Morning Star (Red Rising Saga 3)

She slaps him back.

“Who is that?” I ask the hands that rub my shoulders through the blanket.

“Holiday, sir. We scooped

you popsicles up four minutes ago.”

“How long…How long were we out there?”

“?’Bout two minutes, thirty seconds. It was a shitshow. We had to empty the cargo bay and have the pilot fly backward into you, then pressurize it on the fly. These carrots can’t soldier, but they can damn well steer garbage ships. Still, if you hadn’t been linked, most of you would be dead as lead. There’s rubble and corpses floating around the sector now. HC crews crawling everywhere.”

“Ragnar?” I ask fearfully, not having heard him yet.

“I am here, my friend. The Abyss will not claim us yet.” He begins to laugh. “Not just yet.”

We’re in trouble, and Sevro knows it. Seizing command back from me as soon as we land in the dilapidated docking berth of a Sons of Ares safe house deep in industrial sector, he orders the still-unconscious Matteo and Quicksilver to the infirmary to be woken up, Kavax to a cell, and tells Rollo and the Sons to prepare for an assault. The Sons stare at us, dumbstruck. Our Obsidian disguises are obliterated. Particularly mine. The prosthetics on my face have fallen off in the battle. Contacts sucked off in the vacuum. Black hair dye thinned out from sweat. Still got my gloves, though. But these Sons don’t look at a pack of Obsidians now. They’re staring at a cadre of Golds, an Obsidian, a Gray, and at least one ghost.

“The Reaper…,” someone whispers.

“Keep your mouth shut,” Clown snaps. “Not a word to anyone.”

Whatever he says, soon the rumor will spread among them. The Reaper lives. Whatever the effect it’ll have, it’s not the right time. We may have avoided police pursuit, but such a high-profile kidnapping, not to mention the assassination of two high-level Peerless, will ensure that the full analytical weight of the Jackal’s counterterrorism units is brought to bear on the evidence. Praetorian and Securitas antiterrorism tech squads will already be poring over the footage of the attack. They’ll discover how we gained access to the facility, how we made our escape, and who our likely compatriots were. Every weapon, piece of equipment, ship used will be traced to its source. Society reprisals against lowColors throughout the station will be swift and brutal.

And when they analyze the visual evidence of our little vacuum escape, they’ll see my face and Sevro’s. Then Jackal himself will come, or he’ll send Antonia or Lilath to hunt me down with their Boneriders.

The clock’s ticking.

But that’s supposing the authorities suspect that only Quicksilver was kidnapped. I don’t know why Mustang and Cassius were meeting, but I have to assume the Jackal doesn’t know about it. That’s why I used our jammers. So the security cameras outside of Quicksilver’s control wouldn’t ID Kavax. If the Jackal saw him here, he’d know something was amiss with his alliance with the Sovereign and Quicksilver. And I want to keep that card in my pocket till I know how best to use it and can speak with Mustang.

But what will the Sovereign think when Cassius calls her to tell her Moira is dead? And what is Mustang’s place here? There are too many questions. Too many things I don’t know. But what haunts me as we run down metal halls, as my friends go to patch wounds and we pass armories where dozens of Reds and Browns and Oranges load weapons and buckle armor, is what she said.

“I have the Pax. Orion is alive.”

With her, that could mean a dozen things, and the only one who will know is Kavax. I need to ask him, but Ragnar’s already taken him down another hall to the Sons lockup and Sevro’s stopped rattling off orders to others to address me. “Reap, they’re gonna hit us, and hit us hard,” he’s saying. “You know Legion military procedures better than I do. Get to the datacenter, fastlike. Give me a timetable and their plan of attack. We can’t stop them, but we can buy time.”

“Time for what?” I ask.

“To blow the bombs and find a way out off this rock.” He puts a hand on my arm, just as cognizant of those Sons watching as I am. “Please. Get moving.” He heads off down the hall with the rest of the Howlers, leaving me alone with Holiday. I turn to her.

“Holiday, you know Legion procedures. Get to the datacenter. Give the Sons the tactical support they need.” She looks back down the hall to where Sevro has turned a corner. “You good with that?” I ask.

“Yes, sir. Where you going?”

I tighten my gloves. “To get answers.”

—

“Virginia told us you were a Red after she left you. That is why we did not come to your Triumph,” Kavax says up to me. He’s bound to a steel pipe, legs splayed out on the floor. Still in his armor, red-gold beard dark in the low light. He cuts a menacing figure, but I’m surprised by the openness of his face. The lack of hatred. The clarity of excitement as his nostrils flare wide in recounting his tale to Ragnar and me. Sevro told the Sons that no one was to see Kavax. But apparently they don’t think the rules much apply to the Reaper. Good on that. I don’t yet have a plan, but I know Sevro’s isn’t working. I don’t have time to navigate his feelings or struggle with him. The pieces are in motion, and I need information.

“She did not know yet what to do and so took our counsel as she did as a girl,” Kavax continues. “We were on my ship, the Reynard, having roast mutton in ponzu sauce with Sophocles, though he did not like the sauce, when Agea Command called, saying the Sovereign’s loyalist forces had attacked the Triumph in Agea. Virginia could not contact you or her father, and so feared a coup and sent Daxo and me from orbit with our knights.

“She stayed in orbit with the ships and finally contacted Roque when Daxo and I were already descending through atmosphere. Roque said the Sovereign had attacked the Triumph and wounded you and her father gravely. He urged her to come to one of his new ships, where he was taking you because the surface was no longer safe.” I remember Roque talking on the shuttle as the Jackal leaned over me, not being able to hear him. We landed on a ship. The Sovereign was there. She never left Mars. She was hiding in Roque’s fleet. Right under my nose. “But Virginia did not rush to your bedside.” He grins jovially. “A fool in love would do so. But Virginia is clever. She saw through Roque’s mendacity. She knew the Sovereign would not simply attack the Triumph. It would be a plan within a plan. So she sent word to Orion and House Arcos that a coup was under way. That Roque was a conspirator. So when the assassins struck, attempting to kill Orion and the loyal commanders on their bridge, they were ready. There were firefights on bridges. In staterooms. Orion was badly shot in the arm, but she survived and then Roque’s ships opened fire on ours and the fleet fractured….”

All this while Sevro and Ragnar were discovering that Fitchner was dead and the Sons of Ares base had been destroyed. And I lay paralyzed on the floor of Aja’s shuttle as everything came apart. No. Not everything.

“She saved the crew’s lives,” I say.

“Yes,” Kavax says. “Your crew is alive. The one you liberated with Sevro. Even many of your Legion, who we organized and managed to evacuate from Mars before the Jackal and Sovereign’s forces took power.”