Double-Blind Read online

  "But the man is not a fool, Precentor," St. Jamais said quietly. "Would that we were so fortunate. We have merely been blessed with circumstances that would seem a natural progression from past events."

  Demona Aziz listened silently, noting that as usual St. Jamais held the stronger position. The Marian Hegemony, another of the states in that region of the Periphery, was ruled by Caesar Sean O'Reilly and lay rimward of House Marik's Free Worlds League. It butted up against the Magistracy of Canopus, which separated the Marian Hegemony and the Taurian Concordat with a body of star systems only two hundred and fifty light years across. The Toyama had been smuggling weapons and new technology into the Marian Hegemony for nearly four years, encouraging O'Reilly to maintain a hostile attitude toward Canopus. It was that action which had driven Emma Centrella into an alliance with the Taurian Concordat. For the past year, O'Reilly had been increasing his raids on Canopus border worlds with great success. This could only serve to drive Canopus closer to the Taurian Concordat. But there was more to it than that.

  "There's more to it," she said, voicing her last thought aloud. "Right now, the Marian Hegemony is ready to cooperate with us in almost any effort. I say we step up the pressure on Canopus. Our supply lines are already in place and we control the key officials. Demi-Precentor Adams, could we double or even triple the flow of weapons and material through Astrokaszy?"

  "Double, at least," Adams said. "Perhaps triple, though that would risk exposing our involvement."

  Demona nodded. "Then we double it for now. Blane would like a full alliance bordering on a merger between Canopus and the Taurians within a year's time. I think we can cut that in half. Controlling the creation of the alliance will gain the Toyama the influence we seek. Then we allow the Word of Blake's assistance to the Marian Hegemony be discovered."

  "And Blane takes the blame," Precentor Gabriel finished. "Very nice."

  "Not quite." Demona Aziz smiled thinly. "We are already set up to implicate either the Capellan Confederation or the Free Worlds League. I say we let Thomas Marik absorb the damage. His reputation for noble idealism will be destroyed, and that too will bleed over onto Blane, who is his biggest supporter." And I gain a measure of revenge in the name of the Blessed Blake.

  "But we still prepare for both," St. Jamais said. "Yes?"

  Demona hesitated for a moment and then nodded. "Yes.

  So far Sun-Tzu Liao has been fairly predictable, but we should remain ready to drive a wedge between him and Thomas should he step out of line. 'Preparation is always the key to victory.' Thus said the sainted Blake."

  Silence greeted Demona's last words as the group considered the power they would hold over the Word of Blake. In the distance, Demona could just make out the heavy footfalls of the patrolling BattleMech as the shock waves came up through her own feet.

  I shook the Inner Sphere in such a way when giving birth to the Word of Blake, she thought. They may credit it to Blane or even Thomas Marik, but it was I. This time I shall wake them with a thunderous overture to the rise of the Toyama. She glanced at St. Jamais, who seemed lost again in his own thoughts. And when I have finally taken my place as Primus, the whole of the Inner Sphere might well turn to me as the only great leader still left.

  1

  Ceruman Plateau, Ashentine Mountains

  New Home

  Chaos March

  17 March 3058

  Two klicks shy of where the southern edge of the Ceruman Plateau butted up against the near-vertical rise of the Ashentine Mountains, a long-abandoned industrial complex was the scene of the latest battle for the planet of New Home. Thunderous explosions of missiles and the crackling discharges of big energy weapons had already broken the early-morning stillness, but the mists of dawn still covered the area, swirling around the mammoth legs of the BattleMechs.

  Near the center of the complex a Warhammer painted the brown and gray of mountain camouflage stalked the mist-covered grounds between derelict factories and abandoned warehouses. Its arms, which ended in the large bore of PPC barrels instead of hands, tracked left and then right. Painted onto the Hammer's lower-left leg, where the armor plating ran smooth from knee joint to ankle, was a rough-looking angel with white and dirty-gray feathered wings, a five o'clock shadow, and carrying a gyroshig rifle.

  Not the sort of design to promote belief in the Almighty unless a person thought of Heaven in terms of an armed camp.

  Sweat trickled down the face of Marcus GioAvanti, commander of the mercenary company known as Avanti's Angels, stinging his eyes and leaving a salty taste on his lips. The air inside the Hammer's cockpit was hot, dry, and stifling, made bearable only by the cooling vest that kept his body temperature down. The growing faintness of missile and energy fire told him just how deep the battle had swept into the complex. Doesn't matter, Marcus thought. He blinked hard to clear his vision, then searched his head's-up display for the enemy JagerMech he'd lost among the low hills that surrounded the widely spaced buildings. The HUD compressed a full 360 degrees of scanning into only 120 degrees of vision, projecting the tactical imagery in a band across the upper portion of his cockpit window. Learning to read it properly was one of the trickier skills a 'Mech pilot had to master. But that Jag was almost certainly the enemy commander's BattleMech. Defeating him would go a long way toward winning the battle, so Marcus doggedly pursued his quarry, trusting his people to handle themselves.

  As it was, the enemy 'Mech found him first as Marcus moved the Warhammer through the rubble-strewn area of what had once been a large warehouse. The 65-ton JagerMech suddenly appeared from around a building farther ahead, its blocky torso and the large, barrel-like appendages that were its arms letting Marcus' computer identify it immediately. Its autocannon arms spat out fifty-centimeter depleted-uranium slugs that hammered away at the right leg and torso of Marcus' Warhammer, making the 'Mech stumble as it moved through the loose rubble.

  Trying to keep almost 70 tons of upright metal in balance is no small feat. Marcus tightened his grip on the Hammer's control sticks, their neoleather covering wicking away the sweat from his palms as he fought to keep the huge war machine on its feet While he moved the 'Mech's arms to provide a stabilizing shift in weight, his neuro-helmet fed signals from his brain—based on Marcus' own equilibrium—straight into the BattleMech's huge gyroscope and myomer musculature.

  This time it worked, and Marcus managed to find solid purchase within the loose rubble long enough to trigger the particle projection cannons that were the arms of his own 'Mech. Two azure beams stabbed out at the Jager-Mech, one grazing the left leg and the other boring deep into an already-damaged right arm. Armor melted and poured to the ground in streams of molten steel. Then the Jag's right arm suddenly dropped, a blackened, ruined shell swinging loosely from its shoulder-mount hinge. Deprived of a major weapon and rocking under the loss of two tons of armor, the enemy 'Mech staggered his machine back around the building.

  Marcus cleared the field of rubble and paused to check his tactical display. As far as he could tell from the collection of colored dots and lines, his entire unit was still intact and in position according to plan. He swallowed dryly, trying to coax life back into his parched throat, then drew in a steadying breath. The heavy, rancid scent of sweat left an ache in his upper sinuses, which he merely ignored as he spoke into his helmet mike.

  "General announcement," he called out, giving Ki-Lynn a second to patch him into the unit's open channel. Ki-Lynn Tanaga functioned as his comm officer, screening all non-essential communications between Marcus and his company. She was also particularly adept at breaking enemy communications, which was why Marcus was sure he faced the enemy's commander in the JagerMech.

  "Archangel to the flock," Marcus continued, bringing his Warhammer up to a steady walking pace of 40 kph. "Press them now! Prometheus element, light up the sky." Even as he gave the order, Marcus coaxed the Warhammer up toward its top speed of 65 kph. The JagerMech had yet to reappear on either side of the building, so Marcus held wea
pons ready and moved straight in. The cockpit swayed lightly from side to side as the huge machine's colossal gait ate up the distance, each step sending a small tremor up through the machine and its pilot.

  Then a bright, reddish-orange flash of light blossomed far off to Marcus' right, turning the normal amber glow of his instrument panel a sickly pink. He heard the deep bass roar of a large explosion at about the same moment the tremors hit, though at this distance it threw only the smallest hitch into the Warhammer's normal step. A column of fire roiled up into the sky, quickly turning an oily black as it smeared a dark scar against the blue.

  That's it, he thought, and smiled grimly as he plowed the Warhammer straight into the wall of the building.

  Six short months ago, New Home and a few dozen worlds like it had been under the peaceful rule of the Federated Commonwealth—the mighty Inner Sphere state formed nearly thirty years earlier by a marriage between House Davion and House Steiner. For two decades it had seemed that little could stand against the Steiner-Davions, the first major alliance since the fall of the Star League three centuries before. Many hoped—and others feared— that it heralded a return to grander times, when the whole Inner Sphere had been united under the single government of the Star League. And that might actually have come to pass if not for the Clan invasion, a debacle from which the Inner Sphere was still trying to recover.

  Only six months ago, the Free Worlds League and the Capellan Confederation had formed an alliance of their own to attack the FedCom region known as the Sarna March, retaking worlds they'd lost to the Federated Commonwealth twenty-five years before and inciting rebellion on dozens of others.

  Then came what some thought might be the final death blow, when Katrina Steiner-Davion made off with the Steiner half of the Federated Commonwealth—renaming it the Lyran Alliance. In just a few short weeks Prince Victor Davion lost several decades worth of political ground, with a large region of disputed space suddenly emerging as a kind of interstellar no-man's-land in what had once been the very heart of his realm. More than fifty settled worlds were suddenly set free, many of them claimed by no less than three of the great powers of the Inner Sphere.

  Half of these, worlds that had originally belonged to House Liao before the Davions took them, reverted their allegiance to Liao. Capellan Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao had yet to consolidate his position, either unable or unwilling to stretch his military resources so far. Still, these worlds remained under his political influence, and for the garrison price of three or four BattleMech regiments, the Capellan Confederation could reclaim almost sixty light years' worth of space.

  The other half, another globular area of space roughly sixty light years in diameter and sitting in the very center of the Inner Sphere, became known as the Chaos March. It was so named because no one government held sway and the various worlds were now involved in Byzantine power struggles, with as many as three or four different sides vying in some cases. And always, the tantalizing carrot of independent rule dangled in front of them.

  Most of these worlds craved that independence, a few going so far as to establish minor alliances with neighboring systems, while the Great House leaders refused to relinquish their own claims. This meant a lot of job opportunities for smaller mercenary units such as the Angels, but also a greater involvement in the politics of the situation as well as serious potential for betrayal. There was no way to really tell which side held the most power at any given moment—your ally today easily stabbing you in the back tomorrow.

  Of which the Angels had already had a serious taste.

  The unit had just come off a contract on Arboris where the Farmers Freedom Army had hired them to harass Capellan Confederation forces on the planet. Someone somewhere must have decided to recoup some of the expenses of hiring a company of BattleMechs. After two months of successful hit-and-fade tactics against the Ishara Grenadiers, the FFA literally sold the Angels' position to Grenadier commander Choung Vong. The Angels barely made it off Arboris—their losses cutting deeply into their strength. They lost two warriors and three of their BattleMechs, with the rest of the company severely mauled. Bringing themselves back up to even near-full strength had cost the Angels every last C-bill in the company coffers as well as most of the mercenaries' personal funds.

  With the operating expenses necessary to support a military unit threatening to drive the Angels into dissolution, Marcus had jumped at Baron Shienzé's offer of a contract to help New Home maintain its recently won independence. The fee would barely pay bills from two months back, but it did include better salvage rights than the Angels had seen for some time. Not enough to bring them back to full strength after expenses, but maybe enough to help them on their way.

  So with one eye on the future and another warily regarding their new employer, the Angels had come to the aid of New Home.

  The planet was making its bid for freedom, supported by the Thirtieth Lyran Guards, who had decided not to accept Katrina Steiner's invitation to return to the Lyran Alliance. The New Home Regulars, a faction of the Zhanzheng de guang terrorist group supported by Sun-Tzu Liao, had been waging a fairly successful guerrilla war against the Thirtieth for several months. With the decision not to accept Katrina's offer, the Thirtieth lost its chief source of supply and could not afford to risk resources in an extended campaign. So it fell to the Angels to locate and destroy several remote bases in an attempt to cripple the resistance efforts of the New Home Regulars.

  A job for which Avanti's Angels were especially suited.

  The Angels specialized in a blitzkrieg-style of warfare. Infiltration, extraction, raiding—any situation calling for a hit-hard-and-fade-fast approach. It was a philosophy of combat fostered by the two years of hell that had been the Clan invasion.

  Many historians dated the fall of the Star League from the moment of General Aleksandr Kerensky's exodus in 2784, when he summoned more than eighty percent of the Star League Defense Force and fled the Inner Sphere before his troops could be drawn into what would come to be known as the Succession Wars. Nearly three hundred years later, Kerensky's heirs returned as the greatest threat the Inner Sphere had ever faced. The Angels had been a part of House Kurita's DCMS forces then, a six-BattleMech ad hoc unit created to provide regular units any amount of extra resistance against the Clans. The unofficial term was sacrificial offering, as Marcus always put it, the Angels always drawing rear-guard duty to allow line regiments precious moments to escape.

  Whether augmenting DCMS regular forces or standing alone, the Angels took a beating in almost every stand against the Clans. Marcus saw too many good warriors fall, some of them friends, men and women losing their lives over a patch of ground that was soon scorched black by weapons or churned up under the giant feet or heavy treads of war machines. But the Angels survived, grafting to themselves the orphans of lost battles and other shattered units. Technicians and infantry. 'Mech pilots with their own machines or numbering among the Dispossessed. Their survival potential drew the stragglers in, just as their experience of being on the run taught them superior—even elite—tactics in small-unit engagements, not to mention special skills such has how to salvage on the fly.

  That early sense of growth was fleeting, however, as the next battle would promptly claim its price in lives and equipment. Those years of almost constant combat and change bred into the Angels their nomadic lifestyle, as well as their belief that the offense held all the advantages. The mercenaries avoided defensive engagements and they never accepted garrison duty. Marcus himself would never again allow too much importance to settle on any one thing. Not a place, person, or battle. Keep the initiative, and you can dictate the battle.

  A lesson he was applying in the Angels' current situation.

  The New Home Regulars' Ceruman base camp contained their chief stockpile of supplies. Guarding it was a strengthened company of BattleMechs and a battalion of conventional infantry, while Marcus had landed on New Home with only a bare company—one of his 'Mechs currently down for repai
r—and one light hovercraft. Eleven against sixteen—not the best odds, until Marcus decided to tip the balance. Take away what is important in the base to the New Home Regulars, and their will to defend it lessens that much more. Marcus' plan called for elimination of the New Home Regulars' supplies of weapons and material. That was what his order to Prometheus element had been all about. The area around their ordnance stockpile was now lit with the afterglow of the explosion and the fires leaping up among the buildings.

  His Warhammer erupted from the far side of the building amid a final shower of rubble and timbers. The enemy JagerMech stood less than thirty meters off, turned slightly away from Marcus as it faced the direction from which the explosion had come. Marcus floated the gold targeting cross hairs over the enemy 'Mech even as it began to react to his presence. The primary triggers on both control sticks were configured to fire either all left-side or all right-side weapons. Marcus pulled back on both, treating the JagerMech to one of the most destructive light shows an Inner Sphere BattleMech could deliver.

  A bit of a cheat, though, to call it fully Inner Sphere. From their times against the Clans, the Angels had managed to salvage a small array of Clan-tech weapons and other equipment. While they had never retrieved a functional OmniMech—the dreaded Clan version of a BattleMech—they did stockpile a half-dozen Clan PPCs, some lasers, and even a Gauss rifle. It gave the Angels a slight edge where others didn't expect it, and now two of those PPCs delivered half again as much punch as their Inner Sphere cousins.

  The twin beams of blue-white lightning streaked out to slam into the JagerMech's torso, boiling away armor and then cutting away at the foamed-titanium skeleton beneath. Two medium lasers also stabbed at the enemy machine, one missing high over the right shoulder and the other clipping the left arm. The torso-mounted machine gun rattled a hail of bullets off the JagerMech's head, doing little damage but no doubt adding to the enemy commander's dismay. Last to strike were the six missiles of the Warhammer's SRM pack, rising on trails of fire and smoke to swarm across the scant thirty meters between the two machines in a matter of seconds. One missile exploded between the machine's colossal legs, tearing up a large chunk of the ground that rained over the area in a black cascade. Two missiles slammed into the BattleMech's upper right thigh, and the remaining three flew straight into the cavity bored out by the PPCs.