That reputation took a blow when Jaime Wolf himself revealed that the Dragoons had originally arrived as spies for Clan Wolf, and by extension, for the whole body of the Clans, who were at that moment invading the Inner Sphere. The Dragoon name became a curse in mouths of desperate and frightened people everywhere. Who could blame them? Jaime Wolf admitted that he had been a member of Clan Wolf, the same Clan that had raced ahead of its fellows, gobbling up Inner Sphere worlds like the legendary Norse wolf-beast Fenris. As the Clan hordes drove implacably toward Terra, even the protestations of friendship with the Dragoons by the leaders of the Inner Sphere could not ease the hostility of the common people.

It was not until the siege of Luthien, capital of the Draconis Combine, that spheroid opinion began to shift back to a favorable view of the Dragoons. Hanse Davion, lord of House Davion and de facto ruler of the still new Federated Commonwealth, a marriage-spawned amalgamation of his own Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth, ordered the Dragoons and other mercenaries to assist the besieged Combine. The move shocked many people, especially those who believed that centuries of mutual hatred would prevent cooperation between the Federated Commonwealth and the Draconis Combine, even in the face of so grave a common threat as the Clan invasion. After the Dragoons played a key role in checking the Clanner flood at Luthien, the ordinary spheroid began to believe that we had truly split from our past and joined our fate to that of the Inner Sphere. Once again, the Dragoons and Jaime Wolf had become heroes.

In the old days, Jaime Wolf used to play a game with those he had never met before. When the Wolf's face was not well-known, a visitor would be ushered into the presence of a number of Dragoon colonels. Jaime Wolf would be among them, but no sign would be given, no names exchanged, until the visitor had reacted. I am told that people usually mistook one of the other colonels to be the leader of the Dragoons. A comment, I think, on the inferiority of the average spheroid. But the faces of galactic heroes eventually become seen and remembered by grateful people everywhere and so the Wolf's game is no longer played.

I thought about that test as I entered the Wolf's DropShip. I knew that I would not have failed as so many others had; but then, I am a Dragoon. We are trained to look beneath the surface and sense a person's strength. I would have no need to recognize the chiseled features and the iron gray hair and beard. I would not need to know of his short stature and lean physique. Jaime Wolf would be unmistakable, his inner strength easily sensed by a true warrior, even if his appearance were not familiar.

But the days of games were long over. The Dragoons had fought hard, grinding campaigns, not the least of which was the siege of Luthien. Though the ruling lords of the Great Houses expressed their belief that we were wholly a part of the Inner Sphere, we knew where we stood. We had turned our backs on the warped traditions of the Clans, but we had still not become assimilated into the ways of the Inner Sphere. We were our own breed, standing alone in a hostile sea of stars. Only the planet Outreach was ours, and we would hold it by any means in our power. Sibkos such as my own were proof of our resolve. As we say in our ceremonies, the Dragoons will stand until we allfall.

The guard who met me at the head of the ramp checked my orders before summoning an ensign of the ship's complement. She led me through the maze of corridors to a small cabin, where I dropped off my duffle. There were three other bunks; I was too junior to rate a private cabin. A short ride on a personnel lift brought us to the main deck. Standing amid their transport cocoons were the ship's complement of BattleMechs, their giant shapes casting fantastic shadows. Flickering among the shadows were the lights of the techs working to refit or repair the huge battle machines.

I had hoped to be ushered onto the upper decks, the Wolf's den. Sibko rumor reported the off-limits portions of the Chieftainas a place where instruments of various decadent pleasures existed side by side with the most advanced combat-command technology. My disappointment at being unable to confirm those legends was drowned in a rush of excitement. I would soon come face to face with the Wolf himself.

Grouped around a table in the central open space, Dragoon officers huddled over a tactical briefing table.

In the reflected light of the holotank, the washed-out tone of their flesh lent them an eerie resemblance to ghosts. Jaime Wolf was seated at one end of the table, listening to his commanders talk over some problem.

The ensign nudged me and I was suddenly aware that she was holding out to me the packet containing my orders. I took it from her and she left without a word. With no reason to delay, I approached the table and handed the packet to the Wolf.

He looked up at me, taking the bundle and tossing it onto the table without a glance. His face was familiar, but that made it no less terrifying. This was the man who had held the Dragoons together through nearly fifty years of travail. His strategic sense and tactical genius were legend. Who could stand in his presence and not feel awe?

"Welcome aboard, Brian," Jaime Wolf said. His gray eyes were penetrating, clear and deep as glacial ice. I imagined that he could see into my soul and read it as easily as a datascreen. Not daring to speak, lest I embarrass myself by stammering, I only nodded and shook the offered hand. As I did, something moved in the depths of those clear gray eyes and the Wolf's expression shifted slightly for the briefest moment. Disappointment? Had I failed already? "You'll need to know everyone here if you're on my staff."

He introduced the other officers. They were all heroes, each a veteran of at least twenty years with the Dragoons. At the time, I barely noted them. But to tell the tale fairly, you must know who was there.

Colonel Neil Parella was the only combat commander present. My first impression of him was colored by his somewhat slovenly manner of posture, speech, and dress, but I had heard that life in the field is somewhat more relaxed than in the training cadres. Who was I to criticize? The battle ribbons and the patches of units defeated by his regiment that decorated his combat jacket told the tale of a successful warrior. I had heard rumors he'd had a drinking problem as a junior officer, a flaw that would have been unforgivable in a senior officer. But he had obviously overcome that; he was commander of Gamma Regiment, after all.

Colonel Stanford Blake, a dapper man of advanced middle age, was the head of the so-called Wolfnet, the Dragoons' intelligence operation. He had served in Wolf's Command Lance as intelligence officer until moving up to his current post. Of all of them, Blake alone actually seemed pleased to see me.

The oldest of the four in attendance on the Wolf was Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Chan. I knew from the archives that he had earned even more decorations than Parella, but Chan did not wear them on his uniform. Like Blake, he wore a Mech Warrior's simple undress blues bearing only his rank insignia and the wolf's-head shoulder patch of the Dragoons. He no longer held an active field command, serving instead as Colonel Carmody's second-in-command and head of the BattleMech Operations Command.

It is not rare for Dragoons to wear patches signifying former affiliations, but I was surprised to see an infantryman's patch on the uniform of Major Hanson Brubaker. He was even shorter than the Wolf, a slim ferret of a man, hardly the sort one would expect to be a groundpounder. Then I noticed the Special Recon Group patch and understood. In his current post, Brubaker had moved on to reconnaissance operations of another sort; he was head of the Contract Command, the branch of Wolf's Dragoons that handled negotiations, recruitment, and public relations.