“Stempres,” Isaac Blaire corrected her, his powerful voice carrying though the room. He held his ground before the fiery MechWarrior, only slightly favoring his prosthetic leg. “Lay-gate Brion Stempres.” His face, normally a ruddy pink, had flushed a deeper, warning red. “And you know very well Ah can do it.”

The militia commander’s Zaurak accent showed through. Considered Achernar’s outback, Zaurak natives always had a bit of a twang in their voices. Raul hadn’t heard it in Blaire’s talk since the officer—then a major—headed Achernar’s Reserve Training Command. This argument had either been going on for some time or Tassa Kay had gotten under Blaire’s skin exceptionally fast.

“Your transit papers on every world in The Republic included a binding agreement which allows me to press into service any military equipment—privately owned or not—Ah see fit to need.”

That quieted the argument for a moment. Bending down, Raul scooped up a handful of the papers. He carried them and his half-full coffee over to one of the small metal desks shoved up against a wall. The entire room was listening in on the argument, talk held down to a minimum and eyes dancing in between workstation screens and the pair of verbal combatants. A nearby communications tech nodded Raul a nervous greeting.

“How long will it take you to prove that I was presented with that information?” Tassa asked.

Raul looked up sharply. He knew that she had. He’d handed it to Tassa Kay himself as a part of the Customs process, and obtained her signature over the document. But he kept quiet, unwilling to barge into the commander’s argument and waiting to see, first, how he would handle her. Tassa Kay was formidable, he knew. Besides the fact that Raul had dealt with her once before, that she had managed to bull her way into the militia’s command center—during an alert—spoke a great deal about her.

Colonel Blaire recoiled as if struck. His surprise was genuine, or well feigned. “On your honor as a Mech Warrior,” he asked simply, “you never received that information?”

Raul sipped at his highly sweetened coffee, glancing in between the rescued papers and Tassa Kay. He saw that Blaire’s comment had struck right to her personal pride, and had maybe touched on something else even deeper. Tassa’s tongue drew a slow line over her top lip as she thought about it, relented. “All right, I received it. But I still have the command codes, which means you cannot get more than a quarter power out of the reactor and the weapons remain locked out. So there is a bargain to strike here. My offer was good enough for your Exarch. It should be good enough for you.”

“It would be. It is. However, that is not my call. The decision rests with Lay-gate Stempres. He has already ordered up Erik Sandoval’s people, who are on a forced march over the Taibek Hills. Now he demands the codes to your Ryoken.”

So that was Tassa’s ace. Her command codes. No doubt Blaire’s need to get them had facilitated her entry into the base. She had already pulled out the verifax from Exarch Redburn and placed that on the table as well.

Setting his still-hot beverage aside, Raul shuffled the papers back together. As Tassa had mentioned earlier, they were copies of the Republic’s Emergency Powers Act and Legate Stempres’ own decision to press civilian assets into military service. To wit: Tassa’s Ryoken II. He didn’t need to read the legal text, he knew it by heart. …such as the needs of the Republic dictate, civilian assets may be confiscated and pressed into service with adequate compensation to be decided…

To be decided and agreed upon by both parties unless the Republic will guarantee full replacement value on said civilian assets.

“Excuse me.” Raul spoke up just as Tassa was warming to the next round of her refusal to cooperate. He strode forward. “Colonel Blaire. May I interrupt a moment?”

Blaire glowered at the uniform, at first seeing only Raul’s honorary rank of lieutenant. Then, recognizing the reservist, he relented somewhat. “Lieutenant… Ortega. Ah saw your name on the lay-gate’s report, didn’t Ah?” He swallowed back his accent then, as if noticing it for the first time. His weathered face was filled with shadowed valleys, but a pair of unclouded blue eyes still stared out hard and bright. “Yes. I’d like your input.”

“So would I,” Tassa said, eyeing Raul with interest, obviously remembering him.

“I don’t know how much you’ll like it, sir.” Raul remained properly deferential to his commanding officer. “The way I read the EPA statute,” he handed the paper over to Blaire, “if MechWarrior Kay doesn’t agree to your order, the only way you can trump her is by personally guaranteeing, up front, full replacement value on the Ryoken.”

Blaire’s face darkened again. “You want me to sign a marker for twenty million stones?” he asked, using the slang name for Republic money.

Smiling, her good humor replacing fury in the blink of an eye, Tassa said “Twenty-four. It is a custom design you would have to bring in from the Lyran Commonwealth.” She awarded Raul a brilliant smile. “That’s two I owe you.”

Raul would have liked to say that he was only doing his duty, presenting useful information to the discussion, but the warm glow in the pit of his stomach put the lie to that idea. He had jumped in on Tassa Kay’s side. Again. “Worth the story of Dieron?” he asked.

“Worth something,” she promised.

Blaire was less amused. “Wipe that kay-det grin off your face and snap to, Lieutenant. Are you telling me that Customs’ stand on this would demand Lay-gate Stempres sign a voucher for her estimate of twenty-four million stones?”

Careful. Raul swallowed, tasting the bitter traces of his earlier coffee. He shook his head. “That’s my own read on the text, Colonel, though I’m fairly certain that Judicial would back me up on it.”

“And if Ah allow her to pilot her own machine?”

“It’s vague, sir. My opinion… it falls under the heading of an agreement between the civilian owner and the military.”

Tassa shrugged. “Same offer as before. Guarantee me the closest you have for replacement parts, and maintenance time and workers, and you will have my BattleMech.”

Which by Raul’s way of thinking was either incredibly generous of Tassa Kay, or incredibly naı ¨ve. Under those terms, her Ryoken would suffer some degradation, and there was no offer of recompense for her services either. Colonel Blaire obviously worried at the offer as well, frowning, trying to see what it was he was missing in the deal.

“Colonel Blaire!”

“Now what?” Blaire rounded on the communications tech, more than a little frustrated at yet another interruption. “You have something to add to this, Corporal?”

“Yes sir. I mean, no sir.” The tech looked confused, but only for a second. The excitement in his eyes was too bright not to quickly overshadow any worry of reproach. “Sir, we are getting a space-to-ground transmission from the Steel Wolves. A Star Colonel Torrent, of the Kerensky Bloodname, is requesting you specifically.”

At the mention of the Steel Wolf officer, Blaire rocked back in thought while Raul swore he saw Tassa Kay suddenly lean forward in predatory interest. Could the Steel Wolves have been involved in her “trouble” on Dieron? That seemed a bit far outside of Prefecture IV—through Prefecture III and into II—for Kal Radick to be involved.

“Ah, blazes! Time to DropShip touchdown?” Blaire asked.

A junior officer, this one overseeing several tactical workstations, straightened up. “At their present burn, not for four hours at least. We have some new craft fouling our clear-skies order… falling fast through the atmosphere… have to be civilian shuttles making ballistic hops from one of the other two continents. Looks like they may be landing out near Hahnsak.”