* * *

In a sealed and heated communications vehicle nearly ten kilometers from where Grayson and the envoy were speaking, a dark man with brooding eyes leaned back from the radio console, setting aside the device he had been holding against one ear. "That's it, then," he said, the words slow and thoughtful. The four men crowding around him in the narrow compartment listened attentively. "They've agreed to Formal Peace. The Sirius campaign is over."

"We can begin, then," one of the four said. His environmental suit was open enough to show the bulky padding of a BattleMech cooling vest across his chest. The insignia on his breast patch was a grinning gray and black skull against a scarlet background.

The first man nodded. "I never thought anyone would be able to move as fast as Carlyle did. In a way, it's a shame ..."

"What is a shame, Precentor . . . ?"

"Nevercall me that! Not even here!"

The MechWarrior's eyes widened, and he struggled visibly to swallow. "I . . . I . . . Forgive me, Lord."

"Forgiven," the man said simply. "But don't forget again. Your role in the events to come is most important. You cannot afford a careless word or thought. It would be most . . . unfortunate."

"Y-yes, my Lord. Thank you, my Lord."

"Good. You may ready yourself." He nodded toward the other three. "All of you gather your men. The Duke will be here in thirty hours. It is time we began."

2

"Well, our part in the contract has been fulfilled," Grayson said.

He stood with Lori on an arched bridge above the Silver Way, the high-vaulted main corridor running across the breadth of the largest of Tiantan's five domes. The other ferrocrete and steel structures housed hydroponics facilities that fed the city-colony's entire population. In this dome was the city proper, a vast, labyrinthine subsurface of warrens that housed twelve million people.

The Way below was crowded with people, citizens of the colony that had just fallen to the Legion's thrust. The Tiantan domed cities were completely encased in ferrocrete and duraplast, warmed and sealed against the frigid poison without. Outside, the domes were a sullen, cold grey. Inside, the walls had been painted in pastel shades that contrasted the crowds clash of color, costume, and noise.

The bridge, too, was crowded. It seemed that all of Tiantan's population had left their quarters today to glimpse the invaders in their midst. The Legion's tireless Captain Ramage had stationed armored security forces at strategic points throughout the main dome, but there seemed to be no need for force of arms. The crowds were not hostile, though Grayson had noted many sullen or uneasy looks among the faces. The defenders had surrendered, and so, under the protocols of war, the city of Tiantan would remain intact. The rulers of the city might be changed or reparations charged that could raise the city dwellers' taxes. All in all, though, the lives of individual Sirians would change little as a result of the recent battles in the icy fields beyond the city's domed walls.

Lori touched Grayson's hand lightly and guided him out of the jostling crowd to the railing above the Silver Way. Blonde hair fell across her eyes as she looked up at him, but she brushed it aside impatiently. "We've done our part, but you don't sound happy about it, Gray."

"What's to be happy about?"

"Home," Lori said, but her voice scarcely carried across the distance between them. "A place to call home ..."

"At least until the next campaign, the next raid."

She took his arm in both of hers and squeezed. Her smile was infectious, but Lori's eyes held a shadow of worry as she searched his face. "Oh, come on, Gray! Aren't you excited about a place to call home? I am." The smile faded. "Sigurd is a long way away ..."

Grayson managed a smile of his own. "I must be an honest-to-God old soldier now, love," he said. "Home is the regiment, and all that ..."

Lori hummed something, low and sad. Grayson ducked his head closer to hear above the crowd roar. She stopped humming then and sang, putting words to the tune.

Home is the regiment, across the sea of stars,

On worlds hot, on worlds cold,

where Warriors tread afar.

Though place of birth and family,

though loved ones all be lost,

Home is the regiment, across the sea of stars.

She stopped, then looked up at Grayson, her eyes bright. "It's all of that, Gray. But the regiment needs a place of its own. All of us do. For us. Helm will be home ..."

Grayson nodded, but he was thinking that the military had been his own home for as long as he could remember. As the son of Durant Carlyle, commander of Carlyle's Commandos, he had lived in a blurred succession of garrison outposts, cantonments on worlds along the marches, fortresses above alien cities. At the age of ten standard, he'd become a MechWarrior apprentice in his father's own company. From that day forward, he had been trained as a MechWarrior, raised in the expectation that one day the father would retire and the son would assume his command.

Things had not worked out that way. The betrayal at Trellwan and the death of Durant Carlyle had left Grayson Carlyle on his own. From the ashes of that loss and defeat, he had forged the Legion almost through sheer will. In the fire and blood of shared combat, he had found a kind of family to replace the one that had been destroyed.

For him, home had alwaysbeen the regiment.

As a mercenary combined arms regiment, the Gray Death Legion was fairly typical, if still small. The Legion hadgrown since Verthandi. The backbone of the unit was still Grayson's BattleMech company, called "A" Company, or the Gray Death. Those twelve 'Mechs were arranged in three lances of four 'Mechs each, with Grayson himself as Captain, the Company Commander. In addition, they had also managed to assemble the better part of a second 'Mech company, which was now designated as a training company and replacement pool for the Gray Death. New recruits were trained in Lieutenant DeVillar's B Company, while older, more experienced recruits were rotated two at a time through A Company's recon lance.

Those who survived would eventually graduate to a permanent lance slot in a second line company that Grayson was planning.

Besides the 'Mech units, there were two companies of line infantry under the command of Captain Ramage. Organized as three 40-man platoons, each company had been unrelentingly trained and drilled by Ramage, a former Trellwanese infantry sergeant who had a knack for special commando tactics. His ability to train raw recruits into commandos able to take on BattleMechs with improvised weapons had been vital to the success of the guerrilla campaign on Verthandi, and so Grayson had promoted Ramage to the rank of Captain, despite his protestations.

A new company had only recently been created and placed under the command of another newcomer signed on at Galatea, Lieutenant Mark Baron. Baron had charge of the Legion's armor company, which consisted of eight Galleon and twelve Vedette light tanks, most of them prizes captured from the Kuritans on Verthandi. Grayson hoped to organize the tanks into recon lance support teams, but for now was more concerned with training tank drivers to handle the balky combat machines.

Then there was the Tech Company, now under the command of Master Tech Lieutenant Alard King. At last count, the Tech Company consisted of over three hundred specialists trained to provide the technical services that kept the unit functioning. The personnel ranged from senior MechTech King, to drivers for the Legion's skimmers, combat medics who cared for the wounded, the weapons Techs, and cooks who prepared the food.