“And so the Telemanuses still talk with me,” I say.
“True. They do want me dead.”
“As they should.”
“I don’t begrudge them it. It’s just damn inconvenient.” He hands me a holoCom from his pocket. “They’re synced. I’ll be calling my ships to meet us, and I imagine you’ll stay here with your new prize. Wouldn’t do to have shuttles going back and forth.”
I want to ask him about Leto. Why he killed him. But why show a devil you know his strength? It just makes me a threat to him. And I’ve seen how he deals with threats. Better to play ignorant and make sure I’m always useful.
“War presents us with more opportunities,” I say. “Depending on how far we want it to spread …”
`”I do believe I take your meaning.”
“All others will try to suffocate the flames, to preserve what they have. Especially Pliny, and your sister.”
“Well, then we must be cleverer.”
“She doesn’t get hurt. That part of our agreement is static.”
“If ever she’s wounded, I believe it’ll be from you, not me.” He might be right. “But I’m on your level: Fan the flames. Spread the war. Win it. Take the spoils.”
“I think I know just how to do it. What can your network tell me about the shipyards of Ganymede?”
PART III
CONQUER
When falls the Iron Rain, be brave. Be brave.
—Lorn au Arcos
25
Praetors
“We are undone, that is what the ArchGovernor of Callisto has said.” ArchGovernor Nero au Augustus peers around the table to see if we understand the gravity of his words. The aquiline angles of his face catch the ship’s warroom lights, hollowing his cheeks and giving him the look of a falcon peering down its beak. “And why should he not? The Core rallies against us. Neptune is in farOrbit—Vespasian’s ships will be six months in coming to reinforce us. All this while my own bannermen hide behind their shields in their cities on Mars, sending only their second- and third-born to aid us.” He looks at the two far members of the table. “Their feebleness cripples us. And now I sit here in council with my Praetors, my men of arms, and what grand schemes do they devise?”
Run. That’s what they say. We fled Luna a month ago. And we’ve not stopped running since, because the Sovereign was crafty and her forces beat us to Mars.
This is not how I thought it would go. But then again, none of this is my damn fault. Cautious bloody fools surround the ArchGovernor. Golds too frightened to lose all the favor and power they’ve gained in the past to risk any of it now. Worse, they squeeze me out. Alliances form against me. You can see it in their eyes, in their shoulders. My gain is their loss. Even those who followed my lead on Luna. Even those I saved from certain death. They do the same to the Jackal, and they think it a victory he is not here in this room bickering with them. Their mistake.
I sit ten chairs down from my master at the massive cherry oak table in the warroom of his flagship, the six-kilometer dreadnought Invictus. The ceiling is forty meters above us. The room overly grand and imposing. A carved relief of a lion glares out from the center of the table. Over forty places are empty. Trusted advisors gone, having abandoned Augustus like rats from a sinking ship. Those with us are Pliny, Praetor Kavax, his son Daxo, and a half a hundred of Augustus’s most powerful Praetors, Legates, and bannermen. They do not glare at me. Nothing so childish. These Golds preside over a billion souls. So they simply ignore me and push doubt into Augustus about my ideas.
“Are we in agreement, then, with the ArchGovernor of Callisto? Are we undone?” Augustus demands.
Before any can answer, the grand doors hiss open, retracting into the marbled walls. Mustang strolls through, tossing an apple hand to hand.
“Apologies for my tardiness!” She beams at her father, approaches him and gives him a too-gracious kiss on his lionhead ring.
“I sent word over an hour ago,” Augustus says.
“Oh?” Mustang spares a look at Pliny. “I must have missed it. I only knew you were here because I went looking for my brother to play a game of chess.” She laughs at the joke. Only the Telemanuses get it. Sighing, she makes her way to the far end of the table, squeezing Daxo and Kavax on their shoulders as she passes. Kavax greets her with rumbling, warm words. She sits and kicks her military boots up. “Did I miss anything? Of course I didn’t. Dithering as always?”
Her father’s cheek twitches. “This is not a stable.” He eyes her boots. Sighing, she brings her boots down and shines the apple on her black sleeve.
She’s one of a very few women in the room. Agrippina au Julii should be here, but it was her betrayal that depleted Augustus’s fleet of the numbers he needed to capture Mars quickly. And it was her betrayal that’s made Augustus put men on Victra to make sure her loyalty to him is true. It took nearly all of my clout with the man to keep her out of the brig.
We’ve been chased from the Core worlds here, far beyond the orbital path of Mars. Our asteroid mining operations are seized. His assets frozen. And Augustus’s cities, those that did not surrender already to the Sovereign, are besieged. Not to mention there are bounties for our heads. The old men don’t like that I have the second-highest bounty behind Augustus.
“Before we were interrupted,” Augustus continues, “I believe someone was justifying their pos—” Snap. His voice falls away as Mustang takes a loud bite of her apple. She looks around at the annoyed faces. I stifle a laugh.
“My liege.” Pliny leans forward. “I’m afraid there is no alternative but to continue our tactical retreat. If things continue in this manner, we will lose. And you, my liege, will be tried for—” Snap. He flinches before finishing, “—treason.” He looks around the table to his bought-and-paid-for allies. “There is but one path available to us.”
“Continue to run with our fleet till Vespasian’s reinforcements arrive from Neptune,” Augustus murmurs. “In six months.”
The Politico nods. “Or surrender.”
“Would that you had killed Octavia when you had the chance, boy,” Kavax says.
“If I had, everyone here would be dead,” I reply.
Daxo nods. “He meant no offense. Wistful thinking.”
“Why didn’t you kill Octavia?” Pliny squints at me skeptically.