Blood of the Isle

by Loren L. Coleman

  Then it began to drop, and Tara overrode the autopiloting system to gently nudge it farther across the river where her hovercraft would find her and make pickup.

  Her monitor screens were dark. Communications had been stripped down to a short-range emergency transmitter. But she was unharmed, and her people had a chance to make it back to the Pen with their lives.

  Too bad her poor Hatchetman had not taken the Warhammer with it. As the ’Mech’s disembodied head drifted in a lazy spiral heading down, she watched through her plasma-scorched shield the Warhammer limping out from a pile of fire and smoke. It was all but dragging its left leg behind it—with a piece of her hatchet still stuck in its hip, it seemed, fused there!—and was going nowhere now but back to New London for repairs.

  “Let them wonder about where we came from,” Tara said, her voice rasping out of a raw, smoke-burned throat. “They won’t breathe so easily around New London for a few days at least.” And if she could keep them off-balance, she might buy another week. Maybe two. Enough for Jasek to work whatever magic he was hoping to bring in from the Lyran Commonwealth.

  He would be back—of that she had no doubt. He had to come back. Sitting alone in the ruins of her cockpit, remembering the size of the force the enemy had landed with, she could at least admit to herself that the defenders needed Jasek Kelswa-Steiner. She needed him.

  Today the Jade Falcons had planted their flag on Skye.

  It would take every hand available to pull it back out.

  27

  Princes should delegate unpopular duties to others while dispensing all favors directly themselves.

  The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli

  New London

  Skye

  5 December 3134

  White stone steps led up to the columned portico of New London’s Capital House. Noritomo Helmer’s polished boots clipped a steady, staccato rhythm against them as he drew a straight line toward the magnificent entryway from the Shandra scout vehicle that had brought him and his command staff from the local spaceport. Lysle Clees followed one step behind him and to his right. Bogart two steps back on his left.

  Elementals in full gear guarded the street-level plaza as well as the upper courtyard. Their emerald carapaces shone brilliantly under the cheerful spring sun that scrolled across Skye’s fathomless blue. Lysle first noticed the stain of fresh blood on the infantrymen’s mechanical claws, drawing Noritomo’s attention to it by catching his eye in the plaza and flexing her hand into a rigid talon. No carbon scoring marred their armor and there was no exhaust residue brushing the backpack missile launchers that rode over their shoulders. Which meant these troopers had not yet seen any real fighting on Skye.

  Civilian blood. More of Malvina Hazen’s terror tactics, meant to cow the locals into unquestioning obedience.

  More darkness unleashed from Pandora’s box.

  Standing between the widely spaced portico columns, Noritomo paused to survey what he could see of New London’s administrative district. He found mostly empty streets and only a few sullen government staff workers traipsing in, late, many of them under guard. What little traffic there was kept tangling up at intersections, where traffic lights hung dark and useless thanks to Malvina’s electromagnetic pulse. He could only imagine the chaos it had caused on that first day, with widespread power outages and fire-gutted electronics.

  “They got off lucky,” Lysle said, keeping her deep voice pitched low. She shook her blond dreadlocks back over both shoulders.

  Star Captain Bogart looked askance at the two of them. “How’s this any kind of luck?” he asked, using the lazy speech patterns with which he’d grown up. “For them, that is?”

  Noritomo glanced up into the sky, where only a few spring gray clouds drifted. The high-atmosphere storm was long past, but he had seen video capture of the detonation.

  “Galaxy Commander Hazen could have dropped the Alamo into the heart of New London,” he answered the freeborn armor commander. “The blast would have shattered larger buildings like Capital House and set fires throughout most of the city. People would still be dying from radiation poisoning. Burn victims would be clogging up hospitals in all of the nearby cities.” He felt a tightening across his shoulders and shrugged it off. “I half expected to see that anyway.” He turned and led the others into the marble-tiled halls.

  “What stopped her?” Lysle asked. By rights, she should have accorded Galaxy Commander Hazen full title of rank, but inside the building it was safer to keep their discussion impersonal.

  “New London stopped her. Capital House and the Governor’s Palace stopped her. She needs a capital from which to rule Skye. Why ruin the city you plan to make your personal throne?”

  It was a short answer, though Noritomo knew that nothing involving Malvina Hazen was ever so direct and so easy. After learning of the WarShip assault against the system’s zenith recharge station, he had been surprised to discover that Malvina had since used the Emerald Talon only in interdiction efforts. The world was blockaded, but it had yet to feel the pounding thunder of an orbital bombardment.

  “She wants this fight up close and personal. Her last assault against Skye cost her an arm and a leg, after all.” And a brother. “She could have stood off this time, pounding the cities into submission. She did not.” Instead, she had opted for a heavy landing outside of New London. He could not fault her warrior’s heart. Spoiling for battle, she led the bulk of her forces into the city, ready to meet any opposition.

  “And none came,” he whispered aloud. What if they threw a war, and nobody showed up? Wasn’t that a classic joke he remembered from another of the books he’d smuggled into his sibko barracks?

  “Whatever else Galaxy Commander Hazen asks of us,” Noritomo said sotto voce to his staff, cautious as they walked the halls among Capital House staffers and Clan administrative personnel, “be ready with options, with force strength estimates, with cut-downs for any bidding that might occur.”

  Bogart shrugged his arms out in front of him, as if loosening them up before a fight. A few nearby warriors glanced his way sharply, as if expecting challenge, or attack. “You think we’ll be included in the fighting?” It had been the question on everyone’s mind ever since losing Chaffee.

  “I think our leader has someone she is more angry at than us,” he admitted. “I think she wants victory more than anything else.” He felt the tension bleeding through the halls—could almost taste it. Copperish, like the scent of freshly spilled blood.

  “I think,” he said, “that things are about to go very badly for Skye.”

  How badly, though, Noritomo Helmer was not to find out until Malvina Hazen was through chastising him for losing Chaffee.

  The taste of blood was very real now as Noritomo recovered from Malvina’s right cross, his jaw throbbing and his right eye squinting shut against the pain. He had seen the blow coming, of course, but made no move to defend himself. It required steeled concentration not to react and tempt the Galaxy commander into further rage. This was her right, and his surkai—his penance—for disobedience.

  Not that it mattered that his newly formed Cluster had been outfought. His orders had been to hold Chaffee for Clan Jade Falcon. By Clan customs, he was expected to fulfill those orders or die trying.

  Only the outlander’s offer of hegira mitigated the circumstances and might—if the Galaxy commander eventually concurred—salvage his honor.

  “You present yourself well, Star Colonel.” Malvina eyed him coldly, staring at him sidelong with her artificial eye. By most comparisons, it was a perfect match of the other one. Noritomo noticed what it lacked, however. The carbonation, the life that hinted at a soul. This was her dead eye, reserved now for the harshest of judgments.

  To their credit, Lysle and Bogart had shown neither surprise nor a reflex to come between their commander and his punishment. They froze into the likeness of statues. Others in the Congressional Hall were not so diplomatic. Civilians recoiled from the sudden violence.
Galaxy Commander Malthus stared at him impassively, but more than a few of Malvina’s senior warriors looked on with smug approval, and some began clearing back as if expecting an escalation at any moment.

  It did not escape Noritomo’s notice that the hall was really a wide amphitheater, where Skye’s world senators came together in concentric levels, no doubt in the best spirit of The Republic, which doted on such symbolism that could be found in spheres, circles, and round tables. But among the Clans, such a room framed a natural Circle of Equals where Clan justice by combat—might making right—took place. For the same reason he had made his office on Chaffee next to Longview’s central, circular park, Malvina had commandeered Capital House’s Congressional Hall for its obvious connotations.

  And if Noritomo allowed his deserved punishment to escalate into a Trial of Grievance, then he would have to lose. Defending a “right to retreat” was no precedent he wished to visit on Clan Jade Falcon. Let such hairs be split by Wolves and Sea Foxes.

  Slowly, grudgingly, Malvina turned her face so that her real eye gazed upon him. Apparently he did present himself well. Her demeanor thawed a few degrees into reluctant acceptance. “Very well, in fact. A lesser warrior would not dare meet my gaze after such a defeat. An insecure one would be demanding a Trial of Grievance, or even Refusal, against the notion that he had shirked his duty.” She sounded almost disappointed, as if she wished to fight him. Fight someone.

  But given the opportunity to voice his earlier thought, Noritomo merely said, “I am Jade Falcon.”

  “Perhaps,” she admitted, slowly. “Perhaps you are.”

  With the prospect of immediate violence slipping away, some of the nearby warriors prodded the civilians back to work. The buzz of background conversations warmed up the nearly empty hall only slightly. A tinny echo bounced back from the deeper corners.

  Beckett Malthus stepped up to the small group, arms akimbo. “Why did you not return immediately to Glengarry after giving up Chaffee?” he asked, allowing Lysle into the conversation with a direct glance but pointedly excluding the freeborn Bogart.

  It was not lost on Noritomo that Malthus had thrown him a possible lifeline, allowing the Star colonel to explain himself in more detail. In front of Malvina, their Chinggis Khan, as well. He divided his gaze between both commanders. There was no doubt who led the Jade Falcon desant; that had been very clear since Glengarry. It was still difficult to say who commanded, though.

  “It seemed apparent to me,” he said slowly, “with the raiding attacks against Glengarry and Ryde, and the loss of Summer, that it was my Galaxy commander’s intention to concentrate forces for an immediate assault against Skye.”

  He carefully did not identify which of the two he acknowledged as his commander. Malvina would assume it was her, of course, since he was part of her table of organization. If Beckett Malthus read into Noritomo’s reply any offer of alliance—never against his commanding officer, but only for the greater good of Clan Jade Falcon—then so much the better.

  His answer still did not satisfy Malvina. “You did not jump to Skye. Nor did you report and request orders from Glengarry, quineg?”

  “Neg,” he admitted, “I did not. By jumping through an uncharted system, my Seventh Striker Cluster was able to quickly reinforce the garrison at Zebebelgenubi, leaving us only a short jump from Skye. In this way, I would not preempt my commander’s timetable for any assault, but I placed my warriors in position to support any efforts made in that direction.”

  Lysle had held her peace, knowing it was better to wait for the opportune moment. Now the large woman volunteered some aid. “Jumping to Glengarry, while politically expedient, was a strategic loss. Our JumpShips have no lithium-fusion batteries. We could not have supported a drive for Skye in anything less than two weeks from our arrival. Zebebelgenubi was far more likely to have free docking collars.”

  Malvina’s gaze was dark. “You presume that your forces would be wanted for Skye.”

  “Aff, Galaxy Commander.” Noritomo stepped between his aide and Malvina’s potential threat. “But who could predict that The Republic’s garrison forces would give up the capital so easily?”

  It worked, turning Malvina’s ire back against the local defenders. “They gave up the capital,” she admitted, “but not the world. We counted on hard-line resistance for New London, drawing as many defenders as possible into the blacked-out city.”

  And Malvina had planned to crush them mercilessly. Noritomo heard the frustration in her voice. Such a battle would also have led to incredible destruction visited on the local population as the Jade Falcons battled Republic troops street by street. A terrified people might adopt Jade Falcon rule much more quickly if it meant an end to a direct threat on their homes and lives.

  The Shadow-Khan turned to a pair of large tables shoved together on the floor of the Congressional Hall, on which a wide, flat-panel base rested. This was Malvina’s strategic-command center. A pair of technicians worked tirelessly at the display controls, moving icons over a large map of Skye displayed on the base.

  “Our strikes at important secondary targets were all rebuffed,” she said. “Even a week later, we’ve failed to take even one of them. The Shipil cradle at Norfolk. Cyclops, Incorporated. Avanti Assemblies.” She pointed out each on the map, biting off their names, then reached over and slapped her hand down on the golden circle that was the planetary capital. “They let us walk right into New London, tying it around our necks like a dead albatross while they reinforced every weapons stockpile and production center that Skye boasts.”

  Smart. The Republic defenders had stolen a page out of the Jade Falcon invasion book. Control the military and economic strongholds, and you control the entire region. Noritomo rubbed at his jaw, easing the bruise she had given him while studying the strategic situation. “Governor Gregory Kelswa-Steiner remains free. Prefect Brown and Tara Campbell hold every resource they need for a long, protracted campaign.”

  Lysle stepped up beside him. “And we strain our supply lines back to Glengarry.”

  “That may have been,” Malvina agreed with the two warriors, “but we are about to shift some of that strain back onto The Republic’s position.”

  “A large offensive push at one of the industrial facilities?” Noritomo asked, knowing it was not the answer.

  “Eventually.” Malvina Hazen looked across the map at him. “With the arrival of your Cluster, we can throw fresh blood into the line and push through the Steel Wolves or these bothersome Stormhammers. We might be able to track and destroy the raiding force giving us so much local trouble. But first”—she smiled—“I believe a small object lesson is in order.”

  She nodded at one of the technicians, who blanked the large display and then replaced the world map with one that sent a shiver through Noritomo Helmer. New London stood out on the display in impressive detail, with every street and alleyway and park. Malvina Hazen picked up a laser pointer. Wherever it fell onto the display, a gray shadow stretched over that part of the city. She skipped the light back and forth, scribbling over the map with indifferent care, drawing a swath of destruction starting at an industrial sector, stretching through several commercial and residential districts. Finally, she sent one probing line into the heart of New London, covering several city blocks and ending up at the New London Tower.

  “There. That should about do it.”

  Noritomo had seen this kind of swath laid out in front of him once before. Only then it had been an entire city, and it had not been a map but real rubble and ash sweeping across the streets of Belletaria. On Kimball II. A sharp glance from Lysle told him that she remembered as well.

  “You want to destroy New London.” He carefully withheld judgment from his voice.

  “Decimate it,” Malvina corrected him. “The tactic worked on Ryde, at least with the local population. This time it will not be just the people. One-tenth of the entire city is to be leveled, which is about what I expect to have happened if we had fought for the c
apital as planned. It will hold the entire planet hostage.”

  “What is one-tenth of the capital’s population?”

  “Including the outer boroughs,” she considered, “five hundred . . . five hundred twenty thousand.” She waved off the number as insignificant. “They have been most uncooperative.”

  And for that, Malvina Hazen sentenced them to die. Yes, it would have the desired effect of mobilizing the capital’s work force, putting them back into their jobs and getting them screaming for a cessation of hostilities. They might even embrace the local Jade Falcon garrison once Malvina left the world—if she left the world—out of relief that they had been spared. But that was all short-term thinking. It did not take into account the partisan activity sure to spring up, like that which they had seen on Chaffee and which still continued on Ryde and Kimball II. It did nothing to deal with the hatred that would fester among the populace for weeks, for months, for years. The kind of indiscriminate destruction that could turn star systems and nations against a Clan.

  It had happened before, after all. In the original Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere, Clan Smoke Jaguar had visited terror assaults on worlds in its invasion corridor. On Turtle Bay, it had even used one of its WarShips to laze the city of Edo, effectively wiping it off the face of the world. Resistance efforts had never ceased, and when the Inner Sphere finally fought back, it had been with a vengeance. Clan Smoke Jaguar was no more, in fact, having been targeted for complete annihilation.

  Noritomo carefully brought up a few of his concerns, dialing back on his personal feelings and simply pointing out how such tactics had backfired on the Jaguars.

  “Another time, another place,” was Malvina’s answer. “The Republic is not the entire Inner Sphere. They are isolated and alone, and are weakened from the disarmament programs instituted by Devlin Stone. They have no spine for such a fight anymore.”