My com crackles.“Howler One, we have a confirmed receipt from Athena. We’re to stand by for instructions,”Sevro says.
My heart soars. “You mean she’s still alive?” I say.
“Looks like. Aurae think she has assets on Io still. We’re to stand by for instructions.”
“Report back when you get them.”
“Registers.”
The com clicks off. I sigh in relief. Diomedes is still staring at me. “Where were we?” I ask.
“How is Volsung Fá a threat to the Republic?” he repeats.
“He isn’t,” I say. “He’s already done his damage to us. But the entity pulling his strings is very much a threat. There’s something, or someone, behind this warlord. That is always the enemy you must fear the most. The unseen one who strikes from the shadows.”
Diomedes does not encourage me to continue, but he does not argue. For a flashing second, I see recognition and surprise play out on his otherwise impassive face. He has had these worries himself, it seems.
“Do you believe in magic?” I ask. He looks almost offended. “Clairvoyance?”
“Of course not.”
“So you agree no woman or man can see the future.”
“Are you mocking me? No. Of course not.”
“Good. Because there’s something that’s not been making sense to me.” I rub my hands together hoping to draw him out of his shell. “Something about all this that doesn’t fit. Now, I don’t have all the intel, but Virginia passed me some as we sped past Mars. I got some more from a very rich old friend. And the rest with my own eyes.
“This campaign against Ilium isorganized. This is not some raid ofopportunity. It couldn’t be. We know that Volsung Fá is a Core-born Obsidian who somehow united the various Ascomanni of the Belt and the Far Ink. You know as well as I that a task of that magnitude would takeyears. But our Obsidian friend did not stop there: he managed a coup against the recently independent Sefi, and subsequently stole the Volk legions and their navy out from under her. It’s not the theft itself I can’t swallow—Obsidian thrones are often won through bloodshed—it’s the precision with which the theft was carried out.”
“So, he’s clever for an Obsidian. That doesn’t mean—”
“It’s not just cleverness, it’s not just his mastery of the Obsidians’ psychology. It’s the logistics. If Fá was ruling the Ascomanni all the way out in the Kuiper Belt—a year’s journey at least—how did he know to arrive on Mars exactly when Sefi’s reign was the most vulnerable? She’d only just rebelled from the Republic and claimed the mines of Cimmeria for her Alltribe. Can he see the future? Or is it more reasonable there is a degree of coordination and patience to this play?”
Diomedes turns this over in his mind. His jaw clenches. I continue.
“This campaign against Ilium would have been impossible without the Volk fleet, without the Volk braves, without your navy being off to war in the Core. Yet based on the timetable, all the pieces had to have been in motion long before the Rim declared war. So…how did Fá know the Rim was going to be otherwise engaged? Before your own rulers did? Before Cassius and Lysander ever arrived with the evidence of my crimes against the Rim? Years before, in fact. Can he see the future, Diomedes?”
He does not answer, but thoughts swirl behind his eyes. I’d give almost anything for him to put them into words.
“Then there’s the matter of Kalyke. Where the Dragon and Dust armadas, two of the most storied fleets in history, led by one of the Rim’s best commanders, were destroyed without Fá even breaking a sweat. I saw his navy when we landed here: intact, and, except for those dreadnaughts, decidedly mediocre. That navy should be in tatters, even in victory. It looks like he lost barely a ship during the ambush. Was your navy made of porcelain? Has Helios become incompetent in his old age? Was Dido equally mediocre?” His jaw flexes. “Was it a miracle?” I pause, waiting for him to correct me. He doesn’t. “You were there. Guard your secrets if you must, but I think it’s more likely there was an unseen hand at play. An unseen hand that led you into an ambush, thatguided the Rim into the war at precisely the right time, possibly even inciting Sefi to abandon me on Mercury and seek independence on Mars.”
When said aloud, it all seems far less paranoid than it did in my head. “Maybe I have become paranoid after a decade of war,” I allow. “Maybe I’m swinging at ghosts. Maybe Fáischarismatic enough to unite the Volk and the Ascomanni. Clairvoyant enough to plan a war that was only possibleifyour navy was gone. And brilliant enough to crack Sungrave and the Garter in one-tenth the time it would have taken me.” His eyes narrow at that, but even if he hates me he knows I know my business. “Impossible? No. Improbable? Yes.
“But here’s the thing, Diomedes. Neither you nor me are amateurs at warfare. Been at this awhile now. What I’ve learned is war on this scale is preposterously complicated. The logistics of food alone for one starship…well thank Jove your people designed Coppers. In war, nothing, and I mean nothing—not even your own bowel movements—are perfectly predictable. War is hard, but this bastard is making it look easy. Too damn easy. So all that combined, where does it leave us? It leaves us to ask the question at the center of the maze:qui bono. So.Qui bono,Diomedes? Who benefits from this death and destruction on the Rim?”
I’ll give one thing to Diomedes: whoever trained him to withhold his emotions deserves a medal. The man is less expressive than even the stone ancestors that watch us from the wall with their permanent sneers. I’m so focused on trying to chisel meaning from his stony face that I nearly jump out of my skin when my com crackles with an incoming call from Cassius.“Howler One, do you register?”
Diomedes shifts forward, hopeful.
“I register, Eagle One. Did you find Gaia or Thalia?” I ask.
“Negative. I have enemy contactwest sector four,”Cassius says.
“Shit. Really? I didn’t think the enemy would still be picking Sungrave’s bones. Ascomanni?”
“Volk.”My heart beats faster. I stream Cassius’s helmet feed into the air. A chain of captives shuffles through the gloom of a subterranean garage.“Small team. They must still be drilling into the bunkers to make sure they get everyone. By the looks of it, they’ve found some Blues and Greens, all with interface plugs. High value Colors. Do you recognize the braves?”
I zoom in on the enemy shown in Cassius’s feed. Over their heavy armor the Obsidians wear pale ram furs with a crimson streak.Blood Horn aerial cavalry. Skarde’s lot. That tracks. Of all my former Obsidian centurions, Skarde was always amongst the greediest.
