So much for the conservative siege we’d once expected. At least Atalantia isn’t with them.
“A Rain,” I say with a shake of my head. “I really didn’t think the Rim had it in them. Maybe Apollonius is in command after all.”
“Helios would never cede the battle plan to a Core Gold, much less Apollonius,” Kavax says, his gaze on thePandemonia,and his thoughts on Thraxa. Only just returned and back to the fray. “Sophocles is likelier to feedmejellybeans.”
“It’s early yet,” I say. “I suppose we will see.”
A rectangle of light forms three-fourths of the way up Bastion One to permit us access. Forty heavy assault shuttles follow mine into the pyramidal fortress.
I leave most of my Lionguards in the hangars and ride the high-security lift with Kavax and Holiday down into the belly of BastionOne. With my head down, I trudge out as soon as the doors open. Ahead, a symphony of bolts and oiled steel clunks and rasps. Interdiction slabs shift and security doors dilate open to grant us access to the military nerve center of Phobos—the Nucleus.
Petty officers scatter to the side as my cavalcade enters. The door guards announce me. “The Sovereign of the Republic!”
Five hundred officers and technicians snap to attention at their stations around the interior of the sphere that comprises the Nucleus. I plunge toward the command platform at its center. The best of the Republic’s naval aristocracy wait there for me. Most are holograms beamed in from their ships. Even at short range, the enemy’s electronic warfare degrades their avatars. A few of my Legates wait off to the side.
I step onto the command deck. “Void.”
A white-walled cathedral of silence forms around the officers. Oro, the Blue commander of Phobos, is sixty, and lean as a bloodhound. His cobalt eyes are ringed with the insomniac circles of a Dostoyevsky protagonist. “Imperator Julii is nearly in place. Phobos stands ready. OBC control is yours, my Sovereign.”
He sets a glossy black battle crown on my head. The crown gives me access to the Nucleus’s systems, and the sudden influx of information is similar in sensation to being dunked into cold water at high speed. A few breaths and I adjust to the stream.
“This is the Sovereign. I have the crown.”
Two hundred battle-station commanders confirm. With the crown I can micromanage them but not the fleet itself. I am not as good as my Imperators are at their jobs, so no need to bother. I wave my hand and Mars appears in the air. The visual of the battlefield resembles a three-dimensional representation of a cell with Mars surrounded by a dense orbital shell of neutrons and protons—her orbital battle-station complex, or OBC. They orbit in two staggered shells. Shell One at six thousand kilometers from the surface. Shell Two is at three thousand. There are minefields in the gaps between the stations along with a dazzling array of gun batteries on the surface of Mars, but the surface guns will come into play only if they launch an Iron Rain. To launch an Iron Rain, they have to get through both layers of the OBC.
Static defenses are never enough on their own, not in this epoch of warfare. Spears went through chainmail after all. The OBC may look dense on the display but if the map was to scale, the size of the gapsbetween the battle stations would startle an amateur’s eye. The fleet and the OBC must work in tandem.
I watch the spear that represents Victra’s flagship slide into place over the north pole. Her fleet is new and heavy and nearly a match for the Core contingent in the enemy armada on its own. The other two strike forces match the Rim ships well enough in tonnage if not speed. With the planet, Phobos, and the OBC the battle is ours to lose. Oddly, that makes me nervous.
“Imperators report,” I say.
“Pandemoniais in the pocket. Task Force Spear stands ready,”Victra says.
Niobe, Kavax’s wife, reports from the south pole.“Task Force Fox ready.”
“Task Force Warlock ready.”Colloway Char was eager to be put to use. The hero has been promoted to Imperator today and commands myDejah Thorisand my household ships in defense of Phobos.
There is nothing to do now but wait and see where the enemy intends to focus the thrust of their attack. Darrow would loathe sacrificing the initiative, but Victra, Oro, and the Blue hive all agree the defensive posture gives us more advantages. To attack with the fleet beyond the kill zone of the OBC guns is to waste those guns and equal the odds. And with Victra’s powerful fleet on the pole, she can meet the enemy wherever they thrust.
I watch with Kavax, Holiday, and my commanders as the enemy armada creeps closer. Thirty minutes becomes twenty. Twenty becomes ten. A sea of radio chatter from the hundreds of ripWing squadron leaders murmurs in the background.
The enemy is arranged in six spherical battlegroups and one floater. TheDustmaker,the powerful moonBreaker of Helios au Lux, leads the crème of the Rim fleet. Dido leads another group in her husband’s old dreadnaught,Shadow Dragon. Diomedes leads the smallest and nimblest group from his destroyer,Charybdis. I keep an eye on that one.
The Core groups are led by Julia au Bellona, Apollonius, and Cicero au Votum. Julia’s is the strongest group and populated with the flagships of many moderate houses. Cicero leads the Reformers and the Votum ships. Apollonius leads the smallest but newest group of ships, ones he must have acquired as master of the Dockyards of Venus. Niobe is keyed on him. Trailing behind those battlegroups is a sight that boils the bloodof all Republic patriots—the floater fleet, led by theMorning Star.Though its transponder says the ship has been rechristened as theLightbringer.
To see Darrow’s ship in Lysander’s perfumed hands disgusts me.
It is the biggest thing on the field. At eight kilometers in length it outstrips the olderDustmakerin length by two kilometers, Victra’sPandemoniaby three, and myDejah Thorisby four. Its refurbishment is clearly not complete. It’s not even painted and looks like Frankenstein’s monster—its hull a heterogenous patchwork of steel harvested off the carcasses of the White Fleet, which Atalantia crushed over Mercury.
I wish Orion and Darrow were here to take their ship back.
“Your intelligence still believes theLightbringerposes no true tactical threat?” I ask Oro, dubious.
“Indeed. Less than a third of its surface guns have been replaced, and its reactor output readings are meager. No one has ever heard of her captain, and Lune would need years to build a talented ecosystem of House Blues. The ship is like the boy, a hollow symbol. He is taunting us to lure us out. Tempting us to take her back.”
“Then let’s not be lured,” I say to all my Imperators.
“Seems Lune somehow profited off the chaos on Venus. Are those ships a bribe from House Carthii?” Kavax muses and squints at the nine unpainted destroyers that surround theLightbringer.“Those are fresh off the spindles. Two don’t even have surface guns. How can he possibly crew them?”
