Mars Time: 23:55, February 18, 2295

  The Slumbering Mantis Inn, Dragon District, Xing Hong

  The inn smelled like stale beer, grilled protein, and something chemical—fire suppressant, maybe, from the scorch marks still visible near the back corridor. Jabari noticed the replacement table that didn't match the others. Someone had mopped, but dark stains lingered in the grout.

  Iron Roach stood behind the bar, polishing a glass with the mechanical patience of a man who'd done it ten thousand times. His red-tinted glasses caught the lantern light. He nodded at Jabari, then let his attention slide to Marcus.

  "Back again."

  "Aye." Marcus removed Bulwark from his back, propping the Titanium Shield against their booth. The leather seats were cracked, warm from years of bodies. "The lady Shazmeen promised Yorkshire pudding. Man cannot live on prayer alone."

  Something flickered in Roach's expression. "Corner booth. She'll be with you."

  Jabari stretched his legs under the table, feeling the ache settle into his calves and lower back. The Warren had taken more out of him than he'd admitted. His Moonstone Cutlass hung at his hip; Oya stayed strapped across his back.

  Neither of them disarmed fully.

  "I come here more often than I should. Feels less heathen than most non-Covenant establishments," Marcus said, looking around the room.

  "High praise from a man who probably considers anywhere without a chapel spiritually contaminated." Jabari leaned back, crossing his arms. "What were you expecting? Human sacrifice in the kitchen?"

  Marcus didn't laugh.

  Shazmeen appeared between tables with the practiced ease of someone who'd navigated worse crowds. Midnight blue silk caught the lamplight. Her dark hair was pinned back, revealing a face that drew the eye without demanding it.

  "Glad to see you back." Traces of an accent Jabari couldn't place.

  Marcus sat straighter. "Lady Shazmeen. Recall the Yorkshire pudding you made last month?"

  "I remember. The missionary's recipe. Roast beef drippings, onion gravy." Her smile was small. "It's not often I have a customer who appreciates traditional Covenant comfort food."

  "You learned it from a missionary?"

  "Many years ago. He was a kind man." Something distant crossed her expression. "Dead now, of course. Most kind men are, on Mars."

  She took their orders without a tablet. Marcus ordered what he'd promised: the pudding, roasted vegetables from the Olympus Mons greenhouses, Moon Ale.

  Jabari ordered everything else.

  "Jollof rice. The Maridian-fusion version, extra peppers. Grilled protein strips, real meat if you've got it. Fried plantains. Groundnut soup." He ticked off on his fingers. "Two bottles of whatever Ghanaian beer you stock."

  Marcus's eyes widened.

  "You said your treat." Jabari grinned. "I'm treating myself."

  Something cracked in Marcus's careful composure. A laugh escaped—short, surprised, changing his whole face.

  "Fair enough. May Zori reward honest appetite."

  The food arrived in stages.

  Jabari's jollof rice came first, steaming with tomatoes and scotch bonnets. The scent hit him somewhere deep—his grandmother's kitchen in Ndovu Zenith, before his father's business collapsed, before the debts. He ate without speaking, letting the taste do the remembering.

  When Marcus's Yorkshire pudding arrived—golden batter filled with sliced beef, swimming in dark gravy—something close to reverence crossed his face.

  "Good. Proper." he murmured.

  They ate.

  "Your crossbow work in the Warren," Marcus said between bites. "Exceptional. Where'd you learn?"

  "Directorate academy. Three years before the money ran out." Jabari took a pull of beer. Close enough to Ghanaian. "My father couldn't afford tuition after his business went under."

  "I trained in Sheffield. Boxing gyms, HEMA clubs. Shipyards by day, fighting by night." Marcus paused. "No formal military. Just desperation and a good teacher."

  "Yet you move like you've been doing this your whole life."

  "Aye."

  Jabari let it go. Some stories earned themselves in the telling.

  The groundnut soup arrived, rich with peanuts. Jabari dipped his plantains, savoring the combination.

  "The shield technique," he offered in exchange. "The way you plant and don't move. Most fighters would buckle under that Draug's strength."

  "From the Covenant Archive's records, Ysolde H?ggsson's strength was terrifying even back she was human. But my Bulwark is more than metal." Marcus tapped the medallion on his breastplate. "Solar psionics flow through it. The more I believe, the stronger it becomes."

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "The more you believe?"

  "Faith isn't metaphor for us. It's fuel."

  Jabari turned that over. "We have something similar in the Directorate. Sumina casters channel through tradition, ancestor connection. Different source. Same principle."

  Marcus studied him. "You're not a mage yourself?"

  "Griot training. Just some low-level psionics whenever I can learn. Mostly I hit things with my crossbow or cutlass. Let the hitting solve the problems."

  Another laugh from Marcus, smaller, but real.

  "I keep thinking about Bo Ji," Marcus admitted. His pudding was half-finished, going cold. "That supplicant. The way he looked at us when we pulled him out."

  Jabari remembered. The rage in Bo Ji's eyes. The wedding ring catching the light. You fucking ruined it.

  "Do you believe we did the right thing?" Marcus asked. "Dragging those men back against their will?"

  "I don't know." Jabari pushed a plantain around his bowl. "Leaving them felt wrong too. Sometimes there's no good choice."

  Marcus was quiet for a long moment.

  "The Covenant teaches certainty. God's will is clear. Follow it, walk in light." He picked up his ale, stared into it. "Certainty's harder to find in the field. Looking at a man who chose damnation willingly..."

  "You'd think damnation would be more damning. Less like a man escaping a job he hated."

  Marcus flinched. Then nodded.

  "If hell looks like paradise to the desperate, what does that say about the world we've built?"

  Marcus pivoted.

  "What does your Directorate think of Radi-Mons? Truly?"

  Jabari set down his beer. "Official position or honest?"

  "Honest. Always."

  Dangerous ground. But the man had asked.

  "I'm indifferent to most of them. Back home, we have Twiabos. Radi-Mons bred from guinea pigs. Labor, agriculture, even childcare in distant colonies. Useful. Regulated." Jabari met his eyes. "'Course, my issue is Fenris specifically. Creatures bred for conquest. For turning humans into breeding stock. That's my line."

  Marcus's jaw tightened. "But the whole concept?"

  Jabari pondered between bites. "Workable, I guess. We'd still be stuck in the Sol System without them. See, they're why humanity reached Proxima Centauri and Tau Ceti, survived environments that would kill us in hours."

  Marcus set down his fork.

  "All Radi-Mons are abominations. Every one. Creatures born from human seed and ovum, twisted into monsters." His voice went flat. "Even the helpful ones normalize it. Today, farm workers. Tomorrow, armies."

  "I can't speak for others, but the Directorate regulates it. Consent protocols."

  "But regulations erode. Oversight fails." Marcus leaned forward. "Every time humanity reaches for forbidden knowledge, we tell ourselves we'll be responsible. We never are."

  "That's bleak."

  "It's accurate. Every Radi-Mon requires a woman's eggs, a man's seed, a breeding apparatus." His hands had balled into fists. "The governments justify it for conquest, but it always ends the same. Humanity as raw material."

  Jabari didn't agree. But he understood. The way you understand a language you've studied but never lived.

  Marcus pushed further.

  "This looseness. This casualness. It's not just breeding. It's how people treat intimacy itself."

  Jabari nearly choked on his beer. "You're about to preach at me."

  "Marriage before sex. A tenet the old world held sacred."

  "The old world had slavery and two World Wars."

  "And families. Communities. Bonds that meant something." Marcus's voice rose. "The freedom people celebrate now—Leased Lilies, casual encounters—it hollows people out. I've seen it. In Bo Ji's eyes. In countless others."

  "You're telling me abstinence made people better?"

  "I'm telling you that when anything is permitted, nothing means anything."

  Jabari suddenly thought about Sigrun Fjeld. The way the Nordling woman had fought in the Warren: fierce, deadly, something hollow behind those sapphire eyes. The Bedchamber Valkyrie. A woman who used her body like a weapon in more ways than one.

  He pushed the thought away.

  "I've seen the old world's approach too. Arranged marriages where women had no say. Shame as a weapon." His voice hardened. "My mother left us. My father fell apart. You know what his sacred marriage got him? Abandonment and debt collectors."

  "I'm sorry."

  "I'm not finished. People being loose with sexuality? That's modern life. Not everyone has to be a monk to have meaning."

  "You're thinking like a mercenary." The counter came fast. "Surviving. Not living with intent."

  The words landed like a punch.

  Jabari fell silent.

  Movement in his peripheral vision.

  Shazmeen emerged from the back, and Jabari forgot the argument.

  She wasn't wearing the innkeeper's robes anymore. Deep purple combat wear—armored beneath flowing fabric. A violet headpiece sat on her head, made from some sturdy alien material he couldn't identify. The robes rippled as she moved, but there was weight to them.

  She looked like Fuuka.

  Not identical. But close enough to strike him like cold water.

  "Roach." Her voice carried. "I'll be out until morning. You have the inn."

  The barkeeper didn't look up. "Stay sharp out there."

  "Always am."

  She glanced toward the dining area and caught Jabari's eyes for a moment. Dark, unreadable. Then looked away and exited into the Martian night.

  Purple robes. Alien-material headpiece. Predatory grace wrapped in hospitality.

  The thought crossed Jabari's mind. Who are you, really, Shazmeen Vinh?

  "Oy. Something wrong?"

  Marcus's voice pulled him back.

  "Just thinking." Jabari picked up his beer. "Everyone's got secrets on Mars, eh?"

  "They always do. That's why the Covenant exists. To be light in darkness."

  "But if your truth isn't everyone's truth?"

  "Then they're wrong."

  He said it without malice. Almost sadly.

  They ate in silence. The disagreement hung between them, present but not hostile.

  Jabari set down his empty bottle.

  "I don't agree with you, Stalwart. About any of it." He gestured at the remains of their meal. "But you paid for my food. You fought beside me. You saved those men even though they didn't want saving."

  Marcus considered him.

  "Actions reveal the soul. Words are wind." He lifted his bottle. "You fought well today, Griot. That counts."

  Minutes had passed. Marcus was halfway through his last bite when the sirens began.

  The first one was distant—deep in Dragon District, a low wail that could have been a transport emergency. Then another joined it. Another.

  The inn's holographic display flickered to life:

  [EMERGENCY ALERT: DRAGON DISTRICT]

  [Hostile Radi-Mon presence confirmed at Poison Dragon Flute Motel]

  [Blade-wielding Draug sighted! Citizens advised to evacuate immediately]

  Jabari's Nucleus Watch buzzed. Marcus's did the same.

  [URGENT SUMMONS: Prefect Dilinur Altai's Office, Phoenix District]

  [All Red Rabbit Warren bounty participants required immediately]

  Marcus stared at his unfinished pudding.

  "Of bloody course." He reached for Bulwark. "Of bloody course."

  Jabari was already moving, checking Oya's string tension.

  "Duty calls, Stalwart?"

  "No time like the present." Marcus rose, leaving a credit chip on the table. Jabari glanced at it and noticed the number '$88 Atomic Dollars worth' floating in holographic in midair, enough for the meal, plus a generous tip, and maybe even Iron Roach's next night off. He looked at the pudding one more time.

  "Zori willing, we finish this conversation."

  "The pudding or the debate?"

  "Both."

  Through the windows, emergency vehicles screamed through Dragon District's streets, lights painting buildings in strobing red and white. Other patrons were rising, checking Watches.

  Marcus's lips moved in prayer. Jabari caught fragments: "True Mother...guide our hands...shield the innocent..."

  Jabari didn't pray.

  He checked his Kinetic Crossbow Oya one more time. Felt his Moonstone Cutlass Sankofa's weight at his hip.

  At the door, they paused.

  "This isn't going to be like the Warren," Jabari said.

  "No." Marcus's gray eyes had gone hard. "The Fenris Horde is testing the city."

  Jabari pushed open the door. The Martian night rushed in. Cold, sharp, smelling of death and fear.

  The sirens were deafening now.