Republic identification let us into the spaceport and past security to the Leopard–class DropShip Valiant. Being one of the smaller DropShip designs, it had an aerodynamic shape and could carry four BattleMechs. Through the ports into the cargo hold I could see two: what I took to be a Centurion and a Black Hawk.
Jack helped me from the vehicle, then picked me up off the ground and marched me up the loading ramp. Jill drove the vehicle up another ramp and into the cargo bay. I expected Jack to hustle me through narrow corridors to a tiny cabin and shackle me to the wall, but instead he took me to a fairly large conference room and sat me down in a relatively comfortable chair.
He took up a position next to the hatchway, with his back to the bulkhead. He was just where I could only catch a hint of him without turning my head to the right, which I had no intention of doing. He wanted to make me look, and I refused. Because of my swollen left eye, though, I didn’t see Lakewood until she appeared past my left, and I jolted, rattling my chains.
Jack laughed.
Lakewood sat on the edge of a rectangular table back against the bulkhead opposite the door. She looked past me. “You can go now, thank you, Sergeant Gaskin.”
“As you wish, my lady. He may be restrained, but he is still dangerous.”
She nodded slowly. “I will be careful.”
I snorted. “So will I. Not a word about Acamar. I don’t care what you do.”
“I’ve heard that before.” The door shut behind Jack and she levered herself off the table. “I think, however, I have the key that might unlock your tongue.”
And with that she took my face in her hands and planted on me the third-best kiss I’ve ever had.
11
A sense of duty is moral glue, constantly subject to stress.
—William Safire
Outbound, Republic DropShip Valiant
Helen
Prefecture III, Republic of the Sphere
23 November 3132
That kiss would have been solidly at number two, and might have rivaled even number one, save that my face was still tender from the beating I’d taken. Moreover, still being shackled prevented me from slipping my arms around her and hugging her tightly. Despite those handicaps, it was still a seriously great kiss, and since she’d already planted the gold and silver kisses on me, this one taking the bronze was not a bad thing at all.
I licked my lips as she pulled back, tasting her and smiling. “It’s been so long, I’d begun thinking you were a fantasy spun out of Tri-Vids and dreams.”
She towered over me and traced a finger over my left cheek. “I’ve missed you terribly, Mason. Four months and no word.”
I stared up. “You didn’t get the messages I sent?”
She shook her head and stepped back. “Not a one. I did get reports that money was moving into and out of your account, so we knew you were here, but nothing else.”
I sighed. Because I’d come to Helen as a drifter, I couldn’t be sending high-priority, high-cost messages to a Knight of The Republic without attracting a lot of attention. I did send lower-priority messages designed to go through a cutout who would relay them on to others, and eventually they’d get to Janella—or at least that was the plan. I’d sent one a week, but with the collapse of the grid, what little traffic was getting out had to be the high-price stuff.
“So, if none of my messages to you got out, then none of my reports did, either. Why are you here, then?”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “I believe you meant to phrase that: ‘Thank goodness you interpreted my silence as a cry for help and came to see what you could do to rescue me.’”
“Ah, yes, sorry. Been here… I’ve been here on Helen a long time, talking to lumberjacks and Greens far too long.” I frowned. “Are you going to leave me bound up like this? Your man Jack has a touch of the sadist in the way he tightened these cuffs.”
“Jack?”
“Gaskin, you called him.”
“Oh.” Janella smiled playfully, then crossed behind me and unlocked the cuffs.
I rubbed my wrists. “And the shackles?”
“Maybe I don’t want you running off.”
“Not me. No place to go on this ship, and no desire to run.”
“Good answer.” She knelt before me and released my feet, then placed her hands on my knees and stood. “We have a lot of work to do.”
I smiled. Janella was always work before pleasure, which might sound less than desirable after four months apart from each other. The simple fact was, however, that since we were back together, things were back to normal as far as she was concerned. We’d work, then we’d celebrate, but in the meanwhile, we’d enjoy anticipating the celebration.
I stood and stretched, then enfolded her in the hug I’d wanted since I saw her in Overton. She felt terribly good in my embrace. Just having her weight against me and feeling her arms sliding over my shoulders burned off the time we’d been away from each other. I nuzzled her neck and smiled. “By the way,” I whispered, “thank you for rescuing me.”
“My distinct pleasure.” She kissed my left cheek softly, then slipped from my arms. “We’ll collaborate on a single case summary, then do our own reports to supplement it?”
“Exactly what I was thinking.” I jerked a thumb at the hatchway. “What’s the status on your bodyguards, Jack and Jill?”
“Sergeants William Gaskin and Amanda Poole. Both are seconded from Lament for temporary duty. They’re cleared to know, but there has been no need.” Janella shrugged. “It’s your call.”
“They know you came to get me, though. Having my BattleMech in the cargo hold likely tipped them off.”
“Both could pilot it, so it was assumed they were my backup. They know The Republic has an interest in you, and we’ll have to let them know you’re working for us. How much more than that you want to tell them is up to you.”
I nodded. Lady Janella Lakewood is a Knight of The Republic and serves as a Knight-Errant—traveling to worlds, unraveling problems, acting somewhere between a diplomat and a tactical reaction force. She grew up a noble and went to the Murchison Academy, where she got her military and ’Mech training. Then, instead of taking a position in Stone’s Pride—another unit akin to Lament—she went to law school and became learned in the ways of the law.
Knights-Errant fell into one of four classes of Republic Knights. The Knights had been born back when Stone created The Republic and, initially, consisted of his closest advisors and best military leaders. Many of them were later elevated to the rank of Paladin, advising him and, now, advising the Exarch. Only eighteen of the Knights made it to that rank, and upon their shoulders rested the fate of The Republic.
Knights were not drawn from the military alone—Janella’s father, for one, was knighted for his work in the sciences. While Stone realized the people of the Inner Sphere were primed to accept as leaders those who were loaded with martial skills, he wanted to use the Knights to do more as he reformed society. David Lear, his closest advisor and chief planner, helped establish as Knights a group of individuals whose example would inspire those who had no martial skills or inclinations. Because Stone’s reforms included the nearly wholesale decommissioning of privately held BattleMechs, the chances for advancement through the military were severely limited. As other opportunities for glory opened up with Knighthoods awarded for economic, scientific, artistic and humanitarian efforts, the best and brightest found new outlets for achievement.
The other group of Knights is the Ghost Knights. We don’t exist in any documents or on any organizational charts, but rumors abound about us and all the things we do. The tales would suggest there are just legions of us, but I don’t think so—though it could be that I don’t really have a clue as to how many of my brethren there truly are. Like Knights-Errant, we get covertly thrust into situations to look for resolutions, and to implement them if we can do so within our mission parameters. So, while people assume Ghost Knights are real, exactly who we are and how we get c
hosen is kept very secret. Janella’s guards didn’t need to know I was a Ghost Knight, so coming up with a story that would function but keep them in the dark on that point would work.
It’s not as if I don’t actually exist. Mason Dunne has his own little spot in the Table of Organization for The Republic. I’m a researcher in an obscure forestry office in the Interior Secretariat. I’m seldom seen and often forgotten, but if a Paladin or Knight calls me in for a consultation, being closeted with a researcher like me attracts no attention.
I crossed to a bulkhead cabinet, opened it and got myself a bottle of water. “We don’t need to tell them anything right now,” I told her. “I think I’m a bit paranoid because the other attacks didn’t happen, and that’s got me really twisted around. You picked me up because of the Javapulse run, right?”
She nodded. “You got the tracker with your order, so we were on you. We pulled the security Tri-Vid and identified your companion. What’s interesting is that I worked out where and when you were going to hit your target, but I never got a chance to tell that to Reis. Instead, he told me what you would be doing.”
“But the only way he could know that is if Handy sold me to him.”
“Not necessarily. Your communications woman could have done the selling. One time you were thinking she was talking to Handy, she could have given the whole plan to Reis. You did leave her alone when you went to Javapulse.”
“True.” That particular Javapulse location actually was a contact point for Republic agents. While what I ordered was fairly common, the microphone in the register picked up and identified my voice. The data was logged and provided some basic information that Janella was able to use—my asking for three sugars, for example, meant things would be happening in three days. The register also spit out a specific five-stone coin that had been fitted with a tracking device. Once we left the store, Janella knew every place I went.
She tapped a finger against her lips. “It’s also possible that Constable Rivers—your late friend from the bistro—discovered more information than Handy wanted him to know. He passed some or all of it along to Reis, and was killed for his trouble. Handy then could have aborted the other ops and given you up as expendable.”
“Possible. Could be he figured out who was backing Handy, which is why he had to be executed. And it could be that Handy’s boss ordered things curtailed to let Reis puff himself up, to cut him down later.”
“Provided there actually are other cells to the GGF.”
“Yeah.” I opened the water and drained half the bottle. “Four months on Helen and all I have to show for it is a handful of dead terrorists and constables, and a lot of property damage done to a precinct headquarters. The Republic will pay for the repairs, I am assuming.”
“Yes, but it won’t come out of your salary.” Janella smiled easily. “The ninth precinct house was scheduled for demolition anyway. Reis showed me plans for a Justice Palace that he wanted to build on that site. If you’d taken the building apart you would have saved taxpayers a lot of money.”
I pressed the cool bottle to the back of my neck. “Someday this will all sort itself out. I’m just afraid it will be when I’m reading Mr. Handy’s memoirs.”
“Before then, my dear, I’m certain.”
A warning tone sounded through the ship, indicating that we had been cleared to leave Helen. Janella and I crossed to the exterior bulkhead and strapped ourselves into couches. I offered her some of my water as the Valiant started to roll down the runway. She drank and passed it back, then held my hand as we took off.
We both watched the world shrink behind us, then I gave her hand a squeeze. “Did you have to convince someone to come after me, or were you sent?”
She turned and a huge grin blossomed on her face. “Mason Dunne, is that a hint of ego? Did you want to know if The Republic couldn’t get along without you in such dark times?”
“Well, um”—I frowned heavily, hoping that would hold the blush down—“it would be nice to think that some folks thought I might be useful.”
“Actually, my love, it was assumed you were able to take care of yourself. The few news items coming out of Helen were heavily influenced by Commander Reis’ publicity machine. That made it look as if the GGF was strong enough to take the whole government down. People did some checking and realized that not only had we not heard from you, but the contingency support material that you should have been able to draw upon hadn’t made it either.”
“So you flew to the rescue?”
“I wanted to be here about three minutes after you left Terra.” She leaned over and kissed me softly. “Then, after the grid went down, I wanted to come to Helen immediately. Circumstances wouldn’t allow that, however, so I stayed on Terra and did all I could to avert the crisis.”
“How bad is it? The reports here have alternated between it being the end of the universe and a minor hiccup. To hear folks tell it, all the Houses have been swept away, the Clans are gone and if someone like Hanse Davion were alive today, he’d recognize nothing of the Inner Sphere he knew a century ago.”
She sighed heavily and I caught a strong dose of frustration in her voice. Janella did not do frustration well. Being as smart as she was, she could figure a lot of things out when she had all the facts. That particular sigh meant she didn’t have but a fraction of the data she wanted, which told me more than four months of news media on Helen.
“That bad, huh?”
She nodded. “The strikes that took out the HPGs were very well coordinated. Not only were they systematic and timed tightly, but they had sufficient force to overwhelm local security—when it existed. Moreover, they targeted key components on the devices that took them down or used computer viruses so the arrays can’t communicate with ground stations. In theory the tactics would allow for bringing them back up fairly quickly since they weren’t destroyed outright. They won’t have to be replaced, but repaired, and there is the big problem.”
“I don’t follow. If it was so precise a series of strikes, why aren’t repairs being made?”
“It’s a matter of supply. The HPGs really are a marvel of technology and were built to last. When they were designed they had some basic, highly durable components that have functioned for centuries without failure. The smaller things, like circuitry and memory, were added in a modular fashion, assuming that as technology progressed, new, better and faster parts would be put into them. The problem was, of course, that the Succession Wars stopped progress and degraded the industrial capacity needed to manufacture HPGs and new parts quickly. With damage to eighty percent of the alpha circuit, a lot of parts are needed.”
I nodded. Centuries ago, the Inner Sphere had melted down in a civil war that threatened to blast humanity back to the Transistor Age. High-tech industries failed or were converted to the production of BattleMechs. The ability to produce JumpShips and, apparently, the parts that went into HPGs, had been severely limited—right at a time when we could use both.
“So, if there were a supply of these parts, we could have things up and working?”
“Right after the software was fixed, yes, but there isn’t a supply of parts. People aren’t even sure if some of the power couplings and radiation conversion units can be manufactured. In theory we have the technical information about how they were made, but the factories that can do the work need extensive retooling for production.”
I shivered. “We can’t talk, we won’t be able to talk, save through messages hauled by JumpShips and relayed. What news, then?”
Janella shook her head as her smile died. “It’s not good, Mason, not good at all. Republic programs encouraged co-operation. They rewarded it and punished examples of old hatreds. With no communications, the carrot-and-stick approach no longer works. People are beginning to gather power to themselves. Minorities who think they were suppressed are reacting. What you found on Helen is hardly an isolated incident.”
“The Republic is coming apart?”
She gave me a
frank stare with her green eyes. “Lover, I’ve been gone from Terra for three weeks. We’re bound for Terra now. Until we get there, we won’t know if there’s still a Republic or not.”
12
New nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobility is the act of time.
—Francis Bacon
Inbound, Republic DropShip Valiant
Terra
Prefecture X, Republic of the Sphere
8 December 3132
It is a bit of an irony to think of any transport that can fling you thirty light-years in the blink of an eye as slow, but when you aren’t where you want to be, any delay seems enormous. It took us three days to get to the nadir jump point and find transport. From there we jumped to Northwind and were lucky enough to immediately transfer to a JumpShip bound for Caph. After only a small delay we headed on to Terra, and had another week to transit from jump point to world.
We did make good use of that time, and even got a lot of work done. Helen kept shooting us data right up to the point we left the system. Handy and Letitia had escaped capture. My last compatriot, Steve, had been snapped up two days after we left, but was useless in helping bring in his comrades. Reis made it very apparent that while he would continue looking for Handy, he considered him a minor functionary and certainly not worth the man-hours needed to find him. I was the key man, Reis knew it, and was happy to be rid of me.
There were two reasons for that. The first was that at a trial I could trot out my story and some journalist would start digging. I was certain there were things Reis’ people wouldn’t uncover that would have embarrassed him and, possibly, got me acquitted. That would be a major problem for him, so having me gone and convicted in the court of public opinion was just fine.
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