But the next glimpse shows a fuzzier picture: His charge has stalled. The stubborn Praetorians refuse to be routed. They rally again and again and entrench in the cityscape, delaying him, giving their brothers behind them time and cover to flow down to support their vanguard inside the moon.
It’s impossible to find Kavax in the fray. Enemy sensor-jamming is killing everything except direct laser coms. Armies of codebreakers on both sides wage war from deep within bunkers while battle-brave Green fulgur bellatores—lightning warriors—sneak through the warzone to hard hack and enslave enemy systems or remotely hijack vessels or guns.
Despite the chaos, Kavax is doing his job. I struggle with the magnitude of my own, and I almost miss two clawDrills threatening to break through our lower perimeter. I move eight centuries to intercept. By the time I’ve cycled back to them ten minutes later, the clawDrills are downbut the centuries I sent to stop them are already broken and in flight. The enemy group responsible for the rout is moving fast. They’re over two hundred strong and pressing for the maintenance lifts to the sector’s reactor. I hurl more men from nearby at them only to watch their biometrics flatline one by one. Somehow the enemy keeps finding ways to flank the units I send.
Is that you, Lysander?
Or is it another Gold ally? The Golds have so many fine commanders, it’s impossible to know. In the murky images, I think I see a beast of a man in black armor with skulls on it.
Ajax?
Using another three hundred of Red Legion as sacrificial lambs to slow the enemy progress, I search for more reserves to send from Bastion One. All are committed except my four thousand Lionguards in the hangar.
“Nakamura, pass off your prism. Front.” She jogs over as a Gray officer takes her prism circlet. “This enemy unit has bypassed our killboxes and has chewed through everything I’ve thrown at them. We’ve whittled them down to one fifty or so. But they’re past the perimeter going for the reactor. They still have doors and automated defenses to get through, but their battle Greens are good. You can beat them to the reactor. Take five hundred Lionguards from the hangars and see them dead.”
She salutes, and then fixates on a holofeed showing the enemy squad. She shoves an armored finger toward a Praetorian with a transverse crest on his dragon-head helmet. He’s half hidden in the smoke. “That’s Flavinius,” she says. Her eyes narrow and she points to a big shadow in the smoke. “Ajax?”
“Take a thousand. Lune might be with them. I can’t give you more,” I say.
“Let Virgilus lead them,” she says. She motions up the Lionguard centurion. “I’m with you, ma’am. You’ve already sent Kavax. I will not leave your side again.”
“Virgilus, you heard?” He nods. “Go then. Good hunting.”
He salutes and he’s off. I glance at Nakamura, mildly annoyed at being contradicted, as she returns to her prism.
Victra finally breaks through the jamming.“Virginia…holding…our own. Rath…Votum missing.”
“Diomedes…”Char’s voice.
“Repeat, Char.”
“Diomedes…toward Phobos.”
“Registers. Keep the fleet together.”
“But…Phobos.”
“The fleet is more important,” I say. “Win your battle. We’ll handle ours.” I’m beginning to realize we won’t, but amputations on the field are best done without consulting the patient. My father said that once. At the time, I thought it grotesque.
“Do we have Rath and Votum on sensor?” I ask my Blues.
“TheLightbringer’s mass is interfering with our instruments,” they call.
I consider, then hail Kavax to warn him of possible enemy reinforcements. No reply, so I tell my Greens to keep trying and plunge back into my battle prism. Not five minutes after Virgilus’s departure, I have to send more Lionguards to support Red Legion in the shafts leading to the sector’s shield generator. Fifteen hundred left. Then a thousand as I send five hundred more. Then only five hundred left as another Praetorian vanguard breaks through Red Legion on level forty-five.
I hold on to that last five hundred. I feel the tide turning. Our numbers are wearing down the elite vanguard. A cheer even goes up as theLightbringerbacks off from the punishment of our guns.
I don’t cheer, and that is why I often feel so alone. Holiday doesn’t cheer either. She steps closer, protective, and I grow thankful she did not let me send her away.
This is not going to be pretty.
Sure enough, as soon as theLightbringerclears out, our instruments sing with incoming contacts. Votum and Rath ships are already plunging into the no-man’s-land. Some of those ships go dark or break apart under our cannons, but they have an easier crossing than Lune’s did. When they arrive, they park just shy of the shields and wait for them to fall.
Knowing we’re lost if those shields go down, I send my last five hundred Lionguards to reinforce the shield generator. They’re only three minutes out when the enemy breaks through the Lionguards I already sent with Virgilus.
If it is Lysander leading that group, he’s just punched me in the gut.
“Tell Kavax to retreat. The shield is about to go down. He’s exposed,”I order. It’s bewildering my thousand men didn’t stop that group. My Lionguards are some of the best Grays of Mars and they’re dying like flies against the Praetorians. A few minutes later, Lysander’s gut punch really lands when the shield goes down over the sector for good, and Votum and Rath launch their own invasion.
