Masters of War Read online

  Verena smiled and offered the concierge her hand. “You have exquisite taste. Thank you.”

  “Seeing you wear those clothes so well is my reward.” He waved a hand toward the hotel’s fine-dining restaurant, ignoring the fact that a sign nearby said it was closed. “The private room has been reserved for you, and your hosts are waiting. Please, follow me.”

  She walked with the concierge and Kennerly trailed a respectful couple of steps behind. Verena had been surprised at how Kennerly looked. She’d been used to seeing him with three-days’ growth of beard, grease smears here and there, with dust caught deep in his crow’s-feet—making him look far older than he was. The concierge had chosen well for him, too, supplying him with a light gray suit that he wore over a black mock-turtleneck sweater. Kennerly had helped by shaving his standard stubble down to a goatee. It sharpened his face and gave him a distinctly diabolical look, but that was in keeping with how she saw him anyway.

  The concierge led them to an ornately carved and gilt door, which he opened after knocking once, quietly. The private dining room had been decorated with baroque furniture featuring a lot of scrollwork and gold leaf. The wallpaper had gold fleur-de-lis on an ivory background, and the carpet picked up the ivory hue. Silver dishes heaped with food had been placed on the sideboards, and four places had been set at the head of a long table.

  General Artor Bingham stood as they entered. “Thank you, Philippe. If there is anything else, we will let you know.”

  “Very good, General.”

  He extended a hand to Verena. “I’m very pleased to meet the mastermind of the Allshot coup. I would have greeted you when you landed, but we were going over the post-battle assessment of the Overton action.”

  She met his firm handshake and pumped his arm. “Understandable, sir. This is Lieutenant Kennerly. He commanded the Demons, and they sprang the trap.”

  “Kennerly, good to meet you. You did good work.”

  “And you, sir. I just followed the Captain’s plan, sir.”

  The general nodded and turned to the room’s other occupant, a slender man with thin hair who clearly had never been in a ’Mech’s cockpit. “I would like to present Baron Cutt Saville of La Blon. He is the chairman of the Global Information Network. He is also one of the leaders who have approved and, more importantly, bankrolled the defensive effort here in the Ninth.”

  Verena nodded to the Baron since the man made no move to offer her his hand. “Pleased, Baron.”

  “Not nearly as much as I am.” He smiled broadly, but in a way that disturbed her. Reminds me of Kennerly too much.

  General Bingham waved them toward the buffet. “Philippe was horrified when I suggested a buffet, but I told him that old warhorses would be uncomfortable having any other kind of mess.”

  “Very true, sir. After you.”

  “Baron.”

  They gathered up plates—in this case fine china with a gold rim and a gold crown in the center—and filled them. The staff had laid out enough food to feed all the Badgers for a month, and actually have the Everett twins complaining of how full they felt. Verena just took a second to breathe in all the sweet and savory scents, then heaped her plate with ham steaks, cornbread with whipped honey butter and fruit—most of which she recognized.

  They sat and the baron—who picked at eggs Benedict—launched into speech. “You will forgive me for conducting business while we eat, but there is a great deal I wish to cover, and frankly, I’m so enthused. First off, I hope you know that you and you, Lieutenant, are heroes throughout the Ninth. Your victory has electrified the citizenry. We lost Corridan Four, which was no great loss, of course, and managed to retake Yed Posterior, but that wasn’t the sort of victory that makes for good news bytes. The sensor data the lieutenant here supplied us is already being shown on every world GIN is on, and it will soon spread further. You’re already being compared to Victor Davion and his exploits in the first Clan war.”

  Verena covered her mouth with a napkin, hoping she hid her surprise.

  The baron never noticed, never stopped. “You and your victory fit very well into the program we’ve been putting together in the Ninth. You, Captain Verena, will become Colonel Verena—the single name is a great touch, by the way, allows anyone to identify with you—of the Djinns. The Djinns will be the GIN militia, an elite cadre of MechWarriors I’ve assembled. I’ve already purchased a Mad Cat from the victors on Yed Posterior—I gave them the one you smashed up in partial trade. Major Peres was reluctant to do that, but we’ve offered a settlement, threatened a lawsuit, so he’ll do nothing. I’m sure you can come up to speed in the larger ’Mech in plenty of time.”

  Verena blinked, setting her fork down. “Me, in a Mad Cat?”

  “Of course. We can’t have the savior of the Ninth piloting a light ’Mech. We’ve already spun your piloting a light ’Mech in a medium lance to great effect, but our polls show people want heroes in heavyweight ’Mechs. Worked for Victor and his father, it will work for you. I will also need details for the holobio we’re shooting of you. It’s already in production, stock shots for background, other footage. We found an actress who is your spitting image, so you won’t be bothered.”

  General Bingham laid a hand on the baron’s forearm. “Cutt, if you don’t mind, let me explain something to Colonel Verena here.”

  “Oh yes, please. I have been going on, haven’t I?”

  The general addressed her in grandfatherly tones, patting her hand to reassure her. “I know this is coming at you very fast, but it is also very simple. We beat the Clans back on two worlds, but we have heard that they have already hit Izar, Ryde and Kimball Two. Those are worlds the Jade Falcons control, so their advance is not costing us personnel or equipment. But those victories do make it easier for them to strike into the Ninth. We’re hoping the Falcons will grind the edge off their spear point but we cannot depend on it. Our strategy of hammer and anvil forces is working, so well that we need more hammers. The Djinns will be a hammer force, and quite welcome.

  “More important than that, however, is that the people of the Ninth feel abandoned. Not only are the Clans coming through them, but we are moving units around. While my Rangers’ victory here is being hailed on Skondia as wonderful, there are still voices there wondering why we are so far from home. They do not feel secure. They need heroes, and especially new heroes. Your rise, your success, will give them heart.”

  Verena nodded. “I can understand that, sir, but all of this strikes me as more entertainment than warfare. Am I wrong?”

  “Only in that you see a separation of the two.” Bingham pressed his hands together. “If people believe victory is possible, they will do everything they can to defeat the enemy. Once their will has been broken, it cannot be reestablished. Now, make no mistake about it, the Djinns, under your command, will be a vital part of our defense. You will be fighting a war. Your image, and news of how you do things, will be used to fight a larger war, a war against apathy and defeatism.”

  The baron smiled. “Haven’t you always wanted to be a hero, Verena?”

  “Yes, I guess so, I . . .” She frowned. She had always dreamed of being a warrior, of excelling at the art of warfare. She had always worked hard at it. It always seemed as if she were one step away from understanding, of turning the corner of seeing what an Anastasia Kerensky or a Victor Davion had seen and understood. She didn’t feel she’d made that jump yet, but here wise men were offering her the rewards for having made it.

  “You’ve realized your dream, Captain.” Baron Saville smiled openly. “Today and tomorrow you will be free here in Overton. If you want for anything, please indulge yourself. I doubt you’ll be charged for anything, but if someone is so crass as to want money from you, just charge it to your room here. That goes for both of you. GIN is footing your bill most willingly.”

  She nodded. “After that?”

  Bingham answered, “Two days from now we head for La Blon and a summit meeting of mercenaries. There we will
assess our strengths and weaknesses, then plan for our next level of defense. I understand you’ll be reacquainted with a friend there. Lieutenant Kennerly indicated you’d be pleased.”

  “A friend?” She shot a hard glance at Kennerly, but he shrugged it off. “Who, sir?”

  “The victor of Yed Posterior.” Bingham smiled. “Anastasia Kerensky. I don’t wonder if she will be regretting ever letting you get away.”

  18

  DropShip Jaeger, In Transit

  Former Prefecture IX, Republic of the Sphere

  20 January 3137

  Alaric was too grateful at having been given clothes to mind the fact that the stained jumpsuit had frayed cuffs and was sized for an elemental. He couldn’t believe it when the door to his cell had opened up and the jumpsuit tossed to him. He caught it only because he’d had his hands up to ward off another blast of cold water.

  He’d pulled it on and huddled in it when the lights went out for the first time in his captivity. He cowered there, shivering, waiting for the lights, waiting for the water. Soaked, the clothes would be leaden on him. Part of him was certain it was a trick, but mostly he was beyond caring.

  Having been given clothes was a kindness and he clung to it.

  In the dark he slept and fell into long, odd dreams. He saw himself as a titan walking across a landscape where ’Mechs warred with each other. Red and green beams linked targets and killers. Flights of missiles crisscrossed the battlefield. ’Mechs dissolved in sheets of flame, yet somehow more and more of them poured into the valley where he walked.

  He strode among them, kicking out to topple some, stomping others into the ground. He was invincible, a god of war treating hundred-ton war machines like toys. They turned their weapons on him, but their assaults tickled. The futility of their opposition was clear to everyone, yet they kept coming.

  Then the wave hit him. In a heartbeat the valley walls rose and curled over his head, with ’Mechs standing on the interior of the tube. No longer did they shoot hot light. Their weapons projected water jets and hit him from every direction. Water poured over him, shrinking him, melting him, until he bobbed in a river that sucked him circling down into a black hole from which there was no escape.

  He woke shocked and sweating from that dream, then fell immediately back into it. He had no way to judge how long he slept each time, but he made it through at least ten dream cycles. He could have gone to sleep again, but the door opened and two elementals summoned him out of his cell.

  They conducted him through the DropShip to showers. They tossed him in and threw a bar of soap and a brush after him. “Five minutes.”

  Alaric stripped out of the jumpsuit and quickly washed himself. He lathered up twice and would have gone for a third time, but he figured opportunity was running out. It wasn’t that he was actually dirty; he just wanted to scrub off the flesh that had so often been sprayed. On some level he believed it had betrayed him, and he wanted it gone.

  He dried himself with a towel clipped to the wall, then combed his hair with his fingers. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and the haunted face that looked back at him twisted his guts. Beard flecked his cheeks and dark circles helped sink his eyes deep in his head. He looked beaten, and as much as a part of him wanted to reject that idea, he couldn’t deny it.

  The elementals appeared and hauled him out of the locker room. Wordlessly they conducted him through the ship. He didn’t recognize the path they were taking, and that heartened him. Maybe I am not going to be interrogated again. He dared not hope because that would be another trap. Still, his heart beat a little faster as they rose toward the bridge deck and traveled farther from his cell.

  Finally they conducted him into a small conference room—one that would have served as the officers’ mess during meal times. The table had been removed along with all but one chair. The elementals sat him in the chair and waited.

  Footsteps approached, two pairs. The woman with whom he had negotiated for the fate of Yed Posterior came into view. The holographic communications devices had failed to display the aura of power she projected. Something in the way she moved, the way light glinted within her restless eyes—she was a predator. She always had been, and would be until she drew her last breath.

  Alaric shivered. I was once like that.

  Anastasia studied him with a hand on her chin. He might as well have been naked, for she saw past his clothes, and perhaps even past his flesh. He felt completely exposed.

  Part of him wanted to slump out of the chair and onto his belly before her. He would have, too, had the elementals not stood there with their hands on his shoulders to restrain him.

  “You present a problem for me, Alaric.” Though her voice made the concern sound grave, her expression did not match it. “Are you worth more to me dead or alive?”

  Alaric said nothing.

  “Yed Posterior wants you back. They want to try you for war crimes. All the destruction, the murder of people. They want their pound of flesh and the blood with it, too. They are not pleased I have taken you from them.”

  She shrugged. “That is less my concern than what I will do with you if I keep you. I have many options, but I find few of them palatable. Some of my people suggest you might be useful and perhaps should be made a bondsman. I disagree.”

  Alaric shook his head.

  “You have an opinion in this matter, Alaric?”

  “No.”

  “That surprises me. You are supposed to be a good MechWarrior. So what am I to do with you?” Anastasia frowned. “Set you to training our new recruits? You would do poorly at that. You do not know why you are a good warrior; you just are. One cannot communicate that to others.”

  She studied Alaric again and his guts knotted. “Is there any other use for you, Alaric?”

  “I was trained as a warrior.”

  Anastasia arched an eyebrow. “ ‘Trained as’? Do you not see yourself as a warrior anymore?”

  “You do not, which is all that matters.”

  Anastasia reached out and caught him by the chin. “Never venture to tell me what is in my mind. You presume too much, and you presume incorrectly. You thought you knew my mind on Yed Posterior, and where did it get you? You surrendered your forces without firing a shot. You believed I would not do things you had not done, and yet from our bargaining you knew I did not think as you did.”

  Alaric nodded.

  She released his chin, and his head slumped forward. “You might yet be a warrior. I have sold your ’Mech, by the way.”

  He heard her words and they sank in slowly. He waited because he knew there should be a reaction. Panic, perhaps, outrage. He really felt neither. While he had trained to be a warrior, he could separate himself from a ’Mech. He had no favorite, he didn’t take to naming them as some did. To him they were a tool through which he could manifest his skill at arms, not part of him.

  Anastasia watched him, then smiled. “And I sent your people home.”

  His head came up. “You sent them back?”

  “I bargained with them for their freedom. I demanded they give me their parole not to fight again in this campaign. They gave it.”

  Alaric shook his head. “They never would do that.”

  “But they did, because you ordered them to do it.”

  He shook hard enough that the elementals had to hold him in the chair. His hands slipped from his lap and dangled at his sides. “I would never.”

  “You did. I can show you the holo of it.”

  “No.” Alaric stared at his knees, at a hole, a tiny one, in his coveralls. His men would do as he ordered them to do. He did not question that. And, he supposed, under duress, in the frame of mind his lack of sleep had left him in, he would have made a holo of that order just to get them to stop torturing him. His men would have thought he was weak or afraid, and the khan . . . He would think I am worthless and broken.

  “Are you certain you have no desire to see the holo?” She folded her arms over her chest. �
�We have it from several angles, as they waited to hear you, all lined up, pretty as you please.”

  “No.” He looked up again. “You have ruined me with them.”

  “Hardly. I merely completed the process you had begun. You were sloppy when you bargained. That first act doomed your invasion. At least you survived your folly.”

  “Another invasion leader died?”

  “Baxter.”

  Bjorn. Alaric nodded. “It is not too great a surprise.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because . . .” The Clansman hesitated. “No. This could be a trick.”

  Anastasia laughed. “Very good. Perhaps there is some warrior left in you after all. You need not be so cautious, however. We have had out of you whatever we wanted. You know that.”

  He searched his memory for anything he had said, especially anything about their ultimate goal, but he got nothing. They never asked after our goal because they believe what they were told. They still think we are headed for Terra. “Bjorn attacked Baxter. He was not a planner.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “How did he die?”

  “In combat, in a trap. He fought well, but all the ninth prefecture is alive with how the Wolves were crushed on Baxter. They’ve crowned new heroes. Your ’Mech goes to one of them, in fact.”

  Alaric just shook his head.

  “Do you really think you might be useful as a warrior? I suppose I could toss you in a lance and find out.”

  “No.” Alaric half closed his eyes. “I will not fight for you.”

  Anastasia started to pace around him, vanishing on the right, slowly appearing past the elemental on the left. Her footfalls, crisp and regular, rang on the deck. Twelve steps was all it took for her to complete her circuit, not hurried, not slow, not heavy, just firm and even.

  Finally she stopped before him again. “You realize that makes you less than useful to me.”

  “You would not make me a warrior unless you first made me a bondsman.” He lifted his right hand. “You have not done that. You have no intention of doing that.”