TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  Tears of Blood
  Chapter Six
  By Randall N. Bills
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Tears of Blood • Page 2
  BATTLECORPS
  
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  Near Training Outpost 7 
  Boques, York 
  Kerensky Cluster, Clan Space 
  1 November 3062
  The frigid air bludgeoned dull, numb fingers into Caden’s nose 
  and down his throat, making it impossible to breathe for a mo-
  ment, freezing his nostrils together from one haggard breath to 
  the next.
  Jogging from his Blood Kite, whose pings and creaks of heat-
  ed metal cooling in the subzero weather echoed loudly behind 
  him, he cursed himself for not taking the time to put on the warm-
  weather gear, instead of the jumpsuit he’d thrown on. 
  Moving towards the already erected bivouac and its main tent, 
  he glanced right and immediately ceased his rapid movement 
  upon seeing Star Commander Jewel sauntering towards the tent 
  from the direction of her mini-’Mech.
  He sighed heavily. ProtoMech. He’d made a promise and regard-
  less of what others thought, he intended to keep it. For a moment 
  Caden looked at her ProtoMech, expecting to see the Roc, but in-
  stead found himself looking at a machine he did not recognize.
  Not her Roc? Though the body of the machine vaguely reminded 
  him of the Roc, the wing flanges on the shoulders were missing 
  and a distinctly boar visage totally replaced the sweptback, wick-
  ed beak. Something percolated in the back of his mind, but the 
  cold kept it deep and numb.
  Caden shrugged, sped up just a hair as he neared the entrance, 
  regardless of how it may have looked to her. She glanced in his 
  direction and those two-tone eyes almost glowed in the pre-dawn 
  light. 
  The suit self-heated. Had to be.
  He swept into the tent without another glance, knowing Jewel 
  only a handful of steps behind. Blessed heat washed over him, a 
  tumult to ease the rigid pain that had seeped into knuckles and 
  knees. A moment more and he actually began to feel his lips 
  again.
  
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  Before him, a tent roughly five meters on a side, bustled with 
  activity as various collapsible desks were erected. The small por-
  table holotable eased into the center of the room by two techs, 
  butting up against the central tent-pole. Three technicians worked 
  to link the holotable to the portable communications array and sat-
  link. Though the raid by the Star Adders had been months in the 
  past, every patrol, every field exercise (such as this one) held an 
  extra edge. Everyone moved to a new level of work and efficiency, 
  the hint of waiting at the precipice.
  The Adders may have been beaten, but the tears of blood spilt on 
  both sides would not be going away anytime soon.  They would 
  be back and everyone knew it. 
  Cold eddies swept past his ankles, pimpling his legs as Jewel 
  moved into the tent. For a moment he contemplated ignoring her, 
  then remembered his promise. “Commander.”
  Blue/green bolts jolted him with their power. He may have made 
  strides in the months since Jewel and her ProtoMech pilots had 
  saved the Trial of Possession, but he still could not match her 
  sheer power of personality. A power, he’d come to realize, that 
  came from her firm knowledge of her place in the Clan. A knowl-
  edge he’d lost.
  A knowledge he looked to regain.
  Though it still galled that the help he might find to regain that 
  wisdom would come from these upstart warriors, Caden felt he 
  owed them. They had proven their worth to the Clan. 
  More than he.
  He swallowed, said the first thing to come to his mind. “You are 
  not piloting your Roc, quineg.”
  “Neg, Star captain. As I informed you three weeks ago, we are 
  currently testing a brand new ProtoMech, the first built uniquely 
  on York soil.”
  Like armor bursting under the energies of a particle cannon, the 
  thought he’d been unable to pull up moments before ruptured into 
  consciousness: forms forwarded from the York ProtoMech facility.
  Savashri. For every two steps forward in acknowledging these 
  upstarts (ProtoMech pilots!), it seemed his mind automatical-
  ly took a step back, whether he willed it or not. Not a blink or a 
  change in her facial expression. 
  
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  She is ice. That is why the cold does not affect her. She brings it 
  with her wherever she goes.
  “That is correct. I apologize for my momentary lapse.” There, I 
  said it.  Directly to her face. That made three times in as many 
  months. He stretched tired muscles, vest sliding smoothly across 
  skin, as though he’d just finished a marathon. He was making 
  progress.
  “There is no need to apologize, Star Captain. You are a busy 
  man. However, I would be pleased to show you the design, if you 
  wish.”
  He almost bit off his tongue. Tried to move forward and this is 
  where it got him. Back into the damnable cold. He thought of de-
  clining, the need to organize for the continuing field activity. The 
  lie froze before utterance, as though he had already walked back 
  outside.
  No. I swore an oath, if only to myself.
  He steeled himself to respond. “Aff, I would like to see how our 
  scientist caste has surpassed the fallen Jaguars.”
  Without a word, Jewel turned and flowed back outside, hardly 
  jostling the tent-flap. Try as he might, Caden could not help the 
  small, petulant way he jabbed the flap aside, letting in as much cold 
  as possible. Shame flowered immediately for such a petty act.
  As the numb, cold fingers once more bruised his nose and mouth, 
  walking with blind, painful insistence up and down the length of 
  his body, Caden wondered if the training he received at the Spirit 
  Legacy Facility had been slightly faulty.
  The heavy footfalls of an approaching ’Mech caused him to 
  glance up to see Daneel maneuvering his Rifleman IIC into a posi-
  tion for shutdown. He shifted his glance back to Jewel’s slender 
  frame, as she wended her way through several support vehicles 
  and a Shammash and chuckled dryly. A year before, such thoughts 
  would have been tantamount to heresy.
  Now, however, a year removed from that person, a year into his 
  exile and an understanding of the knife edge of bitterness separat-
  ing a glorified warrior and a worthless castoff, he knew such blind 
  acceptance and devotion was the stupidity of youth. 
  You had to question. You had to think. Of course the Clan is all, 
  but it did not mean you could not question your place in it. Or 
  
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  question how you moved from Alpha point to Beta. More impor-
  tantly, you could question how the training facility could produce 
  some of the finest warriors in Clanspace and yet could not teach 
  you how to deal with radical changes to your perceptions.
  They neared the new ProtoMech, and Caden set aside such mus-
  ings.
  “This is the newest addition to the Touman,” Jewel said, as they 
  both came to a stop at its base. Caden almost expected her to make 
  such an announcement with a flourish of her arms, then thought 
  better—not in her nature. He glanced up and once more felt struck 
  by its resemblance to a boar—if one standing upright—four me-
  ters tall and encased in aligned crystal steel. He also immediately 
  noticed the weapon’s ports at both wrists and hips.
  “Well armed.”
  “Aff, star commander. Quad lasers. It also has ample armor and 
  can attain speeds of almost one hundred kilometers an hour.”
  Despite himself, he raised an appreciative eyebrow. It did indeed 
  seem as though the ProtoMech would be a fine addition to the 
  Spirit Touman. 
  “Would you like to interface?”
  His jaw dropped open, quickly snapped shut. In his wildest 
  dreams, he had not imagined such a question. More, from what 
  he had gleaned over the last several months, ProtoMech pilots 
  held their machines even more dear than MechWarriors, and that 
  was saying something. She slowly brought those two-tone eyes 
  to bear.
  Looking at her, he wondered momentarily if such a stare was 
  reserved for him, or did all, including her own command, receive 
  such a reception. At the moment, though, he did not care; he sim-
  ply wanted to be away from it.
  But to actually plug into the machine. Had he come that far? 
  Could he stomach it? He tried one last ditch defense.
  “Is that not dangerous for a none-pilot, quiaff? I have no en-
  hanced imaging.” Nor would he. Ever.
  “Aff, Star Captain, but only if full interface integration is achieved—
  not something which is possible without EI. That is only needed 
  for full operation. This will be a stage one interface—what we use 
  
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  to determine whether a person has the potential to even try and 
  become a Pilot,  EI or not.” He could actually hear the capitaliza-
  tion in her voice; there’s only one pilot.
  Though he knew her visage would not change one iota, the look 
  behind it, watching his denial as he turned and beat a retreat…he 
  could stomach that even less.
  Time to take the next step.
  “Um, what about a suit?” Ah, there might be one last way out. 
  “Do you not need a suit to interface.” He hoped she had not heard 
  his stumble over that last word. 
  Without hesitation she moved her hands up to the collar of her 
  suit, undid the locking tab and with the ease of shucking off a bath-
  robe, opened up a small slit that ran from the tab, down the side of 
  her body and to the upper thigh. Almost from one moment to the 
  next, she stood fully clothed and then stark naked, the shapeless 
  mass of material held in her outstretched hands.
  For the second time in too short an order, he tried not to gape, 
  stunned.  Her nakedness meant nothing—her finely sculpted body, 
  traced with luminescent enhanced imaging tattoos, would do well 
  in bed he had no doubt, but he preferred his women larger—but 
  to stand such in this cold; not even her nipples showed the tem-
  perature!
  Savashri! He almost shivered just thinking about it.
  “How can that suit possibly fit me?”
  “One size fits all.” The line should have been delivered with a 
  smile, instead of her usual deadpan.
  With no way out, he forged ahead. Taking a deep breath, he 
  pulled off his own clothing (much more clumsily than the preter-
  naturally elegant Jewel), took the material of the one-piece suit, 
  and stopped when he felt metal mesh.
  Caden actually forgot about the cold momentarily as he drew 
  the material close, pulled the material through his hands. Though 
  a combination of ribbing and a mesh-like texture, there could be 
  no doubt that it felt like metal. Not completely, but enough to raise 
  his eyebrows; he glanced up at Jewel, hefted the suit.
  “A Clan copper composite mesh woven with biosynthetic fiber 
  ribbings. The scientists tell us it creates a more synergetic inter-
  face between our enhanced imaging implants and the ProtoMech 
  
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  than anything the other Clans have yet achieved. The suit is ex-
  truded as a single piece and can fit one of my size, or even an 
  Elemental.” Caden could not help but stare. “At least that is what 
  they tell us.”
  Staring at Jewel, at her alabaster skin and lips which barely 
  moved to form words, a face that hardly transformed with any 
  facial expressions, she reminded him of a statue.
  Or perhaps that simply is her way. She is joking with you at the 
  moment, and you have not the wits to know it. 
  Caden straightened slightly at the idea, unsure of where it might 
  have come from and abruptly, horribly, became aware of the cold 
  that pressed down upon him. He quickly began to slide the suit 
  onto his body, and slowed as a sensation of warmth immediately 
  began to suffuse those regions already covered.
  Ha. I knew it was heat. Warmed. After several seconds, though, 
  he realized the sensation felt different, not like the electric warmed 
  clothing he had worn before. No, instead, the suit seemed to be 
  amplifying and reflecting back his own ambient body heat. Though 
  the sensation felt wonderful after the cold, the realization of how 
  closely tied Jewel must be to her ProtoMech intruded again, forc-
  ibly, upon his awareness. 
  And I am going to do this? His next shiver had nothing to do with 
  the cold.
  A new thought surfaced, as he finished tugging on the suit (she 
  was right, fit like wearing nothing at all). Perhaps this exterior is 
  required, part and parcel of what it is to become a ProtoMech 
  pilot. He tried to ransack his memories of the other ProtoMech 
  pilots under his command and cursed himself a fool. He could not 
  remember even one of them.
  Regardless, he felt simultaneously at ease—as though he might 
  have found some common ground with Jewel, something to strip 
  away her mechanical-like façade—and yet on edge, knowing what 
  had to be coming. How close he was to…
  Interface.
   As Caden finished, Jewel moved the two paces to the leg of 
  the ProtoMech, where she depressed several buttons on an al-
  most unseen, micro-keypad and the front, center torso section of 
  the ProtoMech slowly folded open at an angle, its bottom still at-
  tached. Remembering the entire torso-plate removal from his last 
  
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  up-close encounter with a ProtoMech, he gave her a questioned 
  look, just as a small rung ladder descended from the side of the 
  canted breastplate.
  “You saw how Alexia situated herself, quiaff?”
  He swallowed in a suddenly dry throat, rummaged for the mem-
  ory, hoping his own perceptions had not skewed it and nodded. 
  Something he simply would not ask, regardless of the conse-
  quences.
  Without a glance in her direction, he ascended the ladder. At 
  the top, he hefted himself into the slim crevice left by the canted 
  breast work. Shimming down into the hole, he immediately had 
  to fold himself into an uncomfortable fetal ball to fit into the pad-
  ded cusp. He glanced up where he remembered Alexia storing the 
  neurohelmet and almost wrenched out his arm socket reaching 
  for it.
  They must prefer to have the breastplate completely removed; 
  this was torturous.
   Somehow, through determination not to fail more than anything 
  else, he managed to pull down the evil contraption—its skein of 
  dangling wires reminding him of a spider web—and  maneuvered 
  it onto his head.
  He started violently, sending a jolt all the way down his spine, 
  accompanied by a dull ache, as the machine seemed to come alive 
  around him.
  Whether due to the neurohelmet’s connection with a willing 
  head, or some move by Jewel, the torso plate moved shut with 
  a clang, encapsulating him. Never in his life had he felt claustro-
  phobic, but at that moment, he wondered if he would not try and 
  chew his way out. He grunted in surprise as he realized the ball of 
  padding where he sat was actually dozens of plates, which began 
  to adjust to his body dimensions and the contours of his current 
  position. Though the claustrophobia threatened to explode like a 
  fusion reactor run wild, he kept it at bay with the thought of failure. 
  Then the phobia began to recede, as the plates relieved pressure 
  from various areas of his body, hoisting his chest and arms at their 
  most natural angles. The entire effect left him feeling almost as 
  weightless as a mid-point turnover of a DropShip in transit. 
  Caden smiled despite everything and suddenly the world ex-
  panded—the universe ballooned and tapped into recesses of his 
  mind he had not known existed. His dulled existence became pain-
  
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  fully transparent, as though he suddenly stood a step back from 
  his body, beyond a transparent pane of the next reality. Connected 
  to his own body, but only in the most tangential way, barely aware 
  of the blood pulsing at his throat, his breath huffing in the close 
  confines.
  Instead, he felt a giant. Standing meters taller. Felt stronger, 
  more capable. Felt his solid, bone-crushing legs, arms that could 
  rend metal, massive chest and ferocious head: felt the interior and 
  exterior of his new body like he had never perceived his frail flesh 
  of blood and tissue.
  His breath quickened and his pulse sped as endorphins began to 
  flood his pulmonary system, all beneath notice. His physical body 
  swam in the warmth of low-tide ecstasy, while his mind reached 
  frantically for more. For more—suddenly a shadow of pain arced, 
  a knife’s edge balance, waiting for the coming fall—of something.
  An epiphany spiked his breathing harder, unleashing a further 
  flood of pleasure/pain; his eyes dilated harshly and the tips of his 
  extremities began to tingle. He could sense another veil of exis-
  tence behind him. And another behind that. Levels of integration. 
  Of interface. Levels of ecstasy and pain. Of understanding and 
  perceptions.
  Levels of godhood!
  A pit opened up within, twisting the walls of multiple realities 
  around him, warping them into new angles, refractions of himself 
  that cast back shadows, exploding pain within and without. 
  His body stood rock solid, ready to rend armor, to tear enemies. 
  To become the ultimate warrior.
  No.
  His body shook in a fit of pain, seizures and musculature spasms 
  that threatened to tear ligaments, snap bones like twigs wrenched 
  from spring trees by adolescent sibkin.
  Caden struggled, losing his reality. Not caring. Not knowing. 
  Only wanting more. Wanting what felt just beyond one of his own 
  pain-reflections, the shadows that hide a larger awareness. He 
  had to reach, to claw, to hammer. The need!
  His multiple perceptions plumped outward momentarily. Then 
  all imploded with awesome reverberations of pain, wracking his 
  physiology with a need he no longer had, an awareness he no lon-
  ger understood, an echo of pain he would never feel.
  
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  Cold. 
  Cold meant a body. A body of flesh; metal ignored cold. 
  Something constricted and memories pummeled with their im-
  mediacy. Caden felt the confines of the ProtoMech’s interior, the 
  comforting embrace turning to a collapsing sphere that would 
  crush the life from him.
  He thrashed wildly, whipping his head side to side. The bands 
  eased slightly, but did not let go. As he reached a fevered pitch, 
  soft words caressed his ears in strange cadences—the echoing 
  effect of the speed of his spasms. He slowed slightly, tried to latch 
  onto the words.
  Other memories filtered down, as though his subconsciousness 
  had become super-saturated, causing memory granules to fall…
  up. To burst into his conscious mind. He knew that voice, but the 
  timbre. That did not match.
  The disharmonic of his memories and the immediacy of the 
  words stilled him completely. He latched onto his current sur-
  roundings. His own body and self awareness.
  Caden.
  Slowly, like moss growing across a rock, Caden peeled back eye-
  lids that felt gummed shut with a week’s worth of filth and crud. 
  To his utter shock he realized he had been crying uncontrollably. 
  He tried to recall the last time he had shed such tears and could 
  not. Another memory surfaced, a painful one. 
  The loss at the Trial of Bloodright. His fall from glory. Not even 
  then had his pain forced moisture from his eyes. So what, then?
  Perceptions swam into focus and he found his eyes staring at 
  an alabaster caste of a shoulder. He blinked slowly, could actually 
  see the blood pump through the veins in his eyes. The shoulder 
  was still there.
  He startled in wonderment as the shoulder moved and a head 
  floated into view. A hairless head, with two-tone eyes and green 
  luminescent markings crawling across her skull like algae gone 
  wild on an outdoor marble statue. But this statue moved. And 
  talked.
  
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  Jewel.
  The word fell up from 
  his super-saturated aware-
  ness. But it did not make 
  sense. The words held a 
  tone of…care. A timbre of 
  feeling, completely at odds 
  with his own memory of 
  their cold distance. A note 
  of understanding.
  His malaise suddenly 
  lost cohesion and dropped 
  away in a splash. He jerk-
  ed awake, really awake. He 
  was cold, realized the suit 
  had been stripped from 
  his upper body and he lay 
  in Jewel’s arms; could not 
  believe the warmth of her 
  bare skin. Her breast felt like the barrel of a recently fired particle 
  cannon, almost too hot to touch.
  Caden tried to sit up and the world swooned around him. Though 
  slender, Jewel’s rock solid arms lent him support, then dropped 
  away. He blinked several times to clear away the last of the diz-
  ziness, tongued the inside of his mouth, which felt like several 
  species of small furry animals had gathered together and died. 
  Looked up.
  Déjà vu swept him, leaving an echo within—the idea he had been 
  looking down on this body with his own awareness.  The instant 
  whiplash, as his consciousness snapped back from the ProtoMech 
  to his body once more, set his head spinning and he wretched 
  dryly, his breath sending out huge blooms of white into the bit-
  terly cold dawn.  
  Hands, which had always looked so cold, held his head with a 
  tenderness he could not understand. 
  Eyes met eyes and for the first time, Jewel seemed to lower an 
  inner shield, a blast door guarding a place that only a handful of 
  people would ever know. He saw the depths within. The charac-
  ter. The woman. The warrior. Saw the magnitudes of perceptions 
  marching away into the distance, levels of awareness and un-
  derstanding he only glimpsed briefly. Shells within shells within 
  
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  shells, which called him with their pleasure…and pain. Levels 
  which would allow him to fully become one with his ProtoMech, 
  becoming a metal warrior as a MechWarrior would never know.
  Interface.
  He shook uncontrollably at the awful awareness that swirled 
  around and through him. At the true understanding of what a 
  ProtoMech pilot gained…and sacrificed. Of what the Clans cre-
  ated in their drive to perfect another ultimate warrior. 
  The horror (and not so secret longing) clenched his features in 
  iron grips, brought a slow, sad smile to Jewel’s lips. Her features 
  suddenly melted into warmth, a look that out-warmed the feeble 
  winter sun.
  “And now you know.”
  “Aff,” he said breathlessly. Reverently. “I almost died.”
  “Aff,” she responded and withdrew instantly, throwing up the 
  barriers he had known for so long. “And for that I request sur-
  kairede.”
  He shook his head in confusion; conscious of doing so softly, 
  lest he bring on the dizziness once more. “Forgiveness. I do not 
  understand.”
  “I simply ask. It is my shame.”
  “What shame?”
  “Star Captain, please—“
  “Star Commander,” he cut her off, trying to infuse his voice with 
  a strength he did not have. “Tell me.”
  She hung her head, refused to meet his eyes. “It is my shame. 
  I pushed you well beyond first level. Never has one without en-
  hanced imaging, one so totally unprepared, been pushed so far.”
  He began to understand.  “So far and survived?”
  “Aff,” she whispered. She glanced up, the warmth replaced by 
  pleading in her two-tone eyes. “You would likely be a Pilot without 
  equal.”
  Caden shifted slightly, felt the cold ground through numbed butt 
  cheeks. He remembered the absolute ecstasy of knowledge and 
  perception. And the pain. He remembered the loss of self.
  
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  More than anything, the loss of self.
  He shivered again, the cold from without and within converging. 
  “Why?”
  “Why?”
  “Aff, Jewel, why?”
  She looked up, startled as her name fell from his lips. She fi-
  nally responded. “I felt you needed to understand. The ProtoMech 
  program will move forward. But if some in power, if some on the 
  Clan council do not truly understand what we are, we will be used 
  and forgotten. What we are…it cannot be forgotten. Some must 
  fully grasp what we sacrifice. We do not want additional grace or 
  praise; we only want understanding.” 
  “But I am not in power.”
  She raised her chin and stared at him with eyes once more as 
  hard as ’Mech armor. He actually preferred them to those awful, 
  pleading eyes. “You will be.” The firmness in her tone brooked no 
  rejection of her statement.
  He contemplated what she had just done to him. Almost killed 
  him to make a point. Almost driven him mad so he would know.
  “You will achieve your Bloodname, Caden. Regardless of your 
  fall, you cannot be anything but what you are. And a warrior with-
  out equal…you decanted for it.”
  Caden slowly clawed himself into a standing position. 
  Sirens began to blare across the compound. He glanced over his 
  shoulder as warriors spilled out of the various tents towards their 
  ’Mechs and vehicles. 
  So, the time had come.
  Caden breathed deeply, felt his strength returning rapidly. 
  Looked at Jewel as he stripped the suit off himself and handed it 
  over. “You will be needing this, I think.” 
  “Aff, Star Captain.” Had he seen a twinkle in her eyes, or just 
  imagined it? She had used his first name in return. Were they back 
  to square one or had something deeper occurred? 
  
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  “How about we throw some dead snakes off York once more, and 
  then I might worry about a Bloodname?” To his utter shock, such 
  words did not hurt at all.
  “Aff, Star Captain.” Now he was sure—there had been something 
  in her eyes.
  
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