No matter how many checkpoints the Grays blockade, how many trams the Grays destroy, the lowColors will seep through the cracks because they made this place, because they have allies among the midColors, thanks to Quicksilver. They open derelict transportation tunnels, hijack cargo ships in the industrial sector, pack them full of men and women, and steer them for the luxury hangars in the Needles, or even toward the public Skyresh Interplanetary Spaceport, where cruise liners and passenger ships are being loaded with evacuees.
I’m remotely jacked into Quicksilver ’s security grid, watching highColors stampede over one another. Carrying luggage and valuables and children. Martian Navy ripWings and fast-moving fighters dart through the towers, shooting down the rebel ships rising from the Hollows toward the Needles. The debris from a destroyed lowColor skif crashes through the vaulted glass and steel ceiling of a Skyresh terminal, killing civilians, and shattering any illusion I might have had that this war would be sanitary.
Ducking away from a mob of lowColors, Holiday and I arrive outside a derelict hangar in the old
freight garages, which haven’t been used since before the time of Augustus. It’s quiet here.
Abandoned. The old pedestrian entrance is welded shut. Radiation signs warn potential scavengers away. But the doors open for us with a deep groan when a modern retinal scanner built into the metal registers my irises, as Quicksilver said it would.
The hangar is a vast rectangle skinned with dust and cobwebs. In the center of the hangar ’s deck sits a silver seventy-meter-long luxury yacht shaped like a sparrow in flight. It’s a custom-built model out of the Venusian Shipyards, ostentatious, fast, and perfect for an obscenely wealthy war refugee.
Quicksilver plucked it from his fleet to help us blend in with the migrating upper class. Its rear cargo plank is down, and inside the bird is filled to capacity with black crates stamped with the Sun Industries winged heel. Inside of which are several billion credits’ worth of hi-tech weapons and equipment.
Holiday whistles. “Gotta love deep pockets. The fuel would cost my annual wages. Twice over.”
We cross the hangar to meet Quicksilver ’s pilot. The trim young Blue waits at the bottom of the ramp. She has no eyebrows and her head is bald. Winding blue lines pulse beneath the skin where subdermal synaptic links connect her remotely to the ship. She snaps to attention, eyes wide. Clearly she had no idea who she was transporting until now. “Sir, I am Lieutenant Vesta. I’ll be your pilot today. And I must say, it’s an honor to have you on board.”
There’s three levels to the yacht, the upper and bottom for Gold use. The middle for cooks, servants, and crew. There’s four staterooms, a sauna, and crème leather seats with dainty little chocolates and napkins sitting primly on armrests in the passenger cabin to the far back of the cockpit. I pocket one. And then a couple more.
As Holiday and Vesta prep the ship, I strip off my pulseArmor in the passenger cabin and unpack
winter gear from one of the boxes. I dress in skintight nanofiber weave that’s much like scarabSkin.
But instead of black, it’s mottled white and looks oily except for textured grips on the elbows, gloves, buttocks, and knees. It’s crafted for polar temperatures and water immersion. It’s also a hundred pounds lighter than our pulseArmor, is immune to digital component failures, and has the added benefit of not needing batteries. Much as I enjoy using four hundred million credits’ worth of technology to make me a flying human tank, sometimes warm pants are more valuable. And we’ll always have the pulseArmor if we need it in a pinch.
I’m struck by the silence in the cargo bay and the hangar as I finish lacing my boots. There’s still fifteen minutes left on my datapad’s timer, so I sit on the edge of the ramp, legs dangling off, to wait for Ragnar. I pull the chocolates from my pocket and slowly peel the foil off. Taking half a bite, I let the chocolate sit on my tongue, waiting for it to melt as I always do. And as always, I lose patience and chew it before the bottom half is melted through. Eo would make candy last for days, when we
were lucky enough to have it.
I set my datapad on the ground and watch the helmet cameras of my friends as they wage my war
for Phobos. Their chatter trembles out of the datapad’s speakers, echoing in the vast metal chamber.
Sevro’s in his element, rushing through the central ventilation unit with hundreds of Sons loading themselves into the air ducts. I feel guilty for sitting here watching them, but we each have our parts to play.
The door we entered through opens with a groan and Ragnar and two of the Obsidian Howlers enter the room. Fresh from the battlefield, Ragnar ’s white armor is dented and stained. “Did you play gently with the fools, my goodman?” I call down from the ramp in my thickest highLingo. In reply,
he tosses up to me a curule: a twisted gold scepter of power given to high-ranking military officers.
This one is a tipped with a screaming banshee and a splash of crimson.