The Last Charge Read online

  “You seem to have the whole war figured out.”

  “As you probably should have before you came to speak with me.”

  Trillian stood. She had worked carefully on her current expression—anger combined with disappointment. Mostly anger. “Thank you for your time, Star Colonel. I’m sorry that our discussion couldn’t be more profitable.”

  Alaric nodded. Then, as Trillian turned to open the door, his voice stopped her.

  “Lady Steiner, I understand you are here in your political capacity. I am sure that means we will be encountering each other again as we proceed through Marik-Stewart territory. You would be well advised not to try to bribe me with supplies or anything else. I am fighting a war, not playing political games.”

  Trillian gave him a long look, the kind that said “I’m thinking many rude things about you, but diplomatic protocol forbids me to say them aloud.” Then she left.

  * * *

  Klaus was sitting at a terminal when Trillian returned to her quarters. The bluish light made his face look spectral.

  “Turn a light on,” she said. “You’ll hurt your eyes.”

  “Nothing gets hurt by being exercised,” he said. “How did it go?”

  “Great,” she said. “He thinks I’m an idiot with very little understanding of Clan ways.”

  “So, according to plan, then?”

  “Exactly according to plan. I’ve always said there’s nothing wrong with being underestimated.”

  “And just what do you plan to do with his low regard?”

  “I’m banking it. Saving it for a rainy day. He’s doing fine here without me meddling. Just make a note for the future—Alaric Wolf thinks I’m an idiot.”

  “I’m sure that puts you in good company,” Klaus said.

  “Yep,” Trillian said. “With just about everyone in the Inner Sphere. All right, let’s get the hell off this planet.”

  5

  Mountain Retreat

  Paltos, Atreus

  Marik-Stewart Commonwealth

  25 February 3138

  There were sausages on the plate. They were mostly gray. Anson didn’t like the gray sausages as much as he liked the brown ones. The brown ones had more flavor. Who was buying the sausages here, anyway? Why would they buy gray ones? Didn’t they know what he liked? Shouldn’t this entire retreat be centered on what he liked? Why else have a mountain retreat, if you couldn’t have it the way you wanted it?

  He’d have to talk to someone about this, but who? Carol? What did Carol do again? She scheduled appointments. His appointment secretary, that’s what she was. She probably wouldn’t have anything to do with buying sausages.

  So why was he thinking of her? Because he had appointments today. Right after he finished eating his sausages, he was supposed to meet with someone. Who was he supposed to meet with? Wasn’t that written down somewhere?

  He could just ask his appointment secretary—what was her name again?—but he’d been avoiding people lately, and they seemed to have been avoiding him. It was a good arrangement, worked out for everyone. Kept him from feeling like he needed to break anyone’s arms. But it had its limits—for example, if he didn’t talk to what’s-her-name, he’d have to figure out what he wanted to know on his own.

  What did he want to know? Oh, right, the appointment. The appointment he had coming up next. It was—Daggert. It was with Daggert. God in heaven, what a pile-of-shit meeting that was going to be. Daggert was like an undertaker who came around every day to tell Anson someone new had died. That was exactly what he was like. So the meeting would be bad, but at least he remembered who it was with. Meaning he wouldn’t have to ask Carol (Carol! Of course her name was Carol!) about the sausages. No, no, he wasn’t going to ask her about the sausages. He was going to ask someone else. Who was he going to ask?

  Oh, to hell with it.

  Anson stuffed the sausages into his mouth, then sat back in his chair. He had a few minutes before Daggert arrived. He should go for a walk or something. He really needed to clear his head.

  Daggert could wait.

  There was a back way out of his office, a path through just a few doors that let Anson get onto the mountainside without escorts or security or advisers or anything. This retreat was the only residence Anson had with such an outlet—and if his security chief knew he had it, it would be sealed before sunset.

  The mountain was cold. The snow line had long since moved below the retreat, and wind had swept piles of snow against the building. The tree limbs were dark gray, the sky light gray—in this part of the world no colors existed.

  Anson took ten steps on a cleared sidewalk outside, then jumped off the path and into the snow. The top layer crunched beneath his feet, and then he sank in to midshin. Walking would be difficult.

  “Damn snow with your…your cold and your whiteness and your bloody…cold!” he muttered under his breath, and stomped on.

  He couldn’t walk normally. It felt like he was pulling his knee practically up to his chest with each step, then stomping down through the snow. The stomping was very pleasant.

  He kept cursing under his breath, spitting epithets at any object that came into view, at any person that jumped into his head. “Damn tree limbs, bare and empty and dead…people pretending to be Mariks, pissing on my damned name…useless bloody rocks…Steiners, Steiners, goddamned bloody bastard filth, thrice-damned scraps of shit…” He knew if anyone overheard him, they’d diagnose him as insane within seconds.

  The cold was sharp, slicing deep into his skull with each breath. He waited for it to reach into his brain, to freeze the muddled part and shatter it and make his thoughts clear again. The air, plus the stomping, should make him normal.

  Thirty minutes later he was back inside, his torso sweating from exertion while his cheekbones felt carved raw by the wind. He shook snow off his head. He shook again. His head had to get clear. He needed it clear!

  He walked into his office and saw Cole Daggert sitting in a chair, leaning forward, arms folded across his knees.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Daggert said.

  “You’ve gotten a lot bolder in the past few weeks,” Anson said.

  “Then fire me.”

  “Shut up. We’re not doing this again. You’re here because I told you to be here, and you’ll wait for me and be patient and hate me for it the whole time but you’ll do it. Now talk.”

  Yelling at Daggert felt good, like a small section of the cloud in his mind had parted. That was promising.

  Sitting up straight, Daggert began his report. “Gannett is lost,” he said.

  Anson inhaled. Then, to his surprise, he let the air out. He had nothing to say.

  Daggert’s eyes widened a touch, but only briefly. Then he continued. “The withdrawal worked generally as planned. We lost a few more troops than I wanted—that Wolf commander is tenacious—but the bulk of the Silver Hawk forces deployed there got off the planet safely.” He paused. “Though the planetary militia is almost entirely destroyed.”

  “Damn…damned…okay,” Anson said, then sat heavily in his chair. He told himself that he was saving up for a better response in the near future.

  “Danais has not fallen yet, but Duke Vedet is benefiting from the reinforcements he received from Gannett once Clan Wolf took over the offensive there. The Silver Hawk units there are thinning as well. It seems like this would be a good time to start pulling our units off that planet.”

  “Give up Danais?”

  “Either that or lose just about every unit there.”

  “Damn it, Daggert, do you have anything to recommend besides retreat?” Anson yelled, and it felt right. Like the kind of thing he should be doing. He went with the feeling. “I did not put the Silver Hawk Irregulars together so they could keep running away! They are there to fight! Do you have any knowledge in that maggot-infested brain of yours about how to fight damned battles instead of running from them? Do you have any bloody idea what an army’s for?”

 
Daggert didn’t yell back. Daggert almost never yelled, except for that one time. But he argued back—in calm, measured tones.

  “I know exactly what an army is for. An army is for our defense. And it can’t serve that purpose if we let it be slaughtered, piece by piece, in battles that do us no good. I would advise you not to send our troops to their death needlessly simply because you’re angry.”

  Anson glared at him. “You’re pushing your luck.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  Again, Anson felt deflated. “If the troops retreat—where do they go?”

  “Intelligence from SAFE has confirmed our expectations of what will happen once Gannett and Danais have both fallen. The Lyran and Wolf forces are going to unite and head to Helm. The Silver Hawks from Gannett are already going there, and if we withdraw the forces from Danais quickly enough, they can arrive well in advance of any offensive efforts. Our chances for a good fight will be better on Helm.”

  “We’ll fight them there, then. I want you to plan.” Anson stood. He felt his blood accelerating, and it was good. “I want you to plan a fight on Helm that will punish these bastards. I want them to suffer for every damned step they’ve taken in my realm. I want them hurt.”

  Daggert’s response was immediate. “No.”

  “What?” Anson stomped on the floor. That too was good.

  “No. I won’t do that.”

  “Damn it, Daggert, you are sworn to me! I’m your captain-general, and you’ll obey my orders, you son of a bitch!”

  “Maybe you should just fire me.”

  “Stop saying that! You’re not getting out that easily! Stop trying to goad me, stop disobeying orders and do your bloody job!” Anson’s right arm shot up and down, hammering on his desk to punctuate each point.

  “My job does not involve getting our soldiers killed because you’re pissed off,” Daggert said, and Anson heard a trace of fire in his voice. “I want to stop our enemies, thwart our enemies and defeat our enemies but the army is not a tool of vengeance. It is a tool of defense.”

  “It’s a tool of whatever I want it to be!”

  “It’s a tool of the realm. It will act in the defense of the realm. If you want the army to do something else, fire me.”

  It had become a very tempting suggestion. He’d put a sledgehammer into Daggert’s hands, and Daggert was using it as a paperweight. Anson turned and looked out his window. The wind tossed snow into the air, making his view little more than a white blank. He turned back to Daggert.

  “You’ve become an arrogant bastard recently,” he said.

  “I’ve always been an arrogant bastard,” Daggert said. “Now I just have the freedom to show it.”

  “This is what you need to do. Get the damned troops from Gannett and Danais to Helm. I’ll want to see detailed reports on troop status, location and plans for when the Wolf and Lyran troops arrive. Your plans better involve a way to beat their asses or I’ll do more than fire you—I’ll put a bullet in your head for treason.”

  “You’ve never needed to threaten me to get me to plan for victory before,” Daggert said. “You don’t need to start now. Remember what Peter Marik said.”

  “‘Get off my planet, you scum-sucking Liao bastards’?”

  There may have been a trace of a smile somewhere on Daggert’s face, but it passed quickly. “No. ‘Retreating when you need to doesn’t mean you won’t fight.’ We’ll fight. But only when it means something to the Commonwealth. I’m done killing soldiers to satisfy your own personal grudges.”

  Anson stood slowly. He leaned forward, feeling just how much taller and larger he was than Daggert. He could snap the man in half with a few quick motions.

  “I could lock you up for treason just for that,” he said.

  Daggert stayed in his chair, looking up as Anson hovered above him. “Then do it,” he said.

  Anson waited, hoping it looked like he was trying to decide, rather than going with the only option he had.

  “Get out of here,” he finally said. “Keep pushing your luck, though, and it’ll run out fast.”

  Daggert turned and left without a word.

  Anson slowly sat back down, his chair squeaking beneath him. This shouldn’t be happening. Wolves taking one planet, Lyrans another, and his tactical adviser not intimidated, or scared, or even respectful. There had to be a way to make this all right.

  There had to be.

  Plans went through his head. Plans for pushing back the Lyrans and Wolves, and for keeping Fontaine and Lester and Jessica at bay. Plans for making a deal with the Sea Foxes, paying them with things he didn’t intend to use again just so he could set foot on Stewart. Plans for breaking the kneecaps of individuals who had it coming.

  None of the plans coalesced into anything solid. The final shape of his ideas stayed out of reach, distant land beyond the horizon of the ocean of his mind.

  He didn’t know how long he sat at his desk. It was a while. But it helped—finally, he came up with an answer. Not the entire answer, not something that would address his full range of problems, not by a long shot. But something that would help.

  He turned on his intercom. “Find Kabler,” he said. “Send him in. Send him in now.” He didn’t wait for a reply.

  Kabler came quickly. Kabler always came quickly. His narrow mouth was a straight line, more a hyphen than a dash, and his brown eyes bounced nervously in every direction. The rest of him was composed.

  “You summoned me, Captain-General?” Kabler’s voice sounded like syrup on sandpaper.

  Anson hated his voice, which was good. It made it all the easier to summon the anger he was looking for. “Kabler! How long have you been in charge here?”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m in charge, sir,” Kabler demurred. “I merely direct the hospitality functions—”

  “Kabler, damn it, answer the question!”

  Kabler looked at the floor, the desk, his own hands, anything but the captain-general’s face. “I, um, I have had the honor of serving you for six years.”

  “Six years! Six years, you thrice-damned scrap of pocket lint! A syphilitic orangutan could have learned how to do your job in that amount of time! So could you explain to me, please explain, why the whole damn retreat looks like shit? Did the bloody bastard Lyrans come through and loot this place already when I wasn’t paying attention?”

  “Captain-General, let me first offer my apologies for any and all deficiencies in your accommodations and—”

  “I don’t want to hear your apologies, you thrice-damned pustule! It’s too late for that! Has anyone done anything to the grounds beyond shovel? Do you think that just because it’s winter you and your lazy, ill-bred, brainless staff can stay inside and do nothing?”

  “No, of course not, my only desire is to sculpt the grounds to meet your satisfaction—”

  Anson was on his feet now, stalking back and forth in front of Kabler, hovering around him like a hawk circling over a mouse. “And the cooking here has been terrible! Sub-Liao, not to mention subhuman! Do you think I can save my Commonwealth on a diet of wood pulp and mashed insects?”

  “I will fire the chef immediately,” Kabler said, shrinking. “We have a constant stream of applications from the top chefs of the Commonwealth who seek only to please your palate. I am certain one of them will suffice.”

  “You should be doing this without me having to call you in here to chew off your ass! Do you think your job involves watching your bloody soap operas all day and waiting for me to tell you what you’re doing wrong? I need to see this place improve, and improve immediately, or I will pack you in a goddamned snowball myself and roll you down the mountain and right off the edge of a bloody cliff!”

  “Captain-General, I understand your anger and it is to my everlasting shame that I must admit it is deserved. I do not wish to waste your time detailing everything I will do to improve the functioning of this house and win back your trust, but suffice it to say…”

  Kabler carried on this way fo
r a bit, and Anson let him, since every other sentence said something about how wise Anson was to notice Kabler’s deficiencies, or how kind he was to give him another chance, or some other such nonsense. Then, when he had heard enough, Anson waved a hand. Kabler cut himself off in midsentence, bowed smartly, and exited with visible relief.

  In his self-reflective moments (which Anson tried to keep to a minimum—he was generally too busy for such trivia), Anson might acknowledge that the way he treated Kabler was unfair. In the six years Kabler had been in his service, Anson had gone through this little ritual with him at least a dozen times. Things were not, of course, ever as bad as he made them out to be. Kabler was capable, if not terribly bright or imaginative, and the household usually ran smoothly. But Kabler was so able, so willing to take a verbal beating from Anson, then act like the whole affair had been his fault, that Anson could not resist occasionally calling him in for a very loud, very energetic dressing-down. Somehow, when he was done yelling at Kabler and the man had made his apologies and assurances of improvement, the universe felt like a more sensible place.

  And it worked again, almost as good as it always did. Anson’s head felt clearer than it had in weeks.

  But then he made the mistake of turning to his window and seeing that it was still cold, still snowing, and the landscape outside was unrelievedly stark.

  6

  Breckenridge Heights

  Danais, Lyran Commonwealth

  18 March 3138

  Knowing when a guerilla war was over was a tricky thing. Duke Vedet was under no illusion that the population of Danais had been entirely quelled, or that every member of the Silver Hawk Irregulars was either dead, captured or off the planet. Some of them were blending with the local populace. Some of them would become terrorist leaders, carrying out acts of reprisal into the foreseeable future. And the situation still was not such that the duke would feel comfortable walking into public without several layers of protection.