Jasek shrugged as if the thought had never entered his mind. Niccolò had bet him a gentlemen’s wager that Tara Campbell would see through that play. He was ready to pull it from the table in exchange for a stronger position on his next move.

“Also,” he offered, “thanks to a quick and nearly bloodless conquest, Summer’s docile population is settling in under Jade Falcon reign. The garrison there is complacent and can be severely hurt, which might inspire some of the local population to rise against the occupation.”

Tara hesitated. “He makes a strong case,” she said. She weighed in Eckard’s and McKinnon’s vote by glance. “What if we use the Highlanders for Summer?”

Jasek had not counted on Tara’s so easily volunteering to shift her own forces away from Glengarry. But that played as well. “Then you don’t have to worry about any pro-Lyran uprising,” he said. “And I’ll support the Highlander drive on Glengarry as well.”

“Why not simply give Glengarry to your people?” Eckard asked. “Why spread the Highlanders so thin if you are truly on board?”

Jasek smiled. “Well, you should give Glengarry to me, since my people know it better than any outside force. But regardless, it will take us both, since I have one more target I’m putting on the table.” He had their attention. “It is my intention to hit Chaffee as well. By stirring up the Falcons on both their staging worlds, inside and outside of The Republic, we can hope to accomplish more toward setting back their timetable.”

A flicker of interest sparked behind McKinnon’s dark eyes. “Doing favors for the Steiner court?” he asked, measuring his gaze between Jasek and Colonel Vandel.

“Opening a bridge to the Commonwealth is not the same as handing over Skye to House Steiner,” Jasek pointed out. “Let’s at least keep the option on a future alliance. That’s just good business.” He saw a wary look in every eye, and decided to raise the pot. “Plus, I’m going to hit it with or without any formal blessing from Skye. If you’re so worried about me, have my father put his stamp on it.”

Tara’s dark glance told Jasek that he had forced her into a corner, and she didn’t like it. But he knew there was only one way out, and that was his way. Or their way as everyone did, in effect, get what they were after.

Compromise. Again, the politics of alliances.

“It might work,” she finally admitted. “But we counted on at least some of the Stormhammers remaining on Skye to guard against a new Jade Falcon raid. We’ll be spread very thin with just the Seventh Skye Militia, a few Highlanders, and mercs.”

“I’ll leave at least a third of my people here,” he guaranteed her.

She frowned. “That’s an awfully light force left to you for hitting two stronghold worlds. Even with my Highlanders assisting on Glengarry, you are going to need more troops.”

“I’ll get more,” he assured her.

There was that wary look again. “Where?” Tara asked. Almost an accusation.

Time to play his trump card. His ace in the hole, which he had saved in the last week for just such an occasion. “I have my resources,” Jasek said breezily.

But seeing that the others would never be content with that, he leaned in toward Tara as if spilling a confidence. Maybe she had drawn him in, despite his best preparations to ensure the Stormhammers held themselves as an independent party. But she couldn’t see everything. And that gave him an advantage.

“I know where the Steel Wolves are hiding,” he told them all.

Longview

Cowlitz County, Chaffee

19 October 3134

The maddened warrior came right for him.

Noritomo Helmer waited in a ready crouch, his back to a cement-slab monument commemorating the founding of the city of Longview, and ignored the spectators who waited around the edge of the city’s small central park. His combat boots found ready purchase against the cement patio, anchoring him in place. He controlled his breathing. His focus centered on the other man’s midsection, watching for a telltale shift of weight.

At the last second, Noritomo raised one knee as if planning to spear-kick the charging warrior.

The other man leaped into a flying kick. It was exactly as Noritomo had planned. He ducked low and crabbed forward, getting beneath Star Commander Gregory. Grabbing the other man’s folded leg, he thrust up and backward and threw Gregory sideways into the monument.

There was a sharp crack as Gregory’s lower arm broke against the slab’s corner. His face left a smear of blood and skin down the rough side. He landed poorly but kept to his feet with one arm braced against the upright slab.

Noritomo stepped back. He waited, facing his staggered opponent and the dark gray monolith.

The city’s central park boasted of little more than this simple monument and a few concrete paths poured between fresh-cut lawns and sparse flower beds, but it was quickly becoming known as “Warrior’s Park” as challenge after challenge was decided here. The round patio made for a perfect Circle of Equals. Many trials had been fought before his arrival—before his banishment to Chaffee—as a new pecking order shook itself out among the Jade Falcon castoffs. This was Noritomo’s fourth challenge in a week. He’d killed the first two, as object lessons. The third he merely knocked unconscious, hoping to preserve a good warrior.

Gregory he’d yet to decide about. The man was hot-tempered and shortsighted, a poor combination of genes that told of a Roshak blood heritage. An armor commander and a freeborn warrior, Gregory began with an inferiority complex when comparing himself to a trueborn MechWarrior like Noritomo.

If that had been Gregory’s motivation for this Trial of Grievance, Noritomo would have already planned to kill him. Now he waited for any sign that the man—and the warrior—could be salvaged.

Nothing so far.

Spitting out a tooth, Star Commander Gregory stalked forward more cautiously this time, closing with his garrison commander. He held his broken arm carefully to one side, protecting it.

Noritomo deflected an eye-gouging fingertip strike and a kick at his groin.

A punch glanced off his shoulder. Another bruised his left chest.

The next he trapped and pulled. Gregory stumbled into Noritomo’s elbow strike, catching it in his jaw. A hammer fist to the center of the forehead staggered the armor commander back again.

And when the pain cleared, Noritomo saw doubt and frustration at war in the other man’s eyes. There was no cold-blooded arrogance in the other man, not anymore. He looked trapped. Already beaten. But Clan warriors did not simply surrender. Having called out the challenge, he could not in good face call it off. Honor drove Gregory forward the third time.

Which was why Noritomo decided to let the man live.

This time he did spear-kick his opponent, stopping Gregory dead in his tracks with a foot planted into his gut. Air rushed out between Gregory’s teeth. Noritomo stepped down, chopped at his opponent’s broken arm, then slipped one leg behind Gregory’s knee and delivered a final ridge hand to his temple.

In a tangle of limbs, Gregory fell back. Unconscious.

Star Captain Lysle Clees broke the circle then, stepping onto the paved patio. Even unarmored, the woman was impressive: more than two meters tall and solid with muscle. A tangle of blond dreadlocks swept down past her shoulders. She motioned forward two warriors from Gregory’s Star. The tank crewmen approached warily, which was good to see.