7

Over Zebebelgenubi
23 September 3134

Alexia Wolf braced one hand on either side of the doorframe and leaned into the control cabin of the S-7A’s passenger module. It smelled of warm electronics and sweat. The cabin’s twelve square meters was cramped with three pilot’s chairs and what looked like enough control circuitry to fly a DropShip. For the shuttle “bus” it seemed overkill. At least to a MechWarrior.

“How much longer?” she asked, seeing only stars through the forward ferroglass window.

“Fifteen seconds more than it’d be if I didn’t have to answer your question.”

She knew that Leutnant James Richárd resented having to give up his Eisensturm fighter craft in order to make this ferry run, but Alexia saw no reason not to tap her best pilot when she wanted a quick and uncomplicated rendezvous. This entire mission had been hastily put together and run at a dangerous, breakneck pace. Only nine days—completed in half the time it would have taken a regular DropShip run from Nusakan to jump point, and jump point back to Zebebelgenubi. Now, with her Tharkan Strikers outbound from their reconnaissance raid, she intended to report in person to Jasek Kelswa-Steiner.

The Stormhammers’ leader was incoming from the same “pirate point” her Strikers had used for their own stealthy approach to the world. One of the best uses to which Jasek had put his intelligence units was identifying every nonstandard jump point for every system the Stormhammers visited. There were some dangers in operating JumpShips so deep in a gravitational field, but these were acceptable when weighed against the strategic advantage of fast, stealthy travel.

It did tend to make warriors a bit jumpy, however.

“Just get us there in one piece,” she said, “and before they hit atmosphere.”

Richárd nodded. Then, without warning, gravity bent onto its left side as maneuvering thrusters fired a long hard burst to turn the bus to starboard. A long curved wall of gray armor edged into view. Jasek’s Himmelstor, Heaven’s Gate. The massive Excalibur-class DropShip fell through space scant meters from them. The circular ring of a docking hardpoint was so close Alexia wondered if the front of the bus would scrape against it.

“Rolling,” Richárd did warn her this time. Barely.

Attitude jets fired and gravity swam in a sickening direction as the shuttle craft continued to turn but now added a side-over roll in order to expose its belly to the sixteen-thousand-ton vessel. Alexia hung in with hands and feet braced in the doorframe, and her stomach in her throat. A second burst from the jets stilled all movement. Then one last shove upward as the bus lowered itself against the Excalibur’s hull. Alexia felt her ponytail lift against the back of her neck. A dull, metallic gong rang through the small vessel as docking collars mated; a clockwork ratcheting followed as the seal was made.

Now the bus looked back along the length of the egg-shaped Excalibur. Twenty meters up from the docking collar, an old insignia had been inexpertly painted over. A dark outline peeked from under the light gray, visible enough to be recognizable as the Roman profile of the Principes Guards. Eventually, the blue shield and cross of the Archon’s Shield unit would be painted over it, and The Republic’s last claim on the Himmelstor would be gone.

Alexia swallowed hard. “You did that on purpose,” she accused the grinning leutnant.

“You bet I did,” he agreed. “Passengers shouldn’t be out of their seats. It’s for your own safety.”

Richárd liked to use as many contractions as he could manage—a habit most Clan warriors considered lazy, a debasing of the language—as another way to needle his superior. But Alexia was freeborn, and not raised in a strict Clan environment. She could deal with his relaxed attitude, and she could appreciate a joke.

“It’s a good thing for you that you’re such a hot flyer,” she said, making the contractions sound fairly natural. “In fact, maybe I should assign you as our permanent shuttle pilot.”

His look of horror was exaggerated, but not by a great deal.

Knowing she’d scored a point, Alexia left him to shut down the shuttle. She swam back through null-gravity to reach the docking collar, already opened by another crewman who stood by to exit the shuttle after her. Alexia crouched, levered herself over the circular hatch, and with a pull on the raised lip she floated slowly down, extending her legs as she fell.

Strong hands caught her around the waist.

The grip tightened into a familiar embrace, guiding her into the ninety-degree turn that would take her from the shuttle’s orientation to that of the DropShip. She closed her eyes, easing her shift in equilibrium, and smiled. When she opened her eyes, Jasek Kelswa-Steiner was planting her feet on the DropShip’s deck, grinning his best, brightest smile. He anchored her with one of his own feet braced against the deck and the other against the wall, tucked under a low rail. His strength and the angular lines of his face were very, very male. His flawless bronze skin and indigo eyes set him apart from most other men Alexia had known. He looked like a holovid star, but was every part a warrior.

“You’re late,” he whispered, leaning toward her.

She felt the pull of him deep inside her gut. Alexia winked, then glanced meaningfully toward the hatch where the feet of one of her shuttle crewmen appeared. Jasek rolled his eyes, then spun her to the wall, where she secured herself with one hand on a nearby ladder.

“We’ll have gravity in about sixty seconds,” he told the crewman. “Get everyone off the shuttle.” He returned the man’s salute and then gestured Alexia up the ladder.

With Jasek following after her, the two swam into the upper decks of the Himmelstor. Warning Klaxons blared a short alarm as they reached officers’ country. Standing away from any descending hatches, they clung to the wall and waited as the DropShip’s massive drives rumbled back to life in the engineering spaces far below. Gravity returned with the deceleration burn, pushing them down against the deck. Alexia’s knees protested under several extra kilograms of sudden weight.

“We’ll burn at one-point-two gravities for a few hours to make up for lost decel time,” he told her. “You’re late.”

“It is not like I was on a regimented schedule. Orders to ‘go and find out’ do not lend themselves to precision planning. But I am fine and all personnel accounted for. Thank you for asking.”

Jasek grinned, then laughed. “We’ve been a terrible influence on you. Your superiors would hardly know what to do with you anymore.”

“That was the general idea, was it not?”

After failing her original Trial of Position as a warrior, Alexia had been expected to settle into one of the other pseudocastes on Arc-Royal. Or turn mercenary, if the Kell Hounds would have her. Instead, she had placed herself under geis, embarking on a journey to find her true place. Few Clans practiced such a custom anymore, but Alexia had a drop or two of Sea Fox blood in her as well, and that was enough to push her toward a different destiny. Receiving this second chance at a warrior’s life, she had paid back every confidence Jasek had shown her, with loyalty and sterling service.

“All right,” Jasek surrendered, starting down the corridor again. “I knew you didn’t take serious casualties or you would have radioed those ahead. Any wounded?”

“One broken shoulder from a bad ejection. We lost one scout ’Mech, two vehicles, and I think we’ll need to send a battlesuit back for complete reconditioning.”

Jasek winced. “That’s a high price in materiel. I hope what you brought back was worth it.” He palmed open the door to his personal office, adjacent to his shipboard quarters. “The Highlanders are still alive?”

Alexia entered the room, saw that no one waited for them, and collapsed gratefully into one of the bolted-down chairs. Jasek’s desk had a map of Zebebelgenubi displayed on the touch-sensitive glass top. Leaning forward, she isolated a stretch of coastal mountains on Zebebelgenubi’s northern continent. The map scrolled open to a larger plot. And then again.

“Here,” she said, bracing her forearm against the edge of the desk. She took a stylus from its holder and drew blue Xs in two distinct clusters. “The Highlanders have broken into two mixed lances. As of fourteen hours ago, they have been unable to regroup.”

“And the Falcons?”

Producing a data crystal, Alexia slotted it into one of the empty sockets that lined one edge of the desk. “Force estimates,” she explained. Then she tapped for a new color—red—and sketched rough lines along the coast and spearheading from an interior highway system.

“Solid lines on both sides, preventing any escape. The Highlanders would be dead by now except for it is all old mining country in there. False positives on magscan make it easy to hide, and there are dozens of old caves to use as base camps. Old-growth forests and treacherous ground. The Highlanders even collapsed an entire cliff face on top of an advancing Jade Falcon column—a classic Twycross Trap.”

Jasek studied the topographical map and the enemy force estimates. His level of intense concentration reminded Alexia of a marksman about to fire a pistol. His entire body was taut, breathing shallow. One last breath drawn inward . . . and hold. Jasek’s eyes tightened with his decision.

“We’ll hit from the coast,” he said, “and then work our way inward until we find the Highlanders. After that, we’ll secure an LZ and call in the Himmelstor and your Star Chaser for pickup.”

Just the two, she noted. And again, there was no one else here for what should have been a mission planning session. “What about the Eclipse? Or the Friedensstifter?” Both DropShips were used by the Lyran Rangers on a regular basis. Both should have been available.

“Delayed, and I didn’t want to wait another forty-eight hours for them to catch up. I have a lance of the Archon’s Shield on board and a reinforced company of Rangers. More than enough for a rescue mission.”

“Not if the fighting turns nasty down there. Jasek, I—”

“No, Alex.” He didn’t even wait to hear her pitch. Moving to a refrigerated sideboard, he retrieved two soft drinks in zero-G bottles. “I know what you are going to ask.”

“It should be my warriors leading the mission. We have been down there. We have bled for the information we currently possess.”

He shook his head, sipped at his drink. “I sent the Tharkan Strikers ahead because your light-armor company was best suited for an intelligence raid. But you said it yourself. Your people are banged up and down too much equipment. And they’re still pretty green. You will stay on station as our reserve force, but I don’t intend to let the Falcons take a second bite at you.”

“Instead you will give them a shot at the Stormhammers’ commander? Where is the logic behind that?” But she knew how much it had pained Jasek to sit on Nusakan, waiting and watching. He was too much a warrior born not to lead the fight now that he was finally able to act. “Do you even have another officer to second you?”

“Tamara Duke,” he said with forced casualness.

She shook her head. Of course. Colonel Petrucci would dump that snake’s nest of problems into Jasek’s care. “Well, that makes me feel better.”

“It should. She’s one of the best officers I have, Alex.” He moved behind her, placing lean hands on her shoulders. “What’s your real complaint?” He kneaded the muscles that bunched in knots above each shoulder blade.

“In the Clans, we would consider it an honor—and our right—to finish the mission we started.” Despite her unwillingness, his hands were loosening the tension in her back.

“You’re not Clan right now,” he reminded her. “You’re not even Lyran, despite your birth on Arc-Royal. You’re a Stormhammer. That means you go where we go. And I’m going to use the best resources I have to accomplish any mission. No favorites. No calling dibs.”

Alexia shrugged away his hands. “Dibs?” she asked.

“Never mind. I’m simply asking you to trust me, Alexia. I haven’t let you down yet, have I?”

“Not yet.” She stood, turned to look at him with a coy smile. “But there might be a first time. Maybe you need some more practice?”

Jasek laughed. “We’re on a mission, Leutnant-colonel Wolf.”

Her frown was only half serious. That was the rule they had set down for themselves. One of the rules, anyway, and hardly the most important one. “It is not because she is here, is it?”

“You know better.”

“I suppose I do.” She sighed. “I’m going to get cleaned up before we meet with the duke and the others, then.” Alexia stepped into him, hands coming to his chest as she leaned up to deliver a quick, biting nip on the edge of his strong chin. Then she pushed him back, stepping around him for the door. “You might regret all your rules and discipline some day.”

The Stormhammers’ leader nodded, already circling around to the far side of his desk, studying the map once again. “So you keep saying,” he needled.

“Ha.” Her laugh pulled his gaze up from the map. “Wolves are territorial creatures, but I’m not staying with you forever, Jasek. I told you that before.”

“You did,” he agreed. Her threatening to leave, to continue her geis, was a standing joke between them. “But I might leave you first,” he reminded her. His usual return volley.

The smile she left him with, playful and just a little bit dangerous, told him exactly how likely she thought that was.