The big liquid eyes blinked twice rapidly. “Northwind is a long way from here, Countess,” she said huffily.
“Let us all hope it’s not too far for my soldiers to get here before the Falcons do.”
With a grim “Good day,” Prefect Brown strode off down the hall on her long legs. Tara Campbell stared after her with a gaze like icicles.
“Well,” she said, when she and the other Tara had the corridor to themselves, “I’d say I handled that pretty badly.” “You didn’t punch her,” TB said brightly. “If you made a mistake, ma’am, I’d say it was not lettingme do it.”
15
Jade Falcon Naval Reserve BattleshipEmeraldTalon
Jump Point
Chaffee
Lyran Commonwealth 20 May 3134
“Nestlings of Turkina,” Beckett Malthus’ voice intoned in the darkness, “attend me.”
It was the briefing theater inboard theEmerald Talon . The auditorium, like half a bowl, was full of expeditionary force officers. Malthus stood at a podium with Aleksandr and Malvina Hazen seated flanking him. They were all but unseen in the dark: all eyes were fixed above and behind them, upon the holovid tank displaying a giant map of Prefectures VIII and IX of The Republic of the Sphere and the Lyran Commonwealth frontier, in which Chaffee was highlighted, a glowing green orb bigger and brighter than the rest.
“The time has come,” the Supreme Commander said, “to drop all pretense. Themaskirovka has served its purpose. Now the time has come for the Jade Falcon to swoop in a mightydesant ”
Shrill falcon screams pierced the dark, and cries of “Seyla/"
“In the first wave, Zeta Galaxy shall jump first to Laiaka” A red line descended from Chaffee and to the left, away from Terra and into Prefecture VIII. It touched a star which glowed yellow. “From that staging point, Turkina’s Beak shall have the honor of striking Alkaid”
The line took a short jog down and right to a star that suddenly expanded into a red giant, as if going nova. The Zeta contingent cheered lustily. The Turkina Keshik officers looked bored and restive, and the Gyrs openly hostile, at the scantling Zetas being named first.
“The Gyrfalcon Galaxy”—the Deltas uttered falcon screams—“jumping through Zebeneschamali and Carnwath systems, shall strike at Ryde” A white line zigzagged to the right.
“Finally,” Malthus said, as a third, green line radiated a short distance down and right from Chaffee, “the Turkina Keshik will seize and hold the world of Glengarry.” The Keshik officers maintained an aloof silence, as if to signify to their rivals and inferiors—to be redundant—that they were professionals, and had done this sort of thing before.
“In the second phase, the Keshik will consolidate its hold upon Glengarry and begin its reconstruction according to the Founder’s precepts, as has commenced on Chaffee. Zeta Galaxy will take Summer.”
The red line looped beneath and past Skye, through Alcor and Mizar, then hooked up and right, almost to the border of Prefecture X, The Republic’s core.
The white line forked like lightning. One line stabbed almost straight down, through a system called Unukalahi, and then to a system right next door to Skye, virtually on a line between it and Terra. The other white line thrust a short jump up and right.
“The Gyrfalcons will split at Ryde. One element will take Zebebelgenubi, near our final objective. The other will strike at Kimball II.”
He paused. The cheering, which had devolved into a lusty exchange of insults between the Gyrs and the Zetas, dwindled to silence.
“And then,” Malthus said, “ten weeks from this very day, we rendezvous in Skye system. The Falcon shall spread her wings above Skye itself as all three forces converge. Skye shall fall. The road to Terra will lie open before us, and then Khan Jana Pryde will not withhold the Jade FalconTouman . They will surely join us in our triumph. Our ancient Crusade will be victorious at last: General Kerensky shall have truly returned home!”
“Seyla/ ’’the Falcon’s brood thundered in a voice of one.
“I knew I would find you here.”
The tall, broad-shouldered shape brooding over the railing that overlooked a shuttle deck, which was a cavern of darkness whose floor was grown with little mushrooms of light between dark, gleaming masses, looked up and around.
She saw the flash of his teeth in the dimness of the gallery, the darkness of his face. “I am surprised you would seek me out.”
The command council following thekurultai had quickly curdled into rancor. Malvina pressed her case for harsh action: Chaffee had been subdued by her destruction of Hamilton. It could provide their model for conquest:appliedifrightfulness . The Mongol way.
Her sibkin had argued that conquest by terror was repugnant to Clan ways. That while harsh measures might be necessary in response to extreme provocation, the Falcons could not rely on them too greatly without overturning what they stood for, what they had returned to the Inner Sphere for: to free and safeguard the people there, not destroy them.
Sentiment clearly ran against him. The officers of Beckett Malthus’ Turkina Keshik had supported Malvina almost as enthusiastically as her own Gyrs. Only among his own commanders had Aleks found support; and even some of them seemed dubious.
Despite the fact the consensus was going away from Aleks, Bec Malthus ordained compromise: each Galaxy Commander might conduct his and her campaign as they wished; and when the fleets rejoined, at the zenith jump point four days out from Skye orbit, they would see what had been seen.
Pale face and silver hair appeared to float in air, vaguely agleam as if from within. The rest of her was cloaked in deep-space black with token green, itself scarcely other than black. The difference could not be seen in the dim amber footlights.
“It seems a waft of the air of home blows through,” he said, his voice a gentle rumble, “banishing for a moment the smell of hot metal, lubricants and ozone.”
“The soap with which I washed my hair and body,” she answered artlessly. “Made of Sudeten herbs. Home, if you would call it that.”
His smile was crooked. “We Clanners,” he said. “We dote upon nature, even though we ourselves are but little products of it. We so love to retreat into it during training and brief respites from duty. And to smuggle its smells and sometimes stolen scenery into the steel wombs into which we were born from glass ones.”
She was close enough that he could see the arch of her brow. “You find fault with our Clan ways?”
“I am amused by some of them, right enough.” He turned back to the rail, folded his big arms onto it, leaned there gazing out across the hangar deck. Above and beyond the shuttles being made ready for departure to the other JumpShips in the fleet, two great oblongs of starfield shone, silver upon black, one on either side of the central launch-lock. So arrogant had Clan Snow Raven been in their technology and might that they built huge crystal viewports on the battleship’s hangar deck, as if the shuttles were mettlesome steeds and needed to be able to see the starry realm to which they would soon or late return. In times when danger impended, armor shutters heavy as aBroadsword -class DropShip descended before each like closing eyelids.
“Our ways have changed since the first return to the Inner Sphere. Some out of need, others ... just changed. Some changes were for the best. Others I would see made right again. And others are not yet made, that need to be.”
She stood close beside him. She seemed clenched, and at the same time aglow with something like fury. It was as if she had something to say but could not.
He turned and looked at her in wonder. There were few things she could not do, if she chose.