among the stars.
Nor had spacefarers merely the mischances and caprices of the universe to fear. Man’s most dangerous threats, as ever, came from other men. Even though he and all his crew had grown up during the era of relative peace imposed upon the Inner Sphere by the will of Devlin Stone and The Republic he had called into being at the core of human-settled space, they still knew what it was to be menaced by human sharks.
And now that interregnum of relative order and safety had ended. War had returned to human space, and with it, all its attendant evils.
The void’s chill seemed to seep into the brightly lit bridge, even as the bridge hummed around him like a finely tuned machine. Of all things he knew,Kapitan Grunblum most hateddisorder . And while the hand of House Steiner—strong and alone, undiluted by a mad attempt to share power with the Davions, as in his grandfather’s day—so far held firm within the Lyran Commonwealth, dark days had been seen already.
He feared his children would see worse.
He shook his head as if to clear it. Ach so,Berni, why cloud your mind with unpleasant thoughts?
The cosmos lies before us, waiting. You have all that any man could desire: a fine ship, prosperous trade routes, and of course Kimiko and our children, Winfried and Tamiko and Taro. Taro, eldest son and pride of a loving father’s heart, soon to be old enough to leave the Faustfor his own midshipman cruise ....
Klaxon blare filled the bridge with a pounding pulse of noise. Grunblum scowled.
“What is it?” he demanded of Leutnant Liu, who had the helm.
Her report was icily professional as always. “Infrared detectors have picked up turbulence indicating an imminent emergence at the jump point, Captain.” And then the merest shadow flicked across that carven-ivory countenance. “Several emergences, sir.”
“Ensign Kohl, bring up video from the sail-mounted cameras on the main viewing screen, if you please.” “Jawohl, Herr Kapitan!”
The sensor station duty officer plied his keyboard. He was a youngster just out of the Merchant Marine Academy on Tharkad. This was his first cruise as a fully commissioned officer of the merchant fleet, although he had put in his time as a middie, of course.
The giant screen that dominated the bridge’s forward bulkhead lit with stars. To Grunblum’s eye it was a reassuring sight; he was as familiar with the constellations lying beyond theSummit jump point as with his own cabin.
A new star appeared. It brightened perceptibly. A JumpShip deploying her kilometer-wide sail to recharge her Kearny-Fuchida drive capacitors for the next jump of her route. Nothing unusual or sinister there.
However: “We’re getting continual preemergence thermal releases, Captain,” Ensign Kohl said. “A half dozen signatures or more.”
Grunblum frowned. In his long career, happenstance multiple emergences were rare. He could recall only one or at most two circumstances in which he had observed more than one vessel appearing at a jump point at nearly the same instant, or even within hours of one another, even before the collapse of the HPG network and the attendant depression of trade as planets turned their attention inward. Unless the JumpShips were traveling together in a fleet. And even though the Lyran economy, characteristically, had begun to rebound more strongly than any other Inner Sphere power’s, why should more than one merchant JumpShip appear here now?
He hated surprises. The unexpected was disorderly.
“Bring up the visual gain, Ensign, if you please.”
Other novas blossomed: one, two, several, a miniature constellation of sails reflecting the light ofSummit ’s faraway primary. Then all were eclipsed as the bridge computer enlarged the first sail’s image.
“Himmel Herr Gott sei dank!”the white-bearded exec exclaimed, and crossed himself.
“ANightlord,” Ensign Kohl breathed reverently. “The largest of all Clan WarShips. I never dared hope to see one!”
“The Clans?” somebody repeated with a stutter of dread.
Captain Grunblum stared, stunned wordless. He himself had no idea whether the youth’s identification was correct. The Inner Sphere possessed few WarShips at all, and no Clan WarShip had been seen in the Sphere since the early days of the Invasion eighty years before. Yet this JumpShip was unmistakably a ship of war, fantastically huge and bristling with heavy-weapons hardpoints. Upon the inner surface of her sail glowed the bird-of-prey and katana emblem that in all the universe of Man meant one thing and one thing only. Clan Jade Falcon had come toSummit , bringing a full-blown fleet of war.
Jade Falcon Naval Reserve BattleshipEmerald Talon
Summit Jump Point orbit
4 March 3134
“It was an aberration that allowed two sibkin to win Bloodnames,” the giant man said in a voice like shifting boulders, as comrades helped him shed a tunic that bore the insignia of a screaming jade falcon with a naked katana clutched in her claws, set against a blue-shadowed planet. “I intend to rectify that error now, Aleksandr so- called Hazen”
The man on the opposite surface from the nearly naked mountain of bone and muscle, like him standing with the flexible magnetic soles of ship slippers binding him to the empty cargo bay’s bulkhead, would, in comparison to a normal human, be considered extremely tall and imposingly muscled. His physique was well displayed in the brief trunks, which were all he wore. His skin was olive, tanned rich brown, his hair a shaggy hank of raven’s-wing black, so coarse that it stood off his forehead of its own accord. His face was broad-jawed and handsome as a trivid actor’s.
He smiled.
“You are a brave warrior, Star Captain Lopata,” he said, addressing the monster as if it were the huge man who stood at blatant disadvantage. “I salute your courage and your dedication to upholding the traditions of Clan Jade Falcon. Yet you display erroneous beliefs concerning the duties incumbent on a Trueborn warrior. It now becomes my solemn duty to instruct you.”
The Circle of Equals, a few Bloodnamed mingled among the other warriors, kept the chiseled-in-stone impassivity their ceremonial task required. But the Elemental’s supporters, like him officers of the elite Turkina Keshik, scowled and murmured hotly to one another at the smaller man’s astonishing impudence—though in fact he far outranked a Star Captain. The less numerous contingent backing the commander of Turkina’s Beak, the green Zeta Galaxy, hid smiles behind their fists. All except for a red-bearded man even larger than Aleks Hazen’s opponent—his guffaw made the metal hull ring like crystal.
Thinking himself mocked, the Elemental Star Captain bellowed like a wounded ghost bear and launched himself into the air. Halfway to his opponent he wrapped himself into a giant ball, prepared to turn and land on his own magnetic-slippered feet.
A smile still faintly visible on his lips, Aleks stood waiting.
Three meters away the Elemental starfished open his limbs. Having noted the slight ripple of tension among the great muscles of his bare back, Aleks was already moving, gathering himself and springing away at an angle.
Lopata landed with a thud that seemed to the onlookers to reverberate through the great starship’s whole fabric.
The bay was a cube with rounded corners and one rounded surface: the WarShip’s hull itself. Its
cavernous depths seemed to suck up light despite additional floods brought in for the duel. Aleks landed agilely on all fours at an angle above his opponent, light as a spider.
“Flee all you want, little man,” Lopata said. “Disgrace yourself like thechalcas you are. In the end I will do the Falcon the great service of crushing you.”
He launched himself. Aleks awaited him, crouched and grinning. Before the hurtling giant reached him, he leapt again.
“Your knowledge of tactics is flawed, my friend,” Aleks said, standing at an angle to the Elemental with hands on hips as the giant raised himself. He had come within a hair of scattering some of his own supporters—thus breaking the sacred Circle and forfeiting the trial.
That was Aleks Hazen, who loved to ride the razor’s edge.
“As is your appreciation of the meaning of our class. Not merely our lives but our holy quest and the honor of our Clan depend upon our techs. To bully them is foolish—and unworthy of a warrior, who exists to serve those
