“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?”