Marauder Aegus Read Free Page A

die off. I’ve entered into the ionosphere now, and neither of us died.
    “So what was your plan?” Anya asks.
    “Irrelevant,” I say, focusing on the view through the window. It’s nothing but thick clouds of carbon dioxide, and I can’t see more than a few hundred meters in front of me, and nothing but more and more thick clouds.
    She laughs.
    “Old plans must be discarded as the situation changes,” I say, trying to sound confident.
    “And what’s the new situation?”
    “As soon as word reaches Sankt Petersburg, they’ll think I’ve kidnapped the Tsarevna.”
    From the corner of my eye, I see her bolt upright in her seat. “You know–”
    “Yes,” I say. “Will you tell them otherwise?”
    “Yes,” she says. “But once we are in the city, don’t forget that you owe me. Three times now.”
    “My original plan,” I start to say, “was to steal this very shuttle. Without you here, I couldn’t have risked going straight to Sankt Petersburg, so I’d have located one of the great floating jungles and attempted to gain favor with the tribes.”
    She scoffs. “Good thing you found me then, that plan sucks.”
    “You’re quite confident,” I say, looking back at her. “For someone whose plan failed.”
    She flushes with anger, and I can’t help but grin.
    “It’s irrelevant!” she says, rolling her eyes. “I have a new plan now.”
    “When will I learn of this plan?”
    “Whenever I decide to tell you,” she says, crossing her arms.
    “I will help you so much as I am able, and so much as it does not interfere with my greater mission,” I say.
    “What is your mission?” she asks.
    “To end the civil war.”

    * * *
    M y HUD blinks , and I see I’m receiving a communications request from Sankt Petersburg.
    I accept the request, and an angry man’s voice fills the shuttle.
    “You fucking monster! Give me back my daughter, or I’ll–”
    “Papa!” Anya shouts. “I’m fine! He didn’t kidnap me...nothing like that.”
    “Anya…” he says. “Show me you’re okay. Prove it.”
    I flick on the video, and I see a man with deep frown lines and bushy eyebrows. He looks at me with a snarling anger, but his face softens when Anya approaches the screen.
    “Papa,” she says. “Meet Aegus, my fiancé!”
    The Tsar’s eyes bulge, and then his face falls to a cold, simmering anger.
    “Come home, Anya, we’ll...discuss this later.”
    The screen cuts off and my anger flares.
    “Fiancé?!” I jump out of the pilot’s seat and stare down Anya. My ears are pricked up tight in fury, but I don’t dare so much as raise my hand to her. “ This is your plan?”
    “You never even bothered to ask me why I was running away,” she says, looking up at me with those alluring blue eyes. “Did you even care?”
    “I had other things on my mind, woman, like ending this war.”
    She stares up at me, not backing down.
    “So tell me, now that you’re deciding to tell me things,” I say. “ Why were you running away?”
    “Because,” Anya says, “my father wanted to marry me off to some old fat baron from Earth.”
    I narrow my eyes and my ears pull back onto my head. “You had no choice?”
    “No,” she says. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this...but it might help you, on your mission.”
    I try not to lash out at her again. She might be a treasure trove of information that could be priceless to me, but she will probably only tell me things that relate to her forced marriage–things that will benefit her and her insane plan for me.
    “Yes,” I say. “Please go on.”
    “My father is sick of this blockade. It’s starving us out, and I overheard him mention he’s seriously thinking of giving into the Empire’s demands. Rejoining the Empire under some kind of ‘One Empire, Two Governments’ scheme.”
    No. I’m too late.
    “Anya,” I say. “There will be no ‘Two Governments.’ Your father will become a puppet, and under General Bahamut, there will never be