Twilight of the clans III: the hunters

by Thomas S. Gressman

  1600 hours

  From her place on the reviewing stand, General Ariana Winston watched the latest crop of Eridani Light Horse cadets march by in proud display, their uniforms highlighted by the gleam of the late afternoon sun. She couldn't help but smile in satisfaction. It was good to be back on Kikuyu and the Light Horse training base at Fort Telemar. It was also good to know that the Light Horse was almost up to its full strength of three combat regiments after the devastating losses on Coventry. It was hard to believe how much had happened since then.

  Winston hadn't returned directly to Fort Telemar after Coventry, but had been summoned to Tharkad by Archon Katrina Steiner. There, the leaders of the Inner Sphere had gathered for the Whitting Conference, the first big summit since Outreach. Winston had arrived home only yesterday, and was pleased that her arrival coincided with the graduation ceremony. She'd come with big news, though no one else knew it yet. Watching the fresh, young faces parade past, it suddenly seemed to her that the long and proud history of the Eridani Light Horse had all been leading up to this day, this moment.

  When Aleksandr Kerensky vanished from the Inner Sphere centuries before, taking most of the Star League Defense Force with him, the Light Horse regiments had remained behind. But they had never forgotten their Star League roots or their belief that one day the Star League would rise from the ashes. The unit was steeped in its illustrious history, had even added the black border to their banner as a symbol of mourning for the exodus of General Kerensky. Every Light Horse trooper dreamed of the day when he or she might, with pride, don the uniform of the SLDF. And now a new Star League Defense Force was being mustered. They were going to take the war to the Clans and drive them from the Inner Sphere forever.

  It was, for Ariana Winston, a source of special pride that Marshal Morgan Hasek-Davion had selected her as his second in command of a secret task force that would strike directly into the heart of the Clans—at Huntress, homeworld of the Smoke Jaguars. It would be a difficult and dangerous undertaking, but if anyone could pull it off, it was Morgan. He was as legendary for his exploits on the field as for his expertise at the highest levels of command. He'd also been the Light Horse's high commander during the Clan War, and Winston couldn't wait to serve alongside him again.

  As the Light Horse standard, a prancing black horse against a gold background, passed the reviewing stand, she and the dozen other officers crowding the small platform snapped to attention. Almost as one, they brought up their right hands, palms outward, saluting the flag they and their families had followed for more than three hundred years. The banner carrier repaid the honor by dipping the flag. The flag staff was liberally hung with colored ribbons, each denoting a battle or campaign in which the Light Horse had played a part. Most of the battle honors were brightly colored, but a few, like the one commemorating the massacre of Sendai, were made of somber black silk.

  The most recent addition to the battle honors read "Coventry," the single word sending a brief chill along Winston's spine. Merely seeing the name of that blood-soaked planet was enough to bring back memories of the close-quarters, no-mercy fighting. Coventry marked the first real cooperative military effort on the part of the Successor States in nearly three hundred years. In that campaign, an expeditionary force, drawn from the militaries of each of the Great Houses, had banded together to halt the Jade Falcons' relentless drive into the Lyran Alliance.

  The regimental band closed the formalities with a heartfelt rendering of the old Star League anthem. As Winston lowered her hand from the final salute, she felt an odd warming in her heart. Though the Light Horse had gone mercenary in the centuries since the Exodus, she was proud that the unit had never lost faith in their dream of the Star League reborn. Hearing the anthem never failed to move her, though today it seemed different somehow. The strains of that old, old song drifting across the parade ground sounded almost mournful, and Winston was suddenly flooded with a sense of doom.

  She quickly shook off the feeling, telling herself it was only fatigue from travel across the stars. She wasn't going to let anything spoil this moment. If asked, she would have been hard put to decide which was a source of greater excitement, the mission itself or the historic decision to unite the Inner Sphere under the banner of the Star League. Taking the war to the Clans was going to be a great day for every man, woman, and child alive, yet the note of sadness in the familiar melody gave her a shiver in spite of the unusual warmth of the afternoon.

  Winston waited for the other officers to leave the platform, then turned to the man who'd stood next to her during the ceremony. "Join me for a drink, Scott? I've got a bottle of forty-year old Northwind whiskey I've been saving for a special occasion."

  "Why, thank you, General," Scott Hinesick replied, executing a short, formal bow. "We do have something to celebrate. For the first time since the Fourth War, the Light Horse is up to full strength." Colonel Scott Hinesick was one of Ariana Winston's oldest friends. He alone knew of her weakness for the whiskey distilled by the transplanted Scotsmen of Northwind. He was also the person who'd done the most to rebuild the Light Horse back up to its three full regiments in the years since the War of 3039.

  Winston followed him down the steps of the podium. Physically, Hinesick was her opposite in nearly every way. She was tall, with a well-muscled, athletic build. Hinesick, on the other hand was a slight, wiry man whose skin was as pale as hers was dark. He stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned to wait for her to join him.

  "You've got something on your mind," he said, a look of concern clouding his features. "And I'm sure it's got something to do with that big pow-wow on Tharkad."

  Winston nodded slowly. Scott Hinesick knew her almost as well as she knew herself. "You don't miss much, Scott. Something wonderful and terrible is about to happen, and you and I are going to see it."

  * * *

  Ariana Winston's office was larger than those of the other Light Horse commanders, but otherwise resembled them in many ways. The walls were paneled in wood veneer and lined with shelves filled with ancient, hardcopy books. Also decorating the walls were memorabilia of Light Horse regiments dating back to Wellington's Light Cavalry regiments of eighteen-century England. A conference table fitted with holographic and flat-screen data displays dominated the additional space.

  One of the few non-military items in the room was the silver picture frame that occupied a place of honor on Winston's cluttered desk. The picture showed a much younger Ariana Winston mugging for the camera with an older gentleman wearing the moon-and-star crest of the Twenty-first Striker Regiment. Despite the fact that his skin was somewhat lighter than the mahogany hue of her own, the family resemblance was unmistakable, as was the love Winston had for her father. Charles Winston had been dead for five years now. The edges of the frame were worn, indicating that she handled the picture often.

  In addition to the heavy wood-veneered desk, plain office chairs, and metal file cabinets, a pair of overstuffed armchairs stood before a stone fireplace. Winston had asked her aide to start a good hot fire, knowing that despite the warming weather, Hinesick's old wounds would be paining him. A training accident in 3039 had cost her friend his right arm. Though the Light Horse had given him the best medical care possible, even providing an advanced prosthetic, his injuries were severe enough to disqualify him from combat duty. Since his skills and hard-won knowledge were too valuable to waste, he was assigned to the training cadre, eventually rising to take command of the training battalion itself. Winston knew that much of the credit for rebuilding the Seventy-first Regiment, which had been virtually destroyed in the 3039 War, went to him.

  An orderly took their heavy gray-green overcoats as they entered, then respectfully withdrew. Winston strode over to an antique wardrobe, out of place next to the modern filing cabinets, and produced a green, three-sided bottle. Scott flashed her a lopsided grin from the fireside chair he'd just taken. He obviously recognized the black and gold label proclaiming the bottle's contents to be Cromar
ty Black, perhaps the finest whiskey produced outside of the Highlands of Scotland.

  After pouring "a wee dram or two" for each of them, Winston settled into the chair facing her old friend.

  The stiffness with which Hinesick reached for his glass, coupled with knowing how much he loved the Light Horse and the traditions it held dear, gave Winston a small stab of pain. She knew she was going to have to tell her oldest and dearest friend that he must remain behind while she went off to war. She took another sip of the rich amber whiskey, trying to delay that inevitable moment.

  "That was a fine bunch of troopers you graduated today," she said. "I saw their test scores. Some of them placed pretty high, better even than some Sanglamore or Nagelring grads. And, after the way the Seventy-first got hammered on Coventry, we're going to need them."

  Scott nodded as he savored the first sip of his Cromarty Black. "Those cadets will go a long way to getting us back up to strength, Ria." Hinesick was one of the few outside of her own family who used the diminutive form of her name. "We're almost back up to our full complement of three combat regiments. And just in time, too. With the way everyone worked together on Coventry, you and I may still live to see the Star League reborn."

  The words gave Winston a start, but Hinesick didn't seem to notice. He was positively beaming at the idea. It wasn't just the Eridani Light Horse who worshipped the memory of the long-gone Star League. For most people of the Inner Sphere, it was a golden age, an era remembered with reverent awe for its legendary peace, prosperity, and technological advancement.

  "Just think," Hinesick said. "Today may be one of the last times we play the Star League anthem as a mere ceremony," Hinesick gestured grandly with his glass. "By the time the next class graduates, we may have a united Inner Sphere."

  "I hope you're right, Scott. I mean, that is the dream of the Light Horse, isn't it?" Winston held her own glass in both hands, and stared into the flames crackling in the fireplace. She knew that in a short while she would be briefing her regimental commanders on the decisions of the Whitting Conference. With them, she would have to be the tough professional soldier. But here and now, in a rare quiet moment, sharing a drink with her best friend in the world, she couldn't help letting some of her very real, very human fears and reservations bleed off.

  "What is it they say, Scott? A great and terrible day? That may be exactly what's coming. You say we're nearly back up to full-strength since the pounding we took on Coventry. On paper, that's true. The Light Horse and the rest of the Coventry Expeditionary Force beat the Jade Falcons at their own game, but we lost nearly a third of our strength doing it. And what if we'd lost? Would the Falcons have pushed on to Tharkad? Would the truce still be intact? No, there's too much in this world that can go sour for me to be quite that optimistic just yet."

  "Old gloomy Ria. It's nice to know you haven't changed," Hinesick teased.

  "Well, I.. ."

  Suddenly, he turned serious.

  "Listen, Ria. You've been cat-footing around here all day, and I know it's got something to do with the big meet on Tharkad, but you don't seem to want to talk about it. Dammit! I'm Light Horse, I've got a right to know."

  "You're wrong, Scott. I do want to talk about it. That's why I invited you up. But first, let's get the other regimental commanders in here too."

  Hinesick got up and went over the visphone.

  "What's this all about, Ria?" he said, hand poised over the buttons.

  "Just get Ed, Sandy, and Charles up here," Winston told him. "I'll explain everything, then."

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Ariana Winston was inviting all her regimental commanders to take seats at the conference table in her office. Joining her and Scott Hinesick were Colonels Charles Antonescu, Edwin Amis, and Sandra Barclay.

  "I know that the rumors have been pretty thick upon the ground every since I got back," Winston began in her characteristically brusque manner. "Well, it's time to set the record straight."

  "We're listening, General," said Antonescu, CO of the elite 151st Light Horse Regiment. A recruit back in 3029, Antonescu had risen up the ranks to his current post in 3050. The ink had barely been dry on the Light Horse contract with Hanse Davion at that time, and Charles had cut his teeth as a regimental commander in the war against the Clans.

  "Good," Winston said crisply. "As you all know, Victor Davion began calling for the Inner Sphere to carry the fight to the Clans almost from the moment the Coventry campaign was over. That's what the Whitting Conference was about. All the heads of state were there, and many of their top military advisors. The way I hear it, it's a miracle any of them ever saw eye to eye, but the fact is they did. What's more, they came up with a plan---a daring plan. And the Eridani Light Horse is a big part of it."

  Her three regimental commanders suddenly sat up straight. Alert, obviously excited by the news. Winston allowed herself a slight smile, remembering her own thrill at hearing it.

  "We're to participate in a special operation task force," she went on. "They're calling it Task Force Serpent. Our entire combat arm will immediately begin preparations to ship out for the world of Defiance in the Federated Commonwealth. We're to be on-site no later than the fifteenth of February 3059. Once there, we will engage in a period of training and integration exercises with other task force units."

  "What other units?" asked Ed Amis, the Twenty-first Striker's commander. He was still holding his unlit cigar. "You trying to be mysterious, General?" The veteran colonels couldn't have been more different. Where Antonescu did everything by the book, Amis was ever the maverick. That hadn't kept him from being an outstanding enough soldier that he'd won command of the Twenty-first during the War of 3039.

  "No, Ed, I'm not trying to be mysterious. This is the biggest thing that's ever come our way. Bigger even than the Clan War. We're going to attack one of the Clans, fighting alongside some of the most elite outfits in the Inner Sphere. Com Guards, Northwind Highlanders, Knights of the Inner Sphere, Lyran Guards, First Kathil Uhlans, St. Ives Lancers, Fourth Drakøns—there'll be thousands of us. A huge fleet, with Morgan Hasek-Davion in command of the whole operation. Morgan's already on Defiance right now."

  "Defiance?" Amis wanted to know. "What's there?"

  "Not much," Winston said. "It's a backwater world that won't attract a lot of attention. But it's also got military support facilities because the FedCom has used it for war games from time to time. Our mission is top-secret, and deploying from so deep in Davion space will help cover our tracks."

  Amis still looked confused. "You said we're going to attack the Clans."

  "That's right. We're going to hit them where it will hurt them most. And for the biggest possible impact, we're going to hit them as a new Star League Defense Force. You've heard by now that the Great House leaders all signed a Star League constitution on Tharkad."

  "We heard about it but we didn't really know what it meant," Antonescu said.

  Winston smiled thinly. "Well, it means a new First Lord, and his name is Sun-Tzu Liao."

  "You're joking," Amis said, but he didn't look like he thought it was funny. He still had not lit his cigar.

  Winston shook her head. "No joke, my friends. The position rotates every three years. We don't know who'll be next."

  "I'll never bow to that jackass, if you'll excuse my French, General."

  "Maybe you won't have to, Ed. Our mission's going to take us beyond the borders of the Inner Sphere. A lot could happen before we get back."

  Antonescu broke in. "Pardon me, General, but I'm still not sure what you're telling us. We're going to be part of a task force of top Inner Sphere units, both House units and mercenaries. But this is supposed to be a new Star League army? And we're going to attack the Clans from the Periphery while Sun-Tzu Liao takes over as new boss of the Star League?"

  "That's about the size of it, Charles, except for the location of our target. We're going beyond the Periphery for this one."

  Amis let out a low whistl
e as Winston turned to the most junior of the Light Horse commanders. "You've been awful quiet, Sandy."

  Colonel Sandra Barclay, commander of the recently rebuilt Seventy-first Light Horse Regiment, shook her head. "Me? I'm still the new kid in town. I just follow orders," she said, but her smile showed a hint of sadness. Winston had faced considerable opposition from long-time Light Horse officers over her promotion of Major Sandra Barclay to command of the Seventy-first, but the bitter fighting on Coventry had confirmed the rightness of the decision.

  Barclay had performed beyond even Winston's expectations during the Seventy-first's fiercely opposed drop onto Coventry. It wasn't until later, when the Light Horse was trapped with the rest of the Inner Sphere defenders in the besieged town of Lietnerton, that Winston began to notice something eating away at the younger woman. By the time it was all over, much of Barclay's command was shattered almost beyond repair. Barclay seemed to be blaming herself for the losses, even though no one else did. Winston had taken her aside one day. "The first rule of warfare is that young people die, Sandy," she said. "The second rule is that commanders can't change Rule Number One."

  Barclay seemed to accept her counsel at the time, but there was a tightness around her eyes and a grittiness in her voice that told Winston the younger woman would bear watching.

  Ed Amis interrupted her brief reverie, voice full of awe. "We've been waiting all our lives for a new Star League, General."

  Winston nodded. "All our lives, Ed. And the Eridani Light Horse regiments have been dreaming of it for almost three centuries. Nobody can say we didn't keep the faith." She couldn't help but feel that the Light Horse would now be vindicated in its fierce loyalty to tradition and its vow to live to see the Star League reborn.

  "That's it for now," she said. "There's a lot more, but I want to get everyone together for that. Tell your battalion commanders we'll have a full command staff briefing in the conference room at 0800 the day after tomorrow."