Dark Age Read online

  At that moment, three hundred eighty-four thousand kilometers from my heart, in orbit one thousand kilometers above the wayward continent of South Pacifica, projectiles skinned with Sun Industries stealth polymer race into the void at 320,000 kilometers per hour toward Mercury, ferrying not death, but supplies, radiation medicine, machines of war, and, if my husband is alive, a message of hope.

  You have not been abandoned. I will come for you.

  Until then, endure, my love. Endure.

  A GRAVEYARD OF REPUBLIC WARSHIPS floats in the shadow of Mercury.

  Of the triumphant White Fleet that liberated Luna, Earth, and Mars, nothing remains but twisted shards and blackened hollows. Shattered by the might of the Ash Armada, the broken ships spin in orbit around the planet they liberated only months before. No longer filled with Martian sailors and legionnaires loyal to Eo’s dream, their cold halls are naked to vacuum and populated only by the dead.

  This is the last laugh of the Ash Lord, and the debut of his heir.

  While I burned the old warlord to death in his bed on Venus with Apollonius and Sevro, his daughter Atalantia stepped out from his shadow to take up his office of Dictator. She slipped the greater part of their armada away from Venus and used the sun’s sensor-distorting radiation to ambush the White Fleet in orbit over Mercury.

  Orion, my fleet’s commander and the greatest naval tactician in the Republic, never saw them coming. It was a massacre, and I was three weeks too late to stop it. The frantic Mayday calls of my friends tortured me as I crossed the void, slipping farther and farther away from my son and wife toward bedlam.

  The White Fleet may be gone, but the Free Legions they ferried to Mercury are not dead yet. Soon I will join them on the surface of Mercury, but first I have work to do.

  It would be easier with Sevro. Everything violent is.

  My breath rasps in my vacuum-proof suit as I traverse the graveyard. My magnetic boots land silently along the broken spine of a Republic dreadnought, and I peer into a great fissure in the hull to check on the progress of my lancer. The wound in the hull is thirty decks deep. Jetsam floats in the darkness—bits of metal, mattresses, coffeepots, frozen globes of machine fluid, and severed limbs. No sign of Alexandar.

  The rigid corpse of a sailor in a mechanic’s kit drifts upward feet-first. His legs have been congealed into a single crooked stump from the heat of a particle blast. His mouth is locked in a silent scream, as if to ask, “Where were you when the enemy came? Where was the Reaper I swore to follow?”

  He was deceived by his enemies, by his allies, by himself.

  While the Republic Senate fooled itself into believing peace could be made with fascist warlords, I pretended killing the Ash Lord would end war in our time. That I held the key to unlocking a future where I could put down the slingBlade and return to my child and wife to be a father and a husband. My desperation let me believe that lie. The Senate’s naïveté let them believe Atalantia’s. But I know the truth now.

  War is our time. Sevro thought he could escape it. I thought I could end it. But our enemy is like the Hydra. Cut off one head, two more sprout. They will not sue for peace. They will not surrender. Their heart must be excised, their will to fight ground to the finest dust.

  Only then will there be peace.

  Lights flicker in the chasm beneath my feet. Several minutes later, a Gold in an EVA suit drifts upward to set down with me on the hull. For fear of enemy sensors, he puts his faceplate to mine to give his sound waves a medium.

  “Reactor is primed and ready for necromancy.”

  “Well done, Alexandar.”

  He nods stoically.

  The young soldier is no longer the callow, insecure youth who entered my service as a lancer four years ago. After war, most men shrink. Some from the rending of flesh. Some from the loss of fellows. Some from the loss of autonomy. But most in shame at discovering their own impotence. Confronted with horror, their dreams of destiny crumple. Only a cursed few relish the dark thrill in discovering they are natural-born killers.

  Alexandar is a killer. He has proven himself the worthy heir to the legacy of his grandfather Lorn au Arcos. And I have begun to wonder if he will inherit my burden. He alone held back the tide atop the Ash Lord’s spire when Thraxa, Sevro, and I had been knocked to our knees. It woke the hunger in him. Now, he craves revenge on Atalantia for the murder of our fleet.

  I miss that purity of purpose.

  What was it that Lorn said again? “The old rage in colder ways, for they alone decide how to spend the young.”

  How many more must I spend? What is Alexandar’s life worth? What is mine worth? As if to find the answer, I glance to my right. Past the hull of the drifting dreadnought, the eastern rim of Mercury throbs like a molten scythe.

  The planet is barely larger than Luna, but this close it seems a giant. The shadows of a Society minesweeper pass over its face. It searches for the atomic mines Orion left in orbit to cover our army’s frantic retreat after Atalantia’s ambush. Few mines remain. When they are gone, only the tropospheric shields that cover the prized continent of Helios will forestall the wrath of the Ash Armada. The black ships prowl beyond the graveyard, safely out of reach of Republic ground cannons, waiting to launch an Iron Rain against my marooned army.

  When the shields fall, so will the planet.

  Ten million of my brothers and sisters will face annihilation.

  That is why Atalantia has come. To crush the White Fleet. To kill the Free Legions. To take back Mercury and with its metals and factories, feed the Gold war machine on Venus to prepare for a single, irresistible thrust toward the heart of the Republic.

  A tiny laser flickers against the hull between Alexandar’s feet. I put my helmet to his again. “They’re moving her,” I say. His eyes harden. “Time to go.”

  Together, we push off the hull to float back into the graveyard. We cross through seas of frozen corpses and shattered ripWings to land two kilometers from the dreadnought on the broken fuselage of a dead torchShip. We skip along its surface until we reach a dark hangar bay. Inside, a prototype black shuttle waits—the Necromancer, the personal deepspace shuttle of the Ash Lord, which I stole from his fortress and rode from Venus to Mercury. Today I will make it earn its name.

  “Anteater to Dark Tango, do you register?” The Fear Knight’s voice is cold and intelligent as it echoes over the speakers in the Necromancer’s ready bay. The voice matches the man. Atlas au Raa, Atalantia’s most effective field commander, is a far cry from his honorable brother, Romulus. Implanted on the surface with his Zero Legion guerrillas, Atlas sows chaos behind our lines and is responsible for my delayed reunion with my army. They don’t even know I am here. But neither does the enemy.

  The planet was blockaded by the Ash Armada when I arrived to Mercury three weeks ago. Fortunately, the Necromancer’s stealth capabilities are the most advanced in the Society armada, and the debris field hid our approach.

  Hiding in the graveyard, I have used the decryption software on the Necromancer to eavesdrop on the Fear Knight’s correspondence. He reports his horrors, his impalements, his mutilations, with the detachment of a doctor administering medicine to a patient. Today, he discusses a different matter.

  “Dark Tango registers, go for Anteater.” A thin Copper voice answers for Atalantia. Some sinister blackops administrator on the Annihilo.

  “Slave Two is packaged and prepped for delivery,” Atlas drawls. “Blood Medusa primed. Dance floor’s looking crowded, confirm escort landfall and chaperone overwatch.”

  “Landfall confirmed. Escorts: Love, Death, and Storm delivered to chalk, minus twenty. ETA to handshake forty minutes. Chaperone overwatch primed. Request escort handshake confirmation. Delivery active pending your go.”

  “Registers. Will confirm handshake. Anteater out.”

  The audio clicks off.

 
Slave Two they call my friend. Since the day Sevro and I hijacked Orion’s ship in our escape over Luna, the Blue has been my confidante, my stalwart ally, my saving grace against the incredible sophistication of Gold naval Praetors. Now she is their captive.

  Slave Two. Those motherfuckers.

  Before we arrived, Orion was kidnapped by the Fear Knight from her headquarters in Mercury’s capital of Tyche. Her personal guard slaughtered. Her fingers left on her bed to mock the Free Legions.

  Unable to extract her to orbit, the Fear Knight managed to stay a step ahead of the trackers my commanders sent in pursuit. I listened to the bastard’s reports as he skinned some of them alive and tortured Orion in his hidden mountain bases. Today, he attempts to ferry her to orbit to face Atalantia’s arcane psychotechs. It will be a neural extraction—a science in which only my wife is Atalantia’s equal. Orion may have resisted torture, but when Atalantia peels through the layers of her mind, the planetary defense architecture of the Republic will be laid bare.

  I cannot permit that to happen.

  “Fascist assholes,” my niece, Rhonna, mutters and tightens her synaptic gloves in Alexandar’s direction.

  “It was the baked Red peasants who gave up Orion. Not Golds,” Alexandar says as he scalps a warhawk onto the giant head of Thraxa au Telemanus with his razor. It matches my own. Thraxa admires it in the reflection of her notched warhammer: Wee Lass.

  “The whole planet is an asshole,” Rhonna replies. “You should think of buying a villa, Princess.”

  He blows her a kiss in reply.

  “Atalantia’s got some flair, at least,” Colloway drawls. Never one for wasted effort, the best fighter pilot in the Republic lies on a crate of pulseArmor smoking a burner. His slim limbs splay every direction while pale blue eyes gaze dreamily at the curling smoke. “Remember Dreadhammer and Lightbane? Jove, was the Ash Lord on the nose. If he called it a nose. Probably called it Airdevourer or Consumer of Lifegas—”

  Thraxa’s Wee Lass thumps the deck, leaving two big divots.

  Everyone shuts up.

  My apex killer is horny for battle. Thraxa’s face is painted orange. Her thigh-thick neck bent forward like a sunblood stallion at the Hippodrome starting block. While I regret my fondness for violence out of a Red sense of guilt, the old-blood Gold bathes in its furor. Not the glory Cassius loved, or the noble fight Alexandar chases, or the cathartic revenge Sevro needs, but the primal essence of battle itself. Never is Thraxa more alive than after thirty days in the field, crusted with saddle sores and sweat, hunting men who have never been prey.

  “I like to kill people I don’t like,” she once said when Pax asked why she follows me. “And your daddy brings ’em like flies.”

  I survey the rest of my meager force. All save Colloway wear the warhawk Sevro made famous. Alexandar, Colloway, and Thraxa are ready. Are Rhonna and Tongueless? The old Obsidian sits cross-legged on the floor.

  From prison guard to prisoner to an unlikely asset, Tongueless proved his worth on the Ash Lord’s island. He is a true patriot for the Republic, but I fear he may not be ready for what’s coming. I fear we’re not. Without Sefi’s mate, Valdir, and his Obsidians, without Sevro, Victra, Pebble, Clown, and Holiday the company feels smaller than it should. I am missing my best weapons, and friends.

  “The enemy is in motion,” I say. “The Fear Knight will attempt to deliver Orion to the Annihilo within the hour. If we can rescue her, we will. If we cannot, we terminate. They will not get that intel.” I look them each in the eye to measure their will. “You know the plan. You each have kill clearance. Remember why we are here. Our mission is not to save ourselves. It is to protect the Republic, at any cost.”

  They nod, but I wonder if they understand the extent to which I expect them to honor that principle. There will be those whose consciences will deceive them into holding higher other principles.

  I need a core I can depend upon.

  “Intel suggests we will encounter at least three Olympic Knights and Gorgon operators.” The Gorgons comprise the Fear Knight’s blackops legion. Their ranks consist of Shamed Golds from the Institutes, and Grays and Obsidians with antisocial tendencies deemed corrosive to the fighting spirit of the regular legions. “No one is to engage an Olympic unless you’re with me.”

  “Will Fear be there himself?” Thraxa asks.

  “His name is Atlas,” I reply. “It’s possible, but I doubt Atalantia will give up her best ground operator before her Rain. But she is sending Ajax.”

  Alexandar and Thraxa tense.

  “Do we have confirmation from Screwface?” Rhonna asks.

  “Screwface is still silent,” I say. She looks down, fearing the man is dead. It is likely, since our only mole on the Annihilo failed to warn us of Atalantia’s ambush. “Any more questions?” None. Refreshing change of scenery. “Good. To your slots. Let’s get our girl back.”

  Rhonna scoops up her vacuum sack, fist-bumps Char and Tongueless, and slides down the ladder to the starShell bay. I feel a pang of guilt. I told my brother I’d keep her safe. If I wasn’t so short-staffed, I could concoct a reason to keep her on the Necromancer. But for Orion, even my niece is worth risking, especially considering her role today may be more important even than my own.

  I grab Alexandar’s arm as the rest head out and gesture to Thraxa’s paint stamp. I ask him to do the honors. “I know you were close to Kalindora,” I say as he picks up the contraption. He nods at the mention of the Love Knight, his mother’s younger sister.

  He toggles through the options on the paint stamp. “She spent every summer with us in Elysium, always begging Grandfather to train her. But she was best friends with Atalantia and Anastasia. He didn’t want to give Octavia another weapon.” Alexandar looks up. “When he took the house to Europa, she chose her Sovereign over her family. She is no blood of mine.” He points the paint gun at my face. “What’ll it be? Goblin black, Valkyrie blue, Minotaur purple, Julii jade…”

  “Blood Red.”

  * * *

  —

  In the spitTube again.

  Waiting for the kill.

  I hate this part.

  A moving mind is always fed. At rest, mine eats itself.

  How many times have I been here? Sealed in a womb of metal, not for birth but to eat the living? The confines afflict me with dread. Dread not of what lies beyond—you can never prepare for that game—but that this will be my eternal tomb.

  Cursed to live to kill. Is this who I will always be?

  Is this the life I crave? To rise before the sun? To smile at the cock and fart jokes of killers as they grow younger and I grow older? To sleep under tanks, in the ruins of cities, amongst the corpses?

  I no longer believe in the Vale. I am the walking dead.

  Woe to those who cross my shadow.

  I miss the promise of life. The smell of rain. The murmur of waves on a shore. The sound of a full house. It is a life I have rented, but never owned.

  My wife and son are real. Not ghosts in my head. They are out there breathing right now. Where are you, Pax? Is it bright where you walk? Are you afraid? Has your mother found you? Your uncle? Do you wonder if your father will come? Do you hate him for having left? Will you ever understand?

  I have stolen pieces of him and his mother, which I hold for ransom, promising to one day return. I know that is a lie. Mercury will be my end.

  I reach for his key, forgetting I set it in my luggage three weeks ago. My thoughts drift to his mother. Unlike Sevro, Virginia did not accuse me of parental malfeasance. She knows the shearing forces at work on my heart. How can I be a father to Pax if I abandon the millions who chose to follow me to Luna? The responsibility to many outweighs the responsibility to one, even though it breaks something inside me. I feel alone knowing Sevro would not make the sacrifice. Am I alone in my conviction, or have I gone mad?<
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  My wife and I corresponded during my passage from Venus to Mercury before I had to go dark as I approached the planet. Now it is too dangerous. I play the last words of her final correspondence. Her voice echoes through my helmet. “Trust your wife to find our son. Trust your Sovereign to bring the armada. Trust in me enough to stay alive.”

  I trust my wife. I do not trust my Sovereign.

  She will find Pax with Victra and Sevro. But no rescue fleet will come for my marooned army. Most have forgotten the slingBlade of my people was not made to kill pitvipers. It was made for hacking off limbs of trapped miners. My old mentor, Dancer, has not forgotten. Now the leading senator of the Vox Populi movement, he will amputate us to save the Republic.

  Atalantia expects this. If she breaks the Free Legions here, if she feeds Mercury’s resources into her war machine, who can match her in space and Atlas and the Ash Legion commanders on the ground when they sail on my mother, my brother, my sister, my son, my wife, my friends, my home?

  I will not survive Mercury, I know that. The Free Legions will not survive Mercury. But we can make Atalantia pay so dearly for our deaths, that we break the back of the Gold military and secure a chance for our families, for our Republic and its fragile dream.

  I put away my wife’s face as I put away the key my son gave me for his gravBike when I sailed for Mercury, and stare at the red light until the enemy com crackles.

  “Anteater to Dark Tango. Escort handshake confirmed. We are go in three, two…”

  Fury begins upon the planet with a spark. A lone frigate rises from a hangar hidden in the desert mountains. An escort of six Gorgon ripWings follows, burning low across the desert toward the Sycorax Sea where the ground shields do not reach. In orbit above the planet, five dreadnoughts, led by Atalantia’s Annihilo, plunge toward the western hemisphere.