（外文电子版资料）Stephen Mohan Jr. - Battletech - Echoes of Disgrace.pdf

B A T T L E C O R ECHOES OF P DISGRACE S By Steven Mohan, Jr. B Echoes of Disgrace • Page 2 A The House of the Absent Sun T Matar, Draconis Combine 29 June 2825 T L Some dark creature of the night slashed at Junshi Ukawa with sharp claws, sending molten white streamers of agony shoot- E ing up through his body. Ukawa bent away from the pain, tried to scrabble clear, but the thing was on him in a second, all black C scales and gaping jaws and needle-sharp talons. “Please,” Ukawa whispered. O The thing cocked its elongated head, regarding him with a single unblinking eye. R Then, quick as lightning, it bent, tearing through Ukawa’s ten- P der belly with those razor talons, snatching at the bloody mess of Ukawa’s guts, and squeezing. S Ex-Tai-i Junshi Ukawa of the Unproductive Regiment woke with a gasp, his heart fluttering in his chest like a wounded quail, his body slick with sweat, unable to quite remember the night terror. Maybe he just didn’t want to. “Another nightmare?” asked the little girl sitting on his cot. “Shut up,” snapped Ukawa. He managed to force himself into a sitting position against the brutal protests of his muscles. He had taken to sleeping on the cold stone floor ever since they’d put the girl in with him, leaving her the cot. (It didn’t make much sense, because the girl never seemed to sleep, but then it was just one of many things in Ukawa’s tenuous existence that didn’t make much sense. In the end, he let her have the cot anyway because it