Fortress of Lies

by J. Steven York

  He guessed that the two light ’Mechs headed his way were there to finish the job.

  Behind him, he could hear Deena muttering to herself. “Ulysses, I think Deena is praying. You are welcome to join her if you have nothing better to do.”

  He was answered with fatigued laughter. Ulysses’ voice was slurred and uneven. “I’m too busy, my Lord, bleeding out into my bruises and trying to put my teeth back into their sockets. Will this hellish ride be over soon?”

  “The good news is that one way or the other, it will be.”

  Ordinarily the Black Hawk would have been a good match for its opponents, but damaged, lacking missiles or jump jets, and already carrying too much heat, the situation didn’t look good. There was only one thing left to do: Negotiate.

  He switched his radio to broadcast on all civilian channels. “This is Duke Aaron Sandoval, Lord Governor of Prefecture IV, on a diplomatic mission. I claim diplomatic immunity. I demand free passage off-planet.”

  “Unidentified Black Hawk, this is Spaceport Security One. Duke Sandoval is dead. We don’t know who you are, but we have orders to take you dead or alive. Dead is fine with us.”

  Both ’Mechs opened fire, and autocannon shells peeled off a line of armor below the cockpit. Deena’s muttering grew louder.

  Time to change strategy.

  “This is Duke Aaron Sandoval to any listening ship in port. I am being illegally attacked and detained by the government of New Canton. I offer my eternal gratitude, and five-hundred thousand C-Bills, for aid and safe passage off-planet.”

  There was no reply. He hadn’t expected any captain there to have the courage to challenge the local authorities, but it was worth a try. He angled between the converging ’Mechs, hoping they’d have to cease fire for fear of hitting each other.

  “I don’t lift for under a million C-Bills.”

  “Who said that?” There were half a dozen cargo ships in port, spheroid and aerodyne. It could have been any one of them, or even a trick.

  “A man who’s asking a million Cs. Plus expenses.”

  A pulse laser cut into the Black Hawk’s arm, uncomfortably close to Paxton’s compartment.

  “We can negotiate fair payment as soon as we’re off-planet.”

  “You heard my terms. They are fair.”

  He sighed. “Done. My honor as Duke. What ship are you?”

  “You’ll see,” said the voice.

  Abruptly, to his north, Aaron was surprised to see the waist turrets around an egg-shaped Excalibur flash to life, spitting a stream of lasers and missile fire between the Black Hawk and its pursuers. Aaron managed a grim smile. A converted military ship, but not entirely toothless. His would-be savior was full of surprises.

  Another voice crackled in Aaron’s earphones. “DropShip Tyrannos Rex, you are in violation of Port Security Protocol One. You are ordered to cease fire and surrender your ship, or face military retaliation.”

  There was a scratchy laugh. “With all respect, Control, bite my thrusters.”

  Aaron was making the best speed he could toward the waiting Excalibur. The door of what had at least started out as a ’Mech bay was open, boarding ramp extended. They were almost home. He could see the ramp just ahead of them.

  The cockpit shook violently, and a ball of fire swallowed the Black Hawk—probably a short-range missile. Red lights flickered all over Aaron’s panels, and the ’Mech’s left leg froze.

  In his rear camera, he could see the two security ’Mechs closing in for the kill. Then one of them exploded as a volley of missiles slammed into it. The other was soon covered with glowing stripes as lasers swept over its light armor. It angled away from the big DropShip, seeking cover.

  Aaron flinched as he spotted another ’Mech nearly upon them. He realized it was an IndustrialMech, a loader, apparently from the Excalibur-class vessel itself. The little yellow ’Mech swept past him, close enough that he could almost count the gray whiskers on the pilot’s chin, then it disappeared behind him.

  Then Aaron realized the ’Mech was towing a cable.

  There was a scraping noise, and the LoaderMech came back around the other side. Aaron saw a large hook in the ’Mech’s manipulator hand. The pilot expertly slipped the hook over the cable, forming a loop around the Black Hawk’s waist, yanking it tight with the LoaderMech’s other hand. It turned and charged back up the loading ramp.

  “Take slack, then full power till she’s in,” came a voice on the radio. It sounded like the Excalibur captain’s voice again.

  The cable shifted, went taut. Then the Black Hawk started to tip over. Using what little control he had left, Aaron shifted the big ’Mech to land on its back. The impact threw him against his harness and slammed his helmet against the side of the command couch. He heard Paxton curse somewhere. Deena was very quiet.

  Metal squealed against metal as the powerful cargo winch dragged them up the loading ramp. Despite the agonizing sound, Aaron started to relax.

  Then the second security ’Mech came out from behind the ship’s massive landing leg, guns blazing. Aaron watched the armorglass canopy in front of him craze and finally shatter. Something ripped into his chest and made him hurt straight through to his back, where he felt something warm and wet.

  His last thought was that he hoped it didn’t get Deena, too.

  5

  “My grandmother was a huge influence on my life. Health problems kept her bedridden from the time I was ten, but her mind never lost its edge. I would sit by her bed for hours as she told me the most wonderful and amazing stories. She knew the whole glorious history of the Sandovals: every name, every title, every treaty, every conquest, every battle. She taught me what it meant to be one of them—something I’m not sure all of my relatives fully understand.

  “When she died, I did not mourn her, because she told me that there was a special place in Heaven for loyal Sandovals—a palace where those true to the family ideals and traditions would rule forever. I’d like to think that if such a place exists, I’ll see her again there someday.”

  —Duke Aaron Sandoval, quoted in The Lords of Tikonov, published 3130

  Excalibur-conversion-class freighter Tyrannos Rex

  Outbound from New Canton

  Prefecture VI, The Republic

  12 October 3134

  Before the strokes had left her a bitter cripple, young Aaron Sandoval’s grandmother would receive him at her summer estate on the southern shore of Lake Tikonov. It had been a magical place, with warm beaches for swimming, miles of open coastline he could explore with his little hydrofoil, endless trails through fragrant cedar where the head groundskeeper taught him to bow-hunt deer and wild boar. A place where fresh game and blue potatoes roasted in the massive stone fireplace became the finest meal in the Inner Sphere.

  Sometimes when it was late and he couldn’t sleep, or when the storms blew down from the north and filled the lake with foam-flecked whitecaps, he would retire to the mansion’s extensive and little-used library. There, he would dig through the dusty volumes and stacks of data cards so old they only worked in an antique reader that sat on a corner desk.

  It was there he had discovered an ancient holovid dating back to Old Terra—no, just a vid actually, since it was only two-dimensional. Parts of it were even curiously lacking in color. It was only a fragment of the original, a few cheerful songs, actors in silly costumes, a few scenes of campy melodrama, yet it had somehow fascinated him, and he’d watched it again and again.

  It was curious how, as consciousness rejoined him, accompanied by the smell of antiseptics, the electronic chirps of medical machines, a distant throbbing of drug-dulled pain, and the familiar low rumble of a fusion drive, that his first thoughts were of that ancient video-relic. He parted his dry lips and heard the raspy sound of his own voice. “Toto, I don’t think we’re in New Canton anymore.”

  “He’s awake!” The voice was Ulysses Paxton’s.

  “He’s delirious,” said Deena Onan, a tone of concern in her v
oice.

  He opened his eyes a little, squinting against the stinging brightness. Deena’s face leaned in front of him, and she spoke slowly and loudly, as though he’d been pierced through the eardrums instead of the chest. “My—name—is—not—Toto!”

  He chuckled, and it came out as a rasp.

  Deena held a straw to his lips, and he sipped, sloshing the water around his mouth to wash away the cotton. “How long?”

  “My name’s never been Toto, Lord Governor.”

  He looked at her. She was a mess—a large purple bruise on her left cheek, the bridge of her nose taped, and a half-healed cut on her lower lip. Her skin looked red and slightly parboiled.

  Ulysses looked even worse, with bandages seemingly covering half his body, and bruises the rest. His eyes still looked red and irritated—from seawater or smoke, Aaron couldn’t tell—and the big man occasionally emitted a deep liquid cough. There was a brace around one knee and another around one wrist, but nothing appeared to be broken.

  Nothing appeared to be overly healed either. He hadn’t been unconscious too long, then. He wondered how bad he looked, then decided he didn’t want to know.

  A medic in a green-and-white jacket checked his pulse. Aaron glanced up at the man’s chiseled profile and cleft chin, and decided that he must be a doctor.

  Aaron was startled when the doctor turned to shine a penlight into his eyes, and he saw the man’s full face for the first time. A jagged pink scar extended up from the right corner of his mouth to his forehead, crossing his right eye socket. The eye on that side was a silvery artificial orb with a black lens in the middle. He could see something moving beneath the glass as the eye changed focus.

  The doctor’s eyebrow rose as he saw Aaron’s reaction. “Not much to wake up to, I’ll admit, but it’s lucky for you. If it wasn’t for this scar, somebody with my qualifications would never let themselves be stuck on a tramp freighter.”

  A shorter, older man with a gray beard stepped forward. “Hell, Doc, you love it, and you know it.”

  The doctor glanced at the bearded man, but didn’t argue. He turned back and examined the red-tinged bandage taped to Aaron’s chest. “The shard of ferro-glass missed your aorta and your spine and only nicked a lung. You’re a lucky man, Lord Governor. There are a lot of ways you could have been dead.”

  You don’t know the half of it. Aaron looked past the doctor to study the bearded man. He wore a blue merchant marine shirt, untucked at the waist, and a white cap with captain’s bars pinned in the middle. The only decorations on the shirt were a pair of gold DropShip wings and a stylized set of tank treads crossed with a red lightning bolt. A tanker’s pin. Why does a DropShip captain wear a tanker’s pin? He recognized the face as the man who had piloted the LoaderMech that had come to their rescue.

  The bearded man stepped forward, studied Aaron for a moment, then wrinkled his nose. “Don’t smell like a duke,” he said.

  Paxton stepped in close to him, frowning. “Respect!”

  The captain didn’t flinch. He looked up into Paxton’s eyes. “Well, he’s not my duke.” Then he looked back at Aaron and shrugged. “Still, he’s a customer. Don’t pay to be too rude to a customer, long as they pay.”

  Aaron grinned. He liked the man’s pluck. “You’ll get paid, Captain. . . ?”

  The captain tugged at the brim of his cap briefly. “Captain Gus Clancy of the DropShip Tyrannos Rex.”

  “I’ll ask again. How long have I been out?”

  “Three days,” said Paxton. “We’re well on our way to the JumpShip.”

  “No one is coming after us?”

  Paxton smiled slightly. “We pulled six Gs getting off New Canton. I would have never believed an Excalibur could do that without shredding apart. I’ll hand it to Captain Clancy; this ship is much more than it seems.

  “We had some planetary defense fighters dogging us, but Captain Clancy put some missiles across their bows and then pulled a high-G slingshot maneuver around the third moon that had us all wondering if we were going to clip a mountaintop. But nobody tried to follow us after that, and things cooled off.”

  Aaron nodded. “The assassination attempt failed, and their attempts to correct that mistake were getting increasingly messy. They finally cut their losses.”

  Captain Clancy seemed to remember something, and dug a folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket. There was a ring-shaped coffee stain on the back. “I reckon that might explain this. Came in for you on the datafax from New Canton an hour ago.”

  Paxton glared at Clancy. “You read it?”

  Clancy looked indignant. “It’s my blasted datafax.”

  Aaron glanced at the doctor, his practiced eyes neither avoiding the man’s scarred face, nor staring at it. “Doctor, will you excuse us for a moment? Apparently I have nothing to hide from Captain Clancy, so he can remain.”

  “Well, ain’t that nice,” said the captain sarcastically.

  Aaron looked at Deena. “Read it.”

  She took the paper, her eyes widening as she saw the name at the top. “It’s from the Lord Governor.

  “ ‘My dearest, Duke Sandoval. It is with great horror and regret that I apologize for the unfortunate events that befell you during your hasty departure from New Canton. Imagine my delight when I learned that you had miraculously survived the accidental crash of your DropShip. Let me assure you that, despite some miscommunication with the local authorities, you were never in any danger.” ’

  Aaron saw Paxton’s mouth curl into a sneer.

  Deena continued reading. “ ‘Although present circumstances divide us politically, let me assure you that I have nothing but the highest personal regard for the Duke and his family. Perhaps in another time, we will yet again be allies.

  “ ‘Lord Governor Harri Golan,’ blah, blah, etc., etc.”

  Aaron chuckled. “Covering his ass.”

  Deena looked puzzled. “How so, Lord Governor? He’s allied himself with our enemies, and he’s trying to be cordial?”

  “He fears I’ll seek personal revenge, or worse—that Liao’s incursion will ultimately be repelled, leaving him alone and in a very embarrassing position. He knows it was an assassination attempt, probably by that toad Sebhat, not the Lord Governor himself—not that it matters to me. He knows I know. He knows I have enough money to hire many assassins.”

  Paxton looked concerned, probably imagining an escalating war of assassination attempts. “And will you?”

  “What would be the point? I’m above petty acts of revenge. Better to make him worry and fret about it, lying awake every night listening for footsteps outside his door, torturing himself, until one day when I approach him. That day, he will beg to find my favor again. Isn’t that better in the long run?”

  Paxton nodded. “The Duke is wise.”

  Aaron grinned. “The bodyguard is diplomatic. I wonder what you’d have said if I’d put a price on the bastard’s head?”

  Paxton just looked at him and cocked an eyebrow.

  “Lord Governor,” said Deena, leaning in close to look at his face, “you look tired.” She turned to the others. “He looks tired.”

  Clancy crossed his arms over his chest. “Tired, is he? When we’ve still got business to attend to?”

  “He’s tired,” she insisted.

  “Excuse me,” said Aaron. “Do I get a say in this? Hello? Still the Duke.”

  Deena looked embarrassed. “With apologies, my Lord, I forgot my place.”

  “No.” He grimaced as he tried to shift position without dislodging any of the various tubes that ran in and out of him. “I forgot mine, which is horizontal in a bed with a hole through my chest. I am tired, but I do have business with Captain Clancy that can’t wait.”

  Both Deena and Paxton looked unhappy.

  “I’ll make it brief. Besides, you people look like you need rest as much as I do. I know you lost friends on the DropShip. So did I. Go take some personal time.”

  Deena’s eyes clouded slightl
y when he mentioned lost friends, and he noticed the muscles of Ulysses’ jaw clench. She nodded, and headed for the door. “I’ll be back to check on you later.”

  Ulysses didn’t move. “With respect, Lord Governor, it would be better if I stayed with you. I’ve disgracefully subjected you to too much danger already.”

  “You’re not my mother, Ulysses. I put myself in danger, and you scramble to get me out. My job is always easier than yours”—he grinned—“and I’m better at it.”

  He looked at Captain Clancy, who stood at the foot of his bed. “Ulysses, do you trust this man?”

  Ulysses blinked. “Yes, Lord Governor, I believe I do.”

  “Captain Clancy, am I safe here?”

  “Doc is the best sawbones in the merchant fleet. He’s patched me and my crew together from worse than the likes of you. I’ve got two of my most loyal men outside watching the door, and except for a dozen or so short-timers who haven’t proved themselves yet, I’d trust my life with any of my crew.”

  Clancy nodded. “Yeah, you’re safe here as you can be.”

  Aaron bobbed his head in the direction of the door. “Go. Sleep. You’re no good to me the way you are, Ulysses. Don’t come back till you’re halfway presentable.”

  Paxton nodded and reluctantly headed for the door. He stopped in the door to inspect the two guards and, apparently satisfied, made his leave.

  Doc looked at Clancy. “Captain, he should rest.”

  Clancy waved him away. “Don’t you got some pills to go try out or something? Let us talk a minute, then I’ll get out.”

  The doctor shrugged and wandered into an adjacent office cubicle.

  “As I said, Captain, you’ve set your price, and you’ll get paid.”

  “Aye, you can bet your blue blood that I will. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.”

  “I owe you a debt beyond that, Captain. You saved my life out there, all our lives. I don’t know if I’d have done the same thing in your place.”