For her part, Mustang is beside herself with worry for Kavax, though she makes a brave face.
She’d lead the rescue mission herself if she weren’t needed in the main fleet. We make repairs where we can to make the ships fit for travel. We scuttle the ships we can’t save, and search the naval debris for survivors. A tentative alliance exists between the Rising and the Moon Lords, one that will not last long.
I’ve not slept since the battle two days ago. Neither, it seems, has Romulus. His eyes are dark with anger and exhaustion. He’s lost an arm and a son on the day and more, so much more. Neither one of us could risk meeting in person. So all we have left between us is this holo conference.
“As promised, you have your independence,” I say.
“And you have your ships,” he replies. Marble columns stretch up behind him, carved with Ptolemaic effigies. He’s on Ganymede, in the Hanging Palace. The heart of their civilization. “But they will not be enough to defeat the Core. The Ash Lord will be waiting for you.”
“I hope so. I have plans for his master.”
“Do you sail on Mars?”
“Perhaps.”
He allows a thoughtful silence. “There’s one thing I find curious about the battle. Of all the ships my men boarded, not one nuclear weapon over five megatons was found. Despite your claims.
Despite your…evidence.”
“My men found plenty enough,” I lie. “Come aboard if you doubt me. It’s hardly curious that they
would store them on the Colossus. Roque would want to keep them under tight watch. We’re only lucky that I managed to take bridge when I did. Docks can be rebuilt. Lives cannot.”
“Did they ever have them?” Romulus asks.
“Would I risk the future of my people on a lie?” I smile without humor. “Your moons are safe. You
define your own future now, Romulus. Do not look the gift horse in the mouth.”
“Indeed,” he says, though he sees through the lie now. Knows he was manipulated. But it is the lie
he must sell to his own people if he wants peace. They cannot afford to go to war with me now, but their honor would demand it if they knew what I’d done. And if they went to war with me, I would likely win. I have more ships now. But they’d hurt me bad enough to ruin my real war against the Core. So Romulus swallows my lies. And I swallow the guilt of leaving hundreds of millions in slavery and personally signing the death warrants of thousands of Sons of Ares to Romulus’s police. I gave them warning. But not all will escape. “I would like your fleet to depart before end of day,”
Romulus says.
“It will take three days to search the debris for our survivors,” I say. “We will leave then.”
“Very well. My ships will escort your fleet to the boundaries we agreed upon. When your flagship
crosses into the asteroid belt, you may never return. If one ship under your command crosses that boundary, it will be war between us.”
“I remember the terms.”
“See that you do. Give my regards to the Core. I’ll certainly give yours to the Sons of Ares you leave behind.” He terminates the signal.
—
We depart three days after my conference with Romulus, making additional repairs as we travel.
Welders and repairmen dot hulls like benevolent barnacles. Though we lost more than twenty-five capital ships during the battle, we’ve gained over seventy more. It is one of the greatest military victories in modern history, but victories are less romantic when you’re cleaning your friends off the floor.
It’s easy to be bold in the moment, because all you have is what you can process: see, smell, feel, taste. And that’s a very small amount of what is. But afterward, when everything decompresses and uncoils bit by bit, and the horror of what you did and what happened to your friends hits you. It’s overwhelming. That’s the curse of this naval war. You fight, then spend months waiting, engaged only by the tedium of routine. Then you fight again.
I’ve not yet told my men where we sail. They don’t ask me themselves, but their officers do. And
again I give them the same answer.
“Where we must.”
The core of my army is the Sons of Ares, and they are experienced in hardship. They organize dances and gatherings and force jubilation down war-weary throats. It seems to take. Men and women whistle in the halls as we distance ourselves from Jupiter. They sew unit badges onto uniforms and paint starShells in wild colors. There’s a vibrancy here different from the cold precision of the Society Navy. Still they keep mostly to their Color, blending only when assigned to do so. It’s not as harmonious as I thought it would be, but it’s a start. I feel disconnected from it all even as I smile and lead as best I know. I killed ten men in the corridors. Killed another thirteen thousand of my own when we destroyed the docks. Their faces don’t haunt me. But that feeling of dread is hard to lose.