Sword of Sedition

by Loren L. Coleman

  The silence deepened as he seized the podium with large, rawboned hands. “Let us remember,” he said, “Victor Ian Steiner-Davion.”

  The reminiscence would replace an opening invocation. It was long but heartfelt. The bishop personalized Victor, speaking of him only as a man, and a friend.

  “Never so strong he did not recognize his own weakness. Never so weak he could not take a moment to help lift up another.

  “He lived his life so simply, in the end. Preferring a daily routine not so different from one you might find in any home, in any city, on any world. A normal man with a very large heart and an enormous capacity for living.”

  “At times caught up in extraordinary events. But, in the end, someone’s son, and someone’s father. A husband. A brother. A friend. Let us all take a moment of silence to recall who Victor was, to each of us.”

  Tara tried to imagine the answers being thought and whispered around the room. A leader. A prince. An enemy. A patriot and a tyrant. For her, Victor was an ideal. She had never known him well, but had studied his history—from birth through the Clan invasion and Jihad, and finally into his twilight years as a paladin exemplar.

  She knew Victor might not care for his funeral serving political expediency, but he’d also have been strong enough to make the same, hard decisions to which exarchs Redburn and Levin were being put.

  “Thank you,” the bishop said, ending his part in the service.

  There were some whispered amens around the room. People who had taken the time for prayer, according to their own beliefs. Devoutly Catholic, Tara crossed herself.

  Next, two score of Gregorian monks moved up onto the stage from behind the altar, taking the place of the regular choir. With no musical accompaniment, they launched into a spiritual chant. Their strong voices lifted, cascaded throughout the magnificent chamber, echoing strains from Berlioz’ requiem, the Grande Messe des Morts. One of very few ancient pieces to survive the various neo-classical movements mostly intact.

  Tara lost herself in the rendition, swept away by the masterpiece and the powerful delivery. It wasn’t until afterward, as echoes of the last four great beats died away, that she wondered about the choice. The Grande Messe des Morts.

  The requiem that was nearly murdered by the political intrigue and infighting of its day.

  Message? Almost certainly. Nothing today would be confined to a single meaning. Not one pregnant pause or turn of phrase.

  Certainly not the eulogy being delivered by former Exarch Damien Redburn. The first of three planned eulogies, it was effectively the keynote address of the morning’s service.

  Redburn rose from his seat, moving slowly and stately as he took the podium from Bishop Wesley-Smith. Only fifty, the former exarch carried himself as if he still bore a great weight of responsibility. Tara was close enough to see the extra gray that feathered into his dark hair, and the exarch’s face was lined heavily with the stresses put on him in the last few years. The rumors of his graceful retirement to the “easy life” seemed greatly exaggerated.

  “I knew Victor Steiner-Davion,” Redburn said, by way of beginning. “As a warrior and a patriot. As a statesman and a paladin. As a friend.

  “There are few of whom it can be said that they gave more selflessly to this great Republic, or to the entire Inner Sphere. He gave of his fortune and his faith, and he so often bled for his beliefs. Victor was never happy with the status quo. He graduated the Nagelring with honors, and took command of several line regiments. He served as archon and prince, as commander of a new Star League army, as precentor martial, and as a paladin of the Sphere. And he worked tirelessly, his entire life, toward one, single, pursuit.”

  He let a hush lie over the grand room for a few precious heartbeats.

  “Peace.”

  Not war! As so many in the audience had certainly been thinking. Tara found herself praying. Cheering the assembled masses to listen to Redburn. For faith’s sake.

  “There are those who would say that Victor worked hard, fought hard and never lost. Not when it mattered. Except that Victor lost his very first command to the Clans on Trellwan. He lost his mother, and also his first love, to political assassination. He lost friends and comrades to a thousand different battles fought over hundreds of worlds.

  “Of course he lost,” Redburn said, forcing a calm over himself. “Of course he did. But I can tell you this. Victor was never defeated. Because he never, once, gave up.”

  The former exarch had the crowd in his hands now. Tara sensed that. Most of the crowd, anyway, as there would also be those who remembered facing Victor across a battlefield, wishing the man would give up. Would turn away. Would just lie down and finally die.

  But as Redburn warmed up to the list of specific events Victor had “fought” against, including the controversy surrounding Victor’s ultimate decision to abdicate his throne as a final conciliatory gesture to an Inner Sphere long suffering under the hardships of extended warfare, those who knew anything of Victor’s history were reminded again of what a heroic figure he truly was. And the litany of struggles and personal losses and overwhelming victories swept even Tara away. Tara, who knew the histories as well as anyone might. She stopped hearing the repeated slam as Redburn drove another nail into the coffin of the Senate loyalists, the ones ultimately responsible for Victor’s death. She closed her eyes again, and wrapped herself up in a warm blanket of memories and patriotic sensation.

  Which lasted until a hand touched her on the elbow, and the breath of someone leaning down at her shoulder warmed her ear.

  “Countess?”

  More than a whisper. Strong and certain.

  “Countess. It’s time.”

  Tara opened her eyes slowly, glanced up to her right where a Buddhist monk hovered over her from the end of the pew. She wanted to deny the summons, even though she had expected it. They had all expected it, today of all days. Another large injustice.

  The disruptions were minor, so far. Monks and acolytes and even some young priests, moving along the outer aisles, delivering small notes or reaching in to tap an expectant officer on the arm or shoulder.

  Redburn continued, never letting the interruptions steal the crowd away from his words. His message.

  “Not when wars threatened on every border,” he said as Tara stood and shuffled out from the pew. “Not even when good men stopped listening for a time. Victor persisted. He fought his way forward. He fought his entire life. And in the end, he even fought for his life, and ruined a dark conspiracy’s efforts to threaten the peace once again.”

  Not ruined. Not completely. Delayed.

  “They did not defeat him.”

  A priest approached the row of paladins. Another stepped toward the fore, making certain the six standing for Victor also saw. Also knew.

  “He defeated them.”

  He did. Tara agreed. She stood at the end of her pew a moment, matching gazes with Damien Redburn, who looked out over the disturbed service, and silently agreed. But that was one battle in a much larger, long war.

  And now they would go to carry on Victor’s legacy.

  “Now?” Julian asked. “They are coming now?”

  His whisper carried little farther than Prince Harrison. Perhaps Sandra and Amanda Hasek as well. Caleb leaned in from farther along, his gaze quizzical as he obviously tried to put it together. The speech. The disruptions.

  Julian’s sudden conference with Harrison Davion.

  But everyone else knew once the messages started filtering out across the chapel. Shoulders tapped and officers excusing themselves as silently and swiftly as they could. An expectant buzz as, one by one, the paladins slid out of their seats, forming a tight knot in the far, forward corner of the chapel.

  Damien Redburn seized on the interruptions to add more animation into his eulogy. To drive the point home that his words, and the events happening on Terra, were very much linked.

  “Victor’s loss is far from an ending, however. It is a beginning. It he
ralds a fresh start for The Republic, and new opportunities for all realms of the Inner Sphere to work together and fight for a better future. For peace.”

  Toward that better future, Harrison simply handed over the slip of a note delivered by a priest’s hands. Julian unfolded it. He felt Sandra next to him, crowding up to his side, pretending she was not trying to read it, to catch a hint of what was about to happen.

  The first half of the simple missive read only: It’s time. Terse and to the point, Julian imagined it was similar to the messages being passed about the entire chapel. Except for the second half. One word. A name.

  Meaux. A small city about twenty kilometers outside Paris.

  To which elements of the First Davion Guard had been secretly brought from the American southwest! Julian knew it at once. A thrill shook him as he anticipated Harrison’s next order.

  “Go, Julian. There will be transport waiting for you outside. You will take local command at Meaux. Under Exarch Levin’s direct orders.”

  “He authorized it?”

  Julian slid forward to the edge of his pew. It was all streaming past him at a fair clip now. The funeral. The threat of imminent action. A Republic commission? All too fast.

  “Under the Foreign Powers Visitors act. Temporarily.”

  Julian reached over to give Sandra’s hand a quick squeeze, then slid past Harrison and Amanda, Caleb, then Riccard Streng, to the chapel’s left-side aisle. Harrison stood as well and followed him only to the end of the pew, as if anticipating the question that suddenly leaped to Julian’s thoughts.

  “That act only applies in the event of a wartime alliance between the Federated Suns and The Republic,” he reminded his prince. They stood there, near the side of the chapel, both wearing the dress uniform of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns. Alone out of every House and faction represented.

  An oddity that appeared to worry the prince not at all. “Which Exarch Levin has offered,” he said to Julian. “I told him, if you were sent, he should consider the alliance as good as signed.”

  Julian glanced to the front of the Cathedral’s chapel. Redburn continued his eulogy of Victor Steiner-Davion, keeping hold of the room with brute force willpower. But few people were paying attention just now. Especially as the six honor-guard paladins filed off the altar. All but one, left to stand for Victor, no doubt chosen earlier by lot or by vote. There were duties, and there were duties, and the paladins would not forgo one obligation for another. One of their number would remain.

  Sire David McKinnon. Eldest of the seventeen, and certainly a paladin exemplar in his own right.

  And one other face at the front of the room looked back now, catching Julian’s eye. Exarch Levin. The onetime paladin and ruler of The Republic of the Sphere let nothing show on his face. Not concern or relief. But he nodded in Julian’s direction. Once. A strong vote of confidence.

  “How long did you have to consider it?” After all the meetings and briefings into which Julian had been brought, it seemed strange to have missed out on this one.

  “Since our final viewing this morning. Jonah offered the alliance in the vestibule.”

  About two hours, in other words.

  “How do you do this?” he asked. No worry in his voice. Simply awe for the man he had chosen to follow. “You’ve shown me so much this month, and I still didn’t see it.”

  “You make it happen, Julian.” Harrison’s voice grew a touch short. As if explaining an answer that his best student should already know. “You do it because there is no one else. And now no time to delay any longer.”

  “Yes, sire.” Julian braced up to attention. He was never too old to feel properly scolded by his prince, it seemed. “And now it’s my job to carry out those orders. I understand.”

  He turned to leave, but Harrison held fast onto his arm. “Not yet, son. But you will. Get used to it. You need to learn how to make it happen. As . . . a leader.”

  Julian felt something cold and heavy settle into his guts. Down deep. Something had passed between Harrison and himself, far more serious than the promise of coming battle. Both of them knew that the prince had stopped one step short of something momentous. Harrison, by the way he suddenly recoiled, as if having moved a step too far, too soon. Julian, when he nearly stumbled away from his prince as Harrison Davion released him.

  Harrison retook a seat at the end of the pew. Julian looked past his uncle, and lord. Saw Caleb watching him with a hooded gaze. Saw Sandra Fenlon, watching with a desperate one.

  As . . . a leader.

  First, though, as a warrior. Prince’s champion. Julian collected himself, and paced up the aisle toward the Cathedral’s main doors. The gazes of hundreds turned to follow him, just as they also found other officers and knights and paladins making their way from the service. No one asked the question. No one shouted warnings or started a panic.

  But Callandre Kell stuck a foot out into the aisle, nearly tripping him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  She had dressed down in a black pants suit with a silver scarf knotted at her throat. Her hair was conservatively coiffed today, without colored highlights or wild styling. But there was nothing soft in her hissed words.

  “As it turns out,” he said, “I have a . . . previous arrangement.” And because there was no one else. And because there was no time to delay. He made it happen. “Guard my back?” he asked.

  She smiled. And it was pure Calamity. “You got it.”

  He stepped past, and felt her slip from her seat to follow.

  Services were over.

  Outside, things were just beginning to heat up.

  Aerospace fighters streaked overhead in squadrons, tearing down out of the gray canopy, thundering through the skies over Paris. Julian recognized Stingrays, with their distinctive swept-wing design, and following them a squadron of flying wings that had to be either Chippewas or Rievers—assault fighters.

  It made the line of VTOLs, crowded along the Rue d’Égalité, so much less appealing. Better, he decided, that the paladins seemed intent on the fragile aircraft.

  Most of the regular line officers present were being herded onto APCs by infantry in Cavalier battle armor. Julian and Callandre joined one of the queues, keeping a wary eye on the skies. And were quickly yanked out of line by Countess Tara Campbell.

  “Not for you,” she said, pointing Julian toward a Fox armored car instead. “Those APCs are heading for an underground garage.”

  “Where you have an armored column waiting?”

  “Where those men and women will be safe.” She smiled grimly. “The knights and paladins had to show in person. But do you really think Exarch Levin gutted our officer corps for the services? Those are technicians and administrative personnel, Julian. Now if you’ll excuse me.” She had caught an impatient wave by Paladin Sinclair, who stood next to a VTOL. “Luck,” she said.

  Tara jogged away and Julian nodded Callandre toward the Fox. She recoiled in distaste. “That tin can? Are you kidding?” She grabbed him by the arm to drag him over to a nearby pair of grounded hovercycles. Escorts.

  Jumping onto the cradle-seat, she scooted forward. Reaching under the lip of a protective cowling, she dug out a small nest of wires, sorted three of them out, and used her teeth to bite through and strip away the thin insulation. She spit the plastic to one side. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  Julian hesitated. “There’s more armor on a Fox.”

  “And it’s a bigger target. I’ll get us there faster, and probably alive.” Twisting the three wires together, she then thumbed the ignition stud and the cycle’s lift fans howled to life. She whipped the silver scarf off her neck and tied it bandit-style over her hair, letting the ends trail behind. “Where are we going?”

  “Meaux,” Julian said, resigned.

  He climbed on behind her, and had barely put hands on her waist when she leaned down and applied full acceleration, jumping the cycle forward and slewing down the wide avenue. The h
overcraft barely missed a parked Anat APC and skirted dangerously close to a few lifting VTOLs. They pushed through a backwash of thundering sound and flying grit.

  “Don’t do that again,” Julian shouted near Calamity’s shoulder.

  She looked back for several long seconds, taking her eyes off the road ahead. “No promises.”

  29

  Last week on Skye, a resistance cell was discovered and crushed by the vigilant patrols of Clan Jade Falcon. The industrial sector in which the cell had hidden away its military resources was then “put to the torch” by the order of local commander Tabitha Wimmer.

  “Let this be a learning experience. There will be no safe harbor for those who resist our mandate.”

  —reported by Avanti Free Press, Nusakan, 15 May 3135

  Terra

  Republic of the Sphere

  1 June 3135

  Further than Conner Rhys-Monroe thought to get. Not as far as he’d wanted.

  The Republic made its first stand as loyalist forces moved south of the Aisne River, near Soissons. A combined column of armored vehicles and two modified AgroMechs slowed his point of the three-prong advance by nearly twenty minutes, sniping at his flanks, pushing him south and east.

  They held strong defensive positions inside thick woods, and moved nearly as fast as his people did through open terrain, which at first made him believe that there was a stronger force set against him. It wasn’t until a flyover by two Transgressor aerospace fighters that he found out about the hidden trails cut in obvious preparation of his assault. That he realized how weak the defenders had to be, and sent his skirmishers in to pin them down.

  Now he waded his Rifleman in alongside a Pack Hunter and two Scimitar fast-strike hovercraft. One AgroMech was already toppled over, struggling to rise under the Scimitars’ overlapping missile strikes. The second anchored a short line of M1 Marksman and a single Regulator.