I’m a servant of an insane king. A war mongering king. Branik had made his choice three days ago. To go to war at the great Sisyphi Bastion under Krrel.

  Three days since tunnel nine. Three days since Raf left. Three days of waiting for Krrel's war to kill him.

  But Krrel’s mind was fading. No protection, in the Falcon exoskeleton. Just guns. They’d have died men in the mines. Now they were Branik’s mistake.

  Muttering he paced, waiting for the king, instead of running.

  ∞

  Metal toes of the exoskeleton spalled fragments of rock as it climbed the battlements steps, dragging Branik with it. Beside him Krrell grinned. Brown teeth bared and those unsettling darting eyes. Always darting. Like battle was his first love and he was looking for her hiding in every battlement and where Pericles waited beyond the walls of Sisyphi Bastion.

  If he offended Krrel bad enough, he’d be executed in some excruciating way. Branik dry heaved then suppressed it.

  On the horizon ten kilometres north, plumes of rust arced behind Pericles’s assault vehicles. The soldiers called them Demons. Eight of them. Maybe more. The shapes shimmered—a mirage of war, racing across the plains. But they were coming for him. For all of them.

  A cold sweat condensed on his bare skin. He shivered and watched it drip onto the steel skeleton around him.

  The exoskeleton hissed. Hot oil sprayed across Branik's calf, burning through his pant leg. He bit back a curse. Sulpher and burnt skin wafted through the suit. The exoskeleton's joints were failing. Or maybe they were supposed to do that. He didn't know. He'd never trained for this.

  At least in the mines of Pavonis, he knew how he was going to die. Crushed under the volcano. Buried under blackness. He’d never hear the screams. No words.

  On the battlefield, he’d hear every man die. Trapped in these steel cages.

  The pressure squeezed his chest and his leg burned more.

  Branik lurched, nearly tipping the suit before the stabilizers kicked in. Behind him a missile pod pivoted then locked with an assured thunk. Blood rushed from his head and his heart pounded. Miners—his miners were forming up at the main gate. Twenty exoskeletons thumped to a buttress of sharp rock two hundred metres north of the bastion. All of them—the first to die and it was his fault. The exoskeleton hid his shaking, but not his guilt.

  He should shout something to them. Hide. Run. Run from the mad king.

  “Shoot the Falcon, blow their tires off, or die a coward, miner.” Krrel smacked the alloy frame around Branik’s shoulders then pointed to a half-dozen zig-zagging shadows with tails of red dust. Fed with igneous Novae Bullets, each twin short silver barrels clacked and whirred tracking a split second behind his eyes.

  Eight wheeled Demons. Evil spirits—worse than the tales old crones told miners' children to keep them awake. To keep them digging. These ones had guns… and Pericles’s troops.

  Branik tried to nod. The helmet was too heavy. Or his neck was shaking. He couldn't tell which.

  Eight of the long dust tails reached behind the oncoming assault vehicles, just out of range. “Demons can’t climb hills, but they can jump a chasm and are fast on the flat, lead the target or...” Krrel raised his fist in front of Branik’s face. “Or if you miss, I'll shoot you myself.”

  Each chamber clanked and the air tasted like sweet acid when a plasma round hissed on his back. Branik flexed his forearm. “Not much armour.”

  How did he get here? Raf would know what to do.

  “Kill or die for Mars.” Cupping a hand over his eyes, Krrel caught movement in the sky.

  “See that up there, they whisper. That’s a good omen for battle, when they do circles like that. Three of them.”

  Furrowing his brow, Branik’s head hit the back of the frame and stared up at the Cirrus Guide Units. “Drones… must be two thousand metres. Spittin’ smoke.” Cloud seeders.

  Cloud-making. The king thought it was magic. Branik's fingers twitched on the controls.

  “Sunfish.” Lifting both arms then splaying his fingers, Krrel looked over his shoulder at the miner. “Don’t let anyone tell you they chase ions, or dust in the sky. The spirits of Mars speak.”

  Putting his fist to his chest made the metal of the suit clank loudly when Branik made the sign of shade, but the display was for the king, not him. “Saints.”

  The strike made his forearm hurt. He’d hoped to break it. Go down to the rocks below. Below the palace where he knew how to survive, instead his bones ached.

  Metal crushed the ground and five of his best miners stepped up to the battlement beside him. Too young to die and too foolish to know the danger. “See those—blast them lads, ‘cause there is no protection for you here.”

  This was his end. Not entombed in the mines nor worked till his heart stopped by the trolley-man. Krrel.

  Raf would find a way to save them. He wasn’t Raf and slinked the exoskeleton away from the battlement. The king’s stupified by the clouds. Keep it that way.

  “Stingers—spotters,” Someone shouted. “Up there.”

  Grabbing the nearest miner Krell pointed straight up. No more than fourteen years old. “They’ll drop out of the sky… shoot every one of them, or I’ll stick a knife between your ribs.”

  Branik ducked behind a rock and watched the kid look up at the floating parachutes. Air around them clicked and popped as the spotters pinpointed Krrel’s forces. His suit leaked hot oil onto his back.

  Exoskeleton blood. Branik’s breath choked. The mines were peaceful, not like this.

  Krrel stared the young miner down willing to kill his youth. “Melt them.”

  An enemy artillery explosion hit the north battlement wall and blue plasma rained down burning some of the soldiers below. Miners wailed.

  His heart pounded in his chest and Branik skidded further away.

  “The walls of Sisyphi do not tremble!” The king raged. “My great, great grandfather cut these stones—-”

  “My king. The enemy moves on the palace and the bastion.” With a half metre square, metal framed tablet, a soldier approached Krrel.

  “What do you want, Sub-Marshal?” The king’s face blackened, darker than the foothills of Hellas Planitia.

  “The enemy, my king.” A clear face emerged on the screen. Arrogant. Unmistakable.

  Branik remembered the man. The one Catharine hated. The one Raf stood up to. The one who would set his miners to flame. His hands shook like the mad king.

  “You haven’t run yet, Pericles—but you will.” Krrel ripped the frame from the Sub-Marshal’s hands. Everyone saw the heavy armour behind Pericles and on his flanks Mars best soldiers.

  “Look at the guns on that thing.” The young miner blurted out squinting over the king’s shoulder, into the image at rows of bristling vehicles.

  “Mobile armoured hunter node, MAHN-01,” The Sub-Marshal changed a switch on the kid’s exoskeleton. “You’ll need about twenty to thirty hits on the same spot to punch through it. Tracks and grapplers, but it’s slow as hell.”

  Branik’s vision clouded. Their eyes would probably melt before they hurt it. No where to hide in this war.

  Another soldier breathed words. “Mantis… nothing’ll kill those things.”

  Krrel slammed his fist onto his open palm and nodded towards the missiles, before thrusting the Sub-Marshal aside then sneered at the display. “Pericles, your father was a coward, you’re redless just like him.”

  The air concussed and everyone except Krrel ducked when two missiles ripped over their heads from behind. Black soot and flame then the blue plasma as they went supersonic and a rattle loud enough to shatter eardrums echoed in the bastion. Plasma trails arced low toward the Pai-Solis terminal.

  Branik hit the floor. Face-first. The exoskeleton caught him but couldn't stop his body from shaking. Tears blurred his vision. He couldn't wipe them away—his hands were locked in the controls.

  Krrel’s grin—contemptuous.

  “After this Catharine will sit beside me on the throne—” Pericles stated over the display.

  An explosion rocked Pericles' position. Flame and black smoke darkened the image, then it went blank.

  Pericles gone? Krrel killed him. Branik scraped himself from the ground. One of his guns made a hideous sound when it turned.

  “We hit it. We blew it up, completely!” The young soldier slapped another miner on his exoskeleton and smiled at Krrel. “Direct hit.”

  Krrel steadied the frame as the image flickered to life again. Some of Pericles’s soldiers staggered in disarray, but he stood arrogantly again and adjusted his uniform.

  “We’re coming for you and the bastion Krrel, you can’t stop us.” Behind Pericles—fog. Red blazed through.

  In the back of the frame, a scorched Mantis hull appeared. Flames licked its surface, and yet the turret still searched for targets. The war drone advanced.

  Branik spat phlegm and scanned the courtyard, searching for his squad. He had no idea what just happened. Shadows hiding in the bastion walls. If there was a tunnel here.

  A figure emerged from the shadows—palace uniform, face concealed.

  Backing the frame into a bastion wall behind him Branik clenched his fists and curled his toes. He’d be dead in a second. Gravel pinged off the skeleton frame.

  A square of fabric thrust into his hand. "Take this!" The figure's sleeve pulled back, revealing a mark on their wrist—the coiled snake of Strata Cydonia. Catharine’s strata.

  His throat locked. He tried to speak. Nothing came out. Branik unfolded the note. A communications bracelet and palace script. A woman’s hand.

  To save your friend Raf, and save the miners, you must do this for me. Wear the bracelet. Follow the instructions.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  — Catharine

  Sweat cascaded over his face. The figure was gone. If he could run like the stranger, from the maelstrom of war. From all of this. Into a mine entrance.

  Krrel's eyes tracked the movement from the battlement above. His gaze lingered on Branik for a moment, then returned to the display.

  The note slipped from Branik's hand and fluttered to the ground, when he put the bracelet on. He didn't notice. All he could think about is what Raf would say.

  Within Krrel’s wavering hands the screen flickered. Smoke cleared.

  “The Mantis, it’s still moving.” Gasping each word, the young soldier dropped his arms.

  A hushed voice somewhere said. “It's coming to kill us.”

  Pericles surged over the tablet. “When I’m finished, I’ll cut out your tongue and strap you down in the Tractability Laboratory. You’ll scream but no one will hear you, Krrel.”

  “Catharine will watch. My new queen.” Smugly, Pericles adjusted his medals.

  Krrel held up a maul where Pericles could see it and his knuckles whitened on the display frame. “I’ll cut you like the coward you are, babbling like an infant before men.”

  “I will crush each bone in your body, you will witness the snakes of Mars devouring your own flesh.” Krrel’s hands were trembling again.

  “Demons are within range. Take position.” The Sub-Marshal yelled.

  Fire bombs rained down from the sky onto Sisyphi as the miners raked the sky with bullets, igniting some of the spotter drones. Screaming motors from the first Demons drew close. Plasma tracers hailed towards Pericles’s approaching vehicles as they dispatched enemy squadrons before retreating again.

  He didn’t want to, but Branik joined the rest of the miners. His lips quivered.

  “They’re too fast.”

  “Anticipate.”

  Grabbing the submarshal by the shoulder, Krrel pointed to a map. “Lure them in—bleed their flanks.”

  “But the gun’s not fixed, my king.”

  The Sub-Marshal's radio crackled. "Heavy armour. Two Mantis descending the crater rim—one vectoring to the bastion. Where’s the king?"

  Krrel laughed. Not the laugh of a sane man, but the cackle of someone who'd already lost and didn't care.

  "Let them come," he said, raising the maul above his head. "The walls of Sisyphi do not tremble."

  Branik looked at the fourteen-year-old miner beside him. The kid's face was terror-stricken, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  Branik's own eyes burned. The helmet hid them.

  Saints of Olympus.

  “Follow me.”

  Fire bombs cratered the bastion's gate road. Branik and a half-dozen miners sprinted two hundred metres toward the anti-vehicle barriers, exoskeletons clanging as they crushed rock beneath their metal feet. Plasma spat from explosions, finding gaps in their armor, searing uniforms and scalding flesh. Sisyphi Bastion bled from every mortar joint.

  “This way,” Branik pushed the kid down flat on the ground, just before the next round of fire.

  Deep in the mines, he could count the dangers on one hand. The trolley man, a rockslide, collapse or even death. The simple dangers were beautiful compared to this place.

  Four hundred metres to the east a slow moving Mantis extended its claws, like a giant insect and straddled the jagged barrier. Destination: Sisyphi Bastion—Krrel.

  “Defences are useless against those things,” The kid’s face was coated with red grime and the sweat of fear.

  Tapping the bracelet and looking at the kid, Branik smirked and gave him a shove. “Remember, Catharine’s bracelet here is going to make the Demon stall…. and when I say run—we run.”

  Prone, behind the rock barriers, Branik’s squad of miners waited. Each exoskeleton whirring and clicking while light weapons fire shrieked past them. The bracelet display flashed green. READY.

  Branik took a breath. "When I give the signal—"

  He tried to push back the haunting memory of the mines: when he almost got buried by the rock, but he hid in the ore cart. Trapped but protected. The ore cart saved him, stopping a boulder from above, but his father died. Beside him. He never heard the words.

  The kid.

  "Can you drive it?" The kid's voice cracked. "The Demon?"

  “Demon, DEMV… just like a track drill.” His face lit up, and hoped the kid believed him. “You two, bag the driver if he’s got any medals. Catharine needs him.”

  From ahead a turbine screamed as it approached. Then quiet. Voices shouted. Rushing to form up behind the Mantis, Pericles forces were dispersing, and then the turbine whirred again. Spooling up.

  Their target. Two hundred metres ahead, a Demon sat idling behind cover—eight wheels, light armor, turbine cooling. Its crew had dismounted, moving to support a Mantis assault vehicle on the eastern wall.

  Aside from its driver, the Demon was alone.

  "Pericles' squad heading for the Mantis," the kid whispered. "That means—"

  "The Demon's undefended." Branik tapped the bracelet. "Now's our chance."

  “Now.” Clearing fifteen metres the exoskeleton propelled Branik over the rocks. The rest of the miners followed. Pericles' driver never saw them coming.

  “He’s got medals.” One of the miners yelled.

  The driver had medals. Four of them. Just like the ones the trolleyman wore in Pavonis. The man who'd pinned Branik against the rails and told him he'd die in the dark.

  Branik grabbed the driver's arms. The kid fumbled with the cables, hands shaking. The driver screamed. Something cracked—bone breaking, felt through Branik's gloves.

  Just an arm. In the mines, you could splint an arm. But a broken leg meant death.

  This was just an arm.

  But Catharine said this would save them. She said if he brought her Pericles's officers, she'd protect the miners. All of them.

  She had to be right.

  She had to be.

  Because if she wasn’t, he’d just broken a man's arms for nothing.

  “Saint’s, she was right.” Branik wrenched the steering skids, and turned the Demon a hundred and eighty degrees then aimed it toward the Pai-Solis Canal Terminal. “She’s got eight wheels but we might fly.”

  Branik glanced back at Sisyphi. Smoke rose from the bastion walls. Plasma fire still split the sky. Krrel was back there. Still fighting. Still believing. And the miners Branik couldn't save were dying for a mad king.

  He turned forward to hit the throttle, but looked back. This was all Raf’s fault. He led him here, out of the mines and away from safety. He’d tell the kid if he ever sees alien ore, just to bury it. Hide it and cover it in boulders. Never let the trolley man see.

  His choice—this choice might save more miners than staying with Krrel. Or maybe it would just save the kid. He had to do something. The miners behind them were as well as dead.

  Lurching, the Demon accelerated over the yellow-red plains next to Hellas. Branik pushed the throttle harder when the next barrage of artillery ripped overhead.

  At least Catharine's danger comes with promises.

  “We’re all just friends,” One of the miners smiled and laughed nervously.

  “Just one of Pericles’s Demons coming back to base.” The kid stared straight ahead, not looking to the sky.

  At the last minute, veer for the terminal. The plan formed as the artillery fire faded. It should work..

  For ninety minutes they drove northwest, the whole time, Branik kept expecting Pericles's forces to realize, to turn on them, to open fire. But the Demon's IFF codes held. Catharine's intel was good. Surface dust changed from yellowish to red. A three-quarter kilometre arc of fire-red dust shot from the Demon’s wheels. An easy target. Branik eyed the turret control then adjusted the throttle jumping a small crater.

  Branik stared at the Demon's steel walls. Eight wheels, light armor, open sky above. Nothing like an ore cart. Nothing like the mines where he could hear danger coming—the creak of timber, the hiss of methane, the trolleyman's boots.

  Here, death would come fast. From any direction. At any moment.

  He'd rather be buried in gravel. At least then he'd know which way to run.

  The codes, he worried. How does she know so much about Pericles's systems?

  Looking at the kid beside him, troubled Branik. Fourteen. He couldn't remember being that young. Or maybe he just didn't want to.

  Branik's hands slipped on the steering lever. He grabbed it, corrected. The kid was watching him.

  He tried to remember his father's voice. Something his father had said. Anything that meant he'd mattered.

  Nothing came.

  Just the memory of a hand—rough, calloused—holding his once. In the dark. Maybe his father's. Maybe someone else's.

  The kid was still watching.

  "You okay, boss?"

  Branik nodded. He couldn't speak.

  The suspension compressed and he slapped the kid on the leg, changing course—sharp east, toward the Pai-Solis terminal. Twenty minutes more. Leaning back he tapped each miner, relaying the message.

  Branik’s ears were still ringing when he throttled back to fifty kilometres per hour. Too fast and they'd look aggressive. Too slow and the guards might get suspicious. Behind them the dust trail softened but they’d still see them coming.

  The kid looked at him, waiting for the signal.

  Fourteen years old. Should be learning to work a drill, not operating a turret.

  Maybe Raf was already gone, chasing stars. He’s learned a lot from his old friend. He sighed, shaking his head. He shouldn’t, but he’d sacrifice his dreams just to save a miner.

  Then thought of Krrel—mad with power. Of Catharine—promising safety but demanding obedience.

  At least she's promising safety, he thought.

  The Pai-Solis terminal rose ahead—glass and steel jutting from the crater rim. A dozen guards in Pericles's colors stood at the gates. They waved the approaching Demon through.

  His hand shook like Krrel's for a moment, before activating the Demon's guns. "Now."

  The turret spun. Plasma and bullets raked the terminal entrance. Guards scattered, some falling, others diving for cover. Return fire sparked off the Demon's armor but couldn't penetrate.

  "Keep moving!" Branik shouted, wrestling the controls.

  The Demon slewed sideways, nearly clipping a rock outcropping. Branik corrected, aimed for the terminal platform where the maglev waited.

  Behind them, the guards were regrouping. No time.

  "Out! Everyone out!"

  The kid was frozen in the seat. Branik yanked him out. "I said I could drive a track drill, not one of these—come on."

  "You two—stay with the Demon." Branik didn’t meet their eyes. These men had followed him from Sisyphi, trusted him. Now he was leaving them here. "Soon as we're aboard, destroy the control centre. Blast the track back to the bastion. No one follows us. Catharine wants this terminal shut—no reinforcements, no retreat for Pericles."

  One of them nodded. The other just stared.

  Branik didn’t feel anything. It didn’t matter if they died, as long as the kid got away. Then he could teach him—teach him the things his father never did or say the words.

  What words were worth saying? Maybe Raf could tell them.

  "Catharine will remember this," Branik added, though he knew this place would be their last on Mars.

  "Then hold the ridge. Anyone tries to repair it, you stop them. Understand?"

  “The rest of you—with me, and bring Pericles' driver.”

  "Catharine gets him," Branik said, nodding at the bound officer, "and she promised Raf goes free. All of us—safe from the war."

  The exoskeleton released. Branik pulled the kid free.

  The young miner wiped his nose and shook his head. "Do you really believe her?"

  "I have to."

  "Where are we going?" Red ash covered the kid's face and arms. Without the exoskeleton, he looked almost feeble.

  Behind them, the two miners opened fire on the control center. Buying time with their lives.

  Branik grabbed the kid—skinny, dusty, younger than fourteen—and ran. His boots pounded the platform. Explosions echoed behind them.

  He should feel something. Guilt. Grief. Anything.

  Nothing.

  Just the empty-cart feeling. Waiting to be filled with something. Ore. Orders. A reason.

  The maglev doors hissed open. Catharine's promise, kept.

  Branik's feet slowed.

  Along the platform's edge, a service hatch. Half-hidden. Old. The kind that led to maintenance tunnels. Rock tunnels. The kind where you could disappear.

  He could take the kid. Hide. Wait for the war to pass.

  "Boss?" The kid tugged his sleeve. "We going?"

  Branik looked at the tunnel hatch. Then at the maglev.

  Raf might be at the palace. Raf would know what to do. Raf would say—

  What?

  You're a leader now. Act like it.

  Branik's chest tightened.

  He didn't want to be a leader. He wanted to be in a mine. With one hand to count the dangers. With someone else making the choices.

  "Yeah," he said, his voice hollow. "We're going."

  He shoved the kid through the maglev doors. Followed. Didn't look back at the miners defending the terminal. Didn't look at the tunnel hatch.

  The doors hissed shut.

  Through the window, he watched the service hatch disappear as the maglev accelerated. Three hundred kilometers per hour toward Palace Trianon.

  Toward whatever Catharine had planned.

  Toward Raf, maybe.

  His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

  The bracelet buzzed. A word scrolled across it.

  LABORATORY.