Conn O'Bannon sank fingers back through his brown hair and frowned. "Perhaps Yorinaga Kurita will wait for us."

"No, Conn. I don't think so. He'll come insystem, perhaps land, and then will get out of there." Morgan lowered himself into a chair. "It doesn't really matter. We have to clean up this mess."

Dan sat up. "Am I missing something? I thought the world has been secured."

Morgan nodded. "It has. However, the whole reason for the execution of everyone in New Freedom raises new questions that have to be dealt with." Morgan looked toward Clovis. "Explain to them what you told me."

The haggard dwarf sighed heavily and rubbed a hand over his unshaven chin. "Despite Dan's valiant effort to destroy this building by backing his Wolfhoundthough it, he only managed to short out the entire electrical system and collapse the corridor leading to the computer center. This prevented the Combine staff from dumping the contents of their computers, as normal security procedure would dictate. With Cat's help, I've managed to bring the system back up and I've learned why .. ." Clovis stopped abruptly, choked up with emotion.

Morgan continued the narrative for him. "The ISF learned of New Freedom through normal channels and linked it with the group of people who had inhabited the Styx base two years ago. The ISF had always considered them a threat. Apparently, the ISF obtained information from agents in the Isle of Skye that suggested the Styx settlers were planning to have the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine assassinated. The Third Dieron Regulars were ordered to obliterate New Freedom."

Rick O'Cieran slammed his fist onto the table. "Jesus, Morgan! They bulldozed a trench and just shot people. Men, women ... it didn't make any difference ..." He glanced toward Clovis. "If you'd not gotten those children down to the shelter, they'd have shot them as well." He looked back toward the other officers. "Not everyone was dead when they filled the trench back in. Some people died trying to dig their way out..."

Silence filled the room. Dan swallowed hard as he remembered a young couple whose home he'd helped build. They never imagined any future but that of growing old together. As a Mech-Warrior, I accept the risks of war, but those kids never had a part in any of that.

Dan looked up. "We know that no one in New Freedom was plotting against the Combine's Coordinator. Hell, everyone here was a member of Heimdall. With their anti-Commonwealth history, I would have thought the Combine would have welcomed them as allies."

Morgan nodded. "That's probably one of the reasons that the ISF tolerated their presence in the Styx system. Unfortunately, the whole Silver Eagleaffair changed the ISF's view. The Styx base cost them elite troops, 'Mechs, and ultimately, a chance to capture Melissa Steiner." Morgan hesitated as everyone silently acknowledged the cost of that operation to the Kell Hounds: the loss of Patrick Kell and three other friends.

Dan shook his head. "What could make the ISF believe the Styx refugees had become assassins?"

Cat's deep voice carried finality with it. "Not what, but who..."

Morgan nodded. "Who, indeed. No doubt Duke Aldo Lestrade himself planted that little rumor in the ear of an ISF agent. He probably even pointed to our connection with New Freedom to suggest we were training commandos."

Salome shook her head, which spread her coppery locks over her shoulders. "I thought we decided before that Lestrade would not invite an assault on his own holding. It still makes no sense in my mind."

"Think of it in these terms, Salome," said Fitzpatrick. "Lestrade makes Lyons a nice target by planting this rumor. All he loses is a small settlement, whose destruction will hurt us, but costs him nothing. He knows the Combine can't hold the world, and he suspects that the Kuritans will pull their forces out the second the Commonwealth sends troops in."

Salome chewed her lower lip for a moment, then nodded. "Lestrade has an incursion into the Isle of Skye. He can complain all the more loudly about the Commonwealth's betrayal of his people." She paused as the logical extrapolation of this line of reasoning came to her. "Lestrade can even declare his holding neutral. This will keep Kurita out of it, allowing them to devote forces to other fronts."

Dan's mouth suddenly went dry. "The Isle of Skye going independent also cuts the Commonwealth off from the Federated Suns. Hanse will be forced to reopen the transit lanes, which means he'll be at war with a portion of his ally."

"It's worse than that," Cat said. "Civil Wars are unpopular. Katrina loses and someone else steps in. Melissa is tainted by her marriage, so that leaves Frederick Steiner."

Dan nodded. "Frederick is Lestrade's puppet. Fred takes over, and Lestrade returns to the fold. Fred ends the war with Kurita, and everyone is happy. Aldo pulls Fred's strings, and the Commonwealth goes to hell in a DropShip."

Morgan smiled cruelly. "That's what Lestrade must have planned, but we messed things up for him this time. He'll try again ... I know it. I want everyone ready to move out within the week. Lestrade should be in his ancestral home on Summer. I want to bring it down around his ears. It's time to end his meddling for good."

Only one voice dissented from the quick shouts of agreement that greeted Morgan's proposition.

"No!" Clovis stood on his chair, raising his head above the others at the table. "No. You cannot."

Morgan stiffened. "I appreciate your concern, Clovis, but I'm willing to risk any fallout from our strike against him."

Clovis shook his head. "I do not doubt your ability to handle both the military operation and the political turmoil your action would stir up, Morgan Kell. But I say you cannot kill Aldo Lestrade because I claim that right." Clovis held his head up high. "I demand to be the one who kills him."

Clovis looked around at the stunned mercenaries. "Do not think I speak purely from anger and grief at what has happened here." He swallowed past the thick lump in his throat. "It does play a part, of course. If you've ever had to tell a child his parents died for reasons he will never understand, you'll know what that does to you inside. Each time I said the words, anger and outrage were like daggers ripping at my soul. Revenge seems like just the salve to put everything right again."

The dwarf bowed his head, his carefully chosen words coming slowly. "I know that's what you're thinking because you've lost friends and lovers in the battle here. I think back to the celebration we had less than a month ago and how I'll never see some of those faces again. I want to pay someone back for that, but vengeance is not the reason I claim Aldo Lestrade as my own. The only way those wounds will heal is to rebuild New Freedom, and that I will do before I head out after the Demon of Summer."

Clovis paused and looked at every person in the room before continuing. "All my life I have known of his evil. My mother was once employed as a servant by Lestrade's family, and came to know Aldo Lestrade far better than she ever wished. During the same raid that killed Aldo's father and made him Duke twenty-four years ago, my mother fled Summer with the aid of a Heimdall cell. Within six months, I was born, and I've been with Heimdall ever since.

"Children can be cruel, and they were to me. My mother comforted me with stories of my father, who she said was a bold Mech Warrior who would someday come and take us both away. I fantasized that my father would destroy all of my enemies for me, and I could endure anything while waiting for his return.