Chapter Forty-One
Presentation Day
Sirens screamed as the room filled with smoke.
Vivian blinked stinging eyes and tried to push past her confusion.
Through the clearing fog, she glimpsed one of the Council guards grappling with another figure at the chamber’s gaping doorway.
The other guard lay crumpled and still under a piece of the ruined door, body covered in crushed red flower petals.
“We’re under attack!” came Xavier’s urgent voice. “Fall back! Shelter in the upper levels with the Council.”
Through eyes filled with harsh streaming tears, Vivian could make out Xavier standing in front of her holding an ax. An ax? Where did he get an ax? Behind him was a broken fire safety box. “Not without you,” she insisted. “I’m stronger than you. I can help.”
A Martian man rushed toward them from the doorway, his sword reflecting the pulsing red emergency lights.
Xavier raised the ax and swung it forcefully, hitting the incoming man full in the throat.
An arc of bright blood sprayed over Xavier, drenching his torso and splashing warmly on Vivian’s face. “Can you do that?” he gasped.
Vivian clamped teeth against a scream.
“Go. There’s no exit at the top. They can only come through this door. I’ll hold them off here until reinforcements arrive.”
Ren pulled her arm, his face ashen. “Dorsey is right. Let’s go.”
On her other side, Caspian grimaced. “I should have listened to you, X, all those times you attempted to teach me the sword.”
“Go!” Xavier shouted urgently at the three of them as another invader stepped into the space.
Vivian stumbled backward, tripping over her skirts.
Xavier couldn’t possibly hold them all off with an ax.
She hadn’t left him on Catena, and she wouldn’t leave him now.
Huddling high in a sheltered corner waiting for reinforcements might have been the safer course of action, but she was done being helpless.
What can I use? Her burning eyes landed on the large floating dais.
It was wider than the doorway.
She looked up to see Luz gripping the railing of the visitors’ area and watching the scene below.
She caught her friend’s eye. “Help me!” Vivian shouted over the sirens, voice cracking.
She removed each of the four vases of flowers before crouching down to yank at the corner of the dais.
It shook. She pulled it once more, and it came up with a sharp crack.
Wide-eyed, Luz pushed past Ren and Caspian as she raced down the steps toward the Council floor. A few of the other Red Mothers stood up from their positions high in the back of the room, tracking Luz’s movements.
“Luz!” Wim’s high desperate voice carried down from the highest point in the chamber. “It isn’t safe. Come back here. Please. The soldiers will do the fighting for us.”
“I’m here.” Luz spared one glance back at Wim and then took the other end of the large rectangular dais.
It was heavy. Heavier than the body Vivian had carried in the Catena parking lot. Heavier than supporting her sister through the unfinished terraforming station halls. But she had her friend lending her strength to the task.
Luz, who had a child inside her and a caring partner begging her to return to safety, held the other end of the dais in her capable hands and raced with Vivian toward the ruined door frame.
They reached the frame in a dozen swift strides and pushed the uprooted dais against the wide entrance.
The doorway was nearly covered, with only an open sliver at the top.
Vivian leaned against it, gasping for breath. Her biceps ached. Her head pounded. Her lungs burned from the smoke.
“Is Delilah …?” Luz wheezed.
“Alive. Safe.” Damaged, resilient, brave.
Not here.
Only a few feet away, the remaining Arcadian soldier in the chamber crossed swords with an invader caught on their side of the barrier.
Vivian knew almost nothing about fighting, but she could see the Arcadian’s movements were slower and clumsier.
He had a sheen of sweat on his forehead that he kept wiping roughly with his free hand.
On the other side of the room, Xavier’s face was stretched wide in a manic smile as he hacked at his opponent with the ax.
His arm blurred in Vivian’s vision as he moved rapidly, backing the other man closer and closer to the wall.
She couldn’t spot any other invaders in the chamber, but she was under no illusion about what lay on the other side of their makeshift barrier.
The dais suddenly shook. Vivian planted her feet and pressed her back against it. Camille had come halfway down the aisle and stopped, unmoving and blank-faced on the middle of the stairs. “Camille, we can’t hold this alone!”
Camille shook herself all over. “We’ve got you,” she called down and turned back to Shiloh, snapping one finger.
“Grab the desks.” The two of them lifted one solid desk down the steps and pushed it against the propped-up dais.
Several of the other women followed suit, and soon the full length of the doorway was fortified by the heavy Council desks in one long line.
The remaining Red Mothers started making their way down the stairs.
Vivian took one hand and tested the side of the dais. It held.
But she had no time to catch her breath as the remaining Arcadian soldier fell at her feet, clutching his belly. His opponent grabbed Vivian’s arm abruptly. “Let’s go. We won’t hurt you if you come quietly. A better life awaits you on Catena.”
He thought she was pregnant, Vivian realized, and wanted to use her like they’d used Delilah. She easily shook off his weak Martian grip. “Hell no.”
The Catena soldier raised his bloody sword and pointed it at her chest. “That wasn’t a request. You’re removing this barrier and coming with me. Now.”
Vivian considered the sword pressed against her.
Perhaps her Earther rib cage would protect her, but more likely the man could kill her with one blow.
The version of Vivian who’d eked out an existence at the Sumter Refugee Camp would have lifted her hands in surrender.
She would have followed instructions. Tried to find the best choice out of a series of bad options.
But she was no longer that woman.
With her bare hand, Vivian knocked the sword aside. Under the force of her blow, the blade clattered to the ground.
And then Luz was there. She pushed the man hard enough to send him crashing to the floor at Camille’s feet. Camille lifted her skirts, took one dainty high-heeled foot and stepped down hard on his face.
The man’s face flattened under Camille’s shoe. His ruined mouth gurgled with bubbling blood, and then he was still. “Oh, I’m gonna be sick,” Camille gasped and took several steps backward before falling to her knees and vomiting on the floor.
Vivian swallowed her own wave of nausea. She’d known about the risks of sprained finger bones or a cracked pelvis. But had she known how easy it was for an Earther to kill a Martian? After knocking Silas out with a single punch, perhaps she should have realized how dangerous she could be.
Vivian tore her gaze from the dead man’s mutilated face to take stock of the situation. They were alone in the chamber again—the invaders who’d made it into the room were all dead.
Xavier stood clutching his fallen opponent’s sword, fixing his eyes on the barricaded entrance.
The Red Mothers were arrayed behind him on the Council floor, knotting their skirts up around their waists and pulling back their hair as they faced the door.
And above them, the other Martians remained huddled at the highest point in the chamber, staring fearfully down at the scene.
The floating cameras hovered around the room, and Vivian realized uncomfortably that their actions were likely being broadcast throughout the dome.
“Camille,” a voice carried over the chamber. “Come back up here. You know you haven’t been well. Please, love.”
Camille rose and wiped her mouth. She looked up at her partner. “Theo, babe, I say this with love. Stay the fuck away with your weak-ass bones and let my sisters and me handle this.”
Theo’s mouth twitched, and he raised his hands in surrender.
Felicia made a noise of agreement, and a few of the other women laughed nervously. Vivian took hold of her red dress and tied a knot on one side to free her legs. It took her several tries to get the luxurious silken fabric to stay in place.
“Remember to tuck your thumb under your fist when you throw a punch,” Shiloh said to several of the women. “Not inside or you could break it.”
“What do they want with us, Viv?” Felicia asked as she pulled off her hat with the hibiscus flower attached and tossed it to the ground.
“They’re from the Catena dome. They want to use us to breed their own Martian children.” Vivian tasted bile. “They ripped Delilah’s fetus from her body to study it.” Around her, the women hissed in shock and dismay. Raising her voice, she called, “Intelligence, where are you?”
The orb zoomed down from the counselors to her side. “Here, Vivian.”
“What’s happening outside?”
“Fifty-seven Martians wearing the insignia of the Catena militia have surrounded the Council building and are holding the civilians hostage. Thirteen are currently inside the building attempting to penetrate this room.”
“Do they have guns?”
“No guns. If they’d had guns, we would have detected the invaders the moment they’d arrived. The Catena militia is armed with swords, knives, and improvised small explosives.”
“No Earthers?” Vivian asked, looking at the grim-faced women surrounding her as they grabbed the few swords abandoned on the ground, yanked up table legs to use as clubs, and practiced their punches with firmly planted feet.
“No Earthers.” The orb’s light flashed. “The first Arcadian reinforcements have arrived at the outskirts of the conflict. They’re outnumbered. One has died. Three.”
Vivian wiped sweat from her upper lip. Her hand came back bloody.
Raising her voice, she said to the women, “The Arcadian soldiers aren’t enough to save us.
But that doesn’t mean we’re going to let the Catena militia take us.
” She met Felicia’s eye, then Luz’s, looking around at the familiar faces of the twenty-eight women.
They’d been through so much together. “Each of you is strong. So strong. Together, we’re going to stop them. ”
“Damn straight,” Camille agreed fiercely.
“Seven Arcadian soldiers have died,” the Intelligence said.
The makeshift barricade rattled.
“Intelligence, please … guide us in our hour of need.” Vivian turned to see Secretary Yarrow had come to stand beside her, hands clutching her cane. She must have descended the stairs during the interlude of calm.
“We don’t have any guidance for this situation, Constance. We’re not programmed to advise on matters of military strategy.”
Constance’s face sagged. “Please, you must help us. This is Arcadia’s darkest hour.”
The dais’s wood began to warp as it shook from the force of the invader’s blows on the other side. “Secretary,” Vivian said grimly. “Go back up to safety.”
“What can you possibly do, girl?”
Vivian made sure her skirt was secure and turned to the door. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“They’re coming!” someone behind them shrieked.
The barricade fell with a resounding crash.
Silas stood in the entrance, clutching a greatsword in a two-handed grip.
A dark bruise covered half of his face, and he was smeared with blood.
He smiled when he saw Xavier standing with his sword raised at the entrance, his body shielding the Red Mothers.
“Get out of my way, X, and I’ll let you live. We’re here for the women.”
“No, I don’t think I’ll be moving from this spot.”
Silas growled and swung his sword. Xavier’s smaller sword clanged against it.
Vivian didn’t have time to watch their fight as a Martian man rushed toward her.
She attempted to punch him but misjudged the distance and swung her hand at empty air.
He grabbed her around the waist and put his sword to her throat.
Vivian froze in fear. Max Rinaldi. The shank.
No. No more. She let out a wild yell and elbowed him in the stomach. The air left his lungs in a whoosh.
She lifted her head in time to see Silas’s sword slice Xavier’s leg, leaving a long, bloody gash on his thigh.
And then she was forced to turn away from them as the man came at her again.
This time, she used her foot and knocked him to the ground.
Then, her friends were there, kicking with high-heeled shoes, their colorful knotted skirts swaying, until his body stopped moving.
“Let me through,” a quavering, frantic voice shouted behind her.
Vivian saw Xavier on the floor, his sword several feet away. Silas was smiling again. The sword hovered on Xavier’s heart, moving back and forth like a caress. Vivian blinked back tears. She wasn’t close enough.
But Constance Yarrow was.
Secretary Yarrow held aloft her cane, a short switchblade protruding from the end. “I will not allow you to harm my family again.” She stabbed Silas in the back, and he stumbled.
Vivian picked up the loosening skirts of her red dress as she raced toward Xavier.
Silas turned to face Constance, his face twisted with rage. He raised his greatsword and ran her through.
“No!” Xavier shouted, scrambling on his knees to come to his aunt’s side.
Vivian, finally, had reached the scene, just as Silas raised his sword over Xavier’s head.
She kicked Silas in one knee, and he buckled.
As Vivian cast around for a weapon, Xavier rose to his feet.
The two men grappled with Silas’s sword, until Silas swung one fist in an arc and hit Xavier once, twice, three times in the jaw.
“That’s for yesterday,” Silas said as Xavier fell to the ground unconscious.
Vivian snatched up Constance Yarrow’s cane. “I hope you enjoyed Delilah’s present in the lab,” she said, trying to get Silas to turn away from the helpless Xavier.
Silas whirled to face her. “Your sister did that?” As he took a step toward her, a drop of blood dripped off the tip of his sword. “After all the time I put into listening to her tedious whining and crying. I didn’t think that silly bint had it in her.”
“You underestimated her. You underestimated all of us.” Vivian lifted the cane and, with all her Earther strength, shoved it at Silas’s face.
The tiny weapon went through his eye socket and embedded in his brain.
Silas’s greatsword dropped from his nerveless fingers as he collapsed to his knees.
Vivian shoved the cane deeper and pushed him all the way to the floor.
The sound of yelling wrenched Vivian’s gaze up. A group of Catena soldiers raced into the room.
Headed straight for her.