Ghost War

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Phelan had gone on to become a member of the Clans and to lead the Wolf Clan into exile on Arc-Royal. There had been tension between the two of them that was later healed as they joined forces to end the Clan war once and for all time. The idea that Victor might have seen me as someone who could hare off as Phelan had, and that he had acted to channel me into more constructive pursuits did bear weight.

  And I was lucky that true affection grew up between us.

  At meal’s end, Victor led me from the dining room to a small study. There, servants brought both of us snifters with generous dollops of brandy. He relaxed in his favorite chair—a big, overstuffed leather one which the chairs I had aspired to be—and slowly began speaking. Those gray eyes didn’t so much focus distantly as they slowed a bit and let some of their wariness drain away.

  “It has been difficult, Mason, to watch this attack on The Republic and not know who is behind it or why. If we could identify them, we could rally the people behind a battle to destroy them. The problem is, just as your friends on Helen came to assume, everyone chooses their own bogeyman to blame for the problems. We can’t fight shadows, and we have been given less than shadows.

  “And it hurts to watch Stone’s work teeter on the brink of destruction.” Victor swirled the dark liquid in his snifter, then breathed its vapors in. “Have I ever told you about when I first met Devlin Stone?”

  “No, my lord. I’ve read of it in biographies.”

  Still staring into the depths of his drink, he smiled. “None of them have gotten it right. I was on Tukkayid, as the Precentor Martial. I was doing all I could to oppose the Word of Blake, but then, as now, things were fragmented and difficult to coordinate. Not only were we getting too much data, but half of it was rubbish. At home Jade was all of three and a half years old, and the twins barely a year. It was chaotic all around.

  “Kai’s son, David, had vanished when the Word of Blake attacks took place in ’67, and the first word we’d had of him came in late ’71. I thought it was more Blakist disinformation, because it said David was among a group of warriors who had liberated the world of Kittery from Blakist forces. I passed the information on to Kai reluctantly, but as more word came from that area, more reports mentioned David. They concentrated on this man named Devlin Stone, but ComStar had no records of him at all and, at that time, if ComStar had no records . . .”

  “You didn’t exist.”

  “Exactly. Well, early in ’73 we got more news of Stone. It appears he liberated a bunch of worlds around Kittery and set up a ‘prefecture.’ You have to know I immediately thought this man must be some sort of a bandit-king looking to create his own house, but then Kai told me he’d heard from David and that David was extolling Stone’s virtues. I got passed some information about the Kittery Prefecture, all of which looked very good—and I thought it had to be propaganda.”

  Victor drank a bit of his brandy, then his eyes flashed at me. “The histories you’ve read glorify Stone, but we had none of that back then. All we had was the raw data about a man who had laid claim to worlds and forged them into a self-supporting unit. He was doing things no government had been able to match. He stepped on toes when he did it, but it was working.

  “Through David, Kai arranged for Stone to meet with me. Stone thought traveling to Tukkayid would be a waste of time, but David prevailed upon him and in October of ’73 we met. He was a big man, with dark hair and dark eyes—you’ve met him, but you were looking at him through the eyes of someone who knew what he had done. I was looking at raw potential and knew what he had been forced to do in winning his successes. I was looking at a very dangerous man.”

  I shivered. “I’d not thought of it that way.”

  “Not many do. Having a kindly profile on coins tends to hide the nature of the subject. Stone was respectful, I’ll give him that, and sat down and told me what he was doing. There was no bragging on what had already been done, and no bragging on what would be done. He was straight and direct with me.

  “Mason, down through the years I’d met all sorts and, with few exceptions, these people either wanted me to accept them as a peer right away, or they wanted to curry favor. Both wanted some portion of the power they thought I had, some for good, some for ill, but both groups treated me as a well of power, and most wanted me to give them a bucket to haul some away.

  “Stone wasn’t like that. He just told me what he was doing. He didn’t want my approval or help. He just wanted me to be informed so I could decide whether I was going to stop him, or if I was going to get out of his way. And I did think about both of those options, for his reforms were rooted in breaking down and rebuilding some core facets of the way society had functioned for centuries. It was less that he wanted to dip from the well of political power than that he wanted to dig down, find the spring feeding the well, and open that up into a river that would sweep the old order away.”

  Victor’s eyes hardened for a moment. “That was a scary thought, and I would have moved to oppose him save that he clearly valued David Lear as a counselor and the changes he was making were changes that needed to be made. Moreover, given the damage the Word of Blake had done, unless there was restructuring, society was going to collapse. There was no chance to return to the way things had been before the attack.”

  I smiled and swirled my brandy around, inhaling the rich aroma. “You threw in with him.”

  “I did. Some of the histories will have it that I was the first person to bare a sword, lay it at his feet and swear fealty to him. That’s not true, for The Republic was a dream at that point, and the swords I was entitled to wear would be laid at the feet of no man. I did, however, introduce him and his programs to some of the leaders of the Successor States—to Hohiro, and to Peter and Yvonne. I introduced him to Morgan Kell and, through Phelan and Hohiro, Stone met with the leadership of the Clans as well. He made his case to all of them. Those who felt they could lend him support in one form or another did so, myself included, and the Reformation began.”

  I nodded. “I read one history that suggested you intended to use him as a puppet and take control of the Reformation. I know that’s not true, but when you met him, did you think he would succeed?”

  “It was hard to look in those dark eyes, Mason, and not read success there. The people fighting against the Word of Blake forces were fighting for freedom, while the leadership of those worlds wanted a return to antebellum society. Stone’s leadership showed that power truly flowed from the people. Nobles who forgot or fought that notion went away, because the more people saw what Stone accomplished, the more they turned to him. In many ways, it was the culling of the weak, which made society that much stronger in its wake. Stating things so easily in evolutionary terms can be harsh because those who were stripped of power or killed were humans, but they had abrogated their responsibility to the people they led. Society could not have survived had they been left in place.”

  “And you will not survive, grandfather, without some sleep.” Nessa Davion, Burton’s youngest daughter and Victor’s aide, entered the study and gave me a smile. “Good to see you, Mason. I don’t see any bruises from the trouble on Helen.”

  I returned the slender woman’s smile. Her white-blond hair had been plaited into a thick ribbon with a pale blue thread running through it. That blue matched the hue of her eyes which, in contrast to her grandfather’s eyes, were flecked with gray highlights. I’d known her for years and thought of her as a cousin.

  “They didn’t do that much damage, Nessa.”

  “Not what Janella suggested.”

  “It’s because she wasn’t in a position to smack them back for me.” I finished my brandy and set the snifter down. “My lord, it is late. I should be retiring.”

  Victor glanced at his granddaughter, then nodded. “You’ll find you have plenty of work tomorrow, Mason, so perhaps a good night’s sleep is in order. Thank you for keeping me company.”

  “The pleasure was all mine, my lord.”

  “I�
��ll see him out, grandfather, you just wait right there.”

  Victor rolled his eyes. “She fusses a great deal.”

  “You are a great deal to fuss about,” Nessa quipped. She took my arm and guided me to the door. “How does he look to you?”

  The worry in her voice demanded the truth. “Like events are nibbling away at him. He still looks good, and his mind is as sharp as ever.”

  She nodded. “It takes its toll, but seeing you was good for him. Thank you.”

  “No thanks necessary.” I patted her arm and kissed her on the cheek. “Given how things might break down, I wouldn’t wonder if he outlives us all.”

  “He thinks that, too, sometimes.” Nessa gave me a grim smile. “I think that’s what worries him most of all.”

  14

  O God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

  —Shakespeare (Hamlet)

  Knights’ Hall, Santa Fe

  North America, Terra

  Prefecture X, Republic of the Sphere

  9 December 3132

  I hate dreams. I am lucky in that I don’t remember too many of them, but my dreams know that. They seem to be content to labor in obscurity. They lull me into this false sense of security then just dump the mother lode of anxiety dreams on me. I thrash the night away and wake up haggard and worn.

  This particular dream was just nasty. I was back in school, not even ten years old, looking at a big holographic projection of the Inner Sphere, only it wasn’t the map I was used to seeing. When I’d grown up, Stone’s Republic of the Sphere formed the hub of humanity’s interstellar empire. All the other nations were spokes—some fat, some thin, some barely there—or were patches on the rim. As far as the Federated Suns were concerned, The Republic was an ally, and since we were pretty sure Stone was originally from the Suns, we could lay claim to everything he did.

  That map wasn’t there anymore, not really. Instead it was an older map, the sort my grandfather had known. All of the Successor States were much bigger and their borders all converged in and around Terra. Along those borders wars had been waged for centuries. That had been part of Stone’s wisdom, for he laid claim to worlds that had been sore spots for generations. Not only did his reforms take away the means of making war on a grand scale but, in many cases, it took away the reasons for it as well.

  I could still see the ghost of The Republic superimposed over the old map, but throughout its confines and down along the borders I could see little flames burning on various worlds. The Federated Suns’ border with the Capellan Confederation was a line of fire. The Draconis March likewise burned, but the greatest concentration of fire was within the worlds that had once been in The Republic. Forces from outside were tearing into it, and forces from within were trying to burst back out.

  I heard a voice—all stern and booming. “Thus is the lot of Mankind forever. War flows with our blood and can only be quenched by drinking the blood of others.”

  It went on to say some other things but, being a dream, they wandered into insensibility. Some of them likely could be judged to have been prophetic—foreshadowing, if you will—but I didn’t see it at the time. If my subconscious wants to tell me something important, I’d prefer a direct message, not something I need to puzzle out.

  The message of the voice was pretty clear. Stone’s dream was dying. There would be warfare and a lot of people would die. The fact that BattleMechs remained in the hands of a select few did little to reassure me. Digger and Maria were more than capable of destroying a lot of real estate and the people living in it, and having a militia mount machine guns on or further modify such a ’Mech was easily done. Mankind is frightfully inventive when coming up with the means for killing someone.

  I didn’t wake with a start, but instead slowly emerged from the dream. That’s the worst, as far as I am concerned, because reality melds with the dream’s fantasy. It didn’t help at all that thunder crashed outside, and brilliant argent light limned my curtains.

  I scrubbed a hand down over my face and understood Victor’s weariness. The shutting down of the communications grid was akin to a huge thunderstorm that touched off countless little fires. Before they could be put out, they had to be identified, analyzed and remedies had to be sought. That all took time, and the problem was that time only served to let the fires grow further and hotter. On top of that, we didn’t know if the storm would be back or where it might strike next, so while we were fighting the little fires, it would do maximum damage.

  In short, we had to do everything and prepare for yet more things of a nature and timing unknown to us.

  I dragged myself from bed and considered, just for a moment, pouring myself more whisky. The drink would have been bracing, and I would have stopped at just one. The difficulty was that I wouldn’t have wanted to stop there, and getting drunk would have just increased the frustration I already felt simmering in my chest.

  I opted instead for two handfuls of a sugary breakfast cereal, milk to wash it down, and a hot shower. The cereal’s crunch did help wake me up, and the shower got me straightened out enough that I could manage to shave without slitting my own throat. There’s something about drawing cold steel over your flesh that promotes clarity of mind.

  I dressed in gray slacks and jacket over a white shirt and the black throat ribbon that functioned as staff drone dress. Clipping identification to me, I left my chambers and headed toward the central building of Knights’ Hall. The interactive message center built into the door of my food storage unit had displayed a notation indicating that I was expected to meet with Knight Consuela Dagmar by nine, and I arrived with five minutes to spare.

  We met in a small conference room that had been outfitted with black leather couches thick enough to cushion a ’Mech’s drop from the ionosphere. They’d been arranged in a square, with a holoprojection table in the center. It had dark wood panels rimming it and a black glass plate that protected the projection equipment. Back behind the couch where I would sit, a sideboard lay against the wall stocked with water, juices and a variety of healthy foodstuffs like fruit, nuts and seeds.

  Janella and Nessa—who was there to act as Victor’s eyes and ears—had already arrived in the room and sat whispering with each other from contiguous corner spots on two couches. A drone in gray like me—save his ribbon was purple and fixed at the crossing point with a silver stud—gave me the eye as I entered. He puttered around with the foodstuffs, then bowed to the doorway as the Countess entered.

  “All is in readiness, my lady.”

  She smiled and nodded to him. “Very good, Wroxley. If I need something else, I will call.”

  “I await your command, my lady.” With that the older man bowed sharply, letting a strand of his comb-over flop down, and departed.

  The door hissed shut behind him and Consuela Dagmar smiled at me. “It is good to see you again, Mason. You are looking much better than I’d been given to expect.”

  I shot a glance at Janella. “They only used fists, not chainsaws.”

  “But they were big fists, my love.” She gave me a smile. “Luckily you heal quickly.”

  I gave her a wink, which coaxed a blush onto her cheeks, then returned my attention to the Knight. Though in her seventies, she looked not a day over fifty. She wore her black hair short, still, after the fashion of many a Mech Warrior, and her dark eyes remained alive. In many ways she reminded me of Pep—rather, Pep had reminded me of her, younger and quite feisty. Consuela had plenty of fire yet, but through the years she had learned to temper and direct it.

  She waved me to a seat on the same couch as Janella, then she took a place opposite us. She wore a cream-colored jacket and skirt over dark brown boots, with a royal blue blouse beneath. The outfit complimented her olive skin, a fact made apparent as she smoothed the skirt, then leaned forward.

  “First, I’ve read the reports from Helen and, while I agree that the resolution was less than satisfacto
ry, it was probably the best we could have gotten from the situation. Had Handy not sold you out, I suspect you would have risen in the organization and might have eventually pierced the veil surrounding those behind him. So you know, a Republic magistrate on Acamar quashed the warrant for Sam Donelly’s arrest, noting evidence had been gathered illegally. He was released from Republic custody on Epsilon Indi. There he has gone to ground since prosecutors on Acamar are still seeking him for questioning.”

  I nodded. “Thank you, my lady. I don’t know if I’ll ever need Sam again, but he was useful.”

  “We’ll keep him alive for a while. All his datafiles are in place, and with all the confusion right now, creating a new identity and getting the data spread out far enough would be a problem we just don’t need to address.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Consuela reached beneath the edge of the table and hit a hidden button. A small blue cube sprang to life, hovering above the table. Darker blue letters burned on the sides of the box as if projected from within—and looking through the side I could see the words in reverse on the side opposite me. The cube slowly rotated clockwise as the Countess from Lambrecht began to speak.

  “The current crisis presents us with a series of problems on three levels: strategic, operational and tactical. I have further divided them into two camps, which I have labeled Lions and Jackals. The lions are those who managed to take the grid down, while the jackals are feeding on the resulting confusion. And, yes, to answer the first obvious question, the lions could be masquerading as jackals.