Victor Milan - Flight of the Falcon

Not that his guest was inclined to criticize on that basis. He himself would have fallen by the wayside long ago, had he been forced to rely purely upon his prowess in personal combat to maintain his own exalted place in his Clan. Given decadence, why not enjoy it? And anyway, whatever he had done to ensure his own survival, career and literal, had kept the Falcon from being robbed of one of her most able and dedicated servants.

As Khan Jana Pryde, ruler of Clan Jade Falcon, herself said often, “Traditions are worth respecting only if they further our cause.”

Binetti’s companion smiled and banished such mostly pleasant reveries from the cathedral of his mind. “Let him look, then, Star Admiral,” said Galaxy Commander Beckett Malthus, leader of the proud Turkina Keshik—and of the expeditionary force as a whole. “There is no way to stop him.”

“We could interdict,” Binetti rapped. “Blast him from space.”

“The Khan has commanded the Talon be used only to awe, not to fight,” Malthus reminded him.

Binetti snapped up a hand in irritation. “Loose our fighters, then. They could use the blooding.”

“We could,” Malthus agreed, nodding and smiling gravely. “But to what end? The plan, remember, is to avoid conflict with our unwitting Lyran hosts if at all possible.”

“Best way to do that is to keep them in the dark,” the admiral said.

Malthus shrugged. He was a man of imposing height and breadth of shoulder, not unusual for a MechWarrior. He had a not insignificant bulge about the middle, which was unusual; but it was hidden by the artful drape of the robe-like garment he wore, green trimmed with black—the Jade Falcon colors.

Of course, such artifice was itself none too common within the Clans.

Topping all he possessed a great rounded square of head on which russet hair retreated between temple and crown, leaving a wide arrow-shaped salient down his broad forehead, and a wide, square jaw fringed with beard. To the extent the Clans, which tended to select against age, had any such thing, he fit perfectly the archetype of an elder statesman who remained, however, a prime Mech Warrior. Which was why Khan Jana Pryde had flouted tradition and decreed to him the coveted command of Turkina Keshik, lead formation of the entire Falcon Touman, and hence the greatdesant into the heart of decadence in the Inner Sphere, instead of leaving the outcome to a bidding Trial.

That, or Bec Malthus had come out second-best in a game of intrigue, a game in which he held himself past master among Clan Jade Falcon—but that thought did not bear thinking.

“They will inevitably learn, my friend,” he murmured sonorously. “Indeed, they may know already. Someone might have observed us on one of our previous jumps through Steiner space, without us observing them in turn.”

“That is so,” Binetti acknowledged, only somewhat stiffly. Disagreements were best handled circumspectly, lest they turn into open dispute—in which case the party who came out second best would be compelled by Clan custom to claim the “right” ofsurkai , the rite of forgiveness for being divisive. Khan Jana Pryde had specifically enjoined her warriors from intramural dueling, common among the Clans and incessant among Falcons. So desperate was their undertaking that literally no one could be spared.

Which made the fight currently taking place in one of the WarShip’s bays that much more remarkable. Neither Binetti nor Malthusoficially knew of the combat trial taking place between a Star Captain and a Galaxy Commander, even though it was being carried out with full Clan ceremony.

“The success of ourdesant is of course all,” Malthus intoned. “And however much it might cut against our warrior grain, old friend, all depends upon avoiding conflict as long as possible. For even given the superiority of our Clan ways and our Clan warriors—and Jade Falcon’s warriors are supreme without question in all of human space—those truths notwithstanding, our mission is so supremely ambitious, so daring, that we must seek every advantage as zealously as a Sea Fox merchant-captain grubbing after the last possible penny of profit.”

Binetti nodded his square head almost dolorously. “What you say is true, Bec Malthus,” he said. “But I burn toact . And I am not the only one: already my Naval Reserve warriors grow restive. Patience has not often been reckoned high among the Falcons’ virtues.”

“How well I know,” Malthus said. He still marveled at the sheer sententiousness of his fellow ranking Clansmen, and not just cement heads like the Admiral. “Yet sacrificehas been so reckoned, and so we must sacrifice immediate gratification of our longing for the hot blood of action, no matter how strong that demand.”

“I suppose,” Binetti said grudgingly.

“In any event, emissaries of Khan Jana Pryde should shortly make official representation to the Archon to announce our mission, avow peaceful intent toward theLyranCommonwealth , and demand our passage not be contested upon pain of war.”

“Speaking of actions with little precedent in our Clan,” Binetti said, “I do not know, friend, if I can truthfully say that I hope the emissaries succeed in mollifying the Steiners, but I will admit I have little faith that they will.”

Malthus smiled. “We shall see ourselves, in the fullness of time. In the meantime, we are agreed, are we not, that we shall not contest or molest this little merchantman fleeing us so incontinently?”

“We are, Galaxy Commander,” said Dolphus Binetti. He pushed a brief snort through his broad short nose. “Bid well and done.”

“That was stupid,” the giant said, grinning all over his red-bearded face as he enfolded Aleks Hazen in his tree trunk-sized arms.

“I am grateful as always for your unflagging support, Magnus,” said Aleks, his voice muffled by the Elemental’s slablike pectoral muscle.

“Not so,” a voice said from behind Aleks. He disengaged from the giant and turned.

The voice belonged, as well he knew, to a small, compactly built, strikingly beautiful woman with a meter-long white-blond braid tossed over the shoulder of an almost all-black Jade Falcon field uniform.

“It was good for discipline,” she said in a voice crisp and cool as a springtime wind onSudeten . “We must allow those who support us to see that we support them, inferior though theybe ”

Having availed themselves of the opportunity to pop his shoulder back into its socket, tech-class medics bundled the fallen and still unconscious Star Captain from the hold. The spectators had begun to filter out. The red-bearded Elemental tossed a clean white towel at Aleks. “Some of us have duties to tend to. I’ll see you later, Galaxy Commander.” He tipped a finger off one bushy eyebrow to the small woman and walked away with the customary ponderous grace of his specialized breed.

Aleks looked down at the compact woman. “For all that your own uniform is not quite regulation,” he said. “I understand you are a stickler for discipline, Galaxy Commander Malvina Hazen. Forgive me if I wonder whether you would have the same attitude had I undertaken to so instruct one of your Gyrfalcons?”

Her laugh was musical, and despite her rigid military bearing neither forced nor strained. “Of course I would! Has it beenthat long since we were sibkin, Aleksandr dear?”

Malvina sat up in bed with the covers bunched any old way around her breasts. A pink-tipped pointy one poked out regardless.

“Why did you not?” she asked, not looking at him.

“Why did I not what?” asked Aleks. He lay beside her with his hands laced behind his head. His white teeth gleamed faintly in the light of a dimmed lamp beside the bed in his austere courtesy quarters aboard the flagship.