“You and me, Yori Kurita,” he challenged her, toggling to an unsecured circuit. He pushed his heat scale into dangerous territory, flailing with his PPCs in desperation. “The sword and the Dragon!”
She did not have that much more left to give either. The armor on her sixty-ton ’Mech was more memory than materiel, and grayish smoke seeped out of several deep wounds in the ’Mech’s torso. But she rallied gamely to his call, flinging out her own curses in Japanese even as she struck with missiles and particle cannon.
Her final blast of hellish fire washed over the face of his Templar’s cockpit even as his own final pair merged into one raging torrent of crackling energies, coring through her Dragon’s chest and spearing completely through and out the back side. His cockpit slammed back hard and the screens all washed over with blistering red before blinking out.
Darkness crashed in around him, and the simulator pod settled into its cradle with small rocking motions.
Only the lights on his communications board stayed lit.
“This concludes our test,” Julian said, gasping for breath in the stifling hot air. A smile turned up the corners of his mouth.
“We now return you to your regularly scheduled lives.”
25
I can imagine a perfect world. A word without violence. Without armies. Without war.
And I can imagine us attacking that world because they would never expect it.
—Anonymous signature line, SphereNet, Terra, 15 May 3135
Terra
Republic of the Sphere
19 May 3135
Conner Rhys-Monroe shucked his cooling vest inside the Cavalry, dug out a one-piece coverall from the storage locker built in behind the VTOL’s copilot seat, and pulled it on in the final moments before landing at the Darmstadt estates given to him by Senator Derius. He had power-napped for most of the flight, resting uneasily as the rotors thundered overhead, shaking his entire world. His muscles were stiff and sore from too much time spent in the crash seat of his Rifleman. The cordite scent of spent gunpowder trailed along wherever he went.
Seeing him awake, the pilot toggled for his onboard speakers. “We’re going to bounce you down, Senator, and get back to Mannheim, ja? We’ve called for a civilian transport to follow up.”
There was no easy way to conduct a conversation, so Conner simply nodded as the pilot glanced back through the cabin. He caught a stanchion next to the open door, leaning out as the Cavalry swept in low over the rose garden and aimed for the helipad.
The skids had barely kissed ferrocrete when he was down, ducking low, and running out from beneath the rotors as the craft leaped back into the air and thundered south again.
It was a short jog through the rose garden to the rear of the mansion. Double-wide French doors waited open with an infantry guard standing watch just inside. Conner threw a quick salute to the military officers looking at a map rolled out over a twenty-eighth-century breakfast table, and took the plush-carpeted stairs three at a time, heading for the upstairs library.
The Darmstadt estate actually had very little to recommend it as a military strongpoint, but was far enough behind the lines not to worry about it for now. What it had was a certain level of comfort and familiarity for the few senators who had remained on Terra, and was convenient to the forward lines. Growing more convenient by the day, in fact, as The Republic continued to press the loyalists deeper into Germany.
As a viscount’s son, he’d been born to these kind of surroundings. As a knight, he’d seen plenty of time in stark barracks and lonely battlefields.
As a loyalist he was now trapped between both worlds, and the border was wearing thin.
Especially when Cray Stansill met him at the library doors, dressed in a smart suit of dark green silk and carrying a sweating highball.
Conner reached back, then double-pumped his fist right into the other man’s jaw.
Hard.
Stansill flew back off his feet. His highball crashed and tumbled over the thick Berber, staining the oyster knit with a splash of dark bourbon. Two other people in the room jumped to their feet, but out of shock, unprepared for violence.
“Lord Monroe…” Senator Riktofven didn’t seem to know what should come next, and stood there, mouth agape.
Therese Ptolomeny shook her head in disappointment. “Certainly, Conner, there was a better way to voice your disagreement. Especially when Sir Stansill is a guest in your house.”
Conner stood in the doorway, tense, breathing hard from his run up the stairs. He looked at the room’s final occupant, and traded long, hard stares with Melanie Vladistock. Of the senators, after Lina Derius left for her homeworld of Liberty, she was the one he spent the most time with. Planning. Discussing the future of the loyalist movement.
“I told you,” Melanie said to the others with a shrug. “He would not be happy.”
Cray Stansill rolled onto his side, rubbing a hand gingerly at his jaw, careful of the split lower lip that bled bright red droplets onto his chin, his white shirt and the carpeting. He spat more blood, not caring about the floor or the company. “He’s going to be less unhappy very shortly,” the rogue knight said.
Riktofven helped Stansill to his feet, then steered him toward a nearby chair. “Do not embarrass yourself further, Cray.”
Conner was not about to let the former knight and his comrade-in-arms off so easily. “What were you thinking?” he asked, chasing after him. Grinding his fury beneath each hard footstep. “You had an aerospace squadron try for Geneva? The Hall of Government? Do you want to escalate this war?”
“I’m not afraid of it,” Stansill said, shrugging off Riktofven and jumping back into Conner’s face. “And the timing was perfect, with everyone’s attention suddenly diverted by incoming news of the Combine’s invasion. Why else did you organize a quick push to retake Stuttgart and Karlsruhe? Strike the head from The Republic, and we’d be back in Geneva, better to organize a real defense of The Republic.”
“That is not your decision to make. Those decisions come from here, in this room. You’re a loose cannon, Cray.”
“I’m not limiting myself to half-measures, if that’s what you mean. The Republic has pushed us back nearly every day for three weeks. This series of ‘containment skirmishes’ they keep harping about on the newsvids. We are in a war, Conner. And we need to start fighting it without you acting as if your father was still looking over your shoulder.”
Blind with rage, Conner swung at him again. Stansill was ready for it this time, blocked the jab, and then looped an arcing blow that smashed into the side of Conner’s head. He tried to follow it up with a hook to the jaw. Conner ducked back, then used a stiff-armed blow to the underside of Stansill’s chin to snap the other knight’s head back. A double-fisted palm heel into Stansill’s gut knocked the wind and the fight out of the other man, dropping him back in his chair while Conner stood over him, blind with rage, chest heaving.
Senator Riktofven moved in physically to separate the two of them and this time haul Conner away. “This solves nothing! Lord Monroe, take hold of yourself.”
It was hard. And growing harder every day. Conner’s temper had a short fuse at the best of times. His closed-door argument with Lina Derius had been one of the driving factors for her relocation off Terra, he was certain.
Now he shook Riktofven free from his arm. “You people brought me in to this to do a job. We had a plan, and it was a good one. But if Cray goes freelancing again, I’m done. Are we clear?”
He waited for a simple nod of acknowledgment from Riktofven and Ptolomeny. Melanie was more cautious with her agreement. “So you think we can salvage this still?”
Her calm voice soothed the inflammation, and Conner gave the question a moment of thought as he dropped onto the leather divan next to her. His hands remained clenched into tight fists. The others arranged themselves around the room, waiting. Even Cray Stansill, recovering his breath, sat forward quietly to wait for some kind of decision.
/> So much happening. Within and without. From every direction. It wasn’t enough that the Jade Falcons had taken Skye and Liao continued to push at Prefectures IV and V. Now House Kurita had pushed forward, striking at the border worlds in Prefecture I. Add those burdens onto a Republic currently at war with itself, trying to reestablish its own identity…
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Everything is breaking down, both on world and off. The news journalists are taking cheap shots at us now. Not even pretending to carry our message. It’s getting lost between sound bites. Countess Campbell, damn her, owns the media on Terra and half the other Republic worlds, it seems.”
Riktofven found his own drink on a nearby marble coaster. He sipped and then gestured with the glass toward the ceiling. “We knew it might come to that. The exarch’s strongest here on Terra. We’ve weakened him, and perhaps that is enough. Especially with the latest burden being heaped onto his plate.”
“Not just his, Michael.” Melanie Vladistock came from Prefecture II. Along with Senators Onataki and Rwal. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time.”
“Or a better one,” Cray Stansill said, rejoining the conversation.
His lip still bled, and he smeared the stain over his chin with the back of one hand. But his voice was strong and confident again. “I mean, here the exarch has the coordinator of House Kurita right on planet. And so do we.”
Through the few contacts Conner had left on the other side of the wall, he knew that Vincent Kurita was making large noises accusing the Warlord of Benjamin District, Mitsura Sakamoto, of taking matters into his own hands. And putting a great measure of the blame for this “brushfire action” on the shoulders of Katana Tormark. But how well was that playing in the upper circles?
Could they take advantage of it?
“One way or another, we need to rally whatever we have here on Terra and make a decisive stand. Possibly”—he waved Cray Stansill back—“a proactive one. But we need to strengthen our borders here in Europe first and foremost. That means risking overland flights with the men and materiel we have trapped in Spain and hopefully Asia as well. The Americas… we likely need to write them off. We can rescue the one or two knights we have in the desert outside of Sante Fe, but not much more than that.”
Stansill’s face darkened, but he held his peace. For the moment. Riktofven and Ptolomeny nodded, adding their silent votes, while Melanie Vladistock leaned in with one final question.
“And if the exarch decides to get in our way, Conner? What do we do then?”
The ex-knight of the sphere, and the only warrior-senator on the books, rested back. The only answer he had was the same one he’d known since his father’s death, and his decision to stand against the exarch.
“We do whatever we must.”
Geneva had sprouted up quickly to support its status as the capital of The Republic. Besides the impressive Hall of Government and the Senate Mall, Magnum Park and more ambassadorial offices than any small city should have descend upon it, there were numerous buildings along the so-called white collar belt that were filled with factions and functionaries with no other purpose than to help keep the impressive machine of government working as well as could be expected.
And on one of many floors dedicated to the Department of Fiscal Planning, the exarch had another private office.
Walking the abandoned halls late at night, with cleaning staff redirected to other floors and his security agents disappearing into the shadowed corners, Jonah Levin let himself slouch along without a care for appearances. The dark, empty offices fit his mood perfectly. Gloomy. Bitter.
With barely six months in office, he was ready to call it quits. Chuck the problems and return to his family and home on Kervil. And would have, if he’d been made of any less stern material. If he hadn’t taken an oath that he had always held more dear than his own life.
The Republic: first and foremost.
And now it was dying.
The door he chose was marked in no special way. A simple slab of polished oak, with the usual kick plate along the bottom edge decorated with black and brown scuffs. A long bronze plaque at eye level labeled Deputy Undersecretary for Economic Redevelopment.
That was him. He grabbed the door handle and held it a moment, letting the discreet sensors take a full palm reading, waiting for them to trip the hardware built into the wall and allow him access. He was one of two men who could open this door without setting off quite a few alarms and bringing a platoon of armed security crashing down. And the other man was already in the room. Of course.
The ghost paladin rose respectfully as the exarch entered the room, but Jonah waved him back into his seat, a straight-backed chair set on one side of a simple desk. The entire office was modestly appointed, with conservative décor and plain, working furniture. A desk lamp cast only a small island of light into the center of the room, a precaution the exarch knew was redundant. The windows were sealed against any evidence that the office was occupied.
“You promised to have more for me,” Jonah said without preamble, dropping into the swivel seat behind the desk. “Let’s have it.”
The ghost paladin sat forward in his chair. Shrugged. “My network can’t work much faster than the JumpShips that brought the original news in-system,” he said. “But yes, I’ve picked up a few extra details. The advance forces are mostly part of the Benjamin Regulars, though at least one regiment of the Combine’s elite Sword of Light is operating within our borders. I expect them to lead any push into Prefecture III.”
“Will they hit Prefecture III?” Jonah asked.
“They will have to. Whether as a pretext for invasion or to truly oppose Katana Tormark… she has made III her power base and they will move to take it apart one world at a time.”
Liao… Jade Falcon… Kurita… the Senate. As a paladin, Jonah Levin had sworn to uphold the power and authority of the exarch against all enemies, foreign and domestic, never once believing that he’d see such opposition. Or that he’d be in the chair when it came.
“Another month. Two more weeks, even. If they could have held off just long enough to get us through the funeral services. To put our own house back in order, and perhaps strengthen our nascent alliances. We’d have had a chance at them, Emil. A chance at an eventual peace.”
It was the first time since taking office, perhaps, that he had called the ghost paladin by name. Certainly the first time in so long that he couldn’t remember for sure. It was so much easier when he dealt with his staff by titles and positions, not as real people. Especially when Jonah had to ask them to do things he was not proud of, and would never have done if it were only himself in danger and not the lives of billions at stake. Trillions, even.
“And to save even a fraction of them now, we must make some very hard choices. And hope there will be pieces that can be picked up later. But so many. So many.”
“And if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ then he shall not go.”
Jonah recognized the paraphrased verse from the Unfinished Book, and also knew its earlier roots. “‘By these three hundred, I will save you.’ The biblical Book of Judges. Yes, it does feel like we must play God now. And if we don’t, all will perish.”
Emil nodded. “The ghost knights stand ready to deliver whatever assistance they must.” He paused, rarely accepting the chance to editorialize. Then: “You have good men and women around you, Exarch. They will all do their best. Even in the most trying of circumstances.”
“The Republic is dying, Emil. Stone’s grand vision fails. There will be no more trying times than this.”
“What is the order, Exarch?”
Jonah exhaled, long and tired. It always came down to that, didn’t it? And it did not help that the plans for such an occurrence had been set down by Devlin Stone himself. It didn’t help at all.
“Carefully,” he said. “Quietly. Because I hold out some hope for a miracle. Begin preparations for our final line of defense.
“Ready Fortress Republic.”
A THOUSAND CUTS
“Ah, woe the day! The handsome form of prince Siddhattha will surely be destroyed! What will he do to save himself?”
—Buddhist Writings, I. The Buddha, The Attainment of Buddhaship
Enlightenment would be a strange and glorious thing. But too often, I am afraid, we do not keep our seats long enough for reason, at the least, to prevail. And men who draw the sword of rebellion too often throw away the sheath.
—Julian Davion, Lord Markeson, “War in the Historical Context,” Published first on Kathil, 2 December 3134
26
With calls for Capellan blood now rising from such worlds as New Syrtis, Kathil, and Chesterton, it is time for us to wonder if a strict policy of isolationism is, in fact, in our best interest. Or if stronger alliances are not the way of our future.
—Jacquie Blitzer, //battlecorps.org/blitzer, 12 May 3135
Terra
Republic of the Sphere
23 May 3135
The touring shuttle’s recycled air had a metallic, stale taste to it. Dry and lifeless. Fitting, Julian decided as he climbed the steel stairwell, seeking the upper decks. He slapped the cold, metal railing with each change of grip. Rattled the steps extra hard with pounding stomps, as if the banging tones could drive the images of a scarred and twisted wasteland from his head.
They couldn’t.
The devastation was indelibly printed in his memory.
They were on another of the exarch’s arranged tours and events to encourage interaction, and the shuttle’s first pass over Hilton Head “island,” or what was left of this historical site, had been a quick overflight at two kilometers. Julian had counted at least three distinct craters among the rocky shoals and barren scraps of land. The prepackaged “tour guide” being played over the shuttle’s intercom system had explained these craters could have been made by burrowing nuclear warheads or preplanned spoilsport bombs—historians still debated that today.
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