“With luck,” Gareth said, “Duke Gregory would have smothered his son at birth. I don’t like relying on luck.” He glanced to Jonah. “Sir.”

Gareth was from Prefecture IX, and had strong family ties to the old “Isle of Skye” worlds. Jonah wondered if the vitriol was all for show, or if Gareth was simply—and expediently—putting distance between himself and the Kelswa-Steiners. Then he recalled that the GioAvantis were another powerful merchant family from that region of space. Though she was estranged from her family, could Heather be second-guessing her choice as well?

He damned the necessity of having to wonder.

Jonah leaned back into the divan, hiding his annoyance at his thoughts behind a contemplative mask. “Nusakan and Lyons.” He nodded. “Nusakan is in the hands of Jasek and his Stormhammers. Lyons has been claimed as Duke Gregory’s capital in absentia. And does anyone know where the Wolves disappeared to this time?”

Gareth again. “If anyone does it’s Landgrave Jasek. I wouldn’t count on his sharing that information.”

“He might.” Heather shrugged aside Gareth’s pointed look. “So long as our interests and his coincide.”

“Jasek wants to lead the old Isle of Skye region back to House Steiner and the Lyran Commonwealth. He gave up Skye itself to an invading Clan force. How can that be in our best interest?”

But Jonah saw it as well. Another weight added to the pile pulling down his shoulders these days. “Because it keeps the Jade Falcons away from Terra,” he said.

Heather nodded, and Jonah continued. “The Clans have never gone away, Gareth. Devlin Stone took in quite a few after the Jihad, and some even stayed. Paladin Drummond and Paladin Meraj Jorggenson are revolutionary thinkers to have come so far with us. But for the Clans who still wait inside the occupation zones, except for perhaps the Ghost Bears, the peace obviously did not take, which means that Terra is still their goal.”

One more in the growing list of problems. Jonah climbed back to his feet. Exhaled a sharp breath as Heather and Gareth stood as well. He walked a slow circuit around the room this time, hands clasped behind his back. There weren’t going to be any easy solutions.

“When Devlin Stone originally created The Republic of the Sphere,” he said, mostly to himself, “it brought the possibility of a new dream to the Inner Sphere.” He glanced back at his paladins. “What happened to that dream?”

Still feeling his way with his newly conferred influence, Gareth kept his own council. Heather GioAvanti, though, was the quintessential paladin. She didn’t back away from the hard choices, or the unpopular answers. “We made the mistake of most great societies,” she said. “We took it for granted.”

Jonah agreed. The people had forgotten so quickly the victories and birthing pains of their young Republic. This new Terran Hegemony, its borders circling roughly one hundred twenty light years from Terra itself, had blazed trails for disarmament of the great armies and the intermingling of national cultures. Most great leaders had endorsed Stone’s vision. Some, like Victor Steiner-Davion, had rallied to the new banner and helped it come about.

Not all were so forward-thinking, however. Even in the wake of the Jihad, with mankind reeling from the Blakist pogrom, there were those leaders who resisted change. And Stone, for better or worse, had not been above enforcing his brand of peace. Skirmishes and political pressure plays eventually brought the recalcitrant few to heel, but, in hindsight, also planted seeds of discontent which quickly sprouted after the Blackout struck worlds deaf and dumb. Sprouted… and flourished.

Exceptional leaders—like Katana Tormark, like Aaron Sandoval—suddenly pressing their own agendas.

Neopolitical factions raising their own militaries, or scavenging from among The Republic’s small standing garrison.

Outside forces striking back after a generation of patience. House Liao’s Capellan Confederation. And Clan Jade Falcon. Now there were grumblings from inside the Federated Suns and Draconis Combine as well. On a flat map of the Inner Sphere, The Republic was a large pie right at its center. And everyone wanted a bite.

These were the blades suspended above Jonah’s head. All held up by the thinnest hair.

“Maybe we did,” Gareth said. “Take it for granted.” The man seemed to hate the silence. “But we have a new exarch and a new mandate. There must be something we can do.”

“There is always something to be done,” Jonah agreed. But he also knew it wouldn’t necessarily be a decision they wanted to face.

He paced a few more slow steps. Ended up at the tea service that one of his assistants had set out on a small, rolling cart, tucked in next to the door of one of his many private offices. The door blended into the wall, and only a simple pressure plate and the faint outline of the seam revealed its presence.

Jonah glanced at the door, his back to the paladins, then stepped up to the tea service. From the small rosewood chest he selected a tea basket already prepared with a spice blend from Algedi, a planet just over the border with the Draconis Combine. Picking up a silver pot from the samovar, he poured a single cup and steeped the tea basket inside steaming water. The golden scent was rich and heady, unique to Algedi, and growing rare as the difficulties of The Republic impinged on shipping traffic and trade relations.

“So many difficulties.”

Though he was avoiding the worst of them with this long discussion of Prefecture IX. Or was he leading into it?

Senator Geoffrey Mallowes was a Skye representative as well, Jonah recalled. In fact, it had been Gareth’s family friendship to the powerful senator that tripped Mallowes up in the end. The senator’s cat’s paw turning against him and the cabal’s long-range plan to usurp power.

Of all the cancers eating away at The Republic, this was by far the most serious. And the resolution was a decision he had to make alone. Mostly.

“Thank you,” he finally said, dismissing the two senior warriors.

Both nodded, and Gareth sketched a half-bow as well. “Thank you, sir,” they said.

“Remain in the capital,” Jonah instructed them on their way to the door. “I may have something for you by end of the day.” He did not turn to follow them out, or even watch. He did not trust himself to remain appropriately distant from his former comrades.

Another necessity. Another sharp edge.

When the outer door closed heavily, leaving the exarch alone, he slowly made a second cup of the golden, spicy tea while putting his thoughts in order. He palmed open the nearby lock, waiting until a hidden mechanism swung the door open, and carried both cups into the private office, which was no less grand, but set up for better use as a personal command post.

The same cherrywood paneling. The bronze accoutrements and leather furniture. No window, though. Instead, a bank of dark plasma screens took up one entire wall, capable of individual or composite display. And this desk was a modern sculpture of metal and glass, occupying the exact center of the room. The top, at the press of a button, became a holographic display that accepted battlerom footage, hyperdetailed maps from the World Cartography Office, or feeds from any military satellite in orbit over Terra.

It was the room Jonah retreated to in order to watch worlds fall or send men to their deaths.

It wasn’t a happy room, either.

Lights had been set to a dim level, creating an atmosphere more appropriate for whispered secrets than political debate. A hand reached out from the collected shadows along one wall, accepting one of the cups Jonah carried. He handed it over with a thin, humorless smile.

Jonah stalked the floor, warming his hands around his own small cup, inhaling the pleasing aroma that wafted up on tendrils of steam. His guest followed him as far as the desk, standing next to a simple, straight-backed chair. The man wasn’t short and wasn’t tall, and had a build few would remark on as muscular or lean. His dark hair was pleasantly combed, with a touch of gel, certainly, to prevent any untidiness. The kind of man few remarked on to others. Perfect.