His words took Shin's breath away. I have been catapulted well above my station in life. Amida grant me the skills to be of service, and the wisdom to know when my time has come."Your will be done, or I die in harness, Kanrei."

"Good." A gesture from the Kanrei brought a graphic concerning troop strength and losses up on the display. "On Hanover, things went exceptionally well for us. Our forces, using supply caches hidden in the Worldspine mountains, were able to oppose the Smoke Jaguars very effectively. Their downfall came when the invaders brought down reinforcements and flanked our people. The resulting battle, which occurred during a blizzard, inflicted heavy casualties on both sides. Our commander surrendered only after the enemy agreed to treat his warriors honorably."

Another casualty report replaced the first. Unlike its predecessor, the loss column for the Combine's forces dwarfed that for the invaders. "The Hanover battle ended about twelve hours before the Albiero assault began. The Smoke Jaguars there brought down a bit more material than expected and managed to pinpoint our troops' supply caches. An ambush at one of those sites destroyed the command company for the regiment, which led to a collapse of resistance. Still, some units did continue guerrilla action, which hampered the general pacification of the world."

"If they got word out in twelve hours," Narimasa Asano began carefully, "either the Clans are using ComStar, or they have HyperPulse technology themselves. There is no other way for a message to travel that fast between the stars fifteen light years apart, unless they used a JumpShip to relay the message."

Theodore shook his head. "No JumpShip was used. As we cannot rule out ComStar involvement, all operations from now on will go out under sealed orders. That the enemy has his own HyperPulse Generators is a simpler solution to the mystery, I think. Capturing one, and the means to operate it, would be a boon, but that can only come after we defeat our enemy. And defeat him we will."

The Kanrei grinned proudly. "At the rate the attack waves have been coming, we have approximately two months before they move on. That gives us the time we need to set up Operation Sakkaku—Illusion. We will gather our most elite units under new designations on Wolcott, a world they are certain to hit in the next thrust. We will prepare hidden supply depots and occupy the most defensible points on the world. We will be ready for them."

Shin frowned. "How do we know they will not sense a trap? Why wouldn't they simply bypass Wolcott in favor of more meekly defended planets?"

The Kanrei watched Shin like a hawk. "Oh, they'll know it's a trap, but they will come anyway. When they discover our bait, they will trap themselves. Remember how arrogant they are."

The Kanrei smiled sagely. "How, after all, can they resist Wolcott when they learn the defenders are commanded by the two people who escaped them on Turtle Bay?"

31

Black Pearl Base, Sudeten

Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth

21 July 3050

Victor Steiner-Davion shook his head. "God above, I hate waiting."

"Don't worry, Vic. Your plan's a good one," said Kai Allard, seated next to him outside the briefing room. "It will work. They have to approve it."

"Excuse me ... I thought you were Kai Allard, the eternal pessimist?"

Kai looked sheepish, then grinned weakly. "Victor, I may have my own problems with self-confidence, but I'm not such a slouch at seeing someone else's strengths. That was a great idea that your Hauptmann Cox came up with of me running the Jade Falcon forces in our last simulation. There I got to exploit all the flaws I saw or imagined in our strategy."

Victor snorted. "Yeah, and you wadded up our forces and tossed them aside like they were tin soldiers."

Kai shrugged. "But that was supposedto be a worst-case scenario. We had our forces scattered and with major casualties on the landings because of freak storms and enemy aerofighter action. Everything that could go wrong didgo wrong, but you still managed to pull a regiment and a half back out. The disaster was controlled, and at the very least, the wealth of enemy data we would gain in such a case is justification enough for the operation. We can't discount the value of intelligence."

Victor laughed softly. "Spoken like a spymaster's son."

Kai laughed as well. "Hey, it runs in the blood. The point is that this assault has a higher-than-normal chance of working. I won't bet on how many days or hours we can hold Twycross after we take it, but I know it will slow the Jade Falcons' advance in the future."

The door to the briefing room slid open, and LeftenantGeneral Andrew Redburn appeared in the doorway. "We have some questions. If you will accompany me ..."

Vic rubbed his right hand against his stomach and got up slowly. Kai looked at him with concern. "What's the matter?"

Victor rested his hand on his friend's shoulder. "No big problem, but I think the butterflies in my stomach just got issued BattleMechs."

They entered the room, and as the door slid shut behind them, took their places at the far end of the table. As in the previous briefings, they faced Morgan Hasek-Davion, with Leftenant-General Redburn to their left and the mercenary leaders on their right. Kai took a seat and pulled the keyboard over. Victor chose to stand.

Morgan tapped his fingers against the black cover of Victor's battleplan. "Before we start, I'd like to say that all of us are impressed with the extent of the work you and your team have put into this document. It is clear and concise. We especially appreciate the extensive adversarial testing you did on it. This is work I would have expected from a cabal of hoary old veterans, not young officers like yourselves. Commendations have been recorded for those who contributed in this effort."

Victor smiled and bowed his head. "Thank you, Marshal. We are most grateful that the work was of interest." He paused for a moment, then met Morgan's malachite stare. "I sense a 'but' in there somewhere."

"You do, indeed," said Morgan in a low voice. "This plan calls for the allocation of four Regiments: the Tenth Lyran Guards, both Kell Hound regiments, and the Ninth F-C RCT. Moving those units and the necessary support material and personnel will take 45 percent of our available JumpShip and DropShip resources. That severely limits my ability to move forces to the worlds the invaders are likely to hit in their next wave."

Victor frowned deeply. "But we agreed, in a meeting two weeks ago, that it was foolishness trying to defend all the areas the invaders could possibly hit. It's a guessing game that we can only lose."

"Just because we know we can'tdefend all the worlds doesn't mean we don't have to try," Morgan corrected him. 'This is more than just a military conflict, and you know it as well as I do. Ryan Steiner, for one, would be happy to pull the Isle of Skye out of the Commonwealth. If he were to hear that we'd made no effort to protect worlds in the Tamar March, he and his wife might decide to secede and negotiate their own pact with the invaders. That would neatly cut us off from the Federated Suns—a move you would agree is counterproductive."

"Believe it or not, cousin, I did take that into consideration," Victor said, wishing that someone had strangled Ryari Steiner at birth. "We chose Twycross as a target for many reasons, most having to do with terrain and other significant combat factors. Though the political considerations of Twycross are given short shrift in the report, they did weigh in favor of its selection. The world is, after all, a Command center. How can Ryan fault us for trying to take back an important world in the Tamar March?"