LE5739 - Falcon Rising, page 26
"Identify yourself, Viper."
"I am surprised you do not know who I am, although we have not talked directly in some time."
"Natalie Breen?"
Breen's laughter told Marthe she was right.
"I did not know you were among the Viper forces."
"Few Steel Viper warriors even knew I was here. I was attached to the Khan's unit, and nobody questioned. I stayed out of the way, except for combat. Someone might recognize my voice if I spoke over the commline, so I maintained silence. You fought me well, Marthe Pryde. I am glad that it was at least a Khan responsible for adding to my shame. Perhaps I will stay in this cockpit until I die."
"We will pry you out if we have to."
"No, I will come out my own. Leave a guard who can bring me to you later. Oh, and make sure the guard is a true-born, and not one of those freebirths you favor so much."
Marthe, conscious that she should be the one dictating terms, nevertheless acceded to Natalie's commands. One Khan should respect another, she thought, even a former one. Even one who puts obstacles in the way of the respect she deserves.
* * *
The issue of proper respect was very much on Marthe's mind as she awaited the arrival of Natalie Breen in her field headquarters. Thinking about the interview to come, she found it difficult to breathe in the dank odor of dampness that accompanied the malodorous smells of yesterday's battles that inevitably seeped into the porous temporary dome.
Natalie Breen entered the dome squinting, as if unused to the bright light inside, especially after the heavily overcast day outside. She rubbed her eyes with one finger.
"Does the light bother you, Natalie?" Marthe asked.
"A bit. I... do not much like bright light."
Marthe dimmed the lights. , "We are much alike, Marthe," Natalie said, abruptly. "Except of course that you are a victorious Khan and I am a disgraced former one."
She spoke the words matter-of-factly, Marthe noticed, without any hint of self-pity.
"Perhaps you will think it odd for me to say, Natalie Breen, but I do not consider you disgraced. As Khan of the Vipers, you ordered your warriors to withdraw from Tukayyid, true, but had you not made that decision, the Vipers might have been destroyed. Your Clan could come back after Tukayyid because enough of them had survived. Perigard Zalman is the one who has earned the true disgrace here."
Natalie's eyes widened for a moment. She seemed about to protest, but then closed her eyes and said calmly, "You are out of line, Marthe Pryde. It is your right as the victor, but I respectfully request you refrain from further commentary on this subject, or any other that judges Clan Steel Viper."
A number of disparaging remarks went through Marthe's mind. The warrior in her might have spoken them, but she was Khan and determined to respect a former Khan's wishes.
"It is my right to make you my bondsman, Natalie Breen, quiaff?"
"Aff. It is my duty to accept that, Marthe Pryde."
Marthe noted the defiant undertone in what was apparently a calm acceptance.
"Perigard Zalman has requested that you be returned to the Vipers before they debark from Waldorff. Does he do so to alleviate his own disgrace at losing the whole corridor and being forced to accept hegira, or is it a display of honor for you?"
"I cannot speak for what Khan Zalman has done."
"Or is it because you still have influence among the Vipers?"
"I do not know. Perigard Zalman is the Khan, and that is all. He keeps his own counsel."
"He is not Khan for long, I suspect. If I were the Steel Vipers, faced with such serious damage to the Clan and with the task of rebuilding it, not to mention his personal loss in battle to a freeborn, I would remove Zalman and replace him with a warrior worthy of the position."
Another brief flicker of anger from Natalie Breen, then another calm response. "You may think as you wish. I find your comments to me condescending. You are Jade Falcon and in no position to judge the acts of the Steel Vipers."
"Perhaps, perhaps not. Still, if I kept you as my bondsman, that would put a crimp in the plans of the Vipers, quiaff?"'
"Not at all. I would be just another captured warrior claimed as bondsman and that would be all."
"I wonder. At any rate, you might be a good bondsman for me, Natalie. A reminder of how careful a Khan must be to hold power."
"I have been told that power is not important to you, that you claim you are Khan only because it best allows you to serve your Clan."
"That is just another way of saying I do have to hold power."
"No trouble there. You have just earned a significant victory, quiaff?"
"But the Clans have lost. You know the old saying about winning the battle but losing the war. The Clans have lost the war. Conflicts like this are five-finger exercises for us. You talk about shame, disgrace. I may have collected some honor with victories here and in the Strana Mechty Trial, might even have earned some lines in the Jade Falcon Remembrance, but I still feel the shame of the Clans losing to the Inner Sphere. And I vow before you, Natalie Breen, that I intend to wipe out that shame in the coming days, weeks, years."
Natalie Breen did something quite rare. She smiled. "Vows like that might make me a willing bondsman to you, Marthe Pryde."
"Perhaps. But I have decided otherwise. I would not disrespect you, Natalie, by having you serve me."
"Marthe—"
"No more. Maybe we will meet again in battle, Khan Natalie Breen."
Marthe gestured that the interview was ended, and Natalie left the dome. Marthe mentally wished her well as the other warrior returned to a dispirited and defeated Clan. She would not have wanted to trade places with Natalie Breen, who had been doubly disgraced with her defeat here.
Marthe smiled, thinking how many Jade Falcons, and Steel Vipers for that matter, would have liked to be a fly on the wall for the little chat that had just taken place. They might have expected the two warriors to fight like Battle-Mechs, raging at each other, blasting away with verbal weapons.
But Marthe could not be angry with her. Not Natalie Breen. She was what Marthe could become, if she should fail. Breen's experience was a warning. Khans fall from power. An object lesson in the dangers of being Khan. Marthe would never want to become the "dark knight" on a battlefield, masquerading as a warrior in a futile attempt to purge shame.
I will remember Natalie Breen, she promised herself, but I will also remember the glorious victory here on Waldorff, the heroic victory over the whole invasion corridor. All that is just the beginning for Khan Marthe Pryde.
38
Sibko Training Center 111
Kerensky Forest, Ironhold
Kerensky Cluster, Clan Space
6 July 3061
Peri had glanced over her shoulder all the way to the Science Center building. The past few times she had sneaked into its rooms and their computers she knew Naiad had followed her. She had not confronted the child. Naiad was stubborn and headstrong, so Peri believed it was better to let her think her spying was working. If she was right, Naiad was lurking behind some bushes off to the left. Peri relaxed and entered the headquarters.
Naiad did indeed feel confident in her tracking abilities. Watching Peri go into the building now, she wondered if she should bother to spy further. All this Peri ever did was play around with the computers. It was boring to watch.
She was about to give up when she noticed a movement on the side of the building. A dark shadow crept toward windows to look in.
Someone else was watching Peri.
Naiad thrilled inside at the new complication. She started tracking the new tracker.
Peri had discovered many new documents indicating the extent of the conspiracy of the scientist castes throughout so many Clans. All of the documents were protected against copying and all of Peri's computer skills could not bypass whatever complex program the caste used. Unfortunately, none of her past experience with file protection helped her to crack the code on this one.
She had memorized relevant information and entered some of it into a noteputer of her own, coding it her own way, with a quadruple-number shifting code that could be decoded by others only with painstaking, time-consuming methods. The information would be enough, although breaking the power of Etienne Balzac might require more actual proof.
On this foray into Harvey's files, she finally discovered the disposition of the copies of Aidan Pryde genetic materials. She gasped when she saw the extent of it.
Nearly every Clan has a copy. This must be Balzac's major project, to infuse the sibkos he is bringing up for his own purposes with Aidan genetics. What a race of warriors this can be! It would excite me, if not for the unethical uses to which it is being put. I have to stop him because of that, but I would like to see the results. This sibko here is enough for me to get excited. Naiad and the rest, they are so far along in skills and combativeness it is hard to believe they are as young as they are.
A noise behind her made Peri whirl around. She expected to see Naiad there and was startled at the tall figure standing in the doorway. The man looked familiar at first. Then, suddenly, memories flooded in and in a flash she relived the incident of the attack more clearly than ever before. This was the man who had led her to it. What had Marthe said his name was? Olan.
"Hello, Peri."
"What are you doing here?"
"I have had operatives here for months, watching you. We have monitored your activities and even know what you know. We have been, in a way, looking over your shoulder every time you turned on a computer in this room. Lately you have been getting too close."
Peri stood up, her body tense, her hand casually behind her back, edging toward the knife she kept there. "I assume that since you tried to kill me last time and failed that the solution has not changed, quiaff?"'
"Not much. I just have to make sure you disappear this time. Here in the outback, that should not be too difficult."
He raised his left hand and snapped his fingers. Two other men entered the room. She recognized both. One was a janitor for this building, the other a clerical tech to the scientists. Now that she knew they were Olan's operatives, they looked sinister in a way they never had before. Her hand went around the handle of her knife, and she edged it slowly out of her belt. The odds were against her, but these three were bandits, not warriors, and she had at least trained as a warrior.
The janitor came toward her. When he got close, she pivoted on her left foot and slammed her right foot into his face. She felt the satisfactory snap of a bone crunching. The janitor reeled backward, both hands covering his nose, trying to staunch the blood.
"You are agile, Peri Watson," Olan said. "But surprise only works once."
"Not necessarily," Peri said as she rushed at the clerical tech who was jumping toward her and caught him in the neck with her knife. His blood spurted over her hands before he fell unconscious and, from the way it was pouring, he would probably die.
Olan's eyebrows raised. "Impressive, but not enough."
He stepped forward, a knife in his own hand. Its blade was thin and long. She lunged at the hand holding the knife, but Olan caught her arm with his other hand and twisted it. Pain ran up her arm. She dropped her knife. Olan flung her away.
Leaning down to pick up the knife, he said, "I applaud your trickery, but I have years of trickery behind me."
He flung the knife away, toward the door through which he and his cohorts had come.
His mistake.
* * *
Naiad had easily located the new tracker's two companions, watched them come together, and listened at an open window as they had confronted Peri. Hearing Olan's threat to kill Peri and seeing his henchmen come menacingly into the room, Naiad had worked the window open enough for her to ease herself through it. Her feet softly touched the floor at the moment when Peri drop-kicked one of the bandits in the nose. She had crept up to a position behind Olan as Peri had lunged at the other attacker and slashed his throat.
Standing behind Olan, not sure what to do, she watched the arc of the knife as it spun handle over blade toward her. As it came down, she shot out her hand and caught the knife by its handle. She was not quite sure how she did it, although she was sure that all the practice Octavian put the sibko through in working with wooden staffs must have helped.
Olan walked toward Peri, wielding his own knife threateningly. Peri took a couple of steps backward, her eyes darting around the room, looking either for an escape route or another weapon. On the other side of the room the thug with the smashed nose was straightening up and glaring at Peri.
Naiad raced at Olan and, using the knife with the kind of fierceness Octavian encouraged, slashed the back of the tall bandit's right leg. Her blow was efficient and given with the strength sibko training furnished. Blood spouted out of the wound as Olan's leg collapsed, bringing his head down to Naiad's level. She lashed out again with the knife and cut the side of his face with a stroke that struck bone.
Olan's eyes became enraged, and he muttered something about a filthy child as he raised his knife to strike at Naiad. Peri grabbed at his arm and held it back with all of her strength.
Naiad raised the knife to attack Olan again, but Peri cried, "No, Naiad, no!"
The scream made Naiad hesitate and gave Peri enough time to take the knife from Naiad's hands. She shoved it into Olan's chest, while continuing to hold onto his knife hand. Olan dropped suddenly, his body slamming to the floor.
Peri quickly worked Olan's knife out of his hand. She had a knife in each of her own as she turned to face the last bandit, the one who had posed as a janitor. The man's eyes widened considerably and he rushed out the door.
Naiad looked down at Olan.
"Is he.. . is he dead?"
"I think so. I could not let you kill him. You are too young for that, even if you will be a warrior some day."
"You think so?"
For a moment, in the midst of the carnage of the two dead bandits, Naiad reverted to being a child again, reacting to Peri's compliment as if it were some kind of award.
"Thank you for saving me, Naiad."
"I saved you?"
"I think it is fair to say that, yes."
Praise followed by gratitude raised Naiad's childish elation another notch.
"What now?" Naiad asked.
"I think I have overspent my time here. I have to take what I have found out and leave."
"What have you found out?"
"I will tell you that some day, when I can. Now, you get out of here. There is no reason to connect you to any of this."
"But they should know how I—"
"No, they should not. Save it for some night years from now, around a campfire, when it is time for stories."
Outside there was some commotion. Glancing through a window, Peri saw the third bandit running back toward the building with Octavian.
"Get out of here now, Naiad!"
Naiad scampered to the window and scrambled through the opening. A moment after, she stuck her head back through. "Goodbye, Peri Watson."
"Goodbye, Naiad."
Peri used a window at the back of the building. When she reached the outside, she was grateful to remember the opening in the fence through which she had first gone with Naiad more than a year and a half ago.
39
Jade Falcon Field Headquarters
Viper Valley, Waldorff V
Jade Falcon-Steel Viper Occupation Zone
29 July 3061
During the entire time of the Jade Falcon presence on Waldorff there had not been a single bright day. The generally strong Waldorff sun had remained behind dark, thick clouds, while a series of stormy and often strange weather patterns assaulted the troops camped in Viper Valley.
Now that the battle was over, it was a bad time for warriors, who did not like to be idle. Most of the Steel Vipers had already lifted off the planet as part of a general exodus from the corridor.
Marthe Pryde had known a special satisfaction as Peri-gard Zalman came to meet with her so that she could grant the hegira. She had shown no emotion as she stared into his eyes and spoke the traditional words, the ritual by which a victorious Clan could allow the defeated one an honorable exit from the field of battle. In this case the hegira was corridor-wide.
It was satisfying to affirm the victory, but Marthe also took a secret pleasure in Zalman's reluctance to deal with her that she read in the slight droop to his shoulders as he left her field headquarters after the formalities. The haunted look in his eyes, residual shock at the defeat by Diana Pryde, was also plain to see.
During the meeting, however, she suppressed the insults she could have uttered to her defeated enemy. Marthe may have departed at times from the traditions of the Clans, but in her heart she had never forsworn the ideal of honor. The Steel Vipers had been an enemy worth defeating, and that was enough. The Falcons had won, the Vipers had lost. Her talk with Natalie Breen had made her realize that she did not want to rub the disgrace of defeat into the face of the proud and resilient Steel Vipers.
* * *
Marthe and Samantha had recently returned from a tour of former Viper worlds to make sure that the withdrawal went smoothly and to assess the damage the war had done to military facilities in the corridor. Neither spoke for a time as they strolled through the encampment and enjoyed the brightness and warmth of the first sunny day they had experienced on Waldorff.
Marthe took a deep breath and said, "I needed this."
"What?" Samantha said. "The warmth, the sun?"
"No, this feels good, but I mean victory. I mean the resurgence of the Jade Falcon Clan. I mean that, even if the Clans have capitulated to the Inner Sphere, we remain a holdout. We will bide our time and one day we shall yet fulfill our goal of taking Terra for the Clans. We may not be able to conquer the Inner Sphere on our own, but—whatever else—we will continue to control this sector of space."
"We cannot trust the Inner Sphere to let us do that," Samantha warned.
