Masters of War

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Victor, on the other hand, dealt with problems in an entirely different way. He faced up to them. He learned to deal with them. He never ran away from them. Victor had his supporters and detractors—both camps having become far more polarized since his death—but on that one point they agreed. Victor spent his whole life learning and, along the way, became wise enough to achieve many of his goals and help lead the Inner Sphere to an unprecedented period of peace.

  As the mercenaries turned to leave, and the lights in the auditorium went down, Alaric followed the elementals from the hall. They would take him to a ground vehicle that would carry him to Donovan’s DropShip and out of the system. It would be a long trip, and at the end of it, Alaric would have to face Khan Seth Ward.

  He squeezed into the vehicle between two elementals and was pleased that neither they nor Donovan wanted to speak to him. He had a decision to make. If he decided to deal with Anastasia the way his mother handled things, he’d be forced to kill Donovan and anyone else who had been a party to his disgrace. That would include Anastasia, Ian and the rest of the Wolf Hunters. Verena would be tossed into the mix as well.

  If he adopted the Victor Davion method, he would need to analyze what Anastasia had done and locate her weakness. She had to have one—no one was invincible. In fact, the loss on Unukalhai showed one glaring one. She had plotted a tactically brilliant maneuver and risked much on it. Had her armor been detected early and had Donovan moved hard to counter it, he could have destroyed it. He claimed to have had no troops working in the Darien area, and the Kalhai government repeated that claim, but rumors had run rampant regarding a local militia having blown the bridge to keep back the Clans.

  Once that had been accomplished, she stopped her advance and conceded defeat. She clearly did not like being outthought, and when she perceived that to be the case, she hesitated. This meant that if one could outthink her not once, but twice, her hesitation at the first instance would allow a second surprise to completely devastate her.

  For a heartbeat or three Alaric believed he’d unlocked the mystery to Anastasia Kerensky. When next they met, he’d be able to craft an assault that would rip her Wolf Hunters apart. She’d be his captive and he would repay her kindnesses to him with interest.

  She would not be pleased.

  His mind began to spin fantasies of revenge, but then he stumbled. His conclusion was based on a series of assumptions that were built on nothing more than rumors. He recalled very clearly the surprise in Donovan’s voice when he’d claimed he had no troops operating near Darien. If that is true, and if his allies were not there either . . .

  Alaric’s mouth went dry and he felt even smaller. Anastasia blew the bridge herself! Even though it seemed to make no sense, he knew it to be true. She had set the battle, set Donovan up to show how he had been outplayed, then let him get away. But why?

  His head swam as he imagined wheels within wheels, and games being played on levels of which he was barely cognizant. She avoided a fight that was too close to call, and that would have inflicted severe casualties on both sides. At the very least, a victory would have rendered her Wolf Hunters inoperable for months, perhaps even a year. Moreover, the planet’s government had become hostile to her effort, and being in charge of a damaged unit in a hostile environment was something no leader wished to face.

  Her withdrawal also would encourage Donovan and the other Wolves to underestimate her. That would be to her advantage. Donovan, by following Alaric’s example, had turned the battle for the planet into a Trial for Possession. This allowed him to regroup his forces and gave Donovan an advantage.

  And he still will try to use it against her. It was cost effective, after all. It all began to unravel for him. Donovan would repeat that tactic, and look for a way to set up a battle that mirrored the one she had backed away from. He would choose a battlefield that he thought gave him an advantage. And she already knows where that will be and how to defeat him.

  He shivered. Anastasia lost deliberately, knowing he would be returned to the Wolves. He didn’t understand that, though he did acknowledge that he had hardly been of much use to her. In fact, after the La Blon conference, where she had used him to validate her plans and embarrass any opposition, he’d been useless. Giving him up cost her nothing.

  But what did she gain from it? He exhaled slowly, the noise filling his mask. She was handing the Wolves an able commander, one who had spent time with her. I think I know her. It is easy for me to assume I do. He already had begun to make assumptions. He had begun to assume that when outthought she hesitated, and operating on that assumption would be deadly. Moreover, she did not have to know Alaric well to defeat him, she just had to know how he perceived her, and his perception of her had been something she had controlled since the moment they met.

  His brain felt like it was going to explode. He slipped his wrist from beneath his cloak and examined it. He was certain the elementals thought he was looking for a bond cord, but he was checking for traces of the marionette strings. Anastasia had played him expertly, and doubtless was playing everyone else equally well. He assumed that she even knew of his liaison with Verena. I wonder if she set that up.

  He shook his head. He didn’t even know if this analysis of Anastasia was right, or if it was merely a layer she’d presented to him to make him think he knew her. She would easily read from his strategy which of her layers he was treating as true, and she had him.

  It occurred to him that perhaps neither his mother’s nor Victor’s method of dealing with problems was entirely applicable. I need a synthesis. He resolved to do as much analysis as possible, but also to deal with his enemies as analysis revealed their weaknesses. Anastasia would take a lot of time and serious analysis. Donovan and others, not nearly as much.

  And, if I do this correctly, I might even have one problem eliminate another. With that thought he smiled and nodded, and waited for the long journey home to end.

  26

  DropShip Jaeger, Outbound, Unukalhai

  Former Prefecture IX, Republic of the Sphere

  25 February 3137

  Anastasia looked up from her berth as Ian filled the hatch. “You are still uneasy about my having given Alaric back to the Wolves, quiaff, Doctor?”

  The man nodded. “He is a very dangerous enemy. In fact, I would almost rather have you as my enemy than him.”

  This brought Anastasia upright and teased a smile onto her face. “You give him a great deal of credit.”

  “Perhaps you give him too little.”

  “That is possible.” She cocked her head. “I had planned to keep him a little longer, but the opportunity to surrender him to his rival was too good to pass up. Alaric will be anxious to get back into the fight, so he will push Donovan hard.”

  Ian shook his head. “You say that as if you’ll benefit from it. You might not face Donovan again.”

  “Oh, but I will.”

  “How do you figure that?” Ian’s brows furrowed. “Alaric is smart enough to figure out that you blew the bridge at Darien. He will know, therefore, that you deliberately surrendered him to his rival. You gave him over for humiliation. As proud as you are, he is more so. He will want revenge.”

  “True, but on whom? On me for losing? On Donovan for making me the offer? On all the Clans for a system that guaranteed he would be humiliated?”

  “With Alaric, all three would be targets.”

  “Exactly.”

  Ian shook his head. “I don’t understand, then. I grant that he is shrewd, and any target he wants to destroy is in for serious trouble, but the khan won’t even let him enter the bidding process if Alaric seems out of control. The khan might hold him back simply because he has been in your camp and could have been deceived by any number of things. Would you let him fight if you were in the khan’s position?”

  “No, but the khan will let him fight.” Her eyes sparkled. “And Alaric will not be coming to Skondia. He will attack elsewhere.”

  “How can you be s
o sure? He is not that predictable.”

  “True, but Donovan is.” Anastasia rose from her berth and stretched. “Of the worlds in Prefecture Nine, there are only two targets of high enough value that they will be defended by strong units—the sort of units that can build a reputation. Those worlds are Skondia and Nusakan. Along with the Nusakan Rangers, we will be defending Skondia. Donovan will see the world as valuable enough to be worth attacking, and he has the added benefit of facing units that have defeated the Clans before. In our case, he’s fought us once and won, but is not certain how he won. He will choose Skondia.”

  “But what if Alaric tells him how he won here?”

  “It does not matter. Donovan may assume that Alaric is angry and being petty, attempting to steal the glory of his victory. If he does that, he refuses to believe we let him win, or he assumes that I was so afraid of him that I made no serious effort to defeat him. He knows I was trying to outflank him, so he will be wary of that sort of attack in the future. Alternately, he can believe Alaric and take everything he has to say into account. He will be wary of feints and deceptions.”

  “And if Alaric says nothing?”

  “Then Donovan still has to wrestle with his lack of knowledge of how he won. It is an unknown that can never be known. Donovan is a numbers person. It will drive him insane. If he has too few numbers he frets. If he has too much in the way of numbers, he will go insane.” Anastasia shrugged. “Either way we have him.”

  Ian looked at her expressionlessly. “You say this as if it’s all a game of chess.”

  “And you react as if it’s not.” She pointed toward the deck and the planet they were racing away from. “My contract required me to land troops and fight a battle with the Clans. I got a bonus for entering Anapar. Upon my departure, the administration of the planet was turned over to local civil authority. Granted, none of this occurred exactly as my employers anticipated or specified, but I accomplished what I needed to accomplish.”

  “All this implies that you could have defeated Donovan on Unukalhai.”

  “I could have, but at a horrible cost. The advantage is always to the defender. Always has been, always will be. Defense is always easier than offense. I did not have the position or a sufficient superiority of firepower to defeat Donovan without laying waste to my whole unit. Moreover, Unukalhai is not an important battlefield. Defeating him there would have meant little. Defeating him on Skondia, on the other hand, will be big news. Not only will we have the advantage of defending on Skondia, but our victory there will cement our reputation within the Inner Sphere. This positions us to be able to do many useful things.”

  His eyes sharpened. “There are whole realms of things in play here that I know nothing about.”

  Anastasia smiled. “I am the leader of a mercenary unit looking to build my reputation so I can build my fortune.”

  “I don’t buy that, Colonel.”

  “I wouldn’t look for more than there is, Ian. It will drive you insane, just as it will Donovan.”

  “Sometimes I think you live to drive us all insane.” He smiled. “And letting Alaric go was a step in that direction for him?”

  She shook her head. “Not to drive him insane, but to unsettle him. Alaric is confident—egotistical, even, but not with all the negative connotations that usually implies. He thinks quickly and well, but extrapolates too far forward. He looks beyond, so he trips over those things that are right in front of him. My trading him for Donovan withdrawing a Star, and then allowing him to be sent away, will have confused him. He will want to exact revenge, but because he doesn’t know why I did what I did, he is going to hesitate in coming after me. I put that at a ninety-five percent probability. If he does choose to come to Skondia, he will be completely out of control and ineffective.”

  “So he will go to Nusakan.”

  “Most likely.”

  “And that is why you had Verena stationed there?” Ian crossed his arms over his chest. “You know they had a liaison on La Blon.”

  “Hardly a surprise. They are young and were united in their hatred for a common enemy. Me.”

  “You say that as if you are proud.”

  Anastasia thought for a moment. “Maybe I am. When I sent her away it was because she limited herself. I have watched her, and will watch her more, especially against Alaric. Nusakan will be an interesting test for the both of them. Will any lingering personal feelings affect how they fight? In Verena’s case, the answer is yes. It might even get her killed.”

  He shook his head again. “I can’t understand why you have it in for her. She’s not bad as a warrior. In fact, she’s done well since she left us.”

  “There is no denying that, Ian.” Anastasia tapped her breastbone. “The problem with Verena is that she does not embrace war here, in the heart. She is all in the head.”

  “She was in her heart when she decked Hardin.”

  “Very true. She showed passion then, and that was good. The problem is that passion scares her. It represents the risk of being out of control and being wrong. She controls for failure, so she throttles any chance at success. If she could get past that, she has a chance at greatness.”

  “Do you think she can?”

  “I don’t know. She may have merit yet. And future use.” Anastasia shrugged. “If Alaric does not kill her.”

  Ian raised an eyebrow. “You think of him as far colder than I. Do you mean he will actually kill her, or just that she will die fighting against him?”

  “He will kill her.”

  “I cannot say I see it.”

  Anastasia chuckled. “It is because you still have the spark of romance in your heart, Doctor. You cling to the idea that MechWarriors are heirs to the grand chivalric traditions that harken back almost two millennia. Gallantry is a wonderful idea, an ideal to be strived for, but we have seen enough war to know that it is anything but gallant.

  “I will tell you what most likely will happen at Nusakan. Verena will find herself outmaneuvered by Alaric. He can read her. He will know what she is going to do before she does. She will feel compelled to attack in an effort to save what is left of her command. Perhaps she will even bargain with him for a winner-take-all confrontation. He will accept and kill her remorselessly.”

  “She has no chance against him?”

  Anastasia thought for a moment. “Perhaps one, a slender one. To avail herself of it, however, she would have to operate so far outside her comfort zone that she would really not be herself. In that case she might win.”

  He nodded. “I think I shall hope for that outcome.”

  “If it happens, I will have to reconsider her position.” Anastasia smiled. “She will prove very useful—more so than I would have imagined.”

  “You are again talking about realms I do not see.”

  She slapped him on the shoulder. “Do not trouble yourself, Ian. Come, the only realm we need worry ourselves with is Skondia. We will meet Donovan there. We already have defeated him. We just need to pick out the battlefield where we will destroy him, and guarantee the future of the Wolf Hunters.”

  27

  DropShip Thylacine, Outbound, Unukalhai

  Former Prefecture IX, Republic of the Sphere

  27 February 3137

  Alaric bowed his head in an attempt to hide the blush crawling up his face. He’d known this moment would come. Khan Seth Ward had been too busy to meet with him but now, as Donovan was preparing to bid against other Star colonels for the privilege of attacking further into Prefecture IX, the khan could no longer avoid his company. Alaric had no doubt the khan found it as distasteful as he did, but likewise found it necessary.

  As the slender man walked into the waiting area overlooking the holotank where the bidding would take place, a profound wave of shame ignited Alaric’s cheeks. In the days since being accepted back among the Wolves, Alaric had tried to come to grips with all that had happened to him. The Right of Return had seldom been invoked, and no one seemed to know how to behave towa
rd him. The default treatment was to ignore him as much as possible, speak little to him directly or not at all, and generally act as if they wished he were dead.

  The khan stopped as the door slid shut behind him, then smiled ever so slightly. The smile reminded Alaric of those Anastasia would wear, and he didn’t like it. Something was going on, and he was fairly certain that his life would be more miserable for it.

  “It is good to see you again, Alaric.”

  “And you, my Khan.” Alaric tried not to make anything of the fact that the khan had not used a rank when addressing him, but fear fluttered in his stomach.

  “Please forgive my inability to meet with you prior to this. I have had much to attend to.” The khan’s smile broadened. “I want you to know that your mother was informed of your loss, and she flatly refused to believe you were dead. She said she would have known.”

  He produced a small disk from a pocket in his fatigues. “She recorded a message for you. You may listen to it now, if you wish.”

  Alaric shook his head. “Later, sir, thank you.”

  Seth Ward approached and leaned heavily on the railing of the gallery overlooking the holotank. “Donovan will be bidding to continue the invasion. The next wave will find very rich worlds. Any Star colonel who successfully participates in this wave will reap great glory. He will certainly earn consideration for a Bloodname, and doubtless be fodder for the breeding program. That is what we fight for, is it not? Immortality among the Clans?”

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  The khan turned to face him. “You are a problem, you know.”

  “Sir?”

  “I have spent much time researching the Right of Return. It has never been used much among the Clans—certainly not since we began the invasion of the Inner Sphere. In the past, it was used almost exclusively to invite back a venerable warrior so he could return to his Clan and live out his days in honor. You are, as nearly as I can discern, the youngest warrior recovered in this manner, and one of the few who was not even Bloodnamed.”