Then Joanna held her sword pointed high above her head. "The Clan will prevail!"she shouted.

"Seyla," came the answering, massive shout to the heavens.

Aidan was exhilarated, adrenaline rushing through his veins as the fever pitch of the ceremony combined with the way he had risked his life at swordpoint. He had always wanted to be a warrior, but sometimes had doubted his own worth. Tonight there were no doubts. He wouldbe a warrior of the Clans. He had to be.

15

How well I remember the first time in a heavy BattleMech, Ter Roshak wrote. It is a sensation I recall so vividly, though it happened so long ago. I envy our current cadets this unforgettable moment. There is something different about getting into the cockpit of one of the big ones. After all the training in the lighter models, where you get used to a certain ease of movement, the heavier 'Mechs at first seem graceless and hard to maneuver. All that tonnage underneath their feet gives the neophyte pilots some qualms. They wonder how something as fragile as a neurohelmet working off one's brain waves is able to keep an unwieldy monster like a 'Mech in balance, keep it from falling flat on its angular face. And more than the balance, how can they trust the neurohelmet to make the 'Mech take its steps efficiently and naturally?

If we were not of the Clan, the first time in a 'Mech would perhaps be a worrisome experience. But the Clan blood charging like cavalry through the intricate pathways of our bodies tells us that no large conglomeration of metal and other materials is beyond our capabilities. The basic sensory difference between piloting a smaller 'Mech and guiding one of the big ones is only a temporary setback, a fear that comes only once. We gain control, and from then on are either warriors or failures. No other outcome is possible in the Trial of Position. The failures either survive and go to another caste, or they die. Here in Crash Camp we have swept countless corpses off the battlefield.

People I meet from outside the Clan, Periphery bondsmen and the like, often question the harshness of such trials, which, like so many of our customs, they find somewhat pitiless. They especially center on the Warrior Caste. They do not understand that the trials mustbe almost insurmountable; it is the only way to turn out exemplary warriors. Anything less, any cadet passed along and given the name of warrior while retaining flaws, renders the training meaningless.

We are not here, after all, to churn out the kind of dispensable soldier that in the past was called cannon fodder. Such warriors were the products of a certain democratization on Terra, when mass man was recruited to fight battles by power-hungry leaders or zealous rebels. It was considered glorious to charge an entrenched enemy, leaving behind many dead heroes in a triumph that gained perhaps two centimeters of the battleground. If one side had significantly more personnel than the other, that side could win a battle—not through strategy or tactics but through attrition of the other side. Such situations were not war, but rather mere organized slaughter. Personal sacrifice was an ideal that sounded better than it ever was in practice.

I do not criticize here the individual heroic act, which is admirable. In any kind of warfare soldiers who give up their lives to save others or whose acts of bravery damage or destroy enemy facilities to settle a battle that might have been costlier are examples of heroic deeds that stand apart from the issues of the war at hand. Victory or defeat, right or wrong, absurdity or glory—those concepts do not apply even to such deeds. The act justifies itself without benefit of doctrines.

The war that wastes lives disgusts me. Unnecessary personal sacrifice is a waste; the heroic act that saves no one is a waste. General Kerensky was right when he proclaimed that war and preparation for war must be accomplished with a sense of economy. The minimum number of warriors necessary for the battle is the only number that should be sent to it. Anything else is wasteful.

The bidding system is the Clan's greatest contribution to the actual conduct of war. We declare to our opponent what the prize of the battle should be—factory, genetic material, whatever we think necessary for the advancement of our Clan. The defender responds by naming the forces he will use in defense. We then bid among ourselves for the right to fight the battle and then engage in combat. Only the warriors and materiel bid by the individual commander are allowed to engage in the contest. Reinforcements can be called only up to the point of the second-best bid.

As a result, our warfare style saves lives as well as treasure. There are no crowds of noncombatants on the battlefield to be blown up by an errant missile. We do not engage in barbarous attacks against our opponent's industries or lower castes. We understand the necessities of war better than any force previously engaged in one because we so meticulously analyze how much of our own people and supplies to put at risk.

The principle of economy works for the other castes, too. Few citizens live in anything approaching luxury, except those who have clearly earned it. Even those in the merchant caste, famous for its shrewd dealings and carefully calculated profits, do not often seek what they do not deserve. It has often been said that our major blemish, the bandit caste, are people who could not grasp the wisdom of this system, and they are all the more detestable for that. Most Clan castes are, however, devoted to our major goal, the return to the Inner Sphere and restoration of the Star League. The lives of our people are dedicated to making the overall machine of society function.

I have prided myself on maintaining all my own commands well within the concepts of Clan utility and economy. Every usable piece of material is as strictly maintained as the 'Mechs themselves. I demand proper polish and the control of waste. Nothing is discarded without the approval of several of my subordinates. Anything that might be used again in any way gets a second, third, or fourth life. I know what they sometimes say about me and do not mind at all being described as the man who would rework garbage into gyros, crumbs into ammo, zombies into warriors if I could find ways.

Do I digress again? That at least seems to be one skill of mine that seems to increase with age. It is easy to see why the Clan removes aging warriors from active service, why it shunts them off to rear-guard support positions or assigns them to training units. Again it is a question of husbanding one's resources. When instinctive reactions come slower and the eyes can not focus as easily on the monitors or the targets and the body takes longer to perform any action, it is only logical that the warrior be removed from active service; he has become a detriment to the others in his unit. Waste creates waste. A mistake by an aging warrior can kill a younger one. Though age, and the experience that accompanies it, may bring some valuable wisdom, it is also true that too much detritus collects in the mind as the years pass. When something is no longer useful at or near the front lines, it must be utilized in other ways. So the aged and injured, both categories to which I now belong, are salvaged in order to perform other roles in the warrior caste. Nothing should be wasted that is in any way still usable.

Still, as in any cycle of waste and salvage, something is lost inevitably. I miss active service, and if ordered, would return to a combat unit without a second thought. Peripheral duties—no matter how important—offer no real satisfaction. Like any warrior, I still crave the pleasure of watching an enemy go down in flames or feeling a jaw crack underneath my fist or accurately slicing armor off the 'Mech in my sights.