“Yes. Because you have to take it. Atalantia waits, licking her lips for you.”
“You could drag it out for months. But we both know where the battle for Mars will be won. On the ground. In the tunnels. All this is blood down the drain. Yours, mine, all while Atalantia grows stronger.”
Oddly enough, that is my problem as much as it is his.
“Yes,” I say. “I’ve seen footage of your address to the Two Hundred by now. I knew things were not perfect between you and your fiancée, but I must admit I hadn’t counted on you openly rebelling against her.”
“Can you blame me?” he asks.
“Not one bit. Truly, I thought it was an expertly navigated and well said bit of discourse.”
He smiles at that, the genuine compliment being received in kind.
“Virginia, I’ve known you almost my entire life. You’ve taught me some of my most cherished lessons. Chief among them, that we as a people need a language other than violence, or this war will never end. In many ways you and I are more alike than anyone else in this struggle. We were both raised in the shadows of tyrants and expected to be the same. But you are not Nero any more than I am Octavia. You proved it by sparing my life all those years ago. Allow me to prove it now.”
At last, a hint of light.
“How?”
“A solution to this…quagmire. If you agree to quit Phobos with all your legions, I will guarantee safe passage to the planet.”
“Including those encircled?”
“Yes.”
It actually is generous. “In return?”
“You will agree to neither sabotage nor scuttle the Julii-Sun shipyards. You will leave behind no saboteurs or assassins. You will, where possible, disarm your booby traps and turn over the codes to the defense systems to me.”
“That seems…generous of me,” I say.
“It’s not. You will suffer a blow to your reputation, as well as lose your seat in orbit, and your ability to make ships. But that is already lost. With this, you stop the bleeding and your Republic will live to fight another day.”
“Is that all I get?” I ask.
“The taking of Mars is a complex puzzle of which Phobos is only one piece. Any mistake on my part and my host will fracture or disappear into the red soil below. I will have the docks but no fresh helium. Our stores are as low as you seem to think they are.” I smile at that. “I will have the moon, but a host of allies eager for their cut, and I spent all my ships.”
“Except one. I noticed you’re putting part of the dockyards to use on the Lightbringer. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone doing naval repairs during a battle before.” He does not reply. “To whom will you bequeath the moon?” He looks uncomfortable. “Come now, you won’t keep it for yourself. You’ll look greedy.”
“Apollonius.”
“Not your chief investor? Bellona won’t like that.”
“Of all my allies, if you could secure the loyalty of any, which would you choose? Were you me,” he asks.
I consider the question. Lysander and I do have similar ways of thinking. I would lock down the one ally my competitors would try to steal.
“Let me understand, just so we’re clear, I’m to aid your war effort because I find you marginally less detestable than Atalantia au Grimmus,” I say.
“Only marginally?”
“I would need a little more than a vague notion of your intent against Atalantia,” I say.
“When I charged Phobos, I secured my reputation for valor. It was unsteady. But I lost some of that shine I had in Rome from all this. So now I need to show I am an investment that pays off. If I do, I’ll have the numbers to call a referendum to remove her dictatorial powers. Then, once her immunity is gone, I will call her to the Bleeding Place, and I will kill her.”
I watch him carefully through the glass of his helmet. He means it, or he’s an even better liar than I am. “She’s a fair blade.”
“So am I.”
“You don’t have a reputation for that.”
“Good.”
“If you do that without a cause for blood, it will cast you as an immature, power-hungry little man.”
“I have cause for blood. Atalantia killed my mother and my father. Which is why I’ll ask one last thing from the Sovereign of the illfated Republic as part of this merciful and honorable bargain.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll be needing two Oracles. If you can spare them.”
I think of my tanks back in Agea. “I can if you can spare a Telemanus.”
He considers. “For a Votum?”
“Just what I was thinking.”
He nods. “I think it is important for you and me to understand, we are at war, but this war will not end until we can be civilized.” He pauses. “We recovered Ajax’s body, but I would like his head.”
* * *
—
My friends and commanders roar in outrage when I tell them the deal I’ve struck with Lune. Sitting with her mother, Thraxa actually turns purple with rage. Screwface shakes his head and lists the casualties we’ve taken. Only Holiday nods along in agreement with me. Victra says nothing. She reclines in a chair with her legs spread and a whiskey balanced on her chest.
Char stands up. “We lose the docks, we lose the war. Ships are our only hope.”
“Of course you’d say that,” Harnassus says.
“Because I’m a Blue?”
“Because you’re a fighter pilot, man. Red, Blue, Vermillion, you all fight to the last,” Harnassus says. His eyes twinkle at me. “Are you thinking we turtle the fleet? Play at friction between Lune and Atalantia?”
I smile. “They’re their own worst enemy. We give this to Lysander, he’s a competitor. He’s also our best chance of taking out Atalantia.”
“So we want to empower a Lune to unite the Society?” Char asks. “That’s mad.”
“He’s weaker. He depends on alliances. On pleasing greedy tyrants who all think they’re his most valuable ally,” Holiday says. “He can unite them because they are afraid of Atalantia. And we should be too. She is raw power and a realist. Lune is an idealist. When she’s gone, his allies will fight to fill her vacuum. There will be division. Factions. Weakness. Is that not a better plan than ramming our head against a wall up here?” Everyone turns and looks at the cinder block of a woman. Even Victra. “What? The price these people paid for Phobos, you think they want to take on Mars? All the people that died up here just bought Mars a reprieve, unless Atalantia swoops in. So let’s give her a problem, yeah?”
Victra sips her whiskey. “Well, that’s settled. We need to win so the grunt can run for office.” Holiday looks embarrassed. I couldn’t be prouder of her.
“It all comes down to one question in the end,” I say. “Who will crack first? Mars? Or the Golds? I bet my life on us a long time ago. Looking at the people in this room, I would do it again.”
“Oh, don’t get emotional,” Victra says. “You’re the Sovereign. We have to do as you say.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, because I’ve agreed to not scuttle the dockyards as we depart.” No one speaks, but I sense their unease. “And you will have to give Ajax’s head back, Victra.”