“You need a card.”
“Listen to my vowels,” I say with a nervous expression. “Look how short I am. I’m obviously from Mars.” They believe that. “Listen, he’ll kill me if he knows I slagged up. Can’t one of you take me to him? Throw cuffs on me if you need. Have you met him yet, the Son of Ares? Do you want to?”
“I can take her,” the Yellow says. The Green bickers. He wants to meet Sevro too. In the end, the Yellow wins and escorts me in. They lead me through a complex of halls to a big door that Greens are filing through. “Wait here—”
I dart right on past on the heels of the Greens.
I follow them into a room glowing with screens and buzzing with activity. Its epicenter is Darrow. Swarmed with Daughters, he stands at the holographic main display locked in an argument with Athena and Diomedes. The moon of Europa glows above them. A red dot travels through the sea. Then someone grabs my ear loud enough that I yelp. Darrow, Diomedes, and Athena all turn to stare at me as I’m dragged out of the room back into the hall pinned to the wall by Sevro.
“What are you doing?” he snarls in my face.
“You shaved your beard.” He shakes me. “I didn’t come all this way to be left in the cold. I need to talk to Darrow.”
“How did you—” He stops and turns his head to look at the Yellow, who stares at him in awe and terror. “Get,” he snaps. The Yellow bolts like a hare. “All the competent guards are off,” he mutters. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to Darrow.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing.”
He flicks my ear. “Opsec mean shit to you? What did you see?”
“What’s opsec?”
“What. Did. You. See.”
“Nothing, just a few displays.” His eyes narrow, but he seems to believe me. “Sevro, I need to talk to Darrow. Tell him he gave his word.”
* * *
—
Hours later, I’m dozing in the command center’s commissary when I feel the bench beside me sigh in protest. I sit up. Wiping sleep from my eyes, I glance over to see Darrow hunched above a pile of chow. Unlike Sevro, he still has his beard. He seems a different creature than the commander I saw in the war room. Tired, smaller somehow. His left hand has a tremor. His neck’s stooped, body contracted. I almost feel bad for interrupting his moment of respite.
“Heard you wanted to talk,” he says. “We’ve a lot of plates in the air. I’ve a hard out in five minutes.”
Sevro slides in on the other side of me and digs into his chow. “That means talk.”
“We had a deal,” I say.
“That’s why you have minutes,” Darrow says.
“I can help you.”
Darrow grimaces as he chews. “Listen. Lyria, I’m sure you think you can but—”
“Condescension? After that speech?” I ask. “This is my fight too, or were those words just to make sure you didn’t swing?” Annoyed that he won’t look at me, I pull his tray away from him. He spears a potato with his fork and pulls the tray back as he chews.
Doubt plays tricks on me. Tells me to just let him go. Don’t slow him down. I’m out of my depth. War is his game. But I ain’t gonna sleep sound in the barracks huddled with the children and the tender Colors as the Obsidians batter down the gates.
“I never loved Mars till I left it,” I try. “Mars wasn’t my home. The mines were my home. I loved them. Probably because I was a Gamma, but I loved them and you destroyed them.” Sevro’s eyes dart to Darrow. “You destroyed my world. It’s gone and never coming back. Part of me will always hate you for that. But the farther and farther I go from Mars, the more I miss it. The more I want to fight for it. Lads and lasses younger than me will be shouldering rifles against Atalantia soon if they aren’t already. Lads and lasses that lasted the assimilation camps like me. It wasn’t their choice either, to leave the mines. You chose for us. But they ain’t hiding or whining like I’ve done. They’re fighting. This is my choice. I want to help.” I lean closer to the man. “And between you and me, my value in the fray ain’t in a Drachenjäger or manning an artillery piece or hauling freight. My value’s in my social standing with a certain Obsidian.”
Darrow sets his fork down and looks at me. Finally, I’m more interesting than his food. Sevro keeps eating.
“I know you think Volga’s gone over to Fá lock and stock,” I press.
“She leads a division now according to Sigurd,” he replies. “Fá calls her ‘daughter.’ ”
“But does she call him ‘father’？” I plow on. “You don’t know Volga like I do. She is a good person, Darrow. She’s just never had a fair shake. So she adapts. It’s what she does. Right now, she’s lost. Like you said to those Obsidians on Io. I can guide her home. Deep down, Volga loves the Republic. She gave herself up to Fá to protect its people. Send me up top. Send me into the Obsidians. I’ll bring her back to her senses.”
His eyes narrow. “Send you into the Obisidans? How?”
“Use Sigurd,” I say. “Have him take me to Volga.”
“We don’t know where she is. Neither will he. It’s an invasion, Lyria. It’ll be madness soon as they hit atmosphere.” Darrow shakes his head. “You don’t even speak Nagal.”
“Ja ig syn fal tanga,” I reply. He frowns. Sevro grins.
“You knew?” Darrow asks him.
Sevro shrugs. “May have heard her practicing every night on the Archi.” I scoot a little away from him, bringing me closer to Darrow.
“You been tall so long you forgot what it looks like down here,” I say to him. “How a Red like me can slip under a big man’s gaze. From what I hear, ain’t many bigger than Fá. I know you’re planning something. Let me help turn Volga’s heart. For Mars.”
“You’re afraid I’m going to kill her,” he says.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do. But Ragnar was your friend. Don’t you owe it to him to save his daughter?” I ask.
“She never met Ragnar,” Sevro says.
“Is that her fault?” I ask. “She was bred in a lab, then moved freight in Echo City, then she was a freelancer, then a prisoner, then…”
“Warlord,” Sevro says, unhelpful.
“She is the Republic,” I say, and Darrow’s frown deepens but it seems like a good thing. Am I getting traction? “It’s not her fault that she became what she had to. But I know if I came to her and told her she could help you two…she would.”
“She stole our kids,” Sevro says. “Unlike you, she was an active participant. She shot Kavax. I like Kavax.”
“And then she defended Victra against the Red Hand. Please, please trust me.”
Darrow just prods his potatoes until they come apart under his fork. He twirls the skin around one of the prongs. “Have you considered what will happen if you’re caught? Or if you are wrong about her?”
I look at his now-mashed taters. “Yeah.”