Initiation to War

by Robert N. Charrette

  Whatever the case, with their leader's Cataphract out of the battle, the rest of the Duvics had lost their enthusiasm for the fight. The Lineholders, belying their name, were turning tail and scampering after the long gone Raven.

  As Kelly worked to get his Commando back on its feet, Veck and JJ returned, reporting Namihito's Panther in retreat. Yi Cha-song, Captain Lazlo's second in command, signaled that the captain was injured and ordered the company to stand down from pursuit.

  "We've got them on the run," Kelly protested. "Let's get them while we can!"

  "Damp it," Veck told him.

  "We can take down more of them."

  "Really?" Veck sounded disbelieving. "With what?"

  That was when Kelly realized his status board was glowing a nearly solid red. The comp had even finally figured out about the actuator damage. The Commando could still move, slowly, and the reactor and ammo bays were intact, but that was about it.

  Sobered, he looked around. The Old Guard were battered. Captain Lazlo's Lineholder showed internal structure on all limbs and had nasty gaping holes in its torso. Another of the Lineholders was missing an arm, one of the Cataphracts was shuffling along, its right leg locked, and the other showed so much damage around all of its torso weapon ports that it was a good bet its main armament was out of commission. Veck's Vindicator wasn't exactly unscathed either; Namihito had caught him with at least one more PPC shot. Of all the Shu 'Mechs, JJ's battered Javelin was least damaged, and it bore a fair resemblance to the sort of gunnery range target Sam used to leave behind.

  But they'd won.

  And when he saw Red Shang crawling out of the cockpit of his fallen Cataphract, Kelly knew he'd won.

  "You've got one thing to be thankful for, you sorry son of an order-disobeying, reckless 'monkey," Veck told him.

  Kelly figured he had more than one thing. There was Shang. And Kelly was alive to see it. "What's that, Commander?"

  "That the repairs to the wreck you've made of the BattleMech that was entrusted to you ain't coming out of your pay."

  "Oh, I'm thankful for more than that."

  Veck scowled. "We'll see. I saw what you did here, Kelly. Believe me, you're going to regret it."

  Kelly stubbornly refused to let Veck's gloom infect him on the long, slow troop back to the base camp. He went to bed with his wounds dressed and aching all the way to his bones, but happy.

  * * *

  His attitude changed when the morning briefing brought news that Captain Lazlo hadn't done well in surgery. It nose-dived when he was handed the word that the Vigilantes were being pulled out of line as depleted now that Kelly's Commando was sidelined for repairs. Two partially functional BattleMechs did not a lance make as far as the Phantom Major was concerned.

  As they walked out of the briefing into the noon sun, Kelly wanted to know, "How are we supposed to win the war now?"

  "We're not the only troops in this thing," JJ pointed out. "You know, Mr. Chill, you keep going with this fired-up, gung-ho stuff, and we'll have to get you a new nickname."

  "So change it."

  "Not so fast. You're still cold steel under fire. It's just this between missions stuff. You need some serious chilling time, I think. What say we inspect the rec tent and see if they've managed to import some decent beer? A cool brew will help the time pass, and it's not like we got anything better to do."

  The offer held an allure, but it was not enough to overcome Kelly's need to do something. "We could help the techs repair our 'Mechs."

  JJ reeled back in mock terror. "You want to annoy the techs by getting in their way, go for it. Me, I know better. I'm taking the dividends on a hard-earned rest. The beer's just a first installment. I know you've got a high technical aptitude, but are you sure you want to beard the real techs in their lair?"

  "I'm sure I want my 'Mech up and running ASAP."

  "Do what you have to, Mr. Chill. When you've eaten enough grease, you know where you can find the beer to wash it down. I'll even make sure one gets chilled while you hose down."

  Kelly reconsidered JJ's offer as he walked out to where the BattleMechs where parked. Maybe he was overdoing it. How much could he reasonably expect to do? It wasn't as if he could win the war single-handed.

  But he couldn't sit still. He hadn't been able to do so since he learned that Sam was still alive. There was guilt in his restlessness, but there was more than that. He wanted Sam back, even if she hated him for his moments with Romano. Did it really matter that he'd thought Sam dead at the time? It did, and it didn't. He wasn't sure that he'd ever sort it out.

  Someday—as soon as he could make it happen—he'd see Sam again. Then what would happen? Conceivably— probably—Sam would tell him it was all over between them, but he longed for their reunion nonetheless. He needed to see her free and alive.

  But that was for the future. The present held a field of mauled BattleMechs and the technical staff trying to make them battle worthy. Most of the techs were gathered around the 'Mechs of the Old Guard. Kelly didn't see a one attending the comparably battered machines of Veck's Vigilantes. Privileges of rank and station, he supposed. It didn't make him happy. The sight of his Commando lying prone and spread-eagled, looking about as helpless as a BattleMech could look, only intensified his unhappiness.

  BattleMechs were supposed to be the shining knights of the battlefield. This knight looked dead.

  He could only hope it had given its "life" in a good cause. There was still no word whether Captain Shang would be ransomed back to the Duvic Palatine. He began to worry that Shang might not be the key to opening Sam's cell after all.

  Kelly dragged his thoughts from possible futures to present realities, forcing himself to gaze upon his ravaged Commando. From a distance, it was hard to tell the weapon hits from the open access ports. Up close, that wasn't a problem. Access ports didn't have burn marks and jagged or slagged edges. Up close he also saw something he'd missed from a distance.

  From one port, the one offering access to the Coventry SRM-6 rack, a rear end and a pair of legs protruded. There was something familiar about that shapely bottom that Kelly couldn't quite place. He shouldered the thought aside in his relief to see that someone was doing something to get him back on the field.

  "Hey, Tech, what's the word on my machine?"

  Something muffled and unintelligible wafted from within the Commando's innards. The legs shifted, found purchase, and backed their owner out of the machine. The grease-smeared face was familiar, too. It was Meryl LaJoy-Bua.

  Kelly's hand slid down to his holstered Sternsnatch Python. LaJoy-Bua's hands went up, though one remained covered in a filthy red rag.

  "At ease, Mr. Chill. I'm on your side."

  "Really, traitor? I remember the ferrets hauling you off."

  "Yeah, they did, but they were wrong. Yeah, imagine that. What are the odds, eh? Of course, I'd still be sitting in one of their holding pens if I hadn't done half their job for them. But like I always say, you want a job done right, heft the tools yourself."

  The tech jumped off the Commando. Kelly eyed her cautiously but didn't do any more than unsnap his holster. Everything about LaJoy-Bua seemed unthreatening, but the old anger at Stiibel's needless death made him wary. She had to be telling the truth, didn't she? She wouldn't be here otherwise, would she?

  "So you're not the saboteur?"

  "Oooh, this 'Jock's a bright one. There's a mole in the count's garden all right, but it ain't me."

  "Colonel Bua's people thought it was you. Did they change their minds?"

  "Sometimes a girl's got friends, you know? The sort of people who recognize a frame when they see it and do something about. This particular girl had a friend slip her some computer access so she could heft some tools. Get it?"

  He didn't and said so.

  "Okay, maybe not so bright. The ferrets thought I was the one who fritzed the umpire in your 'Mech. The old means and opportunity thing, and they just wouldn't believe that I didn't have a motive, whic
h I didn't. Since someone had to prove it to them, I did. I hacked the beautiful sunny Camp Red Elk's database and showed them how the umpire had been doctored and when. Seems the jiggering was done hard-docked to a computer in a supply shed while I was on the other side of the valley in the middle of a staff meeting with twelve other senior techs, including the Phantom Major's personal tinkerer. Q and an E and a D, I couldn't have done it."

  Her story sounded good. She certainly told it fast enough, but Kelly thought he spotted a hole.

  "If you hacked the database, couldn't you have planted false records?"

  "Such a suspicious boy. That's just what the head ferret said. Only his pet spiders crawled all over the net and back and couldn't find any signs of tampering. Now, I'm good, but not that good. Nobody is. Hide your sig, change your modus, sure, but never leave a scratch? Not the way it happens. They had to believe me."

  "So they let you go free?"

  "Free? Send me back you mean. There's a war on, remember? The brass still have my grease-covered hide under contract, and they ain't about to let an able body sit idle."

  Kelly's eyes strayed to his battered Commando. LaJoy-Bua followed his gaze.

  "Unless, of course, they have to," she added.

  "So you're cleared and back to duty."

  "Cleared and back, aye. Miss me?"

  He had to admit that the Commando hadn't run as well since she left, but the nervous edge to her patter made it hard to allay all of his suspicions. "Veck didn't say anything about your reassignment. You got paperwork?"

  "You mean like a get out of jail card? Get real. If the Whipmaster ain't said anything, maybe it ain't come through yet. You know the bureaucracy around this place makes a slug look like it's got a Kearny-Fuchida drive."

  He stifled a laugh at the idea of a slug with a space-warping drive, knowing her evaluation was not inaccurate. But jokes didn't make her story true. Or untrue. Someone had sabotaged the umpire and gotten Stiibel killed.

  "So, who is the saboteur?" he asked.

  "You got me," she said with a shrug. "The ferrets are still having a happy time hunting. Sooner or later they'll track him down. Let's hope sooner.

  "They wanted me to help, of course, but I convinced the brass that I'm of more use to the war effort doing what I do best, which is to say making the big tin men go. I thought they agreed too quickly and I saw why when I got here. The job has gotten tougher recently 'cause certain MechJocks can't seem to keep their toys in one piece, always straying into the line of fire, I hear. Even tackling 'Mechs three times their mass. Shame, ain't it? Such lack of respect, but what ya going to do? Patch 'em up and give 'em back to fumble-fingered pilots. It breaks a tech's heart, I tell ya, to see how little care some people take. All our sweat, tears, hard work, and brilliant technical wizardry treated like so much toilet paper."

  She stopped abruptly and craned her head around as though to look at something behind Kelly.

  "Hey, JJ, good to see ya," she called. "That right foot pedal still sticking?"

  "Still," JJ hefted his beer in salute. "You're looking good, LJ-B."

  JJ's off-hand attitude caught Kelly off guard. "Is she telling the truth?"

  "About?" asked JJ, looking confused. Kelly forestalled LaJoy-Bua's attempt to retell her tale and offered a summary. When he finished, JJ was matter-of-fact. "Yeah. Thought you knew."

  "He wouldn't believe me," LaJoy-Bua accused.

  "But that's not the news," JJ said before the tech could launch a tirade.

  LaJoy-Bua's pique evaporated. She leaned forward. "Spill, 'Mech boy."

  "Lady Shu wrapped Shang around her little finger. She's arranged for an exchange of prisoners." He turned to Kelly, beaming. "Sam is coming home."

  "What?" Kelly muttered. He stood for a moment, stupefied, then he let out a whoop. Sam was coming home. He'd worry about the problems with it later. Sam was coming home!

  "Swell," LaJoy-Bua said frostily. "Her 'Mech came back in a box. Ya think she'd have the grace to do the same."

  31

  Red Elk River Training Center

  County Shu, Epsilon Eridani

  Chaos March

  18 March 3062

  The cease-fire that accompanied the prisoner exchange wasn't scheduled to last long, but it provided an opportunity for the scattered lances of the CSVB to come home to the Red Elk River training center. No one wanted to miss Sam's homecoming, not those who had to be wheeled out from the hospital, not even Sten. He was the Blowhard and a butthead, but he understood the need to send a message of solidarity, not just to the enemy, but also to the new recruits and the replacements for those who had fallen. The MechWarriors of the County Shu Volunteer Battalion stood by their own like true House Warriors.

  The sight of the gathered MechWarriors, all turned out in their best uniforms and standing in the cool shadows of their prettified 'Mechs, stirred Kelly's heart. It wasn't the flash and glamor that touched him. It was the spirit of these men and women.

  And they were men and women. The war had made them that. Some wore decorations earned in sharp actions, more wore the count's Honored Service medal for wounds acquired in action, and all wore that look of hard use. The boys and girls who had come to Red Elk were gone away, leaving veterans standing in their places. Kelly felt proud to be among them.

  This was the first time that the unit had come together since the Duvics had attacked. They had not gathered for Captain Franny Lazlo's funeral, as they had not for Harry Trahn's. There had been no cease-fire for those solemn occasions.

  Gone but not forgotten, Kelly vowed.

  Lazlo's ashes had been scattered to the wind, but Kelly thought he sensed the captain's presence in the breeze that flitted across the tarmac as though the fallen warrior wanted to be here for the return of one of her lost soldiers.

  There was a stir on the far side of the field as the dignitaries for the day made their way onto the podium. Among the welcoming committee were Romano Shu and Major Ling-Marabie. Seeing their faces shifted Kelly's mood in differing directions. It was the first time Kelly had seen Romano since their return from the Arousian District and the jumble of emotions the sight raised in him was confusing him, dimming ever so slightly his eagerness to see Sam again. He was much clearer about how he felt about seeing the Phantom Major in the flesh for the first time. He was sure that any officer who only bothered to be with her troops when the media was around to record it hadn't earned the right to stand on this field with honorable MechWarriors.

  Sound rumbled down from the sky. Kelly looked up and caught a flash as the approaching transport banked on its final approach.

  The ten minutes it took the aircraft to land, taxi back across the field, and roll to a halt a short ten meters from the podium seemed longer than the three weeks since that horrible night in Dori. Another eternity passed before the hatch opened and ground crews rolled up the stairway. Time entered another dimension entirely as Sam appeared in the hatchway.

  Kelly's throat clogged. The garments she wore, clearly Duvic rags, hung on her like a sack. She had always been lean, but now she looked more like a dog that had been forgotten in a dead master's house than the lithe tiger he remembered. She moved forward, awkwardly leaning on a cane. The tiger's stalking grace was gone, too.

  But she was, he thought, the most beautiful thing he'd seen in a long time.

  When the speeches ended and Sam was released from the public relations ordeal, she made a beeline across the tarmac to where the Vigilante 'Mechs stood. Kelly started forward to meet her, then recovered himself. He was still supposed to be under military discipline.

  "Go ahead, son," Veck said. "Take point."

  It was all the permission Kelly needed. He broke ranks and ran toward Sam. Her smile dissolved the distance between them. Catching her up in a spinning embrace, he heard her cane clatter to the ground. For a glorious moment they were alone in the world. Her eyes sparkled. Their lips met. He tried to hold her close enough that she would never go away again.


  "Easy, Tyb, or you'll have me the rag doll the medics say I am."

  He eased her to the ground, suddenly afraid of aggravating her injuries. She snorted at his sudden change of demeanor.

  "Hey, I'm not glass. I'm functional, even if the medics won't okay me for active duty. But I'll get that fixed," she declared.

  "If you're still—"

  "I am still. Ready to serve, that is. Believe me when I tell you that I'd rather be wearing a uniform than these things." She plucked at the taupe tunic she wore. "Have you ever seen such terrible taste in clothes? Yeesh.

  "Enough about me. Look at you! I go on vacation and you sneak up the ladder while I'm away. A commander!" She lowered her voice and smiled warmly. "I'm so happy lor you. Congratulations."

  Vaguely embarrassed, Kelly told her, "Happened just a few days ago. Captain Veck's got the company now.

  He's second in command for the battalion, too, right under the Phantom Major."

  "I'll bet he wouldn't even like being on top of her."

  "Who would that be, Subcommander Liu?" Veck asked as he came up.

  Sam cleared her throat.

  "No one important, sir."

  Veck pursed his lips and nodded. "I see. Well, glad to have you back in the county, Liu. In some ways your absence has been more detrimental than your presence."

  Veck saluted her and excused himself, needing to talk to the major. As he walked away, Sam whispered to Kelly, "Was that a slam or a compliment?"

  "It was Veck," JJ answered for him. "Who can be sure?"

  "JJ!" Sam threw her arms around him. "Where's Slug? Too busy reading to come to the reunion?"

  Kelly and JJ exchanged doleful glances. Kelly didn't want to be the one to break the news, and it was clear that JJ felt the same. Sam picked up on the bad news anyway.

  "They didn't tell me. I mean, I survived my wreck. I figured he did too, but that the Doofs didn't catch him. I didn't think he was—"

  She started to sob and Kelly put his arm around her. She leaned into him, babbling about how sorry she was. It seemed she was almost as bothered by her loss of control as by Harry's passing. Kelly murmured reassurances to her until a slim man wearing the old traditional garb of Capellan physician arrived and suggested that Sam accompany him, saying, "Lady Shu wants to be sure that you have the best of care."