I am Jade Falcon

by Robert Thurston

  Diana examined the numbers he pointed to.

  "That is true. I made a mistake."

  "Is that all you can say? You made a mistake?"

  "It is a fact. What else should I say, sir?"

  "You should apologize for it."

  "I fail to see why."

  He sputtered a bit. "You—you fail—fail to—”

  “I did my job, quiaff? But I made an error, a simple mathematical error, easy to rectify."

  "What if it had gone up to Galaxy level with the error intact?"

  "Then perhaps they would have found it and corrected it. Or not."

  "That is an incorrect attitude. Our figures must be right."

  "Why? Especially if they are not found?"

  "If they are discovered, it will reflect on our unit."

  "And so? Why should warriors care about numbers?"

  Ravill Pryde took a few moments to compose himself. He came around the desk to the work table at which she sat.

  "Do you not agree, Diana, that a miscalculation in battle could result in further error that might lead to a severe loss in materiel or personnel?"

  "Of course. But such miscalculations are made in the field, and corrected—by the seat of the pants, as they say— and not in an office weeks and months beforehand. And you have little time to retrieve essential data while you are faced with attack on three sides."

  "What good is this talk about combat in these circumstances? You are coregn now. You must rise above warrior concerns."

  "I would rather not. I will always be a warrior. I did not ask to be coregn."

  "No one ever asks to be coregn. It is a conferred honor.”

  “Unconfer it if you wish. But I will not apologize.”

  “Freebirth!"

  "That is true. What of it?"

  Abruptly, he slapped her. Her skin stung from the force of the unexpected blow. She stood up.

  "Do you wish to settle this in a Circle of Equals?" she said calmly.

  "I have abolished honor duels. And perhaps you forget, an honor duel cannot be invoked over conflict in the performance of duty."

  "You hit me."

  "As is my command right. Warriors must accept all types of punishment, you know that. Plus, it is the custom that freeborn warriors are to avoid honor duels at all times, except among their caste. Sit down and do your job, freebirth."

  From that moment on, Diana vowed revenge.

  * * *

  Ravill Pryde had already left for an inspection of a barracks when she finished entering a list of current ammunition loads into the computer. Closing the file, she began to study the onscreen menu of directories. There were several that she had not yet worked on, and she decided to check them out. Opening one after the other, she discovered the same kind of dull information that was at the heart of recordkeeping everywhere.

  "How many battles are really won with data?" she muttered aloud. "Bang, you dirty stravag, I have your number— rounded off to three decimals."

  Buried in a directory labeled Victory she found, placed in a folder within a folder within a folder, still another folder marked Personal. Personal? she thought. I would like to see what Ravill Pryde considers so personal that he hides it so deeply within files.

  When she attempted to open the Personal file, the screen displayed a request for a password. For the first time since she had become coregn, Diana felt some excitement. Password? What kind of word would an arrogant dimwit like Ravill Pryde use for a password? The possibilities were, perhaps, wide, but the challenge would make her days more intriguing.

  For the next few hours Diana tried such likely words as Falcon, Ironhold, Pryde, Ravill, Duty and many others. When she heard the colonel returning, she quickly aborted her attempts and, her fingers flying over the keyboard, sped back through his intricate pathway of folders to the data file she had originally been working on.

  "Still compiling the ammo data?" Ravill Pryde asked pleasantly.

  "There was a glitch."

  "I am glad to see you taking more care with the data.”

  “My duty, sir."

  During the next two work sessions, Diana went to the Personal folder whenever Ravill Pryde was gone. All attempts at working out the password failed, but Diana did not mind because the task made the time rush by. Any regular work she had to do, she did quickly in order to return to the pursuit of her quest.

  On the third day she was ready to give up. Fingers resting on the keys, she searched her mind for a new word to try. The proper password could be merely a set of meaningless letters, she realized, but she doubted it. If he was anything, Ravill Pryde was methodical. He would use a word, one that he could remember easily. The key to the password could be in the man's personality, his psychology, his military beliefs.

  For a moment she could not think of a single word. Then she recalled Ravill Pryde's reverence for her father, so she quickly typed in the name Aidan. The computer made a strange noise but, after a split second, returned its official rejection of the password. She tried Aidan Pryde. That did not work either.

  She stared at the name in the rejection message for a long while. As she often did, she thought how her mother had cleverly concealed her father's identity by giving Diana a name that was an anagram of Aidan. In the dialog box for the password—for no reason she could imagine except to see the rearrangement of the familiar letters—she typed in Diana, then waited for the computer to tell her No.

  Instead, the screen flickered, the computer made some different sounds, a new dialog box approved "Diana" as the password, and scrolled out a long menu of files.

  For a long time Diana stared at the screen without reading anything on it. The password was her name. Why? She shuddered at the thought.

  What kind of sick kestrel is he? He knows my background, so he uses my name as an essential password, he appoints me coregn against all methods of procedure even though he is a stickler for proper procedure, he bashes me in the head for making a clerical mistake, he hovers over me like a ... like a father over a freeborn daughter!

  Growing up in a village whose population was completely caste-bound, Diana had seen many fathers in spite of not knowing her own. That had given her a concept of parentage that trueborn warriors could not approach in their minds. But it made no sense to her that Ravill Pryde could even think of regarding her in that way—like a daughter!

  Yet the man was so enmeshed in his hero worship of Aidan Pryde, and he had placed such emphasis on her being Aidan's offspring that she wondered if it were possible that Ravill Pryde was deranged enough to see himself as some kind of surrogate for her real father. No, she thought, that was absurd. How could it be? He came from a sibko. He would be disgusted by the concept of father-—or would he? Why did it disturb her so, her name as his password? The man was just being clever. After all, who would have imagined he would use Diana as his secret password? No one. Except Diana herself.

  To distract her mind from these troubling thoughts, she scrolled through the menu. The names of the files suggested little. They were mostly dates and locations. From what she knew about Ravill Pryde's codex, she was able to deduce that these files contained information relating to his tours of duty.

  She opened one and found a bland, diarylike listing of day-to-day activities, records of duty and jobs performed. This was very like Ravill Pryde, to make lists of even his minor accomplishments and to keep the lists in a computer folder marked Personal. Very like Ravill Pryde, but not particularly like a warrior. It all reminded her of the neat ways in which he arranged the papers on his desk.

  Scrolling down the menu, she noticed one marked Kerensky, a famous bloodname held exclusively by the warriors of Wolf Clan. A most honored bloodname also, for it was the revered General Aleksandr Kerensky who had led a fleet of ships into exile from the Inner Sphere some three hundred years ago, taking with him almost the whole of the Star League army. The descendants of those exiles would evolve under his son Nicholas into the Clans in their new home worlds far f
rom the Inner Sphere. A curious choice of file name, she thought, so she opened the file.

  The information on its initial pages so stunned Diana that for a moment she could not catch her breath. Then she carefully read the first part of what was a very long document.

  And began to perceive her opportunity for revenge.

  How could she accomplish it? she wondered. If she confronted Ravill Pryde with the information, he would find ways to keep her from using it. Most likely, he would not stop at reprimand. He would see to it that she was transferred out of the unit, or possibly even arrange for her death, maybe kill her himself.

  No, it would be useless to confront him. But Joanna could.

  Ravill Pryde was likely to return soon, so she printed out the document's first four pages only. That was enough to make the case. That night she took them to Joanna.

  13

  Southern Pole

  Sudeten

  Jade Falcon Occupation Zone

  24 July 3057

  Cooling vests worked fine when the heat was building up, but they were no better than just another layer of clothing when cold seeped into the cockpit. Inside her gloves, Joanna's fingers felt stiff and frozen.

  Even the Mad Dog was affected by the blizzard it walked through. It did not respond quickly to Joanna's touch, but— like her—it was fighting the battle of keeping its joints and other movable parts from freezing up. It needed to engage Ravill Pryde in his Timber Wolf, get some heat rising from its pulse lasers and LRMs.

  Forty-eight hours after Ravill Pryde accepted the challenge, he and Joanna had marched their 'Mechs into a DropShip for a quick suborbital flight to the southern pole's ice floes. Ravill Pryde did not mention why he had chosen this frozen wasteland as the site for the Trial of Refusal. Nor had he offered an explanation of why it had taken so long to reply. But Joanna had learned from Diana that the Star Colonel had spent hours pouring over Inner Sphere geological surveys and recent meteorological reports after accepting her challenge. Why was this delay necessary? Why not settle the matter immediately on the training fields of Sudeten? Obviously he was looking for some advantage here in this mindnumbing cold. Some type of trick or deceit he could use. But what that was Joanna could not fathom.

  How could this man be so against freeborns, when he himself used so much freebirth-style deception and trickery? Or was she doing freeborns an injustice by thinking that? Such deception was, after all, closer to a Wolf trick than anything a freeborn might think up.

  All her years of bitterness, all the hate that had built up in Joanna was not focused on Ravill Pryde. She would be happy to defeat and kill him. And despite the ban on duels, he had not been at all reluctant for this honor duel to be to the death.

  Outside Joanna's 'Mech, the planet Sudeten was unleashing all the weather punishments if could. The blizzard, together with its high winds, lashed at the Mad Dog. By comparison, the day she had spent fighting the five new warriors had been positively balmy. The Mad Dog's metal groaned, whined, and threatened her as revenge for the job it was being asked to perform. Like a recalcitrant cavalry horse facing bad weather, it seemed to want to return to its stable to fight another day.

  Sensor information could not be relied on in these conditions. Caught between the minus sixty-degree frozen hell on the outside and the sunlike heat of the fusion plant buried in the belly of the 'Mech, the electronics of the sensor arrays started to fail. Twisted and warped, critical connections between subcomponents would break, only to be restored again with the next jarring footstep. As Joanna moved her 'Mech forward, Ravill Pryde's Timber Wolf would appear on the secondary screen one second and then be lost in the next. But enough information got to Joanna that she could guess where he was. He was now moving away from her.

  * * *

  Ravill Pryde had told the warriors of his command that the idea for the coming games had first come to him two years ago when he was in charge of an outpost near the Periphery, an assignment that had required the pursuit and ensnaring of bandits, but little else. Until the unit was sent into the Inner Sphere to bolster the Falcon forces there, the assignment had been too easy and too calm. As a palliative to boredom, he had devised the plan for the games—contests of physical strength, skill, and endurance fashioned on the principles of Trials of Bloodright. Warriors, after all, could be strengthened by healthy struggle and competition.

  The games had been a great success then, as—he promised—they would be now. More than anything else, they would afford the present warriors the chance to achieve glory in a time when the glory of combat was being denied them.

  Even though Joanna found the idea of the games foolish, she immediately requested the opportunity to participate.

  "These events are for the warriors who remain here," Ravill Pryde responded. "You are leaving soon. There is no point to your participation."

  "I am still a warrior."

  "That may be so. But nothing would be proven by your competing in the games. I deny your request."

  Joanna had not been surprised by his response, so she had an answer ready. "What about the melee? You cannot deny me that."

  Seeing he had been outmaneuvered, Ravill Pryde sighed. "No, I cannot deny you that."

  * * *

  Joanna was afraid her Mad Dog would freeze in place, so she kept it moving. Ravill Pryde had to be somewhere in front of her, even though his blip on the scanner screen seemed to jump around unnaturally. There were no jump jets on either the Timber Wolf or the Mad Dog.

  Despite his erratic image, Ravill did seem to be moving his 'Mech in the same general direction—toward a relatively flat and newly frozen plain of ice.

  * * *

  "I think it is a fine day for competition," Ravill Pryde had announced at the start of the games. "What do you say, warriors?"

  The new warriors, of course, cheered approval, while the veterans joined in the general elation with a milder enthusiasm. The day he had praised was indeed one of Sudeten's better efforts. It was clear, more cool than cold, and free of any type of precipitation. For Sudeten, a rare day.

  Ravill Pryde spread his arms, forcing most of his audience to look at the level game field. It had been worked on by Elementals—who would not participate in the games because of their unfair edge in most of the physical events—to make most of it smooth and dry.

  Made more spectacular by the view behind it, the field ended at the shore of a wide lake, called by some Sudeten Lake because they had no idea what the planet's citizens had named it. On the other side of the lake rose high, jagged cliffs. For exercise, some warriors had crossed Sudeten Lake to climb them. In spite of the intense survival training that all warriors underwent, only a few had actually reached the top. The rest said that handholds were rare and the surfaces would not accept a piton even if you asked politely. Because the lake had not caught up with the latest weather change, what seemed like a thousand ice floes bobbed across its surface. When the weather changed, as it did that night, the ice floes would join quickly, creating a ragged, icy surface upon the lake itself.

  * * *

  Joanna ripped through the melee, showing even the experienced competitors a fierceness and bravado that went beyond Jade Falcon standards for fierceness and bravado. No weapons had been allowed in the melee, and the games overall involved few weapons. Joanna used every hand-to-hand combat technique and martial arts skill in her repertoire. The new warriors seemed astonished by her proficiency, while the old ones, who were familiar with Joanna's considerable abilities, were merely resigned. When she turned toward the command dais to claim victory, even Ravill Pryde seemed impressed.

  The game competitors stood in a line for the start of the next stage. Joanna took a position at the end, with the other competing warriors spread in a straight line to her right. Ravill Pryde had ruled that the normal bloodname number, thirty-two, was too many for the games, so sixteen competitors would be sufficient.

  With an unusually clear sky making his movements and gestures more vivid, the Fa
lcon Guards commander performed an intricate ritual of his own devising, interrupted often by the chanting of the ritual word "Seyla" from the assembled warriors, the loudest cries coming from the warriors in competition. Joanna felt as if her eardrums would burst, and she refused to join in. She stood silent, conserving her energy for the games.

  Horse was resplendent in ceremonial robes, even though, as a freeborn, he was not entitled to wear a cloak decorated with falcon feathers, as the trueborns did. Ravill Pryde had excluded the warriors in his Star from the games, saying he wished to represent the Star alone. Since Diana, as coregn, was also attached to the Command Cluster, she would not compete either. Joanna was glad. Having Horse and Diana in the competition would have been an impediment to her plan. In the structured competition of the games, she could more easily work up fury against opponents she hated. As it happened, she did hate almost everyone else in the entire unit, whether she knew them or not.

  Following the last echoing chant of "Seyla," Ravill Pryde jumped down from the dais. He did not look once at Joanna as he took his place in the center of the line of competitors. Diana, in her role as coregn, drew the match-ups from a set of special coinlike pieces of metal that had been placed in an ordinary bowl. The "coins" were intended to duplicate those used in bloodname match selections. Each was inscribed with the name of a contestant, except for Joanna's which was simply inscribed "melee winner."

  Joanna drew Star Captain Evlan, from Trinary Echo Nova, as her first round opponent. She liked the draw. Evlan, although she kept to herself, was a good officer and would definitely test Joanna's mettle. She was only four or five years younger than Joanna and was on the verge of being an old-timer herself. A short, compact woman with long, dark hair and a wide mouth, she was inclined to fight in a conventional way, whether in a 'Mech or hand-to-hand.

  From another bowl, Diana drew the events in which the first-round contestants would compete. Joanna and Evlan would be first. Diana announced that their event was a non-combatant one, a simple run to the shore of Sudeten Lake and back.