“Do not allow Torrent to withdraw for Ronel, Erik. Do not allow him to seize control of the local HPG station. Kal Radick does have a working, JumpShip-based hyperpulse generator. If we allow him to establish the spine of a communications network, our Swordsworn will be hard pressed to resist him. Listen to Michael Eus. He has been my eyes and ears—and occasionally my hands—on Achernar since before your arrival there. He will have suggestions.”
And Erik had been cautious of Eus being suborned by Legate Brion Stempres.
“Have you been in touch with our friends inside River’s End?” Erik asked over his private channel to Eus. Reports from the Sonora Plateau had trailed off, confirming that Kyle Powers had indeed been killed in combat. Martyring himself, by all indications. “Our reception is readied?”
Michael’s voice bled confidence through the transmission. “News agencies friendly to your uncle’s—to your agenda are on hand to put a positive spin on our arrival. Industrial areas owned by Taibek Mining, Steyger Railways, and the Fronc Granaries are cleared. Together they form a defendable staging area and can house all equipment inside warehouses. Logistical support in food and ground services has been put into place.”
Which, when all added together, would give Erik a fair base of operations on the outskirts of River’s End, in between the city proper and the militia’s outlying command post. It might even buy him a measure of goodwill among the populace. Good PR never hurt.
But he would still have preferred another week.
Throttling his Hatchetman into a forward walk again, pacing the column at fifty meters, Erik shoved the thought aside and tried not to let his uncle’s interference worry him. Even such surprises as Michael Eus’s perfidy were to be expected in the long-reaching game the Sandovals played, though it was hard not to feel slighted, in at least some sense. Duke Aaron Sandoval was not here, not in person, and Erik was. That counted for something more than a title. Erik should not—and would not—be made to feel the part of a spectator. No. He remained on the board and in play.
A knight. At worst, a pawn. That idea appealed to him at some remote level, and Erik felt an upward tug at the corner of his mouth. A pawn in Caesar’s game.
And pawns that survived to the final rank became powerful pieces indeed.
River’s End
Achernar
Jessica Searcy bit down on her lower lip. Not hard enough to draw blood. Just enough for the pain to reign in her emotions.
Heavy, golden curtains drawn across her living room windows filtered Achernar’s already gray day down to gloomy twilight. She sat on the couch, feet pulled up beneath her, trivid remote balanced on one leg. Her left thumb rested down against the memory timer. A mug of forgotten coffee cooled on the end table as she pressed in, backing up the once-live holo footage, eased back for a moment, then brushed the feathertouch sensor once more so that the entire scene played out again, and again, as she watched with dry, aching eyes.
Watched Raul Ortega kiss another woman.
Jessica had it memorized. She wasn’t even certain anymore what she looked for in the trivid’s memory buffer. She caught Raul’s slight recoil over something said or gestured. Then the red-haired woman grabbed the front of his MechWarrior togs and pulled him in to plant a hard kiss on his mouth. That was hard enough on her. But it was Raul’s hand coming up, cupping the back of her head with desperate need, that stabbed a shard of ice into her heart every time.
He broke it off, finally, but with no obvious look of regret or shame. Words passed between the two, trampled by a news anchor’s voice that Jessica had long since muted. She didn’t need anyone else’s imagination filling in the blanks. She didn’t need to see again Raul’s half-amused smile, the determination behind his dark, dark eyes. Didn’t need it. Not at all.
Biting down harder, Jessica backed the footage up again.
17
New Deal
Achernar Militia Command
Achernar
6 March 3133
Night’s chill grasp clutched at the morning, unwilling to let go even as the northeastern skies brightened to a pale rose. Raul Ortega glanced around at the few dozen ranks of soldiers and civilian contractors—reserves mixed in among standing guard, logistics among infantry and tank crewmen. Only the MechWarriors and Brion Stempres stood separate, ten paces out from the nearest row, filed by rank from Legate Stempres and Colonel Blaire through to supernumerary Tassa Kay. Raul’s place was in the middle, between Captains Diago and Charal DePriest.
They stood in silent reverence as lottery-chosen technicians extinguished the fusion-flame funeral pyre and removed the ashes of Knight-Errant Kyle Powers.
Raul turned back to the service and shook his head, slowly, carefully, keeping his opinions to himself. There were hardly enough warm bodies to fill one side of the parade grounds. Yet he knew that except for a skeleton watch crew in the command post, all on-base personnel had turned out for Sir Powers’ funeral. Blaire had even gone so far as to secure Star Colonel Torrent’s assurance that the Steel Wolves would also observe thirty minutes of respectful silence in honor of the fallen Sphere Knight. There would be no military maneuvers. No alerts.
And there still were not enough bodies to turn out a decent honor guard.
Twelve hundred and thirty-odd beating hearts. Gooseflesh prickled up Raul’s arms. This was the Republic’s strength on Achernar, and lucky to have it, he knew. There were worlds of The Republic that no longer knew the necessity of fielding a BattleMech, even for show. Some which no longer supported a garrison of any type, having lived for so many years under Devlin Stone’s umbrella of peace and prosperity. As rents tore through the fabric, spilling drops of blood onto their soil, would those worlds be better off, or worse?
How many citizens would prefer to bow their heads to an occupying force rather than suffer as Achernar was suffering? How many residents simply did not care?
Twelve hundred and thirty-odd.
Raul wouldn’t even wager money on the ultimate loyalties of everyone present. There were more Steel Wolf sympathizers, he felt certain. Two infantry squads had all but attached themselves to Tassa Kay’s mixed-arms lance for no other reason than out of respect for her bondsman, Yulri. Some Swordsworn armor jocks stole an SM1 Destroyer on hearing of Erik Sandoval’s occupation of River’s End, running to his side as if the young noble’s treachery—and Brion Stempres’s legitimizing it—wasn’t bad enough.
The techs finished cleaning out Kyle Powers’ cremation chamber, created by two of the Knight’s own technicians who had pulled the fusion engine from the crippled Jupiter and jury-rigged the device. They deposited his ashes in the warhead of a specially prepared missile. Colonel Blaire looked back over one shoulder. “Atten– shun.” Uniformed soldiers clicked heels together and stood ramrod straight. Civilian contractors clasped hands in front of them in respectful homage.
Satisfied, Blaire glanced down the line of MechWarriors. “Post.”
Stepping out on their right feet, the entire line of MechWarriors marched out toward a waiting Stingray aerospace fighter. The craft had been painted a stark, bone white for the occasion. Blaire took a position nearest the fighter, and the rest of the MechWarriors strung out in a line between the Stingray and the fusion incinerator. The ashes were passed to Tassa Kay with reverent slowness, who then handed them on to Charal DePriest. It passed through Raul’s hands and those of Clark Diago to Colonel Blaire. The Colonel ducked beneath the Stingray and loaded the missile through a groundside access port.