by Pierce Brown
“I bore the mark of the Ash Lord, and was to be presented as a gift with this great vessel to the Family Julii. But you took this vessel, and so you have taken me.”
The Julii? A gift for their betrayal of Augustus, no doubt.
And did he just use a bureaucratic loophole to justify killing his master’s men? If there’s irony in his voice, I can’t find it. But why would he do that? Do those black eyes of his know me? Stained cannot use tech other than military materiel. He could never have seen me before, yet his hand remains, waiting to grip mine.
“Why do you do this?” I ask. “Is it the Julii?”
“They trade my kind.” I had forgotten. It is Julii ships that carry Obsidian slaves across the abyss. They know to fear the speared sun of Victra’s family crest.
He not practiced at hiding his hate. It is cold as the ice the man was born into.
“Will you accept these stains, godchild?” he asks, leaning forward, voice plaintive, a strange worry creasing the corners of his mouth. Golds did this after the Dark Rebellion, the only uprising to ever threaten their reign. We took their history, took their technology, wiped out a generation, and gave their race the poles of planets, the religion of the Norse, and told them we were their gods. A few hundred years later, I stand looking up at one of their most terrifying sons, and wonder how he can think of me as a god.
“I accept these stains in my name, Ragnar Volarus.” Terrified, I reach forward and, with superheated metal surrounding our arms, clasp hands, nearly equal in size, though mine is sheathed in metal. I take the blood that his hand spreads to mine and wipe it over my exposed brow. “I accept their burden and their weight.”
“Thank you, Sunborn. Thank you. I will serve on the honor of my mother and her mother before her.”
“I have friends aboard the stork in hangar bay three. Save them, Ragnar, and I will owe you a debt.”
Yellow teeth are revealed as he smiles, and from him undulates a war chant deeper than the ocean at storm. It fills the halls with dread. Fills me with joy and fear and primal curiosity. What did I just gain?
22
Fire Blossom
My body trembles in the aftermath of the giant’s departure. Steadying myself, I turn back to the Blues, who stand transfixed, unsure of whether to look to me or the HC displays or the scanners that show the Sovereign’s men-of-war encircling us. “You have nothing to fear here,” I say. “The captain of this ship was demoted because he left his viewports open. Foolishly. Rank does not excuse mistakes. I wish for a new captain. We haven’t much time. So I will decide in sixty seconds.”
The dark-skinned Blue comes forward past her fellows. At first, I thought the tattoos on her hands featured floral lines. Then I note a stream of mathematical notations: the Larmor formula. Maxwell’s equations in curved-space time. Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory. And a hundred others that even I don’t recognize.
“Give me the badge and I’ll carve you a hole back to Mars, boy.” Her voice has no inflection. It is flat. Precise and lazy all at once. Emotion bled out of it till only the letters and sounds of the words remain like equations in the air. “I swear it on my life.”
“‘Boy’?” I ask.
“You’re half my age. Shall I call you ‘lord boy’? Or will you be offended?”
Sevro raises an eyebrow, flummoxed at the Blue’s bland audacity.
“Forgive her, dominus,” another Blue says smoothly. “She is an ensign with—”
I hold up a hand. “What’s your name, Blue?”
“Orion.”
“That’s a boy’s name,” Sevro says.
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” Blues can be sarcastic? “My Sect intended for me to be a man. I surprised them.”
“What Sect?” Sevro asks.
“She has no Sect. She was appropriated by the Copernican Sect, but dismissed shortly thereafter, for obvious reasons,” that officious Blue interrupts again. “She’s a Docker.”
Orion flinches. She swivels on the other Blue. Her voice does not rise. “And what are you but a pedantic little gasp of a fart, Pelus? Hm?”
“You see,” Pelus explains placidly, “she is a Docker. Emotional metrics are unmanageable. Not her fault. She is a product of her greasy environment.”
“Bolly that,” she says, stepping forward quickly.
She punches Pelus in the face. He wails, falling backward like he’s never been hit before. Likely because he hasn’t. Why would a Blue hit another Blue? They’re test takers, math makers, star charters. But not fighters.
“I like the rude one,” Sevro observes.
“Wait, dominus! I desire the ship!” Another Blue slides forward, staring at Pelus on the ground. “I … I deserve it? Orion is no more than a … a … laggard! Her mastery of astrophysics leaves much to be desired, to say little of her understanding of extraplanetary mass kinetics. She didn’t even attend the Observatory.”
Another Blue pushes forward.
“Forget Arnus! He’s a dodderhead at astrophysics and his assumptions in theoretical calculus are imprudent at best! I was second in command of this vessel for six months under the Ash Lord. I served upon it while it was in its dry berth. Logic supports the maneuver to place me as your captain, dominus.”
The armada’s ships continue to hail us over the coms. Men-of-war slide closer. Inside their bellies, brave men and women will be donning suits of armor; they’ll board leechCraft and shoot into space to land on my hull, burrow their way through, praying that they will make it home to have a meal made by their mother, their spouse. All that while my Blues shove and push to lead my ship, howling insults at one another’s math skills and academic integrity.
“Don’t listen to either of them, dominus!” shouts a woman in that slow accent. She falls to her knees. “My name is Virga xe Aquarius. I have studied the physics of astral drift in the Midnight School—far superior to the Observatory. I hold, amongst others, a doctorate on dark matter and gravitational lensing. Let me guide your vessel, dominus. To decide in favor of another would be specious and worse: illogical!”
These Blues should have used their logic and seen that I look only at the woman who does not kneel like the rest of them. Orion, the first to speak, still stands, shoulders square, body squat, pale eyes gleaming. Her dialect is lowborn, sharper and more worldly than the dreamy lingo of these academics. Likely from the docks of Phobos or the String Docks near the Academy’s Can. If she really is a Docker who didn’t go to the Observatory or the Midnight School, I wonder about the story of how she came to be on the bridge in the first place.
“What about all that noise?” I ask Orion, gesturing to the Blues.
“They’re full of batshit,” she grunts, and jams a thick thumb into her chest. “I am not full of batshit.” She smiles and nods to the displays where the other torchShips creep closer. “And you’re running out of time.” I glance to the scanner stations where alerts signal the secretive launch of two leechCraft from the Sovereign’s nearby men-of-war and cruisers. “I know I can do this, otherwise I would not have spoken out. Give me a chance.”
I nod to Sevro and he tosses her the captain’s winged star.
“Get us to our fleet.”
“Rules of engagement?” she asks me.
“Minimal casualties,” I say. We are good. The Sovereign is the tyrant. That is how this must play.
“Aye, dominus.”
I watch with Sevro as Orion takes command of my ship and sets orders to rendezvous with Augustus’s ships beyond the Rubicon Beacons. The squabbling stops as soon as I appoint Orion. They know their chance has passed, so they slip into their comfortable roles as though they wished they’d never left them. Their blue Sigils look like tridents against their forearms in this dimmed lighting.
There’s a curious remoteness to Blues. An island people in the abyss of space, they were designed to survive the long journeys from Luna without mutiny. So they share. They share the same oxygen, the same food, the same bunks, the same routines, the s
ame pits, the same commanders, the same lovers, the same Sects, the same ambitions—to do their job with precision and rise high through merit so that they might honor their Sect.
I open a com channel to the rest of the fleet and the satellites of Luna. They can’t stop the signal. Not of this ship. Our arrays are as sophisticated as any in the Sovereign’s navy.
“Sons and daughters of Society. This is Darrow au Andromedus of the House Augustus. I bring terrible tidings. Tonight, your Sovereign has broken the Compact of our Society. As my master, ArchGovernor Nero au Augustus, slept under her protection, she made attempt upon his life, the lives of his family, and those of his Praetors and aides. Along with the Bellona, she attempted the illegal and immoral murder of more than thirty Peerless Scarred. She failed.
“In retaliation, I have taken one of her flagships. And I am now besieged, with my life, as well as those of my master and his family, at risk. If we do not fight back, we will die. If we surrender, we will die. I have not vented the ship. Those aboard have seen the merit of my cause and have allied themselves with a family that would resist the power-hungry tyrant Octavia au Lune.”
Close enough to the truth.
“Hours ago, our Sovereign told me to betray my house. To betray my vows. Like her father before her, she is drunk on power and now believes herself Empress. She told us to bow, witness now our reply.”
I turn the com off.
“Mr. Pelus, as you will,” Orion declares. “Let the bastards have it when they come.” She activates her own tattoos and sinks into digital speak with the rest of the crew.
The bridge is silent. A second ticks by, another. On the HC, I watch three Grays shoot a Gold in the head. In the hangars, Oranges huddle to the side as Golds lead warColors against the downed stork. Then Ragnar arrives in the hangar, and the Oranges rally around him, as do armed Reds, who’ve followed him from the halls. Many die. Something furious grips these Colors. And though they die, I feel the flickering of rebellion as I give them permission to do what they’ve wanted to do their entire lives. It’s there, even if you never see it till the end—that spark of individuality, of freedom. The door of the stork pops open and Mustang charges out with my Howlers to aid the lowColors and Ragnar, though even the Telemanuses keep their distance from the monstrous man
Beyond my vessel, the enemy ships finally show their menace. The scanners swell with red. Enemies, leechCraft freshly spilt from the bellies of the armada around us, streak through space to find our hull. They aim to take us by storm.
Orion opens broadsides.
“It’s so beautiful,” Sevro murmurs. I stand in silence. Railgun payloads slam through leechCraft, sheering away metal and men, only to carry on and smash into the hulls and shields of the same men-of-war that launched the leechCraft.
My newly appointed captain paces the command plank, arms crossed. My five-kilometer war vessel begins a roll, cycling through her banks of railguns as they hurl death into the face of the Sovereign’s fleet. Orion half turns to face me, smirking for all to see.
“Now, about carving that path, dominus.”
And orders the engines to pound blackmatter. We shoot forward through the remains of two men-of-war.
My bridge is silent but for the buzz of technical orders. Missiles flash in concert beyond our hull. We deploy our flak screens, as the enemy has now deployed theirs, rendering missiles worthless. An aura of light surrounds us like a no-man’s-land. Railgun ordnance smashes into our hull, though we do not feel the reverberations here on the bridge. Our equipment does not spark. Wiring does not fall from overhead compartments. This ship is the pinnacle of seven hundred years of design.
Sevro nudges me. “We might just gorywell make it.”
The armada around us is massive. Beyond massive. It was brought here to make the gathered lords and all their fleets out past the Rubicon Beacons tremble, and still it is not half the combined fleet. But now that very armada quakes from the inside like a corpulent body as some alien chews its way out of the host.
We make our escape from the armada in quick fashion.
They do not pursue us past the Rubicon Beacons, where we are joined by our small fleet as well as those of the Cordovan, the Telemanuses, the Norvo. I hope more will flock to our banners after today’s last surprise.
I examine our wake—naval detritus. Bodies of men and women float behind my vessel. They came out of cracked and punctured ships. Some are still alive but will soon freeze or suffocate. More dead in my path. How many will it take?
I leave Orion the bridge. Sevro and I find our way to the engineering bay, where we have Oranges cut us out of our mangled suits. We rush from there to the hangar, a vast metal depot scattered with ships, equipment, and now broken men. Yellows dart about aiding the wounded and carting them off to the sickbay, Grays and Oranges helping carry.
Weed prods several unarmed Golds with his razor. Pebble and Harpy help the Yellows. My eyes search frantically for her. I find her under one of the battered stork’s wings, speaking with her father. A long wound mangles her left arm. I don’t mention it. They were boarded by a leechCraft, and managed to sheave the other off when entering the hangar.
“We’ve put the bulk of the Sovereign’s fleet behind us,” I tell Augustus.
“Where is Quinn?” Sevro asks sharply. “Did they get her to the medBay yet?”
Mustang does not answer. Instead, she looks to the ramp of the stork, where Roque descends, carrying Quinn in his arms. She’s pale. Long. And lifeless. Sevro does not move. Does not speak. His nostrils flare as a breath catches in his chest, a pitiful sob locked tight in the boy who never cries. He goes numb. Ghostlike. And I reach for him, but he pulls away not in anger, but in confusion, as though he was told the future once, and this reality is not what was promised. He stumbles backward, away from her body, looking around, before turning and fleeing the hangar.
Roque walks past me with Quinn. His face is slack and tired. He wants to say something bitter, but he bites his tongue and just shakes his head at me. He still does not know why I attacked him in his room before the gala. And now this. I’ve never seen him so broken.
“Look at her,” he tells me. “Darrow, look at your friend.”
I look at Quinn and feel everything go quiet. Here she is, peaceful in death. Why can we not breathe life back into her? Why can we not simply restart the day? Do everything right. Save the ones we love.
Roque moves away with Quinn toward the hangar’s transparent pulse field, which opens into space. He’s bent and broken as he walks to the stars to push his lost girl out amongst them.
I grab the Jackal when I see him exit the stork, demanding to know what happened. She died, he tells me. It’s just that. He’s tired like the rest of us. He rolls down his sleeves. “I won’t apologize. I did my best.”
“Of course you did,” I say, shaking myself. “Of course.”
He asks me where my helmet cam is. I stare at him. “The footage,” he says. “Do you even understand what you just did?” He waves around. “Two men took one of the greatest vessels ever built. Golds will flock to our banners. All it takes is my media and your story.”
I tell him, absently, almost forgetting the dataRecorder the Sons of Ares put in my tooth to record the bomb blast. It’s activated with a clench of my molars. I clenched them as soon as I sat down in the Sovereign’s office. I reach inside my mouth and delicately pry it loose of the gums. It is smaller than a hair. The Jackal’s eyes light up.
“Where did you get this?” he asks.
“Black market,” I say. “Sovereign has damned herself. Use the recording. Make this war a fair fight.”
I leave the Jackal there and am about to leave the cleanup to others, when I notice the Oranges and lowColors watching me. I can’t simply lead with violence. So I join Pebble and Harpy and lend my aid in helping the wounded to the sickbay. The rest of the Howlers help too. And Mustang, and eventually even Victra.
After the last Gray is loaded on a gurney, I
stand in the empty hangar. Augustus has gone to the bridge. The Jackal avoids the Telemanuses who accompany him, and instead makes for the communications hub. I’m left alone. Roque is gone. I don’t know what to do, where to go.
Blood and scorch marks stain the deck. I look at my hands. These are the consequences of my actions, and I feel so alone. I lean my head against the cold metal wall.
She comes from behind. I don’t think she says my name. I’m not sure. I just smell her damp hair as her arms wrap around me. Squeezing me tightly.
“I know you’re tired,” Mustang says quietly. “But Sevro needs you.”
“What about Roque?” I ask, turning to face her. So much lingers unsaid between us. So many questions unanswered. So many crimes left unforgiven. So much anger and perhaps still the faint flicker of something more. I feel it as she cups my neck, and lets the strength in her fingers lend itself to me.
“Not now,” she says. He blames me. And he should. They all should blame me. And it’s only going to get worse.
23
Trust
I find him in a communal washroom. He’s earned one of the staterooms that the others are claiming for the return voyage to Mars, but that’s not how he thinks. This is still the boy who hid in the horse. No, I think. Not a boy any longer.
“She cared for you, Sevro.”
His arms cross before him, freckled and thin. A towel wraps around his waist, another hangs around his shoulders. Golds don’t care about nudity but Sevro always has. He’s gained a tattoo since last I saw him. A huge black and gray wolf along his back. The Howlers are his everything. Once they were just a tool to me; now I think of them as something more. But what does that mean, when I use them just the same? He stares at the water running into the drain of the shower. Down and down it spirals.
“In the end, I believe I’ll enjoy war,” he says. “Gotta toughen my spine a bit. Callous my hands. Bastards tell us it’s all roses and glory.” He looks up. “Don’t you smell the roses, Reaper?”
I sit beside him on the bench. “Did you hear what I said?”