* * *
Joanna's head still hurt from the fight with Diana. When she looked into the familiar face of Aidan Pryde, she experienced the same phenomenon of double exposure that had struck her with Diana. First she saw Star Colonel Aidan Pryde, a proud and assured military man whose face showed the traces of age, but almost as though they had been delicately sketched in by the hand of a skilled craftsman. Then she saw the young Aidan who had tormented her since the day she had first laid eyes on him. When she had challenged him to a fight on his first training day, he had fought well, better than most trainees. And then, in one way or another, they had been fighting ever since.
"Star Commander Joanna and replacement troops reporting for duty, sir," she said with flat military intonation. She studied his face for a reaction to her new, reduced rank. Perhaps she was grateful to see none.
Joanna was not prepared for this meeting. No one had told her who was senior commanding officer here, and she was seeing Aidan for the first time as a Star Colonel. Her throat constricted as she considered the terrible moment when she must address him as Star Colonel Aidan Pryde. Not only had she trained him, but she had been one of his advisors when he won his Bloodname. That still galled her. Not only did he have the Bloodname, the honor she had always craved but failed to attain, but now the stravag even outranked her!
Joanna was, however, still a Clan warrior, taught to accept whatever the Clan required of her. She had no choice but to accept Aidan as a Pryde and as a Star Colonel. She did not have to like it, but she must accept it.
Then again, perhaps she would never accept it, not deep down, and that thought was strangely comforting.
* * *
Joanna lined up her charges. She had instructed them to stand at stiff attention, not slacking off as warriors sometimes did in war zones. No one in her command would be permitted to display anything less than correct military posture, she warned them.
As Aidan proceeded slowly from one MechWarrior to the next, Joanna studied him carefully. Diana was next to last in the line. Behind them, a few meters away, the BattleMechs were being unloaded from the DropShip. They made an impressive backdrop to the militarily correct line of warriors.
Joanna saw that Aidan had not looked down the line as he moved, so that when he reached Diana, he was seeing her for the first time. But Joanna knew Aidan would never react publicly, even if he did see a resemblance. The chances were that, like his daughter, he was not enamored of his reflected image and would see none of it in Diana.
Now that, was that a flicker of recognition in Diana's eyes? Or did Joanna merely imagine it? Because father and daughter shared the same cool stare, Joanna could not conclude much about the encounter. Aidan moved on to inspect the next and final warrior.
* * *
Diana was, of course, the only one on the field that day who also saw her mother when she looked at her father. It might not have been obvious to a casual observer, but Diana knew that Aidan and Peri had originated in the same sibko. Aidan had become a warrior, while Peri had flushed out of warrior training and entered the scientist caste instead. The resemblance was only slight, but Diana saw it nonetheless. It was so unexpected that she almost revealed her surprise in a slight widening of her eyes. Then her native reserve came to the rescue. The fact that the features of both Peri and Aidan were mixed in Diana's face did not interest her, only that she had seen her mother in her father's face. The recognition might have shocked anyone.
She did not know what to think. She had not expected to find her father so soon after discussing him with Joanna. When much younger, Diana had wished so much to meet Aidan. When she had chosen the path of a warrior, it was because that had been his. Sometimes she had dreamed of their reunion. But now that the moment had come, Diana did not want her father to know her identity. Trueborn warriors scorned their freeborn children, so why should she expect him to behave any differently? No, he would never learn who she was. But she would study him and take pleasure in knowing who he was. There was something Clanlike about that decision. Indeed, the young warrior did not even watch her father, her Star Colonel, when a few moments later, he began to address the entire unit.
6
Clan commanders, when briefing a new officer, especially one accompanying reinforcement units, did not generally make a social occasion out of the meeting. For most the mere idea of a social occasion was foreign, but Aidan Pryde had a skewered view of almost everything, much of it derived from his extensive secret reading. He had been impressed by the way Terrans of past eras often combined social ritual with more formal activities.
To Joanna, who read only operational and artillery manuals, Aidan's offer of a drink of Quarell wine was surprising but welcome. She had been dreading this encounter ever since arriving on Quarell with the reinforcements, only to find Aidan Pryde calmly waiting to greet them. If Clan policy had made possible a request for immediate reassignment, Joanna would have asked for one the moment the formal rituals of greeting were over.
She took a sip of the wine, a rather thick brew with a woody and slightly sour taste, all the while trying to look as if her current predicament did not matter to her. Aidan either read her mind, or his thoughts were on a similar track. He came right to the point with typical Clan-warrior bluntness.
"You do not wish to be here, Star Commander Joanna."
"Permission to speak frankly, Star Colonel?"
"You have it now and from now on, unless you give me occasion to revoke it."
"If our past history is any proof, I probably will."
Aidan smiled. "You seem to have picked up a sense of humor since last I saw you, Joanna."
"Have I? If so, I am not aware of it." She took another sip of wine. This time it tasted better, which she thought must be a quality common to wines everywhere. "You are right, Aidan Pryde, I do not wish to be here. I would prefer going solahma toward the front lines, weaponless and seated on the shoulders of a dying Elemental, to serving in any command under you. Does that portray my attitude vividly enough? And, for the sake of Kerensky, must you grin? I do not remember you ever smiling when last we knew each other."
"You are right. I did smile rarely. But now I indulge occasionally."
"What an annoying trait. I hope I do not have to see your smile often for it makes your face look like the back end of a surat."
Aidan sipped from his own metal wine cup, then gave Joanna another smile as he returned to the subject on his mind. "I heard about what happened on Twycross, Star Commander. It is unfortunate that, in the Clans, we demote previously successful officers for blunders that are not really their fault. None of Malthus' unit could have anticipated the demolition charges."
"What you say comes close to treason, Aidan Pryde. The reasons for the loss are not relevant. The shame is in the loss itself. At any rate, you know I was not demoted merely because of that failure. What happened on Twycross demanded only that I be retested. When I did so, the outcome required a demotion in rank."
"Required?"
"Do not try to provoke me. Of course I do not enjoy being a mere Star Commander again, but I serve my Clan in any way that is ordained. It must give you great pleasure to outrank me now."
Aidan shook his head. "No, not at all, Joanna. I take no satisfaction from revenge."
"The Aidan Pryde I knew would have."
"You forget. I was not Aidan Pryde then. After my final Bloodname battle, I saw you again only long enough to hear you say that it was fate, and not my own skill, that won me the Bloodname. I have changed in some ways since that day when I became Aidan Pryde. My only aim now is to serve the Clan as both a valorous and loyal warrior."
"Strange."
"What? That I should have turned out to be a good Clan officer?"
"No. It is the curiosity of the name itself. When you were not Aidan Pryde, you were the most arrogant being I had ever observed. Except for me, that is. Now that you are Aidan Pryde, you seem to have lost that pridefulness. It is as if you are Aidan without Pr
yde instead of Aidan Pryde. Ah, but this wine is affecting my coherence, quiaff?"
"Aff. It has that property. But I have long wondered what you meant when you told me I owed my Bloodname victory more to fate than my abilities."
"The truth is I can no longer remember what I meant. I do not even recall saying that to you."
Aidan nodded. "A pity really. I have not stopped recalling that moment, and you have forgotten it." He could not tell Joanna, but he had once read a set of stories in which each character remembers the same events in slightly different ways. He had not understood the stories at the time. Now the meaning seemed a bit clearer.
"Think again," he said. "What might you have meant by attributing my victory to fate?"
Joanna shrugged. The movement shifted her tunic, giving Aidan a brief glimpse of a deep scar just below the collar line. "I do not know what I meant. We of the Clans put no store in fate. I do not even understand it. Are we not taught that we control our own destinies, that fate cannot affect our lives unless we let it?"
"And, if we let it, then we are still the masters of our fate, quiaff?"
"Aff. Or I suppose so. I have never cared much for any discussion beyond what I need to learn from the manuals and textbooks. Fate is fate. Keep it at the back door, and you do not have to worry about it."
"Maybe so. Maybe life is negotiation. Bidding against fate is what we do."
Joanna squinted at Aidan, then gulped down the rest of her wine. "You seem also to have picked up some strange ideas since I last saw you."
He had an urge to tell her about the secret library, but watching her stare somewhat longingly at the bottom of her cup, he knew that such a revelation would be unwise.
"Then enough of the past. The main reason I called you here was to discuss the campaign," Aidan said. "Would you care for more wine?"
"It is swill. But yes, I will have some more."
"For the most part, our unit has not seen as much action as others," he said, refilling her cup. "They usually hold us back in reserve, then send us in for mop-up."
"Is that complaint I hear?"
Aidan looked away from her hard stare. "Not complaint, but perhaps dissatisfaction. Do I have, well, permission to speak frankly?"
"You mean will I keep our conversation secret, quiaff?"
"Aff. I know how deeply your animosities run, but I also know you would never violate a vow."
"Oh, come off the high-sounding drivel. Any Clan warrior can be trusted once he gives his rede. I give you my rede to guard whatever secrets you are harboring. It seems odd for a subordinate to say this to a commanding officer, but, yes, you have permission to speak freely, Aidan Pryde."
Aidan put his cup down on the table and brought his hands together in front of his face in a gesture that looked to Joanna almost like praying. How many more oddities was this man going to spring on her? she wondered.
"It is about the campaign itself, its motives, its chances. When ilKhan Leo Showers was killed, I was called back to Strana Mechty with all the other Blood-named warriors. I have always done my duty toward attending councils and casting my vote when required. I have rarely participated much in the debates, however, for others often object to my viewpoint purely and simply because of the taint that still seems to hover over me. So I tend to hold my tongue.
"At this council, however, the stink of politics seemed to pervade every session. I came there excited, anticipating—"
"You? Excited?"
"As much as I get excited. You see, Joanna, this was the first election of an IlKhan in perhaps a hundred years. Not only were we participating in an historic event, but we had been forced to temporarily halt our invasion of the Inner Sphere in order to be there.
"But from the first I began to observe that the major leaders were attempting to manipulate matters. There were the two sides, the Crusaders and the Wardens, competing for support. Charges were hurled back and forth. The eventual selection of Ulric Kerensky as the new ilKhan seemed dominated by ulterior motives. What better advantage for the Crusaders than to place a Warden in power? It was a masterstroke for them to put the man prompting peace into the warlord's chair.
"Then the new ilKhan countered the Crusaders' plot by naming Natasha Kerensky to replace him as Khan of Clan Wolf. Finally he announced that the goal of the invasion was not to restore the Star League for the oppressed people of the Inner Sphere but to resurrect the League, with Clan leaders in the key seats of power."
"The difference seems insignificant to me. What is your objection?"
"I am not certain. But hearing that made me believe that the . . . idealism had gone out of the invasion. The invasion was suddenly about power, about us gaining more—"
"And I say, more power to us!" interrupted Joanna, raising her cup aloft.
"You do not see the difference?"
"Frankly, no."
"Looked at one way, the Clans are removing decadent and evil governments for the good of the people being crushed under these dictators. That is good. That is the reason for the existence of the Clans, I think. But if we are invading the Inner Sphere to take power for ourselves, to enlarge Clan domains, are we any better than the despots we conquer?"
Joanna growled and slammed her cup down on the table, which threatened to leap up even though secured to the flooring. She stood. The drink made her momentarily dizzy, but she took care not to show it.
"And you had to ask me to keep this secret? Even if you stood on top of a mountain and shouted this rot through a loudspeaker, who among Clan warriors would want to hear any of it? It has no relation to what we do, what we are. We fight, that is what we do. We are warriors, that is what we are. We do not worry about right and wrong. If we think, it is our hobby, and that is all. Permission to leave?"
Aidan nodded. Joanna stood up, none too gracefully. She turned a bit shakily toward the door, but Aidan was not done with her yet. "Star Commander? I am wondering about your chief tech, Nomad. Is he still with you?"
"No."
"He did look old the last I saw him."
"It was not age that did him in. He was killed on Twycross, sometime during the Camora campaign. Blown up, I understand."
"You understand?"
"He was not attached to my unit when it happened. The slimy freebirth, tricky as ever, transferred out just when I had given up asking him to."
"He was a good tech, a—"
"He was a freebirth, and that is the end of it."
As Joanna turned back toward the door, a sudden knock startled both warriors.
"Who is it?" Joanna bellowed, forgetting for a moment that she was no longer in command. "Speak immediately or go away."
The responding voice was that of Horse, who entered when Aidan called out permission. He was carrying a sheaf of papers, which he handed to Aidan.
"There is an uprising in Vreeport," he said. "Some citizens who have found a cache of Inner Sphere weapons are now perched on the city walls, shooting at any warrior who comes near. And there seems to be a BattleMech standing in the middle of the fortress. That's all I know so far."
Aidan sighed. It was the normal kind of mop-up operation that had apparently become his specialty.
"Can we negotiate with them?"
"It has been tried, according to the report. There seems to be only one choice."
"Annihilation?"
"Yes."
"Well, perhaps that will not be necessary. Let us go. Star Commander Joanna, now may be a good time for your Star to get its feet wet on Quarell. This mission is yours."
Joanna touched Aidan's arm as he walked by.
"We are eager for battle, Star Colonel, but the general directive says to be merciless in dealing with uprisings."
"That is true."
"So why not annihilation? This is apparently only a small guerrilla band."
"They are our enemy, yes, but that does not make them less human. We must treat them with the same respect we give our foes in BattleMechs."
"But do we n
ot strive to annihilate them?"
"Only when we have to."
"I never strove for anything else."
Aidan stared at Joanna for a long moment, and the cruelty she remembered came back into his eyes. "And look where it has gotten you, Star Commander Joanna."
Warmed by the Quarell wine and Aidan's confidences, Joanna had momentarily forgotten the hatred she had felt for this man from the moment she laid eyes on him. Now it returned full force. Seething with anger, she followed him out of the room.
7
The small settlement of Vreeport was located in a clearing so surrounded by tall, leafy trees that it would easily have escaped the eyes of a 'Mech pilot operating exclusively on visuals. Believing visuals unreliable, Joanna vastly preferred to navigate relying solely on her 'Mech's inertial guidance system. She did not need to see the subtleties of color in the foliage, the deep brown of the ground, the strange gnarled patterns of tree bark, the quick moves of tiny animals away from the heavy tread of 'Mech feet—not when all she needed was available in its essential grid-and-line patterns. Knowing the coordinates of Vreeport, she found it easily, set off into its blueprint-like lines and shapes.
Stepping her Mad Dog out of the forest, she came upon Vreeport in its clearing. The rest of her Star, all BattleMechs, emerged just after she had guided her 'Mech through the last of the trees.
"Looks quiet," Joanna remarked to her team over the open channel. Among the various sounds of agreement, she heard Diana's voice: "Request permission to enter the settlement walls for recon."
"Request denied," Joanna said. "If anyone is there, let them see us first. Many a battle has been won merely through the intimidating presence of BattleMechs."
She switched to external speakers. "If any citizen still remains in Vreeport, it is my duty to inform you that our commander, Star Colonel Aidan Pryde, grants you immunity if you come out immediately. Whatever you have been told by the propagandists of the Inner Sphere, we of the Clan are not monsters who kill indiscriminately.
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