Trial by Chaos

by J. Steven York

  If ever a world had needed the firm hand of Clan justice, it was Vega, and Ricco was glad to provide it for them.

  Moreover, he had found an unlikely ally in Galaxy Commander Isis Bekker. While Clan society, especially the military, tended to hold the paramilitary police in contempt, Bekker had always treated him and his officers with respect, and insisted her officers and troops do likewise. She had the vision to recognize the importance of the police to the rebuilding of Vega, and she had welcomed them into her fold.

  He had been surprised to learn that she had personally investigated his Trial of Position, and agreed that he had been wronged. "You may not hold the place of honor in the warrior caste that you might have wished for," she told him, "but in your heart, you know your true worth, and I know it as well. I hope that counts for something."

  Even more surprisingly, he realized that did count for something. For centuries, the paramilitary police had been, in his opinion, the backbone of Clan society. Only here and now were they finally getting the recognition they deserved.

  He passed through the briefing room, stopping for a moment to scan the war board, where supervisors posted arrests, special assignments and tactical alerts.

  The latest DropShip from the Rasalhague Dominion brought with it the usual rash of arrests for minor offenses. The civilian workers being sent here were outcasts and marginals, he knew; he'd once been considered marginal himself. His men came down hard on the newcomers, charging them on offenses to Clan law that outsiders would hardly have considered a crime. The large public jail that they'd inherited was generally filled to capacity and beyond, and the worst offenders were sent to Prigione, the hellish prison facility and former warlord stronghold located just south of Nasew. There was a two-week wait, even for a flogging.

  But Ricco felt the importance of their mission to establish order. First among the Clansmen, then among the general population of Vega. By quickly showing the Clan newcomers that they couldn't get away with things here, he kept them in line, and by keeping them in line, they set a good example for the general population.

  He exited the other door of the briefing room and crossed the hall into the intelligence office, perhaps the most vital part of his domain, perhaps even more important than the dispatch center. As he walked in he could see a dozen officers at work monitoring security cameras, reviewing intelligence reports, watching recorded interviews with informants. The security officer on duty, Watch Captain "Flash" Teho, stood next to a desk in the corner, arms crossed over his chest, watching the men and women work. He looked up as Ricco entered and nodded a greeting.

  "What's the latest, Flash?" The use of "watchnames," nicknames awarded by other officers, was a recent development in his force. It was a common practice among non-Clan police organizations, but the Clan taboo against taking unofficial names had kept this informal custom out of the paramilitary police.

  Even now, it was of critical importance to avoid using a watchname in front of a nondepartment warrior. They were proud of their Bloodnames, and justifiably defensive of anything that might be seen as diluting the importance of those names. Ricco himself believed that the labnames, awarded to themselves by the scientist caste and now openly used by some members, were an insult to all warriors.

  But watchnames were different. Rather than being used as a formal surname, as in Bloodnames or lab-names, they were casual alternatives to given names, given by fellow officers in recognition of basic competence and as a sign of acceptance.

  Not all watchnames were respectful, and they were subject to change. The watchname given to an officer often said a great deal about the officer's competence and the areas in which he or she could improve.

  As the man in charge, Ricco didn't have a watchname. That too was a sign of respect. Before his promotion, he had been known as Slab.

  Teho picked up a noteputer from the desk and began to page through the reports. "We are following up on reports of an insurgent safe house in the northwest sector, just outside the beltway. Surveillance has been assigned, and we've got people on the street working contacts."

  He scrolled down. "We located an insurgent weapons cache in a shuttered flower shop on the north end of the commercial district: sidearms, grenades, a mortar. Small stuff, except that we are sure the mortar came from off-world, possibly courtesy of our friends in the Draconis Combine. I cannot prove it, but the signs are there. The owner of the building has been arrested and interrogated. He is a known associate of the Labor Party but, to be honest, I do not think he knew the weapons were there. We will give him a few more hours in the sweat-box, just in case."

  Several more taps of the stylus. "Sixteen more reports of Freeminder graffiti appearing in the last twenty-four hours. They've been logged and requests turned over to the removal team, but the clean-up teams are now up to a six-month backlog. We've also identified two potential Freeminder meeting locations, if you want to set up raids."

  Teho looked up and made eye contact with Ricco, who considered for a moment before answering. "I don't think so. Watch Commander. I don't see them as an immediate threat. If anything, the meetings will serve as gathering points for troublemakers, so we can round them up all at once when we are ready. File these as they come in, and push them down the priority list otherwise. The insurgents and their puppet masters are our immediate threat."

  Teho looked less than delighted with that pronouncement, but didn't protest. He knew as well as anyone how thin their resources were spread. "We have the usual crime reports, updates from the police militia training camps—all positive by the way—and one oddity that you should see." He looked around. "Step into my office, and I'll show you."

  They stepped into Teho's small, glass-walled office inside the intelligence center. Teho closed the blinds over the glass, then stepped to the concrete rear wall where an ugly painting of a horse hung, obviously left by the person who occupied the office before the arrival of the Clans. Teho swung the painting back on hidden hinges, revealing a wall safe with a digital lock. "It took me months to guess the correct code, but now that I have it, the safe has proved quite useful."

  "So what was in the safe?"

  Teho chuckled. "Naked pictures. Can you imagine it? That somebody would bother to lock naked pictures in a safe?"

  Ricco grinned. "Our ways are not the ways of everyone. It's good to be reminded of that sometimes."

  Teho punched in the code, opened the safe and removed a clean but ragged piece of cloth wrapped into a palm-sized bundle, perhaps a scrub rag borrowed from some janitor. He laid the bundle on his open hand and unfolded it carefully. Whatever the rag had been hiding glittered under the office lights. Teho turned and held out the object for Ricco to examine.

  It was the shape, and perhaps half the size, of an ident card, though thicker. One edge appeared to have been chopped off cleanly in some kind of shear, so Ricco assumed he was looking at only half of a larger, oblong piece of metal. He gingerly reached over and lifted it, feeling the cool heft of it in his hand. "Heavy," he said, looking at Teho. "Is it . . . ?"

  "Gold? Yes, it is. Solid, very pure, about fifty grams. We took it from a black marketeer we picked up near the spaceport this morning. There is a thriving black market in precious metals and gems, so it wasn't the gold itself that was so unusual, it was the shape and markings."

  Embossed in the top of the ingot was a word that read "3ANNSON." The 3, however, overlapped the cut mark, and he assumed it was actually a B. He looked up at Teho. "Bannson? As in Jacob Bannson? Bannson Universal? Bannson's Raiders?"

  "That would be my assumption. There are plenty of people named Bannson, but few rich enough to pass around gold ingots with their name stamped on top."

  "Is he operating in this region of the Inner Sphere?"

  "Not that we're aware of. Our latest intelligence reports show him in league with House Liao. But those same reports indicate the relationship has soured. Bannson may be looking for a new base of operations."

  "Or new allies." He
handed the ingot back to Teho, who returned it to the safe. "Or perhaps this is only a chance occurrence. The piece could have arrived from off-world by any number of means—smugglers, Draconis Combine agents, or even with a Clansman, by way of the Dark Caste. It may be a coincidence that it has shown up here, but keep your eyes open for any indications of Bannson activity, and let me know immediately if you find any."

  "Will you tell the Galaxy commander about this?"

  He considered for a moment. "The Galaxy commander has a lot on her plate right now. We should keep this in the department until we have something solid to hand over to the military."

  Ricco left the office, exited through the intelligence center and strolled down the stairs to the squad room to continue his morning rounds. He couldn't get Bannson's name out of his mind.

  Bannson was a medium-sized fish in a big pond; a rich industrialist, but also a thug. If he had been Clan, he most certainly would have been Dark Caste. Clan Ghost Bear would never consider him a useful ally. But Ricco was no fool, and he could see the fractures in Clan society all around him. There might be subsets of the Ghost Bears who would see Jacob Bannson as a very useful ally indeed.

  * * *

  Conner Hall strolled down the corridors of the clean, modern Clan hospital located near the center of the base. Looking around at the many wounded warriors being treated, he was suddenly glad that the bombers had chosen the barracks as their target rather than here. The casualties would have been far higher, and logistically, barracks were vastly easier to replace than the hospital, a cluster of memory-metal modular buildings that had been brought with them from the Rasalhague Dominion. He made a mental note to look into security precautions, and see if there was any way they could be improved without interfering with the hospital's operation.

  Following instructions given to him by a nurse at the entrance, he turned left at the next juncture and into a ward. He walked down the row of beds until he found Jorgen. The young warrior was a sad sight, flat on his back, his body in heavy traction, his head and neck immobilized in some contraption that looked like an ancient torture device. He seemed to be able to move his arms a little, but that was all.

  Various tubes and bags were attached to his body by snakes of plastic tubing, and neatly bundled wires ran from under his sheets to an electronic device that Conner recognized as a Clan-designed bone growth stimulator.

  Jorgen smiled weakly as he recognized Conner standing over him. "Star Colonel! You honor me!"

  He nodded in greeting. "It is nothing special, warrior. I visit all of my people wounded in honorable battle."

  Jorgen's smile faded. "There was not much honor in it. Star Colonel. I fell in a hole, damaged my 'Mech, and nearly killed myself before the shooting started. It was a poor showing."

  Conner grinned at him. "There will be better days, better battles and better wounds, I assure you."

  "It could be worse." He paused and took a deep breath. "I heard about the barracks." He swallowed. "That is no way for a warrior to die."

  Conner nodded in agreement. "It is not our place as warriors to choose how we die. It is our place only to choose how we live. They were good warriors. They fought well. They lived well."

  "That is not what their codex will say."

  He had no answer to that, and there was a long silence between them.

  Finally, Jorgen spoke. "What is really hard for me though, is waiting. They tell me it will be a long time before I am allowed in a 'Mech again."

  "I cannot argue with you on that. I hate hospitals. I hate medical leave. Warriors are born to fight, not sit around—or lie around—in a place like this. But though it will seem to take forever, it will be over soon enough, and they tell me you will return to full combat readiness. I have confidence in the doctors, and in you."

  He walked over and patted the bone stimulator, a pedestal-mounted plastic box covered with dials, numeric displays and plugs for electrodes. "These things, for instance, work great. The first time I had one used on me was my Trial of Position to Star commander. I made my rank, but ended up with my jaw broken in six places. Even with the help of this machine, I walked around for weeks with my jaw wired shut. I kept telling people"— he shifted to speaking through clenched teeth—"you should see the other guy."

  Jorgen laughed, which was the intent, but his expression quickly turned dark again. "You know, Star Colonel, that is part of the problem. I never did see the other guy. I heard from the nurses that you got them?"

  "Dead center, while the cowards were trying to run away."

  Jorgen pursed his lips thoughtfully. "That is good then, I suppose. I hear some of the FVR MechWarriors were here too, but they had been released by the time I was conscious."

  Conner chuckled. "Too bad, in a way. Misery loves company. But they made a good accounting of themselves. I often wonder how they would do given real BattleMechs."

  "What about Huntsig, sir? How did he do?"

  Conner considered a moment. "He is a seasoned warrior. He handled himself professionally. I would expect no less of him. I will expect no less of you when the time comes."

  Jorgen's eyes looked away, and Conner could see sudden anger there. "It should have been him, sir."

  "Excuse me?"

  "It should have been him in that pit. You ordered him to the tail-cap position, and he refused, so you sent me instead." His jaw clenched. "I don't think he's a good Clan warrior."

  Conner noted Jorgen's sudden lapse into contractions, and took it as a sign of the depth of his anger. "Why do you say that?"

  "He—he talks about you, sir. In the barracks. I mean, when there was a barracks. He spoke of you with disrespect, and challenged your authority. He said he would have your position one day."

  "That is his right, if he thinks himself a better leader than I or thinks me incompetent, to challenge me to a trial. That would be his duty. It is the Clan way."

  "But you are better than him."

  Conner grinned. "This is true, and that is why I would defeat him in any such trial."

  "Then why should you waste your time fighting him at all?"

  Conner's grin turned into a concerned frown. "Jorgen, you have the potential to be a fine warrior one day. Why are you asking these questions? You sound like—" He looked around to see if anyone nearby was listening, then lowered his voice. "—like a Freeminder."

  "I am sorry, sir. It must be the painkillers. I told them not to give me any. that I did not want to be doped up, but they would not listen." He wrinkled his nose. "Still, it should have been him."

  As he walked out of the hospital, Conner considered the warrior's words, and concluded that Jorgen was right. It should have been Huntsig. The man had good skills as a warrior, but he lacked the mind or the instincts of a leader. The shame of it was. those skills would probably eventually lead him to a promotion for which he really wasn't suited.

  Then it would be the men and women who were unlucky enough to serve under him. people like Jorgen, who would be the ones to suffer.

  Driving back to the FVR barracks, he passed along the back side of a rarely used repair hangar. Something caught his eye, and he rolled the utility cart to a halt on the empty road, looking at the weathered wall of the hanger. "Even here on the base," he said to nobody. He was looking at more Freeminder graffiti. First, in red, was the familiar, "Think the unthinkable." Then, next to that in green paint, were the words, "Obey the Final Codex."

  The Final Codex? He'd heard rumors of such a document, a mythical lost writing of Nicholas Kerensky that supposedly described his final plan for the Clans, their ultimate purpose in restoring the Inner Sphere.

  Or something.

  He'd heard several different versions of the myth, most of them during his childhood in the sibko. He'd never given them any weight. Some of the myths were mystical and vague. Some bemoaned the loss of the one document that would show them their true purpose. Some actually included details of that secret purpose. One especially fanciful one he'd heard sugge
sted that they were to seek out the descendents of Star League founder Ian Cameron, collect their genetic material and, using advanced Clan molecular biology, literally recreate the man gene by gene. It was all perfect nonsense.

  Or something.

  He wondered if the Freeminders were so deluded that they believed in children's stories. Or did they really know something that the rest of the Clan didn't? How was one supposed to obey the Final Codex if it didn't exist, if it couldn't be read?

  He restarted the car, and drove on. He'd alert maintenance when he reached the barracks and have them clean up the graffiti. But as he drove he mused, how could he not think the unthinkable?

  The unthinkable was all around him.

  7

  From the Great Work of Galaxy Commander fsis Bekker

  It is said of the Ghost Bear Clan that we change slowly, and this is true. But slow change is still change, and a journey of a thousand kilometers still is made up of single steps. The Clans have had over three hundred years to evolve and change. Despite our devotion to tradition and doctrine, we have changed. Changed greatly.

  Single steps.

  The first step was when the Great Father Aleksandr Kerensky led the Star League Defense Force on its exodus from the Inner Sphere to the Pentagon worlds, fleeing the crumbling Star League. Certainly, he would not have imagined how far we would come. His writings suggest he expected a rapid return to the Inner Sphere to restore the Star League, perhaps even within his lifetime. That was not to be.

  The next step came when Aleksandr's dream crumbled, the Pentagon worlds fell into chaos, and it fell to his son. Founder Nicholas Kerensky, to lead yet another exodus, this time to fabled Strana Mechty, in the Kerensky Cluster.

  There, he built a new society from the ashes of the old, a society forged in hardship and strife, built on the principle that promotion and position must always be made on the basis of ability and merit. Nothing else, and nothing more. It was this new society that became the Clans.