Blood of the Isle

by Loren L. Coleman

  And Tara immediately set her guard against it.

  Whatever else might come of Jasek Kelswa-Steiner’s return to Skye, he would not gain one inch of ground on her for charm’s sake. That much she promised herself.

  11

  New London

  Skye

  5 October 3134

  It turned into a parade.

  Jasek left the Himmelstor on the morning following his arrival in a small caravan of two Force Avanti armored stretch sedans, a single VV1 Ranger leading the way, and a pair of hoverbikes trailing. Alexia Wolf and Niccolò GioAvanti rode with him in one sedan. Colonels Petrucci and Vandel, newly arrived this morning, shared the second. They charged down the DropShip ramp, bumped onto the tarmac, and then sped across the wet-black ferrocrete toward a guarded gate on the north side.

  Opening a breakfast drink, Jasek toasted the guards from behind tinted glass. It was a thirty-minute drive to the lord governor’s palace, given normal morning traffic. Still time enough to chase away the last of the jump-lag left over from a ten-hour shift in his schedule traveling from Nusakan to Skye.

  He preferred the banana-citrus combination, teasing his taste buds with something that tasted healthy while the hidden caffeine stirred his system awake.

  “You really should try morning calisthenics,” Alexia said. She’d pulled her soft brown hair back into a severe ponytail. Her face glowed a disturbingly healthy pink. “It really is a better way to start your day.”

  “If that’s your excuse for crawling out of a warm bed at five this morning, you stick to it.” Jasek took a long pull at the fruity beverage.

  And he almost forgot to swallow as his short caravan charged through a very narrow gap between news trucks and two dozen film crews for the planetary media networks. Flashes strobed and camera lenses swung around to follow the lead sedan. Jasek saw several fingers pointed his way, even though no one outside could possibly see through the reflective tint.

  “How do they know?” Alexia asked, putting voice to the same question running through Jasek’s mind.

  Jasek turned a suspicious eye on his best friend.

  “You’re big news,” Niccolò said with a ghost of a smile. He admitted nothing more.

  Jasek swallowed, the fruit taste suddenly losing its appeal. “So it seems,” he said, deadpan.

  Immediately north of the DropPort, a small industrial center quickly gave way to New London’s largest commercial district. Cafés and clubs nestled between malls, museums, and monuments. Two news trucks managed to slip ahead of the caravan, blocking both northbound lanes. Holovid cameras pointed back with dark, unblinking eyes. Jasek looked behind him. Four or five more vehicles followed, weaving around as drivers fought for the best position to let their cameramen shoot out through the forward windshield or while leaning out the side windows. He saw one of the shoulder-mounted recorders swing out toward the side of the street. People on the sidewalk cheered and waved as he passed. More flooded out from the local businesses as news traveled faster than the caravan along the main thruway. Before long the intersections were becoming choked off by spectators, and another ten or twelve civilian vehicles had joined the procession, their occupants honking horns and holding defiant fists in the air.

  His father’s people had also tuned in on the news, apparently. Roadblocks cordoned off the street that ran by the lord governor’s palatial mansion, holding back the press of onlookers as well as separating Jasek’s sedans from his military vehicles. Niccolò glanced a warning at him, but Jasek simply nodded, letting them go.

  Alexia looked back through the rear window, at the crowd that thronged up to the roadblocks. “I never knew you were so popular. People did not act this way on Nusakan.”

  “Nusakan has a fairer press corps,” Niccolò told her. “The Herrmanns AG media group owns many news outlets on Skye, and they are unabashedly pro-Lyran.”

  “Be nice, Nicco.” Jasek’s glance was warm, but stern. To Alexia he said, “He’s just bitter because the GioAvanti family lost their minority interest in a local news network in a forced buyout.”

  “Not bitter. Just jealous. There is a difference.” Niccolò’s pout was exaggerated. Slightly. It was good for a quick laugh.

  Still, as the sedans pulled down into a covered garage, Jasek worried that the media attention would not help put his father in a receptive mood. The duke had yet to accept (and certainly he would never forgive) his son’s difference in opinion and allegiance. Jasek had tried to make his father see, but a lifetime of blind devotion to a single man—including three years just to the memory of that man—was hard to fight. Even when Jasek proved he had the right of it, when seventy percent of the prefecture’s armed forces followed him into forming the Stormhammers, the duke refused to recognize his position.

  I do not like to see Skye divided, or improperly defended. Jasek had sent his father this message by courier. Between them, Skye was more than one planet. It was a symbol for the entire region. It invites disaster.

  I also would not hold you hostage to the situation you find yourself in. If you cannot accept that Skye should stand proudly with the Lyran Commonwealth, at least grant that Skye cannot stand alone in the waning shadow of Devlin Stone’s Republic. Call, and we will answer as allies of Skye.

  The duke’s reply took three weeks to return by courier.

  Skye seeks no alliance or accord with those who hold their citizenship or their heritage so cheap. Do not answer. We will never call.

  And he hadn’t. Not even in the darkest time when the horror-struck refugees from Chaffee taxed Skye’s morale, or when the Falcons actually attacked Prefecture worlds.

  Jasek had watched, and waited, and waited.

  No more, he promised himself in the elevator and during the short walk down grand, marble-tiled halls. The echoes of their footsteps rang back like distant gunshots. “Skye must survive, even if first it has to die.”

  “What was that?” Colonel Vandel asked. A frown piled up on his forehead like a building avalanche. “Making predictions?”

  “A resolution,” he answered with a sharp glance at Niccolò. He hoped his friend was wrong, but planned for him to be right.

  The formal meeting between Jasek’s Stormhammers and Skye’s defenders took place in the palace’s east-wing gallery, where portraits of former Skye leaders stared at each other across a wide divide of rust brown carpet and a long, mahogany table. The paintings of Ryan Steiner and Robert Kelswa-Steiner, ancestors of the current line, held places of minor importance on either side of closed terrace doors. Duchess Margaret Aten, another leader from pre-Republic times, had the grand location over the fireplace mantel. Her dark, smooth skin and indigo eyes looked very familiar. They should, since Jasek saw them often enough in the mirror. His mother, the duke’s second and last wife, had called Margaret Aten her grandmother.

  Facing off against them were the five past lord governors of Prefecture IX: Skye’s entire history under Devlin Stone’s auspices, not counting Jasek’s father, who had—in a rare demonstration of humility—decided that his own portrait would not be added until after he died or was voted from office. A pity. With his ties to the Atens as well as his position as the dynasty heir of the Kelswa-Steiners, a portrait of Duke Gregory would have balanced out the room.

  Or perhaps not.

  “The ‘Salvation of Skye’ has arrived,” his father proclaimed, holding up the folded newsfax so that Jasek (and everyone else) could see the headline. It must have been warm still from the printer. A holographic picture of Jasek’s caravan leaving the spaceport this morning ran just beneath the bold type.

  The Duke slapped the sheaf of paper down on the table. Next to him, Tara Campbell frowned at the dramatics. An aide handed the lord governor another. “And this one, ‘The Herald of House Steiner.’ How very poetic. Ah, this is my favorite.” It had a large holographic pic of some protesters out in front of the spaceport, waving placards. “ ‘Lyrans Rejoice!” ’

  He threw the third sheaf onto the
table with a measure of disgust. “Herrmanns!”

  Legate Stanford Eckard and Prefect Della Brown seemed torn between applauding the duke’s condemnation and worrying that Jasek might take his troops and leave. These were military leaders first and foremost, but politics ran a close second in their lives.

  The fifth member of Tara Campbell’s coalition did not bother to disguise his sour anger. Jasek recognized Paladin David McKinnon from pictures. Jasek also had researched the man’s politics, and knew that McKinnon would likely rather see him put up against a wall to be shot for treachery than officially recognize the Stormhammers as a military or political entity.

  A tough room. But Jasek felt the wall of strength behind him, his senior officers and his closest adviser, propping him up against the onslaught.

  “These are your constituents, Father. They seem to feel that their voices are being ignored.”

  “I believe their voices are being given weight far out of proportion to their actual numbers by what amounts to a pro-Lyran conspiracy.” Duke Gregory held his temper in check, but the vitriol behind his words burned Jasek deeply.

  “However,” he continued with begrudging reluctance, “it seems that a few people in this room believe that Skye cannot hope to hold against a return by the Jade Falcons without your help. Such as it is. The Countess and Sire McKinnon have convinced me that accepting your return is the lesser of the two evils facing us.”

  Which Jasek understood as Tara Campbell advocating acceptance, and Sire McKinnon agreeing that Stormhammer involvement was the lesser of two evils. At least, he hoped that was the way it broke down. Tara Campbell was a strong woman and a natural leader. After she had saved Terra from the Steel Wolves, her accomplishment in throwing the Jade Falcons back from Skye had only increased her legendary status. He recognized that. Was it a shock for him to discover that he actually cared about her opinion of him?

  Maybe it was just a desire to have one friend in the room that he hadn’t brought with him.

  “We brought our force strength estimates,” Jasek said, stepping up to the table as Niccolò stacked a pile of print-outs on the dark-grained wood. Next to the hard copy, his friend set data wafers and a few crystals.

  An aide to Tara Campbell, limping forward with a cast encasing her right leg and a steel crutch braced under one arm, traded Niccolò for the short stack of manila folders she brought with her. While they dealt hard copy around the table, Jasek introduced his senior officers. Antonio Petrucci drew dark glares from everyone but Tara Campbell, who looked askance at Jasek.

  “Colonel Petrucci served as Legate of Ryde before he came with me.”

  Alexia Wolf’s brief introduction raised a few eyebrows. Colonel Vandel was roundly ignored. A good trait for a Lohengrin agent to cultivate.

  “I already have a good idea of what you have left on planet,” Jasek offered, taking a seat at the table. He gave the hard copy a cursory glance, saw a missing unit. An important one. “The Glenowens?” he asked. A storied unit with the local militia, it had been critical in Skye’s recent defense.

  Tara waved him farther down the file. “They and the Ducal Guard have been folded into the Seventh Skye Militia.” She smiled thinly. “It’s a motley assortment, but we can wield them as a much larger unit if we keep them together.”

  An interesting idea. Jasek wasn’t certain he agreed, but wasn’t about to argue the local politics. “The question is, then, what do we know about the Jade Falcons’ remaining strength?”

  “They came in with two Galaxies,” Prefect Brown stated. She met his gaze evenly, showing no shame to the man who had beat her out for the loyalty of her own soldiers. “We believe the arrayed forces are roughly the equivalent of a mixed regiment. No more than that.”

  “I think it might be a bit stronger,” Paladin McKinnon offered. He was the only one to refuse a seat at the table, standing over the back of his chair, gnarled hands clamped on to the backrest. His eyes were diamond cutter sharp. “Maybe by as much as half.”

  Tara nodded. She thanked her aide, who hobbled to the back wall and rested there, staring over Tara’s shoulder directly at Jasek.

  “Obviously they hit Skye without their full strength last time. The Steel Wolves stated that a large unit had failed to rendezvous from Kimball II. We can hope they were destroyed.”

  “They weren’t,” Colonel Petrucci told them. “We put forces on the ground on Ryde right behind the Steel Wolves, gathering intel. We learned that a Star Colonel Helmer saved the majority of his assault force, and that Malvina Hazen sent in a relief force to free him up. Kimball II is under Falcon control now.” He waved down the beginning of several outbursts. “But it may be that their hold is tenuous.”

  “Still.” Jasek rubbed his jaw with one hand. A few missed whiskers pricked at his skin. “We have to assume a regiment and a half of troops spread over seven worlds.”

  “Six,” Della Brown corrected him. Her gray blue eyes looked inward, counting them again. “Four in Prefecture IX. Two others in VIII.”

  Tara sat next to the Prefect. She placed a hand on Brown’s arm. “I believe Jasek is counting Chaffee. The Falcons’ staging world inside the Lyran Commonwealth.”

  “Not our problem,” McKinnon declared. Then he reconsidered slightly. “Except that it spreads the Clanners a bit thinner. We might be able to use that.”

  Jasek thought so as well. If the unstable coalition being formed on Skye could move fast enough. But as the morning wore on into afternoon, with arguments over every assumption, every plan, it began to look less likely that an accord could ever be reached. “Look,” he finally said, slamming one hand down flat on the table. “We don’t need to put every Falcon warrior and his machine in an exact spot. Generalities are good enough for now.”

  “I agree,” Tara said, the constant friction wearing on her as well. She didn’t look nearly as polished as she had appeared this morning, Jasek noted. But he was willing to bet that she’d clean up nicely before any press cameras got within fifty feet of her. Alexia Wolf thumped his knee under the table.

  Tara missed the quiet byplay entirely. “I’m more worried about our exact force accounting. Even with the mercenaries we hired off Galatea—and I’m not completely confident about their usefulness—I don’t believe we have enough strength. Not for a protracted campaign.”

  Niccolò broke his silence to agree. “Any ruler who keeps his state dependent upon mercenaries will never have real peace or security.”

  “We had enough military force last time,” Jasek’s father reminded them. “The people of Skye will never surrender to Clan occupation. In fact, in four Succession Wars and the Jihad, Skye has fallen only once into enemy hands, and then not for long.” He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “With the kind of damage visited on the Steel Wolves in the first assault, the . . . the . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to call the Stormhammers by name. “Jasek’s people are a stronger, battle-ready unit.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that if I could find the Steel Wolves, I’d swallow my pride and ask them to stand with us again.” Even that admission had seemed a hard one for Tara to make. Her skin flushed with embarrassment or anger, Jasek couldn’t say which.

  “Even then . . .” She shrugged. “Several things worked in our favor last time. The Falcons rushed themselves. They fell for several traps, which they will be wary of doing when they return.” Her voice took a melancholy turn. “And they were momentarily stunned by the suicide charge of our Forlorn Hope task force. Which they will prepare against, which is why I think we should not attempt to try that again. It would be a terrifying slaughter, and for little gain.”

  Jasek agreed. Out of the corner of one eye, he saw Niccolò nodding as well. Actually, having reviewed media coverage of the event, he knew that his friend felt the slaughter gained very little the first time. A high cost for a diversion.

  But that’s what commanders do. They gamble with lives.

  Jasek had felt stung by the oversimplification. I do
not gamble.

  No. You are quite the Lyran. You assign a value to each life, and spend them with a miser’s reluctance.

  He still was not certain if his friend had paid him a compliment with that comment.

  “Why do you think that the same tactics will not work the next time?” Colonel Vandel asked.

  Jasek took the question for her. “When the Falcons come back, it won’t be with the gut punch strategy they tried before. They will strip every occupied world to its minimum garrison. They will land, plant their flag, and stand by it until the end. They will not retreat, and they’ll make every victory a costly one for the people of this world. So much so that the population will welcome any end to the fighting.”

  His father hedged, no doubt imagining his world so hard struck. “What makes you so certain?” he asked.

  Tara looked at Jasek. Jasek stared back. Barely perceptibly, she nodded. “Because that is what we would do,” she answered for him.

  Jasek leaned back in his chair, staring down into the table’s dark surface. His exhale was long and weary. “That is how you take Skye.”

  12

  New London

  Skye

  9 October 3134

  Jasek had always enjoyed roaming the capital house library as a child and as a young man, losing himself in the labyrinth of corridors and galleries and great rooms lined floor to ceiling with books. The scent of old paper and new print. The feel of leather as he ran a hand down one long shelf of texts after another. The awe-inspiring silence, broken by soft footfalls and scuffs against tight-knit carpet.

  Here he read and he studied. He explored with Niccolò GioAvanti and other friends, and together he and Niccolò discovered two secret passages that, by all evidence, had been forgotten even by state security. And standing in just the right archway or corridor, he eavesdropped on whispered conversations and learned as much about ruling and The Republic as he had been formally taught by his father.