Cholas raised his hand to his comrades. "This is enough. We will go." He turned and began to walk away, then threw back some last words over his shoulder. "We will respect the rank. We have to, Star Captain. Even when it is a rank that has often been lost." Joanna glanced at Horse, anger in her eyes. He gestured for her to remain calm. "But respect for the person? I do not think so. Not when a Star Captain chooses to spend her time with freebirths!"
Before he had gone two steps more, Joanna had leaped at his back. The rough push she gave him knocked them both to the ground. When Cholas tried to get up, Joanna seized his shoulders and pinned him to the ground. He screamed in pain. Screaming was not a typical Jade Falcon response to an attack, and it surprised Joanna.
Cholas' allies, momentarily stunned, began to edge toward the scuffling pair. Diana and Horse ran forward and pushed themselves between the two fighters and Cholas' comrades.
Cholas, his calm regained, muttered to Joanna, "What is the matter, Captain? Do you deny that your friends are filthy freebirths? Or do you deny that they are your friends?"
She tightened her hold, making Cholas grimace. "You, my dear eyas, are the real freebirth here."
"Do not insult us by comparing us with them?" Ronan shouted. "This is not honorable. We have the glory of being—"
"Oh, stuff it," Horse said. Ronan rushed at him, but Horse quickly incapacitated him with a sharp punch to the stomach. Ronan went down in a heap, choking. Haline grabbed his arm and struggled to help him up, but for the moment the big man could not move.
"Let us not start a team tussle here," Joanna said and stood up. "You may go."
"No," Cholas said softly as he stood up. "No, we will not go."
"Oh?" Joanna asked.
"I have the honor of challenging you to a duel in the Circle of Equals."
Joanna's eyebrows raised in ridicule. "That is what you want?"
Horse lined up on one side of her. From her belt Diana removed the studded gloves that Joanna had once given her and slowly put them on. She strolled casually to Joanna's other side. Cholas' four allies took up similar positions on either side of him. "I do."
"We do," Castilla said, joining arms with Cholas.
"Yes," said Haline, and the others nodded assent. All five had soon linked arms.
Joanna stared at them for a while, then said, "That is very pretty, your ritualistic display of allegiance. I have always respected the importance of ritual, but only when it is in the service of something worthy."
"Let us start," Cholas said, breaking the link with the other and taking a step toward Joanna.
"That means you wish to bid first?"
"It is your right, I believe."
"Never mind formalities. You begin."
"There is little to bid. I wish to fight with you in a Circle of Equals. You may choose weapons. I will even cede you place."
"We are so generous and polite, the two of us. But why make this a private matter? Since you have insulted us, I will—"
"Wait. My challenge comes from your insult to me."
"Whatever. I will bid that my ... my freeborn friends here, the honorable Star Commander Horse and MechWarrior Diana, will join me in fighting the three best warriors among you. Do you accept, Horse? Diana?"
"You need not ask," Diana said. Horse merely nodded assent.
"Very well, then. We three against the three best of—no, that would not be fair to you. We three against all five of you and, since no formal Circle has been established on Sudeten, we will make the circle here on this hillside. What say you?" Cholas' voice dropped and his words were drenched in hate. "It is not an acceptable bid. It is not even a fair bid. You insult us."
"Oh? How?"
"You ask that all five of us, all trueborns, dishonor our weapons against a threesome that contains two freebirth scum. We will not have that. This batchall must be canceled, it must—"
"All right, Cholas. You will have your way." Cholas, satisfied, stared contemptuously at Horse and Diana. His stare was quickly imitated by his four allies.
"I bid away my two freeborn friends," Joanna said placidly.
"No!" Diana shouted. "That is not fair. It is playing into their hands. In the Circle of Equals, we are equal, too. We must fight."
"No, Diana. Once you are bid away, you must accept it. That is the way of the Clans.”
“I know, but—"
"Silence, MechWarrior Diana." Joanna turned back toward Cholas. "I bid them away then. I will take on all five of you myself."
Cholas opened his mouth to protest, but Joanna would not allow it.
"You cannot argue until my bid is finished. I fight all five of you eyasses. The Circle will be drawn, and only the six of us will enter. We will bring no weapons into the Circle. But it will not be merely hand to hand. I draw the Circle around the supply yard below. We will fight there. Anything inside the Circle may be used. That is my bid. What say you?"
"I say, I will fight you alone," Cholas said.
"Unacceptable. That does not beat my final bid. I win. We go with the last legitimate bid. You can bid away your comrades only if you can come up with a bid that ranks lower than mine. And that bid is an admission of cowardice."
"But—"
"The bidding is over. You must all fight with honor in this honor duel. What say you?"
Cholas was crestfallen. "Bargained well and done.”
“Bargained well and done. Well, then—Horse?”
“Yes, Star Captain Joanna?"
"Such an honor duel requires the services of a RiteMaster, quiaff?"
Horse's eyebrows raised slightly, but Cholas asked the question first. "I know nothing of this term, RiteMaster."
Joanna laughed scornfully. "You are fresh from the canister. Do you still play with toy 'Mechs? A RiteMaster is required whenever an honor duel ratio of four to one is exceeded. It is considered that the wide odds must be compensated for, and the RiteMaster therefore provides the rules of combat for all the warriors within the Circle. He or she establishes the limits of the battle, when each warrior may step into the Circle, and where each of the warriors must be placed when entering the Circle. Horse is an experienced RiteMaster and he will—"
"We protest!" Castilla shouted. "No such role existed in our training, no such—"
"You are out of training, or so I am told. You must play by the rules of real warriors now."
"Even if we accept your ruling, Mech Warrior Horse cannot be RiteMaster!" Cholas cried, a slight whine in his voice. "He is a freebirth and we cannot follow the orders of such scum."
"Diana could also serve in the role."
"This is some kind of ploy, is it not? A freeborn may not serve as RiteMaster, of that I am sure. Only a trueborn can be RiteMaster!"
"But all of you trueborns are already engaged in the honor duel. It would not be fair for a participant to be RiteMaster."
"How can we trust a ... a freebirth, like this foul filth?"
Joanna held the enraged Horse back. "This freebirth, as you persist in calling him, is a Jade Falcon warrior, battle-tested and valiant."
"But—"
"Are you trying to back out, Mech Warrior Cholas? Cancel the bid? You may, of course, with my blessing, and it will be a delightful story to tell back at base. Well, eyas?"
Cholas glanced at the others. They all nodded. "All right," he said. "We accept Horse as the RiteMaster."
"Very good then. Let us get down to the site."
The five young warriors descended the hillside at a swift, determined pace. The three veterans followed, slower but with just as much determination.
"I never saw a RiteMaster governing the Circle of Equals," Horse remarked. "And I am an experienced RiteMaster? I never even heard of RiteMasters before."
"Neither have I," Joanna responded. "I may be daring, but I am no fool. I will not go up against five warriors who are both young and fresh from training without some kind of edge. The RiteMaster just may be that edge."
"Whatever you say. I
will do anything to see these arrogant bastards get their comeuppance."
Joanna smiled. In Horse's freeborn world being called a bastard was just as insulting as the word freebirth. Trueborns did not like the implications of being called bastard.
"I never knew you to be do devious, Joanna."
"Good bidding is never just what is said. It is what is concealed beneath the words.”
“Just what bidding ritual is your source for that?”
“My ritual."
"Sometimes, Joanna, I nearly sense you joking.”
“I sense you as a freebirth, Horse. No joke there.”
“But you're fighting them for calling me just that.”
“Are you sure?”
“With you, I am never sure."
"Make it tough on them, RiteMaster. But they must survive. We are too far away from the homeworlds to lose even such pitiful replacements as these."
Diana followed behind the two as they quickly fleshed out the role of the RiteMaster. She did not care for the deception. Joanna, especially, was not usually devious. Jade Falcon warriors did not usually endorse such tactics. Forceful, direct action was the honorable warrior's way. Still, she thought, with such arrogant idiots as these, traditions could be ignored. She would have liked to get her own hands around their necks.
Thinking of hands reminded her of the studded gloves. It seemed appropriate that she should slip these gloves, a gift to her from Joanna, into Joanna's belt before she entered the Circle. Which she did.
3
Salvage Yard Number 3
Pattersen, Sudeten
Jade Falcon Occupation Zone
1 July 3057
Joanna crouched on a tipped-over forklift, standing on its flat snout and peering out from between its two long elevating prongs. She had heard a noise a few meters away, from beyond the twisted torso of some Inner Sphere BattleMech she could not identify. The machines were too broken up to provide clues to the origins of the various parts. This 'Mech's right arm, ending in a fist, reached slightly backward, as if beckoning ground troops onward.
A human head, shaped almost like a 'Mech's, peeked momentarily out from a tangled network of burned-out wires. Ronan, she thought, because of its shape and size. Of course, the biggest one would be sent in first. Cholas, the conceited peacock, will be the last to enter the Circle, probably with hopes of finishing me off after the others wear me out. He is officer material, all right.
While walking to the factory area, she and Horse had planned the honor duel carefully. Horse, assuming his newfound role of RiteMaster with ease, had decreed that the five warriors must step into the circle at ten-minute intervals and that they must stay apart. "Honor duels are based on the concept of one-on-one combat," he had improvised joyfully, "and so group fighting techniques must be avoided." Diana, standing well behind Horse, had suppressed several smiles as he invented rule after rule.
Horse had ordered each of the warriors to different points of the Circle. They had obeyed him reluctantly, obviously irked at having to accept a freeborn's dictates. Whenever one of them looked disgruntled, Horse gave him or her a stare that would have overheated metal.
Joanna had been allowed a five-minute head start into the circle. Behind her, as she entered the salvage yard, she heard Horse reminding her opponents that Star Commander Marthe Pryde, Gamma Galaxy's commander, had recently prohibited honor duels being fought to the death. The ranks of the Jade Falcons had been too depleted during the invasion of the Inner Sphere for the leadership to risk losing warriors to infighting. The fierce and violent Falcon warriors chafed at the order, but knew it was for the good of the Clan.
It was going to be hard for Joanna to pull her punches. After settling herself onto the forklift, she had speculated on the new Falcon Guard commander. She dreaded having to meet him, especially since he came from Aidan's bloodline. She wondered how Marthe Pryde, so cool, so distant, so self-contained, would react to the new glorymonger bearing her bloodname. Would she resent the man's overbearing reputation, that of a warrior who was achieving legendary status without ever having seen true combat? One tiling was certain: Joanna could never accept a star colonel who should still be sucking nutrients out of his canister feeding tubes.
Ronan, the imbecile, clattered around on the other side of the 'Mech debris, obviously trying to draw Joanna to him. Well, that was as good a ploy as any. Joanna would carry the fight to anyone, especially a proven fool.
Descending from the forklift, she edged forward, stepping carefully around bits and pieces of 'Mechs and other instruments of war. As she approached the fallen BattleMech, she noted that the damaged surface of its gesturing arm offered many possible handholds.
Up close, the acrid smell of thick oil sludge and the burn odors of wiring were enough to overcome the staunchest of warriors. But Joanna had fought in so many battlefields and strolled through so many of these 'Mech graveyards that she noticed the smell only in passing.
Climbing slowly without even trying to see if Ronan had spotted her, stopping at each handhold provided by the many pitonlike shards on the arm's surface, she made her way to the top of the arm and was able to nestle into the vee between the thumb and fingers. Glancing up, she saw distant, heavy storm clouds heading toward the area. On Sudeten storms came suddenly and seemed to emerge out of nowhere.
Looking down, she scanned the area for a sign of Ronan, who was still wearing that bright-colored band. The fool could not have been more obvious if he had covered himself in luminescent paint. Glancing at her wrist-chronometer, Joanna saw she had about four minutes to dispose of Ronan before the next opponent would enter the Circle, so she could not dawdle with her arm casually wrapped around a BattleMech thumb. Better to dispose of this Ronan swiftly. A little surprise, and a bit of dirty fighting—yes.
Even though the time was short, she waited her chance. Within minutes Ronan came her way, strolling audaciously across the debris below Joanna. Grasping the upper surface of the 'Mech thumb, she worked herself outward until her body hung loosely from it. As the thumb creaked softly from her weight, Ronan stopped and looked up, obviously astonished to see Joanna hanging there some six meters overhead.
At that instant Joanna dropped straight down and caught him dead center in the face with her heavy cleated boots. Ronan yelled in pain as Joanna's weight pushed him backward among the scattered fragments of 'Mechs and metal. Quickly rolling off Ronan, Joanna worked her way around like a sea crab, finishing with her legs beside the younger warrior's head. Ronan crawled sideways, away from her. She sat up and, like a child not quite ready to walk, wiggled on her backside after him.
Squinting through bloody eyes, Ronan raised his head to find her, giving Joanna her chance to trap his thick neck between her legs. Squeezing her powerful thighs together, she held Ronan's head tightly squashed between them. His arms flailed but they could not reach Joanna to do any damage. All he could do was struggle in her grasp, trying to get air down his constricted throat. As Joanna increased the pressure, Ronan finally gave a weak grunt and his eyes closed. She immediately released some of the pressure, just enough to keep him alive. Then, when he was obviously unconscious, she released her legs from his neck and stared at the still-breathing Ronan. It would have been so easy to strangle him, but rules were rules.
A glance at her chronometer revealed that the second opponent had entered the Circle about two minutes ago. Dispatching Ronan had taken too much time.
Sensing movement in the distance, Joanna looked to her right, toward the factory. Certain that somebody had moved near a window, she got to her feet and raced toward the building. In front of her an open door, hung half off its hinges, beckoned her in. But going through there might make her an easy target for ambush. Two windows to the left of the door, she saw a flash of movement. A trick of the light, maybe, or her next foe heading toward the door in order to jump her.
She chose the second window to the right of the door as the one to dive through. Unfortunately, that one's glass
was unbroken.
Accelerating her pace, Joanna rushed at the window. Ducking her head as she lunged through it, she caught most of the impact with the back of her head and her shoulders. Shards of glass spraying around her, she somersaulted, sprang to her feet, and quickly looked toward the half-open door. Beside it, just turning away from her ambusher's nest, was Haline.
So, the giant male fails and they send in the chunky female. These fools are not strategists, that is clear.
Haline went into a crouch as Joanna rushed her. In her hand Haline held a long piece of metal. Some bit of garbage she'd plucked from a trash bin, no doubt. No need for tactics with this one. Joanna ran straight at the crouching Haline, who held the improvised weapon steady. She appeared quite ready to inflict a mortal wound, rules or no rules. Joanna could just hear her. "I did not mean to kill, but in the heat of battle and with Joanna coming at me ..."
Timing the move for the last possible instant, Joanna doubled over and rushed forward. Sailing in under the weapon, she rammed Haline in her considerable stomach, shoving her hard against the wall. Although Haline was able to bring the weapon down onto Joanna's back, Joanna's maneuver neutralized the force of the blow, especially one landing on a hardened, battle-scarred back like hers.
She pushed harder at Haline, knocking the wind out of her. Then she slapped the steel pipe away and began hitting the bulky warrior over and over. It was no contest. In half a minute, Joanna had knocked Haline unconscious, her face streaked with blood as she slid to the floor.
With this clash over quickly, Joanna had gained precious time, about four minutes. It was unlikely that Ronan or Haline would be any problem for a while, which gave her a chance to think.
A glance around the interior of the factory showed her that this floor contained one large room, with several smaller ones in a row at the other end. There could be other rooms beyond them.
It was easy to see how Haline had found a weapon so quickly, with all the pieces of metal lying around, some in bins, some of it merely scattered over the floor. Benches and tables, machines and conveyor belts, work clothes and tools, were similarly littered about.
I am Jade Falcon Page 3
