To Ride the Chimera

by Kevin Killiany

  “You’re on, sir.”

  Thaddeus half smiled. The man had been remembering, and in memory had fallen back on military address.

  Still smiling grimly, Thaddeus strode into the lights. Returning the salutes of the officers assembled onstage, he moved directly to the podium. Gripping the edges of the empty oak pedestal, he looked out over the assembly.

  The dignitaries were off to either side, in uncharacteristic humility yielding the center to those who’d earned it. Though Thaddeus thought the humility looked a trifle smug on some.

  In the balcony and beyond were family members, press corps, whoever else thought being here was worth the inconvenience of the lines and the lack of public transportation.

  The center of the opera house was occupied by the true stars of this evening’s performance; for a performance it was. They stood arrayed before him as though he were the one worthy of respect.

  Soldiers for the most part, with the occasional civilian resistance fighter thrown in. The men and women who had defended Mansu-ri. And through their valor, their dogged refusal to give up, had decided the fates of a half dozen other worlds.

  Their valor and Humphreys’ ego.

  Unwilling to let Mansu-ri go once his forces had landed, the duke had committed men and resources from other worlds to retaking the planet. Men and resources he could not afford. His fixation on Mansu-ri had reduced the world to rubble. But more important, the former and underdefended Andurien worlds of Kwamashu, Antipolo, El Giza and Mosiro now flew the flag of Jessica’s new Free Worlds League. The new Free Worlds League.

  And Wallacia wears Liao green.

  Realizing the men and women before him were still standing, Thaddeus released his grip on the podium. Stepping around front and center, he brought himself to stiff attention and saluted.

  There was a rustle and pop as four hundred soldiers snapped to and returned the salute. Some left-handed, Thaddeus noted. He held his position for a long three-count, then brought his hand down crisp, index finger aligned with the purple piping of his dress trousers. Rustle, slap, the hands came down.

  “At ease,” Thaddeus ordered. “Sit.”

  When they had complied, Thaddeus looked back at the podium. There was a recessed screen displaying the text of the speech his staff had prepared, honoring the gallant warriors of Mansu-ri. A speech that seemed completely inadequate in the face of those assembled.

  “My name is Thaddeus Marik,” he said unnecessarily. “And I have come here to honor those to whom honor is due. Those who have earned it.

  “The Oriente Legion of Merit is a medal—a little pin, actually, two swords and a palm leaf. Pretty, in its way, made of platinum, jade and amber. But its value, like the value of any medal, comes not from the materials from which it is made nor its appearance. The value of a medal comes from the fact it is awarded to those who have demonstrated valor and heroism in combat. What the regulations and public declarations do not mention is that this heroism is measured not in the great acts which become the stuff of legends, the pieces of history we all learn. True heroism is in the little acts, the internal ones, the ones no one else sees.

  “For it is there on the inside—in our hearts and in our minds—that the battles that matter are fought.”

  He paused, and heard no sound beyond his own breathing. Turning his head slowly, he tried to meet every eye before him. Every eye was on him. Every eye that could be. In the front row sat a man in tanker dress, his eyeless face scarred by what could only have been laser fire. A woman, her own face lined by healing lacerations, gripped his arm, directing him toward the stage he couldn’t see. A one-armed boy who didn’t look old enough to shave flanked the sightless soldier.

  Something about their tableaux held his attention. He directed his next words directly to them.

  “No one but a fool goes into combat unafraid. No one but an idiot never doubts himself, never questions what he does. And none but an egotistical bastard ever thinks he deserves a medal.” He lifted his eyes, again sweeping the ranks of seated warriors. “We who survive will always believe we could have done more to save those who fell. The plain truth is, there was nothing we could have done. Whatever choice seems clear now, whatever option, now obvious, not taken then—is an illusion. What we do in the clarity of combat is the only thing that can be done. Our best in the midst of a hell those who have not been there can only imagine.

  “And you have all done that,” he said. “And your best was better than anyone else could have done.”

  Again he stopped and again the only sound on the dais was his own breathing. He raised his eyes to the gallery and the balcony beyond the assembled soldiers; to the families and the onlookers.

  “Now I have come, chosen because my Marik name and bloodline dictate my authority and my responsibility, to recognize these valiant men and women for their courage, their valor and their tenacity in defense of their world and their nation,” he said. “The Oriente Legion of Merit is awarded to—and here I quote the regulations—to warriors who have demonstrated outstanding bravery and wisdom.

  “That last clause sets it apart from medals awarded for courage or martial prowess. It recognizes that each of these men and women made a choice. They decided to stand and fight for what they believed. And, having made the decision, they fought not only bravely, but intelligently, making their every blow for freedom count.

  “Traditionally, the awarding of the Legion of Merit confers membership into a society of warriors known for both their hearts and their minds.

  “I submit to you that this tradition is flawed.

  “We who were not there at the darkest hour, when all seemed lost and there was no hope except that which burned within them, have no power to either confer or deny anything to those who were. We can only acknowledge that which these valiant men and women have earned by their own strength and blood.”

  He lowered his gaze to regard the soldiers.

  “I come as a representative of the Free Worlds League to present you with the Oriente Legion of Honor,” he said.

  “But more fundamentally, I come as a man, as a fellow soldier of the Free Worlds League, to tell you that I am proud to call each and every one of you my brother.

  “Or sister,” he added with a slight smile to the tanker in the front row. “Do not feel honored that you are meeting me. Know, rather, that it is my great honor to meet you.”

  Pulling himself to attention, Thaddeus saluted.

  The brief moment of silence was broken by a single shout followed by thunderous applause from the gallery.

  For the next forty minutes, Parkinson, commanding general of the Mansu-ri planetary militia, read off the names of each Legion of Merit recipient, along with a brief description of how they’d earned it, as each soldier marched or was wheeled or led across the stage. Thaddeus handed each a boxed medal and clasped a hand firmly for the cameras before they were ushered over to the row of senior officers who actually pinned the ribbons to their chests.

  Thaddeus fought the feeling he was trapped in a combination publicity event and high school graduation.

  There’s a difference between generating publicity and building morale.

  Thaddeus listened with half an ear to the recitations of how each recipient had earned the right to cross the stage under the lights and clasp his hand. Some of the tales were truly inspiring—others harrowing.

  He’d been partially right in his pegging the blind man, the boy and the woman as a tank crew. They were the survivors of a Hetzer wheeled assault gun that had taken on a lance of Andurien BattleMechs in the first day of the Duchy’s initial invasion, delaying one prong of the attack long enough for the planetary militia to rally and throw them back. In a way, the skirmish was a microcosm of the Andurien campaign; a reflection of the egotistical thinking that had undermined the Humphreys strategy throughout. The lance should have rolled past the armored gun, particularly after it had immobilized one of their number. Instead they’d lost their momentum—and lost
their overall objective—by throwing away their tactical advantage to hunt down an ultimately inconsequential target.

  When he’d handed out the last Legion of Merit, clasped the last hand and murmured the last “good work,” Thaddeus came to attention for the third time and again saluted the men and women who had defended Mansu-ri against the Andurien onslaught. The dignitaries around them rose to their feet, a beat ahead of the families and press and onlookers filling the gallery and balcony. The opera house thundered.

  Thaddeus wondered if the politicians’ ovation was mere show. Then wondered if they wondered the same thing about his own emotional display. He decided he was over-thinking again. There were times when the honesty of the moment overwhelmed schemes and agendas and machinations.

  53

  Dormuth

  Mandoria, Marik

  3 February 3139

  “What have we?”

  Talar Nova Cat was not surprised to see Lady Julietta framed in the doorway of the command center.

  Star Colonel Rikkard raised the verigraph. “An invitation to join the Atreus campaign.”

  Lady Julietta stepped forward, the tips of her canes clicking on the polished marble floor.

  “Isn’t that just a blockade to thwart the expansion of Lester Cameron-Jones’ sphere of influence?” she asked.

  “It has been,” Rikkard agreed. “But your mother is now proposing a retaking of Atreus.”

  “Inevitable that she would want to with the Andurien War ended.” Lady Julietta stopped a few paces from Rikkard. With a glance, she included Talar, making the conversation an open triangle. “But, especially with the war just ended, Oriente does not have the resources to take on the full might of the Regulan Fiefs.”

  Rikkard nodded. “Which is why we are being invited.”

  Lady Julietta frowned thoughtfully into the middle distance. Talar tried to reconcile this commanding presence with the bovine creature who had occupied that body before it had been broken—and could not. It was as though a completely different person had somehow taken up residence in her flesh.

  No, he corrected himself. As coal becomes a diamond. The element is the same, but pressure has changed its structure.

  “Who else?” Lady Julietta asked.

  “From context, everyone.” Rikkard consulted the verigraph again, evidently confirming his impression. “Each nation-state of the Free Worlds League is being asked to send what they can to a united force.”

  “Under Oriente command?”

  “Of course.”

  “Impossible.”

  “I had already reached that conclusion.”

  Lady Julietta smiled. “I was reacting, not advising.”

  “Ah.” Rikkard nodded solemnly.

  “This forms a tightrope,” Lady Julietta said, frowning again at some point in the air between Rikkard and Talar. “Waters full of shoals.”

  “And conflicting metaphors,” Rikkard agreed.

  Lady Julietta blinked, then rolled her eyes ruefully.

  Their easy familiarity…Talar felt as though he were party to a private moment, not a discussion of strategy.

  “If I understand you,” Rikkard was saying, “your advice is we not do what we are asked, but that we not remain idle.”

  “There are always levels to everything my mother does,” Lady Julietta agreed.

  “What hazards do you see?” Talar asked, overcoming his feeling that he was breaking in on a private conversation.

  “My first thought is this invitation is the first step in making us a vassal state.” Lady Julietta nodded toward the verigraph. “However, if the Free Worlds League re-forms and the Clan Protectorate did not take part in liberating Atreus, we will forever be one down in any political negotiation.”

  “Dishonored?”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  “Then perhaps,” Talar suggested—aware that not long ago he would have declared boldly—“a challenge for leadership.”

  “Pointless,” Rikkard answered.

  “Even if we won,” Lady Julietta explained, “none of the other nations would follow us against Regulus. Mother and Oriente have a legitimacy we lack. A tradition of loyalty.”

  “Yet we must do something,” Talar pressed, aware of a rising frustration. “We cannot remain idle.”

  “That’s a given.”

  “What?”

  Lady Julietta and Star Colonel Rikkard exchanged a long look. She answered Talar without turning her head. “That requires a bit more thought.”

  Mount Huffnung, New Hope

  Protectorate Coalition

  “Zeke, we’ve been invited to a party.”

  “Sir?”

  Cameron-Witherspoon looked up from his noteputer, giving Zeke a lopsided grin.

  Zeke didn’t bother trying to curse. He’d answered the summons to Cameron-Witherspoon’s office expecting orders. Instead it looked like he was in for one of those meetings where his CO talked in riddles, using Zeke as a sounding board as he worked his way through some problem.

  At least this time Captain Byers was present. She’d keep Cameron-Witherspoon from getting too out of hand. He flicked his eyes toward her and she nodded fractionally, promising to do just that.

  No taller than Zeke’s shoulder and crowned with a cloud of gray curls, the captain looked like nothing so much as someone’s grandmother—an effect reinforced by a receding chin, apple red cheeks and wide-set eyes of innocent puppy brown. The uninformed, seeing her in duty khakis, usually assumed she was a retired librarian forced by hard times to shop in military surplus stores.

  The informed knew Edith Byers had been in her teens when the Blakist occupation forces had dubbed her the Kaladasa Ghost, one of the most successful and vicious resistance fighters of the Jihad. Now well past the age when most career soldiers retired, the former guerilla warrior commanded the Silver Hawk Irregulars infantry, and trained the covert and liberation units that had been giving the Steiners and Wolves hell on a dozen worlds.

  The fact that she was here told Zeke this was more than Cameron-Witherspoon considering hypothetical options. Something real was afoot. And his commander, who thought better out loud, needed someone to talk to who would not answer back.

  Zeke didn’t like being Cameron-Witherspoon’s sounding board, but knew the only way to get through the ordeal was to shut up and listen until the colonel ran down. He ordered his legs to brace apart at parade rest and clasped his hands behind his back.

  “Sit down, Lieutenant.” Cameron-Witherspoon extended the noteputer toward him. “Tell me what you make of this.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Zeke did not sigh at the realization he would not be getting out of the office any time soon. He hated the sessions where he was supposed to answer worse than the ones where he just stood and listened.

  Byers smiled a sympathetic grandmotherly smile.

  There was a long minute of silence as the two officers watched him tab through the noteputer screens.

  “At a guess,” he said at last, “this is the Oriente Protectorate’s plan to take Atreus away from the Regulan Fiefs with the serial numbers filed off. There’s no hard data on who’s where, but from the grouping of the star systems and travel times, there’s a major force built up on what has to be Tongatapu and a smaller force on Loyalty.

  “Here.” He thumbed down a page. “They take Ionus and Alterf respectively, then converge on Atreus. While here there’s an alternative plan where they leapfrog the secondary targets and hit Atreus fast.”

  Neither officer said anything.

  “Or you could take the same arrangement of stars, switch Loyalty out for Zollikofen, trade Alterf for New Earth, and swap Ionus and Tongatapu for Altair and Styx. Then this becomes a plan to invade Terra.”

  Byers’ laugh was a single bark.

  “I think we’re safe in assuming this is a broad summary of the Atreus campaign,” Cameron-Witherspoon said drily. “What can you tell me about the troop numbers?”

  “They’re deliberately fuzz
ed,” Zeke answered promptly. “But I’m pretty sure Oriente doesn’t have the volume of assets that plan indicates.”

  Cameron-Witherspoon nodded, then glanced over at Byers. If she was supposed to add anything, she missed her cue.

  “Did I ever tell you about Captain-General Anson Marik’s last words to me, Zeke? Not when he ordered us off Stewart, the last time he briefed me—nearly two weeks before.” Cameron-Witherspoon raised a hand, palm toward Zeke. “Before you tell me you don’t recall, that was a rhetorical question. I’ve repeated those words in one form or another every day of my life since Stewart fell, a dozen times a day.

  “He called me into his inner sanctum. I was expecting some blustered rhetoric about stopping the Lyrans and Wolves on Stewart. Or, if Daggert had talked some sense into him, some questions on how to do the most damage to them on a fighting withdrawal. Instead he asked me who I served. I said him, of course, the captain-general. He called me an idiot. And he was right.”

  Zeke knew better than to yes, sir that last sentence, but it was tempting. Not that Cameron-Witherspoon was an idiot; quite the opposite. His savvy had kept the Silver Hawk Irregulars a viable fighting force when lesser men would have given up. He’d follow Cameron-Witherspoon through hell. He just hated letting a perfectly good straight line go to waste.

  “He said I served the people. That the Silver Hawk Irregulars served the people of the Silver Hawk Coalition. No captain-general, no politician, no institution. The people of the Silver Hawk Coalition.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I asked him if we fought for the Silver Hawk Coalition, what the hell we were doing on Stewart. He told me that stopping the threat before it reached the Silver Hawk worlds was the best way to defend those worlds.” Cameron-Witherspoon shook his head. “At one level I knew that was bull. We weren’t going to stop the combined Lyrans and Wolves, not by ourselves—and even though we weren’t the last MSC unit standing, we were the only one cohesive enough to put up any kind of organized fight. I thought he was blowing smoke.