Morning Star

Roque au Fabii sits at a stone table in an orchard along the side of the house, finishing a dessert of elderberry cheesecake and coffee. Smoke from a brooding dwarf volcano twirls up into the twilight horizon with the same indolence as the steam from his porcelain saucer. He turns from watching the smoke to see us enter. He’s striking in his black and gold uniform—lean like a strand of golden summer wheat, with high cheekbones and warm eyes, but his face is distant and unyielding. By now he could drape a dozen battle glories across his chest. But his vanity is so deep that he thinks affectation a sign of boorish decadence. The pyramid of the Society, given flight with Imperator wings on either side, marks each shoulder; a gold skull with a crown burdens his breast, the Sigil of the Ash Lord’s warrant. Roque sets the saucer down delicately, dabs his lips with the corner of his napkin, and rises to his bare feet.

“Darrow, it’s been an age,” he says with such mannered grace that I could almost convince myself that we were old friends reuniting after a long absence. But I will not let myself feel anything for this man. I cannot let him have forgiveness. Victra almost died because of him. Fitchner did. Lorn did. And how many more would have had I not let Sevro leave the party early to seek his father?

“Imperator Fabii,” I reply evenly. But behind my distant welcome is an aching heart. There’s not a hint of sorrow on his face, however. I want there to be. And knowing that, I know I still feel for the man. He is a soldier of his people. I’m a soldier of mine. He is not the evil of his story. He’s the hero who unmasked the Reaper. Who smashed the Augustus-Telemanus fleet at the Battle of Deimos the night after my capture. He does not do these things for himself. He lives for something as noble as I. His people. His only sin is in loving them too much, as is his way.

Mustang watches me worriedly, knowing all I must feel. She asked me about him on the journey from Mars. I told her that he was nothing to me, but we both know that isn’t true. She’s with me now. Anchoring me among these predators. Without her I could face my enemies, but I would not hold on to so much of my self. I would be darker. More wrathful. I count my blessings that I have people like her to which I can tether my spirit. Otherwise I fear it would run away from me.

“I can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you again, Roque,” she says, taking the attention away from me. “Though I am surprised the Sovereign didn’t send a politico to treat with us.”

“She did,” Roque says. “And you returned Moira as a corpse. The Sovereign was deeply wounded by that. But she has faith in my arms and judgment. Just as I have faith in the hospitality of Romulus. Thank you for the meal, by the bye,” he says to our host. “Our commissary is woefully militaristic, as you can imagine.”

“The benefit of owning a breadbasket,” Romulus says. “Siege is never a hungry affair.” He gestures for us to take our seats. Mustang and I take the two facing Roque as Romulus sits at the head of the table. Two other chairs to the right and left of him are filled with the ArchGovernor of Titan and an old, crooked woman I don’t know. She wears the wings of Imperator.

Roque watches me. “It does please me, Darrow, knowing you’re finally participating in the war you began.”

“Darrow isn’t responsible for this war,” Mustang says. “Your Sovereign is.”

“For instilling order?” Roque asks. “For obeying the Compact?”

“Oh, that’s fresh. I know her a bit better than you, poet. The crone is a nasty, covetous creature. Do you think it was Aja’s idea to kill Quinn?” She waits for an answer. None comes. “It was Octavia’s. She told her to do it through the com in her ear.”

“Quinn died because of Darrow,” Roque says. “No one else.”

“The Jackal bragged to me that he killed Quinn,” I say. “Did you know that?” Roque is unimpressed with my claim. “If he’d let her be, she would have lived. He killed her in the back of the ship while the rest of us fought for our lives.”

“Liar.”

I shake my head. “Sorry. But that guilt you feel in your skinny little gut. That’s gonna stick around. Because it’s the truth.”

“You made me a mass murderer against my own people,” Roque says. “My debt to my Sovereign and the Society for my part in the Bellona-Augustus War is not yet paid. Millions lost their lives in the Siege of Mars. Millions who need not have died if I had seen through the ruse and done my duty to my people.” His voice quavers. I know the lost look in his eyes. I’ve seen it in my own in the mirror as I wake from a nightmare and stare at myself in the pale bathroom light of that same stateroom on Luna. All those millions cry to him in the darkness, asking him why?

He continues. “What I cannot understand, Virginia, is why you abandoned the talks on Phobos. Talks which would have healed the wounds that divide Gold and permit us to focus on our true enemy.” He looks at me heavily. “This man wanted your father to die. He desires nothing but the destruction of our people. Pax died for his lie. Your father died because of his schemes. He’s using your heart against you.”

“Spare me.” Mustang snorts contemptuously.

“I’m trying to…”

“Don’t talk down to me, poet. You’re the weeping sort here. Not me. This isn’t about love. This is about what is right. That has nothing to do with emotion. It has to do with justice, which rests upon facts.” The Moon Lords shift uncomfortably at the notion of justice. She jerks her head in their direction. “They know I believe in Rim independence. And they know I’m a Reformer. And they know I’m intelligent enough not to conflate the two or to confuse my emotions with my beliefs. Unlike you. So since your rhetorical plays here are going to fall on deaf ears, shall we spare ourselves the indignity of verbal jousting and make our propositions so we can end this war one way or another?”

Roque glowers at her.

Romulus smiles slightly. “Do you have anything to add, Darrow?”

“I believe Mustang covered it quite thoroughly.”

“Very well,” Romulus replies. “Then I shall say my peace and let you say yours. You are both my enemies. One has plagued me with worker’s strikes. Anti-government propaganda. Insurrection. The other with war and siege. Yet here on the fringe of the darkness away from both your sources of power, you need me, and my ships, and my legions. You see the irony. My lone question is this. Who can give me more in return?” He looks first to Roque. “Imperator, please begin.”

“Honorable lords, my Sovereign mourns this conflict between our people, as do I. It spawned from the seeds sown in previous disputes, but it can end now as Rim and Core remember that there is a greater, more pernicious evil than political squabbling and debate over taxes and representation. And that is the evil of demokracy. That noble lie that all men are created equal. You’ve seen it tear Mars apart. Adrius au Augustus has nobly fought the battle there on behalf of the Society.”

“Nobly?” Romulus asks.

“Effectively. But still the contagion has spread. Now is our best chance to destroy it before it can claim a victory from which we may never be able to recover. Despite our differences, our ancestors all fell upon Earth in the Conquering. In remembrance of that, the Sovereign is willing to cease all hostilities. She requests the aid of your legions and armada in destroying the Red menace that seeks to destroy both Rim and Core.

“In return, after the war she will remove the Societal garrison from Jupiter, but not Saturn or Uranus.” The ArchGovernor of Titan snorts contemptuously. “She will enter into talks in good faith regarding the reduction of taxes and Rim export tariffs. She will grant you the same licenses for Belt mining which Core companies currently hold. And she will accept your proposal for equal representation in the Senate.”

“And the reformation of the Sovereign election process?” Romulus asks. “She was never meant to be an empress. She’s an elected official.”

“She will revise the election process after the new Senators have been appointed. Additionally, the Olympic Knights will be appointed by the vote of the ArchGovernors, not by order of the Sovereign, as you requested.”

Mustang tilts her head back and laughs one hard note. “I’m sorry. Call me skeptical. But what you’re saying, Roque, is that the Sovereign will say yes to everything Romulus might want until she’s back in a position to say no.” She blows air out of her nose comically. “Trust me, my friends, my family well knows the sting of the Sovereign’s promises.”

“And what of Antonia au Julii?” Romulus asks, noting Mustang’s skepticism. “Will you deliver her to our justice for the murder of my daughter and father?”

“I will.”

Romulus is pleased by the terms, and moved by Roque’s comments about the Red menace. It doesn’t help that his promises seem very plausible. Practical. Not promising too much or too little. All I can do to combat them is to embrace the fact that I offer them a fantasy, and a dangerous one at that. Romulus looks to me, waiting.

“Color notwithstanding, you and I have a common bond. The Sovereign is a politician, I am a man of the sword. I deal in angles and metal. Like you. That is my life blood. My entire purpose for being. Look how I rose in your ranks without being one of you. Look how I took Mars. The most successful Iron Rain in centuries.” I lean forward. “Lords, I will give you the independence you deserve. Not half measured. Not transient. Permanent independence from Luna. No taxes. No twenty years of service to the Core for your Grays and Obsidians. No orders from the Babylon that the Core has become.”

“A bold promise,” Romulus says, showing the depth of his character by bearing the insult he must feel at a Red promising to deliver him his independence.

“An outlandish promise,” Roque says. “Darrow is only who he is because of who is around him.”

“Agreed,” Mustang says cheerily.

“And I still have everyone around me, Roque. Who do you have?”

“No one,” Mustang answers. “Just dear old Antonia, who has become my brother’s quisling.”

The words hit home with Roque and Romulus. I return to addressing the Moon Lords. “You have the greatest dockyard the worlds have ever seen. But you started your war too quickly. Without enough ships. Without enough fuel. Thinking the Sovereign would not be able to send a fleet here so quickly. You were wrong. But the Sovereign has made a mistake as well: all her remaining fleets are in the Core, defending moons and worlds against Orion. But Orion is not in the Core. She is with me. Her forces joined to the ships I stole from the Jackal to form the armada with which I will smash the Sword Armada from the sky.”

“You don’t have the ships for that,” Roque says.

“You don’t know what I have,” I say. “And you don’t know where I hide it.”

“How many ships does he have?” Romulus asks Mustang.

“Enough.”

“Roque would have you believe I am a wildfire. Do I look wild?” Not today, at least. “Romulus, you have no interest in the Core just as I have no interest in the Rim. This is not my home. We are not enemies. My war is not against your race, but against the rulers of my home. Help us shatter the Sword Armada, and you will have your independence. Two birds with one stone. Even if I do not defeat the Sovereign in the Core after we defeat the Poet here, even if I lose within the year, we will cause such damage that it will be a lifetime before Octavia can summon the ships, the money, the men, the commanders to cross the billion kilometers darkness again.” The Moon Lords lean into my words. I may yet have them.

Roque scoffs. “Do you really think this self-styled liberator will abandon the lowColors in the Rim? In the Galilean Moons alone over a hundred and fifty million are ‘enslaved.’ ”

“If I could free them, I would,” I admit. “But I cannot. I recognize that and it breaks my heart, because they are my people. But every leader must sacrifice.”

This receives nods from the Golds. Even if I am the enemy, they can respect my loyalty to my people, and also the pain I must feel. It is odd having such veneration in the eyes of my enemies. I am not used to it.

Roque also sees the nods. “I know this man better than any of you,” he presses. “I know him like a brother. And he is a liar. He would say whatever it took to break the bonds that bind us together.”

“Unlike the Sovereign, who never lies,” I say lightly, drawing a few laughs.

“The Sovereign will honor her agreement,” Roque insists.

“As she did with my father?” Mustang asks scathingly. “When she planned to kill him at the Gala last year? I was her lancer and she planned it right under my nose. And why? Because he did not agree with her politics. Imagine what she’d do to men who actually went to war with her.”

“Hear, hear,” the ArchGovernor of Titan says, rapping his knuckles on the table.

“And instead you would trust a terrorist and a turncoat?” Roque asks. “He has conspired to destroy our Society for six years. His entire existence is deception. How could you trust him now? How could you think a Red cares more for you than a Gold?” Roque shakes his head sadly. “We are Aureate, my brothers and sisters. We are the order that protects mankind. Before us was a race intent on destroying the only home it had ever known. But then we brought peace. Do not let Darrow manipulate you into bringing back the Dark Age that came before. They will purge all the wonders we have made to fill their bellies and sate their lusts. We have a chance to stop him here, now. We have a chance to unite once more, as we were always meant to. For our children. What world do you want them to inherit?”

Roque puts a hand over his heart.

“I am a Man of Mars. I have no love for the Core any more than you. The appetites of Luna have pillaged my planet long before I was born. That must change. And it will change. But not at the end of his sword. He would burn the house to fix a broken window. No, friends, that is not the way. To change for the better, we must look past the politics of the day and remember the spirit of our Golden Age. Aureate, united over all.”

The longer this plays, the more likely Roque will convince them of their patriotism. Mustang and I both know it. Just as I knew I would have to sacrifice something in coming here. I’d hoped it would not be what I’m about to offer, but I know by the looks in the eyes of the Moon Lords that Roque’s message has struck home. They fear an uprising. They fear me.

It’s the great dread of the Sons of Ares, the great mistake Sevro made in releasing my Carving and taking the Sons to a true war. In the shadows we could let them kill each other. We were just an idea. But Roque has made them think the thought that unites all masters who have ever been: what if the slaves take my property for their own?

When my uncle gave me my slingBlade, he said it would save my life for the price of a limb. Every miner is told that so that he knows from the first day he steps in the mine, the sacrifice is worth it. I make one now for which I may never be forgiven

“I will give you the Sons of Ares,” I say quietly. No one hears me through Roque’s continued speech. Only Mustang. “I will give you the Sons of Ares,” I repeat more loudly. Quiet falls over the table.

Romulus’s chair creaks as he leans forward. “What do you mean?”

“I told you I have no interest in the Rim. Now I will prove it. There are over three hundred and fifty Sons of Ares cells throughout your territories,” I say. “We are your dock strikes. We are the sanitation sabotage and the reason why Nessus’s streets fill with shit. Even if you hand me over to the Sovereign today, the Sons will bleed you for a thousand years. But I will give you every single Son of Ares cell in the Rim, I will abandon the lowColors here and take my crusade to the Core, never coming through the asteroid belt as long as I live if you help me kill his bloodydamn fleet.”

I stab a finger at Roque, who looks horrified.

“That is insanity,” Roque says, noting the effect my words have had. “He’s lying.”

But I’m not lying. I’ve given orders for the Sons of Ares cells to evacuate across the Rim. Not many will make it out. Thousands will be captured, tortured, killed. Thus is war, and the peril of leadership.

“Lords, the Imperator is asking you to bow,” I reply. “Aren’t you tired of that? Of groveling to a throne six hundred million kilometers from your home?” They nod. “The Sovereign says I am a threat to you. But who has bombed your cities? Who has slain a million of your people? Who kept your children hostage on Luna? Slaughtered your father and daughter on Mars? Who burned an entire moon? Was it me? Was it my people? No. Your greatest enemy is the greed of the Core. The burners of Rhea.”

“That was a different time,” Roque protests.

“It was the same woman,” I snarl and look to the Saturnian Gold to Romulus’s left who pays rapt attention. “Who burned Rhea? The Sovereign has forgotten, because her throne sits with its back toward the Rim. But you see her glassy corpse every night in your skies.”

“Rhea was a mistake,” Roque says, falling into the pitfall that Mustang helped me prepare. “One that must never be repeated.”

“Never repeated?” Mustang asks, springing the trap shut. She turns to Vela, who watches from the steps of the house with several other Ionian Golds. “Vela, my friend, may I please have my datapad?”

“Don’t play her game,” Roque says.

“My game?” Mustang asks coyly. “My game is facts, Imperator. Are those not welcome here or is rhetoric alone permissible? Personally, I trust no man who fears facts.” She looks back to Vela, amused by her own barbs. “You can operate it for me, Vela. The password is L17L6363.” She grins at my surprise.

Vela looks to her brother. “She might send a message to Barca.”

“Deactivate my connection,” Mustang says. Romulus nods to Vela. She deactivates it. “Look in datafolders, cache number 3, please.” She does. At first the quiet Gold’s eyes narrow, confused at what she’s looking at. Then, as she reads, her lips curl back and the skin on her arms pucker with goose bumps. The rest of the small gathering watches her reaction with growing anxiety. “Illuminating, isn’t it, Vela?”

“What is it?” Romulus demands. “Show us.”

Vela glares hatefully at Roque, who is as confused as anyone, and walks the device to her brother. His face manages to remain impassive as he reads the data, fingers swiping through the files. I use Cassius’s information against his master now, turning his gift into an arrow aimed at her heart. Mustang and I thought it would be better coming from her, however. Lending the lie to the credibility of her friendship with Romulus.

“Put it up,” Romulus says, tossing the datapad to Vela.

“What is this?” Roque asks angrily. “Romulus…” His words falter as an image of Asteroid S-1988, part of the Karin sub-family of the Koronis family of asteroids in the Kuiper Belt between Mars and Jupiter, blossoms in the air. It rotates slowly over the table. The green stream of data beneath it spelling the Sovereign’s doom. It’s a series of falsified Society communiqués detailing the delivery of supplies to an asteroid without a base. The stream continues to roll, detailing high-level Society directives for “refueling” at the asteroid. Then it shows the footage of the ship I sent away from the main fleet to investigate the asteroid as the rest of us journeyed to Jupiter. Reds float through the dark warehouse. The small jets on their suits silent in the vacuum. But their Geiger meters, which are synced to their helms, crackle at the amount of radiation in the place. A far greater amount of radiation than is present in the legal five megaton warheads which are used in space combat.

Romulus stares at Roque. “If Rhea was not to be repeated, then why did your fleet empty a nuclear weapons depot before coming to our orbit?”

“We did not visit the depot,” Roque says, still trying to process what he’s seen and the implications of it. The evidence is compelling. All lies are better served with a hefty helping of the truth. “The Sons of Ares pillaged it months ago. The information is falsified.” He’s operating off of the wrong information. Which means the Sovereign has kept the Jackal’s sedition tight to her chest. And now she pays for trusting so few. He’s not prepared for this argument and it shows.

“So there is a depot,” Romulus asks. Roque realizes how devastating the admission was. Romulus frowns and continues. “Imperator Fabii, why would there be a secret depot of nuclear weapons between here and Luna?”

“That’s classified.”

“Surely you jest.”

“The Societal Navy is responsible for the security of…”

“If it was for security then wouldn’t it be nearer a base?” Romulus asks. “This is near the edge of the asteroid belt on the path a fleet from Luna would use when Jupiter is in closest orbit to the sun. As if it was a cache meant to be acquired by an Imperator on the way to my home…”

“Romulus, I realize how this looks….”

“Do you, young Fabii? Because it looks as if you were considering annihilation to be an option against people you call brother and sister.”

“This information is clearly falsified….”

“Except the existence of the depot…”

“Yes,” Roque admits. “That exists.”

“And the nuclear warheads. With that much radiation?”

“They’re for security.”

“But the rest of it is a lie?”

“Yes.”

“So you didn’t, in fact, come to my home with enough nuclear weapons to make our moons glass?”

“We did not,” Roque says. “The only warheads we have aboard are for ship-to-ship combat. Five megaton yield, max. Romulus, on my honor…”

“The same honor you had when you betrayed your friend…” Romulus gestures to me. “When you betrayed honorable, Lorn. My ally, Augustus. My father, Revus. That honor by which you watched as my daughter’s head was stomped in by a sociopathic matricide who takes orders from a sociopathic patricide?”

“Romulus…”

“No, Imperator Fabii. I do not believe you deserve the intimacy of using my given name any longer. You call Darrow a savage, a liar. But he came here wearing his heart on his sleeve. You came with the lies. Hiding behind manners and breeding…”

“ArchGovernor Raa, you must listen. There’s explanation if you will just…”

“Enough,” Romulus screams. Surging to his feet and slamming his large hand on the table. “Enough hypocrisy. Enough schemes. Enough lies you sniveling Core sycophant.” He trembles finally with the rage. “If you were not my guest, I would hurl my glove at you and cut your manhood away in the Bleeding Place. Your lost generation has forgotten what it means to be Gold. You have forsaken your heritage. Suckling at the tit of power, and why? For what? Those wings on your shoulders? Imperator.” He scoffs at the word. “You whelp. I pity a world where you decide if a man like Lorn au Arcos lives or dies. Did your parents never teach you?” They did not. Roque was raised by tutors, by books. “What is pride without honor? What is honor without truth? Honor is not what you say. It is not what you read.” Romulus thumps his chest. “Honor is what you do.”

“Then do not do this….” Roque says.

“Your master did this,” Romulus replies indifferently. “If she could not make us bow, she would make us burn. Again.”

Mustang tries and fails to keep the smile from her face as Roque watches the Moon Lords slip through his fingers. A darkness enters his cultured voice. One which leaves my heart in tatters. To think that voice once defended me. Now he guards something far less loving. A Society that cares nothing for him.

I always wondered why Fitchner selected Roque for House Mars. Until his betrayal I had known him to be only the most gentle soul. But now the Imperator shows his wrath.

“ArchGovernor Raa, listen to me carefully,” he says. “You are mistaken in believing we came here with intent to destroy you. We came to preserve the Society. Don’t give in to Darrow’s manipulation. You are better than that. Accept the Sovereign’s terms, and we may have peace for another thousand years. But if you choose this path, if you renege on our armistice, there will be no quarter. Your fleet is ragged. Darrow’s, wherever it hides, can be nothing more than a coalition of deserters in borrowed vessels.

“But we are the Sword Armada. We are the iron hand of the Legion and the fury of the Society. Our ships will darken the lights of your worlds. You know what I can do. You do not have a commander to match me. And when your ships burn, the knights of the Core will pour into your cities at the head flying columns and fill the air with ash enough to choke your children.

“If you betray your Color, the Compact, the Society—which is what this will be—Ilium will burn. I will acquaint you with ruin. I will hunt down every person you have ever known and I will exterminate their seed from the worlds. I will do so with a heavy heart. But I am a Man of Mars. A man of war. So know my wrath will be unending.” He extends a thin hand. The wolf of House Mars’ mouth is open in a silent, hungry howl. “Take my hand in kinship for the sake of your people and the sake of Gold. Or I will use it to build an age of peace upon the ashes of your house.”

Romulus walks around the edge of the table so that he is facing Roque, the younger man’s outstretched hand between them. Romulus draws his razor from where it is coiled on his hip. It rasps into rigid form. A blade etched with visions of Earth and of the Conquering. His family is as old as Mustang’s, as old as Octavia’s. He uses that blade to slice open his hand and suck the scarlet blood from the wound before drawing up and spitting it into Roque’s face.

“This is a bloodfeud. If ever again we meet, you are mine or I am yours, Fabii. If ever again we draw breath in the same room, one breath shall cease.” It is a formal, cold declaration that requires one thing of Roque. He nods. “Vela, see the Imperator to his shuttle. He has a fleet to prepare for battle.”

“Romulus, you can’t let him leave,” Mustang says. “He’s too dangerous.”

“I agree,” I say, but for another reason. I’d spare Roque from this battle. I do not want his blood on my hands. “Hold him prisoner until the battle is over, then release him unharmed.”

“This is my home,” Romulus says. “This is how we conduct ourselves. I promised him safe passage. He shall have it.”

Roque dabs the blood and spit away with the same napkin he used for the cheesecake and follows Vela away from the table toward the steps that lead back into the home. He pauses there before turning back to face us. I cannot say if he speaks to me or the Golds gathered but when he recites his last words, I know they are for the ages:

“Brothers, sisters, till the last

Woe that this has come to pass,

By your grave, I shall weep

For it was I who made you sleep.”

Roque bows minutely. “Thank you for the hospitality, ArchGovernor. I will see you shortly.” As Roque leaves the assembly, Romulus instructs Vela to hold him until I am safely off Io.

“Hail my Imperators and Praetors,” he tells one of his lancers. “I want them on holos in twenty minutes. We have a battle to plan. Darrow, if you would like to link in your Praetors…” But my mind is on Roque. I may never see him again. Never have a chance to say so many things which swarm my chest now. But so too do I know what letting him go could mean for my people.

“Go,” Mustang says, reading my eyes. I rise abruptly, excusing myself and manage to catch Roque as he finishes tying his boots in the garden. Vela and several others are moving him toward the iron gate.

“Roque.” He hesitates. Something in my voice causing him to turn and watch me approach. “When did I lose you?” I ask.

“When Quinn died,” he says.

“You planned to kill me even when you thought I was a Gold?”

“Gold. Red. It doesn’t matter. Your spirit is black. Quinn was good. Lea was good. And you used them. You are ruin, Darrow. You drain your friends of life, and leave them spent and wasted in your wake, convincing yourself each death is worth it. Each death brings you closer to justice. But history is littered with men like you. This Society is not without fault, but the hierarchy…this world, it is the best man can afford.”

“And it’s your right to decide that?”

“Yes. It is. But beat me in space, and it will be yours.”