Mituna Captor hated the Fuchsia moon—but more than that, he hated lies.
Lying he was fine with. Lying was a necessity, a tool of his life. It was being lied to that he hated, even if it was how she had been raised.
Everything Meenah used to say was a lie.
Meeah Peixes, Meenah the empress. he hadn't thought about her in a long time, not until tonight.
Sweeps.
And right now, as Mituna clung to the side of a rusting warehouse on the edge of a dock, even the moon looked like just another one of Meenah's lies.
Welcome home, Tuna
It was the royal moon that brought it all back now.
he climbed higher as she remembered the words, but even Mituna Captor, new agent of the rebellion, couldn't escape Meenah Peixes.. Not any more than he could escape the guards positioned on every neighboring rooftop or the barbed wire on the fence
"See that moon?" Meenah had said when he was younger. "See that dark tiara, ready to crown anyone that stands underneath?" Mituna had nodded. "With a moon like that, your targets can see you as easily as you see them. Not a good night for hunting, or a clean kill. Not a good night for disappearing."
It was Meenah he remembered.
Meenah who had taught him how to fly with a greatest precision, how to never use anything but a highblood weapon, no matter how you felt about them. Meenah who had taught him how to change the radar and cloak an entire ship, how to hide from the legislacerators.
Mituna took a breath and swung, springing through the moonlit night from side to side, making his way farther up the wall of the decaying warehouse. The rough metal siding bit into his palms. It was a miracle that he was still hanging on.
A miracle and years of training.
Mituna closed her eyes and tightened his grip. Truthfully, she didn't need his adhesive suit.
Even if I wanted to let go, I haven't been trained for that.
"I will teach you more than how to fly," Meenah had said. "I will make you into the ship itself. You will become as automatic and unfeeling as a Peixes, but twice as dangerous. Only then will I teach you how to take a life—how and when and where."
"And why?" Mituna had asked.
She had laughed outright. "Not why, my Tuna. Never why. Why is for guitar players and lowbloods." Then he'd smiled. "We all have a time to die, and when it's mine, when they send you to sink a round of bullets into my head, just make sure not to do it on a fuchsia moon." he'd nodded, but she couldn't tell if she was serious or not. "That's all I ask. A clean kill. A soldier's death. Do not shame me."
It was her favorite line. She'd said it maybe a thousand times.
And now, as Mituna stared up at the tiara moon, he decided it was the one he'd repeat back to her tonight. When he finally killed her, just as she'd predicted he would.
She's not a martyr, he reminded himself. We aren't saints. When we die, nobody mourns. That's the only way this ends, for all of us.
Even if there were a hundred pink moons in the sky tonight, Mituna refused to feel any shame or any sorrow for Meenah Peixes. She didn't want to feel anything at all, not for anyone, but least of all for him.
Because he felt nothing for you.
Mituna kicked up his legs, balancing on siding on the side of the warehouse. Now he had a full view of the building, which only made him shake his head. He had seen abandoned doghouses in better condition.
He reached higher, grabbing a light fixture like a handle, and hauled his body upwards-until it came off in his hand and went clattering to the ground below.
He froze.
"Did you hear something?"
Below him, a fat guard moves toward the sound, his weapon slung across his back. Two more guards followed.
Untrained. Not Meenah's guys-unless he's getting really sloppy.
Mituna cursed to himself, flattening his hanging body against the side of the wall beneath the shadows of the roof. Flashlight beams now swept across the warehouse, only inches below him.
"You didn't hear anything, dumbass. Just our old outhouse falling apart."
The guards moves on.
Mituna breathed, then flipped himself over the roof, rolling toward a skylight. The view below him was musty, and only two figures could be seen in the spaces between the crates. One big, one small.
He could see a kid. A boy. From the looks of it, he was maybe 4 or 5 sweeps old. They all looked the same to Mituna.
The boy turned his head away from Meenah, and Mituna could now see he was crying.
Is that how I used to look at you, Meenah?
Because now, shoving the boy aside as he stepped into the fuchsia moonlight, there was his old captain-and new target.
Meenah Peixes.
The closest thing I had to a friend.
Mituna hung further over the skylight to get a better look. What was she doing? Putting something on the girl's head. Electrodes, maybe. Definitley. On his temples. More wires on his arms, hands, and even his chubby little legs. On the other end of the wires was a squat metal box, bolted to the floor. It sprouted a mess of thickly bundles wires, curving and sparking in every direction. The wiring led to more boxes and then to more wiring, as if it-as if he-were a fundamental anatomical part of a living organism with no end.
Another one. So the reports were true.
He's one of Meenah's replacements-my replacement.
Mituna stared. He didn't wince, and he didn't look away. The scene was all too familiar-though he'd been chained to a radiator and not strapped to a chair, and Meenah hadn't discovered electrodes back then. It didn't matter. Enough was enough.
Mituna took in the scene in front of him, then rolled onto his back, raising his wrist to his mouth.
"Target is confirmed. Tell Horrus his tracking beacon worked. Intel is good."
"I'll send the empress a fruit basket. God, you've got eyes on her?"
Rufioh's voice crackled over the intercom. "So he's got another one?"
He glanced at the skylight. "Looks that way."
"It's alive!" Rufioh said in his best mad scientist impression.
Mituna started up at the fuchsia moon. The view was even better here, from flat on his back on the top of the warehouse.
"Not for long. I'm going in."