∞∞∞

  The sun set at Noctis Fossae. South of them loomed Krrel’s massive shipyards complex. This hidden valley—the home of the once vibrant Rebel shipyards. Raf wiped sweat from his forehead. The cold would come soon enough.

  Above the three kilometre crevasse face, alone Betelgeuse waited. Its diffraction spikes flared, igniting the canyon's sharp tips. Before putting his gloves on, Raf ran his fingertips over the stone, still warm from the daylight. Unlike raw ores of the deep mines, this rock would be etched with the frost of a Martian night within the hour. He despised the night’s bitter cold.

  Clusters of firefly lights swarmed behind him. When he punched the panel, dozens skittered away. As the dark matter drive door whirred shut, thumb-sized pyramidal lights drifted over the faceted hull like miniature stars. Silent, a handful formed a vignette about Xylia. Behind him the pewter hull glowed. Xylia smirked. The Galvex-1 waited.

  “Over here.” Reluctantly the lights gathered. Three swarms behind Raf, where he knocked on the starboard access panel. A few danced between the sparks glittering from Xylia’s fingers.

  “They like you too much.”

  Where once thirty technicians worked, only four silhouettes moved between the last three commandeered stratocracy fighters. Only two weeks ago, four squadrons of interceptors lay ready to counterstrike. The rebel shipyard now almost impotent. Low light protocols kept what remained safe from spies and satellites. Phoenicis Lacus had emptied. No interceptors and no pilots, only shadows. Pericles? Catharine? Or something else?

  A boy, no more than ten, ran up and handed them each a dried algae bar. Brown crumbs caught in Raf’s whiskers when he bit into it.

  “You know, Raf, I can’t understand why it was so important for you and Sarrin to spend so many days reviving this old fighter. You’ll never be able to change people. Bring change to Mars.” As if reading something unseen in the shadowy stone, Xylia stared into the crevasse walls before touching the Galvex-1. A faint blue spark danced over her fingertips. Where she touched the thrust-vectoring leaves, the dark matter drive glowed from within.

  Standing at the bottom of the cockpit stairs, Raf looked back and marvelled at Xylia’s almost alien connection to everything. “If you could fly, I’d let you take it.”

  “You don’t mean that. You care, Rafael, and you’ll do what’s right. At least I believe you will.”

  “What if you’re wrong?” Kerosene burned his nostrils as the ship woke. The heavy fighter lit up and hummed when he grabbed the handle on the ladder stairs.

  “They might be worse off with me here. Who have I saved?” Branik’s face rose unbidden. Then the elevator, jerking upward, smashing the walls. Men falling. Screaming into the blackness. Pavonis reclaiming the tunnels. A miner’s voice: We’re all going to die.

  “I just wanted to escape, but the alien ore…” His voice broke.

  “You did help them escape, Rafael.” Xylia’s breath fell on the back of his neck and her arms wrapped around him. “Pavonis has no master… you saved so many.”

  “No.” Twisting free from her grasp, Raf’s voice muddied. “I should have left the alien ore behind, I could have saved more.”

  Staggered breaths separated Xylia’s words. “Without it, you would not have saved me, Raf.”

  Unconvinced, Raf pressed his lips together and turned to the heavy fighter. “I’ve replaced a simple death with pain. It’s not any more complicated than that.”

  Xylia followed, dragged her fingers along the faceted hull leaving a trail of blue sparks. “I just have this feeling. The green planet, a conjunction.”

  “What does that mean?” Raf stared into the companionway’s blue glow.

  “I can’t explain it. The orbits are crossing soon. It’s just a feeling.” Xylia looked over her shoulder then up between the fissures of Phoenicis at a sliver of evening sky.

  “Planetary alignment? Nobody cares. Not today.” Pre-ignition sequence lights flashed amber and Raf cut through the planetary curiosities with his stare.

  Equalization vents hissed as the access door started to close. Xylia fixed her gaze to a smudge among the stars and inhaled the manufactured air within the Galvex-1.

  “This isn’t the time.” Raf rubbed his head. An odor, like scorched plastic and bleach, singed his nostrils. “We’ll be back. We’ll win, I promise.”

  As if the Galvex-1 were anticipating, Raf’s seat moved then locked, just before he punched the ascent engines.

  Rising like a solitary predator from the chasms of Phoenicis Lacus, the Galvex-1 climbed. Raf pushed the control stick forward. Wooshing of the ascent motors was replaced by a deep roar. Acceleration compressed his ribs and shallowed his breath. Gradually levelling off he set the Galvex-1 twenty-five metres above the red plains. Too low. One mistake and they’d crater the heavy fighter.

  The ship toned: Low altitude.

  “Hit anything at this speed, and we’ll disintegrate. A fast death.”

  Just for a second, his gaze softened. He glimpsed her face. Dimples. Smooth skin. The words stayed locked inside him.

  Xylia wasn’t paying attention, but low meant stealth. Survival.

  Banking towards the Royal Palace, he threaded a crater rim. In his hand the control yoke steadied. Solid. Precise. The ship responded without hesitation. For the first time in weeks something worked.

  “See? No shuddering this time.” Xylia's eyes were vacant when he smirked at her.

  “What is it?”

  “I see a face… Rafael.”

  Raf’s hand froze on the stick. Like oil swirling in water, grey pooled in her eyes. Spreading.

  Slower—like control. Xylia’s body stiffened. Her hands curled into fists. When she spoke again, her voice sounded different. Like someone else speaking through her.

  “No Raf, it’s an image. I can’t see it clearly… a room with many faces…. Different. Not all human.”

  “What do you mean, not all human?” Raf’s chest tightened. Worse than the G-forces.

  “There’s something powerful there. Something secret.” Her eyes shifted—grey swirling into black, then back to grey. Fighting something. “Something that’s not from Mars.”

  "Xylia?" His voice was barely a whisper. "Are you still…"

  Her eyes snapped back to grey. She blinked. Gasped. "I'm here. I'm still here…"

  But Raf wasn't sure he believed her.

  “What do you mean? Cydonia? We’re not anywhere near there.” Why was it whenever The Face was mentioned, his throat tightened?

  Abruptly, screens on the navigation console turned red. The ship toned: Armour plating active. “We’re closing on the palace.”

  “Trouble.” Wide avenues of the palace approaches stretched ahead. Knifing into the smoke, Raf leaned forward and squinted through the canopy glass. The stink of decaying flesh and incendiary weapons entered the ship.

  “Close air intakes.” He barked at the ship.

  Hundreds of artillery craters scorched the promenade. Inside each one small fires smoldered as if each were a bleeding volcano. “Heat from the core.” Raf said. A miner knew the foothills of Pavonis from below.

  A half second later, red lights blazed on the weapons console. The ship toned: Threat detected. Weapons systems active. Select.

  Hardpoints extended from the flat hull. Rushing turbulence shrieked in the Martian air. Buffeting abruptly, Raf wrenched the control yoke before the heavy fighter slowed and angled toward the surface.

  A wall of red-black smoke concealed their descent, then he saw them. Screens on the display lit up. Targeting icons.

  “There must be hundreds of them.” Xylia grabbed his shoulder. “But the colours?”

  “Thousands.” Touching the display, Raf zoomed in. “What I can’t figure out… why are Pericles’s and Krrel’s soldiers walking side by side? Red and blue uniforms together. See that?”

  The ship toned: Threat. Select.

  “They seem to be marching together. Raf?” It wasn’t a question.

  No prisoners. They’d aligned. Pericles’s soldiers and Krrel’s soldiers were one fighting force, but how? His stomach dropped.

  “I don’t believe it. Marching side by side.” He stopped the words before they came out. One enemy. Ascent engines brought the Galvex-1 to a near hover above them and the control stick shuddered in his hand.

  The ship toned again: Incoming fire. Armour plating 66%. Reactive armour 0%. DmA 0%. DmC core power 97%.... 95%... 91%....

  “Rafael, they’re shooting at us. Rafael!” Her hand found his armrest. For precious seconds she fumbled over buttons and dials on the weapons console while her knuckle whitened.

  “This shouldn’t be. They were fighting each other.” Everything slowed and his eyes found a gap in the clouds. Where familiar stars should shine, they remained shrouded by smoke.

  Weapon. Select. Raf barely registered the ship’s voice. Armour plating 61% DmC core power 82%... 79%...

  Clusters of small weapons fire rattled off the port stabilizer lighting it aflame.

  “Novae bullets. Krrel’s guns.” Instantly he thrust Xylia’s hand aside and punched the weapons control. “Available weapons?”

  The ship spoke slow like the lunch barrack's cook. Missiles: Anti armour AA3; two, Anti personnel incendiary API; five, Type-II Interceptor M2; zero, ISM-dm Interceptor - Spatial Mass; zero…..

  “Stop, Blast, have we got any guns?” He had to stop this now, or his friends, everyone would be facing this new combined fighting force. “I’ll end this. I promise Xylia.”

  SDGC - Cannon charges, maximum inventory twenty-five thousand, fourteen available.

  "We can't stop them." Raf's hands shook. "Dammit."

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  He covered his face. His heart turned black. Not fear. Rage.

  Strata Cydonia, Strata Freya, adversaries marching in sync. They’d execute every miner or cast them back under the volcano. Worse than the overman under the thumb of the palace and Pericles combined.

  Xylia’s warning lingered. Catharine changing meant Mars changing.

  He refused to imagine what came after.

  Catharine's? Pericles's? He didn't even know whose banner they marched under anymore. And now they were shooting at him.

  Fine.

  He'd burn them all.

  "What other weapons do we have?"

  M5F Fusion; zero, M10F Fusion; zero, M50…..

  Xylia grabbed his arm. "Rafael! What are you—"

  "I'm ending this." His voice was flat. Dead. "I'll end this. I promise."

  Her grip tightened. "You don't mean that."

  But Raf wasn't sure.

  Small weapons fire clattered against the canopy glass.

  "Stop." Xylia grabbed him. Both hands on his shoulders, shaking. "Rafael, we have to leave. Now."

  "Not yet."

  "Please." Her voice cracked. Tears streaked her face. "Please don't become like them."

  The words hit harder than the bullets.

  Raf's hand froze on the weapons control.

  Incendiary bullets hit again and flames licked the face of the heavy fighter.

  The ship’s voice toned: DmC core power 72%... 70%...

  Within two seconds the Galvex-1 pitched skyward. Raf jerked the yoke hard right. Spiraling climb, maximum Gs. The ship shook violently. Air ripped from their lungs.

  Each maneuver rattled the fighter worse than the mines collapsing. But this was familiar. Simple.

  There was no fear.

  Raf brought the Galvex-1 into a high alpha at forty kilometres above Pavonis, then arced towards the trench.

  Xylia's eyes swirled. Grey and shadow. Her breath came faster, ragged. "Raf, there's something wrong there."

  "Do you mean the faces?" Raf's mouth felt dry.

  "No." Xylia's voice dropped. Almost a growl. "It's Catharine.. I can feel her."

  Raf's skin prickled. "What do you mean, feel her?"

  Xylia's eyes closed. When she spoke again, her voice was distant. "She's not alone. Something's with her. Something that…" Her eyes snapped open. "Something that wants you."

  The display lit up and an orange glyph blinked. A giant mass moving toward Noctis. Too large for a ship.

  "Blast… You mean someone's with her? Pericles?"

  Before Xylia could answer, the comm panel flashed red. Text scrolled across the screen—too fast, fragmented.

  FROM: BRITT — PHOBOS

  NOCTIS — SHIP — WEAPON — DON'T—

  Static ate the rest. The signal cut out.

  Raf’s elbows pressed into the armrests. Britt never sent warnings unless something was very wrong.

  “Raf, don’t go to Noctis.”

  Raf's jaw clenched. Branik was at Noctis. Hair on the back of his neck stiffened. Catharine had hurt him. Or manipulated him. And if Xylia was right, Catharine was nearby. Doing something that terrified Britt.

  Every instinct screamed at him to turn to the stars. To climb for orbit. The stars waited above. Like fireflies, each one a perfect light. Waypoints for his dreams.

  But if he left now, there would be no chance for his friends. No matter how far from Mars, not knowing would sour his dreams forever.

  "We'll be careful." He pushed the stick forward and the Galvex descended. "We stay low. We don't land. Just a pass. That's all."

  Xylia's hand found his arm. "Rafael."

  "I have to see." His voice was flat. Final. "I have to know what she's doing."

  The Galvex-1 dropped below fifty meters. Twenty-five. Ten. Too low. Descent motors hissed and kicked up dust from the surface below them. A faint odor of welded metal and rocket fuel seeped through the cabin. Boulders, hills, small craters rushed past. Rust-red, burned, dead.

  Ground proximity.

  Ahead, the Noctis shipyards rose from the plains. Gantries. Cranes. Ships.

  But something was wrong. The shipyards were lit. Fully operational. When he'd left, they'd been dark. Abandoned.

  Now they glowed like a city.

  "What did you see? Does someone have her prisoner?"

  "No Raf, not someone."

  "Something."

  A searchlight pivoted. Following like rifle tracers, green targeting lasers turned toward the Galvex-1.

  The ship toned: Target lock detected.

  Raf's hand tightened on the stick. "They see us."

  The lasers didn't waver. Didn't search. They knew exactly where the Galvex-1 was.

  Xylia's breath caught. "Rafael."

  "Hold on."

  ∞∞∞

  “Left-right-left-right.” Soldiers sounded off at the edge of the Noctis shipyards. On the elevated command deck, Catharine glowered. Arm outstretched. Directing engineers and military leaders. From here, she commanded everything.

  Branik sensed that she was in a hurry—to be somewhere else.

  “Get your back into it lads.” Behind them Catharine’s soldiers tapped cryo-switches on their pikes. Click-click. Click-click. Jeers and chuckles as trembling miners broke their backs again. Why were they his?

  After the fourth series of clicks, his uniform stretched too far. The button snapped off, spitting across the steel ramp just as Branik wrestled a missile onto the loading trolley. Within a rock's throwing distance, robotic machines clacked and climbed the Noctis Shipyard gantries. Bursts of light flared as the metal was stitched together. Two seconds later torch slag rained down onto their platform. A smell worse than the volcano’s sulphur. Branik flicked the shards from his shoulder before they burned through and touched skin. Robots don’t care about men.

  All dressed in the new queen's colours, fifteen miners toiled on the southern platform of Noctis. Stationed around them, too many of Catharine's elite guard: scowling, pikes extended. Kerosene venting, lights blinking, racks of nearly fifty missiles, on either side of the twenty-five metre platform. A new type. Dangerous. Catharine’s invention.

  “Load them. Now” Within arms reach, a cryo-weapon hissed almost silent. Branik didn’t look.

  Ten metres to the north, fed one by one, missile trollies screeched down a polished metal ramp. A sound that made his ears hurt. Soldiers blocked the way. Only a massive ship could hold them all. A secret ship. When the guards inspected the next missile trolley, he bent low and spied between the scaffold braces.

  Before he could see, a pike drove into his work boot, collapsing his leg. “Back to work.”

  “Old injury.” With a calm face Branik reached behind him and massaged his spine. The soldier got nothing from him.

  An arm, too skinny to belong to a man, reached under his and yanked him up. The kid who rode beside him in the Demon. Throbbing as if smashed by a rock, Branik stamped his boot twice. Not broken.

  "Raf isn't going to like it." Narrowing his brow, Branik adjusted Catharine's Strata Cydonia uniform and brushed a red stain from the snake insignia on the lapel.

  "What's your name anyway?" Branik asked, nodding at the kid holding him up.

  "Regor." The boy's voice was barely a whisper.

  "Regor." Named for a Martian crater. It felt heavier than kid. More real. "All right, Regor. Stay close."

  Regor's eyes sparked. "What, loading the ships? Or telling the miners?"

  “Both.” Making the sign of shade, Branik sighed. “Saints… just trying to make it better for you kid.”

  One of Catharine's elite guards rapped his pike, then thrust it forward. A warning.

  Branik's hand dropped. The sign of shade meant nothing here. Not under Catharine's watch.

  “What have I done?”

  Squatting low, Branik tightened his breath. “Put your back in it. Loading missiles is easier than breaking rock.” The words came out thin, forced through clenched teeth.

  The missile landed in its cradle with a thump. Branik and the kid latched its stays. Green lights blinked on the cylindrical tube. A vapour trail of pressurized fuel bled into the air.

  "Load the next one." Too familiar, the command echoed in Branik's head. Just like the trolleyman in the mines. Just like before.

  “What if she makes us go on the ship?” The kid blinked and tugged on Branik’s sleeve.

  Orange lights strobed, and a buzzer sounded twice. A repaired gantry crane swung overhead, loaded with plating in its cables, toward one of Krrel’s old sub-orbital destroyers. When metal shavings fell from the sky, all of them covered their eyes.

  “That’s the eleventh crane already fixed, today.” He mumbled under his breath. The machinery of Catharine’s Mars worked fast.

  Groaning loudly, Regor pushed. “Wasn’t it supposed to be better?”

  “She won’t.” Branik wiped the sweat from his brow. “She promised we won’t have to fight.”

  Movement caught his eye. Fifty metres ahead of them a small group of uniformed miners were being marched down a ramp, past the cranes, and towards a set of boarding platforms. One stumbled. A guard shoved him to the ground, pike aimed at his throat.

  Scowling and bleeding from the lip, he staggered to his feet and thrust his chest forward.

  “The ship is waiting.” The guard shouted.

  Regor grabbed Branik's arm. "What’d they do?"

  "It’s not what they did, it’s where they’re going," Branik whispered. "That's the problem."

  Machine noises erupted and a siren sounded five times in a quick burst. All they could see was a plume of red plasma ejected into the air. Almost as tall as the cranes.

  Flames erupted from a rocket motor five-hundred metres away. A second afterward men covered their faces as searing heat washed over them.

  "What’s that?" The kid flinched.

  "Rocket fuel. They’re purging." Branik kept working. Best not to look.

  Tapping him on the shoulder Regor whispered. “Look.” Above the loading platform, a control display flickered to life. A schematic. The secret ship in the hangar. Technical specs scrolled beside it. The image: a bristling warship, weapons ports glowing.

  Branik pressed a finger to his lips. The guards were watching. Too big to be a low orbit corvette. No.

  Two guards moved between them and the display, cryo-pikes crossing. "Back to your station."

  “What’s that?” The kid rubbed his forearm and swallowed.

  Branik hushed his voice and looked up at the guards. “Pericles’s end.”

  “His army?” Regor opened his eyes wide, but stumbled when Branik dragged him by the arm to the next missile trolley.

  “The man. Not Mars’s armies. The Major General himself.” Standing at the missile rack, he flexed his hands and lowered his voice. “Catharine wants to wipe out him and that’ll make the soldiers stop the fighting. Make Mars safe for families.”

  The kid stood up straight, like he knew something Branik was ignoring. "Why would she do that?"

  "She's not like the rest of the elites." Branik said it, but the words felt hollow.

  Catharine had promised safety. Protection for the miners. An end to the war. All they had to do was load missiles and stay quiet.

  But Raf had been promised things too. Freedom. Change. A Mars without masters.

  Branik's hands tightened on the missile trolley. Raf's promises got people killed. The elevator’s collapse. Pavonis falling. Men screaming in the dark.

  Catharine's promises came with food. Uniforms. Guards who didn't beat them. But they did beat them. Which promise was the lie?

  The missile loading buzzer blipped, and miners rushed to their stations.

  What if he refused? Branik stood still while the kid looked on: rubbing his arms and shaking his head as a guard approached—pike raised.

  A siren flared. Five long extended shrieks. Around them, men covered their ears.

  Crouching low the kid looked over his shoulder. “What’s all that?”

  Above, the display flashed: Ship approaching. Heavy fighter.

  Boots clattering on the metal ramp plating, a squadron of Elite guards formed up and began marching toward the southern approach.

  Branik glanced back at the ramp. The guards had moved. For the first time in hours, the secret ship was visible.

  It sat in the main hangar like a crouched predator. Twice the size of Krrel's old destroyers. Black hull, no markings. Missile ports lined its flanks. Dozens of them. More than any ship Branik had ever seen.

  Regor followed his gaze. "Saints…"

  "Don't look at it." Branik grabbed his shoulder, turned him away. But the image stayed burned in his mind.

  That wasn't a ship for defense. That was a ship for erasure.

  And Catharine was about to use it.

  Heat burned on his arm, and his bracelet buzzed.

  Branik unbuttoned the cuff and rolled up his sleeve.

  A message appeared.

  Red letters. Bring him to me.

  Branik's stomach dropped.

  The approaching fighter. The guards marching south. Catharine's order.

  Raf was here.

  Branik looked at the bracelet. The message still glowing red. Bring him to me. Not "capture him." Not "stop him." Bring him.

  Like Raf was cargo. Like he was already hers.

  The secret ship sat waiting in the massive hangar. The missiles loaded. The guards armed.

  And Branik had led him straight into a trap.

  His hands started shaking. Not from fear. From the weight of what he'd done. What he was still doing.

  Regor looked up at him. "Branik? What's wrong?"

  Branik couldn't answer. His throat had closed.

  Above them, the southern approach lit up—searchlights, targeting lasers, the machinery of Catharine's Mars coming alive.

  Raf didn't stand a chance.