He tried to move ahead of his guards, but they wouldn’t let him. They closed ranks, moving toward the Lyrans, coming so close to some of them that they swung their guns at them instead of firing them.
Another explosion, close enough to send Anson to the ground. There was no one standing in the room. The smoke was so thick he couldn’t see the ceiling. Bullets were flying through the air. It wasn’t safe to stand.
Staying prone, Anson moved back. He scurried behind his throne, then stood. His right leg almost gave beneath him, but he willed it to hold him up. He fired both guns until they were empty. It was enough. The doorway was clear again.
He dropped back down to the floor and reloaded. When he stood, he saw one of the bodies in the doorway moving. Not by itself—it was being dragged. They were clearing the doorway. They were preparing to come through in force.
He’d be damned if he’d wait for them. If he would go out cowering behind the throne. If he’d let them take him prisoner. He would make them kill him, and he would do it with a charge.
He moved in front of the throne. His breath came in staccato bursts. He narrowed his vision until he saw nothing but the doorway and the bodies sliding away.
Then he ran. Pain shot through his right leg with each step, but that only made him charge ahead faster. He didn’t fire yet. He was at the doorway when he saw a conscious Lyran, and he fired the pistol, cracking the faceplate. He fired a round, then another, with the SMG to his right, keeping anyone on that side on his toes.
Another bullet came, this time into his side. That was two. He turned toward it and let go an SMG burst, then ran on. He passed another Lyran who had been hidden by the smoke, trying to swing his gun at Anson to knock him out.
Never, thought Anson. He swung his meaty left arm and caught the soldier in the midsection, doubling him over. A shot from the SMG in his right hand finished him off.
But there were more troopers down the hallway. Bullets fired. One caught his right leg, one his arm. Three and four. He walked like a drunk. He fired, but he couldn’t aim the SMG correctly. The shots were wild. But at least there were a lot of them.
Lyrans moved forward, rifles and their soldiers. They weren’t firing. But they would. His left arm was still good. He fired five rounds at once and two soldiers fell. The others paused. He raised the SMG toward them, lifted it.
You have no choice, bastards. You have no choice.
He fired, never intending to let go of the triggers. Rounds came at him, seemingly from all directions. Stabbing pain here, and here, and here. The color drained from the world until it was all smoky gray. Gunfire still clattered, and he knew some of the shots were his because his arm jumped with recoil. Jumped and jumped and jumped.
His neck, pain in his neck. Air wasn’t coming. He struggled to open his lungs, but a giant fist squeezed him.
Then his head, a stabbing sharpness in his—
Epilogue
New Hope Herald, 10 June 3138
ANSON MARIK DEAD, COMMONWEALTH IN SHREDS
New Edinburgh, Stewart—Captain-General Anson Marik is dead, killed in battle by invading Lyran troops. He fought the invaders to the end, engaging them in a fierce firefight outside the doors of the throne room of the New Edinburgh Palace.
With his death and the fall of Stewart, the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth has fallen into chaos. Calls have gone out for an emergency session of Parliament, but most ministers have fled to their home planets and are not likely to gather.
The remains of the captain-general are being held by Lyran soldiers, who have said they will bury them. The martial government imposed on Stewart by Duke Vedet Brewster of Hesperus has forbidden any public mourning of Anson Marik and, with the exception of one or two small gatherings on street corners, the order has been obeyed.
While his administration had fallen under heavy criticism in recent days, Captain-General Anson Marik was the face and the driving force of the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth. His drive to restore the luster of the Marik name and the glory of the Free Worlds League brought him many supporters—though his bullying nature and occasional self-aggrandizement often caused those he brought to his cause to later fall away.
Perhaps his most lasting legacy will be the reformation of the Silver Hawk Irregulars, a unit that is rumored to have partially escaped the carnage on Stewart….
Tharkad Patriot, 13 June 3138
TRIUMPH OF THE ARCHON! MARIK-STEWART COMMONWEALTH FALLS, ANSON MARIK SLAIN
The captain-general of the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth has fallen in front of a spirited charge by Lyran Commonwealth soldiers. With his death and the capture of the planet Stewart, the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth now becomes a ghost of the past. A menace on our border has been eliminated, and the archon has secured one of the greatest victories for the Commonwealth in recent memory.
The aggressions of all Mariks against the Commonwealth are well known, and Anson Marik was certainly no exception. Brutish and vengeful, Anson Marik’s entire reign was marked by incidents of cruelty and hostility toward his neighbors, with Lyran neighbors bearing the brunt of his aggression. His death can only bring peace to the Commonwealth and stability to the Lyran economy….
* * *
Zeke Carleton was still in a bit of a haze when he heard the news. Someone told him Anson Marik was dead, and it took him a while to remember why that mattered to him. But then he remembered. And when he did, it made him sad.
He had never met Anson Marik. He had talked to a few people who did, and they didn’t have much good to say about him. Carleton also had plenty of friends who could go on at length about the shortcomings of Anson Marik’s government, about how he provoked wars he couldn’t finish. Carleton didn’t know enough about politics to say if they were right or wrong.
But Zeke Carleton was a member of the Silver Hawk Irregulars because of Anson Marik—his unit wouldn’t exist without him. And even though painkillers had dulled his senses, Carleton knew there wasn’t much in the universe that gave him more pride than his membership in that elite corps.
Even though he wasn’t much of a student of politics, Carleton knew that the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth wouldn’t survive Anson’s death. There was no replacement, no heir, no one who would step forward to hold this battered nation together. It was done.
But the Silver Hawk Irregulars were not finished. Each time Carleton saw a ranking officer, they talked of a future, of a purpose and of their cause. They thought there was still something out there to fight for. Carleton wasn’t sure what that was, but he was glad to know it was there. He’d be better soon. And when he was, he’d find out what that thing was, and he’d fight for it.
* * *
There had been a time when it was perfectly acceptable—to some people, at least—to drag the body of a vanquished leader through the streets. Vedet fervently wished he could do that.
He felt a small twinge of regret that his troops had killed Anson instead of capturing him, but it did not bother him much. Victory was victory. The Marik-Stewart Commonwealth was eliminated as a threat—and a nation, as well. He was due significant accolades, and he’d make sure he received them.
For now, he would rest in the finest hotel left standing in New Edinburgh, receiving care for the wounds he had received from Anson’s last gambit. He would recover, Anson would not. That was all the satisfaction he needed.
* * *
There were stories circulating about Anson Marik, branding him a coward, a bully and anything else Trillian could come up with. It was part of her job. It wouldn’t do to have his people make a martyr out of the man, though she suspected they didn’t like him well enough to do that. She hoped that dragging his name through the mud would make the people of Stewart accept the archon more willingly.
Now that the gunfire was over, the longer fight, her fight, could begin. Negotiating the future of the conquered planets, consulting with Roderick to see which planets might need her attention and, most of all, keeping Vedet in line would occupy her. H
opefully, she’d be busy enough to think only about what she had to do instead of why she had to do it.
* * *
Roderick had lost the race to the motorcade, and it might have saved his life. He hadn’t been able to keep up with Vedet’s push to the palace, as he did not have the fast-moving ground troops that the duke had at his disposal. All he had done in the battle was obtain a good position, pummel the defending troops and make it possible for the final advance to happen. But since he hadn’t played the political game of Capture the Anson well enough, he didn’t know how much all the rest of it mattered.
He wanted to leave. There had to be other jobs for him. He never turned down combat assignments, but there had to be a way to find a new one. Anything other than this.
Though finding a new assignment might require playing the game and falling right into line with the rest of them.
Nothing was clear to him now. He didn’t know what to do, where to go. He just knew that Stewart had become possibly his least favorite planet in the Inner Sphere.
While he was here, he had no choice but to have his men join Vedet’s forces in patrolling the city and keeping the peace. Occasionally, this meant assigning his men to guard pro-Lyran demonstrations (arranged and paid for by Duke Vedet and Trillian) and to make sure no Marik sympathizers caused trouble. He’d seen some of the duke’s men at these events and had noticed how much they enjoyed beating down any of Anson’s supporters they got their hands on.
Roderick made sure his men were not as aggressive. While he had no love for the late captain-general, when he compared Anson’s last actions to Melissa’s recent movements, he didn’t feel certain that the Marik supporters’ cause was groundless.
* * *
Klaus Wehner was on the run, but he still heard about Anson Marik’s death before most people who weren’t on Stewart. It was his job to hear things, and that didn’t change just because he was no longer in his former position.
It helped that he wasn’t far from New Edinburgh. He would have liked to join those leaving for New Hope, but he hadn’t made it to MacDonald in time. And it seemed like Stewart would be an interesting place to be for a time, and he could find a way to be useful here.
As he listened to stories about the battle of New Edinburgh and gained a better understanding of the present situation, he started to grasp the big picture better than he had when he fled from his role as Trillian Steiner’s aide. It was a comfort—his first reaction when he heard of Anson Marik’s death was that he had failed, that his effort to alter the Lyrans’ intelligence had not done any good. But now he had a better understanding of what the whole fight had been about, and he could see it had been a success of a kind. A terrible, expensive success, but the best result that could be hoped for.
There would be more fights to come. He would stay away from any large cities for a while, doing whatever he could to destroy Klaus Wehner and build a new identity. Hopefully Trillian would leave before he was ready to return to active life, but it did not matter much. By the time he was ready to emerge, she would be unable to recognize him.
The Silver Hawk Irregulars had left Stewart so they could fight another day, so the nature of the battle here would now be different. It was the type of fighting Klaus was well prepared for. When he came back into action, he would poke around and find others like him, people who were not willing to be Lyrans and who wanted to do something about it. Then the battle for Stewart could continue.
* * *
In the end, Alaric Wolf was inclined to view the whole invasion as an interesting experiment. While it demonstrated the futility of trying to deal with spheroids on an honorable level, it showed him that a warrior could still fight honorably in their presence—as long as he ignored most of what they were doing. He could go into the holes they opened and exploit their movements for his own gain without going to the trouble of communicating directly with them and playing their games.
It would be valuable information to know going forward. Inner Sphere armies were generally poor allies, but they could still provide opportunities for Alaric to advance the interests of Clan Wolf.
He knew the situation in the former Marik-Stewart Commonwealth would deteriorate rapidly. Anson Marik had surprised him by not fighting an all-out war on Stewart, but it did not matter—the end result was the same. The Marik-Stewart Commonwealth was gone. The Lyrans would try to claim as much space as they could and deny Clan Wolf the spoils of their efforts. It was possible, even likely, that the Lyrans would be dishonorable enough to withhold the rewards Alaric had earned, and that he might have to resort to force to obtain his due.
He had no concerns about that prospect. The things he had learned when fighting alongside the Lyrans would be quite useful should the time come to fight against them.
* * *
Archon Melissa Steiner received the news of the death of Anson Marik and the fall of the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth with relief. As the press would have it, she felt the relief of a ruler who had made her realm safer and more prosperous. While that was part of it, she also took comfort that the long odds she had played had paid off. Sending Duke Vedet Brewster and Alaric Wolf to fight side by side was like sending two rabid dogs after a piece of meat in the hope that they would devour it all without turning on each other.
So far, it had worked. But the long history of warfare had taught Melissa this: taking territory is not the same as holding it. And someone who fights at your side is not necessarily an ally for life.
Victory was a blessing. It was also only a beginning.
* * *
Protocol probably demanded that Jessica Marik show some sort of sadness or regret at the news about Anson Marik. After all, this was another noble of the former Free Worlds League, a man with whom she shared a name if not any actual blood relationship.
But she could not bring herself to do it. Thank God for functionaries—they would be able to draft a statement of vague sentiment that she would not feel bad about attaching her name to; then she could let Anson Marik drift into the dustbin of history.
What the statement wouldn’t say was the truth, at least as she saw it. The death of Anson Marik was not a tragedy, not even really regrettable. It was an opportunity, and she was fully poised to take advantage of it.
Really, her only regret regarding Anson’s death was that he would not be around to see what she would do with his former realm. Oh, how he would hate it.
* * *
There would be no accurate account of Anson’s end. Daggert knew there wouldn’t be, but he kept reading every media account he could find. They inevitably contained limited info, but Daggert was not surprised. How could anyone say what really happened there? It had been chaos to begin with, and the survivors didn’t have much interest in telling the truth. Almost before fighting had stopped on Stewart, the Lyran propaganda machine was at work, saying Anson Marik had begged for his life at the end. That he had died like a coward.
There had even been a weak attempt to claim he had been a suicide, with Anson giving in to despair at the end, but that story faded quickly. Suicides don’t usually take a dozen bullets.
There were enough people, though, who knew the truth. Daggert would make sure of that. If Anson had been a coward, he wouldn’t have stayed behind. He would have landed on New Hope with Daggert and the remnant of the Silver Hawk Irregulars that he had sent away.
But if he had done that, then the plan wouldn’t have worked. When he conceived it, Daggert thought there was a way they could execute the plan without sacrificing the captain-general, but Anson had known better. If he had escaped with Cameran-Witherspoon and the other Silver Hawk Irregulars, the Lyrans would assume the war was still going on. If the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth had a leader, then it was still a nation. So the Lyrans and Wolves would have continued chasing down the Silver Hawks until there was nothing left.
By staying on Stewart, by dying, Anson Marik had also killed the Marik-Stewart Commonwealth—and by killing it, he had given a por
tion of it a chance to survive. The Silver Hawk Irregulars would retreat to their home planets and defend their people, following Anson’s instructions to Cameran-Witherspoon. Anson’s nation would die, but his military unit would fight another day, to see what the future held for the former Free Worlds League.
It was the best they could have done.
Now, as a bureaucrat without a government, Daggert would retire. He would find a place somewhere and hope it would remain quiet. He would not miss anything. He would not miss the pressures and stresses of battle, the demands of moving an army and getting them into position and, least of all, the experience of working for a loud, demanding, angry, cruel boss. He would not miss that at all.
He would find a house with a porch that looked toward the sunset and he would sit there every night, alone, and watch whatever world he was on rotate. He would breathe slowly and evenly. He would have expensive bottles of wine shipped to his house and choose one each night and pour a single glass. He would find a few moments of peace in an Inner Sphere that generally didn’t offer any.
And at least once, when he was alone, he would raise his glass in a silent toast to Anson Marik.
About the Author
Jason M. Hardy has bad hair and a beard, which in most states is all you need to become a science-fiction writer. He is the author of two previous MechWarrior: Dark Age novels, The Scorpion Jar and Principles of Desolation (with Randall N. Bills), and a Shadowrun novel, Drops of Corruption. He is also a regular contributor to the Battlecorps Web site and has other various fictions and game-related writings that pop up here and there. He lives in Chicago with his wife and son.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1
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The Last Charge Page 28