Ways Of Seeing Training Facility, Barcella,
Kerensky Cluster,
19th December 3042
“General Aleksandr Kerensky, the Great Father, led our ancestors away from the excesses of the Inner Sphere, after the corrupt and decadent House Lords were unable and unwilling to reform the Star League.”
Their knowledge tutor Troussier spread his arms expansively. “The Great Kerensky brought the Star League Defense Force to this part of space, where they first colonized the systems that we now know as the Pentagon worlds. What are their names?”
Troussier pointed at Deserk, who was sitting ramrod straight in his seat. Deserk replied almost instantaneously.
“Babylon, Circe, Arcadia, Eden, and Dagda.”
“Correct. Now,” he pointed at another member of the sibko, a girl called Petra, “Tell me why they are named as such.”
To her credit, Petra did not gape even though none of them knew the answer to that obscure question. She simply admitted, “I do not know.”
“That is all right. To tell the truth, class, nobody knows the answer!” Troussier laughed madly for a moment, which made Des groan inwardly. Did this have to happen every hour?
“But there is a pattern in their naming. Arcadia, Babylon, Circe, Dagda, Eden. What is the pattern?” He stabbed a finger this time at Des, who was ready with the answer.
“The first letters of the names of the worlds follow the first five letters of the alphabet.”
“Excellent! So you see, the naming of the Pentagon worlds was not wholly without logic!” Troussier beamed, then continued on relating the history of the clans, asking questions at specific members of the sibko and adding in some interesting anecdotes during the course of his telling.
It had been like this for the past few months, as they sat through lesson after lesson taught by Troussier, who seemed deranged with his wild hair, white in color with his advanced age. And in fact, many of them had concluded that he was indeed insane, with his crazy tangents in every lesson, spiced with his own observations, which often seemed to miss the mark, and were completely irrelevant besides.
Descartin wondered privately why Troussier was even allowed to remain at his job, but his lesson, ironically, was one of the few that every member of the sibko looked forward to, for entertainment as much as education.
Questions were allowed, but must be submitted on a small piece of paper at the end of the lesson, where they would be answered at the start of the next lesson. The small pieces of paper, however, were often barely adequate for more than one question.
Still, Descartin was grateful, for it had served its purposes admirably without wasting too much time.
For four hours each day, they would sit in the stuffy classroom with poor ventilation, ignoring the sweat slowly accumulating on their bodies, the single slow moving fan overhead unable to wick away the moisture quickly enough. The high humidity of the weather did not help matters any.
The only thing that made it all bearable was Troussier. He would challenge their intelligence, force them to use parts of their brain that Des was sure had never been activated before, since it ached afterwards, and generally made them rethink much of everything they had learnt in previous years.
“Alas, soldiers do not take it well when they are forced out of their vocations, and forced to be common laborers, farmers, and merchants. But the Great Father had no choice. Without people to grow food, we would starve. Without laborers to produce machines, we would descend back to the Stone Age. Without merchants, we would not be able to have an infrastructure capable of catering to our needs.”
“Here is a question for the whole class. What did the Founder of our clan, Phillip Drummond, do after he was demobilized?”
This one was easy. They all shouted as one, “Scientist!”
Troussier nodded. “He was one of those tested out, but he accepted his new role, refining Streak SRM technology, or more accurately,” Troussier looked embarrassed, “tried to.”
“They did not succeed, though I must add that the basis of their work later did contribute to the advancement of Streak technology developed by other clans. But that was definitely not his greatest nor his last contribution to the dream of the Kerenskys.”
“He formed a family unit with our other Founder, Anna Rosse. Aff, she was a mere merchant, she was not a warrior, nor was she warrior trained. But to her we owe many of our customs and rituals, as well as the path of visions.”
Troussier glanced at his watch. “Ah, time is up.” He ignored the looks of disappointment on their faces. “Now you young aspiring warriors report to Training Officer Secorra as usual for weapons drill. Shoo!” He started shoving cadets out of the classroom, while collecting the small slips of paper from them at the same time.
Barely minutes later, Descartin was dissembling a projectile rifle and assembling them from scratch, under Secorra’s watchful eye.
Varro had been less than happy with Secorra’s performance during their ‘introduction’ to the cadets, but the warrior had nevertheless proven his worth over the last few months, being an expert on firearms, despite being an average hand to hand combatant.
Secorra’s perpetual cursing and swearing did not mark him out as an elite gunner at first, but their first day on the range, when he aced the course in a demonstration, changed their minds in a hurry.
It was difficult, however, as he insisted on total familiarity with any weapon before they were allowed to use it. They had to be able to strip weapons in complete darkness, recite all the range and specifications, and generally everything there was to know about the guns.
And on the range, Secorra had seemed especially concerned about safety, urging every cadet to take extra precaution before firing. Rumor in the sibko was that many cadets died once in a live fire exercise involving a machine gun under his watch. Even though Secorra was absolved of all responsibility(the dead cadets were trying to show off), it probably made him sit up and take extra notice of safety procedures. The death of cadets in silly accidents was wasteful, and the clans above all abhor waste.
Sliding home the bolt carrier group, Des slapped close the rifle casing, pulling the loading lever several times to ensure smooth operation, before pulling the trigger to clear the gun and shouting “Weapon ready!”
All around him were the clicking sounds of triggers being pulled, as his fellows completed their tasks. Descartin, as usual, was first, though he was only a second faster than Deserk, who came in second.
“Looks like you are slipping up, Cadet Des. Cadet Dee is getting better and faster.” Des’ only response to Secorra was a noncommittal grunt.
Everybody had taken to calling him by the first syllable of his name, because ‘Descartin’ was simply a mouthful. Likewise, Deserk was now called ‘Dee’, because his real name sounded too much like ‘desert’. Not exactly the sort of name to strike fear into an enemy.
Secorra was the one who had made that remark on his progress, along with a nasty smile on his face. He had never really forgiven Des for beating him in their first fight, but he also knew not to go too far in case Des, who was getting bigger and stronger all the time, should lose his patience and decide to kill him just for the sake of getting another instructor to pound on.
In fact, all of the cadets were growing very quickly, a stage of development described as a ‘growth spurt’ by Jazelyn. Troussier had once estimated that their full height would be about 190 centimeters, due partly to proper nutrition, and also partly due to the recessive but expressed elemental genes in their Winters bloodline.
Their height was not the only similarity that they share. Most of them had light colored hair, and piercing green eyes. The hair color was said to come from their genemother, and their eyes and facial features from their genefather, according to observations from Varro Drummond. They have never seen their geneparents themselves.
And the cadets never will, because they were both dead. Even if they were not, clan tradition dictates that there should be no contact between sibko cadets and their geneparents, citing inefficiency in training and other psychological reasons.
Des did not really care if that was true or not. If the clan said it was true, then it must be. There could be no other alternative, and there was no reason for them to lie about such trivial matters.
“Now that you have shown that you can strip and assemble these weapons in broad daylight, the next step would be to do that in total darkness.” Secorra’s hand flipped a switch on the wall, and the room plunged into darkness.
Des quickly ran through all the steps again, mentally preparing the locations of each and every component as they were taken out, placed, and a short while later taken up again to be refitted.
“As before, cubs. Two minutes. Ready, go!”
Click, clack, clock.
03rd January 3043
“And so Phillip Drummond and Anna Rosse, disillusioned with the loss of their children, embittered by the madness that had overtaken the colony, sought refuge with the Great Founder Nicholas Kerensky, who had established his base on Strana Mechty.”
“Phillip Drummond tested out well enough to be a warrior in the Great Founder’s new order, and was assigned to Clan Nova Cat,” Troussier swelled with pride, “our clan.”
“Anna Rosse became a merchant, and stayed close to Phillip Drummond even though Nicholas Kerensky had begun caste separation. She took care of their only surviving child Sandra, who would be one of our most important Khans.”
“Here is a question, what rank did Phillip Drummond achieve in the clan?” Troussier asked Lintya.
“He became Khan.” The girl answered confidently.
“Quite so.” Troussier continued. “For someone who was once in Amaris the Usurper’s service, this was a very high honor. What did the great Kerensky hope to show by allowing a former Rim Worlds Republic officer to be Khan?” Troussier asked Feelia, a girl who was notable for the fact that she was the tallest in their sibko, leading some to wonder if she should have gone for elemental training instead.
As for Troussier’s question, nobody knew the answer, but they could always guess.
“The Great Founder did not know about his past?” She answered tentatively.
“Wrong.” Troussier replied in irritation. “There are clear service records of every single person who went to Strana Mechty. How could they miss that detail? No, Nicholas Kerensky wanted to show that a person’s past did not really matter, that skill and ability are all that a warrior needs to prove his worth in the clans.”
“Notable members of the clan in the very beginning were Gabriel Devalis, Takaria West, Eliza Lenardon, and John Winters.”
“Devalis was a rare Land-Air Mech pilot, equally versed in mech and aerospace combat. Due to Kerensky’s new dictates, Devalis devoted himself solely to battlemech operation, although later on his bloodname became a general bloodname, with aerospace pilot, mechwarrior, and elemental lines.”
“Takaria West was an exceptional infantry combatant from Terra, her skills honed in the guerilla war on Terra, particularly the fighting in Italy and Greece. Incidentally, she knew Anna Rosse well, being in the same resistance cell as several points. In fact, it was Anna Rosse who advised Phillip to delegate infantry command to Takaria West. From her would come the elementals of the West.” Troussier snickered at his impromptu joke, which Des felt was particularly flat, since it was not amusing in the least
“Eliza Lenardon was a mechwarrior veteran of the Hegemony campaigns, initially a volunteer from the Federated Suns. She was famed for her ability to place laser blasts wherever she wanted. It was her who instituted our fondness for direct fire weapons, destroying our enemies quickly by targeting the weakest points on their armor.”
“John Winters, who was the progenitor of your line, was an infantry soldier from the Free Worlds League, later moving onto battlemech operation when he tested out well enough.”
“With these warriors in the lead, and of course Phillip Drummond himself, our clan easily reclaimed Circe in Operation Klondike. In fact, they were so successful that the other clans grew envious of our warriors’ ability to place their shots to best effect.”
“Nicholas Kerensky did not assign himself to any clan, however. He announced that he would join only the clan which had performed best in the campaigns. Obviously, competition was fierce.”
“Our clan placed well, but not enough to unseat Clan Jade Falcon and Clan Wolf. Clan Wolf won in the end, and the Jade Falcons have been somewhat… envious of the Wolves ever since.”
“Oh,” Troussier said, “And time is up. There is a change in the schedule today, because Officer Secorra is down with the flu. You will be having extra hand to hand training with Officer Jazelyn in Training Shed C.”
Ten minutes later, they were engaged in hand to hand training, supervised by Jazelyn.
Jazelyn was not like any clan warrior they had heard of. Most clan warriors are aggressive sorts, constantly craving sex and action to satiate themselves.
Training officers were no different, often beating up cadets for the slightest mistake and berating them constantly for no apparent reason. Secorra fell firmly into this category.
In addition, Des had heard plenty of stories about Training Officers forcing cadets to couple with them, especially in the more aggressive clans like the Jade Falcons and the Smoke Jaguars.
Jazelyn, on the other hand, was very different. She did not shout at them, she did not use threats, implied or otherwise, to spur them on. The only sign of her displeasure whenever they had performed below standards was a slight tightening of her brown eyes, and a look of disappointment on her slender face.
Strangely enough, that often made them feel bad inside, even more than any of Secorra’s raging insults.
And she did not force the male cadets to have sex with her, though that might be due to other reasons. The scuttlebutt among the sibkos in the training camp was that she and Varro Drummond were practically sharing the same room every night, and some freebirth cadet from a neighboring cadet squad had even remarked that they might as well be married for all the time they spend together.
Des felt like throwing up whenever he heard of ‘marriage’ and its associated words. The idea of two people coming together to conceive children was simply… disgusting, not to mention the actual birthing process itself.
He could not explain it. It was just too ingrained in him, something that was instilled into every child of the iron wombs since their emergence from the birthing chambers.
Trueborn and freeborn. One the controlled product of scientists and technology, the other a random mix of one of nature’s oldest processes. Trueborns are exalted, while freeborns are reviled. It was the way things were, the way things are, and the way things will be.
Des hurriedly brought his attention back to his hand movements hitting on the practice dummy before Jazelyn could notice his wavering attention. He cursed himself silently for letting his mind wander during training. He really wanted to make it to the next stage of mechwarrior training, and he did not want to slip up in the least.
He wanted to write his own legend. The Remembrance had inspired him in the beginning, with its accounts of brave warriors succeeding against impossible odds. From an early age, he had told himself, “My name will be in the Remembrance one day, tales of my glorious deeds told to all to hear.”
And the only way into the Remembrance was to be a warrior.
13th February 3043
“Here is an interesting question from Cadet Descartin about our breeding program. He asked, quite reasonably, why did we not simply produce clones of successful warriors from their genetic material? This ties in quite well with the question that Cadet Petra asked, why were so many from your sibko weeded out even before coming here?”
Troussier ran a hand over his hair, organizing his thoughts for a moment, then continuing, “Sometimes, nature truly knows best. Evolution is only possible if there was some form of mutation, some sort of change, from generation to generation. Or else, nothing would ever improve, nothing would even change. How can we even predict future improvements, even to our own species?”
“Aff, if we started mass cloning of warriors who are proven winners, we can guarantee ourselves a steady pool of warriors of a certain base standard. At the same time, our gene pool will also hardly improve, because we have removed the randomness factor completely. Trust me, even the process by which you came about was random to some extent, which accounts for your differing abilities. Some of you are better shooters, some better runners. Why? Do not answer, this is a rhetorical question.”
“Genes can mix and match with each other during certain stages. Transposing, the scientists call it. In effect, it is a roll of the dice.” Troussier produced two six sided dice from a pocket, placing the dice on the table in front of him.
“Cadet Jovre, you are quite good at mathematics. So tell me, what are the chances of these dice getting a result of two when I roll them?”
Jovre, a muscular looking boy, answered, “One in thirty six.”
“And a result of twelve?”
“Also one in thirty six.” The reply came immediately. Jovre was the best at abstract thinking, and that was one of the few things that Des was not the best in the sibko at. But only Jovre was better than him, which was some consolation.
“And so it is. There is a chance of abysmal failure, represented by the result of two, in the sense that the trueborn in question is so utterly stupid, slow, or weak that he is weeded out almost at the very beginning. Then there is also the chance for spectacular success, the result of twelve. And cadets, what the clan wants are the results of twelve.”
“But they are very rare. In effect, the clan accepts as warriors those with results eleven and twelve, so to speak. Which most of you are. Sevens, the mode of the rolls, are not accepted, even if they are theoretically on par with the potential of the original genetic material, in other words, the geneparents.”
“Here is something which most people do not know. Ever since the genetic breeding program started, the tests have been getting more difficult. Scores which are acceptable ten years ago are laughable today. You surpass your forebears in ways that many of them could not even imagine!”
“And so generation after generation, our warriors would improve. In time, when we return to the Inner Sphere to reform the Star League, our warriors would be far better than anything the barbarians can throw up!”
20th February 3043
It was another lesson on the history of their clan, the Nova Cats.
“Sandra Rosse offered her aging father the opportunity to step down voluntarily from his Khanship. Unwilling to fight his own daughter, and knowing that her claims had merit, Phillip Drummond bowed to his daughter, stepped out of the Circle of Equals, and for the second time in his life, walked away from everything he knew.”
“Upon claiming the Khanship, Sandra revealed that the plan for replacing Phillip Drummond came to her through a vision quest. Many were skeptical at first, but she eventually managed to convince them to accept her changes, which she felt was the way to a more perfect society.”
“She led the way for the clan to take a longer view of events, that every action has consequences that would not appear for centuries. She encouraged people from all castes not to view their lives as unchanging routine, physical training and privileges denied, but rather to explore the spiritual and mystical aspects of their existence, enabling them to focus better on their tasks.”
“When you reach a certain age, your instructors will lead you in your first vision rite. Then you shall also discover the way to focus yourselves and bring greater glory to the clan.”
Greater glory? Right. Des thought to himself. The importance of visions had been stressed from the start, and even dreams were sometimes analyzed for any portents of importance. There was a fable about how a particularly cadet was so good at predicting the future that his dreams of glory in battle were dashed when the clan decided to reassign him as a tech instead to preserve his vision ability.
Hopefully, it was only a fable.
But there was that one time…
It was just a dream he had at night, when they had just arrived at the training center. He had dreamed of a nova cat stalking its prey in a grassland, only to be caught within a trap that caught its foot.
The very next day, they were having an obstacle exercise in an area that had borne remarkable similarity to the one in his dream. It was even more incredible for they had never been to the area before. Des found himself especially alert that day, due to his dream, and managed to evade all the caltrops that were scattered over the area, even though the savasrhi trainers had ‘neglected’ to tell the cadets of the extra dangers.
The others were not so lucky, and many had suffered injury to their legs. Des kept quiet about his dream, though he knew many of his fellow sibkin were more than a bit miffed at his coming through unscathed, and assumed that he had been warned beforehand, which was definitely not true.
It had taken a few weeks of covering for them in crucial tests to get back on their good sides. However, he was more than a bit worried, and mystified. Before that incident, he had always taken the clan’s constant preoccupation with visions and dreams to be mere fantasizing, with no basis in fact.
His opinion had changed a bit, but Des was still leery. Not even the scientists had ever proven as fact the use of visions and dreams, and that did not seem to change in the future. He had no wish to announce his abilities based on one single event, and set himself up for disappointment in the future.
No, being a warrior would be good enough, and an honorable way to gain glory. After all, who cared about a bunch of stupid visions?
When they are proven wrong, people turn on the supposed soothsayer. When they turn out correct, people could always claim they knew it all along. Nothing beats hindsight for accuracy.
Another two years, Des told himself. Another two years to getting to my first mech cockpit…