He waves a hand. “Well, then let’s hear it, Reaper.”
“Hypothetically, assume we take half the cities of Mars,” I say, standing and summoning a graphic
from the table that shows a red tide flowing over the globe of Mars, claiming cities, pushing back the Golds. “Say we crush the Jackal’s fleet in orbit when Orion joins us, even though we are outnumbered two to one. Say we shatter his armies. With the Valkyrie’s help, we fracture the Obsidians away from the legions and have them join us, and we have a groundswell from the populace itself. The machines of industry grind to a complete halt on Mars. We’ve rebuffed the Society’s countless reinforcements
and we have insurrection in every street and we have cornered the Jackal after years of warfare. And it will take years. What happens then?”
“The machines of industry don’t stop off of Mars,” Victra says. “They keep rolling. And they’ll keep pumping men and materiel here.”
“Or…,” I say.
“He uses the bombs,” Dancer says.
“Which I also believe he’ll use on the Obsidians and our army if we go ahead with operation Rising Tide,” I say.
“We’ve been prepping the operation for months,” Dancer protests. “With the Obsidians it might just work. You just want to scrap it?”
“Yes,” I say. “This planet is why we fight. The strength of rebel armies throughout history is that they have less to protect. They can rove and move and are impossible to pin down. We have so much
to lose here. So much to protect. This war won’t be won in days or weeks. It will be a decade. Mars will bleed. And at the end, ask yourselves: What will we inherit? A corpse of what was once our home.
We must fight this war, but I will not fight it here. I propose we leave Mars.”
Quicksilver coughs. “Leave Mars?”
Sefi steps forward from the shadows of the stone room. “You said you would protect my people.”
“Our strength is here, in the tunnels,” Dancer continues. “In our population. That’s where our responsibility lies, Darrow.” He glances at Mustang, his suspicions clear. “Don’t forget where you come from. Why you’re doing this.”
“I have not forgotten, Dancer.”
“Are you so sure? This war is for Mars.”
“It’s for more than that,” I say.
“For lowColors,” he continues, voice gaining volume. “Win here and then spread across the Society. It’s where the helium is. It is the heart of the Society, of Red. Win here, then spread. That’s how Ares intended it.”
“This war is for everyone,” Mustang corrects.
“No,” Dancer says territorially. “This is our war, Gold. I was fighting it when you were still learning how to enslave human beings at your…”
Sevro looks at me in annoyance as our friends descend into bickering. I give him a little nod and he pulls his razor and slams it into the table. It cuts halfway through and trembles there. “Reaper ’s trying to speak, you shitgobblers. Besides all this Colorism bores me.” He looks around, terribly pleased with the silence. He nods to himself and waves a theatrical hand. “Reaper, please, continue. You were getting to the exciting part.”
“Thank you, Sevro. I won’t fall into the trap of the Jackal,” I say. “The easiest way to lose any war is to let the enemy dictate the terms of engagement. We must do the thing the Jackal and the Sovereign least expect of us. Create our own paradigm so they’re playing our game. Reacting to our decisions.
We must be bold. Right now we’ve sparked a fire. Rebellions in almost all Society territories. We stay here, that means we are contained. I will not be contained.”
I transfer the image on my datapad to the table so that the hologram of Jupiter floats in the air.
Sixty-three tiny moons dot the periphery but the four great Jovian moons dominate its orbit. These four largest—Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa—are referred to collectively as Ilium. Around those moons are two of the largest fleets in the Solar System, that of the Moon Lords, and that of the Sword Armada. Sevro looks so pleased he might faint.
I’m giving him the war he didn’t even know he wanted.