Wolf turned slowly. "Understand this, all of you. The Clans are not going to roll over and play dead just because you command them to do so." He pointed at Kai. "It will take more than one soldier thinking about the objective to defeat them. I had hoped to use you, the scions of the Inner Sphere's ruling Houses, as an example for how we might all cooperate to combat this threat. I had hoped that the seeds of the rivalries that have sundered the Inner Sphere for three centuries had not yet sprouted or taken sufficient root in you.

"If I was wrong, I apologize to you, MacKenzie, and to you, Christian, for assigning you the task of bringing this rabble together into a unit." He looked at Victor and Hohiro. "And make no mistake of it, you will become the unit I need you to be, or you will be discarded. This is no longer a fight of House against House. It is us against the Clans. If I have to manufacture leaders for that war, I will do it."

Wolf stalked from the room. Hanse looked at his son, shaking his head sadly. Turning to Theodore, he rested a hand on the Kanrei's shoulder. "I apologize for my son's behavior. I don't know what possessed him."

Theodore waved off the apology casually. "It is not his fault. He is yet young. My son should have known better."

Together, Hanse and Theodore walked from the room. As the doors closed behind them, MacKenzie Wolf clapped his hands together and smiled coldly. "This bomb test is the least of the challenges you will face in your time here. If you want to fight, we'll give you plenty to do, but unless you start working together, you'll die fighting each other."

He jerked a thumb at the door. "Outside! Move it! You've got a full day of drills ahead of you. Let's try not to screw them up as badly as you did this one."

5

Clan Council Chamber, Hall of the Wolves

Strana Mechty, Beyond the Periphery

5 February 3051

 

Despite a nervousness that made him nauseous, Phelan Kell kept his face impassive as he strode down the long stairway from the visitors' gallery. He stepped onto the floor of the huge, circular chamber and crossed it quickly. He managed to step up onto the slowly revolving central platform only a meter or two from the witness box to which he had been called. That act of timing, as Cyrilla had pointed out to him earlier, was no mean feat and would please many of the Clansmen gathered in the chamber.

A stern-faced clerk held out a plaque emblazoned with the old Star League crest. Above it, Phelan recognized the insignia of the Wolf Clan. At the clerk's instruction, Phelan placed his right hand over his heart and his left hand on the cool surface of the plaque. "Do you swear on the honor of the Wolf Clan to tell the entire Truth and not to rest until Justice is done in this matter?"

"I do."

The Clan Loremaster glanced over at Phelan. "Please be seated."

Slipping into the witness chair, Phelan looked out at the assembled Clan Council. Composed of those Clan members who had earned Bloodnames, the Council formed the ruling body for the Wolf Clan. It elected two Khans, who subsequently represented it on the Grand Council, though the election was more a pro-forma acknowledgement of who among the Wolves were the greatest warriors. The Council debated and passed regulations, though the true management of the Clans fell to the Khans. In the main, the Council existed to sit in judgement over matters of honor concerning the Clan and the bloodlines it controlled.

The benches allotted to the Council members filled the first ten tiers of the room, with the remaining dozen devoted to the visitors' gallery. Built along the lines of a theatre in the round, its central dais slowly rotated so everyone could look upon the Loremaster, the Khans, and anyone else involved in the matter at hand. A ring of lights and cameras that moved with the platform provided images to the array of screens hanging from the ceiling, giving each member a view of the faces of the participants.

Each of the Clan Council members had Ivoting machinery and a communications terminal. Each vote would light up a red, black, or white lucite block, at the same time being tallied as an Aye, Nay, or abstention at the Loremaster's bench. The communications terminal came equipped with a keyboard that allowed typed messages to be sent to other Council members. It also included a headset that permitted public address or private verbal exchanges with other members or, with the Loremaster during a debate.

"Phelan Wolf, you have sworn to give full and complete testimony in the matter we are discussing." The Loremaster, whose thinning brown hair matched his eyes, gave Phelan a look meant to be encouraging. "As you are new to the Clan, and the matter we are discussing is your adoption into the Clan, please feel free to ask for any clarification you need to answer the questions."

"Yes, sir." Glancing up, Phelan saw Khan Ulric Kerensky and Garth Radick, the other Wolf Clan Khan, seated above and behind the Loremaster. At first glance, Ulric's white hair, moustache, and goatee made him look older than his fellow Khan, but his leanness and the hungry look in his eyes gave him an aura of youth and vitality. Radick's mousy brown hair and thicker build suggested a man more suited to a sedentary lifestyle, but Phelan knew that could not be true of one who had won a Bloodname. Seeing how Radick's restless brown eyes scanned the crowd, Phelan decided that much went on behind the pleasant mask Radick wore.

A younger member of the Clan came around from a table on the far side of the Loremaster's tall bench. Dressed in a gray jumpsuit, she proudly wore a cluster of three 8-pointed silver stars on her epaulets. Phelan recognized them as the insignia of the Supply and Support division of the Clan's military and assumed this woman to be from the Clan's equivalent of the Adjutant General's office. As she tucked a strand of red hair behind her right ear, Phelan noticed she wore a communications receiver.

She smiled at him openly. "I am Carol Leroux and I will serve as the Inquisitor in this investigation. Were you a full-fledged warrior, you would have an Advocate, but that is not permitted in this type of proceeding. You understand that it is necessary for me to take a devil's advocate position. In addition to asking my own questions—" she touched the electronic device nestled in her right ear—"I will relay questions from members of the Council. Please take as much time as you need to answer them."

"Thank you, Star Colonel," Phelan said, drawing a smile from the Inquisitor when he used the correct form of address. Though he decided to take that as a good sign, his roiling stomach remained unconvinced.

"Very well, Phelan Wolf, please state the name under which you were known in the Successor States."

"I was Phelan Patrick Kell. When captured and made a bondsman, I was frequently addressed as Phelan Ward Kell, with my mother's maiden name substituted for my middle name."

Leroux nodded. "Good. It is best to be complete in your answers." She pressed her hand against the earphone and a strange, predatory look passed over her face as she looked up at Phelan. "As a bondsman, what sort of duties did you perform for Khan Ulric?"

Is that some sort of trick question?Phelan frowned. "As I understood my lot within the Wolf Clan, as a bondsman, every duty I performed was for the Khan."

"Please, be more specific." A hint of irritation crept into her command. "What tasks did you perform at his request?"