Way Of The Clans

by Robert Thurston

  He could have left her there, getting a head start in his 'Mech and increasing his chances of winning. But this was Marthe, and they had grown up together, and there were still residual (if dormant) loyalties. Besides, Ter Roshak had emphasized that they should function as a unit.

  So, with three quick shots, he killed the three free-births. They fell almost simultaneously. He came out from cover and stood over them, then looked toward Marthe. She had walked out a couple of steps into the clearing. They stared at one another wordlessly for a moment, and all Aidan saw on her face was bitter resentment.

  19

  Most Trial participants are not as efficient as Cadet Aidan in disposing of freebirth opponents during first-stage maneuvers, wrote Ter Roshak. He totaled five kills, the most freebirths ever lost to a single cadet in this ordeal. His shooting was, in fact, better than any of his target-range scores. But that can happen. Many a 'Mech-Warrior's abilities are best tested in actual combat, and no amount of organized measures will predict them.

  I am sometimes accused of waste, perhaps the worst blemish on a Clan training commander's records, because I approve risking freebirths in Trial maneuvers. Why not just put in realistic targets, my accusers say, as we do? A target popping abruptly out of the ground has just as much effect against a cadet's alertness as a living freeborn leaping out from underbrush. I believe, however, that I have always been able to successfully defend my position. Once a cadet knows he is being attacked by metal-and-cardboard constructions, it is no longer a true challenge, but a game, a joke, every time he encounters another ridiculous manmade obstacle. It is these constructions that are the real waste—a waste of useful materials for a useless purpose. Yet if cadets defeat, even kill, freeborn trainees in the course of their runs to their Trial 'Mechs, they are honing their own skills and, as a bonus, raising their own adrenaline levels for the important battle to come. Facing a bit of danger helps one to face even more dangers. The cadets do not realize, of course that the game is slanted in their favor. Freeborn weapons have been doctored to make them unable to kill. At worst, stunning the cadet for a few seconds. Even with those odds, I rarely lose a freeborn with real promise in this part of the Trial and I have never lost a cadet. I say that the results support my methods.

  As far as waste is concerned, the opposite is true. The Trial is better, its participants perform more skillfully, the training command turns out better and more aggressive MechWarriors. I am satisfied. And so are others, for I am grateful to note that more and more of my colleagues are adopting my methods.

  It is also significant that my command has the highest rate of success in training freeborns, which makes the occasional loss of a few in a valuable test situation logistically acceptable. Whether in war or peace, the strategy and tactics that result in either victory or the kind of loss that exhausts the enemy are all that count. Results justify, complaints obstruct. And I am successful enough to turn my head away from obstructions. I have heard that, historically, massacres and slaughters were condemned by people who thought of themselves as "right-thinking." I agree, but I believe that the Clan has countered the blame that such people imposed on events with a control of life as well as death. The number of warriors who fall is calculated precisely. No one should be killed unnecessarily, and that is the key word. There are necessary deaths, necessary massacres, necessary slaughters. That is what the right-thinkers did not realize. If the deaths of a thousand people further the scope and goals of the mission, those deaths are glorious. But one man's unnecessary death is the atrocity. We Clansmen have redefined such words as atrocity and glory.

  Even the freeborns perform better knowing that they are part of the Trials of trueborns. Most of them are eager to attack a trueborn, even though they know that Clan society views freeborns as the more expendable of the two genetic categories. No, I see no waste. None at all. Nevertheless, Cadet Aidan's killing of five of the freeborns shocked even me. Then, when he was down temporarily, with a vengeful freeborn standing over him, representing the sixth potential slaying, I was tempted to abort the whole exercise. ...

  20

  Afterward, long afterward when he had time to reflect upon the entire experience, Aidan decided that it must have been a minor explosion that knocked him off his feet, perhaps from the kind of training grenade used on an obstacle course. Though its charge was light, it could have done some actual physical damage if it had landed closer to him, and it was strong enough to make him unconscious for perhaps one or two minutes. He came to with the sun, newly arrived in the sky, shining behind the towering figure of one of the freeborn ambushers. Even though the figure was in shadow, Aidan could tell that he held a pistol in his hand and was pointing it at Aidan's head. Whether or not the freebirth squeezed the trigger, Aidan was never certain. There was a possibly false memory of a whooshing sound by his ear as he rolled sideways and sprang rapidly to his feet. For once, all those sibko acrobatics, practiced endlessly in calisthenics and team tussles, stood him in good stead. He had not been the most adept at such exercises, but his talents were enough to catch this freeborn off guard before he could shoot again.

  Not even trying to steady his own balance, Aidan thrust himself on his attacker, pushing him backward a few stumbling steps, then onto his back with Aidan on top of him. Aidan spotted a hand-sized rock next to his enemy's head and grabbed it. Just before he slammed it against the freeborn's forehead and knocked him cold, he was chilled by the look of icy hatred in the young man's eyes. He read it as the same kind of hatred that trueborns felt for this inferior class. It had not occurred to him that the hatred's intensity could be returned just as strongly, if not more so.

  The look enraged Aidan. By what right did free-borns feel scornful of their obvious superiors, even if this one had been chosen to train as a warrior and was thus a cut above his own kind? As if bouncing the hatred back onto the freeborn, Aidan gave the unconscious man an extra blow against the side of his head. His body jerked abruptly and went still. Aidan thought he might be dead, but did not have time to verify the kill.

  Standing up, he scrutinized the immediate vicinity, saw no potential danger. Without looking back at his latest victim, he started running toward the 'Mechs again. As he came to a slight rise, he saw Bret already lifting on a field howdah to his Summoner's cockpit. An arm of Marthe's 'Mech was already moving, indicating she was in her pilot seat and ready to engage.

  Damn! If that stinking freeborn had not interfered with his progress, he would be piloting his own 'Mech right this moment. Now he was going to be the last to start off.

  Lowering his head, Aidan began to run as fast as he could. His head was down because he did not want to watch the others get the jump on him, but he could not keep out the sounds. First came the rhythmic pulse of one fusion engine starting up, then the other, the clomp of one of the pilots testing out the footing of his or her 'Mech, the slight whir of the weapon system being positioned. He knew his ears were deceiving him, but he could have sworn he heard Marthe's muttered curses as she tested out her commlink.

  Suddenly he was there, at the foot of his Summoner. Looking around, he saw that Marthe's 'Mech was already heading up the slight hill beyond which the.enemy waited. Bret's was just taking its first step.

  And his 'Mech, as if rudely signifying his single opportunity to be a Clan warrior, stood uninhabited. To Aidan, the Summoner's, face glared down at him, as though condemning him for slackness. Aidan stepped into the field howdah, which sensed his weight and immediately and smoothly rose to cockpit-level of the 'Mech. The cockpit hatchway was open, and Aidan virtually dived through it in his haste. He bumped his head lightly against the side of the hatchway. The bump hurt, but he ignored it as he stumbled over his own feet and nearly fell into the command couch.

  21

  Aidan could never have explained how or why, but he seemed to hear an eerie silence beneath the ever-present noise within the cockpit. All sensors were operational, and he only had to find his way into the command couch, don the
neurohelmet, make the proper quick checks, and get the 'Mech itself moving.

  A note was taped to a secondary screen. It read: "Welcome to your Trial. Now your real mettle is revealed. No matter that I despise every one of you, I wish you success, [signed] Falconer Joanna." Grunting, Aidan tore the paper off the screen, crumpled it up, and tossed it over his shoulder, where eventually it would be sucked into the waste system and cast out of the 'Mech in tiny shredded pieces. On the screen itself was the set of commands that would activate the 'Mech, a substitute for the checklist that a pilot would normally perform with his chief Tech. Aidan went through the steps rapidly, seeing on the primary screen that Marthe had already reached the crest of the hill and Bret was not far behind. He had to catch up with them before they disappeared over the hill. It was a matter of honor. Nobody liked to bring up the rear, even less when you were so behind you looked like a straggler. During the forced marches of training, a straggler was ostracized by the rest of a sibko.

  In the early training days of Aidan's sibko, the cadet named Dav, whose talent was artistic rather than physical, always had difficulty keeping up with the others. Although the sibkin revered Dav's gentleness and affability, they made his life a living hell until finally he kept up with them on the marches. (Dav never knew that Aidan and Marthe had secretly lightened his backpack before these marches, and was thrilled at what he perceived as his own achievement.) For a time, Dav had actually become a promising cadet, then the training became too severe for him and he flushed out. Like most of the other cadet washouts, he crept silently out of the barracks one night, but, unlike the others, he left behind a well-executed drawing of each of the survivors.

  Satisfied that his neurohelmet guidance system was in sync with him, Aidan started his 'Mech on its first step without first testing the legs. It nearly became a costly mistake as the 'Mech wavered from side to side. Concentrating, Aidan executed a perfect second step, and the 'Mech regained balance. To an observer, the Summoner would have seemed to stride surely and confidently up the hill, reaching the crest much faster than the other two 'Mechs had done.

  On his primary monitor, Aidan surveyed the valley, pictorially divided into lines and grids, in front of him. Up ahead, Marthe and her Summoner walked cautiously, the 'Mech's head moving slightly from side to side as she searched the terrain for her opponents. Bret's 'Mech was lumbering sideways, apparently having detected something.

  From his high vantage point, Aidan saw activity beyond a clump of trees. Apparently Marthe had discovered it, too, for her 'Mech started moving quickly toward it, feet crushing greenery into flat, scarred swaths. Switching from grid picture to natural picture, Aidan saw a trio of 'Mechs, Marthe's three test opponents, emerge from cover behind a thick clump of trees. At the same time, Bret's opposing 'Mechs seemed to come out of the ground, though actually they were cresting a hill to Bret's left. And further away than this six, the three that Aidan knew were destined to be his adversaries burst out of a camouflage cover that had looked like a group of high rocks, but that his computer's secondary monitor analyzed structurally as merely a construction. One of them, a Hellbringer, lifted its left arm and pointed it straight at Aidan, a gesture indicating that this was Aidan's first opponent.

  He cursed the distance between him and his Trial antagonist, who was too far away for Aidan to initiate his strategy. He could shoot off an LRM salvo, but it would either be blown out of the air or just pass over the Hellbringer's head like a harmless balloon. He had to get closer, so he shifted his 'Mech to face the other 'Mechs directly, and took the first step toward engagement.

  When Marthe fired the first shot of the contest, a cannonade of energy blasts from her right-arm PPC, the vibration rocked Aidan's cockpit. The shots were true, right on line with the torso of one of her opponents. Armor flew off in all directions, some of it as far as the feet of Marthe's Summoner, where it set off isolated fires that quickly burned out.

  Starting out aggressively seemed to be Marthe's choice of strategy, for she immediately shot off another volley, hitting the same spot and enlarging the hole she had already opened up in her opponent's armor. Aidan, impressed by her offensive, wanted to shout encouragement to her. The other pilot countered her attack by launching a short-range missile from the left side of his 'Mech's torso, near where Marthe's shots had hit so truly.

  Bret was already on the defensive. With a kind of sixth-sense reaction, he expertly leaned his 'Mech's torso to the left so that a fusillade of PPC bolts flew past him. If Bret's Summoner had had hair, it would have been trimmed a bit, a centimeter or two off the side. Bret fired a cluster round at his rival. Aidan, who could keep track of the others on a side screen, noted that the cluster round was reasonably effective, a real gyro shaker that missed much of the torso, but ripped off a section of the opponent's right knee joint.

  Well, he wished Bret luck, but there was no point in keeping track of his battle when Aidan had one of his own to contend with. His foe, the Hellbringer, fired a PPC burst that fell short. Aidan launched a long-range missile salvo, but it was only a feint to lull the pilot of the Hellbringer into expecting a conventional attack. The full flight of fifteen missiles at the very edge of their effective range, sailed over the 'Mech, which did not even bother to utilize its anti-missile system.

  Aidan pressed his Summoner forward and kept his weaponry silent for a few steps. To his right Marthe's 'Mech was rocked by a hit to the center torso. He caught his breath, fearing that she might be toppled, but Marthe regained balance expertly, at the same time chipping the armor of her opponent, also in a Hellbringer, with a short-range missile attack launched from her left shoulder. She had reconfigured her 'Mech to replace its primary LRM-15 system with a heavy Streak SRM-6 mount. Quickly following up on her assault, she set her 'Mech into a run, going straight at the enemy, firing a medium laser that she had installed in the torso. The laser fire seemed to cut a smooth line across the chest of the Hellbringer, sending it rocking backward. Switching to her LB-10X autocannon, she lay down a barrage that caused a series of explosions in the foe's torso. The explosions sent up clouds of smoke. The smoke momentarily obscured Aidan's opponents, too, a stroke of luck that he had not bargained for. He was sure the cheer he let out would have confused any commlink listeners.

  He used the smokescreen to help him execute his primary maneuver. As he fired his jump jets, he rose above the smoke, flying over the terrain between him and his trio of rivals. Doing so, he noted that the 'Mech Marthe had attacked was falling, apparently onto its back. Aidan felt his own energy surge with the certainty that Marthe was about to make her first "kill," qualifying her as a MechWarrior who, if she could now finish off a second one, could enter the command structure at a higher level. Her success heightened his own confidence. They had been so close for most of their lives. They looked alike, had the same skills and talents. Whatever one did, the other could surely do, too.

  Pushing his 'Mech's jumping capability to the maximum, Aidan flew over his trio of Trial opponents, each of whom was now beginning to turn his 'Mech's torso to follow his flight. As he rose to zenith, Aidan realized he was momentarily vulnerable, but he counted on the factor of surprise to protect him. The last thing expected of him at this point was to try to get behind his antagonists. He felt the usual wave of dizziness at the high point of the jump, just as his 'Mech started to come down, but not so much that he could not get his weapons ready for the assault that would come as soon as his 'Mech's feet touched ground. Diving down, his 'Mech straining a bit from the drag and weight of all its armament, Aidan verified that the large pulse laser he had configured as an additional right-arm weapon was still at full charge.

  He brought his Summoner to a smooth landing on both feet, scattering a number of small animals in all directions, and quickly angled its torso so that it faced the Hellbringer directly. Bringing both arms up to a level parallel to the ground, he began firing rapidly at the other 'Mech with everything he had. A surge of heat assailed him in the cockpit, but he h
ad figured he could endure the excess without risking dangerous levels. Everything depended on how quickly he finished off the Hellbringer.

  A quick check of his short-range scanner showed that the Hellbringer was just standing its ground, less than three hundred meters away, as Aidan's Summoner closed in. The barrage from all Aidan's weapons except the LRM had created many charred and smoking areas in his foe's armor. Glancing at his long-range scanner, he saw that Marthe had indeed beaten one of her opponents, and that Bret, whose battle was going on nearby, was holding his own.

  "Cadet Aidan!"

  It was Falconer Joanna's voice. He should have known she would interfere. There was supposed to be no communication until the Trial was over, except where Trial rules came into effect.

  "You have violated the enemy line. The judges consider it a brave but foolhardy move, and you should know that all three of your rivals may now engage you—that, in fact, all 'Mechs in the field are now eligible to fire. According to Trial rules, you have initiated a melee. I hope you knew that risk when you took the chance, for it may now decide the fate of your fellow sibkin as well as yours."

  Of course he had known, but he would not give her the satisfaction of revealing his strategy. An unexpected melee was designed to throw off everybody in the field, including his cadet allies, who would not like the change in situation any more than the MechWarriors assigned to the opposing 'Mechs. He would show her.

  After checking his heat scale to be sure he did not risk sudden overheating, he fired one last shot at the Hellbringer, then suddenly rotated his 'Mech's torso abruptly to face an enormous Warhawk that was just completing its turn to join the skirmish. Next to it, the third and largest of his opponents, a massive Dire Wolf, with its apparent crouching stance and sizeable weaponry, was still in the process of turning. He would try for the Warhawk first.