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“I shit the pot,” Thraxa mutters. I lower the optics. “We lost him in the Buonides Range when he left the shield shadow to cross a death valley.” She means the narrow gaps exposed to Atalantia’s guns between our shield chain.

“I told you not to let him out of your sight.”

“The valley was too exposed. We had drones, and I sent a man. By the time we found his trail, he’d abandoned his course for Eleusis and had already reached Angelia.” The wrong city.

She swats pointlessly at a scrill on her neck. More of the two-headed bloodsuckers make homes in her wolfcloak.

“And your man lost them. Which?”

“Alexandar.”

I can’t hide my surprise. “How?”

“He crashed his bike into a hoodoo. Fell asleep at the stick.”

“One is none. Two is one, Thraxa…”

“We were a hundred forty hours without sleep. Even with the nazopran, the lows were hallucinating—had to rest ’em in the cargo bins as we rode, even the Grays. Golds were barely upright. Had to run solo. Alex’s the best soldier I’ve ever seen at his age, including you. Still…” She spits in the dirt. “We’re all blood and bone.”

I pushed them too hard. I thought Alex invulnerable. We all did. But even with the proper gear, this desert eats men. “Where is Atlas now?”

“Gone. Tracks lead north, bearing for Angelia.” She nods to the Fear Knight’s display before the city. “Should I call medships?”

“No. He came here for a reason, and it wasn’t to torture. Get ’em ready. We’re pushing in.” She rallies the Howlers as I raise my helmet and hail Orion. She’s only just made it back to BlueReach One.

“Trouble?” she asks.

“Is there a way to spool up the Storm Gods without showing our hand?”

“The blackslag you think these things are? They aren’t a grunt’s hair trigger. We can’t cool as fast as we can heat. Once we ramp up it’s a runaway to primary horizon.”

“What’s the lag on cloud coverage?”

“I’m told soon as the pressure systems activate, an hour. Electrical in two. What happened?”

“Unclear.”

“Orders?”

I hesitate. If it’s activated too early, Atalantia will notice the unnatural nature of the storm and call off the invasion. Activated too late, the storm won’t matter. “Watch how a pitviper strikes, my son,” Father said once as he clutched my wrist and made me play his game. “Watch it coil upward and upward till it reaches its crest. Don’t move before then. Don’t strike out with your slingBlade. If you do, then it’ll get you. Move just when it’s coming down….”

I look down at the city the Fear Knight killed.

“Initiate Operation Tartarus. Give me a storm.”

“YOU’RE GOING TO DIE,” Pytha says.

It is easy to believe her. To be ingested by the military machine is to see the last hidden gear of the world. All is loud yet lonely, chaos yet order, functional yet dirty, fast yet slow.

All is big. Except you.

I am thrust into an assembly line of muscled predators. There is little jocularity amongst the lines of Golds as they are given injections for Mercurian diseases, chemical weapons, and flight sickness followed by conditioning enhancement cocktails. Then comes implantation of coms and overwatch. Mission debriefing and caloric ingestion. Measurements for gear. Fitting for gear.

Without my name, I am no one. There goes another fresh-faced sacrifice, the veterans think. No. They don’t even see me. Their eyes are focused two hours from now. I do not matter. I am chaff.

Atlas’s countdown has begun.

“You’re going to perish. Die in a ball of fire,” Pytha says as one of the four Orange techs seals the greaves of the pulseArmor around my shins. On either side, hundreds of Golds iron up in fitting bays. I didn’t even see this many Peerless Scarred assemble for the defense of Luna against the Rising. It was seen as somewhat of a farce. They don’t underestimate the Reaper any longer. But it makes me wonder: If the Golds are this scary, how bad has Darrow become?