Ninth City Burning (51 page)

I remember one of those skirms jumping at me just before the mine went off, and I guess it must have damaged my suit or something. The more I try to move, the more I feel like I'm swimming through something very thick and heavy. Eventually, it's like all I can do is float. So that's what I do. I float. And I wonder what the chances are that if I just keep floating, I'll eventually end up back home.

I
don't see it when the signal rocket comes through Lunar Veil. I've been watching the sky for almost an entire day, waiting for some sign of the battle, and so of course as soon as I doze off for five seconds,
that's
when the rocket appears. I'm not mad I missed it. It's not like I'm superexcited for news from the Legion. I'm more nervous than anything, or to be totally honest, probably halfway between nervous and scared stiff. When you're afraid of what the news will be, sometimes you'd rather have no news. What I especially don't like is how the rocket only came once I was almost asleep. Good news doesn't sneak up on you that way.

It isn't easy to communicate between one Realm and another. Radio signals and stuff like that mostly get blocked out by passages like Lunar Veil, meaning most ways of talking over long distances won't work. Messages between Earth and the Front were almost always delivered in person. For this battle, though, the Legion needed to be able to communicate quickly with the reserves, so they decided to send basic messages using signal rockets. Each color of rocket means something different. Green says the battle's over, and we've won. Yellow means the Legion wants the reserve to come help. Red is for enemies incoming.

Naomi's afraid, too. I can hear it in her voice when she says my name, and when I open my eyes, I see it in her face, even though it's dark out. Up in the sky, the rocket looks almost like just another star, except for the way it's sliding through the air. Then it explodes into an incredibly bright yellow, enough to light up the entire sky. For a few seconds, the whole Forum looks like it's late afternoon, with long shadows stretching everywhere.

“They're calling in the reserves,” I say, though what I'm really thinking is
At least it's not red
. In a way, though, yellow is worse. Red could just
mean a few Valentines had slipped past our lines, like in an incursion. But with yellow, we know the Legion's going to need us to join the battle. It could be that we've got Romeo on the run, and they just want us to help finish him off, but somehow I doubt it.

I don't expect Naomi to say anything. For one thing, that gigantic yellow rocket makes it pretty obvious we're getting called in. For another, Naomi has said practically nothing since the battle started. She thinks everyone is keeping some big secret from us, and that has her sort of mad. I don't see how it matters that much. We're busy fighting a war. There isn't always time to explain every little thing.

So I'm pretty surprised when Naomi says, “What happens now? What do we do?”

“We wait for Charles, I guess.” Now I'm starting to feel scared for real. I don't know why, but thinking about forming up with all the reserve fighters and flying out over Earth and into Lunar Veil is worse than thinking about the actual battle.

There isn't really any waiting to do because Charles and Malandeera are already coming our way across the Forum. Naomi jumps down from the fountain where we've been sitting and goes to meet them, walking with long, angry steps.

“Charles,” she says sharply, “tell us what is happening.”

Charles looks surprised, but he still sounds confident. “The Legion has called in the reserve,” he says. He grins at me. “Wide-awake, Jax?”

“And that is all you know about the battle?” Naomi demands. “If we're to join this fight, it will do no good to keep the particulars from us.”

“All I know about what's happening in Dis is what that rocket has told us,” Charles says, looking up at the little yellow light still hanging in the sky. “We won't learn much more until we get to Dis and see the situation for ourselves. However.” He looks Naomi right in the eye, then turns to me. “However, only Fontana Malandeera and I will be going to Dis. The Legion has other plans for the two of you.”

“What plans?” Naomi asks. It's obvious she's concerned, and I feel my stomach do a few flips, too.

“You have a different mission, every bit as important as ours,” says Malandeera. “While Charles and I lead the reserve into Dis, you and Jax will take the Legion's remaining long-distance transports and evacuate Hestia.”

Naomi shouts, “No!” at about the same second I yell, “What?” We both thought everyone had given up on the idea of evacuating.

“The reserve's commander, Imperator Feeroy, wanted a fail-safe, a last resort in case the Legion was defeated,” Charles explains. “He convinced the Consulate it would make sense to have an evacuation party ready. They have selected a group of knowledgeable and capable people whose job it will be to establish a new home for humanity, and eventually rebuild the Legion. Jax, Naomi, you have been assigned to accompany them as their fontani.”

“Do not ask this of us, Charles,” Naomi says. “Please. You know running will serve nothing in the end.”

“Charles isn't asking,” Malandeera says. “Those are your orders, passed down directly from the Consulate.” Even though she's being pretty stern, it's the kind of extra sternness you hear officers use when they're issuing orders they don't agree with, like they're being stern with themselves, too. I remember Malandeera saying she hoped it would be a while before Naomi and I had to fight, but not too long. This must be what she meant. If we evacuate now, we'll probably never see the Valentines again. We'll just be running away forever.

Naomi looks from Malandeera to Charles. “This is what you would not tell us. The others all knew, but you said nothing.”

“No, not everyone,” Charles says. “Legatus Cressock will be responsible for leading the evacuation, so of course he knew, and most of his officers were informed. But the rest will be just as surprised as you are. The Consulate thought it would be counterproductive to issue evacuation orders before they became necessary.”

I think about how unhappy Legatus Cressock seemed back at the Basilica. Now I understand why. I can tell Naomi's totally furious, but I'm not sure how to feel. My whole life everyone's told me the one thing I have to do is fight the Valentines. Now Charles is saying the exact opposite. I'm definitely not one of those people who couldn't wait to get into a real battle. To be totally honest, I really hoped the war would end before that happened. I'd daydream about someone's coming, maybe in the middle of class or a firing drill, and telling us we'd won, that it was all over. Everyone would get up and cheer, and it would be like we didn't need to train for the Legion anymore. We could just do whatever we wanted. But I never thought it would happen like this.

“Legatus Cressock will be along soon with an escort from the
evacuation group,” Charles is saying. “From there you'll head for Jovian Veil. Very probably that's as far as you'll go—if we can win this battle, all you'll end up doing is flying out and back.

“I trust you,” Charles says firmly. “Both of you. I've seen how strong you can be. You know what's at stake. You know who is depending on you. I'm sure you'll do what's right.”

I've been looking at my feet while most of this was going on, but now I notice Charles watching me, and I realize he's waiting for an answer. I have no idea what to say. I'm relieved I won't have to fight, but in a lot of ways, this is even worse. How am I supposed to start a new Earth? I don't even know what to do on this one! And leaving everyone behind, not just the Legion but pretty much all the people on the planet, it feels pretty awful. But those are our orders, right? Hasn't someone else already made the decision?

“OK,” I say to Charles. “You can count on me.”

We all look over to Naomi, but she doesn't say anything. Her face is all crunched up, like a piece of paper, her mouth pressed tight. It's like she's holding something back, and I think maybe she's about to start crying when she jerks her chin in a nod. Even though it's only the tiniest little movement, it says
Yes, I understand
and
Go away, I don't want to look at you
at the same time.

Charles actually seems happy with Naomi's answer. He smiles like he's got just what he wanted from us, and it's a real smile, not the fake kind. And then he says to Malandeera, “After you, please.”

The air shakes, like it does sometimes when nearby fontani summon up their mijmeri. Charles and Malandeera disappear, then reappear in the air above the Forum, looking like two clouds of darkness and stars. I can still tell them apart pretty easily, of course. To most people, mijmeri all look alike, but they're only the same the way all trees are the same, or all birds. It's easy to pick out the differences if you know what to look for. Malandeera's mijmere is smoother than most, like something that might have come out of a factory, even though it's constantly changing shape. Charles's mijmere, on the other hand, is kind of shaggy, like a wild animal, or someone who really needs a haircut.

Charles and Malandeera float there, a few hundred meters overhead, while across the city fighters from the reserves rise into the air, ready for action. Soon they're speeding away toward Lunar Veil, getting smaller each second.

Naomi doesn't say anything, and I don't, either. We just watch as Charles and Malandeera and the reserves disappear into the ceiling of stars. The Forum is totally quiet, and with just Naomi and me standing there by the fountain in its center, the whole place feels huge and really lonely, like a great big desert somewhere. It reminds me of that first time I had to stand for Ninth City during an incursion, before I met Kizabel and Vinneas and Imway. But they're all gone now, and so is Ninth City, and I might never see any of them again.

“This is wrong.” It's Naomi, but I'm not sure if she's talking to herself or me. Then she looks right at me, her brown eyes wide. “Jax, this is wrong. We cannot abandon Earth.”

“Those are our orders,” I say. “You heard Charles.”

“Charles does not believe in this plan any more than I do. That is the reason he kept it from us.”

“No, he didn't tell us because he was
ordered
not to tell us until we needed to know. Besides,” I say, thinking suddenly that it's really important I get her to understand, “it's the right plan. You and me and a few fighters wouldn't make any difference out in Dis—”

“We are fontani, Jax,” Naomi snaps.

“Yeah, sure, but Charles can beat both of us without even trying, right? Maybe we'd help a little, but what are we really going to do? With the evacuation party, we're making sure we don't get wiped out completely.”

“And what does that matter in the end?” Naomi doesn't look scared anymore—she's turned very serious. “Who will we be saving? Me and you and a handful of others? I would rather throw my weight behind those fighting for us even if it is only the weight of a feather.”

“It doesn't matter if you don't like our orders,” I say, but at the same time, a little part of me kind of agrees with her. There's no way we can evacuate anything but a small fraction of the people on Earth. If we go now, and the Legion loses, we'll be leaving everyone else completely unprotected. They won't even have a source to power their defenses. “We've got a job to do.”

“I'm glad that is how you feel,” Naomi says. She takes one step back, moving away from me, then another. “It lessens the cost of what I am about to do.” Her hands must be sweating because she wipes them on her jacket. “It will be only the weight of a feather.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jax, I am going to join this fight.”

I think I must literally have heard her wrong. “You
what
?”

She just looks at me, as serious as ever. Her words work around my brain, almost like she's saying them again. “But we've been
ordered
to evacuate!” I'm probably starting to sound whiny, but I don't care.

“I intend to disobey those orders,” she says. “I am beholden first to my conscience, and I cannot leave others to fight for me. Not when there is something I can do to help.”

“Going with the evacuation
is
helping! They need us to keep the Legion going! We have to keep humanity alive!”

“My aim is not to protect the Legion, or even our species. What matters to me are the people all across Earth, and those fighting for us beyond this world. They need us, not in a hundred years, or five hundred, or a thousand, when we have built a new Legion and founded a new Earth. I will make my stand for them now. They are the center, the keep of our castle.”

I try to think of anything I can say to change her mind, but when Naomi's set on something, there isn't much that can stop her.

“Good luck, Jax,” she says. “I hope we meet again soon.”

And then she disappears, and I'm alone in the dark Forum.