It actually is generous. “In return?”
“You will agree to neither sabotage nor scuttle the Julii-Sun shipyards. You will leave behind no saboteurs or assassins. You will, where possible, disarm your booby traps and turn over the codes to the defense systems to me.”
“That seems…generous of me,” I say.
“It’s not. You will suffer a blow to your reputation, as well as lose your seat in orbit, and your ability to make ships. But that is already lost. With this, you stop the bleeding and your Republic will live to fight another day.”
“Is that all I get?” I ask.
“The taking of Mars is a complex puzzle of which Phobos is only one piece. Any mistake on my part and my host will fracture or disappear into the red soil below. I will have the docks but no fresh helium. Our stores are as low as you seem to think they are.” I smile at that. “I will have the moon, but a host of allies eager for their cut, and I spent all my ships.”
“Except one. I noticed you’re putting part of the dockyards to use on theLightbringer.I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone doing naval repairs during a battle before.” He does not reply. “To whom will you bequeath the moon?” He looks uncomfortable. “Come now, you won’t keep it for yourself. You’ll look greedy.”
“Apollonius.”
“Not your chief investor? Bellona won’t like that.”
“Of all my allies, if you could secure the loyalty of any, which would you choose? Were you me,” he asks.
I consider the question. Lysander and I do have similar ways of thinking. I would lock down the one ally my competitors would try to steal.
“Let me understand, just so we’re clear, I’m to aid your war effort because I find you marginally less detestable than Atalantia au Grimmus,” I say.
“Only marginally?”
“I would need a little more than a vague notion of your intent against Atalantia,” I say.
“When I charged Phobos, I secured my reputation for valor. It was unsteady. But I lost some of that shine I had in Rome from all this. So now I need to show I am an investment that pays off. If I do, I’ll have the numbers to call a referendum to remove her dictatorial powers. Then, once her immunity is gone, I will call her to the Bleeding Place, and I will kill her.”
I watch him carefully through the glass of his helmet. He means it, or he’s an even better liar than I am. “She’s a fair blade.”
“So am I.”
“You don’t have a reputation for that.”
“Good.”
“If you do that without a cause for blood, it will cast you as an immature, power-hungry little man.”
“I have cause for blood. Atalantia killed my mother and my father. Which is why I’ll ask one last thing from the Sovereign of the ill-fated Republic as part of this merciful and honorable bargain.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll be needing two Oracles. If you can spare them.”
I think of my tanks back in Agea. “I can if you can spare a Telemanus.”
He considers. “For a Votum?”
“Just what I was thinking.”
He nods. “I think it is important for you and me to understand, we are at war, but this war will not end until we can be civilized.” He pauses. “We recovered Ajax’s body, but I would like his head.”
—
My friends and commanders roar in outrage when I tell them the deal I’ve struck with Lune. Sitting with her mother, Thraxa actually turns purple with rage. Screwface shakes his head and lists the casualties we’ve taken. Only Holiday nods along in agreement with me. Victra saysnothing. She reclines in a chair with her legs spread and a whiskey balanced on her chest.
Char stands up. “We lose the docks, we lose the war. Ships are our only hope.”
