"Soon there will be killing enough for us all." Dan glanced at the Clansman on either side of him. "You area security risk, Kommandant Geist, but not one that figures high on my list of worries. Soon this will all be behind you. You are dismissed."

"With all due respect, Colonel Allard, you don't understand." Nelson's hands balled into fists. "Don't send me away, don't cut me out. You need me. I know how the Red Corsair thinks. I can help you figure out where she will strike next."

Khan Phelan leaned back in his chair. "We already know where she will strike. And when."

Nelson blinked his eyes. "And you are here, on the ground? Are you fools? You will never be able to react fast enough to get her."

"We do not need to react." Phelan steepled his fingers. "The Kell Hounds and the Wolf Clan hurt her. There is only one place she can hit where she can hurt both entities." The young Khan's smile reminded Nelson of an expression he had often seen on the Red Corsair's face. "We have sent our JumpShips and DropShips off to guard other worlds, and that is information she will stumble across easily."

Nelson's mouth went dry. "Which means she'll be coming here."

Phelan nodded as solemnly as an undertaker. "And on Arc-Royal her career ends."

BOOK III

The Killing Time

34

Arc-Royal

Federated Commonwealth

5 September 3055

 

Khan Phelan Ward looked out the window of the office meant for the Grand Duke of Arc-Royal. Down below two dozen people were picketing, slowing traffic and attracting a small crowd of the curious. Phelan's eyes narrowed, but the half-smile never left his lips.

"I would have them all shot." Conal Ward stood away from the window, like a vampire dreading the sun's warm kiss. "The ruling caste of Arc-Royal has decided to let you remain here, yet these people commit treason and you tolerate it." The Clansman sniffed. "But then you have become used to abiding treason."

Phelan whipped around and skewered Conal with a cold stare. "I tolerated it in your case."

Despite his efforts to show no reaction, Conal's cheeks reddened. "I was referring to the decision to let Nelson remain alive."

The Clan Khan suppressed a smile. He knew that Conal refused to use Nelson's surname of Geist because, to a Clanner, it would have meant conferring the honor of a Bloodname on him. Instead, he tried to put all his disgust into the word Nelson, yet somehow that name couldn't carry the weight of so much vitriol. Geist, on the other hand, would have suited the purpose perfectly, but Conal could not unbend enough to see it.

"I find him still worthwhile and valuable as an information source. I do not believe he is a traitor. His compatriots were probably innocent, too, but you did not wait long enough to find that out."

"You deny him a 'Mech."

"I do." Phelan walked from the window to the massive mahogany desk that had been his grandfather's. "That I do not think him a traitor does not mean I believe him capable of handling a 'Mech now. I will admit, though, that the battle ROMs of Cue Ball show him to be an able gunner."

"That was a trap."

"One you fell into."

"As would you, had you been there instead of cowering with these mercenaries." Conal's eyes smoldered in the black pits of his eye sockets. "How can you stand it? These people are sheep."

"Then I am a shepherd."

"You are a Wolf!" Conal jabbed a finger at him. "Or, by this time, you should be. You and I, we have political differences, but at the heart, we are the same. We are warriors and the people should respect us. Look at those people down there—instead of glorying in the honor of having the Wolves hunting down the bandits that attack their homeworld, they protest it! How can you permit that?"

Phelan shook his head. "How can I permit it? I can and do because they have their right to be afraid and to show it. I do not relish the idea of war coming to my homeworld, but I accept that it must happen if the Red Corsair is to be stopped. That people express their fear and their worries is not disloyalty—it would be disloyalty to have them arrested."

He glanced toward the window. "Is it any wonder they protest my presence on this planet? Those who have not lost their worlds to the Clan invasion have lost kin and lovers to the war. To them I am a traitor, but they suffer my presence out of respect for my family. Were my father dead and I attempting to exercise my legal inheritance here, you would see a civil war. Besides, you can bet that if I were still a man of the Inner Sphere, I would be leadingthe fight against a Clanner inheriting Arc-Royal."

The Khan looked at the leader of the Thirty-first Wolf Solahma and slowly exhaled. "At the heart you and I are not the same. We arewarriors, but you live for battle.

You are an irresistible force that devours all before it. I am an immovable object that wants what you do to stop for all time."

Conal's eyes narrowed. "You know that by framing matters in those terms, we cannot coexist."

"Not so. We can, but you will have to change." Phelan's head came up. "Ultimately, though, Star Colonel,I do not care what you do as long as you follow my orders."

Conal's face screwed up with anger, but before he could snap out a retort, there was a gentle knocking on the office door, then the Grand Duke's executive assistant opened it partway and poked his head through. "Forgive me for interrupting, sir, but the commander from the Home Defense Force is here."

Phelan nodded. "Send him in. Star Colonel Ward was just leaving." He looked at the Clansman. "You have your orders, Star Colonel, follow them."

Conal bowed his head deferentially. "My Khan's will be done."

As Phelan watched him go, he knew that despite Conal's polite remark they were still on a collision course. If it can only wait until after the Red Corsair is dead!

* * *

Christian Kell poured steaming coffee from the thermos into a mug and handed it to Ragnar. The Clan warrior tipped his yellow hardhat back on his head and nodded in thanks. Chris blew on the cup he had poured for himself, then took a sip. "Not too bad."

Ragnar yawned. "Deuterium to a fusion engine. I have been up for six hours, which is four more than the sun. Still, I am not complaining. Work is going well."

Chris nodded as he looked out at the vast city being constructed on a flat plain forty kilometers south of the Kell Hound base at Old Connaught. In the center of it was the small town of Denton and the McKiernan Power Company. When Denton had been created five years earlier as a planned community, the area had been graded, and roads, sewer, water, and power installed. All was going well until the Clan invasion made investors become conservative with their capital; the project collapsed and languished in the oblivion of bankruptcy.

Phelan, acting for his father, had nationalized it and paid off the creditors. In less than two weeks the community came alive again as legions of carpenters, masons, electricians, and landscapers descended on the place. Where tract homes could not be constructed fast enough, mobile homes were hovered or coptered in. The construction activity took on an almost carnival atmosphere and the public responded to it with heartfelt enthusiasm.