Iron Gold

By the look in his eyes, I know he’s not just talking about the pack.

  “Your call,” I say. “His choice. But you tell him where we’re going.”

  “To certain death, general mayhem? Who could resist?”

  As if hearing us—impossible from the distance—Tongueless turns. He smiles, then looks up at the Quicksilver heel on the ship.

  Sevro was right about the Nessus. She is a pretty thing. And a killer straight from the Venusian shipwrights. While the Republic might have a vast numerical superiority in ships and resources at her disposal, the new line of Core capital ships puts Victra and Quicksilver’s fledgling Phobos Shipyards to shame.

  Quicksilver’s men captured the Nessus two years ago after she was damaged during a Gold raid on a Republic supply caravan to our main fleet around Mercury. Instead of alerting the Republic Navy like he should have, Quicksilver seized her, citing arcane salvage laws. When Republic lawyers tried to claim her for the war effort, Quick won the court battle and retrofitted her to serve as his personal interplanetary shuttle.

  Which is why I need her.

  Kieran waits for me in the Nessus’s lower garage as I stamp snow off my boots. He stares after Apollonius as Thraxa drags his limp body to the brig. The warden’s dog waddles behind Tongueless as Clown leads him to the galley to put some meat on his bones. “ ’Lo, brother,” Kieran says, frowning at Tongueless, wondering where he came from. I greet my brother with a hug. He jerks his head after the hooded Gold. “So that’s that prize, eh?” In his mid-thirties, my brother is skinny as a rail, freckled, and terminally optimistic. He smells like chlorine today.

  “The Minotaur of Mars in the flesh,” Sevro says.

  Kieran blinks from under a tangle of red hair. “He’s big. The dog his?”

  “No, it was the warden’s,” Sevro says.

  “Sure.” Kieran nods, as if it makes perfect sense. “And the Obsidian?”

  “It’s complicated. How’s the ship?” I ask. For the past five years, Kieran’s served as the head of the Howlers’ engineering department.

  “She’s tip-top slick and ready for immediate launch.” He grins. “There’s really nothin’ to fix. We been swimming half the time. You should try the pool, it’s like the Vale itself. There’s even a sauna.”

  “You been swimming?” Sevro says jealously.

  “What about the stores? Trust you didn’t put much of a dent in them.”

  “Just the whiskey.” Kieran does a little dance. “She’s stocked for a tour of the Solar System, brother. Those Venusians will drool over what Quicksilver’s got in the holds. Gotta say, it’s some fair bait. You certain they’ll take it?”

  “They had bloodydamn better,” Sevro mutters. “Otherwise we just jailbroke a bunch of savages for nothing.”

  “Tharsus has a legendary appetite,” I say. “He’ll bite.” I unzip the front of my scarabSkin. Steam and stink pour out into the cold garage. Sevro undoes his own. Kieran steps away, snorting. “We’ll depart in the morning.”

  Sevro grunts, his scarabSkin now a crumpled shadow on the metal floor. He’s naked underneath. “Since we’re not going anywhere, I’m going to eat.”

  “Shower first,” Kieran says. “For the sake of the men.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic. Ass sweat never killed a soul.”

  “That’s not a fact,” Kieran calls as Sevro saunters away. “You can’t verify that.” Kieran picks up his discarded scarabSkin with a wrench. “I’ll wash this before it infests the ship. Last time, he brought sandmites back in his hair. Gave the Obsidians the worst rash. Guess we don’t gotta worry about that now.” He pauses. “How’d my girl do?”

  “She was fine.” We watch Rhonna sort gear from the pelican into bins on the far side of the garage near the starShell bays. Kieran scratches his neck, leaving grease stains.

  “You know when we were kids and you’d sometimes tell me ghost stories? I hate ghost stories. Scared the piss out of me, thinking Golback the Dark Creeper was going to come from the cracks in the floor and eat my teeth.”

  “Golback!” I say. “I thought you loved Golback.”

  He shudders. “You wanted to tell ’em, so I let you tell ’em. Point is, and it really wasn’t that good of a point…I don’t like asking for things. I know you’re sharp and all, but can I say something that will prolly be blinding obvious to you?”

  “Course.”

  He looks back at his daughter trudging through the snow. “Was talkin’ to some of the boys, and we all agree this is bound to get a little mad. I mean, shit, Wulfgar’s already dead, and we just broke into a maximum-security prison. I’m with you, brother. I gotta be. But I don’t want my daughter coming with us.”

  “Then she won’t. And you’re not coming either.”

  “Darrow…”

  “This isn’t a debate, Kieran. You’ve a gift with the gears, but you’re not meant for a firefight. And that’s what we’re driving into.”

  He knows what I mean. I don’t want him to die.

  After the prisoners are sealed in their cells, my men slink off to the showers and then to the galley for a hot meal. I gather several of the support Howlers together in the garage to tell them they won’t be coming with us. Rhonna is amongst them. Kieran shuffles awkwardly in the corner as I give them each assignments here on Earth to aid the Howlers that will be returning from the field. They’ll need a network to help them hide and reorganize. Afterwards, Rhonna confronts her father and me.

  “So this is what all the girls who wanted to be Helldivers felt when they were told they needed a prick for the job,” she says. “Respectfully, I deserve to come with.”

  “And how do you figure that?” I ask. “I don’t see a wolfcloak. You’re putting the engine in front of the ship, lass.”

  “Don’t call me that. You lied to me. You said I’d get a chance to show my fiber.”

  “This is your chance. What you do in New Sparta will be just as important—”

  “Bullshit,” she snaps.

  “Say that again?”

  “Rhonna, don’t swear!” Kieran says. “He’s your commanding officer.”

  “He’s my bloodydamn uncle!” She sticks a finger out at me. “I’m not a support trooper or a spy or a lass. I trained for three years for armored cav. Sucked mud at Hog’s Tooth. I was third in my class in basic, second at HT. There were only four other Reds there. And still everyone said I was only there because I was your niece.” She sticks a thumb in her chest. “I am a Solar Republic Drachenjäger. A mechman. I did that. I had sockets put into my bones.” She shows us sockets in her forearms that attach to the three-story mech she was trained to operate. “After the PT and the bloodydamn nerve-melding, I got a spot with the Twenty-fourth. Was finally about to slag some slavers, then you show up, pull me from my unit and prove everyone right. And for what? So I can carry crates? Stay behind while my unit goes to war? Wait for the lads to return?”

  “So it’s about you?” I ask.

  “I just want to do my part. It’s my war too.”

  “You think any individual can survive on their own in a war? You’re part of a unit. You have to trust every member of that unit. And right now, I don’t trust you not to get someone else killed. So you can either obey, or find another outfit.” I might admire her spirit, but not her control. “Do you hear me, lancer?”

  For a moment I worry she’s going to spit more bile at me, but she regains her composure and snaps to rigid attention. “Hail Reaper.”

  She storms out and Kieran breathes a sigh of relief.

  “Thanks for the help,” I mutter.

  He grins up at me innocently. “Looked like you had everything under control.”

  —

  Exhausted and feeling my temper getting a bit raw, I follow Kieran’s instructions to Quicksilver’s stateroom on the third level. Sevro’s commandeered the captain’s lounge’s speakers to blast some sort of classical rhyme ruckus that would have made Ragnar’s ears bleed, and Clown is whining loudly about someon
e stealing the blankets from his room.

  The noise cuts off as I shut the door to my stateroom. For the first time in seventy-two hours, I’m alone. The room is certainly not as the Venusian shipyards intended—military austerity replaced by luxurious walnut and oak. On closer inspection, I see that there are holoprojectors built into the furniture. I turn on the ocean feature and soon waves crash against rocks on the walls. Sea stretches in every direction. I half expect Lorn to step around the corner. I sniff. The room smells like brine from the olfactory feature. “Not bad, Quick. Not bad at all.” The ceiling has turned cornflower blue and a gull flies overhead, reminding me of the beach I visited with Mustang on Earth in that breath before the war began in earnest. When I held my son for the first time and thought only of the world I would make for him. It breaks me to see how far I have turned from that path.

  I peel off my own scarabSkin and liner and shower under scalding water in the marbled bathroom. Alone, my thoughts wander to my son. I try not to think of his eyes when I flew away, my razor soaked in Wulfgar’s blood. Overcome, I grip the key around my neck. At the bedside, I find a slim holoframe beside a bottle of Lagavulin 16. My wife and son float in the frame, smiling at me. Quicksilver must have had it sent. The picture was taken by my mother on the steps down to the water at Lake Silene. Another memory of theirs I never shared. Feeling hollow, I slip into bed and let the tears come quietly in the dark.

  —

  In the morning, the pelican, carrying my brother, Rhonna, and the support Howlers, departs south for New Sparta, Africa, and we head to the stars, rising up from the mountains, fresh covered with snow from the night’s storm, and ascend gradually into orbit. To blockade a planet is nearly impossible. You’d need the whole Republic fleet to even have a chance at it. The Nessus’s advanced stealth hull hides us from the orbital scanners, and by the time we are visually detected, we are already pushing for deep space. With these engines, nothing will catch us.

  As Earth shrinks behind us, I watch it on the holoscreen, staring not at the oceans or the mountains or the glittering cities under the slow-moving veil of night, but at her moon, where my child will be tucked away in his bed and my wife will be in her office poring over documents until the small hours of the morning. I feel the distance grow between us, and I wonder if this is what it is like to be a bad father—always finding a reason to be gone, a reason that, no matter how virtuous or shining in the eyes of a child, will seem empty and false in the memories of the man he will soon become.

  A WEEK AND A HALF after my first encounter with the rabbit, Kobachi finishes his custom work four days behind schedule, and three before the main event. Pisses me off because he’s slagged with my timetable. Would not be nearly as troublesome if it weren’t for the sudden increase in security in Hyperion. Something has happened, something they don’t want the general public to know. There’s no news on the HCs. Nothing but the political war between the Sovereign’s Optimates and the Vox Populi as they masticate each other in the press on the merits of the Peace. Half the fleet from Mercury is coming home, so the talking heads say, because the Senate is terrified the Reaper will rally the whole Armada and return to dissolve their power. Meanwhile we’re on overdrive adjusting our plan to ensure the increase in security doesn’t slag all our hard work.

  Kobachi is making some last-minute adjustments, bent like a nearsighted hierophant over his workbench. I ease my nerves by smoking half a pack of burners in a crusty formFab chair. I go through correspondences from contractors on my ghost datapad, my tenth in the last month. Even using Syndicate freelancers, everything has to be done piecemeal so no contractor can point a finger my direction if this blows up in our faces. Which, despite the thoroughness of my plan, seems to be the outcome we’re racing toward. I feel like I’m the only one who knows it. Cyra and Dano are both infected with the excitement of all the new gear, while Volga sulks around like someone stole her favorite toy. Whenever I ask about her mood, she puts on a brave smile and says it’s nothing. Knowing her, she’s having second thoughts about the job. But doubts have never stopped her from following me before.

  I smile when I see a message from the Obsidian beast himself: Gorgo has the gravWell. I’ll be damned. I feel like a kid who wished for a lizard and woke up to a dragon sitting on the lawn.

  I look at my watch. I’m to meet the rabbit at Aristotle Park at two in the afternoon, and it’s already pushing one. Cyra and Dano wanted me to make the plant on the girl the first day out. They worried I wouldn’t be charming enough to ensure I’d see her again. Too many variables, they said. Cyra knows computers, and Dano knows angles, but leave the human condition to me.

  We kept correspondence since I last saw her. It started facile. Sharing little jokes, musings on the superciliousness of Luna’s jewel-bedecked denizens. It was a bore at first. She was just a child realizing she could mock the world. I expected the vitriol to continue to pour out. But the more comfortable she grew, the kinder she became and the heavier the black, gnarled weight in my stomach grows. In some ways she reminds me of Trigg. Small-town, good heart waltzes into the big, rotten city; and here I am, the welcoming party. Some people just have shit luck.

  I look at my watch again, annoyed.

  “Kobachi. Almost done?” He doesn’t answer. “Hey, gecko, I’m talking to you.”

  Kobachi starts and peers up at me, his eyes magnified by the lenses. “Quite. Quite. Come have a gander.” He shuffles to the side to make way for me. I pick up the small metal drone from the table, turn it over in my hands and match it with the Bacchus pendant already around my neck. Perfect replica, but a bit heavier. “The face is just as you requested. Sweet and gentle, lively and compassionate, but the devil’s behind the eyes, eh?”

  “Will it work?”

  “I bet my reputation on it.”

  “Not just your reputation, Kobachi.” I pat him on the cheek and slip the pendant around my neck, shoving the other into my pocket. I head to the door. “The Syndicate will cover the expenses.”

  I change into Philippe’s clothes in Kobachi’s lavatory and fix his beard to my face. I apply the makeup for my fake scars and insert the blackmarket retinal forges, which turn my eyes a gray so pale it could almost be white. I twirl an extendable cane out before me in front of the mirror and work my face through the gamut of emotions to check for creases in the makeup and resFlesh scars. “A pedestrian’s penchant for circumambulatory locomotion is the pedantic paroxysm of a pleonasm of peremptory drivers and sometimes leads to imperfectly preventable parricide.” I repeat the phrase four times till I have Philippe’s pretentious multisyllabic-adoring accent down pat. Satisfied, I check the Bacchus pendant one last time and tuck it away. The cool metal slips under my shirt and waits against my skin. It’s uncommonly heavy. Will she notice? I stare at myself in the mirror. My pupils huge in the low light. I sink into the darkness in them, remembering how the Gold spit Trigg with her razor. Holiday’s words slither back.

  What would he think of me now?

  I reach for the zoladone dispenser and activate the blighter on my collar.

  —

  After catching a taxi to Aristotle Park, I find the rabbit waiting for me underneath an old sycamore that’s seen at least five Sovereigns. She’s watching squirrels chase each other along the boughs. “Finally!” she says, bursting to her feet and looking up at me with those big rusty eyes. Her hair is more fashionable now. Straightened and hanging to just below her ears. I liked it better the other way. In the reptilian chill of the zoladone, I vivisect her. The city is already changing the girl. The hair, the silver nail polish, the faux-leather black jacket she wears with purple lights on the sleeve—eroding the romantic rustic mystique I built around her. The city never infected Trigg, except for those coral earrings and that sad jacket. Least she still talks like she’s from a mine, for now. “ ’Lo, geezer, I was startin’ ta think you’d been hit by a bloodydamn train. I’m almost an old maid here.”

  That’s not what she was thinking
. She was thinking I’d ditched her. That’s what you always think when you’re alone. That you’ll always be alone, and any present company is an aberration.

  Cold inside, I feign a smile and touch my leg. “A thousand apologies, love. No, a million! My leg, the old limb, has been the black death of me today.”

  She pales and looks at my cane. “Oh Jove, I’m sorry…was only a jest.”

  “You couldn’t know.”

  “You should have messaged me. I could have met you….”

  “An old tinman’s rust should never jeopardize a lady’s enjoyment of an afternoon as splendid as this.”

  “You should have told me,” she says crossly. “We don’t have to walk the park….” We’d planned to stroll the park and take a taxi to the wharf to see the water of the Sea of Serenity—an idea I couldn’t get her to drop. But to go to the water, we’d have to cross through a security checkpoint, and checkpoints have advanced sensors and my Philippe credentials are hardly unimpeachable. Say what you want about the Republic, whoever created their ID system was a razor-smart bastard.

  “We could find a café if that would be easier for you,” she says. “Or maybe go to the stalls and get a picnic on the grass?”

  “No, the wharf would be lovely!”

  “Philippe…” She crosses her arms. Subborn little rabbit.

  “Well…only if you insist.” I emphasize a sigh of relief. “I believe you’ve saved my life this time. The water makes my leg ache so. Are you sure you don’t want to walk? I could grin and—”

  “We’re having a picnic,” she concludes. “And that’s the end of it.”

  “Then I insist on shopping with you, paying for everything, and escorting you properly as I do it. Young Lyria…” I proffer my arm. She smiles, delighted by the courtly manners and how dashing she must look in her new black jacket; she slips her arm in mine. We cross the park, where lowColor children fly their kites through the twilight sky—slate blue stained with fingers of whorehouse pink—and my sight lingers on indiscreet lovers who lie in the deep shade. The rabbit’s eyes seek out families playing and lounging along the edge of a pond.