15
DropShip Silver Serpent IV, Orbiting Sian
Capellan Confederation
23 January 3136
Clang clang clang clang. Pause. Clang clang clang clang.
Danai had kept up that rhythm for a solid hour. Before that, she'd been pacing in her berth, but the DropShip's quarters were far too small to allow her to work up a head of steam. Even the corridors were too narrow and short to really allow her a long, continuous walk, so she was forced to turn or climb a ladder every few steps. But it was better than the small box of a room she'd been in for most of the past four days.
She'd be on the ground soon. Back on Sian. She assumed a summons from Daoshen would be waiting for her, but even if it wasn't, she was going to march right into the Forbidden City, barge into his throne room and rip out the God Incarnate's throat.
Recalled. Recalled. She had been strung out to dry by her brother. It wasn't that she expected any family loyalty from him—she didn't, she never had—but she at least expected him to do what was best for the Confederation. Yes, she'd taken some losses on Aldebaran, but she had inflicted far, far more than she'd suffered. She had swept through two cities and into the capital within twenty-four hours and had reduced the planetary militia to tatters. Only the timely arrival of the Triarii had saved Aldebaran, at least in the short term, and she could easily have countered them had she received reinforcements of her own.
Instead she had been recalled. She had never believed the Capellan Confederation would simply cut and run in the face of little more than a parade battalion, but that was what had happened. Prefecture VI of the Republic of the Sphere, which lay in tatters, had shown more support for its planets than had the resurgent Capellan Confederation. It was not only embarrassing on a personal level, it was embarrassing that the entire nation could be put off so easily. And she would make damn sure someone would pay for this humiliation. Finally— someone was going to pay.
She stopped stomping long enough to look around and figure out where she was. She had been striding around the grav deck with her head down, jaw clenched, eyes not really focusing on anything but the metal grating beneath her feet.
Whoops, she thought as she realized where she was. These are officers' quarters. There's definitely no one I want to talk to here.
She stalked away. Among the many puzzles of her withdrawal from Aldebaran was that while the bulk of her battalion—including the elements that had gone to Zurich and Zion—had been left behind at Liao, her command lance and first company had come with her. In all honesty she would have preferred to be alone, as the confusion and frustration of her lancemates only increased her own. She'd been avoiding them on the long journey back to Sian.
She made it away from the officers' quarters without anyone noticing her presence, then strode along in a meandering circle. A few crew members passed her, but noticing her face and bearing, wisely didn't speak to her, or even make eye contact. She glowered at them anyway.
She covered most of the grav deck at least once, some parts of it twice, before she decided she had used up enough energy. She could go to her berth and fume while sitting, rather than making another lap.
Clang clang clang clang clang.
She descended a ladder, walked down a short corridor, turned right, then turned completely around and tried to flee before anyone noticed her. But she wasn't fast enough.
"There she is!" Clara said. "We've been waiting here forever, Sao-shao. Where have you been?"
Danai sighed and turned back toward her quarters. Clara, Sandra and Bell stood in front of her door. There would be no getting by them. She trudged forward.
"I've been out," she said. "You better not be here to cheer me up or anything like that. Won't work."
"Wouldn't think of trying," Bell said with his customary smirk. While Clara and Sandra seemed just as upset about the recall as Danai, Bell seemed barely put out. That really made her wish she could have left him behind at Liao. Or on Aldebaran, for that matter.
"So what do you want?" Danai asked.
"Orders," Clara said. "We'll be on the ground soon. Where do you want us? We'll accompany you as far as you want us to go."
"We're here for you," Sandra said earnestly. "Whatever you need us for."
Bell waved his hand nonchalantly. "Yeah. What they said."
Great, Danai thought. They can be witnesses when I disembowel the chancellor.
"No," she said aloud. "I'll take care of things. Relax somewhere. Blow off some steam in a simulator. I'll find you when I need you."
She stood in front of them, waiting for them to understand they were not wanted and leave. The three of them exchanged glances, muttered some unintelligible words, then left her. Danai resisted the urge to shoo them along.
Clang clang clang clang clang clang. Three sets of footfalls slowly faded away.
Danai stood outside her hatch for a moment, not anxious to face the drab cell that served as her quarters here.
Then she heard a noise that made her wish she'd dashed inside immediately and shut the door. Clang clang clang. A single set of feet quickly coming back to her.
She struggled to open her hatch quickly, but her fingers fumbled with the handle and she couldn't get inside before whoever it was turned the corner and saw her. Resigned, she turned to face the unwelcome visitor.
He became even more unwelcome the moment she saw who it was. Bell, for some reason, had left the other two and come back to talk to her alone. Just what she needed.
She lashed out. "I can't imagine you have anything to say that would be useful. Go away."
"I will," he said, drawling slightly. "In a minute. I jus— wanted to say a thing or two. Can I have permission to speak freely?"
"No."
"Well, I'm gonna anyway. The thing is, Sao-shao, you're taking this all wrong."
"Really? Thanks for the revelation. Go away."
"Look, I know why you're mad, okay? It doesn't take a genius. The chancellor's treating you like a pawn, yanking you here and there for whatever reason he wants, messing up whatever it is you're doing. It pisses you off. That's okay—it would piss me off too."
What he was saying pretty well echoed her own thoughts, but Danai was not about to let that fact slip. "Aren't you skirting the edges of treason there? You stay here, I'll find the onboard Maskirovka representative. I'm sure he or she would love to hear the rest of what you have to say."
He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "The thing is. you've been on the fast track for a while. Born to lead, right? So you sometimes forget what it's like to have your plans messed up, to have everything you're working for tripped up because some higher-up thinks it should be that way. You haven't had enough chances to learn how to roll with the punches."
"You have no bloody idea what you're talking about."
"Maybe. Wouldn't be the first time. All I'm saying is, this kind of thing is going to happen, even when you're not part of a regime that's as delightfully controlling as ours is. You just have to find the space where you can do your own thing, instead of getting all bent out of shape when the powers that be decide to be what they are. I know you think I'm not mad enough about being recalled, but I am. I was having fun down there, and I wanted to teach those Triarii a thing or two. But we can't right now, so we have to wait. It is what it is."
"That's deep."
Bell shrugged. "You can dismiss everything I say if you want. But I'm not the one stomping around the ship endlessly."
"You don't know a damned thing," she said. "This isn't just about me. This is about my nation. We showed weakness. We retreated in front of an inferior enemy. It's not right."
"Is the Confederation weak?"
"No!"
"Then why worry if Anderton and his Triarii think we're weak? They're wrong. No big deal. They'll find out soon enough."
"You know nothing," Danai said, frustration mounting. "Do you know what power is? It can be money, it can be guns, but the best kind of power, the power that re
ally gets things done, is the power people think you have. If they see you as strong, you are strong. People, nations, react accordingly. Look at the Republic in the past few years. Look at how it moved from a mighty nation to a vulnerable one. Did their wealth change that much? Did their armies? No. Their neighbors started to perceive them as vulnerable, as weak. And so that's what they became. And now that's what the chancellor, the damned God Incarnate, has done to the Confederation. He's made us seem weak; he's given confidence to our enemies, not to his own troops. He's hurt the Confederation, and I can't just forget about it!"
To her infinite surprise. Bell did not respond with a smart remark. He didn't put on his sardonic grin. When he spoke, he actually sounded sincere.
"Okay," he said. "Okay. I forget sometimes. I spent too much time with the Canopians. They have a different way of seeing things. I forget the relationship between Capellan warriors and their state."
"I don't have the option of forgetting," Danai snapped.
Bell nodded. "All right. It is what it is. I'll remember that."
His sincerity started to take effect. Danai's shoulders, which felt like they had been hunched up near her jaw for several hours, lowered a little. Several other clenched muscles relaxed slightly. "Okay," she said.
He smiled as he saw her loosen up a little. "Good, good," he said. "Look, I'm helping, see? I can help sometimes."
"Right," she said. "Don't push it."
The accustomed cockiness returned to his grin. "Wouldn't dream of it. Just trying to score points with my commander by showing I'm not entirely useless." He glanced at his watch. "And here's another thing," he said. "By my guess, we've got at least another ninety minutes before we're on the ground. Your berth's right behind us, and if you give me enough time I'll show you ways to work out tension from plenty of other parts of your body. All you have to do is—"
She didn't think, she just reacted. Her right hand, in a tight fist, flew out in a straight line and made direct contact with Bell's nose. He staggered backward, his hands flying to his face, catching the blood that immediately flowed from his nostrils.
She felt like stepping forward and pummeling him some more, but she restrained herself. She stayed on the balls of her feet, ready to spring forward again if given the slightest excuse.
Bell dropped his hands and looked at the bright red blood on his fingers. His nose was already swollen and discolored—she'd clearly given it a good break.
He took another step back, making sure he was out of her range, then put his insolent grin back on.
"Sometimes I help," he said. "Sometimes I don't."
He turned and walked away, employing an exaggerated limp even though he bore no wound on either leg. It was, Danai felt certain, one more way to mock her as he left.
She turned to enter her berth, the blank walls suddenly welcome as long as Jacyn Bell was not in there with her. Before the door closed, she heard the last of Bell's uneven footfalls as he continued on his way, no doubt stomping extra hard so she could hear him.
Clang CLANG, clang CLANG, clang CLANG.
16
Zi-jin Cheng, Sian
Capellan Confederation
24 January 3136
Danai had filed her nails that morning. It was something she never did—combat in bouncing, jostled 'Mechs ruined any manicure in short order—but today it felt appropriate. It calmed her, sitting on the sofa in her chambers, watching her nails take shape as she carved a small point into each one. She could envision the red lines of blood that would spring up on Daoshen's cheek as she whipped her nails across it—assuming, of course, that the skeletal chancellor still had blood flowing in his cold veins.
She took one last look at the ten perfectly formed weapons on the ends of her fingers, and then she sighed. She wouldn't do it. Of course she wouldn't. He was the chancellor, the God Incarnate, and some degree of respect must be paid even though he was family. She could not attack him, especially in his own throne room.
That did not mean, however, that she would not rain down curses upon his head as soon as she saw him. If she could keep her courage up.
She was summoned within ten minutes of finishing her nails, almost as if Daoshen had been monitoring her activities and waiting for her to complete her preparations. The two guards, wordless except for their greeting of, "The chancellor summons you," when she found them standing at her door, marched her to the throne room. Their archaic skirts of armor clanked as they walked, and their faces were invisible under the wide helmets they wore. Their armor had not changed for well over a thousand years, armor that unrelenting advances in weaponry had made useless many times over. But the armor meant something to Daoshen, and to Sun-Tzu his father, and to many Liaos before them, so it was worn.
Danai found herself becoming strangely composed as she approached the throne room. The ritualistic aspect of her approach felt soothing and familiar—probably the exact effect it was supposed to have. She still felt anger, like a boiling cauldron in her gut, but it no longer seemed to be in danger of erupting.
The herald stood in front of the entrance to the throne room, clothed in a Liao green silk robe, wearing the long, thin beard and mustache characteristic of a long- dead Terran emperor. He bowed slightly as Danai approached, and she responded with a deeper bow.
"Who may I say is approaching the chancellor?" he asked in a voice designed for proclamations, not conversation.
"Whoever you'd like to say," Danai said. "You can say Hanse Davion is here for all I care."
The herald turned his head slightly, making eye contact with Danai for the first time. "I will say that, if that is what you require of me," he said. "I suspect, though, that the chancellor will not be amused."
"Then say my name! You know who I am. Just go in and tell him."
The herald resumed his formal pose. "Who may I say is approaching?"
Danai rolled her eyes. She had gone through this little dance dozens of times with the herald, always trying to make him break, even slightly, from the well-established protocol. He never did.
"Sao-shao Danai Liao-Centrella of the Third Battalion of Second McCarron's Armored Cavalry."
"Please remain here," the herald said. "I will ascertain if the chancellor is available for an audience."
"Of course he's available!" Danai said. "He summoned me here!" But the herald had already slipped inside the throne room and the doors had closed behind him before Danai was finished speaking.
He returned promptly, his bearing still stiff, his face still expressionless. "The chancellor of the Capellan Confederation, the God Incarnate of Sian, bids you enter his presence. Please follow me."
Danai followed the herald, resisting the temptation to step on the heels of his shoes to make them slip off. It was only a quick flash of an idea, because soon enough she was walking the red-and-gold carpet that led her to Daoshen.
She walked past the columns at the far end of the room, then bowed deeply, as decorum demanded.
"You may rise, Sao-shao Liao-Centrella," Daoshen intoned. She straightened herself, much to her relief— folding at the waist did nothing to help the burning feeling in her gut—and walked closer to Daoshen. The back of her right knee began trembling.
"You have failed us," Daoshen said before she was even halfway through the room. "You have failed the Confederation."
So much for small talk, Danai thought. Bile rose to her throat, and her anger sprang loose. For once, the fear she felt in his presence couldn't keep it down. "The Confederation failed me!" she exclaimed. "The planet was mine if my request had been granted! All I needed—"
Daoshen's voice, usually little more than a sibilant whisper, became a roaring wind that filled the room. "You have not been asked to speak!" he said. "You will listen to the judgment and wisdom of your chancellor, and you will speak when we ask you to!"
Danai didn't want to obey. She wanted to shout him down, to explain how he had lost his chance to take
Aldebaran before the end of the year
. But she couldn't speak. He wasn't just the Capellan chancellor—he was her brother. He had held a certain thrall over her for as long as she could remember, an aura of intimidation as natural as his skin. It had never failed to affect her, and today was no different. She could not respond.
Daoshen let his words settle in, then he returned to his normal voice. "You failed. You were asked to take Aldebaran with your battalion. You did not. Your orders said nothing about calling upon other forces. Only about doing it yourself, with the battalion that we gave you. The moment you asked for additional forces, you admitted failure. Compounded with your failure on New Hessen. we are beginning to doubt that your tournament prowess will ever translate into true military leadership. You must remember that your achievements on Solaris VII, while they brought you much personal glory, meant little to the Confederation. It is battlefield contributions that matter most—and there you have fallen far short of the hopes and expectations placed upon you.
"What is more, you have caused us additional trouble through your failure. For some reason we cannot fathom, you divided your force into three parts, sacrificing the valuable support your aerospace units could have provided by sending them to Zion. That played a crucial role in your defeat while also engaging a planet beyond the scope of your orders. You have caused me no degree of inconvenience through this."
Danai didn't understand this last remark. She saw his point about dividing her forces, though she didn't agree with it. It was a calculated risk that hadn't panned out.
Besides, she wasn't convinced the aero units would have swung the balance of power on Aldebaran. They were useful, but usually not enough to make a difference in a battle involving dozens of 'Mechs—as long as the MechWarriors knew what they were doing.
But, as she did not yet have permission to speak, she couldn't say any of this.
"We had hoped, by this point in time, to be poised to take Tikonov away from the Federated Suns. Instead, our recent efforts have come to naught. While it is unfair to place all the blame for the slowed pace of conquest on a single pair of shoulders, it pains me greatly to say that your shoulders must bear a heavier burden for these failures than any others."
Principles of Desolation Page 16
