“This was deliberate?” Aleks asked. A hot ember flake from one of an uncountable number of fires still guttering low in the devastation lit on his cheek to cling and sting like an acid beetle. He made no acknowledgment, neither flinched nor moved to brush it off.
“It takes a lot of work to utterly level a city, complete with fifty thousand inhabitants,” Malvina said. “How do you imagine it might have been done by accident?”
He lowered his head and shook it as if it weighed a hundred kilos. “Why?”
Malvina’s head was encased in a somewhat bulbous Jade Falcon field helmet; neither was dressed for the cockpit of a ’Mech. In the moonlight her expression of puzzlement was unmistakable. And at least seemingly authentic.
“To end resistance, of course,” she said, hauteur and sarcasm gone from her voice. “To stop the killing.”
He waved his hands about him. All was a black plain as far as the eye could see, to the mountains on one side and the sea upon the other. “The whole city isgone . Scrubbed from the face of Chaffee. The river scummed over with ash and grime and ... and the grease of melted bodies for ten kilometers downstream! How could youdo that?”
She shrugged. “It took but a day to accomplish. But my command DropShip White Reaper added its firepower, which expedited things considerably. We might have used orbital strike, but I would have had to trouble the Supreme Commander for clearance.”
She smiled again. “Besides, my people needed the practice.”
“That is not what I meant,” he said hoarsely.
“I know that. I was only seeking to save you embarrassment. As you may remember, I have long shielded my brother, the only companion of my childhood, from harm. And now when there is none in the universe who can touch him, I seek to save him from the only one who can.”
She reached up to touch his cheek with gauntleted fingertips. “Yourself.”
His hand snapped up as if to smash hers away. At the last millisecond it slowed. The great hand that enfolded her slim wrist and removed her touch from his leather-brown cheek did so as if she were spun of gossamer.
She ripped it free, whirled from him, stormed away three paces. The brief black cape of her not-quite-regulation dress uniform fluttered about her shoulders.
“Do you care nothing for our people?” she snapped. “Our warriors struck down from coward’s cover? Let me tell you of these Freebirths. Within the cities most of them carry arms, even technicians and laborers—not that these bellycrawling mongrels make such distinction.”
At the uttering of the word “bellycrawlef’ Aleks’ lower left eyelid twitched. He said nothing.
“Outside the cities theyall have firearms—and all know how to use them. And not just small arms. The Zeus heavy rifle is considered suitable to be left with minor children when parents are compelled to leave them unattended at their homesteads. The parents carry super-powerful laser rifles in their vehicles for defense against the larger local beasts. And for hunting or protection from some of the local fauna, nothing less than portable short-range missile launchers or even particle-projector cannon are required.”
Aleks nodded reluctant concurrence. “I understand. I have lost three Elementals in the last two days, all sniped from over two kilometers’ distance. Not even our ballistic radars can pick us out the snipers—who run away as soon as they see their targets fall through their scopes.”
She turned to face him. She seemed in control of herself again; her voice was almost light. Almost taunting. “And you have taken retribution.”
He grimaced, shrugged. Nodded slowly. “We must. We cannot permit the people of a conquered world to defy us. Especially when all our plans hinge upon pacifying Chaffee and using it as a base.”
“To liberate the Inner Sphere,” she said. “Precisely.”
She drew near him again. He did not draw back, but neither did he show sign of softening. “Do you not care about your precious belly—precious Spheroids? The ones we are on Crusade to save from their venal leaders—and themselves?” she asked.
He turned away. “These folk are masterless even forstravag ,” she said to his wedge-shaped back. The word was a term of abuse for Freeborn. “They have no honor.”
“Perhaps they have much honor,” Aleks said. “While they strike from ambush like cowards, even as you say, the ones we catch fight until death. The ones we capture commit suicide—or contrive escape.”
She faced him again. Her eyes glittered like silver coins in the moonlight. “Those whose honor is only for themselves have no true honor,” she said. “But you make my case, Aleksandr. They will not honor their leaders’ surrender. They refuse to surrender themselves. What can we do but to hunt them down one by one and kill them, then?”
He spread his great hands in a gesture of helplessness. Something caught Malvina’s eye; she half-turned.
A skull, discolored, partially charred, with blackened wisps of tissue clinging to it, but its smooth dome gleaming with organic oils. A small skull. A child’s skull.
“We can show them what resistance will cost, not just them, but their loved ones,” she asked, “with one single punishment so terrible”—she stepped forward and crushed the tiny skull beneath her bootheel—“that it will be felt in the most remote corners of this burdensome world.”
His upper lip had peeled back from white teeth. “This is where your Mongol-worship leads.”
She took off her helmet, unpinned her hair, shook it free in a cascade like moonlight itself that fell past her shoulders. “This is where the path of true compassion leads. I submit, brother dear, that I have saved lives by what I have done here. Theirs as well as ours.”
The face he turned to her was twisted like a rag. “Is this what is demanded of a warrior, a protector of the lesser and the weak?” he asked, in a voice as if an Elemental’s manipulator were crushing his throat, and flapped a hand like broken wing. “Is thishonor? ”
“Victory for Clan Jade Falcon,” she said, “is honor.” And walked away.
14
Sanglamore Military Academy
New London
Skye
The Republic of the Sphere 2 May 3134
“Really, Countess,” Chief Minister Augustus Solvaig said, “I believe we know how to conduct our own business here on Skye, thank you.”
Tara Campbell felt her cheeks flush hot. She sensed her aide, the other Tara, going tense at her side, and channeled the energy of embarrassment and anger into willing the captain into silence. The small and balding minister with red muttonchop sideburns covering most of his round red cheeks like fuzzy symmetrical birthmarks did not just accidentally happen to be sitting at the strong beringed right hand of Duke Gregory Kelswa-Steiner.
Tara was past any career considerations of her own: she had laid her life on the line for The Republic time and again. If The Republic—or its rulers—found it impossible to cooperate with her she could always go back to Northwind and serve her ideals by strengthening her home world. Captain Tara Bishop served at Tara Campbell’s discretion, no one else’s. So long as she did as well as she always had, her job was secure, notwithstanding her vivid if sometimes spiky personality.
Yet Tara still cared desperately about The Republic and what it stood for. She knew it lay in dire danger, and that the danger would come through Prefecture IX, if not Skye itself. While she could not be cashiered, Duke Gregory could have her shipped off his planet and out of his Prefecture if he found her—or even her aide—difficult to get along with. So could Prefect Della Brown and Planetary Legate Stanford Eckard, likewise in attendance.