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.“Several things worked in our favor last time.The Falcons rushed themselves.They fell for several traps, which they will be wary of doing when they return.” Her voice took a melancholy turn.“And they were momentarily stunned by the suicide charge of our Forlorn Hope task force.Which they will prepare against, which is why I think we should not attempt to try that again.It would be a terrifying slaughter, and for little gain.”Jasek agreed.Out of the corner of one eye, he saw Niccolò nodding as well.Actually, having reviewed media coverage of the event, he knew that his friend felt the slaughter gained very little the first time.A high cost for a diversion.But that’s what commanders do.They gamble with lives.Jasek had felt stung by the oversimplification.I do not gamble.No.You are quite the Lyran.You assign a value to each life, and spend them with a miser’s reluctance.He still was not certain if his friend had paid him a compliment with that comment.“Why do you think that the same tactics will not work the next time?” Colonel Vandel asked.Jasek took the question for her.“When the Falcons come back, it won’t be with the gut punch strategy they tried before.They will strip every occupied world to its minimum garrison.They will land, plant their flag, and stand by it until the end.They will not retreat, and they’ll make every victory a costly one for the people of this world.So much so that the population will welcome any end to the fighting.”His father hedged, no doubt imagining his world so hard struck.“What makes you so certain?” he asked.Tara looked at Jasek.Jasek stared back.Barely perceptibly, she nodded.“Because that is what we would do,” she answered for him.Jasek leaned back in his chair, staring down into the table’s dark surface.His exhale was long and weary.“That is how you take Skye.”12New LondonSkye9 October 3134Jasek had always enjoyed roaming the capital house library as a child and as a young man, losing himself in the labyrinth of corridors and galleries and great rooms lined floor to ceiling with books.The scent of old paper and new print.The feel of leather as he ran a hand down one long shelf of texts after another.The awe-inspiring silence, broken by soft footfalls and scuffs against tight-knit carpet.Here he read and he studied.He explored with Niccolò GioAvanti and other friends, and together he and Niccolò discovered two secret passages that, by all evidence, had been forgotten even by state security.And standing in just the right archway or corridor, he eavesdropped on whispered conversations and learned as much about ruling and The Republic as he had been formally taught by his father.Good memories.Happier times.Still, the musty, paper smell that permeated every room was a welcome, warm embrace and not the melancholy reminder he had feared when Niccolò suggested taking the library as a personal residence and the Stormhammers’ command post.It was a strong political move as well.Under the auspices of previous lord governors, the mansion residence attached to the library was the home of Skye’s Steward—an appointed aide who served as liaison to the world governor on behalf of the prefecture’s ruler.With strong lord governors, in fact, legislation passed through the offices of the Steward first and to the world governor second.There was no small amount of prestige attached to the local mansion, and the man who resided within.And it had been available.Duke Gregory was one of the rare Republic leaders to hold both world and prefecture leadership positions at the same time, which was a measure of the duke’s—and the family’s—powerful support within the Isle of Skye region.When Jasek’s father had need to appoint a Steward, mostly during times when he traveled off-world, that appointee took up temporary residence at the Governor’s Mansion in New Gloucester, which was otherwise treated as the duke’s summer offices.Now Jasek prowled around a long table in the library’s Commonwealth Room, the space dedicated to cataloging the latest texts coming out of Lyran space.The banner of House Steiner—the clenched gauntlet—hung below a wide skylight, equal to the mezzanine level that wrapped around three sides of the grand room.Jasek’s senior officers worked in busy clusters, updating force strength estimates and designing strategies based on what the Jade Falcons might try next.Junior officers drafted as aides ferried and fetched noteputers, maps, and reams of hard copy at request.His graceful strides ate up the blue carpet one meter at a time while his eyes scoured a noteputer’s amber screen.He tapped in a request for more detail, handed the ’puter off to the team formed around Colonel Petrucci and Tamara Duke, then accepted a thermal-insulated mug of spiced coffee and a sheaf of reports from Niccolò GioAvanti.He took a sip of the hot beverage, enjoying the cinnamon flavor.The coffee warmed him on its way down, and a hint of cloves rolled out on the aftertaste.The drink was fine, but the intel…“Not good,” he said after a cursory glance at the hard-copy material.Jasek had been briefed by Tara Campbell—in her newfound manner of terse, clipped sentences—about what to expect.“The Highlanders’ force readiness is hardly up to battalion-level strength.That’s the best they can do?”Niccolò shrugged.“It’s what they have, Landgrave.” In public, his best friend always defaulted to the formal address due a member of the nobility.No matter how much Jasek berated him for it later.“The Highlanders have spent a great deal of blood for The Republic lately.”It was hard to fault Tara Campbell for fighting the depredations of Steel Wolves, Dragon’s Fury, Swordsworn, and any number of other factions rising within The Republic.Her loyalty was beyond question.But the lack of direction from higher up, a lack of support from The Republic’s standing army… it was like fending jackals off a dying body with a slowly splintering stick.“What a damned waste of good men and materiel.”Tugging at his family braid, one of his more obvious stalling tactics, Niccolò finally volunteered, “Difficulties must never be allowed to persist in order to avoid war.Wars can only be deferred to the advantage of others.”A military maxim that Jasek placed from several old texts.“Isn’t that what I’ve been doing, Nicco?” Jasek was never certain when his friend was being wise or intentionally witless.“Avoiding war? With the Jade Falcons? With The Republic?” With his father?He would never ask that last question aloud.He did not have to.Niccolò knew him well enough to understand the demons that wrestled within.And as usual, when the questions grew toughest, Niccolò defaulted to vagueness.“ ‘The hereditary prince has less cause and less need to offend than a new one,” ’ he quoted directly this time.A roundabout method of reminding Jasek that any struggle directly against his father put him immediately at odds with the old worlds of the Isle of Skye.Was his only answer to let Skye fail on its own, and then pick up what pieces remained? He drank deep and hard, barely able to taste, punishing himself with the close-to-scalding beverage.He set the mug down on the table.“I want a better solution,” he told his friend.Louder, he said, “We’re chasing the problem in circles, people.Find another way.”“You couldn’t have been more interested in another way before you stripped Skye of its defenses?”The familiar scorn snapped Jasek around at once
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