TEXT: BattleCorps
  FORGOTTEN 
  WORLDS
  Book One
  The Hunt for Jardine
  Herbert A. Beas II
  
  BattleCorps
  Forgotten Worlds: The Hunt for Jardine • Page 
  Chapter One
  
  BattleCorps
  Forgotten Worlds: The Hunt for Jardine • Page 
  Dearest Tyler,
  It’s times like these that I really wish you weren’t so deathly afraid 
  of space travel. It’s bad enough I have to miss having you with 
  me on missions, or that I had to worry about you through all that 
  shooting back home. But you just haven’t seen a high-class party 
  like the ones they throw on Skye.
  Oh, sure, now that the war’s over, I’m sure you can waltz up the 
  mountain back home and find a friend willing to get you into the 
  really big spectacles at the Triad, where everyone and their brother 
  is just dying to catch our soon-to-be Archon’s eye. But because of 
  all that politicking and deal-making, you just see so many stuffed 
  suits, royal seals, and over-inflated egos that you have to know, 
  deep down, that you aren’t seeing anything but masks.
  On Skye, it’s almost like those masks come off. Sure, Duke Robert 
  and his pet Dundee are all smiles and pro-Alliance on the outside, 
  but everyone knows they’re up to something, and half the court-
  iers here aren’t afraid to voice something positively scandalous 
  about it.
  Better still, they’ll find almost any excuse to party, and this time 
  around, yours truly happens to have made the Guests of Honor 
  list…all for a little trinket!
  Missing you deeply! (And, sorry; it seems Duchess Aten/Kelswa-
  Steiner is actually in your neck of the woods on some kind of 
  business, so I won’t be getting her autograph for you on this 
  trip…)
  Love!
  —Brooke
  
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  New Glasgow 
  Skye, Skye Province 
  Lyran Alliance 
  24 April 3067
  “…And so, without further ado, allow me to present our lady of 
  the hour, Doctor Brooklyn Stevens.”
  The Grand Ballroom in Duke Robert Kelswa-Steiner’s estate was 
  maybe half the size of the Royal Court on Tharkad—at least as 
  far as Brooke could recall at the moment—but it shared many of 
  the same medieval European features as that far distant palace 
  that served as the seat of all Lyran government. The smaller area, 
  however, made for a more intimate feeling, a closeness with the 
  audience, who gathered now beneath the soft, golden glow of al-
  most a dozen crystal chandeliers. The crowd was a mix of men 
  and women ranging from perhaps twenty years of age through the 
  graying stages of the later sixties and seventies, Brooke guessed. 
  Their collective attire featured far less Steiner blue than a Royal 
  Court gathering. Instead, more colorful tartans (and the occasion-
  al matching kilt) blended with a darker selection of tuxedos and 
  evening gowns. Incidental flickers of light came from wall sconc-
  es, designed to mimic ancient torches for more of the classic feel, 
  while simultaneously drawing nearby eyes to the Scottish-style 
  tapestries and beautifully executed holo-paintings of past mem-
  bers of Skye’s upper nobility—all of which lined the walls between 
  large oaken doors and cathedral windows.
  Thunderous applause virtually deafened Brooke as she stepped 
  behind the tartan-draped podium before the gathered Skye elite. 
  Duke Robert’s guest list claimed over three hundred of the prov-
  ince’s most illustrious men and women, both noble born and 
  otherwise, and his house staff added perhaps another hundred 
  to the attendance figures for this latest soiree in the ducal palace. 
  How some of them made the trip so quickly, with the war only 
  days over, completely eluded Brooke.
  But now, with all of their eyes focused on her, she simply hoped 
  she was projecting the image they expected—that of a tall woman 
  with elegance and poise...and a confident stride that defied the 
  dull ache of her eight-centimeter heels.
  Even as she quickly crossed the small stage to embrace her host 
  for the benefit of the audience and the media cameras, Brooke 
  made a mental note to ask Marissa why these shoes were sup-
  
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  posed to be such a good idea when her feet were barely visible 
  beneath the hem of her black satin evening dress.
  Beside the podium, a black silk sheet—strangely enough, match-
  ing the color and sheen of Brooke’s dress—was draped across a 
  rectangular glass case. Within sat the Chalice of Uston DeKirk, re-
  stored to its full glory and awaiting the light of a thousand stares. 
  Were it not for that hidden treasure, Brooke knew full well she 
  would hardly have merited an invitation to a gathering like this—
  physical charms and Ph.D. in archaeology notwithstanding. Her 
  eyes flicked nervously across the audience, and found those of 
  Tibor Mitternacht. Watching her from the west bar, the rail-thin 
  man with greasy black hair and eyes the color of emerald and 
  jade tried to look as casual as possible in his black Nehru-style 
  tuxedo. To Brooke, he looked more like a cat ready to pounce 
  and run. She threw him a reassuring smile, gently pulled the 
  long braid of her auburn hair back over her right shoulder, and 
  mouthed a thank you to the audience as their applause finally 
  began to die down.
  Folding her hands on the podium, out of sight, Brooke absent-
  mindedly twisted the ring on her left hand and drew in a deep 
  breath that filled her nostrils with the competing scents of a few 
  dozen exotic perfumes, colognes and cigars.
  She nearly gagged.
  “Thank you, Your Grace,” she finally began with a nod toward 
  Duke Robert Kelswa-Steiner. The words, picked up by wire-thin 
  microphones that sprouted up almost invisibly from the sides of 
  the podium, were amplified across the room, yet left no echo in 
  their wake. “It is indeed an honor to be here today.”
  Just within her peripheral vision, the Duke of Skye (by grace of 
  his marriage to Duchess Hermione Aten, only surviving member 
  of Skye’s Aten family), Tamar (by virtue of his own mother’s claim 
  to the now Clan-held world) and Porrima (by his own father’s blood 
  claim to that Steiner holding) nodded pleasantly back at her. His 
  black, slicked-back hair caught the light like polished steel, and his 
  easy smile seemed both confident and fatherly. Although he wore 
  the uniform of the Lyran Alliance Armed Forces, it eschewed all 
  Steiner insignia. Instead, a green and blue tartan sash with hints 
  of white crossed his broad chest and ended in a knot at the left 
  side of his trim waist.
  Dressing down for the occasion, no doubt, Brooke told herself.
  
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  “Um, forgive me,” she said to the audience with a sheepish smile. 
  “I usually give these kinds of speeches for museum staff and uni-
  versity students, so if I start sounding like a teacher, just bear with 
  me for a few moments and I’ll try to make it all as painless as pos-
  sible...”
  Polite chuckles answered as she paused for breath, set her mind 
  into neutral, surreptitiously licked some moisture back into her 
  crimson-painted lips and finally began to describe the origins of 
  the chalice that remained hidden beneath the black cloak beside 
  her.
  “As many of you know,” she began, “the Cameron family—par-
  ticularly its latter rulers in First Lord Simon Cameron and his 
  son, Richard—put great stock in the heroic and chivalric ide-
  als of those like the legendary King Arthur. But it was a host of 
  so-called ‘Modern Chivalrist’ writers, such as Uston DeKirk and 
  Bonnie Cracken, who many historians believe truly inspired these 
  men—contemporaries who brought these images back to life in 
  vivid new terms during the late twenty-seventh to middle twenty-
  eighth centuries…”
  Brooke hated giving lectures. Not because of the large crowds, 
  or the possibility of embarrassment and media misquotes. It was 
  actually because of the tedium of it all, and the general apathy 
  of her typical audience. Every time she stood before a group to 
  explain her latest find, or to make her latest sale of recovered 
  artifacts from some forgotten world, the knowledge that—deep 
  down—few of the people listening truly cared about what she was 
  saying simply robbed the find of its thrill. It was like a mythology 
  professor trying to brag to a bunch of corporate executives about 
  some interesting new combination of fables he’d discovered from 
  long ago, or the proverbial fisherman’s tale told to someone with 
  no interest in the sport. The entire exercise was…anticlimactic.
  That these thoughts crossed her mind at all annoyed Brooke, 
  however. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was a snob, 
  and here was her mind, underscoring how much she thought like 
  those she hated. Still, none of that changed that fact that only a 
  born and bred explorer—a problem solver of the most dedicated 
  sort—could understand why talking about the discovery of such 
  rare antiquities as this three-hundred-plus-year-old chalice would 
  be so marvelous. And Brooke could see in this audience’s eyes 
  that any kindred spirits—as always—were few and far between.
  Which was why, perhaps, she suddenly became aware of one pair 
  of eyes—other than Tibor’s—that hung on her every word, halfway 
  
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  through her lecture. Matching the man’s stare for a moment, she 
  took in his features. Pastel-blue eyes, a broad (almost flat) face, 
  fair skin, blond hair cut so short it almost disguised the fact that he 
  was prematurely balding. Even before she finished explaining the 
  origins of the chalice—how Uston DeKirk had personally received 
  it from First Lord Simon Cameron during the waning years of the 
  original Star League—Brooke found that she recognized the man 
  who gazed so intently back at her. Seeing that recognition on her 
  face, he smiled and nodded.
  Henry Croft.
  Brooke felt her stomach drop and a warm flush come to her 
  face as she wrapped up her introduction. As “suggested” by 
  her employer, she closed with a remark that the DeKirk family 
  had carried on their famous luminary’s commitment to honor-
  able ideals ever since—seen today (of course) in the likes of Duke 
  Robert’s right-hand military aide, Colonel John Claverhouse 
  Dundee. With that, she nodded slightly to the pageboy next to 
  the stage. The young man pulled on a golden braided cord, lifting 
  away the cloak at last so the assembled masses could ooh and 
  ah over the jewel-encrusted, giant-sized goblet she had brought 
  back from Rocky.
  Applause again filled the room as Duke Kelswa-Steiner and 
  Dundee himself stepped beside Brooke, thanked her and shook 
  her hand, each in turn. The duke then reclaimed the limelight, as 
  Brooke smiled and stepped back with a feeling of sudden relief.
  Looking out over the crowd, she found Croft again, still watching 
  as she resumed her seat at the tables reserved behind the podium 
  for Duke Robert’s guests of honor.
  And what brings you here, I wonder?
  v v v
  “Great speech,” Tibor remarked with a dry smile as Brooke fi-
  nally made her way to the bar for a fresh flute of Glengarry Rose. 
  A slight batting of her lashes at the bartender guaranteed she did 
  not wait long, and she gave him a grateful wink and a smile as 
  payment for the courtesy.
  “Horseshit,” she muttered back, just loud enough for the two of 
  them over the din of partygoers. “But thanks for the compliment.”
  
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  “Well, I think it was that patented glazed look in your eyes that 
  gave away your total disinterest,” Tibor said, swirling the golden, 
  foamy brew in his own glass. The stench of some cheap Skye-
  born knock-off of Timbiqui Light assailed Brooke’s nostrils. “That 
  is, of course, until you noticed your admirer.”
  “You saw him too, then?”
  “These eyes don’t miss much.” Tibor nodded, giving Brooke 
  a moment to draw a quick sip of bittersweet zinfandel while his 
  eyes—one a natural jade and the other artificial emerald—roamed 
  the crowd.
  “He talk to you yet?” she asked.
  Another nod, this one punctuated by a final sip from his mug 
  that drained the ale, foam and all. His eyes darted back to hers, 
  then resumed sweeping the ballroom.
  “And?”
  “And I told him you make the decisions, so he could save the 
  pitch for you.”
  “So it is a pitch, then, eh?”
  “Yup,” Tibor said, as his eyes finally locked onto their invisible 
  target. Pointing more with his blunt chin than anything else, he di-
  rected Brooke’s gaze into the sea of humanity in fine eveningwear. 
  “And he’s eager as hell to make it, too. His thermals jumped when 
  I stalled him… Here he comes now. Want me to scatter?”
  “Hell, no,” Brooke murmured as Croft finally emerged from the 
  mob, paused for a moment to get his bearings and smiled right at 
  them. “At least not yet.”
  Croft had a husky build that, while not too bad for a man ap-
  proaching his mid-forties, seemed to stretch the fabric of his black 
  silk tuxedo. He walked with a slight limp now, favoring his left leg 
  in a way Brooke did not remember from the last time she’d seen 
  him. But then, it was almost five years now, and Croft was still a 
  dedicated field man when she knew him then…
  “Why, if it isn’t Doctor Brooklyn M. Stevens, as I live and breathe,” 
  he said as he came near.
  His voice had the harsh rumble of a chain smoker who’d started 
  far too early in life, but his smile was amiable and white enough, 
  framed by a goatee almost as brutally short as his scalp hair (and 
  
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  a few shades lighter). Brooke allowed him to come close enough 
  for a friendly embrace, but noticed how Tibor shifted uneasily on 
  his barstool.
  “And if it isn’t Doctor Henry J. Croft, as I do likewise,” she replied 
  in a carefully neutral tone. “I understand you’ve already encoun-
  tered our good friend Mister Mitternacht here?”
  Croft turned his semi-charming smile on Tibor and executed an 
  abbreviated bow toward him. “Yes, indeed I have. And—stubborn 
  as ever—he told me not to bother with my ‘usual spiel’ until you’d 
  had the chance to join us. Polite chap, I must say.”
  “Why, thanks, Hank,” Tibor drawled, flashing the man a casual 
  grin.
  Brooke chuckled. “What can I say, Croft? Trouble, the others and 
  I all have our issues with you IE folks. When you don’t exactly 
  leave on the friendliest of terms and someone from the company 
  comes a-calling, you don’t just buy the first thing that comes out 
  of his mouth.”
  Croft’s expression darkened, but only for a moment. “Ancient 
  history,” he said, with a dismissive wave. “Since Doctor Wooden 
  took the helm there’s been a bit of a shake-up in the ranks. The 
  upper echelons now realize that what happened on Vulture’s Nest 
  wasn’t your fault.”
  “Small comfort, that,” Brooke said, her expression hardening as 
  she thought back on the disaster—and the outrageous treatment 
  she and her crew had endured in its aftermath. “Tell me, at least, 
  that Denderhoff finally took the fall for it.”
  Croft frowned. “In a manner of speaking,” he said flatly. “They 
  put him back in the field as an assistant dig director and sent him 
  out to do a follow up on the Nest...
  “That was the last we heard of him, or the rest of his team.”
  Brooke blinked, and caught a glimpse of the same shock in Tibor’s 
  face. Denderhoff was the lone wolf type, a rugged mercenary 
  just one step removed from piracy—especially after Interstellar 
  Expeditions promoted him to Project Director and gave him a 
  couple of dig crews to supervise. His main problem, as Brooke 
  remembered it, was his inability to listen to anyone else when 
  he thought he knew the situation. When in doubt, he fought, and 
  fought hard; he wasn’t the kind who simply vanished in the void.
  
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  “Ghosts?” she asked. It was the first possibility that crossed her 
  mind.
  Croft nodded and sighed. “What evidence we found—eventu-
  ally—suggested as much.”
  The three lapsed into silence. The Green Ghosts were a mystery, 
  even to the likes of Interstellar Expeditions, while at the same time 
  being the biggest threat to the organization. Their attack forces, 
  including sophisticated BattleMechs—some even of Clan manu-
  facture—had first appeared roughly seven years ago, and seemed 
  to have a knack for showing up at IE-sponsored digs as if sum-
  moned there by the same sources. Naturally, a leak was suspected, 
  but to Brooke’s knowledge none were ever found. Since then, the 
  bandits had only grown stronger, their plague of piracy appearing 
  mostly along the Lyran periphery, but sometimes in other sectors, 
  shadowing IE like a wolf pack stalking a herd of prey.
  Brooke suddenly became aware again of their surroundings, 
  the background noise of conversation and laughter from Skye’s 
  gathered elite set to the quiet harmony of a live string quartet 
  whose music had resumed—at Duke Robert’s command—just as 
  soon as the unveiling ceremonies ended. The masses gathered, 
  forming their cliques, mingling, networking, perhaps even court-
  ing.
  She also realized that her mouth was dry. Almost absently, she 
  finished off the zinfandel, barely noticing the taste this time. As 
  she quickly placed the crystal flute back on the bar, her motion 
  snapped the others out of their own silent musings.
  “At any rate,” Croft blurted, “the point I was going for was this: 
  IE wants to pass along its assurances that—should you desire 
  it—there is a home for you and your crew again within our orga-
  nization.”
  “Generous!” Tibor said. “Of course, there’s a catch, ja?”
  Croft raised a finger and his lopsided smile returned. “More of 
  an opportunity than a catch, my distrustful friend.”
  Brooke arched an eyebrow expectantly. Croft’s smile turned her 
  way.
  “A mission,” he said, practically beaming. “Your usual freelance 
  work on your usual freelance terms. Consider it something of an 
  audition…if you’re interested.”
  
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  Brooke scoffed. “That’s how you boys suckered me into your 
  organization the last time, Hank,” she said. “What if we don’t want 
  to go back?”
  Croft shrugged and briefly glanced out over the crowd. “Well,” 
  he said, “I could play hardball with you, Doctor Stevens. After all, 
  you and your people did abscond with almost three hundred mil-
  lion kroner’s worth of IE property and equipment—”
  “Empty threat and you know it,” Tibor grumbled.
  “Still actionable,” Croft snapped back, “but—as I said—while I 
  could play that card, I know better than that. If you don’t wish to 
  return, then so be it. But the mission offer still stands, and IE is 
  willing to pay well for this one.”
  Brooke glanced at Tibor, and caught the same curiosity in his jade 
  eye that she knew showed in her own. Folding her arms across her 
  chest, she gave Croft another arched eyebrow look. Croft’s smile 
  broadened.
  “If you want to hear more, I’m going to have to suggest we find 
  someplace a bit more…intimate, Doctor Stevens. Some details of 
  the mission are not for other ears.”
  “Intimate, is it?” Brooke countered with a playful smirk. “Why, 
  Doctor Croft, you do recall that I’m a married woman, don’t you?”
  Croft chuckled. “How could I ever forget?”
  v v v
  As it happened, Croft’s desire for “someplace intimate” proved 
  nearly as scandalous as Brooke had teased. When she asked one 
  of Duke Robert’s house servants for a private room for herself and 
  a friend, the young man’s eyes flicked between her and Croft and—
  with a grin that bordered on lecherous—led them both from the 
  ballroom. Two corridors and one conspiratorial wink later, Brooke 
  and Croft found themselves in a guest room that was most note-
  worthy for having what Brooke believed to be the largest canopy 
  bed she had ever seen.
  With bookshelves lining the east wall, dark green drapes (closed 
  by the servant as an added “courtesy”), fine cherry wood trim 
  that both matched the furnishings and nicely complemented the 
  walls of off-white stucco, the room was elegant enough. But the 
  presence of that bed, two strategically placed mirrors, and the 
  
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  unmistakable scent of sandalwood incense combined in Brooke’s 
  mind for an image that just screamed “royal rumpus room.”
  “If I were in different company,” she said, “this would be hysteri-
  cal.”
  Croft gave her a cock-eyed smirk and reached into his jacket 
  pocket. Producing a device no bigger than his palm, he activated 
  it, scanned its display, then showed it to her with a polite smile. In 
  the absence of sound, the white noise generator would remain si-
  lent, but the annoying effects of its counter-frequencies once they 
  began talking would force Brooke to get closer to Croft than she 
  otherwise preferred. Still, she nodded and stepped closer, catch-
  ing a hint of the man’s musky aftershave.
  “Perhaps,” Croft said, his voice clear enough, but rendered more 
  alien by the strange non-echo the generator added to it. “But I’ll 
  try to make this as diverting as possible.”
  “All right, Doctor,” Brooke said, “fire away.”
  “In this case, my dear, a file is worth a million words,” Croft said 
  as he reached into an inner pocket this time. “And it can do more 
  justice than any sales pitch I might make.”
  His hand emerged with a compad so small it could have passed 
  for a simple calculator, and his thumb switched it on as he handed 
  it off to Brooke. “Have a look at the latest zoological find from the 
  Free Worlds League.”
  With a momentary glance at his eager expression, she took 
  the device. Her eyes locked onto the heading: “Panteras Ignus 
  Jardinalis—A New Link?”
  With a sudden surge of curiosity, she devoured the first few 
  paragraphs before she had to ask, “Is this for real?”
  Croft nodded. “If not, it’s a hell of a hoax. That file includes a de-
  tailed gene map of this ‘new’ species—one that hasn’t been seen 
  by human eyes in oh, two hundred years or so?”
  Brooke nodded numbly and kept reading. Panteras Ignus 
  Jardinalis was the Latin nomenclature given to an alien feline 
  species known for its scarlet coat and golden eyes that seemed 
  to glow even in daylight. Capable of spitting a toxic venom that 
  included enough acid to sear flesh and dissolve vegetation in sec-
  onds, it was little wonder that its more traditional name so closely 
  matched that of the Latin: the Jardinian fire cat.
  
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  “Are they positive it has all the right markers?” Brooke asked, her 
  eyes still glued to the display. “This beast really shares the same 
  native ecosystem as the tabiranth?”
  “Well,” Croft said, “we’re sure about that, anyway. And the 
  credentials of the discoverer, Doctor Amanda Holyfield, are unim-
  peachable. There’s no motive for a hoax here, and the images you 
  see there were analyzed by the best in the business. No forgery 
  there, either. We even matched the sample given with a mum-
  mified carcass at the Regulan Historical Zoology Museum. The 
  species is the same, even if the progeny indicates a distinctly dif-
  ferent bloodline.”
  Brooke stared in awe at the miniaturized images as they scrolled 
  up: a fire cat and her cubs, lying and playing in what looked like a 
  small rainforest clearing. The cranial features evident in the moth-
  er bore the closest obvious similarities to the tabiranth, a feline 
  riding beast known across the Inner Sphere. For centuries, the “ta-
  bi’s” hardiness, adaptability and almost regal grace had made the 
  species a favorite among the more sophisticated nobles and pro-
  fessional animal trainers in the Successor States. Thriving exports 
  and breeding enterprises perpetuated the species’ existence on 
  dozens of worlds, assuring that the species itself survived even as 
  its native world was lost to the nuclear fires of the First Succession 
  War. They were the only surviving link to a lost, dead planet, as far 
  as anyone knew. 
  Until now.
  Then the full weight of the implication hit. The world of Jardine 
  did not simply die in the First Succession War; it vanished. Even 
  archival maps dating back to the original Star League showed no 
  such world in Free Worlds space, where all accounts placed it. 
  Nor did it appear in any of the neighboring states. If a “new” spe-
  cies from the planet’s ecosystem had been discovered, then that 
  meant, just maybe…
  “Someone’s found Jardine?” she asked.
  Croft smiled again.
  “That’s what we had thought, at first, before a curious thing hap-
  pened.”
  Brooke threw him a quizzical look.
  “Less than one week after this report was published, it was 
  yanked from every scientific journal in the League, and dismissed 
  
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  as a hoax by several prominent xenobiologists—including, appar-
  ently, Holyfield’s own benefactors.”
  “What did Holyfield say about that?”
  “Absolutely nothing,” Croft said flatly. “She was killed in a freak 
  laboratory explosion three days earlier.”
  “Sounds fishy.”
  “League authorities use the term ‘accident,’ but I like your as-
  sessment better.”
  “Are you asking me to follow up, then? Go to this world where the 
  species was found?”
  “If you like,” Croft nodded. “As part of the greater mission, per-
  haps.”
  “Greater mission?”
  “Why, my dear Doctor Stevens, surely you can see what we’re 
  asking here! Someone may have found Jardine recently enough 
  to have brought a species thought long extinct back from there…
  “And if someone managed to accomplish that, then surely some-
  one like you and your crew might just be able to do so again.”
  
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