Then the Hellbringer, its heat capacity overextended, also exploded. Flames leaped to the sky from the specially designed blowout panels in the back of the 'Mech as the missiles stored in the right and left torso went up. The force of the explosion rammed the 'Mech face-down to the ground, crushing the cockpit and Summer Mandaka.
Beside Aidan, Horse remained for a moment, still staring ahead in disbelief. "Was it suicide?" he said. "She had to know she was overheating when she fired that last shot. Why did not the autoeject mechanism function—"
"She could not eject," Aidan told Horse, then explained that Mandaka had disabled her ejection seat. "She said she could not survive one more lost 'Mech. She meant it."
"So it seems."
"At any rate, we are now short a Star Commander and a MechWarrior, with no pool of unit reserves from which to draw. I believe it is my privilege to request replacements from what is available on Quarell. I do not care how you do it, Horse, but I want Star Commander Joanna and that other MechWarrior—I think her name is Diana, the one from the Vreeport debacle—transferred to the Falcon Guards immediately."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Horse walked away, muttering. Aidan knew what his friend was thinking. It was enough that they must somehow form up a band of misfits, warriors who could barely get along with one another, and now Aidan was asking for more trouble. No love had ever been lost between Joanna and Horse, but he knew Joanna was good. Horse had to give her that. Joanna was good.
20
Joanna hated the idea. "Consider my position," she said. "I was transferred from the Falcon Guards as one of the marks of the unit's failure, and then I was demoted, which I thought was the worst thing that could ever happen to me as a Clan warrior. Even worse than being a falconer wiping the backsides of your stravag sibko. Now I am back in the Falcon Guards, and it is worse than leaving it."
"But will you become the Guards' falconer?" Aidan asked.
"Do I have a choice, Star Colonel? If I remember correctly, you are the commanding officer. I must follow your orders, quiaff?"
"Not in this case. I am asking you to volunteer."
Joanna stood at the window of Aidan's office, looking out at the drilling catastrophe that was the Falcon Guards' calisthenics. She turned and twisted her face into what was perhaps intended as a smile. In a flash of memory, Aidan recalled seeing her in just such a pose when she had been a falconer years before. Time had not been kind to Joanna, but her poise and posture were as youthful as ever.
"I volunteer, Star Colonel. We old warriors are grateful for any kind of assignment, you know. When do I start?"
"How about immediately? Start with the calisthenics, if you wish."
She nodded. "Good a place as any, I expect. Dismissed?"
"Dismissed."
At the door she stopped. "Oh. Your permission to assign MechWarrior Diana as my, well, aide in this. Nobody out there knows either of us, so there will be no past histories to interfere."
"She is inexperienced and a freeborn."
"But she is as tough as fusion-engine shielding. You will see."
"You may use any personnel in any way you wish, Star Commander Joanna."
After she was gone, Horse pushed away from the wall, where he had been observing the encounter.
"What was that all about?" he asked. "Do I detect some clever strategy on your part?"
Aidan cleared away a pile of papers at the corner of his desk, then sat down on the clean spot. Looking at his friend, he saw that Horse, too, was beginning to show age. In any other unit, the two of them would have been the old warriors. But compared to the overage warriors they had been sent for the Falcon Guards, Aidan and Horse were still young.
"If I have a strategy, it is simply that I need someone who can whip these malcontents into shape. That is Joanna's special talent, and I intend to use it. That is what leadership is all about, Horse, using one's personnel effectively. "
Horse opened his mouth to retort, but they were interrupted by the sounds of a scuffle outside. Aidan moved quickly to the window, with Horse close behind. The sight that greeted them was one of their malcontent warriors on the ground a few meters from the window, grimacing as he rubbed his jaw. Joanna stood over him. Several warriors looked on, various degrees of surprise on their faces.
"Looks to me like Star Commander Joanna has begun her task," Horse commented drily.
For the next hour Aidan abandoned command duty for the sheer pleasure of watching from his window as Joanna conducted the drill session. She and MechWarrior Diana weaved among the warriors, prodding them to speed up or to better execution or to simply remain standing when they looked ready to drop from exhaustion. Several instances of defiance occurred during the first few minutes of the exercise, but the pair of drill instructors had countered each incident with a physical response. Several old warriors were easily decked; others had to be fought more craftily. But in each case Joanna or Diana prevailed. They had the advantage of determination as well as of having maintained their own regimens; they were simply in much better shape than any of these aging or scruffy warrior-misfits. By the end of the hour, this particular Trinary of Falcon Guards was actually beginning to show some precision in its group movements. Joanna immediately ordered another Trinary to assemble in the drill zone.
Satisfied that Joanna was carrying out her mission efficiently, Aidan began to study MechWarrior Diana more intently. Something about this young woman, who reminded him more and more of Marthe, intrigued him. It made no sense, of course. He must certainly be turning a slight resemblance into something more. But it was not only that the young warrior looked like Marthe; she moved a bit like her, too. What's more, she showed exactly the kind of skills that had been Marthe's specialty. Only her recklessness was a contrast. Marthe had been methodical, meticulous. Diana's hotheadedness was more like Aidan than Marthe.
Well, he thought, Clanspeople of all castes could resemble one another. Was there not a saying that everyone had his or her twin on some Clan world? Sometimes it seemed quite possible.
Joanna felt exhilarated for the first time in years.
"You know what it is?" she said to Diana. "It is power. I have always craved power. I was meant to be at the highest levels of command. Only circumstance has kept me from it. Your father has given me a chance to—"
"Please. Never refer to him as my father. If anyone heard—"
"If anyone heard, they would not care, nor would they believe it. Why be so obsessed by the fact? No one else would. Your father himself would probably treat the information as no more than a curiosity. It is not as a daughter that you must strive to impress him. Impress him as a warrior. And now be silent. I have much work to do."
As ordered, Diana spoke no more.
* * *
Over the next days, Joanna began to post so many rules about nearly everything that the grumbling from the barracks seemed to became part of the night sounds of Mudd Station.
But her rules brought results. Formerly filthy MechWarriors suddenly began to appear at musters clean and in immaculate outfits. Personal weapons drills led to high scores. In marches, left feet tended uniformly to contact ground followed by the simultaneous movement of right feet. Aidan knew from watching the marching drills that Joanna's success was phenomenal. None of the warriors had been in a close-order march since cadet training. How she had terrorized them into it he did not know, nor did he care.
Her real triumph, however, was the 'Mech drills.
At the beginning of them, she had delivered a long, scathing oration on how most of the warriors had lost sight of their place in the Clan and what the Clan should mean to them.
"Individuality, that is your curse," she screamed at them. By this time, they were surprisingly docile whenever she raised her voice. "You know who believes in the promotion of the individual at all costs? The warriors of the Inner Sphere, that is who. They have weakened themselves with just that sort of degeneracy. They scheme. They employ vici
ous trickery. They believe in personal glory. Heroes are valued. And do you know what happens? They become reluctant to take the necessary risks, the ones that might endanger their lives, because they have begun to think their personal existence matters more than the goal for which they are fighting.
"Their kind of hero separates himself from the others and attempts to prevent any tarnish to his reputation. Suddenly it is better to hold back and let someone else fight the battle. Suddenly there are more heroes in the rear than at the front. Is that the kind of hero you all want to be?"
"No? Yet each of you seems to have developed personal styles, quirks, and idiocies. But it is not differences, individuals, that are the way of the Clan. Do you forget the cause that has governed our lives since any of us emerged from the iron womb? It is the cause that must be our beacon. In this war with the Inner Sphere, it is the Clan that must prevail, not the individual in battle. Each time you destroy an enemy 'Mech, it is for the Clan, not for your personal glory. Anyone who is not willing to die for the Clan is not truly a warrior."
"You have transformed yourselves into individuals. I intend to make you Clan warriors again. Do you wish to be Clan warriors?"
"Seyla!"
"Ah, I thought so. Then get off your spreading behinds and do as I tell you. Exactly as I tell you."
If a few recalcitrant warriors still resented Joanna, the others brought them back into the fold. Soon the Falcon Guards were operating with more precision. But Joanna insisted on more, and she got it. And what Joanna could not get, Diana did. The two warriors savaged the new Falcon Guards and then revived them. Which was exactly what Aidan had ordered them to do.
* * *
Joanna came into Aidan's office one day. "Go to your window, Star Colonel," she said.
Looking out, he saw the entire Falcon Guards on the field, all the pilots in their 'Mechs, all the Elementals in their battle armor. MechWarrior Diana stood on a recently constructed platform. At a signal from Joanna, she gestured toward the assembled troops.
In almost a single precise movement, all the BattleMechs, all the Elementals, raised their left arms to a chest-high position. This was followed by the right arms, which went past the chest position and raised up, stopping at an oblique angle, all of them in approximately the same position. Then each arm was lowered separately.
At the next signal from Diana, each of the BattleMech torsos inclined first to the right, stopped simultaneously, then in synchronization, inclined to the left. After holding the pose for a moment, all the BattleMechs returned to the upright position.
These were just the beginning of nearly an hour of precise drills, sometimes just the BattleMechs, sometimes just the Elementals. At the end, they formed into marching units and left the field in a precision drill.
Aidan, who had been spellbound by the demonstration, finally turned to Joanna and said, "I am impressed. But just what in the name of Kerensky was happening there?"
"Well, in one sense, you have just witnessed the universe's first BattleMech calisthenic drill. In another, you have seen I have done my job. You can go into battle with some confidence in the Falcon Guards. They are still a bunch of aging or eccentric warriors, but they are now a unit. Sir."
"I have seen your work over the last two weeks, Star Commander. I have known for some time that your mission was a success. And in good time, it seems. Our orders are to proceed to Tukayyid in two days. I appreciate what you have done, Joanna."
Joanna did not acknowledge either the credit or the familiar use of her name. As usual, Aidan could not be sure what she was thinking. She probably hated him as much as ever.
"At the beginning of this," he said, "you did not think much of my plan. What do you say now?"
"The plan was chancy, but it worked."
"Thanks to you, Star Commander."
"That is also true."
21
Kael Pershaw came to the DropShip Raptor early the night the Jade Falcons were to drop onto Tukayyid's Prezno Plain. He visited several of the DropShips that night, his stiff, useless arm and half-mask making a strong impression on the Jade Falcon troops. Later, they would call him "The Specter of Tukayyid."
On this night, though, he seemed blessed with an added vitality. When he spoke, his voice was unusually excited. He walked briskly, somewhat overcoming the limp, and a glow of eager anticipation showed in his visible eye. Perhaps it was this look that accounted for the legend. Never before in his life had Kael Pershaw looked this way, and even those who knew him well found it eerie.
Those like Aidan Pryde.
Aidan was glad to be sitting when Pershaw strode into his cramped DropShip quarters. He had been reflecting deeply about what to say to the Falcon Guards before they dropped for battle. No one had reported to him that Pershaw was aboard.
"You are to be praised, Aidan Pryde," Pershaw said after they had exchanged greetings. He stood just inside the doorway, and the only illumination in the room, a desk lamp to one side of Aidan's desk, shot light up at him. The effect only added to the eeriness of his appearance. A glow seemed to project from the scars on his face, the half-mask transformed into a dark hole on one side, the visible eye seeming to drift in front of the face. Aidan, not normally affected by supernatural suggestion, felt a shudder run up and down his spine.
"Praised? A strange word coming from you, Kael Pershaw. For what, may I ask?"
"In assigning you the Falcon Guards, I believed that I was prematurely destroying your career. That was not my intention, mind you, just my interpretation. But I planted a spy among your techs and—"
"A spy? That is troubling. Do we of the Clan now stoop to an Inner Sphere style of deception?"
Pershaw nodded briskly. "You are correct to be concerned. Our Clan, indeed all the Clans, seem to be subtly changing the deeper we penetrate into the Inner Sphere. We should imitate Clan Wolf, whose line of supply leads back to the Clan worlds. We should keep the lines of our heritage firmly tied to our own worlds. In some ways we are losing that. Perhaps no one expects any interference with the advance of our juggernaut. But that is neither here nor there. When we have captured Terra, there will be time enough to restore any lost values. I am merely here to tell you that the Falcon Guards will play a more important part in the fight for Tukayyid. We need your daring, Aidan Pryde."
"The Falcon Guards will serve wherever assigned, sir. As you know, we are ready. Much of the credit for that goes to Star Commander Joanna. I have, in fact, given her a field promotion to Star Captain for the campaign."
"A field promotion will not stick for her, I am afraid. She is too old, and there is the Twycross—"
"She knows the promotion is temporary. But the Falcon Guards respect her, and the rank will only enhance their respect."
Kael Pershaw moved to the right side of the doorway, out of the light cast by the desk lamp. Though Aidan could still see him, the details of his features and uniform were less clear. His voice also sounded disembodied, as though coming from another part of the small room's darkness.
"I must tell you, Aidan Pryde, that the struggle for Tukayyid is not going well. Two weeks ago, when the bidding took place to determine the order of the various Clans' landings on planet and what targets would go to the winners of each bid, we believed we would not need all our Clan forces in the fight for Tukayyid. Khan Chistu included the Falcon Guards in the Jade Falcon bid to win a favorable target. That was why so much fierce maneuvering took place to keep Clan Wolf off Tukayyid until it was almost over. It was believed that if the Wolves landed last and had only two relatively minor targets, they would have no opportunity to win any major advantages. We were confident the battle would be over by the time they arrived, making Clan Wolf a significant loser. The fact that the Clan Wolf Khan offered no significant protest to the blatant plotting against them puzzled me at first. I had thought that the ilKhan, himself a member of the Wolf Clan, favored his former Clan. He has told me that he wishes Clan Wolf to be the ilClan, the Clan that first gains control
of Terra.
"Nevertheless, the Wolf Khan seemed content with the outcome of the bidding. Now I see that perhaps his bid was far-seeing. The landings early this morning have not gone well for the Clans, and it is possible that Clan Wolf will go in at the right time to gain all the spoils. At the moment, Clan Jade Falcon stands in the way of Clan Wolf. It is essential that we prevail."
"I understand that. And you must understand that I do not intend for the Falcon Guards to reap any more shame. If we go down, it will only be because we die."
"I am glad to hear that, Aidan Pryde. However, my fears are not only for the shrewdness of Clan Wolf. They are for all the Clans. We deserve to conquer the Inner Sphere. It is a matter of good defeating evil, after all. The people of the Inner Sphere do not, of course, see it that way. They complicate issues and ideas so much that they drain them of all meaning. An Inner Sphere concept is like a law made by some village council. The council members argue so many local trivialities that the law comes out meaningless. So it is with the Inner Sphere. That is another reason why the Clans must prevail. It is for the good of humanity. Once we have eliminated the deviousness of the Inner Sphere way, we will easily restore the glory of the Star League.
"Aidan Pryde, no one knows which Clan will become the ilClan or indeed how the selection will be determined—whether the prize should go to the best warriors on Tukayyid or to the first Clan to actually set foot on Terra. The important consideration for Clan Jade Falcon is that its predecessors have failed, whether they know it or not. The Smoke Jaguars, the Steel Vipers, the Nova Cats—all have become bogged down. I do not see any of them succeeding. Only the Ghost Bears have made any significant progress.
"Not only do the Jade Falcons stand a good chance of winning the honor of ilClan, but they are needed to turn the tide of battle. Khan Vandervahn Chistu has sent me with your operations orders. You and your Falcon Guards are detached from direct Galaxy control. You are to break through and bypass any ComStar resistance and take either the city of Humptulips or Olalla. You will not follow a set battle plan, but will improvise. Is that acceptable, Aidan Pryde?"
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