Harrison smiled and nodded, obviously pleased. “Excellent analysis, Julian. Yes, that should send just the kind of message we’re looking to deliver. New Hessen…” He considered it, and nodded. “You will push ahead of my departure and quash any disturbance there. Then it is on to Terra.”
“Then it is the long way around,” Julian said, correcting his prince and uncle. “At least for you. I do not want you anywhere near those worlds.”
The first prince considered that. “If we travel via Marlette and then Tikonov,” he said, using the star chart floating in front of them to plan a course, “we could rendezvous at Yangtze. Does that keep me far enough out of danger?”
Now Harrison mocked him, but in good humor. Julian, though, was very serious. “I would prefer Tigress, but I know better than to argue. Yangtze it is.”
“Do not let it worry you, nephew. Victor’s services aren’t until June. I’ll want to arrive before May, so you should have… oh… at least a week to put things right on New Hessen before I am anywhere close by. And that’s if you leave tomorrow.”
“You don’t make my job easy, do you, Uncle?”
“Builds character, my boy. Best get yourself ready and moving. And remember, I’ll be chasing along behind you every step of the way. So keep your head in your duties.”
Julian knew exactly what he owed Harrison, which was everything. He’d not disappoint. He’d make every effort to stay focused on the problems of New Hessen and not the coming summit and service on Terra. But it was hard. If Harrison’s predictions were right, this would be the kind of grand gathering of political leaders that came once… maybe twice in a lifetime. That would be hard for anyone to ignore.
And he still wondered who else would be there.
6
House Liao invades through Prefectures V and VI. The Jade Falcons are well-entrenched in IX. Prefecture IV might as well be a Davion protectorate for all that Lord Governor Sandoval and his Swordsworn follow direction from Terra these days. And now the Exarch himself attacks usin a show of unsubstantiated partisan politics?
How many more enemies can The Republic afford?
—Senator Lina Derius (Nationalist Party, Liberty), “A Call for True Republic Unity,” Terra, 20 January 3135
Tamar
Clan Wolf Occupation Zone
8 February 3135
Alaric walked into the ’Mech hangar at the side of Loremaster Liam Ward, matching the other man stride for stride. The hangar smelled of hot metal and grease, a stench that permeated every pore in the ferrocrete and wedged itself into even the slightest flaw of stanchion or beam. It never dissipated, no matter how often cadets scrubbed at floors or washed down the steel gantries.
Alaric remembered nights after such work, lying in a barracks rack or on a field cot. The smell clinging to his hair even after a scalding-hot shower. That, he did not miss.
There were only a few techs on duty and little work to be done as yet. That would come later. Empty bays opened to either side of them all along the quarter-kilometer hike. All but the final two, in which a pair of seventy-ton Blood Reapers waited for the fortunate cadets testing out as Clan Wolf warriors this day. Reverse-canted legs and heavy lasers bulking up each massive forearm of the ’Mechs. One of those would be his.
The Clan’s loremaster wore a spotless jumpsuit with military creases so sharp they could shave metal. His hair was light brown with a low widow’s peak shorn tight against the scalp. His dark eyes had a deep frown line permanently wrinkled between them.
Already dressed down in combat togs—cooling vest and shorts—Alaric held a neurohelmet by the chin strap in his left hand. His scarred leather combat boots held no comparison to Liam Ward’s glossy black uniform boots, but their footfalls both echoed in the cavernous interior, rolling along the back wall and bouncing around in the open-beam rafters three stories overhead until one step could hardly be distinguished from another. The applause of footfalls chased after and ahead of them, warning the small gathering of three cadets who stood in a short line before their instructor.
Three trueborn protégés remaining from a starting sibko of thirty-two.
Weakness.
“Loremaster Ward.” The instructor bowed his head out of deference, but did not break eye contact with the older man.
His name was Kyle, Alaric already knew. He had never earned a Bloodname. Though five years younger than Liam Ward’s forty-three, Kyle would finish his career here on Tamar, wiping noses and training future warriors, future leaders.
Setting the worst to train your best? Such a backward system.
“Star Captain Kyle,” Ward greeted him cooly. Then: “Have you chosen your cadets for today’s Trial of Position?”
The sibko instructor nodded. “Rahm and Gregor earned that right.”
“Then Cadet Rahm will match up with Alaric instead, who will test out as a warrior today. Cadet Gregor, you are dismissed.”
As simple as that. Alaric saw Kyle bridle and Gregor hang undecided at the quick turn of events, but there was no questioning the man who oversaw all ceremony and ritual within Clan Wolf. Their anger was useless. A Trial of Refusal could be called, of course. But Kyle did not have the stones for it, and Gregor as yet had no standing within the Clan.
Alaric had already dismissed the possibility of a trial before Kyle began considering it.
He turned his attention to the cadets instead. Trueborn, from the Clan eugenics program. Young and arrogant. The same as he had been at that age, Alaric supposed. All of eighteen or nineteen—four years his junior. They eyed him warily, as one might some alien creature discovered under a rock. Studied his easy, ready stance. His dark blue eyes, which never blinked often enough. Golden blond hair, iron straight and cut all at one length, even with his chin.
Scarred knuckles, broken when smashing in the faceplate of an Elemental, one story said.
A knotted rope of tissue along his right arm. Shrapnel—bouncing around inside a tank’s crew cabin, tearing through his arm and chest several times. He’d used a hot shell casing to cauterize the wounds.
And a small crescent-shaped scar on the outside ridge of his left eye. A fast-draw barracks competition. But you should see the other guy.
They knew who he was. Of the ironborn sibko. But hearing rumors and watching the barracks-tale come walking in dressed for combat were two different things.
“Gregor,” Kyle said, conceding the argument as Alaric had known he would, “stand down. Rahm, you test with Alaric.”
Loremaster Ward nodded curtly. “Alaric. The DropShip lifts at fifteen hundred.”
He would be there. It was promised.
The loremaster turned and stalked away. His steps echoed, stirring the silence that enveloped the small gathering. Alaric had no time for Kyle’s sour expression or Gregor’s glare, so he simply swung his neurohelmet toward the nearest of the two Blood Reaper s. “I will take this one.” He stepped past Gregor, too close, waiting to see if the younger man would bump shoulders against him. A simple touch…
Gregor jumped back.
Satisfactory.
“Alaric!” Rahm called.
One cadet to another, there was no need to answer or even acknowledge. But he did. Pausing. Turning halfway back to look a question with his eyes.
Rahm swallowed. Glanced at his companions and drew strength from their presence. “They say you’ve refused testing every year. Actually challenged by trials not to test.”
That one. “Is that what they say?” Alaric asked. He waited for the others to nod. Even Kyle joined in. Alaric smiled, showing white, white teeth. “Interesting.”
Then he turned back to his ’Mech.
Tamar’s Golden Ranges rolled out for hundreds of kilometers once the two cadets cleared the training compound and a swampy river delta. A great sward of tall, yellow grasses and battle-scarred, blackened earth still healing from the last training battle. Low hills hardly worth the name. Out here there would be no games of hide and seek. No advantage in
the terrain at all. Only skill mattered.
Skill, and the instincts of a hunting wolf.
Alaric trusted his instincts. Stomping his Blood Reaper onto the proving range, feeling its weight sway behind the cockpit, which thrust out of bulky shoulders eight meters above the ground, he felt complete. He felt that the machine’s gyroscope was not perfectly responsive to his neurological signal, as fed through the neurohelmet and translated by uncalibrated control circuitry, but his firm touch on the control sticks made up the difference. Every step felt strong and certain, and his weapons were fully charged.
He even had time for a quick hardwire bypass of the particle projector cannon interlock, which prevented weapons fire at dangerous cycling rates. The ’Mech was his.
Behind, on his left shoulder, Rahm lumbered along in his own Blood Reaper. He spread wide from Alaric’s line of march as the targeting computer suddenly painted icons for six enemy machines on their heas-up display.
“I will break east on your opening shot,” the other cadet said over private comms. As if offering Alaric a gift by giving him first blood.
Alaric shrugged to the cockpit. “You do what you feel the need.” His voice-activated mic certainly picked up his lack of concern. “Do not cross my line of fire.”
The cockpit smelled of warm electronics, but the coolant charge flowing through Alaric’s vest raised gooseflesh on his arms. He dialed back on the flow, preferring to run warm alongside his machine.
His trained eye had already parsed out the ID tags on each of the six enemy BattleMechs. Two thirty-ton Hellion s. A pair of heavy Vultures and another of assault-class Jupiter s. By Clan practice, he and Rahm would fight with live weapons fire against each pair of ’Mechs in order. One on one, unless one of them instigated a melee by firing on the other’s combatant—or each other. That was a tactic used by the blindly ambitious.
Alaric expected it.
One “kill” was all it took, of course. One light ’Mech and you qualified as a warrior. Of course, every sibko cadet dreamed of a clean sweep: three defeated enemies for bumps in rank through Star commander and straight to Star captain. That was the way of ristars—the rising stars of Clan militaries. And the holy grail was four kills. Star colonel. No one save the legendary Natasha Kerensky had ever accomplished that.
Many had died, or failed looking very foolish trying, in the last seventy years since it was done.
“Here they come,” Rahm warned.
Alaric had already noticed the Hellions moving forward. Through the BattleMech’s ferroglass shield it was hard to tell how they moved, but he saw at once from his tactical monitor how the two advanced in perfect concert. A pair of veterans. Liam Ward had promised a challenge, and the Wolf loremaster would deliver on his word.
Shoving his throttle to the forward stop, Alaric sped his Blood Reaper up to a running pace of sixty-two kilometers per hour. Rahm fell back for only a moment before following suit. Like a pair of savage wolves, they bounded over Tamar’s greensward.
The Hellions carried heavy lasers only, which meant they had to wait for close-in shots. Alaric helped his enemies cut the distance quickly, holding his own fire for ten heartbeats. Twenty. Rahm must want to fire, he sensed, but the cadet was too honor-bound to renege on his promise to wait. Foolish, to have no plan of his own and rely so heavily on Alaric’s strategy.
Thirty…
Alaric pulled his crosshairs over the swift-moving Hellion, holding it as his reticle burned the deep, dark gold of a solid targeting lock. Now they were within range of the second pair of waiting combatants, the Vulture s, as well. But everyone held their fire as the BattleMechs closed with great strides.
Forty. Fifty.
Sensing at the last possible heartbeat when his opponent would open fire with a heavy laser, Alaric toggled for full weapons spread and eased into his primary triggers.
The PPCs on his left and right arms blazed with backflashes of cerulean energy, and like twin forks of lighting a cascade of charged particles slashed across the tall grasses to rip up and down the sides of the lead Hellion. Armor shards glowing white-hot at the edges rained down, starting small grassfires. The light ’Mech staggered as if sucker-punched, slowing. All but falling into the brace of advanced tactical missiles which corkscrewed in on gray exhaust trails to blossom yellow-orange fireballs from head to toe.
Hot-cycling his weapons even as his BattleMech’s reactor spike washed his cockpit in sweltering waves of waste heat, Alaric held his angle and traded another full salvo for the Hellion’s laser.
A bright orange lance slash-burned armor from the Blood Reaper’s right leg. It threw a hitch into Alaric’s step, but it was hardly a problem.
His second barrage was more than the light ’Mech could stand. A severed leg and heavy internal damage took the machine down hard, plowing it into the soft earth. High-velocity metal spat out of the gaping rents as the Hellion’s gyroscope tore itself into shrapnel.
The MechWarrior would be a fool to get back up again.
And if he tried, Alaric would kill him.
True to his word, Rahm had cut eastward to spread some little distance between the separate one-on-one battles. He’d also throttled back, determined to keep some distance on the smaller, faster Hellion. Which left Alaric’s Blood Reaper in between Rahm and his target. Alaric never hesitated, pivoting into a hard left and racing across the trueborn’s line of sight, spoiling the other cadet’s aim and waiting—ready—for him to burn so much as a small laser into Alaric’s side.
Rahm didn’t. He pulled out of his own shot rather than risk instigating a grand melee before his first kill. Surrendering initiative to the Hellion, Rahm rode out a pair of deep, angry wounds to his ’Mech’s left arm and flank.
Sweat stung Alaric’s eyes as more waste heat piled into the cramped cockpit, bleeding up through the deck plate. His breath came sharp and shallow, pulling hot coals down into his lungs. But already he had his crosshairs centered on the Vulture, having guessed that the other MechWarrior would not anticipate the Hellion’s surrender.
The Vulture stood there, immobile, waiting for the all-clear signal to advance and challenge the testing cadet. As the Hellion’s pilot shut down his targeting computer and his icon disappeared from everyone’s tactical display, Alaric was already working his crosshairs carefully up the other BattleMech’s lanky body, targeting the narrow profile of cockpit nestled between the shoulder-mounted launchers.
The Hellion went dark, and Alaric put one of his PPCs through the Vulture’s ferroglass face mask. The other cannon went just a few meters high, slashing impotently through the air, but the miss hardly mattered. The cockpit caved inward under the brutal stream of the first cannon, half-melted and half torn away, letting the interior fill with hellish energies that cremated the Wolf veteran on the spot.
Laziness should be a terminal illness in any warrior.
“Great Father!” Rahm yelled. Partly in admiration, of course. But in no small amount of shock, either.
Alaric, meanwhile, felt like howling his frustration over the common channel he shared with the other cadet. Four years he had waited for this. Four years during which he was instructed on how to challenge for a refusal of position. Waited for the moment when it was deemed appropriate for him to make his stand and separate himself from the pack. From his sibkin.
And they were making it easy!
But the Jupiter was one hundred tons of pure, unpleasant war avatar, a massive assault-class ’Mech with vast reach in its large lasers and twin launchers capable of spitting out two score of long-range missiles in every flight. This Wolf was ready, or at least had learned something from the previous warrior’s mistake. With the Vulture’s cockpit a smoking ruin, the ’Mech standing there, dead, the Jupiter waited for no call of engagement. Gem-bright laserfire burned through the space between them, slashing at Alaric’s arms and right leg. With a backward-rocking motion, the Jupiter set itself as forty missiles took to the air in a wide spread of violence.
Alaric had no choice but to stand against the blistering assault. He’d pushed his fusion reactor deep into the red. The Blood Reaper responded sluggishly, as rising heat levels addled the ’Mech’s control circuitry, and his targeting reticle cut in and out as the sensitive electronics suffered similarly.
The lasers stripped away armor, melting deep wounds into his limbs. Molten composite runneled down his ’Mech’s leg, splashing into the grass. More sooty black smoke spread behind him as he staggered away from the budding fires and Rahm, who now moved up, having finally put down his own light Hellion.
Warheads fell all around Alaric, tearing up the sod and smashing like huge fists over his head and shoulders. The shaking threw him against his seat restraints and threatened to beat him down to the ground. He wrestled with the control sticks, using his arms as counterbalance and ducking forward far enough that his own sense of equilibrium stressed the Blood Reaper’s gyroscope enough to maintain balance within a kilo or two of toppling.
He eased off his throttle, then slammed it back into full reverse as soon as he regained control of the Blood Reaper. The ’Mech nearly spun over, and Alaric felt like he’d been punched in the gut as the quick-release buckle on his restraint harness dug deep into his abdomen.
He glanced at his wireframe schematic. His left PPC showed a control circuitry failure. Pushed too hard too fast. And the thin armor protecting his cockpit was of desperate concern as well, as another salvo of missile fire hammered down around him. A single warhead slammed into the side of the Blood Reaper’s head, the noise of the explosion thundering through the cockpit as the brutal shove jogged him sideways.
Two kills in as many minutes. Alaric was a Star commander in Clan Wolf now. Good enough, but not what he had promised. Not what he had been promised.
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