“I have the Pax. Orion is alive.”
With her, that could mean a dozen things, and the only one who will know is Kavax. I need to ask him, but Ragnar’s already taken him down another hall to the Sons lockup and Sevro’s stopped rattling off orders to others to address me. “Reap, they’re gonna hit us, and hit us hard,” he’s saying. “You know Legion military procedures better than I do. Get to the datacenter, fastlike. Give me a timetable and their plan of attack. We can’t stop them, but we can buy time.”
“Time for what?” I ask.
“To blow the bombs and find a way out off this rock.” He puts a hand on my arm, just as cognizant of those Sons watching as I am. “Please. Get moving.” He heads off down the hall with the rest of the Howlers, leaving me alone with Holiday. I turn to her.
“Holiday, you know Legion procedures. Get to the datacenter. Give the Sons the tactical support they need.” She looks back down the hall to where Sevro has turned a corner. “You good with that?” I ask.
“Yes, sir. Where you going?”
I tighten my gloves. “To get answers.”
—
“Virginia told us you were a Red after she left you. That is why we did not come to your Triumph,” Kavax says up to me. He’s bound to a steel pipe, legs splayed out on the floor. Still in his armor, red-gold beard dark in the low light. He cuts a menacing figure, but I’m surprised by the openness of his face. The lack of hatred. The clarity of excitement as his nostrils flare wide in recounting his tale to Ragnar and me. Sevro told the Sons that no one was to see Kavax. But apparently they don’t think the rules much apply to the Reaper. Good on that. I don’t yet have a plan, but I know Sevro’s isn’t working. I don’t have time to navigate his feelings or struggle with him. The pieces are in motion, and I need information.
“She did not know yet what to do and so took our counsel as she did as a girl,” Kavax continues. “We were on my ship, the Reynard, having roast mutton in ponzu sauce with Sophocles, though he did not like the sauce, when Agea Command called, saying the Sovereign’s loyalist forces had attacked the Triumph in Agea. Virginia could not contact you or her father, and so feared a coup and sent Daxo and me from orbit with our knights.
“She stayed in orbit with the ships and finally contacted Roque when Daxo and I were already descending through atmosphere. Roque said the Sovereign had attacked the Triumph and wounded you and her father gravely. He urged her to come to one of his new ships, where he was taking you because the surface was no longer safe.” I remember Roque talking on the shuttle as the Jackal leaned over me, not being able to hear him. We landed on a ship. The Sovereign was there. She never left Mars. She was hiding in Roque’s fleet. Right under my nose. “But Virginia did not rush to your bedside.” He grins jovially. “A fool in love would do so. But Virginia is clever. She saw through Roque’s mendacity. She knew the Sovereign would not simply attack the Triumph. It would be a plan within a plan. So she sent word to Orion and House Arcos that a coup was under way. That Roque was a conspirator. So when the assassins struck, attempting to kill Orion and the loyal commanders on their bridge, they were ready. There were firefights on bridges. In staterooms. Orion was badly shot in the arm, but she survived and then Roque’s ships opened fire on ours and the fleet fractured….”
All this while Sevro and Ragnar were discovering that Fitchner was dead and the Sons of Ares base had been destroyed. And I lay paralyzed on the floor of Aja’s shuttle as everything came apart. No. Not everything.
“She saved the crew’s lives,” I say.
“Yes,” Kavax says. “Your crew is alive. The one you liberated with Sevro. Even many of your Legion, who we organized and managed to evacuate from Mars before the Jackal and Sovereign’s forces took power.”
“Where are my friends imprisoned?” I ask. “On Ganymede? Io?”
“Imprisoned?” Kavax squints at me, then bursts into laughter. “No, lad. No. Not a man or woman has left their station. The Pax is just as you left it. Orion commands, the rest follow.”
“I don’t understand. She’s letting a Blue command?”
“Do you think Virginia would have let you live in that tunnel when you and Ragnar were on your knees if she did not believe in your new world?” I shake my head numbly, not knowing the answer. “She would have killed you on the spot if she thought you were her enemy. But when she sat before my hearth as a girl beside Pax and my children, what stories did I read them? Did I read them myths of the Greeks? Of strong men gaining glory for their own heads? No. I told them tales of Arthur, of the Nazarene, of Vishnu. Strong heroes who wished only to protect the weak.”
And Mustang has. More than that. She’s proven Eo right. And it wasn’t because of me. It wasn’t because of love. It was because it was the right thing to, and because mighty Kavax was more a father to her than her own ever was. I feel the tears in my eyes.
“You were right, Darrow,” Ragnar says. His hand falls on my shoulder. “The tide rises.”
“Then why are you here today, Kavax?”
“Because we are losing,” he says. “The Moon Lords will not last two months. Virginia knows what is happening on Mars. The extermination. The savagery of her brother. The Sons are too weak to fight everywhere.” His large eyes show the pain of a man watching his home burn. Mars is as much their heritage as it is mine. “The cost of war is too great for a certain defeat. So when Quicksilver proposed a peace, we listened.”
“And what are the terms?” I ask.
“Virginia and all her allies would be pardoned by the Sovereign. She would become ArchGovernor of Mars and Adrius and his faction would be imprisoned for life. And certain reforms would be made.”
“But the hierarchy would remain.”
“Yes.”
“If this is true, we must speak with her,” Ragnar says eagerly.
“It could be a trap,” I say, watching Kavax, knowing the mind at work behind his bluff face. I want to trust him. I want to believe his sense of justice is equal to my love for him, but these are deep waters, and I know friends can lie just as well as enemies. If Mustang isn’t on my side, then this would be the play to make. It would expose me, and there’s no doubt in my mind that however she got on this station, she’s got a nasty escort.
“One thing doesn’t make sense, Kavax. If this is true, why didn’t you make contact with Sevro?”
Kavax blinks up at me.
“We did. Months ago. Didn’t he tell you?”
—
The Howlers are packing up by the time Ragnar and I rejoin them in the ready room. “It’s all shit,” Sevro’s saying as Victra patches a gash on his back with resFlesh. Acrid smoke hisses up from the cauterizing wound. He throws down his datapad. It skitters into a corner, where Screwface collects it and brings it back to Sevro. “They’ve grounded everything, including utility flights.”
“It’s all right, boss, we’ll find a way out,” Clown says.
I entered the room quietly, nodding to Sevro that I’d like a word. He ignored me. His plan’s a mess. We were due to stow ourselves away inside one of the empty helium haulers going back to Mars. We would have been gone before anyone even knew Quicksilver was kidnapped, and then detonated the bombs off-station. Now, like Sevro says, it’s all shit.