Twilight of the clans III: the hunters

by Thomas S. Gressman

  "It is no use," Clan tech Lennox explained, as he backed away from the open panel giving him access to the jammed locking mechanism. "The collar is so badly damaged that it will have to be cut away from the outside."

  "Damnation." Lennox knew that the man who spoke was the Master Tech, one Philip Brna. As a member of a Clan lower caste, Lennox had heard plenty of profanities in his time, most of them uttered by warriors to their inferiors. Most Clan epithets tended to be based upon the rigid class divisions and the genetic engineering program, whereas those uttered by these Inner Sphere barbarians seemed to be based on everything from religion to bodily functions. Add to that the staggering array of euphemisms and half-oaths, and the direct, plain-speaking Clansman was at a loss to attach meaning to most of what one of his new masters said. Indeed, some of the coarser, truly barbaric captors seemed to utter profanities in every sentence, as though they knew no other words.

  Brna pulled a black plastic box from one of the pouches hanging from his web belt. Lennox knew that the device was a long-range communicator, probably tied into some kind of communications net. The Master Tech flicked a switch and spoke in a low voice. For several minutes, he exchanged messages with the person on the other end of the link. Soon, with a look of disgust, he shoved the device back into his pouch.

  "Listen up." Brna spoke loudly enough for the rest of his technical crew to hear him. "They're going to send an EVA salvage team over to work on cutting the Broadsword loose from this bloody collar. We're supposed to go down to engineering and help salvage spare parts."

  Even before Brna finished speaking, Lennox had tugged the collar of his environment suit up around his chin. Similar to a marine combat suit, the thick cloth garment had been designed for use by technicians aboard warships. A small life support pack and a lightweight helmet allowed techs to work in hostile environments ranging from heat and high radiation to vacuum. The only drawback was that the life support units had a limited lifespan before they had to be recharged. Still, the suits were remarkably well-made for an Inner Sphere design. They were worlds better than anything the Clans had. The hostile-environment gear used by Clan techs was on the level of Inner Sphere equipment from fifty years ago, probably because it was usually the lower castes who used it.

  Out the corner of his eye, Lennox noticed the bulky olive-drab figures of Inner Sphere marines. It mattered little to him that the men wore both the crest of the Lyran Commonwealth and the oddly proportioned star of House Cameron. He felt a pang of insult at the Inner Sphere commanders' inability to accept a bondsman's oath as binding. Lennox, like all who had given their oath, now considered himself to be part of the task force, in effect, part of a new Clan. Many of the bondsmen resented the implication that their oath was not to be trusted. Others, Lennox among them, simply told themselves that they would work even harder to demonstrate their trustworthiness to their new "Clan."

  Once the last technician indicated that his suit was sealed, the salvage party set out, climbing through the long narrow passages between the docking bays and the engineering module. Though they were crawling feet first through the deck hatches, they weren't necessarily moving downward. Unlike a larger, more powerful WarShip, the transport vessel was unable to generate much more than the 0.2 G needed for station-keeping. In perpetual freefall, up and down were relative. By a tradition that predated the Exodus, moving forward on a space- or starship was always referred to as going up, and moving aft was going down.

  * * *

  In the engine room, wires of every size, description, and color hung from bulkheads, the overhead, and jutted up from the deck. Each bundle or strand showed the gleam of freshly cut metal from the places where some salvage technician had hacked a component free of its moorings.

  In one corner of the dimly lit chamber, a team of bondsmen struggled, side by side with their Inner Sphere counterparts, to wrestle a massive charge converter out of its heavy steel mountings. The big chunk of polycarbon, steel, and alloys was like a huge transformer, designed to change the electrical energy created by the ship's jump sail into a form usable by the vessel's Kearny-Fuchida drives. Had the Winter Wind not been in freefall, the component would have weighed over three metric tons. It would have required a block and tackle to move. Lennox watched, fascinated, as five men levered the immense piece of equipment out of its brackets.

  A yell of alarm, which immediately turned into a shriek of agony, pierced the hubbub of three salvage crews all working in the same space. Unfortunately, both the Inner Sphere technicians and their bondsmen had forgotten one basic principle. Although an object in zero-gravity has no weight, it has mass. As the converter unit began to come free of its mountings, a corner of the device caught against a dangling loop of power conduit. With a velocity of about three meters per second, the charge converter pivoted around the impinging cable, catching a ComStar tech between the converter and the engine room's pressure bulkhead. The massive chunk of plastic and metal struck him, crushing both legs and pinning the screaming man behind it. Metal squealed as it bent, jamming the converter against the bulkhead.

  Dropping his prybar, another ComStar tech grabbed the charge converter by a torch-severed conduit. Shouting at the others to be ready to arrest the motion of the unit, he braced his feet against an empty mounting bracket and attempted to heave the massive weight off his injured comrade.

  "No!" Lennox yelled, darting across the tool- and debris-littered deck. Grabbing the tech by the shoulders, he shoved the startled, would-be rescuer away from the converter.

  The tech's flailing hand caught a grab-bar, arresting his tumbling flight. Fury coloring his face an ugly red, he yanked a stainless steel, small-framed revolver from a pouch attached to his tool belt.

  "You malting Clan bastard." The man's voice was a snarl, as he raised the snub-nosed weapon until it was level with Lennox's heart.

  "If you move the converter, you might kill him." Lennox didn't let himself flinch, despite the unblinking stare of the weapon's black muzzle. "The converter could be all that is preventing him from bleeding to death."

  For long seconds, the tech kept the evil-looking revolver leveled at the bondsman's chest. Then, shaking his head and blinking, he lowered the weapon. A marine guard lunged forward to snatch the revolver as it fell from his grasp.

  Lennox released the stanchion he'd been grasping, allowing himself to float free. He was grateful for the bulky suit. It concealed the shaking in his muscles as the tension left him. Seconds later, a rescue team complete with a trauma surgeon rushed into the compartment and began working to free the trapped technician.

  * * *

  "Here you go, son." The Lyran soldier who stood over Lennox, offering him a zero-G canteen, was probably three or four standard years younger than the exhausted bondsman. The man's nasal twang did little to hide the admiration in his voice. "That were the damnedest thing I ever seen."

  "I could not allow him to move that converter." The water in the plastic bottle was warm and flat, but to Lennox it tasted as sweet as wine. "The man's legs must be badly crushed, but he's probably torn arteries as well. If so, the converter was acting as a tourniquet. If that other technician had succeeded in shifting the unit, his friend would have bled to death in a matter of seconds."

  Returning the canteen, Lennox turned to watch. The rescue team, after lacing a pair of inflatable constriction bands around the injured man's legs, levered the massive charge converter away from his trapped limbs. The injured tech, who had been drifting in and out of consciousness, suddenly came awake, screaming. Mercifully, the shriek was cut off when he fainted once again.

  As the injured man was being carried away in a pressurized rescue stretcher, the chief emergency medtech came over to Lennox.

  "You're the one who wouldn't let them take the machine off his legs."

  "Aff," Lennox replied, eyes lowered to show respect.

  "Good job," the woman said, admiration mixing with relief in her voice. "You probably saved his life."

 
* * *

  Aboard the Fire Fang, repairs were proceeding more slowly, partly because the destroyer had suffered more severe damage than the JumpShip. The biggest reason for the slow-down came in the wake of the nearly fatal accident aboard the Winter Wind. Not willing to risk the lives of any more technicians, Morgan, on the advice of Commodore Beresick, ordered that any further repairs involving the handling of major shipboard components should be carried out by men wearing power suits. Neither he nor the Commodore believed that using the bulky armor would prevent all accidents. They merely hoped that the suits' thick skins and augmented strength would lessen the severity of a mishap.

  That they did. Several times during the repair process, armored troopers were struck by pieces of equipment. The worst injury among the augmented soldiers-cum-repairmen was a broken nose resulting when a loose steel I-beam struck a Light Horse armored infantryman a glancing blow to his faceplate. Had the man been unarmored, he might have escaped unscathed. On the other hand, he might have been killed. Trooper Vance Davis said he'd take the broken nose rather than the fifty-fifty shot at having his head smashed in by a chunk of structural metal.

  In many cases, the members of Task Force Serpent were surprised by the unexpected level of cooperation among the former Clan personnel. Some of the "barbarian techs," as they jokingly referred to themselves, were initially suspicious of their bondsmen, fearing that the ex-Clanners would sabotage any vital system they could lay their hands on. Those fears evaporated as the story of Lennox's rescue of a tech spread throughout the fleet. By the time the tale came back around to the former Clan technicians, it sounded as though he'd single-handedly lifted the charge converter off of the already-dead tech, and then, with a touch of his hand, brought the man back to life. When Lennox tried to explain the actual turn of events, he was brusquely corrected.

  "No, no. The guy who told me has a buddy, whose lance mate is hot for one of the medtechs who was on the rescue team. I'm tellin' you the way it really happened."

  "Get used to it, Lennox," one of the other ComStar techs said, clapping him on the shoulder, an Inner Sphere gesture of friendship which Lennox found quite annoying. "You're a hero."

  * * *

  "Marshal, I have a preliminary report from the repair teams."

  Morgan looked up from his data display terminal. Commodore Beresick dropped into the thinly padded chair facing the task force commander's desk.

  "Uh-huh." It had been nearly sixty hours since the last Clan warrior had been taken into custody. Morgan wondered if he'd managed to get more than six hours' sleep during that time.

  "The work is about eighty-five percent complete. They expect to have the last bits of armor bolted down by this time tomorrow."

  "Uh-huh."

  "As per your order, the Fire Fang has been assigned to Fox Team Three. Also, as per your prediction, Marshal Bryan griped about it. They finally got the Broadsword pried away from her docking collar. She hooked up with the Haruna about two hours ago. Since then, the DEST boys and a couple of the bondsmen have been working on getting the Clan 'Mechs unlocked and reprogrammed so we can use them."

  "Wait a second. The DEST teams are working on 'Mechs?"

  "Yessir. Seems that Ryan and company brought along some really slick code-breaking gear. He says that they'll probably have the OmniMechs ready for reprogramming by oh-nine-hundred tomorrow."

  "Well, how about that?" Morgan snorted, amused. "Remind me to keep Major Ryan and his cutthroats away from my Daishi."

  "Your Daishi?" Beresick laughed in return. "What about my battle cruiser? Just think what that boy could do if he set his mind to it."

  They enjoyed the joke for a moment. Then Morgan turned serious.

  "What about that tech, what's his name? Falconi?"

  "Failoni. He'll probably survive. I talked to the doctor myself. He said the boy has an eighty percent chance, or thereabouts. Thing is, he'll probably lose his legs."

  Morgan leaned back in his chair, shaking his head.

  "Yessir. Doc Yohi says a Clan bondsman saved Failoni's life. Says he beat up some ComStar tech who wanted to lift the charger off Failoni's legs. Yohi says if they'd let him go, Failoni would have bled to death, and no one could have helped him."

  "Okay, Alain. Thanks." Morgan learned forward and glanced at his data display, then sat back once more, rubbing his eyes. "I'll stop by and see Failoni as soon as I can. Meanwhile, I'd like to see this bondsman. What's his name?"

  "Lennox," Beresick replied. "Senior Technician Lennox. You want me to send for him right away?"

  "No. Tomorrow's soon enough."

  "All right, Marshal." Beresick sighed as he levered himself to his feet. As the office door hissed open, he turned back toward Morgan sitting behind his desk.

  "You know, Marshal, maybe you need some rest too."

  "How's that?"

  "Well, you're slipping. Twice now, you've called me Alain." Beresick grinned leaning against the door frame. "Gotta watch that. It's bad for morale."

  Morgan smiled tiredly.

  "Good night.. . Alain."

  Good night, Morgan."

  * * *

  True to his word, twenty-four hours after he left Morgan, Commodore Beresick reported to the command staff that the last of the repairs had been completed, and the fleet was ready to start charging its jump engines.

  "Good," spat Major Marcus Poling, commander of the St. Ives Lancers. "We've been sitting here for nearly three days while you navy-types played Mister Fix-it with a bunch of busted-up spaceships. We should've jumped out right away and left the wrecks for the Clans, or pushed 'em into Trafalgar."

  "Settle down, Major." Morgan was growing short of patience where his painfully diverse staff was concerned. "Sitting here exposed has been a strain on all of us, so let's try not to make things worse, hmm?"

  Poling bobbed his head sheepishly, wishing to avoid another explosion of Morgan's fraying temper.

  "Good. New ship assignments. The Broadsword . . ."

  "Stiletto."

  "What?"

  "Stiletto. That's what her crew is calling her," Beresick explained. "They thought she needed a new name."

  "All right," Morgan chuckled. "Stiletto has been assigned to the Haruna. For now, we're going to leave the OmniMechs where they are, if that's all right with you, Marshal Bryan."

  Bryan took the barb, and nodded in agreement. At least the Clan war machines weren't being assigned to the Uhlans.

  "We've cobbled together a volunteer prize crew for the Fire .. . What is her crew calling her, Commodore?"

  "Fire Fang, sir." Beresick smiled broadly. "That is her name, after all."

  Morgan laughed, for the first time in days.

  "All right, the Fire Fang," he said, emphasizing the vessel's name, "has been crewed by volunteers, and by those bondsmen we feel are most trustworthy. We've also assigned Fox Team Three as her security detail. Since she can't carry DropShips, and she's got a skeleton crew, we've assigned her as a fleet defense boat. If we run into a fight again, she'll stay with the JumpShips and try to knock off any enemy who leaks past the WarShips."

  "Sir, that's something I wanted to talk to you about— the bondsmen," Overste Sleipness interjected. Sleipness was a native of the Free Rasalhague Republic, a state freed from the Draconis Combine in 3034 but which had been eaten down to seven worlds just eighteen years later by the Clan invasion. The sufferings of his family and nation at the hands of the invaders had left the Overste with a deep-seated hatred for Clansmen of any stripe. "Many of my men still bear the scars of our encounter with the Ghost Bears back in Rasalhague. How can you ask them to trust some of the very warriors who razed Thule, Radije, and Kempten?"

  "As I said before, Overste, If you don't want bondsmen serving your unit, you don't have to take them."

  "That isn't what I mean, Marshal." Sleipness locked his gaze on Morgan. "It is the very presence of the bondsmen with this Task Force that concerns me. Yes, I know that you believe their 'bond oaths,' their promis
e to serve the 'Serpent Clan' faithfully. I understand. That doesn't mean I agree with you."

  "So what should we do, Overste? Kill them?" The edge in Morgan's voice betrayed the thinness of his temper.

  "No, of course not. I think you should maroon all of them."

  "No, sir. I'm not going to do that. They've given their word to this task force, to 'Clan Serpent' as they are calling us, and I've given my word that they'll be treated as bondsmen, and according to the Ares Conventions. The bondsmen stay."

  "Very well, Marshal," the Rasalhague commander nodded. He'd made the point he'd hoped to, and it was time to accept the orders of his superior. "I respectfully request the removal of all Clan personnel from our Table of Organization and Equipment."

  "All right, Overste. I can't say as how I blame you."

  * * *

  Bloody hell. The first time in days I get to close my eyes, and some blasted fool comes banging on my door.

  Morgan rolled off his bunk. A glance in the small mirror above the stainless steel wash basin proved to be a major mistake. The man staring back looked horrible. The dark smudges under his bloodshot eyes looked stark against the drawn, pale skin of his face. A three-day stubble darkened his chin.

  Morgan shook his head at the sight of himself, then laughed softly. He wondered what Kym would say if she could see him like this. The thought of her warmed him, but saddened him too. When would he see her again?

  The knock, which had awakened him after thirty minutes of sleep, sounded again, jerking his attention away from the mirror. Morgan splashed cold water on his face, wiped it roughly dry with a towel, and crossed into his flag office, closing his bedroom door behind him.

  "Come," he called. The croak in his voice reminded him of a crow that used to roost in a tree outside his bedroom window in his father's house on New Syrtis.

  The door hissed open, revealing a slight man dressed in a stained olive-drab jumpsuit. Two thin nylon cords encircled his right wrist.