"You are not going to tell me more?”
“Is there more to tell?”
“I am sure of it."
"As I told you, Joanna, you have become most suspicious since your return."
"And perceptive, you said that, too.”
“I did."
"You are loathsome, Ravill Pryde. Star Colonel Ravill Pryde."
She switched off that line and, after a moment of subduing her anger, spoke to Diana on their private frequency. "I will be glad to be alone with those two," Diana said, upon hearing her orders.
"Diana, this is not an opportunity for assassination. Unless, of course, the traitors reveal themselves."
"You expect them to, do you not?"
"I did not say that." She paused for a moment because it struck her that Ravill Pryde had used the same kind of evasive tactic on her only moments ago. Why had it seemed necessary? she wondered. "If I am to fight this battle, I just want those two under observation, quiaff?"
"Aff."
As she signed off and started her Summoner toward the Gash, Joanna thought back on her lies. Most of them were not lies really, just evasions—answering a question with a question, making the protest that avoided the reply. As before, she regretted them. Yet, reconsidering her achievements at Dogg Station and reviewing her improvised deceit here on Twycross, she also wondered why she was deriving so much pleasure from such lies and evasions.
32
The Great Gash, Twycross
Jade Falcon Occupation Zone
7 December 3057
It was as if Joanna were seeing the Great Gash through her 'Mech's eyes. It seemed smaller to her, narrower. From her seat high in the confined cockpit of her Summoner, its walls did not seem so high. However, the difference could have been technical rather than geological. After all, some felt that certain distortions were useful, allowing the 'Mech pilot better mobility, a better sense of location, a concentration on the matter at hand without interference from peripheral phenomena. In a sense, technology could reduce the perception of the Gash.
However, there were other, stranger differences. Sound, after the roar of the Plain of Curtains, abruptly diminished. Except for the distant and hollow murmur of the Diabolis winds, there was nothing to hear inside the Gash. In war, silence was more ominous than noise. Then came a series of resonant thumps, which Joanna's scanner showed to be Natasha Kerensky, in her Dire Wolf, one of the heaviest of all OmniMechs. She was entering the other end of the Gash, as arranged. Each step Joanna's Summoner took would register in Natasha Kerensky's ears as a similar, but somewhat lighter, thump.
Joanna, estimating from the increasing louder sounds of the other 'Mech, slowed her own pace. She wanted the match to be initiated at the place where the avalanche had occurred, about a third of the way in from the Jade Falcon end of the Gash. That part of the Gash was somewhat wider and its uneven terrain would give Joanna's often unorthodox fighting tactics more room. Furthermore, she thought there was something appropriate about avenging her own shame in the exact place where it had originally occurred. Making it even more appropriate was the knowledge that Diana was up there on the plateau with the wretched Castilla and Cholas.
Checking the time, she realized it was nearly dusk, although dusk on Twycross might be something of a contradiction in terms. The clash between the Jade Falcons and Wolves had begun a couple of hours after dawn, yet the day was almost over. Although Twycross had a short daylight period, it seemed to her that the time should be nowhere near dusk. Should the contest between her and Natasha Kerensky be a long one, it could last well into the night. But that did not matter. Nightfighting or dayfighting, on level or rocky terrain, with odds against her or in her favor—none of it had much significance to Joanna. She merely needed the combat. She needed to put a BattleMech through its paces and turn another 'Mech into a fireball of molten armor and expanding plasma. It was only right and proper. She was, after all, Jade Falcon.
The sounds of the approaching Dire Wolf grew steadily louder. Joanna had nearly reached the burial ground of the old Falcon Guards and their BattleMechs.
* * *
The path up to the plateau seemed, to Diana, longer than it had the night before. Of course, then it had been downhill, and her and Joanna's concentration had been firmly on tracking the pair of spies. Yet, it was not the exertion of going up that seemed to prolong the time. With the way her adrenaline was racing, she could have run up the relatively steep path. It was the necessity of maintaining a pace casual enough to prevent Cholas and Castilla from becoming suspicious that seemed to make the time drag.
It was also the anticipation of reaching the plateau. Diana wanted to finally get there and see what Cholas and Castilla would do. It seemed to her that the order Joanna had given her of guiding the strange pair up was an implicit command to dispose of them. Nevertheless, Joanna had provided a number of explicit instructions. Executing the two outright would not really satisfy Joanna's dictates.
She glanced back at Castilla and Cholas, who remained about four steps behind her. The path was wide, so there was plenty of room for them to walk closer to Diana. She was sure they were holding back on purpose.
As she reflected on her experiences with these two, it suddenly became evident to her that Cholas and Castilla could only be together. Even in a group of the prydelings, they seemed to set themselves apart. In the honor duel with Joanna, they had actually seemed to function better in tandem than individually.
If Diana had not known they were spies, their intimacy might have bothered her. She still would have despised them, but their behavior would have seemed merely odd rather than completely abhorrent. Jade Falcons, after all, did often form comradeship, but there was only a mild familiarity in them. Most often, such relationships resembled the loose alliance that had formed between her, Joanna, and Horse, characterized by some casual banter, a sense of cooperation in duties and tasks and—most important—an ability to fight side by side skillfully and successfully. Many times one of the trio had saved one or even both of the others.
But, deep down, there were too many barriers to being close, all of them related in some way to the Falcon Guards. Joanna could not quite overcome her distaste for freeborns sufficiently to embrace, or even touch, Diana or Horse. Horse, who had been closer than any other warrior to Aidan Pryde, genuinely went his own way and was too independent to be anything more than someone you could count on in a scrape. For Jade Falcons, and especially the Falcon Guards, that was perhaps the best definition of friendship. Diana felt so much in awe of the other two that she felt almost subservient to them, an ally, the hanger-on lucky enough to be a hanger-on for the two Jade Falcon warriors she most respected.
But Cholas and Castilla—that relationship went beyond such casual friendships. There was something tangible between them that Diana could not define. It reminded her of the old books Horse had pressed upon her, especially those parts which she could not really comprehend—the stories where one male and one female apparently sensed some kind of destiny together and they described their feelings for each other in excessively emotional words whose meanings and nuances usually eluded Diana. They experienced extraordinary events or went on obstacle-littered quests because of their profound, and sometimes chaotic, feelings for each other. The stories often involved such difficult-to-grasp concepts as love, romance, passion, personal devotion—all ideas that Diana could translate into simple Jade Falcon terms, but could not understand in the intricate terms suggested by the stories.
Well, the fates of such lovers were often tragic, and Diana hoped this romance between Cholas and Castilla, if that was what it was, would follow that tradition. Even if they had not been spies, Diana felt they were an unhealthy influence on the Falcon Guards. From the beginning, Cholas and Castilla had been anomalies, and anomalies were detrimental to a good fighting unit. How long could any Jade Falcon warriors endure two of their kind? Sooner or later, someone would have killed one or the other out of pique.
Underlying her confusion about the pair, Diana also felt an important sense of relief. Cholas and Castilla were not, after all, Jade Falcon warriors, so their actions did not reflect upon the Clan. Their lives were pretense, deceit, and so did not place the way of the Clan in question, as it would have if they had been genuine.
As Joanna had once said to her, "Diana, sometimes I think there is more Jade Falcon warrior in you than in most true-borns. Perhaps it is the uniqueness of your spawning ... I do not know. But you believe more strongly in the beliefs, obey the codes more obediently, fight with more determination. For any who would look, you embody the virtues that all warriors ascribe to."
Remembering that, Diana also recalled Joanna's words from the night before, about the freeborn bondsman from the Inner Sphere who had, in Clan Wolf, earned a bloodname and become a Khan. For a moment, she imagined herself earning the Pryde bloodname, but that was a dream beyond dreaming, a fantasy that was more than fantasy. Or was it?
They were nearing the end of the path. Diana told herself she must put all these disturbing thoughts out of her head. Cholas and Castilla could easily gain the advantage if her mind was clouded with fantasy. She looked back. They were still there, still physically close. Castilla, it seemed to Diana, leaned a bit too close to Cholas, as if she meant to defy Diana with her love.
* * *
There was a slight curve in the Gash, and so Joanna did not see Natasha's Dire Wolf until it was very close, even though her scanners, accurate inside the Gash, allowed her to track the enemy 'Mech all the way. First the left arm of the 'Mech, swinging slightly, appeared, and Joanna noted that her opponent had reconfigured it with a Gauss rifle instead of the usual large laser. As the torso became visible Joanna observed its short-range missile setup and took note of its antimissile system. She was glad she had also replaced her own long-range missiles with SRMs, much more useful in the confined Gash location.
The enormous machine, heaviest of Clan BattleMechs, lumbered around the curve and then came to a stop facing Joanna's Summoner. The Dire Wolf had never been to Joanna's taste. It was too big, too thick. Its legs, with their large, rounded knee joints, were too wide and gave the impression of being fat. The rest of its body seemed perched on those legs like a visitor, a hawklike bird about to fly off the legs and away—although, Joanna noted now, the overall effect was less of a bird than an insect, an insect of prey, the kind that bit off the heads of other insects after conflict or sex. That description might just fit Natasha Kerensky, Joanna thought. She was, after all, called the Black Widow.
Joanna did not believe in giving imagined life to a BattleMech, for it made one forget the threat of the pilot inside. However, she had to admit to herself that, at this moment, the Dire Wolf gave off a humanlike energy, a readiness for battle, a sturdiness of stance that duplicated a warrior's resolute bearing before battle.
Briefly, Joanna felt something rare for her. An abrupt pang of fear. Not fear for her life, or even that she would fail in battle, but fear that she would not do well. This Dire Wolf seemed such a massive challenge, especially when guided by such a legendary warrior. Fortunately, she quickly recovered her equilibrium, knowing she was up to the challenge, up to any challenge.
The Summoner was, after all, a quicker 'Mech, though speed would not be much advantage in the Gash, except to run away. It was also a more efficient 'Mech in spite of its relative lightness, giving away thirty tons to the 100-ton Dire Wolf. Freebirth, Joanna thought, my Summoner is even a taller 'Mech. From my position, I can look down on the great Natasha Kerensky. What could be the problem?
* * *
At dusk, the abandoned encampment on the plateau looked even more ghostlike. From the still-smoking embers of the campfires, thin, wraithlike ghosts emerged and floated upward. Recalling her previous night's jokes about ghosts, a cold shiver went up and down Diana's spine. Vehicles had been left abandoned and there were gouges in the dirt where mighty BattleMechs had walked. Some of the gravel was blackened from the fire of jump jets as the 'Mechs had jumped away, and the faint, oily fuel smell was a gift left by the machines as they had lifted into the sky.
"Those freebirths!" Cholas exclaimed as if he had not seen the encampment before. "Did they think they could cheat the Jade Falcons of victory? Scum!"
"What do you expect from the Wolves?" Castilla said. "They fear us as the day fears the night."
"What?" Diana blurted out inadvertently. "As the day fears the night?"
Castilla raised her eyebrows in what might have been disdain of Diana's ignorance. "That was just something one of our falconers used to say. She used to say, you will fear me like the days fear the nights, and I will be the night for you, my foolish hawks."
For a moment, Diana almost believed Castilla, who finished off her explanation with a faint shaping of her distorted mouth that almost resembled a smile. Castilla's explanation was credible, for Diana knew from her own training days that a falconer could get quite bombastic when addressing cadets. But all it really proved was that Castilla and Cholas, whose reaction to the abandoned camp Diana found a bit overdramatic, had experienced some kind of military training. It did not, and would never, make them Jade Falcon warriors, new breed or otherwise.
The three walked through the camp toward the plateau's rim, their weapons drawn in case the Wolves had left behind some ambushers. But the camp was definitely abandoned. No surprise. Natasha Kerensky, despite her guileful ways, was a warrior of her word. If she claimed she had ordered her forces to leave the site, then they had left.
The piles of mined debris remained, higher and thicker. In the waning light of day they looked to Diana like a series of haystacks, an image that would hardly have occurred to most Jade Falcons who, unlike Diana, had not experienced freeborn village life.
Cholas and Castilla, now walking ahead of Diana, picked up their pace as they neared the rim. He whispered something to her, and she nodded. Diana tensed and slowed, determined to keep her distance while keeping them in sight. At the same time she located spots that would offer her good cover if she needed it.
During their walk, all three could hear the footsteps of the two BattleMechs down on the floor of the Gash. Echoes gave the sounds abnormal resonance. Diana kept special attention on the sound of the Summoner and recognized immediately that Joanna had halted her machine where the avalanche had occurred. Reduced to the sound of one advancing BattleMech, the noises coming up from the Gash became hollower and even eerie. Before the three reached the rim, Natasha stopped her Dire Wolf and the air became ominously silent.
Then someone fired and there was a blast of light visible along the rim, silhouetting the mounds for a moment before fading. Afterward, the plateau seemed darker, as if night had descended suddenly, announced by the firing of one 'Mech on another. But nights did fall quickly on Twycross, Diana knew. Nights so dark they distorted the senses. The darkness made her especially alert.
A good thing, too, for just then Cholas and Castilla whirled around and began firing at her.
* * *
The Dire Wolf did not move, Natasha waiting for Joanna to bring the fight to her. Well, we could stand like this and try to stare each other down, I suppose. She wants me to make a move, I'll make a move.
Keeping her pace slow, Joanna advanced in her Summoner. After five steps, she fired her PPC and its crackling bolts of energy struck the other 'Mech on its right torso. Some armor flew and bounced off the Gash's walls. The Dire Wolf took a step backward, a move that caught Joanna off-guard. She had hoped to damage its anti-missile system by concentrating some fire on that side, and she might have scored a lucky shot on it. Withholding her fire, she stayed where she was, daring Natasha Kerensky to make the next move.
But the Wolf warrior's next move was a surprise. Instead of fighting, she spoke to Joanna on the commline.
"Star Commander Joanna, I am giving you the chance to retreat. This Gash is a confined area. Most of our weapons cannot be used to full effect. Fragments from our armor will bounce of
f these walls and become weapons in themselves. We will be at each other's throats waiting for that single lucky hit to take out the other. There is no skill in this, no opportunity for a warrior to prove her mettle."
Joanna was too puzzled to respond easily.
"Star Colonel Ravill Pryde has already discussed this challenge with you," Joanna replied. "If you give up, the Gash belongs to Clan Jade Falcon, and the entire battle is ours."
"You misunderstand me, Joanna. I'm not giving up. I'm giving you a chance, a chance to avoid repeating your old shame. I'm giving you a chance to avoid ignominy in your Clan annals."
Joanna was not used to such ideas, but she knew she would disagree even if she understood the motives behind them.
"You talk of shame, Natasha. What of the shame in the retreat you suggest? That would not look good in the annals, I think."
"If it was recorded at all. Or if your name was even used. You're a minor warrior, Joanna, the kind whose name doesn't often get recorded. I'm willing to propose an alternate challenge to Ravill Pryde, one that will make this little encounter so insignificant that it will probably never be reported."
"Your cowardice is as blatant as your reckless use of contractions, Natasha Kerensky. I am not afraid of you."
"I didn't for a moment think you were. I just wish to stop this inglorious skirmish in favor of a—"
"I will kill you, Natasha Kerensky."
Natasha's laughter was so loud it seemed deafening even over the commline. "I'd probably like you if I knew you, Star Commander Joanna. I'm sorry our battle must take place. I'm sure you are here due to the treachery of your commander. I know all about him. He's a rodent who—"
"Oh, shut up, Natasha. I know about your spies. I know they were reporting to you even last night. I know—"
I am Jade Falcon Page 24