Текст книги "Bloodname"

Автор книги: Роберт Торстон

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5

When the Wolf Clan aerofighters went after the DropShip, Joanna was manning a medium pulse laser in a gunnery blister on the ship's port side. While reclining on the control station couch, she could fire more than two hundred rapid bursts of coherent light with a simple squeeze of the joystick's trigger.

She awaited the appearance of an aerofighter against which to turn this weapon, one she had fired often enough in target practice but never in actual air combat. This would, in fact, be the first time she had participated in combat not set firmly on the ground. A real challenge, but then again, how hard could it be? Probably no different than directing autocannon fire from within a 'Mech cockpit, she thought, although the physical handling of the weapon itself would be a new sensation.

Joanna had volunteered to be a gunner when the young DropShip captain announced that a trio of his regular military complement were down with a virulent flu picked up at their last delivery. He thanked her profusely in his pleasantly boyish way, but truth to tell, Joanna believed the captain had done her a favor. The worst possibility, from her point of view, would have been to endure the battle from inside the ship, listening to the rumble of its weapons and feeling the hits from the other side. If she could not get planetside in time to participate in this battle, at least she could do some damage here.

Behind her, she heard a polite cough.

"Nomad, what are you doing here?"

"You forgot lunch. I brought you something to eat."

Joanna laughed. Her laughter, as always, was so raucous as to sound insulting to anyone not used to it. Nomad was definitely that, having been the butt of it so often that his day seemed off-center if Joanna did not laugh at him once. He would never have told her, but he believed his sarcasm and her scorn kept them both performing at peak efficiency. He could not prove it, of course, but he, unlike most techs or warriors, was a bit of a mystic. So long as no one caught him at it, the mysticism served him well.

"I am not very hungry."

"But you willeat."

"You are such a tyrant, Nomad. I can no longer stand you. Will you please tender me a request for transfer?"

"No. The galley here is not well-stocked, but I managed to get you some tinned meat and a salad. Salad is pretty tasty, made with some leaves from—"

"I hate knowing the origins of food. Just give it to me and go."

It was obvious Nomad had no intention of leaving. He stayed behind her, looking over her shoulder, making sure she ate. Joanna had been known to hide food rather than consume it, and he made it his job to see that did not happen.

Noticing that the meat had an orange tinge and the salad greens looked dirty, Joanna closed her eyes with each forkful she raised to her mouth. At no point in her career had she ever found any type of military ration to be more than minimally palatable.

She was grateful to put the meal aside when the gunnery officer announced that aerofighters had been detected. In a moment she saw them herself. Five of them were heading for her side of the DropShip, while others were attacking the other side and the rear.

Leveling her weapon, she squeezed the trigger. Streams of coherent light stretched out from her blister toward the closest aerofighter, but her aim was off and the beams dissipated at a point past the attackers. Behind her, Nomad's disappointed sigh was audible. She wanted to scream at him to get out, but there was no time. The nearest aircraft was zeroing in on her, making a beeline for her blister.

She went berserk, firing burst after burst, so many that she could not maintain a fix on the enemy. At her feet, monitors displayed specific positions and other data, but she was not used to DropShip equipment and preferred to rely on her own gifts for using weaponry.

The missile salvo that the aerofighter launched might have destroyed the gunnery blister and Joanna and Nomad along with it, but the DropShip pilot employed an evasive maneuver dictated by a computer examination of the aerofighter attack. As the ship tilted just enough, the missile struck below the blister. The hit rocked the ship, however, knocking Joanna back against the blister's rear wall.

"I knew I should have strapped myself in, Nomad. Nomad?"

Looking back, she saw that Nomad was peacefully unconscious against the hatchway. Damn! If she needed to make a quick exit, she would have to drag him out of the way.

She had no more time to worry about Nomad as an obstacle. The attack continued, and another aerofighter came within Joanna's sights. This time she steadied herself and squeezed off a short burst, then another. The shots hit the cockpit of the craft. She thought she saw its pilot rock backward, his gloved hands over his face before the craft veered out of control, its momentum sending it directly at the DropShip. Joanna kept firing, cursing with each pull of the trigger, knocking large chunks off the ship's armor.

For a moment it looked like the fighter might disintegrate before hitting the DropShip, but then Joanna saw the pilot, his hands now away from his bloody face, clutch the controls of his ship again. He was aiming the craft's nose directly at the DropShip—and straight for Joanna.

She kept shooting, and the fighter kept coming. When the laser suddenly overheated, she reached instinctively, flinging herself backward, against Nomad and the hatchway. The fighter seem to enlarge in front of the blister, but at the last minute, it disappeared.

Joanna had no chance to relax or be relieved, for the next moment the DropShip was rocked by the impact of the fighter's collision. When her head banged against a side wall, everything went black for a moment.

Joanna did not know how long she was out, but when she recovered, the DropShip was shaking with the impact of missile and laser fire. On the commline, the gunnery officer was screaming orders that went unheeded.

"Nomad! Nomad!"

He murmured a response and seemed to be struggling to open his eyes. "Wake up! I need you."

The words sounded strange in her mouth. Joanna had never said she needed anybody for anything.

She slapped his face, and Nomad's eyes sprang open. He shook his head.

"What happened?"

"You were knocked out, that is what happened. The ship is losing this dogfight, I can feel it. Listen to the gunnery officer. He is frantic. We have to get out of here, get to our people, our 'Mechs. We—"

More direct hits nearby. Any minute one good shot might make the blister fly off, leaving her and Nomad to be sucked out into the void as instant corpses.

"What . . . what should we do now?" Nomad said.

"First, get your behind off the floor so we can open the hatch. There is no point staying here. The gun is ruined and we have already almost been turned into debris once. We are going to the 'Mech bay. My orders to the command were to station themselves there, ready for an atmospheric drop if necessary."

The race through the DropShip to the 'Mech bay was not easy. Each direct hit knocked either Joanna or Nomad, and sometimes both, against walls or hurled them to the floor. Other ship personnel were hurled against them as dull blasts reverberated into the bowels of the ship. At one point, the ship's lighting failed for a minute and a half, and they had to grope around in the dark, feeling the sides of the walls, using the stumble-bars to propel themselves forward. Once Joanna glanced back and saw the unmistakable glow of a fire far down the corridor.

In the bay were the techs of the Trinary, working quickly and efficiently to prepare their charges for an atmospheric drop. A cocoon of ablative ceramic surrounded each of the Trinary's fifteen BattleMechs. As the 'Mech bay was in the center of the ship, it had taken very little damage. Even better, Joanna saw that the bay doors were still functioning.

Joanna ran to the bay-door controls and pushed the naval rating away from them. She slammed the override, and began the launch sequence that would fire her Trinary into the atmosphere of Glory.

She turned to rush to her BattleMech before it was ejected from the doomed DropShip, when a massive explosion knocked her and most of the others to the floor. The lights went out again and she felt debris falling around her.

She tried to get up, but was merely knocked down again. But this time it was not a piece of the ship that held her on the floor. It was a person.

"What is going on?" she said in a muffled voice.

"The ship is out of control," Nomad yelled. He was the one on top of her. He had placed his body over hers. The damn fool, he was protecting her. How stupid could he be?

She did not have time to explore the absurdity of Nomad's behavior as the DropShip seemed to disintegrate around, below, and above her. She passed out.

* * *

In their control room, Radick and Ward watched the incredible success of their aerofighters against the Jade Falcon DropShip.

"Seyla," Radick whispered as he watched the DropShip hurtle toward the planet Glory. Ward wondered why Radick thought the ritual word applied here. Just what was the man responding to? Perhaps it was simply awe at the sheer success of his strategy. Radick was egotistical enough to interpret the event that way.

Radick glanced up at Ward. "That should put Kael Pershaw at a severe disadvantage. One lost DropShip containing a full Trinary of the forces he bid. We have a marvelous advantage with just one brilliant maneuver, quiaff?"

Ward hated agreeing with the man, but what he said was true. It had been a masterstroke, as he had originally termed it.

Radick chuckled with pleasure as the monitor screen registered the faraway fire and smoke of the Drop-Ship's crash on Glory.

"A marvelous advantage," he shouted gleefully.

6

"Star Commander Jorge, you wear the dark band, quiaff?"

"Aff." Aidan was aware of the other officers staring at him with contempt in their eyes. The spot where Bast's picture lay on the dark band seemed to burn into his skin.

"As a wearer of the dark band, you are allowed to speak only if addressed. You may not volunteer a comment or ask a question. That is understood, quiaff?"Knowing that Kael Pershaw was demanding an answer now, Aidan stubbornly remained silent. "Respond, Jorge!"

"Aff, it is understood."

"Good. Your question can therefore not be answered unless one of your colleagues would care to ask it. Warriors?"

No one cared to provoke the Star Colonel further, and so the group kept its silence. Aidan had asked if his freeborn contingent might have the honor of taking point position for the first engagement with the enemy. He knew that Pershaw would never allow a freeborn unit to precede his trueborns in formation, and so the request was a deliberate, if unpunishable, insult. The question was similar to what was called a negative bid. He had wanted to assert the worth of his forces, despite knowing that others held them in low esteem. His own warriors would know about the offer, and would have even more confidence in their commander because of it.

Though Clan warriors rarely lost confidence, a palpable gloom pervaded the room. Kael Pershaw's news that Clan Wolf had effectively wiped out a significant portion of their forces even before engaging in battle on Glory Plain did not inspire the usual pre-battle enthusiasm. Several in the group continued to stare at Aidan, who now felt a discomfiting heat flush his skin. This caused him even more shame than wearing the dark band.

After Kael Pershaw had announced a general dismissal and the warriors were filing out of the briefing chamber, the commander shouted, "Star Commander Jorge, you will remain."

When the room was empty, Kael Pershaw nodded toward a chair and said with his best menacing quietness, "Sit."

When Aidan hesitated, the base commander shoved him roughly toward the chair. The move came as such a surprise that Aidan nearly fell flat on his face. Recovering his balance and hearing Kael Pershaw again order him to sit, he obeyed. It would have been a foolish defiance to remain standing and allow the base commander to knock him around the room without any possibility of hitting the bastard back.

Kael Pershaw himself sat on the edge of the conference table, the position allowing him to look down on Aidan from a dominant position. This was the kind of kinesic strategy for which Kael Pershaw was famous.

"Your unit will not be engaged in combat this time." He stared at Aidan, savoring the suspicion that the words angered his subordinate. Aidan was careful to keep his face calm and unreadable. "I have another mission for you," Kael Pershaw said.

Although Aidan would give no physical sign of his discomfort, he had to firmly resist squirming in his chair. Pershaw's assigning him another mission, especially when he was undermanned already, merely signified how low was the prestige of freeborns at Glory Station.

"But, sir, with all respect, your forces are already weakened too—"

Pershaw took a despairing breath before saying in a voice that would not have been heard a few steps away, "I will assume you are simply not accustomed to the dark band. A freeborn normally does not complain to his superior without permission, but the wearer of the band knows he must never complain while under the shame of the band. However, I will obliquely respond to your apparent protest. Of course, I will do anything to win a battle, but I tell you, in truth, that I would rather send a single Star against a Trinary of Dwillt Radick's than commit any freebirths to the field. You understand, freebirth? You are a freebirth, are you not?"

Pershaw's soft voice emphasized the word "freebirth" just slightly each time he used it. He wished to compound the insult by setting the word off from the rest of his speech. It was all Aidan could do to keep from revealing the truth. What kept him back was the thought that if he was ever to tell anyone of his true birth and face the dire consequences of the admission, it would have to be to someone other than this vile example of humanity, this Kael Pershaw.

As his hatred of Kael Pershaw seemed to expand inside his body, Aidan realized how unClanlike, how unlike a warrior, he had become. Warriors often resented one another or disagreed with each other's actions, but hatred was rare. Warriors of the Clan detached themselves from petty feelings, knowing that such trivial sentiments could hamper battle efficiency. Pride was collective at every unit level in the chain of command, and any single hatred damaged the unity bolstered by that pride. In warrior training, cadets were trained to block any feelings of hatred. If bad blood did erupt among warriors, conflicts were resolved in such arenas as the Circle of Equals. The combatants who survived were encouraged to perform surkai,the rite of forgiveness, to purge any possible remaining negative feelings.

But Aidan had never been content with surkai.Even as a cadet, he had known hatred. He had hated his training officer, Falconer Joanna. Should she appear in front of him right this moment, he would have more the urge to strangle her than welcome her. But he would have been most content with his hands around the neck of another officer from his cadet days. That person was Falconer Commander Ter Roshak, the man whom, ironically, he could thank for the fact he was a warrior at all. Roshak had given Aidan a second chance to test as a warrior after the cadet had failed his first Trial of Decision. Unfortunately, Ter Roshak had also arranged the murder of a unit of freeborn cadets to accomplish this extraordinary act. Then he had forced Aidan to assume the identity of one of the unit's cadets in order to qualify as a warrior. The cadet, a freeborn named Jorge, had apparently been a superior trainee, one who might, no doubt, have done well in the Trial. So, Aidan had Roshak's treachery to thank for his present tainted warrior status. The murders, the taint, the fact that he had let it happen—all this made Aidan hate Roshak more than he could ever hate Pershaw or Joanna, more even than he could hate an enemy on a battlefield, a serious flaw for a committed Clan warrior.

To admit his true identity would doubtless ruin him as a warrior, but would also bring Roshak down with him. However, Aidan did not think seeing Roshak shamed and executed was enough to risk his own execution. The least punishment he could expect was a demotion in caste. He had been a tech temporarily after failing his original trial and before assuming his new identity, and he knew he could never return to that level of Clan society. That, too, was not warriorlike. The way of the Clan was for each member to take satisfaction from whatever duty he or she performed for the good of all. There was no room for dissatisfaction. And, in truth, very few Clanspeople were unhappy with their lot. Aidan thought he must have been cursed by some mysterious fate, yet even that was not of the Clan. He had learned the concept only from his clandestine readings. That fate had made him reflective, congenitally restless, and—its last probable irony—a counterfeit freeborn. A freebirth,as Pershaw constantly reiterated.

Sometimes Aidan wondered if his private fate, ever guiding his life down fruitless paths, had performed one of those mythological miracles he had read about. In one story a sculptor had created a statue of a woman, and it had come to life. For Aidan, it was as though the skilled hands of his private fate had sculpted him into a freeborn. Perhaps he wasa freeborn now and could never be a trueborn again, as if he had come to life in the wrong caste and would become a statue if he tried to return to the other.

The trouble was that he now thought more and more like a freeborn. He had been with frees for so long that he had come to admire them, particularly their ability to fight well despite the contempt the trueborns always rained on them after the battle. Their attention to their own skills, their own efficiencies in guiding a BattleMech, could at times be phenomenal. But the only credit they ever got for doing well, even better than some trueborns, was some carelessly written words in a worthless commendation. For consolation, they had the camaraderie among themselves, which Aidan had come to enjoy. Freeborns were not as stiff and distant as the truebirth warriors. The Clans also turned a blinder eye on the drinking habits of freeborns and on their having their way with village women more frequently than the role-obsessed trueborns ever could.

* * *

Kael Pershaw had been staring at him for some time, his face placid, his body relaxed. Everyone in his command knew that such apparent contentment was something to fear, although Aidan refused to fear the base commander.

"Believe me, Jorge," he said finally. "I would like nothing more than to kill you in the Circle of Equals if we were not so undermanned at Glory Station that any warrior's death is shockingly wasteful. I suspect Clan Wolf had good intelligence about our situation even before the batchall.But I will not allow them to have my genetic legacy. And that is why your mission is essential. If I could entrust the task to a trueborn unit, I would, but we are already stretched too thin. Your Star must do it."

Of course, Aidan thought. If it was the worst task available, give it to the freeborns. This mission, which his Star mustdo, was undoubtedly the equivalent of cleaning the Cave, the warrior name for lavatory.

"As you know," Pershaw continued, "a DropShip containing the Trinary to be rotated here was attacked and shot down by Clan Wolf aerofighters. What I did not mention in the briefing is that we know approximately where it fell. Air surveillance has indicated at least some survivors and the possibility of some intact BattleMechs, but there has been no communication from the DropShip. The surveillance report may be in error and perhaps no survivors exist, or it may just be that all communications equipment was knocked out in the crash. You and your Star will travel to the crash site in your 'Mechs, investigate, and give help where needed. But the most important facet of the entire mission is to bring out any warriors and any functioning 'Mechs, taking them to Glory Station for integration into combat. It is a simple mission, one even freebirthscan perform. I am sure you would agree, quiaff?You may respond, Star Commander Jorge. Here alone, between us, with battle conditions imminent, you may speak without awaiting my authorization."

"There is not anything to say. Simple as we are, my Star can fulfill mission orders."

Was it Aidan's mistaken perception, or did Pershaw's eyebrows rise just slightly? They may have, for he said, "Your skill at nearly imperceptible sarcasm occasionally impresses me, Star Commander Jorge. I take it then that you have no questions about your orders?"

"I wish to know only the necessary details. There is no difficulty with that, quineg ?"

"Neg. Anything else?"

"May I stand?"

"Of course."

Pershaw managed to stand before Aidan did. He also went around to the rear of his desk, another tactic. Because Aidan was the taller of the two men, it might have made Pershaw severely uncomfortable to stand close and look up at his subordinate, his very inferior officer. Before this meeting, Aidan had known that Pershaw despised freeborns. However, it was not until now that he knew how deep went the antipathy. In an odd way, he almost admired Pershaw more. The man was capable of hatred, just like Aidan. They shared, in spite of their differences, a human trait.

Pershaw laid out a map of Glory Station and surrounding territory on his desktop, then leaned over it. "The crash occurred just about here." He put his stubby forefinger on a point just to the other side of Blood Swamp. Between the swamp and the crash site was some pretty rough terrain, Aidan knew.

"It will take a long time going around the swamp," Aidan observed.

"Yes. If you were to go around the swamp. We do not have time for that. Operations has mapped out a route throughthe swamp."

Pershaw looked up at him. Aidan knew the man wanted him to protest, but he would not give Pershaw that satisfaction. He merely nodded.

"After the swamp, there will be some tough going in the jungle, but we will install hand units in place of arm-mounted weapons on some of your 'Mechs. This should allow you to break through any heavy jungle growth. The hand activators should also be of service if any of the Guard 'Mechs must be cut loose. That is satisfactory, quiaff?"

"Neg. I would rather have the weapons and then take our chances."

Pershaw muttered, so faintly he could barely be heard, "Typical freebirth cowardice."

"It is notcowardice. There may be skirmishes, there—"

"Do you think the Wolves will be interested in your little diversion? I doubt that. I will signal to them that you are a freebirth unit, and they will know that you are on a garbage patrol."

"If I may contradict, once they see our destination, they may try to stop us."

"And you are Jade Falcon warriors, who can fight any attacker with whatever firepower you have, quiaff?"

Pershaw had him there. It was a clear-cut victory of argumentation that left Aidan powerless. The man was, after all, the highest-ranking officer at Glory Station. He should be expected to win arguments. Knowing that did not make Aidan feel better, but again he felt a certain admiration for the hated commander. Not only that, he was quite right and Aidan should have seen it. A warrior was continually proving himself or herself as a warrior, and the higher the odds against him, the more valuable the triumph.

After some further data provided by Pershaw, Aidan asked, "Did surveillance indicate specific numbers of survivors?"

"No. But the pilot thought she saw some movement. There was a light mist, and the apparent survivors may have been no more than shadows. The mist is thicker now, and surveillance can detect nothing."

"What is the nature of the military force?"

"A Trinary, with the appropriate 'Mechs, some support personnel, supplies, the usual. I am told the Trinary's Star Captain is an especially skilled officer. She is fresh from a challenge on Dagda. She led the assault contingent, which broke the Ghost Bear line. Her name is Star Captain Joanna. No Bloodname yet, twenty-eight years old, so she is getting on in age for a warrior. But we are not here to discuss her bloodlines, quiaff?"

"Aff."

Aidan was happy that Kael Pershaw was so intent on the briefing that he had not noticed the look of surprise that must have glimmered briefly in his eyes. Joanna! Not only was this mission cursed from the start, not only did it require traversing the cursed Blood Swamp, not only was his unit diminished in weaponry, not only was the objective at the end of impossible terrain, but the objective itself was Joanna. And if Star Captain Joanna was not Aidan's own curse, then nobody was. He would rather have gone barefoot across a field of poisonous snakes, carrying burning sticks in his arms, with a cloud of methane gas settling around his head, than have to see Joanna again.