And just as well. Only Jonah knew that Sinclair’s efforts paled next to the plans drawn up in Stone’s files. Radical solutions to some of the most complex problems likely to face the young realm.
Those times might be fast approaching.
“Why the Seventh Hastati?” he asked McKinnon. His mouth had dried to cotton, but his voice was still strong. Decisive.
The eldest paladin stepped away from his console to face the exarch, in order to pitch his plan with all the serious attention of a cadet called to his academic boards. “The Hastati are less susceptible to political pressures. We’ve seen that in the forces sent to Prefecture V to fight the Capellans.” He might just as well have called them “the Liao hordes” for all the contempt he layered into “Capellans.”
“I would counter that we saw massive defections in Prefecture IX,” Maya Avellar said. She jumped in to play devil’s advocate. She also had a way of getting beneath McKinnon’s thick skin very quickly. “When Jasek Kelswa-Steiner formed the Stormhammers, he stole away better than half of the Hastati.”
“Cult of personality.” McKinnon waved off her concerns. “The Isle of Skye region has always been an unstable area, from before The Republic was formed.” He looked to Heather GioAvanti for support, and the Skye native nodded reluctantly.
Jonah had no need of fancy imaging chambers or holographic tanks. He held a perfect picture of The Republic in his head. The worlds, and the presumed strength of their commitment to The Republic. He knew which were under assault, which in rebellion, following the lead of the disgraced senators, and which were stalwart Republic strongholds.
A dwindling number, this last.
“Prefectures II and III are threatened by Katana Tormark’s campaign to provoke House Kurita,” Jonah said, working it through. “VIII, IV, and I are compromised by the stronger senators and our uncertain Lord Governor Sandoval. V, VI, and IX are under attack, or”—for Prefecture VI—“holding firm in the face of imminent attack.” Which left VII. “We are not worried about the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth?”
“I’m not,” McKinnon said, folding his arms over his chest.
The tough-as-nails paladin never worried for tomorrow when he had an enemy to defeat today.
Avellar backed him up. A rare occurrence. “I think the ‘pieces of Marik’ are all too concerned about each other, at the moment. Thaddeus is the real expert on that region, and he’s down on New Aragon, but his opinion has been fairly consistent, and proven right, over the years.”
But why invite disaster? How many supports could The Republic have kicked out from beneath it before it collapsed under its own weight? House Liao from one side. Clan Jade Falcon, another. Rumblings from along the borders with Houses Kurita and Davion.
Davion . . .
“If we ignore Senate loyalist positions in the Americas and leave ComStar to enforce a rigid blockade of Australia, and push at their local strongholds in Spain and Germany . . . what would it take?”
Maya Avellar returned to her console, typing rapid input on the holographic keys, joining Mandela in a brief skirmish of probabilities. The dark-skinned man looked up once, locked eyes with Avellar, and nodded. She shrugged. Waggled her head. Silent communication between two people who knew and respected each other’s work, and had been comrades for a long time.
Mandela finally answered the first part of the question. “We can easily isolate Spain,” he promised. His voice was deep and rich, with an opera singer’s control. “Enforce a no-fly zone and stop any ground action south of the Pyrenees. We’d write off eastern Asia to do so, but then the loyalist forces out there won’t be in much position to do anything other than hunker down and wait it out.”
Avellar delivered the bad news. “Germany is the problem. It’s close. It’s well protected. And they have Krupps Armaments as well as the new Skobel Mechwerks facilities near Berlin. And Conner Rhys-Monroe has concentrated forces there.” She glanced to McKinnon, and gave in grudgingly. “We’d need the Seventh Hastati.”
“We’d need something,” GioAvanti said, frowning.
Jonah nodded slowly. “We’ll have something,” he promised. “But for now, I want to contain the loyalists. Tara Campbell is signing on for this, so make good use of her. Public use. Push the loyalists up into Stuttgart . . . maybe as far north as Mannheim. Get solid garrisons into Basel and Zurich. Soldiers we trust implicitly. Then draw a line down the French countryside with field camps stretching between the Ura and the Ardennes.”
It made sense to most of the paladins, who nodded. Any direct threat was likely to roll through France, with its open terrain, working around the Alps. The time of Hannibal was certainly past.
McKinnon was not quite so sanguine. “It won’t be enough. We’ll be tempting them to come out and fight, spread so thin.”
But Jonah was not finished. “We back our line, quietly, with a combined arms battalion. Mixed ’Mechs and vehicles. Not much in infantry, but it’s what we’ll have.”
Having looked at force rosters in the past few hours, McKinnon frowned. “That’s not the breakdown of the Seventh Hastati.”
“No. It isn’t.”
He had all their attention now. Heather GioAvanti asked the question for them all. “Where do we find these forces, then?”
And Jonah Levin told them.
19
Death to the Davions! Got no bizness here!
—Graffiti painted on walls around the Hall of Government. Attributed to the radical movement Stone’s Cutters, Terra, 24 April 3135
Terra
Republic of the Sphere
24 April 3135
Julian Davion found the chalet’s lower balcony, welcoming the brisk slap of the fresh mountain air as he looked for a quiet moment in which to clear his head. A two-hour meeting with Harrison’s intelligence chief had his brain swimming with the names of worlds, the dossiers of foreign dignitaries he was likely to be introduced to at festivities and functions in the next month, and recently decoded military reports that detailed new troubles on and around New Hessen. Under Harrison’s order, the great machine that kept the prince in contact with his realm piled it onto the shoulders of the prince’s champion, as well.
No rest for the wicked. That had been one of his father’s favorite teases when duties pressed.
“Good morning, cousin!”
His father had never spent a great deal of time around Caleb, though.
His cousin relaxed on a cloth-wrapped chaise he’d pulled out onto the balcony. Lying back as if napping, warming himself under a heavy fleece blanket while sunglasses protected him from the afternoon brightness. Caleb’s enthusiastic cheer was barely muted by his usual hangover, though he winced at the loudness of his own voice.
“It is after noon, Caleb.”
“Bah.” The young heir snuggled himself deeper into the plaid-striped fleece. Only his head stuck out, and one arm which could just reach the steaming coffee on a nearby tray. It smelled bitter and black, fighting local wildflowers for dominance of the balcony. “I’m not quite used to Terran time yet. Still jump-lagged to another world’s clock.”
“Really? Which world would that be?”
“Oh, pick one, would you? I’m sure it is early morning somewhere in this blasted Republic.”
Julian laughed. He couldn’t help himself, though he felt uneasy for it after. Caleb was incorrigible. Always had been. They’d met during Julian’s earliest visits to the capital world, when Caleb still bothered to attend his classes at the New Avalon Military Academy. Seven years older—a good age for some old-fashioned hero worship—Caleb had been planning to become a MechWarrior. Which to an eleven-year-old seemed about the coolest thing ever.
It hadn’t lasted.
In fact, if it hadn’t been for the long-standing tradition of the Davion heir serving his time in the military, likely Caleb would have dropped out completely. Instead, he rushed through armor crew training and took a sinecure position as a field commander in the New Syrtis Avengers.
But he remained on New Avalon, mostly. And when it came time for Julian’s run through NAMA, he and Caleb had actually struck up a tentative friendship.
And though it was hardly due to Caleb’s influence alone that Julian slacked off near the end of his freshman year, sometimes he wondered if his sudden acceptance for a transfer year at the Nagelring wasn’t engineered by Harrison to separate the two of them.
Certainly when Julian returned early, expelled from the Lyran Commonwealth, that thought had at least crossed the prince’s mind. “I expect this kind of trouble from Caleb!” Harrison had scolded him, his lead-in to a thirty-minute lecture.
That had been when Julian vowed to never give his prince, or the memory of his own father, another reason for such disappointment.
“So are you just getting up?” Julian asked. “Or just getting in?”
“Ah, Julian.” Caleb sat up with a sudden burst of frantic energy, swinging his feet over the chaise and wrapping the blanket over his shoulders like a cape. He grabbed up his coffee and took a healthy slug, as he might have thrown down a shot of good sour mash whiskey. “A ballistic shuttle showed us dawn over Antarctica and an afternoon among the Himalayas. Evening was the northern lights above a territory called Yukon. You should try a few of these tours. Such an adventure we had.”
“I hope to get the time,” Julian said, but his sardonic sting was lost on the Davion heir. He exhaled sharply. “So who is she?”
“I have no idea.” He was alert enough to see the confusion on Julian’s face. “It’s a game we play,” he said, and briefly explained the way the two had met, and continued to meet.
True, the Davion Guards did not vet Caleb’s schedule and guest list as they did Harrison’s, but it seemed a bit strange they would allow such an assignation without clearing her. Then again, they might be conditioned to Caleb’s excesses in the same way Harrison and Julian made allowances for the young heir at times. He would have a word with Caleb’s security detail, at least.
“Keep your nose where it belongs, Julian.” There was nothing playful in Caleb’s tone now. “I’ll be very upset if you spoil my game.”
“Just doing my duty, Caleb. But I will be discreet, I promise.”
“Discreet. Yes, that is you, isn’t it? Discreet and oh-so-serious. Most of the time, anyway.” Teasing again, he dipped his head toward Julian, exaggerating the wink mostly hidden behind the dark lenses. “But I’m keeping you.”
Julian fished over a chair, hooking its leg with his foot and landing it close enough that he could sit within a comfortable distance of Caleb. The two Davion scions stared at each other over Caleb’s coffee, which steamed up more of its bitter-bean scent. Julian tasted its earthy flavor from the air, and thought about ordering up a cup for himself.
“Actually,” he said, “I just finished. A meeting with Riccard.” Julian frowned, reminded of the troubling news. “There is going to be more trouble on New Hessen, and maybe Chesterton as well. I would not have thought Liao so bull-headed to threaten a second front while engaged with The Republic.”
“Yes, yes.” Caleb brushed aside such matters with an imperious wave. “I’m sure Dr. Strange had many awful predictions for your future,” he said, calling Riccard Streng, Harrison’s spy master, by an old nickname. “I meant your next meeting.” Above the dark lenses, Caleb’s eyebrows waggled suggestively.
Which seemed at odds with the next event on Julian’s schedule. “I have a few hours before my meeting with Erik Sandoval-Groell. Whatever it is he wishes to speak to me about. I think he bullied his way onto my calendar after Harrison’s people shut the prince’s door on him. Is he here early?”
Caleb reached up with his free hand and lowered his sunglasses to the tip of his nose, peering over their upper rim. His hazel eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, but still sharp.
“No one named ‘Erik’ looks this good, Jules. And even if she is a handful—by all reports I’ve read, anyway—gender swapping her name does not appear to be among her faults.”
Jules? Julian stood.
Oh no.
Caleb smiled toothily. “First time I’ve met her, though I was in little condition to hold a long conversation. Father might pop a blood vessel when he learns she’s here.”
He might at that. Which was just one of many reasons Caleb enjoyed this. Julian glared at his cousin, made a show of straightening out the sleeves on his thick sweater, plucked the pilling from his cuffs. “Where is she?”
“Wandering the common room,” Caleb said. But he said it to Julian’s back, as he was already striding for the balcony’s French doors. “Do give her my best.”
Julian would give the woman something, all right. But damned if he could think of what, yet. The headache he had felt coming on after two hours with Riccard Streng now pounded in his temples. And he felt a stirring deep in his gut, hollowing him out. Reminding him of the vacant, sick feeling he’d had when Harrison spent those thirty long minutes berating Julian as he might a small child.
Seven years. As fresh as if it had happened yesterday.
She waited in the common room, all right. Kicking around like a caged animal. Testing the edge of every piece of furniture with the toe of her boot and leaning in at every window as if seeking an escape. Julian paused on the open stairs, leaning on the rail. Not yet noticed. Or ignored. He watched her toy with a table lamp. Nervously flicking it on and off, until the light bulb suddenly burned out with a flash and a fizz.
Typical.
“Calamity Kell.”
Her back still toward him, Julian saw her shoulders hitch with a silent laugh. “Don’t start with that again, Jules.”
She turned, and there was no mistaking the Nagelring’s “darling rogue” from the class of 3129 (and 3130, thanks to her suspension). The same gunslinger’s stance. The doe-brown eyes full of life and laughter, and curly, hazelnut hair highlighted (today) with golden tips. Callandre Kell wore leather boots and pants, and a baby-doll T showed under the unzipped leather jacket. Riding clothes. Julian’s sharp eyes found her full-face helmet sitting on the sideboard near the chalet’s large doors.
She was stunning.
She was trouble.
“I heard that you got married,” he said, pacing himself slowly down the stairs, “to a mercenary captain.”
Callandre nodded. “I did.” Shrugged. “Didn’t take.” A mischievous glint passed behind her eyes. “And you? No one to catch your eye yet? I hear things about a Sandra Fenlon.”
Julian shrugged. With Callandre, it spoke volumes he felt certain. “They all pale next to you, Calamity.”
This time she laughed out loud. The old joke between them. Fast friends. Inseparable for the ten months they’d known each other. And missing that vital spark of chemistry for anything but a platonic relationship. They’d tried to force it, once. It had been one in a series of shared disasters.
A merely large fire snapped and whispered in the great fireplace as the two of them began a slow-paced shuffle toward one another, as if drawn by gravity, and fighting it the entire way. “You know,” Julian said, “I’ve always wondered . . .” He ran fingers back through his reddish-blond hair.
“What’s that?”
“What I’d have to say when I met you again.”
She shrugged. The leather jacket was well-worn, rolling with her shoulders. “Well, you’ve had seven years to think about it.” Her tone wasn’t altogether friendly.
“I have.” He stopped with a wooden, straight-backed chair between them, wrapping his large hands over the backrest. “And do you know what I’d really like to do?”
“Bust that chair over my head?” she asked.
“After that.”
Callandre smiled, showing her teeth in a vicious smile. “Ain’t love grand,” she said.
And then she leaned forward, swinging up a large fist to smash Julian right on the jaw.
20
The exarch does not understand our problems. He has shown that with his complete inaction in cur
bing the excesses of Katana Tormark. And Senator Monroe—he was a good man.
—World Governor Feyd Olson, Cylene, 25 April 3135
Terra
Republic of the Sphere
2 May 3135
“She actually hit you?”
Sandra Fenlon sounded two parts amazed and one part jealous, Julian decided. Waiting on the green marble steps of the Republic Cathedral in Paris, he stood an uncomfortable vigil with Sandra, Callandre Kell, Duchess Amanda Hasek and Caleb Davion. As well as a small retinue of aides and officers.
Caleb spoke softly with his aunt and Countess Tara Campbell, who had been in charge of the military escort to safeguard them from the Thonon chalet to Paris. The three passed time waiting for Harrison Davion to arrive by trying to pick out historical landmarks. The Eiffel Towers, of course, were easiest of all, dominating the skyline to the west, rising up above the Terran Mint and the block-long memorial to Richard Cameron. The New Louvre, Caleb claimed with an air of superiority, had beautiful spires as well, but was lost behind the cathedral’s massive bulk.
Julian would rather have been a part of their conversation.
“She did,” he admitted. Again. He straightened his uniform jacket with brief, hard tugs at the lower hem.
Callandre Kell smirked. She wore a spring dress today, very feminine, likely in an effort to soften Harrison’s reaction when the prince saw her with Julian. But the purple highlights dyed into her hair fought pretty hard against the attempt at convention. “How’s your jaw?” she asked.
“Hurts like hell.” At least the bruise was fading. Finally. It had gone from dark purple to a sickly green and finally, today, barely a pale stain of yellow. The swelling in his lower lip had only lasted a day. “I can’t believe you actually slugged me.”
“You just can’t believe I loosened a tooth.”
Julian smiled without any sincerity whatsoever. “I think the roll of silver kroners you had tucked into your hand played a small part in that.”
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