To Ride the Chimera

by Kevin Killiany

  “Thank you, mi—sir.”

  “Let me spare you the next part of your presentation by guessing that the purpose of this little confessional display is to convince me to adopt your tactics, adopt you, in fact, to cement our unaligned neighbors to the Rim Commonality. And through us to the Free Worlds League as a whole.”

  “Essentially, yes, sir,” Green acceded, faithful to Thaddeus’ order of complete transparency. “Though of course it will take several months for me to gain a meaningful understanding of the region, it was thought that I would be of use in that regard.”

  I think I’ve sounded more pompous once before, but I can’t recall when.

  Again the husband and wife exchanged looks.

  “Leave these files with us, Mr. Green,” Elis spoke for both of them. “We will speak with you again after we’ve studied them more thoroughly.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  Realizing he was dismissed, Green snapped the cover of his noteputer shut. With a final bow that was little more than a nod, per Prime Minister Cendar’s stated preferences, he turned to let himself out the door.

  A ruling family that holds court wearing casual dress in their private sitting room without a single servant in sight. I am not on Oriente anymore.

  Bemused, he crossed the simple foyer and opened the door into the main corridor.

  * * *

  Carrying his own golf clubs was a small thing, but Frederick relished it. In the first place, carrying the slender leather case projected an impression of vitality. In the second, not relying on a servant off the links or a caddy on made clear that he was a man who did not expect others to do work he could do himself.

  Neither persona would have been recognized by those who’d known him in the courts of Terra. But the courts of Terra were in no position to help him now. Adaptation was the key to survival—the key to winning.

  Of course, he felt a bit less clever this afternoon. After a few hours of chipping around the informal links—everything about Cendar’s estate seemed to be informal—Philip had sent his caddy and clubs ahead in the car and chosen to walk back to the main house. Before the car had gone a dozen meters, Frederick had regretted his casual declaration he’d be fine carrying his bag, but of course there was no calling it back.

  Thanking God he’d had the wisdom to carry a simple tube and not the massively compartmentalized contraption Philip favored, Frederick concentrated on keeping a spring in his step. The hedge to their left enclosed one of the gardens, he was sure—a suspicion confirmed when they passed a low gate and he saw the formal veranda with its splashing fountains.

  “Let’s go in the back, here,” he called to Philip, who had continued on toward the front. “I think that’s the glass hall that leads to Michael and Elis’ chambers, isn’t it?”

  Retracing his steps, Philip stood beside him surveying the garden.

  “That’ll save us ten minutes,” he agreed. The gate latch opened at his touch.

  Have these people never heard of security?

  Adjusting the strap across his shoulder, he hurried to catch up with Philip.

  * * *

  Green nodded to the dark young woman with the pied features in the hall. Frederick’s financial wizard, he recognized, the one tasked with fitting the Rim Commonality’s economy into that of the Protectorate. She would be a very valuable asset when it came to puzzling out how to build local communities.

  He gave her a second glance as they passed, considering how to approach her with the proposal. The glitter of something silver between her dark fingers and the black neoleather of her folio caught his eye.

  Was that a knife?

  * * *

  “Excuse me—”

  She spun, folio flying, her right arm scything to slash the secretary’s throat.

  Only his throat wasn’t there.

  The mousy man had rocked back, faster than she would have thought possible, just enough to avoid her strike. His brown eyes were wide with amazement, his expression confused. A fool saved by his reflexes.

  Adjusting her stance midmotion, she stepped close, thrusting her blade into his heart.

  Into the space where his heart had been.

  Not chance this time, not blind reflexes. The pale brown man danced clear of her attack with a fighter’s grace, determination replacing the confusion in his eyes. She followed fast, flowing after him, keeping him retreating, preventing him from finding his own stance; setting his defense. Slash. Feint. She closed, pushing him into an alcove. Thrust.

  His noteputer deflected her lunge as he spun past her, out of the alcove. His shoes squeaked on the marble.

  A grunt of effort in her ear and pain exploded from her ribs to her elbow.

  Switching her naming blade from the numb fingers of her right hand to her ready left, she turned to face his new position. Assessing her damage, she realized the little man had rabbit-punched her in the nerve cluster below her right shoulder blade when he pirouetted out of her way. She rotated her right shoulder, working out the numbness.

  Her opponent circled to her right, keeping to her damaged side. But not too far right. He stayed between her and the door to the prime minister’s apartment.

  She hesitated. Feigning a stumble, she dropped her guard to lure him closer. The secretary—whom she suspected was no more a secretary than she was an accountant—did not take the bait.

  But neither did he run. Of course he didn’t call for help; no one beyond the prime minister and his whore would have heard him, and the little man evidently knew calling them to face her blade was a bad idea.

  She jabbed and the battered noteputer deflected her thrust.

  Tremors shot the length of her right arm. There had been a lot of power behind that punch. If he had gone for her neck instead of her pressure point, he’d have snapped her spine.

  Why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance?

  Jab. Slash. Kick.

  Each attack deflected. No counterstrike. No grapple. She had him on strength, he had her—barely—on speed. Yet he did not attack. It was as though he meant to wear her down with his defense. A moment later, the penny dropped.

  The little man meant to capture her alive.

  His last thought would be how foolish that mistake was. Seeing her opening, she moved in for the kill.

  * * *

  Frederick’s first impression was of two people dancing in the hall.

  Then Philip shouted and began to trot toward the figures.

  It took Frederick a second longer to realize the dancers were fighting. The man was Green, Thaddy’s agent. And the woman was—Ayza?

  Green went down. A knife flashed silver in Ayza’s upraised hand.

  “My God.”

  Unlimbering his golf bag, Frederick charged.

  * * *

  “Elis!”

  She paused, turning to the sound of the voice. The bokor-bitch’s husband was tottering toward her, his arms upraised and his mouth working with effort. From the look of him, he’d die of heart failure before he reached her. The fool Frederick was running too, passing the older man with his stupid golf bag in his hands. Frederick she’d have to kill.

  The little man writhed on the floor, hand covering the bloody socket where his eye had been, and tried to scissor-kick her legs out from under her.

  She laughed, jumping lightly over his futile effort, and brought her naming blade slashing down. His throat parted like a sausage, the final spray from his carotid arteries misting blood to cover her arm and chest.

  To be absorbed by the stupid clothes.

  Distracted by her disappointment, she was late in rising to meet her fresh attacker.

  Thrusting his golf bag ahead like a battering ram, Frederick slammed into her, carrying her to the floor by sheer mass and momentum. There was a clatter and crash—flying golf clubs and a vase knocked from its pedestal—as he tumbled over her.

  She rolled with him, on top of him, and thrust her naming blade deep.

  His flesh twisted,
pulling the knife aside. She almost released the hilt in shock before she realized she’d driven the blade into his empty golf bag. Yanking her weapon free of the leather, she pulled her legs up, her business skirt riding up over her thighs until she was kneeling astride his writhing form, pinning him to the floor.

  Reversing her grip, she drove her naming blade down into his face.

  Frederick caught her wrist, stopping the blade a hands-breadth above his eye. His other hand joined the first, straining to push her arm back. But he was old, and weak, and had never been a warrior. She paused, her face as close as a lover’s, and let him think he was winning.

  The old man staggered closer, wheezing as though he had run a hundred kilometers. The scattered golf clubs rattled across the marble floor as he fell among them and fumbled to rise. She didn’t bother to turn her head, focused on the feeble man struggling between her legs. She only hoped the bokor’s husband lived long enough for her to kill him.

  Something pushed her, nudged her hips. She realized Frederick was trying to kick her, his knees barely reaching her back. Smiling she leaned down, close enough to see her breath stir his eyelashes.

  “Try bucking me off,” she cooed. “That feels so much better.”

  He blinked.

  She pushed her naming blade a finger’s width closer to the sagging flesh of his face, making sure he understood it was she and not he who delayed his death. The naked terror rose in his eyes. She laughed, delighting in her power.

  The darkness took her.

  56

  Free WorldsLeagueMilitaryCommandCenter

  Jakarta, Tongatapu

  Former Marik-StewartCommonwealth

  20 April 3139

  “This is a chimera,” the broad man across the situation table cursed.

  “Sir?” Zeke asked.

  The markers on the map showed units, not individual BattleMechs. How the warden-general could spot a single forty-ton cavalry ’Mech at this scale was beyond him.

  Thaddeus Marik looked at Zeke, as though surprised to find him there. Although it was the warden-general who was out of place, haunting operations HQ in the middle of gamma shift. Around them the command center was nearly silent. What orders needed to be given had been given and for now most staffers, including former liaison Zeke, were just double-checking numbers and conserving energy for when they’d need it.

  Zeke met his hazel gaze placidly. He had decided he liked Operation Homecoming’s overall commander. He overthought problems, like Colonel Cameron-Witherspoon, but he didn’t expect lieutenants to stand by and listen while he worked his way through options aloud.

  “This,” Thaddeus Marik said, indicating the map of Atreus and the proposed incursion points. “A chimera. I’ve cobbled together a liberation force out of mismatched parts I know nothing about.”

  He tapped an ID at random. “The First Rim Guards. Sounds like a ground car accessory. Dossier card says a battalion of heavies and mediums with a handful of scouts. How do I know how best to use them?”

  “The First Rim Commonality Guards were a merc unit when they fought the Blakists sixty-some years ago,” Zeke said. “Got hired by the government for winning. They like fast, multitarget engagements.”

  “That’s on the data card?” Thaddeus Marik asked, frowning at the strip of plastic in his hand.

  “Perhaps, sir. I got it from talk around the junior grade officers’ club.”

  The warden-general cocked an eyebrow.

  “They’re staging on Loyalty, two jumps from here,” he said. “How did they come to be the topic of gossip at the jg club?”

  “Never known distance to affect scuttlebutt, sir.”

  “Point taken, Lieutenant.” He indicated the table with a wave. “Don’t suppose you have similar rundowns on all these units.”

  Jake surveyed the table. “A few, sir. Most of these I’ve never heard of. And most of the ones I have you’ve already got where they’ll do the most good.”

  “I’ve the recommendations of each of the commanders, of course. I did what I could to match units with each other and with objectives.” The warden-general sounded weary. “But these people have never fought together. No plan survives contact with the enemy. Tomorrow will be…”

  The warden-general surveyed the table for a long moment.

  “Tomorrow at this time, these men and women will be improvising, under fire from a determined enemy, with almost no idea what to expect from their comrades.” He shook his head. “It’s a chimera.”

  “Sir?”

  “Ancient Greek mythology. Chimera, daughter of the whirlwind,” Thaddeus Marik explained. “She had dozens of forms, but in every case she was the mismatched parts of animals that had been forced together by the tempest.

  “My favorite configuration had the head and forelegs of a lion, the head and wings of an eagle, the head and chest of a goat, the haunches of a dragon and a long, venomous snake for a tail. Another head.”

  Zeke tried to hold the image in his head and failed.

  “That sounds like…” He looked down at the situation map with its projected landing points for dozens of units, each with its own logo; each with its own history and abilities and tactics, no two quite alike.

  “That sounds like this.”

  Ministerial Residence

  Zletovo, Lesnovo

  Rim Commonality

  “Do you suppose it was the same woman?” her father asked. Again.

  Philip was seated, still looking lost in the high-backed chair by the fire. But, Elis thought, looking less slumped than he had hours before. The sitting room windows were dark with night—or predawn, she corrected herself. None of them had slept that night. Nor could she recall anyone eating, though food had come and gone.

  The medicos had urged her father and Frederick to the infirmary, but both had refused to go. They seemed to gain some energy from the company of Michael and Elis, and the two were glad to have them.

  Conversation had been desultory, wandering in spates between silences through all manner of trivial topics before returning to the attack. The beverage of choice was a mulled wine, kept warm in a frequently replenished decanter by the hearth. It lacked the potency to put any of them to sleep, but Elis felt a distance from her limbs that warned against sudden movements.

  “I don’t see how it could have been the same individual.”

  Elis answered her father’s question. Again. “But there are too many similarities for coincidence.”

  “An organization of some sort?” asked Frederick. He was still ashen, but the focus she had come to associate with him was reasserting itself.

  “Probably,” she agreed. “Of course you realize that when word of this gets back to Mother, every woman of Afro-Terran descent on Oriente is going to be subjected to a thorough background investigation.”

  “Oriente?” Her father asked with more animation than she’d seen since the attack. “All of the Free Worlds League. Your mother is not one for half measures.”

  Michael was turning the weapon in his hand. Twisted one way, it became loose crescents of silver strung together. Twisted the other, the crescents locked to form one curved blade, like a chef’s boning knife, longer than his hand. “This is needlessly complex,” he said.

  “And clearly handmade with considerable craftsmanship. A sliver of silver very like that tip lodged in—” Her father’s voice broke off. After a moment he added: “The Clan physicians were able to remove it safely.”

  “This looks to be a ceremonial weapon of some sort.” Michael continued to turn the blade in the light. “Perhaps she was a member of a cult of some sort. Like a Thuggee.”

  “Thuggees use garrotes.” Frederick sipped his wine. “But I take your point.”

  “Worth looking into.”

  Elis was watching her father. He had seemed to slump again, staring into the empty fireplace.

  “Are you all right, Father?”

  “Hmm? Yes.” He shook his head. “I’ve never killed anything larg
er than a cockroach before. Took me a while to recover that time too.”

  Elis couldn’t think of a response to that. She still hadn’t adjusted to the image of her kind old father smashing in an assassin’s skull.

  “I had no idea a driver could be so deadly,” Michael said into the silence.

  “Niblick.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Iron with a steep slope,” Philip explained. “A driver would have bounced off—too broad. The niblick—nose-on, like an axe—is shaped to put what swing I have into the point of a metal wedge.”

  “Wait.” Michael was staring at his father-in-law with new eyes. “You took the time to select your club and decide how to swing?”

  “Of course.” Philip sounded surprised at the question. “Wouldn’t want to duff a shot like that.”

  57

  Operation Homecoming

  21–27 April 3139

  Scout-class JumpShip Olho

  Zenith Jump Point

  Atreus System

  Regulan Fiefs

  Captain Doreen Patel relaxed in her command chair.

  The cramped bridge was silent but for the occasional beep of equipment announcing some process begun or ended. Both sensor arrays were manned with technicians intent on their external screens. Screens Doreen knew were blank because the row of repeater screens suspended just above her line of sight were blank. The pilot sat at her ease; with the coordinates locked in and the jump drives at warm idle, she need only press one button when the order came. The engineering station was empty, but its boards showed all systems optimal; batteries fully charged.

  Doreen had heard of captains who stood their watches in ready rooms—reading, relaxing or catching up on reports—depending on their bridge crews to alert them should they be needed. Doreen had every confidence in her crew, but she was constitutionally incapable of serving her watch anywhere but in the Olho’s hot seat.