Raul had time for half his coffee and a few whispered words with Clark Diago before the room’s clock finally ticked its way up to seven a.m. and Kyle Powers’ immediate transformation from private conversation to command of the morning briefing. It was nothing more than laying his hands flat on the table and slowly pushing himself into an easy stance. Other talk died away and a corporal who had slipped into the room to refill the urns finished with haste and shut the door behind him as he left. The room suddenly felt a great deal closer to Raul, who realized that it was Sir Powers who simply took up more of the space now.
“Thank you all for being here. We’re short one person, though. Does anyone know when we can expect MechWarrior Tassa Kay?”
Raul hadn’t even known that she’d been invited. Talking to the civilian MechWarrior had apparently fallen to Diago, who nodded. “No offense, Sir Powers, but Tassa Kay claimed to have better things to do this morning than rehash old news. If we want to find her later, she said that she’d be seeing after repairs to her Ryoken II or interrogating her prisoner.”
Her prisoner. That would be the Blackhawk pilot recovered from the wreckage of his BattleMech.
Kyle Powers took Diago’s news with a raised eyebrow and a tight smile. Raul thought that he read more than professional courtesy there. Amusement? Powers had been on-planet less than four hours, and already he seemed to know something more of Tassa Kay than Raul himself.
“Well. I’m certain that we’ll bump into her sooner or later.” Powers’ voice was dry, but in no way suggested insult. He retook his seat with the same, slow grace in which he had stood. “In the meantime, let’s get started.
“First, let me say that my presence in no way reflects poorly on your performance. You have all done an incredible job, given the situation you were handed. Working together, True Republic and Swordsworn, in the face of the Steel Wolf assault shows a remarkable depth of duty in all of you. If the sporadic fighting on Ronel hadn’t looked to be tapering off, and if Lady Lakewood had not been inbound, I would still be there, in fact, counseling you via the HPG. And we all know how reliable that is now considered.”
Powers left the opening, and Brion Stempres stepped in with the question. “Has there been any confirmation yet about the Blackout? How far it reaches, and to what extent we’ve lost the hyperpulse web?”
“ComStar is researching the problem.” A venerable agency, with its founding at the fall of the original Star League, ComStar was responsible for the majority of HPG operations within The Republic, although they quite often relied on private subcontractors. “The latest reports I’ve seen show better than eighty-five percent blackout. Not just within The Republic, but reaching into every Inner Sphere nation around us. Some cases look like sabotage. Others like hard-wired viruses that didn’t get purged after the Jihad. And then there are stations which appear to be working fine, but simply cannot bridge space as they once did.”
Over eighty-five percent failure. In Prefecture IV, that meant Ronel and Achernar might have the only two working HPG stations. Was it any wonder the Steel Wolves were here? And if so, what about—
“Regardless,” Knight-Errant Powers interrupted Raul’s train of thought, “what we have to deal with is right in front of us. The Steel Wolves are making aggressive moves, cloaked under Kal Radick’s questionable authority as Prefect, and we have to deal with that accordingly. Lord Erik Sandoval is here at my request, representing Republic forces who have swung their nominal allegiance over to his uncle, the Lord-Governor.” He raised a hand. “That is not under debate at the moment. We all have a vested interest in keeping Achernar under local authority.
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately,” Powers said.
“Benjamin Franklin.” Erik Sandoval was quick to identify Powers’ quote. “At the signing of a Declaration on ancient Terra.” He smiled. “All in all, a fitting maxim.”
Raul bit down on his tongue until it throbbed, staying his own opinion on making any deal with Erik Sandoval and the Swordsworn. He trusted that Kyle Powers knew what he was doing. The Knight-Errant’s not so subtle warning in the ancient quotation, and the terms of the alliance which he put forward to the entire group over the next two hours, proved that he did. He placed Erik in the chain of command, on par with Colonel Blaire and under the jurisdiction of Legate Stempres. Kyle Powers himself retained the Exarch’s authority on all matters military, placing himself as a watchdog over the entire operation.
“My Swordsworn will carry our end,” Erik Sandoval promised. “And I can offer more than a dozen tanks and my own Hatchetman. We have converted several of our IndustrialMechs over for military use—six of them, to be exact.” That number more than doubled what anyone else in the room had thought, and Raul noticed the way a few eyebrows raised at the claim. “We lost one of those recently, coming to the aid of a Republic patrol, but even so an extra lance of converted MiningMechs thrown into a battle can do a lot of good.”
Hanging out there, unfinished, Erik seemed to be saying, Trust me, I know.
Sandoval kept far too many secrets for Raul to completely trust him. Still, Powers seemed to have the young noble’s measure and Raul doubted the Knight-Errant would get caught unawares.
“Excellent,” Powers agreed. “And on the militia’s side, I understand we are welcoming back a MechWarrior?”
Isaac Blaire nodded. “Captain Charal DePriest is returning to active duty as my adjutant and will oversee BattleMech logistics. Raul Ortega will continue to pilot the Legionnaire, however. Charal has been assigned our one converted ForestryMech to pilot as necessary.”
Raul saw the wince of memory on Erik Sandoval’s face, wondered where the noble had run into a converted ForestryMech before. A flush warmed his own neck, of pride and embarrassment both. Charal should have moved back to her position above him, taking the Legionnaire. Part of him had hoped that she would, he realized, saving him from the burdens that seemed to add to the pile with each day of conflict. A stronger part did not want to give up the BattleMech. Everything he had ever dreamt of… thought that he had wanted… it was still there for the taking.
Wasn’t it?
Morning marched steadily toward noon as Powers turned the meeting to recent battles fought with the Steel Wolves. Raul spoke up to direct questions, but otherwise felt content to sit back, observe and learn. The room smelled heavily of stale coffee and melting doughnuts by the time Colonel Blaire queued up gun-cam footage from the most recent battle, where Raul and Tassa had taken down the Blackhawk. Raul swallowed back the bitter aftertaste of his coffee and narrated his own footage, trying to give the Sphere Knight an idea of the larger battle not shown on the video.
“This Steel Wolf MechWarrior,” Powers asked after the footage had run through again showing Tassa Kay stomping the Blackhawk’s cockpit into ruin, “what was his name?”
“Yulri,” Charal DePriest answered, consulting a file on her noteputer, “of the Carns redname. I’ve been rereviewing his secret.”
Legate Stempres leaned in. “His what?”
“Codex.” It was Powers who answered. “Clan-descended warriors still follow the tradition of carrying some kind of data crystal on their person—a complete record of their personal victories and awarded honors.”