A Bonfire of Worlds

by Steven Mohan Jr.

  "But he will not," said Anastasia. "Alaric will not see the danger because he does not burn with hatred like the people of the Commonwealth. He does not have a family to sacrifice himself for. He knows not love or desperation or hope."

  Her voice dropped to an intense whisper. "He does not know the value of treachery."

  Union-class JumpShip Terror's Emissary

  Improvised LZ, Grunberg Agricultural District

  Horneburg, Coventry Military Province

  Lyran Commonwealth

  They sat in silence and darkness, only the two of them, surveying the star map projected on Emissary's wardroom bulkhead. Beckett observed that Malvina's small body was perfectly still, her white-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, her eyes locked on the spill of blue stars.

  Do you see it now, Chingis Khan? thought Beckett. Do you see the failure of all your plans?

  The diagram was the latest intelligence summary brought to them by JumpShip. Without widespread HPG transmission, interstellar travel was the only way to communicate what was going on in the outside universe. And so Beckett had set up command circuits with the other Jade Falcon commanders driving through Lyran space so Malvina could track the progress of her war.

  The map showed three separate Jade Falcon offensives: the Melissia Thrust, designed to pin the Lyrans' anti-spinward forces in place; the Arcturus-Apostica Thrust, intended to join the Falcon holdings in Skye to the rest of the Occupation Zone; and the Sargasso-Zanderij Thrust, a feint toward Coventry to draw Lyran forces away from the true target.

  Tharkad.

  And all of it had worked just as Malvina had planned.

  The map showed the panicked movement of Lyran forces as blue arrows. At the beginning of the war, the map was a forest of blue arrows stabbing coreward from the Commonwealth's rimward border, racing toward the defense of Melissia and Arcturus and, most importantly, Coventry.

  Now that Coventry had been bypassed, the blue arrows were suddenly all pointing at Tharkad as the Archon pulled his troops in to protect his capital.

  The LCAF was spending more time leaping from system to system than fighting.

  Malvina's warplan was a brilliant strategy, cleverly conceived and flawlessly executed.

  Except for one thing.

  The misdirection had created a power vacuum along the Lyrans' rimward border, a vacuum that Clan Wolf was vigorously exploiting. Three brown arrows stabbed across the border.

  "It is as I foresaw," said Malvina softly, "in the end the battle for humanity's future must come down to Wolf and Jade Falcon."

  Beckett said nothing.

  Malvina turned to look at him. "What? No opinion, Beckett? No comment? No long, rambling discourse on why the path I have placed us on is mad and inevitably disastrous."

  Beckett drew a deep, steadying breath. "I am certain Chingis Khan sees the danger as clearly as I."

  "Aff" said Malvina bitterly. She turned her face back to the map. "The Wolves may very well reach Tharkad before we do. Every moment we are stalled on Horneburg and Westerstede is a moment that we draw closer to defeat."

  Malvina was right, of course. The Lyrans were fighting desperately to hold the pair of worlds that served as gateways to Tharkad, giving the Archon time to reinforce his capital. Horneburg and Westerstede were selling themselves dearly so Tharkad might survive.

  Beckett had never before seen such courage and sacrifice on a planetary scale.

  And while the Falcons were bogged down within sight of their final objective, the Wolves were racing coreward. Beckett's gaze focused on the two brown arrows stabbing toward Tharkad, one labeled: "Khan Seth Ward, Alpha Galaxy", the other: "Galaxy Commander Alaric, Beta Galaxy."

  (Alaric, not Alaric Wolf. Malvina was not one to invent a last name for a Clan warrior who had failed to earn a Bloodname. In this, Beckett agreed with her.)

  The map validated everything Malvina had just said. If the Lyrans continued to hold out on Horneburg and Westerstede, the Wolves might reach Tharkad first.

  But she was still wrong.

  "I am sorry, Chingis Khan, but that is not the greatest threat."

  She turned toward him again, her eyes wide with fury. Will you kill me, my Khan? Beckett wondered. Perhaps that would be better than serving as handmaiden to a bloodfoul.

  "Really, Beckett?"

  The big man shrugged and pointed at the third brown arrow, the one labeled,

  "saKhan Garner Kerensky, Three Reserve Galaxies." He steepled his hands before his face and leaned forward. "The Wolves have launched simultaneous assaults on New Kyoto, Algorab, and Zaniah, isolating Solaris and bypassing heavily-defended Hesperus II. Do you believe even for a moment, Chingis Khan, that the Wolves will stop at the Lyran border?"

  She turned again to look at the map.

  Unless Beckett was very much mistaken, the Wolf saKhan would push into the abandoned worlds of Prefecture VIII, most likely taking Phecda and Wyatt—with its working HPG—and finally Zosma, only stopping at the gates of Exarch Levin's impenetrable wall.

  Earning for Clan Wolf a spot in the race for Terra once Fortress Republic fell.

  Malvina licked her lips.

  Beckett leaned forward. "You and I took Skye, Malvina. When you join our territory to the desant, when you make it a contiguous part of the Jade Falcon Occupation Zone, we will have a perch on the doorstep of Prefecture X. But if the Wolves complete their spinward thrust, that will no longer be a unique advantage."

  Malvina shook her head. "Our intelligence indicates Garner Kerensky is weaker than either Seth or Alaric. And he leads troops not yet blooded. The Wolves' two most dangerous warriors race toward Tharkad."

  "How much power do you think it will take to capture these Republic worlds now that they have been cut off? Do you

  imagine their best soldiers have any hope of standing up to a Wolf Khan leading three Galaxies of Clan warriors?"

  Malvina sat a little straighter in the darkness, peering at the map. "What do you propose we do about this new danger, Beckett Malthus?"

  Beckett said nothing. There was a limit to how far he dared push Malvina and he was already perilously close to the line.

  For a long moment, pregnant silence hung unbroken in the darkness.

  And then Malvina finally saw it for herself. "NEG!" she roared.

  "Think, Malvina," said Beckett in a low, earnest voice. "Think upon why you decided to take Tharkad in the first place. You intended to break the Lyran spirit by ravaging their capital. To make certain they did not dare challenge our conquest of their spinward holdings. Would not the Wolf conquest of Tharkad accomplish this goal just as well? If we shifted our forces, reinforcing the desant and taking vulnerable Republic worlds, we could—"

  "You are saying we should give way to the Wolves? Is that the counsel I am hearing from a Khan of Clan Jade Falcon?"

  Beckett closed his mouth. He knew the next word he spoke might very well mean his life. So he said nothing.

  "Tharkad is mine," Malvina hissed. "I will not retreat before victory."

  She stood and swept out of the wardroom.

  Beckett watched her go, knowing he had been foolish to suggest abandoning the Tharkad campaign. She would never agree to such a course of action, could never agree. It was not that she failed to understand the strategic implications of her actions.

  It was just that she could never bring herself to turn away from a fight.

  Autobahn, Nowy Gdansk

  Smolnik, Buena Military Province

  Lyran Commonwealth

  17 February 3143

  Anastasia Kerensky backstepped her Savage Wolf along the autobahn, hitting the Wolf Thor with her PPCs, but holding off on her missiles. Emerald and ruby lines sliced past her, some coming from the enemy—others from her own line. The angry rumble of autocannon fire penetrated her cockpit. An azure flash of lightning shattered the armor over her left ankle.

  She was not even sure where the PPC fire had come from.

  Anastasia moved her mach
ine through a desperate, angry maelstrom of fire, both sides fighting with a savagery rarely seen. The Hunters were pushing through the northern part of the city's center, lines shifting and reforming, desperately trying to hold on, hold on just a little bit longer.

  The city was silent around her. Anastasia had allowed the authorities to clear the autobahn. There would still be people inside the city, people who had not received the word to evacuate or who had not made it out in time. But the autobahn had been blocked off. It was completely empty.

  Save for the guerillas hidden in the buildings that lined the street.

  Alaric's assault had been brutal, pressing her line mercilessly, pushing her back. It occurred to her that the last two times she had beaten him, she had numbers on her side.

  Not this time.

  This time she was going to have to beat him like a Spheroid, using every advantage within her grasp—whether or not it was honorable.

  The Thor pilot hit back with his LB-X autocannon and his PPC, shattering armor all along her right side, but easing off his trigger early, careful not to drag a line of shells across the ferrocrete parking garage on her left.

  Apparently Alaric had not given up on the idea of Zellbrigen, even though Anastasia was retreating through the city.

  Anastasia hit back with man-made lightening, worrying the Thor's delicate right knee. She could tell by its limp that the heavy had already taken some damage there. If she just lock up that knee-

  But she did not hit it with a flight of advanced tactical missiles—she just did not have any to spare.

  Good thing this battle was almost over.

  She backstepped her machine over a crude "X" painted over the black ferrocrete roadbed in construction yellow. It was not subtle, but it was clear, and the Wolves would not understand what it meant.

  Not until it was too late.

  Suddenly her mouth tasted dry. She was going to throw away the lives of civilians, throw them into a meat grinder, to save herself and her unit. All at once it did not matter that it was the only way or that it was their choice. She was going to throw away the lives of civilians.

  And she was not Malvina Hazen.

  Across the eight-lane front she watched Alaric's Savage Wolf cut into the bubble cockpit of one of her Demon tanks. And that was where she found the will to do what had to be done.

  She reached forward and toggled a special frequency. "Nowy Gdansk, this is Alpha. Wolf Trap. Execute. Wolf Hunters, throw yourselves forward. Close the door on Clan Wolf."

  Her people suddenly stopped running and surged, pushing right into the Wolves' terrible fire. Anastasia stalked her 'Mech forward, pushing through the Thor's assault and watching yellows flicker all across her wireframe but paying the pilot back with a PPC strike to his cockpit that dropped the BattleMech like an unstrung puppet.

  They were paying a butcher's bill, but they had stopped the Wolf advance. Anastasia stood in there smashing her precious missiles into a Uller, chasing an SM1 with the ugly crackle of a PPC strike.

  Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.

  Something is wrong.

  No mine explosions. No ruby beams or corkscrewing missiles slanting down from skyscraper windows. No blue paint splattered across ferroglass canopies. No jellied gasoline clinging to armor, burning with its terrible, ferocious stink.

  Nothing.

  "Nowy Gdansk. Nowy Gdansk. Wolf Trap, Wolf Trap. Execute. EXECUTE."

  Nothing.

  "Commander, Nowy Gdansk, report. Report. Colonel Devane. REPORT."

  Nothing nothing nothing.

  It is too late. She did not know why or how the plan had failed, but one thing was certain. It was too late.

  She closed her eyes for a second, feeling the weight of it, knowing that the opportunity to kill Alaric Wolf and save the Lyran Commonwealth was lost. Now all she could do was try to save her command.

  And that was a long shot at best.

  "All Wolf Hunters," she snarled into her voice-activated mic, "this is Alpha. Broken play. I say again, Broken play."

  She stopped the Uller with a brutal one-two PPC punch to its centerline, poured missiles into a Condor coming up on the outside.

  "Quarterback scramble. Ground units, break off, break off. Fighting withdrawal on Striker One. Rear Guard on me. Assault trinary stop and lock. We are going to hold the road open."

  Her striker machines were darting back behind her protective fire—those that were not already burning piles of scrap at the side of the road.

  "Aerospace, I need covering fire NOW. Artillery break and reform. Target the autobahn at kilometer—" She glanced down at her map as she poured more of her fury into the helpless Uller, "—kilometer one two four. We will bring them to you. Stand by to spike your guns. After the first barrage, there will not be time to withdraw. We will send a Hasek for you."

  The LWerfell back. Every instinct in Anastasia's body told her to stalk forward and finish it, but a Vulture with fresh armor stepped forward to take its spot.

  She sent missiles corkscrewing into the Clan machine's cockpit.

  "DropShips, we are coming in hot."

  The Vulture slashed at her with a half-dozen medium lasers and ripple fired all four Great Bow launchers, spreading eighty long-range missiles across her broken line.

  Right then, Anastasia knew it was not going to be enough. She had given all the right orders, had used every last resource she had, but it just was not going to be enough.

  Alaric was bringing forces up along her right. He was going to flank her, cut off their escape route. She just did not have the tools to stop him.

  Her Wolf Hunters were going to die right here.

  Her radio crackled and a voice, a man's voice, one she did not recognize, earnest and deep, said, "Wolf Hunters, proceed along vector two eight four."

  "Who is this?" she snarled.

  She looked up and saw the blue sky was crisscrossed with wounds of golden fire. DropShips coming down hard and fast. BattleMechs dropping from the sky, their jump packs flaring.

  BattleMechs painted red, white, and blue.

  "Wolf Hunter Actual, this is First Davion Actual."

  She just had time to think: Julian Davion?

  And then the voice said, "We're here to help."

  * * *

  Julian Davion dropped his Templar's reticle over the left leg of a Wolf Vulture pounding a gunmetal gray VV1 Ranger. His targeting pip burned gold and he tore into the Vulture's left hip with his PPCs, burning deep wounds in the Wolf's armor. Julian tied in his TharHes four-pack and—

  An autocannon hammered his cockpit from the left. Julian stepped right and pivoted. A captured Bushwacker painted Wolf-brown stalked toward him, trading off its autocannon with its large laser.

  Until a pair of Kinnol main battle tanks in Davion red, white, and blue tore into the medium 'Mech with a mix of PPCs and missiles, joined late by a gunmetal Joust adding its ruby laser to the fight.

  The wash of brilliant green light across Julian's cockpit told him the Vulture was back.

  The Wolf and Wolf Hunter lines had completely dissolved, the battle falling into a grand melee.

  It was madness.

  Julian had waded into the fight to bloody the Wolves' noses, to give them something to think about. But now it was time to bring order out of chaos.

  "Guards," Julian roared. "On me."

  One of the Kinnols dropped back to hold Julian's left, followed thirty seconds later by the Wolf Hunter Joust. The Bushwacker had smashed the second Kinnol. A Davion Centurion staggered forward to hold Julian's right.

  He toggled the private channel he shared with Callandre Kell. "Take your Destroyer, pick up a couple Condors and the Wolf Hunter VTOLs and chase away anything behind our lines."

  "I have an idea," she snapped. Why don't we kill them instead? Or does that violate Lord Davion's code of honor?"

  "We're here to save the lives of Lyran mercenaries," he snapped back. "I would have thought—"

  —that would have me
ant something to you. He stopped abruptly, not wanting to say the rest of it. Sorry for the part of it he did say. "Just do it, Callandre. Now."

  But she already was doing it. Whatever differences had grown up between them, Callandre was still a brilliant battlefield commander. He flashed on her little task force chewing up a pair of Wolf Condors, destroying one and sending the other fleeing, before turning their attention to a Clan IndustrialMech mod.

  Julian turned back to the Vulture, pounding it with a quartet of SRMs followed by the whipcrack of his two arm-mounted PPCs.

  Slowly the Wolf Hunters were untangling themselves from the melee, the stronger machines joining Julian, the weaker sheltering behind hislineorrunning westtowardthe Markeson Pride and safety within the circle of the DropShip's guns.

  Julian managed to lash the Vulture's left hip, hobbling the sixty-ton 'Mech.

  And paying for it with a wash of emerald fire across his canopy and flickering yellows on his wireframe.

  Suddenly a red-and-black Destroyer darted in, but Callandre didn't aim at the wounded hip, instead she smashed a long stream of Ultra-20 shells into the Vulture's cockpit.

  And then just as quickly as her SM1 had appeared, it was gone.

  He toggled their personal channel. "Hip, Callandre. His left hip is nearly locked up. You could've taken him down."

  "I don't shoot at Clanner's hips.”she snarled, "I shoot at their heads."

  Julian scowled. She had not been the same ever since she'd learned about the Kell Hounds' destruction. Somehow she blamed herself.

  It was ludicrous, but she didn't want to hear it. So she was mad as only Calamity Kell could be mad. Mad at herself for not saving her unit and mad at Julian for picking her to be his Lyran liaison and thus saving her life.

  But nowhere near as mad as she was at Clanners.

  Taking too many chances, the SM1 raced in again, this time punching through the Vulture's cockpit and taking the pilot out.