Iron Gold

  “Fifteen…maybe more, dominus…” he whispers in a thick Phobosian accent, fighting back tears. I look over at Cassius. Fifteen is too many without our pulseArmor. “Leader is…on…on…the bridge with the captain. Are you Moon Lords?”

  “How did they board you?” I ask, ignoring his question. “Do they have a vessel?”

  He nods. “Came from the asteroids, they did. Therix—our helmsman—fell asleep uplinked. Drunk.” He shudders. “We woke and…we woke and they were in the halls. Tried to run. To get to escape pods. They punished us….” His crooked teeth chatter together. I’m so close I can see the blackheads on his bulbous nose. The veins on his neck stand out from fluid redistribution from extended travel in low gravity. He’s pallid and weak in the bones. I wager it’s been half a life since he’s felt the sun’s warmth. “Their ship boarded through the cargo hangar.”

  “Explains why we couldn’t see it,” I say to Cassius.

  He ignores me. “Why are you so far out here with full freight?” he asks the man.

  “Shouldn’t have been…shouldn’t have taken the money.”

  “The money from whom?” I ask.

  “The passenger. The Gold.”

  Cassius and I exchange a glance. “There’s a Gold on board?” he asks. “Did they have a scar?”

  “Not Peerless.” The Red shakes his head, and Cassius breathes a small sigh of relief. “She came to the captain on Psyche. Paid us to…” He swallows, glancing over our shoulders as if expecting an Obsidian to appear there. “She paid us to drop her at an asteroid…S-1392.”

  “That’s near the edge of the Gulf,” I say. “Just outside Rim territory.”

  “Yeah. Captain told her nothin’ was there, but she paid much as our freight. Told him we shouldn’t get involved with Golds. But he didn’t listen. He never listens….”

  “Did she give a name?” Cassius asks.

  “No name.” The man shakes his head. “But she sounded like him.” He points at me, and I know Cassius has the same thought. Are the Obsidians here for the ship or the Gold?

  “They might not be Ascomanni,” I say. “Could be the Rising.”

  “Darrow wouldn’t massacre civilians.”

  “In this war, two-thirds of the dead are civilians,” I say sharply. “Have you forgotten the Sack of Luna by Sefi’s Horde?”

  “Not at all. Nor have I forgotten New Thebes,” Cassius replies, referring to when my godfather, the Ash Lord, orbitally bombarded one of Mars’s great cities after she fell to the Rising.

  “Boys,” Pytha’s voice crackles in our ears, cutting through the tension between us. “Boys, we have company.”

  “How many?” Cassius asks.

  “Three ships inbound.”

  I stand. “Three?”

  “How the goryhell are you just telling us?” Cassius snaps.

  “Couldn’t pick them up because of the asteroid interference. They must have called in more of them to haul in the Vindabona.”

  The crewmembers sense our unease and begin to shudder again in fear.

  “What grade?” I ask.

  “Military, third class. Two four-gun lancers, and an eight-gun Storm-class corvette. They’re Ascomanni.”

  “How can you tell?” I ask.

  “They have bodies on their hulls.”

  “It’s a gorydamn hunting party.” Cassius curses quietly. We could go toe to toe with one of the lancers, but a Storm-class corvette would rip Archi to shreds. “How long do we have?”

  “Five minutes. Haven’t yet spotted me. I suggest you get off that heap.”

  I rush to cut the remaining restraints off the prisoners. “Hen, I need you to pop off that asteroid and burn for the Vindabona’s transfer tube,” Cassius says. “We have people to evacuate.”

  “They’ll see me if I make an approach,” Pytha says.

  “They might have guns, but we’ve got engines,” Cassius replies.

  “Copy.”

  “Can you all run?” Cassius asks the crew. They stare up at him without answering. “Well, you’re going to have to. The Obsidians are still out there. You see them, you keep it together and get to the tube. Let us fight. You obey everything I say or I leave you to die. I need you to nod.” They do. “Good.”

  “What about the Gold?” I ask Cassius. “They could still be alive.”

  “You heard Pytha,” he replies. “We don’t have time.”

  “I won’t leave someone behind for those barbarians to keep. Especially not one of us. It is not honorable.”

  “I said no,” Cassius snaps, almost using my name in front of the smugglers. “It’s not worth the risk of all their lives for one person.” He surveys the wobbling crew before us. “Everyone quiet. Stay together. Now follow me.” Cassius, as always, is first out the door before I can reply.

  The prisoners follow quick as they can into the hall back the way we came. I guard the rear, helping along a limping Brown. The bone of his right arm sticks out of a tear in his green jumpsuit. Cassius looks back to make sure I’m keeping pace. We load into the lift we rode up on to take it back down to the third level. But as the doors begin to close, I jump off the lift without a glance back at Cassius.

  “Dammit, boy,” Cassius says over the com after the doors seal and the lift carries downward. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What Lorn would do,” I reply, walking back the way we came. He says we don’t have time, but I know how careful he is with me, how cautiously he guards my life. “I’ll be sensible. Make a quick reconnoiter.”

  He’s quiet for a moment, and I know he’s reserving his condemnation for later. “Hurry, but watch your tail.”

  “Naturally.”

  I adjust my hand on my razor and move back down the hall. I take efforts to calm my breath, but every corner I turn I expect to see a savage waiting with bloody teeth and hollow eyes. I feel the fear and remember my grandmother’s words. “Do not let fear touch you. Fear is the torrent. The raging river. To fight it is to break and drown. But to stand astride it is to see it, feel it, and use its course for your own whims.”

  I am the master of my fear. I let myself sink into the Mind’s Eye. My breathing slows. A cold, distant clarity settles over me. I hear the rattle of air purifiers clogged by dust, the pulse of generators vibrating through the metal floor into my boots.

  And then I hear them.

  The low, quiet rumble of their voices drifts down the dark metal hall like a grumbling glacier. My hands sweat inside gloves. Everything Aja and Cassius taught me seems so distant now as the metal grating underneath my boots creaks. I’ve killed Ascomanni before, but never by myself.

  At the end of the hall, I peer around the corner. I don’t see the Obsidians. The commissary is round and holds several tables, the centermost of which has been laden with mounds of clothing. I’m about to move into the room when the mound moves and I realize my mistake. Three Ascomanni sit at the center table. Their long, braided hair cascades white and dirty down broad backs. Pale, scarred skin peeks out from under scrap armor. They speak in nagal and are hunched together eating and drinking the foodstores from the ship. Revulsion and fear swirl together in the pit of my belly.

  Be the calm.

  I lean back behind the wall and listen to their conversation. The savages’ accents are thick, their voices sluggish and drunken. From Earth’s North Pole. One criticizes the flavor of the man meat and longs to eat fresh elk. His friend says something I do not understand. Something about the Ice. Another is irritated that she claimed no slaves in the taking of the ship. She asks if she could buy the Sunborn from the first. He laughs at her with his mouth full and says she belongs to their jarl, body and meat. The Sunborn; the Gold.

  I expect Lorn would kill them. My own pride would see me do the same, to prove to myself that I am greater than the fear I now feel. But pride is a vanity I cannot afford. My grandmother’s lessons win out. Why fight when you can maneuver? I find a way around the commissary and continue my search, listenin
g for any sound of life.

  My pre-allotted time ticks away. I’ll have to double back in two minutes. There’s nothing but the Obsidian voices echoing down the halls and the unhappy rattle of distant generators. Then…I hear something. A faint creaking from behind a bulkhead. I find the door and clasp the narrow handle. It opens slowly, sliding back into its frame and squealing as it goes. I wince, praying to Jove that no one heard. I wait, poised with my razor in the hall for the Obsidians to come running. None do. I slip into the room.

  It is filled with the rest of the crew. They litter the floor in mesh cages that constrict around their bodies. All lowColors. And hanging above them from the dark room’s ceiling is a thin wire net that’s been looped around a gas pipe. It sways back and forth and inside it, and hanging upside down as the wire cuts into her bare skin, is the body of a naked woman with Gold Sigils upon the backs of her hands.

  I RUSH FIRST TO THE GOLD.

  Her body is contorted and twisted inside the confines of her prison. A bent metal chair lies beneath her, having been used to beat her as she hung in the net. Her right hand is a charred, burned mess from the welding torch that sits on a table. Blood seeps there, dripping onto the floor. The smell of burned skin and hair claws into my nostrils, making my eyes water.

  She’s dead. She has to be.

  “Help us!” a Red woman whispers out of a bloody mouth. “Dominus…”

  “Quiet,” I snap, glancing back at the door. Dozens of pairs of eyes stare out at me from behind the cages. Each prisoner pleading with me.

  I creep closer to the Gold, and as I reach to touch the net, her eyes flash open in the low light. Goryhell. I almost fall down. She’s alive. Black engine oil has been slathered over her body, along with fouler-smelling things.

  “Dominus…” a Brown hisses.

  “Salve,” I say to the Gold in a Thessalonican drawl. “I’m here to help. My name is Castor au Janus.” She watches me without speaking, giving no sign that she even understands. “I’m going to help you out, but you have to be quiet and quick. The Ascomanni are still outside. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I understand,” she says. Hers is a rich Palatine accent. It startles me. The man was right. She’s from the Luna courts as well. What is she doing all the way out here?

  “Stay very still,” I say. I stand beneath the net and slide my razor across the steel cable, cutting it from the ceiling. The girl falls into my arms. I expected her to lash out, but she stays still within the tight mesh. I see now how deeply the tacNet’s cut into her skin. TacNets, or birdcages, are fired from compressed fiber cartridges and designed for police forces to engulf and constrict around a prisoner to harmlessly subdue them. But if you toggle with the contraction restrictions, you can eviscerate a prisoner to death. I set the woman on the ground and cut the wires one by one until she’s able to crawl free. She lies there naked stretching her joints, teeth chattering with the pain.

  I realize now that she’s young, maybe even younger than my twenty years. I feel an overwhelming urge to protect her. I cover her body with a plastic tool sheet.

  “It is well,” I say. “You’re safe now.” I stand to go help the others.

  “Stims,” she manages through her chattering teeth. “Need stims.”

  I bend back down and produce a syringe from the dispenser on the right thigh of my EVO suit. It’s one of my last. She snatches it from my hand and stabs it into the bicep of the burned limb. Her body convulses as the drug rushes through her system. She sighs with pleasure. “More,” she demands. I glance at the other prisoners and produce my last two. She shocks me by injecting both at the same time. It’s too much for her body mass unless she’s built up a resistance to them, which inherently means something dangerous. There’s something wrong here.

  Filled with a manic energy from the stims, she stumbles to her feet. I spring back to catch her from falling, but she steadies herself using the table.

  “We must leave,” I say softly to the girl. “More Ascomanni are coming. We have to be gone before their ships dock. Help me with the others.” Nodding along, she finds her clothing in a pile on the floor near the door. Still covered in oil, she dons the pants and a green jacket, fumbling with the zipper because of the drugs in her system.

  “Sander,” Cassius says in my ear as I bend to cut the Red woman from her cage with my razor. “What’s your status?”

  “I found the Gold, Regulus.” I patch him to my visual feed.

  “Copy.” He pauses, seeing the others. “Lysander…”

  “Boy,” the Gold says from behind me. I turn. She’s less than an arm’s length away. “What docking tube are you using?”

  “Two-B.”

  “Two-B?” She nods more to herself than to me. “I’ll return it to you in four minutes. On my honor.”

  “Return what?”

  There’s a blur. I don’t even see her strike as the meat of her palm collides with the side of my temple. I stumble, and something, maybe her elbow or knee, slams into my opposite ear and I go down, seeing stars. There’s pressure on my hip, and I hear her footsteps going out the door. She’s four seconds gone before I realize what she took. My razor. The one Cassius gave me on my sixteenth birthday. The one that belonged to Karnus. Its custom Bellona hilt is covered by a plain metal shell, but to Cassius it is priceless. Dazed, I lunge after her into the hallway. My legs go like rubber and I almost fall.

  The lowColors shout in fear, terrified that I’m going to abandon them. I lunge back toward their cages, but I don’t have anything to cut with. I can’t use my plasma pistol. The wire is too tight to their bodies. Panic threatens to grip me. I tug on the severed strands of the Red woman’s cage. “Lysander…” Cassius says. The lowColors are clamoring now, rolling around on the floor. “It’s too late.” I pull as hard as I can. The fiberwire of the net slices through my gloves and into my skin. Blood wells against the wire. “Lysander! You have to leave them.”

  “No, I can help them….”

  I groan as I pull with all my strength at the wire, using my legs as leverage. The wire cuts my fingers to the bone. And it doesn’t even fray. There’s a scream from the lowColors. I wheel around and see an Obsidian at the door. I grab my pistol and fire clumsily. The plasma bolt takes the Obsidian’s head off from the nose up. Another one fills the frame. I fire and he ducks back into the hall.

  “Lysander, get out of there!” Cassius says.

  A scream wells up inside, but doesn’t escape my lips. I stare down at the wailing lowColors, at the mothers and fathers I could have freed, their cries puncturing my fantasy of heroism and honor. They thrash on the floor screaming at me to save them, but I can’t. The Obsidian death warble echoes down the hall.

  Fear has come.

  I run like a coward. Back into the hall, firing around the corner blindly. The Obsidian’s chest melts inward as he swings his axe. I bend under it and slam into the far wall, where I use the impact to push off and struggle to my feet. The Obsidian’s chest is burned through to the liver, but he stumbles toward me—a tower of sinewy muscle and scrap armor and the pelts of dead animals. Aja and Cassius both told me never to come within arm’s reach of an Obsidian. They alone can break the reinforced bones of my kind. But there’s no other choice. He swings his axe again, and I charge inside the blow, hitting the inside of his axe arm with the point of my elbow, jamming the point into his brachial artery. His arm goes limp, but the force of the collision knocks me sideways. I use the momentum to flow left, and drive my right knee into the genicular artery on the inside of his leg. He roars in pain and charges straight into me, slamming me against the wall. It’s like the time I was kicked by one of Virginia’s stallions. The breath goes out of me. His right hand grabs my throat and lifts me up against the wall, straining to crush my trachea. Cartilage crackles. I lower my jaw against his grip, but the world’s going black. Bits of meat cling to his beard. The rancid smell of rotting teeth fills my nose. Twisting my body, I pull twice on the trigger of my pistol. The p
lasma enters under his rib cage at an angle and burns through his heart. His eyes go wide with shock and his body collapses, dead. I land and suck in air just in time to see the third Obsidian raging toward me down the hall.

  I fire, miss, and run.

  Darkened hallways and empty rooms flash past. I heave myself around them, gripping girders to tighten my turns around corners.

  “The Ascomanni corvette’s docked on 1C,” Pytha says. “Dead ahead.”

  I skid to a halt. I hear them ahead of me, their tribal voices echoing as they move into the ship through the transfer causeways. Their boots rattle the metal. Each half again my weight, maybe more. They’ll cut off the route to the lift. I turn back the way I came, checking my gun’s display. The energy cartridge has seventeen pulls in it. I feel naked without my razor. But fighting isn’t the answer today.

  “Pytha. Hallway to lift 11A is closed. I need you to guide me.”

  “Take your next left,” she says without missing a beat. Conscious that Cassius is listening, judging, I take the left. “Two hundred meters.” I dash the distance, slow in my EVO suit. “Maintenance lift is on your second right.”

  I reach the lift and press the call button. It doesn’t respond. A little sign’s been affixed to the door itself, apologizing rather crudely for the broken lift by means of a talking phallus. “Lift’s out,” I say, making efforts to measure my breathing.

  “Back twenty meters, left, stairs are right there. Twenty down.”

  “Back?” I ask, hoping I heard wrong.

  “Now!”

  I backtrack without running into the Obsidian and find the stairs to begin my descent. Two levels down the stairwell, I pause. I hear them. Their boots beat the stairs two levels above me. Through the metal grating I see their dark shapes, their milk-pale hair. The chant, called the khoomei, groans through the hall. It is a plea to Hel, Obsidian goddess of death, to receive her offerings. I clear the whole next flight of stairs with a single jump, racing down the levels as fast as I can. Behind me, like a dark avalanche, gaining, rumbling, and threatening to swallow me up, rush the raiders. Can’t see their numbers. Can’t hear what Pytha and Cassius are saying. My body is distant and numb and my mind still and focused.