Blood of the Isle

by Loren L. Coleman

  “The Republic sent you a battered command and one out-of-favor Paladin. This does not show a great deal of confidence in the Exarch’s ability to protect his own.”

  “You are selling the Countess extremely short.”

  “Not at all,” Jasek said. Alexia could almost see him shaking his head with adamant resolution. “Tara Campbell has performed miracles. I’m not denying it. But she cannot make the difference all by herself. Even she knows that.”

  There was something in Jasek’s voice when he spoke Tara Campbell’s name that tweaked a nerve with Alexia. A depth of respect and admiration that she had never before heard in the young leader, not even in praise of his own Stormhammers. She wrote it off as a meeting of equals—two faction leaders with genuine respect for each other’s abilities and strengths. Nothing more, she assured herself.

  Jealousy was another Inner Sphere concept. It had nothing to do with her.

  “You seem to be the authority these days on what other people know and believe. Would you like to know what I believe, Jasek? That you’ve chased a childhood fantasy of romantic heroism and Lyran destiny to the point where if you do not make it happen yourself, then you would rather see Skye in the hands of a true enemy. Because otherwise you have to face the failures piling up behind you. Failing your converts. The Republic. Our people. Failing me and your mother.”

  “Leave her out of this.”

  “You brought her into this, boy. Choose your battlefields more carefully next time. The fact is you were born to privilege, and with that came certain obligations. To serve the people before you served yourself. To honor the family line, and continue it. But you haven’t even attended to that, have you? You’ve thrown over every match we ever tried to make for you. No wife. No heir. No future!”

  This kind of argument would not help matters. Worrying about offspring on the cusp of battle? Alexia was freeborn herself, but here again she recognized the superior ways of the Clans, that they had long ago divorced themselves from the need to seek immortality through procreation. Clan warriors distinguished themselves in duty and glory first. And even if they died, their lines were continued through the breeding program.

  “The future takes care of itself.” Jasek sounded truly angry now. She had heard his temper simmering beneath his words the entire time, but now it threatened to explode. “Isn’t that what you taught me? Study the past and work toward the now?”

  “And The Republic shall provide,” Duke Gregory finished with a wounded snarl. “Yes, I said that. But it won’t provide Skye with an heir. Your selfish manner notwithstanding, I’d think that even you could have figured out the political necessities by now.”

  Personal abuse would accomplish nothing. Alexia moved for the door, looking to Niccolò to see if he would follow. He merely shook his head, slowly. He was obviously going to stay, no matter how uncomfortable the conversation in the room below. His pale blue eyes showed neither avarice for gossip nor the cunning mask of one who looked to turn such knowledge to his own advantage. He was a blank slate, absorbing all he could for later benefit.

  Alexia saw no benefit. Not in a military sense, anyway. She shrugged, and stepped back into the adjoining gallery just as Jasek said, “I’ll produce your heir with the right woman, not just a politically expedient one.”

  It was not the banner under which Alexia had thought to meet up with Tamara Duke, who leaned against the wall just inside the doorway.

  Tamara’s green eyes widened only slightly at her discovery. Or at seeing Alexia come through the door when the only person she could have been able to see from her vantage point was Niccolò GioAvanti. Had she followed them up, or discovered the surveillance point on her own?

  How much had she overheard?

  “Too bad.” The lord governor’s voice carried into the room quite strongly, losing little of the sarcasm. “I suppose this means it is too much to even hope that you’ve sired a bastard along the way? I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

  Which could mean any of half a dozen women who had been in the company of both Jasek Kelswa-Steiner and his father over the last four days. But the way in which Tamara’s eyes narrowed accusingly, the kommandant obviously pegged Alexia for it.

  Alexia wondered. Tamara Duke wore her feelings on her sleeve, after all. Though no doubt the junior officer thought she was cagey about it.

  Jasek did not help. “I don’t know who you are talking about,” he claimed.

  If he didn’t want to admit anything to his father, even in their supposed privacy, then both women could only be left wondering.

  There was no rank in this room. Not even a moral high ground. Not when both had caught each other listening in on a conversation that should have been private. Alexia met the challenging stare with a blank face. When Tamara Duke stepped toward her with a sharp, determined stride, she tensed the muscles in her calves, her arms, ready for violence.

  But the other woman stopped short of raising a hand to her. Staring through her, Tamara simply bit off every word as she warned Alexia, “Stay out of my way, Wolf.”

  Turning on her heel, Tamara strode from the gallery without a glance back.

  Behind her, Jasek maintained his position and his father pressed. Niccolò glanced only once into the gallery, again showing none of his own thoughts. Cataloging. Considering.

  Alexia shook her head. In public, in private, in banter or in battle with Skye hanging in the balance. Everyone had his or her own agenda, and she would be well advised to keep a ready eye on her own.

  That was not a thought to cause surprise, it was simply a fact of life.

  In the Clans, or in the Inner Sphere.

  14

  Norfolk

  Skye

  12 October 3134

  An icy breeze blowing in off the distant North Inlet carried a hint of brine and the sharp, acrid smell of gunpowder into Norfolk. In the shadow of a partially completed Overlord, Tara Campbell pulled her wool overcoat tightly closed at her neck. She walked the edge of the DropShip’s “cradle” with Paladin McKinnon and Legate Eckard, ten stories up, surveying the nearby battlefield and the hive of activity that buzzed through the streets surrounding the Shipil Company dockyard.

  It had taken less than an hour on-site for Tara to understand that the dockyards were the reason Norfolk existed. Its industrial center was twice as large as it would be for any similar-sized city. The commercial sector half again as small. There were no office building skyscrapers or high-rise apartments. Since nothing could compete with the thirty-story vessel under construction, the massive cradle that surrounded its lower third, or the multifactory complex nearby that required six months to turn out just one interplanetary drive for the mammoth vessels, no architect or construction company even tried.

  “A people who know who they are,” McKinnon said when she voiced her observations. From the cradle’s north corner, they could look west toward the recent battlefield and, several kilometers beyond, the azure blue waters of the North Inlet, or east toward the low-lying sprawl of Norfolk. His hard eyes narrowed. “And now they know what they are.”

  “A prime target.” Tara nodded.

  Yesterday’s Jade Falcon raid had pushed no closer to the city than the borders of Shipil Company property, but that was close enough for most of the locals. So many had called in to take the day off from work—laying in provisions or moving their kids to relatives far outside of the city or just plain worried for themselves—that the corporation had dismissed everyone with pay for forty-eight hours.

  Very few civilian vehicles moved on the streets. Tara easily counted two dozen Maxim hover transports, patrolling with a hastily scraped-together militia. A Praetorian rolled into the Shipil parking lot, establishing a local command post. A pair of Drillson hover tanks and SM1 Destroyers flanked the mobile HQ.

  Tara pointed out a gap in the snow-dusted hills to the west. As she had hoped, the cradle gave them an incredible overview of the surrounding terrain.

  “So they came
through there in column formation. One Griffin leading a short company of hovercraft. The local defenders took a piece out of them just this side of the gap.”

  Legate Eckard raised a set of field glasses to his eyes, nodded. “Shipil Company keeps a small mercenary force under contract. Last month I supplemented them with a lance of Condors and a Kinnol main battle tank.” Eckard was a small man, but had a bodybuilder’s shape. There was no mistaking the knuckle-whitening strength with which he gripped the field glasses. “If they had been on the ball, they would have plugged that gap with the Kinnol and shoved the Falcons right back toward the coast.”

  “While we’re wishing,” McKinnon said with a nasty edge, “if they had been veteran troops, we’d be counting up Jade Falcon salvage right now.”

  “So the defenders retrograde back toward the industrial area,” Tara continued, keeping the peace by drawing both men back to their purpose at Norfolk: to assess damage and make preparations for any follow-up raids. “They lose a pair of Condors crossing the river.” She couldn’t see the silver-blue stream they had visited earlier, but a winding cut in the woods to the west gave her an idea of where it was. “And they set loose some Gnome infantry in the forest to slow down the Falcon advance while they reset the lines right out there.”

  Right out there was the wide-open ground where local tree farms had been harvested only a year ago. Several square kilometers of bare-branched saplings tied up to stakes, blackened craters, and burned-out vehicles.

  “More room to maneuver,” Eckard said.

  Sire McKinnon snorted. “More room for the Falcons too. You can’t stay on the defensive against a small, maneuverable force.”

  Tara watched as a VTOL snaked its way down the river’s twisting cut. It dipped down low, beneath the treetops. “And a small force had no hope of taking the Shipil Company dockyards. So was this simply an intelligence-gathering raid? Or did the Jade Falcons hope to accomplish something more here?”

  “They had a J100 salvage vehicle. They might be trying to replace some losses of their own.” But the legate did not sound too certain himself.

  The Paladin turned his weathered face toward the city’s main stretch, then turned to look up at the DropShip that towered over them. Not all of its armored hull was in place yet. There were still weapon bays to finish and a docking collar to install, but engines and navigation were intact according to all reports.

  “Could be they were thinking of grabbing the Overlord and fell back when they saw it wasn’t quite spaceworthy. Afraid we’ll get it finished and deployed before they make it back in force.”

  “We will,” Tara promised. She wasn’t about to let such valuable hardware sit there for the Falcons to claim as battle spoils. Isorla, they called it. “We need to advance the manufacturing lines at Cyclops, Incorporated, as well.”

  It was more a mental note than an opening for a new discussion. Neither man commented. Sire McKinnon continued to study the DropShip, the towering cranes that rose up from three corners of the massive cradle complex, and the work that would remain unfinished by the crews for the next day and a half. Legate Eckard focused his glasses on the VTOL, which jumped up over the tree line and skimmed above the nearby battlefield. A Cavalry, the craft had sharp lines that pulled back severely from the missile systems that blunted its nose. It thundered straight for the trio, as if intent on finding them, then banked into a long, slow turn that circled it back over the killing grounds.

  “Company?” she asked. She shivered as the wind ran icy fingers through her spiked hair.

  “Jasek.” Eckard waved a dismissal. “Never was one to be content with reports. Della’s been complaining about his people in the New London Tower, pulling every battlerom we’ve collected from the Jade Falcons’ first assault on Skye.”

  Tara could understand that. Prefect Della Brown had a larger grudge against Jasek than anyone had, save perhaps his father. Legate Eckard had lost a handful of troops to Jasek’s Stormhammers. Brown had lost nearly the entirety of the prefecture’s standing army, and then had watched as the Jade Falcons rolled over worlds unopposed.

  “We could do worse than listen to a fresh perspective,” Tara said, shading her own reservations with a touch of optimism. A large part of her position here as Exarch Redburn’s direct representative seemed to be bridge building. If Skye had any hope of standing free from the Jade Falcons, Tara could not allow demons from the past to set fire to her carefully constructed work.

  Eckard lowered his field glasses. “I hear he’s been tearing into your plans for a counterassault as well.” The legate looked at her with curious brown eyes.

  Why should that surprise her? She had copied the Stormhammers on plans she’d put together with Paladin McKinnon, hoping to draft them into her upcoming operation. So Jasek Kelswa-Steiner had some criticism to offer. So what?

  So what if she wanted to bridle right there in front of the legate and Sire McKinnon, who now gave her the same careful attention he’d spent on the DropShip a moment before? Studying her. No doubt seeing the parts that lay open, unfinished, with work delayed by circumstances beyond her direct control. McKinnon knew a few of the areas that lay exposed, but he had avoided poking at them again since that evening in the O-club, and he didn’t say anything now.

  He simply watched.

  “All right,” she said, not altogether against a debate with the Stormhammer leader, but not eager for it either. But how much of that was personal, and how much professional? He’d make some good points, she was sure. She nodded toward the Praetorian crawler. “Why don’t we adjourn to the local command post, then, and invite the Landgrave down?”

  Sire McKinnon shrugged. “Why not indeed?” he asked.

  Tara couldn’t help but feel that she had missed something important in the Paladin’s simple question. Was Sire McKinnon warning her, or offering tentative support for her building an alliance with the Stormhammers?

  Whichever it was, she knew, he would make his feelings known soon enough.

  Jasek jumped down from the VTOL’s open bay, feet splashing through icy slush that coated the parking lot’s paved surface. Colonel Joss Vandel followed him. The Cavalry’s blades hammered overhead, still pounding at the air, but Jasek didn’t bother to duck. No VTOL had been built yet that would take a man’s head off for not crouching down, and he had always thought it stupid when a soldier worried more about the perfectly safe rotors than he did the battle that waited just ahead.

  Which was what he was looking forward to, he felt certain.

  Battle.

  “Landgrave.” Tara met him with a warm handshake and cold, blue eyes. She had a warrior’s grip, made more obvious by the hard callus at the base of her thumb that told of her years of experience at the control stick of a BattleMech. “It is good to see you again.”

  For all her initial warmth when they first met at the New London DropPort, their last few meetings certainly hadn’t made him feel particularly welcome. Not that he needed Tara Campbell’s favor. He simply hoped to win it. And that was not likely to happen today.

  He quickly reintroduced Colonel Vandel. Tara had certainly not forgotten the Stormhammers officer, but it gave Jasek the chance to break the ice between them with a social chisel.

  “I hoped to catch up with you,” he said as the three of them walked into the shadow of the two-story Praetorian. Legate Eckard and Paladin McKinnon waited near the command vehicle’s armored door. “We’d like to speak with you about your plans to strike back at the Jade Falcons.”

  “Not one for small talk either,” Tara said to Eckard with a tight smile.

  Her offhand comment and the legate’s frown left Jasek with the feeling he and Vandel had interrupted a conversation. Had she been asking about him? It threw him off his stride for a few seconds. But the dark glower ever present on the Paladin’s face helped him snap back quickly. Some things in the universe were constants.

  “Since you were hoping to launch at multiple Falcon positions in three days,” he s
aid by way of explanation, “there doesn’t seem to be much time for dalliance.”

  The inside of the mobile HQ was warm and well lit, with armored shutters open over ferroglass windows to reduce any feeling of claustrophobia. The command-level officers filed back toward the rear of the massive vehicle, taking over the Praetorian’s small but well-equipped strategic office. The room smelled of electronics. Legate Eckard and Tara Campbell slid over bench seats and around to the rear of the holographic display that doubled as the room’s only table. Paladin McKinnon stayed at the door, leaning back against it with an air of finality.

  Jasek did not doubt that he was stuck in this room until McKinnon decided to let him leave. He also took a seat at the table/display, leaving Vandel to stand at his shoulder. The Lyran officer set himself in an easy, patient stance.

  “As you say,” Tara finally broke the uncomfortable silence that had followed them into the office. “There isn’t a great deal of time. Yes, I intended to strike back at the Jade Falcons. But with this latest raid . . . ,” she trailed off.

  “It wasn’t a raid,” Jasek said evenly. “It’s a bluff.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a bluff. They had no hope of taking salvage or even creating much havoc against Shipil Company. A short company to attack a DropShip? Even an unfinished one? No. What this has done is draw your attention here. To Norfolk. Which means they will ready their play somewhere else.”

  “New London?” Eckard asked. “We would prepare against them at the capital regardless.” Answering his own question, the truth lit up his eyes. “Cyclops, Incorporated.”

  Jasek shrugged. “That would be my guess. Cyclops manufactures the Drillson and the Maxim, as well as weaponry for the Wolfhound and Banshee BattleMech designs. That’s the kind of prize they need to further their goals against other worlds.”

  Tara tapped a thoughtful finger on the glass tabletop. “Which means they are readying their next assault.” She considered, nodded. “Our plans, as you’ve seen them, involve a series of simultaneous strikes. None would force them from a world they currently control, but they would throw them off-balance and hopefully push back any timetable for a new assault against Skye.”