[i]"Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, That here, obedient to Spartan law, we lie." Simonides’ epigram for Thermopylae[/i] [b]Prologue[/b] This place used to be a palace. I’m not sure what this room was, precisely; it’s a wide, open space of marble facades and peeling gold leaf in a neo-renaissance style. There’s a raised area in the back and what might have been an orchestra pit, but then the glass wall that curves around to the west and lets in angry red planetglow from Jupiter hardly seems like it would enhance opera. Whatever it was, whatever animus that once infused this place, it’s dead now, populated only by the carrion who feast on its desiccated corpse. Carrion like me. My footsteps echo off the marble walls – where the marble hasn’t fallen away to reveal reinforced concrete and peeling insulation – and icy wind howls through the shattered panes of glass. I don’t have much time. There are a dozen entrances to this room, and not much cover. I’d be better making my stand in one of the smaller backrooms, but I can’t guarantee that would give my companions time to escape. All the corridors in this building lead to this room, and that makes this a chokepoint. A wide-open, almost-indefensible chokepoint, but I can still take down whatever alien bastards come through the doors. I’m a Guardian of the City. That’s what I do. Near the pit, lying among the jumble of fallen marble and broken glass, are a pair of tables – big ones, the kind you’d put a buffet on. They, too, are cracked and faded decadence; silver-inscribed, inlaid with opal and synthetic rubies. The only reason they haven’t been looted is that, out here, there’s no practical use for them. Well, that and the palace’s defences. That’s been enough to hold the Fallen off, until now. I push the tables over onto their sides and position them at right angles to each other, with a gap wide enough for me to walk through in the middle. That will have to do. There are two main doors that I think the Fallen will come through, and if I’m right I’ll have firing lines to both from here. I still have a few minutes, though. I check my chrono. It’s been thirty minutes since we shut down the palace defences, twenty since we looted the vault and fifteen since the Fallen arrived. If Haskell and Irra aren’t out in another ten minutes, they probably won’t make it off Europa. My foot bumps into something on the floor. Keeping an eye on the doors, I crouch to pick it up. It’s a holo, flickering with age but still useable. A young woman in debutante’s colours smiles prettily out of the picture, brown hair falling in ringlets around green eyes. She looks kind of like me; maybe, in a past age, I could’ve been her. This place is a treasure-trove; it’s a pity we can’t pick over it more thoroughly. The City could use all this stuff. Ellica would love this stuff. I wince at the thought. I can still see her face, angry that I left again. The hurt in her eyes. She’s a better person than me; the woman who took a chance on an outlands hunter, who tried to get me a place in the City I could call home. If I have one regret, it’s that I couldn’t take her up on it, couldn’t trade the frontier for a family. That, and I never told her I love her. A howl echoes down the corridor, a hunting-screech I’ve heard many times before. It’s joined a moment later by a cacophony of other screams. The Fallen are coming. I draw my weather-cape away from the holsters of my revolvers, and idly wonder how many there are. It doesn’t matter, not really; I know I’m not walking out of this room. I hear a comm-click in my ear. The others are at the ship. I smile beneath my helmet and draw my weapons. My longrifle is useless at these distances and I need more precision than my SMG will give me, so it’s revolvers at dawn. It actually is dawn, too; the west wall has just lit up with brilliant refractions from the light the snow has reflected from the distant sun. Well, at least I’ll go out looking at something pretty. I aim a revolver at each of the two large doors and wait. There’s no sound other than my breathing and the soft moan of the wind through the broken shards of grandeur. My earpiece squawks as Haskell and Irra make contact. “We’re away.” Haskell’s voice is harsh as always, but soft, edged with jagged splinters of emotion. “Acknowledged,” I say. “Godspeed.” “You want us to circle round, pick you up?” Irra sounds like she’s about to cry. It’s to be expected; she’s never lost a friend like this before. I’m surprised by that thought. I’ve never really had friends. “Negative,” I say, slipping into Haskell’s old-world military jargon. “Get the hell out. I’ve got this.” “But-” “On it.” Haskell says. “May the Traveler guide your path.” It’s an old Guardian’s farewell. I smile. “And yours.” There’s a crack in my voice that wasn’t there before. The comm clicks off, and I hear the roar of engines in the distance. The howls sound again, closer this time, and something slams on the gilded doors. I level my guns again, take a deep breath. The doors buckle under the weight of blows. I thumb back the hammer on each gun, the clicks echoing in the hall like thunder. The doors burst inwards, and Fallen, four-armed, armoured in bone and blood, shrieking hunting cries and brandishing blades and guns, boil into the hall. I smile, a hunter’s rictus grin, thin lips stretched back over bared teeth, and open fire. The shots ring through the halls of a dead king’s palace, a frantic battle that will be remembered by no-one, its participants more bodies in the sarcophagus of Europa. I’ll die far from home, with no-one to see me but the four-armed warriors of an alien warlord. But I’m a Guardian of the City. That’s what I do.