Shrapnel: Fragments from the Inner Sphere

‘You came to us from the Blackguards,’ he said at last.

‘Yes, sir.’ He knew her combat record as well as she did. What was the problem?

‘And...I believe you lost your brother.’ He spoke gently, almost hesitantly, but the words burned all the same.

‘Yes...sir.’ The words were bitten off and sharp. She was determined not to let the emotion show.

‘So you have it in for the Kuritans.’

Those bastards!she thought angrily, but aloud all she said was, ‘Why do you say that, Colonel?’

Carlyle crossed his own arms. ‘We had a problem today, you and I.’

‘Sir?’

‘I ordered you to pull out...not to face that Griffin one on one. You stayed put and slugged it out.’

She wondered briefly why he had waited until now, instead of bringing it up right after the battle. Then she realized he must have waited deliberately, so that he could talk with her away from the rest of the company. She was grateful for the courtesy, but then decided he was condescending to her. And that was one thing Tracy Maxwell Kent would take from no one.

She threw back her head. ‘I won.’

‘Bull!’Carlyle roared the word, and Tracy took a step back, startled. The Colonel got up from his stool and leaned forward, his hands on the edge of the map table. When he spoke again, his voice was low but full of tremendous power. ‘That scrap of yours came right down to the wire. The only damn thing that saved your skin was the fact that the Griffin pilot couldn't have known you were shutting down! He figured you were about to pot him another one and punched out. If he'd have hung on for one more good shot, you'd have been more than frozen out of the fight. You would have been dead!’

‘But he didpunch out...’

‘Are you telling me you were relying on luck?’

‘No. sir. I mean...’ She stopped, confused. Grayson Carlyle was known across the Lyran Commonwealth for his luck...and the luck of his mercenary unit. ‘Don't you. Colonel? Rely on luck. I mean?’

‘God help me, no! I use it, if it comes around, but I also remember that there're two kinds of luck, good and bad. If you want to live in this business, you learn not to gamble on fifty-fifty propositions. You can do that only so long before the odds catch up with you!’

‘Yes, sir.’ Tracy spoke stiffly, without emotion. She had come to this tent expecting congratulations, and instead she was getting a lecture.

The Colonel read her mood and frowned. ‘You joined us on Helm.’ he said.

‘Yes. sir. Your Exec recruited me on Galatea.’

‘You've been piloting Mechs ...what? Two years now?’

‘Something like that.’

It was a long and complicated story, and in any case, she was sure that Carlyle already knew her file.

Tracy Maxwell Kent had been born far across the Inner Sphere, on the world of New Avalon, heart and capital of the far-flung Federated Suns of House Davion. Her father was Lord Rodney Howard Kent, her brother Captain Sir Roderick Fitzroy Kent, and she had been the pampered daughter of one of the wealthier noble families of the Federated Suns.

The death of her brother had shattered her. She and Fitz had always been close, and news that he had died defending a nameless hill on a world in the Draconis March had led her brooding and depressed Her decision to join the military academy on New Avalon had brought about the final split between her and her family. Especially after her father used his position to have her thrown out of the academy.

That should have been the end of her MechWarrior career, but Tracy Kent was an unusually stubborn and determined young lady. Instead of returning to her family's estate, she'd joined the line infantry as a private, then taught herself what she needed to know to become a Tech Soon she'd worked her way up to Tech Sergeant with the Blackguards, and eventually she'd been given the chance to pilot a Mech on her own.

She'd fought on Cassias, and survived, though the Blackguards as a unit did not. Cashiered after the slaughter on that world, she drifted from world to world- with the Dutiful Daughter,her beloved Phoenix Hawk,until she made it to Galatea and tell in with a recruiter tor the Gray Death Legion. Hoping for a chance to kill Kurita MechWarriors, she'd been disappointed that her first fight with the Legion had been against Marik forces, on Helm.

Things had been looking up after her fight today, though. Until now. that is.

‘A MechWarrior cannot rely on luck.’ Carlyle said slowly. ‘What he relies on is the steadiness and the training and the discipline of his lancemates.’

‘Yes. sir.’

‘You had point this afternoon. You flushed that ambush. You fought well. But..,’ He let the word hang in the air a moment...a rebuke. ‘You weren't working with the rest of us. I gave you an order, and you disregarded it. You chose to fight it out on your own, and very nearly cost the Legion an expensive and hard-to-replace medium 'Mech.’ He smiled then, unexpectedly. ‘You also nearly got yourself killed, young lady…and that wouldn't do at all.’

He looked at her expectantly, as though waiting for some reply. Almost, she opened her mouth to protest, to explain that she'd done what she'd thought best, that the situation at the time had...

‘I understand, sir. It won't happen again.’

‘Good. Because I'm relying on you.’

‘Colonel?’

‘All of us have to rely on each other. Tracy. We haveto, or one day we'll meet somebody bigger and tougher than us... and it'll all be up. We work together as a team, or else we die as a mob. There are no other options.’

‘Yes. sir.’

‘Then that's all that needs to be said about it Now you'd better turn in. I'm going to need you tomorrow for a special assignment. I want you rested. Dismissed.’

Tracy couldn't help wondering if the ‘special assignment’ was punishment for her actions of the day before. It was all well and good to have the Colonel lecture her on being part of a team, but then he separated her from the main body of the unit to do some make-work far from where the action would be.

Shionoha was a forbidding world, a planet of rugged mountains and chill, broken plateaus, of continent-sized glaciers and small, land-locked seas that were as salty, ice-cold, and gray as the sky. The world owed its name, curiously enough, to the Terran Japanese colonists who had founded the first settlement close to the vast Shionohara.the salt-plain, which marked the dry, mineral-encrusted basin of a long vanished ocean.

Despite the planet's name, its predominant terrain was mountainous. Company A had made a combat drop onto the Shionohara flats, securing an area where the Legion's DropShips could ground and disgorge the rest of the unit's men and machines. Their primary target was Kaigun, at the site of the world's first settlement, 300 kilometers north from the drop zone. The planet's principal spaceport and 'Mech repair facilities were both located at Kaigun. Carlyle had split his force in two, the infantry and cav vehicles setting off across the mineral flats of the Shionohara. while A Company and the training cadre turned west into the mountains, climbing narrow, switchback paths into the wilderness above the vanished sea. The column of 18 'Mechs had been climbing the twisting path for two days, swinging far to the west of Kaigun before descending from the mountain passes and into the agricultural lands around the city.

Twenty klicks northwest of Kaigun was an industrial center at a village called Mi-fune. Analysis of photos taken from orbit suggested that at least some of the buildings were used for manufacturing and storing weapons and spare parts of BattleMechs. The Second Dieron Regulars were a tough, veteran unit, one with hard-earned experience fighting in the mountains. If the struggle for Shionoha turned into a prolonged campaign, the Pride of Shionoha would have to be deprived of its sources of replacements and spares. And that was Tracy's mission.