Warrior: Coupé (The Warrior Trilogy, Book Three): BattleTech Legends, #59

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “Please reply soonest. There may be no time to waste.”

  Alessandro froze the image with Frederick’s mouth hanging open, making him look stupid. Smiling, the older man turned to Ryan. “What do you think?”

  Ryan frowned. “The message is openly antagonistic and arrogant. Frederick hints at some disaster that might befall Katrina Steiner. Because Uncle Frederick does not think in terms of subtleties, I have to assume Duke Aldo Lestrade lurks somewhere in the background. That leads me to have little confidence in the successful completion of the plot.”

  Alessandro nodded solemnly, his pleasure at Ryan’s analysis shining in his eyes. “Had Frederick said, ‘Alessandro, I’m taking the Tenth Lyran Guards to Tharkad to kick Katrina out of office,’ I might have supported him. Aldo has already failed at least three times to assassinate Katrina, and I cannot see any indication that he might succeed this time.”

  Ryan straightened up in his chair. “You think he’ll try to kill her again?”

  Alessandro nodded. “Do neutrinos precede visible light in a supernova? As long as Katrina is alive, there is no one who will depose her. Her grip on power is too strong. People would rally to her defense. Katrina Steiner will rule the Lyran Commonwealth as long as she lives. Even if Frederick does not understand this, I am sure Lestrade does.”

  Ryan eased back in the chair. “What do you think Frederick meant when he hinted at dissolution of the Commonwealth? Do you think that has something to do with Lestrade’s separatist movement in the Isle of Skye?”

  Alessandro smiled broadly. “Very good question. It would be my guess that Lestrade will use any Kurita strike as an excuse to declare the Isle of Skye independent and a noncombatant. Pavel Ridzik has done something similar, and ComStar nearly beat the Federated Suns in declaring support for his realm. I would guess Lestrade has spoken to some ComStar officials about this already.”

  Ryan narrowed his eyes. “Why would ComStar support such independent nations?”

  Alessandro shrugged carelessly. “Being pacifistic, perhaps they imagine they can extinguish the war one small nation at a time. They can also get a smaller government to grant them concessions—like paying for communication network upgrades—much more easily than with a larger nation. Maximilian Liao is notorious for leaving deep fingerprints on each C-bill his government spends.”

  Ryan smiled at the joke. “So we know Frederick will take power after something has happened to Katrina, and we know Lestrade will make the Isle of Skye independent. It strikes me that the latter should happen before the former, then Frederick could bring the Isle of Skye back into the fold to gain some instant appreciation from the people.”

  “Very good, Ryan. Very good.” Alessandro watched his grand-nephew carefully. “So, what do you imagine my reply is to Frederick?”

  Ryan pursed his lips. “You refuse to support him.”

  Alessandro shook his head. “No. Wrong. If you want to be Archon, you must learn how to use your enemies. Here I have a situation where Frederick is pitted against Katrina. If Frederick fails, he is eliminated. If he succeeds, Katrina is eliminated. My role is to serve as a catalyst because either outcome is good for my, ah, your political future.”

  Ryan nodded slowly. “You tell Frederick you support him, but you do not, in fact, give him any help. If he succeeds, he will be weak. Then you can use your influence to support me in a drive to depose this bloody-handed murderer.”

  The Archon smiled. “Melissa will be torn between her husband and her homeland. You will rally all the anti-Davion support in the Commonwealth, and through a carefully orchestrated public relations campaign, we will win you support. You will be Archon while Melissa is left to live with her husband.”

  Ryan raised an eyebrow. “What if Frederick’s plan goes sour?”

  Alessandro licked his lips like a hungry cat. “We will be sure the Archon sees a copy of the holodisk you just saw. It will be enough to reveal Frederick for the bumbler he is, and it will be enough for Katrina to rid herself of him. She will then be indebted to us, bringing you one step closer to becoming Archon.”

  The younger Steiner frowned deeply. “Why would you help her? You hate her. For over twenty years, you’ve tried to get rid of her. You even tried to have her killed on Poulsbo the year I was born. I’m confused.”

  Alessandro sat back, steepling his fingers as he did. “I see you have come to believe all the stories that my rivals have circulated over the years. I have opposed Katrina Steiner, but not because I do not believe she makes a fine Archon. I saw her leadership abilities long ago, and would have designated her as my heir instead of Frederick.”

  Ryan could hardly believe his ears. “But you tried to have her killed on Poulsbo! That’s hardly a sign of support for your Heir-Apparent.”

  “No, Ryan. I did not send Loki operatives after her on Poulsbo. That story is a complete and utter fabrication.” Alessandro’s eyes focused distantly, and he chuckled to himself. “Do you know what Heimdall is?”

  Ryan stiffened as a chill ran down his spine. “It’s supposed to be an anti-government movement. It’s very secretive, but rumors suggest many highly placed members of the government are linked with Heimdall.” Ryan hesitated. “It is said that Heimdall kept Katrina safe from your assassins on Poulsbo.”

  Alessandro sighed heavily. “It is true: the victors write the history. What you have said about Heimdall is true. A number of nobles formed the organization to combat excesses in the government ages ago—only members of that God-cursed group know when it was actually formed. It just so happens that back in 3005, I learned the identity of a Heimdall leader. It was Arthur Luvon.”

  Ryan’s jaw dropped open. Katrina’s husband and Melissa’s father! “The Duke of Donegal?”

  Alessandro nodded solemnly. “I sent Loki operatives out to kill him while he visited Poulsbo. I had no way of knowing that Katrina and Luvon’s cousin, Morgan Kell, would all be at dinner on the evening selected for the termination. Somehow they escaped the trap and assumed Katrina was the target. Over the next year, this view became reinforced in Katrina’s mind and in the mind of the public. When she returned from hiding, our relationship was in tatters and she had fallen completely under the influence of Arthur Luvon. How could I explain to her that I had not meant to kill her, but the man she loved? Had I told her the truth, I think her vengeance would have been swifter and less merciful.”

  Ryan watched Alessandro deflate as weariness caught up with him. Part of him welcomes death and even wishes Katrina had killed him after she stripped him of office. Another part of him, the part pushing me as a rival for Melissa, relishes the fact that he has lived long enough to prepare his revenge for what she did to him so many years ago.

  Ryan smiled. “The lesson you spoke of earlier…I think I have learned it. If I am to be Archon, I must learn to pit enemies against each other. I must trust no one’s word unless I have some evidence that this person will keep it. And in a political bargain, I must always look for a thumb on the scales. Everyone is out for himself.”

  Alessandro smiled broadly. “You do see what I have been teaching you. Remember, there is nothing in the universe more desirable than being Archon. Winning that post does not so much depend upon your being able to outrun opponents. What it requires is that you cut down the competition as ruthlessly as possible.”

  Ryan returned Alessandro’s smile. “Then let us begin with Uncle Frederick…”

  Chapter 10

  NASHIRA

  DIERON MILITARY DISTRICT

  DRACONIS COMBINE

  27 APRIL 3029

  Akira Brahe turned to study his father’s strong profile in the light of Nashira’s bloody moon. The face looked like it might have been chiseled from stone. How can he look out over this destruction and maintain an expression so devoid of emotion? Yorinaga Kurita narrowed his dark, almond-shaped eyes. It is as though he is trying to make sense of what the Kell Hounds have done to Nashira in their assault.

  From high atop the Ge
nyosha base’s command center, Akira followed his father’s gaze over the damage left by the mercenaries. Every building in the base, save the one where they stood, had been flattened with a vengeance. Some had vanished without a trace. With the others, the debris was not scattered randomly as it would have been if a battle had raged at the base, but was concentrated at the site where each building had stood.

  Akira frowned heavily, irritation and anger like sparks in his tawny eyes. He nervously ran the fingers of his left hand through his close-cropped bronze hair. “It makes no sense, sosen. Why would the mercenaries do this?”

  Yorinaga turned slowly toward his son. “No sense? Explain to me what confuses you.”

  Akira, stung by his father’s tone, stiffened. “Do you ask this as my father, or order it as the tai-sa of the Genyosha?”

  Yorinaga bowed his gray-haired head. “Sumimasen, Akira. Forgive me. I did not mean to rebuke you or seem to question your abilities.” Yorinaga looked again at the pattern of destruction. “It is just that I desire to see all this with your eyes. Perhaps your eyes are less blind than mine.”

  Akira nodded. “I wonder about more than just what the Kell Hounds did to our base. It makes sense to me that they would destroy it. They would have expected us to be here, and we were not.” Akira waved a hand to take in the full circle of ruins. “The strange thing is that their actions were inconsistent with what our Internal Security Force tell us about the tactics of mercenary scum.”

  Akira licked his lips. The ISF tells us all mercenaries are without honor, but I did not see that on Northwind when fighting against Team Banzai or even the group masquerading as the Kell Hounds Third ’Mech Battalion, Bradley’s Bravos. They fought for more than money. They fought like true warriors.

  Yorinaga allowed himself a brief smile. “I am certain reports of this incident will cause some confusion in the court at Luthien. While we are out attacking Northwind because the ISF reported the Kell Hounds are there, the Kell Hounds have penetrated Combine security and learned of our home base. They hit it, only to find we are not here, while we discover they are not at Northwind.”

  Akira smiled. “Luthien will also have to puzzle over why the Kell Hounds ordered all the civilians to clear out from the base, and why they gave them five hours to move all of the Genyosha’s personal effects from the buildings they intended to destroy.” Akira looked down at the building on which they stood. “And they’ll wonder why the command center was spared.”

  Yorinaga narrowed his eyes. “Morgan Kell ordered the civilians out and allowed them to move our possessions because he wanted it clearly understood that his war has nothing to do with the Draconis Combine, or even the Genyosha.” Yorinaga looked at his son. “And the reason he left this building standing is because it was from this point that he orchestrated the base’s ruin.”

  Yorinaga pointed toward a pile of debris. “See where the natatorium stood? Notice how the stones seem scattered randomly, but fall in a cross-shaped pattern beside that largest pile?”

  Akira shrugged. “I supposed some Christians had arranged those stones in memory of a comrade they believed trapped in the building when it was destroyed.”

  The Genyosha’s leader smiled. “Your assumption was correct, but you attribute it to someone here on Nashira. You will recall that the ISF learned that Morgan Kell retreated to a Christian monastery on Zaniah while I was in exile on Echo. Kell ordered the stones laid in that pattern to mark the place where his brother died.”

  Akira frowned, trying to remember the name of the world where Patrick Kell had been slain. That happened back before I joined the Genyosha. “Styx? That system is just a collection of asteroids.” Akira smacked his right palm against his forehead. “Just as the natatorium is reduced to a collection of blocks.”

  Yorinaga smiled, pleased with his son’s perception. “This building represents Terra, and the rubble piles mark the location of worlds to a rough distance of one hundred and thirty light years out.”

  Though never schooled in astronavigation, Akira had learned enough from talking with JumpShip crewmembers to recognize the placement of some worlds. “Why, sosen? What earthly purpose could this star map have?”

  Yorinaga drew in a deep breath. “As you have guessed, the sort of blind stabs we, the Genyosha, and the Kell Hounds engaged in back in January could continue forever. We might never be at the same place at the same time, and Morgan Kell took precautions against that happening again.”

  Yorinaga pointed at a ruin off toward the northeast. “That pile represents the Steiner world of Ryde. Around it you can see three smaller piles of bricks—these taken from buildings other than the one transformed into Ryde. They represent the world’s three moons.”

  Akira nodded. “They are positioned in a manner that indicates when the Genyosha should appear there?”

  “In June,” Yorinaga said. “Only a month from now. We can just make it in time.”

  Akira drew himself up to his full height. “Sumimasen, Tai-sa, put it down to my mother’s Scandinavian blood or to my poor training with the Eleventh Legion of Vega, but how do you know this will not be a trap?”

  Yorinaga shook his head slowly. “Morgan Kell would not do that. No, this is the last act in a play that began sixteen years ago on Mallory’s World.”

  The garish light of Nashira’s red moon painted scarlet highlights over Akira’s face. “That would be 3013. I thought your fight with Morgan Kell took place in 3016.”

  Yorinaga closed his eyes and tried to relax, but Akira saw the tension in his father’s slender frame. “Kell and I first opposed each other in 3013. My battalion of the Second Sword of Light had succeeded in trapping the command company of the Fourth Davion Guards in a maze of canyons. Our aero wing controlled the skies over this area, which prevented the Davion Guards from jumping scouts onto the ridgelines to find a way out. With the fighters to spot for us, we knew where to hunt for our quarry, but without scouts, they did not know where to run or hide.”

  Yorinaga massaged his forehead with his left hand. “If ever there was a glorious battle, this was it. Prince Ian Davion, on sheer strength of personality, kept his troops together. He sprang ambushes on us, but never let his rearguard get trapped. On the few occasions when we engaged his people in a real firefight, the Prince’s Atlas was always the last ’Mech to withdraw.

  “We finally trapped the company in a canyon that tapered down into a narrow route out. Prince Ian held my people back, delivering salvo after salvo of long-range missile fire that savaged the ’Mechs of my command. When his missiles were exhausted, he used his autocannon and medium lasers to halt our advance as his command trickled out of the canyon.”

  Yorinaga’s eyes snapped open. “You should have seen it, Akira. That Atlas shrugged off our assaults as though they were pesky flies. Armor flew from it in sheets of molten debris, but Ian Davion made no move to retreat. Here he was, leader of the Federated Suns, almost as important as Takashi Kurita himself, but he would not turn and run. Seldom is such a warrior born outside the Combine.”

  Yorinaga’s nostrils flared as he remembered, and Akira listened, spellbound. “I ordered my troops back, then brought my Warhammer forward to engage the Prince. We both knew I would kill him, but I believe he took comfort in knowing I would give him a warrior’s death.

  “He was magnificent in battle. He moved his Atlas with an agility I’ve seen in only a handful of MechWarriors. His last volley with the autocannon all but tore off my Warhammer’s left arm and his lasers raked over my armor like the claws of some angry beast. He was spectacular, but I was better.”

  Yorinaga was fully caught up in the memory. “I pushed my Warhammer to the limit and beyond. I fired my particle projection cannons in tandem, ignoring the waves of heat building up through the cockpit. Sweat poured into my eyes in a stinging flood, but I kept my sights on the Atlas by feel and sense more than by vision. My ’Mech and I moved almost as one as we drilled PPC beams through the Atlas’s armor. Explosions in its che
st flashed like lightning trapped in a thunderhead, and I knew the machine was all but dead. Prince Ian would have ejected, I am certain, but one of my short-range missiles had exploded against the Atlas’s head and sealed the canopy. Leaking black smoke from a dozen mortal wounds, the Atlas teetered, then fell to its back on that armor-littered canyon floor.”

  Yorinaga’s voice cut off abruptly. Akira studied his father’s shadowed face. I’ve never seen him look so angry, so outraged, so humiliated…

  When Yorinaga spoke again, his voice was choked into a hoarse whisper. “I moved in to see if the Prince yet lived. If so, I would capture him. If not, I meant to bring the Dragon proof that his hated enemy was truly dead. I never got the chance.

  “Two companies of the Kell Hounds appeared on the ridgeline as if by sorcery. A voice, one I would come to know as Morgan Kell’s, broke into our tactical channel. ‘Leave him alone.’ It was a warning and a challenge and a plea all wrapped up in one, but I ignored it.

  “A Shilone fighter from the air lance covering us screamed down out of sky and lined up for a pass at Kell’s Archer. Instantly, the Archer’s missile racks vomited out two clouds of LRMs. The missiles rose on vapor trails that all converged on the attacking fighter. Their combined explosions rivaled the sun for half a second, then the Shilone’s flaming wreckage slammed into the canyon wall, showering the battlefield with thousands of firebrands.”

  Yorinaga’s voice seethed with anger and disgust. “The jump-capable Kell Hound ’Mechs dropped down into the canyon. With one shot, Salome Ward’s Wolverine snapped my Warhammer’s left arm off. Kell’s Archer launched flight after flight of LRMs at the troops behind me, yet staggered his assaults so they could withdraw if they wished. His air lance reclaimed the skies over the canyon, preventing us from rising to the ridges to oppose them.