Текст книги "Natural Selection"

Автор книги: Michael A. Stackpole

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29

DropShip Lugh

Apex Recharge Station, Santana

Federated Commonwealth

3 August 3055

 

Khan Phelan Ward frowned at his cousin. "I think I am missing something here, Chris. Your reaction to my denying your request to send your battalion to Yeguas is grossly out of place."

"Is it?" Chris pointed to the holographic display of the Yeguas system hovering above the briefing table. "When the bandits arrived, the Wolves reported that they had showed up at a pirate point near both Cue Ball and Yeguas III. You yourself said they were going to be burning in too fast if the bandits should decide to skip out instead of letting the Wolves ground for a battle. Had you permitted, my battalion could have jumped in and kept them from getting to their JumpShip. It seems like you don't want the bandits caught after all."

Phelan said nothing and forced down his anger. When he spoke, the words came in a neutral tone, but he bit them off sharply, giving both Dan Allard and Christian Kell ample warning of his darkening mood. "First off, cousin, I did not prevent you from going. I am not in command of this operation. Colonel Allard made that decision, but he gave weight to my request to let the Thirty-first handle most of the problem. When we drew lots to see wherewe would station ourselves, they got Yeguas. Had you gotten Yeguas, I am certain the Thirty-first's request to help you would have been similarly denied."

The Wolf Clan Khan rose from his seat and stared at the other man across the table. "I do not like the implication that I am not anxious to catch these bandits. I want them destroyed more than you know."

"That is not apparent by your action, or inaction,cousin." Chris folded his arms across his chest. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing a riot of tattooed colors decorating his left forearm, but Phelan could not make out the full design. "I think you are operating from a hidden agenda that will ultimately culminate in the resumption of war between the Clans and the Inner Sphere."

Phelan shook his head vehemently. "That's ridiculous. I am here to do just the opposite."

"Are you?" Chris turned to where Dan Allard remained seated at the head of the briefing table. "Fact: the bandits are making our military units look stupid. Fact: they're using tactics against us that we used against them with great success. Fact: all that's needed to reignite the war is for a Clan unit to pass over the truce line, and these bandits are halfway there—with another Clan unit hot on their tails."

Phelan slapped his right hand flat against the table. "There is no proof the bandits are a Clan unit."

"Ha! Look at their equipment. Look at their tactics."

"If we look at equipment, Chris, the Kell Hounds are more of a Clan unit than the bandits. Unity, the Hounds have better equipment than the Thirty-first Wolf Solahma. " Phelan leaned forward and the computer painted part of the Yeguas system on his throat. "You yourself said the bandits employed Inner Sphere tactics, which makes them highly atypical of any Clan unit. I'll not deny there are Clan renegades among the bandits—and they may even be running the operation, but this pirate band is no Clan unit."

"Is not, or just that you don't want it to be?"

Chris's question caught Phelan off-guard and sent a little jolt through him. Could the Red Corsairs be Clan and on a covert mission to disrupt the truce? If so, why masquerade as bandits?Even as he pondered the question, an answer slowly formed in his mind. If the unit pretended to be bandits, they could continue their raiding spree while the rest of the Clans built up a desire to fight against the Inner Sphere again. When the unit crossed the line they could openly declare themselves Clan, fracturing the peace. The Inner Sphere would respond en masse,never believing the fake bandits had operated on their own. If, on the other hand, the bandits had come in as a straight military unit, the ilKhan could have repudiated them and forced the offending sponsor Clan to disown them or else face trouble in the form of a Grand Council.

And the Jade Falcons say the bandits originated in Wolf Clan space. If the raidersare Clan, the Wolves will be blamed and the UKhan's efforts to keep the peace will look like the most hideous betrayal of the Precentor Martial and the Inner Sphere.

Phelan shook his head. "Your question has no meaning, Chris. The bandits have not declared themselves Clan, we have no evidence they are Clan, nor has any Clan claimed them. To decide, in absence of fact, that they areClan is to complicate matters unnecessarily."

"I don't believe that is true. Look, the raids are helping promote the general impression that Victor Davion is not effective as a ruler and that he cares more about the Federated Suns than he does the Lyran Commonwealth. Ryan Steiner is gathering together a coalition able to exert considerable pressure on Victor. There is nothing that would better serve the interest of the Clans than instability in the government of the Federated Commonwealth."

"Chris, listen to yourself." Phelan sighed heavily. "With the evidence you've just presented, we should surmise that Ryan Steiner is behind the bandits because hebenefits more from their raids than even the Clans do. In fact, with the bandits making the Wolves look like morons, you'd think that would bolster up the morale of the Federated Commonwealth and its people."

"Gentlemen, I think you are ranging far afield here, and it does us no good." Dan waved both men back to their chairs. "Chris, Phelan had good reasons for denying the request. Because of the movements of the other moon around Yeguas III, the nearest pirate point you could have jumped into was two days out at a two-gee burn, and that's only if your navigator could have sold Janos on letting a ship try for that one. And even if you could have gotten in, you couldn't have jumped back out for a week after that. The safer and better site would have been four days out, but in either case, the bandits could have returned to their ship and jumped out without you ever getting a shot at them."

"Chris, it would have been worth a shot, if theThirty-first Wolf Solahma had not been there to see you get tricked."

"Our being there might have prevented them from being chewed up."

Phelan shook his head and laughed, "Chewing did them some good."

Chris stared at him and Phelan wondered if he'd suddenly grown horns and a tail. "My God in heaven, you have truly become one of them, haven't you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You. You're one of the Clans." Chris shivered. "You let warriors die on Cue Ball as though their lives were worthless."

"The Thirty-first only lost two pilots."

"But you couldn't have known that going in." The mercenary looked at his cousin with disbelief. "Do they know you consider them disposable?"

Phelan stiffened. "Certainly, in just the same way you told Zimmer's Zouaves they were meant to be flypaper." He saw Chris wince as the remark hit home. "I don't consider the men and women of the Thirty-first Wolf Solahma expendable any more than you see any of your people that way. Yes, they may be warriors reduced to hunting bandits, but they are people. Even if they believe dying in combat is a fitting end to their lives, I do not."

"Then how can you say gnawing is good for them."

"You are right, Chris, I misspoke." The image of Conal Ward floated before Phelan's mind's-eye. "Their commander is an old adversary of mine. All the things you attributed to me a moment ago you can tattoo on him and he would not mind at all. He did everything he could to prevent me from winning a Bloodname, including cheating in a sacred Clan ritual. As a result he was forced to resign from his position as Clan Loremaster, and had to accept duty as the head of a bandit-hunting unit. Because his hatred for the Inner Sphere nearly equals his hatred for me, he was assigned to destroy the Red Corsair and I was assigned to be his immediate superior."

Phelan chewed his lower lip for a moment. "I doubt that Conal learned humility from being embarrassed by the Red Corsair, but I can hope. What is important is that he had his shot and he missed." He took in a deep breath and looked at Chris. "So, if you think I'm working with a hidden agenda, I guess I am. I want to see peace maintained. And the best chance for it is if the Kell Hounds dust these bandits while Conal's folks prove ineffective. That will weaken his position and help discredit his allies—all of whom oppose the peace."

Chris frowned in puzzlement. "I am not sure I understand."

"It is simple, actually. The Clans are split into two factions—the Crusaders and the Wardens. The Crusaders want to take over the Inner Sphere and become its rulers under a reborn Star League. The Crusaders are a minority in the Wolf Clan, but Conal is one of them. The Wardens, on the other hand, believe their mission is to protect the Inner Sphere. Though we predominate in the Wolf Clan, we are the minority in Clans such as the Jade Falcons and Smoke Jaguars."

"For all that your ilKhan is a Warden, he seems to have almost accomplished the Crusader goal." Chris punched up a larger star map that showed the wedge the Clans had driven down into the Inner Sphere. "The Wolves were the cutting edge."

"And the ilKhan negotiated the peace with ComStar. He had to be in front to stop the juggernaut, and he succeeded." Phelan traced the border area between the Federated Commonwealth and the Jade Falcon occupation zone. "The same kind of unrest you report here in the Commonwealth is happening within the Clans. The ilKhan faces pressure to abrogate the truce and press the attack. The bandits seem determined to show how weak the Inner Sphere is. If the Kell Hounds can crush the bandits, we'll put a lie to the myth of the Inner Sphere's vulnerability. It may not be enough to stop the pressure, but it will bleed much of it off."

Chris looked at Phelan curiously. "You said 'We'll put a lie to the myth.' Does that mean you consider yourself one of the Inner Sphere now?"

"By 'we' I meant those who realize the insanity of renewing the war." Phelan offered his cousin his hand.

"And, just so you know, joining the Clans did not include repudiating my family. You can trust me, Chris, as I trust you."

Chris shook the offered hand, but Phelan still saw doubt in his eyes. You're too suspicious, Chris, but maybe that is what kept you alive in the Combine.Phelan thought for a moment and nodded to himself. If Conalis playing some sort of game, your suspicion might keep us all alive.

Dan Allard smiled as the two men broke their grip. "I assume, Phelan, that you had more in mind than a family reunion when you originally asked for this meeting."

The Wolf Clan Khan nodded. "Aside from giving us solid readouts on the Red Corsair's 'Mechs, Yeguas showed us two things. The first is that the bandits don't seem to have aerospace assets. They did not use any to cover their DropShips headed out to get the tribute, nor did they use any to maul the Thirty-first. That leaves them very vulnerable, especially if we can ambush them as they come in on a run on a system."

Chris nodded, but his expression changed to a frown. "We could hide aerospace fighters in a DropShip in an asteroid field or behind a moon, but that would require knowing in advance where the Corsairs are going to be and where they will appear in that star system."

Phelan smiled triumphantly. "That's the second thing. Using the data we've collected concerning their arrival points, cross-correlating it with system data and the catalog of their pirate points that Janos Vandermeer has put together, we've isolated what is probably the program they are using for navigation. By running selections through a copy of that program, and selecting targets based on the parameters they appear to have used before, the list of candidates for their next attack gets damned tiny."

Dan leaned forward. "How tiny?"

Phelan stabbed a finger into a star in the starfield map. "Zanderij is their next target. And when they come in, we'll be waiting."

30

Solaris

Federated Commonwealth

17 August 3055

 

The assassin briefly debated whether or not he would have to kill Judith Calley. Though she knew him only as Chuck Grayson and apparently suspected nothing amiss, she might have picked up unconsciously on clues that could come back to haunt him later. After the time he had spent as Karl Kole, keeping so much to himself, the intimacy of their relationship was a welcome contrast. All the passions he had kept pent up as Kole erupted in their affair.

He realized that continuing to spend time with Jude was dangerous, but he forced his worries away and locked them in the dark recesses of his mind. He was not working, so his normal level of caution was not necessary. He could fully devote himself to becoming Chuck Grayson. He got pleasure and a sense of belonging unlike anything he had ever known when he made his approach to Kai Allard-Liao's managers and was rebuffed. Ronda slowly began to sour on Allard-Liao because of the way they treated Chuck, and John accepted him into the fold once his failure meant Grayson was no longer a threat to John's domination of the group.

He felt normal and even more than that. He could, of course, never forget who and what he was, but it was becoming easier to distance himself from it. He willingly engaged in heated debates about who had really been behind the death of the Archon and whether or not Prince Victor had killed his father. After seeing the first of a series of interviews Victor gave the media, he even took to defending the Prince. This did not make him overly popular with some folks from the Lyran sector of the Federated Commonwealth, but those from the Federated Suns area often bought him drinks and invited him to visit them in their homes if he ever got out that way.

For nearly a month he thought very little about work. Indeed, he had earned enough from the hit on the Archon that he'd never need to accept another assignment. That had, in fact, been his motivation for taking on the Archon's assassination, but as time went by, he began to feel the urge to work again. He was definitely enjoying his time as Chuck Grayson, but he was notChuck Grayson and the person he was neededanother job.

The same part of him that had urged caution at his slipping into the Grayson persona shifted and immediately began to argue that he should not look for a new job. The assassin realized that part of his urge came from all the theories concerning Melissa's death that were running wild. Everyone, from a mad florist to organized crime, to Kurita assassins to Recom-terrorists, had been credited with the kill—everyone except for him!That buffeted his ego, yet revealing his identity to soothe his bruised ego was a short road to ending up dead.

On the other hand he knew that performing another hit might give those in the know, the Intelligence Secretariat and other similar governmental bodies, enough clues to realize that a very good assassin was at work. Actually, he told himself, it wouldn't be the clues, but the lack of them that would key them to the fact that the Archon's assassin had struck again.

Ego overruling logic, and thumb covering the camera lens that would record his picture, he called a message drop from a payvis. He'd compiled an identification code based on the combined date, time, and temperature divided by a constant that only he and the computer at the other end of the line knew. He punched in that code, then hit two buttons on the visiphone console, feeding the computer the access number for the booth where he sat. He then severed the connection, looked at his chronometer, and waited.

If he had any messages, the computer would call back. He would have to enter a new check code and he would be given the message or be connected with one of his contacts who could give him details of any prospective employment. If no call came within five minutes, either he had no messages or it was not possible to make a connection with the other party wishing to speak with him.

He glanced at his chronometer, then read the public access newsbytes scrolling up on the idle screen. Kai Allard-Liao had successfully defended his title yet again. His string of victories had long since eclipsed the mark set by his father and even the one established by his father's mentor, Gray Noton. As with almost all the stories concerning the Solaris champion, the writer speculated that he might be leaving the Game World soon to pursue other endeavors.

When the visiphone suddenly bleated at him, he covered the camera before hitting a button to accept the call. A face appeared on the screen that he recognized as Kevin Chen—a contact who had gotten him one job in the Capellan Confederation that had turned out well. "A man wishes to speak with you. It will pay as well as your last job and offers some of the same perks without the same risks. A week?"

The assassin frowned. Jude and her group would be leaving in a week. In the past he would never have pushed a meeting back because of something like a final party with friends, but then he'd never really had friends before. It could wait. "Eight days."

"Done."

"Who will I be meeting?"

"Don't worry, he checks out."

"I worry. Who?"

Chen looked uneasy and dropped his voice to a whisper. "Fuh Teng."

"Message me details."

The assassin broke the connection and opened the door to the booth. Fuh Teng:He had been Kai Allard-Liao's manager ever since the warrior first came to Solaris, and had managed the family's stable of fighters on Solaris since his early partnership with Justin Allard. Whoever he wants dead will not be easy to kill.

The assassin smiled to himself and laughed in a way that would have made Chuck Grayson shiver. But with me doing the job, whoever it is will die well.

31

DropShip Tigress

Pirate Jump Point, Zanderij

Federated Commonwealth

20 August 3055

 

Knowing the Red Corsair was planning to jump soon, Nelson Geist did not fully seat the earphones for his journey into the computer-reality. He wanted to be able to hear the three-tone signal warning that jump was imminent beyond the sounds of the artificial world. When it came suddenly, he braced himself on the treadmill railing and moved his feet to the sides of the rubber tread.

He pulled off his helmet and hung it on the corner of the railing, then swung under and sat down on the ground. Hugging his knees to his chest, Nelson concentrated on breathing. In, out. Jumping isn'tthat bad.He screwed his eyes shut and felt his stomach lurch as the ship entered hyperspace.

The universe compacted itself into the size of a pin-head, which then seemed to lodge at the base of his skull. He saw visions of everything happening at once, as if time had been stripped away. In those visions he suddenly grasped the key to all of reality. For a single nanosecond he and the universe were one, and realization of that fact brought with it a glimmering of hope that he had not known since his capture.

Then the universe exploded back to its full dimensions and he felt pain as the explosion lasered up and down his spine. For the barest of moments he feared the ship had made a misjump and ended up in whatever ethereal limbo waited for starships with faulty jump drives. But opening his eyes he realized that all was well, and somewhere at the back of his mind, he caught and held on to a wisp of the hope he had discovered in the moment of the jump.

The whole Tigressremained eerily silent for a short time. Because of the near ambushes at Great X and Yeguas, Nelson knew that the Red Corsair was not going to commit her DropShips to a run on the fourth planet unless she could determine what threat, if any, the enemy could offer.

A solar system being a rather huge place, hiding a JumpShip or DropShips full of 'Mechs should have been a simple thing, but Nelson knew from his years as a warrior that it was not. Because gravity could rip a JumpShip to pieces as it entered or left a system, the ship had to be stationed either well above or well below the plane of the elliptic. That usually put it at either solar pole, but pirate points—little windows in the dynamic gravitational matrices near the planets and moons—made it possible to come in dangerously close to planets at certain times and at certain points.

The JumpShip Fire Rosehad come in at just one of those pirate points and that it had not jumped back out immediately meant the initial scan showed no danger. As seconds passed into infinity, Nelson steeled himself against the possible jolt of another jump. Not so soon,he pleaded silently because he knew that with another jump, despair would replace the hope he had glimpsed.

Klaxons rang through the ship and he heard the whirring clicks as the two OverlordClass DropShips pulled away from the Fire Rose.Nelson felt himself get heavy as the Tigressbegan accelerating away from the Rose,and as he struggled to his feet, he realized the Red Corsair meant to go in hot. We're pushing 1.5 gees. She wants to be in and out before the Wolves can react to a distress call from Zanderij.

* * *

Caitlin Kell keyed her radio as she saw DropShip separation on her secondary cockpit screen. "Raven Leader to Raven Flight, we have separation. ETA fifteen minutes." She punched another button on her console and switched over to the command frequency. "Vulture Leader, we have separation."

"Roger, Raven Leader," Carew responded. "We pick them up in ten, and you close the door on them."

"Roger, Vulture Leader. Good luck." Caitlin shifted her radio back to her own tactical frequency and realized she was smiling. She was proud that her brother's plan had worked out. The asteroid field just outside Zanderij IV had provided ample hiding places for her fighter wing. The asteroids, while a nasty hazard for fighters going full-bore, were much more dangerous for the larger DropShips, and forced them into some fairly specific and narrow channels.

The ambush plan was simple and would have been perfect had there not been two equally accessible pirate points in the Zanderij system. Two of the three Kell Hound fighter squadrons had been stationed at a point roughly 1.6 million kilometers away. With her, Caitlin had the First Fighter Squadron and the ten Clan fliers in the Honor Guard Star that had come with Phelan.

She knew that twenty-eight fighters were insufficient to engage two OverlordClass DropShips, but the DropShips' transit through an asteroid field made them especially vulnerable. The Red Corsair's ships would have no choice but to run the gauntlet. She would hit them as they went in, but if the Corsair failed to reverse and jump out, the Hounds would join them in-system and engage on the ground. The key for Caitlin's fighter group was to do the DropShips as much damage as possible. If one or both of the DropShips smashed into the asteroids and died, everyone would consider that a bonus.

Caitlin watched the video feed coming from the sensor pod mounted atop the abandoned mining office on the asteroid where her aerospace squadron had been stationed. The two DropShips were coming in fast and dangerously close to each other, with the ship designated the Tigresscoming first. The Lionesslingered behind a bit, but their port and starboard fields of fire overlapped. The zone between them, instead of being a death zone, would be fairly open because neither ship could fire for fear of hitting its sister.

"Raven Leader, prep launch in 1.5 minutes. Velocity adjustment for run to plus fifty-two percent."

"Acknowledged, Vulture Leader." Caitlin relayed the information to her Raven squadron and knew that Crow and Blackbird squadrons were getting similar orders from Carew. The Kell Hounds were in command of the overall operation against the Clans, but Phelan and Dan Allard had. agreed that having Carew command at least this part of the ambush would give Conal Ward less to complain about. The assignment would satisfy the Wolf Clan's sense of honor.

She punched up her engines and let them build up to 110 percent of military power. They came online quickly and pushed power to her Stingray'swing-mounted large and medium laser pairs and the PPC mounted in the nose. She vectored the thrust up so it would keep her on the asteroid, but she knew that the second she shifted it the other way, the asteroid's vestigial gravity would release her fighter and send it out into the fray.

The clock on her auxiliary screen counted down to zero. "Raven Flight, go!"

As Caitlin pulled the stick back and eased the throttle forward, the Stingrayleaped from the asteroid like a falcon freed for flight. Punching both feet down on the overthrust pedals spiked the power output and jammed her back into her command couch as the fighter shot up and away. Glancing at her holographic combat display, she saw another Stingraypull in beside her. "Glad you're here, Mulligan."

The pair of swept-wing fighters threaded their way through the asteroid field and broke into the cylinder the DropShips had used to make their passage in toward the planet. Caitlin kicked her fighter up on its right wing in a looping turn that centered her in the cylinder. As the craft's nose pointed in at Zanderij IV, she spotted the two bright dots that were the bandit DropShips.

"Bandits at twelve o'clock," she radioed her squadron. "Fire at will."

* * *

Nelson stumbled against a bulkhead as the Tigressshuddered with the first hit. The blaring klaxons summoning bandits to battle stations had already told him something was wrong, but the hit confirmed it. Fighters. They jumped us with fighters.He hit the button to open the hatch to the corridor and stepped through it as another explosion rocked the DropShip.

In the corridor he could feel the thrumming rhythm of the Overlord'sautocannons coming into play against the fighters. The ship swayed as gunners activated missile launchers and unleashed their clouds of missiles. The Tigressstarted to spin slowly and Nelson realized that it was doing so to bring all its weapons into play. We're too close to theLioness for a full sphere of fire.

As a MechWarrior, Nelson felt a mixture of joy and dread concerning fighters. He knew they could easily devastate ground-bound forces and even cripple Drop-Ships. Though such an action would mean his death, the idea made him happy because it would also bring the Red Corsair's predations to an end. That fed into the optimistic feelings in his heart, and spawned a desperate plan.

I don't have to die.Nelson knew it was true with the conviction of a madman or a prophet, and he knew two other things without a doubt. The first was that he would survive whatever happened at Zanderij.

The second was that he would finally be free of the Red Corsair!

* * *

"Watch it, Raven Deuce, open up," Caitlin snarled into her radio as Mulligan's Stingraystrayed in close to her fighter. Seeing his fighter jerk ahead as he hit the overthrusters, she dropped back to cover him in case the bandits launched fighters of their own. Spinning asteroids whirled strobelike through sun and shadow, reducing the channel to a surreal tunnel with a firestorm at the far end.

"I'm in!" Mulligan's words echoed through her helmet as he flipped his Stingrayup on its canopy in a tight roll, and made a run on the Lioness.His wing-mounted medium and large lasers flashed out with competing red and green shafts of energy, raking like claws through the armor of the egg-shaped DropShip, then the PPC in the Stingray'snose jolted the larger ship with an azure bolt of artificial lightning.

Caitlin had less than a second to appreciate Mulligan's handiwork before her own attack run started. She dropped her golden crosshairs onto the ship and, immediately got the gold dot in the center, confirming a target lock. She punched her thumb down on the joystick's firing stud, and heat spiked colorfully on her auxiliary monitor. The PPC sent a jagged blue line of lightning into the Lioness.

Hitting the trigger under her index finger, Caitlin next fired both large lasers, pushing her ship's heat higher. The fighter's green beams bracketed the PPC blast and melted away yet more armor on the DropShip's hull.

"Nice shooting, Cait!" Mulligan corkscrewed his fighter down through the death alley between the two DropShips, and she followed in his wake. "Another run?"

"Roger, Raven Two." She remembered Phelan's instructions to the pilots. "Whatever it takes."

* * *

Nelson ran as hard as he could through the corridor, the klaxons harrying him like hunting horns after a fox. I will escape!He threaded his way through the ship, running counter to the ship's rotation. Glancing at letters stenciled on the wall, he knew he was only two segments away from his goal.

Suddenly a huge explosion rocked the Tigress,smashing him against the interior bulkhead. He saw stars when he hit his forehead, then rebounded and sprawled on the deck? Darkness wanted to close around him, but he forced it away. Pushing himself to a sitting position, Nelson felt blood dripping down from the gash on his head, but his adrenaline and sense of urgency blocked any pain.

The Tigresstipped on its axis, pitching the deck up. Nelson, grabbed a structural girder and held on, then pulled himself forward. Sinking to his hands and knees, he scrambled uphill, then somersaulted forward as the ship violently righted itself. A wave of dizziness passed over him, then he regained his feet and started running forward again.

Around the curve of the ship he saw the access hatch to the escape pod. He ran to it and slammed his right palm down on the panel switch to open it. The hatch irised open, revealing the dark interior of the womblike pod.

As he started to step into it, a bandit grabbed the upper part of his left arm and pulled him away. "Where do you think you'regoing?"

Nelson slumped his shoulders in defeat, then balled his maimed fist. He swung it down in a short arc that terminated in the bandit's groin. As the man squealed and bent over, Nelson brought his right knee up. The man's nose shattered in a spray of blood, then he dropped to the deck.

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