Of course, he left out the part about being forced into that battle. From necessity, Jessica decided. It was easier to play up his action in a positive light.

“When Devlin Stone returns,” Raul said, “your uncle will be lucky to keep a summer home inside the Republic.”

“I’ll give him your message.” Erik gave Doles a nasty grin. “Since no one else around here can.”

“Do that.” Raul shrugged aside Jessica’s helping hand. “Let him know that the Republic will stand no matter how badly small men try to tear it down. The next time one of you comes for Achernar, you will find us ready.”

Laughing, Erik waved Raul’s warning aside as if it carried no weight with him at all. “What you don’t understand, Ortega, is that without your working HPG, Achernar is not worth anything at all. Not to the Swordsworn, or to The Republic.” Erik left the two of them on that note, rubbing grit out of his hair as he made his way toward the ruined entry.

“All the damage, all the deaths you can lay at their feet,” Jessica said. “Stempres and Sandoval. And both walk away. It doesn’t seem fair.”

“No,” Raul agreed, “but that’s the province of nobility. The noble courts might be able to deal with them, eventually, once the Republic can reassert some control.” He shifted his weight during the awkward pause. “He was right, you know. Without the HPG, we’ll have trouble keeping the Republic’s attention long enough to do something about rebuilding.” But there was hope in his voice when he said it.

“You don’t sound too worried.”

“We’ll make do,” Raul promised. “One way or another.”

Hanson Doles tore his gaze away from Sandoval’s back. His eyes could have been lasers for all the fire Erik’s parting comments had raised in them. “In the meantime,” Doles said, “how would you like to be our first return customer? One thing our computer work has managed to do is reconstruct your general delivery message, Mr. Ortega. You will need to use my office system, but you can finally view the full recording.” He moved toward a nearby closed door.

Raul nodded. “This shouldn’t take a minute,” he promised Jessica, stepped away and then paused. “Would you like to come?” he asked her.

“Show it to me later,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do to help out here, then we should go by the hospital.” She reached up to rub a finger over the golden caduceus, still pinned to her collar. “As long as I’m still wearing this, I should earn it.”

Raul leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “You earned it.” When he left, it was with greater strength than he had shown before, walking unassisted and with the hint of a smile on his lips.

Jessica waited until Hanson Doles had let Raul into the office, and then caught up with him as he directed a clean-up crew. “Is there anything you need here in the way of medical attention?” she asked.

“Medical attention? No, I don’t believe so.”

“Good.” Jessica smiled. “Everyone already taken care of then. Are they in River’s End General? I’d be happy to look them over personally, this afternoon.”

“No,” Hanson said again. “That is, no one was injured.”

“At all?”

Hanson shook his head slowly, and with no little amount of regret. Then he found something else to do and excused himself.

Jessica walked over again to a nearby station, counting the glass shards longer than her finger, and looking at the shredded cloth on the back of the seat. And another one. And one over there. Some splinters looked as if they had been hurled a dozen meters or better.

“And no one was injured?” she asked herself again, and reached up to rub at the caduceus.

“That Tassa Kay chose to return with the Steel Wolves to Tigress is not a comforting fact,” Lady Janella Lakewood told Raul. “It bodes ill for The Republic. You trust her to keep quiet?”

Sitting in Hanson Doles’ chair, letting the day’s fatigue drain down through his legs and into the station’s tiled floor, Raul nodded. “I do. Her role was a necessary part in the deception, and her only concern was to keep the Swordsworn from retaining control over the facility and Achernar.”

So while Tassa kept Sandoval busy, her infantry had moved into position planting dummy charges and stripping away the sabotaging devices. Then the big show of fire and smoke—or smoke and mirrors, Raul thought with a grim smile—to convince them all of the illusion that the HPG had been damaged.

Lady Janella Lakewood looked more composed this time than during their last conversation, contacting Raul through the Ronel station itself rather than from a field relay. “A worthy gamble,” she said. “One I would be tempted to use on Ronel, except that two factions here couldn’t care less—so far—for the advantage of the HPG. An old enmity,” she explained, “between Sandoval’s Swordsworn and the Dragon’s Fury.”

“All enmities seem to be old ones, these days.” Raul shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder if Devlin Stone did not leave us a legacy of chaos. Does that make me a poor citizen?” he asked.

“It makes you human, Raul. Devlin Stone left us with a lot of unanswered questions. He also left us the hope of a better future, but it still comes down to personal choice. Your choices have been exemplary.”

Raul shook his head, feeling a sharp stab of guilt. He heard the door open back behind him, and then close. He knew it would not be Hanson Doles, and the facility manager had instructions from Raul to allow only one person to follow him, but he still said exactly what had been on his mind. “No, Lady Lakewood. I have made mistakes that have cost people their lives, and some their trust.” He buried his darker memories of Charal DePriest, and Jessica. “I didn’t do so well.”

Janella Lakewood smiled sadly. “We rarely do, in the beginning, but we learn and we endure. Along the way, we can find absolution. You did not shirk your duty to Achernar or The Republic. You persevered in the face of personal loss and injury. What more do you expect of yourself?”

“Better.” Raul laughed at himself. “I expect better.”

“Good, because I am going to give you that chance.” Janella Lakewood’s blue eyes radiated a new confidence. “It will be good for myself, and others, to know we have hands in the area that we can trust implicitly. I’d like to name you a Knight-Errant of the Sphere, Raul. Subject to confirmation by Exarch Redburn, of course.”

A cold thrill spiked through Raul’s backbone at the offer. A Knight of the Sphere! Not only was such a position beyond Raul’s original dreams, the responsibilities rose up and threatened to roll over him like Juggernaut’s carriage. “I never thought…” he began, then cleared his throat. “I did not want…”

Behind him, a new voice trumped his own. “That is Raul’s way of saying that he accepts, Lady.”

Raul had hoped that Jessica would change her mind and follow him, though he had not figured on her hearing—or accepting for him!—such an offer.

On the flat-screen monitor, Lady Lakewood stiffened with surprise as Raul stood and moved the chair aside, allowing Jessica to join him in the real-time conversation. “You have a strange way of keeping secrets, Mr. Ortega.” Her voice was a noticeably bit colder than before.

“It’s not his fault,” Jessica said. “Not entirely his fault. When I found out that no one had been injured here, despite the explosions and fires and collapsed walls, I knew that a majority of the damage had been staged.” She offered the other woman a discreet smile as her hand crept over to take Raul’s in a clasp. “I can fix some documents at the hospital. A death or two in the public records should help.”

“Besides,” Raul added, feeling the warmth of Jessica’s hand in his, “if I cannot decide who I can place my trust in, what good is my judgment to you?”

Janella Lakewood considered this, and nodded, reluctantly. “Then you do accept?”