Blaine Lee Pardoe - Battletech - Battlecorps - Betrayal Of Ideals Part 1

VIP免费

2024-12-24 0 0 466.2KB 31 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

BattleCorps BattleCorps

BETRAYAL

OF IDEALS

Book I: Foundations of Fate

Blaine Lee Pardoe

BattleCorps

Foundations of Fate • Page 2

BattleCorps

The Great Hall

Strana Mechty

Clan Space

12 June 2822

Khan Sarah McEvedy walked around the construction site, care-

fully eyeing the work in progress. The Great Hall’s cornerstone

had been laid long ago, but progress had been slow, not due to

motivation or desire, but in the detail of the craftsmanship. The

stones for this structure, the seat of government for the Clans, were

carved individually by hand on each one of the Pentagon worlds,

then shipped to Strana Mechty. An equal number of stones from

each world were to be employed in the grand structure. As she

watched the stonemasons work, she wondered if she would ever

see the completion of the structure.

As a team of men hoisted a block of marble up with a block and

tackle, she surveyed the form of the building. Yes, it was to be a

wondrous hall, a monument to the Clans and Nicholas Kerensky,

the ilKhan, but at the same time it was to appear austere and even

plain. How they would ever balance that mix was beyond her.

She chuckled to herself. If nothing else, it was a monument to

the Clans themselves. The constant struggle to mix the ways of

the past and the ways of Nicholas’s vision of the future…a vision

that seemed to constantly evolve and change. Andery understood

that.

Adjusting her uniform jacket against the chill of the evening air,

she watched the workers struggle with the block, ﬁghting not only

it but the pull of gravity, the twists of the rope, and their own mus-

cles. Yes, this was a ﬁtting image of the Clans, at least in the last

few months. There had always been an underlying tension among

her peers, the khans, the rulers of each Clan. It was borne in the

competitive nature of their existence, the fact that they were pitted

against each other throughout their lives. This struggle seemed

more prevalent though, at least as of late. The debates in the tem-

porary Hall of Khans, a makeshift command post left over from

the time of the Great Relief, had carried a sharper edge to them.

The arguments had taken on a more personal tone. McEvedy her-

self had been pulled into three Trials of Grievance recently with

other Khans, almost unheard of a few years before.

Worse yet, she had seen alliances forming. In the past, they

had been one brotherhood of warriors under Nicholas’s banner.

BattleCorps

Foundations of Fate • Page 3

BattleCorps

But lately she had seen the changes. There were the huddled,

whispered meetings in the hallways and back ofﬁces. There was

obviously aligning of voting. “It won’t be too long before we have

to form a new caste–the Politicians,” she had said sarcastically in

one debate–one that had garnered her icy glares from some of

her peers. Sarah had stayed away from any alliances, implied or

otherwise. There was something distasteful about Clans working

with each other against the beneﬁt of others.

I don’t care about politics. I’m a Wolverine. Khan McEvedy only

hoped that that was going to be enough in the years to come.

Nicholas had asked her to stay a few days after the session for

dinner, and she had been looking forward to it. They used to eat

together all the time, before Klondike, before the loss of Andery.

During the Pentagon Civil War, they had dined in tents and over

bonﬁres as battles raged. Those were the days, we had a cause, a

purpose. The ﬁghting had wrapped up weeks earlier, but peace

was uncomfortable for McEvedy and the other Khans. There was

a chaﬁng that came with peace. The Clans had been engineered

for war.

Nicholas had been a unifying ﬁgure, despite his personality

quirks. With the death of his father, Nicholas had taken on the

image of the old man, he had offered hope where hope had been

lost. He offered the people a future. During those dinners of years

past, they had sat and talked about what the worlds would be like

when the war was over. It was as if they were on a holy quest. The

future was far away and was held up like the Holy Grail.

It had been like that since Andery’s death for her. The future was

harder to see. Part of it was that Andery had burned with a streak

of independence that she admired, cherished. Another part of it

was that deep in her soul, she felt that Nicholas may have played

some role in his death.

Adding to some of the new stresses that the Clans were feeling

was that several generations of the Warrior caste were beginning

to emerge. The original Khans that Nicholas had chosen were be-

ginning to dwindle, replaced with younger Warriors–Warriors that

had not fought in the civil war. They did not have the bonds that

tied the Clans together.

This was not the image that Sarah McEvedy had envisioned.

Time had changed Nicholas and the rest of them. His own

cropped, salt-and-pepper hair told part of the story, the scars

BattleCorps

Foundations of Fate • Page 4

BattleCorps

on his body and neck told the rest. Nicholas had always been a

dreamer, always cast in his father’s shadow, always struggling to

leave his own mark in the universe. He had with the formation of

the Clans. Now there were no enemies to ﬁght. Nicholas and the

Khans had to face to the reality of a warrior people without a foe.

Sarah walked around the construction site and the mud built

up on her boots. They became heavy, and no amount of effort

seemed to shake the clay off. After a moment or two she ignored

the extra weight. The construction workers, each from different

Clans assigned to the building project, watched her out of the cor-

ners of their eyes. The Wolverine Khan could feel their stares. Not

too many Khans bothered to come and watch the lower castes

work. McEvedy felt she had an obligation to come and bear wit-

ness to the work being done. This is where we will lead our people,

it is only ﬁtting that we come here to watch it be built.

She made her way on the walking path down the hill to the com-

mand post that had been converted years before to the seat of

government. The ramshackle buildings, a patchwork of temporary

shelters, had seen better years. Contrasted to the work going on

above them on the hill, they seemed like where paupers lived rath-

er than a center of government.

She stomped hard on the paving stones to get the mud off

as she entered the structure. Hanging her uniform coat up, she

noticed that several of the other pegs held coats worn by other

Khans. Would they be joining us for dinner as well? She looked at

the patches on the shoulders. The Widowmakers. That would be

Khan Jason Karrige. Khan McEvedy winced at the thought of Khan

Karrige joining her and Nicholas for dinner. Karrige’s Widowmakers

were a little extreme, even by Clan standards.

The other jacket was a little smaller and more appealing. Joyce

Merrell, Khan of the Snow Ravens. Her presence would be much

more pleasant. While Khan Merrell was far from being an ally of

McEvedy and her Wolverines, they did share the same values and

she appeared to be open to new ideas and thoughts, as opposed

to Karrige and his Widowmakers. Merrell was one of the shrink-

ing number of Khans from the old days, from the beginning of the

Clans.

Checking her boots, she made her way through the makeshift

building as she had hundreds of times before. The hallways were

crowded with couriers, clerks, administrative staff, and a handful

of ofﬁcers. She came to an intersection in the hall and scanned

around the hustle and bustle of the structure. McEvedy spotted

BattleCorps

Foundations of Fate • Page 5

BattleCorps

Khan Karrige going over a report with a junior ofﬁcer. Karrige

made eye contact with her, but did not offer even a bow. After all

these years, he is still bitter over that loss in battle. It was an inci-

dent that had taken place during the Pentagon Civil War, and while

McEvedy had managed to put it behind her, Karrige had taken it

personally.

She made her way into the ofﬁcers’ dining hall. There were a

scattering of warriors from different clans, most of which only

gave her a passing glance. Few Wolverine warriors were present,

which was not uncommon. Her troops ate alone, as was tradi-

tion. Khan McEvedy didn’t mind. Sitting with other warriors and

fraternizing often led to information being passed. If her warriors

wanted to eat alone, she was not going to discourage it. If they

want to think of us as arrogant, let them.

The ilKhan’s dining room was a small room off the ofﬁcers’ hall.

It was small, unadorned, in fact, quite plain. The window gave

a view of the city. Nicholas stood at parade rest looking out the

window, ignoring her at ﬁrst, staring out at the city. Master of all

he surveys… From behind, the height, the shape of his almost

bald head, his martial bearing; for just a moment Khan McEvedy

thought it was his blessed father, Aleksandr. As Nicholas turned,

the Wolverine Khan saw the few subtle differences in the face.

There was more. She had known Aleksandr Kerensky, and had a

cherished holoimage of her being presented a commendation by

him. There was a warmth to his expression. With his son, there

was none of that warmth.

He gestured to the table where the food was waiting on warming

plates. “It is good to see you Khan McEvedy. I am pleased that you

could join me.”

Sarah waited until Nicholas sat. She had once seen someone

before sit down before the ilKhan had and get dressed down for

his actions, to the point of a Circle of Equals. There were quirks in

Nicholas’s personality, things that people didn’t expect. Those that

worked close to him learned to work around them. They avoided

deliberately setting him off. Sarah only deliberately set him off

when it was important, where the risk was worth it.

The ilKhan preferred his steak rare and did not salt or pepper the

food. Again, it was one of the little twists in his personality that

McEvedy noted and then attempted to ignore. These quirks were

numerous, and speaking about them was all but forbidden. Little

would be discussed until the main course was done–that was his

way. Once Nicholas ﬁnished his steak, he paused and rested his

BattleCorps

Foundations of Fate • Page 6

BattleCorps

forearms on the edge of the table. Now, and only now, would con-

versation begin.

“How are my Wolverines, Sarah?” he queried.

“They are well, ilKhan,” the use of the title was important.

Nicholas could speak informally if he chose, but that was not a

luxury for even his Khans.

“I have heard that your harvests have produced a surplus. This is

welcome news given how some of your brethren have fared.”

“We have indeed,” she said. There was a slight pause on

McEvedy’s part. The harvest report information had just come to

her attention three days ago. How had the ilKhan heard of it so

quickly? More importantly, who else knew? “We are more than

willing to share our bounty with those less fortunate, of course.”

“Of course,” Nicholas said, staring at his plate, pushing his

whipped garlic potatoes around as if he were a sculptor. “When I

heard of your fortune, I also heard that you achieved this by allow-

ing some members of other castes to, what was the word used?

‘migrate?’ to your Labor Caste. Is that true Sarah, quiaff ?”

“Afﬁrmative,” she replied slowly and carefully. So that was what

this was about. It had to be the Smoke Jaguars, Widowmakers,

or the Jade Falcons that were in an uproar about this. They were

among the most hard-line traditionalists.

I must ﬁnd out how they learned of this and plug that leak. She

wanted to offer explanation but held off. Nicholas often was given

to a tantrum, and interrupting that could be worse than the of-

fense that triggered it in the ﬁrst place. “I did not mention it before

because it seemed so minor, ilKhan. It was an internal affair of my

people.”

“This disturbs me,” Nicholas said in a calm tone, still not looking

into the eyes of the Wolverine Khan. “I created the caste system

with purpose, a purpose that I thought you understood. Having

our people in castes removed some of the societal tensions and

rifts that our forbearers dealt with. Castes remove the drive of

people to attempt to better themselves through bringing civil dis-

order. I thought you understood that.” With his last words, he cast

an icy stare into McEvedy’s eyes.

“I do understand,” the Wolverine Khan replied. “At the same time,

it was you who said that the caste system was a matter of necessi-

ty. I believe the phrase you used was, ‘for the duration of the crisis

BattleCorps

Foundations of Fate • Page 7

BattleCorps

facing our people.’ The civil war is over, ilKhan, we have brought

peace to our people. Some of my castes were chaﬁng, and I felt

that it was necessary to allow some migration between castes to

preserve civil order. I had no idea that it would bother you.”

There was more to it than that. Nicholas’s reforms went far be-

yond the caste system, and McEvedy had been struggling with

keeping them in place for some time. The genetic engineering pro-

gram for Warriors, for example, had been a temporary measure

that had evolved into a program that appeared to be one that was

not going to end. The experimental use of drugs to suppress sex

drives in the Warriors to prevent the urge to procreate had been

experimented with and had caused some minor incidents until

the practice was cancelled. The Clans were still coming to terms

with the societal changes that had been imposed years before.

McEvedy had always believed that the measures were temporary,

but over time, she saw that not only did Nicholas have no desire

to remove them, he had other changes planned.

“It does bother me. It is not minor in my eyes, or those of your

fellow Khans. The Wolverines are part of a larger society, Sarah.

I have put such measures and changes in place in our society to

prevent some of what led to our civil war and near destruction. If

not for the formation of our Clans and the guides of the caste sys-

tem, I would be guilty of ending one war and laying the foundation

for another.”

“I always assumed that there was some degree of control that each

of us had over our own Clan. Khans rule their own people. I am not

abolishing castes, simply allowing more ﬂexibility than my peers.”

“Neg,” Nicholas said, pausing for dramatic effect. “We are one

people, under one vision, my own. It is a vision that saved us from

destruction. You are a Khan, but you rule at the behest of your su-

perior.” His words were like that of judge passing sentence.

“The caste system is now permanent, there is no movement be-

tween them, quiaff ?

Nicholas smiled, but it was not a warm, friendly grin, but one

that showed hints of danger at the edges. “Aff, Khan McEvedy.

I cannot have your Wolverines implement changes that would

cause strife in other clans and ripples of dissent in our society as a

whole. You will go back to your people—my people—and tell them

the wisdom of the castes. You will reeducate them if necessary.

Those individuals that you have moved from one caste to another

will return to their former roles.”

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

BattleCorpsBattleCorpsBETRAYALOFIDEALSBookI:FoundationsofFateBlaineLeePardoeBattleCorpsFoundationsofFate•PageBattleCorpsTheGreatHallStranaMechtyClanSpace12June2822KhanSarahMcEvedywalkedaroundtheconstructionsite,care-fullyeyeingtheworkinprogress.TheGreatHall’scornerstonehadbeenlaidlongago,butprogres...

展开>> 收起<<

Blaine Lee Pardoe - Battletech - Battlecorps - Betrayal Of Ideals Part 1.pdf

共31页,预览7页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Blaine Lee Pardoe - Battletech - Battlecorps - Betrayal Of Ideals Part 1

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: