Trial by Chaos Read online

  They sought refuge in a mountain cave, made peace with themselves and each other, and waited for death.

  Suddenly, it seemed that death had come to them in literal form. A Strana Mechty ghost bear, a predator five meters tall and weighing over eight hundred kilograms, appeared at the entrance to their cave and roared its challenge. In this moment, when others would have run in terror, or given in to despair, they stood their ground, defiantly roaring back.

  If death had come for them, it would not take them easily.

  The bear could have killed them with one swipe of his huge claws, and yet he did not. He dropped down on all fours and circled them, sniffing curiously. Once again the bear roared a challenge, and again they roared back.

  Standing back to back, Jorgensson and Tseng defied the bear, but lost their battle for consciousness: frozen and starving, they slipped into a blackness from which neither of them expected to return.

  But then a miracle occurred. They awoke some time later. Hours or days, who can say? But they awoke, warmed back from the brink of death by the huge ghost bear, which now curled around them as it might protect its own cubs.

  When they began to stir, the bear rose and left the cave. It returned soon thereafter with a fresh kill in its mouth. It laid the kill before them, quickly devoured half of it, and then stepped back, watching the two humans carefully.

  Cautious but desperate, they claimed the other half of the carcass. When they had finished eating, they fell back into sleep, again aware of the great bear warming them with its body.

  For three days this continued, the bear bringing them fresh meat and warming them against the cold. They regained enough of their strength to emerge from their shelter.

  There they made an amazing discovery. The ghost bear was not a solitary hunter, as had been believed: Jorgensson and Tseng had been cared for by an entire family of bears. They now understood that the ghost bears hunted in packs and shared their kills equally. In the clan of the ghost bears the strong ruled the pack, but each member of the pack was provided for.

  They were family, and in family they were strong.

  Inspired by this discovery, Jorgensson and Tseng resolved to return to the Clans and argue for their right to stay together. When they at last emerged from the wilderness, they had long been given up for dead, and it is said that none was happier at their safe return than the Founder. He listened carefully to their tale of survival and the lessons they had taken away from their ordeal, and their appeal to bring the strength of those lessons to the Clans—together.

  Kerensky granted their request, and in honor of their great trial he named their Clan Ghost Bear.

  Of course, they did not become the first leaders of Clan Ghost Bear by appointment. They had to prove themselves all over again through Trials of Position. Each defeated all of their opponents, earning the right to become the first leaders of our Clan and assuring that their names would live forever.

  And that, true or not, is the story—or at least the essential part of it.

  And from that story, from the lessons of the bear, come the fundamental principles by which the Ghost Bears have always lived.

  We value strength. As with the bear, strength allows us to weather challenges and misfortune from without, and the errors that we may inflict upon ourselves. Strength is the key to stability and the path to prosperity.

  We value patience. The Ghost Bear hunts by patience and stealth, burrowing into snowbanks where its white fur makes it almost invisible and waiting for its prey to pass. Only then does it spring out with great ferocity and overwhelm its kill. By this means, the bear saves wasted effort in a land where food is often scarce.

  Like the bear, we do not rush to exploit the apparent weakness of our enemies, nor are we quickly drawn to new and unproven ways. We practice caution, not out of fear, for we fear no one, but out of wisdom. We study each new challenge and opportunity before acting. We know that for every opportunity we may miss, two more will come our way if we only wait.

  But like the bear, when the time comes for us to move, to act, we do so swiftly, with great energy and without hesitation. At those times, though we are normally bound by our love of tradition, we may act in ways that seem to others impetuous and rash.

  So it was when our Clan quietly moved entirely into the Inner Sphere, over the potential objection of the other Clans. So it was when we came to Vega and the other weakened worlds of the crumbling Republic. The move might have seemed sudden, the decision rash, and yet there can be little doubt that our leaders have been discussing such a possibility for years.

  Finally, the Ghost Bears value the concept of family. Perhaps this is not family as Jorgensson and Tseng would have known it, but it has served us well. We believe in unity of purpose, hard work and dedication to our causes. We believe in the strength that is gained when we bond together in groups, be they children growing up together in sibko, the comrades in a Star of warriors or the laborers in a work group.

  We are a hard family. We challenge each other relentlessly and expect much of our siblings. Yet in the friendships that grow from such bonds, we believe we are stronger.

  As I consider the story of our founders and the lessons they handed down to us, I feel that my commitment to the Ghost Bear Clan and its ideals has never been stronger. And yet I also find myself examining the dogma that has grown from those lessons. How much of what we do is necessary to those core values? How much was once a matter of harsh necessity, but now only a matter of "how things have always been done?"

  Like the bear, I do not move, do not act quickly.

  But in this moment of stillness, I consider, and plan for what may come my way.

  The time for action may yet come, and still I am not sure what I will do.

  Office of Galaxy Commander Isis Bekker, East Central District

  Nasew, North Nanturo continent, Vega

  26 November 3136

  Isis Bekker put down her pen and carefully closed the volume on her desk. It was bound in red leather, and bore her name in a plain font upon the cover. The book's blank pages were now roughly half filled. When she had completed the last page, it would join the first fourteen volumes in a locked trunk that she kept at the foot of her bed.

  She had been writing in the books since passing her first Trial of Position, and the books formed her Great Work, the traditional artistic expression of a warrior's devotion to duty and cause. It had taken her nearly ten years to fill the first volume, and when she looked back at it now, the words seemed to have been written by someone else. Its pages formed little more than a ledger, a dry recording of training, trials, battles, challenges and accomplishments, as though a warrior's life were a merchant's balance sheet, to be totaled and tabulated.

  But as she rose through the ranks, took on more responsibility and was forced to confront the complexities of command in the real world, her writing had became more complex as well. She had completed the second volume in five years. The third in three. The fourth in a year and a half. For some time, she averaged one volume a year. But in the year since coming to Vega, she had filled one volume and was well into another, and still the speed of her writing was accelerating.

  She had long since stopped wondering if anyone would read these after she was dead. She had stopped wondering if they would be displayed at her funeral, or recorded in her codex, or displayed in a place of honor in her Bloodname chapel. Perhaps that was the true lesson of the Great Work, its true value. Now, she wrote only for herself. Putting her thoughts down on paper gave her peace and clarity of thought, and that was a priceless gift.

  There was a knock at the door and she looked up, wondering if it would be Vince, then feeling relieved when it was not.

  She still could not believe that he had asked her to marry him. It was an absurd proposition, and yet she had not, for reasons that remained unclear to her, done the obvious thing and said no.

  Perhaps it was simply the Ghost Bear tradition of caution and deliberation. Never rush
into anything, even if the action seems obvious.

  And so the question still stood there between them. They had not spoken of it since, yet it was there, and hung over them like a cloud anytime they were together. Why do they always have to complicate things so? Life is complicated enough without adding these emotional games.

  She shook herself. Her visitor was her chief advisor,

  Trenton. She could forestall the issue of Vincent for a little while longer.

  "Come in, Trenton. I was just finishing some personal business." She wondered if he was going to be contentious about the name-and-title business, but apparently he had other matters on his mind today.

  He glanced curiously at the book on her desk, but said nothing. He'd seen the books many times before, but had never asked for an explanation, and she had never offered one. Though Clansmen rarely lied, they still managed to have secrets. He put his computer pad on the desk, spun it around so she could see it right side up, then tapped it with his finger. "Blah, blah, blah," he said.

  "Very amusing. I know you do not share my attitude toward all this." She waved her hand at the pad. "Still, I am sure that you have handled all the day's routine business well, and that everything is in order. Now, sit."

  He pulled a straight-backed chair out of the corner of the office, placed it in front of her desk sideways, dramatically flipped the tail of his lab coat out of the way over the far side of the seat, and then settled down facing her, his right elbow propped on the back of the chair.

  "Have you been working on the special project I gave you?" she asked.

  "Researching the Freeminders. Yes, I have, and I've come to some conclusions, though there's doubtless much more to learn."

  "Let me have the overview."

  "Well, first of all, they're big, and they're growing in all the lower castes, but especially the laborer caste. Only a little of that growth is coming directly from recent civilian immigrants from the Rasalhague Dominion. They are, however, being recruited almost as soon as they arrive, and those new arrivals are very receptive to what the Freeminders have to say."

  She frowned. "Why so?"

  "Newly arrived civilians are an unhappy bunch, not just because many of them were already operating on the fringes of acceptable Clan behavior. You were aware that many, especially in the laborer caste, had begun to secretly marry native freeborns?"

  She could not help her expression of distaste. Of course she had heard rumors, and hoped they were not true. "I have heard such reports, yes."

  "Well, many of those workers are now here, transferred against their will and without their unacknowledged families. They've been forced to leave behind wives, husbands, homes and children. Given the illicit nature of these relationships, to complain is to invite punishment."

  Her first impulse was: Good! It serves them right! Then she thought of Jorgensson and Tseng, and their sadness at being separated. It was a strange quandary, for her to feel a conflict between being Clan and being a Ghost Bear.

  He continued. "For whatever reason, the paramilitary police have chosen, or perhaps have been instructed, to look the other way regarding the Freeminders, except in the most flagrant cases. The level of enforcement also varies by caste. Laborers rarely suffer punishment, while technicians can maintain their second lives only through extraordinary secrecy. The Freeminders advocate open and unrestricted marriage between Clan and non-Clan, with no punishment or loss of rank. They also advocate that families, Clan or not. be allowed to travel together whenever there is a transfer or reassignment."

  She shook her head. "This is monstrous!"

  Trenton looked at her strangely, but said nothing.

  She continued. "It goes against all our traditions and customs. There must be some way to stop it."

  Ever restless, he jumped up from his chair, slid it back to the corner and began to pace the length of the office as he spoke. "Not all our traditions and customs. Regardless, this isn't some cult isolated to a single caste that can simply be eradicated. Malcontents or not, these civilians are key to your stability efforts. The warlord purges targeted managers, technicians, engineers and so-called 'intellectuals,' the very people needed to keep things running. We have no shortage of local workers— when they aren't on strike for their own reasons, of course—but we need people to manage, direct and supervise their efforts. Ultimately, we'll need to train and educate local replacements if we hope to turn a functional society back over to the locals. But that could take years."

  She sighed. "But what you are talking about concerns higher castes—technicians, scientists, maybe even merchants—but not laborers. Can we control this movement at the level of the laborer caste?"

  He shook his head. "Your problem, Galaxy Commander, is that you spend too much time with warriors"— he grinned—"and scientists. When's the last time you even spoke with someone in labor caste?" He held up his hand. "Never mind. The point is, all the Clan staff here in the capital, where you spend most of your time, are higher caste than laborer."

  "Specifically as a security precaution, specifically out of concern for the Freeminders."

  "I think any such threat is overblown. But what I was getting at is that the laborer caste has changed in recent decades from its traditional roles. Since the Ghost Bears moved back to the Inner Sphere, more and more of the work traditionally done by the laborer caste has been relegated to Inner Sphere workers. This has accelerated over the last few decades. The average laborer caste worker now has as much education and training as a low-grade technician or merchant of twenty years ago. In some places, they even supervise native workers. Any genuinely creative work or position of serious authority calls for a higher caste, of course, but these are not the sort of knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing rock-breakers that fulfill your stereotype of the caste."

  "I said no such thing."

  He rolled his eyes slightly. "You didn't have to. You're warrior caste: deadly on the battlefield, largely oblivious to the 99,999 lower-caste workers who make your glorious victories possible."

  "Now who is talking in stereotypes?"

  "Perhaps, but there's a grain of truth to it, and I verify my stereotypes by close observation. You can't say the same."

  "So you are saying there is nothing we can do? That is absurd."

  "There are things you could do to discourage them, at a minimum. I'm simply saying that there's nothing you should do. The Freeminders are a threat to nothing but certain traditions, and none of these traditions are central to our core beliefs, not as Ghost Bears anyway. They espouse the virtues of free thought and nonconformity, but in my opinion they have more interest in the freedom to do these things than in actually doing them. They are, at heart, still Ghost Bears, and still Clan. Creating new freedoms will eventually lead to change, but it could take decades or longer. I think that the contamination resulting from living in the Inner Sphere leads to such change anyway. Perhaps by openly acknowledging this, we can guide and control it."

  "They should seek you as their publicity agent."

  "I'm simply stating facts as I've seen them. The Freeminders are a greater threat if we try to suppress them than if we simply continue to look the other way. Certainly they run contrary to practices of the Clans as a whole, but we are already regarded as outcasts and Inner Sphere apologists, even by many in our own Clan. Ultimately, they do little harm, and may do much good."

  "But they do harm the Clan. They disrupt the breeding programs."

  "This isn't the warrior's eugenics program we're talking about—it's much less critical. And it appears that most Freeminders still participate in the marriages arranged for them by the scientists. The children of such marriages are usually sent to creches that offer full-time care, and as such are raised in more typical Clan tradition than most lower-caste children.

  "In turn, by breeding with the locals, they're introducing superior Clan genes into that population, resulting in a stronger and more effective workforce in the Dominion."

  Trenton shrugg
ed. "As I said, the locals have largely supplanted the original tasks of the laborer class. It seems only appropriate that they have the benefits of our superior genes. After three hundred years of guided breeding supervised by the scientist caste, even the lowest-grade laborer has something to offer the Inner Sphere."

  Isis leaned her head forward, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Enough. I will read your report, and forestall any rash action against the Freeminders. 'Haste makes waste' is at least a respectable Ghost Bear principle, and little about this situation is clear to me."

  He stood looking at her expectantly.

  "Is there something else?"

  He frowned, and his expression turned dire. "There is. Military intelligence doesn't fall under my normal purview, but assembling odd and unrelated facts does. My security clearance gives me access to military material, and I often review it on my own initiative, as a form of recreation."

  "You have found something of significance?"

  "I may have. Vega's deep-space tracking systems were badly damaged prior to our arrival. There are still gaping blind spots in our coverage of the sky. We've not officially been aware of any unauthorized traffic in the system since the end of major hostilities, and thus we've assumed that any Draconis Combine agents or materiel supplies for the insurgents were already here when we arrived.

  "But I have collected a series of seemingly unrelated anomalies: unconfirmed deep-space radar returns, possible fusion drive-flare sightings, unexplained radio traffic. And I have connected the dots."

  She stood and leaned forward on her desk. "You found a DropShip?"

  His expression turned even darker. "Possibly multiple ships over the last several months. I think they may have entered the system using a pirate jump point, then maneuvered using short fusion burns and low-energy orbits to make them harder to spot."

  "Even so, and even with the holes in our tracking network, we should have spotted them as they approached the planet. One or two ships might slip through undetected, but not ongoing traffic like you're describing."