She consulted her watch on the way down. A conference call with several of the senators over nagging details of the Articles had delayed her, and Conner was likely already there, probably waiting impatiently. Though she was certain he enjoyed their games, he disliked being away from the base for any length of time, unless it was on a mission. The attack on the Mech Warrior barracks would doubtless only multiply his concerns.
She couldn't blame him. She ached to be there herself.
She should have died that day, ramming those missiles down Jedra Kean's throat. That would have been a proper ending for her career. If she believed in fate, she would think it had a sense of humor, and she was the butt of the joke. Maybe that was part of her reason for continuing her routine, despite the risk. She wondered if she had a death wish.
As she rounded the corner past the locker rooms, she was not surprised to see someone standing there. Given the confinement of those who occupied the building's inner reaches, the facilities were always in use. She could tell it was a senator by the special green, hooded sweat-jacket the person was wearing, still a sign of station even though it was a bit ragged around the edges. But only when he turned and smiled his thin-lipped smile did she recognize Chance Elba.
So did the guards, who immediately drew their side-arms and held them pointed at the ceiling. The threat was not immediate, but it was clear.
Elba's smile only widened, and he showed no trace of fear. He nodded his head in greeting. "Galaxy Commander. Out for some exercise, I see."
It wasn't the first time Isis had seen Elba at the facility, but she was always surprised. He did not have the look of a man who ever exercised, except perhaps to lift a glass to his lips. For a labor leader, he was a surprisingly unphysical man. She casually took a step closer to him before speaking. "I was not aware your privileges down here had been restored."
"That unfortunate scuffle with Senator Lee was some time ago. The suspension of privileges was only for a month."
She asked dryly, "Is that all?"
Senator Elba chuckled. "I confess, I had it coming. I am a man of considerable passions when it comes to matters of importance. I can overreact at times."
She raised an eyebrow, and frowned at him. "Is that so?"
"Which is why I'm glad I ran into you this morning. I understand there was an unfortunate attempt on your person last night."
She suppressed an impulse to sneer. He asked as though it were some rumor to be confirmed, but she had little doubt that the details of the encounter were being discussed as fact all over the building. In such confines, something like this could hardly be kept secret. This assumed, of course, that he hadn't sent the assassin himself. "As I am sure you know, there was. Nothing came of it."
"Fortunately."
"There was nothing fortunate about it. The would-be assassin was little more than a child, and I assure you. Senator, I am a good deal more formidable than I appear. I could, just as an example, mind you, kill you right now, with my bare hands, in any number of ways, very quickly or"—she paused suggestively—"or very slowly."
He chuckled and shook his head sadly. "You misunderstand me. Galaxy Commander. We've had our differences, certainly, and while I'd like nothing better than for you and your Clan brethren to leave my planet and return it to the control of free Vegans, I wish you no personal harm. And I wish to assure you that I had absolutely nothing to do with this unfortunate incident."
She refiexively wrinkled her nose. "Even having lived in the Rasalhague Dominion all my life, I still find lawyers a curious and unpleasant means of settling disputes.
But they have created some interesting and useful terminology. I believe they would call your statement a 'disclaimer,' a formal denial of responsibility having little or no basis in fact."
He tilted his head. "Is that an accusation. Galaxy Commander?"
"Not at all. I merely state that you would say the same thing regardless of your responsibility in the matter."
He grinned slightly. "In that you are probably correct. But I am not responsible. And much as I regret the incident, I hope some good may come of it. I hope that you may come away from it having learned something."
"And what would that be?"
"That there are many people on this planet who resent your presence here with every shred of their being. That they will resist your unlawful occupation to every last man, woman—and child. Nothing you can do will change that, and it is beyond anyone's ability to control, even mine. I'm in communication with these people every day, Galaxy Commander. I hear their concerns. They fear the Clans, fear the Ghost Bears and they want you off their world."
"And perhaps, in the course of these communications, you have suggested a few activities for them."
His brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed with anger. "You don't understand us at all, and you never will. You may share your bed with a Vegan, but you will never know our hearts. And that—that is why you will fail!" He turned and stormed into the men's locker room.
Isis proceeded to the handball courts in a sour mood. As predicted, she found Conner Hall already waiting. She ducked through the low doorway and closed it behind her.
The Star colonel glanced at her, reacting to her angry expression. Rather than question her, however, he simply stepped back out of the way.
She pulled a black rubber ball from her pocket, bounced it once on the floor and slammed it viciously with the palm of her hand. It bounced off the far wall with a loud report and returned to her. She slammed it again.
Slam. Report. Bounce. Slam. Report. Bounce. Over and over, until finally she let the ball fly past her to bounce off the rear wall, return almost to the front wall before bouncing off the floor, back and forth in a shrinking series of arcs. She watched it with grim fascination. She sighed. "I am not much in the mood for a game today."
"I heard about the assassin."
She bent down and scooped up the ball. Her right hand stung from repeated blows. She squeezed the ball, savoring the pain. It reminded her she was alive. "I have had a bad morning. Star Colonel. I suggest we get on with making it worse. Your report?"
He leaned his broad shoulders against the rear wall of the court and shrugged. "My warriors maintain a high state of alert, but lacking any clear objectives or identifiable targets, we are limited to responsive action against enemy attacks. In that, they are always one step ahead of us, the destruction of our barracks being the latest example. It is like fighting shadows."
"In other words," she said, "little has changed."
"We have sent a few more body bags off to the crematory, and my MechWarriors are sharing quarters with the Vegan warriors, but essentially, that is correct. I ask again that we recall the rest of our forces to Vega. We simply do not have the resources to secure one planet, much less three."
"Our orders are to secure key worlds in this prefecture, in order to begin restabilizing the Inner Sphere. That is 'worlds,' plural, not singular."
"I understand that, but we are still spread too thin. Without the HPG network, our off-world forces on Cebalrai are essentially on their own, and in turn cannot be counted on to back us up should the situation here turn hot."
"We have had this argument before."
"Not since the latest intelligence inventory."
She blinked in surprise. "What?"
"For some time I have had our civilian intelligence people going over records of the battle, interviewing survivors of battles that took place before we arrived, inspecting prewar arms inventories, as well as identifying and cataloging battle wreckage based on orbital surveys. The goal was to determine how many 'Mechs may have been on the planet, and how many were destroyed. As you can imagine, it has been a monumental task."
'"I would think there is a great deal of room for error."
"There is, but they have made considerable progress in crossing destroyed and captured 'Mechs off the prewar inventories. But it has been some time since they have been able to remove one from the list, and there
are still units unaccounted for."
She frowned. "How many?"
"Thirteen. Thirteen that we know of."
"But there could be errors in the records, or misidentified wreckage. Perhaps they are dead on the bottom of a river or lake somewhere, or covered by a landslide."
He nodded grimly. "That is possible, but we have been very thorough, to the point of examining battlefields with ground-penetrating radar and sonar units. I think it's likely that some of these thirteen, if not all of them, are still out there."
"In the hands of insurgent forces?"
"Almost undoubtedly."
"Then why have they not used them? If they are out there, we should have seen them by now."
He shrugged again. "Perhaps they are undergoing repairs at some hidden location, or in need of ammunition before they can be brought into play."
"But you do not think that is the case."
"No. There has been ample time to make field repairs, and with all the wreckage scattered around there is no shortage of parts. Even ammunition would not be that hard to obtain. Our field teams found considerable evidence of scavenging. This survey, of course, only attempts to account for the largest and most important resource, the 'Mechs. We can't even begin to account for all the conventional armor, powered armor, light weapons, explosives and so on.
"What can we do to stop this loss of resources to the enemy?"
"Recall all our off-world forces, for a start. We do not have the manpower to even catalog all the potential war salvage out there, much less collect or secure it. In effect, we are arming our enemies through neglect. In some ways they may be as strong as the day you killed Jedra Kean, and we are far weaker."
She frowned and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I cannot recall the off-world units. Our mandate in this mission was made quite clear to me when we won the bid. I do not have to tell you how tenuous the Raging Bears' status in the Clan is at the moment. This is our one chance for redemption."
He nodded grimly, but said nothing.
"Conner, I am trapped here, but I cannot see why you do not put in for transfer to another Galaxy. We may be hanging on the verge of Abjuration, but a MechWarrior with your codex and battle history would be welcomed by any commander in the Clan. I certainly could not justify standing in your way."
He looked at her. What was that in his eyes? He almost looked hurt at the suggestion.
"Galaxy Commander, I am loyal. I am loyal to you. I am loyal to the Raging Bears. I am loyal to my troops." He seemed to consider for a moment. "And I am loyal to this world. Despite the chaos and the infighting, I think there is something special here. Something worth fighting for."
She studied him. Something worth fighting for? What hold did this godforsaken world have on him?
6
From the Great Work of Galaxy Commander Isis Bekker
With the unexpected and very public death of Jedra Kean. our opposition seemed to deflate like a pricked balloon. Though I and my forces had been wounded, and were now outgunned and surrounded, the enemy forces began to fall back. Those who stayed we were able to fend off until reinforcements arrived, our own troops and the local forces that would come to be known as the First Vega Regulars.
It was immediately obvious that, except for scattered pockets of resistance, the major fighting was over. The only enemy forces we saw were on the retreat, and chasing them around the mountains become a losing proposition. The opposing 'Mechs and units we pursued were not defeated so much as that they disappeared.
We concentrated on rounding up the surviving warlords and their most notorious associates, and in that we were more successful. Our paramilitary police arranged for two hundred and thirty-seven swift trials and public executions.
The era of the warlords was over.
My long nightmare had begun.
I was left with a hollow shell of a planet, a world no further from chaos than when we had arrived, and perhaps a little closer. It had no government, no police, no center. Only factions vying for control. And though the high-ranking warlords had been eliminated, for each of them there were still a hundred thugs waiting in the shadows, each with dreams of taking their fallen master's place. If we withdrew, it would be as though we had never come. We had to stay and find some way to rebuild the framework of civilization.
That task fell to me, and I felt ill qualified. I am a soldier and a commander, not a politician or a diplomat. But I did not shirk the task. I faced it as I faced every battle, by marshaling all the forces at my command and using them as effectively as my skills would allow.
I quickly realized that my warriors could not begin to achieve the task alone, that they would only be one leg of a tripod consisting of the military, the paramilitary police, and a growing force of civilian specialists and advisors. I located a suitably fortified building in which to form a new government, dug in and rolled up my sleeves.
It was not hard to find leaders within the various factions, bring them together and form an interim senate. But getting them to agree on anything beyond that became the most difficult battle of my career.
This, to me, was the bitter lesson of Vega, the horror that shook me to my very core. I had always believed that civilization was strong, that it would survive any trial and always rise up from the ruins. But now I knew differently.
Civilization is fragile, delicate, like a soap bubble. It seems solid enough, but, in an instant, it can be gone. And there I was, gathering up what few glittering droplets I could find in the mad hope that the bubble could be restored.
Hope, too, is like a bubble.
Paramilitary Police Headquarters, East Central District
Nasew, North Nanturo continent, Vega
24 November 3136
Field Security Chief Ricco walked through the hallways of the bustling building that was his domain, past uniformed officers rushing to duty from their briefings, technicians hurrying to file intelligence or investigation reports, and cuffed prisoners being dragged to interrogation rooms. His forces now outnumbered the Clan military on Vega three to one, and more police were arriving with every new DropShip. Still his forces couldn't keep up.
Not only did they have to keep order on the streets and gather intelligence about insurgents, they also had to rebuild and train local police forces and keep tabs on the growing Clan civilian population. It was an overwhelming, impossible task.
God, how he loved it. God, how he loved Vega. He hoped they would never leave.
There had been a time he had cursed his life, when he had failed his Trial of Position and his true destiny as a warrior had been lost to him. He had later learned, through his own investigation, that the simulator in which he had taken the trial had been sabotaged by a jealous rival. He applied to the Clan Council for another trial, but was refused. Rather than being a warrior, he had found himself relegated to the laborer caste.
The injustice of that day had scarred him. He felt less than a man, less than Clan. He had neglected his training and duties, fallen in with members of the Clan who expressed their discontent by associating with the criminal elements of Policenigo, and very nearly had gone down a much different road.
But it was this criminal contact that first brought him into the sphere of the paramilitary police. When he found he could not accept some of the activities of his new friends, he went to the police and agreed to act as a mole. He was instrumental in bringing down a major smuggling operation and, to his surprise, was offered a Ritual of Adoption, a second chance to join the warrior caste.
Even then he had faced another Trial of Position, this one with live firearms in a combat tailored to the paramilitary police specialty. He had been wounded, but he had prevailed against three of his opponents, gaining him the official rank of Star captain. After all that effort, he found it ironic that his rank was rarely used. He wore the insignia, but in the department officers were usually addressed by position rather than rank. Not only was it their custom, but it also reduced tensions in i
nteractions with military warriors, who considered the paramilitary police inferior, even those officers of superior rank.
He quickly learned that many in the paramilitary police were like him, bitter outsiders, existing on the edge of the warrior caste. But here, in the brotherhood of the badge, they pulled each other back from the dark abyss and then joined to fight against it.
The day he first put on the uniform of a law officer had been, other than the day he took up his command on Vega, the finest day of his life.
Unlike the other warriors, the paramilitary police did not boast of being the Clan's best and brightest. They knew they existed on the edge of Clan society and would never truly be accepted as part of the warrior caste. But they served as the perimeter defense against what lay beyond. Uncelebrated and unappreciated, they knew it was they who kept the Clan together, kept Clan society in order, and held in check the dezgrate—Clansmen who behaved dishonorably, even criminally, but did not entirely violate the core Clan tenets.
If the warriors and Clan society as a whole held them in some degree of contempt, well—they did not need the recognition of the masses. Their brothers and sisters in the force knew what they did, and that was enough.
But the life of a paramilitary policeman in the Rasalhague Dominion had been far from ideal. Their jurisdiction overlapped with that of local civilian police forces charged with enforcing law on the non-Clan freeborns who formed the great majority of the population. The criminal activities of the dezgrate were often tangled with those of non-Clan criminals, and so jurisdictional battles were frequent. Often a Clan criminal who would otherwise have been swiftly executed or punished was instead held indefinitely as a witness in some civilian trial. On occasion. Clan members were even placed under the authority of the civilian courts, where justice was slow, and punishments maddeningly mild.
All that had changed on Vega.
The planet had been under martial law since their arrival, with no end in sight. Criminals and injustice were everywhere, but the only impediments to justice were time and manpower, and his resources increased by the day.
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