The score of missiles Phelan loosed hit the rockslide 200 meters in front of Glynis' fighter. The fiery explosions heaved huge chunks of stone into the air, directly in the Visigoth'sflight path. At the speed her craft was moving, Glynis had less than half a second to react.

Her attempted roll was not enough.

One triangular rock sheared through the left wing as if the fighter was little more than a wood and paper model. That sped up Glynis' desperate roll, inverting the plane. It spiraled down into the rockslide and cartwheeled. When the Visigoth'sright wing touched down, it crumpled like brittle bone, armor flaking off into a glittering cloud of useless ceramic. The fuselage split open right behind the cockpit, then the missiles spilling out of it exploded, obliterating any trace of the Omnifighter's existence.

* * *

Phelan looked up at the pyre burning on the rockslide. A piece of him wanted to mourn for Glynis, but he shut those feelings away. "This was a battle for a Bloodname," he heard himself say aloud. "She knew the stakes and wouldn't have shed a tear if it was me at the heart of that blaze."

But was a Bloodname reason enough to needlessly spill blood? And was killing for a title any more sensible than this Clan war against the Inner Sphere?

Phelan acknowledged those inner doubts with a nod of his head. "I am of the Clans now. Their concerns are my concerns." He started the Novaon the slow climb upward. "But their concerns are not my onlyconcerns."

He smiled and headed off to see if, by some miracle, Glynis might have survived.

18

Firebase Tango Zephyr, Alyina

Trellshire, Jade Falcon Occupation Zone

9 March 3052

 

Kai studied the former firebase through the binoculars and felt his stomach tighten. Coil upon coil of razor-wire encircled the collection of quonset huts and low bunkers like a silver thorn thicket. Individuals manned the two watchtowers, though their weapons had been shifted around to cover the interior of the camp, not the killing ground surrounding it. A proudly waving ComStar banner topped the flagpole.

Through the field glasses, he could not recognize any single person, but he saw plenty of hobbled individuals wearing soiled remnants of Federated Commonwealth uniforms. Most appeared skeletally lean and walked with a listless shuffle that transformed them into zombies. Some tended a garden plot near the center of the camp while others worked in chain gangs improving and widening the dirt track leading up to the camp's double gate.

"How bad is it, Kai?"

He lowered the glasses and scratched at his beard. "It's bad, but not as bad as it could be. The camp guards appear to be locals, like Truper and Jocko, but the administrators are ComStar. I didn't see any Clanfolk, but that doesn't mean they aren't there."

Deirdre nodded as she gathered her hair back into a short ponytail. She tied it with a piece of string, then wrapped a dirty length of gauze around her head to obscure her right eye. "You think this will be enough of a disguise?"

Kai turned and smiled. She'd dressed in one of Truper's jumpsuits, which fit her like an elephant's skin would fit a yappy little dog. Along with the dirty rag wrapped around her head, it worked to hide all vestiges of her beauty. "If ComStar had fashion police, you'd be taken out and shot. I don't think anyone would recognize you. What about me?"

She squinted with her good eye, then gave him a grim smile. "The beard and some of your hair gathered into that topknot do make you look like a Kurita renegade. No one is going to connect you with either David Jewell orKai Allard."

"Good." He tossed the binoculars back into the truck, then slid into the driver's seat. "Ready to beard the lion in his own den?"

She shifted the shoulder holster and pistol she wore to a slightly more comfortable position, though she still looked uneasy touching it. "Let's go now before I get some sense and try to talk you out of it."

Kai looked over his shoulder at the two body-bagged lumps in the rear. "Wouldn't matter. You'd be outvoted because they want to go home." He punched the ignition code into the dash-panel and the hovertruck rose on a cushion of air. Turning the wheel, he started it down the dirt track and on into the mouth of the dragon.

* * *

The dust cloud the hovertruck raised forced all the prisoners on the side of the road to turn away and cough out the choking haze. As much as Kai hated doing it to them, he knew it seriously reduced the chances of his being recognized. The last thing he needed was to be identified while in the clutches of the enemy.

A tall Com Guard stopped the hovertruck at the gate. "What's you business?"

Kai jerked a thumb toward the bed of the truck. "Deliveries. Two ripe ones."

The man glanced back at the two bodies, then wrinkled his nose with disgust. "Take 'em to Building Three. That's the morgue and disbursement center." He signaled someone to open the first of the double gates.

Kai eased the hovertruck forward. After the gate behind him closed, the one in front opened. He steered the truck through and then toward the rear of the camp. "Remember, you don't say anything, okay?"

Deirdre nodded mutely and Kai smiled approval that she'd passed his test. He pulled the truck around to the small door beneath a huge scarlet number three painted on the front of the Quonset hut. He killed the engines, dropping the truck to the ground, then waited for the curling cloud of dust to settle a tan patina over the windscreen before he opened the door.

Deirdre followed him two steps back. Kai pushed the door open with his foot, then stepped inside to dust himself off. Deirdre slipped in behind him and slumped against the wall.

Three horrified ComStar clerks looked up at him as if he were a ghost. One man, clearly outraged as dust covered his papers, shot to his feet "Must you?"

Kai looked at him through narrowed eyes, then spat into his wastebasket.

Another man, older and wiser, pulled his compatriot back and forced him down into his chair. He looked up at Kai with a wan smile. "May I help you?" he asked in strained tones.

"Got two fer ya, see?" Kai sucked at his teeth as if trying to remove a bit of food stuck between two of them. "Bit messy and flyblown, but good ones."

The man's expression soured a bit. "You have two renegades?"

Kai nodded.

The man motioned Kai toward a chair beside his desk. Kai settled into it and slumped down so that the back of his head rested on the top of the seat's backrest, and his butt all but slid off the seat itself. He perched his elbows on the chair arms and his left hand strayed toward playing with a small ComStar flag on the desk.

The clerk moved the flag to the other side of the desk. "Do these renegades have names?"

Kai nodded.

The man waited for a bit, then cleared his throat. "What were their names?"

"Harry Truper and Dave Jewell."

The other two clerks turned to look at Kai.

Kai smiled and spat into the wastebasket again.

They went back to their work while the first clerk nervously punched the names into his computer. "Ah, Mister, ah, Harry Truper is a bounty hunter just like you."

"Not no more."

"Excuse me?"

Kai slowly levered himself up in the chair. "He's dead, see? Him and this Dave Jewell came to a shack me and the woman found after the Fedrats burned down our farm. They was planning to kill me and turn me in as Jewell. They said they'd use the woman and then cut her just like they did someone Jewell was running with before."