From his perch in the control booth, Dechan Fraser watched with satisfaction. He didn't envy the Techs on the floor, for they did not have the advantage of the heating that kept him warm. Despite frosty breath and numb fingers, they were preforming well. They were two hours into the run, and there had been no equipment failures. He swiveled his chair around to the console and checked the readouts. All was going well.

Across the small booth, Chief Tech Kowalski bossed his team of supervisors and fussed over the fine-tuning of the computer system managing their simulator run. At his side were Tomoe Sakade and Tai-saNarimasa Asano of the Genyosha, whose troops were undergoing today's testing.

"Problem three," Tomoe announced. "Initiate on my mark."

Dechan bent over his keyboard, starting the preliminary artillery barrage on her signal. In a nearby building, the boxy shapes of vehicle simulators had come to life, rocking and jolting on their pistons and spinning on their turntables as they impersonated a battalion of armor moving to the attack. The troopers inside would experience it as a real charge into battle. After five minutes, Dechan was pleased at the tactical expertise the Genyosha were showing against their computer opponents.

"Your new Genyosha MechWarriors have shown a remarkable improvement, Tai-saAsano," he complimented.

"These are only simulators, Tai-iFraser," Asano said, his lined face expressionless beneath his thatch of white hair. "It is very different when one is in a real BattleMech."

"We don't have the real thing for training the warriors," Tomoe lamented. "And even if we did, we couldn't afford to run wargames to give them practice."

"It's a good thing you were able to acquire these sim tanks, then," Dechan concluded.

"It's just too bad they're not a single lot," Kowalski complained, having crossed the room to place a stack of computer disks in front of Tomoe. "The computer is having fits trying to keep the parameters balanced between the different models, let alone the different manufacturers."

"You mean you're having fits, don't you, Mister Kowalski?" Dechan said.

"Same thing," Tomoe chuckled. "Kowalski- kunis half-computer, or so the other Techs in the Legion claimed. They used to say that his mother was a MultiMac 2700."

Kowalski frowned in annoyance. "That's a bad old joke, Sho-saSakade."

"You are right, Kowalski -kun," she said, contritely. "I apologize.”

“Accepted."

"But you're having trouble?" Dechan asked insistently.

"How could I not be?" Kowalski rubbed his right hand back and forth across his head, rumpling his short hair into new patterns of disarray. "I'm only a mortal man, woefully ill-educated in these days of lostech.There's so much we don't know about what we've lost. I feel adrift in specifications and blueprints.

"The rebuilding program's technical teams are giving me all the help they can, but their members are just as overworked, and the resources never seem to be enough. There's too many programs, and we've too little knowledge to draw on. There are so many things the Kanrei wishes developed at once. Battle technology, communications work, agriculture. We spend weeks or months recreating research that a Star League scientist could have simply called up from his computer. I'm a Tech. What do I know about rice?

"I am as much a scientist as anyone can be in these latter days, but I cannot know everything, or be everything. The Kanrei put me in charge of research, but I'm not a bureaucrat. I belong in a lab. Still, I might be able to monitor progress on at least some of the projects if it weren't for all this moving about. I haven't been in one place long enough to do anything properly."

"We will do something about that soon," Tomoe promised him. "This training system must be fully functional. We need to take the sim tanks with us when the training command moves on."

"Moving again," Kowalski sighed, then pointed at the stack of disks. "At least this project is done. These compdisks should enable you to run the system with minimal interference from the Techs of the units to be trained. Please keep it out of the hands of any fumble-fingered Mech Warrior who thinks he understands technical matters. The training team has worked too hard on this to see some well-meaning monkey undo it."

Kowalski had more to say, but Asano interrupted.

"Trouble on the floor."

Asano pointed to two figures running between the last rows of the tanks. One was a black man in a Kurita MechWarrior's uniform. The infantry-style battlejacket he wore over his jumpsuit flapped loosely as he pounded across the floor. The jacket had been adopted by the Ryuken and the Vegan Legion in imitation of Theodore, and marked the running man as belonging to one of those regiments. The other figure was a woman whose clothes were a motley collection of uniform pieces. Her hair was bound back into a tight braid that bounced as she ran. Dechan recognized her instantly. Her presence also identified the Kuritan for him.

"That's Sho-saTetsuhara and Jenette Rand," he announced.

"Weren't they supposed to be down at the ComStar compound overseeing that first shipment of parts?" Asano asked.

"Hai,"Tomoe confirmed. "Something must have happened."

Tension built within the control booth as they waited for the two to climb the stairs. Dechan envisioned a wide variety of disasters, from ComStar reneging on the deal to a new outbreak of war. A glance at Tomoe's worried face reminded him that there was another sort of news that Fuhito might feel he had to bring in person. Something might have happened to Theodore.

Fuhito and Jenette tumbled through the door Asano opened for them. Dechan caught Jenette by the shoulders to steady her, and she slipped an arm around his waist. From their exhaustion, they must have run all the way from the airfield. In the moment it took them to catch their breaths, Dechan stole another glance at Tomoe. She had controlled her emotion and hidden her concern behind a mask of calm. "Sho-saTetsuhara, report!" she ordered.

Fuhito tried once, to no avail. He closed his mouth, swallowing to control his diaphragm. His tongue flicked out to wet his lips before he spoke. "The Coordinator has ordered the training regiments broken up. We are to be scattered across the Combine."

"Has the training command been dissolved?" Tomoe asked. Fuhito shook his head.

Dechan was relieved. He looked across to smile at Tomoe, and she returned his grin. Fuhito's brow wrinkled at the reaction to his words. Asano looked as puzzled as Fuhito.

"It's all going according to Theodore's plan," Tomoe explained. "He expected this to happen sooner or later, once his father realized that we had a strong corps of loyal soldiers building up. The spread of the troops will allow the spread of his program that much faster."

"This explains your requirement that the troops teach each other once one lance had mastered a problem," Asano said.

"Exactly," Dechan said. "We want them to get the other regiments of the DCMS infected with our tactics. The training command can't get all of the DCMS regiments, so we send out the next best thing—loyal, educated soldiers. As soon as he can manage it without attracting undue attention, Theodore will arrange for the promotion of our scattered trainees. We have been training sergeants here, not privates. We know we can't get to every soldier, but at least we will get the lance commanders and line officers on-line with the program."