TEXT: BattleCorps
  BattleCorps
  BETRAYAL OF 
  IDEALS
   Book III: The Switchback Directive
  Blaine Lee Pardoe
  
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  The Grand Council Chambers 
  Strana Mechty 
  Clan Space 
  8 October 2823
  The usual murmur of low voices went silent as Khan Sarah 
  McEvedy entered the Grand Council chambers. All around the 
  massive, circular table the Khans of the twenty Clans stared at her 
  as she limped in, aided by a cane. Each step was labored. Her Trial 
  of Refusal against the Grand Council over their decision to open 
  possession Trials over a Brian Cache in the Wolverines’ territory 
  on Circe had been controversial. Defiance over the word of the 
  ilKhan, Nicholas Kerensky, was all but unheard of on this scale. 
  McEvedy felt the eyes of her peers burrowing into her face as she 
  made her way into the chamber to her seat. She sat slowly, pain-
  fully. 
  The inlaid symbol of his Clan faced her on the table, silent and 
  defiant. It shimmered in the while light of the massive room. The 
  silence hurt more than her broken ribs and damaged knee. She 
  ignored her fellow Khans’ gazes upon her bandaged and bat-
  tered body. McEvedy was furious over the actions of her fellow 
  Khans, especially Khan Jason Karrige of Clan Widowmaker. Like 
  his namesake spider, Khan Karrige was weaving a web of lies and 
  deceit, apparently endorsed by the ilKhan. It infuriated Sarah, but 
  not for the reasons that her agitators would understand. It bothers 
  me more that they think I am a fool; that I do not know what they 
  are doing. 
  McEvedy paused for a second to reflect. How will history judge 
  my actions in the coming days? Will I be painted as a patriot or 
  a cancer within the Clans? She knew her peers thought that she 
  was not as daring as she was willing to be. I will save my people, 
  no matter what the cost. She glanced at Nicholas Kerensky, then 
  looked away. He seeks to scare the others into line. We are to be 
  made an example of his darker side, what will become of them if 
  they do not play along with his plans. 
  To hell with history! 
  There was more to the matter than that. Nicholas Kerensky was 
  revered by the people of his father’s Exodus. He had brought order 
  after two decades of vicious civil war on the Pentagon Worlds and 
  created a new society in his own image, an image that seemed 
  to evolve and change. Some think of him as a god already. I do 
  
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  not. I know him as a man. I have seen him bleed. There was more. 
  Nicholas was known to be wildly temperamental.  He threw things, 
  screamed, berated his Khans, then could become an almost fa-
  therly figure a moment later. Most of the other Khans chose to 
  look the other way during such tirades. Others wrote it off as part 
  of his ritual of fasting and exploring his inner self, as he had done 
  when he had come up with the concept of the Clans. Nicholas 
  wants to be remembered to the future as a god. At times, he is less 
  of a man than me because he holds himself in such high regard. 
  The ilKhan stood at the Wolves’ seat in the Grand Council chamber 
  and surveyed each move that the clearly pained McEvedy made 
  as she carefully lowered himself into her seat. 
  “Khan McEvedy, it pleases us that you are here. Clearly you are in 
  pain. Perhaps it would be best to cancel this session until you are 
  more fit to perform your duties,” Nicholas said.
  “IlKhan,” she said casually. “Whoever has told you that I am unfit 
  for my duties is incorrect. I am a Wolverine.” She refused to admit 
  her weakness, though clearly some of her peers were enjoying her 
  condition. Sarah had to be here today. This was the first Council 
  session since the Trial of Refusal. If she did not attend, the tra-
  dition stood that the Grand Council could not meet. She would 
  not be the one that held up the meeting. Not when so much is at 
  stake.
  Nicholas shook off the verbal barb with a pleasant grin. “I was 
  simply looking out for the health of a valued friend and ally.” 
  “It is appreciated then.” 
  “It appears that all Khans are present. If that is the case, let us con-
  vene to discuss matters that are of importance to us all.” Nicholas 
  extended his arms and the Khans moved in and assumed their 
  seats around the great round table. McEvedy looked at each one 
  of them. Some did not make eye contact, and seemed to ignore 
  her. Others made a point of locking gazes with her, as if daring 
  Sarah to say or do something. The tension in the air was palatable. 
  Once we were like family…now there is only hate. 
  “IlKhan, now that we have representation from the Wolverines,” 
  Khan Karrige said in a snide tone, “Perhaps it would be a good 
  time to bring the Trial of Refusal to a close.” The comment was 
  appropriate. With saKhan Robertson dead and McEvedy hospital-
  ized, Nicholas would not have formally declared a winner. It wasn’t 
  that what Karrige had said was wrong, it was the fact that he was 
  enjoying it that bothered McEvedy.
  
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  Nicholas watched her, she felt his gaze, probably trying to see 
  if there was a reaction. “Very well. As ilKhan and witness to the 
  Trial of Refusal, I declare that the position of the Grand Council has 
  been upheld. The Brian Cache on Circe will be distributed through 
  a series of combat trials to ensure—”
  Just like that, laws and traditions are shattered. “IlKhan, I still 
  protest this course of action. The Grand Council has deliberately 
  interfered with the internal affairs of my Wolverines. This cache 
  was on our territory, legally obtained and held by us for years. 
  For the Grand Council to suddenly simply decide that it should 
  be taken sets a dangerous precedent that all of us should be con-
  cerned about.”
  “Not as dangerous as your Wolverines taking possession of ad-
  ditional BattleMechs and tactical nuclear weapons,” shot back the 
  Khan of Clan Burrock. 
  “Have my Wolverines done something to Clan Burrock, other 
  than defeat you fairly in battle, that warrants this intrusion? What 
  if the Grand Council feels that your holdings are Eden are not ap-
  propriate? How would you feel then? Perhaps if our seats were 
  exchanged you would feel differently, quiaff?”
  The Khan of the Burrock Clan waved his hand in the air to cut 
  her off. “I would question the Grand Council, as you have done. I 
  would challenge them accordingly. If I lost, I would let the matter 
  die. That, Sarah, is where we apparently differ. You have lost your 
  Refusal against this Council. According to our laws, this matter is 
  decided.” 
  “Normally I would agree with you,” McEvedy said, sweeping 
  her gaze around the massive table. “Recent events have shown 
  that the odds have been stacked against my Clan. Other Clans 
  have been spying on my Wolverines, forcing us to do the same. 
  This began as individual efforts to work against my people, but 
  recently I have uncovered evidence of a new threat, something 
  called, “The Watch,” which involved many of your people infiltrat-
  ing and spying on my Clan. With such efforts taking place, it is no 
  small wonder that a fair trial is not possible.” She ended her visual 
  sweep of the room on Nicholas Kerensky. A pall of silence smoth-
  ered the massive wooden table as all eyes turned to the ilKhan.
  “The Watch had no bearing on your ability to defend your posi-
  tion in the combat trial,” he countered. “It is an organization that 
  reports to me. Its purposes are mine and mine alone, and not for 
  debate by this Council.” 
  
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  “I was not asked to contribute to this Watch, ilKhan. I can only 
  assume that it was put in place to work against my Wolverines. As 
  such, and given its rather dark and nefarious nature, it is impos-
  sible to know if it corrupted my Trial.” 
  Nicholas was not used to his Khans talking back, at least not so 
  boldly. He was also not used to being caught off guard and ex-
  posed. “How dare you level such accusations?” he snapped back, 
  his voice seemed to shake Sarah’s entire body. 
  “I am a member of this Council,” she replied.
  “You forget your place,” replied Franklin Osis, the Smoke Jaguar 
  Khan. “Sarah, you are merely a Khan. We are all subordinate to 
  the ilKhan. If he wishes to create a surveillance mechanism, then 
  he can. He can involve whatever Clans he wishes to in it.”
  “You speak freely, Franklin,” McEvedy pressed. “I notice that you 
  have nothing at risk here. The integrity of your Clan and your ma-
  terial holdings are not in question. I have known you for years. I 
  have no doubt that you would respond much more hotly than I 
  am right now if it were the Jaguars that were in danger of being 
  stripped of resources.”
  “The Smoke Jaguars are not in question here,” Khan Karrige re-
  plied. “What is at stake is our rule of law. You have seemed to turn 
  your back on it. You have lost your Trial to my Widowmakers who 
  defended the decision of the ilKhan and the Grand Council. You 
  are ignoring decades of law and order that have kept our people 
  at peace and prosperous. Who are you to do this?”
  “I am the Khan of Clan Wolverine,” McEvedy said firmly. Just say-
  ing the words made some of her aches and pains fade, if only for 
  a moment. “It is not me that has forgotten my duties and respon-
  sibilities, Jason.” She held back making any more accusations. 
  Enough had been laid down in this debate already. Her challeng-
  ing of the ilKhan regarding the discovery of The Watch was more 
  than enough to add tension to the atmosphere.
  “I remind you, Khan McEvedy, that you are simply a Khan. My 
  word holds the law here,” Nicholas Kerensky said angrily. “You 
  have no standing to question my decisions and actions. You may 
  rule one of twenty of the Clans, but I rule us all.”
  “This debate is pointless,” The Khan of the Coyote Clan added. 
  “We should move ahead with the bidding for the Brian Cache’s 
  contents. By our laws this matter is settled. Arguing over it does 
  
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  nothing but stir hatred and upset the balance of the Clans as a 
  whole.”
  “It seems,” Khan Karrige added coyly. “That only one of us is 
  arguing.” 
  Sarah McEvedy stared at her one-time friend and ally. Is this 
  all worth making a stand about? She felt as if the die had already 
  been cast by the Grand Council and Nicholas. It is only now a mat-
  ter of time before they come for my Wolverines; either one clan or 
  all of them together. If I had more time, I might be able to ensure 
  that what happens impacts fewer people. Time. It was a luxury 
  that seemed to have deserted her. 
  She had made plans that could preserve her people. There were 
  potential allies in this room. One thing was for sure though, nego-
  tiations could not continue today. She faced a room of rivals that 
  had turned on her, either singularly or together in conspiracy. They 
  feared her Wolverines, and coveted what she had done with them. 
  The irony was not lost on her. By doing what was right for her 
  people, she had had turned the rest of the Clans against them.
  Carefully, she slid her chair away from the table. For a long mo-
  ment, she stared at the inlaid figure of her Clan namesake carved 
  in front of her. Gone was the feeling of pride the first time she 
  had sat at this table. Gone was the camaraderie of the Khans.  Her 
  friendship with the ilKhan had been badly bruised, if not destroyed. 
  All that remained now was to do what she could to implement 
  her plans to preserve the Wolverines. To do that, she would need 
  time.
  “I will take my leave of you all,” she said firmly. As she rose her 
  chest tugged at her with hot fingers of pain. McEvedy’s knee felt 
  as if it were on fire. None of that matched the pain she felt in her 
  soul.
  “You cannot simply walk out of a Grand Council session,” Khan 
  Osis added. “Our business has not concluded.”
  Her friend, Khan Joyce Merrell of the Snow Ravens, spoke up. 
  “Even though the Wolverines Trial against this Council was lost, 
  that does not mean that you cannot bid to defend the pieces of 
  this Brian Cache that are in dispute, Sarah.” Her voice tugged at 
  McEvedy. They had known each other a long time. She was trying 
  to help her, trying to get her to take a path to save face with the 
  others in the room. 
  
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  Negative. I will not grovel for scraps at the table like a dog. My 
  departure is demanded, even if it is nothing more than a gesture.  
  “It appears to me that decisions regarding the future direction of 
  my Clan are not mine to make, not alone anyway. Given that and 
  the nature of my injuries, it would be best if I left now. Besides,” 
  she shot a glance back at the Widowmaker Khan, “there is a smell 
  in this chamber that I find somewhat offensive.” Using her cane, 
  she angled her body away from the table.
  “Khan McEvedy,” Nicholas said in a calmer tone. “I ask you to 
  reconsider. Khan Merrell is right.”
  She turned back to the man that she had once trusted so dearly 
  as to place her own life in his hands. “IlKhan. I no longer have the 
  stomach for this.”
  “Do not let it end like this, Sarah,” Nicholas pressed. 
  “I assure you, ilKhan,” she said firmly, her eyes narrowing in 
  anger. “It is far from over. In fact, I feel safe in saying it is just be-
  ginning.”
  
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  Texas Class Battleship Bismark 
  The Norfolk Boneyard 
  The Exodus Fleet Station Five 
  Strana Mechty Star System 
  Clan Space 
  8 October 2823
  The air on the Bismark still smelled funny to Star Colonel 
  Franklin Hallis. It was a hint of sweat, possibly some mold, and 
  dust. It was the smell of age—of the passage of time. The moth-
  balled Exodus Fleet had been stored in ten different locations, the 
  Norfolk Boneyard was far out in the Strana Mechty system. Here 
  the ships were kept, ever ready for action, per the orders of the 
  ilKhan. While none were immediately jump ready, maintenance 
  crews boarded them regularly and did the necessary work to en-
  sure that the ships were still listed as “combat effective.”
  It was always assumed that the Clans had warships or aerospace 
  fighters that patrolled the boneyards. Franklin had bet that was 
  a myth. Why patrol or attempt to protect a fleet that was so far 
  away from any possible threat? He understood that the waste of 
  resources was what drove his people’s almost forgetting this fleet 
  of ships.  There were automated sentries, satellites that monitored 
  the fleet, but they had been easily overcome by programs written 
  by the Scientist Caste. Technology could never replace ingenuity.
  This Fleet was the origins of the Clans. They had begun as the 
  Star League Defense Force under Nicholas Kerensky’s father, 
  Aleksandr. For nearly two years they had traveled from known 
  space into the vast, uncharted periphery to arrive at the Pentagon 
  Worlds. Franklin had been just a boy then, following his family in 
  the SLDF. The ships of the mothball fleet were a distant memory. 
  This was like a chapter out of the bible for him, an epic story. These 
  ships had been homes for the families that now made up the Clans 
  under Aleksandr’s son, though these people were vastly different 
  than the original settlers that had come on the Exodus. 
  Franklin had come with a small team of ship experts. Their 
  mission was to ready a handful of ships per the orders of Khan 
  McEvedy. The work was proving easier than he had expected. The 
  maintenance on the vessels had not been shabby. They were in 
  good condition, ready for action on relatively short notice. Franklin 
  had picked out three transports and two of the larger battleships. 
  They would have to suffice. He had a team scouring the San Diego 
  
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  Boneyard as well on a similar mission. Combined with the ships 
  already in the much-reduced fleet of the Wolverines, he hoped 
  that they would fit Khan McEvedy’s needs.
  Whatever those needs were. 
  He had seen a glimpse of her plans, and had reviewed his 
  role in them. Even with what he had seen, he realized that the 
  scope of what she was contemplating was massive in scale. 
  When he had been sent to the ships, Franklin had suspected 
  that Khan McEvedy was planning some sort of a move with the 
  Wolverines. Sarah McEvedy had been one of the founders of 
  Clan Wolverine, and had been like a mother not just to Franklin, 
  but to almost everyone in the Clan. She was not an arrogant 
  and aloof Warrior. McEvedy was a woman of the people. Time 
  and time again she had taken measures to protect her people, 
  and had brought the Wolverines to the pinnacle of Clan life. Her 
  name was spoken with the same reverence as that of Nicholas 
  Kerensky. From what Franklin knew, that could prove danger-
  ous.
  He floated across the bridge and looked out of the armored ferro-
  glas window to the fleet hovering in space around him. Somewhere 
  out there, on the massive jump transport Rawhide, a crew was 
  readying the vessel for a jump out of system just as he was doing 
  aboard the Bismark.  The same was happening with other ships, 
  star-jumping vessels that had been idle for a generation. I have 
  heard other castes talk about ghosts. I wonder how many are here 
  watching us now?
  One of his senior technicians drifted across to him. “SaKhan, 
  we have an incoming message from Strana Mechty for you—pri-
  ority one,” he handed him the portable comm unit. The ship’s 
  communication system wasn’t online, out of fear that it would au-
  tomatically send a signal warning the other Clans that someone 
  was aboard these ships. Franklin paused. I will never get used to 
  this title…saKhan.
  “This is Deuce,” he said into the unit. 
  “Deuce, this is Wolverine Actual,” came back a familiar voice. 
  “Good to hear from you, sir.”
  “I trust that all is going well, quiaff?”
  “Affirmative. As planned, my Khan.”
  
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  “I wish that the same could be said of my work,” McEvedy re-
  plied. “I am transmitting a secured file to you. It is for your eyes 
  only. Do you confirm?”
  There was a light beep as the file downloaded into the unit in a 
  secured packet transfer. “Affirmative, sir. I have the file. My eyes 
  only.” Franklin saw the title. “Operation Switchback.” He couldn’t 
  explain why, but the title alone seemed to have an ominous ring 
  about it. It had been some time since the Clans had launched any 
  sort of new campaign. There had only been the mopping up of the 
  last bit of the Pentagon Wars. Then again, this wasn’t about the 
  Clans—this was about the Wolverines…
  Glancing at the data, he found his suspicions confirmed. 
  Khan McEvedy was doing what was necessary to preserve the 
  Wolverines and their way of life. She was taking great risks. It was 
  a bold plan. Combined with what he had seen from her earlier, 
  Hallis now understood the true scope of the plans she had made. 
  My faith in her is not misplaced—the scope of this alone is pure 
  genius.
  “Franklin, once you have matters in hand there, I need you to join 
  me here. I am attempting to buy us some time. Go over that file. It 
  will detail the operation I already have you on. I will need you on 
  Strana Mechty, and I have a jumpship waiting to take us to Circe. 
  As you will see in the plans, I have made sure we have ample 
  jumpships poised for a number of circuits.”
  Franklin scanned the file more. “By the League…” he said under 
  his breath. The file was not a summary, but very detailed plans 
  and logistics of a sweeping operation. He had seen a high-level 
  overview before, but this…this had details and timetables and list 
  after checklist of details that were stunning. What are we about to 
  start? Then his thoughts focused even more. What will the ilKhan 
  do?
  “Say again, quiaff?”
  “Negative, sir. I simply was reading the details of what you sent 
  me. The contents struck me as—daring.”
  “I understand.”
  “Sir, has it really come to this?”
  “You can avoid the ‘sir,’ Franklin. You are my saKhan.”
  The title was one that Franklin had not yet gotten used to. There 
  
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  had been no formal trial for the position, as was common practice. 
  Khan McEvedy had broken with tradition and intervened, telling 
  would-be candidates who she wanted in the role and asking them 
  to not engage in a pointless trial. Now was a time when she need-
  ed someone at her side that she trusted—that’s what she had told 
  the more vocal candidates. There had been some complaining, 
  even Franklin had heard it, but in the end he had taken on the as-
  signment, and no one had challenged him for the role. I only hope 
  I can fill Robertson’s shoes. “My apologies. Old habits are hard to 
  break. You have been our Khan my entire life, after all.” 
  “Thank goodness you are young, or I would have to reconsider 
  my choice. I hope we can avoid implementing this operation. If 
  not, Switchback may be our best course of action.”
  “I hope you are right too.”
  “When you get here, we will have to send out a number of en-
  crypted messages. While Trish Ebon may want to return to her 
  unit, I need her to remain on Circe for the time being at the con-
  tested Castle Brian. I have already sent out a few messages to 
  prepare for some of the Switchback protocols. If this comes down, 
  Franklin, it will come down fast. We need to be prepared.”
  “I believe I understand.”
  “Good,” her voice was reassuring. “There is still a chance to 
  head this off. I have asked the ilKhan to meet with me, someplace 
  private. Someplace where I hope I can reach him. I still hold out 
  some hope that my plans will not be required.”
  “I hope you are able to get us away from the brink.”
  “If not, I will need you ready to move.”
  
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  The Wolverine Enclave 
  Strana Mechty 
  Clan Space 
  9 October 2823
  The Wolverine Enclave seemed much more active than the last 
  time he had seen it. Even at this hour of the evening, when most 
  families were settling down for dinner, the streets were still filled 
  with people. There was a sense of urgency in the air. For Franklin 
  it made it seem all the more real. Switchback. Khan McEvedy was 
  beginning it. The lower castes were mobilizing, preparing for the 
  directives. 
  He was stopped at the entrance to the command facility and put 
  through security protocols that he had never imagined a year ago. 
  The irony was not lost on him that he had ordered such scanning 
  and identity checking. The infiltration of the Wolverines by other 
  Clans, by The Watch, had stunned him, and forced Franklin to im-
  plement a number of directives to prevent spying. He had no idea 
  if they were working, but they would have made matters much 
  more difficult if he had been attempting to spy on the Wolverines. 
  In his mind that was some condolence. 
  The command bunker was busier than the streets outside. Troops 
  were packing shipping containers, people were running down the 
  hallways, conversations were yelling competitions over the hustle 
  and bustle. SaKhan Hallis ignored it all. He was saluted almost 
  every few steps, salutes he quickly returned. He reached the inner 
  ring where Khan McEvedy had asked him to meet her.
  She didn’t rise when he entered the room. He saw the hook of 
  the cane that McEvedy had been using holding it on the tabletop. 
  She gave him a smile and gestured to the chair next to her. His 
  mentor’s face was worn and weary, as if she carried the weight of 
  the world on her shoulders and it was smothering her slowly, pain-
  fully. The last trial that she had been in had taken a lot out of Sarah 
  McEvedy. Her face was more wrinkled, and her tired eyes made 
  it seem that she was either taking drugs or was exhausted. Still, 
  there was some of that fire in her face, that drive that had made 
  her so popular with her people. It was a combination of sternness 
  and motherly care. 
  “Good to see you, Franklin,” she said. “I trust that you had a 
  chance to review the Switchback directives on your trip in?”
  
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  “Affirmative,” he replied. “This is an ambitious plan. I find it hard 
  to believe that the other Clans and the Grand Council itself will not 
  dramatically react to it.”
  “I am still of a mind that we may be able to avoid a confrontation,” 
  McEvedy replied with little conviction. “I will try my damnedest 
  to dodge a head-on confrontation with the Grand Council, but 
  Franklin—I saw what they had started to turn into. It is as if every 
  Clan but a few have turned against our Wolverines.” 
  “Sir, I want to make sure I fully understand your plan.”
  “Of course,” she activated the small holotable projector. A map of 
  Clan-controlled space came up before them. “For our Wolverines 
  to survive, we are going to have to turn away from our way of life 
  in the Clans. A move of independence will not be taken without 
  decisive action on their part. Nicholas and the Grand Council will 
  not stand for it and will come after us. Currently we have numer-
  ous territories we defend, to be exact, there are six enclaves of 
  the Wolverines spread out on five different worlds. Spread out 
  this way, we cannot concentrate our forces for defense. As such, 
  I am calling for the migration of loyal Wolverines to two of these 
  territories—the one on Strana Mechty, where we are, and the one 
  on Circe. Realistically, our main force will be on Circe. Only eight 
  Clans have territories there, and most are small and geographi-
  cally disbursed. That will buy us some time we need to prepare 
  for the journey. 
  “Our holding force here on Strana Mechty will secure the atten-
  tion of the Clans. We will need a strong military demonstration 
  that will hold the focus of any adversaries.” McEvedy said. “Every 
  clan has an enclave and holding here. We will have enough mili-
  tary force here to pose a risk to them—it will force their attention 
  to turn here. In the meantime, the ships we have and are borrow-
  ing from the boneyards will go to Circe and depart with the bulk 
  of our people and expendables. The last force to withdraw will be 
  those on Strana Mechty.”
  “I concur with your strategy, Khan. At the same time, moving that 
  many people will be difficult at best.”
  “Remember, not everyone is coming,” McEvedy replied. “There 
  are some, even some of our Warriors, that are more loyal to 
  Nicholas than to their own Clan. They will be allowed to remain. 
  Enough of us are going to be risking our lives—I do not want peo-
  ple there that do not believe in what we are going to do.”
  
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  “What will be their fates?”
  McEvedy pondered that, but only for a moment from what 
  Franklin could see. “Nicholas has his brutal moments, but he 
  created the caste system to avoid injuring innocent people. Our 
  civilians will be fought over by the Clans to incorporate into their 
  own Clans. The Warriors that remain may face a harder existence, 
  though realistically the ilKhan does appreciate and respect loyalty. 
  In the end, they may suffer career issues, but should be fine.”
  “And our property that we are abandoning? Your plan calls for 
  some drastic measures.”
  “Affirmative,” McEvedy said, sighing hard as if the decision was 
  not easy. “The people we leave behind will have their homes un-
  touched. Everything else is to be destroyed, put to the torch, or 
  rendered worthless. We built those settlements and cities. I will 
  not stand by and let other Clans simply walk in and take them 
  and use them against us. The Widowmakers, Smoke Jaguars, and 
  Jade Falcons may think that they can benefit from seizing our fac-
  tories and laboratories and cities. I want them to find nothing of 
  any benefit. Especially the Widowmakers.”
  “I take it Khan Karrige is leading the charge against us?”
  McEvedy nodded, rubbing her taped ribs from the trial where 
  the Widowmakers had tried to kill her. “We were good friends at 
  one time. Now he is becoming a bitter, old man. What bothers him 
  most is that our people are happy and prosperous. He is a jealous 
  neighbor, and he is letting his emotions get the best of him.  Jason 
  Karrige is someone to be watched carefully, Franklin. He is devi-
  ous and is given to the old ways, the ways of politics. He is not 
  alone. When we depart, I do not want him to be able to profit or 
  advance his Clan—or any of the Clans for that matter—one bit.” 
  Scorched earth. It was a strategy that had been used countless 
  times in the history of mankind. Franklin knew that it would have 
  little effect on the Clans militarily. McEvedy also knew that. She 
  was waging a psychological war on her fellow Khans. The mental 
  image of them walking into one of the cities and finding nothing 
  but a handful of civilian homes and the rest of the city smoldering 
  and burning was going to stun the aggressors. 
  “Khan McEvedy—” he said carefully, not wanting to appear un-
  supportive of the strategy that the Switchback directive laid out. 
  Then he caught himself using her bloodname. “Sarah. Nicholas 
  is no fool, and has inherited the Kerensky genes for combat and 
  
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  strategy. There is only one place for us to run. We may catch him 
  off guard initially, and I think we will be successful. They will then 
  come at us then with everything they have.” The saKhan knew 
  that there was only one place that the Wolverines could go—back 
  to The Inner Sphere. While the version of the plans he had read 
  did not detail their ultimate destination, it was most likely because 
  McEvedy knew that there was only one place they could go. Home. 
  Back to the people that the Star League Defense Force had de-
  serted decades before.
  The Khan smiled at her junior’s words. “That is why we will not 
  head immediately down the path of the Exodus fleet. Our initial 
  jumps will take us outside of Clan-inhabited space, but not im-
  mediately towards the Inner Sphere. We will take our time and 
  work our way around Clan-space and eventually back to the Inner 
  Sphere, but we will be behind any clan-force looking for us.” As 
  if to emphasize her points, she activated the holographic display 
  and showed the intended route that her Wolverines would take.
  “Are you sure?”
  A quick nod answered the question. “Nicholas will mobilize 
  quickly, he has to as soon as he realizes we are on the prowl. This 
  will be an affront to his leadership of the Clans. You are right, he is 
  no fool. He will set off in pursuit of us back to the Inner Sphere. He 
  cannot risk us reaching the Inner Sphere and telling them what the 
  Clans represent or their precise location. What he does not realize 
  is that we will be moving behind him, slower, more carefully. Our 
  first goal is to reach the world listed on the Exodus star charts as 
  ‘Barbados.’” The light on the holographic display twinkled almost 
  halfway back on the original Exodus fleet trail back to the Inner 
  Sphere. 
  “Why there?”
  “We do not have the time to plan and supply for the entire voy-
  age back. Unlike when we first came from the Inner Sphere, we 
  do not need colonization supplies. We will need food and water. 
  Barbados was found by the Exodus fleet. It had ample fresh water 
  and a wide range of edible native plant life, including several ani-
  mals that could be used for food. We have to go to Barbados and 
  re-supply enough for us to complete the journey back to the Inner 
  Sphere. Nicholas and his fleet will be far in front of us, thinking 
  they are hot on our tails.”
  “Where will we go upon our return?”
  
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  McEvedy paused, her mouth slightly open. “I do not know, 
  Franklin. We have only a limited amount of information as to what 
  has unfolded since the SLDF pulled out on the Exodus. We recov-
  ered a stray jumpship from the Rim Worlds, but it offers only a 
  vague idea of the wars that have erupted there. The Inner Sphere 
  may not have changed at all, or it could be like the Pentagon 
  worlds became before we liberated them. Jerome Blake may have 
  been able to preserve some of what had been the League—we 
  simply do not know for sure. General Kerensky and Nicholas both 
  believed that war was inevitable. From what I saw during action 
  in the Pentagon Civil Wars, a total war on the scale they predicted 
  would leave entire worlds left asunder. Realistically though, none 
  of us know what happened. Which means that when we return to 
  the Inner Sphere, we have to be careful about the people we meet 
  and the alliances we make.” 
  “What will the ilKhan do when he realizes that we are not fleeing 
  in front of his fleet? He could turn about at any moment and catch 
  us.”
  “The only way he can know that is to reach the Inner Sphere him-
  self and find that we are not there. By then we will have enough 
  astrogation data to avoid following the Exodus path back into the 
  Draconis Combine. We can pick and choose where we desire to re-
  turn. Nicholas will either be forced to turn around and go home or 
  confront the Inner Sphere with whatever forces he has with him. It 
  is my hope that he will be so occupied with attempting to skirt the 
  House military units that we can move around him.”
  “There will be some of our people that do not make it to the de-
  parture points. I do not like the thought of leaving any Wolverines 
  behind.”
  McEvedy’s face hardened. “We learned a lot from the Exodus in 
  terms of logistics, and Nicholas’s second Exodus to Strana Mechty 
  at the onset of the civil wars gave us some insights as well. This 
  is nowhere as ambitious a plan or operation, but the reality is that 
  some of our people will not make it. They will be cut off, alone, left 
  behind. I do not like it, not at all Franklin, but it is a reality, quiaff. 
  Of course, contingencies will have to be made for them, plans for 
  their survival.”
  “You must have some thoughts about that, quiaff?”
  “Aff. We will give orders for them to disperse, to hide, to blend 
  in. It will be a hard life at first, but it is not as if they are hunted 
  criminals. Over time, they will find lives with other Clans, and find 
  
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  ways to ensure that our legacy continues on.”
  Franklin stared at the holographic map and slowly turned his 
  eyes back to Khan McEvedy. “As they used to say, ‘on paper it 
  looks good.’”
  “That is not enough and you know it,” McEvedy replied, leaning 
  back slowly and wincing slightly. Her injuries are still tugging at 
  her. “Nicholas is not used to people that do not follow his com-
  mands. From what I have seen in my life, the entire concept of 
  someone not doing what he says is something almost alien to him. 
  When we bolt for freedom, he will come at us not just with Wolves, 
  but with every Clan.”
  “What about bidding? Surely that will help mitigate the damage 
  to our people should they engage us?”
  McEvedy shook her head. “You must understand. Remember the 
  Prinz Eugen incident? Nicholas was the driving force behind what 
  happened there, as much as people point to Aleksandr. Mercy…
  pity…they will all fall by the wayside when his anger cuts loose. 
  After twenty years of fighting, there is finally peace. Defiance is 
  not a concept that the ilKhan deals with well. Regardless of our 
  formal rules and traditions, he will somehow ensure that the 
  Wolverines are no more. I fear that defeat on the battlefield may 
  not be enough for him.”
  Franklin said nothing for a moment. Gone. The ilKhan wants us 
  gone. What crimes have we committed that would have led to this 
  moment? The allowing of individuals to change castes? Negative! 
  That could not be it, not alone. Why have they all turned against 
  us? We are just like all of the others are our core, yet every Clan 
  has started to view the Wolverines with contempt and hate. “This 
  plan will work, my Khan. It has to. There is no other alternative. If 
  we remain and do nothing, the Clans will strip us of what we are 
  Trial-by-Trial.”
  “I believe that there are others that see things the way we do. 
  On the political side I plan to meet with Nicholas one-on-one to 
  see what his feelings are, if he will open up to me. I don’t want to 
  have to execute these plans, and I hope I can find something in 
  Nicholas to avert this. It is a slim hope,” she conceded.
  “You will know when the time comes when I call for secession of 
  the Wolverines. This will test to see if those that have told me that 
  they believe the way we do have the courage to take a stand. That 
  will also be our cue that we should begin execution of Switchback 
  
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  immediately. We have to move before the other Clans rally against 
  us. It will also buy any allies we may gain in the Council time to 
  act as well.”
  “These other Clans…will they risk rising against Nicholas and the 
  Grand Council?”
  She shrugged. “I know them well enough that I believe some 
  may have the courage to join us. Until that time, I am unprepared to 
  share our plans with anyone else. As it stands, no one fully knows 
  what is going on, which means that The Watch and Nicholas do 
  not know—only you, Franklin. While many of our people are work-
  ing on this operation, they do not realize the full scope of it.”
  There was a moment of silence between the Wolverines, the two 
  generations of the Clans. Franklin respected McEvedy as a family 
  matriarch. She had been part of the Star League Defense Force. 
  She had been in the epic battles to reclaim the Pentagon Worlds, 
  ending the Civil Wars. Franklin had come later to Nicholas’s ban-
  ner; he had served, but had not been part of the Star League. He 
  had skills, strong combat and leadership skills, that much was 
  true. What he did not have was the experience that a woman like 
  McEvedy possessed. If he was lucky, he would live long enough 
  to develop those skills. “Tell me, Khan. What would you have me 
  do?”
  “For now, stick to the plan outlines for Switchback. I want you to 
  direct what intelligence elements you have in place to begin moni-
  toring the other Clans, especially the Widowmakers. We need to 
  be ready should they move prematurely. You will accompany me 
  to the Grand Council session in two days. They plan on dividing 
  up the Brian Cache that we now have. I plan to do what I can to 
  delay that, or at least throw some confusion into their plans.”
  “I will not fail you.”
  McEvedy grinned, obviously pushing back her pain. “I only hope 
  that I do not fail you, Franklin.”
  
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  Clan Widowmaker Hall 
  Strana Mechty 
  9 October 2823
  Khan Jason Karrige of Clan Widowmaker looked at the commu-
  nication he had received from Circe, and allowed himself a private 
  smile. Things had not been going according to plan as of late. He 
  had hoped that Sarah McEvedy would have had the courtesy and 
  honor to die during the Trial of Refusal that had killed saKhan 
  Robertson. Still, seeing his old acquaintance weary and crippled 
  made her appear weak in the eyes of the other Khans. Who am I 
  kidding, she is weak. The report from his handful of operatives on 
  Circe made the Wolverines even weaker. If all went as he hoped, he 
  would not have to finish off McEvedy…the Grand Council would 
  do it for him. His Widowmakers would simply have to mop up the 
  remains.
  What he had on Circe was insurance. 
  He knew that McEvedy would overreact about the decision to 
  divvy up the Brian Cache. That was why he had sneaked in two 
  of his own Warriors disguised as Wolverines. McEvedy and her 
  Warriors never saw it coming, never saw the threat that the tacti-
  cal nuclear weapons posed. The two infiltrators had penetrated 
  the bunker and smuggled out one of the nuclear warheads.
  The ilKhan was so focused on the agitation and allegations that 
  the Wolverines had leveled that he never saw how events were 
  really unfolding. Nicholas hated challenges to his authority, nor 
  was he willing to tolerate them. Exposing The Watch had been 
  a good move on the part of McEvedy, but she had overplayed it, 
  which only served to infuriate the ilKhan. Now Nicholas Kerensky 
  saw the Wolverines more as rebels than as part of his society. 
  Pushed further, Sarah McEvedy would react even more strongly, 
  and only add fuel to the fire that was burning in the soul of the 
  ilKhan. Karrige knew that if he presented the ilKhan with a “so-
  lution” to the Wolverine issue that he and the rest of the Grand 
  Council would leap at it. And the solution was seductively easy.
  And if they didn’t overplay their hand, well, there was the nuclear 
  warhead. Matters could be forced… Properly managed, he could cre-
  ate a crisis that even the quick-thinking McEvedy could not escape.
  One way or another, the age of the Wolverine Clan was going to 
  come to an end. 
  
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  The Grand Council Chambers 
  Strana Mechty 
  Clan Space 
  10 October 2823
  Sarah McEvedy watched the ilKhan rise from his seat and convene 
  the session. In the chair along the outer wall sat her new saKhan, 
  Franklin Hallis. It was a shame that Franklin had come for his first 
  and possibly last day of ever seeing a session. She remembered a 
  time when she was proud to sit at the council table. Now that time 
  had passed, it was tainted by the people around her. McEvedy was 
  willing to press matters with the Grand Council to defend her Clan. 
  Even if the risks associated with it placed her people at risk. They 
  are already at risk, they simply do not realize it. 
  “I notice that the seat of the saKhan of the Wolverines is filled to-
  day,” Nicholas said, casting a suspicious gaze at Franklin. “Is there 
  a reason for this, Khan McEvedy?”
  She shifted in her seat and felt the ever-present throb in her 
  chest from the broken ribs still strain each breath. “It is my plea-
  sure to present to you and the esteemed members of this Council 
  our new saKhan, Franklin Hallis.”
  Nicholas cocked an eyebrow, and for a moment his face ap-
  peared to be that of his father, Aleksandr, but only for a moment. 
  “This surprises me. Trials for leadership of a Clan are always at-
  tended by me. I was not invited to any such trial.”
  The rest of the eyes in the room, along with their contempt, fell 
  on McEvedy. “IlKhan, there was no Trial for this position. The oth-
  er candidates qualified for this role did not oppose Star Colonel 
  Hallis’s ascension.”
  A murmur rose, but only for a second. “I find that impossible to 
  believe, Khan McEvedy. We are the Clans. Ambition and growth 
  are part of who we are. Are you telling me that none of your peo-
  ple desired the role of saKhan, quineg? That makes no sense.”
  “Negative, ilKhan. I spoke with the candidates beforehand. I told 
  them that Franklin was my choice to succeed saKhan Robertson. 
  They respected my decision and withdrew from consideration. He 
  stood unopposed for the role.”
  “You cajoled them into withdrawing,” fired off Khan Jorgensson 
  of the Ghost Bears. “It is a move that lacks honor.”
  
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  Sarah’s face tightened. She could feel it. “I did not intimidate my 
  Warriors. My people respect me. Perhaps if the Ghost Bears lead-
  ership was as strong as ours, you would understand.” Jorgensson 
  often spoke with a bitter streak of sarcasm, Sarah knew that. His 
  devotion to the Ghost Bears was admirable, but he often did 
  not see beyond his own Clan. His version of events during the 
  Pentagon Wars was as tainted as other Khans. Each Clan recorded 
  their history from their perspective – often at the expense of the 
  full truth.  In years to come, that will be our weakness.
  Khan Karrige of the Widowmakers chuckled, a noise that was dis-
  turbing to McEvedy. “I was unaware that you were so popular with 
  your people, Khan McEvedy. Apparently they place more faith in 
  you than they do in the ilKhan, this Council, or the traditions of our 
  Clans.” Karrige had made this personal. He had, in two sentences, 
  drawn a line between McEvedy and everyone else in the room.
  I have to try and step back from the brink, it can save lives. Before 
  she could say anything, Nicholas cut in. “I would say that any such 
  ascension to the role of saKhan is not official unless I preside over 
  it as ilKhan. Further, Khan McEvedy, if there was no combat Trial, 
  there can be no one assuming such a role or a seat at this table.”
  Sarah was dumbfounded. I never thought that this would be this 
  big of an issue. I should have guessed, given Nicholas’s ego.  She 
  had known him a long time, and for the first time she felt he was 
  being manipulated by those in the room around her. Sarah had 
  always seen Nicholas as the great manipulator, but now she saw 
  that there was another side to him, one that her peers could take 
  advantage of. “IlKhan, there is no such law or rede that binds us 
  that I am aware of.”
  Nicholas balled his fist and hit the great round table. “It is tradi-
  tion. A tradition, I might add, that your Wolverines are not exempt 
  from. Until this matter is settled according to our laws,” he cast 
  a fleeting glace over at Franklin. “Star Colonel Hallis, you are not 
  welcome at this session.” 
  Franklin rose slowly, looking at Sarah, then at the ilKhan. He 
  pulled his uniform taut, as if to grapple with his dignity. There 
  were no words that McEvedy could offer that could take away the 
  shame. The verbal sparring with the ilKhan and the Grand Council 
  had taken another victim, this time Franklin. No one in the room 
  spoke until the door clicked shut behind Hallis.
  “You have embarrassed us all,” the Jade Falcon Khan spat from 
  her seat. 
  
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  “Have you no sense of respect for the ilKhan, quineg?” added 
  Khan Osis of the Smoke Jaguars.
  Others chimed in. Sarah said nothing. Even on the most minor 
  point the Grand Council was mounted against her, poised to strike. 
  She was alone, very much alone, in a room of former friends and 
  confidants. Kerensky let the remarks and insults continue for a few 
  moments, then motioned for silence. The Grand Council chambers 
  fell quiet. “We shall begin the bidding for the challenges for the 
  contents of the Brian Cache located on Circe.” His patience level 
  was gone, Sarah knew that. He was changing subjects simply out 
  of boredom and frustration. Classic Nicholas. Predictable…but at 
  the same time not.  She did not underestimate the ilKhan. He was 
  a genius, like his father—like his brother. At the same time, she 
  stirred from fending off the verbal attacks.  
   I cannot sit for this. She slid her chair back. “IlKhan…with all 
  due respect, I cannot abide by these Trials. The claims against my 
  Clan have been made with extreme prejudice. I will excuse myself 
  rather than soil my honor in this way.”
  Nicholas cut to the chase. “This session has been called and con-
  vened. I was willing to allow your display of anger before out of 
  courtesy, Khan McEvedy—not again. If you leave, your Wolverines 
  will have no part in the bidding for the contents of that Cache. 
  There will be no Refusals taken if you do not take part in the Trials 
  of Possession Khan McEvedy, am I clear, quiaff?” He spoke like 
  a lawyer, a politician, not a Warrior. I have not sullied my honor 
  Nicholas, but apparently you are willing to.
  Sarah knew this was an all-out confrontation. She gritted her 
  teeth as she spoke, holding her voice as steady as possible. “The 
  Possession of that Brian Cache and its contents are in the hands of 
  the Wolverines. Some of those materials there are from the 331st 
  Division of the Star League Defense Forces—my father’s old unit, 
  a unit that is part of our Clan now. If anyone wants to take these 
  goods, they will have to pry them from our claws.” She slid the 
  chair back further and prepared to rise.
  Khan Mitchell Loris of the Mongoose Clan spoke up. “Khan 
  McEvedy, you go too far.”
  “Do I, Loris?” she snapped. The Mongooses were an annoyance 
  she didn’t need at this moment. “I know many of you in this cham-
  ber have found our ilKhan’s actions offensive. Until recently, we 
  never spied on each other. What are we becoming as a people? Is 
  it worth it? I think not.”
  
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  Nicholas seemed to survey the room. “My honorable friend, the 
  Khan of Clan Wolverine, continues to ignore the decisions of this 
  body, as verified by the recent Trial. I do not care that this cache is 
  that of the 331st Royal Division, her father’s command—nor should 
  you. We are a people of law. I am not above the law any more than 
  any one of you.” Nicholas, ever the master of the room, turned 
  back to her. “I ask you as a friend, think through your actions care-
  fully.”
  He was backing her into a corner. She knew it. “We will hang by 
  your laws, either separately, or together.” She took a strained step 
  towards the door. 
  “You have no standing on this issue if you walk through that 
  door!” barked Nicholas. 
  McEvedy turned slowly. “I understand fully what I am doing, 
  ilKhan.” She swept the room once more with her eyes. “And if any 
  of you have the courage to see this farce for what it is, you will 
  join me.”
  No one stirred or moved. 
  “You cannot do this,” Nicholas implored. “My fellow Khans, 
  our colleague is clearly overwrought. I call for a vote of censure. 
  Loremaster Ward, please—”
  She took her cane and slapped it down on the table, the echo-
  ing crack cutting the ilKahn off. “Does the truth hurt so much, 
  Nicholas? So much that you are willing to sacrifice not just me but 
  your own people—a people that have shed blood in your name?”
  “You go too far,” he said in a low tone.
  “Then ilKhan, do what you must,” she said, pulling the cane back. 
  “I will do the same.” She stepped through the doors.
  “She should be arrested!” barked Franklin Osis behind her.
  “Arrest her? I think not,” Nicholas said, the last sound she heard 
  as the door slammed behind her. 
  In the hallway, McEvedy spotted Franklin standing idly by, 
  reading his noteputer. He was obviously more calmed after his 
  embarrassment in front of the Grand Council. She hobbled to him 
  on the cane, leaning in on her compatriot, huddling close.
  Franklin cut to the chase. “That did not go well.”
  
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  “Nicholas has become more fickle over the years.” It was a mas-
  sive understatement, and she regretted it the moment she spoke 
  the words. They almost arrested me. Our clan does not have long 
  before Nicholas makes his move. 
  “I fear that I only added to the issues facing our people.”
  “Negative. If nothing else, it tells me just how resolved the Grand 
  Council is against our Wolverines. You saw that for yourself.”
  “So what is next?”
  McEvedy leaned in even tighter, putting her arm around Franklin’s 
  shoulder like a mother. “I will meet with the ilKhan in a place where 
  he and I can speak alone, where I can try to reach him one more 
  time. A part of me feels it is a wasted effort, but I have to try.”
  “And me?”
  “You, Franklin, are going to contact Star Captain Ebon. Send an 
  additional Trinary to support her, place them under her command. 
  Tell her that the other Clans will most likely be coming soon. She 
  is to strip that Brian Cache of anything of value except the nuclear 
  weapons. Carrying them would be a burden that I would never 
  deploy anyway. Besides, those are the real sore spot of that Cache. 
  Other than that, if any other Clan approaches, she is authorized to 
  defend the facility.”
  “Such an action is bound to lead to conflict.”
  Khan McEvedy smiled. “Yes. It will. Our enemies will need to 
  know that we are not weak, that we have the conviction to defend 
  what we believe in. Wolverines can both gnaw and maul at the 
  same time.” 
  
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  McKenna’s Pride, McKenna-class WarShip 
  Geosynchronous Orbit 
  Strana Mechty 
  Clan Space 
  11 October 2823
  As the airlock hissed and opened McEvedy slid her cane into 
  her belt loop and used the hand grips to pull herself aboard the 
  McKenna’s Pride. A guard wearing the uniform of the Cloud Cobras 
  saluted her as she drifted in. “Khan McEvedy. I was informed by 
  the ilKhan that the two of you were coming aboard, sir. This way, if 
  you please.”  The young guard pushed off down a long corridor. 
  This ship was special for all of the Clans. It had been the flag-
  ship of General Aleksandr Kerensky during the original Exodus 
  of the Star League Defense Force. When he died, Nicholas had 
  him interred in a special glass coffin aboard the ship. Originally 
  Aleksandr had been laid to rest in a normal tomb, but people had 
  flocked to it as an almost religious site. Sarah knew that bothered 
  Nicholas, his father had been the only light that had ever outshone 
  him.
  So, he ordered a re-interment of the body. The former flagship 
  remained fully operational, and was placed in orbit over Katyusha 
  City on Strana Mechty. In the parks, telescopes were mounted so 
  that citizens could look up and see their “great father” hovering 
  over them. A guarding star of troops from each Clan rotated in 
  every few months, taking a shift guarding the body. This month 
  must be the duties of the Cloud Cobras. If she remembered cor-
  rectly, the Steel Vipers would take over in a just a few days.
  Other than the guards, there was a small maintenance team that 
  kept the ship in full working order. Nicholas had ordered that the 
  Pride was to be kept fully operational. Her engines, guns, even 
  jump drive were ready for action. It was a memorial to his father 
  and at the same time, it was a powerful ship of battle. McEvedy 
  looked around. She had been aboard the McKenna’s Pride be-
  fore, a few times, once when she had been on active service. She 
  studied the ship’s interior as she followed the guard, checked the 
  corridors. I imagine Nicholas hates coming here. His father and 
  brother are reminders of his past. Keeping the General up here, 
  the people can only look upward. No competition or comparisons 
  with his leadership. 
  
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  She entered the officer’s mess, which had been converted to 
  the tomb for Aleksandr Kerensky. The coffin had a piece of fer-
  roglas across the top and flat-finished metallic sides. The sides 
  were adorned with the Cameron Star, the symbol of the former 
  Star League. The guards stood with their backs to the coffin, fac-
  ing outward. The figure of one of the greatest generals of all time 
  lay with his arms crossed over his chest. His gray command uni-
  form was adorned with his medals, his eyes closed. It was as if he 
  were sleeping. McEvedy closed her eyes for a moment of respect, 
  ignoring the fact that Nicholas, Aleksandr’s son, stood at the head 
  of the coffin. 
  “Leave us,” the ilKhan commanded the guards. They made their 
  way out of the room. The windows to the mess were open, giv-
  ing a view of Strana Mechty below. The blue and green orb of 
  the world shimmered as McEvedy moved closer. Nicholas did not 
  betray any emotions as he floated next to his dead father. He has 
  seen so much death during the occupation and the civil wars that 
  even the death of someone close to him does not move him.
  As the last guard turned and sealed the hatch behind him, 
  Nicholas crossed his arms and spoke from the head of the coffin. 
  “Why did you choose here to speak, Sarah? Did you think that the 
  presence of my father would somehow help your pleas with me? 
  Your performance in the Grand Council is not something I intend 
  to let pass lightly.”
  The zero gravity removed much of the pain that she had been 
  feeling, and McEvedy felt more confidant than she had in a long 
  time. “Negative, ilKhan. I just realized that we are approaching a 
  time of change. This place means a lot to me—your father means a 
  great deal to me. I thought that I would come here one more time. 
  None of us know when a visit to such a place might be our last. 
  Besides, I knew that we could speak here without interference.”
  There was an uncomfortable pause before Nicholas spoke. “You 
  are starting down a path that you cannot turn back from.”
  “I am beginning to see that. I was hoping I could come to you, as 
  a friend, as a woman that trusts you, and see if you can give me 
  advice on how to avoid the conflict that I see coming.” 
  Nicholas offered no emotion. “Your Wolverines have grown 
  very strong. The new technology you are working on, the new 
  BattleMechs you have introduced, your skills in the Trials, all show 
  you becoming the most powerful of the Clans. In most respects, I 
  admire what you have done with your people.”
  
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  “At the same time, it makes us a threat.”
  “Our people do not respond to threats well. Sarah, there are nu-
  merous Clans working against your Wolverines. I am no fool. I 
  know they believe they are guiding my actions—I assure you they 
  are not. You need to know that they will not permit you to become 
  even more powerful.”
  “And you, ilKhan?”
  Kerensky turned slightly and looked out of the window down 
  at Strana Mechty, refusing eye contact with McEvedy. “Our peo-
  ple are stagnating, Sarah. You have seen it. With no enemies, no 
  conflicts, their bonds to each other are weakening. They want the 
  caste system relaxed. They seek some of what we have turned 
  our backs on. They question the directions that we have traveled 
  together. This is a time when our values are being tested.”
  “And my Wolverines?”
  “You represent one possible future. It is not a future that I sub-
  scribe to or endorse, however.” Nicholas turned and locked his 
  gaze to McEvedy’s. “I built this society, the Clans, with a vision. It 
  is not for you or any of the Khans to question or attempt to change 
  that.”
  The words hurt. Nicholas was scolding her. “It was never my 
  intent to erode what you built. I was serving my people.”
  “As am I. The difference is, I answer to a higher calling.”
  “IlKhan, the options for me, for the Wolverines, are becoming 
  limited. What do you desire me to do?”
  Nicholas said nothing for a moment, but placed his hand on the 
  ferroglass of the coffin, over the face of his father. McEvedy was 
  not sure if it was a loving touch, or if he was covering his father’s 
  face. “I see no hope for the Wolverines going forward. Several 
  Khans are going to move against you. They will seek to remove 
  your clan once and for all—absorbing you into their own holdings. 
  They want the technology you are developing, the hardware that 
  you have created, your territories, your people.”
  “There are no provisions for absorbing a Clan.”
  “There will be. They will create them.”
  “And you see no hope for us?”
  
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  “There are nineteen other Clans, Sarah. All seek to benefit in some 
  way from your demise. At the same time, it sends a clear message 
  to all of them to not stray from the path I have laid down, or risk 
  the same fate. I will not stand in the way of the Grand Council. 
  Your Wolverines will serve as an example to the other Clans, to my 
  people, of what happens when any one Clan becomes too power-
  ful. It will force a level of self-correction to the Grand Council. It 
  will prevent us all from turning on each other.”
  “That is why you sent The Watch after us…you were conspiring 
  against us.”
  “I do not conspire,” he snapped back. “I lead the Clans!” 
  McEvedy rubbed her chin in thought. They have already or-
  dained our destruction, our absorption, perhaps even something 
  worse. They will come at us like vultures, picking at our carcasses. 
  If we are one thing as a people, it is relentless. “IlKhan, you know 
  that I cannot sit back and do nothing while the other Clans come 
  at us. I am a leader, and must do what I can to protect my people. 
  You would expect no less of me.”
  Nicholas lifted his hands from the ferroglas over his father’s 
  corpse. “I know you will, Sarah. In fact, I am counting on it.” 
  He was counting on it.  A good fight, a bloody contest on the part 
  of the Wolverines would solidify people behind him. We are to be 
  made an example of. Testimony to his authority and rule.  
  “IlKhan…Nicholas,” she went for the personal touch with her 
  leader. “This is not necessary. Innocents will die. My people and 
  others can be spared. There must be another way.” She knew the 
  answer before she asked, but asking was necessary. 
  “Even the Nova Cats will not be able to side with your Wolverines, 
  nor will the Snow Ravens. They would like to, but they can not do 
  so. Your enemies are many and determined. If I spare you, I will 
  be all but acknowledging changes to the society I created. I can 
  not do that.”
  “I could renounce the changes I have employed. I can step down 
  as Khan.”
  Nicholas showed his teeth with a grin. “It would send ripples to 
  other Clans. The message to the other Khans would not be suf-
  ficient, Sarah. Loss of rank or even your life is not enough to drive 
  home the point. Pain, suffering, war—that is necessary to bring 
  my people together. When they see the fury we are capable of to 
  
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  our own brothers and sisters, the more rebellious elements will 
  fall in line.”
  “You are selling us out,” McEvedy said in a low tone, looking 
  down at Nicholas’s father. “You are using us to scare others into 
  your way of thinking. This is akin to genocide.”
  “I am being a leader. Your leader, until you allowed yourself to be 
  corrupted by your lower castes and your own ego.”
  “I have no desire to face you across the field of battle,” she con-
  fessed. 
  Nicholas did not seem to share the pain. “We will both do what 
  is necessary.”
  
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  The Tiki Province 
  Circe 
  Clan Space 
  11 October 2823
  Point Commander Cale signaled the first contact with a hint of 
  tension in his voice. Star Captain Trish Ebon listened carefully. I 
  have to set the tone here. “This is Amber Star. I have multiple 
  signals on the ground and closing at moderate speed on your po-
  sition.”
  She licked her lips. Both the Khan and the new saKhan had 
  contacted her and had given her both warning and rules of en-
  gagement. Reinforcements had arrived, and her work had been 
  stepped up from simple inventorying of the Brian Cache to re-
  moval of the goods that were inside. “You are authorized to ignore 
  our normal rules and conditions for Combat Trials,” Franklin had 
  told her. She had heard the words but at the same time had cursed 
  them. Total war was an ugly thing. The rules regarding Trials had 
  removed some of that horror. Now her Khans were unleashing her 
  from their restrictions. 
  Damn them all. 
  Her own long-range sensors picked up the mag readings of mul-
  tiple BattleMechs closing on her position. She switched to tie in 
  communications and read their IFF transponders. It was a mix 
  of Clan forces. Jade Falcons—no surprise there, given their loss 
  of the bunker earlier. There was a Ghost Bear contingent, a star 
  of ’Mechs. The Wolves were there, and the Coyotes. The Steel 
  Vipers were present as well, though they only came with a pair of 
  BattleMechs. It was insulting on its own. 
  These were the forces that had won the Trials of Possession for 
  the Brian Cache. The only problem was that they had no right to it. 
  It was property of the Wolverines. Trish knew she had some advan-
  tages in the fight. These were discreet Clan forces. They would not 
  be willing to coordinate their efforts. She could divide them easily 
  enough, since they would struggle to work together. Numerically, 
  the odds were even. She knew the terrain well enough, but the 
  Jade Falcons had scouted it and knew it as well. 
  The best edge she had was that she was not going to stand on 
  formality. The Khans had told her that she didn’t have to, and she 
  wasn’t going to. Trish had met with her Warriors and told them 
  
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  what was happening, told them that these Clans were going to 
  come. She told them that they were coming to rob the Wolverines. 
  They were behind her and behind Khan McEvedy. “We have in-
  coming targets. I will attempt to…” she hesitated for a moment, 
  “…negotiate with them. If that does not work, I expect you all do to 
  what is right for your Clan.”
  Negotiate? Negative. I want to lay waste to them. I hate having 
  responsibility. 
  Trish switched to the broadband channel. “This is Star Captain 
  Trish Ebon of Clan Wolverine. Approaching force, identify yourself 
  and your intentions.”
  After a moment, a deep voice came on. “This is Star Captain 
  Jacob Hall of Clan Ghost Bear. We represent the winners of Trials 
  of Possession for the contents of the Brian Cache you are occu-
  pying. Under the authority of the Grand Council of the Clans, we 
  have come to claim what is ours; won by battle and blood.”
  I do not think so. “Negative,” she replied. “You are on soil owned 
  by Clan Wolverine. We do not recognize these Trials you speak of. 
  This is a holding of our Clan and possessions of our people. If you 
  approach and attempt to steal the material here, we will be forced 
  to defend ourselves.”
  The pause told her they were trying to figure out the best way 
  to deal with the situation. “With what forces will you defend this 
  Cache?”
  So, you want to play by the rules, query affirmative? “It will not 
  work that way, Star Captain. In our eyes, you are invaders and 
  plunderers. We cannot and will not tolerate a move against this 
  facility.”
  “You would risk civil war with the Clans, quineg?”
  “I am not risking anything.”
  A laugh, a deep, dark belly laugh. “Let us see what you have.” 
  Trish looked at her sensors. Total war had come to Circe. 
  
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  “Amber Star, sweep to the west and then cut back. Hit the flank 
  of those Coyotes! Make them howl!” Trish said through gritted 
  teeth. Her new model Pulverizer felt smooth and steady under her 
  control. A Ghost Bear Sentinel painted blue/gray was trying to 
  drive on her own flank, but she had other plans. The Pulverizer 
  she piloted was equipped with one of the new extended range 
  particle projection cannons, “gutbusters,” they were nicknamed 
  by the Warriors for their enhanced damage. She swung her gut-
  buster online to her current trigger and locked her targeting reticle 
  onto the Sentinel. 
  The Ghost Bear’s Ultra autocannon spat a nasty barrage of 
  shells that hit her cockpit…a reminder that these Warriors were 
  playing for keeps. She returned the favor, firing the ER PPC. The 
  brilliant blue flash of charged particles hit the flank of the Ghost 
  Bear Warrior. It furrowed deep, sending a spray of molten armor 
  splattering into the air. The Sentinel reeled in mid-step, then went 
  down. It showed as operational, but was out of the fight for a few 
  minutes.
  The battle had been going well. As she had expected, each of the 
  attackers was trying to fight the Wolverines alone on their terms. 
  The Steel Vipers’ pair of Lancelots had punched through her pick-
  ets and driven into her Star—taking down two Wolverine ’Mechs 
  before both succumbed to deadly barrages. 
  The Jade Falcons had tried to take advantage of the fight and 
  turn the flank. She had not been so forgiving. In the tight wood-
  ed area where they had tried to move she had caught them on a 
  ridge commonly known as Wombat Ridge. The plummet down 
  the ridge to the river was deadly and almost impassible for a 
  ’Mech. Her force had pushed them off the high ground. The cost 
  had been considerable, but the end she had smashed Star Captain 
  Trall’s Bombardier with two salvos herself. In the wooded terrain 
  the long-range firepower of the Falcon ’Mechs had been all but 
  neutralized.
  Her force was mangled despite their victories. She still had a 
  Star and-a-half of BattleMechs on the field, but all of them had tak-
  en some damage. Point Commander Cale reported that the only 
  force that had not attacked yet was the Wolves. Like their name-
  sakes, they skirted the edge of the battlezone, stalking, awaiting 
  the right moment to strike.
  Trish decided to not wait any longer. “All units reform on a line 
  due west of the trail road.” The roadway had been hastily cut 
  through the woods to remove the material from the Brian Cache. It 
  
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  was nothing more than a muddy bog most of the time, but the dry-
  ness of the last few days had turned it into hardened clay and dust. 
  It was also one of the few areas were the terrain was clear enough 
  for a shot. “We will hit the Wolves and fall back to the road. We’ll 
  wrap up their flanks there and eradicate them.”
  Lumbering her Pulverizer to the road, she watched her long-
  range sensors and was surprised to find the Wolves were turning 
  her flank. “Bloody hell.”
  “Say again?” came back Cale’s voice. 
  “The Wolves are shifting towards the Cache. All units form on 
  the road and charge to the bunker.” The column fell in behind her 
  and started at a full trot down the road.
  The Wolf Clan BattleMechs were spread out on the top of the 
  Brian Cache. Felled trees were everywhere, casually taken down 
  by the laborers of the Wolverines. Firing down the roadway, they 
  could not miss the lead ’Mech—her ’Mech. Her Pulverizer caught a 
  salvo of no less than forty long-range missiles and multiple lasers. 
  Trish felt her brand new BattleMech grind and moan around her 
  as she pressed forward enough into the small clearing so that her 
  force could fan out on the flanks. 
  Her footing slipped. She danced her targeting reticle down as 
  her ’Mech fell. As the sight drifted across a Wolf Crab, a cobalt 
  burst of energy hit the right arm of the tube-like ’Mech and tossed 
  it hard back, sending its laser shot searing into the wood line be-
  yond her.
  The Pulverizer dropped hard and she saw the damage indicators 
  paint a horrible story of carnage. Yellows and reds covered her 
  torso and legs, indicating that the armor had been holed in many 
  places. The Thorn behind her, piloted by Warrior Cox, only lasted 
  for a single salvo before it was obliterated.  The Wolf Clan Crab 
  went down, probably from a shot from Cale’s Stag II. The Stag II 
  was one of the prototypes rushed out of the plant. Cale’s still had 
  only gray undercoating for paint on it. Using the Stag chassis, it 
  had a much larger engine and weapons mix, trading speed and 
  death for armor. 
  The woods burst into flames as she rocked her Pulverizer back 
  up. The sides were not evenly matched. She saw that. We might 
  win the day but have nothing left to show for it. And the Wolves 
  get nothing but an empty bunker. Her long-range sensors showed 
  that two of the badly damaged Ghost Bear ’Mechs, including the 
  
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  Sentinel that she had taken down earlier, were back up and look-
  ing for a fight. 
  “Wolverines!” she called out to her unit. “We need to fall back. 
  Drop into the woods and fall back.”
  “Sir?” Cale called.
  “Let them have those nukes. It is all that is left there anyway,” she 
  said wearily. As if to emphasize her point, she fired her lasers at 
  the Highlander that the Wolves were moving forward. The hit did 
  nothing but seem to mess up the paint job on the massive Assault 
  ’Mech, but it was enough for them to know that they had been 
  struck and struck hard by the Wolverines. Let them gnaw on that 
  for a while.
  
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  The Grand Council Chambers 
  Strana Mechty 
  Clan Space 
  11 October 2823
  “Word has come in from my Wolves on Circe,” Khan Winson 
  said. “The Wolverine Clan has refused the ruling of this Council. 
  When our forces landed, they refused to adhere to the Trials for 
  the materials. The Clans that arrived were attacked. The only ones 
  that emerged triumphant were my Wolves.”
  “Only because your Wolf Warriors did not shed blood, but waited 
  for others to fight the superior Wolverine numbers,” Khan Breen 
  of the Steel Vipers responded. 
  Nicholas Kerensky looked at them with some concern on his 
  face. “They fought then?”
  “Without following the rede of combat that we all have followed 
  since the founding, they have fragrantly flaunted their intentions 
  to stand alone against the Clans.” 
  The door opened to the Grand Council chambers and Khan 
  McEvedy entered.
  The Ghost Bear Khan rose to his feet at the sight of his former 
  comrade. “You have a lot of gall coming in here today after what 
  your people have done.”
  McEvedy walked steadier with the cane. She moved towards the 
  table, but not to her seat. “I heard of the events that unfolded on 
  Circe myself. I was not going to come today, but there has been 
  enough verbal stabs in the back by the members of this Council. I 
  thought I would ensure that if anyone has something to say, they 
  can do it to my face.”
  “You are out of order,” Nicholas said coolly. 
  “Apologies, IlKhan,” she bowed his head. There was not a great 
  deal of conviction in her voice.
  “Do you deny what happened?” Hazen of the Jade Falcons spat. 
  “Of course not. All of you have blood on your hands because of this.”
  “I strongly suggest that you watch your words, Khan McEvedy,” 
  Nicholas’s words were sharper and louder this time.
  
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  Sarah ignored him. It felt invigorating. 
  “Have you not told them ilKhan, quineg? Have you not disclosed 
  your plans? The ilKhan and I spoke. This course of action has al-
  ready been decided. The Wolverines are to be a whipping-boy for 
  the rest of you, a force to unify you all. We have been set up since 
  day one to be a role model for the Clans—a role model of what 
  happens if you do not follow the will of the ilKhan.” She was yell-
  ing at the Grand Council, perhaps the only member to do so other 
  than Nicholas himself. 
  “Silence! By our laws you may—”
  She relished cutting him off mid-sentence, something he hated. 
  “I will not be silent. You seek to crush us. I will not go down with-
  out a fight.” 
  “You will take your seat,” Nicholas commanded, pointing to the 
  chair at the great round table. 
  “I am afraid I cannot do that, Nicholas,” she said, using the first 
  name of the ilKhan as if it were an insult. “I am no longer a mem-
  ber of this Council.”
  “What?” came the voice of the Jade Falcon Khan.
  “Given the events on Circe and this Council’s misguided direc-
  tion,” she turned and shot a glare at Nicholas, “I cannot tolerate 
  sitting here and taking part in this farce. My Wolverines are se-
  ceding from the Clans. We wish to rule ourselves rather than be 
  a part of this current leadership. I know a number of you feel the 
  same way, and we invite you to do the same.” She cast a glance 
  down the table, pausing only with the Snow Raven’s Khan Merrell. 
  She lowered her eyes, refusing the make contact with him. Others 
  balled their fists, some simply sneered back with venom in their 
  eyes. 
  “There is no provision in our law for a Clan to secede,” Nicholas 
  said. “So as I commanded before, take your place at the table.”
  McEvedy turned to face the ilKhan. “No Nicholas, I will not. Just 
  because there is no rule against seceding does not mean we can-
  not do it. My Wolverines desire peace with you all. Know this 
  though, if any of you come after us, we will use any and all means 
  at our disposal to defend ourselves. If you come at us, prepare to 
  reap the whirlwind.”
  “Heresy!” barked the saKhan of the Fire Mandrills. 
  
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  “You will not make threats in this chamber,” the ilKhan com-
  manded. 
  “I am not making threats!” McEvedy retorted. “I am stating fact. 
  My Clan, my people, we have all been set up. Your petty jealousies 
  of the progresses that my Wolverines have made have soured you 
  to the truth. The ilKhan seeks to use a war against us to solidify 
  your support for him and the culture he is forming. Your jealousies 
  taint all of you.” 
  “Traitor!” The Ghost Bear Khan rose to his feet and pounded his 
  fist on the table. It sounded like a roar of thunder in the chamber. 
  “Hans, I am not a traitor to anything other than the corruption 
  that has poisoned this Council.” She turned to face Khan Karrige. 
  “My so-called equals lack the courage to face me like Warriors on 
  the field of battle. They conspire behind closed doors and in the 
  shadows. I have no use for such men.” 
  Karrige laughed, but it was more bravado than anything else. 
  “You are digging your own grave.”
  “The grave I dig will hold your Widowmakers as well, Jason.”
  “Enough of this!” Nicholas commanded.
  “I call for a new Trial, a Trial of Absorption against the Wolverines!” 
  Khan Osis of the Smoke Jaguars called from the far end of the 
  table. 
  For a moment, there was no sounds in the room. An eerie si-
  lence fell like darkness on the Grand Council chamber.
  McEvedy surveyed the room. “Leave me and my people alone,” 
  she said softly. “Because if you do not, I will be forced to do things 
  that you cannot imagine.” Using her cane, she made her way to 
  the door. It echoed behind her as it slammed shut. 
  Nicholas turned to the shattered Grand Council. “I believe some-
  one here made a motion…”
  
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  General Order Wolverine 014
  “To Those of Wolverine Blood:
  “Dark times are upon us, and I turn to you for your support. The 
  experiment of Nicholas Kerensky known as The Clans has come to 
  a juxtaposition, and the time has come for us to walk one of two 
  paths. The path that the ilKhan has chosen is one that offers an 
  ever-reducing number of freedoms and opportunities for personal 
  growth. The path I offer for you is one where your destiny is your 
  own…and that your children can grow up in a society where they 
  can find their own providence.
  “We are breaking our ties to our fellow Clans. There are some that 
  would see this as an act of rebellion. It is not. It is an act of self-
  preservation. It is best for us to stand alone than under the heels 
  of those that see themselves as our betters.  As your leader, this is 
  the choice I alone am empowered to make.
  “I am repealing the caste system immediately. Furthermore, I am 
  returning the right for families to select their own partners and to 
  return to more traditional family units. Surnames will return short-
  ly as well. We will find a way to honor those in the Warrior ranks 
  that have earned this right. We have the right of self-determina-
  tion and self-destiny. The era of the ilKhan’s suppression of these 
  rights is over.
  “This choice will bring about changes for us all. We must act to 
  preserve the Wolverine heritage. Some of you will be torn between 
  your loyalties to the ilKhan and that of your Clan. I understand this, 
  and promise you that anyone seeking asylum with the other Clans 
  is welcome to do so. No ill will is offered, and safe passage from 
  our territories will be granted.
  “While I hope that our former allies and comrades would treat us 
  as welcome neighbors, the reality is that some opportunists are 
  bound to take advantage of our political situation and attempt to 
  seize power for themselves.  For those of you that stay, we face 
  difficulties and hurdles that are still unknown. We will face them as 
  we always have, as family. We will not retreat from the principles 
  of the Star League that we carried with us from the Inner Sphere. 
  Our honor and integrity is not a bargaining chip with our former 
  peers. 
  “Additional information will be forthcoming. In the meantime, 
  prepare as you would for a time of war. Go about your daily rou-
  
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  tines, but recognize that interruptions and changes are inevitable. 
  When called upon to act, I count on you to act. We must all prepare 
  for the tough times that are bound to come.
  “Only through our unity as a people can we one day emerge from 
  this approaching twilight.”
  “Sarah McEvedy, Khan, Clan Wolverine”
  
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  Wolverine Enclave Williamsport 
  Lum 
  Clanspace 
  11 October 2823
  The bidding had been more vicious than Star Captain Douglas 
  ever had imagined.  The Widowmakers had been whittling away 
  at the bidding with his Clan Mongoose for hours. Now that the 
  Mongoose Clan had won, they stood poised to swing into the 
  small city of Williamsport and seize the laboratories and holdings 
  there. 
  The Wolverines would pay for their treachery. 
  A Trial of Absorption. He had never heard of that before. He had 
  only been out of his sibling company for three years now, and this 
  would be his first large scale Trial.  His youth had been with other 
  Warriors, all training in combat, now the real test would come. 
  The Wolverines had held the city for years. It was where they con-
  ducted weapons research, if the information he had was right. He 
  and the binary of ’Mechs under his command would sweep in and 
  catch the defenders off guard. They would fight them, crush them, 
  and the city would be the possession of his troops. 
  His Khan had told him that the Wolverines would most likely 
  not be fighting according to Clan customs and traditions, and 
  for Douglas that made things even more irritating. Rumors had 
  abounded that the Wolverines had declared themselves indepen-
  dent, that they had renounced Nicholas Kerensky and the other 
  Clans. They had threatened total war with the Clans. He had heard 
  that they had desecrated the memorials to the Star League on 
  Strana Mechty. Even in his own city there had been graffiti on 
  the walls of a warehouse, scribbled by some lower caste scum, 
  calling Khan McEvedy a hero. Hero? No, she was not a hero. The 
  lower castes saw that because of her reputation for supporting 
  their ilk. McEvedy had lost her way, forgotten her place in soci-
  ety—Douglas was sure of that. 
  He was also sure that his force would teach the errant Khan the 
  price of her mistake. 
  His Mongoose forces would be the first test by the Grand Council 
  of the resolve of the Wolverines, at least that was what his Khan 
  had said. Douglas was ready. He would teach them the respect 
  and honor that only a true Clan warrior could exemplify. 
  
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  Smoke rose from the valley below. Not heavy smoke, but wisps 
  of gray and white. It did not appear to be the normal pollution of 
  a city, it was far more extensive. His first concern was that the 
  Wolverines were employing some sort of gas attack. He checked 
  the sensors on his Hermes and detected no biological, radiologi-
  cal, or toxic fumes. Fire? Negative. Had the Widowmakers or some 
  other Clan cheated and rushed in before him to secure a victory?
  “Sneak Star,” he called out. “I want you to fan out to the north 
  about two kilometers. Come up to the valley edge when you see 
  us close on the ridge. You are covering our flank and the Cameron 
  Highway that leads out of the city. I do not want these surats es-
  caping.”
  “Affirmative, Star Captain,” he heard. Sneak Star jogged to the 
  north. He waited until they were in position. “Alright Avalanche 
  Star, we are going to crest the ridge. Assume firing positions. The 
  rules of engagement that the Grand Council gave us allows us to 
  fire first. Remember, the Wolverines are not likely to be playing by 
  any rules whatsoever, so provide cover fire and support to each 
  other as needed. We are not here to destroy the city, but to take it 
  intact.”
  Douglas maneuvered his Hermes to the edge and looked down. 
  It was a scene he had only seen on historical holovids, images of 
  Operation Klondike and the civil wars. The city of Williamsport 
  was blackened. Only a handful of buildings remained intact, most-
  ly residential units from what he saw, that and a few water towers 
  and other service-oriented structures.
  The buildings had been burned. Not a burning from battle, 
  he was sure of that. They had been careful, controlled burns. It 
  looked as if a nuclear weapon had gone off. Some structures had 
  been spared. Most had been totally destroyed. His primary target, 
  the science laboratories near the west edge of the city, were flat-
  tened black piles of ash. The remaining whiffs of smoke curled 
  upward.
  He checked his sensors. Nothing. There were people down there, 
  but no signs of any armed forces. Douglas first suspected a trap, 
  but realized that he was not being fooled. The Wolverines knew 
  that they were coming and had destroyed the city. 
  “What happened, Star Captain?” came the voice of Sneak Star’s 
  Point Commander.
  “Fan out,” he said. I want this area secured.”
  
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  “Sir…what happened here?”
  “The Wolverines,” he said carefully, “Have shed their honor. They 
  ran like cowards rather than face us in battle.”
  There was a pause. “Sir. If they have run, the question I have is, 
  ‘where to?’”
  Douglas said nothing. That was a question for the Grand Council 
  to answer. 
  
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  Great Hope—aka The City of McEvedy 
  Tiki Province 
  Circe 
  22 October 2823
  Khan McEvedy watched as the DropShips landed everywhere 
  around Great Hope. The ride in had been fast, using pirate points 
  and fast burns to confuse any spies that might be watching her, 
  and she had made it to Circe in record time. She still called it by 
  the old name, Great Hope, but her lower castes had always re-
  ferred to it as the city of McEvedy. It was one of the things that 
  Nicholas has raked her for two years earlier. She was pleased that 
  it had bothered him so much now.  
  The city was nestled in a tiny river valley that opened to a port 
  facility on the sea. It was the capital of the Wolverines, one of the 
  first sites they had liberated. The Snow Ravens’ capital was on the 
  other side of the planet. She had ordered her WarShips to posi-
  tions to ensure that the shuttle activity between Great Hope and 
  the transports was masked, a mini-blockade of her own capital. 
  The evacuation had been going on for days, so far with no in-
  terruption from the Clans. There had been sporadic reports of 
  conflicts, of Clan forces poking and probing at Wolverine holdings, 
  but the main assault had not begun. More than a few had struck at 
  cities and complexes that had already been abandoned. With the 
  two-dozen dropships all around Great Hope, it was easy to see 
  that mobilizing her Clan was complex, and bound to be confusing 
  for her would-be foes.
  As she limped down the tarmac, she had been accosted by sev-
  eral officers, each asking for orders, clarifications, her signature 
  on the seemingly endless sea of paperwork. There was a lot to 
  do. How did Aleksandr Kerensky do it? Yes, that’s right, he had the 
  entire SLDF to support him. Even Nicholas, who had managed the 
  organized flight to Strana Mechty at the start of the Pentagon civil 
  wars, had pulled off a minor miracle. There were so many details 
  she had to entrust to her staff that it was mind-boggling. 
  As she moved across the spaceport, she heard a rumble as one 
  of the massive Mule-class dropships took off. Leaving for safe-
  ty, I hope. She had done all of the confronting she had planned 
  with Nicholas and the Grand Council. They would come for her, 
  Nicholas had ensured it. The Wolverines were being sacrificed in 
  the name of unity of the Clans. The sad part was none of them 
  
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  fully understood that Nicholas had set his people up—that he was 
  willing to sacrifice one of his Clans for the sake of control and 
  power. Destroying the Wolverines was like a man willing to cut off 
  his arm to make a point.
  A man wearing a white lab smock approached and bowed his 
  head reverently. This must be him. “Doctor Vaun, I presume?”
  “It is a pleasure to meet you face-to-face again, Khan McEvedy,” 
  the older doctor said. Sarah knew him for his work in the genet-
  ics program of the Wolverines. The man was a genius, or so his 
  records implied.
  “I would hope that you would reconsider joining us, Doctor,” she 
  said.
  Vaun smiled. “I am an old man. I would be taking up a seat that 
  is needed for someone that can offer a future to our people.”
  “Great minds are hard to replace.”
  “Which is why I presented you with the plan as I did.”
  The plan. McEvedy had looked at it. A way to preserve a copy of 
  the Wolverine Warrior genetic samples. Duplicating the genes for 
  preservation in the future was daring and dangerous.  “I looked 
  over your plan, Doctor. There are some risks.”
  “You would be taking the primary samples of the Bloodnamed 
  Warriors with you. I would retain only a small amount of the mate-
  rial. But I will ensure that the Wolverine warriors live on.”
  It was a daring plan, one that ensured some hope for her Warriors’ 
  survival if her Switchback directive somehow failed. “You should 
  not ignore the risks, Doctor.”
  “I am loyal to you, Khan McEvedy. You understand our people 
  and their freedoms. Nicholas seeks to ruin what vestiges of fam-
  ily life remains. My plan has risks, but in the end, it will work. You 
  know that.” 
  “If you are discovered, they will kill you.”
  “By the time they discover what I intend to do, I will already be 
  dead, and you and the rest of our people will be safe. My work 
  ensures another future.”
  I hope you are right, Doctor Vaun. I hope you are right…
  
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  Rooster Plains 
  Circe  
  Clanspace  
  22 October 2823
  The Trinary of Wolverine BattleMechs bent in the middle and 
  seemed to fall back. The green hills were torn up by the running 
  ’Mechs, sod ripped up by the moving battle. Every so often a small, 
  smoking hole in the tall grass, a missed shot or autocannon round 
  tore up the Circe plains. Heavy drops of rain, “Circe Pelt,” as it 
  was referred to, poured down on the battlefield, further cutting 
  visibility. 
  This battle had been vicious, much more so than anyone had 
  anticipated. The Fire Mandrills had lost the bidding for the fight to 
  the Steel Vipers. The Vipers had assumed that they would hit the 
  sibling company posted on the Rooster Plains and defeat them 
  summarily.  After all, these were mere children, not seasoned fight-
  ers. Surprise would guarantee victory. A storm front had rolled in 
  just before the battle, and in the middle of the thunderstorm, the 
  Wolverines had hit.
  The Wolverines fielded a reinforced Trinary of ’Mechs. Their in-
  fantry had dug in and fought well, but were no match for the Steel 
  Vipers that overran their position on the knolls near the training 
  facility. As the Steel Vipers surged towards the encampment, they 
  hit a string of vibramines buried in the sod. The cost had been two 
  ’Mechs, their legs twisted and contorted. 
  Mines—the act of cowards. Not the actions of Clan Warriors. This 
  young sibling company would pay the price—at least that was the 
  thought as the battle unfolded. Sweeping to the south of the train-
  ing facility, they pressed the Wolverine ’Mechs back, but at a cost. 
  The Wolverines were fielding several new models of BattleMechs, 
  models that seemed to be able to inflict more damage. Worse yet, 
  there was only spotty information on the new models, making 
  them unknown entities in battle. The ilKhan had spoken to the 
  Grand Council that the Wolverines had been doing such research. 
  Once again the greatness of Nicholas Kerensky showed through. 
  These new models of ’Mechs were not in the battlecomputers 
  warbooks, which meant that they hard to learn their capabilities, 
  strengths and weaknesses the hard way—in battle.
  They had pursued the siblings out into the rolling plains. 
  Apparently they had someone of seasoned leadership command-
  
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  ing them, probably a trainer that had once been a veteran. It was a 
  pity that such men had to die. The Steel Vipers had offered a chal-
  lenge to absorb the Wolverines, to let them fight honorably. They 
  had refused the attempt. Now all that was left was to drive them 
  to the ground, crush them. It was not a pleasant act, but one that 
  was required. 
  Khan Breen of the Steel Vipers saw the waver in their formation, 
  and felt that victory was near. “They are breaking in the middle of 
  their line. Drive there, punch through, and turn their flanks from 
  the center.” He had served with Khan McEvedy and the other orig-
  inal Wolverine saKhan, Robertson. He had felt sad at the death 
  of Robertson, defending the Wolverines against the fury of the 
  Widowmakers. Now the Steel Vipers were one of the instruments 
  of the Wolverines undoing. The only good news was that once 
  victorious, he would absorb this facility and grounds as part of the 
  Vipers enclave on Circe.
  His forces, the 80th Fang, followed orders to a tee. They hit the 
  center, but it only dropped back, refusing to collapse. Suddenly 
  Khan Breen saw what was happening. By driving hard into the 
  center, his forces were suddenly catching fire from the flanks, a 
  murderous cross-fire. 
  He watched as one of his Hussar’s, albeit a weak ’Mech to begin 
  with, crumpled quickly. A Shadow Hawk was caught in the head 
  with a blast from an extended range PPC from across the field of 
  battle. The shot punched into the cockpit on one side and out the 
  other. The Warrior was carbonized instantly by the blast, and the 
  ’Mech toppled into the sod, sinking deep into the wet soil.
  A rumble worse than thunder shook the field. Turning, he saw 
  through the rain a plume of orange, a fireball rise into the air. The 
  Wolverines had done something that shocked him—they had 
  blown up their training center. His own ’Mech rocked back un-
  der a barrage of short-range missiles and laser fire from three 
  Wolverine ’Mechs. The blast caught his Warriors off guard, giving 
  the Wolverines a chance to pounce. Another Viper ’Mech went 
  down. The odds were shifting quickly in favor of the Wolverines. 
  By not fighting by Clan terms, they had mauled the 80th Fang in a 
  matter of minutes.
  This is not worth it. Not now—now that the facility was a burn-
  ing hulk. Not these losses. “Vipers, this is Viper Actual. Fall back 
  to the staging area in pairs. I want suppression fire laid down on 
  the Wolverines as we withdraw.” He watched as the Wolverines 
  rushed in the opposite direction, off towards the borderlands with 
  
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  the Snow Ravens. Their capital city, Dehra Dun, was only 60 kilo-
  meters away. The surviving Wolverines were the Snow Ravens’ 
  problem now, not his. 
  I hope you fare better against them than we did. He was about 
  to signal Khan Joyce Merrell to let her know of the threat head-
  ing her way, but stopped short. If she is victorious where I failed, 
  what does that tell the ilKhan and the others about my Vipers? He 
  hesitated.
  Joyce needs to deal with them on her own. 
  
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  Outskirts of Great Hope, aka The City of McEvedy 
  The Tiki Province 
  Circe 
  Clanspace  
  22 October 2823
  The Wolverine-held Tiki Province was a mix of terrain spread out 
  for thousands of square kilometers. The dense forests, the eroded 
  mountain ranges, the flat-dry plateaus, the swamplands, it was a 
  microcosm of terrain types in a relatively small area. The center, 
  the prize, was Great Hope, also known as McEvedy. Only the ar-
  rogance of the Wolverines would dare to presume to name a city 
  after a betrayer like Sarah McEvedy.
  Khan Karrige knew he came across as petty about his po-
  litical maneuverings against the Wolverines in the eyes of 
  his peers. It did not matter to him. He wanted the Wolverines 
  to suffer, to diminish, to die. He would absorb their assets, 
  their resources, their territories and peoples. He already had 
  a shopping list of what he needed. By cherry-picking the right 
  resources, he would ensure that his Widowmakers would be 
  the most dominant of the Clans. Who cares what the other 
  Khans think of me?
  His Widowmakers had won the bidding to try and engage the 
  Wolverines in this territory so that he could gain access to the 
  mines in the area. So far the siege had been a challenge. First 
  there was the screen of warships over the Wolverine territories on 
  Circe. On the trip in, his own assault force had been swarmed by 
  Wolverine fighters and warships. He had asked for safe passage 
  and had been granted it, but it was nerve-wracking to see that 
  kind of firepower concentrated. They are up to something… He 
  knew Sarah all too well. She wants me to fire first, to get the blood 
  on my hands. She is honoring our traditions just enough to avoid 
  a battle where she would be painted as wrong or unjust.  Thus far, 
  the Wolverines that had fought had only done so when attacked 
  first by the other Clans.
  The Wolverines had not dug in or fought fairly. As soon as his force, 
  a Battle Cluster, had entered the Tiki Province, the Wolverines had 
  started to engage them in a string of hit-and-run assaults. They 
  swept in, fired, and pulled back. It was time consuming and un-
  Clan-like, at least in his mind.
  
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  IlKhan Kerensky and a delegation from the Grand Council had 
  joined his force, adding to the pressure. Nicholas was seeing 
  first hand that the Wolverines had already abandoned their clan-
  ways and were fighting like marauders. It only solidified his stand 
  about Khan McEvedy and her people. They will all see that I was 
  right about them…these Wolverines have turned their back on our 
  ways. 
  Of course he had ways to ensure that the Wolverines were seen 
  in a bad light. It pays to have people on the ground here with the 
  right tools. Insurance…especially with the ilKhan here. 
  As they got closer to the city, a strange sight greeted him on the 
  roads. Refugees. People that claimed that they were supporters of 
  Nicholas Kerensky had been expelled. They loved their Clan, but 
  did not want any part in the coming fight. As if to accentuate their 
  fear, he saw a sickening cloud of smoke rising from the direction of 
  the city. He knew that amount of smoke came from only one thing, 
  a city being burned. Occasionally he saw dropships landing and 
  taking off, their fusion fires lighting the sky like meteors.  Karrige 
  slowed his forces advance somewhat. Something was going on in 
  the city, and he did not want to rush in blind.
  Nicholas had other ideas. “Why are you slowing, Khan Karrige? 
  You have won the bidding to fight the Wolverines here. Victory as-
  sures you will absorb them. Go, now, into battle. Show them what 
  a real Clan Warrior is!” The ringing of Nicholas’s voice over the 
  comm channel was a nagging reminder of what he had to do. 
  Checking his long-range sensors, he adjusted them to the maxi-
  mum range. Khan Karrige was looking for a signal, a special signal. 
  He knew it was there, in Great Hope, because he had ordered it 
  there. A final present for the Wolverines. The final nail in their cof-
  fin. After this, absorption will be the last thing on anyone’s mind.
  He switched to his NBC sensors. Nuclear, Biological, and 
  Chemical sensor sweeps would tell a story, even several kilome-
  ters away. There! There it was. His Warriors had done their job. 
  Their mission had been simple…sneak the nuclear warhead out 
  of the Brian Cache and smuggle it into the city. The two Warriors 
  would remain with it. If confronted, they had Wolverine infantry 
  uniforms, and would easily pass a cursory inspection. The war-
  head was armed and tied to a firing code on his battlecomputer. 
  It was going to be a glorious show…and Nicholas has a front row 
  seat. 
  
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  Khan McEvedy watched as the last four DropShips prepared for 
  departure from aboard the Overlord-class Huron. Her rear guard 
  forces had been the oldest Warriors of her Clan, and had been 
  having fun harassing the Widowmaker Clan forces. These were 
  the Zeta Galaxy. Most of these troops were very old, and had 
  served as young men and women under Nicholas’s father in the 
  Star League Defense Force. All were seasoned veterans of the civil 
  wars and Operation Klondike. Where Nicholas had proposed that 
  older Warriors had no role in society, the reforms that McEvedy 
  had initiated offered new life to her Zeta Galaxy. She had evacuat-
  ed a Binary worth of the Warriors, under protest. The rest insisted 
  that they be the last to remain in Great Hope. All of them wanted 
  a piece of the Widowmaker Clan. 
  The city was now a ghost town, burning with controlled blazes 
  and left in ruins. If the Widowmakers want this city they will find 
  it of little value to them. Some ten-thousand civilians had opted 
  to not depart with the rest of the Wolverine forces. McEvedy re-
  spected that. Some simply did not want to leave their home on 
  Circe. Some were old and infirm, and did not want to travel. Others 
  were lower caste families with young children that did not want to 
  risk them on an unknown space voyage. A few Warriors, mostly 
  newly graduated from their sibling companies, said that they did 
  not want to fight the forces of the ilKhan. The reach of Nicholas 
  Kerensky, a living god, was long and far. The excuses did matter 
  to her. She honored them all.  I will not fault those that side with 
  Nicholas. They have not seen him over the years, seen what he is 
  capable of. She thought for a moment of Andery, and shook her 
  head at the memory. 
  The Widowmakers had all but halted their advance outside of the 
  city, about ten kilometers from the edge of the city proper, using the 
  rings of hills for cover. McEvedy ordered her Zeta Galaxy Warriors 
  to make ready. She moved them out of the city center to the far 
  suburbs. She would not draw the Widowmakers into the fighting an 
  urban battle. It was tempting, but there were still innocent civilians 
  in the city. She did not want to place them in danger.
  As she watched a Star of troops rush far out from the city, she 
  wondered about how Franklin Hallis was doing. For just a moment, 
  
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  she thought of Andery again. She knew he would approve of this. 
  Like Nicholas, he had an impulsive streak in his blood. In fact, he 
  would be thrilled with this kind of operation. They had pulled out 
  right in front of the other Clans. McEvedy had denied them the 
  fight that they wanted. It was going perfectly so far.
  The future looked bright and hopeful in the moment. Sarah al-
  lowed herself a smile as she paced for a better view on the Huron. 
  Soon she hoped to feel good enough to take to a ’Mech cockpit 
  again. 
  “IlKhan, we are about to begin our assault,” Khan Karrige said. 
  His fingers entered the code into the battlecomputer; zero-alpha-
  zero-bravo, zero, zero, one. His finger hovered over the transmit 
  button. He silenced his own microphone in his neurohelmet. His 
  Widowmakers rose up over the crest of the hill. He himself moved 
  his ’Mech slightly to face the city of Great Hope.
  “With this, I drive a stake in the heart of the cancer that is at-
  tempting to devour our people.” He hit the button, and a new sun 
  erupted on the surface of Circe only a dozen kilometers away. It 
  was oddly silent as the nuclear burst rose upward and seared the 
  ground with brilliant, man-made sunlight. There was a cracking 
  noise, like lightning in a summer storm—followed by a roar of a 
  thousand dropship engines flaring at once. 
  The shockwave came with such force that the Widowmaker 
  BattleMechs on the top of the crest were knocked back. A howl-
  ing gust of wind, hot, searing, ripped at the ’Mechs. Karrige saw 
  the ilKhan’s BattleMech tilt back under the force of the blast. Dust, 
  dirt, ash, debris, everything came by as if he had been dropped in 
  the center of a tornado. The Widowmaker Khan fought to keep his 
  ’Mech under control even though he had set off the blast and knew 
  the shockwave was coming. In the distance he saw a mushroom 
  cloud, churning with great balls of fire, agitating upward, feeding 
  on itself. His sensors screamed radiation warnings. 
  He turned his comm system back on. It was time for the cover 
  act. “IlKhan, are you alright?”
  A stunned voice came back to his ears. “What has happened?”
  
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  “A nuclear attack. The Wolverines have apparently used a WMD 
  on their own city.”
  “There were civilians there. My sensors picked them up. 
  Thousands of citizens,” his voice was stunned, slowly evolving to 
  pure anger. “What has Sarah done?”
  “Sir, the radiation warnings in this area are high. We need to with-
  draw temporarily, for your safety, sir.” 
  Nicholas Kerensky was not afraid. His BattleMech stood and 
  seemed to lean towards the growing mushroom cloud. “I cannot 
  believe that McEvedy would do such a thing.” His voice trailed off 
  in a daze at what he had witnessed.
  “IlKhan, she must have used one of the nuclear warheads 
  recovered from the Brian Cache.” There, the appropriate hints 
  had been all placed. While each Clan had some nuclear weap-
  ons in their possession, this one had a signature that would 
  tie it with the other nukes recovered from the Wolverines. It 
  was a fingerprint that tied the Wolverines to destruction of the 
  city. It was a perfect set-up. Anyone that could prove that he 
  had anything to do with it had been with the bomb when it had 
  gone off. 
  “I will not let this simply pass,” Nicholas said firmly. 
  “I understand, ilKhan,” he said, moving his ’Mech over near his 
  leader. “You should not. The Wolverines have become criminal in 
  their actions here. You could have been killed yourself.” 
  There was a long pause. The shadow from the mushroom cloud 
  loomed over their position, turning the afternoon into night in a 
  heartbeat. Nicholas Kerensky finally spoke. “This has ceased to be 
  a Trial of Absorption. The actions of the Wolverines have changed 
  everything. We need to convene the Grand Council and decide 
  the next steps. It is obvious, however, that the failed genes of the 
  Wolverines are not to be preserved. They are to be purged.”
  “You are wise, ilKhan.”
  Nicholas’s voice seemed filled with fury just barely held in check. 
  “In the meantime, the Wolverines elsewhere are going to under-
  stand that there is a price to pay for such actions. Using a weapon 
  of mass destruction is to be done at a price.”
  “What will you do, ilKhan?”
  
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  “I need to be tied to the planetary communications grid to relay 
  a message. The Snow Ravens can extract revenge for this atrocity. 
  They are fighting a Wolverine force there. They will teach them 
  the punishment for such war crimes. There is only one kind of 
  response that can be made to this kind of action.”
  
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  The Wolverine Enclave 
  Strana Mechty 
  Clan Space 
  22 October 2823
  Star Captain Trish Ebon watched as the Smoke Jaguar DropShips 
  arced in their flight to the landing zone several kilometers from the 
  hilltop she had deployed on. Star Colonel Stanton Osis had boldly 
  and arrogantly announced that he was coming for her to “absorb” 
  her Wolverines, their equipment, and their lands. Absorption. This 
  is how a Clan dies. The others devour it one bite at a time. 
  For a week the evacuation of the Wolverines on Strana Mechty 
  had been underway. Many had gotten to orbit discreetly. So far the 
  mini-Exodus had not attracted much attention. Now that Smoke 
  Jaguars were so close and had announced their intentions, the 
  time for citizens and other Warriors to leave had gone. SaKhan 
  Hallis, Franklin, had promised to pick her up. He will not leave me 
  behind. I have that. Star Colonel Osis has nothing. 
  The Jaguars had not come immediately as she had expected. 
  That was out of character for them. They and the Jade Falcons 
  were always quick to the fight, first into the battle—even when 
  it didn’t necessarily make sense. Her two Stars were going to 
  have to fight a running battle, stall for time. They did not want to 
  wipe out the aggressors, Franklin had made that clear to her. The 
  Wolverines simply wanted to get away with minimal losses. 
  When the comm channel came to life, she assumed it would be 
  filled with the usual bravado of the Jaguars, taunting her. What 
  she heard was the clearly agitated voice of Star Colonel Osis. “Star 
  Captain Ebon, I will speak with you now.”
  “I hear you, Star Colonel.”
  “I have received a message of what your Clan has done on Circe. 
  My Khan has told me that you may seek to usurp my victory with 
  the use of a nuclear weapon. Before I send my troops in, I wish to 
  know if you will fight with any shred of honor, query affirmative?”
  That caught her off guard. “You have me at a disadvantage, Star 
  Colonel.”
  “Your Clan unleashed an atomic weapon in battle. Your people 
  tried to kill the ilKhan in a cowardly attack that killed thousands of 
  your own people.”
  
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  No! “Not possible. There has to be some mistake.”
  “I have seen the images myself,” Osis pressed. “Your city of 
  Great Hope was destroyed. Thousands of innocent people were 
  killed. The ilKhan himself was caught in the blast, but has miracu-
  lously survived.”
  Destroyed? Negative!  She knew people there. Khan McEvedy 
  was said to be there. As one of the largest Wolverine holdings, the 
  destruction a nuclear weapon would unleash was unfathomable. 
  Negative…it could not have been her people. “I—I do not know 
  what to say.”
  “What you can say is that, despite the fact I come to fight you, to 
  subdue and crush you in battle, that you will not use such a weap-
  on. I have no desire for my Warriors or those that I would take 
  as isorla to be destroyed in such a dishonorable fashion.” Clearly 
  Osis was as confused and angry as she was starting to feel. 
  Trish composed herself, taking a few seconds to clear her mind. 
  “I will fight with honor. I need a few minutes to take in what you 
  have said—a few minutes to explain to my people. I trust that this 
  is not some sort of ruse on your part to stir our rage.”
  “I fight with honor.”
  “As will I. You have my word.”
  “After the destruction of Great Hope, it is impossible to know 
  what the value of the Wolverines word is. In the name of the Great 
  Kerenskys, I will accept your bond as a Warrior. I should not—but 
  I will.” The strain was clear in Osis’s voice.
  She fought back the tears welling in her eyes. “We will fight 
  all-out, Star Colonel. Those are my orders. You are coming to 
  dismantle my Clan. You can expect that my Warriors will use all 
  conventional means to survive.” 
  “Affirmative. I expect nothing less.”
  
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  Snow Raven’s Warship Avalanche 
  High Orbit over Dehra Dun 
  Circe  
  Clan Space  
  22 October 2823
  The message relayed from the Dehra Dun communications cen-
  ter on Circe was clear and concise. The images sent by the ilKhan 
  from McEvedy on the other side of the planet were horrifying. She 
  had seen such carnage years after the fact during the civil war. 
  These wounds on the Clans were fresh and deep. The city had 
  been destroyed, nuked from within. For Khan Merrell, it made no 
  sense. She knew Sarah McEvedy as if she were a sister, she had 
  known her for years. This was not her behavior. She cherished life. 
  These were her people that were killed. It made no sense to her. 
  Have you changed that much, Sarah? 
  Nicholas Kerensky had issued two basic commands that im-
  pacted her. The atrocity in Great Hope had to be dealt with. “The 
  Wolverines must be taught the price of their arrogance to unleash 
  weapons of mass destruction. Your Snow Ravens will teach them 
  that lesson.” It was an unprecedented move. Nicholas had autho-
  rized the use of a nuclear strike on the Wolverine force out on the 
  Rooster Plains, where they had been evading her units.
  The second order was just as succinct. The Grand Council need-
  ed to convene and discuss, “the war,” and the, “change in the 
  nature of this Trial,” with the Wolverine Clan. “War.” That word 
  had been clear to her. This was no longer about absorbing the 
  Wolverines into the other Clans. Nicholas was talking escalation 
  of some sort. She could only imagine what that meant. There was 
  a dark side to the ilKhan that she had seen over the years, and she 
  worried slightly that it was this aspect of his personality that was 
  going to drive his actions. 
  “Angel One,” she said into the shipboard comm system. Angel 
  One was one of her Ready Away fighters, manned and ready for 
  immediate departure. 
  “Raven Actual, I read you five-by-five.”
  “Angel One, we are going to be changing your payload and giv-
  ing your flight new orders.”
  
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  “Understood. Powering down for weapons mix reset.”
  No, you do not understand. I am sending you down to destroy 
  the Wolverines below. A sibling company, children in our eyes. I 
  am sending you down to teach them a lesson. 
  God help us all. 
  She watched as the fighters prepared for launch, staring out 
  the viewscreen, wondering, fidgeting. She sent orders out for her 
  ground forces to fall back into Dehra Dun for their own protection. 
  The Clans had not used nuclear weapons before in battle, even in 
  the vicious campaigns to reclaim the Pentagon Worlds. Now she 
  was going to be unleashing them. An eye for an eye. Her people 
  had trained for using them, but never a live fire exercise.
  “Raven Actual, this is Angel One.  We are loaded and primed. 
  Requesting you send the authorization code for launch.”
  Joyce’s hand hovered over the comm panel. The secured chan-
  nel was locked onto Angel One. She keyed her authenticode 
  sequence and sent the launch code. “Angel One, this is Actual. I 
  show you hot.”
  “Roger that, Raven Actual. The pickle is hot.”  His words were 
  drowned out by a blaring siren. Red lights flashed everywhere 
  on the bridge. “Sitrep!” she called across the bridge of the 
  Avalanche.
  “EMP alert! We have a WarShip emerging from a pirate jump 
  point twelve kilometers off the port bow,” the ops officer barked. 
  A WarShip…here? “I want that ship identified,” she commanded. 
  Her stomach tightened with the words. 
  There was a puzzled look from the sensor workstation. “Khan 
  Merrell, this does not make sense. We are reading the ship as the 
  SLS Bismark. That is impossible, though. The Bismark is part of 
  the mothballed Exodus fleet. I show the Bismark executing an ac-
  celeration towards us; weapons bays are showing pre-charging 
  sequences. Transponder signals paint her as a Wolverine ship.”
  “Are you sure, quiaff?” The Bismark was a huge ship, a Texas 
  -class battlewagon. She remembered its history from the war 
  against Amaris. The Bismark had been retired due to permanent 
  damage to her keel. Long term service was not in her future. She 
  was an old, quirky gal, but still a dangerous threat in battle. 
  
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  “Affirmative,” the sensor officer replied. 
  The Wolverines. Incredible! McEvedy had raided the Exodus fleet 
  to augment her own fleet. “Sound general quarters. All hands to 
  battle stations! Contact the rest of our fleet and have them con-
  verge on our coordinates. Have them set condition one!” A few 
  tense moments passed as each deck signaled ready for action. 
  “Sir, Angel Flight has cleared the launch bay. Bismark is now 
  moving to intercede between us and the surface. She is deploying 
  two DropShips and fighter escort.” 
  Why? Then it dawned on her. They were sending DropShips 
  down to recover the very troops that she was planning on destroy-
  ing. Their arrival couldn’t have come at a worse time. 
  Merrell moved over to the tactical display. Angel Flight suddenly 
  posed a problem. With an armed nuclear weapon onboard, Angel 
  One would show up on sensors as a dangerous threat. If it was the 
  Wolverines…and it had to be, if they were scanning, they would 
  pick it up. More importantly, they would come at it with every-
  thing they had. “Angel One, you are to go evasive. I am feeding 
  you targeting information,” she said, keying in the code to engage 
  the Wolverine ground forces on Circe forty-kilometers northeast 
  of Dehra Dun. The city would be spared. Its citizens would bear 
  witness to the destruction of Sarah’s defiant warriors. 
  “We have weapons tone!” the sensor officer called across the 
  bridge.
  “Helm,” she called out. “Bring the engines to point five. Break or-
  bit and put us down low and between the Bismark and Angel One.” 
  The Avalanche came to life. The throbbing of the engines, the 
  flickering of lights, everything told her that the massive ship was 
  readying for battle. “Lock weapons on the Bismark. Send them a 
  message, order them to recall their fighters and stand down.”  
  The Avalanche lurched hard and began a sickening spin. 
  Something had hit, something that had devoured armor. She knew 
  the feeling all too well. Damn, that is a Texas-class Battleship. It 
  might be old and rickety, but it is dangerous. The fact that they had 
  fired meant that they had probably detected the armed nuclear 
  weapon heading for the surface. Timing is everything… “Damage 
  report.” 
  “Multiple Naval PCC, and a single missile hit from the Bismark,” 
  Captain Fowler called from the center seat. “We have been hit on 
  
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  the starboard side aft. Armor apparently has held, but they are 
  targeting our engines, Khan.” 
  “Port batteries, return fire. Fire at will.”
  There was a high-pitched, distant whine as the Avalanche fired 
  several shots. “One battery hit, negative damage detected. One 
  went wide.”
  A warning beep from the sensor station drew her attention. The 
  sensor officer called out again. “Incoming missiles.” 
  “All hands,” she called, activating the voice response system 
  that transmitted her voice over the intercom to the entire ship. 
  “Incoming missiles. All hands brace for impact.” Turning to the 
  helmsman, she pushed off and drifted across the bridge to his 
  station. “Lateral roll. Ready the starboard batteries, full barrage. 
  Target the bridge of that ship.”
  Turning in space, she saw the tactical display and watched as 
  the Bismark moved to a lower orbit, matching her move. The tiny 
  dots of light, the plumes from the missiles, were barely visible. 
  They did not convey the firepower of naval anti-ship missiles. For 
  a moment, she remembered the message that the ilKhan had sent. 
  The Wolverines had used nuclear weapons already—she was sim-
  ply retaliating. What if the Bismark was firing nukes in response? 
  Her stomach tightened even more to a ball of knotted muscles. If 
  it was a nuclear response, there was nothing she could do at this 
  point. 
  In about a minute we will know. 
  “Bismark is firing naval lasers,” the ops officer called out. 
  “Targeting is not showing lock on us. My Khan, the target is Angel 
  Flight!” 
  “Damn!” she cursed. “Communications, patch me into Angel 
  One.”
  “Lateral roll nearly complete. Working on firing solutions, Khan.” 
  A lot was happening at once on the bridge of the ship.
  “This is Angel One, Actual. We are under fire. I have taken a hit. 
  Repeat, I have taken a hit. Angel One is still operational. I am going 
  to dive down into the lower atmosphere and shake this warship. 
  Angel One requests that you park yourself between us that that 
  battlewagon—Khan. Commencing our run now.”
  
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  “Roger, Angel One. Good hunting. Pay them back for their strike 
  on Great Hope.” Her voice was cut off by a low rumble and the 
  ship quaking around her. Warning alerts from the damage control 
  workstation came on. The missiles. They had hit. The lights on the 
  bridge flickered for a second, going brown, then out, then back on 
  again. Emergency power…not good news at all. 
  “Hit amidship, Khan. Power relays have been severed. We are on 
  auxiliary power here on the bridge. Aft ship reports still under full 
  power.”
  Captain Fowler spoke up. “Damage control teams to deck four, 
  section three. Seal battle damage and get those relays back on 
  line.” He looked over at Joyce and she could read the worry on 
  his face. “We have about a half-an-hour’s worth of power on aux. 
  After that we will start to lose control of parts of the ship unless 
  we transfer to aux CIC.”
  She nodded. Looking out the main viewscreen she watched as 
  the Bismark’s naval PPC’s fired again. This time they were not 
  locked onto the Avalanche, but on another distant target. Angel 
  One. “Sensors. Lock onto Angel One. Give me his status.”
  The officer worked fast and furious at the controls. He looked 
  up with a drained expression on his face. “Angel One is off the 
  board.”
  Her eyes widened. “Any signal from his payload?”
  The operator stabbed at buttons and controls furiously. “Sweet 
  Kerensky…” he muttered. There was a distant but brilliant flash 
  from the planet below. “Nuclear detonation on Circe.” From the 
  viewport on the bridge, the bright, white flash was somewhat 
  diffused from orbit. It looked as if a hurricane had suddenly ap-
  peared, a dark purple/black storm of carnage and destruction. A 
  sick, black circle of the storm appeared on the surface and began 
  to spread out. Flickers of red and orange appeared on the black—
  fires—negative—infernos erupting below. The ground seemed to 
  bubble sickly. It was as if a tornado of fire rose up stabbing into 
  space.
  “He did it,” she said unconsciously. 
  “Negative, sir,” the sensor operator called out. His face was 
  pale.
  “Negative?”
  
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  “Payload was dropped and detonated off-target,” his voice wa-
  vered. 
  “Where?”
  He hesitated as the color drained from his face leaving a white 
  visage of the Snow Raven officer. “It has detonated as an airburst 
  over Dehra Dun.”
  “Our capitol? Query negative?”
  “Affirmative, Khan,” the man said as if he were on the verge 
  of crying. “They city has suffered an almost direct hit.” As if to 
  drive home the point, another wave of missiles slammed into the 
  Avalanche, rocking the ship violently. “Captain Fowler?”
  The Star Captain checked his tactical display as he spoke. “Our 
  damage repair team was caught in the last attack. We are venting 
  helium. Jumping is out of the question. I recommend we break off 
  attack and commence emergency repairs.” It was not easy for him 
  to say it. She didn’t give the order. She nodded heavily. 
  Dehra Dun was gone—a memory. It was not supposed to hap-
  pen this way. This was supposed to be payback to the Wolverines 
  for wiping out Great Hope. The horrors of a nuclear attack had 
  returned to her people. This is my fault. I should have planned 
  for this contingency. I should have had more fighters up. I should 
  have driven this ship right into the side of the Bismark.
  What will I tell the ilKhan? What have I done? The blood of tens 
  of thousands of my own people is on my hands. She bent in the 
  midsection, as if someone had punched her. This is the price of 
  my perfidy to Sarah. She wanted to throw up, but couldn’t seem to 
  muster it. Even as her ship rose from the surface and arced away 
  from the Bismark she knew that her vessel was still at risk.
  Dehra Dun would be a blemish on her soul forever…and right-
  fully so. 
  
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  The Wolverine Enclave 
  Wombat Ridge 
  Strana Mechty 
  Clan Space 
  24 October 2823 
  The fast-moving Kintaro fired both of its short-range missile 
  packs at Trish Ebon’s Pulverizer, scoring solid hits with every war-
  head. She tried to lead the ’Mech slightly and waited for weapons 
  tone—a lock! She hit the trigger on her particle projection cannon 
  and slammed a shot into the right leg of the Smoke Jaguar. For a 
  moment the Kintaro gimped—it looked as if it was going to topple, 
  but it held its own. Damn these Jaguars—they are good.
  It was not an understatement. Star Colonel Stanton Osis had 
  proven himself a very skilled Warrior. His forces had a slight nu-
  merical superiority and were using it to the best of their ability. 
  Trish and her Wolverines had lost half of their combat effective-
  ness already, good Warriors dead or captured. Osis had lost a Star 
  of BattleMechs as well, but what he still had on the field was prob-
  ably more than enough to do the job.
  I cannot surrender. I am a Wolverine. I will not spend the rest 
  of my days as a Smoke Jaguar. She saw a Flashman lumber up 
  the ridge where she had opted to make a stand. The gray and 
  black streak pattern was marred where earlier hits had damaged 
  it. Trish opted to add to it. She fired her large lasers, slicing a nasty, 
  smoking hole along the front of the ’Mech. The heat in her cockpit 
  rose slowly but noticeably.
  The Flashman was not amused. The Jaguar fired its three large 
  lasers in retaliation. One went right over her Pulverizer’s shoulder. 
  The other two hit square in her shoulders. They did not leave long, 
  torn armor plates, but punched in deep. Myomer muscles on the 
  right arm gave way, dropping her Pulverizer’s arm slightly. She 
  saw fellow Wolverine Warrior Thomlinson land from his jump jet 
  flight down the ridge, putting his Guillotine between her and the 
  Flashman.
  “Thomlinson!” she said, moving up the hill to try and find an 
  angle for her shot. 
  “Pull back, Star Captain. I will deal with these cats,” Thomlinson 
  replied. She had known him for two years. Overconfidence was 
  not something that he ever demonstrated before. He believed he 
  
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  could win. But out of a small copse of trees at the bottom of the 
  ridge, a Jaguar Exterminator emerged and cut loose with its long-
  range missiles. At the same time, the Flashman turned to face the 
  new threat with a full salvo from its deadly array of medium la-
  sers.
  The lasers found their mark first. The medium-range weapons 
  filled the air with emerald beams. One missed, searing the soil 
  of Wombat Ridge. The others all found their marks, seeming to 
  envelop the Exterminator. Thomlinson listed back, but held his 
  ground. Trish moved uphill to line up the Flashman just as the 
  long-range missiles wracked his already mangled ’Mech. The mis-
  siles erupted like little pustules on the Wolverine ’Mech, popping 
  and spraying armor everywhere. Thomlinson dropped back onto 
  the ridge line, falling to a sitting position. She was surprised he 
  was still in the fight after the savaging he had taken. 
  Damn it, Franklin. You promised to come back and get me out of 
  here. Now would be a good time. She fired her modified PPC at the 
  Flashman at the same time that Thomlinson let loose with his own 
  barrage of medium lasers. The attack concentrated on the upper 
  portion of the Jaguar BattleMech. It stepped backwards down the 
  ridge. At the same moment she saw a new threat, an undamaged 
  Champion, come out of the trees. It fired…at Thomlinson.
  His Guillotine had never been designed for this kind of abuse. 
  The Exterminator fired at the same moment as the Champion. 
  There was little hope of survival for Thomlinson. His half-sitting 
  ’Mech tried to rise, attempted to get up. He could not. A pair of 
  missed shots furrowed the ground around him. The rest devoured 
  his Guillotine. She saw smoke, white curling deadly smoke, rise. 
  Thomlinson had been just another Wolverine Warrior, one that 
  had done his duty. He had saved her. Now it had cost him his life. 
  Anger tore at her face. “All forces fall back to the top of the ridge,” 
  she said. Sarcastically she smiled and spoke to herself. “Perfect 
  place for a last stand…” 
  The Smoke Jaguars came out in pursuit. The ridge was steep, 
  rocks jutting out every so often made for difficult footing. Her three 
  remaining BattleMechs kept firing at the slowed Jaguars as they 
  backed up the hill. The Flashman went down from a PPC shot from 
  a Stag II. It was of little consequence. We have nowhere to go. The 
  back of the ridge was impassible, and she knew her enemies knew 
  that. The Jags assumed a position near the fallen Guillotine, fir-
  ing upward. Many of the shots missed, but those that found their 
  mark moved each Wolverine closer to Thomlinson’s fate. 
  
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  “We have nowhere to go, Star Captain Ebon,” her comm system 
  signaled.  It was Lexi…always pointing out the obvious.
  “Then we have them where we want them,” she said through 
  gritted teeth. 
  “Affirmative, sir,” Lexi replied. 
  “On my order, we execute a charge. I want to punch right through 
  the Jaguars lines at a full speed. We can move down the ridge to 
  the bottom and then break out for the plains.”
  “We are with you, sir,” Carver’s desperate voice replied. “Give 
  the word.”
  She opened her mouth when suddenly the air between her unit 
  and the Jaguars became filled with brilliant, blue light. The sounds 
  was more like a cracking of lightning only a thousand times louder, 
  even from within the cockpit of her ’Mech. The beam or beams 
  was blinding, even with the dampers in the ferroglas cockpit.  A 
  second later another barrage appeared, lightning from the sky 
  that devoured an acre at a time. She heard a scream on the broad-
  band channel—not from one of her people. What is this? What is 
  happening? Another few seconds and she would have been in that 
  light. Light? No. Orbital bombardment. She smiled.
  As suddenly as it hit, the barrage stopped. Everything was burned 
  to carbon. The fallen form of Thomlinson’s BattleMech looked like 
  a charred tree stump more than a war machine. The same could 
  be said of the Flashman and two other Jaguar BattleMechs. The 
  other Smoke Jaguars were falling back in a full retreat. Trish was 
  stunned. What happened? 
  Her comm unit came to life. “This is the McKenna’s Pride to 
  Wolverine force on Strana Mechty. Dropship is in route to extract 
  you. Move out to the plains and prepare for immediate departure.” 
  The voice was that of saKhan Franklin Hallis. 
  “McKenna’s Pride?” she replied stunned. Of all the ships, this 
  one was one she had not expected. “You stole the General’s flag-
  ship of the Exodus? My God, Franklin, it is the Pride.” Now it made 
  sense. She had witnessed an orbital bombardment from the aging 
  battleship that had remained in orbit over Strana Mechty. Franklin 
  must have overpowered the honor guard and seized the ship. The 
  Clans frowned on the use of warships to fight honorable battles 
  on the ground. Good thing we are no longer Clan. 
  “Stolen? Negative Star Captain,” Hallis came back. “We over-
  
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  powered the guard and are using it to cover your withdrawal. We 
  are not taking the Pride, but leaving her here. I simply borrowed it 
  for a little while.”
  “This will not go over well with the Grand Council.”
  There was a pause. “Then what I do next will go over with them 
  even less.”
  
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  Twelve Minutes Later…
  The attack came without warning, raining down from the sky like 
  bolts of lightning thrown by Zeus. The Widowmakers’ hall and the 
  entire string of buildings tied to the construction of the new Grand 
  Council Chamber erupted with a stunning blast. Everyone in the 
  city below saw the explosion in Svoboda Zemylya Park. Rocks and 
  sod rained down on Katyusha City, ornately carved and sculpted 
  to exacting standards. 
  Each Clan maintained a hall of their own that tied to the site 
  where the new Grand Council chambers were being built. For a 
  moment, it was as if lightning had destroyed the complex. As the 
  white/gray smoke lifted, it became clear that some buildings had 
  been spared. Only the Widowmakers’ hall had taken a hit—and 
  the Grand Council site itself. Then another brilliant blast. This time 
  the Smoke Jaguars hall was taken down. A second later anoth-
  er blue-white burst, this time the Snow Ravens Hall. The Ghost 
  Bears Hall evaporated next, followed with the Jade Falcons. As if 
  to emphasize a point, another blast was sent into the rubble of the 
  Widowmaker’s Hall, cratering the site. A pyre of twisted black and 
  gray smoke rose from the hole.
  In orbit over Strana Mechty, aboard the McKenna’s Pride, saKhan 
  Hallis ordered the bombardment to stop. By now everyone on the 
  planet below knew something was wrong. This tomb, the shrine to 
  Aleksandr Kerensky, had fired on the world it had always watched 
  over. It was tempting to strike at the Clans’ production capabili-
  ties, but to do so would kill thousands of innocent workers. Khan 
  McEvedy would not have wanted that. The damage was not mili-
  tary in nature, but was designed to have a psychological impact.
  Word had reached him of the events on Circe, and just a few 
  hours ago of a nuclear attack on Circe. Why the Snow Ravens had 
  bombed their own capital city was lost on him, but it was obvi-
  ous from what he knew that the Wolverines had nothing to do 
  with the destruction of Dehra Dun. Both were being blamed on the 
  Wolverines. Franklin did not believe the media, but at the same 
  time knew what he believed was not important. The Wolverines 
  would bear the blame for these assaults. He had tried to reach 
  Khan McEvedy, but to no avail. McEvedy had been in Great Hope; 
  which meant that she was either dead from the blast, dead from 
  the fighting, or unable to communicate for another reason.
  I cannot let all of this fall apart…not now. 
  
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  Regardless, that left him, Franklin Hallis, as the sole leader of 
  the Wolverines. It was a weight that only one man could have un-
  derstood. The man laid out before him. He would have to leave 
  the warship, there was much to do. Forces on Lum and Marshall 
  had to be evacuated still, now most likely under the guns of the 
  enemy. Other Wolverine holdings had to be sabotaged so that the 
  other Clans would not benefit from seizing them. If Khan McEvedy 
  was dead, it meant that he was charged with the survival of the 
  Wolverines. Even now shuttlecraft and fighters from the surface 
  would be scrambling, daring to make a high speed run at the 
  McKenna’s Pride. Let them waste resources…this ship has served 
  its purpose for me today. 
  Franklin paused at the glass-topped coffin of the Great General 
  and looked at his face. “Your son is an evil man, General. He has 
  caused the deaths of innocents. Nicholas is selling my people out 
  to simply hold onto his power. Forgive me General, but he will be 
  made to pay. I am sorry, but you would do the same thing if you 
  were in my shoes—I know it.”
  He pivoted in mid-air and pushed away. In the pit of his stomach 
  he knew that the battles of the Wolverine Clan had just started.
  
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  Author’s Notes
  Years ago, I wrote up a little piece in some obscure sourcebook 
  that said that McKenna’s Pride was General Kerensky’s tomb. In 
  the end, I don’t think it made it into the sourcebook, but was one 
  of those wonderful tidbits filed away for future reference. During 
  the early stages of the planning for the invasion of the Clan home-
  worlds, I mentioned it to Bill Keith in hopes that he might get the 
  use it. When Bill pitched his original idea for the eventual inva-
  sion of Clan Space, he proposed that the fighting would not be on 
  Huntress, but on Strana Mechty. At a pivotal point in the battle, 
  the Inner Sphere fleet was all but lost when it dawns on young 
  Prince Victor to seize the McKenna’s Pride. I remember Bill’s line 
  for Victor during the pitch session: “Picture Victor looking up at 
  that big bad-ass battleship, with only five warriors defending it, 
  then saying, ‘Inform the commodore that I am transferring my flag 
  to the McKenna’s Pride.’” Brilliant! A part of me always wanted to 
  see the Bill Keith version. A part of me wanted to be aboard that 
  historic ship. 
  Of course we invaded Huntress, changed the nature of the inva-
  sion, and things were very good, but different. The scene never 
  happened, but the image was burned in my head. Bill and I both 
  thought that idea was neat, but it simply didn’t work. So, in salute 
  to Bill, I wanted to leverage the idea and have the old girl fire just 
  a few more shots in battle.
  Can you imagine how Nicholas is going to react? I think I have 
  a pretty good idea…stay tuned…same bat-time…same bat-chan-
  nel.
  Blaine Lee Pardoe
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Betrayal Of Ideals Part 3.pdf