The Darmstadt estate actually had very little to recommend it as a military strongpoint, but was far enough behind the lines not to worry about it for now. What it had was a certain level of comfort and familiarity for the few senators who had remained on Terra, and was convenient to the forward lines. Growing more convenient by the day, in fact, as The Republic continued to press the loyalists deeper into Germany.

As a viscount’s son, he’d been born to these kind of surroundings. As a knight, he’d seen plenty of time in stark barracks and lonely battlefields.

As a loyalist he was now trapped between both worlds, and the border was wearing thin.

Especially when Cray Stansill met him at the library doors, dressed in a smart suit of dark green silk and carrying a sweating highball.

Conner reached back, then double-pumped his fist right into the other man’s jaw.

Hard.

Stansill flew back off his feet. His highball crashed and tumbled over the thick Berber, staining the oyster knit with a splash of dark bourbon. Two other people in the room jumped to their feet, but out of shock, unprepared for violence.

“Lord Monroe…” Senator Riktofven didn’t seem to know what should come next, and stood there, mouth agape.

Therese Ptolomeny shook her head in disappointment. “Certainly, Conner, there was a better way to voice your disagreement. Especially when Sir Stansill is a guest in your house.”

Conner stood in the doorway, tense, breathing hard from his run up the stairs. He looked at the room’s final occupant, and traded long, hard stares with Melanie Vladistock. Of the senators, after Lina Derius left for her homeworld of Liberty, she was the one he spent the most time with. Planning. Discussing the future of the loyalist movement.

“I told you,” Melanie said to the others with a shrug. “He would not be happy.”

Cray Stansill rolled onto his side, rubbing a hand gingerly at his jaw, careful of the split lower lip that bled bright red droplets onto his chin, his white shirt and the carpeting. He spat more blood, not caring about the floor or the company. “He’s going to be less unhappy very shortly,” the rogue knight said.

Riktofven helped Stansill to his feet, then steered him toward a nearby chair. “Do not embarrass yourself further, Cray.”

Conner was not about to let the former knight and his comrade-in-arms off so easily. “What were you thinking?” he asked, chasing after him. Grinding his fury beneath each hard footstep. “You had an aerospace squadron try for Geneva? The Hall of Government? Do you want to escalate this war?”

“I’m not afraid of it,” Stansill said, shrugging off Riktofven and jumping back into Conner’s face. “And the timing was perfect, with everyone’s attention suddenly diverted by incoming news of the Combine’s invasion. Why else did you organize a quick push to retake Stuttgart and Karlsruhe? Strike the head from The Republic, and we’d be back in Geneva, better to organize a real defense of The Republic.”

“That is not your decision to make. Those decisions come from here, in this room. You’re a loose cannon, Cray.”

“I’m not limiting myself to half-measures, if that’s what you mean. The Republic has pushed us back nearly every day for three weeks. This series of ‘containment skirmishes’ they keep harping about on the newsvids. We are in a war, Conner. And we need to start fighting it without you acting as if your father was still looking over your shoulder.”

Blind with rage, Conner swung at him again. Stansill was ready for it this time, blocked the jab, and then looped an arcing blow that smashed into the side of Conner’s head. He tried to follow it up with a hook to the jaw. Conner ducked back, then used a stiff-armed blow to the underside of Stansill’s chin to snap the other knight’s head back. A double-fisted palm heel into Stansill’s gut knocked the wind and the fight out of the other man, dropping him back in his chair while Conner stood over him, blind with rage, chest heaving.

Senator Riktofven moved in physically to separate the two of them and this time haul Conner away. “This solves nothing! Lord Monroe, take hold of yourself.”

It was hard. And growing harder every day. Conner’s temper had a short fuse at the best of times. His closed-door argument with Lina Derius had been one of the driving factors for her relocation off Terra, he was certain.

Now he shook Riktofven free from his arm. “You people brought me in to this to do a job. We had a plan, and it was a good one. But if Cray goes freelancing again, I’m done. Are we clear?”

He waited for a simple nod of acknowledgment from Riktofven and Ptolomeny. Melanie was more cautious with her agreement. “So you think we can salvage this still?”

Her calm voice soothed the inflammation, and Conner gave the question a moment of thought as he dropped onto the leather divan next to her. His hands remained clenched into tight fists. The others arranged themselves around the room, waiting. Even Cray Stansill, recovering his breath, sat forward quietly to wait for some kind of decision.

So much happening. Within and without. From every direction. It wasn’t enough that the Jade Falcons had taken Skye and Liao continued to push at Prefectures IV and V. Now House Kurita had pushed forward, striking at the border worlds in Prefecture I. Add those burdens onto a Republic currently at war with itself, trying to reestablish its own identity…

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Everything is breaking down, both on world and off. The news journalists are taking cheap shots at us now. Not even pretending to carry our message. It’s getting lost between sound bites. Countess Campbell, damn her, owns the media on Terra and half the other Republic worlds, it seems.”

Riktofven found his own drink on a nearby marble coaster. He sipped and then gestured with the glass toward the ceiling. “We knew it might come to that. The exarch’s strongest here on Terra. We’ve weakened him, and perhaps that is enough. Especially with the latest burden being heaped onto his plate.”

“Not just his, Michael.” Melanie Vladistock came from Prefecture II. Along with Senators Onataki and Rwal. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

“Or a better one,” Cray Stansill said, rejoining the conversation.

His lip still bled, and he smeared the stain over his chin with the back of one hand. But his voice was strong and confident again. “I mean, here the exarch has the coordinator of House Kurita right on planet. And so do we.”

Through the few contacts Conner had left on the other side of the wall, he knew that Vincent Kurita was making large noises accusing the Warlord of Benjamin District, Mitsura Sakamoto, of taking matters into his own hands. And putting a great measure of the blame for this “brushfire action” on the shoulders of Katana Tormark. But how well was that playing in the upper circles?

Could they take advantage of it?

“One way or another, we need to rally whatever we have here on Terra and make a decisive stand. Possibly”—he waved Cray Stansill back—“a proactive one. But we need to strengthen our borders here in Europe first and foremost. That means risking overland flights with the men and materiel we have trapped in Spain and hopefully Asia as well. The Americas… we likely need to write them off. We can rescue the one or two knights we have in the desert outside of Sante Fe, but not much more than that.”

Stansill’s face darkened, but he held his peace. For the moment. Riktofven and Ptolomeny nodded, adding their silent votes, while Melanie Vladistock leaned in with one final question.

“And if the exarch decides to get in our way, Conner? What do we do then?”

The ex-knight of the sphere, and the only warrior-senator on the books, rested back. The only answer he had was the same one he’d known since his father’s death, and his decision to stand against the exarch.