The January Dancer by Michael Flynn

intelligence and assembling forces. He had only his personal guard at first; but he located and mobilized other Oriel troops scattered about the Southern Vale, pockets of native Loyalists, and natives who had bid into the Clan na Oriel. He even used, though with some reluctance, the Magruder Gang. For a price they were willing to stool and that gave the tainiste his intelligence arm.
    The tainiste ’s office-name was Little Hugh O’Carroll, though he had been born Ringbao della Costa on Venishànghai in the Jenjen Cluster. What Little Hugh discovered was the value of a legend and a hitherto unsuspected capacity in himself for mayhem. Little Hugh became the “Ghost of Ardow.” No leader of the Revolution was safe from his death squads. His people struck quickly and silently and, after some experience, fearlessly and competently. The Magruders had ears in every city and knew people who knew people. They could always finger the target, could always find or bribe an entry. In contrast, the Ghost always eluded Handsome Jack’s men, and many were the storied adventures and hair’s breadth escapes.
    Some Loyalists, especially the remaining gardies, objected to his methods. It was dishonorable to strike from ambush, to backstab, to bushwhack. A man should meet his enemies face-to-face. Little Hugh told them to meet the enemy face-to-face—and keep them distracted while he picked off their leaders. After a while, as the Revolution became more and more disorganized, the Loyalists began to see the logic of it, although they never did learn to like it.
    The Revolution was on its second or third round of leaders by then and finding it hard to recruit a fourth. The only one that Little Hugh ever failed to hit was Handsome Jack himself, who had turned the Broadcast Center into an impregnable fortress. Three teams tried to penetrate, two succeeded, one reached Handsome Jack’s office. His guards dispatched two of the assassins and Handsome Jack himself took out the other, which was not bad for a man with one arm.
    This was the stuff of legend. Handsome Jack and the Ghost of Ardow locked in a titanic twilight struggle. Men began to sing songs—and the war was four weeks old.
    There were missteps. One time, a death squad “took out” Krispin Dall, the Revolution’s District Leader in Coyne Village, while he was in bed with his mistress, and the mistress was taken out, too. That was bad, because there was an unspoken rule about noncombatants. Another time, Handsome Jack lost the whole of County Meath when his men wiped out the last of the gardy in a well-planned ambush. The Meath farmers had had a genuine affection for the old peacekeepers and the end of it was a dash of cold water in their faces. They looked at their bloody swords, at each other, and wondered what had come over them. They set out as a body for the Mid-Vale and Handsome Jack’s forces tried to stop them. That compounded the mistake, because first of all, everyone knew that the Meathmen had had a stomachful and only wanted to go home; and second, they were going home with their swords in hand, and four weeks of fighting had taught them how to get the use of them.
    The Revolution had been driven back to New Down Town Center, Fermoy Village, and a few other pockets when two ships entered orbit carrying a rump regiment of ICC house troops. With guns. And helicopters. And satellite surveillance capabilities.
    They had been bound for Hawthorn Rose, where the ICC expected to win a bid to provide border protection for the small but wealthy state of Falaise. They had departed Gladiola Depot, three weeks up the Grand Trunk Road, anticipating R&R at New Eireann, and found themselves a civil war instead of a rest stop. Sophia colonel Jumdar, commanding the two companies, thought civil wars bad for business—power beams to the orbitals had grown intermittent—and downright fatal to the tourist industry that ICC had hoped to acquire. The Guild of Power Engineers and the Reek