Oh, in that case here's the beginning from Legend of the Jade Phoenix, Way of the Clans by Robert Thurston, a book that covers a mechwarriors clan training that I've got as a txt file:
Across the great expanse of a grassless, rocky plain, other vehicles were also arriving, each dumping new trainees—from uncharacteristically anxious sibkos—onto the landing site, where in threatening packs, the training officers awaited their charges, their next set of victims. These strange-looking men and women hardly seemed to notice the newcomers. Instead, they talked among diem-selves, their barked-out words frequently interrupted by raucous laughter. They often pushed against or elbowed each other in ways that looked to Aidan neither friendly or even human. They were more like hawks crowded together in a cage, each ready to start a bloody battle if nudged out of place by another.
In spite of the cold, the blasts of wind that had reached even into the hoverbus to chill its passengers, these warriors, these combat survivors, were scantily dressed, unlike Aidan and his sibko, who had snuggled into tunics of thick animal hide, broad-brimmed fur hats, an4 light but well-insulated leather boots.
Each training officer wore what had apparently once been a fatigue jumpsuit, but with ragged holes in the sleeves and torso and with the legs cut off unevenly, exposing lower limbs that were bare down to light, low-slung boots. Sleeves were shortened, too, just below the elbow. Over the cutaway jumpsuits, some wore fur tunics, the only apparent concession to the intense cold.
On the chests and sleeves of the jumpsuits were many patches, some indicating rank, some indicating past units in which the warriors had served, some indicating battle achievements. A few of the officers wore thick gloves, the well-padded kind used in falconry.
It made Aidan recall the first day he had launched his favorite bird, a peregrine he had named Warhawk. Standing on the crest of a promontory, he had been sending her out to hack—to fly free and obtain that sense of liberty so essential to a bird that would spend most of its life tied to blocks or carried on the wrist-end of a padded glove. Hacking was a practice of all those in the Jade Falcon Clan who had chosen to honor their name by cultivating the ancient art of falconry.
Aidan had spent the rest of that morning hoping that Warhawk would return. Of course, she had, proving to be one of the coolest, most successful hunting falcons in Aidan's sibko.
But that was long ago. Today, stepping onto the ground of the training site, tension overwhelmed him. On his side, on the side of the sibko, there was closeness, trust, the answering of needs. On the other side, on the side of the training officers, there was indifference, danger, contempt. However, there was also—in the occasional sidelong glance and in a certain bodily stiffness—a sense of the enemy ready to spring.
Aidan looked over at Marthe, found her staring at him. Though her eyes were calm, he knew her well enough to perceive in the uneasy set of her full-lipped mouth (shaped so much like his) that she was just as apprehensive.
S
ibkos rarely met their genetic donors. At the time the first ilKhan, Nicholas Kerensky, was instituting the first genetic programs, theorists warned him that contact between donors and their sibko children could cause dangerous influences. They were especially wary of what they called unhealthy parental inclinations. Such feelings, they advised, had to be eliminated so that the genetically created warriors would not suffer the personality complications and character flaws that could so easily lead to the mistakes that lost battles and tailed whole campaigns. By law the donors must be the best warriors society could offer. The best warriors should, they reasoned, not even want to see their sibspring (a linguistic corruption of "sibling offspring").
