Page 90 of The Red Woman on Mars

Vivian turned her head to look at Xavier triumphantly, and he gave her a nod of encouragement. Their argument was working.

And that’s when the door exploded.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Presentation Day

Sirens screamed as the room filled with smoke. Vivian blinked stinging eyes and tried to push past her confusion. Through the clearing fog, she glimpsed one of the Council guards grappling with another figure at the chamber’s gaping doorway. The other guard lay crumpled and still under a piece of the ruined door, body covered in crushed red flower petals.

“We’re under attack!” came Xavier’s urgent voice. “Fall back! Shelter in the upper levels with the Council.”

Through eyes filled with harsh streaming tears, Vivian could make out Xavier standing in front of her holding an ax.An ax? Where did he get an ax?Behind him was a broken fire safety box. “Not without you,” she insisted. “I’m stronger than you. I can help.”

A Martian man rushed toward them from the doorway, his sword reflecting the pulsing red emergency lights. Xavier raised the ax and swung it forcefully, hitting the incoming man full in the throat. An arc of bright blood sprayed over Xavier, drenching his torso and splashing warmly on Vivian’s face. “Can you do that?” he gasped.

Vivian clamped teeth against a scream.

“Go. There’s no exit at the top. They can only come through this door. I’ll hold them off here until reinforcements arrive.”

Ren pulled her arm, his face ashen. “Dorsey is right. Let’s go.”

On her other side, Caspian grimaced. “I should have listened to you, X, all those times you attempted to teach me the sword.”

“Go!” Xavier shouted urgently at the three of them as another invader stepped into the space.

Vivian stumbled backward, tripping over her skirts. Xavier couldn’t possibly hold them all off with an ax. She hadn’t left him on Catena, and she wouldn’t leave him now. Huddling high in a sheltered corner waiting for reinforcements might have been the safer course of action, but she was done being helpless.What can I use?Her burning eyes landed on the large floating dais.

It was wider than the doorway.

She looked up to see Luz gripping the railing of the visitors’ area and watching the scene below. She caught her friend’s eye. “Help me!” Vivian shouted over the sirens, voice cracking. She removed each of the four vases of flowers before crouching down to yank at the corner of the dais. It shook. She pulled it once more, and it came up with a sharp crack.

Wide-eyed, Luz pushed past Ren and Caspian as she raced down the steps toward the Council floor. A few of the other Red Mothers stood up from their positions high in the back of the room, tracking Luz’s movements.

“Luz!” Wim’s high desperate voice carried down from the highest point in the chamber. “It isn’t safe. Come back here. Please. The soldiers will do the fighting for us.”

“I’m here.” Luz spared one glance back at Wim and then took the other end of the large rectangular dais.

It was heavy. Heavier than the body Vivian had carried in the Catena parking lot. Heavier than supporting her sister through the unfinished terraforming station halls. But she had her friend lending her strength to the task.

Luz, who had a child inside her and a caring partner begging her to return to safety, held the other end of the dais in her capablehands and raced with Vivian toward the ruined door frame. They reached the frame in a dozen swift strides and pushed the uprooted dais against the wide entrance. The doorway was nearly covered, with only an open sliver at the top.

Vivian leaned against it, gasping for breath. Her biceps ached. Her head pounded. Her lungs burned from the smoke.

“Is Delilah …?” Luz wheezed.

“Alive. Safe.”Damaged, resilient, brave.

Not here.

Only a few feet away, the remaining Arcadian soldier in the chamber crossed swords with an invader caught on their side of the barrier. Vivian knew almost nothing about fighting, but she could see the Arcadian’s movements were slower and clumsier. He had a sheen of sweat on his forehead that he kept wiping roughly with his free hand.

On the other side of the room, Xavier’s face was stretched wide in a manic smile as he hacked at his opponent with the ax. His arm blurred in Vivian’s vision as he moved rapidly, backing the other man closer and closer to the wall. She couldn’t spot any other invaders in the chamber, but she was under no illusion about what lay on the other side of their makeshift barrier.

The dais suddenly shook. Vivian planted her feet and pressed her back against it. Camille had come halfway down the aisle and stopped, unmoving and blank-faced on the middle of the stairs. “Camille, we can’t hold this alone!”

Camille shook herself all over. “We’ve got you,” she called down and turned back to Shiloh, snapping one finger. “Grab the desks.” The two of them lifted one solid desk down the steps and pushed it against the propped-up dais. Several of the other women followed suit, and soon the full length of the doorway was fortified by the heavy Council desks in one long line. The remaining Red Mothers started making their way down the stairs.

Vivian took one hand and tested the side of the dais. It held.