The officers trailing us were serving as an emergency council for the Dragoons, serving as extensions of the Wolf in the grueling business of picking up the pieces. It was an unusual procedure, and only partly defensible by Dragoon custom. Though the Colonel could make decrees as commander and expect them to be obeyed, orders went down smoother with a council of officers backing him, especially when those backers included some who had recently opposed him. The emergency council was a makeshift arrangement, but a lot of what the Dragoons would do for some time would be makeshift.
The formal Dragoon council was, of course, in shambles. Several members had died, and the Colonel had not yet approved replacements. Fancher was among the dead, leaving Beta Regiment without representation. Gamma Regiment was in a similar position, although Parella was classified as missing, not dead. The offworld members would be coming to Outreach as soon as their contracts permitted. Until they did and the formal council was reformed, the Colonel would operate with the counsel and approval of the emergency team.
The main complex of the Tetsuhara Proving Ground was a hive of activity. I had thought it busy before the battle, but now it was more so. Cratered and battered BattleMechs and tanks were parked in haphazard arrangements, while techs scurried about dragging or driving repair equipment from one repair job to another. Damaged battle suits were stretched out on repair racks, being fussed over by the armorers.
But machines weren't the only casualties of the fighting, and they were certainly not the most important. The gigantic FortressClass DropShip that had arrived to end the fighting now pumped power to the hospital and operating chambers to ease the drain on the complex's facilities. The warship's shadow shaded the operating wards where the doctors fought to save the injured. To deal with the influx of wounded, the field hospital that had been serving our forces had quadrupled in size. Buildings that were normally barracks had been pressed into service as convalescent and recovery wards. Schlomo led us toward the one where Elson had been taken.
I glanced around as we went, seeing the color blue everywhere I looked. No one had given the order to do so, yet everyone seemed to be wearing the blue Dragoon coveralls, even the civilians. Many of the Kuritans had acquired coveralls, too. I wasn't going to object; they had proved themselves.
I know that for some, wearing the normal Dragoon undress uniform was a physical relief. I certainly was glad enough to be free of my cooling vest and the sticky biosensors of its feedback system. Others, I believe, wore the coveralls as a sign of solidarity, a statement that we were all Dragoons again and not loyalists or rebels or whatever fast-talk slang one faction had favored to designate the other. Some, especially those who had fought for Elson and Alpin, were probably grateful for the anonymity the ubiquitous blues provided.
When our little cavalcade reached the entrance to the former barracks, Maeve stepped up to open the door. The handle pulled away from her hand as someone inside tugged on the door. Dechan Fraser nearly knocked her from her feet as he rushed out. Catching her arm to keep her from falling, he apologized in Japanese. At least I assume it was an apology; it sounded like one.
Colonel Wolf stepped up to Fraser and said, "I was hoping to see you soon, Dechan. We have much to talk about."
"I'm not here to see you. They told me this is where I could find Jenette."
"Ward Three," Schlomo said. "This is Ward Two."
"We can talk later," the Colonel said.
"Yeah, sure." As Fraser looked around the people in our group, he forced what was obviously an uncomfortable smile. "Looks like a lot of changes, Colonel. I suppose I can at least stick around for introductions. I've been away for a long time and if I'm going to stay, I'll need to know these people. You might even introduce me to your daughter."
Rachel wasn't with us, and I was momentarily confused. When I realized that Fraser was looking at Maeve, I suddenly saw what he did. The Colonel and Maeve were of a height. Both were compactly framed. He was wider across the shoulders, but not by much. They had the same gray eyes, the same dark complexion, and her hair was as raven black as his had once been. I remembered that Maeve was of a mixed-line sibko and did not know her parentage. But everyone knew that the Wolf had always refused to donate to the sperm banks, maintaining that his blood family was all he needed. It felt like I'd taken a PPC shot to the brain.
While I stood there stunned, Maeve was introducing herself. "Colonel Wolf's daughter is working at the hospital with her mother. My name's Maeve. I'm acting commander of the Spider's Web," she said.
Fraser looked confused. "The Thunderbolt!"
"Mine."
Schlomo broke in with, "Captain Rand is in Ward
Three. I can take you there if you wish." Fraser shook his head like a man starting awake from an unwanted sleep. "This way," Schlomo said, giving him a tug on the arm.
I watched Schlomo hustle Fraser away while the rest of us entered the ward. I'd never seen the old man so pushy, and I wondered if he knew something he wasn't telling.
I was the last to reach Elson's bed and his appearance startled me. The Elemental looked shrunken; his brush with death had exhausted his body. He lay limp in his wrappings of bandages and burn dressings. Bruises and lacerations covered much of his exposed skin and one of his eyes was swollen shut. Despite the punishment he had taken, his spirit was unbroken, as I learned when he addressed the Colonel.
"I thought I'd be hearing from you, Wolf. Is this your council of execution?"
"Hardly," said Jaime Wolf.
Elson managed a mangled chuckle. "Is the prognosis that bad?"
Shaking his head, the Colonel replied, "The doctors say you're a fighter, and they give you a fair chance. I want to do the same."
Elson said something under his breath, but I didn't catch the words. I doubt anyone else did either. The Colonel looked at him silently for a moment, then cleared his throat.
"We fought over the Dragoons because they weren't what either one of us wanted them to be. I gave up on them for a while because I was tired. I let my personal feelings get in the way of my judgement, my duty."
"I am not your counselor, Wolf."
"You're wrong, Elson." The Colonel walked from the foot of the bed to the head and sat down on a stool Atwyl handed him. "The Dragoons are going to be different now. We've both been part of making sure of that.
"Once I thought I was keeping the Dragoons alive by changing them as they needed to be changed, but I didn't have it quite right. I'm a strategist, not a sociologist. I was operating in a field I didn't know, and I botched it. I didn't really understand some of what had happened to us, some of the changes we had already been through. We had come a long way from our Clan heritage, but I forgot that some of us didn't have the same history, might not even want to have that history. You opened my eyes."
"I would have opened your throat," Elson said weakly.
"And that was only what you considered to be right. I know that in your eyes I had failed as a leader. In some ways, you were right. Some of my policies were wrong. I can see that now. I didn't take enough account of how we had changed or how little we were doing to make our newcomers at home. Poor treatment of those who were not born of the elite is a standard complaint the freeborn have about the Clans, but we made the same mistakes. Nobody wants to live as a second-class citizen. I thought we'd get past it, though. I thought that with enough time things would smooth out, but there wasn't enough time. There's never enough time."