TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  THE DRAGONS  
  OF DESPAIR
  by Kevin Killiany
  Chapter Four
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 2
  [Transcript: “Sidney Callen’s Sports Talk,” episode 698, recorded 08 
  September 3057. Syndicated and distributed by Sera Video Entertainment 
  Sports Productions. Used with permission.]
  Welcome back, sports fans. 
  We turn now to the issue of drug 
  use by athletes. Not a popular topic, 
  not one we fans like to think about, 
  but one that may be growing in impor-
  tance. There are disturbing reports 
  that the use of performance enhanc-
  ing drugs is on the rise.
  This is footage of the second quarter 
  action in the first of three tourna-
  ment matches between the Hilton 
  Hammerheads and the Piedmont 
  Pounders for the all-Alarion Rugby 
  Cup. 
  Here you see Tanner and Addison 
  of the Hammerheads tackle Pounder 
  Billy Peters. Slowing the replay you 
  can clearly see Peters backhand 
  Tanner across the face. That blow 
  shattered Tanner’s nose, driving 
  bone fragments into his brain. That 
  fall’s the last one the three-time tour-
  nament MVP is ever going to make.
  Addison was fortunate in coming 
  up on Peters’ ball arm. This elbow, 
  and it’s a little hard to see because 
  Addison’s body is blocking the camera 
  angle, but this elbow Peters throws 
  breaks Addison’s sternum and drives 
  two ribs into his lungs. Addison, we 
  are told, is recovering nicely, but his 
  rugby days are over.
  Amazingly, Peters—as you can 
  see from his jaunty prance across the 
  last few meters—seems completely 
  unaware of the tackle, much less the 
  force with which he rebuffed his at-
  tackers. He later testified that it was 
  not until after he completed the goal 
  that he noticed the commotion on the 
  field.
  With one player dead and an-
  other out of the game for life, Hilton 
  Hammerheads coach John Varnas 
  demanded Peters be tested for drugs. 
  Initial tests for stimulants and ste-
  roids came back negative and for a 
  time it seemed Peters’ deadly feat 
  of superhuman strength had been 
  the result of excess adrenaline in the 
  heat of competition.
  However, Hilton owners financed a 
  more comprehensive test of Peters’ 
  blood and urine. Samples which 
  Peters has stated he did not volun-
  tarily provide. These tests revealed 
  the presence of trace amounts of 
  a drug with the street name “Mind 
  MASC.”
  Peters admitted to trying a small 
  amount of the drug before the game. 
  He said he had been feeling under the 
  weather, particularly after his knee 
  injury in the game against Charlotte, 
  and hoped it might give him an edge.
  What it’s given him is a chance to 
  play defense against charges of mur-
  der in a court of law.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 3
  Chevalier Planetary Evaluation Base 
  Despair, Ender’s Cluster 
  Lyran Alliance 
  16 October 3057
  The creature’s head appeared out of the mist, floating atop a 
  sinuous neck, its iridescent eyes level with Lex in the cockpit of 
  her Nightsky. The rest of its form was lost in the fog. 
  Or what passed for fog on Despair. Lex couldn’t recall if the haze 
  was acid or alkali but knew from the safety trivid it would blister 
  her mucus membranes. 
   The beast’s head, projecting above the ground-hugging vapors, 
  looked too large for the neck. The twin cheek plates, extending 
  from below the eyes to a fleshy spike that thrust past the upper 
  lip beside the lower pair of nostrils, made it nearly as broad as it 
  was long.
  Lex found it hard to believe these animals only massed a few 
  dozen tons more than her ‘Mech. But, of course, living tissue 
  wasn’t as dense as metal. This particular beast had nearly twice 
  her BattleMech’s volume. 
  This tonner cow was chewing something unidentifiable but defi-
  nitely plant-like. Grinding, rather. Its blunt, beak-like mouth was 
  toothless, the lower jaw moved in circles, methodically smashing 
  whatever was in there to paste against the boney upper palate 
  before swallowing.
  Lex hated to disturb its meal, but if it kept grazing along its pres-
  ent path, this tonner would eventually blunder into the habitat 
  compound. 
  She eased her Nightsky forward, dead slow.
  The tonner stopped chewing, or grinding, when she moved. 
  Evidently its initial response to something new was a frozen 
  stare.
  Not unlike some people.
  After a moment, the animal decided whatever she was wasn’t 
  worth interrupting its meal for. Placid eyes, wider across than she 
  could stretch her arms, regarded her ‘Mech solemnly as the great 
  jaws resumed grinding.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 4
  More of the beast’s form materialized through the mist as she 
  stepped close. The middle set of legs tricked her eye, making the 
  creature seem shorter than it was before its haunches emerged 
  from the fog.
  “Steady, big fellah,” she said, though her external speakers were 
  off.
  The creature turned its head, following her with blank non-com-
  prehension as she placed her hands, axe turned broadside, against 
  its shoulder. No alarm, no worry, maybe a flicker of curiosity.
  Lex resisted the reflex to fire her small laser as a dermal para-
  site emerged from the thick mat of green feathers in front of her 
  cockpit. The twenty-kilo crabs attacked anything related to hu-
  mans—just as this one was now futilely gnawing on the joint of 
  her hand actuator. She wanted to kill the vile creatures on sight. 
  However, lasering one off the hide of the tonner would probably 
  hurt her new friend. At the very least it would panic him, perhaps 
  enough for him to defend himself. His flamer posed no threat, but 
  being stepped on by a seventy-ton dinosaur was not something 
  her Nightsky was designed to take.
  She leaned her ‘Mech’s weight against the tonner, gently pushing.
  After a long moment, the beast seemed to understand what she 
  was about. Ponderously, moving each foot only a few meters at 
  a time, it turned away from her. Distracted by a particularly suc-
  culent tree frond, it paused to collect another mouthful before 
  completing the maneuver. 
  Finally, she had it rotated to a new course away from the habitat 
  and stepped back. If the beast was aware she’d stopped push-
  ing—or even that it had changed direction—it gave no sign. 
  Lex shook her hand actuator, throwing the still-clinging crab to 
  the ground. Shifting her weight quickly, she crushed it beneath 
  the Nightsky’s foot.
  As her latest divertee munched contentedly along its new course, 
  Lex cast about the hollow of dense forest—the heavy chemicals 
  and charged ions lacing the atmosphere making sensor reading 
  more an art form than a science. The level of interference fluc-
  tuated with the breezes—clouds of volcanic chemicals drifting 
  through like showers. It took her several minutes to be sure the 
  tonner she’d redirected didn’t have any nearby siblings or off-
  spring likely to wander down the wrong path.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 5
  Or stalkers. She’d never had to deal with a predator and wanted 
  to keep it that way. The spiked and clawed hunters could mass 
  up to thirty tons. But they only ate live meat, which meant a 
  dead-smelling BattleMech didn’t interest them at all. Steering the 
  herbivores away from the base pretty well ensured the predators 
  kept their distance—they went where the food was. 
  The scavengers were another matter, since human equipment 
  registered as edible to their senses. Standing orders were to kill 
  “jackal” tonners on sight and burn their bodies to ash before they 
  attracted more carrion eaters.
  If members of either meat-eating group were on the trail of her 
  friend, there was no sign.
  Out of habit, Lex glanced at the sky to judge the time, which did 
  her no good at all. At noon the sky was white, at midnight black, 
  and at sunrise or sunset almost uniformly red. Other than those 
  times it was a uniformly mottled grey. Like the jagged slash of 
  pewter Lex could see between the treetops.
  According to her more reliable cockpit chronometer, it was near 
  the end of her patrol. Time enough to make one last sweep along 
  the stream bed before returning to the complex.
  She broadcast her observations, including the direction from 
  which the cow had wandered and where it was now headed, on 
  the Florida channel.
  Magda Caradine, on patrol somewhere to the west of the base, 
  double-clicked to acknowledge the transmission without com-
  ment. In the cockpit Caradine was as all business as she had been 
  during training. None of the idle conversation that had marked 
  Lex’s long turns at garrison duty with the Buena training battal-
  ion.  She was not sure whether her lancemate’s attitude reflected 
  Nagerling training or innate personality.
  Lex headed south and east through the foliage. She moved to 
  the right of her earlier path a few dozen meters—not much in the 
  scheme of things, but enough to vary her pattern. Part of her mind 
  was aware varying her pattern to confuse infiltrators that would 
  be hard-pressed to outwit a rhododendron pretty much defined 
  “waste of effort,” but it was better to keep good habits sharp.
  Apparently there was some experiment or pocket environment 
  the scientists didn’t want BattleMechs wandering through to the 
  northeast—for about forty degrees of arc they had to pull back 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 6
  several hundred meters toward the base. Which meant they had 
  less time to respond to any tonner incursions from the northeast. 
  And the northeast, of course, was the direction from which most 
  of the tonners came. Natural order of things.
  A stationary metal reading, beyond her patrol area indicated 
  one of the engineering teams setting up a picket array. The same 
  DropShip that had delivered the Florida lance had brought sixteen 
  automated sensor stations. Not standard issue, these were shield-
  ed against the corrosive and charged atmosphere of Despair and 
  specially calibrated to detect and track the local fauna. Once these 
  were in place, the Florida’s constant roving patrols would be re-
  duced to rotating on-call shifts with periodic patrols to look for 
  any strays that might have made it through the sensor net.
  Lex had mixed feelings about that. 
  On the one hand, the constant patrols were a grind. The stag-
  gered schedule Britto had established—ensuring two BattleMechs 
  were in the field at all times—synchronized with neither the local 
  day or the shift schedules of Chevalier Base. More than being out 
  of step with the world around her, though, Lex hated the muzzi-
  ness she felt creeping as the days of inadequate downtime wore 
  at her of reserves. 
  On the other hand, on patrol Lex was in her Nightsky. Not under-
  foot in a scientific facility where she was treated like hired muscle. 
  And not having to deal with Britto’s arrogance.
  However, the dismal two years Lex had feared would—if all sys-
  tems worked as designed—be reduced to four months—five at the 
  outside. The next supply ship should be bringing the components 
  for a static defense net, which would replace the BattleMechs en-
  tirely. 
  Lex had no mixed feelings about that at all.
  The stream bed was bigger than a gully but smaller than a valley 
  and dipped below the mist. Lex found walking through clear air 
  under a ceiling of dense fog pleasantly skewed. Her external mi-
  crophones confirmed that the stream babbled as cheerfully as any 
  on Valloire as it passed over a tumble of rocks, though she knew 
  it carried enough metal and chemicals to kill her. For some rea-
  son the tall trees didn’t grow close to the water and her  Nightsky 
  waded through pithy fern analogs that would have been head high 
  if she’d been on foot.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 7
  Fish—or what passed for fish on Despair—broke the surface of 
  the stream in flurries. She wondered if they were pursuing some 
  insects too small for her sensors to detect or fleeing some preda-
  tor below.
  A movement ahead caught her eye—thick rush-like water plants 
  shaking in the still air a half kilometer up river. A quick glance 
  confirmed the sensors didn’t see anything that conformed to the 
  programmed tonner profiles. Either there was nothing there, or 
  what was there was new.
  With a sigh Lex directed her BattleMech toward the still sway-
  ing rushes. They stood at least three meters high and were thick 
  enough to conceal almost anything.
  At three hundred meters her thermal imaging picked up half a 
  dozen shapes hidden in the water plants. Their profiles were simi-
  lar to the scavengers that bent up at the middle, but they were 
  less than half the size of the smallest jackal Lex had seen—two 
  hundred kilos at most.
  Her quarry held perfectly still until the Nightsky was within a 
  hundred meters. Then, apparently realizing they’d been detected, 
  the pack ran, splashing through the shallow water at the edge of 
  the stream.
  Lex saw she’d been right, these were “bent” tonners. However, 
  unlike the jackals she’d seen, they did not drop to all sixes to run. 
  While their four hind legs galloped like horses, remarkably sure-
  footed over the rounded rocks of the river, their fore legs were 
  tucked up against their upright torsos—
  Lex gasped.
  Stepping up magnification, she tracked the fleeing creatures. 
  Their fore limbs looked like arms, and they seemed to be carry-
  ing objects. As they disappeared around the bend at the head of 
  the gully, the last one paused to look back. Its wide green eyes 
  seemed to look directly at her. Lex realized that was an illusion, a 
  trick of her viewscreen’s close magnification. 
  But there was nothing illusionary about the spear clasped in its 
  hands.
  
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