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  "Enough!" Victor dimly heard the shout above the sound of his own heartbeat echoing in his ears.

  "Hohiro, fusagu!" The Japanese command brought instant cessation of the pressure on Victor's throat. He sucked in a noisy breath, then coughed loudly as Hohiro straightened up over him. Victor took pleasure in seeing Hohiro hug his left arm to his ribs, and determined to show no weakness by rubbing his own throat. Forcing a grin onto his face, Victor scrambled to his feet.

  His grin died immediately.

  Standing side by side, Hanse Davion and Theodore Kurita regarded their sons as though both were utterly mad. In the center of the room, Galen Cox and Shin Yodama stood frozen in the position of holding one another back from interfering with the battle between their charges. Ragnar looked positively stricken, Cassandra decidedly angry, and Sun-Tzu smug beyond all reason.

  MacKenzie Wolf and Christian Kell flanked Jaime Wolf as he moved into the room. Jaime looked to where Kai lay working on the bomb, then turned on the others with an icy stare. "So this is it? This is the future leadership of the Inner Sphere?" The anger in his voice unabated, he flicked a glance at Hanse and Theodore. "I wish you both long life and more heirs to ward your realms.

  "I am especially surprised at the two of you." Wolf crossed the room and stood before Hohiro and Victor. Victor tried to meet his harsh stare head on, but embarrassment forced him to break eye contact and look down at the floor. "Both of you have already faced Clan troops and both of you know that it took everything you had to win out. You had to coordinate your actions, plan your strategies, and possess the vision and flexibility to adapt as the situation changed. But here you let petty jealousies reduce you to behaving like children bickering in a sandlot."

  Wolf turned slowly. "Understand this, all of you. The Clans are not going to roll over and play dead just because you command them to do so." He pointed at Kai. "It will take more than one soldier thinking about the objective to defeat them. I had hoped to use you, the scions of the Inner Sphere's ruling Houses, as an example for how we might all cooperate to combat this threat. I had hoped that the seeds of the rivalries that have sundered the Inner Sphere for three centuries had not yet sprouted or taken sufficient root in you.

  "If I was wrong, I apologize to you, MacKenzie, and to you, Christian, for assigning you the task of bringing this rabble together into a unit." He looked at Victor and Hohiro. "And make no mistake of it, you will become the unit I need you to be, or you will be discarded. This is no longer a fight of House against House. It is us against the Clans. If I have to manufacture leaders for that war, I will do it."

  Wolf stalked from the room. Hanse looked at his son, shaking his head sadly. Turning to Theodore, he rested a hand on the Kanrei's shoulder. "I apologize for my son's behavior. I don't know what possessed him."

  Theodore waved off the apology casually. "It is not his fault. He is yet young. My son should have known better."

  Together, Hanse and Theodore walked from the room. As the doors closed behind them, MacKenzie Wolf clapped his hands together and smiled coldly. "This bomb test is the least of the challenges you will face in your time here. If you want to fight, we'll give you plenty to do, but unless you start working together, you'll die fighting each other."

  He jerked a thumb at the door. "Outside! Move it! You've got a full day of drills ahead of you. Let's try not to screw them up as badly as you did this one."

  5

  Clan Council Chamber, Hall of the Wolves

  Strana Mechty, Beyond the Periphery

  5 February 3051

  Despite a nervousness that made him nauseous, Phelan Kell kept his face impassive as he strode down the long stairway from the visitors' gallery. He stepped onto the floor of the huge, circular chamber and crossed it quickly. He managed to step up onto the slowly revolving central platform only a meter or two from the witness box to which he had been called. That act of timing, as Cyrilla had pointed out to him earlier, was no mean feat and would please many of the Clansmen gathered in the chamber.

  A stern-faced clerk held out a plaque emblazoned with the old Star League crest. Above it, Phelan recognized the insignia of the Wolf Clan. At the clerk's instruction, Phelan placed his right hand over his heart and his left hand on the cool surface of the plaque. "Do you swear on the honor of the Wolf Clan to tell the entire Truth and not to rest until Justice is done in this matter?"

  "I do."

  The Clan Loremaster glanced over at Phelan. "Please be seated."

  Slipping into the witness chair, Phelan looked out at the assembled Clan Council. Composed of those Clan members who had earned Bloodnames, the Council formed the ruling body for the Wolf Clan. It elected two Khans, who subsequently represented it on the Grand Council, though the election was more a pro-forma acknowledgement of who among the Wolves were the greatest warriors. The Council debated and passed regulations, though the true management of the Clans fell to the Khans. In the main, the Council existed to sit in judgement over matters of honor concerning the Clan and the bloodlines it controlled.

  The benches allotted to the Council members filled the first ten tiers of the room, with the remaining dozen devoted to the visitors' gallery. Built along the lines of a theatre in the round, its central dais slowly rotated so everyone could look upon the Loremaster, the Khans, and anyone else involved in the matter at hand. A ring of lights and cameras that moved with the platform provided images to the array of screens hanging from the ceiling, giving each member a view of the faces of the participants.

  Each of the Clan Council members had Ivoting machinery and a communications terminal. Each vote would light up a red, black, or white lucite block, at the same time being tallied as an Aye, Nay, or abstention at the Loremaster's bench. The communications terminal came equipped with a keyboard that allowed typed messages to be sent to other Council members. It also included a headset that permitted public address or private verbal exchanges with other members or, with the Loremaster during a debate.

  "Phelan Wolf, you have sworn to give full and complete testimony in the matter we are discussing." The Loremaster, whose thinning brown hair matched his eyes, gave Phelan a look meant to be encouraging. "As you are new to the Clan, and the matter we are discussing is your adoption into the Clan, please feel free to ask for any clarification you need to answer the questions."

  "Yes, sir." Glancing up, Phelan saw Khan Ulric Kerensky and Garth Radick, the other Wolf Clan Khan, seated above and behind the Loremaster. At first glance, Ulric's white hair, moustache, and goatee made him look older than his fellow Khan, but his leanness and the hungry look in his eyes gave him an aura of youth and vitality. Radick's mousy brown hair and thicker build suggested a man more suited to a sedentary lifestyle, but Phelan knew that could not be true of one who had won a Bloodname. Seeing how Radick's restless brown eyes scanned the crowd, Phelan decided that much went on behind the pleasant mask Radick wore.

  A younger member of the Clan came around from a table on the far side of the Loremaster's tall bench. Dressed in a gray jumpsuit, she proudly wore a cluster of three 8-pointed silver stars on her epaulets. Phelan recognized them as the insignia of the Supply and Support division of the Clan's military and assumed this woman to be from the Clan's equivalent of the Adjutant General's office. As she tucked a strand of red hair behind her right ear, Phelan noticed she wore a communications receiver.

  She smiled at him openly. "I am Carol Leroux and I will serve as the Inquisitor in this investigation. Were you a full-fledged warrior, you would have an Advocate, but that is not permitted in this type of proceeding. You understand that it is necessary for me to take a devil's advocate position. In addition to asking my own questions—" she touched the electronic device nestled in her right ear—"I will relay questions from members of the Council. Please take as much time as you need to answer them."

  "Thank you, Star Colonel," Phelan said, drawing a smile from the Inquisitor when he used the correct form of address. Though he decided to take that as a good si
gn, his roiling stomach remained unconvinced.

  "Very well, Phelan Wolf, please state the name under which you were known in the Successor States."

  "I was Phelan Patrick Kell. When captured and made a bondsman, I was frequently addressed as Phelan Ward Kell, with my mother's maiden name substituted for my middle name."

  Leroux nodded. "Good. It is best to be complete in your answers." She pressed her hand against the earphone and a strange, predatory look passed over her face as she looked up at Phelan. "As a bondsman, what sort of duties did you perform for Khan Ulric?"

  Is that some sort of trick question? Phelan frowned. "As I understood my lot within the Wolf Clan, as a bondsman, every duty I performed was for the Khan."

  "Please, be more specific." A hint of irritation crept into her command. "What tasks did you perform at his request?"

  Phelan started to pick up Leroux's hostility and his stomach did its best to turn inside-out. Cyrilla had warned him that matters of honor often devolved into heated discussions, but he hadn't gotten the impression that the issue of his adoption would take that turn. Great. Someone obviously sold my landing zone data to the enemy. This is not going to be fun.

  "I was asked by Khan Ulric to research and provide data concerning the state of preparedness of the Free Rasalhague Republic. Most specifically, I worked up that information for use in the assaults on Rasalhague, the capital world of the Republic."

  Leroux's dark eyes widened. "You depict yourself as a researcher, but were you not really an advisor? Did not Ulric Kerensky consult with you exclusively before the Rasalhague assault, Quiaff?"

  "Perhaps I might have been considered an advisor, but I did not see myself in that role." Phelan did his best to keep his discomfort from his expression. "As for who else Khan Ulric consulted or my exclusivity, of this I am ignorant. He never chose to confide any of his plans to me."

  "Is it not true that the Khan struck a bargain with you concerning the conquest of Rasalhague, Quiaff?"

  "Aff." Phelan's stomach flip-flopped again. "It was bargained well and done."

  His use of the Clan expression to seal a bargaining session took Leroux aback, while Phelan saw several Council members nod approval at his words. He tried to take heart in that, but Leroux recovered in an instant and was at him again. "Did you not, upon his orders, administer a beating to a member of the Warrior caste, Quiaff?"

  Phelan shook his head. "It wasn't like that ..."

  "Answer the question," she snarled. "Did you or did you not beat a member of the Warrior caste in full view of the Khan and his party on the surface of Rasalhague, Quiaff?"

  "Aff." Phelan immediately looked to the Loremaster and began to speak before Leroux could utter another question. "If I could be allowed to explain my answer."

  The Loremaster nodded. "Star Colonel, if you please, let him explain."

  Phelan cleared his throat. "My concern in the invasion of Rasalhague was for the people of the world. By that point in time, I had learned that the Clans do not wage war against civilian populations, under normal circumstances anyway. I feared, however, that because the world was the Republic's capital, the defenders might retreat into the cities. All I asked of the Khan was that the assault be as bloodless as possible in terms of civilian casualties.

  "He said I might accompany him to the world after it had been pacified. He made good this promise, but during our inspection, a newly unhomed individual approached the Khan to ask for help for his family. He was an old man, but a MechWarrior from the Khan's own party began to beat him mercilessly."

  Phelan rubbed his left hand across the knuckles of his right fist. "I asked the Khan to stop the beating. He replied that if it concerned me, I should stop it. The method I chose was to engage the warrior in a fight." The young warrior let a slight smile crack his otherwise serious expression. "I stopped him."

  "Then you admit, as a bondsman, that you assaulted a member of the Warrior caste, Quiaff?"

  "If you choose to classify a fist fight as an assault, then my answer is yes." Phelan's green eyes narrowed slyly. "But as I understand my oath, I would be remiss in not admitting that I did assault two Warriors on that occasion."

  That admission brought the Inquisitor's head up, and elicited other surprised reactions from some Council members. It was clear that a number of members were feeding Leroux the same request through her earphone, and equally clear that she spoke under duress. "Explain."

  "During my fight with the first Warrior, an Elemental outside her armor sought to restrain me. In the heat of battle, I did not realize what was happening and managed to stun her with a lucky series of punches. This happened just before I broke the other warrior's nose with a punch and knocked him unconscious." Phelan cringed inwardly, knowing that Evantha Fetladral had to be present in the Council Chamber, for she had earned her Bloodname well before the invasion of the Inner Sphere. I don't want to embarrass her, but it's the only way I can see to break this Inquisitor's rhythm. What's going on here? Why am I on trial?

  "Excuse me, Loremaster." Garth Radick's soft voice seemed barely to carry from his throat to Phelan's ears. "I think it is obvious that these questions have little bearing on Phelan Wolf's worthiness as a member of the Wolf Clan. When we adopt someone into the Warrior caste, we require that he has proved himself, heart, mind, and soul, to be a Warrior. I would suggest that Khan Ulric's use of Phelan Wolf as a resource in the Rasalhague conquest proves he has the mind of a Warrior. His choice of personal combat to settle the problem with another Warrior on Rasalhague certainly suggests he has a Warrior's heart."

  Garth looked down at Phelan. "Tell us what you did on the bridge of the Dire Wolf in the Radstadt system."

  "Do you mean when I found Khan Ulric and helped him from the room?"

  "No." Garth shook his head, letting a smile grow on his face. "That is a story I believe we have all heard time and again since it happened. I fear any retelling at this point, were you to adhere to your oath of truth, would merely diminish the tale we have all heard."

  A mild ripple of laughter ran through the chamber. Garth let it die before he began to speak again. "What I wish to know is what you did on the bridge after that. The technicians had told you that the seal on the hole in the hull was overstressed, quiaff?"

  "Aff. They had started to evacuated the few rescue teams we had in the room." Phelan shrugged. "I was headed back out, but when I saw a pair of legs move, I went over and freed that Warrior ..." He stopped abrupUy as the Khan motioned to him.

  "Please, you have eliminated an important detail here." Garth looked out at the Council. "This Warrior you found lying there. He was the Warrior who captured you, Quiaff?"

  "Aff."

  "He participated in your interrogation, and the first time you met face to face, he assaulted you, Quiaff? And then, aside from finding the most demeaning labors for you to perform on a regular basis, he also gave you a beating with a neural lash that left your back bloody and raw, Quiaff?"

  Transient tendrils of pain writhed through Phelan's back at the memory. "Aff."

  Garth smiled. "And yet, when you saw your tormentor lying there with the seal about to blow on the bridge, you freed him from the debris trapping him and then hauled him out of the bridge. Why?"

  "I guess, ultimately, because it was not finished between us." Phelan's head came up and he met Garth's stare evenly. "My tormentor had beaten me in a fist fight, and I returned the favor. In our first encounter, he beat me in a 'Mech duel. If I had let him get sucked out into space, I would never be able to prove who was truly better. I'd never know if he beat me because he is a superior MechWarrior or because his 'Mech was so much better than mine."

  From somewhere deep inside him, Phelan's anger and outrage at the abuse he had endured at the hands of Vlad crystallized. "I saved him because if Vlad is going to die, it will be at my hands."

  Garth waited as gasps of outrage and a smattering of applause echoed through the chamber. He stood and pointed a hand toward Phelan. "Can there b
e any doubt, my fellow Wolves, that this man possesses the soul of a Warrior? Can anyone deny him entry into the Warrior caste of the Wolf Clan?"

  The Loremaster stood as Garth took his seat again. "I call for the vote on whether or not Phelan Wolf should be accorded the rights and duties of a Warrior of the Wolf Clan. As he has already been formally adopted into the Warrior caste, it would require two-thirds of the Clan Council to reject him." The Loremaster smiled coolly. "May all be advised that the Loremaster of the Smoke Jaguars and the Loremaster of the Steel Vipers have expressed an interest in this pup if we reject him."

  He punched a button on his control console. "Register your votes now."

  * * *

  Phelan smiled broadly as Cyrilla and Natasha, stemming the tide of Wolves leaving the chamber, met him at the central dais. "Well, I made it, I think." Seeing the worried expression on their faces, but not comprehending the reason, he asked, "What did the Loremaster mean when he said I had until the end of June to prepare myself for my final acceptance as a Warrior?"

  Natasha distractedly waved off his question. "Your birthday is June twenty-seventh. On that day, you will be twenty years old. That is the customary age for a Warrior to test out of his sibko. Depending on how well you do in your testing, you will be assigned duties for the Clan. Don't worry about that. I'll have you in perfect shape. You'll find your test easier than getting kicked out of the Nagelring." Though she tried to make light of the testing process, Phelan sensed apprehension in her tone.

  He frowned, but decided not to press her for an elaboration at that point. "If that is not a problem, why do you both look so discouraged?"