create a culture of exploitation where they are so entitled to sex and power that when they are told no, they pull a sword and do as they like.”
“Just as they’ve done to your people,” I say.
“Just as they’ve done to my people,” he repeats. “Just as we do to yours.” He finishes peeling the tangerine, only now it feels more like a scalping. He tears the meat of it gruesomely in half and tosses one part to me. “I won’t romanticize what I am. Or excuse the subjugation of your people. What we do to them is cruel, but it is necessary.”
Mustang told me on our journey here that he uses a stone from the Roman Forum itself as a pillow.
He is not a kind person. Not to his enemies at least, which I am, regardless of his hospitality.
“It’s hard for me to speak to you as if you were not a tyrant,” I say. “You sit here and think you are more civilized than Luna because you obey your creed of honor, because you show restraint.” I gesture to the simple house. “But you’re not more civilized,” I say. “You’re just more disciplined.”
“Isn’t that civilization? Order? Denying animal impulse for stability?” He eats his fruit in measured bites. I set mine on the stone.
“No, it’s not. But I’m not here to debate philosophy or politics.”
“Thank Jove. I doubt we’d agree upon much.” He watches me carefully.
“I’m here to discuss what we both know best, war.”
“Our ugly old friend.” He glances once at the door to the house to make sure we’re alone. “But before we move to that sphere, may I ask you a question of personal note?”
“If you must.”
“You are aware my father and daughter died at your Triumph on Mars?”
“I am.”
“In a way it’s what began all this. Did you see it happen?”
“I did.”
“Was it as they say?”
“I wouldn’t presume to know who they are or what they say.”
“They say that Antonia au Severus-Julii stepped on my daughter ’s skull till it caved in. My wife and I wish to know if it is true. It’s what we were told by one of the few who managed to escape.”
“Yes,” I say. “It is true.”
The tangerine drips in his fingers, forgotten. “Did she suffer?”
I hardly remember seeing the girl in the moment. But I’ve dreamed of the night a hundred times,
enough to wish my memory was a weaker thing. The plain-faced girl wore a gray dress with a broach
of the lightning dragon. She tried to run around the fountain. But Vixus slashed the back of her hamstrings as he walked past. She crawled and wept on the ground until Antonia finished her off. “She suffered. For several minutes.”
“Did she weep?”
“Yes. But she did not beg.”
Romulus watches out the iron gate as sulfur dust devils dance across the barren plain beneath his
quiet home. I know his pain, the horrible crushing sadness of loving something gentle only to see it ripped apart by the hard world. His girl grew here, loved, protected, and then she went on an adventure and learned fear.
“Truth can be cruel,” he says. “Yet it is the only thing of value. I thank you for it. And I have a truth of my own. One I do not think you will like…”
“You have another guest,” I say. He’s surprised. “There’s boots at the door. Polished for a ship, not a planet. Makes the dust stick something awful. I’m not offended. I half expected it when you didn’t meet me in the desert.”
“You understand why I will not make a decision blindly or impetuously.”
“I do.”
“Two months ago, I did not agree with Virginia’s plan to negotiate for peace. She left of her own
accord with the backing of those frightened by our losses. I believe in war only insofar as it is an effective tool of policy. And I did not believe we stood in a position of strength to gain anything from our war without achieving at least one or two victories. Peace was subjugation by another word. My logic was sound, our arms were not. We never made the victories. Imperator Fabii is…effective. And the Core, as much as I despise their culture, produces very good killers with very good logistical supply and support. We are fighting uphill against a giant. Now, you are here. And I can achieve something with peace that I could not with war. So I must weigh my options.”
He means he can leverage my presence into suing the Sovereign for better terms than she would
have given if the war had continued. It’s boldly self-interested. I knew it was a risk when I set this course, but I’d hoped he’d be hot-blooded after a year of war with the woman and would want to pay her back. Apparently Romulus au Raa’s blood runs a special kind of cold.
“Who did the Sovereign send?” I ask.
He leans back in amusement. “Who do you think?”
Roque au Fabii sits at a stone table in an orchard along the side of the house, finishing a dessert of elderberry cheesecake and coffee. Smoke from a brooding dwarf volcano twirls up into the twilight
horizon with the same indolence as the steam from his porcelain saucer. He turns from watching the smoke to see us enter. He’s striking in his black and gold uniform—lean like a strand of golden summer wheat, with high cheekbones and warm eyes, but his face is distant and unyielding. By now he could drape a dozen battle glories across his chest. But his vanity is so deep that he thinks affectation a sign of boorish decadence. The pyramid of the Society, given flight with Imperator wings on either side, marks each shoulder; a gold skull with a crown burdens his breast, the Sigil of the Ash Lord’s warrant. Roque sets the saucer down delicately, dabs his lips with the corner of his napkin, and rises to his bare feet.
“Darrow, it’s been an age,” he says with such mannered grace that I could almost convince myself
that we were old friends reuniting after a long absence. But I will not let myself feel anything for this man. I cannot let him have forgiveness. Victra almost died because of him. Fitchner did. Lorn did. And how many more would have had I not let Sevro leave the party early to seek his father?
“Imperator Fabii,” I reply evenly. But behind my distant welcome is an aching heart. There’s not a hint of sorrow on his face, however. I want there to be. And knowing that, I know I still feel for the man. He is a soldier of his people. I’m a soldier of mine. He is not the evil of his story. He’s the hero who unmasked the Reaper. Who smashed the Augustus-Telemanus fleet at the Battle of Deimos the night after my capture. He does not do these things for himself. He lives for something as noble as I.
His people. His only sin is in loving them too much, as is his way.
Mustang watches me worriedly, knowing all I must feel. She asked me about him on the journey from Mars. I told her that he was nothing to me, but we both know that isn’t true. She’s with me now.
Anchoring me among these predators. Without her I could face my enemies, but I would not hold on
to so much of my self. I would be darker. More wrathful. I count my blessings that I have people like her to which I can tether my spirit. Otherwise I fear it would run away from me.
“I can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you again, Roque,” she says, taking the attention away from me.
“Though I am surprised the Sovereign didn’t send a politico to treat with us.”
“She did,” Roque says. “And you returned Moira as a corpse. The Sovereign was deeply wounded
by that. But she has faith in my arms and judgment. Just as I have faith in the hospitality of Romulus.
Thank you for the meal, by the bye,” he says to our host. “Our commissary is woefully militaristic, as you can imagine.”
“The benefit of owning a breadbasket,” Romulus says. “Siege is never a hungry affair.” He
gestures for us to take our seats. Mustang and I take the two facing Roque as Romulus sits at the head of the table. Two other chairs to the right and left of him are filled with the ArchGovernor of Titan and an old, crooked woman I don’t know. She wears the wings of Imperator.
Roque watches me. “It does please me, Darrow, knowing you’re finally participating in the war you
began.”
“Darrow isn’t responsible for this war,” Mustang says. “Your Sovereign is.”
“For instilling order?” Roque asks. “For obeying the Compact?”
“Oh, that’s fresh. I know her a bit better than you, poet. The crone is a nasty, covetous creature. Do you think it was Aja’s idea to kill Quinn?” She waits for an answer. None comes. “It was Octavia’s.
She told her to do it through the com in her ear.”
“Quinn died because of Darrow,” Roque says. “No one else.”
“The Jackal bragged to me that he killed Quinn,” I say. “Did you know that?” Roque is unimpressed
with my claim. “If he’d let her be, she would have lived. He killed her in the back of the ship while the rest of us fought for our lives.”
“Liar.”
I shake my head. “Sorry. But that guilt you feel in your skinny little gut. That’s gonna stick around.
Because it’s the truth.”
“You made me a mass murderer against my own people,” Roque says. “My debt to my Sovereign
and the Society for my part in the Bellona-Augustus War is not yet paid. Millions lost their lives in the Siege of Mars. Millions who need not have died if I had seen through the ruse and done my duty to
my people.” His voice quavers. I know the lost look in his eyes. I’ve seen it in my own in the mirror as I wake from a nightmare and stare at myself in the pale bathroom light of that same stateroom on Luna. All those millions cry to him in the darkness, asking him why?
He continues. “What I cannot understand, Virginia, is why you abandoned the talks on Phobos.
Talks which would have healed the wounds that divide Gold and permit us to focus on our true enemy.” He looks at me heavily. “This man wanted your father to die. He desires nothing but the destruction of our people. Pax died for his lie. Your father died because of his schemes. He’s using your heart against you.”
“Spare me.” Mustang snorts contemptuously.
“I’m trying to…”
“Don’t talk down to me, poet. You’re the weeping sort here. Not me. This isn’t about love. This is about what is right. That has nothing to do with emotion. It has to do with justice, which rests upon facts.” The Moon Lords shift uncomfortably at the notion of justice. She jerks her head in their direction. “They know I believe in Rim independence. And they know I’m a Reformer. And they know
I’m intelligent enough not to conflate the two or to confuse my emotions with my beliefs. Unlike you.
So since your rhetorical plays here are going to fall on deaf ears, shall we spare ourselves the indignity of verbal jousting and make our propositions so we can end this war one way or another?”
Roque glowers at her.
Romulus smiles slightly. “Do you have anything to add, Darrow?”
“I believe Mustang covered it quite thoroughly.”
“Very well,” Romulus replies. “Then I shall say my peace and let you say yours. You are both my
enemies. One has plagued me with worker ’s strikes. Anti-government propaganda. Insurrection. The
other with war and siege. Yet here on the fringe of the darkness away from both your sources of power, you need me, and my ships, and my legions. You see the irony. My lone question is this. Who can give me more in return?” He looks first to Roque. “Imperator, please begin.”
“Honorable lords, my Sovereign mourns this conflict between our people, as do I. It spawned from the seeds sown in previous disputes, but it can end now as Rim and Core remember that there is a greater, more pernicious evil than political squabbling and debate over taxes and representation. And that is the evil of demokracy. That noble lie that all men are created equal. You’ve seen it tear Mars apart. Adrius au Augustus has nobly fought the battle there on behalf of the Society.”
“Nobly?” Romulus asks.
“Effectively. But still the contagion has spread. Now is our best chance to destroy it before it can claim a victory from which we may never be able to recover. Despite our differences, our ancestors all fell upon Earth in the Conquering. In remembrance of that, the Sovereign is willing to cease all hostilities. She requests the aid of your legions and armada in destroying the Red menace that seeks to destroy both Rim and Core.
“In return, after the war she will remove the Societal garrison from Jupiter, but not Saturn or Uranus.” The ArchGovernor of Titan snorts contemptuously. “She will enter into talks in good faith regarding the reduction of taxes and Rim export tariffs. She will grant you the same licenses for Belt mining which Core companies currently hold. And she will accept your proposal for equal representation in the Senate.”
“And the reformation of the Sovereign election process?” Romulus asks. “She was never meant to
be an empress. She’s an elected official.”
“She will revise the election process after the new Senators have been appointed. Additionally, the Olympic Knights will be appointed by the vote of the ArchGovernors, not by order of the Sovereign, as you requested.”
Mustang tilts her head back and laughs one hard note. “I’m sorry. Call me skeptical. But what you’re saying, Roque, is that the Sovereign will say yes to everything Romulus might want until she’s back in a position to say no.” She blows air out of her nose comically. “Trust me, my friends, my family well knows the sting of the Sovereign’s promises.”
“And what of Antonia au Julii?” Romulus asks, noting Mustang’s skepticism. “Will you deliver her
to our justice for the murder of my daughter and father?”
“I will.”
Romulus is pleased by the terms, and moved by Roque’s comments about the Red menace. It doesn’t help that his promises seem very plausible. Practical. Not promising too much or too little.
All I can do to combat them is to embrace the fact that I offer them a fantasy, and a dangerous one at that. Romulus looks to me, waiting.
“Color notwithstanding, you and I have a common bond. The Sovereign is a politician, I am a man
of the sword. I deal in angles and metal. Like you. That is my life blood. My entire purpose for being.
Look how I rose in your ranks without being one of you. Look how I took Mars. The most successful
Iron Rain in centuries.” I lean forward. “Lords, I will give you the independence you deserve. Not half measured. Not transient. Permanent independence from Luna. No taxes. No twenty years of service to the Core for your Grays and Obsidians. No orders from the Babylon that the Core has become.”
“A bold promise,” Romulus says, showing the depth of his character by bearing the insult he must
feel at a Red promising to deliver him his independence.
“An outlandish promise,” Roque says. “Darrow is only who he is because of who is around him.”
“Agreed,” Mustang says cheerily.
“And I still have everyone around me, Roque. Who do you have?”
“No one,” Mustang answers. “Just dear old Antonia, who has become my brother ’s quisling.”
The words hit home with Roque and Romulus. I return to addressing the Moon Lords. “You have
the greatest dockyard the worlds have ever seen. But you started your war too quickly. Without enough ships. Without enough fuel. Thinking the Sovereign would not be able to send a fleet here so quickly. You were wrong. But the Sovereign has made a mistake as well: all her remaining fleets are in the Core, defending moons and worlds against Orion. But Orion is not in the Core. She is with me.
Her forces joined to the ships I stole from the Jackal to form the armada with which I will smash the Sword Armada from the sky.”
“You don’t have the ships for that,” Roque says.
“You don’t know what I have,” I say. “And you don’t know where I hide it.”
“How many ships does he have?” Romulus asks Mustang.
“Enough.”
“Roque would have you believe I am a wildfire. Do I look wild?” Not today, at least. “Romulus, you have no interest in the Core just as I have no interest in the Rim. This is not my home. We are not enemies. My war is not against your race, but against the rulers of my home. Help us shatter the Sword Armada, and you