Twilight of the clans III: the hunters

by Thomas S. Gressman

  "Bondsman Lennox, reporting as ordered. Star .. . er, Marshal."

  For a moment, Morgan stared uncomprehendingly at his visitor, then he remembered.

  "Ah, yes, ah, Lennox, please come in, sit down." With one hand, Morgan gestured to the chair facing his desk, while with the other, he struggled to button the collar of his uniform tunic. "I did want to see you. Commodore Beresick told me what you did yesterday. It's quite a story."

  "It was my duty, Marshal."

  "Maybe," Morgan said gently. "Maybe. I think it was something more. You saved a man's life, and risked your own doing it. I don't know how it is among the Clans, but in my world, that deserves recognition."

  "No recognition is necessary, Marshal," Lennox answered. "That man is an experienced technician. It would have been wasteful to allow him to die." A flicker crossed the bondsman's eyes. "I understand he will be crippled, quiaff? He will lose his legs?"

  "Looks that way." Morgan saw the sympathy in Lennox's eyes. "Don't worry. The docs will stabilize him, get him fixed up as best they can, and when we get back home, we'll fix him up with the best prostheses we can find.

  "In the meantime, there's something I'd like to do." A small, blue-steel knife gleamed dully in Morgan's hand. "Hold out your right hand."

  Obediently, Lennox stretched out his bondcorded wrist. The short, tanto-style blade sliced cleanly through the thin nylon.

  "I don't know what the words are, if there are any among your Clan," Morgan said, sliding the knife into its hidden sleeve sheath. "You are a bondsman no longer. You're a free man. And I'm transferring you to my personal technical staff."

  At first, Lennox didn't respond. He stared at the severed cords lying on the deck. Rubbing his wrist, he looked across the desk at the tired, smiling man.

  "Marshal, I do not know how to thank you."

  "Just don't let me down, boy. Don't let me down."

  * * *

  It took over nine days to finish charging the last Jump-Ship's drives. Exhausted by the stressful events of the past fortnight, Commodore Beresick leaned against the waist-high brass rail surrounding the Invisible Truth's holotank.

  "Commodore," the Officer-of-the-Deck said gently. "The sail is sixty percent stored. The rest of the fleet will be ready to jump in an hour or so. Why don't you hit the rack for a while, sir? You look like you could use it."

  Beresick turned to face the one-time Demi-Precentor, who now wore the paired green bars and silver pip of a major. The black-haired officer wore a genuine look of concern on his olive-skinned face.

  "All right, Mister Karabin, the bridge is yours. Call me if anything big crops up; otherwise, I'm not to be disturbed for eight hours."

  "Yes, sir." Karabin struggled to hide his relief. "Good night, sir."

  "Good afternoon, Major." Beresick gestured at the bridge chronometer. It displayed the time in bright green numerals: fifteen thirty-eight hours—three-thirty-eight in the afternoon.

  "Right. Good afternoon, sir."

  The Commodore smiled and left.

  * * *

  Ninety minutes later, the last vessel to furl its sail, the Light Horse Star Lord Class Buford, reported ready to jump.

  Major Miklos Karabin stood in the center of the holotank.

  "Mister Ritt," he called to the on-duty jump engineer. "Take us out of here."

  "Aye, sir. Jump drives on line. Initiating sequence."

  The first of two warning tones sounded hollowly through the Invisible Truth. Moments later, a more urgent klaxon signaled that the ship was about to make the translation into hyperspace.

  "Sir, I've got a ta . . . csaoun . . ." The sensor operator's voice, clear at first, slurred and dopplered down to nothing, as the Kearny-Fuchida drive buried deep within the huge WarShip's armored hull ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe and flung the Invisible Truth through it into the void of hyperspace. As the Truth reappeared at the nadir of the fleet's next waypoint, the shouted words seemed to run backward at high speed. ". . . shflarf . .. oming JumpShip."

  "Say again." Karabin shivered as his body threw off the stomach-churning after-effects of the hyperspace jump.

  "Sir, I thought I saw the EMP/tachyon flare of an incoming JumpShip as we made the jump," the technician said. "If that's what it was, there's a good chance whoever it was will know we were there."

  "Play it back."

  As Karabin looked over her shoulder, the sensor operator cued up the last few seconds of the WarShip's sensor log. Most sensor displays did not show a graphic representation of the area they covered. Usually, the readouts consisted of "waterfall displays," showing bright spots in places where a contact had occurred. Not as familiar with the system as Petty Officer Margaret Culp, the OOD recognized the wide white band as the electromagnetic pulse generated by a JumpShip. The trace flared to life for a few seconds before the screen, overloaded by the Truth's own electromagnetic emissions, whited out. When it cleared again, the battle cruiser had already phased in at their present location.

  "Any chance that it was a reflection of our jump flare?" Karabin's brow was creased with the effort to make sense of the fleeting contact.

  "Possible, but I don't think so, sir." Culp replayed the short digital recording. "We've been trading log records with other ships for the past couple of months, including the sensor traces of our own vessels. I've seen the Truth's EM signature from about every angle there is, and that ain't it."

  The OOD knew better than to question Culp on sensor readings. The tech was said to be one of the best.

  Karabin straightened, placed his hands on his sacroiliac, and arched his back, relishing the click of vertebrae falling into place. Sometimes, it seemed like he spent too much time on his feet.

  "All right. I'll log it in. I don't think we've got anything to worry about. We were gone before he jumped in. Even if it was a Clanner, he's not going to be able to track us. No one can track ships through hyperspace, not even the Clans."

  Returning to the watch-stander's bridge position, Karabin collapsed gratefully into the heavily padded, yet uncomfortable seat. For several minutes, he pecked away at the keyboard in the station's command console. The log entry was short and to the point. "Just before jump, an anomalous EMP was detected. Sensor scans were inconclusive." He signed the notation with a flourish, using a light-pen, and consigned the report to the battle cruiser's memory core.

  Sliding away from the console, Karabin wandered around the control deck for a few minutes, looking over the shoulders of the various technicians before getting back to his position in the center of the bridge holotank. After ten minutes of watching the miniature starships floating in the air above the deck he forgot about the incident.

  29

  Battle Cruiser ISS Invisible Truth

  Task Force Serpent

  Deep Periphery

  30 December 3058 1600 Hours

  Morgan Hasek-Davion stood, leaning against the closed hatch of the Invisible Truth's number three cargo bay. To either side of the three-meter diameter black steel hatch stood the faceless hulks of an armored infantry squad. Though the big warriors lacked the impressive bulk of their Clan counterparts, the two-meter-plus forms, with their vaguely insectoid appearance, were always a vaguely disturbing sight.

  The Clan prisoners of war crowded into the cavernous cargo bay seemed to have no such unreasoning fear of the armored men. In the two weeks that these people had been the unwilling guests of the task force, there had been no break in the cold, stony resolution of those who refused to take the bond oath.

  "Now, listen, this is the last time I'm going to go through this." Morgan's amplified voice echoed hollowly in the steel-welled chamber. "If you wish to give your bond-oath to this task force, do it now."

  He lowered the small, hand-held microphone and waited. Other than an uncomfortable shifting among some of the MechWarriors, none of the Clansmen moved. He had expected as much, but felt obligated to give the prisoners a last chance.

  "All right." Morgan nodd
ed, feeling a certain sadness in the gesture. "You deserve an explanation of what is going to happen to you. You will be placed aboard Drop-Ships and taken in-system. There, you will be marooned in the most survivable location we can find. We will provide you with whatever food, supplies, and tools we can spare. You will not be given communications devices or weapons, other than axes and knives.

  "If this task force completes its mission, I will send someone back for you. How you survive until that time is up to you. I am truly sorry that I must take this course of action, but circumstances allow me no other option. Good luck."

  Turning away from the stoic faces, Morgan thrust the microphone into the hands of a former Com Guard petty officer who began to reel off instructions.

  "Listen up. As your name is called, step over to the starboard access way. If you cooperate, things'll go smooth and quick. If not . . ." The non-comm's voice trailed off. He glanced at the waiting armored infantry squad. No one in the cargo bay missed his meaning.

  "Blast, I hate this," Morgan fumed, as he approached Ariana Winston, who'd been watching the whole time. "It's nothing but a bloody waste. Surely they can see that."

  "I think they can," Winston replied, as she straightened her short green jacket. "They've chosen exile rather than to help us 'Inner Sphere barbarians' in the conquest of a Clan homeworld. For all they know, we're going after Strana Mechty or Arcadia rather than Huntress. Would you help them if you thought they were going to invade New Syrtis or Kathil?"

  "No, I suppose not." Morgan said, then sighed. "It's just such a waste."

  "Yes, it is, but there's nothing you can do about it now. They won't hold it against you. The warriors might, but the civilians aren't going to hate you for not killing them. Let it go."

  Morgan tossed a salute to the lieutenant commanding the armored infantry detachment and palmed a lockplate. The hissing whine of the iris valve cycling open sounded loud against the petty officer's drone was he reeled off the names of the Clansmen who refused bond service. As he stepped into the airlock, Morgan looked back at the captives moving to the access hatch. The scene reminded him painfully of old-time photographs he had once seen of innocent civilians being herded aboard railroad cars because some madman thought they were a threat to racial purity.

  Good God, I thought we'd moved beyond all this, packing your enemies off to some out-of-the-way place where you can forget about them. Well, I won't forget.

  The hatch cycled shut, cutting off his view of the cargo bay.

  * * *

  Aboard several of the task force's largest ships, identical scenes were being played out, with greater or lesser degrees of compassion. Aboard the Knights JumpShip Bernlad where, at Colonel Paul Masters' insistence, a multitude of Clan civilians were being housed, Major Sir Gainard had been put in charge of the loading process. In accordance with his commander's wishes, he made every effort to keep family units intact. The opposite was true aboard the captured Shining Claw. Prisoners were shoved aboard troop carriers in alphabetical order, without regard for rank, position, or family ties. The Lyran marines wanted to get the job over with fast.

  Regardless of how the task was accomplished, the last Clansman, an aerospace pilot named Woart, found his place on the floor of the lower cargo hold aboard the Eridani Light Horse Overlord Class DropShip Lancer three hours after the operation had begun. Several of the largest DropShips attached to the task force were required to provide space for all of the Clansmen who would not take a bond oath. It would have been possible to complete the operation using fewer ships, but that would have required making several ferrying runs. The command staff had insisted that the task be accomplished as soon as was practicable. By using large transport ships, such as the Lancer, the mission could be completed in one trip. Everyone wanted to be done with the distasteful business as quickly as possible.

  Unfortunately for the Clansmen penned up in the Drop-Ship's empty cargo and 'Mech bays, "as quickly as possible" meant fourteen days round trip. The guards and support personnel assigned to escort the prisoners did what they could to make the journey more bearable. As large as the holds were, they were never intended for use as passenger compartments. The ship's crews tried to provide cots, mattresses, and blankets, but there were barely enough to go around. Food consisted primarily of combat rations, prompting kind-hearted task force personnel to share whatever they had to eat with the prisoners. Compared to their present state, most of the captives looked forward to being abandoned on an uninhabited planet, as a relief from the cold, echoing hell of the cargo bays.

  Their destination was the fourth world of the eight-planet system. Commodore Beresick dubbed the world "Lee Shore," drawing the name from a term often applied to an inescapable harbor during Terra's age of sail. The name suggested an unpleasant place of hopelessness and misery.

  In fact, when the Lancer's crew, squinting against the evening sun, caught their first glimpse of the planet's green forests and gently rolling hills, they felt jealous of the Clansmen. The prisoners were being left to found a new colony on a beautiful, hospitable planet, while the Light Horse was going still farther from home, to launch the first attack against the enemy's homeworlds. As that sobering thought set in, the smiles and the joking banter faded away. The Inner Sphere crewmen seemed to grow angry with their captives, resenting that the Clanners were staying behind on a garden planet, while they were going on to risk their lives.

  Several hours after the DropShips had grounded, the Clanners, and the few supplies the task force could spare, were offloaded. The Lancer's crew made the Overlord ready for boost. Without a word of encouragement or a shout of good luck, the ship's captain fired her drives, lifting the mammoth steel egg skyward on a silvery pillar of flame. As the huge DropShip lifted free of the surface, the rest of the transport ships followed suit.

  Watching the ground recede beneath them until it was obscured by a thin layer of cloud, Lieutenant-Commander Sally Guter, the Lancer's captain, heard a stage-whispered voice cursing the Ghost Bears and the planet.

  "Well, good riddance. I hope they all rot."

  "Belay that," Guter snapped, not knowing who had spoken, but fighting the urge to agree with the sentiments.

  * * *

  The fleet was barely out of Lee Shore's gravity well, when the doors to the Invisible Truth's spacious briefing room hissed open before General Winston and her regimental commanders.

  "Well," she said, flopping wearily into her accustomed seat. "They're on their way back."

  Morgan, already seated at the head of the conference table, nodded and sipped at his tea.

  Across the room, Colonel Amis sniffed experimentally at the mug full of black coffee.

  "Enjoy that while you can, Colonel." Morgan forced a smile. "That's the last of the real stuff. After this, you'll have to make do with soy."

  Amis slurped a mouthful of the hot, bitter liquid.

  "Marshal, I'd like to request a transfer back to the Inner Sphere. This is getting to be too hard. It's not enough that we're out of coffee. This morning, I found that I'm down to one box of cigars."

  "Thank God," said Sandra Barclay.

  "What's the matter, Sandy? Don't you appreciate the aroma of fine tobacco?"

  "Actually, I do, Ed." Barclay smiled, adding sugar to her cup. "Do you know anybody who has any fine tobacco?"

  "Not only does Colonel Amis not know anyone who has any fine tobacco," Antonescu interjected. "He wouldn't know fine tobacco if it grew in the cockpit of his Battle-Mech. He's been smoking those dirty rope ends for so long they've poisoned his brain and killed his taste buds."

  Winston exchanged a glance with Morgan as she accepted a cup of coffee from Colonel Amis. The Light Horse commander had been worried about her staff. The farther out of the Inner Sphere the task force got, the more strained the relationships between her regimental commanders seemed to become.

  The battle of Sweetwater Lake and the attack on the pirate base should have eased some of the tensions, but the disposition of
the prisoners had increased the degree of stress each of her officers was feeling. She had feared that the encounter with the Ghost Bear fleet and the marooning of the prisoners would deepen the rift, but the opposite seemed to have occurred. Her only explanation for the sudden reversal lay in the fact that they had, at last, engaged the enemy, and had handed him a defeat.

  The Light Horse Colonels were forced to expand the scope of their humor as the leaders of the other units making up Task Force Serpent arrived. This would be the final planning session before the Task Force jumped into Clan space.

  "All right, folks, settle down," Morgan had to repeat himself several times before he could bring the meeting into some semblance of order. "We have a lot to do here, and it'll never get done if we don't get started."

  Morgan laughed quietly to himself as he watched the officers find their places. No specific seats had been assigned to any of the officers save himself, Commodore Beresick, and General Winston. As the unit commanders had arrived for the first planning session back on Defiance, they'd established a pecking order. Andrew Redburn grabbed the seat next to Winston, the closest vacant space to Morgan's own. Sharon Bryan, seeming unwilling to be upstaged by a Davion commander, staked out the place next to Commodore Beresick, and so it went, until, at last, Overste Sleipness and Major Poling, of the St. Ives Lancers, took their seats at the far end of the table.

  "I don't suppose you've changed your mind about a batchall!" Paul Masters said, kicking off the discussion.

  "No, I haven't, Sir Masters." Morgan dropped his hands into his lap and leaned back in his chair, exasperation in his voice. "We've been told again and again that the Smoke Jaguars will no longer honor batchalls from the Inner Sphere. They got burned twice by the Combine; once on Wolcott, and again on Luthien. I guess they finally learned that old proverb."