A Rending of Falcons

by Victor Milán

  Or maybe they had known, and that had made them shoot too soon. The notion amused her.

  A black smoke ball rushed upward from the hill’s far side. It told her before the disappearance of the green symbol from her heads-up, and the radio calls from her hoverbikes, that the scout hovercraft was destroyed. She stepped to the right side of the street, halted the Thor, and radioed an order to the ungainly vehicle waddling down the cracked pavement behind her.

  The BattleMech rocked to a mighty wind of passage as the JESII strategic missile carrier lit off its whole awe-inspiring barrage of a hundred long-range missiles. The setting sun turned the twisting smoke trails to blood and fire, appropriately enough.

  Malvina had brought no Arrow IV-capable machines in the DropShip she had landed in the wasteland (which was pretty much all Zoetermeer had to offer) a few kilometers outside the city. She wanted to test the abilities of the green solahma and fledgling troops she had brought along, not smash defenders from a distance. She did, however, want to allow her infantry a chance to show their artillery-observation skills, and the JES crew to test its ability to deliver called fire. As it had to do, since its Artemis IV fire-control system was of no use firing indirectly.

  She had in all a Nova: a mixed Star of two BattleMechs, hers and a Gyrfalcon, and six vehicles, including the missile launcher and the now-defunct Asshur, and an infantry Star with two Points of elementals, a Point of hoverbike riders, and two Points of standard foot-sloggers. No more than an augmented Trinary, commanded by a superannuated Star captain named Dougray, defended the world. Which meant Hohenzollern, since there was nothing else worth fighting over.

  For her part Malvina was confident she could conquer the place with a single mixed Star. But she wanted to blood as many of her untried replacements and would-be warriors as possible—with a victory to cut the bitter taste of Graus. So she had not taken her invasion force down to cutdown.

  Secondary explosions lit the slate-colored sky behind the hill like sheet lightning. From the triumphant cries of her scouts the barrage, plunging down onto relatively vulnerable top armor, had just flatlined the heavy hitter among the Zoetermeer garrison’s vehicles, a 60-ton Oro heavy tank. She frowned, but briefly. I must teach sharp lessons regarding radio discipline.

  Still, she was not altogether displeased. She liked the flash-and-dash her un-Blooded fledglings of the hoverbike unit displayed. They had the collective sense of a grunt-level laborer’s shovel, but she did not think that all bad either. After all the bitter contention with her military-genius brother during the Skye campaign she leaned toward the conclusion that more than one truly capable, let alone imaginative, mind per military formation was superfluous. If not actively detrimental.

  An elemental standing atop a four-story warehouse—the tallest building in the vicinity, since she imploded the old parking garage—radioed warning that a trio of BattleMechs, an Uller, a Koshi and a Hunchback IIc, approached from the town center.

  She smiled as she set her Thor moving again. She commanded vehicles and infantry to hold position. MechWarrior Zed in the Gyrfalcon she ordered to follow her in echelon left, one block over.

  ‘‘Star Captain Dougray comes out to play,’’ she told him. ‘‘We do not want to disappoint him.’’

  ‘‘I understand’’—snip—‘‘that Galaxy Commander Erik Chistu stepped on it in a major way by trying to drop a Trial of Annihilation on Malvina Hazen.’’

  Spring had apparently come to Hammarr, meaning snow hadn’t fallen for two days and wide patches of dry ground actually showed through. It was still abysmally cold by Heinz-Otto von Texeira’s standards; he and Rorion were bundled in their winter coats.

  ‘‘How so?’’ Rorion asked. He had his hands thrust deep in his pockets.

  Master Merchant Senna Rodríguez, on the other hand, was dressed in khaki shorts and a dark short-sleeved shirt, on her knees in the front garden of her factors’ house pruning some thorny bush which had begun to bud out in purple and green.

  She chuckled. ‘‘In his boneheaded zeal Chistu called a Trial of Annihilation against everybody who followed Malvina. If he wins, not only must all the warriors with her be executed, but every single warrior in any younger sibkos that carry blood from any of those warriors must be culled as well. Clan Wolf could never dream of gutting the Jade Falcon touman so completely at a stroke.’’

  ‘‘Good point,’’ said Rorion.

  ‘‘So we may assume Khan Jana sent a rocket to her errant Galaxy commander,’’ von Texeira said.

  ‘‘Aff,’’ Senna said. ‘‘Look for a notice that he has formally amended his challenge to a Trial of Abjuration.’’

  ‘‘A Clansman admit he was wrong?’’ asked Rorion.

  She shrugged. ‘‘Happens. Even Jade Falcons sometimes have to accommodate reality. A century ago, a half-century even, perhaps it went differently. But now is now.’’

  Von Texeira chuckled. ‘‘Do I detect a note of Sea Fox philosophy?’’

  Her smile was even more lopsided than usual. ‘‘This Sea Fox’s philosophy, in any event.’’

  Von Texeira jutted out his bearded chin and frowned thoughtfully. ‘‘I find myself short on insight,’’ he said. ‘‘Khan Jana Pryde consults me regularly. But I find her hard to read as a glacier.’’

  ‘‘That’s why you hired me.’’ Snip.

  ‘‘What insight can you give me, then, Master Merchant? How can I persuade her to mobilize the Jade Falcon touman?’’

  For a moment Senna concentrated on her work. ‘‘In ways she’s in a worse dilemma than before,’’ she said at length.

  ‘‘How can that be?’’ Rorion asked. ‘‘The loyalists won a pretty substantial victory on Graus, chasing Malvina and Malthus off with barely a fight.’’

  She raised and eyebrow and grinned at him. ‘‘Ah, but therein lies the problem, quineg? Yours is one way of looking at it. But I can guarantee you Jana Pryde is digesting the lining of her own stomach even as we speak because Erik Chistu let the renegade Galaxy commanders get away.’’

  ‘‘In other words,’’ von Texeira said, ‘‘a two-fold screw up."

  ‘‘Which will be entered into the Remembrance as a glorious victory,’’ Senna said. ‘‘Or not, if Malvina wins. In fact Jana Pryde has more excuses now for not acting: after Malvina’s humiliation on Graus, the argument will go, surely she will see the error of her ways and seek to make her peace with the Falcon.’’

  ‘‘Do you think that’ll happen?’’ Rorion asked.

  When she had finished laughing Senna dabbed at her eyes with the back of a gloved hand. ‘‘I needed that, Rorion. That was good.’’ She gave him a flatiron look. ‘‘What do you think? That Malvina has suddenly gone sane?’’

  Rorion made a face. ‘‘Not my best thought, I admit.’’

  ‘‘For your sake I hope so.’’

  ‘‘All that aside,’’ von Texeira said, ‘‘which way do you think the khan will jump this time?’’

  ‘‘Who left first, you or the loremaster?’’

  He sighed. ‘‘If there is a practicable way for an Auslander to get the last word with the khan, I confess I lack the wit to see it.’’

  ‘‘Me neither. Buhalin will outsmart herself again, as usual. She’s not stupid, mind; but she has less sense than is usual even for a Falcon.’’

  ‘‘I gathered as much. What can I do?’’

  She rose and dusted off her kneepads. ‘‘In answer to the question you’re actually asking, keep using that silver tongue and everything in your Lyran merchant prince bag of tricks to try and get Jana Pryde to see sense,’’ she said.

  She stripped off her gloves and mopped her forehead with a tissue from her pocket. ‘‘What you really need to be told is: tread warily. You are babes in the woods still. I cannot always be about to protect you.’’

  ‘‘We can handle ourselves better than you give us credit for,’’ Rorion said sullenly.

  ‘‘I am not talking about fighting, Rorion. I suspect either o
f you is capable of handing a Falcon warrior a lethal surprise. No, don’t interrupt—I know no secrets, but neither am I blind. The Markgraf does not carry himself like a man as innocent of combat as he claims to be.’’

  ‘‘Me? Innocent?’’ Von Texeira made large eyes.

  She ignored him. ‘‘But you cannot fight them all, any more than Khan Jana Pryde can. And understand this: even the simplest Clan warrior is adept at twisting our stringent codes of honor to her own designs. We start learning the justifications in the sibko. So while our ways offer you certain protections, you cannot afford to rely on them.’’

  ‘‘Meaning—’’ von Texeira said.

  ‘‘When the chips are down,’’ she said, ‘‘trust no high-caste Clanner. She can turn on you with no warning you can possibly hope to perceive.’’

  ‘‘My Khan,’’ said Naval Captain Louisa.

  Standing on the bridge in the centerline of the Tramp-class JumpShip Brightness Reef, commandeered by virtue of the injured Emerald Talon’s still-awesome array of naval weaponry at the Graus zenith jump point, Malvina looked away from the holographic display. It showed nothing interesting, anyway: space around the Antares jump point through which they had just emerged, meaning just stars and a pair of JumpShips the ship’s battle computer tagged as hers. She knew. ‘‘Yes, Naval Captain?’’

  The JFNR officer hesitated. ‘‘Antares traffic control reports there is a WarShip orbiting the planet.’’ Another pause as Malvina’s natural eyebrow, the reconstructed one having not yet reacquired the knack, shot up.

  ‘‘It is the Bucephalus, Khan Malvina.’’

  ‘‘Again? What do those imbecile Horses want this time? To fight a Trial of Refusal for the right to use contractions? ’’

  ‘‘Antares Control says Galaxy Commander Manas Amirault has landed his entire Galaxy on the Westmacott Plain. He—he desires parlay with you, he says.’’

  ‘‘And Galaxy Commander Beckett Malthus permitted the landing?’’

  Naval Captain Louisa stiffened. Antares Traffic Control was not going to presume to account for a Galaxy commander’s decisions to a mere JumpShip commander. ‘‘The Westmacott Plain does lie on the planet’s far side from Alba, my Khan,’’ she said.

  Malvina nodded acknowledgment. The red giant’s solitary world was not vastly more desirable than Zoetermeer, which she had just added to her collection—it was still too pitiful even for her to think of as an empire. The only asset of real value was an ancient Star League base buried beneath the capital city, Alba, which the ever-brusque Khan Elias Crichell had bombed off the face of the planet with his aerospace fighters during the first invasion. Anything of use in the base had of course long been looted and hauled off to Sudeten.

  ‘‘Another ristar, quiaff?’’ Malvina said, her mood veering. ‘‘Hell’s Horses will run out if they keep sending them against me.’’

  ‘‘As my Khan says.’’

  Malvina pondered. The Zoetermeer venture had been an overwhelming success, as far as it went. For four dead and a handful of wounded, all expected to return to full duty in no more than a couple of weeks, she had gained three BattleMechs in reparable condition, several vehicles, some Mongol-convert warriors, and a drab little planet now garrisoned by a Star of solahma infantry that she did not care if she ever got back.

  Star Captain Dougray, the world’s ruler and defender, had fought bravely if not well. To the death, as befit a Jade Falcon. Malvina had, as a matter of unwonted compassion, settled that matter of honor by firing the Thor’s PPC directly into the cockpit of his Hunchback, which she had toppled by fusing its left hip-actuator, so as to spare him the temptation to disgraceful surrender.

  His other two MechWarriors had capitulated after getting knocked around by the two much larger invader BattleMechs enough to satisfy honor. Malvina had accepted their oaths readily enough, though she suspected the whole Zoetermeer garrison would have followed Devlin Stone come back from Hell had he offered them a way off the miserable dust ball. They had about as much promise as one might expect, but her need for warm bodies for her own brand of Crusade overrode pickiness.

  She raised her eyes to the shipmaster’s. ‘‘Order my DropShip prepared. Tell the crew to make ready for two-gee acceleration. I don’t want to give this Manas Amirault a millisecond longer to get wild Horseman notions than I absolutely must. Founder knows what mischief brought him here.’’

  She wondered briefly how her ward Cynthy would bear the discomfort. It hardly mattered; she was young and resilient, and twenty-odd hours at two standard gravities would do no lasting harm. At least I save her the hell Aleks and I had to endure! she thought, and felt her cheeks flush with rage at the memory.

  Calm, she told herself. Master yourself. Only thus will you master the cosmos. And win your revenge.

  17

  Westmacott Plain, Antares

  Jade Falcon Occupation Zone

  6 December 3135

  ‘‘Drive,’’ she said.

  ‘‘As the Galaxy Commander commands,’’ a sullen voice said through her headset. From another she might have taken offense, with lethal result to the speaker.

  But this was Wyndham being Wyndham. Truth to tell, she found his surliness and utter lack of awe refreshing. It bespoke the very core of reckless Falcon courage, though in unconventional wise.

  With the vast metal pear of the Bec de Corbin looming behind, the Scimitar II hovertank lifted from the sand in a rising whine of turbines and slid forward. Malvina rode half out of the turret with her commander’s seat cranked up as far as it would go. She wore goggles to keep sand from her eyes—it was especially distracting when it got in between her prosthetic eyeball and the soft tissue that lined the socket. Her hair blew free in a brisk breeze. To the northeast, left and ahead of her, hung the red ball of Antares, disproportionately huge in the mauve morning sky.

  Before her a long, low ridge rose like a sea wave from the pale orange sand of the Westmacott Plain on the southern landmass: shale plates from the bed of an ocean long dried, fractured and thrust upward by tectonic shifting. Beyond its saw teeth waited the Hell’s Horses DropShips.

  On a cushion of air the Scimitar slid up the slope and through a notch between edgy slabs.

  ‘‘Horses?’’ Wyndham said. ‘‘Sod me for a stravag.’’

  ‘‘Unlikely in the extreme, Star Captain,’’ Malvina Hazen replied.

  She took in the scene in an instant: three DropShips, with what looked like a small city of tents sprouted around them like Cubist mushrooms. Ranks of vehicles sat parked or moved slowly. Behind them stood BattleMechs, fewer than would have been seen in a Jade Falcon cantonment even before the current crash rearmament sparked by the collapse of Devlin Stone’s long-resented peace. Groups of human figures, tiny with distance, moved with purposes not immediately obvious even to Malvina’s keen eyes. And between camp and ridge, four horses carried three riders straight toward the hovertank.

  Wyndham had braked the tank the instant he spotted the Horse encampment, leaving his light vehicle hull-down behind the ridgetop. It hovered in the midst of a small artificial cyclone.

  ‘‘Forward,’’ Malvina commanded, ‘‘slowly.’’

  Even over the engine, the fans, and the wash of dust and dried vegetation from below she heard her driver grumble. But he tilted the fans and the craft slid over and down the foreslope as ordered.

  A quarter kilometer away the four big animals stopped and stood awaiting them with the wind spinning dust around their fetlocks. ‘‘Ground us a hundred meters off,’’ she said. ‘‘Leave the fans spun up to minimum rotations but feathered.’’

  ‘‘Galaxy Commander—’’ Wyndham began, outraged. In an emergency, boosting the skirts high enough out of the soft sand for the tank to become mobile again would burn precious milliseconds.

  ‘‘I have no wish to sandblast the Galaxy commander and his pets,’’ Malvina said. ‘‘Inadvertently, at any rate.’’

  She lifted binoculars to scrutinize the middl
e rider. ‘‘Hmm,’’ she said. ‘‘This one and I are going to be friends.’’

  ‘‘They are armed,’’ Wyndham said.

  It was true. The Horsemen wore tan tunics and trousers, trimmed in darker brown, boots to the knee. By their legs stubby wicked-looking weapons Malvina took for laser carbines nestled in buckskin scabbards. Above one or the other shoulder of each rider jutted the hilt of a curved-blade sword.

  ‘‘So am I,’’ she said carelessly. Her laser pistol and knuckle-duster battleknife counterbalanced each other at either hip.

  The Scimitar grounded with a thump that jarred Malvina’s tailbone. She laughed. Her driver could have landed like a feather. Wyndham is always Wyndham, she thought. It amused her greatly.

  She started to peel off the goggles. On second thought she left them on, pushed up onto her ice-blond hair, in case dust blew up. Fortitude was one thing, but the Eyes of the Falcon could hardly stay keen when blinking away high-velocity pink grit. And what have I to prove about fortitude?

  She dropped to the ground. Glancing back at Star Captain Wyndham she saw the expected scowl pinched into his small features. She tossed him a cheery smile and walked toward the waiting Hell’s Horses. Her step was jaunty in her khaki and green tanker battledress.

  The Hell’s Horses awaiting her had brown skins, through varying measures of genes and sun exposure. One man had blond hair; the woman and the second—or, rather, unmistakably the first—man had hair as black as space. They were wiry-lean even by the standards of Clan warriors. Their horses looked wiry too, and on the small side, but Malvina was hardly a judge of the beasts.

  As she approached, alone, head up and hands empty, the foremost rider covered his right fist with a long slender left hand before the breast of his tunic and bowed. ‘‘Welcome to the camp of the Fire Horse Galaxy,’’ he said, ‘‘and salutations, Khan Malvina Hazen.’’

  She looked into his eyes—and stopped. They were brown, but to say they were simply brown was like saying the sea was green: too simple, too shallow. Like the sea they were deep and varied. They closed straightaway above her head.