BattleTech: A Clever Bit of Fiction: Kell Hounds Ascendant 3 (Kell Hounds Trilogy), page 1
BattleTech: A Clever Bit of Fiction
A Kell Hounds Short Novel
Michael A. Stackpole
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
The BattleTech Fiction Series
1
THE NAGELRING
DISTRICT OF DONEGAL, THARKAD
LYRAN COMMONWEALTH
15 NOVEMBER 3010
Morgan Kell stood on the outer wall of the Nagelring, staring off at the mountains. Winds whipped snow into tattered sheets, letting black rock peek through. Exposed stone glittered with sharp glassy edges as if it had been flaked into a spear point, then another blanket of white would hide it.
He smiled. Has it been six years? “My mates and I used to come to this very spot, Veronica, and stare up at those mountains. We’d vow we were going to climb to the very top, no matter the conditions. That a dozen people a year die in such attempts didn’t put us off in the least.”
As he spoke, the wind whipped breath vapor away and nipped at his cheeks. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Mmmmphf.”
He turned and smiled more broadly, despite the numbness in his face. Veronica Matova shivered beside him. The fur-edged hood had been pulled tight, and a scarf enveloped her face, leaving only her blue eyes visible. The down parka bulked her out, but still could not conceal the tremors shaking her slender body. Her hands hid in a furred muff, and the cast on her left foot had been swathed in a quilted boot.
“I’m sorry, darling. You come from Galatea. You must be freezing.”
Her eyes bobbed up and down.
Morgan laughed, and with an arm around her shoulder, steered her to the nearest tower. He preceded her down the iron staircase and had to admit the frigidity of the railing was bleeding up through his gloves.
At the tower’s base, he ushered her into the main building, and slid her hood back. She shook her head once, freeing a cascade of golden hair, but still said nothing.
He slipped the blue scarf down. “Your tongue can’t be frozen.” His smile returned. “But, you know, if it is . . . I can think of a way to warm it up.”
Veronica pulled her scarf back up over her nose. “If it was frozen, Morgan Kell, it would be entirely your fault. Rewarding you with a kiss is not something I would do.”
“Reward? I sought no reward.” Morgan shook his head solemnly. “I merely was thinking of the medicinal value of a kiss . . .”
“Nice try, soldier-boy. But look, in the future, when I say, ‘No, I really don’t want to go outside,’ take me at my word, okay?” She pulled her hands out of the muff, let oversized mittens fall off, and revealed gloved hands beneath. “I am in, count them, four layers, and I’m still cold.”
“I’d love to count the layers, one by one . . .”
Veronica rolled her eyes. “You are so hot-blooded . . .”
“That’s why you love me?”
“Do I?”
“Don’t you?”
“Should I? ‘Come with me, Veronica, see the Commonwealth and freeze.’”
Morgan slipped his arms around her and pulled her close. “I believe I offered other inducements.”
“This is not a time for logic, Morgan.”
“Oh, right, it’s all about you.”
“Exactly.” Her eyes flashed warmly and a finger tugged the scarf down to her chin. “I’m cold, and I can’t help it unless, you know, I load up on potato pancakes and become a heifer like—”
Morgan pressed a finger to her lips. “Ahem, let’s not speak ill of our hosts.”
Veronica had observed, as they came in system and watched holovision broadcasts, that the image of feminine beauty suggested by the programs was of someone on the stouter side. When Morgan had come to the Nagelring, that had taken a bit of getting used to, but the female cadets in the Lyran Commonwealth’s state military academy were athletic. Other women tended to be softer and curvier, which—according to popular legend and song—made those long winter nights just that much warmer.
“You’re right, of course. It is cold here. I don’t notice it because . . .”
“Because you’re a man, and you wouldn’t allow yourself to admit it under threat of torture?”
He raised an eyebrow. “That not withstanding, I spent a lot of time here in school. We’d march along those walls keeping watch. We’d drill in those mountains. I mentioned people getting lost up there—we’d help find them.”
“I understand that.” She squeezed his arm. “And I understand that people love the snow. They love skiing and ski-trekking. I like the idea of having skied; and sitting down with a hot toddy in front of a blazing fire.”
He shook his head.
“And don’t get me wrong, Morgan, I love that you want to show me the Nagelring. That it was such a big part of your life makes it important to me as well.” She smiled softly and looked down the long hallways festooned with portraits and plaques, with rooms named after battles, famed ’Mechs and legendary warriors. “I can feel the history here; and you know I appreciate it. Even on Galatea, the Nagelring is a name that conjures wonder. If you’re betting on a fight, you’d feel more confident if the fighter was a Nagelring graduate. If a mercenary company comes recruiting, the N-grads always went first, and you’d expect to see the company again if it was run by N-grads. Grads like you and your brother.”
Morgan took her by the elbow and led her down one hallway. Twenty meters along, a break in the wall opened into a large atrium. Eight meters below them, Steiner Hall’s lobby glowed with the light of the setting sun.
He led her down a set of stairs and to a big trophy cases. “Look there.”
“Class of ’04, first in your class.” She gave him a small kiss on his cheek, helping warm it considerably.
“And my cumulative cadet score there, 905.3. Check them all before that. No one had ever hit that high on the CCS.”
She glanced at the name. “Nor since.”
“Yeah, but look at ’09.”
“Patrick Kell, 905.291.” Veronica raised an eyebrow. “Well matched, the Kell brothers.”
Morgan shook his head. “You look at all the scores that went into that number, and Patrick smoked me fair and square.”
“But how . . . ?”
“He took an elective his last year. Music. Classical Guitar. Scored a 1.8 in it. Brought him down to 905.291.”
Veronica’s eyes narrowed. “He did it deliberately.”
“He’s played the guitar since he was four. He won a planetary competition on Arc-Royal when he was ten. His ability to play was noted as a positive for selection to the Nagelring.” Morgan took her hand in his and squeezed. “I know you had brothers and sisters, but I only had my brother. I knew he looked up to me when we were growing up, but he was my kid brother. You expect that; but when I heard about this, well . . . I mean, I’m proud of what I accomplished here but . . .”
Veronica smiled at him. “You’re very lucky your brother loves you so much. And he’s lucky you love him so much. Shhhhh, no macho posturing. I was there when you heard he was hurt in the Majii raid. Nothing will erase the memory of the abject horror on your face.”
Morgan kissed the finger she’d pressed to his lips. “You know that same look appeared on my face when I heard you’d been injured.”
“Thank you.” She squeezed his hand. “What else, my dear, did you wish to show me?”
“We could look at my dorm room.”
“Oh, I bet that line warmed the heart of many a lass during your time here.”
Morgan laughed. “Easy way to get tossed. Not to say some didn’t risk it, but the honor system didn’t reward it.”
“You weren’t allowed to have fun?”
“We were, but only certain kinds of fun.” They strolled from the lobby to a ramp leading down to the network of tunnels that crisscrossed the campus. “Everyone here was training to be an officer and, yes—no wisecracks—a gentleman. Basically everything was about trust. To be a good officer you have to follow orders, and others have to trust that you’ll keep your word. No army can function if each commander decides to go his own way. And I have to trust that when someone says his unit is covering my flank, it actually is. If cadets can’t foster that sort of trust, if they’re going to put themselves ahead of everyone else for a little huffing-and-puffing, they can’t be trusted when beams flash and shells fly.”
“I can understand that. This honor code, it prohibited you from lying?”
“Oh yeah, seriously.”
She stopped, tugging on his hand. “So then, Cadet Kell, answer me this question. Truthfully.”
“Yes?”
“Do you want to kiss me?”
Morgan smiled. “I think you know the answer to that.”
He very much wanted to kiss her. He’d known her less than a month and had wanted to do much more than just kiss her, but kisses had sufficed while on Galatea.
Curiously enough, while part of him found the situation utterly frustrating, he was glad for it. Morgan had, in his time at the Nagelring and since, enjoyed the carnal pleasures. His longest relationship had been for six months and ended only because of circumstances beyond his control. He didn’t know if that had been love or not. He’d thought so, he’d hoped, but it all seemed so dreamlike now that he couldn’t be certain if it was, or if he had just wanted it to be.
With Veronica, things had been different. The attraction had been there from the first moment he’d met her. He couldn’t hide it, and neither could she. Veronica fought it, however, and the problems on Galatea had separated them right at the point when they would have consummated their relationship.
Consummated it prematurely. That judgment surprised Morgan, but it was as important as it was accurate. Veronica might allow him access to her body, but he wanted more. While she was beautiful—even though the parka hid her physical charms completely—it was her nature, her spirit, that drew him to her. He didn’t think he wanted to save her; he just wanted to know her.
She reached out and hooked a gloved hand behind his neck. “Then I think you should kiss me.”
Morgan resisted for a heartbeat, then let her pull him to her. He slipped his arms past her sides, then pressed her back against the wall with his body. He trapped her with his chest and hips, then kissed her fiercely and hard. His tongue flicked, her lips parted, and the kiss deepened.
Her arms closed behind his neck and her hips ground against his.
Morgan pulled back, gasping.
Her eyes smoldered as she wiped her mouth on the back of a glove. “Did you learn that here?”
“That was my point-three.”
She smiled and, darting her head forward, kissed him quickly. “I’m glad you studied hard. Now you’ll show me where?”
“Yes.” Morgan slipped a hand into hers again. They passed through the labyrinth and emerged in the basement of a dorm. Climbing the stairs to the third floor, then turned right and came to room 317.
Veronica arched a perfect eyebrow. “Rather rustic.”
Morgan laughed. The room wasn’t much to speak of. A simple square with two built-in hutches, a table and two cots, it was to a luxury hotel room what a potted plant was to a forest. The mattresses had been rolled up, revealing a spring and wire frame, the mere appearance of which made Morgan’s back ache.
“It’s not exactly the Nova Royale, but all we did in here was study and sleep. Too much of one, not enough of the other. You can see, given the accommodations, why smuggling a girl in would have been less than thrilling.”
“I don’t know. Table, bed, floor, wall, hutch . . . I know you have an imagination, Morgan.” She glanced at the door. “All you’d have to do is to slip inside, close the door and . . .”
“And wait for holovid reporters to swarm the place.” Morgan shook his head. “My brother and I may only be cousins of the Archon’s late husband, but Allessandro Steiner would have used any misdeed on our parts to pillory Katrina. Lucky for her, her daughter Melissa is a truly beautiful child. Whenever there is trouble, some reporter gets a chance to holo the child in action, and the news cycle is knocked off-kilter.”
“The Archon is a smart woman.” Veronica nodded. “I remember fearing she’d been killed back in ’05 when she disappeared.”
“Yeah, we all were.” Morgan waved a hand at the room. “But there it is, my dear. I spent my last year at The Nagelring in here. My roommate smuggled a girl in once. I stayed at the library.”
“Co-conspirator or guarding against disaster?”
“The latter. Chauncy Wittenberg and I were not friends, and roomed together only because no one else would have him as a roommate.”
“How’d you draw the short straw?”
Morgan shrugged. “He had great potential. A natural with a ’Mech, but a horror with people. Plebes get hazed in their first year here, and Chauncy was a true terror. Lots of reasons for it, I guess. I’m not a shrink, but I figured he was grossly insecure, and picked on anyone showing flaws he figured he had himself.”
She smiled. “You realized that ‘acting out to compensate for and cover gross insecurities’ is probably the most common diagnosis around?”
“Yeah, true. But I thought he could be turned around.”
“And?”
Morgan shook his head. “I tried. I tried to get him to ease off. I tried to get him to feel good about himself, but he never dared change. He was comfortable with himself—or, at least, more comfortable being an ass than he would have been making a change. But he knew he was broken. The pressure, especially as he began to get poor marks on leadership evaluations, got to him.”
He pointed to a round plaster patch near the light fixture. “Two weeks after he’d had the girl in, he told me she was coming back. She wasn’t. He sunk an eye-hook into the ceiling and hung himself. Probably would have died, too, if I’d not come back to tell him how bad he was screwing up.”
Veronica hugged him tightly.
“I cut him down, revived him. Medics took him away, but he glared at me. Hated me.”
“Oh, Morgan, I’m so sorry.” She kissed his ear. “What happened to him?”
“Don’t know. He didn’t graduate with us. Honorable discharge from the service—it was all hushed up, since you can’t have folks trying to off themselves here.”
Veronica pulled back and took his cheeks in both her hands. “No matter where he is today, it’s better off than in the ground.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” Morgan gave her a quick kiss. “But that was a long time ago and, to be frank, I’ve not thought of Chauncy since I left here.”
“Nor should you think of him now.” She smiled and took his hands in hers. “And if you finish this tour without my dying of hypothermia, I think we can shape some new memories that will smother the old.”
2
THE TRIAL
DISTRICT OF DONEGAL, THARKAD
LYRAN COMMONWEALTH
15 NOVEMBER 3010
Gasping for air, Patrick Kell flopped over onto his back. Sweat stung his eyes and the sheets sought to entangle his legs. “Oh my God.”
Tisha Hamilton rolled up on her side and draped an arm over his chest. “Me, too.”
Patrick kissed her on the forehead. “You are fantastic.”
“You’re not half-bad yourself.” She nipped his shoulder. “How’s your leg?”
“It’s fine. Not even a twinge.” He stared up at the ceiling and shivered. He’d seen the mural up there before, all cherubs and fawns—classical stuff on the fables of Terra—but until that second he hadn’t attached any significance to where he was. “Oh my God.”
Tisha’s eyes narrowed. “That sounded different.”
“It just hit me. We’re in the Archon’s Palace.”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded. “Walking past the guards kind of tipped me off to that, Patrick. Were you afraid we were too loud, would wake the baby?”
“Melissa? No.” Patrick reached down behind Tisha and pulled the sheet up. “I just didn’t think, you know . . .”
“I’m sure people have made love here before, you know. Melissa being prime proof of that.”
“It’s not that.”
She shifted, coming up on her elbows. “Patrick Kell, you are intimidated!”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are.” She laughed, her black hair slipping down to veil her face. “You spend your life in the cockpit of a ten-meter tall war machine, but staying in your cousin’s home scares you. I mean, you’re acting as if someone’s going to break into this room, find us, and we’re going to get into trouble.”
“Don’t you feel like that?”
Blue eyes flashed behind the veil. “Well . . . okay, yes. Not that the prospect doesn’t add some spice to things.” She plucked at the sheets. “I do like seeing my taxes well spent.”
