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Khalsu Mountains, Logan’s Land
Perdition Union, Taurian Concordat
31 January 2766

As it turned out, the drones did last long enough to pick up a trail from Colonel Dixon’s last known position but when they tried following it southwards they ran into heavy jamming that endangered their control signals.

Disgruntled that she apparently couldn’t entirely blame Dixon for dropping out of radio contact, McGuinness pulled back one of her combat teams and reinforced it with one of the armoured regiments that Fourth Army had cut loose to support her Corps. If nearly eighty ‘Mechs, seven hundred jump infantry, over a hundred tanks and a full battalion of artillery wasn’t enough to at least report in on Dixon’s alleged armoured column then the rest of the 168th would be better hunkering down and waiting for reinforcements.

Terraforming had never really taken hold up in the Khalsus and thus there only green to be found was a native moss and the olive drab of SLDF vehicles. No trees, no grass.

As they reached trail left by Dixon’s ‘Mechs McGuinness noted that the footprints of her ‘Mechs merged almost seamlessly with those left already. Only the tracks of the Marksman self-propelled guns, Magi tanks and the infantry’s APCs added something new.

As the sun dipped towards the horizon on the left, one of the ‘Mechs in the scout companies halted and lifted something from the ground in its clawed hand. “Armour shard,” the Mongoose pilot reported coolly. “Traces of dark green paint, which would match the Fusiliers’ ‘Mechs.

There were more shards along the path and McGuinness called a ten minute wait while the scouts – both ‘Mechs and dismounted jump infantry – fanned out to look for the source of whatever fire had been hitting the Fusiliers. No one mistook the pause for a chance to relax, the tanks laagered in a tight knot around her command group and the artillery, the rest of the force forming a looser perimeter beyond them.

“There were definitely hover vehicles up here,” came the report from one of the teams that had worked their way further up the slope. “And looking down from above, I can see artillery impacts – hard to tell on the ground with the bedrock. “I’d guess the tanks up here were spotting for a field battery.”

“Got a direction on where those tanks went?” asked McGuinness.

“South, ma’am.”

“Right. We’ll press on.”

The trail extended on. One ‘Mech in four used searchlights to illuminate the mountainside for the rest of the force. The debris increased in quantity – myomer strands, the arm of a Wasp. Twelve kilometres after the first shards, a Wolverine lay where it had fallen. The Fusilier markings had been almost obliterated but one shoulder still sported a nearly pristine sword and sunburst.

The cockpit, and presumably the Mechwarrior within, had been pried away. That hadn’t been the kill shot though. Peering into the ruptured torso, the distorted gauss slug was still visible in the floodlight.

“Where did the Rebels get a gauss rifle?” asked one of Mechwarriors who moved their ‘Mech up to look at the wreck. “No one outside the SLDF should have them.”

“The manufacturers might have sold some off the books,” McGuinness told him. “Or, more likely, there was an armoured regiment on Logan’s Land as part of the garrison. Their fort was over-run by the rebels in the first wave of attacks, last May. Some of their tanks could have been captured still working.”

They found evidence of that less than a kilometre later, a pair of Fury tanks smashed open by missile, autocannon and quite possibly by the armoured feet of BattleMechs crashing against their flanks. A one-armed Wasp, head reduced to wreck lay on the ground nearby.

McGuinness looked around. “A running fight,” she deduced. “First the Taurians lured them in and softened them up with artillery. Then they must have closed in with their tanks once the Feddies looked like easy prey.”

“They could still be fighting, ma’am.”

“Still as it is, I think we’d hear them. But we’ll pick up the pace.”

‘Mech after ‘Mech, tank after tank they followed the battle up the valley, jamming increasing in intensity until all communication had to be by laser tight-beam.

Then there was a roar of an explosion and the jamming cut out sharply.

“What was that?” McGuinness demanded.

“Sorry, sir.” The sideband data indicated the response was from the commander of one of the line ‘Mech companies. “We found the source of the jamming and took it out, but we misjudged how much protection was left on the tank’s fusion bottle.”

“Did you take any prisoners?”

“Negative, crew compartment was gone. It was a converted Fury chassis.”

That came to twenty heavy tanks, McGuinness thought. Add the spotting hover tanks and a battery and that was roughly a battalion. There were at least thirty wrecked ‘Mechs in the valley. Adjusting her radio she tried the Fusiliers’ frequency. “Colonel Dixon, this is Major General McGuinness. Respond with your location and condition.”

She was about to repeat the signal when Dixon’s voice came back clearly. “Good to hear from you, General. We’re at the head of a valley.” He read off a list of coordinates that McGuinness identified as perhaps a kilometre and a half ahead of her own position. “We’ve defeated an enemy heavy tank regiment and located an entrance to their base. Unfortunately they dropped the tunnel before we could make any progress down it.”

“A regiment, huh.” She checked her surroundings again. “Looks like you’re not far ahead of us, Colonel. We’ll link up shortly.”

And with a bit of luck, she thought, what’s left of your toy soldier regiment can be sent back for extended repairs outside my Corps’ area.


FSS Tancredi, Delavan Orbit
Crucis March, Federated Suns
3 April 2766

The shuttle carrying Kenneth Jones to his new command went past the occupied slips and he looked out the window to see what the Universal Air yards were working on. Among the oldest warship-capable yards of the Federated Suns, he’d visited them several times before and found that knowing what they and the newer McKenna shipyards over Kathil had in dock was good guide to what the Navy was up to.

Locked against the open framework were six Naga-class light destroyers, not ships that he’d known were in FSN use. So far as he knew, the SLDF had retired them from service decades ago, replacing them with the more modern Essex-class.

“I didn’t hear anything on New Avalon about buying in SLDF destroyers,” he noted to Admiral Moore, who sat across from him.

She looked up at him and then out of the window. “Ah. Well, it’s not above your clearance level, but they’re not ours. The SLDF needed additional escorts for their convoy work and the refit work on our own ships doesn’t really require full docking so UA are stretching themselves to handle both jobs.”

Only a few moments later, the shuttle crew advised them to strap in for the final approach. Obediently, the Commodore and the Vice Admiral made sure all their possessions were contained and fastened the five point-harnesses that held them in their seats as the shuttle went through the process of matching velocities and easing into the bay of their destination.

“Welcome aboard your new command,” Moore said as there was the sound of clamps securing them to the ship.

“Thank you, sir. It’s good to get out from behind a desk.”

She let a tight smile cross her face. “You thought you’d dropped off the command track and would be stuck pushing papers for the rest of your career?”

“Even if the court martial cleared me, that’s not the sort of black mark that usually gets forgotten, Admiral.”

“Yeah, well unofficially, you weren’t going to get another job that rubs you right up against the Army for a while longer. But you have a powerful patron.”

Jones reached up and tweaked the corner of his moustache, then saw the landing light go out and reached down to his harness. “I don’t know who that might be, honestly.”

“Don’t you?”

“No, sir. I’ve no family connections or mentors within the naval hierarchy.”

“A little higher than that. I’m told that Marshal Moscoe personally added you to the short-list to command one of the capital ships being brought out of mothballs.”

“I’ve never even met the Marshal,” Jones protested. They stood and he automatically waited for the Admiral to precede him out of the shuttle.

“It was a royal command,” she told him as she walked past.

I’m not sure how I should take that, he thought as the shuttle hatch opened.

A bosun’s whistle greeted them. “Division arriving, Tancredi arriving,” an NCO bellowed and a file of spacers crammed into the small bay snapped to attention.

“Permission to come aboard?” asked Moore as she reached the bottom of the steps down from the shuttle hatch and returned the salute.

“Permission granted.” The officer of the deck didn’t relax from his own salute until Jones had returned it as well. “Welcome aboard your flagship, Admiral Moore.”

“Thank you,” she said smoothly. “If someone can direct me to my quarters, I’ll let you get your feet under you, Kenneth.”

Jones refrained from responding to the deliberate informality. The first consequence of patronage, he thought sardonically. Everyone wants to take advantage of the connection, for good or ill. And the greater the patronage, the closer they want to be. “Of course, Admiral.”

There was a brief pause as Moore exited and Jones turned back to the officer. “I take it that my kit and that of the Admiral will be taken care of, Leftenant?”

“Yes, Commodore.” The captain gestured to the hatch. “Major Kaga is waiting for you on the bridge.”

Unlike traditional layouts, the navigational bridge of New Syrtis-class ships was amidships, aft of the flight decks. Familiar with the design from study over the last year even if he’d not served aboard one before, Jones found few surprises. Laid down two hundred years ago, the Tancredi had been mothballed on the formation of the Star League, re-commissioned for the Reunification Wars after the debacle at Tentativa and then laid up for a second time in 2651. In all that time no one had ever fired her guns in anger.

Jones thought that that made her a lucky ship. If he was fortunate then she’d keep that status for his tour of command. If he wasn’t… well, her sister-ships had performed well historically.

With the ship at rest the navigational bridge only had a skeleton crew on watch but two officers hung near the centre, gripping rails around the captain’s console as they waited for him. Both snapped crisp salutes as Jones entered.

“As you were.” Pushing off from the door he coasted across the compartment and caught himself deftly on the open shock-frame. “Commodore Plains, Major Kaga.”

“Welcome aboard, Commodore.” Weiss Plains looked entirely too young to be air boss of all six wings of fighters aboard a carrier, her snub nose and short blonde curls making her look more like one of the young pilots rather than their master under the Naval God, otherwise known as the captain of the Tancredi.

“Sir.” Major Mary Kaga, a lean brunette, nodded towards Jones’ attaché case. “Your orders, please.” The chain of command was convoluted due to carrier operations. Plains, as air boss, was on paper simply executive officer to the carrier’s commander who had joint responsibility both for the ship and for the over-sized aero-regiment she carried. Meanwhile Major Kaga was second-in-command and should anything happen to him, she would be required to take over and give orders to the air boss despite being outranked. In theory, a Light Commodore should have been assigned but the navy was as strapped for field officers as the army was.

“Naturally.” Opening the case he took the envelope, seal still visible although he’d opened it earlier, and handed it over.

Extracting the document inside, the Major unfolded it and looked it over. “All in order, sir. I relinquish command.”

“Major, I accept command.”

“Thank you, Captain.” The metaphorical cape of responsibility settled onto Jones with those words. Putting the orders away again he fastened the attaché case to the clips of his chair and gestured around the room. “Be so good as to acquaint me with our ship, starting with flight operations.”

.o0O0o.

Avalon City, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
21 May 2766

The Director of Naval Command was the administrative head of the Star League Navy but Joan Brandt preferred to omit ‘administrative’ from that – she’d been a hard-charging fighter jock before she made the mistake of getting promoted too far up the ladder to stay in the cockpit. Closing in on her fifty-fourth birthday she probably wouldn’t pass a flight physical these days… but you never knew for sure.

John had the distinct impression that the expression on her face was the same one she’d worn for all of her more than fifty kills. “Your highness, you told the General twelve months ago that we’d see the first destroyers back from your yards in a year. Why are they still docked?”

“I told him that it would take a year to refit them. The ships didn’t even arrive until the end of June last year, so there’s just shy of six weeks for McKenna to finish closing them up. The current projection is that they’ll be done in four.”

“I have crews arriving for them in two weeks, we need those escorts now. I can’t afford to have your shipyards dragging their heels!” she barked. “The yards at Keid could have had them done two months ago.”

“If screaming at me make you feel better, Admiral, then I’m happy to help the SLDF. But keep a civil tongue in your head about my workers. I’m sure that Keid’s docks could have done the work faster, but we both know they’re tied up through to the end of next year with bigger ships anyway. By the time you cleared the docks you’d have saved maybe a month at best, and then had to do without the cruisers being built.” John rose to his feet. “I heard about the Newport News as well.”

One of the SLDF’s massive yardships, capable of docking even a battleship for vital repairs, the SLS Newport News had been rammed the previous week, immobile as it worked to repair a destroyer’s jump-drive. Although the dropship had been hit repeatedly by shots from the escort, it had still been nearly ten thousand tons of metal, moving too fast to be stopped. Neither the yardship nor the destroyer had survived, and almost none of their crews had reached lifeboats.

“We’re having to pull corvettes forward from the supply lines to give the support squadrons extra cover,” Brandt told him, calming down a little.  “That’s going to leave the convoys exposed, which is exactly what those destroyers are supposed to doing.”

“Then there’s going to be a gap. It’s very unfortunate but shouting at me won’t change that.” John shook his head. “We’ll have all ten of the Naga you sent to us ready before the end of next month, which is still going to be faster than the Confederation or the Combine is managing. I don’t necessarily recommend screaming them, either.”

Brandt glared at him. “Crap rolls downhill, your highness. In my experience a little well directed anger can usually motivate people to work faster.”

“That isn’t how I run my realm or my military.”

“From what I hear, it shows in some of their performances.” The admiral pulled the soft purple cap of her dress uniform out of the pocket she’d jammed into. “But whatever method you do use, I’d appreciate it if you could see if the Carson’s are handled faster.”

“There are work crews aboard them now, getting started on anything that doesn’t require a full dock for,” John assured her. “I can’t promise an exact date yet, but they shouldn’t take longer at least. It’ll depend how much of what they did on the Nagas can be applied.”

“Maybe we should have just focused on the Nagas, then.” Brandt donned the cap. “You might beat the other yards on the first run of reconditionings only to come in third with the next one.”

“Now you see, that’s one of the motivations that I do use.” John rose and walked her to the door. “We have some of our own ships working up not far from Kathil, I’ll see if we can have them adjust their schedules to cover convoys.”

“And what do you want for that?”

“Normally I’d say nothing, since I usually feel that what’s good for the SLDF benefits me down the line. But since you’ve been such a delight to work with, ask General Kerensky to appoint someone of a suitable stature to act as a permanent liaison between my staff and his.” John gestured towards the door. “Bon voyage, Admiral Brandt.”

He closed the door behind her and leant against it for a moment before going to his desk again. “Owen, can you clear me the next fifteen minutes?”

“Of course, sire. I’ll let your wife know you’ll be a couple of minutes late to meet with the Scout troop from Arcadia.”

“I don’t pay you enough, Owen.”

“Well I wouldn’t refuse a wage hike, sire, but could it come from the black budget? I do have to work with the rest of the secretarial staff and it wouldn’t do to rub it in.”

John snorted and made a note to make sure to ask Edwina for suggestions on what Owen might appreciate as a gift. Then he made sure the intercom was off and looked over at Hanse. “I don’t know how Kerensky works with that woman.”

“She’s probably like most of the SLDF and thinks that the only reason he uses dropships is that it would make them feel inadequate if he just jumped up and down between McKenna’s Pride and planetary surfaces.”

 That got a forced chuckle from the First Prince. “I’ll send him a message to make it clear that asking for a liaison isn’t really a quid pro and more to ease frictions. I can live without more meetings.”

“Sure, but you didn’t need fifteen minutes to tell me that. What do you want to get off your chest?”

He sat down heavily. “You were right.”

Hanse moved to the desk and perched on one corner. “I manage that often enough that I need to ask what you’re referring to.”

“Amaris.” John hunched forward over the desk. “We’ve tried for years but we still don’t have any evidence to pin anything on him. Now I can’t see anything we can do except kill him if we’re to save the Star League.”

“When we discussed this six years ago, you pointed out that his son might simply take over. Tadeo’s of age now, which makes him even more dangerous.”

“At this point I don’t think we’re going to be worse off.” John raised his hand and started ticking off options on his fingers. “There are basically five scenarios here. First I do nothing, in which case it seems highly probable that Amaris will take Terra and the Hegemony just as he did in your history. Second, we try and fail but it’s not traced back to me. Really we’re no worse off at that point.”

“Third, it fails and Stefan can pin it on you. Richard would believe him.”

John nodded. “Joshua completes his military service this year, he’d be ready to take over and I’d be able to show that he had no hand in it. In that case, I take the fall and abdicate. The chances of the Star League Council supporting any drastic measures against me are slim, they’d not want to set a precedent. My story would be that I blamed him for the sniper in ’62.”

“Which might even be true.”

That got a shrug from the First Prince. “If so, then fitting I use it now as an excuse.” He examined his hand, with three fingers extended and then straightened his little finger. “We succeed but it’s traced to me. Same scenario, really, except that House Amaris might try to take up Stefan’s plan. Given the snake-pit of Apollo’s court, there’s at least a reasonable chance that someone would betray the coup attempt.”

“And finally he’s dead and no one identifies you. Which has the same chance.” Hanse shook his head. “Of course, if the attempt is linked to you then it’ll be damaging to the plans we’ve been working on. I know there are contingency documents prepared so Joshua wouldn’t be coming at it cold, but we’d almost certainly be unable to influence events any further.”

“I think it’s worth the risk.” To you, Hanse, the deaths that a collapsing Star League would cause are a statistic, something from a long time ago. But these are my people. I have the responsibility to do everything in my power to protect them from that.

The 31st century man spread his hands. “It’s your decision, John. Do you have the capability?”

“We have someone on Apollo. If it’s to be done, it has to be done there. He’s a local, as far as he knows the people supporting him are a cell of the Rift Republican Army…”

.o0O0o.

Avalon City, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
21 July 2766

Joshua’s new office was luxurious, but it felt like a cell to him.

He’d had an office for the last six months when he commanded a company of the Fourth Davion Guards, but that was just somewhere to keep the unavoidable paperwork and for privacy when someone needed some career guidance, also known as an ass-chewing. It wasn’t where he did his real job, in other words.

After four hours of reading reports he hadn’t requested and covered matters whose relative importance he didn’t feel he could judge, he’d made his escape and started visiting subordinate offices more or less at random.

Apart from giving his bodyguards a headache – and that was something else he’d have to get used to again, the detail at NAMA had been fairly unobtrusive and with the Guards his security had rested more on being surrounded by the regiment’s personnel and being on military reservations most of the time – he at least had some more context for what his Ministry did, and more importantly how. The Ministry of Administrative Services was a catch-all for any department that didn’t fall neatly into the purview of other Ministries. As such, the various department heads had little need to actually coordinate with each other.

Joshua’s task, as he understood it, was to have an overview of any problems that arose and to sort out any conflicts his department heads ran into with their counter-parts in other ministries. That felt a little daunting, since most of them were of his father’s generation or older, but at least in general he knew who they were and was their legal equal within the bureaucracy.

That didn’t mean he was ready to go back to his office though. An overview was all very well, but he’d spoken to the officer equivalents so far. The career managers who proposed policy, presented reports and spent their time in meetings with each other. Important, certainly, but what he needed if he really wanted a feel for the nitty-gritty then he wanted the sergeant equivalents, the long-service staff who carried out the work itself.

Thus, on his second day – and giving both the staff and his bodyguard details more warning this time – Joshua Davion adopted the threadbare disguise of combing his hair the other way, wearing a cheaper suit and a security badge that claimed he was ‘JD Winters’. Rather than visiting private offices, he sat on cheap government issue chairs in open plan offices and listened discreetly as the Federation Parcel and Post Agency dealt with complaints, the Federal Prison Service updated the dossiers of both current confines and on discharged prisoners who would still be on watch-lists, and finally the Department of Transportation as they struggled to co-ordinate the immense flow of shipping across the border of the Terran Hegemony and the Federated Suns.

Grabbing a quick dinner in one of the staff canteen, which he rated as somewhere between field rations and what he could have expected in a military barracks, Joshua went back through the notes he’d taken. He frowned. No, he wasn’t imagining it. Every time the Hegemony came in in discussion, regardless of the department, the same general perspectives came out.

“Time to head back home,” he decided aloud and put his tray away, the meal only half-eaten.

That was second on the list of things he was going to change, he decided. If the AFFS could deliver better food to soldiers on their bases, why couldn’t canteens in the middle of Avalon City?

It was only a short drive up Mount Davion to reach the family residence. At least home hadn’t changed, the sprawling fantasy castle that had been claimed centuries ago as the seat of power for House Davion. It was a national icon and two dollar bank notes printed in the Suns still bore its image on the rear, a holdover from the pre-Star League currency.

“Is my father home?” he asked at the security desk, only the most obvious of the multiply redundant layers of protection around the castle.

The conservatively-suited woman behind the desk – actually a Corporal from one of the infantry regiments assigned to the Royal Court - checked her console. “He should be in the family apartments,” she advised. “Welcome home, Prince Joshua.”

“Thanks.” He was about to go further when he caught her tapping the lapel of her jacket. Why was she…? Oh! With an embarrassed grin, he removed the security badge he’d been wearing. Probably some of the people he’d been sitting in with had guessed who he was, but no one had challenged him on it. Most had probably just taken him for another incoming manager getting some orientation – it would have been disruptive for a Minister to openly visit without more warning, particularly one of the royal family. Perhaps he should keep the badge in case he needed ‘JD Winters’ again, it could come in handy.

A lift took him up to the apartments and he ditched both the jacket and waistcoat of his suit before going looking for his father. One of the lounges was locked and he knocked. No one outside his parents should be here and behind a locked door.

A moment later the door opened and he saw John Davion, similarly dressed down for a private evening. “Home is the warrior?” his father greeted him. “I hope those aren’t the trousers you wore to the office, your valet will be crushed.”

“I don’t have a valet, and I was more or less incognito today.”

“You should. Like it or not, we’ve got to maintain a proper image.” The older Davion opened the door wider and gestured for him to come in. On one of the wall screens some sort of stage performance recording had been paused. “So how was your day?”

“Well I have a better idea what I should be doing compared to two days ago.”

“Good.” John sat down and lifted the remote for the wall screen.

Joshua winced. “Is that one of those Italian operas that mother despises.”

His father grinned and shut the display down. “I don’t expect you to listen to it, just keep whatever music your age bracket like lately inside your own rooms, fair?”

“Deal. I’m not spoiling your evening, am I?”

“We haven’t exactly spent a lot of time together since you graduated, Joshua. It makes a nice change to see more of you.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course, if I’m cutting into you going out and finding some nice young woman who can provide your mother and I with grandchildren, then go forth, young man, and multiply.” John raised his hand in mocking benediction.

“Father!”

“What, you’re not thinking about it?”

“I don’t want to be another cousin, Joseph.”

“Ah.” John’s smile dropped. “Alright. I won’t press you too hard on that then. It’s harder for us, in some ways, than other people. Our lives are more public. Don’t let chances slip through your fingers.”

“I wanted to talk to you about work, actually,” Joshua told him, pushing the other topic aside. “There seemed to be something… wrong with our relations with the Terran Hegemony.”

“Oh?”

“It came up a few times today, that when our people contact their counter-parts in the Hegemony they’re not getting the same co-operation they used to take for granted. Requests are lost, or slide back and data only arrives at the last minute. Sometimes later. I don’t have any overview, but it’s costing us time and money. Hurting people’s livelihoods.”

“Yes, it is,” his father agreed.

“You know about this?” Why aren’t you doing something about it? He didn’t ask that though.

For a moment John looked much more than his forty-six years of age. “When the First Lord farts, a thousand bureaucrats crap bricks,” he answered, bluntly. “Richard Cameron may not be much of a First Lord, or much of a Director-General, but the Hegemony still takes its general policies from him and good relations with the Federated Suns are a long way down his priorities.”

“But why? Of all the states, we’re supporting him more than anyone!”

“We’re supporting the SLDF, and by extension, supporting General Kerensky. In Richard’s eyes that isn’t the same thing.”

Joshua slumped into his chair. “So for that he’s putting the entire administrative structure of the League at risk? We’re one of the Hegemony’s biggest trading partners, or at least we were. Just today I saw at least three major contracts that could collapse because of this.”

“You’re not wrong, son. But how Richard chooses to run the Hegemony is up to him, not me. I can’t make him fix these problems, all I can do – and all you can do, now – is try to cushion our corporations against the damage it’s causing.”

“There has to be a way.” He clenched his fists. “Have you talked to Bennett Green? Isn’t this exactly what the Bureau of Star League Affairs should be digging into?”

His father shook his head. “I have, yes. But if you want to do the same then by all means. Maybe you’ll find a solution I haven’t. That would certainly be a relief.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Chin up, it’s only your second day on the job.” John stretched his arms out above his head. “It’s a big adjustment from being in the military. There you need to be decisive, try to solve everything with one clean sweep. That’s not how bureaucracy seems to function. I found it the same twenty years ago when I was in your shoes.”

“Was it that bad then?”

“No. No, it wasn’t.” John slumped into his chair. “And that, more than anything, is how far I’ve failed as the First Prince.”


Sidebar: The Star League Defense Force

"The PERSUASIVE FORCE exercises suggested that the combined forces of three SLDF armies could potentially overcome the Hegemony’s defenses. Of course, no member of the Star League could field a force of that size, so the Hegemony was deemed entirely secure."

Founded in 2571 shortly after the Star League itself, the SLDF had a rocky beginning. All the member-states had contributed portions of their armed forces to the new service. With the exception of the Terran Hegemony, which transferred its entire regular military, these were often regiments and ships that the Lords preferred to do without. Alexander Davion, for example, selected the thirty-seven regiments he sent from the Terran March and Capellan March forces that had opposed him in the Davion Civil War, and twenty-two of the twenty-three warships he handed over were block-I Davion-class destroyers of questionable utility (the SLN refits to make use of them ultimately yielded the Whirlwind-class in 2606).

Ian Cameron originally vested leadership of the SLDF in his wife, Lady Shandra Noruff-Cameron, who was a respected military leader in her own right. Disbanding existing regiments, she merged troops together from various realms, ensuring they were posted away from their home states to avoid conflicting loyalties. In addition, a core of elite regiments drawn solely from the Terran Hegemony were established as the Royal Command, who received preferential equipment. The SLDF’s initial actions weren’t promising – seeking to support a Capellan regiment against brigands made up of ex-soldiers from the Confederation, the Twenty-Second Royal BattleMech Regiment found itself under fire from the Capellan Regulars. A year later, poor coordination hobbled SLDF divisions during large-scale exercises against House units.

It was almost fortunate that in 2573, incidents on Malagrotta and Santiago drew the SLDF out into the Periphery and into the sprawling conflict later named the Reunification War. Given outside opponents to focus upon and a war-time budget, the SLDF matured into a powerful and flexible military force. As the House militaries were cut back further in 2650, greater responsibilities were delegated to the SLDF which grew to meet them.

By the 2760s, the SLDF numbered seventy-two regular corps, fielding between four and nine divisions of forces. These were grouped into twenty armies, along with an almost equal number of independent regiments and brigades. Supporting these were twenty fleets that totalled 1500 warships with a further 750 warships operating independently or in detached squadrons or divisions. Originally each fleet was attached directly to one army but reforms had separated them, with the fleets operating in their own areas of responsibility, overlapping the military districts occupied by the armies.

Until the Edict of 2650 was overturned, the SLDF possessed more than twice the military might of all ten states combined. As a result the commanders were vetted extremely carefully. Only one Commanding General would ever break faith with their First Lord, and even General Fredasa was motivated by the good of the Star League – First Lord Jonathan Cameron was a functional paranoid, obsessed with threats he perceived in dreams – rather than any personal ambition.

Zenith Jump Point, Ozawa
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
15 January 2767

They hadn’t brought dropships with them, the mission was strictly reconnaissance, so at least Jones didn’t have to deal with the problems that had arisen at Tortuga. On the other hand, Moore had decided to detach three of the onboard fighter wings to reinforce the worried garrison on Mallory’s World, which Jones wasn’t happy about.

FSS Tancredi also wasn’t the first ship to jump into the destination system – that was what her escorts were for and the two destroyers had jumped ten minutes earlier. If all was well, they would have cleared the immediate battlespace around the jump point of all threats.

Actually, he thought as the universe lurched and Commodore Plains covered her mouth with a drawstring bag, if all went well there wouldn’t be any threats.

Then the transit was over and systems that had been locked down against the side-effects began to spin up again. Plains was bent over next to her console but long routine had her petty officers working around her for the thirty seconds it took her to get her dry heaves under control. The confirmation that nothing obstructed the launch axis of the ship came in before the little blonde had finished wiping her mouth with an absorbent cloth but she nodded to the questioning look from the man next to her and the first eight fighters streaked out into space.

The jump point was cluttered with traffic, mostly civilian boomers and the dropships they were carrying. The familiar icons of FSS Arthur Davion and her sister ship FSS Katherine Davion were amidst them, under one gravity of thrust and escorted by their own fighters.

“- aware armed jumpships among the civilian vessels.” Pyotr Antonov was senior of the two destroyer commanders. “One vessel engaged and destroyed, two others using civilians as cover.”

“Understood,” Moore answered crisply. “Form on our flanks and send us as much ID material as you have, we don’t want to cause casualties among the civilian shipping. Captain, proceed with caution.”

“Aye sir.” Jones spun his chair back to Plains’ station. “Air boss we need a search pattern for two hostiles. Possible converted pre-League merchantmen, possibly heavily armed. More detailed information to follow.”

“Search pattern, aye. Red and Blue wings on dorsal and ventral patterns. Holding Silver and Copper for response.”

Jones didn’t bother with confirmation – it was her decision and it was the right one. The first two wings she referred to by their colour-coded wing-tips were in Centurion interceptors – fast and agile which made them the best for finding the targets. The next two wings, not yet launched although they’d be out soon were in heavier Lightnings loaded with heavy autocannon. Not ideal for taking on enemy shipping but this was no situation to break out the nuclear warheads in the Tancredi’s arsenal.

Checking the data from the Arthur Davion he confirmed his guess: the ships were both built on the hulls of small pre-League starships that had been designed around compact jump-cores that had since been reserved to military function. About the size of a Merchantman-class boomer, but more slender and sporting a fusion thruster that pure jumpships – most of which never went in-system from jump points – didn’t need.

“If it wasn’t so packed, they’d stand out a wolf among sheep,” he noted. “Ships like that aren’t exactly common this near to Terra.”

“Periphery raider, perhaps,” Moore speculated. “It’s armed, though. The first sighted gave the Katy a real nudge before she could fire back.”

“Yes...” Jones looked at the data and then frowned. “They only fired with capital turrets, not with secondaries. They might have been holding them back until fighters were launched, of course.” He glanced at the tactical display. “Admiral, I recommend we make headway x-20, y-75 and get clear of the civilians.”

“That could leave them clear arcs to fire on us from among the civvies,” she observed. “On the other hand, with forty fighters combing through the area they’ll have to fight or run – Barry, have you got anything from the civvies yet? A lot of contradictory talk from them,” she added to Jones “I think our targets may be transmitting bad data when we try to get facts. Make headway, let’s see if it gets a response.”

“And likely the civilians are worried that if they’re near one of them they might be targeted for talking. Or just caught in the crossfire.” Jones turned to the helm and gave the necessary instructions.

Something was said on the flag-deck and Moore spoke up again. “They’ve been here two weeks, long enough to charge their drives.”

“Then they have an alternative to standing and fighting.”

“Target one sighted,” snapped Plains. “Position data being plotted, Silver – ah, hell – Silver Wing is going after it. We lost the fighter that spotted them but the rest of the squadron is closing in to reacquire.”

“Good work, Weiss.”

Silver-white icons threaded their way through the tactical plot, racing towards the orange-haloed blue marker of the lost Centurion. Hopefully the pilot had made it out but there was little chance of that if the thirty ton fighter had taken a hit from a weapon intended for use against ship massing hundreds of thousands of tons. The blue markers were also coalescing towards the same point, hunting the killer.

“Launching Gold Wing,” the air boss announced absently. “Green Wing is on hold for rearmament.”

Jones frowned. Green Wing were interceptors, they could only carry around sixty percent the external load of the Lightning wings and had no internal ammunition bins. Then again, they might need all the punch they could muster to take out the enemy ships without using the Davion-class destroyer’s capital autocannon. “Conventional warheads?” he asked her.

Weiss shook her head, short blonde curls surrounding her face like a halo. “Rocket pods.”

Jones arched an eyebrow. Weren’t those usually used for surface strafing? “Proceed then.” Second-guessing his Air boss could wait until after the fight – by which point her decision might have been vindicated.

The enemy ship popped back up onto the display as Blue wing reacquired it, skulking behind a flotilla of egg-shaped bulk-carriers almost as large as the shark-like starship.

Copper Wing  arced away from the Tancredi, moving to intercept the enemy’s course as it realised it had been sighted again and lit up its main drive, no longer coasting. Before they arrived and before the ship could build any serious speed, Plains vectored Silver Wing around the Behemoth-class dropships and the twenty fighters slashed down on their prey, racing along its length from prow to stern.

Plains straightened. “Blue Wing reports the enemy navigational bridge is out, bow armour compromised.” A blue-white flash on her display. “Confirming three capital energy turrets in the enemy stern,” she added sourly as orange flashed around one of the silver fighters and it fell out of formation, tumbling. “Two lasers, one PPC, dual mounts. Amend attack patterns to avoid the aft arc.”

Silver Wing broke away behind cover, circling towards the nose of the enemy ship. Copper had reached position though and they drove in laterally, savaging one side of the bow. In response the ship rolled over and its much heavier massive autocannon sent trails of shells chasing after the Lightnings. None of them showed damage markers, but one of the trails of fire intersected with a Star Lord-class jumpship and blew it in half without the slightest effort. Escape pods burst away from the prow section.

“New contact, same class as before,” Plains reported and Red Wing began to converge before she scattered them sharply. “Keep looking, we don’t know there are only three. Green launching, Gold move to engage.”

“Hold that,” Jones ordered quietly.

Plains amended her instruction and then looked at him. “Captain?”

“As long as Red are still sweeping the area, they may not realise they’ve been spotted. They’re headed for our rear but we’re opening the range right now. Get Green out there and both wings can engage as a concentrated strike. In the meantime, it buys us time.”

She nodded in understanding.

Silver Wing was re-engaging the other ship, abandoning the earlier high speed pass and instead matching approximate vector and velocity, relying on their higher thrust-to-weight ratio to dance evasively around the enemy prow, weapons firing each time they spun their noses past it. Like a bull stung in the nose by a picador’s blade, the enemy returned fire with autocannon and at least one particle beam. At least, since it was pulling out of the civilian ships, there was less chance of them hitting another boomer.

That didn’t mean that Silver weren’t paying a price and they were short by two more fighters before Copper bled off their own previous speed and re-joined the fight.

“Moving Green and Gold in,” Plains reported. She careted way points on the tactical display. “No over thrusting, they’ll pick it up for sure.”

Compared to the rush to engage the first target, the two squadrons seemed to crawl across the battlespace. Jones took the time to launch recovery craft, both for the wreckage of their own fighters and for the civilian escape pods.

“Captain,” Moore called out. “I think I’ve got it through the civvies heads that the enemy are too focused on us to stop them jumping. We should see…”

“Multiple K-F fields building,” one of the sensor operators reported.

“Shoot it to the Air boss,” Jones snapped. If his fighters was in the wrong place when they ships jumped they could be torn apart by the jump-field.

Green and Gold accelerated sharply, over thrusting to get away from one of the building K-F jump drives.

“Target Two is accelerating.”

“A foolish decision,” Mary Kaga noted from the Combat Information Centre. “He should have held his position and jumped out. Our fighters couldn’t risk approaching him if he was about to jump.”

There were flashes of light and the battlespace began to clear. Hopefully the civilian ships would go somewhere safe.

“Engaging Target Two,” reported Plains. On the display, all forty aerospace fighters went across the bow of the ship, spreading out as they slowed and twisted away to avoid its return fire. The little woman gripped her console. “Their forward particle beam is out – the rockets did significant damage to sensor externals. That should hurt their accuracy.”

“Sir, target one is signalling.” The comms officer tapped his ear piece.

“On speakers.”

“They’ve ceased fire,” Plains noted, shifting attention back and forth between what were effectively separate engagements.

“-sel, this is the RWS Theban Legion. I request, terms of -”

The message, but not the transmission, was cut off with the retort of a gun and a second voice spoke up. “No surrender.”

Jones spun his seat to look at Moore’s face on the feed from the flag bridge. She was looking back at him with the same forced blandness he thought he was showing.

“The signal cut off, sir.”

“It seems as if they’re not of one mind over there,” Jones said out loud.

“Yes, and a Rim Worlds ship? Some of their fleet would be stationed in the Hegemony but I don’t recall anything like these in their listed forces.”

“A secret fleet to join the Periphery’s secret army?”

It seemed possible. Jones looked at Light Commodore Plains. “Continue the engagement. There are still civilians in the region, we’ll take escape pods if they launch them but I want those ships gone.”

“Aye sir. Pulling Red, Blue and Green back for a perimeter, with the pods expended they’re not adding anything to the other wings.”

Jones nodded. The modest lasers of the Centurions’ integral armament wasn’t intended for anti-shipping strikes.

A moment later, the first of the two enemy ships lit up with explosions, compartment after compartment gutting itself as fire spread along its hull. Jones winced – something must have ruptured the hydrogen fuel storage from inside the shop and it was venting into the personnel spaces.

“We’ll need a reload for Silver and Copper before they re-engage,” Plains reported.

Jones nodded. It’s an issue with carrier doctrines, he noted to himself. Death of a thousand cuts works for extended fights but we’ll need heavier fighters or better ammunition loads if we want to take out ships with a single fighter sortie. At least without the civilians we could use nukes now.

The Katherine Davion pulled away slightly from the Tancredi and began to rotate end to end.

“Captain Riley has a firing solution now that the civilians are clear,” Moore advised. “Pull your fighters back.”

He gave Plains the nod and saw the twenty fighters open the distance from the last enemy. All twenty? Yes, they hadn’t lost a single Gold Wing Lightning so far.

The destroyer opened fire with its forward guns, raking the Rim Worlds ship with heavy autocannon fire. Video feed from the fighters showed the hull being torn open by the heavy shells and Plains all but pouted.


Avalon City, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
23 January 2767

Francesca Reznick stood in front of the Privy Council. The first shock had passed, for the most part. Now they could confront the grim reality.

“The FSN has made contact with the garrisons we loaned to the Terran Hegemony on jointly administered worlds and seven other Hegemony worlds,” she reported. “All four worlds lost their HPG stations to sabotage and in the cases of Ozawa, New Florence and Rio, the primary jump-points were interdicted by warships of the Rim Worlds Navy. All seven Hegemony world had some degree of Rim Worlds presence either on the ground or in space.”

“Carrier divisions Tancredi and Pleiades were able to break the interdictions at Ozawa and Rio and several hundred civilian jumpships were able to escape, but we don’t have a great deal of information about what’s happening deeper inside the Hegemony and the New Florence picket managed to destroy FSS Buccaneer, with her escorts hot-loading their drives to escape.”

“Weren’t there any captured personnel?” asked Benton Hasek, representing his cousin Rita for the Ministry of the Capellan March.

“A few enlisted personnel. The most Military Intelligence has established so far is confirmation that as far as they’re aware, their ships were acting under the orders of President Stefan Amaris as part of a general operation to isolate the Terran Hegemony – and that operations commenced on the morning of the twenty-seventh of December.” Reznick folded her arms. “We know from the last information to reach us from Terra that President Amaris was scheduled to arrive the day before but bad weather kept him from landing until the evening. Whether that had an effect on his plans is hard to say.”

“What about our people on Terra?” asked Joshua quietly.

“With relations at such a low ebb quite a number of Council Aides and senior bureaucrats elected to return to the Suns for Christmas,” his father advised him. “It was intended as a low key message to Richard, but there were still hundreds of staff members and tens of thousands of tourists on Terra. Across the entire Hegemony, counting tourists, business travellers and whatnot it’s likely hundreds of thousands.”

“This is going to be a disaster.”

“Yes.” Joel Parks looked over at Bennett Green of the Bureau of Star League Affairs, invited by John to sit in on the meeting. “On many levels. Administrator Green, did the January credit transfer arrive from Terra?”

The man – Thomas Green-Davion’s maternal cousin – shook his head. “Our first sign of problems was when we didn’t get confirmation of the end of quarter tax transfers.”

Parks looked up the table to John. “That will cripple BSLA operations,” he said quietly.

“But you said that tax transfers hadn’t been sent? Can’t those be used instead of the usual funding?” asked Joshua.

“It’s a different account,” Green explained. “Until the Department of Revenue disburses the funds we can’t touch it. In fact, the banks aren’t sure if it should still be credited against the local Star League accounts or the accounts on Terra. We’re stuck in limbo.”

“Banking regulations aren’t a suicide pact,” John told them. “Joel, issue an instruction to the banks that until and unless transfers to the Hegemony have been verified they’re to assume that they transfers have failed and advise their customers as such. There must be millions of private and corporate accounts with the same problem.”

“Secondly, as of tomorrow we’ll have been out of touch with Terra for four weeks. While there’s no specific provision for this under the Accords, in an emergency even a non-quorum of the Star League Council can issue temporary directives subject to later ratification. While one member is a fairly long way from a quorum, I think this qualifies as an emergency.”

Green considered and then nodded cautiously. “Within reason, your highness, and only for temporary measures.”

“That’s acceptable. In that case I’m temporarily appointing a committee to direct Star League civil activities within the Federated Suns, handling any decisions that would normally be dealt with on Terra until contact is re-established.”

“You said the magic word,” Hanse noted. “He relaxed the minute you said committee. All bureaucrats love those.”

“I hereby appoint you as chairman, Administrator Green, and the senior representatives within the Suns of each department are also summoned to New Avalon as members.” That wouldn’t be hard, since all of them had offices here and all but one was on-world already. “Minister Davion of Administration Services will also sit on the committee as a liaison to the Federated Suns government.”

Joshua opened his mouth, possibly to protest, but John glared at him. You wanted to improve relations with the Hegemony, son. Now put your money where your mouth is.

“Your first priority is to maintain normal operations in the short term, disbursing Star League revenue as necessary to your departments. Your second priority is to have the Ministry of Communications re-establish links to the rest of the Star League Council. I realise we can’t coordinate real-time meetings without the connections through Terra, but we can vote by letter if need be.”

“Of course, your highness.” Green pushed his chair back.

John held up his hand. “Finally, you’re to draft a plan for the orderly scaling back of non-essential Star League programmes and the prioritisation of funding to the SLDF. We’re still on a wartime footing and General Kerensky has a lot of expenses that need to be paid for.”

Thomas Green-Davion leant forwards, drawing attention from his cousin. “A fight in the Hegemony would get ugly in a hurry,” he warned. “No one’s ever seriously tested the defences Lord Jonathon ordered except in simulated combat but based on exercises ten years they’d be a formidable force multiplier and we don’t even know how strong Amaris’ forces are.”

Eyes went to Reznick who nodded. “His expected deployments were around seventy-five percent of the RWA’s reported strength which would have put them on par with the one Corps of First Army still in the Hegemony. We have to assume that those numbers are under-reported though, because they’d have had to neutralised the SLDF forces and the Hegemony’s militia forces to have got this far.”

“Surprise and ruthlessness could have cut those odds,” John told her. “It’s entirely probable that many of I Corps’ and the militia’s bases were targeted with nuclear or chemical attacks in the opening stages and stragglers could be mopped up in isolated groups. If there are holdouts, as I very much hope, they’re likely to be the exceptions which managed to get an organised resistance together. Still, we have to assume that Amaris’ forces are much larger than reported. It would be consistent with the other Periphery states’ forces.”

“And they’re still in the field,” Stopec noted. “So Kerensky can’t simply withdraw from the Periphery without leaving a hostile force to his rear.”

The First Prince shook his head. “That’s also not a given. If Amaris was moving in concert with the rest of the Periphery then he should have moved much sooner. A year ago you’d have been right, but since then the other three states are probably down to only a couple divisions worth of troops each – and not as formed divisions, most of them are scattered in regiment or battalion pockets, sometimes even companies and lances fighting guerrilla-style wars.”

“This is probably more of a matter for the High Command,” Green-Davion pointed out. “Will you be making a public address?”

“At this point, yes.” John looked around the room. “I know this is going to affect all of our ministries on some level. For now, my son’s office will act as our point of contact for any matters that would usually involve the Star League. Joshua, don’t actually try to resolve all them directly, set up lines of communication between departments and the relevant members of Administrator Green’s committee.”

He rose to his feet. “The Star League was built on the premise that we could work together, which was the basis for the Federated Suns, on a slightly more local scale. What we’re facing isn’t a crisis, it’s a challenge. A challenge that we’re going to rise to.”

With forced humour, he added: “The crisis is going to be Stefan Amaris’ cleaning bill when General Kerensky has the SLDF back on Terran soil. Because that’s going to be a lot of brown pants to get stains out of.”


Avalon City, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
6 February 2767

The holographic image of Aleksandr Kerensky stood facing John across his desk, courtesy of the HPG channels between New Avalon and New Vallis. Damage to HPGs in the Concordat had forced the Commanding General to return to his previous command post for this conversation.

“Have you received any further communication from the usurper?” he enquired coldly.

John inclined his head. Stefan Amaris had broken the silence of the Terran Hegemony on 31 January, although it had taken time for word to spread. The President of the Rim Worlds Republic had announced his removal of the ‘Cameron tyrant’ and election as the Director-General of the Terran Hegemony. By the logic that the Director-General was the First Lord of the Star League, he also proclaimed himself the leader of the League – although he apparently preferred to style himself Emperor rather than merely ‘First Lord’.

“Not since he asked me to pass on his best wishes as Emperor to all his minions. His own words, in fact.” The First Prince shrugged. “I’m not inclined to do so. I can’t see any of the Council supporting him as Director-General, much less as Emperor. Bennett Green tells me that Duke Ueno ordered him to resume normal BSLA operations, including sending tax revenue to Terra. That isn’t happening and at least in the Combine and Confederation his colleagues are taking the same position.”

Kerensky lowered his head in a fractional nod. “I’m relieved to hear that. I will need time before the SLDF can respond. All of our communications will need to be re-arranged, thousands of functions that were handled on Terra or New Earth now have to be taken care of without their facilities or records. And… the men are shocked. Angry and fearful for their families.”

“I know.” John shook his head. “HPG communications are almost choked by families trying to contact relatives in the Hegemony. Have you heard from the other Council Lords?”

“Only Liao so far. She was reserved, assured me she would not support Amaris.” The general drew himself up. “However, she said that as Amaris is a Hegemony citizen, to act against him would be to interfere in internal Hegemony affairs.”

John winced.

“Yes.” The general nodded in agreement. “Kurita has had time to reply but has not.”

“I’ve had some unconfirmed reports from my people in the Combine,” John told him. Which was even true, albeit supplemented by Hanse’s information. “The Coordinator’s health is poor, and out of all of us he’s the only one of us with close family on Terra.”

“Us?”

John shook his head. “The Council, my apologies. You’re from Moscow, so…”

“We all have our hostages to fortune,” Kerensky replied coldly. “I will do my duty, Prince Davion. And part of this is that I must ask what will you do?”

“The AFFS is on a war-footing and I’m moving troops and ships to reinforce the seven worlds we’re garrisoning already – it’s a foothold for operations in the Hegemony once you’re ready. The High Council will be voting on war against the Rim Worlds Republic and, what did you call him, the Usurper? And with Stefan Ukris Amaris in whatever capacity, as soon as I can get them assembled. In the meantime, Administrator Green is handling Star League civil affairs within the Suns and Commodore Grec has been liaising him where those touch on the SLDF.”

“Janos is a good man, but his family are on Keid.”

“Fortunately not. I invited them to New Avalon for Christmas – it didn’t seem fair for them to be separated at that time of the year. Most of your senior staff’s families though… It’s a nightmare.”

Amaris will know who they are. And I could only get a handful of MI6 teams into the Hegemony, working against the League’s own security apparatus.

Kerensky made a helpless gesture. “You understand why I need time. You’re with us then.”

“To the end of the line, Aleksandr.”

“That, at least, is good news. I will need your support almost more than your soldier. You understand that I cannot continue operations in current warzones.”

“I agree completely. It would be bad enough if it was just adding the Republic to the problem but with the Hegemony…” John shrugged. “If the other Lords wish to make an issue of it they are welcome to send their own regiments to fight the rebels.”

“No.” Kerensky’s voice was like iron. “They would not be there to restore the League’s rule but to conquer worlds for their own realms. Soon they would begin to wage war with each other over the control of prized worlds -” He broke off and snorted. “Of such wealth as remains after two years of fighting. That must not be allowed. I will negotiate a ceasefire but it will be binding on the entire Star League.”

“The irony if you wind up having to send regiments back to, for example, the Alliance to defend them from the Inner Sphere would be painful.”

“I was not fighting against the territorial states, only the secessionists,” the general insisted.

John pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright, General. I’ll coordinate with Second Army to see what supply shortages you’ll be facing with the Hegemony unavailable. Most of it’ll probably be hardware we can’t build for you but Commodore Grec may have some idea what we can substitute. In the meanwhile, I’ll freeze all Rim Worlds assets in the Suns for confiscation and on a case-by-case apply the same principle to Hegemony assets associated with Amaris’ supporters.”

Kerensky frowned but nodded reluctantly. “We can’t let him pull resources from the rest of the League,” he agreed. “I can’t withdraw from the area until I have the ceasefire, but as soon as possible as I’ll relocate my headquarters to New Syrtis to coordinate withdrawing from the Periphery.”

“Respectfully, I suggest you depart immediately,” John counselled. “Without headquarters, much of the SLDF’s cohesion relies on you and General DeChevilier. Amaris can’t have consolidated his position yet and it may still be possible to relieve pockets of loyal troops.”

“How would we even find them?”

“Based on the reports of refugees who escaped the Rim Worlds blockade on civilian ships, some SLDF vessels are still operating in the Hegemony, presumably operating from concealed fuel and repair stations.” He grinned at Kerensky’s chagrined expression. “I may not know where they are but the fact the SLDF has such stations isn’t a very well-kept secret I’m afraid. The 568th transport flotilla has volunteered to try to establish contact – actually, I gather it’s everything Janos has been able to do to persuade them not to try to hook up with whatever ground troops they could find and try to liberate the Hegemony immediately.”

“That’s insane. Nine warships and a few transports can’t possibly contest against the forces Amaris must be able to bring to bear.”

“And that’s assuming they don’t rush headlong into one of the Space Defense Systems. Those systems could effectively have full fleets guarding them if Amaris has control of the drones – or be wide open if he doesn’t. We just can’t tell.” John spread his hands. “To come up with a strategy against Amaris, you’re going to need information – and if there are loyal troops holding out on some worlds, then we owe it to them either to evacuate them or to reinforce them.”

“Reckless, very reckless.”

“Let’s see what we can find out. I can meet you on New Syrtis in a month and by then we’ll know better what we’re dealing with.”

Kerensky considered and then nodded. “I’ll have the location data for some of the stations sent to Commodore Grec, for relay to the flotilla’s commander. In the meanwhile, we both have much to do.”

“Then let’s be about it.” John stood and bowed respectfully as the holographic image winked out.

With a sigh he looked at Hanse. “You’re sure?”

The other man nodded. “Amaris’ control of the SDS networks won’t be complete for two years and at the end of that time he’d raised something along the lines of thirty divisions of admittedly under-equipped and trained troops from the Hegemony. Press him hard, now and in places where he hasn’t focused the bulk of his attention – like the worlds scouted so far – and cracks should start to show.”

John sighed. “Should. If Brasco’s flotilla shows the same then I’ll press on but if not then I’m not risking thousands of troops by moving in without the SLDF.”

“I can’t fault you for that.”

The First Prince picked up his phone. “At least I can relieve someone’s concerns.” He tapped the control, “Owen, get me Joel Parks please.”

A moment later and the Minister of Ways and Means responded. “How can I help you, sire.”

“It occurred to me that I’m very nearly late in getting back to you about those loans I took out last year.”

“You have been very busy,” the other man conceded, “All things considered.”

“Well, conveniently all of the banks involved have made very sizeable loans to Stefan Amaris,” John advised. “Before and after his declaration last week. That’s treason, and General Kerensky has concurred with me that the assets of Amaris supporters should be frozen and confiscated. So that’s one less headache.”

Parks narrowed his eyes very slightly. “Sire, did you by any chance expect this?”

“Joel, really! If I had evidence that Stefan Amaris was plotting treason I would have shared it with General Kerensky immediately.”

“Evidence. Indeed.” The corners of Parks mouth seemed to shift slightly upwards. It might have almost been considered a smile. “Sire, do you play poker at all?”

“No, or at least not since my military days. Not really my passion.”

“Good,” the Minister said with audible relief and ended the call.


Saso, New Syrtis
Capellan March, Federated Suns
14 March 2767

“Amaris will expect us to return directly to the Hegemony,” Aaron DeChevilier explained from the large holo display of the Cave, the Capellan March’s command centre. John had co-opted it for this discussion. “Lord Marik remains uncooperative and the new Coordinator has so far declined to respond to messages, so the easiest route would be for all three of the current Army Groups to withdraw into the Capellan Confederation and Federated Suns, then move into Terra Firma and Lockdale provinces.”

He gestured with the control wands, arrows arcing across the Inner Sphere to show three blocky blue arrows extending across the Inner Sphere only to be halted by solid blocks of red. “For this reason we assume he’ll be prepared for such operations. At the same time, moving the SLDF directly into the attack would further play into his hands by sending depleted units into action before they’ve fully integrated replacement personnel and equipment. On the morale level, many soldiers may not be thinking clearly, as we’ve seen with the measures necessary to prevent the Thirty-Fourth Royal BattleMech Division from launching an immediate counter-attack on Epsilon Indi. The reports received make it clear the Caspar Drones in that system, they’re fortunate no transport was available for their attempt.”

“I take it that you feel returning to the Hegemony would be premature,” John asked politely.

DeChevilier cleared the map of troop movements. “I feel, Lord Davion, that returning to Terra immediately is the most important thing in the universe. But I cannot allow myself to be ruled by my heart. If we are to prosecute this war then it must be done correctly.”

He brought up new icons. “Currently we have five armies within the Inner Sphere, one in each Member State, reinforced by elements of First Army’s two remaining Corps. This should be sufficient to contain Amaris’ forces and prevent them from striking at the Member States. In addition they can support information gathering and provide logistical support to such resistance as may be operating within the Hegemony.”

“Meanwhile -” Leaving five blue blocks around the Hegemony, DeChevilier sketched two arrows that almost encircled the Inner Sphere, terminating at either edge of the Rim Worlds Republic. “- we’ll reorganise the fourteen armies operating in the Periphery into two army groups, each made up of three armies tasked for assault operations and four of the more badly depleted armies to act as a reserve and occupation force. Striking from two directions we’ll secure the Rim Worlds Republic, cutting Amaris off from his sources of equipment and personnel in the Periphery. Indeed, where possible we’ll try to take the infrastructure of the Republic intact so we can use it to help reconstitute the SLDF for operations in the Hegemony.”

“I see.” John folded his arms. “You’re looking at four to six months to position your forces and then campaigning upwards of three hundred light years with each of these army groups. For comparison, the Outworlds Alliance, which was arguably the worst battle zone of the Uprising, is smaller and more sparsely settled than the Republic and it was expected to take another full year to finish pacifying it. So assuming serious opposition, which I personally feel is unlikely but has to be the operating assumption, the SLDF could require three years, or perhaps even four, to complete operations in the Republic. That would set any serious return to the Hegemony as falling in 2772 at best.”

“That would be in line with our estimates.” DeChevilier gave John an impressed look, unaware that John had the advantage of Hanse’s hindsight and of spending several weeks working this out with his staff rather than coming in cold as most of the SLDF staff had – after all, they’d been fully engaged with wrapping up their existing campaigns.

“I hate to think how deeply Amaris will be entrenched in the Hegemony four years from now,” John said quietly. “Especially as any factories lost to him in the Republic will be far off-set by the immense military-industrial complexes of Terra and the other old Alliance Worlds. Just on a naval level, he could control quite literally half the Inner Sphere’s major shipyards.”

“Do you have an alternative proposal for how we should proceed, Lord Davion?” asked Admiral Brandt. “Or are you simply playing devil’s advocate?”

John pulled a data disc from his attaché case. “If I may take the floor, General DeChevilier?”

For the first time since his arrival, he saw something approaching a smile upon the Deputy Commanding General’s face. “I blame you for this, Admiral,” he said as he handed his control wands over.

The disc was compatible with the holo-display of course, since it was AFFS equipment. There were some slight differences in the map projected. “I don’t have detailed breakdowns of your current strengths, for obvious reasons,” John observed. “And I apologise if the change in colour confuses anyone.” His projection marked SLDF troops in olive rather than blue, while the Rim Worlds Republic and Terran Hegemony both glowed a more malefic crimson than that in DeChevilier’s briefing. There were also a smaller number of golden icons: the AFFS.

“My staff and I basically came to the same conclusions that you appear to have drawn about time taken to reconstitute and redeploy,” he advised, indicating a timestamp. “As of late summer this year, this plan would have the existing Army Group Twelve move from the Magistracy across or around the Free Worlds League to bases around Rajkot in the Bolan Pocket. General Surban’s Thirteenth Army is familiar with the area, of course.” An olive arrow marked the progress.

There were a couple of snorts. Rajkot was one of the hotspots in the Thirteenth Army’s traditional operational area, a pocket of Lyran space surrounded by the Free Worlds League and the Rim Worlds Republic.

“From there the Twelfth Army would detach and move up to Twycross where it would join Army Group Thirteen.” A smaller arrow extended from Rajkot to connect to the much larger one that circled the Draconis Combine. “While I can’t comment on Kenyon Marik’s state of mind I strongly recommend against trying to redeploy through the Combine at this time. Our understanding is that the Combine Ambassador was on Terra during the Coup, and he’s the new Coordinator’s first cousin. There’s no way to know at this point how much leverage that gives Amaris.”

“Why deplete Army Group Twelve for Thirteen?” asked Brandt. “I agree, as it happens, but I’m curious as to your reasoning.”

“Primarily it’s to make sure the Twelfth and Thirteenth Armies are in place within their old operational areas,” John told her. “Generally they’ve had good relations with the LCAF and since this plan would involve operating out of the Commonwealth, that seems important. To offset the transfer, some elements of the Twentieth Army – primarily LXVII Corps – would detach and be transferred to Army Group Twelve. Twentieth Army itself would essentially disperse to give each element of the two Army Groups a force familiar with the Rim Worlds Republic. In addition, Army Group Twelve would be responsible for securing the older core worlds of the Republic so they could face stronger opposition.”

The admiral nodded thoughtfully but said nothing. DeChevilier gave her a suspicious look.

John looked around for more questions and when there were none he advanced the display again. Now the olive arrows moved into Rim Worlds space, which slowly began to fill with olive in place of the previous crimson. “There’s a more detailed operations plan, but I think we all know that when it comes to the ground, these maps have a fairly limited relationship with actual battlefields,” he said wryly.

There were audible chuckles now, not just snorts.

“Obviously I haven’t mentioned Army Group Eleven, yet.” John indicated the mass of troops hovering on the Taurian border. “They will move towards the Terran Hegemony, with a schedule to be in position to attack into Lockdale Province at around the same time as the attacks on the Rim Worlds Republic.”

The last arrow appeared, charting this movement and John reached into the display to highlight it. “A large and obvious offensive,” he explained and then zoomed the map in. “Something to draw Amaris’ attention.”


Saso, New Syrtis
Capellan March, Federated Suns
14 March 2767

Later that day, Kerensky had withdrawn to a more select group of advisors. “We’ve all discussed your plan’s merits, Aaron,” he told his deputy. “I think we’re familiar with its strengths and weaknesses. What do you make of the Prince’s?”

“I’d like to hear from Jack first,” DeChevilier replied. “If things go wrong then he’ll be the one who has to pull IX Corps and the AFFS out of the fire.”

Two years before, Jack Lucas had been one of Tatjana Baptiste’s many, many regimental commanders, part of the 202nd BattleMech Division. When the division paid the price for poor leadership from a commander more skilled in handling a single BattleMech than almost seven hundred of them, Lucas had shone out in contrast. Roseleen McGuinness had given him command of first the brigade-sized remains of the 202nd and then the prestigious 225th Royal Mechanized Infantry Division – a position he wouldn’t normally have qualified, having been born outside of the Hegemony – to replace the dead General Delacroix.

The rapid rise had caught DeChevilier’s eye as the pressures of war forced the flaws in officer after officer to the surface. Headhunting Lucas for a vacant Corps command in Third Army, he’d personally championed the aggressive Mechwarrior to Kerensky when General Strangher’s health had finally made it impossible for the aged officer to keep up with his duties.

“I agree with Davion’s point that we still have a window of opportunity before Amaris has a solid grip on the Hegemony,” he responded bluntly. “Feddie intelligence in the Periphery was good, better than ours sometimes. If they’re telling him that the spinward fringes of Lockdale Province are still a soft target then I’ll take a chance on it.”

“But there’s something that bothers you?” asked Baptiste.

“The rest of the AFFS isn’t as good. If IX Corps runs into trouble, I don’t want them relying on Feddie regiments to back them up.”

“I see.” Kerensky nodded and then looked over at Baptiste. “You’ve had a broader view of the AFFS than Jack over the last few years. What do you think?”

“They’re inconsistent,” she said after a moment’s thought. “Some of their regiments are good and there’s some idea of operations above that level but the first regiments sent to us were probably picked for being close to the Taurians over ability.”

“We don’t have that luxury for that with this plan,” DeChevilier warned. “Could you tell by looking at his force listing if he’s assigning sandbags or competent soldiers?”

“LXII Corps should have records of AFFS exercises in ’63,” she told him. “McGuinness thought the winning side was good.”

“The others weren’t,” Jack observed. “I was there and they got rolled, hard. But yeah, some of them can fight,” he admitted grudgingly.

Kerensky nodded. “Aaron?”

“The logistics are there. In some ways it’s easier than my plan, less need to shift shipping out of the Suns. We’d need a hard stop line, thus far and no further. And to have some oversight of the forces the First Prince sends.”

“General Verschaffelt is an old friend,” Kerensky said slowly. “I consider her very able, but we have found many officers react less well to warfare of this scale than to our operations in the past. And she does not have the seniority to lead a joint operation of this nature.”

“I rather expected to stay in charge of the Army Group,” protested Aaron.

Kerensky shook his head. “I will need you in the Republic. And I must go there myself, so that means that you and Joan must trade places.”

DeChevilier and Brandt traded glances. “Can you work with the First Prince, Admiral? You seemed to have some friction previously.”

“Leave Grec as liaison,” she told him. “I don’t particularly like Davion but he’s got backbone and I’ll put up with him over most of the other lords.”

“Faint praise.”

“You said earlier, Aaron, that you felt that we should strike for Terra now, but that you refrained because your heart could not rule you.” Kerensky ran his hand back over the crown of his head. “I feel the same way. But perhaps, just perhaps, we have therefore pushed ourselves too hard to reject the idea. There would be… political advantage,” he added, disdainfully.

“You don’t mean Davion’s support?” Lucas asked.

“No. No, that I do not doubt. But the others, if they see him fighting alongside us. If they see that Amaris cannot fully guard himself…” The general straightened. “I will require assurance that the attack will be within sane limits and that the AFFS participation is not of a nature that we risk losing IX Corps. But if these are met, then I will accept his plan.”


Saso, New Syrtis
Capellan March, Federated Suns
15 March 2767

John opened the balcony door of his guest suite and stepped out to watch the sunset.

The day had been filled with settling not only Kerensky’s conditions for the tentatively designated Operation MATADOR but dozens of other matters that would be necessary for the SLDF and the Federated Suns over the next few years.

“Count Johnston looked pleased,” Hanse observed as he walked out to join John.

“He just had a more or less open-ended contract from the SLDF to buy as many Culverin gun carriers as he can build. He’s going to be richer than ever.”

“It’s not a closed system.” The redhead moved around, hair ruffling in the cold wind. Why it did that, John wasn’t sure. Possibly just because Hanse believed it should. “It doesn’t really matter how much money’s in the economy as long as it keeps moving.”

“I don’t need a lecture in basic macro-economics, Hanse.”

“Sorry.” He leant on the rail next to John. “So what do you want to talk about? Getting crews for the SLDF destroyers in the dockyards, now they can’t pull crews together from the Hegemony? That’s going to be fun.”

“I don’t want to talk about anything!” John shook his head as he realised he’d raised his voice. “Sorry.”

Hanse cocked his head and then grinned. “Sorry, force of habit. When you go somewhere private, I just tend to assume you want to talk to me without people looking at you funny. I forgot you might want some time alone.” He pushed himself back from the rail and turned around. “I’ll go follow Jack Lucas around. Interesting guy, I wonder what happened to him in… you know. Exodus fleet, I suppose.”

John glanced back and saw Hanse enter the rooms. “Wait,” he said on impulse.

The other prince turned and smiled warmly. “Sure.”

“There is something, I’m just not sure how to say it.”

“Take your time.” He leant against the door-frame, entirely at ease.

John turned back to the landscape, letting the cold New Syrtis air press his uniform tunic against his chest. “I’m not giving up,” he said at last.

“I never said you were.”

“Maybe I was wrong about Amaris. We’ll never know, but I’ll give you that.” He looked up at the sky, knowing that behind him, behind the ducal palace, the dusk was beginning to set in. When he lowered his gaze the sun’s rays stabbed out, forming something like the un-even Cameron Star in his eyes. “But the Star League’s worth saving. And if I couldn’t save Richard, maybe I can at least change the outcome of this war. Win it sooner, at less of a price. Before the last hope of pulling the Council back together has gone. It starts with the worlds we’ll target for MATADOR, but that’s just the first step.”

“A long road,” Hanse told him drily. “But I believe you. I heard you speaking to Kerensky after all. All the way to the end of the line?”

“Whatever it takes.” He hesitated. “But I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologising to me?”

“Well, it means you’ll never exist. You or your family. There’ll be other Davions, but it won’t be the same.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that. They existed for me, that’s good enough. And the universe is a funny old place, so it’s just as likely that they do exist somehow, somewhere. It’s no stranger than me being here in the first place. Hell, I could wake up suddenly and be back on New Avalon getting politely told off for dozing off at my desk.”

“You think that could happen?”

“Could? Sure. Will? Eh, I’m beginning to doubt.” Hanse didn’t sound too disturbed. “Almost, lord, almost twenty years ago now, I figured I’d had my days of glory and that it was time to settle down on raising my family and making sure things were ready for Melissa and I to hand them down to our children. Whatever my neighbours thought, I really had no plans to go to war again. Well, contingencies, but I wasn’t going to start one.”

“And then you woke up here.”

“And then I had to deal with an invasion out of nowhere, but after that I ended up here.” The redhead shrugged. “It’s not bad, really, being able to step back and let someone else carry the responsibility. Kind of like it might have been if Ian hadn’t died.”

John shivered. “I see.” He walked back inside and closed the balcony door.

“Had enough privacy?”

“No, it’s just freezing out there. Go indulge your man-crush on Jack Lucas.”

Hanse Davion threw his head back and laughed. “Right, right.”

John waited until Hanse was almost through the door and then confessed. “I always wanted a brother.”

The ghost paused in mid-step for just a fraction of a second, partly immersed in the door. And then he stepped forwards and out of sight.

The First Prince slumped on a couch, opened up a note computer and started refining his plans for the eight division attack – a quarter of them from the AFFS – to push the Rim Worlders back the first twenty light years on the long road to Terra.


Sidebar: Warships of the Federated Suns Navy


In theory, warships of the FSN were named for planets of the federation, this being deemed a politically neutral statement, or at least less divisive within the High Council than naming ships for politicians. It’s all relative, one supposes. Typically planets chosen to contribute their names are politically or historically significant, although a sufficiently charismatic or well-funded member of the High Council might sway support in the favour of their homeworld.

FSS Markesan, a Robinson-class transport, is named for the capital of the Markesan Operational Area, one of the Crucis March’s major sub-divisions and the most exposed of them to raids from the Capellan Confederation or Draconis Combine. FSS Tancredi, a New Syrtis-class carrier, is named for Tancredi IV, the capital of the Draconis March until the Davion Civil War in the early 26th century. Having seceded to the neighbouring Outworlds Alliance after the defeat of Laura Davion’s Draconis March-centred faction in 2533, Tancredi IV was ceded back to the Federated Suns in a secret ‘arms for worlds’ treaty in 2581.

Davion-class destroyers are one exception to the usual traditions of ship-naming, each ship honouring prominent members of House Davion. This list is not limited to the leaders of the family: FSS Katherine Davion is named for Doctor Katherine Anne Davion (2208-2242), one of the four members of the Davion family who first settled on New Avalon in 2232; and FSS Arthur Davion is named for Major Arthur Davion (2410-2447), a minor military hero and the son of Edward Davion, the last President of the Federated Suns.

The Defender-class battlecruisers predate the system of naming ships for planets and a considerable number of the current FSN’s warships were transferred from SLDF mothballs at the time of the Reunification War. Attempts to rename these ships in line with common practises were fiercely rejected by the FSN, who abide by ancient tradition that once a ship has been named it is unlucky to rename her.

Nagumo, Ozawa
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
11 August 2767

The drop port was a smaller field rather than one of main facilities that handled freight and public transportation for the planet. Those facilities would be very useful for unloading the military equipment and supplies currently in orbit. For that reason the Rim Worlds garrison had defended the ports by shelling them with a mix of high explosive and artillery-deployable anti-tank mines. Engineers would have to finish securing the latter before the damage to the former could be made good.

As a result, the Condor dropship set down on a single relatively small runway and pulled up a little harder than the pilot seemed to have expected. The escorts wouldn’t be setting down here to rotate, a second landing field had had to be set aside and guarded for that purpose.

The massive security presence made it no great secret who was arriving, but at least they didn’t have a brass band, John thought. A small convoy of olive-painted APCs rushed out to the Condor and were joined by two identical units that exited the dropship’s vehicle ramp.

After a complicated little dance on the ferrocrete, the personnel carriers broken into groups and departed in several directions, one of which was the bunker complex that supplemented the original hangers and control tower. Elements of one of IX Corps’ engineering battalions had assembled it in the last seventy-two hours. John had pulled a platoon from one of his own battalions and had them watch, issuing a single one word order: “Learn.”

For all their newness, the conference facilities were perfectly functional. The First Prince rose from the table and greeted Joan Brandt with a gentlemanly bow. “Welcome to Ozawa.”

“Yes, wasn’t your plan to have the planet secured by now?” she said without ceremony.

“The plan was to push as far as this or until we ran into opposition we couldn’t confidently defeat without the main force under your command.” He offered her a chair and then re-joined Janos Grec, who now sported a Vice Admiral’s rank badges, and General Verschaffelt, whose arm was in a sling. “We’ve reached that point, so we stopped and waited. That’s as near as you can reasonably get to being on plan once you consider that Amaris’ forces have a plan too.”

Brandt shook her head. “And who took a shot at you, General?” she asked.

“No one,” the commander of IX Corps replied. “The jeep I was in yesterday hit a pot-hole and over-turned.”

“Could have been worse then.”

“Most of my men would agree,” Verschaffelt told her. “I think they have a new appreciation for how bad the fighting was in the Periphery.”

Brandt shrugged. “You’ve liberated seven planets from Amaris, well four and three halves. Given you managed that with eight divisions, it’s not all that bad.”

Grec cleared his throat. “It was going rather well until the attempt to take Rio’s Castle Brian. The entire division involved has had to be pulled back due to casualties. That’s why we haven’t pushed at the fortifications.”

Castles Brian were from the previous round of grandiose defensive works built for the Hegemony. The massive underground fortifications were intended to allow an outnumbered garrison to hold out and harass the invaders until a relief force arrived. Updated regularly over the centuries since Brian Cameron had commissioned them and given them his name, the six that had been encountered so far were performing the task superbly.

The problem was, due to Richard Cameron’s blind trust of Stefan Amaris, the men defending the Castles Brian were the invaders.

“There are fortresses like this in the Periphery,” John added. “As far as I know, not one of them was taken during the Uprisings.”

“Not the Uprisings, no. There are four in the Rim Worlds Republic though and they’ve been in their hands for ten years now. Damn Dick Cameron,” Verschaffelt said angrily. “The General will have this to deal with out there as well.”

“We can’t change what’s happened already,” John reminded her. “What we need to focus on now is arranging a smooth handover between your troops and Admiral Brandt’s Army Group.” It sounded odd to him to have an Admiral in command of ground troops, but there was little permanent structure in the SLDF for field command above the level of an Army – the five regional ‘Army Groups’ had been administrative in nature.

To be fair, until the entire Periphery had gone up in flames, there hadn’t been any situations that had called for more than one Army. Any one of the twenty field Armies would have been enough, combined with the attached fleet elements, to seriously threaten one of the House Militaries. On the few occasions when such was attempted, like the PERSUASIVE FORCE exercises of 2757, the Commanding General had taken charge directly.

Faced with three such challenges at once, Commanding General Aleksandr Kerensky had taken direct command of the Armies fighting in the Taurian Concordat, deferred operations in the Outworlds Alliance to his Deputy, Aaron DeChevilier, and finally selected the Director of the Star League Navy to take operational command of the army group fighting in the Magistracy of Canopus.

Responding to the shift of focus away from the three breakaway territorial states had been complicated enough without making major changes so at least for now the Army Groups would retain the same basic composition, only the commanders and their personal staffs switched between them to allow for their specific capabilities to be best used.

“We’ll need her if the Rim Worlds fleet come out to hit our support,” Hanse noted. “But it feels strange to have an admiral telling the army what to do.”

It should feel strange for you to be here and talking without them noticing, John thought. But I guess you can get used to anything.

“In the absence of major space ports, General Lucas will probably need to use combat landing procedures to get his troops down,” Brandt decided. “Not all of his transports are rated for that so we’ll be sending troops in based more on what they’re loaded aboard than any sort of sensible troop deployments. At least some of the space ports survived the fighting on other worlds.”

“The important thing is to get his forces in to secure our grip,” John told the Admiral. “From what you sent ahead, there’s going to be quite a lot of reorganisation going on anyway before we press further.”

“Do your spies expect a counter-attack?” she asked him.

“With the way Amaris has clamped down on HPG traffic since May, most of our agents are cut off,” John answered. He’d been surprised to learn that the SLDF held his intelligence personnel in high regard. From what Hanse had told him about their failures in the other timeline, they had not performed well in this era but it seemed that the reforms he’d made on the ghost’s recommendations had changed perceptions. To be fair, it was probably also a factor that with a good idea of what challenges they’d face had allowed him to focus resources in the key areas, as well as point investigations in the right direction.

“The hidden fleet reported a force of thirty warships being massed at Al Na’ir, so I think he was considering such an attack but between our stopping our advance and your arrival they haven’t seemed to leave the system. It’s possible it was a demonstration of strength for the Combine -” Al Na’ir was a significant naval stronghold on the Hegemony’s border with House Kurita and it boasted a Space Defense System of ground bases and drone warships that made it an extremely secure base of operations. “- or more probably the information of your arrival preceded you and Amaris decided not to risk having his fleet run into a superior fleet.”

While IX Corps and the AFFS elements of the advance force had more than thirty warships between them, they were necessarily scattered across not only the seven liberated systems but also the supply lines back into the Federated Suns. A concerted strike could have wreaked havoc. In order to ensure Third Army’s security though, Brandt had amassed almost a hundred warships with lithium fusion batteries that gave them double the usual strategic mobility and raced them across the Federated Suns to reinforce convoy escorts and patrol squadrons from various missions around the Hegemony’s border.

If Amaris had sent only thirty warships in to attack then he could easily have lost them all to a rapid response from Third Army’s escorts. While the full story of the coup that had secured the Hegemony for him remained obscure in many ways, it was clear that the occasions where Rim Worlds warships faced the Star League Navy on anything approaching even terms had cost Amaris heavily in both ships and crews.

The first he was replacing from the Hegemony’s own stockpiles and shipyards. The second was less certain but given time he would no doubt manage.

After last December, it would be a long long time before anyone underestimated Stefan Amaris again.


Fourth Army Headquarters, New Rhodes III
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
20 September 2767

Liberating the worlds was one thing, restoring everything to full functionality was another. Thus far only New Rhodes of the seven systems had a functional HPG and that had apparently strained the resources of capabilities in the nearby regions of the Federated Suns. The Army Group’s headquarters had been set up there as a matter of necessity and since General Baptiste of Fourth Army was acting as Brandt’s field commander for ground operation, Fourth Army had landed there to begin with.

“Good to see you again, General.” Jack Lucas returned McGuinness’ salute quickly and then offered his hand.

She accepted. “It’ll be good to be see action with you again, General Lucas. A little strange to be under your command rather than the other way around, but good.”

“I’m glad you feel that way.” Lucas gave his old Corps commander a searching look. “I considered asking for one of the other Corps to be seconded to Third Army for the sieges on Ozawa but LXII Corps is the one I have most confidence in.”

“I should hope so.” She gestured towards her office. “If I’d been picked to take over – and I don’t know if I was even being considered, then I would have tapped you to take over the Corps. I’ve no grounds to complain if DeChevilier saw the same potential in you.”

Inside she closed the door and checked the anti-surveillance gear set up at one end of her desk. The building had been a police station once. “The command structure’s a little strange anyway, what with Davion being shoe-horned in as Deputy Army Group Commander.”

“That’s just political though, Baptiste’s the real exec, isn’t she?” Lucas asked. “Not that the First Prince seems like he’d be a disaster but he isn’t SLDF.”

“In practical terms I’d guess it’s more like Baptiste is Ia and Davion is IIa,” the Major General clarified, referring to Operations and Logistics respectively.

“That much I can live with.”

“Yeah. Gonna be getting a lot of gear from the Feddies, hopefully it’s on par with their intelligence.”

“It’s not going to be as good as the Royal grade hardware built here in the Hegemony,” said Lucas. “But at least he got as far as Ozawa. My headquarters is right next to the Veridian Dynamics factory and the damage is pretty superficial. That should help bring my regiments’ organic artillery up to strength even the Diplan factories won’t be giving us new ‘Mechs any time soon.”

“Oh yes, they make the Vali on Ozawa don’t they?” The 8x4 light artillery vehicles was built on the same chassis as the ubiquitous RR-4 Recovery vehicle, but it carried a payload of twenty-five Arrow IV fire support missiles.
 
“Recovery vehicles too. There was an AFFS purchasing officer there when I visited.” Lucas smiled tightly. “Thought I was going to have to set him straight on priorities for the artillery but he just wanted six regimental sets of RR-4s.”

“It’s almost as if he knows his idiot Mechwarriors are going to get their rears hauled off the battlefield more often than not. You’re not going to be using them to storm the Castles Brian, are you?” she asked as a sudden thought crossed her mind.

“No, they need a rest and refit anyway. I think they’ll be attached to Sixth Army once that’s done but the reorganisation isn’t done. They seem to have carried their weight here though. General Kerensky must have followed through with what he said at the staff conference.”

McGuinness thought a moment and shook her head. “I must be blanking. What was that?”

“He was going to make sure the regiments sent here were more like the ones Waynewright used on that training exercise the AFFS ran before the year, not the regiments that got sent to the Concordat. I’d say Davion got the message.”

“No Syrtis Fusiliers, or whatever he was sending into the Alliance… Robinson Cavaliers?”

“Chevaliers,” Lucas corrected her. “And yes, one regiment each from those formations. Two from the Avalon Hussars, then one each Tancredi Loyalists and…” He frowned for a moment. “Dragon Lords, that was it. And they’re going to stay tied into their own brigades and divisions this time so it should be less of a complication for the rest of us. I’ve only met one of them so far, a Major General Simons, but he seems to know what he’s doing.”

“As long as they stay out of my hair, that’s fine. Maybe he’s a footslogger. They can at least accept basic instructions like ‘stay where you are and scream for support if someone shoots at you’,” McGuiness joked.

“We’re going to be demanding a bit more from our infantry clearing the Castles Brian,” Lucas said gruffly. “Digging them out isn’t going to be fun.”


Uedo Castle Brian, Ozawa
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
17 October 2767

“Go, go, go!” Marge Pritchard shouted as their Demon pulled onto the rough road leading into the Castle Brian.

If Huber Koopman had any qualms about the order, he kept quiet about it. Instead he floored the accelerator and focused on getting sixty-five tons of tank through or around the obstacles in their path.

Unlike prospecting for rebel bases in the Periphery, here LXII Corps had the advantage of personnel who knew the Castles Brian well and could pinpoint the entrances for the assault as well as outline the defences. Less fortunately was the scale of those defences.

Pritchard had taken it with a pinch of salt when told that artillery would suppress the guns covering the door but the amount of fire from not only the regimental groups but all three battalions of the 255th Royal Mechanised Infantry division’s artillery reserve had been impressive.

Nonetheless, as the armoured spearhead pushed closer at breakneck speeds, it was clear that the fight was far from over. Wreckage of the 247th Dragoons’ tanks used to cover for the engineers rushing the entry were adding to the complications of the approach and as the hole blasted into the armoured doors came into view, a dual autocannon mount opened up.

Reflexively, Pritchard dropped into her hatch and sealed it above her. The guns were firing flack and although the tank next to them was the first target, she’d be just as dead if she was hit by a ricochet with her head and shoulders out of the cupola. “Target, turret, one o’clock.”

Next to her in the Demon’s turret, Johann Steuben brought the gun around to bear but then elevated it. “It’s out,” he told her flatly and triggered the gauss rifle. The Demon bounced over something Koopman apparently didn’t see the need to avoid as the gun breech opened and a second slug was fed into it by the autoloader.

“What are you shooting at then?” she asked, strapping herself down before she wound up doing herself an injury on the inside of the turret.

Steuben kept his eyes focused on his screens. “The turret behind it.”

An APC had over-turned in the middle of the road, the cause unclear. Pritchard saw the tank head of them skid around it to the left and Koopman automatically turned their Demon to the right. Engineers pressed themselves against the sides of the narrow canyon, making room for the armoured column. It was vital to penetrate deep inside the defences before anyone tried to seal the breach by cutting off sections of the Castle Brian.

The doors reared up above them and the first tank gunned its engines, roaring up the low, improvised ramp up over the lip of the door. Something hit it low and to the side as it entered and the sixty-five ton vehicle began to roll to the left as it vanished into the shadows.

“Night vision,” Pritchard ordered, switching the display. “Target left quarter, low as we enter…”

“Got it.” Deeper inside the tank, Alois Ranson took control of the laser mounted on the left side of the Demon.

There was a thump as the front wheels hit the ramp and somewhere Koopman found an extra bit of horsepower because as they reached the top, Pritchard would have sworn that all six of the large wheels left the ground.

A trail of crackling explosions followed them as they crashed down again on the roadway inside the Castle Brian, vanishing into the squeal as the thick rubberised wheels fought for traction.

“Field gun, I hit the ready rounds.” Ranson’s voice was steady as he scanned the surroundings. His job was to watch for attacks on their vulnerable flanks and to neutralise them with secondary weapons.

Pritchard’s responsibility was to the mission though. “Get us moving, we’re on point.” The tank ahead of them had lost its fight with stability and now lay on one side, the crew crawling out. A short-barrelled autocannon dropped out of the ceiling and began to chew at the exposed underside of the Demon.

They went past the tank without stopping to help, perhaps someone behind them would take the autocannon out but they had to press on. The space inside was a broad ramp, leading down and away from the entrance through three dog-legs, each with their own security doors.

Sapper ‘Mechs from the 247th should be ahead of them, but how many had made it was hard to guess. The first door was open and they raced through it, Koopman pushing them up past seventy on the highway-broad and level surface of the ramp.

Pritchard felt the turret twist. “Door’s not cleared,” Steuben said without any particular emphasis. He fired the gauss rifle, sending a round howling down the passageway ahead of them.

“Shit!” Peering ahead she could barely make out the heavy doors at the bottom of this section. One was gone, in fact, but the other half was simply buckled. There was room for a tank moving slowly and carefully… but this wasn’t a time for being slow and careful. “Koopman, can you thread the needle.”

“Maybe.”

Another crash from the gun. “Ram the door,” the gunner proposed as the portal loomed closer. The gauss rifle cycled another hundred and twenty-five kilo slug. “We need it wider.”

The sergeant looked at him and saw, in the red internal light, the laconic expression on Steuben’s face. As if they were back in the laager, setting up to camp in or beside their tank. Koopman was one of the best three or four drivers in the 111th. If he couldn’t reliably make the gap… “How square?”

“Two metres, approximately.” He fired once more.

“Koopman! Put our right wing two metres from the edge of the door!” Pritchard screamed and braced her feet up in front of her.

There was the start of what might have been a prayer from Ranson and then they hit.

The crash was only the first impact. She felt the rear of the tank spin left into the open space left by the door that had been removed. Then the edge of the door, weakened by Steuben’s shots, gave way and they lurched fully into the next section of the ramp, tank up on only three wheels and threatening to tip past the point of return.

There were ‘Mechs in front of them, Pritchard saw. Two of them, a Banshee with some of the giant bangalores used for breaching doors still strapped to it and a Guillotine. For a moment she thought they were still friendly and then remembered the 247th didn’t have any Guillotines – and her own regiments would still be well behind in the next wave of the attack. “Target, Guillotine!”

“Firing.” Steuben said simply and the gauss rifle spat again.

The recoil brought them back onto all six wheels, slewing them again as the front right wheel was jammed. Pritchard wasn’t bothered about that. The gauss slug had hit the wall, the first time she’d ever seen Steuben miss a shot – not that she could blame him.

Then it glanced off the wall and caught the heavy ‘Mech right in the knee. Not missing the opportunity, the 247th Banshee launched a kick at the same limb, tipping the Guillotine to the floor.

“You jammy bugger,” she exclaimed, feeling the tank straighten.

“Pardon?” he asked.

“What’d you do, Koopman?” she asked and then looked back. “That shot…”

“Banshee was in the way,” he said clinically. “I had to use the wall.”

“Cut the damaged wheel out of transmission, Sarge. We’re down to sixty, tops.”

A second tank made it through the now wider gap, followed by a third. Then stabbing light rose from the final door, ahead of them, cutting Pritchard off from worrying about Steuben’s absurd claim. The Republicans were opening the final door themselves and towering silhouettes, like ancient war gods, stalked out.

The warbook pinged a warning. Rampage. RWR assault ‘Mech, primary armament heavy autocannon, LRMs, large laser… And there were eight of them.

The Banshee, last of four she could now tell in the light, was caught exposed as the RWR assaults began to lumber up the ramp, weapons tearing into the lightly armed ‘Mech. Though larger and just as heavily armoured – the reason it was used for this work rather than smaller Work ‘Mech – the Banshee couldn’t possibly withstand that fire for more than a few seconds.

“Get us down there!” Pritchard heard a shrill demand and was surprised to recognise her own voice. The Demon lurched forwards, rapidly picking up speed again as the other two tanks followed. She’d given them no signal – in fact with all the jamming she probably couldn’t – but they must have seen the same logic that she did.

Without engineers, the door at the bottom could be closed again even if they somehow managed to defeat the Rampages. But block it from closing and SLDF reinforcements would have access to the marshalling yard that should be beyond, and at least a fighting chance of penetrating deeper.

The Banshee fell and the Rim Mechwarriors turned their attention to the tanks. Already damaged from the collision, the Demon’s frontal glacis couldn’t take much more punishment, only Koopman’s driving and the enemy splitting fire among the three tanks sparing the Pritchard’s crew the brunt of the lasers and autocannon fire directed up the ramp.

Steuben and Ranson were firing, to what effect she couldn’t guess. The first Rampage was before them, side-stepping and drawing one massive metal foot back with obvious intent.

“Koop - !”

The crashing collision tore away the already damaged wheel and spun them through one hundred and eighty degrees. The lights dimmed to a handful of emergency LEDs as the tank’s abused fusion reactor shut down abruptly.

“Urgh.” Pritchard shook her head. They’d ended up against the wall of the ramp, somehow intact but not functional. “Crew check?”

“Alive,” Ranson replied. “Missile launcher jammed, no power for the lasers.”

“Likewise.” Steuben tested his controls clinically. “Turret locked. Capacitors charged and a slug loaded so I have one shot.” He reached up towards the hatch. “I’ll need to shoot visually, the screen’s out.”

Silence.

“Ranson, check on Koopman,” she ordered. “Steuben don’t fire that shot unless I tell you to.” Pritchard unstrapped and started working on her own hatch. When she poked her head out cautiously she saw they were now behind the Rampages, but someone was still fighting. It wasn’t the two Demons that had been behind them though. Both tanks had been smashed open by the brutal fire directed at them. It was small consolation that one of the enemy ‘Mechs had joined them in death.

Looking back she saw the door and beyond it the floor of the marshalling yard. Still open, still lit. and at least right at this instant, with no back-up for the Rampages in her admittedly limited field of vision.

“One of them’s almost lined up,” Steuben noted. “Just needs to move forward a little more.”

“Don’t shoot,” she ordered.

“Sergeant?” he asked, turning baby-blue eyes on her with an air of slight suspicion.

“Hold it.” She ducked back down into the tank. “Ranson?”

“Koopman’s out, but he’s breathing. Without power we’re not going anywhere even if he wakes.”

“That might not actually be the case,” Pritchard told him. “Are we in neutral?”

“Yes…?”

“Release the brakes,” she ordered with a sly smile. Maybe it wouldn’t do anything. Lord only knew what was left of their wheels but…

“Brakes released,” Ranson told her.

But she could tell already, because their Demon was beginning to roll backwards towards the bottom of the ramp. She smiled. “When I tell you – not now, but when, I want you to brake but just for the left wheels. Can do?”

“It’s been a while,” the gunner told her drily. “But I think I remember the right controls.” Fortunately the release for the brakes worked on the emergency battery even without main power.

“Right. Take your hands off the trigger, Steuben. Right now we’re doing something more important than back-shooting one ‘Mech.”

Looking back she saw the doors were beginning, very slowly, to close as the remaining security recognised what they were doing. Four soldiers even rushed out into the doorway to fire up at them with assault rifles

Even in this state, they might as well have been firing spitballs for all their weapons would do to a tank, but Pritchard huddled down, her helmeted head just far enough out of the cupola to judge when to give Ranson the breaking order.

For his part, Steuben pulled out his sidearm and fired four shots back down towards the door, as coolly as if he was still firing a gauss rifle rather than a laser pistol that would have fit easily into his hip-pocket.

“Get your pretty head back inside the tank before it’s shot off,” Pritchard snarled.

“Setting aside the chain of command, you’re still not my type, sergeant. Besides, who’s to shoot at me?”

With a frown, Pritchard looked at him and then glanced ahead. The four soldiers from before all lay sprawled on the ferrocrete of the marshalling yard, at least thirty yards away. “From behind,” she said weakly, and then swore. “Ranson!”

Fortunately, the man took her curse as an instruction and the Demon turned sharply as it approached the door, finally crashing rear-first into one of the closing panels as it slid towards them. Such was the sheer mass of the door that it actually started pushing them to start pivoting on the left wheels until Ranson locked them too. While they continued to skid at least they were more or less straightened out on the threshold.

There was a crash and then a grinding noise as the bow of the Demon encountered the other panel and began to buckle.

“Right, everyone out,” Pritchard decided. There was no use getting crushed if the tank couldn’t handle the doors. “Steuben, help Ranson with Koopman.”

“Which way?” the gunner asked.

The sergeant looked in the two possible directions. “Into the base,” she decided. There was a better chance of finding somewhere to hide than on the open ramp, particularly as Rampages had machineguns and flamers if she recalled correctly.


Fourth Army Headquarters, New Rhodes
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
3 December 2767

“Some of those soldiers deserve Medals of Valor,” Brandt noted as she turned away from a display still running news footage of the earlier awards ceremonies. “That tank crew from Uedo, for example. But politically we need to reward them now rather than wait what could be years so the Commanding General can present them.”

The highest grades of the SLDF’s awards for merit could only be awarded by the highest uniformed member of their service, which was a slight logistical problem at the moment. While they could have waited, working with the media to keep the SLDF’s public support high was pushing commanders to make decisions more expedient than they’d normally have done.

“I didn’t notice any complaints about the number of Army Crosses and Cameron Stars you were handing out,” John told her drily.

“The Liberation Ribbon was a stroke of genius,” she added with more than grudging respect. “It underlines Amaris as the greatest threat we’ve ever faced.”

While most medals came with their own distinct ribbons, John had suggested a new one to be added for any soldier who received an award while fighting to liberate the Hegemony. Stark black and pristine white, Kerensky had approved the additional ribbon as an alternative to devaluing the rewards offered alongside some medals such as knighthoods or land grants. Some of those were out of reach. In fact, so far as it was known the only Star League Medals of Honor, the single highest award that the Star League awarded, off Terra were those already awarded. Unissued examples would presumably still be in a vaults under the Court of the Star League on Earth and SLDF Headquarters on New Earth.

Tatjana Baptiste shook her head. “So long as no one gets reckless chasing the extra braid on their uniform,” she said. “Moving on?”

“Go ahead, General. Ground forces strength is next on the agenda, I believe?”

The general gestured to the display. “Across the five armies we have assembled, we’ve mostly been able to bring intact divisions up to strength by absorbing independent regiments although this leaves us significantly short of independent BattleMech regiments at the Army level. In future we’ll need to either look at cutting brigades from the TO&E, cutting the Corps Regimental Combat Teams or bringing in reserves from units in the Member-States.”

“General Kerensky has authorised the latter,” John advised. “Second Army is working with my Department of Military Education to build cadres from their existing RCTs that new recruits can be fed into. It won’t provide Mechwarriors, pilots or a lot of other specialised personnel quickly, but in the short term replacements for infantry and a few of the more basic combat vehicle crew positions should begin to arrive in another six months.”

“Six months?” Janos Grec shook his head. “Basic and trade training is four times that by SLDF standards. Those soldiers will be raw.”

“We’re cutting a lot of corners,” the prince admitted uncompromisingly. “There are two streams, the second stream will have four months basic and eight trade, but until we have enough people coming through that we’re pulling the top twenty percent of applicants and rushing them into Second Army units where they can hopefully learn on the job, freeing up the existing men and women to be transferred into the vacancies here.”

Baptiste adjusted the controls. “We have fifty-five SLDF divisions and two AFFS divisions as matters stand. The Third and Fourth Armies remain the largest, due to the losses taken by the Nineteenth and the lower force strength of the two Armies that were previously stationed in Capellan space. Rather than trying to balance the load, we’re regularising it into two heavy armies to carry the weight of the offensive and three lighter armies to act as a reserve and cover garrison work.”

“By disbanding LXIX Corps and LXX Corps, as well as transferring in LVI Corps from the Nineteenth, both the Third and the Fourth have consolidated to three Corps of five Divisions each, around sixty-three percent of our field strength before we went to the Periphery.” She moved the slides showing these armies so that those of the Sixth, Seventh and Nineteenth appeared. “Similarly, by disbanding out of the XXXVIII and LVIII Corps we’ve been able to bring the Seventh and Nineteenth to nine divisions split between two Corps, roughly sixty and forty-three percent of their previous strength.”

“Jesus,” Brandt blasphemed. “No one put it like that before for me.”

“Sixth Army only has seven divisions still combat effective,” Baptiste continued, unphased. “Consideration was given to breaking it up to reinforce one of the other Armies. Instead, Prince Davion’s three divisions have been attached as a short Corps to bring them up to near parity with the other light armies. My apologies, your highness, but AFFS divisional structure is a little… different from ours.”

“I’m not offended, general. The facts are the facts.”

“Walk me through that last point,” asked the Army Group commander.

Grec glanced over at Baptiste who yielded the floor. “Essentially, one of our divisions has three line brigades of three regiments each. Depending on the build that could be two infantry brigades to one ‘Mech brigade or the reverse. Then supporting elements in company, battalion or even regimental strength are attached for supporting purposes, anything up to two further brigade equivalents.”

“And the Federated Suns?”

“An AFFS division, at least the way their contribution has been structured, integrates the specialised units into the line forces, with around one company per battalion being configured to contain their anti-aircraft, artillery, aviation units and so forth. The divisions also include a fourth brigade built around armoured combat vehicles.” The Rear-Admiral spread his hands. “It’s out of my field to say if it’s better or worse than SLDF arrangements.”

“It’s a little experimental, units still in the Suns are still working out what suits us for higher level organisation.” It was also a compromise between what Hanse described from his own era and the rather different force and transportation balances that John had to work with. If anything, the Ceti Hussars, Crucis Dragoons and the units they were working with seemed to be working towards something smaller and more flexible.

Fourth Army Headquarters, New Rhodes
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
4 December 2767

Too tired to look further at paperwork, too keyed up to sleep, John was helping Hanse play solitaire when Brandt entered the office he’d been using. “Marshal,” she said and then added “At ease,” as he started to rise.

“A gentleman always rises for a lady,” he said solemnly and would have offered her a chair if she hadn’t taken one without waiting.

“The only person who calls me a lady is my husband. I’m a fighter pilot, for crying out loud.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” he told her, but sat down again.

“Ten of Sharks to Mech of Orbs,” Hanse told him.

It was tempting to give him a sidelong look. Sometimes he wondered about the other man’s manners.

“Don’t let me spoil your game,” the admiral told him. “I didn’t know you played cards.”

John moved the selected cards. “I don’t as such. I picked up solitaire on Valexa as something to kill time when I wasn’t going to be able to get any constructive work done but I couldn’t sleep.”

She looked down at the cards as Hanse tapped the deck and John dealt three more cards over the hand he’d been working from. “Periphery deck?”

“I didn’t have any with me. Someone on my staff picked them up out of the Rim Worlds quarters when they were being cleared of personal effects and had them handy when I asked.”

“Four of Avellar to Five of Centralla.”

He moved the card off the hand as directed. Each suite referenced one of the great houses. Playing cards for Hanse felt like a microcosm of the last several years – closer to eight than seven now, wasn’t it? Although at least if he disagreed there was nothing stopping him playing the cards as he wished rather than as directed.

“Odd not to at least see a Hegemony Star in a deck,” Brandt noted. Most decks used four Inner Sphere houses, usually the manufacturer’s nationality, the Hegemony and whichever two realms lay on the far side of the manufacturer. There had been a fad when John was younger for decks of six suites, representing all the Member-States but it made games trickier so most people would shuffle two suites out and the fad died away. It occurred to him to wonder which suites were commonly used here in the Hegemony.”

“It’s all a matter of perspective. Can I help you?”

“I just want to shuffle a couple of things for the conference tomorrow.”

“She’s made a decision,” Hanse told him. “Mech of Avellar to Duke of Calderon.”

“Is it about the plans?” John asked Brandt, looking up as he moved the cards. He almost dropped the Three of Centralla and had to slip it back into place.

She nodded. “Firstly, I want to move the mention you’re heading back to New Avalon to earlier in the meeting. If it comes later it might feel like a reaction.”

“A bit awkward to have the departure brought up mid-way through the meeting. Might have them wondering why I’m around for the rest of it.” He turned over three new cards for Hanse. “I assume that means you’ve decided on Jack Lucas’ plan?”

“I have. Is that a problem?”

John took a deep breath and cudgelled his brain for something that could perhaps change her mind. Both plans were aggressive, that wasn’t the concern. But while John’s focused on liberating as many worlds as possible, focusing on the lightly defended in order to deprive Amaris of resources and hopefully give the Hegemony a core of up a dozen more worlds with hopefully minimal damage to their industry and infrastructure, General Lucas had proposed going directly for two of the well-fortified worlds in reach of the current liberated zone.

Not systems with SDS networks, fortunately there were only three such star systems in the entire province, but Addicks and Tigress both had multiple Castles Brian and might have significant numbers of defenders. Knocking them out would prevent the worlds from being used as bases for a counter-attack but it was just as possible that very modest garrisons might tie up half of the Army Group for between six months and a year.

“This is a test,” Hanse warned and John realised he’d been quiet too long.

“I have no other arguments than those I’ve voiced already, Admiral,” he said quietly. “I disagree, but you’re in command. If you’ve made up your mind then both you and General Lucas will have my complete support.”

“That must come hard to you, taking orders.” Brandt sounded amused. “If you’d rather we can switch the deployments and hold Sixth Army with your troops in reserve, Nineteenth Army can take over the supporting attack on Ankaa.”

“As I understand it, the decision to keep the Nineteenth Army in reserve was based on their greater need to shake down their new command personnel. Since that logic hasn’t changed, I don’t see that as being in the operation’s best interests. Unless the situation has changed?”

She smirked. “No, it hasn’t. Alright, we’ll brief out as discussed then. You might want to get some sleep first though. It’s not good for morale for a commander to look that worn out.”

“Well now I know what the decision is, perhaps I’ll be able to.”

She nodded. “Just for the record, John, I liked your plan. It had panache. But you were practically baiting Amaris to come out and try to force us out. Fighting on seven worlds at once, with only twelve divisions in reserve to reinforce us or to cover the worlds we’ve liberated so far…”

“I wish to God that he would. As best we’ve been able to determine he brought twenty-four or twenty-five divisions with him from the Rim Worlds Republic and for all his talk about thirty divisions, it’ll be at least a another year before they’re ready. Right now he can’t strike at us with anything like numerical parity so he needs to stay behind the fortifications he’s captured.”

John swept the cards together with both hands, covering the rough pile with both hands. “I’m not going to lie and claim it would be quick or easy but right now anything he sent out in counter-attack would be far more vulnerable than we are. He’s holding down over a hundred worlds with a smaller force than we have – he’s much less of a reserve than we have.”

“We can’t afford heavy losses, Marshal. Much less to give him a victory. The fighting in the Republic isn’t going badly but the other Army Groups are too far away. If we take serious casualties I’d either have to hold off on further operations or pull fresh divisions out of the garrisons in one or more of the Member States. That would cause… problems.”

“We’re going over old ground.” He started tidying up the deck. “Is there anything you want me to set in motion on New Avalon to help with the plan we’re actually using?”

Brandt shrugged. “There’s a list Lucas has put together. I don’t claim to understand why he wants Alacorn Mark IV tanks instead of Mark VI models, I’d have thought the newer ones were better. Things an Admiral wouldn’t know I suppose.”

“Mark VI Alacorns carry three gauss rifles,” John told her. “Fine weapons for open range fighting but the Mark IV we licensed a few years ago carry three heavy autocannon. Given how brutal the in-fighting was inside the Castles Brian on Ozawa, New Florence and Rio were, I’m guessing he wants to be better prepared for the future operations like that.”

“There you go, you understand it better than I do. Makes you the right man back on New Avalon and me the right person out here to keep the army from getting lost,” Brandt said with forced cheeriness.


Avalon City, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
4 April 2768

“I’m not convinced that this is the time for such changes.” Vasily Sandoval frowned at the map display of the Federated Suns. “Right now we have regiments that are very familiar with their areas of their responsibility and the officers they’ll be working with. If we were to come under attack before they’re settled into the new arrangements then our defences will be at a disadvantage.”

“And then there’s the espirit de corps of the March Militias.” Duchess Rita Hasek frowned at the idea. “They’re become very popular as champions of their respective regions in the biannual training exercises. You know how sports fans get about their teams.”

John and Vasily exchanged looks and came to a silent agreement that this wasn’t the time to correct the duchess’ use of ‘espirit de corps’. With one tour of duty in the AFFS she met the basic requirements to lay claim to the traditional right of a March Lord to serve as military commander of their March, but while Vasily’s service had been on the frontlines of the War of Davion Succession, while Rita’s tour of duty had been served entirely on the march capital of New Syrtis, with the Sixth Syrtis Fusiliers.

“The situation isn’t going to get any better,” John explained to the Draconis March lord. “Not until the Star League Council agrees on a new First Lord and right now the vote is four to one in favour of deferring that until Richard’s fate is confirmed.”

“That’s ridiculous,” snapped Rita. “Amaris would hardly undermine his claim to the position by leaving Richard alive. He might have spared the children, but the Camerons would have been given a choice between forswearing the throne or execution. That’s just plain sense and given how stiff-necked they are, nine-tenths of them probably wound up in front of firing squads. The Usurper can’t allow a rival claimant to live.”

“She’s not dumb, John. No soldier, but no fool either,” Hanse noted.

John turned to the duchess. “I think that’s the real issue, Rita. Without any idea of what the line of succession is and the Camerons no longer in practical control of the Hegemony, any regent or new First Lord would be painting a target on themselves.”

“Does Amaris have the forces to invade another Member-State?” asked Vasily in surprise. “I would have thought he had enough to deal with given the fighting on Tigress and Addicks.”

The Hasek shook her head. “Don’t be foolish, Vasily. Not soldiers: assassins and terrorist attacks. After Amaris suborned so much of the Hegemony government, there’s no knowing who else he might have agents close to in other realms.”

“Why not you then, sire? Or, what’s her name… Richard’s aunt… uh, dammit, Vincent Davion’s wife.”

“I have enough on my plate,” John told the Duke drily. “Between my own duties and supporting the SLDF’s activities, I’m already pushing work off onto Edwina and Joshua. Besides, the other Lords wouldn’t accept me, or Guerever for that matter. Just because they don’t want to risk getting pulled forwards doesn’t mean they’d accept me as even provisionally wielding the First Lord’s authority.”

“Dogs in a manger.”

“Yes. But we’re getting away from the point of this conversation.” The First Prince tuned back to the map. “You’re right that at the moment regiments within the Combat Regions are largely familiar with each other and their commanders, but even with the way we’ve shuffled regiments for GALAHAD and the various expeditionary forces over the last eight years, most of them aren’t very familiar with troops outside those regions. My concern is that if several regions were under attack and one was on the brink of collapse, neighbouring regions wouldn’t recognise this or offer support until news reached a higher level command.”

“There are facilities for that,” Vasily protested. “Operational Area command -”

John raised his hand. “Let me give you an example. Suppose the DCMS were to launch a surprise attack, with raids all along the border covering for a deep strike at Fairfax. If they neutralise the headquarters there, then not only would the Fairfax Combat Region be leaderless, but they’d also leave Dahar without a direct chain of command to you on New Syrtis because Fairfax is also headquarters for the Operation Area. It could take weeks to re-establish control of regiments in the area, those that weren’t overwhelmed without anyone to direct them on whether reinforcements were on the way or if they should withdraw to regroup.”

“Hmm.” Vasily studied the map. “And Fairfax is halfway between the border and the edge of the Crucis March.”

“Yes. Troop densities simply aren’t at the same level within the interior as they are along the border since we can’t be strong everywhere. With a base of operations deep in the Draconis March, Draconian raiding parties could wreak havoc.”

“And you think that this would reduce the risks of that?” asked Rita thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t these new…” she squinted at the screen, “Polymorphous Defense Zones have the same problems?”

“Right now, a single headquarters controls a sector of the border as well as all the territory back to the rear-edge of the border march,” John explained. “To use my example from earlier, if one PDZ is taken out then there are multiple PDZs either behind or in front of it due to the way their areas of responsibility interlock. It gives us layered defences that would be harder to neutralise before reinforcements can be assembled.”

“It won’t do much good for Chesterton,” she said. The smallest of the border combat regions only contained five worlds, including the Demeter salient.”

“I didn’t claim it was perfect, just that it was better than our current arrangement.”

Vasily drummed his fingers on his desk. “The idea has some merits, but given the disruption it’ll cause, I’d like some precautions in place to minimise our exposure.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“The backbone of our defences against the Combine are the Robinson Chevaliers.” Duke Sandoval eyed John a little suspiciously under his thick eyebrows. “I know you respect their abilities, given their deployments of late but I want a commitment that they won’t be pulled around like that until the new organisation has had a little while to get established – five years or so.”

“What do you mean, pulled around?”

“Expeditionary forces, or getting their homeworlds settled. It’s been bad for morale – lots of service families having to uproot to follow soldiers around.” The large man shrugged. “I don’t begrudge that they should do their part, but between the Outworlds and now the Thirty-Second being sent into the Hegemony I think the Chevaliers have earned enough glory to let other regiments have a chance at it.”

John leant back in his chair. “You want the Chevaliers to retain their current postings for the next five years.”

“There’s no real impact in this of which worlds need garrisoning, just which headquarters they look to. So while the one is in flux, let them stay on worlds they’re familiar with. If you must move troops around, there are plenty of Avalon Hussars to do that with.”

“And no more sending the Chevaliers into the Hegemony for the next five years.”

“There are other regiments,” Vasily pointed out, not mentioning that the Chevaliers were the second largest brigade in the AFFS BattleMech corps, almost twenty percent of the whole.

“And the same with the Syrtis Fusiliers.” Rita didn’t hesitate to take the same position.

A third of the AFFS’ BattleMech regiments locked into place and unavailable for service in the Hegemony. Setting down roots on their postings and settling into routines.

But I don’t have the leverage to fight the March Lords on this. “That’s fair,” John told them. “As long as the current situation extends, that is. If the Federated Suns comes under direct attack, I can’t promise to leave them in place.”

“Oh naturally. And since there will be more PDZs than the current Combat Regions, we’ll need to federalize additional militia regiments to provide them with March Militia brigades.”

John sighed. The various planetary lords had been very enthusiastic about building up their militia forces to compete for status in regular exercises, right up until he’d federalised the best prepared brigades in each combat region in 2754. Somehow he didn’t think they’d fall for that again. On the other hand… “I’ll leave the selection up to the two of you,” he declared. “Let me know your decisions by the end of this year’s exercises and you can announce the five new March Militias in time for the presentation.”

Rita blinked and opened her mouth only for Vasily to shake his head. “You walked into that, my dear,” he warned her. “Can we at least look at a finals round between all three Marchs?” the Duke asked John. “There’s still some enthusiasm after the way the Crucis Militias have been bragging about their part in Operation GALAHAD.”

“Not this year, but I’ll see if we can schedule it for the 2770 exercises,” the prince agreed.


Avalon City, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
7 April 2768

“This may be seen as presumptuous on your part,” Bennett Green warned. The Bureau of Star League Affairs’ Administrator for the Federated Suns was meeting John in Joshua’s offices rather than the First Prince’s own in part to keep the meeting low key and partly so John had the excuse to leave his office. With so many public appearances being delegated he’d begun to feel a degree of cabin-fever when it came to the admittedly luxurious office suite.

“I don’t plan to do anything drastic with the position,” John assured him with a flicker of guilt at the dishonesty. “But there are some administrative duties associated with it and Kerensky barely had time for them under Richard’s regency, much less now.”

“However innocent your intentions, the fact is that you’re discussing one of the First Lord’s secondary titles.”

“The High Council would raise something of a protest if some of the ducal powers were abused.” Joshua pushed a cup of coffee across the table to Bennett. “And with thirty worlds involved, I’m surprised we’ve gone this far without friction.”

The administrator made a face at the point but didn’t verbally acknowledge it, accepting the coffee instead.

John studied the man and concluded that he was only really holding out for form’s sake. Conferring the title of Duke of New Avalon on the First Lord’s heir had originally been entirely honorary but in the first century of the Star League the position had been granted certain powers by the High Council for reasons of convenience.

Some of those powers would be best left untouched, at least for now. Joshua was absolutely right that the High Council would be infuriated if John, acting as regent pending a new First Star Lord to take up the title, used the traditional perquisite of calling and dismissing the High Council at his own convenience. That was only intended to make allowances for visits by someone who could only briefly visit New Avalon and not necessarily fit the annual assemblies into his busy calendar, not for use by a First Prince who lived there.

Similarly, granting – and revoking - noble titles was a power carefully kept out of the First Prince’s hands over the years. The nobility of the Federated Suns had arisen first out of the titles of world rulers when the federation was founded and formalised under Simon Davion when a formal roll of honours was established to somewhat standardise the relative power of the great, middling and sometimes quite astoundingly petty nobility of the Suns. The power to meddle in that was something the High Council took very seriously and for the most part the Camerons had used it judiciously to reward citizens of the Federated Suns for their services to the Star League as a whole.

Perhaps Richard Cameron had forgotten about it. John shuddered to think how it might have been abused if Richard had been so dissolute when he received his title.

“I’d be happy to leave the position untenanted if it weren’t for the colonies,” he said in a conciliatory fashion. “If the worlds under the Duke’s administration had been released to receive Federation membership as used to be the custom this wouldn’t be an issue. Unfortunately, the last Cameron to do so was Jonathan Cameron, almost eighty years ago and now we have thirty well-developed colonies that are still technically property of the First Lord’s office.”

“Quite. Can you imagine the repercussions of any drastic action once a new First Lord is elected,” Green asked nervously. “I imagine the new Cameron would have something to say about any disposition he disagreed with.”

“And yet there are issues that need to be tended to in their administration.” John turned to his son. “I’m sure you’ve realised that in practical terms, those will fall to you rather than me.”

“I didn’t think you were here for the coffee,” Joshua replied.

“That’s just a benefit,” his father admitted. “What have you been doing to the catering here?”

“I hired retired AFFS catering personnel to replace the previous contractors. When military food is a step up, you know you have a problem.”

Under the Star League terraforming science had advanced in leaps and bounds, allowing settlement on scores of worlds within the boundaries of the member-states that had previously been bypassed. In tribute to the close relationship between the Federated Suns and the Star League – and perhaps to solidify his position as a very young successor to his nigh-legendary great-grandfather, Prince Zane Davion had placed these new colonies of the Federated Suns under the protection of the First Star Lord in 2615.

Protection had become administration and effectively ownership. Which meant money in the form of rents and other fees paid by those who settled or made use of lands not covered by the founding colonists. And as the colonies grew and developed, so did that income. Perhaps greed hadn’t been the primary motivator in deferring the transfer of those rights to planetary governments… but it might have been as much a factor as neglect.

John looked back to Green. “I don’t require you to actively approve of my taking responsibility for administering the Duchy. And I won’t be selling off its assets, although if the Commanding General does want to start giving the usual land grants associated with military medals, the duchy would at least give him some land to grant.”

“That’s true, I suppose.” The administrator sighed. “We’re going to lose assets as it is.”

“What?” Joshua blinked. “I thought matters were going well – it hasn’t come up with the committee at least.”

“Not in the Suns,” Green explained. “The other Lords haven’t been as accommodating and my counterparts have had to cancel a number of projects we were involved in for various reasons – lack of Hegemony-built equipment, personnel resigning to join Kerensky’s training camps – we hire a lot of veterans and we were already stretched with reservists called up to cover for units in the Periphery. And then there’s money.”

“Always it’s money,” Joshua grumbled.

“It makes the Sphere go round,” John confirmed. “I’ve had some reports that some of the FWL provinces have been holding back Star League taxes.”

“If by some you mean Regulus, then yes.” The Principality of Regulus was one of, perhaps the, largest provinces of the Free Worlds League. They’d been one of the three states that leagued together in 2271 to found the Free Worlds League and while the ruling dynasty had changed over the centuries, their pride hadn’t. “The Duchess is withholding the funds in lieu of funding for social programmes that Administrator Hughes simply can’t provide. The same’s happening on a smaller scale with planetary governments in the other three states.”

“Can’t Kenyon Marik put a stop to it?”

The two older men exchanged looks. “He probably could, son. But why would he? Right now he’s hitting General Kerensky right in the pocket-books just by not lifting a finger to stop it.”

Green nodded sourly. “If revenue keeps dropping like this then we’ll need to look at other ways to raise money for the SLDF. If that comes at the expense of other activities then we could wind up alienating more local rulers.”

“And then there’s the lawsuits,” warned John. “Even if you haven’t actually breached contract, getting embroiled in litigation over it – and with the Supreme Court on Terra I don’t think they’d be a good place to appeal to – could wind up being another drain on the coffers.”

A morose silence fell over the office.

“Take the duchy,” Green said quietly. “Just swear to me that we can at least rely on that not happening here.”

“We’re at war, Bennett,” John said coldly. “That gives me legal options I wouldn’t have otherwise. I can’t promise no one will make trouble – that’s human nature.” And then his voice was like iron. “They won’t do it twice.”


Avalon City, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
12 May 2768

“News from the Republic?” John guessed as Janos Grec settled into the chair opposite him.

“Damn your spies are getting good,” the SLDF officer replied good naturedly. “Are you sure you don’t have one on my staff.”

“Just logic. I conferenced with Brandt yesterday about the Ankaa situation, so if you need a meeting it’s probably about something else.”

Grec’s eyes hardened. “Yes, that… disaster is quite enough from that front.”

“It could have been worse. Kenyon Marik could have had troops there,” John replied lightly.

Ankaa wasn’t a major industrial world or particularly heavily fortified so they’d seen relatively little of Amaris’ hand so far. While the had been some economic rumbling, they’d not seen the factory quotas demanded of less fortunate worlds and so the idea of a new leader replacing the unpopular Richard hadn’t tarnished there as it might have.

The first sign of trouble when Sixth Army had landed was the planetary militia mustering under the banner of the Amaris Empire Armed Forces. Vastly outnumbered, it had still taken three months for the SLDF divisions to pin down and crush the Terran soldiers. The irritated commander of the Sixth, Janeth Apostolaki, had convened court martials for the survivors on grounds of treason. Massive public demonstrations and direct orders from Joan Brandt had just barely dissuaded him from hanging them.

And then First Division, Federated Suns Auxiliary Corps, had landed to take on some of the garrison work as LXIII Corps prepared to move on.

Local opposition went berserk, mass rallies accusing Apostolaki of selling out to the Federated Suns and insurgents striking at SLDF and AFFS patrols. A formal petition had been presented to General Gerik Chudzik of LVII Corps, asking for the direct personal intervention of General Kerensky to remove the ‘tyrannical Apostolaki’ and ‘invading Feddies’.

“I can just imagine how that blowhard would have handled it. What was it his precious Napoleon was known for? A whiff of grapeshot?”

“Fortunately Chudzik has more sense.” Experienced in difficult civilian relationships with the SLDF after serving years in the Confederation, the cool-headed Major General had rotated the 309th Royal BattleMech Division into the garrison posts the AFFS was still settling into. The almost entirely Hegemony-born troops had soothed the situation and Major General Simons’ First Division had, through a hasty raid of the captured Militia stores for uniforms and lots of olive paint been re-branded as ‘SLDF Volunteers’ patrolling away from the major cities. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he replaces Apostolaki shortly.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Grec agreed. “But yes, I’ve heard from General DeChevilier in the Republic. They’re making good progress, but the factories there aren’t as extensive as had been hoped.”

“I suppose if Amaris had a larger industrial base, he might have left more troops to defend the worlds,” John noted. “If not from the SLDF than from his own insurgents.”

A surprising number of worlds had welcomed Kerensky as a liberator – Amaris’ smooth public relations machine had focused on the Hegemony rather than his own domain it seemed. Outlying Rim Worlds Army detachments hadn’t just forted up because it was their only hope against the massive SLDF forces – some of them had been in genuine fear of being over-run by local rebellions. Not all, not even most… but enough to add more positive news to last year’s victories.

“It does leave us with some problems, particularly in the area of mid-weight BattleMechs. Are you familiar with Cosara Weaponry?”

John paused and saw Hanse perk up. “Northwind,” the ghost advised him.

“Based on Northwind?”

“Yes, they won a contract back in 2719 to supply the SLDF with their medium design, the Crab.”

Memory flooded back. “Oh lord, yes I remember now. What did they managed to build? Thirty or forty a year? The lawsuit came up back around the time Simon Cameron died.”

“Yes, well that set things back badly.” Grec shook his head. “Anyway, under the emergency budget authorised when we deployed to the Periphery, the General granted a new contract to Blueshot Weapons in the Lyran Commonwealth to build another ‘Mech in the same weight bracket for us – the Starslayer.”

“More trouble?”

“It’s like your psychic,” the admiral said sarcastically. “They can’t get their production lines together and naturally Steiner is stirring the pot merrily.”

“Oh bloody hell, Robert.” John started to massage his forehead. “Alright, what can I do to help?”

“I understand that Achernar BattleMechs are looking to build a new factory?”

“Yes, on Point Barrow. Between us, they’re having trouble meeting demand and it was going to be convenient to the supply bases on Andalusia and Bonneau.”

Grec nodded. “We’ve activated penalty clauses in the contracts with Blueshot and Cosara that let us grant licenses and provide the schematics for another firm to begin building their ‘Mechs. Steiner will kick off, but he’s already annoyed the General quite enough that one more piece of wood on the fire won’t make matters any worse. I’m authorised to offer both licenses to Achernar, along with technical support from Second Army to get production up and running as fast as possible.”

“Do it!” Hanse exclaimed. “Those are our bread and butter, John. Heavies are just the backbone, the one thing the AFFS can’t do without is a steady supply of workhorse mediums.”

“I can’t speak for Achernar’s board, I’m only one shareholder,” John told his guest and his ghost. “But you certainly have my support and I’d be glad to arrange a meeting. Will you handle it personally or shall we drop it on Joshua and Bennett?”

“On this one I’ll have to take point since it’s the SLDF granting the license. Fortunately I can let Bennett handle some more conventional contracting. Corean and Johnston will be getting more of our funding for their vehicle programmes.”

“You’re going to the League, then?” asked John in surprise. “DeChevilier’s closer to Stewart than you are right now.”

Grec smirked. “It’s nice to get one over on you every now and then,” he informed the Prince. “They do have some tertiary facilities right here on New Avalon and since Captain-General Marik isn’t supportive of expanding SLDF contracts to suppliers within his realm, they’ve offered to retool and expand their presence here to build armoured vehicles for us.”

“Point for you,” John conceded.

“They built the Valkyrie and the Centurion for us here,” Hanse noted and then frowned. “Probably not started the Valkyrie yet, the Centurion assembly was relocated here late in Ian’s reign.”

“While we’re on the subject of tertiary plants,” the First Prince continued, “I’ve had a message from Erskine Cobb about some shortfalls affecting their production for the SLDF. Heatsink components, specifically, now that they can’t import from the Hegemony. It’s going to be another four months before we have enough endo-steel coming from our new orbital factories to fill the demand. Longer if Amaris decides to send out raiders after them.”

The admiral grunted. Orbital factories were unavoidable given the need for micro-gravity to manufacture so many key materials these days, but they were far more vulnerable to naval raids than factories buried securely in a planet’s crust, where only invasion or an extended bombardment could get at them. “What are you angling for?”

“We’re still struggling with our heavy fighter numbers, the types we’ll need for anti-shipping strikes,” John explained. “And it’s not as if you can afford to pull them back from the frontlines, for the same reasons. If Amaris does push anywhere, you need them too. But someone on my staff pointed out that the Vulcans the rebels were flying in the Periphery must have come from factories in the Rim Worlds Republic.”

“That would follow. They’re not great fighters, but they’re certainly a threat to dropships. What do you want, the tooling?”

“Enough that we can copy it here. We’ll share output, of course.”

“You can probably have the lot,” Grec told him. “It’s bad enough identifying targets with Amaris using SLDF hardware against us in the Hegemony. The last thing we want is to add to the confusion by having Rim Worlds designs fighting alongside us.”

SLS Camino Real, Addicks Orbit
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
4 November 2768

“We’ve done well in liberating six more worlds from Republican forces,” Admiral Brandt advised the council. She directed their attention to the map at the front of the briefing chamber. “With the experience on Addicks and Tigress, Fourth Army was able to reduce Angol’s Castles Brian well ahead of schedule and secure the rimwards flank of our operations.”

“So far, Amaris has restricted himself to probing at the defences of the liberated worlds. It seems that intelligence reports are correct and he’s continuing to direct a significant portion of his reserves towards reinforcing the core worlds and his other frontiers rather than committing to try to defeat our Army Group in isolation.”

“Under the circumstances, the possibility of pressing harder and wheeling up through the centre of the province to liberate the pocket between Tigress and Epsilon Eridani has been put before the strategic staff. After careful thought it’s been decided that we won’t do this, as we’re already leaning on Second Army for garrisons. Capellan behaviour doesn’t lead me to believe that the Fifth Army can be similarly weakened in the Confederation until we have more forces in theatre.”

“As such, our goals for the next year are going to shift focus to the worlds along the Combine border.”

All eyes went to the map and several eyebrows rose. General Chudzik was the one who voiced the obvious concern. “Are you talking about Al Na’ir, admiral?”

“I am,” she agreed unflinchingly. “Until now both we and Amaris have been working on the basis that the SDS systems make worlds effectively unassailable. While exercises have shown the defences to be substantial, that’s never really been put to the test.”

Brandt looked around the room. “We always knew the day would come when we’d need to take a world protected by these systems. Well, the time is here. Aside from liberating Al Na’ir and its resources, this will serve two purposes. Firstly, we’ll have data on how the defences operate under real world conditions that Kerensky will need before we engage the even heavier defences around Terra. Secondly, we’ll shake Amaris up. So far he’s been able to use systems with SDS as bastions to build his defences around. Now we’ll take that confidence away from him.”

“None of the systems we’ve taken are in jump-range of Al Na’ir,” the new commander of Sixth Army noted. “And there are three worlds between us. Will we be bypassing them and using a deep space staging area?”

“No, general.” Brandt zoomed the map in on the region. “The first stage of the operation will be the liberation of Towne, Pokhara and Murchison by your own command, along with the Seventh and Nineteenth Armies. Ideally Murchison will act as a staging area to reach Al Na’ir but if operations there don’t proceed well, either of the other two worlds will serve.”

“As soon as we have a staging area secured, Third Fleet will act as a spearhead to begin operations within the Al Na’ir system. For those unfamiliar, Al Na’ir itself is unterraformed and the cities there are enclosed. The wealth of the system is in mining operations scattered across the entire star system. While Republican forces are believed to only be garrisoning key nodes and defensive structures – including the SDS control centres – there’s a very real possibility we’ll need to secure mining operations across hundreds of asteroids and moons. For this reason, armoured and infantry units will be of limited use in ground operations. General Lucas?”

Jack Lucas rose. “The 123rd Jump Infantry Division has been bringing their exo-atmospheric training up to par over the last month in preparation for this operation, as have all fifteen ‘Mech regiments in the other Divisions of LXIX Corps. They’ll act as our first wave with the balance of Third Army acting as a reserve for operations on Murchison, Pokhara and Towne.”

“Fourth Army is primarily committed to protecting the liberated worlds during these operations but General Baptiste has agreed to reorganise and concentrate her six brigades of jump infantry in reserve. In the event that the 123rd requires further infantry support we can call on them for reinforcements. Hopefully there won’t be any further instances like Ankaa where extra infantry are needed in order to keep the peace.”

“At the least, I think the message that the AFFS aren’t here to invade seems to have sunk in,” Chudzik replied. “The relief convoys from the Suns have helped a great deal and we’re circulating news of damage done by the Rim Worlders on Ozawa as a case in point. Footage of Feddie volunteers working alongside the Ozawans to restore their space ports has done more the pacify Ankaa than another four infantry divisions would have.”

Lucas looked over at Admiral Dokovic, representing Third Fleet. While Brandt had commandeered Fourth Fleet’s flagship as her own after Admiral Marina Akkayev-Cameron had been confirmed as missing – she’d attended her distant cousin’s Christmas celebrations on Terra two years before and not been seen since – the bulk of the Star League Navy’s forces under the Army Group were built around Renata Dokovic’s Third Fleet, reinforced with myriad flotillas assembled from the garrison fleet. “Admiral, will Federated Suns warships be participating in the operation?”

Dokovic shook her head. “Prince Davion has confirmed that his navy are available for such operations, including the first wave if necessary -” If the jump points used were defended then the first wave of attack could be expected to take heavy losses. “- but they don’t have many heavy ships suitable for such operations and we haven’t had the opportunity to train alongside them yet. I’d be open to that in the future but right now I’m assigning the FSN squadron under Admiral Moore to escort Sixth Army’s transports over Pokhara.”

”They won’t be able to handle a major fleet operation if Amaris’ ships at Al Na’ir are sent after them.”

“That’s the same situation as if the Rimmers strike at Murchison or Towne,” she told him matter-of-factly. “We’ll be dividing Nineteenth Fleet between those operations. Eleventh Fleet is stretched to cover the rest of our area of operations so if Amaris does do that we’ll delay the Al Na’ir attack so that Third Fleet can reinforce the threatened system and destroy Amaris’ mobile forces while they’re outside the SDS defences. It would be an ideal opportunity.”

“A little rough on whoever gets bounced,” Baptiste muttered.

Brandt shrugged. “If we can’t take a joke we shouldn’t be doing this. And John Davion was all in favour of pulling Rim Worlders out of their defences so we needn’t expect any protests from him if Moore does draw such an attack.”

“You’re just predisposed to like her because her flagship is a carrier,” Dokovic said drily.

“Do you know how many fighters she has on that thing? A hundred and eighty with a full war load!” Brandt rolled her eyes heavenwards. “Why don’t we have ships like that?”

“We tried. It was one of the more notable debacles in navy history, since the damned thing broke down before it was out of its construction docks. At least a McKenna can defend itself once another warship is in weapon’s range, not to mention carry enough fuel and munitions to supply its fighter wings for a useful amount of time.”


SLS Camino Real, Al Na’ir System
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
21 December 2768

“Multiple drive flares, relative direction 179 by 005.”

No fighter pilot could ever be sanguine about someone popping up ‘on their six’ and Joan Brandt was no exception. “Range? Numbers?”

“Correlating data from the fleet… approximately a million kilometres.” The sensor officer studied the data. “Numbers are high, one hundred warships minimum, at least as many dropships.”

The admiral gripped her seat. “And vector?”

“Intercept course. They’re making roughly thirty mps-squared.”

“Admiral Brandt?” her communications chief reported. “Admiral Dokovic for you.”

“Put her through.”

Third Fleet’s commander seemed calm on the screen. “It seems they want to catch us before we reach the inner system,” she noted blandly.

Due to the size of its star and the immense number of asteroids in the Al Na’ir system, many of them in orbits straying significantly above the orbital plane, jumping to transitory points was immensely hazardous and the standard jump points were three weeks from the one more or less habitable world at standard 9.8 mps-squared accelerations.

Moving at three times that made it clear who it was behind them – human crews could only accept that acceleration for a limited time span and very few SLDF ships could attain it, a number that didn’t include the battleships that the two Admirals were aboard. But however many Republican warships were in system, the primary defence of Al Na’ir was the fleet of drone warships and dropships stationed here. Autonomous save for strategic direction, there were no crews aboard that might protest the punishing acceleration.

“The Caspars might be able to hit that acceleration but they can’t keep it up forever. The on-board fuel stores are finite,” Brandt observed thoughtfully. “They must have been lurking behind the jump-point waiting for us to arrive and move away so they could cut us off from retreat.”

The other woman smiled coldly. “We didn’t come here to retreat.”

“Indeed not.” The sang-froid masked a degree of concern though – Third Fleet had only eighty-six warships and slightly more than twice as many assault dropships to escort the transports needed to liberate Al Na’ir. “Their tactics are predictable: after making up ground they’ll match velocity and try to wear down rearmost ships with slashing attacks.”

“I’ll deploy our screen accordingly,” Dokovic confirmed and then, as if waiting for a challenge. “The Camino Real will take up position with the van.”

Brandt’s eyes narrowed but she said nothing. There could be more ships ahead after all and one of the two Admirals should be kept out of the initial clash, even if it galled her to be placed in the position of guard-dog for the glorified ferries carrying Lucas’ ‘Mechs and infantry.

Seeing that Brandt wasn’t going to challenge her, Dokovic nodded. “As most of the drones don’t have capacity to carry fighters; this seems like an ideal situation to use our own. I request authorisation for nuclear payloads.”

“Authorisation confirmed. We’re well clear of civilians, I can think of no better time.”


The ten squadrons chosen for the strike were Rapiers, escorted in by an equal number of Hellcat IIs. As they flipped over and used their drives to begin bleeding off Third Fleet’s velocity and close in on the pursuers, dozens more fighters launched from cruisers and destroyers to maintain a combat patrol around the fleet’s formation. After all, they could be wrong about the prospect of drone-fighters.

Brandt watched on a repeater screen as the formations closed in. The Hellcats, with their advanced sensors, sent back a stream of data to refine that gathered already.

One hundred and forty-eight M-5 Caspar drones, exactly half of Al Na’ir’s reported strength, escorted by twice as many of the much smaller M-3 drones. The 4,000 ton drones were operating in squadrons of six and she was uncomfortably aware that they, like the Pentagon-class dropships of her own screen – had a thrust-to-mass ratio comparable to the fighters. And the drones had no crews to suffer accelerations of up to fifty-five mps-squared.

The M-3s showed that, pushing ahead of their capital ships to engage the fighters. That was fine – as much as Brandt wanted to get rid of the destroyer-sized M-5s, she’d agreed with Dokovic that thinning the M-3 numbers would probably be necessary first.

The Hellcats didn’t pull aside for the Rapiers, instead as the drones closed up they went to meet them, replying on their lasers to bleed the drones before the Rapiers made the killing blows.

As the attack developed, Brandt saw the fighters were already beginning to vanish from the display. Some of them briefly showed damage markers, but such cripples were quickly singled out for finishing shots by the computers aboard the drones.

“They’re being slaughtered!” someone exclaimed.

Then the Rapiers reached engagement range and the Hellcats had done their job, drawing fire to the point that only a single Rapier had been destroyed before it could fire.

Visible light and surges of microwave activity marked detonations as Alamo nuclear missiles exploded against the armoured hulls of the M-3s. Freed of their cumbersome external payloads, the Rapiers darted into evasive manoeuvres as they tried to escape the weapon brackets of the surviving drones.

There were far too many of those survivors, Brandt saw. While the remaining Hellcats could detect damage, only a dozen of the M-3s were adrift or had broken up. As many as half of the missiles must have missed, she realised. And worse – even those that succeeded in striking home had more or often than not failed to deliver complete kills.

The fighters clawed for velocity but the M-3 drones clung tenaciously to them. More than thirty Hellcats had been destroyed to get the Rapiers into range but the numbers continued to climb as the M-3s surged after them, ripping into the rear of the tattered formations. Behind them the M-5s were firing their drives and moving in pursuit – not as fast but their capital lasers had far more range than those of their escorts and even a single hit was fatal to the heavy fighters.

“They’re boring in.” Brandt could hear the sick certainty in her own voice. Physics was unforgiving and the Rapiers didn’t have the thrust to escape the pursuit. We didn’t give that enough consideration, she thought. I was too sure our fighters would have the agility advantage, but the drones don’t care that they’re throwing 4,000 ton dropships around like 40 ton fighters, it’s within the drive’s theoretical limits so why wouldn’t they do it?

Behind her, Dokovic’s line squadrons were turning to bring broadsides to bear on the inbound drones. The heavy turreted guns would reap a bloody harvest on the M-3s – she had six McKenna-class battleships (including her own flagship, SLS Iona) and three Cameron-class battlecruisers to anchor the rear-guard of the fleet, along with their escorting frigates and cruisers.

The clock reported that it took a full hour for the two fleets to reach gunnery range. Something deep inside the admiral attested that the clock lied. The agonising slaughter of the Rapiers and those Hellcats that had been too close to the M-3s as they mounted their pursuit seemed to play out interminably for her. Only when the shots at the scattered handful of survivors proved futile – so few, barely six squadrons left out of forty! – did the M-3s cut their drives and form up again as a bloodied but undaunted vanguard to the wall of Caspars behind them.

M-5 drones. Built on the hull frames of Lola-class fast destroyers. Without the need for life support or for the deep cargo holds required for long-range operations the weapon payload could be much heavier than their manned counterparts. And while the ships of Dokovic’s fleet were bound together by morale and training, the M-5s were tied into a single tactical network of super-computers.

First Lord Jonathan Cameron had ordered the creation of the M-series drones to finally devise killers more deadly than even mankind. The M-5 wasn’t the last of the series but it was without doubt the sharpened edge of that intent.

Now they would find out how it measured up.

Sixty-three never-wracking minutes after the fighter strike’s failure, Third Fleet opened fire into the squadrons of M-3 drones. Particle beams, heavy naval autocannon and nuclear warheads ten times more powerful than those a fighter could carry pulverised the dropships.

But moments later the M-5 drones were able to return fire and Renata Dokovic’s heavy ships were forced to switch their targets, leaving the smaller drones to destroyers, corvettes and even Pentagon-class assault dropships in favour of killing the real threat.

The rear of Third Fleet was engulfed in fire, a morass of indicators – friendly and hostile – dropping out of contact as they were destroyed or simply lost sight of in the storm of both intentional jamming and of the microwave pulses of nuclear detonation. Often the ships would be re-acquired moments later… but not always.

Ruthlessly calculating machines met grim and all too human determination…

Air-venting ships bucked under fantastic impacts. Mortally wounded vessels drove closer to fire one last salvo at suicidally close ranges, manned ships no less eager to sell their lives dearly than the drones.

...and after fifteen heart-wrenching moments, some cost-loss ratio was met within the advanced tactical network of the drones and the M-5s changed course and opened the range, still escorted by a fragmentary escorting wave of M-3s.

There were gaping holes in that formation. As the last shots struck or, more often, missed it was possible for the command systems of the Camine Real to calculate the price the SLDF had charged.

Ninety-seven M-5s were pulling away. Mostly undamaged, for the wounded among their fleet had acted as a suicidal rear-guard to let their comrades break contact. Only one hundred and four M-3s still played escort and few of them were as lucky.

“Orders, admiral?”

“Pull the heavy ships into the centre of the formation and push our dropships further out,” Brandt ordered. “I want a three squadron group of interceptors to shadow the drones from outside their weapons range, in case they try to get out of sensor-lock. There could be a resupply base in the asteroids where they can refuel and reload for another round.”

We’ve killed a third of their Caspars but this is only part of their defences and they’ve pulled back for a reason, she thought. And we’ve paid for that. Paid so much.

There had been thirty-one ships in the Twenty-First Strike Squadron and the Thirty-First Battle Squadron that had made up Dokovic’s line. Now only nineteen battered ships remained… and SLS Iona wasn’t one of them.


FSS Tancredi, Al Na’ir System
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
18 January 2769

It had taken time to put together a relief force and there were only three squadrons in the grandly named Second Fleet. The original Second Fleet hadn’t survived the coup intact and surviving squadrons and divisions had been added to whatever other fleets they were nearest. Still, the designation was available and this was loosely what could be considered the old Second Fleet’s operational area.

Vice Admiral Furnshill’s Forty-Third Interdiction Squadron had been part of the pre-War Fourth Fleet, familiar with patrolling the Combine’s borders. With Al Na’ir positioned on the Hegemony’s border they’d at least visited the system within the last decade. That was more than could be said of the 112th Escort Squadron under Vice Admiral Willingham but they’d a lot of experience in the Hyades Cluster with asteroid-dense systems so Admiral Belleau had detached his own 192nd Escort Squadron to take over the convoy support role and put Willingham under Furnshill’s command.

And then there are us, Kenneth Jones mused.

FSS Tancredi was still Nike Moore’s flagship but a thin fourth band had joined the three broad ones already on her epaulettes after Ozawa, marking promotion to Admiral. In addition to the Arthur and Katherine Davion, two escort divisions had been placed under Moore’s command. Long obsolete, the four cruisers and two destroyers couldn’t possibly keep pace if Tancredi and her division maneuvered hard but there was no faulting the willingness of the crews.

“The enemy’s location is confirmed. We have contact with Admiral Brandt.”

“Understood,” Jones confirmed. He wasn’t privy to the communications yet, possibly not even Admiral Moore was yet, but the fact that contact had been established was enough to know that at least thus far, matters were following the plan. “Give me the plot.”

The tactical display lit up, showing Al Na’ir itself, two ominously crimson clouds of icons indicating the defenders – the remaining drone fleet, predominantly pulled from the jump-point used by Second Fleet to enter the system, and around half their number of manned warships.

Brandt had correctly predicted that the RWN had divided the drones between the two jump-points and brought the un-engaged half to reinforce the inner system once it was clear the half engaging her wouldn’t stop Third Fleet from reaching Al Na’ir. Left unguarded, there had been nothing to stop Second Fleet from arriving except a tiny picket force.

Admiral Furnshill’s solution to that had answered Jones’ questions about the Q-ships that he’d fought in the Ozawa system. The SLN called them Nightwing surveillance ships, pre-League starships equipped with hidden weapons and sensors that had acted as the Hegemony’s eyes and ears in the space ways of their neighbours for generations. As such ships became rarer in the Inner Sphere, the Star League had retired most and the few that remained had been out in the Periphery until lately.

Amaris had apparently pulled some out of the mothballed reserve fleet to supplement his own fleet. It was amusing to turn it back on him – the first hint that the pair of Bonaventure-class corvettes had received that all was not well with the new arrival who’d been using IFF signals obtained from the Ozawa wrecks was when jamming cut them off from Al Na’ir and the SLN commander had taken his tiny ship between the two of them, opening up with broadsides while the two of them dared not return fire in case they hit each other.

“Interesting that the Republican ships are staying clear of the drones.” Jones focused the display on them for a moment. “There are more than expected, too. And is that a Monsoon battleship in the middle of their formation? Amaris is digging every relic he can find out of mothballs.”

“Captain Jones.” Nike Moore’s face popped up on the flag-bridge display. “Admiral Brandt has decided on OpPlan Gradient. Are our fighters ready?”

Jones looked over at Weiss Plains’ position and then nodded. “I hope her ships are ready.”

“I’m assured of clear decks at their end.”

The Commodore winced at the implication of how depleted Third Fleet’s aerospace complement must be. “Then we can launch as soon as the word is given.”

“Do it.”

“Commodore Plains. Launch your birds for OpPlan Gradient.” The situation called for a little formality, in his view.

“Sir.” Plains adjusted her headset and gave the necessary commands. Almost immediately the tiny specs of friendly fighters began forming up ahead of not only the Tancredi but her escorts. Only two squadrons were being held back – the Baron-class destroyers FSS John Lennon and FSS William Shakespeare only carried six fighters each and it had been agreed that integrating them into the wings of other ships could cause confusion so they’d remain as a marginal combat aerospace patrol for the FSN squadron. Otherwise the combined aero-wings of all nine warships and twenty-two dropships were being committed.

Over six hundred Federated Suns fighters began to slowly pull away from their carriers as Moore’s squadron continued to decelerate from their run in-system. Furnshill’s own ships were launching their half of the operation, although even with their own Titan dropships, they couldn’t match the FSN’s contribution.

“All Song-class ships report no problems with the launches,” Plains reported.

“Not bad for their first big outing,” replied Jones. The Song-class was intended as one of a series of home-built battalion transports for the AFFS. Unfortunately production hadn’t been ready for the war and even the ships attached to Moore’s squadron weren’t complete – the desperate need for naval support during the initial liberation efforts had had the first dozen outfitted for carrier operations only and sent to the frontlines.

Some of those now in service were fully fitted out, but this would be the first time in Jones’ experience of using them that they’d managed to launch all their fighters without a catapult failure.

On the display, Third Fleet were manoeuvring to bypass Al Na’ir – OpPlan Gradient explicitly gave up on trying to reclaim the world for now – and the drones were moving to block them. The Rim Worlders were also moving, but much more tentatively.

“Those fellows don’t seem to want to get to grips,” Moore noted as they watched the fleets manoeuvre.

Jones waggled his head from side to side. “They’ve been told how massively superior the Caspars are to manned ships, but Third Fleet’s destroyed three of the drones for every warship they’ve lost. If I was them I’d want to finish grinding down the SLDF before getting to grips with myself.”

“It’s stupid – they’d lose most of their drones even if they won.”

“Better drones than their lives. After the last few weeks, the last thing they’d want to do is engage the SLDF with their current force strength – they don’t even have a two-to-one numerical advantage.”

The truth was that Brandt’s ships and their valiant crews were almost spent. Half her ships had been destroyed in combat or scuttled due to damage. According to her reports, not one warship had avoided damage over the continued clashes since entering Al Na’ir. Few battles had been as large as the first but a succession of smaller attacks had eaten away at ammunition and fuel as much as they had armour and drives. They had one fight left in them… maybe. And by the time the drones behind them had been destroyed, it had been easier to commit to punching through the inner system to the jump point beyond that than it would have been to turn around.

As ever in a large battle, time seemed to crawl. Jones kept one eye on the tactical display and pulled up routine paperwork. Some of it might not matter by the time this encounter was done with but better to have it out of the way. And besides, looking calm was part of his job now.

The defenders were treating the inbound relief force with lordly disdain – they were too far away, after all. Simply by slowing down to reach Al Na’ir in something approaching useful combat speeds they’d ensured they’d arrive well after Third Fleet. No, better to finish off the original enemy and then handle the new arrivals.

One advantage of the drones over manned warships was that unlike the Republican fleet they never neglected to watch all directions. Thus, they were the first to spot the inbound fighters and begin adjusting their screening elements.

It was too late of course, but they did manage it.

Moving well above normal combat speeds, more than a thousand aerospace fighters slashed through the drone’s formation, carefully drawn into position by Brandt’s manoeuvres. Whether it was the fault of the SDS command centre on the surface of Al Na’ir or the drones themselves, their positioning had turned out to be a little predictable.

At this huge closing speed, any shot that hit them was virtually guaranteed to destroy the fighters, but by the same virtue it was almost impossible for such a hit to be scored. And as they crossed the formation, each fighter launched the nuclear missile they were carrying.

Almost eighty percent of the missiles were off-target. Some were fired too soon, others too late. In the vastness of space, some simply didn’t lock onto the ship desired (although due to pilot error or sheer luck, four of the Caspars and one M-3 took direct hits from missiles not intended for them).

But that still meant that two hundred missiles did score hits and their targets were six ships that had subtly different electronic signatures. Third Fleet had had weeks to isolate those distinctions and the data had been sent via their on-board HPGs back to Second Fleet.

Six M-5C drones, carrying the computers that knit the drone fleet into a single cohesive whole, each struck by at least twenty nuclear weapons. In four cases at least one missile punched through the armoured hull and detonated inside the hulls, explosions tearing back outwards with all the subtlety of an axe. One was adrift – hull and weapons largely intact but the massive thruster array at the stern melted to uselessness by multiple warheads. And the last emerged from a cloud of wreckage, under power and fully armed despite the great craters blasted into its armour… but blind and helpless for every sensor and communications array across its hull had been scoured away the fury of the missiles.

Not stopping to see the results of their work, the fighters streaked onwards and only when they were well clear of the drones did they begin applying their thrusters to the vital task of slowing down to rendezvous with Third Fleet. Each fighter had been chosen for this – Sparrowhawks and Centurions that could provide the brutal seventy plus mps-squared delta-v necessary.

“Fourteen losses,” Plains reported quietly.

“Regrettable, but necessary.” Jones studied the screen. There was already raggedness to the formation of the drones. “They’ll still fight, they’ll fight hard. But now they’ll fight as individuals not as a co-ordinated force.”

Admiral Moore nodded. “And we’ll fight too. Admiral Furnshill has ordered her carrier dropships to form on us and to keep the range open. I’ve detached our escort divisions to support her in the main thrust.”

Third Fleet had altered course now, taking advantage of the drone’s disorder. Now they’d slingshot around Al Na’ir’s largest moon while Third Fleet used the planet itself. They’d briefly bracket the Rim Worlders between them and then be directed back outwards towards the jump point.

“After the return pass we’ll need to fall back on conventional strikes,” Jones warned. “Third Fleet can’t give our fighters the needed boost except during the slingshot.”

The M-5 drones were already recognising the changed circumstances, one at a time, and changing course. The M-3 drones escorting them apparently found a different solution and accelerated towards Al Na’ir’s moon to attempt an interception at during the sling-shot. Jones checked the direction of the Caspars and nodded. “Divide and conquer – the M-5 drones know they can’t intercept Brandt now, so they’re changing course to engage Third Fleet instead.”

Moore shrugged. “That’s an acceptable risk. Furnhill’s fleet is fresh and now they don’t have their command ships. Can they engage us?”

Jones didn’t have to run the calculations, he’d already checked. “Not if we move to fifteen or twenty mps-squared – which our ships can take easily. Crews won’t like it but…”

“Better than dead,” his commander shrugged. “Do it.”


Terra Prime, Apollo
Apollo Province, Rim Worlds Republic
29 January 2769

“Third Fleet made it out with thirty operational ships, by a very generous appreciation of operational,” DeChevilier reported grimly. “Nine of the losses were ramming by M-3 drones, including the Camino Real. Four thousand tons at that sort of closing speed isn’t survivable, even by a battleship.”

Kerensky nodded slowly. “We knew the Space Defense Systems would be a problem. I don’t think we appreciated quite how bad it would be. How about Second Fleet?”

“Twenty-seven ships and I think their repair estimates are more realistic.” The Deputy Commanding General made a face. “Six of the losses were FSN ships, two with all hands. It’s a fraction of the whole but…”

“That’s almost a tenth of their warship strength.”

“Seems to be a tradition. Remember Tentativa, back in the Reunification War?”

“Not the same at all,” the smaller man said sharply. “Tentativa was a defeat. This is a victory, albeit at terrible cost.”

“We didn’t take Al Na’ir. Fourteen battalions of troops destroyed aboard their transports – half a division in practical terms. Victory?”

“Losses have been worse against Castles Brian here and in the Hegemony.” Kerensky drew himself up and forced himself to add: “And they will continue to be high. Seventy-two warships destroyed and more than fifty in need of repairs is a high price to pay but the enemy losses were much higher. Almost three hundred M-5 drones and as many M-3s, the Republican fleet too battered to pursue.”

“They held the system,” DeChevilier chided him. “And Joan Brandt…”

“We cannot afford a defeat, so we cannot call it that.” The general rubbed his brow. “John Davion is familiar with… flexible objectives. This was a reconnaissance in force, a testing of the SDS so that we may prepare for operations in the future. In destroying so many drones and gathering invaluable intelligence data, Joan succeeded brilliantly.”

“…yes sir.”

“Posthumously, she will receive the Medal of Valour.”

“Her husband is on New Earth, by last report.”

“Yes, Admiral Peterson’s son. One of the old naval dynasties. Hopefully he has avoided Amaris’ commissars.”

DeChevilier thought of his own family. Intelligence from within the Hegemony had reported the creation of a new government agency, the Office of Policy and Doctrine. It was an innocuous name for a paramilitary force of nebulous mission. At least part of its purpose was rounding up SLDF personnel still at large on Amaris-held worlds – and they drew little line between active personnel, the retired… or dependent families. “So we all pray.”

They stood together, where Stefan Amaris or at least one of his high ministers must have stood at one time or another, sharing in that ugly mood without words.

“You’ve decided to leave Davion in command then?” asked DeChevilier mildly.

“He was her formal deputy and so long as he doesn’t try to take field command, I think he will do well. Baptiste will remain ground commander, after all.”

“And the navy? Belleau is senior.”

“He’s a good man, yes… I would like to promote Janos Grec but Belleau is ready for more responsibility.” Kerensky frowned. “It would not do to hold him back. You can manage him.”

“Me?”

“Yes. We will need a few months to finish reducing the last strongholds of the Republicans but the time has come to look towards opening a second front in the Hegemony. When that time comes, I want you to be in command of our thrust out the Suns.”

“I could take a ship now. Follow our supply lines as far as Skye and cut across Marik’s space with a battle squadron. He’d not dare stop me and we need to reinforce the fleets under Davion’s Army Group.”

“In time, yes. But firstly I need you here to help me prepare our strategy and we must consider how the SDS drones can be better dealt with. Even one ship for every four of them is a price we cannot afford – there were almost seven thousand M-5 drones across the Hegemony and production of M-3 drones is distressingly easy, Amaris could build almost any number of them.” Kerensky shook his head. “We must devise a method first and then… and then you will depart.”

“You’re trusting him with a quarter of the SLDF.” DeChevilier laughed bitterly. “Well, a quarter of what remains.”

“He is an honourable man.”

“So was Brutus.”

The Commanding General of the SLDF shook his head. “He is no Brutus, much less a Caesar, Aaron. His ambition, such as it is, are for the Star League first, his own realm next and only then for himself. He is a rare ally in these times.”

“Rare? Yes, I will agree that allies are rare birds these days. But that’s a low bar. We’ve almost had more help from the damned Taurians than we’ve had from Kenyon Marik and it’s been two years and Minoru Kurita hasn’t said a damn word to you. Not one word!”

Kerensky nodded wearily. “Yet nor has he hindered those who have come of their own will to help us. Remember that.”

“Oh yes, the ronin, the masterless men who’ve been duelling ours for a century and who the Kurita’s have piously protested they cannot restrain. Well, he’s no hypocrite, I’ll grant him that much. Who else is there? The Archon, who won’t help us for spite of you? The Chancellor, who won’t help us for spite of the First Prince.” DeChevilier seemed to run down. “I don’t know, Alek. I think he’s the best of a bad bunch, but I can’t help but think he’s known more about what was going in than he’s ever told us.”

“Let me name another for your list. Lucien Dormax, who is trying desperately to hold the Rim Worlds together for us.”

“And you don’t think he’s ambitious? He needs us. God, and when we embark for Terra what happens here? He’s only clinging to power because of us and the people who’ve joined us here don’t love the League, they just hate Amaris. If we pull out entirely there’ll be a firestorm.”

“We won’t pull out entirely.” Kerensky shook his head. “We’ll need the supplies from here, the facilities. The money, to be brutally honest. At least two armies will need to remain here to hold matters together.”

“You’re probably right, but that’ll mean we need to weaken some of the garrison armies to reinforce the troops on the frontlines.”

His commander gave him a wan smile. “That’s the thinking I need at my side right now. Twelve months, Aaron. John Davion will do us no wrong in that time. And if it makes Minoru Kurita and Barbara Liao nervous, that may not be such a bad thing. When they have done half so much for us as House Davion has in this terrible time, then I shall treat their complaints seriously.”

FSS William D. Porter, Al Na’ir System
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
22 August 2769

Reconnaissance had identified a hundred drones guarding each jump point, almost all of them smaller M-3s. There would be no jumping in without being spotted – it might be possible to jump in far enough out that immediate engagement wouldn’t result, but the data wasn’t that current. An HPG was just as obvious as a jump flare in some respects so the spy ships had to be very careful.

“It’s ironic,” Admiral Benden had told Kenneth Jones earlier. “Admiral Brandt wouldn’t have ordered us in on the first wave because it would look as if she was treating us as expendable. But now that the First Prince is in command he has to send FSN ships first or the reverse is true.”

“Some ships are more expendable that others,” he’d replied.

Non-essential personnel had been disembarked, not that a warship had many of those. Flight deck staff could be sent though – the chances of being called on to refuel or rearm a fighter were very slim. Most of Jones’ staff wasn’t needed either. The carriers had plenty of spare room for them – part of the redesign he’d ordered had ensured there was life support and barracks for hundreds of excess personnel – and neither of those was going to be sent in the first wave.

Six ships, manned by the bare minimum needed to fight them. And the admirals. Ramirez, aboard FSS Anjin Muerto, and Jones himself aboard Wee Willie. Strictly speaking, neither man was filling a role in operating the ships, but tradition was clear: their divisions were going into harm’s way, so it was their obligation to be aboard.

The brief moment of disorientation passed as they entered the system. Jones gripped the arms of the shock frame and watched. The flag deck was empty and silent without his staff so he’d relocated to the Combat Information Centre where at least he was not alone.

“Fighters away. Take us up thirty, starboard seven,” ordered Captain Toland from the navigational bridge.

They’d crammed forty fighters aboard somehow, loading them into shuttle bays and improvised a catapult arrangement that would launch two squadrons out of the cargo-bay doors – not exactly a dignified launch since it amounted to three cargo arms, each gripping a structural member that four fighters had been clamped to.

The tactical display cleared up after the interminable span of forty, maybe forty-five, seconds. Space around them was awash with crimson.

None of the other ships were in a position to support – they’d emerged pointing in all directions and the orders were simple – if drones were in range then engage them immediately, forcing them to focus upon the first wave and let the second wave of ships arrive and orientate themselves without an immediate threat.

Porter’s guns shook her elderly framework as they fired into the drones, the fighters scattering as they singled out targets from the swarming drones. The old cruiser’s power systems couldn’t manage both broadsides but everything from bow to stern along her port-side was firing.

Eight M-3 drones died under that battering but lasers, missiles and gauss slugs were clawing away at the Porter’s flank. Individually they were little threat, but as Jones had found at Tortuga, enough of them in time could do the job.

“Missiles!” someone shouted.

For a moment Jones wondered if they meant the fighters’ Alamos, which were already launched, or the Porter’s own launchers – responsible for two drones killed.

Then he saw the trace on the screen and backtracked it to the shark that had emerged from the M-3 minnows. One of the M-5s was still here and its bow guns were hurling fire after the missiles it had already fired.

The Wee Willie’s hull screamed as nuclear fire smashed against her prow. Jones was rattled in the shock-frame and the lighting flickered. He grabbed for his emergency mask but there was no scream of air, the compartment was still sealed.

Automatically he checked the repeater from the bridge. It showed only static. The ship status display…

Bridge, bow turret, even the forward missile launchers were dark.

“Roll the ship!” Two voices, his own and Major Kirkland’s as the XO took over responsibility for the Porter.

Jones lifted his hand in apology. “Your conn, Captain.”

“Perseverant and Belligerent are gone,” someone noted.

“Worry about that Caspar first,” Jones snarled. The little corvettes hadn’t had much chance of surviving this to begin with. Hopefully the crews had made it off.

The Porter’s roll was off-axis and the ship heeled wildly. Thruster damage, Jones noted.

“Stop swearing, Jackson. Stop trying to compensate too.” Kirkland unlocked her shock-frame and leapt across the compartment to direct the man. “We need to shield the bow – more shots into that could punch deep in, there’s so little armour left. Tactical, focus fire on the Caspar.”

Some gunners weren’t getting the new orders and both broadsides were firing now, engaging any M-3 drone that crossed their arc of fire, without regard to the limits of the power system. They’d carved a wedge out of the drone formation, but ships that had been engaging the corvettes were now swarming over the larger vessels. Two port-side turrets managed to lock-up the M-5 and six autocannon shells punched through her flank armour while three lasers smashed the drone’s bow particle projection cannon to pieces.

Then the M-5 brought her broadside to bear and opened up. A squadron of fighters dived into the gulf between the two behemoths, splitting into pairs to engage the capital missiles darting down on the Porter. Two of the missiles blew up, shots hitting their propellant. The third detonated short of the Porter – perhaps deliberately – and the pursuing fighters tumbled out of the explosion, pilots dead or dying from the radiation, control surfaces and instrumentation melted by the pulse of heat.

No miracle of bravery could prevent the autocannon from scoring hits though and eight hammer blows crashed against the cruiser’s dorsal hull, smashing their way along the Porter’s spine.

In CIC, Major Kirkland flew across the compartment, a chagrined expression on her face until her head hit the tactical display. Blood mixed with the holography in bizarre patterns as the woman went limp.

Shaken inside his frame, Jones shook his head trying to shake off the stunning effect of the Wee Willie’s pounding. Perhaps through sheer stubbornness, power stayed on and he looked around CIC. What was the chain of command now? “I have the conn,” he said flatly. “Medic to the bridge for Major Kirkland -” no longer the ship’s captain “- and get me a damage report.”

“Drives down,” a young leftenant reported. “Control runs are out. Primary power down for starboard broadside. Flight deck down, hell there’s a twenty metre hole between it and the cargo bay.”

“Keep your head, leftenant,” he ordered, forcing calm. “Have the laser turret crews shut their systems down and join damage control teams, we can aim and fire the autocannon and missiles off auxiliary power as long as we’re not trying to fire lasers off the same circuit.” He hoped he was right about that, the Tancredi could manage it but the Porter was much older. Can’t show doubt, he reminded himself. And right now nothing is in arc to fire on the Caspar anyway. “Handling thrusters?”

“Limited function, I can stop the roll.”

Jones checked the tactical display and then the ship systems display. “Don’t do that,” he said thoughtfully. The first hits had knocked out both the bow missile launchers but the port-bow launcher now showed as green. A fault? Maybe, but if not…

“Damage control, confirm status on the port-bow missile tubes.”

“Aye sir.” The leftenant turned back to his console and meanwhile Jones looked at the wider picture.

FSS Reynard Davion was no longer transmitting and the Anjin Muerto was bleeding air and fire. The Congress-class frigate was fractionally heavier than the William D Porter, but in trade off for more powerful engines, she had thinner armour and a lighter broadside. Somewhere beyond her FSS Robert Davion’s beacon reported that the destroyer was still fighting, but little else.

“Jump flares, sir, multiple flares…”

Half the M-3 drones were gone, the rest focusing on the three wounded survivors of the FSN squadron. It would take time for them to realign to engage the new arrivals, time that the second wave could use to form a defensive formation and co-ordinate their fire.

“Then our mission is complete. Now all we need to do is to survive.”

“Sir, damage control reports the tubes are intact. They were down because the muzzles were blocked by debris from the first strike. It’s been shaken free now.”

“Good.” There was just enough time. “Gunnery, those tubes will be in arc on the M-5 in thirty seconds. Make sure they’re loaded with Santa Anas and fire as they bear.”

The Senior Leftenant checked his board. “Load confirmed. Targeting solution…”

“Lifeboats departing the Anjin Muerto,” the sensor operators reported quietly.

On the tactical display, the roll brought the M-5 into the firing arc of the missile tubes, its own weapons cycling and ready for a coup de grace salvo before it retasked to handle the incoming warships.

“Firing.”

Three White Shark missiles leapt from the lamed cruiser’s nose – just as they must have at a startled SLDF general, more than a century before.

The first sailed past the M-5’s blunt bow.

The second detonated against one of the four engine nacelles and tore through armour into the systems beneath.

The third disappeared skimmed past an autocannon turret and detonated behind and below, outlining the Caspar in light for a moment. For a moment it seemed that the M-5 had escaped, but then the bow fell out of alignment with the engines and the drone tore in two as if its mid-section was mere paper, structural members violated behind their ability to support the massive power of the drives.

The first ships of the second wave, SLN heavy cruisers, burst through hyperspace one at a time. Between the first and second arrival, the Robert Davion’s transponder ceased to transmit.


Summer Palace, Sian
Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation
4 October 2769

Leaving her precious art collection behind, the Chancellor had relocated to the gardens and held audience for visitors in a pavilion of white marble pillars wound around with vines native to Sian. At other times of the year they might flower but today they gave the construction a morbid air.

“I have erred,” she said with no small amount of frustration.

“Please mother.” Baltazar Liao wore a high-collared shirt and his trousers were bloused around the top of cavalry style boots in the latest court fashion. Tai Yang Gwak imagined they must be painful to walk in for any appreciable time; he’d certainly eschewed such boots unless he actually planned to ride a horse. “We’re in public, anyone could hear you.”

“Such as the fluttering courtiers who think that calling me Celestial Highness in public will buy more favour than practical service?” Barbara Liao snorted disdainfully. “They are wrong about both. Delusions of divine favour are a luxury our house cannot afford, Baltazar.”

“Perhaps her excellency would enlighten her servant as to her concerns so that all may be made right?”

Barbara eyed him thoughtfully and then jerked her head, indicating the bench at the side of the pavilion. “Sit, Gwak.”

Oh dear. This was unprecedented. Obediently, he seated himself with his back to one of the marble columns.

“The peacock of Atreus has been crowing again, boasting of how much of the SLDF’s property he has bullied them to sell to him and of how grandly his forces are now endowed,” the Chancellor murmured. “I doubt this pleases Robert Steiner who has Kerensky’s eyes fixed upon him as the SLDF redeploys across the Commonwealth.”

“It hardly pleases me.” Her young heir frowned, brow furrowed. “Although we have done much the same, have we not? The destroyers that were docked at Capella, for example.”

“Yes. And this is my error. Learn from this, son. I allowed my anger at John Davion blind me to his goal.”

“How could you not hate him? He took grandfather’s death as an excuse to invade us, killed thousands of our citizens and nearly stole three worlds away before the Cameron came of age.” Baltazar almost spat into the flowerbeds but recalled his manners. “I didn’t like the First Lord, but at least he saw justice done there.”

“Hate him? Of course I hate him. But I should never have despised him.”

Gwak nodded thoughtfully. “It is important to grasp an adversary’s strengths that they can be effectively undermined. You spoke of his goal…?”

“Few of House Cameron survive – distant kin with no useful claim for the most part. The closest relative to Richard left is his cousin, spawn of a bastard and a Davion.”

“Guerever Cameron is dead,” Baltazar noted. “Was that…?” He directed a questioning look at Tai Yang.

The aged Director shook his head. “She simply fell ill according to my sources. Had someone planned the matter, her children would also have been dealt with.”

“There is no question that Kerensky will triumph over Amaris. None. But what then?” the Chancellor shook her head. “That is the question that all of the Council are contemplating. There is no clear succession for the Terran Hegemony, and by extension, to the First Lord’s throne.”

“Ah.”

“Ah?” Baltazar looked over at Tai Yang. “What do you mean?”

“I must crave pardon. My own counsel should have uncovered this line of thought before.” He turned to Baltazar. “We have contemplated only that the decision of succession would lie within the Council, for the SLDF would put down any attempt to seize power by other means. Even weakened as they are…”

“But Davion has followed Amaris’ example. Rather than confront them directly, he has used his army to work his way within their defences and into their command structures. Into the confidence of their leaders. Kerensky has no desire to rule and no heirs to provide for; the man is almost a eunuch. But if he were to sway towards any Council Lord as kingmaker, or were a less principled leader succeed to the post of Commanding General then the SLDF could readily impose a First Lord of their choice.”

The young man stared at his mother. “But they had not, they would not! The SLDF stays out of politics.”

“So we have all believed. But that could change. And John Davion would have it change. Marik and Steiner crow at the fortunes they’re making at the SLDF’s expense but wealth does not spring from hoarding. The Star League is collecting full taxes in the Suns and spending them there.”

Tai Yang frowned. “The best source of economic data from other realms has always been that gathered by the BSLA, but that is no longer centrally available. My understanding is that Davion has seen his economy shrink as we all have, with the loss of trade to the Hegemony – and he was their largest trading partner. And yet… he has not suffered worse, in fact some worlds are rebounding.”

“That perfidious prince has been a step ahead of us the entire time. Playing the honourable man… well it must appeal to Kerensky.” The Chancellor shook her head, tiny bells in her headdress chiming. “A profound error on my part and one that must be dealt with.”

“We would never accept a Davion as First Lord!” Baltazar protested.

“With Kerensky’s regiments at his back? Oh yes, I would bow,” she told him grimly. “Better to accept him as First Lord and try to muzzle him through the Council than to have the SLDF turn their guns upon us. Even as matters stand they have eighty ‘Mech regiments upon our soil and Kerensky is popular – look at how many have flocked to enlist in the SLDF in its hour of need.”

Tai Yang bowed his head. “And many of them then trained across the border, where Kerensky can be sure that Davion will not interfere… overtly.”

“Oh yes. Davion may not claim the throne himself of course. He could advance a puppet easily enough. His own vote and a Cameron-Davion First Lord, then convince Marik or Steiner to throw in with him… the First Lord’s vote breaks ties after all. The Terran Hegemony and Federated Suns tied together would have vast economic power.”

“Can we stop him?” Her son rubbed his chin. “Not from outside, we don’t have the forces – even if the other Lords supported us, we’d just be painted as siding with Amaris. Kerensky’s too popular to openly oppose.”

“I’m glad you see that. I believe a case can be made that while the bulk of the SLDF was in the Periphery, the Confederation was too exposed to openly declare our opposition to Amaris. After all, our military strength is least amongst the Member States and our economy damaged by the loss of trade with the Hegemony. If we are not the first to offer aid, it is at least plausible that we had good reason to wait.”

Tai Yang rubbed his chin. “There is then the matter of what we can offer to him in support.”

“On the military front, even Davion has only sent the equivalent of two Divisions,” the Chancellor declared. “Since he dare not break the peace with us if we seem to be co-operating with Kerensky, we may withdraw equivalent forces from our shared border and offer them to Kerensky for service with the SLDF armies striking out of the Lyran Commonwealth.”

Baltazar nodded emphatically. “No one could expect our forces to fight under Davion’s command. Not after the Border War. Which -”

“Very good. It reminds Kerensky that his current ally has been an aggressor given the opportunity.” She frowned. “We have crewed the destroyers purchased from the SLDF with loyal crews, but they require experience. They can be placed at Kerensky’s service for escort duties. Since that was to be their role anyway, there would be no logic in their being expended in costly assaults such as the recent battle of Al Na’ir.”

Seeing that the Chancellor’s heir seemed puzzled, Tai Yang spoke up. “Lord Baltazar may not yet have been made aware that Davion succeeded in securing the system where Admiral Brandt did not. Of course, the defenders had been much reduced already by her unsuccessful attack, but it nonetheless heralded as a victory for the forces under his command. The Federated Suns Navy was committed to the first wave of warships seizing one of the jump points and five of their ships were destroyed, another will need at least a year of repairs.”

“Possibly he was over-confident,” Barbara Liao mused. “But that may not be the case. I will not under-estimate him a second time. It is possible he allowed such losses to underscore his claim of commitment to Kerensky’s cause.”

Tai Yang bowed. “The agents of your Maskirova will investigate further, your excellency.”

“Financially…” Barbara sighed. “I will address the House of Scions, make it clear that the SLDF… no, appeal to his pride, that General Kerensky needs support and that the taxes paid to the Star League are vital to his struggle. The withholding of League taxes can no longer be excused.” She made a dismissive gesture. “It will at least play well to the citizens who idolize ‘The Protector of the Star League’.”


Army Group Eleven Headquarters, New Rhodes III
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
27 November 2769

“If the Marshal had known your schedule I’m sure he’d have delayed his visit to the frontlines,” Janos Grec said apologetically as he welcomed Aaron DeChevilier to the command centre.

“Is that what they call him? The Marshal?”

“Well it’s his rank – Marshal of the AFFS.”

“Yes, but -” There are echoes there of ‘the General’, the way men refer to Aleksandr, DeChevilier thought. He refrained from finishing thought out loud. “I’d expected his political rank, is all. He’s well thought of then?”

“By and large.” The admiral was almost ten years the Deputy Commanding General’s age. “Lucas is champing at the bit a little – he’s a fire-eater.”

DeChevilier smiled slightly – the commander of Third Army was one of his protégés. “Aggressive officers win wars.”

“He didn’t much like being held back on the defensive after Al Na’ir went poorly. Letting him go to Helen was like popping the cork off a bottle.”

“He hasn’t done anything reckless, has he?” DeChevilier settled into a chair at the conference table.

“No, just eager.” Grec grimaced. “The news from Quentin had been circulating.”

“I’ve been out of touch.”

The older man looked at him. “I’ll make sure you have the details later, but Amaris has been pushing military factories to meet impossible quotas. We’d not really encountered it so far, but when the MechWorks at Quentin hadn’t met their initial quota he had the workforce decimated.”

“That’s insane!”

“Oh yes. Twice, in fact. And then their families were rounded up and used as hostages, those who weren’t put to work replacing the executed workers.”

“That can’t possibly have worked out well.”

“The most frightening thing is that they were meeting the new quota – which had been increased, not decreased. Quality control had gone to shit – it’s not just battle damage that needs to be made good – but they were delivering something like a hundred and twenty assault ‘Mechs a year to Amaris’ forces until we liberated them.”

Aaron DeChevilier mapped that sort of demands across the industrial might of the Hegemony and had to hide a flinch. “John Davion was right then. The longer Amaris is allowed to entrench, the worse this will be.”

“That’s my own assessment, yes.”

“And he’ll be building drones the same way.” DeChevilier looked Grec in the eyes. “Do we have a counter for them?”

“Not exactly. They’re disturbingly capable. My team think we might be able build a jammer that could affect their performance, or at least their co-ordination. It’s a work in progress though and the systems are huge, even for warships.”

“Define huge?”

The admiral considered. “Something on the order of fitting a planetary HPG into a ship. It’ll be dockyard work just to fit them.”

“Whatever it takes. Castles Brian we can take care of, but those drones are murder. If we keep taking the losses from Al Na’ir then there won’t be a Star League Navy left by the time we reach Terra.”

“I’ll do everything I can. We’re refitting a pair of cruisers now but they’ll have to be tested.”

“I brought Twentieth Fleet with me. Once you’re ready, there’ll be a sufficiently large fleet that we can target a system defended by a SDS.”

Grec nodded. “Sometime around the start of the year,then. You’ll want to talk to Thomas Belleau about deployments. Even with FSN support, we’ve been stretched to cover the supply lines out to Nirasaki. And we can’t afford to let Amaris take a world back.”

“Absolutely not,” agreed DeChevilier. “God alone knows what that maniac would do to the population. But we’ll have to do without the FSN against the SDS in future.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“You can talk to General Kerensky if you want, but he’s given me firm orders. From now on, our ally’s warships are to focus on escorting convoys and other rear-area duties to free up our own ships for the frontlines.”

That got a scowl. “If this is a matter of trust…”

“Good lord, of course not! No one doubts their courage or their loyalty, but they’ve lost eleven ships out of the twenty-one that have been operating alongside us just in the last twelve months. They’re just not equipped for fighting the battles we’re seeing and I shudder to think what it’s doing to their morale.”

The admiral studied the table. “Their carriers are an immense advantage.”

“And how many of those fighters have died? Their casualty rates are getting near to those of the infantry brigades.” Urban fighting was chewing through the foot soldiers of the SLDF at an appalling rate. It said something that ship losses against the SDS were of greater concern than that. DeChevilier gave Grec a patient look. “Covering our supply lines is still important work, and if their carriers can do so much then that’ll just make them more effective there.”

Grec took a deep breath and then exhaled. “Just be diplomatic. They’re proud men and women, and not the sort of arrogance some of their MechWarriors have shown.”

“Absolutely. For god’s sake, I’m from the Suns myself! Went to Sakhara and Albion. We trust them at our backs; it’s just that that’s where we want them: covering our backs.” The general smiled broadly. “Actually, Kerensky’s sent a gift for them.”

“Do tell.”

“There was a pair of battleships under construction over Apollo when we took it. Neither has their armament fitted, but we were able to get the jump drives working and scratch crews brought them along with Twentieth Fleet. It doesn’t make up for the losses, but you know how few capital ships the FSN has. This should go a little way towards helping them. They might not be McKennas but they’re probably at least as good as the FWL’s Atreus-class.”

DeChevilier didn’t mention that getting the jump-drives working had mostly involved stripping out the Lithium-Fusion batteries that had been almost completely installed. Even the member-states had only a handful of ships fitted with that technology, but Richard had made a gift of it to Amaris.

Grec nodded. The Atreus-class were the only battleships built by the member-states that had ever seriously challenged the Terran Hegemony’s domination of naval affairs. Immense fortunes had been spent upgrading the Monsoon-class and Farragut-class ships that made up the backbone of the Hegemony’s might and it arguably wasn’t until the Edict of 2650 forced many of the ships into mothballs that Terran ship-builders had got over their (probably excessive) alarm. “That won’t hurt.”


Army Group Eleven Headquarters, New Rhodes III
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
24 December 2769

The handover of command hadn’t been rushed by either of them men involved. DeChevilier needed to re-establish familiarity with soldiers and spacers who he’d not seen for years. As a matter of courtesy, he’d also asserted that the final military operation of the year, Nineteenth Army’s liberation of Hamal, should be completed before he took over.

“He’s bending over backwards to make it clear you’re not being replaced for dereliction,” Hanse said cynically as they exited the elevator that carried them down to the level of the base holding formal ballroom where the ceremony would take place.

“Mm.” John wasn’t really complaining. He’d gone to Hamal himself to get a first-hand look at what was happening on the ground. What he’d seen had haunted him at night ever since. “It’ll be good to get back to New Avalon,” he murmured, words that anyone listening could write off as spoken to himself.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you.” The redhead seemed genuinely contrite. “Amaris had his claws deeper than I’d realised.”

‘Patriot Battalions’ had made up the core of the resistance to General Greene’s forces, but the worst of it had been ordinary Hegemony citizens who’d listened to Amaris’ claims that he’d ended Cameron tyranny. SLDF troopers hardened by fighting in the Taurian Concordat had been dumb-founded to find themselves facing the same sort of guerrilla fighting on a Hegemony world. Dumb-founded, but furious.

It had been hard for John and Greene to restrain their subordinates from responding brutally. Under the laws of war, they would have been completely justified in executing the guerrilla fighters as illegal combatants and more than a few outraged regiment or battalion commanders had started doing exactly that.

‘Didn’t they realise that we’re here to liberate them?’ they’d protested.

The only answer John could find for them was: ‘Then we must act like it.’ Fourteen very able officers had been reduced in rank over the issue before it was grudgingly accepted that only the leaders of such groups would face trial and, if convicted, the noose. Their followers were disarmed, interned and – well, John hoped they could be released after the world settled down. That wouldn’t be his decision though.

There was going to be a legacy of trouble on that world, and so many others. Neighbouring communities had begun to feud over the sides they’d taken and that was a poison that could take a long time to leach out of local politics.

“Sire.” A trim officer in AFFS uniform drew himself up, three broad bands marking the black epaulette that marked him as a naval officer.

“Admiral Jones.” The newly-minted vice-admiral had been serving as John’s aide since the last of his command returned to the Suns for reassignment and in the case of the one badly battered cruiser judged salvageable, for an extended stay in dock once a yard slip was available. “Looking forward to going home?”

“Home is a somewhat flexible term for naval personnel, sir. It’ll be nice to remind my wife of what I look like.”

Hanse chuckled. “Assuming she hasn’t seen him in the media.”

“Well you do have some leave coming.” John walked down the hall, Jones falling in behind him. “Your people took steep losses in Al Na’ir and Nirasaki. I hope I’m able to make it worthwhile.”

“They also won, sir. And more than that, they had your trust. It’s been almost two hundred years since the Navy’s been able to hold its head up as a fighting service… but you gave us that back.”

John paused and looked at the moustachioed Admiral. “The fighting won’t be over soon. Not even covering supply lines.”

“I suspect that some of my fellow officers will remember that decision too. And that it wasn’t you who made it.”

“Glory isn’t worth the price.”

“Something must be, or we shouldn’t be out there. And respectfully, sire, that part is your job.”

“I stand corrected Admiral.” They paused at the door. “You’re up for a staff posting, so I expect I’ll be seeing you again once you’re back from leave. Admiral Goto’s retirement will mean another shuffle of the naval staff.”

“Are you thinking Rike Moore’s old job at the Navy Design Bureau?” asked Hanse shrewdly. “It’s normally a Rear Admiral’s billet but with the Robinson refits and now these new capital ships, the job’s grown.”

“I have a position in mind for you,” John continued smoothly. “But we can deal with that once you’re back from leave.”

The double doors were flung open before them and a regimental band began to play. They’d been brought from the Capellan Confederation’s SLDF garrison, just one component amid twelve almost fresh divisions. Barbara Liao’s declaration of support for Kerensky had freed up Fifth Army to despatch two of its three Corps to reinforce Army Group Eleven and a similar drawdown of the SLDF deployments in the Federated Suns would leave only two Corps to guard the training facilities and factories that SLDF logistics depended upon. But those fresh troops were going to be needed now that Kerensky’s own Army Group Thirteen was positioned to form a second pincer.

John had rarely seen someone more relieved than Aaron DeChevilier when he discovered that the Corps that would remain within the Capellan Confederation would be XXIV Corps, in which his daughter Angela was serving. Her brother Roger had died fighting in the Outworlds Alliance and the general’s younger children – if they were still alive – were on Terra with their mother.

Who knew what had happened to them? The most that could be said for hope was that Amaris had made no attempt to use them as hostages against DeChevilier.

The hall was thronged with officers. A handful of helmeted men and women in the light grey of Capellan dress uniforms, the liaison officers DeChevilier had demanded even though the main force of the CCAF’s contribution would be placed under Kerensky’s command stood apart in a single block. But most of those present wore the olive of the SLDF and the dark green uniforms and golden half-breastplates of AFFS uniforms stood out intermingled among the olive.

“Commander, Army Group Eleven: General John Davion!” a sergeant major announced loudly and around the room several hundred men and women came to attention, snapping salutes.

John hesitated, having barely reached one of the points of the great Cameron Star that had been laser-cut into the floor, every groove filled with coloured glass and the whole then polished until it was mirror-smooth, flush against the floor. He was no stranger to formal occasions but this one was off-script. He’d been expecting a simpler announcement, alongside DeChevilier at the podium, before the necessary speeches framing the exchange of command. Also they’d given the wrong rank.

Alright, things happened. He returned the salute and finished crossing the floor. Hanse, unburdened by any need for decorum, sprinted ahead to where Aaron DeChevilier was waiting near the podium. He stared at something out of John’s sight and then gave him an approving thumbs up, stepping aside to join the front ranks of the crowd.

“General Davion.” DeChevilier said, eyes twinkling with rare humour. “Right on time. But you’re setting a very poor example to your juniors.”

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that,” he replied warily.

“I should think so too. An officer of the Star League Defense Force must always be suitably attired.”

John shot him a suspicious look. “While I would be very much honoured to be an officer of the Star League Defense Force, I’m fairly confident I’m wearing the uniform of the Federated Suns.”

“I’m pleased you feel that way, General Davion.” DeChevilier lifted two items from behind the podium, a SLDF officer’s cap and a sash. John had seen thousands like them; every SLDF soldier’s dress uniform included a sash with a specific pattern to mark their homeworld. This one represented New Avalon.

He wouldn’t! Kerensky would have had to give the orders and… and this was ridiculous… Was Hanse laughing? No, the bastard was cheering and whistling.

“John Davion of New Avalon.” The Deputy Commanding General was still smiling but more seriously now. “On the recommendation of no less than five flag officers of the SLDF and with the express endorsement of Commanding General Aleksandr Sergeyvich Kerensky, it is my great privilege to commission you into the SLDF with the rank of General, effective 8 November 2767.”

“I…” Words failed John and he mutely allowed the sash to be slipped over his head and shoulder. The three stars of a SLDF General were pinned to it, since they could hardly be pinned to the metal of his half-breastplate. Accepting the cap he donned it, hoping it was suitably straight. AFFS uniforms didn’t include headgear.

DeChevilier gave him a careful look and then nodded approvingly. “Now that’s more like it.” He turned to the podium and indicated John. “My fellow officers, I present General John Davion of the SLDF.”

Even more than the salutes, the applause that filled the room lifted John’s spirits. I can’t have done so very poorly if they’re willing to do that.

“Traditionally, a newly minted SLDF general is offered a command ‘Mech,” DeChevilier murmured under the sound of the crowd. “Gunslingers usually decline; we’re too attached to our usual rides. General Kerensky sent the Cyclops he was offered back in ’31 and hopes you’ll accept it as a mark of the esteem he holds you in.”

John nodded and as the clapping died down he shook DeChevilier’s hand. The other man ushered him forwards and, taking the podium, John glanced down at the cues for the speech he’d been expecting to make. It wouldn’t really work after this.

Instead he looked out at the assembled officers. “I’ve been told, more than once, that there’s no greater privilege for an officer than to have soldiers follow them. Eight years ago, when I first experienced military command I thought that I understood those words. It was not until I came here twelve months ago that I appreciated the true weight of them…”

SLS Sevastapol, Lockdale
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
17 January 2770

It had been more than eighteen years since Janos Grec had been aboard a warship heading into harm’s way. The heavy cruiser Sevastapol had already had some of the most advanced electronics of any ships in the SLDF – the Sovetskii Soyuz class post-dated the Caspar drones, after all. Now she and two of her sister ships had been crammed full of hundreds of thousands of tons of additional systems, their clean lines ruined with hundreds of antennae.

If the systems failed then the Star League Navy was going to have one hell of a fight on its hands. Lockdale was a provincial capital and in addition to M-3 and M-5 drones, it was known that there were thousands of automated fighters and a considerable number of orbital stations to support the drones’ activities.

“I wish we had those carriers,” he mused.

Admiral Belleau nodded. “It would have been my preference too, but orders are orders.”

“Almost four hundred more fighters…” Grec shook his head.

“And thirty shuttles for search and rescue,” the admiral agreed. “But we’d have to assign them escorts because the General is right about what happened to the other FSN ships. Other than a few ships, it’s a fleet of relics. Brave crews, but relics.”

“Not so many of those relics now,” conceded Grec.

Ahead of the combined forces of Nineteenth and Twentieth Fleet, the Republicans had assembled their drones around Lockdale itself. Unlike Al Na’ir, where there had been thousands of outlying mining operations to secure, here the prize was the world itself and so the defenders had concentrated their forces there, knowing that they would force any invaders to pay a heavy price for trying to liberate the heavily industrialised world.

“Will those ships work?” the younger Admiral asked seriously. “I don’t mean their effect,” he added hastily. “I know there’s no way to test that except in practise. But there won’t be another St Lo?”

Grec grimaced. There had been four prototypes for the systems that had been developed for what was called Project NIKE. SLS St Lo had been the first cruiser to have them installed. After leaving docks she’d gone to a space firing range in the outer reaches of the Kathil system and turned the jammers on, testing their effects without having to worry about causing billions of damage to civilian systems around the shipyards.

Thirty minutes later, Grec had received a signal from a lifeboat. The irate captain of the St Lo had been unable to use his ship’s own transmitters because the prototype systems had overloaded the entire electrical grid and forced the drives into emergency shutdown. The cruiser had had to be towed back to dock and the repairs would take months.

“I’m fairly sure we’ve solved that. We tried the systems on these three ships the same way and we didn’t have the same problems.” Which didn’t mean the systems were easy on the ships. Temperature spikes and temporary loss of some systems continued – nothing as devastating but the enormous power needed to counter the electronic warfare systems of the drones couldn’t help but to have secondary effects on even shielded military electronics that were a few tens or hundreds of metres away rather than thousands of kilometres.

“I hope you’re right. Anyway, we’re seeing movement from the enemy fleet now. Looks as if they’re going to be moving out to engage before we reach orbit. Good luck, Admiral.”

“Good luck to you.”

The screen went dark and Grec went back to dealing with the thousand and one issues that plagued his little squadron. He felt a distinct nostalgia for the days when he was just a wing commander and responsible only for his own life and a few score more fighter pilots out in space, chasing down unidentified raiders.

They weren’t the good old days, he told himself. Someone was having to worry about all this back then too. It’s just that now it’s my turn.


It was impossible to count the drones.

Too many drive flares in too dense a formation, ships moving back and confusing the count.

The best guess was a little shy of four hundred Caspars, more than twice as many – possibly three times as many – M-3 drones. The most that could reliably be said about the number of Voidseeker fighters is that some were definitely there.

Belleau and Caradan, the commander of Twentieth Fleet, had formed an aggressive formation. There were no transports with them – that lesson had been learned. Their one mission was to eradicate the drones. Landing troops and destroying the surface weapon batteries wasn’t even open to consideration while the Caspars and their escorts were still a threat.

“An old fashioned slugging match,” Grec noted grimly. The enemy vessels couldn’t absorb damage as well as crewed ships – however vulnerable individual crew-members might be, it was surprisingly difficult to destroy the crew of ship unless the entire hull came apart. The automated internals of an M-5 drone couldn’t carry out repairs that the crew of an equivalent destroyer considered routine.

Of course, off-setting that was the fact that the drones packed considerably more firepower than their size suggested.

“They’re beginning to enter the estimated range.”

“Wait,” he said quietly. Old instincts were beginning to sing. The enemy weren’t committed yet.

A wing of drones slashed down at the flank of the formation. At least a hundred M-3 drones, packed so tightly the tactical display suggested that a man could practically reach out from one and touch the next. Ridiculous of course, there were scores of kilometres between the hulls.

Well before the drones reached the effective range of their weapons, a division of destroyers had moved up and brought their particle turrets to bear. At this range they didn’t hit reliably and few of the shots that did strike killed the heavily armoured drones. But many of the hits were crippling, punching through armour to damage vital systems. As drones lost drives, sensors or occasionally even fuel tanks (without oxygen inside crew compartments it wouldn’t burn, but the leaks tended to act like reaction thrusters) the formation had to open their ranks to avoid collisions.

More weapons were opening up now – no one wished to empty their ready magazines with low probability shots this early in the battle so mostly lasers and particle beams. Forced out of their tight formations, the M-3 drones bored on sacrificially, intent on testing the SLDF defences even if it was at the expense of their own existences.

Achilles and Pentagon dropships of the screening force began to manoeuvre to avoid fire from the drones and return their own fire. Nibbling at each other, shots rarely enough for a kill on each other, the dropships and drones exchanged shots as the range closed.

Sevastapol was the closest of the NIKE-ships to the attack and Grec nodded. “Clear to engage with turrets, captain.”

Each broadside of the cruiser had two double turrets mounting PPCs and a triple turret with lasers. Where possible, the gunners went for damaged ships. Every ship unable to maintain thrust was one more that couldn’t ram.

“Sir, we could jam them.”

“And let them know we’re prepared for that? No, they might figure out a counter. Wait for the main force to engage.”

Finally the dropships reached the engagement range of the battleships behind the Sevastapol. For all the furious power of their capital autocannon, what made the Texas- and McKenna-class deadly were the twenty-four energy turrets along their broadsides. Every salvo that hit blew almost effortlessly through the drones.

At last confident that they could fend off this attack and replenishing ready magazines before engaging another attack, the destroyers began to open up with their autocannon and missile tubes. The M-3 drones’ numbers were cut by a half, then to a third. A wing of fighters armed with nukes made a fast pass, more than fifty aerospace fighters entering the fracturing formation and no more than thirty escaping… but twelve more drones died.

More salvos from the battleships and the surviving M-3 drones were cut apart. For a moment it seemed that none would survive… and that was certainly true but two at least broke through the fire and closed on SLS Wessex. The destroyer’s bow autocannon turret shredded one but the second rammed directly into the Wessex’s navigation bridge. The destroyer emerged from the debris, nose blunted and flanks trailing incidental scratches from the impact.

The damage done was a small return on the loss of more than a hundred drones… except that now the drones knew what they were facing and their computers were calculating how to counter the SLDF’s advantages.

Within minutes the drones were moving again and this time it wasn’t just a single wing.

This time they came like a tide, or perhaps a kraken of the deeps. The M-3 drones spread out, forcing the SLDF to spread their attention rather than focusing on the packs of M-5s moving up behind them.

“All ships,” Grec ordered quietly. “Divide up and move to support one cruiser squadron each. Wait until the M-5s are at least in effective range of our destroyers, then light them up. And don’t forget to spare the systems. They’re still fragile and they can burn out. If you have the time then shut them down and let the techs patch them up. If they’re on the edge of failing then do the same, better to lose ten minutes of coverage than the ability to provide any coverage at all.”

“We may not have time,” the captain of the Sevastapol warned.

“I know. And that’s why each ship is free to do so at their own discretion. I’m not going to micro-manage you and nor is anyone else. I am directly ordering you to preserve those systems even if squadron commanders are screaming at you not to shut down. You are the best judges of what your ships can take and I have General DeChevilier’s orders backing me up on this.” The admiral paused. “Whatever happens, the SLDF will smash the drones. We have the numbers for it. But if this works then far more ships will survive than we can expect otherwise. And that means keeping the jamming systems functional, not keeping them up 100% of the time. The lives of our fellow spacers are in our hands. And by my reckoning, they could not be in safer hands.”

One by one the captains saluted and then two of them winked out after Grec returned the gesture.

“Sir,” the captain offered, “If you’d prefer to observe the battle from the navigation bridge…”

“No, captain, although thank you for the courtesy. I have a whole squad of analysts to manage, trying to see if we can come up with better tactics to use. And you need to fight your ship, not worry about an old professor keeping his staff in line.”

“As you wish, admiral. Please be aware that you have the freedom of the bridge should you wish to make use of it.”

Grec nodded. “Duly noted, captain.” That was a kind gesture on the man’s part. In practical terms it would be a very bold captain who denied any flag officer access to any compartment, but it remained their right to so if the needs of the ship required it. To have that right pre-emptively waived was unexpected.

The attack – two attacks, really, for the SLDF force was moving aggressively itself – converged with spearheads of Caspars closing in towards the flanks. Most likely, Grec thought, they would be trying to weaken the escorting ships – the destroyers and frigates – rather than pressing in now. Thin the screening elements, keep the capital ships’ crews on edge and unable to rest. The killing blows would follow after hours had worn down the human minds behind the SLN’s ships. Computers would never weary.

For the moment Grec had freedom to observe, for Sevastapol had moved in response to an M-5 thrust that proved to be a feint. The other two NIKE-ships had each placed themselves to respond to what seemed to be the actual attacks though and the Caspars were closing towards the range he’d specified.

Initial shots were actually being fired before first one and then the second cruiser began jamming. The electronic signatures made it plain what they were doing but the behaviour of the Caspars would have given it away. Coordination broke up, restored, fractured again… ships that had been co-ordinating their fire with ruthless efficiency now scattered their fire across individual targets.

“Check which signals have the best effect,” Grec ordered as the analysts from his staff stared at the display in fascination. “Now!” he snapped when some didn’t take their eyes off it.

Like frightened animals the officers – engineers and scientists, some only holding military rank by courtesy – returned to their own consoles.

Grec shook his head but couldn’t help but sneak a long look himself as SDLF ships, now having the advantage of coordination over the drones, focused fire upon their adversaries. On one flank this wasn’t even a matter of targeting the Caspars themselves. Instead, freed of the immediate threat warships swept entire flotillas of M-3 drones aside so that fighter strikes could dive past without having to endure the massed fire of the escort drones and could deliver nuclear missiles to the Caspars.

All too soon though, the computers controlling the drones calculated the cause of this new circumstance. Even here the reactions weren’t uniform. Some drones increased or decreased their thrust, manoeuvring to try to find parts of the fleet that weren’t protected by the jamming fields.

Others found a new focus and goal. Seventeen M-3 drones and four M-5s shifted course and plunged headlong towards SLS Norfolk, the NIKE-ship in their sector.

“Cut the jammers,” Grec hissed under his breath. But he’d given the captain discretion so he didn’t transmit the order.

As he watched, the Norfolk twisted and turned, trying to evade the attackers and – sensibly – fall back among the battleships. Engaging the destroyer screen at close quarters as they passed, the M-3s were destroyed but the Caspars closed in and their bow guns ripped into the cruiser.

The jamming in the sector cut out in the same instant that the Norfolk ceased to manoeuvre or return fire.

“They’re intact,” one of the analysts noted. “Hurt, but that shouldn’t have crippled her.”

Grec tapped a control. “Captain, based on the Norfolk -” As he spoke escape pods were leaving the stricken cruiser. “- I recommend powering down the jammers before any heavy manoeuvring. I believe their power system overloaded.”

“Thank you for the information, sir.”

The Caspars managed a follow up salvo, now returning to their previous co-ordination that tore the Norfolk apart, autocannon shells breaking through the hull and smashing the structural members that held the centre of the ship together.

“There are twenty escape pods on the Norfolk and I think they all got away,” the analyst said with relief.

Grec decided not to tell the man that twenty pods would carry, at most, one hundred and twenty people. A Sovetskii Soyuz class heavy cruiser’s crew was over three hundred and full evacuation required use of shuttles. And without power to open the shuttle-bay doors…

“We’ll need more NIKE-equipped ships in future,” he observed instead. “Isolated ships are points of failure.” But the death of Norfolk and two destroyers had cost the Republicans more than twenty M-5 drones and at least five times that in M-3s.

As a kill ratio, that was far more acceptable than the losses at Al Na’ir. “We have our proof of concept,” he continued. “Now we need to work out the bugs so we can do this consistently.”


SLS McKenna’s Pride, Mizar
Federation of Skye, Lyran Commonwealth
18 February 2770

“What do you mean you’re not attacking Summer?” hissed Robert Steiner. “It’s perfectly placed to launch raids into the Commonwealth. It’s only two jumps from Skye itself!”

“And a single jump from my base of operations here,” Aleksandr Kerensky agreed calmly. “However, as much as I regret the circumstances, that has been the case for three years now. Have Amaris’ forces raided into the Commonwealth heavily? Or at all?”

“You know they haven’t,” the Archon exclaimed. “But that was before half the SLDF was mustering on my worlds, without so much as a by your leave. Naturally he’ll want to target your supply lines.”

“Under the Star League Accords, the SLDF has freedom to move its forces through any member-state without notice. I recall no such complaints when we were moving to protect your worlds from ‘bandits operating out of the Draconis Combine and Free Worlds League’.” By dint of great practise, the Commanding General kept a straight face when describing the border raiders everyone knew but could not prove were being carried out by deniable assets of the House Lords. House Steiner was no less guilty of that than the others.

He made a dismissive gesture. “In any case, Eleventh Army will remain within the Commonwealth to defend our supply lines. You may rest assured that with four Corps stationed along your borders, there are ample forces to also extend our protection to your people should Amaris be so bold as to commit an act of war against the Lyran Commonwealth.”

“I demand that you remove the Usurper’s bases along the border,” piped up Duke Lestrade indignantly.

Kerensky eyed the Duke of Skye as if he was a particularly impudent insect. Aldo Lestrade II’s bulging eyes and long, sweeping moustaches suggested something with mandibles. “Demand?”

“In the absence of a First Lord…”

“While I personally see little hope that Richard Cameron lives -” That poor, stupid boy. “- there is yet no confirmation of his death. Naturally, I hope for co-operative relationships with the Council Lords until the situation is resolved.”

There was a pause as the Lyrans parsed that sentence. No one could describe Robert Steiner’s relationship with Kerensky as co-operative.

“Do you intend a direct strike at Terra then?” Robert asked more civilly. “To bring Amaris to justice immediately.”

“Regrettably that is not yet feasible. The worlds around Terra are heavily fortified, many of them with large forces of drone warships. Moving them between systems is not a trivial affair, fortunately, but given the immense scale of Terran defences, it would take at least a year to liberate the homeworld, and much of the SLDF’s strength would have to be committed to the operation, allowing more than enough time for Amaris’ officers to gather up a vast fleet of drones, potentially thousands strong, that could grind the SLDF between a mobile force and the defences of Terra.”

“I see, but there are strong forces of drones over Summer – and at Zollikofen and Lone Star. Surely defeating them in detail would make sense as a first step.”

Kerensky nodded. “In good time. Rest assured that the forces on those worlds are merely receiving a stay of execution.”

Janos Grec’s own vessel was the only one of the three NIKE-ships to have survived the battle of Lockdale, but fewer than fifty SLN warships had been destroyed in all, thanks to the jamming. Fourth Army was still heavily engaged upon the surface, but armed with data gathered in the battle, shipyards in the Rim Worlds Republic and Federated Suns were already preparing more ships to house more compact systems, systems that would hopefully prove just as effective without exposing the vessels to crippling themselves simply by activating the jamming systems.

That would take time though, which was why Army Group Thirteen would be launching a three pronged attack on worlds that lacked heavy defences. Stefan Amaris would be given the choice between holding his forces back behind SDS systems and within Castles Brian, which would allow Kerensky to liberate twenty worlds, five of them on the edges of the core province, or to send ships and regiments out to be engaged under far more favourable terms to the SLDF.

The Terran Hegemony was shaped like an irregular diamond, shorter edges bordering the Lyrans and the Free Worlds League, longer edges bordering the Draconians and Capellans. The Federated Suns’ border with the Hegemony was the furthest tip of that diamond from Terra itself. As such, despite the herculean efforts of Joan Brandt and John Davion, Army Group Eleven was really no closer to the mother world than Kerensky’s own Army Group was.

Not to deny their efforts, he reminded himself. Billions of Hegemony citizens have been freed from Amaris’ tyranny.

“I suppose I have little choice but to acquiesce,” the Archon concluded, grudgingly. “Be assured though, I will hold you accountable for any damage done to worlds of the Commonwealth.”

“I can assure you, Archon, that the thought you might not hadn’t crossed my mind.”

As the Archon and his lickspittle were escorted courteously away from his office, Kerensky dismissed them from his mind and checked his message queue. Nothing from Aaron yet. Not surprising, given communications across Blake’s network of HPG stations remained a thin web across the Hegemony. To avoid notice, the stations transmitted only cautiously.

Somewhere on the far side of the Hegemony, Third Army were launching their attacks on Errai and Small World, pinning down troops that might otherwise be moved to support Lockdale’s defences.

The general’s eyes strayed to the map of the Hegemony, singling out a single star system no more than two jumps away from Mizar. Using its Lithium Fusion battery, the McKenna’s Pride could have him in the system by the end of the day.

“Katyusha,” he murmured, before iron discipline snapped back into place and he returned to the day-to-day affairs of managing five armies – a hundred and fourteen divisions – as well as the sprawling lines of supply and communication that trailed back to the edges of the Star League, consuming the resources of three more armies just to adequately secure them.


Crimson Springs, Lockdale
Lockdale Province, Terran Hegemony
1 March 2770

The Demon fired its Gauss Rifle and Ethan Moreau saw the slug smash through the armour over the Culverin’s right track, immobilising the fighting vehicle as it tried to turn around and bring its autocannon to bear.

With a cry of frustration, the Mechwarrior scrambled his ‘Mech up and over the ruins that had once been an apartment block, entering the street behind the wheeled Demon.

The Republican tank tried to reverse around him, but Ethan brought the Orion’s foot forward, hooking it under the edge of the side-armour. Raising the flat foot upwards, he forced the Demon up, throwing all the weight of his ‘Mech into the pivot.

Seventy-five tons of ‘Mech overpowered sixty tons of tank and the Demon rolled, the turret smashing open the glass front of the shop on the side of the road. The mass was too much for his gyro though and Ethan’s eyes widened as he realised he was past the point of no return. His Orion crashed down on its back.

“Ow.”

“Moreau, I could kiss you,” Pritchard yelled over the comms.

“Promises, promises.”

“Or Johann could, whatever floats your boat.”

“No, no I’m fine.” He braced the elbows of the Orion and started to right himself. “So why the effusions of gratitude? You didn’t take that much damage, did you?”

“It’s a Demon!” the armor officer explained. “And it’s basically intact.”

“Oh, of course.” Fucking treadheads. And they said Mechwarriors were in love with their rides. “Charlie Company, rally on my position.”

There were confirmations across the radio as the ‘Mechs of his company worked their way through the city towards him. Gleason was dead, a gauss slug from another Demon had taken the head off his Orion. Chapman’s Orion was also down for the count but he’d managed to eject before the SRM ammunition bin’s detonation had blown a hole through the left side of his fusion bottle. Now he joined forces with Pritchard’s crew as they disembarked from their crippled Culverin and made their way towards the Demon.

Tiger-Free was in one of the Guillotines that filled out the company and she was able to jump through the worst of the wreckage, joining Ethan in threatening the Demon’s crew once he was upright again.

With a pair of heavy ‘Mechs menacing them, the Republican soldiers decided discretion was the better part of valour and disembarked, surrendering the vehicle to the tankers.

“Could you roll it back onto its wheels?” the lieutenant asked pleasantly as Ranson rushed back to the Culverin, returning with two spray cans of paint and a plastic stencil.

Ethan shook his head. “You’re going to keep fighting in a Republican vehicle?”

“We’ll paint some SLDF markings on it,” she assured him.

“I’m not sure we can, actually,” he admitted. Neither of the two ‘Mechs left in his command lance had hand actuators. In fact, as the two surviving ‘Mechs of his second lance moved up, he reflected that not one of the seven ‘Mechs left in Charlie Company had hands. Hooker’s Thug had been the only one that did, but the Lyran volunteer – a Nagelring graduate who’d deserted to join the SLDF in ’68 – had lost his Thug to a knee-capping by infantry the previous day and right now he was back in the regimental cantonment, waiting for a replacement.

“Oh come on, you kicked it over once. How hard can it be?”

“Well, I don’t suppose we’re worse off if we try.” He moved the Orion up against the wall of the building, Tiger-Free doing the same on the other side. Bracing one weapon arm each on the building (Ethan winced as a window broke) they each lifted a foot and carefully placed it against the upper edge of the Demon.

Just as they were about to push, Ethan saw movement behind Tiger-Free’s ‘Mech. “Look out!”

The other ‘Mechwarrior hesitated just a little too long and a PPC bolt smashed squarely into her rear armour. Laser fire followed, lighting up the smoky air of the city, and seventy-tons of ‘Mech crashed down onto the Demon.

The perpetrator was a Black Knight, a sleeker and more advanced ‘Mech than Ethan’s Orion, although about the same size. There were three of them in fact, another pair stalking into view and firing not at him but the fallen and vulnerable Tiger-Free. The advanced sensor probe fitted to Black Knights gave them an advantage in the confines of the city where magnetics and infra-red were almost useless.

“Hostiles sighted!” Ethan yelled, moving up to shield the fallen Mech with his Orion. He’d taken damage already but he could weather the storm of fire better than she could.

“On our way, sir!”

“Third lance,” he ordered, settling his crosshairs over the chest of the first Black Knight. “Move up the next street and outflank them.” The range was too close for his LRMs, but lasers, SRMs and autocannon blazed away, warming his cockpit and carving into the rounded armour plating covering the Black Knight.

In return the Black Knight’s large lasers battered at him. The initial salvos must have pushed their heat to the limit, forcing them to hold back some of their armament.

“I’m okay, sir.” Tiger-Free’s Guillotine struggled upright as second lance joined them. The Demon wound up back on its wheels as the seventy-tonner extricated itself. Unfortunately for Pritchard, the turret had been torn half-loose from the chassis as well.

A second volley of lasers set Ethan staggering. His autocannon loaded its last clip of ammunition as one leg buckled, knee half-severed. The young Mechwarrior speared the left arm of his Orion into the building, holding himself upright but taking the laser and the missile launcher in the arm out of play. He fired the autocannon and was pleased to see the shots tearing gaping holes into the Black Knight. Coolant flowed out from the penetrations like blood until valves closed off the ruptured piping.

The three Guillotines moved forward to close the distance – like the Black Knights they had formidable laser batteries most effective at short ranges. From around a corner, missiles and autocannon tracer began to flay the right-most Black Knight, severing one arm above the elbow.

Alright, we have this, he thought.

With an obnoxious blare, his radio sprang to life. “All stations, this is 225th Command. Code Charlie Omega. I repeat, Charlie Omega. Seal all hatches. Dismounted infantry mask up. Code Charlie Omega.”

Colour drained from Ethan’s face as he heard the warning of a chemical attack. Crimson Springs had had a population of over a million. The best estimate was that less than a quarter of them had evacuated and while there were sealed shelters for civil defence, they dated back to the twenty-fourth century and intel had reported Rim infantry using them as bunkers.

Scanning his surroundings he saw Pritchard’s crew had rushed back into their Culverin, dragging Chapman with them.

“Sir.” Tiger-Free’s voice was unnervingly calm. “My cockpit glass broke when I took that fall. I have negative seal.”

“Christ.” Ethan looked around for something, anything she could get into.

“Just give me some room.”

Tiger-Free’s Guillotine jumped towards the three Republican heavies. The Mech was off-balance, arms flailing wildly – she must have taken her hands off the controls.

Not even a city’s clutter could disguise the rapidly rising infra-red signature of the ‘Mech as it crashed down among the Black Knights, face to face with one of them.

The first explosion within was the SRM ammunition, tearing the Guillotine open at the waist. Cold city air rushed into the chest and encountered the reactor, building maximum power with all safeties off. The explosion had shredded the reactor shielding and seconds later the superheated air rushed out.

All four ‘Mechs vanished in the fireball of Tiger-Free’s funeral pyre.


Avalon City, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
12 April 2770

“John, please turn that off. We need to talk.”

No husband wants to hear those words and John took them seriously, stopping the opera playing on the wall and rising to greet Edwina.

Hanse also stood. “I know when I’d be a third wheel,” he observed, stepping around the oblivious Edwina. “See you in the morning, John.”

Edwina let John kiss her cheek and then gestured to the chairs. “This might take a while.”

“I’ve always got time for you.”

“When I remind you, yes.”

“What?” he asked, thinking back over the last few days. Had he done anything to spark this? “I don’t understand.”

“That may not have come out right,” she conceded. “John, when was the last time you took a break?”

“Well I’m not working now.”

Edwina reached over and put her hand on the noteputer beside John’s chair. “So this is just loaded with recreational material? Not, for example, reports on the war? Or the refugee situation?”

The prince spread his hands slightly in surrender. “Just in case something came to mind.”

“Really.” She lifted her hand and cupped his cheek. “John, I don’t think you’ve taken two straight days off to rest since the coup. And not one since you went to New Rhodes more than a year ago! You’re burning yourself out.”

John frowned. That wasn’t right, was it? He’d… well, what was the last time he’d scheduled a break from his responsibilities? Nothing came to mind since news of Brandt’s death at Al Na’ir. Possibly not for a while before that, honestly. “The fact I have to think about it supports your position,” he conceded. “But with so much to do, it’s not really a good time for me to take a vacation. The work isn’t going to go away?”

“And who’s going to do it if you work yourself to the point of collapse?” she countered. “I’m worried about you. This war… perhaps longer than that. When you became Prince I knew you’d be burdened but now you act as if the full weight of the entire Star League is on your shoulders, as if only you can save it… I want Joshua’s children to have a grandfather who can spoil them, not a mausoleum they visit sometimes.”

“Children? Is he seeing someone seriously?”

Edwina shook her head. “You even missed that? He’s courting the representative from Delphos – remember he introduced her to you.”

“I thought he was doing that because we’re family,” he replied in surprise. He had some recollection of the young woman, she’d seemed quite self-possessed. The sort of… Hanse’s amusement when John had mentioned that he hoped Joshua found someone like that to take an interest with suddenly fell into place. “Isn’t she married to Thomas Halder-Davion?” They’d agreed early on that the personal history of the next few generations of House Davion were off limits. He didn’t want to spend the rest his life counting down the days of his loved one’s lives.

“Thomas is Mary’s brother, John.”

He could imagine the chagrin on his face. “Oh. It’s a good thing I haven’t really spoken to her then. Not that I don’t want to talk to the young woman in our son’s life but…”

Edwina left her seat and knelt in front of him, taking his hands in hers. “The war isn’t going to end soon,” she told him sympathetically. “There are going to be more battles, more refugees and – God help us – more atrocities like Lockdale. That’s not your fault and it’s not your responsibility alone.” She smiled fondly. “I know better than to try to persuade you it’s not your responsibility at all.”

“I saw it coming,” John told her, the words bubbling out of him. “I tried to stop it, I tried to stop him. God, I sent an assassin after Amaris. And it’s not enough. It’s never enough. I look at the reports from the Hegemony and all I can think of is that if the League falls then our people will suffer the same way.”

He bent over in anguish and his wife enfolded him in her arms. “Oh John!”

They remained like that, half in and half out of the chair, until his breath steadied and he could bear to look her in the eyes again.

What he saw wasn’t condemnation but simply acceptance. “John, you can’t do this to yourself,” she murmured, pushing him lightly to shuffle aside in the chair. It wasn’t really large enough for two adults but they made it work somehow. “How long have you been bottling this up inside?”

“I… Demeter was the start.”

“Yes, that would make sense.” She rested her cheek against his shoulder. “Before then I could persuade you that rest meant more than cutting your workload to just two or three pieces of business.”

John snorted despite himself. He wasn’t that bad. Or at least he hadn’t been. More recently, perhaps. “I realised then that it wasn’t just that the Star League couldn’t act to save one of us if we were attacked, the Star League couldn’t save itself. Not without a Council willing to put the whole above our individual ambitions. Their… our hatreds.”

“You worked with Takiro to try to rein Richard in. That must have been hard.”

“Richard wasn’t the problem. We left him to be spoiled by his servants and alone for Amaris to get his claws into the boy. Simon died trying to remind us of how much the Star League mattered and he was barely buried before we forgot all about him.”

“You never forgot, John. Don’t say that. I remember how shocked you were at the news. Before then maybe. You put your people first when you took the throne. And after Simon died you threw your support behind Kerensky more than any of the other Lords.” Edwina still had his hands between her smaller ones. “And it’s working. Chancellor Liao has sent soldiers to support the SLDF. Kerensky is smashing every attempt that Amaris makes to retake the worlds being liberated.”

“And worlds still burn.”

“I know.” Lockdale was a dying world. The chemical agents unleashed on the SLDF spearheads hadn’t been the only damage done, or even the worst. Nuclear attacks on the factories that made the world valuable had sent clouds of radioactive dust soaring into the atmosphere. Between that and the aftermath of the chemicals, there was no longer enough farmland to feed even the diminished population – and it might be decades before that could be undone.

A trickle of refugees from the affected regions had become a flood as people saw the writing on the wall and tried to get their families – their children – to safety before exposure built up to dangerous levels. The refugees from the cities hit directly would be the last to be evacuated from the camps SLDF engineers had established for them. If any of them lived long enough, for even thousands of jumpships would take years to ferry the remaining populace away.

The remaining worlds of the Hegemony couldn’t absorb that sort of influx so John had opened the doors of the Suns. Spread across hundreds of worlds, some of them raw colonies desperate for labour, the Lockdalites could be accommodated – with the Suns’ industries struggling to not only supply the SLDF but also to replace tooling and machinery that they’d relied on Hegemony firms to build and maintain, the industrial workers would be welcomed.

But they wouldn’t be the last. They weren’t even the latest. Outnumbered by the SLDF, the Rim Worlds forces were fighting with vicious fury, heedless of the collateral damage. Or perhaps even courting it, knowing that every regiment providing relief to the civilian population was one that wasn’t shooting at them.

“If the Star League falls, then all the horrors on Hamal, on Lockdale… they’ll be here too. How can they not see that?” he whispered. “How can they all be so blind?”

“They won’t. Our worlds won’t suffer that,” she assured him. “You’ll see to that. But you need all your strength for that. All the brilliance – no, I’m not exaggerating. I know what the predictions were for the economy after the Hegemony’s trade was lost and you’ve steered us out of that disaster. All that, and your heart too. But you can’t do it alone, John. Let us in. Let me, Joshua, let us help you. Trust us, as we trust you, to carry our loads so that you can rest at times.”

John turned to look down at her, feeling her hair brushing against his chin. “I’ll try.”

Edwina squeezed his hands. “Come to bed and rest, love.”

“Alright.” He looked past her at the noteputer for a moment. “Just one thing.”

“John,” she said warningly.

He smiled and kissed her brow. “A message for Owen when he gets in tomorrow. To clear a day of my schedule sometime soon. I’m not sure I’m up to a week off yet, but perhaps I can work up to it.”