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“Nah. Ain’t got the time. Shall I ready the men, sir?”

—

Two hours later, I stand in the shadow of the hangar bay where the Howlers make preparations on the Nessus and our ripWings. Over the clamor of loading gear and curses from Min-Min and Clown, I hear the distant roar of engines as the mobilized might, such

as it is, of House Valii-Rath lifts off the tarmac. Forty ripWings ascend from the concrete like ducks off a pond, their engines burning indigo and their shadows languorous and long in the late afternoon light. They fly due south. With them rise the five long assault frigates and assault shuttles, packed with Gray shock troops in grasshopper suits. A tardy trooper rushes to catch the last shuttle, carrying a forgotten token of luck in his hand. The crooked elongated legs of the grasshopper suit pivot backward along a joint behind his knee, then propel him in an inhuman jump to clear the five meters into the craft, where his friends grab his hand and hoist him in.

Apollonius comes to say farewell. He looks at home in his armor. Unlike the stark, muted grandeur of modern Martian gear, his favors the baroque of the Core. At the center of the purple chestplate is his Minotaur. “Hail Reaper,” he says mockingly. He closes his eyes and smells the air. “This is life, isn’t it?”

“Your men don’t know our presence?” I ask.

His eyes are still closed. “The dogs yap of masked men in the night carrying mischief.” He opens his eyes and smiles. “Mercenaries. Ronin. Sellswords. By any name they do suspect, except the one that’s true. But I would ask you to dissuade your diminutive accomplice from displaying any lupine flavors. My dogs do hate wolves.”

“We didn’t bring the wolfcloaks with us,” I say. “We brought two alpha mega nukes instead.” I search his eyes for some sign of duplicity. “My men don’t like the fact that you’re not coming with us.”

“Understandable. All suspect what they do not understand. But we understand one another, do we not, Reaper? Betrayal from friends cuts far deeper than the sword of a foe. We are both the spawn of a war god. Favored of his children, and stand astride the shadow of our lost brother, Achilles.” I make no sign of agreeing with him. He sighs. “If I am late, if I am naughty, destroy me.” He taps the scar where the bomb went in. “But you and I both know I lead my men into hell’s teeth. What commander would I be if I were not amongst them?”

That I can respect.

“In the darkzone your bomb imbed won’t respond to our activation signal,” I remind him. “As soon as you enter, it will be on a three-hour timer for detonation that can only be deactivated by us. If we die, you’ll follow. If you leave the theater of engagement, it is also programmed to detonate.” He listens quietly. “I’ll see you at the waypoint. If you make it, Gold.”

He smiles. “I shall wait on you, Red.” He extends a hand. Grudgingly, I take it. Sevro watches dourly from the ramp of the Nessus, no doubt misjudging my politeness for fondness. Apollonius releases my hand and backs away from me, singing loudly with his huge lungs as his Minotaur helmet rolls out of the neck of his armor to cover his head. The horns, long and twisted, stab into the sky. “?‘Into this wild Abyss the warie fiend stood on the brink of Hell and look’d a while, pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith he had to cross!’?”

With that, he rips up from the tarmac on his gravBoots and bends across the sky to join his departing legions. Rhonna comes to watch him leave. “Sir, Colloway says the Nessus is ready.”

“Are you?” I ask.

“Sir?”

“We need the Nessus’s firepower, but she’s got no maneuverability in atmosphere. She’ll be a slow cow. Colloway will be of better use in his ripWing. That means we don’t have someone to sync to the Nessus. Min-Min will be flying her. And she’ll need gunners. You’ve trained with firing systems, I presume?”

She grins. “Damn straight.”

“Good. Go find Winkle, he’ll give you access to the gunner chamber.”

She salutes. “Thank you, sir.” She leaps forward and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “I won’t let you down, Uncle.” As I watch her run back to the ship, I wish I could say the same. But Sevro sowed doubt in me, and something else gnaws at the back of my mind. No one has seen the Ash Lord in three years. Why? He always led from the vanguard. What is he hiding behind that curtain of darkness?

“MINOTAUR-1 HAS CONTACT. Engaging enemy,” Apollonius says over the com.

On the sensor display inside my starShell, the curved edge of the Ash Lord’s darkzone blots out the corner of the blue-hued map. The mass of gold dots from Apollonius’s small fleet approaches the barrier. I listen to their com chatter as they detect hostile patrols and engage with full force. Two ripWings go down almost immediately; a third disappears into the darkzone. Apollonius’s squadron pursues. Soon their signatures disappear. Their massed assault will eat up the attention of the Ash Lord’s forces, and the bulk of the casualties. With the Nessus’s stealth hull, we’ll come in the back door and rip straight for the Ash Lord.

“Minotaur is inside the darkzone,” Char says. “Two minutes to breech.”

Inside the firing tube in the port side of the Nessus, my soft body is cocooned in the vestments of war. Thermal skin, pulseArmor, starShell—a twelve-foot-tall mechanized armored suit. I’m like one of those layered wooden toys they sell down by the wharf in Thessalonica, the ones that are painted with the faces of rosy-cheeked Reds and Violets. I bought one for Pax when he was young. It was our first and only trip to Mars as a family. He sat in Mustang’s lap, gasping each time he pulled apart the dolls to find yet another inside, looking to us hoping we saw the miracle as well. Seeing the joy in my wife’s face, I was witnessing another miracle. One, for a long time, I believed I would never see again. Love so potent, so whole and true, that it hurts, because even when you convince yourself that it will last forever, you know enough of the world to see how things break and fade, but somehow, some way, you believe this love will be the exception. That it alone will last.

An ache fills my chest. Not just at the memory, but in thinking Pax was ever so young and innocent. It seems like it was just yesterday, before we were pulled back to Luna. Where did the time go? I ask when I know the answer. I spent that time. And I spent it worlds away from those who needed my love.

I sense the claustrophobia now and the fear of the coming violence beyond the hull. The Nessus roars over the sea escorted by Colloway’s ripWings, my friends loaded in its spitTubes.

“Enemy contact. Six bandits inbound. They’ve seen us,” Colloway says. “Warlock Squadron engaging.” Colloway and his depleted Warlock Squadron race ahead of us to target the incoming patrols. They dance across the sensors, dots flashing in and out of existence.

“Bandits eliminated,” Colloway drones, his normal insouciance replaced by the hard-edged voice of a master at his craft. “Warlock-1 crossing into darkzone.”

I watch through the Nessus’s holoCams from my starShell as the ripWings cross the threshold into the darkzone ahead of the Nessus, disappearing from our sensors to be swallowed up by the looming black curtain.

“We’ll be deploying at their back door,” I say over my com to my starShell squadron. “Expect a firestorm, regardless. We can’t expect communications to work inside. You have full autonomy. Group up after initial threats are eliminated to reassess.”

“Copy that, Howler 1,” Alexandar says unnecessarily.