The Northwind Highlanders’ DropShip Montrose waited on the ground at Tara DropPort with its cargo hold gaping open. The other two DropShips on the field, Morrigan and Esperance, had already sealed up and declared themselves ready to lift, and only Montrose remained to take on its cargo of soldiers and equipment. Military DropShips were capacious vessels, and Montrose would be lifting at max capacity. That meant row on row of buses and trucks full of Highlanders and their personal effects—one canvas duffel bag per each—idling on the tarmac until word came to get out and form up.
Will Elliot formed his platoon into ranks and gave them a good inspection. Then he moved off to one side to stand with his friends and fellow Sergeants Jock Gordon and Lexa McIntosh in the lee of the nearest truck. The trio talked idly amongst themselves while keeping an eye on their troopers and listening for the order to embark.
Beyond the DropPort, the Tara skyline looked ragged and unfamiliar in the aftermath of battle. What the days of house-to-house city fighting had not destroyed, the Steel Wolves had razed in obedience to Anastasia Kerensky’s order to burn everything before taking ship for Terra. Most of the famous landmark buildings were blown up and gone, although the haze of yellowish gray pollution left behind after their collapse still discolored the air above the city. The port buildings themselves—the hangars and the parking bays and the great domed central concourse—were all gone as well, turned into rubble on the first day of city fighting.
Lexa McIntosh—short, skinny, and gypsy dark—surveyed the damage done to the city with a jaundiced eye. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “it’s a damned shame Anastasia Kerensky wasn’t riding along with that tank column.”
Big Jock Gordon nodded. “Aye.”
“No argument from me on that one,” agreed Will.
Neither man needed to ask Lexa which tank column she’d been referring to. All three of them had been part of the action when the Northwind Highlanders, acting on Countess Tara Campbell’s orders, had blown up Castle Northwind in its isolated valley, then dropped part of a mountainside onto the only road out.
The Steel Wolf tank column sent to capture the castle had found itself trapped. They’d fought hard, but the Highlanders waiting for them in the valley had fought harder.
The tank column’s fate had not saved Northwind from the Steel Wolves, or the city of Tara from devastation, but it had felt good, which was one more thing that Will hadn’t told his mother and sister because he wasn’t sure that they would understand.
Lexa was still frowning. “Tell me again,” she said, “why we’re leaving a mess like this behind for somebody else to take care of?”
“Anastasia thinks we’re beaten,” Jock said. “We’re going to show her that we’re not.”
“That’s only part of it,” said Will.
“What do you mean?” Lexa asked. She and Jock both looked at him expectantly, waiting for the explanation.
Even back during their days in boot camp, Will had always been a pace or two ahead of his friends when it came to matters of soldiering and strategy. While Jock Gordon was steady and solid, no one would ever mistake him for the fastest thinker in the regiment. As for Lexa, she was quick-witted enough, but she’d never quite lost the hotheaded streak that had landed her in the regiment in the first place, when a perceptive judge in the Kearney outback had given her a choice between time in jail and time in the service. From the beginning, Will had been the responsible one, trained up in it from his civilian days as a wilderness guide.
Nevertheless, the three of them made a good team, and Will was glad that Jock and Lexa had made Sergeant not long after he had himself. Now he said to his friends, “We’re going to Terra so that we can make sure this won’t happen all over again—”
“The bitch has a head start,” said Lexa darkly. “High road or low road, she’ll get there before we do.”
“Or so that we can at least stop it before it gets this bad,” Will finished. “Besides—”
His voice trailed off for a moment, as he went over what he knew about the Clans. He was uncomfortably aware that most of his knowledge came from sources he wouldn’t trust to get Northwind right either—things like popular tri-vid programs and illustrated articles in the newspaper supplements, and one long-ago secondary school history unit on the Battle of Tukayyid that had stopped the Clans from overrunning the Inner Sphere. With his mind already on the mountain trails, he’d never listened all that much in class. Instead, he’d done just enough of the assigned work to get by. He found himself wishing now that he’d paid better attention.
“Besides,” he repeated, “I don’t think Anastasia Kerensky wants to burn Terra. I think she wants to own it.”
Jock’s brow furrowed. “What for?”
Again, Will had to pause and order his thoughts before summoning what he hoped were the right words. “It’s—the Clans believe that they’re supposed to take over Terra for its own good. It’s what they think they were made for, after the Star League fell apart and Aleksandr Kerensky led them away.”
“Kerensky?” Jock asked.
“Aye,” Will said. “The Wolf-Bitch has a famous name. Anyhow, the Clans have always been hot to reclaim Terra, and whichever one of them actually goes ahead and does it gets to wear a fancy hat—”
“You’re joking,” Lexa said.
“About the hat?” said Will. “I think so. But some of the stories… anyway, the Clan leader who does the job gets to call himself by a special title—ilkhan or something like that—and go down in their stories and their history books as a great leader.”
Lexa snorted. “I think our Countess is going to have something to say about that first.”
“Aye,” he said. Off on the far side of the landing field, a Klaxon sounded the signal to embark. Time to get back to his troopers and start marching them aboard Montrose for the trip to Terra. “And so will we.”
9
DropShip Fenrir, JumpShip Akela
Saffel Space Station Three, Saffel System
Prefecture II
February 3134
In the officers’ conference room aboard Fenrir, with her Northwinder Bondsman a silent background presence, Galaxy Commander Anastasia Kerensky went over the battle plan with her assembled Star Colonels.
“I want the people in charge of the station to think that we are harmless,” she told them, “and that we have come to them for fuel because we are the victims of an emergency.”
“When they see that we are Clan,” Star Colonel Dorn said, “they may not be willing to believe us.” Dorn was a big, blocky man, who might have been a genius had he been endowed with intelligence to match his muscles. “Even if we lie and say that we are Sea Fox traders, and not Steel Wolves.”
“We will not lie,” Anastasia said. “Not about who we are, and not about having an emergency.”
Dorn frowned. “You are planning in advance to have an emergency?”
“Of course,” she said. “Under the circumstances, it is the only way.”
Star Colonel Marks, whose dislike for her, Anastasia felt certain, was much stronger than Colonel Dorn’s, asked suspiciously, “What kind of emergency do you intend for us to have?”
“The solar sail is going to rip,” she said.
“How are you going to arrange matters so that the station believes you?” Marks asked.
“We are going to rip it in truth,” she told him.
Star Colonel Dorn was frowning again. “You are saying that if this plan of yours does not work, we are all going to starve in the dark.”
“No need to worry,” she told him. “If the plan fails, we will run out of air long before we starve.”
Not quite an hour later, the external line-handling team was out of Akela’s tertiary air lock and away. The team members were dressed for extravehicular activity in pressure suits and helmets, and they were busy rigging det cord along the length of Akela’s giant solar sail.
“Reel it out,” said the senior man on the line-handling team.
“Slowly. And stay on the dark side of the sail. You do not want the stationers to pick you out with a telescope.”
“Do you think they have telescopes fixed on us?” asked the worker next to him, a young Warrior on his first campaign.
“Would you have a telescope,” the senior man asked, “if you were one of them?”
The first timer paused, then said, “Yes, sir.”
The senior man said, “If you assume that your enemies are stupid, you will only be wrong once. Now, comms dark, no more chatter. Rig the line, then gather in the lock and we will set it off from there. Move it, people.”
Cecy Harris watched the Clan JumpShip on her monitor screen. The vessel had not gotten any smaller while she was studying it. At the console next to her, the communications specialist said over the ship-to-ship short-range radio, “What is the nature of your emergency?”
“We ripped our solar sail,” came the hoarse voice. “Need to come in for repairs, buy a bit of power.”
“We saw your sail go,” Luc Desroches said, after picking up the console handset to make his reply. He was standing a few feet away from Cecy and her monitor, in order not to distract her. To the communications specialist, he said, “Pass the word on all frequencies: You are cleared to approach.”
“Once we have a foothold established in their air lock,” Anastasia Kerensky said to Ian Murchison, “we will see what we can do.”
The Galaxy Commander was waiting with her officers and her assault team—and her Bondsman—in the JumpShip’s enormous docking area. Docked with the space station as they were, the JumpShip no longer had its spin-induced gravity, and they were floating in a loose cluster rather than standing on the deck.
“The first wave is going to have some trouble,” Anastasia continued, as Akela’s outer lock cycled open. “It may take a while for reinforcements to arrive if things go sour in a hurry.”
“So you, of course, are going in with the first wave,” Murchison said.
“Of course, I am,” Anastasia said. “And you are coming with me.”
The air lock—with much groaning of metal against metal—cycled open on the outer side and admitted them to the station’s docking area. Anastasia and the members of her assault team looked out into a cargo port. The room was big and square and solid, with yellow-and-black guidance stripes on all its visible edges, fenders on areas likely to take blows from moving masses, and stark blue-white work lights.
Moving like underwater swimmers in the zero-gee, the assault team left the air lock and clustered again inside the bay. Anastasia herself punched the combination to close the air lock door behind them. Then she turned to address the members of the boarding party.
“Orders for this raid are to inflict minimal damage,” she said. “I want this station working, and I wa~t its people working. So, hand-to-hand, fire your weapons only if you must, and only to save your life or the life of a comrade. And if I find out that any one of you got excessively trigger-happy during the action, I will personally kill you and the comrade you were trying to save. Now move.”
10
Office of the Exarch
Geneva, Terra
Prefecture X
February 3134; local winter
From the Belgorod DropPort, Ezekiel Crow went next to Geneva by means of a quick suborbital shuttle-hop. When he arrived at The Republic of the Sphere’s capital city, he found the weather there cold, the nearby mountains blanketed in white. At another time, Crow might have taken advantage of the opportunity to ski the Alpine trails. He’d picked up the skill during his earlier stints in The Republic’s capital, and had enjoyed the pastime. He had other business today, and no time for pleasure.
He’d had occasional chances to go skiing now and then during his stay on Northwind, in the months before the fighting began again. The continent of New Lanark, at least, boasted plenty of mountains and more than sufficient snow. But skiing had not been one of Tara Campbell’s hobbies, and in those happier and more optimistic days he had been tailoring his free-time activities to match hers.
Well, he reflected bitterly, there was no need for him to make accommodations now.
Even if he were able to make his own version of the story stick in the court of public opinion and in the mind of the Exarch, he and the Countess of Northwind both knew the truth. Everything else that he had lost, there was still a chance that he could recover—but never Tara Campbell’s good opinion of him. Though the pang of realization was not new any longer, it struck him between the ribs like a knife blade all the same.
Crow wasted no time in Geneva, but went directly to the office of the Exarch: not Redburn’s ceremonial office, which was good mainly for video opportunities and for overawing visiting dignitaries from outside The Republic of the Sphere, but his working office, located in a different—and much less impressive—building. Damien Redburn, a vigorous man who still had much of the look of the MechWarrior he had been before devoting himself wholeheartedly to The Republic’s politics, greeted Crow warmly.
There were no backslappings or loud exclamations—both men were too dignified for that—but Redburn favored Crow with a genuine smile and a quick embrace.
“Ezekiel!” he said, stepping away and returning to his seat behind the desk. “You’ve returned to make your report on Northwind in person, I presume.”
Crow took the office’s remaining chair at a gesture from the Exarch. He kept his expression deliberately serious as he replied, “Yes, unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately?” Redburn’s eyebrows lifted. “What’s happened?”
The Exarch’s brow was furrowed with concern, but he wasn’t looking particularly surprised by the possibility of bad news.
Crow remembered that it had been Damien Redburn who first expressed private misgivings about the young Countess of Northwind. He had doubted her ability to handle her new responsibilities as Prefect of Prefecture III without some sort of backup.
“She means well,” Redburn had said at the time. “And her loyalty is unquestioned. But she doesn’t have the experience.”
And Crow—he’d been all sincerity and fairness then; he had not known Tara Campbell, and had believed that his own first life and unforgivable transgression remained safely dead and buried in the rubble of his boyhood home—had said, “What about Sadalbari? She certainly distinguished herself there.”
“No one doubts her courage, either,” Redburn said. “Still, a small-scale field operation against a rabble of pirates is not the same as the responsibility for an entire Prefecture.” He gave a worried sigh. “The problem is that after Katana Tormark’s …defection, there’s nobody else out there with an equivalent level of moral authority and popular support.”
Crow said, firmly optimistic, “I’m sure that the Countess will rise to the occasion.”
The worried wrinkles on the Exarch’s brow did not diminish. “We’ll need to make sure. Or we’ll need to get advance warning if she doesn’t.” Redburn’s eyes had lit up then with the bright light of an idea, and Crow’s spirits had sunk. “You, Ezekiel—you can kill two birds with one stone. Provide the Countess with backup, and report back to Terra if anything goes wrong.”
Ezekiel Crow had not liked Redburn’s idea at the time. He had grumbled and complained as much as the call of duty and his respect for the Exarch would allow, but his protests were all to no avail. At the end of the day, he’d still found himself on a DropShip bound for Northwind.
He was grateful for that conversation now. It made what he had to do next a little bit easier.
Soberly, he said to the Exarch, “The Steel Wolves have taken Northwind.”
“And the Countess?” Redburn said.
“She was still alive when I left,” Crow said. He sighed, despising himself for the lie that was coming. “But she had surrendered Northwind and the Highlanders to the Steel Wolves in return for safety and an end to the fighting.”
“How was it that matters came to such a pass?” Redburn asked. He shook his head somb
erly. “That a Prefect should surrender to the leader of upstart rebels…”
No shock had registered on the Exarch’s features at the bad news—unhappiness, yes, but not surprise. On a level deep below speech, Crow found himself profoundly angered by the insult to Tara Campbell implied in the other man’s reaction. He set the anger aside; he had no right to it any longer.
“The Highlanders were severely overextended and understrength,” he told the Exarch. “I was able to secure the contract of an excellent mercenary unit to supplement the Northwind defense forces, and I put them at the Countess’s disposal—but she declined to make effective use of them until it was too late.”
Redburn frowned. “Did she give a reason?”
Crow looked down at the office carpet. The next few moments were critical. If he succeeded in getting his version of events planted in the Exarch’s mind, anyone disputing them later would have to overcome the resistance of an already fixed idea. “I have to admit that it wasn’t just reckless pride. She thought she had a reason.”
“What sort of reason?” Redburn asked. “Did she ever say?”
Crow worked even harder at looking reluctant. If the Exarch believed that he’d dragged the story out of a reluctant Paladin a few words at a time, he would be all the more unwilling to reject it later. “It’s my fault, I’m afraid.”
“What did you do to her?”
“Do?” Crow’s shock at the lurid possibilities conjured up by Redburn’s question was unfeigned. “Nothing! But you know that I have enemies—what Paladin of the Sphere doesn’t, after all?”
The Exarch nodded. “Go on.”
“One of those enemies provided the Countess with forged documentation purporting to show—” The words caught in his throat. He paused to gather himself together, then continued in a voice whose thickness of emotion was entirely real. “—purporting to show that I was the party responsible for the Betrayal of Liao.”
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