Lost destiny

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Locke left the truck, playing out the two cables as he went, working his way out toward the street and the massive power poles running its entire length. Slane lowered the hovertruck's back gate, then helped Taman slide a steel I-beam out from beside the Gauss rifle. Kai didn't like to think of the damage being done to the Gauss rifle's bore as the I-beam was muzzle-loaded.

  "Weapon ready."

  Taman laid his laser on top of the Gauss rifle and used the armor's weapon to paint the target for him. Using his claw, he shoved it a bit to the right. "Target aligned. Status?"

  Kai checked the walls again. "Clear."

  Locke unlimbered the grappling hook connected to the first cable. Holding it in his claw, he sent it sailing upward to where it hooked over the top cable. As with most cables running high above the ground, that one was uninsulated. Picking up the second grappling hook, Locke sent it flying upward, too.

  Accelerated to a blurring speed an instant before the cables connecting the gun to the powerline melted away, the steel shaft slammed into the iron doors. It hit the tall doors just above their middle, ripping them from their hinges. The larger pieces cartwheeled through the courtyard and embedded themselves in the main building, while the smaller bits of shrapnel ricocheted around and shredded the half-dozen Acolytes caught in the open.

  Kai and Locke sprinted across the street, hurdling skidding cars. As they burst into the courtyard, Kai saw some Com Guards pouring out of a building to his left. He brought the machine gun up, then pointed and triggered a line of fire running from left to right. Bodies flew back in a bloody haze, but Kai did not pause to consider the ease with which those men had died.

  I have a mission and I am not going to sabotage it! As they had discussed on the way in, Locke hit the doorway to the holding cell area first. Kai saw his machine gun flash, then Locke pulled back and let Kai go forward. Ignoring the red droplets streaming down the wall, he kicked in the door to the gallery of cells. When his holographic display showed Locke turn to hold the doorway, he strode into the fortress's dungeon.

  A Com Guard popped around a corner and blazed away at him with an autorifle. Kai felt the impacts as the bullets washed over his armor like a gentle mist. Without conscious thought, Kai pointed at his enemy and the machine gun blew the man's heart out through his spine.

  Reaching the first of several steel doors, Kai reached out and fitted his claws around the lock. Punching his thumb up between his middle and ring fingers as they curled down, he scythed the claw through the lock mechanism and tore it from the door. A solid kick from his right foot sent the door in to crash against the wall. The six Elementals in the room stood abruptly.

  Activating his external speaker with a glance, he said, "Let's go. You're free."

  One of them, a dark-haired Elemental with blackened eyes, hesitated. "Who are you?"

  "Does it matter? Star Captain Malthus sent me." Kai pulled back out of that cell, then proceeded to kick in the other doors. "Go, go!"

  Reaching the end of the line of cells, he sprinted up the stone steps at the far end and burst through the doorway into the main building itself. As he had expected, he found himself across the hall from the Com Guards' armory. One trooper turned and tried to fire his SRM launcher, but a stream of slugs from the machine gun ended that threat.

  Kai pointed the freed Elementals to the armory. "Arm yourselves. We have to pacify this facility."

  Seeing the flash of explosions in the courtyard, Kai sprinted forward and smashed his way into a room looking out. A Rotunda armored car had arrived at the fortress from somewhere in the city and stood in the shadow of the entry-way. The SRM launchers, set just below the vehicle's headlights, sent two missiles spiraling into the place where Locke had been standing. Their resulting explosions scattered mortar and stone over the courtyard, but Kai heard nothing over the radio from Locke to indicate his condition.

  The Rotunda started forward, intent on trapping Malthus and Slane at their positions deeper in the courtyard. Just as it began to make its turn to bring its weapons to bear, the hovertruck shot through the gateway and tagged it in the left hindquarter. The Rotunda slewed around as the hovertruck tipped up on its side and began a tumbling roll.

  Kai vaulted himself through the window and dashed into the courtyard. The Rotunda began moving forward again, so Kai leaped at it. He landed belly-first on the roof and began to slide over the top, but his claw caught and held. Pulling himself back around to the right, he punched his laser down through the windscreen. Tightening his hand into a fist, he filled the cockpit with fire.

  From the top of the main building, an SRM lanced down and hit the hovertruck's exposed belly. It exploded and tore the vehicle in half. Kai spun off the burning Rotunda and started to track the Com Guard, but the lasers from Slane and Malthus met at the target and turned the man into a torch.

  Two of the freed Elementals ran out along the top of the fortress wall. One pointed toward the street. "More vehicles and troops, Star Captain!"

  "Star Captain, clear the wall!" Kai shouted. He hunched down at the back of the Rotunda and started to push the wheeled vehicle forward. As it picked up speed and headed back toward the gateway, Kai gave it a final shove, then stood to the right and lased a chunk out of the right front tire. The vehicle swerved into the gateway, then began to bump its way out into the street.

  The lead ComStar vehicle hit the sloped nose on the Rotunda and vaulted up into the air. The light Gabriel hovercraft soared high enough that the rear air rudders clipped the top of the gateway and imparted a slow backward spin to the hovercraft. It came down just on the other side of the burning hovertruck, landing on its tail, then flopped back on its turret and spun into the compound garage.

  The hovertruck following the Gabriel likewise hit the Rotunda moving fast, but failed to clear it. Fans screamed and disintegrated as the truck came down on top of the armored car. Then the short-range missiles still remaining in the Rotunda's magazines exploded in a staccato series of flashes.

  Bodies of the troops in the truck flew everywhere, then the top of the gate collapsed and buried the burning mess.

  An unarmored Elemental appeared in the doorway of the compound's main building. "Facility secure, Star Captain. We have their hyperpulse generator and it is still in operational condition. We are also getting local radio that indicates an armored infantry battalion is on its way. ETA one-half hour. We also have reports that their garage has six full suits of our armor and a Daishi."

  Malthus pointed toward the garage. "Get another Star suited up and have someone join my Star. I would have liked to have bid more than two Elemental Stars against a battalion of armored infantry, but this will have to do."

  Kai turned to face him. "Did your man say they'd found a Daishi in the garage?"

  The man in the doorway nodded. "Operational and fully armed, but stripped of code modules. We're lucky no one got to it and brought it into this fight."

  "Star Captain, how would you feel about adding a Daishi to your bid of two Elemental Stars?"

  Malthus' armor bowed to him. "Somehow I am not surprised you know how to use one of our OmniMechs."

  Kai smiled. "I used a Daishi to kill those five 'Mechs during my testing."

  The Elemental pointed toward the garage. "Go, then, and claim your 'Mech. It is time ComStar learns how truly bad an idea it was for them to launch Operation Scorpion."

  42

  Tukayyid

  ComStar Intervention District, Free Rasalhague Republic

  20 May 3052 (Day 20 of Operation Scorpion)

  "If this was done in accordance with Blake's Will, then Jerome Blake is as much of a monster as Amaris the Usurper." Striding like a titan through the mountain passes of the Pozoristu Range, Focht's invisible feet could not land without falling upon a burned-out tank or shattered 'Mech. Some fires still guttered in the blackened bodies of broken war machines. In other places live munitions still exploded without warning even though the battling had ended.

  All aro
und, Clan footsoldiers helped to herd the scattered Com Guards toward the exchange center. Wounded soldiers helped yet more grievously wounded men and women limp or drag themselves across the uneven terrain. The Elemen-tals who had been so fierce in battle now stooped to help their wounded enemies, silently acknowledging their fellow warriors valiant even in defeat.

  Also silent were the bodies lying everywhere, rain-soaked, partially clothed, stiff in death. Everywhere he looked, the Precentor Martial saw the dead. He desperately wanted the computer to make him too tall to see the pale, bloated corpses or the pools of blood, but somehow he knew he could not escape them.

  They are here, they are all over this planet. How different we are from the Clans in customs and manners, yet how alike in death and injury. He relived the pain of losing his right eye to a gunshot decades before. As much as these Clansmen hold themselves apart from us, and as much as we do not want to claim them, we are all of us so pitifully human.

  He rubbed at one temple to ease away the pain. I should have seen this coming. I should have known better—about this and about Scorpion.

  A window opened on the face of a mountain and Focht saw Hettig's haggard face. "The ilKhan has established communication. He is waiting to be linked in."

  The Precentor Martial had the computer swath him in rough, undyed woolen clothing and black leather boots. A black eye patch covered his missing right eye. He let the computer etch the fatigue lines on his face, then sighed at the realization that he did feel as exhausted as his image showed him to be.

  "I believe, Mr. Hettig, that I am ready for you to patch the ilKhan through to me." He paused for a second, then added, "Once you have done this, you are relieved of duty. Get some sleep."

  Ulric materialized across from him, still clad in cooling vest and MechWarrior shorts. A bloodied rag hung from his right bicep and his legs looked badly sunburned. Ulric, projected into the Precentor Martial's virtual world from his holotank, looked just as tired.

  "Hail to you, ilKhan of the Clans. Your people fought valiantly." Focht hoped the sincerity in his voice came through despite the computer processing. "I appreciate your willingness to meet with me in this way."

  "And hail to you, victor of Tukayyid." Ulric bowed his head solemnly. "I would have hoped to meet with you face to face, but I agree that this method is more suitable for what we have to accomplish."

  Focht smiled wryly and shook his head. "How strange it is that you call me the victor when, in fact, all that has happened here was your doing. You knew exactly what would happen, when and probably where. The Clans lost because you wanted them to lose."

  The ilKhan stiffened, then clasped his hands at the small of his back. He slowly began to pace, moving to avoid the fallen hulk of a Mad Cat. "There are two errors in what you have said. The first is that I would be guilty of treason had

  I done what you accuse, and treason is punishable by death. As I do not desire death, I would not do that. What happened is that you discovered a way to defeat us. You found our weakness, and you exploited it. You knew our war doctrine was not suited to long battles, and saw our supply problems would doom us."

  "No, Ulric, I did not discover that strategy." Focht opened his hand and took in the war-torn landscape with the gesture. "Victor Dayton and Theodore Kurita both saw that the Clans were geared toward swift and decisive warfare. They knew that forcing you into an extended campaign would give you trouble."

  Ulric let a low chuckle rumble from his throat. "You're not half as blind as you would make me think. You saw the greatest flaw in the Clans. Our bidding does promote brilliance and audacity, but it also minimizes losses. We cauterize our wounds before they happen. If a commander is defeated, it is because he failed in his strategy or failed in his bidding. The troops who lose are not shamed, but rehabilitated so they can be used again. We reward victory with genetic longevity, but insulate ourselves from the sheer, grinding brutality of war."

  He stabbed a finger at the hideous tableau surrounding them. "Never, since the time Nicholas Kerensky formed the Clans, have we faced such a crushing defeat. Your troops forced half of the Smoke Jaguars from the field in three days! The rest of them were forced off the planet by the tenth day, but only because their leaders were too stupid to know they were beaten. Not only are they not accustomed to fighting that long, but they never lose that quickly. The Sixth Jaguar Dragoons have been shattered and the Jaguar Grenadiers have more ghosts in the ranks than living warriors."

  "Yet I note, ilKhan, that the Smoke Jaguars and the Wolves are political enemies. I know well there is no love lost between the two Clans, and I cannot but wonder if you did not force a Smoke Jaguar Khan to woefully underbid by challenging him to do so."

  Ulric's blue eyes glittered like chips of ice. "That is a question that cannot be answered, as both Smoke Jaguar Khans died in the Dinju Mountains."

  "Or is it a question you will not answer?" Focht slowly circled the ilKhan. "I watched the fighting in the Pozoristu Mountains closely."

  "Then you saw Khan Garth Radick fall."

  "Yes, and I saw Khan Natasha Kerensky and ilKhan Ulric Kerensky have their way with all that I threw at them. You knew I had prepared for long battles, so you, too, created stockpiles of munitions and supplies. You put your troops on a strict ration of ammunition and had the majority of your OmniMechs configured with energy weapons. You crushed the units I sent to destroy your supply centers, then hunted down and exterminated the units I had in the mountains.

  "In this one battle that was directly between you and me, you beat me."

  Ulric scratched at his goatee. "Perhaps that is so, Precentor Martial, but the Pozoristu Mountains were not the world. On the Przeno Plain, the Jade Falcons moved twenty kilometers from their landing sites—and that only because of the Falcon Guards—then became bogged down in a stalemate. They went no further, and had you committed a reserve unit to them, you would have driven them back. By the second week, the Diamond Sharks were ousted from the Kozice Valley. The Ghost Bears held Spanac at the end, but had lost Luk and most of the Seventh Bear Guards. The Nova Cats held the Losije district for all of five days, but lost at Joje and Tost, and eventually were dislodged by your Com Guards. You forced the Steel Vipers from Hladno Springs on day thirteen.

  "Even if we count the Ghost Bears' victory at Spanac and consider Przeno a draw, you have won the battle for Tukayyid. You have won our bargain. The Clans will press no further toward Terra than this world for the next fifteen years."

  Focht shook his head. "Would I sound like a hopeless romantic if I said I did not think even fifteen hundred years would be worth this cost?"

  "You would sound to me like a general who has accurately assessed the consequences of war, and one who greatly values his troops." Ulric wiped sweat from his forehead with his hand. "I have seen the casualty reports for my troops. My deaths are running at 20 percent, with an overall casualty rate of 35 percent and equipment damage of 62.3 percent—half of that being suitable for salvage. And I know my people got off lightly." '

  Focht turned on him. "Your people got off lightly? Are you not the ilKhan? Do you not lead all the Clans?"

  The ilKhan slowly shook his head. "As this battle would prematurely decide the end of our quest, our crusade, it was determined that control of the individual operations would fall to the Clan Khans. Though I was permitted to review all data coming up from the planet, I was not obliged to distribute it unless asked. As no one saw fit to request my thoughts, I was free to act to the benefit of my Clan."

  So, they forced you to act on your own and you let them twist in the wind. "Had you led them, coordinated them, you would have defeated me."

  "You are the victor, Anastasius. You need not flatter the vanquished. Through what you have done, through the death and the misery, you have shown my fellow Khans what I could not. Had I led them and been defeated, I would have been taken down—I might yet be—because the failure would have been mine." Ulric again looked around the valley at the grayish bodies
covering the hillsides. "Now they must understand what their crusade has caused and they must accept responsibility for it."

  "Yours is not an easy lot, Ulric. You lead a people who are bred for war. They will not take defeat lightly."

  "I think my lot is easier than yours, Anastasius. At least the attacks on me will come in the open. We may play at politics in the Clans, but we resolve the conflicts like warriors." Ulric looked straight into Focht's good eye. "Do not second-guess your victory, Precentor Martial. Operation Scorpion, while an annoyance, did not detract from our operations here."

  Focht sighed heavily. "I give you my word, had I known, I would have warned you."

  "I know that." Ulric let a tired smile expose his teeth. "I have one more request of you, quiaff?"

  "Aff," the Precentor Martial nodded. "Ask."

  "In three days there is to be a Bloodname battle for the right to claim Cyrilla Ward's name. I would like to hold it here, on Tukayyid. Phelan Wolf will fight with Vlad for that honor. Allowing them to stay on the planet will let them rest up for the final fight."

  "By all means. Is there anything you need to prepare for it?"

  Ulric shook his head. "I think not. However, Phelan has petitioned the ilKhan for permission to invite you." He smiled more broadly. "The ilKhan has graciously consented."

  Focht bowed his head to the ilKhan. "Please tell Phelan I am honored by his invitation, but I will be unable to attend. Within the hour, I leave Tukayyid."

  "Within the hour?" Ulric's eyes sparkled. "The Primus is obviously very pleased with your performance here."