“Repeat Rhea…that’s who you serve?” I ask. “A woman who stores enough nuclear warheads to destroy a planet, just in case.”
He ignores my tone. “All evidence pointed to Ares, but the Sovereign thought it gave Sevro too much credit. She had Moira investigate it personally, and she was able to trace the tags of the hijacker ’s ship to a defunct shipping line formerly owned by Julii Industries. If the Sons truly didn’t steal them, then the Jackal has the weapons. But we don’t know what he’s doing with them.” I stand there, numb. Mind racing to piece together how the Jackal might utilize so many atomics. According to the Compact, the Martian military is only permitted twenty in its arsenal, for ship-to-ship warfare.
All under five megatons.
“If this is true, why would you tell me?” I ask.
“Because Mars is my home too, Darrow. My family has been there as long as yours. My mother is
still there in our home. Whatever the Jackal’s long-term strategy is, the judgment of the Sovereign is that he will use the weapons here if his back is to the wall.”
“You’re afraid we might win,” I realize.
“When it was Sevro’s war, no. The Sons of Ares was doomed. But now? Look what’s happening.”
He looks me up and down. “We’ve lost containment. Octavia doesn’t know where I am. Whether or
not Aja is alive. She has no eyes on this. The Jackal might know she tried to betray him to his sister.
He’s a wild dog. If you provoke him, he will bite.” He lowers his voice. “You might be able to survive that, Darrow, but can Mars?”
“Five hundred nuclear warheads?” Sevro whispers. “Holy bloodydamn shit. Tell me you’re joking.
Go on.”
Dancer sits quietly at the warroom table, kneading his temples.
“It’s bullshit,” Holiday grunts from the wall. “If he has them, he’d have used them.”
“Let’s leave the deductions to the individuals who have actually met the man, shall we?” Victra says.
“Adrius doesn’t function like a normal human.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Sevro says.
“Still, it is a solid question,” Dancer says, annoyed at the presence of so many Golds, particularly Mustang who stands beside me. “If he has them, why hasn’t he used them?”
“Because that sort of escalation will hurt him almost as much as it hurts us,” I say. “And if he uses them, the Sovereign will have every excuse to replace him.”
“Or he doesn’t have them,” Quicksilver says dismissively. He floats before us, blue holoPixels shimmering over a display panel. “It’s a ploy. Bellona knows what you care about, Darrow. He’s plucking your heartstrings with notions of oblivion. It’s bullshit. My techs would have seen major ripples if he was moving missiles. And I would have heard about plutonium enriching if the Sovereign had them built.”
“Unless they’re old missiles,” I say. “Lots of relics lying about.”
“And it’s a big solar system,” Mustang says evenly.
“I’ve got big ears,” Quicksilver replies.
“Had,” Victra says. “They’re whittling them down as we speak.”
The leaders of the rebellion sit in a semi-circle in front of a holoprojector which displays asteroid S-1988. It’s a barren hunk of rock, part of the Karin sub-family of the Koronis Family of asteroids in the Main Belt between Mars and Jupiter. The Koronis asteroids are the base for heavy mining operations by an Earth-run energy consortium and home to several disreputable astral way stations for smugglers and pirates, most notably 208 Lacrimosa, where Sevro refueled on his journey from
Pluto to Mars. The locals call the smuggler ’s cove Our Lady of Sorrows, where life is cheaper than a kilo of iced helium and a gram of demonDust, or so he says. He’s unusually quiet about the place and his time there.
Gold warroom meetings are held in circles or rectangles because people facing one another are more likely to engage in intellectual conflict than people sitting side by side. Golds relish that. I’m trying a different tack, having my friends face the problem—the holoprojector, so if they want to argue with one another, they have to crane their necks to do it.
“It’s a shame we don’t have the Sovereign’s oracles,” Mustang says. “Strap one on his wrist and see how forthcoming Cassius really is.”
“Sorry we don’t quite have the resources you’re used to, domina, ” Dancer says.
“That’s not what I meant.”