“The civil war between Bellona and Augustus has exposed larger fault lines between the Core and the Outer Rim. Octavia’s main fleet, the Sword Armada, is hundreds of millions of kilometers away
from its nearest support. Excepting the Sceptre Armada around Luna it is the greatest weapon Octavia has. Octavia sent our good friend Roque au Fabii to bring the Moon Lords to heel. He has shattered every fleet that has been thrown against them, even with the help of Mustang, the Telemanuses, and the Arcoses, he has beaten the Rim down. On board these ships are more than two million men and women. More than ten thousand Obsidian. Two hundred thousand Grays. Three thousand of the greatest killers alive, Peerless Scarred. Praetors, Legates, knights, squad commanders. The greatest Golds of their Institutes. This fleet has been reinforced by Antonia au Severus-Julii. And it is the instrument of fear by which the Sovereign binds the planets to her will. It, like its commander, has never been defeated.” I pause, allowing the words to sink in so they all know the gravity of my proposal.
“In forty days we’re going to destroy the Sword Armada and rip the beating heart out of the Society war machine.” I pull Sevro’s razor out of the table and toss it back to him. “Now, I’ll take your bloodydamn questions.”
Dancer finds me as I make final preparations to board the shuttle with Sevro and Mustang that will take us to the fleet in orbit. Tinos swarms with activity. Hundreds of shuttles and transports gathered by Dancer and his Sons of Ares leadership depart through the great tunnels to make their migration toward the South Pole, where they will still ferry the Obsidian young and old from their home to the safety of the mines, but the warriors will go to orbit to join my fleet. In twenty-four hours, they will move eight hundred thousand human beings in the greatest effort in Sons of Ares history. It makes me smile thinking how much happier Fitchner would be knowing the greatest endeavor of his legacy was
to save lives instead of to take them.
After covering the evacuation with the fleet, I will burn hard for Jupiter. Dancer and Quicksilver will remain behind to continue what they started and hold the Jackal on Mars till the next evolution of the plan begins.
“It’s haunting, isn’t it,” Dancer says, watching the sea of blue engine flares that flow past our stalactite up to the great tunnel in the ceiling of Tinos. Victra stands closely with Sevro at the edge of the open hangar, two dark silhouettes watching the hope of two peoples float away into the darkness.
“The Red Armada goes to war,” Dancer breathes. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Fitchner should be here,” I reply.
“Yes, he should,” Dancer grimaces. “It’s my greatest regret, I think. That he couldn’t live to see his son wear his helm. And you become what he always knew you to be.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, watching a Red Howler jump twice with his gravBoots and rocket off the
edge of the hangar to enter the open cargo hatch of a passing troop carrier.
“Someone who believes in the people,” he says delicately.
I turn to face Dancer, glad that he’s sought me out in my last moments here among my kin. I don’t
know if I’ll ever return. And if I do, I fear he will see me as a different man. One who betrayed him, our people, Eo’s dream. I’ve been here before. Saying goodbye on a landing pad. Harmony stood with him then, Mickey too as they said goodbye on that spire in Yorkton. How can I feel so melancholy for so terrible a past? Maybe that’s just the nature of us, ever wishing for things that were and could be rather than things that are and will be.
It takes more to hope than to remember.
“Do you think the Moon Lords will really help us?” he asks.
“No. The trick will be making them think they’re helping themselves. Then getting out before they
turn on us.”
“It’s a risk, boy, but you like those, don’t you?”
I shrug. “It’s also the only chance we have.”
Boots clomp on the metal deck behind me. Holiday moves past up the ramp carrying a bag of gear
with several new Howlers. Life moves on, carrying me with it. It’s been nearly seven years since Dancer and I met, yet it seems thirty on him. How many decades of war has he faced? How many friends has he said goodbye to that I’ve never known, that he’s never even mentioned? People who he loved as much as I love Sevro and Ragnar. He had a family once, though he rarely speaks of them now.
We all had something once. We’re each robbed and broken in our own way. That’s why Fitchner formed this army. Not to piece us together, but to save himself from the abyss his wife’s death opened in him. He needed a light. And he made it. Love was his shout into the wind. Same with my wife.
“Lorn once told me if he had been my father he would have raised me to be a good man. ‘There’s
no peace for great men,’ he said.” I smile at the memory. “I should have asked him who he thinks makes the peace for all those good men.”