I must be tired. I am starting to sound like some rote repetition of some old, Kerensky-inspired text. Old warriors never die, they just ramble on.

I hope Aidan benefits from our harshness toward him. He seems strong, but has an edge of singularity about him. He is not like the others. There is a secret Aidan being held back from us, I am certain of that. Whether it will come out, I do not know. Whether it will bring him success or failure at the final Trial, I do not know.

I must make him succeed, for Ramon Mattlov's sake.

I know how difficult it is to be at this stage of training, where one is just learning the weaponry. Soon, they will begin to know the feel of a real, fully armed BattleMech, and then will begin the real tests.

How many of them will even reach the final test? This sibko started with twelve. Six cadets remain. I remember only slightly the ones who are gone. There was the one named Dav, who will succeed very well in the artisan caste to which he has been assigned. Also, the surprisingly athletic, stocky fellow, Endo. I cannot easily forget him, for I had to supervise the disposal of his body after he was run over by a light tank during field maneuvers. No one knew how he got in the path of the tank. The driver said the boy suddenly stumbled in front of the vehicle, then looked at it bearing down on him as if it were an apparition.

Others in the sibko have failed at different points of the training. I do not recalls any other names. Left are Aidan and his near-twin Marthe, a feisty scrapper named Bret, a skilled battler named Rena, and two others whose staying power seems unlikely: Tymm does not seem smart enough to handle a difficult fighting machine, while Peri is intelligent but only barely successful when manual skills are required. I would like to see her succeed in a BattleMech cockpit, but I suspect she will be out of her element. Though she would do well in any other caste, I notice in her codex that she scores well enough to go to the scientists.

Even if Peri could hold her own in all phases of the training, she will probably flush out in the next phase, when we accelerate the BattleMech exercises and set the survivors among this sibko against each other. Peri is not competitive enough.

This phase could eliminate Aidan, too. He is, in a way, too competitive. He needs too much to succeed.

I cannot write any more now. The joint of my shoulder, where my real bodily muscle is fused with the myomer muscular structure of my artificial arm, aches so much that I am unable to put further thoughts together.

Now I will just sit here in the darkness, trying to read the future in the carved lines of the palm of my prosthetic hand.

9

As she whispered instructions to Aidan, Joanna's voice was almost affectionate (but that was ridiculous, had to be just imagination). "Rotate torso back to center forward. Slowly. That is adequate. Not smooth but adequate, Cadet Aidan. Now you, Cadet Peri."

Aidan glanced down at the screen of his onboard computer monitor. It diagrammatically showed Peri's 'Mech, a stripped-down Kit Foxlike his. The Kit Foxwas a slower light 'Mech than some others, but at its best had reasonable versatility and firepower.

Observing from the control tower were Marthe, Bret, Rena, and Tymm, along with Falconer Joanna. Aidan was sure they were envious that he and Peri had been chosen for the shakedown runs in the first exercise with full-fledged 'Mechs. Of course, Joanna could override the controls at any time. No one was foolish enough to think a cadet could manipulate a 'Mech effectively the first time in its cockpit.

Joanna put Peri through the same maneuvers, simple movements of the 'Mech torso, that Aidan had just completed. He was pleased to see that Peri's control was not as sure as his. Her 'Mech seemed to rotate in quick, jerky moves, probably indicating nervousness in her pressing of control buttons (These Kit Foxeswere being stabilized by the onboard computers rather than using the cadet's own sense of balance via a neurohelmet. This made the 'Mech's movements ungainly.)

On his screen the running score for Peri was accumulating slowly, and he could see that, at least in torso-operation, he would remain ahead of her in total points. She would not like that. Peri spent most of her off-time worrying about how she could improve her initiatory and reactive functions in order to keep up with the physical side of training. She already scored second-highest, just behind Marthe, on the more academic challenges that training provided. Some thought that she had become Falconer Dermot's pet, which was the reason she was selected as one of the first two to actually get inside a 'Mech and operate it. Perhaps so, but Aidan wondered whether the two of them had been chosen not so much for their abilities but because Joanna perceived them as failures and wanted to display their ineptitude to the others. The more Joanna rode him about his mistakes, the more she searched for the psychological flaws in his makeup, the more she told him he would flush out of training—the more Aidan needed to succeed. Not only because he wanted to be a MechWarrior, had always wanted to be a MechWarrior, but because he was determined to draw a drop of approval from her. (He did not, of course, know that when that moment came, later that day, it would happen in the wrong place and be so damned disappointing.)

Peri finished the torso drill and Joanna addressed Aidan. "Cadet Aidan. Check your heat scale. Does it show up normal? Respond."

On the intercom, cadets always had to wait for Joanna's order to respond before they could press and hold down the blue button next to the 'Mech throttle and actually speak to her. He had expected the communication restrictions to be relaxed once in a 'Mech, and it surprised him to learn that he could still not speak to Joanna or any other officer without permission to respond.

"Heat scale normal," he said and released the button.

"As it should be. I tell you to check only to make sure you realize the most important cockpit rule. Never—not in the heat of battle or the excitement of fixing an enemy 'Mech in your sights, lining it up, and using your most skillful assault plan, your best array of weaponry in the fancy blasts and pulses that have become your battlefield specialty—never, neverforget that you must be continually conscious of the ribbons of information revealed on the heat-scale gauge. A 'Mech is like a living being; it is like the horse of the cavalry, the camel of the desert warrior. You must continually care for it, not push it too much, not allow it to become overheated. Just as those animals speeded up the time, and in many ways, expanded the territory over which wars could be conducted, so the BattleMech—and especially the OmniMech—has quickened and enhanced the possibilities of ground warfare. But even with the improved heat-sink technology of the OmniMechs our scientists have provided us, we can still disable our own 'Mech, making it a sitting duck for others, or even get it blown up and ourselves with it, because we get so caught up in being a hero that we forget the patterns of awareness that a 'Mech pilot must maintain at all times.These patterns include the knowledge of your own 'Mech as well as the situation of the fellow warriors of your Star or Star Cluster. This warning is for all of you. Cadet Peri, you understand this, quiaff?Respond."

"Aff."

"Cadet Aidan? Respond."

"Aff."

"If you do, and if you have the stomach for combat, at the moment the special red light installed beside your primary screen begins to pulse, engage in battle."

Engage in battle? Had he heard right? This was supposed to be a mere exercise in first-time awareness of being in a real 'Mech. Joanna had said nothing about battle in her instructions.