13

Steel Wolf Headquarters

The Four Cities, Tigress

April, 3133; local summer

For Anastasia Kerensky, Kal Radick’s earliest convenience came sooner than she had expected. She had spent most of her first day on Tigress combing through the local rental and purchase listings, tackling the acquisition of living quarters with a ruthlessness that left sales and rental agents exhausted. Her efforts brought their own reward: By late afternoon, she had the keys to a one-bedroom apartment in neither the best nor the worst section of the Four Cities. The building itself was an unattractive brick structure, like a shipping crate with windows, but it was well kept up by neighborhood standards, and its security systems were excellent.

And for all the building’s laboring-class ugliness, it possessed one overwhelming advantage: Nobody in the Steel Wolves would expect to find Star Colonel Anastasia Kerensky living in such a place. She still had Tassa Kay’s mustering-out money from her service on Achernar, in good Republic stones—more than enough to cover her first and last month’s rent and her security deposit, and to pay for the activation of utilities and a connection to the planetary communications net. All done with the pleasant anonymity of cash.

Privacy, she thought. And cheap at the price. She hoped that hard currency would continue in use on Clan worlds in the Republic. If the Steel Wolves ever managed to reestablish the standard Clan voucher system locally, such anonymity would be much more difficult to come by.

She checked the net connection on the spot by locating and opening her official mail. Nothing there… except for a note asking for the pleasure of her company at dinner that evening with Galaxy Commander Kal Radick.

“Fast work,” she said aloud, and didn’t bother to explain her comment to the rental agent. Radick obviously wanted to meet her before she had a chance to settle in—wanted to catch her on the run and see what she was like with her guard down. “Well, the hell with that.”

Her personal gear was still back at the DropShip field; she hadn’t wanted to haul a full duffel all over the city while looking at apartments. But her earlier cordiality toward the Portmaster proved to have been a good investment. Upon her return, he proved willing to let her clean up and change into uniform in the female employees’ locker room.

“I do not want to keep Galaxy Commander Radick waiting,” she explained as she collected her duffel and headed for the showers. When she reemerged a few minutes later, scrubbed clean and freshly dress-uniformed, Tassa Kay was gone completely and the Star Colonel was ascendant.

Public transport took her to the Headquarters building where Kal Radick had his quarters—no living off base for him.

“Star Colonel Kerensky to see Galaxy Commander Radick,” she said to the guard at the front entrance. “I am expected.”

The guard consulted his data pad. “You will find his quarters on the top floor, Star Colonel. Take the elevator up and follow the signs for Twenty-Five A through F.”

She was not surprised, when she reached her destination, to find Kal Radick’s rooms austere almost to point of bareness: stark metal-and-crystal furniture, with the walls and carpet and curtains done in shades of brown and gray and bone ivory. The Clan aesthetic sense ran to the purely functional in matters of design, even when the materials themselves, as here, were the best available. Anastasia Kerensky, trueborn of the iron wombs on Arc-Royal, approved, but the voice of Tassa Kay whispered impudently in the back of her mind that some people might consider that the Galaxy Commander was trying a bit too hard.

Radick himself was a lean man, on the tall side for a MechWarrior, with dark hair and a complexion either deep tanned or naturally olive. He came forward to greet her at the door.

“Star Colonel Kerensky,” he said.

He sounded genuinely pleased by her arrival, and Anastasia had to remind herself that the Galaxy Commander was younger than he looked. His true age didn’t show in his appearance or in his general bearing, but she had delved into the history behind his meteoric rise to the rank of Prefect. Mixed in with the triumphs—his gaining of the Radick Bloodname, his successful challenge for the position of Galaxy Commander for the Clan Clusters in Prefecture IV—she had seen other, more disquieting things.

His dealings with the new Prefect of Prefecture III, for example. Kal Radick clearly had no idea how much he had offended the Countess of Northwind by his suggestion that The Republic of the Sphere might eventually be replaced by a renascent Star League. The Campbell woman was passionately loyal to Devlin Stone’s Republic. Anastasia, for her part, found such passion for a jerry-built political experiment more amusing than anything else—and had reacted to Kal Radick’s offhand comment as though he had spoken deliberate treason.

If the Countess of Northwind had been Clan, Anastasia thought, we would have had a Trial of Grievance by now, and the whole Inner Sphere would have learned which side had the stronger argument.

All this passed through her mind as she weighed the proper response to Kal Radick’s greeting. The tone of the evening was social, rather than official—their meeting was in private quarters rather than in public space, and food and drink were on offer—but not too social, since Radick wore a plain working uniform rather than civilian clothing.

Anastasia settled for making eye contact and giving Radick a nod in reply. “Galaxy Commander Radick.”

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

“Breakfast this morning only,” she said. “I have been occupied with settling in.”

Radick gestured toward the table she had glimpsed earlier. It stood in a window nook overlooking the DropPort. Night was falling outside, but the silhouettes of Lupus and its mates were still visible on the landing field. “Join me, then.”

“Happily, Galaxy Commander.”

The meal that waited for them turned out to be much like the room it was served in: everything of the best quality, but all of it plain to the point of simplicity. Not ostentatiously so—the Galaxy Commander did not dine at home on field rations, or on anything badly cooked or otherwise inedible—but bland and unsophisticated nonetheless. She wondered if the near austerity was meant as a political gesture, to demonstrate to the more militant among the Steel Wolves that he was uncorrupted by the ways of The Republic in spite of having been immersed in its politics.

“What brings you to Prefecture IV?” Radick asked. He filled his plate with sliced roast meat and boiled greens as he spoke. “Tigress is a long way from Arc-Royal, quaiff?”

In more ways than one, she thought. “Aff.”

“Yet you came here by way of Achernar. Why?”

Anastasia began filling her own plate. After not having had a chance to eat since leaving the DropShip that morning, even plain meat and greens were going to taste good.

“The DropPort on Achernar makes a convenient stopover point,” she said. “Or do you mean—why did I fight beside the locals while I was there?”

“That question is also one that requires an answer.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “I desired to see for myself what the famous Steel Wolves were made of.”

“And did you?”

She gave him a quick, predatory grin, feeling for a moment more Tassa Kay than Anastasia Kerensky. “Oh, yes.”

“I trust you found it satisfactory.”

“Had what I seen not pleased me, I would not have continued on to Tigress afterward.”

Radick looked satisfied by the answer, and Anastasia Kerensky allowed herself another, more inward smile. She had no intention of explaining to the Galaxy Commander exactly what she had found pleasing: the knowledge that the Steel Wolves were strong enough and hard enough to be made into a sword that could break apart The Republic of the Sphere; but more than that, the knowledge that Kal Radick would not be the one to use them.