So I’m pretty surprised when Naomi says, “What happens now? What do we do?”
“We wait for Charles, I guess.” Now I’m starting to feel scared for real. I don’t know why, but thinking about forming up with all the reserve fighters and flying out over Earth and into Lunar Veil is worse than thinking about the actual battle.
There isn’t really any waiting to do because Charles and Malandeera are already coming our way across the Forum. Naomi jumps down from the fountain where we’ve been sitting and goes to meet them, walking with long, angry steps.
“Charles,” she says sharply, “tell us what is happening.”
Charles looks surprised, but he still sounds confident. “The Legion has called in the reserve,” he says. He grins at me. “Wide-awake, Jax?”
“And that is all you know about the battle?” Naomi demands. “If we’re to join this fight, it will do no good to keep the particulars from us.”
“All I know about what’s happening in Dis is what that rocket has told us,” Charles says, looking up at the little yellow light still hanging in the sky. “We won’t learn much more until we get to Dis and see the situation for ourselves. However.” He looks Naomi right in the eye, then turns to me. “However, only Fontana Malandeera and I will be going to Dis. The Legion has other plans for the two of you.”
“What plans?” Naomi asks. It’s obvious she’s concerned, and I feel my stomach do a few flips, too.
“You have a different mission, every bit as important as ours,” says Malandeera. “While Charles and I lead the reserve into Dis, you and Jax will take the Legion’s remaining long-distance transports and evacuate Hestia.”
Naomi shouts, “No!” at about the same second I yell, “What?” We both thought everyone had given up on the idea of evacuating.
“The reserve’s commander, Imperator Feeroy, wanted a fail-safe, a last resort in case the Legion was defeated,” Charles explains. “He convinced the Consulate it would make sense to have an evacuation party ready. They have selected a group of knowledgeable and capable people whose job it will be to establish a new home for humanity, and eventually rebuild the Legion. Jax, Naomi, you have been assigned to accompany them as their fontani.”
“Do not ask this of us, Charles,” Naomi says. “Please. You know running will serve nothing in the end.”
“Charles isn’t asking,” Malandeera says. “Those are your orders, passed down directly from the Consulate.” Even though she’s being pretty stern, it’s the kind of extra sternness you hear officers use when they’re issuing orders they don’t agree with, like they’re being stern with themselves, too. I remember Malandeera saying she hoped it would be a while before Naomi and I had to fight, but not too long. This must be what she meant. If we evacuate now, we’ll probably never see the Valentines again. We’ll just be running away forever.
Naomi looks from Malandeera to Charles. “This is what you would not tell us. The others all knew, but you said nothing.”
“No, not everyone,” Charles says. “Legatus Cressock will be responsible for leading the evacuation, so of course he knew, and most of his officers were informed. But the rest will be just as surprised as you are. The Consulate thought it would be counterproductive to issue evacuation orders before they became necessary.”
I think about how unhappy Legatus Cressock seemed back at the Basilica. Now I understand why. I can tell Naomi’s totally furious, but I’m not sure how to feel. My whole life everyone’s told me the one thing I have to do is fight the Valentines. Now Charles is saying the exact opposite. I’m definitely not one of those people who couldn’t wait to get into a real battle. To be totally honest, I really hoped the war would end before that happened. I’d daydream about someone’s coming, maybe in the middle of class or a firing drill, and telling us we’d won, that it was all over. Everyone would get up and cheer, and it would be like we didn’t need to train for the Legion anymore. We could just do whatever we wanted. But I never thought it would happen like this.
“Legatus Cressock will be along soon with an escort from the evacuation group,” Charles is saying. “From there you’ll head for Jovian Veil. Very probably that’s as far as you’ll go—if we can win this battle, all you’ll end up doing is flying out and back.
“I trust you,” Charles says firmly. “Both of you. I’ve seen how strong you can be. You know what’s at stake. You know who is depending on you. I’m sure you’ll do what’s right.”
I’ve been looking at my feet while most of this was going on, but now I notice Charles watching me, and I realize he’s waiting for an answer. I have no idea what to say. I’m relieved I won’t have to fight, but in a lot of ways, this is even worse. How am I supposed to start a new Earth? I don’t even know what to do on this one! And leaving everyone behind, not just the Legion but pretty much all the people on the planet, it feels pretty awful. But those are our orders, right? Hasn’t someone else already made the decision?
“OK,” I say to Charles. “You can count on me.”
We all look over to Naomi, but she doesn’t say anything. Her face is all crunched up, like a piece of paper, her mouth pressed tight. It’s like she’s holding something back, and I think maybe she’s about to start crying when she jerks her chin in a nod. Even though it’s only the tiniest little movement, it says Yes, I understand and Go away, I don’t want to look at you at the same time.
Charles actually seems happy with Naomi’s answer. He smiles like he’s got just what he wanted from us, and it’s a real smile, not the fake kind. And then he says to Malandeera, “After you, please.”
The air shakes, like it does sometimes when nearby fontani summon up their mijmeri. Charles and Malandeera disappear, then reappear in the air above the Forum, looking like two clouds of darkness and stars. I can still tell them apart pretty easily, of course. To most people, mijmeri all look alike, but they’re only the same the way all trees are the same, or all birds. It’s easy to pick out the differences if you know what to look for. Malandeera’s mijmere is smoother than most, like something that might have come out of a factory, even though it’s constantly changing shape. Charles’s mijmere, on the other hand, is kind of shaggy, like a wild animal, or someone who really needs a haircut.
Charles and Malandeera float there, a few hundred meters overhead, while across the city fighters from the reserves rise into the air, ready for action. Soon they’re speeding away toward Lunar Veil, getting smaller each second.
Naomi doesn’t say anything, and I don’t, either. We just watch as Charles and Malandeera and the reserves disappear into the ceiling of stars. The Forum is totally quiet, and with just Naomi and me standing there by the fountain in its center, the whole place feels huge and really lonely, like a great big desert somewhere. It reminds me of that first time I had to stand for Ninth City during an incursion, before I met Kizabel and Vinneas and Imway. But they’re all gone now, and so is Ninth City, and I might never see any of them again.
“This is wrong.” It’s Naomi, but I’m not sure if she’s talking to herself or me. Then she looks right at me, her brown eyes wide. “Jax, this is wrong. We cannot abandon Earth.”
“Those are our orders,” I say. “You heard Charles.”
“Charles does not believe in this plan any more than I do. That is the reason he kept it from us.”
“No, he didn’t tell us because he was ordered not to tell us until we needed to know. Besides,” I say, thinking suddenly that it’s really important I get her to understand, “it’s the right plan. You and me and a few fighters wouldn’t make any difference out in Dis—”
“We are fontani, Jax,” Naomi snaps.
“Yeah, sure, but Charles can beat both of us without even trying, right? Maybe we’d help a little, but what are we really going to do? With the evacuation party, we’re making sure we don’t get wiped out completely.”
“And what does that matter in
the end?” Naomi doesn’t look scared anymore—she’s turned very serious. “Who will we be saving? Me and you and a handful of others? I would rather throw my weight behind those fighting for us even if it is only the weight of a feather.”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t like our orders,” I say, but at the same time, a little part of me kind of agrees with her. There’s no way we can evacuate anything but a small fraction of the people on Earth. If we go now, and the Legion loses, we’ll be leaving everyone else completely unprotected. They won’t even have a source to power their defenses. “We’ve got a job to do.”
“I’m glad that is how you feel,” Naomi says. She takes one step back, moving away from me, then another. “It lessens the cost of what I am about to do.” Her hands must be sweating because she wipes them on her jacket. “It will be only the weight of a feather.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jax, I am going to join this fight.”
I think I must literally have heard her wrong. “You what?”
She just looks at me, as serious as ever. Her words work around my brain, almost like she’s saying them again. “But we’ve been ordered to evacuate!” I’m probably starting to sound whiny, but I don’t care.
“I intend to disobey those orders,” she says. “I am beholden first to my conscience, and I cannot leave others to fight for me. Not when there is something I can do to help.”
“Going with the evacuation is helping! They need us to keep the Legion going! We have to keep humanity alive!”
“My aim is not to protect the Legion, or even our species. What matters to me are the people all across Earth, and those fighting for us beyond this world. They need us, not in a hundred years, or five hundred, or a thousand, when we have built a new Legion and founded a new Earth. I will make my stand for them now. They are the center, the keep of our castle.”
I try to think of anything I can say to change her mind, but when Naomi’s set on something, there isn’t much that can stop her.
“Good luck, Jax,” she says. “I hope we meet again soon.”
And then she disappears, and I’m alone in the dark Forum.
FIFTY-EIGHT
JAX
For a while, I don’t know what to think; I just float around in my own head, my brain numb, like, What just happened? Naomi seemed like the most careful, most serious person I’d ever met, adults included. How could she just fly away like that?
That last thing she said, about the keep of a castle, runs circles through my brain. I didn’t think much about it at first, but now it seems important. A keep is something from a time called the medieval period, before things like electricity and automobiles were invented, when people would fight with swords and arrows and horses and metal armor and stuff like that. We learned about it at the Academy, in History of the Common Era. Back then, they had castles, huge stone fortresses for defense, and the keep was the strongest part of all, usually behind the innermost wall. It was where everyone would go when the rest of the castle had been taken over by enemies. The place to make your last stand. What Naomi was saying, I guess, is that she can’t retreat anymore. For her the keep isn’t a place, but the people she cares about. If this is going to be her last fight, that’s where she wants to be. I’m not sure I totally get it, but I’m starting to see she had her reasons.
I must be totally distracted trying to figure all of that out, because someone walks up behind me, and I don’t even notice until he says, “Fontanus Jaxten, sir. It’s time to go.”
It’s Legatus Cressock. Behind him are two rows of men and women, younger than he is but still pretty old, also in black. It makes me think of the Academy, the way they’re standing there, like a rhetor with a bunch of cadets.
Legatus Cressock salutes. “I’m here to escort you to your evacuation transport,” he says. He glances around, eyebrows lowering. “Where is Fontana Naomi?”
“She, um,” I say, clearing my throat, “she’s not here.”
“Not here? Where is she?”
I feel weirdly embarrassed, like I haven’t done my homework. I point toward Lunar Veil. “There, I guess. In Dis.”
Maybe Legatus Cressock is surprised, but he only hesitates half a second. “I’m not sure I understand you, sir.”
“She went to fight. To join the battle.”
I notice the people standing behind Cressock looking sideways at each other, but I don’t feel embarrassed anymore. I’m not even thinking of them, or my orders, or even the Legion. I’m thinking about Lunar Veil, and everyone out there—Naomi and her sister, Rae, and everyone from Ninth City. My hands have clenched into fists.
“And I’m going, too.” The words just come out; I hear them from far away, like I’m not even the one talking.
Now Cressock really does look surprised. “Sir,” he says, “our orders are to evacuate to Jovian Veil. The transports are waiting.”
“I know.” Usually it would make me totally nervous, telling an officer I wasn’t going to follow orders, but right now it feels good, like it’s what I should have been doing all along. “But I’m not going with them.”
No one says anything to that. They all just look at me. I try to explain. “Look, it’s like, if we go now, and leave everyone on Earth behind, and everyone in Dis, too, it’s like we’ve already lost.”
They only keep staring, like I’m speaking total gibberish, or that’s what I think until I notice a few are nodding, almost as if they’re waiting for me to say more. The problem is, that was about the only answer I could think of.
“It’s like the keep,” I say hurriedly, remembering how Naomi put it. Only when I try to explain it, the whole thing comes out all jumbled. “Like a castle. And the keep is where you stand and fight when there’s nothing else left.”
What’s so crazy, though, is that they actually seem to get it. Most of them are nodding to themselves now, like I’ve just said the profoundest thing in the history of profound things. No one tries to argue with me, or tell me I’m in trouble for disobeying orders.
I take a deep breath. “All right, I guess I’m going,” I say. “I’m sorry you won’t get to evacuate. But don’t worry—you won’t be missing much. We’re going to win. I promise.”
I’ve already turned to go, and I’m about to shade into my mijmere, when Legatus Cressock says, “Sir?”
I look back; no one has moved. “Yes?”
“We’d like permission to come with you.”
I feel my determination tangling up, like I’ve started running, then tripped. “You do?”
“The Legion left behind a good-sized complement of fighters to escort the evacuation, sir. Since there will be no evacuation, I hope you will allow us to accompany you into battle.”
“You want to go with me?” I stare at Cressock and the lines of legionaries. “All of you?”
“I think I speak for everyone assigned to the evacuation when I say those orders never sat right with any of us,” Cressock says. “The Legion’s mission is to protect the people of Earth, and the people of Earth are here. We’d much rather be out there with you, sir.” From behind him come murmurs of “Yes, sir” and “Absolutely, sir,” even a few outright cheers.
I know I should try to look tough and brave, but I can’t stop myself from grinning. They’re all total strangers, but knowing they’re with me makes me absurdly happy. “Then let’s go!”
For the first time since we met, Cressock smiles for real. In a deep, sharp voice, he shouts, “Move, legionaries! I want every fighter we have in the air in five minutes!”
Five minutes later, we’re speeding toward Lunar Veil, Earth down below, totally dark at first, then warming up with pinks and oranges as we rise through the atmosphere, and the sun peeks over the horizon. Legatus Cressock and his fighters surround me like a cloud. They’re a mini-Legion, everything from gunships to tetra fortresses to equi. I have to f
ly slower than I’d like to so I don’t leave them all behind, but that shouldn’t matter much, since time here moves so much faster than in Dis. I’ll be coming in almost right behind Naomi, and even Charles and Malandeera will have been there only a few minutes at most.
I’ve never been to any of the Realms besides Hestia. I don’t even think about it until Lunar Veil is already so close it takes up almost the entire sky, and then I’m like, Oh crap! But going through doesn’t feel weird at all. You could totally not even notice you’d gone to a whole other world, except Dis is so much emptier and colder than Hestia. It’s the way I always imagined outer space: no moon or planets, only random hunks of rock floating around and one small, lonely star for a sun. Also, in Hestia there wasn’t a huge battle going on everywhere you look.
Everything is tangled and confusing. It’s like there are a hundred different fights happening all at once, most of them way far apart from one another. Each one is like its own separate galaxy of color and motion, swirling and flashing with blasts of light. The only place I don’t see some little pocket of fighting is behind me, in the direction of Lunar Veil.
This definitely isn’t how I thought the battle would look. Before the Legion launched into Dis, I went to a briefing with Charles, and the commanders there told us to expect a concentrated fight centralized mostly around IMEC-1, since that’s where we’d have our heavy artillery. The City Guns were going to be key to this battle. But what’s happening now looks like the opposite. The exact opposite, even: I don’t see IMEC-1 anywhere.
What I do see are Charles and Malandeera, and Naomi, too. They’re way ahead of me, flying like they’ve got someplace urgent to go, with fighters from the reserve close behind them. I feel a little nervous, like they’ll be angry when they find out I didn’t evacuate, but I’m not going back, so I’d better just let them know I’m here.
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