By comparison, the Pillager was a much more refined design. Linebacker shoulders and a tapered waist. With maneuvers behind them, Colonel Baumgarten had deactivated his BattleMech’s Light Polarization Shield. The Nagelring’s C.O. walked with a graceful stride not many could command from a one hundred ton machine. Proud. Stately, even.

  It wasn’t unknown for Baumgarten to lead training exercises, but never before on such a small scale. A short romp out with only four cadets, two of them on remedial training programs and Alek a "green" trainee running two years behind the usual curriculum?

  Something was in the wind.

  Whatever it was, it would have to keep. The cadets all knew what came next. Remedial training or not, C.O. or not, it was tradition, and tradition carried a great deal of weight in the Lyran Commonwealth.

  Possibly even more in the Star League.

  The five assault-class BattleMechs paraded forward beneath a powder-blue sky and Tharkad’s retreating autumn sun. Music suddenly blasted in over Alek’s comms system, piped onto an auxiliary channel reserved for parade functions and other non-essential military maneuvers. The brassy shout of trumpet and saxophone caught Alek off guard, especially when it was joined on the next beat by a distorted guitar. He had been expecting some kind of speed-music tune from Ceramic Monkey or Nolo Contendre, groups battling it out for the top two worship spots among the younger generations on Tharkad.

  Grunge-jazz was not the norm. Certainly it wasn’t tradition.

  Then again, who was going to argue that with the academy’s commanding officer? His school, his rule.

  The unusual, the out of place, held a special fascination for Alek. So Baumgarten’s choice of music distracted him for an extra heartbeat. The other three Strikers pushed forward, getting the jump on him as all would-be MechWarriors raced the last five kilometers back to one of the Nagelring’s ‘Mech hangars. A "friendly competition," supposedly. Outside of academia—even within it—Alek had rarely known those two words to go together.

  Still: "‘The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths,’" he whispered.

  As usual, words from the immortal Russian poet stood him in good stead. Being able to recognize the race for what it was—an illusion to foster some sense of worth through harmless competition—helped Alek attack the challenge in a methodical manner.

  Throttling forward, pushing his Striker for its maximum speed of sixty-five kilometers per hour, Alek worked his controls and pivoted hard for a small rise to the east. Slogging uphill would seem to make little sense to his fellow cadets, who raced each other forward onto open ground. Though if they had reviewed the topographical data on this area, they would have seen that the open range ahead of them would—three kilometers up, and after a sharp dogleg—force them onto a harder slope before the final downhill run to the ‘Mech hangar.

  Alek planned to run what looked like an easier, a parallel course today. Taking advantage of the terrain as his new courses in Strategic & Tactics always recommended.

  "All things being equal," Major Kiault had lectured, "the commander who takes advantage of the battlefield’s underlying terrain will have a distinct tactical advantage."

  A passable paraphrasing from Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War. Theory which Alek would attempt to put into practice today.

  Over the rise and down a shallow slope on the far side, Alek twisted and turned along a path through slash-cut timber. It cost him valuable time, he knew, avoiding piles made from shattered trees and uprooted stumps. Not so much, though, as the "usual" route would take. Should take. In long, four-meter strides, he ate up the ground in his Striker. Burning up one kilometer. Then two. Working his controls exactly as he’d been taught to build muscle memory which might—they threatened—save his life one day.

  But the eighty ton BattleMech seemed to have a will of its own. It fought back with each swing of the arms which rotated out a little too far. As each step fell a bit short of a running BattleMech’s optimum stride. He felt it. That awkwardness. The neuro-feedback circuitry, so finely attuned to his nervous system, impressed on him a sensation of sluggishness. As if he himself was attempting to run with a length of rope tied between his ankles, just shy of his best stride.

  "Come on," he cajoled the ‘Mech. "Move!"

  According to his head’s up display, he had pulled even with the other cadets, though just barely. They were coming around the dogleg, starting to fight the uphill slope he had avoided. But they were still in open territory, and he had a tall stand of poplar and ash cutting him off from the final leg of the race.

  At a full run he splashed through a small stream, leaving a half-meter deep footprint in the boggy ground, then plunged into the wood. His Striker’s swinging arm’s tore branches away with little complaint. Where trees leaned in too close, he shouldered them aside or trod them over. The thin poplar boles snapped like twigs beneath the BattleMech’s metal-shod feet.

  Insulated in his cockpit, Alek heard barely more than a distant crunch and bark of shattered wood. His rear-view monitor, however, showed the swatch of destruction he left behind. A new path, several meters wide, of tortured branches, uprooted trees, and earth churned over by wide, blade-like feet.

  Powerful.

  And unnecessary.

  Breaking free of the wood, Alek saw that he had already lost the race. Two Strikers pushed by him on a dead run, storming forward as only eighty tons of assault machine could do.

  The second of these Strikers cut in close, nearly bumping shoulders with him. Alek wrenched furiously against his controls, avoiding the collision by scant meters. Swinging wide as the third and final Striker gained ground, pulling up even with him.

  Less than two kilometers out, now running parallel to a paved access road, Alek saw the ‘Mech hangars squatting up ahead like oversized Quonsets. A tall fenced tipped with razorwire guarded this end of the sprawling Nagelring complex, though a full thirty meters had been pulled back in anticipation of the arriving BattleMech patrol. It was any cadet’s race still. Any cadet but Alek.

  Slow but certain, Alek lost ground to the other cadets. According to his instruments, he had his throttles pegged high at the Striker’s maximum speed of sixty-five kilometers per hour. Somehow, though, the others coaxed just a little bit more out of their machines. Striding out just a bit longer. Turning slightly sharper.

  Alek fell fifty meters back. Then a hundred.

  Still a kilometer out, trailing by two hundred meters, Alek finally slacked off on his throttles. He passed through the barrier fence at a controlled fifty kph, resigned to his last place finish. He knew what awaited him at the hangar. Helping the technicians check all systems shut down on every ‘Mech. Picking up after the other cadets who would all grab a shower and a fresh uniform before the post-training review with Colonel Baumgarten, leaving their sweat-soaked cooling vests draped carelessly over the back of their command chairs or—in the case of any high spirits—hidden somewhere within the hangar for him to find, clean, and turn in for a maintenance check.

  Friendly competition. And tradition.

  "Dearer to us," he whispered, throttling back into a walk, "than ten thousand truths."

  • • •

  Every school, course and instructor had their system. Routines which a student could adopt, flowing along the path of least resistance, learning, excelling, with a minimum of difficulty. Or, in standing out, making waves and drawing attention.

  Leon Trotsky had said that ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever. But his own experience at Tharkad University still fresh in his mind, Alek had no immediate desire to stand out from the crowd. Difficult enough that everyone knew how he had entered the Nagelring, and what those trials had cost four senior cadets: Three expulsions; one on probation and lucky, in the minds of most instructors, to still be enrolled in this prestigious academy.

  No one harried Alek anymore—there were no more suspicious visits to the infirmary for him to explain—but neither did they go out of their way to include him. To most of the other cadets he was still an unknown, a social burden to be accommodated while awaiting some kind of final group consensus.

  Accommodation was all right with Alek. Accommodation left fewer marks.

  So while everyone around him nervously held their breath, Alek bent his efforts toward this new training. Taking on nearly double the workload of an average cadet in an effort to make up for his two year late start. Keeping quiet. Adopting the local routines.

  Surviving a post-training debrief with the Nagelring’s Kommandant, Alek merely had to sit up tall in his seat, take copious notes in his log book, and say "Yes sir!" with sufficient confidence whenever asked a question.

  Usually the question being: did he understand?

  In academics, when Alek had been a full-time student of Tharkad University, instructors had often pushed him to form his own opinions. To challenge any "accepted wisdom," and seek the higher truths.

  Here, they seemed more interested in knowing that he understood exactly what they wanted him to know.

  "Dismissed," Colonel Baumgarten finally said, though he stayed after for a few moments to help the two remedial cadets with some finer points from the day’s exercise.

  Alek slipped away quietly, returning to the ‘Mech hangar on his way to the cadet lockers. Still dressed in combat togs and lacking the shower the others had been able to grab, his cooling vest was damp and beginning to smell like stale body odor and his bare skin itched under a scale of dried sweat. What MechWarrior trainees laughing called a uniform wasn’t much more than combat boots, shorts, and a thin tank top worn beneath their cooling vest. Welcome, in the sauna-like heat which often flooded a BattleMech’s cockpit. Not so much after. Especially with Tharkad’s sun in full retreat and the taste of an early winter in the air. The afternoon chill rose gooseflesh on his arms, his legs.

  Or maybe it was something else, entirely.

  The truth was, Alek often took a chill entering the ‘Mech hangar. Like entering the underworld cavern of some mythological beast. And inside, four massive titans of war. The now-deserted hangar tasted of damp ferrocrete, coolant, and old welding. Gloomy, with the large hangar doors rolled shut, overhead lighting barely held back the shadows. He padded by softly, quietly, as if worried to wake the slumbering giants.

  "Afraid of the dark?"

  The voice shattered the stillness, startling Alek. He tensed. It was a voice he’d come to recognize. The fourth member of his new training lance.

  "A pleasure, as always, Cadet Ward."

  "Stuff the formalities, Alek. Just what are you doing here?"

  Resigned, Alek turned to face his fellow cadet. Patrick Ward stood just inside the side door, dressed in a tailor-fit cadet’s uniform, arms crossed over his chest. Raven-black hair and green eyes the color of malachite, ramrod straight posture, strong jaw—he had the look of young nobility, even though Alek knew he hadn’t much of a pedigree. Patrick still wore a red "warrior’s badge" on his tunic’s right breast, which he’d earned in his second year at the Nagelring. Quite obviously missing, however, was his gold Honor Squad braid. That, along with all academic credit for his third year, had been stripped from Patrick Ward by the Nagelring’s cadet review board due to his participation in events surrounding the Spring Reception, the harassment of Alek, and the injury to Elias Luvon.

  Some cadets felt that expelling him would have been kinder.

  "I’m training to be a MechWarrior," Alek said.

  The other cadet shook his head. "You’re up to something, but I don’t believe that is it."

  Alek knew himself well enough to accept that Patrick was not so wrong. Elias Luvon had been hurt, and hurt badly, when Alek had struck out in fear and anger. Joining the military, Alek had assured himself, then, that he would simply be retaking control of himself. But did anyone ever have that kind of control, even over their own lives?

  The illusion which exalts us…

  He shrugged. "I’m not doing this out of guilt over Elias, if that is what you are thinking. Though, yes, I believe I have something to prove here."

  "To whom?" Patrick pressed. He had an intense manner, as if he could focus his entire being on one specific problem, and thereby defeat it.

  "To the only person it makes sense to prove anything to," Alek said with a slight touch of exasperation. "To myself."

  Patrick considered that for a moment. "Fair enough," he finally said, though he didn’t sound persuaded. "I think that’s an honest answer. Though I’m still not convinced that it’s the truth."

  Neither was Alek, and that bothered him more than he was likely to admit.

  "‘Deep in my song, safe from the worm, my spirit will survive,’" he recited from Pushkin’s works..

  Patrick frowned. "He said you had a thing for dead Russians. That one of them?"

  "Who said?"

  Another frown. "Doesn’t matter."

  Which meant Elias, most likely. The specter hanging over them both from the Archon’s Spring Reception bound the two together. It also created a wall which would not be easily breached. Certainly Alek had no desire to delve into the morass with Patrick Ward, one of his former tormentors, but he also sensed an opportunity. One which he could not back away from easily.

  "It is one of my so-called ‘dead Russians,’ yes," he admitted. "Now let me ask you. What are you doing here?" He stepped forward. "What are you really doing here?"

  Patrick didn’t answer for a long moment. He stood there, staring down Alek. Possibly he was crafting some kind of careful answer. Possibly he’d just walk away. Then he glanced off to one side, at the nearest of the eighty ton Strikers racked back into its bay.

  "Growing up," he said softly, slowly, "I could not imagine anything more magnificent than piloting a BattleMech."

  "And that brought you to the Nagelring?" Alek suddenly wanted to know. Needed to know.

  The other cadet shook his head. "Can you think of one childhood fascination that ever measured up to its expectations?"

  Without thinking, Alek stepped over to join him, looking up at the titanic machine which dominated all around it. The tick of cooling metal could still be heard. Shovel-blade feet. Bulging midsection. Hatchet-edged cockpit. Massive arms swinging down almost to the knees. Settled into their bow-legged stance, partially cloaked by the shadows, the Mechs looked like childhood monsters biding time inside massive closets.

  "No," he offered. Shivered. "But maybe these could come close."

  Patrick grunted a non-committal response, and an awkward silence descended between the two cadets. The kind, Alek knew, that often stretched out into refreshed hostility. He wasn’t certain that he wanted to let this bridge into the enemy camp fall so easily, though.

  "You said earlier that you were not convinced that I was telling the truth." Alek swallowed hard, his throat tight. "What made you say that?"

  Patrick paused, as if considering his words, then, "If you are really trying to prove something to yourself, why are you holding back?" he asked.

  "Who says that I am?"

  "I do. As could anyone who’s seen you pilot a ‘Mech or work the simulators. Or seen your neurological response curve—that test they ran on you back when you were in the hospital? You’re green, but you should still be better than you’re showing. You’re either coasting, or you just don’t care. Either one could get somebody killed someday."

  "And you followed me here just to tell me that?" Alek bit off the question with something close to anger. Anger at himself for kicking open this door. Inviting the rebuke, which had more teeth to it than he would have thought.

  "I followed you here," Patrick said, "for the same reason I cut you off on the training run today. I wanted to learn something about you."

  Alek remembered that. Breaking through the trees to have one of the other Strikers cut him off. Having to veer out wider than he’d planned.

  "So what did you learn?" he asked.

  Patrick clasped his hands behind his back. For a moment, Alek thought the other cadet would simply turn and leave without answering. Then he shrugged. "Your not stupid, Kerensky. I’ll give you that. And you aren’t weak either. Maybe you’ll even make a decent MechWarrior. Someday."

  "And?"

  "And maybe you aren’t a complete waste of my time. As it has been pointed out to me, my options at the Nagelring this year have been slightly curtailed. It’s been suggested that I get to know you. I’m considering it."

  "So what’s stopping you?"

  "The truth?" Patrick looked form the nearby ‘Mech to Alek. Then back again. "I’m not sure yet if I want to be your friend."

  And with that, he did turn away. Toward the side entrance which led back toward the briefing room. Leaving Alek behind, still staring up at the Striker.

  Then, pausing at the door, Patrick asked suddenly, "So what’s stopping you?"

  The question caught Alek off-guard. He felt something rise to the top of his mind, shoving aside all the rationales and all the other excuses he might have mustered. He knew it immediately for what it was.

  The truth? It seemed to be the day for it.

  Alek stared up at the Striker, not knowing—no longer caring—if he were alone or if Patrick still stood at the doorway. "This whole thing." He looked around the empty ‘Mech bay. "All of it," he said. Then his voice dropped to a simple whisper. The way in which most basic truths were spoken.

  "It scares the hell out of me."

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Ilsa J. Bick is a writer as well as a recovering psychiatrist.  She is the author of prize-winning stories and novellas, and has written such Classic BattleTech tales as Break-Away and The Gauntlet, Books I and II, as well as the MWDA novels Daughter of the Dragon, Dragon Rising, and Blood Avatar.