With the last few days on his mind, and this morning in particular, Raul shook his head. “I may be past absolution.”

“We are never past the need for absolution, Raul. When everything else is lost, forgiveness is often the first step toward vindication.”

Shocked by her direct response to his outburst, Raul gazed long and hard at the screen where Janella Lakewood waited for him to work it through in his mind—and believe it. “Yes,” she finally admitted. “This is not a recording. But do not say anything unless critically necessary. It is better if no one suspects that I am personally tasking you with orders.”

A warm thrill ran down Raul’s spine, firing out through nerve endings and quivering his muscles with new tension. He tried to picture in his mind the convoluted programming necessary to hold a real-time conversation between planets. Janella Lakewood sitting in her BattleMech, transmitting on a coded channel with the Ronel HPG station. The fragile connection as two HPG antennae synched up perfectly for transmission and reception both. And the expense! Stryker Productions on this end (ComStar, or a second affiliate on hers) could not batch and send messages so long as the two of them tied up a dedicated channel. They had to know.

Raul glanced sidelong toward Hanson Doles. He, at least, had to know.

Deciding to risk some amount of privacy, Raul scratched at his upper lip—as if deep in thought—and talked behind his hand. “Stempres has handed Erik Sandoval the keys to River’s End. He controls the capital and HPG.”

Janella nodded, understanding. “Still, better him than Star Colonel Torrent. I hate to give up access to one of our few working stations, but with Ronel falling to the Steel Wolves in ten to fifteen days, we cannot allow Kal Radick easy access to so much potential intelligence.”

Ten to fifteen… Raul swallowed past a tight throat. Janella Lakewood was admitting that the Steel Wolves would take Ronel. She said it matter-of-factly. “But to simply hand it over to the Swordsworn…”

“Damned if we do,” Lady Janella agreed, “but, believe me, damned faster if we don’t. Can you trust me enough to believe this? I need eyes and ears and willing hands on Achernar, Raul. Kyle Powers thought you able. More, he was highly impressed by your instinctive sense of honor and duty. His report promised that you felt your way through things as much as reasoned through them. That is why you were selected to fight alongside him. That is why I am contacting you now. Do what you have to do to keep the Steel Wolves from completing their own, private HPG circuit. If you can keep it out of Swordsworn hands, so much the better.” Raul lifted his hand again, but she shook her head. “No, don’t tell me your ideas or plans. I am not in any position to advise you at this time.

“Serve the Republic, Raul. Serve the people of Achernar. When necessary, and you will know when that is, serve yourself. I wish I could invest in you some additional authority, to help you carry out my orders, but I cannot. That would be premature at this time. Use what talents you have and what authority is appointed to you, and work toward the better end.

“That is all any of us can do right now.”

Raul faked a cough. “But if I need to contact you…”

“I think you know who can help you. Be confident, Raul, be calm. But above all else be cautious.” She nodded one last time, both encouraging and accepting.

“Strength and honor,” she saluted him in farewell.

Static bled through and erased her image as the real-time network fell apart before his eyes. Raul took the earplug out, set it on the desk. Hanson Doles was beside him as he stood up.

“Was your service satisfactory today, sir?”

Raul shook his head. “Not particularly. There was a great deal of static and I couldn’t hear much of it. I believe it may have fallen apart there at the end.”

“I understand. We will try to recover the data for you.” Raul received the impression that this would be the equivalent of Hanson Doles trying to recover dropped eggs using a hammer. The only thing ever recovered would be bits and fragments. “Will we be seeing you again soon?”

Raul glanced around at the mostly-empty offices, and back at the bottleneck being squeezed ever tighter by the inside post of Swordsworn infantry. The entire draconian routine smacked of population control as practiced by House Liao, not the supposedly free nation of House Davion’s Federated Suns. Were the Sandovals willing to give up their supposedly long-cherished ties in the very pursuit of them? Perhaps. Which was one more reason why Raul should fight to keep Achernar out of their hands as well.

“You never know, Mr. Doles.” He shrugged uneasily. “You just might.”

San Marino Spaceport

Achernar

11 March 3133

The San Marino Spaceport’s siren wailed a deep, mournful bawl, chasing low notes and then a higher, louder tone with its synthesized Doppler effect. It rolled over sun swept tarmac, echoed off the flat hull of a grounded Kuan Ti–class DropShip, and was turned into a flat background drone by the Praetorian’s thick armor. Erik Sandoval-Groell barely heard it anymore. There were too many other things on his mind, each one of them having to do with defending the spaceport from a Steel Wolf assault.

“I want an update on the waterworks raid,” Erik demanded, his command chair sliding across the vehicle’s interior on an articulated arm. He knuckled the back edge of a sergeant’s helmet. “And get me some kind of trajectory on those DropShips. They aren’t up there for the view!”

“We’re getting on top of it now, Lord Sandoval.”

A mobile HQ, even one of the vaunted Praetorians, was no place for a Mech Warrior Erik belatedly realized. Six meters tall and nearly as wide, the massive, sixty-ton half-track maneuvered in the backfield behind the Swordsworn’s full protection and still Erik felt exposed, vulnerable. A dozen staffers worked the vehicle’s command deck, manning consoles and talking over one another, sweating through their uniforms; a more claustrophobic environment than a BattleMech cockpit could ever be. Erik’s hands itched for control sticks and the touch of weapon triggers under his fingers. He wanted targeting data and crosshairs.

He wanted—he suddenly decided—out of the mobile chair.

Slapping the quick-release on his harness, Erik all but launched himself from the seat as he made for the Praetorian’s front. The drivers’ station took up most of the forward ferroglass shield, but there was an observation seat and gunner’s console to one side, domed in at the mobile HQ’s forward corner, which allowed Erik an eyes-on appraisal of the battle.

Why the open view should give him a sense of relief, Erik didn’t know. Except for two JES strategic carriers that flanked the Praetorian for protection, most of what he could see involved distant ground shadows and flashes of laserfire while speed-blurred darts tangled in the skies above. Without a head’s up display there was hardly any telling his own forces from those of the Steel Wolves or the Republic militia. He knew that the Swordsworn held a rough line across the spaceport’s sun-blasted landing field, committing half of its available defenders from River’s End including four of his six remaining WorkMech conversions. The balance, including his own Hatchetman, waited inside the city’s industrial sector or continued their watch over the local HPG station, giving him a strong fallback position and all the leverage he needed to keep the militia in line.

In fact, quite literally in line. Layered in between the enemy and his own people, and also wrapping around one flank of the Steel Wolf formation, was Achernar’s Standing Guard. Although minus a large contingent drawn away by a morning raid against the Brightwater river control facility, the militia still outnumbered his Swordsworn by almost two to one. It had taken some work, drawing them into the gap between his people and the Steel Wolves, which Erik had accomplished by surging ever backward onto spaceport grounds. Eventually, one of their Legionnaires had slipped into the break with a double-squad of vehicles, forcing a stand rather than allowing the Steel Wolves a stronger approach to the spaceport. Erik had quickly spread his forces thinner, slipping several squads onto the Republic rear lines, tying the formations together but, more importantly, cementing the militia in place. But would it be enough?