Focht stiffened at the mention of ComStar's leader, and the revenant pounced at this show of anxiety. "Don't try to hide from me, Precentor Martial. Am I not inside your brain and knowing your very thoughts? You style yourself a warrior, and you are good at it, but politics is a minefield. Your Primus, Myndo Waterly, is an excellent player, isn't she? She's convinced that ComStar can work with the Clans until the invaders have bled themselves white in battle, and thenComStar can step in, destroy them, and reform all society into Blake's dream of a Utopia. Has there ever been a greater foolishness?"

As they spoke, the shade of what had once been Aldo Lestrade slowly disintegrated. His flesh was all but gone and the white of his bones showed through the worm-gnawed rents in his clothing. His death's-head watched Focht with shadow-filled eye sockets, but the bony jaw worked up and down uselessly, no words coming from its throat.

Focht leaned back in the throne. "If you are the container for whatever trace of ambition still claims me, I am pleased to see the state it is in. I am a warrior who commands other warriors. I know better than to dabble in politics." He raised his hand to adjust the patch over his right eye. "I paid a dear price for that realization, but I survived the lesson. You, Aldo Lestrade, did not."

The ghoul laughed one last time. "But what you did not learn, Anastasius Focht, is that you can never escape politics. It is everywhere and, someday, it will lay you in the ground, just as it has me ..."

Lestrade's skeleton collapsed into a pile of dust, but his laughter continued to echo in Focht's brain until the sound gradually transformed into the incessant beeping of the Drop-Ship's visiphone intercom system. Pulling himself up into a sitting position, Focht reached out to punch the glowing button on the console beside his bed.

"Yes?"

The ComStar acolyte on the screen bowed his head. "Forgive me for waking you, Precentor, but you asked to be alerted two hours prior to atmospheric entry. We have just passed that mark and should be on the ground in just under three hours."

Focht nodded. "Call Sandhurst and have them arrange a full staff meeting for ETA plus 30 minutes. No excuses accepted for absence."

The Acolyte paled visibly. "I cannot do that, Precentor."

Focht's voice deepened with a rumble of anger. "Explain."

'The Primus sent us a priority directive while you slept. We are to land at Hilton Head, and you are to brief her immediately on the Clan situation. You will then address the First Circuit."

"Send my message nonetheless. I will leave for Sandhurst as soon as possible."

The Acolyte regained some of his color. "It shall be done as though it were the Will of Blake, Precentor Martial."

Focht broke the connection with the flick of a finger. "Perhaps you were right, Aldo. Perhaps none of us can escape politics, but that does not mean I must succumb to them. One man losing an eye to politics is enough. I cannot allow Mankind to be sacrificed on that same altar. The most elegant speeches may sway the hearts and minds of men, but not one ever stopped a bullet."

1

Wolf's Dragoons General Headquarters, Outreach

Sarna March, Federated Commonwealth

15 January 3051

 "You're who?"

Victor Ian Steiner Davion sat stunned in his chair as Romano Liao's shout filled the Dragoons' Grand Council Chamber. In front of him, his father stiffened while his mother reached instinctively for her husband's hand. Romano's voice rang out again. "By all the gods of heaven and earth, I can't believe it."

"I thought, Madam Chancellor, that my statement was clear enough." Jaime Wolf leaned heavily on the raised podium at the front of the chamber. Though the mercenary was not a big man, Victor could see the inner strength that had made Wolf a legendary leader and warrior. His black uniform and short cape only added to the grim expression his face now wore, particularly with the cloak thrown back from the left shoulder to reveal the ruby-eyed wolf's-head epaulet.

"Let me try again." Wolf looked around at the assembled leaders of the Inner Sphere, who gazed back at him with rapt attention. "More than forty-five years ago, Wolf's Dragoons were sent by the Clans to determine the level of military preparedness of your states, those fragments of what had once been the Star League. Since that time, we have worked both for and against every one of the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere."

Prince Haakon Magnusson of the Free Rasalhague Republic angrily raised a clenched fist. "Then I have you to blame for the Clans half-devouring my nation!" Magnusson, a silver-haired man who was neither tall nor particularly strong, put all his strength into the emotion that accented his words. "Was the Rasalhague Republic the choice target for the assault because we are a young nation or was it our reputation for disliking mercenaries?"

Wolf held up his hands to forestall other shouted questions. "Stop! You misinterpret my words." The diminutive mercenary turned to face Magnusson. "The Dragoons had nothing to do with the Clans' choice of targets. They are merely following the same route back into the Inner Sphere by which they left it. The Free Rasalhague Republic just happens to inhabit that slice of known space."

Magnusson returned to his seat at the table set between that assigned to the Draconis Combine representatives and the aisle that split the room in half. Varldherre Tor Miraborg, a sour-looking man with a long, deep scar down the left side of his face, leaned forward in his wheelchair to whisper something to Ragnar, Magnusson's son and the Crown Prince of Rasalhague. It looked to Victor as though Magnusson's heir was listening intently to Miraborg, but it was equally obvious that something in the words had taken him aback.

Hanse Davion rose from his seat with the ease of a much younger man. Though the years had slowed the elder Davion slightly and leeched the auburn from his hair, Victor knew his father took pains to remain physically fit. The Prince of the Federated Suns flashed his son a warm smile as he pushed his chair slightly back and out of the way. As always, the vitality flashing through Hanse's electric blue eyes made Victor confident his father would successfully gauge the problem and find a solution.

"Colonel Wolf, I gather by your answer to Prince Magnusson that you are no longer associated with the Clans?"

Wolf nodded, apparently relieved at an opening to explain. "Our last communication with the Clans occurred just after the Marik civil war in 3014. At that time, our leader believed that a Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere was a distinct, if distant, possibility. Even so, we were ordered to cease communicating information back to the Clans. Since then, we have had no contact with them until their recent broadcast informing us of the death of the ilKhan."

Romano Liao, recovered from her earlier shock, laughed derisively. "And we are to believe this, Colonel Wolf? What proof do you offer?"

Candace Liao, Duchess of the St. Ives Compact, rose from her place at the table to the right of the Federated Commonwealth contingent. Unlike her flame-haired sister, Candace kept a tight rein on her emotions and easily maintained an air of regal dignity. "I would point out, sister mine, that were Colonel Wolf still working for the Clans, we would all have probably died either en route to this meeting, if not before."

"Ha!" Romano waved away her sister's words with contempt. "You have so long clasped a viper to your breast that you cannot see Wolf for what he is."