"And you had to ask me to keep this secret? Even if you stood on top of a mountain and shouted this rot through a loudspeaker, who among Clan warriors would want to hear any of it? It has no relation to what we do, what we are. We fight, that is what we do. We are warriors, that is what we are. We do not worry about right and wrong. If we think, it is our hobby, and that is all. Permission to leave?"

Aidan nodded. Joanna stood up, none too gracefully. She turned a bit shakily toward the door, but Aidan was not done with her yet. "Star Commander? I am wondering about your chief tech, Nomad. Is he still with you?"

"No."

"He didlook old the last I saw him."

"It was not age that did him in. He was killed on Twycross, sometime during the Camora campaign. Blown up, I understand."

"You understand?"

"He was not attached to my unit when it happened. The slimy freebirth, tricky as ever, transferred out just when I had given up asking him to."

"He was a good tech, a—"

"He was a freebirth, and that is the end of it."

As Joanna turned back toward the door, a sudden knock startled both warriors.

"Who is it?" Joanna bellowed, forgetting for a moment that she was no longer in command. "Speak immediately or go away."

The responding voice was that of Horse, who entered when Aidan called out permission. He was carrying a sheaf of papers, which he handed to Aidan.

"There is an uprising in Vreeport," he said. "Some citizens who have found a cache of Inner Sphere weapons are now perched on the city walls, shooting at any warrior who comes near. And there seems to be a BattleMech standing in the middle of the fortress. That's all I know so far."

Aidan sighed. It was the normal kind of mop-up operation that had apparently become his specialty.

"Can we negotiate with them?"

"It has been tried, according to the report. There seems to be only one choice."

"Annihilation?"

"Yes."

"Well, perhaps that will not be necessary. Let us go. Star Commander Joanna, now may be a good time for your Star to get its feet wet on Quarell. This mission is yours."

Joanna touched Aidan's arm as he walked by.

"We are eager for battle, Star Colonel, but the general directive says to be merciless in dealing with uprisings."

"That is true."

"So why not annihilation? This is apparently only a small guerrilla band."

"They are our enemy, yes, but that does not make them less human. We must treat them with the same respect we give our foes in BattleMechs."

"But do we not strive to annihilate them?"

"Only when we have to."

"I never strove for anything else."

Aidan stared at Joanna for a long moment, and the cruelty she remembered came back into his eyes. "And look where it has gotten you, Star Commander Joanna."

Warmed by the Quarell wine and Aidan's confidences, Joanna had momentarily forgotten the hatred she had felt for this man from the moment she laid eyes on him. Now it returned full force. Seething with anger, she followed him out of the room.

7

The small settlement of Vreeport was located in a clearing so surrounded by tall, leafy trees that it would easily have escaped the eyes of a 'Mech pilot operating exclusively on visuals. Believing visuals unreliable, Joanna vastly preferred to navigate relying solely on her 'Mech's inertial guidance system. She did not need to see the subtleties of color in the foliage, the deep brown of the ground, the strange gnarled patterns of tree bark, the quick moves of tiny animals away from the heavy tread of 'Mech feet—not when all she needed was available in its essential grid-and-line patterns. Knowing the coordinates of Vreeport, she found it easily, set off into its blueprint-like lines and shapes.

Stepping her Mad Dogout of the forest, she came upon Vreeport in its clearing. The rest of her Star, all BattleMechs, emerged just after she had guided her 'Mech through the last of the trees.

"Looks quiet," Joanna remarked to her team over the open channel. Among the various sounds of agreement, she heard Diana's voice: "Request permission to enter the settlement walls for recon."

"Request denied," Joanna said. "If anyone is there, let them see us first. Many a battle has been won merely through the intimidating presence of BattleMechs."

She switched to external speakers. "If any citizen still remains in Vreeport, it is my duty to inform you that our commander, Star Colonel Aidan Pryde, grants you immunity if you come out immediately. Whatever you have been told by the propagandists of the Inner Sphere, we of the Clan are not monsters who kill indiscriminately.

But neither do we have patience with lower-caste scum who dare take up the arms of a warrior."

"But you are willing to make slaves of us!" came a voice from inside the fortress, also amplified but without the resonance provided by a 'Mech's external speakers.

"What does he mean?" Diana asked.

"That we shall find out," Joanna said as she opened up the communications link back to the Command Center and requested to speak to Star Colonel Aidan Pryde.

* * *

In the Command Center, Aidan sat with Demi-Precentor Melanie Truit, the ComStar representative charged with administration of the conquered population of Quarell. ComStar officials on Quarell, as on the other Clan-occupied planets of the Inner Sphere, were acting as a buffer between the planetary populations and their conquerors. He took Joanna's message, then turned to Melanie Truit.

"What do you know of this?"

Truit wrinkled her nose, a rather prominent one that looked out of place on her delicate face. "Less than you, I suspect. We of ComStar are only to administer and govern according to the rules of you, the Clan conquerors. You must realize, Colonel Pryde, that your bondsman custom goes against what any self-respecting Inner Sphere citizen can accept. The Clan custom of selecting a conquered people's finest mental and physical specimens to become bondsmen to warriors of Clan Jade Falcon is foreign to their way of thinking. Nor can they comprehend that the taking of bondsmen is a sign of respect by Clan warriors for those of their enemy who fought well."

Aidan nodded. "I have selected several enemy warriors as bondsmen. Why would anyone protest? It is honorable to serve the Clan, even for a conquered enemy. They should be proud."

Demi-Precentor Truit smiled, an attractive smile that revealed even white teeth. If she had been Clan instead of ComStar, Aidan might have asked her to accompany him to his quarters tonight.

"In the Inner Sphere we have no concept analogous to your bondsman custom," she said. "As the Vreeport man told you, to these people it is slavery, pure and simple."

"Of course it is slavery, but being a bondsman and becoming part of a Clan is better than being enslaved and with dim prospects on one's own planet, is it not?"

"You forget. I am not Clan either. I do not see the distinction. Nor need I, since I serve only ComStar." Despite Demi-Precentor Truit's politely neutral manner, Aidan sensed that she agreed with the insurgents that bondsman was not an honorable state.

"You seem to agree with this foul point of view."

"I am not permitted to say. As the ComStar representative on this planet, I am completely neutral. Do not grunt at me like that. It is quite true."