Sword of Sedition Page 2

  The ground-based power stations were a known weakness of the orbiting shipyards. House Liao had pointed that out over a century ago, during the Fourth Succession War, and might have seriously undermined the Davion offensive if the Kathil Uhlans hadn’t successfully defended the world.

  During the Steiner-Davion civil war the shipyard itself came under fire, and this local ground facility had been all but destroyed in the fighting as Prince Victor’s supporters rose up against the usurper’s garrison. Katherine Steiner-Davion had not relinquished her hold on the Federated Suns easily, and Kathil had been a hotly contested world over most of five years.

  And right on its heels had come the Word of Blake’s Jihad, dragging the entire Inner Sphere to the brink of ruin.

  Julian had studied the history of all three wars very closely, and recently had refreshed himself on Kathil’s failed defense during the Jihad. Victor Steiner-Davion, in fact, had authored several political and military papers about Kathil. Julian found his study of the man as fascinating as what Victor had had to say about the importance and vulnerabilities of such high-profile worlds—namely, that they were nearly impossible to hold, or to take, without ruining the infrastructure that made them valuable in the first place. Not without years of preparations and a unified vision for their defense.

  Harrison Davion wanted no part in such destruction, which was why the first prince had dispatched his champion to oversee these final stages of planning—a decision that did not sit well with Amanda Hasek, or with other Capellan March nobles who wanted less interference from their prince, not more.

  “And we are truly certain that House Liao will suddenly come for Kathil one day?” the duchess asked.

  “They will,” Julian promised. “Suddenly come for Kathil. One day.”

  Unless the Confederation was already defeated, he did not say.

  He sounded so certain because it was his profession. Julian could read the signs—and the intelligence reports. The shadows of war loomed, and not just within the Federated Suns. Peace was at an end unless calmer heads prevailed very, very soon.

  “Fighting in the Draconis Reach has intensified,” he said. This was the private, silent conflict financed against House Kurita by the Sandoval dynasty, noble heirs and ministers of the Federated Suns’ Draconis March. “The Republic of the Sphere is being torn apart from several directions, as well as from within. And if Daoshen Liao was not so preoccupied with reclaiming lost worlds from The Sphere, he might already be coming for us. When the Confederation does turn in this direction—not if!—Kathil, with its shipyards, will be a key world.”

  Amanda Hasek might be born and raised among the Federated Suns’ nobility, but she knew enough of the leveraging of focused violence to at least appreciate the danger, and nodded.

  “Especially when the Capellan Confederation has barely recovered from losing their own primary shipyards at Necromo during the Blakist Jihad,” she said. Noting Julian’s raised eyebrows, she added, “I do read my generals’ reports. It’s hard to forget the account of an entire world sterilized.”

  She looked into the distance. “Kathil must shine like a forbidden gem to the Liao chancellor.”

  The prospect of war, and her Capellan March turned into a battleground, turned the duchess’ mood very quickly. She walked along in silence for a moment, and Julian wished desperately to know what she might be thinking. Of ways to prepare? Or of taking the war to the Confederation’s chancellor?

  And, sadly, knew that either was preferable to his prince’s true worry. That after half a century of near-autonomous rule, the Haseks were beginning to look very seriously at New Avalon, the very throne of the Federated Suns.

  “The prince only has your best interests in mind,” Julian prompted the duchess.

  Another long pause.

  “When Isabella was alive, I don’t remember Harrison being such an alarmist,” she finally said.

  Julian steeled himself against any outward reaction, wondering who was now goading whom. “Your sister had a way of making everyone see better days ahead,” he offered cautiously. The wounds still ran deep between both families. “But I think even she would have sensed this gathering storm.”

  “Or perhaps that woman has sunk her claws in deeper than I imagined. Stroking Harrison with her dreams of martial glory.”

  “That is unkind, Amanda. And unwarranted.”

  But having brought it out into the open, Amanda Hasek was not about to be cautioned so easily. “Some might say what is unkind is the way Harrison treats the memory of my sister.”

  “Some might. Those who don’t see four years of mourning to be enough. Or how Isabella’s death stole the joy out of our prince’s life.”

  Julian walked a thin line, upbraiding the Minister of the Capellan March. But she was also Julian’s cousin by marriage, and certain courtesies extended between family. Also, as prince’s champion, Julian often spoke for Harrison Davion. It was one of the greatest honors of his young life, and an awesome responsibility.

  “Amanda, please.” Julian stopped them beneath the pink-flowering dogwoods. A sweet, roselike scent drifted around them. They stood within sight of Amanda Hasek’s executive craft but beyond the point at which her loose screen of security would converge. The duchess stared fixedly ahead. “Do you realize how rare it is that a leader born to Harrison’s duties finds a companion and a peer? I can only hope to be so lucky.”

  As he had planned, the mention of his own single status brought the ghost of a smile back to Amanda’s compressed mouth. But she still refused to look at him. The patrolling Pegasus hovercraft glided by them on cushions of warm air. She followed their path with her gaze instead.

  “Well, we shall have to see what we can do about that. Dear boy.” She said this last as an afterthought, but reached out for his hand anyway and tucked it under her arm, escorting him forward.

  The Chariot-class VTOL waited, hunched low to the ground with its rotor drooping overhead as if wilted under Kathil’s strong sun. Two infantrymen in Infiltrator Mark II suits stood at the fore and two more at the aft. A shiny metallic gold trimmed in regal purple, the Chariot could not have shouted dignitary aboard any louder without setting its identification transponder to broadcast the message.

  But one of the best things about having such a craft available was its cutting-edge electronics suite, which allowed the duchess to stay in constant contact with Kathil’s planetary administration. A colonel in the Federated Suns Armed Forces, wearing the unit insignia of the Syrtis Fusiliers and likely Amanda Hasek’s pilot, waited for them outside the craft with a verifax reader in hand. The device took secure downloads from the communications board and was specifically coded to Amanda’s DNA. No one but her could access its controls.

  The colonel handed over the reader with a military precision that bordered on ceremony. Enough that Julian wondered if the grapevine already had the news, and it had raced here alongside or even ahead of the official transmission.

  When the officer stiffened to attention as Amanda thumbed her print and her DNA onto the lock, the prince’s champion was certain of it.

  Amanda caught her breath as she read, studying the first page carefully as if verifying for herself the message was real enough, then paging rapidly through the electronic file. Her matronly air deserted her for a moment, replaced with a kind of sorrowful resignation, which was quickly chased away by a calculating frown that looked very familiar to Julian. Anyone involved in the politics of the Inner Sphere knew that look. Julian had seen it before on Harrison, and quite vividly on Harrison’s son and heir, Caleb.

  He’d even seen it in the mirror once or twice.

  And it never followed good news.

  “What is it, Amanda? How bad?” A prickly touch crawled over his scalp.

  “Bad enough,” the duchess replied, “especially if we were hoping for stability within The Republic. And it is going to strike close to home as well, Julian. In fact, there is not one Great House or realm that shan’t feel
this at some level.”

  She had that sorrowful look again. One that spoke of seeing too much of this kind of news. Julian usually guessed correctly. Even so, he had not prepared himself for this.

  “Victor Steiner-Davion is dead.”

  2

  Today, on the world of New Aragon, Paladin Anders Kessel declared a local state of “extreme emergency” in response to the Capellan Confederation’s hardest-hitting drive since the fall of Liao. This preempted any announcement from the office of the exarch, which remains silent on Terra.

  —Damon Darman, Stellar Associated, 16 December 3134

  Terra

  The Republic of the Sphere

  13 January 3135

  “If this is going to be the next three years of my life, I’ll resign now and save myself the ulcers!”

  Skylights warmed the exarch’s formal receiving office at the Hall of Government. Natural light soaked into the red cherry wainscoting and gleamed in the room’s bronze accents. Wood polish and leather richly flavored the room that had been nicknamed “The Bullet” by paladins for its unusual shape; one end wall of the long, rectangular room bowed outward and was set with floor-to-ceiling windows.

  On good days, The Republic’s leader might stand in that semicircular alcove and stare out over Geneva’s Magnum Park. Fifty acres of cultivated grounds, including the Trees from Every World and some of The Republic’s most beloved monuments.

  This was not one of those days.

  Pacing the width of the office, traipsing back and forth over the Great Seal of The Republic, which lay on the other side of his desk from the magnificent windows, Jonah Levin ground his aggravation into tiny shards beneath the heels of his dress boots. His path cut the room in half, dividing his baroque mahogany-and-bronze desk from a more comfortable sitting area. The carpet mosaic robbed him of any satisfying stomps, however, and the Latin motto Ad Securitus per Unitas mocked him with every pass. Through unity, freedom.

  Or if read another way: Through security, freedom.

  He wondered, not for the first time, if Devlin Stone was having a joke on his successors.

  Just as he, at the moment, was having a dark jest of his own at the expense of his guests.

  Paladin Heather GioAvanti stood respectfully in front of the leather divan, hands clasped in front of her. She wore her formal white-and-gold paladin’s uniform, but softened the martial appearance today by letting her blond hair fall soft and loose from the clips that pinned it behind her ears. She faced Paladin Gareth Sinclair across a small table, and he stood next to one of the two oversized armchairs, shifting from one foot to the other. Gareth was tall and wiry, with green searching eyes that never held still.

  Heather’s face was unreadable, her gray eyes cloaked. She was experienced in the ways of Republic politics as well as military campaigns. Sinclair, less schooled at this level of power, was unable to hide his scandalized frown, for which Jonah was thankful.

  The man could still be trusted.

  “You don’t really mean that?” Gareth asked when silence bottomed out after the exarch’s threat of resignation.

  The hell he didn’t—was what Jonah wanted to say. Staring intently at the young paladin, Jonah let his after-lunch mint burn with peppermint coolness at the back of his throat. Had he been as naive as Gareth once? When idealism mattered more than hard facts?

  And hadn’t that been only a few weeks before?

  “No,” Jonah admitted, reluctantly, “I don’t.”

  He’d never lived his life that way. Fifty years old, Jonah had always stepped up when called and taken his best swing at the job. As MechWarrior, and then as a Knight of the Sphere. Later, inducted as one of the seventeen—eighteen, really—paladins. His oath, once given, was inviolate.

  “But be damned if I’m not going to complain from time to time,” Jonah told these two. His former comrades. Now two of his most trusted paladins—by process of elimination, if nothing else.

  Both had been instrumental in managing the recent troubles on Terra, and Jonah had no choice but to rely on them. His election to the post of exarch had not come without sacrifice, chief among them being trust. Not even his paladins had proven themselves immune to the politics of destruction. Every paranoid report that crossed his desk, every dirty secret from The Republic’s history Jonah was now privy to, they weighed. Oh, how they weighed.

  And it was to the shame of all humanity that it had to be so.

  “All right,” he finally decided. But he did not return to his desk, that mahogany and bronze monstrosity that might have served better as a dining table than office furniture. He took a seat on the divan next to Heather GioAvanti, waving the other two back into their places as well. The supple leather stretched and complained, but was supremely comfortable. There were perquisites to the position.

  “So where are we exactly with Prefecture IX?”

  Prefecture IX was the latest in a series of catastrophes to befall The Republic. Clan Jade Falcon, using as their excuse their pursuit of the Steel Wolves, had struck through House Steiner space. Their grab for Republic worlds had been ruthless and extremely effective. So far.

  Paladin David McKinnon worked to keep a handle on that region of space. But Heather had spoken to the Founder’s Movement champion most recently, catching him before he departed on a follow-up mission to Lyons.

  “The Jade Falcons continue to dig in and improve their position,” she reported. “They control every world that matters except Nusakan and Lyons, all military industry within that region, and the economically rich worlds of Ryde as well. They chose their targets very carefully.”

  “None of which mattered so much before Landgrave Jasek handed over the world of Skye.” Gareth sounded ready to strangle the wayward landgrave.

  It was the latest news, and the reason for Jonah’s earlier outburst. Interstellar media concerns would have a field day when it broke through public channels. Jonah could look forward to a plague of questions on this topic for at least the next two weeks. Skye’s fall to the Jade Falcons would certainly redirect headlines away from the recent riots and military action in Geneva, but as silver linings went, it was thin, thin.

  “As goes Skye, so goes the Isle,” Gareth intoned darkly, obviously thinking along similar lines.

  Heather nodded, though not entirely in agreement. “Jasek Kelswa-Steiner did engineer Skye’s delivery to Jade Falcon control, but there is a certain method to his madness. Even David McKinnon called it ‘inspired insanity,’ and I have to agree. The Jade Falcons now carry Skye on their backs like a millstone. With luck, it will grind them down.”

  “With luck,” Gareth said, “Duke Gregory would have smothered his son at birth. I don’t like relying on luck.” He glanced to Jonah. “Sir.”

  Gareth was from Prefecture IX, and had strong family ties to the old “Isle of Skye” worlds. Jonah wondered if the vitriol was all for show, or if Gareth was simply—and expediently—putting distance between himself and the Kelswa-Steiners. Then he recalled that the GioAvantis were another powerful merchant family from that region of space. Though she was estranged from her family, could Heather be second-guessing her choice as well?

  He damned the necessity of having to wonder.

  Jonah leaned back into the divan, hiding his annoyance at his thoughts behind a contemplative mask. “Nusakan and Lyons.” He nodded. “Nusakan is in the hands of Jasek and his Stormhammers. Lyons has been claimed as Duke Gregory’s capital in absentia. And does anyone know where the Wolves disappeared to this time?”

  Gareth again. “If anyone does it’s Landgrave Jasek. I wouldn’t count on his sharing that information.”

  “He might.” Heather shrugged aside Gareth’s pointed look. “So long as our interests and his coincide.”

  “Jasek wants to lead the old Isle of Skye region back to House Steiner and the Lyran Commonwealth. He gave up Skye itself to an invading Clan force. How can that be in our best interest?”

  But Jonah saw it as well. Another wei
ght added to the pile pulling down his shoulders these days. “Because it keeps the Jade Falcons away from Terra,” he said.

  Heather nodded, and Jonah continued. “The Clans have never gone away, Gareth. Devlin Stone took in quite a few after the Jihad, and some even stayed. Paladin Drummond and Paladin Meraj Jorggenson are revolutionary thinkers to have come so far with us. But for the Clans who still wait inside the occupation zones, except for perhaps the Ghost Bears, the peace obviously did not take, which means that Terra is still their goal.”

  One more in the growing list of problems. Jonah climbed back to his feet. Exhaled a sharp breath as Heather and Gareth stood as well. He walked a slow circuit around the room this time, hands clasped behind his back. There weren’t going to be any easy solutions.

  “When Devlin Stone originally created The Republic of the Sphere,” he said, mostly to himself, “it brought the possibility of a new dream to the Inner Sphere.” He glanced back at his paladins. “What happened to that dream?”

  Still feeling his way with his newly conferred influence, Gareth kept his own council. Heather GioAvanti, though, was the quintessential paladin. She didn’t back away from the hard choices, or the unpopular answers. “We made the mistake of most great societies,” she said. “We took it for granted.”

  Jonah agreed. The people had forgotten so quickly the victories and birthing pains of their young Republic. This new Terran Hegemony, its borders circling roughly one hundred twenty light years from Terra itself, had blazed trails for disarmament of the great armies and the intermingling of national cultures. Most great leaders had endorsed Stone’s vision. Some, like Victor Steiner-Davion, had rallied to the new banner and helped it come about.

  Not all were so forward-thinking, however. Even in the wake of the Jihad, with mankind reeling from the Blakist pogrom, there were those leaders who resisted change. And Stone, for better or worse, had not been above enforcing his brand of peace. Skirmishes and political pressure plays eventually brought the recalcitrant few to heel, but, in hindsight, also planted seeds of discontent which quickly sprouted after the Blackout struck worlds deaf and dumb. Sprouted . . . and flourished.