"Battletech.-.Jade.Phoenix.01.-.Way.Of.The.Clan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Battletech)

Yesterday, I paid a surprise visit to the cadet quarters. They were engaged, as expected, in various studies. This Aidan was involved in assembling the various components of a Kit Fox in a holotank. That light 'Mech is extremely useful for recon duty yet laden with firepower. Having piloted a Kit Fox in my first days as a warrior, I have always been fond of its complex configuration of weaponry. Aidan was doing a good job of it, using his light pen to move the miniature pieces of a Streak short-range missile rack into place in the right arm.
In those eyes, so fiercely determined even in this small task, I caught a flash of his genefather. It recalled to me Ramon Mattlov analyzing the potential strategies of other officers in the hours before a bidding council. Better than any other Clan officer I have ever served or observed, better than me, Mattlov could foresee just how far an opponent would go, just what he might do to prod an opponent to do as he wanted, just when to deliver a carefully orchestrated finale to an apparently casual and even erratic series of bids. Even when he lost the bid, his loss would have so fired up the others, especially in their desire to win, that their use of deployed forces became sharpened. More often than not, they won the battle with the same combination of daring and skill that Mattlow always showed.
It is sad that the members of this sibko have no awareness of their genetic progenitor, other than that gleaned from their codex. Having one's genes selected for the gene pool is a wonderful honor, an extension of one's existence into the lives of others. It is like having one's name enshrined somewhere or a holiday dedicated in one's honor. But such acts always presume that we remember the person. When I question these sibbers, however, few of them have any knowledge of their father, just his victories. There is no Mattlov legacy. We fought in no great wars, he and I. We won only small skirmishes. With efficiency and style, to be sure, but the exploits were not quite in the grand manner of heroism.
Aidan's intensity in building his model was something to see. There was a sense of artistry in the way his delicate, spatulate fingers (the kind that can rack across a cockpit keyboard rapidly, guided by instinct rather than thought) held the light pen as it selected a piece and moved it into place on the construct. Ramon Mattlov would not have had this kind of patience. His hands would have crushed the model before finishing it, not because he could not build it, but because the task had no importance to him.
Remembering Mattlov and how he handled others, I shoved Aidan out of the holotank, deliberately found some flaws in the assembly, then—staring into his eyes— I wiped the program from the machine's memory. I tried to see in his expression any anger that I had just destroyed several man-hours of his work, but he remained impassive. The careful, studied look of a warrior-cadet was what he managed, and I felt good about that. When he first arrived here, we would have seen the fury. Now he has trained as a warrior for some time, and knows that unwritten rules specify with whom one may become angry and with whom one may not. And one must show no reaction to the unit commanding officer. "Build a better one," I said to him and walked away. He did. I was tempted to wipe out that one, too, but I do have perspective. I do have perspective.
He is not aware that I am keeping such a watch on him, for I find ways to intrude on the achievements and attempts of the other cadets also.
It is strange, the life of the commanding officer. Whatever I feel—and, more importantly, what I believe—must be hidden from all. There is only theory, there is only drill, there is only the final victory, there is only the Clan. I love the Clan. The others, the cadets and qualified warriors, even officers, they must love the Clan, too. I am not writing about glory and honor here. Not at all. The lowest caste member doing the most menial, odorous, filthy task must love the Clan as much as I do.
That is where the two Kerenskys, General Alexandr and Nicholas, were so visionary. A society whose goal is the restoration of the Star League cannot be tainted with self-doubt or criticism. Any deviation from the goal is waste; deviations are useful only if they can be remolded and refitted to the Clan ideals. Just as we collect our debris from the battlefield and refashion it into other useful materials, so must ideas be refashioned into utility. That is the way of the Clan. I have read that pacifism was once considered a sensible ideal, but to hate war should not be called pacifism. A warrior is not the opposite of a pacifist. A pacifist destroys his weapons and welcomes the non-pacifist into his home—to demolish it. A warrior deploys his weapons around his home but may never need to use them. Which person really desires peace? The man who dies because he will not use a weapon? The man who lives quietly on the other side of his weapons? Perhaps neither, but the man with the weapons at least has a chance when somebody attacks him. I desire peace and will fight to the death for it. The Star League is peace, or at least may be. The Clans will restore the Star League,
I must be tired. I am starting to sound like some rote repetition of some old, Kerensky-inspired text. Old warriors never die, they just ramble on.
I hope Aidan benefits from our harshness toward him. He seems strong, but has an edge of singularity about him. He is not like the others. There is a secret Aidan being held back from us, I am certain of that. Whether it will come out, I do not know. Whether it will bring him success or failure at the final Trial, I do not know.
I must make him succeed, for Ramon Mattlov's sake.
I know how difficult it is to be at this stage of training, where one is just learning the weaponry. Soon, they will begin to know the feel of a real, fully armed BattleMech, and then will begin the real tests.
How many of them will even reach the final test? This sibko started with twelve. Six cadets remain. I remember only slightly the ones who are gone. There was the one named Dav, who will succeed very well in the artisan caste to which he has been assigned. Also, the surprisingly athletic, stocky fellow, Endo. I cannot easily forget him, for I had to supervise the disposal of his body after he was run over by a light tank during field maneuvers. No one knew how he got in the path of the tank. The driver said the boy suddenly stumbled in front of the vehicle, then looked at it bearing down on him as if it were an apparition.
Others in the sibko have failed at different points of the training. I do not recalls any other names. Left are Aidan and his near-twin Marthe, a feisty scrapper named Bret, a skilled battler named Rena, and two others whose staying power seems unlikely: Tymm does not seem smart enough to handle a difficult fighting machine, while Peri is intelligent but only barely successful when manual skills are required. I would like to see her succeed in a BattleMech cockpit, but I suspect she will be out of her element. Though she would do well in any other caste, I notice in her codex that she scores well enough to go to the scientists.
Even if Peri could hold her own in all phases of the training, she will probably flush out in the next phase, when we accelerate the BattleMech exercises and set the survivors among this sibko against each other. Peri is not competitive enough.
This phase could eliminate Aidan, too. He is, in a way, too competitive. He needs too much to succeed.
I cannot write any more now. The joint of my shoulder, where my real bodily muscle is fused with the myomer muscular structure of my artificial arm, aches so much that I am unable to put further thoughts together.
Now I will just sit here in the darkness, trying to read the future in the carved lines of the palm of my prosthetic hand.


9

As she whispered instructions to Aidan, Joanna's voice was almost affectionate (but that was ridiculous, had to be just imagination). "Rotate torso back to center forward. Slowly. That is adequate. Not smooth but adequate, Cadet Aidan. Now you, Cadet Peri."
Aidan glanced down at the screen of his onboard computer monitor. It diagrammatically showed Peri's 'Mech, a stripped-down Kit Fox like his. The Kit Fox was a slower light 'Mech than some others, but at its best had reasonable versatility and firepower.
Observing from the control tower were Marthe, Bret, Rena, and Tymm, along with Falconer Joanna. Aidan was sure they were envious that he and Peri had been chosen for the shakedown runs in the first exercise with full-fledged 'Mechs. Of course, Joanna could override the controls at any time. No one was foolish enough to think a cadet could manipulate a 'Mech effectively the first time in its cockpit.
Joanna put Peri through the same maneuvers, simple movements of the 'Mech torso, that Aidan had just completed. He was pleased to see that Peri's control was not as sure as his. Her 'Mech seemed to rotate in quick, jerky moves, probably indicating nervousness in her pressing of control buttons (These Kit Foxes were being stabilized by the onboard computers rather than using the cadet's own sense of balance via a neurohelmet. This made the 'Mech's movements ungainly.)
On his screen the running score for Peri was accumulating slowly, and he could see that, at least in torso-operation, he would remain ahead of her in total points. She would not like that. Peri spent most of her off-time worrying about how she could improve her initiatory and reactive functions in order to keep up with the physical side of training. She already scored second-highest, just behind Marthe, on the more academic challenges that training provided. Some thought that she had become Falconer Dermot's pet, which was the reason she was selected as one of the first two to actually get inside a 'Mech and operate it. Perhaps so, but Aidan wondered whether the two of them had been chosen not so much for their abilities but because Joanna perceived them as failures and wanted to display their ineptitude to the others. The more Joanna rode him about his mistakes, the more she searched for the psychological flaws in his makeup, the more she told him he would flush out of training—the more Aidan needed to succeed. Not only because he wanted to be a MechWarrior, had always wanted to be a MechWarrior, but because he was determined to draw a drop of approval from her. (He did not, of course, know that when that moment came, later that day, it would happen in the wrong place and be so damned disappointing.)
Peri finished the torso drill and Joanna addressed Aidan. "Cadet Aidan. Check your heat scale. Does it show up normal? Respond."
On the intercom, cadets always had to wait for Joanna's order to respond before they could press and hold down the blue button next to the 'Mech throttle and actually speak to her. He had expected the communication restrictions to be relaxed once in a 'Mech, and it surprised him to learn that he could still not speak to Joanna or any other officer without permission to respond.
"Heat scale normal," he said and released the button.
"As it should be. I tell you to check only to make sure you realize the most important cockpit rule. Never—not in the heat of battle or the excitement of fixing an enemy 'Mech in your sights, lining it up, and using your most skillful assault plan, your best array of weaponry in the fancy blasts and pulses that have become your battlefield specialty—never, never forget that you must be continually conscious of the ribbons of information revealed on the heat-scale gauge. A 'Mech is like a living being; it is like the horse of the cavalry, the camel of the desert warrior. You must continually care for it, not push it too much, not allow it to become overheated. Just as those animals speeded up the time, and in many ways, expanded the territory over which wars could be conducted, so the BattleMech—and especially the OmniMech—has quickened and enhanced the possibilities of ground warfare. But even with the improved heat-sink technology of the OmniMechs our scientists have provided us, we can still disable our own 'Mech, making it a sitting duck for others, or even get it blown up and ourselves with it, because we get so caught up in being a hero that we forget the patterns of awareness that a 'Mech pilot must maintain at all times. These patterns include the knowledge of your own 'Mech as well as the situation of the fellow warriors of your Star or Star Cluster. This warning is for all of you. Cadet Peri, you understand this, quiaff? Respond."
"Aff."
' 'Cadet Aidan? Respond
"Aff."
"If you do, and if you have the stomach for combat, at the moment the special red light installed beside your primary screen begins to pulse, engage in battle.''
Engage in battle? Had he heard right? This was supposed to be a mere exercise in first-time awareness of being in a real 'Mech. Joanna had said nothing about battle in her instructions.
Aidan had no more time to ponder the question, nor was he allowed to question any order at this stage of training (a cadet could not address an officer without permission, even in a live-ammunition exercise like this), because the red light came on and Peri was wheeling her 'Mech around. Its right arm, the one with the autocannon clicking into readiness, was rising upward. Quickly, almost frantically, he began attending to the overhead controls. It seemed to him that to keep Peri from getting the upper hand right off, he had to make an anticipatory move. For a moment he panicked, briefly forgetting all the classroom and simulator training he had already endured.
Aidan maneuvered his 'Mech a step backward and to the right. His instinct proved correct, as Peri's first shots went wide to the left. He had no time to instruct his computer to calibrate, but he suspected those shots would have missed him even if he had kept his 'Mech standing still.
Crashing into his ears like an attack vehicle came Joanna's voice: "Poor start, the two of you. These are awesome machines, even ones as light and stripped-down as these. You can do better. Cadet Peri, use some sense. Do not shoot for the mere sake of shooting. Cadet Aidan, I do not want to see any strategic retreats. That is not the way of the Clan. Not until all aggressive tactics have been tried." For a moment, Aidan thought she had clicked off, then her voice came again, just as loud, just as angry: "And, by the way, my gentle eyasses, I hope you have taken note of the fact that none of your weapons are powered-down. We have detectors for everything you do, what you use and what you do not use. If you get nervous and soil your drawers, we will know it immediately. Now let me see at least the facsimile of a pair of warriors out there. No responses."
As she talked, Aidan was positioning the small pulse laser in his Kit Fox's left arm. Even before thumbing a shot, he felt unusually confident. He had scored well in weapons training. On every range, in every practice chamber, he had amassed amazing clusters of hits on any individual target. That was, of course, known-distance marksmanship training. Its fixed targets were a cinch compared to a moving 'Mech, as Joanna continually reminded them. In simulators, where computer versions of all types of 'Mechs came at the cadet suddenly, Aidan's scores were a bit less, but still second only to Marthe's, whom he beat on known-distance targets.
He checked the relevant conditions for battle on his computer screen. There was no wind, no weather factors to affect calculations. He noted good sight-alignment in the computer simulations of each weapon, and no reason to punch in any adjustment calibrations.
Before Joanna had finished speaking, he shot a series of pulses toward Peri's 'Mech, hitting it almost in the center of the torso, sending some large particles of armor flying. But she executed a rotation of the torso and his final salvos flew past the 'Mech. Then she swung the 'Mech's upper body back and began to charge at him.
He had to admire the maneuver. Desperate as Peri was, though, he knew she was the kind of pilot who would overheat faster than her machine. Joanna said often enough that too many warriors did not have enough heat sinks in their heads.
Aidan fired more bursts of his small pulse laser, not bothering to aim, just a little bravado to show the oncoming pilot that he could be just as aggressive and that employing peculiar strategies was not enough. Peri, halting her 'Mech a few meters away, quickly responded by raising her 'Mech's right arm straight into the air and shooting off some blasts of her own. In the boxy, long-legged 'Mech, the gesture had a distinctly human look, an annoying indiiference to Aidan's skills, whatever they might prove to be. It made him want to finish this unexpected skirmish that much faster.
His laser fire had been a show of arrogance; now was the time to do some damage. Leveling his right arm, he fired a pair of missiles from his Streak 2-pack, hoping to catch Peri off-guard, but she was ready for the assault. An anti-missile machine gun in her 'Mech's left torso started firing. His missiles exploded before reaching a target, their flames and debris obscuring his view of the action for a moment. If any shred of doubt had remained about the reality of the battle, the shrapnel fragments flying by and bouncing off his Kit Fox would have convinced him.
His lapse at that moment could have been fatal. Peri used the temporary camouflage of missile destruction to move to her left and take up a different position. When the smoke cleared, Aidan was aiming at nothing in particular. She had, he realized, deliberately fired too many bursts to catch him napping and line up some new shots of her own. Her laser dispatched a steady beam that stitched a semicircular line in the armor of Aidan's 'Mech. As Peri's beams rocked his machine, he thought for a moment that he had lost control, that the Kit Fox would collapse, bend at the waist and fall forward and hit the ground. But he recovered quickly, his emotions rising into the dangerous regions of their heat scale.
He rotated his machine enough to face Peri again. Timing the shots precisely, he began firing his left-arm laser simultaneously with his right-arm LB 5-X autocannon. Peri responded sharply, revolving her 'Mech slightly and nearly avoiding Aidan's assault. Some shots grazed her chest armor, sending a few metal slivers sailing into the air but doing little damage otherwise.
Aidan tried to adjust to Peri's new move. Before he realized she had fired anything, his 'Mech was rocked by a direct hit on its left leg. A quick fall would have been the end of the match for him and his 'Mech, but this particular lucky shot was not enough to do more than rattle him momentarily.
Before Peri could inflict more injury, Aidan fired off a few more rounds from the autocannon. Dark smoke rose from the areas of armor where his shots had found targets, and Peri's 'Mech appeared to reel backward on its heels. Aidan recognized the move as a feint, designed to force his hand, fool him into launching an SRM or repeat the autocannon fusillade. He wished his 'Mech had jump capability, but this type of thirty-tonner was not equipped with that particular talent.
"What is this? Playground fun?" Joanna said in a voice that seemed to make the earphones of Aidan's headset tremble. "Have both of you planned what you will do with your future in another caste? No responses."