He simply watched.

“All right,” she said, not altogether against a debate with the Stormhammer leader, but not eager for it either. But how much of that was personal, and how much professional? He’d make some good points, she was sure. She nodded toward the Praetorian crawler. “Why don’t we adjourn to the local command post, then, and invite the Landgrave down?”

Sire McKinnon shrugged. “Why not indeed?” he asked.

Tara couldn’t help but feel that she had missed something important in the Paladin’s simple question. Was Sire McKinnon warning her, or offering tentative support for her building an alliance with the Stormhammers?

Whichever it was, she knew, he would make his feelings known soon enough.

Jasek jumped down from the VTOL’s open bay, feet splashing through icy slush that coated the parking lot’s paved surface. Colonel Joss Vandel followed him. The Cavalry’s blades hammered overhead, still pounding at the air, but Jasek didn’t bother to duck. No VTOL had been built yet that would take a man’s head off for not crouching down, and he had always thought it stupid when a soldier worried more about the perfectly safe rotors than he did the battle that waited just ahead.

Which was what he was looking forward to, he felt certain.

Battle.

“Landgrave.” Tara met him with a warm handshake and cold, blue eyes. She had a warrior’s grip, made more obvious by the hard callus at the base of her thumb that told of her years of experience at the control stick of a BattleMech. “It is good to see you again.”

For all her initial warmth when they first met at the New London DropPort, their last few meetings certainly hadn’t made him feel particularly welcome. Not that he needed Tara Campbell’s favor. He simply hoped to win it. And that was not likely to happen today.

He quickly reintroduced Colonel Vandel. Tara had certainly not forgotten the Stormhammers officer, but it gave Jasek the chance to break the ice between them with a social chisel.

“I hoped to catch up with you,” he said as the three of them walked into the shadow of the two-story Praetorian. Legate Eckard and Paladin McKinnon waited near the command vehicle’s armored door. “We’d like to speak with you about your plans to strike back at the Jade Falcons.”

“Not one for small talk either,” Tara said to Eckard with a tight smile.

Her offhand comment and the legate’s frown left Jasek with the feeling he and Vandel had interrupted a conversation. Had she been asking about him? It threw him off his stride for a few seconds. But the dark glower ever present on the Paladin’s face helped him snap back quickly. Some things in the universe were constants.

“Since you were hoping to launch at multiple Falcon positions in three days,” he said by way of explanation, “there doesn’t seem to be much time for dalliance.”

The inside of the mobile HQ was warm and well lit, with armored shutters open over ferroglass windows to reduce any feeling of claustrophobia. The command-level officers filed back toward the rear of the massive vehicle, taking over the Praetorian’s small but well-equipped strategic office. The room smelled of electronics. Legate Eckard and Tara Campbell slid over bench seats and around to the rear of the holographic display that doubled as the room’s only table. Paladin McKinnon stayed at the door, leaning back against it with an air of finality.

Jasek did not doubt that he was stuck in this room until McKinnon decided to let him leave. He also took a seat at the table/display, leaving Vandel to stand at his shoulder. The Lyran officer set himself in an easy, patient stance.

“As you say,” Tara finally broke the uncomfortable silence that had followed them into the office. “There isn’t a great deal of time. Yes, I intended to strike back at the Jade Falcons. But with this latest raid…,” she trailed off.

“It wasn’t a raid,” Jasek said evenly. “It’s a bluff.”

“What?”

“It’s a bluff. They had no hope of taking salvage or even creating much havoc against Shipil Company. A short company to attack a DropShip? Even an unfinished one? No. What this has done is draw your attention here. To Norfolk. Which means they will ready their play somewhere else.”

“New London?” Eckard asked. “We would prepare against them at the capital regardless.” Answering his own question, the truth lit up his eyes. “Cyclops, Incorporated.”

Jasek shrugged. “That would be my guess. Cyclops manufactures the Drillson and the Maxim, as well as weaponry for the Wolfhound and Banshee BattleMech designs. That’s the kind of prize they need to further their goals against other worlds.”

Tara tapped a thoughtful finger on the glass tabletop. “Which means they are readying their next assault.” She considered, nodded. “Our plans, as you’ve seen them, involve a series of simultaneous strikes. None would force them from a world they currently control, but they would throw them off-balance and hopefully push back any timetable for a new assault against Skye.”

“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.”