The Ruins of Power

by Robert E. Vardeman

“Manfred is a loyal aide,” Sergio said in a neutral tone.

  “You knew he was at the plant, driving ’Mechs for the MBA. Why didn’t you say something to me?”

  “There’s no need for you to become entangled in this.”

  “Marta Kinsolving is involved, too,” Austin said, piecing together a jagged puzzle. “She didn’t want to tell me that was Manfred’s refitted ’Mech, but I got that much out of her.”

  “She, with the MBA, are cooperating fully in my investigation of this situation,” Sergio said. “Please, Austin, do this for me. Don’t get involved.”

  “I am involved. That wasn’t Manfred in the ’Mech. It couldn’t have been. He had no reason to come after me.”

  “Someone else piloted the refitted ’Mech,” Sergio said, “and his identity is still a mystery. He covered his tracks well, destroying the neurohelmet. However, there’s no reason to believe he singled you out to kill. He was probably intent on destroying the IndustrialMechs being manufactured. You chanced to be on the test range, and he decided to demolish an operational ’Mech.”

  Austin tried to digest the idea of his father, Manfred, and Marta Kinsolving being in a clandestine partnership. Whatever the purpose, it had little or nothing to do with Span-net. Some other strategic purpose was being hidden from him.

  “You’ll only endanger Manfred’s life if you keep searching for answers to this, Austin.”

  “Is it tied in with Dale’s and Hanna’s murders?” he asked. Austin spoke before he thought, but as the words rushed out, an electric thrill ran through him. On the face of it, this was absurd. Three unconnected assassination attempts, two successful and the third failing only through outrageous luck and Marta Kinsolving’s quick action.

  “Don’t drive yourself crazy,” Sergio said more sternly. “Who could have known you were going to the Industrial Giants plant? No one but Ms. Kinsolving knew you were even going out in a ’Mech, and she did everything possible to rescue you. Now drop it. Trust me to do the right thing.”

  “I want to talk to Manfred,” Austin said. “Where is he?”

  Sergio’s response was interrupted by the insistent buzz of the intercom. He passed his hand over the actuator. “What is it?”

  “My lord,” said the secretary, “Legate Tortorelli is here to see you. He says it is urgent.”

  “Send the Legate in,” Sergio said.

  Too much remained to be discussed. Austin started to argue, but Sergio lifted his hand and cut off any further exchange. Austin glanced over his shoulder as the office doors whispered open and Legate Calvilena Tortorelli marched in, jeweled medals bouncing against his chest with every stride. Tortorelli came to a halt in front of the desk and even clicked his heels.

  “Governor Ortega!”

  Austin saw what the secretary had failed to mention. Lady Elora trailed the Legate at a discreet distance and stopped just inside the office. She smoothed her already wrinkle-free red silk dress over her thin frame, struck a pose, and waited. Austin couldn’t help looking around, but the Minister was alone.

  “Well, Legate? What is it?” demanded Sergio. “I was in the middle of an important conference with the Baronet.”

  “It is good he is here, Governor,” Tortorelli said, not bothering to look in Austin’s direction. “A full investigation of the incident at the ’Mech factory is being conducted.”

  “By your authority, Legate?” asked Austin. “Isn’t it unusual for the Legate to conduct an investigation into a civil matter?”

  “Not when an AgroMech outfitted with autocannon and LRMs is involved. That is a serious matter.”

  “What have you found?” asked Sergio. He and Austin locked glances. Austin fumed. Then he tensed when the Legate answered.

  “We know who was responsible, Governor. He is an officer in my command.”

  “What?” Austin and Sergio cried out simultaneously.

  “I am sorry to inform you that the attempted assassination was conducted by none other than Captain Manfred Leclerc.”

  “What makes you think the captain had anything to do with this?” asked Sergio.

  “Extensive comparison of equipment in the ’Mech cockpit shows he was the driver.”

  “The neurohelmet was destroyed beyond any chance at identification,” Austin said. “I saw that for myself.”

  “There are other things. Access coding, other things,” Tortorelli said. “We are certain he is responsible and I have informed the civil authorities, but so far, they are at a loss to find Captain Leclerc. I have empowered military intelligence to begin a search. Technically, since he was on active duty, Leclerc falls under military jurisdiction. With the evidence accumulated so far damning him for this atrocious act, he will find few allies. We will arrest him soon, Governor.”

  Austin was at a loss for words. He looked from Tortorelli to Lady Elora, whose slight smile told him she was the driving force behind the accusation against Manfred.

  “I find these charges incredible,” Sergio said, “but I am sure the captain will address them fully in court.”

  “He didn’t do it,” Austin spoke up. “He’s my friend.”

  “The evidence goes against your, umm, feelings,” Lady Elora said in her soft voice. The words cut like a knife with a serrated blade. “There were his fingerprints on the AgroMech controls. No one else’s were there.”

  “No one’s?” asked Austin. “Not even a tech? Isn’t that strange? It takes a team of trained technicians to field a ’Mech. And a pilot would wear gloves.”

  “I misspoke,” Elora said. “I’m sure there were other fingerprints—Leclerc’s techs. There were only the captain’s prints on the controls. Perhaps he touched them without gloves on. I know you thought he was your friend and this must shake certain beliefs, but there is more evidence.”

  “What?” asked Austin.

  “Witnesses seeing him preparing the refitted AgroMech,” the Legate said. “We are interrogating them now.”

  “You have the investigation well in hand,” Sergio cut in, again glaring at Austin to keep him silent. “Keep us informed, Legate.”

  “The Ministry of Information is doing as much as possible, also, Baron,” Elora said. “Captain Leclerc’s likeness is included on every newscast, along with details of why citizens should turn him over to military police.”

  “Not the civil authorities?” asked Austin.

  “Or civil authorities, though everyone anticipates arresting Manfred Leclerc will be dangerous and better handled by military action.”

  Lady Elora’s emerald green eyes danced with merriment. Austin saw that she considered this meeting to have gone her way and herself to have won.

  “I’m sure everyone is doing their duty as they see it,” Sergio said. “Forward any report to me marked EYES ONLY, if you will, Legate.”

  “Consider it done, my lord.” Tortorelli turned and followed Lady Elora from the office. Austin closed the doors behind them.

  “There’s no proof,” Austin said angrily. “They’re making it up. Elora is making it all up!”

  “This is the last time I’m going to say this, Austin. Don’t butt in. Let this play out. You don’t have all the facts.”

  “Yes, sir,” Austin said, having no intention of ignoring a friend in danger. Manfred Leclerc was a decent man. Austin had to help straighten this out—and find out what intrigue his father was involved in. He had the uneasy feeling that Sergio knew more about Hanna’s and Dale’s deaths than he was letting on.

  He quickly left the office, closing the doors behind him. Tortorelli and Elora had already vanished. Austin considered following the Minister, then knew it would do him no good to spy on her. She was the expert at such things. Whatever he saw or overheard would be exactly what Elora wanted him to know.

  “Damn her,” Austin exclaimed. Office workers turned at his outburst. He smiled weakly and waved them back to work. She was the master spy, always rooting about for news. She might have had him followed to the ’Mech factory, or she might
have known earlier of his visit, since it had hardly been a state secret. He took a deep, settling breath.

  Austin had to find Manfred Leclerc before Elora whipped up a vigilante mob, and knew only one place to begin his search. Stride lengthening as his resolve hardened, Austin left the Palace. He needed to don some camouflage before the hunt.

  18

  Blood Hills Barracks, outside Cingulum

  Mirach

  1 May 3133

  The huge unwinking disk of the springtime sun splayed across the western horizon, confusing the eye with strange crimson wavelengths and allowing twilight to sneak in to claim the rugged land for night. To the north, glaciers had retreated forty thousand years earlier, leaving behind steep valleys with rounded bottoms and more minerals than could be mined in any man’s lifetime. To the east a plain stretched to the Marabot Ocean. This ragged plain was all that looked familiar to Austin Ortega. As a child, he had hiked there and knew how deceptive it could be. Small ferocious animals snapped at unwary hikers’ ankles and the dearth of water made a trek of any distance hazardous. Southward lay the capital of Cingulum, the city where Austin had been born.

  Mirach was a cold, obscure world ignored by most of The Republic, but to Austin it was home. Savage weather, wan sun, oceans dotted year-round with icebergs—it was the perfect training ground for a warrior. In spite of this, Austin felt he had been shortchanged. He wasn’t a warrior, not like Dale had been.

  Stop that, he thought. It did no good dwelling on what he thought were his shortcomings. If he didn’t stay positive about uncovering the information he needed, he would certainly fail. Austin wasn’t going to let Manfred Leclerc take the fall for the attack at Industrial Giants.

  This set off a new circuit of thoughts. He had to prevent his friend from being used as a pawn in Elora’s power game, but there was more to his mission. Austin reluctantly admitted he wanted to prove he wasn’t useless to his father. Sergio Ortega was a decent man, a great man in many ways, who had guided Mirach through good times and bad. But he was pigheaded and never admitted he was wrong. Austin couldn’t convince his father that a good Governor was not only beneficent, but also able to rule with an iron hand when necessary. The demonstrations across Mirach were growing in violence now, and yet Sergio had failed to quell them.

  A battalion of battle armor patrolling the cities would do the trick, Austin thought. That would keep the hotheads from whipping up the fear that threatened the stability of an entire world. Seeing companies of the Legate’s finest marching through the capital would also put an end to Lady Elora’s verbal tinkering. No riots, no paranoia about being cut off from the rest of The Republic, and she would become a toothless tiger.

  But Sergio continued to counsel Tortorelli not to deploy troops. His one concession to restoring order had been to send out the police, but Austin saw this as too little, too late. The police had no stomach for trying to control the uncontrollable.

  Austin snapped back from his reverie when he almost missed the turn in the road. He careened through the curve, fighting the controls and finally righting the car. Then he opened up the throttle and whirred along to the barracks at better than two hundred kilometers per hour. All too soon, he saw the rotating blue and yellow lights atop the guardhouse and knew he had to slow down. More than a klick away, he took his foot off the accelerator. Speed peeled away like layers of an onion, bringing him to a reasonable pace by the time he could make out the individual guards on duty. Austin braked and brought the car to a halt beside the guard standing duty on incoming traffic.

  “Sir, good evening,” the guard said. She bent over and peered into the car. “Just you?”

  “Returning from R and R,” he lied. Austin had pulled out his uniform from storage, the one he thought he would never wear again, and had put it on for this charade. Although he was no longer entitled to wear the black-and-silver, it surprised him how right it felt.

  “What unit?” she asked, frowning a little.

  He started to say he served under Captain Leclerc, then caught himself. Even if Manfred hadn’t been in serious trouble, that wouldn’t have been an acceptable response. The FCL was being broken up, the soldiers deployed to smaller units all over the continent of Musasalah. Some of the scuttlebutt he had overheard between the FCL guards still at the Palace detailed how some of the First Cossack Lancers were even being sent across the planet to the other continent of Ventrale to garrison research outposts. Any cohesion in the FCL would be completely erased within months.

  Austin figured that was Tortorelli’s intent: destroy the Governor’s bodyguard and leave him vulnerable. Any element of the Legate’s force sent to protect Sergio Ortega wouldn’t have the devotion, the loyalty, the take-a-bullet dedication Manfred had instilled in the FCL.

  “On detached duty with the Legate’s staff. Liaison with Governor Ortega’s office.” Austin fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his legitimate ID. It said nothing of military standing but had the official seal and his father’s signature at the bottom of the card.

  The guard took the ident-card and peered at it under the bright guardhouse light. Then she ran it through a verifier. Austin held his breath until he was sure the guard wasn’t calling up his full dossier.

  “Go on in, Lieutenant,” she said. “You know the way to Colonel Armitage’s office?”

  “To the command office? Of course,” Austin said, “but I have to stop at the barracks for a few minutes.”

  She stepped back, saluted, and waved him on in. He realized then that he had passed one final, small test. It was good that he had come out here several times with Manfred, Dale, and the other FCL officers for training seminars. Austin refrained from flooring the accelerator. He drove slowly into the tangle of narrow streets, hunting for the proper crossing thoroughfare. When he found it, he turned in and pulled over.

  Austin jumped from the car, made certain his uniform was in order, then entered the front door of the barracks. Two men lounging around looked up but, once they saw his FCL uniform insignia, hastily turned away. That gave him an idea of the status of Manfred’s former unit. Insulted by this pointed disregard, he made his way upstairs to the rooms allocated to the FCL. Or what remained of them.

  The first three he checked were empty, but in the fourth he found a veritable fountain of information. Master Sergeant Dmitri Borodin was like a spider in the middle of a web. Every vibration, no matter how tiny, became a full-fledged rumor in a single telling. He was just the man Austin wanted to see.

  “Master Sergeant, as you were,” Austin said. Borodin looked up from the tech manual he studied intently, startled.

  “Lieutenant, didn’t know you were here. Most all’s out and about tonight.”

  “Pulled punishment duty again, Sarge?” Austin laughed as he perched on the edge of the desk where Borodin struggled to make sense out of the material. Austin reached over and looked at the title. “Must have been a dandy. Not black-marketing again, were you?”

  “It was only meant to be a prank. Didn’t mean no harm, Lieutenant. Honest. That major’s behind was only slightly singed. Hardly noticed it, ’specially after he got the hole in the pants fixed.”

  Austin wished he could hear the entire story, but he was on a mission. Dale’s death, his own brush with death, Manfred’s indictment—all were more important than a passing diversion of what had to be a funny story.

  “You didn’t come out here for my stories. How are you faring since the . . . exercise?” Borodin asked. “Damn shame about your brother. He should have been in armor . . .”

  “I’m getting ready to transfer back,” Austin said, hoping to spark a comment from Borodin. He wasn’t disappointed.

  “Reckoned that might be what happened, what with Dale dead and Captain Leclerc up to his neck in hot water. We need all the leadership we can get, not that there’s many of us left. I do up the roster, you know.” Borodin looked at him, as if expecting comment. Austin wasn’t certain what the master sergeant hoped he would say.
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br />   “I wish I could help Manfred,” Austin said. “He’s a fine soldier, no matter what they say about him.”

  “You heard the rumor, too? That he’s run off to hide in Cingulum and do nothing but start riots? Pure garbage.” Borodin’s voice lowered. “I support Aaron Sandoval all the way, but as Lord Governor of a Republic Prefecture, not any other way.”

  Austin said nothing. There was more making the rounds in the barracks than he had expected. Soldiers generally held themselves above political concerns.

  “No, Lieutenant, I tell you, Sandoval’s a respectable fellow, brave and true as a tempered steel blade, but he’s got my loyalty only as long as he follows in Devlin Stone’s footsteps.”

  “I can’t believe Manfred—Captain Leclerc—would support any opposition to the government.”

  “Might not, but that’s not what some are saying.” Borodin cleared his throat. “I know you and the captain are friends and all, but I got to know where his true loyalties are.”

  “Manfred supports The Republic all the way,” Austin said without hesitation. He straightened a little when he saw that wasn’t the intent of Borodin’s nascent question. “You think Manfred’s sold out to somebody else?”

  “Not me, Lieutenant, not me,” the sergeant said, not wanting to condemn an FCL officer after Austin had so strongly spoken his praises. “But the others, now, they don’t know him so well. But is there any chance he might be running with the MBA?”

  Austin knew he had to be careful answering this. He knew a fraction of his father’s plans, and they seemed to involve Manfred training in the MBA’s modified ’Mechs.

  “The Mirach Business Association? What does a trade group have to do with Manfred?”

  “Now you’re insulting my intelligence, Lieutenant.” Borodin looked as if he wanted to spit.

  “Never, Master Sergeant, never. Fill me in.” Austin glanced over his shoulder to the open doorway to be sure no one eavesdropped on them.

  I’m getting too paranoid, he thought. He turned his attention back to the sergeant and tried to quash the feelings of being spied on.