Wolf Hunters

by Kevin Killiany

  Then, still ignoring the firefight around them, the seven lifted the bag by handles and began lugging it back toward the dome.

  It occurred to Nikola that her air tank was going to be of little use if the hull around her was breached.

  The radio came alive with a burst of static, startling her.

  "... Dome!..." a voice that might have been Roost's crackled, the panic in his shout clear through the static.

  Swinging her viewer around, Nikola could not at first see what the problem was. Around the main portal two groups in varied shades of safety yellow were struggling. She surmised some of the defenders had made a foray to repel the attackers attempting to overcome the air lock controls. Hardly worth—

  Then the fabric of the dome above them rippled, a single wave of motion moving left to right across the field of her viewer.

  Swinging her viewer left, she found a smoking tear— no, a razor-straight slit, smoldering. And a charred mass near the base of the dome. She did not comprehend what she was seeing until the next shot.

  Laser fire stabbed into a blister at the base of the dome, scorching it to a molten mass. A mass that moved as men inside struggled and died.

  The Sentry, the same 'Mech that had used its PPC to burn unprotected men off the side of a Condor, was now using its small pulse lasers against the sappers. The beams should have vaporized the dome material. From the looks of the several slits, they had at first. The 'Mech pilot—she could not think of him as a warrior—had reduced power. He was now melting the dome and boiling the militiamen alive in their molten environmental suits.

  "Target that freebirth stravagl" she shouted, launching her own missiles.

  Below her, Haret—a second late in understanding the situation—cursed and threw the Condor into a skittering run at the BattleMech. By the time they'd covered two hundred meters his intended target had been reduced to scrap by vectored fire from a half dozen tanks. And at least one defense tower.

  Shouting his frustration at having been denied the kill, Haret spun the Condor right, shedding air, and arrowed toward the remaining Osiris. But that BattleMech had already surrendered, standing with weapons lowered and powered down. Haret pulled the tank to a halt, reduced to venting his outrage in a string of curses.

  Nikola remained silent, watching her viewscreen as the hurricane winds plucked at the edges of the rents in the dome's fabric. Scars grew, like lips parting in sudden surprise. The dome rippled, fluttered, spasmed helplessly as Laiaka gleefully stripped Yaleston's protection away.

  26

  Canid Cooperative Stable

  Solaris City, Solaris VII

  Lyran Commonwealth

  31 January 3136

  Jazz swore and twisted in her seat, trying to speed the Lineholder's duck and turn with her own body English.

  The BattleMech filling her screen was a Merlin, the same one that Yulri had beaten, with the same jockey at the controls. Only she wasn't Yulri and Wallace was cleaning her clock. The glare of a PPC bolt limned her cockpit as her Linebacker rocked under the impact.

  An alarm hooted and the stupid cartoon of her 'Mech flashed red and yellow along its lower torso and leg.

  She fired all her medium lasers—firing from the chest being a new idea—and a wave of heat washed through the cockpit. She kicked her pedals in what should have been a stutter step left as she brought her double missile racks to bear. The 55-ton machine around her shuffled like a senile song-and-dance man, but the tubes lined up.

  "Ha!" she shouted and fired.

  The twin flights of missiles twisted through the narrow space, arrowing into the other machine with deadly accuracy . . .

  And bounced off like a handful of twigs thrown against a wall.

  "Hot load, hot load, hot loadl" Jazz reminded herself as she twisted the machine's torso left, bringing up its left arm.

  Twin lasers lanced from the Merlin's extended arms, scouring armor from her Lineholder's chest as machine- gun fire pattered like angry rain from her canopy.

  Wait for it, wait for it.. .

  Good tone on the large laser's targeting computer. She fired, shoving her thumb down on the trigger hard enough to send a twinge of pain along her wrist.

  Nothing.

  A glance at the stupid cartoon told her there was a bright red triangle at the left elbow and the large laser assembly was black. Leaning forward against the straps of the harness, she peered out at what she could see of the left arm. An elbow joint and mangled metal.

  "Why the hell did the good tone sound?"

  She was slammed back into her couch as explosions rocked the BattleMech backward. Wallace had remembered to hot load.

  Jazz fought for balance, swinging the lasers around as she initiated her own hot load sequence. The cockpit filled with glare again as the Merlin's PPC raked her at close range.

  With a final, fading wail of alarms, the cockpit around her went dark.

  "Damn can opener."

  With a beep of warning, the clamshell of the simulator opened, flooding her dark cocoon with light and cold air.

  Sucking her teeth. Jazz yanked at the buckles of her restraints. Shoving free of the seat, she was pulled up short by the cables connecting her neurohelmet to the interface. She pulled the wires loose—in the right order and careful to use the releases—and put the expensive helmet on its rack without slamming it. She almost repeated the shove-and-jerk maneuver, but remembered to disconnect the coolant lines from her vest before successfully scrambling from the sim pod.

  Wallace was already pulling a field jacket with the

  Canid Cooperative logo on the shoulder over her cooling vest as she strolled over.

  "Impressive."

  "Like hell."

  "I mean it," the bigger woman insisted. "You've got some good instincts. And not many jockeys could throw a Lineholder around like that."

  "Or forget to hot load—"

  "Pros do that all the time," Wallace said, leading the way toward the control cubicle. "Let's check the crystals."

  The monitor tech—Pilfer? Milner, she read his name from the Canid jacket—

  Where was hers?

  "Hang on," she said and stalked back to her sim pod to fetch her fatigue jacket from the hook by the ladder.

  Recordings of her getting her butt kicked—again—in the stupid 'Mech sim interested her not at all. If Yulri hadn't insisted everyone be checked out in everything the Canid fielded, she'd have never seen the inside of a 'Mech cockpit and died happy.

  Wallace and Milner had their heads together over the data display as she entered the simulator control cubicle.

  Knock out a couple of walls and this could make a nice closet.

  "You realize you averaged six balance corrections to the gyro computer's five?" Wallace asked without looking up from the screen.

  "So?"

  "So most pilots average two to the computer's five," Milner said. "Too bad Canid doesn't include aerospace. You'd make a hell of a fighter jock."

  Jazz grunted. Getting further away from reality was about as intriguing as a root canal. She listened dutifully as Wallace uncorked her standard lecture on the finer points of multitasking while piloting so complex a machine as a BattleMech and complimented Jazz on her situational awareness and battlefield savvy.

  "You've got live fire this afternoon, right?" she asked when her 'Mech instructor at last wound down.

  "No running this time, is there?" Wallace asked. "I don't have the wind for it."

  "If you're ever going to be a real fighter, you're going to need to get off your . . . couch," Jazz said. "Three- kilometer run before your first qualifier and wind sprints every time you pass, just like always."

  "Damn."

  "If you can't be on target dog-tired and out of breath," Jazz reminded her, "you're no good in the field."

  "You know our relationship is fundamentally unfair," Wallace pointed out. "Worst I ever do to you is simulate damage."

  Jazz grinned savagely. Then Milner's smirk caught
her eye.

  "I'm going to recommend to the co-op that all techs go through full combat training as well," she said conversationally.

  "Good plan," Wallace agreed, looking at the suddenly stricken Milner.

  Still grinning. Jazz headed for the showers. She pulled off the jacket as she walked through the halls, her body already acclimated to the temperature. Time was when she would have overheated rather than reveal the stippled field of scar tissue from ribs to collarbone. But it had been weeks since her half-empty sports bra or the damaged flesh extending above and below it had earned a second glance at Canid. The place was getting downright homey.

  On the heels of that thought came Yulri with some new faces. Out front was a kid who either hadn't washed or was trying to imply age through facial hair. His eyes went wide at the sight of Jazz. And his mouth.

  Without breaking stride she shouldered open the door to the shower room.

  Yep. Homey.

  Twenty minutes later she entered the ready room where Yulri was finishing up with the newest batch of applicants. He did that every time. Most commands would wait until hopefuls had gone through the whole screening process before taking the time to meet them.

  Yulri made face time with him the first step before the wannabes even identified themselves. Whatever else happened in the sorting process, that first impression carried more weight than any other single step.

  The ready room was laid out like a classroom— holovid flat screen and diagramming board on one wall and straight-backed chairs with swing-up noteputer shelves arranged in loose semicircles. Four men and two women were sitting in various interpretations of attention facing Yulri, who sat to one side of the holoscreen in an identical chair turned to face them. As usual, his flat-footed pose looked both relaxed and ready.

  Jazz gave him her secret smile—pulling the right corner up until her mouth made a straight line—as she twirled a chair one-handed and set it mirroring his position at the front of the room. His left eyelid flickered. Good group.

  "Who am I?" she demanded.

  "Jasmine duMartre," answered the kid who'd come unglued at the sight of her in the hall.

  Jazz blinked.

  "Aka Jazz," the kid went on, face shining through the fuzz of future beard. "My sister said you were the best scrapper scout in the business."

  Sister?

  Then she had it. Round his features a little, replace that buzz cut with a pageboy and he was the spitting image of Darcy Yarrow, leader of Darcy's Divas. That meant this was . . . Take off three years, add a mop of curly brown hair and painful first-crush moon.

  "Acne cleared up nicely, Daren."

  The kid beamed.

  "But you're still too young for the games by at least two years."

  Daren's face fell.

  She turned to Yulri. "Did he lie about his age?"

  "He has stated only that he wants to join."

  "That just saved your ass, literally," Jazz told Daren, her left eye squinted so he got the full effect of the right. "If you had lied about your age and we'd put you in a match, the gaming commission would have yanked Can- id's charter in a cold Terran minute."

  "But—"

  "Shut the but up," Jazz said. "Come back in two years, with your birth certificate. Then—maybe—we'll talk."

  After a stricken few moments, Daren stood and made the best of his exit, apparently trying for a sort of noble march. He blew it when he stopped at the door and looked back at Jazz. It was painfully clear this was not how he'd imagined their reunion going. Finally he fumbled something between a salute and a wave and slid out of the room.

  "Who am I?" Jazz demanded of the remaining five.

  "You're Jazz," answered one of the others, a woman maybe two years older than she. "Head of infantry assets and training."

  "Right," Jazz said. "And you are all infantry assets, which means I am your boss."

  A hand went up.

  "I see your haircut, but you're still infantry," Jazz said. "Even if you brought your own 'Mech, you'd go through infantry training. And you will see Mech Warriors on the practice range with you. Everybody will be checked out on everything.

  "Which means, yes, those of you who become part of Canid will all get your basic 'Mech certificates."

  Jazz was gratified to see only the guy with the haircut and the younger female looked excited at that prospect. The other three looked as unhappy as she felt about the extra duty.

  Still, she understood the logic behind Yulri's plan. MechWarriors respected other MechWarriors. No matter what they signed about equal memberships, it was just in their nature to view MechWarriors as a little more equal than everyone else. Quickest solution: Everyone in the cooperative earned 'Mech papers.

  The flip side—making all those couch fighters qualify for the infantry games—added another element of equality. And instilled a greater respect for the ground pounders in the high-and-mighty jocks.

  From there she went through the basics of the Canid structure. Yulri was the head, she was the neck, and everyone else was the body. No set ranks, but everyone had a job and knew where they fit in the whole. The rest—the fiscal communalism of the co-op; the trial period, application, and vote; arrangements with their agents—was all fairly standard and got covered in less than twenty minutes.

  "If any of this doesn't sound right to you," Jazz finished, "there's the door."

  The long moment of silence was broken by a heavy sigh. Looking at no one else, 'Mech-haircut boy levered himself out of his chair.

  "Anything else?" Jazz asked when the door had shut behind him.

  "There is a rumor," the older woman said without raising her hand, "that all Canid scrappers go in with a cache of live ammo."

  "Really?"

  "Story is, if anyone ever uses live ammo on any of your people, you'll go full-contact," she said, unflinching. "That you'll hunt down and kill anyone who tries to hurt one of your own by cheating."

  "I like that rumor." Jazz said, nodding judiciously. "Repeat it often."

  "Is it true?"

  Jazz sat, unmoving, and regarded the woman.

  "What about this honor thing?" a blond guy asked when it was clear Jazz wasn't talking. "This oath. Is that a Clan thing?"

  "No." Yulri answered flatly. "And yes."

  Jazz was glad to see the newcomers had the wit to wait.

  The oath Yulri had originated—and required everyone to uphold—was the cornerstone of Canid. What made it unlike any other cooperative or stable. And nobody could explain it like Yulri. For a classically laconic Clanner, Yulri could be articulate when he wanted to be.

  "The core and foundation, what it means to be Clan, has always been purpose," Yulri said. "The purpose was to raise human civilization to what it could be, to fulfill humanity's promise. It is not possible to be dedicated to such a purpose, to work toward such a goal, without honor.

  "But the Clans came to believe their dedication to this goal made them automatically superior to all others in all things." Yulri shook his head. "The Clans did not see the blindness of this belief, did not see how at its heart it ran contrary to why they existed."

  Yulri paused for a moment. His audience was quiet, respecting his moment of thoughtful regard of the middle distance.

  "The Clans did not see they'd changed," he said at last, "or that the purpose did not always hold. Clans became something not Clan. The Steel Wolves . . ."

  Again the pause. Usually his old Clan was not mentioned by name. Jazz did not know what had happened, what had driven Yulri to Solaris VII—perhaps the most unClan world in the galaxy. He never spoke of it. She was glad for it, whatever it was, because without it she'd never have Yulri. But when she caught a glimpse of how far it had pushed him . . .

  "One does not have to be Clan to believe in Keren- sky's dream or to carry it forward," Yulri said at last. "One need only make a stand where one is. By choosing to live with integrity and honor, by striving to fulfill the promise of what we can be and by doing so boldly for
all the world to see, each of us can serve his vision.

  "Canid is part of that vision, dedicated to bringing it to pass," he concluded. He never added the corollary that anyone who wasn't part of the vision wasn't part of Canid.

  In the end they did sign, filling out resumes, citing references, and authorizing background checks. Four new potential partners in the effort to save humanity from itself. And make Canid a few kroner in the process.

  Peters and Elois arrived at this point, summoned by Yulri's signal. Skilled interrogators with counterintelligence experience, they conducted the oral interviews and reviewed resumes. Sifting past lives and current mindsets for elements the cooperative sought.

  When they were alone in the corridor, Yulri grunted. An amused sound.

  "What?"

  "Jasmine duMartre?" Yulri asked, repeating the name Daren Yarrow had used.

  "What about it?" "Your—parents"—he stumbled over the unfamiliar word—"named you 'fragrance of the weasel'?"

  "Yeah." His etymology—and zoology—was a little skewed, but not enough to matter. "And then / named me Jazz."

  She stepped closer, angling her chin to keep their eyes locked.

  "And if you want to keep all three legs," she said, low and cold, "you remember to call me Jazz."

  "Bargained well and done."

  27

  Bunker City, Geir

  Laiaka, former Prefecture VIII

  1 February 3136

  "You exceeded your contract," Laiaka Planetary Governor Zeander's voice trembled with barely suppressed rage. "Your wanton destruction of Yaleston—"

  "You lied," Nikola Demos cut him off, her own voice cold with threat. "You knew Yaleston was in rebellion. Pirates would have abandoned their holdings or surrendered in the face of our assault. People fighting to defend their homes . . ."