“You are a good man,” Dancer tells me.
My hands are scarred and brutal things. When I clench them their knuckles turn that familiar shade of white.
“Yeah?” I grin. “Then why do I want to do bad things?” He laughs at that, and I surprise him by pulling him into a hug. His good arm wraps around my hips. His head barely coming to my chest.
“Sevro might’ve worn the helmet, but you’re the heart here,” I tell him. “You always have been.
You’re too humble to see it, but you’re as great a man as Ares himself. And somehow, you’re still good. Unlike that dirty rat bastard.” I pull back and thump his chest. “And I love you. Just so you know.”
“Oh, bloodydamn,” he mutters, eyes tearing up. “I thought you were a killer. You gone soft on me,
boy?”
“Never,” I say, winking.
He pushes me off. “Go say goodbye to your mother before you go.”
—
I leave him to shout at a group of Sons marines and work my way through the bustle, bumping fists
with Pebble who Screwface pushes on a wheelchair toward a boarding ramp, tossing a salute to Sons
of Ares I recognize, talking shit back to Uncle Narol who walks with a troop of Pitvipers. They’re destined for a sabotage mission against the Jackal’s deep space communication relays. My mother and Mustang stop talking abruptly when I arrive. Both look distraught.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“Just saying goodbye,” Mustang says.
My mother steps close to me. “Dio brought this from Lykos.” She opens a little plastic box and shows me the dirt inside.” My little mother smiles up at me. “You fly into night, and when all grows dark, remember who you are. Remember you are never alone. The hopes and dreams of our people
go with you. Remember home.” She pulls me down to kiss my forehead. “Remember you are loved.”
I hug her tight and pull back to see she has tears in her hard eyes.
“I’ll be all right, Ma,” I say.
“I know. I know you don’t think you deserve to be happy,” she says. “But you do, child. You deserve it more than anyone I know. So do what you need to do, then come home to me.” She takes my hand
and Mustang’s. “Both of you come home. Then start living.”
I leave her behind, confused and emotional. “What was that about?” I ask Mustang. Mustang looks at me as if I should know.
“She’s afraid.”
“Why?”
“She’s your mother.”
I walk up my shuttle’s landing pad, with Sevro and Victra who join Mustang and I at the bottom.
“Helldiver…” Dancer shouts before we reach the top. I turn back to find the gnarled man with his fist thrust in the air. And behind him the whole of the stalactite hangar watches me, hundreds of deckhands on mechanized loading trams, pilots, Blue and Red and Green, who stand at the ramps of their ships or on the ladders leading into their cockpits, helmets in hands, platoons of Grays and Reds and Obsidians standing side by side carrying combat gear and supplies—the scythe sewn onto shoulders,
painted onto faces—as they board shuttles bound for my fleet. Men and women of Mars, all. Fighting for something larger than themselves. For our planet, for their people. I feel the weight of their love. I feel the hopes of all those people in bondage who watched as the Sons of Ares rose to take Phobos.
We promised them something, and now we must deliver. One by one, my army raises their hands till a sea of fists clench as Eo’s did when she held the haemanthus and fell before Augustus.
Chills run through me as Sevro and Victra and Mustang and even my mother raise their hands in
union. “Break the chains,” Dancer bellows. I raise my own scarred fist and step silently into the shuttle to join the Red Armada as it sails to war.
The Yellow Sea of Io rolls in around my black boots. Great dunes of sulfur-laced sand with razorback ridges of silicate rock as far as the eye can see. In the steel blue sky, the marbled surface of Jupiter undulates. One hundred and thirty times the diameter that Luna appears from the surface of Earth, it seems the vast and evil head of a marble god. War grips its sixty-seven moons. Cities hunker under pulseShields. Blackened husks of men in starShells litter moons while fighter squadrons duel and hunt troop and supply transports among the faint ice rings of the gas giant.
It’s quite a sight.
I stand upon the dune flanked by Sefi and five Valkyrie in black pulseArmor waiting for the Moon
Lord’s shuttle. Our assault ship sits behind us, engines idling. It’s shaped like a hammerhead shark.
Dark gray. But the Valkyrie and Red dockworkers painted its head together on our journey from Mars, giving the ship two bulging blue eyes and a gaping mouth with ravenous bloodstained teeth. Up between the eyes, Holiday lies on her belly, sniper rifle scanning the rock formations to the south.