He swallowed dryly, edging up to the brink of their latest talks. “What about the March?” he asked. “Are they buying?”

Aaron shot the young scion a hard look, but did not rebuke him. What they knew about Combine troop movements was, for the moment, private knowledge. As were efforts by the Sandoval dynasty back in the Federated Suns to take advantage of them.

“What the family decides to do will be without the input of you or I, Erik. Our concern remains with the worlds of The Republic.”

Except that they could be elevated to so much more. Now! At this moment! Erik had watched his uncle put it all into place over the last few years. The support he’d garnered from like-minded nobles and military leaders. Governors and legates and even, he suspected, a knight or two. All for the express purpose (expressed to Erik, anyway) of turning over Republic worlds to the Federated Suns in one fell swoop.

Aaron might have hoped for greater, even, in his private plans, but with Harrison Davion cozying up to the exarch, why not take what they could, now, and support the dynasty’s plans at the same time?

“Patience, Erik.” Aaron cautioned him, as if sensing the younger man’s thoughts. “The wisest leaders delay the longest, and then move the swiftest. After all, look at what the last few months have brought us.”

A fractured government. Disgraced nobility and a diminished exarch. More worlds teetering on the edge, including Tikonov! The Confederation struck at will throughout Prefecture V, and had begun making inroads into IV and VI, and yet Aaron continued to wait things out on Terra.

“There are even rumors of an assassination attempt against the exarch. Now is not the time for rash decisions.”

Which played well to any hidden recording equipment, as it could be read two ways. In support of the exarch, or simply waiting for him to fall on his own time. But …rumors! Aaron had no idea what it had cost Erik to help arrange that “attempt.” Now was precisely the time! There were loans being called due.

Still, he understood Aaron’s caution. Would Prince Harrison support any bid by the Swordsworn worlds for Davion sponsorship? That was still the question. “We have friends, at least,” Erik said. And they did.

“But which are our best and most able?” Aaron asked. “The Republic is awash with its own struggles. We are courted from all sides.” No surprise there. In fact, that was information the Swordsworn leaders wanted in the hands of The Republic’s wardens. “And there is always the new question of House Davion.”

“Question?” Erik frowned.

The lord governor turned his attention away from the monitors, and the honor match, to rake at his nephew with a cutting tone. “Prince Harrison has his own agenda, Erik. Never doubt that. And he has not forgotten the Sandovals in his dealings with The Republic. But I’ve barely had forty minutes alone with him since I arrived on planet, and he has completely rebuffed your approaches.”

“So?” The prince was a busy man with layer upon layer of subtleties. Why should it be surprising that he was reluctant to appear too cozy with the Sphere’s resident Sandovals?

“So I find it odd that he made a point to push your meeting onto the schedule with Julian Davion. And now, after a lengthy introduction at the Exarch’s Grand Ball, I will meet with the young officer as well. Not the prince, Erik. But the prince’s champion.”

Strange, yes. But: “I guess I do not see it. What is the question?”

Aaron turned his gaze back to the match winding down on the monitors. A final, no-holds-barred slugfest with units broken and burning on most every screen. “I’m wondering, is all,” he said, tapping at his chin again.

“Where is Caleb Davion?”

It should have been Caleb, Julian decided, standing up under Yori Kurita’s withering assault. Caleb, who the night of the reception had gone after the Combine warriors with something to prove. Whose casual insults and superior air had made the honor match happen. No accommodation. No other way to save face.

And now, no clean victory.

Yori Kurita kept coming at him, throwing units into the face of his line, spending lives and materiel in good samurai fashion and never letting him reset his forces. The Warhammers tore apart anything he thrust between them, and the Catapult and Yori’s Dragon were no small threat as well. Julian finally drew a trio of JES II missile carriers into a short line near his position to threaten any advancing unit with missile envelopment.

Which lasted until Alaric Wolf slipped in behind Jasek’s Atlas and took out all three of the allied munitions stockpiles in quick order. Wham, wham, WHAM!

They erupted in catastrophic gouts of fire that shook the entire battlefield and started several large forest fires burning behind the Davion positions. A simulated wind carried more dark, sooty smoke over the battlefield, which filtered through his cockpit’s simulator system as a distant, charcoal tang.

Worse, the loss of his stockpiles “turned off” the unlimited ammunition option Tara Campbell had granted his forces during the simulation setup. Suddenly, his JES carriers all reported low ammo bins, and began firing with miserly care. And as the threat of missile envelopment fell aside, the Combine line regained its courage.

Julian had recognized the munitions dumps as his strategic weakness, but had counted on Jasek’s two companies handling Alaric Wolf. Seven kills! And now his munitions stockpiles as well!

Julian’s frustrations ate away at his confidence. Worried him in a way that, in a live firefight, he’d never have allowed. A field commander could not afford to second-guess himself. He had what he arrived on the field with, and did the best he could against the enemy force.

That’s how it had been on New Hessen, with Raul Ortega and Colonel Torris.

It’s how he prepared every day for the coming conflict with House Liao’s Capellan Confederation. Studying their tactics and force strength deployments. Readying the Capellan March to hold under what would likely be a devastating assault.

But here, in a tactical simulation, however “real” the equipment made it seem, Julian understood every moment that he was in a battle for pride alone. And pride was about the most ridiculous reason for war. Pride had caused Hanse Davion to overreact against the Capellan Confederation in the second part of the Fourth Succession War. It was one of the primary forces that had brought about the annihilation of Clan Smoke Jaguar, if one counted pride as the motivating force behind the lasing of Edo City.

And with pride on the line instead of life, he couldn’t say for certain he fought at his best. Though he wasn’t so certain the same could be said of the Combine contingent, when pride and honor meant as much to some of them—many of them—as their lives.

“Calamity,” he toggled for his armor commander. “We need one of those ’ Hammers silenced. Now!”

“It’s gonna cost.”

Julian dropped his crosshairs over a nearby Shoden, determined to put the tactical missile carrier out of commission. One of his Jessies slammed a score of warheads around its position, but somehow managed to miss with just about every one.

“Pay it,” he ordered.

The Templar’s targeting computer drew a second targeting reticle just off to the side, correcting for the odd angle and the Shoden’s movement. Julian squeezed into both primary triggers, lancing through the gray, sooty haze with two bolts of man-made lightning.

Both struck the seventy-ton assault vehicle. Suddenly a line of bright, argent fire backwashed out from around the main turret track, tearing it half away from the mount, and was quickly overpowered as the missile load in its launcher exploded in a column of tall fire.