Biting down harder, Jessica backed the footage up again.

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.

Raul swallowed dryly, followed the Colonel as they retreated back to their original line. The fightercraft fired up its engines with a throaty roar, taxied to one end of the parade grounds and then screamed down its length. Timed perfectly, the Stingray leapt into the air and banked immediately into the just-rising sun, flying straight on until it was finally lost in the glare. The pilot would turn off his heading moments later, cruising south and finally firing the missile over the Sonora Plateau, scattering the ashes of Sir Kyle Powers over the battlefield on which he had died.

Colonel Blaire allowed another moment of silence. Then, without any preamble, barked out, “Dismissed!”

Raul completely agreed. What more was there to say?

Until later that evening.

The briefing room felt empty with only the four of them: Raul and Colonel Blaire on one side of the table, Brion Stempres and a man introduced as Michael Eus on the other. A pitcher of iced water sat untouched and sweating on a sideboard. The low hum of air conditioning seemed to grow in volume as the awkward silence stretched out behind Michael Eus’s demands.

“You expect—” Blaire began.

“Lord Erik Sandoval-Groell expects,” Eus was quick to interrupt. “I am simply here as his adjutant, Colonel.”

Raul wasn’t so certain. Dressed in a civilian suit and slightly stoop-shouldered, Michael Eus cultivated the look of a civilian administrator, not the kind of man who would be worth much as a military advisor, or as a hostage against Erik Sandoval’s ambition. Still, he had a strength behind his gray eyes that promised something more about him than his previous position as the operations officer of Taibek Mining.

“And as Sandoval’s adjutant,” Blaire sounded as if he wanted to substitute a less flattering title for Eus, “you will be sitting in on all command-level planning sessions and advising us on the need for support for Swordsworn operations? This sounds more like an ultimatum, Mr. Eus.”

Raul agreed. And it wasn’t helping that Tassa had warned him of the Swordsworn not too many days ago. The Sandoval faction hadn’t been interested in the mutual protection of Achernar. They had simply been here first, before the Steel Wolves. “We are supposed to trust Erik Sandoval now? After what he has done?”

“Lord Sandoval considered it in Achernar’s best interest to abandon his own financial concerns and move to protect River’s End.”

Colonel Blaire scoffed. “It seems that Lord Sandoval—or is it Duke Aaron Sandoval?—has something in common with Kal Radick after all. Both of them seem ready to tell us what is in Achernar’s best interest, as they move to occupy our world.”

“Our new position forms a second line of defense for River’s End, protecting the population of the capital as well as the HPG station. It goes without saying that the station is of extreme value to The Republic. Lord Erik has shown a commitment that I should think you would admire, Colonel. He has even placed two converted MiningMechs outside the facility on a twenty-four hour guard.”

“Besides which,” Brion Stempres stepped into the conversation, “Erik Sandoval was named a legitimate foreign-auxiliary commander by Knight-Errant Powers. He is, in all respects and matters military, your equal, Colonel. The Republic recognized him as such. And,” he added, “Erik is not occupying River’s End in the military definition. I invited his assistance, do not forget.”

“I haven’t forgotten that, Lay–gate Stempres. Governor Haider also called me this morning, to express her confidence in your decision.”

With two ’Mech conversions leveling weapons at the HPG station, Achernar’s tenuous link to the outside universe, Raul bet that Governor Susan Haider had little choice but to back up her military counterpart.