Blood of the Isle mda-11 Read online

  “Or will be soon,” she agreed with a curt nod.

  But who knew which way they would jump? The latest reports had Stormhammer units striking across three different prefectures on intelligence-gathering raids. What Jasek Kelswa-Steiner was looking for, and how he would act on that information, were anyone’s guess. The two warriors spent a few moments discussing the possibilities, drawing Duke Gregory into the conversation almost against his will.

  “You are wasting your time,” he finally said.

  McKinnon shrugged. “I’ve felt that way ever since arriving on Skye.”

  Tara placed a calming hand on the Paladin’s arm. “Why do you say that, Lord Governor?”

  The statesman leaned back against a table, combed fingers lightly through his beard. His posture and his tone said that he thought it obvious.

  “If you could predict what Jasek is up to, then so could his enemies. He can’t have lasted as long as he has without staying three jumps ahead of everyone else around him. The boy learned his lessons well.”

  Tara heard a bit of frustration mixed in with that reluctant pride. She thought she knew the reason. After Skye’s victory over the Jade Falcons, the duke had mentioned to her renewed attempts to contact his son. Apparently, Jasek was still managing to confound his father too. It made her wonder more about the absent Kelswa-Steiner heir.

  “We still need to take him into account,” Tara said diplomatically. The duke lapsed back into silence. She shrugged and turned back to McKinnon. “We’ve had Stormhammers sighted on Ko and Alphecca, and we know they’ve sent agents to Galatea. Drumming up mercenary support?”

  “It’s not a bad idea. One we might need to consider as well. Funds are easier to get out of Terra right now than equipment.”

  “Promises are even easier,” Duke Gregory said with a frown.

  McKinnon stifled his first reaction. “With the election of a new Exarch taking place in three months, Damien Redburn is simply being prudent. He does not want to burden the incoming Exarch with a host of new commitments.”

  “We also know that a small outfit from Jasek’s Lyran Rangers recently suffered severe casualties on Ryde.” Tara tried to ignore the byplay, keeping the edge of their focus on local problems.

  “What my son wishes to call his deserters is his business,” Duke Gregory said. “Those were lost elements of the Principes Guards who died on Ryde.”

  Tara shrugged, and the Lord Governor glared at her for the implied dismissal. “Whatever we wish to call them, we cannot ignore the fact that Jasek may be looking for some payback. Also, if Ryde falls, Kimball II becomes vulnerable again. He may be thinking to add them to his own resources.”

  “If he’s at all intelligent, he is.” McKinnon tugged at a cuff as if it irritated him. The dress uniform draped over the elderly warrior’s hard-muscled body with flattering lines, but he would clearly be more at home in a field uniform. Or a cooling vest. “But the Falcons have them now. And with Glengarry and Zebebelgenubi, and Summer and Alkaid in Prefecture VIII, they are close to controlling this entire region of space.”

  “Skye controls Prefecture IX,” the Lord Governor proclaimed with indignation. His thinning hair on top gave him a pronounced widow’s peak. Tara saw his scalp flush up inside his hairline. “Not my wayward son and certainly not a band of Clan marauders.”

  McKinnon jumped back at Gregory Kelswa-Steiner with a cold frost in his voice. “There are eight, maybe ten planets that mean a damn between Yed Posterior and Dubhe. You are in firm control of exactly one of them, Lord Governor. Make no mistake, the Falcons are winning this war.”

  Duke Gregory shook his head adamantly. “Skye remains the heart of Prefecture IX. Which is why we must not—we will not—give it up. Look at what has happened with the fall of Liao. The Capellan Confederation gutted Prefecture V. I will not see the same crisis of morale taking place in the Isle!”

  “Now, did that attitude come before or after you drove away your son and four-fifths of your standing military?”

  Long enough! Tara quickly stepped in between the two men with a raised hand and a calm voice. “If Skye can be saved at all, it will only be if we work together, gentlemen. Lord Governor, we need the support of Terra and Exarch Redburn, and of whoever replaces him. Sire McKinnon is a welcome asset.” She waited, pressing her will against the petulant Duke until he nodded once, conceding the point and the initiative.

  “And Sire McKinnon?” He met her gaze with a defiant stare. “If you have any further criticisms on how things were handled before you arrived”—she paused, giving him the chance to open his mouth—“button it,” she ordered. “We will work with what we have, not with what we might have had.”

  The willful Paladin recoiled slightly, startled at her quick and ruthless move to take control of the meeting. Then he tucked his chin down toward his chest and raised a hand to tip an imaginary hat in her direction. It wasn’t a complete accord, but it seemed that in a ruthless grab for the throat, Tara had brokered at least a cease-fire. It was enough.

  Now maybe they could all get to work.

  “Very efficient,” McKinnon complimented Tara later.

  After several long meetings, only the first of which was with the Lord Governor and the Paladin, she had retreated onto the local military compound for a measure of privacy. Granted, sitting in the officers’ club wasn’t exactly putting out a No Trespassing sign, but at least here there would be no press, no mercantile agencies telling her how impossible it was to reassign shipping priorities to her schedule, and no grieving family members wanting to tell her how much they understood her actions in the defense of Skye.

  She could sit quietly here, enjoy the bluesy music that the O-club offered, and knock back a few neat whiskeys. Her largest problem was fending off the occasional request to buy her a drink. After her first ten refusals, word got around.

  Her easiest victory of the day.

  Which suffered a reversal as the Paladin slid into the chair opposite her. His weathered hands gripped the edge of the table with the strength of twin anchors. He did not ask permission to join her. He simply assaulted the private table as he no doubt would any other target. His hard gaze dropped to the table, to the single bottle of whiskey and the tumbler that held a splash of smoky liquid.

  Efficient?

  “It beats having to wait for the waiter, or making frequent trips to the bar,” she said.

  “I meant the way you tricked me into playing ‘bad cop’ this morning, and then managed to shut me down at the same time. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you enjoyed that.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t. But it was necessary.” She had a sense that McKinnon wanted to discuss something else but had decided to lead in with this. All right. She could play that game. “I knew if I got the subject around to the worlds taken, you and the Lord Governor would butt heads.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I’d expect nothing less from a Founder’s Movement supporter.” A raised eyebrow was his only response. “I had you checked out,” she admitted. “Used a JumpShip relay through Muphrid. Made certain that you were under the Exarch’s direct orders.”

  She signaled for a second glass and, when it arrived, splashed a drink into it for him from her bottle. “Nothing personal.”

  “And the Exarch included a word or two about me and my associates,” he said, nodding. “I’m not the most popular man in certain circles right now. I believe that the borders of The Republic should be held at all costs, and I don’t mind saying so.” He leaned onto the table. “I didn’t get where I am today by being soft-spoken, Countess. And when I see something that needs doing, I’d rather act than jaw it out.”

  “Is that why you aren’t on Terra, preparing for the elections?” she asked. “The first election of an Exarch since Devlin Stone handed over power?”

  McKinnon had mentioned them earlier, and it had surprised Tara to realize that Damien Redburn’s time in office was nearly up. Soon the Paladins woul
d choose his successor from among their number. That would seem to be a fairly large undertaking by itself.

  “Wondering what you’re missing, giving up Redburn’s offer to be a Paladin? Truth and honor, and more backroom deals than in a Liao Moneylender’s House?” McKinnon’s smile was not completely without humor. He picked up his glass and sloshed the smoky liquid back and forth. A warm scent of oak and barley wafted up.

  “I have people watching over things for me, and the elections are still three months off,” he added. Which wasn’t so far, given the blackout and disruptions to interstellar travel. “Anyway, Victor Steiner-Davion and his diehards have the election sewn up tight. No one’s going to cross him. And I’d rather do something productive than spend my time shouting into the wind. I’ll leave that to Kelson Sorenson and to the Pillars of The Republic.”

  “I don’t know that I believe that,” Tara said slowly. “Today, with Duke Gregory, you nearly agreed with him once. When he chastised Exarch Redburn for moving more promises off Terra than assistance.”

  McKinnon’s eyes were diamond hard. But he nodded. “Saw that, did you?”

  “I can appreciate your loyalty to the Exarch. But a hero of the Jihad, and a man with more than sixty years experience…” She shook her head. “He should be listened to.”

  “I’ll have my say when the time is right,” he promised. “And they might not like it.” He hedged. “Actually, I guarantee they won’t like it, but that’s just too bad.” He chuckled dryly. “In the meantime I’m here, Countess. Here to help.”

  Tara toyed with her glass, rolling the whiskey around the sides in a perpetual wave. “I’m glad that you are,” she admitted. “But… victory at any cost?” She chewed on the words, and they left behind a bitter aftertaste. They reminded her of someone else. A person she would rather forget. “The Lord Governor wasn’t so thrilled with the idea of hiring more mercenaries off Galatea,” she told him, trying to segue into an easier topic. It was one of Duke Gregory’s few concessions during the morning’s meeting.

  If he caught on to the deception, he didn’t show it.

  “Why not? Taxes can be levied. But Skye?” He shook his head. “It cannot be replaced easily if we lose it.”

  Tara had her own worries about relying too heavily on warriors for hire, despite her own unit’s history of mercenary service during the Succession Wars. Most of it stemmed from the trouble her Highlanders were running into on half a dozen different worlds, putting down local rebellions backed by mercs bought off Galatea. She voiced as much to McKinnon, who shrugged.

  “In this case, since Clanners don’t use mercenaries, I think we have the better side of the deal.” He finally tasted his drink, and then sat back, pleasantly surprised. “Glengarry Black Label?” Tara spun the bottle halfway around. “They stock that in the officers’ club?”

  “Not for under two hundred bills—ComStar currency, not Republic stones–and the price keeps going up. I don’t see the Falcons allowing regular exports off-world. Do you?” A shame. The drink was the closest equivalent she had found to good Northwind Reserve from the Highlanders’ home world.

  The Paladin finished off his drink with a practiced flourish, tipped the glass over upside down, and set it back on the table. He pushed his chair back, as if to leave, then asked, “Why did you have me checked out? My bonafides were all in order.”

  And verifaxes couldn’t be forged. Tara nodded. “All right. I wanted to ask the Exarch directly for his opinion of you.”

  “What’s wrong with your own opinion?”

  She laughed, short and sharp and not with much humor. “Let’s just say that my own judgment has been lacking of late.” Of course, McKinnon would have seen the report that had gone back to the Exarch. “I let a Lyran agent get close to me recently. Too close.” Was this what the grand Paladin had actually wanted to talk about? Rub her nose in it?

  “The Knave.” McKinnon used the agent’s coded identity. “He did us a favor, you know, killing Augustus Solvaig. That man was poison, and would have hurt us a great deal.”

  “The mission doesn’t matter.” Through Tara, the agent from Loki had gained access to the highest levels. It came out only later that Skye’s chief minister, Solvaig, had been a plant from the fractured Free Worlds League. “It could just as easily have been the Lord Governor, or Prefect Brown. In the middle of the Jade Falcon assault, any of a dozen different losses might have led to a critical failure of our entire plan.”

  “Instead, the Knave followed you out onto the battlefield. Even saved your life.”

  “Skye might have been lost.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to deal in might-have-beens.”

  “It was a lapse in judgment,” she said quietly, forcefully. “And after…,” she trailed off, nearly spilling out what no one else needed to know. The man she was still trying to forget.

  But McKinnon knew. “Ezekiel Crow,” he said simply.

  “What? How did—”

  “It took some time for the rumors to catch up. As it happens a… a concerned Knight looking into the recent actions of Paladin Crow brought them off Northwind.”

  Tara set her glass down hard. “Great. The scandalvids are going to love this one.”

  “The scandalvids don’t have this, and no reason they should. Exarch Redburn has it. I believe you can rely on his discretion, and mine.”

  But the wounds were still there, barely scabbed over. Paladin Ezekiel Crow had betrayed The Republic on Northwind, betrayed her, working against the state’s interests and putting Highlanders at risk. On Terra, shortly thereafter, he had proved what a treacherous man he’d truly been. He’d attempted to assassinate Paladin Jonah Levin, and interfered in the planet’s defense against the Steel Wolves. Tara had been so certain she was falling for the man. Hard.

  “When he died on Terra, I thought it was finally over.”

  When Tara had destroyed his ’Mech. Killed him.

  McKinnon held back just a heartbeat too long, his face frozen into a hard mask. Deliberating. She spread her hands over the table’s slick Formica finish. “He’s not dead.”

  “He’s dead,” the Paladin said softly, “but not on Terra.” He saw her eyes widen. “No, not by my hand either. He ended up on the world of Liao, fighting against the Confederation takeover.”

  Why? Why would the Paladin dredge this up? It had been his reason for searching her out from the beginning, she knew. The rest had been establishing a rapport, easing into this. “Trying to redeem himself,” she scoffed, not wanting to believe it.

  “He did, Tara. He did.” McKinnon recounted some of the details of Ezekiel Crow’s last days. His mistakes and his desperate attempts to make up for them, and the alleged blackmail that had ruined a good man. A Paladin of the Sphere. “You’re going to hear more about him as the news filters out. Some of it is worse than you could imagine. Some tragic. But in the end, he was a citizen and a patriot. I thought maybe you should know that.”

  “Why?” she asked, picking up her glass again.

  “So maybe the next time you doubt your own judgment, you’ll remember. No man wears a simple white or black hat, Tara.” He stood, and gave her a slow nod. “Not even a Paladin.” Which sounded as much a warning as a consolation.

  It gave her something to think about after McKinnon had left, when the privacy she had sought earlier came rolling back over her like a juggernaut. It did help, she discovered, knowing that she hadn’t been the one to kill Ezekiel. That he had died redeemed at least in the eyes of one other. But it also reopened the wounds deep inside, which bled with new grief. For that, she wasn’t going to thank David McKinnon anytime soon.

  From now on, she resolved, she would put The Republic first and always.

  A thrill trembled over her skin and Tara was surprised at the sense of rightness she felt, making that vow to herself. It wasn’t just that personal entanglements didn’t seem worth the pain and the threat of failure they carried. Whatever the Paladin had hoped to help her unders
tand by talking about Ezekiel, she suddenly understood that the most important relationship she’d developed over recent years had, in fact, been her devotion and loyalty to The Republic. That relationship deserved her attention.

  It would be a relief, she decided, to focus all her energy on The Republic. At least for now. But she also wondered, had McKinnon known how deeply his news would touch her?

  And had the Paladin truly helped her or not?

  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.