Mandela finally answered the first part of the question. “We can easily isolate Spain,” he promised. His voice was deep and rich, with an opera singer’s control. “Enforce a no-fly zone and stop any ground action south of the Pyrenees. We’d write off eastern Asia to do so, but then the loyalist forces out there won’t be in much position to do anything other than hunker down and wait it out.”

Avellar delivered the bad news. “Germany is the problem. It’s close. It’s well protected. And they have Krupps Armaments as well as the new Skobel Mechwerks facilities near Berlin. And Conner Rhys-Monroe has concentrated forces there.” She glanced to McKinnon, and gave in grudgingly. “We’d need the Seventh Hastati.”

“We’d need something,” GioAvanti said, frowning.

Jonah nodded slowly. “We’ll have something,” he promised. “But for now, I want to contain the loyalists. Tara Campbell is signing on for this, so make good use of her. Public use. Push the loyalists up into Stuttgart… maybe as far north as Mannheim. Get solid garrisons into Basel and Zurich. Soldiers we trust implicitly. Then draw a line down the French countryside with field camps stretching between the Ura and the Ardennes.”

It made sense to most of the paladins, who nodded. Any direct threat was likely to roll through France, with its open terrain, working around the Alps. The time of Hannibal was certainly past.

McKinnon was not quite so sanguine. “It won’t be enough. We’ll be tempting them to come out and fight, spread so thin.”

But Jonah was not finished. “We back our line, quietly, with a combined arms battalion. Mixed ’Mechs and vehicles. Not much in infantry, but it’s what we’ll have.”

Having looked at force rosters in the past few hours, McKinnon frowned. “That’s not the breakdown of the Seventh Hastati.”

“No. It isn’t.”

He had all their attention now. Heather GioAvanti asked the question for them all. “Where do we find these forces, then?”

And Jonah Levin told them.

Terra

Republic of the Sphere

24 April 3135

Julian Davion found the chalet’s lower balcony, welcoming the brisk slap of the fresh mountain air as he looked for a quiet moment in which to clear his head. A two-hour meeting with Harrison’s intelligence chief had his brain swimming with the names of worlds, the dossiers of foreign dignitaries he was likely to be introduced to at festivities and functions in the next month, and recently decoded military reports that detailed new troubles on and around New Hessen. Under Harrison’s order, the great machine that kept the prince in contact with his realm piled it onto the shoulders of the prince’s champion, as well.

No rest for the wicked. That had been one of his father’s favorite teases when duties pressed.

“Good morning, cousin!”

His father had never spent a great deal of time around Caleb, though.

His cousin relaxed on a cloth-wrapped chaise he’d pulled out onto the balcony. Lying back as if napping, warming himself under a heavy fleece blanket while sunglasses protected him from the afternoon brightness. Caleb’s enthusiastic cheer was barely muted by his usual hangover, though he winced at the loudness of his own voice.

“It is after noon, Caleb.”

“Bah.” The young heir snuggled himself deeper into the plaid-striped fleece. Only his head stuck out, and one arm which could just reach the steaming coffee on a nearby tray. It smelled bitter and black, fighting local wildflowers for dominance of the balcony. “I’m not quite used to Terran time yet. Still jump-lagged to another world’s clock.”

“Really? Which world would that be?”

“Oh, pick one, would you? I’m sure it is early morning somewhere in this blasted Republic.”

Julian laughed. He couldn’t help himself, though he felt uneasy for it after. Caleb was incorrigible. Always had been. They’d met during Julian’s earliest visits to the capital world, when Caleb still bothered to attend his classes at the New Avalon Military Academy. Seven years older—a good age for some old-fashioned hero worship—Caleb had been planning to become a MechWarrior. Which to an eleven-year-old seemed about the coolest thing ever.

It hadn’t lasted.

In fact, if it hadn’t been for the long-standing tradition of the Davion heir serving his time in the military, likely Caleb would have dropped out completely. Instead, he rushed through armor crew training and took a sinecure position as a field commander in the New Syrtis Avengers. But he remained on New Avalon, mostly. And when it came time for Julian’s run through NAMA, he and Caleb had actually struck up a tentative friendship.

And though it was hardly due to Caleb’s influence alone that Julian slacked off near the end of his freshman year, sometimes he wondered if his sudden acceptance for a transfer year at the Nagelring wasn’t engineered by Harrison to separate the two of them.

Certainly when Julian returned early, expelled from the Lyran Commonwealth, that thought had at least crossed the prince’s mind. “I expect this kind of trouble from Caleb!” Harrison had scolded him, his lead-in to a thirty-minute lecture.

That had been when Julian vowed to never give his prince, or the memory of his own father, another reason for such disappointment.

“So are you just getting up?” Julian asked. “Or just getting in?”

“Ah, Julian.” Caleb sat up with a sudden burst of frantic energy, swinging his feet over the chaise and wrapping the blanket over his shoulders like a cape. He grabbed up his coffee and took a healthy slug, as he might have thrown down a shot of good sour mash whiskey. “A ballistic shuttle showed us dawn over Antarctica and an afternoon among the Himalayas. Evening was the northern lights above a territory called Yukon. You should try a few of these tours. Such an adventure we had.”

“I hope to get the time,” Julian said, but his sardonic sting was lost on the Davion heir. He exhaled sharply. “So who is she?”

“I have no idea.” He was alert enough to see the confusion on Julian’s face. “It’s a game we play,” he said, and briefly explained the way the two had met, and continued to meet.

True, the Davion Guards did not vet Caleb’s schedule and guest list as they did Harrison’s, but it seemed a bit strange they would allow such an assignation without clearing her. Then again, they might be conditioned to Caleb’s excesses in the same way Harrison and Julian made allowances for the young heir at times. He would have a word with Caleb’s security detail, at least.

“Keep your nose where it belongs, Julian.” There was nothing playful in Caleb’s tone now. “I’ll be very upset if you spoil my game.”

“Just doing my duty, Caleb. But I will be discreet, I promise.”

“Discreet. Yes, that is you, isn’t it? Discreet and oh-so-serious. Most of the time, anyway.” Teasing again, he dipped his head toward Julian, exaggerating the wink mostly hidden behind the dark lenses. “But I’m keeping you.”

Julian fished over a chair, hooking its leg with his foot and landing it close enough that he could sit within a comfortable distance of Caleb. The two Davion scions stared at each other over Caleb’s coffee, which steamed up more of its bitter-bean scent. Julian tasted its earthy flavor from the air, and thought about ordering up a cup for himself.

“Actually,” he said, “I just finished. A meeting with Riccard.” Julian frowned, reminded of the troubling news. “There is going to be more trouble on New Hessen, and maybe Chesterton as well. I would not have thought Liao so bull-headed to threaten a second front while engaged with The Republic.”