We could have bombed the building, but I wanted a triumph of daring, of achievement, not destruction. We need heroes. Not another ash city.
And so, a small squadron of a dozen maintenance skiffs coasts into view. Flat, ugly fliers designed to port Reds and Oranges like Rollo to their construction work on towers. Craggy stingrays covered with barnacles. But it isn’t barnacles that cling to them now. Another camera takes a closer angle, and we can see each skiff is covered with hundreds of men. Reds and Oranges in their clunky EVA suits, almost half the Sons of Ares on Phobos. Boots against the deck, harnesses latched into exterior buckles of the ship. They carry their welding gear and have Quicksilver ’s weapons patched onto their legs with magnetic tape.
Among them, two feet taller than the others, is their general, Ragnar Volarus, in armor freshly painted bone white, a red slingBlade painted on the chest and back.
As the skiffs near the Society military spire, they divide down the length of the building. Sons fire magnetic harpoons to tether the skiffs to the steel. And then they go with practiced ease along the lines, flying at implausible speeds as the little motors on their buckles pull them one by one along toward the building. It’s like watching Reds in the mines. The grace and nimbleness even in the clunky suits dazzle.
More than a thousand welders pour onto the vast building like we did Quicksilver ’s spire, but they’re not playing for stealth and they’re better in null gravity than we were. Magnetic boots clutching metal girders, they skitter across the building, melting through the viewports and entering with extreme prejudice. Dozens are ripped to shreds as Grays inside fire railguns out the glass, but they fire back and pour inward. A ripWing patrol banks in along the outside of the building and rakes two of the skiffs with chain guns. Men turn to mist.
A Son fires a rocket at the ripWing. Fire blooms and vanishes and the ship cracks in half in a gout of purple flame.
The camera follows Ragnar as he breaches a window, enters a hall, and runs full-tilt into a trio of Gold knights, one who I recognize as the cousin of Priam, the man Sevro killed in the Passage and
whose mother owns the deed to Phobos. Ragnar flows through the young knight without stopping.
Swinging both his razors like scissors and ululating the war cry of his people, followed by a pack of heavily armed welders and laborers. I told him I wanted the spire. I didn’t tell him how to take it. He walked off with Rollo, putting an arm around the man.
Now the worlds watch a slave become a hero.
“This moon belongs to you,” Sevro says, roaring to the roiling cage city. “Rise and take it! Rise, men of Mars. Women of Mars, rise! You bloodydamn bastards! Rise!” Men and women are pulling
themselves from their homes. Donning their boots and jackets. Pushing themselves toward us so that thousands clog the air avenues, crawling over the outside of the cages.
The tide has risen. And I feel a deep terror in wondering exactly what it will wash away. “Rape and murder of innocents is punishable by death. This is war, but you are on the side of good. Remember that, you little shitheads! Protect your brothers! Protect your sisters! All residents of sections 1a-4c, you are to take the armory in level 14. Residents of sections 5c-3f are to take the water-purification center on…”
Sevro seizes control of the battle and the Howlers and Sons disperse to organize the mob. It isn’t an army but a battering ram. Many will die. And when they die, more will rise in their place. This is just one of the stack cities of Phobos. The Sons will supply them with weapons, but there won’t be nearly enough to go around. Their sword is the press of flesh. Sevro will lead them, spend them, Victra in
Quicksilver ’s spires will guide them, and the moon will fall to the rebellion.
But I will not be here to see it.
Phobos is in uproar. Detonations shake the moon as Holiday and I run through the halls. Golds and
Silvers evacuate the Needles in their flashing luxury yachts as kilometers beneath, the Hollows swarms with packs of lowColor mobs armed with welding torches, fusion cutters, pipes, blackmarket scorchers, and old-fashioned slug throwers. The mobs are overwhelming the tram systems and passages to gain access to the mid-sector and Needles while the Society military garrison, caught reeling from the attack on their headquarters, rushes to stop the upward migration. The Legions have training and organization on their side. We have numbers and surprise.
Not to mention fury.