A worse thought followed. On Outreach, they had counted him among the best MechWarriors facing the Clans. If he was in this much trouble now, what hope could there be for the Inner Sphere?

2

JumpShip Dire Wolf , Out-transit Orbit

Satalice, Wolf Clan Occupation Zone

17 January 3052

Phelan Wolf watched his charge, Ragnar Magnusson, wrestle with the contradictions inherent in the Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere. "Yes, Aleksandr Kerensky left the Inner Sphere more than three hundred years ago to remove his army from the internecine battling that had torn the Star League apart. He wanted to keep them safe from the nationalistic sentiments that were bringing the members of the Star League into conflict with one another. You can see the wisdom of that, Ragnar, quiaff?"

The small, blond-haired youth frowned. "But you said his attempt to keep his own people at peace failed. They started fighting among themselves, and it took Kerensky's son Nicholas and a cadre of loyalists to reunite the army. And the Clans stayed away from the Inner Sphere because Nicholas taught them that their job was to protect the Inner Sphere, not mix in its fights and politics. If this is true, why'd they return?"

"Speak properly! No contractions!" Running his fingers back through his brown hair, Phelan ended with a weary scratching at the back of his neck. "Only some of the Clanfolk, the ones called Wardens, still believe in protecting the Inner Sphere." He stretched and stood up, beginning to pace in his narrow cabin. "The others, who call themselves Crusaders, believe the Inner Sphere is rightfully their home and they are coming back to lay claim to it."

"That's nonsense." Ragnar's blue eyes flashed. "They abandoned the Inner Sphere. What right have they to claim the Inner Sphere as their own?"

Phelan smirked slightly. "The same right your people invoked in claiming Rasalhague a free nation even while under the domination of the Draconis Combine."

Ragnar opened his mouth to reply, but Phelan saw his charge hesitate as he mentally calculated where this argument would take him. Ragnar shook his head, knowing that a dispute over who had what rights to what slice of the Inner Sphere was a fight he would lose. "But you have told me that the ilKhan, Khan Ulric of the Wolf Clan, is a Warden. Why is he pushing this invasion?"

As Ragnar spoke, he tugged at the circlet around his right wrist as if the braided white cord irritated him. Phelan remembered how his own bondcord had annoyed him in his time as a bondsman of the Wolf Clan. He also recalled with pride his adoption ceremony into the Wolf Clan Warrior-Caste, during which the hated cord had been cut off. He let a grin slide across his face at the memory, and Ragnar's expression darkened.

"It is true, Prince of Rasalhague, that the ilKhan is a Warden, yet he pushes this invasion. As you heard him tell the Primus of ComStar, the goal of the invasion has ever been the conquest of Terra, the former seat of the Star League. The Khan whose warriors take Terra will become ilKhan for all time, and his Clan elevated above all others." Phelan raised his head proudly. "When that happens, the ilKhan can order a cessation of all hostilities and begin to rebuild what has been destroyed."

Ragnar's eyes narrowed into a fierce frown. "You obviously love this war of conquest. How is it that you, a cousin of the Davion heir, have come to embrace the Clans and their brutish ways?" He opened his hands in a gesture that took in the spartan cabin to which Phelan had been assigned. "You were once a mercenary, so I assume they bought you, but with what? This opulence? That woman, Ranna? What was your price, Kell-Wolf, or whoever you are?"

Even before Ragnar could finish speaking, the cabin door opened to admit a flame-haired warrior-woman. As ever, she did not hesitate to speak. "His price, Prince Ragnar, is the same one you may be asked to pay. If one has the goal of preventing as much destruction as possible, he must decide how to accomplish it. One may decide, as did you, to fight until defeated, and then to go on fighting, yet accomplish nothing."

Ragnar was not cowed. "Or, Colonel Natasha Kerensky, you could become a quisling like Phelan and lead the enemy against your own people. It was Phelan who gave Gunzburg to the Clans!"

"And did it without a shot being fired. No one died when that world changed hands, Ragnar." Natasha's cerulean eyes sparked with anger. "Not only did he save lives in taking that world by himself, but it sent his stock soaring among Clan Warriors. It makes him a man of great influence, and that influence can be used to slow this juggernaut."

The little prince blanched at the heat of Kerensky's words. He looked down at the floor and blushed. Phelan, aware that it was something more than Ragnar's statements angering her, faced his superior. "Natasha, what is wrong? What has happened?"

The woman known as the Black Widow let her shoulders sag disconsolately. Phelan felt an immediate desire to comfort her, but refrained for fear of disturbing her dignity. "I have news you will welcome, Phelan, and news that, I believe, will sadden you."

A million horrible thoughts ran through Phelan's mind, but he dismissed them immediately. He knew, given the Clans' abrupt break with ComStar, that no word could have come to him regarding his family back in the Inner Sphere. He had already seen reports concerning the Smoke Jaguars and Nova Cats' losses in the battle for Luthien. Both he and Natasha had shared secret smiles concerning the success of their old units—the Kell Hounds and Wolf's Dragoons, respectively—in defending the capital of the Draconis Combine. Neither had seen casualty reports concerning the mercenary units to which they had belonged before the coming of the Clans, but they were confident their friends and kin had survived the fray.

Unable to puzzle out what might be distressing Natasha, Phelan waved her to a chair. "What is it?"

She exhaled slowly. "Cyrilla Ward is dead."

"What?" Cyrilla was the matriarch of the House of Ward, the Bloodname family to which Phelan belonged. The last time he'd seen her, which had been just before the Clans resumed their advance the previous September, she had seemed healthy and hearty despite being in her early seventies. Ever since his adoption into the Warrior Caste, the white-haired woman had instructed and encouraged Phelan in the ways of the Clans. The idea of her death was, for him, inconceivable.

Natasha drew a holodisk in a clear plastic envelope from one of her black jumpsuit pockets. "She recorded this for you. It just arrived in a shipment from Strana Mechty."

Taking the disk from Natasha, Phelan noticed her hand was trembling. "Natasha, I know Cyrilla was your close friend and that the two of you were raised in the same sibko. Though I only knew her for a short time, Cyrilla was my lifeline in the Clans."

The woman nodded solemnly. "She still is, Phelan."

"I do not understand."

Natasha stood and smoothed the breast of her jumpsuit. 'The holodisk will explain it all." She glanced at Ragnar. "Come with me, Princeling. Phelan will want to view this disk alone, so let us find you something to do that will annoy Vlad and Conal Ward."

Phelan looked at the disk, then his head came up again. "Wait, Natasha, how did she die?"

The Black Widow shook her head. "We will talk after you have seen the holodisk." She sighed wearily. "Watch it twice or even three times. Remember that she believed in you and in Ulric's vision for the Clans. That thought is just about the only thing that makes any of this even remotely sane."