“Hardly,” Jasek agreed. Was he supposed to open a dialogue here and now? He sipped his wine, found it delightfully sweet. “I came here for a very specific reason, Duke Vedet.”
It was a Skye tradition to apply the noble title to a first name rather than the family name, creating a more intimate manner of address. Vedet Brewster did not correct his usage. “Hopefully not the same reason that brought you to Chaffee,” he said with a touch of steel.
If the duke felt the action on Chaffee had offered the prospect of Republic annexation, he had not been following events inside the Sphere of late. Then again, with Hesperus II suffering under the same blackout as so many other worlds, his wondering what plans were being bandied about in the dark did not count as a major strike against him.
“Chaffee was a gift. To get your attention. I presume I have it.”
Trillian preempted the duke with a casual glance in his direction. “It took us the past week to get independent confirmation of the status of Chaffee. Some of us wondered if The Republic was going to claim dominion.” She directed a dark gaze at Joss Vandel, who wore a consciously blank look. “After all, it was not the Commonwealth who went to their aid.”
“Chaffee is not an old Skye world,” Jasek said, putting the emphasis where it belonged, “though certainly we have shared interests several times over the centuries. It was hurt badly when the Falcons used their blistering agent on the population, but at its core the world is Lyran. It belongs with the Commonwealth. Any lingering feelings of abandonment will fade with time and freedom.”
He was not referring only to Chaffee, or to the Falcons. Duke Vedet raised an eyebrow as he absorbed Jasek’s meaning, and nodded. “I have guests I should greet. Allow me to introduce you.”
If Jasek thought that business was finished for the evening, Duke Vedet quickly disabused him of that notion as he introduced senior officers in the Lyran Commonwealth’s standing army and several civilian officials. All of them were interested in what Jasek had seen and done on Chaffee, what was going on among the old Isle of Skye worlds, and his take on the Jade Falcon incursion.
“We never believed the Jade Falcon ambassador who claimed their forces were merely on a long-strike expedition to hunt down and destroy the Steel Wolves.” Jerome Boxleitner was a senior aide to the planetary administrator, specializing in interworld relations. “But what were we to do? The Falcons’ army dwarfed the entirety of what we had in the region, and not even fifty-odd years of relative peace have been enough to make us forget the damaging losses our military saw in the decades of violence between 3050 and 3080.”
Jasek nodded in acknowledgment. “But what if the Clanners chose to bypass The Republic and strike here at Hesperus? What if next time they decide to wipe their feet on you as they strike for Terra?”
“ ‘What if’ is a dangerous game,” Boxleitner said with a pinched expression. “For example, what if they had actually held to their word and rid your Republic of the Wolves?”
“But they didn’t. Far from it. Instead, they struck Porrima, an ancestral holding of House Steiner.” Jasek’s raised voice drew a few nearby military officers into the discussion. Joss Vandel nodded surreptitiously. “And on Chaffee, your citizens were abused with a blistering agent. Who knows what horror they will visit on the next world they attack? Does it matter if that world is Republic, and not Lyran?”
“Shouldn’t it matter?” a young leutnant-general asked.
From his decorations, Jasek saw that he was a sharpshooter and had received several unit citations on his way up the chain of command. Which was interesting, as the man had no campaign ribbons and—Jasek noted—bore no callus on his hands that would indicate he held a weapon regularly. Or at all. Another social general.
“It didn’t matter to me,” was all Jasek said. He caught several people nodding, swayed, if not convinced. Yet.
Trillian tapped Jasek on the elbow, extracting him from the small crowd. “I’d like you to try the Sarpsborg shrimp. They just set some out.” Her casual approach lasted until they were out of earshot of the crowd. “You’re very good when you know what you want.” She used a long skewer to place three tiny pieces of curled, pink meat on his plate. “But do you understand what it is you are asking?” She shook her head.
The shrimp tasted bitter. No doubt an acquired taste. “If Duke Vedet thought it would soften the blow for the no to come from family,” Jasek told her, sensing a refusal of his appeal, “you should remind him that our relationship is quite distant.”
Her blue eyes were the color of a summer sky, and hard as diamonds. “You’ve made many good points. Likening the Commonwealth to a doormat was an ingenious metaphor.”
“If the muddy boot fits,” he said with a forced smile. “Look. The Isle of Skye was a thorn in the side of the Commonwealth for centuries. I know that. But you must still feel some obligation to its people, or we wouldn’t be talking.”
“Let us say that Duke Brewster agrees to help you. He might, you know. With the resources at his disposal, and the general level of military downsizing since Devlin Stone’s Terran Accords, Hesperus has never been better defended. We can afford to be generous. And sitting here on our hands while the Jade Falcons tramp among our worlds does not sit well with anyone.”
Jasek did not miss that his cousin had shifted from talking of Duke Vedet to saying “we” and “our.” He felt a surge of hope.
“However”—she raised a hand—“if Skye is successfully defended, with or without our help, it may drive the Jade Falcons back into Lyran space. Would you have us go to war in place of The Republic?”
“I wouldn’t ask that of you unless Skye was willing to stand apart from The Republic, and at your side.”
“Then how can you ask for the one, while not guaranteeing the other?”
Now Jasek did smile. They were getting close to a bargain, and even as an expatriate Lyran he enjoyed a good negotiation. “If that is truly your concern, Trillian Steiner, I believe I can set your fears at ease. If I accomplish what I have planned, the Jade Falcons will not be able to turn their eye on the Lyran state for some time.”
“You are saying we’d be risking very little?”
“No, I’m going to ask you to risk quite a lot. But it comes with an insurance policy. Win, lose, or draw, the Falcons will not be coming back into the Lyran Commonwealth.”
“How can you promise that?”
Jasek Kelswa-Steiner picked up another glass of wine, took a healthy swig, and told her.
25
Sutton Road
Skye
30 November 3134
The floor of Tara Campbell’s New London command post was a poured slab, raked rough and not quite level. Hasty construction. Capped wires stuck out of electrical conduits where power outlets had not been installed. Cinder block walls sweated condensation from a lack of proper heating. The smell of fresh cement mixed with the ozone scent of warm electronics; that, and a low ceiling, made the large, long room feel smaller than it was.
Tara Campbell rocked back on her heels, as if testing the floor’s slight tilt, but kept her gaze fastened on the workstation monitor where a sensor technician framed the Jade Falcons’ DropShip insertion. An amber band marked the hazy boundary between stratosphere and space. Seventeen red-glowing icons trailed dashed lines to mark the DropShips’ progress. Seventeen! Half of them now edged into the amber band.
Conversation in the room was hushed, mostly an exchange of tense, clipped sentences. The weight of the Jade Falcon arrival over Skye sat heavily on the shoulders of every military person in the room. More than a few glanced upward, as if able to see through steel, ferrocrete, and several meters of dirt, and the hundreds of kilometers of atmosphere.