He had spent much time on such backwater assignments, one Glory Station after another, where his unit always suffered the worst assignments, not to mention the desultory and often rude treatment that freeborns always got from the trueborn warriors, whose status, regardless of time in service or rank, generally gave them the advantage in any situation. In any dispute between freeborn and trueborn, the officers tended to vote in council for the trueborn's side, unless the free-born's evidence was so overwhelming it could not be ignored.
Even when treated fairly, a freeborn always heard the resentful cadences in the voice of a trueborn superior officer. Aidan had been through so many Trials of Refusal, the challenge that any Clan warrior or military unit could make to protest a decision, that he now planned his reaction even before a single judge had heard his voice. The last time, after he had nearly broken Bast's neck, Star Colonel Kael Pershaw had obviously wanted to punish him severely, but Aidan had used the rite of surkaiagainst Pershaw. Although the commander had not revealed his reaction, Aidan left the office happy, believing he had left the man incensed by his tactic.
As he finished his second fusionnaire and listened to Bast begin a joke about two freebirths encountering one another in a war-torn village, Aidan wondered if he should just stand up now and yell out to all the trueborns in the room that he, too, was a product of the union of genetic materials in a laboratory, then raised in a sibko. Like them, he was trueborn. He would like to see their faces, all their sneering, overbearing faces, when they realized that this Star Commander, whom they continually reviled in their humor and conversations, was not, after all, a freebirth. That this warrior, known to them as Jorge, had assumed a freeborn's identity when the real cadet by that name, along with all the freebirth members of his training unit and their training officer, had been killed in a training exercise. At least that was the official version.
Aidan knew that Jorge's death had been a murder, arranged by Falconer Commander Ter Roshak to give Aidan an unprecedented second chance at the Trial of Position. In his first Trial, Aidan had failed because he had been over-eager in his strategy. Although cadets did not usually have a second chance at a Trial, Aidan got one, though the reason was known only to Ter Roshak. At first Aidan had been angry that so many others had to die so that he could climb into a BattleMech and prove that he did have the makings of a warrior, but the satisfaction he took from warrior status dimmed his anger over time. Worse than any doubts about how he had achieved reinstatement was having to keep the freeborn identity in order to be a warrior. He hated that, had hated it every day of every year of his life as a warrior. There had been so many times when, like now, he had wanted to shout to others that he was a trueborn.
But Ter Roshak had insisted that the switch be kept a secret. The second chance was so antithetical to the way of the Clan that Roshak could be executed if the truth were known. Any of his genetic legacy stored in any lab, any chance he had of being honored through gene transmission to a sibko, would be removed and destroyed. As Aidan later learned, the Roshak genes had been combined with another's for only one sibko, which had turned out to be undistinguished. None of its members had become warriors.
Aidan was signaling for another fusionnaire when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He knew without looking whose it was.
"You are not my protector, Horse," he said. "I do not need you to tell me when to quit drinking fusionnaires."
It had been a matter of honor for Aidan to return to the warrior style of speech, even if everyone else believed he was a freeborn. He had not used a contraction in years. Warriors sneered at anyone who did so, and Aidan had no intention of giving them that satisfaction.
Horse had a deep, rumbling voice that suited his imposing appearance, but it was his piercing gaze that now communicated disapproval. The two men had been together so long that Aidan could read Horse's thoughts by just such a look in his eyes or the way he held his body.
"You told me to stop you after the second fusionnaire," Horse said calmly, his hand remaining on Aidan's shoulder.
"Oh? Did I? I do not remember that."
"You never do, Commander."
"I am going to have that third fusionnaire. Look, the man already has it poured."
The bartender, a stocky tech with an expressionless face, placed the drink on the bar in front of Aidan.
"See, Horse? I have to drink it now. The way of the Clan and all that."
As he reached for the drink, Horse's hand seemed to leap off Aidan's shoulder and onto the bar. He grabbed the glass, seizing its edge in his fingers, just before Aidan's hand would have closed around it. Still holding it delicately by its upper rim, Horse tilted the liquid quickly into his own mouth, downing it in one smooth swallow. Then he placed the glass in Aidan's curved fingers, which had remained in place on the bar.
"Now it is drunk," Horse said.
"And I am not," Aidan said bitterly.
"You are on duty."
"All the more reason to—"
"You are trying to be ironic, quiaff?"
"Aff. As you well know, Horse."
Aidan squinted at Horse. His hand closed around the fusionnaire glass, as though it still contained something to consume.
"You like irony, I can see. It is because of your secret cache of books."
Turning toward Horse, Aidan raised a finger to his lips. "I thought you knew better," he hissed. "You must never mention the, the—you know—here. The, uh, you know are a violation, remember?"
"Of course I remember. But I am a freebirth. In social matters we slip up easily."
Aidan laughed abruptly. "Horse, you are trying to feed me raw coolant."
Behind Horse, Bast's voice had risen. "Then the freebirth says, 'No, but if you want to, please use a socket wrench.' "
The other warriors roared with laughter. Aidan had not heard the lead-in to the punchline, nor did he recall hearing this particular joke before. Bast seemed to come up with new ones regularly from his vast store of anti-freeborn humor.
Aidan noted the tenseness in Horse's body. He could see that his comrade was about to wheel around and hurl an insult back at Bast. He did not blame Horse, but Kael Pershaw had sent out a directive that specifically ordered Aidan's unit to stop fighting with the regular warriors. Aidan suspected that his freeborns had wrought too much havoc on the trues in most of their brawls, and that Pershaw was merely exercising command privilege to prevent any more damage. Ever since Aidan had arrived on Glory, Pershaw had regularly overruled Aidan's orders and generally encouraged the trues to insult him. It was only after a few trues wound up injured that Pershaw also set stiff penalties for brawling. No matter who started a fight, the Commander always sided with the trueborns over the frees. He, in fact, gleefully trumpeted his own inequitable judgments as a device to keep both sides stirred up.
Standing up, Aidan shook his head at Horse, who seethed at the cautionary gesture.
"We agreed to stay out of trouble," Aidan said softly.
"You agreed."
"And my word holds for the whole Star, quiaff?"
Horse seemed reluctant to reply. "Aff. But we look like fools and—"
"Time will pass. We will find our edge."
Horse's eyes narrowed. "What has happened to you, Jorge? Once no base commander could have prevented you from avenging an insult. Once you would've been the first one to wade into a fight. You would have had five enemies on the floor before anyone else could throw a single—"
Aidan smiled. "I appreciate your faith in me, Horse. You make me sound like a hero in one of those Clan folk myths. But I have to protect the Star from—"