Xu felt ice water trickle through his intestines. "She gave us your name and your location, though she did hold out for a long time. Having read the book and the file we have compiled on you, I know your real name is probably not Noble Thayer."
The dark-eyed man shook his head. "Think whatever you want."
"Ah, then I shall assume details in the book are correct. Shall I call you Charlie?"
"Whatever is your pleasure. Is Cathy dead?"
"Has been for two days. She was strong, but not that strong." Xu Ning tried to speak casually and wondered what his chances were of getting to the alarm button at the far corner of his desk. "She killed Fabian Wilson, if that is any consolation."
"Saves me having to find him."
"A pity he isn't alive. It would be interesting to see who would have won the race—you looking for him or us looking for you, the Foxes, the Bradfords, and Miss Thompson."
The Dancing Joker smiled slowly. "I'd have won."
"Of course you would." Xu Ning turned to the right, gaining a half step toward the button, and pointed to the computer. "In your line of work you've got to have a healthy ego, don't you, Charlie? I saw it in the novel—there the King of Death even destroyed the White Vipers. Pity life doesn't imitate art."
"Oh, but it does. One of the things I'd planned for a later chapter was the Security Committee introducing a virus into its computers by hastily duplicating and analyzing a disk containing the King of Death's personal journal." He gestured at the computer with his pistol. "I guess you've done that for me, haven't you?"
Xu steadied himself on the edge of his desk as a droplet of salty sweat rolled from his upper lip and into his mouth. "Very clever. I should have suspected." His right hand snaked along the edge and depressed the button built into the mahogany desk. "That will be most inconvenient."
"So will the fact that, as I intended to write in the book, I killed all your security guards, so hitting that button does absolutely nothing."
Xu Ning's knees began to quiver. "You meant for it all to come to this, didn't you? But you betrayed a woman who screamed out for you while we tortured her. She died believing you were coming for her, but you never were." He looked over at the man with the gun. "How could you throw the woman you loved to us?"
"Noble loved her, I didn't." The Dancing Joker shrugged. "By concentrating on her and what she knew, you couldn't stop me from getting my people off Zurich. They're gone, and you'll never be able to touch them. They'll end up on Bell, waiting for a rendezvous with me that will never take place. When I don't show up, they'll report my actions to Davion's Intelligence Secretriat."
"I thought you were part of the Intelligence Secretariat."
"Part of, no," The Dancing Joker laughed lightly. "Wanted by, yes."
"What?" Xu's eyes narrowed with confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"After a year on the run I came here for the same reason you survived as long as you did: the planetary constabulary was useless. Here I could hide." The Dancing Joker's smile broadened. "Having assassinated Melissa Steiner Davion and Duke Ryan Steiner meant I had to be very careful about choosing my sanctuary."
The Dancing Joker's finger tightened on the trigger and the bullet smashed through Xu's sternum, perforating his heart and snapping his spine. Pain roared through Xu, exploding out the top of his head, then he saw stars as his skull bounced against the floor. Looking down he saw his legs tangled in his chair, but he could not feel them.
The Dancing Joker came and stood over him. "Don't think of your revolution as a total loss, Director. I first came here to lay low and retire, but you reminded me how much I still love my work. Killing you is nothing personal—it's just that, well, destroying a whole planetary government will look very impressive on my resume."
56
We have not yet lost this war, but we are overdrawn on the Bank of Miracles.
-W. J. Brown
Kallontown
Nanking, Capellan Confederation
31 December 3057
"If I'd wanted to spend New Year's Eve getting shot at, I could have gone to Solaris for the Ishiyama Open! Pay would have been better and the odds a damn sight shorter. Larry Acuff glanced at the secondary monitor in the cockpit of his Warhammer. It showed a diamond formation of four Overlord Class DropShips descending toward the planet. Overlords—two of which were sufficient to bring most of the Reserves to Nanking—could each carry three dozen BattleMechs. A full regiment, which is what Gubser had said was coming to relieve her, had 125 'Mechs in it, a force sufficient to wipe out the Reserves.
The altimeter put them at five kilometers and dropping fast.
A mission that had relied on miracles had gone surprisingly well until this point. Using a combination of patriotic appeals, thinly veiled threats, and promises of commercial endorsements and new marketing opportunities, the Woodstock Reserve Militia had managed to get corporations on Woodstock to equip them and ship them to Nanking. Once there they had tricked the Bandits into sending a company of light 'Mechs into an ambush, reducing the mercenary strength by a third.
They had also cordoned the mercenaries off in the Kallon Industries Factory complex, resulting in a standoff. When Victor had promised more help would eventually arrive, the Reservists had been pleased with their situation.
Unfortunately, when help arrived, it seemed to be meant for the other side.
Four days ago, when the DropShips had detached themselves from the Free Worlds JumpShip, Larry and Phoebe had worked the approach vectors and fuel factors through the computers to see if the ships were coming in empty or full. The performance data suggested they were coming in loaded, but that still didn't tell them what the ships were carrying. A ton of scrap metal weighed just as much as a ton of 'Mech.
When the ships were two days out, they intercepted transmissions incoming to the Bandits. They unscrambled them enough to identify Colonel Richard Burr, but neither Phoebe nor Larry fully trusted the intelligence obtained through eavesdropping. ComStar had already passed the news that Xu Ning had been assassinated on Zurich and that a counterrevolution had the planet in chaos. It was hard to believe Thomas Marik or Sun-Tzu would have allowed the Black Cobras to leave Zurich in such a state of crisis.
The message they intercepted, they agreed, could have been a prerecorded holograph designed to make them believe the Black Cobras were really coming in. Of course, they couldn't discount the fact that it might also be genuine. That was the reason for ordering the Reserves into a heightened state of alert and for their deployment in defensive positions outside the Kallon Industries plant.
The altimeter counted down to thirty-five hundred meters. Larry keyed his mike. "Empress, if they're genuine, they'll blow their hatches and start dropping at a klick."
"Roger, King Crow." Larry heard dread in Phoebe's voice. "Keep thinking Alesia, right?"
"Roger, Empress. Out."
Kip Cooper, a secondary school teacher serving in Phoebe's command lance, had noted that Caesar had successfully held off Gauls in a similar position at Alesia. If some people in the unit took comfort from that fact, Larry did not. The Romans had better weapons than the Gauls and they were a regular army unit with superior discipline. No matter how proud he was of the Reservists, he was not inclined to be optimistic about their chances in the immediate future.
When the DropShips hit two kilometers in altitude and came into plain view to the south, Larry popped his radio over to the frequency the ships had been using to communicate with the Bandits. "Colonel Gubser, this is your last chance to surrender. If your bluff fails, we won't be nearly so accommodating later."
"Watch and weep, Acuff."
* * *
The Black Cobras had long ago refitted their Overlord Class DropShips into what was considered the most efficient configuration for that type of ship. The central section of the egg-shaped craft had been stripped out and turned into one giant 'Mech bay. The BattleMechs occupied pods around the perimeter of the bay, each nestled between
support structures of the ship's hull. Between the 'Mechs and the central elevator shaft lay all the equipment the Cobras had hurriedly loaded onto the DropShip before their hasty departure from Zurich.
Above the central bay, and accessible by the elevator shaft, were the crew quarters. In the top of the egg was the bridge. Beneath the deck of the 'Mech bay was the ship engineering section, including the fusion engines that provided the ship's thrust. All the crew members had taken their battle stations, meaning most were manning the weapons pods that dotted the ship's hull-like warts.
As the ships came into combat range, the captain ordered the central bay sealed off from the rest of the ship, then had the pressure seals blown on the 'Mech bay doors. Tarps tied down over crates flapped as the atmosphere purged itself. Air pressure within and without the DropShips equalized at .8598639 of a single atmosphere. On a simple barometer this would have given a reading of 65.36 centimeters of mercury and rising.
In fact, such a reading had been obtained on the dozen simple electronic barometers the Dancing Joker had built into detonation devices and secreted in the infantry arms ammunition and explosives crates over which his people had fought at Kaishiling. Since the insurgents had broken open and tried to drag away some crates before being driven off, the Black Cobras had erroneously assumed that the seemingly untouched crates were, in fact, inviolate.
The detonators armed themselves when they obtained a pressure reading lower than expected for air at between 800 to 1000 meters of altitude. Then', when the pressure built to 67.36 centimeters, the barometer caused an electrical pulse to feed into a pair of blasting caps secured with det-cord to a block of plastic explosive pilfered from the Black Cobras.
The fact was that the Dancing Joker had not been overly concerned with when the devices would detonate. They could have gone off if, say, an atmospheric low pressure system had moved through the Daosha district, arming the explosives, and then the Black Cobras had pressurized their ships for take-off. That result would have served as well for him as any other. The Joker's goal was to eliminate the Black Cobras and he was not terribly particular about how that happened.
Three-quarters of the devices functioned as intended, resulting in at least one explosion on each ship as they hit the thousand-meter mark above their drop zone. On one ship, the Boomslang, two of the Dancing Joker's bombs had lain undiscovered in crates full of military-grade plastique. The resulting detonation sliced through the middle of the ship, bisecting it, and scattering 'Mechs like toys spilling from a burst pifiata.
Only one bomb went off on the Sea Snake. The force of the explosion ripped down through the deck and wiped out the primary power couplings feeding electricity to the rest of the ship. In an instant the auxiliary system kicked in, then exploded in a shower of sparks, revealing why Overlords had long been notorious for problems with their electrical and hydraulic systems. With the loss of power, the engines failed, sending the ships careening toward the planet.
The port side of the Mamba blew out when an explosion drove two armored personnel carriers out through the hull. The Mamba's engines began to sputter, but the crew managed to feed power to the attitude jets. The Mamba hit the ground hard, its weakened internal structures buckling and making the ship wilt over on its port side.
The explosions on the Sidewinder completely obliterated one of its fusion engine thrust nozzles. As the silvery ion thrust stabbed out through the starboard hull, it pitched the ship sharply to the right, slamming it into the upper half of the Boomslang. Both ships seems to meld together as if made of quicksilver before multiple fiery blossoms shredded them and sent them raining down over Kallontown.
* * *
Larry stared up at the sky through his Warhammer's cockpit canopy. The quartet of DropShips jerked and stuttered in the sky, as if he were watching the image from a shaking camera. He was uncertain what was happening until the Sea Snake began to trail smoke and plunged to the ground like a silver egg. When it hit he felt the ground tremble beneath his Warhammer's feet.
One moment there are four ships, the next just metal rain. On the second try Larry successfully punched up Phoebe's radio frequency. "Empress, what the hell happened?"
"Unknown malfunctions. Christ Almighty, four Overlords gone!"
"If the Bandits were bluffing, that ends it."
"And if they weren't?"
"Then someone either hated the Cobras, or loved us, and I'm not choosy about which it was." Larry saw a monitor light start blinking on his command console. "Message coming in from the Bandits. I'm patching you in. This is Hauptmann Acuff. Go ahead, Bandit."
Even digitization could not remove the tremors from Ada Gubser's voice as it came over the radio. "What did you do to the Cobras?"
"We don't know what happened to them, Colonel, but we do know they aren't going to be much help to you." Larry looked out at the black columns of smoke marking where one ship had crashed. 'The question is, do you want to help yourselves?"
"Standard terms of surrender? We'll be repatriated with our equipment?"
Phoebe answered her. "Standard terms, provided you give us no trouble and no damage has been done to the factory."
"Okay, we surrender. Now. Gubser out."
Larry locked the Bandit frequency out of his line. "What do you think, Phoebe?"
"I think I'm glad Nanking will be part of the Federated Commonwealth come the new year." He heard relief and joy echo in her voice. "What about you?"
"I think I hope the rumors of peace are true."
"Why's that? We've won all our fights."
"That's why, Phoebe." Larry laughed aloud. "Face it. We succeeded in what was an impossible mission here. If there's more war, I don't even want to think about what Victor might dream up for us in the future. All I want is to head back to somewhere safe, like Solaris, and see what it's like to live nice and quiet and normal for a while."
57
Of war men will ask its outcome, not its cause.
-Seneca, Hercules Furens
Rio de Canada, Morges
Arc-Royal Defensive Cordon, Lyran Alliance
31 December 3057
As Phelan walked across the stage to the podium, the noise in the crowded auditorium gradually diminished to a few coughs and some murmurs. His ceremonial gray leathers creaked as he walked and the wolf's-skin cape felt heavy across his shoulders, but he held his head up and kept his expression neutral. Reaching the podium, he placed one hand on either side of it and stared out at the Clansfolk gathered there.
"I am the Oathmaster! All will be bound by this conclave until they are dust and memories and then beyond that until the end of all that is."
The Wolves' solemnly chanted oath of "Seyla" echoed through his body and gave him strength.
"There has been news brought to us by Colonel Marco Hall. It concerns us all—those who fought with Ulric and with Natasha and those still streaming in from the occupation zone. It is not pleasant news, and may create a rift among us. Even if that does happen, no onus will be attached to any decision made in reaction to this news."
Phelan swallowed hard. "After Ulric Kerensky was killed on Wotan, Khan Vandervahn Chistu claimed that our Trial of Refusal was, in reality, a Jade Falcon Trial of Absorption."
The hall erupted with angry shouts of disbelief. Phelan had known that bit of news would shock and infuriate the Wolves and yet he knew it was, in many ways, the least of the news he had to deliver. Chistu had made a bald grab for power because Trials of Absorption were complicated affairs that would have involved bidding by other Clans for the honor of conquering and absorbing the Wolves.
And had this been a true Trial of Absorption, my force would have been at Wotan, too, and the Falcons would never have won the battle for that world.
Phelan raised his hands, then lowered them to quiet the crowd. "Chistu laid claim to our people and our worlds and our warriors. He initiated a Ritual of Abjuration that struck from our Clan rolls the names of all the Wolves who had come away from Wotan and al
l the Wolves who followed me. Through the action of a Jade Falcon Khan we have been exiled from our Clan."
That information brought no uproar, but the murmuring that filled the auditorium was obviously related to a curious point. If the Wolves had been absorbed into the Jade Falcons, then the Abjuration would have exiled them from their Clan. Since the Absorption had been stated, but not ratified by the Clan Council, the Abjuration could be ignored. And everyone here will ignore it.
"Khan Chistu made his pronouncements the night of his victory over our forces on Wotan. Three days later, while clearing rubble, workers found Vlad of the Wards alive but trapped in his Timber Wolf. When they freed him and informed him of what had taken place, he challenged Khan Chistu to a Trial of Refusal concerning the absorption. Chistu was forced to accept the challenge and was slain in that fight."
Phelan allowed the Wolves their cheering—. Even he felt inclined to smile. Though he had hated Vlad from their first encounter—the day Vlad had captured him—he respected the man's abilities in combat. Any Wolf present on Morges ached to have done what Vlad had done in killing Chistu. Crusader though he was, Vlad had proved himself every atom a Wolf.
"Khan Crichell honored Vlad's victory but did not wholly repudiate the Absorption. Those Wolves who had been taken into the Falcons were separated from them again, but they now form the Jade Wolf Clan."
When Phelan first heard the news of what had happened on Wotan, he knew exactly why Crichell had decided to create the hybrid Clan. The Wolves who survived, by and large, were Crusaders, whose support he expected. By keeping the Wolves alive, Crichell could count on the votes of their Khans in the Grand Council. Since Ulric's Trial of Refusal against charges of genocide had failed at Wotan, a reconstituted Wolf Clan could have faced extermination. Through the blind of creating a new Clan, Crichell had found a way to reward Vlad for eliminating a rival and strengthen the Jade Falcon position in the Grand Council.