The Prefect herself remained something of an unknown quantity. Her public record was open, true… but a public record showed only the surface of a person’s words and actions, not the reasons or motivations beneath. Tara Campbell’s exchange of hot words with Kal Radick, for example, in the days before the HPG net fell apart—her remarks could have been either a calculated insult or an accidental one, depending upon whether the Prefect was recklessly aggressive or merely quick-tempered and somewhat naive.

Not, Anastasia thought with a smile, that either alternative argued well for the Countess being a strategic thinker of any great ability. The Paladin, on the other hand, was almost guaranteed to be a proven Warrior and Commander. Once again, much depended on how well Prefect and Paladin could work together.

Anastasia knew better than to count on incompetence and dissension. She would assume that Tara Campbell and her Paladin had achieved some kind of understanding, and would formulate her plans accordingly.

Twenty-four hours before the DropShips made contact with Northwind, she called a meeting of her senior commanders in Lupus’s tactical room. When they arrived, she had a map of Northwind lit up and tagged on the display table: the large continent of New Lanark; the second landmass, almost as large, that was oil– and mineral-rich Kearny; and Halidon, the third and smallest of the three continents.

She tapped on the table to draw the officers’ attention. “Take a good look,” she told them. “This is what we are going after.”

Her Star Colonels gathered around the table. She was a bit surprised to see that Nicholas Darwin was among them, although neither she nor he changed expressions or allowed themselves to betray any reaction. They had not had the opportunity to share a conversation, or a bed, since the invasion force had boarded the DropShips. She presumed that Darwin had been bunking with the other tank officers, while she herself, as befit a Galaxy Commander, slept in the isolated splendor of private quarters.

His appearance now as a Star Colonel somewhat startled her. She had not known that there had been a Trial of Position during the voyage. The affair would have been routine, then. Nothing out of the ordinary had taken place to make it worth the Galaxy Commander’s attention.

She set the new development aside for later consideration—once the fighting on Northwind was done, she would have to congratulate Nicholas properly—and continued her talk.

“Here is our overall strategy. If need be, we can change and adapt it to fresh information and changed conditions, but the basic outline is here. Northwind has two DropPorts, one here, near the capital city of Tara”—she indicated a flashing red light on the largest landmass—“and one small port here, on Halidon”—she indicated a second flashing light. “The DropPort for the city of Tara is heavily defended, because it is the place where they expect ships to land.”

She looked around at her assembled commanders and grinned. “So we will not be landing at the main port. The Halidon DropPort would be the obvious second choice. But it is isolated, and a long way from our main targets. Also, it has a resident aerospace training contingent, and while I doubt the cadets there would count as serious opponents, they could make taking the Halidon DropPort harder than its size is worth.

“So. We bypass the working DropPorts entirely. But here”—she indicated a large blank area on the main continental mass—“on the interior plains of New Lanark, on the opposite side of the Rockspire Mountains from the capital”—a touch of a button, and the mountain range that formed the spine of the continent lit up in shades of green—“are natural salt flats that served in the early days of Northwind’s settlement as the functional equivalent of a DropPort landing field. We will take the DropShips down there. Our aerospace contingent will be taking out the electronic orbital spy satellites, dealing with the aerospace fighters over Tara, and keeping the Highlanders busy on the other side of the mountains.

“Meanwhile, our forces pass through the Rockspires at this point.” She indicated a winding line in red passing through the green of the mountains. “The locals call it Red Ledge Pass. As you can see, it leads through the mountains and out onto the open plains just north of the capital. Once through the Rockspires, we are within a day’s striking range of Tara.

“And once we have Tara,” she concluded, “we have Northwind.”

PART THREE

Standing Guard

Northwind, Late Spring 3133

20

Castle Northwind

Northwind

April, 3133; local spring

Castle Northwind, official residence of the Counts and Countesses of Northwind, was a big gray stone pseudo-Gothic pile, built by one of the early Northwind Campbells out of nostalgia for similar buildings back on Terra. Unlike its architectural predecessors, this latter-day version wasn’t actually a defensible fortress; Northwind had never gone through a swords-and-armor feudal age that would have required one.

Nevertheless, the castle was an impressive structure, high-walled and many-towered, situated on a green hill above a deep spring-fed highland lake. Banners snapped in the wind that blew across its battlements, and all around the valley that held it rose the gray, glacier-scarred peaks of the northern Rockspires.

The Countess of Northwind and Paladin Ezekiel Crow were at work in the castle solar, a large, airy room at the top of the main tower. Afternoon sunlight streamed in through the leaded-glass panes of the tall windows, illuminating the remains of a working lunch spread out on the central table. The crumbled leftovers of a beef roast wrapped in pastry shared space with file folders and data pads and other administrative debris.

“Didn’t I tell you that we’d get a lot more done if we did our work here instead of in the city?” Tara Campbell said.

“We’ve had fewer interruptions while we’ve been working here, at any rate,” Crow admitted.

“That’s because there isn’t any place in the city where I’m not on the job and available to anyone who needs to see me,” she said. “When I come back to Castle Northwind, I’m at home, and the staff here has known me so long that they’re almost family. They know better than to let people bother me if I don’t want to be bothered.”

“I suppose it’s one of the advantages to growing up in a castle.” He smiled briefly. “Like a princess in one of the old stories.”

“Happily ever after… at least until my mother died. Then my father went back to military service, and after that we lived here, there, and everywhere.” She paused a moment to pick up the loose papers on the table and stack them neatly. “Where did you grow up?”

“Liao.”

She looked at him, reminded again that he was older than he appeared. “Oh. Were you there during—”

His expression, always reserved, closed off even more. “During the Massacre? Yes.”

She felt a surge of embarrassment at her own verbal clumsiness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories.”

Everybody in The Republic of the Sphere knew the story, after all: how agents of the Capellan Confederation fomented unrest on Liao, making it into a perpetual thorn in the side for The Republic of the Sphere; how a traitor working at Liao’s DropPort had allowed an unauthorized CapCon ship to land; how the streets of Chang-an had run red with blood before the CapCons were done with Liao and The Republic of the Sphere was done with them.

“It’s all right,” he said. “It happened a long time ago. It’s just painful still, sometimes. Both my parents died in the city fighting, during the early days.”