August 15th3052
Wolf Clan base, Endlar
City,
Diosd
The ship bringing the leader of the Kell Hounds arrived discreetly, and its occupants disappeared into the depths of the Dire Wolf, for a secret meeting with the two Wolf Khans. Margaidh knew there would be an emotional reunion between Phelan and his parents, and it was only fair to allow them that time alone. But as she paced back and forth in her room, she willed them to finish, and call for her.
In her hand was a data chip, containing a recording for her mother. She had finished it only the day before, having changed it over and over again since she first started it six weeks ago. It had been hard knowing what to include and what to miss out. In the end, she had cut it and trimmed it, and the final edition was shorter than she had hoped. She had omitted everything about her accident and struggle to reain fitness; she knew that would be too upsetting for her mother. And she had briefly glossed over the battles with the Falcons, but she had spoken at length about Domask, and about how she had settled in with the Clan. She hoped her mother would not see her as a traitor.
Kristen too was silent. She had chosen not to contact her own family, and Margaidh could not understand Kristen's decision. She sat down beside Kristen, held her hand. Kristen looked fondly at Margaidh, brushed her cheek with her finger. "Don't worry about my family, Mags. It's my problem, not yours."
"I wish you'd tell me what the problem was. You have parents, a brother… why won't you contact them?"
Kristen sighed, and for a long while she said nothing. "My family are all… loyal Lyrans. Complete with Lyran prejudices. Hate Kuritans, hate Skye Seperatists, probably by now hate the Clans. And hate cowards too."
Margaidh frowned. She knew all too well what Kristen meant by Lyran prejudice.
"My family all think I died on Ridderkerk. They think I died a hero, defending the Commonwealth from the enemy. It's best left that way." She smiled, and gave Margaidh a kiss. "You're the only family I want, Mags."
They embraced, but were interrupted by the bleep of the communicator panel. Margaidh switched it on and Phelan's image smiled broadly at her. "Hi, Margaidh," he said.
Margaidh smiled back. "Hi. How did the reunion go?"
"Great. I think my parents are a bit overawed with everything. It got a bit emotional."
"How are you?"
Phelan shrugged. "Bearing up. Listen, I'd like to invite you and Kristen round to dinner this evening. My father is keen to meet you."
"You told him about me?" Margaidh was surprised. "And he still wants to meet me? You must have told him a lot of lies."
Phelan shrugged and shook his head. "Nineteen-thirty hours in the Khan's reception rooms."
Margaidh smiled. "We'll be there."
Margaidh went alone to the dinner. Kristen preferred not to attend, for fear of being asked awkward questions about her own family. When Phelan enquired about her, Margaidh told him that Kristen was feeling under the weather, but she suspected that Phelan recognised that was not the entire truth. But he did not press the issue, and ushered Margaidh into the adjoining dining room to meet his father.
At first, Margaidh had been concerned that she would not recognise Morgan Kell, since she had only ever seen him once or twice on the news, and even then over two and a half years ago. But when she saw him, she recognised him immediately. He was tall and imposing, despite his years. His long dark hair was streaked with grey and drawn back into a neat ponytail. Beneath his grey beard he smiled warmly, and Margaidh recognised in his eyes the same look she saw in Phelan's. It was hard to imagine that he was sixty-seven years of age.
Beside Kell stood a woman, small but nonetheless still bearing an appearance of strength. Her short, auburn hair betrayed only the slightest trace of grey, and she too was smiling. Like Kell, she wore the uniform of the Kell Hounds, and Margaid knew this would be Salome Ward, Phelan's mother.
Phelan introduced them, and they shook hands. Kell's grip was strong and confident.
"I am honoured to meet you, Colonel Kell." Margaidh said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.
"Likewise. Phelan has told me a lot about you. It seems you have made quite an impression on him." Kell smiled. "I had to see for myself if the stories were true."
Margaidh felt herself blush. "If they're good stories, then probably not."
They were interrupted then by the call for dinner, and took their places at the table. Margaidh had been placed next to Kell, at his request. Phelan sat between his mother and Ranna, and Natasha Kerensky was beside Ranna. The rest of the table was made up of members of Phelan's and Natasha's command, and a few Kell Hounds who had accompanied Morgan and Salome.
It was a meal fitting of a meeting between the leaders of the Wolves and of one of the Inner Sphere's most respected mercenary regiments. Margaidh, as an untested warrior with little status of her own, felt out of place and conscious that it was only her friendship with Phelan that had brought her into such company. It was hard to imagine that when she and Phelan had first met, he was no further up the ladder than she was now. And since he had become Khan, Margaidh wondered if their friendship could survive.
Morgan Kell interrupted her thoughts. "Would you prefer red wine or white?" he asked, pointing towards some bottles on the table.
Margaidh shook her head. "Neither, thankyou." She felt herself blush. "I… don't drink alcohol."
"Oh. I do apologise." Kell poured a glass of red wine for himself, and another for his wife.
Margaidh smiled. "It's okay. It's hard sometimes. But I've been drinking far too much for far too long. It's a sacrifice I have to make, to get what I want."
"And what is that?" Kell asked.
"My name. I'm a Lewis, and I won't rest until I've won the right to bear that name again."
Kell frowned. "In a … trial of Blooright? Like when Phelan won the name of Ward?"
Margaidh nodded. "It's a bit of an uphill struggle. I have to take my Trial of Position first, to regain my status as a Mechwarrior. Even that has proved to be an almost insurmountable task."
Kell nodded. "Phelan told me about your accident, and your struggle to recover. Frankly, I'm amazed. You must have an iron will." He gave a chuckle. "We could use someone like you in the Kell Hounds. I wonder if your Khan would let you come back with us?"
The blood drained from Margaidh's face and she glanced at Phelan, but he was deep in conversation with Salome. The chance to go back, to be reunited with her mother, was one she had never dreamed was possible. But she no longer had a Mech, or a regiment to go to. At that moment, she realised just how much she had changed in the last two and a half years.
She gave a smile. "Twenty-five years ago, your brother offered my mother a place in the Kell Hounds Battallion. She turned him down, because she already had a place to belong." She looked at Kell, and he reminded her of Phelan. "Your offer is a kind one, Colonel, but I must also refuse. I also have a place to belong, and that is here, with the Wolves. I want to finish what I've started."
Kell smiled, and nodded. "I can appreciate that. I made the same offer to Phelan, and he turned me down too."
"I have made many good friends here, Colonel. Your son is one of them."
"It's glad I am to hear that," Kell replied. "I am proud of him." He fell quiet for a while. "I only hope that fate does not find us on opposite sides of a battlefield. While Phelan is with the Wolves, they are not my enemy."
August 16th 3052
Wolf Clan Base, Endlar City
Diosd
Margaidh powered up the Mad Dog's engine and listend with satisfaction to it's hum. The sound was becoming a familiar one, as Margaidh was spending long hours in the cockpit of the Mech she had chosen for her Trial of Position. Phelan had tried to talk her out of her choice, claiming it was badly armoured and over-warm, but it was the Mech with which she was by now most familiar. She suspected the reason for its unpopularity with the Wolves was that the Jade Falcons liked it better.
As she marched out of the base and into the rolling countryside, she smiled. Having been cooped up in the Dire Wolf for so long, it was pleasant to take a mech out into a green, temperate landscape, especially one that reminded her of Skye. She glanced to her left, where a Timber Wolf marched alongside her, and she switched on the radio, a closed link between herself and her partner.
"Ready, Cowboy?" she said.
"Ready as I'll ever be," Cowboy replied. Since he and Margaidh had discovered they would be testing out together, on September 12th, they had practised together as often as they could.
Margaidh grinned inside her neurohelmet. "I haven't played hide-and-seek since I was a kid. This is going to be fun."
"I never played hide-and-seek with real guns," Cowboy replied. "And I never played against Natasha Kerensky. We're going to get our butts kicked, you know that, don't you?"
"Maybe. Maybe not."
The two Mechs advanced cautiously, their scanners active, searching for the six other Mechs that Margaidh knew were hiding out there. The rolling hills with their light wooded cover were making things difficult, and Margaidh knew it was going to be a close-in fight.
Margaidh scrutinised the Magscan display. It suddenly bleeped, and highlighted three Mechs concealed behind a ridge. A moment later, Cowboy spotted three more in a patch of woodland. "I'll take the ones in the trees," he said with a grin. "My SRMs are carrying Infernos."
"Roger that, Cowboy."
The Timber Wolf moved off to intercept the Mechs in the trees while Margaidh continued to close in on the ridge. The smallest of the three Mechs, a Nova, started to move around the ridge. The Nova was configured with three pulse lasers in each arm, the way Phelan liked it, and Margaidh began to worry that he had found time to break off from being with his parents just to make her life complicated.
Before the smaller mech could get within the range of its medium lasers, Margaidh let off a volley of LRM fire that peppered both the Nova, and the surrounding hillside, with missiles. The Nova shrugged off the attack and closed in, while Margaidh backed her own Mech away. She wanted to keep the little pest out of range of those lasers, while still allowing her to use most of her own arsenal.
She fired both large lasers and felt the wave of heat they generated, but both beams passed ineffectively over the top of the Nova. The small Mech moved quicker than her own, and no matter how much she tried, she could not prevent it from closing in on her. The Nova raked her with laser fire, searing great chunks off her armour, but while it was this close it was vulnerable, and the second time, her lasers did not miss.
Armour fell from one of the Nova's legs, and from the way it staggered, Margaidh felt certain she had done some internal damage too. But it did not give up, and kept on relentlessly slicing away at her mech with its lasers. At last though, weight and superior firepower won out over speed and the smaller mech eventually collapsed; it's left leg broken.
Margaidh glanced to where Cowboy was engaged in a battle of his own.The trees were ablaze and all three of his opponents had scattered. Cowboy was up against a Mad Dog of the same configuration as Margaid's own, she could see that he was doing well.
But Margaidh did not have long to contemplate her partner's position. A flight of LRMs from her second opponent rained onto her, and she was surprised to see not an Omni-mech, but an old Archer lumbering towards her. Painted in blue and gold, it looked as pristine as if it was straight off the production line. Although it outweighed her own Mech by ten tons, and was as yet undamaged, Margaidh knew that her own Mech was still superior in almost every way.
As she released her own flight of missiles, she started to wonder where an old Archer could have come from. Then she smiled and scolded herself. "Mags, you're an idiot. That's Morgan Kell!"
The Archer once again peppered her with missiles, and Margaidh glanced anxiously at the damage control screen. Bright red patches showed on the torso where armour had been breached. As she turned the Mad Dog around to keep lock on the Archer, she fired with both large lasers. Heat waved over her, but instead of dissipating as it usually did, it seemed to linger.
Damn. Must have lost some heat sinks. She did not dare to consider the alternative possibility; that the engine core was breached.
The Archer fired once more, and again Margaidh retaliated, but as her finger brushed the trigger, the computer's tinny voice spoke out. "Weapons offline. Please stand by."
"Stand by my ass!" Margaidh snapped back. "I'm getting shot at here! I don't have time to wait for you to cool down!" She raced her Mech as fast as she dared for the cover of some light woodland.
It seemed like an age before the weapons cooled down sufficiently, but it was really no more than a few seconds. When they did, Margaidh used only the missiles. She did not want to cause further heat problems by using the lasers too soon. To her relief, the missiles found their mark and the Archer staggered under the onslaught.
"Sorry, Colonel," Margaidh said aloud. "It's nothing personal."
But the Archer was not beaten yet. Another volley of missiles went wide of the trees but as it closed in, the arms came to bear and a pair of lasers sliced through the trees as if they were dry grass. The ruby beams burrowed deep into the Mad Dog's torso, and a whole panel of warning lights abruptly flashed.
"Warning… Engine core breached… Eject…" the computer said, in it's dispassionate voice. "Warning… Engine core breached… Eject…"
"I know, I know!" Margaidh replied, reaching for the ejection handles and pulling them hard. With a pop, the cockpit blew and the seat launched skywards, to return gently under parachute as the Mad Dog was ripped apart.
Margaidh closed her eyes, breathed a great sigh of relief that was cut short by her impact with the ground. As she untangled herself from the parachute and the seat straps, she looked up at the burning Mech and shuddered at how close she had come to disaster. She could not bear to consider what might have happened if the ejection system malfunctioned, and she wondered if that had happened to Domask. Had he pulled on those handles, and experienced a brief moment of terror as he realised the canopy had failed to fire?
The Archer stomped closer and came to a halt a hundred metres in front of her. Then it slowly bowed from the waist, in a manouver that looked much practised. Margaidh bowed back, hoping Kell could see her from up there. Then the Archer's canopy lifted, a long chain-ladder was thrown out and Margaidh heard a familiar voice over the tannoy. "Do you need a ride home?" the Colonel asked.
"Aff!" Margaidh shouted back, and scrambled up the ladder. As she neared the top, she saw that Cowboy's mech had toppled and his fight was also over. The Colonel leaned from his seat to help Margaidh into the cockpit, and she strapped herself into the second seat behind the pilot. "Thanks for the lift, Colonel," she said. "And thanks for the fight. It was… exhilarating."
Morgan Kell nodded. "Any time."
"Just one thing I need to know," Margaidh said. "Was Phelan in the Nova?"
"He was," Kell replied. "He said you were good, now I know you are. I thought you had me there, once or twice."
Margaidh smiled to herself as the Archer stomped back towards Endlar. Compliment from Morgan Kell was compliment indeed, and Margaidh knew now she had the chance to succeed. But there was something else that needed to be sorted out before the trial.
August 17th3052
Wolf Clan base, Endlar
City,
Diosd
Kristen knelt on the gantry beside a brand new Mad Dog¸ her attention divided between a pile of technical manuals and one of the mech's long-range missile systems. Margaidh paced nervously back and forth beside her, looking at what Kristen was doing, but not understanding.
"Well? Can you do it?"
Kristen stood up and looked at Margaidh, scratching her head. "On my own, I don't know. I'm going to need help, I think."
Margaidh shook her head. "I don't want anyone else to know. If someone finds out about the modifications, word might leak back to my opponents and I'll lose my advantage." She kept to herself the information that she had heard on the grapevine; that Vincent had requested to be her second opponent, and the request had been granted. Margaidh suspected that he had leaked the information deliberately, to frighten her and gain an advantage. In truth, it was something she had always expected, but it made her forthcoming Trial doubly difficult. Normally the three opponents in a Trial of Position did not have a vested interest in making certain the cadet failed. She was amused, however, that Vincent had elected to fight second. It proved that he, at least, expected her to clear the first, and most important hurdle.
"I don't know why you can't use one of the standard variants," Kristen muttered with a shake of her coppery curls, "…if you don't like the Primary."
"But I do, that's the problem. I just want… a few problems ironed out." Margaidh knelt beside the books, frowned at them. "Do you think it would work?"
Kristen opened a panel on the side of the mech and peered into it with a flashlight. "It might, you know," she said, her voice sounding muffled. "But I fail to see how it's going to help. I would have thought that extra armour would be more useful than extra heat sinks."
"That's what I thought at first," Margaidh said. "But then I thought different. You see, everyone knows the Mad Dog runs hot, and they play on that. Targeting engine and heat sinks, or forcing me to over-use the lasers. If I've got a couple of extra freezers in there, I won't be so vulnerable."
"But replacing a twenty-pack LRM with a short-range six pack is going to weaken your long-range advantage."
"Not much," Margaidh replied. "I can't fire both missile packs and both large lasers together without overheating anyway." She put the book down, and placed her hand on the mech's camouflaged body. "I don't suppose you could paint it blue…?"
August 23rd3052
Wolf Clan base, Endlar
City,
Diosd
Margaidh spent the rest of the week practising. Outside, she continued to practise with the Mad Dog Primary, knowing that by now her opponents would have worked out her preference. But indoors, she had persuaded Phelan to re-program a simulator to imitate the new modification, so she could practise new tactics without prying eyes looking on. At the end of each session, she carefully backed up the battleroms onto a separate data-chip, and erased them from the simulator's memory.
She saw little of Phelan, and nothing more of Morgan and Salome, until the time came for the Kell Hounds to depart. She went to the dropship to say goodbye, and found that Phelan was already there. He was embracing his mother, who had tears in her eyes, while Morgan Kell gave his son a friendly pat on the back. Margaidh could tell that he too was fighting tears. Their visit had been too short for all of them.
When Kell saw Margaidh, he smiled, and beckoned her to join the group. "Have you changed your mind about my offer? Are you coming with us?"
Margaidh gave a smile and shook her head, leaving the Colonel looking crestfallen.
Phelan glanced at her. "The Clan would not stand in your way, Margaidh, if you wish to go," he said.
Margaidh shook her head. "I came to say goodbye, Colonel, and to ask a favour of you." She pulled a holo-disk from her pocket. "Phelan told me that you may find it possible to pass on a message to my mother, so I recorded this for her. She deserves to know that I am alive and well."
Kell took the disk in his hand. "Of course I will. That is a promise." He smiled and kissed her goodbye. Margaidh thanked him and then she quietly crept away, leaving Phelan and his parents to say their own final farewells in peace.
Phelan caught up with Margaidh later that afternoon, in the simulator room. She had finished her days training and was studying the session recordings, analysing possible weaknesses. There were barely three weeks left until her Trial, and she was determined to be ready for it.
She did not notice Phelan until he had been sitting beside her for almost fifteen minutes, watching the recordings with her.
"Too cautious," Phelan said, making her jump with surprise. He pressed a button on the panel and the recording whirred backwards at high speed. "Here," he said, pointing at the screen. "You should have moved out of cover here, as the Timber Wolf retreated."
Margaidh frowned and shook her head. "Phelan, I'm fighting in a Mad Dog. Armour like paper. Moving out of cover then would have been stupid."
"No. The trick is to know when to take a gamble. If you play safe all the time, you will be defeated in the end."
Margaidh smiled, knowing he was right. "The Timber Wolf was blindsided, right?" Phelan nodded, said nothing. Margaidh could tell his mind was on other things. "Your parents got off okay?"
"Aff. I wish it could have been longer." He paused. "Did you manage to ask my father about whether Dan Allard was…"
"No," Margaidh interrupted. "It would not be his place to say. That is a decision for my mother to make." She fell silent, recalling how difficult it had been not to ask the Colonel about her father. Phelan changed the subject.
"One thing I don't understand," he said. "Why did you turn down the chance to go back?"
Margaidh gave a long sigh, and looked at him. "I do not belong there any more," she replied. "I didn't realise that, until Colonel Kell offered me the chance and I realised I no longer wanted to go." She looked back at the screen, watching the unfolding of her battle with the Timber Wolf. "I am not the same Margaidh Lewis who went off to join the Rangers with a head full of hope and glory. I am Margaidh Wolf now. This is where I belong."
Phelan was silent for a while, and he gave her a friendly kiss. "I am glad you decided to stay," he said. "We would all miss you."