No other Bloodname legacy carried as much prestige among the trueborn as his. It was General Aleksandr Kerensky who had led his Star League followers from the Inner Sphere so many centuries ago, founding the Clan homeworlds. He and his son, Nicholas, were the great fathers of Clan society. Nicholas used martial law and strict adherence to a eugenics program in his vision to create a great warrior race: Battlesuit infantry of terrifying size, pilots with supernatural instincts, MechWarriors.

When the Clans finally returned, promising themselves that they would bring order to the Inner Sphere, the latter half of that invasion was led by a Kerensky descendent. And during the Jihad, it was Katya Kerensky who found in Devlin Stone a worthy leader to follow, later bringing with her a large slice of Clan Wolf to help form the Republic of the Sphere.

The descendents of those Clan warriors had kept to their traditions, even inside The Republic. Now Torrent, of the Kerensky Bloodname house, was pledged to help Galaxy Commander Kal Radick bring the Steel Wolves back into the fold of their parent Clan. Such an accomplishment would win Torrent much honor, to be recorded in the military file stored on his codex. That only left the winning of a Bloodname in ritual combat to ensure him a place in the Steel Wolves’ breeding program. His DNA would be selected to raise entire sibkos of cadets, even after his death. The scientists offered him an immortality the kind of which all Clan warriors dreamt.

And it was time to begin inspiring the next generation of Kerensky descendents.

The Star Hunter’s docking waist ringed the vessel at midship, a circular corridor that connected each of the vessel’s four docking hardpoints. Torrent approached the open floor hatch, which dropped a ladder down near the Lupus’ gantry, stepped over the access, and then caught hold of the nearby ladder when a familiar face looked up from below his feet. Star Colonel Colton Fetladral blocked his descent.

“Up on the bridge again?” Fetladral asked. “Harassing our good Captain Nygren?”

Colton Fetladral owned ten years on Torrent, with mocha-dark skin and ebony hair running toward a premature iron gray at the temples. At thirty-eight Fetladral was old by Clan standards, but his earning a Bloodname and rising to the rank of Star Colonel—commanding one of the three Steel Wolf clusters—had already earned him a place in the breeding programs. Chances were better than good that if anything happened to Kal Radick, Colton Fetladral would rise to command of the Steel Wolves.

Torrent’s chances were good, and he was coming up fast behind Fetladral.

“I go where the action is,” Torrent said with a shrug that strained the shoulder seams of his utility uniform. “During a jump, that is on the JumpShip bridge.”

Fetladral nodded. “And did you win your wager with Star Captain Demos?”

“Yulri talks too much.”

“Do not blame him. I pressed. And what warrior should not be proud of his commander, quiaff?” Fetladral moved aside.

Releasing his hold on the ladder, Torrent dropped down through the final hatch with knees bent to absorb his landing. A hand reached up to him and he caught it, accepting the anchor. Fetladral reigned in his colleague until both men were comfortably braced at the bottom of the ladder. Fetladral wore gray utilities with razor-sharp military creases, same as Torrent, but his were smudged and stained with grease from working with his technicians. Such work was beneath Fetladral’s station, but unavoidable if he wanted to be ready for his part of the coming offensive.

“So,” the older officer asked again, “did you win?”

Torrent frowned at his hand, now smudged with the same red grease that Fetladral wore. It smelled of sharp oil and metal. Common packing grease for myomer. “Star Colonel Fetladral. Have you known me to lose?”

Fetladral’s wolfish smile faltered, reminded of his recent loss to Torrent in the bidding for Achernar. Torrent had pledged to Kal Radick’s plan with fewer resources, by Clan tradition winning him the right to the Steel Wolves’ primary target and first choice among the faction’s military. “As yet I have not, Star Colonel Torrent. This time, however, you may have bid below the cutdown. We shall see who comes home with the better prize.”

“Colton, did you wait here simply to taunt me?” Dropping the other man’s rank and Bloodname was a precisely calculated insult, paying Fetladral back for doubting Torrent’s bidding. He turned toward the access gantry hatch, five meters down the curving corridor, a large well-lighted opening in the hull of the Star Hunter.

“No,” Fetladral admitted, nodding an apology as he glided along next to the younger warrior. “I came to wish you victory and honor, Torrent, toward the success of the Steel Wolves.”

Torrent paused at the gantry hatch, looked down at Fetladral’s outstretched hand. He took it in a firm grip, stronger than a friendly clasp but not quite a test of strength. “Accepted. And appreciated.”

“Just do not forget to hold to plan,” Fetladral said amicably enough, “or I will see you dead in a circle of equals.”

For the second time since the jump, Torrent laughed one of his loud, raucous laughs. “I would have it no other way between us. Do not worry. Star Captain Laren Mehta is a loyal executive officer. My forward forces will not break cover for at least another twenty hours.”

“Your Trojan Horse gambit does not concern me. I only wanted to reinforce the need to hold Achernar’s attention—and anyone else listening in—until the arrival of Sir Kyle Powers.”

An impediment to Kal Radick’s plans had been the arrival of Kyle Powers, a Knight of the Sphere, on Ronel. It was expected—demanded—that Torrent draw out the fighting in such a manner as to pull Powers’s stabilizing presence from Ronel to Achernar.

Torrent nodded curtly. “I know Kal Radick’s plan, and will hold to it.”

“Then your victory will ensure my victory. So again, I will wish you success.” Fetladral clapped Torrent on both shoulders, nodded, and then drifted back down the corridor and toward one of his own two DropShips.

Torrent watched the other officer’s unhurried retreat, then ducked through the gantry hatch and moved into the Overlord–class DropShip Lupus. Eventually he would command over the DropShip’s atmospheric approach from the bridge, but after his run-in with Fetladral, Torrent found himself turning his feet toward the ship’s main cargo bay. Two decks down he slid along a transship corridor and then drifted through large doublewide doors that led into his primary ’Mech bay. Ten of the walking war avatars waited in their berths—five state-of-the-art designs, including his seventy-five-ton Tundra Wolf, and five industrial machines converted to military use. The empty BattleMech berths had been given over to a full star of his Elementals as a place for the genetically engineered super infantry to store and maintain their powered armor.

And in Bay Two, five more converted industrial ’Mechs and two stars of armored vehicles. Bay Three held all vehicles: fifteen well-maintained tanks ready for battle.

And in the Wulfstag, his second DropShip, Torrent brought along another two trinaries of vehicles and a second star of assorted armored infantry.

Torrent glanced over the smudged stains Fetladral had left on each of his shoulders and smiled a predator’s grin. No word of praise would ever be won from Colton Fetladral without a black look or whispered threat behind it. And as Torrent had said earlier, he would have it no other way between them. Friend and enemy—one came with the other as both men rose in power. The day Colton Fetladral ignored Torrent would either be the day Torrent no longer mattered among the Steel Wolves, or the day he would kill Fetladral.

With the forces under Torrent’s command for this mission, that day would not be today. He had bid well, earning his place at the forefront of the Steel Wolves’ plans, and even without his forward-deployed screen he believed he had enough strength behind him. Enough to assault, occupy, and finally wrest away control of Achernar from the Republic.