The heels of Catharine’s soldiers beat like a drum on the metal decks of the reborn Martian shipyards. Their fast strides sent ash fragments spinning in the air. Branik and Regor stood back, observing.

  Once sleek silver fighters burned. Embers and floating wisps of blackened uniforms—once worn by men—hung like coal fog around them. The smell: sweet burning meat mixed with flaming kerosene.

  Regor coughed.

  The Alba had been destined to the terminus at Pai-Solis. To battle Major General Pericles. Not anymore.

  Five hundred metres away silver shards of metal burned in impact craters. Hours had passed since the sky lit up. Since Catharine's interceptors fell.

  Branik had watched from Noctis. Dozens of ships. Falling like meteors. Some exploded on impact. Others just... stopped. Crashed. Burned.

  He'd known, somehow, that Raf was involved.

  Now he stood at the base of the Alba's boarding ramp. The ship that should have chased Raf. The ship that had failed.

  Lining the gangway—bodies. Bridge crew. Hauled off of the Alba with missing body parts. Arms. Legs. Torsos. Heads. The few left alive carried blood buckets.

  Regor stood beside him, staring. Not horrified. Curious.

  “Their faces are melted.” The kid's voice carried too much pride. “They deserved it.”

  Time slowed, as they witnessed the gangway painted in red death. Entrails hung from the ship's hatches everywhere. A smell of human waste mixed with seared flesh caused soldiers nearby to vomit.

  On the black hull, missile tubes flickered as if the electrics got messed up by something.

  He was probably right, but Branik slammed the fourteen year old against an empty missile rack. “Saints, keep your voice down kid.”

  "Who's gonna fly that big piece of crap now?" Regor's voice was cocky, but his eyes kept darting to the bodies, then away.

  He was trying not to look. Trying to act tough. Branik had seen it before. In the mines. Kids who'd watched their fathers die. Who joked because jokes were easier than screaming.

  "What do you think happened, anyway?" Regor's smirk was one-sided. Forced.

  A gantry crane loaded coils of incendiary rounds. Ammunition and missiles. Fuel cells.

  Oblivious to the carnage around it.

  A few seconds after, sirens squelched twice and the stabilizers pivoted. Missile hatches opened. Closed. Grinding echoed from the Alba as its chain guns swung in slow arcs. One hundred and eighty degrees. Left then right. On the deck, umbilicals writhed, hissing as if they were angry snakes. Mechanics scattered from the scalding jets. The damn ship was waking.

  “The gods spoke. That’s what Regor.”

  Purging plasma, the Alba stirred and a series of orderly subsonic vibrations pulsed through the ground beneath them. Steel structures rattled and the crew boarding klaxon sounded. It was never killed. Just gutted on the inside.

  Regor punched Branik too hard on the shoulder, and chuckled—low. “They got nobody to fly it.”

  From behind, a soldier shoved them toward the ramp. Six fresh scars on his forehead. “You and you, to the boarding ramp.”

  Branik recognized him. Pericles's man. The one they’d captured at Sisyphi. Branik had fractured his arms and brought him to Catharine. But this time he wasn’t screaming. Mesh splints bunched up under his sleeves. His eyes were glass. Empty.

  He shoved them again. Down the ramp. Branik's boot landed in something soft. Wet. He didn't look down. Regor puked.

  “I-I can’t fly on that.” Before he went face first into clumps of blood, Branik yanked the kid up and glared at the guard.

  Clusters of miners were herded behind them. I could have let him die. A vision of the cavern at the Pai-Solis terminal. When he could have simply escaped with the kid.

  "Learn or die."

  The pike jabbed Branik's side. Electric shock tore through him. His legs buckled.

  Regor grabbed his arm. Held him up. "Branik?"

  Branik couldn't answer. Couldn't breathe. Pain radiated from the wound.

  The soldier shoved them again. Up the ramp. Into the Alba.

  Regor's voice shook. "Where are we going?"

  Branik looked at the bodies lining the gangway. At the empty-eyed soldier behind them. At the ship that had just killed its own crew.

  "Hell," he whispered. "We're going to hell."

  A powerful strike fractured the rock under his pick, splitting the ore into fragments of glittering minerals and precious metals. Next to him Regor bit into a quarter of rabbit flesh, then loaded the ore cart. Easy. Smiling, the kid was strong for his age. As if daylight, catenary lights hung from the soffits of the mine and fresh air huffed along the edge of the mineral vein. Cool. Pure. Branik flexed his arm. Never—his back never even twinged these days. Towards the end of the shaft a track crawler hummed. One of the new drills. Raf was there. Coming back to them.

  Branik smiled. This was how it should have been. This was—Wrong.

  No longer brittle, heated air warped the vision and the stone walls smoothed like water.

  A song. Miners didn’t sing. Not down here but they were.

  The kid raised his hand and beamed. But it wasn’t Regor. It was Pericles.

  Curling around the ore carts a giant snake made them spill their ore.

  Instantly—air vanished. Men coughed. They were choking.

  A voice spoke a mountain's name. Foreign. He couldn't pronounce it.

  Not Martian. Not human.

  The gods of Mars weren't protecting him.

  No one anywhere. Rocks scarred his head as they fell.

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  Ripping them away, Branik tried to climb. Climb. His head burned where the rocks struck him. Burning. Stop burning me.

  A scream and he ripped the hair from the side of his head.

  Wetness. Warm water trickling down the side of his face and a green fog. Never fog in the mines.

  Green blurred in his vision. Black, then red. And a hum, but not a collapsing mine. A soft hum like machinery.

  Minutes passed. In his hand—a cord. Bloody filaments. Focus, this is not under the ground.

  Where he touched it, Branik’s left temple burned. His hand met a wire embedded there.

  How long had they been like this? Hours? Days? Catharine’s tricks.

  Screens before him with green and blue lines. Flashing red.

  On his wrist comm, glyphs scrolled—then: Kill everything around Pericles.

  Two miners on either side of him. Stone faced. Wired. Wires plugged into their skulls.

  They were on the Alba.

  Before him the console buzzed. Amber flared. Two seconds and he saw missiles flare away from the Alba. Towards the plains below. The Pai-Solis terminal was there and so was Pericles. Branik knew.

  A halo of destruction. Armour obliterated. Vibrations whirred on the Alba bridge. Chain guns ripped the surface around Pericles. Incendiary rounds. Fire everywhere. On the screen men ran. Aflame. Some walked before they collapsed.

  Branik's hands were on the console.

  He'd done this. While dreaming, while wired, he'd fired those missiles. Killed those men.

  No. Not him. Catharine. Catharine's doing.

  But his hands were on the controls.

  Plating on the floor thundered and the Alba slowed to a hover.

  There must be a ship comm. Pain seared from his left temple where Branik extracted the second wire from his head.

  I have to tell Raf.

  Branik pushed a miner beside him. Where are you, Raf?

  On one of the screens, a green icon crept across. Stickney.

  Moving slow. Methodical. Like it didn't care who he'd just murdered.

  Frantic, Branik hammered at the buttons and dials on the console. Every so often a burst of static. “Raf, can you hear me?”

  Nothing. Every time.

  Steady, the ship hummed. On the screens below, soldiers in Catharine's colors escorted prisoners.

  Branik leaned closer. Squinted.

  One of them was Pericles.

  The Major General. Mars's greatest military leader. Being marched away in chains.

  Branik's stomach dropped. He'd done this. The attack he'd piloted—it wasn't just soldiers. It was Pericles.

  Catharine had won. And he'd been the weapon.

  Try again. Saints try again. Panic set in as he scanned the console. There has to be something here.

  Navigation. Ship’s control. Propulsion, Weapons. None of it made any sense, though the control levers looked familiar in a way.

  Blood trickled from his temples and the smell of death crept into his nostrils. Not from below, but from the soldiers. Catharine’s soldiers who died here before them.

  The green icon hung on the display before him then flashed two times ‘Phobos Apogee.’

  Saints what does that mean? Branik tapped the screen and numbers flashed.

  “How do I talk to you?”

  A mechanical voice rasped: Stickney communication active.

  “Raf, are you there?”

  Silence, then an answer: a thin voice washed in distortion. Mechanical. Another robot. “Stickney Emplacement. State your identity.”

  Guilt. Failure. Betrayal. What do I say? What if it’s not him?

  To the left, on one of the screens, a red icon flared. Hellas Planetia. Sisyphi Bastion. Energy reading.

  The mechanical voice rasped again: Target lock detected.

  Krrel’s gun. Novae Planitia. The one he showed him. It wouldn’t be broken this time.

  “Can you hear me? Raf?”

  Before there was an answer, the Alba shifted. Turning. Back to Catharine.

  Either you are a track drill or not. Grasping two levers, Branik pushed the right one and pulled the left.

  The console screeched. The voice rasped again: Override. Manual control.

  Within seconds floor plating hammered below his feet. The Alba’s engines thrummed and the huge corvette swung toward Krrel’s bastion.

  “I’m going to put this to a stop.”

  A panicky voice scratched over the comm panel. “Who is this. What do you want?”

  Target lock detected.

  Jerking the control’s forward Branik shouted over the Alba’s rumble. “Raf, it’s me Branik, are you there?”

  Another voice. Softer curious. “Branik, is that you? Where are you?”

  Branik's stomach heaved and his throat knotted. No words would come

  How could he explain? I betrayed you. I helped Catharine. I killed your people.

  He'd drive the Alba into the ground. Into the Bastion. Before his breath returned.

  Energy reading. Target lock detected.

  “Raf, I’m sorry. I killed them… with the Alba… have… to stop Krrel… I was wrong.” Just above a whisper, Branik called out to his former friend. Tears flowed faster.

  He looked at the miners beside him and hoped they’d forgive him. Tears obscured his vision. For a moment, the display in front of him blurred. Letters swam, then disappeared. It looked like guns. Maybe missiles. Miners didn’t know anything about guns this big.

  “Branik are you on the Alba?”

  “I’m driving it, lad… saints forgive me.”

  In sequence screens changed. The giant gleaming gun—Krrel’s gun glowed on the displays.

  Target lock.

  “You’re flying too low… Can you hear me?”

  “That's the plan.” Branik pressed the words out.

  Thrusting both levers forward, he wiped his eyes and focused.

  “Branik. How many men are with you? The kid? Do they all agree?”

  The ship’s voice rasped: Hostile acquired.

  Inside, the Alba’s bridge was getting hotter. The acrid stench inside was getting worse. Looking over his shoulders on either side miners stood. Stoic. Plugged into the ship. Catharine’s mind control.

  “No one has a choice.”

  “Branik, you have a choice. Don’t be like her… please.”

  “It’s better than the mines… they won’t feel it…” Branik’s lie felt feeble. Especially saying it to Raf. This big ship would burn. A lucky few might survive. The rest would die in pain or live the rest of their lives that way.

  “What if they do? What about their families? You don’t have to do this.”

  “No choice lad… even if I wanted to.”

  Branik’s hands shook and the Alba’s engines started to roar, drowning out the communication. Lumbering the giant slowly accelerated. At Krrel’s castle, he’d be standing on the battlements. Chain guns pointed ahead, on either side of the canopy. Useless to me.

  “You have weapons.”

  “And then what?”

  Lights flared on the console before him. None of it made sense. He wasn’t brave like his friend. I don’t have time to care.

  “Land the ship. Save them.” Raf’s voice sounded urgent but he wasn’t here to help. And he never would be. Not anymore.

  “I’m not like you… never was.”

  Missile lock. Select.

  "Branik—I forgive you."

  His hands stopped shaking.

  For the first time in hours—days?—clarity.

  The console before him. Weapons. Missiles. Chain guns.

  Below, Krrel's gun charging. Target lock on the Alba. Annihilation.

  Behind him, miners wired. Waiting to die.

  Ahead, the bastion. Stone and steel and Krrel's last stand.

  Branik's right hand moved from the control stick to hover above the weapon console. Frozen.

  He thought of Regor, and the other miners. He didn’t need anyone to forgive him. In minutes it wouldn’t matter. Would it?

  Mars remembers.