24

Maria’s Elegy, Hesperus II
Lyran Commonwealth
25 November 3134

Jasek’s reception on Hesperus II was everything he could have hoped for. And more than he wanted.

For two days he was toured around Maria’s Elegy and the ’Mech factories under Defiance Peak. The city reminded him vaguely of Cheops back on Nusakan, sculpted into the side of several terraced mountains. But Cheops was a poor comparison. The Rises in Maria’s Elegy were steeper, grander, than anything on Nusakan. And the heavy reliance on domed construction gave the entire city a glittering, jewellike presence. As if half the buildings were constructed of faceted crystal, throwing around bright spots of color and more than a few rainbows.

He and Joss Vandel were feasted with local fare, which tasted a bit too much of iron for Jasek’s palate. Sturdy livestock and hardy plants, he imagined. Wines and delicacies were all brought in from off-world by the ruling Brewster family. Not one item came out of The Republic, or Skye. Not even as a courtesy.

Two days.

Jasek wearied of the constant attention and the ultrapolite refusal of anyone in Duke Vedet Brewster’s family to talk business. He never saw Trillian Steiner. His requests for an audience with her went unanswered.

Perhaps his distant cousin felt so far removed from the Kelswa offshoot that she would rather leave him in the generous—if careful—hands of the local nobility.

Caroline Brewster escorted Jasek this evening to what he was certain would be yet another formal dinner engagement, fully scripted right down to the afterdinner conversation, which in no way would touch on events taking place inside the old Isle of Skye. Caroline’s skin was ebony black and her eyes had an exotic fold just at the outer edge. She wore pristine white gloves and a gold-colored cocktail dress. A striking debutant, no doubt meant to distract him from his agenda. Perhaps he was being maneuvered into some noble matchmaking as well, a game not unknown in the Lyran Commonwealth, where marriages for social alliances were even more commonplace than the Inner Sphere norm. He resolved to be on his best behavior, and on his guard.

So when Trillian Steiner opened the door herself, with Colonel Vandel standing behind her and Vedet Brewster grazing a nearby table of appetizers, it took Jasek a moment to regain his political feet.

“Cousin,” she greeted him warmly, as if they had seen each other quite recently. Trillian leaned in to give him a chaste peck on the cheek. She embraced Caroline with far more familiarity, bussing her cheeks with a leaning hug. “And Caroline. Good eve.”

Trillian practically glowed, with long golden hair braided behind each shoulder, and alabaster skin that forced her, here on Hesperus II, to extreme precautions to protect that paleness. Though five years younger than Jasek, she carried herself with a graceful confidence common to only the most experienced politicians. This was a young scion of House Steiner who had embraced everything that Jasek had refused in his own heritage. Position. Privilege. She was her family’s direct representative here on Hesperus II, able to charm the local nobility, or stand up to them if the needs of the ruling House diverged from that of the Brewsters.

“You both know Joss Vandel,” she said with just the right timbre of expectation. If she had been a Clansman, Jasek would have expected her to follow up with the rhetorical “Quaiff?” “Joss is an old friend.”

Jasek’s colonel for the Archon’s Shield battalion of the Stormhammers looked perfectly at ease in full Lyran dress, light blue woolen jacket and white stirrup pants, showing off a row of medals won in Lyran service as well as the rank awarded by Jasek. Vandel smiled and half bowed to his commander.

“I was aware that you knew each other,” Jasek said. “I didn’t realize how well.”

Trillian offered her arm to Vandel and allowed the officer to lead her back into the room. There were several guests whom Jasek did not recognize invited to this predinner rendezvous. The most important ones, he felt certain, were within arm’s reach.

“Joss Vandel taught a civics class at Tharkad University. Between assignments.”

Military assignments, or Lohengrin? Jasek doubted that the intelligence service made available a list of agents, but he was equally confident that very little had been withheld from Trillian Steiner. She was being intentionally vague, playing the old game of “What do you know?”

“Indeed.” Jasek plucked a heavy crystal goblet of dark wine from a bed of ice. “I’m sure Colonel Vandel has served the Commonwealth in many useful matters.”

Not the least of which was his current role as leader of a Stormhammer unit and a champion of returning Skye to Lyran rule. An assignment he felt certain Trillian would rather be kept concealed from their hosts.

Duke Vedet Brewster shared his niece’s dark skin but not her exotic eyes. The man had a plain, honest face that was surely a shield for the plans he harbored within. Balancing a small plate of appetizers in one hand, he walked around the end of the table and joined the conversation. “Interesting, don’t you think, that we all find ourselves in the same place just now? Hardly a coincidence, though.”

“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.