They were out in force. Ramage could make out a big, battlescarred Warhammernow, and a Thunderboltclose behind.

The enemy 'Mechs lumbered out onto the flat central field of the valley, stepping easily across the narrow, dry stream bed that marked its center. The half-glimpsed shadows seemed to be spreading out to left and right in a classic combat deployment. They must know we’re here,Ramage thought. They must know the DropShips are just on the other side of this hill, and it's right here that we’re going to have to hold them. They're sending their light stuff against us, while their heavies sweep around us and over the hill.

Straight into the LZ.

One soldier, a teenaged boy with a garish mixture of camouflage paint and dust smeared over his face, scrambled down into the trench, nearly knocking aside the makeshift flag that marked Ramage's battlefield position. He wore the green armband of a runner. Flags and armbands.Ramage thought ruefully. With the unexpected use of ECM jamming, they'd had to improvise quickly in order to keep their field communications open.

"Sir! Captain Martinez reports they have three Boomerangson radar. And . . . and there's no sign of the Colonel yet, either."

Ramage glanced at the sky, trying to penetrate the high, hot haze. Boomerangspotter planes would explain how the enemy had known their positions. The trenches were well-camouflaged from the front, but it was next to impossible to shield them from aerial infrared cameras.

Stifling a sudden, half-crazed urge to smile and wave at the sky, he turned back to the runner. "Right. Take a message to Captain Martinez. At least eight 'Mechs, including heavies. Targets' range now . . ." He checked the rangefinder again. "Two kilometers, and closing. Main body seems to be deploying north and south, and may be getting ready for a double-flank run. Got it?"

The boy's forehead furrowed in concentration. "At least eight targets, with heavies! Two kilometers . . . main body deploying north and south. Maybe getting ready for a double-flank run. Yessir!"

"Go!"

As the boy scrambled up the back of the trench, Ramage chambered a round into his TK assault rifle. "Hold your fire, people," he commanded. "Flamers and SRMs, keep hunkered down until you have a target in range! I want you to shoot hot, tight, and close! On my word!"

There was a stir along the trenches as weapons swung slightly this way or that, as men keyed to the highest possible pitch began to chamber rounds or open the fuel valves on their hand flamers. These troops were his best, trained in his every trick of counter-'Mech warfare. He knew they would give a good account of themselves. He also knew that their chances of inflicting any serious damage on even one BattleMech lance under these conditions were virtually nil.

The BattleMechs loomed closer, their pace increasing, their strides longer. Now he could see the glint of sun on visors and upraised weapons.

Ramage raised his TK, searching for accompanying infantry. Here it comes,he thought.

8

ComStar had come into being during the 28th Century, almost three hundred years before. At that time, it was merely—merely!—an interstellar communications network stretched across most of human-explored space. Its founder and chief organizer was then-Star League minister of Communications, Jerome Blake.

It had been Blake's machinations that had preserved ComStar as a separate, and neutral, entity during the civil wars that tore the Star League asunder and laid waste to hundreds of worlds. Any one of the Successor State pretenders to the old Star League throne would have won a powerful advantage over its rivals if he, and he alone, could have controlled the hyperpulse generators that were the key to interstellar communications faster than the JumpShips themselves.

Blake established ComStar as a power in its own right by using a mercenary army to seize Terra in 2788 and to declare it a neutral world under the protection of ComStar itself. In a rapid round of negotiations and politics, he won guarantees from each of the Great Houses: ComStar would continue to operate as a commercial enterprise, one that was an absolute neutral in the on-going wars. Each of the Successor Lords could see the advantage to such an arrangement. If any one of the Successor States controlled ComStar, that state would soon dominate all of known space. If no one controlled ComStar, then all would have access to ComStar's unique—and invaluable—services. In almost three centuries, there had been various incidents of one or another of the Successor Houses attacking ComStar facilities, however. ComStar's inevitable retribution was to cut off all interstellar communications services to the world or worlds involved until the offender inevitably decided that it was better to respect ComStar's neutrality.

ComStar served well in its role of providing interstellar communications, but it had another, stranger side as well. After Blake's death, the organization had undergone a reorganization that many saw as the rise of a new religion. Its leaders now believed that ComStar held the key to the rapidly vanishing technology of the old Star League, that ComStar alone would be able to guide civilization into a path that could lead ultimately to peace and plenty for all. It was not long before the organization, its members, and its beliefs became shrouded in mystery, mysticism, ritual, and superstition. Most Techs outside of ComStar held the Order in some derision. Recite the words of Blake over a hyperpulse generator before enabling the transmit program? Ridiculous!

Yet only ComStar Techs, the Adepts of the Order, knew how to repair or run the hyperpulse generators. If they wanted to chant over the damned equipment, let them! Those same Technicians who laughed at ComStar Adepts might be just as likely to rely on one particular transit wrench because that wrench was "lucky," or "knew the job," or because its absence would "jinx the malfing job." In three centuries, so much had been lost to the devastation of war. Though men struggled to regain what they had lost, it was inevitable that ignorance and superstition should rise to fill the void.

Under the direction of the Primus and the First Circuit on Terra and, led by the administrative Precentors, ComStar held together what was left of the Empire of Man. Believing that they were a bastion against the abyss that threatened to engulf mankind, the followers of the Way of Blake grew and flourished and spread the Word of the Eternal, the Blessed Blake.

* * *

The Precentor searched the thronged ballroom until he found the stout and beribboned form of Lord Garth. He had been giving some thought to the crisis of the moment and had considered summoning Lord Garth to his private office aboard the JumpShip Mizar.In the end, he had thought better of it. In front of his own people, a high-ranking noble like the Duke of Irian deserved respect and deferral even from a ComStar Precentor, who, after all, held no noble title or other rank.

Yet, the power behind the Precentor is what gave him sway over such men as Garth—a power far greater than any mere titles or rows of campaign medals and ribbons. It was a power best used in subtle ways, and the Precentor understood that fully. The steel fist within the velvet glove would never be anything less than steel, and he appreciated that the disguise of softness could make it even more potent.

The Precentor smiled and raised his glass of carved crystal to his lips. Overhead, the transparency of the ballroom dome looked out on wheeling jeweled splendor, as the stars seemed to sweep past the motionless Mizar. In fact, of course, it was the ballroom's unfelt motion that made the stars appear to move. The passenger DropShip in which Duke Irian's party travelled could be extended from the Mizar'scentral axis on a webwork of monofilament strands, counter-balanced by a second DropShip on the far side of the ship, with the entire structure set rotating in order to generate artificial gravity aboard the DropShips through centrifugal force. Short of using the main ship's station-keeping thrusters to accelerate at 1 G— impractical while the jump sail was deployed—it was the only way of generating gravity so that the assembled multitude could strut about in their jeweled and beribboned costumes rather than float helplessly. The thought of some of these fat toads (or their helpless and bedecked mistresses) thrashing about in midair broadened the Precentor's smile.