The worried wrinkles on the Exarch’s brow did not diminish. “We’ll need to make sure. Or we’ll need to get advance warning if she doesn’t.” Redburn’s eyes had lit up then with the bright light of an idea, and Crow’s spirits had sunk. “You, Ezekiel—you can kill two birds with one stone. Provide the Countess with backup, and report back to Terra if anything goes wrong.”

Ezekiel Crow had not liked Redburn’s idea at the time. He had grumbled and complained as much as the call of duty and his respect for the Exarch would allow, but his protests were all to no avail. At the end of the day, he’d still found himself on a DropShip bound for Northwind.

He was grateful for that conversation now. It made what he had to do next a little bit easier.

Soberly, he said to the Exarch, “The Steel Wolves have taken Northwind.”

“And the Countess?” Redburn said.

“She was still alive when I left,” Crow said. He sighed, despising himself for the lie that was coming. “But she had surrendered Northwind and the Highlanders to the Steel Wolves in return for safety and an end to the fighting.”

“How was it that matters came to such a pass?” Redburn asked. He shook his head somberly. “That a Prefect should surrender to the leader of upstart rebels…”

No shock had registered on the Exarch’s features at the bad news—unhappiness, yes, but not surprise. On a level deep below speech, Crow found himself profoundly angered by the insult to Tara Campbell implied in the other man’s reaction. He set the anger aside; he had no right to it any longer.

“The Highlanders were severely overextended and understrength,” he told the Exarch. “I was able to secure the contract of an excellent mercenary unit to supplement the Northwind defense forces, and I put them at the Countess’s disposal—but she declined to make effective use of them until it was too late.”

Redburn frowned. “Did she give a reason?”

Crow looked down at the office carpet. The next few moments were critical. If he succeeded in getting his version of events planted in the Exarch’s mind, anyone disputing them later would have to overcome the resistance of an already fixed idea. “I have to admit that it wasn’t just reckless pride. She thought she had a reason.”

“What sort of reason?” Redburn asked. “Did she ever say?”

Crow worked even harder at looking reluctant. If the Exarch believed that he’d dragged the story out of a reluctant Paladin a few words at a time, he would be all the more unwilling to reject it later. “It’s my fault, I’m afraid.”

“What did you do to her?”

“Do?” Crow’s shock at the lurid possibilities conjured up by Redburn’s question was unfeigned. “Nothing! But you know that I have enemies—what Paladin of the Sphere doesn’t, after all?”

The Exarch nodded. “Go on.”

“One of those enemies provided the Countess with forged documentation purporting to show—” The words caught in his throat. He paused to gather himself together, then continued in a voice whose thickness of emotion was entirely real. “—purporting to show that I was the party responsible for the Betrayal of Liao.”

“And she believed them?”

“She said not.” Crow shrugged regretfully. “But when the time for trust came… her judgment was affected.”

“I see. So now the Wolves have Northwind.”

“Yes,” Crow said. “And perhaps they have the Highlanders as well.”

Redburn nodded sagely. “It would not be outside the bounds of belief. The Highlanders were mercenaries themselves—if not in living memory, at least in the memory of history—and might not find it a bad bargain to gain safety and independence for Northwind at the price of The Republic of the Sphere.”

Saffel Space Station Three

Saffel System

Prefecture II

February 3134

Ian Murchison, his medic bag firmly in hand, propelled his weightless self through the corridors of the space station in Anastasia Kerensky’s wake. The interior of the station was painted in pleasing pastels, with abstract designs that could have been meant to represent a mountain stream, or flowers, or an artist enjoying the interplay of light and hue. An incongruous background, in any case, for assault, battle, and sudden death.

Murchison still did not completely understand the role that he was supposed to play in the taking of the station—whether he was the Galaxy Commander’s personal life insurance policy, or her good-luck charm, or some other thing which, not being born to the Clans and their way of life, he was doomed never to fully understand. All he knew at the moment was that whenever and wherever Anastasia moved, his job was to shadow her a few meters behind. Two Clan Warriors in full battle armor propelled themselves along beside her as she made her way inward in the direction of the station’s main control room.

“Catch the brain,” she had said as the Steel Wolves—and one far-from-home Northwinder—moved from the air lock into the main station area, “and the body will follow.”

Murchison heard the whine of a laser-pistol coming from somewhere up ahead and to the right. The two Clan Warriors matching pace with Kerensky pushed off and swam away in that direction. As the Warriors did so they switched their laser rifles from their carrying cradles to the ready position.

Murchison found himself alone with Anastasia Kerensky. The leader of the Steel Wolves carried a radio and a hand laser and moved gracefully, but relentlessly forward. Unlike the two armored Warriors, she wore only regular fatigues in an interior-camouflage pattern. Murchison supposed that this meant she was opting for speed and flexibility over protection.

Which is just fine for her, the medic thought, but if she gets herself killed I’m going to be in even bigger trouble than I am right now. Nothing I can do about it, though.

Another laser-pistol sounded from up ahead, and at the same moment Anastasia went limp, spinning away to fetch up against the far bulkhead and float there, motionless. Murchison grabbed for one of the safety handholds that were set at intervals into the bulkhead and brought himself to a stop, his mind already running through the possibilities and not liking any of them very much.

Laser weapon was his first thought. Those could produce nasty wounds. He didn’t see any blood, although that wasn’t as encouraging as it might have been. Internal bleeding was just as dangerous as the visible kind, if not worse. The blood could leak out into the space usually reserved for the lungs, or press on the heart, or fill the abdominal cavity with an infectious brew.

He let loose of the handhold, keeping his medic bag in front of him as a shield, and started eeling his way across the open space to the opposite side of the corridor. The Wolves hadn’t issued him any weapons—he would have refused them if they’d been offered, because without training he’d be as dangerous to his own side as he would to the other. (And which one, the voice in the back of his head asked, is which? Do you even know anymore?) They had, however, given him a number of smoke grenades, on the grounds that even a medic might at some point need something to cover his movements. He popped one of the grenades now to obscure his snakelike progress across what felt like an infinite expanse of corridor.

The station’s air system tore at the smoke screen, tattering it, and the beam from a laser-pistol flashed past his head. He kept going.

He arrived at Kerensky’s side, still keeping low.

“Medic,” he whispered. “Don’t move. Where are you hit?”

“Nowhere,” she answered in a barely voiced murmur. “I am trying to draw their forces in here, so that I can surround them.” Belatedly, Murchison noticed the comm-tracker radio unit in her hand flickering with signals he could not read, presumably from other Warriors in the boarding party. “But thanks for thinking of me. I am certain that having a medic moving in made it look good from out—”