Текст книги "Shrapnel: Fragments from the Inner Sphere"

Автор книги: Elizabeth Danforth

Соавторы: William H. Keith,Ken St. Andre,Jordan K. Weisman,Michael A. Stackpole
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

FINAL EXAM

–Bear Peters

Tension filled the large, dimly lit room where a trio of men hunched like witches over the cauldron-like Tactical Plot Simulator. The oldest of the three looked with concern at the scenario laid out on the plotting board. Sizigmund MaqAloo General (retired). Professor of 'Mech Deployment and Assault Strategy, hoped the actions of the elder of the two students would not confirm his fears.

The elder student. Cadet Willis Crawford, reached out to touch one of the miniature fighters that represented his DropShip's close-fighter support. A sigh went up from the surrounding auditorium, and then the rest of the class, hidden in the darkness, held its collective breath, most praying for disaster. To redeploy now, before the DropShip was down and the 'Mechs on board dispersed, was either a bold stroke or a foolish error.

At Cadet Crawford's right hand stood the flamboyant Anton Marik, younger brother of Janos Mank. Captain-General of the Free Worlds League. Anton, the nominal second-in-command on this assignment, could offer assistance or opinions, but 50 far, Crawford had taken the drop on his own. Anton could not have been more proud if he had evolved this new assault variant himself. Even at Princefleld, an Academy that fostered intense competition among all of its students, these two had formed a bond of friendship.

With a momentary flicker, the computer display of the potential enemy defense zones and DropShip attack lances changed. The enemy response opportunities grew. The class grumbled like an invisible animal closing in for the kill. Professor MaqAloo pinched his lip in a characteristic gesture of disapproval. Anton's faith never faltered, however, as his classmate redeployed the fighters further out, and sharply diverted the descending craft to an alternate landing site.

The computer, its defenses taken by surprise, diverted to cover the feint. Crawford's fighters hit the computer's Mech concentrations. The enemy fighter counterattack was drawn off by the fighter feints. During the precious seconds it took the simulation to redeploy, Crawford recalled his fighters and deployed his 'Mechs to mop up the ground resistance.

The lights in the auditorium came up, and the class began to babble its assessment of the new and innovative tactic.

‘Well done. Will!’ The young Marik slapped his friend on the back.

Professor MaqAloo cleared his throat and stepped over to face the young man.

‘Cadet Crawford, that was clever work, taking into account the computer's tendency toward a conservative defense.’

‘Thank you. sir.’ Crawford interrupted enthusiastically. ‘I knew I could draw off its fighter reserves.’

That's enough, Cadet.’ the old man said sharply. ‘You have fooled the machine, and so you are guaranteed a favorable grade. However, if you tried that stunt in the face ot Humanopposition, you'd lose that Drop-Ship! Keep that in mind.’

With that, the Professor turned and stalked off with crisp military precision.

‘Don't mind that sour old rust heap.’ Anton Marik told the man destined to become his closest friend. ‘C'mon. Together we can lick anything.’

As his younger friend turned to go, Willis Crawford felt a cold chill run down his spine.

Was the Professor right? Was there some angle he hadn't covered? No way. The old man was just a washed-up war horse, too rusted out to accept a new idea. With his own military talent and Anton's backing, what could possibly go wrong?

THE JUDAS BLIND

–Michael A. Stackpole

Somehow I'd hoped that growing a bushy black mustache would be enough to disguise me because getting killed this early on would certainly hurt any chances ot the mission coming off as planned. Actually, the plan was for me to avoid being killed at all—at least my version of it did. Still, some of the Intelligence types who were scoping this thing out for Duke Michael Hasek-Davion allowed as how survival was not 100 percent necessary to the mission's successful completion. Real rays of sunshine, those guys.

When I noticed a trio of long shadows stretching behind me down the rubble-strewn alley. I realized my mustache and ratty street clothes had not concealed my identity from the residents of the sawararenaislum. Pulling myself up to full height and expanding my chest in an effort to appear more menacing, I only wished I'd been endowed with my brother's height and heftier build. The three people producing the shadows behind me responded to my gambit with the low hum of a vibroblade.

Dressed in a leather flight jacket one size too small for his ample belly, a tall, heavy-set man drifted forward from the alley's depths. He came close enough for the weak yellow light from the street to illuminate his cruel face. With a full, fleshy face that even three days' growth of black beard could not harden, he had the complexion a mushroom would have envied. The man narrowed his piggish little eyes, then smiled to show me both teeth he still claimed as his own. ‘We got us a good prize here, nan datte?’

I raised both hands and opened them toward him as nervousness tied my stomach in knots. ‘Sumimasen, anata.I am not familiar with the streets of Hakkinshi. Perhaps you could direct me back to my hotel?’

I caught the dip of his head in the half-light a second before it registered upon the brain of the man he meant to signal. The vibroblade's murderous hum zeroed in on my back like an angry wasp, but I dropped to one knee, ducking under my attacker's slash. My Fingers closed around a heavy stick of wood, which I drove back behind me as hard as possible.

My blow caught the thug just below his belt buckle, and he doubled over as I twisted toward him. Swiveling the club around, I brought my right hand up, smashing the thug's jaw shut with a tooth-shattering crack. As the man flew up and back, his vibroblade dropped from nerveless fingers. Before the deadman-switch could shut it down, the weapon had burrowed to the hilt in the mist-slickened tarmac.

His two compatriots stared with shocked expressions at their fallen comrade. Pressing the advantage of surprise—in accordance with Duke Michael's admonition to ‘adapt and innovate’–I wielded my club savagely. Swatting the next nearest bandit across the head, I slammed him face-first into an alley wall.

Then I parried the whirling length of chain employed by the third ruffian, letting it whip itself around my club. Tugging back hard, I pulled my skinny, pimple-faced assailant forward. Utterly off balance, he squawked for help in a high-pitched voice, but never dreamed of releasing his deathgrip on the weapon. I chopped my chain-weighted club down on his wrist sharply, breaking his grip. When he turned to run, clutching his wrist to his chest, I sent him sailing back to the street with a none-too-gentle kick to the seat of his pants.

Stars exploded in my eyes as the man I'd knocked into the alley wall caught me with a roundhouse right. I reeled across the pavement slamming heavily into the far wall. My attacker drove at me like a prize-tighter, but I sidestepped his second punch, relishing the cracking sound as his fist smacked into the brick wall behind me. His scream of pain shifted tenor as I jerked my left knee up into his groin, then died abruptly as I brought my club straight down on his head.

I turned quickly enough to see the fat man slip on some fetid garbage in his haste to escape. Snaking the length of chain from the club. I shook my head ‘Why is it that everyone thinks a MechWarrior is useless outside his 'Mech?’

Without replying, the fat man scrambled to his feet. He shot me one porcine look of horror, then tried to run off. Arcing the club down at his legs. I managed to trip him into a pile of rotting garbage He cried out, but the garbage so muffled his scream that it sounded as though he were drowning.

Crouching down, I activated the vibro-blade long enough to pull its 30 centimeters of blade from the ground. Shutting it all the way off, I tucked the blade through my belt. Then I slung the chain over my shoulder and sauntered down the alley to where the fat man wallowed in refuse.

I smiled at him. ‘Tea leaves add some nice color to your face.’ With one end of the chain in either hand. I looped it around his head. Pulling back gently, I helped him slide into something approximating a sitting position. ‘I have some questions you want to answer, wakarimaska?’

He nodded dejectedly. ‘Hai. wakarimas.'

I nodded to reassure him. ‘Good. Go ahead, flick that eggshell off your ear. It looks ridiculous. Now, I was told that if I were to find the Little Dragon anywhere, it would be here.’ I narrowed my eyes ‘You're not little, and you certainly aren't a dragon...You'd not be the one I'm looking for, would you?’

He shook his head, then his eyes widened to reflect the new light source in the alley. I turned and saw a woman step through a doorway, then immediately back away from the harsh light passing through it. Leaning back against the doorframe, she watched me warily.

I let the chain and the fat man fall. ‘You are the Little Dragon?’

She nodded almost casually. Though she wore the uniform of a Davion aerojock, I knew instantly that she was not a pilot. Not that she didn't fill out the uniform properly. The tall boots and leather jacket fit her perfectly. No, its was in her posture and in as simple a motion as her nod. Not even the Sternsnacht heavy pistol in her hip holster could taint it.

She moved with a sensuality that learning to kill robs from most people.

She gracefully waved me toward the doorway. ‘Colonel Kell, you will accompany me?’ Though framed as a question in her throaty whisper, I took it as a command. Passing through the door and into the small room beyond it, I caught a whiff of jasmine.

She closed the door and moved toward the center of the barren, white-washed room. She'd filled her right hand with the Sternsnacht, giving me a prey's-eye view of the pistol's muzzle. ‘You, Colonel, have been blundering all over Hakkinshi like a green Lieutenant looking for a way to spend leave-time. Either you are foolishly brave, or terminally stupid.’ She jerked her head toward alley. ‘Those four wanted you for the reward the Draconis Combine's Internal Security Forces are offering for your hide. Ten thousand ComStar bills could easily buy one passage from Akumashima.’

Averting my eyes from the gun barrel, I forced myself to chuckle. ‘Only ten thousand? Boy, the market's weak here on Murchison. On Mallory's World, I go for fifteen.’ I shook my head. Ten thousand ComStar bills was a small fortune. Even split four ways, it could finance relocation outside the slum known as Akumashima– Devil Island. ‘The price for mercenaries isn't what it used to be.’

Her brown eyes showed contempt. ‘Did I say ten thousand? That's for your brother. You, Leutenant-ColonelPatrick Kell, are only worth five thousand.’

I raised my hands. ‘Well. I'm the one. You've got me.’

Irritation flashed over her face like clouds before a storm. ‘Enough foolishness. You have 30 seconds to explain why you've returned to Murchison just 6 weeks after your 'Mech battalion got chased off by the 27th Dieron Regulars.’ She raised the gun in line with my right eye. ‘No nonsense, or I'm 5,000 C-bills richer.’

Looking down the Sternsnacht's long tunnel, I shuddered. ‘When we raided this world, we were under orders to stay until the Dragon delivered troops to kick us out. The Prince—the new one, Hanse Davion– wanted us to force Takashi Kurita to pull troops away from Mallory's World. We didn't expect to be here for three months, but that's what happened. One of my men, a kid really, named Kevin O'Dell shacked up with a girl from Akumashima. Her name is Hanako Aido.’

I swallowed hard. ‘The day after Kevin bought it back on Mallory's World, ComStar delivered a message from her saying that she was pregnant. O'Dell's father, an industrialist on Hamilton, back in the Lyran Commonwealth, wants his grandchild and the child's mother with him.’

She relaxed her arm. letting the gun's muzzle point up at the ceiling. ‘How much is he paying you?’

I stiffened, then brought up my head. ‘He's offering ten thousand a year to the girl's family, and seventy-five hundred to anyone who helps me out. Me? I'm doing this for Kevin.’

She watched me like a cat stalking a mouse, then nodded. ‘O.K. That's what I've heard. I can find Hanako—the Aido clan is large for a sawararenaifamily. I'll help you. Kell, but I have two rules.’ She tapped the squarish gold link in her nose. ‘First, no questions about this. And second, if you know what it is, don't get any ideas.’

I nodded. I did know what the renketsusignified, in theory, but I found the stories hard to believe. As I had heard it, the men and women wearing renketsuwere specially trained from their youth in the ways of love—much as a MechWarrior is trained to kill. Their education did not consist solely of skill in lovemaking, but included the study of many arts and sciences as well. The Kuritan way of life considered that an amorous companion should be more than just one who meets a partner's physical needs.

What was such an educated woman doing in the slums meant only for the untouchables, the sawararenai?

I held up my right hand. ‘Fine. This is your town. We play by your rules. You can call me Patrick.’

She hesitated, then nodded and bolstered her pistol. ‘I am the Little Dragon.’

I bowed to her in Kurita fashion. She returned the bow, then glanced at the door leading into the alley. ‘We better get you out of here. Those four you tangled with are scum of the scum, but when they jabber, more important people listen.’

I frowned. ‘ISF?’

The Little Dragon shrugged. ‘Even them. No, you angered some Yakuzawhen your lance used one ot their opium barges for a gunnery target.’

I smiled. ‘Can't they take a joke?’

She regarded me closely, raising an eyebrow. ‘I hope those attempts at humor are merely attempts to hide your nervousness, Patrick Kell. If not. your delusions of adequacy will get us both killed.’ She turned and exited through a smaller doorway leading deeper into the building.

Her warning had set up a resonance with my own doubts. I followed in silence.

After a long chase through the winding streets and black byways of Akumashima, the Little Dragon brought me into an apartment building through the rear entrance. She slipped her Sternsnacht from its holster, holding it at the ready as we crept stealthily up the dark stairway.

Aside from being sprayed everywhere with graffiti, the first door looked normal and might once have been considered a good place to live. The second floor, however, looked like it had been through a war. No doubt about It, the interior decorators had used flamethrowers and grenade launchers to remodel this level ot the building.

Deep in the shadows. I saw heavily seamed faces by the red glow of cigarettes and pipes. The sickly sweet odor of opium and a half-dozen other drugs gave me a shiver. Seeming to notice neither the smoke nor the ruined condition of the whole level, the Little Dragon picked her way across the building's second story. I stared ahead at her booted feet, matching my footsteps to hers, trying not to look at the wretches scattered over the soiled tatami.

From there, the Little Dragon pushed open a door that led to another stairwell. I looked over at her, but she waved me on up the stairs without a word. Occasionally casting a glance behind me just in case someone decided to follow from the second level, I trailed her.

Two more flights up. on the building's top level, we left the stairs and walked down a fairly clean corridor. Most of the doors stood open, giving me a good look at the empty, stripped apartments. Anything of value had long since been stolen. Indeed, in a few places, the plaster had been peeled back so that the wooden slats could be removed and used for fire fuel.

Finally, the Little Dragon stopped before a heavy, steel-sheathed door. She flipped open a small box set into the wall, and punched out a series of electronic notes, the code to unlock her door. She opened it. then waved me inside.

After my tour through the building's lower reaches, I expected to see some cold, dismal room with little more than a nest of filthy rags in the corner for bedding. Instead, a beautiful oasis seemed to appear before my eyes, and I knew it was easily the match of a luxury suite in any of the Hakkinshi's tallest towers.

Standing at the doorway and looking down into the sunken living room, I had no doubt that she had designed and furnished the apartment herself. Hand-woven rugs of intricate design—obviously created on the Muslim-dominated worlds of the Azami– covered almost all of the polished wooden floors. Delicate ricepaper paintings graced the walls, the best of which hung over the low dining table in the far left corner. A futon couch and an assortment of large cushions held the center of the room.

Two windows and a glass door opened out onto a covered balcony that offered a glimpse of the sluggish Chiisai river. A darkened doorway in the far right corner led deeper into the building. The kitchen, or what passed for it, occupied the corner nearest the door and was separated from the living room by a translucent panel lacquered with bright yellow and blue flowers.

I turned back to the Little Dragon as she shut the door, ‘It's beautiful.’

She whirled, a snarl peeling her lips back from even white teeth as though I'd insulted her. Fire flashed in her dark eyes and I tried to guess what could have made her so angry. Then she hesitated and bowed her head. ‘Forgive me, Colonel.’ Surveying the room, she pressed her left hand to her mouth as though seeing something horrible and malignant where I saw only beauty. ‘I have made a mistake. I should never have brought you here.’

I felt her anger and pain, but I dared not enfold her in my arms. Ours was. after all. a business relationship that did not allow such familiarity, She was the key to my whole mission, and as attracted as I might be to her, I could not let that jeopardize the operation. I opened my hands in a gesture of frustration, then let them fall limply to my sides. ‘I'm sorry. If you wish. I'll leave.’

She shook her head distractedly, then rubbed her forehead with one hand. ‘No. This is the only safe place in Akumashima.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Safe? What about that opium den down there?’

The Little Dragon moved down the steps to a small door on the side of the front door landing. ‘Those people are protective of me. I got them opium, gratis, after your Kell Hounds blew that barge apart. Anyone comes through that area to get me and they'll raise an alarm.’

She knelt and worked at a combination lock with long, slender fingers. ‘I think you'll be safe here. No one comes unless I bring them. Even so...’ She pulled a gun and holster from the storage area below the steps. ‘You'll need this.’

I accepted the blocky, blackened-polymer weapon from her and strapped it on. I tied the weighty pistol's holster to my right thigh, but turned the pistol around so the grip pointed forward. Reaching across my body, I drew the gun with my left hand. With a grunt ot satisfaction, I slid the weapon home again.

The Little Dragon straightened up. ‘Be careful with that, Kell. It's a...’

‘A Mauser and Gray M-27 needle pistol.’ I drew it smoothly and my right hand snapped the charging lever back with a sharp, metallic click. ‘It shoots a cloud of plastic flechettes shaved from a block of high-grade ballistic polymer. Practical rate of fire is 200 shots per minute, with an average ot 15 needles per shot.’ I smiled. ‘Why does everyone think a MechWarrior is useless outside his 'Mech?’

She bowed her head. ‘Sumimasen,Kell– san.I believed you were witless to embark on this fool's mission in the first place.’ She turned, opening her hands to encompass the whole apartment. ‘This is my home. Please, be my guest.’

I heard a trace of reluctance in her voice as she spoke. ‘Why is it that you are so uneasy about having me here?’

She stiffened, then slowly began to explain. ‘You found me because you were searching for the Little Dragon. Out there,’ she said, pointing toward the windows, ‘that is what I am. Because I know certain things and certain people, I can get things done. The Yakuza and l have a truce because I care for the people of Akumashirrfa. and they are part of this hellhole. They will not form an alliance with me because I am a woman, but as the Little Dragon, I have earned their respect.’

She moved to the cushions on the floor, but pointed me to the couch. ‘That is what I am out there. But that stops outside the door. In here, I can be myself.’ She glanced over at the painting of a snow-capped mountain seen through a gap in a pine forest. ‘I can indulge myself by painting or writing haiku or reading. I can do anything here, or nothing, yet none of the worries of the Little Dragon concern me. Here I am Takara, and here that is enough.’

With a nod to show my interest, I seated myself on the floor, resting my back against the couch. My position, though somewhat uncomfortable, left me with my head lower than hers, allowing her the respect due in her own home. ‘This is your sanctuary, Takara.’ She frowned when I spoke her name aloud, but I liked the sound of it.

She considered my comment for a moment, then nodded slowly. ‘It is.’ Abruptly, she grimaced as though tasting something bitter and an edge came into her voice. ‘Or, it wasmy sanctuary. Now the Little Dragon has brought you here. It could all be ruined.’

The anger in her tone stung me. ‘Hey. I didn't hold a gun to your head. You didn't have to agree to help me locate Hanako.’

She fixed me with a stare so fierce that I felt it might sear right through me. ‘Didn't I? You come to me with the story of saving an Untouchable's child and you expect me not to help you?’ She poked a thumb against her chest. ‘I know what happens to sawararenaibabies when their father is a foreign devil mercenary. Hold a gun to my head? Dammit. Kell, you might as well have clipped a chain to my renketsuand bound me to you. I could not refuse your request.’

She stood angrily and pointed toward the hallway off in the corner. ‘That leads to the bathroom, first door on your right. My bedroom is at the end of the hallway, but don't go any further than the bathroom. I won't have you despoil everything.’

She marched to the door, then turned back to address me like an Admiral on a ship's bridge giving orders to her crew. ‘I'm going out to find Hanako Aido. Don't stir from this place, and don't open the door.’ Again I heard the electric notes as she punched a code into the number pad beside the door. ‘If it's opened without the proper code being entered, a pressure-sensitive switch will set off an explosive underneath the landing and splash whoever is standing here all over the ceiling.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘If there's a fire?’

The angry expression on her face did not lighten at all. ‘You die.’

A week's flight in-system on the DropShip Newport Newsand a day of skulking through Akumashima had really taken it out of me. When Takara closed the door behind her, I sank into the cushions. They smelled of jasmine and felt very soft. Having learned a long time ago the MechWarrior's trick of catching sleep when and where available, I dropped off immediately.

I normally recall nothing of my dreams, but the one I had in Takara's sanctuary had a surreality to it that would do credit to those new holovids that are so popular with kids these days. A madman dressed in a surgeon's smock stood over me, his right eye magnified by a huge lens. The blood vessels in his eye pulsed like scarlet lightning. He said something like, ‘Well, Colonel, we must root those secrets out somehow. We will start with your toes.’ Then he flicked on a vibroblade and moved down toward the foot of the table to which I'd been strapped.

His assistant grabbed my head in both hands to ensure that I could not see what the madman was doing. I looked up at his aide and stared directly into the Little Dragon's eyes. They were cold and joyless, yet her face lit with delight as the vibroblade's hum increased in intensity. She leaned forward to kiss me, then opened her mouth to reveal row upon row of shark's teeth...

I sat up with a start, wide awake and in a cold sweat that had soaked my clothes. I shook my head to clear it, but the vibroblade's hum still rang in my ears. I dropped a hand to the blade in my belt, my foggy mind slowly realizing that I'd already know if it had accidently been turned on.

Suddenly, I located the source of the sound and looked up toward the door as someone finished using the vibroblade to saw through the bolt-plate.

I dropped back flat against the pillows, opening my mouth and cupping my hands over my ears as the door swung inward. The first man to step onto the landing evaporated amid a cloud of bloody fire and black smoke. A column of flame blasted a jagged hole up through the ceiling, -and the explosion's Shockwave shattered the windows and all the glass over Takara's paintings. Debris shot like fiery meteorites all over the apartment and stung me on the hands and face.

The second man fell through the landing and down into whatever the Little Dragon had waiting in the apartment below her own. A third man. his face blackened from the blast, leaped into the room, but slipped on broken shards of glass and dropped awkwardly to one knee.

I drew the M & GM – 27, flipped the safety off, and snapped two shots at him. One cloud of plastic needles blew through his shoulder, reducing it to torn flesh and bone fragments. The impact twisted him enough that my second shot destroyed his face.

Two more individuals appeared in the doorway, shoving the snouts of ugly sub-machineguns through the ruined portal. They fired blindly, but because of the sunken nature of the living room, the shots passed over my head. The bullets tore staggered lines across the apartment's walls as the spent cartridges flowed in a brass river down what was left of the stairs.

I triggered four shots at the people in the doorway. Both my targets screamed, keeping out of sight. Their continued screaming told me I'd not killed them, and that made me angry. For half a second, I wanted to swing around, shoot out into the hallway and, if necessary, hunt them down. They have violated this place. They must die!

Sanity reasserted itself and brought with it the vision of the Little Dragon from my dream. She must have set you up, Patrick. Don't avenge your betrayer.Firing two more shots into the doorway, I bolted for the balcony and leaped through one of the empty-paned windows.

The balcony was awash in blood. The raiders had stationed two men there to cut off all retreat from the frontal assault. When the windows blew out, they had fragmented into a typhoon of razored glass. Most of one raider had been blown back over the balcony, and what was once the second raider lay leaking in the far comer.

Standing on the balcony rail. I cautiously peeked up over the lip of the building's root. Aside from the hole ripped in it by the explosion, it looked quiet and safe. The small yellow flames of tar burning around the hole's edge cast enough light to make me certain no one lay waiting in ambush.

As quietly as possible, I clambered up onto the roof. Crossing to the far edge. I leaped across to the neighboring building. Constantly watching my backtrail, and using all the evasion skills drilled into me at the Nagelring, I moved into Akumashima and lost myself among the Untouchables.

The soot from the explosion and the grime I'd picked up scrambling over roofs and through alleys completed the disguise I'd originally tried to create with my mustache Shoving my hands into the pockets of my fatigue pants. I set my face in the hard sort of look that I hoped said, ‘Mess with me and regret it.’ Moving through the milling crowd of sawararenai,I glared at people who got in my way, and snarled at those who actually bumped into me.

Shuffling along, occasionally looking back over my shoulder, I fit right in with the rest of the outlaws and outcasts that made up the dregs of Hakkinshi. As I watched those around me, I realized, perhaps for the first time, how different was my life as a MechWarrior from that of most of the other people within the Successor States.

Even taking into account the cultural differences between the Lyran Commonwealth and the Draconis Combine, the quality of life on Murchison was much different from what I saw as normal Arc-Royal, the world where I'd grown up, was a beautiful blue-green ball. Forests and fields covered it and the soil was incredibly fertile. The introduction of xenobiological and senobiological projects had been strictly controlled so that our people could make a living producing grains and animal products for export without destroying the natural ecology.

My family was nobility on Arc-Royal. My grandfather was the world's Duke and my father, as a Count, governed a large island continent. Even so, the relaxed pace of life on Arc-Royal and the Kell family's tradition of hard work meant that my brother and I both pulled our own weight. Working side by side with the people on our farms, I learned that we Humans are alike, no matter what our station.

But I'd wanted to be a MechWarrior for as long as I could remember, a desire that increased when my brother vanished for a year just after graduation from the Nagelring. Then the Nagelring accepted me and I worked hard to graduate with honors. I wanted the MechWarrior's life of excitement and danger because l truly felt there was no better way to live.

A MechWarrior's existence is a strange one. Someone once called it sheer boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, but I think that may be a bit harsh. It's true, but there are other times when you earn the respect of an enemy, And there are times when you have to mourn a fallen friend.

As the singsong voices of merchants beckoned and cajoled the passers by. I realized that a MechWarrior misses out on huge chunks of life. All the people around me had worries that I would consider mundane. They had to work for their meals and clothes and homes, things I took for granted because the Regiment provided them for me. They had to wake up each morning and decide what they would do during the day, and what the consequences of their action would be. Me, I had orders and if I didn't follow them, I'd be thrown into jail. Though my life as a MechWarrior might be more constraining, it also served as a safety net to keep me from failing.