Bred for war

by Michael A. Stackpole

  "Oddly enough, that is the reason you opposed us. You saw Ulric as an obstacle that denied you Crusaders the freedom to breed and grow stronger, but what you failed to see is that the Clan way denied you that freedom. Without war you could still breed and get better, but only through war, by fighting you, could the people of the Inner Sphere defend their freedom to determine their lives. Nicholas Kerensky created the Clans to prevent someone or something from taking such freedoms away from the Inner Sphere."

  "You, freebirth, cannot know what was in Nicholas Kerensky's mind."

  "No? Why not? Nicholas Kerensky was a freebirth, quiaff?"

  Angeline's hiss of outrage crackled through the speakers in Phelan's neurohelmet. "How dare you dishonor him with that word!"

  "The truth dishonors no one, Angeline, except those who will not acknowledge it." Phelan pointed his Wolfhound's right arm at a DropShip. "Round your people up and leave. Go back to your masters, go back to the Clans and let them know that I live. Let them know that I have with me the genetic material of the Wolves. Tell them we have found haven here in the Lyran Alliance. We are committed to remaining true to Nicholas Kerensky's dream of a free Inner Sphere. Be it next month, next year, or a decade from now, whenever the Clans decide to renew their Crusade, the Wolves they believe they have destroyed will oppose them. And if they wish to ponder the outcome of new battles, remind them of Morges and let them consider their actions with the utmost of care."

  54

  The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it is worth.

  —Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Avalon City, New Avalon

  Cruets March, Federated Commonwealth

  25 December 3057

  Sweat stinging his eyes, Victor awoke with a start. He looked down at his clawed hands and was surprised to see they were not bleeding. Without comprehending the true import of that fact, he tore back his bedclothes and bounded across his bed chamber to stand naked before the full-length mirror in the corner. His fingers prodding and twisting his face, he stared at his reflection as reality displaced dreams in his mind.

  It's my face in the mirror, not my father's. It is mine, truly mine. He shivered, mostiy from relief, but also from the chili air shrouding his sweat-soaked body. Raking wet hair back from his face and staring frantically in the mirror to see whether it was white-blond, not the ruddy hue of his father's, he took a deep breath. That was a most evil dream.

  Victor stumbled back toward his bed and moved to the center where the sheets were dry. The fact that they were also cold did not comfort him, but he clung to the sensation of cold and used it to banish the last of the uneasiness in the dream he had left in him. He closed his eyes for a moment, but knew he would not fall back to sleep, so he jammed pillows between him and the headboard and sat up.

  The dream—definitely a nightmare—had been born of the clash between Thomas' offer of peace and what Victor thought he should do in response.

  His father would have rejected the offer outright. By making the peace bid, Thomas had shown he had no belly for the fight. Worse yet, the only reason Thomas had reaped his successes was because he had used Katherine against Victor. Without the ships that Katherine was now willing to sell him—Hanse would have had Tormano's head on a stick for that.'—Victor's ability to oppose the Free Worlds League had been severely curtailed.

  That would not have concerned Hanse Davion. He would have stripped every transport in the Federated Commonwealth and turned it into a troop carrier. He would have delivered ample amounts of troops to blast Thomas' mercenaries into memories and reduce Sun-Tzu's troops to twitching protoplasm. Hadn't both Thomas and Sun-Tzu shown, in the nature and strength of their attacks, that they had learned how to wage war by studying the methods of Hanse Davion? Hanse would have taught them the true horrors of war and would have made them pay dearly for their little game.

  That was, Victor knew, exactly what his father would have done. The Prince had even gone so far as to dig into his father's old files to see how he had organized the transport for the Fourth Succession War. Though twenty-five years had passed since the end of that conflict, the strategies were still sound and the resources were available. Replicating the massive invasion of Sarna that his father had executed would have imposed hardship on the people of the Federated Commonwealth, but such sacrifice was the only thing that would keep the realm intact.

  Though Victor was prepared to do that, every time he approached that decision, something made him draw back. In the dream he had seen Thomas offering him an olive branch, but Victor had slapped the branch from Thomas' hand. Then the Captain-General's eyes had become mirrors in which Victor saw his father's image reflected as his own. When he landed a punch square on Thomas' nose, the mask Thomas had worn shattered to reveal Hanse's face, then Hanse became a crystal statue that fragmented beneath Victor's repeated pummeling, each fragment holding within it a holographic image of the statue of Hanse. And yet the legend on the pedestal bore the name "Victor."

  "I am not my father." Victor slammed his fist into the palm of his left hand. "I have never tried to be my father. I have never wanted to be my father!"

  But using his methods has brought you to this point. Would you abandon his ways now? asked a small voice in the back of his mind.

  Victor shuddered. Have I really been aping what my father would have done?

  The voice did not answer, but Victor did not give it much chance to do so. His mind began racing, analyzing his actions, assessing their effectiveness, searching out their roots. I have to know what I have done wrong and why I did it.

  The first event that brought him up short was the decision to institute a double for Joshua. He had never liked it as a solution. He had agreed to use life support devices to keep Joshua alive while the double was being inserted in his place because, until Joshua actually died, he could reverse his decision. He knew he had made the choice, ultimately, to buy himself time. Time to deal with Katherine, time to deal with Sun-Tzu, and time to break the news to Thomas.

  His own natural inclination would have been to inform Thomas of his son's death, but the very existence of Project Gemini had somehow suggested to him that being forthright with Thomas was politically naive. Faced with challenges from within his family and without, he could not allow himself to show the slightest weakness.

  Gemini had been his father's plan. It had been put into place to guarantee Thomas' cooperation while the Clans were storming through the Inner Sphere. With the truce won by ComStar, Gemini lost its value, but Hanse Davion died before he could shut it down.

  And I let it continue because, with it, I still had a piece of my father alive.

  Victor instandy knew that idea was wrong—as wrong as putting the double in Joshua's place. He was only doing what his father would have done and therein he spied his problem. If I am not my father, why am I doing what he would have done?

  Even as he asked the question, he came up with a legion of answers. The conflicts with Katherine and his brother Peter had led him to assert control over the family, and his father was the only model for that control he knew. Moreover, the respect he had for his father and the reverence in which Hanse was held by the people of the Federated Commonwealth had pushed him into paths where he could tap that image and emotion. Victor realized, though, that what his father could get away with as "shrewd" and "befitting the Fox" looked overreaching or petty and cruel in him.

  This series of revelations led him back to Thomas' olive branch. His father would have rejected it and retaken the worlds he had lost—of this Victor had no doubt. It was true that Hanse had made peace with the Draconis Combine in the face of the Clan threat, but that was placing the greater gain over the lesser danger. The Draconis Combine had not been the aggressor in the War of 3039, and had put up a stiff defense against the Federated Commonwealth. Theodore Kurita had earned Hanse's respect, a fact that went a long way toward making a truce between their realms palatable for Hanse.

  In
the face of naked aggression, Hanse would have fought back—but Victor could see no benefit to fighting back against the Free Worlds League or the Capellan Confederation. The war, so far, had been relatively bloodless. And while war might be a crucible in which great individuals proved themselves—most notably the Woodstock Reservists and whoever this Dancing Joker was—it was also an insatiable maw that devoured people and material with incredible speed and facility.

  It was true that the worlds taken would no longer be sending tax revenue to him, but those sums were insignificant compared to the economic benefits for the Federated Commonwealth offered by Thomas' peace bid. And even though Sarna and Styk had formed their own little independent nations, akin to the St. Ives Compact, their financial and economic ties to the Federated Commonwealth meant Victor had not lost any of his 'Mech manufacturing in the Sarna March.

  Provided—he reminded himself—the Reservists finish off the Bandits.

  Most of the various populations would be unaffected by the changes of planetary administration. Yes, they would have to learn the words to a new national anthem, but the Sarna March had been part of the Federated Commonwealth for less than a generation. The greatest hardship for most citizens would be adjusting their schedules to accommodate the changes in national holidays.

  Not so for the Reservists and the Dancing Joker, people who had actively fought against the incorporation of the Sarna March into the Capellan Confederation. If the Reservists were successful, Nanking would remain in the Commonwealth. If not, they would have to be repatriated. Repatriation would be vital for the Dancing Joker and his people and all of the minor functionaries and administrators who owed their allegiance to the Federated Commonwealth as well. They would be the target of reprisals, and Victor would never leave them open to such danger.

  "Thomas will agree to repatriating my people if I suggest that the program be administrated by ComStar. That will keep it neutral."

  With that problem solved, Victor knew he would make the choice his father would have found unthinkable. "These times are not your times, Father. I cannot strip my economy to move troops to fight over worthless worlds. In your day, the unification of the Inner Sphere was a noble goal worth fighting for. But we can no longer afford it. Such wars would ruin our economies and let the Clans devour us whole when they come for us. We have ten years before the ComStar truce expires—if that much time—and I would rather have my people preparing for war than engaged in it."

  From deep inside Victor's memory the picture of his father as he lay dying came to him. Again he saw the momentary bright flash of life in his father's piercing blue eyes. Those eyes had focused on his son, then Hanse had clutched at Victor's shoulder, spoken his name, and smiled.

  "You seemed to die content, Father, knowing I was there to take your place. Was that because you thought I was like you or because you trusted me to do what I must to keep your realm intact? I hope like hell it was the latter, because I am not you, nor will I ever be. In trying to act as you would have, I have almost ruined everything.

  "Never again." Victor shook his head and focused on the mirror across the room. "I am Victor Ian Steiner-Davion, First Prince of the Federated Commonwealth. From now on, the mistakes I make will be my own, and the experience I gain from correcting them will be my guide into the future."

  55

  He who bears the brand of Cain shall rule the earth.

  -George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

  Daosha, Zurich

  Zurich People's Republic, Capellan Confederation

  27 December 3057

  Xu Ning hit the Page Down button on the detached screen of his computer, but a beep told him he was at the end of the file. Glancing at the time display in the corner of the flat screen, he saw that he'd been reading until well after midnight. That struck him as ironic and even funny because in his days as an academic he would never have touched an escapist thriller like the Dancing Joker's attempt at a novel. If for no other reason, he would have avoided it because it was apparently meant to be the second in a series! Now something he would have considered beneath him had kept him up far later than he might have imagined.

  It was not that the writing was great fiction, or even much more than literate. The prose was riddled with cliches, but the story was paced well. Only the central character, Charlie Moore, was given any sort of depth, however. Xu knew this was because the novel was obviously autobiographical, and Charlie Moore was Noble Thayer's alter ego.

  The desire to know the mind of Charlie Moore—and therefore know the mind of Noble Thayer—had pushed him on through the book. Cathy Hanney's interrogation had provided enough information that they'd been able to raid the Dancing Joker's last habitation, but all they found were some personal items, including a small SecCom noteputer and the disks Thayer had used to write his books. Though the SecCom staff had worked hard to put together a profile of Thayer, it was nowhere near as illuminating as the novel.

  Even the title, The Hunter's Charade, told Xu more about Noble Thayer than the file his people had compiled. The string of acts attributed to the Dancing Joker made it quite apparent that Thayer was no chemistry teacher. His leadership skills and ability to cover his tracks proved that he must have been trained as a Davion agent—just as had Charlie Moore. Like Thayer, Moore had come to Zurich to infiltrate an enemy revolutionary organization. Once the revolution took place, Moore began organizing a resistance movement to fight the government of evil Chao Shaw—a phonetic mixture of Italian and Farsi that translated to "goodbye king."

  The Director had not found his characterization in the novel flattering, but the points Thayer had chosen to criticize gave him insight into the man's thought processes. Thayer had portrayed Shaw as a vain egotist whose grip on reality had been loosened by a decade spent hiding in remote guerrilla camps. He used Shaw's indulgence in a variety of strange sexual practices as an allegory for the inherent contradiction of a man who chooses to make himself superior so he can create a classless society, and in that allegory Xu Ning felt the most sting.

  In the novel Thayer had fictionalized Deirdre Lear and kept her on Zurich as Dr. Dolores Larson. She served as Moore's love interest and was captured by Shaw and the evil mercenary band, the White Vipers, in the penultimate confrontation of the novel. The book ended with Moore, as the King of Death, planning an all-out assault meant to bring him face to face with Shaw to free the woman he loved from the dictator's clutches.

  Xu tapped the screen to clear it, then set the LCD tablet on the table along with his computer. "I wonder how you would have ended it? Would you have had Shaw kill Larson as I have killed Miss Hanney? Would you have had Shaw's compound turned into a fortress to await your attack? And would your planning of the strike change if, in contrast to your novel, your paramour broke under interrogation and gave up all your secrets?"

  Those questions filled Xu Ning's mind and he knew he would not get to sleep easily. He touched a button on the intercom beside his computer. "Tsin, please bring me a glass of warm milk with an ounce of Napoleon brandy in it."

  "At once, Director."

  As he disrobed in preparation for retiring, Xu Ning considered himself rather lucky after a moment's reflection. Thayer's novel had gone into great detail about how the bombing of the armory had been accomplished and how the raid on Kaishiling had been organized. Had Thayer turned his skills to assassinating him, Xu had little doubt the man would have succeeded. Of course, the revolution would have stood because another would have taken his place. Instead, by attacking the support structures of the revolutionary society, Thayer had come perilously close to toppling his government.

  Xu Ning drew on his silk robe and knotted the purple sash at his waist. The Dancing Joker had not taken into account the capture and surrender of Cathy Hanney. The information she had given up had cut the Dancing Joker off from his base of operations and forced him to run and hide. That was an overwhelming setback and quite likely the thing that had saved Xu's revolution from destruction. />
  A nagging bit of doubt robbed Xu of taking any satisfaction from that conclusion. Xu Ning concentrated and instantly identified the paradox that was causing him a problem. He had decided the Dancing Joker had not anticipated Cathy Hanney's capture, yet the in the novel the protagonist had made plans to deal with the capture of his lover. In the real life, however, Cathy Hanney's capture had sent the Dancing Joker into hiding, so he could not have had a chance to write about how he would deal with such a situation. Moreover, only by knowingly sacrificing Cathy Hanney could he have engineered the raid on Kaishiling. Of course, in the novel, Dr. Larson had been captured during the raid, so it was possible Thayer had adjusted his plans to avoid the problem he had put into his novel.

  Then again, in the novel and in real life, a traitor in service to Shaw had been the catalyst behind the Larson/Hanney abduction. The arguments went around and around, with life imitating art and vice versa. Xu frowned, then turned to his desk to dig around in a drawer for analgesic tablets. Only if the Dancing Joker purposely turned his lover over to me does any of this make sense. Even so, that act does not make sense.

  Xu heard a gentle knock at his door. "Enter." Thinking only of the steaming glass of milk on the silver tray, Xu momentarily missed the fact that the slump-shouldered man bearing the tray was Caucasian, not Asian like his houseboy. Before he could demand to know who the interloper was, he saw the silenced pistol in the man's other hand. "Noble Thayer, I presume?"

  "Call me what you will. I am the Dancing Joker." The man straightened up to his full height and set the tray on a table near the door. The gun did not stray in the least as the man closed the door behind him. "Did she tell you my name, or have you deduced it from the book?"