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    BattleTech: A Bonfire of Worlds: BattleTech
    BattleTech: A Bonfire of Worlds: BattleTech
    BattleTech: A Bonfire of Worlds: BattleTech
    Ebook437 pages5 hours

    BattleTech: A Bonfire of Worlds: BattleTech

    By Steven Mohan, Jr.

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    About this ebook

    A GALAXY AFLAME...

     

    The universe has gone dark. Interstellar communications has been lost across the Inner Sphere, threatening the corporate giant ComStar—and maybe civilization itself. Risking everything on a last chance for survival, Comstar has kidnapped the engineering genius Tucker Harwell, hoping he can unravel the mystery of the blackout. But Tucker isn't just working on why it happened...he's also trying to figure out who's behind it.

     

    Meanwhile, Khan Malvina Hazen solidifies her hold on a purified Clan Jade Falcon while hunting for the next enemy to crush under the talons of her brutal Mongol Doctrine. Hundreds of light-years away, Clan Wolf is carving out territory along the Lyran Commonwealth/Free Worlds League border—and Alaric Wolf is primed to make his moves in the halls of power.

     

    Plans years in the making begin to come together across hundreds of star systems, and secrets hidden for decades will finally be revealed while an empire goes up in flames…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCatalyst Game Labs
    Release dateApr 30, 2010
    ISBN9781386715603
    BattleTech: A Bonfire of Worlds: BattleTech

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      Book preview

      BattleTech - Steven Mohan, Jr.

      Prologue

      SCOUT-CLASS JUMPSHIP BRIGIT

      INTERSTELLAR SPACE NEAR YORII

      REPUBLIC OF THE SPHERE

      18 AUGUST 3136

      Of all the treasures in the universe, the only thing Dr. Elgin Sawyer really wanted was answers.

      Nothing else mattered. He was pushing ninety, his chocolate skin wrinkled and cracked from a lifetime spent beneath the sun of Lyons. The passing years had long ago banked the fires of his passion, arthritis kept him from his garden, and a growing silence stole the voices of his few surviving friends. He was old and alone.

      Answers were all that was left to him.

      So Sawyer stood in the small, darkened wardroom of the little starship Brigit, foot tucked into a steel loop welded to the deck, looking out at the stars. At Yorii.

      At ten trillion kilometers, Yorii’s sun was a diamond chip, scarcely brighter than the other stars sprinkled across the dark tapestry of space. But it was different, yes it was. It was still part of The Republic.

      Lyons was not.

      Yorii lay behind an invisible wall, a wall erected by The Republic’s Exarch, Jonah Levin. The building of walls had long been a human strategy, probably since the first Cro-Magnon realized you could stack one stone atop another. The Chinese had built the Great Wall to hold back the barbarian hordes. Hadrian had bisected Britannia with his wall. Walls had been used to stem unwanted immigration and deter terrorists.

      Sometimes they even worked

      If you didn’t think about what happened to the people trapped on the other side.

      A bitter smile twisted Sawyer’s lips. Who would have ever thought Lyons would be jealous of Yorii? Yorii had been ravaged during the Jihad, and her wounds were still healing. Much of the planet’s soil was cracked and poisoned, her riverbeds parched and clicking with radiation.

      But Yorii’s people were safe behind the wall.

      Why, Exarch? he whispered. Why did you leave us outside?

      It was the first of the questions he wanted answered.

      He heard the distant sound of a hatch open and a pair of reflections appeared in the ferroglass. Sawyer touched his hearing aid, turning up reality’s volume. Yes?

      "Hope’s drive and battery are charged, said the young man. We can go as soon as you give the word." Derrick Carter was twenty-seven and handsome: black hair cut short, eyes blue, strong jaw, a bright smile. He wore gray slacks and a dark blue polo shirt emblazoned with the Carter crest.

      The woman standing next to him rolled her eyes.

      Cassandra? said Sawyer softly.

      Cassandra Holliman, Brigit’s captain, was a pretty woman in her forties, her auburn hair cut spacer short. She wore green coveralls. The whole point in hanging out here was to monitor Yorii’s broadcasts, learn something about Levin’s wall. But we haven’t learned a damned thing. We still don’t know if—

      And we’ll never know, said Carter hotly, if we never jump.

      Beware of brave nobles, Holliman shot back, they’re great for getting commoners killed.

      Enough, said Sawyer softly. It was his expedition, and that made it his headache. He sighed. Why had he let Nancy Carter put him in charge? College professors shouldn’t be part of the grand sweep of history—they should read about the grand sweep of history. He was a damn fool to be out here. Becka would’ve talked him out of coming.

      But Becka was dead.

      And Felicia. And Trevor. And their kids. All killed in the last Falcon raid.

      Sawyer turned back to look at Yorii.

      As he watched, the JumpShip Orphan’s Hope occulted the star. Sawyer could see the rounded bulb of Hope’s bow and her long, narrow body finally ending in a radial display of fins. Unlike little Brigit, Hope was a giant, a massive Monolith, her outline distended by DropShips: Unions and Overlords and Leopard CVs.

      Sawyer didn’t expect his expedition to make planetfall, but every contingency had been planned for. A great host was embarked aboard the Monolith and her daughters: aerospace fighters and battlesuit infantry, armor and BattleMechs. Lyons had questions.

      And they were going to insist on answers.

      And yet, Sawyer still couldn’t shake a feeling of doom. Since Levin had raised his terrible wall, no one who’d jumped into a Republic system had ever managed to jump back out again. Holliman’s people crewed both JumpShips. She begged him with her eyes not to send them in.

      Sawyer had no desire to send these people to their deaths. Maybe— he began.

      Malvina Hazen isn’t going to stop, said Carter, his voice hard.

      Malvina Hazen. Clan Jade Falcon. Sawyer saw the face of his dear Becka, the kids, his grandbabies for God’s sake, all killed when a Jagatai had come down during the last Falcon raid, their deaths collateral to a monster’s ambition. Someone had to make Levin explain why he’d abandoned the worlds outside the wall.

      Someone had to make the man live up to his responsibilities.

      One hour. There was steel in Sawyer’s voice. And not a second longer.

      One second Orphan’s Hope was there, and the next she just—wasn’t. A timer in the lower left corner of the Brigit’s main viewscreen started counting down from one hour. Sawyer waited, strapped into a jump seat, staring at the flickering green numbers set against the background of stars.

      For the entire hour, Sawyer and the bridge crew waited in silence, sweating, and staring at that screen. Until the numbers hit 0:00:00.0 and flickered from green to red. And started to count up. When the timer hit plus three minutes, Holliman cleared her throat. Young Master Carter seems to be a bit tardy.

      Knew that kid couldn’t tell time, said the navigator, and a titter of nervous laughter made its way around the bridge.

      Sawyer said nothing.

      The timer hit plus five minutes. Six. Seven.

      What are we going to do? said the captain in a low voice.

      "Whatever happened to the Hope," murmured Sawyer, we owe Lyons answers.

      What does that mean exactly? asked the navigator.

      What is the distance to the pirate point? asked Sawyer.

      The pirate point is the second gas giant’s L4. It’s four hundred forty-seven light hours from our present— Holliman stopped. Wait. Her voice was suddenly arctic. You’re not proposing we jump after them?

      No, said Sawyer sadly. I’m proposing we wait. For four hundred forty-seven hours.

      6 SEPTEMBER 3136

      Eighteen point six days had passed since Hope had jumped into the Yorii system, and Sawyer knew she wasn’t coming back. It had seemed like such a simple plan. Jump into the outer system, gather intel on the wall, broadcast his world’s plea for help, and then jump out again before they could be attacked.

      What possibly could have gone wrong?

      Lyons had to know. He had to know.

      So he found himself again on Brigit’s bridge, watching numbers flicker and dance as they chased their way down to zero.

      At minus two minutes, Holliman leaned towards him. "The timer accounts for the light speed lag between Hope’s theoretical insertion point and our position. There is always some jump variation so the true distance could vary by as much as—"

      It’s fine, said Sawyer softly.

      Time drained away to nothing and again, the numbers flashed red. Everyone turned to the communications officer, a narrow-faced man named Hill, with a shaved head and dark eyes. He shrugged, shook his head.

      "Maybe Hope met with some kind of jump accident, said Holliman. Pirate points can be..." Her voice trailed off.

      The counter hit plus one.

      Sawyer just stared at the diamond chip centered on the viewscreen.

      How long do we wait? asked Hill quietly, dragging a hand over his smooth skull.

      As long as it takes, said Sawyer coldly.

      Sir, said Holliman gently. If we haven’t heard anything after an hour—

      No, said Sawyer sharply. We have to report to Lyons.

      "Hope is lost, she shot back. Isn’t that worth reporting?"

      Listen—Sawyer snarled, but he was interrupted by the crackle of static.

      Incoming message, shouted Hill. He looked up. "Hope’s call sign."

      The image of Yorii was gone from the viewscreen, replaced by an electronic blizzard. Still, the picture was clear enough for Sawyer to see that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

      Through the static he made out a bridge, Hope’s bridge. The right side had been smashed; chairs crushed flat, panels twisted into bizarre geometries, a shower of blue sparks spitting from a naked power coupling. Someone had splashed scarlet paint across the bridge, except Sawyer knew at once that it wasn’t paint, it wasn’t paint at all.

      Despite all the damage done to the starboard half of the bridge, the port side was pristine. Untouched. It was as if some terrible line had cut through the Hope’s bridge, separating life from death.

      And Derrick Carter had been standing in the bridge’s center when it had hit.

      Both sides of him looked fine, looked whole. But his two halves weren’t quite...aligned. The right side of his face, it was lower, a centimeter lower than the left. His eyes were offset, his mouth a pair of gashes not quite touching, there was a jog in his skull.

      Derrick, Sawyer whispered, though of course the boy couldn’t hear him.

      Doh not, croaked Carter with his two half-mouths, struggling to form the words, his grotesque face twisting with the effort. "Fall. Oh. Do not. Follow. He shook his funhouse-mirror head. Don’t. Know. How. But." He closed his mismatched eyes.

      Is. Hell.

      And then the message cut out, replaced by a serene star field, Yorii at its center.

      The shocked silence on the bridge of Brigit was absolutely complete.

      In that moment, Dr. Elgin Sawyer realized that The Republic was simply gone, as surely as if God Himself had reached down and plucked it from the Inner Sphere.

      And there would be no answers.

      Part I

      A Distant Howl

      Yesterday, AFNN received ComStar’s First Quarter results. The communications giant reported its twenty-sixth consecutive quarter of red ink. Even more troubling, the company reported a seventy-eight percent spike in non-operating income from the sale of capital assets. The markets interpreted this fire sale as a sign that ComStar can’t fix the HPG blackout. Our analysts predict stock prices will plummet across the Inner Sphere as the news radiates outward.

      Atreus Financial News Network, 25 April 3139

      1

      COMSTAR SECRET RESEARCH FACILITY OMEGA ONE

      LUYTEN 68-28 (EXACT COORDINATES UNKNOWN)

      PREFECTURE X

      23 SEPTEMBER 3139

      Tucker Harwell worked alone in the small laboratory that was both his home and his cell. There wasn’t much to the room: work bench, cot, a small, enclosed bathroom. The far wall was a mirror—so his captors could look in on him whenever they wanted. He didn’t even have a light switch. For Tucker, it was always day.

      His captors hadn’t told him much about Luyten, the mysterious world that had become his prison, but it was clear that ComStar had once maintained a base here.

      ComStar...or Word of Blake.

      There had been some kind of battle, a battle that had scarred the world’s face and smashed the network of satellites and habitats in low planetary orbit. No one had told Tucker this—but he’d surmised it. Adepts kept bringing him damaged devices—recorders, circuit boards, data cubes—a distressing percentage of them radioactive. The radiac on his workbench clicked merrily to itself as he worked, this time on an old, battered memory core.

      ComStar had grown desperate, desperate enough to look for answers from its violent past.

      The core was a small box, its black paint peeling, the screws holding the casing to the base plate rusted solid. He plugged the core into a power supply and inserted a probe in the dataport. He worked quickly and without hope. Whatever data the core had once held, it likely had been washed clean by decades of radiation exposure. He glanced at his noteputer and sighed. More wasted effort.

      Unaccountably, the ’puter beeped.

      Startled, Tucker glanced at the characters scrolling across the small screen:

      CLARION C&+% PROTOX)MS WILL BE GNT+IATED ONLY ON 4#W #FCXERS OF GFD PRYK%NTOR MX*TIAL. MA@ T!E PR5CE OF %*AKE BE WITH YOU.

      He blinked. Clarion? What the hell was Clarion? The first sentence was cryptic, but the second was clear enough. May the peace of Blake be with you. He shuddered.

      Problem, Tuck?

      Tucker jumped and wheeled around.

      His sister leaned against the frame of his open door, arms folded across her chest. Her words were cheery, but there was no hint of good will on her face. There was nothing on her face. She wore the frozen expression of a mannequin.

      Like Tucker, Patricia Harwell was slender, and she had the same black hair, though hers was straight and shoulder-length, while his was unruly and short. She was a couple centimeters shorter than he and more attractive, but the resemblance was unmistakable.

      And they wore identical white uniforms.

      But for all that, they weren’t the same. Patricia was an advocate of old ComStar, what Tucker had come to think of as fundamentalist ComStar, the branch of the organization that had once metastasized into Word of Blake.

      The Blakists believed the technical workings of interstellar communications were infused with mystical meaning and they worshiped ComStar’s founder, Jerome Blake, as if he were a god. It was crazy—and scary. Scary because the Blakists believed so fervently in their cause that in its service they were willing to undertake any measure to spread their beliefs.

      Any measure.

      Most of the Inner Sphere believed the Blakists had been wiped out during the Jihad. Tucker had learned to his sorrow that this was not the case.

      Tucker met Patricia’s steady gaze. Is this same girl I played freeze tag with in the back yard, the same girl who cried when Pepper the cat ran away, the same girl who taught her five-year-old brother to ride a two-wheeler?

      Where did the fanaticism come from? he thought. The hatred?

      Buhl wants to see you, she said.

      I’m working. He jerked his head at the core.

      She stared at him, her face blank. And then she smiled, a bright smile that was somehow all the more disturbing for its warmth. She walked over to him and tousled his hair. Don’t worry, Tuck. You won’t need that research. Because today’s your big day.

      Tucker frowned. I don’t understand.

      She just laughed softly and walked out of the little room.

      Tucker hurried to follow before the door closed and locked him in, knowing his sister wouldn’t come back for him.

      Patricia led him through a warren of hallways, up an elevator, through yet more hallways until they reached a pair of sliding glass doors that looked out on an open-air balcony. Tucker saw Precentor Malcolm Buhl sitting at a table splashed in sunlight, eating breakfast.

      Patricia pushed through the doors and Tucker followed her out.

      Where he could see the sky.

      Luyten’s sky was a shock of bright blue, a broad red sun crouched low on the horizon. A slash of silver cleaved the sky like a knife. So the world had a ring of debris in near orbit. How unusual.

      Tucker suddenly felt cold. They had let him see the sky. They’d never let him see the sky before. A sky could be remembered, a sky could be used to ID a world’s location, and Luyten’s location was a secret.

      His mouth tasted dry. There were only two kinds of people you shared secrets with. Those you trusted. And those who had short life expectancies.

      Please, said Buhl, sit. Would you like something to eat?

      Tucker glanced at Buhl’s breakfast: greasy bacon and hash browns swimming in egg yolk and curry. A wave of nausea washed over him. He swallowed hard and sat down. No, thank you.

      Patricia didn’t sit, she leaned against the wall behind him, arms folded.

      Buhl shrugged. He was a heavy man, bald on top, thin brown hair shadowing the sides of his skull. He sopped up curry with a piece of toast.

      So, said Buhl, today we will test a new idea.

      It was Tucker’s turn to shrug.

      You don’t seem excited, said Buhl, washing down his breakfast with iced coffee. Let me explain the importance of this test. ComStar— Buhl took another bite of toast. —is a communications company. At least we were before Gray Monday.

      Gray Monday. There wasn’t a man or woman who served ComStar who didn’t know what that term meant, and Tucker was no exception. Gray Monday. August 1, 3132. The day someone (no one knew who) used a computer virus and multiple terrorist attacks to take down more than eighty percent of the interstellar communications network. It was a disaster.

      Until ComStar realized the virus prevented them from restoring the hyperpulse generators that were the backbone of the network.

      Then it looked more like the end of civilization.

      As system after system slipped into darkness, humanity turned into an unruly mob: scared, angry. Ready to kill.

      Naturally, said Buhl, our revenue has dropped since the blackout began. We’ve hung on for seven long years. He shook his head. "But we cannot hold on forever. What the markets know is that we’ve sold holdings not related to our core communications business. What the markets do not know is that we’ve also been borrowing. In the next few years those loans are going to begin coming due."

      And you can’t pay them back, guessed Tucker.

      We used voting rights as collateral, said Buhl softly. If we default on these loans, we will start to lose control over ComStar itself.

      Patricia’s hard gaze was an itch in the back of Tucker’s neck.

      Buhl leaned forward. But you, my boy, are our salvation. You’re a genius.

      Tucker said nothing. It occurred to him his life would have been simpler if he were not a genius. Certainly Buhl’s faction wouldn’t have kidnapped him if he’d been just another adept.

      Buhl was still talking: —child prodigy. First in your class at the DeBurke Institute. That’s why I assigned you to the Wyatt HPG. And you didn’t disappoint, my boy. You brought Wyatt up. You are the only person in the whole of the Inner Sphere who’s managed to repair an infected HPG.

      Unfortunate that he hasn’t been able to duplicate that effort, said Patricia coldly.

      Yes, said Buhl softly. Unfortunate.

      So why didn’t you bring up the Millungera HPG, Tuck? Patricia smiled sweetly.

      "T-the same approach on Wyatt—I mean the same frequency, um, it didn’t work. I don’t know why. He really didn’t. And nothing made Tucker more uncomfortable than things he didn’t understand. If I could just have—"

      No need to worry, Buhl said smoothly. Because we’ve found another approach. We haven’t been able to eradicate the virus that caused the blackout. So we’ve come to the Polar Network solution, two brand new hyperpulse generators, one here and one on Mars, both of them built from scratch, every bolt, every capacitor, every circuit board assembled in brand new facilities. It cost billions of C-Bills, but we have allowed no vector for the contagion to infect this new network.

      Buhl pushed his plate aside. "We must succeed this time. We are running out of chances. He peered at Tucker. That’s why you’re going to bring up our new network."

      I’m ready to do whatever you wish, sir, said Tucker steadily.

      Are you, my boy? asked Buhl softly. I wonder. You see, I know you’ve been fighting us.

      Sir, I—

      The precentor held up his hand, and Tucker fell instantly silent.

      Because what Buhl said was true. For four long years, Tucker Harwell had been playing a desperate game of delay and obfuscation. He inserted subtle errors in his notes. He dropped a word here, a phrase there, sending ComStar technicians scurrying down blind alleys, plumbing useless, esoteric theories. He told small, carefully crafted lies. Sometimes, when he was sure his captors wouldn’t believe him, he told the truth.

      And now that they knew, what else could he say?

      So, said Buhl. If the Polar Network fails… He smiled faintly and shook his head.

      Tucker felt Patricia’s hand on his shoulder, and he stood. And why not? There was nothing else Buhl needed to say.

      His meaning had been perfectly clear.

      Patricia stopped in front of the entrance to Tucker’s lab. His cell. He expected her to open the door, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, "I have one more thing for you to think about, brother. Yes, Buhl will have your head if the Polar Network fails. But consider, what will happen if the test succeeds?"

      ComStar will have the template for restoring the HPG network.

      That’s right. She flashed him a tight smile. A triumphant smile. And then, all of a sudden, we’ll have no need for boy geniuses.

      Tucker blinked. He’d always known Patricia would hurt him if her duty required it, but he suddenly saw she was just willing to. She wanted to. At that moment, something inside him broke.

      Patricia, he whispered.

      She laughed and it sounded brittle. So, the genius finally understands.

      Tucker stared at her for a long moment and then he drew a deep, shuddery breath. "You are my sister. I love you. I love you. Whatever— He swallowed had. Whatever you do to me. I want you to know. I want you to remember. I forgive you."

      Her face softened and the cold gleam in her eyes seemed to fade away. Oh, Tucker, she whispered. Oh, Tuck. She smiled sadly and shook her head. "But I don’t forgive you."

      Tucker’s jaw sagged open.

      Her eyes narrowed. It’s always came so easily for you, she snarled. "You. Who are a heretic. Your sins stain me, brother. Me, who has always faithfully walked the path set out by the great Blake."

      Patricia, I never meant—

      It’s too late, Tucker, she said coldly, opening the door with an electronic key. You’ll get no absolution from me.

      And then she shoved him into his little prison and closed the door.

      Tucker was so upset by his sister’s words that it was full minute before he realized the battered memory core was missing.

      The HPG’s control room was a study in understated elegance. The space was fifteen meters in diameter reaching up to a domed ceiling. Consoles and computer equipment ringed the room. Executive chairs fashioned from hand-tooled brown leather sat in front of the consoles, each occupied by a technician in a dazzling white uniform. The floor was black granite, polished to a high sheen. Tucker glanced down and saw himself looking back up.

      It was like looking in a dark mirror.

      In the center of the room was the HPG core, a stem that passed through the domed ceiling and opened into a flower fifty meters across, the business end of the hyperpulse generator. It was the antenna that would rip a hole in spacetime and broadcast a message that would be instantly received by a station orbiting another star. Beneath the floor, a dedicated fusion reactor provided the tremendous power the process required.

      But none of it was possible without the core. Inside the steel cylinder, the core was a maze of branching circuits linking germanium processors to shielded magnetic coils. It was the most sophisticated piece of technology in human space.

      And like everything else in the room, it was brand new.

      Tucker crossed the dark floor to the core. He wore gloves that prevented any electrostatic discharge that might damage the core’s intricate circuits. For a moment he considered taking the gloves off—but, no, Buhl’s people were watching his every move.

      He reached out and touched the core’s metallic surface. He remembered how it had felt to touch the core on Wyatt: like he was touching the beating heart of interstellar civilization. But that’s not how it felt today.

      Today it just felt cold.

      Tucker let out a deep breath and turned. Six meters from the core, centered on a dais, there was a chair.

      Like a man going to the gallows, Tucker marched to the chair and sat down.

      He reached up and rubbed his neck. To his watchers it must’ve looked like Tucker was trying to relieve the tension in his muscles. But what he was really doing was brushing the tips of his fingers against a tiny dot of metal hidden on the inside of his high collar.

      What he was really doing was taking strength from wherever he could find it.

      The little piece of jewelry was a Knight Errant’s rank pip, given to him by Alexi Holt on Wyatt, a parting gift as Patricia and the Com Guards took Tucker away. He thought of it as a promise, a promise that Alexi and The Republic hadn’t forgotten him.

      It had been four years, and so far that promise hadn’t turned out to be worth much. But Tucker hadn’t abandoned the tiny sliver of hope the pip represented. It was foolish to hope The Republic would come for him.

      But sometimes a foolish hope was better than none at all.

      Preparing initiation sequence, someone said.

      Tucker glanced at the master control board, watching the HPG come to life.

      Eighty-two percent, said the adept at the secondary control station. What was her name? Wharton. She frowned. I’m getting flux in the primary hyperspace coil. Variance of three percent. Five. Six.

      It was a little high, but Tucker wasn’t worried. This core was free from the virus that infected the rest of the network. Which was why he’d finally run out of options. Even if he committed some last desperate act of sabotage, it wouldn’t matter. They’d just kill him and try again. Either way, the Polar Network was going to work.

      Despite Tucker’s best efforts, Buhl’s technicians had hit upon a strategy that would certainly defeat the persistent virus everyone knew was causing the blackout. Instead of trying to fix the existing network, they would rebuild it. The strategy was horrifically expensive—but that scarcely mattered. If ComStar was to survive as an organization it had to bring the network back up, no matter the cost.

      Buhl would become Primus. No doubt an accomplishment of this magnitude would give him the power to push aside Primus Koenigs-Cober. He would rule ComStar, returning the organization to its techno-religious roots. Which way would First Precentor Brian May jump? Did it even matter? He would either adopt the new order or he would be swept aside. Word of Blake would be reborn.

      The last time the Blakists had been unleashed, they’d plunged the Inner Sphere into an unholy jihad that had killed billions. Whole worlds had been sterilized. Realms shattered. Death and destruction on a scale never seen before or since.

      And this time, the heirs to the Blakist tradition were rising in a universe where The Republic had disappeared. Tucker saw a tide of darkness washing over humanity.

      And it would begin in this room.

      Adjust beta coil plus-five megajoules, Tucker ordered, trying to balance the primary coil, at once protecting the core...and the wicked future struggling to be born.

      He glanced at Buhl who was sitting, watching him, his face a fat mask of pinched concern. Patricia stood next to him, arms folded across her chest, nothing, absolutely nothing, on her face.

      Flux level, holding at seven, reported secondary control. We’re in the pipe.

      Tucker listened to all the controllers run through their statuses, all of them reporting go. So he had no choice.

      How did I let it come to this?

      He swallowed in a dry mouth and said, Begin sequence alpha one. Engage.

      To his left, Buhl leaned forward.

      Test Packet Release, called out the woman at secondary control. They had pinged the other pole of the new network. Buhl smiled.

      Suddenly an indicator flickered from green to yellow. Flux was climbing in the primary coil.

      Again. Tucker stood, his hands balled into fists. I’ve seen this before, he thought. But it’s impossible.

      There is no virus here.

      Flux was climbing faster. Eight nine ten.

      Shut it down, Tucker croaked.

      "Do not obey that order!" Buhl roared, launching to his feet.

      Twelve fifteen nineteen.

      Tucker’s eyes were locked on the flux indicator. It flickered yellow to red. We’re going to lose the—

      Adept Harwell is relieved, Buhl shouted. He pointed at the woman at secondary control. Adept Wharton, take over and—

      "Cascade! she shouted. Generation rate is thousands—no, millions per second!"

      Buhl’s eyes were wide. "Shut it down. Shut it—"

      But it was too late. All the screens went dark, and the hum of the core suddenly dropped out. The room settled into a terrible, terrible silence.

      Tucker stood, staring at the blank displays. The Polar Network had failed.

      But that is impossible.

      2

      KEFALCZYK HUNTING PRESERVE, NEW GREENLAND

      REPUBLIC OF KASNOV-GREENLAND

      NEW OLYMPIA

      FREE WORLDS LEAGUE

      23 SEPTEMBER 3139

      The sheer savagery of Clan Wolf’s attack made the raging inferno look like sanctuary. Like all MechWarriors, General Dmitar Todorov of the New Olympia Home Guard feared heat, but the Wolves were cutting his people to pieces. So to escape the blizzard of jeweled beams before him, he had to embrace the conflagration behind.

      He backstepped into fire.

      Todorov felt the control sticks of his Patriot grow sluggish in his hands as he cleared the Central Island Highway. For a moment, just a moment, he saw a brown Ryoken framed in angry orange fire. He dropped his reticle over the Wolf machine and pulled into his main

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