Well, he thought, Clanspeople of all castes could resemble one another. Was there not a saying that everyone had his or her twin on some Clan world? Sometimes it seemed quite possible.

Joanna felt exhilarated for the first time in years.

"You know what it is?" she said to Diana. "It is power. I have always craved power. I was meant to be at the highest levels of command. Only circumstance has kept me from it. Your father has given me a chance to—"

"Please. Never refer to him as my father. If anyone heard—"

"If anyone heard, they would not care, nor would they believe it. Why be so obsessed by the fact? No one else would. Your father himself would probably treat the information as no more than a curiosity. It is not as a daughter that you must strive to impress him. Impress him as a warrior.And now be silent. I have much work to do."

As ordered, Diana spoke no more.

* * *

Over the next days, Joanna began to post so many rules about nearly everything that the grumbling from the barracks seemed to became part of the night sounds of Mudd Station.

But her rules brought results. Formerly filthy MechWarriors suddenly began to appear at musters clean and in immaculate outfits. Personal weapons drills led to high scores. In marches, left feet tended uniformly to contact ground followed by the simultaneous movement of right feet. Aidan knew from watching the marching drills that Joanna's success was phenomenal. None of the warriors had been in a close-order march since cadet training. How she had terrorized them into it he did not know, nor did he care.

Her real triumph, however, was the 'Mech drills.

At the beginning of them, she had delivered a long, scathing oration on how most of the warriors had lost sight of their place in the Clan and what the Clan should mean to them.

"Individuality, that is your curse," she screamed at them. By this time, they were surprisingly docile whenever she raised her voice. "You know who believes in the promotion of the individual at all costs? The warriors of the Inner Sphere, that is who. They have weakened themselves with just that sort of degeneracy. They scheme. They employ vicious trickery. They believe in personal glory. Heroes are valued. And do you know what happens? They become reluctant to take the necessary risks, the ones that might endanger their lives, because they have begun to think their personal existence matters more than the goal for which they are fighting.

"Their kind of hero separates himself from the others and attempts to prevent any tarnish to his reputation. Suddenly it is better to hold back and let someone else fight the battle. Suddenly there are more heroes in the rear than at the front. Is that the kind of hero you all want to be?"

"No? Yet each of you seems to have developed personal styles, quirks, and idiocies. But it is not differences, individuals, that are the way of the Clan. Do you forget the cause that has governed our lives since any of us emerged from the iron womb? It is the cause that must be our beacon. In this war with the Inner Sphere, it is the Clan that must prevail, not the individual in battle. Each time you destroy an enemy 'Mech, it is for the Clan, not for your personal glory. Anyone who is not willing to die for the Clan is not truly a warrior."

"You have transformed yourselves into individuals. I intend to make you Clan warriors again. Do you wish to be Clan warriors?"

"Seyla!"

"Ah, I thought so. Then get off your spreading behinds and do as I tell you. Exactlyas I tell you."

If a few recalcitrant warriors still resented Joanna, the others brought them back into the fold. Soon the Falcon Guards were operating with more precision. But Joanna insisted on more, and she got it. And what Joanna could not get, Diana did. The two warriors savaged the new Falcon Guards and then revived them. Which was exactly what Aidan had ordered them to do.

* * *

Joanna came into Aidan's office one day. "Go to your window, Star Colonel," she said.

Looking out, he saw the entire Falcon Guards on the field, all the pilots in their 'Mechs, all the Elementals in their battle armor. MechWarrior Diana stood on a recently constructed platform. At a signal from Joanna, she gestured toward the assembled troops.

In almost a single precise movement, all the BattleMechs, all the Elementals, raised their left arms to a chest-high position. This was followed by the right arms, which went past the chest position and raised up, stopping at an oblique angle, all of them in approximately the same position. Then each arm was lowered separately.

At the next signal from Diana, each of the BattleMech torsos inclined first to the right, stopped simultaneously, then in synchronization, inclined to the left. After holding the pose for a moment, all the BattleMechs returned to the upright position.

These were just the beginning of nearly an hour of precise drills, sometimes just the BattleMechs, sometimes just the Elementals. At the end, they formed into marching units and left the field in a precision drill.

Aidan, who had been spellbound by the demonstration, finally turned to Joanna and said, "I am impressed. But just what in the name of Kerensky was happening there?"

"Well, in one sense, you have just witnessed the universe's first BattleMech calisthenic drill. In another, you have seen I have done my job. You can go into battle with some confidence in the Falcon Guards. They are still a bunch of aging or eccentric warriors, but they are now a unit. Sir."

"I have seen your work over the last two weeks, Star Commander. I have known for some time that your mission was a success. And in good time, it seems. Our orders are to proceed to Tukayyid in two days. I appreciate what you have done, Joanna."

Joanna did not acknowledge either the credit or the familiar use of her name. As usual, Aidan could not be sure what she was thinking. She probably hated him as much as ever.

"At the beginning of this," he said, "you did not think much of my plan. What do you say now?"

"The plan was chancy, but it worked."

"Thanks to you, Star Commander."

"That is also true."

21

Kael Pershaw came to the DropShip Raptorearly the night the Jade Falcons were to drop onto Tukayyid's Prezno Plain. He visited several of the DropShips that night, his stiff, useless arm and half-mask making a strong impression on the Jade Falcon troops. Later, they would call him "The Specter of Tukayyid."

On this night, though, he seemed blessed with an added vitality. When he spoke, his voice was unusually excited. He walked briskly, somewhat overcoming the limp, and a glow of eager anticipation showed in his visible eye. Perhaps it was this look that accounted for the legend. Never before in his life had Kael Pershaw looked this way, and even those who knew him well found it eerie.

Those like Aidan Pryde.

Aidan was glad to be sitting when Pershaw strode into his cramped DropShip quarters. He had been reflecting deeply about what to say to the Falcon Guards before they dropped for battle. No one had reported to him that Pershaw was aboard.

"You are to be praised, Aidan Pryde," Pershaw said after they had exchanged greetings. He stood just inside the doorway, and the only illumination in the room, a desk lamp to one side of Aidan's desk, shot light up at him. The effect only added to the eeriness of his appearance. A glow seemed to project from the scars on his face, the half-mask transformed into a dark hole on one side, the visible eye seeming to drift in front of the face. Aidan, not normally affected by supernatural suggestion, felt a shudder run up and down his spine.