Avalon City , New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Commonwealth
1 May 3052 (Day 1 of Operation Scorpion)
Hanse Davion kneaded the pain in his left shoulder with strong fingers as he looked up at his wife. Still the slender slip of a woman he had married a quarter century before, she wore a mask of anger he had seen only rarely in all those years. It should have made him bristle and want to fight back, but knowing the well from which her anger was drawn, he could not blame her.
"Hanse, you cannot let Victor go ahead with this plan! No matter what Morgan says, we both know it is a desperate operation with a good chance of catastrophic failure." Melissa Steiner-Davion looked at her husband with gray eyes a shade lighter than false dawn. "If you let him go through with this, you are killing him."
Hanse levered himself out of the chair and took her wrists in his hands. She tried to pull away, but he held her firm. "Melissa, please. I love Victor as much as you do. If I believed this plan was suicidal for him or his people, I would abort it immediately. You know that. You also know I cannot stop him."
"Oh, you Davion men." She turned away as he released her arms. "Hanse, here in our private chambers, I have learned of the passions that run soul-deep in you. Every time I watch you viewing battleroms from the front, I see you wanting to be out there in the thick of the fighting. Sometimes I think you Davions have been bred for the battlefield the way some dogs are bred for hunting."
Melissa crossed to a window, where the moonlight washed her pale hair with silver. "With you it is more than desire, it is a hunger."
"Then your fear is not that Victor will be killed," Hanse said, "but that he will come to glory in killing, is that it?" At her shudder, Hanse immediately regretted his words. He softened his tone. "I know you hoped to curb any Davion propensities for war by raising Victor more as a Steiner than a Davion. Yes, the Steiners have proved themselves in war, but their strength has ever been in negotiation and administration of their vast holdings. Steiners are statesmen first and warriors second."
She turned quickly and swiped a tear from her cheek. "Is that wrong? Is it a crime to hope that my children and my grandchildren would live in a time and universe where war was a secondary option? No, I was never trained as a MechWarrior so I do not fully understand the relationship between you and your machines. You speak of them like friends, like faithful companions who get ripped apart or killed and then resurrected to fight again. Sometimes it sounds as though you MechWarriors believe it is not you who do the hitting and killing, but your 'Mechs."
"That reduces war to battles of hardware versus hardware, yet we both know that is a false concept. You Davions glory in the call to war. Your brother Ian, Victor's namesake, died in a battle for a parched planet that meant nothing to him or those he fought. He should have been nowhere near Mallory's World, yet that is where he died. And you, when New Avalon was attacked twenty years ago, you immediately joined the battle and never thought of summoning aid!"
Her hands balled into fists, and Hanse felt his own heart tighten painfully. "Now my son, my Victor, has concocted a scheme that will take him deep into enemy territory on a mission that might do nothing more than collect a box containing Hohiro Kurita's remains. It is not worth the risk."
Hanse worked his left hand into a fist, then forced it open to try to ease some of the tightness in his chest. "I will not argue with you the relative merits of this mission's goals. While you point out that Hohiro may no longer be alive, the rescue effort alone will be significant to the Combine. That one act, performed by Victor at Omi Kurita's request, could seal the agreement Theodore and I made, extending it to the next generation and perhaps beyond."
He took in a deep breath and forced it out slowly. "Ian died on Mallory's World because he would not ask his soldiers to undertake any task he would not perform himself. He died defending his men. He held off the Kurita forces pursuing them, knowing he would die. He must have sensed something even before going off on that mission because he forced me to promise I would not come after him."
Hanse sat on the edge of their bed. "I often wish I had violated that promise so that perhaps Ian might have lived."
"You sent him support. It just arrived too late."
"That really does not matter, my love. What is important is that Ian, as the First Prince of the Federated Suns, had the right to place himself in jeopardy. It was his choice and he exercised it on his terms. He chose that mission because he felt it was a challenge only he could meet."
Melissa half-smiled. "You do realize that most of you Davions believe your name really means 'messiah.' "
The Prince nodded solemnly. "You are correct in more ways than you imagine. A ruler has not only the right to place himself in danger, he also has a dutyto do so. He must show, through his example, that the causes that are important to the nation transcend the importance of his own life or death."
He slapped his hand on the bed. "I was here the night the Death Commandos landed on New Avalon. When I realized what was happening, I felt neither panic nor fear, but an outrage that they dared violate the sanctity of myworld. I was furious that they had so little respect for me and my people that they daredattack us. I went to my 'Mech to defend Avalon City, but more so to show the enemy that nothing would make us cower in their presence.
"The fighting that night was horrible, but it was also necessary to preserve the Federated Suns and its future. It allowed me to prove to myself and others that I was worthy of the vast trust and power placed in my hands by the Federated Suns. Now it is Victor's turn."
Melissa shook her head. "No. Victor knows his responsibilities and duties as the heir to the throne of the Federated Commonwealth. There are times when those responsibilities—maintaining the stability of the government—must overrule his own sense of adventure."
"If you think this is about adventurism, Melissa, you grossly underestimate your son." Hanse's eyes tightened. "Victor had adventurism burned out of him on Trellwan. He learned to be a leader on Twycross, and he learned how to lose on Alyina. He knows his responsibilities far better than either you or I did at his age, and this is his way of proving he can accept them. If he cannot defeat the Clans with his strategy and planning and training of the Revenants, he will never believe himself worthy of being our heir."
"It is folly to put so much weight on one fool's errand."
"You are wrong, my wife." The Prince felt little electric tendrils of pain caress the left side of his body. "If Victor fails in this mission, he will never assume the throne. He will know he is incapable of facing the challenges the next Archon-Prince must face."
"He will die," she whispered in horror. "He will die, just like Ian."
Hanse shook his head. "No. Victor's too smart. He knows that if he cannot do the job, he still has value. This is his Steiner heritage and he will not let his Davion passions overrule your Teutonic logic."
Melissa looked at Hanse imploringly. "You are not going to cancel Victor's mission. You never intended to, did you?"
The Prince returned her gaze. "Victor is my heir, not my puppet."
She let her head hang in a nod of resignation. "God be with you, Victor."
"Amen."