Текст книги " Blood Legacy"

Автор книги: Michael A. Stackpole

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"So this is Phelan Wolf. Are you worthy of the commotion you have caused?"

"I do not know how to answer that question." Phelan lifted his head and clasped his hands at the small of his back. "I do not know how to judge my worth to the Clan."

Cyrilla watched him like a wolf eyeing a tasty rabbit. "You saved Khan Ulric's life on the bridge of the Dire Wolf, Quiaff?"

Phelan looked down at the floor. "I did what was necessary to help those trapped on the bridge after the ship was rammed. My actions were not heroic. It was simply what had to be done."

"He is modest, Quiaff,Tasha?"

Natasha smiled proudly at Phelan. "I think he'd probably say he is just being honest. He comes from good stock, Ril. He was even entrusted to the Wolves for some of his upbringing. Still, this one can be a bit rash and argumentative at times."

"No doubt because you did some of the raising, Tasha." Cyrilla turned back to Phelan. "Many people want to know more about the bondsman who saved the Khan and claims Ward blood. You are a curiosity that has brought honor to our House, and I thank you."

The former Kell Hound let a grin light his face. "May you and Khan Ulric continue to take pride in my actions."

"Very good, very good, indeed." Cyrilla tilted her head as she studied Phelan for a moment. "But you made a great mistake in pulling Vlad from the wreckage of the bridge of the Dire Wolf,young man."

The statement startled Phelan, and he rubbed without thinking at the cut Vlad had given him during his adoption ceremony into the Clan. On one hand, he was praised for saving the Khan, but rebuked for saving another Wolf warrior. "I am confused. Vlad is a warrior of the Wolf Clan. How could I not save him and still serve the Clan?"

Cyrilla considered his reply with a smile. "A valid point. Would you always put duty to the Clan above what might be your best interest?"

"Hypothetical questions are always the ones that get me into trouble when I try to answer them."

"A deft parry. Good." Cyrilla smiled again, folding her hands in her lap. "Do you understand why I think you should have let Vlad die?"

"Not really, but having been with the Clans for a while, I think I can guess."

"Good." Cyrilla leaned back into her chair. "Please explain."

"Bottom line is that the fewer enemies you have, the longer you live." Phelan sighed heavily. "Ever since Vlad captured me in a battle on The Rock a year and a half ago, he has looked for every opportunity to prove that he is superior to me and anyone else from the Successor States. He is not alone in this attitude, but he is perhaps rather more enthusiastic in expressing it.

"Though I beat Vlad in a fist fight on Rasalhague, he could say that I jumped him unexpectedly when he was still exhausted from the recent battle for the world. He lost no face, but Vlad's not one to allow himself so easy an out. Even giving me a severe beating aboard the Dire Wolfhas not bled off his hatred because I never let him break me."

The elder MechWarrior watched him carefully. "And this leads you to believe ..."

Phelan shrugged. "One way or another, Vlad will do anything to get me. He took my adoption into the Clans as a personal affront. He was forced to welcome me into the House of Ward, a duty he seemed particularly loathe to perform."

Cyrilla rested her chin on steepled fingers. "You must have known all this before you found him on the bridge."

The young man nodded. "Yes, but I did not know the body lying there was his until I got to where he was. By then, I really had no choice."

"Even knowing that he hates you with his whole heart and soul, quiaff?"

Phelan smiled in spite of himself. "I never said I wouldn't regretsave him. I only said I had no choice in the matter." He shrugged. "I am not the sort of MechWarrior who shoots up fleeing 'Mech pilots, and I am not the sort who could abandon someone wounded, be it enemy or friend, if I could do something to save them."

Phelan looked from Cyrilla to Natasha with a rueful smile. "I will say one thing for Vlad. He can carry a grudge further than anyone I have ever met. It's hard to believe he can hate me so much because I shot some armor off his 'Mech. Especially since he blew the hell out of my Wolfhoundat the same time."

"There ismore to it than that, Phelan Wolf." Cyrilla pointed to a cream-colored chair near Phelan. "Please be seated. I think, in short order, I can help to clear up that mystery. Do you know what it means to have a Bloodname, quineg?"

"Neg."

"Three centuries ago, General Aleksandr Kerensky led ninety percent of the Star League's army from the space you call the Inner Sphere. He detested the civil wars and nationalistic pressures that had wracked the Star League from the time Stefan the Usurper proclaimed himself First Lord. After smashing the Usurper, Kerensky took his people away, hoping to keep them from the path of self-destruction toward which the rest of humanity seemed hell-bent."

She leaned back in her chair, seeming to warm to the task of telling the tale of history. "Kerensky feared that his troops would begin to fight among themselves if they had no common cause to unite them. He reorganized the armies and mothballed seventy-five percent of the BattleMechs and materiel they had brought with them. He told his troops that bringing industry on line to replace parts would take time, so they had to limit the number of machines in use. He set up a system by which pilots were grouped into quartets tested yearly to see which would be the Primary or Secondary pilot for a 'Mech. The other two members of the team would perform support and tactical duties.

"Unfortunately, General Kerensky's death shattered the last bond holding the former Star League troops together. Within a generation, the Star League troops who had left with Kerensky had battered themselves worse than all the damage the Successor States have done Anone another since then. Colonies survived by the barest of margins, and cobbled-together BattleMechs stalked the landscape scavenging for spare parts, ammo, and food."

The white-haired woman leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "The only exception was Strana Mechty, the depot world. The name is Russian and means Land of Dreams, so named to encourage people to work together. From there, Nicholas Kerensky and Jennifer Winson led some six hundred Kerensky loyalists on a crusade to destroy the bandits wandering the colony worlds, intending to unite them all under the control of Strana Mechty.

"To these loyalists Nicholas Kerensky gave the highest honor he could imagine within the new society he formed. From that time forward, the surnames of these people would be designated as Bloodnames. Within any Clan, only twenty-five individuals are allowed to claim one of these Bloodnames. And such a claim is acknowledged only after that individual has defeated anyone else who makes a claim on the name."

Cyrilla touched a button on the arm of her chair. A wall panel slid up to reveal a holovid viewing screen. With the touch of another button, the image of a nursery filled with row upon row of babies appeared on the screen. A half-dozen older people wandered among the children, attending to their needs with the gentle care of loving grandparents.

"Nicholas Kerensky launched the Clans on an ambitious plan for rebuilding. Using the most advanced techniques available to our scientists, he began to match warriors and their bloodlines. Children were bred specifically to cultivate those traits that would make them the ultimate in warriors. As you have seen with Evantha, children intended as Elementals are bred for size and strength. Our pilots, like Carew, are bred physically small, but quick of mind and reflex to handle the difficulties of air combat."

"And others, like Vlad and Ranna, are bred to be Mech-Warriors?"

Cyrilla nodded. "What you see here is a sibko. One hundred children are produced from artificial wombs at the same time and then raised together. Natasha and I were raised in the same sibko, though we do not share any recent ancestors. As the children grow, they are trained and tested to determine if the desired traits have bred true. Yet before the first sibko is five years old, another from similar pairings will be started, and the first sibko will have lost twenty percent of its children to accidents or rejection because of poor test scores."

Phelan frowned, not wanting to accept what he was hearing. "You mean children are allowed to die if their bloodline is not pure? That isn't natural selection. It's monstrous!"

Natasha shook her head. "No, Phelan. You lived for a time as part of a Dragoons sibko on Outreach. From that experience, you know that we do not mistreat children while raising them. Every precaution is taken, but if a child dies, so be it. If a child fails a test, he enters another caste, where he can develop as a useful member of society. Furthermore, only the warrior caste raises its children in the sibko environment. The rest of Clan society functions much as does any in the Inner Sphere."

Cyrilla pointed to the screen, where the scene had shifted to adolescents learning how to fight in light 'Mechs. "Nicholas wanted an army prepared to face any threat, be it from within or without. That was the reason for an enforced breeding program. By the age of twenty, only a quarter of the sibko will be eligible to become warriors. Within ten years, half will have been killed in combat, but the genetic material of any who have proven to be masterful warriors will enter into the Clan breeding program. They will achieve immortality, and for the vast majority, that will be the finest day of their lives. Except for a rare few, the majority will start back down soon after."

Phelan saw anger flash through Natasha's eyes. "Back down?" he asked.

"Yeah, back down." Natasha looked ready to spit fire. "In the Clans, a warrior is ancient by the time he reaches age thirty-five. If he hasn't won his Bloodname, he moves from active duty to training warriors. Ten years more, and he's considered ill-suited for anything more than filling and emptying infants."

"That's absurd!" Phelan looked at Cyrilla for an explanation.

"Not at all. By the time a warrior is thirty, he is facing competition from sibkos that are a generation behind him. By age forty, he fights against children from his own loins. He is at a definite disadvantage."

"But my father was more than forty years old when I was born!"

"And you are clearly superior to him, quineg?"Cyrilla looked at Natasha for confirmation, but the Black Widow laughed lightly and shook her head.

Phelan blushed. "Someday, maybe, if I've got a stiff tailwind behind me and he's got one arm tied behind his back. God, this is crazy. At thirty, a warrior starts his slide down!" The young man half-closed his eyes. "I take it, though, that a warrior who has won a Bloodname is on a fast track and stays up longer?"

Cyrilla nodded. "And he is guaranteed a place in the Clan breeding program."

Phelan nodded slowly. "Ah, this puts many things into perspective. It explains Vlad's reaction when he discovered that I claimed a Jal Ward as an ancestor. It also explains why he welcomed me to the House of Ward during the adoption ceremony." He chuckled lightly at the memory of the ceremony. "It must have really burned him to be the one who had to welcome me after my adoption."

Cyrilla smiled broadly. "Jal Ward left with the Star League troops in his father's place during the Exodus. He was one of the loyalists who fought with Nicholas Kerensky. He, his siblings, and all their descendants are eligible to make a claim on the Ward Bloodnames. We trace the bloodline through maternity. Because your grandfather married a cousin who carried the Ward blood means you are a member of the House of Ward."

Phelan frowned. "If this is so, why am I called Phelan Wolf?"

"Two reasons." Natasha ticked each off on her fingers as she explained. "First, anyone who is adopted into a Clan's Warrior caste—an event about as rare as Candace Liao and her sister Romano exchanging a civil word—receives the Clan name as his surname."

Phelan held a hand up. "Then Jaime Wolf and his brother Joshua were adopted in the Wolf Clan's Warrior caste."

At the mention of Joshua Wolf, Phelan saw pain arc through Natasha's eyes. "Yes," she said, composing herself immediately. "Their father 'married' outside the Warrior caste and got two sons on his wife. He petitioned for their adoption into the Warrior caste so his sons could fight beside him if they proved worthy. And so they did.

"However, the second reason you are not addressed with the surname of Ward is because you have not won that right." Natasha gave him a big grin. "Yet. And that is the main reason Vlad hates you so thoroughly. You are his big competition for the next time a Ward bloodname becomes available."

"What? How could we win Bloodnames? The both of us are too young. There must be thousands of warriors with better claims, and the skills to win the claim."

Cyrilla laughed lightly and shot a glance at the Black Widow. "Natasha won her Bloodname at the age of twenty-two. It was unprecedented at the time, and is a mark still un-conquered in the years she has spent in the Successor States. Ulric Kerensky won his Bloodname at the age of thirty, about fifteen years ago. I won my Bloodname at thirty-six– Tasha always said I was a late bloomer—and have held it for more than forty years."

Natasha patted Cyrilla on the shoulder. "Phelan, you and Vlad are not too young to become involved in the contest the next time a Bloodname becomes open. All the Bloodname houses maintain a list of individuals deemed worthy of competing. The process for selecting and filling positions is arcane and difficult to explain, but consists mainly of nominations by the other Bloodnamed members of the House. They choose their candidates based on performance of duties, scores in testing, and reputation. Though Vlad's performance in the invasion, including your capture, has certainly enhanced his standing, you have attracted enough attention to make it possible to make the list as well. Remember, with the youth bias, burning bright and fast is a big advantage."

"Is making the nomination list the only way to be considered for a Bloodname, Quiaff?"

Both women exchanged glances. "Neg," Cyrilla answered. "Because politics has a way of excluding the worthy at times, there is a provision that at least one candidate in each Bloodname contest be selected through a series of grueling and often deadly combats. Though many have won their way onto the list in that manner, they often get so torn up during the preliminaries that they cannot perform well in the actual contest."

Phelan chewed his lower lip. "With so many Clansfolk considering me an inferior, my only chance of making the list is probably through the preliminary battling. But giving any consideration to that is folly, Quiaff?I have not even been accorded full status as a warrior."

Natasha waved away those concerns. "I'll have you up to speed in that department quickly enough. Just remember that Vlad hates and fears you not only because you threaten his chance at a Blopdname, but also because of what you did to him on the Rock. You outsmarted him in combat. Had your 'Mech been the equal of his, your tactics and daring could have killed him. You are the only Ward that Vlad is not certain he can destroy. Be careful he does not find a way to kill you beforeyou two ever meet in a Bloodname contest."

Soft ringing tones echoed throughout the ship. Cyrilla smiled as the jump-warning sounds faded away. She stood and quickly punched a button that raised a window in the hull. Returning to her seat, she joined the others digging behind their seat cushions for the restraining straps. Once buckled in, she turned her chair to face the porthole.

A set of five tones sounded, then the Dire WolfsKearny-Fuchida drive engaged, warping the space around the JumpShip. At that moment, Phelan felt as though the universe had folded in on itself a thousand times, smashing him down and compacting him into the space of an atom. The light from the stars outside the window expanded until it was as white as a viewport into a blizzard.

Just as suddenly, the universe unfolded again like a huge origami flower. The disk of white filling the viewport fragmented into countless small star dots, and Phelan rubbed his eyes to erase the afterimage. In the space of a heartbeat, the Dire Wolfhad hurled itself more than thirty light years away from the realm he had once called home.

Cyrilla punched the release button on her restraints and stood framed in the viewport. She smiled, then turned to point toward the blue-green ball striated with white that showed through the window.

"Here we are, Phelan. Welcome to Strana Mechty. Welcome to your new home."

3

Wolf's Dragoons General Headquarters, Outreach

Sarna March, Federated Commonwealth

5 February 3051

 

In a headlong sprint, Hanse Davion dashed from behind a boulder to the ruined wall of an out-building, then threw himself forward in a long, rolling dive as yet another target popped up. Twisting into a squat .ball, he planted his right foot and tried to turn back toward the mannequin, but the loose gravel gave way and sent him sprawling flat on his face. Dammit, I'm getting too old for this nonsense,he cursed inwardly. Spitting out rust-colored dirt, he flopped over onto his back as a series of laser bolts lanced through the air above him.

Hanse jerked the trigger on his laser rifle, returning the mannequin's fire. The ruby darts from his weapon ripped a bar sinister across the target, but not before it adjusted and tracked him. He felt the searing heat of three bolts as they stitched a track down his right flank and leg. Immediately his leg stiffened, locked in a mechanical rictus because of the bulky exoskeleton he wore.

"Justin, I'm hit!"

Without waiting for a reply from his partner in the run through the Dragoons' live-fire range, Hanse dragged himself behind the wall he'd originally sought and levered himself up to his feet. He put all his weight on his left leg and let the rifle dangle from its pistol-grip in his right hand. "I'm mobile, but in name only." He forced a chuckle into his voice. "My kingdom for a horse!"

Hanse marveled at how easily and fluidly Justin Xiang Allard moved from point to point as he crossed to the Prince's position. Still possessed of the litheness and strength of youth though he was close to Hanse's age, the Secretary of the Federated Commonwealth's Ministry of Intelligence molded his body to the available cover and gave the targeting mannequins no opportunity to track him.

Justin glanced at Hanse. "I've got one at two o'clock from your position." He measured the distance between them carefully. "Cover me and I think I can nail it when I'm halfway home."

Hanse nodded and shoved the snout of his rifle around the edge of the wall. With his first bolt, the mannequin oriented toward him and brought its rifle to bear. Hanse clipped off two more shots, both of which passed over the target's head, then he saw Justin's shots burn a triangular grouping just above the robot's midsection.

"Hanse, down!"

Spinning back away from the edge of the wall, Hanse saw another mannequin rise from the ground to his right. Even as he brought his own rifle around and awkwardly pivoted on his locked right leg, he realized he was blocking Justin's line-of-sight to the target. As the mannequin's rifle centered itself on his chest, Davion also knew that he'd never get off a shot in time to prevent getting killed.

When three laser bolts suddenly blasted into the side of the robot's head, the mannequin's laser rifle drooped to the ground without firing a shot. Hanse, heart pounding in his ears, sagged back against the adobe wall and closed his eyes. Rivulets of sweat plowed through the layer of red dust on his face and neck. That's closer than I ever want to come again.

"Are you all right, Highness?"

Hanse opened his eyes and saw the concern on Justin Allard's face. "I'll survive. I'm just tired. That was fancy shooting."

Justin jerked his head toward the target as two other men walked around the corner. "Thank them, not me."

One of the approaching men, small and silver-haired, smiled wryly. "My shots missed. You have the Kanrei to thank for saving you."

Taller and more slender, Theodore Kurita barely acknowledged the mention of his title. He surveyed the surrounding area, his tension betrayed only by a vein pulsing in his forehead. It paralleled an old scar that ran from mid-forehead down into his left eyebrow.

I know that look,Hanse thought. It's the warrior's edge. For him, this is no game.Letting everyone see that the exo-skeleton had locked up to simulate his wound, Davion took two halting steps forward. Shifting his rifle from right hand to left, he offered Theodore his hand. "Thank you. Your skill is most impressive, Kanrei."

The Prince of the Federated Suns half-expected Theodore to snub him, but the Kurita Warlord accepted his hand and shook it firmly. "Perhaps my skill with a rifle is impressive, but my sense of direction is not." He glanced back at his partner. "I fear Prince Magnusson and I are lost. If we had not gotten off our side of the course, I never would have seen your target."

Before anyone could comment, a hiss of static from the communications devices both Justin and Haakon Magnusson wore presaged a message from the Rangemaster. "Range Control here. Time limit's up, gentlemen. Your run is over. Please remove the power packs from your rifles. We'll pick you up a klick out on a heading of oh-four-five degrees."

Justin hit the talk button on his radio. "Roger, one kilometer at oh-four-five degrees. ETA one-half hour. One of us got hit."

"Limp in whenever. We'll wait. Range Control out."

Theodore popped the clip from his rifle and slid it into the open slot on his belt. "I do not believe I have ever found an exercise that so accurately recreates combat conditions."

Magnusson agreed. "Our rifles may have been powered down, as were those of the mannequins, but not by much. I touched a spot where a shot had gone awry and it was still hot."

Hanse slapped a hand against his ribs. "Where I got hit feels like a nasty sunburn. I assume the Dragoons wanted to impress us with the gravity of the current situation."

"A wise approach," Theodore said quietly. "Some among our peers seem not to fully comprehend the danger the Clans present to the Inner Sphere."

Hanse stopped. "Do you refer to Lady Romano, or is your comment directed at me?" He asked the question without recrimination, but Magnusson looked as though Hanse had deliberately insulted Theodore. The Warlord of the Draconis Combine, on the other hand, seemed to weigh his words carefully before speaking.

"May I speak frankly with you, Prince Davion?"

"I would prefer it, Kanrei." Hanse hobbled toward a wind-sculpted rock to lean wearily against it. "What is on your mind?"

Theodore drew in a deep breath. "What concerns me is fighting a two-front war. Both of us know, from our own sources as well as from briefings Jaime Wolf has provided, that the Clans have hit the Draconis Combine as hard as they have hit the Lyran portion of your realm." In deference to Magnusson, Theodore bowed his head in the other man's direction. "Of course, neither of us have lost as much as the Free Rasalhague Republic, but we have been hurt.

"I fought against your surrogate twenty years ago and I tasted my share of defeat as well as savoring a few minor victories." The Kanrei slung his rifle over his shoulder by the strap. "Ten years ago, I battled you directly. In each contest, I have found you more than capable, and if not for a trick or two that you did not anticipate, I might have been left with utter defeats instead of the stand-offs I obtained."

Hanse's blue eyes narrowed. "You underestimate what you have done. After the Fourth Succession War, you rebuilt the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery into a force with more flexibility and bite than ever before. In ten short years, you turned it from a military I could have shattered easily into a force I could not destroy. Your drive into my territory in the '39 war forced me to divert my second wave in order to counter your thrusts into the Draconis March. It was a bold strategy that worked."

"It was a gamble." Theodore smiled warily. "A bluff that you could have called. Had you pressed me, you could have cut off my troops from their supply lines and poured straight into the Combine."

"But, Prince Kurita, it was a bluff I could not call." Hanse looked over at Justin. "As my esteemed colleague can confirm, our intelligence reports did not indicate how thinly you had stretched your troops. You had new units with new tactics and new 'Mechs that we did not anticipate. Conquering some worlds in the Combine allowed me to put a victorious public face on the whole enterprise, but we all know how close to a disaster it truly was."

Theodore bowed his head before the compliment in Hanse's words. "That, however, is not the situation now. Your Intelligence Ministry has been most successful in boring new holes into my command structure. You now have the intelligence you need to see what I have where. Deny it if you will, but I cannot afford the luxury of believing you.

"And that, Prince Davion, is what concerns me. When I leaked word that my son was being posted to Turtle Bay, and you responded by posting your son Victor to Trellwan, I had hoped we were silently agreed to let the next war fall to our heirs. I did not imagine a threat like the clans appearing, but it does make our squabbling over a throne vacant for three hundred years look quite foolish."

Hanse nodded in agreement. "I did post my son to Trellwan in reply to your gesture. I also agree that the Clans are the greatest threat our states have ever faced, individually or collectively." Hanse heaved himself away from the rock and began walking toward the rendezvous point. "United we stand, or divided we fall."

Theodore fell into step with Hanse, and the other two men flanked them as they marched down the dusty trail. It wound slowly down out of the broad canyon that housed the live-fire range and skirted the edge of a dry riverbed. The air was clear as far as the eye could see, and the bright sunlight deepened the red of the rocky landscape.

"I had assumed you would be of that opinion, Prince Davion, but I am advised against acting upon that assumption. On one hand, you stripped troops away from the Dieron district and sent them to the front with the Clans at the same time as I did. This I took as our agreement that the Clans must be stopped, but it also provided you with an opening you could have exploited hideously. My advisors caution me that when you struck at us in 3039 it was because you assumed us to be weak. They believe you are an unscrupulous man who waits to take advantage of us."

Hanse brought his head up. "Do you want my word that I will not send troops into the Combine while the Clans exist as a threat? And would you trust me if I did?"

For a long moment, Theodore said nothing. The only sounds were the whispering desert breeze and the crunch of gravel underfoot. "Would I be wise to trust a man who is also known as the Fox?" Theodore asked rhetorically, then shook his head. "What I can trust, however, is that the Fox is not so foolish as to weaken himself by launching an offensive against a lesser enemy while the Clans threaten the very survival of the Inner Sphere. If nothing else, I have to believe that you will allow the Clans to grind my troops down to give you less to fight when you come for us."

Theodore opened both of his hands. "And that is the thing of it, Hanse. I have no choice but to devote all my resources, if need be, to defend my father's realm from the Clans. Were I speaking with Morgan Hasek-Davion and he and I were to strike a non-aggression pact, I could trust him to uphold his part of the bargain. With you, I must trust that you are too smart to repudiate it."

You know me well, Theodore. Perhaps too well."I may be an old dog, Theodore, but I am capable of learning new tricks. I admit that my soul has at times ached for a chance to destroy the Combine. Your father and I are old foes, and our rivalry colors the relationship between our two Houses ..."

Theodore stopped in his tracks, bringing the other three to a halt around him. "Understand this, Hanse Davion, my father is still the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine. From him, from Luthien, will come opposition to anything you do. They will call you a treacherous dog, and castigate me for entering into a pact with the devil. That, however, is rhetoric. My father will never willfully interfere with defending the Combine from the Clans. So I ask you not to listen to the sound of the Dragon's voice. Rather, you must watch his claws."

Hanse smiled slightly. "I understand," he said, offering Theodore his hand. "I pledge to a non-aggression pact between our realms for the duration of the Clan threat, provided you agree to the same and will not assist your Kapteyn partners in aggression against me. I'll not have you descending on me if I decide Romano Liao needs to be punished for her foolishness."

Theodore met Hanse's grip firmly. "Well-spoken. Had you not included that caveat, I could never have agreed to the deal, for I would surely have believed you mad. I pledge that your state is safe from my armies as long as the Clans remain a threat to the Inner Sphere."

The Dragoons' helicopter raised a cloud of dust some 500 meters down the trail as it went to ground in a cleared landing zone. The Rangemaster dismounted from the craft, but did not head out to meet the quartet as they came in. "Must be that this hike is the last part of our training," Magnusson offered jokingly.

Without warning, another target mannequin snapped upright in the riverbed. Hanse stabbed his rifle at the target and tightened his finger on the trigger. Nothing happened. Damn! No power pack!