Natural Selection

  Phelan whipped around and skewered Conal with a cold stare. "I tolerated it in your case."

  Despite his efforts to show no reaction, Conal's cheeks reddened. "I was referring to the decision to let Nelson remain alive."

  The Clan Khan suppressed a smile. He knew that Conal refused to use Nelson's surname of Geist because, to a Clanner, it would have meant conferring the honor of a Bloodname on him. Instead, he tried to put all his disgust into the word Nelson, yet somehow that name couldn't carry the weight of so much vitriol. Geist, on the other hand, would have suited the purpose perfectly, but Conal could not unbend enough to see it.

  "I find him still worthwhile and valuable as an information source. I do not believe he is a traitor. His compatriots were probably innocent, too, but you did not wait long enough to find that out."

  "You deny him a 'Mech."

  "I do." Phelan walked from the window to the massive mahogany desk that had been his grandfather's. "That I do not think him a traitor does not mean I believe him capable of handling a 'Mech now. I will admit, though, that the battle ROMs of Cue Ball show him to be an able gunner."

  "That was a trap."

  "One you fell into."

  "As would you, had you been there instead of cowering with these mercenaries." Conal's eyes smoldered in the black pits of his eye sockets. "How can you stand it? These people are sheep."

  "Then I am a shepherd."

  "You are a Wolf!" Conal jabbed a finger at him. "Or, by this time, you should be. You and I, we have political differences, but at the heart, we are the same. We are warriors and the people should respect us. Look at those people down there—instead of glorying in the honor of having the Wolves hunting down the bandits that attack their homeworld, they protest it! How can you permit that?"

  Phelan shook his head. "How can I permit it? I can and do because they have their right to be afraid and to show it. I do not relish the idea of war coming to my homeworld, but I accept that it must happen if the Red Corsair is to be stopped. That people express their fear and their worries is not disloyalty—it would be disloyalty to have them arrested."

  He glanced toward the window. "Is it any wonder they protest my presence on this planet? Those who have not lost their worlds to the Clan invasion have lost kin and lovers to the war. To them I am a traitor, but they suffer my presence out of respect for my family. Were my father dead and I attempting to exercise my legal inheritance here, you would see a civil war. Besides, you can bet that if I were still a man of the Inner Sphere, I would be leading the fight against a Clanner inheriting Arc-Royal."

  The Khan looked at the leader of the Thirty-first Wolf Solahma and slowly exhaled. "At the heart you and I are not the same. We are warriors, but you live for battle.

  You are an irresistible force that devours all before it. I am an immovable object that wants what you do to stop for all time."

  Conal's eyes narrowed. "You know that by framing matters in those terms, we cannot coexist."

  "Not so. We can, but you will have to change." Phelan's head came up. "Ultimately, though, Star Colonel, I do not care what you do as long as you follow my orders."

  Conal's face screwed up with anger, but before he could snap out a retort, there was a gentle knocking on the office door, then the Grand Duke's executive assistant opened it partway and poked his head through. "Forgive me for interrupting, sir, but the commander from the Home Defense Force is here."

  Phelan nodded. "Send him in. Star Colonel Ward was just leaving." He looked at the Clansman. "You have your orders, Star Colonel, follow them."

  Conal bowed his head deferentially. "My Khan's will be done."

  As Phelan watched him go, he knew that despite Conal's polite remark they were still on a collision course. If it can only wait until after the Red Corsair is dead!

  * * *

  Christian Kell poured steaming coffee from the thermos into a mug and handed it to Ragnar. The Clan warrior tipped his yellow hardhat back on his head and nodded in thanks. Chris blew on the cup he had poured for himself, then took a sip. "Not too bad."

  Ragnar yawned. "Deuterium to a fusion engine. I have been up for six hours, which is four more than the sun. Still, I am not complaining. Work is going well."

  Chris nodded as he looked out at the vast city being constructed on a flat plain forty kilometers south of the Kell Hound base at Old Connaught. In the center of it was the small town of Denton and the McKiernan Power Company. When Denton had been created five years earlier as a planned community, the area had been graded, and roads, sewer, water, and power installed. All was going well until the Clan invasion made investors become conservative with their capital; the project collapsed and languished in the oblivion of bankruptcy.

  Phelan, acting for his father, had nationalized it and paid off the creditors. In less than two weeks the community came alive again as legions of carpenters, masons, electricians, and landscapers descended on the place. Where tract homes could not be constructed fast enough, mobile homes were hovered or coptered in. The construction activity took on an almost carnival atmosphere and the public responded to it with heartfelt enthusiasm.

  The greatest response came from the exiled Rasalhagians. Ragnar had told Chris that they felt it was their way of repaying the debt to the world that had adopted them. By joining the defensive effort, the exiles began their final integration into Arc-Royal society.

  Chris smiled as he watched two construction 'Mechs lift up one prefab chunk of a building. "You know, it's a pity we won't actually be able to occupy this base." He winked at Ragnar and pointed toward one brand-new house set on a slight rise. "I was thinking I would like that house there. The view is nice and it's not too far from the 'Mech bays."

  Ragnar returned the smile. "I will see that it is wired last. If we run out of time . . ."He shrugged.

  The mercenary nodded. "I don't think land values will be that high after we're done, my friend."

  The former Prince of Rasalhague nodded and smiled again. "True enough, but your view will be unobstructed and the neighborhood will be very quiet."

  * * *

  "Construction continues on the new Kell Hound base at Denton," said the radio announcer's tinny voice. "Flushed with their stunning victory over the Red Corsair at Zanderij, and confident that the Red Corsair has gone off to lick her wounds, the mercenary regiment has launched into an ambitious building program that is scheduled to be finished before Grand Duke Morgan Kell leaves his sickbed on Tharkad and returns home."

  The security officer with Nelson Geist turned the radio off and stopped the hovercar. The gull-wing doors opened at the touch of a button. Nelson swung out of the vehicle and scratched at the area behind his right ear, which was tight and dry around the site of the incision made a week earlier.

  The security man shook his head. "Leave it alone and it will stop itching."

  Nelson gave the man a surprised look. "Ah, you are a doctor now, too, I take it, Bates?"

  Bob Bates laughed lightly. "Not hardly, but I remember when I had my locator implanted."

  "But you could turn yours off when you went off-duty." Nelson frowned. The Kell Hounds had been most civilized concerning his incarceration. Having implanted a locator chip in his mastoid bone, they could determine where he was at any time. Though they preferred him to remain on their base, he was allowed to make accompanied trips off-base and into Old Connaught. Still, the constant itch behind his ear reminded Nelson that he was not trustworthy in their eyes.

  Bates held his left wrist up near his mouth and activated his wrist recorder. "Friday, six June 3055. Subject: Nelson Geist. In accordance with a request filed two days ago and approved by Major Kell, I have taken the subject to the Finian Library of Astrophysics at Old Connaught University." Bates mounted the steps to the library and opened the door for Nelson. "Don't know what you expect to find in here, Kommandant, but I don't mind the change of scenery."

  Nelson smiled. "When I find it, Mr. Bates, I'll let you know." I'll let everyone
know because it will mean the beginning of my revenge and an end to the Red Corsair.

  * * *

  Phelan hit the answer button on the visiphone. "I am here, Colonel."

  Dan Allard nodded and gave Phelan a brief, welcoming smile. "They're on schedule. You said they would be here between the tenth and the fifteenth. They just arrived in-system and should touch ground tomorrow."

  The Clan Khan nodded. "The eleventh. Is the Hound Pound ready?"

  "I gave the word and it's being evacuated now." Dan frowned. "There is one thing we didn't expect, though."

  Phelan raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

  "The Corsair has two Overlord Class DropShips coming in."

  "Two!" The Clansman shook his head. "That is not possible. We destroyed the Lioness at Zanderij."

  "Tell that to the Red Corsair." Dan's expression darkened. "It gets worse. Remember how we had a positive identification of the JumpShip Fire Rose as being Congress Class?"

  "Yes. It used large lasers to keep our fighters at bay while it recovered the Tigress. "

  "Right, well, that ship out there now is Black Lion Class. It's still called the Fire Rose and has the same identification module, but it's definitely a Black Lion. "

  But Black Lions have no energy weapons, so it couldn't be the same ship as before. "Lions carry fighters."

  Dan nodded. "My thoughts exactly."

  Phelan sat back in the chair from which his greatgrandfather and grandfather and father had ruled Arc-Royal. The ability of the Red Corsair to re-arm herself so quickly and so expensively confirmed what he already knew: she was no ordinary bandit. She was working for someone else, and the easy answer to who that was happened to be the answer he didn't even want to consider.

  He shook his head. "Let her bring them all. It doesn't matter." A predatory smile tugged up at the corners of his mouth. "She's come to us, to our battlefield. It is her first big mistake and she will pay for it with her life."

  35

  Arc-Royal

  Federated Commonwealth

  11 September 3055

  Phelan hooked his thumbs into his gunbelt and smiled as he monitored the communications link between the Red Corsair and the Kell Hound base at Denton. His nephew Mark looked suitably nervous in what was obviously an oversized uniform. "What do you mean asking me what we have to defend our base? The Hounds aren't here."

  "You wear the uniform of a warrior, child," the Red Corsair snarled. "Which are you: a coward soiling a noble uniform, or a warrior who will defend what is his."

  Mark's eyes blazed with an anger Phelan knew was not feigned. "We'll meet you. The Scouts have two light lances. We'll meet you on Denton Flats." Mark shook a fist at her. "You'll be sorry."

  The Red Corsair laughed from Phelan's auxiliary monitor. "I doubt that, pup. Corsair out."

  The auxiliary went dead for a moment, then a system traffic display filled it. The Red Corsair and her two DropShips were burning into Arc-Royal at a fairly leisurely pace that would leave her warriors rested and ready to fight. Estimated time of arrival was two hours away, which meant Phelan and the rest of the Kell Hounds had to stay under cover until the ships had grounded.

  Phelan touched the keypad on his Wolfhound's command console and got a troop-strength estimate for the Red Corsair. The DropShips definitely had a fighter screen that consisted of eighteen aerospace fighters. Preliminary data analysis suggested that their flight profiles precluded the inclusion of bombs. That meant the Hound Pound could still work, but the fight would be nastier by half than they had originally anticipated.

  He opened a land line to Dan Allard. The laser-based signal went out over a fiber-optic cable running through the dark recesses of the National Defense bunkers in the Clonarf Mountains. "Things look good for the moment from here, Colonel. We need to have our fighters on standby."

  "Done. I've integrated what's left of your honor guard into the First Fighter Battalion. That brings them up to strength. Star Captain Carew suggested it."

  Phelan smiled. He is doing his best to earn his shot at a Bloodname. "Good. What is the word on Geist?"

  "Security reported in about ten minutes ago. He's still going over the material he got from the university. Bates says the man's seen more stars than all the prize fighters in history." Dan smiled. "In return I guess I should ask you if Star Colonel Ward has stopped complaining yet about his assignment."

  You believe I don't trust Geist and you don't trust Conal. Little do you know, Dan, that our feelings about both men are closer to your position than not.

  Old Connaught, though only forty kilometers north of Denton, was separated from it by the foothills of the Clonarf Mountains. The mountains themselves, which formed a semicircle around Denton to the south and west of the settlement, were where the Kell Hounds remained hidden. North of the foothills stretched a broad river valley. Through the middle of it ran the kilometer-wide Kilkenny River. Twenty kilometers north, up a gradual and well-wooded incline, Old Connaught sat on the shore of Lachlan Lake.

  Conal and the Thirty-first Wolf Solahma had been placed in the woods. They were close enough to the M-5, the major highway running south of Old Connaught, and the bridge crossing for the Kilkenny, that they could be brought into play if the Red Corsair landed north of the mountains and south of the river. Ideally, though, she would ground both her DropShips in the Denton area, leaving them out of the fight entirely.

  "Conal has taken some satisfaction in the fact that he is defending the city, but only because I told him that a weapons subassembly plant was located there." The Clan Khan laughed lightly. "I would not worry, Colonel, the Thirty-first Wolf Solahma will not be a problem."

  "I hope not, Phelan." Dan let the concern in his voice bleed out through his eyes. "I remember what they did to Zimmer's Zouaves. I won't let that happen here."

  * * *

  By the time the Red Corsair's DropShips had become visible, eight light 'Mechs had moved out of Denton and taken up battle positions in the Flats. Harry Pollard kept his Valkyrie out in front and raised the 'Mech's left hand when he thought he was far enough outside the fabricated town. "This is it, guys," he said into his microphone, but he knew none of the others could hear him.

  The suicide squad pilots were a mixed lot, none of them spectacular, but all of them experienced. Three were old pilots who suffered from inoperable cancers. They had traded their service in the Hounds for payment of their medical bills and the care of their survivors. It was their chance to go out with dignity instead of dying by pieces in a hospice somewhere.

  The other five were, like Harry, former pilots who had been serving long sentences in Arc-Royal penal institutions. The trade they wanted to make was more simple: survive and get pardoned. Any kills would be paid for with a 10,000 C-bill bounty—all of which would go to pay back their victims. It wasn't so much, but it was preferable to rotting in a cell.

  Harry licked his Tips. He'd jumped at the chance to get back into the cockpit of a 'Mech. Even though his lawyer had defended him against a manslaughter charge with a plea that Harry had killed while under the influence of alcohol, Harry knew it was a lie. He'd rationalized the defense because the guy he had stabbed was a idiot and anything was better than being locked up in a cage that denied you your freedom. He jumped at the deal Phelan Ward offered him because it got him out of one cage and into another—a cage Harry thought of as freedom itself.

  Clark, a rat-faced man who had once used an ice pick on someone who owed him some small change, had put the chances of their surviving longer than fifteen seconds at one in a thousand.

  The odds were right, but the time was a gross overestimate.

  Harry saw the Red Corsair's fighters roll out of their formation and set up on an attack run. With his left hand, he turned his 'Mech toward the incoming fighters. He swung his crosshairs skyward, but aimed below the line of attack on which the planes had set up. He watched the range counter as it rapidly reeled off the meters. When range dropped below a kilometer he punched his feet
down on the Valkyrie's jump-jet pedals and launched his 'Mech skyward. At the same time he saw a gold dot light up in his crosshairs and he hit all his triggers.

  A suffocating blanket of heat cocooned around him in the 'Mech's cockpit as gravitational forces pounded him down into the command couch. He smiled as the LRMs streaking out of the left side of his chest corkscrewed into the lead fighter. The missiles exploded as they walked up and over the Rogue's nose and cockpit, but he knew they had not crippled the craft. Still, the boxy Rogue broke off its run and Harry counted that as a victory.

  Triumph quickly soured in his mouth as the second Rogue and the pair of Tridents following it stayed on target. None of the other 'Mechs attempted his maneuver. As he watched from his vantage point, they did nothing while the fighters came in on their strafing runs.

  The Rogue launched two flights of LRMs that arrowed in on Clark's Panther. Thirty explosive rockets converged on the BattleMech and detonated. A bright ball of fire consumed him while shards of armor and missile casings spat out in every direction. With its edges curling up into itself, the fireball rose into the sky, then imploded into greasy black smoke, leaving a charred and battered Panther in its wake.

  Somehow Clark managed to keep the 'Mech upright, though the left arm hung useless at the 'Mech's side. The Panther raised the PPC mounted on the right arm and fired back at its tormentors, but the blue lightning missed and sizzled impotently into the sky.

  The Tridents punished the Panther for its pilot's insolence. The medium lasers mounted beneath each wing and in the lead craft's nose created a wall of ruby energy that burned more armor from the Panther. As it swept on and savaged the other 'Mechs in the suicide squad, the second aerospace fighter pounced on the Panther. Its assault burned away the left arm and sent the 'Mech crashing to the ground.