Morning Star: Book III of the Red Rising Trilogy (57 page)

the fleets would be evenly matched. The battle would last another twelve hours and exhaust both our fleets. Now it crumbles apart.

Whether by cowardice or betrayal, I don’t know, but Antonia just gave us the battle on a silver platter.

“She’s left us a gap,”
Orion says. Her eyes go distant as she syncs with her ship captains and her own vessel, thrusting the huge capital ships into the region formerly occupied by Antonia, which brings them into the flank of the main enemy body.

“Do not let her escape!” Victra snarls.

But neither Daxo nor Orion can spare the ships to pursue Antonia. They’re too busy taking advantage of her absence. “We can catch her,” Victra says to herself. “Engines, prepare to give us sixty percent thrust, escalate by ten percent over five. Helmsman, set our course for the
Pandora.
”

I make a quick assessment. Of our small battle at the rear of the warzone, we’re the only ship still battle-ready. The rest are drifting rubble. But the
Colossus
has not yet made an action or a declaration that its bridge has been taken by the Rising. Which means we have an opportunity.

“Belay that,” I snap.

“What?” Victra wheels on me. “Darrow, we have to catch her.”

“There’s something else that needs doing.”

“She’ll escape!”

“And we’ll hunt her down.”

“Not if she gets enough of a lead. We’ll be tied here for hours. You promised me my sister.”

“And I’ll deliver. Think beyond yourself,” I say. “Bridge shield down.” I ignore the wrathful woman’s glare and walk past Roque’s body to peer into the blackness of space as the metal shielding beyond the glass viewports slides into the wall. In the far distance ships flicker and flash against the marble backdrop of Jupiter. Io is beneath us, and far to our left, the city moon of Ganymede glows, large as a plum.

“Holiday, recall all available infantry to protect the bridge and make safe the vessel. Sefi make sure no one gets through that door. Helmsman, set course for Ganymede. Do not make any Society ships

aware the bridge is taken. Do I make myself clear? No broadcasts.” The Blues follow my instructions.

“To Ganymede?” Victra asks, eying her sister ’s ship. “But Antonia, the battle…”

“The battle is won. Your sister made sure of that.”

“Then what are we doing?”

Our ship’s engines throb and we untangle ourselves from the wreckage of the
Pax
and Mustang’s devastated strike group. “Winning the next war. Excuse me.”

I wipe blood from my armored kneecap onto my face and let my helmet slither over my head. The

HUD display expands. I wait. And then, as expected, a call from Romulus comes. I let it flash on the left hand side of my screen, altering my breathing so it seems I’ve been running. I accept the call. His face expands over the left eighth of my visor ’s vision. He’s in a firefight, but my vision is as constricted as his. All I can see is his face in his helmet.
“Darrow. Where are you?”

“In the halls,” I say. I pant and crouch on a knee as if taking respite. “Pressing for the
Colossus
’s bridge
.
”

“You’re not in yet?”

“Roque initiated lockdown protocol. It’s thick going,” I say.

“Darrow, listen carefully. The
Colossus
has altered trajectory and is headed for Ganymede.”

“The docks,” I whisper intensely. “He’s going for the docks. Can any ships intercept?”

“No! They’re out of position. If Octavia can’t win
,
she’ll ruin us. Those docks are my people’s
future. You must take that bridge at all cost!”

“I will…but Romulus. He has nukes on board. What if it’s not just the docks he’s going for?”

Romulus pales.
“Stop
him. Please. Your people are down there too.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you, Darrow. And good luck. First cohort, on me…”

The connection dies. I remove my helmet. My men stare at me. They haven’t heard the conversation, but they know what I’m doing now. “You’re going to destroy Romulus’s dockyards around Ganymede,” Victra says.

“Holy shit,” Holiday mutters. “Holy shit.”

“I’m not destroying anything,” I reply. “I’m fighting my way through corridors. Trying to reach the bridge. Roque is ordering this move as his last act of violence before I claim his command.”

Victra’s eyes light up, but even she has reservations.

“If Romulus finds out, if he even suspects, he’ll fire on our forces and everything we’ve won today goes to ash.”

“And who will tell him?” I ask. I look around the bridge. “Who will tell him?” I look to Holiday. “If anyone sends a signal out, shoot them in the head. Wipe the video memory from the whole ship.”

If I ruin Ganymede’s dockyards the Rim won’t be able to threaten us for fifty years. Romulus is an ally today, but I know he will threaten the core if the Rising succeeds. If I must give Roque for this victory, if I must give the Sons on these moons, I will take something in return. I look down. Red bootprints follow my path. I didn’t even realize I’d stepped in Roque’s blood.

We carve our way free of the debris formed by Mustang’s fleet and mine and break away from Jupiter toward Ganymede, leaving her behind. I feel the pulsing desperation as the Moon Lords send their fastest craft to intercept us. We shoot them down. All the pride and hope of Romulus’s people are in the rivets and assembly lines and electric shops of that dull gray ring of metal. All their promises of power and future independence are at my mercy.

When I reach the sparkling gem that is Ganymede, I bring the
Colossus
parallel to the monument of industry they’ve built in orbit at her equator. The Valkyrie gather behind us at the viewport. Sefi staring in awe at the majesty and triumph of Gold will. Two hundred kilometers of docks. Hundreds

of haulers and freighters. Birthplace of the greatest ships in the Sol System including the
Colossus
herself. Like any good monster of myth, the girl must eat her mother before being free to pursue her true destiny. That destiny is leading the assault on the Core.

“Men built this?” Sefi asks with quiet reverence. Many of her Valkyrie have fallen to a knee to watch in wonder.

“My people built it,” I say. “Reds.”

“It took two hundred fifty years…It’s how old the first dock there is,” Victra says, shoulder to shoulder with me. Hundreds of escape pods flower out from her metal carapace. They know why we’re here. They’re evacuating the senior administrators, the overseers. I’m under no delusion. I know who will die when we fire.

“There’s still going to be thousands of Reds on there.” Holiday says quietly to me. “Oranges, Blues…Grays.”

“He knows that,” Victra says.

Holiday doesn’t leave my side. “You sure you want to do this, sir?”

“Want to?” I ask hollowly. “Since when has any of this been about what we want?” I turn to the helmsman, about to give the order when Victra puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Share the load, darling. This one’s on me.” Her Aureate voice rings clear and loud. “Helmsman, open fire with all port batteries. Launch tubes twenty-one through fifty at their center-line.”

Together, we stand shoulder to shoulder and watch the warship lay ruin to the defenseless dock.

Sefi stares out in profound awe. She has watched the holos of ship warfare, but her war until now, has been narrow halls and men and gunfire. This is the first time they see what a vessel of war can do.

And for the first time, I see her frightened.

It’s a crime that the marvel should die like this. No song. Nothing but silence and the unblinking gaze of the stars to herald the end of one of the great monuments of the Golden Age. And I hear in the back of my mind, that age old truth of darkness whispering to me.

Death begets death begets death…

The moment is sadder than I wanted. So I turn to Sefi as the dock continues to fall apart. The shattered bits drifting down to the moon, where they will fall into the sea or upon the cities of Ganymede.

“The ship must be renamed,” I say, “I would like you to choose.”

Her face is stained with white light.

“Tyr Morga,”
she says without hesitation.

“What’s that mean?” Holiday asks.

I look back out the viewport as explosions ripple through the dock and her escape pods flare against the atmosphere of Ganymede. “It means Morning Star.”

The Sword Armada is shattered. More than half destroyed. A quarter seized by my ships. The remainder fled with Antonia or in little ragged bands, rallying around the remaining Praetors to sprint for the Core. I sent Thraxa and her sisters in fast-moving corvettes out under Victra’s command to reel Antonia in and recapture Kavax, who was captured by Antonia’s forces while attempting to board the
Pandora.
I asked Sevro to go with Victra, thinking to keep the two of them together, but he went to her ship then returned a half hour before it departed, wrathful and quiet, refusing to discuss whatever it was that transpired.

For her part, Mustang is beside herself with worry for Kavax, though she makes a brave face.

She’d lead the rescue mission herself if she weren’t needed in the main fleet. We make repairs where we can to make the ships fit for travel. We scuttle the ships we can’t save, and search the naval debris for survivors. A tentative alliance exists between the Rising and the Moon Lords, one that will not last long.

I’ve not slept since the battle two days ago. Neither, it seems, has Romulus. His eyes are dark with anger and exhaustion. He’s lost an arm and a son on the day and more, so much more. Neither one of us could risk meeting in person. So all we have left between us is this holo conference.

“As promised, you have your independence,” I say.

“And you have your ships,” he replies. Marble columns stretch up behind him, carved with Ptolemaic effigies. He’s on Ganymede, in the Hanging Palace. The heart of their civilization. “But they will not be enough to defeat the Core. The Ash Lord will be waiting for you.”

“I hope so. I have plans for his master.”

“Do you sail on Mars?”

“Perhaps.”

He allows a thoughtful silence. “There’s one thing I find curious about the battle. Of all the ships my men boarded, not one nuclear weapon over five megatons was found. Despite your claims.

Despite your…evidence.”

“My men found plenty enough,” I lie. “Come aboard if you doubt me. It’s hardly curious that they

would store them on the
Colossus.
Roque would want to keep them under tight watch. We’re only lucky that I managed to take bridge when I did. Docks can be rebuilt. Lives cannot.”

“Did they ever have them?” Romulus asks.

“Would I risk the future of my people on a lie?” I smile without humor. “Your moons are safe. You

define your own future now, Romulus. Do not look the gift horse in the mouth.”

“Indeed,” he says, though he sees through the lie now. Knows he was manipulated. But it is the lie

he must sell to his own people if he wants peace. They cannot afford to go to war with me now, but their honor would demand it if they knew what I’d done. And if they went to war with me, I would likely win. I have more ships now. But they’d hurt me bad enough to ruin my real war against the Core. So Romulus swallows my lies. And I swallow the guilt of leaving hundreds of millions in slavery and personally signing the death warrants of thousands of Sons of Ares to Romulus’s police. I gave them warning. But not all will escape. “I would like your fleet to depart before end of day,”

Romulus says.