She’d chosen his quarters for the confrontation. “The Fury’s our kin, brothers and sisters,” she’d said, those gray eyes bright and swimming with emotion. “Tai-shu, I beg you to reconsider. You have already violated the Ares Conventions and…”

“Damn the Conventions!” Sakamoto had been ready to explode. “I am the law here, and I answer to no one!”

“But the Fury could be our ally.”

“They’re a nuisance.” Good for Worridge. He hadn’t been drinking that day else he’d have killed her where she stood. Bringing up the Conventions and now the Fury… damn her, why did she have to be so valuable? “Why such the bleeding heart for Tormark?”

“Our troops admire her. Fighting the Fury will just make her more sympathetic.”

True, and how that had galled him. Only a few months into battle, and already he’d had to arrest a dozen or so of Kobayashi’s men, devil take it. Mutinous pirates. Well, let the rest of the troops see how he dealt with that.

Eventually Worridge had backed down, but now, here she was, throwing down the gauntlet again by invoking the Combine—and, by extension, Vincent Kurita—in front of the crew, emphasizing that she knew he had no authorization from the coordinator. Very well played: Argue, and he put Worridge on a level playing field, elevating her in the troops’ eyes. That would not do. So Sakamoto chose his words with care: “There is an old saying, Worridge. A tool does not boast of its handler. We are tools, nothing more.”

That stung, Sakamoto saw. A faint flush stained Worridge’s pale cheeks. She’d followed his orders all along. Discredit him now by invoking Kurita, and she did the same to herself. “Well said, my Tai-shu,” she murmured. “Of course, you’re right.”

She might have said more but Black Wind’s tai-sa said, tentatively: “A thousand pardons, Tai-shu, but I estimate five minutes to outer atmosphere.” A pause. “And there are five aerospace fighters on approach.”

“Excellent,” said Sakamoto, turning aside from Worridge, effectively dismissing her. “A little warm-up; they’re bugs, nothing more. DropShips Crystal Rain and Honor’s Pearl are to engage the fighters. Deploy our own fighters only if necessary. I want Blood’s Tide and Dragon’s Sword to target Homai-Zaki. As for us and Serpent, set course for Phoenix Dome.” He paused, inhaled that wonderful scent—and yes, it was the scent of battle—and said, “Now.”

26

Phoenix Dome, Al Na’ir

Prefecture II, Republic of the Sphere Midday,

20 June 3135

Five hundred and fifty meters at its highest point, Phoenix Dome was a semirigid, bacterially derived plastic monomer, protected by a latticework of titanium steel and milky duraglass, injected with microscopic slurries of crystal steel built to withstand small meteor strikes. Al Na’ir’s atmospheric pressure was a fifth that of Terra and principally consisted of sulfur dioxide clouds that clotted in dingy clumps the color of egg yolk. By contrast, the dome’s air was sweet and always a balmy thirty degrees Celsius, except for occasional manufactured rainy days, and snow in December. Today, from the apex of Phoenix Tower, Prefect Priscila Recinto peered out her smeary office window at unscheduled rain and thought, Right season, wrong color.

There was a curfew in place; marshal law had been declared when the riots spiraled out of control two weeks ago. Columns of flak-vested police threaded through thoroughfares and alleys like busy ants scurrying through an immense hill. But the damage had been done. Soot mixed with rain drizzled in a gray curtain, slicking the streets with ash and glazing buildings and windows with a patina of grime.

A voice, hushed, male, at her shoulder: “It’s Armageddon.”

Recinto turned her soft brown gaze onto O’Mallory. The legate had lost weight, and the angles of his shoulders tented a dull slate-blue jacket. O’Mallory’s cheeks were hollow, the hazel eyes just above set into deep sockets smudged with crescents of purple. “I think so,” she said. She backhanded an oily shank of dull blond hair from her forehead. She was filthy; her nails were ragged and ridged with crescents of black. She hadn’t showered in two days, ever since the water had gone out when the treatment plants blew, and all emergency water had gone for the fires. She wore the same sour-smelling clothes she’d slept in for the past two days, curled on her office couch.

O’Mallory said, “You should go to the shelter.”

“Someone has to stay above ground, monitor the troops, lock out the sub-tee maglevs if necessary. I’m the only one who knows the codes.” She managed a wan smile. “Anyway, how would it look, the prefect turning tail?”

“You shouldn’t care a fig for what people think.”

“But I do. Besides, I’m not sure I could face those people now, knowing that I’ve turned others away, decided who was important enough to live, and who wasn’t.” The words tasted bitter as ash in her mouth, and she grimaced. “Governor Tormark says it’s the same in Homai-Zaki, and they have more police.”

“Maybe we’ll save the Dracs the trouble by killing ourselves off.” A pause. Then, angrily: “This is my fault. If I hadn’t staked everything on the word of…”

“It’s not as if you acted alone. Fuchida agreed with you. Central Command agreed.”

Another pause, longer this time. “Do you think… there are the Ares Conventions, but do you think we… would the Dracs dare to…?” Whatever O’Mallory wanted to say died in his mouth, and she read in his eyes something just short of despair.

“Yes,” she said, simply. “I think they might.”

DDT-Alpha, Second Al Na’ir Principes Guards

Phoenix Dome, Al Na’ir

Midday, 20 June 3135

Lieutenant Russ Fox couldn’t see for shit. Then again, you never saw for shit outside the dome, even if your butt was parked in a Dome-Defense Turret six hundred fifty meters above ground, the way his was right now. Tourists who came to Al Na’ir said the dome looked like half an orange the way it nestled in a ring of iron-rich crags. If that were true, then Fox figured the defensive turrets were off-center navels: pressurized nubs of armored ferroglass seated on the dome’s skin at the points of the compass. Each turret was connected to a rigid umbilicus sheathing a turbo-elevator that fed down into the dome via a magnetic lock. The lock was active, the meter-thick titanium hatch shut tight. The military engineers, real eggheads, said that even if the capsule sheared away, that hatch was thick enough so the dome wouldn’t breach. Probably made the folks in the dome real happy, real secure, but it made something else real crystal. Something like that happened, and Fox could kiss his ass good-bye.

The turrets weren’t airtight, or depressurized; their air supply and pressurization were tied into the dome. The turret reeked of fear and the smell of men crammed into too small a space for too many hours. Besides Fox, there were two gunners, each manning a twin-barreled autocannon on swivel mounts, one above and one below, so each gunner could turn his weapon either clockwise, or counterclockwise independent of the other gunner. Fox monitored comm, relayed orders, gave updates—about as essential to their ops as coals to Newcastle, whatever that meant.

Right now the comm channel fuzzed with interference, but he heard voices—overlapping and chattering the way squirrels scolded a cat curled at the base of a tree—until he heard the commander tell everyone to shut the fuck up, which they did. The sudden silence rang in his ears, and his skin prickled with anxiety. So when one of the gunners ripped a big one, really loud, that did it. They all three cracked up, hugging their sides, punching each other on the shoulder, pulling faces, and going peeoooweee, who let the dog in …and that felt good, really good, because, for a minute, things felt almost kind of normal. Almost.