Heir Apparent

by Michael Stackpole

  Ivan’s voice came back quietly. “Spurs is green and hot.”

  Walter half grinned. While Ivan had gotten somewhat better during their training runs, he’d not exhibited any particular behavior that lent itself to the natural development of a call sign nickname. Ivan had been trying too hard and thinking about everything, almost never letting himself get caught up in the flow of the moment. The few times he did, his surprise and joy kicked him out of the instant, then he thought hard to get back into it.

  The only thing he did without fail or thought was to wear old cavalry spurs on his boots. He wasn’t the first MechWarrior to do that—and wearing spurs was no less impractical than carrying a knife or wearing a pistol in the cockpit. When Walter had asked about the spurs, Ivan said they were the spurs his father had worn during his Final Vetting.

  Walter had nodded and said, “Spurs it is, or you are,” and Ivan hadn’t raised even the hint of a protest.

  “After you, Spurs.” Walter kept his Blackjack in the hangar stall as the Chairman Presumptive stepped Destrier through the half-empty hangar. After a brief ceremony in which the Litzau Lancers had all wished Ivan well, the Lancers headed out to Litzau Enterprises headquarters to flank the driveway and welcome esteemed visitors.

  That left the Angels in the hangar. They lined up at the feet of their ’Mechs to wish Walter and his charge well. Unlike the Lancers—who were 60 percent women, and all looking quite disciplined in dress uniforms—the Angels affected more casual and irregular dress, quite in the spirit of the celebrations going on throughout the city. Still, as Destrier strode past, the Angels saluted solemnly and Walter felt a bit of a lump rising in his throat.

  Ivan marched Destrier straight out into the sunlight. The Trebuchet’s leaner lines made it look positively noble compared to the blocky Blackjack—Ivan’s Don Quixote to Walter’s Sancho Panza. It hadn’t been lost upon Walter that a big portion of the Final Vetting was intended to be a spectacle that would cast Ivan as a capable and fearless leader. Until they got into the countryside, Walter was content to follow at a respectful distance and foster that illusion.

  The BattleMechs stalked through Rivergaard, marching down the middle of roads lined with Dhivi throngs. Banners hung from buildings. Pennants flew from roofs, and people waved flags with the Litzau corporate crest, or the planetary flag, and sometimes both. The First Family members wore better clothes and tended to be stationed in upper-story windows. The rest of the populace remained closer to the ground, and yet cheered more enthusiastically than their upper-crust fellows.

  They passed through the city, then, toward the northern border, they paused within sight of the Litzau Enterprises headquarters. Warded by the Lancers, the building had a classical feel, with tall columns and a portico roof crowded with the First Family elite, their guests and other people of importance. Brightly colored bunting undulated with the light breeze.

  The Acting Chairperson saluted them from a dais toward the front. Her voice filled the cockpit, her pride unmistakable. “This is your last task, Ivan Litzau. The Final Vetting. Return victorious, and you prove that Litzau Enterprises will prosper long and well beneath your leadership.”

  Around her the throngs of Dhivi nobles applauded. Some stood and, very reluctantly, others slowly joined them. Walter looked for Hake among the crowd, but couldn’t find him. Likely off getting a beer.

  Ivan’s reply to his mother contained only a tiny hint of anxiety. “For the company, our shareholders, the First Families and the memory of my father, I shall not fail.”

  Applause again sounded, but people quickly sat back down.

  Alexandra Litzau gave no sign she noticed anything but the two BattleMechs before her. “Go with God, my son.”

  Walter choked down the lump thickening his throat. Ivan surprised him by executing a crisp turn to the right, then marching Destrier up toward the hinterlands. Walter kept up with him until the switchback road emerged onto a plateau. A few holographers—mostly professionals, but a few well-wishing amateurs—had set up there for some final shots. Once past them, Walter took point.

  He keyed his radio. “Flip over to Tac Two.” He punched a button on his communications console to switch radio frequencies. “You ready, Spurs?”

  “Yes.” Ivan’s voice betrayed just a hint of nerves. “So, to Hard Luck Point?”

  “That’s the first stop on our tour. Fast as we can get there. Watch your six, Spurs.”

  “Roger, Rail.”

  Walter took the lead, pounding through the landscape as quickly as possible. The zone they were to explore occupied parts of three plateaus, each of which was about three hundred meters higher than the previous. The Nyqvist River flowed from the last down into the Rivergaard Valley and out to the delta. The general flow from the highlands supplied each of the plateaus with a riparian area, with forests predominating over rolling hills. Some rocky areas were the result of old glaciers moving big rocks around in the distant past. A nature preserve defined the area’s northeast border.

  Traveling into which constitutes a level of offense that Ivan said would cause his sister to murder us.

  Hard Luck Point was Ivan’s designation for a place where a meadow ended at the conjunction of two lines of hills. Getting out of the meadow and moving up required traversing a narrow pass. It would have been a perfect spot for an ambush, except that forces that worked their way north and then around could shred the ambushers with ease. His ancestor, Augustine, had killed some planetary raiders in the area—so legend went—and tradition held that all Final Vetting runs would proceed through that pass.

  Walter looked up at the holographic display. Destrier followed closely, but lost a step every time Ivan concentrated on their back trail. He had gotten much better at piloting the Trebuchet, but taking it on parades or hikes through the countryside wasn’t the same as piloting a ’Mech in combat.

  Thank goodness no one is shooting at us. Walter shifted his shoulders, easing the weight of the neurohelmet. Three days, two hundred kilometers, he can do this. This is the hard part for me. Glanced at the Trebuchet in the holodisplay’s rear firing arc. After this, Spurs gets to administrate a planet-straddling corporation. There will be a point when he wishes someone had shot at him and put him out of his misery.

  Chapter Seven

  Nyqvist Upland Preserve

  Maldives

  6 November 3000

  Four hours into the countryside, Walter and Ivan reached their first way station. The only thing remarkable about it was that the clearing was large enough that the light from their campfire barely reached their parked ’Mechs. Walter, who had never been very woodsy, had wanted to gather wood and ignite it with a shot from a laser, but Ivan had been included to hew to tradition.

  “Besides, Walter, the ’Mech’s lasers would consume all the wood all at once.”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t thinking of the ’Mech.” Walter jerked a thumb at the laser carbine he’d rested against a fallen log. “I tend to match weapon to task whenever possible.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  As Ivan ignited the fire with flint and steel, Walter rolled out bedding from their survival kits. Weather forecasts hadn’t indicated any rain—par for the course during Deep Summer—so they’d sleep out under the stars. The fire wasn’t even really necessary, since the night was warm enough that Walter anticipated sleeping on top of his bedding, but making fire was integral to the whole Final Vetting.

  A demonstration of cooking was not, so they settled for prepackaged meals. Ivan did produce a coffeepot and set water boiling at the edge of the fire, however, and poured grounds from a small container into it.

  “Either you don’t know how to make coffee, or someone has told you how mercenaries like it.”

  The young man looked up. “I don’t know how to make it, and I don’t even drink it. My ancestor . . .”

  “
I’m gathering Augustine probably ground beans by chewing them, and sprayed coffee over his enemies, defeating them handily.” Walter smiled. “Part of the ritual, I understand. Makes for good optics.”

  Ivan glanced to where a camera had been hung on a tree. Little more than a game camera, it sent occasional pictures back to Rivergaard to augment news reporting during the course of the Final Vetting. “I can’t imagine what people are thinking back home as they watch. I suppose some will be satisfied with my father’s adjustments to the company tradition, but others will be angry that we aren’t trading fire with other BattleMechs. And many more will rightly wonder what this sort of excursion has to do with my ability to administer the affairs of the planetary corporation.”

  “Practicality versus tradition seems to be front and center a lot here. Makes for many strange things.”

  “Such as?”

  Walter ripped open a foil packet and speared what appeared to be a lump of meat on the end of his spork. “Women can’t own or vote stock, but it appears most of the Litzau Lancers are female. They’re trusted with defending the corporation, but not handling business affairs. That makes very little sense.”

  “The Lancers always have had a strong female-warrior tradition. Augustine took his wife from the Lancers, and my father chose one of them to be his Companion. Then he married her.” Ivan peered cautiously into the packet he’d opened. “Are peas supposed to be that color?”

  “Yeah, if there’s even a hint of green you know someone didn’t extract all the nutritional value.” Walter gnawed on the stew meat for a bit. “Why isn’t Abigail in the Lancers?”

  “She was, once. She was very good.” The Chairman Presumptive shrugged. “Everyone told her that she’d be great as my Companion, and years of that just got to her. The same bit of unfairness you just noted caused her to resign. Well, that, and the fact that she’ll be married off to some other corporate family to make an alliance.”

  “You’d make your own sister do that?”

  Ivan shifted around so his back was to the camera, and then dropped his voice into a low whisper. “If it were up to me, or when it is up to me, I’d just as soon change things so she could be the Chairperson, and I’d resign in her favor. I know that would be a popular and positive change—unless you’re one of the First Family scions—and was what my father had hoped for. Abigail doesn’t believe we can change that fast and it makes her angry.”

  “Not a surprise.” Walter nodded. “If she’s as good a MechWarrior as you hinted, I’m surprised she’s not headed off world to find a job.”

  “As much as she hates the position that tradition has saddled her with, she does have a sense of duty to the family. She’s not alone. Sophia is very good as a researcher and could do fantastic things elsewhere, but duty to family keeps her here.”

  Something about Sophia being married off to a salaryman simply to spawn some corporate joint venture sparked quick anger in Walter. “I think it would be a shame to waste either of your sisters that way.”

  “We agree.” Ivan smiled. “Get me through this, Walter, and I promise that I will make the changes necessary to let everyone live the lives they desire.”

  “That’s a deal, sir. In fact—”

  A rising growl cut Walter off. He dropped his food and spork, then stood and reached for the laser rifle. He looked up as the sound grew in intensity. It seemed to be coming from the northeast, and from up in the sky. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and yet the sound soured Walter’s stomach.

  “Spurs, quick, mount up. Now!”

  Two swept-wing Stingray aerospace fighters screamed overhead, flying just a meter or two above the forest canopy. They raced southwest, the roar of their engines resonating through Walter’s chest. A heartbeat later, red beams from medium lasers carved branches from trees. The blue beams from particle projection cannons shattered evergreens as the artificial lightning caressed them. Then the green beams from the aerospace fighters’ large lasers burned two furrows through the forest.

  Walter’s mouth went dry. Right where Chris placed the camera’s signal repeater.

  Ivan froze in a crouch beside the fire. Walter ran to him and yanked him to his feet. “Move it, now!”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Those people who don’t like change? They just showed you how much they truly hate it.” Walter shoved Ivan toward his ’Mech. “They missed with their first shot. Let’s not give them a second one.”

  Litzau Lancers Garrison, Rivergaard

  Maldives

  Sophia stared at the screens in the simulation center. The grainy images of Ivan and Walter around a campfire dissolved into gray static. She leaned forward and smacked the side of the monitor with the heel of her hand, but the picture remained lost. I wonder what happened.

  Before she had a chance to even begin trying to figure things out, aerospace fighters roared overhead, shaking the garrison hangar. Gunfire followed in a staccato series of pops. That’s close. That’s very close. She vaulted from her chair and ran to the hallway. “What’s going on?”

  Men and women, faces hidden by masks, streamed in through the museum. Many wore the same cooling vests and boots that her brother and Walter had donned for the Final Vetting, but none of their uniforms bore the insignia of the Litzau Lancers. Dread raked icy claws through her guts.

  Sophia ran the other way down the corridor, and burst out into daylight through a pair of fire doors. Explosions flashed to the southeast. Black smoke rose from several buildings. The fighters she’d heard before looped up through the sky, and then swooped and leveled out for another ground-attack run.

  She would have stood and watched, but a red laser bolt burned a hole in the door she’d just used. She cut right, heading toward the street, then dodged behind ferrocrete barriers that had served to keep spectators clear of Destrier’s march. She forced her hands into fists to stop their shaking, but the quivering just transferred itself to her legs. She dropped to her knees and tried to make herself as small as possible.

  A Locust BattleMech in the black-with-gold paint scheme of the Rivergaard Municipal Constabulary bounded up the street toward the garrison hangar. The back-bent legs carried it quickly enough, with the machine-gun pods on either wing covering the sidewalks. The medium laser jutting from the forward-thrusting torso left no doubt about the ’Mech’s firepower, but the Constabulary used it primarily for crowd control. Sophia didn’t know where it had come from, or where the pilot meant to take it, but she doubted it would get very far.

  One of the Angel’s smaller BattleMechs marched from the hangar. The humanoid Commando boasted two sets of short-range missile launchers and a medium laser in the left arm. For a heartbeat Sophia hoped the pilot had been fortunate enough to be already in the cockpit when the hangar had been invaded. When the Commando turned to block the Locust’s path, she concluded the pilot had been with the raiders—though his taking command of the ’Mech so quickly suggested he currently served in the Angels and had sold out to the people attacking the garrison.

  The Commando’s medium laser raked a crimson beam up the Locust’s machine-gun pod. Molten ceramic armor dropped away in flaming gobbets. Two SRMs, launched from the Commando’s right arm, slammed into the damaged arm, exploding in the interior. One missile spent its fury gnawing through myomer muscle tissue. The other shattered ferro-titanium internal structures. Sparks exploded and the pod swung uselessly at the ’Mech’s side.

  The Constable in the Locust had to have known he was outgunned, but he did not retreat his ’Mech. Instead, he triggered the ’Mech’s medium laser. The searing beam of coherent light stabbed into the Commando’s right side. Melted armor sloughed off the ’Mech’s flank, but the beam failed to breach the protection.

  The traitorous Angel launched a half-dozen SRMs, which scattered themselves over the smaller ’Mech. Two blasted in through the ho
le previously rent in the BattleMech. The missile detonated deep inside the war machine. Smoke billowed out and the whole pod disintegrated. Then the Commando’s laser beam lanced through the blackened cavity. Metal glowed red from within, then the Locust lurched badly to the side. It collided with the ferrocrete barriers on the far side of the street, then toppled over.

  “You there!”

  Sophia looked up at the shout. She started to stand and raise her hands in defense, but it was too late.

  The laser rifle’s butt slammed into the side of her head, and her world went black.

  Chapter Eight

  Nyqvist Upland Preserve

  Maldives

  6 November 3000

  Walter slung the laser rifle over his shoulder and scrambled up the rope ladder hanging from his ’Mech’s right shoulder. He made it halfway up the Blackjack’s chest height when small-arms laser fire flashed angry red bolts past him. He leaped from the ladder, nestled himself in the crook of the ’Mech’s elbow and started trading shots.

  Spurs, get the hell out of here. Walter waved at Ivan’s ’Mech, hoping his charge understood. Soldiers with laser rifles weren’t a threat to Destrier, but they could direct the aerospace fighters on a return trip. Ivan’s chance of survival would be for him to get as far away from them as he could, even though his running off would all but guarantee that crunch stew from a pouch would be Walter’s last meal.

  Two more bolts sizzled past Walter. One had come at a sharp upward angle, which put the soldier near their campfire. Walter reached his rifle around and blindly fired in the soldier’s direction. A return bolt hit the laser rifle, melting through the barrel and making it too hot to hold on to.

  Having no desire to die a hypocrite, Walter didn’t start praying. Instead he leaped up, grabbed the highest rung he could reach on the ladder, and raced upward. If you bastards let me make it to the cockpit, you will rue the day.

  Two small bolts blackened paint either side of him. He smiled, barely three meters from the cockpit’s armored sanctuary. Then he felt it. A rising heat; and saw a red glow blossoming. Hey, you gave it a good try.