Natural Selection

by Michael A. Stackpole

  "Who won?"

  "Depended on which time the battle was run. All the fights ran for a long time and both 'Mechs were hammered by the time one could not continue. I think a series of a hundred bouts resulted in Justin Allard winning 53 to 47. Some folks pointed out that if the situation were reversed and the battles were in the field—the way my father fought most often—the results would have been reversed as well. Both men were offered money to actually fight it out in a simulator battle, but they refused. On the other hand I heard a rumor that at Dan Allard's wedding to my half-sister Megan, Justin and my father did actually use simulators to test each other."

  "And?"

  "Replacing the computer's burned-out logic boards was expensive."

  "I see, I think. So, in your parlance, the sins of the fathers will fall to the sons?"

  "Right, Kai's mine." Phelan cracked his knuckles. "Once I've dealt with him, I can start to make amends for having offended people tonight."

  "A wise plan, my Khan," she teased.

  "Have you any ideas in that department, Star Captain?"

  Ranna pursed her lips, then nodded. "You could start by giving me a kiss."

  Phelan scooped his arms under her knees and pulled her toward him. Leaning forward, he rested his hands on either side of her head and used his body to press her flat on the couch. "And after that?" He kissed her.

  She kissed him back. "Another kiss and another. The rest of my ideas can wait until morning."

  7

  Arc-Royal

  Federated Commonwealth

  16 April 3055

  Victor slid himself around on the vinyl seat of the simulator's command couch. The restraining belts held him in place, but his bare flesh was also sticking to the couch. In real combat, of course, he would have been perspiring enough from nerves to slick up his skin. In the simulator he just wasn't as anxious.

  He couldn't fault the equipment because the Kell Hounds had invested in the best. The simulator cockpits were mounted within a three-dimensional movement matrix that rested on a bed of hydraulic pistons. Each lumbering step his simulated Daishi took in the virtual-world projected on the screens before his 'Mech's viewports was reflected in the realistic pitch and roll of the cockpit pod. Victor knew, from other exercises, that enemy hits and their effects would be simulated as well.

  The simulation also included heaters built into the cockpit to inject heat whenever weapon-firing or other activities would normally create heat buildup in an actual 'Mech. He even wore a special cooling vest that functioned exactly as if he were really piloting his 'Mech, the Prometheus. The coolant snaking its way through the tubes in the vest pulled excess heat away from his body and kept him alive in the cockpit.

  I've had little enough use for it so far. Victor watched the holographic projection of the simulated landscape. Off to his left Kai marched Yen-lo-wang, his modified Centurion, across an open meadow toward a low line of hills. On the right and slightly back, Shin Yodama's Griffin watched their back and the flank. As it's been all day-nothing!

  Daniel Allard and Morgan Kell, who had come up with the battle scenario, had decided that the sides were not even enough. Both Mark Allard and Galen Cox were using Inner Sphere 'Mech simulations while operating as part of a Clan Star, and Victor was using a Clan-based OmniMech that dwarfed anything in the opposition. By sheer tonnage of war machines on the battlefield, the Clan forces surrendered a four-to-one disadvantage.

  Victor knew that tonnage was not entirely indicative of advantage, but he had to concede that the Clans were underpowered. To even up the odds, the Kell Hound leaders suggested that Victor's three-'Mech lance could become the prize. In the new scenario, the Clans would be hunting him on a huge, circular battlefield intended to honor the Clan tradition of the Circle of Equals. The Kell Hound company was there to help Victor get away from the Clans. It made the exercise into an elaborate game of Capture the Flag, but one in which the flag could shoot back.

  To further complicate matters, Victor's group could not radio the Kell Hounds because they lacked the proper codes to unscramble the messages from their rescuers. Kai, however, had quickly figured out that by using a simple system resembling the send and break of Morse code, increasing the pace as the Kell Hound signals got stronger, his team could guide them in. He knew that it would pull the Clans in as well, but having everyone together should be Phelan's worst nightmare.

  Problem is, Phelan and his folks don't seem to be sleeping badly. As he had the morning before, Phelan arrived bright-eyed and ready to go. He even wore his pistol into the simulator cockpit, giving Captain Moran and her people cause for amusement. Not Victor, though, for the gesture told him Phelan was very serious about the simulation and was treating it exactly as he would a real-world analog.

  The Flag group, as Victor had come to think of their trio, had heard a lot of radio static, apparently coming from the Kell Hound company. Though they could make no sense of it, the messages seemed tp be coming quickly while the number of people involved in the conversations slowly began to drop off.

  The Flag group had begun to move in the rough direction of the radio transmissions, but things fluctuated too rapidly to be certain they were on the right track. Victor knew that meant the Kell Hounds were involved in a running battle, which should have been good for them. Hit-and-run has been the tactic de jour to use against the Clans. If Phelan's turning it back against us, though, we could be in trouble.

  As if the other side had been reading his mind— dammit, only Galen could have set this trap—three 'Mechs moved up over the crest of the hills. The first, a thick, squat Masakari spread its birdlike legs wide to establish a stable footing among the hill's crumbling rocks. The arms ended in twin barrels and the two left-arm PPCs flashed even before Victor could call out a warning to his companions.

  The twin bolts of blue lightning crackled through the air. Both hit the Prometheus' right leg, reducing its armor to virtual vapor. A pulse laser in the Masakari's right arm drilled a series of green bolts into the same limb. That hit ripped away all but the very last bit of armor as far as the computer was concerned.

  Victor had a nanosecond to take in how much damage the Masakari pilot's uncanny accuracy had done to his 'Mech. As soon as the computer controlling the exercise determined what that amount of damage meant, Victor felt the cockpit begin to pitch up and to the right. The savage attack had blasted away almost two tons of the ferro-fibrous armor on his 'Mech, unbalancing it severely.

  Twisting his body to the left, Victor struggled to keep the 'Mech upright. The computer read the input from his neurohelmet, but even his utmost effort could not defeat the combined forces of physics and gravity. The computer-created landscape blurred into a confused palette outside the Daishi's viewports, then the cockpit spun and tipped way up. Victor braced himself and groaned as panels in the command couch slammed into his back when his 'Mech crashed to the ground, destroying some armor on its right flank.

  Momentarily stunned, Victor could do nothing but watch his holographic display as the two lightest BattleMechs on the field headed after each other. Kai's Yen-lo-wang turned toward the slender Clan 'Mech that looked like a mechanical avatar of the ancient Egyptian god Anubis. Victor knew without a doubt that Phelan was the Wolfhound's pilot.

  The Centurion struck first. Its right arm came up, its Gauss cannon spitting out a silver projectile amid a brilliant flash of energy. Streaking up the line of the hills, the ball hit the Wolfhound in the left chest. The 'Mech dropped armor like a snake shedding skin, leaving the ferro-titanium skeleton open to view. Victor saw a puff of smoke curl up out of the gash and the Wolfhound staggered a bit. Lost a medium laser and maybe took engine damage! Way to go, Kai!

  The twin lasers mounted beneath the left arm also assaulted the Wolfhound, their hail of red energy darts shredding the armor on the other side of the 'Mech's chest. The skeleton beneath the lost armor glowed red and the Wolfhound again appeared to shudder, but Phelan managed to keep it upright despite the vici
ous pounding.

  Then the Wolfhound bit back with a vengeance. The large laser that made up most of its right arm sent a green spear of coherent light into the Centurion's right arm. Armor fragments rained down over the simulated hillsides, starting little brushfires. The three, pulse lasers mounted in the Wolfhound's chest focused their fire on that same limb. The first burned through the rest of the armor and the others stitched fire up and down the arm. Myomer muscles snapped apart and the ferro-titanium bones glowed white-hot before they melted away.

  More important, the lasers blasted into the Gauss cannon's mechanism. The capacitors exploded, shredding the armor on the right side of the Centurion's chest. The 'Mech's internal structure looked warped and twisted by the explosion. The round silver balls that the 'Mech used as ammo for the Gauss cannon spilled out, bouncing off the 'Mech's right thigh, to roll down the hill.

  On the left Victor saw Shin's Griffin get hit by one of two long-range missile flights from Galen's Crusader. Most of the missiles flew right over their target as Shin ducked his 'Mech forward and cut to the left. Explosions peppered the center and right side of the chest, chipping away at armor. The Griffin's left arm caught a number of missiles, but suffered no more than a few lost armor plates.

  From the Griffin's right chest a flight of LRMs tracked back toward the Crusader, hammering into the center of the Crusader's chest, crushing armor. In return the Griffin's pistollike particle projection cannon shot out a jagged line of azure fire, flaying half-melted armor from the Crusader's right arm, but failing to breach the protection.

  Victor brought his Daishi upright, turning to present his left side to the Masakari. He knew he was facing Ranna in the other Clan OmniMech, and his admiration for her skill outweighed his outrage and fear. Again her PPCs and a large laser tried to finish the job they had started on the Prometheus' right leg, but Victor's maneuver kept the limb hidden and her shots missed.

  Victor swung the Omni around and smiled. This time it will be my turn.

  Before he could bring his weapons to bear on her, the Centurion and the Wolfhound went at it again. The two 'Mechs closed and Victor's auxiliary screen reported that both were grossly overheating. In a normal battlefield situation the 'Mechs would have been so damaged that retreat would be the first thing on either pilot's mind, but not so here. A Khan of the Wolf Clan fighting against the Champion of Solaris. A bootleg battle ROM of this fight would be worth a fortune in broadcast rights.

  The Centurion fired its two pulse lasers at the same time that the Wolfhound used its remaining pulse laser and the large laser in its right arm. The Centurion's lasers bored in through the open right side of the Wolfhound's chest. Victor saw the computer project pieces of skeletal structure flying out through the greasy black smoke that marked another hit to the engine.

  The Wolfhound's two lasers shot through where the Centurion's right arm should have been, the beams surgically carving away at the Edasich 200 XL engine that powered the 'Mech. The ruby bolts from the medium laser in the Wolfhound's chest coaxed a puff of dense smoke as it cored into the controller maintaining the magnetic shielding around the Centurion's fusion engine.

  Like mirror images, both 'Mechs showed an unholy white light igniting in the hollow cavities of their chests. The computer faithfully displayed how the fusion reaction, freed of its shields, expanded and consumed any and all available fuel. The boiling plasma spheres swelled, then exploded up through the head and shoulders of the 'Mechs they had powered. With black roiling clouds marking the fireballs' subsequent explosions, the 'Mechs' legs fell into a mutual tangle at the base of the hill.

  Victor saw the flash of weapons and knew that both Galen and Shin had inflicted more damage on each other, but neither of their 'Mechs went down. That helped ease the loss of Kai and his Centurion, but not much because the Masakari fired on him again. Victor knew he'd only have one chance coming back, so he let the Masakari have it with everything in the Daishi's arsenal.

  The Gauss cannon sent a silvery slug sizzling into the Masakari's chest, gouging out a huge chunk of armor over the 'Mech's heart. One of the three large pulse lasers in the Daishi's right arm missed its target, but the other two hit hard. One scored a glowing scar in the armor on the Masakari's left breast, while the second punched straight through the armor in the middle. Flame shot out of the flamer muzzle, and Victor's auxiliary screen reported heat rising in the enemy 'Mech.

  One of Victor's two Streak SRM systems failed to lock onto the target, but the other succeeded and fired a full spread of missiles at the Masakari. They peppered it with fiery blossoms, battering the armor and dropping it in steaming chips onto the ground. Though the SRMs did not seem to do much damage, they helped further unbalance a 'Mech already hammered by the Gauss cannon and large pulse lasers. Victor smiled as the Masakari began to topple, but his joy died as he realized that soon he would be joining it.

  Both of the Masakari's PPCs and its large pulse lasers successfully hit the Daishi's damaged right leg, evaporating the last bit of armor like a water droplet on a hot griddle. The four energy beams combined to melt the leg clean away. Myomer muscles bubbled and exploded. The ferro-titanium femur glowed white-hot before it became transparent and insubstantial.

  Their energy insufficiently spent, the beams tracked upward. Burning through the remnants of armor on the Daishi's right side, they touched off an explosion of the anti-missile system's ammo. The concussion panels in his command couch smashed into Victor's back and neurohelmet, momentarily disorienting him. The cockpit whirled him around as if his 100-ton war machine were a rag doll caught in a cyclone, then unceremoniously bashed him again as the 'Mech pounded into the ground.

  Victor shook his head to clear it and found himself hanging from the restraining straps of the command couch. Focusing beyond the holographic display that showed the Masakari getting back to its taloned feet, he saw only blackness through the viewports. His eyes confirmed what gravity had already told him—that his 'Mech had landed face-down in the dirt. With only one leg and my right-side armor breached front and back, there's no way I can continue the fight.

  Glancing at the approaching Masakari in the display, he mentally amended that idea. And there's no way Ranna is going to let me continue the fight. I can't even punch out!

  Leaving no doubt as to why the BattleMech had ruled warfare since its creation six centuries earlier, the Masakari concentrated all four of its guns on the downed Daishi. Aiming in deliberate and well-practiced moves that showed Victor why the Clans had so easily swept through the Inner Sphere, the Masakari opened the Daishi's back like a coroner doing an autopsy. The PPC bolts fried structural stabilizers while the lasers sliced through ferro-titanium ribs.

  The lasers freed the Daishi's fusion engine from its mountings. It dropped down, the safeguards in it snuffing the reaction before it could explode. As if the Masakari had pulled the Daishi's heart out, Victor's 'Mech shuddered once, then all the monitors died, leaving him hanging in a hot, dark cocoon.

  The deathly stillness pressed in on him, then he shook his head. The only advantage we ever had in fighting the Clans was that they always played by a rigid set of rules that gave us a tactical edge. If they ever come to embrace the flexibility that Phelan and the others showed here, Ragnar won't be the only Prince of the Inner Sphere sporting a bondcord.

  8

  Arc-Royal

  Federated Commonwealth

  16 April 3055

  Though he knew better, Phelan couldn't resist a cocky smile as he entered the reception room. He raised Ranna's left hand in his right and kissed it, then winked back at Ragnar. "The Wolves have done well this day. We have good reason to be proud."

  Ranna nodded and tugged at the hem of her black jacket. "That is true, my Khan, but were our opponents Smoke Jaguars or Snow Ravens, we would not lord our victory over them, quiaff?"

  "Aff, but they are not Clan, are they?"

  "Your point being?"

  Phelan winked at her. "It's an old Kell Hound tradit
ion called 'bragging rights.' "

  Ranna shook her head and disengaged her hand. "As they are not Clan, neither are you a Kell Hound. Do not be surprised if they react poorly to your effort to teach them humility." She arched an eyebrow at him. "And, my love, your speech is deteriorating."

  Phelan winced. "And your grandmother isn't—I mean, is not—here to accept the blame, is she?"

  "No, nor is she here to tell you to be careful." Ranna nodded toward Captain Moran and the knot of people near her. "We already have many enemies, Khan Phelan, both inside the Clans and out. There is no reason to make things worse."

  Phelan started to tell Ranna not to worry, but her words resonated with truth. The familiar surroundings of Arc-Royal and the perverse delight he took in annoying people he regarded as pompous had made him slip into old patterns of behavior. He was glad for the chance to recover some of the esteem he had lost by joining the Clans, but he knew Ranna was right in reminding him, subtly, that he was now more than he had been when yet a member of the Inner Sphere. He was still the son of Morgan Kell, but now he represented more than just his family. The Wolf Clan had made him one of their two Khans, and with that came responsibility for more than just himself.

  "Your wisdom is taken to my heart, Ranna." He let his gratitude to her burn the smugness out of his smile. "I will comport myself as befitting a Khan."

  "I had never thought you would do otherwise, Khan Phelan Ward." Her head dipped as she acknowledged a wave from Caitlin Kell. "If you will excuse me."

  "Of course." He smiled at her, watching her walk away gracefully in spite of the black woolen skirt clutching at her legs in what a Clan warrior could only experience as an awkward and binding way. "You will join me, Ragnar?"

  "As my Khan wishes."

  "Good." Phelan noticed that others had joined the circle of losers from the morning's game. He fought down his desire to gloat and, surprisingly, found it not so hard to banish. Instead he felt a sense of shame at having entertained so petty and unworthy an emotion.