OPREF Chpt 14

=Chapter 14 - Dealer’s Choice=
==Opalescent Reflections==
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===Jaguar's troubles on Rasalhague===
CJS FireCrest, Last Frontier
Rasalhague Province, Free Rasalhague Republic
11 July 3050
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Sarah Weaver was wearing her full regalia as a Khan of Clan Smoke Jaguar when she joined Edmund Hoyt in the FireCrest's communication suite. "This is not really the time for an emergency," she warned the Loremaster. "Khan Hawker will be aboard any moment and both of us will be needed."
 
"I have instructed he is to be invited to inspect Beta Galaxy's warriors," Hoyt told her. "The preening fool will think he is being honored, not distracted."
 
That was probably an accurate assessment of the Diamond Shark's senior Khan, Sarah thought. And he wasn't even the worst of the Grand Council. At least he could fight - as he had proven on Vinton. The Nova Cats' Khans were both positively decrepit and the Fire Mandrills hadn't elected a Khan worthy of the title in her own lifetime.
 
"Aff, but I want the fool off the ship as soon as possible," she pointed out. "What is this about?"
 
"Rasalhague," the Loremaster told her directly.
 
Sarah snorted. "That is Lincoln Osis' problem. He bid for the world and has ignored all advice." She had recommended keeping his forces concentrated and striking at each continent in turn - it would be slower, but it would also moderate the losses that Ulric Kerensky was no doubt wishing upon them.
 
Hoyt shook his head. "He may be Khan, but he is not above the commands of the Clan Council. One of the bloodnamed warriors deployed with Delta Galaxy sent me a… concerning message. I think it was not the only one sent, merely the only one to reach me."
 
"A communications problem?" she asked and then realized what he was implying. "Or something has gone wrong and he is trying to hide it?"
 
"I intend to find out. Between the two of us we can command enough votes to threaten his position. What he would not necessarily tell either of us alone…"
 
"He may be forced to if it is from both of us." It was no secret Hoyt was looking for an elevation from Loremaster to Khan in the future. If he would have settled for saKhan then Sarah might have been willing to back that, but both wanted the senior seat for themselves. On this though… "Very well."
 
Hoyt snapped his fingers at one of the technicians waiting and, through a miracle of technology that was so everyday that Sarah rarely thought about it, the FireCrest's hyperpulse generator opened a connection to a world light years away. A chain of such contacts reached Rasalhague's orbit and then a second ran back. Within moments, they were looking at the communications center of the destroyer Saber Cat.
"Khan Weaver, Loremaster Hoyt." The officer on that ship saluted.
 
"Put us in contact with Khan Osis," Sarah ordered.
 
"Ah, my Khan, he is…"
 
"Unless he is in battle personally, he has no valid reason to refuse communications," Hoyt declared firmly. "Now contact him."
 
Since there was no one aboard the Saber Cat who had the rank to argue with the two of them, someone made it happen and while Lincoln Osis was stubborn, he grasped almost immediately that leaving the officer trapped between himself and his own two most senior lieutenants wasn't going to do anything but waste all of their time. And waste was not something the Clans approved of.
 
"This had better be important," he began. The Khan was wearing his Elemental Armor, opened up to reveal his head and his massive shoulders. "I am handling active operations."
 
"Yes, operations that have half of the Nineteenth Striker Cluster on the casualty list," Hoyt shot back. "At this rate you will have lost half of Delta Galaxy within a week."
 
Osis' head jerked. For a moment Sarah thought that he'd demand to know how they knew that. Not that she had. Half an entire Cluster lost? That was unprecedented for the invasion so far.
 
"You are correct. Thalia Showers did well to extract her force without losing warriors," the Khan confirmed instead. "I am taking counter-measures."
 
"You said she has not lost warriors, how can she take fifty-percent in casualties without a single fatality?" asked Sarah. She had seen Osis' strategy and the Nineteenth were assigned to the southern continent (the name of which she didn't recall). Her recommendation that Osis focus on one continent or the other first had been given the regard that she had expected - none.
 
Osis scowled. "The answer is simple: a biological weapon!"
 
Sarah froze in horror. "They would not dare!" Weapons of mass destruction were supposed to have fallen entirely out of use, according to the Dragoons. It was the one sign of civilized behavior that she was willing to credit the Scavenger Lords with.
 
"Star Colonel Showers has a third of her Cluster entirely unable to fight and a quarter of the remains are only able to carry out limited operations," her superior reported with grim certainty. "They savaged the conventional regiments they faced so the Rasalhaguers must have concluded that they had no other means of fighting back and unleashed this tool of horror. There is no certainty that the rest of the cluster will not fall prey to this. Nor can we be assured that those afflicted will survive - the weapon may not have run its course."
 
"Have the scientists identified the weapon?" asked Hoyt.
 
"A work in progress," Osis answered dismissively. "For now the Nineteenth is quarantined outside their dropships - we cannot allow them back aboard until we know this threat is contained."
 
"That destroys the southern half of your operations," pointed out Sarah. "You continue the trial of possession, quineg?"
 
"Aff. Not with my existing forces, but I will not allow them to win with such dishonorable tools!"
 
"What is your plan?"
 
Osis snarled at her. "Deal with your own duties, saKhan. Should you not be bidding for Polcenigo? Or have you failed there?"
 
"Bidding has not yet begun. Rest assured, I will win that bid - and do so without dipping to such limited force levels," she shot back.
 
"Do not concern yourself, Khan Osis. Without Polcenigo, the Sharks cannot realistically contest our side of the Rasalhague Rift," Hoyt assured the distant Elemental.
 
"I will believe that once I have seen it," he snapped back. "Rasalhague is mine to deal with and I do not require your interference. I lead the Smoke Jaguars, not you."
 
"You lead us as long as the Clan Council supports you," retorted Hoyt sharply. "Both of us have questions. Do you want me to ask Kincaid Furey and Brandon Howell if they are content to ignore this matter as well?"
 
Sarah wanted to spit at the idea of bringing those two in - they were ambitious, but Furey was as much of a fool as Ian Hawker and Brandon Howell was soft in the head. But they did have a following on the Council and together the four of them could force a vote to replace Lincoln Osis at odds that would give him little chance of winning a Trial of Refusal. "You say you have it under control, Khan Osis. All I ask is what measures you have in mind."
 
"I will break my bid," the towering Khan ground out. "Does that satisfy you? Let the Wolves whine, I will break Rasalhague as well."
 
For a moment, she considered the likely costs. Ulric Kerensky would demand concessions in exchange for permitting this, and there would be humiliation for the Clan… but that was Osis' problem. "I recommend slowing your pace until the Scientist Caste have made their assessment," she counseled. "I broke my own bid on Sus-"
 
Osis slammed his fist down on something outside the reach of the camera. There was an audible crash. "Your failure to deal with ComStar is for you to bear, Weaver," he snapped. "I have made my decision. Do not question me again!"
 
The signal went dead and the image was replaced a moment later by the Saber Cat's comm officer. "I have lost contact with Khan Osis," he reported. "Should I re-establish -"
 
"Neg," Sarah cut him short. "The Khan has taken full responsibility. We will trust that he knows what he is doing."
 
Hoyt gave her a sidelong look and then shrugged. "That will suffice," he told the other officer and the HPG circuit was cut off. "Are you sure, Khan Weaver?" the loremaster asked.
 
"Khan Osis is sure," she told him, removing her jaguar-helmet and rubbing the scar that ran across the shaven side of her head. It tended to itch under the helmet. "We cannot force him to be cautious when we are light years from him, Edmund. If he fails then we can bring this to the Clan Council, but until he does we must assume that he has the ilKhan's favor and that will make it hard to rein him in."
 
Osis is right in a way, she thought. I shall focus on my own bidding. A win here, and securing worlds like Courcheval and Sovernene to secure our flank against the Diamond Sharks will burnish my name. The Wolves, unhampered by needing to throw a full Galaxy or more at Rasalhague, are aiming for ten worlds in this wave - which will place them closer to Terra than any other Clan.
 
If Leo Showers wants us to spring ahead once more, then let him see that his first choice to lead the Clan is a fool who has bled us out for his own pride. Then you will have to back a new Khan, and neither Howell, Hoyt nor Furey will have my record of victories.
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===Facing down a Juggernaught===
Reykjavik, Rasalhaguea
Rasalhague Province, Free Rasalhague Republic
11 July 3050
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"Valkyrie squadron!" The air traffic controller's voice exploded across the channel, the usual calm absent. "Turn west and head for low orbit!"
 
Tyra banked her Shilone almost without thought, checking her radar for any sign of more inbound fighters. It had been two days since the Smoke Jaguars had landed. The news had been mixed but that was better than it had been on other worlds.
Yes, the Smoke Jaguars were pushing closer and closer to Reykjavik, but so far the Flying Drakons had brought down twenty of the enemy's fighters, if at a cost of a quarter of their number.
 
Yes, the defenders of Ystad had taken terrible losses, but the Smoke Jaguars had broken off from their attack on Tyr and were falling back to their dropships.
 
Yes, the invader's warships were maintaining a loose blockade in the high orbits that would make reinforcements almost impossible, but the Free Worlds League had agreed to ship weapons and even entire battlemechs to other worlds in the Jaguar's path.
 
All they had to do was hold on.
 
Hold on and wait for the Clans to bleed out, Haakon Magnusson pleaded. We withstood the Combine for generations. We drove off the ronin and the mercenaries of the Kelswas. 
 
"What are we dealing with, flight control?" Annika asked as her own Shilone clung to the wing of Tyra's fighter as if it was glued there. The four Sparrowhawks that made up the rest of Valkyrie squadron fanned out before the two flying wing designs, as if they were scouts. "Another raid."
 
"Negative, Valkyrie Two. You are on escort duty. Highest priority."
 
Tyra frowned. What was going on? Was it an evacuation flight? The warships would make that dangerous… unless there was some reason to think that the Clans' honor code would restrain them.
 
From the briefings they'd been sent, that might be possible. But it might not. It was a risk.
 
"Understood, control," she replied. "Who are we looking to link up with?"
 
"Everyone," the man replied. "Every fighter we have - a full court press."
 
"All the Drakons?" The Flying Drakons had fielded a hundred and eight aerospace fighters a few days ago. They still had almost eighty.
 
"The Drakons, the planetary guard. Everything that can fly."
 
Tyra glanced out at Annika, seeing the other pilot through her canopy. Her friend was looking back at her, barely visible.
 
"Valkyrie One." Major Bernadette cut across the channel. "We don't have time for a full briefing. Just know that your one and only concern is to see Baldr Squadron through. At any cost whatsoever."
 
"Yes sir," she answered. Any cost. What the hell?
 
The radar highlighted more fighters taking off from runways below as Tyra tilted the Shilone's nose upwards and kicked the fusion turbine into overthrust. Her fuel gauge blinked, telling her she was burning away the ability to keep the turbine fed faster and faster. She felt a moment of envy for the Sparrowhawk interceptors, which had enough of a power to weight ratio to reach orbit without needing to do what she had to.
The four light fighters reared up ahead of Tyra and Annika. "Kapten, there's something inbound!"
 
"Dropships?" Tyra asked. Was that the problem? An attempt at a direct landing on Reykjavik? The Smoke Jaguars might be daring enough for that, but they had to know that only a massive force could punch past the Flying Drakons.
 
"Maybe. There's a lot of fighters and they're covering… Blake's Blood!"
"What?" Tyra demanded. And then the Sparrowhawk's tactical computer synced enough to feed it's sensor data back to the Shilone. For a moment, she didn't know what she was seeing. Two dropships, yes. Those she recognized even if she's not come across a Titan-class Fighter Carrier dropship before. They were legendary though - the SLDF's preferred fighter carrier. The pair of them could have carried most of what remained of the Flying Drakons but they were pretty clearly the source of the swarm of sixty aerospace fighters descending ahead of the dropships.
 
There was another icon though, one that Tyra didn't recognize from her training.
 
No one had trained for this in centuries.
 
"It's one of their warships," she gasped.
 
"That is huge!" Annika exclaimed.
 
"Control, this is Valkyrie-One." She couldn't help but to check her six, praying that the rest of the Flying Drakons would catch soon. "We're picking up sixty - six-zero - enemy fighters. Two dropships. And what my warbook says is an Essex-class destroyer." Additional data was displaying against that. "It's decelerating - coming at us tail first. Looks like it's heading for a geostationary orbit…"
"Right above Reykjavik," Flight Control confirmed bleakly. "Our best guess is that it's coming in for bombardment. We're…"
 
Static roared across the channel, cutting Tyra off from the ground.
 
When it faded, another voice spoke. "People of Rasalhague. I am the Khan of Clan Smoke Jaguar. I have offered honorable battle for the fate of your world. Your leaders," a deep, rasping voice declared. "Have offered atrocity. They have employed biological warfare against my warriors. A coward's weapon."
 
Tyra mouthed a denial. That was insane, no one would do that. Everyone knew that the use of a WMD invited the same… and this was their capital, their home.
 
And then she realized that this was a justification.
 
"I demand the immediate surrender of your world, of all the leaders responsible for this warcrime… and the scientists who prepared this." the man continued. "You have thirty minutes. At that point, one of our warships will be orbiting directly above your capital city. If your leaders have not accepted the responsibility for their crimes, their lives will be taken. Along with many others. I am told that this is the oldest law of war: atrocity provokes atrocity. I am feeling very provoked. You leaders believe I lack the spine to stand up to them. They are very wrong."
 
The voice went silent. For a moment there was no voice at all on the radio.
 
"Tyra," Annika said quietly, fearfully. "The prince wouldn't have ordered this…"
 
"No. Nor would General Mansdottir," she confirmed. "That wasn't an ultimatum… that was a justification. We cannot provide the people who ordered whatever he's talking about, because no one did. My father told me about this sort of thing - the way Kuritas would justify their oppression of our people. It was always our fault that they were brutalizing us. Never theirs."
 
Her friend inhaled slowly. "Can we stop it?"
 
"We'd better." A thought struck Tyra. "Baldr… god of the sun."
 
"Right. I guess… we're real Valkyries today. Choosers of the Slain."
 
"Pull back your throttle," Tyra ordered quietly. "We need the rest of the regiment with us."
As the other squadrons caught up, heavier strike aircraft burning fuel wildly to keep up with lighter aircraft, Tyra tried to pick out the nature of the opposition. The lighter fighters matched up to some of the warbooks provided by the Wolf's Dragoons. Sulla medium OmniFighters, Vandal interceptors. Some of the heavy fighters were another class, something her own sensors thought might be an old SLDF Hammerhead.
 
That mistake had brought down almost a full squadron of the Flying Drakons during the first day of the invasion. As much as Tyra understood how many of her fellow pilots blamed the Dragoons for not warning them of the Smoke Jaguars' heavy aerospace design, the protests were as irrational as the hatred her father and his sycophants had directed at the Kell Hounds when they were delayed at Gunzberg back… back before. The simple fact was that the Dragoons had left the Clans almost fifty years ago. It wasn't unreasonable for them to be unaware of changes over that time.
 
Baldr Squadron was among the last to form up, four Chippewas and a pair of Slayers. They were practically waddling with an external load that must make them obvious. If we had more time, it would have been better to use other fighters, Tyra thought. Something faster.
 
But there was no more time. More than half the time they had before the Smoke Jaguar's deadline was gone.
 
"All Drakons," Major Bernadette told them. "None of you are fools. All of you must see what is ahead of us. We are all that stands between Reykjavik and orbital bombardment. We must not fail."
 
"They can't be serious," a young voice asked. "No one's done that in almost two hundred years."
 
"No one has had warships in almost two hundred years." Annika told the other pilot.
 
In 2853, the last Lyran capital ship had misjumped after destroying the handful of smaller warships that House Kurita had committed to capture Hesperus. On that day, the Inner Sphere had lost their last ability to contest a threat like this with commensurate force. So far as Tyra knew, no one had built a new warship since then. They were too expensive and required too much and too fragile an infrastructure to support them.
 
"Enough chatter," the major told her. "We have numbers… barely. I'm marking targets - one of their aerolances for one of our own. That should leave us enough of an opening to get our strike force and escorts through."
 
Tyra saw one of the inbound pairs of Clan fighters light up, marking the targets for her and Annika. They'd been given a couple of the heavy fighters - codenamed Octaves, for their 8-like outline - which was a compliment as such things go. Major Bernadette thought that they could handle the fighters despite the difference in weight and firepower.
 
Both sides were slowing - neither wanted to overfly the other. It would do the Drakons no good to have Baldr zoom past the warship too fast to get a lock for their payloads. And the Smoke Jaguars would not wish to let the Drakons get around and gain the advantage of being further from the gravity well. From their point of view, it wouldn't matter if the missiles were used before or after Reykjavik burned.
 
That only mattered to the people of Rasalhague. Not to Clan Smoke Jaguar, she presumed.
 
The gap between them shrank. "We'll take the lead." she ordered Annika. They'd try to take the first Octave out fast together, she'd heard that the Clans disliked working as a team but she wasn't sure how accurate it was. The Smoke Jaguars seemed to work as flight pairs in the air and their elementals operated in squads. Perhaps it was just a mechwarrior thing.
 
The formations broke up, the enemy apparently welcoming the opportunity to engage in two on two duels.
 
Tyra's crosshairs glowed as the enemy fighters closed into range. She fired her missiles the same instant Annika did, two salvos of missiles converging on the first Octave.
 
Her Shilone bucked wildly, she saw only in aftermath the particle beam that had flayed along the fighter's broad wing. There was a shriek from Annika and Tyra jerked her head to one side, glimpsing her friend's fighter shedding a trail of metal. One wing - no small part of the Shilone's entire mass - had been torn to shreds. "Annika -" she shouted, unable to break out of the high-g turn she needed to come around on their target.
 
"I'm fine! Finish him!"
 
She had to trust her wingman. Tyra's large laser scored a hit on the Octave but then it twisted away before she could fire her missiles again. And the medium lasers weren't in reach yet.
 
The other Octave, spun and threatened to fall in on Tyra's tail, but a shower of missiles from Annika forced the Smoke Jaguar to focus on her.
 
Tyra's target tried to climb in and pincer Annika, doing to them what they had planned to do to it. But re-engaging was it's mistake, and Tyra burned a massive chunk of her onboard fuel, vision shrinking under the g-forces as her Shilone came about and rested behind the Smoke Jaguar.
 
A laser spat back at her from tailguns, shaving away her armor, but it was nothing in comparison to the fury of Tyra's arsenal. She fired everything, holding the triggers down so each weapons fired again as quickly as it would cycle, headless of the struggle of her machine to dissipate the heat being generated.
 
The Octave's frantic efforts to get her off his tail ended in fire. One of her shots burned through the onboard fuel stores and tons of hydrogen stored under high pressure was suddenly released to mix with the oxygen in the life support system. The explosion tore the aerospace fighter apart. Tyra yanked on her yoke, breaking away from the explosion lest she take further damage from fragments or ram directly into the wreckage.
 
Her eyes scanned the battlespace for Annika and found her in a twisted reflection of the duel Tyra had just won. Her best friend and wingwoman wasn't maneuvering well, and the other Octave was closing in fast. It had her tail but it was waiting, almost sadistically, to close in further before it fired.
 
"I'm on my way!" Tyra called, using her main thrusters to bleed off the momentum that was carrying her away from the pair.
 
"It's too late." Annika's voice was calm. "Good luck."
 
And then she spun the battered Shilone like a top, bringing her frontal weapons to bear in and making herself a predictable target in exchange for getting off one more salvo.
 
The Octave seemed to brush aside the Drakon's lasers and missiles before opening up with its own payload. Not one, not two, but three trails of autocannon fire traced their way through orbital space and connected with the Shilone.
 
Tyra was just close enough to say that one of those lines of fire intersected the cockpit. Not that it mattered. Valkyrie-Two's existence ended in fire - LRM stores and hydrogen tanks disintegrating all that was left of the fighter in two explosions so close together that Tyra couldn't tell which went up first.
 
"No..." she whispered. "God damn you, no."
 
Under her hands, the Shilone's controls responded superbly, flinging her after Annika's killer. It was the right move, to engage the fighter that had been freed to find another target. But that wasn't why Tyra Miraborg chased them.
 
She had known since she was young of her father's wrath. Even though he never directed it at her.
 
Now she knew it lived in her own heart as well.
 
First Phelan. Now Annika. Who would the Clans take next?
 
The pair streaked through the raging dogfight, an aerial melee on a scale she'd never seen before. The Flying Drakons were rarely all in the sky at one time. Fighters died in fiery stars or spun wildly towards the atmosphere, desperately trying to reach an angle of approach that would survive the inferno of re-entry.
 
Ahead she saw Baldr squadron and their escorts breaking through, but Clan fighters were giving chase, each marking one of her comrades killed to open the way for them… just as each Drakon trying to claw at the back of those Clanners had bought their way with one of the Smoke Jaguar's fighters.
 
The Sullas were faster than most of the Drakons' fighters, but the Octave's performance wasn't far different from that of Tyra's smaller Shilone. It couldn't get away from her… but she was only catching up slowly, each twist and turn around the debris and other dueling fighters just a hair tighter than the Clan warrior was managing.
 
The close escort broke off from the six fighters of Baldr squadron to engage the Sullas, forcing them to break off. But that opened the way for the Octave.
 
Tyra opened up with her missiles, explosive warheads ripping into the rear of the fighter, but they weren't enough alone. Not in the time that she had.
 
She needed her lasers. And the range wasn't closing fast enough.
 
They flashed through Baldr squadron one after the other, her large laser burning deep into the interior of the enemy fighter just as it fired its autocannon. She had a glimpse of a Chippewa torn in half by its guns and then the Smoke Jaguar spun away wildly, the fusion thruster cutting in and out, melting its own verniers.
 
Tyra was going too fast. She cut her thrust, turning the Shilone to get her nose pointed back towards the fight, something that gave her a perfect view of the two Titan fighter carrier dropships opening up with their own arsenals.
 
The firepower that carriers could bring to bear was shattering. One after the other, Baldr squadron died. In front of her.
 
While she could do nothing.
 
There were three, there were two, there were… none…
 
And then two missile thrusters kicked to life. Fired in the last moments of the fighters that carried them.
 
One of the missiles detonated in front of a Titan. Perhaps it had lost its lock… or perhaps the pilot had panicked and fired at its executioner not at the real target.
The Shilone's canopy darked automatically, shielding Tyra from the blinding light. Then it cleared in time to see the wreck of the Titan beginning a tumble, the entire forward half blasted open as the nuclear warhead exploded within its guts. Beyond this, she could see the second missile streaking past the other Titan, towards the oncoming mass of the warship, the great thrusters at the rear of the destroyer angling down as it stabilized itself against the planet's gravity.
Her cockpit darkened again.
 
"Yes!" Tyra screamed in joy. They'd done it! Annika hadn't died for nothing.
 
The armor glass cleared… and her exultation died.
 
Out of the dying light of the nuclear explosion, the warship came on, like an unstoppable juggernaut. A deep scar, breached and burning compartments, had replaced the snarling Jaguar emblem upon its flank. But it was clearly still under control and still intent on lashing back.
 
"No! No!" she gasped in despair.
 
"Valkyrie-One," Bernadette called. "What happened."
 
"We failed. We… failed…"
 
The aft turrets of the destroyer opened up. Ton after ton of ordnance crashed down into the atmosphere.
 
Tyra could not see the details, but ancient manuals let her envisage it. Let her imagine the shells breaking apart after re-entry, releasing not explosives or nuclear warheads. No, they would just release rods of tungsten.
 
Rods that were driving down toward Reykjavik faster than any missile. In the final irony, the gravity of Rasalhague itself would provide the final boost to the doom of the world's capital.
 
Tyra could not see the shells, nor the rods. But she could see the flares of light beneath her… as Reykjavik burned.
 
"Flying Drakons," a familiar voice ordered, strangled with pain and forcing meaning past it. "This is Christian Mansdottir. Break off and make for Asgard City. We… we need you to cover an evacuation."
 
Evacuation? Tyra thought. We can't… wait, no. One of the jump points is unguarded now.
 
"This battle is lost," the general said bleakly. And then his voice rose. "But the war is not. We will avenge Reykjavik. This I promise. But not today."
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===Judgement of the Guilty===
Hilton Head, North America
Terra, Sol System
13 July 3050
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The sun streaming through the windows of the First Circuit's chamber did nothing to lift Wei's mood. It painted the tiles orange, like the flames of war that had erased an entire city.
 
"Primus," an adept informed her. "We are ready."
 
Wei nodded. "Thank you." She didn't go to her podium, instead stepping into the exact center of the room, upon the ComStar sigil upon the floor.
 
"Three, two..." the adept said, chopping down to mark each number. The young woman dropped her arm once more in a silent one…
 
And then holograms sprang to life around the chamber. Close to forty men and women around Wei, angry in most cases. Some sitting, others already on their feet. They were crammed together in a compartment much smaller than the chamber she was within. She knew that quite a number of them were not even in the room that she saw, them too being projected via HPG to attend as holograms.
 
"Children of Kerensky," she said slowly, deliberately. Ominously, she hoped. "I am the Primus of ComStar."
 
"I understand you have a grievance," the enthroned ilKhan declared. "You may…"
 
Wei cut him off. "Grievance is your way, Leo Showers. And my Order has respected your ways… until now. I am here in judgment."
 
"You do not judge us!" hissed a blonde woman, clad all in red. Not one of the invading Khans, Wei thought.
 
"Today, the entire Inner Sphere judges you," she answered. "From the highest Successor Lord to the smallest child, you are being measured. For ten generations we have wondered if Kerensky's heirs would return. Wondered if you might be the saviors that some have prayed for, or the doom others have feared. And now we know. Kerensky's lost children have returned to the Inner Sphere… and you are no different than those your ancestors left behind."
 
She would probably have got less of a reaction if she'd walked up and slapped the ilKhan.
 
"How dare - !" one of the Wolf Khans began hotly.
 
"SILENCE!" Wei rarely raised her voice. It always seemed to surprise people when she did. It served the same today. "ComStar has watched countless atrocities since Blake and Kerensky parted ways. We have watched the Succession Wars unfold while you and yours stood aside in the depths of space. And we are the voice of the voiceless. You will heed us."
 
The other, the elder, Khan of Clan Wolf pulled his colleague back into his chair. "Clan Wolf will hear ComStar's words," Ulric Kerensky assured her, glancing around the room. "But you are not one of us and you do not command us."
 
"I do not," she agreed. "Nor I do seek to. But the Clans do not command ComStar. We are both legacies of the Star League - sibkin, you might call us, separated long ago. And when we met again the question was asked: would we reunite? Was this the time for us to find common cause in building something new, learning from each other? Or were the Clans - little understood - simply more warlords in the stamp of Charles Marik, Claudius the Cruel, Jinjiro Kurita…" Her voice dropped, "Or worse, were there those among the Clans who might be more akin to the Usurper?"
 
"And now we know," she told them quietly. "You are no better and no worse than those Jerome Blake and Conrad Toyama watched destroy the Star League in the first Succession Wars. Welcome to the human race."
 
Edmund Hoyt stood from where the Loremaster had been watching. "Primus, you did not request this meeting to insult us."
 
"I had more than one reason for this," she told him levelly. "One of them was to insult you. Because for those of you stung by my words, know that it is because you admit to yourselves that my words are true. That you can be better, that you could be better… and that you have failed to uphold a higher standard. We cannot change what has happened, but we can strive not to repeat our mistakes."
 
"Mistakes have been made." the Loremaster said, looking over towards his own glowering Khan. Lincoln Osis, perhaps chastened or perhaps simply knowing how weak his position was, remained silence.
 
"Apparently those mistakes include basic literacy." Wei observed. "I have read the information we provided on Rasalhague to both Clan Wolf and Clan Smoke Jaguar. Normal travel advisory information, a courtesy. Precentor-Martial Focht," (who was safely away from this debacle, currently on his way to the surface of Rasalhague to coordinate relief efforts), "Assures me that it was passed on in full. We warned you that the jungles of Ystad gave rise to seasonal fevers and this was the worst time of year for them."
 
"I can confirm," Ulric Kerensky agreed, "That we received that warning."
 
"As did we," agreed the junior Smoke Jaguar Khan. "I confess, I did not read them myself until it was too late - I had no part in the bidding for Rasalhague. But if I could read them then Lincoln Osis could have."
 
"And yet he accused the Free Rasalhague Republic of war crimes… and committed one ten thousand times worse," Wei agreed. "Which is either hypocrisy of the highest order, or negligence… also of the highest order." She shook her head. "How this council or Clan Smoke Jaguar's own Council deals with Lincoln Osis as an individual is for them to decide. But as the Khan of Clan Smoke Jaguar, his actions must be borne by his Clan."
 
"And what do you want?" demanded Leo Showers.
 
"What I would like is the city of Reykjavik restored from the ashes. The lives of near a million inhabitants raised from the dead, including the lives of almost the entire governing body of the Free Rasalhague and every one of the ComStar staff at the HPG station there, not least Precentor Gwyn Thorne of the First Circuit. What I want, ilKhan has little to do with what I will get," she said, letting the savage snap of her words hang in the air. "I am telling you now that Clan Smoke Jaguar is under Interdict. From this day until they have made restitution to ComStar and to those they have murdered, ComStar enclaves are closed to them. Their communications will not be transmitted. There will be no further advisories. There will be no trade, support or aid in any way from ComStar until the Clan proves that they accept the responsibility for what was done to Reykjavik."
 
"Then we will take those HPGs from you!" Osis snarled, coming to his feet.
 
Wei faced him with the serene confidence of being four hundred light years away from his fists. "Try."
 
"Neg," Ulric Kerensky objected. "The Primus' words are not unjust. She - and all the people of Rasalhague - have the right to seek surkai from Clan Smoke Jaguar. The ilKhan himself has said many times that we have come to the Inner Sphere to save its people from the Successor Lords. To show them a better way, the way of the Clans. What Lincoln Osis ordered was a betrayal of that purpose. He has humiliated us, painting us as no different from those the Primus named. We claim to be better than those who came before, now we must live up to that."
 
Showers frowned. "What you say is true, but the Smoke Jaguars' occupation zone is theirs to rule. That is the way."
 
"Neg, my ilKhan," Kerensky said silkily. "She is 'the Wei'. That is her name."
 
There was a snort of laughter.
 
The Wolf Khan rose to his feet and looked around. "How we discipline Osis… and how his Clan chooses to, these are matters to decide and debate. But I move that ComStar and its enclaves be placed under the same protections as our Free Guilds - answerable to no one Clan. Only the Grand Council and the ilKhan may decide matters pertaining to them. And no Clan may lay claim to their assets."
 
"I concur," the dark-skinned Barbara Sennet spoke up from where she sat next to a tight-mouthed Ian Hawker. "ComStar was once part of the Star League, like us. If they are not trothkin now, they have bargained honorably with us. It is not ComStar who we came here to dethrone."
 
Leo Showers gripped the arms of his throne. "Vote," he said tersely. "Those who affirm Khan Kerensky's motion, vote aff. Those opposed, vote nay."
 
Each Khan tapped an electronic device and columns tabulating the results were visible to Wei. Ulric's motion had vast support - thirty-one Khans had voted in favor of it.
 
Leo Showers nodded in affirmation, acting as if he was satisfied. Only his eyes betrayed frustration. "Does anyone wish to Refuse?" He was pointedly staring at Lincoln Osis. "The odds would be ten to one." There was a long silence and then he shook his head, seeming almost disappointed. "Very well, Primus. Your interdict is… noted. Once we have discussed what measures are to be taken, I will inform your Precentor-Martial."
 
She inclined her head. "And then we will consider if that is suitable… surkai. Or if they remain unrepentant."
 
The ilKhan rose from his throne and stalked towards her, looming over Wei. "One day," he said quietly, looking down at her. "I will stand in that chamber. Will you still be so proud then?"
 
"That would depend," she replied evenly. "On whether you are there as a conqueror or as a bondsman." And then Wei tapped a control hidden in her voluminous sleeve and cut the communication, banishing the Khans of the Clans from the First Circuit chamber and from Hilton Head.
 
Looking around, Wei saw the adepts manning the equipment were all staring at her. She dipped her head towards them. "Thank you."
 
"No, Primus," one adept said, standing up from behind the console where he'd been monitoring the signal. He clapped his hands together. "Thank you."
 
The others began to clap and Wei's eyes stung as she blinked back tears. Did they not realize that with - that piece of hypocritical drama in front of the Clans - she was leading them into what might be an abyss?
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Chapter 14