∞∞∞

  Catharine stood in the doorway of the Tractability Laboratory and tried not to vomit.

  Xylia had shown her drawings to the wrong person. Again.

  The air reeked of antiseptic. Chemicals that burned her throat and stung her eyes.

  In the centre of the white-tiled room, a surgical table rose on a single steel post. Black restraint straps dangled from its surface, waiting. Above it, a machine loomed—all angles and blinking red lights, ticking like an angry clock.

  Her seven-year-old sister stood beside the table in her star-patterned nightgown, crying. Xylia's Lady-in-Waiting, a young woman who'd cared for her since birth, knelt beside her, whispering reassurances that sounded like lies.

  The queen stood near the far wall, hands clasped, face expressionless. She was speaking quietly to the Master of the Palace—Ort. Neither looked at Xylia.

  Catharine's stomach twisted.

  This is the queen's punishment, she thought. For disobedient children who remember what they shouldn't.

  "Catharine," her mother said without looking at her. "Come here. Now."

  Catharine crossed the room on numb legs.

  Monitors lined the walls, flickering in patterns that refused to resolve. Bags of coloured fluid hung from hooks above the table, swaying slightly in the recycled air. Scalpels and clamps lay arranged on metal trays—precise, waiting, gleaming under the stark lights.

  Two orderlies in white gowns and blue masks moved forward. They lifted Xylia onto the table.

  She fought them.

  "No! Mommy, no! I don't want to!"

  One orderly cinched a black belt across her chest. The buckle snapped shut with a metallic clap.

  Locked.

  Xylia thrashed against the restraints, and a frantic stream of words spilled from her lips. Star names, constellations, anything to anchor herself to what she knew was real.

  "Antares, Sirius, Betelgeuse—"

  Her Lady-in-Waiting collapsed to her knees, pounding her fists against the floor.

  "She's just a child! Please! She saw a planet! That's not a crime!"

  The queen's voice cut through the room. "Remove her."

  Five doctors descended. A needle flashed. The woman's eyes rolled back. Within seconds, she went limp.

  Black-uniformed soldiers dragged her unconscious body from the laboratory.

  Catharine pressed a trembling finger to her lips. Don't notice me. Don't notice me.

  "Catharine." The queen moved to Xylia's right side, close enough that Catharine could smell her perfume… lavender and something metallic. "Help me hold her still."

  Catharine's feet moved before her mind caught up.

  The queen pressed one gloved hand against Xylia's chest—hard, clinical, pinning her like a specimen. Tremors rippled through Xylia's small body.

  "Take her hand," the queen said.

  Xylia's hand was hot in Catharine's grip. Slick with fear, shaking.

  Catharine slid two fingers under the restraint strap, just enough to ease the pressure on Xylia's wrist.

  "It's all right," Catharine whispered. Her mouth tasted sour. "I promise."

  She looked up at her mother.

  The queen's face was stone.

  The lie settled between them like ash.

  "Mother?" Xylia's voice broke. "What did I do?"

  Ort stepped forward and tightened the remaining straps with his stringy hands. Fingers of bones, wrinkly skin and blue veins moved as if they were spider legs. Tying. Wrists, ankles, torso. The last one circled Xylia's small head, forcing her to stare directly into the blazing lights above.

  "Mommy, please!"

  A doctor fitted a steel ring around her forehead. Screws gleamed along its circumference. He twisted the first one.

  Metal bit into bone.

  "Oww! It hurts! It pinches!"

  Catharine flinched.

  The queen asked. "Is that necessary?"

  The doctor murmured behind his mask—low, professional, but Catharine was close enough to hear every word.

  "It keeps the skull immobile when we reach the frontal lobe."

  Above the table, a thin needle descended on an articulated arm.

  Catharine's throat closed. "What is that?"

  "Cranial drill." The technician's voice was flat, almost bored. "Goes in just behind the eye." His fingertip tapped against Catharine's forehead. Too lightly, mocking. A grin split his face above the mask. "Behave, and you won't need one."

  Xylia's eyes went wide. Tears streamed down her temples into her hair.

  "Mommy, please don't! I don't want to!"

  "This is for your protection, Xylia." The queen still wouldn't look at her. She watched the monitors instead.

  "They're not nightmares!" Xylia's whole body shook now. "The planet's real—like Phobos and Deimos! Please, Mommy!"

  The machines whirred to life. The sound twisted Catharine's gut.

  "Will you put her to sleep?" the queen asked the head doctor.

  "Just a local anesthetic over the eye," he replied. "Best to keep them conscious. We need to test the implant's effectiveness in real time."

  The drill lowered.

  Catharine covered one eye with her free hand. Under her breath, she muttered the palace rules like a mantra: A princess does not cry. A princess does not interfere.

  A doctor adjusted a dial.

  "There. Perfectly centred."

  The drill hovered beside Xylia's eye.

  "Mommy, please!"

  "Now, Xylia." The queen's voice was ice. "If you'd studied protocol instead of stars, we wouldn't be here." She waved one hand dismissively, then nodded to Catharine. "Hold her steady."

  "It's going to be better," Catharine whispered. Her eyes darted between Xylia and her mother. "I promise. It's going to be better."

  The drill touched bone.

  Xylia's body arched like a bent wire, straining against the straps.

  The smell hit Catharine first. Hot metal, ozone, and something sickly sweet. Burnt sugar.

  Catharine's ragged nails dug into her palm until she felt blood.

  She wanted to bite them, to scream, to run, but her lips only quivered.

  And she held her sister down.

  ∞

  The whirring stopped.

  Catharine blinked. When had the machine powered down? She couldn't remember.

  The lights still burned overhead. Heat from the bulbs made a soft ticking sound. Mechanical, rhythmic, wrong.

  A nurse spoke somewhere behind her. Someone answered. The words floated past Catharine like the green planet had floated past the window years ago. Distant, unreachable, unreal.

  Her hands were wet with sweat.

  When had she let go of Xylia's hand?

  On the metal tray beside the table lay a thin curl of wire. Fine as a strand of hair, catching the overhead light.

  Part of the implant.

  Part of what they'd put inside Xylia's brain.

  Catharine stared at it until the room stopped spinning.

  Orderlies lifted Xylia from the table. Small, unconscious, broken. And carried her through the far door. Her star-patterned nightgown trailed behind them like a discarded flag.

  Catharine smoothed her skirt the way her mother had taught her.

  Her hands didn't shake.

  Why don't my hands shake?

  The surgical table stood empty now.

  The black straps waited.

  For the next disobedient child.

  For the next one who remembered what they shouldn't.

  Catharine turned and walked out of the laboratory without looking back.

  But she would remember this. Every detail. Every sound.

  And Xylia would never forgive her.

  ∞∞∞

  The elevator doors opened onto chaos.

  Raf led the miners into a vast armoury. High-ceilinged, lined with weapon racks and armour stands. Floodlights glared down from the vaulted ceiling. Fifty metres ahead, white exit doors led deeper into the palace.

  Raf's boots hit polished marble. The sudden shift from mine shaft to palace felt wrong. Too clean, too bright, too much open space after kilometres of crushing stone.

  Branik stumbled out behind him, grimy finger sketching the sign of the shade across his chest. A silent plea to dead gods.

  "Raf... maybe the cowards'll be gone."

  "We made it, lad." Branik clapped Raf's shoulder, voice grim.

  Thirty miners flooded into the armoury behind them—filthy, bloodied, desperate. Some still carried scrap metal from the tunnels.

  "Look for weapons," Raf shouted.

  Floodlights slammed down, pinning them in place.

  They weren't.

  Between the miners and those doors: a rank of Strata Freya soldiers, rifles raised.

  Twenty soldiers in black armour blocked the exit, shock rifles crackling with electricity. Behind them, combat armour stood on display racks—ceremonial, useless. Weapons lined the walls, but they were too far away, past the soldiers.

  The soldiers' rifles rose in perfect unison. Safeties clicked off—a sound like breaking bones.

  Raf threw up his hand. "Right. Now!"

  The miners surged forward, swinging their makeshift weapons. They outnumbered the soldiers, but shock rifles could kill them in seconds.

  The soldiers wavered.

  "Hold firm!" a voice commanded.

  The rank of soldiers parted.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Major General Pericles strode through—tall, immaculate, the diagonal zebra striped crest of Strata Freya, every medal on his chest polished to a mirror shine. They chimed softly with each step. He was lean rather than muscular, more courtier than warrior, but he moved with absolute authority.

  He levelled a diamond-inset pin gun at Raf's chest.

  Raf's eyes caught on the dagger at Pericles' belt. The hilt was missing a gemstone—a gap in the ornate setting like a missing tooth.

  Pericles touched it absently.

  "Coward," Raf said.

  The general raised the gun until the barrel pressed into Raf's throat. "Use your words more carefully." He pushed harder. Raf's breath hitched.

  Behind the soldiers, a door opened.

  "You will not kill him."

  Catharine stepped through, flanked by two of the King’s palace guards. Crossed ice mauls on their shoulders. The Strata Angustus insignia. Not running. Not hurried. Just... present. As though she'd been there all along and was only now choosing to be seen.

  She moved.

  Not a step, but a claiming of space. She walked across the empty floor between miners and soldiers. Through the killing ground, and where she passed, the soldiers froze. Their rifles dipped by millimetres.

  She reached Pericles and struck the pin-gun away with the back of her hand. The barrel scraped her sleeve, tearing the embroidered silk. He didn't know why she'd stopped Pericles. He wasn't sure he wanted to.

  The gun clattered across the marble floor.

  "He answers to me." Her eyes locked on Pericles' scarred face. "You and your soldiers must obey the crown."

  Pericles' jaw twitched. His gaze dropped to the red mark on Raf's throat where the gun barrel had pressed, then rose to Raf's eyes.

  For a long moment, no one moved.

  Blast. Would Pericles kill Catharine and challenge the king here? Now?. Thirty miners with scrap metal against twenty shock rifles. The math was simple. And Pericles didn't command twenty soldiers—he commanded the full Martian forces. Whatever stood in this room was nothing against what waited outside.

  Then Pericles bowed. Fractionally, the minimum required. "You command for now, m'lady."

  A small figure pushed through the crowd of miners.

  "D—dad."

  Jendrick—still covered in dust from the canal collapse, tunic torn—edged forward until he stood between Raf and his father.

  Pericles opened one arm. "Come, lad. You don't belong with the dirt." His gaze flicked to Catharine, then back to Raf. "Though it appears Lady Catharine is fond of this one."

  Catharine pushed Raf forward, toward Pericles. "You disrespect authority, General. Take me to the Grand Marshal now." She gestured at Raf. "Bring this one."

  "Your father despises these serfs." Pericles' sneer was delicate, calculated. "The crown should be careful, m'lady." He paused. "You should be careful."

  Catharine didn't raise her voice. "If you are smart, you'll obey."

  Pericles bent low, whispering to Jendrick while keeping his eyes locked on Catharine.

  "T-they should go back... to the mines," Jendrick muttered, glancing at Raf with something that might have been gratitude or shame.

  Catharine's gaze dropped to the missing gemstone on Pericles' dagger, then rose to his face.

  "See to their wounds," she said. "Feed them. Then you may preen yourself and your son as much as you like."

  Pericles nodded slowly.

  "You choose to weaken the king, m'lady."

  Flanked by the Strata Angustus guard, Catharine turned without answering and walked toward the exit doors.

  Raf followed.

  Behind them, the Strata Freya soldiers lowered their rifles.

  ∞∞∞

  Phobos drifted toward the horizon, swallowed by a rising dust storm. From the oriel window of La Chambre Rouge, Grand Marshal Krrel watched—a broad silhouette reflecting in the thermal glass.

  Created by his grandfather before him an ATN-X - Atmospheric Tension Node drifted through the sky like a golden bird a kilometre wide. As a boy, he’d coloured pictures for his father of the Sunfish weaving through its four giant propellers. Father always chuckled when he told him how the puffy clouds they made whispered. He’d tell him that they were only machines to make air for Mars. Cirrus Guide Units.

  Soon much of Mars would have breathable air outside but his father was wrong. They still whisper to me.

  He tilted his head back, gazing up at the keystone above the arched window. The one bearing his Strata crest. Strata Angustus: The labyrinth, soldiers brandishing ice-mauls, and beneath them the dead.

  His beard and moustache were trimmed precisely. Like a sword.

  Behind him, the door opened. Two shadows approached, their reflections bending across the glass.

  Krrel's fists tightened.

  "You endanger the rule of Mars, Catharine," he said without turning. "And conspire with my enemies."

  "Father..." Catharine rushed forward, gripping his hands. "Rafael saved me."

  "You've seen my command, daughter." Krrel's gaze sharpened. "You will learn what mercy costs."

  He wrapped his arms around Catharine, holding her fast.

  Then his eyes shifted to Raf. "Outside this glass, your bones will erode in the storms of Mars."

  "I've seen tunnels collapse with men inside." Raf's face grew red.

  Krrel met his eyes. "You will again."

  "Pericles threatened you! Strata Freya soldiers—here below the Royal Palace." Catharine pulled free, shaking with anger.

  "Traitors walk in the palace." Krrel turned toward the window, eyes on Tharsis. Then he pointed at Raf. "For now, you stay alive."

  "You will go to the shipyards, miner."

  "What about the others?” Catharine stepped forward. “Father, please."

  "The rest of the miners will attend to necessary tasks below." He watched the miner's feet shift.

  "Pericles will move on the palace," Catharine said.

  Krrel's hand opened toward the arched doorway. To the crossed ice mauls of the Strata Angustus Crest. "We build the new weapons of Mars. Let him come. Open the gates. When he commits, bleed his flanks."

  "And… never enter the shipyards, Catharine."

  His gaze moved to Raf. "And you, miner. Never leave your station, if you wish to live."

  ∞∞∞

  Raf stood alone on level seventeen—a maintenance platform jutting from the western wall of the Noctis shipyards. Three hundred metres above the canyon floor. Within the deep canyons of Mars the air was thin but breathable. Even after weeks here, his lungs still screamed for air.

  Bile rose in his throat.

  He leaned over the rail and spat. The wind caught it, carrying it down into the maze of steel and shadow below.

  Gantry cranes loomed over Mars's imperial warships. Skeletal giants holding half-built destroyers in their claws. Hoist cables stretched between the vessels in red, webbed lines, swaying in the icy wind.

  Far below, workers and machines crawled between the corvettes like insects.

  Raf looked once, then turned away. The distance still made his stomach turn.

  The wind scraped across his face.

  Behind him, footsteps touched the metal grating. Light, measured, unmistakably royal.

  "I promise," he said without turning. "This isn't the palace." The queen was dead but within he still hoped that she wasn’t completely lost to Krrel.

  Gusts kicked mica into the air until it shimmered like drifting sparks.

  He turned.

  Catharine stood at the top of the access ramp, cloaked in scarlet. She dismissed her attendants with a flick of her hand. They retreated back down the metal stairs.

  She walked across the platform toward him.

  "I need to speak with you, Rafael."

  "I'm at your service, Lady Catharine." Raf wiped metal filings from his palms onto his coveralls.

  "I'm told you're a pilot now." She didn't look at him. Her eyes stayed on the valley rim beyond the cranes.

  Raf nodded toward a battle cruiser waiting for armour plating. "I'd rather fly something faster."

  "They look fearsome."

  "They're tin cans." Raf shrugged. "Mars doesn't have the alloy. Krrel's building them fast so Earth thinks twice. Scare tactics."

  Her voice softened. "My father says Earth defies Mars. That they may attack."

  "Since when do you listen to Krrel?" Raf's eyes narrowed. Remember your mother. He didn't wait for her answer. "Unless he hits them first..."

  Raf shook his head. "They're making giants. They'll smash half the planet if—"

  "Where did you hear this?" Her gaze snapped to his face.

  Raf lowered his voice. "Weapons emplacement on Phobos. True or not, we hear things."

  "You could help me warn Father."

  "Nothin' he can do." Raf looked away. "And he already knows."

  Silence stretched between them.

  Raf stared out toward the horizon. Toward the stars beyond Mars's thin atmosphere.

  "I've seen that look before," Catharine said quietly. "You're thinking about leaving."

  He looked past her. "Did you come to colour pictures again, or to mark me?"

  "Rafael..." Her hand touched his arm. "Mars needs you."

  She stepped closer. "I still need you."

  Her hand lingered—warm, familiar. Raf looked down at her embroidered dress, then slowly lifted his gaze to meet hers. He thought of the late queen first, then Catharine.

  Her eyes were always a trap. Beautiful. Dangerous.

  "In two days," Raf said, kicking a loose rivet across the plating, "we'll be ready to blast Pericles straight into a volcano."

  "When Mother was alive, we dreamed—"

  Mars-light scattered across the cranes. The air smelled of torches, iron, and ozone.

  Alarms began to wail through the steel valley.

  Catharine looked sharply toward the sound—toward the canal access tunnels to the north.

  "I have to go." She stepped away. "Back to my father."

  The alarms grew louder.

  She walked back across the platform, scarlet cloak billowing in the wind.

  At the top of the ramp, she paused and looked back.

  For a heartbeat, neither spoke.

  Then she descended, and was gone.

  Raf stood alone on level seventeen, watching the place where she'd been.

  The wind scraped across his face.

  Far below, the workers kept crawling. The machines kept building.

  And the stars kept burning, unreachable, above it all.

  ∞∞∞

  Escorted by two guards, Catharine strode through the pristine air of the grand enfilade—the ceremonial corridor connecting the council chambers to the king's wing. Crimson arches stretched in both directions. Gold filigree caught the light. Mirrors multiplied her reflection into a hundred silent witnesses.

  Here on the plains of Tharsis, beneath the structures of the Stratocracy, they ruled over the workers of Mars. Three Stratas served the king. Her father. Once.

  Every surface gleamed with the same message: The king is always watching.

  Did he see, still?

  Footsteps broke the stillness. Polished boots, measured and deliberate.

  At the far end of the corridor—perhaps fifty metres distant—Pericles appeared, guards flanking him with rehearsed precision. Silver and gold thread glittered on the fringes of the black and white Freya crest. He advanced toward her, each step echoing off the marble, and halted ten paces away.

  His shadow stretched across the floor and touched the tips of her shoes.

  "A private tour of the shipyards, m'lady?" Pericles's voice slid across the air between them. "Shall I inform the king?"

  Catharine didn't flinch. She let the silence answer.

  Behind her, her Strata Angustus guard hesitated, but she steadied them with a single flick of her fingers.

  "You climbed out of your hole, Pericles," she said, lacing her hands behind her back.

  "I am here to keep Mars strong." His gaze travelled over her. Slow, appraising, wrong. "To build a stronger royalty. A courtship that would secure Mars."

  Catharine's palace guards shifted their stances. One pike tapped marble. Once. The sound echoed down the hall.

  On the Angustus pike an embossed rendering of Sisyphi Bastion glowed under the enfilade chandeliers. Mars first fortress. Her father’s ancestors.

  Pericles's fingers twitched.

  "You mean military rule," Catharine said, "under a man who primps himself more than the king. Tell me, Pericles, how would a bride pry you away from your own reflection?"

  A vein tightened near his temple.

  "We both see Mars's future," he said. "Without my military, the king may not survive." His eyes darted sideways.

  "A deceitful military." Catharine pointed at his Strata Freya medal bar. Bright, excessive, self-congratulatory. "Led by a man who courts little girls in their bedchambers before they're old enough to refuse."

  Beside her, both Strata Angustus Guards tapped their pikes in unison. The echo rolled down the enfilade like thunder.

  Pericles lifted his arms toward the red-lit windows. "I chose to defeat our enemies."

  "You mean my father."

  "Misguided," he said quietly. "An enemy? Time will tell." One hand touched the hilt of his dagger.

  Pericles's soldiers dropped to one knee and unholstered their pin guns.

  "Coward," Catharine said, stepping forward without hesitation. "You'd raise guns to your princess?"

  "If Mars required it." Pericles smiled.

  Catharine held his gaze. "Say what you like, Major General. I doubt your courage."

  His eyes flicked to her hands. Her chewed nails exposed, a child's habit she hadn't shaken. His smile sharpened at the sight.

  "Thank you for the conversation, m'lady."

  He pivoted abruptly. Strata Freya soldiers fell into step, their measured strides dissolving into the enfilade's shadows.

  Catharine turned toward the council stairs.

  A faint streak of metallic dust clung to her sleeve—the kind that only came from standing too close to shipyard welders.

  Evidence of where she'd really been.

  ∞∞∞

  The service antechamber felt darker than the grand enfilade—colder, quieter. Shadows pooled between the tall columns that lined the narrow corridor.

  No higher than her shoulder, a small figure froze mid-step. A pasty face, arms held stiff at his sides. Each white stocking glowed in the dim light.

  "H-hello, P-princess..."

  Catharine caught him before he could turn. Her fingers closed on his tunic and lifted him onto his toes.

  Jendrick gasped.

  "I've caught a little snake," she said, her voice low. "Should I toss you into the mines? Or outside the domes?"

  "N-no... p-please..."

  His eyes locked on hers—fear tangled with something worse. Awe.

  Catharine leaned in close. "Run back to your father. If you're quick, you can warn him."

  She let go.

  Jendrick stumbled, skidding across the polished floor.

  He stopped and looked back. His eyes went first to the passage where the miner had gone, then to Catharine—too slow—then fled.

  Catharine flicked her hand, dismissing him.

  The echoes faded.

  ∞∞∞

  Krrel stood before the comm console tucked into the corner of La Chambre Rouge. Cold blue light bled over his features, illuminating vectors and weapon grids that scrolled past. The tactical displays showed installations Catharine had never seen before—secrets he had kept buried even from her.

  Once weapons designed to target Earth’s moon now needed to eliminate Strata Freya without razing the infrastructure of Mars.

  He turned when she entered.

  "Did you survey the shipyards, daughter?"

  "Pericles will advance within a day," she said. "The militia won't hold."

  She curled her fingers into a fist, hiding her bitten nails.

  "He's planning a takeover," she whispered.

  Krrel slammed his fist against the glass console. "I told you. We will open the gates."

  "He'll kill you." Catharine cleared her throat.

  Krrel's eyes turned cold. "Earth waits on the horizon." He swept a hand across the displays. "They are moving pieces you do not yet see."

  "Then let the miners help us," she said. "He fears them."

  "Power comes from the core." She reached toward the display, but he brushed her hand aside. "With power, we survive."

  Catharine fell silent.

  The holographic display shifted. The tunnels of Hellas Planitia materialized in burning amber—hundreds of shafts branching like veins beneath the crust.

  "Below the mantle," Krrel said, his voice dropping to a whisper, "lies a power no one can rival."

  Catharine swallowed. "Below?"

  Electric tracers pulsed through the holographic tunnels, all converging toward a hidden terminus deep beneath the edge of Mars’s deepest crater. Sisyphi Bastion.

  Krrel's finger hovered over the convergence point. "Strata Freya will burn. Mars will be the seat of power." He paused, then locked eyes with her. "Our power. If you take the throne."

  His hand trembled.

  He clasped both hands behind his back, hiding the weakness.

  Krrel touched the console. A holographic grid expanded above the display. Red streaks. Something like plasma erupting from Sisyphi Bastion. Krrel’s family fortress. In the image; the plains west of Hellas Planitia—all the way to the Pai-Solis canal terminus—burning.

  Catharine did not speak.

  ∞∞∞