Gone move over my Blood Spirit bit here. Anybody want to beta the next part?
What a Bloody Mess
The room was dank, musty, and dark. The walls were painted blood red because of course they were and didn't that make for a lovely atmosphere? Not that it mattered much because all the other rooms in this place were just as bad. I was vaguely surprised they didn't set the air purifier to add the smell of blood to the air for extra ambience. Note to self: Do not ever say that aloud. They'll do it if they get the idea in their heads.
It was really hard not to shrink in on myself as I strode down the lurid bloody hallway. I was afraid to be sure, but I was not going to let them see it. Twenty elementals, the Blood Guard Keshik, trained warriors seven and a half feet tall, though lacking their power armor, stood lining the hallways leading to the meeting room. They didn't budge an inch as I moved but I could feel them staring at me, judging me, as I walked between them, smirking inside at me. Freebirth. Dezgra. Lowly Merchant Caste.
I should still probably consider myself lucky. Clan Blood Spirit was a heck of a lot better to its' lower castes than, say, Smoke Jaguar, we even encouraged hobbies and artistic expression among all our castes. Heck, I could have wound up a slave in a real hellhole like Tortuga. For a given value of finding myself a low-value person in a board game that was all about warfare, my situation wasn't bad. I'd even gotten my own room recently for some reason even though most merchants had to have at least a roommate, that had to indicate I had some value to them. I kept trying to keep myself cheered up as I approached my destination. It wasn't working. I'd been called in to the office of the Khan, basically equivalent to your standard issue peasant in a Banana Republic receiving a visit from some Very Nice Men explaining that the El Presidente wants to speak to you at your earliest convenience, and that your earliest convenience happens to be right now by some coincidence, Or Else. No good could come of this.
The doors to the office were large enough for a Battlemech to walk through. Fortunately they opened automatically for me because I wasn't opening those things under my own power and I had my doubts the Blood Guard Keshik were going to help push.
Behind a desk large enough to serve as a dining table sat Khan Fara Church. I lowered my eyes automatically because I didn't want to give him a reason to have me shot. I heard something clatter as he moved around the pads of data on his desk.
“Bearribs. Merchant Caste. Minimal demerits, a rule follower. You have limited association with your Trothkin. Your hobbies are brewing alcoholic beverages and writing essays you post on the chatterweb about your the outcomes of battles between fictional forces,” I could hear the Khan's finger tap the desk surface as he moved around pads. There was no question there so I was not free to speak. After a moment, he continued, “Three days ago you wrote an essay on a chatterweb bulletin discussing the Great Debate,” he said. It still wasn't a question, “In which you concluded that the Inner Sphere would win against the Clans due to sheer numbers. You provided a detailed set of statistics counting up their Battlemechs and comparing them to our Toumans. In fact your conclusion is the Inner Sphere has more warriors than we have bullets. You are aware that Clan Blood Spirit espouses the Crusader philosophy, quiaff? Look up at me, Merchant.”
Well crap. I really did not see my death coming from a post on Space! um... let's call it Future!SpaceBattles instead. I raised my eyes. His gaze was piercing and it felt like he was looking right through my eyes and into the brain behind them. I tried not to blink.
He was the blackest black man I'd ever seen. Seriously he went past brown skin and straight up looked like he'd been forged from a stack of rebar, only his muscles didn't look as soft as steel. He had a scar across his throat where it had been cut, apparently, and burn marks across his left hand from a lifetime of fighting. His hair style was basically the same style most tennis balls wore, being no more than fuzz. Inevitably, his clothes were a blood red military uniform that looked a bit like he was cosplaying as M. Bison, with a dark red body stocking, almost liquid silky blood red sash, and black half cape. It was about ten thousand times more dignified than the fursuits most clans used. You only wish I was joking. He was the only person in the entire clan who got to wear the full Blood Spirit star as his rank emblem, while as a mere merchant I had a plain jumpsuit with a much smaller, gray star.
“Y-yes, my Khan,” I managed to get out in a hoarse whisper.
“You are given leave to speak, merchant,” he told me sharply, “And speak clearly. You obviously have a good vocabulary given your turns of phrase in your essay. But tell me, how do you justify your conclusions? Did not the Star League have far more WarShips and BattleMechs than the Rim Worlds Republic? And yet Stefan Amaris was able to topple it.”
“I, uh, do not recall that ending well for Amaris, my Khan,” I answered. Was her seriously attempting to engage me in a vs. debate? This was so surreal, I felt like I was floating on a sea of adrenaline.
He snorted, “Aff, it did not,” he agreed. “I am most interested in two points. The first was your suggestion on what 'the clan ought to do.' Your suggestion was that we do not bid at all for the upcoming trials to choose who will gain honor in conquering Terra, and instead, I quote, 'Kick the Burrock bastards' balls in while the Inner Sphere is kicking their teeth in, and take all their stuff.' Do you stand by that analysis?”
I realized I had my teeth clenched and forcibly relaxed, “I do,” I answered.
“Do you feel it is honorable to take advantage in that way?”
“If your enemy makes a grave error, I do not feel it is dishonorable to capitalize on his stupidity, my Khan,” I answered him, hoping like hell that was the right answer and I wasn't about to be shot.
“Interesting,” the Khan said. Which wasn't 'Guards, kill this dishonorable dog' so I was chalking that up as a potential win. “And the second point, our analysis shows that our BattleMechs are far superior to theirs, yet you conclude that someone, and you point to ComStar, is deliberately keeping their technology down, and thus they could rapidly advance in the face of an external threat, thus negating our advantage.”
“Yes, my Khan,” I answered him. There didn't seem to be anything to add.
“Even more interesting,” He concluded. The guy did not seem to like giving away what he was thinking. “Because I have resources you do not. Since the Dragoon Compromise certain bits of information have been made available to all the Khans, gathered by the Dragoons themselves, along with their allies. These point to the same conclusion, that somebody has been secretly eliminating or absorbing the Inner Sphere's scientist caste for some time. Nobody was able to identify who or why, however once our scientists used your thread of logic, the result that it was ComStar became almost obvious.
“You managed to come to a correct conclusion, better than our top scientists, despite having far less time and information to do so. Several other posts you have made also show an abnormally good understanding of the Scavenger Lords, equal to or better than our finest scientists specializing in the field. How do you explain your knowledge?”
I paused. I had the weirdest momentary temptation to tell him it was because he was a character in a board game and also the Clans were complete idiots when it came to understanding any culture but their own. Fortunately I wasn't quite that insane, having avoided being reincarnated as a Goliath Scorpion. “I do not have an explanation, my Khan.”
He snorted again, and I fancied I actually saw a note of humor in his eye. Or maybe it was stress getting to me.
“As expected,” he said wryly, “No wonder you were never able to join the Warrior Caste. You do not reach for Glory even when it is dangled in front of you.”
Also I want to live to be over 30. I failed to say aloud. Only an idiot would want to be a Blood Spirit Warrior given their life expectancy. Blood Spirits had about ten times as many warriors as they did machines for them to pilot, and an institutional fear of any change to their formations that kept them from expanding at a reasonable rate. So because the available pool was so much larger than their hardware, they had an incredibly brutal system to weed out the weak and leave only the strongest warriors left alive to pilot their few BattleMechs. Granted the successful warriors were treated like rock stars but the attrition rate was absolutely horrifying.
“You understand the Scavenger Lords, show an innate ability to understand, and seek the good of the Clan instead of yourself. Such a resource as yourself should not be wasted,” He paused a dramatic moment, “Do you know who your father was?”
I had to pause a long moment while my train of thought derailed at such an unexpected question. I'd just gotten to the part where the Khan apparently was complimenting me (and more importantly implying I was useful and thus not to be killed), an amazing rarity, and now this. I knew I'd been a freebirth, that is to say I had actual human parents instead of a test tube. I hadn't really thought about it though, because I'd woken up in this world as a fully-formed adult and didn't remember them well.
“I do not, my Khan” I finally answered, having strained my memory thinking it over.
“He was Dark Caste,” the Khan told me simply. Well crap. Khan Fara Church really seemed to like telling me things that indicated he would kill me shortly in between telling me things that suggested the opposite. “A bandit encountered by our patrols on York some two and a half decades ago. I do not know why your mother chose to lie with him and conceive a freebirth, but I suspect that his ideals of defending his people from all intruders were so pure, so close to the Blood Spirit ideal, that she chose to preserve his genes despite his low status.”
Or he could have just been hot and she was horny after a big battle. Clan Mechwarriors tended to make college fraternities look like nuns as far as sexual restraint went, and the females were included in that. I didn't think this observation needed to be said to the Khan so I just waited, and after a moment he nodded and moved on.
“I believe his unconventional thinking and dedication to his home has found expression in you, his blood. As it happens, the Clan has use for a non-warrior who understands the Inner Sphere. You see, your father had many 'mechs at his disposal, stolen from various clans in raids,” he said the last with sneering disapproval, “However, it is your property as he would see it, so I have decided to put it under your command.”
On the one hand bullshit. On the other hand, also bullshit. The gripping hand was: bullshit. Clans made the Soviet Union look like Libertarians when it came to property rights, and the Blood Spirits hated the Dark Caste with the fiery hate of a thousand suns, and taking what you'd defeated to be your property was the bedrock of Clan society. They even applied this to freaking people. There was no possible way the Khan was actually respecting the property right claims and inheritance requests of a dead defeated bandit. I prepared myself for a scam immediately.
“As the only clan who follows the true path laid out by Nicholas Kerensky, we of Clan Blood Spirit understand the importance of avoiding waste. The other clans have left the true way.”
To this I nodded emphatically. I understood that Khan status in the clans came with a built-in wifi connection to Kerensky's ghost allowing the Khan to always know what Kerensky would have wanted. Clan Blood Spirit, needless to say, had the strongest connection to Kerensky of all while our enemies all had defective wifi that either gave them garbled signals or, in the case of Clan Burrock, connected directly to Satan himself and gave them instructions only on how to destroy the Clan way of life.
“It would be a terrible waste to destroy quality BattleMechs, yet the foolishness of the other clans would lead them to destroy and waste such valuable goods merely because of their origin.”
I nodded again. That was totally how the clans tended to act. Heck, in thirty or so years when they made it back to the Inner Sphere, I knew some clans would go around murdering people who had a common ancestor eleven generations ago with their enemies. Tek Team was going to get annihilated because their JumpShip, a relic they salvaged out of an asteroid field, had once been owned by somebody in the Rim Worlds Republic centuries earlier. Clans tended to get completely insane at times about guilt by association. The problem with this line of reasoning was, Clan Blood Spirit was just as into that. So what was Khan Church selling here?
“Thus the equipment has remained in a secret storage location,” I realized the truth and translated his words from Clanspeak: We were too poor and needy to scrap all the 'mechs but too scared to use them. “Now an opportunity arises. Your plan to attack the hated and dishonorable Clan Burrock while the Inner Sphere destroys their first line is not completely without merit, and I approve of the sentiment. However it betrays a lack of a True Warrior's vision and can be improved upon. In addition, your belief that the Inner Sphere will suddenly rediscover their lost technology in time to repel the Crusaders is based on the shaky reasoning that ComStar will change its' mind in time, I and my advisers find that highly unlikely. So we must ensure that such an eventuality comes to pass despite them.”
I... what? Wait what? And on further consideration, WHAT?
“Under the Dragoon Compromise,” he continued blithely, ignoring my confusion, “It is forbidden for any clan to send its' own warriors into the Inner Sphere, though an exemption was carved out for Goliath Scorpion Seekers. However, you are not a warrior. Your orders are to take possession of the your father's cache, use it as a base of supply, and travel to the Inner Sphere where you will 'discover' the lost technology and begin helping them to build up a new level of technology. You will further use your technological advantages to gather assets for Clan Blood Spirit to the best of your ability in the Inner Sphere. You may not recruit any warriors for your mission,” at this he nodded an an aide came to me with a sheaf of documents, “But you will be permitted to recruit from the lower castes, sufficient to crew a pair of recovered JumpShips.”
Just what? And then more what? I probably gaped slightly as I thought this over. Clan Blood Spirit were Crusaders, clans who believed their job was to go invade the Inner Sphere and take over, for the greater good of course. Warders were the clans wh ofelt their job was to protect the Inner Sphere and especially Terra from the Crusaders.
Blood Spirit was a Crusader clan in theory but I realized, after thinking a moment, Khan Fara Church wasn't exactly conventional. Oh, the Blood Spirits weren't exactly forward thinking, in point of fact we were stupidly traditional in some ways (notable we allowed zero deviation in our battle formations), but at the same time our current Khan did an awful lot of progressive things. Under his command the Sibkos had been dismantled, and more kids were being raised by parents rather than in their cold creches. His plan had sent ilChis, basically diplomats, back to the other clans to reinstate diplomatic ties and make allies rather than settling for shooting at them. He had swapped our remaining WarShips for a huge number of BattleMechs, giving up space dominance in favor of protecting our ground assets. And it was Fara Church who had begun an ambitious plan to train all our people in basic combat, not just the Warriors.
So I could reasonably conclude that the Khan was actually not quite as welded to doing things the old fashioned way as you might think at a glance. And somehow two random events had come together to give him an excuse for something even more ambitious.
“As you will it, my Khan,” I told him after I'd finished rebooting my brain.
He nodded, now all stern again, “Dismissed, Merchant.”
I nodded and stepped backwards out of the office before turning, lowering my head so as not to look any of the Blood Guard Keshik in the eyes, and headed back to my cubical. I realized suddenly that I was about to be free. I would leave clan space, not have to look down, not have to worry that I'd be shot by a warrior as stress relief for not bowing my head fast enough, not be afraid a Clan Burrock raid would grab and enslave me, not fear an artillery bombardment would wipe me out in my sleep.
With a much lighter heart I went out and felt the Blood Guard Keshik watching me silently as I passed, envying me, wishing to join me. I could feel their jealousy that I was getting to go out and do something cool and probably violent while they had to stand around guarding a hallway.
