“It would appear my captains were right after all . . . the currents bring interesting times indeed.”
25
Dormuth
Mandoria, Marik
Marik-Stewart Commonwealth
1 June 3137
The assault began at dawn.
A large force of ’Mechs, vehicles and battle armor— even several Stars of conventional infantry—hammered into the forward positions of the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth defenders entrenched in Dormuth. Major Chris Leger, the defending commander on the front lines of the brutal assault, immediately knew this was a last, desperate attempt by the Spirit Cats to smash the leadership of the Marik troops before the Commonwealth grinder pared them down so far that a militia with a lance of salvaged IndustrialMechs would be their undoing. He surmised (in the first of three fatally wrong conclusions) that the force could be no larger than a Cluster—though that scared him plenty. He further surmised (in his second mistake that day) that the Spirit Cats were likely and finally preparing an ordered withdrawal to the DropShips they’d been cut off from for so long, and this attack was simply a diversion. With that in mind, not only could no more than a Cluster be deployed in this assault, but their true focus would be in linking up with those DropShips and making sure that as many troops as possible could then be extracted from Dormuth to that new staging area and finally off-world.
The third and final error of the day could not really rest on his shoulders, as the Spirit Cats had scrubbed the last of the Commonwealth’s eyes and ears from the skies and near space of Marik, and the assault by Nikol’s forces in the Oceana system had annihilated all the reinforcement aerospace assets that might have allowed the defenders to reassert air superiority. But it was an error nonetheless, as commanders are supposed to anticipate the unexpected; an especially grievous failure of judgment, since the battle for Marik had turned into an endless war of surprises as each side struggled to topple the other through one ingenious military plan after another.
Major Leger immediately began his own ordered withdrawal, pulling back in the face of the onslaught street by street as he issued nontransmitted orders through a pony-express relay system using any civilian craft that could be dragooned into service; to date, they’d managed to keep the Spirit Cats at bay until the long-sought-after reinforcements arrived by shifting almost all communications to nontransmitted orders after it became clear the Clanners were cracking one too many burst transmissions.
The Marik defenders pulled back in good order as Leger waited for the pony-express-carried orders to marshal his rear and portions of each of his flanks’ troops. Worry didn’t set in until he traveled the entire distance of his allotted fallback and then even he could not ignore the facts staring him in the face down long weapon barrels; not only had no relief troops appeared from his rear or flanking deployments, but there was a terrifying number of Spirit Cat troops barreling down the long roads of Dormuth on his position.
Leger finished his retreat into prepared revetments and met the first wave of the Clanner assault. Though the Spirit Cat machines appeared as bedraggled as his own, with armor patches as prevalent as the spent ammo casings on the rubble-strewn streets and numerous weapon systems damaged or out of ammo—the sheer ferocity of the assault, combined with the numbers, almost dislodged his troops in that first, horrifying wave. With morale quickly eroding and the Spirit Cats setting up for a second attack wave while simultaneously sending smaller units of battlearmor and light ’Mechs through the barriers along their flanks, Leger made the only decision he could and broke radio contact.
Five minutes. Five minutes of a death-wail call for help that apparently went unheard; static filled all lines. There could be only one reason.
The general was dead.
As a third assault began and Leger’s entire front crumbled, strange glowing objects appeared in the bright, late-afternoon sky. As though mesmerized by an angel come to carry him home, Leger found his will to fight finally fleeing after the endless months, broken by the sure knowledge that the one person who kept them all going lay dead . . . somehow dead. He gazed upward, his ’Mech unmoving in the midst of the apocalypse as the Spirit Cats scythed through his forces, not a muscle twitching as the glowing lights resolved and the metal rain began and he started to laugh hysterically and continued for long, long seconds until an azure beam of charged particles reaved him from this life.
Chazwasl Starlord-class JumpShip
Zenith Jump Point, Marik
Marik-Stewart Commonwealth
5 June 3137
Nikol stretched her tired back and closed her eyes as her body floated in place in the command berth aboard the Chazwasl Starlord-class JumpShip. She knew her lack of decorum in that moment would horrify her oldest sister, since Casson occupied the same berth, but she didn’t care.
Too tired to care. You managed to stay alive, Julietta. Amazing. Since she’d been bracing for news of her sister’s death, Julietta’s miraculous escape—considering the scope of the fighting in Dormuth—should’ve left Nikol feeling relieved. Instead, she felt nothing. That disturbed her; she tried to chalk up her numbness to the shocking report accompanying her sister’s news that she lived.
“We have failed,” she said. The emotion that prompted she refused to let out, keeping her eyes closed until the sensation passed.
“What?” Casson responded.
“We’ve failed. All this work and the damn Clanners live. They live and even more Clanners are on-planet! “ She was shouting by the end of the sentence.
“Nikol.” Casson’s calm voice fished her partway out of her self-pity; she opened her eyes to see him floating past her field of vision. A flush crept across her features at the thought of the ludicrous image she must present to her subordinate, and she unfurled on the next rotation, allowing her foot to snag the armrest of her chair so that she could reel herself back in and latch herself down.
“What?” That did not sound petulant at all.
“First, you must always expect the unexpected.”
She couldn’t help roll her eyes at such a tired aphorism, but held her tongue at the look of reproof in Casson’s eyes.
“What’s more, you must respect a brilliant plan. And what the Spirit Cats have pulled off is brilliant.”
“What are you talking about? Mother was simply using them. They were supposed to annihilate themselves and take the Commonwealth defenders with them. Now we’ve got two Clans on-world.”
“You should respect their achievement; even our enemies can teach us. The fact that the Spirit Cats managed to hold on all this time is a magnificent testament to their drive. Their commitment. Their battlefield acumen. And then, contracting with Clan Sea Fox and offering the warrior merchants large tracts of Marik to serve as one of their clearinghouse worlds in exchange for military aid in putting down the last of the Marik defenders? Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”
“But it’s not their world. It’s ours!”
“We’ve not set foot on Marik yet. And as the saying goes, possession is nine-tenths of the law. They purchased Marik with their blood.”
“Rather than complaining about the situation, we need to figure out what we can we learn from it.”
She ran her fingers through her dirty hair and tried to ignore how nasty it felt as she bent her mind to the question. She finally nodded as the lesson became painfully obvious. “That if the Spirit Cats could survive everything they’ve been through in the past months—let’s even say win the planet, for the sake of argument—trying to extricate them at this point would be difficult.”
Casson bellowed a rare laugh that filled the berth with deep echoes. “Difficult doesn’t scratch the surface. Dormuth is now a ruin of mazes and tunnels that the Spirit Cats probably know like the backs of their hands. They’re wounded. But they’re a wounded animal in the corner. Digging them out would be suicide.”
Nikol nodded grudgingly. “Not to mention that Clan Sea Fox has settled in.”
“Ex
actly. Now that they’ve sunk their teeth into such a fine morsel as Marik to help them expand their mercantile empire . . . well, they’d likely be even more dangerous than the Spirit Cats. No, we have to face the fact that we may be able to plant a flag on Marik and call it a part of the Oriente Protectorate, but it’s a world with other owners. Owners I hope Her Highness can woo into bonds of fealty.”
“Defeat, then. Just as I said.”
“No,” Casson responded immediately. “Not defeat. Just a different type of victory.”
“Uh?”
“What was the ultimate goal of our mission?”
“To obtain Marik.”
“Yes, but there was a more important goal.”
She tipped her head to the side as she considered the larger scope of their mission, then said, “To deprive Anson of Marik.”
“Exactly. And when it comes to that objective, victory is victory, no matter how we achieved it.”
She nodded at the logic, her spirits rising slightly before they crashed hard under a new thought. “But will Mother think so?”
Neither had a response to that.
26
Amur, Oriente
Oriente Protectorate
2 July 3137
Jessica laid down the ornate pen and stretched her hand, hearing her aging tendons pop like the snap of moisture evaporating from wood in the baking heat of a campfire. No wonder, with this unusual summer heat. She contemplated unbuttoning the top button of her high-necked dress, but decided against the impropriety . . . her children would be here momentarily.
Her eyes snagged on the liver spots on the back of her hands as she rubbed away the strain of writing. They’re bigger now. Much bigger. She forced herself to stop and contemplate her own mortality in the ugly brown stains marring her once beautiful hands. She clucked her tongue. Hands that still have much strength . . . and much to do. She picked up the small pot of self-heating wax, dribbling a good-sized dollop of the red paraffin at the bottom of the page she had just signed. She waited a few breaths for the cooling wax to reach just the right viscosity, then reached for the seal.
Her hand paused of its own accord, drawing her gaze to the two seals that brooded on the desk like burning eyes in the early morning light filtering into the room. The one showed a stylized outline of an eagle against a circular shield, with a scroll across the top emblazoned with the word Marik: the House Marik family emblem. The other showed a more traditional eagle outline in flight, against a circular shield with off-center tabs: the house Halas emblem. Her fingers slowly clenched into a fist.
Even in my head I don’t capitalize house Halas! Memories flared from a lifetime of the struggle between her two halves. The real blood of house Halas that flowed through her veins and the blood of House Marik—the noble scions that ruled the Free Worlds League for centuries—that called to her, but upon which she held no real claim.
I have every right . . . when those who possess real Marik blood are so incompetent. So bereft of understanding the real Free Worlds League. Have forgotten what made us strong for so many centuries. Under most circumstances she would’ve reached for the Marik symbol, regardless of her endless internal struggle. But today, despite the desire, she knew subtlety was paramount. Instead, with the abrupt sure knowledge that moved mountains in her universe, Jessica seized the house Halas seal and imprinted it against the red wax.
The seal of my blood, Prime Minister Michael. The seal of a scion of the Free Worlds League looking for help to reforge our great House. She knew that a verigraph message would be far more secure. But the archaic use of a wax seal . . . the intimacy of her own hand signing each proposal and the feel of the wax emblem as each leader contemplated a response and ran fingertips across the embossed seal . . . in such modern times it was a subtle move. A move that some will recognize, right, Michael? But a move you will certainly appreciate for the effort required. Well worth the added risks of discovery.
She slowly leaned back, satisfaction showing itself in a soft smile as she pulled a handkerchief from her lap and dabbed away the sweat on her lip and forehead. (Her assistant swore she could feel a current of cool air every time she entered the room.) Her eyes moved carefully from the final prepared document for the prime minister of the Rim Commonality, to the blizzard of other documents destined for many worlds; all subtly prepared to receive their individual documents, carefully fine-tuned based upon various reports, the most important brought by her children.
Her eyes came to rest on a final document unfinished, unsigned. When will you return, Christopher? When will you bring me news of what Fontaine thinks? He is . . . uncomfortably important.
She closed her eyes on that thought, then heard the door open and close. Two pairs of feet scraped softly as they hesitantly approached, like children commanded to report for their punishment. A remnant of her fury at the encrypted message she had received days before when her daughters jumped in-system revived, but she’d tamped down that eruption of disappointment in order to consider all the permutations of how her plans might be affected. No, this moment was about testing her daughters. Their strengths . . . and their weaknesses, in the face of this strange change of fate. As always.
She opened her eyes and looked at two women who were dramatically changed from the daughters who had left her presence so many months ago. Jessica managed to hide her shock as she saw at once that seeing Julietta was almost like looking into a mirror. As though she’d aged twenty years in as many weeks, gray filled her hair until the black squealed its defeat, and a murder of crows had stamped a large, cruel track of wrinkles around her eyes. Most telling of all were the slumped shoulders, the defeated eyes.
Are you finally broken, my dear? Utterly broken? It did hurt. But not as much as one might expect. After all, she’d sent a broken daughter on a mission in the hopes she might be reforged. That she had not left her saddened . . . but not surprised.
When she turned her attention to Nikol, she saw a ramrod-straight back, a high chin and a defiant stare; a complete attitude marred only by a shadow of doubt only a mother could detect. Jessica nearly laughed.
I work at forging a daughter willing to face straight-on any punishment a ruler—much less a ruling mother—might assign. A daughter obviously ready to explain her victory despite the apparent defeat. And I should be angry? She suppressed her smile and managed a stern tone. “Well?”
“The flag of the Oriente has been planted on over half a dozen worlds, Mother,” Nikol immediately responded, her words rushed as though rehearsed half a hundred times. “The world of Marik is ours.”
Jessica slowly nodded, gazing back at Julietta to see if this . . . generalization . . . of events sparked anything. Not a flicker of response in the deadened eyes. She dismissed her eldest as she finally smiled at Nikol. “I am pleased with the outcome.”
Despite Nikol’s attempt to school her features, shock rolled easily across widened eyes and furrowed forehead. “What?”
“I am pleased with the outcome.”
“But . . . but.”
“Did we not achieve what we wished to achieve?”
“Of course.”
“Then we have achieved a great victory. And despite the presence of these Clanners on Marik, they will prove a boon. Our garrison on Marik need only be an honor guard. If Anson actually attempts to retake the world, they will show him a spectacular defeat.”
Nikol finally regained control of her features, and her response, when it came, pleased her mother all the more at the mental gymnastics Nikol had performed to keep up . . . and ask the hard questions. “But if we leave too few forces, what is to stop the Clansmen from claiming Marik completely for themselves? “
“The Spirit Cats might be of a mind to take such action, but if there’s one thing I’m confident of it is money and power. And the Sea Fox, despite all of their Clan trappings, are mercantile to the bone. We can offer them preferred rates as they expand into our Protectorate. Not to mention what we can offer them in the futu
re.” She waved a hand toward the stacks of documents on her desk. “That is a fruit they will eagerly accept. And considering the condition of these Spirit Cats . . . they will have no choice but to accept.”
Her daughter nodded slowly. “And with no expenditure of forces on our part, Marik falls into our lap.”
“Exactly. At very little cost indeed, the home world of House Marik is now ours.” Jessica caught the quick flicker of eye movement as Nikol glanced at Julietta.
She was already lost, my dear. She was already lost. The two women locked eyes, and after a long moment Nikol nodded one last time
Jacob’s Escape, Union-class DropShip
Clipperton
Regulan Fiefs
Lester slammed a fist onto the table; the piles of data cubes and carefully stacked hard copies cascaded to the floor in an angry wave. “Where is the evidence?”
As though his exclamation drained the last of the vitality from his aging bones, he collapsed back into the chair, body sagging into every crevice like he was an old garment tossed carelessly to the furniture.
“It’s not here, my lord.” The timid voice of the useless lackey from the world’s CopSec barely scratched the surface of the depths of Lester’s frustration. “We’ve been over every scrap of material we seized from the cell. Every tissue sample from every body and we’ve come up with nothing. There’s simply no evidence that we can use to link this cell to anyone. They’re ghosts.”
“Of course they’re ghosts,” Lester retorted, but the fury of the last few days was truly spent, leaving behind melancholy. “She’s always been careful,” he whispered. “Always. Such ghosts could never lead back to her.”
“What, my lord?”
Lester finally glanced up at the CopSec; a short, timid little man with eyes too large for his head and ears that reminded him of a branth’s wings. How in the world did you rise to be Clipperton’s investigative liaison to my Department of Justice? Never a petty man, Lester would make an exception this time when he returned to Regulus.
Pandora's Gambit Page 22
