"Chris, it would have been worth a shot, if theThirty-first Wolf Solahma had not been there to see you get tricked."

"Our being there might have prevented them from being chewed up."

Phelan shook his head and laughed, "Chewing did them some good."

Chris stared at him and Phelan wondered if he'd suddenly grown horns and a tail. "My God in heaven, you have truly become one of them, haven't you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You. You're one of the Clans." Chris shivered. "You let warriors die on Cue Ball as though their lives were worthless."

"The Thirty-first only lost two pilots."

"But you couldn't have known that going in." The mercenary looked at his cousin with disbelief. "Do they know you consider them disposable?"

Phelan stiffened. "Certainly, in just the same way you told Zimmer's Zouaves they were meant to be flypaper." He saw Chris wince as the remark hit home. "I don't consider the men and women of the Thirty-first Wolf Solahma expendable any more than you see any of your people that way. Yes, they may be warriors reduced to hunting bandits, but they are people. Even if they believe dying in combat is a fitting end to their lives, I do not."

"Then how can you say gnawing is good for them."

"You are right, Chris, I misspoke." The image of Conal Ward floated before Phelan's mind's-eye. "Their commander is an old adversary of mine. All the things you attributed to me a moment ago you can tattoo on him and he would not mind at all. He did everything he could to prevent me from winning a Bloodname, including cheating in a sacred Clan ritual. As a result he was forced to resign from his position as Clan Loremaster, and had to accept duty as the head of a bandit-hunting unit. Because his hatred for the Inner Sphere nearly equals his hatred for me, he was assigned to destroy the Red Corsair and I was assigned to be his immediate superior."

Phelan chewed his lower lip for a moment. "I doubt that Conal learned humility from being embarrassed by the Red Corsair, but I can hope. What is important is that he had his shot and he missed." He took in a deep breath and looked at Chris. "So, if you think I'm working with a hidden agenda, I guess I am. I want to see peace maintained. And the best chance for it is if the Kell Hounds dust these bandits while Conal's folks prove ineffective. That will weaken his position and help discredit his allies—all of whom oppose the peace."

Chris frowned in puzzlement. "I am not sure I understand."

"It is simple, actually. The Clans are split into two factions—the Crusaders and the Wardens. The Crusaders want to take over the Inner Sphere and become its rulers under a reborn Star League. The Crusaders are a minority in the Wolf Clan, but Conal is one of them. The Wardens, on the other hand, believe their mission is to protect the Inner Sphere. Though we predominate in the Wolf Clan, we are the minority in Clans such as the Jade Falcons and Smoke Jaguars."

"For all that your ilKhan is a Warden, he seems to have almost accomplished the Crusader goal." Chris punched up a larger star map that showed the wedge the Clans had driven down into the Inner Sphere. "The Wolves were the cutting edge."

"And the ilKhan negotiated the peace with ComStar. He had to be in front to stop the juggernaut, and he succeeded." Phelan traced the border area between the Federated Commonwealth and the Jade Falcon occupation zone. "The same kind of unrest you report here in the Commonwealth is happening within the Clans. The ilKhan faces pressure to abrogate the truce and press the attack. The bandits seem determined to show how weak the Inner Sphere is. If the Kell Hounds can crush the bandits, we'll put a lie to the myth of the Inner Sphere's vulnerability. It may not be enough to stop the pressure, but it will bleed much of it off."

Chris looked at Phelan curiously. "You said 'We'll put a lie to the myth.' Does that mean you consider yourself one of the Inner Sphere now?"

"By 'we' I meant those who realize the insanity of renewing the war." Phelan offered his cousin his hand.

"And, just so you know, joining the Clans did not include repudiating my family. You can trust me, Chris, as I trust you."

Chris shook the offered hand, but Phelan still saw doubt in his eyes. You're too suspicious, Chris, but maybe that is what kept you alive in the Combine.Phelan thought for a moment and nodded to himself. If Conalis playing some sort of game, your suspicion might keep us all alive.

Dan Allard smiled as the two men broke their grip. "I assume, Phelan, that you had more in mind than a family reunion when you originally asked for this meeting."

The Wolf Clan Khan nodded. "Aside from giving us solid readouts on the Red Corsair's 'Mechs, Yeguas showed us two things. The first is that the bandits don't seem to have aerospace assets. They did not use any to cover their DropShips headed out to get the tribute, nor did they use any to maul the Thirty-first. That leaves them very vulnerable, especially if we can ambush them as they come in on a run on a system."

Chris nodded, but his expression changed to a frown. "We could hide aerospace fighters in a DropShip in an asteroid field or behind a moon, but that would require knowing in advance where the Corsairs are going to be and where they will appear in that star system."

Phelan smiled triumphantly. "That's the second thing. Using the data we've collected concerning their arrival points, cross-correlating it with system data and the catalog of their pirate points that Janos Vandermeer has put together, we've isolated what is probably the program they are using for navigation. By running selections through a copy of that program, and selecting targets based on the parameters they appear to have used before, the list of candidates for their next attack gets damned tiny."

Dan leaned forward. "How tiny?"

Phelan stabbed a finger into a star in the starfield map. "Zanderij is their next target. And when they come in, we'll be waiting."

30

Solaris

Federated Commonwealth

17 August 3055

The assassin briefly debated whether or not he would have to kill Judith Calley. Though she knew him only as Chuck Grayson and apparently suspected nothing amiss, she might have picked up unconsciously on clues that could come back to haunt him later. After the time he had spent as Karl Kole, keeping so much to himself, the intimacy of their relationship was a welcome contrast. All the passions he had kept pent up as Kole erupted in their affair.

He realized that continuing to spend time with Jude was dangerous, but he forced his worries away and locked them in the dark recesses of his mind. He was not working, so his normal level of caution was not necessary. He could fully devote himself to becoming Chuck Grayson. He got pleasure and a sense of belonging unlike anything he had ever known when he made his approach to Kai Allard-Liao's managers and was rebuffed. Ronda slowly began to sour on Allard-Liao because of the way they treated Chuck, and John accepted him into the fold once his failure meant Grayson was no longer a threat to John's domination of the group.

He felt normal and even more than that. He could, of course, never forget who and what he was, but it was becoming easier to distance himself from it. He willingly engaged in heated debates about who had really been behind the death of the Archon and whether or not Prince Victor had killed his father. After seeing the first of a series of interviews Victor gave the media, he even took to defending the Prince. This did not make him overly popular with some folks from the Lyran sector of the Federated Commonwealth, but those from the Federated Suns area often bought him drinks and invited him to visit them in their homes if he ever got out that way.