"I've been waiting for this to happen." Stan shook his head slowly, a sad smile on his face. "In some ways I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner."

  So, I concluded, he shared my worries about the Wolf. My fears had been justified. The Wolf was old, more than seventy years, maybe close to eighty. He was older than than any other commander in the Dragoons. And now it seemed that he was finally succumbing to the cowardly leeching effects of age. I didn't know what this portended. If the Wolf was failing, what would happen to the Dragoons? Most people seemed to expect that his blood son MacKenzie would take over the Dragoons. But MacKenzie Wolf was not his father. He lacked . . . something.

  "What are we going to do?" I asked in a whisper.

  Stan shrugged. "Ignore it."

  I was shocked. Stan's callous attitude was more disturbing in some ways than the Wolf's failing. "How can we?"

  "It'll pass. You're doing William's job almost as well as he ever did. That would have been enough. But your resemblance to him makes a slip almost inevitable. I'm surprised I haven't done it myself. Don't worry, you'll make your own mark soon enough."

  "My what?" I felt my face flush. I had misunderstood Stan's remarks. While I was fearing senility in the man who still held the Dragoons in his hands, shaping them as a potter does clay, Stan had seen the truth. I had been too good at filling the founder's shoes. My only failure had been interpreting a slip of the tongue as evidence of a slipping mind.

  As all the oldsters liked to remind me, I was still young.

  "You'll get over it, Brian. We all grow up having to deal with other people's pasts, needing to be ourselves instead of some imposed image of perfection—or even the image of our blood fathers. Didn't you know what you were headed for when you entered the Honorname competition?"

  "I guess I didn't."

  "But you're learning now, aren't you?" I nodded.

  "Don't be afraid of growing up; it's the only way to be yourself instead of someone else's idea of what you should be." His serious expression melted into a smile. He laughed. "Now if we don't stop this philosophizing, we'll get reclassified right out of the warriors. That's something I'm not ready for. Did you get a signal from Beta command yet?"

  Stan's sudden question reminded me that I was a warrior, too. I suppressed my feelings and anxieties and sat up straight.

  "Routed through to your commdeck at 1130. Colonel Fancher reports no action on planet since the initial skirmish with the planetary militia. She is expecting bridgehead defense complete by dawn local. She will upscale patrolling at that time."

  "No reports of Kurita activity on the continent?"

  "Neg."

  He frowned. "Hard to believe the Snakes aren't squirming all over Beta."

  "Intercepted Combine signals suggest aerospace activity behind the near moon. I appended the intel report to Colonel Fancher's report."

  The frown twisted into a wry grin. "Interpretation is supposed to be my job."

  "No interpretations, Stan. I just reported the signals and source codes."

  "If they're forming back of the moon, they may be planning a counterdrop. Flash an alert to Fancher."

  "In addition to the relay of the intercept?"

  "No, I guess not. Alicia will reach the same conclusion I have." Stan laughed. "William would have cleared the relay first."

  Even though he was doing it humorously, he was still comparing me to the founder. I hid behind formality. "Facilitating command's work is my job, sir."

  He laughed again. "And you do it well. Thank you, Brian."

  I found his good cheer infectious. My feelings about being called by Founder William's name seemed suddenly childish. I was doing my job. My job. And doing it well. Stan's praise wasn't the Wolf's, but it still made me feel better.

  6

  To Dechan Fraser, the gardens were all the more marvelous for the fact that their wildness was so artfully derived. Each bush was chosen, planted, and trimmed for effect. Here was a tangle of shrubs and wildflowers that might been a jungle on any other planet if one did not recognize the lonely blooms of Kiamban fire lilies; there was a slice of Alshain where a clump of slender rock suggested the spires and minarets of that planet's capital. During his years in the Draconis Combine, Dechan had learned to appreciate this artistic tradition wherein a place, or rather the mood of a place, was suggested by shape, silhouette, and shadow. He had even begun to understand how it was that some of the greatest architects of these oases of peace could be warriors.

  The Combine was dominated by House Kurita, and the Kuritans maintained a warrior tradition in the style of the ancient samurai. Like those ancient samurai, the best and brightest of the Combine were both redoubtable warriors and subtle artists. This garden, designed by Takashi Kurita, was a part of that tradition. Takashi was the Coordinator of the Combine, its absolute ruler and embodiment of the mythical Dragon. Although he left the military aspects of governing to his son Theodore, the Gunji-no-Kanrei, Takashi had been a formidable MechWarrior in his youth. He was still a MechWarrior, having only recently led his elite guards into the crucial battle against the Clan invaders in their siege of Luthien. But Takashi was also an artist. The garden was a subtle expression of humanity's imposed control over nature's chaos, as well as an insistent but equally subtle statement of the Coordinator's dominion over all the many worlds of the Combine.

  The path led Dechan down into a dell and across an arched wooden bridge. The burble of the stream below him was a hushed, comforting sound as he walked up the slope and around the mossy hump of a knoll studded with boulders of pink quartz. Twisting around the mound, the path continued. Dechan moved slowly, reluctant to leave the calm of the little valley. Then, turning the corner, he saw something that stopped him in his tracks.

  Though startling, the massive bulk of the Battle-Mech did not at first seem out of place. Its hulking, mostly humanoid shape was framed within an arch of branches whose leafy shadow dappled the machine's gleaming blue surface. Gold trim highlighted segments of the 'Mech's armor and outlined selected fittings. A golden stripe wrapped around from the heavy launcher housings that gave the machine its characteristic, hunch-shouldered profile, then dipped into a vee down the sloping front of the center torso. It was an Archer, a seventy-ton BattleMech designed primarily for fire support, but a formidable fighter in other roles as well.

  Dechan didn't need to see the red disk with the black wolf's-head on the left thigh to recognize the 'Mech. Though the markings didn't quite match his memory, the differences were unimportant. He had no doubt whose Archer this was supposed to be: Jaime Wolf's.

  So, he thought, there must be truth to the rumors that Takashi was once again becoming obsessed with the Dragoons.

  Takashi's messenger had told Dechan to take this path, which meant the Coordinator had intended for him to see the Archer. If Takashi had summoned Dechan because of his former connection with the Dragoons, why not also invite Jenette? Dechan had assumed that the Combine's Internal Security Forces were well-satisfied that he and Jenette had long ago severed all ties with the Dragoons. But if Takashi was hunting the Dragoons once more, perhaps even the ISF's assurances would not be protection enough.

  Would Theodore help? Dechan and Jenette were supposed to be members of his shitenno, his inner circle of advisors. But could Theodore protect them from his father if the Coordinator decided they were Dragoon spies and insisted on their deaths?

  The threat was ironic.

  * * *

  Years ago—more years than Dechan cared to remember—he and Jenette had gone with Michi Noketsuna on the trail of the Kuritan warlord Grieg Samsonov. Samsonov had been a principal engineer of the events leading to the near annihilation of Wolf's Dragoons in 3028. Michi, seeking revenge for the death of his mentor, Minobu Tetsuhara, had led Dechan and Jenette against the warlord and then on a trail that was to lead eventually to Takashi Kurita. Jaime Wolf had approved and detached the two MechWarriors from regular duty. The trail was long and twisty but had come to a sudden, abortive end after a chance encounter with Theodore Kurita. The then-young Kanrei had convinced Michi that his samurai honor required him to forego his vendetta and to work instead with Theodore to save the Combine from the impending threat of invasion by its neighbors. Publicly, Dechan and Jenette had gone along out of fellowship and became advisors to Theodore's newly reorganized army. At the time, Stanford Blake had called it a coup for the Dragoons, a golden opportunity to spy on their old enemy, Takashi Kurita. Dechan and Jenette had dutifully filed their secret reports on the changing military capabilities of the Combine, each time risking their lives for the sake of Wolf's Dragoons. They had been good spies, constantly awaiting the move Jaime Wolf would make to end the feud with Takashi so they could finally return home. But the call never came. Then the Clans had appeared. Ignored, possibly forgotten, Dechan and Jenette received no word via Wolfnet for more than four years. And when Wolf had found it necessary to contact Theodore, he had used others, contrary to Dechan's understanding of his and Jenette's place in Dragoon-Kurita relations. And for all his protestations that Dechan and Jenette were trusted advisors, Theodore had not taken them to the meeting on Outreach in which Jaime Wolf had briefed the Kanrei and the other leaders of the Inner Sphere on the Clan threat. Hellfire, Dechan didn't even learn of the meeting until a week after Theodore left. Jenette's comment was that it was all politics, part of the game. He had retorted that her faith in the Dragoons was too blind, that Jaime Wolf must have asked Theodore to leave them behind. They didn't share a bed for a week after that.

  But that had been almost a year ago and with still no contact with the Dragoons, even Jenette's iron faith was wavering.

  Following the path, Dechan passed between the widespread feet of the Archer, his eye caught by some small tablets that lay clumped on either side of the stepping stones. The tablets had writing on them. Crouching to look closer, he saw that each slab bore a name. Most of the names he didn't recognize, but some he did. They were all Kurita warriors who had fought against the Dragoons. The presence of one name especially surprised him, more for its prominent place than for its presence. Minobu Tetsuhara.

  Tetsuhara had been the Kuritan officer assigned to act as liaison with the Dragoons during their contract with the Draconis Combine. He had admired the Dragoons and learned much from them, enough that when he received orders to destroy the mercenaries with regiments he had raised on their model, Tetsuhara had nearly succeeded. Though caught in a conflict of giri, his duty to the Combine, and ninjo, his human feelings for his Dragoon friends, he had followed his orders like a good samurai. And, like a good samurai, he had committed seppuku to atone for his failure. Tetsuhara and Jaime Wolf had become close friends. That friendship was as much a part of the Dragoon/Kurita feud as the treacherous behavior of Warlord Samsonov, who had been Tetsuhara's superior. The hunt for Samsonov had connected Dechan to Michi Noketsuna, Tetsuhara's protege, and that friendship had brought him into House Kurita service.

  How much did Takashi know?

  It would be ironic if he and Jenette were to be denounced as spies now. Could Takashi believe that the deaths of two forgotten Dragoons would affect Jaime Wolf? Did he think he could use them as pawns in prosecuting his feud? What a laugh! The Dragoons didn't need Dechan and Jenette. They had given up their feud, had begun to treat it with the contempt they showed Waco's Rangers. A feud no longer exists when only one side takes it seriously. Dechan and Jenette had been abandoned, discarded as unimportant to Jaime Wolf's plans, just like his blood feud with House Kurita.

  Now Dechan was on his way to a private meeting with the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine, the lord of House Kurita, and he had been deliberately reminded of the supposed blood feud.

  Did the Kuritan code also call for seppuku by forgotten and impotent spies?

  Dechan straightened and tugged his uniform back to order—his Kuritan uniform, which he had worn longer than he had the garb of a Dragoon. So where did his loyalties lie now? He looked down the path, glimpsing a small portion of Unity Palace, the imperial palace, through the trees. That was where his future would be decided. There was no point in turning back.

  Dechan drew nearer to the palace.

  The guards kneeling on the veranda were in their ceremonial armor, wide-mouthed stunners cradled in their arms. Staring impassively ahead, they did not move at his approach. They might have been statues, save that he could see them breathing. As his foot touched the boards of the veranda, a shoji panel slid open behind the guards. A beautiful woman in traditional kimono and full make-up bowed to him. He returned the bow, and she led him into the hall.

  The doorway to which she guided him opened into a room redolent with the scent of jasmine. Across the wide chamber, a man in a dragon-figured kimono sat on a low chair. His white-haired head was bowed over a sheet of rice paper, his face concealed. He held a brush in his right hand. Like the guards outside, he did not move as Dechan approached.

  Two meters away, Dechan stopped, unsure. He had heard rumors that Takashi had more than once ordered the death of someone who failed to observe proper protocol. What was the proper protocol? Waiting was usually safe.

  He waited.

  The man suddenly moved, dipping his brush into the lacquered ink tray and brushing ink in strong, sharp strokes onto the paper. He gave a tight, affirmative nod and grunted to himself. Laying the brush down, he turned to face Dechan.

  Takashi Kurita's face was as familiar to Dechan as it was to any citizen of the Combine. He knew the scars, the firm line of the jaw, and the penetrating gaze of the ice blue eyes. Unfamiliar were the age lines, but

  Dechan could sense the vigor of Takashi's spirit. The man was still dangerous. The Coordinator inclined his head to his visitor, and Dechan bowed deeply in reply, then knelt.

  "Ah, Tai-sa Fraser." The Coordinator's slight smile was lopsided, as if one side of his face refused to cooperate. "You honor an old man by your visit."

  Dechan swallowed, made nervous by Takashi's self-effacing opening. "The Dragon is ever strong," he responded.

  Takashi chuckled. "There is little need to be formal, Fraser-san. We are just two old warriors here. Feel free to speak as one old friend to another."

  Dechan was immediately on guard. Though he was one of Theodore's shitenno, relations with the Kanrei had always been formal. For all his years in the Combine, he had never been on intimate terms with any member of the Kurita clan, least of all the Coordinator. But it would be an insult to contradict Takashi. "I am honored by your grace, Takashi-sama. "

  The Coordinator's smile remained. Dechan had chosen the right course. They talked of the weather and Dechan praised the garden, traditional Kurita small talk. Dechan had almost relaxed when Takashi quietly asked, "How is your old friend Michi Noketsuna?"

  Dechan stiffened, knowing that the Coordinator could not miss his reaction but unable to control it. Michi had sworn to kill Takashi for his part in forcing Tetsuhara to commit seppuku. "I have not spoken with him in years, Coordinator-sama."

  "Yet you are friends. Was he not responsible for your coming into the Dragon's service?"

  "I made my own decision, Coordinator-sama." Did Dechan dare believe that the Coordinator didn't know about Michi's vow? Takashi's next words dashed that hope.

  "Had you not agreed to aid him in his vendetta, you would not have made that decision."

  Dechan searched the Coordinator's inscrutable expression. Was this an attempt to incriminate him? Should he lie? He decided against that. If the Coordinator knew of his history, he would know the lie. "That is correct."

  "And do you still aid him in that vendetta?"

  "I serve the Dragon."

  Takashi's eyes narrowed. His voice was harsh as he said, "You serve my son."

  "Your son serves you and the Combine both, Coordinator-sama."

  "Which says nothing of you," Takashi said quickly. More calmly, he continued, "You have learned our Kuritan indirection reasonably well, Fraser-san. Do not think to delude me. Do you stand with Noketsuna?"

  "He has forsaken my friendship."

  "Have you forsaken his?" Takashi leaned forward as if avid for Dechan's answer.

  Dechan felt a drop of sweat trickle clammily down his side. Frankness had to be the safest course here. But how could he give honest answers to the Coordinator when he was not sure he had any answers? "If you mean, would I aid him in killing you, I think not."

  "You are not sure? Where is your loyalty, Fraser-san? Where is your honor if you do not fulfill your oath to aid him?"

  "I was young when I swore to help Michi achieve his goal. I am older now. Times have changed, needs have been superseded. A true samurai understands when he must subordinate his honor to a greater honor, and the threat of the Clans overpowers any one person's needs. Michi himself was willing to set aside his vengeance, back in the thirties, when your son Theodore persuaded him that the Combine needed the service of all her samurai. Then the threat was only the Federated Commonwealth, a mere inconvenience compared to the danger posed by the Clans. How could he think of disrupting the Combine now?"

  Takashi leaned back in his chair. "Then he has abandoned his vendetta?"

  "I believe so. He has not been seen in the Combine for almost two years. But, as I said, I have not communicated with him for much longer than that."

  "Communicated? You draw a distinction." Takashi grunted. "When was the last time you spoke with him?"

  "We've met only once since the end of the war with Davion. I knew he didn't want to be warlord anymore and asked him to join the Ryuken. He said that he was not worthy, that he had failed as a samurai and would retire from the world." Dechan paused, remembering the pain of that meeting. "He also told me to stay out of his life."

  "Yet you persist in your friendship. That shows loyalty, and misplaced loyalty is dangerous. Where is he now?"

  Wishing he had another answer, Dechan replied, "I don't know."

  "What would you do if I told you where to find him?"

  "I don't know that, either."

 

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