The pontoons were assembled on the Clan side, in forty-meter sections. Each section was maneuvered out and linked to the end of the bridge as it stretched its way across the river.
The difficulty the engineers encountered was in keeping the linked pontoons in place in the turbulent river. Cables of every size and shape were strung to anchor the bridge and its sections. More cables were used to steady and maneuver the new sections to the end bridge. The shattered buttments of the old bridge, trees, BattleMechs, Elementals, and even simple techs were used to steady the floating sections.
Watching edgily from the Falcon Guard side of the river, Diana thought the sight somewhat comical, but also irritating because she was so anxious for it to be done so they could resume real combat. The fighting so far had intoxicated her. As in all addictions, she wanted more of it. Not later, not even soon, but now. She realized she was like a child at some village game, but did not care. All her dreams and expectations of the warrior life were being fulfilled in this Tukayyid campaign, and she was impatient with such unexceptional tasks as providing cover for bridge-building.
Diana's fingers tapped nervously on her joystick. Intelligence reports detected no ComStar activity anywhere near Robyn's Crossing, though the enemy had carried out some hit-and-run attacks at Plough Bridge. Marthe Pryde's BattleMechs and Elementals had easily beaten them back. Intelligence suggested that the Com Guards had pulled back into Olalla and Humptulips, ready to defend the objective cities against an expected onslaught. Well, of course, Diana thought. What else but an onslaught? After getting this far, the Jade Falcons were not about to cease being their usual fierce, merciless, and brutal selves.
When the fourth section of the bridge had been completed, all its pieces interlocked, all its sections tested by the fastidious engineer commander, the pontoons were hauled out into river. One pontoon slipped off its cable and went roaring down the river, bouncing on its surface like a child's balloon on a rush of air.
The cables were now attached to hooks on the bottom of a VTOL, which dragged them across the river to the other side. Several engineers were dropped from the vehicle to the bank, where, using battlesuited Elementals and a Viperto clutch the cables, the pontoons were positioned at this end while the opposite end of the bridge began to reach across the river toward the section on which assembly was continuing.
As the newest piece of the bridge was being maneuvered into place, a sudden shift in the river currents made one pontoon surge up, and the new section of the bridge buckled. The engineer in charge slipped to the edge of the bridge piece and nearly fell into the river. Grabbing a cable, he held on for dear life as the bridge piece teetered and seemed about to drop into the river.
Watching all this on her primary screen, which squeezed together the details of the scene to give a wider survey of it, Diana saw an Elemental break away from the pontoon cable that was his assignment. Shucking off his body armor with remarkable quickness, the now-naked Elemental ran toward the river bank. She saw that it was the Elemental she knew, Star Commander Selima.
* * *
Selima had studied the bridge-building with a scholar's detachment. It was just this curiosity about how anybody did anything that had helped him rise rapidly through the Elemental ranks to officer status.
When the disaster on the bridge occurred, Selima did not take time to think. That was not in his nature. A Clansman needed help. Warrior or tech, it did not matter. He let go the cable.
He ran toward the riverbank, the slight breeze off the river acting like a cooling vest on his skin. When almost there, he saw the engineer's grasp on the cable slip as the bridge piece shifted. The man slipped further down the cable and nearly fell off. The fall slid him away from the outstretched hands of would-be rescuers on the bridge itself.
It was just as Selima reached the riverbank that the man lost his grip on the bridge cable for the final time. Screaming, he fell into the chasm, landing first on the side of a pontoon, then falling away into the frenzied waters.
Selima dived into the river, his long body arched into a perfect swan dive. He entered the water with the smoothness of an athlete. Remaining underwater, he swam easily for several meters before surfacing near the pontoons. The people on the bridge gestured and pointed toward the spot where the engineer was last seen, his head emerging above water for the third time.
With quick strokes, Selima swam to that area, then dove underwater again. Using his keen eyesight, he scanned the area all around, up and down. He immediately spotted the drowning man, sinking downward, his body slack. The breath Selima had been holding all this time began to press painfully against his lungs, begging for release. As he let out just a bit, the bubbles tickled the skin of his face as they danced upward.
Fighting the underwater current with his tremendous strength, Selima reached the drowning man with swift, even strokes. Irrational resistance from the victim would be no problem for he was now unconscious. Grabbing him under the shoulders and holding one hand over the man's nose and mouth to reduce the swallowing of water, Selima used his powerful right arm to stroke upward toward the surface. Letting out his own breath shallowly, he felt the river try to push him back. But he overcame its resistance as easily as he might overcome an enemy infantryman.
When Selima finally broke surface and pushed the victim into the air, other Elementals on the shore cast a cable out to him. He grabbed it and let his comrades pull them to shore. The engineer did not seem to be breathing. Reaching the shore, Selima yelled to the others to bring him his battle suit.
As he pulled the engineer onto the bank, he saw the man's face turning blue while his body remained limp. Once they were both out of the water and up the bank, Selima told one of the Elementals from his Star to hold wide the opening of the suit. Lifting the body from the bank, he virtually dunked the engineer into the Elemental armor. Immediately the battle suit's medical diagnostic system began to operate, diagnosing the problem and pumping stimulants into the engineer. It was only moments before the man's body jerked suddenly and he began to breathe. Selima glanced up at an engineer officer who had just arrived at the scene.
"Works a bit quicker than mouth to mouth, quiaff?"Selima said.
* * *
"An attractive rescue," said Kael Pershaw unexpectedly.
Aidan was beginning to hate the way the voice erupted out of nowhere, just when he was concentrating on something else. Clan warriors were trained to react to sudden events, but nothing in any training or any manual prepared a warrior for a disembodied voice in the cockpit of his 'Mech.
"Are you sure? What if the Elemental had drowned? Was the life of a mere engineer worth the risk? The bridge will be built no matter how many engineers are sacrificed to its construction. But the life of that Elemental could mean the difference between victory or defeat in battle."
Kael Pershaw made a sound that might have been laughter, might have been scorn. From what he knew of Pershaw, Aidan opted for scorn. "I merely said the rescue was attractive," Pershaw said evenly. "I did not say it was necessary. Still, it shows the courage you have instilled in your Falcon Guards, and that is worth something to your codex. I checked the codex of this Elemental, by the way. His name is Selima. He can always be counted on to risk his life, even in such trivial situations as this. He is not like other Elementals, except in his wonderful fighting skills. In all other ways—his gentleness, his foolish risks—he is unlike most of his kind. In the same way a certain Clan warrior I know is not like other Clan warriors."