If he returned.

“Anything else?” Alexia asked curtly. “Perhaps there is something more that you need, and cannot get for yourself?”

Tamara’s face pulled down into a neutral mask. She read between the lines, all right. “More armored plating would be of help.”

“Is that specifically requested in those orders?” She knew that it was not. Tamara shook her head. “Then clear that truck out of my area.”

“We’ll be back,” Tamara Duke promised her. Knocking on the cab window, she made a complicated gesture which basically came down to an order to pull the truck outside of the Assemblies plant. Tamara jumped up onto the running board. On the back, the work crew hunkered down for the drive.

“Cut the support we are giving the Rangers by one-third,” Alexia told GioAvanti when it was just the two of them left. “I will answer for it when Jasek returns.”

Still staring after Tamara Duke’s departure, GioAvanti shook his head. “No. I will answer for anything that goes on at this facility.” He turned his impassive stare back to Alexia. “And I won’t slow the Rangers down any more than necessary. Take an additional maintenance bay and bump back the next Ranger machine by one slot. Skye needs both of you at the best strength possible.”

It was a fair decision, and Alexia knew better than to let her personal feelings interfere with intercaste relations. As she had found out at her own Trial of Position, being in the right—even being the better warrior—was not always enough.

“When Colonel Petrucci marches in here and cuts further into our maintenance and repairs?” she asked. “What then?”

“I will do what I can to keep the Stormhammers functioning smoothly,” the young merchant promised. “Even if that means letting the Rangers have their head.”

From a man who had quietly but confidently supported her Strikers over the last several weeks, the hedging answer seemed a borderline disrespect. “Whose side are you on, Niccolò?”

The man shrugged. “Jasek’s,” he answered simply.

There was no arguing that. Though Alexia Wolf could not help one last glance at the retreating truck. “So should we all be,” she said. “So should we all.”

But she was beginning to doubt it.

29

Norfolk

Skye

9 December 3134

Jade Falcon forces holding the Shipil Company’s Norfolk dockyards had been strengthened until it was the Clan’s entire center of operations against the allied defenders.

It had been Noritomo Helmer’s Seventh Striker Cluster that first secured the facility, only a day after their terrifying course through New London, and the Star colonel had quickly converted the same set of offices used by the Steel Wolves into his command post. In this room, which had once been an executive dining area, Clan technicians removed high-current vending machines and an array of personal cooking devices, installing in their place a holographic tank and several computer terminals. It made for an adequate tactical planning room if one could ignore the baked-in smells of grease and the seasoned tomato sauce that Skye civilians apparently liked to pour over most food.

He stood inside the holographic display, walking like a titan over the rocky plateau of Bar-Tania where a double lance from his Striker Cluster protected the salvage of a Stormhammers Behemoth. The assault tank was much slower than Jade Falcon warriors preferred, but as losses mounted on both sides, such an asset was crucial to future operations.

For this reason, and this alone, he ignored Malvina Hazen for several critical moments while he used the satellite-imaged map to set a picket line in case the Lyran Rangers should try to double back and rescue their machine.

Wearing a command glove, he drew a circle in the air above a line of jagged, boulder-strewn hills. A white halo formed where he had sketched it. The computer added intersecting lines to turn it into horizontal crosshairs, and then the entire device flashed down to lay itself over the scrub brush and sparse grass.

It changed to a pulsing red.

With one finger, he tabbed open a nearby icon that floated above the plateau like a miniature sun. A drop-down window opened up, listing several communication codes. He chose one, double tapping it with the same forefinger. On his headset, a channel crackled to life.

“Aff, Star Colonel?”

“Bogart. Set a pair of strategic missile carriers out here behind this slope. They will have some protection, and a good range of open coverage.”

The freeborn Star captain acknowledged the order, and the circle changed from pulsing red to gold. Forces were on their way.

When Noritomo finally turned back to Galaxy Commander Hazen, it was with a measure of trepidation. Malvina gripped the fencing that bordered the holotank with white-knuckled strength. Bloodless fingers formed claws around the metal rail, and her right eye burned with a fire that was new. She started to speak, twice, and both times found herself unable to use her voice.

Noritomo had seen Malvina Hazen angry. Furious, even. He’d also seen her burning with a cold rage that threatened to consume anyone who crossed her at that moment—and he had been the closest one just then.

But until now, he had not believed her possible of a spitting fury that threatened all reason.

“Your forces,” she said slowly, “were in position to move against Cyclops, Incorporated. Why did you not attack?”

He stripped the headset from his ear, tossing it to a nearby aide who would continue to monitor the salvage operation. The command glove he kept, tucking it into his belt.

“I saw no benefit to spending military resources against an impotent target. The Roosevelt Island complex has been neutered. Instead”—he gestured to the holographic terrain around his feet—“we managed to inflict severe damage against the Lyran Rangers as they shifted their base camp.”

“The insult behind their televised rebuke is reason enough,” Malvina nearly shouted. “Tara Campbell dares take me to task?”

No honor guard, Noritomo noticed then. No Beckett Malthus to restrain the Chinggis Khan’s more violent impulses. This was Malvina Hazen pressing her will against Noritomo, and it would be best if there were no witnesses. He nodded a dismissal to his aide, and to several technicians who had frozen in place throughout the small cafeteria.

They left with a hurried relief.

“Tara Campbell has identified our weakness,” he said as diplomatically as possible.

“I am not weak, Star Colonel Helmer.”

“The Jade Falcon desant is,” he replied. “For the same reason we identified our primary targets inside The Republic as military-industrial and economic strongholds, we need to capture and stand on the industrial strengths of Skye if we plan to contest this planet over any length of time.”

“Reinforcements arrive from Glengarry and Ryde. We have sufficient force on planet to take this world.”

“But not to hold it. Not if the allied defenders burn every major production facility behind them as they retreat.” He braced himself up, showing no hint of weakness before his commander. “You can bring me into a Circle of Equals for saying so, Galaxy Commander Hazen, but if you continue to match Tara Campbell in this way, you will lose. We all will.”

It was enough to push Malvina nearly over the edge. She pulled down the makeshift fencing, stepping over the fallen rail to confront her Star colonel face-to-face. Her scar stood out in livid color where it hooked down the left side of her face.

“We will not lose. What we will do is show this Tara Campbell that her presumption is far beyond her grasp. I want the Roosevelt Island complex leveled. You will take a DropShip and land it on top of the assembly facility, deploy forces, and sweep the entire island into Truxton Sound.”