The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

Ace Barton had been in it for his own reasons, and a damned good thing. Without him Owensford would have been shot half a dozen times by the Republican Commissars. Or by the Dons when the Republic went down in defeat; Barton had passed the defeated volunteers off as mercenaries entitled to protection under the Code, and then gotten Christian Johnny to take them on spec. Ace went on to ten successful years skippering his own mercenary outfit before getting smashed by the Legion on Tanith. “So,” Peter said. “Another beginning.”

“My grandfather said Sparta was a second chance in more ways than one,” Lysander said.

Owensford smiled thinly as he stood and adjusted his kepi; the troops back in the belly of the shuttle were in dress blue and gold, and so were the officers. Noncombatants and most of the baggage would be coming later, but it was important to make a good showing for the reception committee. Important for the men as well as impressing the locals . . . and after all, it was not that often that two kings came to greet a unit of Falkenberg’s Legion when it staged down from orbit. Even on those occasions when they didn’t come down in assault boats to a high-firepower reception.

“Odd that you should say that, your Highness,” Owensford said. “I was just thinking that a fresh start is the commonest dream of men past their first youth, and the hardest of things to find. We carry too much baggage with us.”

Lysander looked past the older man, not quite letting his eyes settle on Cornet Ursula Gordon as she stuffed the printouts and textbooks she had been studying into her carryall. Peter Owensford suspected that both parties would have been much happier if Cornet Gordon had shipped out to New Washington. An untrained and exceedingly junior female staff officer—not much more than an officer candidate, really—did not serve the needs of the Legion on that war-torn planet, and so there was another case of convenience yielding to necessity.

For that matter, he would have preferred to be on New Washington himself. The Legion had been hired on by the secessionist rebels who wanted to free their planet from its neighbor Franklin. A desperate struggle against long odds to begin with, and Franklin had hired mercenaries of their own to boot. Covenant Highlanders and Friedland armor, at that; Christian Johnny’s plan would get into the textbooks with a vengeance, if it worked. While Major Peter Owensford built a base camp, trained yokels and chased a few bandits through the hills.

No, there are no clean endings, Owensford thought. Or fresh beginnings. But we do our jobs.

* * *

Dion Croser leaned back in the armchair and stared into the embers of the coal fire, holding the brandy snifter in one hand, his pipe in the other. Cool air drifted in through the French windows to his left, the ones that opened out on the gardens, smelling of eucalyptus and clipped grass. The study was a big room, paneled with slabs of dark native stone; there had been little wood available when Croser’s father built the ranch house, in the early days of settlement on Sparta. A coal fire burned in the big hearth, casting flickering red shadows that caught at the crystal decanters on the sideboard, the holos and pictures amid the bookcases on the walls. One big oil portrait, of Elliot Croser as a young man on Earth, standing before the library of the University in Berkeley. Back when Sparta was a plan, something talked about in student cafés and in the living rooms of the faculty.

He raised his glass, meeting the eyes of the painted figure. They twisted your dream, father, he thought. Twisted it, denied him the place he’d earned as one of the founders of Sparta. Drove him into exile on this estate, into drink-sodden futility. I’m going to set it straight. The face in the painting might have been his, perhaps not so high in the cheekbones, and without the slanted eyes that were a legacy from Dion’s Hawaiian-Japanese mother. Without the weathered look and rangy muscle that forty years spent outside and largely in the saddle brought, either.

A discreet cough brought his attention to the door.

“Miss Thibodeau,” the butler said, disapproval plain beneath the smooth politeness of his tone. Chung had worked for his father back on Earth, and his grandfather before that, and Skida Thibodeau was not the sort of person a Taxpayer in California would receive.

“Ah, you remember Skilly,” she said ironically to the servant, handing him her bulky sheepskin jacket and gunbelt, before pushing through into the study and walking over to pour herself a glass of wine.

Dion rose courteously for a moment and nodded to her, feeling his breath catch slightly; they had been political associates for ten years, lovers for five, and it was still pure pleasure to watch her move. Nearly two meters tall—and the tight leather pants and cotton shirt showed every centimeter to advantage, moving the way he imagined a jaguar might in the jungles of her homeland. With a sigh she threw herself into the seat across from him, hooking a leg over one arm; that pushed the high breasts against the thin fabric of her shirt. He swallowed and looked up, to the chocolate-brown face framed in loose-curled hair that glinted blue-black. High cheekbones and full lips, nose slightly curved, eyes tilted and colored hazel, glinting green flecks. Her mother had been Mennonite-German, he remembered, a farmer’s daughter from the colonies in northern Belize kidnaped into prostitution during a visit to Belize City. Father a pimp; and both had died young.

“Dion my mon,” she said, raising her glass.

“Skida,” he replied, not using the nickname.

“Skilly hears Van Horn met with the accident she recommended,” she said. “Bobber in line for his job?”

Croser winced slightly; setting up an assassination squad reporting directly to himself had been her idea. Skilly had been eclectically well read even before she arrived on Sparta, but sometimes he regretted introducing her to the classic works on guerrilla warfare and factional politics. Van Horn had been necessary, of course, once he had brought his toughs into the Movement. Head of the Werewolves, the only real street gang in Minetown—gangs were difficult on Sparta, where you went to school or worked as a teenager—but not loyal. Still . . . she saw the expression and smiled indulgently.

“Mon, in this business, you doan fire people,” she pointed out. “Retire feet first is the only way.”

He nodded; even with the cell-structure, Van Horn could have done the Front too much damage if he had gone to the RSMP; not least because he was one of the links between the NCLF’s above-ground organization and the Helots. Discipline had to be enforced, especially now that direct-action work was increasing. Far too many of the recruits were Welfare Island street-gangers, the leaders had to set an example.

“You think Bobber may resent what happened?” he said. “She and Van Horn were . . . close.”

Skida laughed. “Bobber de one tell me Van Horn dipping the till excessive,” she said. “Bobber and I came in on the same CoDo ship; she a cool one. Van Horn a stepping stone for her, and beside, Bobber likes girls better. Good hater, she a real believer in the Movement.” She shrugged indifferently. “And she from Chicago; that useful now we getting so many gringo gangers off the transports.”

He sipped at the brandy and took another pull at the pipe, the comforting mellow bite at his tongue.

“Congratulations on the Velysen raid,” he said. “Ah . . . Skida . . . what happened to his wife and sister-in-law is creating a lot of indignation.”

“Just what Skilly wanted; Dion, you know we not getting these ranchers to like us, whatever. And just killing them, it make them mad only and want to fight us.” She extended a hand palm up, then curled the fingers. “Threaten they families, and we have them by the balls, mon.”

He sighed again; the basic strategy was his, in any event. “I know; and they’ll push for harsher measures on the non-Citizens, which drives them into our camp.”

“The worse, the better, that what that Russki mon Lenin say, no? Very nice statement you make to the Herald, denouncing violent splinter faction and then blaming oppression for driving us to it.” She took another slow sip of her wine; he had taught her that, to appreciate a good vintage. “How things going at the University?”

“Slowly, but we’ve got a structure there now. Particularly in the Sociology and Humanities divisions; there’re a lot of scions there who’re worried about making their Citizenship tests. Plus the usual hangers-on.”

“Many ready to go Helot?” she asked. It was a bother, keeping the other recruits from eating the student types alive, but the survivors were valuable when they’d toughened up. Too many of the rank-and-file NCLF fighters broke into a sweat if they had to think more than a week ahead.