The lack of sound made the whole battle eerily surreal. Because the fight took place in an arena called The Factory, with everything in scale to the thirty-meter-tall BattleMechs, the holovid could have been seen as a fight between two men in exoskeletons. The holovid, which had been edited and broadcast throughout the Inner Sphere almost ten years earlier, showed Justin in a Centurion pitted against an equally humanoid Griffin. Kai’s head turned toward the screen and Justin felt a jolt run through the boy. Because he is my ruler, I did as he asked. Back before the last war Hanse Davion asked me to go to Solaris and fight to become Champion. They engage in fights and all the fighters want to become Champion. It’s called the Game World because people go there to play at war. He killed the sound on the holovid with the punch of another button. Justin hit a button on the remote control and brought a picture to life on the screen. I got it just before the last one, Kai, but that’s not the point. Yes, before my father was born, a very bad man named Stefan Amaris destroyed the Star League and wars have been waged ever since by people trying to put it back together. In combat the BattleMechs were frightful machines, and everyone in the Inner Sphere fought each other until they decided to unite and live in peace under the Star League. They made them very strong and, just like in ancient times, BattleMechs ruled war the way knights in shining armor once did. They filled them with powerful weapons-lasers and particle projection cannons and missiles and guns-and put armor on them. They made them big, taller than two or three of our houses stacked upon one another. Kai, six centuries ago-a very long time, before even your grandfather Quintus was born-some very smart men created BattleMechs. Justin draped his right arm over his son’s shoulders, and filled his mechanical left hand with the holovid remote control. Father led son to the brown leather couch on one side of the room where they faced the dark holovid monitor. He left his chair and took his son’s left hand in his flesh and blood right hand. That made him cry." Kai’s confession ended in a strained whisper filled with pain. Then I got into a fight with Jimmy Kefaveur. "They said you were in that fight and that you killed a man.
Kai’s gray eyes flicked down and color rose to his cheeks. Some of the other boys at the school watched a holovid of a ‘Mech fight from Slaris. He knew his son could still be a boy and run and play with other boys, acting his age, but when he had to deal with adult matters, he could handle them in an adult way. It frightened him to see his son so rigid, yet that level of maturity also fed his paternal pride. He held himself together with a self-discipline that belied his years-a self-discipline Justin had at times found lacking in MechWarriors six times the boy’s age. The little boy pressed his lips together into a flat line, then swallowed hard. Having spoken to the headmaster before sending a car to collect his son, Justin knew what had happened at the school, but he wanted to hear it in Kai’s words. The boy’s face did not betray the fear he had to be feeling, but the hushed tone of his whisper implied both remorse and personal mortification. Kai came to a stop at the left side of Justin’s chair, well within striking range of the metal forearm and hand Justin had worn since losing the real thing in service to the Federated Suns. The blue blazer, white shirt, striped tie, and short pants made it easy to view his stiff strides as a childish parody of martial precision, but Justin knew his quiet boy was not playing. Justin Allard watched his six-year-old son march into his study like a soldier reporting for disciplinary action. Ward Stackpole for medical advice Kerin Stackpole for the title Chris Hussey and Fredrick Coff for keeping me honest with Kai Sam Lewis for editorial advice Donna Ippolito for making me write in English John-Allen Price for a Cox Liz Danforth for tolerating me as it all came together Scott Jenkins for fact checking Larry Acuff, Keith Smith, and Craig Harris for the loans of characters and the GEnie Computer Network over which this novel and its revisions passed from the author’s computer straight to FASA.
Patrick Stackpole for his weapons’ expertise J. The author would like to thank the following people who by intent or accident contributed to this book: To William Cox, John Watts, Sr., and John Watts, Jr.
0 kommentar(er)
