Fortress Republic, page 26
part #18 of BattleTech : Mechwarrior Dark Age Series
“And Ariana Zou? Yori Kurita?”
Okay. “You get a slight twinge of doubt for Zou. Only because I didn’t know her well among the knights and she might be fairly hot for my head on a pike.”
“You really believe in that difference. Don’t you?”
Didn’t he? Wasn’t that what he had devoted a large part of his life towards? And Julian Davion led a similar life inside the Federated Suns. Julian had turned out, in fact, to be a more impressive (and dangerous) adversary than Conner had ever thought. For the very same reasons that made him worry, that Julian Davion might have the momentum behind him now to push Conner off Ronel, so did he respect the man and extended the same courtesy he himself would expect.
“Yes,” he finally said. The only way to answer such a question.
Melanie flopped back against the seat. “They’re going to miss you and hit me,” she groused. Paused. Looked sideline at him. “That is not the reason,” she explained, getting ahead of herself, “but I am leaving.”
“Leaving?”
“As you pointed out, we’re too isolated from what else is going on. I need to contact our worlds in Prefecture II, those not yet under the Dragon’s claw, and it would be good to touch base with Subhar Usuha in person. I will also hand deliver the personal video you have for your mother.”
“I don’t have a vid for her.”
“You will. You’ll record it tonight, Conner, and encourage her to vocally support the recent rise of pro-Kurita fervor on Markab. As an exercise in freedom of speech, for now. This way, while you work on the alliance’s present, I’ll be able to take certain steps to ensure our—yours and mine—future.” She reached forward to pluck the second highball from the tray and handed it to him.
He took a small sip. Frowned in disappointment. “Sake?”
She nodded. “Get used to it. Because if we lose Ronel, and Liberty falls, we’ll be caught between a rock and a hard place. I, for one, plan to get on the other side of the rock.”
The Combine! “You think my mother can make contacts within House Kurita?”
“If she can’t, we’ll be in very bad shape once the Dragon turns its attention away from Dieron and recalls that Ozawa and even Markab were also once Combine worlds. Let’s avoid the rush, and get in line early.”
Conner sipped again at the warm rice wine. The bite wasn’t so bad on the second taste. He could get used to that, he supposed. “The definition of modern leadership,” he said. “Sense which direction the mob is going to push, and jump out in front.” He didn’t have to like it, but there it was.
If Melanie ever worried about the idea, she had already made her peace with it. She shrugged. Smiled. “As you said,” she offered. And toasted him with the warm sake.
“We all need friends.”
27
It’s chaos at the leading edge of House Kurita’s forward thrust! Warlord Sakamoto is dead following a terrible catastrophe two days ago on the Dovejin Ice Cap. Local forces are reportedly falling under the nominal control of Katana Tormark, though it remains to be seen how smoothly such a transfer of command can and will go. And the fighting continues, as the Dragon digs in tenacious claws.
—Mikhail Suvich, Second Limited Press, Saffel, 7 September 3135
Janiper, Ronel
Republic of the Sphere
19 September 3135
The news came like a swift punch in the gut, and Julian sat down hard. Collapsed might have been the better description of how he all but fell back into the roll-around executive chair he’d pulled up at the head of their makeshift table. His knees gave out; his strength fled like a puppet with its strings cut. A metallic taste dried his mouth.
The backs of his legs bumped the boardroom-style chair and it nearly got away from him. He caught the edge of the leather seat, slouched back into its comfortable grip, and rocked back and forth a few times as he processed the enormity of what Aaron Sandoval suggested.
Exarch Levin had truly yanked the rug out from beneath them? All of them?
“This doesn’t make sense,” Ariana Zou said, breaking the awkward silence. Her voice echoed thin and reedy inside the cavernous, glassed-in room. “You are saying that Jonah Levin has sacrificed—or plans to sacrifice—nine-tenths of The Republic? How could he even enforce such an order?”
Callandre Kell gripped the arms of her chair with strong claws. “Well, that tears it!” She shoved away from the table. Left her seat spinning in lazy, slowing circles as she paced one side of the large showroom floor beneath a drop-down red-white-and-blue banner advertising BANNER DAY SALES!
Julian had commandeered Stillson Motors for his command post shortly after taking Janiper. An abandoned automobile dealership on the city outskirts, it had a blacktopped lot large enough to accommodate every armored vehicle under his command as needs be. A separate building with six maintenance bays was quickly converted to servicing the APCs, hovercraft, wheeled assault vehicles and even some of the lighter tanks. And a large showroom hall glassed in on three sides as well as overhead, with offices along the back, now served as a communications room and logistics coordination center.
Moving in, the place had still smelled of car wax and tire rubber. It had not been out of business long.
Now it smelled of spilled coffee, nervous smoking, and recent hot metalwork a pair of his astechs had performed in constructing the large table at which (most) everyone sat. Two girders cut up and rewelded into heavy sawhorses. A large sheet of raw armor stock forklifted in and laid across. Draped with a large flag bearing the crest of the First Davion Guards, their Roman helmet set over the Davion Brigade sunburst, it had comfortably seated twice their number for any of the dozen tactical planning sessions held here in the last five days.
Just eight of them for this. Julian, who had pulled Leftenant Todd Dawkins inside as well, wanting his personal intelligence aide in on the primary meeting. Lars Magnusson beyond him, moving around the table to Julian’s left. And Yori Kurita, who sat stiffly but calm as she looked inward to whatever deep pool of reserve she harbored.
Lady Paladin Ariana Zou at the far end, looking nauseated. But also . . . thoughtful? As if remembering something.
Duke Aaron Sandoval’s personal aide sat in between Zou and himself, allowing the lord governor to split the difference between Julian and Ariana, claiming the middle of one side. Then the empty space where Callandre had sat at Julian’s right hand.
Of all the reactions around the table, hers seemed the most honest to Julian. A gut-check response, throwing Calamity Kell into immediate overdrive. She had come in fresh from patrol for this meeting of the core command staff, still wearing the padded vest and heavy fatigues common to most armor crews. Her hazelnut hair, spiked with platinum highlights today, was matted down from sweating inside a helmet. Her fingers dove into the tangle, began combing it into place. Meanwhile she continued to grind her frustrations against the gray-tiled floor, beneath the heels of black, spit-polished cavalry boots.
Always one to wear her emotions openly, Julian knew.
Not that she was the only one. Lars Magnusson had also scraped his chair back, a straight-backed seat he’d dug out of a back office rather than take one of the more comfortable executive-style chairs. Never a follower, he contented himself watching Callandre’s pacing. Or perhaps he’d only wanted some space.
But overall it was Ariana Zou’s reaction that most interested Julian. The Republic’s representative on Ronel, and Julian’s de facto ally if not exactly his partner. He wrote off pulling any meaningful thoughts from the preset expressions of Aaron Sandoval or his man—Gavin?—who demonstrated a tight poker face. No, it was Ariana first and foremost. A woman Julian had believed he could trust.
Much as he had believed of Jonah Levin?
Ariana Zou, looking around the table, caught on to Julian’s interest. Her dark gaze settled on him. She shrugged. “How is it neither of us were informed? Or warned, at the very least.”
She had moved past questioning the news to wondering aloud about the specifics fairly quickly.
A shift Callandre did not miss, either. Paused in mid-turn, she glared down the table’s length towards the paladin. “How about because your exarch is a backstabbing duplicitous bastard who could give a Lyran money-changer lessons in perfidy?”
If Callandre’s bite struck home, Ariana hid it well. “I wasn’t aware you knew so many large words,” she said.
Callandre smiled. “Then whose ignorance is showing, yours or mine?”
That registered. Ariana’s eyes widened every so slightly. Julian prevented any further sniping by leaning back into the meeting and slapping one hand down on the table’s cloth-covered surface, hard enough he felt the solid metal beneath stinging his palm.
“Enough! This isn’t helping, Calamity.” He knew his friend would escalate any verbal match to critical temperature, partly out of a defensive reflex.
More, he suddenly suspected, to test Ariana Zou.
She glared at him, a look he knew well. One that said I know what I’m doing.
Well, so did he. And now was not the time to force a divide in the small group. “Sit down, Callandre.”
She did. With obvious reluctance.
“Good. All right. Now . . . fine.” Julian reined in his emotions and confined them to a back seat while marshalling his own thoughts. A well-ordered mind and rational debate could overcome any obstacle. Even one dropped on him like a bombshell. First order of business: additional intelligence gathering and confirmation. “Exarch Levin has instituted some kind of Republic-wide shutdown. Duke Sandoval, you are certain. There is no leeway for interpretation?”
Aaron Sandoval had sat calm and careful since delivering the news. Before, he had hardly been able to sit still, storming into the meeting within moments of his private VTOL landing him outside. With the ice broken, however, he sat back and watched, idly stroking the fringe of blond beard highlighting his strong jawline.
“The orders have been coming in for weeks, actually. Nothing too obverse. Pulling troops back from problem areas, consolidating force strength on worlds such as Kawich and Acamar.”
And Northwind, Julian realized. Saw the same flare of suspicion mirrored at the far end of the table, on Ariana’s face. That explained a great deal as to why Northwind had gradually cut back on support of Julian’s drive.
“I can also tell you that nearly one hundred percent of Republic forces brought back to Kawich for ‘temporary re-billeting’ were recently loaded up and pulled all the way back into Prefecture X. Gavin?”
Julian had thought the lord governor’s aide a much older man at first. But the way he pounced at his name, like an eager puppy, had Julian wondering. And where had he seen this man before? Something about his eyes, and the generous mouth, reminded Julian of someone . . .
Gavin set two data crystals on the table. “One report from a ship’s purser, with documentation to prove the troops held at the Kawich staging facility were relocated to Liberty, which is now under martial law and a system-wide blockade.” He tapped the second. “Verification that Prefecture IV has been, for all intents and purposes, militarily and politically isolated from Prefecture X, Terra, and the exarch.”
Aaron looked around the table. “Exarch Levin also passed several executive orders through confidential channels, expanding further the emergency powers he granted local governors after disbanding the Senate. Including direct oversight of local military forces. I also do not think it a coincidence that some very few military legates were called back to Terra, and replacements appointed for them.”
“Ariana?” Julian asked.
She hesitated. The entire table saw it. “It would explain things I have seen—or was allowed to see. Some of the doubts and concerns Exarch Levin expressed in my presence.” She would say no more about what those concerns might be. “Julian, I knew nothing about this.”
“And if you had known?” Lars Magnusson asked, cutting to the quick. “You would have told us, quineg?”
As Magnusson expected, Ariana shook her head. But, “I don’t know. If I had been under orders, but still placed in the field with you on Ronel, it might have . . . I don’t know.” She laughed, curt and brittle. “I suspect this is why I was not informed. I could not have offered the First Davion Guards my—what did you call it, Lord Davion?—unrequited commitment.”
“Few of us could have,” Yori Kurita said. Slowly, as if mustering her strength, she stood. Stared down at the table, with its golden sunburst on a red field. “Now I find myself, as well, in the unenviable position of withdrawing. I will remove the local Dragon’s Fury from this world at once.”
Julian stared down and across the table, stunned by her resolute tone. If Yori removed the Dragon’s Fury, who else might be tempted to abandon the fight? Aaron Sandoval’s Swordsworn troops might balance out any losses, but they could no longer guarantee a victory.
“We don’t know that Exarch Levin is truly pulling up the drawbridges, Yori-san. Give us time.”
She shook her head. “There are . . . other considerations. The death of the Benjamin Warlord on Saffel. And Sho-sa Katanga has received word that his forces were to rotate to Halstead Station. It is best that they—that we all—follow our natural course in this.”
Callandre leaned forward. “There is still a battle to be won here.”
“This I understand,” Yori said. Then she looked up towards the head of the table. “But I can no longer countenance our involvement in this action. I have stretched Lord Toranaga’s orders to their limit as is, to appraise the strength of The Republic and its allies. Sumimassen, Lord Davion. So sorry. But this is the way it must be.”
So much for avoiding a divide within the group. And unrequited commitment. Dammit! He half rose from his chair. “For the sake of camaraderie alone—”
There she stopped him with a raised hand. “You think I did not consider this? My honor is lessened no matter what course I choose, so now I look to the Combine’s past as well as our future to guide me. And I see that we cannot afford to be friends.”
She stepped away from the table.
“No one can say where the Dragon will next turn its attention. Perhaps towards Vega and Prefecture I. Perhaps towards Markab, and eventually to Ronel. When next we meet in battle, I’m afraid we will not be on the same side.”
No one spoke, or moved, as the scion of House Kurita abandoned the table and quietly strode from the room. If she felt the six pairs of eyes burning holes in her back she showed not the least bit of discomfort. Julian noticed that Aaron Sandoval did not turn at all to follow Yori’s departure—seemed quite comfortable with it, actually—and wrote that off to the centuries of the Sandoval dynasty’s wars with House Kurita.
He also caught Lars Magnusson hovering on the edge of following Yori, obviously caught in the same web. Lars had taken leave from the Dominion to better understand the troubles faced by The Republic, and to get a feel for the true strength of the nation. He had, and not in the terms he’d thought to have proven.
Either the bite of Exarch Levin’s decision stung less or he was simply too stubborn to admit defeat. He planted himself back in his chair with a solidity Julian appreciated, voting with his presence.
Aaron Sandoval was first to break the new silence.
“I still have a company and change brought down with me,” he promised. “And more on the way, I hope. Regardless, Julian, they are pledged to your service for the campaign on Ronel. If you are still for it.”
That was the question. And never was it thrown more into doubt than at any time since he’d accepted the exarch’s charge, on behalf of Harrison’s final wishes for a strong relationship between House Davion and The Republic of the Sphere. But Harrison lay silent and Caleb had torn the thin fabric of any earlier accord, and now there was the possibility of Levin himself turning his back on all Julian had done in the name of prince and possibility.
And still he nodded. Slow but sure.
“As Callandre said, there is still a battle to be won. We cannot go back without knowing what awaits us. We cannot hold steady. There is only the future, now.” He looked down the length of the banner-shrouded table. “Lady Zou?”
She nodded without hesitation. “I am with you.”
And Lars. And Aaron. Both men nodded once, firmly.
Callandre leaned back in her chair, arms folded defiantly. “Try to get rid of me again, why don’t you?”
He nodded. “Then we wait for more out of Terra, and Exarch Levin. And in the meantime, we finish this.”
There had never been another choice for him. He had to trust in what he had started. What he was doing.
Because, otherwise, there was nothing left.
Genève, Terra
Republic of the Sphere
“Two weeks,” Jonah told his two closest paladins. “That is all the more we’ll need.”
Both Gareth Sinclair and Heather GioAvanti sat on the leather divan in the exarch’s private office, looking uncomfortable in the Bullet for the first time in so long that Jonah knew a moment’s misgiving. He sipped at his golden-spice tea, stared at the two over the rim of the bone china cup, and ruthlessly throttled the inner voice that had first warned him of trusting anyone else with the plans for Fortress Republic, and now had turned treacherously on him to argue that perhaps he hadn’t taken enough time and enough counsel to make the best decision possible.
The die was cast and they were well past the point of no return.
Gareth nodded. He set his cup down with the beverage cooling and untouched. “But the Isle of Skye?” he asked.
“It’s not the most stable region, I know.” He swallowed hard. The spiced tea left a bitter aftertaste on the back of his tongue. Or perhaps it was the politics involved in this latest order. “That is why I’ll need you there. One of you. With Jasek Kelswa-Steiner gone missing and presumed dead, and the Jade Falcons in a staring match with House Steiner, I’ll need a paladin on the ground. To mind our interests.”
