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When we surface back at the trawler, I struggle to hide my agitation and wait for my men to exit first and help load out the prisoners one by one before exiting at the last to gulp down fresh air. Yet even the brine of the sea and the cool wind of the Atlantic cannot wash away the feeling that I’ve made some irrevocable mistake.
I can’t let the Howlers see my doubt, so I emerge out of the submersible with a grand smile, and laugh to Rhonna at our catch of the day as they lay the prisoners lengthwise on the deck and shackle their hands and feet together under a clear and endless sky. “…and he puked over my boots,” Sevro says, finishing his story of Alexandar’s embarrassment to Rhonna and the support crew’s delight. Alexandar tries to laugh it off, but his cheeks are bright red. “And then we kidnapped a dog! Did you meet Tongueless? He’s a riot. Tongueless, come say hello!”
After loading up the Golds onto Colloway’s pelican, we cut open the door previously sealing the crew in, and leave the crab hauler via the pelican, flying north to our departure base in the frozen wilderness of Baffin Island. There, the Nessus, a stolen Society Xiphos-class frigate of war, lies cold and quiet under camouflage tarps in the shadow of granite escarpments. As we made our preparati
ons for Deepgrave in Greenland, my brother Kieran hid here with the rest of the Howlers, getting ready for our departure.
They wait for us out in the snow in thermal cloaks to help load up the prisoners, watching the parade of blindfolded Golds with the solemnity of funeral mourners. I share their disgust. This dirties all of us. Compounded with the death of Wulfgar, it has darkened the mood perceptibly. I don’t imagine it will brighten as we near Venus.
On the snow, Sevro and I look up at the Nessus. Painted snow white the entire length of her hundred-meter hull and crested on her starboard and port with the winged heel of Quicksilver, she’s got some of the prettiest lines ever to dart between spheres.
“This beauty puts a rocket in my pocket,” Sevro says. “What’d Quick want for her?”
“Nothing.”
“Man doesn’t get that rich asking for nothing.” His eyes follow the last of the prisoners up the ramp. “We should keep the youngbloods away from them. Half those rich shits could talk their way out of a black hole. Especially Rath.”
“They were sentenced to solitary. Solitary is what they’ll get.”
Sevro nods to Tongueless, who is standing near the ship’s portside battery, wriggling his bare feet in the snow, arms spread wide. His spirit eyes stare off into the wilderness as a storm gathers its breath.
“What you want to do about that box of fun?”
“We’ll send him to New Sparta with the rest.” He grimaces. “What, you want to bring him with? We don’t know anything about him.”
“I like his fiber. I mean, he knocked a Peerless out with a water pipe.”
“He has to be over fifty! Jove knows how long he’s been in that cell and why he was there in the first place. It’s a risk.”
“He saved your ass. And we’d still be wandering around down there with guards up our peckers if he didn’t play guide.” He chews his lip. “To be honest, it’d be good for the pack to have an Obsidian around the table. They’re feelin’ a little light in the breeches.”
By the look in his eyes, I know he’s not just talking about the pack.
“Your call,” I say. “His choice. But you tell him where we’re going.”
“To certain death, general mayhem? Who could resist?”
As if hearing us—impossible from the distance—Tongueless turns. He smiles, then looks up at the Quicksilver heel on the ship.
Sevro was right about the Nessus. She is a pretty thing. And a killer straight from the Venusian shipwrights. While the Republic might have a vast numerical superiority in ships and resources at her disposal, the new line of Core capital ships puts Victra and Quicksilver’s fledgling Phobos Shipyards to shame.
Quicksilver’s men captured the Nessus two years ago after she was damaged during a Gold raid on a Republic supply caravan to our main fleet around Mercury. Instead of alerting the Republic Navy like he should have, Quicksilver seized her, citing arcane salvage laws. When Republic lawyers tried to claim her for the war effort, Quick won the court battle and retrofitted her to serve as his personal interplanetary shuttle.
Which is why I need her.
Kieran waits for me in the Nessus’s lower garage as I stamp snow off my boots. He stares after Apollonius as Thraxa drags his limp body to the brig. The warden’s dog waddles behind Tongueless as Clown leads him to the galley to put some meat on his bones. “?’Lo, brother,” Kieran says, frowning at Tongueless, wondering where he came from. I greet my brother with a hug. He jerks his head after the hooded Gold. “So that’s that prize, eh?” In his mid-thirties, my brother is skinny as a rail, freckled, and terminally optimistic. He smells like chlorine today.
“The Minotaur of Mars in the flesh,” Sevro says.
Kieran blinks from under a tangle of red hair. “He’s big. The dog his?”
“No, it was the warden’s,” Sevro says.
“Sure.” Kieran nods, as if it makes perfect sense. “And the Obsidian?”
“It’s complicated. How’s the ship?” I ask. For the past five years, Kieran’s served as the head of the Howlers’ engineering department.
“She’s tip-top slick and ready for immediate launch.” He grins. “There’s really nothin’ to fix. We been swimming half the time. You should try the pool, it’s like the Vale itself. There’s even a sauna.”
