A Bonfire of Worlds

by Steven Mohan Jr.

  Any measure.

  Most of the Inner Sphere believed the Blakists had been wiped out during the Jihad. Tucker had learned to his sorrow that this was not the case.

  Tucker met Patricia’s steady gaze. Is this same girl I played freeze tag with in the back yard, the same girl who cried when Pepper the cat ran away, the same girl who taught her five-year-old brother to ride a two-wheeler?

  Where did the fanaticism come from? Tucker thought. The hatred?

  "Buhl wants to see you," she said.

  "I’m working." He jerked his head at the core.

  She stared at him, her face blank. And then she smiled, a bright smile that was somehow all the more disturbing for its warmth. She walked over to him and tousled his hair. "Don’t worry, Tuck. You won’t need that research. Because today’s your big day."

  Tucker frowned. "I don’t understand."

  She just laughed softly and walked out of the little room.

  Tucker hurried to follow before the door closed and locked him in, knowing his sister wouldn’t come back for him.

  * * *

  Patricia led him through a warren of hallways, up an elevator, through yet more hallways until they reached a pair of sliding glass doors that looked out on an open-air balcony. Tucker saw Precentor Malcolm Buhl sitting at a table splashed in sunlight, eating breakfast.

  Patricia pushed through the doors and Tucker followed her out.

  Where he could see the sky.

  Luyten’s sky was a shock of bright blue, a broad red sun crouched low on the horizon. A slash of silver cleaved the sky like a knife. So the world had a ring of debris in near orbit. How unusual.

  Tucker suddenly felt cold. They had let him see the sky. They’d never let him see the sky before. A sky could be remembered, a sky could be used to ID a world’s location, and Luyten’s location was a secret.

  His mouth tasted dry. There were only two kinds of people you shared secrets with. Those you trusted. And those who had short life expectancies.

  "Please," said Buhl, "sit. Would you like something to eat?"

  Tucker glanced at Buhl’s breakfast: greasy bacon and hash browns swimming in egg yolk and curry. A wave of nausea washed over him. He swallowed hard and sat down. "No, thank you."

  Patricia didn’t sit, she leaned against the wall behind him, arms folded.

  Buhl shrugged. He was a heavy man, bald on top, thin brown hair shadowing the sides of his skull. He sopped up curry with a piece of toast.

  "So," said Buhl, "today we will test a new idea."

  It was Tucker’s turn to shrug.

  "You don’t seem excited," said Buhl, washing down his breakfast with iced coffee. "Let me explain the importance of this test. ComStar—" Buhl took another bite of toast "—is a communications company. At least we were before Gray Monday."

  Gray Monday. There wasn’t a man or woman who served ComStar who didn’t know what that term meant, and Tucker was no exception. Gray Monday. August 1, 3132. The day someone (no one knew who) used a computer virus and multiple terrorist attacks to take down more than eighty percent of the interstellar communications network. It was a disaster.

  Until ComStar realized the virus prevented them from restoring the hyperpulse generators that were the backbone of the network.

  Then it looked more like the end of civilization.

  As system after system slipped into darkness, humanity turned into an unruly mob: scared, angry. Ready to kill.

  "Naturally," said Buhl, "our revenue has dropped since the blackout began. We’ve hung on for seven long years." He shook his head. "But we cannot hold on forever. What the markets know is that we’ve sold holdings not related to our core communications business. What the markets do not know is that we’ve also been borrowing. In the next few years those loans are going to begin coming due."

  "And you can’t pay them back," guessed Tucker.

  "We used voting rights as collateral," said Buhl softly. "If we default on these loans we will start to lose control over ComStar itself."

  Patricia’s hard gaze was an itch in the back of Tucker’s neck.

  Buhl leaned forward. "But you, my boy, are our salvation. You’re a genius."

  Tucker said nothing. It occurred to him his life would have been simpler if he were not a genius. Certainly Buhl’s faction wouldn’t have kidnapped him if he’d been just another adept.

  Buhl was still talking: "—child prodigy. First in your class at the DeBurke Institute. That’s why I assigned you to the Wyatt HPG. And you didn’t disappoint, my boy. You brought Wyatt up. You are the only person in the whole of the Inner Sphere who’s managed to repair an infected HPG."

  "Unfortunate that he hasn’t been able to duplicate that effort," said Patricia coldly.

  "Yes," said Buhl softly. "Unfortunate."

  "So why didn’t you bring up the Millungera HPG, Tuck?" Patricia smiled sweetly.

  "T-the same approach on Wyatt— I mean the same frequency, um, it didn’t work. I don’t know why." He really didn’t. And nothing made Tucker more uncomfortable then things he didn’t understand. "If I could just have—"

  "No need to worry," said Buhl smoothly. "Because we’ve found another approach. We haven’t been able to eradicate the virus that caused the blackout. So we’ve come to the Polar Network solution, two brand new hyperpulse generators, one here and one on Mars, both of them built from scratch, every bolt, every capacitor, every circuit board assembled in brand new facilities. It cost billions of C-Bills, but we have allowed no vector for the contagion to infect this new network."

  Buhl pushed aside his plate. "We must succeed this time. We are running out of chances." He peered at Tucker. "That’s why you’re going to bring up our new network."

  "I’m ready to do whatever you wish, sir," said Tucker steadily.

  "Are you, my boy?" asked Buhl softly. "I wonder. You see, I know you’ve been fighting us."

  "Sir, I—"

  Buhl held up his hand and Tucker fell instantly silent.

  Because what Buhl said was true. For four long years, Tucker Harwell had been playing a desperate game of delay and obfuscation. He inserted subtle errors in his notes. He dropped a word here, a phrase there, sending ComStar technicians scurrying down blind alleys, plumbing useless, esoteric theories. He told small, carefully crafted lies. Sometimes, when he was sure his captors wouldn’t believe him, he told the truth.

  And now that they knew, what else could he say?

  "So," said Buhl. "If the Polar Network fails . . . " He smiled faintly and shook his head.

  Tucker felt Patricia’s hand on his shoulder and he stood. And why not? There was nothing else Buhl needed to say.

  His meaning had been perfectly clear.

  * * *

  Patricia stopped in front of the entrance to Tucker’s lab. His cell. He expected her to open the door, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, "I have one more thing for you to think about, brother. Yes, Buhl will have your head if the Polar Network fails. But consider, what will happen if the test succeeds?"

  "ComStar will have the template for restoring the HPG network."

  "That’s right." She flashed him a tight smile. A triumphant smile. "And then, all the sudden, we’ll have no need for boy geniuses."

  Tucker blinked. He’d always known Patricia would hurt him if her duty required it, but he suddenly saw she was just willing to. She wanted to. At that moment, something inside him broke.

  "Patricia," he whispered.

  She laughed and it sounded brittle. "So the genius finally understands."

  Tucker stared at her for a long moment and then he drew a deep, shuddery breath. "You are my sister. I love you. I love you. Whatever—" He swallowed had. "Whatever you do to me. I want you to know. I want you to remember. I forgive you."

  Her face softened and the cold gleam in her eyes seemed to fade away. "Oh, Tucker," she whispered. "Oh, Tuck." She smiled sadly and shook her head. "But I don’t forgive you."

  Tucker’s jaw sagged open.<
br />
  Her eyes narrowed. "It’s always came so easily for you," she snarled. "You. Who are a heretic. Your sins stain me, brother. Me, who has always faithfully walked the path set out by the great Blake."

  "Patricia, I never meant—"

  "It’s too late, Tucker," she said coldly, opening the door with an electronic key. "You’ll get no absolution from me."

  And then she shoved him into his little prison and closed the door.

  Tucker was so upset by his sister’s tirade that it was full minute before he realized the battered memory core was missing.

  * * *

  The HPG’s control room was a study in understated elegance. The space was fifteen meters in diameter reaching up to a domed ceiling. Consoles and computer equipment ringed the room. Executive chairs fashioned from hand-tooled brown leather sat in front of the consoles, each occupied by a technician in a dazzling white uniform. The floor was black granite, polished to a high sheen. Tucker glanced down and saw himself looking back up.

  It was like looking in a dark mirror.

  In the center of the room was the HPG core, a stem that passed through the domed ceiling and opened into a flower fifty meters across, the business end of the hyperpulse generator. It was the antenna that would rip a hole in spacetime and broadcast a message that would be instantly received by a station orbiting another star. Beneath the floor a dedicated fusion reactor provided the tremendous power the process required.

  But none of it was possible without the core. Inside the steel cylinder, the core was a maze of branching circuits linking germanium processors to shielded magnetic coils. It was the most sophisticated piece of technology in human space.

  And like everything else in the room, it was brand new.

  Tucker crossed the dark floor to the core. He wore gloves that prevented any electrostatic discharge that might damage the core’s intricate circuits. For a moment he considered taking the gloves off—but, no, Buhl’s people were watching his every move.

  He reached out and touched the core’s metallic surface. He remembered how it had felt to touch the core on Wyatt: like he was touching the beating heart of interstellar civilization. But that’s not how it felt today.

  Today it just felt cold.

  Tucker let out a deep breath and turned. Six meters from the core, centered on a dais, there was a chair.

  Like a man going to the gallows, Tucker marched to the chair and sat down.

  He reached up and rubbed his neck. To his watchers it must’ve looked like Tucker was trying to relieve the tension in his muscles. But what he was really doing was brushing the tips of his fingers against a tiny dot of metal hidden on the inside of his high collar.

  What he was really doing was taking strength from wherever he could find it.

  The little piece of jewelry was a Knight Errant’s rank pip, given to him by Alexi Holt on Wyatt, a parting gift as Patricia and the Com Guards took Tucker away. He thought of it as a promise, a promise that Alexi and The Republic hadn’t forgotten him.

  It had been four years and so far that promise hadn’t turned out to be worth much. But Tucker hadn’t abandoned the tiny sliver of hope the pip represented. It was foolish to hope The Republic would come for him.

  But sometimes a foolish hope was better than none at all.

  "Preparing initiation sequence," someone said.

  Tucker glanced at the master control board, watching the HPG come to life.

  "Eighty-two percent," said the adept at the secondary control station. What was her name? Wharton. She frowned. "I’m getting flux in the primary hyperspace coil. Variance of three percent. Five. Six."

  It was a little high, but Tucker wasn’t worried. This core was free from the virus that infected the rest of the network. Which was why he’d finally run out of options. Even if he committed some last desperate act of sabotage it wouldn’t matter. They’d just kill him and try again. Either way the Polar Network was going to work.

  Despite Tucker’s best efforts, Buhl’s technicians had hit upon a strategy that would certainly defeat the persistent virus everyone knew was causing the blackout. Instead of trying to fix the existing network, they would rebuild it. The strategy was horrifically expensive—but that scarcely mattered. If ComStar was to survive as an organization it had to bring the network back up, no matter the cost.

  Buhl would become Primus. No doubt an accomplishment of this magnitude would give him the power to push aside Primus Koenigs-Cober. He would rule ComStar, returning the organization to its technoreligious roots. Which way would First Precentor Brian May jump? Did it even matter? He would either adopt the new order or he would be swept aside. Word of Blake would be reborn.

  The last time the Blakists had been unleashed, they’d plunged the Inner Sphere into an unholy jihad that had killed billions. Whole worlds had been sterilized. Realms shattered. Death and destruction on a scale never seen before or since.

  And this time the heirs to the Blakist tradition were rising in a universe where The Republic had disappeared. Tucker saw a tide of darkness washing over humanity.

  And it would begin in this room.

  "Adjust beta coil plus-five megajoules," Tucker ordered, trying to balance the primary coil, at once protecting the core . . . and the wicked future struggling to be born.

  He glanced at Buhl who was sitting, watching him, his face a fat mask of pinched concern. Patricia stood next to him, arms folded across her chest, nothing, absolutely nothing, on her face.

  "Flux level, holding at seven," reported secondary control. "We’re in the pipe."

  Tucker listened to all the controllers run through their statuses, all of them reporting go. So he had no choice.

  How did I let it come to this? he thought.

  He swallowed in a dry mouth and said, "Begin sequence alpha one. Engage."

  To his left, Buhl leaned forward.

  "Test Packet Release," called out the woman at secondary control. They had pinged the other pole of the new network. Buhl smiled.

  Suddenly an indicator flickered from green to yellow. Flux was climbing in the primary coil. Again. Tucker stood, his hands balled into fists. I’ve seen this before, he thought. But it’s impossible.

  There is no virus.

  Flux was climbing faster. Eight nine ten. "Shut it down," Tucker croaked.

  "Do not follow that order," Buhl roared, launching to his feet.

  Twelve fifteen nineteen.

  Tucker’s eyes were locked on the flux indicator. It flickered yellow to red. "We’re going to lose the—"

  "Adept Harwell is relieved," Buhl shouted. He pointed at the woman at secondary control. "Adept Wharton, take over and—"

  "Cascade!" she shouted. "Generation rate is thousands, no millions per second."

  Buhl’s eyes were wide. "Shut it down. Shut it—"

  But it was too late. All the screens went dark and the hum of the core suddenly dropped out. The room settled into a terrible, terrible silence.

  Tucker stood, staring at the blank displays. The Polar Network had failed.

  But that was impossible.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Kefalczyk Hunting Preserve, New Greenland

  Republic of Kasnov-Greenland, New Olympia

  Free Worlds League

  23 September 3139

  The sheer savagery of Clan Wolf’s attack made the raging inferno look like sanctuary. Like all MechWarriors, General Dmitar Todorov of the New Olympia Home Guard feared heat, but the Wolves were cutting his people to pieces. So to escape the blizzard of jeweled beams before him, he had to embrace the conflagration behind.

  He backstepped into fire.

  Todorov felt the control sticks of his Patriot grow sluggish in his hands as he cleared the Central Island Highway. For a moment, just a moment, he saw a brown Ryoken framed in angry orange fire. He dropped his reticle over the Wolf machine and pulled into his main trigger.

  A jagged shard of azure lightning tore into the fire and a wave of terrible heat blasted t
hrough Todorov’s cockpit, searing his lungs and flash-drying the sweat that sheened his skin. What damage, if any, he’d done to the Ryoken he did not know.

  But he was willing to spend the heat on the shot anyway, if only to encourage the Wolves to join him in the burning forest.

  Most MechWarriors would think twice about charging an enemy who was shooting at them from the heart of hell. Not the Wolves, though.

  They’d look on it as an invitation.

  Todorov staggered backwards through the conflagration, surrounded by the sharp pop of exploding trees, pines and firs going up like Roman candles, hungry yellow flames racing through the underbrush. He heard the freight train roar of the fire even through his sound-insulated cockpit. He’d ordered his troops to fire the forest as they withdrew and they’d followed his orders to the letter.

  His Patriot moved slowly, burdened by the terrible heat load, but as soon as his heavy particle projection cannon recycled he fired again, aiming blindly into the fire.

  Just to remind the Wolves he was still there.

  He glanced down at his rear-view strip and saw daylight through the flames. He gritted his teeth. Almost there.

  And still no sign of the Wolves.

  He stepped his machine back and finally found himself clear of the inferno. His Patriot stood in a blackened no-man’s land between the fire and the forest’s green heart, a hundred meters of felled timber and cut brush, all of it burned down to charcoal. The Home Guard Medusas who’d survived the brutal Wolf assault waited for him there. Their machines were painted like his: forest camo marked with a snake-headed Gorgon.

  There’s too few of them, Todorov thought. A battalion whittled down to four bloodied lances.

  He caught movement in the trees behind him and saw a Warhammer IIc4 move out of the forest, the great machine shouldering aside a Scotch pine as it stepped out into the open. The tree, which barely overtopped the ‘Mech, cracked and fell as the Warhammer pushed it aside.

  The assault machine was a humanoid design, its arms ending in a pair of PPCs, the cockpit where the head should be, a pair of box launchers perched on its broad shoulders, a fusion reactor as its beating heart.