“This has been in the works for some time, I take it?”
Tara nodded hesitantly. “Sire McKinnon and I consulted with Legate Eckard weeks ago. We agreed on the need to buy Skye more time.” She paused, obviously considering, then, “But it wasn’t until your arrival with the intelligence gathered by your Stormhammers that we had all the data needed for such a plan. We didn’t”—she shook her head—“I didn’t inform you at first, as we were adapting earlier plans made in your absence.”
The politics of alliances. Jasek knew that game.
“I noticed that you did not make use of my Stormhammers in your plans,” he said, conceding the point easily, as he did not particularly care about the late notification. Only the results. “Your Highlanders will be spread very thin. You plan to hit three worlds in simultaneous strikes?”
“Ryde,” Paladin McKinnon said from the door. His voice was as abrupt as his manner. “Zebebelgenubi. Glengarry.”
“Glengarry is the most important world, naturally,” Eckard elaborated. His tone held a touch of conciliation. “We know that is the world the Jade Falcons are using now as their staging grounds.”
“But they were using Chaffee,” Vandel reminded them. His voice was deep and broken, like a rusted gate. “It is a redundancy.”
“We don’t intend to throw the Falcons off Glengarry regardless,” Tara said. “We only want to shake them up a bit, and make them burn time. Weeks. Hopefully months. Skye can use whatever we can purchase.”
“Then allow me to chip into the account,” Jasek said, warming to the idea.
He caught himself leaning in toward Tara Campbell, and pulled back reluctantly. He had to keep things professional, with a wary eye on how they would use his people. Tara’s divine reputation aside, he never doubted she was for The Republic first and foremost.
“I think you should modify the target worlds, and pull back some of your Highlanders in exchange for most of my Stormhammers.”
“Which worlds would you change?” Tara asked.
“Trade Summer for Zebebelgenubi.” Jasek’s first recommendation was his easiest sell. “We just hit Zebebelgenubi, so they are on high alert and spoiling for another fight.”
“Summer isn’t part of Prefecture IX,” Eckard said.
No. It wasn’t. Summer sat just over the border into VIII. “Why should that matter to you?” Jasek asked Tara directly. He glanced at the Paladin. “It’s still part of The Republic.”
McKinnon thought about that for all of three seconds. “Maybe the better question then is why should Summer matter to you?”
But Tara knew the answer, Jasek saw. She leaned forward, intent on his face, which he held impassive. “Because Summer is a world of the old Isle of Skye. Isn’t it?” No need to answer. “If your Stormhammers land there, and the people rally to them, you could throw the prefecture borders into dispute.”
Jasek shrugged as if the thought had never entered his mind. Niccolò had bet him a gentlemen’s wager that Tara Campbell would see through that play. He was ready to pull it from the table in exchange for a stronger position on his next move.
“Also,” he offered, “thanks to a quick and nearly bloodless conquest, Summer’s docile population is settling in under Jade Falcon reign. The garrison there is complacent and can be severely hurt, which might inspire some of the local population to rise against the occupation.”
Tara hesitated. “He makes a strong case,” she said. She weighed in Eckard’s and McKinnon’s vote by glance. “What if we use the Highlanders for Summer?”
Jasek had not counted on Tara’s so easily volunteering to shift her own forces away from Glengarry. But that played as well. “Then you don’t have to worry about any pro-Lyran uprising,” he said. “And I’ll support the Highlander drive on Glengarry as well.”
“Why not simply give Glengarry to your people?” Eckard asked. “Why spread the Highlanders so thin if you are truly on board?”
Jasek smiled. “Well, you should give Glengarry to me, since my people know it better than any outside force. But regardless, it will take us both, since I have one more target I’m putting on the table.” He had their attention. “It is my intention to hit Chaffee as well. By stirring up the Falcons on both their staging worlds, inside and outside of The Republic, we can hope to accomplish more toward setting back their timetable.”
A flicker of interest sparked behind McKinnon’s dark eyes. “Doing favors for the Steiner court?” he asked, measuring his gaze between Jasek and Colonel Vandel.
“Opening a bridge to the Commonwealth is not the same as handing over Skye to House Steiner,” Jasek pointed out. “Let’s at least keep the option on a future alliance. That’s just good business.” He saw a wary look in every eye, and decided to raise the pot. “Plus, I’m going to hit it with or without any formal blessing from Skye. If you’re so worried about me, have my father put his stamp on it.”
Tara’s dark glance told Jasek that he had forced her into a corner, and she didn’t like it. But he knew there was only one way out, and that was his way. Or their way as everyone did, in effect, get what they were after.
Compromise. Again, the politics of alliances.
“It might work,” she finally admitted. “But we counted on at least some of the Stormhammers remaining on Skye to guard against a new Jade Falcon raid. We’ll be spread very thin with just the Seventh Skye Militia, a few Highlanders, and mercs.”
“I’ll leave at least a third of my people here,” he guaranteed her.
She frowned. “That’s an awfully light force left to you for hitting two stronghold worlds. Even with my Highlanders assisting on Glengarry, you are going to need more troops.”
“I’ll get more,” he assured her.
There was that wary look again. “Where?” Tara asked. Almost an accusation.
Time to play his trump card. His ace in the hole, which he had saved in the last week for just such an occasion. “I have my resources,” Jasek said breezily.
But seeing that the others would never be content with that, he leaned in toward Tara as if spilling a confidence. Maybe she had drawn him in, despite his best preparations to ensure the Stormhammers held themselves as an independent party. But she couldn’t see everything. And that gave him an advantage.
“I know where the Steel Wolves are hiding,” he told them all.
15
When newly acquired states have been accustomed to living freely under their own laws, there are three ways to hold them securely . . . [the third] allows them to live under their own laws, taking tribute from the new rulers who are friendly to you.
The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli
Longview
Cowlitz County, Chaffee
19 October 3134
The maddened warrior came right for him.
Noritomo Helmer waited in a ready crouch, his back to a cement-slab monument commemorating the founding of the city of Longview, and ignored the spectators who waited around the edge of the city’s small central park. His combat boots found ready purchase against the cement patio, anchoring him in place. He controlled his breathing. His focus centered on the other man’s midsection, watching for a telltale shift of weight.
At the last second, Noritomo raised one knee as if planning to spear-kick the charging warrior.
The other man leaped into a flying kick. It was exactly as Noritomo had planned. He ducked low and crabbed forward, getting beneath Star Commander Gregory. Grabbing the other man’s folded leg, he thrust up and backward and threw Gregory sideways into the monument.
There was a sharp crack as Gregory’s lower arm broke against the slab’s corner. His face left a smear of blood and skin down the rough side. He landed poorly but kept to his feet with one arm braced against the upright slab.
Noritomo stepped back. He waited, facing his staggered opponent and the dark gray monolith.
The city’s central park boasted of little more than this simple monument and a few concrete paths poured between fre
sh-cut lawns and sparse flower beds, but it was quickly becoming known as “Warrior’s Park” as challenge after challenge was decided here. The round patio made for a perfect Circle of Equals. Many trials had been fought before his arrival—before his banishment to Chaffee—as a new pecking order shook itself out among the Jade Falcon castoffs. This was Noritomo’s fourth challenge in a week. He’d killed the first two, as object lessons. The third he merely knocked unconscious, hoping to preserve a good warrior.
Gregory he’d yet to decide about. The man was hot-tempered and shortsighted, a poor combination of genes that told of a Roshak blood heritage. An armor commander and a freeborn warrior, Gregory began with an inferiority complex when comparing himself to a trueborn MechWarrior like Noritomo.
If that had been Gregory’s motivation for this Trial of Grievance, Noritomo would have already planned to kill him. Now he waited for any sign that the man—and the warrior—could be salvaged.
Nothing so far.
Spitting out a tooth, Star Commander Gregory stalked forward more cautiously this time, closing with his garrison commander. He held his broken arm carefully to one side, protecting it.
Noritomo deflected an eye-gouging fingertip strike and a kick at his groin.
A punch glanced off his shoulder. Another bruised his left chest.
The next he trapped and pulled. Gregory stumbled into Noritomo’s elbow strike, catching it in his jaw. A hammer fist to the center of the forehead staggered the armor commander back again.
And when the pain cleared, Noritomo saw doubt and frustration at war in the other man’s eyes. There was no cold-blooded arrogance in the other man, not anymore. He looked trapped. Already beaten. But Clan warriors did not simply surrender. Having called out the challenge, he could not in good face call it off. Honor drove Gregory forward the third time.
Which was why Noritomo decided to let the man live.
This time he did spear-kick his opponent, stopping Gregory dead in his tracks with a foot planted into his gut. Air rushed out between Gregory’s teeth. Noritomo stepped down, chopped at his opponent’s broken arm, then slipped one leg behind Gregory’s knee and delivered a final ridge hand to his temple.
In a tangle of limbs, Gregory fell back. Unconscious.
Star Captain Lysle Clees broke the circle then, stepping onto the paved patio. Even unarmored, the woman was impressive: more than two meters tall and solid with muscle. A tangle of blond dreadlocks swept down past her shoulders. She motioned forward two warriors from Gregory’s Star. The tank crewmen approached warily, which was good to see.
Helmer dismissed them with barely a nod.
“Wake him. He walks to the garrison post from here. I accept his surkai if he makes it without passing out.” Fifteen kilometers with a broken arm. Was that enough to salve the man’s honor? Lysle raised an eyebrow. “He will have it reset without pain meds.” The large woman nodded imperceptibly.
With everyone’s honor intact, Noritomo headed for the nearby city hall, which the Jade Falcons had commandeered. Lysle fell in next to him.
“A good choice. The man is stupid, but not necessarily untrainable.”
“We will have a hard time reconstituting a new cluster if I keep killing off warriors,” he agreed. “If I had seen one ounce of the same arrogance I measured in Malvina Hazen . . .” He let the thought trail off, not wishing to step over the line, even in front of his longtime friend.
“Galaxy Commander Hazen is a strong leader.” Lysle grabbed the door for him, held it open, and then ducked beneath the header to follow him inside. “She will bring the Jade Falcons much glory.”
Armed guards secured the corridor, and the two lapsed into a determined silence until they reached Noritomo’s commandeered office. It was on the second floor of the two-story building. A fully suited Elemental stood watch in the upper lobby. The armored infantryman traded nods with Lysle Clees. It had taken Lysle only one Trial after their arrival to establish dominance over the battlesuit soldiers. Noritomo envied her calm acceptance.
Safe behind his office door, he shoved aside a collection of data crystals and laid his hands atop the smooth, polished metal surface of his desk.
“If she can accomplish our goals quickly enough,” he reopened their conversation, “perhaps. But look at Ryde and Glengarry. Look at what we have had to deal with here. Nonstop aggravation from the populace. They are afraid of us, yes. No one wants to provoke another blistering-agent attack like Malvina used to ‘soften up’ Chaffee before our first assault. But neither do they respect our rule or work for the betterment of the Clan. They will turn on us the instant they see an opening.”
There was no chair into which Lysle Clees comfortably fit. She remained standing. “Relations have settled down in the last week since your arrival,” she noted.
“Because I do not occupy their capital or pretend to be a replacement for their world governor. I appoint a new governor whom the people can respect, and who now owes his position to me and relies on my force of arms to keep his newfound power. It is an imperfect solution, but long term it will work.”
“You have been reviewing the reports off Alkaid and Summer.” She flicked a large finger at the pile of crystals, scattering them.
Noritomo nodded. “Aleksandr Hazen had the right of it,” he said, speaking of Malvina’s twin. Such a tragic loss to the Clan, that he was the one who fell on Skye. Rescuing his sister, no less. “He took those worlds with hardly any losses, following Clan custom of bidding the lowest amount of force needed and then honoring the local government so long as they abide the Falcon occupation. Over time, they will grow dependent on us.”
“Or they will appease us only so long as they can find no opportunity to assassinate us in our sleep.” Her tone told him how little she thought of Inner Sphere honor. “Star Colonel, you know you have my loyalty, but what do you hope to accomplish here that even Aleksandr Hazen was unable to do? He fell on Skye. By Clan ways, he is proved wrong. You will fight the Way as well as the Eye?”
The Eye of the Falcon. Meaning Malvina. If ever there was an argument against allowing a cult of personality to grow up around a Clan warrior, even one so accomplished as her, this was it.
“Was Aleks proven wrong?” he asked. “Galaxy Commander Malthus has laid several of our failures at his feet, his and Khan Pryde’s. But we were not there, Lysle.” He glanced down at his desk, and chose a dark blue data crystal from the scattered pile. “These are interviews I have conducted on Glengarry and here on Chaffee. As it turns out, we have several warriors who served with Aleksandr Hazen, fought with him on Skye. While careful not to call Beckett Malthus a liar, they have some interesting tales to relate.”
He pushed the crystal toward her. “Take it. See what you think.”
She picked it up, the small crystal looking lost in her large hand. “I do not need recounts of the battle to know that Aleksandr Hazen fought bravely and died with honor.” She closed her massive fist. “But I will use this to form an opinion on the warriors who survived and are currently with us. We need to work this motley group into a coherent unit, Star Colonel, and we need to do it quickly.”
He agreed. Malvina Hazen would not be delayed long on Glengarry. When she moved against Skye again, they had to be ready to follow. Somehow he would redeem his honor, lost on Kimball II. Somehow he would be in place when, not if, Malvina stumbled.
“Find me four good warriors,” he instructed his friend and adviser. “The best we have. We will build them into the core of a new cluster, and we will show Malvina Hazen and Beckett Malthus that the pride of the Jade Falcons does not extinguish so easily.”
A ghost of a smile turned up the corners of Lysle’s mouth. “The last man who tried to teach our distinguished leaders anything wound up a martyr to their cause,” she reminded him.
All too true. And if there was an immortal life beyond that granted by the Clan breeding programs, Aleksandr Hazen must be livid with fury. “Review the data, Star Captain. If you believe I am
wrong, that this is not a cause worth fighting for, I will temper my approach.” But he would not abandon it.
Noritomo Helmer would live as a true Clan warrior, or die trying.
He doubted that Malvina Hazen would give him a third alternative.
16
DropShip Himmelstor
Venite DropPort, Seginus
23 October 3134
Jasek watched as the Shandra scout vehicle sped up the Himmelstor’s main ramp with little regard for caution. Anastasia Kerensky stood in the front passenger seat, hands braced on the windshield’s upper edge, riding tank commander style, her dark red hair streaming behind her. The vehicle’s front end bounced as it hit the deck of the DropShip’s main bay, working the suspension to its limit. A sharp jag to avoid a pallet of munitions, tires grinding against the deck’s nonskid surface, and another as the driver swerved around a disassembled Gnome battlesuit being serviced inside an area roped off with yellow tape. Then the vehicle powered to a short, abrupt stop.
He did not think it an accident that the missile rack atop the Shandra ended up pointing directly at him and Paladin McKinnon.
“Cocksure little bitch,” McKinnon growled.
With good reason, Jasek knew. Despite serious battlefield losses in the last year, Kerensky had kept a firm grip on the Steel Wolves. Not an easy task for an outsider, come to The Republic from Clan Wolf to challenge for the faction’s leadership. Having watched Alexia struggle with her peers in the Tharkan Strikers, Jasek knew how accomplished this woman had to be. Even her position here on Seginus, trading her services as planetary defender for local support, argued in her favor.
Of course, she had some serious history behind her name to help back her play.
“Find me a descendant of Aleksandr Kerensky and the Black Widow who can’t hold her own,” Jasek said, “and I’ll be impressed.”
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