Initiation to War

by Robert N. Charrette

  "Yeah. It's true," Kelly said flatly.

  "I guess the count will have to review his selection process. It's obviously flawed."

  Kelly found himself annoyed by Sten's smirking good humor. "What are you talking about?"

  "Are you really that clueless? We brave few gathered here are the soon-to-be-fabled pilots of the County Shu BattleMech force."

  "Volunteer Battalion," mumbled Trahn, offering the official name for the locally raised forces, whatever their size.

  Kelly exchanged glances with JJ. Did that mean what he thought it did? Did he dare believe it? He had to consider the source.

  "Yank the other one," Kelly told Sten.

  Sten shrugged. "Tell him, Trahn. He is obviously incapable of accepting truth without it being spelled out for him. It's a common failing among gropos."

  Trahn showed them his orders, which differed from theirs only in the address block. "The day I got my orders they came and got a family 'Mech. Told me not to worry. Said we were going to the same place."

  Kelly didn't quite believe what he was hearing. "You're from a 'Mech family?"

  There weren't many of them left. Kelly had heard that they were all but extinct in the major states, having been replaced by governmental near-monopolies on BattleMech ownership.

  Trahn shrugged. "I know I never talked about it much, but yeah, my family are owners. Never figured I'd inherit the seat. Dan was the warrior, a real gung-ho guy, but Dan's gone now." Kelly and JJ made polite murmurs of sympathy, but Trahn shrugged them away. "Supposed to have been very honorable, the way Dan wanted it."

  An owner family would know. "So it's true?"

  "No truer than when a Blowhard says it," Sten said, revealing that he knew the nickname JJ had slapped on him.

  "Yeah, it's true," Trahn confirmed.

  Kelly's and JJ's cheers caught the attention of the other soldiers. Once they were in on the scoop, they were only a step behind Kelly in pumping Harry. With Trahn's family's connections, he'd picked up some rumors about their new unit.

  Yeah, they were all assigned to one of the BattleMech forces that was being called the County Shu Volunteer Battalion. No, he didn't know why there were more than twelve of them, but there was supposed to be something different about the unit structure. No, he didn't know who was going to be whose lancemates. Yeah, Essie Ling-Marabie was the commander. Whether she was a hard-assed and no-nonsense butt-kicker as was rumored, Harry didn't know. Yeah, he'd met her, but it was a social thing and that didn't tell you a lot about how a commander behaved in her own unit. No, they weren't getting their pick of 'Mechs, not most of them anyway. Harry, of course, would have a family machine, in his case a Raven. Yeah, he'd heard that the 'Mechs are mostly old and tired, and that some didn't even have all of their parts, but he'd also heard that there was a battalion's worth of new Lineholders sitting on the docks at Port Tsing. The last started an argument about the relative merits of Epsilon Eridani's own home-grown BattleMech.

  Kelly dropped out of that discussion. He didn't care about how good a Lineholder was right now. He didn't even care if there were any Lineholders or if they were getting retread scrap. Against conventional forces 'Mechs ruled. And Kelly still wanted to be a MechWarrior. And he was going to be one!

  The doubt that had gnawed at him since the testing was gone, replaced by pride. He'd done it! He'd made the cut! He was going to be a MechWarrior! The whole world seemed new, reborn to hope.

  His gaze fell on the most vocal of the Lineholder detractors. She was slim and trim and her uniform fitted her in a way that could only be described as intriguing. Her close-cropped hair made a curly helmet above her eyes, which were of the sort of sea-blue that a man could drown in. Her nameflash read Liu.

  "Now that would be all it would take to make life perfect."

  JJ, who had also faded on the discussion, saw where Kelly was looking. "She is that."

  They were saved the embarrassment of being caught ogling by the bass growl of two drab-painted trucks rumbling into the parking lot. To all appearances the vehicles chased away the rain for the downpour sputtered out as they pulled up near the gathered troopers. Though the drivers stayed sheltered in the cabs, the passenger in the lead truck splashed down as the soldiers hustled into a ragged order alongside what was obviously their transport.

  The figure rounding the fender moved with a slight limp. Seeing that he wore a Mech Warrior's undress uniform was almost anticlimactic, but Kelly experienced a start when he recognized the buzz-cut salt-and-pepper hair, the square jaw with its white scar, and the flinty eyes that dominated the man's face. It was Subcommander Veck. No, Kelly saw by the gold tab that had replaced the voided green bar on the man's collar, it was Commander Veck.

  "Keep your papers in your pockets," growled Veck as he approached the group. "I know you. To my sorrow, I know each and every one of you. And I sincerely hope that my knowledge of you will not be to my regret. I will do all in my power to see that it is not so. You all will likewise do all in your power to see that it is not so. Or you will regret it. Not a promise, just a simple statement of fact. I hope I am clear.

  "Now before we leave for our new home, I have a few words for you gentlemen and ladies. Yes, I am talking to you! You are all gentlemen and ladies now. Officially anyway. Don't let it go to your head!"

  Veck thrust his face down into JJ's. "You are a gentleman because nothing less noble is suitable to pilot a BattleMech in the County Shu Volunteer Battalion."

  Another step took him to Liu, the Lineholder detractor. "You are a lady because you are a subcommander. Count Shu says so."

  Veck's sharp gaze swept the line. "Your commissions say so. You all get shiny new subcommander tabs for your collars. It don't mean nothing!

  "Don't believe me? Gentlemen, I am told, do not lie, and Count Shu says I'm a gentleman. My commission says so, too. And I've got the shiny rank tabs. A full commander's rank tabs. It don't mean nothing! I run a 'Mech for a living. I ain't nothing but a 'Mech monkey. But I outrank each and everyone of you apes. So what does that make you?"

  No one answered Veck's question.

  "I asked you a question, 'Mech monkeys. What are you?"

  This time a ragged chorus answered him. " 'Mech monkeys, sir!"

  "Neurohelmet feedback has been known to cause hearing loss. That ain't my problem, but I can not HEAR YOU! So, I say again, what are you?"

  " 'MECH MONKEYS, SIR!"

  Veck turned his back to them and marched toward the trucks. Kelly thought he heard the commander mumble something that sounded like "the raw beginnings of wisdom." Veck halted by the cab of the lead truck. Even with his back toward them, his voice was loud and clear.

  "All right, you 'Mech monkeys! You've got your pilot's licenses. It don't mean nothing! You've done simulator time. It don't mean nothing! You think you know something about 'Mechs. You don't know nothing!"

  Veck turned back to face them and his cold eyes swept across the young Mech Warriors.

  "But you're going to learn."

  6

  Port Tsing

  County Shu, Epsilon Eridani

  Chaos March

  7 December 3061

  Flashing her famed smile at the five people around the table, Romano Shu breezed into the conference room. Her long raven hair was swept up in a complicated arrangement of coils and glittering pearls more suitable to a gala ball than a business meeting. She wore a slinky dress overtopped with a gold fringed and frogged bolero jacket in the Marik style that would have been suitable only if that gala ball was a masquerade.

  Gabriel, Count Shu, frowned, wishing Romano would treat state business with more gravity. What was his sister thinking? Her airy attitudes and flamboyant style often played well with the media, but they were out of place in a council meeting.

  "You're late," he reproved.

  "I am sorry, Gabriel, but there was an ENN ambush downstairs." She settled in to her place at the table. "You wouldn't have wanted me to snub them, would you?"

/>   "What were the jackals after this time?" That came from Justin Whitehorse, the head of Amalgamated Eridani Mining Corporation and a member of the count's council by virtue of his corporation's preeminent position in committal economic affairs. "Business, or is the Lady scandalizing society with another fling?"

  "Isn't it all business of one sort or another?" Romano countered flippantly. "As it happens, it was the transit tolls again. Cara Price has made another speech. It seems we are being hypocrites, espousing President's Benton's Economic Outreach Initiative while doing our best to prevent any Eridani state other than our own from making that outreach. Our road, canal, and port tolls are strangling—" she dramatically put her hands to her throat and stuck out her tongue—"absolutely strangling poor dear Cara's free trade. The entire Duvic Palatine is withering away."

  "The tolls are fair," protested Finance Minister Ismael Shu-Larabie.

  "Of course they are, my dear. And don't you think I told the, ah, jackals—" she nodded to Whitehorse— "exactly that?"

  "I don't understand what Price's problem is," admitted Gabriel. "She seemed all for the improvements we made to the port facilities. The money has to come from somewhere."

  "Edie's probably egging her on," surmised Whitehorse. Edie Vauxhall was the head of Vauxhall Minerals, a rival to his AEM Corporation with significant interests in the Duvic Palatine. "She would rather see me pay than spend any credit on her own account."

  "You are getting substantial benefit from the new facilities," Claudia Hall pointed out. She was the Governor of Port Tsing, the county's largest and most important city, and the port about which Price was complaining. If anyone knew who benefited from the improvements, she did.

  "As is Vauxhall!" Whitehorse's ruddy faced deepened to scarlet as he stabbed a stubby finger at Hall. "And I am paying a fat share, too! Right, Ismael?"

  "A share." Shu-Larabie's bland, straight-faced, and not exactly complete agreement drew a few snickers.

  Major Essie Ling-Marabie cleared her throat, quelling the good humor. "Did Price make any threats in her speech, Lady Shu?"

  "Major, Cara Price and the Duvic Palatine are not the enemy," Gabriel asserted.

  "Are you sure, Count Shu? The Palatine has brought in mercs 'for defense' and in the Duvic media certain sources close to the Presider have accused you of planning military aggression."

  "We are political opponents certainly; she is an Expansionist after all. But your concerns about military aggression are unwarranted." County Shu and the Duvic Palatine were not sovereign states, to go to war as they would. Though they had great latitude and, indeed, almost independence under the planetwide federation. Such near autonomy had recently begun to show an unwanted downside as President Benton, disinterested in anything short of planetary concerns, started encouraging the provincial heads of state to look to their own local defense, at their own expense. "The media nonsense is just posturing, political wind. The need for defense, however, is very real as you well know, what with the increased bandit activity. Price is just looking to her responsibilities, same as I am."

  "And we have the County Shu Volunteer Battalion do we not, Major?" asked Shu-Larabie. "Although I don't understand why you call this unit a battalion. According to the organization chart, it's got enough BattleMechs for a regiment. Surely that is sufficient force to chase bandits and deter phantom aggression."

  "If the organization were complete, I might agree with you on the point of sufficiency, Minister. And your answer to the name and organization issues lies in my original proposal for the force structure, which you have obviously not read. However, I do thank you for bringing up the issue of completing the force structure." The major turned to Gabriel. "Count Shu, how long must my MechWarriors continue living on promises? Where are the new 'Mechs I was guaranteed? Where are the parts for the 'Mechs I have?"

  Gabriel sat back, shocked by the major's rude temerity.

  "If I may, Count," interposed Hall. "The shipment from Kressily Warworks is scheduled to arrive in port tomorrow. Is that satisfactory?"

  Ling-Marabie sniffed. "It will have to do."

  Whitehorse leaned into the table. "Major, let us assume for a moment that there might be some need to be concerned here. I've heard that Price has been hiring mercenaries as well as increasing palatine forces. I wouldn't like to think that Price is contemplating a return to anarchy, but such a military build-up cannot be ignored. Just how dangerous to us are the Duvic forces?"

  "That, I regret to say, is an open question, Mr. Whitehorse. Our intelligence reports are not as complete as I would like."

  "But our own force increase will surely compensate, won't it?" Shu-Larabie wanted to know. "We have certainly spent enough on it."

  "Compensate? In materiel, quite possibly. But there is more to a force than machines. 'Mechs without MechWarriors are just so much scrap, and we have far too few experienced pilots."

  Whitehorse harrumphed. "I asked a question and haven't gotten a satisfactory answer. Major, I want to know about Price's army. A precis, please."

  "Very well." The major was clearly eager to seize upon the chance to expound. "In conventional forces, there has been little change. It is in BattleMech forces that the balance of power is shifting. The two standard lances of BattleMechs Duvic recently added to the Palatine Protectors are both rated as medium. Even one would have held a substantial superiority in combat power over the count's old County Guard lance.

  "In addition Duvic has been hiring mercenaries. The first force is two lances from the Tooth of Ymir, one heavy and one medium. Though both mercenary lances are under strength, their pilots are veterans with considerable combat experience. Their medium lance should be considered more dangerous than either of the Protector lances, even though handicapped by a 'Mech. The mercenary unit's commander is one Kingston Crawford, originally from the Magistracy of Canopus. He fought against the Clans before joining the Tooth. We have picked up some references that suggest that Crawford's people have separated from the main body of the Tooth of Ymir. If true, it is good news in that we need not fear that more of the Tooth will be joining them."

  "But we don't know, do we?" asked Romano.

  "No, my lady, we do not. It is knowledge that is our handicap here. For example, we know little about the second force the Duvics have hired: a mercenary unit that styles itself 'the 48th.' Sources on the Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission report that the 48th has brought a reinforced lance of five light 'Mechs to the Duvic Palatine."

  "Five 'Mechs? Isn't that what the Clans would call a star? Are we dealing with Clan mercenaries?" Whitehorse sounded almost frightened.

  "That is an alarmist assumption," Hall chided.

  "And an ignorant one," the major added, her insulting tone adding fuel to her personal feud with the mining magnate. "The 48th's 'Mechs are all Inner Sphere designs. Most likely these mercenaries are simply following the superior Clan method of organization as we ourselves are. Or would be, if we had sufficient BattleMechs."

  "I already told you your 'Mechs are coming," said an irritated Hall.

  "The Lineholders alone will not complete the force structure." Again the major turned to Gabriel. "Count, I need more 'Mechs."

  Gabriel found the major's demands unseemly. The decisions about what and how many BattleMechs there would be had already be made. And the major knew it. Chastisement was in order.

  "Major, you yourself said 'Mechs without Mech Warriors are scrap, and that we do not have enough trained Mech Warriors. What do you need with more 'Mechs, then? Hadn't you better see to making sure we have the Mech Warriors we need to pilot the 'Mechs we already have?"

  Gabriel's anger washed over the major with no visible effect. "That process is already under way."

  7

  Mirandagol District

  County Shu, Epsilon Eridani

  Chaos March

  7 December 3061

  Morning PT was usually Kelly's time to let his mind go wandering, drifting easily while his body was w
orking through the exercises. This morning was different. This morning his mind was hard at work, as it had been all day yesterday, making counts and trying to figure out what it meant for him.

  It didn't take calculus to do the math. There were twenty-six BattleMechs on the tarmac and thirty occupied bunks in the corrugated aluminum huts that were home to the County Shu Volunteer Battalion pilots. Somebody, several somebodies actually, were going to be without machines. It wouldn't be the four old men who had been Count Shu's Honor Guard. It wouldn't be Commander Veck, nor any of the six hard-bitten veterans who had sat around playing poker with the commander last night, and it certainly wouldn't be the three owner-operators. That left twelve 'Mechs for the seventeen newbies, or rather sixteen wannabes since Trahn, though a newbie was an owner-operator. Twelve 'Mechs and sixteen possible pilots meant four extra pilots.

  Four.

  Was it coincidence that he'd been told he was competing for one of four slots when he tested?

  "I make it four of us getting stiffed," JJ panted as they finished their run.

  "But which four?"

  "If there's any justice, Blowhard will be one of them."

  "From your mouth to the ears of the gods."

  The gods may not have heard the plea, but Kelly and JJ heard Veck's bellowing voice calling them into formation. When they were lined up at attention, Commander Veck gave them a tight smile. It made his craggy features look grimmer than usual.

  "All right, gentlemen and ladies. Today's business is familiarization. I am sure that there isn't a 'Mech on the field that you 'Mech monkeys haven't tried out in a simulator. And what you learned from that fooling around don't mean nothing. Your days of promiscuity are over! Today you get married. You will come to know your 'Mech better than a spouse. This is good. This is vital. If you do not know your 'Mech, if you do not know every little idiosyncrasy, every quirk, you will die. Not a promise, a prediction.

  "Momentarily, you will draw your manuals from Force Leader LaJoy-Bua. You will go to your 'Mech. You may sit in the hotseat, but you should know that I will personally cut off any finger that presses a start button or activates any system. I am speaking to you owner-operators as well.