Malicious intent

by Michael A. Stackpole

  "I would agreed but ..."

  "But?"

  Victor met his cousin's stare head-on. "But I can't trust my sister's data. That's why we diverted here instead of going straight to Coventry—to pick up more troops."

  Phelan shook his head. "It's her realm at stake. Why would she not want it dealt with? Deliberately underestimating the strength of the enemy on Coventry threatens her nation, and she wouldn't do that."

  "No?" Victor swallowed hard. "She already has."

  "It wasn't her realm at that time."

  Victor blinked. "What?"

  Phelan folded his arms across his chest. "When she murdered your mother, it wasn't her realm."

  Shock hit Victor with a jolt. Even though he knew to his own satisfaction that Katherine was complicit in his mother's assassination, he had almost a knee-jerk reaction to defend her—a member of his family—from such a vicious accusation. Every time he thought about Katherine, every time he reviewed in his mind the evidence for her guilt, part of him still hoped and wished she could somehow be proved innocent.

  In the silence that followed Phelan's remark, he was glad to see that none of the others in the room had shown any sign of surprise at Phelan's statement. Victor was so used to the guilty finger being pointed at him by the scandal-vids and the conspiracy mongers that he thought Jerry Cranston, Agent Curaitis, and he himself were the only people who believed him truly innocent.

  "How do you know Katherine did it?"

  Phelan looked back at Colonel Allard. "Dan?"

  The white-haired mercenary officer nodded. "We learned from Phelan's father, who heard it from your mother, that you'd asked her not to abdicate in your favor. You could have taken power any time you wanted it. You didn't need to murder Melissa to get it. Besides, killing her would also have deprived you of her popularity and influence in the troubled parts of your realm. Her death stole from you a powerful weapon to use against your enemies."

  Victor looked at the others. "None of you believed I killed her?"

  Kai shook his head. "You're a soldier first and a politician second. You deal with enemies ruthlessly, but you never saw your mother as an enemy."

  Hohiro Kurita smiled. "My sister told me you were innocent. I consider her judgment unimpeachable in such matters."

  The Precentor Martial tugged at his eye-patch. "The Davions, whom you most resemble in temperament, are not much given to deposing their flesh and blood. That is a Steiner trait—one that has flowered full in your sister. Foolishly she concerns herself with her position instead of focusing on the threat to the Inner Sphere as a whole."

  Victor shook his head, again not believing his ears. "I feel as if I'm waking from a dream in which I was the only one who realized it was a dream. I'd always feared that you, my peers, would believe the rumors told about me. I never thought to ask."

  Kai clapped Victor on the shoulder. "Victor, if we thought Melissa Steiner Davion's blood was on your hands, we'd not be here."

  Phelan's voice hardened. "And you would be dead, Victor. The same blast that killed your mother slew mine. That blood debt would have long ago been paid."

  "Then come with us, Phelan. After Coventry, we can go to Tharkad ..."

  "No." Phelan shook his head vehemently. "You know as well as I do that to depose Katrina by force of arms would be to ignite a civil war that would destroy the Lyran Alliance and give the Clans a free path to Terra. As much as all of us might like to see her brought to justice as quickly as possible, that has to wait until we have proof of her guilt—incontrovertible proof."

  The Clan Khan took in a deep breath. "It is for a similar reason I cannot go with you to Coventry. The Wolves—the other Wolves—are shifting troops around. Just as Vlad has spies among my people, so do I have spies among his. I do not know what he is planning, but he could easily be preparing a strike into the Alliance. My father made a commitment to the worlds in the Defense Cordon. While the Hounds go to help you, I must stay here to prevent my old comrades from attacking."

  Victor nodded. "I understand your thinking, but I think you're being overly cautious. We need your help."

  "I know. I am prepared to give it." Phelan looked at Ragnar, and the tall, blond man stepped forward. "I will send this warrior with you."

  The Prince of the Federated Commonwealth frowned. "One warrior wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

  "Don't discount the effectiveness of one warrior." Phelan slowly smiled. "In the invasion, one warrior took the world of Gunzburg all by himself. Ragnar has earned the rank of warrior among us. He knows the way of the Clans—how we think and how we operate. You will find him invaluable in dealing with the Falcons."

  "Glad to have you with us, Ragnar." Victor raised an eyebrow at Phelan. "Sure you don't have a couple hundred more like him we can borrow?"

  "No, Victor." Phelan shook his head. "You're trying to save the Inner Sphere from the Clans, and so am I. Our methods diverge, this time. In the future, perhaps not. I am a Wolf, Victor, but I am also a Kell. Arc-Royal is my home and my allegiance is with the Inner Sphere. Our goals are the same, and I hope we will both succeed."

  "So do I." Victor offered Phelan his hand. "If you won't give us more warriors, at least wish us luck."

  "You won't need it," Phelan said, shaking Victor's hand. "Bargain hard, bargain well, and what you want done will be done."

  36

  Whitting Coventry

  District of Donegal, Lyran Alliance

  30 May 3058

  Doc piloted his Centurion forward and to the right as the Clan Hellhound lumbered out into the darkened Whitting street. The pistol-like large pulse laser in the Clan 'Mech's right hand came up and tracked Doc's Centurion. Then a volley of gleaming green energy darts sizzled through the night, casting sickly shadows as they flashed past the Centurion's left arm.

  They continued on and passed to the right of the Hunchback Doc's 'Mech had been blocking. The Hunchback's shoulder-mounted autocannon roared, shooting fire and metal out in a fiery burst that hit the Hellhound in the right knee. The joint locked as the depleted-uranium shells munched the ferro-fibrous armor on that limb. Unsated, the slugs devoured the ferrotitanium bones of the leg, severing them at the knee.

  As the shin and foot careened backward down the narrow cobblestone street, the 50-ton war machine toppled to the right. The Hellhound crashed through the corrugated tin wall of a warehouse, then lay there helplessly as the structure slowly collapsed around it.

  Doc centered his targeting cross hairs on the humanoid Hellhound's broad back. One burst of fire from the autocannon in the Centurion's right arm stripped all the armor off and nibbled away at the internal structures holding the 'Mech together. Doc's medium laser, joined by two beams from Murdoch's Hunchback, ravaged the rest of the Hellhound's heart, exploding a jump jet and reducing the fusion engine to incandescent slag.

  "Lead here, Hellhound neutralized." Doc turned the Centurion around and started back toward the center of town. "South end secure."

  "One Lance here, Lead. Peregrine down, north secure."

  "Roger, One. TRU, you are good to go."

  "Roger, Lead. Incoming."

  Doc took a quick look around the main square of Whitting. Built on a series of four hills, the town had an old-world alpine kind of look—the kind you saw in old hardcopy histories or in reconstruction villages and living museums. Thatched roofs over full or partial log construction marked most of the buildings in the core of the city. Warehouses and other uglier but more utilitarian buildings had sprung up as required, but even their presence hadn't kept the town planners from mandating cobblestone streets that wound here and there in a pattern that was as pretty as it was impractical.

  Doc could see that the town had once been quite beautiful, but the various military occupations had taken their toll. Cobblestones did not fare well beneath the pounding feet of BattleMechs. Much of the land surrounding the town had also been churned up by vehicles, 'Mechs, and explosions, leaving muddy flats where greensward had
once been. Some buildings also showed signs of war, from bullet holes to spots where a broad-shouldered 'Mech had scraped flower-boxes and shutters from both sides of a street as it passed by.

  To the north Doc could see a lightning storm lighting up the horizon. At least, from here, it looks like a lightning storm. He knew those strobing flashes marked the point where Shelly Brubaker's force had come out of the mountains and struck at the rear of the Clan line. Her assault had pulled most of the Falcon garrison from Whitting and sent it toward the front, leaving behind a Star of 'Mechs and a Star of Elernentals. Working together the Titans had managed to mop up the resistance without taking any losses. Doc attributed that to their having come in from the south themselves and to the Titans having become very good at hitting without getting hit.

  The Dragoons' Tactical Response, Unit—an infantry squad cobbled together from security personnel and 'Mech pilots whose machines had been shot out from under them—sped into the center of town in a stream of hovercars and trucks. One small sedan swerved off toward the downed Hellhound while the rest headed in straight at the City Hall. The first people out of the vehicles shot concussion grenades in through the open doors, followed them with smoke, then the rest of the force surged on in.

  Doc saw light flare explosively in the darkened windows of the upper floors. Though he had his external mikes up sufficiently to hear the blasts and the tinkle of falling glass hitting the street below, he heard no gunfire from within the building. Moving his Centurion forward, he brought it to where it could cover the western side of the building, and noticed the 'Mechs from his second lance covering the back. "Force leader, this is TRU leader. The building is secure."

  "Great, TRU Lead. Anything useful?"

  "Lots of data and a handful of prisoners. We'll be loading it up to head back out."

  "Roger, TRU Lead." Doc saw the hovercar that had headed toward the Hellhound come into the center of town with a man trussed up on the hood like a stag taken while hunting. The more the merrier.

  Doc keyed his radio. "Titans, form up and secure our exit vector. We're going home. This is one in the win column for us, people. Well done. Mission accomplished."

  37

  DropShip Barbarossa, Inbound from the Zenith Jump Point Coventry

  District of Donegal, Lyran Alliance

  5 June 3058

  Sitting behind the desk in his cabin, Victor Ian Steiner-Davion studied the holographic projection of the Coventry system. Every fifteen seconds a neon-green plane would descend through the spherical display, refreshing the images as the DropShip's scanners presented new data to be factored in. Each ship represented in the sphere had a small alphanumeric tag trailing after it. By punching the code into the keyboard on the desk he could call up what the computers knew or could guess about any of the targets.

  There's very little to guess about. The task force Jump-Ships had plotted themselves in at the zenith jump point, nearly 4.7 billion miles above the north pole of the Coventry system's sun. An equal distance below the sun sat the system's recharge station and, as expected, the Jade Falcon fleet of JumpShips and WarShips. Under most circumstances, possession of that location would have been contested, but the casualties and damage done to the Inner Sphere forces by fighting JumpShips would have made even a victory far too costly.

  The DropShips that had come in with Victor trailed the Barbarossa as the wedge-shaped formation jetted in toward the third planet. Six hours behind them came a second formation containing the DropShips of Katrina's task force. Victor couldn't help but smile as he watched that second flight slowly catch up with his ships. Coming in at roughly two Gs of acceleration, they'd join his formation just as day dawned down on Coventry's largest continent, Veracruz.

  Victor glanced at the chronographic displays at the bottom of the sphere. One showed landfall, at their current rate of speed, to be nine and three-quarters days away. The second showed less than an hour remaining before Hohiro, Dan Allard, and the Precentor Martial were due to rendezvous with the Barbarossa from their own DropShips to begin analysis and planning of the action down on the planet.

  Victor glanced down at the screen of his small noteputer. "With three Dragoon regiments, the Eleventh Lyran Guards, the Harloc Raiders, and the Knights of the Inner Sphere added into our force, I show us with approximately twelve and a half 'Mech regiments. The Falcons are reported at a strength of four Galaxies on the planet, which would make us roughly twice their size. According to conventional wisdom that makes the two forces virtually equal."

  Ragnar's blue eyes flicked from the display to Victor. "Remember, Highness, the Kell Hounds, the Dragoons, and the ComStar units have a great deal of equipment that originated from within the Clans. With the exception of the Harloc Raiders, the rest of the units in your force all have updated Inner Sphere equipment. A two-to-one ratio in favor of the Inner Sphere was necessary to achieve parity with Clan forces back when the invasion started, but by now your two-to-one advantage may be closer to a true advantage."

  Seated beside Ragnar, Kai Allard-Liao nodded in agreement. "We can't forget the forces on the ground on Veracruz already. They may have another regiment or two down there."

  "Or they may be gone altogether." Victor shook his head. "If we're lucky I think we can count on the mercs to keep our landing zone secure. Whatever their number, they won't bring us up to the three-to-one advantage normally suggested for a successful assault against a defender."

  The Wolf warrior smiled. "That advantage you can gain through good bargaining."

  "I don't follow. When we fought the Clans during the invasion, we put up all we had to offer and they decided how much they were going to send against us." Victor frowned. "Surely the Falcon commander would put up all available forces to oppose us."

  "Not necessarily."

  "Why not?"

  Ragnar smiled indulgently. "If she has four Galaxies and bids two in the defense of the planet, she creates a competition among her own people to be included in the planetary defense. She will get the best effort from her warriors because, even if they die in the effort, their exploits will be recorded and their genes will become part of the breeding pool."

  "What if she says she's defending with two Galaxies and I decide to attack with everything I have?"

  "A Clan commander would never do such a thing. Too great a loss of honor."

  "I'm not a Clan commander, Ragnar."

  The Wolf nodded. "So I recall. In that case she would probably choose to fight you in a place that puts you at an extreme disadvantage. Now, provided the data sent out earlier is reliable and she's still alive, you're dealing with Marthe Pryde. Her line had been in disfavor, but was redeemed at Tukayyid. The Prydes hold themselves to high standards. She could declare that an attack using an overwhelming force makes our force dezgra."

  "Dezgra?"

  "Disgraced. Hohiro would think of it as being unclean or dishonored." Ragnar hesitated for a moment. "Such a declaration would have repercussions for you if you were a Clansman. In this situation, it might allow her to withdraw her force, but she would be disgraced herself by retreating from an Inner Sphere attack."

  "She'd prefer death?"

  "Think about it, Victor," Kai began, "the reason we want to live is to stay with our families and raise children to inherit the future. Within the Clans the survival of the geneparent is incidental to that. With a valiant death a person might guarantee lots of progeny."

  "Well, in the Clans we do prefer people to live through combat and work up into command positions," Ragnar commented, "but Kai's still right. Certainly the valiant death of Aidan Pryde on Tukayyid redeemed his line. The Prydes are all but worshipped by the Falcons."

  "Great, I've got a Falcon-goddess defending a world against me." Victor smiled in spite of how he felt. "It's a pity my sister isn't here. I could do what Phelan talked about and bid her to take the planet. She could go one on one with this Marthe Pryde."

  "Marthe would have to bid herself down to using only one arm." R
agnar laughed softly. "She'd still hand Katherine her head."

  Victor's smile grew. "It's a plan."

  Kai cleared his voice. "You'd lose the planet."

  "Yeah, there is a down side to it." The Prince sighed. "I'll need help preparing for the bid."

  "Are you going to bid the fight, Victor, or are you going to let the Precentor Martial do it?" Kai asked. "Given that ComStar and the Com Guards defeated the Clans before, the Falcons might consider that Focht has the most right to conduct negotiations. This is especially true if the Word of Blake conquest of Terra has this Marthe Pryde thinking about violating the truce line."

  "That's a good point, Kai."

  Ragnar nodded. "You'll have another seven days before Marthe challenges you. Of course, I wonder if any sort of consensus will have been reached by then."

  "Meaning?"

  The Wolf laughed abruptly. "Highness—Victor, I am not the kid I was on Outreach seven years ago. Even though I've spent a lot of time among the Wolves and I've become a warrior, I haven't forgotten how it is in the Inner Sphere. Dammit, my speech is deteriorating."

  Victor looked at him. "Excuse me?"

  Kai jerked a thumb at Ragnar. "Clanners do not use contractions."

  "How would you know ... ?"

  "I've spent more time with Clanners than you have, Victor—in fact, I've spent more time with Jade Falcons than either of you, I'd bet." Kai rested a hand on Ragnar's shoulder. "Back to your point."

  "Thanks. My point is this: in the second force you have troops from the Free Worlds League, the Capellan Confederation, the Lyran Alliance, and Wolf's Dragoons. Even at the conference on Outreach all those forces did not get along. The League supported the rest of the House leaders in the fight against the Clans because your father blackmailed Thomas Marik. Romano Liao kept the Capellan Confederation's troops out of the fight entirely—the Harloc Raiders are breaking new ground here. The Eleventh Lyran Guards is a Steiner loyalist unit, and the Dragoons are probably going to be spoiling for their own fight just so they can get their own people out of the situation down there."