The lord governor was far out in front of himself, looking at the political opportunity. Which meant he had not received a full briefing. The loss of Augustus Solvaig reared its head again. “Sir,” Tara said carefully, “I think that might not be an appropriate response.”

“Why not? Are many of your men hurt?” he asked.

“The ones who made it off Zebebelgenubi seem fine,” she said, looking past him at her assembled Highlanders… and now also at the man responsible for their rescue. Even though he was clean-shaved and had dark skin, the family resemblance was obvious. As was the warrior’s spirit that shone brightly in his dark eyes. “We lost two DropShips and a JumpShip, which hurts, but we’ll salvage most of our ground-based equipment.”

The duke waved off her concerns. “Transportation is hardly as important as good troops to defend Skye. I’ll take all we can get, at this stage.”

“Glad to hear some sense out of you, Father,” Jasek said, butting into the conversation. Security had flanked him with two agents, but had not held back the duke’s son. Rank still owned its privileges. Jasek glanced at the agents, then smiled at his father’s flabbergasted stare.

“For a change,” he said, adding the caveat like a contract killer might put one extra bullet into the back of his victim’s head.

Landgrave Jasek Kelswa-Steiner had inherited his father’s strong chin and angular face. His skin was too dark to be just a healthy tan, and Tara had to believe he’d inherited the bronze color from his mother, along with his dark, piercing eyes and the easy warrior’s grace with which he carried himself.

Certainly his father showed no casual aplomb, the duke’s spine stiffening like it had suddenly turned into titanium.

“You… you come back here, now?”

Jasek shrugged as if his father’s reaction was expected. “Good to see you too,” he said. “We’re fine. Oh, and your gratitude for our rescue of the Highlanders is overwhelming.”

“I didn’t know you had done so,” Duke Gregory told him. His face flushed dark, from his pronounced widow’s peak to his beard. He shot Tara an accusing glare.

“I found out thirty minutes ago,” Tara told him. “They kept it quiet coming in.” Now she could see why. Jasek had obviously wanted to arrive in his own way, without a lot of fanfare—or a firing squad, depending on his father’s mood. Safer.

“And now that you know?” Jasek asked.

If he was expecting a warm embrace—and Tara doubted that he was—the lord governor disappointed him. His face clouded up like a brewing storm piling thunderheads on the horizon. “I suppose it was the least you could do for The Republic,” Duke Gregory reluctantly offered. If Tara had not been standing there, she imagined, he would have had a lot more to say.

Jasek bit off a laugh. “I’m not here for The Republic.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To settle our wager. Something about the kind of leadership Skye needed. You seemed fairly certain, once, that it would be found right here.” His glance found Tara hanging on every word. “It appears that you had to go looking, regardless.”

Tara decided to interrupt the reunion before one of these men went a step too far past the line the other was willing to bear in public. Having Jasek Kelswa-Steiner carted away by security would not help Skye. Neither would the lord governor running his son off again, and with him the Stormhammers’ strong military presence.

“We’ve all had to look for new strengths, Landgrave. Everyone,” she said. “The entire Republic.”

“Yes,” he agreed, never backing down an inch. “And I found mine with the Lyran Commonwealth.”

He threw it at her as both a challenge and an entreaty. Tara found herself drawn in by Jasek’s strong will, wanting to understand his position, and that surprised her. She had expected to despise this man when she met him. Especially after learning how badly he hurt The Republic’s local military by gutting it to form his Stormhammers. Of course, most of the information she possessed she had from Duke Gregory, so it was going to be slanted somewhat off center, but she’d assumed not too far.

Certainly she had not expected to empathize.

“Wherever you found it, you are standing on Skye. Which means we may have at least one thing in common in wanting to keep these people free.” And she realized she did want to find common ground.

“Whatever else there is,” she said, looking around at the audience of Highlanders, militia, civilians, “might be better served with a less public discussion.”

Jasek hesitated, then bowed to her in a gesture of respect he had not shown his father. His eyes never left hers as she accepted a warm hand and shook it in agreement. “Whatever else might come between us, Countess,” he said sotto voce, keeping it private between the two of them and his father, “I owe you this much, for standing up for Skye when I was not here.”

There was something hard in his gaze when he said it. Something that said Jasek was not altogether pleased with her intervention. Neither was he upset, though, and the contradiction intrigued her. As did Jasek’s raw magnetism. No wonder so many soldiers had flocked to his banner. This was not something that could be inherited or learned. It could only be something that was.

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.