Tamar March
Federated Commonwealth
11 March, 3050
Jog was perhaps the wrong word for what the vast majority of the morning entailed. It started as a light jog, but evolved at various times into grueling sprints, runs up steep inclines and then down just as steep if not sharper declines, all merged into an excruciating test of endurance. Any time that Fiona fell behind or seemed to slow, she would endure a verbal tirade from her Clan trainer. A few times, Abigail dropped behind Fiona for an instant, only to race up to her and push her forward with a shove or a kick. On one occasion, Fiona tumbled unceremoniously to the ground, only to be hoisted up again violently and pushed back into a run.
By midday, she felt as if her lungs were going to explode, and she doubted very much if her legs were going to support her for much longer. Finally, their route returned them to the spaceport complex where the Jade Falcons had set up their occupation headquarters. Abigail led her to what was serving as a mess hall, and the two received trays full of large portions of what could only generously be described as drab food.
Fiona had only managed a few bites of some form of bread that managed to be totally and utterly tasteless when she was overcome with a wave of nausea. She mad it only a few steps before collapsing and vomiting. Before she could even stand again, she found herself dragged up and shoved back in her seat.
“Eat. You will never build up any strength if you do not eat. And without far more strength than you have in your meager freeborn frame, you are not going to come even close to even being a facsimile of a warrior.”
She took a few more bites. “There’s no way this is staying down, not after what we just went through.”
Abigail frowned. “I was with you every step of the way and I am eating just fine. Your excuses are invalid. Eat more, freebirth.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked. As soon as she finished her question, she shoveled a piece of some kind of meat in her mouth, as much to avoid the scornful look on the Clanner’s face than anything else.
“Today is not a day for asking questions, it is a day for following orders. But I suppose if it will keep you eating and not spouting excuses, I will oblige you just this once.”
Fiona resisted the urge to comment back, and waited for the other woman to resume talking.
“Among the clans there are two types of people. Trueborns, like myself, are born from the finest genetic combinations to be the best warriors humanity has to offer. To put it simply, we are forged to perfection, not victims of genetic chance. We are stronger, faster, smarter. The rest, like all of you from the Inner Sphere, are freebirths, born to parents by accident and beholden to the whims of chance for all of your traits. While we are crafted to be warriors and leaders, you are all a mere necessity for the mundane runnings of the lower strata of society.”
Fiona finished a few more bites of food before chancing another question. “ That all sounds well and good, but if that’s true, then how am I here? “
Abigail responded with a tone even more disdainful then when she had been describing the term freeborn. “I have already told you, your training is foolishness. When you fail, you fail, you will have all the answer to that question you need.
Fiona pressed on. “You keep talking about this we, and Clan Jade Falcon and all of this, but who the hell are you, and if what you’re telling me is true, where did you get all this fancy technology? There are no nations beyond the periphery even close to coming up with something like what you describe.”
Abigail swallowed the last her food and smacked her hand angrily on the table. “I have already warned you about your foul language, and told you, today is not the time for questions. When we are done for the day, I will give you some things to read to answer some of your silly questions. Until then, shut up and eat. We do not have all day, we must commence training again soon. You have a long way to go if you are to even give the slightest effort before you fail completely.”
She finished the rest of her meal in silence. They resumed training, and the remainder of the day was filled with various calisthenics and exercises which left Fiona exhausted by the end of the day. Much like the earlier running, any time she had slowed or paused, she was met with an outburst from Abigail, as well as the occasional violent persuasion to start again or go faster. An evening meal passed much the same as lunch had, although it was free of both vomiting and conversation.
For a few hours into the evening until darkness, they ran some more, until just about the point where Fiona was about to collapse and not get up, regardless of what punishment the other woman might deal out. But just before she reached that point, the training abruptly ended, and they made their way back to the headquarters complex, again in silence.
They reached what had once been some kind of barracks complex for the local militia, but was now used seemingly almost as a prison. There was a noticeable presence of Jade Falcon guards, though none of the hulking intantrymen that seemed to dominate their frontline combat units. They made their way down a hallway lined on both sides with doors at regular intervals, until they reached one that apparently met Mechwarrior Abigail’s satisfaction.
She shoved open the door, casting light from the hallway into the darkened room, which elicited movement and outburst from several occupants of the room. Their protests were quickly silence by a stern rebuke from Abigail. The room boasted two bunk beds on the left and right walls, and a small table against the far wall. Several of the bunks were occupied, but after Abigail’s verbal thrashing, all of the occupants and hidden themselves from the light under grayish blankets.
Abigail pushed Fiona by the arm toward the lower bunk on the right side, which was empty and neatly set. She coaxed Fiona into sitting on the bed, then pulled a small, battered noteputer from her pants pocket, which she tossed at Fiona.
“Here, this is some basic information on the Clans. It is little more than we give to sniveling children when they can barely walk in the crèche, but it should answer some of your more basic and annoying questions. Read it, and be ready to begin again in the morning. I will come and get you, and I am not patient.”
She turned and left, slamming the door shut behind her and casting the room into darkness. After a few moments of silence, some rustling could be heard, then the overhead light snapped on. A man in a drab jumpsuit stood at the door peering back into the room. “There, Clan bitch is gone.” He glanced over to where Fiona sat. “You’re a newcomer, eh? What are you in here for?”
She wanted nothing but to either sleep, or pour over the information she had been given, but she knew that obliging her new cellmates was likely in her best interest. “I was with the resistance, at least one of the resistance bands, until they captured me. Some days ago, a week, maybe more. I don’t really know. I was out of it for a while.”
As she spoke, most of the other occupants of the room emerged from under their covers, some clad in the same dull jumpsuit that the man at the door wore, others just in their undergarments. There were seven others in all, a mixture of men and women, almost none appeared to be over about forty years old.
The woman whose legs were dangling from the top bed of the bunk directly across from Fiona spoke up. “I knew there had to still be a resistance. How’s it going?”
Fiona shook her head and shrugged. “Can’t really say. We had a decent sized group, mostly militia, a few from my AFFC unit. But they were all killed or captured right after I got caught. Damn militia commander blew the whole thing, and the clanners were on us in no time.”
The man at the door scoffed. “Don’t give the militia too much shit, you damn regulars ran just as fast. That’s what we get for having a Davion unit protecting us.”
Fiona glared back at him, annoyed. “I don’t want to hear it, friend. I stayed long after our DropShips lifted off. And for all your talk, we both ended up in the same cell.”
A burly man wearing only shorts jumped down from the bunk above her. “Don’t take ole’ Westbrook’s bitching too seriously. For all his big talk, he wasn’t in the militia, he was a glorified bureaucrat. City planning or some kind of malarkey like that. Most of us here were just regular old workers, building maintenance, infrastructure upkeep, that sort of stuff. That’s why the Star League wannabe’s rounded us up. Labor to put to use either running this place or hauling off to wherever their homeworld is.”
She glanced at him. “Star League wannabe’s?”
He nodded. “They didn’t give you the pep talk yet? They’re claiming that their Clan Green Bird or whatever they want to call themselves one of several groups of descendants of the Star League Army, come back here to teach us all how to live all fancy again. I don’t know if I buy it, but they’ve got cool videos at least.
Although her initial reaction was to balk as well, some of it made sense. Their technology was certainly advanced militarily. If they were Kerensky’s people, and they had simply grown their society instead of plunging into the dark ages like the Inner Sphere had for the last 300 years, there might be something to their story. And nobody knew exactly where Kerensky had disappeared to, what route he had taken, or anything along those lines. If they were the descendants of Kerensky, it raised even more questions than it answered, especially for her.
The conversation went on for several more minutes, until they finally all settled in again. Fiona collapsed on the bed, not even covering herself with a blanket, and started to read the noteputer she had been given. She got through a small amount of the information, which ran along the same lines as the stories the others had told her. It wasn’t long, however, before exhaustion overcame her, and she drifted off into sleep.
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