The Wolf laughed. "Don't worry, Brian. There won't be any fight."

"You mean that was all for show?" I was more confused than ever. If the Wolf's challenge was supposed to show people that he didn't really approve of Kantov or his actions, his timing was off. There hadn't been any audience but Dragoons.

Jaime Wolf shook his head. "The challenge was real enough. When I said that there won't be a fight, I meant that Kantov won't be around by the time of the trial."

I stopped walking, shocked. It couldn't be. Would the Wolf would have some agent eliminate Kantov? Noticing that I was no longer at his side, he stopped and turned to me.

"It's nothing underhanded," Colonel Wolf said, apparently divining the direction of my thoughts. "Kantov is a coward. He'll run rather than fight."

I was relieved that my fears that the Wolf was less than I thought him were mere imaginings. I remembered the tenets of his books on strategy and tactics, especially those teaching that one must know his enemy well. The Wolf was the, master at knowing his enemies, an impeccable judge of men. If he believed that Kantov would run, Kantov would run. My faith in the Wolf's honor restored, we walked on.

The Wolf had another surprise for me. "As soon as Colonel Blake finishes his review of the commission's report, have him forward the list of dismissals along with his recommendations on replacements to fill the open slots in Gamma."

"Dismissal? Replacements?"

"The bully boys in Kantov's Battalion had their chance. Those who weren't a party to the battalion's actions condoned them. The rot must stop with them. If the Dragoons aren't beyond an employer's reproach, we're no better than a bunch of pirates, and I won't lead a bunch of bandits. The Dragoons are better than that. We have to be."

I was stuck by the fervor in his voice. "You say that as if you have something to prove, Colonel."

"There's always something to prove."

We exited the hall to face the assembled reporters.

5

The Wolf was proven correct; there was no Trial of Grievance. Kantov disappeared from his barracks and a week later Colonel Blake's sources reported him outward bound on a JumpShip headed for the Capellan Confederation. Kantov had found himself a new home with Olson's Rangers, a mercenary regiment more than happy to have an ex-Dragoon, even a disgraced one. From what I'd heard in the common hall, Kantov might actually raise the Rangers' level of morality. Several of Kantov's cronies left Outreach as well. Most headed for Capellan space with Kantov, but a few grabbed slots in the first unit that would take them. Within two weeks none of the people on my dismissal list was still on Outreach.

I was glad, and not just because it meant fewer discharge files for me to handle. The Dragoons were well rid of them. But we still had to deal with Kantov's legacy.

At first, the Wolf took his exile from combat well. He threw himself into work he said needed to be done. The sentence of the commission didn't prevent him from dealing with Dragoon business operations. When the Wolf wasn't doing business, he was overseeing the training facilities, adjusting class strategies, and reviewing the progress of almost everyone taking instruction on Outreach, from the transient spheroids to the training sibkos. He also spent a lot of time with the scientists and the teachers.

I spent most of my time shuffling requisitions and proposals. Though I told myself all of it was important, I must confess that I paid more attention to the Blackwell communiques. I was a young Mech Warrior and Blackwell Corporation was now our primary weapon supplier—and new technologies are, after all, far more interesting than personnel transfers, grade rankings, and spare-part requests. I didn't understand a lot of the technical specifications for the new factories, but I appreciated the capabilities of some of the new machines that would be coming out of those factories. If I couldn't fight, at least I could keep up on the state of the art.

The Wolf himself wasn't working, but the Dragoons certainly were. They needed to be. The commission's penalty meant we needed a lot of contract business to maintain the cash flow that Jaime Wolf demanded. He spent a lot of time within the marble-sheathed walls of the Hiring Hall. His attention to the organization of Dragoon contracts made sense to me. Having combat units spread over half the Inner Sphere made coordination vital. What I didn't understand was why he spent so much time glad-handing the unaffiliated mercs who came to Outreach.

Their motivation was much clearer. They wanted the Dragoons' seal of approval on their units. Despite the commission's verdict, it had done little to diminish the Dragoons' reputation among the hireling soldiers of the Inner Sphere. If anything, our reputation improved. Maybe they thought us more human; they certainly saw that we were willing to admit to our mistakes and then rectify them. Whatever their reasons, the other mercs came and Jaime Wolf saw them.

Those he approved were added to the Dragoons' recommended roster alongside such longtime subcontractors as the Black Brigade and Carter's Chevaliers.

Sometimes I thought the Wolf wasn't as discriminating about the honor of those mercs as he might have been. I tried to be fair; after all, they were not Dragoons. But my worry over those units was nothing compared to the disgust I felt about some of the ragtag collections of MechWarriors that set up shop outside the Hall. They were Kantov's kind of people, and were using the draw of the organized contracting to offer cut-rate deals to prospective employers. I didn't understand why the Wolf permitted them onplanet. They drew customers away from our operation and those the Dragoons sponsored.

"Unavoidable," the Wolf said when I asked him. "We need an open city for open commerce. Keeping them out would be discriminatory and lose us our reputation for fairness. As long as they pay their rent, they can stay. But they'll never see the other side of the mountain."

"The other side of the mountain" was where the Dragoons trained, the greater continent on Outreach where once the old Star League had held its Martial Olympics. It was also known as the "Outback" to distinguish it from the "World," the smaller continent where we did our public business. The Outback had other uses now, not all of which I can tell you. Outsiders only visited it under escort. Even orbital overflights were forbidden under pain of attack. If Outreach was our home, the other side of the mountain was our private quarters.

Of course we of Jaime Wolf's Command Lance got to the other side of the mountain, but not often enough. The Wolf's Command Lance was a reinforced lance of six BattleMechs that was structured for combat as well as staff functions. But with the Wolf's undesired furlough, we were all sidelined. Still, no one in the Dragoons goes very long without a chance to sharpen combat skills. Periodically the dullness of cityside duty was relieved by a training exercise.

Such exercises gave me an opportunity to get used to my new Loki.At sixty-five tons, it was a far larger 'Mech than I had ever piloted. Had it been a standard combat configuration, I probably wouldn't have had any trouble. It was the equipment installed so that I could perform my duties as common officer that complicated the situation. My Lokihad an extensive suite of communications and electronic gear, making it more functional for regimental command in a mobile battle than most spheroid command centers. If a spheroid comm officer were ever to observe its compactness and power, he would probably die of envy.

I often found myself wondering how well Founder William would have handled the machine. As one of the original Dragoons, he would have understood OmniMechs far better than any of my generation or the adoptees. OmniMechs were Clan tech and, therefore, new to us, but the Dragoons had few of them as yet. To be allowed to pilot one was a privilege and an honor. I intended to be worthy of it.