Once we blow up all the moving targets, Loras demands, “Recon.”

The man closes his eyes, listening. “No movement down below, sir.”

“Scout it. Vel and March, make sure it’s clear.”

Since they have the most experience sneaking around, that makes sense. But I don’t like being left aboveground while they go off into danger without me. March flashes me a smile because he’s in my head. I hear silent laughter. Serves you right, after all you’ve put us through.

Us. He’s aligned himself with Vel? That seems like an interesting mental shift, but I don’t pursue the ramifications. Instead I move over to join Sasha and the rest of the Special Forces guys. “You did great today. Was it hard?”

“A little. But this is better than any control exercise. Pretty soon I’ll be able to make stuff do exactly what I want.”

Scary power for a kid so young, but Sasha seems like he has his head screwed on right. March gets the credit for that; he’s done a great job. I listen with half an ear to their ribbing while I worry about what’s going on down below. I don’t relax fully until March and Vel emerge on the lift.

“Area secure,” March tells Loras.

Vel’s mandible flares in satisfaction. “You will not credit what we found.”

“Let’s have a look.” Loras signals to the rest of us, and we get on the platform, which is broad enough to hold us.

He toes the panel to activate our descent. The lift goes down farther than I expect, a good fifty meters belowground. They’ve excavated a proper bunker here. The platform deposits us in a simple open room. This isn’t designed to sustain human life or offer shelter against some unthinkable war; it’s storage, plain and simple. And there’s barely room for all of us to stand. I nose around, finding high-powered laser rifles, antipersonnel cannons, disruptors, splicers, and tech so dangerous that it’s outlawed on tier worlds. And that’s just the gear for one soldier. There’s more. In the corner stands a strange device. It doesn’t look like much, at first, but by the way Loras and Vel are whispering, I know it must be epic.

“What is it?” I ask March.

“MO,” he replies. “Massive ordnance with ground launching platform.”

The device is the height of a man, with a barrel-shaped cylinder atop a small stand. Three men could haul it, though not easily; Sasha can take it anywhere we need to go, however. Several soldiers cluster around the MO, and someone else counts the shells nearby.

“There are enough for five strikes,” Farah replies.

Loras nods. “Vel, can you crack the targeting computer?”

“In time, I believe so.” The Ithtorian kneels beside the machine, examining it.

“Excellent.”

To March, I murmur, “I’m not clear on what kind of damage this thing does. I mean, I know it’s a big gun—”

He levels a somber gaze on me. “To level a city, that’s what you use it for.”

“Holy shit.”

He nods, seeing I understand. “If Loras uses it, I don’t know how he’ll live with himself. It’s not like bombing a building. He can’t get all his people out of the affected area.”

A whole city. I can’t wrap my head around it.

“He wouldn’t do that,” I say.

“I would.” Loras comes up beside me. “It will not be my first choice, but if it is the only way to drive these bastards from my world, then I will prove to them by any means necessary that the cost of staying is too high.”

“But what about the La’hengrin in the city?” I ask.

“They will be remembered as martyrs to the cause.”

Mary, I hope it doesn’t come to that. But it’s his call, not mine. He’s the leader, the face of the resistance. There’s a bounty of 4 million credits on his head at this point, still rising each time he hits a new target. When the Imperials find out about this, I can’t even imagine how much it will be.

March touches my cheek. “War is never clean. It never comes down to heroes and villains. Everyone does terrible things, and the scars stay with you always, even if they don’t show on your skin.”

I run a self-conscious hand down my arms. “I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

“I miss your face,” he admits. “And I was used to the feel of your skin. But you’re still the same person.”

How funny. He’s comforting me because I’m more attractive. Only March would understand why that bothers me.

Because you feel like you’ve lost part of your character.

Yes, that’s why. Articulately expressed, too.

“I can always have it fixed later.”

He arches a brow. “You’d ask a cosmetic surgeon to scar you?”

Hm. When he puts it that way, I can’t imagine any doctor worth his salt agreeing. The ones who would, I probably don’t want working on me. Besides, it might be better this way. With Jax’s face, Jax’s scars, I’ll never be free of my past. The paparazzi will always have records of what I’ve done, and there will always be a chance they could find me. Hound me. It might be best if I start over.

“Can you get used to it?” I ask.

He shrugs. “You were beautiful before. You are now. Just different. Still you. I do mind a bit how young you look, but that’s a separate issue.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. You could take a course of Rejuvenex?”

“Ordinarily, I’d scoff, but maybe I need to. Just this once. I don’t want to live to be two hundred.”

With regular treatments, the human life span can be extended. With Rejuvenex, people live to be a hundred and fifty, sometimes two hundred if they have the credits for the best doctors. I’ve heard they’re working on tech to transfer brain patterns into Pretty Robotics frames, but so far as I know, that’s experimental. And March wouldn’t want that.

“I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

This is the first time we’ve talked about the difference in our life spans. March exhales softly, like the thought hurts him. While the others discuss how to transport the weapons, he wraps his arms around me and sets his cheek on my hair. I put my arms around his waist, silently aching.

“Don’t worry,” he says softly. “It won’t be easy. I know that. There will come a time when I hate my body for breaking down. I may be cranky. Resentful. But I wouldn’t miss a moment of any of it as long as I’m with you.”

“You know Vel’s always going to be around? I hope you’ll never make me choose.” I hate saying it, but it must be said. Few things have ever scared me more. March is jealous of Vel, and I don’t know if he can handle this. I’m not asking him to share me in the sense that I want to add another lover to our relationship, but it’s definitely unconventional. Yet if he cares about me as much as he claims, he won’t ask me to give up someone else I love. He won’t want me to be unhappy.

March tenses, his face set in quiet, unhappy lines.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Ceepak says urgently. “But we’ve got a shuttle incoming, sir. I’m guessing we triggered a perimeter alarm at the nearest outpost.”

“How far out?” Loras asks.

“Eighty klicks and coming fast.”

“Everybody grab the heaviest weapon you can handle and get to the surface. There’s no room to dance down here.”

Plus, there are tons of explosives that he doesn’t want going off during the fight. I grab a laser rifle with military scope and a disruptor. I swore I’d never use one of these again, but under the circumstances, I hope the shock and agony teaches the centurions a lesson.

“Zeeka, grab some of those proximity mines. Can you trap the approach in less than ten minutes?”

“Yes, sir!” The young Mareq salutes. He’s the best at demolitions now, even better than Vel, who’s competent at many tasks.

“Everyone got their gear?” Loras asks.

We all nod, and then get back on the lift. Ceepak listens to the shuttle drawing closer. His brows pull together. “I think there’s another inbound behind it. The echo masked the approach.”

“How many men will a ship that size hold?” I ask.

Ceepak sighs. “I can’t tell how big it is.”

Shit. Well, I don’t know how his gift works.

“We should expect between twenty-five and fifty men,” Vel says.

Loras doesn’t let that report daunt him. “All right, people. This is it. We’ve got five minutes to set up. Make them count.”

INTERNAL MEMORANDUM

FROM: THE OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

KIA 10,189

MIA 5,276

Turned 102

Cured Unknown, estimated 2,000,000 or more

Resources Lost

4 Weapon caches

5 Food storage facilities

3 Shuttles modified with weaponry

12 provinces

At this time, I have no choice but to declare a state of emergency. Martial law is effective immediately. All rights of lower-class citizens are hereby revoked. Only nobles may be on the streets after 8:00 p.m. All violators of this curfew will be treated as enemies of the empire. Much as I hate to admit it, gentlemen, we are losing this war, a centimeter at a time. We must strike back. Hard.

CHAPTER 46

Zeeka lays the mines.

The rest of us are in position. Two shuttles land in the center of the valley, as Loras predicted. He said the strike team would put down as close to the cache as possible to verify whether it was secure. March seconded that guess.

Centurions pour out of the ships. I lose count after twenty, but there are a lot of them, around forty, I think. They fan out, cautiously. Ten meters from the cache, the first mine goes off, taking out the four guys in range of the explosion. The others scramble back, hands on their weapons. Their leader yells orders, but he knows they have nowhere to go. They can’t progress unless they disable the mines; we’ve got them pinned down.

As one centurion gets out a kit for detection, Loras says, “Now!”

I open fire.

There’s no cover for them except the shuttles, and they use it. They’re wearing good armor, so it takes more than one shot with the laser rifle to kill. So I switch to the disruptor. It doesn’t have good range or accuracy, but this weapon requires neither. My stomach churns the first time I fire. The centurion screams; there’s blood all over his back, and now he’s got armor inside his spine. I fire again; he falls. Shock will finish him.

I take aim at another, and it’s more gruesome. I nail him in the head, scrambling his flesh so that his skull turns inside out, with bits of brain and bone coating the surface. He dies instantly. Beside me, March uses his rifle with expert proficiency. He shoots in bursts: one hit to break the armor, the second to injure, third to slay. I never noticed how efficient a killer he is before. It also keeps his weapon from overheating.

Sasha calls, “Permission to destroy the shuttle, sir?”

“Granted,” Loras yells back.

This time, Sasha doesn’t pick it up or slam it. I suspect this is the most difficult feat I’ve seen him perform yet. Instead, he applies pure force, crushing the metal until the bolts and rivets give, and he keeps pressing, until there’s nothing to hide behind. As soon as the centurions realize what’s happening, they scramble toward the other one, but they have fifteen meters to cover. During that time, it’s a shooting gallery. I take down four more with the disruptor, and their screams unnerve their comrades. Bodies line the ground. Twenty-two dead. If my estimate was correct, there are eighteen to go.