We meet with Jupiter and Ragnar on one of floating Olympus’s white spires. There are dead men in the halls, on the slopes.
“They used it as a base,” Jupiter says cheerily. “Your Stained disagreed with their presumptuousness. I like the beast!” Our men secure the section of the Valles Marineris set aside for the Institute, far east of Agea in the upper arm of the grand canyon. I watch out the window as hundreds of friendly dropships descend on the staging ground, depositing more than three hundred thousand men in thirty minutes. A Gold runs out of each lowered ramp, always the first onto enemy soil.
“No resistance,” I say quietly, my starShell helm popped. I look at Mustang uneasily.
She wipes blonde hair from her eyes. “The longer we’re dug in, they harder we are to dislodge. Why are they waiting?”
“Want to cluster us up like a bunch of grapes before stomping,” Sevro guesses. “Atomics?”
“Silly children.” Jupiter goes through the pockets of one of the dead men. “That’s why we have Grays. Let them be stomped. They will lubricate our passage.”
“No atomics,” Mustang says. “Sensors would have picked them up from a hundred clicks away.” She looks out over the land. “They’re waiting because they don’t have enough men to contest our passage through the valley. Or we’ve caught them flat-footed, which is doubtful. Or they deployed too many men to halt Lorn’s advance. Or they’ve created choke points in the valley. Or they marshal them around the Citadel. Or there’s a trap ahead.”
Her mind is a machine.
“There’s a trap,” she says after a moment. “But they are over-relying upon it to stall us while they reallocate men and materiel.” She snorts in contempt. “Static defenses without massive mobile support haven’t been relevant since the Maginot Line.”
“But they know we don’t want to waste the city or the populace,” I say.
“They know that.” Mustang adjusts her datapad, examining the map. “Which shrinks our flexibility in tactics.”
“Total war is easier,” Jupiter grumbles. “Let’s use the Grays to lubricate our passage, then drop bombs at the walls under the shields. Entry gained.”
“It takes a day to break a city, then fifty years to rebuild,” Mustang snaps. “You want to sign up to oversee the reconstruction?”
“Do I look like a builder?” Jupiter asks.
“The passage to Agea is eighty kilometers wide on average, seven-kilometer-high walls on either side, all farming and agriculture for the city. Bellona likely littered the place with mines. If they had time. We didn’t exactly tell them we were coming.” Did they have time?
Mustang motions me to the side.
I walk with her away from the rest of my command staff, who roll their eyes at one another. The airy palace halls should remind me of past victory, but all I feel is steep melancholy being here. So many memories. So many lost friends, I think when I see a Grays landing near Minerva castle where Pax and I once dueled.
“It’s eighty kilometers to the walls from here,” she says. “We could make the dash as planned. Just because they didn’t contest our landing doesn’t mean there’s something nefarious afoot.” She sees the hesitation in my eyes. “We are here for my father just as much as we’re here for the Sovereign. We have to move with pace.”
“You’re afraid Lorn is going to kill him if he breaks through the southern city walls first,” I guess. “Aren’t you.”
“You know their history.”
“I do.”
“And do you trust Lorn not to finish an old grudge?”
“Lorn isn’t a murderer.”
“No. He hurts men who deserve it, like Tactus. My father deserves it as much as any man. So we must hurry. And you must tell the rest of them about the Sovereign.”
“Roque found out. Praetorians on the Warchild.”
We walk back and I address my small council.
“You know we come here for Augustus, but there’s a second reason we press on Agea. The Sovereign is here.”
“No shit?” Clown mutters.
Rotback scratches his head. “Goryhell.”
“In the Citadel?” Pebble asks, excitedly nudging anxious Weed with her knee.
“In all probability. We traced Aja here. Residual radiation from the bomb we hit her team with on Europa. The other assaults are designed to draw manpower away from Agea so that we will have a chance to break through her walls and capture Octavia before her Ash Lord arrives with the full might of her armada.” And if the Sons have done their part as Ares promised, we should be able to get into the city without fighting through a hundred thousand armored men and women.
“Is Cassius in the city?” Sevro asks.
Mustang nods. “We think so.”
Sevro smiles.
“If you come upon Cassius, do not engange him,” I say. “Nor Karnus, nor Aja.”
“You’d have us run?” Clown asks, insulted.
“I’d have you live,” I say. “The prize is the Sovereign. Don’t be distracted by revenge, or pride. If we seize her, we are the new power in the Solar System, my friends.”
The Howlers share wolfish grins. Sevro squares his shoulders.
“So lets stop picking our butts.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Friendly ripWings roar overhead to clear out enemy forces along our path.
With all our powers marshaled, we move through the green canyon. No creeping column. We go fast. Speederbikes have more pace than starShells. Those Grays and the ones on spiders tear ahead after the ripWings and heavily armored dropships that will deposit men even closer to the wall. Flashes ahead indicate they’ve detonated mines or the mine killers have done their job. No way to tell. The canyon here is narrowing. Verdant canyon walls tower hugely in the distance to either side, colossal and unreal, like the terrain of a greater, larger race than man. I can’t see all my force in so vast a place, just the tip of the spear. We come after the fast-moving Grays, a skipping column of dreadful knights in starShells of black. The deluge of rain falls even harder. Behind us roll tanks and the infantry columns in their hover skiffs, lightly armored vehicles that can carry a hundred men in a flatbed. They’ll deposit them a kilometer from the walls. Lorn’s attack from the south will be much similar.