“Mother says you’re a liar.”
“Ironic. You will tell her we’ve treated you well, I hope.”
“If I am well treated.”
“Fair enough.” Augustus touches the boy’s shoulder and stands. “Victra. Take him to the passenger hold.”
Victra glowers. Of course Augustus chooses the only woman but Mustang. Tactus notices her reaction and steps forward. “Might I, my liege? I’ve not seen my own brothers in some time. I wouldn’t mind talking with the lad.” Augustus nods as if to say he doesn’t care. Victra thanks Tactus, surprised by his gesture. He winks at her, punches my shoulder, and pats Lysander roughly on the head, almost knocking him down. I’d hate to know his brothers.
“Come, tiny one. Tell me, have you ever been to a Pearl club?” he asks, leading him away. “The girls and boys there are spectacular …”
The ponderous stork climbs higher and higher. In two minutes, we’ll hit atmosphere.
“They tried to kill me as I slept,” Augustus murmurs. “She knows I will not forgive this.”
“She’ll come to Mars,” I say.
“Is there no chance for amends to be made?” Pliny asks.
“Amends?” Mustang snarls. “Make amends with the woman who burned a moon, Pliny? Are you an idiot?”
“Peace will preserve your line, my liege. More than war. Set yourself against the Sovereign, and what hope can there be?” Pliny is no fool with rhetoric. “Her fleets are vast. Her monies endless. Your name, your honor, no matter how great, cannot stand beneath the weight of the Society. My liege, you raised me to your side because of my worth. Because you trusted my advice. Without you, I am nothing. Your care is all I value. So heed my advice now, if you still hold it in regard, and do not let this wound against the Sovereign fester. Do not let war come of this. Remember Rhea, yes, and how it burned. Preserve your honored family with peace, by any means.”
Augustus raises his voice. “When the Sovereign pushed against me, I bent like Gold should, with grace, with dignity. But now she cuts at me, and beneath the grace, beneath the aplomb, her knife will strike iron. We make for Mars, and for war.”
“We’re reaching the low atmosphere,” Mustang says. “Hold on.”
“What is that light?” Sevro asks. “The blinking one over the altimeter.”
The Blue snaps an answer. “The cargo bay door is opening, dominus.”
“The cargo bay …” I frown. “Can you override it?”
“No, dominus. I’m locked out.”
Why would the cargo bay door be …?
“He volunteered,” Mustang says, voice panicked. “Tactus volunteered.”
“No,” I snarl, startling everyone but Mustang. We realized it at the same time. “Sevro, Victra, on me!” I wheel around and sprint out the cabin doors, head ducked as I move fast as I can toward the back of the ship.
“Prepare for evasive action,” I hear Mustang say back in the cabin.
“What’s happening?” Pliny whines.
“TACTUS!” I bellow. Victra and Sevro run at my heels. The other Howlers and Housemembers call to me, confused as I sprint through the passenger bay.
Screwface unbuckles his crashbelt. “He went past with the boy.”
“Down!” I say, shoving him in his seat. “Everyone stay seated!”
Tactus wouldn’t. He couldn’t. But why the hell not? Why would I ever assume he wouldn’t do what’s best for him? It’s in his nature.
We slide down railings to the storage level, past the room where the Jackal operates on Quinn. I shove open the door to the cargo hold and am greeted by the howling of wind. The hatch hangs open to show darkness wounded by city lights far beneath. Clown and an Augustus lancer lie unconscious, bleeding. They slide slowly toward the open bay door. As for Tactus, he’s nothing but a distant dot in the darkness. I cannot see him clearly, but I know what he has taken. Lysander.
“Sevro.” I grip my friend’s shoulder. “Stop!” He’s seething. Looks like he wants to jump out the back of the ship and follow Tactus into the air. He can’t. It’s too late. Instead, we catch the two unconscious Golds before they slip down the open ramp. Victra shuts it at the control panel. The door hisses closed.
“He doesn’t have any communications gear,” Victra says breathlessly. “Not after the EMP.”
“Doesn’t need the gorydamn gear.” Sevro points to Clown’s naked feet. “The bastard has gravBoots. Soon as he hits the ripWing scanners, he’ll be picked up.”
I do the math. “We have two minutes till they send boarding parties.”
20
Helldiver
I should have known what Tactus would do. He killed his first Primus in the Institute, Tamara. He only ever followed strength. Only ever sought victory. I knew he was a beast, but I thought he was my beast. I thought I could trust him. No, I thought I could change him. I curse myself. Arrogant fool. I stalk back to the cockpit, where Augustus addresses the Blue pilot.
“Pilot, will you be able to take us clear?”
“No, dominus. Geomet models don’t show a probability of escape.” Her response is fittingly Blue—emotionally distant, efficient, and declarative. Her body is thin, faintly avian. Like she’s make all of twigs, neck long, bald head slightly smaller. Eyes large and as uncannily azure as the digital tattoos of her skull. When she moves, it’s like she’s submerged in water. Asteroid born, judging by her flat accent.
“What is the likely scenario?”
“They will destroy our engines with ripWing fire. Precipitating a hull breach that will kill all aboard. Alternatively, precipitating a leechCraft assault. Capturing all aboard.”
“Or they’ll just blast us from the gory sky,” Sevro adds.
“Blue, deliver me to my ship and you will receive command of a frigate,” Augustus offers.
“I would prefer a cruiser,” she notes.
“A cruiser then.”
“Very well.” The Blue adjusts several knobs. “I will fly well, but the paradigm must be altered before they engage our vessel, if we are to survive.”
The stork climbs toward the edge of Luna’s atmosphere. This ship is a big-bellied beast. Fat with storage room, because all they’re meant to do is birth soldiers out of the tubes in their guts. Men like me would tear her apart in our ripWings. We used ships like this at the Academy to launch men in starShells at enemy asteroid bases.
Friction fire wreaths the ship.
“If the hull is breached, hold your breath, dominii,” the pilot instructs. “We don’t have sufficient survival helmets aboard.”
Victra frowns. “Our lungs will explode if we do that.”
“Then exhale,” the Blue replies. “And have thirty secs of life while eardrums explode and blood vessels swell like inflated balloons. I will hold my breath.”
Sevro looks back at me, wide-eyed. “I hate space.”
“You hate everything.”
We pop clear of Luna’s atmosphere. The fire fades and we slip into open space, where the armada’s capital ships glide like behemoths of Europa’s deep sea. Gun turrets dot their hide like barnacles, and hangar bays slice their undersides like great gills. Commercial ships float slowly along the shipping lanes. RipWings and wasps go about their patrols. None pay heed to our presence except those that escort us from Luna. The Sovereign would not broadcast this. Time ticks away.
There is nowhere to flee. We thought to pass just under the guns of the Scepter Armada when we had Lysander. But now we’ll have to run the gauntlet.
Our pilot is calm as metal.
She said the paradigm must change.
What can I do? Think. Think.
“We will open communications to one of the ships,” Augustus says. “Bribe them into sheltering us. Every man has a price.”
“We’re jammed. Can’t even broadcast,” Mustang reminds him.
We’re going to die. We all know it. Augustus doesn’t panic or surrender resolve. I don’t know how I thought he’d handle death. Maybe I hoped he would w
ail about and turn pale. But for all his faults, he is stalwart. After a moment, he sets a bony hand on Mustang’s shoulder. She flinches, surprised.
“Whether missile or boarding craft come, die like Golds,” Augustus says solemnly to us. Not because he wishes us to think him strong in his last moments, but because he believes in what he is—a superior being, a master of his human frailties. For him, death is merely the ultimate frailty. Humans whimper when they die. They claw for life even if there is no hope. He will not. Death is not grander than his pride.
Golds, in many ways, are so like Reds. Helldivers go to their deaths for their families, for the pride of their clan. They do not whimper when the mines collapse around them or when the pitvipers come from the shadows. They fall and their friends weep and sweep their bodies aside. But we have the Vale to look forward to; what have the Golds? When they perish, their flesh withers and their name and deeds linger till time sweeps them away. And that is all. If anyone should claw for life now, it should be the Aureate.
I claw because I carry the torch of something that must not die, must not go out. That is why I grab Sevro on the shoulder and, with a horrible, eerie laugh, tell the pilot to take us closer to the deadliest ship in orbit, one which now has angled itself to intercept us.
“Take us near the Vanguard,” I repeat to the Blue.
“That would cause our chances of survival to decrease by—”
“Never tell me the odds, just do it,” I command.
Everyone turns and looks at me. Not because I’ve said something strange but because they’ve been waiting to turn and look at me. They’ve all been silently praying I would marshal a plan. Even Augustus.
Eo said people would always look to me. She believed I had some quality, some essence that gave hope. I rarely feel it in myself. There is none in me now. Just dread. Inside I feel such a boy—angry, petulant, selfish, guilty, sad, alone—and yet they look to me. I almost break underneath their gaze, almost wither away and ask someone else to take the reins. I can’t do it. I’m small. I’m just a liar in a carved body. But that dream must not be extinguished.
So I act and they watch.
“You gone space mad?” Victra asks. “When they realize we don’t have the boy …”
“Draw an angle toward the Vanguard’s bridge,” Mustang tells the Blue.
Augustus gives me a curt nod, guessing what I plan. “Hic sunt leones.”
“Hic sunt leones,” I echo, saving my last look for Mustang, not the man who hanged my wife. She doesn’t notice. I leave the bridge with Sevro at a dead sprint. Something hits our ship. Her hull shudders. They know we don’t have Lysander.
“Howlers! Get up!” I shout.
Harpy throws up her hands. “I thought you said—”
“UP!” I roar.
Red secondary lights bathe the launch bay in bloody hues as Sevro and I load ourselves into the cold starShells. It takes three Howlers each to help the two of us slip into the robotic carapaces. I lie in the armor as Harpy buckles my feet into the stirrups and closes the armored legs over my meat and bones. The Howlers are fast in their movements even as the ship lurches with another near missile strike. A siren howls, reporting a hull breach. I try to slow my breath as Victra fits my head into the starShell’s helmet.
“Good luck.” She leans her face close. Before I can stop her, she presses her lips to mine. I do not recoil, not this close to death. I let her lips part and cling warm and comforting around mine. Then the human moment is over, and she’s gone, lowering the massive visor of my helmet. My Howlers howl and hoot at the sight. I can’t help but wish it was Mustang who sealed me in this tin can, and kissed me goodbye; but then the digital display owns my vision and I disappear from my friends into the metal launch tube. I’m alone. And scared.
Focus.
I’m cocooned, belly-down, in the spitTube. This is where most would piss themselves, separated from friends, from the warmth of life. There’s no gravity in the tube. It isn’t pressurized. I hate the weightlessness of it.
I can’t look up or my neck will break when they launch me. I can’t move side to side. My starShell is latched into a thousand toothlike magnetic hooks. They click into place like tiny insects, chattering.
In moments they’ll shoot me into space. My breath rasps. My heart rattles against my sternum. I drink in my body’s terror and smile. They said this was suicide at the Academy when I wanted to launch myself. Maybe they were right.
But this is why I was made. To dive into hell.
I’m a beetle of man in a carapace of metal, weapons, and engines that costs more than most ships. I’ve got a pulseCannon on my right arm. When I need it, it will bloom like a haemanthus blossom.
I think of the time Eo laid a haemanthus before my front door, the time I plucked one from the wall on the night that I was supposed to win the Laurel. How far away those warm days seem from this cold place, where petals are metal instead of soft like silk.
“We’re getting pinned in. Boarding parties imminent,” Mustang’s voice comes over the com. “Priming your launch.” The ship moans as another missile almost claims us. Our shields are shot. Just the rickety hull holding us together.
“Aim true,” I say.
“Always. Darrow …” Her silence says a thousand things.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“Good luck.”
“This is not fun,” Sevro groans.
The ship’s hydraulic system hisses and the metal teeth jerk me forward in the tube, loading me into the chamber. Inches before my head, the magnetic stream of the railgun hums dreadfully, daring me to glance its way.
They say that many Golds can’t take this, that even Peerless can panic and scream and cry in the spitTube. I believe it. Pixies would have heart attacks right now. Some cannot even ride in a spaceship for fear of small places and the vastness of space. Soft-bellied fools. I was born in a home smaller than the cargo bay of this ship. I made my life at the end of a clawDrill that makes this tube look like a child’s toy, all while sweating and pissing my soul away in a frysuit cobbled together from scrap.
Still there’s the terror.
“Watch how a pitviper strikes, my son.” Father once clutched me by my wrist and made me play this game. “Watch it coil upward and upward till it reaches its crest. Don’t move before then. Don’t strike out with your slingBlade. If you do, then it’ll get you. It’ll kill you. Move just when it’s coming down. Do that with the terror in life. Don’t act till you’re as scared as you’ll get, then …” He snapped his fingers.
I’m at that point when the music of the machines takes hold. The clicks and the clacks, the hisses and the hums reverberate through the hull. A countdown begins.
“Ready over there, Goblin?” I ask Sevro over the com.
“Cacatne ursus in silvis?”
Does a bear shit in the woods? The ship spins and shudders. More sirens howl.
“Latin, now?”
“Audentes fortuna juvat,” Sevro chuckles.
“Fortune favors the bold? You deserve to die if that’s really going to be the last thing you say in this life.”
“Yes? Well, you may suck my—”
My heart sticks its downward beat.
The metal teeth jerk me forward into the tube’s magnetic stream. And it happens. Even through my suit, g-forces hit me like the backhand of the Obsidians’ thunder god. My vision flickers black. Stomach rises into throat. Lungs constrict. Blood slows in my veins. I snap forward. Lights flicker in my eyes. I don’t see the walls of the tube I’m shot through. I don’t even see the ship that brought me here. I see Eo’s face in the darkness. I black out. Bodies can’t take this. Too fast.
Darkness.
Then the darkness has holes.
Stars.
There’s no meantime. One second I’m on the ship, the next I’m ripping through the deep of space at fifteen times the speed of sound.
Many shit their suits at this point. It’s not a fear thing. It’s bio
logy and physics. The human body can only take so much. Mickey the Carver made sure mine could take just a little bit more. I hope Sevro can too.
I rip soundlessly through space. Trust that Sevro is near me. Can’t see him, even on the sensors. All too fast. Toward the greatest ship in the Scepter Armada—the one we should avoid. It all happens in six seconds. Emergency missiles streak past us. The gunners see us now. Know what’s happening. But we’re not using thrusters, so the missiles can’t lock. Flack can’t detonate on so short a fuse. The unspent canisters fly past us, nearly hitting me. Our pilot took a perfect shot.
Railguns miss us. Projectiles flash past. Sevro is howling in the com. Their shields are down. They can’t bring them up fast enough. It takes time. Iridescent blue flickers over their hull as the pulseShields power up. Too late, you sons of bitches.
Too bloodydamn late.
I can’t think. I’m screaming inside. Laughing like the flames of a wildfire. Laughing because I know it is my madness that these logical warriors cannot fight.
The bridge is close. I spare a look up. See Golds inside roaring at each other. Rushing to their evacsuits or escape pods. Staring at us approach like Mustang did when my horses of House Mars crashed into her and Pax in a muddy field. Our rage is something unique. Something these Luneborn don’t understand.
Blues scatter. Obsidians pull their weapons. Two Golds don breathmasks and unfurl razors, readying for the kill. The second before we hit, I shoot my pulseCannon. It thumps on the thick glass. Shoot again and again and again. Then I curl into a ball and smash into the thick bridge glass with the full velocity of my launch as well as a last-second burst from my thruster boots.
Out of me roars a madman’s scream.
21
Stains
I explode through the bridge like a ball of lead shot into a store of china and glass. I crash into displays and strategy desks before blasting through the reinforced metal of the bridge walls, through the steel of the hallways till at last I slam bodily into a bulkhead a hundred meters through and past the bridge. Dazed. Can’t find Sevro. I call him over the com. He groans something about his ass. Maybe he did shit himself.