Suicide bomber. He was waiting for Ajax to blow.
“How’d you know?” I whisper, still a little stunned.
“Didn’t. Gut,” she says.
Ajax is even a little irked by her. “I owe you my life.”
“Thirteen.” She nods to me, meaning Ajax owes me the debt because she is Legio XIII Dracones, and Legio XIII Dracones is an extension of me. She glances at the other three Praetorians with a strange expression on her face.
“Let’s get back to it,” I say. A moment later, Rhone exits the tank. I enter. He doesn’t look happy.
“We’ve got a problem.” He shares a feed from our landfall on the moon’s surface. A ragged enemy dreadnaught is exchanging fire with our ships and escaping back toward the safety of Sector Three. “That’s the Pandemonia.”
Ajax senses the tension and fills the tank entrance behind me.
“I thought Julii was tied up on the pole—”
“She was. She just punched through and dropped her own Rain. Here.” His finger falls between Horatia’s force and Bastion One.
“How many did she drop?” I ask.
“As many as they could in a minute. Twenty thousand? More?”
I frown. “That woman is mad, but brave. I’ll give her that. Still I don’t see a problem. This is why we have Cicero in reserve. Send him from Bastion One to cut her off.”
“Cicero isn’t in Bastion One,” Rhone says. “Neither is his vanguard.”
I look back at Ajax. He’s dumbfounded. I’m already hailing Cicero with the tank’s powerful antennae. His face soon fills the display. He’s flying. He shouldn’t be. “Cicero, where are you?”
“Can’t talk. We’re hot on Augustus’s tail. She’s on the run through the latrine lines.”
I pause. Apollonius was to have Virginia. That was his price for giving my operation his public support. “Cicero, how many men do you have with you?”
“My vanguard, of course.” He goes on. “I know you’re wroth, but I’ll not have a Martian taking the glory. This day was made possible by Mercury. Her people and her honor should not play second fiddle to a vainglorious madman like the Minotaur.”
I close my eyes, too angry to speak, and listen to my troops pouring past into Sector Seven. Just a moment ago it was the sound of victory. How things change in the blink of an eye. “He’s ruined us,” Ajax says. “The greedy little bastard…”
I can yell later, but I can only fix it now. “Cicero, patch in Apollonius.”
Reluctant, he obeys. Apollonius is furious. He should be. Cicero is butting in on his operation. I silence their coms. “Goodmen, we can lay blame later. You both need to quit the pursuit and turn around now. Julii is on her way down. She is behind our lines. We believe she has Pegasus Legion and is headed for you.” Apollonius is already barking orders to turn around. Cicero still doesn’t understand the danger. “Cicero, you are probably flying into a counterattack coming up from the Hollows. They will slow you, and then you will be hit from behind by Victra and the only troops of the Free Legions not killed on your planet. The best troops. If you turn around, you may be able to slip past them. If you do not, you and all your men will be dead in thirty minutes.”
“If he’s lucky,” Rhone murmurs.
Cicero laughs, but his voice sounds very small. “Those can’t really be my choices.”
“I suggest following Apollonius’s orders. I will try to send help. Good luck.”
Rhone and Ajax let me think. “Rhone, recall the men. Tell Horatia and Diomedes to do the same. We’re overextended.”
He nods.
“You said if we didn’t take Phobos in a day, we wouldn’t take it in a year,” Ajax says.
I nod. “She’s behind our lines. Say Julii doesn’t go for them. Say she goes for Horatia or us or Diomedes. We’ll be lucky to not die on this moon, much less conquer it.”
“What if I cut the head off the snake?” Ajax says.
I stare at my friend. He is in his power, confident, competent, and the last man Victra should want seeking her head. There’s no vainglory in his eyes. No hubris. He is here for me as I was there for him when the storm raged in the Ladon. Hope flickers.
I glance at Rhone. “If he took Golds only, he could get there,” I say.
“He’d have to travel fast,” Rhone says.
“Speed, intiative, shock, you said.” Ajax steps toward me. “You did not spend Glirastes, your ships, and your men for a second Rat War. We are not just fighting the Republic, Lysander. If Atalantia comes…” He looks afraid. “This is our only shot.”
“I will go too then,” I say.
He grins. “We have always had different skills, you and I. This is what I do. Press the attack. Take the moon. I will guard your back.”
Gratitude swells in my heart. We bump heads and waste no more time. He rushes out. Rhone watches him go. “Octavia would have sent Aja,” he says, approving. “And he is better.”
That is little consolation. Victory balances on the edge of Ajax’s razor.
“Tell Apollonius and Cicero to expect him. Let Horatia and Diomedes know what’s happening.” I raise my helmet and head out with my Praetorians to press the attack into Sector Seven. A roar from my house infantry signals Ajax’s departure down the cargo tunnel. Fifty Gold knights trail after him.
29
VIRGINIA
Pity Them
SALVATION FLIES PAST OVER the tangerine trees of the hydroponic farms. A counterattack up from the Hollows. Armored Reds with Greens in mechs flow past to either side, saluting and cheering us. The water around the roots of the rows and rows of trees ripples in the wake of the mechs. Harnassus thunders past in a towering machine that salutes and trundles toward the fertilization plants in the distance.
We thought we were dead when my Lions and Obsidians shot our way out of the waste collector and emerged covered in shit. We heard our pursuers in the distance, and we ran. They were gaining on us even after we reached the fertilization facility and threaded our way through the huge haulers that ferry the fertilizer to the farm level.
We were running out of options. The levels closer to the hollow center of Phobos are vast. A far cry from the tight confines of the Bastions. In open ground, we would not have made it. But the vast levels also don’t block signals so onerously as those near the surface. I was able to call for help. Still, Votum and Rath bailed before they reached us at the fertilization plants, before they even saw Harnassus and the counterattack that’s still surging past us. What spooked our pursuers so badly they lost interest in a prize as juicy as me? I suppose I’ll find out soon.
My Lions and Valdir’s Obsidians stumble on toward the safety of our lines in the Hollows covered in feces and urine. The Obsidians are quite talkative, and seem to think they’re on a grand adventure. Some even splash along with Sophocles in the water to clean themselves.
“I smell like Blues,” an Obsidian mutters.
“Shut up. There are worse things than shit,” Valdir says.
“Imprisonment,” another Obsidian growls.
Valdir nods. “Yes. That is worse than shit.”