Morgan Hasek-Davion steepled his fingers. His long copper hair obscured the Marshal's epaulets on his black uniform jacket. "You have come a long way, Victor. I can still recall your objection to being assigned to Trellwan. You appealed to me to sympathize with you then, and you have done the same thing several times since. Always I opposed you or made you accept full responsibility for your actions." . He spread his hands apart. "Now you come to me with a plan for which you accept the responsibility. I sense this is in part because Kai Allard used to shoulder it for you. I regret his passing, but I am pleased that it has forced you to mature.

"You are very special, Victor. You are one of those people who burns very, very bright, determined to live up to your name. I have always known you were destined for greatness."

The Prince's eyes narrowed. "If that is true, why have you made things so difficult for me?"

"Because, my Prince, those who burn so very bright tend to burn out just as fast. I will never risk the lives of men and women in my command on a feeling. War is a crucible in which men discover their true mettle. I did not want others to suffer if you proved lacking."

Victor glanced down and swallowed hard. "I understand. Have you reached a verdict on me?"

Morgan paused before answering. "I am forwarding a copy of your briefing, along with my comments, to your father. Pending his approval or disapproval of the plan, I am authorizing the Tenth Lyran Guards' First Reinforced Battalion to head out for link with the Combine JumpShips waiting insystem. I expect full reports sent from each jump point and updates on intelligence estimates. You father has final approval, of course, but I think this is a mission that must become a reality."

Victor's heart buoyed up again in his breast. "Thank you, Morgan."

"Don't thank me, Victor. Save that energy for making sure this plan will work." The Marshal's eyes narrowed. "Be yourself and be honest with yourself. You don't have Kai Allard there to help you out in that department. If this mission can't fly, kill it. Kill it before it kills you."

26

Alyina

Jade Falcon Occupation Zone

12 April 3052

Kai traced his finger along the map he'd spread out on the ground. "It looks, by this, that we won't come any closer than two hundred kilometers to the Mahler farm."

Deirdre squatted on his left, hugging her knees to her chest with both arms. "I suppose that is just as well. Any closer and I'd be tempted to visit, and that would surely bring the Clans down on them." She reached out a finger and tapped at the map. "You said our destinadon has a radio-telescope facility on it, but I don't see any notation for an observatory on Mount Sera."

"It's a secret facility, more or less." He gave her hand a squeeze. "The Intelligence Secretariat maintains any number of research projects throughout the Federated Commonwealth. They all differ in the level of security and knowledge about them. For example, weapons-research project facilities run by the NAIS on New Avalon are considered top-secret, but folks know they exist and where they are. It's more that getting to them is inconvenient and very littie is known about any particular project they might be working on."

Kai rocked back on his heels and stood, brushing twigs and leaves from the knees of his jumpsuit. "Remember all the UAP sightings on New Avalon ten years ago?"

"Unexplained Aerial Phenomena?" Her blue eyes nearly shut as she concentrated. "I never went in for much of that outer-space alien stuff, but I think I remember hearing something about it. What of the sightings?"

"Well, the Federated Commonwealth, at the Hudson Gulf Aerospace Center, was testing Hammerhead prototypes built from plans recovered in a Star League-era computer memory core. The project was very secret, so the flights were made only at night and UAP buffs kept calling in sightings of aircraft doing impossible things. The AFFC refused to comment on the sightings and stonewalled the whole thing. That, of course, just made it worse and UAP 'investigators' said the government's silence proved the existence of aliens and that the government was in secret negotiations with them."

Deirdre folded up the map. "I think I saw a holovid about that. I thought it was a real laugher. It said that a crashed ship and alien bodies were on the Hudson Gulf base, in area 51, hangar 18b."

"I remember that, and I remember the crash." Kai shrugged his bullet-proof vest on, being careful not to crunch his ribs. "One of the prototype Hammerheads went down on a farm just outside Moore's Folly in the Roswell district. The AFFC folks quarantined the place and picked up every bit of material that had been on the plane, including ferro-fibrous armor.

"It turned out they missed a scrap or two, a piece of which was turned over to UAPologists, who immediately proclaimed it something mankind was incapable of producing. They claimed the government had bodies of aliens stashed away. Mostly the UAP folks were paranoid conspiracy-theorists running amok and all they did was cause trouble for clerks having to process requests for information."

"So you don't believe in 'flying saucers,' Kai Allard?"

The MechWarrior shrugged. "It's not to believe or disbelieve. I don't know if they are out there, and I really don't care. If one of them wanted to come along and give us a ride home, I'd accept it."

"And that's why we're going to the radio telescope facility, is it?"

Kai said nothing as he zipped up his jumpsuit. He had told Deirdre he hoped the radio telescope could be used to send a coded message out into space. He knew, and was pretty sure she knew, any message sent in that fashion would take centuries to reach New Avalon, and at least two decades to hit the nearest Federated Commonwealth world. They both knew it would be a long shot to hope some JumpShip was still lurking in the system and capable of carrying their message away, but they deemed it worth a chance.

What Kai had not told her was that he knew of the secret communication devices the Federated Commonwealth had developed to supplant ComStar's monopoly on interstellar communication. The black boxes sent messages at a rate much slower than ComStar's hyperpulse generators, but it would get a message to the Federated Commonwealth before either one of them had grown too old to appreciate being rescued.

He did not know if that facility had one of the fax machines or not, but the possibility was one he could not pass up investigating. Kai regretted withholding that information from her, but he only knew about it himself because of his father and things he had picked up as a child. To share that information, even with the woman he loved, would violate his father's trust and put her in needless jeopardy.

"Best bet for getting us a galactic-taxi off this rock, I think." Kai shouldered his pack. "I think it will take us another couple of weeks to get up into the mountains. We zip through Tedesco Pass and we're at Mount Sera. We send the message and wait."

Despite his seeming casualness, Kai knew it would not be that simple. The hike would take them through the Vorrei National Forest, around a city and two villages, and up into the foothills. The old-growth forest would be picturesque, with its tall pines and golden meadows, but it still meant a lot of wear and tear on their bodies. When they reached their goal, they would be ragged and tired.