His father’s people had also tuned in on the news, apparently. Roadblocks cordoned off the street that ran by the lord governor’s palatial mansion, holding back the press of onlookers as well as separating Jasek’s sedans from his military vehicles. Niccolò glanced a warning at him, but Jasek simply nodded, letting them go.
Alexia looked back through the rear window, at the crowd that thronged up to the roadblocks. “I never knew you were so popular. People did not act this way on Nusakan.”
“Nusakan has a fairer press corps,” Niccolò told her. “The Herrmanns AG media group owns many news outlets on Skye, and they are unabashedly pro-Lyran.”
“Be nice, Nicco.” Jasek’s glance was warm, but stern. To Alexia he said, “He’s just bitter because the GioAvanti family lost their minority interest in a local news network in a forced buyout.”
“Not bitter. Just jealous. There is a difference.” Niccolò’s pout was exaggerated. Slightly. It was good for a quick laugh.
Still, as the sedans pulled down into a covered garage, Jasek worried that the media attention would not help put his father in a receptive mood. The duke had yet to accept (and certainly he would never forgive) his son’s difference in opinion and allegiance. Jasek had tried to make his father see, but a lifetime of blind devotion to a single man—including three years just to the memory of that man—was hard to fight. Even when Jasek proved he had the right of it, when seventy percent of the prefecture’s armed forces followed him into forming the Stormhammers, the duke refused to recognize his position.
I do not like to see Skye divided, or improperly defended. Jasek had sent his father this message by courier. Between them, Skye was more than one planet. It was a symbol for the entire region. It invites disaster.
I also would not hold you hostage to the situation you find yourself in. If you cannot accept that Skye should stand proudly with the Lyran Commonwealth, at least grant that Skye cannot stand alone in the waning shadow of Devlin Stone’s Republic. Call, and we will answer as allies of Skye.
The duke’s reply took three weeks to return by courier.
Skye seeks no alliance or accord with those who hold their citizenship or their heritage so cheap. Do not answer. We will never call.
And he hadn’t. Not even in the darkest time when the horror-struck refugees from Chaffee taxed Skye’s morale, or when the Falcons actually attacked Prefecture worlds.
Jasek had watched, and waited, and waited.
No more, he promised himself in the elevator and during the short walk down grand, marble-tiled halls. The echoes of their footsteps rang back like distant gunshots. “Skye must survive, even if first it has to die.”
“What was that?” Colonel Vandel asked. A frown piled up on his forehead like a building avalanche. “Making predictions?”
“A resolution,” he answered with a sharp glance at Niccolò. He hoped his friend was wrong, but planned for him to be right.
The formal meeting between Jasek’s Stormhammers and Skye’s defenders took place in the palace’s east-wing gallery, where portraits of former Skye leaders stared at each other across a wide divide of rust brown carpet and a long, mahogany table. The paintings of Ryan Steiner and Robert Kelswa-Steiner, ancestors of the current line, held places of minor importance on either side of closed terrace doors. Duchess Margaret Aten, another leader from pre-Republic times, had the grand location over the fireplace mantel. Her dark, smooth skin and indigo eyes looked very familiar. They should, since Jasek saw them often enough in the mirror. His mother, the duke’s second and last wife, had called Margaret Aten her grandmother.
Facing off against them were the five past lord governors of Prefecture IX: Skye’s entire history under Devlin Stone’s auspices, not counting Jasek’s father, who had—in a rare demonstration of humility—decided that his own portrait would not be added until after he died or was voted from office. A pity. With his ties to the Atens as well as his position as the dynasty heir of the Kelswa-Steiners, a portrait of Duke Gregory would have balanced out the room.
Or perhaps not.
“The ‘Salvation of Skye’ has arrived,” his father proclaimed, holding up the folded newsfax so that Jasek (and everyone else) could see the headline. It must have been warm still from the printer. A holographic picture of Jasek’s caravan leaving the spaceport this morning ran just beneath the bold type.
The Duke slapped the sheaf of paper down on the table. Next to him, Tara Campbell frowned at the dramatics. An aide handed the lord governor another. “And this one, ‘The Herald of House Steiner.’ How very poetic. Ah, this is my favorite.” It had a large holographic pic of some protesters out in front of the spaceport, waving placards. “ ‘Lyrans Rejoice!” ’
He threw the third sheaf onto the table with a measure of disgust. “Herrmanns!”
Legate Stanford Eckard and Prefect Della Brown seemed torn between applauding the duke’s condemnation and worrying that Jasek might take his troops and leave. These were military leaders first and foremost, but politics ran a close second in their lives.
The fifth member of Tara Campbell’s coalition did not bother to disguise his sour anger. Jasek recognized Paladin David McKinnon from pictures. Jasek also had researched the man’s politics, and knew that McKinnon would likely rather see him put up against a wall to be shot for treachery than officially recognize the Stormhammers as a military or political entity.
A tough room. But Jasek felt the wall of strength behind him, his senior officers and his closest adviser, propping him up against the onslaught.
“These are your constituents, Father. They seem to feel that their voices are being ignored.”
“I believe their voices are being given weight far out of proportion to their actual numbers by what amounts to a pro-Lyran conspiracy.” Duke Gregory held his temper in check, but the vitriol behind his words burned Jasek deeply.
“However,” he continued with begrudging reluctance, “it seems that a few people in this room believe that Skye cannot hope to hold against a return by the Jade Falcons without your help. Such as it is. The Countess and Sire McKinnon have convinced me that accepting your return is the lesser of the two evils facing us.”
Which Jasek understood as Tara Campbell advocating acceptance, and Sire McKinnon agreeing that Stormhammer involvement was the lesser of two evils. At least, he hoped that was the way it broke down. Tara Campbell was a strong woman and a natural leader. After she had saved Terra from the Steel Wolves, her accomplishment in throwing the Jade Falcons back from Skye had only increased her legendary status. He recognized that. Was it a shock for him to discover that he actually cared about her opinion of him?
Maybe it was just a desire to have one friend in the room that he hadn’t brought with him.
“We brought our force strength estimates,” Jasek said, stepping up to the table as Niccolò stacked a pile of print-outs on the dark-grained wood. Next to the hard copy, his friend set data wafers and a few crystals.
An aide to Tara Campbell, limping forward with a cast encasing her right leg and a steel crutch braced under one arm, traded Niccolò for the short stack of manila folders she brought with her. While they dealt hard copy around the table, Jasek introduced his senior officers. Antonio Petrucci drew dark glares from everyone but Tara Campbell, who looked askance at Jasek.
“Colonel Petrucci served as Legate of Ryde before he came with me.”
Alexia Wolf’s brief introduction raised a few eyebrows. Colonel Vandel was roundly ignored. A good trait for a Lohengrin agent to cultivate.
“I already have a good idea of what you have left on planet,” Jasek offered, taking a seat at the table. He gave the hard copy a cursory glance, saw a missing unit. An important one. “The Glenowens?” he asked. A storied unit with the local militia, it had been critical in Skye’s recent defense.