Fortress Republic, page 10
part #18 of BattleTech : Mechwarrior Dark Age Series
In preparation for take-off.
“This is ridiculous.” He stopped near the post officer, a smooth-faced lieutenant with a boy’s shy smile but cold, killer’s eyes. The ID patch sewn onto his right breast read: Stansel. “Have the tower patch you into the First Sun’s communications. Caleb Davion will pass me through.”
“I apologize for the delay, Lord Davion. But when the tower has cleared you, they will call us.”
“Do I need to get my wireless from the car?” In moments he could have Exarch Levin (or at least Héloïse Montgolfier) on the line. He resisted the temptation to use his position for what seemed so trivial a matter, but the First Sun looked ready to blast away from Terra at any moment.
“I will have to ask you to remain away from your personal vehicle,” the lieutenant said. He slipped a finger into the trigger guard.
Even Sandra noticed that, and stepped forward to place a cautionary hand on Julian’s arm. Still, Lieutenant Stansel did nod at a nearby corporal, who unclipped a radio from his belt and stepped to one side for the illusion of privacy.
Julian understood the need for security, at times and within reason. And if this had been his only delay he certainly wouldn’t be feeling the pressure of seconds ticking away. But Switzerland’s Annemasse DropPort had been put under heightened protocols, apparently at the direct request of Caleb Davion, holding Julian up at three different checkpoints as his bonafides were checked again, and again, supposedly in conjunction with Caleb’s security detail already aboard the blast-prepped Overlord.
“He’s cleared,” the corporal said, lowering his radio.
The lieutenant nodded Julian towards his car. “With our apologies, Lord Davion.”
With his release, and no more security between him and the DropShip, Julian could afford to be more forgiving. “Doing your duty,” he said, feeling slightly guilty he had given the officer trouble for following orders.
He slipped into the driver’s seat of his Eridani Slipstream, a hovercraft coupe provided to him for the duration of his stay and from which Riccard Streng’s people had removed or neutralized all active and passive listening devices (a pro forma necessity, on both sides). He waited for Sandra to buckle in, then toggled the roll-back doors closed and engaged the lifters. The coupe lifted easily, floating on a cushion of air.
A foot pedal redirected thrust out of rear ports, pushing the vehicle forward hard enough to press Julian and Sandra back into their seats for a short, high-speed race across the black tarmac, and finally into the DropShip’s wide shadow. For a moment he thought he saw a laser battery emplacement tracking them from the upper decks, but decided it had been a trick of the sun and shadow.
Still, rather than coast down to a manageable speed for braking with the forward thrusters, he waited until the last moment and bootlegged the hovercraft into an end-for-end swap and used the larger, rear thrusters to dump speed quickly. He’d seen Callandre pull this maneuver often enough. His wasn’t quite so smooth, but it worked, braking them to a stop at the foot of the single, lowered ramp connecting the landing pad’s reinforced ferrocrete with an open bay door.
Julian goosed the throttle, spun the coupe around, and pushed it up the shallow slope into the gloomy cave of a portside cargo hold.
Where Caleb waited with a full security squad of seven uniformed, well-armed members of the Davion Guards. And Khan Sterling McKenna.
Where was Duchess Amanda Hasek?
Cut power doors rolled back. Julian grabbed a handhold built into the roof and levered himself up and out of the low-profile hovercraft. He listened to the fans spinning down, and the engine pinged as it cooled. The cargo bay smelled of grease and plastic cargo containers and dust accumulated from a hundred different worlds. Cooler than outside, by a degree or two. Enough to make Julian glad to be out of the direct sun.
He nodded to his cousin. Glanced among the faces of the honor guard. “Paranoid much?” he asked. Dialing for humor.
Failing completely, from the glower that settled over Caleb’s face. “What do you want, Julian?”
To be back outside on the baking tarmac, with a ’Mech company backing him, for all the warmth in Caleb’s voice. He swallowed the knot in his throat. “Sandra came for me at the hospital,” he said, feeling his “fiancée” move up on his right. He shrugged. “I was not told you were leaving today.”
“I do not report my schedule to you. When I want you to know something, you will be informed.”
“For security’s concern, Caleb—”
“Prince Caleb!”
Julian took an actual step backward at his cousin’s outburst, at the vehemence and indignation lurking behind it. As if Julian had offered serious insult. He glanced sidelong at Sandra, saw the same confusion and a touch of concern mirrored on her face as well. “Pardon?”
“Prince Caleb. It is a form of address you need to reacquaint yourself with, apparently.”
“No. It is not. Prince Caleb.” He pulled himself up to strict attention, divorcing himself from the blood ties as well as sixteen years of shared family. “I was not expecting a formal report, but the courtesy of knowing the plans of the acting Prince of the Federated Suns whose position it is my pleasure to serve.”
“To serve?” Caleb asked. He glanced back, seemingly looking past Khan Sterling, into the darker shadows of the massive cargo bay. Nodded. “We’re not so certain anymore. I know we do not like finding out third-hand about meetings one of our commanders has taken with the Exarch of The Republic. Chasing his own agenda.”
Julian felt the blood drain from his face, and a cold tingle at the ends of his fingers. A shiver raced up his spine, slamming into the base of his skull like a hammer blow. In his six years two months and . . . eighteen days! . . . as a fully commissioned officer in the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns, no one had ever come so close to calling him disloyal. And Julian could hardly believe it was Caleb doing it now. The man who had been one of Julian’s idols after his coming to the Davion palace.
Almost a brother.
Certainly a friend.
“I chased after nothing.” He spat out the last word as if it had turned rancid in his mouth. “I followed the agenda laid out for me by your father.”
“Tying the millstone of The Republic around our neck.” Caleb shook his head. “This may not necessarily be in the greater interests of the Federated Suns just now. You did not consider that we might not agree?”
“Honestly. Prince Caleb. I did not.” A dry, bitter taste coated the inside of his mouth. Adrenaline. A fear-anger response to Caleb’s threatening posture. The guards. McKenna. The blind reversal of Prince Harrison’s agenda.
“And you feel you should not?”
“Your father is still alive,” Julian said. A thrill of anger softly warmed his voice. “Until his death, isn’t it your mandate to support all policies as begun?”
“You think to tell us our job, cousin?”
“If need be. Cousin.” Several of Caleb’s guards took a step forward, through none of them moved past their liege lord. And there was still a large divide separating Julian and Caleb. A no-man’s-land into which neither of them appeared ready to venture. Five meters of nonskid surface, glistening with a deceptively oily look.
It might as well have been five kilometers.
“Even if not,” Julian continued, taking a small step forward, “it is my job. And I filed my reports through our MilNet secure data system. You would have had instant access to these here on the First Sun, or at Thonon-les-Bains using your father’s passcodes.”
A pregnant silence. Then, “I do not have my father’s passcodes.”
He did not? “Then Riccard Streng could have passed them along to you,” he said, naming the intelligence chief, Prince Harrison’s spymaster and personal advisor.
“Dr. Strange has dropped out of sight.” Caleb dropped yet another bombshell. “We’ve had no official contact for weeks. Though he was still tapped into our secure data system, and accessing all MilNet information until we revoked his clearance two days ago. Are you working for Streng?”
“No!” Julian shook his head as Sandra snuck her hand into his, gave him a squeeze of assurance. He wanted to step forward, cross to his cousin, but he felt as if his feet were mired in quicksand. “Faith defend, Caleb, why would you think me a threat?”
“As if you did not already know!”
Caleb’s dark brown eyes were bright and alive with rage now. He stalked forward, crossing the gulf that had stretched out between the two men. Sandra pulled Julian to her side, and he felt her tremble as Caleb stalked within reach. Behind him, several guards brought their laser rifles to the ready and Sterling McKenna glanced between Caleb and the security escort as if suddenly uncertain of what might happen. Worried, as was Julian, that things had somehow escalated too far.
“By the Unfinished Book, Caleb, I have no idea what you are talking about. Go read the reports! Everything I’ve pursued in the past month and a half has been in accordance with your father’s wishes, to promote a military alliance between our nation and The Republic. It’s my job.”
“Was.”
The word slipped out with the whisper of a sniper shot, striking Julian in the center of his chest. A cold ache gripped him, as if tight steelbands had suddenly wrapped around his body. Squeezing. Slipping further into the sinking sands.
“Sorry?” he asked. Wanting to believe he’d heard incorrectly.
“Was your job. Commander. We relieve you of your duties as prince’s champion and ask you to resign the post. Immediately! If the need arises for a new champion, we will appoint one as necessary. In the meantime, you are to retain local control of the First Davion Guards on Terra until and unless we see evidence of any lack of ability to command.” Caleb smiled without humor. “It is not ‘our’ nation, Julian. It is my nation. You may reflect on that while continuing to watch out for my father.”
Julian felt as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lighting hurled down from the sky. A PPC blast, at the least. Rooted to his spot and sinking quickly in the quagmire, he struggled to free himself, his thoughts, from the situation’s unyielding grip.
Failed.
As the acting Prince, could Caleb actually remove him as champion? Certainly he had the force of arms behind him here, and some political weight as well with Khan McKenna looking on, but the legal niceties might be harder to control. If Julian were to contest his forced resignation, on the grounds that Caleb had no authority . . .
He’d be undermining his cousin, and the throne of the Federated Suns! Not a path he’d willingly walk, no matter how dark the outlook.
But he could still hope for calmer heads to prevail. Couldn’t he? Someone to intervene and mediate this sudden, hostile conflict between Julian and Caleb. Someone to whom Caleb would listen.
“Duchess Hasek?” he asked. “Caleb . . . Prince Caleb . . . where is Amanda?”
But his cousin was not in any mood to reconcile or even press their debate. Caleb stared coldly at Julian, his eyes dark and hooded. His face was pinched in a mask of contempt.
“We sent our aunt ahead to prepare a proper reception on New Avalon and to bear our personal report to the High Council. And she would not plead your case even were she here, Julian. She would agree that our need for a strong transition is paramount to all other concerns. And this decision was reached in consultation with my own security personnel, with Mason and even with one of our allies.” He nodded back over his shoulder in the general direction of Sterling McKenna. “It was not made lightly.”
“Mason?” Something niggled at the back of Julian’s mind. A mention of that name from before . . . “Who is—”
“Who we choose to consult is our business. I suggest, cousin, that for as long as you remain an officer of the Federated Suns, you begin to warm to this fact.” Caleb stepped forward, shortening the distance between them. Sandra Fenlon gripped Julian’s hand and arm tight, tight. “I am prince. Me! Don’t you ever question that again.”
Then Caleb slowly and deliberately turned his back on Julian. An obvious gesture of dismissal. A message that Julian was now behind him. Far, far behind him.
“Now,” Caleb said. “Get off my ship.”
And the sands closed in around Julian’s head.
GOOD FENCES
Wars cannot be avoided, and can only be deferred to the advantage of others.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, “The Prince,” 1513
One can afford the luxury of patience only when commanding an unassailable position. At such a point, the best offense is a strong defense. But the trouble with living behind fortress walls is that at times you begin to wonder if you are holding the enemy out, or if they have now caged you within.
—Erik Sandoval-Groell, “Quoted in the Kai Lampur
Daily Sentinel,” Tikonov, 23 June 3135
11
We saw Ohrensen fall. We saw New Canton sit by, appeasing House Liao with worlds to be used as staging grounds for attacks into Prefecture V. We watched as such moderate and fair-minded leaders as Lina Derius and Geoffrey Mallowes were branded as traitors and even subject to arrest without recourse! You tell me. How long do we wait? How much more rope do we offer Exarch Levin, before he has finally tied a hangman’s noose large enough to fit The Republic entire?
—Senator Therese Ptolomeny, Park Place, 4 July 3135
Undisclosed Location, Markab
Republic of the Sphere
14 July 3135
“Really, Conner. Blacked-out windows and circling VTOLs? Why not blindfolds while you were at it?”
Senator (and now Viscount Markab) Conner Rhys-Monroe leaned back against the tram’s cold, ferroglass window, ignoring the bumps and rattles and a sudden stomach-dropping sensation as the vehicle lurched down the ramp into an underground garage. Arms folded across his chest, a tight smile glued to his face, he stared hard at Melanie Valdistok as if appraising her idea.
“If I’d felt it necessary, I would have,” he said, taking Melanie’s sarcasm at face value. He glanced between her and Usuha. “It is not too late.”
Subhar Usuha shook his head. “I would rather forgo that experience.”
Usuha had yet to evidence any sense of humor; or much, in fact, except the dispassionate, business-like manner that had gotten the man elected as Ozawa’s senator after the Spirit Cats’ Kev Rosse was finally voted out of office. Usuha had a cold, if distinctive, style. A Nehru jacket only a few shades darker than his coffee-brown skin, cut for his linebacker shoulders. White, white teeth, which showed when he talked but never in a smile. Braided black hair, corn-rowed back and left to drop down in a professional length of only three inches, weighted at the end of each thin braid by an ebony bead. The style kept his hair out of his eyes and when he shook his head the beads clacked together softly.
In contrast, Melanie Vladistock could not have been more his opposite. The senator from Kervil, a world in Prefecture II, was tall and lanky and moved like a classically trained dancer. Which she had been, at one point in her life. All poise and grace, and soft, appealing edges surrounding a core of solid titanium. She did not bend. At best, she allowed others a comfortable grip.
Just now she toyed with her hair, twisting a long reddish-brown curl around her finger. Such a schoolgirl habit made her appear younger than her thirty-eight years. Much younger. A private image Conner found immensely appealing. Most days.
Days when he could push the events on Terra far back in his mind.
Days when his father’s memory did not plague him. Gerald Monroe’s voice echoing in his mind like (a gunshot) distant shouts.
The ramp leading into the underground bunker was shallow and just long enough to drop them into a garage full of GI trucks, half a dozen tracked tanks, three SM1 Destroyers, and a pair of JES II strategic missile carriers. Two laser turret emplacements guarded the entrance.
“No BattleMech company?”
“South-side bunker,” Conner said, deadpan. Melanie glanced sharply at him, but he left her wondering if he had told her the truth or not.
The tram followed its preprogrammed path, making a switch from one overhead rail system to another with a scrape of sparks. Coiling around to the backside of the garage, past three darkened alcoves, it finally pulled up in front of a dimly lit station where a single armed guard waited with his hand on his holstered pistol and a communications wire stuck into his ear. Raising his hand, he clenched it next to his mouth and spoke briefly through the hidden mic.
Conner nodded the others ahead of him. “If I’m first out the door, the guard will assume I am under duress and shoot anyone behind me.”
Even Subhar Usuha blanched a bit at the idea of being shot so cavalierly. He stepped up to the door as it slid back on hidden hinges, and was first onto the platform.
The garage wasn’t much more than one would expect of an underground facility. Lots of gray concrete and a few metal pipes and conduits for wire runs pulled across the ceiling. A high ceiling, to fit the tall profile that came with most turreted tanks. And it smelled of more than exhaust fumes and spilled gasoline and concrete dust. An acrid tinge flavored the air. The taste sat on the back of Conner’s tongue like rotten eggs. It had drifted through his father’s office in the Senate, that touch of sulfur. From gunpowder.
He swallowed. “I apologize for the stringent security.”
“You don’t really mean that,” Melanie said.
“No.”
In fact, he’d learned from his time as a knight of The Republic to never, never modify security protocols for the convenience of guests. Or himself. And in dealing with the different “flavors” of senators involved in this stand against the exarch’s abuse of power, he’d found it convenient to remind them from time to time that he had been a military man before his father’s suicide landed on his shoulders the full weight of his family’s titles. Viscount Markab and a distant heir to the Dukedom of Mallory’s World, yes. But also Sir Conner. The wild knight.
