BattleTech Legends: Masters of War: A Dark Age Novel by Michael A. Stackpole

Author:Michael A. Stackpole
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs

CHAPTER 18

OVERLORD-CLASS DROPSHIP JAEGER, IN TRANSIT

FORMER PREFECTURE IX

(REPUBLIC OF THE SPHERE)

20 JANUARY 3137

Alaric was too grateful at having been given clothes to mind that the stained jumpsuit had frayed cuffs and was sized for an Elemental. He couldn’t believe it when the door to his cell had opened and the jumpsuit was tossed to him. He caught it only because he’d had his hands up to ward off another blast of cold water.

He’d pulled it on and huddled in it when the lights went out for the first time in his captivity. He cowered there, shivering, waiting for the lights, waiting for the water. Soaked, the clothes would be leaden on him. Part of him was certain it was a trick, but mostly he was beyond caring.

Having been given clothes was a kindness, and he clung to it.

In the dark, he slept and fell into long, odd dreams. He saw himself as a titan walking across a landscape where ’Mechs warred with each other. Red and green beams linked targets and killers. Flights of missiles crisscrossed the battlefield. ’Mechs dissolved in sheets of flame, yet somehow more and more of them poured into the valley where he walked.

He strode among them, kicking out to topple some, stomping others into the ground. He was invincible, a god of war treating 100-ton war machines like toys. They turned their weapons on him, but their assaults tickled. The futility of their opposition was clear to everyone, yet they kept coming.

Then the wave hit him. In a heartbeat the valley walls rose and curled over his head, with ’Mechs standing on the interior of the tube. No longer did they shoot hot light. Their weapons projected water jets and hit him from every direction. Water poured over him, shrinking him, melting him, until he bobbed in a river that sucked him circling down into a black hole from which there was no escape.

He woke shocked and sweating from that dream, then fell immediately back into it. He had no way to judge how long he slept each time, but he made it through at least ten dream cycles. He could have gone to sleep again, but the door opened and two Elementals summoned him out of his cell.

They conducted him through the DropShip to showers. They tossed him in and threw a bar of soap and a brush after him. “Five minutes.”

Alaric stripped out of the jumpsuit and quickly washed himself. He lathered up twice and would have gone for a third time, but he figured opportunity was running out. It wasn’t that he was actually dirty; he just wanted to scrub off the flesh that had been sprayed so often. On some level he believed it had betrayed him, and he wanted it gone.

He dried himself with a towel clipped to the wall, then combed his hair with his fingers. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and the haunted face that looked back at him twisted his guts. Beard flecked his cheeks and dark circles helped sink his eyes deep in his head.

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