Morning Star (Red Rising Saga 3)

“We don’t know who is in there,” Clown says

“And there’s only one way to find out,” Sevro barks. “Go.”

Ragnar and Victra go first around the corner, ghostCloaks bending the light. The rest of us follow at a dead sprint. One of the Grays squints down the hall at us. The implanted thermal optics in his irises throb red as they activate and see the heat radiating from our battery packs. “GhostCloaks!” he shouts. Six sets of practiced hands flow to scorchers. Far too late. Ragnar and Victra tear into them. Ragnar swings his razor, cutting off one’s arm and severing the jugular of another. Blood sprays over the glass walls. Victra fires her silenced scorcher. Magnetically hurled slugs slam into two heads. I slide forward between falling bodies. Stick my razor through a man’s rib cage. Feeling the pop and give of his heart. I retract my blade into whip form to free it. Let it stiffen again back to my slingBlade before the man drops.

The Grays haven’t managed to fire a single shot. But one has pressed a button on his datapad, and the deep throbbing sound of the tower’s alarm echoes down the hall. The walls pulse red, signaling an emergency. Sevro cuts the last man down.

“Breach the room. Now!” he shouts.

Something’s wrong. I feel it in my gut, but Victra and Sevro are propelling this forward. And Ragnar’s kicking in the door. Ever a slave to momentum, I plunge in after him.

Quicksilver’s conference room is less flamboyant than the rooms above. Its ceiling is ten meters high. Its walls are of

digital glass that swirls subtly with silver smoke. Two rows of marble pillars run parallel on either side of a giant onyx conference table with a dead white tree rising from its center. At the far end of the room, a huge viewing window looks out at the industry of the Hive. Regulus ag Sun, hailed from Mercury to Pluto as Quicksilver, richest man under the sun, stands before the window, mauling a glass of red wine with a fleshy hand.

He’s bald. Forehead wrinkled as a washboard. Pugilist lips. Hunched simian shoulders leading to butcher fingers that sprout from the sleeves of a high-collared Venusian turquoise robe embroidered with apple trees. He’s in his sixties. Skin bronzed with a marrow-deep tan. A small goatee and mustache accent his face in a vain attempt to give it shape, though it seems he’s stayed away from Carvers for the most part. His feet are bare. But it’s his three eyes that demand attention. Two are heavy-lidded and Silver. An earthy, efficient shade. The third is Gold and implanted in a simple silver ring the man wears on the middle finger of his fat right hand.

We’ve interrupted his meeting.

Nearly thirty Coppers and Silvers pack the room. They’re formed into two parties and sit across from one another at a giant’s onyx table littered with coffee cups, wine carafes, and datapads. A blue holo document floats in the air between the two factions, obviously the object of their attention until the door shattered inward. Now they push back from the table, most too stunned yet to feel fear, or to even see us as the Howlers enter the room in ghostCloaks. But it isn’t just Coppers and Silvers at the table.

“Oh, shit,” Victra sputters.

Among the professional Colors rise six Golden knights in full pulseArmor. And I know them all. On the left, a dark-faced older man wearing the pure black armor of the Death Knight, on either side of him are pudgy-faced Moira—a Fury, sister of Aja—and good old Cassius au Bellona. To the right are Kavax au Telemanus, Daxo au Telemanus, and the girl who left me on my knees in the old mining tunnels of Mars nearly one year ago.

Mustang.

“Hold your fire!” I shout, pushing down Victra’s weapon, but Sevro’s barking orders, and Victra brings her weapon back up. We form a staggered line with our pulseFists and scorchers aimed at the Golds. We hold fire because we need Quicksilver alive, and I know Sevro’s as stunned as I to see Mustang, Cassius, and the Telemanuses here.

“On the ground or we waste you!” Sevro screams, voice inhuman and magnified by his demonHelm. The Howlers join him, filling the air with a harpy’s chorus of commands. My blood pumps cold. The alarm throbs around the roaring voices. Not knowing what to do, I point my pulseFist at the most dangerous Gold in the room, Cassius, knowing what must be going through Sevro’s mind as he sees his father’s killer in the flesh. My helmet syncs with the weapon, to illuminate weak points in his armor, but my eyes drink in Mustang as she sets down a cup of coffee, graceful as ever, and steps back from the table, the pulseFist implanted in the left gauntlet of her armor slowly beginning to blossom open.

My mind and heart war against each other. What the hell is she doing here? She’s supposed to be in the Rim. Like her, the other Golds aren’t listening to us. They don’t know who we are past our helmets. No wolfcloaks today. They step back, eyes wary, judging the situation. Cassius’s razor slithers on his right arm. Kavax slowly lifts himself from his chair along with Daxo. Quicksilver waves his hands frantically.

“Stop!” he shouts, voice nearly lost in the chaos. “Do not fire! This is a diplomatic meeting! Identify yourselves!” We’ve stumbled into the middle of some negotiation, I realize. A surrender of Mustang’s forces? An alliance? Noticeably absent is the Jackal. Is Quicksilver betraying him? He must be. So must the Sovereign. That’s why this place is so deserted. No servants, minimum security. Quicksilver wanted only men he trusted at this meeting held so close under his ally’s nose.

My stomach lurches as I realize the rest of the room must think we’re Boneriders. Which means they think we’re here to kill them, and this is going to end only one way.

“On the bloodydamn ground!” Victra bellows.

“What do we do?” Pebble asks over the com. “Reaper?”

“I claim the Bellona,” Sevro says.

“Use stun weapons!” I say. “It’s Mustang—”

“Won’t do shit against that armor,” Sevro interrupts. “If they lift their weapons, kill the pricks. Full pulse charges. I’m not risking any of our family.”

“Sevro, listen to me. We need to talk to—” My words cut short because he uses the master command built into his helmet to jam my com output signal. I can hear them, but they can’t hear me. I curse futilely at him.

“Bellona, stop moving!” Clown shouts. “I said stop.”

Opposite Mustang, Cassius silently drifts through the Silvers, using them as cover to close the gap between us. He’s only ten meters away. Getting closer. I sense Victra tensing beside me, hungry to be let loose on one of the men who she blames for her mother’s death, but there’s civilians between us and the Golds, and Quicksilver’s a prize we can’t afford to lose.

My eyes judge the plump cheeks of the Silvers and Coppers. Not a soul here is oppressed. Not a belly here has ever been hungry. These are collaborators. Sevro would scalp them one by one if given a rusty knife and a few idle hours.

“Reaper…” Ragnar says quietly, looking to me for instruction.

“Take your hand away from the razor!” Victra shouts at Cassius. He stays quiet. Coming forward, certain as a glacier. Moira and the Death Knight follow after him. Kavax’s helmet is slithering up to cover his head. Mustang’s face is already covered. Her pulseFist active and pointed at the ground.