LE5739 - Falcon Rising, page 17
At the moment she'd announced her choice, Leif had reacted with a strange smile. Well, all smiles are strange in the coin ceremony, where everyone traditionally remains somber. But his smile was certainly unexpected. Before we left the ceremony, he whispered to me that the choice was inspired, he liked it, and he looked forward to meeting me in one of the large caverns. Stravag son of a bitch! Maybe Joanna is right. His pleasantness is merely his strategy. Since it makes me so edgy, maybe it is a good strategy. I can see him in his cockpit, cool and relaxed. Things would be easier if I did not like him. You are supposed to hate your opponent. That is easy in battle. Only in the Circle of Equals or a bloodname battle do you have to fight someone you might like.
She just missed knocking her 'Mech's shoulder against a thick stalactite whose side gleamed with dampness. The movement nearly made the Nova's left foot skid a bit, but Diana, expert pilot that she was, regained control and continued the dark descent.
* * *
Nomad, his usual drink in front of him, watched the match on a rather large holovid field that had been brought into the tech sector tavern. He did not know what he was drinking. He did not taste much any more. His drinking was a search for numbness, a chance to ignore the physical pain that age had bestowed upon him in so many places.
As he drank, he continued his commentary on the bloodname contest to a companion who had long ago fallen asleep, although Nomad was not aware of the man's comatose condition.
"These warriors don't think about an audience when they have their bloody matches. Look at that. Many meters deep underground searching around like crabs for each other. And look how the resolution goes in and out. You can't get a good signal from underground or, for that matter, undersea. Holovid's garbage anyway. Something to keep us lower castes and lowbirths diverted. We've forgotten all about revolution, you realize that? No, of course, you haven't; you're a damn freebirth after all.
"Still, they look good, these two warriors. Look. The Black Lanner just flashed out of sight. Prob'ly blocked by some ore or other. Or the damn camera can't keep up with it. Or the damn director doesn't know what he's doing. I could've worked in holovid, you know that? Almost did. But I wanted to do something more, don't know, useful to the cause or something. I could be sitting in some booth choosing holo images. Or I could've—who cares what I could've—"
It was now clear, even in the frequently hazy holovid form, that the two BattleMechs were finding each other.
"Looks to me as if the Nova's leading the Black Lanner by its nose. I'm still always looking at these 'Mechs like they're real people. Nose. Head. Arms. You know. That Black Lanner, if it had a nose at all, it'd be a fish's nose. Does a fish have a nose? As for the Nova, that's a pug nose above a lantern jaw. You know? Any minute now they'll be going—" Nomad chuckled in a self-satisfied way "—be going nose to nose."
He nudged the sleeping companion beside him, who managed a grunt that Nomad took to be an assent.
* * *
Peri found Nomad in the tavern. Seeing that the seat next to him was occupied by a sleeping drunk, she strode up to the counter that surrounded the holovid field and pulled the comatose man off the stool. He seemed to wake for a moment, then gave it all up and collapsed to the floor. A couple of techs dragged him to a far wall and propped him up there. Peri took his place on the stool.
Nomad hazily looked at her. "You," he said.
"Me," she replied.
"How did you find me?"
"I knew that, if I wanted to find you, a bar is the best place to look."
"You insult me, quiaff?"
"Not really, I—"
"Stick with the story of insulting me. I like it better than any alternate you can offer."
"How is the battle going?"
"About to heat up. You here to root for your daughter?"
"You are one of the few people who could even say that to me."
Nomad nodded and returned his attention to the holovid battle. Peri ordered a fusionnaire but, as soon as she took a sip and felt the dizziness rush to her head accompanied by an intense chest pain, she decided she would not be able to drink it. She put it down on the counter, between two small puddles, and stared at the small screen.
Diana's Nova was now in a large cavern. A tiny picture placed on a screen in the corner of the holovid table showed the Black Lanner still in the tunnels somewhere. The torso of the Nova was twisting as if Diana was assessing the potential of the cavern as a confrontation point.
"What an ugly place," Peri muttered.
"It's a prime Ironhold tourist attraction."
"Do not think I would ever care about that. Look at it. It is like somebody's idea of hell. Fires coming out of pools and what is going on in the walls?"
"Streams. Waterfalls. Same stuff. Sometimes catches fire, too. Most of the time sets off sparks that cause the pools to catch fire."
"I do not know of any geological phenomenon like that."
"Only on Ironhold. Makes us unique."
"Unique or not, that is an ugly place."
"Your daughter chose it."
"Stop calling her my daughter. Use her name."
"You don't look well."
"I have been, well, sick."
"More than that."
"I was beat up."
"Good for you. Didn't know you had it in you. It must have been one serious attack."
"It was."
"You winced just then. Something hurt you."
"It did."
"Should you be in a hospital?"
"Just left one."
"Go back."
"I will. After this."
"You must be from a Pryde sibko. You're a fool."
Peri was about to reply, but that was the moment when the holovid depiction of the MechWarrior, in his Black Lanner, came out of the tunnel, lasers blazing. He encountered a swift response from Diana in her Nova.
23
Falcon Caverns
Ironhold
Kerensky Cluster, Clan Space
13 March 3060
It had not been too difficult to lure Leif into Falconfire Cavern. Diana had known he was tracking her with his own active probe, and she had used the map of the whole Falcon Caverns system—with which she had spent a couple of early morning hours—to lead him by the fish-nose of his Black Lanner. She apparently headed toward him only to divert into what must have seemed to him an unexpected tunnel.
She felt she was controlling the situation. Unless, of course, it was part of Leif's strategy to be lured into this cavern of rising smoke and sudden flames, of oil leaking in waterfalls from the walls and pools with names like Styx.
Before coming into Falconfire Cavern, she had taken her 'Mech perilously close to a tunnel where Leif's 'Mech was proceeding slowly down a long, fairly steep descent. For a moment, standing in the intersection of two tunnels, she had seen the lower half of the Black Lanner in the distance. She could have sent a PPC blast at the legs and there was a chance she might have actually hit one, might have started a disablement that would have been finally fatal to the 'Mech. But she could not do it. She could not take a potshot, even for the bloodname. With all the taint that had accrued around her father's bloodname contest and other phases of his military career, she could not be even slightly dishonorable.
Would he have taken that shot? Joanna would probably say that he would. I do not think so. Anyway, it does not matter. My decision, not his.
* * *
Now, in the massive Falconfire Cavern, she awaited him. Her own probe had lost his whereabouts, perhaps due to interference in the air from the unusual geological activity. But she had led him along the center tunnel, and she expected him to emerge there, so she was surprised when he raced out of a tunnel to her right, fire shooting from his right-arm PPC and his left-arm medium lasers. Although much of the assault was apparently designed to surprise and rattle her, only some of it worked. The Nova vibrated from several minor hits, and a piece of armor fell into the pool called Styx, sending up a large sizzling geyser of its oily liquid. On the wall behind her, several chunks of rock fell and bounced along the cavern floor, one rolling quietly into the Styx, whose waters, if they could be called that, were barely stirred by it.
Diana responded with some rock-shattering fire of her own, concentrating on her left-torso medium pulse laser as she set the Nova on a path toward the Black Lanner.
* * *
Samantha nudged Grelev and said, "Well, there is a few hundred years of history going into the pool."
"With all due respect, Khan Samantha, they were just rocks. Think of it this way: someday they may excavate that pool, find that piece of armor that also went in, and try to figure out what it could possibly be or could indicate about the civilization that once lived here."
In spite of the flurry of activity between the combatants, Samantha glanced at Grelev with raised eyebrows. "Are you saying the Clans will vanish and become forgotten history?"
He shrugged. "Everything is transitory, quiaff?"'
"I suggest you keep that particular idea to yourself. Some might see it as treasonous. The Clans are forever, remember that."
* * *
In the dark Ironhold City tavern, Peri found watching the contest difficult once the shooting started. She gasped at each hit against the torso of Diana's Nova, silently approved each of her successes against the Black Lanner. At the same time, the various pains in her body seemed to intensify.
"Are you all right?" Nomad asked.
"Of course I am. Why do you ask?"
"You look sick."
She gasped again as a blue PPC blast from the Black Lanner narrowly missed the Nova's head.
"Or you're acting like a mother."
* * *
Diana kept edging her 'Mech sideways, causing Leif to counter her movements with shifts of his own. Leif maneuvered his vehicle very well. And why not? He was a Jade Falcon warrior, just as she was, well trained and fierce. The only real difference between them was, after all, the matter of birth. Freebirth, the derogatory name for a genetic type and the foulest Clan curse. Somebody had once said that nations could rise or fall on the strength of a single word. Whatever that meant, Diana thought, the lines and borders created by the word freebirth were considerable.
Even though Falconfire Cavern was huge, when a pair of battling BattleMechs inhabited it, it somehow seemed smaller. Where Diana had foreseen laser fire and charged-particle beams streaking across large distances, the combat was conducted at much closer range.
Diana had to swerve the Nova torso violently to escape a deadly arc of electrical and particle discharge coming right at it. Immediately after, the cockpit rocked from the force of the impact. "Freebirth!" she muttered, then laughed to herself at her own use of the foul word.
Another hit, and the cockpit seemed to reel in the other direction. For a moment she was dizzy, but she remained in control of the 'Mech. Knowing the way was clear behind her, she moved the 'Mech three steps backward, each step maneuvering a bit to the side in order to confuse Leif's aim.
Leif's voice came suddenly over her commline, loud and clear. "Retreating, Diana?"
"Regrouping, stravag."
The sound that came in next was perilously close to a sigh. A pilot did not hear many sighs through a commline. "Stravag, huh?" Leif said. "Do we need to go through the insult rituals just because we are pitted against each other? We are friends, Diana."
His voice sounded so warm, so—well—friendly.
Now she seemed to hear Joanna's voice through the commline. Stop with that, idiot! Do you not see what he is up to? It is the strategy he has employed ever since the two of you met. I would not be surprised to find out that he planned the meeting, that he saw the possibility you would be his opponent in the final bloodname match, that he came to you to disconcert you with friendship. It is not friendship. It is a ploy, a vile ploy. The words were so convincingly Joanna's that for a moment Diana, still fighting her way out of dizziness, thought she was really hearing her.
NO, damn, it is just your own voice telling you to shape up. It does not matter who is in the cockpit of that Black Lanner! Whoever he is, he wants your behind on a platter. This is a bloodname we are fighting for. He may be sincere, he may be a liar, but he wants that bloodname just as much as I do. But there is a difference. I need it. I need it. I need it.
She kept the phrase going as a mantra as she shook the dizziness out of her head and swung her 'Mech's torso around to go face to face with the Black Lanner.
* * *
Joanna and Horse watched the contest at a public holovid arena. It was like being a spy in an enemy camp. There was very little support for Diana among the unusually large audience jockeying for position, trying to see the best parts of the holovid broadcast.
Joanna always got the position she wanted by elbowing aside anyone who got in her way. Surprisingly, even those ready to fight the jostler changed their minds when they saw her wrathful eyes. Horse wondered why Joanna had even bothered to fight her battles in a 'Mech. Her stare alone could make a 95-tonner back off.
Joanna spoke over her shoulder to Horse. "I think she has forgotten most of what I taught her. She is fighting this Leif on his own terms. Look at her sidestep. And she was just retreating! Even if she gets the bloodname, I will wring her neck!"
"Demolish her, Leif! Melt her down!" yelled a warrior next to Joanna, and she knocked him out with a clip to his jaw.
Horse smiled briefly, then frowned when he saw in the holovid representation of Falconfire Cavern that Diana was in trouble.
* * *
Leif had nearly ruined her Nova's left arm, and it felt to her as if the weight of the PPC itself would not allow the arm to raise, although it was also clear the arm was not disabled. She felt as if she were raising her own arm, a wounded arm wracked with pain, as she brought the 'Mech's arm level and started firing the PPC alone, wanting it to do as much damage as possible before another Black Lanner shot crippled the arm for good. Instead of losing the use of the limb, however, she made a couple of lucky hits on the Black Lanner's right arm. What she hit she could not tell, but one of the medium pulse lasers there had become inoperative.
There was no intelligence in standing still and slugging it out while the heat in both 'Mechs rose to dangerous points or one 'Mech survived through sheer staying power. Anyway, if she moved to her left at this moment, Leif would likely counter by shifting to the right, and he would be close to the position she wanted.
* * *
"Makes for a nice fight," Grelev said. "All that debris bouncing around, all the sparks from the waterfalls, the fire from the pools."
"Do you often judge warfare by its aesthetics, Grelev?" Samantha asked.
"I just observe. I am easily entertained."
"I am not so impressed. It is just the sort of sloppy contest I would expect from the choice of venue. Open spaces, Grelev, that is the real test of a warrior."
"So you do not favor this freeborn's quest, quiaff?"'
"I did not mean that. I do not take sides. I am only commenting on technique, that is all."
"I just like a good fight. For me, these two are good. Look at the way this Diana is edging the other toward that pool, the one called Styx. She is up to something."
"I wish I was sure."
* * *
"She is good, your Diana," Nomad was saying. "I am impressed by her skills. She reminds me very much of—"
He stopped talking as he looked over at Peri. Her brow was furrowed and her eyes hazy.
"Are you all right? You look—"
"I am fine. Must be... must be the drink."
Like most people who drank often to the point of drunkenness, Nomad was generally aware of the amount his companions had consumed. Peri had hardly touched the fusionnaire in front of her.
"Maybe you should—" he said.
"Stop! I have to see this out. I have to see the end."
She seemed to sway on the bar stool, Nomad noticed and began to pay more attention to Peri than to the holovid battle.
* * *
Although armor was flying off her Nova, Diana was relentless, not caring about her own damage. This was her chance at the bloodname, and she was willing even to die doing it. Therefore, she did not care how many hits Leif made against her 'Mech, did not care for the increasing damage or the rising heat. She realized now that, when it came to winning bloodnames, caution and intricate strategy were liabilities. It was possible that no one had ever won a bloodname logically. Her father, Aidan Pryde, certainly had not.
Each barrage she triggered, each stream of laserfire, appeared to hit somewhere on the Black Lanner. Leif's counterattack was effective enough, but time and position were working in Diana's favor. Her 'Mech was advancing on the Black Lanner, forcing it backward through the sheer impetus of her attack. Alongside the Black Lanner, an especially high geyser of flame erupted, almost to elbow-level of the 'Mech. Behind him, a new waterfall came down, opened up by the impact of a PPC hit. The liquid gushing out was particularly dark, darker than Styx, where the oily liquid was diluted with underground streams of water. The waterfall with little water in it sent up spray when it hit the cavern floor, then began to form a current that meandered toward Styx. It reached the pool quickly. Diana saw that it would not be long before it overflowed the pool's banks.
Even with her left arm hampered in its movements, Diana was able to keep its PPC firing. Raising it a bit more with a great deal of effort, she targeted the Black Lanner's left arm in crossfire. She was not sure whether it was instinct or luck, but the arm with its PPC abruptly went limp. Behind him, her fire had apparently ignited the waterfall. A stream of fire appeared to travel down the stream of liquid, across the newly formed rivulet that had now reached the pool called Styx, which seemed to erupt in high flame. Fiery reflections painted a vast abstract pattern all over the surface of the Black Lanner.
