1 June 3051
"So,when you dropped your 'Mech down on its haunches and cranked the torso back to give your arms more range, I had to break off. It was a good move."
"Thank you, Carew." Phelan Wolf nodded solemnly as his companion finished his explanation of the exercise they had just completed. Carew was a small, slender man of the type common among Clan pilots. His unruly shock of blond hair made his head seem yet bigger, and his large green eyes gave him a look of childlike innocence. Still, in all the time Phelan had spent training in antiaircraft maneuvers with him, the MechWarrior knew his friend to be anything but childlike or innocent.
Carew shrugged. "With Natasha, Ranna, Evantha, and me training you, the only question when you test out is whether you would do it as a MechWarrior, a pilot, or an Elemental."
Wearing shorts and T-shirts in place of their cooling vests, the two men marched up a grassy slope to a massive plateau. The flat expanse had been sectioned off into a score of playing fields, each carefully delineated by a chalk line. Each field was split in half across the middle and each end had a circle surrounding a goal approximately two meters square and located four meters from the end line.
The players out on the field wore helmets with a mesh cage to protect their faces, padded gloves, arm guards, and padded torso protectors with a red or blue circle in the center. They carried sticks whose length varied, depending on the player's position on the field, but all had triangular nets on one end. Phelan noted that defensive players carried sticks as tall as they were. As most of them were Elementals, that meant they were long, indeed. Offensive players, mostly pilots like Carew, had short sticks that could be whipped around very quickly. Midfielders carried sticks about a meter and a half in length, as did the goalie, but the net on his stick was four times the size of the others.
Phelan smiled. "Hey, lacrosse. We used to play this on Outreach and I played for the Academy during my time at the Nagelring."
Carew nodded. "I think you'll find this game a bit different than what you played on Outreach." He held up his hand to forestall Phelan's question. "I've been talking to Natasha's archivist about the differences between how we play here and they play there. But if you go on this field thinking the game is the same, you'll get yourself killed."
Phelan looked out at the field and watched the players chase the ball around for a while. The red team caught and tossed the small white ball back and forth, working it in toward the blue goal. One of the midfielders cut across the middle, caught a pass from a forward, and sent the ball whistling in at the goal. The goalie scooped it up and started it heading back down the field.
"I hear what you say, Carew, but aside from a lot of butt-ending by players, it does not look that different."
"Butt-ending?"
"Smacking another player with the aft end of the stick. You know, a foul."
"Foul?"
Out on the field, one blue player jabbed his stick into the ribs of a red player, crumpling the victim. "Yeah, like that, spearing. That's a foul. It's illegal. Against the rules."
"Phelan, we have no fouls. You get points for that sort of thing."
"Oh." Phelan watched the game for a moment, winced as another player got hit hard, then shrugged. "Well, that's almost the way we played at the Nagelring. It's not thatdifferent."
The small man smiled. "Ah, but that's the difference that makes all the difference. If you have the ball, you are considered 'live.' That means anyone who hits you with the butt end of his stick in the circle takes a point from your team. You can poke back, but while you're carrying the ball, that's not usually a good move. Each goal is worth fifty points to your team. The game goes for an hour, or until a team is forced into negative points. The teams start with one hundred points, but forcing a team to retire early is less difficult than you might think."
"Hmmm. Interesting variation." Phelan took another look at the game. "Unlike everything else around here, the game is not co-ed."
Carew shivered. "Play against women? No thank you. They are vicious. The only thing worse than playing against a woman in sport is fighting against one for a Bloodname, or so I understand."
"I see." Phelan pointed to the nearest game. "Do you think they could use a couple of new players?"
"Could be, but only you could play that game. The red team is House Ward and the blues are House Demos. The players are all unbloods, so they shouldlet you play."
"Should?"
"The guy who took that last shot on goal was Vlad. As I recall, the only thing you two agree on is that one of you will be killed by the other."
"True." Phelan frowned slightly. "Which is your House?"
Carew shrugged. "I was born into House Nygren."
Phelan heard annoyance and resignation in his friend's voice. "You say that as though it were a curse."
"It is, after a manner of speaking. Nygren has never had a strong fighter pilot contingent. Twenty-five years ago, the Wolves beat the Jade Falcons in a battle, and Nygren got genetic material from House Malthus that was thought to contain the DNA that gives Malthus pilots their edge in combat. I am a product of that line."
"So why so glum? You should have a leg up on other folks when it comes to a Bloodname contest. You've got an edge."
Carew shook his head. "Just after the second generation was produced from the spoils of our victory, we learned that the genetic material came from a cadet branch of the family. Though Wolf scientists claimed the genes were the same as those we were seeking, the subterfuge embarrassed some of the Nygren elders. This has left a taint on those of us born of that victory, making our chances of being nominated for a Bloodname slim or simply nil."
"And to work through the open battling would be relatively worthless." Phelan reached out and gave Carew's shoulder a squeeze. "Sorry about that, my friend. Perhaps when we return to the Inner Sphere, you will achieve something that will force them to nominate you."
"Perhaps." Carew pointed over at the game. "Half-time break. This is your chance to get into the game."
Phelan grinned. "You don't mind watching?"
"Go on. Natasha's archivist had some information about you that he passed along. House Demos has a bad gene. They all gamble too much." He smiled broadly. "If you live up to the rumors, I can earn some favors at this."
Chuckling, Phelan turned from his friend and crossed to the knot of sweaty players on the sidelines. He approached a balding, brown-haired man he recognized as the one who had been speared. When the man looked up, Phelan placed him as someone he had fought in a 'Mech training session. "You are Emilio, Quiaff?"'
The man drained his cup of water and drew another from the cooler. "Aff, and you are Phelan."
"Right. Need another player?"
Emilio shrugged. "Vlad, do you want another warm body out there? My breathing is getting ragged. I think Carter popped one of my ribs with that last point-touch."
"Phelan?" Vlad's voice mixed disbelief with scorn. "Has Cyrilla decided to let you play rough with the rest of us?"
Phelan turned slowly and saw Vlad surrounded by the other players of the team. Half of them shared Vlad's disdainful look, but the others—mostly Elementals—seemed merely to await Phelan's reply. Phelan smiled easily. "I do not know about playing rough, Vlad, but it strikes me that is not necessarily the object of this game. If I score goals, the number of times I poke someone else is irrelevant, Quiaff?"'
Vlad raised an eyebrow. "You will find that hitting is not as rough as being hit." He gave Phelan a fish-eye, then nodded slowly. "You can play."