36
DropShipHimmelstor
Miliano
Skye
23 December 3134
Tara Campbell supervised the technicians racking David McKinnon’s Atlas into one of the Himmelstor’s ’Mech bay stalls. She had been able to crawl the assault ’Mech off the battlefield under its own power, and so it fell into the salvage exception granted to Jasek Kelswa-Steiner under his deal with the Jade Falcons. Tara felt good for that, at least. She still had hopes of returning the hundred-ton monster to Sire McKinnon.
Someday.
Turning from the alcove, she dodged around a lifter, its forks stacked high with a pallet of supplies, and went looking for Jasek. The bay was a hive of activity, with people rushing around in this last hour of safety. It smelled of blood and soil and nervous sweat. There was so much left to do. Equipment to store, machines to slot into the crowded bay, and people to find some corner where they could ride out what would hopefully be a short trip.
Skirting the edge of the Excalibur’s cavernous main bay, Tara wove between rows of hoverbikes and then a trio of MASH trucks. The mobile-hospital vehicles had been jammed together to form a small medical center right along the curved outer bulkhead. The wounded had been first priority with Jasek, and he had not bothered to separate out Stormhammers or Highlanders or Steel Wolves. Like the machines crowded into the DropShip, many of the wounded had fought under different crests and insignia but were treated with equal attention.
There would be time enough for sorting out the different commands later, after the evacuation. Tara approved. In fact she approved of much—most, even—of what she’d seen from the landgrave.
When she found him at the foot of the DropShip’s secondary ramp, directing the final stages of traffic as three different lines of vehicles converged and jockeyed for position to be included in the retreat, she nodded at that too. He had triaged them fairly well, bringing up military vehicles and flatbeds piled with the salvage the allied defenders had scraped up. The moving vans and the civilian pickup trucks flooding out of Miliano, carrying parts and materiel unloaded from the Avanti Assemblies plant and warehouses—these Jasek had peeled away to one side where they could be unloaded by hand. Now he simply pulled the last few up after the military line, no time left.
When he saw her, he handed the finale off to a master sergeant. One of her Highlanders, as it turned out. Jasek trotted behind a slow-moving J100 recovery vehicle and joined her at the side of the ramp. “Ten minutes,” he said, glancing at his watch.
Tara looked out into the gray afternoon drizzle. She couldn’t see the Jade Falcon line, holding several kilometers back from the cluster of DropShips. But she could sense them out there. Waiting. “You don’t think Helmer will give us a little room?”
“I wouldn’t want to risk lives on it.”
He paused as a long peal of rolling thunder smashed into the conversation—a fusion drive lighting off. From the side of the covered ramp, the two looked north to find a Union blasting off from where it straddled the highway. The next-to-last vessel. It rose slowly at first, then gained speed. In less than a minute it had lost itself among dark gray clouds.
“Actually, if it was Noritomo Helmer, maybe I would,” he finally admitted. “But I won’t gamble anything on Malvina Hazen.”
Tara nodded. “It still seems too easy. We ask to be allowed to pull back, and they just say okay. Too simple.”
“Nothing’s ever that easy, even if it seems like it to us. The Clans have centuries of effort behind their traditions. Maybe it did work against them this time. But having seen how Helmer kept his force intact in the face of such a long drive, I think they might have the right idea.”
Her agreement was grudging. “Still, they have to know we’ll ready a new line and they will have to come at us again. At Roosevelt Island or Cyclops, Incorporated.”
“Well, we have DropShips there as well,” Jasek said, obviously hedging. “Also at the Avanti Armory in New Dublin.”
The two of them followed the final cargo truck up the ramp. Even before they reached the head, the ramp began to retract.
“But why?” she asked. “They seem the best points for a rallied defense of Skye.”
“I agree. They would be.”
Tara almost began to argue, then remembered her own admission on the battlefield. “We’re running,” she whispered again. Then looked to the Stormhammers’ leader. “Jasek, where are you taking us?”
The landgrave looked out at Skye. Fondly. Sorrowfully. The main doors to this bay were beginning to fall, ready to seal it against atmosphere and vacuum. He stared out into the drizzle and the gray, at the fusion-scarred landscape the retreating DropShips were leaving behind, and nodded once, decisively.
“Nusakan,” he told Tara then. “We’re relocating to Nusakan. All of us.” Too late for her to do anything.
Even if there truly had been nothing left to be done.
Standing atop Galaxy Commander Malthus’ Tribune, wary of the company he kept, Noritomo Helmer watched as the final DropShip blasted free of Skye. Fire and steam rolled out in large plumes. The white glare of the fusion drive lit the Excalibur’s underside in a harsh backsplash. The ground shook and Malthus’ mobile HQ swayed on its treads. Noritomo flexed his knees, cautious. The three senior officers waited very close to the forward edge of the crawler, almost two stories up. Beckett Malthus folded arms over a broad chest. Malvina paced along the very edge, as if daring fate to push her over.
Noritomo waited just between them. Trapped.
No one spoke as the artificial thunder continued to crash over them. They waited. A light rain pattered down around the trio, dripping off their emerald green foul-weather ponchos and beading on black, knee-high boots, splashing against wet-black steel. Everything else was drowned out by the throaty rumble of the rising Excalibur.
Jasek’s DropShip. He knew it down in his bones. The Stormhammers’ leader would be the last man away.
“You have a lot to answer for,” Malvina Hazen finally said.
Noritomo pulled himself up to strict attention. “At the commander’s disposal.”
“Aff,” she agreed. Stopping her pacing, she stood balanced on the balls of her feet, with her heels hanging out into space. “And I should have disposed of you several times over. Your list of failures grows impressive, Star Colonel Helmer.”
And yet both Malthus and Malvina Hazen had entered brief commendations into his codex for rescuing the final battle for Skye. An interesting conflict.
“I stand by my decisions,” he stated formally. He would defend them as well, if it came to that, in a Circle of Equals.
“As do I,” Beckett Malthus offered, stepping up next to the Star colonel. His impassive stare let nothing of his personal feelings show, but his words, at least, melted away a small measure of Noritomo’s concern. “Your forward thinking and your adherence to the Way of the Clans earned your reprieve last night.”
The soft-spoken man looked him directly in the eye. “I would have forbidden any punishment against you, Noritomo Helmer. You should know that I did not have to do so.”
Surprised, Noritomo looked to Malvina Hazen, who nodded with something resembling reluctant admiration. “Galaxy Commander Malthus pointed out, and I agreed, that you have done as my brother would have. You held to your personal ideals and honor, and you possibly saved the entire assault on Skye. Certainly you made it happen faster than per our original plans. For that, I am forced to admit that my brother’s ways may not have always been incorrect.”
Grudging, left-handed, but an impressive admittance by Malvina Hazen regardless. “I am honored.”
“You may be yet. We shall see.”
It felt like vindication. Though not without a small price. In the battle, Noritomo had unbent enough himself to recognize Malvina Hazen’s value to the desant and how her way of unbridled war could be properly applied at the right time. Such as his quick-and-ruthless push past Kerensky’s roadblock, subordinating his own honor to that of Beckett Malthus in order to accomplish his goal.
It was a small step to make toward a meeting of philosophies with Malvina Hazen. But a critical one.
“I am Jade Falcon,” he said.
Malvina lifted her obsidian arm, rubbed the knuckles of her artificial fist along her jaw. Coming to a decision, she nodded. “And you will remain on Skye. With me. Galaxy Commander Malthus will oversee matters on Glengarry for the time being, coordinating with our outlying holdings while we rebuild our forces here.
“Your duty, Star Colonel, will be to keep my brother’s spirit alive among our forces. You will continue to challenge me.” Her smile was thin and humorless. “Until you prove yourself wrong or I simply get tired of your incessant meddling.”
One foot in a minefield. The other on slippery ferrosteel. Noritomo could almost wish for an insignificant garrison post. But Clan warriors did not back away from a fight.
“Aff, Malvina Hazen. I understand completely.”
He gave her a short bow, then stepped forward to let the toes of his boots hang out over the crawler’s edge. Purposefully, he did not look in her direction. If she decided to shove him over, let her try it. He would respect the Chinggis Khan, but he would not be afraid of this woman.
In fact, he decided, he might accomplish a great deal should he remain alive long enough. Today, perhaps, he had pushed some of Pandora’s evils back into the box. Enough that he could once again stand proudly as a Jade Falcon warrior. It would be a struggle, keeping that lid on, but he welcomed the challenge.
He glanced back to nod his appreciation to Beckett Malthus, wanting to thank the man for his support and shore up the bridges he had made into that camp. But Malthus was gone, back down the open hatch and into the belly of his Tribune command vehicle. Noritomo had indeed been left alone with Malvina Hazen, for better or for worse.
He stood by her side, silently, watching as the Himmelstor lost itself in the clouds.