Blood of the Isle

by Loren L. Coleman

  Except for here on Skye, he wanted to remind her but did not. Here on Skye, forces from The Republic and Lyran sympathizers and the Steel Wolves had banded together in just such an alliance. And they were giving the Jade Falcons every bit of fight the Clan could want. Noritomo looked to Beckett Malthus, who stared back without expression.

  If the Galaxy commander appointed by Khan Pryde would not gainsay Malvina Hazen, what could Noritomo be expected to do?

  Once the box had been opened, the evils released could not be put back inside.

  “It is slaughter, not battle,” Noritomo said, trying once again to push Clan tradition back at Malvina.

  “It is controlled and deliberate. And it will. Be. Done.”

  Noritomo met her gaze, but could not hold it against the fanatic gleam that brightened behind her right eye. The left eye, the dead one, remained cold and impersonal.

  “When?” he asked.

  “As soon as you can assemble your Cluster,” she said calmly. Noting his surprise, betrayed in the sharp glance he traded with Lysle and with Malthus, Malvina smiled. “This is your surkai, Star Colonel Helmer. You will prove yourself to me, or be discarded once and for all.”

  And it would happen regardless. Nothing was going to stand between Malvina Hazen and her perceived destiny. Especially him. Not unless he found some way to raise his standing among the Clan. Damned in either event.

  “How is it to be done?” he asked, seeking any reprieve she might allow.

  “It matters not to me. Storm through with BattleMechs. Level the area with missiles and lasers. Send Elementals from door to door.” She shrugged her indifference. “I make you responsible for this because without my endorsement you are outcast, and I know you could never abide that. You are honor-bound and, despite your past failures, an excellent warrior who knows when it is time to submit.”

  She smiled thinly. “You are Jade Falcon.”

  28

  Roosevelt Island

  Skye

  8 December 3134

  The three-story building was Cyclops, Incorporated’s administrative headquarters. Its flat rooftop, tiled and decorated in the style of a wide piazza, often hosted outdoor business parties. Today it was being pressed into service for more sober duty.

  Tara Campbell had walked its banistered edge earlier, before anyone else arrived, looking over most of Roosevelt Island. The waters of Truxton Sound washed up on the three sides she could see, separating the large island from Skye’s main continent of New Scotland. The fourth side, north of the administrative offices, was hidden behind several larger buildings that Cyclops used to smelt ore, roll armor, and assemble hovercraft APCs and tanks using the components brought in from other factories across Skye.

  This site was one of Skye’s premiere military-industrial facilities, which was why it had been chosen.

  That, and the fact that Shipil’s Norfolk dockyards had been lost the day before.

  “I do not care for this,” Gregory Kelswa-Steiner whispered, not for the first time. “It seems to me we are cutting off our nose to spite our face.”

  It was against the northern edge of the rooftop that they now gathered. Tara stood with Duke Gregory and Paladin McKinnon amid a crowd of news journalists, corporate officers, and local politicians. Everyone watched the video footage displayed on a small projection unit. Almost everyone. Tara’s chief aide caught her eye and frowned toward one side where Anastasia Kerensky talked in a low voice with the Knighterrant newly arrived from Terra.

  She sent a surreptitious shrug back to Tara Bishop. There was no telling what the two discussed, though it was obvious they had history together. Kerensky certainly got around.

  Other than those two, who were able to hold themselves apart, the mood was dark and angry as the projection unit finished displaying the devastation visited on New London. The footage was only twenty-four hours old, and still punched Tara deep in the gut. A formation of ’Mechs and vehicles followed a line of Elemental warriors who swept ahead to clear any remaining civilians out of the area marked for destruction. Galaxy Commander Hazen later pointed out the humanitarian efforts Clan Jade Falcon had undertaken, this time, to limit casualties. Tara could tell by her frosty demeanor that she cared little for the civilians. For her, a massive wave of displaced residents flooding nearby cities and towns only added to the pressures mounting behind the defenders to do something quickly in order to save Skye.

  No one else spoke as the footage played out. Buildings were razed to the ground. Parks were burned. Homes destroyed. In the end, a trio of BattleMechs came at the New London Tower and tore at its hardened walls until the entire structure finally collapsed under its own weight. It was the first major resource to be completely—and intentionally—destroyed in the Jade Falcon onslaught.

  It would not be the last.

  “This”—Tara Campbell spoke up, raising her voice to address the captive audience—“this is what we are dealing with. A ruthless invader who acknowledges no boundary between military targets and wartime atrocities. Malvina Hazen would have us thank her for sparing lives—this time! But what of the crew of Gondola Station? The citizens of Chaffee subjected to blistering agents? Belletaria on Kimball II. Nukes over New London! I’m not sure how much of her generosity we can survive.”

  She had subtly changed from questioning Malvina’s actions to outright condemnation. Given what she was asking of these people, of this world, she needed all of the moral indignation she could raise.

  “We have no body count out of New London. Certainly some are dead, despite any ‘humanitarian efforts’ by the Jade Falcons.

  “We know that a significant portion of the city has been leveled. Residences. Offices. Stores and industry. This, in a city we voluntarily evacuated to spare such treatment.

  “While we raise the value on every life, resident or citizen, the Clan invaders lower themselves to indiscriminate warfare.”

  Her spell over the audience was not quite complete. One newsvid anchorman edged forward. “If The Republic cannot match the Falcon ferocity, or is forced to abandon the moral high ground, would you say that Skye is lost?”

  He speared his question right at the lord governor. A Herrmanns news agent, looking to score cheap points.

  If Tara was worried about losing the train of her argument, she needn’t have been. Duke Gregory might question the need to match such terror tactics with a hard-nosed response of their own, but he remained a consummate politician.

  “I concede no such thing,” Duke Gregory promised. “Skye may be reeling from the attacks on her soil, and before we are done this day it may seem we have entered darker times. But industry can be rebuilt. Cities restored. So long as our people hold true to the ideals of The Republic, they will always be the free people of Skye, and they will never be forgotten or left behind.”

  The local political leaders summoned to this event raised a cheer for their duke and lord governor. It would play well on camera.

  Still, Tara wondered what Jasek might have to say about that. She could almost hear his voice in her head, arguing.

  The people of Skye will be truly free only when they are allowed to decide for themselves whether they want to be Commonwealth citizens or Republic drones laboring for the basic rights every Lyran enjoys at birth.

  She understood his argument, but did not agree with it. Citizenship had to be earned inside The Republic, and was it asking so much that a resident give something back to the government that ensured his or her basic freedoms?

  Given that her Highlanders were paying the ultimate price nearly every day, it didn’t seem too much to her.

  What bothered her, if anything did, was how easily Jasek’s voice came to mind when she had done everything possible in the last several weeks to forget him, his coffee-tinted skin and his stormy blue eyes. He had made it off Chaffee, but then where had he gone? As the days ticked by, Skye’s defenders grew weary and Skye itself seemed to long for the infusion of enthusiasm the younger Kelswa-Steiner had
brought with him the first time.

  The wind ran chilly fingers through Tara’s hair, blowing a few of her platinum blond strands down into her eyes. With a casual smooth from her palm, she pasted them up and back again.

  “It is not a matter of matching ferocity or assuming the moral high ground,” she continued. “The Republic is beset without and within at the moment, as the HPG blackout continues to allow its enemies and its loyal opposition to divide and conquer. House Liao attacks from the Confederation. The Swordsworn rally new forces from within Prefectures IV and V. And here, the Jade Falcons commit unbridled acts of war. Even Landgrave Jasek Kelswa-Steiner would admit that a divided effort will always demand certain sacrifices, and a prolonged struggle.”

  She had carefully tiptoed around Jasek’s status as one of The Republic’s potential enemies, a softened approach that drew a glare from Sire McKinnon and a look of uncertainty from Duke Gregory. But Herrmanns and several other news agencies, as they all knew, favored Jasek and his Stormhammers. Tara was not about to open a new front in her own war to save Skye.

  Though she would twist the situation with a few flanking attacks as necessary.

  Sorry, Jasek.

  “The Landgrave, were he here, would also be among the first to agree that we cannot submit to the Jade Falcon terror tactics. His own actions have proven that, by his coming to Skye’s aid when it truly needed him and in his selfless efforts to free Chaffee from Jade Falcon oppression.

  “Now it is our turn to take a hard stand against Malvina Hazen. For that reason, we are here at Cyclops, Incorporated, on Roosevelt Island. The Jade Falcons are pressing for this facility, hoping to bolster their sagging logistics network by claiming local resources.”

  She turned and pointed out three of the larger nearby buildings, pausing for the camera so that the news crews could pan out for a wide-angle shot. They knew what was coming next. Everyone present did.

  “Foundry. Armory. Assembly plant. Cleared and secured. Mr. Trosset.”

  Angus Trosset, CEO of Cyclops, Incorporated, looked pale. He was on board for the very simple reason that Tara had given him no choice. His cooperation secured valuable (and private) government concessions from Duke Gregory and, on behalf of The Republic, Tara Campbell and Sire McKinnon.

  A lack of cooperation would have brought the same effect, only under martial law and Tara’s direct order, which she had been quite willing to give.

  Trosset stepped to the edge of the roof and cleared his throat, posing for the cameras. “Cyclops, Incorporated,” he said, “will not shield itself behind a profit-and-loss statement while Skye’s civilians are subject to such brutality. Our employees have family and friends in New London who are, if they are lucky, alive but without home or livelihood.” He pushed his glasses up farther onto his nose. “If this is an example of Jade Falcon stewardship, we would rather save them the trouble.”

  He pulled a wireless from his belt and spoke one word of command into it. “Cleared.”

  A deep-throated roar shook the ground only a split second before the first plumes of smoke and stone dust billowed up around the base of the foundry. The administrative building swayed and bounced. A few of the politicians dropped to hands and knees for stability. Most rode it out, watching in fascination as the three-story-high foundry complex crumbled into a pile of rubble and mangled metal beams.

  Before the echoes of the first demolition charges faded, a second set blew the foundation out from under the larger armor-processing plant. Millions’ worth of steel-rolling technology became near-worthless scrap metal in less than three seconds as the destructive waves tore through the building, shoving the great machines against one another and overturning several before tons of ferrocrete rained down from the caving roof.

  “The assembly building will be left standing,” Trosset told the cameras, “to continue operations for as long as possible in support of the allied effort to hold Skye. But plans are already in place to shift operations to remote facilities far beyond Jade Falcon reach.”

  Tara stepped in beside the corporate officer. “Malvina Hazen,” she said in brusque, clipped tones, “this concludes our object lesson.”

  She let the scene play out for a few long heartbeats, with the dust clouds rising behind her, then nodded to the lead production crewman, who cleared the lights from green back to red and said, “We’re out.”

  Duke Gregory moved in at once to reassure the CEO that Cyclops, Incorporated, would be taken care of, and to make plans with the local politicos to handle displaced workers and ready the district for the coming Jade Falcon occupation. There was a slim chance that Malvina Hazen would bypass Roosevelt Island now that its usefulness had been cut by two-thirds, but no one was willing to gamble on that.

  Tara let herself be immediately drawn aside by Sire McKinnon. “I wish you weren’t leaving,” she said.

  McKinnon’s gaze swept around, searching for the Knight-errant who had come to fetch him from Skye. He scowled at the other man’s proximity to the Steel Wolf leader, but said nothing about it. “I have to. Events on Terra . . . demand my attention.”

  “You said the elections were covered.” She had tried several times in the last two days to get the news out of him, ever since the Knight-errant’s arrival, but he had pulled in on himself, turning as inscrutable as a sphinx.

  “What happened? Why is it so important now?” She dropped her voice to a bare whisper. “You know you can trust me.”

  For a moment, he looked more distant than she had ever seen him. “No. Not with this, I can’t. If you wanted in on my level, Tara Campbell, you had your chance for a paladinship. And you turned it down.”

  Then his rough edges softened just a bit. “I am trusting you with my Atlas, however. There is no way to get it aboard a K-3 shuttle, and a DropShip might be seen as important enough to be intercepted by that Nightlord up there. Treat it well.”

  “I don’t like this.” She nodded at the standing clouds of dust that hung over the demolished buildings. “Any of it.”

  “This was the right thing to do,” the venerable Paladin assured her. His dark eyes were cold, cold. “Hazen cannot miss our message. From a military standpoint, Skye can be left as a world not worth having.”

  “Defend The Republic at any price?” Tara asked. She shivered, free to do so now that the cameras were dead. “I am not a Founder’s Movement advocate.”

  “Perhaps not.” He folded wiry arms across his chest. The light breeze tugged at his cape of rank, pulling it out behind him. For all his age and his weathered body, the Paladin still cut an imposing figure. “But I am. And I will cover your back on Terra.”

  “It’s not my back I’m worried about.”

  “Well, that part is in a sling, Countess. No mistaking.”

  Despite the Paladin’s excellent military skills, and her own, they were both hanging out in the wind when it came to the tactical situation on Skye. “We’ll give it everything we have, plus ten percent. We can’t do any more than that.” She wrapped her arms around her sides.

  “Desperate times, Tara.” He smiled thin and hard. “Desperate measures. Get used to it.”

  “I’ll do what needs doing, but damned if I’ll get used to it. It’s a slippery slope, David”—Tara saw him startle as she used his given name for the first time—“and if we aren’t careful, we truly will make Skye a world not worth having. Then what will keep us here?” She looked askance at him.

  “How far do we let desperation push us?”

  Miliano

  The Avanti Assemblies factory in Miliano was no stranger to military machines. Though perhaps not so many as this, Alexia Wolf decided.

  The main floor worked in quality-controlled teams to assemble Kinnol main battle tanks under a recent license from Kressly Industries. Their work area was shrinking with each passing day, however, with auxiliary stations being taken over by the Tharkan Strikers and Lyran Rangers as maintenance and repair docks. ’Mechs and tanks were braced up against the walls, and
infantry in powered armor worked alongside astechs in exoskeletons to lend muscle where it was needed.

  Military technicians and factory workers shouted back and forth, often with colorful invective, calling for equipment that had been shared. Or borrowed. Or simply taken when no one was looking. Pieces and parts were routinely scavenged from the factory line, and cutting torches flared as armor plating was chopped up and then welded slapdash over whatever holes needed patching.

  The stench of scorched metal hung over everything. It was the smell of desperation.

  From her vantage point, sharing the crew boss “nest” with the resident manager and Niccolò GioAvanti, Alexia watched as a scarred Kelswa assault tank rolled by. Broken treads slapped against the ferrocrete floor, and gritty black smoke chuffed from the engine compartment. A floor monitor saw this, flagged down the vehicle, and made a throat-slashing gesture. While the crew seemed confident in their ability to drive the Kelswa in, rules were that factory managers called the shots (against the targets they saw, anyway). The tank engine was shut down and the vehicle rigged to be towed the remaining thirty meters to a berth.

  A master sergeant in the Lyran Rangers ran up to argue with the manager. Both gestured to the nest, which was raised only two meters over the floor, but the crew boss let it go and for Alexia it was a lower-caste matter. The situation would resolve itself, the tank would get repaired, and her Strikers would be ready for battle again. Soon, she hoped.

  There was no need to involve herself directly.

  Not until a LoaderMech tried to walk off with a BattleMech gyro.

  Alexia saw the IndustrialMech grab the gyroscope’s carrying flanges with its vise grip hands, lifting the valuable component and marching it bowlegged over to a waiting truck. A frown creased her brow. Vehicles came into the Assemblies plant to be worked on. Parts and pieces did not go out to them.

  She swung down from the nest, feet hitting the ferrocrete floor, wondering what was going on. Then she saw Tamara Duke.

  Then she knew.