The Red Rising: Golden Son Part 36

"Ha," the grizzled lord laughs, falsely at first. Then more forcefully as he turns on a heel. "Ha! They've yet to make a man who can kill Old Stonesides!" His old knights, craggy men and women, flank him, not one younger than seventy, but I recognize all their faces from the histories of the Moon Rebellion and other great wars. Their friends and former comrades wait for us on Mars.

I leave for the hangars, saying a quick farewell to Victra. She calls me back. I feel Roque watching us. She looks about to say something. The red sun of her black armor weeps blood. Black warpaint streaks diagonally across her face. Eyes burning out of it, yet they are vulnerable, gentle as they search mine for a reflection of what she feels.

"After today, the name Julii will mean more than money," I say. Her plan will turn the tide of the s.p.a.ce battle.

"I don't care about that." Her fingers touch my breastplate and I see her lips sliding sharply into that wicked smile of hers. "If you die, I want your last thought to be how great a mistake it was to spend all those nights alone in your stateroom at the Academy." She flicks my armor, making a pinging noise. "What a beautiful mess we could have made of each other."

Theodora waits for me in the hall, giving me a look.

"Oh, shut up."

"She would have eaten you up and spit you out, dominus."

"Why aren't you in the staterooms where it's safe?"

"It's not safe anywhere." Theodora motions me to bend my head. She puts a small red flower clip, the sort a young girl would wear, into my hair. "All knights need their tokens," she says, tearing up. "Don't be too much a hero. You're too clever to die in a stupid battle."

She leaves, squeezing Ragnar's forearm as she pa.s.ses. I didn't know they were familiar. Ragnar follows along, hanging back like a hesitant shadow as Sevro and I speak on the way to the hangars.

"So it is done?" I ask Sevro.

He shrugs. "I sent it."

"You spoke to him?"

"A holoNet dropCache," he says. "I send a message. They get it. Hopefully."

"You mean you don't know if they got it?"

"How should I know? I said I sent it. Followed protocol."

I curse quietly. He whistles that d.a.m.n tune he sang Pliny. I swat at him. We turn a corner and pa.s.s six dozen Gray special ops troopers heading for the tubes at a jog. Six Obsidians follow behind them, opening their palms to Ragnar and me as signs of respect.

"You see what they were wearing? SlingBlades on their armor." Sevro smirks over at me. "It spreads."

"Have you thought about what happens if your father is down there?" I ask.

"No," he says, losing his smile. "No, I haven't."

37.

WAR.

The forward hangar bay is ma.s.sive. A giant cave in the belly of my ship crawling with men and women of all Colors. Six hundred meters in length. Along its left side are hundreds of spitTubes. Each row is accessed by a network of giant causeways where men in starSh.e.l.ls can walk. Thousands stand ready to disperse, grouped according to legion.

The alarm for battle stations warbles throughout the ship. Orion's voice rasps over the intercom. Beyond the hull, Roque, now the youngest Imperator in a hundred years, will be breaking our armada into fleets to engage the Bellona over Mars. Squadrons of ripWings and wasps pour forth. Blues flying to their deaths. Gold squad leaders in their midst. All to carve a hole large enough for the leechCraft to swarm onto the enemy hulls. Some Praetors h.o.a.rd their soldiers to fight off enemy waves that make it aboard their ships. Others launch full attacks. It's a gamble either way. Can't think of it. Victra, Roque, and Orion have that responsibility. I have my own.

I pause, looking out at the hangar. "What if Ares isn't real?" I ask Sevro quietly.

"What the h.e.l.l you talking about?" Sevro asks.

"What if it's just a Gold trick? Someone pulling strings to make Society go the way they need it to go. What if it's all a lie?"

Sevro looks at me for a long moment, then he hops up on a banister and howls at the top of his lungs down at the hangar bay.

The bay howls back.

It comes from Grays. It comes from Obsidians, from Oranges. It comes from Reds working on tubes. And it comes from the Golds who requested transfer to my ship.

"That's no lie."

And that's when I see the standards of the legions fall, replaced with something new. Gone are the pyramids of the society. Gone are the laurel and the scepter and the sword and the scroll. Gone is Augustus's lion. Instead, the high golden standards that the legions carry to battle are peaked with wolves and slingBlades.

These legions are mine.

I feel something buzzing in those around me. A sort of physical fanaticism. It did not buzz in the Golds quite like this. The Golds love me because of the victory and glory I bring. These other Colors love me for something far different, something far more potent. Any other conquering Gold would have vented the ship, but I did not, because they chose me instead of the Golds who once were their masters. I gave them that choice.

Sevro grips my arm. "Do you understand that you must fight differently today?"

"I get it, Sevro." I try to shake off his hand.

"You don't." He pulls me to look at him and shoos Ragnar back. "Every move you make today will be recorded and broadcast to every part of the Solar System. This battle is to make the fleet yours." His voice drops to a harsh whisper. "The Sons will spread it. Jackal will spread it. House Augustus will spread it. Act like a G.o.d, get followed like a G.o.d. Register?"

"Win or lose, this is still Augustus's fleet," I say.

"Not if he's dead."

I a.s.signed Sevro to infiltrate the Citadel in Agea where the ArchGovernor is being held captive. But I did not tell him to kill Augustus.

"You're not going to kill him," I say with authority. "I forbid it. It is ..."

"Necessary. You don't need his legitimacy. Haven't you figured us out yet? Here you get what you take, no matter the right of it." He spits on the ground. "You are twenty years old. If you win Mars, Darrow, you become a living G.o.d. And so when you reveal what you really are ... you transcend Color. Do I register?"

Sevro has grown wiser since we first met. No doubt about that. But I fear he thinks too much of me. Apollo thought he was a G.o.d. Augustus thinks he is. A G.o.d is not what I should be. A G.o.d is something to serve, something to worship. I've never wanted that. Eo never wanted that. Sevro will have to learn. This is about freedom. Yet it seems like everyone just wants to follow.

Mustang oversees the troop operations today. She floats through the air with Milia, the horsefaced Gold we adopted at the Inst.i.tute. Nearer me saunters an ambling, pitiless Gold with a familiar face. I laugh and point him out to Sevro, who curses poignantly.

"Proctor Jupiter?" I call to the man. "Darling, could that really be you?"

"Who else would it be, you uppity brat?" Jupiter comes before me. He's tall. Careless in the eyes. Hair bound tight. Half a foot taller than I, he's a sinful, hedonistic beast of a man with an arrogant streak a kilometer long, and it is clear that he and Ragnar are two misunderstandings away from opening each other up. He eyes the razor wrapped around my forearm, and I see his is worn in the same new fashion. "I heard you're the one responsible for the new style." He holds up his arm. "I do approve. Bold as a naked p.r.i.c.k in an ant nest."

"Limping still?" Sevro asks.

"Shut up, Goblin," Jupiter sneers.

"Daddy dearest had a little duel with Proctor Jupiter here to win the Rage Knight post." Sevro smiles. "Old man sliced him up the same place I did. Right in the a.s.s."

"That slippery slag Fitchner is ... tricky." Jupiter nods grudgingly. "Very, very tricky. I have been helping the lady," Jupiter rumbles on, gesturing to Mustang.

"How so?" I ask.

"Most of the Augustus cities are on communication interdict. Can't get a word out or in. I'm the emissary to those still loyal. Sneak in. Sneak out. Been doing it for weeks now and sending word to remote dropCaches and the other loyal cities. A whole war's been going on here with her agents and her brother's while you were out st.i.tching together a fleet. It's been nasty, my goodman."

"So what can you tell me?" I ask.

"Well, Daddy Bellona commands the house fleet against your friends. Ca.s.sius and Karnus have been allocated to ground operations inside Agea. I am going to help you find them and kill them." Jupiter raises his large eyebrows, as though telling us how tedious he finds the ch.o.r.e. "That is the point-kill the Bellona family members and all their allies will suddenly wonder why they're fighting-isn't it?" He winks at Sevro. "Next best thing to pounding that Luneborn Sovereign's head in."

"You sure all Bellona are in Agea?"

Jupiter nods grudgingly. "Last we saw. That was a couple days ago, though, after they brought Augustus down in chains." He airily holds up a finger. "And there was a peculiar series of heavy shuttles that landed last night."

I wave a hand, ignoring mention of the shuttles. He squints at me, but I tell him to shut up and get behind me as I meet Mustang and her entourage.

"Everything is prepared," she says. "We're awaiting launch orders." She wrinkles her nose as if smelling something foul. "Sevro, do watch Jupiter. He tends to s.h.i.t where he eats."

Jupiter yawns. "Pleasure working with you too."

"Milia, lovely seeing you washed," I say.

"Reaper." She nods and smiles, an ugly thing on her face. "Still playing with scythes? Warms the heart."

"You've a heart?" Sevro chuckles.

She examines his height. "A full-sized one." She pauses. "I saw Pollux just yesterday, on the other side, however. Been sneaking in and out with Jupiter here. You've arranged us all a little reunion. I heard about Tactus. He was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

True enough. I glance at my datapad. We'll be at the launch coordinates in five. My team disperses. Mustang lingers, face thoughtful.

"What's what?" I ask. "Worrying about me already?"

"A little," she confides, coming close enough for me to smell the scent of her. "But it's my father. What if they kill him before we even make landfall?"

"They won't kill him. They'll need him as a bargaining chip. Or if they've lost, they'll spare him and hope we do the same for all the Bellona family members. You don't kill men as important as him."

I reach for her hand to comfort her, but she pulls it away, turning from me. "We have a planet to invade."

I watch her go, shouting orders to her men.

38.

THE IRON RAIN.

All I see is metal. I'm one of a thousand in the honeycomb of spitTubes. Beyond the metal tube, a battle rages. I feel nothing. Not the shudder of the Pax. Not the missiles as they range through s.p.a.ce to bring silent death. Just the throbbing of my heart. Mickey told me it was the strongest he'd seen in a Red, courtesy of the pitviper poison that traced my veins when I was young. It makes my hands shake now as it gallops in my chest. Fear rides in me. Fear of so many things. Fear of letting down my friends, of losing my friends. Of telling my friends the truth about what I am. Fear of being unequal to the task before me. Fear caused by doubt-in myself, in my plans for the rebellion. Fear of death. Fear of being lost in the darkness of s.p.a.ce beyond the hull. Fear of failing Eo, my people, myself. But chiefly, fear of hot metal.

Chatter comes over the coms. Perfunctory. The plan is in motion, and I'm nothing but a cog now. The battle is too large for me to take part in all of it. I wanted to lead the Pax from her bridge so I could watch the enemy ships fall to my fleet. But Orion and Roque are better than I am in s.p.a.ce.

I wanted to be in the leechCraft carrying the boarding parties through the breach into enemy hulls; I wanted to storm bridges, repel invaders from my own ship, bounce from destroyer to dreadnought, making them mine. But I will not capture Imperator Bellona. The t.i.tans will do that. In the end, my enemies dictate where I go. I chase the grand prize.

A prize that has been my target since after I left Luna.

My true pegasus pendant is cool against my chest. Eo's hair lies within. Focus on that. On the way her hair moved. Drifting on deep-mine winds. Focus there. Thinking of her, I am beset with guilt. I like this life. No matter my reluctance to play the Gold, no matter the sorrowful excuses I make, part of me is like them. Perhaps I was born to be of two Colors.

Slag that. Man wasn't born to be any Color. Our rulers decided to relegate us to Colors. And they were wrong.

"Audentes fortuna juvat, darlings," Sevro says over a private com-line. I burst out laughing at the Latin.

"More 'Fortune favors the bold' c.r.a.p? Why not just say carpe diem?"

"Because it's tradition to say ..."

"Do you boys always flirt like this before battle? It is adorable," Victra adds.

"You should have seen them at the Inst.i.tute, love at first howl," Mustang laughs.

"I saw the clips! What a lovely couple."

I hear the smile in Mustang's voice. "They even wore matching garments. Stylish, weren't they, Roque? And smelly."

"I certainly took no notice."

"Why not?"

"Sevro scared the p.i.s.s out of me. I wasn't looking at what he was wearing," Roque replies, drawing laughs. "I thought he'd been bitten by a squirrel and contracted rabies somehow."

"Roque?" Sevro calls sweetly.