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As though an electric charge had gone through them, the exhausted defenders showed new energy. They joined in with the new arrivals—armor, ’Mechs, infantry, shoulder-to-shoulder, fighting back the invaders.
Another wave of ’Mechs landed, among them a Black Hawk freshly painted sparkling white and trimmed in gold.
The Duke had returned.
“SwordSworn! I am here! For Davion!”
Erik managed to coax his slowly cooling ’Mech into motion. He limped in with the others in the circle, his hatchet rising and falling, doing what he could. The circle widened, even as the four spherical DropShips landed in the middle of the site, each bristling with its own weapons, each carrying more forces, infantry, light armor, and massed IndustrialMechs from the coalition worlds. What they lacked in brute force, they made up for in numbers. Just as importantly, they were fresh to the fight.
Overwhelmed and demoralized, the Liao troops were no longer fighting. They were simply trying to get away.
Erik croaked into his radio. “Block the East Tu
The ’Mechs and armored infantry with jump jets went over the cliff, fleeing back to the sea. The other vehicles and the regular infantry that had made it through the tu
Some surrendered.
Most died.
In time, the frenzy calmed. The smoke began to clear.
Erik slumped in his cockpit, exhausted, spent. In his headset, he heard the chanting begin.
For Davion! For Davion! For Davion!
And then it changed.
For the Duke! For the Duke! For the Duke!
“Commander.” It took Erik several seconds to realize that the voice in his earphones was talking to him, and a few more seconds before he realized who it was.
“Sortek?”
“Yes, sir. Hell of a way to spend Christmas, isn’t it?”
20
POLL SHOWS MANY DOUBT THE REPUBLIC’S FUTURE—With the results of the scheduled Exarchal election still unknown in the outlying areas of The Republic, an INN poll conducted on three randomly selected worlds in Prefecture V shows that just over fifty-one percent doubt The Republic will survive another five years. Only twenty-seven percent of respondents expressed “complete confidence” in the future of The Republic. Another seventeen percent believed that the elections “would not or should not proceed.” Dr. Ozmund Banzai of Pleione said it this way: “It’s the wrong time for a change of leadership. If The Republic is going to survive, what we need right now is stability. If we can’t have that, then we might as well look around and see what the various factions have to offer.”
St. Michael Station, St. Michael
St. Andre system
Prefecture V, The Republic
25 December 3134
A second wave of DropShips followed the first—mostly aerodynes, bringing with them not just more reinforcements, but supplies. The last ship to land was the Tyra
With practiced efficiency, the blast doors over the formal entry retracted and the decorative wood doors dropped into place. Crewmembers immediately emerged, attaching the rest of the decorative portico, and the steps leading to the door. A cheer went up as the red carpet was rolled out. The Duke’s Black Hawk walked up and stopped next to the entrance, turning outward before shutting down, standing like a sentry in front of the ship.
The troops began appearing from every tu
A JI100 Field Recovery Unit pulled up to the Duke’s ’Mech. The JI100’s boom arm raised up until it was even with the Black Hawk’s cockpit, and the Duke hopped across the narrow gap to the arm, waving as it lowered him slowly to the pavement of the landing apron.
The men rushed in, and the Duke was lifted onto their shoulders. They carried him in a circle, completely around the hundred-meter-wide DropShip, chanting:
Hail, Duke Sandoval!
Hail the Flying Duke!
Hail, Duke Sandoval!
Hail the Flying Duke!
Finally, they put him down, and the troops cheered as he climbed the steps to the false porch of the Tyra
Even then, the troops rallied, singing and dancing, around the huge SwordSworn shields painted on the sides of the ships. Someone located a stash of beer in the basement of a ruined warehouse in Port Archangel, and it came up through the West Tu
The bottles were passed through the throngs, hand-to-hand, and the singing grew louder. As the sun faded, people started pulling fire-starters from their survival kits, waving the little flames over their heads as they sang and chanted.
Weary of it all, Erik Sandoval-Groell slid back into the cockpit of his ’Mech. As he activated it and coaxed it into reluctant motion, the battered machine seemed to moan in pain. He staggered down the ramp into the tu
He shut the machine down, and heard it make a sound somewhere between a sigh and a cry of pain, like a wounded soldier, grateful for the sting of death. He knew it would be a long time before this particular ’Mech saw battle again.
The interior of the base was quiet, as most everyone not engaged in other duties was outside joining the spontaneous celebration.
Erik staggered into the mess hall, where crates of supplies were being broken open. There was no hot food yet, but Erik got a cup of fresh coffee and a bologna sandwich—a refreshing change from the meager B-level field rations they’d all been eating for days. He found a quiet table in the back of the hall. But he need not have bothered, he thought. I’m invisible now that the Duke has returned.
He leaned back against the wall after doing nothing more than smelling the coffee. He pushed the sandwich away, no longer feeling hungry. He closed his eyes, and perhaps he dozed for a moment.
“Commander?”
He looked up as Justin Sortek slid into the chair across the table from him.
“You fought well. I wish I could have been at your side.”
He nodded. “Thanks for noticing.” He closed his eyes again.
“They rally around the light, Commander, not the man. The light is drawn to spectacle and ceremony, but without you, it would have been extinguished. The troops haven’t forgotten you. They’re merely …distracted.”
Erik looked at him through heavy, half-opened lids, saying nothing.
“The light knows nothing of pride, but it knows those who wield it well. It returns to them again and again. Your day will come, Commander.”
“Perhaps.”
Sortek leaned his elbows on the table and sighed. “I bring a message from the Duke. You’re invited to dine with him in the Tyra
Erik felt his empty stomach twist into a tight knot. “The Duke can take his hospitality straight to hell, and the devil can have my di
Sortek half-smiled. “Well then, can I have your sandwich?”
Erik pushed the plate across the table to him. Sortek grabbed it and dug in as though famished.