“Instead, the Knave followed you out onto the battlefield. Even saved your life.”

“Skye might have been lost.”

“I thought you didn’t want to deal in might-have-beens.”

“It was a lapse in judgment,” she said quietly, forcefully. “And after…,” she trailed off, nearly spilling out what no one else needed to know. The man she was still trying to forget.

But McKinnon knew. “Ezekiel Crow,” he said simply.

“What? How did—”

“It took some time for the rumors to catch up. As it happens a… a concerned Knight looking into the recent actions of Paladin Crow brought them off Northwind.”

Tara set her glass down hard. “Great. The scandalvids are going to love this one.”

“The scandalvids don’t have this, and no reason they should. Exarch Redburn has it. I believe you can rely on his discretion, and mine.”

But the wounds were still there, barely scabbed over. Paladin Ezekiel Crow had betrayed The Republic on Northwind, betrayed her, working against the state’s interests and putting Highlanders at risk. On Terra, shortly thereafter, he had proved what a treacherous man he’d truly been. He’d attempted to assassinate Paladin Jonah Levin, and interfered in the planet’s defense against the Steel Wolves. Tara had been so certain she was falling for the man. Hard.

“When he died on Terra, I thought it was finally over.”

When Tara had destroyed his ’Mech. Killed him.

McKinnon held back just a heartbeat too long, his face frozen into a hard mask. Deliberating. She spread her hands over the table’s slick Formica finish. “He’s not dead.”

“He’s dead,” the Paladin said softly, “but not on Terra.” He saw her eyes widen. “No, not by my hand either. He ended up on the world of Liao, fighting against the Confederation takeover.”

Why? Why would the Paladin dredge this up? It had been his reason for searching her out from the beginning, she knew. The rest had been establishing a rapport, easing into this. “Trying to redeem himself,” she scoffed, not wanting to believe it.

“He did, Tara. He did.” McKinnon recounted some of the details of Ezekiel Crow’s last days. His mistakes and his desperate attempts to make up for them, and the alleged blackmail that had ruined a good man. A Paladin of the Sphere. “You’re going to hear more about him as the news filters out. Some of it is worse than you could imagine. Some tragic. But in the end, he was a citizen and a patriot. I thought maybe you should know that.”

“Why?” she asked, picking up her glass again.

“So maybe the next time you doubt your own judgment, you’ll remember. No man wears a simple white or black hat, Tara.” He stood, and gave her a slow nod. “Not even a Paladin.” Which sounded as much a warning as a consolation.

It gave her something to think about after McKinnon had left, when the privacy she had sought earlier came rolling back over her like a juggernaut. It did help, she discovered, knowing that she hadn’t been the one to kill Ezekiel. That he had died redeemed at least in the eyes of one other. But it also reopened the wounds deep inside, which bled with new grief. For that, she wasn’t going to thank David McKinnon anytime soon.

From now on, she resolved, she would put The Republic first and always.

A thrill trembled over her skin and Tara was surprised at the sense of rightness she felt, making that vow to herself. It wasn’t just that personal entanglements didn’t seem worth the pain and the threat of failure they carried. Whatever the Paladin had hoped to help her understand by talking about Ezekiel, she suddenly understood that the most important relationship she’d developed over recent years had, in fact, been her devotion and loyalty to The Republic. That relationship deserved her attention.

It would be a relief, she decided, to focus all her energy on The Republic. At least for now. But she also wondered, had McKinnon known how deeply his news would touch her?

And had the Paladin truly helped her or not?

7

Over Zebebelgenubi

23 September 3134

Alexia Wolf braced one hand on either side of the doorframe and leaned into the control cabin of the S-7A’s passenger module. It smelled of warm electronics and sweat. The cabin’s twelve square meters was cramped with three pilot’s chairs and what looked like enough control circuitry to fly a DropShip. For the shuttle “bus” it seemed overkill. At least to a MechWarrior.

“How much longer?” she asked, seeing only stars through the forward ferroglass window.

“Fifteen seconds more than it’d be if I didn’t have to answer your question.”

She knew that Leutnant James Richárd resented having to give up his Eisensturm fighter craft in order to make this ferry run, but Alexia saw no reason not to tap her best pilot when she wanted a quick and uncomplicated rendezvous. This entire mission had been hastily put together and run at a dangerous, breakneck pace. Only nine days—completed in half the time it would have taken a regular DropShip run from Nusakan to jump point, and jump point back to Zebebelgenubi. Now, with her Tharkan Strikers outbound from their reconnaissance raid, she intended to report in person to Jasek Kelswa-Steiner.

The Stormhammers’ leader was incoming from the same “pirate point” her Strikers had used for their own stealthy approach to the world. One of the best uses to which Jasek had put his intelligence units was identifying every nonstandard jump point for every system the Stormhammers visited. There were some dangers in operating JumpShips so deep in a gravitational field, but these were acceptable when weighed against the strategic advantage of fast, stealthy travel.

It did tend to make warriors a bit jumpy, however.

“Just get us there in one piece,” she said, “and before they hit atmosphere.”

Richárd nodded. Then, without warning, gravity bent onto its left side as maneuvering thrusters fired a long hard burst to turn the bus to starboard. A long curved wall of gray armor edged into view. Jasek’s Himmelstor, Heaven’s Gate. The massive Excalibur–class DropShip fell through space scant meters from them. The circular ring of a docking hardpoint was so close Alexia wondered if the front of the bus would scrape against it.

“Rolling,” Richárd did warn her this time. Barely.

Attitude jets fired and gravity swam in a sickening direction as the shuttle craft continued to turn but now added a side-over roll in order to expose its belly to the sixteen-thousand-ton vessel. Alexia hung in with hands and feet braced in the doorframe, and her stomach in her throat. A second burst from the jets stilled all movement. Then one last shove upward as the bus lowered itself against the Excalibur’s hull. Alexia felt her ponytail lift against the back of her neck. A dull, metallic gong rang through the small vessel as docking collars mated; a clockwork ratcheting followed as the seal was made.

Now the bus looked back along the length of the egg-shaped Excalibur. Twenty meters up from the docking collar, an old insignia had been inexpertly painted over. A dark outline peeked from under the light gray, visible enough to be recognizable as the Roman profile of the Principes Guards. Eventually, the blue shield and cross of the Archon’s Shield unit would be painted over it, and The Republic’s last claim on the Himmelstor would be gone.

Alexia swallowed hard. “You did that on purpose,” she accused the grinning leutnant.

“You bet I did,” he agreed. “Passengers shouldn’t be out of their seats. It’s for your own safety.”

Richárd liked to use as many contractions as he could manage—a habit most Clan warriors considered lazy, a debasing of the language—as another way to needle his superior. But Alexia was freeborn, and not raised in a strict Clan environment. She could deal with his relaxed attitude, and she could appreciate a joke.