“Congratulations, my friend,” Roque whispers before it is even done. There’s a strange reverence in his voice, any earlier frustration now gone. “With this, everything will change.” He touches my shoulder. “Everything.”
I watch my trap close, feeling the imminent victory drain the tension from my shoulders. The Grays of my bridge take a step forward. Even the Obsidians lean to watch the displays as Karnus’s ship registers my squadrons’ signatures. He tries to flee, blasting his engines to escape what’s coming. But the angles conspire against him. My squadrons loose missiles before Karnus can deploy a flak screen or bring his own missiles to bear. Thirty simulated nuclear explosions wrack his last ship. There is no point to capturing his ship at this point in the game, and so the Blue fighter pilots relish a little overkill.
And like that, I have won.
My bridge erupts with shouts from Grays and the Orange technicians. The Blues wrap their knuckles vigorously. The Obsidians, at odds with this hi-tech world, make no sound. My personal valet, Theodora, smiles to her younger charges at the bridge’s valet station. A former Rose courtesan well past prime age, she’s heard her fair share of secrets and serves as my social advisor.
Across the ship, from engines to kitchens, the victory transmits through holo screens. This is not just my victory. Each man and woman shares it in their own way. That is the scheme of the Society. To prosper, your superior must prosper. As I found a patron in Augustus, so must the lowColors find their own in me. It breeds a loyalty of necessity to Golds that the Color system itself cannot create by mere dictation.
Now my star will rise, and all aboard will rise with it.
Power and promise are celebrity in this culture. Not long ago, when the ArchGovernor announced he would sponsor my studies at the Academy, the HC channels blazed with speculation. Could someone so young, someone from such a piteous family, win? Look what I did at the Institute. I broke the game. I conquered the Proctors, killed one and bound the others like children. But was that a mere flash in the night? Now those prattling bastards have their answer.
“Helmsman, set course for the Academy. We’ve laurels to claim,” I announce to cheers. Laurel. The word itself echoes through my past, making bitter my mouth. Despite my smile, I feel no great joy at this victory. Just grim satisfaction.
One more step, Eo. One more step forward.
“Praetor Darrow au Andromedus.” Tactus plays with the title. “The Bellona will shit themselves. I wonder if I can leverage this into a command, or do you think I must join your fleet? Can never tell. Gorydamned bureaucracy is so tedious. Coppers to grease. Golds to lobby. My brothers will want to throw us a party, naturally.” He nudges me. “At a Brothers Rath party, even you might finally get bedded.”
“As if he’d touch your friends.” Victra squeezes my hand, fingers lingering as though she wore a gown instead of armor. “Loath as I am to say it, Antonia was right about you.”
I feel Roque flinch, and remember the sound of Antonia cutting Lea’s throat as she tried to lure me from hiding at the Institute. I had stayed in the shadows, listening to my small friend fall wetly to the mossy ground. Roque had loved Lea in his own fast way.
“I’ve told you before not to mention your sister’s name in our presence,” I say to Victra, her face souring at the curt dismissal.
I turn back to Roque.
“As Praetor, I do believe I have authority to stock my fleet with personnel of my choosing. Perhaps we should bring back some old faces. Sevro from Pluto, the Howlers from wherever the hell they got shipped off to, and maybe … Quinn from Ganymede?”
Roque flushes in the cheeks at the mention of Quinn’s name.
Personally, I wish for Sevro the most. Neither of us is particularly diligent at keeping in touch over the holoNet, especially me, because I haven’t had access to it since the Academy began. Anyway, all he’s partial to sending is holograms of uniquely perverted unicorns and video clips of him reading puns. Pluto, if anything, has made him stranger.
“Dominus.” The helmBlue’s voice draws me to the display.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
His eyes are glazed. Distant, jacked into the ship’s sensors, seeing the raw data of the display I stare at. “Not clear, dominus. Sensor distortion. Ghosting.”
On the large central display, the asteroids are there in blue. We’re gold. Enemies red. There should be none left. Yet a red dot throbs there now. Roque and Victra walk toward it. Roque motions his hand and the data transfers to his datapad. A smaller holo globe floats in front of him. He enlarges the image and cycles through analytic filters.
“Radiation?” Victra hazards. “Debris?”
“The asteroid’s ore could cause a mirror refraction from our signal,” Roque says. “Couldn’t be software.… It’s gone.”
The red dot flickers away, but the tension has spread through the bridge. All stare at the display. Nothing. There’s no one else out here except my ships and Karnus’s defeated flagship. Unless …
Roque turns to me, face drawn, terrified.
“Flee,” he manages just as the red signal burns back to life.
“Full power to engines,” I roar. “Thirty degrees plus our midline.”
“Launch remaining missiles at the surface of the asteroid,” Tactus commands.
Too late.
Victra gasps, and I see with my naked eyes what our instruments struggled to detect. One shadowed destroyer emerges from a hollow in the asteroid. A ship I thought we defeated three days ago. Its engines were off as it lay in wait. Its front half is torn and black from damage. Now its engines blast at full power. And its trajectory takes it directly toward my ship.