Another stomp.
“Every moment today will be captured by the holoCams we’ve given you.” Like it was at the Institute and when I took the Pax. The Jackal’s idea. “Each moment will be remembered. If you win glory, it will be spread across the HCs of every world. If you shame yourself or your family, it will not fade with your death.” I look to Ragnar, as though he were my headsman. Lorn rolls his eyes at the dramatic flair. “We will remember.”
Stomp.
“The cities are to be taken. The Golds who will not bend, killed. The lowColors protected. We will not collapse the mines. We will not rape her cities and despoil her verdant grounds. We are to capture the bounty of Mars. We do not want to take her corpse. She is home to many of you, so harm only the pest that destroys her from within. And when the glory of the day is over—when you wipe the blood from your sword and give the cloth to your sons and daughters, so they will remember you were party to one of the greatest battles since the Fall of Earth— remember, you have made your own destiny. It was not given to you by the Sovereign. It was not given to you by a governor. You took it like our ancestors took the worlds. We are the Second Conquerors.”
Now there’s the roar. I hate how my body shivers at the idea of glory. There’s something deep in man that hungers for this. But I think it weakness, not strength, to abandon decency for that strange darker spirit.
I look at the Jackal to the side of the bridge. He has little importance on this day. He has done his work bringing all these men and women here. He has muddled communications and sowed false information, leading much of the Sovereign’s aid to the Bellona scattered chasing false rumors of elements of my fleet sneaking off to attack Luna. A ploy only. My forces are all here.
“Quite the puppet master you play,” the Jackal whispers to me as we wait for the Whites to enter the bridge behind the waiting Golds. Sevro scoots closer to me, as if to remind the Jackal his place.
“You made most of the strings. I never thanked you,” I say quietly back to him.
His plain face wrinkles with distaste. “Must we become sentimental?”
“You helped Mustang escape. That’s why Pliny caught you.” He never mentioned it, never boasted or used it as leverage. It was the simple act of a brother helping a sister. I shrug. “And you tried your damnedest to save Quinn. Maybe you’re a better man than you know.”
He laughs that barking laugh of his. “Doubtful. But tomorrow, a traitor will be king, and a Empress shall be traitor, so maybe wicked men can be virtuous.”
I look out the viewport. “Are your satellites ready?”
“For the virus?” He nods. “My Greens will shut down all communications as soon as you give the word. For fifteen minutes, it will be quiet as death, for everyone. Their global and regional defensive units won’t have surveillance or sensors. Time enough to shatter most of the static positions.” He looks at his feet, as though suddenly self-conscious. “Save my father if you can.”
Sevro shifts, annoyed at our whispering.
“I will.”
I’d rather Augustus rot forever in a hole in the ground. But I need him once Mars is taken. Despite what I can do, I’m not a Governor or a king. I need his legitimacy, as Theodora reminded me last night. Without it, I’m just an arm with a razor.
“And you’re sure about Agea?” he asks. “About the prize? Otherwise it’s reckless.”
“One hundred percent.”
“Good. Good. Prime luck then.” He moves away.
“Replacing me already?” Sevro snorts, watching him go.
“He’s got one hand. You’ve got one eye. I have a type.”
The ceremonies continue. Two hundred Golds bend their knees as the Whites walk through their ranks. I try to think it a stupid, solemn thing, all these men and women with their pompous silence and their attention to tradition. But this is the history of mankind in the making. And there is a nobility to the moment.
Armor glints against the artificial light. Ethereal Whites wander through the ranks, virgin maidens barefoot in snow-white cloaks, with daggers of iron and laurels of gold. Child Whites carry the triangular golden standards—a scepter, a sword, and a book crowned with a laurel. I feel hands on my shoulders.
I feel their weight.
They say this is the way the Old Conquerors went to battle, with virgins of White wounding them with iron. They touch our brows with the laurel and cut our left palms with the iron as they whisper softly in our ears:
“My son, my daughter, now that you bleed, you shall know no fear, no defeat, only victory. Your cowardice seeps from you. Your rage burns bright. Rise, warrior of Gold, and take with you your Color’s might.”
Then each warrior smears the handprint of blood across his face and across the top of his demonfaced helm. One by one we stand in silence. Each Gold represents ten legions. This is the storm that will fall on Mars in a torrent of metal. Ten million Golds, Grays, and Obsidians.
“We do not fight a planet. We fight men and women. Cut off their heads and see their armies crumble,” Lorn reminds us all.
The assembly of warriors stands, faces now smeared with blood, and together we recite the names of our chief enemies. “Karnus au Bellona, Aja au Grimmus, Imperator Tiberius au Bellona, Scipia au Falthe, Octavia au Lune, Agrippina au Julii, and Cassius au Bellona. These are wanted lives.”
In the halls of my enemy, they will recite my name, and the names of my friends. He who kills the Reaper will have bounty and renown. Individual hunters and killgroups will scan our com signals, searching for me. And in packs they will descend, some for single battle. Others for the sly kill of a sniper’s bullet. Some will not even participate in the battle for Mars. They are Gray mercenaries. Freed Obsidian bounty hunters. Knights of Venus and Mercury here only for my head, using their family assets, family soldiers, to help them privately stalk me and make their own glory. The Jackal intercepted a communiqué that three of the Olympic Knights are here. They all will have watched me, studied my recordings, my victories, my defeats. And they will know my nature, the nature of my Howlers. But I will not know them.
Let them come make their introductions.
I’m more interested in meeting Cassius. At least that’s what I told Lorn. But he knows that’s not true. A deep shame burns in me for how I yelled like a monster at his family. I beat him fairly, but I didn’t have to like it as much as I did. Sometimes I wonder if he were raised a Red and I a Gold if he wouldn’t have ended up a better man than I am now, and I a worse man than he ever could be.
For some reason I think I could have been capable of great evil. Maybe that’s the guilt. Maybe that’s the fear of a life where I never knew Eo. I don’t know. Or maybe it’s the fear of knowing how easily I fall to pride.
My warriors disperse back to their own family vessels. I watch out the viewport as half a hundred shuttles streak away to the great armada we’ve assembled. Though they know we’re here now, our enemies did not expect us to come to Mars so quickly.
I turn my attention to my remaining commanders. Orion will lead the Pax and Roque will lead the fleet in conjunction with Victra. I approve of their plan. The rest of my inner circle lingers, except for Mustang, who goes ahead to the hangars.
I reach up slightly to thump both of the Telemanuses on their shoulders. “Pax would have looked brilliant this day.” Sophocles curls around Kavax’s ankles.
“My brother always looked brilliant,” Daxo says warmly. “Silly, shouting, trying to be like Father. But brilliant nonetheless. We’ll kill Tiberius au Bellona, don’t you worry.”
“Do I look worried?”
Both Titans nod their giant heads. Kavax has gone into his battle quiet. He cannot speak except to mumble, so Daxo continues to speak for him. “Take care of yourself, Reaper.” He spares a look back at the Jackal. “We know it’s a marriage of necessity, but don’t trust him.”
“You know I don’t.”
“Do not trust him,” Daxo repeats.
“I trust only fri
ends.” We say our goodbyes.
Orion’s brow is wrinkled in thought. I ask her if anything is the matter as she leans over the scanner display. She’s assessing the enemy disposition in the sync. “They noticed us come into orbit an hour ago. We were vulnerable while filtering in, but they remained in defensive formation over Agea.”
“It is odd,” Roque agrees. “They cede much of the planet without a flight. Perhaps it’d be better to orient your drop to the south …”
“I want Agea,” I say coldly.
“We’ll be shooting you into the thick, brother. The capital can wait. Seize the other cities and we can take it without assault. Why such a wild rush?”
“If we take the capital, the other cities fall.”
“And many men die.”
“It is war, Roque. Trust me on this one.”
“It’s your war.” Roque salutes. After catching a glare from Victra, he extends a hand. “Fare thee well, Primus.” He kisses both my cheeks, surprising me.
“It’s been a long road,” I say carefully.
“And we’ve miles to go before we sleep.”
“My brother.” I clasp the back of his neck and bring his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I shake my head. “For Quinn. For Lea. For the gala. For a thousand slights I’ve laid upon you. You’ve been my dearest friend.” Pulling back, I avoid his eyes. “I should have said it earlier. But I was afraid.”
“In what world should you be afraid of me?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Forgive me, for everything.”
“We’ll make amends later.” He claps my shoulder. “Prime luck.”
I leave him. Lorn and I draw up just outside the bridge, where our paths diverge into different halls. He’s shaved for war, and he wears his old Rage Knight armor. He looks brilliant but smells terrible. These old knights are like the Howlers. Superstitious and unwilling to wash their gear for fear of washing away whatever luck kept them alive thus far.
“I’ve received communiqués from many old friends,” Lorn says. “They side with Bellona.”
“All old men and women?”
“The old have weathered many seasons of the young.” There’s a twinkle in his eye. “But they ask me about you. They ask if the boy warlord is really four meters tall. Is he really followed by a wolfpack? Is he a worldbreaker?”
“And what do you say?”
“I said you are five meters tall, you’re followed by a midget and a giant, and you eat glass with your eggs.” We share a laugh. “I don’t like that you brought me here. I don’t believe you’re being the man you want to be. If you survive this and I don’t, be better than the man who tricked his friend.”
A dull ache grows behind my eyes. It’s a plea he makes. Not for me to feel guilty, but because he truly cares. I should be better. I want to be. I am being better in the end. But with the means to reach that end … am I just like all the other lost souls? Am I just another Harmony? Another Titus?
“I promise,” I say, meaning it even as I intend to hurt him again and again.
“Good. Good.” He pops his leathery neck. “So after Agea, you take the northern hemisphere. I’ll take the southern. And we meet back here for whiskey. Deal, my goodman?”
I nod, but still he does not separate.
He stares at me for a moment and glances down, unable to meet my gaze. Emotion thickens his voice. “Each time I returned to my wife, I told her that her boys died well.” He fidgets with his ring. “There’s no such thing.”
“Achilles died well.”
“No. Achilles let his pride and rage consume him, and in the end, an arrow shot by a Pixie took him in the foot. There’s much to live for besides this. Hopefully you’ll grow old enough to realize that Achilles was a gorydamned fool. And we’re fools all the more for not realizing he wasn’t Homer’s hero. He was his warning. I feel like men once knew that.” His fingers tap his razor. “It’s a cycle. Death begets death begets death. It’s been my life. I—I don’t think I should have killed the boy. Your friend.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I see the way the rest of them look at you. I think they’d do anything for you because you believe in them.”
I move suddenly, leaning down to kiss him on his weathered cheek the way Reds kiss fathers and uncles. “Tactus wouldn’t have blamed you. And neither do I. You’ve another grandson to raise. Maybe you can teach him the peace you couldn’t teach me. So do us a favor, don’t die, old man.”
“Ha,” the grizzled lord laughs, falsely at first. Then more forcefully as he turns on a heel. “Ha! They’ve yet to make a man who can kill me!” His old knights, craggy men and women, flank him, not one younger than seventy, but I recognize all their faces from the histories of the Moon Rebellion and other great battles. Their friends and former comrades wait for us on Mars.
I leave for the hangars, saying a quick farewell to Victra. She calls me back. I feel Roque watching us. She looks about to say something. The red sun of her black armor weeps blood. Black warpaint streaks diagonally across her face. Eyes burning out of it, yet they are vulnerable, gentle as they search mine for a reflection of what she feels.
“After today, the name Julii will mean more than money,” I say. Her plan will turn the tide of the space battle.
“I don’t care about that.” Her fingers touch my breastplate and I see her lips sliding sharply into that wicked smile of hers. “If you die, I want your last thought to be how great a mistake it was to spend all those nights alone in your stateroom at the Academy.” She flicks my armor, making a pinging noise. “What a beautiful mess we could have made of each other.
Theodora waits for me in the hall, giving me a look.
“Oh, shut up.”
“She would have eaten you up and spit you out, dominus.”
“Why aren’t you in the staterooms where it’s safe?”
“It’s not safe anywhere.” Theodora motions me to bend my head. She puts a small red flower clip, the sort a young girl would wear, into my hair. “All knights need their tokens,” she says, tearing up. “Don’t be too much a hero. You’re too clever to die in a stupid battle.”
She leaves, squeezing Ragnar’s forearm as she passes. I didn’t know they were familiar. Ragnar follows along, hanging back like a hesitant shadow as Sevro and I speak on the way to the hangars.
“So it is done?” I ask Sevro.
He shrugs. “I sent it.”
“You spoke to him?”
“A holoNet dropCache,” he says. “I send a message. They get it. Hopefully.”
“You mean you don’t know if they got it?”
“How should I know? I said I sent it. Followed protocol.”
I curse quietly. He whistles that damn tune he sang Pliny. I swat at him. We turn a corner and pass six dozen Gray special ops troopers heading for the tubes at a jog. Six Obsidians follow behind them, opening their palms to Ragnar and me as signs of respect.
“You see what they were wearing? SlingBlades on their armor.” Sevro smirks over at me. “It spreads.”
“Have you thought about what happens if your father is down there?” I ask.
“No,” he says, losing his smile. “No, I haven’t.”
37
War
The forward hangar bay is massive. A giant cave in the belly of my ship crawling with men and women of all Colors. Six hundred meters in length. Along its left side are hundreds of spitTubes. Each row is accessed by a network of giant causeways where men in starShells can walk. Thousands stand ready to disperse, grouped according to legion.
The alarm for battle stations warbles throughout the ship. Orion’s voice rasps over the intercom. Beyond the hull, Roque, now the youngest fleet commander in a hundred years, will be breaking our armada into fleets to engage the Bellona over Mars. Squadrons of ripWings and wasps pour forth. Blues flying to their deaths. Gold squad leaders in their midst. All to carve a hole large enough for the leechCraft to swarm onto the enemy hulls
. Some Praetors hoard their soldiers to fight off enemy waves that make it aboard their ships. Others launch full attacks. It’s a gamble either way. Can’t think of it. Victra, Roque, and Orion have that responsibility. I have my own.
I pause, looking out at the hangar. “What if Ares isn’t real?” I ask quietly.
“What the hell you talking about?” Sevro asks.
“What if it’s just a Gold trick? Someone pulling strings to make Society go the way they need it to go. What if it’s all a lie?”
Sevro looks at me for a long moment, then he hops up on a banister and howls at the top of his lungs down at the hangar bay.
The bay howls back.
It comes from Grays. It comes from Obsidians. It comes from Oranges. It comes from Reds working on tubes. And it comes from the Golds who requested transfer to my ship.
“That’s no lie.”
And that’s when I see the standards of the legions fall, replaced with something new. Gone are the pyramids of the society. Gone are the laurel and the scepter and the sword and the book. Gone is Augustus’s lion. Instead, the high golden standards that the legions carry to battle are peaked with wolves and slingBlades.
These legions are mine.
I feel something buzzing in those around me. A sort of physical fanaticism. It did not buzz in the Golds quite like this. The Golds love me because of the victory and glory I bring. These other Colors love me for something far different, something far more potent. Any other conquering Gold would have vented the ship, but I did not because they chose me instead of the Golds who once were their masters. I gave them that choice.
Sevro grips my arm. “Do you understand that you must fight differently today?”
“I get it, Sevro.” I try to shake off his hand.
“You don’t.” He pulls me to look at him and shoos Ragnar back. “Every move you make today will be recorded and broadcast to every part of the Solar System. This battle is to make the fleet yours.” His voice drops to a harsh whisper. “The Sons will spread it. Jackal will spread it. House Augustus will spread it. Act like a god, get followed like a god. Register?”
“Win or lose, this is still Augustus’s fleet,” I say.