TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  Destiny’s Call
  By Loren L. Coleman
  Part IV
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  BATTLECORPS
  Destiny's Call • Page 2
  Tharkad, 2721
  His neck on fire with 
  pain Alek stumbled 
  forward, heading for a 
  tumble down the short 
  flight of snow-swept 
  stairs. 
  Behind 
  him, 
  Gabriella called out a 
  short, sharp, “Alek!”
  Elias Luvon laughed.
  Dragging his right 
  foot Alek pitched him-
  self to one side. He 
  lost one of his dress shoes, but managed to catch the stone obe-
  lisk that began the courtyard wall at the top of the steps. One edge 
  sliced skin off his right temple, scraped down the side of his face 
  with a dry, sandpaper rasp, and chipped against his collarbone. 
  Alek exhaled sharply.
  Rough hands grabbed at him again, a pair to each arm, and 
  yanked him away from the obelisk. Two cadets, among Elias’s 
  best friends and the ones who had been waiting on the ballroom 
  floor as Elias asked Gabriella for a dance. They hauled him around 
  to face Elias. A fourth cadet held Gabriella from behind, one hand 
  clasped around either arm. Alek recognized him as well, from ear-
  lier at the refreshment table. 
  Gabriella’s soft brown eyes were wide and her arms puckered 
  into gooseflesh from the evening cold. She had lost Alek’s coat, 
  which lay at her feet in a dark rumple. A lock of hair had pulled 
  loose from her coif and lay down across her face. “Alek?”
  He’d be all right. Probably. He felt the soft trickle of blood ooz-
  ing down his face, dripping from his jaw. Bright red teardrops 
  splashed down the right breast of his tux shirt, spreading into  
  a stain. 
  “You’re done, Alek.” Elias’s eyes were dark, and cold as any of the 
  ice sculptures Alek and Gabriella had looked upon. “You couldn’t 
  even be a gracious winner this evening. Well, we’re all tired of 
  your Terran-elitist attitude. Your lack of respect.”
  “I can’t understand it either.” Alek shrugged one shoulder up to 
  his jaw to blot the blood from it. “I mean, given my warm recep-
  tion and—”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Destiny's Call • Page 3
  Elias skipped forward, saber jangling at his side as he brought 
  a knee up to plant squarely into Alek’s midsection. Breath rushed 
  out in a violent exhale and Alek sagged toward the ground. Only 
  strong hands kept him off his knees, holding him above the frozen 
  courtyard. A second blow was not as well-aimed, and Alek felt a 
  rib snap with a bright thunderbolt of pain. He gasped for air, barely 
  able to breathe.
  “Hobnobbing with the Archon’s brother.” Elias paced back 
  to his original spot. “Insulting the Nagelring. Insulting the 
  Commonwealth.” His list of Alek’s wrongs, real or imagined, had 
  obviously condemned Alek already in his eyes. “Thinking that you 
  were even worth her time,” he said, staring at Gabriella.
  “Worth my time?” Gabriella’s tears were angry, not frightened. 
  She struggled in the grip of Elias’s crony. The dark-haired cadet 
  glanced about warily, but held her fast. “I’d take Alek over some 
  puffed-shirt `Mech-head any day of the week, Elias Luvon.”
  Glancing back over his shoulder, Elias nodded sharply to  the 
  two holding Alek. One of them put a foot out in front of Alek, 
  who struggled to regain his feet, and they both gave him a brutal 
  shove. Alek sprawled forward over the courtyard flagstone, barely 
  catching himself, grinding frozen gravel and ice into his hands. His 
  left side spasmed as ends of his broken rib grated together. 
  “But he’s so clumsy,” Elias whined in mock incredulity. To his 
  friends, he said, “Help him up.”
  They did so, one with a knee into his kidney and the other 
  wrenching an arm behind his back until his shoulder screamed. 
  Alek grunted, refusing to shout in pain. Through clenched teeth 
  he managed, “Can’t imagine…what’s come over me.” Faith is the 
  force by which we live, Alek reminded himself. And not all of him 
  was dust. 
  “If he’s so clumsy,” Gabriella tossed back, all but shouting, “so 
  undesirable, why did your commander offer him a position in  
  the Nagelring?” 
  He felt a slight hesitation in the loose grips of Elias’s friends. 
  The cadet holding onto Gabriella also looked taken aback, doubt 
  clouding his green, malachite eyes. Alek gasped for more breath. 
  The cold air burned harshly against his raw throat. “Didn’t men-
  tion that to your friends?” he wheezed.
  Elias spun on him. “Shut up.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Destiny's Call • Page 4
  “No snappy comeback?” Alek stood under his own strength. 
  His right foot burned with cold as the ice underfoot melted and 
  soaked into his sock, but he ignored the needle-stabbing sensa-
  tion. Breathing shallow, trying not to aggravate his broken rib, he 
  asked, “No grand debate?”
  “I’m not interested in anything you have to say, Terran.”
  Alek nodded. “Well, after all, ‘a closed mind never errs, nor 
  learns,’” he quoted.
  “Another one of your dead Russians?” Elias scoffed.
  “Not this time,” Alek said, thanking Michael silently for the words. 
  “Tracial Steiner. One of yours.” 
  With Gabreilla’s help he had gotten through to one of them. The 
  dark-haired cadet holding onto Gabriella let her go. “Come on, 
  Elias,” he said, glancing about nervously. “That’s enough.”
  Elias speared the other cadet with a severe look. “I’ll say when 
  it’s enough, Patrick.” Then he slowly drew his saber, letting the 
  sword rasp free of its hilt in one long pull. “I decide.”
  Gabriella drew in a sharp breath, fear finally showing in her eyes. 
  The two cadets holding Alek let him go. They hadn’t signed on 
  for murder, apparently. But then, neither had Elias Luvon. No one 
  else saw it in Elias’s eyes. The desperation. The fear. Alek knew 
  that Elias wasn’t about to use the saber. He was abusive and inse-
  cure, but he had not lost control of his senses. He was posturing, 
  pure and simple. Elias Luvon had a need to be respected. To be in 
  charge. Alek found that sad, and not a little pitiful. 
  He was also very tired of being Elias’s plaything, used as a 
  means to the cadet’s end. Shrugging away from the two cadets 
  standing right behind him, he limped up to Elias. “You aren’t go-
  ing to use that, Elias.” His voice was steadfast and certain.
  Elias had a dead look in his eyes. He had backed himself into a 
  corner, and knew it. “You don’t know what I’d do.”
  Alek nodded. “You’re going to be a soldier, Elias. A MechWarrior. 
  You won’t risk that here and now just to save face. Not with wit-
  nesses,” he nodded to Gabriella.
  “Who’d believe her?” Elias smiled cruelly. “Distraught and an-
  gry, found by four Nagelring cadets with her dress ‘slipping’ off 
  and a Terran pawing her. Maybe her ‘no’s’ were real…maybe they 
  weren’t. How were we to know, Alek? How were we to know?”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Destiny's Call • Page 5
  He meant to do it. Nothing with the sword—Elias seemed to 
  have all but forgotten that as he crafted his latest piece of scandal 
  and slander—but he could recover some poise by thrashing Alek 
  further through university gossip. The feet thrust into his way, the 
  thrown books and rude shoulders on the stairwells, they would 
  never cease. Any “accidents” that befell him would be seen as de-
  serving, to be covered up right away before any hint of the scandal 
  made it into official records. If it ruined Gabriella Bailey’s reputa-
  tion alongside his, that didn’t seem to bother Elias at all.
  But it bothered Alek. More than anything else.
  Bruises faded over time. Bones mended. But to hurt an inno-
  cent person for no other reason than the fact that she liked Alek 
  seemed unconscionable. 
  “No,” he said, shaking his head.
  “Oh, yeah.” Elias flipped the end of his saber up, tapped Alek 
  lightly on the shoulder with it as if knighting him. “And you know,” 
  he whispered, “the more adamantly she denies it, the more peo-
  ple will believe it has to be true.”
  “No!” 
  Alek flailed out with his left arm, knocking the saber away from 
  his shoulder with such violence that it turned Elias halfway around 
  from him. No one, especially Elias, had expected mild-mannered 
  Alek to strike back. Not ever. Alek could have taken that moment 
  to escape, so clean was the surprise. Grab Gabriella and run. Back 
  across the courtyard patio, anywhere where others saw them, and 
  could bear witness. 
  But instead Alek took a full step across the line he had toed for 
  so many years. The line which had grown thicker, more severe, in 
  the eighteen months spent on Tharkad. 
  He grabbed Elias Luvon, taking thick handfuls of fabric in each 
  fist, and heaved. Elias staggered toward the steps which led into 
  the university’s winter gardens. Alek stumbled, lost his footing. 
  Pain lit up his left side as he slammed his knees against the cold 
  patio flagstone. Through tear-filled eyes he watched as Elias wa-
  vered dangerously at the top edge, sword slashing the air in front 
  of him as if trying to fend off gravity’s clutches. 
  Then Elias fell.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Destiny's Call • Page 6
  Alek’s breathing stammered, dredging in painful breaths and 
  then exhaling small clouds of frost. He sensed someone drop 
  down beside him, adding what warmth she could with an arm 
  around his shoulders. “Oh, Alek.” The words echoed in his mind, 
  but Alek drew no support from them. They were lost among a sea 
  of chaotic thoughts and one dark, visceral image.
  That of Elias Luvon. Sprawled over the lower patio. 
  A broken piece of his saber impaled through the right side of  
  his chest.
  The apartment, taken by Alek’s parents so that they could be on 
  hand for the inquiry, smelled of coffee and his mother’s home-
  made black bread. The radiator rattled in the mornings and there 
  was never enough hot water to satisfy anyone, but for now it  
  was home. 
  It gave him a place to rest over the weekend, nursing his bro-
  ken rib and a deeply-bruised kidney. Retreating into his books, he 
  memorized three new poems by Pushkin and long passages by 
  Dumas and Shakespeare as well. None of them could scrub the 
  image from of his memory. No matter how hard he tried.
  He limped from his room only twice that weekend. The second 
  time he met Gabriella Bailey at the apartment’s door. She had 
  tracked him down via Michael Steiner, Alek’s first visitor after the 
  incident. Gabriella stood in the hall and bit on her lower lip, trying 
  to decide what to say after declining an invitation into the apart-
  ment. “Are you all right?”
  He nodded. “You?” A shrug. “Gabriella. I never meant for—”
  “I know.” She cut him off with a quick shake of her head. Auburn 
  hair whispered across her shoulders. The silence lengthened. She 
  hugged herself around her middle. Awkward. Closed. 
  “Elias will be fine,” she finally said.
  Michael had already told him as much. Elias was in the critical 
  care facility of the local hospital, in stable condition after the staff 
  took care of some internal bleeding and reinflated his right lung. 
  He’d be there for several days, under observation. He wouldn’t be 
  coming back for classes.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Destiny's Call • Page 7
  Gabriella had heard the same thing. “Looks like you won,”  
  she said.
  It didn’t feel that way to Alek. “No. I lost.”
  She looked down at the carpeted hall. “I can’t get the picture out 
  of my head. Everything changed so quickly.” She looked up, her 
  soft doe eyes full of uncertainty. “I wanted it to be different.”
  “Circumstance and accident often conspire against what  
  we want.”
  She forced the ghost of a smile. “Who said that?”
  “Me.” Alek didn’t smile. He had nearly killed Elias Luvon. Accident 
  or no, it weighed heavily. “Gabriella. I—”
  “Alek, I just wanted to see you. Tell you I wish it were different. 
  Everything had been going so well. I want…wanted…but now…”
  “I know,” he offered, feeling very tired. “Me too.”
  “Thank you.” She stepped into him, arms still between them as 
  she leaned in close. Her breath was warm and sweet, and her eyes 
  sad as she brushed dry lips over Alek’s cheek.
  It was his first kiss from Gabriella Bailey. 
  To say good-bye.
  Alek spent most of his days in a virtual bubble of isolation. 
  Mostly of his own doing. The Nagelring cadets pretended he 
  did not exist, except for one who made a point of staking out the 
  PoliSci hall and offering a formal apology first to Gabriella, and 
  then Alek. Other students also forwarded tentative apologies for 
  their previous hassling, or else wanted to hear more details about 
  the night of the Formal and thought that Alek would be into the 
  gossip. He ignored both equally. 
  Lunches were still taken with Michael Steiner, and it was 
  through Michael that Alek forwarded his request for a meeting 
  with Colonel Baumgarten. Michael had the impeccable manners 
  not to say a thing at the time, though he invited himself along the 
  following evening, showing up at the apartment with the colonel 
  and a bottle of good Lyran wine as a gift to Alek’s parents.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Destiny's Call • Page 8
  His mother played hostess, seating everyone in the small living 
  room, passing out warm bread slathered with honey and pour-
  ing the wine. Alek’s father stood behind his son’s chair, hands 
  on the backrest, encouraging but silent as Alek first asked after  
  Elias Luvon.
  “Recovering,” Baumgarten said. The officer still looked more of 
  an accountant than a warrior, and ran through the report as if he 
  were checking off a list. “Good prognosis for a full recovery. Very 
  quiet about what happened that night. Refusing to meet with any 
  other students or cadets. And expelled from the Nagelring.”
  “Expelled?” Alek blinked twice. After all the cover-ups and dis-
  missed investigations, he had not expected that. Had not even 
  wished for it, in fact. 
  Baumgarten leaned forward. “We put a great deal of stock in 
  personal conduct at the Nagelring, Alek. Accidents and a few mi-
  nor transgressions we might overlook. But a pattern of abuse?” 
  He shook his head. “I would hope you thought better of us  
  than that.”
  Alek took a small bite of the heavy bread, letting the honey sit 
  on his tongue a moment before swallowing. “I think very highly 
  of the Nagelring and the Star League Defense Force, Colonel. But 
  who…” He glanced at Michael Steiner.
  Michael smiled serenely, very much at peace with himself. “Not 
  a word from me, Alek, until Colonel Baumgarten asked directly. 
  He already knew at that point. Apparently one of the cadets pres-
  ent that night came clean.”
  The dark haired one who had held Gabriella back. The one 
  who had formally apologized to both of them. He asked, and 
  Baumgarten nodded.
  “Patrick Ward. Ja. On his testimony the Cadet Honor Board also 
  expelled the other two, who attempted to bluff their way out of 
  trouble. Patrick is on probation.” He set aside his untouched wine. 
  “But you really didn’t ask me here to go over Nagelring protocols, 
  did you?”
   “In a way, sir. Yes.” Alek stood, glanced at his mother and father 
  who both smiled thin encouragement. They excused themselves 
  from the room, leaving Alek alone with the two men. “I wish to 
  formally apply to the Nagelring, per your earlier invitation.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Destiny's Call • Page 9
  Baumgarten did not appear surprised. “Lord Steiner suggested 
  you might ask after that,” he admitted. “I have to say, I thought it 
  unlikely. I thought you did your fighting with words? ‘Education is 
  a weapon.’ Isn’t that what you said?”
  That and more. Alek winced. “There is only a small difference 
  between believing that, Colonel, and living by it. That difference 
  nearly cost someone his life. When it truly mattered, I failed.”
  Michael shook his head. “You defended yourself, Alek. Don’t 
  beat yourself up over that.”
  “If I’m going to defend myself physically at all, I should learn 
  how.” That was the realization Alek had come to during his self-
  enforced isolation; that he had been fighting back against Elias 
  Luvon for months without knowing it. Every verbal jab. His entire 
  self-righteous attitude toward confrontation. And then, in a mo-
  ment of frustration and anger, he had lashed out unconditionally. 
  No thought or decision to it. 
  And that frightened Alek more than anything else.
  Not all of him was dust, but he was not necessarily safe from 
  the worm.
  He tried to explain that to Colonel Baumgarten, who at least 
  nodded as if he understood. “Still, you should think this over. Take 
  some time, Alek.”
  “I hurt Elias Luvon without taking time to think. Colonel, I’ve 
  made my decision. If the Nagelring will still have me.”
  Baumgarten stood, paced a tight box around the room while 
  wrestling with the proposal. He came to a stop opposite Alek. 
  “Technically, I cannot refuse you,” he admitted. Though he cer-
  tainly looked as if he wanted to. “I looked up her name.”
  “Who?” Alek asked, but he knew.
  “The guard. Tanya. The one who wounded Leonard Kurita.”
  He sighed. “Yes. I thought you might. And I obviously know the 
  story, Colonel. Kurita pulled a dagger from his robes and stabbed 
  her to death before fleeing. Her family was later awarded the title 
  Defender of the First Lord and the right to attend any academy or 
  university.”
  Baumgarten spread his hands. “You see my dilemma.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Destiny's Call • Page 10
  “Colonel. If you tell me here, in private, that I am not welcome at 
  the Nagelring nor would I be of use to the Star League, I will ac-
  cept that. I will not pursue it, even though it is important to me.”
  “Why, Alek?” The colonel pressed forward, eyes intent. “Why is 
  it so important that you do this? As a politician or historian you 
  could effect such greater change.”
  Michael laughed softly. “Ah, Colonel. ‘Everyone thinks of chang-
  ing the world…’” he began.
  And if Michael Steiner could learn Tolstoi, perhaps this effort 
  by Alek wasn’t so futile after all. “‘No one thinks of changing him-
  self,’” he finished the quote.
  Baumgarten nodded slowly, digesting the words and never 
  once breaking eye contact with Alek. He reached for the noteputer 
  clipped to his belt, powered it up and pulled up a file. He showed 
  it to Alek. The amber words glowed on the dark screen.
  A formal contract, enlisting Alek into the Star League Defense 
  Force, pursuant to his completion of training at the Nagelring 
  military academy. It was all prepared, along with his identification 
  number and full legal name, waiting for his thumbprint to seal the 
  agreement. Alek reached out and thumbed the pad, letting the 
  small device take a full scan and DNA sample, turning it into an 
  unforgeable verigraph document.
  Alek watched as Baumgarten confirmed it with his print, and 
  Michael witnessed with his. As simple as that. He had not expect-
  ed fanfare or ceremony. There wasn’t any. Just the mantle of the 
  huge commitment he had just made settling over his shoulders 
  with great significance. 
  “Not all of me is dust,” Alek whispered, bearing up beneath the 
  weight.
  Colonel Baumgarten was the first to offer his hand. “Welcome to 
  the Nagelring,” he said, “Aleksandr Kerensky.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Destiny's Call • Page 11
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