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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 space 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 space 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 space.

I wanted to be in the leechCraft carrying the boarding parties through the breech 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 Titans 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 deepmine 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 that. And they were wrong.

“Audentes fortuna juvat, darlings,” Sevro says over a private comline. I burst out laughing at the Latin.

“More ‘Fortune favors the bold’ crap? 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 Institute, 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 piss 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.

“Sevro.”

“Hello.”

“Hello?”

“Next time I see you, I’m going to bite you.”

“I must go.” Roque’s light laughter fades. “We’re engaging the main enemy element.”

“What are you going to do, bore them to death with a light poetry reading?” Sevro again.

“You’re a pricklick,” Roque declares playfully. “May the Furies guide your swords and the Fates bring you home. Till then, my love is with you all.”

The profession of love startles the Golds. Roque’s com clicks off and we can hear him on the main frequency giving orders to attack an enemy destroyer.

“What a Pixie,” Sevro mutters, but even a child could catch the tremor in his voice. He’s afraid.

“Hic sunt leones,” I say to my friends. “I’ll see you on the other side.”