Lootera, Huntress
Kerensky Cluster
June 6, 3060
The massive auditorium was eerily silent, despite well over seven hundred seats being filled with children ranging in age from six to twelve. Their guardians and caretakers--members of the Star League garrison force here on conquered Huntress--watched the children in exasperation as they sat silent and still, waiting for the arrival of the one who had brought them all here.
These children were so unlike those of the Inner Sphere . . . but then, these children were True-Born progeny of the Warrior Caste of Clan Smoke Jaguar.
Raised in Creches until they reached the age of six, then assigned to one of various Sibkos--the Sibling Training Companies of the Clans of Kerensky--even the youngest possessed a discipline and an order about them that simply unnerved their Inner Sphere personnel who were entrusted with their care.
The door to the stage at the center of the auditorium opened and two men entered. One was Paul Masters, the Ambassador to the Clans from the Second Star League. They man who now had to deal with these seven hundred children who had seen their Clan destroyed, their futures shattered, their very existence called into question as the rest of the Clan had passed into Annihilation.
For it was the Clan Way, some of the older children (the 10 and 11 and 12 year olds!) had insisted. If the Jaguars were Annihilated, all those who bore Warrior blood-lines, who carried the legacies of the Founders in their DNA, all of them must perish. They could picture no other future.
And that placed Paul Masters, the former commander of the Knights of the Inner Sphere in a quandary. For the children had asked permission to take their own lives if the Star League would not--if it could not--finish the job it had begun.
They did not seem to understand that being a civilian was not a punishment . . . a demotion. These children were ready and willing to die rather than face any future other than that of the Warrior.
But Paul Masters was not ready to bear witness to more than seven hundred children take their lives on his watch. Not on his watch . . . and so to avoid that, he had made a deal with the Devil.
Which brought into focus the second man. The man wearing the dress uniform of the one of the Clans of Kerensky. And when that uniform dawned on the eldest of the children, one of them stood, and--voice breaking--he shouted out, "Attention, Jaguars!"
Seven hundred children stood, stamping one foot on the hard surface of the floor as they came to a position of attention.
Masters sighed. They were children, for God's sake! But the brutal Jaguar training program made them more mature--in some ways--than many of the eighteen or nineteen year old recruits back in the League.
Despite that brutality, the Jaguars had shown some--not much, but some--compassion in their final days. Sibkins aged 13 and above had been thrown into the fires of battle . . . given a rifle, sixty bullets, and a knife and told to win glory and earn their place as a Warrior or die on the field of battle. And die they did.
But these sibkin had been too young, too ill-trained for even the most brutal of the Jaguar commanders to send as lambs to the slaughter. Although it seemed that each and every last one would have sold their souls to join their older sibkin in death.
"As you were," Masters responded at last . . . but the Children of the Jaguar did not move. He sighed again, and waved the chuckling Clanner over the podium. "Hope you have better luck than I do," he whispered.
"I generally do, Ambassador Masters," Nikolai Djerassi answered. "AS YOU WERE!" he bellowed into the quiet auditorium.
And the Children of the Jaguar stood at ease and then sat back down.
"I am Nikolai Djerassi, former Khan of Clan Goliath Scorpion. You know Ambassador Masters," he said. "The ambassador and I have just completed a Trial of Possession which the Scorpions won. You are the object of that Trial."
He paused and the silence in the auditorium was deafening.
"Clan Smoke Jaguar is dead," Nikolai said gently into the echoing silence. "Your Clan is no more. Your leadership is gone. All of the Warrior caste had perished or fled as bandits. And you, at this moment, in this place, have no future as Warriors of the Jaguar."
Several anguished sobs were heard as some of the younger children began to cry, and even the eldest among them were biting their lips, unshed tears lingering in their eyes.
"Ambassador Masters has told you--all of you--that you are now civilians. In his culture, in his society, that is not such a terrible thing, Children. But for us? For those who are True Born and carry the legacies of our Founders and our Warrior predecessors in our very DNA?"
"For us, that is a terrible fate. But the truth is this, sibkin. You will never grow up to become a Jaguar Warrior. Your Clan is gone. Forever. Defeated in the truest test of them all--battle."
Djerassi shook his head. "You can never become a Jaguar Warrior. But you can, with further training and instruction and dedication and devotion become Scorpion Warriors."
The crying suddenly ended. Once again silence descended on the auditorium.
Nikolai nodded at the last True Born Children of the Jaguar. "No other Clan desires you. To them, you are tainted. But I look at you and I do not see taint. I do not see failures. I see future Warriors. Future Scorpions."
"It will not be easy. It will not be without hardship. And not all of you will succeed. But for those of you who choose to come with me today, you will become Scorpion abtakha. Your training will resume. And in time, in the years ahead, as you past through your Tests and your Trials and your Tribulations, you will have the opportunity to become Warriors of the Scorpion in truth. Seyla."
"Seyla," a small chorus of voices answered. And Nikolai frowned.
"SEYLA!" he shouted.
"SEYLA!" the Children of the Jaguar thundered back.
And Nikolai nodded. He motioned Masters over to him. "There is one final matter. As a condition to our Trial of Possession, Ambassador Masters requested that I give you the choice. You may, if you wish, remain here and become a citizen of the Star League of the Inner Sphere. A civilian who may eventually choose to become one of their Soldiers. Or, you can come with me and become Warriors of a Clan."
"Not the Clan to which you were decanted. Not the Clan whose Founders your genetic legacies honor. Not the Clan you wish with all of heart and your soul to have served. For that Clan is dead. And my Clan is so very different from your own . . . but you will have the chance to earn the right to be named a Warrior. True born. One of Kerensky's Chosen Few."
"You must make this decision for yourself. But you must also give me your word, as the Last Children of the Jaguar, in honor of this Trial, that whether you choose to remain here or come with me, your life is no longer your own. It is not yours to take. It belongs to the Scorpion. Or it belongs to the Star League. That is your choice, sibkin."
"Make it," Nikolai nodded at them one last time, and then he stepped back besides Paul Masters.
And the dam of silence in the auditorium broke as seven hundred children began to speak and to make their decision.
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Topic: Status of Smoke Jaguar Sibkos following the Great Refusal (Read 7238 times)