A Bonfire of Worlds

by Steven Mohan Jr.

  Vedet stared at the man. He was sorely tempted to let this issue go, but he didn't for two reasons. First, Melissa had been right that he had to win this war. And second, he'd come to power in a military coup. He couldn't let the High Command think they owned him.

  "Kerensky's winning," said Vedet placidly.

  "Of course, Archon, but—"

  Vedet held up his hands. "Let's not rush past that point. When she landed on Hollabrunn the Wolves were sweeping through Bolan Province. She smashed the Seventh Battle Cluster on a world that was the central thrust of their offensive. Then she hit Senftenberg and won there, too. Dar-es-Salaam. Mariefred." Vedet shook his head. "She stopped their advance. Now she's actually pushing back."

  "She's not a Lyran citizen—"

  Vedet raised an eyebrow. "That's what you're concerned about? What it says on her passport? Should we tell the worlds she's liberated: 'Sorry, we're going to turn your planet back over to the Wolves because Anastasia Kerensky's not Lyran?"

  Maurer turned red. "If she loses—"

  "Bitte, Herr General. You are not worried about what you will do if she loses. You are worried about what you will do if she wins."

  Maurer looked at him for a long moment, cold fury written across his face. "We shall have to consider this," he said darkly.

  "Consider it as long as you like," said Vedet amiably. "But the order stands. Anastasia Kerensky has operational command in Bolan until I say she doesn't."

  Maurer turned and stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

  Vedet studied the door for a long moment, thinking. As long as he kept winning, he was safe. It was not like the military could replace another archon.

  Which was good, because he really liked this office.

  Outpost-class DropShip Coeur du Loup in High Orbit

  Wolf-Occupied Hyde, Bolan Military Province

  Lyran Commonwealth

  24 November 3141

  Clan batchalls were often filled with bluster and bravado, what Ian insisted on calling "smack talk." One of the things Anastasia had learned in her life as a warrior was that people were unnerved by things that disrupted a normal pattern. So she chose to be courteous, even friendly during her batchalls, knowing most Clanners would either be infuriated—or concerned.

  Furious that she had treated them with disre+spect or concerned she knew something they did not and so she had no reason to fear them. Fury unbalanced her opponents. And concern led to doubt. Either way she gained an edge.

  Just by using Spheroid good manners.

  Which is why she smiled at the two warriors on the views- creen of her large DropShip. "Alaric—" She tilted her head. "Is it still just Alaric, quineg?"

  "Aff” said Alaric, and if he was offended by her allusion to his failure to win a Bloodname, he did not show it. Apparently he had learned something about manners in the Inner Sphere, too.

  "Well, either way, it is gratifying to see you again. And you as well, Verena," she said glancing at the woman standing at Alaric's right hand. Verena had served under Anastasia in the Steel Wolves. When she had formed the Wolf Hunters she had dismissed her, and the woman had harbored doubt and resentment about it ever since.

  Verena did not have the same emotional control as Alaric. Her face was totally blank. Well, if you cannot say something nice ...

  "It is most gratifying to see you again," said Alaric. "Our last meeting was most instructive. Though I must confess I did not enjoy the torture."

  She heard Ian shift behind her. He had never liked the idea of torture.

  "Well, it would hardly be torture if you enjoyed it," said Anastasia. "But I did it for a reason."

  "And what was that?" said Alaric.

  "I did it to strengthen you. To show you your limits. To give you a perspective Clanners often lack. So you would rise to leadership within Clan Wolf." She held her hands out, palm up, as if to say: "And here you are."

  Alaric smiled, a cold smile. Well so much for manners. "And why did you do this favor for me?"

  "Because I know I can beat you, Alaric," she said softly. "Absolutely every time."

  "Shall we put your supposition to the test?" asked Alaric.

  "As many times as is required," answered Anastasia.

  "I will defend Hyde with everything I have," said Alaric.

  "That works out well," said Anastasia, "for that is how I plan to attack it."

  The image of the two warriors winked out as the connection was broken, an image of the planet Hyde turning slowly in the blackness of space, its small green continents sprinkled across an immense expanse of pelagic blue.

  Ian drifted to her side and said in a low voice, "Do you really believe you can beat him?"

  "Archon Vedet did not hire me to lose," she said.

  Ian grunted at the meaningless answer—another technique she had learned from Spheroids—and waited. Usually the doctor was a patient man, but after a few minutes of watching her watch the planet he drifted away, knowing he did not have Anastasia's patience.

  Did she really believe she could beat Alaric Wolf?

  No. She did not believe she could stop Alaric. She knew she could. Alaric was intelligent, cunning, and savage—the perfect Clan warrior. But that was all he was.

  Anastasia was something more.

  She had long ago learned that Clan society's focus on marshal prowess made the Clan warrior the best, most determined fighter in human space. But the Clans' rigid code of honor made them inflexible. Their single-minded devotion to war made other aspects of human behavior a mystery to them. Love, greed, tenderness, family—all were virtually unknown among the Clans. And all those emotions motivated people, they were all levers that could change behavior.

  There were times when even treachery had its uses.

  And so, ironically, the Clans' very devotion to war had made them inferior warriors. Any who might dispute that conclusion only had to look at ComStar's defeat of the Clans on Tukayyid, the annihilation of Clan Smoke Jaguar, or the failure of even a single Clan to take Terra.

  It was an uncomfortable truth, but Anastasia was not one to hide from truths, no matter how uncomfortable. If one worshipped war, if one were determined to be a warrior worthy of the name Kerensky, one had to look beyond the Clans. One had to truly understand what it meant to be human.

  And that was why she was certain of beating Alaric. Because like him, she was Clan. But unlike him, she was so much more.

  Outside Califar

  Wolf-Occupied Hyde; Bolan Military Province

  Lyran Commonwealth

  24 November 3141

  Alaric Wolf stood on the edge of a precipice looking out at the sea. He was reminded of another time, another day. Another sea.

  This ocean was different than the one he remembered from that day with Verena on Autumn Wind. This ocean was not gentled by a sloping beach, colored green by curls of sand and the interplay of light and shallows.

  This ocean was rage.

  The water below the cliff was deep and so here the sea was cobalt blue and governed by oceanic swells. The sea smashed itself against the shear rock face with undeniable fury, breaking itself into white foam against the towering wall.

  But always coming back for more.

  Somehow the land won all the battles. But the sea would win the war. This is me and Anastasia, Alaric thought. But which of us is the land?

  And which the sea?

  Alaric had fought Clanners. Mercenaries. He had battled Republictroops. Soldiers ofthe Marik-Stewart Commonwealth and the Free Worlds League. Now he fought the Lyran Commonwealth. In all those battles he had lost only once.

  To Anastasia Kerensky.

  Alaric was a savage warrior, a fierce competitor with no give in him at all. He was a tactical genius, a magician in the cockpit of a BattleMech, an exacting commander with the gift of getting the best out of Clan troops. He had been coached in Spheroid politics by a woman who was maybe the most devious and ruthless ruler in the Inner Sphere's history. He laughed at
pain, brushed aside fear. He was single-minded. Nothing dwelled in his heart but the call to glory.

  None of this was why he won.

  He won because he understood the expectations of the men and women he faced in battle and developed plans that subverted those expectations.

  But for the first time since Anastasia Kerensky had defeated him on Yed Posterior, he faced an opponent he could not read, could not know. When last they met, Anastasia had outthought him at every turn. Alaric knew he had grown since then, but he would not fool himself into thinking he knew her mind.

  If he did not know her mind, all he could do was rely on his other strengths.

  And hope they would be enough.

  "You are thinking of the Trial of Possession, quiaff?"

  He turned to find Verena standing behind him. He smiled just a little bit, just a little curl at the corners of his mouth, but on Alaric it might have been a broad grin.

  "Aff," sad Alaric softly and found something dwelled in his heart beyond the call to glory, after all. He touched her face.

  She smiled as his fingertips ran down the line of her jaw. Then she looked away. "Do you really think we can beat her?" she asked the sea.

  Even after all these years, Verena's dismissal from the Wolf Hunters still ruled her mind. She hated Anastasia Kerensky, but deep beneath the hatred, she nursed a little seed of doubt and self-loathing. Verena was a dedicated and sometimes brilliant commander.

  But until she cast away her doubt, she would never be great.

  "Anastasia Kerensky was born Wolf," said Alaric. "But she has sold her heritage to serve corrupt masters. The Lyrans—" He shook his head. "The Lyrans, Verena. They attacked their neighbors and then when it suited them, they turned on us. Now they face a grave threat and what do they do? They betray each other. What kind of warrior fights for such people?"

  "She is using them," Verena whispered, still talking to the sea. "The clever Lyran money-changers think they are using her, but they are wrong. Do not think that Lyran weakness is proof of her weakness. It is a sign of her strength."

  "Perhaps you are right," Alaric allowed. "But anyone who examines her career objectively must admit that she has made at least one critical error."

  Verena snorted, her eyes still marking the ocean. "Really? What was that?"

  Alaric reached out and took her chin in his hand, pulled her face towards his, gazed into those incredible cerulean eyes. "She cast you aside."

  * * *

  Alaric pumped a double flight of advanced tactical missiles into a ZetMet MiningMech, shaking the mining mod and shattering armor all across the machine's chest. But the mod kept coming, rolling forward on its dual treads, spanging machine gun bullets off Alaric's canopy.

  The mod's paired machine guns could do little damage to the Savage Wolf, but they were the only weapons the miner had, since Alaric had just cut apart his missile launcher with his lasers.

  Alaric recognized the machine gun fire for what it was—a distraction. The miner was trying to buy time to bring his real weapon to bear: the massive, whirring drill that made up its right arm.

  But Alaric was not about to be distracted.

  He stepped his machine right and sighted in on the miner's centerline, slicing through damaged armor with his lasers. An explosion rocked the miner as emerald fire tore apart the mod's Conlee 105 internal combustion engine.

  The mining mod glided to a smooth stop, its whirring drill only meters from Alaric's cockpit. He turned his back on the machine and left it. It was no longer a threat.

  Still, the mining mod disturbed Alaric on another level. The chief executive officer of Zettle Metals had assured Alaric she had turned all over war material to their new masters. But as soon as mercenaries in Lyran employ turned up, ZetMet MiningMechs somehow found their way into the Lyran lines. Alaric wondered what other hidden advantages Anastasia Kerensky might possess.

  Even a small advantage might be enough to tip the balance.

  The two armies had met on the sweeping coastal plain south of the city of Califar, where the land itself admitted little opportunity for artifice.

  The trees had been clear cut long ago by the mining interests to build homes for their workers, and make roads for mining traffic. Alaric was certain the decision made perfect economic sense. This was a Lyran world, after all.

  But what it meant for him was there was little cover. By mutual agreement, Califartothe north-northeast was off limits to fighting. Neither he nor Anastasia Kerensky wanted a blood bath. There were low mountains to the east and the ocean to the west. Behind Alaric's line was one of the Zettle mines, abandoned on the eve of battle.

  They fought on an empty plain, surrounded on all sides by obstacles. It was very much like fighting within a Circle of Equals.

  Alaric's flanks were holding, but his center, commanded by Verena's Jupiter, was falling back under a sustained attack led personally by Anastasia Kerensky. His line was a shallow bowl, and if he was not careful the dish was going to shatter.

  The Wolf Hunters had numbers on him. The Wolves held more than thirty Lyran worlds, all of which had to be garrisoned, not to mention their Marik holdings. When Anastasia took a world she was greeted by throngs of cheering Lyrans grateful to be "liberated." She did not have to leave troops behind to hold the planets she conquered.

  Alaric faced a brilliant commander and a superior force on land that would allow no tactical deception. Only one weapon remained to him.

  Savagery.

  The fighting along the front lines had grown brutal. Cruel. It was the Wolves' only hope.

  A dark brown Condor flashed by, its lift fans screeching as it probed for weakness in the mercenary line. The Condor nearly brushed up against a hundred kph as it darted toward Hauberk infantry, tearing into the power-armor troops with

  its LB-X autocannon, then arcing into a tight turn that would have been beautiful.

  If the tank had not suddenly found a Wolf Hunter Vulture standing in its path.

  Alaric bared his teeth and pushed his Savage Wolf into a lumbering run, kicking his great machine up to its maximum speed of eighty-six kph, knowing the Condor was about to die.

  Even if the Condor did not know it yet.

  The hovertank's commander threw his rudder over, sending the Condor into a sideways slide that threw off the medium 'Mech's firing solution for a second.

  But only for a second.

  The Condor commander hit the accelerator, but no matter how fast he was, he was not going to outrun the Vulture's weapons. The mercenary pilot bit into the tank's right quarter, melting Starslab armor until it ran like water, burning the Condor's scarred brown hide and setting fire to the grass as it dripped down.

  But the real blows came from the missiles.

  The Vulture had launched a flight of twenty Great Bow long- range missiles that rippled across the Condor, finding the Valiant Arbalest LRM fifteen-pack and igniting a sympathetic explosion.

  Alaric charged forward.

  Just as the tank went up in a ten-meter column of molten fire.

  Careless of his heat curve, Alaric plunged into the inferno, dancing yellow-orange flames sheeting off his ferroglass canopy. Heat spiked in his cockpit in response to his act of self- immolation. The fire provided him only a second of cover.

  But it was going to be enough.

  * * *

  Star Captain Merrick of the Wolf Hunters had turned away from the Wolf Condor he had just destroyed when he glanced down at his rear-view strip. For a moment he did not understand what he was seeing.

  Something was emerging from the fire. For just a second he thought the Condor had the powers of the phoenix, that it had been reborn in flame. If so, it had taken on a new, more deadly form.

  He flashed on a sleek cockpit limned in fire, the pilot a shadow behind his canopy, arms reaching forward out of the inferno. Reaching for him.

  Green beams of death lanced out from the Savage Wolf; slicing into Merrick's right knee where it was most vulnera
ble—in the back. He glanced at his wireframe in time to watch the knee flicker red, telling him he had lost most of his armor there.

  Merrick was being attacked by a myth, but not the myth of the phoenix.

  This was the myth of Alaric Wolf.

  For a startled second, Merrick did not turn.

  The Savage Wolf hit him again.

  * * *

  Alaric's heat load soared, turning his cockpit into an oven. As he came out of the fire he dropped his reticle over the gun- metal Vulture, which was already turning away. Completely dialed into its prey, the medium 'Mech had not noticed the approaching Savage Wolf.

  His targeting pip drifted from the Vulture's back down to its right knee

  Alaric panted, his overheated body desperately trying to pull oxygen out of the cockpit's brutal atmosphere. He did not slide his covers away from his missile racks—there was a slight chance that a stray flame would ignite the warheads.

  So he went to his lasers, melting the thin armor over the Vulture's knee joint.

  Heat spiked and Alaric started to gray out, knowing he was on the edge of heat stroke. From somewhere far, far away he heard the shrill call of an alarm. Heat alarm. Without thinking about it, he slapped the override button.

  Then he took another step forward.

  And fired his lasers again.

  Instantly the heat alarm was back. Alaric overrode it again and looked up in time to see the Vulture topple forward, its right leg severed at its backward-bent knee. The Wolf Hunter machine hit the ground with a terrific crash.

  Alaric felt the earth move.

  He staggered forward, his Wolf sluggish with heat, unable to return fire without risking a reactor shut down. By moving forward instead of returning to the safety of his own line, Alaric had bared his neck to the Wolf Hunters.

  But it seemed no one wanted to confront the monster that had come charging out of the fire.

  Slowly, his heat levels began to drop. It took only seconds, but a handful of seconds could be a lifetime on a live battlefield.

  He reached the Vulture, struggling to prop itself up on one leg and continue fighting. Alaric reached forward with his right arm, setting the barrel of his large laser against the enemy pilot's canopy, the ferroglass outlined in crimson paint.