“Imperators report,” I say.
“Pandemonia is in the pocket. Task Force Spear stands ready,” Victra says.
Niobe, Kavax’s wife, reports from the south pole. “Task Force Fox ready.”
“Task Force Warlock ready.” Colloway Char was eager to be put to use. The hero has been promoted to Imperator today and commands my Dejah Thoris and my household ships in defense of Phobos.
There is nothing to do now but wait and see where the enemy intends to focus the thrust of their attack. Darrow would loathe sacrificing the initiative, but Victra, Oro, and the Blue hive all agree the defensive posture gives us more advantages. To attack with the fleet beyond the kill zone of the OBC guns is to waste those guns and equal the odds. And with Victra’s powerful fleet on the pole, she can meet the enemy wherever they thrust.
I watch with Kavax, Holiday, and my commanders as the enemy armada creeps closer. Thirty minutes becomes twenty. Twenty becomes ten. A sea of radio chatter from the hundreds of ripWing squadron leaders murmurs in the background.
The enemy is arranged in six spherical battlegroups and one floater. The Dustmaker, the powerful moonBreaker of Helios au Lux, leads the crème of the Rim fleet. Dido leads another group in her husband’s old dreadnaught, Shadow Dragon. Diomedes leads the smallest and nimblest group from his destroyer, Charybdis. I keep an eye on that one.
The Core groups are led by Julia au Bellona, Apollonius, and Cicero au Votum. Julia’s is the strongest group and populated with the flagships of many moderate houses. Cicero leads the Reformers and the Votum ships. Apollonius leads the smallest but newest group of ships, ones he must have acquired as master of the Dockyards of Venus. Niobe is keyed on him. Trailing behind those battlegroups is a sight that boils the blood of all Republic patriots—the floater fleet, led by the Morning Star. Though its transponder says the ship has been rechristened as the Lightbringer.
To see Darrow’s ship in Lysander’s perfumed hands disgusts me.
It is the biggest thing on the field. At eight kilometers in length it outstrips the older Dustmaker in length by two kilometers, Victra’s Pandemonia by three, and my Dejah Thoris by four. Its refurbishment is clearly not complete. It’s not even painted and looks like Frankenstein’s monster—its hull a heterogenous patchwork of steel harvested off the carcasses of the White Fleet, which Atalantia crushed over Mercury.
I wish Orion and Darrow were here to take their ship back.
“Your intelligence still believes the Lightbringer poses no true tactical threat?” I ask Oro, dubious.
“Indeed. Less than a third of its surface guns have been replaced, and its reactor output readings are meager. No one has ever heard of her captain, and Lune would need years to build a talented ecosystem of House Blues. The ship is like the boy, a hollow symbol. He is taunting us to lure us out. Tempting us to take her back.”
“Then let’s not be lured,” I say to all my Imperators.
“Seems Lune somehow profited off the chaos on Venus. Are those ships a bribe from House Carthii?” Kavax muses and squints at the nine unpainted destroyers that surround the Lightbringer. “Those are fresh off the spindles. Two don’t even have surface guns. How can he possibly crew them?”
“Bellona, I wager.”
Kavax comes closer. “Does your…source have any insight?”
I shake my head. “Not about this. And I’d doubt him even more if he did.”
Kavax nods, happy our strategy is our own and not my source’s.
A strange report comes from Oro. “My Sovereign, they’re reducing velocity.”
He’s right. I turn off the command deck’s void to see the Blues of my tactics hive chittering to each other. Soon they present an adjusted list of the enemy’s potential tactics and attack vectors ordered by probability.
“Virginia, are you seeing this?” Victra asks.
“I see.”
“What is Helios doing?” Victra murmurs. “Speed is their only advantage. Does he want to spend more time in the gauntlet of our guns?”
“It might not be Helios in command after all. Eccentricity is Apollonius’s forte,” I reply. “Maybe a split command?”
I glance at Holiday to shore up my anxiety about sabotage. “All vital installations have been swept, my Sovereign. Every reactor, every shield generator is under watch,” she reaffirms. “If the enemy wants passage, they must pay for it.”
All is in order, yet a nagging thought remains. Why in Minerva’s name would they dare attack without Atalantia in the first place? Why take these odds?
There is nothing to do but wait and find out.
Gods, I hate playing defense.
21
VIRGINIA
Petard
FOR AN HOUR, THE enemy’s armada circles around Mars’s equator like a shiver of sharks. They travel just beyond the no-man’s-land that exists between the OBC and the maximum effective range of its guns. Holding their positions on the poles, Victra’s and Niobe’s groups shadow the tightly packed enemy, waiting for them to make their move. Missiles flit between the lines, but with the anti-missile systems of both forces deployed, few find their mark.
In the second hour, Diomedes’s battlegroup begins to flirt with our outer perimeter. They test for weaknesses and get a bloody nose from our long guns. It’s a familiar game. They try to tease out as much information on the OBCs strength as they can, and we try to withhold while still getting a few licks in. Then thousands of Blues of each navy analyze the skirmishes and pass their findings up the chain. Pixel by pixel commanders from both sides form a clearer picture of the strength of their opponents.
Very conservative. Very Helios au Lux.
By the fourth hour, the anxiety of waiting for the enemy to attack in earnest has begun to wear on my commanders, but we cannot lose if we maintain discipline, so I am on the horn constantly with all of them. The only change in the enemy’s pattern of feint and withdrawal occurs by accident when Lysander takes his turn testing our perimeter. One of his destroyers loses its shield under the converging fire of three battle stations and barely limps out of range to safety. His battlegroup falls behind the others. “Those are escape pods,” Oro says. “They’re abandoning ship.”
There’s laughter around the Nucleus. But not from Kavax. “A veteran would know, fresh off the assembly line there’s always a few lemons,” he murmurs. “Least he’s decent enough to pick them up.” True enough, just beyond the effective range of our guns, the Lightbringer comes to a halt to recover the escape pods.
“I could pounce on him and kill him,” Victra suggests.
“That’s bait,” I say. “Hold your position. Continue shadowing the main fleet. If a mistake is to be made, let it be them who makes it.”
“Yes, my Sovereign. But I’m growing roots up here.”
Kavax still stares at the Lightbringer. Something feels off. “Oro, how long until Phobos and Lysander are directly aligned?” I ask.
He frowns. “Thirty-one minutes.”
I tell Char to be ready just in case Lysander does something foolhardy.
Oro is skeptical. “You think Lune would risk a frontal assault on Phobos? While we have triple fleet coverage?”