But he had not come this far to be demoralized by a speech just as the final Bloodright battle was about to begin. Aidan vowed that he would impose the ultimate cruelty upon Megasa. Once he had defeated the other man, he would let Megasa live, cursing him with the shame of being bested by the very warrior he had condemned so savagely.
It was no surprise that Megasa, a famed BattleMech pilot, chose a battle between 'Mechs as the style of combat. He and the Oathmaster turned toward Aidan to hear his choice of venue.
Aidan struggled to keep his voice toneless, not wanting to further incite the audience. "My choice of venue is Rhea."
A mixed reaction had greeted those words. Some warriors showed their anger, while others were visibly impressed. Rhea was Ironhold's moon. Because the combatants would fight in one-sixth gravity, Marthe calculated that this factor would diminish Megasa's combat skills enough to bring Aidan as close to even as possible with this adept warrior. Though still the underdog, he would have a fighting chance.
* * *
At Risa Pryde's behest, the warriors were allowed an hour to acclimate to Rhea's gravity. Aidan knew that Megasa had some previous low-gravity combat experience, and he also knew that the other warrior's tech had reconfigured his Mad Dog to accommodate the moon's low gravity and lack of atmosphere.
Nomad had similarly readjusted the weapons and control systems of Aidan's Summoner, but he had done it by referring to instructions from manuals. Nomad had no experience in preparing 'Mechs for low-gravity operations.
That did not trouble Nomad, however. "It should be like walking on pillows," he told Aidan. "Or flying in a dream. Just remember that the conditions are not any more natural for your foe, and you will do well."
"Strange advice from a tech, Nomad."
"In service to Star Captain Joanna, I have learned to add psychology to my skills. Serving her is something like fighting in a severe environment. Just like the contest you face now."
"You are not supposed to speak in such a way about your superior officer, especially in front of another officer."
"Well, yes, but I am difficult to punish. Ask Star Captain Joanna."
Nomad, whom Aidan had known since his cadet days, had grown old. Even more so since his injuries on Glory. Yet even though he held his arm at an odd angle to his body, his mechanical skills did not seem impaired when working on the Summoner.
When the hour of acclimation was nearly over, Aidan was finding the low-gravity conditions amenable, despite his unfamiliarity with them. He liked the light, easy way the Summoner could now move across the rugged terrain. He liked the fact that every jump felt almost like it might launch the 'Mech into space unless he held the maneuver down. He liked knowing that weapons fire would travel farther because less energy was lost resisting atmosphere. He liked the way the 'Mech sailed over the pits and gullies that dotted the moon's surface, even without the help of jump jets.
Risa Pryde, her voice sounding harsh over the commlink, announced that time was up. The contest would now begin.
Aidan was ready. Strapped into his command couch, he began marching his Summoner toward the horizon, knowing that Megasa was heading toward him from the other side.
* * *
When Megasa's Mad Dog came into sight, it was firing the large pulse lasers on both arms. The pulses came fast and true, several hitting before Aidan was able to get his Summoner into cover. Briefly he watched the pulses that missed him, speeding on their way to eventual dissipation but looking like they could go on forever.
Before Megasa could adjust his aim, Aidan went on the attack, firing off a rack of LRMs. Immediately he realized that his targeting system had not been fully adjusted for the change in ballistic characteristics dictated by low gravity. The missiles impacted twenty meters away from the Mad Dog, and before Aidan could get off a second shot, Megasa had moved his 'Mech into a field of rubble and boulders. Although the other man's 'Mech was not jump-capable, the big steps it took turned into low-arc leaps.
Megasa fired with each step. Aidan could sense his 'Mech's torso armor flying off, sailing long distances before settling onto the ground among small dust clouds. A missile he had not even seen until the last instant hit his Summoner high on the torso, near the shoulder. The recoil from the impact startled Aidan, and his 'Mech was nearly knocked off its feet as it stumbled backward and turned 180 degrees, giving Megasa a clear shot at its back.
* * *
Planetside, in the command center, the large audience was struggling to get a good view of the holographic version of the battle on the moon. When Megasa's missile hit and spun Aidan's Summoner around, followed by a peppering of laser pulse shots to the 'Mech's back, the pro-Megasa audience laughed out loud. Marthe shrank back slightly from the railing, appalled as much by her fellow warriors' vindictive-ness as she was by Aidan's plight.
When someone suddenly laid a hand on her shoulder, she whirled around, ready to fight anyone who dared touch her. She recognized Kael Pershaw from his participation in the Grand Council session.
"May we talk, Star Captain?" he asked.
"I do not wish to leave here. Perhaps after the battle?"
"What I have to say can be said here. Everyone is concentrating on the battle anyway."
Marthe turned her own attention back to the projection. Aidan's Summoner had turned around and was now firing wildly, alternating between its LB 10-X and its PPC.
No, Aidan, she thought, you are using up your ammo too fast. You cannot go for the kill this early with a master warrior like Megasa.
"I have been watching you," Kael Pershaw said. "Your body leans toward the battle when Star Commander Aidan is doing the fighting. I know you came from the same sibko. You are helping him, are you not?"
"I suppose I am free to admit that now, yes. No violation of Clan law or custom is involved."
"Then why keep it secret? Are you ashamed to help a warrior who previously fought as a freebirth?
Ashamed to support a warrior against whom nearly everyone else is arrayed?"
"I feel no shame. My clandestine participation was political, not strategic. I do not agree with the charges against Star Commander Aidan, and I believe he deserves this chance, that is all."
"It may interest you to know, Star Captain, that I agree with you."
That was perhaps the only thing Kael Pershaw might have said that could draw Marthe's attention away from the battle scene. By now Megasa had retreated a bit, using the mountainous terrain to escape from Aidan's heavy fire, rendering much of it useless. The expended fire made a pretty picture as it rose off Rhea's surface like new rays of moonlight.
"You support his cause. I thought, as his commanding officer, that you despised him."
"I did, and perhaps still do. But ever since he defeated Lopar in the first round of this Trial of Bloodright, I have come to admire his skill. That is all there is to it, and I wanted someone on his side to know it. But Star Captain Joanna will not listen, and I cannot converse with the freebirth MechWarrior, so I am telling you."
A roar from the crowd whisked Marthe's attention back to the holographic scene. Megasa had come out from the rock formation, sending off two missile salvos. With the massive dust cloud stirred up by the failed missiles, for a moment it looked as though the shots had actually destroyed Aidan and his Summoner. The next moment Marthe was relieved to see the 'Mech walk steadily out of the cloud of debris. When she turned back to Kael Pershaw, he was gone.
She had no time to wonder about that for the battle scene was compelling. What she saw made her gasp in shock, perhaps the strongest reaction she had shown to anything since her sibko days. Aidan's Summoner was on the run, heading toward the Mad Dog at too great a speed, the fire from his weapons preceding him. The speed at which he was moving created an illusion that he might run into his own fire and explode his own BattleMech. It was not the illusion that concerned Marthe, however. She had warned Aidan about moving too fast in the moon's low gravity.
On Rhea a BattleMech could
travel six times faster than in normal gravity, but such low gravity affected the structural integrity of a running 'Mech. Anything could happen, from the freezing of myomer muscle clumps to fractures on any surface area.
What Marthe feared finally happened. As the Summoner ran along, its left leg came down hard on the moon's surface. The leg, built to support a seventy-ton 'Mech running at eighty-six kilometers per hour, was a mechanical marvel of supports and shock absorbers. But Aidan was testing its limits and surpassing them threefold. It was no surprise when the 'Mech's leg snapped off at the knee.
As the lower leg fell away like a gantry at a rocket launch, dust enveloped the 'Mech's foot. The Summoner continued forward, the Mech's momentum making it look as though it had hopped several steps more. Then it began to topple like an exploded building. It fell sideways, then abruptly disappeared.
* * *
Aidan sensed the fall even before he knew his 'Mech's leg had snapped off. He tried to control his fall by moving the left leg inward, but because it was now a "phantom" leg, nothing happened.
The 'Mech came to the edge of a wide hole and teetered there for a moment. Then the right foot slipped forward, sending the Summoner plunging into the deep, wide pit.
The 'Mech bounced once off the wall of the pit, which turned it sideways for the rest of the fall. It came to rest at the bottom of the pit, the impact knocking Aidan unconscious.
* * *
The holographic projection did not recreate the pit. Aidan's Summoner merely disappeared from view the way things did on flatscreen video.
Marthe watched Megasa's 'Mech come to a stop and seem to stare at the pit before ambling to the edge. She wondered whether the judges had already decided on the match's outcome. If Megasa wished, he could claim victory now, then permit rescue teams to get Aidan out of his 'Mech. But Marthe knew that Megasa, like all the other Bloodright participants, had vowed to kill Aidan, and she knew that was on his mind now. He had plenty of ammunition left. All he needed to do was fire it into the pit. Aidan could not eject. In Rhea's vacuum, he would die immediately. His only hope was the one thing that could not happen—that Megasa would give him his life.
Joanna was now beside her, having pushed several warriors aside to approach the rail. "He did it again," she said.
"Did what?" Marthe said morosely.
"Over-reached. That has been his history. In battles, Trials, in personality conflicts. He would have qualified in his first Trial but for that flaw."
Marthe did not wish to talk of this now. She especially resented Joanna's cold, clinical tone.
Megasa was standing at the edge of the pit, his 'Mech's torso leaning over the hole so that its pilot could look down into it.
* * *
When he came to, Aidan was groggy. Looking up, he saw the Mad Dog bending over the pit. And there was Megasa at the viewport, obviously checking on Aidan visually, not trusting his sensors to give the accurate picture he wanted of Aidan's pathetic circumstances.
Shaking off his daze, Aidan checked his weapons systems on the secondary screen. It showed that the few missiles left were useless because of the angles of the launch mount. And with the PPC destroyed, his only operable weapon was the LB 10-X. According to the onscreen data, however, its ammo feed had jammed. Besides, only one cluster round was chambered in the weapon. A glorified shotgun shell to be used against a raging elephant.
Seeing Megasa wave from his cockpit, Aidan saw no point in firing his weapon. He was already dead. He wanted to shut his eyes and simply accept his fate.
But no, even now, something in him could not give up. He had never been able to give up. In cadet maneuvers, he had persisted in trying every maneuver or strategy even when it went against the training given the sibko. At his first Trial, he had nearly won with unorthodox tactics. The same kind of performance had won his second Trial. His experiences as a warrior reinforced the tenacity that must have been with him from the moment he dropped from the canister. As with all his victories, it had been his ability to persevere that had also won the victory at Glory Station.
He did not give up then. He would not give up now.
Quickly lining up his shot, aiming it for the part of the Mad Dog's upper torso that was visible over the pit, he fired. He planned the cluster of shots as a final defiance against Megasa and, for that matter, all the other Jade Falcons who so despised him. They would, of course, never know that. But he knew and that was enough.
He watched all the essentially ineffectual hits dotting the Mad Dog's upper torso in a patternless way. He even saw the dust raised by a hit against the surface of the cockpit.
At first, however, he did not see that the cockpit hit had created a hairline fracture. The first sign of the hit was the stream of vapor escaping in a thin line that quickly expanded. It was then that Aidan saw the fracture, which widened even as he watched. The last sign was the face of Megasa coming forward, eyes wide, skin paling, mouth opening.
In a sudden rush of decompression, the cockpit exploded outward. Megasa apparently flew out with it, but Aidan did not see him. Some of the debris, maybe some of Megasa, settled down onto the Summoner buried in the pit.
Perhaps it was shock, perhaps he was still dazed from the fall. Whatever the cause, Aidan fell into unconsciousness before he could react further to the events of the last few moments. As the world around him went dark and void, all he knew was that he had just won the Trial of Bloodright. Aidan had won his Bloodname.
Epilogue
A few years after Aidan won his Bloodname, his daughter Diana, of whose existence he was still ignorant, qualified in her Trial of Position and became a warrior.
Had she defeated more than one 'Mech at the Trial, she would have begun her career as a Clan warrior with the rank of Star Commander. She had won respectably against only one 'Mech, however, and so it was MechWarrior Diana who climbed down the side of her Hellbringer at the end of her Trial. The 'Mech's surface was still so hot that accidentally touching it burned the palm of her hand.
Though proud and happy, Diana had no grandiose notions about her warrior status because she could never compete for a Bloodname. She merely wanted the privilege of being part of her Clan's invasion of the Inner Sphere, which had just begun. She was, in fact, eager to join her unit.
The Bloodname issue that had so obsessed her father would not drive her life. She was, after all, the product of a union between Aidan and his former sibkin Peri. Though the daughter of the two trueborns, her natural birth made her a freeborn and forever ineligible to win a Bloodname. Diana did not really mind that. She did not even mind that the trues showed so much contempt for her kind. Perhaps she had simply grown so accustomed to it that it seemed merely a fact of life. Like her father, she had fought many a truebirth who taunted her, but that was more an acceptance of the necessity to fight back as a freeborn legacy.
Standing alongside the massive foot of her Hellbringer, Diana gave it a salute. You got me this far, she told the 'Mech silently. Now I will do right by you.
In all the time she had dreamed of being a warrior, Diana had never imagined encountering her father. She saw no reason why he would want to see or know her. What trueborn would seek to acknowledge a freeborn child? Trueborns, of course, rarely met either geneparent.
Diana had known only her mother, but like a true-born, she had wanted nothing more from life than to be a Clan warrior. Now that her wish had become reality, she looked forward to a fulfilling future in service to the Clan. Envisioning that future did not yet include any fantasies of knowing her father.
As she walked away from her 'Mech, she clenched and unclenched her right hand, testing the burn that still stung painfully.
* * *
Peri, now an important scientist, sent her blessing, but did not come to see her daughter off on the day her unit began its long journey across the stars that would take them to join the invasion of the Inner Sphere.
* * *
While Diana was beginning her days as a warrior,
another was ending his life in Clan service. He was Ter Roshak by name, and had lived out the years of his vindication as though they were years of disgrace instead. He was welcome in none of the places where he wanted welcome, no longer had a single friend among warriors, had no position in the ranks. He was an old warrior now, sixty-one years of age and considered useless to the Clan.
Well, not completely useless. He was part of an infantry unit composed of warriors judged too old to pilot a 'Mech or engage in combat except as cannon fodder to accomplish some larger military end. That infantry unit was on a planet somewhere deep in the Inner Sphere, a place that for so long had been only a dream in the hearts of the Clansmen whose ancestors had exiled themselves generations before. The invasion the Clans had been preparing for all those generations had begun, but Ter Roshak did not even know the name of this world or how the battle was going.
All the members of his unit had been issued uniforms, boots, a gun, and a knife, then sent on this march on foot toward the enemy. Ter Roshak was no fool, he knew what was happening. This trek was exactly why all the old warriors of this unit had joined.
As they drew nearer the front, Ter Roshak saw 'Mechs spread across a wide, hilly clearing. With the Clan 'Mechs in temporary retreat, the commanders needed to buy some time. To do that, Ter Roshak's unit was to march directly into the enemy, firing at them with outdated, old weapons, equipment that was expendable if dropped in the field.
They were all going to die, but their deaths would buy other Clan warriors time to regroup, reload, and recharge. Their commanding officer had ordered Ter Roshak's unit to stay alive as long as they could, and to keep on shooting the whole time. If they ran out of ammo, they were to use knives. If they lost their knives, then they must go after the nearest enemy with their bare hands. If their hands were broken, they must kick the enemy with their feet. If their feet were shot off, they must crawl to the enemy warriors and try in some other way to kill them. If they could not crawl, then they must fire into the nearest brush. If they could not move, then they must simply wait to die. If they could not die, then there must be something wrong with their attitude.
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