Warrior: En Garde (The Warrior Trilogy, Book One): BattleTech Legends, #57

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Truer words were never spoken. The Archon laughed. “So, would we have difficulty creating a substitute for someone?”

  Johnson shook his head. “Not at all. We could not, and would not, enslave a mind as Liao did. An actor, for example, could slip into a role well enough to handle 99 percent of the matters a leader must handle. With the proper delegation of authority, the realm might not even notice the hand of a temporary leader at the helm.”

  Johnson smiled and reached for another folder. “I took the liberty, Archon, of bringing this with me.” He opened it and looked up at her. “Whom did you have in mind for the creation of a double? Loki agents can pick up any of the people in the files today.”

  “As ever, you have anticipated me.” Katrina whispered the name of her candidate. Johnson licked his thumb, paged through blue and yellow sheets of paper, then stopped. He smiled. “Oh, yes, we have some excellent candidates…”

  Jeana Clay coasted the racing bicycle down the final hill as she pulled her water bottle free of the bike’s frame and squirted some of the warm liquid into her mouth. Savoring the water, she sprayed the rest over her face and down her arms.

  A quick glance at her watch brought a smile. Knocked thirty seconds off that last leg, she thought, pleased with herself. Her smile continued to light up her pretty face as she hunkered down and pedaled the bike up the last little rise and into the driveway of the house where she had lived alone since her mother’s death.

  Old Mr. Tompkins looked up from trimming his shrubs and waved at her. “Getting faster, Jeana. You’ll surely win this year’s Tharkad Triathlon!”

  “Thanks for your confidence, Mr. Tompkins.” She stopped the cycle and swung off. Sliding it into the anti-theft rack she’d welded together years ago, she straightened to her full height and walked back to the older man. “I just hope my unit doesn’t have exercises that weekend.”

  Tompkins smiled and looked almost cherubic. “They won’t, child, and I have a feeling it would take more than that to keep you from that race.”

  Jeana peeled the fingerless gloves from her hands and nodded. “Yeah, my CO is pretty good about letting me race. I think he feels that my wins reflect well on the Twenty-fourth Lyran Guards, being as we’re such an untried unit.”

  Tompkins winked. “I knew Lieutenant Colonel Orpheus Thomas when he was a lad, before he wandered off to Donegal to recruit all of you MechWarriors for his unit. He’s a proud man, and I can tell that he appreciates what you do for the unit.”

  The tall, slender MechWarrior smiled. She grabbed her riding jersey by the shoulders and gently tugged at it while making a face. “I’m going to change out of these sweaty things and catch a shower.” Jeana began to walk away, but turned back long enough to add, “I’ll let you know if I’m going to be able to race.”

  At her door, Jeana slipped a magkey from the waistband of her riding shorts and inserted it into the lock. The door clicked, and she ducked inside. The cooler, which she had not set particularly low, had made the house positively arctic. When she double-checked the thermostat, however, the dial still sat where she’d left it. Below the thermostat, the lights on house alarm system all glowed reassuringly green.

  Jeana passed through the kitchen and jogged up the stairs, barely glancing at the closed door of the master bedroom before entering the sanctuary of her own room. It’s silly, Jeana. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t move into that room. She sat on the bed to untie her shoes. Keeping it as a shrine to your mother won’t bring her back.

  Jeana shook her head and forced herself to abandon that line of thought. She’d covered it before, many times, and all the “what ifs” and “I should haves” could not reverse what had happened to her mother. Yet, Jeana could not shake the feeling that if she had been home that night, no intruder would ever have killed her mother.

  Jeana pulled off her blouse, wadded it into a ball, and tossed it into a basket. Socks, shorts, and underclothes quickly arched after it. Then she stood, stretched, and went into the cleaner to start the shower running. As steam filled the small, white-tiled room, Jeana flicked on the radio to listen to something other than her own sad thoughts.

  As Jeana stepped into the shower, she was unaware of the door of the cleaner opening behind her. With her eyes closed and water rushing over her face, it was only the cool draft of the shower curtain being pulled aside that alerted her to danger. She turned from the watery spray and stared in horror at the hooded intruder.

  Loki! The thought burst into Jeana’s mind like an inferno rocket as she caught sight of the emblem on his collar. She balled her left fist and swung at the intruder without thinking, but her feet slipped and she started to fall. What is someone from State Terrorism doing here after so long? How did they find me?

  The Loki operative’s first dart missed Jeana’s falling body, and her aborted punch forced him to step back. She broke her fall by tearing a faucet handle from the shower and gathering her long legs beneath her. She uncoiled and hit the agent with a tackle that smashed him back into the hand-basin. He grunted, then spun away out of her grasp.

  Jeana grabbed a towel and threw it at him. It unfolded like a JumpShip’s solar collector and prevented the agent’s second dart from hitting her. He continued to back away out into the hall, and Jeana dove at his legs. Her wet feet slipped at the last, draining her attack of much of its power, but the fury and anger born of guilt over her mother’s death more than compensated for it.

  Her shoulder hit the intruder in the shins, and she gathered his ankles in a savage hug. Unbalanced, the agent flailed helplessly with one hand, but failed to grab the stair railing. He crashed down the stairs, careening from side to side, and then lay very still.

  Jeana gathered herself up on hands and knees, then felt a sting on her right buttock. Numbness spread like a blush, and her nerveless limbs refused to support her anymore. She fell to her left and stared up at the man silhouetted in the master bedroom’s doorway.

  “Yes,” she heard him say, “an excellent candidate.” In her befuddled state, Jeana could make no sense of those words at all.

  The air-ambulance driver smiled reassuringly at Mr. Tompkins as two white-suited medics gently lifted the stretcher into the back of the craft. “Don’t worry, Mr. Tompkins. You did the right thing in calling us when you heard her crash down the stairs. She’s very lucky to have a concerned neighbor like you.”

  The older man shook his head as Jeana vanished into the air-ambulance. “She’s so young…only twenty-five. First, her mother dies, then this.” He frowned. “A heart attack, you say?”

  The driver nodded. “Stress-induced, but really secondary to some damage done when she caught Yeguas fever while training with the Twenty-fourth last year. It’ll normally leave folks alone, but one in a million develop a heart defect.” The driver shrugged. “It’s in the doctors’ hands now.”

  The driver turned to leave, but Mr. Tompkins grabbed his wrist. “You’ll let me know where they’ve taken her? I’ll visit.”

  The driver laid his hand over that of the older man and patted it warmly. “I’ll keep you informed. Remember, if you hadn’t called, she might not even have the chance she’s got now. The Commonwealth needs more citizens like you.”

  Chapter 11

  THARKAD

  DISTRICT OF DONEGAL

  LYRAN COMMONWEALTH

  11 JANUARY 3027

  Jeana’s eyes snapped open, and the brilliant white of the room’s walls and ceiling sizzled pain into her eyeballs. She shook her head once, then unconsciously rubbed the sore spot. Feel muzzy from whatever they hit me with.

  Jeana raised her hands to shade her eyes. Good, I’m not restrained. Her eyes narrowed. The duty of a prisoner is to escape. Name. Rank. Serial Number.

  She sat on the room’s only stick of furniture—a rickety wooden chair—and studied her surroundings. The whole ceiling glowed with a light that burned away all shadows except those hiding beneath her chair. It also bleached her black jumpsuit a pallid gray.
It was no surprise that there were neither insignia or labels on the suit or slippers she had been given. Jeana had nary a clue to where her Loki abductors had taken her.

  She heard a click from across the room, and then the outline of a door traced itself in gray lines against the white wall. Jeana stood and quickly walked over to it. Pushing it open, she slipped through and stopped dead in her tracks.

  Standing there in the center of the room, with arms folded across her chest, was none other than Archon Katrina Steiner. “Do you know who I am?” she asked Jeana.

  Jeana hesitated as she stared into the Archon’s gray eyes. “Sergeant Jeana Clay, LCAF, 090-453-2234-12.” She stood at attention and drew her head up high. Though as tall as the Archon, Jeana felt dwarfed. Is this a trick? Am I hallucinating?

  The Archon smiled. “Very good, Sergeant. At ease. I am Archon Katrina Steiner, and this meeting is neither a dream nor a nightmare.” She waved Jeana toward a chair at a small table and seated herself as well. The remaining pair of seats were vacant.

  Jeana hesitated, then crossed the room and sat down. She’d seen the Archon countless times on holovision or in person at ’Mech unit reviews. She’d met her when the Archon had awarded medals for the triathlon two years before, and all that told Jeana that this was no illusion. It is Katrina Steiner. But what does it all mean?

  The Archon smiled to put Jeana more at ease. “I’d like you to know that I understand the sense of loss that you must feel for your mother.” Katrina reached out to place a hand on Jeana’s wrist. Her gray eyes clouded over slightly, then she forced a weak smile. “Though it has been seventeen years, I still feel keenly the loss of my husband. You have my sympathy.”

  Jeana bowed her head. “Thank you, Archon.” She bit back tears of guilt and loneliness.

  Katrina’s eyes narrowed. “You also have my promise that the LIC will find your mother’s killer and will deal with him or her.”

  “Again, thank you, Archon.” Jeana looked up. “You will forgive me, Archon, but may I ask why I am here?”

  The Archon nodded, her yellow hair framing her face softly. “I cannot answer for the melodramatic means used to conduct you here—though I have been assured that they were essential—but I can address your main question. You are here so that I may ask you to undertake a mission of extreme danger. It will also be one demanding selfless concentration. It will be a totally consuming operation, and could very possibly end with your death.”

  Thank God it’s not for the other reason. Jeana sat up to her full height. “Anything, Archon. I will do anything you ask.”

  Katrina smiled. “I had expected no less a prompt answer from a member of the Twenty-fourth Guards. Though you remain untested in battle, your loyalty is unquestioned. Yet, I would not have you agree so readily to a mission I have only begun to describe.”

  The Archon took up a folder from the table and opened it. “This mission will mean that you will never again be able to participate in the triathlons you love so well.”

  Jeana shook her head. “No matter.”

  The Archon continued reading. “It means you will never again see your friends in the Twenty-fourth.”

  Jeana shrugged. “We will be together in service to you, Archon.”

  The Archon’s voice tightened. “This mission will mean you’ll probably never again pilot a ’Mech.”

  Jeana hesitated, then slowly shook her head again. “Please, Archon, before you read any more, understand one thing. Everything I am, and everything I have, comes from House Steiner. There are some things your files cannot tell you about me, because they are things I would confide to no one.”

  Jeana’s eyes flicked down to her hands, then back up into the Archon’s gray stare. Forgive me, Mother, but I must do it. “This is not the first time we’ve met, Archon.”

  Katrina Steiner nodded thoughtfully. “I recall awarding you a silver medal two years ago.”

  Jeana shook her head. “No, that was not our first meeting, either.”

  The Archon narrowed her gray eyes and their electric fire made Jeana’s words catch in her throat. She looked down and shyly continued to speak, as though confessing some horrible crime. “We first met twenty-two years ago, when I was only three…on Poulsbo.” Jeana’s head came up. “You sang to me so I wouldn’t cry while Loki agents questioned my father downstairs in our house…”

  The Archon stiffened and the muscles at the corners of her mouth bunched. “Your file says nothing…”

  Jeana shook her head. “That was your husband’s doing. Before he died, he made sure to cover our tracks so that no one could get at us. My mother kept your secret from everyone but me. I don’t think she would even have told me, Archon, except that she had no other answers to a daughter’s questions about her father. You knew him by his codename—Grison.”

  The Archon rocked back in her chair, then recovered herself and smiled bravely. “I owe your father my life. When my DropShip landed on Poulsbo, I guessed that my uncle Alessandro saw me as a threat to his own power as Archon. But in the arrogance of my youth, I never dreamed he would dare to move against me. For me, the trip was merely a routine inspection of a military base. The Bangor base, after all, is a strategic site in the Commonwealth.”

  The Archon took Jeana’s hands in hers. “What did your mother tell you about your father?”

  In the glow of the memories that had warmed her childhood, Jeana smiled. “She told me that I got my height and my green eyes from him. She said that she had loved him fiercely and that he knew he would be meeting his death that night. He told her it would be dangerous, but that he also believed you’d be a better Archon than Alessandro ever could. He said you’d be an Archon worth dying for.” Tears gathered in Jeana’s eyes and streamed down her cheeks.

  Katrina reached up and brushed away the girl’s tears. “Your father was a brave man, Jeana. Alessandro’s men made their move to kidnap me while I was dining with the Duke of Donegal, Arthur Luvon—my future husband—and his cousin, Morgan Kell. Morgan was fresh from the Nagelring Military Academy and had been assigned to the duke’s personal guards. I’d known Arthur for years, but we’d just been friends, and so meeting him and Morgan on Poulsbo was a pleasant surprise.

  “Alessandro’s agents attacked us, but we beat them back. We fled into the night, and lost ourselves in the streets of Bangor. We had no idea what might be a safe haven until a man found us in a dark bar one evening. He walked up and said simply, ‘I’m from Heimdall. Loki wants you. Therefore, they won’t get you. Call me Grison. Let’s go.’”

  Katrina squeezed Jeana’s hands. “Your father was the sort of man who could inspire confidence and trust in so simple and direct a greeting. I’d heard horrible stories about Heimdall, the underground organization opposed to the Lyran Intelligence Corps and to Loki, in particular. I believed those stories until your father spoke to us. In that instant, I knew that Heimdall posed no threat to me. With Loki after us, I even understood the need for Heimdall. The three of us went with your father, and that must have been the night you and I first met.”

  Jeana nodded and swallowed past the thick lump in her throat. “My mother said he organized a raid that got you off Poulsbo.”

  The Archon nodded solemnly. “Your father and his comrades in the Bangor cells of Heimdall provided us with clothing and disguises. They raided the military side of the Bangor spaceport so that we could slip into the civilian sector and steal a small shuttle. We succeeded and managed to escape. I later learned that the craft was stolen from a Heimdall sympathizer who covered our escape.”

  Jeana nodded. “Loki ops shot my father after he blew the radar tower.”

  The Archon’s lower lip trembled. “I know. Arthur had a radio link with your father. He blew the tower so that we could escape. The last thing your father said to us was, ‘You’re free. Return the favor to the Commonwealth.’”

  The Archon stood and turned away. “I tried to find out your father’s identity, to reward him and the others, but I cou
ld never crack Heimdall’s security. I don’t even think ComStar knows what Heimdall is.” Her lips pressed into a thin, grim line, Katrina turned back to Jeana. “I was able to tighten the reins on the LIC, and Loki no longer runs rampant.” The Archon nodded at the folder. “Had I known, I never would have allowed Loki agents to be the ones to bring you here.”

  The Archon clasped her hands behind her back. “In view of your family’s sacrifices, though, I cannot allow you this duty. To release you is the least I can do to honor the memory of your father.”

  Jeana shot to her feet. “No, Archon! You cannot deny me the chance to serve you. You have rewarded me and the people of Heimdall many times over.”

  Jeana balked, but knew Katrina deserved to know all of it. She bowed her head and completed her confession. “Your husband was a member of Heimdall. He had been a member for years, and though neither he nor my father recognized one another, the Duke of Donegal trusted my father. Later, in the five years left to him, your husband saw to it that the families and cell members of Poulsbo were well cared for.”

  Jeana pointed to the folder from which the Archon had been reading. “Your husband engineered the restructuring of my history files, and he secretly endowed many of us with monies or other bequests. I went to Sanglamore on a scholarship that he arranged, and I’m sure he assisted the children of the others who helped you, too. As I said before, everything I have and everything I am is because of you.”

  The Archon started to speak, but Jeana would not be interrupted. “My father died because he believed in what you would do for the Commonwealth as Archon. You said you’d spare me this difficult duty out of honor for my father’s memory. But to accept the mission would allow me to pay the greatest tribute I could to that memory. The reason I became a MechWarrior was to continue what he believed in. Though it meant losing her daughter, my mother never flinched from the same mission.”