ONCE UPON A TIME, Venus was the evil sister of Earth, swollen from solar dust to similar shape and size. But while Earth was blessed with water, sweet air, and a temperate disposition, Venus had a more quarrelsome spirit. Her surface, cruel enough to melt lead, was marked by interminable days and nights, each numbering 243 of her sister’s. Under her foul breath, nothing could live, nothing could grow, nothing could move but winds of carbon dioxide and torpid clouds fat with acid rain.
And then man came from the blackness and drank up the hydrogen of the gas giants and breathed the fresh breath into her skies. The ensuing rains fell to cover eighty percent of her surface in oceans. With high-altitude mass drivers, man scalped away the withering atmosphere and cooled her surface. With asteroids hurled from the asteroid belt and mass drivers at her equator, he spun her out of her torpor and into an agreeable dance, her days now like her sister’s. Mankind dressed her in green and blue and she waited, eager and fresh, for the humans to come down from their floating cities to join her in her new dance, which had been four and a half billion years plus ninety in the making.
House Carthii of Luna was the first to arrive.
Now, for the first time in my thirty-three years, I dare to see Venus in the flesh. Her clouds are thin and clutch her mottled blue body like the tails of a tattered nightgown. Diadems of ice and snow dust her poles. Emerald islands rise from her temperate blue seas. And about her neck is cinched the might of Gold, a Byzantine necklace of ships and orbital dockyards, sparkling with landing lights and loaded with half-completed frigates and destroyers all made from Mercurian steel. Around this necklace glide dark-hulled ships painted with the crowned white skull of the Ash Lord inside the pyramid of the Society. There are far fewer ships than intel suggested. Most must be on the far side of the planet.
“Mm, into the mouth of the beast,” Alexandar says from beside me on the bridge. “ ‘Then, even then, Cassandra’s lips unsealed the doom to come: lips by a god’s command never to be believed or heeded by the Trojans.’ ”
To my other side, Rhonna sighs in exasperation. “Can’t we damn well go five bloody minutes without commentary leaking out your ass?”
He chuckles. “Like you’d know what to do with the silence.”
“Anything would be better than you quoting Nilton.”
“Milton, for your edification. Only that wasn’t the blind Englishman. It was the Attic.”
I turn to look at them and they shut up, Rhonna into a moody silence, Alexandar into a luxurious one. He finds a scuff on his black chest armor and pulls out a silk handkerchief to wipe it off. “Lancer, which fleet is that?” I ask Rhonna.
She shakes off her irritation, steps forward and pulls an image from her datapad into the air and magnifies the hulls of the capital ships. “It looks like the First and Third. There’s the sphinx of House Carthii, and the dogs of Cerana, their bannermen.” Alexandar makes a polite sound of disappointment. Rhonna scans the image in frustration, not understanding what she got wrong. “Shut up, Alexandar.”
“I said nothing.”
“Alexandar? Do you know the answer?” I ask.
“First, Third, and Eleventh.”
“Eleventh?” Rhonna asks.
Alexandar continues smugly. “Cerana is no longer with the Third. Intel suggests that the Ash Lord has continued his reform in fleet management, and his favoring of smaller, independent forces with greater local autonomy. House Cerana was spotted operating in Martian orbit three months ago without additional support. Starhall believes there are now at least twelve main subdivisions within the Societal Navy.” He pushes his long hair from his eyes. “The lattermost fleets of course being of smaller size. The rest of the fleets are likely concealed behind the planet, as per the Ash Lord’s modus operandi.”
“How many capital ships are in the Eleventh Fleet?” I ask, becoming annoyed with him.
“Estimates say two destroyers, six torchships, ten frigates, sir.”
“Correct.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Rhonna goes into a dark silence. I turn to her and say quietly, “What do you think I’m going to say?”
“That I should read my briefs.”
“Yes. But why?” She doesn’t answer, but looks over my shoulder at Alexandar.
“Rhonna, the first rule of war is to know where your enemy is. How can you know where he is if you do not know how many he is? Say you spot one torchShip with Cerana dogs in the asteroid belt. How can you decide your course if you don’t know how many ships she travels with? How many variables are at play for ambushes and counterattacks?” I lean close and nod back to Alexandar. “And more importantly, don’t let him bait you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you…” I turn back to Alexandar. He freezes as I pull a holo from my datapad showing the ship’s bridge. I rewind it and replay the self-satisfied smiles he was giving Rhonna when my back was turned. I make him watch it three times till his pale cheeks are rose red. “Don’t be such an asshole. It’s why there’s war in the first place.”
“Yes, sir.”
From his perch in the pilot’s chair above, Colloway chuckles in amusement, though still no smile. He’s never been fond of Alexandar, or many Golds for that matter, but he takes particular joy in seeing my dashing lancer humbled. It doesn’t happen often. Except for his mouth, the boy would make Lorn proud. He’d like everyone to think his gifts are Jove-sent, but not a moment of his life since I met him has not been spent studying or practicing the martial arts. Sometimes Lorn would let him sit in on our secret lessons in Agea. He would bring his sister’s hazelnut bread and watch with wide, enamored eyes.
I motion Alexandar closer. “I want you to keep your distance from Apollonius.”
“With all due respect, sir, the man has a bomb in his head.”
“He’s a madman. He meant it when he mentioned the bloodfeud. Won’t throw a gauntlet because he knows I’ll stop it. But he still might take his chance if you turn your back.”
“He won’t. He knows you’ll blow his head off, and I rather think he likes his head.”
“He’ll probably wager that he’s safe. That I won’t sacrifice the mission in order to avenge your death.”
“Of course you would.” A slow look of pain grows on his face. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would,” I say, catching Rhonna’s eye. She knows I’m lying, because unlike Alexandar she does not suffer the shared delusion of grandeur under which all Golds secretly live their lives: that they are the chosen one, and their time is nigh. Rhonna would expect me to put the mission above her. With that single look between us, I see her in a fresh light.
“Sorry to interrupt the school lesson, but we’re being hailed by planetary security,” Winkle says from the sunken communications pit. His white padded chair is tilted back. The ambient light from the holographic controls that float in front of him bathe his spindly arms in a radioactive green. He’s done this dance before, as we’ve already passed through three levels of security with the codes received from Tharsus’s buyer, the first coming at Bastion station, then twice more from Gold patrols and sensor drones as we plunged deeper and deeper into the maw of the enemy orbit. Aside from our contact with the Society, we’ve been on a coms blackout.
“Last code,” I say. “Prep the engines for max burn if it doesn’t work.”
Into the mouth of the beast indeed.
After passing through planetary security, we touch down beside five older assault frigates on a quiet landing strip set into the shoal of Tharsus’s island in Venus’s equatorial seas. Helmeted sentries in observation obelisks watch the ship settle onto the concrete and then look back with disinterest over the night water. “That’s it?” Sevro mutters. “Five frigates? I thought there’d be at least a dozen.”
“There’s probably more off-island,” I say.
“And if there’s not?”
The Howlers assemble in the hold near the disembarkation ramp, where they finish donning their armor. Pebble and Milia escort Apollonius from his cell. He doesn’t look a prisoner, dressed all in black and wearing a purple cloak that we found in Quicksilver’s closets. Sevro went on ahead of me and now sits on one of the parked gravBikes, sharing an apple back and forth with Tongueless, who takes small, delicate bites. Sevro glowers at Apollonius as a Howler tightens the screws on his armor’s backplate. “You remember what happens if you get clever, Apple?” He squeezes the fruit till it explodes in his grip. He wipes the pulp and juice on Apollonius’s black jacket. “A little promise from me to you.” Tongueless frowns at the smashed fruit.
“How is your wife, Barca?” Apollonius asks after a brief pause. “A magnificent woman. Tharsus and I shared her sister several times, of course—a venemous appetite, Antonia—but I cannot say I ever had the exquisite pleasure of the elder Julii. From what Tactus told me, she was like an eclipse of the sun.”
The Howlers between them back out of the way, but Sevro doesn’t move.
“No insult meant. A mere compliment on a fine, if incongruous, coupling.”
“I have a collection you’ll be contributing to very soon,” Sevro replies, tapping his knife on his boot.
I’m wary of the Gold. He’s gotten us to the surface and honored his end of the bargain thus far, but how long will that last once he’s reunited with his brother? They’re a strange and sadistic pair. Even Tactus, the most faithful of the brothers, couldn’t be trusted farther than you could spit.
I motion Tongueless over. He’s gained almost fifteen kilos since we found him in that cell. Clown and Pebble have started training him in the onboard simulator for starShell piloting. He’s not good, but he’s certainly not bad. I was hesitant when Sevro suggested we bring him on the mission, but we need another tall body, and he knew his way around the weapons locker better than he knows his way around our kitchen. In a way, that’s more disconcerting, but I had Winkle put a security measure in his suit as an insurance policy.
“Inside the darkzone we won’t be able to transmit to the tech in Apollonius’s skull,” I tell Tongueless now. “I want you to watch him. If he steps out of line, you waste him.” I gave the same instructions to Thraxa about Tongueless and Apollonius. The Obsidian pulls one of Sevro’s knives from his belt. He must really be making an impression. Casually, as if it were encoded into his DNA as a passive trait, he twirls the blade through his fingers. He smiles and nods.
“Goodman,” I say quietly.
“Fascinating conceptual model,” Apollonius says, looking at my Howlers as I join him. “So many disparate genuses working with autonomy. I wonder, if not for the Golden monster, how long would it take for you to eat each other?”
“Well, hope you end up being around to find out,” I say. I turn to the Howlers and see Sevro watching my conversation with Apollonius. “All right, ladies and gentlemen, helmets up.” The friendly faces of my tallest Howlers disappear behind the cold masks of pulseArmor, replaced with the faces of the demons. My men wear none of their menagerie of trophies, or their wolfpelts. And the armor, which often is violently painted per the owner’s preference, is a Society commando squad’s matte black with an iron Minotaur on the breast. “You fascists look like you’d raze a village and liquidate the local populace with particle beams.”
“Ready for a genocide, sir,” Clown says, snapping to attention.
“Remember, run silent. Stay tight. We’re Golds returned with the heir.” I turn to Apollonius, who alone wears no armor, and grin. “Let’s go meet the family.”
The ramp lowers and we stare down the barrel of an anti-aircraft partical cannon with a Gray in the firing chair. Twenty other Grays and a clutch of armored Obsidians stand at the base of the ramp with their weapons casually shouldered, expecting to see a crew of motley pirates and not a garage full of heavily armored Golds.
“On your knees or you will be fired upon!” their leader shouts.
Apollonius steps forward into the floodlights, his hands held out. “Vorkian, is that how you welcome your master home?” he asks.
A dark-skinned Gray with buzzed bright white hair and a face carved from old boot leather steps out from the ranks. “Dominus…” She falls to her knees, but cannot lower her eyes. “Is it you? Is it really you?”
The men behind her fall to their knees before Apollonius even gets halfway down the landing ramp. “It seems the Void is not ready for me yet. For it is I, Apollonius au Valii-Rath, liberated from the depths and returned to command you, good Vorkian.”
“Who are they, sir?”
“Have you so long been idle that you fail to recognize loyal friends, Vorkian?” He looks back at me and smiles. I ready to blow the bomb in his skull. “They are my liberators.”
“Sir, forgive me. I did not know you were alive—”
Apollonius holds up a hand, cutting her off. “Endeavor only to serve me now, and forgiveness you may one day find. Will you serve me, Centurion Vorkian?”
“I never left your service, sir. But your brother…”
“Yes, I hear he has been busy despoiling the house of my mother and father. Where is the idle libertine?”
“Swimming, sir.” Vorkian’s face darkens in disgust. “With his entourage.”
“Magnificent. I am known to enjoy an aquatic fete.” Apollonius’s teeth glimmer. “Smile, Vorkian, the end of ignominy draws nigh. For we have glory to claim once again. Tell the guards and servants they are to retire for the evening to their barracks and quarters. There you will stay and rest, for this is a family matter.”
“Some of the men do not know you, dominus. They’re the Ash Lord’s toads.”
“Can they be overcome?”
“Yes. The loyal stand ready.” Her men nod their heads.
“Good. Pass the word. Take the Ashmen to the barracks, douse them with engine grease, and light them on fire. Then cut off their heads and arms and feed them to the crabs.”
“With pleasure, dominus.”
Vorkian and her men jog off into the darkness as we press into the main house. Green foliage consumes the place, jungle vines creeping on walls, trees leaning over walkways. Our path carries us into the complex through the glass doors at the base of a glass pyramid. We pass more guards, who, alerted by Vorkian, kneel at Apollonius’s arrival. Two are dragging a Gray officer beaten half to death.
“Minotaur Invictus,” they say to their dread lord, and carry on their dark task. Soon, the complex is a ghost town.
“There should be more of them,” Sevro mutters under his breath.
We find a man swimming laps in the back of the complex, where the roof extends out over a rocky cove. The ocean water is lit from beneath with lights. Four other Golds lounge by the side of the water on divans, sipping wine and eating from small plates. Two are naked, the others wrapped in silk robes. Three Pinks flit about, distributing flutes and rubbing sore muscles.
When Tharsus has finished his laps, he slides through the water to the edge and pulls himself out. He’s naked and less muscular than Apollonius, all arms and legs and a newly grown belly paunch. He goes to his towel, but picks up the glass of wine there instead. Hard to imagine he is one of the only Boneriders to escape capture. Last time I saw Tharsus in the flesh, he was trying to purchase Sevro’s corpse from Cassius. He stands, slouching to sip his wine while he fondles the breast of one of the Golds playfully. She swats at him with an annoyed laugh, but then acquiesces to a deep kiss.
He dribbles wine over the Gold woman’s stomach till it collects in her navel. He stoops and she moans softly as he licks it out. The Pink who had been massaging the woman’s feet slinks away. None have seen us. We scan for signs of any guards.
“You said that ship carries Frankian wines?” a muscled Gold man wearing nothing but a diamond necklace says in surprise.
“Indeed,” Tharsus says.
“It looked like an assault frigate. Wherever did you find it?”
“Stolen from Quicksilver himself by my audacious armada. Treasure, my goodman, lies in the stars.”
“Ever the mogul,” another sycophant adds. One of the Pinks hands him a flute.
“We must throw a fete of bacchanalian proportions,” the muscled Gold says. “The new rationing restrictions are draconian. We’re practically nibbling on the crust of bread. I feel like a Raa.”
“You’re as ugly as one,” Tharsus says.
“I daresay, a party is a charming thought, Gregarius,” the woman says. “If Tharsus can control his appetites long enough to save some for the rest of us.”
“We can invite the Ash Lord,” Tharsus adds, reaching for his com.
“Oh, that old hermit,” the woman replies. “I daresay it will take more than a fete to lure him from his shell.” She shudders. “What if he brings Atalantia and her concubine?”
“Vorkian,” Tharsus says into his com. “Vorkian, where is the damn wine? That ship landed twenty minutes ago. I’ll have you scourged if you make my guests wait any longer.”
“Don’t you mean my guests?” Apollonius says, stepping onto the shadowed patio. We follow behind him, keeping our eyes out for unaccounted guards.
Tharsus wheels on us, unable to make out our faces.
“Who is that? How dare you wear armor in my presence. Vorkian?”
“Not Vorkian,” Sevro says.
“Who are you!” Tharsus demands.
“Don’t you recognize your own blood, little brother?” Apollonius asks, stepping into the light. Tharsus goes sheet-white and steps back. Sevro joins Apollonius in the light and retracts his helmet.
“Hello, boyo. Long time no see. Still want my rib cage?”
Tharsus stares at him in abject horror.
“Ares!” one of the Golds hisses, still holding her glass. The rest stare at Sevro in confusion. In that moment, they taste a small bit of the fear their slaves endure every day. The Pinks gawp at the sight of us. Grins split two of their slender faces. They rush off, knowing what comes next.
“Take Tharsus. Kill the rest,” I say, pulling the railgun from the holster on my right thigh. I squeeze the trigger. The muscled Gold’s head explodes. Tongueless fires. The woman whose navel Tharsus drank from holds a hand up as if it can stop a toroid of superheated hydrogen moving faster than the speed of sound. Her hand disappears. The lower half of her jaw goes with it. One of the Golds charges us and Tongueless shoots him as well. A huge bloody hole opens up as the plasma eats out the other side of his chest. His body carries on. Sevro shoots his leg out and he spins sideways to the ground to mew and die.
Tharsus springs sideways into the water. “Mine,” Sevro says. He shoots his stunFist into the water to the left of Tharsus. The electricity crackles through the wet conductor and electrocutes the man. He spasms in the water and then floats to the top. The rest of my men pour onto the patio, securing it. The last Gold uses the body of the first Gold I killed as a shield and searches frantically for a weapon.
“Apollonius, stay,” I say. But he ignores me and slips forward, blocking my shot. The hiding man sees him coming and makes a break for the water of the cove. Apollonius tackles him from behind. The two wrestle on the ground until Apollonius rolls the man sideways, then snaps his neck with a single twist. He stands slowly from the corpse, watching in amusement as Sevro dives into the pool to retrieve Tharsus’s body.
With Tongueless’s help, Sevro hauls him out of the water and onto the ground.
Apollonius rejoins me. “I told you to stay,” I say.
“Would Athena stay Odysseus’s hand when he returned to Ithaca? No Color is immune from my wrath.” He pours wine over his brother’s unconscious face. “Tharsus. Run away from the light. No time for dreams. Back to the land of the weary living.”
Tharsus’s eyes open. He spits up water. “Apollonius?” he whispers hoarsely.
“Hello, brother. Did you miss me?”