by Pierce Brown
Romulus pales. “Stop him. Please. Your people are down there too.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Thank you, Darrow. And good luck. First cohort, on me…”
The connection dies. I remove my helmet. My men stare at me. They haven’t heard the conversation, but they know what I’m doing now. “You’re going to destroy Romulus’s dockyards around Ganymede,” Victra says.
“Holy shit,” Holiday mutters. “Holy shit.”
“I’m not destroying anything,” I reply. “I’m fighting my way through corridors. Trying to reach the bridge. Roque is ordering this move as his last act of violence before I claim his command.” Victra’s eyes light up, but even she has reservations.
“If Romulus finds out, if he even suspects, he’ll fire on our forces and everything we’ve won today goes to ash.”
“And who will tell him?” I ask. I look around the bridge. “Who will tell him?” I look to Holiday. “If anyone sends a signal out, shoot them in the head. Wipe the video memory from the whole ship.”
If I ruin Ganymede’s dockyards the Rim won’t be able to threaten us for fifty years. Romulus is an ally today, but I know he will threaten the core if the Rising succeeds. If I must give Roque for this victory, if I must give the Sons on these moons, I will take something in return. I look down. Red bootprints follow my path. I didn’t even realize I’d stepped in Roque’s blood.
We carve our way free of the debris formed by Mustang’s fleet and mine and break away from Jupiter toward Ganymede, leaving her behind. I feel the pulsing desperation as the Moon Lords send their fastest craft to intercept us. We shoot them down. All the pride and hope of Romulus’s people are in the rivets and assembly lines and electric shops of that dull gray ring of metal. All their promises of power and future independence are at my mercy.
When I reach the sparkling gem that is Ganymede, I bring the Colossus parallel to the monument of industry they’ve built in orbit at her equator. The Valkyrie gather behind us at the viewport. Sefi staring in awe at the majesty and triumph of Gold will. Two hundred kilometers of docks. Hundreds of haulers and freighters. Birthplace of the greatest ships in the Sol System including the Colossus herself. Like any good monster of myth, the girl must eat her mother before being free to pursue her true destiny. That destiny is leading the assault on the Core.
“Men built this?” Sefi asks with quiet reverence. Many of her Valkyrie have fallen to a knee to watch in wonder.
“My people built it,” I say. “Reds.”
“It took two hundred fifty years…It’s how old the first dock there is,” Victra says, shoulder to shoulder with me. Hundreds of escape pods flower out from her metal carapace. They know why we’re here. They’re evacuating the senior administrators, the overseers. I’m under no delusion. I know who will die when we fire.
“There’s still going to be thousands of Reds on there.” Holiday says quietly to me. “Oranges, Blues…Grays.”
“He knows that,” Victra says.
Holiday doesn’t leave my side. “You sure you want to do this, sir?”
“Want to?” I ask hollowly. “Since when has any of this been about what we want?” I turn to the helmsman, about to give the order when Victra puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Share the load, darling. This one’s on me.” Her Aureate voice rings clear and loud. “Helmsman, open fire with all port batteries. Launch tubes twenty-one through fifty at their center-line.”
Together, we stand shoulder to shoulder and watch the warship lay ruin to the defenseless dock. Sefi stares out in profound awe. She has watched the holos of ship warfare, but her war until now, has been narrow halls and men and gunfire. This is the first time they see what a vessel of war can do. And for the first time, I see her frightened.
It’s a crime that the marvel should die like this. No song. Nothing but silence and the unblinking gaze of the stars to herald the end of one of the great monuments of the Golden Age. And I hear in the back of my mind, that age old truth of darkness whispering to me.
Death begets death begets death…
The moment is sadder than I wanted. So I turn to Sefi as the dock continues to fall apart. The shattered bits drifting down to the moon, where they will fall into the sea or upon the cities of Ganymede.
“The ship must be renamed,” I say, “I would like you to choose.”
Her face is stained with white light.
“Tyr Morga,” she says without hesitation.
“What’s that mean?” Holiday asks.
I look back out the viewport as explosions ripple through the dock and her escape pods flare against the atmosphere of Ganymede. “It means Morning Star.”
The Sword Armada is shattered. More than half destroyed. A quarter seized by my ships. The remainder fled with Antonia or in little ragged bands, rallying around the remaining Praetors to sprint for the Core. I sent Thraxa and her sisters in fast-moving corvettes out under Victra’s command to reel Antonia in and recapture Kavax, who was captured by Antonia’s forces while attempting to board the Pandora. I asked Sevro to go with Victra, thinking to keep the two of them together, but he went to her ship then returned a half hour before it departed, wrathful and quiet, refusing to discuss whatever it was that transpired.
For her part, Mustang is beside herself with worry for Kavax, though she makes a brave face. She’d lead the rescue mission herself if she weren’t needed in the main fleet. We make repairs where we can to make the ships fit for travel. We scuttle the ships we can’t save, and search the naval debris for survivors. A tentative alliance exists between the Rising and the Moon Lords, one that will not last long.
I’ve not slept since the battle two days ago. Neither, it seems, has Romulus. His eyes are dark with anger and exhaustion. He’s lost an arm and a son on the day and more, so much more. Neither one of us could risk meeting in person. So all we have left between us is this holo conference.
“As promised, you have your independence,” I say.
“And you have your ships,” he replies. Marble columns stretch up behind him, carved with Ptolemaic effigies. He’s on Ganymede, in the Hanging Palace. The heart of their civilization. “But they will not be enough to defeat the Core. The Ash Lord will be waiting for you.”
“I hope so. I have plans for his master.”
“Do you sail on Mars?”
“Perhaps.”
He allows a thoughtful silence. “There’s one thing I find curious about the battle. Of all the ships my men boarded, not one nuclear weapon over five megatons was found. Despite your claims. Despite your…evidence.”
“My men found plenty enough,” I lie. “Come aboard if you doubt me. It’s hardly curious that they would store them on the Colossus. Roque would want to keep them under tight watch. We’re only lucky that I managed to take bridge when I did. Docks can be rebuilt. Lives cannot.”
“Did they ever have them?” Romulus asks.
“Would I risk the future of my people on a lie?” I smile without humor. “Your moons are safe. You define your own future now, Romulus. Do not look the gift horse in the mouth.”
“Indeed,” he says, though he sees through the lie now. Knows he was manipulated. But it is the lie he must sell to his own people if he wants peace. They cannot afford to go to war with me now, but their honor would demand it if they knew what I’d done. And if they went to war with me, I would likely win. I have more ships now. But they’d hurt me bad enough to ruin my real war against the Core. So Romulus swallows my lies. And I swallow the guilt of leaving hundreds of millions in slavery and personally signing the death warrants of thousands of Sons of Ares to Romulus’s police. I gave them warning. But not all will escape. “I would like your fleet to depart before end of day,” Romulus says.
“It will take three days to search the debris for our survivors,” I say. “We will leave then.”
“Very well. My ships will escort your fleet to the boundaries we agreed upon. When your flagship crosses into the asteroi
d belt, you may never return. If one ship under your command crosses that boundary, it will be war between us.”
“I remember the terms.”
“See that you do. Give my regards to the Core. I’ll certainly give yours to the Sons of Ares you leave behind.” He terminates the signal.
—
We depart three days after my conference with Romulus, making additional repairs as we travel. Welders and repairmen dot hulls like benevolent barnacles. Though we lost more than twenty-five capital ships during the battle, we’ve gained over seventy more. It is one of the greatest military victories in modern history, but victories are less romantic when you’re cleaning your friends off the floor.
It’s easy to be bold in the moment, because all you have is what you can process: see, smell, feel, taste. And that’s a very small amount of what is. But afterward, when everything decompresses and uncoils bit by bit, and the horror of what you did and what happened to your friends hits you. It’s overwhelming. That’s the curse of this naval war. You fight, then spend months waiting, engaged only by the tedium of routine. Then you fight again.
I’ve not yet told my men where we sail. They don’t ask me themselves, but their officers do. And again I give them the same answer.
“Where we must.”
The core of my army is the Sons of Ares, and they are experienced in hardship. They organize dances and gatherings and force jubilation down war-weary throats. It seems to take. Men and women whistle in the halls as we distance ourselves from Jupiter. They sew unit badges onto uniforms and paint starShells in wild colors. There’s a vibrancy here different from the cold precision of the Society Navy. Still they keep mostly to their Color, blending only when assigned to do so. It’s not as harmonious as I thought it would be, but it’s a start. I feel disconnected from it all even as I smile and lead as best I know. I killed ten men in the corridors. Killed another thirteen thousand of my own when we destroyed the docks. Their faces don’t haunt me. But that feeling of dread is hard to lose.
We have not yet been able to contact the Sons of Ares. Communications are blacked out across all channels. Which means Narol succeeded in destroying the relays as he promised. Gold and Red are just as blind now.
I give Roque the burial he would have wanted. Not in the soil of some foreign moon, but in the sun. His casket is made of metal. A torpedo with a hatch through which Mustang and I slip his body. The Howlers smuggled him from the overflowing morgue so we could say goodbye to him in secret. With so many of our own dead, it would not do to see me honor an enemy so deeply.
Few mourn the death of my friend. Roque, if he is remembered by his people, will forever be known as The Man Who Lost the Fleet. A modern Gaius Terentius Varro, the fool who let Hannibal encircle him at Cannae. Or Alfred Jones. The American general who went mad and lost his Imperium’s dreaded mech division in the Conquering. To my people, he is just another Gold who thought himself immortal till the Reaper showed him otherwise.
It’s a lonely thing carrying the body of someone dead and loved. Like a vase you know will never again hold flowers. I wish he believed as firmly in the afterlife as I once did, as Ragnar did. I’m not sure when I lost my faith. I don’t think it’s something that just happens. Maybe I’ve been worn down bit by bit, pretending to believe in the Vale because it’s easier than the alternative. I wish Roque would have thought he was going to a better world. But he died believing only in Gold, and anything that believes only in itself cannot go happily into the night.
When it is my turn to say goodbye, I stare at his face and see nothing but memories. I think of him on the bed reading before the Gala, before I stabbed him with the sedative. I see him in his suit, pleading with me to come along with him and Mustang to the Opera in Agea, saying how much I’d delight in the plight of Orpheus. I see him laughing by the fire at her estate after the Battle of Mars. His arms around me as he sobbed after I came home to House Mars when we were hardly more than boys.
Now he is cold. Eyes ringed with circles. All the promise of youth fled. All the possibilities of family and children and joy and growing old and wise together are gone because of me. I’m reminded of Tactus now, and I feel tears coming.
My friends, the Howlers in particular, do not much like that I’ve let Cassius come to the funeral. But I could not stand the idea of sending Roque to the sun without the Bellona kissing him farewell. His legs are chained. Hands manacled behind his back with magnetic cuffs. I un-cuff them so he can say goodbye properly. Which he does. Leaning to kiss Roque farewell on the brow.
Sevro, pitiless even now, slams shut the metal lid after Cassius is done. Like Mustang, the little Gold came for me, in case I needed him. He has no love for the man, no heart for someone who betrayed me and Victra. Loyalty is everything to him. And, in his mind, Roque had none. So too with Mustang. Roque betrayed her as readily as he betrayed me. He cost her a father. And though she can understand Augustus was not the best of men, he was her father nonetheless.
My friends wait for me to say something. There’s nothing I can say that will not anger them. So, as Mustang recommended, I spare them the indignity of having to listen to compliments about a man who signed their death warrants, and instead recite the most relevant lines of one of his old favorites.
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun
Nor the furious winter’s rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must
As chimney sweepers come to dust
“Per aspera, ad astra,” my Golden friends whisper, even Sevro. And with a press of a button, Roque disappears from our lives to begin his last journey to join Ragnar and generations of fallen warriors in the sun. I remain behind. The others leave. Mustang lingers with me, eyes following Cassius as he’s escorted away.
“What are your plans for him?” she asks me when we’re left alone.
“I don’t know,” I say, angry she would ask that now.
“Darrow, are you all right?”
“Fine. I just need to be alone right now.”
“OK.” She doesn’t leave me. Instead, she steps closer. “It’s not your fault.”
“I said I want to be alone.”
“It’s not your fault.” I look over at her, angry she won’t leave, but when I see how gentle her eyes are, how open to me they are, I feel the tension in my ribs release. The tears come unbidden. Streaking down my cheeks. “It’s not your fault,” she says, pulling me close as I feel the first sob rattle my chest. She wraps her arms around my waist and puts her forehead into my chest. “It’s not your fault.”
—
Later that night my friends and I have supper together in the stateroom I’ve inherited from Roque. It’s a quiet affair. Even Sevro doesn’t have much to say. He’s been quiet since Victra left, something gnawing in the back of his mind. The trauma of the past few days weighs heavy on all of us. But these few men and women know where we travel, and it’s that knowledge that adds even more weight than the regular soldier carries.
Mustang wants to stay behind with me, but I don’t want her to. I need time to think. So I quietly click the door shut behind her. I am alone. Not just at the table in my suite, but in my grief. My friends came to Roque’s funeral for me, not him. Only Sefi was kind about his passing, because over the course of our journey to Jupiter she learned of Roque’s prowess in battle and so respected him in a pure way the others can’t. Still, of my friends, only I loved Roque as much as he deserved in the end.
The Imperator’s stateroom still smells like Roque. I leaf through the old books on his shelves. A piece of blackened ship metal floats in a display case. Several other trophies hang on the wall. Gifts from the Sovereign “For heroism at the Battle of Deimos” and from the ArchGovernor of Mars for “The Defense of Aureate Society.” Sophocles’s Theban Plays lies open on the bedside. I’ve not changed the page. I’ve not changed anything. As if by preserving the room I can keep
him alive. A spirit in amber.
I lie down to sleep, but can only stare at the ceiling. So I rise and pour three fingers of scotch from one of his decanters and watch the holoTube in the lounge. The web is down thanks to the hacking war. Creates an eerie feeling being disconnected from the rest of humanity. So I search the old programs on the ship’s computer, skimming through vids of space pirates, noble Golden knights, Obsidian bounty hunters and a troubled Violet musician on Venus, till I find a menu with recently played vids catalogued. The most recent dates to the night before the battle.
My heart thumps heavily in my chest as I sort through the vids. I look over my shoulder, like I’m going through someone else’s journal. Some are Aegean renditions of Roque’s favorite opera, Tristan and Isolde, but most are feeds from our time at the Institute. I sit there, my hand in the air, about to click on the feed. But instead I feel compelled to wait. I call Holiday on my com.
“You up?”
“Now I am.”
“I need a favor.”
“Don’t you always.”
—
Twenty minutes later, Cassius, chained hand and foot, shuffles in from the hall to join me. He’s escorted by Holiday and three Sons. I excuse them. Nodding my thanks to Holiday. “I can take care of myself.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, that’s not exactly a fact.”
“Holiday.”
“We’ll be right outside, sir.”
“You can go to bed.”
“Just shout if you need anything, sir.”
“Ironclad discipline you have here,” Cassius says awkwardly after she’s left. He stands in my circular marble atrium, eying the sculptures. “Roque always did dress up a place. Unfortunately he’s got the taste of a ninety-year-old orchestra first chair.”
“Born three millennia late, wasn’t he?” I reply.
“I rather think he would have hated the toga of Rome. Distressing fashion trend, really. They made an effort to bring it back in my father’s day. Especially during drinking bouts and some of the breakfast clubs they had back then. I’ve seen the pictures.” He shudders. “Dreadful stuff.”