Xera preempted Drake by being faster off the mark. “I have restored my own honor. And, as I was the one Star Captain Mehta last placed in command, I assume his authority.”

“Then I challenge,” Drake argued at once. “The position is mine.”

Torrent nodded. “I forbid augmented combat while we are on a military footing.” By custom, choice of hand-to-hand or live-fire combat belonged to the ‘hunter,’ the one who challenged. “Drake. For that, I offer you choice of venue.”

“Here. Now.” The pilot couldn’t wait to think if he enjoyed an advantage someplace else.

Torrent glanced to the remaining technicians. “Give them five meters.” Starting near their star colonel, the six remaining men and women formed a loose circle around the pilots, leaving them approximately five meters for their circle of equals. “First one forced out of the circle,” Torrent said, a time-honored condition of victory. Then he set himself in a wide, comfortable stance, and waited.

The two combatants circled each other warily, watching for any telltale sign of weakness. Xera’s sharp, hazel eyes missed nothing. A warm anger radiated out of Drake, who was beyond patience. He rushed in, coming low and fast to maintain his center of gravity and not get simply toreadored out of the makeshift circle.

Xera accepted the full brunt of his attack, protecting herself by balling up and rolling away, losing skin from her hand against the nonskid deck and coming dangerously close to the circle’s edge. By intention, as it happened. Greedily, Drake pursued, thinking to kick her the rest of the way out of the Trial. Xera rolled back toward him, speared out one leg in a low sidekick and connected solidly with his knee.

He stumbled forward and Xera could have won the Trial right then if she had helped him to fall over and past her. Instead, the female pilot struck out again, bringing her foot up fast and cruel, spearing Drake in the groin and stopping his fall cold.

Torrent couldn’t help his wince of sympathy.

Drake backed off, doubled over and trying to catch his breath. Jumping back to her feet, Xera gave him no time to recover. She danced in graceful as a striking snake, throwing a roundhouse kick into Drake’s stomach, folding him in half and then bringing her elbow down on the back of his neck. Then she waited for him to rise again.

The star colonel had Xera’s measure now. Rather than take the victory when she could, she was winning this challenge and any future challenges of her new position. She waited for Drake to concede. Torrent respected that, even if it might cost him a pilot for the better part of a week. Such a commanding tactic was one of many reasons why women were considered the most dangerous competitors for a Trial of Bloodname or any other rough contest. They simply did not try to win. They tried to destroy.

Drake didn’t know enough to thrust his hand out of the circle and slap the ground. Instead, Torrent watched him crawl painfully back to his feet. Dogged persistence was an admirable trait in any warrior stock, the star colonel granted Drake that.

Xera moved in again. This time Drake threw every ounce of his remaining energy into one vicious punch. His uppercut caught the female pilot a glancing blow as Xera rolled her head in the same direction. She sagged forward as if falling, grabbed two handfuls of Drake’s coveralls, and then rolled backward dragging him with her. Planting her foot into his gut, she used their combined momentum to throw Drake up and over, slamming him down on his back against the cargo bay deck. The air rushed from Drake’s lungs in a forced exhale.

Still on the ground, Xera pivoted on her shoulder blades and threw a backfist that connected with Drake’s nose. Torrent heard cartilage and bone crunch. A gout of blood splashed down over Drake’s mouth and the man lay still.

Xera climbed back to her feet.

Drake lay prostrate near the circle’s edge, but still no part of his body had broken the perimeter. Torrent stepped forward, violating the circle. Xera would now be within her rights to attack him as well, taking his interference as a slight to her own honor. It depended on how much respect she held for her commander. Torrent did not even glance at her as he stepped past, giving her his back with full confidence. He paused near Drake and used his foot to shove the pilot’s hand so that it fell outside the circle. Then he stepped over the unconscious man and left the circle behind.

Star Captain Demos jogged over from the bay door, her sharp gaze flying past Torrent to seize upon the ended Trial. “You did not wait?” she asked, obviously upset. “I would like to have seen that.”

“And gamble on it, no doubt.” Torrent shook his head. “As I recall, you still owe… Yulri… on a previous wager.”

“I have not forgotten. I took a bondsman yesterday, after the skirmish near Taibek Mines. But he is an infantryman and is proving… intractable.”

Taking defeated enemy warriors as isorla, making them bondsmen to the Steel Wolves, was a Clan practice Kal Radick encouraged among his forces. Torrent was less sanguine about the idea, looking only for those who truly supported the Steel Wolves. They were out there on Achernar, and they would come over to him at the right time.

He merely needed to provide it for them.

“You had something you wished to discuss?” Demos asked him after several paces in silence.

“I do.” Torrent mentally thumbed through the Achernar briefings he had memorized. There were two local reservists who had once petitioned for active duty under Kal Radick’s command, citing their blood ties to Clan Wolf expatriates. Freeborn, but still of warrior stock. It was a guess, where he’d find them, but the briefing mentioned their dissatisfaction driving LoaderMechs and short-haulers.

“I would like you to take a run over to the San Marino spaceport,” Torrent told his second, “and pick up two packages for me.”

San Marino Spaceport

Achernar

23 February 3133

Strapped into the ConstructionMech’s cracked vinyl seat by an ordinary lap belt, the militia’s newest MechWarrrior wrestled with unfamiliar postures and controls as he tried to pick up the tangled section of chain link fence. His left-hand vise grabbed at the wire mesh, pulling it to one side so that his bucket hand on the WorkMech’s right arm could dig out the buried pole. For the third time he misjudged, bringing the bucket down on the fencing and tearing it out of his own grip. Biting down on his frustration he pulled back on the controls, preparing to start again. The going was slow, but there was little hurry.

“Not like we’ll be using these landing pads anytime soon,” he whispered.

He had certainly seen this section of the San Marino spaceport in better shape.

The military’s “secure landing” zone was neither after the Steel Wolf raid two days before. Bunker-thick walls lay in untidy piles, protecting nothing better than a fire-gutted hangar and two collapsed warehouses. The trio of landing pads were scorched and scarred by errant lasers and artillery-made craters. A section of tunnel—one of two that connected the once-secure site to the underground service area on the larger, civilian side of the spaceport—had caved in, forming a long, deep depression into which a Republic militia Marksman had fallen. The second tunnel would need an incredible amount of shoring before safe access could be guaranteed.

Work teams, mostly civilian volunteers, had spread out over the ruined area in an attempt to clear the debris and recover whatever useful material remained to be salvaged. Like ants toiling to rebuild their shattered colony, people carried and fetched, formed a brigade line for moving dirt and rock out from around the second tunnel entrance, drove dozers and cranes and one of the ever-rarer IndustrialMechs. One team worked with body-sniffing dogs, searching for any of three missing reservists who might be buried under a pile of rubble. That was a duty Raul had no stomach for. Fortunately, there were other options.