back of their helmets from Gray marksmen. They melt under pulseFist fire. They fall to a Gold knight flanked by seven Obsidian till Victra, Sefi, and I put them down with razors.
All this to reach the bridge. All this to reach a man who I could have reached out and touched the day before. If this is the cost of honor, give me a shameful murder. If I’d have stabbed Roque in the throat then, Valkyrie would not litter the ground now.
“Men and women of the Society Navy, this is the Reaper. Your ship has been boarded by the Sons of Ares…” I hear my voice over the ship’s general com unit. One of my platoons has reached the communication mainframe in the back half of the ship. Every boarding party in my fleet has copies of the speech Mustang and I recorded together to upload to boarded enemy vessels. It exhorts lowColors to aid my units, to deactivate lockdown protocol if they can, to unlock doors manually if they cannot, and to storm the armories. Most of these men and women are veterans. It’s unrealistic to expect the same sort of conversion as I had on the Pax’s crew, but every little bit helps.
The announcement works partially on the Colossus. It buys us precious time as we bypass several doors in seconds instead of the minutes it would take to melt through. Roque also turns off the artificial gravity, realizing by watching their tactics that my Obsidians don’t have zero g experience.
Society Grays push their way through halls like seals under water, taking their revenge on my floating Obsidians, robbed of their closing speed, who’ve mauled so many of their friends. In the end, one of my teams reactivates the gravity. I have them decrease it to one-sixth Earth standard so that my force is not encumbered by the heavy armor we wear. It’s a blessing on our lungs and legs.
After cutting through a security team of Grays, we finally reach the bridge, battered and bloody. I crouch, panting and increase the oxygen circulation in my armor. Swimming in sweat, I activate a stim injection in my gear to keep me from feeling the gash in my biceps where a Gold’s razor caught me. The needle bites into my thigh. Reports come from my other platoons that they’ve lost contact with the enemy, which means they’re being consolidated by Roque, redirected, likely to us. Back to the bridge door, I stare across the circular, exposed antechamber to the bridge and remember how my
instructor at the Academy demonstrated the geometric deadliness of the space for anyone besieging a starburst bridge design like this. Three halls from three directions lead to the circular room, including a gravLift in the center. It’s indefensible, and Roque’s marines are coming.
“Roque, darling,” Victra calls up to the cameras in the ceiling as Holiday and her team set up the drill on the door. “How I have pined for you since the garden. Are you there?” She sighs. “I’ll just assume you are. Listen, I understand. You think we must be wroth with you, what with the murder of my mother, the execution of our friends, the bullets in the spine, the poison, and a year of torture for dear Reaper and I, but that’s not so. We just want to put you in a box. Maybe several. Would you like that? It’s very poetic.”
Holiday’s remaining three commandos are attaching magnetic clamps to the door and mounting their thermal drill. She taps a few commands and the eye of the drill begins to spin.
Sefi returns from her scouting. Her helmet slithers back into her armor. “Many enemies come from
tunnel.” She points to the middle hall. “I killed their leader, but more Golds follow.” She didn’t just kill the leader. She brought his head back. But she’s limping and her left arm bleeds.
“Oh, hell. That’s Flagilus,” Victra says, regarding the head. “He was in my school house. Very sweet fellow actually. Wonderful cook.”
“How many are coming, Sefi?”
“Enough to give us a good death.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Holiday punches the door behind me.
“It’s too thick isn’t it?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She pulls her assault helmet off. Her Mohawk is mashed to the side. Tense face dripping with sweat. “Door ’s not VDY specs like the rest of the ship. It’s Ganymede Industries. Custom. At least twice as thick.”
“How long will it take to get through?” I repeat.
“At full burn? Fourteen minutes?” she guesses.
“Fourteen?” Victra repeats.
“Maybe more.”
I turn, hissing the anger out. The women know as well as I that we don’t have even five minutes. I hail Mustang’s coms. No answer. Her ship must be dying. Bloodydamn. Stay alive. Just stay alive.
Why did I ever let her out of my sight?
“We charge them,” Victra’s saying. “Straight down the middle hall. They’ll run like foxes from hounds.”
“Yes,” Sefi says, finding a more kindred spirit in Victra than either might have thought prior to shedding blood together. “I will follow you, daughter of the sun. To glory.”
“Piss on glory,” Holiday says. “Let the drill do its work.”