AUTHOR'S NOTES: So a little bit of 'Mech action to start off with, then the introduction of a new character (and a familiar one if you've read this series before), and then Sheila has dinner with her parents. The last bit may sound a little boring, but it involves a certain Phelan Kell...

Mogollon Plain

Persistence, Tamar March, Federated Commonwealth

30 July 3049

Sheila surveyed the dry landscape of the Mogollon Plain. "Plain" conjured images of wide-open spaces, but the Mogollon wasn't quite like that: there were old lava flows from a long-dead volcano here, which left ridges of black rock incongrously in the middle of prairie grass. And somewhere in there, she thought, is the Scots Greys lance.

Her eyes flicked down to the Shruiken's instrument panel. It was ergonomically well-made, with all information she needed in four large multifunction displays. One showed her 'Mech's current status, which was nominal; another showed her target's status, which was blank, since she currently wasn't targeting anything; the third was her navigational display, and the fourth showed the view behind her. Her eyes went back up to the Heads-Up Display projected on the canopy, which registered her 'Mech's speed and distance to target. Crosshairs were set in the middle of the display, which were currently a dull red, since there weren't any targets. Gold lines on either side of the HUD told her the current arc of her weapons.

Behind her, the 13th Light Dragoons were spread out in a tactical formation. To give her experience in running a lance, Kazikawa had given her command; his Banshee was to her right. To her left was MechWarrior Kaatha's Griffin, while MechWarrior Marcus Drax was bringing up the rear in his Phoenix Hawk. In actual combat, Kazikawa would be to the rear, commanding the company while Sheila handled the lance, so that the major would not get too busy, trying to run the company and fight his lance.

Sheila raised her Shruiken's weapon arm, the hand signal for the lance to halt. She stared at one particularly rugged line of lava flows about 390 meters in front of her. Nothing moved there, but they had been hunting the Scots Greys for half an hour now. The radar set into the "ears" of the Shruiken were not picking up anything, but the lava ridge would blank that out; the high iron content in the Mogollon tended to disrupt her magscan, the Shruiken's magnetic anomaly detector. I wonder if they're over there…

She got her answer a second later. Four flights of LRMs erupted from behind the lava flow and curved into the blue sky, even as her earphones shrilled with the sound of a lock-on. She marveled at just how many missiles were inbound: no less than seventy. The smoke they left behind them nearly blotted out the sun.

Sheila didn't have to give an order: her lance scattered. It didn't help much. Two flights targeted Kazikawa, and both hit. Luckily for all involved, it was not real combat: the missiles were harmless training rounds that only left smoke, and their frangible warheads shattered on contact with the Banshee's armor. His onboard computer did the rest, however, simulating damage to the legs and torso, and the destruction of a medium laser. The other two flights went after Sheila, but only one hit. That was bad enough, smashing into her center torso and marching their way to hit the canopy. "Shit!" Sheila screamed. The missiles did not penetrate the armored canopy, of course, but just their impact made her jump and nearly lose control of her 'Mech. Even in real combat, the thick plexiglass would've held, but there was always the odd chance that one missile would find a chink in the armor, blast its way through, and immolate her in her seat—what veterans called the "golden BB."

Sheila tried to calm down, her heart pounding. Okay, okay, think! she commanded herself. That many LRMs…okay, that's Lance Commander Cropia's Archer and one of the Scots Greys' Crusaders; they've got two of them. She checked the lava ridge, but saw nothing other than the dissipating smoke trails. I can't see them, so they're hull down, using indirect…which means they've got a spotter. "Alpha Charlie Six to all Alpha Charlies!" she shouted, a little too loudly, as another flight of missiles reached into the air. "They've got a spotter out there—look for him!" The missiles had targeted Drax's Phoenix Hawk, but the nimble Phoenix Hawk was already running out of the way.

"Alpha Charlie Six, Alpha Charlie Two," Kazikawa reported calmly. "Contact left, Wolverine, 400 meters."

Got you! Sheila thought. "Roger, let's engage! Charlie Two, take the Wolvie! Charlie Four, hook right and flank! Charlie Three, follow me—let's get close and out from under these missiles!"

"Charlie Four, on my way!" Drax leapt his Phoenix Hawk high on its jumpjets to the right. Sheila frowned—she'd actually wanted him to stay down, since now the Scots Greys would know what she was up to—but it would still distract them. "Contact front! One Archer, one Crusader!"

Wait—one Crusader? Where's the other one? Sheila ran her Shruiken up to full speed, headed for the lava ridge, with Kaatha following behind. Okay, the Scots Greys have two of them, and one of them is Alan Foster's, and he's got a—shit. He's got a Crusader-L. That's got jumpjets. Which means he's trying to flank us, and he'll jump over the ridges. She quickly glanced down at the navigational display. The flow's thicker to the east. I'll bet that's where he is.

"Charlie Four, engage the Wolvie!" she ordered. "Charlie Two, cover the right—I think we're going to be flanked!"

Kazikawa had already connected with one of his PPCs, forcing the Wolverine to move, which gave away his position. He turned to the right as ordered, while Kaatha left her position behind Sheila to engage. When the Wolverine moved again, she engaged with her PPC and LRM-10, the other 55-ton 'Mech at perfect range. Her missiles were just as harmless, while the PPC did not actually fire; the computer simulated the hit. Sheila twisted in that direction as she reached the ridge, her 'Mech's head following her own movement. She brought the right arm around, got a lock, and pressed and held the trigger on her right joystick. The computer traced two simulated PPC shots; one hit, and the Wolverine staggered. Sheila grinned: it had been a lucky shot to the head. Revenge is mine, asshole! Unlike the light damage that the LRMs would have caused to her in actual fighting, the PPC shot would've nearly taken the Wolverine's head off. The computer would also take heat sinks offline to simulate the heat buildup, but even with two PPCs firing at once, the double heat sinks easily handled the load.

"Charlie Two, contact right, Crusader. Engaging." Sheila saw the Crusader jump over another lava outcropping, only to find the Banshee waiting for it. The MechWarrior's surprise was visible, and it hurriedly jumped back under cover, but not before Kazikawa raked it with PPC, autocannon, medium lasers, and a SRM for good measure. The Crusader's hasty return SRM fire missed.

"Charlie Six, Charlie Four, engaging Crusader!" Drax sang out.

"Charlie Four, which one?" Sheila replied.

There was a slight hesitation, and Drax's voice sounded sheepish when it came back up on the radio. "The one with the Archer." Drax was just as inexperienced as she was, a green MechWarrior who had joined just a few months prior.

Got it—that's Cropia and Iniqui Homma. Sheila made a quick check of the battle, trying to keep it straight in her mind; even if her sensors were working correctly, they could only give her information. It was up to her to figure it all out. Kazikawa would undoubtedly step in, but she didn't want him to. I need to learn this. She took a shot at the Wolverine again and missed by half a kilometer, but it was falling back under Kaatha's steady fire, and the occasional long-range shot from the Banshee. The huge assault 'Mech was moving slowly, daring the other Crusader to jump out again.

Sheila stomped down on the pedals that controlled her 'Mech's speed, activating her own jumpjets. 70 tons of 'Mech could not fly, but jumpjets were proof that, with enough power, anything could. She lofted skyward, clearing the lava flow, and looked down. She got a quick glimpse of the battlefield, and translated that into her next move. "Charlie Two, that other Crusader is moving to your right!" She turned as best she could in midair—which wasn't much—but got exactly what she had wanted. Her Shruiken landed behind the Archer, in perfect parameters for both her PPCs and medium lasers. The two 'Mechs had turned to engage the Phoenix Hawk, apparently forgetting, or not knowing, that the Shruiken could jump.

Sheila mashed both triggers, firing everything she had. Even the efficient double heat sinks could not dissipate all of that, and warnings went off as the heat gauge on her instrument panel climbed into the orange. Heat washed through the cockpit, but Sheila tried to ignore it. She had fired just before touching down, so one PPC and a laser missed, but the others marched across the Archer's back. One laser carved a scar down the right side of the torso, clearing a way for the PPC to blast its way in. Suddenly the other 'Mech slumped, as the onboard computer cut the power: her PPC would have hit the Archer's LRM magazine, blowing it apart—if this was a real fight.

The rest of the fight took only a few more minutes, especially after Kazikawa claimed the other Crusader shortly after Sheila "killed" the Archer. With the Wolverine heavily damaged, Lance Commander Charles Cropia surrendered. Once more, had it been real, the Wolverine and remaining Crusader would've broken off the engagement and tried to retreat, but this was simulation.

"Hey, Yoshi," Cropia called out over the radio, as the two lances began the march back to Jestin Ridge. "That was a nice bit of MechWarrioring there. I thought I had you with the LRM ambush, and Foster and Scott working his way around your flanks."

"As much as it pains me to admit," Kazikawa replied, "that was our new lance commander. She's running the lance today." There was just a tiny hint of approval there, and Sheila wanted to cheer.

"Hey, hey!" Cropia laughed. "Nice work, Sheila. Don't know if it's natural talent or beginner's luck."

"It's almost as if she went to the Nagelring or something," Homma put in.

"Can't be!" This from Curtis Scott, the Wolverine pilot. "Her lance is way too light for anything the Steiners would train her for." It was a running joke among MechWarriors: House Steiner loved their assault 'Mechs, to the point that a "Steiner scout lance" was supposedly three Atlases and a Banshee.

Sheila grinned with the banter. It felt good to hear, after wondering if she would fit in with the veterans. Even Kazikawa had seemed halfway decent, after riding her like the proverbial three H-bill mule for the past few days. As Kazikawa took the lead and she fell in on his right side, her smile got bigger. Her father was supposed to be in later, and tomorrow was her day off—and finally a date with Tooriu. She felt a delicious tingle in the pit of her stomach at that thought.

Sheila followed the assistant tech's light wands, guiding her into the Shruiken's niche in the 'Mech bay. Once in place, she shut down the 'Mech's engine, and opened the canopy as the instrument panel went dark. Fresh air, even if it was scented with oil, lubricants and the other smells associated with BattleMechs, flooded into the Shruiken's cockpit. She sat back in the seat for a moment. Whew.

"Hiya, Sheila!" Sheila turned at the voice, as close-cropped, bright red hair came into view on her right. Astech Maysa Bari chinned herself on the canopy frame, holding on monkeylike to rungs and cutouts on the Shruiken's torso. She grabbed another handhold, balanced herself, and turned the switch that safetied Sheila's ejection seat. Sheila was unstrapping. "Maysa, you didn't have to do that. I've got it."

"I know. I felt like it." Maysa's smile was infectious. The fourteen year old had grown up in the Sentinels, like so many others—but she was an orphan, literally left in a basket when the regiment had been assigned to Zebelgenubi on the Marik frontier. Even her name was one given to her by her adoptive mother, Marion Rhialla, though Maysa had been more or less raised by the regiment as a whole. She had played in the 'Mech bays as a child, then began doing odd jobs, then worked her way into becoming an assistant tech. She clambered down the side of the Shruiken as Sheila more gingerly followed her down, closing the canopy as she did; one misstep and Maysa would have fallen to a likely and grisly death. She actually jumped the last ten feet, executing a perfect jumptrooper roll to her feet. Sheila settled for stepping onto her 'Mech's dusty foot and onto the bay floor. "Anything I need to do?"

"Maysa, you're not assigned to my 'Mech or anything." The Sentinels did not assign techs to specific 'Mechs.

"No, but I'm just asking." The teenager put her hands on her hips and kept smiling.

"Check the canopy for cracks, but that's about it. Maybe wash it off some."

"You got it!" Maysa threw her a thumbs-up, turned at the sound of someone else approaching them, and her smile evaporated like ice on a hot sidewalk.

Mimi Stykkis walked up to Sheila. She looked at Maysa and gave the astech a sardonic smile. "Saint Maysa."

"Mimi." The word was said between clenched teeth.

"What is it, Mimi?" Sheila deliberately kept her voice light.

"Your pops is back. He requests dinner with you at 1700 sharp." Mimi bowed like a Liao courtier. "I am merely a simple messenger."

"Oh! Thanks, Mimi." Sheila's heart leapt at seeing her father for the first time in awhile. "Crap…that's in thirty minutes. I'd better go change and get cleaned up." Few MechWarriors smelled good after hours in a hot 'Mech.

"Won't this interfere with your date with you-know-who?" Mimi gave Maysa a sidelong glance.

"That's later. Much later." Sheila winked at Mimi, then gave Maysa a quick hug. "Thanks, Maysa."

"No problem." Maysa's smile was back, but it was fleeting. Sheila flipped Mimi a wave, then jogged towards Kazikawa for a quick debrief.

The two other women watched her go. "Mmm, mmm," Mimi sighed elaborately. "Sheila has such a nice, tight ass." She watched out of the corner of one eye for Maysa's reaction. It was the expected one: the astech went bright red with a mixture of embarrassment and rage. Mimi decided to needle her some more. "What, Saint Maysa? Oh, that's right. You hate to be reminded that I like girls as well as guys."

"That's not it!" Maysa shot back, rising to the bait.

"I forgot." Mimi leered at her. "You don't even like to hear about sex at all. Now you're going to have to go to Confession, won't you, like a good little Catholic?" She peered down the front of Maysa's tech coveralls, which was zipped down a bit. Nothing was showing, but that didn't stop Mimi. "You know, you're old enough to bleed, so you're old enough to breed, Maysa. You've even got boobies now—good firm ones, looks like. You should go get laid. Maybe a boyfriend would remove that giant stick from your ass and replace it with something a lot more fun." Mimi shrugged. "Or a girlfriend. I mean, I could do it." She made an extremely lewd gesture with two fingers and her tongue.

Maysa gave an inarticulate sound of rage and punched Mimi in the jaw. More surprised than hurt, Mimi went to the bay floor. The sound of the punch barely traveled, but heads turned at the sudden attack all the same. Maysa's hands went to her mouth in shock. "I…I'm…I've never…I'm sorry…"

Mimi laughed, got to her feet, and dusted off the back of her fatigue pants. "Well, now. A little honest to God anger. There's hope for you yet, Saint Maysa." Mimi stuck her tongue out, turned, and skipped away, leaving a confused Maysa behind her.

Mimi stopped skipping when Kazikawa gave her a glacial look, and caught up with Sheila, who had stopped at the entrance to the bay. "Stop giving her shit, Mimi," her roommate warned her.

"Ah, c'mon, Sheila," Mimi snickered. "Maysa's so easy to piss off. Then you get to watch her try to figure out if she wants to turn the other cheek like a good little Christian girl or call me a slut. It's hilarious."

"Not to me," Sheila said coldly. "And not to her mother. If Marion finds out, she'll run you until you puke." She shook her head. "What is it between you two? You and Maysa haven't liked each other since you hit her on the head with a stick when you were six and she was two."

"And you punched me in the gut and made me barf up my PBJ." Mimi laughed. "Funny, we were friends after that." She looked back into the 'Mech bay behind them. "I just get so sick of her holier-than-thou bullshit, Sheila. That's why I nicknamed her Saint Maysa. She's always judging me like she's better than me."

"Today she was better than you," Sheila replied. "I saw what you did with your fingers, Mimi. That was uncalled for, and you know it."

Mimi gave Sheila an icy look of her own. "That's another thing I have with her. I give her some shit, and instead of taking a swing at me, or telling me to fuck off, she just sits there, or cries—then she goes and tattles on me to her mom or you. Sooner or later, she's going to have to quit hiding behind someone's skirt. At least she showed some balls today." She poked Sheila in the shoulder. "As for you, Sheila Arla-Vlata, you can go and fuck right off." She turned her back and headed into a side corridor.

Sheila didn't break stride. "Whatever," she mumbled, and headed for their room.

Sheila opened the door to her parents' small apartment. "Dad!"

"Hey, kiddo!" Calla Bighorn-Vlata turned and was nearly knocked down. He managed to keep his feet as she hugged him. "Easy! You're not ten anymore and your papa isn't thirty."

"Sorry," Sheila apologized happily. Her father was only three inches taller than her. Calla was losing a battle to age and weight—his waistline had expanded and his hair had thinned from the lean, thick-haired man Sheila remembered from her childhood. He wore glasses now all the time, instead of just when he was reading; corrective surgery never quite worked on the Vlatas, and Sheila had a feeling one day she would be wearing glasses too—but that was future Sheila's problem. "How was Arc-Royal?"

"Oh, not too bad. Scenic."

"What did Morgan Kell tell you?"

"Sheila!" Arla scolded her daughter from the kitchen. "It hasn't been five minutes since you greeted your father and you're interrogating him. Do you want your eggs scrambled or over easy?"

"Neither, Mom! You know I hate eggs." She looked at her father quizzically, and Calla shrugged. "Breakfast for dinner tonight. Your mother said you had a date after dinner, so she's making something quick."

"And now you're interrogating, Calla!" Arla called out.

Calla shrugged again; it was true. He motioned Sheila to the couch while he sat in a rocking chair, one of the few possessions that the family had that could be called an heirloom. "Well, I assume your mother won't mind if we talk about your new assignment. What do you think of Kazikawa?"

Sheila decided to be honest with her father. "He's an asshole."

Calla laughed. "Yeah, he can be."

"Can be? Dad, he's always one!"

"Making you run around for being late isn't being an asshole, Sheila. That's just good discipline."

Sheila wasn't giving up on her assessment. "Dad, it's not just that. Yeah, I deserved that for missing formation. But he's been riding me. Gives me shitty little jobs. Night before last, he had me guarding the lines in the repair facility's parking lot. In my 'Mech. All night. Just in case someone steals them, he says." Sheila snorted. "I didn't do anything wrong. I've been on time for formations. I've obeyed his orders. My Shruiken is in top shape—better than that old pile of scrap he pilots."

Calla leaned back in the rocking chair, crossing his legs and bracing one hand against an arm of the chair—an old pose Sheila knew well. "Sheila, it's a time honored tradition that the new guys and girls are occasionally asked to do stupid things. It teaches you to obey orders. Not unlawful ones, mind, but being ordered to guard lines in the parking lot isn't unlawful. It may seem petty and stupid, but one day, you just might find yourself doing the same thing—as part of training up new lance commanders."

"Dad, that's fine. But he's constantly calling me 'Lance Commander.' Never by name—not until today, on the exercise. And he's always looking at me like he wants to whip my ass, and my 'Mech like he wants to melt it down."

"You want a transfer?" Calla asked.

Sheila shook her head after a moment. "No."

"Good, because I wouldn't have given you one." Calla sighed. "Sheila, Yoriyoshi Kazikawa has had a very rough life. Leaving the Combine meant his family disowned him; there's an actual grave with his name on it somewhere on Dieron. That works on a man's psyche. He's a Major, yes, but had he remained with the DCMS he'd either already have his own regiment, or he'd be honorably dead. Instead he's stuck with us, because he believed Takashi Kurita was wrong. He commands a company, and then here comes Sheila Arla-Vlata, newly graduated from the Nagelring, green as hell, and she's got herself a lance. A demi-lance to be sure, the most junior lance commander in the regiment to be sure, but someone who is still just one rank below him. And she's got the newest 'Mech in the Sentinels, with lostech that only a handful of our 'Mechs have—and his Banshee isn't one of them."

"But he'll probably get one of the new BNC-5Ss when they come out. At the very least, Nicia will probably mod his Banshee with a Gauss Rifle or ER-PPCs or something before then," Sheila argued, referring to Nicia Caii, the Sentinels' Master Tech.

"He might, in two years or so—but he's got to be wondering if you're nipping at his heels," Calla explained. "He thinks he's going to be eased out in favor of some new blood."

"Oh, for fu—for heaven's sake, Dad!" Sheila remembered just in time not to curse in front of her father. Calla didn't actually mind, but Arla did. "It'll be years before I have my own company."

"Maybe, maybe not." Calla got to his feet as Arla called for them to wash up. "You have to understand something, Sheila. We have a whole new generation coming into this regiment, you among them. All of you were born right after the Fourth Succession War. You don't remember the Inner Sphere before that, with the Capellans still fairly strong and Davion and Steiner being independent nations. Lostech for you kids isn't going to be something out of the history books. That's going to change everything—tactics, 'Mech design, you name it. It already is. Hell, Teddy Kurita showed us that in '39, and he didn't have half of what we're getting now." He washed his hands as Arla set out plates of eggs, toast and bacon. "It's a new day, Sheila, and the future belongs to your generation. Ours? Mine, your mom's, Yoshi Kazikawa's? It's fading."

Arla sat down at the kitchen table. "Excuse me, husband, but we're not exactly dead with old age."

Calla took his seat as well. "No, hon. But we're not getting any younger, either." Arla scoffed at that, and Sheila smiled; her parents' banter was usually fun to listen to. Usually: the Bighorn-Vlatas weren't always one big happy family.

That reminded Sheila of something. "Did Max come with you?"

"Sure did. He did pretty well at NAMA. In fact, when you said you had a date tonight, I thought it might've been him. You guys did write each other all the time when you were at the 'Ring." Calla grabbed some bacon off the plate. "Who's the guy, Sheila?"

The question hit Sheila squarely in the flank, as Calla intended: it had been said casually, but the intent was clear. Sheila quickly looked at her mother for support, but Arla looked even more curious than her husband. Sheila tried to buy time by grabbing a fistful of bacon for herself, but with her parents staring at her like a pair of ComStar inquisitors, she wilted. "Tooriu Kku."

Arla's eyebrows came together in confusion, but Calla, after a moment, nodded. "He's in the New Orleans Grays, in Beta/3. You two were at the 'Ring together."

"He was?" Then Arla remembered. "Oh, yes. The big one who said 'Yo' to Hanse Davion."

Sheila had to laugh at that memory. Luckily, the Prince of the Federated Commonwealth found Tooriu's flippant attitude to be amusing rather than insulting. "That's him."

"How long have you been dating?"

Sheila crammed bacon into her mouth to help disguise her expression. When she'd swallowed, she said, "Three months. It's nothing serious, Dad. He's just a friend." She willed herself not to look guilty. She was not about to tell her parents that it was something serious, and that their little innocent maiden was neither little, nor innocent, nor a maiden anymore.

Calla seemed to accept it, as he poured himself a beer; Sheila now tried not to look sick as her father washed down eggs and bacon with Arc-Royal Super Dry. Calla never drank to excess, but he did enjoy a good beer—but with breakfast seemed to be a bit much. Arla poured herself some milk and gave Calla a dirty look. "I'm not crazy about it," Calla finally said. "But you're a grown woman now, so I guess I have to accept you'll start dating."

"Dad, you act like I should be in a convent somewhere."

"I thought about it, but the Order of St. Joan didn't have any openings for MechWarriors."

Since her mother still didn't look convinced, Sheila changed the subject. "So…Morgan Kell."

Calla nodded. He didn't feel like staying on the subject of his daughter's love life either. "Well, it's like we thought. The Kell Hounds aren't going to have too much trouble with Redjack Ryan. Ryan will put up a fight and then melt back into the Periphery like he always does. Having a battalion of Sentinels out there isn't going to change anything, and we'd just get in the Hounds' way." Calla cut his eggs into slices. "I'm not that broken up over it. The FedCom isn't paying us any more to go out and hunt pirates, so we might as well stay snug here on Persistence. I imagine they'll probably deploy us back to Grunwald next summer. They really don't need the Sentinels out here. Hell, Victor Steiner-Davion just got assigned to the 12th Donegal Guards, just over at Trellwan, just because Hohiro Kurita got the 14th Legion of Vega over on Turtle Bay." Sheila filed that away for future interest. Trellwan wasn't too far from Persistence—practically next door, by galactic standards. It was oddly comforting to have another friend, or at least decent aquaintance, that close. "That reminds me, Sheila—what happened with Phelan Kell?"

That question also caught her by surprise, though it was nowhere near as personal as with Tooriu. "Do you want to know, Dad…or does Colonel Kell?"

"Me. He asked me about it, and I told him the truth—I don't know. Other than you were the deciding vote on the cadet honor board."

Oh shit, Sheila thought. Morgan Kell was the last person in the known galaxy she wanted angry at her. "Uh…was he pissed?"

"Didn't seem to be. He'd read the report. He was just curious as to why you voted the way that you did."

Because I think Phelan was an arrogant dickhead, who walked around with a permanent chip on his shoulder? Sheila thought. It wasn't the actual reason she'd voted against Phelan on the board, but it played a significant part. "There was a bad snowstorm last year. Bad even by Tharkad standards. We had to use the tunnels just to get to class. Anyway, the newsvids reported that a school bus had gotten trapped and no one could get to them. The Archon was going to send out some of her Royal Guards, but Phelan thought there wasn't time. He stole a 'Mech from the bay, somehow got the damn thing out there, and used the engine to keep everyone warm."

"Sounds like he did the right thing," Arla observed.

"I don't think so. Neither did most of the Board. Stealing the 'Mech didn't bother me—it was dumb, and it broke the Nagelring honor code, but it wasn't enough for me to convict. He did the right thing there, even if it was for the wrong reasons. It was the fact that he was such in a damn hurry, and he was too afraid of getting caught, that all he had with him was some first aid kits he scrounged from the other 'Mechs. That wasn't enough to save the injured kids, and some of them died." Sheila remembered Phelan on the stand, in front of the honor board. Most of the time, he had been adversarial, snapping at the board, asking them why they hadn't done the same thing he had. When recounting how he'd watched some of the children slowly ebb away and die right in front of him, Phelan had cried.

"So what changed your mind?" Calla asked.

"That did, Dad. If Phelan had just asked the commandant of cadets for permission, or hell, just some of us, we might've been able to help. We were closer than the Royal Guards. But he didn't. He ran off half-cocked. And rather than admit he'd botched it, he sat in the dock and told us we were all a bunch of cowards for not helping him. But he never even asked for help." She remembered Phelan's glare, and his parting shot that he didn't need the goddamn Nagelring; he had the Kell Hounds. "To be honest, Dad…I wanted to whip his ass for him. He was always a prick." She ate her toast. "The bastard got what he deserved. But…um…don't tell his dad I said that."

"I won't. I met Phelan a few times. Good kid, took after his parents in the simulator, but he sometimes acted like he was King Shit on Turd Mountain. Morgan and Salome should've beat it out of him." Calla was a firm believer in spare the rod, spoil the child—Sheila had felt the bite of a belt a few times, when she'd lied to her father, or when she'd snuck into the 'Mech bays during a full scramble and nearly been squashed. Calla's punishments were sparing and rare, but Sheila remembered them. Arla rarely resorted to physical punishment; her discipline of her daughter was more mental, and equally as effective, such as grounding her or taking away Sheila's Playstation 2000 for a month. "Well, for what it's worth…you did the right thing. Sounds like if Phelan hadn't been such a jerkoff, he would've gotten off with demerits."

I wonder, Sheila thought to herself. She'd asked herself why she'd been so eager to see Phelan Kell taken down a peg. Mimi not only broke the Honor Code, but shattered it into tiny pieces, by sneaking out or cheating a few times by copying essays off the internet, to say nothing of moonlighting as an exotic dancer. Was it because Phelan had done wrong, or because Phelan wasn't treated like she had been? The Kells were heroes; the very dorm Sheila and Mimi had lived in was named for Phelan's uncle Patrick. Everyone would remember the Kells a century from now, Sheila thought; no one would remember the Vlatas but the Vlatas themselves, if they were lucky. They could trace fifteen unbroken generations of MechWarriors, back to the Star League itself, back to Karelia Bighorn-Vlata, who had died defending Snoqualmie Pass against Stefan Amaris himself. And all that, Calla liked to say, would get you a cup of coffee at the local veterans' clubs—but only if you were a member. Everyone treated Phelan Kell as a Kell. Everyone treated Sheila Arla-Vlata as the nobody she was.

Arla steered the dinner talk to more pleasant subjects, and Sheila described the exercise proudly to her parents, which reinforced Calla's belief that Yoriyoshi Kazikawa was tough on Sheila for all the right reasons. As she helped her mother clear the dishes, Arla reminded Sheila that it was now 1800 hours, which meant her date was in thirty minutes. Calla looked at the two women curiously for a moment, then went back to loading the dishwasher.

Arla followed her daughter to the apartment door. She dropped her voice. "Sheila. How serious is it with this boy?"

Sheila felt terrible about lying, but also didn't want Tooriu to end up skewered, possibly literally. She decided to shade it with a little truth. "We've kissed, Mom. That's all." She knew she was blushing by the expression on Arla's face, so she added, "And…well…he's…he got my shirt off once. But that's all!" Sheila insisted. "I made him stop." That was another lie. "He's been a gentleman, Mom." That was true. Tooriu had always been a gentleman, especially in bed.

"All right, Sheila. Like your dad said, you're a grown woman now." She kissed Sheila on the cheek. "If he gets you pregnant, you're both dead, understand? Tooriu because he's a fool, and you for opening your legs. I'll just kill you after you give birth."

"Mom!" Sheila exclaimed. Her face was now firmly in the imminent shutdown region of the heat gauge.

"Run along," Arla told her. Sheila gave her mother a terrified look, then walked away. She didn't see the tears in Arla's eyes.

"What was that all about?" Calla asked, coming up behind her.

Arla quickly dried her eyes before she turned around. "I told Sheila that I'd kill her and Tooriu if she turns up pregnant, and the deaths will only be separated by nine months."

"Wasn't that the same thing your mother told you?" Calla grinned. "At least we know who Sheila's dating. Your parents didn't even know who I was until after we eloped."

"And I waited until I was married before I got pregnant," Arla said. She closed the door. "And speaking of that…sort of…" She put her arms around Calla's neck and kissed him. "It has been a few months, husband, and a woman, even an older one beyond childbearing age, has certain…needs. And now that the child is out of the house…"

Calla picked her up in his arms. "You're right. We're alone." He managed to lock the door before he carried a giggling Arla to the bedroom.