The Misadventures of Darius Davion #2 - Darius at the Coronation

[Tokage]

DARIUS AT THE CORONATION

THE MISADVENTURES OF DARIUS DAVION
- 2 -

- Prologue -

     It's never a good idea to ignore the advice of quacks and mix strong medication and booze. But that's just what I did after I attended young Katty Steiner-Davion's sixteenth birthday ball, the other day at the Palace. I'd only decided to accept the invite, which was only sent I think as a formality organised by the Palace staff, at the last moment. It was pure chance that I happened to actually be in Avalon City, visiting the College of Biology and Medicine at the NAIS, on that week.
     My prosthetic left hand might be the best money could buy, but as my years advance I do find it's use gives me increasingly severe migraines and I'd decided to let the egg-heads at Hanses's thinking shop have a look at it, to see if there was anything to be done that might alleviate the problem.
     Naturally they prodded, poked, hummed and hawed, asked me to drop my trousers for a rectal examination, then simply proscribed two powerful painkiller tabs, to be taken twice per day, and sent me on my way. Typical of the NAIS medicos in my experience. I thank Jesus and Jerome I was lucky enough to get a Canopian prosthetic in the first place, well you only have to compare my hand with the monstrosity the NAIS lumbered old Justin Allard with to see what I mean.
     Anyhoo, there I was, bluff, only very slightly aging old Hauptmann General Darius Davion, the much decorated hero of countless campaigns and it is commonly rumoured, much vital backstairs work on behalf of our great nation, somewhat doped up on potent pain killers and at a loose end in the boring tamed capital city of Hanse's enormous empire. The invite hit the carpet of my room at the Lyonesse, where I like to stay when in town as, unlike the rest of the city, it seems to be an unchanging constant.
     Grumbling to myself at this intrusion, as I'd been about to try to find out how one orders hot strumpet these days in AC, I ran my eyes over the expensive invite;
     -Her Highness, Princess Katherine Morgan Steiner-Davion, cordially invites her beloved Uncle Darius to attend her at her Birthday Ball. To be held at the Davion Palace, Avalon City, on the night of the 16th November.-
     Well, it had been some time since I'd shown my face at Court and I knew my presence at Katty's bash would annoy Hanse no end, so I dug out my blue and golds, rang down to reception to get a flunky up to buff and polish my medals and a few hours later was dressed to the nines, wearing all my tin and getting out of a hover-limo at the Palace Gates. There were 'Mechs from the First Guards and others bearing the crest of the First Fed Com RCT standing watch, as I strolled up, a wrapped present under my arm, flashing my invite and ID.
     Katty's birthday party was being held in the Palace's main ball room, which is a vast and suitably opulent mixture of architectural styles. Lit by a hundred crystal chandeliers and being large enough to accommodate several hundred revellers, I was not immediately spotted as I sauntered through the crowds of young officers, teenaged nobility, bored chaperones, and harassed servants who hurried hither and yon with trays of soft drinks and nibbles.
     However I was all too soon chatting to a couple of star-struck young Sakhara cadets, who'd managed to wrangle a four week pass in order to attend the party and had become weak at the knees when they spotted me.
     "Yes that's right lads, you just need to swipe a cockpit ladder and you can be down and through the grounds in no time. Oh, you really should check to see if the Lady's Dice is still there and -" Well I suddenly felt a hand drop onto my shoulder interrupting my wise and sagely advice to the younger generation, and for just a second I thought I was about to turn around and come face to face with old Asa Goldstein ready to lash me for leading the cadets astray. It was unfortunately worse than that.
     "Oh hello Hanse. Lovely party." I beamed, all innocence.
     The First Prince of the Federated Suns and architect of the Federated Commonwealth stared at me coldly. He's not showing his years well if you ask me, oh I know the court press claim he's as fit as an Armour Bear that's just woken from hibernation, but he's only sixty six after all and yet his red hair is all but grey-white now and he's definitely carrying around quite a belly on him. At the party he was wearing a smart black evening suit, a white silk shirt, black bow tie and a lapel pin set with the Fed Com emblem twinkled at his breast. His always unnerving clear blue eyes looked me over, a slight twist of distaste showing on his wide features, perhaps because of my ostentatious display of my many medals.
     "What are you doing here Darius? I thought we'd agreed you were in retirement on Killarney?" He finally growled and I smiled, guessing little Katty had had the good sense not to let her father vet the guest list for this shindig.
     "I was here to visit the NAIS, y'know how much I love that old place and today as I was about to book an early flight home I received an invite from my favourite niece to her birthday party. What? I couldn't say no surely?" I was digging at him a bit there I'll own ... my connections with the NAIS have not always been good and I caused a deuced embarrassing scandal by slagging the place off in the press back in '23, which Hanse had been furious about at the time.
    "Hmph." He grouched, for a moment seeming for all the world very similar to Ian in a temper. Then wagging his finger at me and piercing me with those blue deadlights of his, he lowered his voice and said quietly to me;
     "Very well then. But I warn you Darius ... any mischief here tonight and I'll see that you never come within two jumps of New Avalon again." He meant it too, so I smartly saluted and tried my best to bite my tongue ... he was being an ungrateful swine after all I've gone through for him down the years, but what could I do?
     Thankfully at that moment I was saved by the arrival of Ardan Sortek and on his arm a cracking looking little piece of stuff. I smiled genuinely at Sortek ... hullo Darius? I bet you're thinking. This is the Ardan Sortek right? The man who you detest and loathe? Oh yes, I was smiling genuinely at him because the swine's rapidly been going bald over the last couple of years and is now wearing his hair in a ridiculously comical comb-over. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing.
     Draped on his arm though as I say was this striking young bint and I quickly ignored the bald coot to study her; damn but she was a fine piece and no error. Lithe, blonde, with blue eyes and a wicked smile that said 'I'm trouble and know it'. She was wearing an long ice-blue gown, which was low cut enough that she was threatening to spill out the top, and split so that her graceful pins were divertingly visible as she walked.
     I knew she wasn't anything to do with Sortek, that ass could never pull a tasty bit of crumpet like this and then immediately I realised the obvious; this was Katty. Good grief though, I thought, she's really grown up since I last saw her.
     Sortek smiled at Hanse, but was distinctly cool towards me, simply nodding in my direction. We've had several ups and downs in our relationship over the years, I was mainly behind him resigning from the Guards in '24 for example and though he came to respect me again during the Silver Eagle Affair and later the Fourth Succession War, we'd fallen out during the '39 and have never reconciled. Not that I give a damn of course.
     "Uncle Darius." Katty suddenly squealed as she spotted us, having previously been consumed with surveying the throng of guests with an air of contented superiority, and pulling out of Sortek's grasp she flung herself happily against me, her arms hugging me tight and her head pressed against my medals. I understand Sortek was acting as her chaperone for the evening and I noted happily he looked most put out to have lost control of her. I hugged the princess back and then gently held her shoulders and smiled down at her.
     "I'm sorry miss I don't know you. I came here to celebrate the birthday of the little Princess I used to take for rides in my 'Mech and you're clearly some important Lady, but could never be her." She loved this and hit my half breastplate pretty hard in playful good humour.
     "Oh stop it Uncle. You're such a teaser." I've always been good with kids and I made it a point to try to be friends with all of Hanse's brood, but even when they'd been crawling I'd only really liked Katty. She'd always been such a vain creature, totally self centred and quite the bully when she was younger ... perhaps that's why we always got on and still do. I detested Victor from day one mind you, he's such a simpering little prig.
     "Your wish ... as ever ... is my command, Highness." I said bowing and playing the chivalric knight, which made her simper and blush. I know she has a crush on me, well what gal in her right mind wouldn't? However I may be a bounder, but I'm not stupid, she's Hanse's little treasure and I wasn't going to give him reason to think I was anything towards her but a rarely seen relative.
     "Now then Highness, your present." I swung up the parcel and she clapped her hands, her blue eyes wide with delight, then tore it from me and shredded the paper in seconds. As the explosion of wrapping paper drifted down to the floor, she was left holding a black wooden box, with an eager expression across her lovely features she cautiously opened the lid and gasped, drawing out a slightly faded blue silk scarf set with the Steiner fist. She looked a little disappointed so I took it and draped it about her neck.
     "This belonged to your grandmother, Archon Katrina. She gave it to me as a gift, oh long ago on Tharkad." It had been in '17 in fact, during my travels in the Lyran Commonwealth. I'd chosen to give this to Katty as I knew she'd been very interested in the reign of her late grandmother when I'd last met her.
     "Ohh ... ohhh Uncle, this is the best present this year." She said in awe and hugged me hard again. I was satisfied and noted the sour looks from Hanse, Sortek and a gathering crowd of others. Well I'd trumped them y'see, sauntered in with a present I hadn't even needed to lay any bunce out for and beaten all their, no doubt, extremely pricey gifts.
     "But I didn't know you knew Grandmother?" Katty asked me, as she beamed up at me with wide eyed curiosity, and I couldn't help myself;
     "Oh yes, we were quite the item at one time." Her eyes grew all the wider and she stepped back.
     "You and she were ... an item?" At that Hanse cleared his throat and quickly stepped up to us, flashing a dangerous warning glare in my direction.
     "I don't think your party is the proper place for one of Darius's tall tales Katherine." Well, he was just miffed because back then I'd spread it about that it had been him shagging Katrina and not me. She'd been a good ride by the way, she might have been the Archon in her court, but in the bedroom she was a Periphery Pirate, if you follow my drift.
     "Oh dadddeeee. Please let Uncle Darius tell his story." Katty whined and even stamped her foot precociously, I could see she must have Hanse wrapped around her little finger generally, but there was no way Hanse would let me tell the story of my affair with Katrina at this doo. Or any other come to that. Sure enough Hanse bustled Katty away, just giving her the chance to peck my cheek and flutter her pretty lashes at me one more time, before leaving me to a chilly silence stood at the edge of the dance floor with Sortek.
     Spotting that awful brat Victor making his way our direction and waving and calling out to us, I shoved my glass of lemonade into Sortek's hand and ducked off smartish down a side passage leaving the ball behind me.         
     
* * *

     I strolled back to town through the Peace Garden, making a detour to stand before my own statue, you've probably seen it yourself. It shows a fair representation in bronze of the younger me, back when I was nineteen, carrying Ian's wounded body over my shoulder, a look of stern concentration upon my face. The plaque at the base of the statue reads;
     'In grateful thanks, from a grieving nation. We record here the actions of Darius Davion, on Mallory's World in October 3013, when at great personal risk he rescued the body of First Prince Ian Davion from the Kuritans. Never has the Davion motto Audacity, Bravery, Destiny been more apt than when applied to this act.'
     It's a little wordy for my taste, but it's nice to stand there by night, under the moonlight, and see yourself as a youngster in your prime. Oh I'm no broken down wreck now I'm fifty five. Unlike Sortek, my black hair is still full, if somewhat grey-white at the temples, my many wounds ache in cold weather, my midriff may be somewhat sturdier than in the past and my handsome features bear the lines of scars and old age, but it's been said they simply make me look rugged and interesting.
     Mind you the local avian life seemed to regard my monument as just another place to crap, as Ian's body and my head were caked in a yellow-white crust of bird-shit.
     Wandering off down towards the lights of the town, I began to remember those times, my mind flying some thirty five years back. Mallory's World, my many horrific scrapes there, using Ian as a human shield against the fire of Yorinaga in his Warhammer. Then inevitably, considering my route, I began to recall the dark and in their own way as terrifying events that immediately followed my return to New Avalon with Ian's frozen corpse.
     Deep in thought as I was my feet led me, seemingly of their own accord, to the Fox Den Tavern. It's one of the few drinking establishments that was around back then and yet survives to this day. You may know it, it's pretty much the Guards Brigade's favourite pub, located on a quiet street at the bottom of the Mount, it's nondescript door lit by a pair of sodium street lamps.
     I pushed in and the pair of burly veterans who were sat there as bouncers took one look at my blue and gold uniform, it's breast groaning with half a ton of medals, then looked up to my face and recognising me instantly, stood aside while drawing themselves up into smart salutes.
     "Eevn'nin Gen'ral Davion Suhr!" They growled and I flipped them a quid each, then went on in. The Den is decorated to appear like an olde worlde English country pub, from the old planet, all dark oaken beams, alcove like nooks, a real open fireplace, polished wooden tables, stuffed leather armchairs and along one wall a long high bar where Guards troopers and officers were usually propped or sat on barstools. Paintings big and small of heroic actions of the AFFS crowded the walls, alongside fading holos of notable MechWarriors and nobles. The only really jarring reminders of reality were the giant vid-screen that sometimes was hung over the bar, a few tables at the back that had tri-vid players built into their centres, and an ATM cash dispenser over by the door to the 'Gents and Ladies'.
     It was a quiet night naturally, what with every young blade in the Brigade up on the Mount dancing and trying to pull. The older coves were up there too, standing around watching from the sidelines, while gassing with each other about their campaigns and toadying to the Prince and his dreadful family. I went in and smiled to get the attention of the buxom wench at the bar, she was a saucy looking trollop dressed up in period costume with her poonts pushed up and on display thanks to a tight corset.
     Deciding I needed a drink, contrary to doctor's orders, I bought a pint of bitter then repaired to an armchair by the fireplace, after first ordering the speciality of the house; roast beef, roast taters, thick gravy and all the trimmings. In my youth I'd have sneered at this kind of simple fare, but I find it a strange fact that as I grow older my taste in food is becoming more pedestrian, I do still insist on the best ingredients and that it's cooked well of course.
     After stuffing myself and drinking another few pints I was feeling pretty peeky and leaning back in the chair I allowed a wave of contended sleepiness to wash over me. As my eyelids drooped and I gazed into the warm fire crackling in the hearth I was sure I could hear that persuasive voice again like he was sat there with me once more.
     "Think about it Darius ... I'll make you First Prince inside a year."
     I must have fallen asleep then, as I dreamt of the Funeral, the Coronation, and that bloody battle between our own, when the Fox showed his teeth for the first time. However I was suddenly awoken most rudely by some loud oafs stumbling in and up to the bar, clearly having come down from the Ball.
     "Nien, nien, Rufus. I tell you it vaz fate." A braying, Lyran German accented voice was shouting as I blinked my eyes open. "Destiny. Ze course of history zat put a man like Hans in ze right place, at ze right time. Likevize our ultimate victory uber alles is inevitable." Craning around to see who this boorish squarehead might be, I found there were three blue and gold uniformed Guards Leftenants with the patch of the Alex on their sleeves and one tall, muscular, blonde fellow wearing that absurd Lyran dress uniform of an officer of one of the Fed Com RCTs; dark blue jacket heavy with gold braid, red sash, pale blue pants with red piping. For all he looked like he'd fallen off the lid of a chocolate box, I reminded myself our Davion version was even uglier. A full length cloak indeed!
     "I say, Helmut has a point Roof." One of the Alex boys replied happily. "Well, no other explanation for it is there? I mean the Succession Wars dragged on for what? Three centuries? Without anyone having the gumption to change anything. Back in Ian's day they barely understood tank and infantry tactics that are in basic training today." I began to feel my blood pressure rocket as I struggled to get out of my armchair and those young morons prattled on.
     "Well, perrrhaps Josh. But destiny? Fate? I don't know about that. Surely it was common sense and bloody hard work." The squarehead butted in again at that.
     "Vat is zis? Common Zense? Nien again I zay. Vee are destined to become zee rulers of zee new Sternenbund. Who iz zere now zat can rezizt us? Deztiny I zay." D'you know those young idiots were lapping up this tosh. You hear it all over the place these days don't you? How it's only a matter of time before our glorious Fed Com will swallow up all the other Inner Sphere states and reform the Star League. It's complete nonsense of course and normally I'd just ignore them, or make a few pointed comments to wind them up, but on that night, with memories of Hanses's Coronation fresh in my mind and my belly swilling with pain killers and beer, I was in no mood for it.
     Staggering out of my chair I positively bellowed at them;
     "What's that you say? You damned pompous great Ellsie twerp you!" Well the little group at the bar all turned to face me astounded, especially the Fed Com 'Hauptmann'.
     "Vat? How dare you zir!" He sputtered, turning red with fury, as I staggered up to them, my pins feeling deuced unstable I half realised.
     "Dare? How dare I? Why I should put you through that wall, you pup." My blood was up though and my head spinning somewhat, to the extent I was prepared to risk a brawl, which as you know I'd normally avoid at all costs. However, even befuddled as I was, I was pretty sure the Alex boys would step in and they did.
     "Steady Helmut ... d'you know who that is? It's General Darius Davion." I heard one of them hiss to the Ellsie behind his hand. Clearly startled at that, the red faced Hauptmann gulped and looked at me with real fear in his eyes, well they know me in Lyran space too y'know. However his pal Josh, a long faced exquisite with lazy eyes and fine black hair didn't look overly impressed.
     "Beg 'pardon General sir," He said, his voice dripping with the arrogant disregard the young reserve for the elderly. "But we were just discussing the good fortune that saw Hanse become our leader and the inevitability of the Fed Com's imminent victory over it's foes. Surely you don't disagree with our sentiments?" He was playing with me, I could tell, but damn my temper was too high to ease down.
     "Imminent victory? I don't know if you've looked at the star maps lately, you mincing pimp, but the Combine is defending one border with an army half as big as ours, while we have to defend three borders and that's not including our pretty hot Periphery Marches. How do you suggest we conquer the Combine when we can't even win back Quentin? Do they not teach you squits what happened to us during Operation Baldur in '44?
     Besides, since Baldur has Hanse shown any inclination to pick another fight with anyone? Of course he hasn't you idiots. He knows we're over stretched as it is. We can hold what we have now, more or less, but there's no way we could take even Liao, without the Dragon snapping up worlds from us while we're occupied!" Their faces were masks of horror, except this Josh bastard who was looking at me pretty hard and seemed to have taken a real dislike to me, understandably perhaps.
     "Hanse coming to power through fate? Destiny? What arrant rot. I should know damn your eyes, why if anything, or anyone, brought Hanse to the throne it was me after all." Well, it was true, perhaps not in the way I'd meant it, but still. The others gasped in shock, but Josh simply laughed a short chuckle and raising an eyebrow sneered.
     "Well, I had heard that yes. But I'd not wanted to suggest that if you'd run faster in Desolate Pass you might have saved Prince Ian."
     "WHAAAAT?!?!" I roared again, before shouting at them some more. "You preening dandy! What would you bastards from the Alex know about it anyway? Why half of your regiment were trying to kill Hanse at the time!" I slowly became aware the bouncers were behind me. The First Guards Leftenants were deeply shocked by my words of course, except that swine Josh I'll be bound.
     "Come along, Gen'ral suhr. Time for bed. Be a good gentleman now." I heard one of the doormen coaxing quietly in my ear. Then, just as I was about to tell these pups a thing or two more I actually saw him sitting at the end of the bar, in the shadows where he'd been all those years before. His face was covered by the darkness, but it was him all right, the man who'd planned to kill Hanse at the Coronation, he raised a glass of beer and I heard his voice distinctly.
     "Good show, old fellow. Didn't I tell you when next we saw each other I would either be lord of New Avalon ... or dead meat?" I actually backed away from the bar, barged past the astounded bouncers and fled at full pelt from this spectre from my memories. I didn't stop running until I reached the Lyonesse and my suite, where I proceeded to get thoroughly drunk from the mini-bar and later woke on the floor with a stinking hangover.
     Looking back, I knew the phantom at the end of the bar of the Fox Den had not arisen from his thirty five year old grave, but rather from the combination of booze, bad memories, pain killers and my anger at those idiots. Still it had given me a real start and I hurried to book an early passage off world. Now, sitting in my cabin aboard a comfortable civilian starliner, headed for the Jump Point, I shall lay down what actually happened all those years ago. Of my arrival back at Avalon City, Ian's Funeral, Hanse's Coronation, of the rampant ambition, political wrangling, of that mad-bad Guards officer who was trying to kill Hanse, the truth about his secret masters, of chases through the casinos and bars of old Avalon City before it was cleaned up by Hanse, dark plots, murder, of that lovely widow with the glimmering emerald eyes, of the climactic atmospheric drop and the forgotten bloody 'Mech battle that was waged across the gardens and parkland of a New Avalon estate barely fifty klicks from the capital itself.
     You may not credit some of what I have to tell you, but I assure you it's all true. You can find most of the facts in the history books if you look hard enough, though Hanse and his brother's spymaster, the Truffle-Hunter, have seen to it that the affair has always been played down and few historians or commentators tell the whole story. So then, here it is, the tale of my exploits at the funeral of First Prince Ian and the subsequent Coronation of his brother Hanse.

[Tokage]

3013


Chapter 1

     Jump travel can be a real bore. Sometimes you can get lucky if your ship has an easy going captain and a crew prepared to while away the days with cards, boozing, and good conversation. If you're really lucky there will be a willing female aboard with you and you can spend your time getting to know each other in interesting zero-g positions. However if, at it's best, it can be something like a rather cramped house-party, at it's worse it can feel like a stretch in prison. Sadly my voyage from Mallory's World back home to New Avalon fell firmly into the latter bracket.
     Firstly, while a command circuit greatly decreases your travel time it does mean you tend to be bottled up in the smaller cabins of a DropShip for most of the time, as we were on that occasion, for you're constantly being shuttled from one JumpShip to another. Secondly, Ardan Sortek was my cabin-mate for the entire journey and he bored me rigid before we'd even left the atmosphere of Mallory's World. Thirdly, the crew of our DropShip were all expected to be formally in mourning for Prince Ian, whose body lay frozen in coolant fluid in a sealed ceramite casket in the hold, so they could hardly be seen getting pissed and gambling with the AFFS officers meant to be the similarly respectful escort to the Prince's body.
     Thus I spent a long few days, doing my best to dodge Sortek in the decidedly narrow confines of the DropShip, trying unsuccessfully to quietly chivvy up some fun from the crew or pilots and generally aching from my wounds. I was so bored I actually decided to keep a promise I'd made to myself back on Mallory's World and began to try to learn Japanese. I recall Sortek taking this as a sign of amazing dedication on my part and I soon noticed that he'd actually stop spouting his facile drivel when he noticed I had my nose in my E-pad struggling with the language. Naturally therefore, I actually got a lot done as every time he came in I'd be sure to be studying.
     Each time we jumped into a new system there would be a flotilla of civilian and military ships waiting to see the Prince on his way, they would fly all around us, then peal off as we silently drifted up to lock into the new JumpShip. It was quite beautiful sometimes and staring from our porthole, at the starlight flashing on the hulls of those various spacecraft, I began to get an idea of how important the events I'd been right at the centre of really were. With each jump and transfer to the next JumpShip the number of craft increased, as did my nervous excitement ... I was the Hero of Mallory's World, stories of my daring exploits were speeding ahead of us across interstellar space and I couldn't even begin to imagine what was awaiting us on New Avalon.
     Naturally, now and then, the guilt and fear of the truth coming out would overwhelm me. If I was fantastically famous now ... how infamous, I fretted, would I become if it ever got out that I'd knowingly led the Second Sword of Light straight to Ian's hidden position, used his still living body as a human shield for myself, and then finally in all probability accidentally smothered him to death? A swift execution would be the very best I could hope for.
     I've never entirely gotten over those fears, even to this day, and sometimes I awaken in the dark, sweating and screaming, as the nightmares of the truth coming out fade back into my subconscious. Back then these terrors were understandably far stronger and I woke in a funk, bleating with terror, practically every night. Sometimes I'd wake Sortek with my cries and he'd sit by me and pat my shoulder.
     "Easy old chap. Easy. We're going home now." He'd say softly, thinking my night terrors were the honest bad dreams most soldiers carry home from war. He personally seemed to have none in those days, though he was to gain a few later in life I believe. Once, on that journey, I recovered my wits quickly enough to mumble.
     "It should have been me. Yorinaga you swine ... I'll make you pay." Sortek of course loved that and the next day gave me a long speech about 'the hardship of going on when you survive fallen comrades' and how I must overcome my 'noble guilt'. Well, funnily enough, I decided at the time he was right. Before the journey came to an end, I'd had a hard think about the possibility of the truth coming out and decided it was so unlikely as to not warrant worrying about. After all only members of the Kuritan army had witnessed my cowardice and though they might well try to dirty my character, everyone would dismiss what they said as propaganda and no one would believe them.
     My one enemy from our own side on Mallory's World, that ghastly peasant turned MechWarrior Clive Holloway, might hate me for my snobbery, but there was no reason he'd even guess about my cowardice. By the way, I hadn't forgotten about the serious payback I owed him for almost certainly leaving me amidst the wreckage of Ian's MHQ, to be taken by the Snakes. I'd just decided that I would bide my time and punch his ticket when a suitable opportunity presented itself. I wasn't to know then of course that opportunity wasn't to arise for quite some years then to come.
     We reached the New Avalon system at 08.00 hours, on the 13th November 3013, eleven T-days after leaving Colterville and Mallory's World. I can still remember, as clear as if it were yesterday, the sight as I stared out of the porthole as we jumped and the Odell jump-station disappeared to be replaced with a seemingly vast number of interplanetary spacecraft that were waiting for us. My jaw dropped as I gazed in amazement out upon hundreds of civilian and military DropShips, shuttles, busses, space-tugs, planetary liners, yachts, freight-haulers, I even spotted asteroid mining ships and one seater ship's boats. They were like a shoal of glittering fish drifting in the deep black between us and the massive Star League era recharge station.
     Sortek was as surprised as I was and became quite emotional, rubbing his eyes with a noble snuffle of pride at this incredible show of respect to Ian by 'the loyal public', as Sortek pompously put it.
     As you probably know yourself, it's a seven day burn from the jump-point to New Avalon proper and the flotilla flew with us all the way, making our DropShip the head of a great comet-like arc of space craft. Those seven days seemed to drag even slower, as I desperately tried not to brood upon my surely baseless fears about being unmasked for the scoundrel I truly was. However, I must admit, my Japanese came along in leaps and bounds, to the extent that by the time we landed, I was able to understand basic grammar and speech. We touched down at Avalon City's Star Port in the middle of the local night on the 20th November.
     I recall standing alongside Sortek, behind the four Fourth Guards infantry troopers from Ian's old bodyguard detachment, who had accompanied the body and now held it at their shoulders, in the rear of the DropShip's hold after we'd thudded down. I stood there, tugging and fretting at my borrowed blue and gold dress uniform, as the hatch lowered with a metallic hum and after a moment of silence, along with a gush of chilly night air came the heart piercing sound of a bugler playing taps. The troopers walked slowly down the ramp and we followed.

TAPS - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn_iz8z2AGw

* * *     

     We stepped out into the night air to gaze across the great empty flat expanse of three separate landing areas that had been cleared of all other traffic, lines of BattleMechs flanked our front, left and right sides. Each rank was a battalion strong, the right drawn from the First Guards, the left from the Lights and ahead of us the giants of the Assaults. The 'Mechs were painted in their mourning colours; black with side painted red, white and blue stripes, they gleamed under the lights of control towers and arc lights that lit the scene.
     At the centre of each line of 'Mechs three of the great machine's held suitably enormous standards, one the flag of the Federated Suns, the second the Black Davion fox on a red field, and the third their RCTs battle flag. As we began to walk and the bugler played that sad, ancient, little tune each banner was slowly lowered, until they all rested down upon the ground.
     Standing in front of 'the Crushers' 'Mechs ahead of us I could just make out a great crowd of nobles and civilians, several hundred in number at least. Ahead of them stood the single bugler from the First Guards, who was playing as we walked out from the DropShip and slightly behind him, presently silent, a detachment of the Guards Brigade Band.
     A few paces ahead of them stood a lone figure. Dressed in his blue and silver uniform, heavy with medals and orders, stood Hanse Davion.
     Blake's Blood, but this was a moment for the press corps, snapping and filming away on our left and right. Our little group seemed all the more tiny coming out from that massive seeming DropShip onto the acres of empty ferrocrete, the arc lights casting our shadows giant behind us.
     Hanse waited for us, his back straight, his head up. Well, you must have seen the holos. He was not then First Prince remember and as you will come to see, it was far from certain then that he ever would be.
     That walk behind the slow pace of the casket carriers seemed to go on forever, however it cannot have actually taken that long. I was trembling inside with nerves. Christ, I was terrified of tripping over or something, can you imagine how truly awful that would have been? Anyway we made it and as the troopers lowered Ian's chilly casket down before Hanse, the bugler played his last haunting note and the band started playing Amazing Grace.

AMAZING GRACE - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkaV_5wSsKE&feature=related

     As that strangled tabyranth sound of bagpipes carried across the open ferrocrete plain, Hanse knelt and placed a hand on the top of the casket. His eyes closed he stayed there for a minute or two while the music played and I saw real tears on his cheeks ... not the only time I saw him cry in my life, but one of a damn few occasions that's for sure, all in all I've seen sharks cry more frequently than him. As opposed to myself of course, I've shed enough tears through pain, terror, despair, and sheer self pity to fill a small ocean ... though I must say I also cry for sentimental reasons, or over lost loves, where Hanse never would.
     As the band finished their tune and silence washed over us, somewhere I could hear distant sobbing from the crowd and Hanse opened his eyes and stood up. Nodding to the troopers, he stepped around towards us and I prepared myself for my big moment. I was the man who'd saved his beloved brother's corpse remember, if it hadn't for me, whatever the truth behind my reasons, Ian would have been being off loaded on Luthien at about that time. Well, would you credit it, Hanse blanked me, walking straight past me only to hug Sortek bodily.
     I was shocked and instantly the thought came into my head that somehow Hanse had got wind of the truth. I stood there as he stepped back and pumped Sortek's flipper asking him how he'd been and the like, not knowing whether to be terrified or furious with righteous indignation about being treated offhand like this, when it was I who was the hero of the hour not Sortek, who was surely just a failed Leftenant?   
     Then, almost grudgingly it seemed, Hanse turned to me and held out his hand pretty formal like. I rushed to grab it and pump away naturally. With his pale blue eyes reddened for once with tears, he mumbled.
     "You have our gratitude and thanks Darius." Then with that the ungrateful bastard turned and promptly walked off with Sortek, alongside the troopers carrying the casket. I was stunned. This was entirely unexpected to say the least, I had hoped and thought Hanse would be all gratitude and friendship towards me, there had been the remote terrifying possibility he might have somehow learned the truth and had me thrown into a cell ... but I had never thought he'd thank me like I'd just passed him the salt shaker at dinner and then ignore me!
     Well, what could I do? I shambled along after them, passing the band and then through the crowd that parted as infantrymen formed an avenue for us. There was a great number of hover-limos and Guards APCs waiting and I was bustled by some flunkies into the back of one, while cursing to myself as Hanse and that glory hogging dog Sortek went into another and Ian's casket was placed into an APC and draped with the Fed Suns flag.
     "Can I get you a drink, Leftenant?" A crisp, pretty voice asked from my side as I fumed to myself and I turned to find the wide leather seats of the hover-limo held a passenger already, causing all thoughts of my wounded sense of honour and my jealousy of Sortek to fly from my mind. Damn but she was a beauty!
     She was a slim, olive skinned, woman of perhaps her mid to late twenties, had long glossy black hair bound back with a silver circlet, playful glimmering emerald green eyes and a small glossy mouth with a full sensuous looking lower lip. Despite being dressed in a demure, if tight, black gown, that clung to her pert breasts most wonderfully, her every move bespoke a natural elegance and grace.
     It came to me all of a sudden. Hanse hadn't spurned me at all. Perhaps knowing my tastes from his spies, he'd set up this clearly high class strumpet for me in this limo as a thank you for bringing home his brother's body. Well, of course, overcome with relief and suddenly feeling rather randy I promptly forgave him all and leering at her I pulled the door closed behind myself and nodded.
     "Don't mind if I do my dear. Make mine a PPC."

* * *

     I don't remember much about what was going on outside the limo on that journey, as our convoy of vehicles wended their way along a circuitous route through the city so that the millions of citizens who lined every street, boulevard, avenue, bridge and thoroughfare in shared grief for their beloved First Prince, could see the APC carrying his remains. The windows on the limo, I noted happily, were one way so we had all the privacy we'd need and I sipped my PPC contentedly.
     "So you little tart ... what's been paid for? I hope you're feeling fit, because I've been cooped up in space for two weeks and want the full works!" I grinned wickedly and absolutely began to fumble with the buttons to my dress pants ... to be rewarded with a sharp gasp of surprise followed promptly by a fearsome crack across my cheek. I blinked in complete shock and was about to hit her hard back, when it occurred I might have shot before the ammo was in the autocannon, so to speak.
     "Ahh, that is ... err ... then you're not ... ahh ... paid for?" Well I threw back my PPC as I realised those dark lashed peepers of hers were blazing green fire at me.
     "You crass bore. How dare you? Have you any idea who I am? I'm Olivia Fenlon ... the Duchess of Chesterton." Oh Jesus and Jerome I thought to myself, this was going to look great when we pulled up to the Palace, the Hero of Mallory's World accused of assuming one of the highest ranking noblewomen of the realm was a prostitute, then making to sexually assault her and all this actually taking place during the slow, solemn, procession of the Prince's body through the city ...

[Tokage]

Chapter 2

     Looking back I wonder why I was so sure she had to have been a hooker. I mean you get into a car arranged for you and just because there's a tasty looking strumpet waiting in there, it shouldn't automatically follow that she's a prostitute should it?
     Well, I suppose I was very put aback by Hanse's apparent coldness towards me a few minutes previous, my mind was reeling with the surprise of that still and I was perhaps mentally clutching at straws, thus the pleasant surprise of finding her waiting in the car that Hanse had to have arranged for me, must have momentarily thrown me. Or maybe it just was the sight of her trim figure squeezed into that tight black number she was wearing and that lusty pout of hers while she was handing me my drink ... I hadn't imagined that, that's for sure.
     Immediately she'd spat her name and title at me, I slowly recognised her from the news-sheets and tri-vids. She'd become quite a celebrity for a while a couple of years back when her husband, Duke Charles Fenlon, had died suddenly, leaving her as a beautiful young widow and the ruler of one of the more important Duchies in the Federated Suns. She had been born a middle-class girl, who'd caught Fenlon's eye while working as a late teen in the Chesterton Department of Commerce and I understand the resultant marriage was something of a minor scandal; 'the aged Duke marrying the teenager from the typing pool', was how some rags put it at the time. Olivia had, however, impressed many with her quiet dignity and obvious grief following her husband's demise from a heart attack, which some cruel wags had claimed had been induced through bedroom exertions with her. Duke Fenlon had died in 3011 while on New Avalon and Olivia, a gifted linguist and translator, stayed on at the Ministry of Foreign Relations, where she'd been working for some years while her husband filled a position at Ian's Court.
     What she'd really become known for, over the last couple of years, however was a rumoured romance with Hanse. They'd apparently been seen out and about in Avalon City several times and many thought she'd make a fine wife for the still unmarried Prince. There were several other women Hanse was occasionally seen with too though, so there was no evidence that they weren't simply sometime lovers, or even just friends.
     All these dredged up memories flashed through my appalled brain, as I sat there, mouth open in horror and gawping at her. Well it was a monumental faux pas though wasn't it? People became social outcasts for far less. I had to do or say something and quick, to smooth this out.
     A high handed approach would be unlikely to work, as she clearly outranked me socially, despite my Davion name and connections. I could try blubbing, beg her to forgive my rudeness and plead with her not to tell anyone ... but then she'd probably still see me publicly humiliated and might even begin to doubt my heroic reputation. There was only one thing for it and to this day I don't know how I had the nerve, but it was do or die as they say.
     I made myself laugh. That ain't easy to do credibly, when your guts are churning and the cold sweat is running down your back, but I did it. Perhaps I was hysterical, but beginning with a chuckle, then a barked guffaw, then roaring with full bore laughter I sprawled back into the seat and the tears were positively rolling down my cheeks. As I have said I'm a damn fine actor when I need to be and I'd place making my merriment seem genuine in that limo as one of my finest individual performances.
     Well, as you may know, there is nothing more infectious than someone else's laughter, you might be as angry as Max Liao at a wedding, but sitting there fuming while some oaf is weeping with the giggles, you eventually can't help but join in. Initially she was still furious of course.
     "What? Stop that! Stop that right now." But as I ignored her and continued on I noted she made a pretty little exasperated 'tut', then an almost baffled smiled and as she actually held her hand up to her mouth to stifle a giggle I stopped slowly. Time for Dashing Darius to do his talking now, as her anger seemed somewhat defused.
     "Oh ... oh but I am so sorry Your Grace. But I couldn't resist it. You looked so sad and I thought you needed to laugh." I gasped, wiping at my tears.
     "Then ... you were joking?" She asked amazed, her emerald eyes wide in disbelief and astonishment.
     "What? D'you think I'd not recognise my cousin Hanse's good friend Olivia?" It was touch and go for a moment, then she relaxed and shaking her head, in what seemed to me to be baffled awe, took a swig from her tumbler of whiskey.
     "Leftenant that has to be the damnedest stunt I ever heard of." She said and I grinned back, giving her my best easy schoolboy charm.
     "I am truly sorry ma'am, but oh look, I've been mourning Ian solidly for nearly a month now and I was going to explode if I couldn't smile just once before his funeral. All those long faces back there, well ... it just struck me Ian would have hated it." It was true too, the Hound was a roaring boy when he got the chance as I've said previously. Well, I was playing honest, open Darius you see? The bluff fighting man, unused to courtly ways. I also wanted to make sure she remembered I'd been close to Ian at the end. She smiled sadly and flicked those glossy raven tresses of hers off her shoulder with an elegant little toss of her head, 'gads but she was beautiful.
     "You're right there." She said wistfully. "I remember the first time I met Ian ... Charlie, my late husband, presented me to him at the Palace, when I was in my early twenties and within half an hour Ian had taught me the words to Broken Hearts and Dirty Boots and had about twenty of us singing it at the top of our voices!" She laughed easily and a tinkle of crystal shards falling on marble couldn't have sounded clearer. I saw an opportunity to really turn my blunder around and with a broad wink began humming the tune to the Guards filthy unofficial anthem. By the time the limo pulled to a halt we'd both sank two or three more drinks and as a Palace servant opened the door, we sang the final verse at the top of our happy voices.
     D'you know, of all the many mourning messages, poems, and hymns raised by folk on New Avalon that night for Ian, in all honesty I dare say he'd have thought ours the best.

* * *

     It was only as I was getting out the car I began to wonder why Olivia, as she'd quickly insisted I call her, had been in my limo at all. As she walked around the rear of the vehicle, I asked her and she came up to me, threaded her slender arm through mine and smiled up at me.
     "A friend asked me to look after you." Damn me but the cheeky wench actually winked saucily and we were both stifling more laughter as we walked arm in arm into the Palace, for the royal memorial reception  Hanse had ordered held for his brother's body's arrival home.
     We followed the crowd of sombre nobles, AFFS officers, Federal officials, and Court staff as they went through the Palace corridors and into that very same great ballroom, where Katty was to hold her sixteenth birthday party thirty five years later. On the night of Ian's final homecoming however, it was covered with black drapes, ribbons, and wreaths, and there was damn all dancing going on. Some dreary operatic Atreides mourning theme was being played by a band at one end of the vast room and the deeply dull music seemed to make the gathered throng all the more inhibited. They stood in clusters talking quietly, all in black, the men in uniform wearing black armbands, or even specially tailored dress uniforms; black pants and tunic with the gold half-breastplate.
     Our good humour died as we entered, there was a grim air in that ballroom that went beyond mourning for Ian. I couldn't quite put my finger on it at the time, but even as young and green as I was then, I could feel the palpable touch of dark fears and suspicions ... the various gaggles of, theoretically at least, mourning guests seemed to glare at other groups and there were muttered conversations that ended abruptly as we drew close, then continued as soon as we were past. I leaned to Olivia and whispered urgently to her.
     "What's going on? Why's there this atmosphere?" She glanced back at me, her dark eyebrows furrowed in a warning frown.
     "Shhh Leftenant. This is not a safe place to talk of such matters." I noted her deadly seriousness and suddenly began to get windy. This was the Davion Palace for Blake's sake ... if it wasn't safe to talk here, where in Hades was it?
     I should point out, I was recognised many times as we made our way through the crowds. People smiled thinly at me, shook my hand, patted my shoulder, or saluted me. However most of them seemed very distracted, apparently more intent on watching the other guests, or getting back to their own whispering huddles.
     We took a glass of wine each and stood beside a great balcony window overlooking the Brigade of Guards Mount Barracks, further down the slope of Mount Davion. I tried to get her to spill the beans regarding the feelings of suspicion and fear that seemed to hang in the air, but she turned my questions around each time and artfully coaxed me into telling the stories of my adventures on Mallory's World. She seemed suitably impressed and engrossed at the time and though careful to stick to my official line, I think looking back she was actually trying to appraise my general politics through clever and subtle questioning.
     I was just finishing telling the tale of how I 'saved' Ian's body at Desolate Pass, when there was a susurration of drawn breaths and whispering, as one of the great men of the day arrived. He came through the crowd every inch like royalty, brisk, pausing for no one, though nodding aloofly to supporters here and there. I noted some turned their backs on him, others gushed as he passed and still others simply watched him closely, like you would a snake that passes you in a desert. He was dressed in a formal black suit with dark green cuffs, overhung with a dark green broad-shoulder cape and with a golden chain hung around his neck, from which depended a bejewelled emblem depicting an all-seeing eye. Flanking and swaggering behind him were half a dozen Syrtis Fusilier officers, wearing dark green and black trimmed regimentals, with rakishly angled caps.
     "Hasek-Davion." Olivia hissed under her breath to me and I looked back to him considering what I knew of the man at that time.
     Michael Hasek-Davion, the Duke of New Syrtis, Minister of the Capellan March, Coordinator of the MIIO's dreaded Bureau of Internal Investigations and much else besides, was Hanse's primary rival for Ian's empty throne. He was in his mid to late thirties back then and was fearfully powerful. These days people tend to dismiss Michael as never having had a chance against Hanse, but let me assure you that was far from the case. Michael had been raised to hate the Davion family and believe the Hasek's should be ruling the Fed Suns. He had married Hanse and Ian's bastard half-sister Marie ten years before and added the Davion suffix to his family name, in order to put himself firmly into the official line of succession. He was widely regarded as an expert schemer and tactician, was highly charismatic when he wanted to be and reputedly could twist people around his little finger with blackmail, clever manipulation, or oratory. As head of the MIIO BII, the branch of the secret services charged with spying upon the people and nobles of the Fed Suns themselves, Michael was rumoured to have gathered heavy dossiers on numerous people of note, whilst recruiting agents and operatives into his own private service. There was one rumour that I'd heard, while at Sakhara the year prior to this, stating that Michael had blackmailed political opponents of Ian's military policies into voting in favour of them. Perhaps due to this, Ian had apparently turned a blind eye to Michael's creeping accumulation of power.
     Seeing him walking, head up, through the throng now, proud as Lucifer himself and flanked by dangerous looking personal guards, a shiver went down my back. I'm no patriot, as you know, but damn me, the thought of this scorpion possibly becoming First Prince one day terrified me. Perhaps catching my gaze his head turned our way and to my disquiet he changed course and marched towards us, he was not tall I noted, though his wiry slenderness seemed to give him more height. His tanned, handsome features seemed fixed in an arrogant expression that almost looked like he'd been frozen whilst smelling something unpleasant. His black hair was worn long in a tightly bound braid that curled over his shoulder and down his breast. As he stopped about a meter before us, I met his aloof gaze and looked into his deep green-black eyes and shivered despite myself, at the chilly depths I felt I could detect therein, damn I thought again at the time, this is another one of those died in the wool bastards who will cause me trouble and danger if I'm not very careful.
     "Chesterton." He said in a deep, resonant voice to Olivia, bowing his head to her briefly, before turning his attention back onto myself.
     "So this is the Hero of Mallory's World?" I felt him intensely studying me and I didn't like the feeling. Olivia made to introduce me, but I suddenly begrudged this damn Hasek's off-hand 'lord of all he surveys' manner and interrupted her by leaning forward with my hand outstretched.
     "That's me, Darius Davion, Leftenant, Fourth Guards." I beamed at him slightly mockingly and he smiled back, his eyes remaining lizard-like in their cold unreadability. He took my right hand in his own left and I flinched as I found it was cold as death, looking down I realised it was a clever prosthetic and winced as he squeezed quite hard.
     "Pleased to meet you Leftenant ... I've read a good deal about you." Something about the way he said that made my spine tingle in dread, he was in charge of spying upon us all I remembered again and plenty of guilty thoughts sprang into my mind, about what he might know of my behaviour in the past.
     "You certainly seem to be a Davion of the truest type." He said in that smooth, faintly accented, priest's voice of his and I grew all the more leery of him.
     "I noticed Sortek came back with you ... where is Hanse and his ... Leftenant now?" He loaded his words with double meanings and I decided being around this chap would be bad for my health, so I muttered some lie about having seen Hanse and Ardan over the far side of the ball room and Hasek-Davion turned on his heel without another word to me, causing that long black braid of his to slither across his breast as if it were a live serpent. Deuced unnerving it was. With that he walked away, nose in the air, his sneering Fusilier lackeys trailing behind and shooting venomous glances at myself.
     "Brrr." I shivered bodily, taking Olivia by the arm. "Let's get some fresh air, that fellow is too reptilian for words."
     Agreeing with me Olivia let me lead her out through a side door into a small garden, we sat on a bench overlooking the barracks buildings and beyond them the lights of Avalon City itself. I was about to question her further about Hasek-Davion and whether he was making some kind of play for the throne, when she tossed her hair back and smiled at me charmingly.
     "So this ... Ms Devlin was it? The brave partisan you describe in such ... loving detail, were you and she close?" Well, this was more interesting than Hasek-Davion's possible scheming, if they show an interest in your past amours, then it's pennies to C-Bills you're half way home. So I played the noble, never kiss and tell knight, whilst being sure to leave her in no doubt Jennifer Devlin and I had indeed been lovers.
     In the shaft of light from the ball room's windows, Olivia looked truly stunning and I was just wondering whether to risk taking a plunge, when she leaned in and I'm damned sure she was going to kiss me herself ... however we were, at that moment, most rudely interrupted.
     "DARIUS!!!" I'd recognise that half banshee screech, half strident drill-sergeant bellow, anywhere and with my mouth drying instantly with terror, I turned towards the door we'd left through.
     "Mother? How ... what ... where ...?" To my complete dismay, there she stood like some fearsome ancient goddess, dressed all in black. Her Ladyship Lydia Davion neé Campbell, the Countess of Killarney, my mother.

[mikecj]

Excellent description of Michael H-D!

[Ghost0402]

Oh how I have missed Darius.   [notworthy]

[Tokage]

Chapter 3

     I wouldn't have been more horrified at that moment if I'd turned to see Ian's corpse risen from his casket standing there, dripping coolant fluid and moaning at me angrily. As you will know, if you've read the secret memoirs about my earlier exploits, my mother and I are not exactly close.
     Though she'd pestered me on a regular basis by c-mail while I'd been at Sakhara, I hadn't seen mother at that time for about two years, and I would have been all too happy not to see her for another few more.
     Even when I was a young child, she'd always had made it clear to me that I failed in some way to meet her expectations in a son. I could never do anything right in her eyes and she made that fact abundantly clear. For example, when I was five at infant school I made a painting of father and her, I carried it home proudly, but when I handed it to her after one look at it she tossed it into the fireplace and stalked off without a word.
     A relative who is an amateur shrink once told me mother was simply projecting the failings of her marriage to my father onto me. Father had many mistresses, I learnt that very early in life, the lucky goat! However, I'm not sure I believe this business about 'projection' and 'maternal-filial jealousy' or whatever. I simply believe some people enjoy causing others pain and that has always been a particular talent and pleasure of hers.
     As I may have told you already, she was a direct cousin of Amanda Campbell, the mother of Ian and Hanse. Apparently in her youth she'd been a great beauty and my old dad had been considered very lucky to bag her. She has certainly maintained a hard, cool, high cheek-boned elegance in her advancing years and is slim and active even today, damn her longevity. She affects to be very religious, attending the local NA Catholic Church every Sunday, making confession nearly dayly, sponsoring religious charities across Killarney and generally bossing around the local NACC priests like she were an AFFS Colonel and they her battalion. However, if you ask me, that's just a big act. She has said unguarded things here and there that make me one hundred percent certain she no more believes in 'God' than you or I do.
     She's a great one for tradition you see and the NACC is the corner stone of the culture and ways of the Fed Suns in her eyes. Perhaps my general outlook on life and my cowardly, boozing, gambling, wenching, wastrel ways were a rebellion against her hypocrisy. I doubt it though. I'd have been the same, I'm sure, even if my mother had been as lewd as Kyalla, as rough as Maria Morgraine and as irreligious as Natasha. It's in my blood. Well, look at dad, with all his women, cronies and his debts in later life.
     Anyway, back to the story at hand, typically she'd caught me in a less than glorious position; in this case apparently about to kiss the Duchess of Chesterton, of all people, outside the official memorial reception for Ian's remains. She'd taken it in at a glance and doubtless added plenty of salacious fictional details to justify her already towering rage at my 'inappropriate' and 'lewd' behaviour.
     "Darius you loathsome creature. Get over here this minute." I glanced at Olivia, who was trying to cover her enjoyment of my obvious and total embarrassment. I was a nineteen year old veteran of the border war with House Kurita for heaven's sake, who had endured DCMS captivity twice, had charged with the Seventeenth Avalon at Sandsedge and personally carried Prince Ian's body out from under the guns of Yorinaga Kurita himself, yet she was barking at me like I was seven again and she'd caught me playing with pedisnails on the back lawn.
     "Ma'ma please, we have company, allow me to introduce ..." I began, but she cut me off with a slice of her hand.
     "I don't want to know who this young lady is. She looks like someone who ought to know better that's for certain." My mother fixed Olivia with a withering glare and I noted even the Duchess of Chesterton couldn't stand that for long. Gulping and stammering a little, Olivia patted my hand and said quietly to me.
     "Ah, perhaps you two need some time on your own to catch up, I'll call you." And with that the cowardly trollop stood, casting desperately around for some way out of that garden that didn't lead within arms reach of my mother before, finding there was none, she scurried past mother and back into the safety of the crowded ball room.
     There followed a stinging thirty minutes or so of maternal invective. I was tongue lashed to within an inch of my life; how could I be 'canoodling' at my own cousin's, the First Prince himself's, memorial? What kind of excuse for an officer was I? Why hadn't I written from Mallory's World? What on Terra possessed me to leave Sakhara? Did I know how much money my place there had cost her and pa'pa? What's this about having 'allowed' Ian to die? What are these rumours about 'being stupid enough' to 'let' myself fall into Kuritan hands? And so it went on.
     You see, nothing was good enough for her. I'd come home from my first campaign promoted and a decorated hero of wide fame. You'd think that would make her happy, the fake-pious old crone? But no. I was still a failure as far as she was concerned and almost certainly always would be. I sat there with my head in my hands and tried not to get drawn into her insanity, but sometimes I couldn't help myself.
     "Allowed Ian to die? He died in his 'Mech, don't you read the news-sheets? How could I have stopped that?"     
     "Let myself be captured? Ma'ma it was that or die?" To which of course she'd fixed me with those fierce blue eyes of hers and with a voice that dripped icicles replied;
     "Better a son of mine died nobly, than let Kuritans best him."
     What can one say in reply to that? I felt numb and helpless before her, so I desperately tried to change the subject.
     "Ma'ma, where is dad? Is he here too?" I'd guessed she'd obviously come, aside from not wanting to miss an opportunity to badger me, for Ian's funeral and the subsequent, though as yet officially unconfirmed, coronation of Hanse. If dad was here too he'd at least draw some of her fire and besides I genuinely wanted to see the old rascal again.
     "Your father was too busy, playing soldiers on Remagen, to tear himself away to escort me to my dear departed nephew's funeral. Typical of the men in this family." Dad had had the good sense to claim military concerns it seemed, the canny blighter. Well, deciding if I didn't get out of this awful conversation with her I'd end up strangling the battleaxe, I suggested we go inside out of the cold and she grudgingly agreed, after straightening my half-breastplate and buffing away some perceived smudge upon it.
     Any bad atmosphere in the ball room was nothing to that I'd suffered one on one with my mother, so I happily began parading around the room with her. Some of the guests there she already knew and was old friends with, for example that sharp-eyed biddy Yvonne Davion, then with the DMI, whom I'd met briefly before leaving for the Kuritan Front. Mother and her got talking about 'the old days' and for once ma'ma smiled and laughed, giving me time to covertly sink a couple of stiff drinks, to sooth my badly bruised ego and shaken nerves.
     As mother and Yvonne turned on to damning the merits of the men of their generation and praising 'dear' Hanse, I was button holed by the Lexington-Lumberjack himself; Ran Felsner. He was most distraught, I recall, over the recent catastrophic defeat of his old unit, the Seventeenth Avalon Hussars and he demanded all the details from me. As he was civil towards me, well the bad blood that was too arise between us over my fling with Cordy Spencer was well in the future back then, I was happy to fill him in. I think I may have thrown him a little curve ball at one point by deliberately calling him by his old nickname 'Never-Ran', that I'd been told about by that stinking sergeant of the Second Lexington Regulars, the day before Sandsedge. He was truly devastated by the 'massacre' of the Seventeenth, as he put it, taking off his ridiculous monocle and rubbing tears from his eyes.
     Leaving Felsner to his sorrows, I happily noted Joan Davion from the Chancellery of the Exchequer had joined ma'ma and Yvonne and the trio were deep in conversation ... perhaps about the latest hot sewing patterns. I interrupted them politely and nearly had my head bitten off first by Yvonne, then my mother. So without any further ado I sloped off, leaving the grim reception behind me.
     I strolled down out the palace proper and wandered out through the gates to find myself walking down a great avenue of fenced off civilians. The people of Avalon City, quietly praying, singing hymns, holding candles, sobbing and talking to each other, all gathered here out of respect for Ian. I pulled up short in surprise and somewhere I heard a voice cry out.
     "It's 'im. It's Darius." With that all attention was focused upon me and suddenly I was being cheered to the night sky by what seemed like tens of thousands of voices. The crowds rushed the barriers and AFFS troopers struggled to hold them back, I stood there before the main gates of the Palace and stared down the great avenue.
     "Da-ree-us! Da-ree-us! Da-ree-us!" They began to chant and I felt a great wash of emotion well up within me. I slowly walked down that avenue, head high, stopping here and there to shake hands, to pat a proffered child's head, or to smile and kiss a pretty girl. I played it well, if I do say so myself; smiling sadly, shaking my head when folk shouted I was 'sooo brave', nodding to matrons and saluting those crippled veterans of Ian's many campaigns that dotted the massive crowds. At one point a sergeant of the First Guards came up to me and whispered;
     "We can't 'old 'em back much longer suhr. P'raps if you said somefing to 'em, to calm 'em down like?" He brought up an APC and I climbed up upon it while the troopers called for quiet. Standing there I gazed out over all those people and turned in circle slowly, before shouting as loud as I could.
     "Thank you my friends." I croaked, my throat suddenly dry at the enormity of being a fraud before all these people, to which there was a thunder of cheering and clapping that went on for several minutes before dying down. "But the honour you do me is not right."
     To which they roared again. I waved my arms to get them to quieten down.
     "Ian was the hero, not I. I carried his body from the fire, but he was the one who fell fighting it." Pretty poor stuff you'll agree, but believe me they lapped it up like I was Cicero himself.
     "I'm just a soldier. Nothing more. Please ... please let's remember Ian tonight, not I." Naturally this whole scene was caught on tri-vid and was beamed around the planet in minutes, across the Fed Suns in days and weeks, then over the Inner Sphere in months. It was all grist in the mill of my legend ... Darius Davion, the honest soldier who spurns public adoration and self deprecatingly claims to be no different from any other fighting man.
     I was the darling of the masses that was clear, however I was not then to know that other, altogether less friendly, eyes were gazing at me that night and before dawn was to come I would be propelled by cruel hands into deadly danger once again.   

* * *

     I was escorted down from the APC and through the adoring crowds by a squad of infantry troopers, to the gates of the Mount Barracks, that huge old heavily armoured fortress of a building. Passing under the guns of a pair of 'Mechs from the Alex, that stood guard before the barracks walls, I swiped my ID card and made my way through the then quiet corridors to the wing assigned to the 'Bane and my quarters.
     Naturally, with the 'Bane still being away on Mallory's World, that part of the Barracks felt deserted and I staggered into my room, tripped over my bags, that I was gratified to note had been sent on here from the starport, then stripped and collapsed into bed.
     I went soundly to sleep within seconds I think and began to dream of shagging Olivia Fenlon in various exotic locales.
     Blake knows what time it was that I woke, but it was still dark so I tend to think I'd not been asleep longer than an hour or so. It took me a moment to register why I'd awoken ... there was a clicking sound coming from the direction of my quarters door. I sat up in bed, flicked on the bedside lamp and was suddenly terrified. Call it coward's instinct but even there, in Avalon City's Mount Barracks, I knew this was trouble of the worst sort. Someone was picking the lock to my door, in the dead of night.
     My heart thundering in my breast I looked about for some way to defend myself, it came to me that the snub nosed Sternsacht Compact 10mm autopistol, that Jennifer Devlin had given me back in Colterville, was packed in the bags that lay in front of my door. Throwing back my covers I began to run for the bags, just as the door swung quietly inwards and I found myself tearing towards two grim faced men in plain grey civilian business suits. Each was holding a pistol.
     "What the ...?" I began to say as I skidded to a halt, then turned to run back the other way as they both raised their guns and began to fire at me. There was a 'phut-phut-phut' sound and I felt at least two needle-stings in my back, suddenly my legs seemed to seize up and I fell face forward half onto my bed. As cold numbness spread over my body, I just had time to realise I'd been tranq'ed before all went dark.

[Tokage]

Chapter 4

     I came too slowly, my brain hurting like you might expect from a bad hangover. I was sitting upright in a hard chair, upon looking down I found I was secured to it by my ankles and wrists with plastic binders. Looking around I realised I was sitting under a bright white light, while all around me was pitch darkness. Oh, this was bad!
     I sat there for a long moment, quaking with rising fear, whilst debating with myself whether to make any noise. There was just a chance the thugs had been after someone else, so I decided I'd better play my role as Dashing Darius, the heroic and noble soldier at least until I knew more.
     "Well, you villains. I'm awake. What's the meaning of this? I warn you, I'm Darius Davion and if you let me go now, I'll speak up for you at your trial." For a few seconds there was no response, then somewhere ahead of me I heard slow, steadily approaching footsteps. I began to palpitate as they drew closer.
     "Ahh, that is ... well ... if you let me go ... we'll say no more about this ... and ..." I nearly screamed when those measured steps reached the edge of the ring of light in which I sat. However my terror turned to shocked surprise as who should enter the light but Olivia Fenlon, the Duchess of Chesterton herself.
     "Olivia, what the blazes?" I gasped and she smiled softly at me and drew out a nasty looking switchblade. Well it ain't what you expect from a peer of the realm is it? My surprise turned back to funk again and I began to squirm as the raven haired beauty advanced on me once more.
     "Olivia, please ... is it what I said in the limo?" However she dropped to her knees and with deft moves she cut the bindings, while whispering to me.
     "Sorry Darius, I had my orders. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open. You're in the Fox's Den." I gaped up at her as she cut my wrist binders. The Fox's Den? What the hell was I doing there?
     I knew of the place of course, everyone did even if only by rumour. Located beneath the mountains that extended west from Mount Davion, it was a great heavily fortified underground military complex and formed the central headquarters for the AFFS and the DMI. I'd heard it was connected to the Palace and Mount Barracks by hidden maglev subways, running along deep tunnels, so guessed that's how I'd been brought here. But why? And why the subterfuge? Oh Christ! It occurred to me at that moment that Hanse must somehow have learnt the truth about me and I was going to be made to disappear, that was why he'd blanked me at the starport.
     As I followed Olivia, who was now wearing tight dark blue tunic and pants, my mind raced trying to come up with plausible excuses for my many discreditable actions since leaving Sakhara, so I didn't take too much notice of my surroundings. I can recall bare grey ferrocrete corridors, lit starkly with white lights, grey metal doors and occasional plainly dressed civilians who passed us, apparently ignoring the fact I was shivering my way along clad only in my boxer briefs.
     Olivia stopped at a double, bronze coloured door and flicked an ID card down a reader set into the wall. There was a steady 'beeeep', a green light, then the double doors opened into a long softly lit, narrow room, with unmanned computer stations running along the left and right sides and above them ranks of shut off vid-screens mounted upon the walls themselves. A great rectangular polished wooden table was set in the centre of the room and a group of people were seated at it, rising from his position at the head of the table and still dressed in his blue dress tunic and pants, was Hanse Davion himself.
     I quivered there, practically nude, as he strode purposefully up the length of the table and came to stand before me. He fixed me with his scary, pale blue eyes and just as I was about to blub and beg for mercy, he grabbed me in his strong hands and pulled me into an embrace.
     I stood there rigid with surprise, then he pulled back and smiled sadly at me.
     "I'm as sorry about the way I had to have you brought here, as I am about not greeting you as warmly as I wanted too earlier Darius. Please believe I had my reasons, which we'll get too shortly. Just know I am deeply grateful and indebted to you for what you did for my brother." He looked me in the eye while saying all this and I relaxed a little. Enough to start to become angry at the cloak and dagger routine I'd just endured.
     "Now then, Ardan." Hanse said, "Can we find some togs for Darius here. Don't want the hero of the hour to catch his death do we." Sortek, the bastard, got up from his seat down the table and smiled at me warmly, as he walked up to one of the banks of computer stations and brought down a crisply ironed, though plain, set of olive drab AFFS fatigues, which he handed to me and I quickly pulled on.
     "Good to see you Darius." Sortek said and I grunted moodily in reply. Olivia had seated herself about half way down the table and while dressing, I quickly had a squint at who was actually here. Hanse sat himself back down at the head, while Sortek, dressed in his Avalon Hussars uniform, returned himself to the chair at his patron's right hand. On Hanse's direct left was a fat man, who regarded me intently with beady, piggy, eyes. It took me a moment to place him; it was the man I'd mentally dubbed 'the Truffle-Hunter', when I first met him earlier that year; Count Nicholas Truston, the Minister of Intelligence Investigations and Operations. He nodded to me, well as much as he could nod with four chins restricting his head's movement.
     Alongside him sat Marshal Doger, the dour, rake thin, head of the DMI. Dressed in a plain, but elegantly cut, business suit and with the shaven white hair I remembered from meeting him in Ian's study. Opposite him sat my mother's gossip-buddy, Yvonne Davion, dressed in her black mourning gown still and watching me closely, I remembered she was head of MI2 - Analysis and Speculation. Olivia had sat herself down next to Yvonne.
      Standing at the rear in the shadows, as if playing sentry, I could make out the familiar stocky and solid figure of Captain Ross McKinnon, with his thinning, close cropped, grey flecked hair, hands clasped behind his back and dressed in a camouflaged field uniform. He beamed happily at me and I nodded in response.
     Good lord, but this was a rare collection wasn't it though? I gulped and made my way over to the seat old Doger had pulled out from the table for me, next to him, plumped myself down and tried to get a sense what I'd been dragged into here. All attention turned away from myself, to focus upon Hanse, who gazed down the table and spoke in a grim, deadly serious, tone.
     "Darius. Although the 'Bane, along with the majority of the RCTs presently at the Kuritan Front, have accepted my right to succession, I've been provided with evidence that the rest of the Brigade of Guards is far from unified in their support of me." He left that hanging in the air and I considered it for a moment ... he was possibly right.
     Oh the 'Bane were fanatically loyal to Hanse, because he was 'their' Ian's younger brother, but I'd heard a few things during my time at the Mount Barracks, earlier in the year, about Hanse's politics being not entirely popular with the nobles who made up most of the Brigade. It was partly that oaf Sortek's fault of course.
     No, hear me out, this isn't just ol' Darius venting his spleen at his hate figure Sortek, y'see Ardan had a tendency to run his mouth off to anyone prepared to listen and hadn't hid the fact that Hanse and he wanted to strip the MechWarrior noble elite of many of their generations old privileges. Well, Sortek had said as much to me within five minutes of my meeting him for the first time.
     "Oh surely not sire." I answered though, like a good little toady. At which point the Truffle-Hunter rumbled in his jowly voice.
     "Then there's Hasek-Davion's faction. They stir and scheme, believe me." Hanse nodded solemnly and added.
     "You wont be aware of this Darius, but since Ian's death on Mallory's World, there has already been one attempt on my life." He was right, this was a surprise to me and an unpleasant one, if Hanse was murdered and I was seen to be in his political camp, that put me at risk.
     "I was in the Capellan March when I heard about Desolate Pass and I was rushing back to New Avalon in order to make sure I'd be here when Ian ... got home ... anyway we'd stopped on Emerson for resupply. I was walking down one of the ramps of the Running Fox, my personal DropShip, when a sniper with a laser rifle came within an inch of killing me." He said it in a flat, emotionless voice and I was genuinely horrified. I'd thought Hanse invulnerable, like I had Ian, and was coming to understand just how precarious their positions really were. Well Ian had already been killed after all.
     "His shot was close enough to singe my hair a little, but I'd thankfully turned my head at the last second, to say something or other to the head of my bodyguard detachment. After that first shot my guards surrounded me and bustled me safely back into the 'Fox. The local authorities and my guards quickly found the shooter, dead by his own weapon."
     The Truffle-Hunter again rumbled in a voice that seemed to come up from his great belly;
     "My Ministry has been unable to link anyone specifically to the would-be assassin, he seems to have been a lone wolf, unconnected to any known person, political group, or nation. He was definitely trained well however and had access to DMI tech and weapons." At which all eyes turned to Doger who shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
     "I have already given the findings of the internal investigation I launched into this matter. He was not and has never been an agent of my Department. All members of ... the Special Forces, have their complete DNA sequences logged and filed, this man was not one of mine ... that is ... ours.
     Though he was covered with a DMI standard anti-sensor cape, his weapon was an Intek M2448 Laser Rifle, with a modified wooden stock, a 4 to 12 variable power zoom Thorvald and Koch 'Vampire' Ultrasound scope and with privately machined 'powpac' clip functionality. He tried for a single .3-megawatt shot, if he'd have hit he'd have vaporised Hanse's head, but he was firing at about two hundred and sixty meters and that's long range for that weapon. However, DMI snipers typically use modified, silenced and suppressed, bolt action conventional rifles, firing neo-carbide discarding sabot rounds, they're every bit as accurate as a laser, but you lose the risk of light defraction at long range.
     His use of the laser rifle suggests a non-military wetwork operative to me." He finished, bouncing the hot potato back to Truston. The Truffle-Hunter went a little redder in the face and muttered;
     "There aren't many criminal organisations whose members are happy to commit suicide without even trying to escape first. His DNA, hair and skin under analysis, showed trace elements that suggest he was born on Emerson itself, but had been on numerous worlds over the past few years. He has to have been one of Hasek-Davion's fanatics, but with Hasek-Davion actually heading up the BII we have had our hands tied investigating all possible leads impartially." We all sat quiet, digesting the seemingly obvious, but very unpalatable, facts. If Hasek-Davion could be proved to have sent an assassin to kill Hanse it would almost certainly mean civil war. Hanse spoke again thoughtfully.
     "I have no delusions about my brother-in-law. If my brother was the Hound, and I am the Fox, then Michael is certainly the Weasel. He darts through the dark underbrush of the worlds of politics and espionage, always looking to take advantage.
     However, I will not move against him without firm evidence that he is in fact behind this assassination attempt ... or that other matter which we have brought Darius here to discuss. There are other possible employers that might have sent this nameless assassin after me at this time. Max Liao has certainly more than proved his willingness to use murder, to forward his ambitions and may have seen killing me as a perfect way to destabilise us. Perhaps this shooter was a Death Commando, it would certainly explain his suicide to avoid capture." I could tell from his voice, Hanse didn't believe it himself, but his sense of family prevented him from acting upon what he knew to be true, that the assassination coming as it did at that time and place had to have been the work of Michael Hasek-Davion.
     Sortek, who'd been silent up until that point, slammed his fist down hard on the table suddenly, making us all jump.
     "Let's just arrest the swine and be done with it." Hanse smiled faintly and patted his idiot friend's hand on the table fondly.
     "Sorry Dan, I wish it were that simple, but it isn't. If I arrest Michael without evidence the entire Capellan March might rise against me and rightly so. To say nothing of the other Dukes and Duchesses who presently are undecided in their loyalties. I don't intend to start my reign as First Prince with an act of arbitrary tyranny ... no matter how much I might personally want to see Michael behind bars." Sortek looked abashed and nodded blushing, realising perhaps how at odds with his often prated views on democracy and 'just rule', his outburst had been.
     Well, all this talk of Hasek-Davion had been most interesting, but I couldn't see how it affected me and I'd been lulled into a sense of somewhat relaxed ease, when Hanse turned to me and slid a slicksheet up the table to me.
     "Tell me Darius ... do you know this man?" I looked down at the holo-pic of a man's face, he was handsome, dark haired, with a moustache, goatee beard, tanned looking skin and black eyes. He did seem familiar and I cudgelled my brain trying to remember who he was. Suddenly in my mind I heard a bitter, drawling, voice referring to Sortek as a 'bum-boy', and I dropped the slicksheet with a start.
     "Captain Jonathan Bright, of the Alex." I said slowly, looking past Hanse to McKinnon who was nodding at me, as I remembered that angry eyed fellow McKinnon and I had eaten dinner with, at the Palace some months previously, shortly before I had met Ian for the first time. Hanse sat grim faced and the Truffle-Hunter breathed heavily;
     "That man is at the centre of a Cabalist plot within the Brigade of Guards itself, that aims to kill Hanse on, or shortly after, his Coronation."

[Tokage]

Chapter 5

     As soon as I recognised Bright's holo, I'd somehow known I was in deep trouble once again. I couldn't say why exactly, but my finely honed sense of self-preservation was telling me that Hanse and his little clique here had something planned for me, in connection to this whole situation, that I was not going to like one bit. I was right too, but I shall come to that in a moment.
     I knew a little about the so-called 'Warrior's Cabal', they were initially a semi-secret society of Fed Suns MechWarrior nobles that had sprung up about sixty years prior to the events I'm describing here, during the reign of Ian and Hanse's grandfather, First Prince Peter Davion. They took their lead from the infamous MechWarrior Brotherhoods of a generation before them and stood in opposition to Prince Peter's attempts to reduce and limit the runaway powers the MechWarrior nobility had begun to abuse back then. Peter tried to solve the problem by elevating the status of Aerospace Pilots and ennobling them, whilst launching numerous legal actions against Cabalist MechWarriors. Stripping them of military rank, noble titles, land and sometimes even the right to own BattleMechs.
     With each defeat of a troublesome MechWarrior noble however many more would join up with the Cabal, fearing for their own futures. This situation came to a head in 2961, when the Prince travelled to the newly conquered world of Breed, ostensibly to tour the planet's reconstruction efforts, but in fact travelling there to personally dismiss three notorious Cabalists from the AFFS and strip them of all their holdings. To give you an idea how brazen the Cabalists were in those days, one of these three was a Colonel Dempsey, who actually went on tri-vid news progs threatening to kill anyone who tried to strip him of his 'rank and honour' ... even the First Prince himself. Well, the Prince clearly didn't believe him and was driving towards Dempsey's home base, when Dempsey and four other Cabalists in 'Mechs ambushed the cavalcade and opened fire, killing Prince Peter instantly.
     Though Dempsey and the four other regicides were immediately arrested by planetary authorities, they had to be held in a fortress, to prevent their Cabalist friends springing them. While the Cabalists actually lobbied for their release as patriots who'd slain a tyrant, Peter's son Andrew meanwhile assumed the throne and won the public's hearts with his obvious grief and dignity. When he made preparations to move on Breed, a Cabalist mutiny broke out across several Draconis March worlds. Andrew, using most of the Brigade of Guards, attacked with a lightning offensive that culminated in the complete destruction of Dempsey's Second Avalon Borderers on Deshler and the general defeat of the Cabalist forces elsewhere. All the openly rebellious MechWarriors were killed or captured within the year.
     The Cabalist Mutiny of 2961 allowed Andrew to purge the military however and the rest of his reign was then spent pulling together the AFFS and fighting back the Liaoist and Kuritan incursions that had been launched in attempts to take advantage of the weakened and divided state of the military.
     Following the defeat of the organised Cabalist movement by Andrew, MechWarriors holding to Cabalist beliefs tended to go underground, as the Mutiny had made their political opinions highly unpopular, even amongst the military. During Andrew's tenure as Prince and presumably Ian's as well, Cabalism became a looser thing, more like a set of beliefs and attitudes than an actual organisation or movement.
     My father had told me a few stories, when I was younger, that tended to suggest he'd been involved in some Cabalist mischief, he'd talked of living like a king during his days at Sakhara, which had once been a Cabalist hotbed a generation or so before he'd been there. Or sometimes would whisper drunkenly to me of the things he'd got away with as a young MechWarrior ... half of which would see one thrown into jail these days.
     Still, I'd seen little sign of outright Cabalist beliefs during my time with the 'Bane and certainly no evidence at all of an actual Cabalist conspiracy and said as much to the Truffle-Hunter. Hanse answered for the fat-man.
     "I'd be surprised if you had Darius, you were known to owe your position to Ian and besides the Cabalists had no quarrel with my brother. They thought his single-minded concentration on the war a fine and noble attitude in their Prince, it allowed them to continue living the lives of relative ease and greed they enjoy. They didn't mind that the common people were beginning to suffer under an economy that was being neglected, that the Six Liberties were once again becoming mere ink on paper, or that their 'peasants' were becoming ever more backward and illiterate." Sortek was nodding like a parrot at Hanse's side I noted, whilst I was thinking these Cabalist boys seemed just my sort of fellows.
     "It's well known that, from my earliest boyhood, I have wanted to better the lot of all the people of this great realm and with Ian's death I've now been given the chance to do just that, on an unprecedented scale. Naturally now these rats are fearing the injustices that favour them will be righted, and like my father, I shall stamp on them, hard." Hanse's cold eyes were chilling and I looked down at Bright's face again.
     "So Jonathan Bright is a Cabalist?" I said thoughtfully, the Truffle-Hunter answered again, glancing a little uncomfortably at Doger I noticed.
     "He certainly is. One of my agents, who also held a junior rank in the First Guards, caught wind of the Bright group's extreme Cabalist leanings and attached himself to them. He penetrated the group, learned the identities of Bright and seven other members, though he thought them to number about fifteen to twenty active Guards officers and MechWarriors in all, but believed there could be even more than that.
     Bright had bragged to him that his group, which he referred to as 'the Third Covenant Society', would ensure even if Hanse was actually made First Prince, that his reign wouldn't last beyond a few T-days." I frowned, that alone was treason and I struggled to understand why they didn't have Bright and his cronies in here instead of me. Sortek, ironically enough, had the same idea. He stood up and leaned down on both hands looking around our faces.
     "Well then, what's to discuss, this Bright has committed treason and plans to murder Hanse and who knows who else. Let's arrest him and all his co-conspirators." Doger looked bored I noted, the Truffle-Hunter actually snorted a brief chuckle and Hanse frowned, half turning to look up at Sortek.
     "Dan, you're a soldier. You understand the honest struggle of battle. Please, this is a different game altogether. Please, sit down and let Minister Truston finish." I caught some of the others, even Yvonne shaking their heads at Sortek's simplistic greenhorn knee-jerk reactions and I could almost hear them all thinking; 'Hanse, get rid of this cretin so the adults can talk.' Truston smoothed his jacket over his swollen belly.
     "The last report I received from my agent inside this 'Third Covenant Society', indicated that Bright was only making amazingly bold plans, such as even daring to consider assassinating Hanse, because he had a powerful backer ..." We all came to the same conclusion at once, but typically it was honest-Dan Sortek who blurted it out.
     "Hasek-Davion!" His eyes were bright as he looked around the table for confirmation from us. Truston shifted his bulk in apparent annoyance.
     "We don't know that. As I have said, this was in my agent's last report ... that is the last report he made before he disappeared." But Sortek was having none of that.
     "So, they murdered him! Who else but Michael Hasek-Davion could it be? Hanse you have to have these swines arrested and brought here for questioning. I'm quite sure Count Truston or Marshal Doger's backstairs chaps can wring the identities of their backer and the other members of their clique out of them." For once I was half in agreement with Sortek and actually said as much, more or less, to Hanse. However Truston shook his porcine head and Hanse glanced between us before speaking.
     "No, that would be playing our hand too early. Right now, Bright and his fellow rats probably know we've had an agent in their midst, but they almost certainly don't know how much we know. If we move against them, we'd probably nab Bright and the other known conspirators, but we might lose the rest ... we could also spur them into taking their shot at me early. Without knowing exactly how they mean to kill me, that's a risk you'll forgive me for not wanting to take.
     Dan, I'll agree it seems at least possible Michael has offered secret backing to these traitors in my own Royal Guard, but it is far from certain. Again at present we have no evidence." Hanse stood and paced around the table, his hands fidgeting behind his back, he was genuinely nervous and who could blame him? He had possibly two separate persons or groups out to kill him, his own Guard was deeply riven with Cabalist traitors and his Coronation was likely to only be a week or two away, when he got around to announcing the date after burying his recently killed brother.
     "No ... we can't act yet ... we need to know more about Bright, this so-called Third Covenant Society of his and exactly what they're planning. Most of all I want to know for certain if Michael is behind them ... if he is then there will be no more kid-gloves ... I'll break him like a dead twig." I was getting very windy by this point, I had the vaguest notion where this could be heading and I was desperately trying to think of some escape route ... when Hanse reached my side of the table, propped himself up on it's edge beside me and looking pensive fixed me with his pale eyes.
     "Darius, I'm told your father, Count Xerxes, was involved with certain relatively harmless Cabalists in his youth?" Well, I couldn't lie, he knew the answer to that before he'd asked the question after all.
     "Yes Your Highness ... though only in a high spirited, strictly loyal way. He'd never have had anything to do with the likes of this Bright and his fanatics." Hanse waved away my defence of dear old dad.
     "Oh of course, I respect and love Uncle Xerxes, he's a grand character. I well recall his ... stirring, rendition of The Chancellor's Two Daughters at the closing ceremonial of ought-nine's Royal Court season." He grinned and looked about and we all dutifully laughed, though mine was more a strained whine of terror. I could see Hanse was going somewhere bad with this line of questioning and my belly began to grumble with building panic.
     "But, never-the-less, in his wild younger days he was reputedly a Cabalist ... albeit only a moderate one. Now then, knowing that and bearing in mind my very public snubbing of you, earlier tonight, I think it's safe to say Bright might find you very interesting and even a prime potential recruit." There it was, the hook upon which I was to be hoisted. I absolutely sputtered and coughed in panic, which they took to be wounded affront I think.
     "Your Highness, my loyalty is beyond question. Bright would never believe I would turn against you. You're my cousin." Hanse shushed me with a gesture of his big hands, the light making his ginger hair seem flecked with gold. He smiled and turned on his damn charm, the sneaky bastard.
     "You'd be surprised Darius. A few rumours of a rift between you and I spread about, by Count Truston's boys and girls, perhaps based around an intimation I blame you in some way for Ian's death. With your father's background and your present high standing with the public, you'd be a very tempting prize for Bright. If he could win you to his cause, you'd make a fine figure head and might even give him some shred of a veneer of legality to his actions." I could see Hanse's point of course, if Bright believed I was at odds with Hanse and could be bribed, or won over to his plot, he might well do his best to recruit me. Hanse saw my lack of argument as a sign to continue and went on as if I'd agreed to his madness already.
     "So, after a plausible amount of consideration, you join the Third Covenant and once inside learn all their identities, the nature of their assassination plot against me and most important of all; who is backing them." Oh, they'd had this worked out from before I'd even landed though, hadn't they just! I looked around the eager faces desperately, though careful to seem to be considering all angles in a studied manly way, but all I got were expectant and encouraging looks. What could I say? If I told Hanse where to stuff his damned scheme, I could expect no further advancement under his reign and would almost certainly face a lifetime of quiet disgrace, bum jobs and dirtwater postings. I swallowed my terror and smiled, slipping into my lifelong role as Daring Darius Do-Right.
     "Right-ho then Your Highness, looks like I'm going to be the lucky chap who gets to teach these Cabalist curs a bit about good old fashioned Davion honour. I'm going to need full dossiers on Bright and these seven known co-conspirators; backgrounds, military records, personal details, known hangouts and the like. Oh and a dossier on this missing agent of the Truff- ahh Count Truston, that is."
     There was a general round of beaming smiles, clapping and 'good show', 'well done lad' and the like ... but internally I was reeling. I was expected to infiltrate a murderous, Cabalist secret society, pump them for all their secrets, then lead the authorities to them before they got around to assassinating Hanse Davion himself ... why, I asked myself, did this kind of horrific thing keep happening to a nice, quiet young chap like me?

[Tokage]

Chapter 6

     "Now then Darius, I do have one other thing that I need to talk over with you." Hanse said as I was picking up the E-pad and data slugs that the Truffle-Hunter had slid over to me. I glanced up, wondering what new problem Hanse was going to throw at me.
     "It's about some of the things you've been reported as saying, regarding the events surrounding my brother's death." My mouth dried instantly in terror, as visions of public disgrace and scandal again sped to the forefront of my mind.
     "Specifically pertaining to the identity of the pilot of the Warhammer which apparently killed Ian." Hanse finished and my fear changed quickly to confusion.
     "What you mean Yorinaga?" I asked and noted a pained expression flicker across Hanse's features as he exchanged loaded looks with the Truffle-Hunter. Truston actually then spoke for Hanse;
     "What precisely makes you so sure that pilot was actually Yorinaga Kurita?" He asked and I stared at the fat slug baffled, this was going in a direction I'd not expected, so I decided to play along.
     "Well, I saw him fight at the Siege of Colterville in the same 'Mech, where he killed my friend Jacques Labroc, I recognised his fighting style and besides who else would the Second Sword step aside for, so that person could meet Prince Ian one on one?" Hanse's eyes seemed lidded and unreadable, as he answered me.
     "So you're not in fact absolutely certain it was Yorinaga then?" I shook my head at that.
     "No Your Highness, you misunderstand me, I am one hundred percent certain. The man that killed your brother was Yorinaga Kurita." Truston leaned forward and stared hard up the table at me.
     "You misunderstand us Leftenant, I think you'll find you are not certain of the identity of the Sword of Light MechWarrior who 'murdered' Prince Ian." His stern tone and the dead silence around that table clearly implied they wanted me to lie and state I didn't know for sure who'd killed Ian. I didn't know why, but all I could do was nod slowly in acceptance. The Truffle-Hunter wasn't satisfied with that though.
     "And you will advise the press of that, should they ask?" I nodded again, noting that Ardan was looking at his shoes and Hanse's inscrutable expression faded into a relieved smile. I wasn't to find out until some time later, from Olivia as it happens, that it had been decided that it would be better all round, from the point of view of Hanse's fledgling government at least, if the official line on Ian's death was that his killer was unknown. The people would have expected Hanse to launch some kind of vendetta you see and Hanse was way too shrewd to chase around seeking a 'Mech duel with arguably the best MechWarrior alive. Also, it helped to deflate the Combine's crowing propaganda to suggest that Yorinaga hadn't in fact stood against Ian and was perhaps stealing the laurels of one of his own men.
     D'you know this was still the official line of Hanse's regime as late as 3028, when I recall reading an interview with Hanse and he was questioned about the rumoured return of Yorinaga. The interviewer asked if Hanse would seek to face Yorinaga, 'the man who murdered his brother' and Hanse laughed off the question, pointing out there was no proof Yorinaga had even been at Desolate Pass. Interesting the use of the word 'murdered' as well ain't it. As far as the public suspect, Yorinaga killed Ian in a stand up fight, remember the commonly believed myth is that Ian died in his cockpit, yet because Yorinaga was a Kuritan and Ian First Prince of the Federated Suns it had to be considered murder.
      Oh yes, Hanse was concerned about his public image even at the start though, wasn't he? He was manipulating the press even over the details his own brother's death. To be fair to him though, I can see why he'd not want people pushing him to seek out Yorinaga ... that merciless Snake bastard would have slaughtered Hanse in a 'Mech duel, no question.
     Sensing that the meeting was about to end I quickly spoke up again, having one thing that was on my mind.
     "Sire, if we don't know how many of the Guard regiments are infiltrated by this Third Covenant Society, or who all the traitors are, what forces presently on world can we rely upon, should the need arise?" Hanse frowned and then nodded.
     "The only unit presently on New Avalon I am entirely certain are all loyal to me are Ross McKinnon's boys. Unfortunately, I would have trusted the Heavies and the Fourth Guards implicitly, however as you know the Fourth are still on Mallory's World, while the Heavies are in the Draconis March awaiting deployment, that just leaves the local militia, and a battalion of 'Mechs each from the Assaults, the Lights and Bright's own RCT; the First. Whose loyalty is certainly far from certain at present."
     "But I saw Ran Felsner earlier tonight." I thought aloud and Hanse shook his head.
     "Ran's here for the funeral and coronation, but his Grinners are still out on the Kuritan Front awaiting H-Day." I mulled this over. It wasn't good, McKinnon's Raiders might be a crack unit, but they only numbered four lances of 'Mechs as far as I knew. If Bright had twenty or so MechWarriors behind him and possibly more in the ranks of the Alex he could just strike during the formalities of the funeral, or the coronation. As if reading my mind Hanse spoke up again.
     "I have some plans underway to remove at least part of the First from New Avalon between the funeral and the coronation Darius. I don't think Bright means to strike openly just yet, he will want Ian safely in the ground first. He must know that if he interrupts my brother's funeral the public will never forgive him."
     Well, Hanse had a point and I nodded acceptance. Hanse stood and reaching into his pocket pulled out what looked like a small black disk.
     "There is this one final thing for tonight Darius. I believe Gene Drivers has already given you the silver and black ribbon ... but here is your Silver Sunburst medal. Well done cousin, you deserve it." Hanse beamed, his broad face suddenly lighting up after his previously glum demeanour as he handed me the medal. It was heavier than it looked, being about the size of a jam jar lid, wrought in silver edged onyx, set with the sunburst emblem in solid silver and was attached to a silver and black ribbon. I mumbled thanks and Hanse took it from my hand and draped it over my head. There was a ripple of applause around the table and I noted Olivia was grinning encouragement at me.
     With that out the way, our little group of plotters began to break up, Hanse and Yvonne wished me 'good hunting' and set off for their beds. Ardan stood and smiled at me;
     "I hear your mother is on New Avalon Darius?" I nodded depressed at that fact all over again.
     "I shall inform my mom, perhaps even get her to invite yours to stay at my family's home, what?" I wasn't sure how mother would take that, I seemed to recall her referring to the Sorteks as 'parvenu nobility', but thinking it might get the old hag out of my hair I agreed firmly. Sortek then headed off himself. Doger, still smarting from the accusations linking his department of the military to the recent assassination attempt on Hanse, grumped off without a word. The Truffle-Hunter dropped a final data slug into my hands and left with the words;
     "That has the itinerary for the funeral and coronation holidays. If you need to contact me, my c-mail, p-mail and home addresses are on that E-pad's memory. You should just make yourself visible about town, especially about the Guards haunts and favoured flesh pits; the Fox Den Tavern, the Canopian Club, Scarlet's, and the like. I'm certain you wont find that too onerous. Good luck.
     Oh ... and no more talk about Yorinaga and Ian." He waddled off wheezing and I quietly damned his cheek.
     "Well, it's just us chickens now." Came Ross Mckinnon's happy voice, as he stumped over, nodding to Olivia who was still sat opposite me, it was the first movement or sound he'd made since the meeting had started.           
     "Damn, but it's good to see you again young Darius. I knew I was right about you, I just wish you'd not had to prove it in the way fate demanded." He said ruefully shaking his head.
     "Here's my numbers lad, my happy band are ready to back you up with fists, swords, knives, guns, or even 'Mechs should you need us. I still plan to poach you from the 'Bane too, when you're through with these Cabalist traitors." He grinned and I did my best to look torn and tempted by his words, whilst actually thinking 'not if I have anything to do with it'. Still, I did like the thought I could call in McKinnon's notorious hardcases should things get awkward. Slapping my shoulder he stood and left and I gazed woefully at Olivia, she grinned again and stood up.
     "Come along then hero, let's get you home to bed."

* * *

     Olivia lead me back through maze-like corridors until we reached a long, well lit, maglev platform, a groundcar sized buggy was floating alongside the empty platform and I got in alongside her. She hit a couple of buttons and we were off, silently zipping along cool, underground tunnels, strip lights illuminating the double maglev lines.
     "So, not the homecoming you were expecting then?" Olivia asked in her crystal clear voice. I shook my head and then looked at her pretty hard, this tricky piece had clearly been in on Hanse's plotting from the first time I'd met her and it struck me she'd been in that hoverlimo to check me out.
     "So Olivia, how is it a member of the Ministry of Foreign Relations is mixed up in this business?" She glanced over with those shimmering eyes of hers, perhaps considering whether to trust me, then shrugging a little she answered me while turned her attention back to the maglev car's console.
     "I was recruited into the Information-Gathering Services Division of the MIIO years back, shortly after Charles first brought me to New Avalon. I've been an agent of the Ministry ever since. Hanse and Count Truston knew they could rely upon my loyalty, due to past work I've done on their behalf. Hanse especially knows he has my complete support, he's our nation's best hope for a better tomorrow." I sat back, watching the lights streak past and mused that I'd better be more careful around this beauty, besides her high noble rank, she was a trained and active secret agent of the MIIO and clearly very taken with Hanse.
     "Yes, I've heard you and my cousin were ... an item." I said a little sadly. She laughed lightly at that.
     "What Hanse? Oh no Dee, Hanse and I are strictly friends. We share common political opinions and his goals have become mine too, but we're not ... romantic." She paused a long moment and then added; "Anyway, I don't think I'm his type."
     As I considered her words the rumours about Hanse and Sortek ran through my mind. However, there was no way I could politely raise such gossip with Olivia, so I let it go at that.
     We reached another, identical looking, underground platform and the maglev car stopped smoothly, Olivia hopped out lithely and I followed her. She led me to an elevator and pushed a button, at which the door opened, stepping inside she hit another button and the door closed, then I felt the sensation of rising.
     "We're directly under the Mount Barracks here." Olivia said and I marvelled at the expansive secret world that existed beneath Mount Davion, I've since heard whispers from old Guards officers that even the Prince and his agents don't have complete maps of the underground tunnels and chambers that link the Palace and the Mount Barracks to the Fox's Den. That there are forgotten passages and rooms, sealed for generations, containing lostech treasures, mouldering skeletons and dark secrets the Davions are happy to leave out of sight and gathering dust. I believe there may well be truth to at least some of those stories.
     Anyway, we reached ground level and the elevator stopped, Olivia checked a tri-vid image of a gloomy corridor and content it was safe, she opened the door and ushered me out. It was the early hours of the morning still and dim dawn light seeped faintly through high windows. I turned to her and was about to leave when she leaned forward and kissed me, soft, lingering and deep. Well, it was the first pleasant surprise of that day and I savoured the sensation as her tongue flickered into my mouth, before she pulled back and grinning mischievously pushed me out, then hit the button to close the door.
     "Olivia wait -" I called, but the door closed, leaving me standing there, holding my E-pad and feeling deuced unsatisfied. Getting my bearings I made for my quarters, the barracks seeming eerily quiet.

[Tokage]

Chapter 7

     Ian's public lying-in-state was to last four days, beginning the morning after we arrived back on New Avalon. His body was placed in an open, ceramite and Terran-oak casket at the centre of Avalon City's Notre Dame Cathedral and an unending stream of mourners filed past day and night, paying their last respects and final farewells to their dead Prince. By the end of those four days it's estimated, I am told, that over a million and a half citizens went through the Cathedral. I wasn't personally to visit Ian's body there, until the final night of that period and it certainly wasn't through choice, however I shall come to that shortly.
     I woke late that first morning back in Avalon City. My wounds from Mallory's World still ached somewhat and as my eyes opened the awful memories of the night before flooded over me and my belly started grumbling with fear. I paced my room for an hour or two, alternately scanning the data the Truffle-Hunter had provided for me on Bright and his known co-conspirators, and fretting about the horrifically risky sounding secret mission I'd been handed.
     I'd received a great stack of invites to all manner of events and opted to show my face about town by carrying out a couple of tri-vid interviews, attending a reception dinner at the Guards Club, where I got a little merry on too much wine and raised some eyebrows by demanding we all sang Broken Hearts and Dirty Boots, in honour of the Hound. Later in the afternoon I got dragged by my mother to a dreary NACC Women's League prayer meeting, held specifically in my honour. Blake's Blood but that was a dreary do, all blue rinsed matrons weeping crocodile tears, passing around tea and fairy cakes, while damning the younger generation of the day and suspiciously questioning me about my time on Mallory's World.
     I recall one sour spirited, gooseberry eyed, biddy asking if we bathed with cold water out on the Front, I'd been so surprised I nearly dropped the ginger biscuit, I was then holding, into my tea.
     "Cold water Lady Rubbingbottom?" Her real name naturally escapes me you understand.
     "Indeed young man, the icier the better. Why my late husband, Lord Rubbingbottom, always said the Capellans and Kuritans were softer than our troops, because they languished in sybaritic Oriental luxury. My dear husband insisted his troops were up, exercising, washing in cold water at oh six hundred hours every day. Is that tradition still held too out on the border worlds?" Christ alone knows what kind of martinet her thankfully dead husband had been, I blinked at her a few times as I struggled for appropriate words to answer her with, whilst being all too aware of mater's eyes boring a stern glare into the side of my head.
     "Well ... hmm ... that isn't standard AFFS regs, your Ladyship. However I certainly would have been glad of any water, cold or not, during my time as a captive of the Kuritans. If they enjoyed luxury they certainly didn't share it with me." Well, that got them all fluttering about me and brimming with sympathy, thrusting more tea and cake upon me, whilst imagining me dying of thirst as a prisoner of the wicked Snakes no doubt. All complete rot as you may be aware, I actually drank myself silly on cheap wine for the largest part of my time as a prisoner of war on Mallory's World.
     Anyway, I caught a glimpse of my mother gazing at me, in what I took to be cautious surprise at my apparent popularity with this gaggle of witches. Any hint of a rapprochement between us was decidedly short lived however, as we quickly got into a blazing row over my wish that she'd accept the offer of accommodation and company offered to her by the Sorteks. She correctly guessed I was just trying to get her out of my way and fell back on her snobbish disdain for the Sortek's 'questionable' noble heritage, as she put it.
     I ended up storming off and as the sun had already gone down by that point, I decided it was time I began my work in earnest. That is, I headed straight off carousing about the city's bars, casinos, brothels and clubs. Well that was what I'd been ordered to do, in a manner of speaking ... though you may be sure I made absolutely certain to discreetly avoid the actual Guards haunts, in a vain attempt to dodge being noticed by Bright and his Cabalist friends.
     As you might imagine I was very much the hero of the hour and didn't have to put my hand in my pocket once all night, so eager were the locals to buy me drinks. I was even given a wonderful freebie ride on a cracking full breasted scrubber, at one of the Red Castle street brothels, though disoncertingly with some of the local toughs bellowing encouragement from outside the closed door.
     All in all it was a great night and though I woke the following morning, back in the Mount Barracks, with a bad hangover I actually began to think perhaps intelligence work wasn't all bad. For the next three days I repeated this routine, more or less, I would strut about various respectable military and civil functions by day and cut a swathe across the flesh-pits by night.
     Damn, but it was a fine time and place to be a young, rich, handsome, heroically famous MechWarrior. That the city was officially in mourning for Ian, lying-in-state over at the Cathedral, didn't stop those nights seeming to be one long party. Well, as I have told you more than once, Avalon City had been a great, boozy, roaring town under Ian and there was a sense in the air that times were due to change. Hanse's somewhat puritanical opinions were well known, though he was in fact more generous than miserly Ian had been in some ways it was no secret Hanse, spurred on by his insipid shadow Sortek, frowned on carousing regarding it as 'Cabalist' and was himself as abstemious as an Exituri aesthete.
      Thus, in those days leading up to Hanse's accession to the throne, the Avalonians remembered Ian by partying like it was 3099. I ate in the best River Bridges restaurants, prowled the Red Block's notorious Red Castle Street, sampling the wares of several adoring 'courtesans', drank with AFFS officers, street toughs, foreign merchants and wastrel nobility in the picturesque Old Town and frittered my trust fund in the casino spires of Damosel District. On the second night I even led a small band of drunken revellers, eager to 'march behind the Hero of Mallory's World', through the streets of Orchard Island's poshest residential estate, singing bawdy drinking songs and smashing bottles with abandon.
     The press still respected your right as a MechWarrior noble, back then, to get up to this kind of bad behaviour and would never have dared splash such gossip across the news-sheets, like they do these days ... well Ian himself had always enjoyed a spot of vicious carousing about 'his' town, hadn't he though! Also the press still remembered the story of how a Cabalist of my father's generation had flattened the country cottage of an editor, who'd smeared the noble in questions extracurricular bad behaviour across a Tri-Vid news prog ... since then none of the parsimonious ink spots had wanted to risk the same thing happening to them.
      Well, as you can see I was having the time of my life and I even managed to begin to forget just what a dangerous position cousin Hanse had put me in. I was happy to have seen no sign of Sortek, Hanse, Truston, or Bright and his plotters, over those first three days and nights. However, I should of course have known better, even as young as I then was, and my drunken complacency was to be shattered most brutally on the fourth night.

[Tokage]

Chapter 8

       

      It was an hour or two after midnight, I was feeling pretty randy, but had fancied a change from the Red Castle Street brothels I'd been frequenting over the previous three nights and so had opted to pay a little extra by visiting the Sheathed Sword Club on the old Cris River Bridge.
     The Sheathed Sword isn't there any more, being one of the many establishments that were forced to close down during the first couple of years of Hanse's reign, so I doubt you will be familiar with it. It had a pretty good reputation back then though, let me tell you. It was a big place, that ran along the middle section of the Cris Bridge and was built on three seperate levels; 'the Bridge' which enjoyed views out off of the bridge itself across to the lights and lit up faux castle facades of Old Town, 'the Waterline' which was built actually into three of the great bridge supports and afforded sights, as the name suggests, actually at the level of the river itself, so you could watch ships passing by and locals zipping over the Cris on hover-vehicles. Then finally there was 'the Depths', which was built into the riverbed itself around the base of the bridge supports and thus gave one a breathtaking back drop of penned exotic fish and aquatic fauna brought from across the Federated Suns simply to provide an interesting visual diversion for revellers at the club.
     It was an exclusive place, where the great and good could booze, dance and whore the night away. I'd heard that the 'Sword's girls were the best in town so, having managed to blag an invite from some generous chaps who'd been only too keen to help me out, there I was sat in the Waterline area of the Sheathed Sword, two fabulously gorgeous girls attending me, while I was more than half cut and having a whale of a time.
     The Waterline was plushly decorated, with a nautical theme; the walls filled with paintings of all manner of ships, boats and wet-naval vessels. I was sat inside an alcove off of the dance floor, beside a ceiling high one-way clear plasteel window beyond which the lights of passing river traffic were visible. I sprawled over a comfortable sofa, the scanty clad girls draped either side of me, while I told one of my Mallory's World stories. I'd been drinking local PPCs, as is my want, but my last had run out some minutes before and when a shadow fell over us, I stupidly assumed it was a waiter bringing me a refill.
     "No, no Candy, I wont have that ... I'm no more brave than Ian wash ... ash brave shertainly, but not neshesarily more brave." As I say I was already pretty pissed.
     "Well, anyway, I looked Yorinaga in hish shlant eyesh ... oh no offensh Kim-Lee ... in hish Kuritan eyesh ... and I shaid .... Yorinaga, you foul Shnake you ... you can shtick that pig-shticker up your bloody-" At that there was a none too polite cough and a polished shoe kicked me pretty hard in the leg. The pain sparked fear in my befuddled brain and I looked up into the bulldog-like features of a hulking shaven headed brute of a man, dressed in an expensive looking business suit that looked like it was two sizes too small for him.
     "Darius Davion?" His small black eyes were diamond hard and his growled question was clearly rhetorical. I gulped, unsure if he was simply a local tough wanting an autograph, one of Bright's bunch, or perhaps was even one of Truston's thugs come to propel me back into the work I was meant to be about.
     "Yesh, damn you. How dare you take that tone with me!" I thought a high handed manner might scare him off ... it didn't. He leaned down, grasped the lapels of the deep purple Atrean crushed velvet suit I was then wearing and lifted me bodily to my feet, then further still so my feet dangled above the floor and my face was level with his.
     "My employer wants to speak to you." He snarled it so close to me I could smell a mixture of stale beer and garlic on his breath. Well, as you can imagine, I was beginning to sober up rapidly at this unpleasant turn of events and I flapped my hands at his breast nodding rapidly in agreement.
     "Yes ... yes, of course, of course." I stammered and he plumped me down, but wrapped one of his myomer strong arms around my shoulder and herded me around the edge of the dance floor towards an elevator. We went down to the Depths and he pushed me out into the pale blue lit underwater level, past another dance floor full of gyrating half dressed beauties and mainly ageing AFFS officers and nobles, then down a side corridor, where private dining rooms looked out over the Sheathed Sword's riverbed aquariums.
     At the end of the corridor another two hulking, shaven headed, toughs in similarly expensive looking though sombre business suits stood before a double door. My surly escort nodded to the pair and thrust me bodily through the doors, my forehead painfully banging into them. I blinked away the stinging pain to find I was standing at the edge of an amazing underwater grotto, surrounded on three sides with floor to ceiling windows that looked out into spot-lit river water containing glimmering fish, eels and other less easily definable aquatic life.
     Around the edges of the grotto-dining-room were couches that doubtless could happily double as beds, from which diners who had eaten their full could then satisfy other apetites while watching the river life swim past. At the centre of the room was a large dinner table, with three place settings. Two were occupied, at the far end was a man I instantly recognised with a sudden sick fear; Duke Michael Hasek-Davion, dressed in an elegantly tailored Field Marshal's uniform of olive-tan pants and shirt, with dark green piping. His black hair braided and coiled up over his chest as usual, he regarded me with those dark restless green eyes of his over the rim of a glass of champagne.
     Beside him sat a cadaverously thin, little man. He was middle aged, sallow skinned and balding, his dark hair brushed over a high forehead. I noted he had a sharply arrogant look to him and his brown eyes clearly missed nothing.
     "Ah, Leftenant Davion. Come in, come in." Hasek-Davion purred in his most resonant, yet insincere, voice and I shook off the clumsy thug's hand on the back of my shirt.
     "What? That is ... now look here." I began, unsure whether to play up my affront at this kidnapping, or to go in all politeness and match this scorpion at his own game.
     "Allow me to introduce Count Anton Vitios, a good friend and member of my retinue." The little runt Vitios, nodded to me and I stood for a moment more, then decided what the hell, crushed down my natural feelings of terror and dived back into my lifetime roll. I put on my best Guards swagger and wandered around the room, making a point to take more interest in the riverlife beyond the windows.
     "Nice to meet you I'm sure ..." I said, deliberately lacing the words with noble disdain. I heard Vitios sputter in rage, but stopped and pretended to peer out.
     "Slug." Vitios lept up with a crash, thinking I was adressing him as I'd intended. I acted surprised and turned.
     "There, by that rock, a giant Albionic fresh water slug ... oh is there anything the matter my Lord?" Hasek-Davion chuckled, motioning for his fuming lackey to reseat himself. Looking back, I doubt my jibe at Vitios's expense had any affect on how things were to go between myself and Hasek-Davion's faction at that time, but my having earned his enmity would come back and slap me in the face quite some years later.
     "So Your Grace, to what do I owe the honour of an invite to your table?" Hasek-Davion stood and came up to stand beside me. He looked out through the window, his face frozen in that supercilious expression of his and he raised his right hand to touch the armour-glass.
     "Can I confide something to you Darius?" He asked in his deep voice. I nodded.
     "As you may be aware the Capellans launched an offensive against several of my worlds last year and were eventually beaten back, following a major defeat by 'our' forces at Wright." I did know this and that though he was implying he'd somehow been responsible for the victory at Wright, knew that battle had in fact been won by Hanse, who'd taken personal command of the AFFS in the Capellan March in an attempt to turn around the lacklustre performance of our RCTs there over the previous decade. Of course I said none of that to Hasek-Davion and he carried on.
     "Later in the year, I personally led a force spearheaded by one of my Syrtis Fusilier RCTs aimed at capturing the Liao held world of Highspire. It was a hard campaign, we were faced by the crack First St. Ives Lancers, reinforced by two companies of mercs. There were several pitched battles and during one of them, which was fought across an area of mangrove swamps and lakeland, I was drawn into single combat with a St. Ives BattleMaster." I shuddered at the sudden unbidden memory of cowering in the cockpit of my lost Enforcer as that murderous Snake bastard Zakahashi raised his BattleMaster's great fist above me, making to smash my 'Mech's head in. I looked at Hasek-Davion's face and saw sweat sheen his usually impassive features, it was clear he'd faced something like the same horror.
     "Well, my enemy got the better of me and he punched into my Marauder's cockpit, causing a serious explosion that very nearly killed me." He reached up to his high uniform collar and pulled it down on the left side to reveal an ugly, long, puckered livid-red scar running down his neck and below his shirt's collar line. He then raised his artificial left hand also, with a sad shrug. I'd heard he'd been badly wounded last year, but hadn't known the details. I suppose I did feel somewhat sympathetic to him at that moment, through a degree of shared experience. However I was also wondering why he was telling me this.
     "I never even got the chance to punch out, y'know? The explosion itself blew me through the hole that BattleMaster's fist had created, my left side was badly torn-up and my hand ripped clean off as I went through the ravaged ceramite. But worst of all ... I was thrown by the blast into the lake along the shores of which we'd been fighting." I saw the pale blue lit water beyond the window reflecting across his pained features as he spoke on.
     "I came to, in terrible agony, underwater. My left side was temporarily paralysed and I could barely move. I began to drown." His deep eyes were filled with what seemed to me to be genuine horror at his memories and I suddenly looked out upon the river-aquarium spread before us in an altogether new light, as his resonant voice carried on, though he now gazed far away into the water and fish as if looking into hell itself.
     "Whoever said that drowning is a good way to die never tried it first hand I would guess. I desperately held my breath, while futilely trying to will my limbs to move, hanging there in a red cloud of my own blood. As a minute or more ticked past I eventually gasped my mouth open for air and water full of my own blood flooded down my throat. I began to sink and instinct kept making me gulp ever more of that foul water down. My eyes could see pieces of armour floating slowly down with me, even the occasional stray cannon or machine gun shot zip bubbling past me. The worst thing was the knowledge I was going to die down there, but sound was deadened and try to cry for help as I might, I couldn't be heard. I've never felt such horror." He turned suddenly from the window, the sweat now pouring from him. I noted Vitios looked embarrassed, at this obviously genuine display of emotion from his boss, and tried to concentrate upon the scraps of food left upon his plate.
     "I was rescued thankfully, by my command lance, but I cannot now look upon a BattleMaster without becoming ... agitated. Likewise large bodies of water terrify me." I learned later this was all entirely true by the way, Hasek-Davion even stripped all his regiments of any BattleMasters so as to not have to face the embarassment of suffering a panic attack brought on by seeing one during an inspection or parade. However, I was struck that his choice of a dining room was more than a little odd for a man now mortally afraid of water and said as much to him. He turned and fixed me with his piercing eyes.
     "One must choose sometimes to face the difficult things in life and by that confrontation triumph over them. Choice is what sets us above the non-sentient animals that are mankind's only company in this Universe. We must all choose in life. Tonight, to show my seriousness in what I wish to discuss with you, I chose that we should talk here ... in a room all my senses scream at me to run out of as fast as my legs can carry me.
     I want you to make a hard choice here tonight too. One which your instincts will likewise rebel at. But which I think will be in your best interests in the long run to make." Oh, he was good though wasn't he? The stories of his manipulative power and charisma were clearly not wrong. He'd aimed well at me too, conspiratorially admitting to personal weakness and fear, in order to win my trust and then springing his trap around me. At the time I was, I admit, quite impressed with him. He had charm, that's for sure. Mind you, my windy nature meant that I still saw him as supremely dangerous to my health and so was never completely won over by his tricks.

* * *                                         

     I sipped at the glass of champagne Hasek-Davion had forced upon me and watched the master orator as he made his pitch to me. It was probably treasonable of course, but he made sure to never spell anything out and certainly not to implicate himself in any actual plot against Hanse.
     "Hanse being First Prince will be a disaster for this realm of ours. But of course you probably already know that as well as I do. His naive beliefs and potential policies will divide the nobles and probably the army too, into separate opposing camps. Those traditionalist diehards, still holding to old Cabalist beliefs, will not allow Hanse and his young ... ahh ... what's the polite term ... companion ... Sortek, to overturn their privileges. We will probably be faced with a second mutiny at this, the worst possible, time in our history. Then there's his projected weakening of the power of the Dukes. Ancient families will be rode over roughshod by Hanse's muddle-headed levelling laws, which will only divide us all the more, just when we need to be united.
     Don't get me wrong, I'm no Cabalist. My only concern is for our nation's continued prosperity. Ian and I got along well enough as you may know. Why he made me Head of the Bureau of Investigations after all. He was a great Prince, mostly speaking and will be sorely missed, but if he had a weakness it was his short-sightedness when it came to his 'little brother'.
     Ian could not see Hanse's bad side, only the good. Oh, he has his strengths Darius, none know that better than I. But let's speak honestly here; Hanse is arrogant, cold towards his good servants, such as yourself and I, power-mad, extremely naive about social order, and perhaps worst of all it looks likely he will never marry or sire an heir ... unless medical science comes along in leaps in bounds over the next few years." He grinned and I chuckled nervously at his obvious allusion to the rumours surrounding Hanse's friendship with Sortek again ... Blake's Blood but that idiot Sortek has indirectly caused Hanse easily as much trouble as he ever solved down the years of you ask me.
     While Hasek-Davion went on in this vein, I began to wonder whether he was in fact sounding me out for Bright's conspiracy, as I'd supposed he was when we'd sat down to the table. Although he was undoubtedly choosing his words carefully, it didn't strike me that he was selling me a Cabalist line of thought particularly. I got the impression he was much more interested in his own selfish personal ambitions and his feud with Hanse, more than any great ideological plot, such as I'd got the impression Bright's Cabalists were driven by.
     "No Darius, I know you're a fine fellow, well Ian certainly thought so and your actions over the past few weeks have more than proved him right. All I want from you here, is the knowledge that I have your trust and friendship. I know Hanse is your cousin, but look at the way he snubbed you the other day at the starport, blanking you for that fag Sortek.
      If Hanse were, for whatever reason, to step aside or at some time in the future step down, would you support me?"
      Well, this was tricky, Hasek-Davion and his creature Vitios were watching my reactions closely, but I had to think this through. I'd been ordered by Hanse to penetrate Bright's Third Covenant Society, but I could not for the life of me decide if Hasek-Davion was in any way part of that particular group. If he wasn't and I gave him my support, then I'd be getting into an entirely different kettle of fish and still have to find and break into Bright's group too.
     I decided that until I knew otherwise I'd avoid Hasek-Davion's faction. Bright was my route to the Third Covenant Society and I wanted nothing to do with any other plots. I worded my reply carefully though, just in case Hasek-Davion was in fact behind the Third Covenant Society.
     "Your Grace, politely and firmly I must turn down your generous offer of ... friendship. Hanse may indeed be acting coldly towards me at this time and I certainly don't agree with his reforming zeal. However, respectfully, I follow other avenues than yourself. I'm a Crucis-man and a soldier. A member of the Davion family and the Guards.
     It would be unthinkable to align myself with ... you'll forgive me ... the Capellan March. Please do not take this as an insult. But, perhaps like Ian, I see you as a noble and respected ... rival."  He looked darkly at me for a moment and Vitios's sallow features twisted in distaste for me, but just as I was beginning to inwardly panic and think I'd said the wrong thing, Hasek-Davion smiled thinly and nodded. He stood and offered his right hand to me and I breathed a sigh of relief and shook it warmly.
     "Well, so be it." He said. "However my offer of friendship stands for the time being. Should you change your mind." He then gestured to his thug and I was shown out. I headed straight out of the Sheathed Sword and thought to find a quiet place to drink the churning disquiet and fear away, as quickly as possible. However I was shortly to find that night's dreadful events had only just begun.

[mikecj]

A truly great conspiratorial meeting  [notworthy]

[Dave Talley]

YYYEEEEEEE HAAAAAWWWWW!!!
Darius rides again!
and again,and again,and again,and again,and again,and again,and again,and again,and again,
at least thats what the girls are saying :-)

[Tokage]

Chapter 9

 
     I hurried off the Cris bridge into Old Town, thinking to flag down a cab and head back to the Red Block and shag away my tremulous bellyshakes with a willing trollop. However, as I struck off down the pretty lanes of Old Town's left bank, the heavens opened and it began to rain. Heavy, warm raindrops pattered about me and there was a rumble of distant thunder and a flicker of lightning high in the sky, that briefly lit the fake fairy-tale towers of Old Town's one-time medieval fun-park.
     Cursing I ran as the raindrops began to churn the river waters to my left, then spotting the lights of a pub tucked away down a side street I headed for it and piled through the door. It was a pretty tatty place with a crude JumpShip theme; half broken holos and filth covered paintings of various JumpShips in space hung haphazardly on the stained walls, cracked plastic seats clustered around metal tables, a line of vaac-suit helmets sat along the top of the rusty metal bar and flickering red globular holo-maps of the Inner Sphere rotated here and there as dim lights. The only really authentically starship thing about the place was the smell of unwashed bodies and stale urine. This was precisely the kind of den of iniquity that were ten a D-Bill back then in Old Town and I was about to turn around and risk the rain, when I spotted a fairly cheap looking tart perched at the end of the bar.
     Well, I was half soaked, pretty shaken up by my recent meeting with Hasek-Davion, and suddenly quite taken with the look of her slender bare legs and proud little bossom ... so I sauntered up to the bar, trying my best to ignore the few other clientele who all looked drunk, doped, or dazed, and ordered a drink.
     I've drunk in some pretty rough bars before; such as the Split Axe in Port Krin, New Delos's Sin Street Suites where I first met Natasha Kerensky whilst sheltering under a table during a pitched battle between her Black Widows and a gang of local hoodlums, or Solaris VII's Kalamazoo assassin-pits, where you can order up a hired killer with your booze, and I learned very early in life that you should never drink spirits in the rougher dives. The owners tend to stick the good labels on all kinds of rotgut moonshine y'see, or they can water it down with any old muck; for example I honestly once saw the owner of the Split Axe cut his bottles of whisky with coolant fluid!
     So it was I bought a bottle of Timbiqui Dark beer from the barman; a red nosed, drunken ex-spacer with bones so decalcified his useless legs were clamped in metal braces, who sung softly and foully to himself in a croaking voice, while swinging along the bar like a simian, using metal rungs set into the low ceiling over his tiny kingdom. I enjoyed a couple of tugs of the strong beer before turning to chat with the sleazy bint who'd caught my eye and it didn't take long for us to agree a price; I find it pays to be direct with your lower class girls, you ain't trying to marry them after all.
     "Right then young lady," I declared. "Let's get you upstairs and see if I can't teach you the Guard's Two-Step." The pretty young peasant giggled like a schoolgirl and I was in the motion of standing when I noticed two men come in through the bar's front door.
     Call it sixth sense, coward's paranoia, or highly toned survival instinct, but I spotted them for wrong-uns straight off. They wore tatty knee length faded-black shant leather coats, that were studded with silver rings and buckles, big infantry style boots and had their hands hidden under their coats. Each was dirty looking, with spiked bleached blonde hair. These were Avalon City ganger markings, but I didn't buy this pair were gangers for one second ... their eyes were too sharp and alert; scanning for something, or someone, in particular.
     Well, if I'd been wrong I'd have apologised to her afterwards, but within seconds of the pair stepping inside the pub I was moving. If I was the man everyone believes I am, I'd have been hurling bottles expertly at their skulls from behind the bar, whilst covering Pins the craggy barman and poor Lola, the fallen girl with a heart of gold.
     Of course I ain't that fella and almost certainly wouldn't be here to tell the tale if I had been. I spun the whore's bar stool, so she was face on towards the newcomers and was instantly then down into a crouch and running as fast as I could for the only other door open to me, which was located at the far end of the bar and marked 'Ship's Head'.
     The first shotgun blast was deafening in the confined space of the pub and thanks to my positioning of her stool's seat, the tart took it full in the chest ... thereby saving your correspondent as I'd intended.
     I risked a glance back as I made the toilet door, the unlucky slut had been smashed to the dirty floor in an undignified sprawl of bare legs, thin arms and gore spattered torso. Her cheap, over made up features, frozen in death into a confused half smile, blood leaking out of her mouth. Suddenly there was a rapid volley of more thunderous shotgun blasts, that ripped a line of torn holes through the thin metal bar towards my position. They were using auto-shotguns I realised in horror.
    Whimpering with terror, I scrabbled my hand up for the door handle and tore it open, falling through. Aware of more shots and screaming behind me. I didn't stop to ponder who these ruthless and trigger happy murderers were, or who had sent them ... that they were clearly after me with sawn-off military issue auto-shotguns was enough for me to only be concerned with putting as much distance between myself and them as I could.
     I sprang to my feet and sprinted down a narrow, stinking corridor, ignoring the doors marked 'Maties' and 'Lasses'. I reached a junction and paused just long enough to hear the shooting stop and to panic as I realised the assassins would be through that bloody door quicker than a Lyran's conscience.
     Casting about I opted to head left and I'm fairly certain that decision saved my life. As I ran around the corner I reached a door, dead-bolted from that side, presumably the bar's back entrance I realised, and breathing rapid thanks to Blake and Jesus, I fumbled with the bolt and started in fear as I heard running booted feet behind me.
     Squealing and sobbing I managed somehow to tug the heavy door open, run out into the rain slick alley and begin to dash for the nearest light, there was a shout behind me and a double shot that struck the brick wall to my right, sending stinging brick shards into my face and back. Thankfully his aim must have been off due to my evasive expertise, the dark night, and the steady heavy drizzle of rain.
     With that I was off. I'm proud to say that it's a fleet footed foe who can catch up with me when the terror is upon me, my belly is grumbling and I'm running for my life. If I knew where I'd been going I dare say I'd have lost those brutes inside a few minutes, but unfortunately I wasn't in one of my usual haunts.
     That nameless spacer's bar had been down an Old Town side-street, while it's back door opened out into a narrow alley. I'd ran the only way I could, which was unfortunately deeper into the decaying arteries of Old Town's wicked heart and I was soon lost. I began to pant and sob at the fact that I could find no main roads and nowhere seemed open, I even tried to hammer on a residential door or two, but each time my pursuers gained on me enough to nearly be able to take another shot at me, so I had to fly on.
     I scarpered down alleys, empty back streets, across litter-strewn yards and through boarded up old shopping arcades. I screamed and shouted at the top of my voice for help, my high pitched squealing and the echo of running footsteps bouncing off the dark buildings all around me, but this was the reality of lawlessness in Avalon City back then ... people heard me, there's no doubt of that, but they either thought me a drunk, a drug-addict, a ganger, or all three. There was no way they'd open their doors to me in the early hours. This was a bad district at night, a jungle hunting ground for the gangers, crimps, dippers, doodleheads, sour-bellies and punks.
     I don't know how long that terrifying chase lasted, it seemed like forever. I remember they definitely shot a couple more blasts at me at one point, as I was crossing a road trying to flag down a beaten up groundcar that happened to be passing at the time. Their shots punched into the other side of the car and it's naturally panicked driver sped away, giving me barely time to dash for the next alley entrance.
     They were relentlessly confident and I eventually began to flag, the last few nights boozing slowly catching up with me. I kept going of course, but my lungs burned with each breath and my legs began to feel like lead. I then ran across an open street and looked up, there in the distance, towering over the crumbling castle-style tenements, were the golden-lit spires of Notre Dame. I instantly realised that there would be crowds of people there, queuing to pay their respects to Ian ... there would also be police and even soldiers keeping order. That's where I had to get to. There was safety.
     Without another thought I ducked down the next alley and hared across a junction of two other streets, I could see the lights of a major avenue up ahead and Mount Davion rising away beyond that. I was almost out of the dead heart of Old Town ... when I skidded and fell.

* * *

     I went down hard into a puddle of rain water, smashing my left arm jarringly on the pavement. I nearly blacked out with the pain and struggled to focus as I heard the booted feet draw very close.
     Terror forced the pain out of my mind and I began to get up quickly when I glanced behind to see them come swaggering up to a halt, a mere six or seven meters behind me, about adjacent with the junction. They smiled cruelly and shrugged as if in callous salute, then raised their fat barrelled weapons ... I froze with terror and dropped to my knees gibbering feebly, fumbling for my wallet, perhaps to offer them a bribe.
      Lord, but I've faced certain death so many times you'd think I'd begin to lose my fear of it, that I might begin to conquer the sick feeling each memory induces in me just thinking about them. However that ain't the case. I was sure that was it. I was going to be blown in two by a burst of shotgun fire. I blubbed, whined and proffered my wallet, then through my tears I saw a blur of shadow detach itself from the street coming into the junction from the left.
      I blinked as there was a sudden flash of steel in the rain and a solid smackin 'ker-chunk' sound, as the gunman on the right's head was driven sharply to the side, as it was spitted by a heavy, bizarrely cursive looking, throwing knife. The curved blade sank deep into the bastard's skull and he was just beginning to collapse when I saw the black blur solidify into a tall male figure who stepped swiftly up to the second gunman and grabbed the barrel of the auto-shotgun, so it pointed out past his side.
     The astounded killer's eyes bulged as he began to struggle, then with a savage twist and a brittle snapping sound the blackclad newcomer broke the assassin's finger in the trigger guard of his own shotgun. In the same moment the newcomer spun the screaming assassin out by his trapped gun hand and then made an elegantly artless seeming cut with another blade in his free right hand, slashing the poor bastard's throat in one move.
     It all happened in moments. The second of my would be killers slumped into a bloody heap just after his comrade went down and my black clad saviour stooped, tugged the throwing knife from his first victim's split skull, then rose with all the smooth grace of a predatory big cat.
     He was a dark, black skinned man, with curly black hair, a neatly trimmed beard and cold grey eyes. His black clothes were simple pants, shirt and soft shoes. With a double flick motion of his hands both his knives disappeared and he bowed his head to me.
     "Assalamualaikum." He said and I was grasping for words of my own when a more familiar voice called from the entrance to the street I'd been making for.
     "'Evening young Snotty. Allow me to give you a ride." I turned slowly to see a hover-limo pulled up at the top of the dark, narrow street, it's side door open and sat within, his handsome features lit by the door light, Captain Jonathan Bright.

[Tokage]

Chapter 10

     I never did find out for certain who sent that pair of killers after me. Hanse and the Truffle-Hunter were of the opinion Bright himself might have set the whole thing up; having his goons apparently attempt to kill me, but in fact using them herd me towards him and his pet knifeman, where they could 'save' me in order to win my gratitude.
     I suppose it's possible, but personally I don't buy it. For a start those bastards weren't aiming to miss, I'd nearly been hit in both the bar and during the run, and besides they couldn't have known just how fast and long I'd be prone to flee.
     No, I'm of the firm opinion that they were Hasek-Davion's men. I'd turned his offer of friendship down and at that time and at that place that alone could get you killed. It was happening all over the city, quietly, ruthlessly, 'little people' on both sides of Hanse and Michael's factional divide were being killed in 'muggings', 'accidents', and 'domestic disputes', as the big two fought it out like Chess Players.
     Any involvement by myself in the spacer's bar killings was never mentioned publicly and the press reported the affair as a 'gangland clash'. However reading the newssheets the next day I'd been interested to note that on an entirely different page there was a report of an unidentified woman being chased through the streets of Old Town. Bloody cheek!

* * *

     So it was with supreme irony the man I'd been ordered to bring down had become my rescuer and I clambered into his holo-limo, doing my best to cover the fact that I was shivering from the shock, like a tourist on Tharkad. Bright scooted up the seat and his black skinned pet killer lithely dropped in beside me, closing the door with a smooth motion. With that, the vehicle slid off down the quiet, but well lit, street and I took a quick moment to admire the plush black leather and velvet interior, noting the gleaming compact drinks cabinet and a tri-vid player.
     "So, you look like you've had a night of it old chap." Bright smiled at me as if he were talking about the weather. "It was lucky I was in the area tonight and one of my friends warned me you'd got into trouble at that filthy dive. The gangs are really getting out of hand in Old Town, aren't they though?" I blinked at him a moment, trying to read if he was goading me, or was being entirely serious.
     He was wearing smart blue Guards walking out dress, the badge of the First Guards stitched onto his sleeve, several medal ribbon bars proud on his breast and the glittering disk of his Silver Sunburst on it's black and silver ribbon about his neck. His smouldering black eyes were lit with humour for the first time in my then limited acquaintance with him and he watched me closely.
     "Uhh, gangs ... yes ... quite." I mumbled, reaching for the drinks cabinet without even waiting to be asked.
     "Oh I say, where are my manners?" He exclaimed and reached forward, pouring me a stiff glass of vintage Northwind scotch. "Yes, quite out of hand ... still just one more sign of the malaise what?" He didn't wait for an answer, indeed he swiftly changed the subject, nodding to his black skinned companion.
     "Allow me to introduce my most trusted servant; Sallah Al'Ain. He is my orderly, my bodyguard, and much else besides. He's been with me for a few years now, since Elidere IV, where I won this." He flicked a hand casually to his Silver Sunburst, while I gingerly offered my hand to the dark avisaged fellow, who looked at it for a long moment, then shook it briefly, while Bright rattled on. "He's quite something with those blades of his isn't he though? What do you call that throwing knife again Sallah?"
     "It is a Bangi knife, master." Al'Ain said softly and Bright chortled happily.
     "That's the fella, Bangi blade what! Charmingly quaint eh Darius?" I nodded mutely, reflecting to myself that charming was not how I'd describe that wickedly vicious looking thing, with it's curved triple blade.
     "I didn't know there were Muslim communities on Elidere?" I asked Bright curiously and he blinked a moment, then smiled.
     "Indeed there aren't, he was born on the Combine world of Shaul Khala and brought up as a Saurimat. He left his homeland following a family feud and was part of a merc commando unit, fighting for us, when I met him and saved his life ... he seems to feel indebted to me." My fear of Al'Ain rocketed all the more, the Islamic Saurimat, or 'Quick Death', Commandos of Shaul Khala were amongst the most dreaded special forces fighters in the entire Inner Sphere. They reputedly trained in forgotten martial arts techniques, said to date back to the medieval Hashshashin of old Terra's Middle East, from childhood and were often compared favourably by AFFS analysts with the Combine's better known DEST, O5P Budojin Neophytes, and ISF 'Special Units'. Perhaps sensing my concern at being sat next to a Kuritan-bred killer such as his servant, Bright changed the subject again.
     "Actually Darius, I have to admit I've been trying to find you for several nights now, since you got home in fact. I wanted to shake your hand and congratulate you personally for getting the old Hound back to us whole at least." He smiled warmly and pumped my fin. "When I saw you on the tri-vid news, well I sat up I can tell you. I know that chap, I recall exclaiming to Sallah here. That's young Darius Davion, whom I sat down to dinner with at the Palace just a few months back.
     Who could have guessed then eh? Well done old chap, well done indeed." He seemed genuine, but I didn't believe he was sincere for one second. There was just something about Bright that said trouble if you ask me, he always seemed on the edge of a violent explosion of anger, there was a brittleness to his smooth mannered demeanour that always seemed about to break. Sat there between him and his pet murderer I remembered very strongly he was a Cabalist commander who apparently planned to kill Hanse himself and I have to say I could believe it.
     "Ah, here we are then." We'd only been moving a few minutes so, with some surprise, I looked up through the limo's smoked windows. We were drawn up alongside a huge line of civilians, queuing behind red ropes threaded through metal poles. Behind them towered the golden lit monolith of Avalon City's Notre Dame de Avalon Cathedral; the ancient Gothic heart of the NACC.
     "What are we doing here?" I asked in surprise and Bright grinned back, pleased I think to have caught me on the hop as it were.
     "Why we're here to pay our respects old fellow. Final farewell to our old Commander-in-Chief and all that." Al'Ain opened his door and slid out like a shadow, appearing seconds later at his master's side of the car, while I scrambled clumsily out my side and found myself suddenly facing the long queue. The result was predictable.

* * *

     "Darius! It's 'im ... it's Darius!" The word spread and the queue made to surge forward onto me over the flimsy rope barriers. Civilian and Military police, in their white and blue, or white and green, uniforms rushed down the line, waving stun sticks and bellowing for calm, whilst I thought to duck back into the hover-limo. However Bright and Al'Ain were suddenly at my side, hurrying me down the line of Whitebellies.
     I don't know if Bright had this whole thing planned, or whether he just knew my fame, coupled with his Guards uniform and rank, would be enough for us to be able to jump the queue. Either way, despite my having to stop to wave, or shake hands with members of the crowd several times, we were ushered down a side door and along a colonnaded passage, away from the great snaking line of mourners that were herded strictly down the central aisle.
     I'm no travel guide, so I can't tell you too much about the history of that great Cathedral. I recall reading somewhere, a cigarette box most likely, that it was built along identical design specifications to the original Notre Dame Cathedral in Old-Terra's London ... or wherever. However being the Cathedral of the Davion's it had to be bigger. So everything was done double scale, except seating, steps and the like. Thus we walked into a space suitable, in my opinion, only for housing BattleMechs, mere men are made to feel ant-like and inconsequential by the monolithic scale of the arches, the distant ribbed vaults far overhead, and the vast circular rose windows.
     I always feel like Jack, creeping into the Giant's castle, when I enter 'Our Lady' of Avalon and every time my mind recalls the old joke about the woman complaining about the size of her lover's 'organ', to his retort of not having known he was expected to fill a Cathedral.
     The Cathedral on that night, murmured with hushed whispers, the shuffle and squeak of shoes on stone and the echoes of quiet sobbing. A choir was somewhere singing a Te Deum and I noted there were Whitebellies all over the place, standing sentry to ensure the massed ranks of mourners kept to the tracks laid strictly out for them to follow.
     Bright however led me around a fluted pillar, large enough to dwarf an Atlas's leg, and across the front of a long line of dark wooden pews. A white and green uniformed AFFS police Captain hurried towards us and returned Bright's salute, then Bright took the fellow by his arm to one side and clearly referring to myself held a whispered conversation with him. They glanced my way several times, then the police Captain snapped to attention and waved us in, he began speaking into his comm-gauntlet and several of the Whitebellies moved in towards the great central nave, where Ian's remains rested in his open-topped coffin, stopping the flow of mourners.
     "Come along old fellow, we only have a minute or two." Bright hurried ahead of me towards the coffin and I followed him, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable to be so close once more to the man who, in a very real way, I had killed.
     The coffin was sat atop a specially made ceramite bier, apparently wrought out of shards of the armour from Ian's fallen Atlas, the proles were only able to file past and see Ian's face side on at a distance, but Bright and I actually climbed up the three steps of the bier so that we were able to look down into the casket itself.
     There he lay, the Hound himself, pale skinned, smoother faced than I remembered him, dressed in his blue and gold full dress uniform, his hands crossed over his breast. It seemed ghoulish to me at the time, him being laid out like that and I shivered at the thought his eyes seemed like they might flick open at any moment. 
     Bright snapped to attention and I belatedly did the same, whilst glancing back down the central aisle to see what looked like hundreds of mourners watching us sadly in the flickering light of thousands of candles, I noted many were actually piping their eyes and sobbing.
     "He was a good First Prince, there is no question of that." Bright said quietly beside me, before adding; "He knew his function."
     I glanced over, oh-ho I thought, here it comes, the Cabalist philosophy, but he simply shook his head as if to himself, turned and descended the steps. I took one more look at Ian's corpse. I suppose I should have been tormented by guilt at that moment, but I must say I wasn't in the least. Ian met the fate he'd always expected and indeed hoped to. He chose his end and would have been happy with it. Also at the end of the day, I'd far rather it was him laying there than me.
     There was something nagging at me as I stood there looking down at him though, something I felt I'd forgotten, something Ian had wanted me to do.
     Pushing the feeling from my mind, I realised suddenly I was very much on display standing there, and being the consumate actor I am, I decided to give the crowd a sight of the nobly suffering Darius Do-Right. I slowly knelt and bowed my head, then raised my hands together to my chin apparently in prayer. There was an appreciative murmur from the crowd and I was most pleased to hear a holo-camera snapping away somewhere. Those pics of me kneeling and praying beside Ian's coffin showed up splashed across the tri-vid news progs and the newssheets for several days afterwards. I have kept one newssheet to this day which had the pic, under a headline reading; 'Launcelot Lives'. Good eh?
      I then rose solemnly, drew myself up into my best parade ground salute and smartly turned to march off, however I stopped, noticing that Bright had strolled up to the far end of the nave and was leaning forward, apparently studying something. Curious, I wandered up and stood beside him. He was looking at a five foot high, smooth faced slab of Avalonian green-veined marble, carved with gold inlaid writing. Sensing my presence at his shoulder Bright began to read aloud.
      "Trusting Divine Providence to be our guide, we, the Sovereign Citizens of New Avalon, do this day ordain and approve this Covenant, that all Peoples upon the face of this planet shall be forever equal under the Law, that Justice shall rule the Strong as it does the Weak, that Freedom shall be our Sword and Hope our strongest Shield." He said the words sotto voiced, as if he was a school teacher, then glanced back at me over his shoulder.
     "Sounds rather dated doesn't it?" His features momentarily became twisted with a dangerous, sly grin and after a quick check to ensure we were out of sight of the crowds and the Whitebellies, he raised his bespurred shoes, one at a time and slowly, deliberately, scraped the wet dirt covering them off on the side of the stone. Even to a rogue like myself, it seemed a gratuitous act and I think I gasped in shock.
     "Come along old chap, I'll give you a lift up to the Mount." He laughed lightly at my reaction and I paused a moment to confirm my faulty memory. At the bottom of the large, now dirt smeared, marble stone, under considerably more text, were the words;
THE FIRST COVENANT OF NEW AVALON - 2239
     I followed him out of the Cathedral and we drove back to the Mount Barracks, as he'd promised. As I was getting out the limo, he leaned over and called out.
     "Darius old man, I understand you have the practise run for the funeral tomorrow morning, but if you're free later in the afternoon, I'd very much like to invite you to dinner at my home. I'll have Sallah collect you here at three." He didn't even wait for an answer, the arrogant dog, he simply smiled one of his wild grins and pulled the door too, then with a smooth hum the limo sped off down Peace Lane.

[Tokage]

Chapter 11

     If you've not personally been involved in the planning and organising of a royal funeral you would probably be amazed at just how hellaciously difficult and complex a job it is. Of course I wasn't actually in charge, but I was expected to attend the practise run that was scheduled for the twenty fifth of November, the day after Bright saved me from that pair of killers.
     I was a member of the bearer party, one of eight men who were drawn, one from each RCT of the Brigade of Guards, and were to carry Ian's coffin into the Cathedral, then back to the Gun Carriage and off it again at the Crypt. I'd only a vague idea what was actually expected of me when I turned up in civvies, nursing a sore head and a windy belly, at the training meeting in the Mount Barracks that morning.
     I was soon completely baffled by an aged Major of the Redbacks, who'd been dragged out of his retirement by virtue of the fact that he'd been involved in Ian and Hanse's father's funeral and had thus been put in charge of the training for Ian's. The unsmiling geriatric waffled on about the route of the procession, the importance of proper ceremonial, the positions of the six eminent Pall Bearers who were to walk alongside us, the carefully mapped out path of the four black painted Atlas 'Mechs that would lead the procession down the Mount to the Cathedral, the marches that would be played by the massed bands of the Brigade, the numbers of troops from which regiments that would follow the Nobles, our own specific duties and eventually even what hymns were to be sung in the Cathedral during the ceremony itself.
     It was all deuced boring and complicated I assure you and I was fretting considerably throughout the briefing about the fact that I was going to dinner with Bright that very night.
     After the Major's training meeting we were marched out to the Mount's parade grounds where several infantry regiments were being walked through funeral marches, as light rain pattered down on them from an angry sky. There at one side was the Royal Gun Carriage, a converted old armoured vehicle dating back centuries, which had carried the bodies and coffins of countless First Princes at numerous state funerals down the years. We then spent several hours lifting a facsimile of Ian's monstrously heavy coffin in and out of the carriage, with a grizzled Sar' Major of the Grinners barking at us the whole time like we were buck privates and clearly enjoying himself immensely.
     "Come along Sirs. Straighten those backs you bunch of lilly white ladies!
     Davion what are you doing? LIFT it man, LIFT it. Come ON, you're walking like Kuritan tarts, slow and STEADY ... STEADY I said Lord Hervey!" And so on.
     Then we were marched in a great column up and down the West Slope Mall avenue for several hours, along with hundreds of bandsmen, sundry nobles, soldiers and government officials. It was during one of the breaks, while I was sitting on the foot of one of the great black Atlas' sipping a mug of tea and chatting to the MechWarrior who'd got the tricky job of slowly stamping along at the head of the funeral procession in two days time, that my espionage work again caught up with me. I was just telling a stretcher about my part in the Battle of Sandsedge when there was a polite feminine cough behind me and I turned to find myself looking into the shimmering beautiful deep green eyes of Olivia Fenlon.

* * *

     She was dressed in a scandalously tight approximation of Guards walking out dress blues, that clung to her svelte body in ways that would have made many an aged General's heart pump dangerously faster. Her raven tresses were cinched back into a bun, she wore a red and blue forage cap at a rakish angle and carried a data-slate.
     "Leftenant Davion, I need to measure you up for a new uniform." She purred with just a hint of a mischievous grin and I leapt up and followed her across the parade ground into one of the barracks buildings. She shushed me until we reached a room marked with the words; 'Games and Strategy', which we entered and she closed the door firmly behind us.
     The room was long, dominated by several linked holo-map tables along it's centre, ranks of seats running up each wall and three great vid-screens at it's far end. To my dismay, seated like a beached whale upon the edge of one of the tables and dressed in a straining Lyran business suit was Count Nicholas Truston, the Truffle-Hunter himself. I was dismayed because following Olivia's tight trousered rear-end along the barracks corridors, I'd hoped I was going to get a chance to make another attempt to board her.
     "Ahh there you are Leftenant. Now then, we received your report and the First Prince ... ahh ... that is to say, Prince Hanse, was most perturbed by this alleged attack upon your person." Well, I'd written up a quick edited summary of the previous night's horrors and events, upon reaching my quarters and fired it off to the Truffle-Hunter. The fat slug's tone offended my wounded sensibilities however.
     "Alleged? Why you ... there was nothing alleged about it. Hasek-Davion offered me his friendship and patronage and I turned him down. Next thing I know two of his thugs are using me for target practise across half of Old Town and not caring who they gunned down in the process to boot!" Olivia jumped in, waving her slender hands soothingly.
     "Easy Darius, the Count was just saying we can't be certain who sent those bastards after you. You may well be right, but they could just as easily have been sent by Bright, so he could save you with his pet Saurimat." Truston cleared his heavy jowled throat and wheezed at that;
     "Precisely, her Grace understands the situation perfectly. So from your report you state you have been invited by Bright to his home?" I nodded angrily at the tub of lard.
     "Good then, progress at last. I was beginning to think you weren't putting your heart into it." He fixed me with his piggy little eyes, his disturbingly feminine seeming lips twisting petulantly.
     "My agents reported you showed very little apparent effort up until now." Oops, I should have known the Truffle-Hunter would have had tails watching me over the past few days and nights, and they must have made some damned embarrassing reports though mustn't they. I gulped and realised I better at least make a show of indignation for Olivia's sake.
     "Now see here my lord, I was told to make myself seem a tasty prize for Bright and his Cabalist chums and that's just what I've been doing. I don't like your tone, if I could have seemed a rough and ready Cabalist possibility by spending my nights at prayer meetings and in training simulators, then that's what I would have done. But that ain't the way of things is it?
     Bright and his cronies are night creatures, they are carousers and wastrels looking for like minded types. Besides, if as you imply, you've had your blasted spies tailing me, where on Terra were they last night when I was nearly murdered?" Truston squirmed and I noted Olivia stood beside me in a comradely seeming gesture of support.
     "My agents were forced to keep their distance in case Bright's faction were watching you, and at the time of the attack on yourself, they were distracted by other fake gangers. One of them was actually killed." He looked uncomfortable at his admission that the people behind the attack on me had been good enough to spot and take out the MIIO shadows I'd not even known were watching over me.
     "Anyway, things are now going well. Bright has contacted you and you are to visit his home, Summer House, tonight. I would have you wired, but it's probable Bright will have you discreetly, but thoroughly, swept. You must make yourself seem a suitable recruit. Act arrogant, proud and hurt at Hanse's 'coldness' towards you. Don't rush things though." With that scant advise the Truffle-Hunter awkwardly slumped off his perch and waddled past me, nodding me luck as he went. I shook my head despairingly.
     "What a swine." I muttered and Olivia smiled softly and laid her warm, olive skinned hand, on mine.
     "I know he seems duplicitous and self serving Darius, but that is his job after all ... in a manner of speaking." I ignored her defence of Truston, as I enjoyed the sensation of her hand on mine.
     "This whole situation is just awful for me Olivia." I said honestly. "Give me a battlefield any day of the week." Which was obviously less true, but she smiled and I was about to seize the moment, when she beat me to it and kissed me. After a long pleasurable moment I pulled back in surprise, then never one to miss an opportunity to take a mile when offered an inch, I pulled her to me and drew her into what soppy romance novelists might refer to as a 'passionate embrace'. She didn't protest, far from it, and soon I had her half out that uniform and across the holomap table which had previously suffered under Truston's bulk.
     To the distant sound of the Atlas's marching outside we enjoyed each other for an hour or two and it was only while laying half dressed alongside her, stroking her smooth skin, that I suddenly thought about what she'd said about Truston and the idea struck me like a bolt from the black.
     "Truston! Of course that's what he meant!" Olivia smiled questioningly at me from under the tilted brim of the forage cap she still wore, I jumped down from the table in excitement and began pacing as I spoke.
     "When I was carryi- ahh that is when I first reached Ian's downed 'Mech in Desolate Pass Ian was alive long enough to gasp out a few last words." Olivia sat up and while buttoning her uniform tunic she stared at me pretty hard.
     "That's not in the reports you submitted." She stated flatly.
     "I was distracted at the time and it seemed well ... unimportant back on Mallory's World. Now though ..."
     "What did he say?" She asked eagerly and I cast my mind back to that horrific moment of flight, with Ian slung as a human shield across my back and Yorinaga's Warhammer about to open fire on us. Ian's dying croak came again in my ears again and I spoke the words to Olivia.
     "He said; 'Darius tell Hanse ... tell him ... don't trust ... trust -'. He then died." Which wasn't quite how it happened, but I couldn't tell her I'd been carrying Ian at the time as, according to the accepted story, he died in the cockpit as you will be aware. Olivia looked at me without speaking for a long moment, then shrugged;
     "So he must have been talking about Hasek-Davion ... or even possibly Bright." I shook my head.
     "No, don't you see? I took him to be stammering at the end there, but he wasn't ... he was trying to say a name. 'Don't trust ... Trust - '" She looked at me and the realisation dawned on her.
     "Don't trust Truston!" She gasped aloud and I nodded slowly as she spelt it out further in a voice heavy with disbelief.
     "Ian died trying to tell you to warn Hanse not to trust the head of the MIIO? Oh Darius that's just too absurd. He may not be likeable, but Nicholas Truston's loyalty to the Davion family has never been questioned, he's been the main stumbling block to Hasek-Davion's ambitions in the MIIO for several years, and he's certainly no MechWarrior, so cannot possibly be connected to the Cabalists.
     It's an interesting story, but you must be wrong. Nevertheless perhaps you should tell Hanse what Ian said. You owe both of them that. It will be a comfort to Hanse I think if he knows Ian died thinking of his safety."
     I could see why Olivia dismissed my idea, but I was convinced. I'd not liked Truston from the first time I'd met him and I could quite believe him capable of treason. Perhaps he was not a Cabalist, or even in Hasek-Davion's camp, but I knew in my heart he was no friend to Hanse and I hoped one day I'd get the chance to prove it.
     We quickly dressed and after one more lingering kiss went our separate ways, I had a spring in my step and was feeling pretty perked up, both from my deduction about the Truffle-Hunter and from my personal time with Olivia, there's nothing better after all to settle a windy stomach and jangled nerves than a quick gallop with a willing partner. I certainly would not have been so happy if I'd known what lethal new ordeal awaited me that night at Bright's country estate.

[Tokage]

Chapter 12

     I decided to wear pretty snazzy civilian dinner dress that night; a black suit, with huge white silk ankle and wrist cuffs and a massive shouldered white cape. These days I'd be regarded as looking slightly ridiculous, back then I was dressed in the height of fashion. I hummed and hawed over whether to take my Sternsacht and eventually decided it would be better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it, so I tucked it into an inside pocket of my cape. If I was searched and it was found I could reasonably point to my near murder the night before as having made me somewhat more wary of Avalon City than I was previously.
     Before leaving my quarters I stood before a long mirror and looked myself in the eye. I could do this, it was just dinner, Bright surely wouldn't dare allow anything to happen to me on his own estate, it would simply be a meal over which Bright, and perhaps some of his fellow Cabalists, would try to talk me around to their views. I would simply chew my lip for an hour or two looking pensive and undecided, then drop them a subtle hint I was in agreement with them, before leaving for the Mount. It shouldn't be any harder than that.
     By the time I was striding across to the waiting hover-limo I believed my own nervous pep-talk slightly above half. But I'd been in too many deadly dangerous scrapes over the previous few weeks and months to dismiss my cowardly better senses, which were screaming at me that it wouldn't be any where near so easy or safe, that I was stepping after all into a den of would be regicides. Fanatical Cabalists so dedicated to their cause that, if they suspected I was working for Hanse, they would no doubt cheerfully kill me to protect their secrecy. I'd already seen how frightfully skilled Bright's bodyguard-come-orderly Sallah was and had no wish for him to lodge his beastly knife in my skull.
     Sallah was actually standing beside the 'limo as I approached and bowed his head slightly to me as he held the rearmost door open, after I got in, he slid in beside me, pulling the door closed behind himself. With that we were away, I briefly considered striking up a polite conversation with Sallah, but one look at his grim, expressionless, dark skinned, features dissuaded me from that.
     So it was I gazed out of the one-way windows as we zipped down Peace Lane and out onto the Main Circular. We cruised around the edge of Old Town's busy North End, the lights of bustling bars and clubs streaking past, and then entered the suburbs. Within a half an hour we were blurring along wide country roads, past avenues of poplars and local red-orange leafed Burner Trees. We were headed south away from the mountains and into Albion's River Basin District; soft, fat, green country full of fields, orchards, farms and sprawling noble estates. The afternoon sky was growing dim, winter was approaching, and the nights were drawing in, as they say.
     After perhaps only another half hour we drove down a narrower side road and then up towards a towering great fifteen meter tall black metal double gate, set in the centre with a crest depicting crossed axes upon a Fed Suns Sunburst. As the 'limo slowed the gates opened, as if by magic, and we hummed through along a long and twisting gravel avenue. I gaped as I noted a Locust BattleMech standing to the left of the avenue, behind a neatly trimmed hedge, it's sensor rods quivering as it tracked us. Craning my neck, I spotted another 'Mech, an Enforcer I think, standing on the other side of the avenue. Though it was difficult to tell in the afternoon gloom, I could make out the same noble crest from the gates painted upon the 'Mech's breasts.
     The 'limo had slowed enough then that I was afforded a good look at sprawling, carefully tended and mapped out parkland and gardens as we passed through them. There were arcs of trees from all over the Fed Suns, dazzlingly vast and colourful seas of flowers, I even spotted a 'Mech scale maze with hedges some sixteen meters high. It put my family's crude hilly gardens back home on Killarney in the shade I can tell you, and we held title for an entire world mind you. Clearly the Brights, despite their relative anonymity, were very rich and had been lords here for quite some time. I recalled from Bright's dossier he was actually the Baron of the Summerland, as this region of Albion was called. Blake alone knew how much Bright would get for this place if he'd ever decided to sell.
     We drew up to Summer House itself, it was a towering white fronted three sided mansion, with blue tiled roofs, tall windows, fluted spires and a Marauder BattleMech standing guard outside. I couldn't see any 'Mech hangars or the like but strongly suspected, judging from the artfulness of the surrounding gardens and parkland, Bright would have underground hangars somewhere on the estate. It was all deuced impressive I had to admit. Jonathan Bright was clearly a very well set up fellow, it made me wonder why he'd throw all this away on a seemingly suicidal prospect like trying to murder Hanse.

* * *

     "Ah there you are old chap! Come in, come in." Bright was dressed in smart, yet plain, green fatigue shirt and pants, with polished and bespurred shoes. He came out down the main steps to meet us as the 'limo stopped under the towering bulk of the Marauder. I shook his hand and took a long look up at the house itself.
     "You have a lovely estate here sir." I said honestly and he beamed proudly.
     "Jonathan, please Darius, call me Jonathan. But yes I agree, Summer House is my pride and joy." He jauntily bounded up the steps and into the house, with Sallah and I hurrying after him, while he called back to us as he went.
     "It was built some four centuries ago by my ancestor, Marvin Bright, the thirteenth Baron Summerland. It's a replica, more or less, of a French country Chateau from old Earth." As we entered an airy long hall, with a split polished red marble staircase rising away up left and right and great lines of portraits covering the walls, I recalled some details about the Bright family that I'd read in the dossiers the Truffle-Hunter had furnished me with.
     The Bright family went right back into the dim past of New Avalon history, the family traced their line back to a Major Jason Bright; a twenty third century Terran Alliance Colonial Marine officer who mutinied and sided with the colonists during the Grain Rebellion of the 2230's. He married a local girl and settled down, probably not far from the spot where Summer House now stood. For subsequent decades the Brights farmed quietly in obscurity, until one Oscar Bright, Jason's great grandson, reached the rank of Colonel in the FEF (Federated Expeditionary Force) during the Frontier Wars of the early twenty fourth century. Oscar served with Reynard Davion during those wars and apparently forged a strong bond of friendship which remained true between their two families, generally speaking, down the centuries since. Brights had served in the AFFS since it's founding, they had been NACC cardinals, Federated Suns ministers and even ambassadors to the Star League. If they had a flaw it was their haughty pride, several times Bright Barons had caused their family political harm due to a certain traditionalist inflexibility in their nature. 
     More recently Maxwell Bright, Jonathan's late father, had reached the rank of Major General during Andrew's reign and had been killed in action on the Capellan Front some fifteen years before. Leaving his only son as Baron at the age of sixteen.
     Jonathan graduated from the Albion Military Academy a few years after that point and served on both the Kuritan and Capellan Fronts over the following years. He'd won a fair degree of acclaim, a Guards Captaincy, and his Silver Sunburst for gallantry on Elidere fighting against the DCMS, early in Ian's reign. His record suggested he was an exemplary officer; who was respected and if not actually beloved by his men, perhaps due to rumours of his being a stern disciplinarian, certainly he was widely trusted for his competence in the field. He'd a personal record of twenty nine 'Mech kills, which as you will be aware is a very respectable score and had twice been wounded in action.
     All this was running through my mind as I followed him into a book lined library room, with a massive central fireplace, several polished red wood tables and easy chairs. Bright sat down in one of the chairs near the merrily burning fire and picked up an already poured glass of brandy. He motioned me to a chair opposite his, whilst behind me Sallah positioned himself beside the doorway, becoming a mute sentry.
     "Can I get you a drink old man?" Bright asked me politely and I asked for a brandy too. Bright pressed a button on the arm of his chair and within thirty seconds a cowed looking old chap in red, orange, and black livery came hurrying in.
     "Another brandy please Norris." Bright ordered and his man hurried out and then returned inside a minute, handing me my drink. I sniffed it's aroma appreciatively and then sipped it, enjoying the burn. It was good stuff unsurprisingly. Bright waited for Norris to leave then smiled across at me again.
     "So Darius, I'd like to hear your war stories. It seems so long since the Alex have gone into action that when I'm next called upon to take to the field I'll have forgotten what it feels like to have the lead flying at me again." I obliged and spent a couple of hours talking him through the false version of my adventures on Mallory's World. He was a good listener and asked a couple of decidedly shrewd questions that nearly caught me out in lies, thankfully though I was pretty expert by that time in telling my largely invented story and got through safely.
     "Well, here's to you Darius. Well done indeed. Though, if it doesn't offend you, I must admit I envy you your laurels ... or the chance you had to win them at least. Ian, God bless him, was greedy with his campaigns, he always hogged the true chances for glory and action for his beloved Bane. Ahh more guests ..." He cut short as we could both see through the room's large windows a pair of 'limos pulled up outside and eight or nine dress uniformed Guards officers walking up to the front doors.
     Bright sprang to his feet and I stood unsure whether to follow him as he dashed out into the hallway to welcome the newcomers. I finished off my brandy with a single gulp, to steady my nerves as, with a great din of laughter, chatter and friendly banter, Bright herded his new guests in and began a round of introductions. They were all Guards officers, ranging in rank from Subalterns through to Captains, most were from the Alex and I instantly recognised some of them as known members of Bright's Third Covenant Society. They were all male except for a cracking, if aloof, looking Leftenant of the Redbacks, who Bright introduced as Lady Emma Jonath, the sister of the Duke of Filtvelt.
     She was tall, slender and graceful of movement, with cool grey eyes, beautiful features, shoulder length ash blonde hair and a damn-you-me-lad expression. Dressed in her tight blue pants, shirt and natty Light Guards maroon half jacket she was certainly decorative and she shook my hand while looking down her pretty nose at me with the natural insouciance of a true blue-blood.
     After a round of hand shaking, some gentle ribbing from some of them about my heroic reputation, some discussion about various duties they had at the coming State Funeral and then the arrival of another handful of guests and more introductions, Bright led us all through into a huge and opulently appointed dining room. The massive table was laid with places set for the fifteen of us that I now counted as being there, Bright naturally took his place at the head of the table. I was sat at Bright's right hand, opposite Lady Emma, while Sallah stood behind his master's chair, and to my right was one Captain Guy Rebbeque, also of the Alex.
     Perhaps predictably Bright employed a bloody excellent cook, apparently a French Terran lured away from the kitchens of the Primus of ComStar himself. I can still recall I started with a roasted parsnip and carrot soup, followed by curried crab mayonnaise on tomatoes, then a main course of calves sweetbreads sautéed with ham and sherry. Bright's own vineyards, apparently located some klicks to the west of Summer House, provided the wines and they were very fine.
     However if the food was pleasant the conversation soon became anything but. It's a fact that no matter what their good senses tell them, once your fanatic is relaxed and contented, in what they think is a safe environment, they cannot ever keep their prejudices to themselves. You've probably seen the same thing happen on a less serious scale; y'know, for example the racist who can't help but tell a bigoted joke, or the boring political zealot who twists every conversation to his own pet subject. Well, so it was with Bright and his cronies.
     Before I'd finished my first course Rebbeque, while questioning me about Mallory's World, made the first slip.
     "So this fellow in your lance, Holloway was it?" He asked, interrupting one of my stories. I nodded and Rebbeque, a high foreheaded and thin lipped chap, then asked slowly;
     "You say he was a Tech?" He said the word with all the disgust you'd expect if I'd said Holloway was romantically attracted to animals, I nodded again and Rebbeque dropped his spoon in the soup before him with a loud clatter.
     "That's what's wrong with our army today! Absolute bloody disgrace. What on Terra is Lucus Hillnas thinking of, promoting a jackanapes like that to Leftenant?" At that Emma Jonath spoke up from across the table in her high pitched accent.
     "I'd heard Hillnas was a good sort, now I'm not so sure." I almost began to defend my old Captain, but realised I was meant to be on these people's side. So I simply shrugged and mumbled.
     "Well ... I think he listened to bad advice. Captain Hillnas is a brave man and a formidable MechWarrior." Rebbeque bristled at that.
     "He may very well be brave and skilled, but he's no commander that's for sure! Bloody disgrace to the Brigade. No disrespect to you old fellow and your loyalty to him is commendable, if a tad misplaced in my opinion." I was happy to let it go at that, but within a few more minutes, whilst I was tucking into my crab mayonnaise, Bright began badgering me about it some more.
     "I have a friend in the Bane who told me you yourself got into a spot of trouble with this Holloway, Darius?" Rebbeque and Jonath fixed me with interested stares and I gulped down my mouthful of food, suddenly uncomfortable, firstly about the thought that Bright had contacts in the Fourth itself and secondly because I wasn't sure just how much of my feud with Holloway was public knowledge in the ranks of the Bane. I took a sip of wine and looked thoughtful. Well, on the plus side this was an excellent opportunity to win their trust though, so I dived in with both feet.
     "Well Jonathan, yes that's true. I don't think it's a secret in the Fourth that I didn't get along with Holloway."
     "That's an understatement I'd say young fella." Rebbeque blurted out at that. "You blocked his promotion before Colterville." Bright shot Rebbeque a sudden hard glare and then forced a smile back onto his face for me.
     "Well, that's the gossip we heard anyway." He said. Blake's Blood, my skin crawled at the thought that bit of knowledge was being bandied about the Brigade, it wouldn't do my heroic image any good at all and besides made me damned worried about what else these well informed bastards might know about me. I was thrown for a moment then regained my composure.
     "I've no idea where you heard that Sir, but whilst I may have privately voiced some concerns about Holloway's suitability for a Leftenancy to my C.O. I don't think I have the power to block promotions. I was only a MechWarrior at that time." Bright smiled again, answering for Rebbeque;
     "Of course, just shows gossip ain't reliable. Still, what was it that caused this rift between yourself and this uppity peasant Holloway?"
     "Well, if I'm honest," I began and for once decided I might as well be; "If I'm honest, I have to say I don't believe your Johnny commoner makes a good MechWarrior. 'Mechs are rightly the nobility's privilege and badge of status. Holloway might have spent a lot of time around 'Mechs, but just because a pig might be born in a stable, it don't make it a stallion does it?" There was a burst of laughter at that and a few 'here here's as Bright nodded in agreement.
     "I entirely agree Darius. Quite so. Sadly that kind of good old fashioned common sense is presently at risk. You yourself know that jumped up young courtier Sortek of course, so you'll have a shrewd idea already what he and his patron, your cousin Hanse, plan for us all. They make no secret of it." Well here was a subject where I could certainly put my heart on my sleeve.
     "Sortek's an arrant ass. He's a damned hypocritical, pompous, naive, mealy mouthed, God-botherer with a Saint complex." I spat and I think the very real venom in my voice actually took Bright aback for a moment, well he'd probably been expecting me to defend Sortek, whom many people, not least Sortek himself, mistook for being a friend of mine. It's interesting to think that Hanse and Truston had probably unknowingly picked the right man in myself for penetrating the Third Covenant Society... after all when being outspokenly honest I'd even shocked Bright himself with my views!
     It was in fact probably at that moment, no doubt with real hatred clearly discernible in my eyes, that Bright decided I was just his type and a real prospect for recruitment. It's one of the few times knowing Sortek well has in fact been useful to me, when you think about it.

[Tokage]

Chapter 13

     "Err, well quite." Bright said in obvious surprise at my outburst, while glancing pointedly at his partners in crime.
     "Well, forgive my confusion Darius. I'd been led to believe you and Sortek were friends. Though I confess I'd hoped that wasn't in fact the case." I took a hefty swig of wine and then ploughed on.
     "Naturally I've had to be polite to the swine's face. Captain Hillnas himself warned me Sortek had Prince Hanse's ear the first time I met them, that night at the Palace." Which, if you've read the first volume of my secret memoirs you will know is pure fact. "But that same night I recall Sortek prattling on about levelling our society so that, as he put it; the lowest serving wench will be equal to the highest Duke." I noted I had the complete attention of the whole table by this point and was making sure to speak very loudly, there were angry mutterings and some outraged shouts of affront at that final comment, which again was actually one hundred percent true.
     As I've said before, Sortek's loose lips were behind a lot of Hanse's problems. Hanse himself was a born politician, able to charm even his enemies when he put his mind to it. He could probably have sold his radical early policy ideas successfully to the entrenched MechWarrior elite, given the time. But Sortek was not widely popular. He was generally regarded as a talentless hanger-on, or worse, and he lacked the charm necessary to make the unpalatable accepted. When he brayed on, and boy did he go on, about social levelling, justice for all, equal rights and reductions in the nobility's privileges all he did was make enemies and stir up a great deal of ill feeling towards his patron. I was now sitting in the heart of the upshot of Sortek's schoolboy philosophy; plots, a murderously angry elite and potential murder.
     "You're a Sakhara man aren't you Darius?" Lady Emma asked and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, that subject was one of those things I'd learned to avoid speaking about, but this bunch must surely have known all the dirty details of my expulsion, so I decided to brazen it out.
     "I attended the Old Sak my lady, that's true. However I was expelled earlier this year for running an illegal 'Mech race." I said it straight faced and tried to even put pride into the admission, reasoning these plotters might not hold such an event a bad thing. I was correct, Bright butted in nodding eagerly.
     "Ridiculous, the Commandant expelled his best 'Mech pilot for having the nerve and skill to put an uppity half-breed Capellan in his place. Whatever next?" I have to say, by this point, were it not for the fact I knew this merry company were planning to put their heads on the block by seeking to kill Hanse, I might have been very happy in their company. Bright fixed me with his flashing black eyes.
     "Do you know Darius, that I have it on very good authority that Hanse means, once he's made First Prince, to take an extremely close and intrusively active interest in the training of MechWarriors. I've heard talk of his plans to expand existing academies to allow for greater numbers of cadets, which Hanse means to be largely of commoner stock, rather than noble. My sources even state Hanse means to set up 'school-less' training battalions, free from the hallowed traditions of our great old military schools." I admitted, honestly, that I'd not heard this but that I could believe it. Hanse was not going to be the same kind of First Prince as his late brother I already knew that. Anyway I made sure to look suitably affronted and Lady Emma jumped in between mouthfuls of food.
     "It's true Darius and it's a dangerously insidious scheme. Once he's broken the power of the old academies to pick and train cadets of good blood and family, Hanse means to create a national army, free from the ancient loyalties of family and tradition essential to our AFFS. It will be an army of lowborn automatons, loyal only to the national leader, in the form of course of Hanse himself. Hanse will thus place all power, all military strength, solely in his own hands.
     He's not inherently a bad man Darius, but if history has taught us anything, it's that total power corrupts totally. He'll become a tyrant Darius. His head is so full of Sortek's praise and muddle-headed 'social justice' nonsense he can't see that with plans such as his he'll in fact drag us all into a true dictatorship. We'll be no better than the Capellans." There were angry grumbles of agreement from down the long table and I have to admit I could see where they were coming from. If what they were claiming Hanse planned was true then the very power structure of our state and army might be overturned. Looking back you'll agree they were indeed correct too ... Hanse did just what they claimed he would and the old elite families have slowly but surely been losing their real power ever since. Anyone can wear the spurs these days, why I've even seen the offspring of some of my own line's barely literate Killarnees making MechWarrior. Terrifying that, I wouldn't trust most of them with a lawnmower.
     Anyway, back then I didn't really know what was true and what was Cabalist propaganda, all I did know was I had to look suitably appalled and sputter in outrage. Which I essayed to do with my finely honed acting talents.
     "Then there's Hanse's ongoing and ruinous feud with Hasek-Davion. That precious pair, each blinkered by their own vanity and ambitions, will drive us into a catastrophic civil war unless something is done." Rebbeque piped up and I decided to push things along a little.
     "What can be done?" I asked, striving to sound genuinely curious and open to suggestions. However Rebbeque clammed up promptly, glancing past me to his chief perhaps for permission to say more. I turned back to Bright just in time to catch sight of him shaking his head. Bright however did suddenly stand and raise his glass.
     "Gentlemen, your ladyship, I propose a toast; to the Third Covenant." I nearly dropped my glass at that, but thankfully any recognition I'd inadvertently shown at the name was covered by the fact everyone else's eyes were fixed on Bright and they all called out in unison.
     "The Third Covenant!" They drank and Rebbeque then added;
     "And to Cassius!" Cassius? I wondered, noting that only perhaps half the table replied to this strange toast, while the others glanced nervously at each other and down the table to Bright. Bright stared hard at Rebbeque again and for a long tense moment I thought he might actually become violent and throw his glass at the apparently loose lipped Captain. However Bright eventually just nodded, raised his glass and then drank, before sitting back down.
     "Darius. What do you know of the First and Second Covenants of New Avalon?" I tried to dredge up old schoolboy memories, but was dry so simply shrugged and muttered something about them being old declarations of rights set down by the early generations of colonists of New Avalon. A hush fell over the table at this and Bright began to speak in a portentous voice, like one of your wrath of God Outback preachers, or a ComStar Precentor intoning his solemn chants of activation.

* * *

     "In the year 2239, two years after the beginning of the Grain Rebellion, when the early colonists of New Avalon fought against the soldiers of the distant Terran Alliance government that was pushing our forebears into near slavery, those brave first families found themselves abandoned by Terra. Seeing that they had to govern themselves or dissolve into chaos, they established a Provincial Government under the leadership of Colonel Jason Hasek, a militia hero of the Rebellion.
     Hasek was a good soldier, but unfortunately an idealistic imbecile when it came to good governance.
     He called for a Constitutional Convention, with elected delegates and an ad-hoc Congress was then formed. One of the first acts of which was the ratification of the so called First Covenant of New Avalon. It was drafted by men and women who'd just fought off the yoke of Terran tyranny and was sadly full of unrealistically high ideals, sweeping condemnations of outside Terran rule generally and claptrap about equal rights for all.
     Hasek was a Socialist moron, who ignored the facts that the fighters of the militia and those Colonial Marines who'd sided with them, were the natural rulers of the world they'd fought and bled to win. What did a worker in his field know or care of the intricacies of government? The New Avalonians needed strong leadership, not airy moral platitudes. They needed rulers who could keep them free from outside attack, not equal rights for the disabled. It was doomed to fail.
     Hasek was made New Avalon's first Prime Minister the same year, but only served out a one-year term ... like all his immediate successors. There were nine Prime Ministers in as many years!
     Certain right minded families, the First Families as they became known, began to institute their own personal view of what good government should mean and started to naturally edge towards a reasoned and successful form of neo-feudalism. They saw the short-termist Prime Ministers come and go, each elected by demagogic appeals to the ignorant, illiterate, unwashed masses and each only serving out twelve short months, so having no time to get to grips with the massive problems facing the fledgling planetary government. Wanting no part of this general decline the sensible First Families drew private armies to them, in order to protect themselves and their people against the starving 'democratic' mobs.
     In 2249 Jason Hasek came out of retirement, stirred by growing signs that some of the First Families were about to launch attacks upon each other and more importantly following food riots amongst the 'electorate'. He raised his veterans from the militia and tried to impose martial law. The First Families were not so stupid as to now bow their heads to this ageing fossil, who still believed in archaic and outdated political philosophies entirely unsuitable for the realities of life beyond Terra ... if they were ever valid in any time or place.
     The Jorgensson family levy met Hasek's militia and beat them in battle, killing the deluded geriatric Colonel Hasek. Two surviving militia officers, Colonels Adam Davion and Nathan DuVall, both members of powerful First Families themselves united their forces in an attempt to impose order. There followed five years of civil war across the planet, as the Davion/DuVall alliance struggled to overcome the other First Families through battle, diplomacy and on occasion trickery.
     As the fighting ebbed there followed two years of uneasy negotiations, which led up to the signing of the Second Covenant. This document was far more realistic, Prime Ministers now served for life. The First Families each sent a representative, usually their family head, to sit on the Chamber of Deputies and they decided who was made Prime Minister. There was to be no more popular voting, no more false nonsense about equality. We were given order, a structured society. Everyone knew their place in society and accepted it, knowing the alternative was anarchy like that which had nearly brought the planet to it's knees over the past years.
     Naturally that was nearly eight centuries ago, things changed as the Federated Suns grew into being. Certain principles from both Covenants were emphasised or diminished down the years and the strong neo-feudalism underpinning the Second Covenant has become watered down and weakened. The powers of our noble families today are greatly less than those enjoyed as a divine right by the early First Families.
     We face the consequence of those long decreasing rights today in Hanse Davion. He could cause a disaster far worse than that narrowly avoided by our ancestors. That is why we need a renewal, a new Covenant ... a Third Covenant of New Avalon, that places power back where it belongs; into the hands of the great noble houses and the MechWarriors who should be leading them. To this aim we here are committed."

[Tokage]

Chapter 14

     There was a round of applause at the end of Bright's clearly rehearsed little history lesson, with which I naturally joined in, while striving to look thoughtful and inspired. His facts were essentially accurate, by the way, I checked the next day. So ... he was certainly opening up now, wasn't he though?
     Of course, so far he'd merely been exercising his right to hold a rather extreme political opinion, he'd steered just clear of outright treason and had certainly made no direct threat to kill Hanse. Though it must be said there was a pretty strong implication in all they'd said confirming that was their aim, which of course Hanse and his faction already knew anyway. I still had to get fully inside; become a member of the Society itself, learn the details of their planned assassination attempt and along the way find out who Bright's, as yet unmentioned, secret backer might be. I knew I couldn't rush things, but I sensed Bright now at least believed I held certain Cabalist opinions, in common with the rest of them. He ordered a round of brandy and cigars for everyone and then leaned back in his chair, before fixing me with that restless dangerous stare of his.
     "So Darius. Now you have an idea of our little group here's opinions and deeply held beliefs. Do you have anything you wish to ask?" I thought carefully, then decided wary curiosity was the best impression to give.
     "So, if I understand you correctly, you are an organised group rather than just friends having dinner?" Bright smiled at that.
     "We are certainly both those things. We are all friends here. But yes, in answer to the first part of your question, we call ourselves the Third Covenant Society. I suppose others would regard us as Cabalists ... though that word has been debased through misuse and black propaganda from successive governments since the Draconis March Uprising." I blinked a moment, not connecting what 'Uprising' he was referring to and said aloud;
     "Do you mean the Cabalist Mutiny?" To which there were angry rumblings down the table and Bright scowled, his eyes briefly flashing with a frightening rage.
     "It was no mutiny Darius. Why more than half those fighting the oppression of the control freak First Prince of that time were not even members of the AFFS. They'd been forced to resign their commissions! How on Terra could they then mutiny? It was a popular rising against illegal government interference with the inalienable rights of the nobility.
     But then, you see, that's how propaganda works; if a lie is told often enough everyone will eventually believe it. Ask your own father, he followed the same creed in his idealistic youth I understand." I nodded, my heart beating faster at the rage that I'd caused to rise in Bright's eyes. I thought it best however to plunge on and hopefully get Bright onto happier themes.
     "So I'm guessing this isn't just a debating society you have going here then Jonathan?" I said with a smile in my eyes.
     "No indeed. We are not mere agitators or crass would-be politicians. We are all soldiers here Darius as you can see. All MechWarriors in fact and Brigade of Guards MechWarriors too. We have certain plans to forward our aim of a new Covenant ... but before I can tell you more about that I'm afraid we must ask if you wish to become more involved. If not you can walk out of here and be free of any connection to us ... you could even report us to your cousin if you wished.
     However, before you answer, let me remind you of all the things you've said about Sortek and that Hanse has already clearly shown you, in front of our nation's shamefully out of control news media no less, just how much more he values Sortek over yourself. I know Hanse is your cousin and Ian's brother and I understand those facts will create difficulties for the conscience of a noble man like you.     
     All I can do is ask you to consider where Hanse will ultimately take us. Imagine twenty or thirty years on, when your family's peasants are ordering you around, when your lands will belong to those same commoners, when your RCT will be full of Clive Holloways! We mean to prevent that happening ... but be assured it won't be easy. There is a risk for you in joining us and there is an initiation that you will need to endure. But it is necessary and when we succeed in our goals you will find yourself very highly placed in the restored elite." I was doing my best to look torn and tempted. But was in fact internally struggling with a sudden unpleasant queasiness in my belly ... an initiation that must first be endured? What in Blake's Blessed Book did that mean?
     Every instinct I possessed was screaming at me to politely finish my brandy, smoke my cigar, chat about the weather, thank Bright for his hospitality and then get the hell out of there. However, I was on a mission to join this bunch of plotters at Hanse's direct order and Bright was offering me membership, I had no other reasonable option but to accept.
     "Hanse has shown no familial spirit to me, why should I towards him? I'm with you chaps. Where do I sign up?" I'd been expecting a round of applause, perhaps some back slapping and some ragging about the rules of the club ... what I got was a suddenly stern silence around the table and Bright, blank faced, standing.
     "Follow me please. Now we shall see if you're as good as they say." My stomach flipped in fear and my heart started beating like the thudda-thudda sound of an autocannon in my breast. This had not been in Truston's briefings. What in Hades was I in for now? I wondered, as I stood to follow my possibly insane host.

* * *

     As I followed Bright I was flanked by Rebbeque and Lady Emma, and as we walked out the others also followed. There was no talking now and it felt deuced unnerving I can tell you. Like I was a condemned man being walked to his execution, which as it happened wasn't a light year away from the truth.
     We trooped through the grand hallway, then along several tastefully decorated corridors, and on through antechambers and sitting rooms, until Bright stopped at double red-oaken doors. He punched a key code into the pad set into the wall beside the doorway and there was a slight pneumatic hiss as the doors swung open to reveal a wide, well lit, flight of polished black marble steps leading down. Without further preamble Bright skipped lightly down the stairs and we followed.
     I don't know precisely how far down they led, but it took several minutes to reach their bottom so it must have been quite deep, though it was clean smelling, brightly lit and smartly painted ... in fact, it occurred to me it was not unlike the Fox's Den itself. A long grey-white painted, underground corridor, with several plain plasteel doors and side passages along it's length. As we hurried after the eager seeming Bright, I noted Rebbeque and two others broke off from the rest of us and headed down a corridor to the left. No one said anything, so I just kept on after our increasingly manic seeming leader.
     After about five minutes hike down that long subterranean passageway, we suddenly stepped out into a wide, high roofed, open space. Powerful, distant, spotlights shone down from the apparently natural rock ceiling, illuminating an area that seemed as wide and expansive as a starport's main drop-field. To the left of where we stood there were several ranks of civilian and military vehicles, to our right were a double row of towering 'Mech silos, holding about a Company's worth of BattleMechs as far as I could make out, and beyond that, way over ahead of us, was a huge triple set of fifteen meter tall hangar doors. Techs were working on the 'Mechs, while green uniformed infantrymen stood guard here and there, or paced along gantry walkways that towered above the silos, assault rifles slung at their shoulders. It smelled faintly of disinfectant, coolant fluid, scorched metal and engine oil.
     I stood for a moment open mouthed in surprise of the scale and impressive efficiency of the vast hangar and Bright grinned proudly, despite his previous attempts at keeping up his serious mask.
     "How do you like my garage?" I simply nodded in mute awe and Bright led us on at his brisk running walk towards the 'Mech silos, while shouting over his shoulder.
     "I had the existing underground hangar that dated back to Star League times greatly expanded a few years back. We are planning to add another bank or two of 'Mech silos next year. At present we can store four lances of 'Mechs here, I mean to get that up to six lances as soon as possible.
     As you can see I retain a formidable private security force. They are a mix of experienced mercenary infantrymen, ex-AFFS commandos and recruits from my family's peasants. I have at my immediate call here about a hundred soldiers, with twenty hover-tanks and APCs.
     The hangar doors open onto a twenty five meter long slope that leads to a concealed entrance on the surface behind the house. I've installed four batteries of 70mm autocannons that can make that slope an avenue of death." Well, it struck me at the time that my old dad liked to keep a shotgun or two about our family pile for home defence, but this was certainly on a different order! Bright had turned his estate into a fortress that was clear. It sounded like nothing short of a 'Mech company or two, or a nuke, would be able to safely crack this madman's nest.
     "Ah here we are." Bright stopped at the first bay of the nearest silo, which held a gleaming grey-blue painted Locust, with the Bright crossed-axe crest on it's flank. A grimy faced Tech scrambled down from a gantry ladder at the crouched scout 'Mech's side, quickly knuckling his forehead and bowing to Bright.
     "She's ready to go m'Lord." The grease-monkey said and Bright turned to me, struggling to keep a frighteningly vicious seeming grin from his cruelly handsome face.
     "Very well then, you'll need to suit up please Darius." I suppose I should have had some idea what I was in for as soon as I saw the 'Mechs, but I hadn't guessed and was a little taken aback, so looked at Bright, then to the Locust and back to Bright again.
     "Beg'pardon?" I asked blankly.
     "Suit up man ... suit up! Where else would a MechWarrior be better 'initiated' than in a 'Mech?" Well what else could I do? Struggling out of my expensive suit, immediately missing the reassuring weight of the Sternsacht in the half-cape's pocket, I noted Bright was stripping down too. Oh this couldn't be good. My stomach was grumbling with fear and I had a sudden need to go to the toilet, but after getting down to my boxers I drew on the cooling vest, which I was proffered by one of the Cabalists, then pulled on soft soled boots and a pair of fingerless MechWarrior gloves.
     "Ahh Jonathan, don't you think you should fill me in a little about what exactly we're doing here? I mean to say, what is this initiation you mention? Have you got a Gauntlet out there or something?" Bright zipped up his cooling suit with a flourish and shook his head.
     "Or something ..." He replied flat voiced, scaring me all the more.
     "Just follow me, I'll show you the way and remember this is a test of character, as well as skill. I've heard a lot about your 'Mechsmanship, it will be interesting to see it for myself." With those dreadfully ominous words he dropped on his own helmet, then ran down the silo bays to one holding a GRF-1N Griffin and began to clamber up the cockpit ladder. Well, with the rest of this bunch of hard-liners hemming me in, I had little choice but to lift the helmet onto myself, then first activate the cooling vest's pump, shivering as the fluid pulsed frigid over my flesh and then climbed the ladder into the Locust's cockpit.

* * *

     The Locust, as you will probably be aware, is the smallest BattleMech in use, it weighs in at only twenty tons and stands barely six meters tall, half the height of many of the heavier 'Mechs. If you're not in a 'Mech yourself it is still a lethal opponent, for example I'd been chased in a hover-APC back on Mallory's World earlier that year by two of them and had nearly been killed, they pack a long barrelled Martell laser cannon, a pair of SperryBrowning heavy machine guns and can run at a fair lick. Still, if I was going to have to face some kind of crazy, probably extremely dangerous, Cabalist initiation test, I'd much rather have been in the jump capable fifty five ton Griffin Bright was mounting at that moment.
     I slid into the Locust's cramped cockpit, fumbled with the neuro-helmet's plug leads and then lit up the HUD and control panels. My scalp tingled as the neuro-receptors linked my brain to the war machine and a crisp male voice issued from the cockpit computer.
     "Bright Scout One is active. Neuro-pattern buffered. Engine online. Weapons online." There was a hum that issued from behind me as the fusion engine powered up and I checked the weapons. According to my HUD my laser cannon was hot and both machine guns were locked and loaded. It occurred to me that, were it not for the fact Bright was at that moment in the cockpit of a Griffin a few meters away, I could have opened up on the conspirators and practically wiped out the Third Covenant Society at that moment.
     "Darius, do you copy?" Bright's excited sounding voice crackled across the comm and I acknowledged him.
     "Good, follow me, we're going for a run." With that he was stamping down the silo avenue and out across the vast open floor of the cave-hangar, the great triple gates were already slowly opening. As I drew the Locust up onto it's birdlike feet, I concentrated through the momentarily confusing sensation of vertigo, then walked the 'Mech out after Bright. The crowd of Cabalists had moved out of the way, over to a bank of vid-screens, where they clustered to presumably watch the 'fun'.
     Inwardly at this point I was raging at Hanse and the Truffle-Hunter for getting me into what looked like it was going to be another life or limb hazard, but as you will know I'm a damn good 'Mech pilot and tried to ease my nerves with that thought.
     We accelerated our 'Mechs up to a jog of roughly thirty klicks per hour and ran out the opened gates and up the long ramp, past the bristling hardpoints of gun emplacements, which tracked us visibly. Up ahead I could make out what looked like some kind of curtain, it seemed to move strangely though and it was only when Bright ran his Griffin straight through it and there was an almighty splash did I realise it was a wall of water; a waterfall.
     I ran my Locust through and experienced a brief reduction in temperature inside the cockpit as water splashed over the 'Mech. Once through and out into the damp night, I turned to see that the waterfall was artfully worked into a low grassy hill, with a folly in the form of a ruined castle tower upon it's crest. It was really most ingenious, with thick creepers and plants clustering about it's sides, you'd never have guessed it hid the entrance to an extensive 'Mech hangar and underground complex.
     Anyway, Bright was off at a run, so I resolved to make use of my Locust's formidable speed to keep up with him. It was another wet night so the ground was somewhat slippery, but soon I was bounding along through the wide white gravel 'Mech lanes that criss-crossed the parks and gardens that surrounded Summer House. Occasionally Bright would point out some landmark or other; the Horace Bright Memorial Bower, the Lantern Gazebo, the Peach Tree Circle, the Rose Fields, the long glass and metal Summerland Arboretum. But whilst prattling on like some kind of crazed gardener, he was taking his 'Mech at perhaps eighty klicks an hour through gaps between mock-classical pillars, over well pruned hedges at a bound, and generally doing his damnedest to get where we were going before me.
     I could see he was clearly a pretty good 'Mech pilot, though it struck me he was too showy. He seemed unable to resist making little flourishes, which in your own garden will do no harm, but out in the field might get you fried. I kept up, just, but I wasn't going to risk showing myself up by skidding on wet grass, so I let Bright have his little victory. Eventually as we approached what looked like a massive black wall in the night's dark, Bright began to slow his 'Mech.
     "The Labyrinth." Bright's happy voice sounded in my ear and we both drew to a halt in front of the sixteen meter high hedges of the great 'Mech scale maze I'd spotted as we'd driven in. My heart sank to my feet as I stood there in my little Locust and realised I was going in there and it was unlikely all I'd have to worry about was finding my way out again.

[Tokage]

Chapter 15

 
     Well, I've been through some nasty 'Mech Gauntlets in my time; for example there are the Old Sak's Academy Lists of course, which I'd infamously raced Justin Allard through earlier that very year, or Solaris City's many Gauntlet style arenas across which I struggled during my most unwilling stint on the Games World as a bound MechWarrior-duellist in the late thirties, or there's that hellish hole in Port Krin where I was made to fight three opposing MechWarriors under the gaze of Kilbourne's most insanely murderous almunus, who'd rained missiles down amidst us as we fought for his jaded enjoyment. Still and all, Bright's Labyrinth stays in my mind as the single most ominous 'Mech testing zone I've ever had to endure.
     There was just something terrifyingly dark and eerie about those towering, very thick, sixteen meter high hedges and I can well remember the churning of my lily-livered stomach as I walked my frail seeming Locust into the entrance whilst fighting to keep from regurgitating that evening's very tasty meal.
     "You must reach the exit on the other side of the maze Darius old fellow." Bright's infuriatingly excited and cheerful sounding voice crackled over the comm. "This entrance will be closed after you are through it. In your journey through you must avoid the traps and hazards along the way.
     I should warn you, I don't believe in soft tests. This is a live fire Gauntlet. Anything you meet in there will be aiming to take you down, hard ... so don't hesitate to respond in kind." Meet? I wondered, quivering in mounting panic. I struggled to calm down, I was a good 'Mech pilot, one of the best. Why, hadn't I beaten that half-breed Capellan Allard himself? This was just a Gauntlet, I'd mastered the Sak's Lists and I told myself I could beat Bright's vicious garden playground too. Well I half believed it. However I wasn't to know that I was being set up from the start.
     "Good luck Darius. I'll see you on the other side." The brute said and with that I paused then slowly walked my 'Mech into his huge maze.
     
* * *

     The hedges towered above the Locust's cockpit on both sides, grim, looming black walls that struck awful memories of the terrible fighting I'd suffered through at Colterville only weeks before.  Though yellow sodium lamps shone at regular intervals along the upper edges of the hedge walls, the night was darker than ever inside and the deep shadows before me could have held all manner of 'Mech-Traps, gun-emplacements, or who knew what.
     I stopped and half turned the light 'Mech around to see ceramite double doors sliding out of the interior of the hedges through which I'd entered, closing off the entrance and sealing me within. As the great maze doors thumped together with a dull clang, I breathed in deeply and switched through the visual sensor modes until I was on night-vision ... then took in the long, to me now green-lit, avenue which I saw stretched about seventy meters away before me. I could make out dark corners indicating avenues running off in several places on either side, but no obvious traps or obstacles seemed apparent at that time.
     I struggled to remember that old adage about always turning left in mazes, but my windy funk was such I immediately began double guessing as to how that could possibly work and besides, I fretted to myself, wouldn't the fiendish swine who'd constructed this death-maze have anticipated such a simple stratagem. So it was, after first checking my weapons systems were active once more, I gingerly began making my way down that main avenue, planning to reach it's end and head right from there.
     I recall it began to rain again as I was walking my 'Mech at perhaps fifteen kph down that first avenue and a dull roll of thunder reverberated overhead with such seeming suddenness I jumped so hard that I nearly opened fire.
     Well, I actually laughed aloud at that,  probably through nervous hysteria looking back, then my nerves eased a little and I started to treat this ordeal as if I'd been back at the Sak. Now, if you've attended a 'Mech training school yourself, you probably know the best way to get through a Gauntlet is actually to not keep stop starting, or taking it too slowly. You find, surprising as it sounds, if you're a fair pilot you are better off taking it at a steady run. Not top speed by any means, unless you're familiar with the hardpoints, traps and obstacles, but mid to three quarter speed. Y'see if you move fast you come up on the traps and guns too quick for them to activate without you first sighting them, and you can sometimes take out gun nests before they open fire, be over traps before they trigger and past obstacles as they are swinging or popping out. It ain't easy, but as you know I'm more than a fair 'Mech pilot.
      My pride battled with my natural cowardice as I hit the pedal and put that puny Locust into a run and watched as the speedometer click up to seventy five kph. The sodium lights began to blur either side of me and I felt a surge of reckless confidence and pride, knowing Bright and his lackeys would doubtless have hidden cameras in here so they could watch my 'initiation' into their little social club. Well, I thought angrily, let them see a real 'Mech pilot in action.
     It was at that moment I spotted a flicker of motion in the middle of the right hand hedge perhaps twenty meters ahead of me. A double linked pair of 60mm autocannons, mounted in a recessed robot hardpoint, were just discernible swivelling rapidly towards me and I instinctively triggered a two megajoule beam of superheated light from my 'Mech's under-slung Martell laser cannon. There was a flash of flame, that flared white amidst the greens and grey-blacks of my Heads-Up-Display for an instant then ebbed to a flicker as I was already speeding past. My plan was working I grinned to myself.
     My confidence grew as I knocked out two more robot hardpoints in the following few minutes and managed to run lightly over a series of trip-pits studded with wicked looking sharpened ceramite armourbreaker spikes. Indeed I was beginning to think it would be no trouble at all to get through to the other side when I heard a distant sounding clatter of machine gun fire from somewhere up ahead.
     I skidded to a half at a T-junction and strained my ears. There it was again, another long ragged burst of fire, coming from some way off. Why was there gunfire from further into the maze? It couldn't have been anything to do with my progress as it was coming from what must have been some good way beyond the extent I'd made it through.
     I gulped hard and the sweat that already ran down my body, induced by the pulsing heat of the fusion generator located a short distance behind the cockpit, turned cold as the obvious realisation hit home. Someone else was in the Third Covenant's Labyrinth with me.
     I remembered Bright's words as I'd been about to enter the maze, 'anything you meet ... will be aiming to take you down'. There was another 'Mech in here and it's pilot clearly would try to kill me, or at best destroy my 'Mech, should our paths cross, indeed he was probably actively hunting for me and had ran foul of a robot hardpoint.
     Jerome! I cursed aloud and prayed it wasn't Bright in that bloody Griffin of his or I'd be finished in seconds if he found me. I chewed my lip pensively for a long moment and debated with myself whether to keep on charging along trying to get through the maze as quickly as possible, or to change my tactics now I knew there was almost certainly a hostile 'Mech somewhere out there. I quickly reasoned my given goal was to get through to the other side, not to take out any opponents in the maze with me. I might get lucky, if I moved quick enough, and not even meet my opposite number. Well, hope springs eternal as they say, so I hit the accelerator pedal again and was off, my heart hammering about as fast as the rapid thumping of my Locust's birdlike metal feet as it tore along at eighty kph.
     I am sure you will not be surprised to learn that I was not to be so lucky.

* * * 
         
     Perhaps unsurprisingly in my state of ball shrivelling funk I began to get sloppy and some five minutes later I triggered a pressure pad at the centre of the gravel avenue I was hurtling down. I'd dodged several of these barely visible pads prior to that point, but my attention at that time was on a shadowy side junction to my right and I missed that one completely.
     There was a sudden screaming 'whoosh-whoosh-whoosh' from behind me and I checked my three hundred and sixty degree HUD to see a cloud of six short range missiles hurtling towards me out of an unnoticed missile pod somewhere within that far hedge. I was dead and I knew it instantly, I barely had time to wail;
     "Oh Mummmmeeee!" Before at least some of the missiles should have impacted and been ripping my light 'Mech's ultra-thin rear armour to molten shreds before punching through into my reactor. However, as I sat there screaming like a eunuch with piles, I was amazed to see three of the missiles fly past either side of me and hear the explosions of the other three into the hedges to my rear. I couldn't credit it, they'd all missed. I was even fairly sure I saw at least one of the missiles swerve as if to avoid me. I actually turned around and stood my 'Mech there while I gaped at the burning craters in the hedges.
     My mind raced as I tried to make sense of this bizarre miracle. Was Bright's bragging about this being a live-fire Gauntlet mere bluster? Had he the sanity to realise killing the Hero of Mallory's World in his own garden would be risky even for him and he'd thus made sure his Labyrinth's many traps and weapons would not actually hit me? I wasn't sure at the time, but personally I wouldn't have put anything beyond Bright. I certainly thought him quite capable of killing me and then covering it up. This fellow was cold and mad enough to actually plan to kill Hanse Davion himself after all. Maybe I'd just been very lucky indeed and the missiles had actually simply missed me by incredible chance ... it was possible but I strongly doubted it.
     Well, though very suspicious now about what was actually going on, I mused at least someone seemed to be looking out for my welfare and pressed on. As the minutes ticked by I made my way through the dark maze, saw no sign of any other 'Mechs and continued to successfully dodge the various traps and hardpoints without getting so much as a scratch. Once again my hopes soared and just as I began to think I might live to see the other side, my heart was to sink again into the bubbling pit of my queasy stomach.
     I was making my way down an avenue I felt sure would be taking me close to the far side of the Labyrinth when a ceramite barrier suddenly slid out across the avenue, completely blocking my path. I stopped, it seemed odd for a Gauntlet obstacle as it had activated long before I'd have been close to it and it simply seemed to be closing off a promising route out of the maze. I had no choice but to turn back and try to make my way around it. Five minutes or so later I was back on track according to my compass and then suddenly another barrier slid out barring my passage once more.
     "Jerome H Blake, you cheating bastards! That's not fair!" I roared into the comm in a rage. Turning I began to make my way back the way I'd come, just as another Locust came around the corner of a side junction from the left some eighty meters ahead of me.
     We saw each other at about the same time and we both reacted with the rapid, instinctive speed of blooded MechWarriors. I back stepped and loosed off with my Martell cannon, the laser beam scorching an explosive line of fire along the hostile 'Mech's right flank, sending molten armour sizzling into the rainy night air. I then smartly dodged right as my enemy fired back at me with his cannon.
     A weirdly symmetrical light 'Mech duel then followed, it was almost like I was fighting a mirror image of myself, the enemy 'Mech was even painted in the same grey-blue colour scheme, with the crossed axes badge of the Bright family on it's side, as was my own machine. Coupled with that I noted my opponent was nearly as skilled a 'Mech pilot as myself, he dodged most of my shots and scored hits on my 'Mech that began to cause the heat to rocket in my cockpit and damage-warning alarms to flash across my HUD as the minutes of the duel dragged on.
     We backed round the hedges, using them for cover, whilst firing till our heat sinks nearly melted. At one point he rushed me trying to get in close so he could switch to his machine guns I think and I panicked somewhat, as is my want, and spinning I ran for the next junction and skidded into it with machine gun fire chewing and spanging off my 'Mech's legs. Getting a grip of myself I spotted a hardpoint opposite my position activate and begin to swivel it's linked autocannons towards me ... the idea hit me instantly as I also registered the sound of running 'Mech feet fast approaching, as my enemy rushed towards my new position.
     Acting on impulse, I skilfully and quickly lowered my 'Mech down as far as it would go, so that the Locust's central body pod was practically resting upon the gravel, it's legs stretched out before it and as the enemy 'Mech charged round the corner he ran straight into a hail of autocannon fire from the hardpoint that was now to his rear. Some of the 60mm shells screamed over my position as I'd intended, but most tore through my unfortunate enemy's machine's rear armour. There were several echoing explosions and then a final blast from inside the 'Mech's main body which blew out a huge jet of flame and sent it's machine guns flying off to either side, where they careened into the hedges.
     I stood in a smooth motion and lasered the autocannon nest as the enemy Locust teetered for a long moment, then fell forward, it's cockpit slamming into the gravel just as it's canopy popped and the pilot punched out ... on fire.
     The explosion in his ammunition had clearly washed his cockpit with flames and he arced through the night like a Sianese firework on the Chancellor's birthday. I tracked the poor bastard to where he impacted down a side avenue, the rain was hissing audibly as it fell upon him as I padded my 'Mech slowly up toward him, smoke billowed around him and he continued to smoulder. It was an act of mercy, I ought to be clear about this, he was charred black, burned terribly, his arms clawing at the gravel in obvious agony. If you'd have seen him you'd have done the same thing ... I tracked my laser cannon down and pressed the firing stud upon my right joystick. He was instantly gone, incinerated in a split second of laser light.
     I felt sick ... that could have been me! Waves of emotion washed over me standing there, relief and residual fear of course, but also anger and hatred towards Bright and his sick little coterie of thugs who'd planned this madness.
     After a minute or two I set off again and finding my way back to where I'd been before the duel, I now found the ceramite barriers were gone. No more gun emplacements or traps triggered and within five minutes I was at the exit, where Bright stood in his Griffin like a sentry.
     "Congratulations old chap!" He called over the comm in what seemed an almost gloating tone of voice. "Fine moves, truly fine. Let's get you back to the house, I fancy you'd appreciate a drink about now?"
     "Who was he?" I croaked, my mouth being drier than an Exituri bar, after the heat and terror of the 'Mech fight.
     "Who? Oh your foe? Don't worry about him. He wasn't one of us never fear. His name was Oliver Jervis ... he was a treacherous spy, a base lying lick-spittle of Hanse and his creature Truston." I was struck dumb with shock as it sank in I'd just killed the Truffle-Hunter's previous agent within the Third Covenant Society; Leftenant Oliver Jervis of the First Guards.

[Tokage]

Chapter 16

     I awoke gingerly the following morning, which was in point of fact that of the twenty sixth of November 3013; the day of the official state funeral of First Prince Ian Davion. I was you see immediately aware of the unpleasant realisation that I had a foul hangover, coupled with a similarly familiar queasy feeling of guilt. If you're a drinking man you might recognise the sensation, that awful almost instinctive awareness one sometimes gets the morning after, when you can't immediately recall what you said or did the night before, but you know it wasn't good.
     I opened my eyes tentatively and breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief to find I was at least in my own quarters at the Mount Barracks, and was just beginning to piece together what had happened after that murderous initiation in Bright's Labyrinth when a slender woman's hand slid across my manly chest and there was a sleepy murmur from my right. I turned sharply to find myself gazing across at the coldly beautiful features of the dozing Lady Emma Jonath, her mussed ash blonde hair half covering her too-perfect face.
     I practically jumped out of my bed in surprise and confusion. What ...? When did ...? How ...? In the condition I was then in, my immediately protesting brain struggled to process this, admittedly not altogether unpleasant, development. I tried to calm myself and rapidly went over what I remembered.
      After my unwitting duel with Truston's missing agent, Bright had led me back to the underground 'Mech hangar below his house. He'd chattered incessantly during the return run across the grounds, but I'd barely been listening, as you might imagine I was going over the situation in my head. The bastard had played me, that was clear, he'd obviously sent Jervis into that maze with similar instructions to those he'd given to me, then ensured the traps and gun nests would not actually kill us and used those ceramite barriers to herd us towards each other ensuring the inevitable duel occurred. Jervis almost certainly had thought he was fighting for his life against one of the Third Covenant's Cabalist MechWarriors.
     Now Bright doubtless thought I was bound to him and his secret society, well he could most likely produce a holo of myself shooting a MIIO agent and brother Guard's officer to death with a 'Mech laser cannon after the poor sod had punched out following a duel. It was not the kind of thing you'd want made public was it?
     I recall I'd had visions of having to justify the killing on prime-time tri-vid news progs, stammering and fidgeting while the audiences boo'ed and hissed at me as if I were a pantomime villain.
     Well, once we were back in that bloody cavernous hangar I struggled to crush down my rising panic as I was surrounded by the crowd of happy, smiling Cabalists who all made great sport of slapping my back, congratulating me on my skill and proposing toasts, which I drank to gratefully from the flute of champagne someone had thrust into my paw.
     If you've ever drank a lot of champagne while nervous or agitated you probably know the stuff can go straight to your head, especially if it's on top of other drinks earlier that evening. Suffice to say it wasn't long before I became beastly sloshed and everything slipped rapidly into a progressively vaguer blur. Of which I could barely remember snatches.
     Bright clinking his flute against mine, his black eyes flashing with vicious amusement and roaring out a toast to me, 'the Hero of Mallory's World and the Victor of the Labyrinth', as the cocky swine put it ... a long stagger back up to the main house along that white painted underground corridor, while the Cabalists all sang that bloody silly old drinking song Roast Rax and Potatoes ... Emma Jonath taking my hand and singing alongside me as we went ... then later I was drinking more champagne out on a veranda overlooking a pretty little flower garden and at one point pissing drunkenly up the back of a statue of one of Bright's forebears ... interminable bellowed toasts ... dancing ... falling down over a coffee table and Emma Jonath helping me to my most unsteady feet ... pressing against her and my mind a hazy mess realising she was kissing me.
     How we'd made our way back from Summer House to the Mount was a complete mystery to me, I assumed Lady Emma had taken me in the chauffeur driven groundcar she'd arrived in. My mind was also a blank as to whether we'd actually done the deed, so to speak. Personally I doubt I would have been capable, as drunk as I had to have been, but it was a fact the honourable Lady Jonath was in a state of complete undress under the rumpled silk sheets of my bed ... I quickly checked just to be sure you understand. Well, she was a fine looking piece of totty as I have already said. What else could a fellow of my habits be expected to do?
     However, before you think too badly of your correspondent, I should say as I slumped down again onto the edge of my bed, whilst looking distractedly across at her firm bare breasts, I was struck by a redoubled sense of guilt for a long moment. I was somewhat smitten at that time with Olivia Fenlon as you may have guessed and I did feel genuinely bad about risking that fledgling affair through a drunken one-nighter with a stuck up Cabalist tart. Especially as I couldn't even remember the bed sports in question!
     Looking back though, I blame that flash of guilt on the hangover and rest assured it didn't last long. Well, I reasoned to myself, if I'd already probably had this Cabalist wench it wouldn't hurt to take second helpings, also even back then I'd long before learnt that a spot of the other is the best cure there is for a hangover and so, putting all thoughts of having killed Truston's man Jervis out of my mind, I slid over next to the sleeping beauty and set about waking her up with one of my trademark techniques. The details of which I shall not go into here. Let's just say La Jonath, once roused from sleep, seemed most susceptible to me and we enjoyed a jolly hour bouncing each other energetically around my quarters, before she slipped out with a final blown kiss to prepare for her minor role in that day's state funeral.
     It's notable that, younger and greener as I was back then, at no point during my early morning's exercise with Lady Emma did it occur to me that she'd not been actually smitten with me, but rather had almost certainly been ordered to make me feel very welcome and was just one more gift from Bright to bind me to him and his murderous band.

* * *
     
     So it was, with a thumping headache and a back savaged by the frenzied fingernails of the sister of the Duke of Filtvelt, I limped across to the parade ground of the Mount Barracks a good hour later than ordered. I was naturally rigged out in full blue and gold dress uniform, with polished golden spurs and my gleaming Silver Sunburst at my throat on it's black and silver ribbon, but I must admit I looked as pale as a jumpsailor on a long haul and as sick as a Lyran who's just lost his wallet. Indeed some news-sheets commented upon my particularly crestfallen and doleful appearance, for example I recall the Herald said of me the following day;
     "One did not need to guess the deep emotional torment that wrenched most especially at the indomitable spirit of the Hero of Mallory's World upon this blackest of days. His noble suffering, misplaced guilt, and wounded soul were evident in every stiff gesture, in his visibly furrowed brow, his sickly pallor and even his occasional winces as if he were in physical pain at having to bid a final farewell to his beloved cousin and commander-in-chief."
     I wonder what they'd have thought if they'd known the truth was I was suffering from a surfeit of booze and the lusty attentions of a high blooded trollop? Damned hypocrites would doubtless have been vocally furious, whilst of course secretly envying me.
     That's by-the-by, I don't think it's necessary to go into too deep a description of Ian's funeral here, the bloody event lasted the best part of a day after all and my role in it, though prominent, was actually rather limited. You can read my long winded and self aggrandising blow by blow account of the formalities in my official memoirs if you are really interested, or if you simply need a good soporific, but herein I will only lay out for you a rough idea of the timetable and some of the notable sights from that day that have stayed with me ever since.
     As I say I arrived at my appointed position on the Mount Barracks parade ground an hour late and faced that ageing Major of the Redbacks who was in charge of the ceremonials as he turned puce with rage at the sight of me, but was such an old duffer he found he couldn't actually raise his voice to a member of the Davion family. Naturally everything was being organised so meticulously that we actually had another whole hour before we were due to set off and I recall feeling so ill that I had to lean upon the cold metal of that antique grey-green APC which had served as the Royal Gun Carriage and carried the bodies of dead First Princes for generations.
     A band was tuning their instruments nearby I recall and I could feel the shudder in the earth of 'Mech footfalls as the four great black painted Atlas BattleMechs, that would lead the funeral procession down the Mount, were moved almost tentatively to their pre-set go points. A drizzle of sleety rain began to fall from the lowering dark grey cloudy sky and way back down the parade ground massed ranks of Guards infantry mustered behind some of the highest nobles in the Federated Suns.
     I couldn't spot Olivia amongst the Ducal ranks, where as Duchess of Chesterton she would probably be found, but did quickly notice Michael Hasek-Davion standing apart from a cluster of Draconis Marcher Dukes and Duchesses. The bastard stood looking up at the sky, his usual mask of aloof disdain firmly fixed in place, while Capellan March officers and nobles stood near him but seemed to feel he wanted privacy and quiet.
     What a sight they all made, I'd never seen so many of our realm's rulers in one place before that time and I can close my eyes even today and see Syrtan pocket nobles gaudy with jewels and dressed in heavy black fur broad-shoulder cloaks over dark green uniforms, or Capellan looking Marquesses and Marquessas wearing flowing black gowns decorated with subtle golden Sunburst and Sword patterns, shaven headed and top-knotted borderers from the Kuritan Front stood in the cold sleet discussing who knew what with fat Crucian corporate Barons. Shabbily dressed yokel-Dukes from the Periphery Outback, many with several ornately engraved duelling pistols stuffed into their belts, one of them even wearing what appeared to be an approximation of  ComStar robes, stood gawking at the Palace while being openly mocked by giggling socialite Counts and Countesses in the latest Court fashions. A black suited fellow carrying a worn handled tulwar sword and wearing a black turban set with a diamond the size of a hen's egg stalked by into the throng, only to be followed moments later by a pair of white whiskered Robinsonian grandees dressed in smart, yet thirty year old, formal dress uniforms and wearing little cloth skull caps.
     Perhaps thinking my position, leaning there with my face against the Gun Carriage, indicated I was in a deep state of private and contemplative mourning, the crowds left me alone but my attention was eventually drawn back to that uptight Major who's name escapes me and I took my place beside the head of the converted old armoured vehicle. As I have said previously, I was one of the eight man Bearer Party, one chap being drawn from each RCT of the Brigade of Guards, that would march slowly alongside the Carriage as it ponderously rolled along the course of the processional. Marching slightly ahead of us, directly behind the Atlas 'Mechs and at the head of the actual funeral party, were the six very eminent Pall Bearers; being Hanse himself of course, Aaron Sandoval the Duke of Robinson and Commander of the Draconis March, Marshal Doger of the DMI, that bastard Truffle-Hunter Truston of the MIIO, the Fleet Admiral of the day whose name will mean nothing to you young pups and lastly the quietly dignified Countess Naomi Gavin Rollings who was perhaps the most consistent of Ian's numerous on-and-off mistresses.
     Naturally Hanse had blatantly and deliberately snubbed Hasek-Davion by leaving him way back amongst the hundred or so Dukes and Duchesses who were walking some way behind the Gun Carriage. Hasek-Davion was entitled to a position up with the Pall Bearers and it must have stung the proud swine badly to have been so publicly put down.
     Well there were several minutes of shuffling as the nobility jostled into their assigned and carefully ranked positions behind us, then several regimental bands struck up Chopin's Funeral March and we were off slowly on our way. Four hundred tons of BattleMechs leading the crawlingly slow moving column, the towering war machines ponderously swung their vast legs forward in an odd looking slow march, each great foot landing slightly after that of the 'Mech before it and the sombre music was thus punctuated with regular bone-jarring thumps. Not what you want to be in the midst of when you're feeling the worse for wear I can tell you.
     It was a long, surprisingly tiring, walk I recall, though the exact route escapes me at the moment. We had to keep pace with the very slowly moving Gun Carriage you understand, which was easier said than done, whilst retaining our dignified appearances and not allowing ourselves to be distracted by the juddering mini landquakes of the 'Mech footsteps, whilst proceeding out through the gates of the Mount Barracks, and down Peace Lane.
     Immediately we were out onto the downward slope of the 'Lane we found ourselves moving solemnly down a great avenue of people, the entire populace of Avalon City and doubtless many other places besides had clearly turned out to pay their last respects to the Hound. They were spread out along each side of Peace Lane and up there on the Mount we could see out down past the quartet of slow marching 'Mechs over a great mass of black clad humanity that stretched down into North End and away into the distance. As Chopin's March followed us downhill a strange mutter of respectful awe seemed to move before us through the crowd and there was the constant sound of tens ... perhaps hundreds ... of thousands of people sobbing. A constant low background ripple of grief.
     Funnily enough the thing is what really struck me and remains in my mind today was the great number of umbrellas people had up to fend off the cold sleet, I had never and have never since seen so many black umbrellas spread before me and I recall thinking for one confused moment that I was looking out across some kind of bizarre field of black mushrooms.
     I was gratified to hear a few brave shouts of my name from adoring civies as we went on, mostly though the more vocal of the, generally very subdued, crowd called out in sympathy to Hanse, who was walking just ahead of me. He was dressed in a black and gold mourning dress uniform I recall and his back was ramrod straight, his face grim from what little I could see of it.
     I don't know how long we walked, it seems like hours in my memory, we certainly took a very circuitous processional route through the heart of Avalon City, then back towards the Mount and ultimately along the Circular, which had naturally been cleared of all traffic and was jammed with crowds of mourners. We eventually reached the steps of Notre Dame de Avalon and after the Pall Bearers stood at their assigned positions on the Cathedral steps there came the moment I'd personally been dreading.
     As a member of the Bearer Party, along with my seven fellows, I was expected to lift then carry Ian's brute of a ceramite, lead and Terran oak triple casket from the Carriage, into the Cathedral, then up the central aisle. We had of course practised the 'Bearers slow march', the day before, which had been painfully slow and laboured. Y'see normal AFFS marching, or walking for that matter, is to step off with the left foot swinging the right arm forward, although one often sees the left arm working with the left leg when people are trying a little too hard to remember what comes naturally. If a member of a group, the only real worry is to remember to keep in step and to move in unison. Marching with a Coffin, where each man steps off with his inside foot i.e., left hand four men with their right foot and the others with their left foot keeping step with the person marching in front of the Coffin, is not so easy. This method of marching is alien to Fed Suns military ceremony, which dictates that the first bang on the drum on stepping off should coincide with the left foot. The reason for Bearers marching in this peculiar fashion is to stop the Coffin from swaying side to side, and synchrony of step had had to be achieved before we started to even use the practice Coffin. We'd fumbled it several times the day before and with my back feeling like I'd been flogged by a Kuritan drill sergeant, I was far from sure we wouldn't make a dreadful hash of it and even possibly drop Ian in front of the interstellar press!
     As it happens it went very smoothly, my opposite number was young Lees Hamman, who was then a Leftenant in the Brigade. He was extremely competent and steered the rest of us subtly so that nothing went wrong. Still, at that moment when we all lifted the flag draped casket from the Carriage to our shoulders I felt a fierce stab of pain at my aching back and it took all my strength not to cry out or drop the flaming thing.
     We pulled off the Bearers slow march well enough no one spotted the little errors we made as we marched our way up the central aisle, to the accompaniment of slow echoing bells from high above us. As we walked I glanced across what looked like hundreds of assembled nobles, foreign dignitaries, civilian celebrities, and military brass, all were turned and watching us intently. Upon setting down that beast of a casket I gratefully settled down along with Lees and the rest of my fellow Bearers, in the row behind Hanse and the other Pall Bearers, to spend the next couple of hours trying not to fall asleep.
     The service was dull to say the least, the Pope of New Avalon naturally led the ceremony and his by turns boring, then ranting, sermon was no help. I know for a fact I dozed off at one point, because I woke with a start, to Lees' obvious scowling disapproval next to me, at the sound of Hanse's emotion wracked voice filling the great Cathedral half way through the poem that he'd clearly chosen to round off his eulogy to his beloved brother;
     "... has made us rarer gifts than gold.
     These laid the world away; poured out the red
     Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
     Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
     That men call age; and those who would have been,
     Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
     Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
     Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
     Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
     And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
     And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
     And we have come into our heritage."
     Well, as you may be aware, Hanse has always been a lover of poetry. Odd that ain't it? I mean he's directly caused more deaths than anyone else alive today and as I know better than most is one of the most ruthless sods who ever ruled the Federated Suns, yet I've known him grow deuced soppy over a few lines of doggerel verse. Whoever it was said that Prince's are all dangerously crazy was a wise chap.
     I wont go into further description of the hefting of the casket back to the Carriage and the slow march back up the Mount to the Davion Family Crypt. Where Hanse entered alone for an hour after Ian had been laid in his tomb. I will simply note that the day of Ian's funeral was not at an end for me ... a message was flashing on my p-comp as I wiped the sweat from my brow and sipped the tot of rum I'd been handed by a flunky. It was an invite from Bright, phrased very much like an order, to meet him for a drink at the Fox Den Tavern in an hour.
     The game was afoot once more, even as Hanse stood over his dead brother's corpse in that high security crypt, and I was yet again about to face a life or death ordeal.

[Tokage]

Chapter 17

     Back at the start of this story I warned you that there would be elements of it that you might find hard to credit. Well what I was to learn in the Fox Den Tavern and later in Bright's hover-limo, on that evening of the day of Ian's State Funeral, was to be so incredible that at the time I could scarcely believe it myself, so you may think ol' Dee is telling you porkies ... however I assure you that I am only ever truthful with you in these my secret memoirs and what I was to learn about Bright, the Third Covenant Society, their shadow backers and Bright's offer to myself that night are all true. Bright was insane, I knew that of course after the previous nights events, but even then I hadn't guessed just quite how mad he really was ... I was about to learn and it wasn't going to be pleasant.
     I didn't know this back then of course, I thought I was just going to have to endure another night of Cabalist politics and perhaps be able to pump the Crazy Captain a little more about his plans. I was naturally nervous, well Bright now held the fact I'd been tricked into killing an MIIO agent over me and the fellow was obviously very dangerous, but I felt at least relieved we were meeting in a public place, where my unseen secret service tails would doubtless be in attendance.
     There was an official Memorial Ceremonial at the Palace that night, but I quietly slipped off down the Mount through the Peace Garden. I'd not had a chance to duck back to quarters to change, so I was still dressed up to the nines and drew many an admiring glance from the ladies as I hurried along the neat Park lanes. However my windy stomach was beginning to churn again in apprehension of another meeting with Bright and I barely noticed the warm looks that were thrown my way.
     I stopped for a moment as I spotted the twin yellow-white sodium street lamps framing the nondescript doorway of the Fox Den. I'd been in the 'Den several times back when I'd been on New Avalon as part of the Fourth Guards, after I was kicked out of the Sak and before we'd shipped out for Mallory's World, but I'd thought it a rather tame and boring hole. My tastes ran more to the wilder nightspots and flesh pits. Blake alone knows how long the 'Den's been there thinking about it, my Dad mentioned beginning his stag night in there, I recall, so it's been a Guards haunt since quite some time before the turn of the century at least.
     I sauntered in past the usual pair of tough looking ex-Guards infantry vets who were serving as bouncers on the door and entered the warmth of the Tavern bar. There was some maudlin ballad being piped through the audio speakers, the singer was Rose Vaedeker I realised, a famous chanteuse and according to public gossip one of Ian's women, so it was probably somebody's idea of a tribute to the Hound to have her playing. There were about twenty Brigade officers clustered at the bar, some chatting sadly recounting war stories about Ian, others just standing there listening to Vaedeker wailing out about her 'lost soldier boy'.
     Glancing around I spotted Bright and Emma Jonath seated in armchairs by the fireplace, both in smart green walking out dress uniforms bearing the patch on the First Guards at their shoulders. Bright's ever present Saurimat Fedayeen bodyguard-come-assassin, Salah Al'Ain, stood mutely at his shoulder, dressed in a plain black business suit and casting baleful glares in the direction of any other patrons that walked even vaguely close to the fireplace nook. I raised my hand at Bright and he smiled and nodded back at me. Deciding I needed a little Canopian courage if I was to have to endure another night of extremist politics and plotting, I ducked through the crowd at the bar and was almost immediately spotted by a bunch of chaps from the Crushers. They cheered at the sight of me and insisted on standing my drinks all night, I graciously accepted and enjoyed a couple of minutes of their friendly company, before sucking in my breath and apologising for leaving them, I made my way across the pub to the fireplace holding a pint of Avalonian Ale.
     Lady Emma stood as I drew close, her face cool and emotionless, she pulled out the stuffed leather armchair she'd been sitting in for me.
     "Emma can't join us tonight I'm afraid Darius. She has duties elsewhere." Bright announced as I nodded my thanks to Emma, she said nothing at all, simply turned and walked elegantly off and out the pub. I watched her go, feeling more than a little curious as to whether her 'duties' were on behalf of the Brigade, or the Third Covenant Society. Taking a pull at my ale I studied Bright over the top of my glass, noting that Al'Ain had stepped back a little as if to ensure no one would get within eaves-dropping distance of us. Bright was sat with a glass of brandy in his right hand, which was resting upon the arm of his chair, a cigarillo in his left, looking every inch the man of power. He smiled again at me and nodded in the direction Emma had departed in.
     "I'm please to hear Emma got you back to quarters safely last night. You seemed quite ill." I couldn't tell if the swine was being sarcastic, his tone was if anything all concern, so deciding to play the honest soldier I swallowed my natural timidity and essayed an annoyed scowl.
     "To be honest Jonathan killing a fellow member of the Brigade ain't how I usually round off an evening meal. I got heartily pissed to deaden the guilt." Bright looked a little taken aback at my deliberately harsh though low pitched tone. Well, remember I was meant to be Darius Do-Right as far as he knew and a man who was actually deserving of my public reputation, even one who apparently held Cabalist views, would certainly still be miffed about being tricked into a death match with a brother Guards officer.
     "Ahh, yes, sorry about that old chap." Bright said as if he were a small boy apologising for playing a harmless prank, I swear he actually looked mildly embarrassed for a moment, then his eyes flashed with that dangerous glitter of spiteful pride I saw all too often in him. "Still, you've proved yourself worthy of membership in our ... group. Your 'Mechsmanship was impressive and with your grasp of tactics you should make a fine field commander one day."
     He raised his brandy to me and I grudgingly drank some more ale. I glanced past Bright to find that black bastard Al'Ain's eyes on me, his expression unreadable as ever. Bright leaned forward, drawing his chair close to mine so our knees were almost touching, the red flames in the nearby fireplace reflected flickering in his eyes.
     "Darius old chap, I wanted to impress upon you man to man just how very much your good will and support means to us ... to me." He paused, glanced to either side and then continued in a low voice; "Darius you have no idea what destiny can hold for you under my guidance. I watched the live tri-vid feeds today, only Hanse himself is as popular in the public's mob consciousness at the moment. We can achieve more than you've ever dreamed possible in a very short time." Bright paused again, this time waiting as a Redback Leftenant wandered past on his way to the Gents. Then almost eagerly he leant back in towards me.
     "I can raise you to the highest position in our reborn state." His eyes fixed on mine and I drew in a breath and decided to play my simple soldier routine a bit more. To be honest at the time I couldn't see where Bright was going with this line of conversation.
     "Oh come now Jonathan, you've been deuced kind to me ... on the whole. But let's face it I'm just a pretty raw Leftenant. Oh I'm flavour of the month with the public at the moment, but they'll forget me as soon as the next 'war hero' comes along. My face in the newssheets will soon just be wrapped around portions of fish and chips like all the others." Bright smiled at me as if I was being immensely naive.
     "You're wrong Darius. You are a member of the Davion Royal Family, a cousin to Ian and Hanse themselves. Many in the Brigade and beyond already regard you as Ian's protégé and claim he was grooming you for high office." I snorted at that without thinking, Bright scowled and carried on;
     "What? You think Ian took such a close interest in every young Davion who turns up at the Palace? Don't you believe it. Darius, if you follow my ... advice and direction, there is no limit to the rank you might reach ... even perhaps ... First Prince." I think this was one of those few times in my life when my jaw actually dropped in amazement, just like the expression, I gazed at this crazy fool in dumbfounded shock. My brain reeling. The idea was preposterous to put it mildly. But before I could even begin to structure my disbelieving thoughts and raise some kind of sane objection he saw my reaction.
     "Don't allow yourself to be bound by the tame philosophies and restrictive laws of our present culture old chap. The times are going to change, rapidly, everything about the old order will be overturned, except that is the sensible vestiges of the Second Covenant set down by our Neo-Feudalist forebears, which we shall together reinstate and rebuild. Think about it Darius ... I'll make you First Prince inside a year." I can still see him there, the flames flashing across his dark coal like eyes, bent forward, his voice persuasive. Lucifer himself, offering Faustus the world. Well, something like that.
     I suppose it was flattering in a way. I mean how often are you offered supreme power? It was the first time for me, though not the last. Oh yes, I've almost become ruler of a realm or two in my time; Canopus was mine for the taking twice for example if I'd wanted the trouble and I still say I could have been sitting where my old school chum Justin Allard is now, as co-ruler of St Ives, if I'd been prepared to stomach Candace's haughtiness and bizarre personality shifts. Then there was Terrible Tortuga of course, but I'd never have lasted long as King-Consort to Lady Death Trevaline, even if I could have avoided being stung by those foul pet scorpions she let run loose under her bed sheets.
     At the time I must confess for a very brief moment I did almost let Bright's manipulative flattery sway me. Well it would be a better man than yours truly who didn't at some time day dream about being lord of all he surveys; possessing the keys to enormous state treasuries, having toadies and flunkies fawning at your every whim, any and all women you ever wanted throwing themselves at you, absolute freedom to bully and enjoy vicious fun at other's expense and to be beyond any law or vengeance. It was tempting ... but even if it had been Hanse himself coming to me and saying;
      "Oh I'm done with it all Darius. I'm off to live on a rock in the Periphery. I've left orders, it's all yours old son; crown, sceptre and throne. Do your worst." Even then, I would still have said 'thankee Sire but I'd rather paint my arse red and moon the Coordinator' ... you see being First Prince is not the dream job your average man in the street tends to imagine it is. Well think about it for a minute; you're constantly under threat of being assassinated, our realm is after all surrounded by highly militaristic enemy nations that look upon the Fed Suns rather like a starving Tharkadian gourmet sizes up an overweight turkey, there are even always very able and totally ruthless bastards on our own side wanting nothing more out of life than to step over your dead body to reach the throne themselves. On a more mundane level you are expected to spend your days and most nights too poring over economic reports, intelligence briefings, population statistics, trade figures, treaty negotiations, military budget applications, agricultural planning dossiers and so on ad infinitum. Not just reading this never ending flow of boring facts mind you, but having to form a sensible opinion on them too and indeed making actual vitally important decisions based upon them.
     Of course coupled with the above very good reasons for not wanting to become First Prince, I was being offered the role by the man who was so hungry for power personally he was at the time planning to murder the very chap who was just about to fill the position in question. Not a fact that inspired one's trust in the sincerity of his offer I think you'll agree. Aside from all that there were almost certainly so many candidates for the job who were officially far higher in line than myself, and besides far better qualified, that you could probably fill a sports stadium with them.   
     I probably muttered some kind of amazed and frankly baffled noises, but Bright rattled on.
     "You don't know our plans yet Darius old chap. Believe me we are not fools rushing in. We have planned each step of the way. When Hanse is ... gone ... we will allow chaos to reign only for the shortest of times. We will bring order and the people will thank us for it. With you as our public face and first supporter they will know we are to be trusted.
     I ... we ... will give the Federated Suns a glorious victory, of the like and scale unseen since the First Succession War. Indeed an end to the war on the ... ahh I wish I could tell you more here, but we must be careful. Please let us adjourn to my hovo-limo and I will tell you more." Al'Ain drew in towards us and so I stood, and walked out alongside Bright who nodded politely in recognition to some of the chaps at the bar.
     The 'limo was parked a short way up the road, Bright got in the far side, while Al'Ain held the door for me. I entered and Al'Ain slid in and pulled the door too behind himself. I turned to Bright as the limo pulled away, to suddenly find a blade pressed hard against my throat from behind.
     I gasped in horror and Al'Ain hissed in my ear.
    "Do not move, or I will kill you. You will feel a brief pain." Bright had turned his face away from me and seemed to be watching the street streaking past outside. I was so terrified I couldn't speak, then gasped again and jerked as a needle was rammed unceremoniously into my thigh. I felt light headed and thought I was about to pass out, then Bright turned to me and smiled almost sadly.
     "Sorry old chap, but we have to be sure y'see? I'll make it up to you if you're on the level, as I believe you to be. That was what a layman might refer to as a 'truth drug' ... we're just going to ask you a few questions. Please relax."

[Tokage]

Chapter 18

     I tried to gather a coherent string of words together in an attempt to object to this sudden and truly horrific turn of events but, whether because of the drug I'd been jabbed full of, or because of my natural raging sense of panic, all I found myself able to do was open and close my mouth like a fish thrown out of it's tank. Bright lent over and patted my knee, smiling apologetically.
     "Calm down Darius old chap, if it were up to me we wouldn't be sitting here, but y'see my associates wish to be one hundred percent sure of your loyalty to our goals." I felt Al'Ain's blade shift slightly and he hissed in my ear, his voice strangely no longer the gruff growls I'd heard him utter up until then. Now he spoke in quiet, precise, clipped Anglic with no trace of the Arabic accent of before.
     "When Captain Bright calls the chemical I have injected into your bloodstream a 'truth drug' he is being extremely liberal and far from descriptively accurate. Typically drugs used to illicit truths from a person are actually sedatives, such as ethanol, scopolamine, sodium pentathol, or neo-tripentathol, all these forms of drug interfere to one degree or another with a subjects judgement and higher cognitive functions. Believe it or not, many intelligence services, or civilian professionals, to this day believe the same results can be achieved with alcohol. Do you find that surprising?" I gagged, feeling the black swine's knife bite into my Adam's apple, and nodded as imperceptibly as I could, whilst wondering who the hell this bastard really was. The way he was talking now ... well he didn't seem like a bodyguard all of a sudden did he though?
     "It is true I assure you. I have it on good authority the Lyran intelligence services use a special blend of near-pure grain alcohol to verify that agents returning from foreign missions were not compromised by their foes. Imagine ... pure and simple alcohol ... in the thirty first century!
     You are probably wondering about the many fictional accounts of intelligence interrogation which often give such drugs near magical abilities? Well, generally speaking that is fantasy Leftenant, for centuries it has been known information obtained by sedative-type 'truth drugs' has been shown to be highly unreliable, with subjects apparently freely mixing fact and fantasy. You may not believe this, but the reason such unreliable methods have continued to be used down the generations is that much of their effect relies upon the belief of the subject that they cannot tell a lie while under the influence of the drug. In other words they serve a largely psychological purpose.
     Rest assured the drug I have injected you with is not a sedative in any sense. It is a genetically engineered compound called Virtus IV ... the Fourth Virtue. You will not have heard of it. When a person lies their body gives them away in numerous, often imperceptible, biological ways. Blood pressure, heart rate, respiration are obvious 'tells', but there are several other subtler physical clues ... the genius who created Virtus IV programmed the drug to react aggressively to a subject that exhibits these usually invisible physical 'tells'. The more 'tells' the drug detects the harder it will attack the subjects central nervous system ... I am told the pain can be excruciating. I have seen one subject suffer such severe nerve damage, after a particularly prolonged interrogation, he never walked again. Leftenant Jervis suffered several hours of near constant pain before we broke him.
     However, if you simply tell the truth the Virtus compound will dilute and be gone from your bloodstream within a few hours."
     With that the brute drew his blade from my throat and I sat numb with paralysing terror, at the horrific realisation that these two vicious bastards had filled me full of some kind of neuro-toxin lie detector drug. It struck me instantly at that awful moment, as I glimpsed peaple walking along the sidewalks outside, I lie with almost every breath I take and I didn't dare say anything for fear I would be struck with instant crushing pain. Bright shrugged again at the end of Al'Ain's gloating little science lesson.
     "As Salah says Darius, just please tell the truth. I am sure you have nothing to fear." Well Bright had me cornered didn't he just. I mean I couldn't lie without it being very painful to myself and patently obvious to them, if that happened I almost certainly wouldn't ever be seen alive again. But how could I tell the truth and not give away the fact I was a spy, albeit a most unwilling one, in Hanse's service, working to bring down Bright's whole enterprise?

* * *

     Two important things were to save me; firstly that Bright's vanity and pride were so great I think he'd already convinced himself that he'd won me over with his oratory, that I was 'on the level', held staunchly Cabalist beliefs and harboured a deep dislike for Hanse and all he stood for. Secondly, I wasn't at heart the man Hanse, Sortek and even Bright thought I was. As you know, I was and remain secretly a completely selfish coward, who is utterly uninterested in politics and 'the good of the realm' ... in fact the only thing I cared, or care, about is myself and it's a lesson to you chaps who fret about the welfare of others that my inherent selfishness was to save my skin that night, whereas if I'd been the noble and daring ass Jervis probably had been I'd have been murdered before sunrise. Makes you think that don't it?
     "Very well, let's get this over with." Bright began in a brisk voice. "Darius, please give me your name, rank and present posting." I sat silent and quaking, then cautiously opened my mouth and answered in a doubtless quavering squeak.
     "Darius Davion, MechWarrior-Leftenant. Fourth Guards RCT ... err ... New Avalon." I felt nothing, save a slight sensation of goose bumps along the skin of my arms. Bright went on to ask a few more bland tester questions, which I had no trouble answering honestly, then sprang this one on me;
     "Darius, I heard a rumour that during your famous 'Mech race against Allard through the Sakhara Lists you won by cheating ... is that true?" Well, you must remember I'd been lying about that bloody night for months by then and I was well and truly caught out;
     "No that's ... ARGGGHHHH ... BLOODY HELLLLL!" The pain exploded like acid under my skin, then spread, it genuinely felt like my flesh was melting from within. I thrashed in absolute agony for what seemed like minutes, but was probably only seconds, until Salah threw him left arm across me and said softly.
     "Breath ... breeeath. That's it. The pain will pass momentarily. You understand now. If we were to repeat that question and you lied again the pain would in essence double. Do you understand?" I sobbed as I experienced a sensation of shivering cold, sweat poured from me and I wiped at the involuntary tears that had sprung to my eyes. I looked at my hands expecting to see savage burns or blistering but they seemed merely pale.
     Now, if Bright hadn't been the proud, head-up-his-arse, madman he was he would simply have asked me if I was working for Hanse or anyone else and would have caught me out immediately. Thankfully, he conducted the interrogation as if he were fishing for compliments and it enabled my previously mentioned lack of scruples to save me.
     "So Darius ... are you loyal to your cousin Hanse?" My mind raced, then with a huge internal sigh of relief, I paused for a moment before honestly answering.
     "Not especially." My skin barely prickled. Well, let's face it my only loyalty lies with myself. Bright smiled, but Al'Ain spoke up again in that somehow disturbingly precise voice he'd begun to use.
     "Not good enough ... answer only with yes or no, unless we tell you otherwise. Ask him again." I noted with surprise Al'Ain practically barked this like an order at Bright and I was gratified to see Jonathan visibly bristle, but he asked again anyway and I answered in a firm negative. Bright glanced over my shoulder towards Al'Ain with an aura of vindication, then moved on.
     "You have told me you hate Sortek and his influence on Hanse. Is that true?" Another gimmee I happily realised.
     "Yes absolutely." If anything this time I swear I actually experienced a pleasurably soothing chill. Bright smiled widely.
     "Don't worry old chap when we take over, that particular milksop will be first against the wall. So, do you believe in and agree with the aims of the Third Covenant Society?" This was a broader question and I wasn't sure how best to answer. After a long moment, during which my brain raced, I decided to play for time and hope for an easier question.
     "Ahh, well I don't really know all the Society's aims do I? I mean we were getting into details last night and then I got beastly drunk. So ... err ... what aims are you referring to?" Bright scowled then rattled off the following in a brisk tone.
     "We aim to prevent the reduction of the rights and privileges of the Federated Suns MechWarrior nobility and return our class to their proper position as the rulers of our realm. We mean to ..." He was about to continue of course, but I realised this was a good point to jump in before he reached anything I'd have problems lying about;
     "YES!" Bright paused, slightly thrown by my false-cheery response. He looked at me quizzically for a moment and I think Al'Ain nodded him on as Bright glanced again over my shoulder before continuing.
     "Very well, if we in the Third Covenant Society were to utilise the support of a foreign state generally considered to be an enemy nation in order to achieve some or all of our aims, would this cause you to oppose us?" Well, an interesting question I think you'll agree. I noticed Bright seemed uneasy as he asked it and a palpable air of tension seemed to thicken around us. Thankfully this was another one I could honestly answer, as it would take a hell of a lot more than the fact these Cabalists were apparently getting foreign support to get me to willingly oppose them. Remember I was only working for Hanse against them because I felt I'd had no other option, no safe way not to in the circumstances my beloved cousin had arranged. Still, I remembered, I was meant to be an honourable Davion MechWarrior and assumed what I hoped would be a troubled frown.
     "I don't like to answer that one in a simple yes or no ... but as you're in charge Bright, I'd have to say no ... I wouldn't by choice actively oppose you in that circumstance." Bright preened visibly at my carefully chosen words. As I say he was so vain and full of himself he couldn't see I thought him a psychotic ass, he thought, as I'd meant him to, that I trusted his judgement and abilities. As he sat basking in what he doubtless saw as his confirmation I was on their side it occurred to me that it was looking less and less likely Hasek-Davion was in any way involved with the Third Covenant Society. I was actually itching to start demanding some answers from them, but I knew that vile drug was still coursing through my body so I kept my trap shut in case I inadvertently lied.
     "Salah old fellow," Bright said to his companion. "I think we've heard enough now surely. Bad enough we put Darius through this, we shouldn't prolong it ... don't you think?" Bright asked and Al'Ain hesitated a short moment then nodded, before turning to me and fixing me with his suddenly chilling dark eyes.
     "So Darius ... as you have most likely guessed by now, I am not simply Captain Bright's bodyguard and orderly. Rather I am an agent of the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine, sent to offer the friendship and full support of the Dragon to Captain Bright and his Third Covenant Society." For the second time that night my jaw literally dropped in shocked surprise. A Kuritan secret agent. Bright was in bed with the Snakes!
     Jesus and Jerome, I realised with a sickening sense of horror, the Third Covenant Society were backed by the Draconis Combine.

[Tokage]

Chapter 19

     Al'Ain sat there watching my reaction closely, the lights of the Old Town slipping past behind him on the other side of the hover-limo's smoked armourglass windows. I struggled to think of the right reaction and all I could find to say at the time was.
     "Ahh, oh really? You don't say?" Al'Ain nodded at me slowly and at that Bright clearly felt he needed to jump in and offer me an explanation.
     "Darius, I realise this must come as a shock old chap. Please though, let me explain before you think me a traitor." Well I already knew he was a traitor, but even I hadn't thought him the type to sell his country out to the Snakes. The thought of Brigade officers siding with House Kurita in a plot to assassinate Hanse Davion on, or around the time of, his coronation was too incredible for words. My brain refused to accept it. Kurita represented the arch-foe of our nation and military, while the Brigade was the very touch stone of Fed Suns military honour and supposedly unquestioning loyalty to the Davion family. It made no sense to me then and I looked at Bright so clearly appalled that he visibly quailed a little before my gaze. However there was rapidly that flash of fierce pride behind his eyes once more.
     "Don't you dare to judge me Darius." He snarled. "I've only ever worked for the good of the Federated Suns, you have to understand that. For years I've been working tirelessly to see things put right here; the old elite restored to their ancient rightful position, the common mob reduced once more to their properly servile level, our borders secure and our military directed by the nobility. You have no idea how hard it has been. How could you?
     But I want you to understand, I want you to see. I cannot at this time divulge the exact details of Operation Cassius, the removal of Hanse, but I can explain why Salah is here and why we have accepted his overtures from the Coordinator.
     Salah approached me back on Elidere IV, he knew I was a passionate Cabalist politically even then and he opened my eyes to the fact that the MechWarrior nobility of his homeland and ours have more in common than we are usually given to think." Al'Ain nodded and interjected at this point.
     "I was sent by my superiors to make contact with Captain Bright as part of a secret peace offer solely aimed towards the Fed Suns MechWarrior nobility. The Coordinator holds no respect for the 'democratic', anti-MechWarrior, anti-elite sentiments that have held sway in your once respected realm for generations now. No other realm in history has held the MechWarrior in as much honour as the Combine and we would respect a strict, properly authoritarian, MechWarrior regime ruling the Fed Suns. Truly the Coordinator has said 'Only the mediocre fear an elite.'." Bright leapt in as I regarded Al'Ain with open disbelief.
     "Darius, listen to him. If ... when ... we win, the Coordinator will return control of certain contested, historically Fed Suns, planets along the Draconis March border, he will then in effect cease all hostilities towards us, as we will towards the Combine. The border will finally be stabilised and the war against House Kurita will end!" I was knocked for six once again. I looked back and forth between them, both nodded at my shocked realisation of the enormous political coup House Kurita would hand to Bright, if they kept up their end of the bargain of course. Bright could step from the chaos caused by his planned assassination of Hanse, with me as his popular figure head, and secure what no First Prince had been able to deliver since the Succession Wars began; peace, at least on one Front.
     "Hmm, your Coordinator has never shown much inclination towards peace with us before ... what will stop him simply attacking us during the confusion?" I asked boldly of Al'Ain, to which Bright answered eagerly from my right.
     "Why would he attack when he stands to gain far more by standing by the terms of our secret pact? Think about it Darius, the Kuritans quietly give back a few war-scarred border worlds, that really only hold sentimental value anyway, for that the Dragon gets a quiet frontier and can redeploy his entire army to the Lyran Front!
     The Ellsies won't stand a snowball's chance in Hell. Within a generation, by sticking to our pact, Takashi will almost certainly have conquered most, if not all, of the Lyran Commonwealth. I don't believe he's the kind of man to throw that kind of gain away."
     I turned it over again in my mind, you modern readers should consider that back then the LCAF was widely regarded as a joke and for good reason. As it happens in a few years time I would come to experience their way of working first hand and I thoroughly approved, but then I enjoy wallowing with fellow Gentlemen in wastrel boozing, financial corruption, whoring, gambling and general vicious fun. Back in those days the Lyran military was being run into the ground y'see by it's millitarily inept 'Social Generals' and the thought of practically the entire DCMS being able to go on the offensive across the Steiner border, without fear of a Davion attack on it's rear, would be a terrifying one from the Lyran's point of view.
     I decided, almost grudgingly, that there was just a chance Takashi was being on the level with Bright, if the Cabalist coup came off and he stayed true to his word Takashi could conceivably end his reign as lord of half the entire Inner Sphere. Bright saw the realisation dawning upon me I think and smiled at me.
     "Don't worry Darius old chap, it ain't only the Dragon who'll profit by this pact. We will too, the Draconis Marchers will love us for giving them back the worlds successive governments have failed too. They might grumble about a cessation of hostilities with the Kuritans, but then again the more sensible amongst them will soon realise that peace will enable their battered civilian populace to prosper and thrive after generations of dreadful waste and decline.
      With New Avalon behind us and the Draconis March in our pocket we can turn our full attention to Michael Hasek-Davion and his Capellan March. I will give him the chance to lead our army in a full scale invasion of the Capellan Confederation, we can throw our entire strength at Liao, without fear of any Kuritan response. Even a power-hungry player like Hasek-Davion will most likely see he has more to gain by accepting the commanding military role I appear to be offering him, than by turning his limited armed forces against the rest of the AFFS. I will naturally ensure that he would never return alive from his campaign of course, but he would be the perfect man to lead the great crusade into Liao space. It's what he's always dreamed of.
     Within a few years we in the Third Covenant Society will rule a reborn Federated Suns, our Kuritan friends will be locked in a surely largely successful war with House Steiner, Liao will be crushed, the loot of the Capellan Confederation will boost our economy. The Draconis March will be thriving after decades and centuries of neglect and war. You will be the most popular First Prince since Alexander Davion and I will be your diligent 'Grand Chancellor'."
     "My God ..." I gasped without thinking. "This might just work." It took a moment for me to realise the Virtus IV still in my bloodstream didn't react. There were a lot of unanswered questions and many dangerous assumptions ... but still it could work, it was possible. For the first time since I became involved in this whole dreadful scheme, I believed Bright might, just might, pull this off.
     Bright chuckled and slapped my shoulder.
     "Come along old chap, buck up, with you along for the ride we can't fail. Let's get you back to the Palace, we need you to be seen mourning Ian at that Ceremonial." All I remember about that drive back to the Palace was sitting there with Bright prattling away in my ear with excitement, while I turned one thought over and over in my mind. Should I actually side with Bright and betray Hanse?

[Tokage]

Chapter 20

     I didn't linger much longer at the Memorial Ceremonial than it took to knock back a stiff drink, which I swigged whilst turning the astounding facts I'd just learned over in my head. As I have said I did not want the job of being even just a puppet First Prince, but having discovered there was even a chance that Bright might succeed I worried one thought over and over in my mind; what was the safest route now for me to take.
     Did I stick to my original intention of grudgingly spying on behalf of Hanse and eventually turning over all I'd learnt to the Fox and the Truffle-Hunter. Or might I not be better off playing a waiting game, keeping the bulk of the facts from Hanse and seeing how things played out without too much interference from yours truly? If I took the former option and Bright still managed to kill Hanse and put his plan in motion my cover with the Third Covenant Society might well get blown and I would then almost certainly be murdered. On the other hand if I took the latter option and Hanse successfully broke the Cabalist plot he might learn I'd not played straight with him and I could well face a treason trial, or more likely a quiet dive into the Cris River on a dark night.
     For a windy chap like myself it was a most unpleasant choice to be facing and I paced about the Ceremonial, ignoring any and all attempts by other guests to draw me into conversation.
     I think what ultimately swung me back towards my original choice, that is sticking with Hanse, was spotting my mother bearing down on me through the black clad throng, like a DropShip churning through thunderheads. She was followed by Sortek's dumpy little ma'ma and was clearly in one of her furious moods as she immediately began berating me before a whispering crowd, in a truly stentorian manner, for my 'disgracefully shabby' appearance throughout the funeral and the fact she 'could have sworn' she saw me sleeping in the Cathedral during the service. Standing there, wincing under her verbal assault, I suddenly considered the ferocity of the tongue lashing I could expect from her if she ever learnt I'd been involved in a plot that killed her 'beloved nephew Hanse' and resolved that whatever other fates I might suffer that was one thing I truly wished to avoid.
     So it was, resigned that my destiny was bound, at least for the time being, to that of my bastard cousin, I beat a hasty retreat back to my quarters at the Mount Barracks. Once there I sent a brief summons by p-mail to Olivia Fenlon, stating I had important progress to report, then slumped into an armchair and absently gazed at tri-vid images of massed ranks of infantry, from various AFFS formations, marching through the wet grey streets earlier that day.

* * *

     It took Olivia less than half an hour to be at my door, she stood there dressed in a sombre black silk suit and half-cape, her raven hair pulled into a severe bun at the back of her head. She smiled softly at me as I gestured for her to come in and as I closed the door behind her she leaned into me and kissed me. For a long moment I let all my worries ebb away from me and kissed her back, pulling her slender body against myself, then eventually I drew back and affected my serious, Darius-Do-Good, role once more.
     "Olivia, I need to speak with Hanse and Truston. I know who's backing the Third Covenant Society." Olivia frowned and tried to get me to reveal to her what I'd learned, but I shook my head ruefully, like the good little loyalist secret agent I was meant to be.
     "Sorry old girl, much as I want to fill you in, this news should be for the Prince first." I was pleased to note Olivia looked at me with what I took to be impressed respect and she drew her own p-comp and sat on the edge of my bed while punching in a couple of p-mails, presumably to the Truffle-Hunter and Hanse. I was pulling on a pair of shoes when suddenly Olivia approached and dropped a pair of blue, AFFS standard issue, women's panties at my feet. I recall looking down at them for a long moment as I had a flash memory of ripping them off of Emma Jonath drunkenly with my teeth the night before and presumably the silly Cabalist trollop left them behind on my bed that morning!
     "Want to tell me who's these are hero?" Olivia said, her perfect voice crackling with danger. I gaped up at her in terror and began to stammer a most dreadful load of old tosh, caught as I was completely by surprise.
     "Ahh ... well ... that is ... my ... err ... I bought them as a present for ... you - ARRRGGGH!" As soon as the deuced weak lie was out of my lips I immediately discovered in the most painful way that the Virtus IV was clearly not yet completely out of my bloodstream. My head felt like someone had poured a kettle of boiling water over it and I fell off the chair clutching at my temples and screaming. The pain passed much quicker than previously, I suppose as the drug was thinning out, but the sensation had been more than intense enough for me to decide that I didn't dare experience it again. I looked up through tears of agony to find Olivia's brilliant emerald eyes, hard as gemstones, fixed on me, her pretty mouth twisted in an angry sneer.
     "What d'you think you're doing Darius?" I shook my head, which felt numb, I couldn't talk through fear of facing that agony again. Olivia stared hard at me before speaking again.
     "Count Truston's men reported you came back from Summer House last night with that bitch Emma Jonath ... these are hers aren't they?" Well, I doubt the ISF scientists who presumably originally came up with the Virtus IV compound ever thought it would be used in quite this way, but I was well and truly caught wasn't I just? What else could I do but nod pathetically. I couldn't even risk embellishing the truth, by perhaps putting a spin on the facts about 'doing it for the good of my mission' or something, for fear of the neurotoxin detecting the lie and activating again. At my mute confirmation of her question, Olivia's face hardened all the more, though a look of genuine hurt flickered briefly across her eyes and she turned on her heel and stalked to the door.
     "Get up then you dirty cheating piece of shit. I may want to kill you at this moment, but we have an appointment with Hanse." She snapped over her shoulder at me and I bleakly dragged myself to my feet and after her.
     Bloody Kuritans! I recall I thought to myself at the time, not only had they repeatedly done their best to kill me many times over the past few months, now with their blasted truth-drug they had probably ruined my love life!

* * *       

     Silent, save for the occasional bitter grunt, Olivia led me carefully back through the quiet corridors of the barracks to that same hidden elevator entrance through which I'd returned from the Fox's Den on my first night back on New Avalon. The door opened instantly as we approached and we then endured a decidedly chilly and awkward silence enclosed together as we descended down into the secret underworld that lay beneath Mount Davion. I considered trying to talk Olivia round as we stood there and the elevator hummed quietly, but for all I knew that damned Snake drug was still in my bloodstream and I didn't dare risk the agony, or even possible nerve damage, that my proclivity towards mistruths would probably cause.
     After what seemed like an age the elevator door slid open to reveal that same clean, well-lit and empty maglev station, once more a compact maglev buggy hovered above the line at the edge of the station before us. Olivia didn't pause, or deign to ask me to follow her, but strode over to the buggy, climbed aboard and waited for me to catch up. Once I had, she punched some buttons on the console before her and we immediately sped silently forward.
     I noted quickly we were headed in the same direction that had brought us from the Fox's Den to the Mount Barrack's last time, so reasoned we were presumably headed to a different location. Again I thought about risking conversation with Olivia, again my cowardly nature got the better of me and I stayed silent.
     After perhaps five minutes of zipping along gently winding underground tunnels we slid into another of the identical seeming little stations. This one was however not empty. A pair of huge looking Guards infantrymen, dressed in olive fatigues, bulky black body armour and half-helms, stood to attention by two doors at the back of the station, each of them holding a heavy double-barrelled Martell Blazer Rifle across their breast. Also, sat on plastic seats to the right of the doors were Ardan Sortek, Ross McKinnon and spread across two seats next to them the Truffle-Hunter himself; Count Nicholas Truston of the MIIO.
     As Olivia and I stepped from our buggy onto the station the guardsmen stamped to attention, their helmeted heads gazing over the tops of our own. The trio sat waiting for us stood and nodded greetings to us. Sortek was wearing his natty Avalon Hussar dress rig; dove grey shirt, tan jacket with a black armband in honour of the day, tight olive trousers, a tan kepi and gleaming bespurred 'cavalry' jackboots. Indeed, despite the fact the silly sod was grim faced and red eyed as if he'd been crying, I had to admit slim muscled and fit as he was Sortek made sturdy little McKinnon, who was dressed in plain green fatigues and forage cap, seem scruffy beside him. The Truffle-Hunter was squeezed into a probably very expensive black civilian evening dress suit, it was he who spoke first.
     "Follow us please Leftenant, the Prince has been anxious to speak with you since we received word you have made important progress. He's waiting for us in the Crypt." Jerome H Blake! I thought in surprise, as I followed those three wise monkeys into another elevator, I was going to give my report to Hanse actually in the Davion Family Crypt wherein Ian had only been laid to rest that very afternoon.   

[Tokage]

Chapter 21

     It was with an oddly tangible sense of respectful, slightly tremulous, awe that we five stepped from the elevator into a long smooth walled granite corridor, which was softly lit by orange tinted sodium lamps set evenly along each wall. The floor was polished green marble and the echoes of our footsteps seemed amplified and jarring as we strode along past twenty four pillars each depicting the Goddess Victory.
     I glanced at the gently smiling features of each, presumably very old, pillar statue as we passed and it struck me that the model in life must have been a real peach ... absurd I know, but that's the kind of thing I tend to think about even when in the most supposedly solemn situation.
     After about a hundred yards the corridor ended in a huge double door, made as far as I could tell from 'Mech grade ceramite, set with the Davion Fox crest fashioned from gold and polished to a burnished sheen. These doors stood open and a light, cool, dry smelling breeze issued from within.
     Two more Guards infantrymen stood rigidly to attention just inside the doors and I noted the red blinking lights of security cameras and systems high on the walls here and there, reminding me that even dead the First Princes and their families aren't free of our House's many bitter feuds and our enemies would wish to harm even their remains.
     We entered a spacious, yet dimly lit chamber, with a ceiling that seemed to be roughly two stories above our heads, there must have been fans and air conditioning down there because it smelt clean, cool and not at all musty. I also didn't see one cobweb, a single spot of mould, speck of dust, or any of the other cod-horror vid staples one tends to associate with crypts.
     We walked through that first, huge seeming, echoingly empty chamber into a series of somewhat smaller passages, Truston clearly knew where he was going and ignored numerous side corridors and entrances. I recall passing sundry anonymous green, black and pink marble caskets sat upon granite plinths and bearing polished plaques that I would have had to stop to be able to read.
     There were life sized or larger statues of important Princes and family members too, that seemed to stand watching us disapprovingly from behind their tombs. I recognised a few of their features from my history classes, there in one great side chamber stood a bronze statue of John Davion for example, his bald pate reflecting the sodium light like a blazing halo. The statue was stood, book in one hand, raised sword in the other, before a great red porphyry casket about which were piled several Kuritan and Capellan battle standards. I glimpsed a somewhat seared flag, depicting the famous DropShip and sickle emblem of Kentares, hung on the far wall behind the casket and remembered that John had been the idiot who'd refused to believe in the Kuritan threat following the Star League Civil War and had almost lost New Avalon to the Snakes.
     Moving past I spotted a chamber with the light switched off and curious I ducked my head in to see a statue of a slim, somewhat dandified looking chap stood before three caskets. The plaque on the main casket read Edward Davion, those behind were apparently his wife and child. Scandal being one of the few things that I tend to remember well from history lessons, I realised this was that Edward Davion who'd batted for the other team so to speak and whose show marriage to a noblewoman from Palmyra had only produced a daughter thanks to the, doubtless vigorous, efforts of the Commander of the Guard at the time. Chuckling at the fact they kept him practically hidden in a closet even now, I hurried to stay up with the others.
     I caught up to them as they turned past the final resting place of James Davion, the so called 'Black Prince'. My favourite of all the Princes when I'd been a sprog back at school. I glimpsed his tomb, catching a fleeting impression of what appeared to be several enormous semi-pornographic female nude paintings hung upon the walls, each under a probably deliberately dimmed sodium lamp. James's statue was wrought of what looked to be priceless black amber as far as I could make out in the brief time I had, he was depicted wearing formal robes but his face had the wickedly lecherous half grin that won him so many conquests. Totty conquests I'm referring to here naturally, not the military kind. James was my kind of guy I'd decided when I'd first read between the lines of the prudish history books about him; intelligent, urbane and a devil for skirt. Visiting Hanse's Court these days makes me wish for a Prince of his calibre, he'd ensure there was plenty of gals for everyone.
     We turned again at the somewhat daunting statue and tomb of mad old Lucien Davion, the medievalist bastard whose lovingly recreated olde-Earth dungeons, at the Davion Summer Palace on Argyle, I would one day be incarcerated within for a short though thoroughly unpleasant period of time. Though of course I had no idea of that fact back then. He was depitcted absurdly, if predictably, in knightly plate armour from the era he was so obssessed with.
     Spotting two more armoured sentries standing outside a chamber ahead of us we all quietly walked up and paused by the guards, until Hanse's voice came clearly from within.
     "Please, enter my friends." Well we did and I stopped in surprised amazement at the sight of the shrine to war that Hanse had created for his beloved brother. Lit by flaming braziers in the corners of the room, each containing some kind of coal or wood that burnt with a smell not unlike cordite, Ian's great raised casket was made of ceramite, taken I later learned from his downed Atlas that I had seen fall in Desolate Pass and nearly got crushed by in the process. Piled about the plinth were countless enemy standards, many battle torn and holed, bales of Kuritan and Capellan swords - collected from DCMS and CCAF officers killed or captured during Ian's many campaigns, rows of neurohelmets - salvaged from 'Mechs Ian personally wasted, and trays piled high with medals torn from the uniforms of enemy dead. Lined about the walls of the tomb hung the crests of Ian's favoured RCTs, painted upon shields like knightly heraldry and at the centre of the rear wall flanked by the flags of the Federated Suns and House Davion stood a seven foot tall laser-cut red marble statue, depicting not Ian himself but rather a crouched hound, it's fangs bared in a silent growl, but with familiar seeming sunken, somehow noble and soulful seeming eyes.
     "Oh my word ..." Olivia said aloud with a gasp. "Ian would've loved this, Hanse." She was right too, if Ian could have designed his own tomb I had no doubt this was what it would have looked like. Short of piles of dead foes heaped about the place it was the most barbaric, splendid, military mess you could ever dream up. Hideous eh? Well Princes tend to have no taste whatsoever in my experienced opinion. Blake alone knows what Hanse will come up with for himself when his time finally comes.

* * *

     Hanse was sat on a canvas and wood collapsible chair, like those you see in militaries everywhere and gestured towards a pile of the things propped against the left wall.
     "Please gentlemen, Olivia, sit." We did so and I found myself left the space directly in front of Hanse. He was staring up at the casket and then turned his fearfully penetrating eyes back to mine, I noted to myself that his eyes were only somewhat pink, indicating to me that he'd been sitting down here thinking rather than crying. He was probably past that stage of the mourning process I supposed, his brother was not just dead now, he was buried, in a manner of speaking at least and now Hanse had to succeed him.
     "Darius, what have you found out? Make your report please and be as comprehensive and detailed as possible, as you know we are all totally trustworthy here." Amazing as it sounds, until I was actually sat there in front of him, I hadn't worked out how I was going to report the information I'd learnt about the Third Covenant Society since I'd last spoken with Truston and Olivia and suddenly the sweat broke out on my skin and I began to internally quake with fear ... well there was a lot of the story that I wouldn't want being known to Hanse and his clique, or anyone else for that matter, wasn't there!
     I was going to have to work around the fact that the previous night I'd been tricked into killing Jervis, then got totally sloshed and ended up in bed with the enemy in a literal sense. Also I couldn't very well explain about the interrogation I'd undergone under the effects of the Virtus IV truth-drug, as aside from the delicate position I'd then be in with Olivia, I'd have to explain how I 'beat' the drug ... that would be fun wouldn't it;
     'Oh yes Your Highness, the trick to it was that I actually told the truth for once; about how I detest you and your imbecile lapdog Dan there, how I'd personally rather like a Cabalist run state by and large, as long as I could stay safely out of harms way within it and how I feel no more loyalty to you than I do to anyone else ... which is to say none at all.' Oh yes, that would go down a DropShip without retro-burners.
     So once again I was on the spot and thinking fast. Acting my heart out in my most regular, yet least enjoyable role. Well, I started out by giving a pretty full recount of the conversation over dinner at Summer House, lingering on the part where I'd 'been forced' to slag old Dan Sortek off, 'in order to win the trust of the Cabalist swines'. I was pleased to note at this Sortek scowled angrily and cursed the traitors for their 'ignorant envy' under his breath. I went on to recount Bright's Third Covenant speech, the Cabalist rhetoric, the toasts to the Society and 'Cassius', which I'd been informed by Bright that night was their code-name for the plot to kill Hanse. All of which didn't seem to interest Hanse above half, well he already knew Bright and his mob were Cabalist malcontents ... he wanted nuts and bolts details.
     Wishing to stick as close to the truth as I could risk and if I'm honest with you, not wanting to miss out on getting some credit down the line for having been put in dire danger during my night at Summer House, I went on to detail my being taken down into Bright's secret hangar. I made a great deal of the number of men, 'Mechs, machines and material that Bright had shown me and then explained how I'd been made to suit up and mount the Locust BattleMech.
     I changed my description of the ordeal in Bright's 'Labyrinth' only in the fact I told them my opponent was one of the Cabalists, who punched out safely when I took out his 'Mech. Oh and of course, with my usual knack for loaded understatement and false modesty, made it seem like I must have trotted around the maze-Gauntlet for the most part with all the sang-froid and merry joy of a kid in an amusement park. Dan whistled afterwards with impressed respect at my trick that took down my enemy's 'Mech.
     "Damn good show Darius old chap. It's not easy getting a Locust down on it's haunches quick like that. Just a shame you didn't kill the bugger." I nodded, whilst inside noting Ardan's usually much prated Christian chivalric values clearly didn't extend to Cabalists who'd had the nerve to slag him off.
     Anyway, that aside, I was somewhat glad of his interruption at that point for two reasons. Firstly it allowed me to realise I'd been lying away like a Lyran in a stock exchange and had felt nothing save mild twinges of no more severity than a nasty headache, so it struck me the Virtus IV had finally worn off. Thank Christ and Conrad for that ... lord alone knows what I'd have done if it had still been in effect at that point. Secondly, up until then I'd been cheerfully doing my best to paint myself in a good light, but now the story was coming to a point which would require some delicate handling and free of the constraints of the Virtus I was back to my old self again. I acted somewhat abashed and forced myself to grow crimson as if with shamed embarrassment.
     "I'm deeply sorry to admit Sire, that after surviving Bright's bloody maze I ... well there's no good way to put this ... towards the end there in that maze ... when I'd been in that little Locust I'd been ... well there's no other word for it ... I suppose I'd been scared." I did my best to look like this had been an entirely new experience for me. Hanse was blank faced and with a suppressed start I remembered the shrewd bastard had seen straight through one of my little tales on that night I'd first met him earlier that year. Did he have the measure of me again on this night I wondered in near panic. Sortek gave a little sigh and began to say something, but I rushed on, as if clearing a guilty conscience.
     "No Dan, please let me finish. Well, fear got the better of me. I thought I was going to die in that rattletrap lightweight tincan. Me ... a Guards MechWarrior. There's nothing that can be said to make that right.
     Anyway, once we got back to Bright's hangar I suppose I was so relieved to have got through the swine's test alive that I lost control of myself and ... well I took more drink than I should have ... and ... I soon became ... unable to carry out my duties." I threw my all into the role and even added a little manly choke at the close. There followed a few minutes of Sortek, who fell for the whole thing hook line and sinker of course, trying to explain that 'all warriors get scared in battle' and 'the good ones are the ones who fight on through it'. Oh and best of all;
     "Really Darius, what amazes me is that you; the fellow who bagged a Sword of Light kill in his first action, who stormed into Colterville alone seeking Yorinaga Kurita out no less, the man who charged alongside me at Sandsedge and who risked certain death to pull Ian's body out from under the Dragon's very maw ... what amazes me is, despite all this and more besides, you've clearly never felt fear in a combat situation before." He said it looking at me in honest admiration ... the silly ass.
     However, it wasn't all good, the Truffle-Hunter was a canny fat slug and he sat quietly watching me closely and chewing on his finger as if wishing he had brought a packed lunch with him. Olivia avoided my eyes and seemed to be affecting an air of aloof impartiality. Hanse maintained his mask of chilly inscrutability, until eventually waving Sortek into silence.
     "Are you saying you became drunk Darius?" He asked in a calm voice, and I nodded. He gave another wave of his hand and I went on to begin telling them about receiving Bright's summons to the Fox Den Tavern after that day's funeral, however Truston gave a jowly, rumbling cough and spoke up.
     "So how did you make it back to the Mount last night?" The piggy eyed bastard asked pointedly and I noted Olivia looked away. Well, I decided as Truston clearly knew most if not all of the truth about my night with Emma Jonath, I may as well come clean. Well partly anyway. I told them everything I could recall and then about waking up with Jonath that morning, about not being able to remember arriving back with her, or indeed anything until I opened my eyes. Then I added that I'd made an excuse about having to be up early and hustling her quickly out of my quarters.
     Predictably Sortek was much more shocked at this than my previous partly true admission, he's a prudish sod amongst all his other flaws and he scowled. Naturally I didn't mention that I'd in fact enjoyed an early morning romp with La Jonath which I could recall all too well.
     "Hmm, could be useful." Truston grunted. "What's your view of her Ladyship? D'you think she was just a tit-bit thrown you by Bright, or does she have a genuine interest in you?" He asked and I looked as pensive as I could and shrugged innocently.
     "I honestly don't know my Lord ... I errm ... well I guess I'm still a greenhorn when it comes to women." Honest young soldier routine again y'see, ruefully self deprecating ... usually can't fail ... mind you usually it's not Hanse Davion you're trying to sucker. He just smiled thinly, while Sortek looked sympathetic and patted my shoulder.
     "Don't worry Darius, sounds like nothing probably happened anyway." He said and I tried not to laugh out loud at that and thanked him politely.
     So, I moved on quickly to my meeting with Bright earlier that night in the Fox Den. Telling them everything, including Bright trying to convince me to become his puppet-Prince, which had them gasping with interest and surprise. Even Olivia seemed to be giving me all her attention again. Hanse I noted looked at me somewhat slantendicular at that point, I guess he'd never considered me as a rival up 'till then and his razor sharp mind had appraised me instantly as a possible rabble-rousing figure head for Bright.
     I didn't like those icy peepers looking at me in that way so made a great show of pouring scorn on Bright for even suggesting such an 'insane notion'. Then moved on to explaining how we went to Bright's limo, where I told them Al'Ain came clean about his true identity and dropped the bombshell of Bright's Kuritan backing and the plot to end the war along the Draconis March.
     Their stunned reactions told me that even Truston and Hanse had had no idea the Dragon was behind Bright's group and Hanse's subsequent thoughtful grin of respect showed he'd seen it could conceivably work too.
     "Well that's it then Hanse. We have them, let's move." Sortek sprang to his feet in excitement, his brown eyes blazing with glee. I looked at him in surprise as it sunk in that for once he was right. This was what Hanse had sent me to find out and I'd done it ... now all that remained was for Hanse to send in McKinnon and his roughnecks to break heads. I was finished. Done. I'd come through again-
      "No Dan, not just yet ... Darius needs to keep digging just a while longer I'm afraid." Hanse replied to Sortek in an annoyingly cheery voice and my heart sank. What more did this ungrateful, callous monster want from me? Hanse stood, clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing.
      "When Darius originally volunteered for this unpleasant job he knew he had three goals; firstly to ascertain the number, identities and strength of the membership of the Third Covenant Society, secondly to learn the identity of their shadow backer and thirdly to learn the details of their plan to assassinate me. He's done sterling work on the first two parts and will I'm sure provide Count Truston with a full list of the guests at Bright's dinner party last night, however we still don't know precisely how and when this Operation Cassius is due to occur ... that is when and how am I to be murdered?" Sortek, bless his idiot heart, scoffed at this.
      "Does it matter Hanse? Why we can round up these traitors here at the Mount Barracks, or send in Mack's Raiders against Summer House, either way we can get the details from the scum under interrogation surely?" I nodded and vocally stated my agreement to this.
     "I must say I agree with Dan Sire. We know all we need to, let's get the dirty work done now and kill the buggers." Naturally I intended to personally be comfortably ensconced in an Avalon City bar while McKinnon actually did that dirty work.
     "Sorry lads, but the Prince is right." McKinnon spoke up, then beamed across at Sortek and I.
     "Oh I'd personally love to get stuck into Bright and his cronies, every bit as much as you young firebrands and intend to just as soon as possible. However if we move against them now, before Hanse redeploys the Guards battalions presently here onworld we could find ourselves dangerously outnumbered ... more importantly we could force Bright's hand and make him try his luck early, while we know nothing at all about how he's going to try to bag Hanse." At which Hanse winced and turned back to us from staring at Ian's casket.
     "Which is not a prospect I relish. Darius you have to find out how they plan to kill me, when we know that, then we can move and I mean move hard and fast believe me. I will rotate away as many of the Guards battalions presently here that I can possibly get away with, there's a major exercise about to begin on Imbrial III in three weeks that will provide the perfect cover-story.
     Sorry Darius ... once again I'm placing my future in your hands, I need you to keep playing this game, you've clearly won Bright's trust, you know he has Kuritan aid, now you need to crack the final secret; when, where and how does this traitor plan to kill me?" I tried to raise a smile, though I expect it came out more like a grimace, as I nodded like the good little soldier-spy they all thought me to be. Oh Jerome! Why me? I wailed in my head, not for the first time, why me? What had I ever done to deserve this? 

[Tokage]

Chapter 22

     After a quick round of serious smiles and handshakes we all rose to leave our little Crypt-side conference, however as we began to file out of the Hound's tomb chamber Hanse spoke again.
     "Darius, could you stay for just a moment please. I'm sure Olivia will wait for you at Lucien's statue, so she can escort you home." This was curious and not an altogether welcome prospect, I was clearly about to have a private man to man chat with the Prince ... the last time we'd done this he'd warned me not to try to pull the wool over his eyes again or he'd see me serving as a latrine Tech on a backwater world. Oh Christ ... had the sharp eyed sod seen through my performance? Was I about to face a royal roasting? My legs turned to jelly and my stomach gurgled in panic, but I did my best to front it out and strode back to my chair and was about to sit down, when I noticed Hanse was standing beside Ian's casket still.
     I can close my eyes today and still see him stood there, his deep blue dress uniform jacket open at the collar, one big hand on Ian's casket, the other holding what appeared to be a small slip of paper or slicksheet. He turned to me and I noted a shocking change to his previously calm features, anger washed over them and I quailed before such fierce wrathful rage as I'd never before seen in Hanse. Here it comes I thought in a confusion of fear ... I was for the chop.
    "Read this." Hanse said thrusting the paper he'd been holding at me violently. Unsure of myself I looked down at the palm sized square of what appeared to be expensive and old fashioned writing paper. Written upon it in a strong formal hand were the following words;
    I offer you my sincere condolences for the loss of your brother.
     He was a noble warrior and Prince.
     I know well and share your honourable grief.
     -Takashi Kurita
     I nearly dropped the paper in surprise and looked up into Hanse's stormy visage.
     "I received a similar note of condolence upon the death of my father fourteen years ago, before Takashi was even Coordinator. I thought he was being well ... decent and honourable after a fashion ... now though!
     He sends me this, whilst his filthy spies foment revolt and rebellion against me? The treacherous, cunning BASTARD." With a truly fearsome shout Hanse balled Takashi's note in his fist and threw it hard at the far wall, from which it bounced into one of the trays of medals. He then breathed heavily and seemed to struggle to regain control of himself, while I stood quaking, but damn relieved that I was apparently not the cause of Hanse's rage.
     It's a strange relationship Hanse and Takashi have had ain't it? Apparently Takashi spotted something in Hanse from afar even before Hanse's father's death that told him one day it'd be down to them, that Ian wouldn't last and his younger brother, the Fox, would be Takashi's true opponent in life. Takashi clearly respected Hanse and apparently considered him an honourable and worthy foe, hence he'd opened up this unprecedented on and off, and clearly very limited, correspondence. I believe I'm right in saying Hanse occasionally sent a polite note or two the other way also. It seemed all bizarrely civilised to me at that time and of course utterly insane. This pretty pair were two of the coldest blooded mass killers in recent history, yet they'd send each other such notes of condolence and the like! However something had occurred to me.
     "Well, ahh perhaps this note indicates Takashi is ready to talk peace Sire? Perhaps you could steal Bright's thunder by opening up a proper dialogue with Takashi yourself?" I said it tentatively as such talk back then bordered on treason, Hanse snorted in ill humour at me.
     "Hah! Hardly. Darius, you've been out there, on the border, you've seen what we face in House Kurita. They've no interest in peace with us. Bright's a fool to believe that. Takashi doesn't want easy conquests ... he wants to beat an enemy he feels is worthy of him, an enemy that will test him to his limits ... in short he wants us." Hanse began to prowl again, walking over to the great hound statue at the rear of the tomb and sat on one of it's paws, shaking his head and calming down with a weary grin.
     "He's almost got me on the first move of our chess game. He has a priceless crystal set, I'm told, with which he plays against members of his Court, I always wanted to play against him ever since I heard about it and now finally I am.
     I thought myself so smart, so clever, yet look at this situation. Takashi has turned my own Guards against me before I'm even officially First Prince." I think I probably jumped in with some toadying at that, about how we'd best the Dragon yet or some such drivel, anyway Hanse ignored me and changed the subject.
     "Olivia mentioned to me today you had something to tell me about Ian ... something he said before he died?" Ahh, so this was why I'd been kept back after school, so to speak. Well I told Hanse the version of the story of Ian's last words to me that I'd previously told Olivia the day before; that when I'd first reached Ian's downed 'Mech in Desolate Pass the Hound had been alive just long enough to gasp out a few last words before dying.
     'Darius tell Hanse ... tell him ... don't trust ... trust -' I went on to cautiously advise Hanse my view that this had to have been a warning against trusting Truston. Hanse sat quietly listening to me, before chewing his lower lip in thought, then spoke slowly.
     "Well, it's possible that's what he was trying to say I suppose, but far from certain. He could have been talking about Michael, or Bright, or many another. Look Darius, Count Nicholas Truston has no known links whatsoever with the Capellan March or the Hasek-Davion faction, he was born to an established noble family from the Crucis Outback, far from New Syrtis. If anything he's known to detest Duke Michael for his interference in the MIIO.
     His father, who I am told the young Nicholas idolised, fell fighting the Kuritans and Truston has been heard to say that, though physically never suited for soldiering, he's dedicated his life to preserving the Federated Suns from the barbarism of our Kuritan and Liaoist enemies.
     I've never heard or seen him do anything that could in any way help our national enemies and his private life, whilst far from frugal, seems to be without scandal.
     Well anyway, naturally I will consider Ian's words carefully and I thank you for bringing them to me. I would suggest you not to mention them to anyone else for the time being." Well yet again my mistrust of the Truffle-Hunter was being poo-pooed, admittedly even I couldn't see what Truston's game could possibly be, but I was still convinced in my heart and prayed quietly to myself that I'd be the one to expose the fat fraud when the day finally came.
     With that my private meeting with Hanse was at an end and I lingered only briefly looking down at the plaque at the head of Ian's great ceramite casket.

FIRST PRINCE IAN DAVION
2980 - 3013
'THE HOUND'

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone,
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanished age hath flown
The story how ye fell;
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,
Shall dim one ray of glory's light
That gilds your deathless tomb

     Well goodbye then you mad, warry, bugger. I thought and then did something which I promise you in all honesty was somehow instinctive and had nothing whatsoever to do with putting on a good little show for Hanse ... I pulled myself up into smart parade ground attention and saluted the casket with all the solemn rigidity they'd taught us at the Sak. Then I turned my back on the tomb and marched out leaving one cousin I'd never see again and another I sadly would ... all too often.

[Tokage]

Chapter 23

     There was to be an unusually brief interim mourning period of fourteen days between Ian's funeral and Hanse's Coronation, which would thus take place on the tenth of December. As he'd stated he would at our secret Crypt conference, on the day after the Funeral Hanse quietly ordered away a good part of the remaining Brigade units on-world to the wargames on Imbrial, being sure of course to leave well alone that battalion of the Alex which Bright and most of his plotters were members of. The public on the whole, if they noticed the troop movements off-world at all, just seemed to assume the Brigade was undergoing a change of garrison formations following the vast parades of the previous day and perhaps in preparation for the celebrations that would herald Hanse's assumption of the throne. It's a fact however that since the days of the Star League New Avalon, which was also then playing host to most of the important nobility of the Fed Suns, had rarely been so lightly defended as at that moment.
     Personally I was keen to get my involvement in the Cabalist plot safely over and done with, so after enduring another one of my mother's dreary society functions, during the afternoon of the day after Ian's Funeral, I organised a meal with Bright and Emma Jonath at the Frenchman restaurant in the better part of Old Town.
     Bright was initially full of questions as to whether I knew what the troop movements announced that day signified and seemed actually excited that Hanse might be on to their plot. After apparently convincing him I had no idea, but just supposed like everyone else that Hanse was juggling his garrison and perhaps preparing the Brigade for a new year offensive against Kurita or Liao, I spent the meal trying gamely to draw out from Bright what Operation Cassius was actually going to involve. However the bastard simply kept changing the subject and putting a finger to his grinning lips with a mischievous wink of his eye.
     It was a washout, I learned nothing and had to endure another evening of Bright's conversation, which was as ever by times hectoring and arrogant, then wheedling and false-friendly. Emma spent the meal quietly gazing, in what I took to be ardent admiration, at Bright and I was frankly surprised when she jumped into my limo and accompanied me back to my quarters for a vigorous spot of slap and tickle.
     In my mind the subsequent days blur somewhat after that; once again I fell into a routine of dull, formal social engagements about town followed by nights out, now though with Bright and a varying assortment of his Cabalist chums. Each night I'd try my damnedest to get Bright, or the others, to reveal how they planned to kill Hanse and each night I'd hit the sack in failure, though usually with Emma along as a consolation prize.
     I soon tired of Lady Jonath's energetic affections by the way, despite her aristocratic good looks and statuesque body, y'see with her rabid and fanatical Cabalist outlook she bored and scared me more than a little in equal parts and that's never a recipe for lasting fun in my book. Oh I went through the Gauntlet with her nightly, don't get me wrong, well as I've told you before a chap must take his tumbles where he can, but my mind kept returning guiltily to Olivia Fenlon. I would find myself daydreaming yearningly of those glimmering peepers of hers, the feel of her trim body under mine on that holomap table the day before the funeral and the way her lower lip pouted invitingly when I'd first met her on that night I arrived back on New Avalon.
     Well there you go, I suppose I was a little more spoony over Olivia than I'd suspected and after a week and a half or so of dull social functions, fruitless intelligence work and increasingly mechanical coupling with La Jonath, I resolved to do my best to win Olivia back. Even young as I then was I should have known better, however as is all too often the case my libido got the better of my good sense and would directly result in my facing yet another terrifying brush with death.

* * *

     It was the night of the seventh of December, three days before Hanse's Coronation, the whole city was busy preparing for that great event and Bright had actual military duties which prevented my meeting him that evening. My mother was dining grudgingly with the Sorteks and I'd sent Emma a p-mail stating that I was feeling a little tired and was turning in for an early night. The path was thus cleared for me to set about my self appointed task of seducing Olivia all over again.
     I wasn't quite sure myself how I meant to overcome Olivia's justifiable anger at my cheating on her, but resolved that the first step would be to get the delectable Duchess of Chesterton alone with me in a conducive environment. It seemed highly unlikely however that she would accept a social invite from me at that time, given the chilliness of our most recent encounter, so as is my way I fell back on guile. I sent her a p-mail stating something along the lines of having 'important information' that I wished to pass on to her, however that it would be better and safer for us to 'meet covertly' somewhere other than my quarters. I suggested a plush gambling den I knew well; the Diamond Spire Casino, in Damosel District, in an hour's time.
     I set off dressed in an expensive but, for once, discreetly bland dark serge evening suit, with brown silk wrist and ankle cuffs. Just in case, my Sternsacht Compact 10mm autopistol was a comforting weight in my trouser pocket and fool that I was, due to confidence in my powers of persuasion, I had a spring in my step for the first time in days.
     The Diamond Spire, which predictably was later closed down within a year or two of Hanse's ascension to power, was a grand old place. A casino spread over ten floors of a great gilded and gaudy circular ferrocrete and plassteel tower, that rose above the rambunctious streets of Damosel District. The various casino rooms were each decorated and themed in the style of a specific present or historical Inner Sphere or Periphery nation; for example there was the Capellan Room, with floors and trimmings made of real jade, walls and roof of green veined white Tikonov marble, Sian style watercolour landscape paintings on the walls, jasmine blossom everywhere and the prettiest little Asiatic waitresses fluttering about in tiny green silk mini-dresses decorated with white triangles. Once you'd paid the exorbitant entry fee you could gorge yourself sloppy there on free kincha fruit which was piled in dishes on every table, or munch on kung-pao beef, guzzle down pints of Liao Pattern PPCs, or samshu, or such like. The games even reflected the culture of each given theme, so in the Capellan Room one played or bet on Fan-Tan, White Pigeon Tickets, Mah Jongg or Tri-D-Pai Gow.
     Personally my favourite was always the Canopian Room, but I prudently decided against that for what I planned to be a romantic reconciliation. So, after first pausing thoughtfully in the groundfloor elevator, I opted for the Outworlds Room, which I'd never visited before and actually reasoned would be one of the quieter rooms and I would thus be less likely to run into any one I knew. As the lift ascended the Spire I sent Olivia another p-mail advising I'd be waiting for her therein.
     I can still recall the sights and sounds that awaited me as that elevator door slid open, the circular room had a polished hardwood floor, the walls were apparently rough hewn stone, criss-crossed with black wooden beams, the roof a nightwood dome above hanging iron wheels each set with hundreds of large flickering candles, braziers of sweet smelling scented wood flamed along the walls, whilst small fruit trees stood dotted about the room providing fragrant blossom in abundance. Farming tools and implements covered the walls and somewhere a band were playing fast fiddle and guitar music, with a footstamping beat. There were a few scattered groups playing on various tables and amongst them waitresses, wearing tight brown denim dungarees that were barely decent, and carrying trays full of foaming tankards of beer. It was like an explosion in a farmyard I suppose, but looked kind of fun in it's own way, well some of those waitresses were as pretty as a picture you may take my word for that.
     Deciding 'when in Rome' and partly out of curiosity, I ordered what they had on the drinks menu as an Alliance PPC. I don't know what they put in that drink, apple brandy I think, but I must say it was damn fine and I strolled about watching the other clients gambling; one group were clustered around a fenced oval area loudly cheering on what looked to be a race between a quartet of some kind of bipedal rats, others were playing poker, dice, three-wheel Alpheratzee Roulette, while a few were simply boozing and eating while watching a cinematic tri-vid documentary depicting Outworlder aerospace fighters in action through an asteroid field.     
     The clientele seemed to be a mix of traders, local Avalonians toughs, a few Outback nobility in for the Funeral and Coronation who were presumably looking for a reminder of their agrarian homeworlds and even a pair of very drunk young NAMA cadets, who'd clearly underestimated the kick of Outworlds Scrumpy and were staggering about looking decidedly green around the gills.
     I ordered up some buffabruin broth, with thick slices of cloudbread and a wedge of tangy red cheddar cheese on the side and plumped myself down in one of the side alcoves to wait for Olivia. The food was simple, but tasty and I relaxed for half an hour or so, munching and guzzling away and listening to the jolly rustic music, then I ordered up another PPC and was waiting for it when her Grace, the Duchess of Chesterton, arrived.

* * *

     She must have rushed from some official reception, a dinner or ball perhaps, as she was wearing a rippling black 'Chesterton-weave' cloak, over a fabulous dark blue gown that clung to her like someone had thrown it at her from a bucket and nearly missed. Her glossy black hair cascaded down her back, held away from her face by a platinum circlet, she was exquisitely made up; with her eyes seeming all the larger thanks to artful application of soft green eye-shadow and her sensual lips gleamed a glossy red. I gawked at her like a Periphery yokel who's just come face to face with a Lyran tri-vid queen, she was truly beautiful I realised not for the first time. Thank Conrad it was only candle-lit half-light in there or we'd have been drawing stares from everyone in the place.
     "Interesting choice for a meeting hero ..." Olivia drawled quietly, affecting to ignore my gaping expression. All business, she sat opposite me and placed a small dark metal white-noise bug on the table between us. "So, what's your news?"
     "Ah, well now let's see ... that is to say ... well ..." I stammered, struggling now it came to it to remember the cleverly prepared little speech I'd had ready. Driven slightly to distraction by the golden sheen her smooth skin had assumed in the soft lighting I decided to just plunge in with both feet.
     "Oh look damn-it-all Olivia, you can't blame me for that bloody Jonath tart! She practically raped me blast it and I was drunk. You heard Ardan and the others, I had no choice." I blurted it all out in a pleading tone and she just sat there gazing at me like a tabiranth about to pounce on a small dog that was barking at it. Not the best possible response certainly, but she was still there, so I ploughed on regardless. "Listen, I've never met anyone like you before ... I think ... well you're beautiful and strong and brave and ... well can't we just let bygones be bygones and buckle too like we did before?" She picked up the glass holding my PPC slowly and deliberately. "Come along old girl, well I think the Sphere of you, you know that and we make a -"I was interrupted by her throwing my drink full in my face, some of the blasted stuff went into my eyes and I was rubbing at them frantically when she leaned over the table and grabbed my collar.
     "Listen you lying wanker, I'm only here because you told me you had important information. If you've just brought me here just to listen to this, then I'm leaving." I spluttered and blinked trying to regain my drink-splashed vision.
     "Uhh, look just wait a minute. Just wait." I gasped and stood, meaning to quickly pop to the restrooms, in order to wash my face and eyes. I staggered out of the alcove and promptly slammed into a man headed past in the direction of the elevator.
     "Watch where you're going you blasted idiot!" The swine barked at me in an upper class accent and I was about to damn his eyes for him when suddenly he gripped my arm and spoke again, this time in an amazed tone. "Darius? What the?"
      It was one of those moments when you realise, with a sudden sick feeling, that you've been caught red handed and you're in deep trouble. I've known the feeling all too many times believe me; such as when Redjack caught me bulling his precious maniac of a daughter in the cockpit of her 'Mech, then there was that time Meddling Melissa bloody Steiner-Davion walked in on me chairing a meeting of the most notoriously murderous Triad gangsters in the Sarna March whilst I was serving as Military Governor of Wei, or when Primus Myndo Waterly woke up to find me going through her bedside cabinet at the height of Operation Flush ... Blake's bollocks, but I've had to think fast in my life I can tell you.
     In this case I knew I was sunk because I recognised the chap I'd bumped into from his voice as Captain Guy Rebbeque of the First Guards, the highly placed member of the Third Covenant Society, who I'd sat next to at Summer House and drank with about town several times since along with Bright. I rubbed desperately at my eyes, so that Rebbeque's angular features and high forehead grew somewhat clearer, while stammering in surprise. Of all the bad luck, I inwardly raged, of all the places I could have picked, I had to meet Olivia there!
     With a sudden curse Rebbeque looked into the alcove I had been exiting and after barely a second's pause he threw me to one side and ran hard, shouting at the top of his voice ... in Japanese I realised with a start. I blinked away the last haze of PPC and suddenly Olivia was at my side, a natty little Intek 'palm-laser' in her right fist.
     "He recognised me. That was one of them wasn't it?" She hissed at me and I nodded quickly, causing her to become all business. "Okay soldier on your feet, they know I'm in Hanse's faction, we have to catch that fellow and make him disappear before he can get word of this to his friends ... or the game's up and your cover is well and truly blown." I gulped and clutched at the Sternsacht in my pocket, I'd understood enough of what Rebbeque had been shouting ... he'd been calling for 'eyes on me' and I knew enough to remember that the ISF were often referred to as Metsukes ... or 'all-seeing eyes'. As I began to tear after Olivia my belly growled in fear, were we chasing someone who might well have ISF agents rushing to his defence even at that moment?

[Tokage]

Chapter 24

     D'you know it's a fact that hollow point bullets have been banned in warfare almost since their invention some time in the mid-nineteenth century, largely because when they hit a man he's almost certain to die and presumably the great and good quickly judged that to be somewhat unsporting.
     Such bullets y'see are designed to expand upon entering a target, in essence to explode inside the victim. The tip of the bullet has a pit, or hollowed out shape and when it strikes a soft target, like you or I, the pressure created in the pit forces the lead around it to expand greatly into a mushroom-like shape. This causes considerably more soft-tissue damage and energy transfer than if the nose had not been hollow. However down the centuries since those Victorian Era Terrans first banned them, such bullets have found widespread use, not just in the armies of criminal states such as the Rim Worlds Republic, but amongst respectable police forces, stellar-marine corps and less legally of course pirate bands, due largely to the reduced risk of bystanders being hit, or the hulls of Jump or DropShips being breached by over penetrating or ricocheted bullets. As well of course as the increased likelihood of the speedy incapacitation of your enemy.
     You may be wondering why Professor Darius is rattling on about all this ... well y'see I was running tremulously behind Olivia Fenlon whilst clutching my snub-nosed Sternsacht autopistol which was loaded with a clip containing six 10mm magnum hollow point rounds and I was about to start firing, so it's as well you know what manner of harm I could cause should I have hit a bystander.
     We were still in the Outworlds Room and close behind Rebbeque, who had dashed straight past the elevator and seemed to be bundling headlong for a stairwell door. Olivia had ditched her long Chesteron-Weave cloak and was tearing along unhindered in her skin-tight and deuced fetching ball-gown, her palm-laser held ready in both hands. At this point we were largely unnoticed by the other patrons around us, though some were craning their heads at Rebbeque's panicked shouting and the sound of our pounding feet.
     I personally would have been only too happy to let Rebbeque get away to 'blow my cover', as Olivia had put it, well even Hanse would then have had to accept I could not do any more undercover work against the Third Covenant Society and I would have thus been safe. Naturally however, with Olivia there, I could not be seen to hang back too much. But nevertheless I made a show of stopping to scan the crowds for signs of anyone coming to Rebbeque's aid, though this was also in part out of my finely honed sense of self preservation ... for if there were indeed ISF agents here watching Rebbeque, or perhaps having met with him, I wanted to know where they were.
     It was as well I did too, for I suddenly felt a movement past my head and heard a soft thud from my right. Dropping into a crouch, as quick as only a true coward can in the face of danger, I glanced up and yelped in fright at the sight of a small black plasteel throwing star buried deep in the wall just where my head would have been had I not skidded to a halt a split second before. Seeing a sudden flicker of movement to my left, I rolled frantically forwards and felt the 'flicker-thud' of three more of the beastly little stars passing over and behind me in rapid succession.
     I cast about for cover, noting that Olivia was burning off wild snap-shots at Rebbeque, whilst at the run. Spinning, I turned in time to find myself facing a short burly brute, with long blonde hair and wearing a shabby business suit, he was running towards me, with one hand tucked into his inside jacket pocket. He could have been anyone I suppose, but I didn't hesitate.
     It's a strange thing but, at least in my memory of this horrific event, time seemed to slow down and I can actually recall the pin stripe pattern of his cheap jacket as I brought my pistol up and fast as a striking cobra, his hand flashed out and back in a whip-like motion. The gunshot seemed crashingly loud as the Sternsacht bucked like a bastard in my hand, indeed nearly flying from my grip. It must have only been by a microsecond, but my shot hit him before the star left his hand and the razor-edged weapon hurtled wide over me. The 10mm hollow point hit him square in the face, a lucky shot if I'm honest as I'd been aiming for his chest, and the back and top half of his head burst in a welter of gore. Blood, ragged clumps of hair, shards of skull and gobbets of brain splattered over the nearby chairs, tables and indeed ceiling. A woman wailed in high pitched terror, though upon reflection that may in fact have been me, and the whole place then erupted into a frenzy of shouting and screaming.
     Panicking I stood and ran after Olivia again, in time to spot that the only other people on their feet were a pair of similarly blandly dressed men, who were moving professionally in my direction; the first a tall slim fellow with shaven black hair who darted past the Roulette wheels, the second a balding middle age man who looked for all the world like a provincial bank manager.
     Well thankfully, if I do say so myself, when I'm on my toes it's a fast moving enemy who can keep up with me. I've had to outrun some pretty dreadful pursuers in my time; let's see there've been Thuggee killers, Scourgist terrorists, Oberonic Red Claw marines, Yakuza gangster-soldiers, Circinian pressgangsmen, and O5P Budojin Neophytes to name but a few ... oh and let's not forget the legion of cuckolded husbands, all of whom have come hammering hot on my trail at one time or another, and all just panting to do me in. Still, those ISF agents in the Diamond Spire remain in my mind amongst those who came closest to catching and killing me. They moved with all the grace and easy fluid motion of Atrean ballet dancers, yet with that terrifying merciless calm intent that's so typical in Johnny Kuritan when he's after your blood.
     I blazed off two shots at the bank manager from hell, the gun bucking again as I ran, but he seemed to just slide out of the line of fire without breaking step and I missed both times. One bullet smacked into a wall I think, the other hit one of the braziers and blew it off in a flash of flame. As I reached the stairwell door Olivia had already torn through after Rebbeque, I could just make out the flames from the brazier spreading swiftly behind me, then I threw myself forwards as my two pursuers pulled and hurled a pair of their nasty little shuriken with such lethal accuracy that I only just got out the way in time.
     "Olivia we've got two bloody Snakes on our tail!" I screamed in a voice that doubtless was cracking with tense, terrified, urgency. She was moving down the stairs very fast and called back up to me.
     "You take them, I'll settle Rebbeque." Well that hardly seemed fair to me. Rebbeque was running from us after all and seemed unlikely to try to do us any harm ... whereas my ISF boys on the other hand were out to kill me and were making a damn good try of it at that moment. I cursed Olivia for being a treacherous, selfish cow and moved down to the next landing lining my pistol up on the doorway the Snakes would have to come through, whilst quickly tallying that I only had three shots left in the clip.
     A long moment dragged past, with me breathing and palpitating heavily, my pistol shaking as I struggled to keep it levelled at chest height on the open doorway.
     "Come on then you vicious bastards ... come on damn you ..." I muttered to myself, just as a small grey-black metal sphere about the size of a golf ball bounced through and down towards me. I stared in surprise at it for perhaps two seconds before screeching in raw terror once more and scarpering as quickly as I could down the next flight.
     The micro-grenade exploded behind me with a shattering blast, fragments ripping about the stairwell, but thankfully up and away from me, the concussive shock however threw me down about eight or nine steps and bodily into Olivia smashing her to the floor. My ears were ringing and I had a sudden, brief, flashback to Desolate Pass and Ian's Atlas crashing down around me and nearly killing me with it's sheer kinetic impact.
     I snapped out of it in time to spin off of Olivia, who seemed stunned, and to roll over with my Sternsacht ready. Sure enough, the bank manager was almost upon us, he must have followed after that explosion like a greyhound out a trap, his face was impassive save for his excited eyes. Thankfully fear tends to galvanise rather than freeze me, or I'd have died long ago, and though shouting in an incoherent blubbering frenzy I jerked the trigger twice and the Snake was blown backwards, blood exploding from his crotch and breast.
     "Quickly Olivia damn you, c'mon you silly tart. Move!" I dragged and slapped Olivia back to consciousness, glancing all the while back up the smoking stairwell over the bloody carcass of the ISF man, scanning for his remaining accomplice. Olivia shook her now dust covered mane of black hair and blinked at me, then across at the dead Kuritan.
     "Uhh, sorry Dee ... nice shooting." She gasped as she found her feet, then glanced at a half ajar door leading presumably into another of the Spire's gambling rooms.
     "Looks like your friend went that way." She said briskly, already moving for the door and checking her laser pistol, with me close behind you may rest assured.
     It's perhaps ironic under the circumstances that we staggered through after Rebbeque into the Diamond Spire's Draconis Combine Room.

* * *

     The large circular casino room was floored and walled with a mixture of black ediobony, teak, and red marble. Paper lanterns filtered a hazy pinkish-red light over a mess of stereotypically 'Kuritan' cultural items; crossed samurai swords were fixed on the walls, huge dragon kites hung from the ceiling, Japanese style water-colours depicting ancient 'Mech battles and misty mountainous landscapes were everywhere, great tree trunk thick monodon ivory tusks carved to resemble coiled dragon statues framed the bar area, little cherry trees somehow artificially in blossom stood here and there and snarling No masks glowered from the walls. The waitresses on this floor were made up to resemble geisha and wore the tinniest tight red and black silk kimonos.
     We stood there for a long moment, in somewhat bemused amazement I think, with the whole room turned to stare at us in shocked fear. They'd clearly heard my shooting and felt the grenade go off on the stairs.
     "Get down everyone! On the floor NOW!" Olivia screamed at the top of her voice, surprising and frightening even me, then fired her laser into the ceiling searing a flaming line across the gleaming ediobony and igniting two paper lanterns into balls of flame. Business men, tray-dollies, croupiers dressed like O5P monks, off duty soldiers, local wastrel nobility; all hit the deck in panic. It was a smart move by Olivia, I'd have tried to bluff my way through and Rebbeque would have slipped away ... however suddenly he was the only person on his feet and Olivia and I both spotted him running for the elevator at the same time.
     I think we must have fired instantaneously, Olivia's scintillating laser beam a ripple of heat in the air, then explosively igniting the Cabalist's hair and jacket, just as my bullet struck him in the shoulder throwing him onto his face in a sprawl. I breathed out, and just as I realised I was now out of bullets I heard a soft movement behind me.
     The last ISF man was suddenly there, he grabbed my shoulder and spun me around, his right fist hammering into my sternum with all the controlled force of a brick-breaking martial arts jab. My Sternsacht flew from my grasp and skittered out of sight below a far table. I bellowed in pain and staggered back, watching with horror as the Snake swine pivoted artfully and sent Olivia crashing into a pachinka machine with a devastating roundhouse kick.
     The wiry bastard turned back to me and allowed himself a cruel grin, his black eyes flashing with triumph. Oh Jerome, I breathed, not another one of these murderous madmen! He took up a crouched fighting stance and seemed to be preparing for a little sparring bout ... well he wouldn't get that from me. I did an about face and dashed full pelt away from him, dodging through gaming tables, chairs and hurdling prone customers and staff.
     I heard a distinct curse of disgust from behind me and I knew the bastard was on my tail once more. However I'd not had a chance to judge precisely where I was running too and had dashed away from the elevator doors. Ahead of me was a well stocked bar, so thinking perhaps to grab a bottle to break and use as a weapon, I threw myself forward and over it, with all the graceful ease of an charging elephant attempting a steeplechase.
     Bottles and glasses went smashing all around me, but I skidded successfully over the bar and slammed painfully down behind it. I crouched and cast around for a weapon, grabbing and discarding in rapid succession a lemon peeler, a beer mat, a plastic bottle of soda and finally settling on a bottle of Bismarck Irish Whiskey which I gripped by it's neck, while craning my head cautiously up to check where the Snake had got to.
     Suddenly a pig-sticker sword, presumably snatched from the wall, swiped forcefully across the bar, missing me by an inch and smashing several more bottles and glasses. I yelped and fell back, scooting along further up the inside of the bar as he started to stab across and down several times at me and actually came close enough to pierce my suit's sleeve. I scrambled away through the shards of broken glass bleating in anguished terror, which only intensified as the Kuritan brute swung over the bar with fearsomely agile strength.
     He stood there, pig-sticker held in his right hand, his eyes fixed down on me, a sneer of contempt on his face, though looking utterly unruffled otherwise. I threw my bottle at him hard in frantic haste, but he dodged it casually.
     "Time to die coward." He said softly in Japanese, beginning to move into lethal action, his sword swinging up into a double handed grip. I was facing my death yet again, how many times was it now that year? I'd lost count, but it was certainly far too many for my liking, that was for sure.
     Well now, here's some salient advice for any young bucks amongst you who might find themselves facing an opponent bent upon killing you in a bar fight; you should never be embarrassed about using whatever comes to hand. In this case I found my right hand was resting upon a two inch metal corkscrew that had been knocked onto the floor behind the bar when I smashed my way over. Mewling pitifully, I instinctively grasped it while frantically trying to push myself away from my attacker, his sword hissed down at me, I threw myself to one side in a vain attempt to dodge it and screamed in agony as the vicious thing cut me deep along my hip.
     However in moving to get to me the swine had stepped within my reach and in desperation I swung my fist and drove that corkscrew right into his foot. He bellowed in agony, even ISF agents feel pain after all, and instinctively jerked backwards, however I'd driven the screw in with such anguished, frenzied force I'd actually impaled and pinned his foot to the floor, he dragged it out, but in surprise he fell backwards and landed with a sickening wet sounding thud.
     I was struggling away still when I realised he wasn't moving, so grabbing another bottle I moved closer to him. The sword lay limp in his open palm and a pool of blood was collecting under his head, moving closer I realised that when he'd fallen backwards his skull had smashed down fatally onto half a broken bottle. I breathed again in trembling relief ... he'd murdered his last victim.
     It was at that precise moment the casino security arrived along with about twenty of New Avalon's finest. Typical of the ACPD in my experience, they only ever arrive when the danger has passed, the sensible, cowardly, rogues.

[Tokage]

Chapter 25

    Well, the rest of that night is a confused, fretful, blur in my memory. I know that within minutes of the pigs turning up numerous plain clothes MIIO spooks were all over the place arresting everyone who had been on the two floors of the casino that our chase had raged through. Olivia was badly bruised and concussed from the grenade blast on the stairs and her impact onto that pachinka machine, but was otherwise okay. For myself, I was bleeding pretty badly from the sword wound on my hip and was aching from what felt like bruises and minor cuts on just about every other part of my body.
     While the manager of the Spire was shouting in outrage as he was being dragged off for 'questioning', Olivia and I were bundled out of sight into a back office as quickly as possible, where we were expertly patched up by a close-mouthed MIIO med-tech who asked no questions. After some thirty minutes a pair of the MIIO agents entered, both handsome young go-getter types with expensive suits, neat hair, and easy false grins. They hustled us discretely up the elevator to a VTOL pad on the roof of the Spire, where a unmarked civilian hopper was waiting and we were whisked up and away over the city.
     "Listen Darius ..." Olivia began as the hopper swept past one of the great faux fairy tale castle towers of Old Town. "About tonight. I guess ... well ... I guess you saved my life back there, that last Kuritan would have killed me and you took him down."
     I was puzzled at this for just a moment, then realised of course she'd been knocked out when she'd hit that machine, she only knew that I'd fought the ISF man and killed him. Well, this was a lovely turn up, wasn't it just? Stay though, I caught myself before I laid it on too thickly, she'd almost certainly be provided later with witness statements that would describe me running and whimpering before that bastard. I needed to cover myself directly, so assuming a modest look and shook my head.
     "Now, now old girl, none of that. I just pulled a fast one on that Snake bully. Acted like I was the kind of lily-livered noble fop that I've found Kuritans often make the mistake of thinking we Crucians breed. He bought my act and let his guard drop. So ... well ... y'see it was nothing really." I acted absolutely embarrassed and she smiled softly.
     "Well nevertheless I owe you my thanks ... and an apology for that drink in the face. Even if you did deserve it." She grinned and my heart swelled in happy anticipation of turning this dreadful night around with a spot of make-up nookie. As I sat back in the seat, watching the lights of Avalon City slip by beneath us, I realised things were even better than I'd thought; I'd personally killed three ISF agents, taken out Rebbeque (who was dead by the time the med-techs turned up by the way) and had apparently won back Olivia's affections and a degree of grudging forgiveness for my dalliance with Emma Jonath. Also I realised I'd been seen in public in action against a member of the Third Covenant Society and his Kuritan friends, surely that meant I was seriously compromised? I carefully put this to Olivia, making it sound as if I was bitterly disappointed, but she shook her head cheerfully, the bitch.
     "Oh don't worry about that, the Count's men rounded up everyone who might have seen us well enough to recognise us and will hold them in isolation until this whole affair is over and done with. Besides it's a fact that in that kind of extreme situation your average person is too scared to register faces above half. I bet you pennies to C-Bills that none of those poor citizens recognised you, the Hero of Mallory's World, or myself, the Duchess of Chesterton."
     Well that sounded like hopeful madness to me at the time, however I've since learned it's a true fact of human nature ... put simply the bloodier and more violent the event we witness, the more we focus on the event itself rather than on the perpetrator. A good example of this strange tendency can be found in the life and work of Freddie Pai, my trusty orderly when I was Governor of Wei and one of the most notorious Red Pole hitmen of that world. Freddy once happily told me that he would deliberately kill his victims as messily as possible with a vibro-machete in the most public place he could manage, usually a restaurant or cafe. He would then would walk away cool as be damned out of the place, drop the gore-clotted weapon in a trash can round the corner and then absolutely amble back to the scene of the crime, where he would stand watching, completely unrecognised or noticed, along with the shocked crowds while the police and med-techs cleaned up. Trust me, it's true, he showed me a news tri-vid showing the aftermath of one of his hits that he'd taped, and he pointed himself out to me in the crowd!
     Anyway, we were promptly taken back to the Fox's Den for a debriefing from the Truffle-Hunter, who'd arrived in a pale blue and red silk paisley dressing gown and slippers if you can believe that, huffing and puffing and in a fine fury about our 'reckless endangerment of the mission'. After an exhausting hour or two in that fat sod's company I was extremely relieved to get back to the Mount, by way of the Fox's Den's underground mag-lev, which I was using so regularly at that time I should have looked into getting some kind of frequent commuter ticket.
     Did Olivia stay the night? Well a gentleman don't tell does he ... but as I'm no gentleman I can put your minds at rest, you lascivious scoundrels, yes she spent the night and for a few hours I was able to put it all out of my mind for the first time in days. The hellish danger, the shoot-outs, Hanse's cold eyes, Bright's insane rhetoric, Emma Jonath's fanatic earnestness, Truston's hectoring demands, Sortek's ludicrous naivety, Hasek-Davion's murderous ambition, Al'Ain's deceitfulness, McKinnon's bloodthirsty desire for open battle and my mother's abiding wish to make my life miserable ... I forgot the lot of them and lost myself in those beautiful emerald eyes, the feel of her soft warm olive skin, her lustrous raven hair, those perky breasts. Ah the memories are enough to warm my untrustworthy heart even now.
     I should tell you I suppose that Rebbeque was officially 'disappeared' as they say in intelligence circles and the whole Diamond Spire incident hushed up. Rebbeque was posted as AWOL, with a footnote suggesting he'd met with foul play in a bad part of Old Town. Naturally Bright would be unlikely to buy that, but without any other information to go on ... hopefully ... he would just have to wonder and doubtless fret. The uproar at the Spire and the resultant blanket arrests were reported the next day in the press as a gangland feud gone wrong, there was mention of confusion and a p-net address and vid-phone number for relatives of 'the missing' to call.
     Olivia left early the next morning, as quietly as possible through the Fox's Den exit, and I was soon nervously worrying about my next meeting with Bright ... if he somehow knew, or even suspected come to that, about my presence at the Spire I would be for the chop. Not a pleasant prospect I think you'll agree.
     So it was that I nearly soiled my pants when, while gnawing over this situation lying in bed, my p-comp beeped at me that I had mail and reaching over I saw a message flashing from Bright's address. The p-mail seemed positively friendly, asking for me to meet with himself and Al'Ain at the good ole Fox Den Tavern once more at 20:00 hours local. I read and reread the blasted thing, searching for anything in it to suggest Bright had tumbled me, but it seemed no different to any of the other messages the 'Great Man' had sent me over the previous couple of weeks.
     Well, as it happens, now I think about it, that was the afternoon I attended the unveiling of my statue in Peace Park. I recall it was trying to snow at the time, and we were all stood hunched and shivering in our winter overcoats, stamping our feet and eager for the Lord Mayor to get his bloody long winded speech over and done with. Gads what a fag, I was desperate to get away and into a bar or knocking shop in order to drink or roger away my fears about what that nights meeting with Bright might hold in store for me. But I had to stand there while a great queue of earnest politicians, stuffed shirt army dignitaries, minor Davion family nonentities and NACC windbags all got in on the act of being seen in front of the tri-vid cameras praising me in my role as hero of the hour.
     I did the best I could under the circumstances and I suppose it was gratifying to be fawned over, even by that pack of blowhards. However as the sky darkened and night crept in, I stood back in my quarters with a grumbling belly and quaking legs, wondering what was appropriate dress for a meeting that might end in one's murder?

* * *

     I decided if I was going out for the final time, I'd at least look good, so I swaggered into the Fox Den dressed in a crushed red velvet Atrean tail jacket, black silk shirt and black moleskin trousers. I even wore my spurs attached to gleaming shoes. With my black hair long and romantically raffish as it then was, I carried it off deuced well I must say.
     I couldn't initially see Bright, he wasn't in any of the alcove nooks and the fireplace was occupied by a balding old Major wearing the patch of the Rattlers and a floozy who looked young enough to be his daughter ... well I suppose it's possible she was in fact his daughter. I moved over to the bar and was just ordering a local PPC when I spotted him, he was sat at the far end of the bar, a good long distance from any of the other few patrons or barstaff, in a pool of shadows appropriately enough given his out of work hours hobbies. Al'Ain stood behind him, a mute sentry, back in his role as trusty foreign orderly-bodyguard.
     Taking a large gulp of my drink I screwed up my very limited supply of courage and sauntered as casually as I could over to Bright. He raised his hand in greeting as I approached and I pulled up a stool. He was wearing olive-green fatigues without any ribbons or insignia and smiled at me, though it didn't reach his eyes.
     "Good to see you Darius, I wanted to speak with you face to face tonight ... for the last time before Cassius." I gaped in surprise, was he going to launch Cassius ahead of his schedule due to Rebbeque's 'disappearance'? All I could think to say, in my shock, however was;
     "Oh right, well it's jolly decent of you to keep me in the loop old man." Not exactly the height of shrewd intelligence agent patter was it? Bright smiled and leaned over so his face was visible out of the shadows, smoke wreathing it from one of his cheroots that he had been puffing away on.
     "Darius, I've held off telling you about the ins and outs of Operation Cassius not out of mistrust of you, but so as to protect you from knowing the details. If you can honestly claim to have had no notion of the assassination plan itself it will be one more political feather in your cap when the time comes to restore order. D'you see?" I struck a thoughtful pose and played the earnest soldier.
     "Well that's decent, as I say, Jonathan. But still I'm in this with you for better or worse and I want to be in all the way. I can't ask you to risk your skins without me. I can probably help ... if you'd just let me." Bright patted my shoulder and smiled again.
     "I know old chap, I know. But nevertheless, politics demand I keep you untainted by the actual act itself. Besides if we can't ... carry it off with the 'Mechs we have one more wont make any odds." He rattled on then about how glad he was to have me aboard, about the great new Cabalist paradise we'd build together, about how perhaps Emma Jonath might make a fitting mother for a new generation of Davion royalty and about all manner of other such nonsense. Indeed it struck me he was on a frenetic high of excitement, that now his big day was coming he could see that his dreamed for goal was so close he could almost touch it and his pulse was racing at the thought. For myself on the other hand I was musing that he'd let slip to me that 'Mechs were to be used ... well his 'Mechs were out at Summer House. My heart flipped over, that was it, however and where-ever he planned the actual hit ... his 'Mechs were presently at his home. I almost got up and ran out of the Den at that moment, but gripped myself and wracked my brain for something to say.
     "Ah very well Jonathan ... so just tell me one thing ... why Cassius?" He paused at this question thoughtfully, before replying.
     "How's your Classical Roman history Darius?" I shrugged, then a thought hit me.
     "Oh hang about, wasn't there a Cassius in Julius Caesar, one of the plotters wasn't he?" Well my memory for plays that don't have naked women in every other scene is patchy at best, and besides Bright shook his head. I shall lay down what he told me then, as an indication of the strange sideways directions his thoughts were taking at that time.
     "History Darius, history. Not the fictions of the Bard. We have named our most important endeavour for one of the greatest men in Roman history, a man whom we aspire to emulate; Cassius Chaerea.
     Cassius was born into one of Rome's oldest Patrician families, a class of nobles not unlike the First Families from which you and I hail Darius. However Cassius's were no longer wealthy and he joined the legions young, by about the year 5 AD reaching a mid level staff rank, by today's standards. He first made a name for himself in the arena however ... it was during a match between two Germans, champions of rival clans who had volunteered to fight to the death before the mob. One of the Germans, a giant of a man carrying a huge sword, killed his enemy, but puffed up by the baying cheers of the proles he began to brag. Strutting around the arena's edge, shouting to the crowds that he could defeat any man in Rome sword to sword.
     Cassius, whose father had recently been slain while campaigning in Germania, could not bear this challenge to go unanswered and ran to the Imperial Box, begging the Emperor Augustus to permit him to fight the German. Grudgingly the Emperor agreed, fearing the mob's mood if Cassius were to be defeated.
     The duel was by all accounts epic and ended eventually in Cassius killing the German to the adoration of the crowd.
     From that point Cassius rejoined the army and was with it when General Varus led three legions into the famous German ambush in the Teutoberger Forrest some four years or so later. Cassius was commander of a detachment of some hundred and twenty auxiliaries and of the entire army only he managed to lead a successful breakout, cutting through the German hoards and getting eighty of his men back to the Rhine alive, where they occupied one of the bridge forts and held it until relieved. Two feats of arms that have to rank amongst the bravest and best in all recorded military history.
     Years later when the common legionary proles made to mutiny on the Danube, after the death of Augustus, Cassius stood against them, damning their lack of honour and nearly getting killed in the process.
     His singular bravery and record saw him promoted to Prefect of the Guard under Caligula, whom Cassius had carried about camp on his shoulders years before whilst Caligula was still a boy. Cassius suffered greatly under the tyrant Emperor, who spat upon the Patrician families and traditions of Rome, very much like Hanse will do to us and our kind given half the chance. Caligula mocked Cassius for his dignity, his noble aristocratic manner and even claimed Cassius was a coward ... eventually pushed to his limit Cassius led the plot to kill the monster on the throne, with the aim of resting power back to the ancient noble families.
     While he succeeded in killing Caligula, sadly he failed to secure firm rule thereafter ... we shall not."
     Well there you go. That was Jonathan Bright for you, looking back he was a bit of a frustrated history teacher on the whole wasn't he. I can just imagine him carrying a thrashing cane, wearing a professor's cape and mortar board hat, in a dusty classroom at the NAIS;
     "Hopkins! Quick boy sit down, sit down! C'mon lad, right then ... turn your pages to chapter five, the Versailles Treaty ... now then who can tell me how this relates to our God-given right to bully the peasants and why I should be Master of the Universe?"
     Anyway that's all stuff, at the time I sat there looking at him and thinking him quite mad. His eyes were darting about, his lips twitching, his fingers fidgeting with his cheroot and I realised I'd better say something, so babbled about what a fine chap this Chaerea must have been, just the ticket, a real Roman MechWarrior what! Bright suddenly looked bored with me and made a little dismissive flicking gesture with his right hand.
     "Very well Darius. I need to be alone ... to think ... you understand. Please don't try to contact me after 22:00 hours local time tomorrow night. Stay in the Mount as much as you can for the coming days ... I will call on you when it is safe to do so again." Well, this was it then wasn't it. I stood and feeling awkward felt like I'd better make it formal, so paused then held out my hand.
     "Good luck Jonathan." I said, whilst thinking 'You'll need it you crazy moron!' and he briskly shook my paw with his own, which was clammy with sweat. He seemed to have nothing further to say to me, so I turned to go, but as I did he suddenly grabbed at my sleeve. I turned and jumped, startled by the almost feverish grin plastered across his suave features.
     "Darius ... do you realise when we next see each other I will be Lord of New Avalon?" He looked suddenly embarrassed, or perhaps actually scared, it was hard to tell as his expression seemed to be changing by the second. Well I just gaped, thinking 'hold up aren't I meant to be the one becoming First Prince?', and he released my sleeve and actually laughed. It was a high pitched and bloody unsettling giggle.
     "Or dead meat I suppose." He added ... I gulped and backed away, watching as he sat back into the shadows. He raised his cheroot and I saw just a last glimpse of his mad eyes in the brief red flare from the end of his cigar. Then I turned and hurried out the Den. That was the last time I saw him, Jonathan Bright ... the man who would be Master of the Federated Suns. Well it takes all kinds I suppose, but for sheer insane self-confidence and wild reckless ambition I've rarely met his like ... thank Christ.

[Tokage]

Chapter 26

     Within an hour and a half I was seated back at the polished table, in that same long rectangular Fox's Den war-room where I had first been briefed by Hanse and his cronies about Bright's plot. Hanse once more sat at the head of the table, wearing civilian evening dress so I guessed he had come straight from some dinner or function at receiving word that I had vital news. Alongside him, on his right as usual, was Dan Sortek whom I was sat next to, Olivia and Truston were opposite us, while further down the table dressed in the green and tan uniforms of the Seventh Crucis Lancers were Ross McKinnon, his walrus faced 'bodyguard' MechWarrior Kurt Lytton and his three Leftenants; Karl Ryder, a quietly diligent seeming young chap who had an expression like a constipated Galahad, Alex Vorster, a long nosed middle aged man with thinning black hair and an easygoing manner, and of course Mack's own son Ian.
     Ian McKinnon, who you will be aware has if anything won a greater name and reputation than even his celebrated father over the decades since, was a lance commander in his twenties back then. He'd been introduced to me by Mack a couple of times earlier that year, during my stint with the Bane while part of the garrison on New Avalon, and I'd not liked the look of him above half. Short, wiry, tough as gristle, with cropped black hair and active pale eyes, even back then he was known for near suicidal acts of bravery. He'd been fighting with his pa'pa's unit getting on for a decade by then and every time I'd bumped into him about town or the Mount he'd been chafing at the 'ghastly garrison duty' as he put it. Like his father he believed I was just his type and from the first time I ever met him he had been practically begging me to put in a request for a transfer to their ragtag remnant of a unit. Just like Sortek, or that pompous poseur Carlyle, Ian's the kind of bright eyed, fearless, interfering, daring, busybody, bloodthirsty schoolboy that will get you or I killed, whilst winning their laurels. Oh, I didn't doubt he was very good at his job, the best small-unit light 'Mech commander of our generation, if you believe Hanse ... in my view, and for my sins I came to know him well in later years, in the attack he deserves to be up there with the great names of our time, such as Snord, Kell, Kerensky, and Azzarri, but that said, when defending a position I'd say he was a damned liability.
     Mind you I'm biased, as I've never forgiven him for the hell he dragged me through on Harrow's Sun eight years later; twenty-to-one odds he led us into that day after Ross and Lytton were killed, the bloody madman!
     Well, anyhoo that's of no consequence to this tale. So, I quickly spilled out what I'd learnt from Bright and was gratified to see plenty of smiles around the table. As Hanse pondered my words I allowed myself to relax somewhat, mentally slapping myself on the back. I was done with this whole horrible business at last and if I played things right, I reasoned, I should come out smiling with plenty of good credit with our new First Prince. Just goes to show you should never count on your ammo before it's fired.
     "Well done Darius. So gentlemen ... thoughts?" Hanse said, his blue eyes boring into us one by one, starting with the Court Jester.
     "You know my view Hanse. Hit 'em, hit 'em hard." Sortek snarled.
     "A rapid response would seem wise ... now ... Your Highness." Truston rumbled.
     "I agree Hanse. Let's clean this mess up once and for all." Olivia said in her crystal clear voice. I then realised all eyes were on me, so decided to play the grim soldier and inadvertently, off the top of my head, coined an honorific that's now legendary.
     "Absolutely Sire ... folk call you the Fox ... well then I say it's high time you showed our enemies your teeth." Mack absolutely cheered at that, he and his crowd hammering the table with their right fists in approval, whilst Hanse's thin lips spread into an appropriately vulpine grin.
     "The Fox's Teeth eh Darius? I think I like that ..." I don't know who leaked it out, after the events of the following morning, that I'd been the chap who came up with that pretty corny play on Hanse's childhood nickname, but the McKinnons have loved me like kin ever since for it and I've dined out on the fact more times than I can remember.
    "So then it's agreed, Mack and his Raiders will be my 'teeth', as Darius puts it, and will hit this nest of traitors at Summer House. Mack you've seen the comm-sat holos and Darius's report on the layout of the place. How should it best be done do you think?" Mack punched up a tri-vid layout on the player at the centre of the table and stood, his eyes reflecting the green light of the map.
     "If we approach from land Sire we risk Bright spotting our approach through spies, or security systems. If that happens and he's ready for us ... well we'd still win, but it'd be a damn sight more costly ... these aren't Snakes or Crapellans we're dealing with, nor even pirates, they are ... were ... Davion Guards MechWarriors and they'll be fighting for their very lives." He paused for effect and began pacing, his hands clasped behind his back.
     "No, we can't attack overland, so-" At that moment Mack's son Ian piped up in a cheery, excited voice.
     "We'll be dropping in for breakfast ... just like Sacre Mesa on Anjin Muerto in aught nine! Why we took seven kills and almost caught Bar-Dyness himself within barely a quarter hour." The other Lancer officers grinned at their fond memories of what I correctly assumed was one of their Periphery border scraps and Mack nodded briskly to junior.
     "Aye that's right, we shall attack from orbit ... an atmo-drop." I suppressed an instinctive shudder; atmospheric drops are dreaded by any MechWarrior with half a brain. You plummet out of a DropShip, your 'Mech typically encased in ablative shielding, upwards of fifteen thousand meters above the ground, that's practically in space, and then free fall down. At about a thousand meters you have to use a jet pack, typically strapped to the 'Mech's rear, to orientate and slow your descent. Even without taking into account the hail of enemy fire that's usually being pumped up at you, if you burn too much thrust, too quickly, you can very easily shred the connectors to the backpack, or cause an unrecoverable spin, or burn off all your fuel and have nothing left to stop you landing with all the force of an incoming missile. Then there's the hellacious job of navigating your descent to where you want to land. I'd carried out plenty of simulated atmo-drops at the Sak, but had never had to suffer one for real at that time and was damned keen to keep things that way. Mack's madmen were by all accounts experts of this difficult tactic though and it seemed to hold no fear for them.   
     "Very well then Mack ... my only concern is that Bright will certainly learn of any launch of your unit, mightn't it ring alarm bells and cause him to act precipitously?" Hanse asked and eager to help with the safe planning side I piped up like the good little soldier I was meant to be.
     "Could you not issue orders that the Raiders are to join the exercises on Imbrial Sire? Perhaps with an order rotating one of the Guards companies presently there, to return back here." Mack nodded at me happily.
     "That's the ticket Darius. Why, once we're up there we can lie doggo, comm-silent, just like Anjin Muerto Ian, while I brief the lads. Then in the dead time just after dawn, we'll drop in on Bright and we'll take them completely by surprise or I'm a Crapellan." Well it all sounded deuced risky to me, but I was still feeling pleased as punch that I was clearly the hero of the day yet again and almost missed Hanse's response.
     "Excellent, so what's your available strength Mack?"
     "Well we've four lances, as you may recall Sire, young Alvarez has volunteered to give up his seat for Darius, so we'll be sixteen 'Mechs, to the enemies possible twelve to eighteen." Hanse rattled on then about having Marshal Doger ready a company of DMI special forces, to deploy in Karnovs, in order to surround the estate as soon as the battle was joined. However I was sat there in a sudden state of sick funk. They were talking as if I was going along on this shockingly perilous mission. What did I do? Sit still? Pretend not to have heard and try to slip out?
     "I want this ISF bastard Al'Ain and any other of his countrymen that might be at Summer House taken alive if possible." Hanse continued. "For interrogation, you understand?" Mack was nodding and against my better judgement I cleared my throat.
    "Ah, Your Highness?" All eyes turned to me. Hanse gestured for me to speak up, gads but I'd have to handle this delicately ... I certainly couldn't be seen to be trying to duck the action, or all my scheming, blind luck and desperate fearful acts of self-preservation would be wasted; my reputation would be blown and I'd face a grim future of disgrace, bum postings and misery. On the other hand, I'd rather stab pins in my eyes than jump a 'Mech out of a DropShip in low-planetary-orbit, hurtle down like a meteor, then in the unlikely event I survived that prospect engage in a pitched 'Mech battle with probably very proficient Cabalist fanatics.
     "Perhaps I have misheard ... am I to understand I'm to be part of this jaunt?" Hanse's face remained impassive, his eyes seemingly burning into my own. Mack barked a chuckle and interrupted.
     "Oh never fret Darius old man, I knew you'd be champing at the bit to have a crack at Bright and would never forgive us if we left you behind on the sidelines. So I took the liberty of arranging things with Hanse." Hanse allowed what looked to me suspiciously like a small knowing smile to cross his features as he watched me closely and my heart sped up all the more ... the bastard knew, he'd seen through my act, pegged me for the cowardly, self-serving rat I am and was punishing me like he'd warned me he would.
     "I felt you deserved to be in at the kill, so to speak Darius, and besides Mack's arguments made good sense to me. You are the only man who has been around Summer House and it's grounds after all, also you'll be able to lead Mack and his lads straight to that hidden hangar entrance." Which was all stuff if you ask me, I'd shown them on the comm-sat holos exactly where that entrance was! But what could I do? Hanse was watching me damned closely and I couldn't even be seen to hesitate, so with my bowels dissolving once more and my heart pounding I assumed a rueful grin and shook my head.
     "Thanks Mack, I owe you one!" To which the others about the table all shared glances and grins at trusty Darius's famous eagerness to put himself in harms way. Hanse spoke up again.
     "I've arranged for a gift to be waiting aboard Mack's Command DropShip for you Darius. A replacement for the 'Mech you lost on Mallory's World. Consider it a reward for all your work on my behalf so far." I thanked the canny swine as cheerfully as I could manage at the time and tried not to glare too hard at Sortek when he came out with some complete bollocks about wishing he could 'come along and join in the fun'. Though knowing him he was probably being entirely honest.
      It was at that moment I realised Hanse had stood and leaned forward onto his fists. His features had taken on a cold, hard, look and his deadlights swept us in a bone chilling gaze.
     "So then ... in two days I will become First Prince of these Federated Suns and I will not allow our enemies ... any of them ... to divide us at this time. This Cabalist treason will die before I assume my title. We are all here working for the best interests of our nation and people.
     Rest assured I will reward those who serve me well ... but conversely I will discard any traitors who work against us and for themselves.
     In short ... I want Bright and every member of the Third Covenant Society dead by dawn."           
    Well that was blunt wasn't it. There was clearly not going to be any chance of a trial for these beauties was there? I stared at Hanse in some shock. Sure, I'd known he was a tough commander and doubtless ruthless on the battlefield, but I'd never seen this frankly terrifying side of him before that night. Indeed Bright's warnings that Hanse would become a tyrant ran through my mind and I felt a prickle of fear at the thought of that unpleasant possibility. Well if anyone 'worked for themselves' it was me and it occurred that if Hanse ever learnt the truth, for sure, about my nature it was clear he wasn't going to be particularly forgiving.
     By the way, I realise our boy Hanse has always had plenty of apologists and some of you reading this may think I'm just allowing my dislike of the Fox to colour my memory of this event and that I'm perhaps stretching things a trifle ... well damn your impudence! I suggest you check the historical records for the warning against treason that Happy Hanse had filtered throughout the entire AFFS, right after he engineered the destruction and slaughter of the Fifth Syrtis Fusiliers in '29. It ain't equivocal, either you're with Hanse or against him, and woe betide you if you ain't with him. 

[Tokage]

Chapter 27

     It's a funny thing but I have no actual recollection of the events that immediately followed that final meeting in the Fox's Den right up until Mack's briefing aboard the Revenge, his Leopard Class Command DropShip. I've been told I was smuggled aboard dressed as a lowly Tech, so I wouldn't be recognised by any Cabalist spies watching the troop movements. Christ and Conrad only know how I didn't collapse into a catatonic pile of quivering jelly, my state of funk must have been so all consuming I just didn't take notice of anything that was going on around me.
     The doubly odd thing is that Ian McKinnon once told me admiringly, some years later, that he'd never seen anyone as cool and serene looking whilst at the heart of the organised chaos of a rapid pre-combat loading drill, as I had seemed that night. Bizarre ain't it? I can only guess that my mind was so absorbed with trying to concoct desperate plans, that might get me out of the fix I was in, that I must have just gazed about like a KrayZee addict who's come into money. I don't even recall the bone-shaking, ear rupturing, pain of experiencing the DropShip blasting up through New Avalon's atmosphere!
     So then, before I get to Mack's memorable zero-g briefing of that night I should give you an idea of the type of soldiers I was soon to be going into combat alongside.
     McKinnon's Raiders were, at that time, save for one other semi-independent Company, the last remnants of the Seventh Crucis Lancers. Back in the dying days of the Star League one Kieran McKinnon, a Captain in the SLDF, refused to join the Exodus Fleet, switched allegiances to serve the Fed Suns and brought his entire company along with him. In December 2786 McKinnon's Independent Company gave Kurita a bloody nose during the First Battle of Kasai, one of the earliest campaigns of the First Succession War. 
     In reward for their heroic service on Kasai, McKinnon and his men were given estates on Kestrel, a dirtball breadbasket world close to New Avalon. Hardly seems fair to me, but by all accounts those Star Leaguer renegades were chuffed to bits and positively put down roots, which having seen Kestrel myself leads me to question the accepted belief that the Hegemony was still a high-tech paradise back then. Anyway, for the next decade or so, these farmer-MechWarriors sat on their arses on Kestrel, or an assortment of dusty Outback postings, while the seemingly unstoppable DCMS steamrollered ever deeper towards New Avalon ... well I suppose perhaps that's why McKinnon and his men never complained.
     This was until 2796 when McKinnon's Company were ordered to the planet Kentares, where they were incorporated into a newly raised BattleMech Regiment; the Seventh Crucis Lancers ... which like all the early Crucis Lancer formations was made up almost entirely of ex-Star League Regular Army volunteers. Then, quicker than it takes me to pop a bra-strap, the DCMS attacked in massive force and the Seventh were broken and scattered. McKinnon's unit was one of the few intact elements of the regiment and fought on as guerillas ... which ain't easy when you're walking about in twelve meter high battle machines believe me ... I've had to do it myself more than once and I don't recommend it.
     Still they must have been better at it than I was, for it had been one of the Seventh's infantry snipers, attached to McKinnon's guerilla band, that had potted Minoru the Monster himself. Ever since, the Company have celebrated the occasion annually with a dinner in the mess and a piss-up that in my experience has all the maudlin sentimentality of a Killarney wake, they call it 'the Sniper's Supper'. I'd avoid it if you're ever at risk of being invited, indeed it was down to the filthy Kentaran Rum, with which they insist on toasting every member of the regiment who fell on Kentares, that I ended up, as the Hound would have put it, as drunk as a spacer at a dim star, after foolishly agreeing to attend in '20 and directly due to that inebriation was thrust wailing into the Fourth Battle for Harrow's Sun.
     I digress, McKinnon and his band somehow survived the infamous Massacre that followed their handiwork, perhaps by finding a deep hole and staying put in it, until they were rescued along with another Company who'd fought the Snakes seperately, several years later when the planet was liberated.
     Despite being the only survivors of the Seventh Crucis, the two semi-autonomous Companies of survivors retained the regimental name as a badge of honour. Kieran McKinnon was killed in action a few years after that on Barlow's Folly, if memory serves, and the First Prince of the time started the tradition in the unit that has held ever since of the Captain's eldest son assuming command.
     Throughout the rest of the First Succession War McKinnon's Company fought extensively along the Kuritan Front, then during the Second War along the Capellan border, including mounting a famous deep penetration raid against Sian itself. It was this daring and costly exploit that won them their honour title, McKinnon's Raiders, and by all accounts they so terrified Chancellor Dainmar Liao, a chap after my own heart by the sound of it, he immediately sued for peace and spinelessly recognised all our territorial gains made at Capellan expense. The Raiders still serve punch out of one of poor old Dainmar's personal, jade studded, silver hand basins by the way and on special occasions shovel their grub off of beautiful pale green eggshell porcelain, which was once part of a Chancellery dinner set.
     For most of the Third Succession War the Raiders were assigned to the Periphery border, where they were involved in countless raids, punitive expeditions, and skirmishes against pirates, slavers, nomad spacers, lunatic religious sects, Outback bandits and sundry other riff-raff. Not to mention stiff and regular action against the Taurians.
     The Hound had ordered Mack and his famous unit back to New Avalon a couple of years previously and had given them Guard status as a reward for their unstinting service.
     They were and are a strange bunch I can tell you. They cling to seemingly random bits and bobs of their Star League heritage; not the whole kit and kaboodle like the Eridani lads do, but a little tradition here, a turn of phrase there. For example; they wear ceremonial daggers, Regular Army style, when in full AFFS dress fig, sing Hegemony ballads badly and out of key, award a Gunslinger patch annually to the Company member who has racked up the highest kills that year, oh and they constantly ironically misquote General Kerensky from his famous speech after the fall of Amaris, almost as a kind of catch phrase ... for example;
     "How y'doing buddy?"
     "Oh, I've faced the worst; what comes next can't be half as bad." Then roll about laughing as if they've just made the funniest joke in the Sphere.
     As I say they're a weird bunch and best avoided ... yet there I was struggling to stay still in zero-gravity, desperate not to empty my stomach's contents, crammed into the small mess-deck of Mack's DropShip, alongside Mack and his Leftenants. While we and the other four Leopards then attached to the Raiders drifted silently above New Avalon, which was visible curving away beyond the small view-slit Mack had opened for the occasion.
     I don't know if any of you've ever had the misfortune to travel by Leopard Class DropShip?
     If you have you'll sympathise with me here, if not ... well how can I describe it ... just try to picture a slab sided, brick shaped craft, some sixty meters long, plated with aligned-crystal armour and weighing nearly two thousand tons even before it takes aboard 'Mechs. You'd think perhaps, such a massive craft would be fairly spacious inside ... fat chance, the back half of the thing is all engine, it's vast Star League V84 drive, then there's it's 'Mech bays, which hold up to four BattleMechs and finally cramped up for'ard is the crew quarters, a pair of aerospace fighter bays, lifepods, mess-deck, bridge and storage bays. All this and then there's the nine crewmen, two pilots and four MechWarriors. Believe me tinned sardines have more wriggle room than passengers aboard a Leopard. Then like most military spacecraft, they're always either too hot, or too cold, and stink of sweat, urine, vomit, 'Mech coolant, and grease. Often they're very old and falling apart at the seams. I've been aboard one that was so clapped out it's 'Mech bay doors kept rolling open of their own accord whenever it entered a planetary atmosphere!
     The Revenge, named for Kentares I was advised, was it should be said better kept than most, mind you I've still smelt fresher air in a four day old Crapellan latrine though.
     "Your attention please lads ..." As Mack called us to order, I felt a surge of bile and gulped it down gagging. With us were Mack's Leftenants, who would soon be shuttled over to their DropShips to relay Mack's briefing to their lancemates; Ian McKinnon, Karl Ryder, and Alex Vorster. Also present were the other two MechWarriors that would form Mack's Command Lance, along with myself of course, these were grouchy old Kurt Lytton and a complete loon by the name of Henrik Dekker. Dekker was some kind of rabid God-botherer, a gaunt middle aged man with bowl cut fair hair and a face like someone had slapped him, he carried a large old leather bound Bible into the briefing I recollect. We were all dressed to move at a moments notice; vest, shorts, soft soled 'Mech shoes and MechWarrior gloves, however despite the cool, I was sweating like an Ellsie on Luthien.
     "So ... we've been given the most important mission of our times lads. We're going to ensure Hanse Davion gets to sit on the throne of the Federated Suns." He grinned at them and they all smiled and grinned back. I tried to follow suit but had to put my hand over my mouth to hold back the puke.
     "Our forefathers dropped onto Sian to end one Succession War ... now maybe by dropping on New Avalon we'll start the end of another.
     There hasn't been Company scale 'Mech combat on New Avalon for over two hundred years, that was way back in the early days of the First Succession War. We're going to take part in the first combat drop down there since. Not to attack Avalon itself of course, but to cleanse it." He then skilfully detailed his plan of attack, pointing out positions on a holomap of Bright's estate; basically we would drop from the Leopards at eighteen thousand meters, Ian's Attack Lance would land at the estate gates and kill any 'Mechs on guard there, then work their way in towards the house itself. Meanwhile Ryder's Medium Lance were to land directly beside Summer House and secure it. Ross's Command Lance, including your quaking correspondent, and Vorster's Recon Lance were going to land as close to the entrance to Bright's secret hangar as possible and assault the hangar itself.
     "Darius you young rascal, I understand this is going to be your first atmo-drop?" Mack turned to me, his eyes twinkling. I nodded in sick confirmation and a roar went up from the others in good humour.
     "WEY-HEY a virgin!"
     "C'mon let's debag him." And much other such schoolboyish nonsense was cried out, while Dekker, the only serious one, muttered something about the Valley of Death ... the cursed croaker. Mack however waved them all quiet and drifted close enough to clap me on the shoulder.
     "We'll have to forego the usual debagging ceremony I think lads ... still can't see you off Darius without a toast, Kurt old son pass me the shampoo." Eyebrows bristling and possibly smiling slightly under his great bush of a grey moustache, as if by magic Lytton absolutely produced a little half-bottle of Albionic Champagne.
     I'd seen some memorable things that year, but I don't think I'd been as mutely confused as hanging to that wall, watching Ross McKinnon struggling with the champagne cork, while weightless, chattering to me about the need not to let the cork 'get away' and to watch for the 'shampoo' drifting onto everything ... while his son cheered him on, Dekker droned about the evils of drink, ignored by his fellows, and Ryder and Vorster pored over the holomap. I just gazed at them all thinking; 'Good grief you crazy idiots, don't you know we might all be dead in an hour or two?'. Of course, they knew that fact, it just didn't bother them above half ... this kind of thing was their bread and butter after all.
     After a fumbled gulp of the champagne, which did nothing to settle my roiling guts, I passed the bottle on to Lytton, my hand over the top. While Mack chuntered on to me about just sticking close to him 'on the way down' and following his lead. Lytton looked pretty hard at me and grunted something to his boss.
     "Kurt says you're looking peeky Darius? You sky-sick?" Mack asked ... well I try to play my role as Daring Darius even to the last so, affecting a weak grin, I shook my head.
     "I'm just a little queasy about heights Sir, don't worry I won't let you down." Ross and the others gaped at me in impressed surprise, as I'd of course intended ... well I couldn't have got out of going on the drop by that point, not without ruining my good name, so I reasoned I might as well play the game to the end. It wouldn't hurt in the unlikely event I survived, to return with Mack and his chaps telling this tale would it.
     "I've never seen the like," They'd say. "Darius was actually afraid of heights, but didn't let it interfere with his eagerness to be along all the way and to get in at the kill. He was first out the door eighteen kilometers up! Bravest thing I ever saw."
     Anyway, after a round of hand shakes, the briefing broke up, but only after Mack looked around the group one last time;
     "Okay, comm-silence until I tell you otherwise. Err one small thing, try to limit the damage done to Summer House itself, if you can. Well ... good luck chaps. I'll see you all on the hard side. Just remember we've all faced the worst; what comes next can't be half as bad!" To which they gave a merry cheer and left me to Mack's care.
     "Let's go take a look at Hanse's gift eh?" Mack fisted me on the arm and we set off for the 'Mech bay.

* * *

     The 'Mech bay of the Revenge was like a mini-'Mech hangar, the 'Mech's were stood upright however, unlike the typically crouched position normal to most hangars, ready to be walked or run out of the DropShip as quickly as possible. Also it's a good deal easier to reach the head mounted cockpits of the great machines in zero-g, one just has to pull lightly up the ladder, which is a fun and unusual experience until you get used to it.
     "There it is." Mack gave a whistle of appreciation as we pulled ourselves level with a towering Assault 'Mech, Hanse's gift to me; encased in white ablative shielding stood a VTR-9A Victor. Assault 'Mechs are the kings of the battlefield, often considered equal to an entire Lance of lighter 'Mechs and are fearsomely rare and valuable. This was a Princely gift indeed. I'd only ever pilotted light and medium 'Mechs prior to this and had never dreamed Hanse would be so generous, I said as much to Mack.
     "Didn't Hanse tell us he'd reward his loyal servants. Well you bloodthirsty rogue, there's your first reward." He was right, Hanse was clearly not Ian, whereas the Hound had been tighter than the Primus's privates, the Fox was positively generous ... to his friends.
     I spent the next couple of hours tuning my neurohelmet to the Victor's computers and prepared myself for the drop. I was suited up and waiting when the DropShip began it's descent over Albion at the prearranged time of fifteen minutes before local dawn. The DropShip doors opened to reveal a terrifying vista of purplish haze, riven suddenly by shafting rays of the sun just below the curve of New Avalon. A sight that is burned into my memory and will never leave me.
     My HUD showed a count down, flickering in green light before me, and my fear soared once more, my brain screaming in protest ... this was insane ... crazy ... why me? ... why me? ... ohhhhh mummmeeeee!

[Tokage]

Chapter 28

     I was thrown bodily forward, my seat harness snapping rigid, as my 'Mech was launched explosively from the DropShip's bay. I gasped in pain and instinctively squeezed my eyes shut as I was suddenly falling through space amidst a cloud of glittering metal chaff and fragments of ablative shielding. I'd had the forethought to switch off the comm, so screamed freely in terror.
     If you think a atmospheric drop in a BattleMech is simply a kind of metal clad sky dive, where you hang as if suspended in a tranquil sky ... well I'm here to tell you it ain't. My ears were deafened by a constant rushing roar, as my eighty some ton mount smashed down towards the distant ground and terminal velocity. My jaw was clamped shut so hard it hurt, I forced my eyes open to find myself in a whirling, sickening, spin. I caught a flash of Mack's MAD-3D Marauder, it's arm mounted weapon pods spread and it's back mounted thruster pack firing off directed little bursts that seemed to be stabilising it very quickly. Then I was spinning again, so that suddenly I was blinking up at the five DropShips banking away in a 'V' formation.
     "Oh Christ, oh Blake, oh Christ, oh Blake." I babbled, thumbing the thruster controls on my right joystick and feeling a sudden thud-kick sensation from the rear of my 'Mech. It took me what seemed like minutes, though can only have been ten to twenty seconds, to right the blasted tin can, until it was in a spread eagle position, facing bellydown so I would have a sphincter loosening view of the ground once I passed through the cloud layer. Then suspended forward by my harness I hammered on the computer console before me, switching on the proximity radar and nav-systems.
     Still breathlessly repeating my sacrilegious mantra to myself, I began to make the very cautious and careful adjustments to my position that would align my 'Mech to the flickering amber triangles now showing on my HUD, directing me to our planned Drop Zone inside Bright's estate. An altimeter flashed in the lower corner of the HUD, it's rapidly diminishing numbers only serving to intensify my shivering fear.
     For a short moment I saw one of the other lances streaking down, Ian McKinnon's I think, their 'Mechs actually diving in downward pointing positions, in order to increase the speed of their descent. I don't doubt they were all whooping and laughing in their cockpits, the crazy idiots, but comm silence was strictly adhered to.
     I then saw a spread of distant lights far away to the north; Avalon City I realised. That was quite something, a sight I'd never in a million years have dreamed I'd see whilst on a combat drop ... I could even just about make out the spur of the mountains which included Mount Davion, sparkling with the little cluster of lights that had to be the Palace. For just a moment I forgot the danger and gawked at the purple hued vista below, wondering whether we'd be visible like shooting stars to the Avalonians.
     Then we hit the clouds and turbulence simultaneously, and I instantly began panicking again. We were churning through rain clouds and I struggled with the violently juddering sticks, whilst moisture slicked the tinted armourglass of my cockpit canopy. I was suddenly completely alone, I couldn't see two meters though the clouds and had no idea where the others were ... it was at that moment I realised I might actually be able to worm my way out of being part of the hellish battle that was about to take place when Mack's mob hit the dirt running.
     This was my first combat drop, despite my Mallory's World reputation and the intelligence work I'd been dragged into over the previous few weeks, I was still just a raw nineteen year old greenhorn ... if I lost control of my 'Mech a little in these clouds and got spun off course, well no one would think anything of it, it was just the sort of unplanned for accident that happened all the time during military operations. My peers would be positively sorry for me, getting lost and arriving late, after all the 'fun' was over. Hanse might suspect I suppose, but really what could he do? Mack would back me I was sure ... my heart soared and I immediately began to nudge my 'Mech to it's left, away from the nav triangles on my HUD.
     The altimeter read seven hundred and ninety meters when I erupted through the bottom of the rain clouds and the neat looking fields, orchards, farms and estates of Albion's River Basin District were spread beneath me. I craned my neck about to try to find where Mack and his boys were, for a moment I couldn't see them, then I realised they were some way to my right and a good deal closer to the ground than myself, which I took to be all too the better.
     With a nervy start I suddenly remembered that I should have been firing my jets by now, in order to safely slow and control my final descent and landing. I was in the process of ratchetting up my thrust gently, when my comm started flashing and cursing I hit it.
     "Tooth Two, this is Tooth One, you're off course, get back on my six pronto." Mack, the sharp eyed swine, had spotted what he doubtless took to be my error and his voice was all business. I couldn't think of a way to argue with him so started correcting my descent path, while my jets burned fully, guzzling fuel at an alarming rate, and I brought my machine up into an upright crouch.
     I could make out Summer House itself, lit up clearly now some distance to my right, and after burning back in the general direction of Mack and the rest of the Command Lance I realised with a start I was going to land some distance from them, thanks to my abortive attempt to get myself lost. Typical ... again my instinctive cowardly scheming was going to probably land me in a worse spot than if I'd just gone with the flow.
     The land seemed now to hurtle up to meet me, and jets burning I descended the final thirty meters or so. I came down actually in a pretty flower garden that I recalled Bright had pointed out to me as the Horace Bright Memorial Bower. Blake only knows who Horace Bright was precisely, but I made one hell of a mess of his flower beds.
     My eighty tons of BattleMech landed at roughly ten meters a second, there was a bone jarring thud and turf went flying everywhere. At the same instant I heard the thudder-stutter of autocannon fire and a double explosion from the direction of the main house. Suddenly firing erupted from several directions and I tried to spin my Victor thinking I was under attack, however I quickly realised the gunfire was coming from what sounded to be several firefights elsewhere about the estate. Well this could have been worse ... I dragged my 'Mech up and decided I'd stay right where I was for the time being. Paying my respects to Horace Bright as it were. Then when the battle began to wind down I'd charge in guns blazing, cursing volubly over the comm about becoming lost, or bogged down, or something.
     I'd should have been so lucky.

* * *

     Now battle was joined comm silence was thrown to the wind and I was surprised to find that the Third Covenant Society MechWarriors were using our comm channel, which was after all the AFFS standard. So, crouched in my bower, I heard chatter from both sides and several bizarre mid-battle exchanges, for example;
     "Tooth One to Tooth Three, pot that bloody Stinger Kurt old fellow. He nearly took my arm off then."
     "I'll do more than that, you bastard."
     "Tooth Three, I'm on him."
     "Like hell you are, eat this."
     "Watch the house lads! Watch the house!"
     "We're under attack, we're under attack!"
     "McKinnon you peasant-loving braggart, I'm going to kill you then move on your beloved boy-loving Prince."  I suddenly heard Bright roar and thought, well better Mack have to deal with him than myself. It was at that moment a pair of Cabalist 'Mechs, a Wasp and a Shadow Hawk,  ran across the entrance to the Bower. I think they were as surprised as I was, for they took a moment to stop, turn and look at me. We raised our 'Mech's weapons at the same time, but thankfully my fear made me quicker.
     It was the first time I fired my Victor's primary weapon, a massive Pontiac 100 vulcan autocannon. It's a fearsome beast of a weapon, a real 'Mech masher, firing 120mm depleted uranium shells. I'd aimed at the little Wasp and couldn't miss at that range, we were barely ten meters from each other, the cannon shells tore straight through the light 'Mech's central torso and knocked out it's power plant. Shards of molten ceramite exploded in a firey cloud, then with an echoing volcanic flash the 'Mech disintegrated from the waist up, lighting the dim predawn fiercely.
     "Kyle!" I heard a familiar woman's voice over the comm gasp in horror. In an instant I realised the Wasp must have been piloted by Leftenant Kyle De Winters, a swarthy faced young rake from the Alex who'd been part of Bright's little dinner party. Well he was nothing to me, but it did make me pause for a second ... it ain't often you kill someone who a few days previous you were asking to pass the salt, is it? Also I froze at the recognition of Emma Jonath's voice from the Hawk and I couldn't stop myself from gasping her name aloud. The fifty five ton Shadow Hawk ducked away from the flaming remains of De Winters' Wasp and I heard a curse over the comm.
     "Darius? You fracking traitor!" Well our amour was clearly at an end as, while spouting the kind of language that would have shocked a Periphery pirate, she opened up on me with her 'Mech's Martel Model 5 laser cannon and a shoulder mounted Armstrong J11 60mm autocannon. My Victor rocked under her damned accurate fire, which chewed into my machine's left arm and torso, damage alarms bleeped and I thought; Right ho lass, that's enough for me! Then promptly turned and jumped away from her and out of the flower garden over a neatly trimmed six meter high hedge.
     She wasn't going to let me go that easily however, a woman spurned and all that I suppose, and she was instantly on my tail firing away at me with a deuced sharp eye. There followed what I remember as an epic chase, across the gardens of Bright's estate, I was in a fine panic and smashed, jumped and ran my way through hedges, lawns, bushes, flower beds and all manner of shrubbery. My ex-lover hot on my tail and launching flight after flight of missiles at me.
     There were hot little 'Mech duels raging at various points about the estate, some of which we passed pretty close to, I recall half glimpsed and confused flashes of those fights; Ian McKinnon's Marauder, twin to his father's, loosing off bolts of man-made lightning from it's arm pods into a quartet of armoured personnel carriers, two of which ruptured and spewed out members of Bright's private army, burning and thrashing in agony ... Dekker, firing into the windows of Summer House at infantry snipers, causing explosions to whoosh out, whilst bellowing fire and brimstone scripture ... two Cabalist Rifleman 'Mechs making a stand by the Lantern Gazebo, their torsos swivelling and spent cannon shell casings falling from their thundering weapns, while Ryder's Lance circled them like wolves ... one of Vorster's Recon Lance, a Wasp I recognised as having belonged to a skinny beanpole of a chap named Jaminski, stood burning and leaking a pyre of black smoke, on a gravel path I tore across, it's cockpit and head completely blown away ... a Karnov VTOL hovering, it's turbofans whooshing, as black clad DMI commandos sped down lines ... peach trees burning in a ring ... a squad of rifle armed Cabalist infantry firing bravely at me, then evaporating into bloody pulp when I opened up on them with my 'Mech's heavy machine gun while running past ... missiles streaking through a little classical style folley ... Bright raging over the comm ... Jonath screaming venom.
     In short we'd arrived before the sun and turned Bright's estate into a little corner of hell. I saw confused flashes of the whole, but only later learned that though we'd caught the Third Covenant Society completely by surprise, at least half their 'Mechs and armoured vehicles were at large in the estate grounds, perhaps Bright had been wary of just such an attack. It was a bitter fight, with no quarter given or asked, a fight between peers, men who days before were on the same side, perhaps even friends in some cases. Everywhere the air was rent with the chatter of small arms, the thudder-thudder of cannon fire, the shriek of missiles, bursting explosions and the sharp crack of particle cannons. Fires were raging across the parkland and gardens, while despite Mack's best intentions half the house itself was an inferno and dawn's light was washing the whole scene in a faint orange haze. I could not believe this was New Avalon, a short drive from the capital city itself!
     I was about to try to desperately find some kind of ambush point from which to turn on the mad bitch pounding on my tail, when I smashed through another low hedge and hurtled my eighty tons of Victor at perhaps sixty klicks per hour straight into another BattleMech. There was one almighty clang and we both went flying, I just had time to realise I'd smashed into a GRF-1N Griffin ... Bright's 'Mech ... before crashing headlong into the gravel of the main dive.
     I cracked my neurohelmet stunningly against the side of my cockpit's eject mechanism and nearly passed out from the pain, tasting the coppery tang of blood, and was only just aware of missiles streaking over head, presumably having been aimed at Bright. Gasping in agony and cursing, I struggled to roll my downed 'Mech to it's side just in time to catch sight of Emma's oncoming Shadow Hawk, it's laser cannon flickering and lashing my 'Mech's left leg with an explosive flash.
     With a grunt and feeling the oven heat in my cockpit rocket up all the more, from my helpless prone position I let go with everything I had in desperation; a volley of cyclomite CX-12 tipped medium ranged missiles, my Pontiac 100 cannon, my linked Sorenstein V 3mj laser cannons, even my .5 cal heavy machine gun. I nearly passed out once more, this time from the heat wash that smothered me, drying my mouth and causing sweat to flow into my eyes. However the volley flayed Emma's 'Mech's legs and torso. There was a dreadful shrieking sound and I caught a glimpse through blurred vision of a fiery burst of glowing ceramite and shattered adamantium fragments streaking out in a wide arc. Then, hit in mid pace, the Hawk span uncontrollably forward into the cloud of flame riven black smoke.
     "BASTARD!" A hate filled voice then suddenly crackled into my dazed ear and Bright's badly torn up Griffin suddenly hammered down bodily onto my machine's breast, seemingly from nowhere. Bright screamed incoherently over the comm at me, while swinging up his 'Mech's massive left fist and hammered it into my cockpit's armourglass visor.
     There was a frightful splintering thud and a crack spiderwebbed across the armourglass, but Blake-be-praised it held and as Bright swung to strike again there was an almighty blinding double flash of x-ray white light, followed by a molten belch as Bright's Griffin's head-cockpit disappeared in a flashing electrical explosion. With a slow movement, followed by a 'ker-clang' sound, the decapitated 'Mech fell across me and I slumped my machine back in quaking relief.
     
* * *

     "Darius? Darius are you okay?" Ross McKinnon's concerned voice penetrated my state of shock and I muttered.
     "Uhh, yeah, damn he could throw a punch." To which Mack chuckled cheerfully.
     "Well he's done now ... damn though where'd you spring from? I nearly hit you with that last missile volley." Ah, it sank in that I'd been chased into the middle of Mack and Bright's duel. Now, I'd have to come up with something to explain what was in fact a headlong terrified dash, so with a spark of inspiration I adopted a vaguely angry tone.
     "I'm terribly sorry Sir, well this is deuced embarrassing ... I saw Bright and wanted to get in to have a crack at him ... but I've been having one hell of a time dealing with the increased weight of this lumbering great thing. I'm only used to lights and mediums y'see, I started running and ... well hang it all ... I couldn't stop in time ... this Victor ... well it feels so heavy ... and well fat ... fat as fracking Falstaff." Christ knew where that simile came from, but it was inspired as unbeknownst to me Ross McKinnon loved his Shakespeare and it tickled him. He began to chuckle, then guffaw and soon he was positively roaring with laughter.
     "Oh ... oh Darius that is a good 'un!" Mack chortled in rare good humour and show off that he was he positively continued; "What, lie thou idle here? Lend me thy sword. Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff under the hoofs of vaunting enemies, whose deaths are yet unrevenged. I prithee lend me thy sword." He then leant in and began pushing at that damned Griffin awkwardly with his Marauder's arm mounted weapon pods, and I pushed it up and off of my machine as best I was able.
     Well the only lines of Falstaff's that sprang to my memory was his sound advice that 'the better part of valour is discretion' ... though I've never needed reminding of that and besides I didn't think Ross would agree. So I cribbed a line from Mack's role, affecting a mock angry tone;
     "What, is it a time to jest and dally now?"
     To which Ross roared again. The windbag would probably have gone on, but as I struggled up a pair of Bright's armoured cars skidded past, rattling off light autocannon fire at us and we gave chase.
     Well, the battle was for the most part over with the destruction of Jonath and Bright's 'Mechs, and though I exchanged fire with some of Bright's dwindling forces, within the next few minutes it was all finished bar the cleaning up. I'm told from start to end the Battle of Summer House only took ten minutes. It was a nasty business though.
      I recall popping my cockpit hatch outside the main house itself, when the shooting had stopped, and clambering down my cockpit ladder. The place was a firestorm, that scorched my skin even at some distance, as I tugged off my suffocating neurohelmet, gasping for air, I nearly choked by breathing in a throat searing gust of ash filled smoke. My eyes were watering and I gagged as I saw a woman, a maid I think, run screaming out of that hell, her clothes were burned away, her skin hideously blistered, her hair actually aflame.
     Jerome! I can still hear her screaming, smell that nauseating barbecue whiff ... she ran towards me, bloody burned fingers reaching for me, pleadingly ... mad with pain. I pushed at her arms and her skin came off in my hands ... ahh, but what's the point describing it to you? It's always the same when great men send their soldiers to kill their enemies in battle ... the innocent pay the price and are forgotten. Their pain is an unfortunate accident, a pity ... but certainly not reason enough in the minds of Princes to stay their hand when dishing out their killing orders.
     I shot that poor maid dead through her forehead with my Sternsacht. I didn't cry. I was too bone tired for that. Too sickened. Too angry. I'd never wanted to be part of this kind of madness and if I had my way I wouldn't be ever again.
     "Oh-ho there you are." Mack's damnably happy voice penetrated my bilious rage and I turned to see him clambering down from his crouched Marauder. He stumped over, drawing out a cheap cigarette as he came, while staring up at the burning house muttering through his clamped jaw as he lit up.
     "Shame ... shame ... well can't be helped." He looked at me again more closely and seeing the smouldering body of the woman, sighed and was about to say something when several infantry soldiers jogged up. They were wearing unmarked black combat fatigues, body armour and visored helmets, and carried Thorvald and Koch submachine guns. Being herded along amidst them were two rather battered looking Third Covenant MechWarriors, Max Levine and Emma Jonath. They both glared daggers at me as, after pausing for an instant, the foremost of the special forces men flicked up his helmet's visor to reveal grey eyes and a broken nose. He snapped off a brisk salute.
     "Leftenant Baum. MI Department Six. 45th Special Forces Team. Pleasure to meet you Sir." He barked at Mack, then nodded politely across at me.           
     "Captain McKinnon, we've picked up the Kuritan agents trying to break out the grounds, but I have an executive order pertaining to all traitor MechWarriors captured. You might wish to be somewhere else." I looked at the young officer mystified, but Mack gripped my shoulder and pulled me away towards our 'Mechs.
     "Right-oh Leftenant." Mack called over his shoulder and I let him pull me along, but I had a glimpse of the pair of ex-Guards traitors being pushed out from the group of commandos. I caught Emma's gaze for a brief moment and her eyes widened and she actually cried out to me by name, her voice suddenly pleading and terrified. Confused I turned back to Mack and at that moment there was a long chatter of gunfire. Mack gripped me around my shoulders hard, but I struggled free and turned in time to see Jonath and Levine hit the gravel, the house behind them a mass of leaping flames.
     Well as you know I'm not one for sentimentality, but this was beyond the pale in my book. They don't call the DMI Department 6 lads the Rabid Foxes for nothing, but this was stone cold murder. Perhaps I knew they wouldn't really do me harm, perhaps for once I didn't care. I can't say now, but I flew back towards them, grabbed Baum by his shoulder and spun him around. He was so surprised he did nothing, however his men had their guns trained on me. 
     "WHY? WHY? You murdering ----!" I screamed at him and he let me hold him there by his collar.
     "Leftenant?" Was all he said, his grey eyes fixed on mine in mute defiance. I let Mack pull me back from him and I pushed him away, staggering across to the two bodies. Mack was at my shoulder urging me to come away, but I shook off his hand and knelt down beside Emma.
     She lived for just a moment as I looked down into her blinking eyes. Her cooling vest was punctured with several bullet holes, which leaked a mixture of coolant fluid and blood. Her mouth was moving, as if she was trying to say something to me, but only blood was bubbling out. A bullet had clipped the side of her temple and her glorious ashen hair was now liberally spattered with red. Her right hand jerked and I saw she was holding a silver and gold crucifix on a chain. I blubbed then, Mack standing at my side tutting softly in sympathy, well I'd bored of her as a lover and thought her a tiresome political fanatic ... but this?
     Hanse had wanted no unpleasant publicity raised by any treason trials at that time, his position was too shakey. We'd been told to kill all the Third Covenant Society and the MI6 teams were there to do it if we didn't. I hated Hanse at that moment, every bit as much as I'd hated Bright, and Hasek-Davion, and all the other power-mad maniacs whose scheming led people to this; bullets, blood, fire and death.
     Emma died at that moment and I took the bloodstained crucifix on it's chain. I still have it, tucked away in a draw in my study and take it out whenever I need to remind myself about precisely what methods Hanse was prepared to use to win power. Poor old Emma ... she was a cracking looking gal, quite the acrobat in the bedroom. A devil with her fingernails though.
     "C'mon old son, we've faced the worst; what comes next can't be half as bad." Mack said with feeling and led me away sobbing.

[Tokage]

Epilogue

     The news media reported the Battle of Summer House the following day as a 'police action' by McKinnon's Raiders and special forces troops, against a 'Kuritan backed terrorist group'. Of the traitors only Bright and Emma Jonath were named, the other dead were posted as missing, AWOL, or I later learned marked as having taken part in the Imbrial III exercises, then been reported as being killed in 'training accidents'. The Third Covenant Society was never named openly, few guessed it was actually a Cabalist plot that went right through elements of the Brigade of Guards, and to the best of my knowledge the MIIO picked up any members that had had the luck to be elsewhere when we hit the estate.
     I was pretty chuffed later to note that my presence had somehow got out and good ol' Mack had put in a good word or two for me ... whilst singing his own praises most of all of course, the confounded big head.
     Though it should be said I didn't know all this until later that day, as upon our arrival by DropShip back at the Mount, I'd been so exhausted I simply crashed out and slept on a put-me-up camp bed in the Raider's 'Mech hangar, right through to the afternoon. I was awoken by Kurt Lytton, his moustache bristling in what I could now recognise as what passed with him for excited good humour.
     "Rise and shine Leftenant Davion Sir. We've got visitors." Still dressed in my vest and shorts I grumbled up and after him. My throat was swollen and sore, my head ached like it had been kicked by a horse and I was covered in bruises. I'd been snoozing in Mack's utilitarian little office and dutifully tramped out into the main hangar where, in the avenue between two of the great 'Mech silo bays, dressed in green fatigues, the surviving fourteen members of McKinnon's Raiders were drawn up smartly to attention. Walking down the line, wearing a crisply pressed civilian suit and flanked by a small group of hangers on, including Truston, Sortek and the Lexington-Lumberjack, was the Fox himself, stopping here and there to exchange a word or two with individual members of the unit.
     I dashed up and joined the near end of the Raiders, next to Mack, who muttered to me out the side of his mouth.
     "Jesus and Jerome Darius, I called for you ten minutes ago." I shrugged and at that moment I looked up to find I happened to be facing my new, though now somewhat damaged, Victor. I gasped as a Tech was perched on the 'Mech's left shoulder and was just finishing off painting the name Falstaff in large red and white letters across the front central shoulder plate. I nearly rounded on McKinnon in anger, but caught myself and hissed at him.
     "What's that Mack? Some kind of joke?" I thought he was comparing my morals and courage to Falstaff's, which would be a deuced uncomfortably narrow thing you'll agree? However he grinned.
     "Well of course it is. C'mon old son, you named that 'Mech yourself you know." I realised he saw it, as did the rest of the army when they came to know about it, as an ironic tag for my 'Mech. What, the bravest, most selfless, and honourable MechWarrior in the entire AFFS has a 'Mech named after a cowardly rogue? It's like calling a giant 'Little' John I suppose. Looking up I realised whatever I did that name had clearly stuck, thanks to Mack's infernal sense of humour and I forced myself to relax into a mirthless grin ... well all the world's a joke I suppose.
     I pulled my attention back to Hanse and his party of sycophantic lackeys, who were walking back up the line. Spotting me, dressed and looking like a refugee from a battlefield, which was what I then was in a way, Hanse hurried over and clasped my hand.
     "Glad you made it Darius." Hanse beamed, he has a great trick of holding one hand paternally on your shoulder while shaking your hand with his other, his eyes burning into yours. A true politician. I thanked him feebly, my voice rasping, what else could I do ... spit in his face?
     "Mack tells me you scored a couple of kills, that must make you the first serving AFFS MechWarrior ever to bag a Sword of Lighter as his first kill, then two Brigade of Guards MechWarriors as his second and third!" Which is probably true when you think about it, still it was pretty insensitive stuff under the circumstances if you ask me, then again Hanse never seemed to feel much pity for his enemies. I guess I don't either, usually, I can and have killed Crappies and Kuritans and not ever thought about them again, indeed have felt the Sphere was better for their absence, but this time it was different y'see. These were Brigade officers and MechWarriors; I'd sat down to dinner with 'em, joked with 'em, drank with 'em, even rogered one of 'em ... I suppose at bottom truth was I liked some of 'em ... that is to have fun with, not to join them in any damn fool treasonable plot you understand. Well there ... it was different because ... well this time they'd been us.
     Perhaps spotting the shadow fall across my features, and wishing to brush over any possible faux pas, Hanse reached behind himself to one of his suited minions and then turned back to me and pinned something to the front of my vest. I looked down to find a medal there, a bronze cross on a orange ribbon.
     "Leftenant Darius Davion, in recognition of your unstinting loyalty and selfless courage, in the furtherance of secret duties over the past weeks and during the Raid on Summer House, I am most happy to award you with the Crucis Cross." Well, it's always nice to receive a gong ain't it ... I've got plenty these days, not sure which is my favourite; I won my Medal Excalibur within a few months of my Bushido Blade y'know, for my service on both sides during the '39 ... then again I do have a soft spot for my Liao Grand Cordon of Merit, after all how many chaps can honestly claim to have received a medal for bulling the fight out of a Capellan princess ... mind you that was perilous business, worse than many battles I've scampered through!
     The Crucis Cross is one of the better known non-AFFS military decorations, that the First Prince is able to award independently. They tend to get dished out to mercs who've done well, or as in this instance, to troops that have successfully carried out dangerous missions in service to the First Prince, that he wouldn't wish looked into too deeply by an official AFFS board of enquiry. It's a medal that tends to have more status in the army than most non-federal honours, for it's known to indicate loyalty to the First Prince himself. Mack and several of the others were also wearing them I noticed. I croaked my thanks and Hanse shook my hand again and in a low voice added.
     "Well done Darius ... now if you can keep it up you may go far. But never forget what I said that night we first met. By the way, you look a tad beaten up, if there's anything I can do for you over the next few days, to make you more comfortable, just ask." I nodded mutely, what an ungrateful callous sod, he was threatening me, even after I'd done the lion's work in getting him safely to his Coronation tomorrow. He then stood back and raised his voice.
     "Well done all of you. I shall not forget this hard service you have carried out for both our nation and myself. In years to come I shall reward you all the more, but for now I award you, the men of McKinnon's Raiders, two things;
     Firstly, as a recognition of your loyalty to me and of your unparalleled ferocity in battle with our enemies, henceforth you shall have a new badge of honour. You shall be named McKinnon's Raiders ... The Fox's Teeth." There was a great cheer and Mack slapped my back, Hanse waved for quiet and I noted Mack tensed then slightly as if waiting for good news.
     "Secondly, as the Bright family line has died with the late and unlamented Baron Summerland, I hereby award in perpetuity all the lands and estates once held by the Bright family to McKinnon's Raiders. To be used as a barracks and base of operations whenever the company is on New Avalon. I shall of course see to it any necessary repair costs, following this morning's raid, will be paid out of the treasury." This time the cheer was all the louder and pointedly led by that cunning dog Ross McKinnon. He had to have known Hanse was going to give Summer House, and indeed Bright's entire Barony, over to him and his men ... that was why he'd told us to avoid damaging the house itself if possible. It struck me at that moment that the McKinnon's had spent so long out on the Periphery frontier they'd gone just a little piratical themselves. Redjack himself couldn't have hit that estate smarter and with a better eye for loot!

* * *

     Well the following day was that of Hanse's Coronation. It was a crisp sunny winter morning, almost so clear you'd think Hanse had somehow tampered with the weather.
     I could tell you of the massed parades, the bunting and ribbons, the seas of fluttering tricolour and Sunburst flags, the marching military bands, the cavalcades of limos, the vast cheering crowds lining the processional route from the Palace to Notre Dame once again. This time the sobriety of Ian's passing was changed into rapture at Hanse's arrival, so to speak. Women passed out as he drove by in a powerful open-topped ground car, children screamed in joy, veterans stood in little clusters saluting with big grins creasing their wrinkled faces, journalists barged and pushed to get the best view for a holo pic, hundreds of whitebellies lined the route to either side, two ranks deep yet still struggling to control the ecstatic mob. Avalon City was a reflection of the entire nation that day, it's been said, and Avalon City was jubilant.
      I was done up in full blue and gold dress fig, complete with my two medals, sat in a limo with my bloody mother, about ten cars back from Hanse, and I recall I was stunned by the sheer din and spectacle. Ma'ma instructed me to wind down the window and 'let the people see us', so I did and if they were cheering me, or just cheering, I cannot say.
     We walked into Notre Dame de Avalon, deafened by the roar as each new honoured guest entered. I recall ma'ma and I were sat about six seats from the front. But close enough to see everything in detail; the great ceremonial processions of the hundred or so Knights of the Federated Suns, splendid in their long cloaks of ermine and fox fur ... their huge broadswords slanted at their shoulders. Then came the twenty odd members of the Order of Davion, in their scarlet and black. Dukes and Duchesses in their long robes of state filled one great swathe of the seats. NACC clerics came swinging sensors, followed by choristers filling the cavernous cathedral with soaringly beautiful chanting. All in all, even being the soulless heathen that my mother has always tagged me, I must admit it was certainly something you didn't see every day.
     I shan't bore you with the complete liturgy and ceremonial, for it dragged on for what seemed to me to be hours. There was a deal of anointing and oath swearing. Some obscure passing backwards and forwards of scepters and such like. Plenty of psalm singing, prayer pushing and general God-bothering nonsense. My mother was so entranced she missed the fact I managed to catch forty winks, however I was woken by a blare of trumpets. I looked up and can still see him there, the light from a great rose window way behind him surrounding his ginger hair like a halo. Beside him stood a chap in a decorative red and white flowing ecclesiastical robe, holding out a massive book. Hanse placed his hand upon it and spoke loudly, in a firm unwavering voice.
     "I, Hanse Davion, rightful heir and successor to my brother, do accept from His Most Honoured Chairman Elder, Cardinal Diego Lavera, the Unfinished Book and the Scepter of State as symbols of my rights and responsibilities toward all the peoples of the Federated Suns. God bless the freedom-loving people of the Federated Suns." My mother tutted testily at this, while three cheers for the Prince were formally called for, I believe she liked to think of herself as one of those traditionalists who resented Hanse swearing on the Unfinished Book in place of the Bible, he was the first First Prince to do so ... he could swear on toilet paper for all I cared.
     The service dragged on past that point with more hymns, then a Te Deum sung by the choir as Hanse was marched out amidst the Knights FS and the Order of Davion. There was an enormous roar of acclamation as he left and greeted his people as their new First Prince, ma'ma had spotted one of her witch's circle and had gone over to gush about her 'beloved nephew' no doubt. I on the other hand was just casting about for a side exit to slip out of when, with a rustle of her formal black and blue silk robe, the Duchess of Chesterton sat down beside me.
     I doubt many people have gone for a plunge at a Duchess while sitting in Notre Dame, amidst a packed congregation of the Fed Suns best and brightest, however one look into her eyes and I did just that. She was a little surprised I think, but she responded and we sat there lost in each other for a long moment. Then she pulled back and glanced guiltily about.
     "Dee you're incorrigible." She grinned back at me, I shrugged.
     "So Olivia, let's get out of her and find somewhere more private." I leered happily at the prospect, but she frowned at me.
     "We can't, we're both to be guests up at the Palace, the Prince deserves our presence." Perhaps stupidly I cursed, loud enough to draw disapproving glares from the guests to either side, then lowered my voice.
     "Oh frack him Olivia! He doesn't care for anyone or anything save his own dreams of power!" Olivia gasped and looked genuinely shocked, I thought about back tracking, but then with rare recklessness decided 'what the hell' and ploughed on.
     "Look Olivia, Hanse talks about his 'responsibilities to all his people'? Well how does that tally with him ordering the murder of serving Guards officers, or common maids and servants? Even if they are traitors, by his vaunted standards they deserve a fair trial surely?" I was hissing the words with more venom than was sensible and her olive tanned skin went positively white, her green eyes all the more striking as they looked hard at me.
     "Darius ... sometimes I don't understand you at all. You surely aren't suggesting Hanse was wrong in defending himself from Cabalist scum like Bright?" She was whispering too now, but on I went in full flow.
    "No ... no. Not at all. I just think that Hanse needs to show he's better than Bright or Hasek-Davion, or whoever's next ... you weren't there at Summer House. You can't understand. It wasn't noble and it certainly wasn't glorious." I was admittedly playing up my role as noble hearted Darius Do-Good a bit, as a way to vent my bile about Hanse, Olivia gazed at me again, then leaned in.
     "If you were anyone else I'd think you an enemy of Hanse, speaking like this ... especially here and now. Darius, I may not be a soldier like you ... but I'm ready to lay down my life every bit as much as you are for justice and freedom for our people ... you need to understand Hanse is our best and only chance to ever achieve those things. Our only chance to win." Suddenly it wasn't Olivia Fenlon I was talking to, but Emma Jonath all over again, only the names and rhetoric had changed. We both sat silent for a minute or two, then Olivia stood, looking damned angry, and left as the congregation filtered away ... I wasn't to speak with her again, after that argument, for several years, but that's another story.
     As for myself I certainly didn't fancy the Palace, or any great receptions, so I tugged off my medals, stuffing them into my pocket, chucked my half-breastplate into the limo, pulled open my tunic collar and sauntered down the street towards Old Town. After a deal of barging through the crowds, I spotted what I was looking for; a quiet side street pub. This one had a sign above the door; the Merry Monk, and as I pushed in I was pleased to find it was a dark wood lined place, warm and smelling of beer and tobacco, with a haze of smoke where the daylight shafted in and it was nearly empty save for three men sat at the bar. Plumping myself down away from them I ordered up a pint of bitter and sipped it idly, listening in to the conversation of those three ordinary fellows. One was a taxicab driver, the other a aging veteran, the third a younger man, possibly a student.
     "Nah, nah, nah, Georgie boy, you're wrong there. Hanse'll be a better Prince than ol'Ian ever woz. They don't call him the Fox for nuffing yer know?" The cab driver drawled, while guzzling his lager. To which the veteran shook his head.
     "Look 'ere you, I served un'er the 'Ound for nigh on ten year, man and boy. From 'Arrow's Sun to Deshler. Fighting Four Hundred an' Eighff motorised h'infantry. I know's a little about war an' I dare say 'Anse is smarter like, good wiv the numbers ... but that don't win battles. It's fighters that win battles. Men with rifles and 'Mechs and tanks. An' we lost our best fighter in the 'Ound."
      "No uncle George, with all due respect, I agree with Sandy there. Hanse will put the economy straight, build universities, push back the benighted ignorance that only continued to spiral during Ian's -" The student was interrupted by the cab driver.
      "Heh! Listen to this un' now! Bee-nighted ignor'ants is it? Can tell he's been hitting the books can't yer Georgie?" To which they all chuckled. Sighing the student tried again.
     "Look how many schools did Ian ever build? How many colleges? We've been sliding into a dark age for generations ... I've read some of Hanse's proposals ... he just might bring us back from the brink." The cab driver chuckled and ordered up another pint, while the veteran chewed his lip thoughtfully.
     "Aye ... well maybe so, maybe so. I 'ope so for your sake Whippet an' yer nippers, when you 'ave 'em. Still h'if you ask me, we wont get no peace an' quiet to do all this building you wants lessen there's a strong frackin h'army out there on the border worlds. Stood to and ready for trouble. An' keepin that h'army going is more h'important than book learning." They nodded thoughtfully, then the cabbie piped up.
     "'Ere d'you 'ere 'bout this trouble out in the Basin yesterday. They say it was Snake bleeding terr'rists. Fracking cheek ey? On Hanse's big day an'all. We'll show them bastards, when the Fox gets out to the border eh?"
     "Aye well, c'mon Whippet I think that roast'll be 'bout ready by now and I'd rather face the Delta Charlies again, than your aunt Hilda when she's got a cob on."  I watched them go, then sank a few more drinks before wandering slowly back up to the Mount. I'm not sure why I included their words here ... perhaps because no historian ever would.

* * *
       
     Well, my story is almost at an end and I realise, bad wordsmith that I am, I have perhaps left threads dangling, which is what generally happens in real life I find. You may have some questions so I will try to answer them as best I can;
     What became of Al'Ain and the other ISF prisoners? Well officially they were executed as spies, however I'm not sure about the truth of that. Intelligence work is a strange and convoluted business. I expect most of them were thoroughly interrogated, then quietly disposed of. But when it comes to that bastard Sallah Al'Ain ... well I'll tell you something, I was walking down a corridor in the Fox's Den many years later, in '41 just before that damnable Sorno business, chatting to Sortek, when we passed a fellow dressed in expensive looking civies, wearing a DMI ID card clipped to his jacket pocket. His eyes met mine for just a moment, then we were past each other and he was gone around the corner. I was bothered by a feeling I'd seen him somewhere before, but it was only some time later that day that I realised it had been Al'Ain ... nearly thirty years older, thinner, grey haired, but I'd swear it had been him. I told Sortek and he snorted in disbelief and said I must have been mistaken. Mistaken my arse! I don't tend to forget dark eyed killers who hold knives to my jugular and let's face it he wouldn't be the first enemy agent our chaps have turned and recruited. It just gives me the shudders to think he probably had those horrid blades of his tucked away somewhere in his suit when we'd passed in that corridor. I can't say if he recognised me and I'm glad to say I never saw him again ... but it makes you think don't it.
     As to McKinnon and his Raiders, well Hanse was as good as his word when he promised rewards to his loyal servants. Two years later, after two centuries extinct, the Seventh Crucis Lancers were reformed into a full RCT, at Hanse's direct order, and McKinnon's Raiders were reattached to them. They were sent to the Kuritan Front and were blooded in countless actions over the next five years, until the Harrow's Sun fiasco of 3020, where Ross McKinnon and his trusty bulldog Lytton fell in action. I was there with 'em, for my sins, and will tell you all about that another time.
    Hanse was now First Prince. His secret-war with his remaining internal enemy, Hasek-Davion, continued well past the Coronation of course, until 3016 in fact, by which time Hanse had purged almost all of Hasek-Davion's minions from the organs of power, arresting some for treason, others being made to disappear, most were simply sacked. Hasek-Davion himself survived his defeat by Hanse, who never did find any solid evidence linking Michael to the Emerson assassination attempt, but he was stripped of all but his ceremonial governmental positions and wasted the rest of his life brooding and plotting to bring Hanse down. I was later to have the misfortune to cross his path again on a couple of memorable occasions.
     And what of my fat friend the Truffle-Hunter you ask? Well that's a whole other story. He was unfortunately to intrude into my life and cause me no end of hellish trouble for quite some years then to come. Did I ever learn whether Ian had died warning me not to trust him? Let's just say Count Nicholas Truston was a very dangerous man, and not just to me, and we'll leave it at that for the time being.

* * *

     I returned to the Palace and drank quite a bit, dodging Sortek and my mother, looking for Olivia unsuccessfully. Then spotting Hanse I had a brainwave.
     I barged, somewhat drunkenly through the adoring crowd and managed to rather forcefully draw Hanse to one side and out onto a balcony looking down over the great sprawling city which was now his. I remember he wasn't annoyed and looked out across it, as if he could see clear down there, into the buildings, streets and alleyways. I've wondered on occasion what was going through his mind, as his face was as usual completely unreadable.
     "Ah Sire ... you mentioned if there was anything you might do to ease my wounds? Well I was wondering if you might permit me a short period of leave. I fancy perhaps I might pop back to Killarney with mother, make sure she gets home safe and well ... to be honest I've been missing the old place dreadful these last couple of years." I did my best to look sincere and my belly did a little jump of fear as I saw a slight frown crease the Fox's brow.
     "I was expecting you to return to the 'Bane ... or perhaps come along on H-Day." He murmured. Well those options for my future seemed very much to be the proverbial rock and a hard place to me and I had no intention of doing either. The 'Bane were locked in savage battle with the DCMS on Mallory's World still and H-Day was the planned raid into the Combine, aimed at knocking out the secret super-depots on Halstead Station ... an operation that seemed to me to be damn near a suicide mission. No, I certainly had better things to do with my time, but I had to keep up the act so made sure to look pained and torn.
     "Well, I intend to be back in the thick of it just as soon as I can Sire. But I'm feeling mighty tired, I think I'll be more use to you after a short rest in familiar surroundings. Hanse didn't respond for about thirty seconds and I started to get worried he was going to turn me down and drag me along on his latest fearfully risky enterprise. However, his frown vanished and he nodded firmly.
     "No, you're probably right. You've done valuable and very much appreciated work for myself and for your homeland Darius, you deserve a rest. Don't get too comfortable though, we need men of your quality at the Front and I don't intend to do without you for long." So I got him to sign me off onto the half-pay list for a short, though ultimately indefinite, period and neither he nor I were then to know that I wouldn't in fact return to active service in the AFFS for some five years or so.
     The very next day I was hurrying aboard a commercial passenger ship, alone and dressed in snappy civilian duds. I slumped into my seat and accepted a glass of champagne from the pretty stewardess, as the captain's voice came over the comm.
     "Welcome to the Monopole Stellar Princess, bound for Solaris VII. I am your Captain, Ivan Julius, and I hope you will enjoy your time with us." I sipped my champagne, closed my eyes and breathed out in happy relief. I'd successfully tricked Hanse into signing me off on holiday with my bogus tales of filial concern and homesickness, was snug and safe aboard a cushy starliner, and was on my way to what I firmly expected to be an orgy of gambling, whoring, boozing, and generally vicious fun. If I'd known then that my semi-illicit little trip to the Games World would in fact ultimately lead to my being thrown whimpering headfirst into the meat-and-'Mech grinder that would be the Marik Civil War, or later into serving under the banner of the worst Pirate King to rise out of the Lyran Rift in generations, well I'd have grabbed my bags, rushed for the nearest exit and took my chance with the 'Bane back on Mallory's World.

-HERE ENDS THE SECOND FILE OF THE MISADVENTURES OF DARIUS DAVION -

[mikecj]

Falstaff indeed  [notworthy]