White and black smoke spiraled together in a fog that drifted eerily across the plateau's surface. Barely four hours earlier, this had been a verdant jungle, the kind of place Alyina's Ministry of Tourism might have touted as typical of their world. Yet mere minutes of combat had pitted and scarred the landscape. Blackened stumps that once were trees dotted the plain like gravestones strewn across a graveyard. The only remaining scraps of green were scattered clumps of earth that artillery fire had blasted from the ground.
Everywhere lay the shattered bodies and dismembered bits of the war machines that had died to possess what had once been a paradise. When intact, BattleMechs stood five times Kai's height and seemed like invincible, mechanical avatars of man's warlike nature. For as long as he could remember, Kai had dreamed of only one thing: to follow his parents in the path of a MechWarrior. He saw no honor greater than piloting one of these giant martial engines, and no purpose nobler man to do so in defense of family and nation.
But now, battered and smashed beyond recognition, these BattleMechs mocked what Kai realized was the innocence of youth. Lying in broken huddles or staring sightlessly at the sky, they looked useless and even worse. Kai saw that these machines could only destroy. That was their sole purpose, and they had accomplished it beyond even the wildest dreams of their creators.
Kai darted quickly across the quiet battlefield. Kneeling in the shadow of a downed Hagetaka,he quickly scanned the killing ground for any sign of the DaishiVictor had been piloting. He saw nothing at first, then ran to where he had last seen the Prince's 'Mech. At that spot, he found a foot that had probably belonged to Victor's 'Mech. Glancing at the half-melted armor plates lying just beyond, he saw a track left by a crippled BattleMech limping away.
"Yes, he made it." Kai slapped his open palm against the Daishi'sfoot. He made it away from here, but they might still have gotten him,whispered a cold voice in the back of Kai's mind. If you had been here, you could have made sure Victor lived.
The harsh scream of a sea gull brought Kai's head up, startling him from his reverie. The breeze holding the gull aloft parted the smoke and gave Kai a clear view of the dusky sky. Burning brilliantly against the growing dark was a double-diamond pattern of lights moving in unison like a drifting constellation. His spirits lifted instantly as he realized those were the Federated Commonwealth's DropShips burning their way out of Alyina's gravity.
"Victor must have survived. They would never leave so soon if he weren't with them." Glancing around the area, Kai thought it looked like some reinforcements must have arrived to help Victor retreat. From the crests on the uniforms of the dead, he realized they were from the regimental command lance.
The gull screamed again and others joined it as the flock slowly descended. Kai marveled at their effortless flight, grateful for the beauty of their sleek symmetry as a welcome contrast to the nightmare landscape. He smiled as one bird drifted in, then delicately lighted on the shattered shell of a 'Mech cockpit. It was not until another gull tried to land in the same spot and was chased off that Kai understood why the gulls had come to the battlefield.
"No!" Kai sprinted toward the broken 'Mech, waving both birds off. As he reached the cockpit, the stink of blood and burned flesh warned him away, but he did not stop. Peering into the cockpit, he saw what had once been Professor-General Sam Lewis strapped into the command couch. Kai had heard Lewis was attached to the regiment but never thought he'd come out and fight. Things must have gotten really desperate. Half the man's neurohelmet was crushed and half the face beneath it was missing. Kai blanched at the sight and felt his knees turn to water. Turning away, he dropped abruptly to the ground and cradled his head in his hands.
Above him two gulls fought over the eyeball one of them had plucked from the death's head in the cockpit.
* * *
Kai's immediate impulse was to pull all the dead pilots— friend and enemy alike—from their 'Mechs and burn them in a huge pyre to keep the birds from feasting on them. No matter his desire, the task was impossible. Not only would it require more strength than he had right now, but the fighting had consumed everything combustible for kilometers in every direction.
He also knew that a pyre would tip off Clan patrols in the area that at least one person had survived the battle. As that warrior would not have reported in to them, they would know he was not Clan, and the chase would be on.
Kai wanted to hate the gulls, but he knew they were simply scavenging to survive. And with those glittering pinpricks in the night sky going away from, rather than coming into Alyina, he was going to have to start doing his own scavenging to survive. The Clans had defeated the Tenth Lyran Guards, trapping Kai so deeply behind enemy lines that escape back to his side was unimaginable. His only salvation would be if a rescue mission were sent back for him. Twenty years ago Hanse Davion dispatched the Lions of Davion to pull my father off Sian. But then this isn't Sian, and the Clans are not as stupid as Maximilian Liao.
His spirits sank even further. And I am not my father. No rescue mission is coming for me. I'm on my own.
That realization might have driven some to contemplate suicide, but it fired Kai with the fierce will to survive. I've already blown my mission, and my 'Mech is trapped on the ocean floor by another 'Mech lying across its chest. At the very least, they probably presume me "missing in action"— and more than likely dead.Determined not to further dishonor his family and friends by getting captured, he resolved to avoid that possibility with the last ounce of breath in his body.
Like the gulls flying above him and the feral dogs howling off in the night, he searched the battlefield for whatever he might use. He pried open a storage locker in the rear of one Wolverinecockpit, and pulled out an olive drab jumpsuit. It had belonged to Dave Jewell, a member of Victor's command lance. The legs were too long because Jewell had been taller than Kai, but that mattered little now. Using his knife, Kai slit the leg seams so he could still wear his 'Mech boots, and he kept on the cooling vest beneath the jumpsuit.
The locker also yielded some survival rations, which Kai slipped into the small rucksack hanging from a hook next to a web belt and gun. The pistol, a Mauser and Gray M-39 needier, felt good in his hand as he checked it out and loaded it with a block of ballistic polymer. As he strapped the belt on, he took in some of the slack to make it fit snugly around his narrow waist.
At the bottom of the locker, Kai found a small packet containing two holodisks, a hologram, and a small verigraphed card. The holograph worked into the fabric of the card showed the smiling faces of two children, a boy and girl who looked several years apart in age. Kai looked at the childlike scrawl in which the message was written and realized that the children had composed a prayer-poem to keep their father safe in combat. It was signed, "Katrina and David, Jr."
The hologram showed a slender, attractive woman holding a baby in her arms. Seeing it, Kai remembered Jewell bragging that his wife, Katherine, had recently given birth to their third child, Kari Lynn. Not even five months old.A shiver ran down his spine. "She never even had a chance to meet her father."
Kai looked over at the body hanging half out of the command couch's restraining straps. He slipped the soldier's dog tags from around the man's broken neck and dropped them into the packet, which he tucked into the rucksack. He brushed one hand across the name emblazoned on the breast of the jumpsuit he'd appropriated.