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Sevro points up "Gonna have to get your ass above it to hear" Above, a ship is struck by lightning Her syste, only to collide with a passing ripWing

"Oh, goryhell" I give Ragnar and Jupiter orders to push forward of the e and secure the northern valley for our e other cities to divert Bellona attention, to o at her walls The Stained opens his hand to me in salute and then jumps off the mountain peak with Jupiter and a hundred Obsidian warriors

Mustang and Sevro wait below as I rip up through the lightning-laced clouds with several of uards Past the clouds, I float in relative peace, hailing Roque

"Icarus!" he shouts into the com "She’s here She’s not on Luna or with the main Societal fleet! We just found out Kavax’s men found Praetorians on board the Warchild … she’s here! She caht her"

"Roque Slon What are you saying?"

"Darrow, the Sovereign is on Mars Her shuttle is trapped behind the shields on Agea She is trapped"

"Roque I already know She’s why I want Agea"

39

At the Wall

He doesn’t ask how I knew Later I’ll tell him that I let Aja escape fron via nature She’s her personal killer Of course she would return to her side I’ve told no one but Mustang and Sevro I couldn’t risk it spreading, especially with how Roque’s been acting

He hangs up the conar’s men, have made landfall in the valley ahead I see the fat ships descending, then disappearing into the ground where the Valles Marineris stretches kiloea itself The deluge heats the shield, causing it to pulse opaque We’ll be co the bottom of the hundred-kiloh the two-hundred-ap her shieldsseismic disturbances

I hop off theaccoh the lower foothills, taking fire as we go

The Sovereign is the key to this war, the key to fracturing this Society so the Sons of Ares can rise With her captured, the Society itself onder in confusion if it even exists without Octavia atop its throne Senators and governors will try to seize power There will be a dozen local wars, fracturing es along the bottorasses, trees blooles froh canyon walls despite the steep declivity Above all this, the great floating li in the vale of Mars But I see no children along the great rivers, no boys and girls in armor Only memories and muddied earth The students have already been collected How strange thatfor their lives with medieval weapons, only to be scooped up by dropships as invaders came from space