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“This does not concern you,” Volga tells the Gold.

“That woman has declared a blood war on my family,” she says. “It concerns me. And when they pick us off from those shuttles because you couldn’t delay revenge, it’ll concern all of us. Including my baby.”

Volga ignores her. “Lyria, do you want me to kill her?”

I see Harmony’s head crack like an egg. I see blood smear on the snow. I see her gurgling through a hole in her throat. Maybe one in her belly. But one look at Victra’s belly and her knuckles going white as she grips her razor convinces me otherwise. Would Victra kill us even before Volga fired?

“No,” I say. “She’s not worth it.”

Is it for the sake of the baby or Volga’s life that I say that?

Either way, it’s not the response Victra expected. Her hand leaves the hilt of her razor. Volga breathes in relief and sets her rifle on her knees. I feel a strange comfort knowing what she was ready to do for me despite the risk.

“They’ll find our tracks soon,” Victra says. There are booms high overhead. The night sky spasms with light. “Those…Ascomanni, for lack of better classification, hacked the computer. I didn’t think they could. They took control of the guns. They shredded the escape pods when you two were passed out.” She grimaces. “Had to turn off our beacon, so the Pandora couldn’t home in an orbital strike. With all that debris…My men aren’t coming. Not soon enough at least. We’re on our own.”

She squints south toward the dark forest. It stretches as far as the eye can see. Her hand drifts to her belly, her only concession to fear. I find myself admiring her coolness even as I hate her. But in the presence of Harmony, that hate suddenly feels so very small. “We need to find a com array or get a boat that can take us south across the sound,” she says. “And we need to go now.”

SNOW NO LONGER FALLS over Olympia. The morning is bright as I walk the fluffy white streets. I needed to be away from Eagle Rest. It’s been four hours since I descended the stairs and I still can’t walk off the meaty scent of blood and manure from Valdir’s murder of Godeater.

It does not take long for passing machines to ruin the snow. Sounds of industry clatter through the city. Reds who once languished in assimilation camps work on floating construction skiffs, repairing the city in Sefi’s bid to restore Olympia’s grandeur. They’re doing a hell of a job. While Quicksilver pocketed the money from his helium, Sefi pours it into Cimmeria. Their rule is absolute. Their executions of Red Hand terrorists public and brutal. But they’re spreading the wealth around.

Lines of Reds and lowColors fresh from the countryside snake out from labor registration facilities. Each is given lodging, a fair salary, and a sense of purpose they’ve not had in years. Many midColors now work for Sefi as administrators. Others are left alone to make money however they see fit, so long as the Obsidians get a piece. The city is coming back to life. I don’t feel that same optimism. Sefi may be good for Mars, for Lyria’s people, but not for Volga.

Or is it not my choice to make?

Markets which were home to vagrants and bonfires when I arrived now bustle with new shops full of produce from southern Cimmeria, fish from the Thermic, textiles from Agea, exotic wares from the Core. Obsidians walk alongside Silvers and Browns and Coppers and Reds. It isn’t utopia, but it isn’t war either. Sefi’s dream is coming alive. It’s been weeks since the last Red Hand bombing. Before his breakdown, Valdir had steadily been chasing them from their strongholds up to the highlands. Some say even across the sound.

It will all break apart when Sefi dies.

I can’t let her bring Volga into this, but so long as the Julii still has her, I have to play along with Sefi’s game. She knows she has me on a leash.

A Red boy tries to pickpocket me near a gambling den. I clout him on the ears and then show him proper technique by stealing the chronometer of a passing Silver. I flip it to the boy, and tell him to make his hands move smooth as the chronometer if he wants to keep them.

He stares at me after I tousle his hair. “You’re Ephraim ti Horn,” he says.

“Am I?” I look instinctively for Syndicate thorns and laugh when he spits on my jacket. “Hail Reaper!” he cries, and tries to punch me. I yelp and backpedal when I see more Reds coming to investigate.

I lose them by ducking into a brothel. My nose curls at the familiar smells, and I fend off the madam until the Reds pass. I think it was a bloody lynch mob. Reaper’s people are damn mad. Having lost my taste for a walk, I make for

the long climb up the Bellona Stairs back to Eagle Rest.

I’m almost trampled by two Reds running past. No manners at all. Am I back in Hyperion? Then I notice a change in the foot traffic. Those with datapads or optic implants stand fixated on their internal and external screens. Others rush for bars or the Alltribe’s new multimedia stations. Even a uniformed Obsidian Watchman and his Red partner let a shoplifter loose to drift toward a window. I fall in behind them.

Light from a hologram of a space battle splashes through the window. It’s the Pandora. She’s under attack. I sprint back to the stairs.

* * *

—

The Pandora fell to ships bearing Alltribe colors at 0930 Olympia Time.

The sky rained bodies not long after.

I caught the battle in flashes through windows as I raced home. I watched the bodies on my datapad after I passed Eagle Rest security.

The bodies were stripped naked and dumped over Agea at high altitude. In the sunlight, the pale rain of corpses looked almost elegant, like human-shaped feathers twirling through the air. Their fall could almost be mistaken for flight until they collided with Agea’s skyhooks and skyscrapers and parks and paved boulevards and white stone plazas and the roof of Lighthold like a hundred thousand bugs on a windshield.

The corpses were dropped by four Alltribe troop carriers. Two are shot down by the time I make it to the skuggi training armory. By the time I’m kitted up in scarabSkin and skipBoots, belted with gear, and laden down with a huge insulated carry box for the neodymium magnet, new drones have caught footage of an Obsidian brave in an Alltribe uniform being dragged out of the third ship by aerial commandos. They’ll think Sefi ordered the attack.