Far too much. Evan lost control of the Thunderbolt. Lost his orientation with the ground. He was still fighting vertigo when the autocannon cut apart his fusion reactor’s shielding and blew him apart like a New Year’s skyrocket.

Every screen went blank.

The cockpit pod quit shaking, settling back to its neutral position as the simulator reset itself.

Only the communications system worked.

“Nice try, Cadet.” Cox again, but his gravelly voice wasn’t as commanding as before. It had a tinny ring to it. Like… battlefield comms. “It might have worked, against programs.”

Cox had jumped into another simulator pod, and taken control of the Schmitt.

“So the enemy forces are only bloodthirsty Capellans when it suits you?” Evan asked, losing guard of his tongue for a few irretrievable seconds. Damn—

The sergeant let him stew with his slip for a moment. When he came back, though, it was with just as much good-natured mocking as before. “You want to give The Republic some spine in this scenario, then I’m going to give the Confederation a brain. Now get showered, Cadet, cool off and report to briefing. The class can learn things from your example.”

“Yes, sir.” Evan couldn’t pump much false sincerity into his voice.

No doubt the class would be shown once again how the Confederation had been a monster. A dark, Capellan monster, to be fought and eventually defeated. Except that Evan knew monsters only existed to those with cause to fear. For all its accomplishments and white-knight posturing, here The Republic feared the truth. That Liao was Capellan, too. And it would be free.

Morgestern

Mă-tou-xī District, Palos

Prefecture V, Republic of the Sphere

18 June 3134

The Lazarus Lounge, located at the far end of Morgestern’s Interplanetary Spaceport E Concourse, was dimly lit and had an outdated sound system that played only maudlin techno-jazz that was fresh before 3100. There was very little glass to look outside on the more successful travelers and tourists. Patrons of the Lazarus flew coach or the modern equivalent of steerage.

And, surprisingly, there were no clocks.

Jacob Bannson noted this right away. Not because it was out of place for a bar—and the Lazarus was a bar, not a real lounge—but because it wasn’t. He’d expected such an intrusion. There were flights incoming and outgoing, people to be met and baggage to claim. Even the people who would be drawn to an establishment like the Lazarus still had to keep an eye on time. It fascinated him, as a curiosity.

Bannson liked a good bar. He liked a bad bar, so long as his money bought him safety. Not that he was a big drinker, he wasn’t, but there was something to be said for the feel of such a place. The ambiance. Dark, close and timeless. That was why you never saw clocks in a real bar. No timepieces, no windows to the outside world. When you walked in nothing else existed, and there you stayed (for several drinks, the management hoped) until you finally decided it was time to rejoin the real world. If you ever did. This was the kind of place envisioned by people who talked of clandestine meetings and shady, backroom deals. Smoke drifting up at the ceiling, pushed around by a slow-turning ceiling fan, and the scent of beer and stale popcorn.

And it was costing Bannson Universal five hundred an hour to keep it closed for the day. Paid in ComStar bills. Republic stones, for obvious reasons, had recently gone out of favor on Palos.

Bannson and Di Jones threaded between empty tables and chairs still half scattered into the narrow aisles. His guests already waited, which was how he wanted it. Ten hundred hours meant ten o’clock in the morning precisely to a military man. Bannson expected it to be clear from the start that he was not a soldier to be intimidated by rank. He was more than that, and Sang-shao Carson Rieves would be wise to know it.

“Interesting place for our meeting,” Rieves said.

He was a thick-necked, pug of a man, hands clasped behind his back and always rising up on the balls of his feet. Tense. Commander of the Confederation’s Dynasty Guard and ranking officer in the Gan Singh theater of operations, he had direct control over his own regiment and the Third Confederation Reserve Cavalry. He was also “first among equals” with the sang-shao of the Second McCarron’s Armored Cavalry—a Capellan way of being in charge without really taking charge.

Meaning they weren’t required to do exactly as he commanded, but it really was a good idea to do so.

Sang-shao Rieves eschewed his uniform today, dressing in a rumpled business suit that looked less out of place in the Lazarus than Bannson’s expensively cut clothes. Glancing at the bodyguard Bannson had deigned to bring along, “The Maskirovka did not appreciate being left out of this.”

“You have your demands, I have mine.”

Rieves had ordered this meeting under a very thin veneer of politeness, pulling Bannson from St. Andre for a face-to-face. The CEO could have hosted the officer in the lavish comfort of his private DropShip or emptied one of a dozen executive offices at the DropPort for less than the final price of the Lazarus. But he didn’t want the Capellan soldier putting on airs surrounded by luxuries bought with Bannson’s money. The Lazarus cost him more, but paid less in deference.

“The Confederation has demands,” Rieves corrected him. “So far we are advancing along our timetable as planned, but that could change quickly should the local leadership discover new allies.”

Jones laughed. Her red hair glowed softly in the bar’s muted light. She held up four slender fingers, one at a time, each tipped with black polish. “Wei, Palos, Shipka, Foot Fall,” she ticked off the names. “Four worlds taken in as many weeks. What’re you complaining about? That has to be some kind of CapCon record.”

“And Gan Singh,” Rieves said, his pride in the Confederation attempting to trump Jones’s snide comment. “It will be ours by tomorrow’s end.”

“Really?” She smiled, showing white, white teeth. “What about the Sixth Hastati Sentinels?”

Bannson cut between the two, separating them as he moved to a nearby bar stool. He silenced the woman with a commanding glance. That information had been worth something, and she had given it away for free, just to score points.

Well, it had worked. “The Sixth Hastati?” Rieves glowered. “We were told that New Canton would not involve itself in the affairs of Prefecture V.”

“Because of some border raids being pushed on Elnath and Ohrensen?” Bannson asked. “I’ve heard that the Oriente Protectorate is pressuring Prefecture VI.” Oriente was one of the stronger duchies left over from the fall of House Marik. “You may inform your superiors that I will have intermediaries open talks with business leaders on New Canton. Perhaps the Sixth will be recalled.”

Perhaps not, he didn’t add.

“If the Sixth Hastati are under the localized command of Prefect Shun Tao, that gives him breathing room on New Aragon. Can he push out at Menkar or Wei?”

A bowl of pretzels sat on the bar near his right elbow. Bannson helped himself to a few of the salty twists, considered how much to commit to this Capellan officer.