Author's Note: This was written as fan fiction for the Mechwarrior:4
Vengeance / Black Knight league known as NBT-4. Any BattleTech
indiscrepencies are due to the fact that I based this off of the game and
league play, NOT the actual series of novels or sourcebooks! If you're
interested, come check out the league at www.netbattletech.com. Kelida
is always looking to take new bondsmen! ;) Also, most of the italics
are the character's thoughts, although some of them are the names of ships
or mechs or the like.
Dedication: This could only be for BooBoo. He's the one
who gave me the original idea for the storyline, and although he was supposed
to write his parts, I suppose it's turning out alright we me portraying Karri.
Thanks to the Jade Claymores and the Jade Falcons in general, especially
my friends in the scat pack -- FS and BJ. I've also got to thank Archon
Traxxas Steiner and General Xavier from the LCAF, as well as my own clan
-- here's to the Nova Cats, may our visions guide us.
- - - - - - - -
Part One ~ Kelida
The images poured over her haphazardly, fragmented together in no particular
order. She swam beneath them, attempting, somehow, to struggle to the surface
before they drove her mad. Lush green forests: broken, shattered and burned
by the battle. Sprawling cities: flattened and crumbled by invading battlemechs.
Her star: utterly destroyed, her sibkin vaporized as the mighty fusion engines
beneath them exploded. Then, while she screamed with agony and sheer terror,
the visions came to her - white, peaceful, and much cooler than the jellied
fire that coated her Shadow Cat.
Barely lucid, she remembered childhood summers spent skiing on some of the
more gentle slopes native to the world, late afternoons fading into dusk
as her father ran, pulling her sled. In the midst of her nightmares, these
memories invoked peace and preserved her sanity. Unconsciously she cried
out the name of the place that she longed for -- Kikuyu.
Located on the outskirts of the Lyran Alliance and bordered by Clan Jade
Falcon and Clan Wolf in Exile planets, Kikuyu's claim to fame was its year-round
winter atmosphere. Its population was sparse, although several families were
known to keep winter or summer homes meant for vacationing, and there were
a few cities scattered here and there. Kikuyu's terrain was, in the long
run, mostly wild and uninhabited.
It was those visions of the breathtaking wild that saved her and forced her
out of horrible nightmares, a full week after the battle that bathed her
mech in flames took place. Choking in a pained breath, Loremaster Kelida
of Clan Nova Cat flicked her eyes open once, screwed them shut against the
bright lights overhead, and timidly opened them once again.
"You have awoken, I see. How are you feeling? Better than after you ejected
out of your mech, quiaff?" the worried face of one of the clan's medical
staff peered down at her anxiously.
Croaking, she had to swallow a few times before she could find her voice.
"Aff. I am somewhat sore, and very, very tired, but I am not dead." With
a grimace, Kelida slowly eased up on her right elbow, glancing around the
nearly deserted infirmary. "What happened after the battle? Where is everyone?"
As she spoke, she became aware of a dull ache in her left arm, and several
sharper pains down that entire side, but she managed to ignore the pain as
she listened.
"Your star was destroyed before reinforcements could arrive. You apparently
ejected out of the Shadow Cat you were piloting and immediately lost
consciousness. As you can tell," and the doctor's hands were gentle as he
lifted her gauze-covered left hand, "you received some minor burning along
your left arm, over your shoulders, and down your left leg. Your left elbow
was fractured, your right thigh needed thirty stitches to close up, and you
had various other cuts, scrapes, and bruises that are mostly healed now."
Her eyes wide, Kelida nodded slowly, the information sinking in. My four
sibkin, gone, but the day was won. I am alive and ready to fight to regain
whatever honor I might have lost by not being able to save them...
"You are also no longer on the True Vision."
"What?" she gasped, almost struck speechless by those words. The True
Vision, Khan Diemos Bavros's jumpship, had been her home for the past
two years. The only times she had ever left the ship was to drop in another
battle or return to the Nova Cat's home world, Irece. There could only be
one reason why she had been taken to another jumpship...
"I have been sent away in disgrace!"
"Not hardly. At first, while you were unconscious, you had to be restrained
because you kicked and fought and shook so badly we were afraid you would
damage yourself more. Then it was as if something came over you, and instead
of fighting so strongly you simply twitched and shook, screaming and moaning
one word"
"Kikuyu."
"Aff, Loremaster. The Khan and saKhan did not understand what visions you
were given, but they agreed you must travel to that world at once, to unlock
the secrets behind whatever it is you saw. They have instructed that once
you reach Kikuyu, you must try to remember if you saw anything noteworthy.
It is well known throughout the clan that you have always been highly receptive
to the visions, and the fact that you were so plagued by these, yet were
unable to convey what they signified in your brief moments of consciousness,
worried the command staff to no extent."
"I woke up?"
"Aff, for brief periods of time. It might be better that you do not remember
them. I can easily believe that the pain was overwhelming."
"I saw... I do not remember what I dreamed. I was most likely simply remembering
childhood years spent on the planet."
"You managed to tell us that once, in one of your clearer states of
consciousness. However, memories or no, you have your orders. It will take
us one week to reach Lyran space, where you will board a dropship that will
take you to the planet. My orders are to return to the True Vision
-- it will take me two weeks to do so. Once I have returned, the Khan will
set the timer for three months. When that time is up, you will be collected
and returned. He and the saKhan both hope that within that time, you will
fully heal and will discover what your visions meant."
"Alone...? Kikuyu is not a hospitable planet. It would be better for me to
return to the rest of the clan, to be there to fight when I am needed. I
am being sent away!"
"You will not be fighting for some time, Loremaster, not until you fully
heal. Accommodations have been secured within the main city for your stay.
The Lyrans have been most helpful -- it is only because of the friendship
and alliance between us that they allow us to do this."
"Kikuyu..."
"Return to your sleep." Without further ado, he applied a small blue patch
to the inside of Kelida's right elbow. "You have much healing to do in the
week before I leave you on that block of ice they call a world, and you need
your rest."
Still struggling to protest her temporary exile, Kelida fought briefly as
the med tech pushed her back down onto the bed. Kikuyu would not be the same
without her mother and father, she hadn't been there since she was made a
bondswoman of Clan Nova Cat, and...
As the sedatives kicked in, she inevitably gave into sleep.