“This was the first helmet I made for Fitchner,” he says. “And the best, but he only used it a couple times. Thought it looked too expensive and would tip the Golds off that he had a backer. He’s not wrong. I did get carried away. It’s made of onyxium and is compatible with most suits. One of my best artificers worked on it.”
“Does it have a name?” I ask.
“The Twilight Helm,” Quicksilver declares.
“Never one for understatement, is he,” I say to Matteo.
“Well, this name’s very literal,” Quick says. “Put on the helmet and say, ‘I am Ares.’ ” I hesitate. It seems wrong. Like I’ve stolen a legacy. “Go on. It’s charged.”
“Not yet,” I say. “If Athena thinks I should, I will. But not yet.”
“I understand. I miss Fitchner too.” He looks a little disappointed. “Well then. I guess this is farewell. I don’t know what there is left to say.”
“You could say you changed your mind. That you think it’s not too late for our Republic,” I reply.
“If only I agreed.” He sticks out his hand. I take it gently in mine. His eyes drift to his ring on my pinky. He struggles to let go, but eventually he does. “It is in your hands now. You know what I think. But I’m an old coward. Prove me wrong.”
“I will. If you prove me right.”
Rolling his eyes, Quicksilver turns, squeezes Matteo’s shoulder, and walks away without looking back. Matteo watches after him before looking up at me. “I’m sorry I could not do more to help. It’s not that I don’t agree with you, but Regulus and this station…well…I can do more here, perhaps, in the end.”
I set a hand on his chest, over his heart.
“You’ve always been strong because you are gentle,” I say. “Thank you for everything.”
He folds both of his hands over mine. “It is a noble thing to keep the beasts from the door. Whatever people say, they could not say it if you didn’t.” He goes to his tiptoes, but still I have to bend for him to kiss my cheeks. “For Pax. For Virginia.” He kisses my forehead. “For you.” He kisses my nose and smirks. “For Sevro.”
“Sevro?”
“Well, he’d bite me.”
His eyes dance toward the hangar entrance. A mound of heavy weaponry wobbles toward us. Underneath it is Sevro. His long hair is gone. The sides of his head gleam from a fresh shave. He’s kept only a short spine of hair down the center of his head. His warhawk is back. His face is terrible and focused.
“There’s already weapons on the ship,” I note as he trudges past.
He doesn’t say anything and just goes up the ramp and into the ship. After a final embrace with Matteo, I follow with the helmet and seal the hatch. I find Sevro dumping his gear in front of a floor rack stocked with six new gravBikes. “Your da’s. Catch.”
I toss him the helmet and he lets it hit the floor with a thunk.
Right.
“You see the new pulseArmor?” I ask, trying to get him excited about anything. It’s already loaded in newly installed wall racks. I whistle as I approach it. “Slimmer than the models we used to fall on Mercury. These are built for speed. Double-joined couter, reinforced breastplate, nano-helm, adaptive camouflage skin, and he tripled the generator output capacity.” I lick the shoulder of one to test the flavor. “Polyenne fiber woven in. Godkiller’s right.”
I turn to see him still sorting his gear.
“So, you’re coming then,” I say. “And you got your warhawk back. Why the change of heart?”
He doesn’t look up. “Can’t go back yet.”
He sounds fatalistic, scary. “Sevro—”
“Drop it. I’m here. Let’s fly.”
I pick up the helmet from the floor. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re coming.” He says nothing. I let him alone, and head for the cockpit as the Archimedes lifts off to leave Quicksilver’s new world behind.
42
LYRIA
Rat in the Machine
THE ARCHIMEDES IS THE quietest ship I’ve ever traveled on. So quiet I fear the growling in my stomach can be heard as I crawl through the access tunnel from my sad little hiding place in the auxiliary reactor into the machine shop. MRE wrappers and drained water bladders, now filled with my shit and piss, trail behind me on a cord connected to my ankle. I draw them out after me and refit the access grate. I pause in the dim shop, straining to hear beyond the purr of the engines.
My mouth is chalky and swollen. My head pounding. All day I lay in my hiding place with the datapad Matteo gave me, studying Nagal, mind wandering to one thing and one thing only. Food. Food. Food. I’m mad from hunger and thirst.
When I hear nothing but the purr of engines, I slink through the machine shop toward the cargo bay. It is late in the ship cycle. The others should be in bed, the autopilot guiding the ship on its long journey across the Gulf. My hiding place seemed well-chosen at first. Located at the rear of the ship, just forward of the engines, the shop is seldom traversed by the crew of the Archimedes except for Sevro. Most day and night cycles I bear witness to his welding, his angle-grinding, his grunts, his curses, his giggles? And the music. Gods it’s terribly great.
What’s he making out there?
I know it’s my fault he’s not going home. He seems to have gone insane after the news of Ulysses. Dammit, but I wish I’d kept my mouth shut.
While I have gone nine days without being discovered as a stowaway, my hiding place has its disadvantages too. I have to travel forty meters, nearly the entire length of the ship, to refill my water and food supplies. So far I’ve braved only two supply expeditions. Each time I risk being discovered. If I steal too much at once it will be noticed.
No telling how they’ll react to a stowaway. They might turn the ship around, but maybe they’ll just jettison me out an airlock for my insolence…
I think back to the stories we shared in Camp 121 about these vaunted heroes. About their exploits and how my siblings and I dreamed of meeting them. In those fantastical stories, my brothers and sister always imagined we’d be their plucky lancers as Darrow and Sevro swept us away on their adventures, draping wolfcloaks around our shoulders when they realized what big hearts we had in our small bodies.
But now, seeing them, their scars, their machinelike limbs, the brooding danger in their eyes, well that burnt that illusion away like a welding torch over hair. These are serious people. Dangerous, serious people. They’d have to be to stand a chance at the game they play. Still, I guess I’d hoped they’d be nicer.
My heart pounds in the cargo bay as I pass under the gaze of their shiny new battle suits. They stand at attention in their racks, eerie and huge. The whole cargo bay portends violence. The place is stuffed with weapons and machines of war.
What have I gotten myself into?
I creep up the ramp, past the medical bay, training room, and showers. My armpits and privates stink, but I can’t chance a wash. Past those rooms I hold my breath for the most dangerous stretch of my expedition—the crew cabins. No sound comes from Darrow’s cabin, or the Pink’s. The faint murmur of voices creeps through the largest door, Cassius’s. He’s watching holos again. A metal bottle clinks, signaling he is awake. He’s always easiest to pin down, owing to his habits. Drinks like a miner, that one, mostly when the others are out and the hours are lonely. The only hours I can move around.