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  “True, sir,” Green admitted.

  Left unsaid was that the remaining worlds of the Senatorial Alliance—Wasat, Hamilton, Branson, Bernardo and the new capital world Augustine—were stable and entrenched. Not a rock Thaddeus was going to shift any time soon. But shift it he would.

  He just needed to forge a large enough lever.

  “The Covenant Worlds’ alliance with the Protectorate Coalition is proceeding apace,” Green reported. “Deoliveira of Kalidasa and Yoe of New Hope are both solidly onboard for mutual defense and duty-free trade treaties. Alkes can be counted on to stay in step with the other former Silver Hawk Coalition worlds. Rochelle’s less than enthusiastic, but not actually opposed.

  “More pragmatically, the Kali Yama and Kong shipyards have exchanged representatives to discuss helping each other rebuild. There are some interesting matchups between needs and assets.” He smiled slightly. Green did not share Thaddeus’ fundamental suspicion of serendipity. “Quickcell and Marian Arms are also talking, but there it’s sales reps, not engineers.”

  “Military and economic alliances,” Thaddeus said. “How far are we from unity?”

  “Three years.”

  Thaddeus questioned neither Green’s answer nor its prompt delivery. Engineering the union had been his agent’s primary focus for half a year.

  “What can speed that up?”

  “Savannah and Remulac.” Green had been prepared for that question as well.

  Not that the answer required clairvoyance. The two systems sit directly astride the Covenant/Coalition corridor.

  “Though their various Technicron industries are not as robust as Irian’s, the Barrons of Savannah are emulating the Hughes family,” Green was saying. “Multiple contracts in several competitive markets. Their one advantage over Irian is Savannah’s close relationship with Remulac. They do not have to depend on outside sources for food.”

  “That they managed to pull that off implies Technicron is producing more than the IndustrialMech parts they claim.”

  “There is substantial evidence of heavy IndustrialMech assembly and some impressive military modifications,” Green agreed. “If they’ve resumed Awesome and Quick-draw manufacture, they’re hiding it well. Their big-money exports continue to be high-tech military components.”

  “Any important marriages we should know about?”

  “No, sir.” Green smiled slightly. “They rely on a mutual defense treaty with the Marik-StewartCommonwealth.”

  “Cousin Anson was not the most stable of allies even before the Lyrans attacked,” Thaddeus said. “His forced annexation of Adhafera and Tania Borealis right on Savannah’s doorstep must have given them pause.”

  “Indeed.”

  “An opportunity to present the Covenant Worlds as a safe haven?”

  Green nodded slowly.

  “Green, when you have doubts, don’t make me ask for them.”

  “Yes, sir.” Green straightened slightly in his chair. “Do we have the military capability to be a safe haven, sir? I realize our forces outsize any other nation of our scale, but to stand against the Marik-StewartCommonwealth and perhaps even the Lyrans…”

  “You think we need a big brother?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So do I.” Thaddeus smiled. “Which is why, while you’re setting in motion our adoption of Savannah/Remulac, I will be convincing our Parliament to send me to the Oriente Protectorate.”

  “Sir?”

  “It’s not so close a bond as marriage, but my grandmother and Jessica’s father put aside their differences to fight shoulder to shoulder against the Blakists,” Thaddeus said. “It’s a history of alliance I intend to parlay into a mutual defense treaty—which would simplify our strategic position enormously.

  “If I can pull it off without making the Covenant a vassal of Oriente.”

  2

  Amur, Oriente

  Oriente Protectorate

  24 August 3137

  “You don’t understand!”

  Elis watched Christopher’s face with interest. She’d never seen him so passionate about anything beyond his next adventure. She would never have expected the Lyran invasion of a realm that had never been more than indifferent toward Oriente to so galvanize him.

  Tonight, lit by the half dozen centuries-old incandescent lamps ranged about the family’s informal sitting room, Christopher reminded her of…

  It took her a moment to place the image, and she smiled when the memory clicked: a vidseries that had been popular a decade ago, and one of her guilty pleasures for escaping the pressures of her mother’s court. It followed the adventures of a melodramatic defense lawyer who solved impossible crimes pro bono. She couldn’t recall the name of the show. The actor’s hair had been black instead of blond, but just as curly as her brother’s. The crime-solving lawyer had always brought the same focused passion—and the same lack of logic—to his closing arguments that Christopher was now displaying in the face of their mother’s implacability.

  The difference, of course, was that the lawyer was fictional and always faced opponents who could never quite match him. He always won his cases. Christopher, poor dear, was real and facing Jessica Marik, who outmatched him in every dimension that mattered. He hadn’t a prayer of winning his case.

  But he persevered. He hadn’t stalked off and he hadn’t meekly acquiesced. He was pursuing his goal with greater maturity than Elis had ever seen from him.

  Of course their mother’s announcement of her plan to bring certified Marik blood into their family line had aged them all. Had sobered even flamboyant Christopher.

  And Nikol, clever Nikol, favorite daughter and first to tumble to their mother’s scheme, had been more stunned by their father’s agreeing to the strategy than the plan itself. Now Nikol was watching Christopher confront their mother—her body angled toward the open window and the night and freedom outside, her head turned to watch the turmoil and struggle inside—and she seemed somehow older than Jessica.

  “I do understand,” Jessica answered, her voice level and steel-hard. “We do not have the resources to dash off to rescue Duke Fontaine. It takes more than your fondness for the old man to conjure up an army where there is none.”

  “You’ve said yourself we have more forces than people believe—”

  “But not as many as you seem to imagine,” Jessica cut him off. “We are strong enough to defend ourselves, strong enough for a few judiciously prosecuted campaigns, but not strong enough to take on the entire LyranCommonwealth—even if our own borders were secure. And that’s exactly what would happen if we tried to interfere with their acquisition of the Tamarind-Abbey worlds.”

  “But he stood ready to support you!”

  “If I met the conditions he imposed, conditions you yourself have declared unacceptable.”

  Typically unfair, Mother. Elis sipped her tea while her brother blustered. Christopher’s the only one still impulsive enough to be thrown by such transparent misdirection. He’s perfectly happy to bring Marik blood into the Halas line. He’s just disgusted by your decision to do it yourself.

  She stirred, breaking her self-imposed invisibility by leaning forward to set her cup and saucer on the low table in front of the davenport. Nikol’s eyes tracked the motion, though Christopher and their mother remained focused on each other.

  “It doesn’t need to be military aid,” Elis said quietly, overriding Christopher’s strident tone by pitching her voice to travel beneath it.

  Jessica looked at her. Nikol turned her back to the open window to consider her full on. Christopher’s overconfident assessment of what the Eagle’s Talons could do to Lyran forces rambled for another sentence and a half before his sister’s words registered.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “We have other resources,” Elis said. I have other resources. Three DropShips’ worth parked innocently at our nadir jump point and much, much more where they came from. “We can offer humanitarian aid, or materiel suit
able for rebuilding ravaged infrastructure.”

  Jessica dismissed the notion. “I doubt the Lyrans would be so naïve as to let such cargo pass. Our aid and effort would go to bolster the Lyran cause.

  “Nor do we have the material resources to significantly affect the fate of Tamarind-Abbey,” she added, coolly consolidating her arguments. “There is a significant difference between having a robust economy and having an economy able to sustain a second, unrelated nation-state in time of war.”

  Interesting choice of words, Mother.

  “The significance of the aid would be its existence, not its amount,” Elis said aloud. “We will not be feeding worlds or equipping legions of BattleMechs. Pharmaceuticals, which we do have in abundance, plus other medical supplies appropriate to a war zone. Sheet armor, another surplus, which could legitimately be used for civilian shelters. And salted in among the rest, items of use to liberation units.”

  “Liberation units?” echoed Jessica.

  “Old border world tactic for regaining systems taken from the League,” Nikol explained. “Advance scouts would find elements in the local population sympathetic to returning to the Free Worlds and train them in covert ops. Sabotage, information gathering, communications disruption, that sort of thing. Units would act independently, destabilizing the world prior to—”

  “I know what a liberation unit is.” Jessica’s voice was testy. “I had simply not considered how they might be of use to us in our current situation.”

  Elis smiled inwardly. Settling back against the cushions, she resumed her role of invisible watcher while their mother built on the foundation she’d provided.

  “Not every world, of course, but key planets,” Jessica said, her eyes focused on something in the middle distance. “In both the Duchy and the Commonwealth.”

  “Establishing our own resistance cells so deep in their space would require a lot of local intel we don’t have,” Nikol pointed out.

  Always tactical, little sister.

  “No doubt resistance groups already exist,” their mother countered. “On worlds where they don’t, we’ll withdraw—inspiring the will to fight where none exists is beyond our practical reach.”

  Elis admired her mother’s ability to make sound routine the task of locating those existing resistance groups on worlds once—perhaps still—hostile to the Oriente Protectorate and occupied by invading forces. On the other hand, it might be. Jessica kept her SAFE operations closely to herself; her daughters had no idea what they were capable of.

  “So you’re not going to demand they declare loyalty to Oriente as a precondition of aid?”

  Nikol’s sardonic humor surprised Elis.

  “Of course not, dear,” Jessica answered. “But they will know who risked the worst the Lyrans could do in order to aid them in their hour of need.

  “Something they will remember when our time comes.”

  3

  DropShip Porthos

  Nadir Recharge Station

  Milnerton, Oriente Protectorate

  26 August 3137

  Don’t make me kill you.

  She smiled at the customs inspector standing in the corridor outside her second-class cabin.

  Young, maybe her age in body but decades her junior in spirit, the agent blushed slightly at her direct look, her slightly parted lips. He was cute, she decided, in a dim-dim way. Curly red-brown hair that waved in the faint breezes of zero-gravity, nose too thin and jaw too sharp, but his eyes were a delightful blend of green and brown with flecks of gold. Natural? Tilting her head slightly, she caught no telltale trace of contact lenses.

  Mistaking her appraisal—as he was meant to—the boy flushed a darker red.

  Do you know the contrast makes your eyes glow? she did not ask aloud. She wondered, not for the first time, that Obatala would give individuals of the lesser peoples such beauty. Was it evidence of a spiritual blessing? Or compensation for their limitations? Either way, it could certainly affect her flesh.

  Or that could just be my body’s joy that the healing creams—thank Babalz-Ayi—have finally eradicated the infection.

  She smiled at the thought. The boy smiled back.

  Ten days ago she had been swimming naked through the sewers of Amur, escaping from thugs of the demon-woman bent on her destruction. She had felt every bacteria and fungus that attached itself to her body as she moved through the filth; even knowing the effect was imaginary hadn’t diminished the sensation of being violated. Once free of the sewers, she had needed two days of stealthy movement—one more than planned—to make contact with the extraction team. Then she had spent four days wracked by fever and crushed by two gravities of acceleration/deceleration pressure as the long-range shuttle provided by the Temple raced to reach the Porthos before it left the Oriente system.

  Now, three jumps from home, her only concern should be invisibility—acting the part of an anonymous academic en route to a teaching position. And interacting with no one who might remember her. What her plan failed to anticipate—a foolish mistake on her part, in retrospect—was the level of scrutiny that would be given each passenger outward-bound from Oriente.

  Which is how she found herself in share-the-breath range of an attractive young customs inspector who—even though he was having difficulty focusing on her immaculate documentation—would definitely remember her face. Nor did her bulky clothes, designed to create the impression her athletic frame carried an additional twenty kilos, seem to diminish his interest.

  Either the caplatas Jessica had not discerned her identity or had for purposes of her own chosen not to share the assassin’s description with her minions. The customs inspectors questioning every passenger and every crew member of the Porthos were not specifically looking for a woman of midnight complexion. Otherwise she would be in a holding cell at this very moment.

  And within the hour, dead—surrounded by as many of the demon woman’s soldiers as she could take with her.

  Now her problem was the charming young customs agent, who was stammering a bit as he tried to think of plausible topics for prolonging their conversation after vetting her meticulously counterfeited identity and travel papers.

  Which posed the greater danger? His memory of her when a complete description of the fugitive assassin finally reached Milnerton? Or his unexplained disappearance?

  The latter would trigger an investigation that would dangerously delay the DropShip’s departure. An accident? Aboard the Porthos even a clearly accidental fatality would necessitate an inquiry, something the timetable of her escape would not survive. And, as the young agent had arrived and would depart aboard a Milnerton Customs Authority launch, she had no way to arrange his death anywhere else.

  So the boy lived. And with him his memory of her.

  No doubt when a more detailed description of the assassin who had struck down two of the Marik children reached Milnerton, the boy would match his memory to her false documentation detailing her itinerary. Her side assumed that the strained relations between the Oriente Protectorate and the Duchy of Andurien would make it difficult for local authorities to establish that the cultural anthropology instructor bound for the Mosiro University of Al-Ilb never actually arrived. By then she would be safely home and no evidence would link the deaths on Oriente to the Temple.

  As long as he’s going to remember me—she let the light of the thought shine through her eyes—why not make his memory truly memorable?

  The boy’s eyes lit up, his breath catching in a ragged exhale. He’d clearly caught the message she was sending.

  Shaking her head sadly, she closed her cabin door in his face.

  No way she was going to risk triggering a flare-up of that damned infection.

  4

  Amur, Oriente

  Oriente Protectorate

  29 August 3137

  “Well,” Frederick Marik pronounced, evidently satisfied.

  Nikol could not tell whether it was the view of the late afternoon garden beyond the open Frenc
h doors that so pleased him, or the cut-crystal goblet with its triple thimbleful of dessert liquor that he idly swirled or the company of the three Marik women that he found so satisfying. He tended to look at each element of his surroundings with the same possessive assurance.

  The early Sunday supper had been artfully arranged. A half dozen minor nobles with their respective spouses invited for their ability to disseminate—and expand upon—gossip, Frederick Marik and Jessica with what the media insisted on calling her “three surviving children.”

  The media had never been fond of Julietta—Nikol had come to wonder if this didn’t reflect some influence of their mother’s—and seemed to have written her off. The neuro-specialists said there was some indeterminate activity in her frontal lobe, but could not guarantee it was thought. Media reports had described her state as “vegetative” from the beginning. Nikol hated it—they all did—but by the end of the first week, all media listed only Elis, Christopher and Nikol as Jessica’s “surviving” children.

  Adding to Nikol’s jaundiced view of the world was the charade of her parents’ separation, which was already under way. Philip Hughes had been absent the last few times her mother appeared in public, which was not unheard of, but unusual enough to cause comment. There had also been reports of Philip being “bitter” and perhaps “reclusive” as he coped with the death of his oldest son.

  Nikol knew that for all the haste in its execution, a lot of very careful planning and media manipulation was going into the tale of her father leaving her mother. And Philip had to leave his wife: Jessica must not be seen as setting aside her husband for political gain. Nor could the leaving be bitter or angry. Philip’s love and support of his wife was well documented….

  Nikol’s eyes suddenly stung. She fought the desire to cry by minutely widening and narrowing her eyes. She would not wipe her eyes; she would not let a tear fall.

  Elis made some comment to Frederick while Jessica looked on, her head tilted ever so slightly to indicate sincere attention. Nikol imitated the posture without a clue of what was being said.