Dan laid his left hand on her right forearm. "The Locustbelonged in your family, right?"

Meg nodded. "Both of my mother's parents were once Mech-Warriors. The Locustbelonged to my grandmother. She retired, though, to raise my mother and uncle after my grandfather died fighting against Kurita. My uncle inherited his Warhammer,but my mother wanted nothing more to do with 'Mechs. She married young, but my father abandoned us when I was just a few years old."

Dan squeezed her arm. "I'm sorry."

"Thanks." Meg swallowed past the lump in her throat and continued. "Both my mother and grandmother were bitter. Grandma trained me to use the Locust,and told me I could have it, provided I would never get personally mixed up with a Mech Warrior."

She looked up into Dan's open, handsome face. "There's the problem, Captain. Austin's been so nice to me that I'm starting to fall for him—falling hard—and I think the feeling's mutual." She smiled sheepishly. "In fact, every time I look into those amber eyes of his, I know I'm right. But lurking in the back of my mind is the promise I made to my grandmother. I know I'm giving him all sorts of mixed signals, but I'm not that clear myself." Meg sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "On top of that, I know that having lovers in the same lance is not a good idea, so I don't know what to do . .."

Dan shut his eyes and grimaced. Here I am, only 28 years old, and she's making me feel like a grandfather. Eleven years with the Kell Hounds is akin to a lifetime else-where. By the clock, I've only got four years on both Brand and Lang, but if you consider the mileage, it's more like a century.

Opening his eyes, Dan laughed softly. "Listen, you're getting ahead of yourself. First off, the Kell Hounds have got no rules, formal or otherwise, about relationships within the lances or battalions. We want our people to be close and to care about each other. To encourage that, but then to try to prohibit intimate relationships, would be foolhardy and impossible to police. Frankly, you, Brand, and Eddie Baker work so well together that you could start sacrificing rabbits to a full moon—if our next station has a moon—and I wouldn't really care."

Meg smiled and Dan continued. "You and Austin are two healthy, normal MechWarriors living on a world where the weather is crazy and day becomes night after seven hours. Your attraction to each other is normal, and is about the only thing on this mudball that makes any sense at all. Don't push it, or kill it prematurely. Just wait and see what happens."

"But what about my promise?" The fear and pain of betraying her mother and grandmother flickered through Meg's question.

Dan paused, then answered slowly. "I know you don't want to go back on your word, but you said it yourself—both women are bitter because of their experiences. You'll have to make up your own mind."

Meg frowned and Dan saw that she needed just a touch more convincing. "Look, Meg," he said, "my father's first marriage flamed-out for political reasons, and it ripped him up pretty badly.

Even so, he tried it again. And if he hadn't, my older brother wouldn't have had anyone to pick on as we grew up."

"Your brother's a Major in the Capellan March, right?"

Her question called up Justin's image to Dan's mind, which made him smile proudly. "Justin? Yes. He's my older brother and"—Dan rose up to his full height—"I'm his bigbrother. Everyone else is back on New Avalon, just dreaming of a glorious assignment like this one."

Both MechWarriors laughed. Meg stood and walked a short way with Dan before she stopped to apologize to Jackson. "Thanks, Captain. I appreciate the talk."

"Sure, Sergeant. Any time." At the mention of time, Dan looked at the huge clock on the blockhouse wall. "Damn, the staff meeting! Gotta run."

4

Pacifica (Chara III)

Isle of Skye, Lyran Commonwealth

15 January 3027

Daniel Allard sprinted off toward the Command Center, pausing once to toss his cooling vest to an astech, and a second time to accept a pair of coveralls from Master Sergeant Tech Nick Jones. He pulled on the red coveralls in the elevator ride up to the third floor, but was still pulling up the zipper before he could knock at the door labeled "Lt. Colonel Patrick M. Kell.”

“Enter."

Dan opened the door and recoiled as a blast of refrigerated air struck him full on. The large room served Colonel Kell as a private office, but had ample space for the center table he'd set up for staff meetings. To Dan's left, a bank of windows looked out on the ferrocrete landing pad, offering a clear view of the lightning bolts dancing down from the dark blanket of clouds. Along the windows was a battered brown vinyl sofa left behind by the last mercenary company to pull duty—or "do time," as it had become known on station—on Pacifica. It provided seating for the only NCO at the meeting.

Ignoring his massive mahogany desk, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Kell sat facing the door at the round meeting table. With his black hair cropped so closely, the thin scar that ran from his left temple all the way to the crown of his head stood out clearly. The scar might have been ominous if Kell's easy smile, gleaming brown eyes, and handsome features did not instantly create the urge to call this man "friend" in all who met him.

Kell gestured toward the unoccupied steel chair to his right. "As you can see, we began the meeting without you."

"Yes," added Kell's second-in-command, Major Salome Ward, "and I believe it's my bet. I'll see your twenty Kroner and raise you twenty." Though she had the green eyes and fiery red hair that usually accompanied a hot temper, the officers in the room knew Ward to be one of the coolest MechWarriors, in or out of battle, in the Inner Sphere.

"Yipes!" Lieutenant Mike Fitzhugh, the junior officer in Salome's Assault Lance, shot his superior an evil glance. "Forty to me? I'm out." He looked up at Dan and shook his dark curly head. "She's always finding a new way to make me earn my money."

A mischievous look twinkled through Lieutenant Austin Brand's eyes as he casually tossed the forty House Steiner Kroner onto the growing pile of blue-green bills. "I call." Lieutenant Anne Finn, the blond junior officer in Kell's Command Lance, calmly folded her hand. She smiled at Dan as he sat down beside her. "Glad you could join us."

"Said the shark to her dinner." Dan looked at the stacks of Kroner bills piled in front of Anne, and laughed. "You'd have been happier to have me contributing to your war chest there. Right, Annie?"

She merely smiled, but the long, lean black man on the couch sat up and spoke for her. "I do recall some discussion of your skill at leaving money on the table, Captain."

"I should have had you sit in for me, Cat." His remark brought a strange flash to Cat's eyes, but Dan could not identify it.

Sergeant Clarence "Cat" Wilson ran a hand back over his shaved head and laughed deeply. Of all the Kell Hounds, he was the only MechWarrior to shave to his head for better contact in the neurohelmet. "When you've played in the big leagues, you never join sandlot games."

Patrick Kell cleared his throat. "Back to business, shall we?" A worn twenty-Kroner bill fluttered from his hand into the pile of wagers. "I call."