A Bonfire of Worlds

by Steven Mohan Jr.

  BattleMechs were the lords of the Thirty-Second century battlefield. Reaching heights of ten meters or more, heavily armed and armored, nothing could challenge a BattleMech—except another BattleMech. The Warhammer was a particularly lethal example of the breed—eighty tons of destruction waiting, begging, to be unleashed.

  "Soon enough," Todorov whispered.

  Like the Medusas the Warhammer was turned out in forest camo—but the emblem painted on its chest was different. The great machine bore a purple Marik eagle, its head wreathed by five silver stars—one for each of the planets of the Covenant worlds when the tiny nation had been taken into the League.

  The Warhammer belonged to the First Covenant Guards.

  As Todorov watched, more machines emerged from hiding: an Ostroc, a Hatchetman, two Spiders, an SM1 Destroyer. A reinforced battalion of the best troops the Free Worlds League could put on the battlefield. Enough raw power to wipe the Second Wolf Assault Cluster right out of existence.

  New Olympia was a little world, a stepping-stone to grander places. There was no reason for the Wolves to expect there’d be anything here other than planetary militia. And so far that’s all they’d seen.

  That was about to change.

  * * *

  Warden-General Thaddeus Marik stepped his Warhammer into the clearing, waiting for the Wolves to come.

  The no-man’s land had been rapidly cleared by a corps of civilian workers when the Wolf DropShips were still racing in from the zenith jump point, so the retreating Marik force would be able to fire the forest without burning the whole of it down. And so now, the First Covenant Guards stood clear of the fire, fresh and unburdened by heat load. The Clanners would emerge sluggish and hot, slow and bewildered, and the Free Worlders would pick them off one by one.

  Jessica had been against allowing her Warden-General—and incidentally, her husband— from leading this mission, but as a former paladin of the Republic, Thaddeus was used to using either diplomacy or force of arms to solve problems—sometimes both at the same time. That wasn’t the argument that had won Jessica over, of course. Nothing moved Captain-General Jessica Halas-Hughes Marik save for the cold logic of need.

  And right now the League’s need could be summed up in precisely two words.

  Alaric Wolf.

  The first Alaric history remembered had been the barbarian king of the Visigoths and an enemy of Rome. That Alaric had sundered a mighty empire.

  It was an uncomfortable parallel.

  The Free Worlds League looked like a tipped-over "C." The bowl of the cee was a thin bridge that joined the League’s two main bodies. If the Wolf advance continued, they’d cut the League in two and threaten Atreus.

  Alaric had to be stopped.

  Unfortunately that was easier said than done. He’d crushed every commander Jessica had sent against him. (And all of Anson Marik’s commanders before that.) Which was why Thaddeus was here now. Because Jessica needed a victory more than she needed a husband.

  In the privacy of his cockpit, Thaddeus allowed himself a sardonic smile. Well, if something did happen to him, at least he’d left Jessica his name.

  He centered his targeting cross hairs over the burning forest, waiting for the Wolves to emerge.

  Except they didn’t.

  It’s been too long. He glanced down. The fire was playing hell with his thermal sensors, but his MAD gear showed the Wolves moving north along the highway, angling to cut the militia off before they could reach their base near the aerospace academy.

  The Wolves had neatly side-stepped the trap.

  Thaddeus watched the blips on his screen racing north and clenched his jaw. And then he saw it.

  Racing.

  The Wolves were running. Which meant they’d left their slower units behind.

  He pulled up a map. The Wolf DropShip had set down to the west, along the coast. Alaric would be south of the forest and of the Captive River, moving his wounded and his slow units, his assaults and heavies, back to the Overlord. He’d hop north and link up with his fast movers to crush the militia he expected to find emerging from the forest’s northern edge. It was a beautiful plan.

  Except Thaddeus saw what was coming.

  * * *

  A cool breeze rippled across thigh-high grass shading the crest of a low hill. Generous spring rains had nourished the grass; it was lush and dark. Thick. It was nearly impossible to see the man hidden in that grass, lying prone, binoculars pressed to his face. The man’s coveralls, his face paint, even the binoculars, exactly matched the color of the grass. He had to be careful.

  If the Wolves caught him it would mean his life.

  The man called himself Samuel Bone, but the name was like the camo—a means to remain hidden and nothing more.

  Bone’s vantage afforded him a beautiful view of the muddy brown Captive River and the forest to the north, but right now he had his binoculars turned to the east where he could see part of the Wolf force moving south of the river, heading west, toward their waiting DropShip.

  He set the binoculars down and slowly exhaled. Glanced at the forest.

  And caught the glint of sunlight on glass.

  Bone jerked his binoculars up, flashing on something hidden in the darkness between the trees. It faded back into the shadows before he could ID it, but one thing was certain.

  It was big.

  * * *

  Thaddeus watched twenty-two Clan BattleMechs and vehicles slog their way across the riparian grassland south of the river. His force wasn’t any faster than the Wolf heavy hitters, but he had angled through the forest.

  Giving him time to set a trap.

  The Clan machines were painted the dark brown of a wild wolf’s coat, but with molten orange highlights, to remind their enemies that these Wolves breathed fire. The colors of the Wolves’ Beta Galaxy.

  Best of all, a Mad Cat IV led the long column of machines.

  Alaric.

  At seventy-five tons, the Mad Cat massed nearly as much as Thaddeus’s Warhammer. Mad Cat was an Inner Sphere designation. The Clans had another name for this fearsome machine.

  Timber Wolf.

  Although this Timber Wolf was of the Savage variety. The pilot sat in a sleek, rounded cockpit perched atop a two back-bent legs. A pair of lasers extended from the cockpit like arms and missile pods sat above the pilot, right and left. The Mad Cat looked like it was crouching, eager for a fight.

  Which made it the perfect machine for Alaric Wolf.

  Thaddeus would never get a better chance to defeat the commander of Clan Wolf’s Beta Galaxy.

  The Wolf forces were divided, giving Thaddeus a decisive advantage. The Wolves had brought four Trinaries to New Olympia, but Alaric only had his command Trinary with him, plus whichever machines were too slow or too hurt to run north. Thaddeus had a full battalion plus the surviving Medusas in reserve. He had Alaric better than two-to-one and he had surprise.

  Would it be enough?

  The ferocity of Alaric Wolf was legendary. Even outnumbered, the Wolves were dangerous prey. He needed another advantage. The Warden-General’s eyes marked the terrain. The river. The Captive River was a broad, slow meander colored brown by tannins and mud. Some said it got its name from its languid, swirling current that captured small boats and spun them around. Others said the name came from the colony’s earliest days, when prisoners were transported on the river.

  If they could fight their way to the Captive, it would serve as a massive heat sink, improving his units’ heat loads. Thaddeus nodded to himself.

  It would be enough.

  * * *

  Bone felt the movement before he saw it, a deep bass rumble transmitted through the earth, a heavy vibration he felt in his chest and his legs. A massive ‘Mech stepped out of the woods, a Warhammer, marked in— Shock wrenched a gasp from his chest. That was Thaddeus Marik’s ‘Mech.

  This planet was supposed to be guarded by militia only. Where the hell had the First Covenant Guards come from?

&nbs
p; He pressed a red button on the binoculars, setting the digital device to "RECORD."

  The ‘Hammer fired an alpha strike. The sizzle of the paired PPC beams missed the Clan Mad Cat close right, but the advanced tactical missiles smashed into Alaric’s rounded cockpit, rocking his machine and starring his canopy.

  Bone’s grip on his binoculars tightened.

  Marik machines were boiling out of the forest: an Ostroc, an Albatross, a Cougar, two Spiders, SM1s, conventional armor.

  Bone saw the danger right away. The Free Worlders outnumbered the Wolves and they’d just gotten the first punch in for free. If they could gain the river they’d add heat to their list of advantages. Next to enemy fire, nothing was more dangerous to a BattleMech than heat. Heat could slow you down or lock you up. Heat could roast a pilot alive in his cockpit. So the river was a key tactical advantage.

  And the Wolves were giving ground.

  * * *

  Paired shards of blue lightning slashed past Alaric’s right side and then it was raining missiles. Orange fire sheeted across his canopy as the ATMs rippled across the sheet of feroglass shielding him. Multiple concussions shook his cockpit, slamming him back in his command couch, the straps of his five-point safety harness biting into his flesh. He tasted blood. For a moment, the world was tinged with gray. Alaric took an unsteady step forward.

  Neg.

  I will NOT yield.

  Clenching his teeth, Alaric side-stepped right, loosing a one-two missile strike at the Warhammer and then splitting his shot, slicing into the Ostroc coming up on the Warhammer’s left with emerald fire, melting composite armor across the heavy ‘Mech’s broad chest.

  The Ostroc quickly backstepped out of Alaric’s field of fire.

  In the brutal heat of his cockpit, a smile flickered across Alaric’s handsome face.

  He pivoted and stalked left, firing at the Warhammer on the move.

  It was then he saw the emblem on the assault machine’s chest. On a planet that was supposed to offer no more serious opposition than local militia, his troops faced the First Covenant Guards.

  It is a trap.

  They have sent Thaddeus Marik against me, Alaric thought. The finest warrior in all the Free Worlds League.

  It was at once a dishonorable trick and a gesture of respect.

  And Alaric would make the Free Worlds League pay for both the trick and the gesture.

  His radio crackled and Verena’s calm voice filled his cockpit. "Galaxy Commander, Shadow Two. They are pressing on our left."

  Pressing on our left.

  Verena had once been a mere bondsman, a captured enemy taken as one of the spoils of war. But in the last few months she had grown into something more, proving her mettle as a Wolf warrior. She would not be calling for help unless her side of the line was nearly ready to snap under the weight of superior enemy numbers.

  The two forces faced each other in two long lines abreast, the Free Worlders north of the river and the Wolves south. Outnumbered and outgunned, most commanders would have formed their troops up in a column, set a rear guard, and ordered a fighting withdrawal.

  Alaric was not most commanders.

  He toggled the all-unit frequency. "All Wolves, fall back fifty meters and reform your lines."

  As he backstepped, Alaric traded blows with the Warhammer, tearing into the Marik machine with his lasers, scorching the machine’s camouflage paint and melting the armor underneath.

  The Warhammer answered with its own mix of lightning and thunder, melting and smashing armor along Alaric’s left leg. His wireframe schematic flickered green to yellow to red.

  You will not beat me, Thaddeus Marik, Alaric thought fiercely. You will not.

  His Wolves fell back.

  Strapped into the cockpit of his Savage Wolf, Alaric looked little different than the average Clanner. His shoulder-length blond hair was tucked beneath his neurohelmet, the muscles and scars won by a lifetime of fighting hidden beneath his cooling vest.

  Only the terrible intensity of his glacial blue eyes hinted that he might be something more.

  If others did not know him, did not see his true nature, this did not bother Alaric. In fact, he worked hard to make it so. It was always easier to strike an enemy down from the shadows.

  And there was no aspect of Alaric’s life not governed by the love of combat.

  So Spheroids saw him as brutal and dull—not knowing he had taken his political training from the most powerful despot the Inner Sphere had ever known. His fellow Clanners saw him as enigmatic; talented, yes, but unable to win a Bloodname—not knowing that Alaric was biding his time, waiting for the perfect moment to step forward and claim his true legacy. The leadership of Clan Wolf saw him as a distasteful genetic experiment masquerading as a son of House Ward, an experiment that one day might have to be put down.

  Not knowing that the experiment had already proven successful

  No living human being, no one, knew all that Alaric was. Those who had taken his full measure had paid for that knowledge with their lives.

  And today it would be Thaddeus Marik’s turn to discover Alaric Wolf.

  Alaric gritted his teeth, fighting to hold his reformed skirmish line. The Spheroids were pushing his people back, manhandling the Wolves by shear dint of numbers, driving for the river and the heat advantage it offered. There was just no way to stop them. As Alaric watched, the great Warhammer waddled into the muddy water. Steam rose, carrying away the assault ‘Mech’s heat load.

  His command Trinary was doomed.

  A grim smile touched the lips of Alaric Wolf.

  Just as he had planned.

  * * *

  Thaddeus dropped his cross-hairs over the Mad Cat’s cockpit and fired. A double flight of missiles scoured the Clan machine, followed by the whipcrack of his PPCs.

  Almost instantly, the river carried away the heat spike.

  "It’s finally over," Thaddeus whispered. The Wolf offensive was going to die on this world. Right now. All along the river his troops tore into the retreating Wolves.

  Suddenly the Wolves stopped. And then they surged forward, charging into the teeth of the Free Worlders’ withering fire.

  It was a desperate maneuver, one for which the Clanners would dearly pay.

  Thaddeus’s crosshairs blinked gold over the Mad Cat.

  He pulled into his trigger—

  Just as the death rattle of an autocannon joined the fray, shells smashing into his back, carving away armor and throwing his PPC strike wide of the Mad Cat.

  He glanced down at his rearview strip and his guts turned to ice.

  A brown SM1 Destroyer tore into his weak rear armor with its Ultra AC/20. It was flanked by a Raven, an Ocelot, and Elementals boiled out from between the tree like armored ants. The Wolf fast-movers were emerging from the forest. The move to the north had only been a feint. They’d circled back through the forest.

  It’s a trap.

  Alaric’s surge had pinned the Free Worlders in place so the balance of the Wolf force could hit them from behind.

  Thaddeus staggered right, fighting the mud that swirled around his ‘Hammer’s legs, trying to get clear of the SM1’s fire while beating back the Mad Cat, but the water kept him from really moving. The Destroyer kept on his back, hammering away chunks of armor.

  Thaddeus’s wireframe flashed yellow to red.

  "Covenant Actual, Covenant Two. Can’t hold, can’t hold."

  "Stand your ground," snarled Thaddeus from between clenched teeth.

  Captain Ramirez would have none of it. "Lost Jones, Palenti, and Nguyen. They’re cutting us to rib—"

  "Hold your position," Thaddeus roared. He didn’t have anything better to tell Two Company’s commander.

  There weren’t any other options.

  His eyes flickered right, looking for help. He flashed on a Covenant Spider staggering left, just as an Elemental’s missile smashed into its back. The light ‘Mech shuddered, a sure sign of gyroscope damage.

&nb
sp; No help there.

  He put a flight of missiles into the Mad Cat and followed with a PPC strike. "Dammit, back off," he whispered between clenched teeth, "Back off."

  He shrugged left, buying a second’s respite. Glanced down. There. Had to pull Three Company together with the Medusas, concentrate fire and punch through the Wolf line. If they could break out maybe they could wheel and hit the—

  Thaddeus suddenly heard the deep crump of Wolf artillery, the shrill whistle of a deadly rain. He glanced right in time to see the Spider with the damaged gyroscope stagger clear of the harassing infantry.

  Then go down hard.

  The BattleMech crashed to the earth with the terrible shriek of rending metal. The aftershock of the Spider’s death reverberated through the earth’s flesh, shook Thaddeus’s Warhammer, buzzed in his bones.

  There had been a shadow, the merest blink of a falling something, and then it was like an invisible hand had smashed the BattleMech.

  Thaddeus had grown up hunting deer on his father’s lands. Once, when he’d been nine, he’d seen a five-point white-tail buck charging cross a grassy clearing at full gallop, the rhythm of its hoof-beats rising up into a blue, blue autumn sky.

  Then Thaddeus had pulled the trigger.

  The sharp crack of the rifle had filled the world and the buck had just collapsed, so fast it seemed like the two events happened at exactly the same time.

  Just like the Spider.

  It had just dropped.

  Thaddeus turned his eyes front, his mouth suddenly dry. Shells punched holes in the muddy river, sending fountains of angry white water geysering into the air. Shells slammed into the riverbank, gouging craters out of the soft earth and kicking up brown clouds of debris. Thaddeus couldn’t see. His machines, the Wolves, they were all barely visible shadows hidden behind a screen of dust, shells exploding all around him again and again, shaking his ‘Mech, his whole world that brutal sound. League machines slogged desperately through water and mud, trying to scramble free of the thunder hammering down all around them.

  The Wolves had turned the wide, slow river into a killing field.