Then, during their passage from Sirius V to the Sirian zenith jump point, the Phoboshad passed within close radio hailing distance of a squadron of four Marik DropShips heading the other way, in-system. The Phobos'scall and ID had been ignored.

Once the DropShips had docked with the old, ex-merchant freighter Invidious,Grayson had opened a beamcast channel to Sirius V, hoping to verify the unexpected order to proceed to Marik. Perhaps one of the Duke's staff would be willing to tell him more? That never happened because Tiantan's com beacon, the transmitter for the carrier wave that would have patched him directly to the Duke's communication network, was unaccountably silent.

Technical difficulties, perhaps, Grayson had thought. Equipment was always breaking down, and in the aftermath of the invasion, technicians and comreptechs would have their hands full, keeping city services functioning smoothly. Remembering the sullen looks on the faces of some of the civilians, he knew that sabotage, too, was a possibility.

One way or the other, the silence worried him. Something was going on back there, something involving the Duke and the unilateral changes in the Legion's contract orders. The Invidious'sComTech had finally managed to open a channel to the Duke's DropShip Gladius,but with remarkably unhelpful results. What they were told was that the Duke and his entire staff were busy and could not be disturbed. All was secure in Tiantan, and the Legion's orders stood.

What is going on?Grayson wondered. He remembered Lord Garth keeping his eyes unfocused somewhere beyond Grayson's shoulders. As if I didn't exist,Grayson thought. He suppressed a shudder. That sort of thinking would get him nowhere.

"I suppose we are technically in violation of our orders," he continued after a moment. "But we're not violating our contract. Helm's only four jumps away from Marik. We can still go to the Admin capital. We'll just take a little longer to get there ... by a little more roundabout way."

"You have a reason? The Captain-General could be waiting there to pin medals on us." Tor chuckled. "God knows, we deserve 'em! You've done a right smart job of mopping up on Liao along this border, old son!"

Grayson folded his arms, the motion setting him adrift, and moving slowly beside the chart table. "You want a reason? Let's just say I'm the suspicious sort. My father always told me that those were the kind of MechWarriors who lived the longest." He reached out and grabbed hold of a stanchion, arresting his drift. "Let's just say I'll feel better—we'll allfeel better—after I've seen the landhold and checked in with the people there." When Tor didn't reply, Grayson continued. "Damn it, something strange is going on, Ren! Half our people are back on Helm, and I don't like being this spread out . . . exposed and vulnerable!"

"You think someone's going to attack Helm? Or us?"

"I don't think anything, right now. I just want to rejoin the rest of our people. We'll decide what the next step is after that. We'll stop at Helm for a week or two, let our people unwind, get the equipment patched up. Then we'll see about this summons to Marik."

"O.K. You're the boss," Tor said, but his voice was disapproving. "For once, though, I'd enjoy knowing that we weren't acting on one of your hunches!" He glanced up at a vidscreen that showed the activity aft along the long, slender length of the JumpShip. The sail had collapsed in a circular mass of accordion folds, guided by nearly invisible guide struts and monofilament cables. Hatch sections had closed over the sail, sealing it from the stresses of hyperspace as the manned work pods that had supervised the process returned to their storage bays in the Invidious'shull. Sirius shone due aft, illuminating the blocky rear edges of the JumpShip's complex and convoluted skeletal frame.

"All stations," a voice announced over the bridge intercom. "Sail stowage maneuver complete. All stations, report readiness for jump to Navigation."

Captain Tor touched a control, and the green pathway across the stars, the one running through Pollux, zigzagging through five jumps to the Marik system, winked out. The red path, eight jumps angling down to the orange gleam of Helm, remained. "Navigation," Tor said into the microphone at his throat. "Jump route via Graham is confirmed. You have my command: jump when ready."

Moments more passed in silence. "All stations," a voice warned at last from the ship intercom, sounding throughout the kilometer-long complexity of the Invidiousand within the paired DropShips fastened leechlike to the needle-slim backbone between crew area and reactor core. "Prepare for jump."

The voice began counting off the seconds. Grayson spent the time seeking out the pinpoint of light that marked Sirius V, but at this distance, the world was lost in the glare from its primary. What's going on back there?he wondered. And why?

Just as he was thinking that maybe a side trip to Helm would answer those questions, there came the sickening lurch and blackness of jump.

* * *

The world known as Helm was not a pleasant one for man. Fourth planet out of a mild, K4 sun, it lay on the outer fringes of its star's habitable zone. More than half its surface was locked beneath glaciers kilometers deep. Vast stretches of what had once been ocean floor were dry and bare, with much of the world's water now locked in Helm's icecaps.

Much of the land that remained was either mountainous or arid desert. Between the relentless, endless seas of ice to north and south, ice-capped mountains thousands of meters high girdled Helm at the equator.

Yet life had evolved on Helm ages before, in an epoch when Helm's star was brighter and warmer. Life had continued by adapting to the cold. The planet had been discovered and colonized by men probing out from New Hope and Tania Borealis late in the 22nd century. The principal city of Freeport had grown up around the star-port on a bluff overlooking the salt flats of a dried equatorial sea. For a time, Freeport had served as a Star League naval base, then as a storehouse for Star League weapons. In 2788, however, Minoru Kurita unleashed fusion firestorms over Freeport and the other major settlements on Helm in an attempt to destroy or seize those stores. Within a single rotational period of 26 hours, the population of Helm was reduced from over one hundred million to a handful of starveling wretches huddled around campfires in the wilderness. Kurita learned that the weapons stockpiles he was seeking had already been transported elsewhere and departed.

It took three centuries for the planet to even begin to recover.

By the 31st Century, Helm was part of the Duchy of Stewart. Settlements had appeared once more in scattered clusters among the valleys and plateaus of the equatorial mountains. With its small population and non-existent industrial base, Helm was ideal as a land-hold for MechWarriors in the service of the Free Worlds League. Between 2958 and 3025, Helm had served as landhold for several Marik Warriors or Warrior families, who hired or pressed local families into service to build the fortresses that marked their titled grants. In 3025, the last of those grants reverted to House Marik when the leaseholder defected to House Liao, taking his BattleMech company with him.

Then, in 3027, Janos Marik offered the largest of Helm's landholds to Colonel Grayson Carlyle in exchange for the Gray Death Legion's services against House Liao. Helmfast, the Castle in the hills above Durandel, had been a stronghold for the planet's military governor in Star League days, and had served several times since as landhold for various Warriors and their families. The practice of landholds was a common one in the neo-feudalism that had risen across the Inner Sphere in this era of continuous war and faltering technology. By taking charge of the landhold on Helm, Carlyle became Marik's "man," sworn to serve Janos Marik when summoned to do so. The arrangement worked to the benefit of both parties: Carlyle and his people had a home, and Janos Marik had a new combined arms regiment. The Legion's standard was to be raised above the long-vacant fortress above Durandel. It was understood that other men-at-arms would eventually be granted holds of their own elsewhere on the planet, but for now, Helm belonged to Grayson Carlyle.