Flight of the Falcon

20

Sanglamore Military Academy

New London Skye

2 July 3134

Rotating a finger’s breadth above the table in the darkened briefing room, the holovid bust seemed fully as substantial as meat and cloth and hair: a broad head with long reddish hair sweeping back from a widow’s peak almost to the collar of a black and green tunic. Russet beard fringed a broad jaw; the long upper lip was shaved clean. The eyes were sleepy looking slits in which murky green could be glimpsed, like concealed pools. The nose was broad. Something about the image radiated a sense of the certitude of power.

“Galaxy Commander Beckett Malthus, now Supreme Commander of the Jade Falcon expeditionary force,” the woman said. She was tall and rangy, with a knife scar down the right side of her long, unhandsome face, slanted blue eyes flanking an oft-broken nose. Her graying blond hair was shaved to a scalp lock. In the dimness, the badges on her spacer’s jumpsuit, of a senior member of the merchant caste on one side and of Clan Sea Fox on the other, were vague circular blurs.

Tara Campbell’s eyes kept straying from the holographic image of the Jade Falcon commander to the actual Clanswoman. Her emotions were a roil.

“How is it you come to know all this, Master Merchant Senna?” asked Planetary Legate Eckard. The very emotional desiccation of his words robbed them of any taste of challenge.

“We trade in the Jade Falcon OZ,” the woman said bluntly. “We don’t like them; they don’t like us.” Like many Sea Fox merchants, she showed no compunction about using contractions. Yet Tara was chillingly aware that she wasalien, poured from a bottle in lieu of birth like the most fanatically mystic Nova Cat or rabid Wolf.

And while her manner was one of rough camaraderie, the Countess also knew that could be no more than a trade-convenient pose: she dare not assume that this woman or any Clanner’s agenda was the same as hers, far less The Republic’s. Yet one thing she did rely upon: Clan Sea Fox hated the Falcons—trade rivals as well as blood enemies—as bitterly as she herself detested Anastasia Kerensky and her Steel Wolves.

One side of the Clanswoman’s mouth quirked up. “But they can’t afford tonot trade with us, any more than we can afford to not trade with them. You know how it goes: everybody trades with everybody. Or did until the HPG went out.”

She shrugged wide shoulders. “Sense tells us we should trade now more than ever, all of us, since JumpShips are the only thing now that pass between most stars any faster than light. But leave that. The point is, we don’t have to love the Falcons to trade with them, nor the other way ’round. And even among Clanners,trade meanstalk ”

“What ought we know about this Malthus, Master Merchant?” It was easy for Tara to keep her voice genial: all it took was a lifetime’s schooling and practice in the rigors of diplomacy, and the exercise of a will which enabled a tiny slip of feminine body to make itself an interstellar unarmed-combat champion. Not much at all.

Those strange slanted eyes appraised her for a long moment before the Clanswoman spoke. “He’s a

snake. A conniver and contriver.”

“They have those in the Jade Falcons?” asked Colonel Robert Ballantrae with both surprise and a sneer. “Outside the merchant caste, of course.”

“Go easy, Robert,” Tara murmured.

The knife-damaged face showed no reaction. It struck Tara that this woman was probably little less skilled at her own brand of diplomacy than Tara herself. She tried to imagine what that would cost a Clanswoman bred. Even among the Sea Foxes, who honored merchants scarcely less than warriors—if indeed, they recognized such a distinction.

Outside experts, self-proclaimed, debated that latter point. Although they were the most ubiquitous of the true Clanners—the wild true breed, not Republicans of Clan descent—in the Inner Sphere, the Foxes were in many ways the least known. Where most Clans were notable for their braggadocio, they were extremely private, holding their daily lives and culture as closely as their treasure.

“They have connivers everywhere—even in the Spheroid military,” Master Merchant Senna said. Tara Campbell braced herself to hear her say,even among the Paladins of The Republic . The media had trumpeted her own disgrace by traitor Paladin Ezekiel Crow throughout The Republic; there was no way a Sea Fox more than a jump inside a Prefecture, as Skye was, could fail to know of it. Nor was it egotism that assured Tara Campbell this woman knew everything about her which was publicly known, and probably a good deal besides. Sea Fox merchants undertook their caste calling with the same zeal with which other Clans’ warriors attacked theirs, but with considerably more foresight and preparation.

“The key to Beckett Malthus, and the threat that you face, is that Malthus is brilliant, versatile and entirely sociopathic, by Clan or normal human standards.”

Tara looked around at her companions: her aide Tara Bishop at her side, Colonel Ballantrae nearby, Legate Eckard and Prefect Della Brown, each also with an aide. Duke Gregory took the Sea Fox woman and her intelligence seriously, even if he had declined to attend in person.

“He is old for a Clan warrior,” the woman said, “in his fifties—he was born in 3081, the year Devlin Stone proclaimed The Republic. His right arm has been prosthetic since he won his Bloodname: he’s always disdained regeneration. He remains a formidable MechWarrior.”

She chuckled. “Which isnot why he is the most feared being in Clan Jade Falcon, not excepting Khan Jana Pryde.”

She paused and sipped from a mug. It was coffee poured by a Sanglamore cadet pressed into service as an aide; she had fortified it with a shot of something from a silver flask of her own which, by a waft of scent, Tara judged to be brandy.

“He has fought few Trials in his time,” she said, leaning a forearm on the table. “You see, a very long time ago, not long after he won the Malthus Bloodname, a prominent Mech Warrior set about destroying him. He did not immediately call Malthus out, but preferred to belittle him, hoping to provoke the one-armed young warrior to challenge him.

“Instead, through a series of events no one could quite piece together after the fact—and after the fact, perhaps, no one particularly wanted to—Malthus’ rival found himself subjected to a Trial of Annihilation. He was killed, and his whole genotype purged.”

Tara glanced at her aide. Tara Bishop was nodding. Clan warriors, especially those of proud Jade Falcon, feared little, least of all death. But such were Bec Malthus’ gifts that he found something theydid fear.

“Now a Trial of Annihilation is far too potent a weapon for frequent use, although that first luckless warrior isn’t Beckett Malthus’ only rival to suffer it. His enemies, let us say, have a way of ending up dezgra —disgraced. Make no mistake, he’s capable of fighting when he has to—and winning. It’s just been quite a spell since hehad to.”

“Intrigue doesn’t come naturally to Clanners,” Prefect Brown said musingly.

“Nicholas Kerensky tried to breed it out of his bottle babies,” Tara Bishop said. “So now that the Falcons have a master manipulator among their warrior caste, nobody can deal with him. I guess that’s what you call the law of unintended consequences.”

Prefect Brown looked at her sharply. She still had not softened to Tara Campbell, and patently believed officers as junior as Bishop should be seen and not heard. And not much seen.

“Quite astute, young lady,” Stanford Eckard said. Tara Campbell made herself refrain from glancing at him. Was he, then, starting to accept her?

“There is one,” Senna said. “Khan Jana Pryde. He has been her left-hand man throughout her rise to Khanship of the Falcons. She knows the colors of his soul, you can bet your final stone.”

“Which may be why she chose him to command the invasion force,” Tara Campbell said. “I wonder that he never acted to seize the Khanship himself.”

Master Merchant Senna smiled her crooked smile. “One thing Bec Malthus is not is mad, Countess. He’s an altogether functional sociopath—like your playmate Anastasia Kerensky.” Tara stiffened; she felt the other Tara’s touch brief and light upon her arm where the others could not see.

“Unlike the Wolf-bitch,” continued Senna, who had not glanced at Tara Campbell in naming her nemesis, “his sociopathy enables him to become something even rarer, especially among the Clans: a man capable of total objectivity. One of the things his terribly clear vision has shown him is that anything one can be seen to possess is potentialisorla to every other warrior. He decided early on, therefore, that his ambition would be far better served by being the power behind the throne than the occupant thereof. Instrumental as he was in Jana Pryde’s rise to the Khanate, he successfully convinced her that he posed no threat to her position.”

“But now she suspects he’s outlived his usefulness?” Tara Campbell asked.

Senna shrugged. “We understand the Clan mind as, candidly, few other Clanners do. But our analysts aren’t psychic. Let us say the Khan has decided he’d best serve Turkina, and her, a hundred light years from the Clan Occupation Zone.”

Robert Ballantrae shifted in his chair. A big bluff Northwind Highlander of the old style, he had little more love for fancy talk than he did for Clanners. “So this madman’s the main threat to our peace here in the Inner Sphere?”

Tara Campbell noted he did not say, The Republic ; during the second fight for Northwind the Colonel

had made it clear that his primary loyalty was to Northwind itself, and if The Republic would not protect his home world, then it could go hang. Fortunately, his loyalty to planet was inextricably intertwined with loyalty to the person of that planet’s hereditary ruler: Countess Tara Campbell. He would serve The Republic of the Sphere as zealously as did Tara despite his skepticism, because he would serve his Countess as loyally as her own right hand.

Senna laughed softly through the dark. “No, Colonel. Not at all. He’s neither main nor maddest.”

She touched a control surface on the remote she held. The image of Bec Malthus was replaced by that of a woman: strikingly beautiful, with skin like snow, eyes like winter sky, and hair like a frozen waterfall.

“Galaxy Commander Malvina Hazen, commanding the Delta or Gyrfalcon Galaxy. The White Virgin, the Ice-Bitch, the Butcher of Wotan. Since leaving her sibko, she has never left an opponent who faced her in single combat alive—not enemies on the field of battle, nor fellow Falcons in Trials. The leading ristar of Clan Jade Falcon, its foremost MechWarrior and battle commander. Excepting only one. It is said you can see a furnace of fanaticism and fury burning through her pale skin, although I wonder if that’s just the light of madness.”

“She murdered Hamilton.” Tara Campbell almost spat the words. She saw no need for diplomatic evasion here.

Senna nodded slowly. “She did. And whether you believe me or not, Countess, I despise the deed as heartily as you. No matter: she has done as much before, and worse. A few years back, laborers mutinied on Wotan against the incompetent administration of a MechWarrior who had caused a famine claiming a thousand lives. That MechWarrior was later broken by the Clan Council, and died Solahma under command of Malvina herself. In spite of that, then-Star Captain Malvina, not yet Bloodnamed, exterminated the population of an entire bloc. Five thousand workers. Children, women, men. By way of example, you see.”

Silence filled the room like sickly fog.

“She is even smaller than you, Countess Campbell,” Senna said. “The confrontation between you will be epic despite your physical statures.”

“I’m flattered,” Tara said dryly. And yet she knew the compliment was real. Clan warriors disdained to lie, and facile trader stereotypes notwithstanding, the Sea Fox merchants did no less.

“However,” the tall woman went on, “I do not deem her your greatest threat either.”

“Good Lord,” murmured Tara Bishop. “What’s worse thanthat ?”

Another figure appeared in her place: the broad shoulders, muscular neck and head of a man with brown skin, an unruly hank of coarse black hair, big cheekbones, a lantern jaw and a straight nose. The wide mouth and brown eyes smiled. To Tara Campbell, adept at reading people’s expressions, the smile seemed one of genuine joy.

She wondered what, in the grim and violent world of the Clans, he found to be so happy about.

“He ’smore dangerous?” Tara Bishop burst out. “He looks like the big brother every girl wished she had. Well, maybe notbrother , since he looks like a holovid star. .. ”

Senna smiled. “Interesting you should say that, Captain. These two are a rarity: sibkin—brother and sister—who have both won Bloodnames. The first in Clan Jade Falcon that we know of since Aiden and Marthe Pryde—and we know all, we Sea Foxes. Every word of every Clan’s Remembrance; the contents of records other Clans don’t even know they keep. That is our business, ultimately: to know.”

She gestured. “Galaxy Commander Aleksandr Hazen. He is Malvina Hazen’s sibkin. Fraternal twin, to all intents and purposes—especially inasmuch as they are the only members of their sibling cohort to survive to win warrior status.”

“How do the genetics ofthat work out?” Prefect Della Brown wondered aloud.

“Recessives for fair skin, hair, and eyes in the gene-stock,” Merchant Senna answered. “Sibkin can be even more diverse in appearance. These two couple; there are even rumors that emotional attachment has evolved.”

Ballantrae squinted at her. “What does that mean?”

“They have long been lovers, it is said.”

“That’s unnatural!” Ballantrae exclaimed.

“Of course it is,” the Sea Fox woman said equably. “There is nothing natural about our Clan society, least of all our mode of reproduction. Though we profess great affinity with nature, we meddle with it in every particular of our own lives. That’s another reason we and the Dracs feel such affinity for one another.”

Tara Campbell leaned forward. “Sothis is a greater threat than the bloodthirsty little blonde vampire? He must be a happy lunatic.”

“Your judgment for once is clouded, Tara Campbell,” the master merchant replied. “Aleks Hazen is entirely sane, although by Clan standards stranger than Malvina. Even as Malvina has never spared a foe faced in a duel, so he has never slain one. He is famed—or notorious—for his mercy and compassion.”

“How does he manage to keep his head on his shoulders among such a bloodthirsty lot?” Ballantrae burst out.

“Nobody is good enough to separate the one from the other, Colonel. He has fought Elementals unaugmented—barehanded—and won. As a MechWarrior, only one can touch him: Malvina, whom it is said he has never beaten. As a field commander he may be her better.”

“You say he’s the worst threat?” Tara Bishop said. “Why, if mass murder isn’t to his taste?”

“For precisely that reason, young Captain. Tell her, Countess: teach your fledgling. She shows great promise, but still lacks full wisdom.”

“Malvina’s methods inspire anger and hatred,” Tara said slowly, as her aide looked death beams at the master merchant. “They fill the survivors with desire for revenge. A chivalrous foe such as Aleks doesn’t give even those he conquers much to hate.”

The merchant nodded. Then laughed.

“Lucky for you that he is a freak. The reason the Crusaders lost the first invasion, and lost it so disastrously, was that they had nohistory . The Founders thought to start anew, to create the New Kerensky Man. And so the Crusaders lost because they knew nothing of human interaction except that peculiar hothouse-grown variety we enjoy in the Clans; and so they knew nothing of strategy. But Aleks Hazen knows his history.”

She drank again and smiled. “We might have seduced you within three generations with our marvelous toys, we Sea Foxes. It wasn’t just our killing tech that was superior to yours. But the warriors had their way, as is ever the case except in our own Clan; and we Foxes have always been despised in the Grand Council; when there was a Grand Council.”

The master merchant lowered eyes to her mug and lapsed into a reverie much at odds with her previous loquacity. With her unwilling knowledge of Clan lore, Tara Campbell realized, as the others seemed not to, that there had not been a Grand Council in decades. Nor was Senna likely to ever see one herself.

“Why are you helping us?” Tara Bishop asked.

Senna paused with her mug just short of her scarred lips. Her eyes had gone a deeper turquoise again: there was no danger there, only appraisal.

“The simple, obvious answer—that we hate Turkina’s brood—is true. But it’s so small a piece of the truth as to be a lie, if nothing more were said. We are Kerensky’s children, woman warrior. No less than the Wolves—nor the Falcons. We represent the Founder’s hedge against the possibility his vision was wrong: an alternative strategy to eternal war for dubious peace. No less than our more bloodthirsty brethren do we feel we have a mission to save humanity from itself.”

She shrugged, drank again. “Ironically, it is not so different from the vision of Devlin Stone, which your Countess there serves with such famed devotion. Our agenda is our own, our plans our own; I give nothing away in telling you that, because I credit you with sufficient intelligence to take it for granted.”

Carefully, she set the mug down on the table before her, as if it was spun from fine glass. “Clan Jade Falcon poses a threat to all humanity. Not just your precious Republic, whose time is past—pardon if I give offense, Countess; but you have paid me for the truth. We Sea Foxes honor our bargains, always.

“Malthus is a devil, yet by himself he is nothing, for he needs a long shadow in which to hide to work his mischief. But Malvina and Aleksandr Hazen together create ataiji , dark and light, the ancient symbol of unity in duality, the endless interplay of opposites. Together they are awesome, and may yet prove unstoppable. Yet individually they may pose even greater threats. For each is an elemental force—not Elemental in our Clan sense, but in the classic meaning: a force of Nature Herself.”

“Mystic nonsense,” Ballantrae rasped. It was almost a spit. “Countess, we might as well have brought Kev Rosse himself here, to spin us some daft Spirit Cat vision out of mushrooms and drug smoke!”

Ignoring the Colonel’s outburst, Master Merchant Senna looked Tara Campbell deep in the eyes as she spoke. “Let me give you one final counsel: kill both if you can, but under no circumstances slay one and leave the other living. Or even the Blake Jihad will seem a trifle.

“For by himself Aleksandr will bring you a smiling slavery from which humankind will not escape for a thousand years. While Malvina untempered by her brother’s true compassion will create such devastation that in a thousand years our descendants will still be gibbering and eating each other in the ruins of it.”