* * *
In their control room, Radick and Ward watched the incredible success of their aerofighters against the Jade Falcon DropShip.
"Seyla," Radick whispered as he watched the DropShip hurtle toward the planet Glory. Ward wondered why Radick thought the ritual word applied here. Just what was the man responding to? Perhaps it was simply awe at the sheer success of his strategy. Radick was egotistical enough to interpret the event that way.
Radick glanced up at Ward. "That should put Kael Pershaw at a severe disadvantage. One lost DropShip containing a full Trinary of the forces he bid. We have a marvelous advantage with just one brilliant maneuver, quiaff?"
Ward hated agreeing with the man, but what he said was true. It had been a masterstroke, as he had originally termed it.
Radick chuckled with pleasure as the monitor screen registered the faraway fire and smoke of the Drop-Ship's crash on Glory.
"A marvelous advantage," he shouted gleefully.
6
"Star Commander Jorge, you wear the dark band, quiaff?"
"Aff." Aidan was aware of the other officers staring at him with contempt in their eyes. The spot where Bast's picture lay on the dark band seemed to burn into his skin.
"As a wearer of the dark band, you are allowed to speak only if addressed. You may not volunteer a comment or ask a question. That is understood, quiaff?"Knowing that Kael Pershaw was demanding an answer now, Aidan stubbornly remained silent. "Respond, Jorge!"
"Aff, it is understood."
"Good. Your question can therefore not be answered unless one of your colleagues would care to ask it. Warriors?"
No one cared to provoke the Star Colonel further, and so the group kept its silence. Aidan had asked if his freeborn contingent might have the honor of taking point position for the first engagement with the enemy. He knew that Pershaw would never allow a freeborn unit to precede his trueborns in formation, and so the request was a deliberate, if unpunishable, insult. The question was similar to what was called a negative bid. He had wanted to assert the worth of his forces, despite knowing that others held them in low esteem. His own warriors would know about the offer, and would have even more confidence in their commander because of it.
Though Clan warriors rarely lost confidence, a palpable gloom pervaded the room. Kael Pershaw's news that Clan Wolf had effectively wiped out a significant portion of their forces even before engaging in battle on Glory Plain did not inspire the usual pre-battle enthusiasm. Several in the group continued to stare at Aidan, who now felt a discomfiting heat flush his skin. This caused him even more shame than wearing the dark band.
After Kael Pershaw had announced a general dismissal and the warriors were filing out of the briefing chamber, the commander shouted, "Star Commander Jorge, you will remain."
When the room was empty, Kael Pershaw nodded toward a chair and said with his best menacing quietness, "Sit."
When Aidan hesitated, the base commander shoved him roughly toward the chair. The move came as such a surprise that Aidan nearly fell flat on his face. Recovering his balance and hearing Kael Pershaw again order him to sit, he obeyed. It would have been a foolish defiance to remain standing and allow the base commander to knock him around the room without any possibility of hitting the bastard back.
Kael Pershaw himself sat on the edge of the conference table, the position allowing him to look down on Aidan from a dominant position. This was the kind of kinesic strategy for which Kael Pershaw was famous.
"Your unit will not be engaged in combat this time." He stared at Aidan, savoring the suspicion that the words angered his subordinate. Aidan was careful to keep his face calm and unreadable. "I have another mission for you," Kael Pershaw said.
Although Aidan would give no physical sign of his discomfort, he had to firmly resist squirming in his chair. Pershaw's assigning him another mission, especially when he was undermanned already, merely signified how low was the prestige of freeborns at Glory Station.
"But, sir, with all respect, your forces are already weakened too—"
Pershaw took a despairing breath before saying in a voice that would not have been heard a few steps away, "I will assume you are simply not accustomed to the dark band. A freeborn normally does not complain to his superior without permission, but the wearer of the band knows he must never complain while under the shame of the band. However, I will obliquely respond to your apparent protest. Of course, I will do anything to win a battle, but I tell you, in truth, that I would rather send a single Star against a Trinary of Dwillt Radick's than commit any freebirths to the field. You understand, freebirth? You are a freebirth, are you not?"
Pershaw's soft voice emphasized the word "freebirth" just slightly each time he used it. He wished to compound the insult by setting the word off from the rest of his speech. It was all Aidan could do to keep from revealing the truth. What kept him back was the thought that if he was ever to tell anyone of his true birth and face the dire consequences of the admission, it would have to be to someone other than this vile example of humanity, this Kael Pershaw.
As his hatred of Kael Pershaw seemed to expand inside his body, Aidan realized how unClanlike, how unlike a warrior, he had become. Warriors often resented one another or disagreed with each other's actions, but hatred was rare. Warriors of the Clan detached themselves from petty feelings, knowing that such trivial sentiments could hamper battle efficiency. Pride was collective at every unit level in the chain of command, and any single hatred damaged the unity bolstered by that pride. In warrior training, cadets were trained to block any feelings of hatred. If bad blood did erupt among warriors, conflicts were resolved in such arenas as the Circle of Equals. The combatants who survived were encouraged to perform surkai,the rite of forgiveness, to purge any possible remaining negative feelings.
But Aidan had never been content with surkai.Even as a cadet, he had known hatred. He had hated his training officer, Falconer Joanna. Should she appear in front of him right this moment, he would have more the urge to strangle her than welcome her. But he would have been most content with his hands around the neck of another officer from his cadet days. That person was Falconer Commander Ter Roshak, the man whom, ironically, he could thank for the fact he was a warrior at all. Roshak had given Aidan a second chance to test as a warrior after the cadet had failed his first Trial of Decision. Unfortunately, Ter Roshak had also arranged the murder of a unit of freeborn cadets to accomplish this extraordinary act. Then he had forced Aidan to assume the identity of one of the unit's cadets in order to qualify as a warrior. The cadet, a freeborn named Jorge, had apparently been a superior trainee, one who might, no doubt, have done well in the Trial. So, Aidan had Roshak's treachery to thank for his present tainted warrior status. The murders, the taint, the fact that he had let it happen—all this made Aidan hate Roshak more than he could ever hate Pershaw or Joanna, more even than he could hate an enemy on a battlefield, a serious flaw for a committed Clan warrior.
To admit his true identity would doubtless ruin him as a warrior, but would also bring Roshak down with him. However, Aidan did not think seeing Roshak shamed and executed was enough to risk his own execution. The least punishment he could expect was a demotion in caste. He had been a tech temporarily after failing his original trial and before assuming his new identity, and he knew he could never return to that level of Clan society. That, too, was not warriorlike. The way of the Clan was for each member to take satisfaction from whatever duty he or she performed for the good of all. There was no room for dissatisfaction. And, in truth, very few Clanspeople were unhappy with their lot. Aidan thought he must have been cursed by some mysterious fate, yet even that was not of the Clan. He had learned the concept only from his clandestine readings. That fate had made him reflective, congenitally restless, and—its last probable irony—a counterfeit freeborn. A freebirth,as Pershaw constantly reiterated.