“Siege and stasis on Mars and Luna,” he replies. “Though that doesn’t stop Lady Bellona from playing Cassandra. She thinks Atalantia will sail on Mars any day.”
“Then we must be quick.”
Cicero pulls the command sceptre from its holster on his back. It was commissioned for the campaign to denote his imperium over theassembled factions. It is a bundle of iron rods that leads to a lightning bolt. “Your fleet stands ready, Lysander.”
“To return home,” Pallas adds. She stands with Lady Bellona’s clients.
I don’t take the sceptre yet. I greet Pallas warmly.
“Pleased to see you retain all your parts, Lune,” Pallas says. Her smile dissembles her wariness. Meanwhile her eyes collect and catalogue evidence to report back to Julia. To her, something’s not adding up. “After seeing Kalyke, even I must admit you are indeed blessed by fortune. My Bellona ships are prepared to make for Mars as soon as you give the order, as are those of our clients.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Mars?”
“Yes. This side venture was already ill-advised. The Lady Bellona would not have you risk our main endeavor on this…catastrophe that has nothing to do with our efforts anymore.”
I smile and stride past her to remove my jacket and shirt. I bare my chest and back to my Praetorians and walk down the line. They might hate Moonies, so I’ll play to their pride instead of their virtue. I tear off the bandages one by one to show the wounds Atlas gave me to lend credit to my harrowing story of survival.
“Look upon your Imperator,” I call. “Look what Fá and his horde have done to me. Will you let this stand? Can Obsidians and Far Ink reptiles now brutalize a Peerless son of Luna with impunity? What say you, Praetorians? Shall we retreat? Or shall we hunt?”
The result is predictable. Shamed for a decade by the death of Octavia on their watch, the Praetorians respond with: “Hunt! Hunt! Hunt!”
I clothe myself and address the New Shepherds next. “Most of you are new men, new women. Your families are not yet storied. Many hold that in contempt. I do not. You wrote the first chapter of your family’s legend on Phobos. Write its second with me now, and show all that you are the true keepers of the virtues the Conquerors held dear. You defend the weak. You shelter the low. Should the oceans rise, the sky fall, the darkness creep—you keep the wolves from the flock.”
They pull their razors and salute.
With my foundation shored up, I return to the ficklest of my allies and change tack yet again. “My friends, you have risked personal fortune and our cause itself by following me here. The safe route is retreat. The bold route is forward. In days like this, with enemies like ours,boldness is prudence and retreat is folly. Now is the time to show the Rim that we are worth a thousand Atalantias.”
They glance at one another, nervous to face the horde that humbled the Rim Armada.
“What good is an ally without a navy?” Pallas contends. “Shall we risk our lives, our ships, our soldiers, for those who can no longer aid us in our war? Who may not help us if they could?”
“My goodlady, Ilium is but a part of the Rim. Their domain is vast and slow to cross. They have more fleets. I assure you. Though they will not arrive in time. What we do here Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn will see, and they will remember.”
Light kindles in the eyes of a few. Cicero herds the rest.
“The Raa cannot stand with us to defend their worlds,” he says. “So we will stand for them. Yes?” He glares at his clients. “Yes?”
They nod in twos or threes, but in the end they all nod. Except Pallas. I thank them and return to her. “Lady Bellona didn’t invest in an endeavor. She invested in me. Remember that, Pallas.” She watches me with a thoughtful smile, but does not press the issue. I button my jacket back up and extend my hand to Cicero. “I’ll take my fleet now.”
Grinning, he hands me the sceptre of command.
I twist the sceptre’s lightning bolt. My image streams onto the bridges of the fleet and my voice into the ears of all the sailors, legionnaires, and crew of the fleet.
“This is Lysander au Lune. I have reclaimed imperium over the fleet from Praetor Votum. You have sailed past Kalyke and seen the slaughter there. But the situation is more dire than you know. Not only has the enemy sacked Io, they have razed Callisto with atomics. Soon they will have Europa in their clutches. They have enslaved millions of our fellow citizens. And they have seized Demeter’s Garter. They hold its destruction hostage over the Rim. Their war, their crime, is not just against our allies, it is against civilization itself! In his madness, the warlord known as Volsung Fá wishes to drag us back to the bitter pit of chaos from which mankind barely escaped.”
As I orate I begin to pace. Walking with increasing speed and intensity past Praetorians whose eyes follow my every step. Past excited young Golds, eager to make their mark. Eventually, I come to Rhone and his eyes narrow with intensity. He is pleased with my performance. I pour on the gravitas.
“Fá is a cunning and brutal adversary. He has trampled all in his path. He does not yet know the taste of defeat. In his arrogance he thinks himself the lone power left in Ilium. He has divided his forces and so made a fatal error. One we will exploit by reclaiming the Garter with utmost haste. Once the threat of famine is removed, we will hunt the beast himself and teach his horde that civilization has teeth.”
—
After meeting with my officers to explain my escape from Kalyke and dictate the plan Rhone and I created during our wait on Valetudo, I retire to my stateroom and summon Pytha. My stateroom is a heavily secured network of chambers not far from the bridge. The metallic nature of warships is softened by wood paneling chosen by Horatia au Votum. The engravings of my family history in the wood were not yet complete when we left Mercury. They are now. A pleasant surprise followed by another as I’m greeted by Exeter in the atrium.
I’d almost forgotten I’d commissioned him as my valet before my poisoning. I feel a pang of longing for Glirastes. Exeter’s presence, more than the luxuries of the rooms, makes the stateroom feel more like home.
“May I recommend Debussy and a clean shave now that you’re back from the wild,dominus? It always put Master Glirastes at ease.”
Washed, clean-shaven, and dressed in my formal whites, I wait for Pytha in my library. Amidst the classic texts that line the walls, I recline on a chair examining the completed painting on the ceiling. It is a scene of the Conquering. My oldest ancestor is not alone in any of the images. Akari accompanies him—sometimes standing beside him, sometimes behind. I thought such images would impress Diomedes when he stood here with me. Instead, it is to be a different Raa beside me. A shadow that no portrait will ever render.
