It was a strong bargain. A tough one to swallow, which meant that Jasek had dealt harshly but not unfairly. Noritomo approved. “Done,” he said, transmitting in the clear so that his people would hear in his agreement the order to stand down.

“Bargained well and done,” Jasek replied. “You have saved a good many lives today, Star Colonel Helmer. That is not something to be ashamed of.”

No. Noritomo was not ashamed. And he would see that his warriors felt no great sting to their pride. The battle had brought them together, forging them into a coherent force from a rabble of so many individual warriors and units. They had acquitted themselves well, and they were mostly intact. Meaning that the core of a strong Clan battle Cluster would survive and be ready to assist Galaxy Commanders Hazen and Malthus in the campaign that truly mattered.

Noritomo’s warriors were not retreating.

They would be heading for Skye.

21

Norfolk

Skye

18 November 3134

A few days earlier, Countess Tara Campbell had watched as a newly christened Overlord fired off its massive drive engines for the first time, lifting itself free of the dockyard cradle that had supported it during construction. The ground shook. The thirty-story DropShip trembled with pent-up power. Then, slowly at first, the Star Runner began to rise into the air, as if a titan’s invisible hand had reached down to uproot a skyscraper, pulling it out of Norfolk’s skyline.

Shipil Company had protested her order to launch early, citing all the work left to complete on the weapon systems, the sensor array, the finishing touches yet to be applied to the many offices and living quarters. When pressed, though, they admitted that it was work that could be completed out of dry dock, even if tradition demanded that a new vessel not leave its cradle without all defensive systems on line. So the order stood.

The drive flare had looked improbably bright, especially when it washed over the dark walls of the large facility. White golden fire that hurt to stare at. Even from half a kilometer away, Tara felt the backwash of heat on her face and the backs of her hands. She smelled flash-dried ferrocrete, like damp tarmac baking under an early-morning sun.

Maybe the local humidity bumped up a point or two.

Maybe it was her imagination.

But the Star Runner continued to lift and to roll, and eventually was lost to sight as a faint morning star in an expansive blue sky.

That had been three days ago. And as impressive as the first liftoff had been, Tara could only marvel at the feat of precision piloting being displayed as a different Overlord reversed the process, thundering down out of a cloud-drifted sky like one of the vengeful air spirits that House Liao probably worshipped.

The ovoid shape hung like Damocles’ sword over Shipil Company’s Norfolk complex, a crushing weight that had to sit heavily on the shoulders of those technicians who had drawn the short straw and worked the ground below. The Fanged Terror drifted into place, sitting atop a pillar of golden fire. Then as gently as a feather—a massive feather, nearly ten thousand tons in displacement—it lowered itself over the open cradle. Fusion-driven flames licked down over the carbonized ferrosteel supports and speared the bull’s-eye of the landing pad nestled within, and the DropShip lowered itself as easily as if it had come in on laser-point guidance. With a tolerance of only 2.3 meters—considered the maximum vibrational drift on a launching Overlord–the Fanged Terror threaded the cradle’s eye and set itself down perfectly within the Shipil complex.

It was a few minutes’ drive in a Shandra scout vehicle to get Tara back to the complex and through the series of security checkpoints put in place by Shipil. Leaving the main supply tunnel, her driver took her out under the cradle’s maze of bowed girders and flex-joint couplings, and then up the lowered ramp to meet with the DropShip passengers.

A squad of Elementals met her at the head of the ramp, blocking off deeper access into the main ’Mech bay. Tara disembarked from the Shandra, ignoring the towering infantrymen as she caught sight of her opposite number with the Steel Wolves. Anastasia Kerensky.

The other woman looked angry. Then again, Tara remembered very few meetings between the two of them where Kerensky did not look angry at something or someone. It came with the territory, she imagined, being raised in a warrior society, always having to look over your shoulder for the subordinate with an itch to prove himself.

Physically, it would have been hard for the two women to look less alike. They did share a similar height, but Kerensky’s frame was athletic, while Tara was slightly more curvy. Tassa Kay, as she sometimes styled herself, had long, dark red hair, cream-complexioned skin, and green, predatory eyes. She moved with loping strides, as if ready to jump for the throat at a second’s notice. The countess carried herself with a noblewoman’s easy grace, and if her platinum hair spiked short up top was not quite traditional (or regulation), it was a trademark of hers these days and had inspired many new hair fashions across The Republic.

They were different women. Different warriors. Tara held no illusions on that score. But she also owed a debt of gratitude to Kerensky and her Steel Wolves that Tara perhaps didn’t fully articulate at their last meeting. She decided to rectify that at once.

Holding out her hand, accepting Kerensky’s challenging grip, she said, “Commander Kerensky, you are welcomed back to Skye.”

“Am I?” Kerensky looked around, as if missing someone. “Last time it took three of you to throw me off-world. Where is Duke Gregory and his lapdog prefect?”

The hint of a Germanic accent colored Kerensky’s voice very subtly. If Tara had not known that the other woman had come of age on the Lyran Commonwealth border, she might have missed it.

“I would rather set politics aside for the moment,” Tara finally said. She crossed arms over her chest. “This is about survival.”

“It was last time as well.”

“Last time you were hardly invited to Skye,” Tara reminded her. And last time the enemy hadn’t shown a newfound tendency to throw nuclear weapons into the mix. The two women turned away from some nearby hot metalwork. The acrid stench burned Tara’s sinuses. She held up one hand to shield her eyes from the bright cutting flare.

“In fact,” she said, turning them in a short walk back toward the DropShip ramp and her vehicle, “we weren’t certain at first that you weren’t here to follow up the Jade Falcon assault with an attack of your own.”

“Wolves are hardly scavengers, looking for the Jade Falcons’ battlefield leavings. And I am sure you have seen reports from Seginus by now, so you know how much we gave to the effort on Skye last time and the service we have provided for Legate Hateya since then.” Anastasia looked out at the cradle’s framework. From here, it looked remarkably like a cage. “We did not expect red-carpet treatment, but you could have allowed my warriors the honor of being received in one of your main DropPorts. Not sneaking into the outback like pirates.”

“I would not call bringing your main DropShip in at Skye’s largest shipyard facility ‘sneaking in,” ’ Tara said. At least, not in the way that Kerensky meant it. “We cleared this area specifically for you.”

“Why?” The woman was full of suspicions. Just one of the things that kept her alive.

“Because I felt that you would be able to bring your vessel down here without causing damage.”

Kerensky nodded approval as her nearby Elementals stiffened to attention as they passed. “A nice evasion.”