Candace disengaged herself from Justin's arms. "That's hardly reassuring, Citizen Xiang. As I recall, Hanse Davion's invasion came as a complete surprise."
Justin bowed his head. "Touché, Duchess. I would point out, however, that we had ample clues of buildups along the border. Our error was in assuming Davion meant only to conduct another one of his Galahad exercises. That's what communications from Michael Hasek-Davion were telling us. We only expected Hanse to flex his muscles, but he struck out at us instead."
Candace's anxiety ignited anger. "Because of my father's ineffectual attempts at a counterstrike, the St. Ives Commonality has been stripped of JumpShips. We couldn't get reinforcements into it even if Davion did attack."
Justin sighed heavily. "That's all right. We don't have any reinforcements. Your father's already issued orders calling up all reserve units on all planets, and for the training of the citizenry to fight the invaders. That may slow Davion down, but it's not going to turn the tide."
Justin's steel hand curled into a fist like a flower wilting in timelapse photography. "My assault will make the difference. Once we hit Bethel and the secret New Avalon Institute of Science facility there, we'll be able to meet and defeat Davion's forces." He met her chilly stare. "The JumpShips from St. Ives are being stretched into a command circuit that will deliver my forces to Bethel and bring them back quickly."
Candace nodded stiffly. "I understand the importance of the command circuit and the raid, but I wonder if it will be in time to save the Capellan Confederation."
Justin shook his head slowly. "I cannot answer that, but I do know you need not fear for your St. Ives Commonality. Alexi showed me a report that indicated the Fifth Syrtis Fusiliers were pulled from Kittery. They were aching to avenge Michael Hasek-Davion's death. If Hanse has moved them from Kittery, he's planning to use them elsewhere. As long as you have no Jump-Ships in St. Ives, Hanse knows you won't be hitting him. He will wait."
"I hope, for the sake of my people, that you are correct."
Justin smiled cruelly. "I hope so, too. I want Hanse Davion looking ahead, so far ahead that he'll not see what I'm going to do to him. Once Operation Intruders Communion is complete, we will use his own technology against him. It will be glorious."
Candace stepped close, caressing Justin up over the chest and shoulders as she slipped her hands around his neck. "I believe you, my love, and I dearly wish to share your victory, but I urge you to be cautious. There are those who will mark you as a target. Pavel Ridzik was once my father's trusted advisor, much as you are now. Do not let your personal desire for revenge make you blind to those who might wish to eliminate you."
Justin looked into her quicksilver eyes as his arms enfolded her. "I'll be careful."
Candace smiled happily. "I have ways to insulate you from some things, and your position in the Maskirovka will shield you as well. We both realize who your biggest threat is, and we also know she has great access to my father." She kissed his lips lightly. "As long as we are together, Justin Xiang, she will be unable to hurt either one of us."
Justin nodded quietly. That's the game then, isn't it? Candace and Romano both sense their father's weakness, yet each realizes that only he can eliminate the other as a rival for power. This is a dangerous place to be, Justin, but it is the place where your duty has placed you. Make the best of it, because second-best in this arena ends up in a box.
He smiled at Candace and gave her a squeeze. "Together, we're invincible."
4
Sian
Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation
20 March 3029
Justin followed Candace Liao through the black-lacquered doors into the cool, dark briefing room. The doors closed behind them with the whispered hiss of vapor jets, then locked with a loud click. Justin stepped forward to the nearest end of the black lozenge table. He drew a chair out for Candace, then bowed to Chancellor Maximilian Liao.
The Chancellor, seated in a high-backed black marble chair, nodded his head wearily. The wisps of gray and white imperfections in the throne mirrored the light streaks threading Liao's unruly hair and long, slender moustache. The only color on the Chancellor's drawn face was in the purple shadows beneath his eyes.
Justin shivered. When I first saw him, I thought of a spider, all gangling arms and legs, sitting in the middle of a cosmic web. Now he looks like a scarecrow in some barren, wind-scourged field. Hell, wearing that black uniform, he looks ready to die this instant.
Seated at the table's far end, Tsen Shang nervously shuffled some papers. Tall and dark, he looked much like the Chancellor must have in his younger years. At Romano's urging, he'd grown a moustache just like Liao's. In a fit of independence, however, he'd refused to pare back his fingernails. In keeping with the current fashion, Shang wore the fingernails on the last three fingers of each hand at a length of ten centimeters. Black polish hid the carbon fibers reinforcing the nails, but Justin remembered well the time Tsen had slashed through a leather jacket with the razored edges of the fingernails. Candace is right. I must be cautious. When Romano breaks down Tsen's last feelings of friendship toward me, he will become a most dangerous enemy.
Seated at her father's feet, Romano glared at Justin like a feral cat. Her green eyes dripped unholy menace and the sneer on her face only deepened when she looked at her sister. Her reddish-brown hair framed a face that would have been beautiful if not for the malevolence that distorted it.
Justin looked up at the Chancellor. "You have summoned me, Celestial Wonder?"
Liao nodded curtly, folding his hands together agitatedly instead of steepling them confidently, as was his habit. "Disturbing things, Citizen Xiang. Most disturbing things."
Justin glanced at Tsen. "What have we got?"
Tsen laid his papers down on the table's shadowy surface. "Davion forces have not advanced yet, but they are building up all along the Second Try-Highspire line."
At the mention of her old holding of Highspire, Romano bristled angrily. Maximilian reached down and stroked her red-brown hair with a bony hand. Like a child being comforted, Romano leaned the side of her face against her father's leg.
Justin nodded. "We've no idea when they will strike?"
Tsen shook his head. "We've issued orders calling up all reserves. The militia is being reinforced with older MechWarriors, and we've told everyone that we have troops on the way to bolster the defenses. We've initiated the creation of Youth Squads and are training them with Inferno and SRM launchers. We expect them to use the city terrain to good effect to harass the invaders. Davion's people will find it far more costly to take our worlds than during the first wave of assaults."
Justin smiled. "Good. What's the problem?"
The Chancellor frowned darkly as he pulled a folded sheet of paper from his tunic. "This message arrived today from Colonel Archibald McCarron! He says he's moving his remaining four regiments from their garrison worlds to Palos! I gave no such order!" Color flooded Liao's face as his fist crumpled the message. "At my request, Tsen Shang checked and found that the order went out over your signature."
Despite the Chancellor's wrath, Justin sat back in his chair. "Good. Very good."
"What?" Shang shook his head in disbelief. "Palos is a hideous place to deploy a crack mercenary unit like McCarron's Armored Cavalry. Are you mad? Stripping them from the Capellan March border leaves us open to an assault on Sian."
Justin pressed his hands to the tabletop as he stood. "No, gentlemen and ladies, I am not mad. I have merely averted a catastrophe." He glanced at Shang. "What happened to McCarron's first regiment?"
The distrust in Shang's eyes dropped away as he thought about Justin's question. "Davion forces destroyed it utterly in battles on Arboris and Basal."
Justin nodded, the hint of a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "No quarter asked or given because of McCarron's raid into the Federated Suns six, seven years ago. McCarron's Armored Cavalry severely embarrassed the Federated Suns then, and Hanse D
avion returned the favor in the first part of his attack. How do you think that makes McCarron feel?"
Shang allowed himself a smile. "He's anxious to prove he's top dog again, and he wants revenge."
Justin lightly tapped the table with his metal fist. "Exactly." He glanced up at the Chancellor. "McCarron's always been a loose cannon. We've granted him duty on worlds that don't need protecting because it puts him in striking distance of worlds that do. Inefficient perhaps, but it works to keep a top-flight merc unit fighting for us at reduced rates.
"Well, this little action of McCarron's is on his own tab. He wanted to hurt the Federated Suns, and he was going to do something whether we gave him permission or not. I recognized this and cut him some marching orders."
The Chancellor's dark eyes half shut, then he nodded slowly. "I see the wisdom in your action. You guided a flood you knew you could not stop. Still, I would debate the wisdom of posting them on Palos. That world may produce the finest champagne in the Successor States, but it is not a military target worth defending."
"I agree, Universal Master. McCarron's Armored Cavalry is really on Sarna."
Justin's words shocked everyone in the room. The Maskirovka analyst slowly nodded his head in response to the unspoken question. "Yes, McCarron and I worked out a code. He is on Sarna, but his message says he is on Palos. That is where Hanse Davion's people will believe him to be. From Sarna, McCarron can hit any world Davion is likely to attack in his next wave."
Candace swiveled her chair around. "Do you believe there is a spy in our midst?"
Justin pursed his lips and thought for a moment before answering. "I don't know for certain, but I feel we are dealing with a traitor."
Shang's head came up. "Why?" His question, voiced without hostility, told Justin the same idea had been nibbling at the edges of his mind.
Justin straightened up. "The first thing that made me suspicious was how easily Pavel Ridzik seems to have eluded the assassin we sent to deal with him. She was perfect. She played to his libido and he stopped thinking. The bomb she used leveled half a block, but he'd already managed to escape the restaurant and the immediate vicinity. He had to have been warned, and his quick alliance with Hanse Davion suggests repayment of a debt."
Shang nodded in agreement. "The problem is that we had a long chain of agents working on that case. Any of them could have let the word slip."
Justin wavered. "Perhaps, but I think the leak comes from here in Sian. Davion might have learned Ridzik was to be hit by someone in a chain, but only a leak at the beginning would have given him the time to arrange for Ridzik's evacuation."
"Point taken." Shang looked up the Chancellor, and Maximilian nodded.
Justin continued. "In addition to that incident, I got to thinking about what Michael Hasek-Davion claimed before he died. He said Hanse had been giving him false data. We discounted that idea because we knew Michael had given us less than 100 percent-reliable information. But what if he was telling the truth for once? Hanse would need someone inside the Maskirovka to make certain any good data we got was diverted while our reliance on Michael's information crippled us."
Romano sat forward like a cat readying to pounce. "Who? Who could it be?"
"It is easier, my Lady of Highspire, to tell you who I do not suspect." He glanced around the room. "I trust everyone here, and Alexi Malenkov, but no one else."
Candace stiffened. "Not even the Chancellor's wife?"
Justin hesitated. Tsen, Alexi, and I know that Elizabeth Liao had an affair with Pavel Ridzik, but that information was to have gone no further. A glance at Romano shook his confidence, but the expression on the Chancellor's face quickly drew all his attention. What is going on?
Pain and confusion fought for control of the Chancellor's countenance. "Leave her out of this. She will come back."
Romano twisted around. "Father, divorce her. Sentence her to Brazen Heart. You always forgive her when she deserts you, only to return penitent. Wash your hands of the slut!"
Maximilian Liao stiffened with anger, which seemed to infuse his body with life again. "I will not be lectured to by a spoiled whelp, Romano. I am the Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation! I have proved my worth to my nation over and over again! What I wish to forgive and forget concerning the woman I married after your mother died is my business. It is not a subject I choose to discuss with a petulant, landless noblewoman!"
Most others would have withered under Liao's harsh rebuke, but not Romano. She calmly blinked her green eyes at him, catlike as ever. She lowered herself to her place at his feet, but refrained from leaning against him.
Justin looked up at Liao's angry face. If the Chancellor's wife has taken off again, we must find her. Prince Hanse Davion would have a field day with her defection. He narrowed his eyes. It will have to be suggested, but not here and not at this time. I'll put Alexi on it quietly.
Tsen filled the awkward silence with a question. "What have you done about this traitor idea?"
"I've had Alexi double-checking some communications records, but it's a big job for just one person. I've been busy delivering Michael's body and preparing for Operation Intruders Communion."
Maximilian Liao closed his eyes like a sunning lion. "Tsen Shang, you will take over the investigation of the possible spy in our midst. He or she will be found and taken alive. I will have Davion's entire network on Sian."
"Yes, Celestial Wisdom." Shang nodded his head, then looked over at Romano as she tugged on his sleeve. The virulence in her eyes clearly shocked him. He tried to shake his head to divert her will, but she would have none of his reluctance.
Romano stared daggers at Justin. "This extravagant 'command circuit' you have created for your personal quest is using up far too much in the way of JumpShip resources. We cannot transport troops efficiently because of it. You are costing us this war."
Muscles bunched at the corners of Justin's jaw. Bitch! Your games could prove very costly. He drew in a deep breath to purge himself of rage, then exhaled slowly. "Your lack of sufficient foresight again betrays you, Lady of Highspire. We all realize a JumpShip must recharge for up to two weeks at a star before it can make one of its thirty-light-year jumps. Though this mode of transport is faster than any other we know, the recharging delays make the trip from Sian to Bethel longer than two months. At the current rate of Davion advances, that would put his troops here at the same time I completed my round trip."
Justin leaned forward over the table. "The command-circuit idea, created by Hanse Davion to facilitate the swift movement of troops, means we have a charged JumpShip waiting at a star to continue the next leg of the journey. That means the six-jump trip to Bethel can be completed inside three days."
Romano stared at Shang. Helplessly, Justin's partner turned to him. "No one denies the need for a command circuit to get you to Bethel, and the six JumpShips employed in it are well-used. What we have to ask"—he glanced at Romano—"is why you need eight ships to return by a different route. Those eight ships could be better spent ferrying troops to the front."
Justin smashed his steel fist into the table, cracking the table's black petrochem coating. "Come on people, get with the game here." Justin shook his head at Shang, whose face flushed with anger, then addressed himself to the Chancellor. "We have discussed the need for my speedy return by another route over and over again. Once Hanse Davion discovers we have successfully raided his secret base and have stolen the formula for the new, superstrength myomer muscles, he will stop at nothing to prevent my return to Sian. He might even order JumpShips destroyed!"
Even as he spoke the words, Justin felt an involuntary shiver run down his spine. No one talks about destroying JumpShips, not even in jest. They are the pinnacle of lostech, desperately needed to speed men between the stars. Everyone knows that they can be repaired and even manufactured, but the science of what makes them work has been lost. Destroying a JumpShip would be a sacrilege!
The horror of losing something that could not
be replaced did not deflect Romano. "Not only do you tie up extra ships, now you tell us the ones you used may be destroyed." She looked up at her father. "This is a fool's mission." She stabbed a finger at Justin. "He beggars us just to exact his own revenge upon Hanse Davion."
Justin laughed harshly. "Your mind is too small to see the true depth of my feelings toward the Prince. Do you honestly think I will consider myself revenged because of a strike into the Federated Suns? No, Lady Highspire, not in your wildest dreams. I want the myomer fiber formula so we can transform our current 'Mechs into an unbeatable force. The new fibers will triple our 'Mech strength. The new muscles will allow our 'Mechs to carry more armor and weaponry. With these new machines, we'll be able to stop the Davion advance, crush Ridzik's fledgling nation, and force the invaders back into their own territory." He smiled at the Chancellor. "Deep into their own territory."
Romano frowned suspiciously. "If these myomer fibers are so powerful, and far enough along in development for us to steal them, why doesn't Hanse Davion equip some of his own Battle-Mechs with them? How do we even know they exist?"
Justin's smile did not waver for an instant. "The myomer project was a hobby for Professor-General Sam Lewis. He used to like to talk about it with MechWarriors and even mentioned it in a commencement address at Sakhara Academy five years ago, but no one ever took him seriously. After all, the man's known for Kearny-Fuchida drive research, not myomer fiber work. People figured he was talking about advances we might see someday, yet rumors of strange new fibers were always running through the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns during my tour with them."
Justin looked up at the Chancellor. "One of the few positive things to come out of our January counterstrike was the discovery of information on the planet Axton. That information included the location of a secret NAIS outpost on Bethel, where Lewis was also reported present. Once the war began, Lewis was called back from Bethel to New Avalon Institute of Science to supervise some new work with the Kearny-Fuchida drive research project to help minimize ship losses in the fighting.
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