Ideal War

by Christopher Kubasik

  "You forget how pragmatic you are and how much of an idealist I am. The fact that we are such good friends must be based in part on the fact that we don't see each other very often."

  "We're friends and we always will be," Masters said quietly. "But tell me, what is this horrible matter you want to bring up?"

  "Essentially we are talking about a military coup."

  "Exactly. If the plan is presented correctly, I'm sure I can find enough MechWarriors to support us. Once we make it clear that the MechWarrior profession is threatened by the advance of war technology ..."

  "Yes. And the MechWarriors seize control, and make everyone who is not a MechWarrior live as second-class citizens." Thomas' voice tightened. "That is the way of the Clans."

  Masters hesitated. "We don't know that. The invasion took place on the other side of the Inner Sphere, more than three hundred light years from our borders. No one in the Inner Sphere had any idea that the descendants of Kerensky and his followers still lived. It's been centuries since General Kerensky and his people exiled themselves from the Inner Sphere. Whatever they became in the intervening years is still a mystery. Even the people the Clans have conquered still don't know exactly how the Clanners live, and certainly, we, on the other side of the Sphere, have heard only half-truths. It will take years for all the information to be sorted out, years before we know who these Clanspeople really are."

  "You defend them? They fought in cities. They attacked civilian populations with nuclear weapons. No one has used such devices for—"

  "Sir, we will not become the Clans. That I can promise. All I want is for the military elite to unite the Free Worlds League under your rule."

  "No, no, even if we put aside the Clans for the moment, that isn't good enough."

  Masters paused, uncertain of what to say. "I'm not sure I understand."

  "If we blunder out and declare that I'm finally making a bid for House Marik's absolute rule of the Free Worlds League, and that we're going to do it through a coup conducted by a group of Mech Warriors, the other states of the Free Worlds League will turn against us."

  "There will be resistance, of course."

  "And too much of it. We need the people with us. I will not attempt a complete unification at the expense of alienating my people. It wouldn't be worth it. We'd spend all our time putting down one revolt after another. They'd see us as invaders in our own state. No, I need the majority of the people—the vast majority— with us. Only this way will the plan produce the desired effect of building our strength against the other Successor States."

  "But if the Mech Warriors are to have control—"

  "Paul. We will get there. But we must be careful, cautious, and clever. We will begin slowly, prepare the moment to create the right story."

  Masters rubbed his fingertips against the tablecloth, a bit agitated. "What do you mean by 'story'?"

  "What if, instead of staging a coup throughout the Free Worlds League, we create, first, a knightly order of Mech Warriors. Create something romantic."

  "Romantic?"

  "Yes. We not only create a ruling warrior class, but we re-trench our feudalism. We make it clear that something extraordinary is happening."

  "I don't . . ."

  "We create something that people want, rather than something we impose on them. We get them to invite the idea rather than defend themselves against it."

  This did little to alleviate Masters' concern. "How do we do this?"

  "We begin slowly. We start with a new knightly order, created from whole cloth. A special order of MechWarriors loyal to me. Unlike the current custom, these knights will be called 'sir.' They will be the elite.

  We will invite them from all over the Free Worlds League, regardless of previous loyalties. That will be the difficult part. We must find those MechWarriors who share your concern for the fate of the Mech-Warrior, and more important, who have a bit of the noble streak in them. Others like you."

  "How do we . . . ?"

  "Intuition," Thomas said, tossing the question aside. "We find them through intuition. Now, we don't do anything with the knights right away. We just let the Free Worlds League and the Inner Sphere know that such an order exists."

  "But the enemies of the Marik Commonwealth in the Parliament will be quick to jump on this. It's tantamount to announcing plans to unify the Free Worlds League under House Marik. That's as good as a coup."

  "Except that we won't have done anything yet."

  "No, only invited some of their best Mech Warriors to desert them. The Principality of Regulus, in particular, will be suspicious and threatened. And you're saying we won't be prepared for the coup."

  "There will be no coup, Paul." Thomas paused, letting the statement sink in.

  "What?"

  "My rule will come by invitation or not at all. It is that simple. I will build what I think people want, and they will tell me whether I am right."

  "But . . ."

  "Paul, your concern is for the Mech Warriors. Mine is with all the people of the Free Worlds League. I will not seize control of the League. That is a tactic for other rulers in other Successor States."

  "Then will you please tell me what you mean by a good story?"

  "Simply put, everyone sees life in terms of a narrative. We just do that. It is humanity's way. And if people see themselves as the oppressed, they will fight back, because that is the intriguing role of the oppressed. If people see themselves as participants in something glorious, they will support the game wholeheartedly."

  "Game?"

  "Game. I am my father's son, after all."

  "I don't think most people see their lives as a game, Thomas."

  "Of course they don't. Which is why they can be manipulated by people who do."

  Masters became unnerved. "I don't understand. First you say that you want the people to choose freely, and now you speak of manipulating them."

  "Well, if we carry off a coup, we're manipulating them. If I give them a choice, I'm not manipulating them. But because I know it's a game, I can shape the choice so they choose what I want them to choose."

  "I don't understand."

  "I know. It will take time. Here." Thomas went over to a table set against the wall. Masters saw him lift something from the table and carry it back. A book. "This is for you. A present."

  Masters took the book, a cloth-covered tome with worn edges. The title had faded, and he could not read it in the dim light. "What is it?"

  "Le Morte d'Arthur," Thomas told him, "by Thomas Malory."

  2

  Marik Palace, Atreus

  Marik Commonwealth, Free Worlds League

  19 May 3054

  "Thomas Malory?"

  "An English knight who lived fifteen hundred years ago. He wrote the book while in prison for the crime of rape."

  "Rape? Is this the story of the rape?" Masters put the book down on the table, as if it might contaminate him.

  "Not at all. It's the story of a legendary king and the adventures of his knights. Almost all the characters are imperfect—some decidedly so—but all strive hard to do right. The book is Malory's plea to God for forgiveness. The characters strive for an ideal even though they cannot reach it."

  "What has this . . . ?"

  "Just read it. Please."

  Almost anyone else would have run from the room, perhaps to fetch a doctor. But Masters had known Thomas for too long. It was far more probable, Masters knew, that Thomas' brain had simply come up with a new way of looking at things, a valuable bit of illumination to make the world a bit clearer. "Yes. Of course I'll read it. I'll read it on the way back to the base."

  "No. Stay. I want you to read it here. I want your reaction. We have many things to discuss."

  "But I'm due back—"

  "Paul, I'm the Captain-General. It can be arranged."

  * * *

  Masters opened the book later that night after returning to his quarters. Comfortably propped against the pillows he read about the l
ives of Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, and others. The style was difficult, and it took a while to become accustomed to the rhythm. He was used to the simple, straightforward style of a dry and mechanical age, while Malory crammed many complex, bold ideas into single, long sentences. Lists of names sometimes appeared, running half a page, and Masters had little idea who each person was.

  But the story was magical. He had never read anything like it. He identified immediately with the warriors, their desire to be recognized for their martial skills, their desire to succeed despite their shortcomings. Arthur's knights encountered mysterious women and fought giants and one another. Masters read and read through the night and until noon of the next day, when exhaustion finally sent him to sleep. Within a few hours he was awake again, reading once more, until delirium took hold of him and he collapsed into sleep once more.

  For three days he did not leave his room, eating only when a servant carried in a tray of food. For three days he read.

  Masters finished the story one night at about four in the morning. The tale, and the way he had devoured it, left him dazed. He got up from his bed and put on a robe, then went out to wander the corridors of the palace. Being in the guest wing, he did not expect to run into anyone at this late hour.

  His path led him to the double doors leading to the palace's BattleMech holding area. Stepping out into the warm night air, he was greeted by a sky shimmering with stars. Ahead of him was a large area surrounded by a high fence, guard towers, and security lamps. Five BattleMechs stood in the holding area, including his own Phoenix Hawk.

  From where he stood the 'Mech looked like a huge, stoutly built man carrying a large pistol in his right hand. The pistol was actually an extended-range large laser built into the 'Mech's arm. Its design enhanced the anthropomorphic air of the machine. The war machine also had a medium pulse laser built into the right wrist, anti-missile defense systems in the right arm, a frightening anti-infantry machine gun system in the left arm, and a heavy supply of ammo built into the torso. The Phoenix Hawk had originally come with a second large laser, but Masters had replaced it several years ago with short-range missile four-packs. Sitting atop the torso was a cockpit shaped like a head. Masters controlled the behemoth from inside there.

  A guard patroling the area spotted Masters. "Good evening, Captain," he called.

  "Good evening."

  "Checking up on him?"

  "Yes," Masters said absently,"checking up on him." But he was not looking at his Phoenix Hawk the way he normally did. He usually saw the 'Mech as a mountain of metal, forty-five tons of battle platform. Not this time. As he walked toward it across the field, a new image grafted itself to his vision, the same way Malory had taken elements from his own time and mixed them with an ideal to create a new, romantic insight.

  His BattleMech, he realized, was like a suit of armor worn by Arthur's knights. Both armor and a BattleMech provided practical protection, but they also made the warrior wearing them larger than life—a BattleMech decidedly so. They lifted a living warrior out of the ordinary into a realm where more could be expected from him.

  Masters reached the foot of his 'Mech, which towered ten meters above him. Without even thinking about it he began to climb up the ladder that hung down the 'Mech's left side. The metal rungs felt strange against his bare feet, unexpectedly cool and smooth.

  His thoughts turned to his mother, Jean Masters, one of the Marik Militia's most famous MechWarriors. Renowned for her battlefield cunning and peacetime grace, she had also argued frequently with her superiors, fighting to keep the battle etiquette of MechWarriors intact, while those around her surrendered to the march of "progress."

  "Times are changing, Jean," he had overheard countless officers and MechWarriors tell her. "They'll pass you by if you don't come along."

  She didn't, and the times did. Her superiors passed her over one promotion after another, for she was, in the end, a troublemaker. She always told her son that the lack of promotion didn't matter, but he always saw in her eyes that it did. Yet he'd never believed the sadness was just for herself. When she argued, she argued for the forgotten spirit of the Mech Warrior, for the fate of humans across the Inner Sphere who, caught up in the concerns of the moment, did not see where their actions might lead.

  Paul Masters had sworn he would never betray his mother's ideals, and had tried to remain true to her principles all his life. But he had always lacked the language to fully understand what she meant. Reaching the head of the Phoenix Hawk, he popped the cockpit hatch and dropped inside. Settling into the command couch, he hit a button that reeled in the ladder and slowly closed the 'Mech's polarized canopy. Before him the unlit control switches and status lights framed the faceplate that looked out over the palace grounds. The 'Mech would not come alive until he'd put on the neurohelmet that allowed him to pilot the machine and to enter his secret authorization code and voiceprint.

  Taking the joystick and the throttle, respectively, in his hands, an odd sensation came over him. In the darkness, dressed only in a robe, his thoughts full of Malory's knights, Masters felt himself become larger than life. He felt his flesh extend to the edges of the metal cockpit, and then beyond, stretching to the surface of the Phoenix Hawk itself. He was ready for something extraordinary. The pace of his breathing increased. His thoughts tumbled in and out of the military texts he had read throughout his life. He found himself hungering for the ideals so often proclaimed by the military, but so rarely found. The Grail, he realized, or at least his Grail, was a conduct that allowed him his profession. Killing was never good, but he was good at it. He needed forgiveness for that, and he needed a compass to help him find that forgiveness.

  His mother had taught him that a BattleMech was an extension of the man or woman who piloted it. He understood now. That was the beauty of a 'Mech being shaped like a human. It was powerful, larger than life. A giant. She told him that no matter how well a warrior knew how to use a 'Mech's weapons, he was no more than a servant to the 'Mech if that was all he could do. A MechWarrior must have a spirit so large that it filled the machine, as Arthur's knights were larger than life, greater even than the thick plate mail in which they were swathed while astride their huge war-horses.

  But a BattleMech is so huge, Masters thought. How can we possibly fill such roles? And then it occurred to him. As technology grew bigger and bigger, nearly dwarfing the people who used it, the human spirit would also have to expand to match the advance of machines. He couldn't be sure, but he thought that might be why wars were spinning out of control. People had given up, had handed over their souls to the machinery, letting the weapons become mythical rather than the people who used them.

  If Mech Warriors were to survive in the face of competing technologies, something extraordinary must happen. Something extraordinary like a new knightly order based on ideals rather than mercenary contracts.

  He understood Thomas' plan now, and embraced it. It was an outlandish idea, sure to inspire ridicule. But hadn't the barons and lords mocked Arthur when the boy-king drew the sword from the stone and claimed Britain as his own? So, too, would others mock Thomas as an idealist-king, but no matter. Standing at his side he would always have Paul Masters.

  * * *

  The MechWarriors gathered in the courtyard of Thomas Marik's palace, one hundred fifty of them. In the previous six months Thomas had been inviting them from all corners of the Free Worlds League, and not one had declined to come. Thomas and Masters had chosen well, men and women who leaped at the opportunity offered, who instinctively appreciated what was at stake. Not that it had been an easy choice for the warriors to make. For many of them, accepting the invitation meant cutting ties with fellow warriors, with local governments, sometimes with families. At stake was the matter of loyalty, and none of these MechWarriors took loyalty lightly.

  The warriors stood in a large circle, in the center of which was a massive holomap, ten meters across. The map floated in the air, showing the stars of the Inner Sphere, tho
usands of small, colored orbs the size of fists. The colors formed wedges representing the various political boundaries into which human-occupied space was divided.

  The Free Worlds League showed up as stars with golden halos. Within the halos were smaller orbs of many colors, the sub-clusters representing the many governments and factions composing the League. Some of these were very powerful and included several star systems: the Marik Commonwealth, the Duchy of Andurien, the Principality of Regulus, the Principality of Gibson, and a dozen others.

  Outside the League, filling out the sphere, floated thick wedges of color representing the other Successor States: red and green for the Federated Commonwealth, orange for the Draconis Combine, blue for the Capellan Confederation. These star empires had been at war on and off for centuries, and another was brewing. The MechWarriors knew it too. War always seemed to be percolating in the Inner Sphere. At the opposite side of the Sphere from the Free Worlds League were the white stars of the Clan Wedge, all the worlds stolen by the invaders from beyond the far-flung borders of the Inner Sphere.

  Just as the MechWarriors formed a ring around the holomap, so their 'Mechs formed a giant circle around them. Like their human counterparts, the massive metal doppelgangers stood at crisp attention.

  Surrounding the ring of 'Mechs were spectators crammed into bleachers set up around the courtyard. The guests included heads of state, other MechWarriors, diplomats, and family members.

  According to Thomas, however, the most important group were the randomly selected citizens from across the Free Worlds League who had no direct contact with the wheels of power. These folk stood down front, with a clear view of the spectacle, and they would eventually carry the story of the ceremony back to their families and friends on worlds dozens of light years away.

  Of course, the ceremony was being broadcast live, via hyperpulse generator, the marvel of technology controlled by Word of Blake. Within weeks everyone in the Free Worlds League would know what had happened at the Marik Palace on Atreus.