Heir Apparent

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Heir Apparent
MICHAEL STACKPOLE
 Chapter One
Rivergaard House, Rivergaard
Maldives
15 October 3000

Walter de Mesnil paused in the doorway of his boss’s suite and

rapped a knuckle on the doorjamb. “We have a problem, Captain.”
“What we, Lieutenant?” Hake Angleton, leader of the
Angleton’s Angels mercenary company, looked up from the ancient
desk behind which he sat. “We’ve only been here a day. Is this the
previous problem, or a new one?”
“Previous, and it’s not aging well.” To Walter’s eye, the man
likely was as old as the desk had been recreated to appear. No way
that’s an original antique from Terra. Still, it fits this place. Walter, half
his boss’s age, and his black hair lacking any of the gray Hake had
in abundance, stepped into the room. “I’ve looked over the new
gun-camera files you sent me.”
Hake leaned back and the chair protested sharply. “Awful
damned pretty, ain’t it?”
“Did you actually watch them?”
“Lieutenant?”
“Oh, you mean the Trebuchet?” Walter couldn’t help but smile.
Among the files had been a portion of a local public-relations piece
Michael Stackpole

commissioned by the marketing department at Litzau Enterprises.

It recounted the history of the BattleMech known as Destrier,
which had been owned by the Litzau corporation since before the
Concordat-Magistracy War. Chairman Augustine Litzau had used
it to fend off salvage raiders during the war, and was credited with
saving Rivergaard. He’d had the tall, humanoid machine painted
as if it were a suit of armor, but in gunmetal blue, with his corpo-
rate logo added on shoulder and breast. “I liked the looks of it from
the outside, and you know I’m a sucker for history, but . . .”
“The corporate branding takes a bit to get used to. To your
point, however . . .” Hake shifted his shoulders. “The diagnostics
and the films from the exercises were underwhelming.”
“To put it mildly.” Walter shook his head. “I don’t know why
you took this job, Hake, and I don’t know why you’re making Ivan
Litzau my problem.”
“I seem to recall your predecessor saying that very same thing
to me. About you!” Hake hauled his bulk out of the chintz-covered,
spindly legged chair and waved Walter to follow him. The merce-
nary leader’s heels clicked on the oak parquet as he crossed to a
pair of glass doors and flung them open. Walter followed him onto
the stone balcony, crushed stone crunching beneath his feet.
The balcony overlooked a valley running from the savannah
of the central highlands south to the more temperate equatorial
zone. The broad, azure Nyqvist River flowed lazily on, and lush
green crops carpeted its shores as far as the eye could see. The river
flowed onto a broad delta, and its controlled flooding annually
reinvigorated the fields with silt from the distant highlands.
Several kilometers north of the Litzau corporate compound,
the city of Rivergaard thrived. From that distance, it appeared to
be little more than a village of huts fashioned from mud bricks. The
Dhivi had learned well the lessons of the wars that had despoiled
much of the Inner Sphere. They built their capital down deep and
strong, creating fantastic galleries in caverns. Those caverns—
which were wholly man-made—had been styled to look as if they
had been carved out over millennia by the river’s gentle caress.

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 Heir Apparent

Hake leaned on the stone balustrade, his scarred hands flat

on the rock. “I’ll answer your questions about this mission in the
order you asked. I took this job because Acting Director Alexandra
was willing to pay us well above scale. Despite the world’s axial
tilt and elliptical orbit, much of this world is beautiful—no one
has been complaining about the duty station. It’s green, you can
breathe the air down here, it’s got water and in the valley it’s not
too hot. Long as you’ve been an Angel, I don’t think you’ve seen
a better posting.”
My whole life I’ve not seen better. Walter half smiled. “I don’t
recall my pay packet getting all that much thicker.”
“But your Blackjack’s arm actuator is getting fixed.”
“Point.”
Hake turned toward him and sighed. “Look, Walter, I ain’t
getting any younger. There’s no one left in the Angels that I started
out with. They’re all dead or proto-walking dead.”
Walter frowned. “Is this you telling me you’re thinking of
retiring?”
The older MechWarrior faced the river again. “Wouldn’t be
hard to get used to seeing this with your morning coffee every
day.”
“But, Hake, there’s a reason you call retired guys ‘walking
dead.’ You always said you wanted to go out in a blaze of glory.”
Hake laughed, then coughed. He wiped his mouth with his
hand. “I decided that when I was a kid. Maybe your age. Hanging
on to that idea, that was me trying not to think about getting old.
So this job here, it’s a way to get some money, and not just for me.
Your Blackjack, Eck’s Jenner—I got MacDonald banging dents out
of the Vulture’s Egg. This job is going to make the unit healthy.”
“Be a bad time to retire, Hake.”
“But not a bad place.” The older man’s expression grew wist-
ful. “Wanna know why I never wanted to retire? God’s honest
truth?”
Walter nodded and joined his commander at the stone railing.
“Sure.”

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Michael Stackpole

“I always wanted the Angels to continue after me, you know.

I didn’t think they would, that they could, without me.” The older
man patted Walter on the shoulder. “But you know, kid, you ain’t
half bad. They like you, the others.”
“Half of them are too young to know any better, and the vets
are too tired to think for themselves.” Walter snorted. “You trying
to tell me you’re going to turn the Angels over to me?”
“You see anyone better out there?”
“There has to be, Hake.” Walter shook his head. “Look, we
do this job, we go to Galatea. There are blue bloods all over the
Inner Sphere with stupid money, wanting to buy a mercenary
company and promote themselves to Field Marshal High Mucky-
muck Potentate. You cash out, they return home, parade us a cou-
ple of times, then let us take some contracts so they earn on their
investment.”
“Nah.” Hake waved that idea away. “They wouldn’t be the
Angels no more.”
“But that would be good for you, Hake.” The subordinate offi-
cer sighed. “As honored as I am—and I am honored—I can’t afford
to buy chewing gum, much less this unit.”
“I’d be giving it to you.” The older man grinned. “Well, you’d
be earning it.”
Walter turned, leaned back against the balustrade, and closed
his eyes. “By dealing with the situation behind my other question.”
“See, you’re command material.”
Walter covered his eyes with a hand. “Hake, did you watch
those videos? Really study the numbers? The kid—Vice Chairman
or Chairman Presumptive or whatever weird title the corporations
have given Ivan—he’s not hopeless, Hake, he’s worse. He’s hopeful.
He brims over with hope. His comments recorded when he reviews
the vids, they’re polite, and he promises to do better. But as a pilot,
he is atrocious, with a capital A and a capital Trocious. And I have
three weeks to do something about that? It can’t be done.”
“But it must be done, Lieutenant de Mesnil.”
The woman’s words dropped Walter’s hand from over his
eyes. That’s— “I beg your pardon, Chairperson.”

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 Heir Apparent

“For what?” Her gray eyes ran a shade lighter than her hair,
but the seamlessness of Acting Director Alexandra Litzau’s skin
gave her back the years her hair sought to steal. Trim and barely a
hair over 1.4 meters tall, she stood with her hands clasped at the
small of her back, her chin up and eyes narrowing. “Is it for speak-
ing the truth, or the lack of wit to realize you can and will do your
duty?”
Hake had dropped respectfully to a knee and Walter followed
his example after Hake’s slap to his stomach. “More the former,
ma’am, I should hope.”
“And all of Maldives shares that hope.” Alexandra waved
them to their feet with the flick of a gloved hand. “There are things
for you to understand, Lieutenant. Your review of my son’s perfor-
mance is not inaccurate—nor is your assessment of his character.
My son is not suited to the life of a MechWarrior. He takes after
his late father, Thomas, in that way. I would change that in neither
either of them. What I will do, however, is change this world.”
She came to stand between them. “Maldives is dying. It has
been for nearly two centuries—because the Federated Suns and
the Capellan Confederation see worlds like ours as pawns in their
political games. You look out here and see beauty, but you should
know that once this world was home to a billion people. Now, less
than a third of that. Those who remain, no matter how impover-
ished, pride themselves on our history and our traditions. They
hold stakes in the fate of the world, and cut fierce deals to maintain
and expand their holdings.
“My dear, late husband realized that those traditions were kill-
ing us—one above all others. Primogeniture. Do you know it?”
Walter nodded. “The right of corporate succession and inheri-
tance passing to the first-born child.”
She smiled. “In its earliest form, that would be the eldest male
child. Executive positions are handed down along familial lines,
always from father to son. In turn, the corporations remain in the
hands of the First Families that founded them.”
“Interesting way to run a business.”

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Michael Stackpole

“Primogeniture is an old practice. The Dhivi revived it dur-

ing colonization, to keep from subdividing their lands and wealth
between children. They intensified their love for it after the war.
This resulted in a complex network of arranged marriages to cre-
ate joint ventures and mergers between families. A fertile child,
male or female, would be bartered to other families in Byzantine
schemes to acquire lands or controlling interests in various projects.
The Exodus of Dhivi to other worlds, like Itrom, for example, did
not dissolve property ties. Each year young men and women are
married off to families throughout the Inner Sphere just to secure
stock in our various holdings.”
Walter arched an eyebrow at Hake. “You came from Itrom,
right? So you know all this?”
Hake nodded. “I could of had me a Dhivi wife. But I decided
being king of some boardroom was nothing compared to being
king on a battlefield.”
The acting Litzau CEO spread her hands. “My husband under-
stood that making our children into commodities did them a dis-
service. Shipping them away robbed the world of talent. For us to
rebuild the world, we would need to get our people invested in
the future. We would need to make them part of Maldives, and
that would include expanding property rights and the right of
inheritance.”
Hake ran a hand over his chin. “Give them a stake, and they
stick around.”
“Exactly. And we would provide you all with the same stake
if our venture here is successful.” She glanced down at her hands.
“Those who have successfully concentrated power to themselves
are against any revision or revocation of this Common Law tradi-
tion. My husband felt the sting of their opposition severely, as our
first two children are female. This did not decide him on his course
of action, however; it just provided impetus to realize his dream
even more swiftly. He did know the work would take time, and he
thought Ivan’s birth had bought him that time. Unfortunately, he
would not live long enough to see his son reach his fifth birthday.”
Walter grew solemn. “My condolences.”

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 Heir Apparent

“Appreciated, Lieutenant.” The corner of Alexandra’s mouth

twitched. “I’ll save you soliciting gossip: my husband died of
rare lymphoma. He likely was not murdered, but that tale will be
bruited about and I’m am most often the culprit.”
Hake nibbled at a thumbnail. “No other suspects?”
“Countless. Minor executives. The pirates who raid through-
out the Periphery. Outsiders who wish to offer their daughters as
brides so their grandchildren will have claim to ventures here.” She
shrugged. “The list is endless. I count his death as natural, lest I
go insane contemplating the identity of prospective guilty parties.
“To the point, however; my son—for whom I have been act-
ing as surrogate—will be invested with my husband’s board posi-
tion, holdings and duties—not just in Litzau Enterprises, but the
Maldives Corporation. Because of other traditions tracing back to
Augustine Litzau himself, my son will first have to prove he is the
master of Destrier via an ordeal—the Final Vetting.”
Walt looked over at Hake. “The exercise plan you sent over
. . . this Final Vetting is really just a nature walk and some target
practice for Ivan and his Companion, isn’t it? We go from point A to
point B and burn holes in a few slag heaps while the First Families
watch. It isn’t much of an ordeal.”
“In the past it was more of a martial exercise. Military disci-
pline was once the bedrock of our corporate culture, Lieutenant;
Litzau Enterprises was founded by a retired MechWarrior. He used
his earnings from the field as seed capital to launch his business.”
She locked eyes with Walter. “In the early days, we were staffed
almost entirely by veteran soldiers. Many of our senior executives
are holdovers from that period—men who view competence in a
BattleMech as a basic life skill.”
“Ah. And so if the Chairman Presumptive is going to earn their
respect, he has to prove that he can handle himself.”
“Yes.” Alexandra nodded. “My husband suffered through the
old Vetting ritual, but he changed it going forward. Ivan will still
have to exhibit mastery of Destrier, but the Final Vetting is now less
a trial by combat than it is a symbolic tour of corporate holdings—a
way for the Chairman Presumptive to demonstrate that he truly

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Michael Stackpole

knows what he’s going to be responsible for. As his Companion,

you have two tasks: prepare him, then guide him.”
Walter frowned. “Why not just use corporate security for the
Final Vetting? One of the Litzau Lancers would do just fine. Why
involve mercenaries at all?”
“Loyal the Lancers may be, but they are drawn from the First
Families and are steeped in Dhivi politics.” Alexandra smiled
indulgently. “Using mercenaries will curb temptation, and having
you as his Companion will ensure loyalty.”
“Don’t worry. When bought, I stay bought.” Walter sighed.
“And you don’t want the job for yourself, Hake?”
“Nope. I wouldn’t mind the actual hike, but I don’t want to
put Ivan through his paces before that. And when it comes to the
Final Vetting, I’m going to enjoy watching from the corporate head-
quarters. Cushy chairs and beer—but I’ll be there for you, Walt.”
“That makes me feel so much better.” Walter’s brown eyes
tightened. “If this is just a formality, why are the exercises and the
Vetting going to be with full ammo loads? Powered-down weapons
and training protocols would reduce the chances of an accident.”
“That would alter the tradition too much and undermine Ivan.”
Alexandra returned her hands to the small of her back. “The results
will be taken as a sign of Ivan’s strength. My husband thought the
Final Vetting a barbaric practice, though he concluded his ordeal
in a most unorthodox manner. For Ivan, the Vetting is a hurdle he
must clear to be able to continue my husband’s work.”
“Don’t worry, ma’am, Walter here will do everything that
needs to be done.”
Walter frowned. “I have to tell you, ma’am, that going full live-
fire for the training is dangerous. Accidents happen.”
“That, Lieutenant, cannot be helped.” She shook her head. “I
have no desire to see my son die. I don’t want to see anyone die or
bleed or get hurt at all; but if he fails at mastering Destrier, the com-
pany’s confidence in him will die. That will just hasten Maldives’s
death. Thus, what I require of you is that you help him succeed
in this exercise. Work with him. Learn what he can do, then make
him better.”

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 Heir Apparent

“What will determine if he’s good enough?”

Alexandra smiled easily. “We have always held our Chairmen
to the Star League basic competencies.”
“Indig militia, House troops or SLDF?”
“Militia will suffice.”
Hake punched his arm. “See, Walt, that’s why I picked you to
train him up. That’s the kind of thing you do better than anyone.”
“Three weeks, Hake.”
“Not a moment to lose, then.”
Walter exhaled loudly. “Where is he, then, your son? We can
start right now.”
Alexandra shook her head firmly. “That is impossible.”
“I don’t understand.”
Ivan’s mother smiled in a way that sent a shiver clawing its
way up Walter’s spine. “You, Lieutenant, are due for the final fit-
ting of your dress uniform.”
“My what now?”
Hake laughed. “It’s got braid and we made up a few medals for
you. I sent them your measurements as soon as we got into com-
munications range. The Angels got some fancy dress clothes com-
ing. You’re the first. You’ll need them for the reception tonight.”
Walter rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Reception?”
“My son’s coming of age is a bit more elaborate than finding
a seedy bar and drinking alcohol that you hope won’t leave you
blind. There is a reception tonight, here, for the Preferred, other
Stakeholders and a few extra-planetary representatives. There will
be more fetes and parades as part of the Investiture ceremonies, but
you’ll find time to train with Ivan.” She raised an eyebrow. “You
do know how to dance, yes?”
“Hake, you promised you’d never tell anyone.”
The older man raised his hands. “I didn’t, but that vid did get
around . . .”
Alexandra’s smile grew and a note of sympathy entered
her voice. “Calm yourself, Lieutenant. I merely wished to know
whether to warn people not to ask were you reluctant to honor a
request.”

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Michael Stackpole

“Not my strong suit, ma’am.”

“Noted. Consider it your Final Vetting.” She gave him a curt
nod. “You were hired to help and protect my son. If to do that, you
have step on the toes of every maid in Rivergaard, I shall not shed
a tear.”

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 Chapter Two
Rivergaard House, Rivergaard
Maldives
15 October 3000

Walter flexed his shoulders, wanting the uniform to make him look
as awkward as he felt. Fact was, the uniform fit perfectly; Walter’s
discomfort came from never having seen himself look this good
before. Dove gray with navy blue collar, cuffs and trim, the Angels’
dress uniform really made him feel like an adult. He could have
done without the gold-braid epaulets, and the braided gold cord
running beneath his left armpit, but the bright color did set off the
more somber tones that dominated the uniform.
What he decided he really didn’t like was the pile of medals
on his left breast. It was true that the Angels—pretty much like
any other unit—handed out commendations liberally. They cov-
ered everything from good hygiene to valor under fire. Likewise,
their employers had been generous in passing out their own med-
als, mainly because doing that was cheaper than actually paying
promised bonus money. While he’d earned everything on his chest,
seeing them all together invited him to evaluate his life, and intro-
spection wasn’t something he indulged in often.
Michael Stackpole

Chris Eck, one of the taller of the Angels, stopped in Walter’s

open doorway. “Hey, have you seen where the Lieutenant . . . Oh,
damn, you are just so pretty all cleaned up there . . .”
Walter growled at him. “Doesn’t your wife have dinner on the
table for you?”
“Yep, so I was going to ask if you had plans . . .” Chris smiled,
running a hand back over his brush of brown hair. “If I knew you
wanted to play dress-up, my daughter, Kaylee, she’s always throw-
ing tea parties . . .”
Walter turned toward his subordinate. “You know that time—
that one time—Hake said you were funny?”
“Yeah.”
“He was lying.”
“My wife laughs at my jokes. That’s all that matters.” The tall
man’s eyes tightened. “Seriously, sir, I wouldn’t know it’s you. That
uni, it’s good. We all getting ’em?”
“So I hear.” The lieutenant grinned. “Probably, anyway.”
“Likely come out of our pay, right?”
“In your case, funny man, absolutely.” Walter tugged the uni-
form’s sleeve cuffs. “Hey, your family, they settling in okay?”
Chris nodded. “You know Laurie, she got us a place as we were
incoming, and knocked the price down. Kaylee’s been admitted to
a great school, so it’s good. Matter of fact, Laurie met the neighbor
across the hall, says she’s cute and single, which is why . . .”
“Please thank her, and give her my apologies. I really do have
to work.”
“I got you, but you know, she isn’t going to give up.”
“Yeah.” Walter frowned. “Hey, since she’s the closest thing we
have to an intelligence officer in-theatre, can you get her to find out
what folks think about Ivan Litzau?”
“Our employer’s son?”
“Soon to be our employer.”
Chris scratched at the soul patch on his chin. “You got a bad
feeling?”
“Just want a read on things from outside the palace here.”

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 Heir Apparent

“Roger that, boss.” Chris smiled then tossed him a quick salute.
“Try to have fun.”
Easier said than done. Walter let the echoes of Chris’s footfalls
die before he left his room in the Rivergaard House guest annex.
Though much newer than the main building, the annex shared
its blocky sandstone construction. The Angels’ officers had been
assigned accommodations based on rank. Walter got a two-room
suite, with a small bathroom off the bedchamber. Neither of the
rooms was as large as Hake’s office, but Walter had been on mis-
sions where the entire company fit into a room half the size of his
sitting room, and were glad for it.
Walter understood the importance of his attending the recep-
tion, but the very necessity of it made his skin itch. It wasn’t that
he didn’t know how to act. He’d been brought up well enough to
know his manners, to know which fork went with which course,
and to otherwise comport himself properly. And while he didn’t
need to shift into formal on many occasions with the Angels, he
could when called upon.
Formal gatherings, quite simply, exhausted him. So many people
working so hard to seem important, or more important than they are.
He knew full well that such behavior went on all the time, but
formality required different responses. If Walter, Chris and the
other Angels had walked into a bar and some guy was mouthing
off about how tough he was, someone could deck him or get him
drunk enough to pass out, then stuff him on the next DropShip
burning for the stars.
As much as he might want to, Walter couldn’t throw a punch
at the reception. He chuckled. I’ll hear about it if I even look cross at
someone. He shook his head and resolved to take one for the unit.
His journey took him out of the annex and, after a right turn,
into the palace’s left wing. He didn’t know if it had a formal name
or not, but he labeled it the Gallery. From the waist-high wain-
scoting up to the vaulted ceilings seven meters overhead, Litzau
Enterprises had acquired and hung a fantastic collection of art.
The curators’ tastes ran to portraits and landscapes, some of
which looked fifteen centuries old. Others had been created with

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Michael Stackpole

antique styles and designs, but depicted images of worlds distantly

removed from Terra. Walter supposed they formed a loose chron-
icle of the Litzau family’s journey to Maldives.
Sprinkled among the landscapes, the family portraits again
appeared to have been painted by Terra’s legendary Old Masters.
Walter could not definitively place any of the styles, but got the
sense of tradition which, apparently, had been transferred to Dhivi
society as a whole. The family, and the corporate society, uses tradition
to validate their existence, even as that tradition slowly kills their world.
Up a set of marble stairs and beyond a cavernous foyer, he
entered the ballroom that housed the reception. It surprised him
that no one announced him, nor did there appear to be any sort of
receiving line. The lack of either undercut his theory about Dhivi
tradition, but didn’t cause him to question his assumptions. He
didn’t have enough data to do that, and plunged into the mélange
of guests to see what he could learn.
He’d come into the rectangular ballroom at the south end.
Opposite was a small stage upon which a small band had set up.
Eight massive stone columns, four to the right, four to the left, held
up a vaulted ceiling. Holographic projectors hidden in the vaults
created a three-dimensional nighttime vista which made the rocks
and space junk orbiting the world into a glittering crown for the
planet. The pillars trimmed about ten percent of the floor space off
each side. Food and refreshment stations occupied that marginal
space, clearing the majority of the floor so people could circulate
or, nearest the band, dance if they chose to.
Walter cut to the left and began to circle counterclockwise. He
did that out of habit, focusing on what sort of food and drink his
hosts had on offer. He felt hungry enough to just pull a chair up
to any of the serving stations and start gobbling, but being new
to Maldives, he wanted to get a sense of what sorts of cuisine the
Dhivi favored. He seemed to recall reading in the tiny orientation
package he’d been given that they tended to go for spicy, and that
their red wines rated highly if you valued dry over sweet.
He made it a quarter of the way around unmolested before a
tall, black-haired man broke through a thin screen of people and

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blocked his passage. The man wore a black uniform with silver
trim. “So, you are the one who will be the Chairman Presumptive’s
Companion.”
Walter didn’t recognize the uniform, and definitely didn’t like
the disgusted tone in the man’s voice. He looked up at the soldier.
“That’s the mission brief. Exactly how would this concern you?”
“That very question betrays your ignorance and also your
bovine stupidity.”
Do. Not. Hit. Him. Walter silently began to count to ten, but his
patience ran out at five. “Look, pal, I’ve just spent a week burning
in from the jump point. We bounced like a small rock in a big ava-
lanche through a couple of storms to make landfall. I’m a liter shy
of sleep, and two shy of caring what you think.”
The man’s nostrils flared, but before he could vent the anger
flashing in his brown eyes, a second man appeared at his elbow. A
head smaller, the new arrival had blond hair and bright blue eyes.
Clearly youthful, the contrast between the two made the blond
appear to be little more than a kid. He wore a uniform that matched
Walter’s save for a Prussian blue replacing navy for the trim, and
with double the number of medals and ribbons.
“You’ve met him, Richard. What do you think?”
Richard’s pained expression slowly eased. “Chairman Ivan, I
urge you again to prevail upon your mother to stop this madness.”
He glanced at Walter. “I am certain that Lieutenant de Mesnil is a
competent ’Mech pilot, but even he would admit that he has little
understanding of corporate political nuance, at least as related to
your Final Vetting.“
Ivan, his expression open, smiled at Walter. “And what do you
say to that, Lieutenant?”
“I say, first, it is a pleasure to meet you, sir.” Walter bowed his
head solemnly to the younger man. “As for what I would say to
Richard . . .”
“Director Richard Oglethorpe, Captain of the Rivergaard
Rangers.”
“Noted, thank you. The captain is not wrong. I have explained
that I’ve been on the ground for less than a day and except for the

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Michael Stackpole

catnap I got while the tailor finished fitting this uniform, I’ve had
no sleep. I’ve not gotten my bearings yet, but I am pretty canny
when I do.”
Richard adamantly shook his head. “You cannot acquire a
lifetime’s knowledge of social politics—especially Dhivi corporate
politics—in the three weeks before the Final Vetting. Without that
knowledge, your blundering about could cause irreparable dam-
age to the Chairman Presumptive’s reputation and standing.”
Ivan laughed easily, patting Richard on the shoulder. “I know
you have my best interests at heart, Richard, but you are over-
reacting. Still, your caution is something I need to emulate. I shall
discuss it with the lieutenant, and I am certain he will be happy to
avail himself of your aid if he needs it.”
Walter and Richard exchanged glances which confirmed that
the universe would die before help would be requested or consid-
ered, much less given.
Ivan clapped his hands. “There, I am glad that is settled. Now,
Richard, let me consult with the lieutenant. It will be important that
I understand him, and he understands me.”
Richard bowed his head. “As you wish, Chairman. It was a
. . . pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant de Mesnil. You do not com-
prehend the honor of the position you have been given, nor the
importance of your duty. I trust that this situation will remedy itself
before disaster unfolds.”
“Thanks, Director.”
The tall man withdrew, and Ivan pointed Walter toward the
room’s back corner. “Please.”
Walter followed with a nod. Ivan acknowledged other guests’
greetings with fleeting smiles and faint nods, as if half asleep. That
seemed to surprise no one, though reactions varied from delight
to barely concealed disdain. Ivan didn’t appear to notice, and cer-
tainly didn’t react to their expressions.
At the corner, the younger man waved Walter around so
his back was to the walls, and Ivan faced him. “You will forgive
Richard his reaction to you.” Though stated as a command, it came
sheathed in gentle tones imploring compliance. “He has reason to

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 Heir Apparent

be angry. He is actually angry at my mother, but you are a more

accessible target.”
Walter frowned. “Are you willing to explain that?”
“Oh, very good, you don’t apologize for your lack of
understanding.”
“Why would I, when it’s obvious and has nothing to do with
the information I need?”
Ivan laughed. “Look out at the room behind me, Lieutenant.
Most of them—were they in your position—would spend valu-
able time begging my pardon, explaining that they don’t mean to
intrude, or plying me with any number of other social pleasant-
ries—few if any of which they actually mean. Even the ones who
dislike me would be polite to a fault. That’s one of the ways I know
who to be careful around.”
Walter smiled. “And you explain that to see how long I’m
going to let you meander around before you answer me.”
“Even more direct. Excellent.” Ivan inclined his head in a tiny
salute. “Richard was chosen to be my Companion during my Final
Vetting. Chosen by traditional means, which are something slightly
less Byzantine than . . . well, I don’t know what. It would be easier
if they just ripped open a chicken and read the entrails.”
“Back up. Why isn’t he your Companion? He’s in the Rangers,
was it? Isn’t that your bodyguard unit?”
“Home guard for Rivergaard. Litzau Lancers are the corpora-
tion’s security unit.”
“I still need to know why he’s got his shorts in a bunch.”
“Shorts in a bunch, I like that.” Ivan smiled for a half second.
“Shorts in a bunch. I am going to use that.”
Walter shook his head. “You toss up a lot of chaff. I’m going to
guess that you like seeing how long a fuse folks have, right? That,
or you’re a moron, and I’m rock-solid certain that’s not the case.
Not even close.”
“You’ve caught me, Lieutenant. I suppose, in fact, you’d have
a colorful turn of phrase for that, too.” Ivan held his hands up
innocently as Walter’s expression started to darken. “I surren-
der. Richard’s problem is this: being chosen Companion is a great

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Michael Stackpole

honor, but with being chosen comes a certain amount of danger.

Because the Companion could be someone who is not well suited
to combat, tradition allows for them to purchase the services of a
surrogate to fight in their place.”
“But Richard, he doesn’t look like the kind of man who would
do that.”
“Oh, no, not at all.” Ivan shook his head. “He’s angry because
my mother exercised that prerogative on his behalf. She bought
your services, thereby dismissing him.”
I’m lucky I didn’t get slugged. Walter ran a hand over his jaw. “I
don’t think that’s something that’s gonna be fixed by buying him
a beer.”
“Not even by buying him controlling interest in a brewery.”
Ivan smiled quickly, then let the expression die. “That’s not quite
right for a retort, is it? Buying the beer is to get him a bit drunk and
at ease, but buying brewery stock would be a business decision.”
“Close. You can work on it.” Walter’s expression tightened.
“Why did your mother do that to him?”
Ivan’s innocent smile returned, but his eyes narrowed.
“Because, Lieutenant, chances are very good that someone in
Rivergaard will try to kill me during the Vetting, and when sort-
ing out candidates, Richard rises quickly toward the very top of
the list.”

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 Chapter Three
Rivergaard House, Rivergaard
Maldives
15 October 3000

“Then exactly why was he on the guest list tonight?”

Ivan shrugged. “The list is long. If we prevented everyone on
it from attending, you, the woman playing the clarinet, my mother
and I would be the only people here. Oh, and the chef.”
Walter glanced around, doing his best not to look obvious in
doing so. “You don’t appear to be terribly concerned about this.”
“I’m used to it.” Ivan leaned in. “Sometimes the threat of being
assassinated is the only thing that makes life worth living.”
The mercenary raised an eyebrow. “I know you’re playing with
my mind here, but aren’t you being a bit glib?”
“This is a celebration, Lieutenant, but I take your point. I
promise you that I shall be far more serious and attentive when it
comes to what we must accomplish together.” Ivan’s expression
approached seriousness. “I know you have looked at vid of me in
Destrier, and this may have raised some concerns on your part. I
assure you that since that time I have spent many hours running
computer simulations in preparation for the Final Vetting. You will
benefit from the fruits of my labor.”
Michael Stackpole

“Good. I have modified a training regime we’ve used before

and—”
Ivan held up a hand. “Please send me a schedule and I shall
merge it with mine. But now social convention demands that I con-
duct myself properly. So many boring people here, you know—not
you, but others. I need to deal with them.”
“More chaff.”
“You are refreshingly persistent, Lieutenant.” The Chairman
Presumptive’s expression froze. “I should reward that. I’ll think
of something. But, to explain . . . over there, over my left shoulder,
that is Wen Xu-Tian, the Capellan Consul here on Maldives. He
anticipates my becoming Chairman and does all he can to curry
favor. He hopes that he can bring us into the Capellan sphere of
influence.”
“Makes sense.”
“He is, of course, looking for a way to be recalled to Sian—in
the good way, of course. He does his best to engage me in conver-
sation, hoping we will strike up a friendship. So the last time we
spoke, I lectured at length on interesting research being conducted
here on seasonal sexual dimorphism in Highland spotted beetles.
I emphasized the differences between cycles during Deep Summer
and Second Summer.” Ivan allowed himself a smirk. “Over the last
week and a half, in preparation for tonight, Xu-Tian has studied
everything there is to know about the Highland spotted beetle. He
will convey all he’s learned to me. And I will tell him all I know
about seasonal sexual dimorphism in the Lowland spotted beetle.
And when he says that he thought I was interested in the Highland
spotted beetle, I will tell him that I was interested in it, but seeing
that I could never hope to develop a mastery of the subject that
could come at all close to his, I shall surrender that subject to him
and continue my studies on the lowland species.”
Walter studied Ivan closely. “So you will turn the hard work
he’s done to get close to you into a wedge that forces you apart—
and deliver it in the form of praise that will make him feel good
despite utterly thwarting his desires.”
“Harshly put, yes.”

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 Heir Apparent

“And who is he talking to?”

“Stephan Andrich, another cousin, fifth, perhaps, with a few
generations removed.” Ivan’s hands fluttered. “He’s too dull to be
much fun playing the game, and would be an absolute ruin were
he ever to make it to a position with any real authority.”
“I see.”
“That look in your eyes, the tone in your voice, says you don’t
approve of my pastime.”
“Actually, I’m kind of in awe.” Walter shrugged. “But if either
of them kill you, some folks might think it justifiable homicide.”
“A case I’d not considered.” Ivan tapped a finger against his
chin. “But, for this evening at least, the game persists. Please do
enjoy yourself, Lieutenant. I look forward to working with you.”
“Thank you.” I think. Walter watched Ivan turn and weave
his way through the crowd toward the Capellan Consul. That was
different . . . Walter wasn’t at all certain if anything useful had been
accomplished in that conversation, save for learning that he was
going to be paired with a man whom some people wanted dead,
and who didn’t seem to care much about that fact.
“Take this.” A slender blonde woman appeared at his elbow
and offered him a glass of red wine. “Say thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“You are very very welcome, and you now owe me a rescue.”
She touched her glass to his. “No one would blame you if you
wanted something stronger, but this is our native Zweigelt. The
vines came from Austria, on Terra, transported by the first Litzau
settlers. We export it as far as New Avalon.”
“Is that so?” Walter nodded, then tried the wine. Dry, with the
sweetness of berries. He let it linger on his tongue before swallowing.
“Good, and really the sort of wine I like.”
“I hoped so.” She gestured with her glass in the Chairman
Presumptive’s direction. “I almost pity the Consul. He’s not a stu-
pid man, but he has yet to realize that he’s up against an intellect
the like of which few of us even imagine exists.”
Walter cocked his head for a second. “You know the Chairman
Presumptive well, then?”

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Michael Stackpole

She smiled. “I’ve had the pleasure. I take it they’re discussing

beetles?”
“Lowland, Highland, something like that.”
“He asked me for references on Lowland spotted beetles mid-
morning today. I suggested a dozen volumes or so.” She smiled.
“He’s devoured them already, I’m certain.”
“You research beetles, do you?”
The woman regarded him for a moment, then nodded. “I do,
as part of my ecological research. And forgive my manners. I’m
Phee.”
“Walter de Mesnil.” Walter shook her hand, pleased with her
firm, dry grip. “I’m with the Angels.”
“And are the Companion.” She snapped a finger against a
battle ribbon on his chest. It was white with a running hound in
green. “That’s what this one signifies.”
“I wondered.” Walter half smiled. “I didn’t think it was one
I’d earned.”
“You will.”
“Pursuant to that, I’ve only just met Ivan Litzau, just now. I can
see he’s very smart, but he’s also a bit . . . distant.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is detached.”
He considered for a moment. “That is better.”
Phee sipped her wine. “It’s also accurate. You see, most peo-
ple, they do things for simple reasons: love, lust, greed. Those are
the fancy words for hunger and companionship and the desire to
reproduce. Addressing those basic needs makes most folks fairly
easy to figure out. But Ivan—sure, he has to eat and clothe himself
and needs human contact, but those things don’t motivate him.”
“What does?”
“Given how smart he is, most folks think it’s knowledge.”
Her blue eyes focused distantly. “But knowledge is a goal; he likes
knowledge, but for him, the true joy is in seeking. Many people set
their sights on having done something, but Ivan, he delights in the
doing, in the chase. Does that make any sense?”
The mercenary considered for a moment, staring into the dark
ruby wine as he did so. “Sure. There are those . . . I have known

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 Heir Apparent

some MechWarriors who don’t care about winning or losing, they

just live for the fighting.”
“That’s a rather gruesome comparison, but accurate.”
“Sorry about that.” Walter shot her a sidelong glance. “Sounds
like you know the Chairman really well. Are you two . . . you know,
not to pry, but together?”
“Ivan and me? No, good lord no.”
“You tutor him, then, in sciences, or he’s a patron for your
research.”
“Yes, Litzau Enterprises and the Litzau family support my
research.” A tone entered her voice—playful, but something else
there he couldn’t identify. “Let me ask you, Lieutenant de Mesnil
. . .”
“Walter.”
“Walter, then. Walter, why do you do what you do? Is it the
money?”
“When you’re a mercenary, that is the go-to answer, but I actu-
ally have another plan.” He lowered his voice and she leaned in. “I
actually am saving up to start a wine importing business, so under
the guise of being a mercenary, I get to travel to worlds, try their
wines, and obliterate wineries that have no merit.”
“I’ll make you a list.” She tapped her glass against his. “Well
played, sir. That’s the most entertaining example of being told to
mind my own business I’ve ever been privileged to experience.”
“Just a second, Phee, I wasn’t trying to put you off.” Walter
winced. “Holovids always make the mercenary life gritty or roman-
tic. They make mercs into gallant warriors with tragic pasts who
are off doing battle in some vain attempt to redeem themselves for
past misdeeds. In my case the fact is that I pretty much fell into this
life. People have these silly dreams about becoming a mercenary
and doing great heroic things. I really didn’t have anything better
to do at the time. Handful of years later, here I am.”
She remained silent for a bit, then smiled. “I sense there is more
to be told there, but I accept your answer as given because, unlike
most people here, you’re not making yourself out to be something
important or terribly grand. That is different.”

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Michael Stackpole

Walter returned her smile. “Birds of a feather, the two of us.”

“Quite so.”
A middle-aged man joined them in the corner. “Forgive me for
interrupting, just be a moment. I wanted to thank you for recom-
mending Doctor Bitters. He said everything is going to be fine.”
Phee smiled broadly. “I’m so pleased to hear that, Ambassador
Allard. Is your lovely wife with you?”
“No, I’m afraid not. Even though the doctor said Justin and
Daniel should get over the bug in a day or two, she wanted to
stay with them. But she passed along her best wishes and thanks.”
The man looked over at Walter and offered his hand. “I’m sorry,
I’m Quintus Allard. I’m representing the Federated Suns for the
Vesting Celebration. We brought my boys along—it’s a bit of a trip
from New Avalon and we didn’t want to be apart from them for
that long.”
Phee pressed a hand to her forehead. “Forgive me, I thought
you might know each other. This is Lieutenant Walter de Mesnil.
He’s Ivan’s Companion.”
“Yes, of course.” Quintus smiled. “I hope you’ll get a chance
to meet my boys. They’re of that age when they start dreaming of
becoming MechWarriors.”
“We were just talking about that, Walter and I.”
The mercenary rolled his eyes. “The glamor of it all . . .”
“My sons quite believe that. In their eyes, all mercenaries are
heroes, much like d’Artagnan.”
Walter winced. “The reality is that we’re more like Don
Quixote.”
“A mercenary acquainted with the classics.” Quintus nodded
in the other man’s direction. “Of course, in the opening chapter
of The Three Musketeers, Dumas describes d’Artagnan as a Don
Quixote, so perhaps both views are correct.”
“That, sir, puts some things in perspective. Thank you.” Walter
raised his glass to the ambassador. “I’ll work on being more one
than the other.”

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 Heir Apparent

“I think you’ll find that being the Companion will require the
best qualities of both.” Allard shook Walter’s hand again. “Pleased
to meet you, Lieutenant.”
“And you, sir.”
The ambassador turned to Phee and took her hand in his. “And
you, Research Director Litzau, always a pleasure. If there is any
way I can be of service to you or especially your brother during his
Final Vetting, please let me know. That’s not the Federated Suns
making the offer. I am personally indebted to you, and Allards
always make good on their debts.”
“You are far too kind, Ambassador. My best to your wife and
sons.”
Research Director Litzau? A question took up residence on the
tip of Walter’s tongue.
Sophia raised a finger. “Not a word.”
“But.”
“That’s a word, Walter.”
He fell silent.
She frowned. “Okay. Say it.”
“Say what?”
“What you’re dying to say.”
“Now I see why Litzau Enterprises supports your research.”
“It’s important research.” She snatched the half-full glass from
his hand and set their glasses on a nearby tray. Then she grabbed
his left hand. “We should dance.”
“Wait.”
“You don’t dance?”
“It’s not that.” Walter shook his head. “And it’s not me feel-
ing foolish for not recognizing you. I can imagine that having the
chance to be anonymous in a crowd like this is a treat. I don’t mind
being the off-world bumpkin who didn’t know who he was talking
to. I’m good with all that.”
Consternation wrinkled her brow. “Then what is it?”
“I am the off-world bumpkin who didn’t know who you
were. Are you sure there won’t be some negative repercussions

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Michael Stackpole

if we dance together? Isn’t there some protocol or something? A

tradition?”
“Walter, we’re not the Draconis Combine. They’d have to
convene a council of ministers to ask ministers to consider your
question and we’d be ancient before we ever got a reply. And, yes,
Maldives is really a small village where everyone knows every-
one else’s business and there’s been so much intermarriage that
family trees are really just this windblown mass of webs.” She
tugged on his hand. “But you’re the Companion. I’m the Chairman
Presumptive’s younger sister, one of your hosts. And this is just a
dance, not an invitation to get married.”
“So you’re saying sex is off the table.”
“Lieutenant de Mesnil!” Sophia’s head came up. “I am a tra-
ditional woman.”
She had affected outrage, but he caught a teasing note in her
voice. “You do realize, Director, that on your world, I have no idea
what that means.”
“What it means is, Walter, that we can dance together, and no
one will bat an eyelash.”
“Then it would be my pleasure.” Walter bowed deeply, and
rose to see her granting him a delighted smile.
He led her to the dance floor, which was blond oak with dark
wood inlays. The dark wood had been used to depict a stylized
version of Maldives and, above it, the Litzau family crest. The map
showed thick ice sheets at the south pole, lighter to the north, and
the more temperate zones working down to a number of river val-
leys like the one created by the Nyqvist River. The Litzau crest
consisted of a hound rampant, with a crown, and another hound
running beneath it. That latter hound resembled the image on his
Companion ribbon.
Walter didn’t recognize the tune the band was playing, but he
caught the rhythm easily enough. He drew Sophia into his arms
and led her through the stately steps of a waltz. He even tossed
in a turn or two for fun. None of the other couples were doing
that. Most of them looked decidedly stiff, as if they loathed their
partners. Sophia, on the other hand, smiled happily and executed

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 Heir Apparent

moves crisply, providing the sort of flare that everyone else’s

mechanical dancing lacked.
As she returned to his embrace, he nodded toward another
couple. “That’s Richard Oglethorpe. Your brother said that if there
was a list drawn up of people who wanted to kill him, Richard
would be at the top.”
“That was Ivan being a bit hyperbolic. Richard is a third
cousin, therefore technically in position to garner enough prox-
ies to replace Ivan if the Final Vetting goes badly. But then, three-
quarters of the people who will be in and out of the corporate
headquarters during the Final Vetting would have to be severed
before Richard could reach the right number of votes, so he’s not
really a serious suspect.”
Richard danced with a slender woman with long black hair
that hung in thick curls. They move together brilliantly, clearly
anticipating each other’s moves with preternatural prowess. “Who
is he dancing with?”
“Abigail, my older sister.”
“She looks lovely.”
“Believe that at your peril.” Sophia winked at him. “You
should be careful of her. As angry as Richard was, she’s more so.”
“At me? Really?” Walter blinked. “Did she want to be
Companion, too?”
“Oh, heavens no.” Sophia lowered her voice. “She believes
Destrier should be hers, and you’re part of a corrupt system which
guarantees she will never claim her birthright.”

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 Chapter Four
Rivergaard House, Rivergaard
Maldives
15 October 3000

“Family holidays must be pure joy around here.” Walter tossed

Sophia into a turn.
Her eyes flashed as she returned. “I’ll make certain you’re
seated beside me next time.”
“You’re too kind.”
“I am also serious. Unless you’ve brought a spouse with you,
protocol calls for you to be placed between my sister and me at the
various Vesting dinners.”
Walter smiled. “I’ll read up on beetles, so we can have good
conversation.”
The song ended and Walter walked Sophia back toward the
corner. “Thank you, Director. I’m not sure what I was expecting
this evening, but this was a most welcome substitute for what I
feared would happen.”
“I’m glad, Lieutenant. Thank you.” She took his right hand
between hers and squeezed. “I know you will do everything you
can for my brother. Whatever you do, don’t let him doubt himself.
That’s when he truly gets lost.”
 Heir Apparent

“Noted.” He squeezed her hands in return. “And now I’ll sur-

render you to what I am sure are your many duties here.”
“You have no idea.” She tossed him another wink and lost
herself in the crush of bodies.
Walter watched her go, then considered getting a glass of wine.
He’d liked the Zweigelt despite his preference for beer or whisky.
But if I get a glass, I’m trapped here . . . It occurred to him that he’d
accomplished his mission: he’d met Ivan. Sophia had been a bonus,
and the fact that he appeared largely invisible to everyone else
underscored his being an outsider. He decided that leaving early
and pleading jump-lag was preferable to remaining and running
afoul of some odd societal expectation.
Plenty of time for that in the weeks ahead.
“Did you feel it necessary, sister, to make so complete a spec-
tacle of yourself with that mercenary?”
Sophia turned slowly and smiled at her sister. “He dances well.
Better than anyone else here.”
“He is an embarrassment.” Abigail accepted a flute of sparking
wine from a passing server. “Mother was wrong in her approach.”
“She had no choice, Abby. Richard was selected because of
what happened during our father’s Final Vetting, and it was done
to embarrass Richard.” Sophia hugged an arm across her tummy.
“If Ivan failed with him as Companion, Richard would be seriously
diminished. When Ivan succeeded . . .”
“If, you mean.”
“I have faith, Abby.” Sophia sighed. “Ivan’s vesting would
gall Richard. His honor or his ambition would be besmirched with
either outcome; Richard was too proud to accept the traditional
way out, so Mother accepted for him.”
“And dishonored him sorely.”
Sophia arched a blonde eyebrow. “Are you defending him?”
“Richard? Hardly.” Abigail stared down at bubbles for a
moment. “As much as I loathe the Oglethorpes, the simple fact
of the matter is that I hate seeing the Dhivi corporate elite being
subordinate to off-world mercenary—”

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Michael Stackpole

The younger woman spitted Abigail with a hard stare. “Don’t

finish that sentence.”
“It is the truth. You know what he is.”
“You haven’t even spoken to him.”
Shock spread over Abigail’s face. “He’s charmed you. Five
minutes dancing and you’re already intrigued with him.”
“No, that is not it at all.” Though he is charming, in a rough way.
Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “My point is that Mother made a good
selection. You know how unpopular Father’s changes to the vetting
ritual were with the old guard—some of them are going to want
Ivan to fail. No employee of Litzau Enterprises is going to work
him hard enough to change those opinions, but a mercenary could.
Do not look at me that way, Abigail.”
“You say no one, but you know I would have.”
“Granted, but that is not a traditional option.” Sophia glanced
over to where the Capellan Consul had finally escaped his conver-
sation with Ivan. “If Ivan is to continue our father’s work, we need
to be united in supporting him, against all opposition.”
“Agreed.”
“Is that why you were dancing with Richard?”
“You are such a child.” Abigail’s eyes half shut. “As the say-
ing goes, keep friends close and enemies closer. Plus, he is a good
dancer.”
“Wait until you dance with Walter.”
“Walter, is it?” Abigail shook her head. “No, little sister, I shan’t
deprive you of that dubious pleasure. I only hope your judgment of
him is not in error. Any failure on his part, and we are all doomed.”

Litzau Lancers Garrison, Rivergaard

Maldives
16 October 3000

A day later Walter met the Chairman Presumptive at the Litzau

Lancers garrison—a place that appeared to be as much museum
as it was a working military installation. The front third really was

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 Heir Apparent

a museum, featuring rooms of exhibits covering everything from

Litzau Enterprises history to high points of the war and famous
Dhivi who had earned fame far from their homeworld. The hangar
space comprising the rest of the building provided housing for the
Lancers and the Angels.
A central corridor opened up onto a tall glass wall fronting the
hangar space, behind which stood Destrier, spotlighted from below.
The ten-meter-tall war machine’s right arm ended in the twin muz-
zles of a pair of medium lasers. The left arm, which had a hand,
sported a third medium laser on the outside of its forearm. A long-
range missile launcher rested on top of that same forearm, while
the ’Mech’s other missile launcher hid behind closed launch panels
on the right side of the torso. Scaffolding surrounded the machine
and workmen scurried over it, removing the gray-and-blue parade
paint, replacing it with light green woodland camouflage.
That’s not right. Walter had arrived for the first of the training
sessions with Ivan and expected that the Chairman Presumptive
would use Destrier for the exercises. Beyond the Dhivi ’Mech, mid-
way back in the hangar, Walter’s Blackjack stood ready. All Walter
needed to do was strip out of his coveralls, pull on a neurohelmet
and he’d be good to go.
Walter flashed the ID tag he’d been given and the guards
waved him through. He entered the hangar through a door
between Destrier’s feet. Ivan waved to him from a low corridor
to the left. Walter jogged over to meet him, frowning because the
young man hadn’t dressed for training. “Was I mistaken, my lord?
We are training, yes?”
“As I told you—at least, as I remember telling you—I have
spent hours running simulations . . .”
“I appreciate that, sir . . .” Walter stopped himself. “Calling you
‘sir’ doesn’t feel right, especially not for a combat exercise. What’s
your call sign?”
Ivan blinked at him. “My call sign?”
“What they call you when you’re training.” The mercenary
rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Mine, at least among the
Angels, is Rail, short for Azrail, the Angel of Death.”

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Michael Stackpole

“In the Christian tradition, that is the archangel Michael, or

perhaps Samael.”
“The Angels are better warriors than they are theologians. Point
is, Rail is fast to say, easy to understand in the heat of combat.”
Ivan pursed his lips as he considered. “I would gather you’ve
earned this sobriquet through prowess in battle, then.”
“You’ve not been around mercs much, have you? We had a bad
billet when I first joined. Completely filthy. I killed a lot of what
passed for cockroaches.”
“Irony, then.”
“Yes.” Walter posted his hands on his hips. “And you have to
stop doing that.”
“What?”
“Directing conversations off into dead ends. You did it at the
reception, you’re doing it now. I understand that you might do that
to mess around with people who bore you, but I can’t be one of
those people. We don’t get things straight and accomplished, none
of this is going to go well.”
“Ah.” Ivan slowly nodded. “I see you’re operating under some
misconceptions about the Final Vetting.” He turned and walked
down the corridor, pausing only when he realized Walter wasn’t
following in his wake. “Please, come, let me show you.”
“Okay, but I’m not forgetting you need a call sign.” Walter
headed down the hallway, entering a side room a step behind the
Chairman Presumptive. Computers filled it, with four simula-
tor pods along the back wall, and every other wall covered with
projected images of simulated fights. As training centers went, it
wasn’t the most up to date, but eons ahead of what some facilities
had deteriorated into.
Ivan turned and opened his arms. “I’ve been working in here
for days, since before you even came into the system. It’s true that
the Final Vetting is meant to recreate the exploits of my ancestor,
Augustine, back when he defended Rivergaard, but it has evolved
since then. We are a people of traditions, and we are survivors.
Things have changed to reflect that aspect of our lives more than
to simulate history. It’s become symbolic.”

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 Heir Apparent

“I’m not tracking the relevancy here.”

“The Final Vetting is an exercise that I am required to endure,
not emerge victorious from in a martial sense. Thanks to my father,
it isn’t a combat exercise anymore. As such, the only way we can
really fail is if we’re forced for some reason to abort the exercise.”
“So as long as you get back from our camping trip successfully,
you’re in the clear?”
“Yes, precisely . . . Rail.” Ivan’s eyes widened. “Yes, yes, I see
how call signs help.”
“Stay on target.” Walter looked around. “So you’ve been log-
ging lots of hours in the simulators here?”
Ivan clapped his hands together. “I think you took my mean-
ing differently than I intended. Not working in the simulators, but
working on simulations.”
Walter’s eyes narrowed.
“Let me explain.” Ivan walked over to one of the control sta-
tions. “As complicated as is the method of choosing a Companion,
the methodology for choosing the actual course of the Final Vetting
is even more bizarre. The First Families gather in councils and they
all vote to select from among scenarios which have been fashioned
based on historical incidents. Now, what I did was study the First
Families and their voting patterns in the past, as well as their reac-
tions to various results. I weighted each of the scenarios based on
a collated tabulation of their comments concerning me. Then I ran
simulations of how they will vote. Thus, with 97.32 percent accu-
racy, I know what scenario they’ve chosen for us. Then I ran simu-
lations of those scenarios, based on all the data I could cull about
you and anything else that will be involved—seasonal weather,
blooming of plants, availability of firewood, all that. I ran every-
thing against the strategies that worked in the past, and those that
did not. As a result, I have been able to choreograph a plan which,
conservatively, gives us a 99.72 percent chance of completing the
scenario successfully.”
“So you’re telling me that you’ve already mapped out and
scripted our route for the Vetting.” Walter held his voice level. “You
know where the slag heaps will be positioned, where we’ll walk,

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Michael Stackpole

where we’ll find potable water and kindling for our campfires.
That’s what you’ve been spending your time doing.”
“Precisely.”
The mercenary scratched the back of his neck. “I suppose you
included a round of DNA analysis and correlated it with your
selection biases just to cover everything?”
“Good lord, no.” Ivan shivered. “No, that is not allowed.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Lieutenant, the First Families keep track of genealogies as a
matter of family honor.” Ivan raised his chin. “To do any DNA
analysis is so far from our tradition that it constitutes blasphemy—
well, maybe only industrial espionage, though most think it blas-
phemy. Please, do us both a favor and don’t ever suggest we have
anything to do with DNA collection or analysis. Don’t even joke
about it. The suggestion that it even had been considered would
be ruinous.”
Walter raised his hands in surrender. “I didn’t realize—”
“You should have.”
“Sir, this is not my world. I’ve been here a day and a half.”
“But, still—”
“No, wait, stop.” Walter swung a chair around from another
control station and plopped himself in it. “This is just another dis-
traction. Good God, you need a hell of a lot more than just a call
sign.”
The Chairman Presumptive frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Walter leaned forward, massaging his temples with his fingers.
“You’re smart, I give you that. I’m sure that everything you’ve
just told me is true, and that margins of error—even absent DNA
analysis—are tighter than Hake’s grip on a C-bill. But there’s one
truth you didn’t factor in to all this. It’s an old truth, more than
a thousand years old: no plan survives contact with the enemy.”
“Rail, remember the ‘enemy’ in this case is piles of debris
mapped to appear to be hostile ’Mechs and vehicles.”
“That has nothing to do with anything.”
“But, you see, I have factored in—”

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 Heir Apparent

“I don’t care if you can read the minds of every person on

this rock, or if you have a crystal ball that shows you the future, it
doesn’t mean what you foresee is going to happen.” Walter pointed
vaguely in the direction of the palace. “Didn’t you tell me that if
you were assassinated there’d be legions of suspects?”
“Yes, but they wouldn’t—”
“Wouldn’t do something weird? They wouldn’t cheat?”
The Chairman Presumptive’s expression sharpened. “We
have traditions, Lieutenant. No one would interfere with the Final
Vetting.”
“But they would murder you?”
“Well, that is a different tradition.”
The mercenary held his hands up. “No. Traditions don’t cover
this.”
“But they do, Lieutenant.” Ivan exhaled heavily. “My mother
likely told you that traditions are why Maldives is dying. But tradi-
tions are the reason it hasn’t died yet. After the war, after people
began to drift away, tradition and family ties were all that held
us together. Traditions are what tie us back to our Golden Ages.
Traditions are what will let us rebuild Maldives.”
“And yet it’s tradition that prevents Abigail from being
Chairperson.”
Ivan glanced at the floor. “It is, and I want to change that. My
father wanted to change that. I cannot tell you how much it hurts
me that my mother, as Acting Chairperson, has only been able to
act in that role because I have granted her a proxy to vote Litzau
Enterprises stock—but some people would have it no other way.
The Dhivi who understand how good a leader my mother has
been, or how good a leader Abigail would be, want to see all that
changed.”
Walter shook his head. “And I’m sure there are an equal num-
ber who like the status quo. Who will stop at nothing to preserve
it, even if it means violating some ancient tradition. They set up
a scapegoat, destroy him, establish themselves as the new heir of
Dhivi tradition and the society keeps going.”
“I . . . I . . .”

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Michael Stackpole

This is what Sophia warned me about. He stood and rested his

hands on Ivan’s shoulders. “It’s not that you’re not smart, but you
can’t know everything. Let’s assume that all the simulations you ran
were 1,000 percent accurate.”
“There’s no such thing as 1,000 percent accuracy.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Sorry.”
“Even if you’re right, you are right up until the point that
someone acts out of character. They have a bad dream. They can’t
get their favorite wine and decide to blame you for it. No, don’t tell
me that’s irrational, I’ve got a scar over my ribs from exactly that
sort of thing.” Walter shook his head. “Heck, there may be players
here you know nothing about, and so they aren’t even variables in
your scenario.”
Ivan’s shoulders slumped. “I had dismissed that possibility.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Walter smiled and took a step back. “Look,
you ran your simulations. You gotta figure that anyone planning
against you has run theirs. When they look at you, what do you
think they factored in as most important concerning the Final
Vetting?”
Ivan scratched at his chin. “I suppose it’s the fact that I’m not
terribly experienced in piloting a ’Mech.”
Fact is, kid, you really suck in a ’Mech. Walter bit his tongue.
“They’re looking at what you’ve done in the past, and they’re pro-
jecting it into the future. And you may be right, that being a little
rabbit happily hopping down your bunny trail will be enough to
get through the Final Vetting. But as your Companion, I have to
imagine there are a dozen or so foxes looking to devour you.”
“Your logic is inescapable.” The Crown Duke looked up at
him. “Is it too late for us to take prudent precautions?”
“Probably. Training you up to be a true MechWarrior, that’s
not going to happen.”
“Oh.”
“But I can get you good enough that piles of debris will be
really sorry they tangled with you.” Walter smiled. “As for pro-
tecting you from anything more malicious, depends on how good

40
 Heir Apparent

your simulations really were. Your surveys, do they include terrain

analysis?”
“Of course.”
“Good.” Walter pointed at the simulator units. “Today you’re
going to walk me through the Vetting route that your simulations
predicted. We’re looking for secure locations where we can mini-
mize any threats. Then, tomorrow and thereafter, we roll out in
our ’Mechs and make sure the simulations match existing terrain
and conditions.”
“But that will create new data for enemy simulations. Wouldn’t
that be contra-indicated?”
Walter winked. “Here’s the deal. Because people love to think
the worst about their enemies, we’re going to scrub our data of
anything that suggests you’re getting better or reveals our plans.
I let folks know that, in a ’Mech, you’re only a threat to yourself.”
Ivan pointed off to where the Angels’ ’Mechs were housed.
“You will even lie to your people about me?”
“I’m your Companion. This is all need-to-know, and they don’t
need to know. I trust them, but here their guard will be down and
mistakes will happen.”
Ivan nodded solemnly. “My mother’s choice was perhaps
more prudent than even she imagined.”
“I’d like to think so, sir.” The mercenary gave him a thumbs-
up. “Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Doesn’t guarantee suc-
cess, but tends to grind the edge off defeat. Right now, that’s going
to have to do.”

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 Chapter Five
Rivergaard House, Rivergaard
Maldives
20 October 3000

Walter accepted the tumbler of whiskey from his commanding offi-

cer. “Thank you, Hake.”
The older man dropped into the chair behind his desk. “This
world is incredibly weird. It’s wearing me out.”
“Should have retired before we got here.”
Hake saluted with his glass. “If I had, you’d be sitting here
dealing with all the headaches.”
“Sure, but then we’d have Chris or someone else dealing with
the rest of them.” Walter sipped the amber liquor. “Heck, there is
no ‘rest of,’ just the one, really.”
“Progress that tough?”
“We’ve got his call sign narrowed down to four or five choices.
Take that as a mark of his indecision.” Walter leaned back in the
chair and closed his eyes. He didn’t like lying to Hake or anyone
else in the unit, but Walter had to assume he was being spied upon
as a matter of course. When he got called on it, after Ivan did better
than expected in the Final Vetting, he figured he’d claim the kid
swore him to secrecy as a surprise for his mother. Hake would see
 Heir Apparent

through that dodge, but if the Acting Chairperson was generously

happy, he’d be in a forgiving mood.
“I’ve been putting the best spin on things that I can, Walter, but
most folks think I’m gilding a turd. Not that they don’t think the
Chairman Presumptive doesn’t have talent, they just believe it lies
in areas other than driving a ’Mech. This Final Vetting has some
folks seriously concerned.”
Walter groaned, not having to fake that at all. “He’s real smart,
Hake, smarter than anyone I’ve ever been around. He knows tons
of things, maybe all the things, but he lets himself get distracted.
In a simulator, he’s okay . . .”
“Good enough for the Angels?”
Walter shook his head. “We’d tell him to get four years of expe-
rience and check back.” He sat up and drank. “But actually put
him in the cockpit of that Trebuchet and he moves like he’s pulling
a plow. LRMs, he’s okay; with the lasers he’s no threat. But, as he
says, he just has to get back in one piece. I do the heavy lifting in
keeping him that way.”
Hake nodded, his jowls wobbling. “You’re his tour guide and
nanny. I’d say it could be worse, but I’d be lying.”
Walter drained his glass and set the empty on Hake’s desk.
“What’s your read on the politics here? Near as I can tell, everyone
is related to everyone. Put two Dhivi in a room and you have four
conspiracies. At dinners, people form coalitions just to get someone
to pass the salt.”
“Seen that, but it’s all sound and fury.” The older man
shrugged. “There’s a lot of grumbling, but it’s about as threaten-
ing as Chris or Spin when they bet too much on a crap poker hand.
I don’t get the sense that anyone hates Ivan enough to actually kill
him. He may not be all they’d like in a Chairman, but they figure
he’s young enough and smart enough to provide more stability
than those who would replace him.”
“That makes me feel a bit better, then.”
Hake finished his whiskey then set his glass next to Walter’s.
“Why don’t you refill us both. You have time before dinner. We
need to talk.”

43
Michael Stackpole

“That sounds ominous.” Walter hauled himself out of the chair

and made his way to the sideboard. “What’s up?”
Hake ran a hand over his unshaven jaw. “I was serious before
when I talked about you taking over the Angels. You know, in my
mind, I’m pretty much decided on it.”
Walter returned with the glasses half full. “What’s changed?”
The elder MechWarrior held his glass up. “You’re kinda gener-
ous with my whiskey.”
“Way you’re talking it’s going to be mine pretty soon anyway.”
“Good point.” Hake touched his glass to Walter’s. “So while
you’ve been working with the kid, I’ve been making the rounds,
talking to folks, and there’s been some chatter . . .”
Walter smiled broadly. “You got your eye on someone.”
“Let’s not be—”
“Did Chris’s wife set you up? She’s good, but this would be
going above and beyond.”
Hake fixed him with the one-eyed death stare. “Laurie had
nothing to do with it—though she did gather some information
after the fact. And it’s not that this woman is the deciding factor. It’s
just that I’ve come to realize that the whole ‘girl in every spaceport’
isn’t something that’s going to work for me forever, handsome as
I am. So I want you to think seriously about what you see as your
future with the Angels, and what you see as our future. I mean,
you get the Chairman Presumptive through the Final Vetting and
I’m sure he’d be happy to make the Angels an adjunct unit to the
Litzau Lancers. Take a couple-year gig here, get everyone healthy,
then, like you said before, you go to Galatea and pull some lucra-
tive contracts.”
“Hake, I can’t buy the unit from you.”
“Son, I’m not looking to cash out.” Hake smiled. “If this thing
works out here on Maldives, cash isn’t going to be my problem.
I just want to see that everyone gets taken care of, and you’re the
guy who can do that. Leastways, that’s my thinking.”
Walter sat forward, cupping the crystal glass in both hands. All
this he’s saying, and here I am lying to him. I can’t . . . “Look, Hake—”

44
 Heir Apparent

“No, stop there, Walter. This isn’t a decision you need to make
right now. We’re not talking about it any more—at least, not until
the Final Vetting is over, right?”
The younger man looked up. “Okay, deal.”
“Good. Good.” Hake smiled broadly. “Now, here’s another
thing, this Final Vetting, there is betting on it. Lots of odd stuff,
like what you’re going to be eating out there, how often he gets dis-
tracted by flowers, that kind of thing. There’s some serious money
going down on how efficient he’s going to be in shooting up the
simulated targets. How many shots per, weapon choices. Care to
help a buddy out?”
“Missiles, mostly. He likes the pyrotechnics. Lasers, well,
beams travel in a straight line except when he shoots them. Hell,
half the time I take cover, and I’m usually behind him.”
“The over on attacks-per is seven and a half.”
“The targets have to go down in less than eight shots for you
to win?” Walter snorted. “Take all the action you can on the under,
and give odds. Long odds.”
Hake arched an eyebrow. “I thought you said the kid isn’t any
good.”
“He isn’t, Hake.” Walter winked. “But Companion shots only
count for half, and I am that good. And then some.”

Sophia gave the blue sash on her brother’s uniform a tiny tug to
set it perfectly in place. “There’s something different about you.
What?”
“I am uncomfortable with my Companion.”
“With Walter?” Sophia’s stomach fluttered. “Do you fear some-
one has bribed him or . . .”
Ivan’s reflection stared back at her from the full-length mirror.
“You have spent enough time with him in conversation over din-
ners. Do you think he could be bought?”
“No, but you are not answering my question.”
“The two of you share that predilection for being quite direct.”
“Ivan, you do not win this game. Not with me.”

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Michael Stackpole

He smiled. “Steeped as we are in tradition here—shackled by

it, really—I was comfortable. My course in life, the family’s work,
it really left me no doubt about anything. But Walter, free as he is,
provides a different perspective. It’s unsettling. Am I wrong, or is
this something you have seen in him, too?”
Sophia turned away, hiding the flush rising to her cheeks. “I
do find him intriguing. And I trust him. I think he sees more than
he lets on, but keeps his own counsel.”
“How far would you trust him?”
She spun to face her brother. “What are you thinking, Ivan?”
“Just that our work might require some outside support.”
Sophia hesitated. “I don’t know, Ivan. Perhaps, after the Final
Vetting. After he proves himself . . . Father’s plans never mentioned
. . .”
“But did not rule out off-world help.”
“But he did warn of off-world interference.” She frowned. “So
many families have mythologized what Maldives was before the
war. They want a return to that glorious age, and are willing to
court external forces to win themselves a place in the future. But
Maldives’s future is not in a return to the past.”
“Agreed.”
Ivan’s sister laughed. “And once again, you have wandered
away from the subject I asked about. Are you uncomfortable with
your Companion, or uncomfortable about the Final Vetting?”
Ivan ran a hand over his forehead. “The Final Vetting, of
course. To fail would be unbearable, but to succeed could be worse.
It will trigger so many intrigues that surviving the ordeal will seem
simple by comparison.”
“But that, dear brother, is a problem for the Chairman to
solve.” Sophia linked her arm through his and steered him toward
the door of his chamber. “Think first about getting through din-
ner, then the Final Vetting. All else will sort itself out in due time,
I have no fear.”

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 Heir Apparent

Rivergaard Rangers Security Services Headquarters, Rivergaard

Maldives

Lieutenant Aaron Doukas paused in the doorway to Richard

Oglethorpe’s office. “You asked for me, sir?”
The dark-haired unit commander glanced up from his desk.
“Yes, I’ve been going over the unit performance assessments.”
He tapped a finger against the desk’s glass top and the monitor
beneath it. “I don’t like what I see. Not at all.”
“Sir?” The subordinate officer stiffened. “The numbers—”
“The numbers better not tell the whole story.” Richard stood,
then glanced past Aaron, toward the office beyond. People were
staring. “Come inside. Close the door.”
“Yes, sir.” Aaron kept his voice subdued. A tall, stocky man, he
moved stiffly, as if dreading the dressing-down that was coming.
He caught a couple of gasps from the office staff before he closed
the door behind him.
Richard remained stiff and formal, again tapping a finger
against the glass. Though electronic countermeasures would ham-
per any attempts to eavesdrop on the conversation, the glass wall
behind him opened toward the city. Observers could easily catch
a visual, so his body language had to belie his words. “I will make
this up to you, of course.”
Aaron, playing his part, nodded once, sharply. “I understand,
sir.”
“Preparations for our little ordeal are set, then?”
“Yes, sir. Those who don’t need to know, don’t know. All of
them will comply, however.” Aaron pointed toward the desk. “The
Rangers are all unfailingly loyal to you, Director.”
“I had no doubt.” Richard came out from behind the desk and
paused in front of a static holograph of himself as a boy wearing
a MechWarrior’s cooling vest, shorts and boots. He stood with his
father—a man stouter than Richard was now, but there could be no
mistaking their relationship. “Twenty-six years ago, the last Final
Vetting. It should have ended in ten hours, fourteen at the most.
But when it went on, it set things in motion. When they believed

47
Michael Stackpole

Chairman Thomas was lost, people jockeyed for position. My

father, he became one of the leading candidates . . . the leading
candidate. Many had said they would surrender their proxies to
him, and he was willing to accept the responsibility of the office.”
Richard turned and half smiled. “But his willingness to serve,
his devotion to Maldives, his respect for our traditions, it went
unrecognized. And—I am sorry, Aaron, I know you are from not
Maldives, so all this must seem curiously quaint to you.”
The bearded MechWarrior shook his head. “I understand fam-
ily and obligation, sir. I may not be Dhivi, but when my unit fell
apart, you were willing to hire me into the Rangers. The Rangers
are my family—your family. I have no doubt your father would
have been a brilliant Chairman.”
Richard, playing for any distant observers, stabbed a finger at
his subordinate. “This is why I have entrusted you with this opera-
tion. Now, I expect you to post my assessment of these results.
You’ll revoke leaves for the Rangers during the rest of the Vesting
Celebration, and schedule them for more training, especially up
against the Final Vetting itself.”
“There will be grumbling.”
“Good. The only time anyone believes a soldier is telling the
truth is when he’s complaining.” Richard, his back to the windows,
flashed his subordinate a quick smile then returned to his desk.
“Now, I need you to leave so I can dress for dinner. And please,
forgive me.”
Aaron Doukas nodded, then opened the door. “Yes, sir.”
“And, Lieutenant . . .” Richard let his voice carry. “Just because
certain entitled individuals believe they can get away with slov-
enly and sloppy performance piloting a ’Mech, my Rangers cannot.
If you cannot make them understand that, there will be changes.
Drastic changes. You earn a berth in the Rangers. It’s not a birth-
right. Do you understand?”
Aaron raised his chin, then saluted. “Yes, sir.”
“Good, go.” Richard narrowed his eyes. “And if the next
assessment is this bad, just pack your bags and get off Maldives.
Failure will never be tolerated while I continue to draw breath.”

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 Chapter Six
Litzau Lancers Garrison, Rivergaard
Maldives
6 November 3000

Walter stood at the feet of his Blackjack, staring up at it. The human-
oid BattleMech had been painted in woodland camo to match
Destrier. The Blackjack had a barrel chest that featured two medium
lasers. Each arm ended in a pair of muzzles, the primary for a
small autocannon and secondary for an additional medium laser.
It boasted a fair amount of firepower for a ’Mech its size.
He patted the ’Mech’s foot. If your true owner is going to reclaim
you, please, not here, not now. I need you. He smiled, content the war
machine didn’t answer him, and that he heard no sirens suggesting
law enforcement had finally tracked him down.
“Lieutenant, I know you’re going to be the best Companion my
brother could have gotten.”
Walter spun on his heel. “Sophia, what are you doing here? I
thought you’d be at corporate headquarters to monitor things with
the others.”
Sophia laughed easily. “One of the reasons I spend so much
time in the field, studying plants and bugs and critters, is that I can
only take so much human company.”
Michael Stackpole

“I never would have known that given how much I’ve seen of
you during the Vesting Ceremonies.” Walter smiled genuinely. As
she’d warned that first night, he’d found himself between her and
her sister at a number of functions. Abigail had been coolly cordial.
Sophia had been much more sociable, bringing him up to speed on
the interpersonal politics within the network of First Families. She
seemed quite at ease with others, introducing him to more people
than he could ever hope to remember. “If you were at all uneasy,
you had me fooled.”
“I was raised in the corporate world, so I know how to fake it.
Spending time crowded into a modest venue with people I don’t
know, watching a holographic recreation of what you and Ivan
are, in theory, doing on the battlefield has no appeal for me.” She
pointed back toward the simulation room. “I’ll watch direct feeds
from in there, and then perhaps wander over to be sociable after
the crowd thins.”
“One thing I need to ask you.”
“Yes.”
“You likely know the terrain we’re going to be traveling
through better than most. I’m sure you could find your way
through without any satellite positioning gear.”
“And can’t wait to get back out there.” Concern crept onto her
face. “What’s going on?”
“I tweaked some equipment in my Blackjack and in Destrier.
The satellite data that’s going into the displays will report us being
a kilometer west and south of where we really are. You’ll know the
landmarks aren’t where they appear to be on the map. And I even
had one of the Angels go out and move the holovision recorders
at our campsites. The signal repeaters will show us to be in the
expected location, but we won’t be.”
Sophia’s eyes tightened for a moment. “Do you think there is
an active threat against Ivan, or are you just necessarily cautious?”
“I’ve never really taken to the idea of folks knowing where I
am when I’m out in a war machine. Unless they have hostile intent,
they don’t need to know; if they do, I don’t want them to know.”

50
 Heir Apparent

She cocked an eyebrow. “Some people will consider this sort

of thing cheating.”
“Probably, and I’ll take the heat for it. I’d rather apologize
for being cautious than have your brother die because I wasn’t.”
Walter shrugged. “I actually wanted some of the Angels to shadow
us, but Ivan said that would be going a bit too far.”
Sophia nodded. “It would have been, but I am thankful you
are on my brother’s side.”
“If you don’t point out the geographical anomalies, I think we
should be in the clear.”
“And Ivan knows?”
“Yes. Being rather prudent, he has very reluctantly endorsed
my effort.”
“Your secret is safe with me.” She leaned in on her tiptoes and
kissed him on the cheek. “Promise me you won’t let anything hap-
pen to him.”
“You have my word.” Walter gave her a quick nod, then
mounted the gantry steps to the ’Mech’s access point. With every
step she grew smaller and smaller, heading toward where her
brother stood beneath Destrier. Somehow he looks even smaller than
she does.
Walter entered the Blackjack’s cockpit through a small round
hatch close to where the thing’s ear canal would have been. He
sealed the armored door tight, then slid onto the command couch.
He pulled up the cooling cable and snapped it into the slot on the
cooling vest’s side. Piloting a ’Mech required him to be seated atop
of a fusion reactor, using weapons and actuators that kicked out
a lot of heat. MechWarriors were known to quip that it was like
being in the heart of a star, but without any of the fun parts of that
experience. The cooling vest recirculated coolant, which lowered
the chances of him suffering a fatal case of heat stroke.
He reached up and pulled his neurohelmet from its perch
above and behind his head. It rested heavily on his shoulders, and
sensors pressed in a tight crown around his brow. They’d harvest
neural impulses governed by his own sense of balance and trans-
late those to the computers driving the ’Mech’s gyrostabilizers.

51
Michael Stackpole

He applied other sensors to his arms and legs with adhesive pads,
then plugged their leads into the neurohelmet near his throat. That
interface system allowed him to maneuver the ’Mech as if he was
wearing it, allowing him to bring it to battle.
Once he had the helmet in place, he cinched it down to the
cooling vest, then buckled himself into the command couch. He
smiled. No matter where he went, what the weather or politics or
his financial status dictated, he always felt at home in the cock-
pit. He shifted his body a bit, settling in, and tightened the safety
harnesses.
I am good to go.
Walter punched the initiation code into a keypad on the com-
mand console. Lights began to flicker as various monitors came on
line. A tone sounded in the speakers built into the helmet.
He cleared his throat. “Pattern check: Walter de Mesnil.”
The verification system responded quickly. “Voice Print Match
obtained. Proceed.”
“Authorization code: Werewolves weave wretched rags.”
“Confirmed, Lieutenant de Mesnil. Weapon systems engaged.”
Walter’s primary and secondary monitors lit up. The larger
monitor depicted bar graphs of the ’Mech’s weapons systems. They
all showed green, which meant the medium lasers and autocan-
nons were fully operational.
The fact that there wasn’t any active opposition force for the
Final Vetting by no means meant the exercise wouldn’t be danger-
ous. Walter didn’t know if past Vettings had resulted in fatalities,
but soldiers got killed in live-fire exercises all the time. Lasers, mis-
siles and projectiles could malfunction, causing internal damage
in the ’Mech, and possibly even lighting off a series of devastating
explosions in an ammo compartment. Moreover, simply walking
a ’Mech off the side of a mountain would do just as much damage
as a pitched battle, and seldom provided a pilot a chance to eject
safely.
Walter hit a combination of buttons that took the ’Mech’s
heat meters from the secondary monitor and put them on the
auxiliary monitor. He then put a small map of the local terrain

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 Heir Apparent

on the secondary monitor. He smiled as icons representing the

repositioned cameras slowly populated the area. Though he had
not mentioned it to either Ivan or Sophia, he’d be calling up spot
video checks for security purposes as they worked through the
Final Vetting. It might be cheating, but doesn’t feel that bad when I’m
the one doing it.
Lastly he brought up the holographic combat display. He left it
on vislight initially, so the display floated a 360-degree image of the
hangar before him, shrinking it into a 160-degree display. Golden
lines defined the edges of the ’Mech’s forward firing arcs, and a
pair of blue lines defined the rear arc. The joysticks at the end of
either arm on the command couch controlled the aiming reticles.
They drifted over the display as he ran through a targeting check.
Tightening up on the joystick triggers would fire the weapons.
He keyed his radio. “Rail is green and hot.”
Ivan’s voice came back quietly. “Spurs is green and hot.”
Walter half grinned. While Ivan had gotten somewhat bet-
ter during their training runs, he’d not exhibited any particular
behavior that lent itself to the natural development of a call sign
nickname. Ivan had been trying too hard and thinking about every-
thing, almost never letting himself get caught up in the flow of the
moment. The few times he did, his surprise and joy kicked him out
of the instant, then he thought hard to get back into it.
The only thing he did without fail or thought was to wear old
cavalry spurs on his boots. He wasn’t the first MechWarrior to do
that—and wearing spurs was no less impractical than carrying a
knife or wearing a pistol in the cockpit. When Walter had asked
about the spurs, Ivan said they were the spurs his father had worn
during his Final Vetting.
Walter had nodded and said, “Spurs it is, or you are,” and Ivan
hadn’t raised even the hint of a protest.
“After you, Spurs.” Walter kept his Blackjack in the hangar
stall as the Chairman Presumptive stepped Destrier through the
half-empty hangar. After a brief ceremony in which the Litzau
Lancers had all wished Ivan well, the Lancers headed out to Litzau

53
Michael Stackpole

Enterprises headquarters to flank the driveway and welcome

esteemed visitors.
That left the Angels in the hangar. They lined up at the feet
of their ’Mechs to wish Walter and his charge well. Unlike the
Lancers—who were 60 percent women, and all looking quite dis-
ciplined in dress uniforms—the Angels affected more casual and
irregular dress, quite in the spirit of the celebrations going on
throughout the city. Still, as Destrier strode past, the Angels saluted
solemnly and Walter felt a bit of a lump rising in his throat.
Ivan marched Destrier straight out into the sunlight. The
Trebuchet’s leaner lines made it look positively noble compared
to the blocky Blackjack—Ivan’s Don Quixote to Walter’s Sancho
Panza. It hadn’t been lost upon Walter that a big portion of the
Final Vetting was intended to be a spectacle that would cast Ivan
as a capable and fearless leader. Until they got into the countryside,
Walter was content to follow at a respectful distance and foster that
illusion.
The BattleMechs stalked through Rivergaard, marching down
the middle of roads lined with Dhivi throngs. Banners hung from
buildings. Pennants flew from roofs, and people waved flags with
the Litzau corporate crest, or the planetary flag, and sometimes
both. The First Family members wore better clothes and tended
to be stationed in upper-story windows. The rest of the populace
remained closer to the ground, and yet cheered more enthusiasti-
cally than their upper-crust fellows.
They passed through the city, then, toward the northern bor-
der, they paused within sight of the Litzau Enterprises headquar-
ters. Warded by the Lancers, the building had a classical feel, with
tall columns and a portico roof crowded with the First Family elite,
their guests and other people of importance. Brightly colored bun-
ting undulated with the light breeze.
The Acting Chairperson saluted them from a dais toward the
front. Her voice filled the cockpit, her pride unmistakable. “This
is your last task, Ivan Litzau. The Final Vetting. Return victorious,
and you prove that Litzau Enterprises will prosper long and well
beneath your leadership.”

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 Heir Apparent

Around her the throngs of Dhivi nobles applauded. Some

stood and, very reluctantly, others slowly joined them. Walter
looked for Hake among the crowd, but couldn’t find him. Likely
off getting a beer.
Ivan’s reply to his mother contained only a tiny hint of anxi-
ety. “For the company, our shareholders, the First Families and the
memory of my father, I shall not fail.”
Applause again sounded, but people quickly sat back down.
Alexandra Litzau gave no sign she noticed anything but the
two BattleMechs before her. “Go with God, my son.”
Walter choked down the lump thickening his throat. Ivan sur-
prised him by executing a crisp turn to the right, then marching
Destrier up toward the hinterlands. Walter kept up with him until
the switchback road emerged onto a plateau. A few holographers—
mostly professionals, but a few well-wishing amateurs—had set
up there for some final shots. Once past them, Walter took point.
He keyed his radio. “Flip over to Tac Two.” He punched a but-
ton on his communications console to switch radio frequencies.
“You ready, Spurs?”
“Yes.” Ivan’s voice betrayed just a hint of nerves. “So, to Hard
Luck Point?”
“That’s the first stop on our tour. Fast as we can get there.
Watch your six, Spurs.”
“Roger, Rail.”
Walter took the lead, pounding through the landscape as
quickly as possible. The zone they were to explore occupied parts
of three plateaus, each of which was about three hundred meters
higher than the previous. The Nyqvist River flowed from the last
down into the Rivergaard Valley and out to the delta. The general
flow from the highlands supplied each of the plateaus with a ripar-
ian area, with forests predominating over rolling hills. Some rocky
areas were the result of old glaciers moving big rocks around in the
distant past. A nature preserve defined the area’s northeast border.
Traveling into which constitutes a level of offense that Ivan said
would cause his sister to murder us.

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Michael Stackpole

Hard Luck Point was Ivan’s designation for a place where a

meadow ended at the conjunction of two lines of hills. Getting
out of the meadow and moving up required traversing a narrow
pass. It would have been a perfect spot for an ambush, except that
forces that worked their way north and then around could shred
the ambushers with ease. His ancestor, Augustine, had killed some
planetary raiders in the area—so legend went—and tradition held
that all Final Vetting runs would proceed through that pass.
Walter looked up at the holographic display. Destrier followed
closely, but lost a step every time Ivan concentrated on their back
trail. He had gotten much better at piloting the Trebuchet, but taking
it on parades or hikes through the countryside wasn’t the same as
piloting a ’Mech in combat.
Thank goodness no one is shooting at us. Walter shifted his shoul-
ders, easing the weight of the neurohelmet. Three days, two hundred
kilometers, he can do this. This is the hard part for me. Glanced at the
Trebuchet in the holodisplay’s rear firing arc. After this, Spurs gets to
administrate a planet-straddling corporation. There will be a point when
he wishes someone had shot at him and put him out of his misery.

56
 Chapter Seven
Nyqvist Upland Preserve
Maldives
6 November 3000

Four hours into the countryside, Walter and Ivan reached their
first way station. The only thing remarkable about it was that the
clearing was large enough that the light from their campfire barely
reached their parked ’Mechs. Walter, who had never been very
woodsy, had wanted to gather wood and ignite it with a shot from
a laser, but Ivan had been included to hew to tradition.
“Besides, Walter, the ’Mech’s lasers would consume all the
wood all at once.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t thinking of the ’Mech.” Walter jerked a
thumb at the laser carbine he’d rested against a fallen log. “I tend
to match weapon to task whenever possible.”
“Oh, I see.”
As Ivan ignited the fire with flint and steel, Walter rolled out
bedding from their survival kits. Weather forecasts hadn’t indi-
cated any rain—par for the course during Deep Summer—so
they’d sleep out under the stars. The fire wasn’t even really nec-
essary, since the night was warm enough that Walter anticipated
Michael Stackpole

sleeping on top of his bedding, but making fire was integral to the
whole Final Vetting.
A demonstration of cooking was not, so they settled for pre-
packaged meals. Ivan did produce a coffeepot and set water boiling
at the edge of the fire, however, and poured grounds from a small
container into it.
“Either you don’t know how to make coffee, or someone has
told you how mercenaries like it.”
The young man looked up. “I don’t know how to make it, and
I don’t even drink it. My ancestor . . .”
“I’m gathering Augustine probably ground beans by chewing
them, and sprayed coffee over his enemies, defeating them hand-
ily.” Walter smiled. “Part of the ritual, I understand. Makes for
good optics.”
Ivan glanced to where a camera had been hung on a tree.
Little more than a game camera, it sent occasional pictures back
to Rivergaard to augment news reporting during the course of the
Final Vetting. “I can’t imagine what people are thinking back home
as they watch. I suppose some will be satisfied with my father’s
adjustments to the company tradition, but others will be angry that
we aren’t trading fire with other BattleMechs. And many more will
rightly wonder what this sort of excursion has to do with my abil-
ity to administer the affairs of the planetary corporation.”
“Practicality versus tradition seems to be front and center a lot
here. Makes for many strange things.”
“Such as?”
Walter ripped open a foil packet and speared what appeared
to be a lump of meat on the end of his spork. “Women can’t own
or vote stock, but it appears most of the Litzau Lancers are female.
They’re trusted with defending the corporation, but not handling
business affairs. That makes very little sense.”
“The Lancers always have had a strong female-warrior tra-
dition. Augustine took his wife from the Lancers, and my father
chose one of them to be his Companion. Then he married her.” Ivan
peered cautiously into the packet he’d opened. “Are peas supposed
to be that color?”

58
 Heir Apparent

“Yeah, if there’s even a hint of green you know someone didn’t

extract all the nutritional value.” Walter gnawed on the stew meat
for a bit. “Why isn’t Abigail in the Lancers?”
“She was, once. She was very good.” The Chairman
Presumptive shrugged. “Everyone told her that she’d be great as
my Companion, and years of that just got to her. The same bit of
unfairness you just noted caused her to resign. Well, that, and the
fact that she’ll be married off to some other corporate family to
make an alliance.”
“You’d make your own sister do that?”
Ivan shifted around so his back was to the camera, and then
dropped his voice into a low whisper. “If it were up to me, or when
it is up to me, I’d just as soon change things so she could be the
Chairperson, and I’d resign in her favor. I know that would be a
popular and positive change—unless you’re one of the First Family
scions—and was what my father had hoped for. Abigail doesn’t
believe we can change that fast and it makes her angry.”
“Not a surprise.” Walter nodded. “If she’s as good a
MechWarrior as you hinted, I’m surprised she’s not headed off
world to find a job.”
“As much as she hates the position that tradition has saddled
her with, she does have a sense of duty to the family. She’s not
alone. Sophia is very good as a researcher and could do fantastic
things elsewhere, but duty to family keeps her here.”
Something about Sophia being married off to a salaryman sim-
ply to spawn some corporate joint venture sparked quick anger in
Walter. “I think it would be a shame to waste either of your sisters
that way.”
“We agree.” Ivan smiled. “Get me through this, Walter, and I
promise that I will make the changes necessary to let everyone live
the lives they desire.”
“That’s a deal, sir. In fact—”
A rising growl cut Walter off. He dropped his food and spork,
then stood and reached for the laser rifle. He looked up as the
sound grew in intensity. It seemed to be coming from the northeast,

59
Michael Stackpole

and from up in the sky. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and
yet the sound soured Walter’s stomach.
“Spurs, quick, mount up. Now!”
Two swept-wing Stingray aerospace fighters screamed over-
head, flying just a meter or two above the forest canopy. They raced
southwest, the roar of their engines resonating through Walter’s
chest. A heartbeat later, red beams from medium lasers carved
branches from trees. The blue beams from particle projection can-
nons shattered evergreens as the artificial lightning caressed them.
Then the green beams from the aerospace fighters’ large lasers
burned two furrows through the forest.
Walter’s mouth went dry. Right where Chris placed the camera’s
signal repeater.
Ivan froze in a crouch beside the fire. Walter ran to him and
yanked him to his feet. “Move it, now!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Those people who don’t like change? They just showed you
how much they truly hate it.” Walter shoved Ivan toward his
’Mech. “They missed with their first shot. Let’s not give them a
second one.”

Litzau Lancers Garrison, Rivergaard

Maldives

Sophia stared at the screens in the simulation center. The grainy

images of Ivan and Walter around a campfire dissolved into gray
static. She leaned forward and smacked the side of the monitor
with the heel of her hand, but the picture remained lost. I wonder
what happened.
Before she had a chance to even begin trying to figure things
out, aerospace fighters roared overhead, shaking the garrison
hangar. Gunfire followed in a staccato series of pops. That’s close.
That’s very close. She vaulted from her chair and ran to the hallway.
“What’s going on?”

60
 Heir Apparent

Men and women, faces hidden by masks, streamed in through

the museum. Many wore the same cooling vests and boots that her
brother and Walter had donned for the Final Vetting, but none of
their uniforms bore the insignia of the Litzau Lancers. Dread raked
icy claws through her guts.
Sophia ran the other way down the corridor, and burst out
into daylight through a pair of fire doors. Explosions flashed to the
southeast. Black smoke rose from several buildings. The fighters
she’d heard before looped up through the sky, and then swooped
and leveled out for another ground-attack run.
She would have stood and watched, but a red laser bolt burned
a hole in the door she’d just used. She cut right, heading toward the
street, then dodged behind ferrocrete barriers that had served to
keep spectators clear of Destrier’s march. She forced her hands into
fists to stop their shaking, but the quivering just transferred itself
to her legs. She dropped to her knees and tried to make herself as
small as possible.
A Locust BattleMech in the black-with-gold paint scheme of the
Rivergaard Municipal Constabulary bounded up the street toward
the garrison hangar. The back-bent legs carried it quickly enough,
with the machine-gun pods on either wing covering the sidewalks.
The medium laser jutting from the forward-thrusting torso left no
doubt about the ’Mech’s firepower, but the Constabulary used it
primarily for crowd control. Sophia didn’t know where it had come
from, or where the pilot meant to take it, but she doubted it would
get very far.
One of the Angel’s smaller BattleMechs marched from the
hangar. The humanoid Commando boasted two sets of short-range
missile launchers and a medium laser in the left arm. For a heart-
beat Sophia hoped the pilot had been fortunate enough to be
already in the cockpit when the hangar had been invaded. When
the Commando turned to block the Locust’s path, she concluded the
pilot had been with the raiders—though his taking command of the
’Mech so quickly suggested he currently served in the Angels and
had sold out to the people attacking the garrison.

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Michael Stackpole

The Commando’s medium laser raked a crimson beam up the

Locust’s machine-gun pod. Molten ceramic armor dropped away in
flaming gobbets. Two SRMs, launched from the Commando’s right
arm, slammed into the damaged arm, exploding in the interior.
One missile spent its fury gnawing through myomer muscle tis-
sue. The other shattered ferro-titanium internal structures. Sparks
exploded and the pod swung uselessly at the ’Mech’s side.
The Constable in the Locust had to have known he was out-
gunned, but he did not retreat his ’Mech. Instead, he triggered the
’Mech’s medium laser. The searing beam of coherent light stabbed
into the Commando’s right side. Melted armor sloughed off the
’Mech’s flank, but the beam failed to breach the protection.
The traitorous Angel launched a half-dozen SRMs, which scat-
tered themselves over the smaller ’Mech. Two blasted in through
the hole previously rent in the BattleMech. The missile detonated
deep inside the war machine. Smoke billowed out and the whole
pod disintegrated. Then the Commando’s laser beam lanced through
the blackened cavity. Metal glowed red from within, then the Locust
lurched badly to the side. It collided with the ferrocrete barriers on
the far side of the street, then toppled over.
“You there!”
Sophia looked up at the shout. She started to stand and raise
her hands in defense, but it was too late.
The laser rifle’s butt slammed into the side of her head, and
her world went black.

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 Chapter Eight
Nyqvist Upland Preserve
Maldives
6 November 3000

Walter slung the laser rifle over his shoulder and scrambled up
the rope ladder hanging from his ’Mech’s right shoulder. He made
it halfway up the Blackjack’s chest height when small-arms laser
fire flashed angry red bolts past him. He leaped from the ladder,
nestled himself in the crook of the ’Mech’s elbow and started trad-
ing shots.
Spurs, get the hell out of here. Walter waved at Ivan’s ’Mech,
hoping his charge understood. Soldiers with laser rifles weren’t
a threat to Destrier, but they could direct the aerospace fighters
on a return trip. Ivan’s chance of survival would be for him to get
as far away from them as he could, even though his running off
would all but guarantee that crunch stew from a pouch would be
Walter’s last meal.
Two more bolts sizzled past Walter. One had come at a sharp
upward angle, which put the soldier near their campfire. Walter
reached his rifle around and blindly fired in the soldier’s direction.
A return bolt hit the laser rifle, melting through the barrel and mak-
ing it too hot to hold on to.
Michael Stackpole

Having no desire to die a hypocrite, Walter didn’t start pray-

ing. Instead he leaped up, grabbed the highest rung he could reach
on the ladder, and raced upward. If you bastards let me make it to the
cockpit, you will rue the day.
Two small bolts blackened paint either side of him. He smiled,
barely three meters from the cockpit’s armored sanctuary. Then he
felt it. A rising heat; and saw a red glow blossoming. Hey, you gave
it a good try.
From behind and below him, scarlet beams stabbed out.
Designed to melt thick sheets of ferro-ceramic armor on a
BattleMech, the Trebuchet’s medium lasers burned through simple
uniforms in a nanosecond. Flesh and bone were as nothing. Even a
close miss with one of those beams turned a man into a living torch.
Walter reached the Blackjack’s shoulder and crouched. Destrier,
washed in gold by the campfire and a trio of new fires, turned
right. Coruscating red beams lanced through the night and pierced
the underbrush. They scorched a path to a Packrat LRP vehicle. In a
flash they cored through the vehicle’s side armor, transforming the
interior into an inferno. The vehicle exploded, the shrapnel killing
any of the men who’d somehow escaped a fiery death.
Walter dove into the cockpit and strapped himself into the
command couch. He pulled on his neurohelmet and glanced at his
secondary monitor’s local map. He immediately keyed the radio.
“Spurs, cut northwest for a klick, into that ravine. Get low.”
Destrier broke right, then back toward the northwest. Walter’s
Blackjack backed to the west. He studied their back trail for any
other signs of life. He saw nothing but small fires, but that did
little to quell the roiling in his belly. If those fighters come back right
away, we’re dead.
Walter spotted Destrier beginning its descent into the ravine
he’d mentioned. “Spurs, you need to pull your radio and tran-
sponder. We don’t want the fighters coming back and tracking us
by comms traffic.”
“I don’t know how to do that, Rail.” Nerves sent a tremor
through Ivan’s voice. “I’m lost here, completely lost.”

64
 Heir Apparent

“You’re not lost, Spurs. You did great.” Walter pounded a fist
against the arm of his command couch. “It’s going to be okay. Right
now, open the panel below your communications console. Third
circuit board from the left. Should be edged in red.”
“Got it.”
“Good, pull it out. It’ll kill communications, but also our tran-
sponders. Do it before the fighters come back.”
Ivan must have complied because static crackled through the
helmet speakers.
Walter pulled the same circuit board and silence filled the cock-
pit, giving him a moment to think. The fighters had likely come in
with only passive sensors employed, so they wouldn’t tip off the
strafing run. With any luck the fighters will believe they got us on that
first attack, and none of their boys survived to tell them any different.
He sighed. The troopers Ivan had killed had likely been sta-
tioned in the area to confirm the kill, or finish things off if they
needed to. We likely have ten to twenty minutes before the fighters worry
about lack of ground confirmation.
The mercenary followed Destrier into the ravine. If the aero-
space fighters came back, the ravine’s narrow opening meant that
no matter which set of sensors the pilots employed, they’d get only
a momentary flicker of a hit. At speed, the fighters would need at
least twenty kilometers to loop back, carrying them all the way to
Rivergaard before the return trip. It wouldn’t take them that long,
but it would be sufficient time for Walter and Ivan to move into a
side branch of the ravine. There they might not be detected at all
or only as a random reading.
Hiding and running isn’t a game that can be played for a long time.
Walter had to assume that whatever cabal fielded the fighters and
soldiers had likely also deployed BattleMechs. It only made sense,
and even lacking evidence of ’Mech deployment, Walter’s only
prudent course was to assume they were actively being hunted. He
racked his brain trying to recall any location that would give them
a fighting chance of survival.
Is there a safe haven?

65
Michael Stackpole

Destrier stopped ahead of him and raised his closed left fist to
signal a stop.
Walter complied, pointing skyward with the Blackjack’s left
arm.
Destrier pointed at a spot a hundred meters further on, then
waved Walter toward it. The mercenary couldn’t see anything spe-
cial about that location, then shifted over to magnetic resonance.
Oh, clever boy.
The Concordat-Magistracy War may have ended a hundred
and ninety years ago, but Maldives still bore proof of the fierce
fighting that had characterized the conflict. Ample amounts of
wreckage still littered the landscape. Time had allowed nature to
heal most of the scars, but huge chunks of metal still lay buried
beneath the forest floor. The spot to which Destrier directed Walter
showed up like a giant dinner platter on magres scanners.
Walter planted his Blackjack squarely in the circle’s center. Fifty
meters south, Ivan stopped his Trebuchet atop a jagged sliver of
metal. Walter flipped through the variety of map overlays avail-
able and added two to his secondary monitor while they waited.
One map leopard-spotted metallic debris sites over the landscape,
and the other used shades of red and yellow to pinpoint areas of
ecological interest. We have plenty of magres hiding places, but that’s
only going to shield us from satellite and fighter surveillance. If we remain
in place, any ’Mechs they have hunting us are going to track us down.
The pair of aerospace fighters soared by overhead, but no
energy beams wrought havoc on the forest. They continued on to
the northeast, disappearing within the depths of the forest canopy.
By the time echoes of their passage had died in the cockpit, Ivan
had Destrier up and moving east. He took the ’Mech from point to
point over debris sites and Walter paralleled his course.
Why this way? Walter looked at the map. Going into the Preserve
isn’t going to help us now. Those fighters aren’t playing by civilized rules.
Ivan pushed his ’Mech as quickly as it would go, taking them
across the Preserve’s western border. To Ivan it might have made
an odd sort of sense: maybe he thought their enemies would
expect that they’d feel committed to remaining outside the nature

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 Heir Apparent

preserve. But Ivan’s course headed them directly into the ecological
red zone, which included a big lake. According to the topographi-
cal data, it was as much as a kilometer and a half deep out in the
center.
Despite the seriousness of their situation, it seemed out of char-
acter for Ivan to push them into the Preserve. Walter touched his
monitor’s screen and data poured onto the auxiliary monitor. Lac
du Vallee was the centerpiece of a very fragile ecosystem which
was reported to be precariously close to complete collapse. Plants,
fish, birds and small mammals all appeared on a list that showed
declining populations. As nearly as Walter could make out, just
looking at a map of the area was enough to cause a mass extinction
event.
Destrier moved out into the open for the last hundred meters
to the lake’s shore. Ivan’s ’Mech raised a hand and waved Walter
on after him. Then Destrier marched directly east, water rising up
to the Trebuchet’s waist.
And, one step further, the war machine sank beneath a froth
of rising bubbles.
I’m sure it seemed like a good idea, but . . .
Walter waded into the murky water behind Destrier. According
to the topographical data, the lake became deep gradually. Ivan
never should have sunk there. Walter figured the data was old and
Ivan was in trouble, so he plunged in after him.
As his ’Mech sank, Walter hit the external lights. The mud
they’d churned walking into the lake reduced visibility to noth-
ing for the first ten meters of descent. Then, in the corner of his
holographic display, Walter caught sight of a floating ball marked
“10/30.” As he drifted down, a second marked “20/30” greeted
him. Twenty meters down, so this is thirty here.
The jolt as the Blackjack hit bottom surprised Walter. He’d
expected to sink shin deep in the same sort of muck as rimmed the
lake, but he hit something solid instead. The Blackjack staggered,
but Walter kept it upright, gaining firm footing on a ferrocrete land-
ing pad.

67
Michael Stackpole

He brought the Blackjack around, following Destrier as it

walked to the west. Ivan’s machine began to shrink as it worked
its way up a ramp. Walter mounted it as well, and the Blackjack’s
head broke the surface of the water. Both BattleMechs emerged into
a manmade cavern complete with eight ’Mech bays, all of which
stood empty.
Walter parked the Blackjack in a stall next to Destrier, then
popped himself free of his command couch and neurohelmet. He
crouched beside the couch, pulled a needle pistol and holster from
a small compartment, then cracked open the cockpit. He climbed
out onto the Blackjack’s shoulder, then leaped the small gap to the
gantry. He quickly ran around to Ivan’s stall and extended the gan-
try there just in time for the Chairman Presumptive to emerge.
Walter unzipped his cooling vest. He wanted to pepper
Ivan with questions, but the Chairman Presumptive stopped on
Destrier’s shoulder. All the blood drained from his face. He shiv-
ered, then bent over and vomited all over the ’Mech’s back.
“It’s okay, Spurs. Isn’t a one of us hasn’t done that.” Walter
held his hand out. “Come on.”
Ivan wiped his mouth with the back of his trembling hand.
“The . . . it . . . they . . .”
“You did what you had to do. You saved my ass.” Walter
waved him forward, then slipped an arm around Ivan’s ribs. “Kind
of ironic, huh, Spurs, you saving me. Twice, in fact.”
“Twice?”
“Yeah, first time when you cleared them from the camp.
Second, getting us here. If not for you, the fighters would have
burned us on their second pass.”
Ivan’s mumbled “thank you” never rose above the level of a
whisper.
“The important thing is that we’re not dead. Important for all
the obvious reasons.” Walter guided them down to the hangar deck
and to the left, toward a man-sized door built into the wall. “I want
to keep it that way. I need to know who knows this place is here
and how long will it take them to take another shot at us.”

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 Heir Apparent

Ivan reached out, opening the door. Motion sensors lit up wall
sconces along the corridor beyond. “It will take a while, Walter.
You’re one of a handful of people on Maldives who knows about
this location. To everyone else, including the satellites above, this
place does not exist. It’s far enough down that sensors aren’t going
to detect it. Short of stumbling onto it accidentally, no one will ever
find us. We’ve essentially fallen off the edge of the world.”
Walter steered Ivan into a small office with a window overlook-
ing the hangar and settled him into a chair. “What is this place?”
“The future.” Ivan sighed. “And quite likely the reason they
want me dead.”

Walter left Ivan in the chair and scouted around in the base. He
passed by a number of doors that were secured with biometric
locks. He found two stairwells and a lift that serviced lower levels,
but kept to the main one. He located a canteen, so freed up bottles
of water and some packaged foods. He hauled them back to Ivan
and laid them out on the desk.
“I don’t feel hungry.”
“Yeah, well, you need to drink something and eat while you
can. Every soldier knows that.”
The Chairman Presumptive looked up. “But I’m not a soldier,
am I?”
“Close enough that we’re not dead out there.”
“You’re giving me too much credit, Walter, I wasn’t thinking.
I just . . . the only thing I could do was . . .”
Walter cracked open a bottle of water and handed it to Ivan.
“Listen up, Spurs. What you did or didn’t think about, doesn’t
mean anything. You took action. That’s good. I’ve known a lot of
MechWarriors who never saved anyone else’s skin. Ever. You’re
one up on them.”
“Thank you, I guess.” Ivan drank a little water. “Those men,
the ones in the forest, they’re dead, really dead.”
“It was fast.”

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“We probably weren’t the only targets, were we?” Ivan hung
his head. “This is more than an assassination attempt. It’s some-
thing between a hostile takeover and a coup d’état.”
“Seems like an elaborate operation just to off you, Spurs.”
Ivan’s head came up. “Please, don’t call me that. That’s a war-
rior’s name. I haven’t earned it. I don’t deserve it.”
“Hey, everyone gets the nickname they deserve. Half the folks
hate theirs; more, probably, but most of us give up hating on it
because we’re stuck with it.” Walter’s eyes narrowed. “And you
have earned this one. Those spurs, you said your father wore them
during his Final Vetting. You’re honoring him and the Augustinian
tradition that put us here. Now, whoever tried to kill us, they
clearly had no respect for what was going on. So you’re going to
embrace Spurs, because your still being alive is going to be a big
boot up their asses—spurs and all.”
“I’m still not a warrior.”
“You’re still alive, and you’re a lot closer to being one than any
of your killers imagined.” Walter tore open a packet of chips with
his teeth, then spat the strip of packaging out. “Think about it. They
sent two aerospace fighters after us.”
“I fail to see . . .”
“It’s as clear as the nose on your face.” Walter pointed at him
with a chip. “That’s an insult. They should have sent four at least.
Probably a full dozen.”
Ivan frowned. “You don’t mean that. You’re trying to distract
me.”
“Damned right.” Walter offered him the open bag. “Only
thing’s going to defeat you right now is if you try not to feel any-
thing. They want you dead. They want your family’s company for
themselves. If that’s not a reason to be angry, you’re never going
to be angry.”
“Emotion isn’t going to help me think straight.”
“In the heat of battle, too much thinking can make you dead.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.” Ivan stood. “But now, I do
need to do some thinking. So do you.”
“About?”

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“Come with me. It’s time.” Ivan turned toward the door. “You
have a right to know why they want us dead.”

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 Chapter Nine
Lac du Vallee, Nyqvist Upland Preserve
Maldives
6 November 3000

Ivan Litzau led Walter deeper into the underground complex. The
tour took them beyond the canteen, to one of the doors secured
with biometric locks. Ivan placed his hand on a dark glass sheet.
Light flashed once, then the door withdrew into the wall.
“This way.” Ivan waved him into a large, amphitheater-style
room. They entered at the topmost row, then descended down the
stairs on the left. The far wall remained dark, but contained a num-
ber of large monitors. Several computer consoles lined the base
of the wall. Ivan touched another dark panel and the computers
woke from sleep. Strings of numbers and letters flashed up over
the screens, but Walter could make no sense of them.
He folded his arms over his chest. “This looks like a command
center.”
“It is, but likely not in the way you think of it. Please, be
seated.” Ivan waited for Walter to plunk himself down in a chair
before he continued. “You’re in the heart of a project that my great-
grandfather started a century after the war. As I said before, you
are one of a handful of people who know where this is located.
 Heir Apparent

Those who have worked on it, save for members of the Litzau fam-
ily—and not each and every one of them—are drawn from other
worlds. They work here as part of their education. Once they are
finished, they go out there, to the other Successor States. All of
them have knowledge, but research is compartmentalized so none
of them truly know what is going on.” Ivan shrugged. “And, I sus-
pect, even if they did know, they’d just think it’s the madness of a
Periphery corporate marketing-and-research department.”
Walter sat forward, resting elbows on knees. “I appreciate the
context, but I still don’t understand.”
“A bit more, then you will.” Ivan seated himself before one
of the consoles. “When the war happened, the Dhivi tried hard to
not choose sides. We feared that if we backed the wrong side, the
victor’s retribution would be fearful; and if not, our contribution
would be ignored. As it turned out, our worst fears were realized
as the war killed our people—purportedly by accident—crushed
our economy, and poisoned our environment. For the survivors, it
seemed as if the whole world had turned against them.
“This is when the most powerful among them enhanced the
power of the First Family Councils. They tightened regulations
governing corporations to keep wealth and power concentrated
in certain hands, believing that those who had wealth were best
suited to managing stewardship of the world. And, indeed, the
Preferred and even some of the Holders worked tirelessly through
the Planetary Board for the next couple generations to rebuild and
revitalize their corporate fortunes and the world. If not for their
efforts, Maldives would have long since died.”
Walter raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess. The third Preferred
generation, born into privilege and wealth, decided what they had
was a birthright, not an obligation.”
“True, yet everyone feared instability so much that they
allowed the First Families to continue to regulate the corporate
structure. Dissenters found themselves frozen out when it came to
acceptable matches, stripped of their Proxies or married off to fami-
lies elsewhere, like Itrom. Some even . . . well, let me show you.”

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Michael Stackpole

Ivan typed in a series of commands. What appeared to be a

family tree flashed on one of the monitors. “Keep your eye on the
branch there in red as I scroll up through time.” A counter in the
corner of the string totaled up the years. Twenty years from the
point where Ivan had started, the red branch disappeared.
“I don’t understand.”
“The grandson in that line, he was very vocal in his criticism
of the First Families Corporate Personnel policy. Even though he
was of the Preferred, the Planetary Board literally went back and
retroactively sanctioned his family, stripping them of Preferred and
Proxy status.” Ivan pointed at the screen. “They allowed him to sell
off his family’s corporate holdings and take his kin off to another
world. That family was by no means unique, but most often the
mere threat of sanction was enough to keep people quiet.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” Ivan’s fingers flew over the console keys again. The
family tree shrank and then joined a complex network of other
families. The images comprised a flat disk, representing the rela-
tionships between families in decade slices. “These are the First
Families and how intermarried they are. The brighter spots are
Preferred ranks; the others are just Holders. The fringe elements are
those situations where a child who is not in the line of inheritance
has married someone outside the First Families, or has gone off
world. Those are, in essence, dead ends.”
“Unless they were to somehow marry back in.”
“Very good.” Ivan turned in the chair. “Or if, by some grand
act of value to the Planetary Board’s interests—including that of
one of the major corporations—they earned back First Family sta-
tus for their family. With people being this interrelated, it’s almost
easier for a Corporate Personnel department to find a First Family
connection than it is for a connection to be erased.”
Walter shook his head. This was a lot more than he’d ever
wanted to learn about Dhivi society. “Are we closing in on what
this facility is?”

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 Heir Apparent

“Yes.” Ivan hit a button, moving the disk to another monitor.

“Now I’ll call up the same slice of time, but seen through the lens
of this project.”
The new image that flashed up differed from the previous in
two distinct ways. Within the main First Families disk, some of the
links shifted. A number vanished and others appeared. In addition,
the fringe lines tripled in number and connected out to small clus-
ters which, in turn, sent tendrils back into the main disk.
“What am I looking at?”
“I thought it would be obvious—you suggested it three weeks
ago.”
Walter squinted, then sat back. “This is a DNA chart.”
“For eighty years, this project has compiled criminal, medical
and epidemiological databases into a sequenced DNA map of the
Dhivi population. We have only a third of a billion people, and
most of the data is collected at birth. All of those databases are
legally separated from each other and the First Family Councils
maintain constant vigilance to guarantee no one can put together a
map like this. Further, every corporation has rules and regulations
to prevent Personnel departments from garnering this informa-
tion.” Ivan shrugged. “My family has been able to subvert those
safeguards and has collected the data here.”
Walter got up and walked over to the monitor. “Something like
this line here, it looks as if the Preferred child who inherited at this
point wasn’t fathered by anyone in that family. In fact, that child is
from this other family, and would be set to inherit a chunk of their
corporation, not the family that claimed him.”
“And, remember, that’s a slice from my grandfather’s time
as Planetary Chairman. In the last two generations that line has
spread widely throughout the First Families. But look, the fringe is
the more important thing.” Ivan hit more keys, painting a number
of fringe lines in red. “These people are all of First Family blood,
and Preferred at that, but the First Family Councils refuse to rec-
ognize them as such. And these people, they’re all good and smart
and contribute—and are even of First Family blood—but are barred
from even getting Holder status in the various corporations.”

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Michael Stackpole

Walter nodded. “Whether they know who they are or not, if

they complain, they become ostracized and exiled. The families
who want to get rid of them the most might be the very families
from which they sprung.”
“Exactly. And to make any of this public would crash First
Family corporations. It would cause incredible instability. For that
reason, my grandfather declined to push for reform—several of
the First Family Councils during his reign wielded great economic
power. Various other corporations took steps to weaken those fami-
lies. It’s taken a while, but things had progressed to a point that
my father hoped to be able to begin the process of change. He
wanted to first break primogeniture, but he died before he was able
to make that a reality.”
“You intend to realize his dream? Our chat around the camp-
fire wasn’t just a fantasy?”
“I truly meant what I said.” Ivan frowned. “You’ve met my
sisters. You’re right: this system makes them chattel. They’re just
bargaining chips to be traded with other families, to strengthen
our ties. That is not right. If Abigail had been piloting Destrier
today, they would have had to send a dozen fighters, and then a
dozen more. And Sophia, can you imagine her being forced to bear
children for someone who isn’t at least a tenth as smart as she is?”
“No.”
“Hence the need for reforms.”
“And this bumper crop of motives for murder. You realize,
this means we have an incredible problem. Trying to kill you may
not have been just an attempt to replace you. It may have been an
attempt to bring down the entire societal structure.”
“But who?”
Walter jerked a thumb at the diagrams. “You can draw your
suspects from anyone who is in power right now, or anyone who
is not in power.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, and we’re down here, safe and sound, with no clue as
to what’s happening out there.”

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 Heir Apparent

“I may be able to fix that. The site is completely isolated so

that the data can’t be accessed remotely, but there are antennae
and relays which allow the base to receive broadcast signals.” Ivan
shifted to a different console. “I’ll see what I can get up here.”
One screen flashed to life briefly, then went to black. A box
proclaiming “No signal detected” hovered in the middle. Ivan hit
another key. The monitor shifted to black, then the legend appeared
again. He repeated his search a half-dozen times, all with the same
result.
He turned toward Walter, his face ashen. “That isn’t good, is
it?”
No. But keep it together for him. Walter shrugged. “Might not be,
or it might. I’ve never been part of a coup, but I’ve served on worlds
mopping up after them. Half the time the government shuts down
mass media to prevent panic, and the other half, well . . .”
“The rebels do it to hamper the government’s attempts at
restoring order.” Ivan hugged his arms around his middle. “I read
a very great deal, Walter—history and politics are more interesting
than Lowland beetles. Right now I’m remembering things I wish
I could forget.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is not going to be the best day of
your life, but it’s also not going to be the last.”
A hissing filled the amphitheater as the media monitor bright-
ened slowly. The image resolved itself into a cloaked and hooded
human. Based on how his shoulders extended to the edges of the
screen, Walter decided it was a man, but his face remained in shad-
ows. His voice came low and strong, with only the barest strain of
threat making it past electronic distortion.
“We are the Collective. We are the disenfranchised. We are
those born to toil as cogs in the machines which are the corpora-
tions. We create their wealth. They deign to give us scraps, but
deny us what we are due as humans. They have sowed the whirl-
wind, and now they have harvested it.”
The image shifted to an unstable black-and-white shot from a
rooftop looking at the Litzau Enterprises corporate headquarters. A
half-dozen aerospace fighters flew sorties over the target. Long-range

77
Michael Stackpole

missiles corkscrewed down into the structure, detonating with

enough force that the image shook even harder. Explosions shat-
tered ferrocrete, pitching dust and debris high into the air. Then
the fighters’ lasers burned down through the smoke, melting the
Lancer ’Mechs that had escaped the explosions.
Ivan reached a hand toward the screen. “Mother! Abigail!”
Walter wanted to vomit. Hake! Not the blaze of glory you wanted,
my friend.
The voiceover continued as dust drifted down. “The First
Families have now tasted the same death and humiliation they
visited upon us. And to the north, our forces have slain the pre-
tender Ivan.”
The image shifted to show black BattleMechs patrolling
through Rivergaard. Smoke rose in the background, and shell-
shocked citizens marched along the streets, directed by soldiers
with guns. “We have restored order, and are administering justice.
The crimes of the past will not go unpunished; nor will the actions
of reactionary forces that seek to perpetuate the inequality of a
system which has been strangling our world for generations.”
The man in the hood reappeared. “We are the Collective. We
will be issuing statements of policy in the coming days. To obey is
to be free. To disobey is to declare fealty to Planetary Board corrup-
tion. To disobey is to incur our wrath. We bring you freedom and
equality. Reject this gift at your peril.”
The screen went black again. When the notice about lack of
signal reappeared, Walter felt a moment of relief, as if that bit of
normality meant he could ignore the reality of what he’d seen.
He turned to Ivan, who now seemed smaller than ever. “Spurs,
I, ah, I am sorry for the losses you have suffered.”
“And you, Walter.” Ivan stared at his boots. “I cannot believe
my mother and my sister are gone. I hope Sophia got away, but . . .”
“I’m sure she did. The Lancers may have gone down in the air
strike, but she was with the Angels, remember, at the garrison?”
“I hope you are right. I know your people were good, but I fear
for my sister and the Angels . . .”
“Because?”

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 Heir Apparent

“The black ’Mechs on the screen, patrolling the streets.”

“I saw them. I didn’t recognize them.”
“I did.” Ivan swiped at tears. “Those were the Rivergaard
Rangers. Richard Oglethorpe’s regiment.”
Walter’s mouth soured. “Your sister said three-quarters of the
people at your corporate headquarters would have to die before
Oglethorpe could claim chairmanship of the Planetary Board.”
“That appears to no longer be an obstacle.” Ivan looked up,
eyes red. “What do I do, Walter? How do I make it right again?”

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 Chapter Ten
Lac du Vallee, Nyqvist Upland Preserve
Maldives
6 November 3000

“Do you actually expect an answer?”

Ivan stared at him, his expression becoming set. “Yes, I think
I do.”
“No, you don’t.” Walter waved that idea away. “You feel that
you have to ask that question, but if you actually think, you’ll know
that’s not a question you should be asking at all.”
“That’s not true.”
“Sure it is.” The mercenary spun a chair around and seated
himself with the chair’s back against his chest. “Right up until an
hour ago you were the one who had defined the Final Vetting as a
walking tour of the countryside. All you had to do was return with
nothing more serious than a case of poison ivy and you’d succeed.
You had no desire to prove to anyone that you were some mythical
champion MechWarrior.”
“That’s . . . I didn’t . . .” Ivan’s face slackened and his lower lip
began to quiver.
Good God, Walter, you’re an ass. He just lost his family and you’re
making him cry. Walter forced his fists open. “Look, Spurs, couple
 Heir Apparent

of facts you’ve got to face here. Good news: you may never have
wanted to be a MechWarrior, but out there, like I said before, you
did something pretty much nobody does in their first time under
fire. You kept it together. You got ambushed, and you didn’t lose
your mind. You focused, you got us here in one piece, and your
tactic of moving from one magnetic anomaly to another was bril-
liant. You used your head to push past panic and fear.
“Bad news is that here, in a safe place, you’re not thinking.
You’re just feeling.”
Ivan pointed at the monitor. “You saw.”
“Yeah, I did. Your mother. Your sister, both probably dead.”
Walter’s left hand curled into a fist. “Hake, my commander, he’s
buried right along with them. And lots of other people you knew,
and I probably met over the last three weeks.”
The Chairman Presumptive wiped his nose with his hand.
“And your Angels.”
“Yeah, them, too. But, hey, maybe Sophia was able to get away,
maybe they bought her some time and even made it out with her.”
“Your tone of voice . . . you don’t think that’s likely.”
“She’s sharp, they’re sharp, so if I had to bet . . .” Walter
shrugged. “Keeping at least one of your sisters alive is good policy
for the Collective. She can be married off to one of their leaders.
While that might seem to run counter to revolutionary claims, it
hitches back into the legitimacy of the old order and the tradition
stuff you have going on. It gives some people a chance to believe
things aren’t as bad as they are.”
Ivan’s brow furrowed. “I see the logic of that.”
“Good, Spurs, keep thinking. I need you thinking.” Walter ran
a hand over his jaw. “We’re starting at zero here. We’ve got two
’Mechs, which is great, but we can’t do much without supplies for
them.”
“We have ammunition and spare parts. Will that do?”
Walter blinked. “Seriously?”
“Not really a time for joking, is it?” The younger man nod-
ded solemnly. “This was originally a Taurian facility; built before
the war, halfway up a mountain, overlooking a river valley some

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Michael Stackpole

glacier gouged into the landscape an ice age ago. During the war
the Magistracy took out some hydroelectric dams to cut power to
Rivergaard. The subsequent flood put the lake here, drowning this
place. There are stores back in the ’Mech bay.”
“Okay, so we’re not at zero, but we’re not much above it.”
“Well, that allows me to calibrate my expectations.” Ivan’s
frown intensified. “I believe you are thinking that we lack intel-
ligence about the opposition, and this base’s isolation makes it dif-
ficult to gather data—save through what the Collective wishes to
broadcast.”
“We have an even more immediate problem—we don’t know
how close they are to finding us.”
“I see.” Ivan stood and began to pace. “When my family
decided to reclaim this base, we did so after proclaiming it a natu-
ral preserve—the corporate tax advantages provided all the cover
we needed. We imported workers, paid them for their silence and
shipped them far away at the end of their employment. My great-
grandfather then used computer information experts to systemati-
cally delete any references to this Taurian base wherever they were
to be found. ComStar may have some records, but he went so far
as to buy and steal heirloom books and then publish counterfeit
replacements with all references deleted.”
“You’re telling me that no one knows of this place.”
“Yes.”
“Except your sister, Sophia.”
That stopped Ivan dead in his tracks. “She would never . . . but,
of course, she could be compelled . . .”
“If they learn of this place—however they do it—they’ll be
coming for us. We’re on a short timer. The only way we can leave is
to learn enough to formulate some sort of a plan to escape.” Walter
shrugged. “The ’Mech bay would be an interesting place to defend,
but we’d lose against a determined assault.”
“I would concur with your assessment.” Ivan turned. “What
do we need to do first?”
“Is there another way out of here?”
“A couple, actually. Well hidden, above us.”

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 Heir Apparent

“Okay, good.” Walter scratched at the back of his neck. “We

need to find out how close they are to finding us. They have to
investigate the team they lost, and flyovers aren’t going to do it.
I need to go out and scout around. If I’m lucky I’ll see them and
they won’t see me.”
The barest of smiles played on Ivan’s face. “I believe, Walter,
here in the base we have the means to increase your efficiency and
lower the risk. Please, follow me.”

Golden Prosperity Re-education Camp, Rivergaard

Maldives
8 November 3000

Sophia’s cheek ached, but she wouldn’t allow herself to believe the
bone had been broken. “Ouch!”
“Sorry.” The dark-haired woman gently probing Sophia’s
bruise winced in sympathy. “The swelling is down a little. You
know, if we had ice . . .”
“They’d force us to memorize some revolutionary poems, then
they’d deny it to us anyway.” Sophia smiled with the uninjured
side of her face. “Laurie, you’ve been a godsend. You and your
daughter. How are you holding up?”
Laurie Eck got a distant look in her eyes. “When I married a
merc, I heard that the waiting would drive me crazy. And now,
really, I don’t feel anything. I want to tell myself that I’m in denial,
but, Phee, I can’t believe Chris is dead. And I don’t think I’m just
being brave for Kaylee, either. And the Angels, they’re tougher to
kill than the monster cockroaches we had in this one billet.”
Sophia reached out and squeezed Laurie’s hand. She desper-
ately wanted to confide in her. Sophia trusted the mercenary’s wife,
but revealing her identity meant the Collective might punish Laurie
for not having revealed it. Sophia had no doubts the Collective had
placed spies within the wretched legion they crammed into the
Rivergaard Municipal Arena. “I am confident you’re right.”
“Thank you, Phee.”

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A small, officious woman appeared in the doorway of the

briefing room they’d been stuffed into and blew a whistle loudly.
Kaylee, seated next to her mother, clapped hands over her ears. “I
have some announcements.”
Unlike on the first day, no one replied with snark to that
comment.
The woman looked at her tablet. “Tomorrow will begin with a
lecture about the stratagems the First Family corporations employ
to strip the people of their will and self-esteem. You will all, person-
ally, denounce these techniques, renounce their use, and confess
your having used them. Is this understood?”
“Yes, Madam Proctor.”
The sharp-faced woman looked up, eying them coldly. Sophia
had no idea what she was looking for, but was determined not to
be it.
The proctor glanced at her screen again. “After that, you will
be split into work parties. Your unrepentant, corporate lackey
comrades continue their repressive war against the people. You
will work to make amends for their actions. If you even attempt
to escape, we will be forced to disassociate you from the people,
and disassociate three other members of your cadre here. Do you
understand?”
Sophia nodded, marveling at how the Collective managed to
come up with yet one more euphemism for murder. “Yes, Madam
Proctor.”
“Good.” The woman lowered her tablet. “Reports of your
work today were satisfactory. It has been decided, then, that you
shall be allowed to attend a lecture on the secret history of Litzau
Enterprises’ enshrined perfidy and their complicity in the ruination
of the Maldives economy. This is a great honor. Do not tarnish it.”
“No, Madam Proctor.”
“You have thirty minutes of water, beginning now. Do not
squander it.” The woman’s expression clouded with hatred. “The
days of your crimes are at an end.”
The assembly remained quiet as the proctor exited, and even
then conversation never rose above a whisper.

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 Heir Apparent

Laurie grabbed Sophia’s arm. “You have to promise me

something.”
“What?”
Laurie’s blue eyes became slits. “You get a chance to run, take
it.”
Sophia frowned. “But what she said . . .”
“Disassociation, I know.” Laurie hugged her daughter to her
side. “This is just one big disassociation camp, Phee. Getting out is
going to be the only way any of us end up living.”

Lac du Vallee, Nyqvist Upland Preserve

Maldives
11 November 3000

Clad in woodland camouflage, Walter squeezed his way between

two rocks that covered the opening to an egress point. From the
outside it appeared to be a naturally occurring rock formation
tucked into the side of a hill. Beyond the choke point, it opened
into small chamber that contained a trap door and, beneath it, a
ladder leading down into the base.
Walter crouched by the rocks, glancing at his chronometer, and
got his bearings. The oncoming dusk had sown the forest with
shadows. He started off toward the southwest, moving from tree
to tree, or around rocks, using all the cover he could manage. He
kept his eyes peeled for any sign of searchers, and relied on the
chronometer’s haptic feedback to alert him to one of the waypoints
on his patrol.
Because Litzau Enterprises had declared Lac du Vallee a nature
preserve, over the years wildlife had moved into the area and had
organized itself around the lake environment. To study this, a
series of holovid cameras had been hidden throughout the pre-
serve. The devices took shots when they detected nearby move-
ment and cached the data for later recovery.
Armed with one of the data recorders, Walter moved from
point to point, harvesting the pictures. All he had to do was to get

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Michael Stackpole

close enough to spot the device, train an IR laser on the camera,

trigger the verification code, and the camera downloaded its cache.
As he’d done on the prior runs, once he’d collected the images, he
returned to the base and let Ivan begin analyzing them.
Walter had initially thought the Collective would begin imme-
diately to intensively scour the area, primarily because they’d killed
a field team. No evidence of searchers had appeared in the images
for the past three days, and those who had showed up were less
than diligent in their searches. A day and a half of torrential rain
accounted for part of that—while hiding the footprints of passing
’Mechs wasn’t easy, the rain reduced them to muddy divots and
revitalized the grasses that had been crushed underfoot. The rain
also made the searchers miserable and encouraged haste.
Upon his return, Walter handed the data recorder over to the
Chairman Presumptive. He watched Ivan work and realized that
whoever had instigated the attacks had made a serious mistake in
not ensuring the Chairman Presumptive’s death. They’d assumed
that because he wasn’t much of a MechWarrior, he’d die easily or,
if he survived, wouldn’t be a threat. And, Walter had to admit, Ivan
wasn’t really the sort of charismatic individual that would inspire
legions to follow him into hell, so his leading a counterrevolution
wasn’t very likely.
But when it comes to analysis, he’s a holy terror. Walter smiled.
“What have you got?”
Ivan idly ran his hand over the stubble on his chin. “I isolated
the images of all the searchers and ran them through a facial recog-
nition database. I matched on 60 percent of them, primarily from
criminal databases. Others I matched are regular citizens—a few
of them Holders, but mostly not. None of them are First Family
Preferred—at least not as established by the normal databases.”
“The ones you can’t place?”
Ivan hit a few keys and a dozen images lined themselves up in
three columns. “The shots are good enough that if we had them in
the system, there should have been a match.”

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Walter studied the pictures. “These are the guys who looked
to be heading up the search teams. See how they are carrying their
laser carbines? They’re professionals.”
“No one else has anything bigger than a needler.”
“Exactly.” The mercenary chewed his lower lip for a moment.
“So, the leaders, they’re probably mercenaries.”
“You don’t know them?”
Walter chuckled. “I’ve been to Galatea twice, didn’t mingle
much.”
“It would make sense, their being mercenaries. They were
probably brought in under cover as contract labor for some proj-
ect or another. There should be work permits, but the data might
not have been processed yet if they came in as recently, say, as you
did.”
“This is good information, Spurs. At least part of the revolution
was bought and paid for. Someone has money, but these guys seem
to have little interest in actually earning their pay.”
“The reason is probably some active, even robust resistance
in Rivergaard.” Ivan wiped away the mercenaries and pulled up
some side-by-side shots of the city. “While you were out farming
pictures, the Collective made another couple of broadcasts. Two
things are important about these images.”
Walter stepped forward and pointed. “The building in the
background, there’s signs of a fire in that corner.”
“Okay, you saw that one. This one is a bit more esoteric.” Ivan
punched a few keys on the console. The images melted into strings
of green letters, numbers and symbols. “Broadcasts have computer
coding embedded in them for diagnostic purposes. It allows tech-
nicians to determine which broadcast antennae is supplying how
much of any image. Modern broadcasts actually gather signals
from a variety of places and combine them in the viewing units.
Well, here, the first few broadcasts came from a station designed
15A*QRX. That one supplied 90 percent of the images we were
getting. But this new one, it’s from 71D#1RF, which only ever sup-
plied 7 percent of the signal we got before. I don’t know where the
stations are, but I believe the first one must have been destroyed.”

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“Did the message say anything about crushing resistance or

about crackdowns?”
“No. The opposite. They reported that the peaceful reorder-
ing of society was proceeding on pace. They said that people
were flocking to ‘re-education’ centers willingly. They had images
of happy people having their faces scanned at checkpoints or
food distribution centers. They also showed some people being
cheered by crowds for having turned in counterrevolutionaries and
reactionaries.”
Walter nodded. “How tough would it be to take out a broad-
cast station?”
“A rat nibbling through a power cable could do it.”
“Spurs . . .”
“To your point, Walter, most are small buildings or a relay unit
built onto a tower.”
“Couple guys with a satchel charge or petrol bomb.”
“Or several more with ’Mechs.” Ivan rubbed at his eyes. “How
far are we above zero now?”
“Not far enough that we should even be thinking about leav-
ing this hole.”
“But I have to, Walter.”
“Have to?”
Ivan exhaled heavily. “I have been able to do a lot of thinking—
not feeling, but thinking. It occurred to me that because I always
knew that I would fulfill my father’s dream and be the agent of
change for Maldives, I never really looked at who I had to be to
accomplish that end. My goal was to get through the Final Vetting,
then work on changing things. I even, secretly, believed I would
be able to resign in favor of Abigail, once I had made it so she
could run the company. I never took responsibility for being the
Chairman Presumptive.”
“I’m not a priest, Spurs. You don’t need to confess for my
benefit.”
“That’s not what this is, Walter. And I am saying this to you
because you’re insisting on calling me Spurs. You said I’d earned
that name.” Ivan screwed his eyes shut against tears, but they

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leaked out anyway. “Do you realize that’s the first time in my life I
ever earned anything? I look back now and the games I used to play
with people like the Capellan Consul, they just make me appear
to be utterly detached and unthinking—out of touch with reality.
And I told myself that was a role I was playing, but it was true. I
can’t even remember a time when that role didn’t define me. And
because I knew I was never going to be a great MechWarrior, I let
it define me. I embraced it.”
Walter folded his arms over his chest. “Where’s this going? You
know, just because you realize you may have sold yourself short,
that doesn’t mean all that damage gets undone.”
“I am painfully aware of that.” Ivan wiped tears away. “What
the broadcasts have showed me is that citizens are being forced to
betray each other. They’re being forced into re-education camps.
Neither you nor I believe there’s any education going on there. And
we know there is some resistance. And, I feel . . . no, I think . . .”
The dark-haired MechWarrior shook his head. “You had it
right the first time. You feel responsible. You know they are suf-
fering and you want to take some of that suffering onto yourself.
You want to punish yourself because, somehow, you believe that if
you’d been different, or acted differently, none of this would have
happened.”
“I have a duty, Walter.” Ivan’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t expect
you to join me.”
Walter grabbed a handful of Ivan’s shirt and hauled him to his
feet. “If you’re going to say that you understand that I’m a merce-
nary, and that I do things for money, and that chances are I won’t
get paid, so I don’t have to do anything, I’m going to hit you so
hard you’ll think a moon landed on you.”
Ivan shivered, but never broke his stare with Walter.
The mercenary released him.
The corporate heir missed the edge of his chair and landed
abruptly on the floor.
Walter stared down at him. “What I need here, Spurs, is for
you to do some more thinking. Sure, you feel responsible. Sure,
you want to do something. Sure, you want to avenge your family.

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You’re not alone in that. But the two of us marching our ’Mechs out
of here is suicidal and stupid. On the list of things I never want to
be, those two are right at the top.”
“We have to do something, Walter.”
“Sure, but throwing our lives away doesn’t do anything good
for anyone.” Walter wanted to punch something, but Ivan didn’t
deserve it and the walls were meter-thick slabs of ferrocrete. “Much
as I hate to say it, I need the old you back before we do anything.
Just because we can’t march out of here in our ’Mechs and kill
things doesn’t mean we can’t cause the Collective some serious
problems. You’re going to have to figure out how to do that.”
Ivan looked up from the floor. “Don’t you think that if I had
a better plan than getting myself killed in Destrier, I would have
mentioned it?”
“The fact you don’t means we don’t have enough information
to form a plan. We need to remedy that.” Walter cocked his head.
“So, we do some thinking about what we can do to bug them, then
it’s data harvesting. And that means, for you and me, we’re tak-
ing a field trip to find out for ourselves what the Collective never
intends to show us.”

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 Chapter Eleven
Nyqvist Upland Preserve
Maldives
15 November 3000

Walter’s breath steamed as he crouched at the wood’s edge. His

vantage point overlooked a small farm which backed up to the
Preserve. The owner ran a modest herd of dairy cattle, kept chick-
ens and had twenty hectares under cultivation—though whatever
he grew had been harvested at least a month prior. The family
milked the cattle daily, made butter and cheese, and what looked
like a smokehouse probably did most of its duty as a way to keep
prying eyes off a still.
Ivan rested a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure?”
“We have pictures of the farmer and two of his kids poach-
ing in the preserve. They’re not going to do that, or keep the still,
unless they’re not afraid of being caught. We come out, looking like
we do, like poachers, and they’re not going to report us. We just
have to get past their farm and to the road.”
“But . . .”
“You know we have to do this.”
Ivan’s shoulders slumped a little. “Yes, I know. It’s just, I’m
. . .”
Michael Stackpole

Walter gave him a wink. “Me, too.”

From the very beginning the two of them had acknowl-
edged that they couldn’t act without sufficient information, and
broadcasts from Rivergaard supplied very little. The broadcasts
put forward a message of peace and unity, even though some of
the images showed signs of continued fighting. Gangs of people
worked to clean up debris, with the voice-over describing them
as volunteers. The armed individuals surrounding them were
described as “safety officers.” Facial recognition on both the work-
ers and the safety officers did little to provide much information,
save that the percentage of Preferred in those gangs was higher
than their proportion in the general population.
Walter had been under no illusions that they could avoid ven-
turing out from the hidden base, so he set about preparing for their
journey. From a compartment in his Blackjack’s command couch
he’d pulled civilian clothes and a handful of gold and platinum
coins he’d saved from previous deployments. It didn’t matter that
they had been minted in faraway places like the Draconis Combine
and Lyran Commonwealth; precious metals always served well as
barter currency—especially in times of instability. With more ease
than made him comfortable, Walter had been able to transform
himself into a nondescript everyman. And with the suitable appli-
cation of dirt, along with a moratorium on attaining any personal
hygiene goals, he became an everyman that no one would want
to notice.
Ivan’s transformation required more work. Walter forbade him
shaving or bathing, then raggedly trimmed his hair off at the top
of his ears. Ivan’s denouncing the haircut as the worst in recorded
human history made Walter proud. Walter decided that it would be
best if they could color Ivan’s hair, and the Chairman Presumptive
surrendered knowledge of local plants that could be used for that
purpose. After coloring, and with some more selective trimming,
Ivan looked as if he had simultaneous cases of consumption and
the mange.
Finding him suitable clothing proved a bit tougher. Destrier
did have a change of clothes for him, but they were befitting a top

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executive, and that wasn’t really going to work. Walter tore them
up a bit, and applied various coolant and lubricating fluids to pro-
duce a color palette that had never appeared in any boardroom.
Grass stains, grime and assorted tree resins left the clothes looking
older than war debris.
That was all fine for fooling casual observers, but facial rec-
ognition software could still pierce the secret of their identities.
Beards—even as wispy as Ivan’s—would help a little. Dirt, strate-
gically smudged, helped layer on shadow-defined bone structure
where none existed. While avoiding cameras would be the number-
one strategy for escaping detection, the greater their proximity to
civilization, the higher their risk of discovery.
There was only one way to lower the risks, hence the outing
which brought them to the edge of the farm.
Walter stood. “Remember, you’re Carl Spurling, so I call you
Spurs.”
“And you’re Wall-eye Wilson. We’ve been working the
Preserve, hunting during the celebration while no one would
notice.” Ivan scratched at his beard, then looked disgustedly at his
fingernails and the black line of dirt capping them. “I’ll never feel
clean again.”
“Use less words.” Walter sucked at his teeth. “And not all the
right ones.”
Ivan burped in response.
Walter led the way down the hillside, cutting along cattle
tracks. He opened the pasture gate for Ivan, then closed it behind
him. They walked across the pasture, and neither took great pains
to avoid cow pies. The farmer and one of his sons appeared from
the dairy barn, the younger man holding a shotgun.
Walter slowed, raising a hand. “Hello the farm.”
“What can we do for you?” The farmer eyed them closely, and
the son moved to his right to keep his father out of the line of fire.
“You don’t look like you were hiking the Preserve.”
“We weren’t. Don’t think anyone coming that direction there is
hiking.” Walter jerked a thumb at Ivan. “Me and the nephew was
thinking we might do some exploring during the doings down to

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Rivergaard. Ain’t got but wet and mud to show for it, of course.
Did the brat get through his vettin’?”
The farmer, a chunky, middle-aged man with a bushy gray
beard and a straggly halo of hair, toed the dirt. “You asking for
true?”
“We had a bet, him and me. Thought we might seen some
lights from it, what, two weeks back?”
Ivan nodded, pointing vaguely toward the west. “Heard thun-
der, maybe saw a fighter. Didn’t look too hard.”
The farmer shook his head. “He didn’t. Some folks appeared
to have some hate for him and his kind. Been doings down to
Rivergaard. Don’t know what, ain’t interested in trouble. I was
you, I’d just turn around and go back where you came from.”
“I would, but I told his momma I’d have him back on the thir-
teenth, or thereabouts.”
The son rested the shotgun’s barrel back on his shoulder. “You
missed it.”
“Won’t be the first time my sister took a cut out my hide.”
Walter shrugged. “We got turned around in the Preserve, strikes
me. How long a walk to Swindon, do you think?”
“You’d be in by dusk if you don’t mind cutting curves off the
roads.” The farmer scratched at his beard. “You boys look like
maybe you could stand to get on the outside of some breakfast.”
Ivan shook his head. “We don’t want to be trouble.”
“I’m not sure there’s any avoiding trouble these days.” The
farmer pointed at a pile of wood, a block and an ax. “If you want
to split wood, one of you, and the other shovel out the dairy barn,
we can spare some eggs and cheese. Boy, go tell your mother we
have guests.”
The son gave the two strangers a hard stare, then ran off to the
farmhouse. The farmer pointed Walter toward the wood pile and
waved Ivan after him toward the barn. Ivan gave Walter a puzzled
look.
“Because you miss with a shovel and you won’t lay your shin
open.” The mercenary gave him a nod.

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Ivan shrugged—quite in keeping with his being Spurs

Spurling—and headed toward the barn. Walter took up the ax,
tested the blade’s sharpness, then went to work splitting and stack-
ing. It had been a long time since he’d done anything like that. The
work warmed him up quickly, so he shucked his coat, rolled up his
sleeves, and kept at it.
Plenty of people he’d known—Hake included—would have
pointed to the farm’s existence as proof that Maldives was dying.
These were the same folks who’d come from a world where food
production fell to giant agro-combines using ’Mechs and robots
to cultivate hundreds of cubic kilometers at a pass. Those same
people, on the other hand, loved to find those special little places
where “craft creators” made artisanal products priced highly
enough that only the well-moneyed could afford them. Had the
farm been restyled to be an organic cheese manufactory, and if the
farmer called himself a master cheesemaker, he’d have had those
people seeking him out in droves.
What Walter appreciated was that the farmer and his family
weren’t living at a remove from the land and their food sources.
Down in Rivergaard the planetary order had been overthrown,
but here, on the farm, nothing had changed. Because nothing needs
to change. If the whole of the corporate structure got peeled off the
planet, and nature reclaimed all of Rivergaard, the farm could go
on and function perfectly well without any of them.
Which is why Maldives hasn’t died yet, and might never completely
die.
The farmer came out of the house with an enameled mug of
hot tea. “Doing good work there. Ain’t your first time.”
“Nope.”
“But been a long time.” The farmer handed him the mug. “You
and the boy, your hands don’t show much sign of manual work.”
Walter sipped the tea, then shrugged. “We moisturize.”
“Fair enough.” The farmer sat himself down on the piled
wood. “I don’t make no assumptions, but I gots to ask: you two
escape from a detail?”

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“Nope.” Walter set the tea down, then placed another piece of
wood on the chopping block. “You mean work details?”
“My boy said he seen ’em over toward the main road. Thirty-
forty people, following a truck, going slow up the road. Hear tell
they is working ’round Swindon. Living rough.”
“What was in the truck?”
“Shovels. Things to bury.” The farmer’s brows arrowed
together. “Couple trucks go up there every day.”
Work details are digging graves. “Ain’t nobody looking for us.”
“Mister, they’s looking for anyone ain’t them.” The farmer
drank more tea. “You and the boy ’pear to be good people, but I
can’t be having you stay around here.”
“We’re just passing through. We won’t forget your kindness,
but we won’t be remembering it too hard neither.”
“Obliged.”
Walter split a log with a smooth, overhand stroke. “Anything
should worry us?”
“Ain’t nothing from Rivergaard come here in a long while.
Hear tell the city ain’t as quiet as they’d like—the Collective, that
is.” The farmer shrugged. “I don’t mind about Preferreds and
Holders and what all, but least ways no corporators done hid
behind masks. Figure you do that, you’re hiding something really
ought to see the light of day.”

They left the farm by midday. Fog played across the fields like
smoke on a battlefield. Ten minutes out they lost sight of the farm-
house. By the end of an hour they saw the road heading south.
Three lanes each way, it remained virtually devoid of traffic.
Ivan shook his head. “That’s not right. Swindon isn’t a big
town, but a hundred fifty miles north-northeast is St. Antoine. It’s
big. The city is there year round, and gateway to the mountains
for skiing and winter resorts, as well as various wineries. The road
should not be empty.”

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“And yet, it is.” Walter turned south and walked parallel to

the road, but kept the crest of the hills between himself and the
highway. “Not really a surprise. You said they’d restrict travel.”
“I know, but . . .”
“This makes it real?”
Ivan’s voice grew small. “Very real.”
“Well, this doesn’t change our mission.” Walter pointed north.
“We go to Swindon. We do some recon. I’m guessing we make the
outskirts by dusk, find a place to hole up. If we get lucky, we’re in
and out before anyone knows we were there.”
“Then back around to the lake by another route.” Ivan gave
Walter a resolute nod. “I may be shaken a little. I won’t stay that
way.”
“I know, Spurs, I know.”
As the crimson kingfisher flew, Swindon might have only been
twenty kilometers from the farm, but the two men had to wind
their way over hills, through ravines, across streams and around
farms. They were less concerned about being turned in to authori-
ties than they were about attracting attention to people whose land
they only passed through. Eight hours after they’d left the farm,
they reached Swindon, then pushed on further north, so that when
they turned to get closer, they came in from the northwest.
Swindon, according to files Walter had read at the lake, had
been a small ranching community—little more than a village,
really—for the better part of a century and a half. The farmers
raised corn and vegetables, and ran a lot of sheep over the rolling,
grassy hills. Swindon had its own cottage industry of spinning,
weaving and knitting, and did a decent trade in handmade cloth-
ing. This was especially true in the Long Winter as sweaters sold
briskly to those headed up to the resorts.
Back before the war, a few Preferred and some of the rich
Holders chose to build summer homes in Swindon to help escape
the most humid of the Deep Summer months. That tradition had
continued despite the planet’s slow decline. The sentiment among
the people appeared to have been that if you could afford to main-
tain a home in Swindon, your fortunes had to be considered better

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than those of the people who could not. In First Family marriage
and inheritance schemes, possession of Swindon land was not a
negative.
From the cover of a copse of trees, Ivan pointed out a large
estate on a hill overlooking Swindon from the north. “That’s
August House, our High Summer home. Named after my relative.”
“I never would have guessed.” Walter gave Ivan a light jab
with his elbow in his ribs. “Is it always lit up like that?”
“No. Those lights look to be placed in the gardens, but we
never had any that bright or on posts that tall.”
“Well, someone is doing something there, so we need to recon-
sider.” Their original plan was to target the estate, in hopes that if
they could get in, they could use secure data connections to harvest
intel and do a little damage.”
“That’s not a problem.” Ivan crouched and drew a diagram
in the dirt with his finger. “Main house is here. Gardens here.
Guesthouse over here. Beyond the guesthouse there’s a blockhouse
next to a well. You can’t see it now, it’s down in a depression so
folks can’t see it from the guesthouse. It houses the controls for the
well’s pump and the sewage treatment system. It also has a safe
room in case there was a problem and we couldn’t get back to the
house.”
“And you have computer access from there?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go.”
A half hour of careful travel later they reached the blockhouse.
A wire-mesh fence topped with razor wire surrounded it. The gate
had been secured with a heavy chain and a padlock.
“I don’t remember that lock.”
Walter shrugged. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a
rectangular strip of metal as long as his finger, with a single jagged
triangle poking down from the center. He folded the metal around
the lock’s hook and slid the slender tooth into the block. He pressed
down, driving the tooth deep, and the lock snapped open.
Ivan stared at him. “How did you . . .?”

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“. . . shim the lock? You know about Lowland beetles, I learned
other things as a kid.”
“But . . .”
“Spurs, sometimes you really need something that others want
to keep locked safely away.”
“That’s not right, but I find it oddly comforting.”
“Lead on.”
They entered the compound and Walter made even shorter
work of the blockhouse door lock. Once inside the blockhouse, Ivan
flicked two switches on the sewage control console, then touched
two rivets on the side of the console. Air hissed and the console slid
forward, revealing a small hole cut in the wall behind it.
The two of them entered the concealed room on their hands
and knees. Ivan got up, turned the lights on, then hit a switch that
brought the console back into proper position. Another switch
dropped a steel panel down to block the crawl space.
Walter stood and stretched. The room had four sleeping berths
built into two walls, a computer console along the third, and sup-
ply cabinets flanking the crawl space. “I’ve been billeted in worse.”
Ivan sat at the computer and brought it to life. In addition to
the main display, two auxiliary monitors lit up. “I can get us some
images of the garden from here . . .”
“First things first. We can look at that later.” Walter dearly
wanted to see what was going on in the garden, but he already had
a really good idea what was happening. It struck him that using
forced labor to bury dead First Family members and destroy the
Litzau gardens was the sort of thing that the Collective would find
suitable as punishment for their prisoners.
“Okay, working on that.” Ivan held up the memory stick he’d
pulled from his pocket. “I’m also going to use the software to get
rid of any geographic and tax records of the farm we were at this
morning. I can even extend the Preserve’s border to annex . . .”
“Tax records, fine; same with local directories, but don’t change
the Preserve. The less attention we draw to it, the better.”

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“Good idea. Yes! I am in. Virus inserted. And out.” Ivan swung
around in the chair. “I think this will work. Twenty minutes, I pull
what we’ve got so far, and we go from there.”
“Great.” They’d both agreed that for Ivan to get into the gov-
ernmental computers and search around would leave him open to
discovery by the Collective and whomever they had working on
their data systems. What he did instead was to shape a virus that
would tie into the software the Litzau family used to gather infor-
mation for their DNA project. He’d be able to pull data and change
some records in that first pass. At the end of twenty minutes, they
could recover the data, learn how much had been changed, and
then look at how much damage they could truly do.
What Walter really wanted to find out was the fate of the
Angels. They had not been mentioned at all in Collective broad-
casts past the first, so he hoped for the best. The virus would sweep
through hospital records for anyone associated with the Angels.
Ivan also added a list of names, beginning with his mother’s, to
attempt to learn their fates. Neither man had been terribly hope-
ful, but they’d lied to each other about how hard their friends and
family were going to be to kill.
Ivan turned to the console again. “Now, for security footage.”
Three images popped up on the monitors. As Walter feared,
the gardens had been dug up, long rows running across flower
beds and crushed stone walkways. Decorative statuary had been
knocked off their pedestals, and more than one stone figure bore
signs of having been shot at. People in ragged clothes slowly tossed
black earth onto piles, while others hauled limp bodies off the back
of a flat bed truck and laid them a the bottom of the mass grave.
Armed men and women circled the workers like vultures.
Ivan, blood draining from his face, tapped one of the screens
with a dirty finger. “You see this?”
“Yes, Ivan. Just . . . just don’t look.”
“What? No, Walter, we have to do something!”
“Spurs, if we go out there, we can’t do anything but die.”
“No, Walter, look!” Ivan tapped the screen harder. “We have
to go.”

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“Shit.” Walter’s stomach imploded as he leaned closer. “This

is not good.”
The woman in the center of the image, the woman Ivan’s finger
pointed to, was Sophia.

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 Chapter Twelve
Litzau Summer Home, Swindon
Maldives
15 November 3000

“Look, the side of her face. It’s swollen. She’s hurt.”

“It’s a bruise, Spurs. It’s big, but she’ll recover.”
“We have to go get her.” Ivan rose from the chair. “We have
guns here and . . .”
“Ease back, Spurs. Slow down.” Walter held a hand up, hop-
ing his stomach would stop bubbling acid into his throat. “We’re
going to get her, rescue her. She’s going to be fine, but not if we go
in without a plan.”
Ivan stared at him. “They could kill her any second now.”
“But they’re not going to.” Walter pointed to the chair the
young man had just vacated. “Sit down.”
Ivan looked at him, mouth agape.
“I’m not questioning your courage or love for your sister,
Spurs.” Walter raked fingers back through his unkempt hair. “A
plan, remember? I need you to sit down there and tell me what you
can and cannot do in that house and on those grounds.”
“Walter!”
 Heir Apparent

The mercenary held up a finger. “Tell me, Spurs, have you ever
slit a man’s throat? Have you ever used a knife to kill anything?
Have you ever done more with a knife than slice into a rare steak?”
“No, but . . .”
“Sit down, son. Sit. Down.”
Ivan sat, almost missing the chair. “Walter . . .”
Walter squatted, resting his hands on Ivan’s knees. So earnest,
and so out of his depth. “This is the score, Spurs. There’s at least six
heavily armed guards just in the shots of the garden. Let’s suppose
there’s twice as many that we’ve not seen yet. Many of them have
to be eliminated or neutralized or killed, if your sister is going to
get away. This has to be done fast, quietly, efficiently. You think
you’re qualified for that job?”
Ivan shook his head.
“So, I need you to be my eyes out there. I need to know what
else you can do in the house and on the grounds to help me.”
Ivan’s head came up. “What do you put the odds at?”
“Spurs, if I worried about odds, I wouldn’t be a merc, would
I?” Walter ran a hand over his chin. “One in five, right now.”
“I see.” Ivan spun the seat around and began hitting keys. “I
can get video feed from all of the cameras inside the estate and
grounds. I can lock and unlock doors. I can shut off the exterior
lights—that’s part of killing the electrical system—the estate is
gridded, so I can take down all or part of it depending on what’s
going on. The interior lights I can control—on, off, color and inten-
sity. And the groundskeeping systems—sprinklers—and the sound
system, intercoms and stuff.”
“And with the cameras, you can watch me as I go?”
“Yes.”
Walter rose and leaned on the console beside Ivan. “Is there a
way to signal me?”
“Not without others in the house hearing. I guess I could guide
you through the house by selectively locking and unlocking doors.
I could do the same by turning some of the room lights on and off.”
“Safe rooms in the house?”

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“Four.” Ivan’s fingers flew and a wire-frame schematic of the

estate appeared on the screen. “One on each floor. Basement and
main floor are bigger, suitable for two dozen people. The others
are like this.”
“Good.” Walter straightened up. “When I get your sister, we’ll
go back through the house. Use lights and sound, if you must, to
direct your sister to a safe room in the event things blow up.”
Ivan turned and watched him. “One in five are horrid odds.”
Walter opened up a cabinet and studied the array of weapons
available. “After what you’ve told me, odds go up to 40 percent.
Things are twice as good now as they were five minutes ago.”
“Walter . . .”
“Does your sister shoot?”
“She knows which end of a gun to point away from herself at
least.” Ivan shrugged. “She’s never been in a gunfight, to the best
of my knowledge.”
“Useful, thanks.” Walter pulled on a shoulder holster and nee-
dle pistol, then grabbed a small satchel and tossed in two blocks
of ballistic polymer and a handful of propellant cartridges. He
clipped that to his belt. He selected three knives. He tucked the
two smaller ones into the tops of his boots, and the larger one he
slipped through his belt.
“No lasers or rifle?”
“Lasers equal light, and I don’t want to be seen.” Walter closed
the cabinet. “And if I need a long gun to shoot things at range, I
have bigger problems than needing to shoot things at range.”
Ivan got up and retracted the steel panel over the exit. “You’d
better hurry.”
Walter shook his head. “I can’t go yet.”
“But they might kill her.”
“Calm down. If they were going to kill her, they’d have done
it already. The fact that she’s there means either they don’t know
who she is, or they are using her as a symbol of the corporations’
defeat.” Walter pointed at the monitor. “If I go out there without
good intel, I’ll get her killed in the blink of an eye. I need you to

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look it all over—as many cameras as you can—and isolate each of

their soldiers.”
“But I don’t have facial recognition software and even if I did,
the balaclavas they’re wearing would—”
“I don’t care who they are, just what.”
Ivan turned and set to work. “How does this help?”
“Tells me who I have to kill.”
Ivan diligently cycled through the various cameras on the
estate. The house itself appeared to be empty and locked up, but
a couple of guards had been stationed on the patio overlooking
the gardens. One of them had the bearing of a trained soldier. The
other looked like his combat experience came from a long-running
war against the rabbits that kept despoiling his vegetable garden.
The continued survey spotted eighteen more guards, four of whom
were professionals, and the rest were amateurs. Half of them had
batons only, the rest had handguns in holsters on their hips.
Ivan looked back at him. “Twenty . . .”
“Five are real trouble.” The mercenary frowned. “Spurs, I
know you love your sister. I’m going to get her out of there no
matter what.”
Ivan closed his eyes. “But people are going to die.”
“The Collective picked this fight, not us.”
“But it’s not just agents of the Collective who will die.”
Walter cocked his head. “You’re thinking about people who
might be collateral damage, right? That their deaths will be on
your hands?”
Ivan nodded mutely.
“No easy way to say this, Spurs, but we can’t be sure that the
Collective won’t shoot them anyway when they’ve filled all the
graves. That notwithstanding, they are your people. Some of them
will die.” Walter opened his hands. “I’m ready to take that respon-
sibility. Comes with my job. Can you?”
The Chairman Presumptive looked down at his hands. “I don’t
know.”
“Your honesty does you credit.” Walter nodded. “Keep an eye
on me at all times. Teams appear to rotate, with people digging,

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then fetching bodies. When your sister rotates to getting a body,

that’s when I’ll make my move. When you see me count down with
my left hand, each finger curling down into fist, at the end, when
it’s a fist like this, you kill all the lights. Got it?”
“Yes.”
The mercenary pointed a finger at him. “And, no matter what
happens, you stay here. You don’t stir. You getting captured or
killed isn’t going to help one way or another.”
Ivan nodded. “Are you sure you can do this? You’re a
MechWarrior not—”
“I’ve done this sort of work before, Spurs. If I survive this time,
maybe I’ll tell you about the last. Just remember the signal and
we’ll be okay.”
“Walter, good luck.” Ivan offered him his hand. “And thank
you.”
“You’re welcome.” Walter dropped down and crawled through
the exit. “Button this up after me.”
In the blockhouse, the console retracted behind Walter and
clicked shut. He let the sound die. The quiet transformed the build-
ing into a mausoleum. A shiver ran down his spine, but he fought
off the unease. Instead he embraced a moment of peace, then set
out into the night.
As he moved through the darkness, Walter found himself
curiously detached from what he was about to do. This sort of
thing had never been part of his joining the Angels or coming to
Maldives. That didn’t deter him. He assumed he would die, so his
only real consideration was to make certain that Sophia did not. He
also couldn’t summon any hatred or sympathy for the Collective
agents he’d have to kill—they were simply obstacles between him
and getting Sophia to safety. The other prisoners . . . He didn’t allow
himself to feel anything about them at all—concern for them could
doom Sophia.
In occurred to him that his attitude about the other prison-
ers was very much like the attitudes of the Corporate Personnel
departments which likely inspired the revolt. He would seem to
be perpetuating the willful disregard for the lives of others which

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made the Collective act. The irony of the fact that their actions
showed a similar willful disregard for life was not lost upon him.
Nor was the fact that existential crises and philosophical mus-
ings meant nothing on a battlefield. Stuff and nonsense for memoirs
and historians.
Walter reached the corner of the mansion nearest his first tar-
get. She stood silhouetted against the lights shining down on the
garden. Walter surrendered about five centimeters to her, but fig-
ured they’d weigh about the same stripped out of their gear. She
wore body armor and carried a long gun, but held it loosely by
the grip, with the barrel resting on her shoulder. Why not? She’s got
nothing to fear.
Five meters of ferrocrete separated them. Walter drew the
knife from his belt. The double-edged dagger had been made of
blackened steel, with a blade a good eighteen centimeters long,
three wide. Walter held it low in his right hand and crouched. He
advanced slowly, knowing that quick movement would alert oth-
ers. While the next closest guard was a civilian and likely not going
to fight back, his raising an alarm would end things fast.
Two steps away and Walter pounced. He grabbed her throat
from behind in his left hand. He squeezed, hard. She clawed at his
hand. At the same time he drove the dagger up into her armpit,
stabbing deep and twisting the blade. A spurt of blood chased its
withdrawal from the wound. He plunged the knife in again, a bit
lower, between the ribs through the body armor’s flank gap, and
then a third time, dragging her back with him into the shadows.
The first wound had done the job. The blade severed her bra-
chial artery. The bloody spray accompanied an immediate crash
of her blood pressure. She’s gone limp before he returned to the
house’s shadows and within a minute and a half she’d bled out.
Walter waited in the shadows over her dead body. Further to
his right stood the corpse truck. Pairs of prisoners, each led by a
guard, stumbled to it, dragged a body from the bed, and hauled
it by wrists and ankles to the open grave. They didn’t move very
quickly, but clearly took pains to make sure they didn’t bang the
bodies around like so much meat and bones.

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Michael Stackpole

There she is.

Sophia, her blonde hair hanging limply and her shoulders
rounded wearily, shuffled her way along the path toward the truck.
Walter didn’t detect a limp, or any other sign of further injury. That
made him smile—both because he didn’t want to see her hurt, and
adrenaline could counter weariness. Odds are getting better.
Walter raised his left hand and slowly folded fingers in. For
every two meters she got closer to the truck, he folded another
finger in. Almost there.
Then the second patio guard appeared only five meters away.
“Cara?”
Walter stood. “Hurry, here, she’s been hurt.”
Without thinking, the man ran toward Walter. The mercenary
drew his needle pistol and as he closed his left fist to signal Ivan,
he shot the second guard in the face.
When Walter had first charged the pistol, a blade had sliced
a thin layer of ballistic polymer into a dozen flechettes. The pro-
pellant gasses filled the firing chamber and with the trigger pull,
blasted out a cloud of needles. Before the recoil and cocking mecha-
nism had loaded another sheaf of flechettes into the chamber, the
first cloud struck the man. Most slid along his skull, peeling the
flesh away, but several pierced his eyes. They ran the length of his
optic nerves and impaled his brain.
The pistol’s report didn’t carry very far. No one had a chance
to even glance in that direction before the lights snapped off. Angry
voices shouted commands. Fearful screams pierced the darkness.
Then someone started shooting.
Walter rushed forward. “Phee. Phee!”
“Here!”
He grabbed her hand in the darkness and pulled her with him
toward the front of the truck. Gunfire crackled. Muzzle flashes
strobed like lightning. People screamed—in pain, in fear, in vain
hopes of stopping the firefight. Bullets pinged from the truck.
Lasers burned scars on the building, and flechettes hissed like
wind-driven sand off the truck’s siding.

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“Phee, run to the house. Go. I’m right behind you.” He gave
her a shove toward the building, then came around the edge of
the truck, providing her a moment’s more shielding with his own
body. “Run!”
The firefight had descended full-blown into the chaos that was
war. The civilians scurried everywhere, silhouetted against muzzle
flashes. The Collective’s mercenaries rarely shot, but the citizen-
soldiers filling out their squads cut loose with abandon. They shot
at everything and nothing, most often targeting their comrades by
muzzle flash. The prisoners, caught in the crossfire, dove for the
ground.
Walter raced after Sophia. He worried most about being tagged
by an errant shot, but since no one was firing from the house, not
much in the way of return fire headed in that direction. He reached
the edge of the patio and crouched. No Sophia. Then a light flashed
on inside the house, for a second or two. A figure ran toward the
sliding glass panel and the lock clicked.
Someone went in low, and Walter followed as fast as he could.
“Phee.”
“Here.” The voice came small and tremulous, from a hallway
just the other side of the room.
Walter slid the glass door shut, then crawled over to the door-
way. He pulled off the balaclava. “Phee, it’s me, Walter.”
Arms encircled him in the dark and hugged him tightly. She
just shook and he returned the hug with one arm, keeping his gun
free. “Shhhh, it will be okay.”
“How can it be you? You . . . you . . .”
“Haven’t shaved, I know.”
“Walter, you’re dead. They broadcast it hourly. All the time.”
He gave her another squeeze. “Their fantasy isn’t our reality.”
“Ivan?”
“Also alive. He’s the one working the lights.”
“And the sound.” Speakers in the ceiling crackled with Ivan’s
voice. “You have to get out of there now! Go back to the truck,
take it. No time to explain. I’ll fix things for you. Go! Don’t stop
for anything. Go!”

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Walter stood and took Sophia’s hand. “Ready?”

She smeared dirt across her cheek as she swiped a tear. “Don’t
let go.”
“Never.”
Walter slid the door open slowly, hoping to avoid any sound.
It made little, and the hiss of water from the estate’s sprinkling
system smothered it easily. They stayed low until the edge of the
patio. He tightened his grip on her hand, nodded toward the truck.
“Driver’s side, keep the truck between us and bullets.”
Sophia nodded.
They were off.
Gunfire continued, but sporadically now. Someone was shout-
ing for lights. Others cried out for aid. They got around the front
of the truck and into the cab before anyone noticed them. And
even then, when Walter started the truck, no one shot at them
immediately.
“Stay down.”
Walter hit the accelerator and the truck lurched forward across
the lawn. Water from the sprinklers sprayed up against the wind-
screen. The truck hit a bump as it gained speed. Bodies shifted and
slid off the back. A rifle barked and the rear window spiderwebbed.
Then all the lights behind them came on at once with full
intensity. The reflected brilliance stung Walter’s eyes, but gave him
enough of a view to turn right, heading toward the front of the
house. Then sparks shot behind him and everything went abruptly
dark.
Way to go, Spurs. Walter smiled. Ivan had turned the water on
to soak everything and everyone. Then he pumped a lot of current
into the lights. Their cables and connections shorted, sending a jolt
through those on the wet field. And because we were in the truck, we
got away clean.
Sophia sat up. “Is it safe?”
“Should be. We’ll swing around, get Ivan, and get out of here.”
Walter hit the truck’s lights, and then cranked the wheel hard to
the left. The truck careened around the mansion’s front drive and
raced toward the estate’s gate.

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“Walter!”
He hit the brake hard, the truck fishtailing through gravel.
“Oh, shit.”
“That’s why he wanted us to go fast.” Sophia gasped, her
shoulders slumped and she rested her forehead on the dashboard.
“So close.”
A hundred meters to the west, marching through the estate’s
gates without even having to bow its head, came the first of the
Rivergaard Rangers’ ’Mechs. A Wasp, the lead humanoid war
machine dropped the medium laser in line with the truck’s nose.
To start up again was to die.
“I’m sorry, Sophia.” Walter sat back and raised his hands. “I
guess I still owe you a rescue.”

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 About the Author

Michael A. Stackpole is an award-winning writer, game designer,

computer game designer, podcaster, screenwriter and graphic nov-
elist who is best known for his New York Times bestselling novels
I, Jedi and Rogue Squadron. He is currently the Distinguished Visiting
Writer in Residence at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative
Writing at Arizona State University. When not writing or teaching,
he spends too much time playing games and figuring out how to
cook things that taste good.