Malthus frowned at him. "If a warrior were given to such a habit, he would be removed from the unit. Elementals are not given to idle chatter."

"Right. Sorry about that." Kai smiled and saw Malthus' expression ease.

The suit, Kai knew, was a marvel of technology the like of which the Inner Sphere had never seen. In the suit he could lift approximately 500 kilograms on a normal one-gravity world. The claw could generate 30 ksc of pressure, more than enough to strip armor off a 'Mech and a good ten times that required to shatter bone. His running speed increased marginally despite the added weight, and his ability to jump was doubled in terms of distance. He knew the suit also had jump jets, but Malthus had disabled them because Kai had not had time to train in their use.

Locke snapped his own helmet on. "Kai, remember that once your arm your weapons, you may fire them at will using the hand position you mentioned earlier. You can disarm your weapons through the glance system, but the machine gun is always live while you remain in a suit whose weapons are armed."

"Just in case I run into something I did not expect?"

"Correct. If your armor is breached or if you are injured, the suit will initiate drug therapy to combat shock and to kill the pain. The suit itself will seal the wound and start a distress signal that will enable us to home in on you. That homing signal is different than the one keyed by the Initiate Alert box on your display. The latter is only for use in emergencies."

Kai smiled and started moving the limbs around to reacquaint himself with their feel. With power to the suit, they moved smoothly and fluidly. He started walking toward where the other Elementals camouflaged in green and gray were climbing into the back of the hovercraft. He drew close enough to see Malthus' eyes sparkling through his viewport.

"Thank you, Taman, for this honor."

The Elemental rested his claw on Kai's shoulder. "Now you know what it feels like to be a real warrior. Let us go rescue our friends and give our enemies no quarter."

The joy of driving a hovertruck, Gus Michaels maintained, was that its being an air-cushion vehicle meant they did not have to travel over conventional roads. Almost from the start, Kai noticed that their chauffeur seemed to take perverse delight in sailing the hovertruck over the most rutty terrain, but he marveled at the suit's ability to absorb the shocks that rattled the truck and sent the cable coils resting on the Gauss rifle flying.

Whereas Dove Costoso was north and inland from Mar Negro and the Mahler homestead, Valigia lay along the coast 400 kilometers to the west. Had Taman not forbidden it, Kai believed Michaels would have opted for a skate across the Mar Negro and entry into the city through the port sector. Though the hovertruck could easily have skimmed the waves, the possible loss of the Gauss rifle in case of a fan failure forced them to travel overland.

Conventional wisdom had put Valigia four hours distant, but their truck made it in just over three. They cruised into the city unchallenged and unchecked. Michaels, paying strict attention to the traffic laws, drove the hovertruck through the whitewashed brick city with a minimum of delay.

He nosed the truck into an alley across from the front gate of the ComStar fortress. "ComStar central, as ordered." Michaels looked back through the open window into the cargo area. "Shall I leave the meter running?"

"You stay put!" Malthus commanded him. "Team, arm your weapons."

Kai glanced at the Arm Weapons box. The holographic display melted down into an outline of his armor suit. He glanced at the left arm and brought the machine gun online. As he activated the small laser that capped the right arm, he thought about his father and. the weapon built into his left arm. I hope I do as well with this as you did with yours, Father.

He smiled as that old feeling of self-doubt failed to materialize. "Armed and ready, Star Captain."

"Deploy."

Kai hopped out of the track and took up a position at its aft end. He scanned the top of the ComStar fortress walls, but saw no one atop the massively thick pile of stone blocks. The guardhouses at the corners of the walls looked idle. Overhead, thick power cables ran from the street over the wall and into the compound just above the eight-meter-high iron doors blocking the arched gateway. A huge broadcasting tower stood in the middle of the compound, and a red light slowly blinked on and off at its apex.

Locke left the truck, playing out the two cables as he went, working his way out toward the street and the massive power poles running its entire length. Slane lowered the hovertruck's back gate, then helped Taman slide a steel I-beam out from beside the Gauss rifle. Kai didn't like to think of the damage being done to the Gauss rifle's bore as the I-beam was muzzle-loaded.

"Weapon ready."

Taman laid his laser on top of the Gauss rifle and used the armor's weapon to paint the target for him. Using his claw, he shoved it a bit to the right. "Target aligned. Status?"

Kai checked the walls again. "Clear."

Locke unlimbered the grappling hook connected to the first cable. Holding it in his claw, he sent it sailing upward to where it hooked over the top cable. As with most cables running high above the ground, that one was uninsulated. Picking up the second grappling hook, Locke sent it flying upward, too.

Accelerated to a blurring speed an instant before the cables connecting the gun to the powerline melted away, the steel shaft slammed into the iron doors. It hit the tall doors just above their middle, ripping them from their hinges. The larger pieces cartwheeled through the courtyard and embedded themselves in the main building, while the smaller bits of shrapnel ricocheted around and shredded the half-dozen Acolytes caught in the open.

Kai and Locke sprinted across the street, hurdling skidding cars. As they burst into the courtyard, Kai saw some Com Guards pouring out of a building to his left. He brought the machine gun up, then pointed and triggered a line of fire running from left to right. Bodies flew back in a bloody haze, but Kai did not pause to consider the ease with which those men had died.

I have a mission and I am not going to sabotage it!As they had discussed on the way in, Locke hit the doorway to the holding cell area first. Kai saw his machine gun flash, then Locke pulled back and let Kai go forward. Ignoring the red droplets streaming down the wall, he kicked in the door to the gallery of cells. When his holographic display showed Locke turn to hold the doorway, he strode into the fortress's dungeon.

A Com Guard popped around a corner and blazed away at him with an autorifle. Kai felt the impacts as the bullets washed over his armor like a gentle mist. Without conscious thought, Kai pointed at his enemy and the machine gun blew the man's heart out through his spine.

Reaching the first of several steel doors, Kai reached out and fitted his claws around the lock. Punching his thumb up between his middle and ring fingers as they curled down, he scythed the claw through the lock mechanism and tore it from the door. A solid kick from his right foot sent the door in to crash against the wall. The six Elementals in the room stood abruptly.

Activating his external speaker with a glance, he said, "Let's go. You're free."

One of them, a dark-haired Elemental with blackened eyes, hesitated. "Who are you?"

"Does it matter? Star Captain Malthus sent me." Kai pulled back out of that cell, then proceeded to kick in the other doors. "Go, go!"

Reaching the end of the line of cells, he sprinted up the stone steps at the far end and burst through the doorway into the main building itself. As he had expected, he found himself across the hall from the Com Guards' armory. One trooper turned and tried to fire his SRM launcher, but a stream of slugs from the machine gun ended that threat.