Mountain of Mars Read online

  He met Romanov’s gaze across the seeming crowd of escorts and gave the other man a firm nod. Until the Secret Service detail was officially dissolved in favor of a Guard detachment—something Damien hadn’t realized would have to happen until that moment—Romanov and his people needed to be there.

  Some of those Marines and Agents had been with Damien for three years and two detail commanders. Security, protocol and tradition said he replaced them now, but he needed to be sure they knew he appreciated all they’d done.

  There were very few of his original detail left, and only two had ever managed to resign. It felt like he’d left bodyguards and Marines buried on every world he’d visited since accepting Desmond’s charge.

  “Smile, Damien,” Kiera Alexander muttered, pitching her voice as they cut through one of the major arterial corridors of Olympus Mons. “You’re more visible than you think.”

  She might have only been second in line to the Throne, but Alexander had been raised a royal scion in the public eye. She was more aware of what was going on around them in terms of the political veneer than Damien was.

  He was more aware of threats and had been registering the crowd on the other side of the bodyguard detail from that perspective. He hadn’t been considering how he appeared to them.

  The Mage-Queen was right, of course. Lost in unpleasant thoughts, he wasn’t smiling and he doubted his expression had been at all reassuring to the crowd looking to their new Lord Regent.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, forcing himself to smile. He had a practiced “I am a friendly negotiator” face at this point, and it would serve the purpose.

  He was going to need to learn some new masks.

  “This is so strange,” he told her. “I was a diplomat and a cop, not a politician. I’m not used to having every eye on me at all times.”

  “Get used to it,” Alexander replied. “This is your life for the next three years, Damien.”

  “Yours forever, I suppose,” he agreed. “How did your father handle all of this?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I thought I understood, but now it’s all focused on me instead of him. You think you know what the goldfish bowl is like…but this is something else.”

  “I think we got transplanted to the lobby’s display tank,” Damien told her, continuing the metaphor as they slipped into quieter corridors.

  The massive complex inside Olympus Mons was many things. Among them, it was still a fully functional geothermal power plant supplying a significant portion of Olympus City’s power needs. It was also a vast office building, a library, a museum…there was a city inside the mountain as well as outside, and the corridors only lacked vehicles to be streets.

  The Royal Family and the Hands lived in a smaller, more private section near the top of the mountain. Even Damien knew they could reach the audience chamber they were headed to without traveling through public corridors.

  Gregory had picked the path with intent. Damien could only hope that “being seen” wasn’t going to lead to “being shot at.”

  It wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried to assassinate him on Mars, after all.

  8

  It wasn’t the first time Damien had been stuck in a chair while makeup artists worked him over. Even with all of the technology at the Protectorate’s disposal, cameras still needed help to make the people in front of them look good.

  He’d never been as thoroughly worked over as the Mountain’s PR experts managed. At one point, one of the young women had turned up with a manicure tray and reached for his gloves before he’d warned her off.

  If nothing else, removing the gloves would hurt and the Protectorate didn’t need to see the scarred mess that was his hands. There was transparency and there was rubbing salt in wounds.

  Once the experts were done, Damien and young Queen found themselves on a stage he’d seen a thousand times. He’d never been the center of attention in the grand audience hall before, but he’d been there before and even stood on the stage—and he’d seen uncounted recordings of briefings and speeches given from this space.

  The stylized crowned-red-planet-on-blue flag of the Kingdom of Mars—a distinctly and importantly separate entity from the Protectorate of Mars—hung to his and Kiera’s left. The flag of the Protectorate itself—a white mountain in front of a red planet on a black flag—was hanging to his right.

  The lectern had the seal of the Protectorate on it. While Kiera Alexander was the ruler of the Protectorate by virtue of being the Mage-Queen of Mars, no one was going to pretend the Protectorate wasn’t the more important entity.

  “With me,” he told her as she started to slow down to join Gregory at the back of the stage. “This is about you as well as me.”

  He saw her swallow, but she kept going as everyone except the two of them split off. Six red-armored Royal Guard were positioned around the edge of the stage, almost entirely out of view of the camera.

  Gregory and four other key members of the Protectorate administration were visibly in the camera view behind Damien and Kiera as they reached the lectern and he looked out at the crowd of reporters.

  There were at least a thousand people in the room, packing it to capacity, and they almost didn’t matter. What mattered was that everything was being recorded. It was being transmitted live across the Solar System, only delayed by the speed of light. Summaries of his speech would be sent to every world with an RTA within hours, and copies of the recording would go out on every ship leaving Sol.

  Specialized courier ships would see the video playing in every system in the Core within a few days, but it would be as much as three or four weeks before some of the Fringe Worlds saw it. There were worlds of the Protectorate that didn’t even know Desmond was dead yet.

  The Link would change all that, and it was almost better for humanity as a whole that the Republic had kept it hidden. A private enterprise would have rolled it out in the most profitable way—but the Protectorate controlled the technology now.

  Like the prefab clinics manufactured in Olympus City and spread across the Protectorate to enable the Charter’s demand for state-funded healthcare, the Link’s presence would be underwritten by the Mountain. Damien wasn’t sure how long it would take to connect the entire Protectorate into a single real-time communication network—but it was going to be done as quickly as humanly possible.

  A soft click in his ear told him that the cameras were recording, and the contact lens the Mountain’s expert had helped him put in started scrolling his prepared remarks.

  “Good afternoon, everyone,” he told them. “I suspect you all know who I am, but on days like today, introductions are paramount.

  “My name is Damien Montgomery. Until very recently, I was the First Hand of the Mage-King of Mars.”

  He paused, glancing over at Kiera. She was smiling, but it was very forced.

  “But Desmond the Third’s will called for me to take on a new role,” he continued. “As Her Majesty, Mage-Queen Kiera the First, has confirmed. She has called on me to take on the role of Lord Regent of Mars.

  “I’m sure every reporter in the room already knew that,” Damien added, “but not everyone watching the feed did. Until Her Majesty turns nineteen, I will act in her stead and speak with her voice.”

  He had read the speech in advance. He wasn’t sticking entirely to the script, but the point he was making was important as well.

  “I am your Lord Regent,” he repeated softly. “But she is your Mage-Queen. I promise to you, the people of the Protectorate, the same thing I promised her: to never forget that. I am a caretaker and it is my duty to watch over the Protectorate as Desmond Alexander would have.

  “But I am only a caretaker, and all I do is in the name of Mage-Queen Kiera Alexander.”

  That was why he’d brought her up to the stage. He suspected it would be far too easy to fall into the trap of acting as Lord Regent without considering that his authority was borrowed.

  Whoever was controlli
ng the text in his contacts was paying attention. They’d paused when he’d gone off script, and the next lines of the speech were waiting.

  “I take up this role in a dark time for the Protectorate,” he read. “With the Mage-King’s death, we are weakened even as we face challenges on multiple sides. It is our task, as a nation, to come through this time and rise stronger.

  “His Majesty had many projects and plans underway. It is my intent and Her Majesty’s to go through these plans and make certain that nothing is lost or abandoned. We will continue the process of drafting the new Constitution that has been promised.

  “But above all else, our joint focus must be on the war. My own investigations revealed the depths of the atrocities committed against the people of the UnArcana Worlds to create the Republic. I do not—we cannot—hold the people of the Republic responsible for the sins committed in their name.

  “But we also cannot abandon them to the Lord Protector and his allies,” Damien noted. “The Protectorate will do everything in our power to bring George Solace to justice for the murders involved in the Prometheus Project. We will do everything in our power to end this war in an expeditious and humane manner.

  “But we will not forget that the Protectorate was betrayed. The Republic will fall. The Protectorate will endure. We will stand together.”

  He smiled thinly as the speech ended, and gestured Kiera forward.

  “People of the Protectorate, I am your Lord Regent,” he repeated. “And I present to you Kiera Michelle Alexander, the Mage-Queen of Mars!”

  9

  Denis Romanov slung his kit in a different room that evening than he’d started in that morning. He was used to that. After the chaotic shitstorm that had been Damien Montgomery’s “investigation” inside Republic space, the Marine was still a little surprised they’d managed to deliver the Hand back to the Protectorate alive.

  Bouncing from planet to ship to planet to ship to ship to planet…that was part of the job of guarding one of the more active troubleshooters the Protectorate and the Mage-King had.

  The tall Marine shook his head as he took a seat on the bed. Right now, he had two Secret Service Agents standing guard outside Montgomery’s quarters, but he was only spinning his wheels. There were also two Royal Guards standing guard outside the suite of rooms the Regent had occasionally visited as a Hand—Denis, more than anyone, knew how inaccurate “lived in” was as a descriptor for the suite.

  Each of those Guards was a fully trained Combat Mage in armor that somehow—Denis wasn’t entirely clear, but he suspected it involved runes for some reason—augmented their magical power.

  It wasn’t to the level of a Hand with a Rune of Power, let alone the handful of Rune Wrights kicking around with multiple Runes of Power, but it elevated top-tier Mages above their already-impressive abilities.

  If the Royal Guard were watching over Damien Montgomery, Denis Romanov was about to be out of a job. He’d been seconded to the Secret Service for long enough, he wasn’t even entirely sure what the Marine Corps was going to do with him, even if he was reasonably sure two years wasn’t long enough to break his career.

  The chime at the door was unexpected, and reflex had him on his feet with a gun concealed behind his back before it finished echoing through the apartment.

  “Overreacting much, Denis?” he muttered to himself and then crossed to the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “General Spader,” a calm voice told him. “May I impose for a moment, Mage-Captain?”

  Denis had the door open before his brain had truly registered any word except General. The woman standing outside the new apartment was only vaguely familiar to him, but he knew her name.

  General Bethany Spader was a tall woman with silver-streaked red hair that offset brilliantly the dark burgundy uniform worn by the commanding officer of the Royal Guard. Formerly a Marine, she’d risen to Mage-Colonel in the Corps before taking a demotion to transfer to the Royal Guard and command Crown Prince Desmond’s personal guard…when Des was born.

  “Sir!” Denis saluted crisply. “How may I help you, General?”

  “Walk with me, Mage-Captain,” Spader ordered. “You’re familiar with this part of the Mountain, I understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Denis confirmed in confusion. He fell in beside Spader as she walked down the hallway of rooms provided for visiting Secret Service Agents. As the Senior Agent for a Hand’s detail, Denis got one of the larger suites—but unlike the Hands themselves, he didn’t have permanently assigned rooms.

  “My people are in these rooms, even the Marines,” he said aloud. He knew Spader knew that, but he felt like he had to say something.

  “Do you know who is responsible for the security of these rooms, then?” Spader asked calmly. “The Agents and Marines staying here are responsible for watching the backs of some of the most powerful individuals in the Protectorate. Who watches them while they rest?”

  “OMDC,” Denis responded immediately. The Olympus Mons Defense Command had a lot of moving parts, but the last time he’d coordinated security around Montgomery’s quarters, a Marine security team had been watching this section. “They report to you, don’t they?”

  Spader chuckled.

  “Yes,” she confirmed as she gestured a secured door open. “Security posts around this block of apartments are watched by a full company of Marines at all times…and a four-man fireteam of Royal Guards.

  “What the Secret Service does for the Protectorate is often undervalued and underappreciated, but the Royal Guard has always made a point of making clear to our people that your job is as critical as ours,” she told him. “I hold ultimate responsibility for OMDC and the security of Olympus Mons, but even on the rest of Mars, my reach is limited. Beyond Sol?

  “The Royal Guards have almost never left Sol.”

  Denis had no idea where Spader was leading to, physically or conversationally. She was clearly waiting for him to say something though.

  “The Guard protects the Mage-King. He doesn’t leave Mars,” he noted. “Why would the Guard leave?”

  “In theory, we also protect the Lord Regent and the Heir,” Spader told him. Her security badge opened another secure door as they continued their way out of regions of the Mountain Denis knew.

  “Shortly after I joined the Guard, a team of twenty returned to Mars from guarding then-Mage-Commodore Jane Alexander,” she continued. “None of us were Mars-bound before we became Guards, but all of us have remained here with the Mage-King since.

  “Do you know why the Mage-King rarely leaves Olympus Mons, Mage-Captain?”

  Spader had timed it perfectly. She dropped the question just as she led him through the last set of doors into an empty observation deck. Like the ones designed for tourists, it looked out over the sweeping hills and plains around Olympus Mons and the city at its foot. Unlike the tourist decks, there were no telescopes. Just a wall of armored glass and a breathtaking view.

  “An Alexander must sit the throne at Olympus Mons,” Denis quoted. “I’ve never been briefed on why, but I’m guessing it has something do with the amplifier and the Rune Wrights.”

  “Well done,” Spader said. “What do you know about the Olympus Amplifier, Romanov?”

  “That it was the first amplifier ever made by humans and was used by Project Olympus to measure Mage Gifts that couldn’t necessarily be activated,” Denis reeled off. “It was a critical component of the Eugenicists’ plan to recreate mages.”

  “And we have no idea where it came from,” Spader told him. “None, Mage-Captain. From the way the Eugenicists reacted when Desmond the First used the amplifier against them, they didn’t know it could be used like that.

  “The Olympus Amplifier is unlike any other amplifier we’ve built in terms of both scale and complexity,” she continued. “Only a Rune Wright can use it. And until recently, we thought the only Rune Wrights were Alexanders.”

  “There’s only been two others,” Denis said quietly. “And one
of them is dead.”

  Shot by a Republic Intelligence Directorate operative, of all people. The Republic had drastically underestimated how badly discovering Project Prometheus would shake their people’s loyalty.

  Even many fanatics blinked at discovering their government was knowingly murdering children, after all.

  “And the other is now the Lord Regent. Your charge.”

  “A duty I expect to give up but will miss,” Denis admitted. “Desmond chose well in that one.”

  “I have nothing but his record to judge that from,” Spader pointed out. “Montgomery and I have met three times, and I don’t think we had an actual conversation any of those times. Yet he is now one of the three people I am charged to protect above all others.

  “Do you see my dilemma, Mage-Captain?”

  “Not entirely,” Denis admitted. “Damien will…be as cooperative as he ever is with the Guard. He knows the change is coming. You can work with him.”

  “I could work with Desmond, and Desmond handpicked Montgomery as his Sword and his daughter’s Regent,” Spader agreed. “But I’d rather smooth the process as much as I can.”

  She gestured out the window at the city and farms that stretched into the distance.

  “Two billion souls on Mars. About thirteen billion in the Solar System. So long as a Rune Wright sits the throne of Olympus Mons, those people are safe. Crime and small problems will continue, yes, but a real threat? A fleet? An army? An invasion?

  “So long as a Rune Wright sits the throne of Olympus Mons, Sol is invulnerable.”

  The night outside suddenly seemed even quieter.

  “Which makes the Rune Wrights—the Alexanders, Montgomery—critical. They are both our greatest defense and the only vulnerability this star system has. I cannot afford to conflict with the Lord Regent, nor can I afford for his life to be in danger.”

  “You want me to keep guarding him.”