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.”

Tara sighed. They would get into that soon enough. “Let’s just say that there have been some changes since you were here last. It’s a different war we’re fighting.”

“But with many of the same allies, it seems. We almost didn’t make the trip, but Jasek seems to believe that we have something about us which is needed here.” Did Kerensky notice the way Tara startled at Jasek’s name? “At least”—she smiled thinly—“by him.”

Was it her taunt or the familiar use of Jasek’s name that warmed the back of Tara’s neck? She caught her discomfort in both hands, and throttled it.

“I’m sure that Jasek made his desires clear.”

“Very,” the other woman said, layering several meanings behind her simple reply. “I have to admit, I find his boldness very refreshing. Unusual in an Inner Sphere leader. He’s a fascinating man, don’t you think?”

There was no doubt now that Kerensky had caught her hesitation. The mocking tone. Her sudden informality. Tara flushed.

“No, I don’t think,” she said crisply.

“Easy, Countess. No autopsy, no foul, quaiff?” She held her hands apart. Shrugged, as if to say it did not truly matter to her at all. Though obviously it did. “If you have some kind of prior claim . . .”

“I do not.”

“Truly? Well, some of his warriors seem to. There was one who I think was most upset that she was sent on to Glengarry while my Steel Wolves accompanied Jasek to Chaffee.”

“Tamara Duke,” Tara said at once, nodding. But Kerensky only smiled cryptically. What was that other one? The commander of the Tharkan Strikers? “Alexia Wolf?” she asked, frowning. The smile did not reach Kerensky’s eyes, and Tara realized that she was being baited. For a woman who was supposedly disinterested . . . damn her!

“I imagine several of Jasek’s officers were displeased with the division of forces.”

Kerensky hedged, as if balancing between desires to continue teasing Tara and to shift over to more serious matters. Serious won. “They were,” she admitted. “Though Paladin McKinnon could not seem to make up his mind whom he’d rather be stuck with.” Her face darkened. “And I hear that the Stormhammers had a hard time escaping Glengarry.”

News of the nuclear weapon had flashed across Skye with dramatic speed after the return of the Glengarry raiders. Not surprising that the Steel Wolves already had it. “It was a tactical nuke. Caught the Freedom’s Fist on descent. With the Friedensstifter taking off, fully loaded, we think there was a mistake in targeting. It could have been much, much worse.”

Not that it wasn’t bad enough. As it was, Tara would be responsible for informing Jasek of the loss of a Union-class vessel, fourteen crewmen, and a dozen embarked technicians. If the leader of the Stormhammers ever returned from Chaffee.

“Where is Jasek, anyway?” she asked, forcing the conversation over to practical matters.

Kerensky pursed her lips. “He sent us ahead almost as soon as he accepted the Jade Falcons’ formal surrender. We had to repair and refit en route. By the time we jumped from Chaffee, he was repairing what units he could from the salvage and stores left behind by the garrison, and after our share.” She shrugged. “Quite honestly, I expected him only a few days behind us. He must have been caught up with something.”

“And Star Colonel Helmer? What of him?”

Now it was Kerensky’s turn to frown. No doubt she thought that her report, transmitted ahead of her arrival, had covered that. “Helmer jumped out of the Chaffee system three hours ahead of us. I would assume to return to Glengarry.”

Tara let Kerensky stew in her assumption a moment. It was a petty revenge, perhaps, for her earlier goading about Jasek, but it would also serve to put the other woman on the defensive, turning her strategic thinking toward the larger problems at hand.

“You would assume that. So would I, in fact. But we have intelligence out of the Glengarry system that is less than a week old, and as far as we can tell no retreating forces from Chaffee have arrived there.” She leaned back against her Shandra. “So the big question is, where did they go?”

If one thing could be said about Anastasia Kerensky, it was that no one put her on the defensive for very long. She waved a hand at Tara. “That’s still a little question,” she said dismissively.

All right. “So what is the big question, then?”

Anastasia Kerensky’s smile widened into a predator’s grin, showing the teeth behind. The question, when she asked it, sent a chill through Tara Campbell. The Countess knew that the Steel Wolf leader had the right of it.

She also knew, without a doubt, that they were fortunate to have her back on Skye.

Tassa Kay blew on her fingertips, flexed the hand like a gunfighter preparing for a speed draw.

“When will they be here?”