Natural Selection

by Michael A. Stackpole

  The Clint's return fire hit the Thunderbolt hard, the PPC devouring nearly a ton of armor on the left side of the 'Mech's chest. The two pulse lasers mounted in the Clint's torso converged on the Thunderbolt's midline. They cut bubbling furrows in the armor over the big 'Mech's heart, but failed to breach it. Chris successfully fought the unbalancing effect of losing so much armor, and kept his 'Mech charging forward.

  * * *

  Nelson Geist spat on the tile floor of the dimly lit corridor. Down below the surface of the planet the heat was intense, and he felt sweat soaking his shirt. Droplets of perspiration also ran down his temples and speckled his upper lip. He licked it off, then wiped his half-hand on his pants before returning it to the shotgun's pump.

  As he crept down the hallway toward the forbidden corridor, a nervous smile stole over his face. If I were in a 'Mech, I would have a cooling vest and I would be bone-dry in a cockpit five times as hot as this. He glanced down and checked for the hundredth time to see that the gun's safety was off.

  Turning the corner Nelson felt a constriction in his throat. He nearly panicked, imagining for a second that somehow the shock-collar had been again fitted around his neck. His half-hand clawed at his collar, but when he felt only flesh and the burning rake of his fingernails, he leaned back against the wall. This time there is nothing to stop you.

  He wiped stinging sweat out of his eyes and resumed his trek to the end of the corridor. There, just as he had seen in the simulation, stood two closed doors. Almost closed, he corrected himself. A thin bar of yellowish light separated the doors. His smile returned, but his teeth clamped down to stifle any cry of triumph that might escape him.

  Step by step, meter by meter, he paced his way forward silently. He forced himself to breathe through his nose, searching the musty dry air for any hint of her, but the only scent was the stink of his own vomit and perspiration. As he exhaled, the droplets of sweat that had collected around his nostrils sprayed down over his hands.

  Nearing the doors he heard a pair of clicks. He glanced back the way he'd come, fearing the approach of guards armed to cut him down on the threshold of his goal. He saw no one and nothing behind him and realized that the noise had come from the room. He ran the sounds through his mind and could think of no weapon that sounded quite like that when cocked. Sounded more like the latches on a briefcase being opened.

  Nelson took one last deep breath as he pushed the left door open noiselessly. In his time on the Tigress and in countless nightmares afterward he had imagined incredible and horrible things in the room beyond those doors. Torture chambers, a hall of horrors, a trophy room decorated with bits and pieces of individuals the Red Corsair had defeated, with the missing half of his hand featured prominently. Yet whatever he had imagined in fevered, malevolent dreams, none of it approached the malignant reality.

  As he entered the room, the Red Corsair twisted the head of the cylinder she had inserted into the blocky device built into the wall. The yellow and black safety tabs came away as her motion locked the cylinder in place. She tossed the tabs aside, then smiled as she looked up and saw him. "I thought it might be you."

  Nelson looked from her to the briefcase on the desk in front of her and then to the thing on the wall. The warning symbol on the back of the briefcase was one he knew from his cadet training so long ago. Though he could not see into the case, he knew it had a soft foam bed with a cutout to hold the cylinder in place because, as his instructor had said, "nuclear mine triggers are not built to be banged around."

  A nuclear mine? This whole valley, everything, will be destroyed. She is mad!

  "It's me." Nelson motioned with the gun and the Red Corsair raised her hands. "It's over for you."

  The Red Corsair shook her head. "You will not kill me, Nelson Geist."

  "I won't? You're here assembling a nuclear device that will wipe out everything in this valley, save those in the bunkers built into the mountains. You're beyond mad, you're evil. There is nothing you could say that would stop me from killing you."

  She smiled carefully. "I love you, Nelson Geist." Her hands slowly fell to caress her stomach through her cooling vest. "I am carrying your child."

  * * *

  From the first exchange the battle began to go exactly the way Phelan knew it had to. The Thirty-first Wolf Solahma had begun to retreat before the gap could be closed. Their goal was obviously to pull back into the mountain stronghold and fight from there, but Conal had established his line too far forward. He must have forgotten that the Hounds are equipped with weapons like ours—weapons salvaged from the Smoke Jaguars and Nova Cats after the battle for Luthien.

  Phelan smiled as he realized that was the solution to the mystery of how Conal had been caught away from his cover. He had expected that a couple of long-range exchanges would slow the Hound advance, then he could withdraw in good order to the mountains. Because he had been too arrogant to coordinate with the Hounds during any of the bandit-hunting operation, he had never learned what they could do. Your stupid arrogance is the reason the truce must remain. If we do not learn to respect the Inner Sphere, they will swarm over and destroy us.

  The Khan saw Conal's 'Mech pulling back, but he stopped as a hailstorm of LRMs brought the Red Corsair's BattleMaster to its knees. The Man O'War interposed itself between the downed BattleMaster and the Kell Hound lines.

  The Man O'War raised its two arms and crossed them above its head in a clear Clan challenge. "I am untouched, Khan Phelan. Will you be the one to finish me?" Behind him his lines crumbled and the Thirty-first broke running for the bunkers.

  Phelan opened his radio and folded in all the tactical frequencies. "What do you offer me if I win?"

  "My people surrender."

  "They will abide by this?"

  "They will, Khan Phelan."

  Phelan's eyes narrowed. You are a cheating, treacherous bastard. You cheated during the last fight for my Bloodname and you have done almost as much damage in the Inner Sphere as the Red Corsair. Phelan saw a signal indicator flicker, and his secondary monitor reported that a coded tightbeam message had gone out from Conal to the settlement. You have something up your sleeve, but I have Carew and Caitlin's pilots in the air to forestall an ambush. Phelan set his computer to beep if an answer came back on that narrow frequency, then nodded.

  "Bargained well and done, Conal." The Khan smiled to himself as his 'Mech started to move away from the Kell Hound lines. You have your trick, and I have mine. Who will fool whom?

  * * *

  "My child?"

  As Nelson spoke, the Red Corsair lunged for the briefcase. Nelson thrust his gun in her direction and yanked the trigger. The first cloud of lead pellets caught her in the left shoulder, twisting her around. As she swung back to the left, her right hand come up out of the case with the machine pistol that had been concealed there.

  Without thinking Nelson pumped another shell into the gun and fired again. Her machine pistol lipped flame back at him, then his second shot hit the gun and destroyed the lower half of her right arm. Her body slammed back against the wall, then slid to the floor, leaving bloody streaks to mark her passage.

  Nelson felt himself gasping for air and thought it was because of the shock of such close combat, then he tasted blood on his lips. He looked down and saw two holes in his shirt. The pain started when he dropped his gun and pressed his right hand and forearm against the wounds. But when he pulled his arm away, the pain became even greater.

  He took a step forward, then another. The world began to grow dim, but Nelson refused to pass out. Hugging his arm tight to his body, he reached out with his maimed hand and stumbled forward to the desk. He batted the case aside, toppling it to the floor, then worked his way around the corner.

  When he saw her, he fell to his knees and knew he'd never stand up again. She was dead—pellets from the first burst had blown her throat out yet somehow left her face untouched. He reached out with his left hand and closed her staring eyes. He bent his head for a mo
ment, mourning what might have been were black changed for white in the universe. Then he began to look for a place to die.

  The radio handset on the Red Corsair's belt beeped, and a voice said, "They are in position. Do it now."

  Nelson spat out blood and plucked the black box from her belt. He clutched it in his left hand, waiting for what seemed like a lifetime to build up the strength needed to raise it. He heard air slowly hissing out of his lungs, but he forced himself to lift the device to his face. He pressed the red switch down.

  "You're on your own." He stopped and caught his breath. "When you get to hell, she can tell you where it went wrong."

  * * *

  Phelan knew his only advantage lay in the speed of his 'Mech. While Conal's Man O'War could have nearly matched him in a foot race, the Wolfhound could sometimes be almost impossible to hit because of its agility. If Conal was not careful about the heat buildup in his 'Mech—a tall order for a 'Mech that handled heat as efficiently as the Man O 'War—his targeting circuits would start to fry.

  Phelan had to wait for Conal to falter. Moving fast would make him a difficult target, but it also made it damned hard for him to hit anything either. Push him, make him push himself, then take him! The Khan started forward and worked to his own right, keeping as far as possible from the Man O 'War's right arm.

  Conal shifted the 'Mech right and thrust the right arm at the Wolfhound. Twin ropes of crackling blue energy shot out from the over and under PPC muzzles. Both gouged great furrows through the ground behind the lithe Wolfhound, flinging half-molten chunks of rock into the air. The Man O'War's left arm also tracked Phelan, but its large and medium pulse lasers scattered their energy darts high over the 'Mech's head.

  He missed high? What is he doing ? Phelan shook his head as he watched the Man O'War move awkwardly. Conal is being sloppy. What is his game? Does he think he can lure me in close? He moves so I cannot kill him, but he is not putting out his full effort to kill me. Why not?

  Phelan flipped his holographic display over to infrared and was rewarded with a glowing outline of the Man O'War. Conal had already succeeded in pushing it, but the heat was not that high. It would not take enough of an edge off Conal's aim to make any sort of approach possible. As he hesitated, then pushed the Wolfhound forward in a burst of speed, he had the sinking feeling that Conal—no matter how sloppy he got—would never give him the opening he needed to win.

  Suddenly his computer beeped, informing him of the reply to Conal's tightbeam. Phelan looked up and saw that Conal had stopped tracking him for the moment. The Man O'War missed a step, then two, and the weapons dipped half a meter toward the ground.

  Phelan cut left with the Wolfhound and closed the gap between the two machines. Continuing his circle, but drawing it tighter, the Wolfhound slipped beyond the forward arc of the Man O'War's weapons. Coming around into the slowly turning 'Mech's aft, Phelan dropped his crosshairs onto the OmniMech's broad back, then cut loose with everything.

  The large laser mounted in the Wolfhound's right arm used the green beam like a scalpel, ripping a huge hole in the armor over the other 'Mech's back. The three pulse lasers then poured scarlet needles of pulsed laser energy into the heart of the Man O 'War. The lasers shattered the gyro casings, spitting bits and pieces of them out through the gaping wound in the 'Mech's back.

  Stabilizing the giant war machines was simply not possible without the gyros, even with the direct feed from Conal's neurohelmet. The Man O'War landed in a cloud of dust, its limbs smashing against the ground and disintegrating, leaving the downed 'Mech broken and helpless.

  * * *

  Nelson Geist realized that he had dropped the radio when he heard it shatter on the ground. He smiled, then leaned back against the desk, chiding himself for being so clumsy. He continued to stare at the black plastic and bright transistors, even though it was painful to have his head in that awkward position. He knew the pain would not last much longer and he told himself that staring at a broken radio was much better than having the last thing he ever saw be the Red Corsair.

  41

  Tharkad

  Federated Commonwealth

  25 October 3055

  Victor Davion sat alone in the Archon's office and studied the slip of paper in his hands. So, this is what it comes down to. After months of exhaustive investigation, he had a list of four names. They were the four people who had purchased tickets to the Frederick Steiner Memorial Library dedication banquet but who had not attended nor given their tickets to someone else.

  As far as Victor was concerned, the first name on the list was the only one that needed to be there. Ryan Steiner. Ryan had been a thorn in his father's side from the moment he had wedded Melissa Steiner. Ryan was heir to the ambitions of Alessandro Steiner, the man his grandmother had deposed and who had allowed Ryan to start his own career by betraying Frederick Steiner, another rival for power.

  Ryan thrived in the swamp of politics, and Victor knew he had to be the man behind the assassination. Ryan had married Morasha Kelswa, heir to the title of the Tamar Pact. Since their marriage he had become a tireless champion for the independence of the Tamar worlds. The fact that Tamar had been all but swallowed up by the Jade Falcons had done nothing to quiet him.

  Ryan also controlled the Skye separatist movement that had almost set off a civil war fifteen years earlier. Steiner had provoked a revolt, then stepped in to smooth things over when Victor's father had sent troops to put down the rebellion. The little bloodshed that did occur was blamed on Hanse Davion. If not for Melissa's popularity with the Lyrans, the incident might have precipitated all-out civil war.

  Ryan Steiner had the most to gain from my mother's death. Victor's nostrils flared as he thought about all that had happened since her death. If his sister Katherine had not pushed her role as a media darling to make peace between him and Ryan, their respective camps would no doubt already be on the brink of open conflict. Victor was certain that Ryan was behind the continuing campaign of whispers blaming him for his own mother's assassination.

  He looked at the second name. Anastasius Focht, the Precentor Martial of ComStar, had purchased a ticket, but had not attended and had not assigned the local Precentor to attend in his stead. Though Victor had never met the man, Focht had been the one who directed the defeat of the Clans at Tukayyid. Melissa had also spoken highly of him. Still, old suspicions about ComStar died hard, and the lack of an apparent motive did not exonerate Focht—no one had ever been sure of the Precentor Martial's true motives and Victor suspected no one ever would.

  The third name struck him as equally absurd: Katherine Steiner-Davion. He tried to reconcile his view of his sister with that of a ruthless conspirator arranging the cold-blooded murder of their mother. If she were Romano Liao's daughter, perhaps, but Katherine? Never. No matter that he knew she could never be part of an assassination plot against mother, his sister's presence on the list chilled him. Since when did Katherine miss a party?

  The last name deepened the cold sucking at his marrow. Victor Ian Steiner-Davion. I was supposed to have been there. I would have been seated within the blast radius. Victor tasted sour bile in his mouth.

  He knew how his name had ended up on the list. The banquet had been a charity event. An invitation had been transmitted as a matter of course and he had purchased tickets without a second thought. The invitation had come through in a whole stack of papers that he'd signed before leaving Port Moseby for Arc-Royal. The Secretariat had found the sheet and had verified his fingerprints and signature and even Galen's prints on it.

  Victor had the advantage of knowing he had not murdered his mother, but he also knew others were seeing it differently. His absence condemned him. Had he attended the banquet, he too would have died. Because he was still alive, he had inherited the throne of the Federated Commonwealth instead. If it weren't bad enough that he profited from his mother's death, people pointed out that he hadn't even attended her funeral.

  The Prince sat back in his chair.
If I had died, Katherine would now be in my place and Ryan Steiner would be that much closer to taking over the Commonwealth. Did he think I would be at the banquet? Had he hoped to get me, too and Katherine as well?

  His mouth went dry. Or did Katherine expect me to die with our mother?

  Victor crumpled the paper and tossed it on the desk. My father would have arrested Ryan in an instant, and the Secretariat would have broken him. Justin Allard would have arranged an insidious intelligence operation to ferret out the truth. My mother? Victor smiled as he remembered her. Smooth as silk but hard as steel. She would have managed to squeeze Ryan economically and politically until his power base evaporated. She would have charmed his allies away from him and left him isolated and alone.

  The Prince stood and leaned on his desk. But this isn't about how any of them would have handled it. They are dead and I must do it on my own. What do I truly know? What do I have to work with? How will Victor Davion handle this problem?

  He smoothed the paper out again, picked up a pen, and drew a line through his own name. "I know one person on this list is innocent." He drew a star beside Ryan's name. "And I know I want to think one person is guilty. And what I have to work with are two men I can trust and a man who kills for hire."

  Victor hit the intercom button on his commlink console. "Please find Galen Cox and Mr. Curaitis and have them report to me immediately."

  The five minutes it took for the pair to make their way to his office was enough for Victor to finalize his plan. This is how Victor Davion handles the problem.

  Galen Cox handed Victor a yellow slip of paper. "Picked this up on my way in here. Thought you'd want to see it."

  Victor read the brief message that had been sent Alpha Priority through ComStar. "Red Corsair is dead. Full report to follow. Dan Allard."