“Yes. But why?” She doesn’t answer, but looks over my shoulder at Alexandar.
“Rhonna, the first rule of war is to know where your enemy is. How can you know where he is if you do not know how many he is? Say you spot one torchShip with Cerana dogs in the asteroid belt. How can you decide your course if you don’t know how many ships she travels with? How many variables are at play for ambushes and counterattacks?” I lean close and nod back to Alexandar. “And more importantly, don’t let him bait you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you…” I turn back to Alexandar. He freezes as I pull a holo from my datapad showing the ship’s bridge. I rewind it and replay the self-satisfied smiles he was giving Rhonna when my back was turned. I make him watch it three times till his pale cheeks are rose red. “Don’t be such an asshole. It’s why there’s war in the first place.”
“Yes, sir.”
From his perch in the pilot’s chair above, Colloway chuckles in amusement, though still no smile. He’s never been fond of Alexandar, or many Golds for that matter, but he takes particular joy in seeing my dashing lancer humbled. It doesn’t happen often. Except for his mouth, the boy would make Lorn proud. He’d like everyone to think his gifts are Jove-sent, but not a moment of his life since I met him has not been spent studying or practicing the martial arts. Sometimes Lorn would let him sit in on our secret lessons in Agea. He would bring his sister’s hazelnut bread and watch with wide, enamored eyes.
I motion Alexandar closer. “I want you to keep your distance from Apollonius.”
“With all due respect, sir, the man has a bomb in his head.”
“He’s a madman. He meant it when he mentioned the bloodfeud. Won’t throw a gauntlet because he knows I’ll stop it. But he still might take his chance if you turn your back.”
“He won’t. He knows you’ll blow his head off, and I rather think he likes his head.”
“He’ll probably wager that he’s safe. That I won’t sacrifice the mission in order to avenge your death.”
“Of course you would.” A slow look of pain grows on his face. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would,” I say, catching Rhonna’s eye. She knows I’m lying, because unlike Alexandar she does not suffer the shared delusion of grandeur under which all Golds secretly live their lives: that they are the chosen one, and their time is nigh. Rhonna would expect me to put the mission above her. With that single look between us, I see her in a fresh light.
“Sorry to interrupt the school lesson, but we’re being hailed by planetary security,” Winkle says from the sunken communications pit. His white padded chair is tilted back. The ambient light from the holographic controls that float in front of him bathe his spindly arms in a radioactive green. He’s done this dance before, as we’ve already passed through three levels of security with the codes received from Tharsus’s buyer, the first coming at Bastion station, then twice more from Gold patrols and sensor drones as we plunged deeper and deeper into the maw of the enemy orbit. Aside from our contact with the Society, we’ve been on a coms blackout.
“Last code,” I say. “Prep the engines for max burn if it doesn’t work.”
Into the mouth of the beast indeed.
—
After passing through planetary security, we touch down beside five older assault frigates on a quiet landing strip set into the shoal of Tharsus’s island in Venus’s equatorial seas. Helmeted sentries in observation obelisks watch the ship settle onto the concrete and then look back with disinterest over the night water. “That’s it?” Sevro mutters. “Five frigates? I thought there’d be at least a dozen.”
“There’s probably more off-island,” I say.
“And if there’s not?”
The Howlers assemble in the hold near the disembarkation ramp, where they finish donning their armor. Pebble and Milia escort Apollonius from his cell. He doesn’t look a prisoner, dressed all in black and wearing a purple cloak that we found in Quicksilver’s closets. Sevro went on ahead of me and now sits on one of the parked gravBikes, sharing an apple back and forth with Tongueless, who takes small, delicate bites. Sevro glowers at Apollonius as a Howler tightens the screws on his armor’s backplate. “You remember what happens if you get clever, Apple?” He squeezes the fruit till it explodes in his grip. He wipes the pulp and juice on Apollonius’s black jacket. “A little promise from me to you.” Tongueless frowns at the smashed fruit.
“How is your wife, Barca?” Apollonius asks after a brief pause. “A magnificent woman. Tharsus and I shared her sister several times, of course—a venemous appetite, Antonia—but I cannot say I ever had the exquisite pleasure of the elder Julii. From what Tactus told me, she was like an eclipse of the sun.”
The Howlers between them back out of the way, but Sevro doesn’t move.
“No insult meant. A mere compliment on a fine, if incongruous, coupling.”
“I have a collection you’ll be contributing to very soon,” Sevro replies, tapping his knife on his boot.
I’m wary of the Gold. He’s gotten us to the surface and honored his end of the bargain thus far, but how long will that last once he’s reunited with his brother? They’re a strange and sadistic pair. Even Tactus, the most faithful of the brothers, couldn’t be trusted farther than you could spit.
I motion Tongueless over. He’s gained almost fifteen kilos since we found him in that cell. Clown and Pebble have started training him in the onboard simulator for starShell piloting. He’s not good, but he’s certainly not bad. I was hesitant when Sevro suggested we bring him on the mission, but we need another tall body, and he knew his way around the weapons locker better than he knows his way around our kitchen. In a way, that’s more disconcerting, but I had Winkle put a security measure in his suit as an insurance policy.
“Inside the darkzone we won’t be able to transmit to the tech in Apollonius’s skull,” I tell Tongueless now. “I want you to watch him. If he steps out of line, you waste him.” I gave the same instructions to Thraxa about Tongueless and Apollonius. The Obsidian pulls one of Sevro’s knives from his belt. He must really be making an impression. Casually, as if it were encoded into his DNA as a passive trait, he twirls the blade through his fingers. He smiles and nods.
“Goodman,” I say quietly.