Текст книги "Lost Destiny"

Автор книги: Michael A. Stackpole

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35

Teniente

Nova Cat Occupation Zone

6 May 3052 (Day 6 of Operation Scorpion)

 

Victor Ian Davion looked at the chronometer on the command console of Prometheus,his Daishi. "Kama-ichi,where are they? They are running into our red zone."

Shin's voice crackled through the speakers in his neuro-helmet. "They are coming, Highness, but they match their pace to the slowest of the 'Mechs."

"Shin, I don't know if we have time for that sort of stuff." Victor punched up a tactical map of the area. Behind where his Daishiand lance stood, he saw the triangle of DropShips they'd used to make planetfall. The majority of his troops were arrayed in a crescent along the northwest perimeter of the DropShips' effective gunnery range as that was the direction from which they expected the Clans to arrive. A large square represented the furthest distance they estimated the Clans could have traveled and a smaller one marked their probable last location, given speed and heading.

Both circles were far too close for Victor's ease of mind. "Shin, tell them to abandon the broken 'Mechs. We can send a chopper out from one of the ships to pick them up."

"Highness, many of these 'Mechs have been in their families for decades."

Victor cursed. "I hear you, Shin." The Prince expanded the tactical map's view to handle an area large enough to bring the Combine convoy onto the edge of it. The Clans looked to be closer and were certainly moving faster than the Combine troops. Here we sit in the only LZ sufficient to handle DropShips. The Clans know it and we know it. Feels like having one foot nailed to the floor in a bar fight.

Victor switched his radio over to that of the DropShip Serene Foresight."Captain Coir, do you have enough fuel to take a short hop?"

"Affirmative. I'm good to go for one or two, but we'll light up the sky."

"Stand by. I may need you to recover some of us."

"Aye, sir. Standing by."

The Prince flipped the radio back to his command frequency. "Shin, pull Kama lance back and recon Hohiro's path. I want you to bring them up as fast as you can, and ready to shoot as well. Galen, you Murphy, Hudson, and Cooper form up your lances on me. We'll swing wide and try to draw the Clans off to the west. Macles, you'll take command of the rest of the unit and remain here to catch what we don't scare off. On my orders, or cessation of same, you'll pull back into the Valiant Wisdomand get the hell out of here. Got it?"

"Loud and clear, sir."

Victor took a deep breath. "Good, let's get to it."

The last solid sighting they'd had of the Clan unit heading their way made it a full Cluster. That put it at roughly twice the 'Mechs he was taking out after it. If the cloud had any silver lining, it was that the Clans had not left a line unit on Teniente, but had used only a garrison force. As a result, their equipment was not all OmniMechs.

Something deep down inside Victor screamed at him that he was committing suicide. He recalled at the Nagelring that certain very bad chess players were known as having mastered the "kamikaze" or "Custer" defense. That label became modified to "the Custer plan" when certain cadets proved incapable of thinking in acceptable or successful terms during tactical exercises.

Splitting one's force in the face of a superior enemy definitely had the ring of a Custer plan to it, and Victor dreaded that idea. By the same token, he knew the Clan commander could not be concentrating fully on him because of a possible ComStar offensive. If he's distracted enough, we might be able to draw him off and get back out again.Victor opened a line to Foresight."Captain Coir, head out and pick up the Kurita stragglers."

"Aye, sir."

Back behind him, lighting the landscape with a silvery ion torch the Foresightburned up through the night sky. All of the Revenants' black 'Mechs cast long shadows ahead of themselves. As the DropShip climbed upward, darkness again cloaked the 'Mechs.

Victor glanced at his tactical map. "Let's pick up the pace. They can't be closer than ten kilometers by this tactical map, but I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Ditto," commented Galen. "I don't trust spy reports, especially when we get them from ComStar."

Bringing the Daishiup to its top speed, Victor started it on a course to the west that he intended to have loop back toward the east just before they hit the Clans. At his current pace, with their supposed distance, he had nearly ten minutes until the units should run into each other. Just six minutes out, a line of hills running north and south cut across Victor's line of march.

"Galen, just over that line of hills, we'll head north for a bit, then feint east." He glanced at his tactical map and saw the Clans still three kilometers away. "We'll surprise them."

"Roger. Heads up, boys and girls. We're in the danger zone now."

Galen's words still ringing in his ears. Victor crested the hills, then plunged down the other side. Danger zone? No, this is hell itself.

The relative safety of the ridgeline's western side had suggested itself to the Clan commander as well. As Victor came over the top, he saw two dozen 'Mechs running full-out through the night. His computers tagged each with an ID number and a model. In a second, he realized the Clan commander had sent his smallest and fastest 'Mechs out in a quick march to cut them off from the 'Mechs coming up to reinforce their position. The Clan commander had no way of knowing the reinforcements were a ragged group of Kurita 'Mechs that were in poor shape for any sort of serious battle.

"At them, Revenants!" Victor sent two swarms of Streak SRMs out at a Clan Hornetsprinting by. His Daishi'shard lock on the target brought the dozen missiles in on target. The missiles repeatedly hammered the Hornet,stripping armor from its chest and right leg. The pilot fought against the force of the explosions, but the unbalanced 'Mech tumbled and rolled.

Victor saw a Clan Centurionlaunch a flight of LRMs at him from the center of its chest. Before he could even think about putting Prometheusthrough evasive maneuvers, he heard a piercing whine from the right breast of his Daishi.Of the ten missiles heading toward him, only six got a target-lock. Those missiles disappeared as the anti-missile system built into the Daishispit out a hail of slugs and shredded the missiles in mid-flight.

The Prince dropped his crosshairs onto the Centurion'soutline. His thumb punched down, sending a silvery Gauss rifle projectile arcing out from the rifle mounted in the left arm. Victor lost sight of the ball, then saw the Centurionjerk as the ball all but took its left arm off. The Gauss rifle's sidecar large laser boiled away armor on the Clan 'Mech's chest, but his other two large laser beams missed the target entirely.

Held aloft by the silver jump jet spears at the back of his 'Mech, Galen's Crusadersoared over the battlefield. He loosed flights of LRMs from the shoulder launchers to strike at distant targets, while the Streak SRMs from the Crusader'slegs slashed out at anyone who got too close. When he grounded himself again, a double-flight of LRMs struck down a fleeing Clan Firestarter.

"Victor, break left!"

Without thinking, the Prince spun his OmniMech away to the left. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a Clan Vulcanshoot a large and medium pulse laser through the space he had just left. In the confusion, he almost could have sworn the voice that warned him was Kai's. Not possible. Kai is dead. Who then?

A barrel-chested Hunchbackplanted its feet and turned to face off with the Vulcan.The boxy Kali-Yama Autocannon mounted on its shoulder spit fire and thunder. The stream of depleted-uranium shells hit the Vulcanjust to the right of its centerline, then sawed back through its torso as if the Clan 'Mech were made of soft cheese. Shards of armor mixed with fragments of endo-steel skeleton littered the ground while the Vulcanlisted badly as if to protect its shattered side. It took one half-step forward, then the upper torso twisted and sheered off at the line the Hunchbackhad scored on it.

"Thanks for the help," Victor beamed at his savior. Renny Sanderlin laughed easily, "Thanks for your faith, Victor."

All along the line, the Revenants poured fire and missiles into the Clan 'Mechs. Part of Victor hated watching the Clan's small 'Mechs get battered and pulverized by his own grossly superior forces. That hatred died quickly, however, when Victor remembered how the Twelfth Donegal Guards had been chopped to pieces by superior Clan forces. They overmatched us even on Alynia when we knew what to expect. This is payback.

The Revenants swept forward as the Clans slowed and started to turn back. As his troops pressed the Clans more, they concentrated their fire and took down 'Mech after 'Mech. Individual war machines looked, in the darkness, like the focus of a hundred lasers and missiles. Explosions would illuminate them and trip them while energy beams washed their armor away into clouds of ferro-fibrous vapor. Flayed alive, the 'Mechs kept running until more lasers and more missiles tore myomer muscles apart and crushed metallic bones.

"Revenants, pull back." Victor shook himself as he saw their line begin to drift back along the Clans' line of retreat.

"Begging your pardon, sir, but we have them on the run."

Galen's voice cut into the line. "Can it, Murphy. The Clan commander is likely to be waiting to welcome us if we get too close."

"We can take him."

In Murphy's voice, Victor heard the hopes and desires of the rest of the Revenants. He understood their desire to go after the Clans. Free of the fear of their tormentors, free of the terror that had haunted them since the first time the Clans struck into the Inner Sphere, his people wanted to make the Clans fear them.

He understood that idea because he shared it.

"Pull back. We're not retaking this rock, we're just stripping it of its valuable resources." He glanced at his tactical map, and even though he could not see the Clan's main body, he knew it had to be moving closer to the DropShips. I had not expected Clan 'Mechs this far now. How much further along than my main body would I let scout Stars go?

Victor keyed the radio. "Galen, use those jump jets and pop up for a look on our back-trail. The main Clan body has to be somewhere nearby."

"Roger." Static sliced through the frequency as the Crusader'sion jets lifted it high into the air. "Victor, I have a large Clan force moving toward our DropShips. They have detached 'Mechs in our direction."

As the Crusaderdescended again, Victor switched over to broadbeam frequency and addressed all his people. "Heads up. Nova Cats are between us and our ride home. Let's move."

* * *

Coming up over the hills that had hidden them from the scout Stars they ambushed, Victor saw the plains of Teniente become a circle of hell. Using spotting telemetry from two of the Revenants' smaller 'Mechs, the fire-support lances arced LRMs up over the hills and rained them down on the Nova Cats. The explosions made the ground shake and lit the night with eye-burning fireballs.

At the lead of a sprint lance, Victor's Daishiplunged down the hillside. He slammed into a Clan Dasher,dumping the smaller 'Mech on its back in a cloud of shattered armor. Half-twisting, he pumped a Gauss rifle round through its chest and left it lying on the ground with short-range missiles pouring from the hole.

A Clan Loki,black except for the blue blaze on the center of its torso, stepped through the missile fire and leveled its guns at Prometheus.The autocannon in its left arm lipped flame as it hammered the Daishi'sright leg with a burst of slugs. The Gauss rifle in its right arm sent a silver ball streaking straight into the right side of Victor's 'Mech, spinning it around and sending it crashing to the ground.

The Prince braced for the crash and smiled when no sparks shot through his cockpit at the impact. Pushing off with Prometheus'left arm, he levered himself up enough to point his 'Mech's right arm at the Loki.He dropped his targeting crosshairs onto the OmniMech's outline, but before he could trigger his large pulse lasers, a 'Mech moved up on his right side and engaged the Loki.

Renny Sanderlin's Hunchbacklet go a salvo from its Kali-Yama autocannon. The line of destruction traced from right to left, starting at one shoulder and ending at the other. Along the way, it blew through the Loki'shead and cockpit, decapitating the enemy war machine. Recoiling from the attack, the Lokipitched backward and landed in a tangled, misshapen heap.

Victor started to radio Renny another thank you, but fire blossomed on the Hunchback'sright flank. The FedCom reeled wildly to the left, armor shards spinning into the air. A laser cut through the resulting cloud of smoke and the Hunchbackstumbled across the Daishi'slegs, slewing Victor around, as Renny crashed to the ground.

Twisted away from facing the direction of the attack, Victor still saw the Thorthat had blown Renny's 'Mech to scrap. Facing the wrong way!As the Thorstalked forward, Victor tried to crank his 'Mech's right arm around to target it. Out of my arc! I'm dead!

The Thorpointed its left-arm autocannon at Victor. The pilot swung it into line with the back of Prometheus'head, as if to dispatch a wounded animal. It took one step closer, guaranteeing a kill, then jerked as if that last step had landed it on a live wire. As Victor watched, its center-torso armor went from black to red and then white. It melted over a round hole at the Thor'sheart, then the last vestiges of four large laser beams flashed through the opening.

"What in hell?" Victor brought his 'Mech to its feet as the Thorfroze, then slowly toppled to the side. "Whoever got that Thor,thank you very much."

A distant radio call filled with static answered him. "It was my pleasure, Victor Davion."

"Hohiro, is that you?"

"It is, Revenant Leader. The 311th Pesht Regulars are joining up now." In the distance, Victor saw the Kurita 'Mechs sprinting into view. "We would hate for you to think, on your first visit to the Combine, that we would let anything untoward happen to our guests."

36

Sian

Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation

8 May 3052 (Day 8 of Operation Scorpion)

 

Though hardened by years of viewing the results of his mother's depravity, Sun-Tzu was shocked to see her and his father, Tsen Shang, in this way. It was not their nudity—he had seen his parents naked on various occasions—nor was it the apparent reconciliation that had placed both of them in the same bed. Tsen Shang, who had never been able to explain his attraction to Romano, had told Sun-Tzu that she would never kill him, and he would always return to her whenever she asked.

What surprised Sun-Tzu was the violence and obvious surprise that twisted their bodies. Tsen Shang had slipped out of bed, his legs apparently tangling in the sheet as he had made a dive for the bedside table. His attempt had toppled the table and spilled the laser pistol he sought onto the floor, just centimeters from his outstretched fingers. The carpeting beside his right hand had been slashed clear down to the floor by the razored fingernails on his three fingers as he clawed his way toward the pistol.

The laser wound in Tsen's back looked surprisingly bloodless. If not for the one thin ribbon running from the wound across his spine, the blackened circle could have been mistaken for an infected insect bite. It hardly looked sufficient to have stopped a man of Tsen Shang's size, but from its location, Sun-Tzu knew it had burst his father's heart.

He stood up from his examination of the body and wiped his hands on the legs of his trousers. "Given that you died trying to protect my mother, I suppose you died happily. Here, on Sian, that is unique indeed."

Looking at his mother, Sun knew the opposite had been true of her. Slumped back against the headboard, she looked as though she must have drawn herself up like a cat to hiss at her assailant. Fury still locked her face in a hideous death mask, but the position of her body made her look more piteous than frightful. Even so, Sun-Tzu could not help feeling more relief than sadness at her passing.

Sun-Tzu folded his arms across his chest to suppress a shudder. Romano's assassin had been most careful, the laser having struck his mother squarely between the eyes. Part of him recognized the wound's stigmata as being that of the Biblical mark of Cain, but he rejected that as an explanation for the shot. He knew his mother would have railed against her assassin and would have bragged that she could destroy

him using the powers centered in her third eye. What better proof that she was mad?

Even as he became confident of his reconstruction of what had transpired in his parents' bedchamber, the allusion to the mark of Cain haunted him. Cain was a fratricide, if I recall my mythology correctly.He knew his mother had ordered the death of her sister and he strongly suspected her of having had her own father killed. A symbolic gesture, then?

Immediately he knew who had slain his mother and father. "How fitting, how appropriate." He knelt once again and scooped up his father's laser pistol. He savored the cool smoothness of its grip and reveled in its weight. He knew where he would find the murderer and he resolved to thank him before he completed the job his mother's assassin should have done on New Avalon.

As he stalked through the corridors of the palace, he felt his heart begin to pound louder and faster, though he recognized it as anticipation, not fear. Avenging his parents would be his first action as the new Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation. According to his plans, his accession to the throne was decidedly premature. Nor had he anticipated the death of his father, though he had acknowledged the possibility that he might have to destroy Tsen Shang after he had eliminated Romano.

The realization of his full responsibilities might have crippled another, but Sun-Tzu was energized by them. He knew he would have to move swiftly to consolidate power, but not with the brutal public purges his mother favored. Such measures would not inspire the people's loyalty or confidence, but bred the opposite instead. No, he would quietly repudiate his mother's actions and pay some reparations to those who had lost kin to his mother's predations.

He would show his people the velvet glove, knowing he could always wield the steel fist it sheathed. To further unite them, he would launch a preemptive strike at one of the bases his Uncle Tormana maintained within the Federated Commonwealth. With enough evidence to prove they hoped to hit us, I will create an external threat that will bind us together.

He shifted the gun to his left hand, wiped the sweat from his right onto his trousers, then gripped the gun firmly again. With his left hand, he twisted the knob and smiled to find the door unlocked. He opened it slowly and slipped noiselessly into the room that had become his sanctuary. Pressing the door shut behind him, he studied the second pair of tracks in the dust and traced them around to the hooded, cloaked figure sitting in the chair behind the desk.

"Reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated, I see, Justin Allard." Sun-Tzu brought the pistol up and held it unwaveringly on the seated person. "I compliment you on the accuracy of your shooting. I had heard, on Outreach, that you were good with that wrist laser of yours, but I had not imagined such exacting skill."

"There are many things you cannot imagine, Sun-Tzu Liao," Candace Liao hissed as she sat forward and let the hood slip from her head. "Justin was good, very good, and he got the assassin who would have slain the two of us, but he was not good enough to avoid dying from a mortal wound."

Sun-Tzu, his mind reeling, blinked and felt his chest tighten. "How? You are supposed to be dead!"

Candace threw her cloak back from her left shoulder with a stiff motion. "You know, of course, that I was treated for breast cancer on New Avalon six years ago. I underwent a radical mastectomy and had the muscles rebuilt with myomer fibers. Your assassin's laser had enough power to burn through flesh, but myomer is a bit tougher than that. When I fell, I hit my head and was knocked out, creating the illusion that the smoking hole in my chest had killed me.

"So now you come here, kill your sister, and think you can simply take the throne, is that it?" Sun-Tzu bared his teeth as though the display would frighten her off. Candace stood before him like a dark void that could swallow his plans and destroy his dreams. "You want to become the Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation."

"I know you are smarter than that. Your act on Outreach did not fool me. You are no more impulsive or insane than I am dead." Candace laughed derisively. "The Capellan Confederation could have been mine any time I wanted it. When I left here twenty years ago, Justin and I discussed any of a number of plots that would have given me the throne. We could have claimed a kidnapping from which I was later saved through a miraculous escape. My father would have embraced me again, as would the people. If not that time, then when the troops from the St. Ives Compact moved to fight against the Andurien invaders, or when the St. Ives Compact severed diplomatic relations with the Federated Commonwealth to prevent Hanse Davion from attacking the Capellan Confederation.

"There were plans within plans, and I always had more than enough aid available from within the Confederation itself. Romano's purges may have gotten one or two of my agents, but they created dozens more. You would not be far wrong if you imagined that I have had more palace people on my payroll than did my sister."

I relied too much on my mother's view of her sister. That mistake I will not make again.Sun-Tzu leaned back against the door and concentrated on the pain of the knob grinding into his spine. "Why did you wait this long to strike?"

Candace laced her fingers together and peered over them at him. "It is because I do not want to be Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation. While your mother painted me a whore and traitor for my alliance with Hanse Davion, I found it a way to allow my people to maintain their cultural identity without being absorbed into the Commonwealth. Though I think Hanse was far more responsible a ruler than Romano could ever have been, I had no desire to see my people denatured through union with his empire.

"Had I been the Capellan Chancellor, I would have concluded an alliance with Hanse Davion to stop the war. That would have made me a buffer between him and the Free Worlds League. I would have been forced to strike at House Marik in the 3039 war just to keep the fighting on their worlds instead of our own. Eventually we would have been absorbed into the Federated Commonwealth."

The cold logic in Candace's words surprised Sun-Tzu because of the distance between it and the motives his mother had imparted to everything Candace had done. "If this is so, why come here now?"

Candace looked in the direction of her sister's bedchamber. "What I did to Romano was personal, not political. It was the last act in a drama that had gone on far too long."

Her nephew shook his head. "But news of her assassination will create demands for revenge."

"Even Romano knew to keep the true manner of our father's death private. Let this be your first lesson as Chancellor. Here in the Capellan Confederation, the truth is what you say it is." Candace stood slowly and let her cloak enshroud her again. "I did not murder your mother. She, in a fit of anger, shot and killed Tsen Shang, then killed herself. She left a verigraphed message to that effect, which you read and destroyed because it discussed matters that could not be made public. You will be vague in statements about their death, but you will mourn publicly and privately. Of course, you will threaten vengeance against whoever did the deed."

Not all that far removed from what I had planned to say when I killed her.Sun-Tzu felt some of his confidence returning. "And my second lesson as Chancellor?"

"Never trust your sister. Kali is as mad as her mother, if not more so." Candace held up one hand to stop him from speaking. "And your third lesson: Stay away from my children. None has any desire to sit on the Celestial Throne. Leave them alone and you never need fear them."

"By their very existence they threaten me."

"They threaten you only if you act against them." The look in Candace's gray eyes chilled Sun-Tzu to the marrow of his bones. 'There are more ways into and out of the Capellan Confederation and this palace than you can ever know. If forced, I can and will return, or I will unleash any number of my agents to avenge them. I may be reluctant to accept responsibility for the Confederation, but that does not mean I am unable to do so if need be."

He motioned with the laser pistol. "What if I shoot you now?"

She shrugged. "In that event, a full briefing on the security breaches here in the Confederation—including enough information to stage a successful coup to put Kuan Yin on the throne in your place—will find its way into Hanse Davion's hands. I can assure you that he will be less reluctant to make use of it than I ever would be."

Sun-Tzu lowered the gun. "Why just my mother and father? Why did you spare me and my sister?"

Candace smiled humorlessly. "You I spared because I know you are not stupid. If the Confederation is to endure, it will do so based on your actions. I hated my sister, but that does not mean I want the Capellan people to suffer. After Maximilian and Romano, my homeland needs a shrewd ruler, and I deem you capable of being such. As for sparing your sister, I had to live with Romano. Adversity makes you stronger, and I'd rather you looked for adversaries within your own home than outside."

She crossed the room and touched a switch that opened a secret door in the far wall. "Remember, the future of the Capellan Confederation is in your hands. Consider it a sacred trust. The difference between the real world and the games you played on Outreach is this: now you get no mistakes. Remember that and live. Forget it and you will be broken."

* * *

Sun-Tzu stared at the panel after it had snapped shut, then tucked the laser pistol into the waistband of his trousers. So, my mother's reign of terror is over, and I have survived to see it so. Very well.

He walked around Justin's old desk and dropped into the chair. He touched one button on the computer console there and, to his surprise, the antique monitor lit up as power surged into it. How interesting. It still works. There is yet life in the machinery that destroyed the Capellan Confederation.

Sun-Tzu leaned back in the chair. "My mother and grandfather so hated Hanse Davion that they could not see how well his methods worked against us. I am not that blind. In me Hanse Davion will see his own tactics and strategies come to haunt him." He smiled and steepled his fingers "The Capellan Confederation is not dead, and what has not killed us will make us stronger."

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