BattleTech: The Quest for Jardine: (A Forgotten Worlds Collection) by Herbert A. Beas II

Author:Herbert A. Beas II
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2024-02-20T05:00:00+00:00

TRIBE ENCAMPMENT

FOREST OF SHROUDS

JARDINE (HERAKLEION)

FREE WORLDS LEAGUE

2 NOVEMBER 3067

As he stepped through another tabiranth-hide curtain into a chamber that appeared large enough to be a communal barracks, Lucille spared a moment to admire the Waywards’ resourcefulness. Fiber-optic light channels, hewn wood structural supports, woven rugs, ancient-yet-well-maintained firearms, EMP mines on triplines, and all manner of portable energy devices (likely scavenged from Hope itself), all worked to provide maximum habitability within their earthen enclave without giving away their presence to the world outside. Just like their brethren in the city, these Waywards valued their invisibility; clearly, the lessons of the Malu Tribe had not been lost on them.

It was a shame they still had to die.

Just because two off-world Frails entered their midst.

As quickly as the warring surges of pride and regret washed over Lucille, they were gone. Mercy was not the way of the Master’s Hands. The mission was paramount. Although these Waywards were not the enemy they had been made to fight, the Manei Domini had only one ultimate function. Everything else belonged to those who were not monsters.

The shoulder of Lucille’s Achileus armor scraped a furrow into a curved, earthen wall as he swung about, scanning a small side chamber for signs of life. Two corpses—still cooling toward ambient temperature in his thermal-augmented view—were all he saw. Each had been penetrated by no less than four shots, and left propped up against the wall.

His HUD flagged them as a navigation point labeled “Null.” The flag told him what he already knew from the bodies’ hand-made hunters’ garb and deeper skin tones. It also told him his troopers were still minding their job and inspecting their kills to confirm these weren’t the off-worlders they sought.

“Precentor!” a voice harshly snapped in his ear—Adept Quang, the MechWarrior commanding the Nexus he left to hold the perimeter above. “I have a contact approaching.”

Lucille’s eyes narrowed. Quang’s tone hinted at his confusion. He keyed the warrior’s channel directly. “And?”

“It appears to be Adept Moakay’s Griffin, sir.”

This time, it was Lucille’s turn to sound bewildered. “Moakay?”

His mind raced. There had been no time to confirm the Griffin’s pilot had survived his fall. Indeed, after the squeal of the warrior’s comms going dead amid a roar of unspeakable agony—followed by his machine’s IFF winking out while chasing that Wayward hunter—Lucille simply presumed Moakay had suffered a fatal run-in with another of these Waywards’ damnable mines. After trying to regain contact several times, it was Lucille himself that ordered the Griffin’s last known position flagged for later investigation, certain they would find only a dead husk of both man and machine there when this was all over. The odds certainly did not look good, after all.

It was possible he had miscalculated. But that would make Moakay the luckiest Domini in this entire operation.

And Poltergeist Precentor Sigma Damien Lucille did not believe in luck.

“Adept Quang,” he barked, “hail that BattleMech at once!”

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