District of Donegal, Lyran Commonwealth

11 January 3027

Jeana's eyes snapped open and the brilliant white of the room's walls and ceiling sizzled pain into her eyeballs. She shook her head once, then unconsciously rubbed the sore spot. Feel muzzy from whatever they hit me with.

Jeana raised her hands to shade her eyes. Good, I'm not restrained.Her eyes narrowed. The duty of a prisoner is to escape. Name. Rank. Serial Number.

She sat on the room's only stick of furniture—a rickety wooden chair—and studied her surroundings. The whole ceiling glowed with a light that burned away all shadows except those hiding beneath her chair. It also bleached her black jumpsuit a pallid gray. It was no surprise that there were neither insignia or labels on the suit or slippers she had been given. Jeana had nary a clue to where her Loki abductors had taken her.

She heard a click from across the room, and then the outline of a door traced itself in gray lines against the white wall. Jeana stood and quickly walked over to it. Pushing it open, she slipped through and stopped dead in her tracks.

Standing there in the center of the room, with arms folded across her chest, was none other than Archon Katrina Steiner. "Do you know who I am?" she asked Jeana.

Jeana hesitated as she stared into the Archon's gray eyes. "Sergeant Jeana Clay, LCAF, 090-453-2234-12." She stood at attention and drew her head up high. Though as tall as the Archon, Jeana felt dwarfed. Is this a trick? Am I hallucinating?

The Archon smiled. "Very good, Sergeant. At ease. I am Archon Katrina Steiner, and this meeting is neither a dream nor a nightmare." She waved Jeana toward a chair at a small table and also seated herself. The remaining pair of seats were vacant.

Jeana hesitated, then crossed the room and sat down. She'd seen the Archon countless times on holovision or in person at 'Mech unit reviews. She'd met her when the Archon had awarded medals for the triathlon two years before, and all that told Jeana that this was no illusion. Itis Katrina Steiner. But what does it all mean ?

The Archon smiled to put Jeana more at ease. "I'd like you to know that I understand the sense of loss that you must feel for your mother." Katrina reached out to place a hand on Jeana's wrist. Her gray eyes clouded over slightly, then she forced a weak smile. "Though it has been seventeen years, I still feel keenly the loss of my husband. You have my sympathy."

Jeana bowed her head. "Thank you, Archon." She bit back tears of guilt and loneliness.

Katrina's eyes narrowed. "You also have my promise that the LIC will find your mother's killer and will deal with him or her."

"Again, thank you, Archon." Jeana looked up. "You will forgive me, Archon, but may I ask why I am here?"

The Archon nodded, her yellow hair framing her face softly. "I cannot answer for the melodramatic means used to conduct you here—though I have been assured that they were essential—but I can address your main question. You are here so that I may ask you to undertake a mission of extreme danger. It will also be one demanding selfless concentration. It will be a totally consuming operation and could very possibly end with your death."

Thank God, it's not for the other reason.Jeana sat up to her full height. "Anything, Archon. I will do anything you ask."

Katrina smiled. "I had expected no less a prompt answer from a member of the 24th Guards. Though you remain untested in battle, your loyalty is unquestioned. Yet, I would not have you agree so readily to a mission I have only begun to describe."

The Archon took up a folder from the table and opened it. "This mission will mean that you will never again be able to participate in the triathlons you love so well."

Jeana shook her head. "No matter."

The Archon continued to read. "It means you will never again see your friends in the 24th."

Jeana shrugged. "We will be together in service to you, Archon."

The Archon's voice tightened. "This mission will mean you'll probably never again pilot a 'Mech."

Jeana hesitated, then slowly shook her head again. "Please, Archon, before you read any more, understand one thing. Everything I am, and everything I have, comes from House Steiner. There are some things your files cannot tell you about me, because they are things I would confide to no one." Jeana's eyes flicked down to her hands, then back up into the Archon's gray stare.

Forgive me, mother, but I must do it."This is not the first time we've met, Archon."

Katrina Steiner nodded thoughtfully. "I recall awarding you a silver medal two years ago."

Jeana shook her head. "No, that was not our first meeting, either." The Archon narrowed her gray eyes and their electric fire made Jeana's words catch in her throat. She looked down and shyly continued to speak, as though confessing some horrible crime. "We first met twenty-two years ago, when I was only three ... on Poulsbo." Jeana's head came up. "You sang to me so I'd not cry while Loki agents questioned my father downstairs in our house ..."

The Archon stiffened and the muscles at the corners of her mouth bunched. "Your file says nothing ..."

Jeana shook her head. "That was your husband's doing. Before he died, he made sure to cover our tracks so that no one could get at us. My mother kept your secret from everyone but me. I don't think she would even have told me, Archon, except that she had no other answers to a daughter's questions about her father. You knew him by his codename—Grison."

The Archon rocked back in her chair, then recovered herself and smiled bravely. "I owe your father my life. When my DropShip landed on Poulsbo, I guessed that my uncle Alessandro saw me as a threat to his own power as Archon. But in the arrogance of my youth, I never dreamed he would dare to move against me. For me, the trip was merely a routine inspection of a military base. The Bangor base, after all, is a strategic site in the Commonwealth."

The Archon took Jeana's hands in hers. "What did your mother tell you about your father?"

In the glow of the memories that had warmed her childhood, Jeana smiled. "She told me that I got my height and my green eyes from him. She said that she had loved him fiercely and that he knew he would be meeting his death that night. He told her it would be dangerous, but that he also believed you'd be a better Archon than Alessandro ever could. He said you'd be an Archon worth dying for." Tears gathered in Jeana's eyes and streamed down her cheeks.

Katrina reached up and brushed away the girl's tears. "Your father was a brave man, Jeana. Alessandro's men made their move to kidnap me while I was dining with the Duke of Donegal. Arthur Luvon—my future husband—and his cousin, Morgan Kell. Morgan was fresh from the Nagelring Military Academy and had been assigned to the Duke's personal guards. I'd known Arthur for years, but we'd just been friends, and so meeting him and Morgan on Poulsbo was a pleasant surprise.

"Alessandro's agents attacked us, but we beat them back. We fled into the night, and lost ourselves in the streets of Bangor. We had no idea what might be a safe haven until a man found usin a dark bar one evening. He walked up and said simply, 'I'm from Heimdall. Loki wants you. Therefore, they won't get you. Call me Grison. Let's go.' "

Katrina squeezed Jeana's hands. "Your father was the sort of man who could inspire confidence and trust in so simple and direct a greeting. I'd heard horrible stories about Heimdall, the underground organization opposed to the Lyran Intelligence Corps and to Loki, in particular. I believed those stories until your father spoke to us. In that instant, I knew that Heimdall posed no threat to me. With the Loki after us, I even understood the need for Heimdall. The three of us went with your father, and that must have been the night you and I first met."